Paint It Black (15 page)

The clouds chased them over the Sereno causeway and onto the mainland. But the rain still had not made its appearance by the time Louis stopped to pay the toll at the Captiva causeway.

Emily had been quiet during the drive, and now she had closed her eyes. Louis let her doze and drove on. When he finally pulled into a parking lot and cut the engine, she stirred and looked around.

“Where are we?” she asked.

“Captiva,” Louis said. “The Mucky Duck.”

She nodded slowly. “Oh, right. Burgers.”

They got out and started up to the restaurant. Louis pulled on the door but it was locked. He saw someone inside and knocked on the glass. The waiter looked up and then pointed to his wrist, mouthing the words “half hour.”

“I forgot. They don't start serving until five-thirty,” Louis said. “You want to wait or go somewhere else?”

Emily was looking at the beach. “Isn't this where he dumped the homeless man?” she asked.

Louis nodded. “Near here.”

“Show me,” Emily said.

He led the way through the sea oats and down the sandy slope. They walked the hundred yards or so to where the body had been found. The gulf water was churning gray-green, and the beach was deserted except for two elderly women walking in the surf with a bounding Irish setter.

Emily stood staring at the spot where the body had lain. Louis watched as her eyes traveled up toward the sea oats dancing in the wind.

“We think the beating and stabbing took place up there and then he was dragged down here,” Louis said.

Emily's eyes narrowed. She walked slowly up to the sea oats. They came up nearly to her waist. She stood there, arms wrapped around herself, staring down at the sand. The sound of the setter's barking carried on the wind.

Louis went up to her. “Farentino,” he said. “What's the matter?”

“Nothing,” she said.

“Look, if it's something Dan—”

She shook her head quickly. “No, it's not Wainwright.”

“Then what?”

She was looking now at the elderly women and their dog.

“I was thinking about the homeless man and wondering if anyone is missing him,” she said.

Louis said nothing.

“He had to have someone, somewhere,” Emily said.

The wind gusted, sending the sand swirling around them. Emily's slight body swayed with the sea oats.

“Someone is missing him,” she said.

Her voice was soft, but without emotion somehow. Louis couldn't read it or her face. Was she talking as a cop or a woman? It was the closest she had come to saying anything personal. If, in fact, that was what she was even doing. For a second he considered trying to say something comforting. But for what? Did she even need it? Shit, she'd probably take his head off if he tried. Christ. He had come to appreciate the way her mind worked, but anything more than that would be like trying to cozy up to a porcupine.

“Let's go back,” she said suddenly.

She started back up the beach toward the restaurant. Louis followed.

When they got back to the Mucky Duck, they still had ten minutes to spare. Emily retrieved her neon-green rain slicker from the car and they sat on a picnic table of the restaurant's patio. Emily was quiet, hunched down in the slicker like a bird, looking out at the gulf. Whatever the reason, she still didn't seem inclined to talk.

“This is ridiculous,” Louis said finally.

“What is?”

“Eating at five-thirty,” Louis said. “That's what blue hairs do. Next thing you know, I'll be wearing boxers.”

Emily's lips tipped up. “So you're a briefs man?”

“None of your business, Farentino.”

She shrugged. “You're the one who got personal, Kincaid.”

They were quiet again.

“Back there with Roberta,” Louis said. “You were good with her, you know.”

“What do you mean?”

“That thing you said about your parents. It worked.”

She turned to face him. “It's true,” she said.

The challenge in her voice caught him off guard. He just stared at her.

“You think I made it up to get her to talk?” she asked.

“What? Hell no,” Louis said quickly, his own anger sparking. “Jesus, Farentino . . .”

She turned away. A car pulled in behind them, a door opened and closed. The restaurant was open.

“So, you still want to eat or not?” Louis said.

“In a minute,” she said quietly.

The wind was getting almost cold now. Louis burrowed down into his windbreaker. The sky was slate gray, with a smudge of pink faint on the horizon. It looked as bleak as a Michigan sky. So much for seeing another one of those great Florida beach sunsets Dodie was always yakking about it.

“Look, Kincaid,” Emily said, “I'm sorry.”

He stifled a sigh.

“What Roberta said about twenty years counting for something. That made me think about my parents, that's all.” Emily paused. “And I haven't done that in a while.”

“Why not?” Louis asked.

She smiled wryly. “I'm good at compartmentalizing.”

“What do you mean?”

“Putting my feelings in neat little boxes.”

There was the sound of more cars and voices in the lot behind them.

“Why weren't they married?” Louis asked.

The question had just popped out. He knew it was because his own parents hadn't been married either. His own father hadn't even stayed around long enough for his first birthday. And his alcoholic mother had lost all three of her kids to child services. He had grown up believing that white kids didn't have such secrets. Sure, those guys on
Bonanza
didn't have a mother. Neither did Opie or the kids on
My Three Sons,
unless you counted Uncle Charley. But white kids all had fathers, didn't they?

