All the Devil's Creatures Read Free Page B

explained the whole deal to him, gave him proof of some, I don’t know, conspiracy, on a flash drive. He talked her out of going to the authorities, didn’t even want her to talk to me. He had no idea she had gone back to the site—but she was like that; she was too good a scientist not to follow through with an investigation if she thought it could yield something interesting. But now T-Jacques thinks that if the wrong people find out what he knows, he could ‘wind up dead or in Gitmo’—his words.”
    “Great. A paranoiac. Forget it.”
    “Forget it?”
    “Forget it. This is a straightforward water pollution case. No conspiracy. No weird science. Regular science, cut and dried, nothing more. I don’t have time for the irrational ravings of bitter, enraged boyfriends. I mean it sounds like this T-Jacques is crazy. Or Dalia was.”
    He regretted the words.
    Angry tears welled in Eileen’s eyes, but she did not avert her gaze; she kept her voice calm. “Here’s the problem with T-Jacques. He’ll only share Dalia’s story with you.”
    “What?
Why?
I don’t know him. I hardly knew Dalia.”
    “Because he knows from Dalia that you’re up here ‘fighting the man,’ he says. You have a connection to Dalia, and he thinks you know what’s going on at this lake. And you’re a lawyer. He thinks that anything he says to you will be privileged—”
    “Good Lord. I mean, sure, if he were my client—but I don’t need any more lunatic clients, Eileen.”
    “And since you need my services in your lawsuit …”
    In that moment, he hated her. For her intransigence. For her gall in attempting to use him to retrieve information while keeping him in the dark. Using him, manipulating him, as she had in the months after Janie’s death.
    He closed his eyes, stepping back, realizing that he had come close to taking this discussion down a road he could not bear to travel. Instead, he said: “You have a professional duty—to me, to our client, to the court—”
    “
You
have a duty. A duty to wake up and start living again, Geoff.”
    He glared at her as she picked up her phone.
    “I’m e-mailing you T-Jacques’ number.”
    •
     
    They drove in tense silence to the county seat. At an annex to the old courthouse, a receptionist with big red hair showed them into Sheriff Seastrunk’s inner chamber.
    “Have a seat, folks,” Seastrunk said, settling into his own leather chair behind his big oak desk. The desk was neat, with no computer, just a few stacked papers and decorative paper weights and plaques voicing honors from various fraternal organizations and the state Democratic Party—many dating from the days when it was the only party in the state that mattered. Behind the desk, a window overlooked the courthouse lawn where the Saint Augustine grass had begun greening up and furious redbuds screamed in full bloom.
    Framed photographs and letters covered the remaining walls. Geoff thought it looked like an exhibit of Texas political history from Sam Rayburn to Ann Richards. Most striking was a signed photograph of LBJ. It read: “Congratulations John on your election. You’ll do your father’s name and your county proud. President Lyndon B. Johnson, November 1966.”
    The sheriff saw him looking. “It was daddy who won East Texas for Lyndon when he first got elected to the Senate in ‘48. They went way back.
His
father, my grandfather, used to play poker with Lady Bird’s daddy.”
    “Is that right?” Geoff hesitated before sitting down. “Forty years in office—impressive, Sheriff.”
    Eileen shot him an impatient look, but Geoff leaned back in his chair and grinned, ready to palaver with this old character. He started to think he could get through this.
    Seastrunk said, “I was working my way through law school at Texas when my father died. Some good people in this county talked me into coming home and running.”
    “Well I’ll be.”
    “Never did finish that law degree,” the sheriff said, eyes