Heaven's Prisoners by James Lee Burke Read Free Book Online

under the mimosa tree in the backyard while blue jays and mockingbirds flicked in and out of the sunlight.
    Then I took Alafair with me in the truck to the grocery store on the highway to buy ice for the dock and shelled crawfish to make étouffée for our supper. I also bought her a big paper kite, and when we got back home she and I walked back to the duck pond at the end of my property, which adjoined a sugarcane field, and let the kite lift up suddenly into the breeze and rise higher and higher into the cloud-flecked blue sky. Her face was a round circle of incredible surprise and delight as the string tugged in her fingers and the kite flapped and danced against the wind.
    Then I saw Annie walking toward us out of the dappled shade of the backyard into the sunlight. She wore a pair of Clorox-faded jeans and a dark blue shirt, and the sun made gold lights in her hair. I looked again at her face. She was trying to look unconcerned, but I could see the little wrinkle, like a sculptor’s careless nick, between her eyes.
    “What’s wrong?” I said.
    “Nothing, I guess.”
    “Come on, Annie. Your face doesn’t hide things too well.” I brushed her suntanned forehead with my fingers.
    “There’s a car parked off the side of the road in the trees with two men in it,” she said. “I saw them a half hour or so ago, but I didn’t pay any attention to them.”
    “What kind of car?”
    “I don’t know. A white sports car of some kind. I went out on the porch and the driver raised up a newspaper like he was reading it.”
    “They’re probably just some oil guys goofing around on the job. But let’s go take a look.”
    I knotted the kite twine to a willow stick and pushed the stick deep into the soft dirt by the edge of the pond, and the three of us walked back to the house while the kite popped behind us in the wind.
    I left them in the kitchen and looked through the front screen without opening it. A short distance down the dirt road from the dock, a white Corvette was parked at an angle in the trees. The man on the passenger side had his seat tilted back and was sleeping with a straw hat over his face. The man behind the wheel smoked a cigarette and blew the smoke out the window. I took my pair of World War II Japanese field glasses from the wall where they hung on their strap, braced them against the doorjamb, and focused the lens through the screen. The front windshield was tinted and there was too much shadow on it to see either of the men well, and the license plate was in back, so I couldn’t get the number, but I could clearly make out the tiny metal letters ELK just below the driver’s window.
    I went into the bedroom, took my army field jacket that I used for duck hunting out of the closet, then opened the dresser drawer and from the bottom of my stack of shirts lifted out the folded towel in which I kept the U.S. Army-issue .45 automatic that I had bought in Saigon. I picked up the heavy clip loaded with hollow-points, inserted it into the handle, pulled back the receiver and slid a round into the chamber, set the safety, and dropped the pistol into the pocket of my field jacket. I turned round and saw Annie watching me from the bedroom doorway, her face taut and her eyes bright.
    “Dave, what are you doing?” she said.
    “I’m going to stroll down there and check these guys out. They won’t, see the gun.”
    “Let it go. Call the sheriff’s office if you have to.”
    “They’re on our property, kiddo. They just need to tell us what they’re doing here. It’s no big deal.”
    “No, Dave. Maybe they’re from Immigration. Don’t provoke them.”
    “Government guys use economy rentals when they can’t use the motor pool. They’re probably land men from-the Oil Center in Lafayette.”
    “Yes, that’s why you have to take the pistol with you.”
    “So I have some bad habits. Leave it alone, Annie.”
    I saw the hurt in her face. Her eyes flicked away from mine, then came back