Black kids didn't. That's what the other kids used to say to him in school.
Where's your father, Louis? Why do you live with that white guy
? Shit, even Diahann Carroll's son didn't have a father on that stupid
Julia
show. They killed him off in Vietnam.

Dear old Dad . . . missing in action.

He waited for Emily to answer. He wanted to know.

“They didn't believe in marriage,” she said. “It was the sixties, California, free love and all that crap. Me coming along wasn't enough of a reason for them to change their minds.”

“But they stayed together,” Louis said.

Emily nodded. “They loved each other. They loved me. Thirty-five years. Like I told Roberta, that counts. But kids can be cruel, you know? I guess a little part of me never got over feeling ashamed.”

Louis looked out over the water. He was glad she didn't ask him about his own childhood. He was pretty damn good at compartmentalizing, too, and right now, he wanted to stick his past back in its box. He realized suddenly Emily had been speaking in the past tense.

“Your parents. They're dead?” Louis asked.

She nodded. “Car accident when I was a senior in college.”

Louis watched as she pulled her slicker tighter around herself. “No other family?” he asked.

She shook her head. She took off her glasses and held them up in the waning light. “Salt spray. Got a Kleenex?” she asked.

“Sorry.”

She slipped them back on. “I love the water,” she said after a moment. “It fogs up my glasses, frizzes my hair, and clogs up my sinuses, but I love it.”

“Does the ocean look like this?” Louis asked.

She looked at him. “You've never seen the Atlantic Ocean?”

“Nope.”

She looked back out at the gulf. “It's similar. Biscayne Bay, near where I live, looks like this some. The ocean's a little wilder.”

“I had a partner once who told me I should live near water,” Louis said. “He was into astrology.”

Emily nodded. “You're probably a water sign. I'm a Virgo. That's an air sign.”

“I knew there was a reason we don't like each other.”

She laughed. She had a great contralto laugh.

“So,” she said after a moment, “where are you going when the case is over?”

Louis didn't answer. Why was everyone asking him that? He thought about his conversation with Candy. Candy, who had lived all his life in one place and couldn't wait to pull up his roots and get to the “real world.” Candy, who believed that cops—or anyone—really had any control over how their lives played out.

Louis stared out at the water. The wind-whipped sea oats were whispering. Something else was whispering, there in his brain.
Where are you going, Louis?

“Miami . . . you like it there?” Louis asked.

Emily smiled slightly. “I do now. It took a long time.”

“Why?”

“I went to Miami after I graduated because it was the farthest I could get away from California after my parents died,” she said. “Florida's a big escape destination and I hated the place. Old people, humidity, cockroaches the size of small Cessnas flying across my kitchen.”

“But you stayed,” Louis said.

“Yeah. You can put down roots. Not an easy thing to do in sand, but it can be done.”

Louis waited a moment. “But you're alone.”

She nodded slightly. “I have good friends, a few people who miss me when I'm gone. When you don't have family, sometimes you have to just build one.”

She fell quiet again, burrowing into her rain slicker. Louis wanted to ask her more, though he wasn't sure about what. He glanced at her profile, just her nose and those big black glasses poking out of the slicker's collar. The moment was gone; she had retreated.

“Shitty sunset,” she said. “Let's go eat.”

Queenie Avenue was a narrow street pulsating with neon and the sound of blues melting with the low rumble of the storm. It was raining lightly as Louis and Emily made their way down the slick sidewalk. Here, miles from the water, the street smelled only of city things. Dumpsters, car exhaust, vomit, piss, and the aroma of frying chicken.

They had been walking the street for an hour now, wandering in and out of the bars and take-out joints. So far, no one had recognized Walter Tatum's picture. Louis wondered if anyone would admit it even if they did. Queenie Avenue seemed like the kind of place that hid its secrets well.

They drew stares as they walked. Louis ignored them. Emily seemed nervous. He felt her inch closer as they approached the last bar. It didn't even have a sign, just a Budweiser sign glowing in the night.

“I guess you're in charge here,” she said.

He looked down at her. Her hair was a wet helmet of curls around her small face. “Feeling a little out of place, Farentino?”

She gave a snort. “I went to high school in Santa Monica, California, where every girl is a blond Amazon and every guy is blinded by a C-cup. I was a short, freckled geek with braces, glasses, and no tits.”

“Yeah, but you can change all that. Can't change your skin color. Come on, last stop, and then we'll hit a McDonald's for hot apple pie.”

“There's something to look forward to,” Emily murmured.

The bar was a small cavern, dense with smoke and dominated by a long bar. A jukebox glowed in the corner, illuminating an old table shuffleboard heaped with beer cartons. The place was packed, laughter mixing with the clink of bottles and Etta James singing “Losers Weepers.”

