Free Bring Him Back Dead by Day Keene Page A

I certainly didn’t fire any, and I didn’t hear Rita scream.” He corrected himself. “No, that’s not exactly right. I do, vaguely, remember hearing a girl scream. But there was nothing I could do about it.”
    “Why not?”
    “I was on the ground sapped unconscious, or the next thing to it.”
    “What were you doing out there?”
    “I got to wondering if Mrs. Lacosta was safe, after that scene that Jacques made on the street. So I drove out to see. I also wanted to talk to Jacques, if he’d sobered up enough to talk.”
    “About what?”
    “If he knew who was trying to kill me.”
    “Did he?”
    “I didn’t get a chance to talk to him. I knocked on the door of the trailer and identified myself to Mrs. Lacosta. Then Jacques woke up and asked me what I wanted. And before I could tell him someone sapped me unconscious. Now you tell me something. What happened out there?”
    “You don’t know?”
    “I haven’t the least idea.”
    “Jacques Lacosta is dead, shot twice through the heart. And young Mrs. Lacosta was unmercifully beaten and raped, presumably by the same man who killed her husband.”
    “Who? Who did it?”
    “Mrs. Lacosta claims it was you.”

Chapter Ten
    L ATOUR FOUGHT a desire to be violently ill.
    “Not feeling so good right now, eh, Andy?” Mullen asked.
    “No,” Latour admitted, “I’m not.”
    The telephone on Sheriff Belluche’s desk rang. He picked it up. “I see. I see,” he said into the mouthpiece. Then he cradled the phone and motioned Latour to his feet. “Let’s go.”
    “Where?”
    “To the hospital. That was Dr. Walker. He says he’s given Mrs. Lacosta a sedative and she’s calmed down considerably. He thinks we can get a positive identification before she goes to sleep.”
    “I didn’t do it. Believe me, Sheriff,” Latour said. “I didn’t kill Jacques and I didn’t rape his wife.”
    “She says differently.”
    Pringle and Kelly pulled Latour to his feet and propelled him down the hall to the front steps of the jail.
    A small group of men had formed on the walk.
    “There he is now,” a man said.
    Another one tried to strike Latour and Mullen pushed him off balance. “There will be none of that. Don’t go getting ideas. Come on, now. Open up a path.”
    The men stepped aside, reluctantly, and Pringle and Kelly hurried Latour down the walk and into Sheriff Belluche’s car.
    Belluche got into the front seat with Mullen. “Well, it was nice while it lasted. But I’m afraid I’m a little old-fashioned. Sure, I’ve taken a few dollars. I like to go to bed with a babe, and the younger, the better — as long as she’s willing. I’ve even killed a few men. But rape is one too many for me.”
    “But I didn’t,” Latour protested. “You have to believe me.”
    “Why?”
    Mullen waited for a convoy of pipe-carrying oil-company trucks to pass, then kicked on the revolving red light and drove up Lafitte Street with the siren wailing.
    Latour rode, watching the men on the sidewalks. All of them turned to watch the police car pass, but none of them called out. The girls in the crowd were as silent as the men. There was a subtle change in the tempo of the street. The blare of brass was muted. The roll and thump of the drums more of a pulse than a beat. It was as if French Bayou were holding its collective breath.
    Kelly asked, “Think the boys may give us trouble?”
    “I wouldn’t know,” Belluche said. “I do know it’s a good thing they didn’t see the poor kid sprawled bloody and naked on the floor of the trailer.”
    “Just like the other three?”
    “Just like the other three.”
    Mullen braked the car in front of the hospital. Kelly and Pringle walked Latour inside. Dr. Walker was waiting for them.
    “How is she?” Mullen asked him.
    “She’s going to make it,” Dr. Walker said. He looked at Latour. “But how any man could treat a girl as she was treated is beyond me.”
    Latour tried to say, “I didn’t,” and his mouth was too