"You look like you're doing all right." "Father Time has his way with us all." "Looks like you must have pissed him off." "Ahem." "Why we here?" "All right." "You know that thing the State PD is asking about, the Lake Charles murder." "Shouldn't that have been in the papers or online somewhere by now'?" "I mean, we can't trust them." "I mean, if they go cover something like that up, who knows what else they've covered up." "What you think?" "I think you don't look particularly healthy, listening to you talk." "Your eyes, you seem kind of brittle, Rust." "Most of the last decade I spent stone drunk." "Functional, but hammered." "Went back to Alaska." "Spent eight years working fishing boats, bars." "Oh, I thought you didn't like the cold." "I hate it." "And then I come back hereto Louisiana for the first time in 2010." "And why is that?" "The same reason I'm sitting across the table from you now." "A man remembers his debts." "I don't dwell in the past." "Well, it must be nice." "I'm not interested in whatever it is you think you owe me." "Well, I don't owe you." "We left something undone." "We got to fix it." "I've been working on this for two years." "Me." "Myself." "I never called you." "I never bothered you with it." "Yeah, why would you?" "Shit, man!" "What, did you alienate every other person in your life and then finally you came back to me in the rotation?" "You know, not for nothing, but if you hadn't clipped Ledoux back then, we might have got the whole fucking story out of him." "You know, I think I'm going to finish this beer and say so long." "I'm not much of a drinker nowadays." "In fact, I hadn't had a drop in three weeks till I ran into you." "I don't need you to drink, Marty." " I need you to help me." " Why would I?" "They say you can't account for your time." "They got eyewitnesses placing you at the Lake Charles crime scene." "You got some storage shed that you won't let 'em look at." " That's right." " Why not?" "Why not shoot straight with them?" "You're innocent." "Help them stop wasting their time." "Fucking since when did guilt and innocence define the State PD, huh'?" "Come the fuck on!" "I don't know the sprawl of this thing, all right?" "The people I'm after, they're all fucking over." "They're in a lot of different things." "Pieces." "Family trees." "The only way for you to understand what I'm onto here is for me to show you." "You got to come see what I got." "No." "You know what?" "I don't think I've been very clear with you, Rust." "If you were drowning, I'd throw you a fucking barbell." "Why would I ever help you?" "Because you have a debt." "You got some fucking sack." "What's that mean, I have a debt, huh?" "Means the way shit went down in '95, this is on you, too, buddy." "What do you got to show me?" "What you packing?" ".38." "Hollow-point?" "Yeah." "That'll do it." "You can never be too careful." "All right, remember there was no physical evidence connecting Dora Lange to Ledoux's place out in the woods." "Meaning it probably didn't happen out there." "Nobody was in a hurry to bring that up." "Two." "Women and children going missing." "All taken from areas within a 10-mile radius of schools that were funded by Tuttle's Wellspring initiative." "We establish a connection, who's in, who's out, you know?" "I mean, do people disappear in equal numbers in other parts of the state?" " How many schools were there?" " Fourteen." "Now, I've covered a surface area." "I pulled runaways in state and missing persons." "Now, if you'll notice, there's twice as many along the bayous." "I don't know why." "Hell, someone should do a study as to why." "Now you're just throwing up stats." "Why was Turtle so interested in the Lange case, huh?" "Remember Charlie Lange said what Ledoux told him?" "He said there's a group of men, sacrifices." "Well, I think Turtle recognized the scene." "That's why he came down there jiminy quick with a fucking taskforce, and that's why he tripped out when I talked to him in '02." "Okay, so what happened to him?" "I mean, I'm looking around here and I don't see or hear anything that doesn't make this all conjectural." "1988." "Accusations of child molestation at a preschool funded by Tuttle." "The name of that school was Shepherd's Flock." "It shuts down, reopens two years later on Pelican Island under the name Light of the Way Academy, where Rianne Olivier went." "Now, I got an enrollment list." "Sixteen kids in the class." "One of them turned out to be a young man who just showed up for