Black Jack Point (6 page)

She listened. In the quiet roll of the waters she heard them threatening Ben, shoving him into a chair, Ben protesting. She
lay very still, breathing through her mouth.

She heard a phone ring. Ring. Click on. ‘Good afternoon, this is Stoney Vaughn.’

‘Good afternoon, Stoney.’ Danny’s voice was creamy as butter. ‘This is your friend Danny, from New Orleans.’

A pause, then Stoney, annoyed, ‘I told you to quit calling me, you fucking nut.’

‘We’ve got your brother and his girlfriend.’

Silence.

‘You weren’t on your little boat today. Were you too busy killing people, stealing, ruining lives?’

‘Stoney,’ Ben said. ‘He says you took something of theirs?’

Silence again. ‘They’re lying. Is this some sort of sick joke?’

‘The Devil’s Eye, Stoney. Give it to me – along with the journal you stole and a big freaking wad of cash, just to make up
for all the grief you’ve caused me – and we’ll be even. And I’ll let Ben and his friend go.’

Then Stoney’s voice, not much more than a whisper, ‘I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about …’

Claudia struggled to a kneeling position, fumbled for the handle, started cranking open the porthole.
See if you can slide through the porthole. Get up to the deck. Radio for help. Now, while they’re occupied.

Slowly, the pane of glass began to rise.

‘So you haven’t seen Jimmy since Monday?’ David Power asked Linda Bird. He didn’t like to sit during questionings; he liked
to stand. Pace around the room a little like a lawyer. Because the interviewee was always nervous talking to the police, guaranteed
nervous, even if they were as pure and innocent as a half dozen saints, and him standing made them a little smaller. That
was the goal, make them feel small and they’d crack. The Encina County sheriff, Randy Hollis, sat across from Linda Bird,
doodling interlocking circles on a legal pad.

Jimmy Bird’s wife looked up at David. Her hair was cut in a style last fashionable ten years ago, frazzled from home dye jobs.
A small patch of acne scars, badly camouflaged with makeup, dimpled her cheeks. ‘Yes. I told you that already.’

She wasn’t feeling small enough yet. He crossed his arms. ‘No need to get upset, if you don’t got anything to hide, Linda.’

‘You either believe me or you don’t,’ Linda Bird said. ‘If he’s gonna keep asking me the same things again and again, like
a fucking parrot, I’m getting me a lawyer, because then he’s just trying to trick me.’ She glared over at Sheriff Hollis.

‘I’ll call you a lawyer right now, Mrs Bird,’ Sheriff Hollis said. He had a low, pleasant voice, the kind that made for good
radio. ‘But no one is accusing you of anything except being Jimmy’s wife, and we just want to know where he might have gone
to.’

‘Jimmy mention any places he might like to go? Where’s he got family?’ David asked.

‘All his family’s either in the cemetery or Tivoli, and none of ’em like him.’

‘Names of his family in Tivoli?’

She gave them, an aunt and two male cousins.

‘Patch fired Jimmy, what, a year ago?’

‘Right before Labor Day.’

‘Why?’

‘Jimmy got mad that Patch wanted him to work on a Saturday and called him a motherfucker under his voice. Patch heard him
and fired him on the spot. Jimmy begged him for another chance, but Patch said he’d crossed a line and he wasn’t getting even
a toe back over it.’ Linda Bird lit a cigarette without asking permission; David glanced at Sheriff Hollis, who let it slide.

‘Did Jimmy hold a grudge?’

‘He really wanted that job back – Patch was a good man, easy to work for most of the time, and doing odd jobs for him wasn’t
too much hard work – but Jimmy’s pride got the best of him. He talked about screwing Patch over.’

‘How?’

‘Flattening a tire, sugaring his tank. Kid stuff.’ She tapped ashes into a coffee cup. ‘He sure as hell didn’t mention murder.
Jimmy don’t even like to spank our four-year-old. I’ve never been afraid of him and if he could go off and kill two people
just like that’ – here she snapped her fingers – ‘Then I don’t know him. And if he’s gone dangerous, I want police protection
for me and my little girl.’

A patrol officer stuck his head into the interrogation room. ‘David? Your other appointment’s here.’ David nodded and the
dispatcher shut the door.

‘You got a suspect?’ Linda asked.

‘It’s on another case,’ David said.

‘Aren’t you the busy bee?’

‘How’s the marriage?’ Sheriff Hollis set down his pen.

A pause. ‘I filed for divorce last week. He knew it was coming.’

‘So he might have reason to leave town.’

‘He might. Although he’d hate to leave our girl, Britni. He does love her – I give him that, even if he don’t got the sense
God gave a goose.’

‘Why’d you file?’ David asked.

‘Irreconcilable boredom.’

Randy Hollis leaned forward. ‘If Jimmy calls you, Linda, what do you do?’

‘Tell him to stay the hell away. If he’s innocent in this, then he should come forward. If he’s guilty, give up. For Britni’s
sake. Is this all?’

‘Judge Mosley’s conducting an inquest. He may call you for a statement.’

