A Crying Shame (17 page)

The deputy shrugged.
Still at Despair Plantation, I imagine. Although”—the deputy fought to hide a smile at the doubt he was just about to implant in Blackwell's mind—
there are several ways in and out of Despair. Maybe he took one of the others.”

Blackwell hesitated.
Are you trying to be cute with me, deputy?”

My mamma thinks I am.”

Blackwell struggled with his temper.
I've been here for more than an hour!”

The deputy's eyes remained emotionless behind his dark glasses, but he felt nothing but contempt for the newspaper editor. Blackwell had written several editorials against the millage issue that would have given the deputies of Fountain Parish a badly needed raise; he had editorialized against new equipment for the department; and he had slyly and oilily questioned the department's handling of certain cases involving the monied people of the parish, implying (but never coming out and saying) that the sheriff didn't like the rich and picked on their kids. Blackwell's words.

The deputy looked at the newspaperman, thinking: What does he think we are, the FBI? Our equipment is so old it's falling apart; most of us have to work two jobs just to try to make ends meet, and we still can't get the ends to join; we're understaffed, underpaid, and underequipped. And to make matters worse, we have to put up with assholes like you, Blackwell.

Well, Deputy?” Blackwell said.
Deputy” came out of his mouth as if it were something nasty.

Sheriff Saucier will be along when he finishes up at the house. Important things first, you know?”

Blackwell bristled at the remark, but decided to keep his mouth shut, feeling he'd pushed about as far as he safely could. His feud with the Fountain Parish Sheriff's Department went back a few years, to when deputies had picked up his oldest son on a dope charge and Saucier—just a year in office—had pushed it all the way. The judge had given his boy a year on the P Farm. P for prison. A work farm. How humiliating!
His
son having to sleep with niggers and work out in the hot sun from dawn to dusk, hoeing beans and chopping cotton.
His son!

The Blackwell family was one of the oldest in the parish. Settlers from way back. Les's great-great-grandfather had opened the first newspaper in the parish; he had also supervised the farming of his acres of land. All the Blackwells down the line owned property. Old money. Gentlemen farmers. And no Blackwell had ever been in jail; they had all managed to buy their way out. Then this upstart, semiliterate Coonass decided to clean up the parish ... and started with a Blackwell.

But semiliterate was about as far off the mark as Blackwell could get, and he reluctantly admitted it. Mike Saucier held a master's from LSU and had been accepted for the FBI but he had decided to stay in Louisiana and become a deputy, and finally had run for sheriff of Fountain Parish. Saucier was far from being illiterate.

Blackwell pulled his wandering thoughts to the present. Dr. Thurman's car was rolling to a stop. The deputy waved him through.

How come he goes in and I don't?” Blackwell snarled the question.

'Cause he's the coroner.”

And
I
happen to be a member of the press.”