The Little Death (19 page)

“I’m calling you a lousy cop with a real bad attitude.”

Barberry stepped to him and poked a finger at Louis’s chest. “Tough talk coming from a down-and-out colored boy with a paper PI license.”

Louis flexed his hand, then inhaled slowly. “Someone ought to euthanize you and put you out of your misery.”

“Huh?”

Louis walked away from him, a slow burn creeping up the back of his neck. As much as he wanted to deck Barberry and as good as he knew it would feel, he didn’t want Mel worrying about getting two people out of jail.

“I hate that fucker,” Louis said as he reached Mel.

“We need to help Reggie find a lawyer.”

“You know one who will work for free?”

Mel shook his head and reached for his cigarettes. Louis had one idea about the lawyer, but he didn’t want to mention it to Mel yet. It was a long shot, and he wasn’t sure Margery Laroche would actually back up her affection for “poor dear Reggie” with a hundred grand for legal fees.

And in the end, even the best lawyer wouldn’t be able to help Reggie Kent if there was no one looking for other evidence and other possible killers.

Louis looked to the house. The search was winding down. Officers were closing the doors on the back of the county evidence van, and the uniforms were heading to their cruisers. The cop by the door was gone.

“Did you see where Swann went?” Louis asked.

“Back in the house.”

Louis went inside. The place was empty, but it was clear it been searched. Most departments didn’t require or even ask that the officers replace anything moved during a search, and Barberry’s guys were no different. Rifled drawers hung open, books were dumped on chairs, and sofa pillows were strewn across the floor.

“Lieutenant Swann?” Louis called.

“Back here.”

Louis followed the voice to a bedroom at the end of the hall. The room had lemon-colored walls and bright floral-print curtains. The cops had given the room a thorough toss. The spread was heaped on the terra-cotta floor, along with pillows, magazines, and books. Drawers were still open, the contents searched. Even the Haitian painting had been taken off the wall and flung into a corner.

There was a glass étagère on one side of the room. The top shelf held a variety of things: a colorfully beaded apple, a snow globe from New York, a green speckled bowl, a gold pen set, a crystal Eiffel Tower, and a wooden box.

On the other side of the room, the double closet doors stood open. There were some pastel shirts and slacks still hanging, but the cops had thrown most of the clothes onto the bed and had rifled though the shoe boxes on the closet shelf. A Vuitton duffel sat open in the middle of the floor. Louis noticed the tag said
M. DURAND
.

“Is this Durand’s room?” he asked.

“Yeah.” Swann picked up the painting, looked around for a place to hang it, and finally just carefully propped it up on the floor against the dresser.

“I thought we had an arrangement here, Andrew,” Louis said.

Swann sighed. “I can’t argue with a search warrant, you know that. I came along to make sure Mr. Kent didn’t, either.”

Louis did know that, but he wasn’t going to cut Swann any slack. “What else do they have on Kent besides what they took out of here?” he asked. “Did Barberry tell you?”

Swann shook his head. “He walked into my office this morning waving the warrant and said I could come along or not. He didn’t offer any more information.”

Louis glanced again at the closet, noticing now that the bottom was bare. He was sure Barberry had taken all of Reggie Kent’s shoes, and he had apparently taken all of Durand’s as well. It was smart to take all of the shoes and hope for a match on something.

“Did you find that guy Labastide?” Swann asked.

“Not exactly, but I found his sister.”

“Sister?”

“Yeah. You met her once. Rosa Labastide.”

Swann’s brows knit in confusion. “When?”

“Five years ago,” Louis said. “She came to you to report her brother Emilio missing. She said you didn’t seem interested and that you told her Emilio probably just went back to Mexico.”

“I was just a patrolman five years ago,” Swann said. “How does she know it was me?”

“She remembered your name. Said it first in Spanish—
Cisne
. That means—”

“Swan,” Swann said.

Louis stared at him. “You speak Spanish?”

“Fluently.”

“And you still blew this woman off?” Louis asked. “Even after understanding every word she was trying to tell you?”

Swann dropped down on the edge of the bed. Louis could almost see his mental rifling of memories, and, given the pained expression on Swann’s face, his efforts to recall Rosa looked sincere.

“I think Emilio Labastide is dead,” Louis said. “And I think he was murdered.”

