The Little Death (34 page)

“Now, what is it?” Osborn demanded.

“How about we go talk in your study?” Louis said.

Osborn stared at him for a moment, shrugged, and walked away. Louis and Swann followed.

The study was just as it was the first time Louis saw it, the heavy shutters closed, the lights off. Osborn flicked a lamp on as he entered. He went to the leather chair behind his desk and sat down. Swann assumed a position near the door, sunglasses in his hand, eyes in a squint, fighting the throb in his head. Louis took one of the chairs opposite the desk without being invited.

“Make it quick,” Osborn said. “I have a tennis date in ten minutes.”

It was an excuse; the guy looked like he had just gotten off the courts. But Louis wasn’t about to let this asshole dismiss them like he had poor Greg.

Louis pulled the photograph of the sword from his pocket and laid it on the desk. “Do you recognize this?”

Osborn grabbed the photograph. Louis watched the guy’s face, but there was nothing except impatience.

“This is a German officer’s sword,” Osborn said. “I have one—”

He froze.

“You have one just like it, right?” Louis said.

Osborn looked at Swann. “Yes, I have one.”

“Can we see it?” Louis asked.

Something crossed Osborn’s eyes, a cloud of confusion, maybe, but the irritation was close behind. He pushed himself from the chair and went to a dark corner of the large study. He hit a switch, illuminating the inside of the glass-faced cabinets Louis had noticed on his first visit. One cabinet held antique handguns, and Louis guessed that several were German Lugers. But the other cabinet held a display of bladed weapons.

Osborn opened the second cabinet and peered at the weapons for a moment before he turned back to Louis.

“It’s not here,” he said.

Louis rose and went to the cabinet. There were six swords mounted on brackets. There was one set of empty brackets. There were also four daggers, a bayonet—and two machetes.

When Louis looked back at Osborn, he couldn’t tell if the guy was a great actor or genuinely surprised that
the sword was gone. But Louis could almost see the gears in his head turning.

“I like your machetes,” Louis said. “Can I take a look at them?”

“They’re quite valuable,” Osborn said.

“I’ll be careful.”

Osborn took the smaller of the two machetes off its brackets and handed it to Louis. It was a good eighteen inches long, and its wood handle was topped with a carving of a dog’s head.

“Very nice. Where is it from?” Louis asked.

“The Philippines,” Osborn said. “It’s late-eighteenth-century.”

“It’s a military weapon?”

“The natives used it against their colonial invaders,” Osborn said. “Now, if you don’t mind—”

Louis swung the machete in a slow arc, making Osborn back away. “What’s with the dog’s head?”

“The head prevented it from slipping from the user’s grasp,” Osborn said tightly. “The end of the blade is rounded so that after it was embedded, it wouldn’t get trapped in the opponent’s body.”

Louis glanced back at Swann. He was still standing by the door, looking even greener than before.

“May I have that back?” Osborn asked, holding out his hand.

Louis ignored him and set the machete back on its brackets. He lifted the second one out. It was very heavy, the blade more than two feet long and four inches wide.

Louis let out a low whistle. “What was this one used for?”

“It’s Mexican,” Osborn said. “It might have been used for clearing brush.” He paused. “Or slaughtering cattle.”

The machete felt awkward and too heavy and unbalanced to swing with one hand. Louis switched to a two-handed grip, holding the machete chest high, aiming it at the floor. He could almost feel the power such a blade would deliver.

He glanced at Osborn. The guy was sweating. Louis smiled and carefully set the Mexican machete back in its place.

Osborn closed the cabinet. “If you don’t have any other questions, I have—”

“Just a few more, Mr. Osborn, and then we’ll let you get to your tennis game.”

Osborn just stood there, his eyes locked on Louis.

“Any idea where your sword went?” Louis asked.

“I don’t have to answer any questions from you,” Osborn said.

“Maybe not, but you’ll have to tell the police here if you want to make an insurance claim.”

Osborn looked at Swann and back at Louis. “Look, anybody could have come in here and taken the damn thing. The cleaning lady, the cable guy. You know how those people are. We’ve had things go missing from this house before.”

“Maybe you should put some locks on your doors,” Louis said.

“Maybe I will,” Osborn said.

