Purple Cane Road by James Lee Burke Page A

of the Mississippi River and the aluminum factories and petroleum refineries along its shores. But Connie Deshotel was not in her office. We were told by the secretary she was in the cafeteria downstairs.
    “Is there a line to kiss her ring?” Helen asked.
    “Excuse me?” the secretary said.
    “Take it easy, Helen,” I said in the elevator.
    “Connie Deshotel was born with a hairbrush up her ass. Somebody should have straightened her out a long time ago,” she replied.
    “You mind if I do the talking?” I asked.
    We stood at the entrance to the cafeteria, looking out over the tables, most of which were occupied. Connie Deshotel was at a table against the back wall. She wore a white suit and was sitting across from a man in a blue sports coat and tan slacks whose thinning hair looked almost braided with grease.
    “You make the gel head?” Helen said.
    “No.”
    “Don Ritter, NOPD Vice. He’s from some rat hole up in Jersey. I think he’s still in the First District.”
    “That’s the guy who busted Little Face Dautrieve and planted rock on her. He tried to make her come across for him and Jim Gable.”
    “Sounds right. He used to shake down fudge packers in the Quarter. What’s he doing with the attorney general of Louisiana?”
    “Go easy, Helen. Don’t make him cut and run,” I said.
    “It’s your show,” she said, walking ahead of me between the tables before I could reply.
    As we approached Connie Deshotel, her eyes moved from her conversation onto my face. But they showed no sense of surprise. Instead, she smiled good-naturedly.
    “You want some help with access to AFIS?” she said.
    “How’d you know?” I asked.
    “I called your office this morning. But you’d already left. The sheriff told me about your problem. I had him fax the latents to the pod. The ID should be on your desk when you get back to New Iberia,” she said.
    The confrontation I had been expecting was suddenly gone. I looked at her in dismay.
    “You did it,” I said.
    “I’m glad my office could help. I’m only sorry I couldn’t get back to you earlier. Would you like to join us? This is Don Ritter. He’s at the First District in New Orleans,” she said.
    Ritter put out his hand and I took it, in the way you do when you suppress your feelings and know that later you’ll wish you hadn’t.
    “I already know Helen. You used to be a meter maid at NOPD,” he said.
    “Yeah, you were tight with Jim Gable,” she said, smiling.
    I turned and looked directly into Helen’s face. But she didn’t allow herself to see my expression.
    “Jim’s working liaison with the mayor’s office,” Ritter said.
    “How about that Zipper Clum getting wasted? Remember him? You and Jim used to leave him hooked up in the cage,” Helen said.
    “A tragic event. Everybody laughed for five minutes at roll call the other day,” Ritter said.
    “We have to go. Thanks for your help, Ms. Deshotel,” I said.
    “Anytime, Mr. Robicheaux,” she replied. She looked lovely in her white suit, her olive skin dark with tan, the tips of her hair burned by the sun. The silver angel pinned on her lapel swam with light. “Come see us again.”
    I waited until we were in the parking lot before I turned my anger on Helen.
    “That was inexcusable,” I said.
    “You’ve got to make them wince sometimes,” she said.
    “That’s not your call, Helen.”
    “I’m your partner, not your driver. We’re working the same case, Dave.”
    The air rising from the cement was hot and dense with humidity and hard to breathe. Helen squeezed my upper arm.
    “In your mind you’re working your mother’s case and you think nobody’s going to help you. It’s not true, bwana. We’re a team. You and I are going to make them religious on this one,” she said.
     
    IF INDEED THE MAN who had broken into Little Face’s cabin was the same man who murdered Zipper Clum, the jigger named Steve Andropolis had been halfway right about his identity. The National Crime