solicitation in New Orleans." "Now this is 2010." "His name is Toby Boelert." "Goes by the name of Johnny Joanie." "Shepherd's Flock." "Why are you asking me about that place?" "After that place shut down, there was a lot of talk going around..." "You ever see that reverend," "Billy Lee Tuttle, around?" "You know, I think so." "But who can remember way back?" "That's how it all started." "Memory be fucked." "I decided it all had to be a dream anyways." "And I don't remember if..." "We'd go to sleep." "Only sometimes I didn't feel like I was asleep." "I felt like I was still awake." "But I must have been asleep because I couldn't move." "Just sort of see under my eyelids." "Then what?" "I don't know." "There were men, taking pictures." "Sometimes other things." " Who were they?" " I don't know." "They had animal faces." "That's why I decided it had to be a dream." "They had animal faces." "Well, it had to be a dream." "Any other kids see this?" "One girl." "I don't remember her name." "She first started talking about it." "She seen it, too, the faces." " I do not remember her name." " Marie Fontenot." "Maybe." "You ever see any of these men's faces?" "Once." "They didn't all have animal faces." "Three younger men." "I don't remember them." "Just one." "He had bad scars all around his mouth." "Like the bottom half got all burned up." "And you know what?" "I thought that meant it was a dream, too." "No, I don't think it was a dream." "HART"." "I don't understand." "Are you saying that you think that this hypothetical killer was, uh, an old school teacher?" "Or it might, what, involve State PD?" "Goddamn, what happened to you, man?" "You remember him?" "Hmm?" " Yeah." " Yeah." "You and I are on the case in Erath." "A girl comes forward and says she was chased through the woods by a spaghetti monster with green ears." "Now I think that this is our man with the scars on his face." "I've got three references." "Seventeen years ago, that old revival church said a tall man with scars came through." "Kelly Reider, in the hospital." "And, now, this hooker from the Quarter, Toby." "I don't know who he is." "I don't know where he is." "I don't know where this thing fucking starts, but it ends with him." "All right, you know that little township down around Erath?" "All right?" "That's where the Turtle family is from." "Now, it used to be a pirate hideout." "Now they turned it into plantations or whatnot." "Had a very rural sense of Mardi Gras." "Uh, you know, the men on horses, animal masks, and such." " Courir de Mardi Gras." " That's right." "Now, they had an annual winter festival, all right, heavy on the Saturnalia." "A place where that Santeria and Voudon all mashed together." "Have a look." "From the winter festival." "Blindfold." "Antlers." "Mask." "I got these from a series an artist did in Kenner, right after Katrina." "Says he kept running across these "stick things" as he called them." "Look familiar?" "I think our man had a real good time after the hurricane." "Chaos." "People missing." "People gone." "Cops gone." "I think he had a real good year." "What do you need me for'?" "You got friends on the force." "You have access that I don't." "Databases." "I need case files." "I need missing persons." "I need homicides." "I need title transfers, auto and home." "I got a list of names." "I'm gonna need background checks, tax records." "Anything we can get on Ledoux." "Jesus Christ, man." "I wouldn't have called you and I wouldn't have fucking bothered you if State wouldn't have pulled me in on this Lake Charles case." "Well, if you need help, why don't you just give it to Papania and Gilbough?" "No, they may be pawns in this thing and not even fucking know it." " Come on." " Look, Eddie Tuttle is the goddamn senator of this state." "The late Reverend Billy Lee Turtle is his cousin." "I'm telling you, it's a fucking family thing." "That's what I mean when I talk about the sprawl, Marty." "Eddie Tuttle is the reason that the Lake Charles thing never made the wire." "Look, man' you have some compelling stuff here." "And you might have something." "But all this "sprawl," as you call it, which I would call "conjecture,"" "this shit about the Tuttles and the State PD, do you know how fucking crazy that sounds?" "It's like you've been alone too long." "Like you, maybe, told yourself this story and kept drinking until you believed it." "Marty." "I had my time where I wondered if this was all in my head." "That time passed." "Really?" "What happened to