‘He’s okay,’ she said with a contemptuous glance at David. ‘A judge’s robe ain’t the same as a uniform, doesn’t make a man
turn mean.’

David felt his temper rise. ‘You be clear on this, Linda. Your husband calls you, you don’t offer him any help. You don’t
want to be an accessory. I don’t want to be charging you. Putting your little girl through that grief.’

‘Try it without proof,’ she said. ‘This ain’t Red China.’

She wasn’t going to get small, David saw, so he asked Linda Bird a few more questions he already knew the answers to and dismissed
her. She left and David had his hand on the door when Sheriff Hollis said, ‘David. About Lucy Gilbert.’

‘What?’

‘Are you just taking another statement or questioning her as a suspect?’ Asked like he didn’t know the answer, and David could
tell he did.

‘Questioning her.’

‘Why?’

‘She and Suzanne Gilbert are Patch Gilbert’s only relatives. They stand to benefit from his death.’

‘That aside, what you got on her?’

‘She runs a disreputable business.’

‘You talking about that psychic hotline thing?’ Hollis said. ‘How’s that disreputable? My mother calls it, says the girls
on the phones are real nice and insightful.’

‘You like your mother pissing away her Social Security on phone psychics?’

‘She can piss her money how she pleases. I heard Lucy Gilbert’s dating Whit Mosley.’

‘So?’

‘His Honor’s not a big friend of yours, is he?’ Hollis capped his pen, gave David an unexpected frown.

‘We get along fine.’

‘No, you don’t. You’ve never gotten along with him. Never made the effort, far as I can see.’ Hollis stood, wadded up his
page of doodles. ‘You got a reason to suspect Lucy Gilbert, a solid lead, you go for it. You questioning her because she’s
the girlfriend of a guy who’s a pain in your ass, forget it. I won’t have an officer of mine abusing his position.’

‘I resent that. Deeply.’

‘I wouldn’t want you to resent it shallowly, David,’ Hollis said. ‘We clear?’

‘Crystal.’ David kept his voice steady. ‘I need clarification on some items in her statement. That’s all. In fact, my friend
Judge Mosley and I are supposed to drive in together to Corpus for the autopsy results and to meet with the forensic anth
team.’

‘Good. Keep playing nice.’ Hollis left.

David Power unclenched his fingers. Odd. Hollis was a Democrat; Whit Mosley had been elected on the Republican ticket, although
Whit looked more like a guy who’d gotten lost and had wandered into a Green Party meeting
and stayed for the fashions. Why would Hollis take Whit’s side? But he saw it then: both of them from old Port Leo families,
the old moneyed families of the coast that didn’t include the Powers. Old family allegiances meant more than political party
lines.

It wouldn’t buy you an inch with him.

He stepped out into the hallway. Lucy Gilbert stood there, along with an older woman he presumed was her attorney. The lawyer
gave David a predatory glare, like a barracuda who’d missed breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

No sign of Whit. It surprised him; he thought Whit would be here, steam pouring from his ears. Perhaps, David decided, that
was best for the moment. But he turned his friendliest smile toward Lucy Gilbert.
You just make one teeny misstep, bitch, you had a thing to do with these murders, you’re mine.

‘Miss Gilbert? Thanks for coming in. I just had a few questions on your statement you gave the police. If y’all will just
step this way …’

Patch Gilbert’s older niece, Suzanne, lived in a grand development called Castaway Key, a series of streets and private docks
that few born and raised in Port Leo called home. Her house sat facing St Leo Bay, and in the summer afternoon the bay hummed
with craft: sailboats slicing the waves; jet skis buzzing like maddened bees; a pleasure boat loaded with urban weekenders
cutting near the shore, extra-bad eighties dance music drifting from its deck. Whit rolled up the window.

Castaway Key was not aptly named. Many houses went for a quarter million and higher. Whit supposed anyone dressed like Robinson
Crusoe, ambling along Castaway Key’s resort-named streets – such as Hilton Head Road or Cozumel Way – would be summarily brought
to him on charges of vagrancy.

Suzanne Gilbert’s house was white and modern, and it glittered with windows large enough to drive a car through. Delicate
palms and sprawling bougainvillea filled the beds near the curved stone driveway. Brightly painted Mexican tiles spelled out
the house number. Suzanne, an artist, seemed flush rather than starving. Or maybe Suzanne was house-poor, and this mansion
was a symptom of her supposed financial woes.

His cell phone beeped as he parked. ‘This is Judge Mosley.’

‘Judge. Hi. This is Linda Bird. I’m Jimmy Bird’s wife. I think you know who he is.’

‘I know we want to talk to him, ma’am.’

‘Well, I just talked with that prick David Power. I don’t want to talk to him no more, and the sheriff said I might have to
talk to you. So I’m talking because’ – she paused – ‘I find the deputy to be irritating.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘New Orleans. I think if Jimmy has run off he’s gone there. Couple of times last month I hear him, late at night on the phone,
talking, saying,
Alex.
I thought it was some drunk friend of his. They love to get tight and phone each other. Like goddamned teenagers.’

‘I see.’

