The Little Death (38 page)

As usual, Barberry made them wait. They were sit- ting on a bench in an empty hallway a short distance away from the double doors of the Violent Crimes squad room. The background noise was a familiar mix of radio chatter, men’s voices, and distant sirens.

Louis had just gotten off the pay phone with Mel. There had been no lights on in Fleur de Lee and no answer at the door. Mel told him he also called the shop, hoping the business phone might be forwarded to Bianca’s home, but there had been no answer.

Since none of them had any law-enforcement authority, there was no way to locate a home address for Bianca or issue an APB for Byrne Kavanagh. They had no choice but to come back begging to Barberry.

Louis watched two deputies come down the hall. Their yellow slickers were dripping. Evidently, it was still raining like hell.

Swann was hunched forward, elbows on his knees, his hair still dripping water into the collar of his shirt. Louis had his head back against the wall, eyes closed. The kitten was in the Mustang, sleeping peacefully in a pillowcase. It was a trick Louis had learned a few years ago when he had to transport Issy to the vet and couldn’t find the cat carrier.

The bang of a door drew Louis’s eyes up. Barberry came toward them, an ugly tweed jacket slung over his shoulder and a pack of Camel cigarettes in his shirt pocket. So much for willpower, Louis thought.

Barberry kept his eyes on Swann as he came forward, taking obvious pleasure that there was no badge on Swann’s chest or belt.

“Guess things didn’t work out for you so well over there on Fantasy Island, huh?” Barberry asked.

Swann crossed his arms, and Louis watched the two of them stare at each other. Swann had come close to slugging Barberry once, and that was when he still had a job to worry about. Now that he didn’t, Louis wasn’t sure how much he was going to take from this dimwit, and he didn’t need Swann tossed in jail on an assault charge.

“Detective,” Louis said, “we need your help.”

Barberry turned to Louis. “What for?”

“We have a young man who’s missing,” Louis said. “He fits the same victim profile as the others, and he got the crap beat out of him last night by a jealous husband.”

Barberry sighed. “And I care about this why?”

Louis drew a slow breath before he went on. “Look, Detective,” he said, “we have three guys we think were fooling around with married women. They’re dead. Now we have a fourth man who was doing the same thing, and he’s missing. All we want from you is help finding him before
he
ends up dead.”

Barberry pulled at his chin. “Okay, I’ll give you a few minutes to convince me to call out the troops, but this time, I want to know
everything
you got on this. Everything.”

Louis had no faith that Barberry would do them any favors, but he also had no choice but to give him what he wanted and hope he had a sliver of decency. Finding Kavanagh would take a statewide APB, massive man-hours, and some legal authority to bust open a few doors. Things only Barberry could do.

“Talk, Kincaid.”

As Louis recapped the entire investigation, Barberry listened, his brow arching with interest at the mention of Senator Carolyn Osborn but then furrowing with skepticism when Louis tried to explain Bianca’s role as a madam.

But even as Louis wound his story down, he saw from Barberry’ superior expression that he had just surrendered whatever leverage he had.

Suddenly, Louis understood the man. Barberry wasn’t stupid, incompetent, or small-minded. He was just plain lazy, wanting others to do his work for him and then pissing on them so he could take the credit.

“I’ve listened to you,” Barberry said, “but now you explain one last thing to me. Why do the tracks left at that cattle pen exactly match those custom-made boots I took out of Kent’s house?”

Louis just stared at Barberry. He didn’t know the answer. Even if he did, he would never tell this asshole.

“Detective,” Louis said, “we came here to get your help. If you refuse to do your job and Byrne Kavanagh dies, you will regret it. I promise you.”

Barberry moved his jacket off his shoulder and took a notebook from the inside pocket. “You say you checked this flower store to see if this Kavanagh guy was there?”

“Place was dark,” Louis said.

“What’s the owner’s name again?” Barberry asked. “I’ll run a DL and get her address for you.”

“It’s Bianca Lee,” Louis said.