Billy Lee Tuttle?" "There's something you're going to have to look at." "No other way around it." "You still take your coffee black?" "Oh, uh, green tea, if you have it." "I've been trying to stay away from coffee, you know, a little bit healthier." "So, Mace, is she, uh, back from Chicago yet?" " Mmm-hmm, three months ago." " Three months?" "Uh..." " What was that?" "That..." " AmeriCorps." "Oh." "Leaching." "And Audrey, how is she?" "She's fine at the moment." "She sometimes decides she doesn't need her meds." "I like her boyfriend." "He watches out for her." "She had an art show in New Orleans." "Sold some paintings." "Well, that's good." "That's great." "I should buy one, I mean, if I can afford it." "So the reason I, uh..." "I mean, like I said on the phone," "I want to ask you about those cops." "They just wanted to know about you and Rust." "Mostly Rust." "They wanted to know about the fight in '02." " Mmm' did you tell them?" " No." "But they think Rust did something." "I know." "He didn't." "I didn't think he did." "You talk to him?" "No." "Not since." "You?" "Yeah." "I mean, after they brought me in." "Yeah." "How is he?" "Different." "Same." "I mean, he's lived rough for a long time now." "He always did, it seemed like." "Taken a toll." "He needs my help." "Are you going to help him?" "Yes." "Why?" "I have to." "What is it?" "What do the police think he did?" "I cant talk about that." "It's P.l. stuff." "He's hiring the firm." "I'm hiring him." "All this time, you two, and just..." "Just like that?" "Oh, I took some convincing." "COHLE"." "I looked in Billys eyes." "He looked in mine." "He got me suspended." "Now, Billy Lee Tuttle owns three houses in Louisiana." "One in Shreveport, one in Baton Rouge, one in New Orleans." "Also one in Florida." "I waited till he went on his Spring Ministry Tour in 2010." "Look, Rust, I changed my mind." "If you did something, I don't want to hear about it." "Remember I told you about my stint in robbery?" "I make a pretty ace BE man." "Now, I staked his places out for weeks." "Checked surveillance." "Mapped security." "I found ingresses." "And here I am, you know, my whole life is this one expanding, circular fuck-up and I think it's about to close out with me getting clipped in a home invasion." "All right, what I'm saying is" "I was aware that I might have lost my mind." "But after the second home, doubt got taken behind the woodshed and put down." "You'll notice he never reported the Baton Rouge break-in." "Just the Shreveport house." "I found those in the safe there." "The paper stock's over 15 years old." " God damn it." " These..." "They aren't as bad if you don't know what you're looking at." "Motherfuck!" "And" "there was a videotape." "Take a look." "No!" "God!" "Jesus!" "Ohh!" "Fuck!" "Fuck!" "You watch all of that?" "Yeah." "I had to see if any of the men took off their mask." "None did." "Oh, fuck!" "I won't avert my eyes." "Not again." "Jesus Christ." "That little girl's Marie Fontenot." "Did you kill Tuttle?" "No." "I assumed that he was thinking he was going to be blackmailed." "And I think some people took him out after they found out what was taken from the safe, before he had a chance to." "What can I do to help?" "We start by pulling everything there is on Dora Lange." "And I got names, I got family members, Tuttle connections." "Any information that we can get on Reggie or Dewall Ledoux." "All right, we can coordinate out of your offices if you want." "You shouldn't have that." "Nobody should have this." "I'm glad that you're doing good, Maggie." "It seems like everybody is happy, and it's..." "Ahem." "It's good to see." "Thank you for everything." "I haven!" "seen you in over two years' Marty." "Did you come hereto say goodbye?" "Thank you, Maggie." "I mean that." "There's not gonna be a bunch of people coming in and out of this place, is there?" "What do you think, Rust?" "Practical terms, we're doing an identify and locate." "Now, I can't afford to subscribe to all the databases that I used to, but I got the AutoTrackXP for motor vehicle records." "I got flatrate Info for the Ql National People Locator." "Public records, of course." "All right, that sounds good." "How you been?" "Ahem." "You know, besides work, what do you do?" "Sorry." "I just..." "I don't ever remember you askin' me a personal question before." "Uh, you know, I just stay busy, uh..." "Fish, girlfriends." "You seem' anyway'?" "Not really." "Some dates." "You know, it's all pretty casual." "I did have