lived in company houses and did and thought as they were told. No court, clergyman, police official, newspaper publisher, or politician ever challenged the family who ran St. Mary Parish. Any historian studying the structure of medieval society would probably consider St. Mary Parish a model teleported from the thirteenth century.
We drove in Helen’s cruiser down a long two-lane road through flooded gum and willow and cypress trees, the sunlight spangling through the canopy on water that was black in the shade or filmed with a skim of algae that resembled green lace. The road dead-ended on a cusp of oil-streaked beach and a shallow saltwater bay that bled into the Gulf of Mexico. The St. Mary Parish sheriff, two deputies, a crime scene investigator, the coroner, and two paramedics were already at the scene. They were standing in a circle with the blank expressions of people who had just discovered that their vocational training and experience were perhaps of no value. When they glanced up at us in unison, they reminded me of late-night drinkers in a bar who stare at the front door each time it opens, as though the person coming through it possesses an answer to the hopelessness that governs their lives.
The sheriff of St. Mary Parish was not a bad man, but I would not call him a good one. He was trim and tall and wore cowboy boots and western-cut clothes and a short-brim Stetson. He gave the impression of a law officer from a simpler time. However, there was always a cautious gleam in his eyes, particularly when someone was making a request of him, one that might involve the names of people he both served and feared. One person he obviously did not like was Helen Soileau, either because she was a lesbian or because she was a female administrator. There were razor nicks on his jaw, and I suspected the discovery of Blue Melton’s body had robbed him of his day off. The sheriff’s name was Cecil Barbour.
“Thanks for contacting us,” Helen said.
“No thanks are necessary. I didn’t contact you. My deputy did that without my permission,” Barbour replied. The deputy was looking out at the bay, his arms folded across his chest.
“I didn’t know that,” Helen said.
“My deputy is a relative of the girl’s grandfather and says Detective Robicheaux was asking about her. That’s how come he contacted you,” Barbour said. “Look down in the ice. Is that Blue Melton, Detective Robicheaux?”
“Yes, sir, it is,” I replied. “How about putting a tarp over her body?”
“Why should we do that?” Barbour asked.
“Because she’s naked and exposed in death in a way no human being should be,” I replied.
“We have to defrost her before we take her in. Do you object to that?” he said.
“It’s your parish,” I said.
I walked down to the water’s edge, my eyes on the southern horizon, my back to the sheriff. I did not want him to see my expression or the thoughts that probably showed in my eyes. The tide was out, and a dead brown pelican, the Louisiana state bird, was rolling in the frothy skim along the shoals, its feathers iridescent with oil. I could feel my right hand opening and closing at my side. I picked up a pebble and threw it underhanded into a swell. My mouth was dry in the way your mouth is dry when you come off a bender, my heart was beating, and the wind was louder than it should have been, like the sound a conch shell makes at your ear. I turned around and looked at Barbour. His attention had shifted back to the body of Blue Melton. She had been frozen nude inside a block of ice that must have been the size of a bathtub. The salt water and the sun and stored heat in the sand had reduced the block to the size and rough shape of a footlocker. Her blond hair and her blue eyes and her small breasts and nipples seemed protected by only an inch or so of frosted glass. The sheriff was smoking a cigarette, the ash dripping off the end onto the ice.
“Dave’s right,” the coroner said. He was
We drove in Helen’s cruiser down a long two-lane road through flooded gum and willow and cypress trees, the sunlight spangling through the canopy on water that was black in the shade or filmed with a skim of algae that resembled green lace. The road dead-ended on a cusp of oil-streaked beach and a shallow saltwater bay that bled into the Gulf of Mexico. The St. Mary Parish sheriff, two deputies, a crime scene investigator, the coroner, and two paramedics were already at the scene. They were standing in a circle with the blank expressions of people who had just discovered that their vocational training and experience were perhaps of no value. When they glanced up at us in unison, they reminded me of late-night drinkers in a bar who stare at the front door each time it opens, as though the person coming through it possesses an answer to the hopelessness that governs their lives.
The sheriff of St. Mary Parish was not a bad man, but I would not call him a good one. He was trim and tall and wore cowboy boots and western-cut clothes and a short-brim Stetson. He gave the impression of a law officer from a simpler time. However, there was always a cautious gleam in his eyes, particularly when someone was making a request of him, one that might involve the names of people he both served and feared. One person he obviously did not like was Helen Soileau, either because she was a lesbian or because she was a female administrator. There were razor nicks on his jaw, and I suspected the discovery of Blue Melton’s body had robbed him of his day off. The sheriff’s name was Cecil Barbour.
“Thanks for contacting us,” Helen said.
“No thanks are necessary. I didn’t contact you. My deputy did that without my permission,” Barbour replied. The deputy was looking out at the bay, his arms folded across his chest.
“I didn’t know that,” Helen said.
“My deputy is a relative of the girl’s grandfather and says Detective Robicheaux was asking about her. That’s how come he contacted you,” Barbour said. “Look down in the ice. Is that Blue Melton, Detective Robicheaux?”
“Yes, sir, it is,” I replied. “How about putting a tarp over her body?”
“Why should we do that?” Barbour asked.
“Because she’s naked and exposed in death in a way no human being should be,” I replied.
“We have to defrost her before we take her in. Do you object to that?” he said.
“It’s your parish,” I said.
I walked down to the water’s edge, my eyes on the southern horizon, my back to the sheriff. I did not want him to see my expression or the thoughts that probably showed in my eyes. The tide was out, and a dead brown pelican, the Louisiana state bird, was rolling in the frothy skim along the shoals, its feathers iridescent with oil. I could feel my right hand opening and closing at my side. I picked up a pebble and threw it underhanded into a swell. My mouth was dry in the way your mouth is dry when you come off a bender, my heart was beating, and the wind was louder than it should have been, like the sound a conch shell makes at your ear. I turned around and looked at Barbour. His attention had shifted back to the body of Blue Melton. She had been frozen nude inside a block of ice that must have been the size of a bathtub. The salt water and the sun and stored heat in the sand had reduced the block to the size and rough shape of a footlocker. Her blond hair and her blue eyes and her small breasts and nipples seemed protected by only an inch or so of frosted glass. The sheriff was smoking a cigarette, the ash dripping off the end onto the ice.
“Dave’s right,” the coroner said. He was
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