The Glass Rainbow: A Dave Robicheaux Novel by James Lee Burke Page A

and knocked on the front door. A storm was kicking up in the Gulf, and the wind was cool on the porch. In the south I could see a bank of black thunderheads low on the horizon and electricity forking inside the clouds the way sparks fork and leap off an emery wheel.
    “What a dump,” Clete said.
    “Will you be quiet?” I said.
    He screwed a filter-tip cigarette into his mouth and got out his Zippo. I started to pull the cigarette out of his mouth, but what was the use? Clete was Clete.
    “Who’s Abelard’s cooze?” he said.
    “What?”
    “You heard me.”
    “Alafair is going out with him.”
    His face looked as though it had just undergone a five-second sunburn. “Why didn’t you tell me that?”
    “I thought maybe you’d figured it out.”
    “Is there another agenda working here, Dave?”
    “Not a chance,” I replied.
    He lit his cigarette and puffed on it. When Kermit Abelard opened the door, Clete took one more drag and flipped the cigarette in the flower bed.
    “How do you do?” Kermit said, extending his hand.
    “What’s the haps?” Clete replied.
    “You’re Clete Purcel, aren’t you? I’ve heard a lot about you. Come in, come in,” Kermit said, holding the great oaken door wide.
    The interior of the house was dark, the furnishings out of the Gilded Age, the light fixtures glowing dimly inside their dust. The carpet was old and too thin for the hardwood floor, and I could feel the rough grain of the timber through my shoes. Clete touched his nose with the back of his wrist and cleared his throat.
    “Something wrong, Mr. Purcel?” Kermit asked.
    “I have allergies,” Clete replied.
    “I’ve fixed some drinks for us and a cold Dr Pepper or two and a snack if you’d like to come out on the sunporch,” Kermit said.
    I couldn’t hold it back. “You’re keen on Dr Pepper?” I said.
    “No, I thought you might want—” he began.
    “You thought I would like a Dr Pepper instead of something else?” I said.
    “No, not necessarily.”
    “You have water?” I said.
    “Of course.”
    “I’ll take a glass of water.”
    “Sure, Dave, or Mr. Robicheaux.”
    “Call me whatever you like.”
    I saw Clete gazing out the side door onto the sunporch, trying to hide a smile.
    “What is it I can help y’all with?” Kermit said.
    “Is your friend Robert Weingart here?” I said.
    “He’s just getting out of the shower. We were splitting wood on the lawn. Robert is marvelous at carving ducks out of wood. Both of us write through the morning, then have a light lunch and do a little physical exercise together. I’m glad you came out, Mr. Robicheaux. I think so highly of Alafair. She’s a great person. I know you’re proud of her.”
    He was patronizing and presumptuous, but nevertheless I wondered if I hadn’t been too hard on him; if indeed, as Clete had suggested, I’d had my own agenda when I’d brought Clete to the Abelard home.
    When Kermit was only a teenager, his parents had disappeared in a storm off Bimini. Their sail yacht had been found a week later on a sunny day, floating upright in calm water, the canvas furled, the hull and deck clean and gleaming. I suspected that regardless of his family’s wealth, life had not been easy for Kermit Abelard as a young man.
    Earlier I mentioned that his ancestors had not invested themselves in the comforting legends of the Lost Cause. But as I glanced at a glassed-in mahogany bookcase, I realized that southern Shintoism does not necessarily have to clothe itself in Confederate gray and butternut brown. A Norman-Celtic coat of arms hung above the bookcase, and behind the glass doors were clusters of large keys attached to silver rings and chains, the kind a plantation mistress would wear on her waist, and a faded journal of daily life on a southern plantation written in faded blue ink by Peter Abelard’s wife. More significantly, the case contained framed photographs of Kermit’s grandfather, Timothy Abelard, standing alongside members