somethin' goin' for a while, this Filipino girl." "But that didn't pan out." "Quiet life." "I don't stay out late." "I just..." "I go home." " You?" " Yeah, I'm about the same." "No girlfriend, just go to work and go home." "How about that girl you were seeing in '02'?" "What ever happened with her?" "Yeah, that was never going to last." "It never should have started." "Yeah." "No way." "She, uh, had problems." "You always liked 'em crazy." "Yeah." "That I did." "Why did you quit, Marty?" "You could've been boss, you know." "LT, at least." "Captain." "I did another four years after you left." "And I guess the job just kind of ran its course with me." "How's that?" "I was gonna play baseball, ride bulls." "You know, you end up becomin' somethin' you never intended." "Uh, I guess you never really even know why." "I suppose I could've been a painter." "You know, a historian." "Old scenes, new details." "Yeah?" "Yeah, you do much painting'?" "No." "Little late in the game to start somethin' like that, I reckon." "Life's barely long enough to get good at one thing." "If that long." "Yeah." "So be careful what you get good at." "What do you call a black man who flies a plane?" "I don't know." "A pilot, you racist bastard." "What else would you call him?" "Speaking of, you know I've been takin' some writing courses." "And, uh..." "No, I have." "And, uh, I've been tinkering' around with this thing off and on." "True crime." "And that's the genre, not the title." " You serious?" " Yeah." "You know' what happened in '95, and some other old cases." "And all I need from you, Bobby, is some old copies of case files." "You still like your single mall, don't you?" "Ah, I guess I do." "What, business gotten so bad, you got to become a writer?" "Nope." "I've always wanted to do it." "I just never had the time." "And in regards of files, I'd like to avoid Fuck and Suck, the two dicks I spent last Saturday with." "Hmm." "Papania and Gilbough." "I hear you." "Of course, man, whatever you need." "Ah!" "Appreciate it, Bobby." "No problem." "Missing persons mostly, maybe far back as the '80s." "Well, anything before '05 that never became part of an official investigation, it isn't gonna be in the computers." "You're gonna have to sort through the files." "Thank you." "Found somethin'." "Background." "Dewall Ledoux transferred title on a truck to a Jimmy Ledoux." "Appears like that might be a cousin." "I found him in White Castle." "Owns an auto shop." "All right." "Did you pull that Marie Fontenot file?" "There wasn't one." "Report's gone." "Back-trackin' that." "Marty, this is Robert Doumain." "He owns the place." "Hey, hows it goin'?" "Nice spot." "He's not a cop no more, Robert." "You got somethin' against cops?" "Bob had a little boy." "Been missin' since '85." "Sorry." "Jimmy Ledoux came up spotless." "Three kids, wife's a teacher." "He coaches his boys peewee football team." "Any relation?" "So many Ledouxs around, I never had to worry about a connection." "But, yeah, my dad's second cousin or somethin'." "My pop didn't like them none." "Said they weren't white enough to be white trash." "What's this about exactly?" "Man asked us to locate his daughter." "It was a long time ago, but it looks like she might have known Dewall." "Sorry 10 hear that." "Must know what happened to them." "Sick shits." "Pop said they died too quick." "Is there anything you remember that you can tell us about these guys?" "Just they were nuts." "Looked at you funky." "Reggie was always asking about the girls in my school, and couple of times I saw him, Dewall just said kooky stuff." "Any chance you ever saw a third man with them'?" "A man who had a bunch of scars on the bottom of his face?" "It's weird you say that." "I remember that face." "My pop let 'em use our deer camp once, took me with 'em." "I was, like, 11." "They were, maybe, 10 years older than me." "They introduced us." "The guy, his face, underneath his nose and cheeks, scarred." "Gave me funny looks all night." "Every time I glanced at him, staring' at me." "Any chance this man with scars was another Ledoux?" "No." "I don't know." "I don't think so." "Next mornin', the men were too hungover to hunt." "Pop and I went home." "You, uh, ever see him again, the guy with the scars?" "Never again." "I'd remember." "Fuck, I don't like this place." "Nothin' grows in the right direction." "Where'd this woman come from?" "Tax records." "Drew a paycheck from Tuttle's father." "Uh, some kind of domestic." "How'd you find