The Little Death (29 page)

“Not much to see here,” he said.

“I know,” Louis said.

Louis looked back toward the gravel road. He could just see the red of Swann’s BMW through the tall weeds and trees. He was trying to figure out what direction Burke Aubry had brought them in the last time they were here. They had crossed a stream, and if he was remembering things right, they had walked up to the pen from the opposite direction of the gravel road. And Detective Hernandez had said the Turtle Slough ran from north to southwest, which meant the stream was somewhere nearby.

“Andrew, let’s see if we can find that stream,” Louis said.

“Where Wyeth was found?”

“Yeah, I want to see how close it is to the pen.”

They trudged south through the weeds. The red BMW was the only spot of color in the monotony of the greens and yellows, but they soon lost sight of it.

Louis was about to suggest they turn back when he heard the sound of water. They pushed through the brush and cattails, emerging on the edge of a fast-running brown stream.

“This has to Turtle Slough,” Swann said.

Louis looked north. From this spot, he could again make out a sliver of red in the distance. They were only about fifty yards from the BMW and the pen.

“He could have been thrown in here,” Swann said.

Louis nodded. “And drifted downstream, just like Hernandez said.”

They were both quiet. A blur of movement caught Louis’s eye. A giant blue heron was standing on the other bank of the slough, watching them.

“We’d better get back to the car,” Louis said.

They found their way back to the pen, coming in the back way this time. Swann ripped down the last of the crime-scene tape and stuffed it into his pocket. But then he just stood there in the middle of the pen.

“Andrew?”

“This place is important,” Swann said. He shook his head slowly. “I mean—this is going to sound stupid.”

“Say it, Andrew.”

“Something you told me that Aubry said. Something about this place being special to the cowboys?”

“No,” Louis said. “He said it was special to Mrs. Archer. He called it sacred.”

“Sacred? That’s the word he used?”

Louis nodded. He knew where Swann was going with this.
Sacred
was the kind of word you used for battlefields or burial grounds. They were too far north of the Seminole reservation for this to be significant to the Indians. And if there were any graveyards around here in this brush, there was no way he and Swann would find them.

“Come on, Andrew,” Louis said. “We have to go talk to Mrs. Archer.”

A dark-haired woman with a Spanish accent answered the door at the Archer Ranch. She wasn’t happy about the idea of two strange men asking to see Señora Archer. She told them to wait on the porch and closed the door.

Ten minutes passed. Swann finally went and sat down in one of the rockers. “Maybe that place out there has something to do with her husband,” he said.

“Husband? Why?” Louis asked.

“Aubry told us Jim Archer died in 1965. Maybe he’s buried out there.”

“It still doesn’t explain why two men were murdered in the same area,” Louis said.

“Damn, look at that,” Swann said.

Louis turned to where Swann was pointing. Eight men on horses were coming up the coquina-shell driveway. A pack of dogs trotted behind. All of the men wore denim shirts, jeans, and wide-brimmed hats. As they came closer, Louis saw that the big guy in the lead was Burke Aubry.

Louis and Swann came down off the porch as the men drew next to the red BMW and stopped. Aubry looked down at Louis through his mirrored sunglasses.

“All right, what’s this about wanting to see Mrs. Archer?”

Louis heard the crackle of a radio and saw a walkie-talkie strapped on Aubry’s saddle. He noticed that the other men had them as well.

“We need to ask her some questions about Devil’s Garden,” Louis said.

Swann came down off the porch toward Louis. Aubry’s horse let out a loud snort and did a jerky side dance. Swann jumped back a good five feet.

Aubry calmed the horse. “Who’s your friend?”

“Lieutenant Swann, Palm Beach Police Department,” Louis said. “We came back because we have another man from Palm Beach who was found dead near here.”

“In Devil’s Garden?”

“About a mile downstream in Turtle Slough.”

Aubry leaned on his saddle horn, head down.

“Does the name Paul Wyeth mean anything to you?” Louis asked.

Aubry shook his head. “That the dead man?”

