by Day Keene
He opened the door of the room in front of which he was standing.
Her red hair neatly combed and braided by one of the nurses, a sheet pulled up to her chin, the young widow of the murdered man was lying motionless on a high hospital bed.
Her hair was her only recognizable feature. There were aluminum splints on her broken nose. Her eyes were mere slits in the pounded, swollen, and discolored flesh of her face. Only the surgical nurse and Dr. Walker knew what internal injuries she’d suffered during the indignities performed on her.
Sheriff Belluche took off his hat. “I’m Sheriff Belluche, Mrs. Lacosta,” he introduced himself. “I know you’ve had a nasty time and I’ll be as brief as I can. But before you go to sleep, I’d like to have you answer a few quesions, if you will.”
Rita’s voice was lifeless. “I’ll try.”
“Do you know a local deputy sheriff by the name of Andy Latour?”
“I do. He drove my husband and me home last night.”
Sheriff Belluche inclined his head at Latour. “Is this the man?”
“Yes.”
“You say he drove you home last night. When did you see him again?”
“About two o’clock this morning.”
“Is he the man who killed your husband and raped you?”
“He is.”
Belluche was fair. “Just one thing, Mrs. Lacosta. If it was as dark in the trailer when the attack on you took place as it was when we got there, how can you be sure Latour is the man?”
The girl’s voice was as small as her eyes and completely without inflection. “Because just before it happened, he knocked on the door of the trailer and turned a flashlight on his face and asked me to let him in.”
“I see. Did you open the door?”
“No.”
“What happened then?”
“His knocking awakened my husband, and Jacques came out of the bedroom.” The abused girl fought for self-control. “Then he seemed to go crazy. Latour, I mean. He wrenched the screen door open and shot Jacques. Then he grabbed me and tore off my robe and threw me down on the floor and did what he did, with Jacques lying dead beside us. Every time I tried to get away from him he beat me with his fists and bit me, then went right on with what he was doing.”
“You’re willing to swear to this in court?”
“I am.”
Sheriff Belluche returned his hat to his head. “Just one more question, Mrs. Lacosta. Latour claims that shortly after he knocked on the door and identified himself to you, he was knocked unconscious by some unknown party. Did you hear any disturbance outside the trailer?”
“I did not.”
“That’s all. Thank you, ma’am.”
Pringle and Kelly took Latour out of the room. Jean Avart was waiting in the hall.
It was still hard for Latour to talk. He felt as if he were moving in slow motion through a hideous nightmare. “I didn’t, Jean,” he protested. “You have to believe me. She thinks it was me, but it wasn’t. I was lying unconscious while she was being attacked. It was much too dark in the trailer for her to see the face of the man who really assaulted her. All she could possibly tell was his approximate size and weight.”
Mullen added dryly, “And the fact that he was male.”
Dr. Walker closed the room door behind him. “You weren’t inside the trailer. Is that your story, Andy?”
“It is.”
Dr. Walker took a small metallic object from the pocket of his white coat. “Then where did she get this? It was embedded so deeply in the flesh of her left hand that the nurse had to pry her fingers open to get it away from her.”
Latour looked down at the left-hand pocket of his shirt. Where his deputy’s shield should have been, where it had been, there was only a jagged tear in the cloth.
Avart spoke before Latour could form any words. “Don’t answer that question, Andy. On the grounds that it might tend to incriminate you. From now on, as your attorney, I’ll do all the talking.”
Chapter Eleven
SITTING on the bare springs of the metal bunk, his back to the outer stone wall of the cell, Latour sucked at the last of the cigarettes in the package that Avart had left.
“Don’t worry.”
That was easy to say.
He hadn’t killed Jacques Lacosta. He hadn’t forced and mistreated Rita. But just how, with all the physical evidence and Rita’s positive identification against him, Avart hoped to prove his innocence was beyond him.
It was the first time he’d ever been on the wrong side of bars. It was an unpleasant feeling, just as unpleasant as knowing someone wanted him dead.
