A Stained White Radiance Read Free Page A

point in covering the same old territory, is there?”
    â€œMaybe not, Weldon,” I said, closed my small notebook, and replaced it in my pocket. “Mrs. Sonnier, here’s one of my cards. Give me a call if you remember anything else or if I can be of any other help to you.”
    Weldon rubbed one hand on the back of the other and tried to hold the frown out of his face.
    â€œI’ll take a walk down to the back of your property, if you don’t mind,” I said.
    â€œHelp yourself,” he said.
    The Saint Augustine grass was wet with the morning dew and thick as a sponge as I walked between the oaks down to the bayou. In a sunny patch of ground next to an old gray roofless barn, one that still had an ancient tin Hadacol sign nailed to a wall, was a garden planted with strawberries and watermelons. I walked along beside the brick retaining wall, scanning the mudflat that sloped down to the bayou’s edge. It was crisscrossed with the tracks of neutrias and raccoons and the delicate impressions of egrets and herons; then, not far from the cypress planks that led to Weldon’s dock and boathouse, I saw a clutter of footprints at the base of the brick wall.
    I propped my palms on the cool bricks and studied the bank. One set of footprints led from the cypress planks to the wall, then back again, but somebody with a larger shoe size had stepped on top of the original tracks. There was also a smear of mud on top of the brick wall, and on the grass, right by my foot, was a Lucky Strike cigarette butt. I took a plastic Ziploc bag from my pocket and gingerly scooped the cigarette butt inside it.
    I was about to turn back toward the house when the breeze blew the oak limbs overhead, and the pattern of sunlight and shade shifted on the ground like the squares in a net, and I saw a brassy glint in a curl of mud. I stepped over the wall, and with the tip of my pen lifted a spent .308 hull out of the mud and dropped it in the plastic bag with the cigarette butt.
    I walked through the sideyard, back out to the front drive and my pickup truck. Weldon was waiting for me. I held the plastic bag up briefly for him to look at.
    â€œHere’s the size round your rabbit hunter was using,” I said. “He’d ejected it, too, Weldon. Unless he had a semiautomatic rifle, he was probably going to take a second shot at you.”
    â€œLook, from here on out, how about talking to me and leaving Bama out of it? She’s not up to it.”
    I took a breath and looked away through the oak trees at the sunlight on the blacktop road.
    â€œI think your wife has a serious problem. Maybe it’s time to address it,” I said.
    I could see the heat in his neck. He cleared his throat.
    â€œMaybe you’re going a little beyond the limits of your job, too,” he said.
    â€œMaybe. But she’s a nice lady, and I think she needs help.”
    He chewed on his lower lip, put his hands on his hips, looked down at his foot, and stirred a pattern in the pea gravel, like a third-base coach considering his next play.
    â€œThere are a bunch of twelve-step groups in New Iberia and St. Martinville. They’re good people,” I said.
    He nodded without looking up.
    â€œLet me ask you something else,” I said. “You flew an observation plane off a carrier in Vietnam, didn’t you? You must have been pretty good.”
    â€œGive me a chimpanzee, three bananas, andthirty minutes of his attention, and I’ll give you a pilot.”
    â€œI also heard you flew for Air America.”
    â€œSo?”
    â€œNot everybody has that kind of material in his dossier. You’re not still involved in some CIA bullshit, are you?”
    He tapped his jaw with his finger like a drum.
    â€œCIA . . . yeah, that’s Catholic, Irish, and alcoholic, right? No, I’m a coonass, my religion is shaky, and I’ve never hit the juice. I don’t guess I fit the category,