Louis headed for the bar, Emily at his heels. Louis squeezed between two men seated on stools. He motioned to the bartender, a skinny guy in a lime-green tank top.

“Yo,” the bartender said, “I didn't do it and I don't know who did.”

“He ain't no cop, Jackie,” piped up one customer.

“Sure he is.” The bartender smiled at Louis. “Ain't you?”

Louis nodded. The bartender's eyes drifted behind Louis to Emily. “That your lady?”

Louis ignored him and held out the photo. “Do you know this man? His name is Walter Tatum.”

The bartender looked at the photo. “That dude is dead.”

“You know him then?”

“Everybody know Walter.”

Louis felt Emily press in behind him. “He was a regular here?” Louis asked.

“Yup.”

“Was he here March first?”

“Shit, that was three weeks ago, man . . .”

“It was a Tuesday.”

“Tuesday? Why didn't you say so? Yeah, Walt was always here on Tuesdays.”

“Are you sure?” Louis asked.

The bartender turned to the far end of the bar. “Hey, Lucille! Ain't Tuesday the night Walt Tatum always here?”

Louis looked to the end of the bar. Even in the gloom, he could see her, a large, tawny-skinned woman with an elaborate fountain of red braided hair and huge hoop earrings that glinted in the bar lights.

“Why you asking about Walter?” she yelled back.

“This man here is asking.”

Emily sidled up. “You going to talk to her?”

Louis nodded and walked down the bar. The woman saw them coming and her eyes flared with contempt, but Louis suspected it was at Emily, and not him.

“Do you know Walter Tatum?” Louis asked.

A few other patrons had gathered, interested in what was going on. Lucille stared at Louis with heavily made up Cleopatra eyes. Then she looked down into her glass.

“Leave me be. I'm grieving here.”

“For Walter Tatum?” Louis asked.

“Walter was my man,” she said.

Louis caught Emily's eye.

“Was Walter here Tuesday, March first?” Louis asked.

Lucille didn't answer or look at him. Finally she nodded.

“Were you with him that night?”

Lucille nodded again. “He left about two,” she said. “Said he couldn't stay.”

Louis wondered if Lucille knew about Roberta. Or vice versa.

Lucille spun to face him suddenly. “You know who killed him?”

“No,” Louis said.

“They saying in the papers a white man did it,” Lucille said bitterly, “one of them skinheads or something.”

“We don't know that for sure,” Louis said. The crowd was pressing close around. Louis glanced up at Emily. She was standing very still, like she was trying hard to blend into the inky smoke. Her face looked very small and very white.

Louis looked back at Lucille. She was staring hard at Emily.

“What are you doing here?” Lucille demanded suddenly.

“I'm an FBI agent,” Emily said. Her voice was firm but her hand fumbled as she reached for the badge that had disappeared into her raincoat.

“Did Walter leave alone?” Louis asked quickly.

Lucille looked back at Louis. “Yeah. He said he was tired and was going home to sleep.” She smiled wanly. “He was always tired after I was done with him.”

Her friends snickered.

“Is there anywhere he might have stopped?” Louis asked.

The bartender had wandered down and was listening. “Not much traffic out there after midnight. All the action's out on the beach and that's ten, twelve miles from here.”

“Okay, thanks,” Louis said.

They left the bar. It was raining harder, and they didn't talk as they hurried back to the car.

Emily let out a breath, leaning back into the seat.

“I would have come to your rescue,” Louis said.

“Shut up,” Emily said, wiping her face on her sleeve.

They sat there for several moments, the thumping bass from a nearby bar beating time to the rain on the roof. Finally, Louis started the car and they pulled out. He took the most direct route back toward Sereno, staying on busy Summerlin Road until they reached the causeway. At the boat trailer parking lot, Louis pulled in and stopped.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Just thinking.”

For several minutes he just sat, watching each car as it made its way past, into the darkness toward Sereno Key.

“This was a waste of time,” Louis said. “The killer did not stalk Tatum from Queenie Boulevard.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“No white guy would hang out there,” Louis said.

Emily nodded. “Zone of comfort,” she said.

“What's that?”

“Serial killers operate within a zone of comfort,” she said. “And you're right. If the killer is white, he would not have blended in or felt he could stalk his victim from Queenie Boulevard.”

They were silent for a moment.

“Maybe he isn't white,” Farentino said. “Have you considered that possibility?”

“Yeah . . . but just for Levon.”

“Serial killers rarely choose victims outside their own race,” Emily said. “It's part of the pattern.”

Louis looked out at the water. Something Roberta Tatum said came back to him. Something about Wainwright believing the killer was black because it was easier to accept black genocide than white racists murdering out of hate.

He looked over at Farentino. Was it easier for her, too?

“My gut says the killer's white,” Louis said.

“Is that a professional or personal point of view?” she asked.

He put the car in gear. “I don't know,” he said.