Swann looked up at him. “Then you did find him.”

Louis took a quick look out the bedroom door to make sure all of Barberry’s deputies were gone, then went back to Swann. It was time to bring him completely onboard the train or throw him under it.

“There was a decapitated body found over in Lee County in October of ’84, a short time after Labastide disappeared,” Louis said. “The man was buried without an ID, but I’m sure it’s Labastide.”

“How sure?”

“He matches the physical description, and he was found with a crucifix that looks a lot like the one his sister has.”

Swann sighed and leaned his head in his hands. Louis looked out at the patio, watching the easy roll of waves over the sand.

Louis knew that cops lived with regrets, all kinds of them. From not spending enough time with their families
to losing their tempers with mouthy suspects. But one of the worst regrets was that one time when you found yourself standing over a dead person you had met before. And you realized that at some time in the past, maybe a month or maybe a year before, you could’ve done something better. Made one more phone call, asked one more question, stayed one more hour at your desk.

Louis watched Swann, wondering how he could lure him completely over to his side. He couldn’t help but think about that Officer of the Month certificate on Swann’s office wall and Swann’s “heroic act” of saving the drowning dog. Louis had no idea if Swann had the smarts or the mettle for a real homicide investigation. Or if he had the stones to buck his own chief.

Swann looked up at him. “What can I do to help?”

Hell, what did he have to lose?

“You ever wanted to be a spy?” Louis asked.

“Didn’t every kid?” Swann said. “Who would I be spying on?”

“Barberry.”

They met an hour later at a Dunkin’ Donuts out near the airport. Mel paid for coffee and a bag of six doughnuts, three plain and three with sprinkles. They spotted Swann sitting in the back. As they slid into the orange plastic booth, Louis noticed Swann looking around uncomfortably.

“What’s the matter?” Louis asked.

“Nothing,” he said. “I’ve never been in a Dunkin’ Donuts before.”

“We weren’t sure you’d even know what a Dunkin’ Donuts was,” Mel said. “That’s why we gave you such detailed directions.”

“Oh, I’ve heard about these places,” he said. “This is where the real cops hang out, right?”

For about three seconds, the table was uneasily silent, then Swann broke into a grin. “Relax, guys. Let’s get this meeting going. I’ve only got an hour.”

“First, we need to know what Barberry has told you that we might not know,” Louis said.

“I know he’s still looking for that luxury car that was seen in Clewiston. He told me to ask around the island about cars Kent could have borrowed.”

“Did you?”

“I questioned Kent, and he said he regularly borrowed cars from some of his ‘lady friends,’ as he calls them. They even give him extra keys. I checked and found out two of them are light-colored luxury cars that could match the one seen going through Clewiston. So I approached the two women at a party I was working last weekend and discreetly asked them about it. Both said Kent hadn’t asked to borrow their cars in quite some time.”

“That helps,” Mel said. “Is there anything else we can use to eliminate Reggie as a suspect?”

“Not with regard to Durand’s murder,” Swann said. “But what about that other guy? Labastide? When was he killed?”

“The ME speculated he was killed two nights before he was found,” Louis said. “That makes it October 31, 1984. But I don’t think that will do us much good. What kind of person knows exactly where they were on a given night five years ago?”

Swann smiled. “I can tell you where Kent probably was.”

“Where?”

“Margery Laroche’s birthday party. Every year, she throws herself a Halloween birthday bash,” Swann said. “We work security and parking. I’d bet my job Kent was there.”

“Please tell me she keeps guest lists,” Mel said.

“Even better. Most of the names would have been printed in the
Shiny Sheet
along with a slew of pictures. It’s a big deal because everyone’s in costumes. And knowing Margery Laroche, she would have kept a copy of the paper.”

“Great,” Louis said. “I’ll go back and ask her about them.”

“That’s useful only if we can tie these two murders together,” Mel said. “But for right now, we need to find something to clear him of Durand’s murder.”

“You guys know about the cowboys out at the Archer ranch?” Swann asked.

“Cowmen,” Mel said.

“What?”

“They like to be called cowmen.”

Swann just stared at him.

“We know they found Durand’s body and that Barberry took all of their whips,” Louis said.