Whoever he was, he had his wish now. All he had to do was wait. In the sovereign state of Louisiana, both murder and rape were capital offenses.
He stood on the bunk and tried to look out of the high window of the maximum-security cell. The distant sound of the pumping wells and the tooting of the tugs in the basin were as muted as the music on Lafitte Street, wrapped in the swirling white mist rolling in off the Gulf and rising from the bayous and canals. Full morning wasn’t far away.
He thought of Olga and wished he hadn’t. By now Olga would know why he hadn’t come home. Undoubtedly some so-called well-wisher had phoned to inform her:
“I thought you might like to know that your husband has been arrested.”
For murder and rape.
A tasty breakfast dish to set before one’s wife.
Latour stepped off the bunk and searched the floor of his cell for a butt long enough to light. There was none. He sat on the bunk with his back against the wall and hugged his knees.
By now Olga thought he’d gone directly from her and forced his attention on Rita. He could imagine what Georgi was saying.
There was a scuff of feet in the corridor and Bill Ducros half carried, half walked a nondescript brunette hustler down the cement corridor and locked her in a cell across from Latour’s.
The girl was so drunk she ran her words together. “God-damsonofabish. Jush because I got a little high an’ broke a lousy mirror, you would have t’ pick me up and bring me here.”
Latour got up from his bunk and gripped the bars of his cell. “What did she do, Bill?”
Ducros lighted a cigarette. “Threw a bottle of whisky through the back-bar mirror of the Heigh Ho Club. I tried to get her to go to her hotel, but she wouldn’t. So I thought I’d better lock her up for safekeeping.”
“Twenty bucks and court costs in the morning.”
“That’s the way it looks.”
The silence between them was strained. Latour broke it by saying, “How are things on the street?”
“Not so hot,” Ducros admitted. “It’s too quiet to suit me. You know, guys gathered in little groups, talking.”
Latour knew what Ducros meant. In a town where violence was common, anything could happen. He said quiet-’ ly, “Bill, I didn’t. You know I couldn’t do such a thing.”
The deputy considered his answer. “I’m inclined to believe you, Andy,” he said finally. “In spite of what the girl says. I’ve known you for a long time. And a guy doesn’t change in five minutes. You might have laid the babe. I wouldn’t blame you if you had. But I can’t see you forcing her.”
“Thanks.”
“But you’re in one hell of a mess.”
“I know.”
Ducros walked back down the corridor to the office. Latour thought, tardily, that he should have asked Ducros for a cigarette. Bill would have been glad to leave his package.
In the cell across the way, as unconcerned as if she were in her own hotel room, the girl caught at the hem of her skirt with both hands and pulled her dress over her head.
“Goddamn crumby town,” she mumbled. She wasn’t wearing a thing under the dress. She scratched where she itched. “A girl keeps her nose clean. She greases every damn palm put in front of her. Then jush because she gesh a little high, they put her in a place like this.”
Still mumbling to herself, the
girl used the facility in her cell. Latour was embarrassed. Even after working for two years as a sheriff’s deputy, he hadn’t realized that the jail was so antiquated. True, the maximum-security cell was seldom used. It was reserved for the elite, men charged with offenses that couldn’t be paid for in Judge Blakely’s court. None of the drunks sleeping in the tank could see into the cell where the girl was confined.
The girl saw him watching her and was indignant. “Wha’ is thish? A peep show?”
Latour returned to his bunk. “I’m sorry.”
The girl stood supporting herself by holding onto the bars. Drunk as she was, she was still aware that she was a woman. She stopped being embarrassed and was coy. “I bet you wish you were in here with me.”
“Not particularly,” Latour said.
Male desire was a strange thing. A man in his physical prime could go directly from one woman to another. Olga undoubtedly thought he’d gone right from her to Rita. But after the session with Olga, considering the pent-up emotion and marital factors involved, he couldn’t have taken Rita if she’d begged him to. Olga had drained him of all desire.