“Don’t be surprised if no one turns up under that name,” Swann said. “She probably changed it.”

Louis turned to look at Swann.

Swann took a wipe at his wet hair. “If your name is too… if it—”

“Ends in a vowel?” Barberry said with a smirk.

Swann ignored him. “People come to Palm Beach to reinvent themselves, and that includes their names. Reggie’s real name is Kaczmarek. When he first got to Palm Beach, he legally changed it.”

Barberry gave a chuckle and wrote something in his notebook. “I don’t suppose you dickheads have any idea where we can start looking for this Kavanagh clown.”

“I’d send a couple of deputies over to the Lyons house to see if Dickie knows where he is,” Louis said.

Barberry snorted. “You want me to go knocking on a man’s door, with no probable cause, and ask him if he’s got his wife’s stud boy tied up in his kitchen?”

“I told you, he beat the shit out of Kavanagh last night.”

Barberry glanced at Swann, that nasty twinkle in his eye. Louis knew that going to the Lyons home was one thing Barberry wasn’t going to do.

“Why don’t you ask Papa Hewitt to help you out there, sonny? It’s
his
island.”

Swann turned and walked to the end of the hall. Louis watched him, then looked back at Barberry. He was probably going to blow any chance of getting Barberry’s cooperation, but he suddenly didn’t care.

“Look, you piece of crap,” Louis said, keeping his voice low. “I ought to take that fucking badge of yours and shove it down your throat and hope you die trying to shit it out.”

Barberry chuckled. “You know it’s against the law to use profanity against a cop.”

“You’re no cop,” Louis said. “That guy over there is twice the officer you’ll ever be, whether he ever puts on a badge again or not.”

Barberry lifted his hand and made an exaggerated gesture of looking at his watch. “You got thirty seconds to disappear from this hall, or you’ll be bunking with Kent.” He grinned. “Then again, maybe you’d like that.”

Barberry walked away, back toward his squad room. Louis stood there, feeling the burn creep up the back of his neck. He realized his fist was clenched.

“Louis, you okay?” Swann asked, coming up next to him.

Louis turned and left. Swann hurried to keep up as Louis went through the lobby and shoved open the glass double doors.

It was raining and windy. He stopped, fists clenched and rain stinging his face as he stared up at the halyards clanging on the flagpole. He looked down at the waxy bushes that circled the flagpole’s base.

Fuck!

He kicked at the nearest bush, scattering dirt and almost losing his balance. Then he jerked one of the plants from the ground and, in a spray of dripping mud, flung it toward the station doors. It smacked against the glass, stuck there for a second, then slid down the door to the sidewalk.

“Louis, stop!”

He spun toward Swann, chest heaving.

“We’re going to see Reggie,” Swann said calmly. He glanced back at the station doors. “And we need to go now.”

• • •

If Louis had ever seen a more pitiful image, he couldn’t remember it. Reggie behind the scratched Plexiglas, his hair pruned into a bad buzz cut, his eyes glazed, his lip swollen to the size of a plum.

Swann took the lead, slipping into the chair. “How you doing, Reg?” he asked.

Reggie wiped a hand under his nose. “I’m okay,” he whispered. His voice was rusty with a cold. “I need money.”

“Money?” Louis asked. “You mean you need to buy things at the commissary?”

“Not
things,
” Reggie said. “I need cash to buy protection. They want money.”

Reggie put his hands over his face. His knuckles were raw, his nails dirty. Through the tinny speaker embedded in the glass, Reggie’s breaths sounded like a rattling of his rib cage.

“We’ll take care of the money,” Louis said. “But right now, I need to ask you some questions. Can you pull yourself together for me?”

“Yes. Yes.”

“What do you know about Bianca Lee?”

“The flower lady?” Reggie asked. “She… she does nice parties.”

“Did Mark Durand ever mention her name?”

Reggie closed his eyes, coughing softly. “Not that I can remember.”