“The reports said that none of the whips had any human blood on them, and Dr. Steffel said that the one used on Durand was leather. The ones Barberry confiscated were nylon,” Swann said.

“Doesn’t mean they didn’t have leather whips somewhere else,” Mel said.

“Did you get to read any of the statements Barberry took from them?” Louis asked.

Swann shook his head. “No. But as far as I know, Barberry never seriously pursued any of the Archer workers as suspects. Never even ran backgrounds on any of them.”

“Jesus,” Mel muttered.

“Did you two talk to any of them?” Swann asked.

“No,” Louis said. He picked up a doughnut. It had lost some sprinkles, and he wet his finger to dab them up as he talked. “But we talked to the boss, a guy named Burke Aubry. He seemed sure none of them was involved. Said they wouldn’t desecrate the ranch land like that.”

“Not just the ranch land, Rocky,” Mel said. “Devil’s Garden.”

“What’s Devil’s Garden?” Swann asked.

“The area of the ranch where Durand was killed,” Louis said. “The family gave it to the state as a preserve.”

“The guy found over in Lee County,” Swann said. “How far is that from this Devil’s Garden?”

“About thirty miles,” Louis said. “But the weirder thing is, that body was found by a cowboy who worked for the Archers.”

Swann’s brow wrinkled. “That’s a helluva coincidence. So, tell me again why we’re taking this Aubry guy’s word that his men are innocent?”

Again, Louis noticed Swann’s use of the pronoun
we
. The guy obviously wanted in on this.

“We’re not,” Louis said. “But we could save ourselves some time if we had their statements so we could check them out for ourselves. Can you do that for us?”

Swann nodded. “No problem.”

Louis pulled his notebook out again and flipped it
open to the first empty page. For a cop, it was easy to sit down at a computer and summarize a witness interview or input leads and have it all at your fingertips when the puzzle pieces started to fall into place. But as a PI whose cases had ranged as far as the northern woods of Michigan, he had learned to rely on notebooks with colored tabs.

He flipped to the back. “What’s your home phone, Andrew?”

Swann reached into his wallet and pulled out a business card. Louis stuck it in his pocket.

“I guess the next thing we need to do is positively identify the body found in Lee County,” Louis said.

“Get me his prints,” Swann said. “I can match them to the ID card.”

“Lee County screwed up and didn’t take any,” Louis said. “The only chance we have at an ID is digging him up and hoping there is enough of him left to compare.”

“Then let’s do it,” Swann said.

“You don’t know the asshole sheriff over there,” Louis said. “He doesn’t care about someone like Labastide, and he plays golf with the district attorney. If we want to dig Labastide up, we have to pay for it ourselves.”

“It’s a long shot, but I know a few people in the prosecutor’s office over there,” Mel said. “Let me give it a try.”

“I have a question,” Swann said.

“Shoot.”

“Actually, I have a lot of questions.” Swann lowered his voice. “You probably can guess I’ve never worked a homicide before.”

Louis felt a twinge of pity for Swann. “You’re working one now, Andrew.”

Swann gave a small smile. “Okay, why would anyone in Palm Beach drive their victim all the way out past Clewiston to kill him? Why not just dump him in a canal in West Palm?”

Louis glanced at Mel. They had wondered the same thing, but without a suspect or a clear motive, there was no urgency to find the answer. But now, because they had two victims, it was time to give it some thought.

“We might be dealing with a serial killer,” Mel said. “And they have unique ways of doing things—signatures, rituals, call it what you want. It’s weird little details that only they understand that complete the act of murder for them.”

“And being at that cattle pen could be some sort of sick staging?” Swann asked.

“Yeah.”

“And the whip?”

“It may be important, but there was no indication in his autopsy report that the John Doe was whipped or tortured.”

Swann looked confused. “Then why are we tying these two murders together?”

“Because there might be a relationship link,” Louis said.

“Between who?”

Louis sighed. “I wish we knew.”

“We’re thinking this might be homosexual homicides,” Mel said.

“Because of Kent?” Swann asked.

Mel shook his head. “No, because of certain patterns we’re seeing. Both victims were similar in age and physical appearance. Also, both murders were extremely violent,
what we call overkill. Both victims had their throats slashed. The throat is a sort of pseudo sex organ among gays.”