processing sheds, firing as he went. I went after him.
There was one more boom from the treeline, and then the rifle was silent. Behind the sheds, we were hidden. Rossier tripped and fell into the mud and got up and ran on, still making the whining noise. He shot at me, but with all the slipping and falling and the hurt shoulder, the shots went wild.
I yelled, "It's done, Milt. C'mon."
He fired twice more, and the slide locked back and he was out of bullets. He threw the gun at me and ran again, straight into the low wire fence that encircled the turtle pond. In the dark and the rain he hadn't seen it. He went over the wire sideways, hit the mud on his bad shoulder, and slid headfirst into the water. It was a flat silver surface in the rain until he hit it, and then the surface rocked. He sat up, gasping for air, and I stepped across the wire and held out my hand. "C'mon, Milt. Let's go."
Pike and Jo-el came up behind me.
Milt Rossier flopped and splashed, stumbling farther out into the pond. "He'p me! You gotta he'p me!
Jo-el said, "You're not drowning, you fat sonofabitch. Just stand up!"
His eyes wide and crazed. "He'p me! Please, Christ, get me out!"
The water swelled at the far side of the pond, and I remembered Luther.
I stepped into the water to my ankles. "Get up, dammit. Take my hand!"
Rossier tried to stand but lost his balance and fell backwards, farther out in the pond. I went in up to my knees. "Take my hand, Milt."
Something large moved fast beneath the surface, making a wake without breaking the rain-dimpled plane of the water. Pike said, "Jesus," and fired at the head of the wake. Jo-el Boudreaux fired, too.
I said, "Take my hand!"
Rossier made it to his feet, struggled toward me, and grabbed my hand. His grip was wet and slippery and I pulled as hard as I could, but then his left leg was yanked out from beneath him and he was pulled down into the water.
The screaming and the thrashing went on for several minutes, and maybe I screamed as loudly as Milt Rossier, but probably not.
CHAPTER 38
J o-el Boudreaux called in the state, and the state Drought its prosecutors and the crime-scene people, and by noon the next morning there were over three dozen parish, state, and federal officials up to their ankles in mud. The rain kept coming, and did not slacken.
After the bodies were cleaned up and the statements taken, Jo-el removed his badge and told the young cop, Berry, to place him under arrest on a charge of obstruction of justice for failing to act against Milt Rossier.
Berry looked at the badge as if it were radioactive and said, "Like hell I will!"
One of the prosecutors from New Orleans shouldered his way in and said he'd be happy to accept the badge. He was a guy in his forties with tight skin and short hair, and he had spent a lot of time walking the area and shaking his head. When he tried to get the badge, Berry knocked him on his ass. A state cop from Baton Rouge tried to put Berry in a restraint hold, but Joe Pike moved between them and whispered something in the state cop's ear and the state cop walked away. After that, the prosecutor spent a lot of time sitting in his car.
Lucy spoke quietly to Jo-el for over an hour, pleading with him not to do or say anything until he spoke with Merhlie Comeaux. Edith said, "Listen to her, Joel. You must please listen to her."
Jo-el finally agreed, though he didn't seem to like it much. He sat in the front seat of his highway car with his face in his hands and wept. Jo-el Boudreaux was in pain, and ashamed, and I think he wanted to suffer for his sins. Men of conscience often do.
Joe Pike returned to Los Angeles the following day.
I stayed in Louisiana for a week after the events at Milt Rossier's crawfish farm, and much of that time I spent with Lucy. She spoke on a daily basis with Edith, and twice we went to visit.
With Milt and LeRoy Bennett out of the picture, the Boudreauxs could have kept their secret, but that wasn't the way they played it. They phoned their three children, saying that it was important that they see them, and the three daughters dutifully returned