The phone rang. Osborn made no move to pick it up, and after three rings, it stopped. The button stayed lit and began to blink. Osborn glanced at it, then back at Louis.

“Do you know Dickie Lyons?” Louis asked.

“Lyons? Yes, I know him. Why are you asking me about him?”

“Is he a good friend of yours?”

Osborn gave a snort of disgust. “You’re kidding, right?”

“Never more serious. Is he a good friend of yours?”

Osborn’s eyes went to Swann, still standing behind Louis. When he looked back at Louis, he was smiling.

“Dickie Lyons is a turd.”

“In what way?”

Osborn was looking at Swann again. “Maybe you can explain it, Lieutenant. Tell this young man how things are here.”

Swann was silent.

“So, you don’t have any associations with Lyons?” Louis asked. “No business deals, no little hunting trips with the boys.”

“Hunting?” Osborn shook his head. “Look, I don’t know what this is about, but I’ve never had anything to do with Dickie Lyons. He’s a two-bit circus huckster who thinks he can buy his way onto the A-list.”

The phone rang again. This time, Osborn pounced on it. He grunted a few impatient words into the receiver and hung up.

“Are we done?” he said.

Louis knew there was only one strategy left. It was the pigpen philosophy: Throw shit at the wall, and see if anything sticks.

“Do you know a man named Paul Wyeth?”

Osborn shook his head.

“You have any whips?”

“Whips? No.”

“Have you ever been in Immokalee?”

“Good Lord, no. Why would I?”

“How about Clewiston? Ever tooled through there late one night?”

Osborn was quiet.

“You ever heard of Devil’s Garden?”

“I think you should leave.”

In the half-light cast by the lamp, Osborn’s eyes were shadowed, leaving only his mouth visible. Nothing. There was nothing to see.

Osborn went to the door. He jerked it open and held out his hand. “Gentlemen.”

Louis caught Swann’s eye, and they left the study. The door closed behind them.

“I’m sorry,” Swann said.

“About what?”

“I was no help.”

Louis’s head was pounding from his hangover. “Don’t worry about it, Andrew.”

They found their way back to the entrance hall and outside. Louis noticed that the silver Mercedes was gone. He wondered if the white Bentley could be the one that had been seen in Clewiston. Hell, he wondered about a lot of things right now.

As they were getting into the Mustang, the front door of the mansion opened. Osborn came out, dressed in the same clothes. Louis was tempted to ask him where his racket was, but Osborn put on his sunglasses, got into the Bentley, and drove off.

“Should we follow him?” Swann asked.

“Only if he had a machete in his hand.”

Louis got in and started the engine. He unhooked the levers so he could put the top down, thinking they could both use the fresh air. As the top whirred down, Louis glanced into the rearview mirror. Greg was coming out of the house, clutching his leather datebook and keys. He went to the blue Camry, opened the door, and paused.

He came up to Louis’s side of the car. He just stood there, face drawn, as he kept looking back at the house and then down the street.

“You got something to tell me, Greg?” Louis asked.

“I don’t know,” Greg said.

“Yes, you do.”

Greg looked over at Swann, and when his eyes came back to Louis, they were anguished.

“They had a fight last night,” he said.

“About what?”

“They’ve fought before, but it was bad last night.”

Louis stayed silent. Greg wanted to talk, it was clear.

Greg’s eyes went up to the house again. “He lied to you. He was here five years ago. You know, when all the stuff was going on with that private eye. Tucker was here. And he—”

Greg wiped a hand over his brow. “I don’t want to see the senator hurt. I just…”

“Tell us what you know, Greg.”

“He’s not a good man,” Greg said. “I’ve seen it. Five years ago, one night, I saw him push her down the stairs. She broke her arm.” He shook his head slowly. “Last night, he was yelling at her, saying she wouldn’t be where she was if it wasn’t for him. And that she’s never going to get any farther without him.”

“What do you think he meant?”

“Tucker’s always throwing it back in her face that she was nothing before he married her, that she never could have gotten elected to anything without his money, that he got her to the right people. He’s always telling her that—that he made her what she is.”

“Is that true, Greg?”

Greg shook his head. “He made her unhappy, that’s what he made her.”

Louis glanced at Swann, who looked stricken.

“Greg, I have to ask you something,” Louis said. “Did she have a lover?”

