A Stained White Radiance by James Lee Burke Read Free Book Online Page A

forgettable.
    So when you have a problem that has no solution and you can no longer drink over it, you get psychologically drunk on somebody else’s woe, Ithought. And maybe I even resented and envied Weldon for what I thought was the simplicity of his problem.
    The moon made a square of light on Bootsie’s sleeping form. Her white silk gown looked almost phosphorescent, her bare shoulders as cool and bloodless as alabaster. I put my arm across her stomach and drew her against me, hooked one leg inside hers, and buried my face in her hair, as though anger and need were enough to hold both of us aloft, safe from the dark spin and pull of the earth beneath us.
    Two days later I would learn that Weldon’s problems were not simple ones, either, and my involvement with the Sonnier family would become much more than a dry drunk.

CHAPTER 2
    A FTER I GOT HOME from work the following Tuesday Batist and I closed up the bait shop early because of an electrical storm that blew up out of the south. Three hours later the rain was still pouring down, lightning bolts were popping all over the marsh, and the air was heavy with the wet, sulfurous smell of ozone. The thunder reverberated like echoing cannon across the drenched countryside, and I could barely hear the dispatcher’s voice when I answered the telephone in the kitchen.
    â€œDave, I think I made a mistake,” he said.
    â€œSpeak louder. There’s a lot of static on the line.”
    â€œI put my foot in something. A little bit ago a black man across the bayou from Weldon Sonnier’s called in and said he saw somebody behind Weldon’s house with a flashlight. He said he knew Mr. Weldon was out of town, so he thought he ought to call us. I was about to send LeBlanc and Thibodeaux, but Garrett was sitting by the cage and said he’d take it. I told him he wasn’t on duty yet. He said he’d take it anyway, that he was helpingyou with the investigation about the shooting. So I let him go out there.”
    â€œOkay . . .”
    â€œThen the old man calls up and wants to know where Garrett is, that he wants to talk with him right now, that there’s been another complaint about him. Garrett cuffed a couple of kids and put them in the tank for shooting him the finger. The kids live two houses from the sheriff. That Garrett knows how to do it, doesn’t he? Anyway, he doesn’t answer his radio now, and I already sent LeBlanc and Thibodeaux somewhere else. You want to help me out?”
    â€œAll right, but you shouldn’t have sent him out there by himself.”
    â€œYou ever try to say ‘no’ to that guy?”
    â€œSend LeBlanc and Thibodeaux for backup as soon as they’re loose.”
    â€œYou got it, Dave.”
    I put on my raincoat and rain hat, took my army .45 automatic from the dresser drawer in the bedroom, inserted the clip loaded with hollow-points into the magazine, and dropped the automatic and a spare clip in the pocket of my coat. Bootsie was reading under a lamp in the living room, and Alafair was working on a coloring book in front of the television set. The rain was loud on the gallery roof.
    â€œI have to go out. I’ll be back shortly,” I said.
    â€œWhat is it?” she said, looking up, her honey-colored hair bright under the lamp.
    â€œIt’s a prowler report out at Weldon’s again.”
    â€œWhy do you have to go?”
    â€œThe dispatcher messed it up and sent this new fellow from Houston. Now he doesn’t answer his radio, and the dispatcher doesn’t have a backup.”
    â€œThen let them mess it up on their own. You’re off duty.”
    â€œIt’s my investigation, Boots. I’ll be back in a half hour or so. It’s probably nothing.”
    I saw her eyes become thoughtful.
    â€œDave, this doesn’t sound right. What do you mean he doesn’t answer his radio? Isn’t he supposed to carry one of those portable