her?" "Well, I had to get federal income tax records from '40 to '59." "Match social with credit check run in the late '90s for Section 8 housing in Alexandria." "Mmm, good job." "Look at you." " Heh!" " Hmm." "High praise from a bartender." "She gets tired easy, especially hot as it is." "I don't understand what this is about." "Thank you." "We're private investigators hired to do, uh, ancestral research, mineral rights along the coast." "Hmm." "I never knew them Turtle people, but I heard stories'" "No, thank you." "You think she might get some money out this?" "Uh, quite possible." "Depends on what we find out." "Miss Dolores." "You worked for Mr. Sam Turtle 19 years, right?" "Yes." "Erath." "Mmm-hmm." "Then Shreveport." "So you knew his son, Billy Lee?" "Right?" "Mmmhmm." " A cousin, Eddie?" " Little boys." "Mmm-hmm." " I remember 'em." " What about extended family?" "Cousins, you know, might have been close to the boys?" "Those days, families were bigger." "Oh, all sorts of brothers, cousins, kids just running around." "Did, uh, Sam Tuttle have kids outside his marriage that you know about?" "Hmm!" "Don't you know it." "Now, people kept their own back then." "I mean, a mans house was his own." "Mr. Sam, he had lots of children, all types." "He didn't like a woman..." "See, once she had it done to her, he didn't like 'em but that one time." " Not after that." " Hmm." "With all these kids runnin' around, you remember one that maybe had scars all across the bottom of his face?" "Uh, I think that was Mr. Sam's grandchild." "His daddy did that to him, that poor boy." "I think that child was a Childress." "What, FI?" "He was a LeBeau or a Childress?" "From Mr. Sam's other family?" "I shouldn't be talking to you about this." "No, it's okay." "Miss Dolores, could you have a look at somethin' for me?" "One thing." "Just have a look." "See if you recognize it." "You know Carcosa?" "What is it?" "Him who eats time." "Him robes..." "It's a wind of invisible voices." ""Mineral rights," my ass." " What y'all doin'?" " Rejoice." "Death is not the end." "Rejoice!" "You need to leave, now." "Death is not the end." "You need to leave." "You know Carcosa." "You rejoice." "Carcosa..." "The rest of the family, they don't really talk to Aunt D." "She crazy." "Dementia." "She never had any kind of good life." "But most clays, she can't even make sense." "Yeah?" "She sure made sense to me." "That should worry you, mister." "I sure hope that old lady was wrong." " About what?" " About death not being the end of it." "Did some back-trackin' on the Marie Fontenot stuff." "Got some old sheets." "Sheriff signed off on the report made in error." "But he didn't take the original complaint on her." "Deputy did." "Got a name?" "You ain't going to believe this shit." "Steve Geraci." "So I did some double-checkin'." "Before CID, he was with Vermilion Parish Sheriffs." "Erath was his beat." "If it got covered up, Steve might know something." "Didn't say a fucking word when we asked about it in '95." "Oh, I never did like that cocksucker." "Where is he now?" "Well, uh, this is the thing." "He's from Iberia, originally." "After CID, he went home." "He's sheriff of Iberia Parish." " Shit." " Yeah." "Rust, the only person can arrest a sheriff in this state is the governor." "Well, we ain't lookin' to arrest him' Marty." "Just have a little chat." "He ain't gonna talk with you." "I got a car battery and two jumper cables who argue different." "Don't even start with that shit." "What do you recommend' Marty?" "Well, fuck, why don't you talk to him?" "You two always liked each other." "Well, what can I say?" "I'm a people person." "Start with that, then." " Oh." " Oh, come on." "Just try to relax." "Take your time." "There you go." " Okay." " Nice shot." "What was that?" "Fifteen on the green?" "I don't know." "Hey, you know, on the phone, you were saying somethin' about that Fontenot girl." " Yeah." " Why is that on your radar?" "Oh, it's nothing." "It's just, uh..." "Extended family wants a locate." "I didn't remember at the time, back in '95." " I was hit-tin' the bottle a lot back then." " Yeah." "Who wasn't?" "Twenty years ago, you know." "My recall, girl's mom was single." "Drug charges." "Uh..." "Little girl went to live with her birth daddy." "I think." "That is, if I'm remembering' right." "Uh..." "Momma didn't make a fuss after the first notice, so she was fine with it." "You talk to the family directly, back then?" "No." "Ted Childress, the sheriff." "He knew 