Greg had been looking back up at the house, and his eyes swung to Louis. Louis saw a mix of emotions in the young man’s face—loyalty, fear, conflict—and he knew that even if Greg Bitner knew the truth, he wouldn’t tell.

“Did you ever hear her say the name Emilio?” Louis asked. “Or Paul? Or Mark?”

“I have to go,” Greg said.

He went back to the Camry and got in, starting the engine. He pulled out and, without a look back at Louis, drove quickly away.

When they got back to Reggie’s house, Swann disappeared into a bedroom. Louis found Mel sitting at the table by the pool with a tray of coffee, toast, and Bonne Maman strawberry preserves. He was reading the
Shiny Sheet
with his magnifying glass and looked up as Louis sat down across from him.

Louis picked up the last piece of toast, but the jam jar was empty. “You could have left me some jelly, you know.”

“Try the cheese,” Mel said, pointing to the box of Muenster cheese.

“I told you I won’t eat that shit.”

“Just open the box, Rocky.”

With a tired sigh, Louis pulled the round box over and flipped off the lid. Inside was a big wad of bills bound by a rubber band.

“I found it this morning when I was looking for something to eat,” Mel said. “There’s twelve grand there. All in hundreds.”

“Kent said he didn’t have any money, so it must belong to Durand,” Louis said.

“And it must have come from the women,” Mel said. “So, where’d you and Andrew run off to this morning?”

Louis put the money back in the cheese box. “We went and saw Osborn,” he said.

“What did he say about the sword?”

“He didn’t know it was gone. But the guy has two machetes.”

Mel raised a brow. “Could they be a match?”

“They were sharp and clean. One looked big enough to kill a cow.”

Louis filled him in on the other questions he had asked Osborn, ending with the fact that Osborn claimed he had no dealings with Dickie Lyons.

“You believe him?” Mel asked.

“To hear Osborn say it, Lyons is scum. Why would he bother with a guy like Lyons?”

Mel sat up, swinging his legs to the ground. “Maybe he looked at him as someone who could provide a service.” Mel picked up a notebook and flipped back a page. “I found Barney Lassiter today.”

“The PI?”

Mel nodded. “He’s still up in the Panhandle, but we had a long talk about the surveillance he did on Carolyn Osborn. The guy has logs of everyone who came and went at the Osborn home. Guess who shows up in his records?”

“Lyons?”

“Bingo. He says Dickie’s company was hired by the Osborns to book the entertainment for Carolyn’s election-night party five years ago. He’s got a photograph of Lyons talking to Tucker Osborn out by the pool. The photograph was taken a week before Emilio Labastide disappeared.”

“That doesn’t mean anything. Like you said, Osborn probably looks at Lyons as hired help.”

“Yeah, but maybe he was hired for something else.”

Louis was quiet.

“I was thinking about what Andrew said about Carolyn Osborn and Tink Lyons having the same lover,” Mel said, flipping to a new page in his notebook. “I did some calling around this morning to find out more about them. Like Margery said, Tink’s parents died when she was in her twenties, leaving her with a small trust and an old house down here in Palm Beach. Tink rattled around in her crumbling house like one of those old Bouvier bags, until the bank managing her trust finally had to step in. She did a short stint in a psych hospital.”

Louis shook his head. “How’d she hook up with Dickie?”

“Before he got into the entertainment business, he made his first millions in construction, building places like our tsarist dacha here.” Mel gestured toward the half-built mansion beyond Reggie’s bougainvillea bushes.
“Tink’s trust hired him to fix up her house. I guess he figured that while he was at it, he could fix up his reputation by marrying an heiress.”

“What about Carolyn Osborn?”

“Lassiter filled in a lot of those blanks,” Mel said. “Carolyn’s family owned orange groves and made money selling off their land to Disney back in the sixties. Carolyn got her law degree at Georgetown and did some legal work for the government. She got elected a Florida state representative in her thirties and was on the fast track, especially after she married Osborn. She won her election to the U.S. Senate pretty easily.”

Louis was quiet.

“She’s got a lot to lose,” Mel said.

Louis rose suddenly. “Why the hell would she risk it all by screwing around?”

Mel started to say something but stopped, his eyes going to the sliding glass door.