Pegasus Descending: A Dave Robicheaux Novel by James Lee Burke Page A

in St. Martinville and walked out on the dock behind the old church. The moon was high above the oaks, and the moss looked like silver thread against the moon. He kissed me and wrapped me inside his coat. I could feel him against me, down there….
Today we took a boat out to his father’s camp in the swamp. I know he wants to do it, but he’s afraid to ask. He touched my breast, then said he was sorry. I told him it’s not wrong if people love each other. His eyes are dark brown, the way water is when starlight is trapped inside it. He hasn’t asked me if I’m a virgin. I wonder if he’ll think less of me. His goodness is in everything he does….
Last night he introduced me to his friends. They’re nice boys, I think, except for one. He has a hawk’s eyes and a mouth that always looks hungry. I saw him watching me in the mirror when he thought no one was looking.
    But Yvonne Darbonne’s concern with an imperfection in her new-found world was brief. Her last entry returned to the boyfriend:
I told him I wanted him to do it and for him not to be afraid. When we were finished, he kissed my nipples and the tops of my fingers. It was hot in the cabin and his hair was wet and fell in curls on his forehead. I know now I love him in a way that’s different from anyone else I’ve loved. I can’t believe we’ll be going to college together this summer. He wants to meet my father. He told me never to be ashamed of the place I lived.
    Molly walked down the slope and placed her hand on my shoulder. “What are you reading?” she asked.
    “The diary of the Darbonne girl. How does a kid like this end up shooting herself?”
    I handed the diary to her, with my thumb inserted between the last two pages of entries. Molly turned the pages into the light and read for a moment, then closed the covers and looked into space.
    “Who’s the boy?” she asked.
    “I’m not sure. Her cell phone contained the number of Bello Lujan. Evidently he’s got a son at UL. Maybe he and Yvonne Darbonne were an item.”
    “The Daily Iberian said her death has been ruled a suicide.”
    “That doesn’t mean someone else isn’t responsible. Where did she get the revolver she shot herself with? Who’s the bastard who left her drunk and stoned in the yard with a handgun?”
    “Maybe she already had it.”
    “Her father says otherwise,” I replied.
    “Family members feel guilty. They often lie.”
    I took the diary from Molly’s hand. “The weapon was stolen from a fraternity house at Ole Miss. How would Mr. Darbonne come to have possession of it?”
    I could see a quiet sense of exasperation working its way into her face. “I don’t know, Dave. I say don’t grieve on what you can’t change,” she said.
    I felt a sharp reply start to rise in my throat. But I kept my own counsel and looked across the bayou at the lights coming on in City Park. Then I followed Molly inside the house and helped her wash the dishes and put away the leftovers from supper.
     
    I AWOKE AT FOUR in the morning and sat at the kitchen table in the darkness and listened to the sound of the wind in the trees. A few minutes later, Molly turned on the light and came into the kitchen in her robe and slippers. She sat down across the table from me. “The Darbonne girl?” she said.
    “It’s the language in her diary. There’s no self-pity or anger in it,” I replied.
    Molly waited, then said, “Go ahead.”
    “People like Yvonne Darbonne don’t kill themselves. It’s that simple. Someone else did it.”
    Molly propped her elbows on the table, knitted her fingers together, and rested her chin on her fingers. She gazed wanly into my face, trying to hide her fatigue, her eyes filled with the foreboding sense that the dead were about to lay claim upon the quick.
     
    S ATURDAY MORNING I drove out to the home of Bello Lujan. His first name was actually Bellerophon, a name that on the surface seems absurd and grandiose in a working-class culture. But South