“Yes,” Louis said.

“What about the names Osborn or Lyons?” Swann asked.

“Don’t ring a bell. They from around here?”

“Palm Beach,” Swann said.

“That’s another world, son.”

“What about Devil’s Garden,” Swann said. “Why is it so special?”

Aubry stared down at Swann. “Special?”

“Mr. Aubry,” Louis said, “the last time we were here, you said Devil’s Garden was sacred to Mrs. Archer. It’s really important that we talk to her, please.”

Aubry turned to the other men. “You all can go back out. I’ll catch up later.”

Without a word, the men turned their horses and rode away, the dogs following. Aubry dismounted and tied his horse to the railing. He brought a ripe smell of sweat and horse with him as he came up onto the porch. Louis noticed that Swann was watching Aubry with awe.

“You don’t need to bother Libby Archer,” Aubry said.

“Mr. Aubry—”

Aubry held up a hand to silence Louis. “I can tell you everything you need to know.”

Louis felt Swann come up behind him.

“Libby’s son David died out there,” Aubry said.

“When?” Louis asked.

“Twenty-eight years ago,” Aubry said. “He was just eighteen.”

Aubry didn’t seem to want to go on. Louis had no choice but to press him. “What happened, Mr. Aubry?”

“It was an accident. His horse threw him. He hit his head on a rock and died.”

Louis knew nothing about horses, and he guessed it could have happened exactly like Aubry said—a simple freak accident. But all of Louis’s training, experience, and instincts forced him to distrust what seemed simple. Another young man dead in Devil’s Garden. Even if it was nearly three decades ago, it wasn’t something that could be ignored.

He looked at Swann. He was thinking the same thing. And Louis had heard something in Aubry’s voice. Sometimes, the simpler the words, the more complex the emotions behind them.

“Mr. Aubry, were you working here then?” he asked.

Aubry nodded.

“You’re sure there was nothing unusual about David’s death?”

“The doc in Clewiston said it was a head injury, that his brain hemorrhaged before anyone could help him.”

“Was there an autopsy?”

“Autopsy?” Aubry pulled off his hat and shook his head. “No, nothing like that. The Archers… they were, well, it was really a bad time. They just wanted to bring David home and bury him proper.”

Louis knew how deaths were often handled in small towns, and twenty-eight years ago, things would have been even less sophisticated. Add to that an unassuming police chief and an ingrained trust of your neighbor, and it was easy to see why a fall off a horse would raise no questions. And maybe that’s all it was, but Louis felt the need to press it.

“I know this is hard, Mr. Aubry,” Louis said. “But can you tell me exactly what happened the day David died?”

There had been a dull kind of pain in Aubry’s eyes before, like the man had long ago resigned himself to a life of backbreaking work and lonely nights. But at this moment, his blue eyes went almost colorless in the harsh light of the sun.

“You think David’s death could have something to do with the men you’re finding now?” Aubry asked.

Louis caught the break in Aubry’s voice, and he almost didn’t answer the question. But now there was something else he wanted to know more about: Aubry’s obvious affection for this kid David Archer.

“It’s a long shot,” Louis said gently. “But we’ve discovered
that sometimes, these kinds of killers get their start early, when they’re very young.”

“You mean a serial-killer-type fella?” Aubry asked.

Louis nodded. “Yeah.”

Aubry gestured to the two empty rocking chairs. Louis and Swann sat down. Aubry leaned against the porch rail, his dusty hat still in his hand. “It was just before sundown when David’s horse came back without him,” he said. “We didn’t get all fired up right at first, because we all knew David had just gotten the horse for his birthday and was still getting used to her.”

“The horse was wild?” Swann asked.

Aubry smiled. “No, son, just full of piss and vinegar. Wouldn’t have been the first time she throwed David, and we didn’t think it’d be the last.”

Aubry paused, the smile gone.

“Go on, please,” Louis said.

“Well, Jim and me and the rest of us set out after him, thinking we’d find him sitting in the shade, laid up with a sprained ankle or something and waiting for us to ride up and take him home to supper.”