“Did you ever see a red orchid in Durand’s possession?” Louis asked. “Or in your home?”

For a long time, Reggie just sat there, eyes closed, fingers laced at his forehead. It was so quiet all they could hear was the hum of the fluorescent light. Then the white
noise of the jail started again—hollow male voices and the buzz and clang of steel doors.

“The night Mark met me at Testa’s,” Reggie said, “he had a red orchid with him. He dropped it during our fight.”

Reggie closed his eyes again, grimacing as if in pain.

“What else happened?” Louis asked.

“I was upset about him seeing those women,” Reggie said. “I asked him if he had a date that night and if the flower was for
her
.”

“What did he say?”

“He said yes, and I got mad.”

He went silent again, eyes closed.

“Reg, tell us everything,” Swann said. “We need to know everything you said that night.”

“I told Mark he didn’t understand,” Reggie said. “I told him that no matter what those women told him when he was with them, no matter how many gifts they gave him, he was no better than anyone else who provided a service to them.”

“What about the orchid?” Louis pressed.

“That’s when he got mad, and he told me I was wrong, that he was part of their world in a way I would never be. He said he was a member of the Orchid Society.”

“The Orchid Society? That’s how he described it?”

Reggie nodded again. “I thought he was lying, like people do when they tell you they belong to the Bath and Tennis.”

“But he never mentioned Bianca Lee as part of that society?”

“No.”

“Did he ever mention any other women we haven’t talked about yet?”

“No.”

“Did he ever mention the name Byrne Kavanagh?”

Reggie coughed and shook his head.

Louis looked at Swann. What else was left?

Swann leaned forward. “Reggie, remember the last time we were here, we talked about the expensive things in Durand’s bedroom?”

Reggie nodded.

“We believe Durand stole those things from the women he was with.”

Reggie sighed. “I’m not surprised.”

“You need to think, Reggie,” Swann said. “What else showed up around your house that didn’t seem like something Durand would buy himself?”

Reggie shut his eyes again. He was listing to the right, and Louis hoped he wasn’t going to fall off the chair.

“Come on, Reggie,” Swann said. “We don’t have much time here.”

“There was a Hawaiian shirt once, but I think he ended up using that for a… oh, wait.” Reggie rubbed his face. “There was that god-awful painting.”

“Painting? What kind?”

“This horrible landscape,” Reggie said. “I found it in the back of his closet.”

“Do you think he could have stolen it from one of the women?”

Reggie shook his head slowly. “I doubt it. It was very amateurish, not anything the women I know would own. I thought maybe he bought it for me as a gift. So I stuck
it back in the closet and prayed I’d never have to look at it again.”

Louis remembered seeing a Haitian painting in Durand’s room, once right after the search and again when he and Mel moved in.

“We need to know exactly what this painting looked like,” Louis said. “Was it Haitian?”

“I told you, it was an amateur thing,” Reggie said. “It was this vulgar cowboy painting with dogs and horses…”

“Cowboys?” Louis leaned in closer. “You need to think hard here. Did Durand
ever
tell you where he got that painting?”

“No, but I can tell you the name of the artist,” Reggie said. “It was signed in the corner. Archer.”

Louis looked at Swann. He looked like someone had just given him a kick in the gut, but the intensity in his eyes told Louis that Swann’s mind was already racing toward the cattle pen in Devil’s Garden.

“We need to go,” Louis said. “You hang in there, you hear me? I promise you, it’ll be over soon.”

“One way or another,” Reggie whispered.

Chapter Thirty-four
 

A single yellow floodlight was the beacon that led them through the driving rain to Aubry’s bungalow. His old Jeep was parked next to a small stable.

Louis and Swann hurried up to the porch. Louis
knocked, the sound drowned out in the clamor of the rain beating on the tin roof. Finally, the door opened.

Aubry stood there, holding a beer. “What the hell?”

“Mr. Aubry, we need to talk to you,” Louis said.

“Must be pretty damn important for you to come all the way here on a night like this.”