City of Night

female, then you aren’t female, either. You don’t have a womb. You were not designed to produce a baby, and you cannot possibly become pregnant.”
    “We’ll see what Ibo has to say about that,” she replied smugly. “ Je suis rouge .”
    Studying the blinking blip as it moved on the screen, Benny said, “They’re cruising so slow…”
    “You want to make contact, block them to the curb, knock ‘em cold, and take them?”
    “Not here. This is the kind of neighborhood where people call the police. We’ll end up in a pursuit.” After watching the screen for another minute, he said, “They’re looking for something.”
    “For what?”
    “How would I know?”
    “Too bad Zozo Deslisle isn’t here,” Cindi said. “She has voodoo vision. Give her one look at that screen, and she’d know what they’re up to.”
    “I’m wrong,” Benny said. “They aren’t searching. They’ve found what they want, and now they’re casing it.”
    “Casing what? Thieves case banks. There aren’t any banks in this neighborhood, only houses.”
    As Benny squinted at the screen, feeling an answer teasing along the edge of his mind, the target abruptly accelerated. The red blip hung a U-turn on the screen and started moving fast.
    “What’re they doing now?” Cindi asked.
    “They’re cops. Maybe they got an emergency call. Stay with them. Don’t let them see us, but try to close to within a block. Maybe we’ll get an opportunity.”
    A minute later, Cindi said, “They’re heading for the Quarter. That’s too public for us.”
    “Stay with them anyway.”
    The detectives didn’t stop in the Quarter. They followed the curve of the river through Faubourg Marigny into the neighborhood known as Bywater.
    The blip on the screen stopped moving, and by the time the Lovewells caught up with the plainwrap sedan, in the first orange flush of twilight, it was parked near a church, in front of a two-story brick house. O’Connor and Maddison were nowhere to be seen.
     
     
     

Chapter 47
     
    Carson sat across the kitchen table from Lulana St. John, cater-corner to Pastor Kenny Laffite.
    Michael stood near the cooktop, where Evangeline was heating a Mason jar frill of milk in a pot of water.
    “Heating it directly in a pan,” she told Michael, “you risk scalding it.”
    “Then it gets a skin, doesn’t it?” he asked.
    She grimaced. “Burnt scum on the bottom and skin on top.”
    The minister sat with his arms on the table, staring with horror at his hands. “I just suddenly realized I did it. Just by being me, I killed him. And killing is forbidden .”
    “Pastor Laffite,” Carson said, “you are not required by law to answer our questions without your attorney present. Do you want to call your attorney?”
    “This good man didn’t kill anybody,” Lulana protested. “Whatever happened it was an accident.”
    Carson and Michael had already conducted a quick search of the house and had not found either a dead body or any signs of violence.
    “Pastor Laffite,” Carson said, “please look at me.”
    The minister kept staring at his hands. His eyes were opened as wide as eyes could be, and they weren’t blinking.
    “Pastor Laffite,” she said, “forgive me, but you seem zoned-out and wigged-out at the same time. I’m concerned that you may recently have used an illegal drug.”
    “The moment I woke up,” said the minister, “he was dead or soon to be. Just by waking up, I killed him.”
    “Pastor Laffite, do you understand that anything you say to me now could be used against you in a court of law?”
    “This good man won’t ever be in a court of law,” Lulana said. “He’s just confused somehow. That’s why I wanted you two instead of others. I knew you wouldn’t leap to conclusions.”
    The minister’s eyes had still not blinked. They weren’t tearing up, either. They should have started to tear up from not blinking.
    From his post by the cooktop, Michael said, “Pastor, who is it you think you killed?”
    “I killed Pastor Kenny Laffite,” the minister said.
    Lulana gave herself to surprise with some enthusiasm, pulling her head back, letting her jaw drop, putting one hand to her bosom. “Praise the Lord, Pastor Kenny, you can’t have killed yourself. You’re sitting right here with us.”
    He switched from zoned to wigged again: “See, see, see, it’s like this, it’s fundamental. I’m not permitted to kill. But by the very fact of my existence, by the very fact, I am