‘Then the phone bill comes. We don’t know people in New Orleans but there’s three calls there, late at night. I pay the bills,
as I have the job. I ask him about who he’s calling, he says it’s a mistake. He’s a bad liar. I can tell he’s lying.’ She
paused. ‘So then I think maybe Alex is a girl. In New Orleans. How he got a girlfriend in New Orleans is beyond me, but I’m
telling you because I sure ain’t telling David Power. You want the number he called?’

‘Yes, ma’am, I do.’ She gave it to him and he jotted it down.

‘You tell David Power he better fucking treat me nicer next time he sees me, or I’m filing a complaint. I got a lawyer now,
what with getting the divorce, and I am in a filing mood.’

‘I sense your resolve, Mrs Bird. Thank you.’

‘You set bond on my brother last year,’ she said. ‘An amount we could handle. We appreciated it. I’m voting for you next time.’

He thanked her, stared at the phone number, nearly laughed.

Suzanne Gilbert opened the front door as he headed up the stairs. She wore black jeans, a black T-shirt, black sandals.
Idiotic in this heat,
Whit thought. Artist mourning clothes. She was very fair, attractive, a good five or six years older than Lucy. Her cheekbones
and chin and nose were all precise and perfect, as measured as an architect’s drawing.

She greeted Whit with a brief hug, so quick he wondered why she’d bothered. Whit suspected that Suzanne wanted to pat his
blondish hair flat or put him in a suit, tidy him up for Lucy. He saw her eyes take in his clothes with disapproval: the faded
polo shirt, the rumpled khakis, the sandals.

‘How are you holding up?’ he asked.

‘Barely am,’ she said in a tone that meant anything but.

Whit followed her into a high-ceilinged foyer and then to a living room. The furniture was modern and expensive, imported
teak, leather surfaces of tan and black, the carpet a creamy white, brave for a beachside house. Abstract art filled the walls,
lined the bookshelves. But all painted with the same crude hand, no eye for detail or form. Savagely mixed, the colors selected
to hurt the eye. Jackson Pollock without the restraint. Whit sensed a sudden meanness in the pictures. They were ugliness
disguising themselves as talent. He hated the pictures on first sight.

He followed her to an immaculate, steel-dominated kitchen. A man who looked like he might drag his knuckles when he walked
stood by the granite kitchen counter, drinking a bottle of Dos Equis. Big, thick-necked, with a shaved-bald head and wearing
a black T-shirt and faded denim overalls. A bracelet of intertwining tattoos whirled around one melon-shaped bicep.

‘I don’t think you’ve met my boyfriend, Roy Krantz. Hon, this is Whit Mosley. He’s the coroner and the JP here and he’s conducting
the inquest into Uncle Patch’s death.’ No, he hadn’t met Roy. The few parties and events where Lucy and Suzanne crossed paths,
Roy was always at home or sleeping or working on a sculpture. Roy shunned limelight, it seemed to Whit. Perhaps he had trouble
fitting through the front door.

Whit offered a hand; Roy shook it and didn’t try to squeeze Whit’s fingers into pulp.

The phone rang. ‘Excuse me,’ Suzanne said. ‘News has spread, and people want to bring over casseroles and cakes. You know
how it is when you have a death in the family. Everyone swarms over with comfort foods and you gain ten pounds.’

As though weight gain were her biggest worry. Whit thought she needed a cheeseburger. But he gave his solemn, conducting-the-inquest
nod. ‘Of course.’ She left the kitchen, scooped up a phone in the living room, spoke in a low voice.

‘You’re Lucy’s guy,’ Roy Krantz said. His voice was low and flat and sounded like it had been honed in a prison yard.

‘Yes.’

‘How’s she holding up?’

‘She’s talking to the police right now.’

Roy raised an eyebrow. ‘And what’s she saying?’

‘Family secrets, probably.’

Roy made a noise of thick beer-swallow, kept staring at him.

Suzanne returned. ‘Something to drink, Whit?’ Her voice glimmered a little too cheery, a little too hostess-bright.

‘No, thank you. May we talk now? Privately?’

‘Sure.’ Suzanne glanced at Roy, then led Whit down a hall thankfully empty of abstract art-pukings. Two doors opened off the
hall: one to a concrete-floored room cluttered with small iron sculptures of gulls, palm trees, flamingos, and assorted equipment;
the other to another studio, bright windows framing the view of the bay. A huge canvas leaned near one window, covered with
a stained dropcloth. A worktable stood nearby, dotted with oil paint in blues, mustards, venomous greens, as though poison
dripped on its surface. Finished paintings – more of the obnoxious scribblings that hung in the living room – decorated the
walls.

In one corner a huge roll of paper lay unfurled, with smears of bright acrylic paint dried on the paper. Whit glanced at it,
then glanced again. Two round magenta globes looked like they’d been pressed on the paper from small, pert breasts. A roll
of lime paint looked like a hip; multiple handprints lay in blue and pink. Other blobs resembled kneeprints, footprints, and
one squat figure eight looked like apple-green testicles. Suzanne wore a bent little smile on her architectural face.