'em." "Childress." "Now, watch this." "Whew!" "You like that?" "Seized it off a good ol' boy, had a quarter bag of weed." "Ooh." "You got to love this country." " Good to see you again, man." " Good to see you." "Hey, uh, that client you got, asking' about the Fontenot girl." "You let 'em know I'd be happy to talk to 'em." "Oh, yeah." "Distant relatives, Saint Louis, trying to settle a tiny inheritance." "Don't worry about it." "Okay, well, they want to talk, you let 'em know." "Yeah." "Don't go too fast, Sheriff." "Not me." " Let's do it again sometime." " Yeah, I'd like that." "Hey." "Better get those jumper cables ready." "Motherfucker's lyin'." "Rust." " It's good to see you." " Bullshit." "I talked to Marty." "Well, you talked to the cops, too." "Yes, them, too." "How are you?" "What did Many tell you?" "He wanted to know what the police asked me about." "He said he was helpin' you with somethin'." "That's it." " How long you've been back?" " Hear you got a big house." "Marty says the girls are doin' fine." "That's good." "Rust, just tell me it's somethin' that's not gonna get him hurt." "Well, I can!" "tell you that." "It never sat right with me then, and it doesn't now." "You askin' me to lie to you about him." "Get on out of here." "You're classing' the place up." "Why did you quit, Marty?" "What's the real reason?" "What happened?" "You tell me why you come back, for real." "Mmm, you first." "Why'?" "!" "You quit?" "Well, I saw somethin'." "A baby." "Tweaker tried to dry the kid in a microwave." "Saw that, what he'd done, and I thought," ""Never again."" "I thought I never wanted to look at anything like that anymore." "Ahem." "Your turn." "Why'd you, uh..." "Why'd you come back?" "For this." "Somelhin' I had to see to." "Before getting on with somethin' else." "My life's been a circle of violence and degradation long as I can remember." "I'm ready to tie it off." "See you on the boat." "After the other day, I was thinkin', "Why don't I see Steve and the boys more?"" "Ain't been out to my camp in a while." "You know, if I don't get out here three or four times a year," " I'm a basket case." " I hear you." "Ah." "I do love a reason to drink beer first thing in the mornin'." "Oh." " Say, Steve, I was wanting to ask..." " Mmm'?" "You know that Fontenot girl, remember, goin' off with her daddy?" "I just wasn't clear." "Was it you knew for a fact that she went with her daddy?" "Or somebody told you that's what happened?" "The family talked to Sheriff Childress." "The girl's aunt and uncle, he knew them." "Mmm-hmm." "Who were they?" "I'm staﬂin' to think this wasn't just a friendly invitation from an old pal, huh?" "It's definitely that." "Well, then try this, then." "I said all I remember about the girl, let's just have a good time and don't ask again." " I'm with you 150% on that." " All right." "Thing is, Steve," "I ain't gonna ask you." "He is." "I wouldn't if I was you, Steve." "You're out of your jurisdiction, Sheriff." "You realize who I am now, you assholes?" "Yeah, I wouldn't be here if I didn't." " Marty..." " Don't look at me." "I ain't never been able to control him." "Come on." "You're done after this." "I'll have boss cracker spliﬂin' your ass in Angola." "Yeah, we'll talk about that, and some other things." "Come on." "That church Cohle talked about, supposed to be right here." " We're lost." " We're not lost." "We goin' in the right direction, we're headin' south." "And that's gonna head us to 49." "No, we're not looking for the 49." "We're lookin' for the church." "I know we're looking for the church, we ain't got to no church." "Ain't seen nothing that even resemble no church." "Ain't nobody out here to even ask." "Just let me know when you see somethin'." "Let me know when you see somethin'." "There ain't nothin' to see." "Hey!" "Hey!" "YES, sir." "You know there's a little church around here?" "Pretty old'?" "Black minister?" "You must mean Son of Life, sir." "That place shut down." "'05 I think." "Just after all them hurricanes." "Mmm." " You live around here?" " No, sir." "I live in St. Martin." "Got a parish contract." "Take care of some cemeteries, public schools." "All right." "Thanks." " Hey." "You know how to get to 49 from here?" " Sure." "About a half mile, you'll see a left, PR 1435, take that." "About seven miles of fields, you'll hit 49 before Crowley." " Know your way around, huh?" " Oh, yeah, boss." "I know the whole coast." " My family..." " Thanks." "My family's been here a long, long time." "Ripped By mstoll"