In the Electric Mist With Confederate Dead: A Dave Robicheaux Novel Read Online Free PDF

corners, then he walked ahead of us into the gloom, his loafers sinking deep into the wet sand.
          "That boy's a long way from his Hollywood poontang, ain't he?" the deputy said behind me.
          "How about putting the cork in the humor for a while?" I said.
          "What?"
          'The man grew up down South. You're patronizing him."
          "I'm wha—"
          I walked ahead of him and caught up with Sykes just as he stepped out of the willows into a shallow, water-filled depression between the woods and a sandbar. The water was stagnant and hot and smelled of dead garfish.
          "There," he said. "Right under the roots of that dead tree. I told y'all."
          A barkless, sun-bleached cypress tree lay crossways in a sandbar, the water-smooth trunk eaten by worms, and gathered inside the root system, as though held by a gnarled hand, was a skeleton crimped in an embryonic position, wrapped in a web of dried algae and river trash.
          The exposed bone was polished and weathered almost black, but sections of the skin had dried to the color and texture of desiccated leather. Just as Sykes had said, a thick chain encased with rust was wrapped around the arms and rib cage. The end links were fastened with a padlock as wide as my hand.
          I tore a willow branch off a tree, shucked off the leaves with my Puma knife, and knelt down in front of the skeleton.
          "How do you reckon it got up under those roots?" Sykes said.
          "A bad hurricane came through here in '57," I said. "Trees like this were torn out of the ground like carrots. My bet is this man's body got caught under some floating trees and was covered up later in this sandbar."
          Sykes knelt beside me.
          "I don't understand," he said. "How do you know it happened in '57? Hurricanes tear up this part of the country all the time, don't they?"
          "Good question, podna," I said, and I used the willow branch to peel away the dried web of algae from around one shinbone, then the other.
          "That left one's clipped in half," Sykes said.
          "Yep. That's where he was shot when he tried to run away from two white men."
          "You clairvoyant or something?" Sykes said.
          "No, I saw it happen. About a mile from here."
          "You saw it happen?" Sykes said.
          "Yep."
          "What's going on here?" the deputy said behind us. "You saying some white people lynched somebody or something?"
          "Yeah, that's exactly what I'm saying. When we get back we'll need to talk to your sheriff and get your medical examiner out here."
          "I don't know about y'all over in Iberia Parish, but nobody around here's going to be real interested in nigger trouble that's thirty-five years old," the deputy said.
          I worked the willow branch around the base of the bones and peeled back a skein of algae over the legs, the pelvic bones, and the crown of the skull, which still had a section of grizzled black hair attached to the pate. I poked at the corrugated, blackened work boots and the strips of rag that hung off the pelvis.
          I put down the branch and chewed on the corner of my thumbnail.
          "What are you looking for, Mr. Robicheaux?" Sykes said.
          "It's not what's there, it's what isn't," I said. "He wasn't wearing a belt on his trousers, and his boots have no laces."
          "Sonofabitch probably did his shopping at the Goodwill. Big fucking deal," the deputy said, slapped a mosquito on his neck, and looked at the red and black paste on his palm.
     
     
    LATER THAT AFTERNOON I WENT BACK TO WORK ON THE CASE of the murdered girl, whose full name was Cherry LeBlanc. No one knew the whereabouts of her father, who had disappeared from Mamou after he was accused of molesting a black child in his neighborhood, but I interviewed her grandparents again, the owner of the bar in St. Martinville where she