Still, it wasn’t the sort of evidence he could present in court. He couldn’t even tell Jean Avart. A man didn’t talk about such intimate things when they concerned his wife.
His indifference challenged the girl. “I’ll tell you what, sport,” she offered. “You pay my fine in the morning and as soon as we get out of here I’ll be good to you.”
“No, thank you,” Latour said.
The girl continued to study him. “No wonder,” she said finally. “I make you now. You’re the deputy who killed that old carnival man an’ raped his wife on the floor of their trailer.”
“I didn’t touch her,” Latour said. “I wasn’t even inside the trailer.”
“I’ll bet. You know what they’re saying on the street?”
“What?”
“That you’re the same guy who forced those other three girls. An’ I believe it. All of them were beaten unconscious, jush like she was. Whash the matter with you? You one of them guys who has t’ hurt a girl? You know, whip her or somethin', or have her whip you?”
Latour didn’t bother to answer her.
The girl lost interest and lay on her bunk. “Not that it makes any difference. If I were you, I’d start praying, mister.”
Latour got to his feet again and gripped one of the bars of his cell. “What do you mean by that?”
“Jush you wait till t’night,” the girl said. “You’ll see. Now shut up and let me go to sleep.”
Latour watched for a moment, then returned to his bunk.
Morning was long in coming. There was increased activity in the parking lot behind the jail. He could hear a rattling of pots and tin plates and cups as the trusties began to prepare breakfast in the small kitchen off the cell block.
The thought of food sickened him, but he could use a cup of coffee. He waited for a trusty to show in front of his cell. None did. Then he remembered. Most of the trusties were colored boys, and because they were colored, none of them were allowed beyond the imaginary line that marked the white women’s section of the cell block. He would have to wait for his coffee until the deputies on the day shift came on duty.
It was almost eight o’clock when Tom Mullen, accompanied by Jack Rafignac, who was carrying two cups of coffee and two tin plates of grits swimming in side-meat grease, strode down the corridor. Mullen unlocked the door of his cell. “Let’s go, Andy.”
Latour asked, “What’s the idea? Don’t I get any coffee?”
Mullen said, “Yours is waiting in the squad room.” He studied Latour’s face for a long time. “Damn. I sure wish I could make up my mind about you.”
“I didn’t do it, Tom.”
“So you say.”
“It’s true.”
Mullen adjusted his gun belt. “It’s hard for me to make up my mind. Both the old man and I have always figured you for a good joe. But when a man gets hot for some certain babe, you can’t tell what he’ll do. I’ve seen it happen a dozen times.” He added thoughtfully, “But there sure as hell is one thing in your favor.”
“What’s that?”
“What a guy married to a little blonde doll, a girl with the class that your wife has, would want with a babe like that girl in the hospital is beyond me.”
“Suppose we leave my wife out of this.”
“I’m afraid that’s impossible. It happens that she and her brother have brought you your breakfast. O.K. Let’s go, Andy.”
Latour hadn’t realized that the corridor was so long. Her face pale but composed, every shining blonde hair in place, Olga was waiting beside one of the battered tables in the squad room. There was a wicker picnic basket on the table.
Mullen looked at his watch. “You’ve got twenty minutes,” he said, and closed the door.
Georgi’s voice was cold and filled with contempt. “So I did not misjudge you. So this is the kind of man on whom my sister has wasted her life. To think you could do such a thing to her. I only hope that the judge orders you bound over to a higher court, where you will be found guilty and exterminated.”
Olga studied Latour’s face. She spoke without turning her head. “Shut up. And get out of here.”
The blond youth protested, “But, Olga — ”
“I said, get out.”
Georgi shrugged and left the squad room. The door shut solidly behind him. Latour had never realized that a silence could be so complete. He was acutely conscious of his soiled shirt and the stubble on his face.
Olga put her hand on the basket. “I have brought you something to eat.”
“Why?” Latour asked her.
