"No, man, I tole you, he's a sick, violent motherfucker been beating up people around here for years. He done it, just like some crazy person been wanting to hurt somebody a long time. Hey, you ax me if I'm bothered about that cunt, what's her name, Helen Soileau? Anything happen to her, man, she deserve. Now, that good enough? 'Cause I got a bidness to run."

"Thanks a lot, Jimmy. I need to go to the rest room a minute. Stay cool and I'll be back to check a couple of fine points with you, then you'll be on your way," Dartez said.

He popped the cassette tape out of the recorder and walked around the corner to the interview room and tapped on the door. When I opened it a crack, he wagged the cassette in the air and winked.

Tee Bobby sat at the interview table, leaning forward on his forearms, his hands balling and unballing, a twitch at the corner of one eye. He peeled a candy bar we had bought him from the machine by the courthouse entrance and began eating it, his eyes busy with thoughts that he did not share.

"You want another cup of coffee?" Helen asked.

"I got to use the bat'room," he said.

"You just went," she said.

"I ain't feeling too good. You said I was s'pposed to identify somebody."

"Be patient, Tee Bobby. Come on, I'll walk you down to the rest room," Helen said.

While they were gone, I went to my mailbox, picked up the cassette tape that Kevin Dartez had placed there, and walked down to my office, where Mack Bertrand, from the crime lab, waited for me.

Dartez's interview with Styles was not a long one. We listened to it in a few minutes, and it was easy to isolate the material that I thought would be most helpful to Helen and me.

"Can you excerpt those few lines and get them on another tape without too much trouble?" I said.

"No problem," he said, his pipe inverted in his teeth.

"I'll go back to the interview room. When you've got it, just bang on the door, okay?"

"Call me up later in the day and tell me how all this came out," he said.

"Sure," I said.

"Whenever I run into Amanda Boudreau's parents I feel guilty. Our twins are going to graduate next year. Every day of our lives is a pleasure. The Boudreaus did all the things good parents are supposed to do, but their ' daughter is dead and they'll probably wake up miserable every morning for the rest of their lives. Just because some bastard wanted to get his rocks off."

"Thanks for your help, Mack. I'll call you later," I said.

I went into the rest room and washed my hands and face and blew out my breath in the mirror. I could feel the adrenaline pumping in my veins now, in the same way a hunter feels it when a large animal, one with a heart and nerve endings and mental processes not unlike his own, suddenly comes into focus inside a telescopic sight.

I dried my hands and face with a paper towel and went back to the interview room. Tee Bobby was drinking coffee from a paper cup, the soles of his shoes tapping nervously on the floor.

"You going to make it?" I asked.

"Make it? What you mean 'make it'?"

I pulled up a chair across from him. "Remember back there in the cruiser, you told me you didn't 'shoot' anyone?" I said.

"Yeah, that's what I said."

"You used the word 'shoot,'" I said.

"Yeah, I said I ain't shot nobody. Is that hard to understand?"

"You didn't say you didn't 'kill' anybody."

"This is bullshit, man. I want to go back home," he said.

"Why do you avoid using the word 'kill,' Tee Bobby?" I asked.

"I ain't playing no word games wit' you." His eyes fluttered toward the ceiling, where he examined an air duct as though it were of great complexity.

"You want another candy bar?" I said.

"I want to go. I ain't sure this is a good idea no more."

There was a tap on the door. I opened it and Mack Bertrand handed me a cassette recorder. He was wearing a raincoat and a hat, and his ascetic face looked hard-edged and dark under the brim of his hat. He walked away without speaking.

"Who's that?" Tee Bobby asked.

"There's been a development here, Tee Bobby. I think it's only fair you know everything that's going on. Walk around the corner with me," I said, getting up from the chair.

"What's he doin', Miss Helen?" Tee Bobby asked.

"Time you knew your enemy, Tee Bobby," she replied.

"My enemy?" he said.

I opened the door and slipped my hand under his arm. The muscles in his arm were flaccid, without tone, like soft rubber.

"Where we goin'?" he asked.

We walked to the glass window that gave onto the interior of Kevin Dartez's office. Tee Bobby's eyes bulged in his head when he saw Jimmy Dean Styles sitting in front of Dartez's desk, rolling his shoulders, rotating a crick out of his neck, the profile and down-hooked nose like a sheep's.

"Why's he here?" Tee Bobby said.

"Jimmy Dean just made a statement. You know how he operates, Tee Bobby. Jimmy Dean's not about to take somebody else's bounce," I said.

"Statement 'bout what?"

"The shit's in the fire, partner. You want to go down for this guy?"

"You saying he-" Tee Bobby stopped and squeezed his mouth with his hand as though he were about to be sick.

"Let's go back to the interview room," I said, draping my arm over his shoulders. "Listen to this tape I have, then tell us what you want to do. You can be in the driver's seat on this."

Tee Bobby was breathing hard now, the pulse jumping in his neck.

"What he tole you, man?" he said, looking backward over his shoulder at Dartez's office. "What that son of a bitch tole you?"

I closed the door to the interview room behind us and pulled out a chair for Tee Bobby. I placed my hand on his shoulder. His shirt was damp, his collarbone as hard as a broomstick.

"Calm down, kid. Eat another candy bar," Helen said. "It's not as bad as you think. You've got choices. Everybody knows Jimmy Sty is a liar and a pimp. Just don't take his weight."

I pressed the Play button on the recorder. The voice of Jimmy Dean Styles seemed to leap from the speaker: "Tee Bobby's a hype and a ragnose. He got a thing for white cooze, too."

"You committed no form of assault or what could be interpreted as such?" the voice of Kevin Dartez said.

"Man, I tole you, he's a sick, violent motherfucker. He done it, just like some crazy person been wanting to hurt somebody a long time. Hey, you ax me if I'm bothered about that cunt? Anything happen to her, man, she deserve," Styles's voice said.

I snapped off the recorder. The sound of Tee Bobby's breathing filled the silence. Sweat had popped on his forehead. His tongue looked like a gray biscuit in his mouth.

"Is what he says correct?" I asked.

"I cain't believe it. Jimmy Dean put it on me? Man, that lying- How I got in this? If they just hadn't been there. If they had been anyplace else. If we'd gone to drink beer at the drive-in instead of by the coulee. I cain't believe this is happening, man." He squeezed his hands in his lap and rocked in the chair.

"You heard what Miss Helen said, Tee Bobby. Don't take Jimmy Dean's weight. Time to lay down your burden, partner," I said.

"You got that right. I'm gonna cook his hash, man. You want to know how it went down? Push on your recorder. Get that videotape machine going. Jimmy Dean call it cooling out a white broad. That's the kind of dude he is, all 'cause they was making too much noise."

"Yeah, too much noise. That can be a real problem," Helen said, a look of unrelieved sadness in her eyes.

There are stories no one wants to hear. This was one of them.