A Stained White Radiance Read Online Free

mockery that all his preparation for this moment had become.
    I looked at his Baton Rouge phone number on the piece of message paper, then turned the piece of paper over in my fingers. No, Lyle Sonnier wasn’t a joke, I thought. I picked up my telephone and started to dial the number, then realized that Garrett, the ex-Houston cop, was standing in the entrance to my cubicle, his eyes slightly askance when I glanced up at him.
    â€œOh, hi, thanks for dropping by,” I said.
    â€œSure. What’s up?”
    â€œNot much.” I tapped my fingers idly on the desk blotter, then opened and closed my drawer. “Say, do you have a smoke?”
    â€œSure,” he said, and took his package out of his shirt pocket. He shook one loose and offered it to me.
    â€œLucky Strikes are too strong for me,” I said. “Thanks, anyway. How about taking a walk with me?”
    â€œUh, I’m not quite following this. What are we doing, Dave?”
    â€œCome on, I’ll buy you a snowball. I just need some feedback from you.” I smiled at him.
    It was bright and warm outside, and a rainbow haze drifted across the lawn from the water sprinklers. The palm trees were green and etched against the hard blue sky, and on the corner, by a huge live oak tree whose roots had cracked the curb and folded the sidewalk up in a peak, a Negro in a white coat sold snowballs out of a handcart that was topped with a beach umbrella.
    I bought two spearmint snowballs, handed one to Garrett, and we sat down side by side on an iron bench in the shade. His holster and gunbelt creaked like a horse’s saddle. He put on his sunglasses, looked away from me, and constantly fiddled with the corner of his mustache.
    â€œThe dispatcher was telling me about that IA beef in Houston,” I said. “It sounds like you got a bad deal.”
    â€œI’m not complaining. I like it over here. I like the food and the French people.”
    â€œBut maybe you took two steps back in your career,” I said.
    â€œLike I say, I got no complaint.”
    I took a bite out of my snowball and looked straight ahead.
    â€œLet me cut straight to it, podna,” I said. “You’re a new man and you’re probably a little ambitious. That’s fine. But you tainted the crime scene out at the Sonniers’.”
    He cleared his throat and started to speak, then said nothing.
    â€œRight? You climbed over that brick retaining wall and looked around on the mudbank? You dropped a cigarette butt on the grass?”
    â€œYes, sir.”
    â€œDid you find anything?”
    â€œNo, sir.”
    â€œYou’re sure?” I looked hard at the side of his face. There was a red balloon of color in his throat.
    â€œI’m sure.”
    â€œAll right, forget about it. There’s no harmdone. Next time out, though, you secure the scene and wait on the investigator.”
    He nodded, looking straight ahead at some thought hidden inside his sunglasses, then said, “Does any of this go in my jacket?”
    â€œNo, it doesn’t. But that’s not the point, here, podna. We’re all clear on the real point, aren’t we?”
    â€œYes, sir.”
    â€œGood, I’ll see you inside. I have to return a phone call.”
    But actually I didn’t want to talk with him anymore. I had a feeling that Deputy Garrett was not a good listener.
    I called Lyle Sonnier’s number in Baton Rouge and was told by a secretary that he was out of town for the day. I gave the spent .308 casing to our fingerprint man, which was by and large a waste of time, since fingerprints seldom do any good unless you have the prints of a definite suspect already on file. Then I read the brief paperwork on the prowler reports made by Bama Sonnier, but it added nothing to my knowledge of what had happened out at the Sonnier place. I wanted to write it all off and leave Weldon to his false pride and private army of demons, whatever they