“Even in jail a man must eat. Many times my mother and I brought food to my father. In China. Before we were fortunate enough to reach Singapore.”
She spread a cloth on the table and took a vacuum bottle of hot coffee from the basket. Next came a cup and saucer and a napkin-wrapped plate of hot muffins with a jar of homemade guava jelly.
“I am sorry there is not more, that it is not more substantial. But it is difficult to plan a breakfast that can be carried in a basket.”
“It’s fine,” Latour assured her. “And very thoughtful of you.”
Her voice small, she said, “Eat. You do not have much time before the court convenes. The head officer said twenty minutes.”
Latour had never been less hungry, but he forced himself to eat to please her. There was so much he wanted to tell her, so much he wanted to say. But he didn’t know where to begin.
From time to time Olga looked at him, a question on her lips. But she, too, had lost the power to converse on any but banal matters. And this was the biggest thing that had ever happened to them.
The question remained unasked when Mullen opened the door again. “O.K. Let’s go, Andy.”
George Villere, his head and face swathed in bandages, was standing beside Mullen. The first deputy took out his handcuffs and snapped one on each man’s wrist.
Villere was amused. “So you finally fell on your smug face, Latour. And when you did you pulled a cutie. That’s usually the way with you holier-than-thou sons-of-bitches.”
“That’s enough of that kind of talk, Villere,” Mullen said sharply. “There happens to be a lady present.”
“I’m sorry,” the fisherman apologized. “But this guy has been giving me a rough time ever since he pinned on his shield.”
Olga found the courage she’d been unable to summon in the squad room. “Before you take him away, might I ask my husband one question? Please.”
“Of course,” Mullen said.
The blonde girl stood in front of Latour. “This man they say you killed doesn’t matter. At least, not to me.” With the fatalism of the Oriental she shrugged the murder of Jacques Lacosta aside as immaterial. “A lot of men have been killed. What I want to know is this.”
Latour found his voice also. “Yes?”
Her chin held high, complete
ly unembarrassed by the presence of the other men, Olga studied his face. “I want you to tell me the truth. Did you go to that other girl — from me? Did you have relations with her, with or without her consent?”
“No,” Latour said. “I swear.”
Olga kept her steady gaze on him for a long moment. Finally she said, “I believe you.” Her blue eyes filled with tears. “That I could not take. That I would not stand for.”
She stood on tiptoes and kissed him.
“God be with you, my husband. I will be sitting in the front row of the courtroom.”
Chapter Twelve
THE COURTROOM of the second floor was filled to capacity. Despite the protests of a fireman, silent men and equally silent women crowded the aisles and spilled out into the hall.
Jean Avart waited in the bull pen with Latour. The attorney made no attempt to minimize the matter. He, too, looked as if he’d spent a sleepless night.
“It’s going to be rough out there,” he warned Latour. “With all the evidence against you and Mrs. Lacosta’s identification in deposition form, there’s only one thing Judge Blakely can do. So don’t be disappointed if he remands you back to jail and orders you bound over to stand trial on both charges.”
“I won’t be,” Latour said.
He felt better than he had at any time since he’d come to in Sheriff Belluche’s office. At least Olga believed him.
Avart was not optimistic. “Because of your war record and past good character, I’m going to argue reasonable doubt and ask you to be admitted to bail. But I’m not certain I can make it stick. In fact, I don’t think I can.”
“But I didn’t kill Lacosta. And I didn’t touch the girl.”
“We know that. But knowing a thing and proving it are two different matters.” Avart put a cigarette in his mouth and offered the package to Latour. “This, after all, is merely a preliminary hearing. As I see the case, the thing for us to do is save our ammunition for the trial.”
“What ammunition?”
“The two attempts on your life.”
“I’m afraid I don’t follow you.”
The attorney outlined his intended course of action. “As I see it, it’s possible, even probable, that whoever has been trying to kill you followed you out to the trailer last night and deliberately shot Lacosta and raped the girl, hoping the law would do for him what he hasn’t been able to accomplish.”
