In the Electric Mist Page #7

But this was going to be the end

of the line for Murphy Doucet.

I wasn't planting evidence,

I kept telling myself.

I was just removing it

before a guilty man

could destroy it.

Why the hell

are y'all here?

We're here because of you,

Mr. Doucet.

We've been checking

all the unsolved murders

of females in areas

surrounding highways

during the time you were working

for the state police.

Rosie, I think

we just found the knife

that he used

on Cherry LeBlanc.

That knife

wasn't there.

I say it was,

and I say your fingerprints

are all over it.

I see.

You and this Mexican b*tch

are in on it together, huh?

No, Murphy.

I'm f***ing you

all by myself.

Get your hands up now.

Get your hands up,

up against that...

up against that wall.

Y'all are setting me up,

and I don't even know why.

Think about it.

Think hard.

Think all the way back

to 1965,

just before

that hurricane hlt.

Y'all made DeWitt Prejean

run with that chain

locked around his chest,

shot his leg out

from underneath him.

You didn't notice the boy

that was watching you

from across the swamp,

though, did you?

I don't know how you did it,

but you planted that knife.

Time is always on

the bad guy's side, Rosie.

We wait for warrants while

they deep-six the evidence.

I didn't hear

what you said.

Jesus wienie, Dave.

Y'all done

tore this place to pieces.

You want to stay behind

and clean it up?

I don't want to be

nowhere around here

when that guy

gets home.

You heard he's out on bond?

Screw that.

He'll be here

any minute.

We got nothing.

Alfie.

You know where

your little girl's at?

She's right here

on my knee.

You sound speechless.

Turn her loose,

Doucet.

You don't want

to do this.

I'll make it simple

for both of us.

You take that knlfe

out of the evldence locker,

you put it in a Ziploc bag.

At 8:
00 tomorrow morning,

you leave the bag

In a trash can

on the corner of Royal

and St. Anne in New Orleans.

You listen to me,

Doucet.

Think about this.

You're a cop.

You can skate on this.

We've been jacking you around

the whole time.

You lying

son of a b*tch.

You won't rest till you

f*** me up every way you can.

You said

only one thing right today:

I'm going to skate.

And you're

going to help me.

Finally

lost your mind, Dave?

Young lady, you need

to stay away from this man.

Okay, let's go.

Get out of here.

Come on, let's go.

Nothing good

on TV tonight, Dave?

Murphy Doucet

has my daughter.

Did you hear

what I said?

That's too bad.

I don't like

to hear stuff like that.

It upsets me.

Hey, maybe you can get her face

on one of them milk cartons.

Where's my daughter, Julie?

Where's Alafair at?

I cut Doucet loose.

I got nothing to do

with what he does.

You get off

my f***ing back

or I swear to God,

I'll square this.

Cop or not,

I'll put out on open contract.

I'll cowboy

your whole f***ing family.

Your window of opportunity's

closing down.

Where's my baby girl?

I'm telling you

the truth.

I got nothing to do

with what he does.

He's a geek.

I don't hire geeks.

I run them off.

Last by God chance.

He's got a camp

out by Bayou Vista,

almost at Atchafalaya Basin.

The deed's

not in his name.

Nobody knows about it.

It's at the end

of the dirt road,

by the salt marsh.

Alafair there?

I hope to God

she's not.

Alfie!

Come here.

Did he hurt you, baby?

I told him

he better not.

I told him

what you do.

I just shot a man

armed with a rolled-up magazine.

No, no.

He had a gun on him.

You just don't

remember it yet.

You okay?

Should I call my lawyer?

Mr. LeMoyne,

I saw you

and Murphy Doucet

kill DeWitt Prejean

out on the Atchafalaya.

I watched it

from across the swamp.

Your crippled brother

couldn't kill DeWitt,

so you did it for him.

Am I under arrest?

I think Murphy Doucet's

been blackmailing you with it

all these years.

A lot of bad things happened

back in that era

between the races.

But we're not

the same people

we were then,

are we?

I think we are.

You seem unable

to let the past rest.

It's been my experience

that you let go of the past

by addressing it.

Please, leave.

It won't make

any difference if I leave.

You're going to drag this one

around with you all day long

every day,

like a log chain,

for the rest of your life.

Have you no mercy, sir?

No, sir.

No, sir, I don't.

Julie Balboni

finally went down,

but in a way

nobody expected,

in a beef

with the IRS.

They shipped Baby Feet

up to a maximum security unit

at Leavenworth, Kansas,

a place that,

in wintertime,

makes you believe

that sub-zero winds blow from

four directions simultaneously.

Elrod Sykes

never took another drink.

He brought Alafair to the set

and gave her a little part

in the movie.

Months later,

when the picture was finished,

he called us from California

to say that Alafair

had been his salvation.

I thought in the morning mists

that curled around the bayou

I might again see

General John Bell Hood,

just a glimpse,

perhaps,

a doff of his hat,

the kindness

of his smile,

the beleaguered affection

that always seemed

to linger in his face.

Then as the days passed

and I began to let go of all the

violent events of that summer,

I came to accept that the

General, as Bootsie had said,

was only a figment

of my imagination,

there to remind me

out of the distant past

that the contest

is never quite over,

the field never quite ours.

Dave?

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