is New Orleans, after all.’ Selma looked at Patrese, and then back to Varden. ‘How many computers did Cindy use?’
‘Two. A desktop, and a laptop.’
‘Are they both here?’
‘As far as I know.’
‘She didn’t have her laptop with her on Tuesday? When you went to Denton?’
‘Yes, she did.’
‘Then surely she’d have taken it home with her?’
Varden shook his head. ‘She gave it to me at the airport.’
‘Why so?’
‘I never let her take it home. Security. It always came with me.’
Selma shrugged; it made sense. ‘We’d like to impound those computers.’
‘You have a warrant?’
‘Not yet. But we can get one.’
‘Then you get one, and you come back, and you can have it. But not till then.’
‘I thought you said you had nothing to hide.’
‘About her murder, I don’t. But as you yourself pointed out, Cindy was privy to commercially sensitive information. Much of that is bound to be on her computer.’
‘And you’re going to delete that information before we get a warrant?’
‘I built this company up from nothing, young lady. I am the reason it is what it is today. Nothing is going to jeopardize that. You understand?’
Varden Tower to police HQ was straight up Poydras, about twenty blocks. Patrese drove while Selma called the pathologist. She crooked the cell phone between her right ear and shoulder, and scribbled notes on a pad.
The Superdome slid by on their left, squat and bulbous. Patrese remembered a drunk cornering him in a bar a few months back, not long after he’d arrived in New Orleans, and telling him in all seriousness that the Superdome was a flying saucer, landed right in the middle of the city, and all the expressways and flyovers which coiled around it were hiding power lines and waste pipes for the aliens living inside.
Funny thing was, that guy hadn’t even been the craziest person there that night.
Selma ended the call and turned to Patrese. ‘OK. Autopsy, prelim results. Far as they can tell, Cindy died from a combination of neurotoxins and blood loss. Either would have killed her on its own. Together, no chance.’
‘Neurotoxins. As in snake bite?’
‘Perhaps; they can’t be certain until they’ve done some more tests. But it seems pretty clear, what with the puncture marks on her right calf. And get this. You wonder why she didn’t fight back? Because the venom had paralyzed her, that’s why. Neurotoxic venom blocks nerve impulses to muscles, including the ones in the diaphragm we use for breathing. Can’t breathe properly, can’t move, can’t speak, swallow …’
‘…and all the while conscious that someone’s cutting your leg off.’
Selma nodded. Didn’t say anything; didn’t have to. Patrese winced.
‘It was a rattlesnake, right?’ he said.
‘Right. A Yucatan rattlesnake, apparently. Latin name, crotalus simus tzabcan. There are about thirty different species, but this one’s one of the more deadly.’
‘Probably why he chose it.’
‘Exactly. Guys at the incident room are finding us a herpetologist to go see.’
‘Herpetologist?’
‘Reptile expert.’
‘You learn something every day.’
‘You grow up round here, Franco, you get to know your snakes pretty fast.’
‘Yeah, and some of them even have scales.’
Selma laughed, and for a moment all her attitude and spikiness disappeared. ‘Ain’t that the truth.’
Her mobile rang. She answered, wrote a few more lines on her pad, checked a couple of details with whoever was on the other end, and hung up.
‘Want to take a trip to the bayou?’ she asked.
Murder investigation or not, Patrese felt the tension leach from his body with every mile they put between themselves and the city. Clogged urban streets thick with traffic and tension gave way to highways smeared with garages and hypermarkets in the primary colors of corporate America; highways melted into back roads dappled under arboreal canopies. Patrese lowered his window and inhaled heavy marsh tang.
Selma peered at the upcoming street sign.
‘Bayou Barataria. This is it. Make a right here,’ she said. ‘Then it’s two miles after that. We’re looking for a purple-and-yellow sign on a metal gate. Wyatt Herps.’
Patrese laughed. ‘Great name. Wonder how long that took to think up?’
The sign was exactly two miles further on, above a ‘No Trespassing’ warning in red and white. Patrese got out of the car, opened the gate – hot to the touch in the rising sunshine – and they set off down an unmetalled track.
They hadn’t gone more than a few hundred yards when a shot rang out.
Selma had her service revolver drawn almost before Patrese had hit the brakes. They were in an unmarked car; nothing to identify them as law enforcement.
‘There a rooflight anywhere in here?’ he asked.
She rummaged in the glove compartment and under her seat. ‘Not that I can find.’
‘NOPD efficiency for you.’
‘Button it. Keep going. Slowly.’
He inched forward. Selma lowered her window and rested her gun hand on the sill.
Around the next corner, a red-faced woman in a check shirt stood in the middle of the track. The unblinking twin black eyes of her rifle stared at Patrese and Selma.
‘Get the hell off of my property!’ she shouted.
Patrese stopped the car. Selma held up her badge with her free hand.
‘NOPD, ma’am.’
‘Can’t you people just leave me alone? I done tellin’ those other fools everything. I ain’t done nothin’ wrong. I got nothing to say to y’all. Now get.’
Selma looked at Patrese, puzzled. He shrugged. Selma looked back at the woman.
‘Ma’am, I’m afraid I don’t understand. What other, er, people?’
‘Fools from Wildlife and Fisheries.’
‘And what did they want?’
‘Y’all don’t know?’
‘Not at all.’
The woman squinted, decided Selma was on the level, and continued: ‘Comin’ here askin’ if I been stealing people’s pets.’
‘Why would you have done that?’
‘To feed to my snakes. As if!’
‘What did you tell them?’
‘That they didn’t have probable cause.’
Blame Grisham, Patrese thought. Everyone reckoned they were Perry Mason now.
‘Ma’am, we’re here because a young woman’s been murdered in the city. We were told you’re the foremost snake expert in the area, and we need your help.’
The rifle came down. ‘Why didn’t you say?’ She indicated a low building behind her. ‘Park on round the side, under the cypresses. I’ll see you in there.’