‘Forget about it. I’m Agent Patrese of the FBI; this is Detective Fawcett, NOPD.’
Selma explained about Cindy’s murder. She left out Cindy’s personal information – name, job, address, and so on – but included as much detail from the crime scene as she could. She and Patrese had discussed this on the way down. Usual practice is to keep certain details of homicide scenes secret, in order to weed out the inevitable bunch of lunatics who ring up claiming to have done it, but Patrese and Selma had agreed that in this instance they had to share as much as possible. To someone who knew about snakes, the smallest detail might be significant.
‘Shoot,’ Kat said, when Selma had finished. ‘That’s terrible. Poor girl. Well, any way I can, I’ll help, of course. What would you like to know?’
‘Is there any particular significance to the Yucatan rattlesnake?’
‘Not that I know of.’
‘Are they, for example, the most poisonous rattlesnake?’
Kat shook her head. ‘No. They’re venomous, sure, but they ain’t top of the charts. Tiger, neotropical, Mojave, twin-spotted, western, diamondback – eastern and western – timber, pygmy, red diamond, rock; they’re all more venomous than the Yucatan.’
‘Are they easy to get hold of?’
‘Yes indeedy. If you go to Yucatan.’
Patrese laughed. ‘You deal with many yourself?’
‘A few. Not too many. But if people want to buy ’em, sure.’
‘You sell any recently?’
‘In the past year? A handful. Dozen, maybe.’
‘Can we see the customer list?’
‘No problem. I’ll dig it out.’ She gestured to the chaos on her desk. ‘It may take quite a while, though. I can’t be doing with all this computer stuff.’
‘And these dozen – they come from the Yucatan itself?’
‘Not any more. The first few, obviously, but ever since, I’ve bred them here.’
‘Can we see?’
‘Sure.’
She led them from the office into a large outbuilding. It was about the size of Varden’s office, but without the view, the furniture, or the art. Perspex cases marched in neat lines away from them.
‘Here are my babies,’ Kat said; jaunty, but with a tinge of sadness that Patrese clocked immediately. Many a true word, he thought. ‘Yucatans are at the far end, past the boas and pythons.’
They started off down the rows of cases, each with its own lighting and foliage. Patrese couldn’t help but think of those weird Tokyo capsule hotels he’d seen on TV, or of prisoners lounging in their cells, apathetic almost to the point of coma.
‘Must be pretty safety-conscious,’ Selma said.
‘Sure am. Cases are all secured, tops latched on. The holes you see let the air in but are too small to crawl through.’
‘What do they eat?’
‘In the wild, things like mice, rats, small rabbits. Here, I give them frozen rodents, pre-killed. Saves a lot of thrashing around.’
‘Probably better for the rodents, too.’
‘I guess. I got one of them big industrial freezers, and it’s full to burstin’. Darn things eat better than I do. Here.’ She tapped lightly against the front of a case. ‘This is one of the Yucatans here.’
Patrese and Selma peered closer, both aware that the only previous example they’d seen had been covered in Cindy’s blood. The rattlesnake, rough-scaled in muted blue and gray, peered back.
‘I’ll be honest,’ Kat said. ‘They ain’t the prettiest. I mean, to me, all snakes are beautiful, but some more than others.’
‘Are there any other breeders in the area?’
‘For Yucatans? Not that I know of. That’s not to say that …’ She stopped abruptly.
‘Not to say that what?’
Kat winced. ‘Listen, I don’t want to get no one in trouble, but it ain’t a secret that Louisiana laws are pretty lax when it comes to my line of business. A lot of states are a whole heap tougher. So if you were, let’s say, not so qualified, this is the kind of place you’d wanna come.’
‘You mean there could be breeders operating without official sanction?’
‘Exactly. And unless you can get FedEx or whoever to tell you who they deliver to, you ain’t never gonna find them. Not me, though. I’m fully registered.’
‘I’m sure you are.’
‘Listen, it’s hot as hell, ain’t it? Y’all want a lemonade or something?’
‘Please,’ Patrese and Selma said in unison.
‘There’s a terrace out there,’ Kat said, indicating a door. ‘Y’all make yourselves at home. I’ll be right back.’
The terrace was on the edge of the bayou itself. Patrese and Selma each took a seat, and for a moment were content merely to be still. The water sloshed mud and silt gently against the bank beneath them. A pair of butterflies flashed rainbow colors as they whirled around a black willow. Out on the marshes, herons stood like soldiers, looking toward the point where the archipelago petered out into the Gulf of Mexico.
Selma gave a little, sudden shiver. ‘You feel it?’ she asked; and the tone of her voice meant Patrese knew exactly what she was talking about, because he’d been thinking it too. There was a darkness out here in the bayou, a presence beyond man or animal. It was little wonder that swamp monsters featured so heavily in local folklore.
‘Yup.’
‘What do you think? About Kat?’
‘Overall? She’s on the level.’
‘Why so?’
‘Too eccentric not to be.’
Selma smiled. ‘One way of looking at it. Let’s wait and see what her customer lists come up with. And if Wildlife and Fisheries do have a case, that might mean leverage for us, if we ever need it.’
‘Of course.’
Kat came back with a jug of lemonade and three glasses.
‘Heck of a place you got here,’ Patrese said, as she poured.
‘Thank you. My own little bit of paradise. No neighbors, no cell-phone reception. Sometimes it seems like I’m the only one who wants to keep it this way, what with everyone trying to build on top or drill beneath. Fools. We’re supposed to be the most intelligent of animals, but sometimes I think we’re the dumbest, you know? That’s why I love snakes.’
‘Ms South, no disrespect,’ Selma said, ‘but Genesis, chapter three, says that the serpent was slier than all the animals of the field. It was the snake who tempted Adam and Eve in the Garden. It was the snake who spoke to them with forked tongue. The snake is not a creature to be loved. It’s a creature to be feared, and despised.’
Kat smiled. Patrese figured she must have heard all this before.
‘You can’t see it, can you, Detective?’
‘Can’t see what?’ asked Selma.
‘You see only the scales, the venom, the danger. You don’t see kaleidoscopes of color. You don’t see the elegance of their movements. You don’t see the purity of their design. No limbs, no ears, no eyelids. Evolution pared to the bone. May I ask: do you have children?’
‘What’s