Aubry stopped again and stared at his boots. Louis glanced at Swann. He had the look of a boy listening to a ghost story.

“Mr. Aubry?” Louis prodded.

“We found David in some heavy woods just north of the old pen,” Aubry said softly. “I knew the minute I touched him, he was gone.”

“What did you do then?” Louis asked.

Aubry cleared his throat. “Jim carried him on back to the house, and we called the doc. Not for David but for Mrs. Archer. I could tell she was going to need everything
the doc, and maybe God, could offer just so she could make it through the night.”

“So, no one ever took a closer look at David’s head wound or the area where you found him?” Louis asked.

Aubry shook his head. “No reason to. Doc and the chief said it was an accident, and that’s what got wrote down.”

“The doctor and the police chief, they still around?” Louis asked.

“Both dead,” Aubry said.

Louis pulled his notebook from his pocket, intending to ask Aubry to draw him a map of where this patch of woods was. He wanted to see the exact spot where David had fallen, although he didn’t know why. The cattle pen had offered him no vibrations, so what could he expect from a plot of ground where a death had happened almost thirty years ago?

Swann leaned forward. “Mr. Aubry, what do
you
think happened to David that day?”

Louis looked to Swann, surprised not only that he’d spoken up but at the question itself. What had Swann heard that Louis hadn’t?

“You said ‘that’s what got wrote down,’” Swann said. “We all know that sometimes what gets written down isn’t always what happened.”

Aubry walked a few feet across the porch, then turned back to them. “That same night, when we were sitting around the house trying to make sense of stuff, Jim started wondering out loud why David had been in those woods when he was supposed to be working on the fence line about a mile north.”

Aubry’s walkie-talkie crackled with a spurt of male voices. He listened for a few seconds, then turned it off.

“I knew what David was doing there, but I didn’t tell Jim,” Aubry said. “David liked to wander off and draw pictures. I was sure that’s why he was there in those woods. It’s the prettiest place on the ranch.”

“Why couldn’t you tell his father this?” Louis asked.

“Well, when David was thirteen, Jim found him in the barn drawing pictures of the horses. He got a little upset, told him only sissies did stuff like that.”

“But David didn’t give it up,” Louis said.

“No,” Aubry said. “He just couldn’t seem to help himself. So, to keep peace, I told David he could stow his sketching stuff at my place. That’s why the night we found David, I went to the barn to check David’s kit and make sure there weren’t any sketchbooks there. Jim had enough heartache that night.”

Aubry pulled the bandanna from around his neck and wiped his face. The man was sweating, despite the cool breeze blowing in from the south.

“But I didn’t find any sketchbooks,” Aubry said. “I was thinking about that when I saw his whip was missing.”

“His whip?” Louis asked.

“Yup. The saddle kit was still intact, but the whip was gone.”

“Could it have fallen off when the horse bucked?” Louis asked.

Aubry shook his head. “But I took a trip out to those woods the next morning just to make sure. I didn’t find anything.”

“Could he have just lost the whip?” Swann asked.

“Cowmen don’t just lose things off their saddles,” Aubry said. “Our kit is as important to us as your police stuff is to you.”

“Could David have loaned the whip to someone?” Louis asked.

Aubry shook his head. “No. His granddad Tom gave it to him, and that boy loved that whip like nothing else in this world. Waxed it himself, braided it himself. His initials were carved in the handle.”

Louis thought back to the slashes on Mark Durand’s bare back and the tiny piece of leather Dr. Steffel had retrieved from deep inside one of the wounds.

He looked to Aubry’s horse, at the whip hanging on the saddle. It was a braided red and blue coil, not anything like the leather lash most people envisioned when they thought of a bullwhip.

“Did David’s whip look like that?” Louis asked, pointing toward the horse.

“No,” Aubry said. “We use nylon now. Holds up better in the wet weather. But David always used that old leather one.”

“Is there a chance one of your cowboys stole it?” Swann asked.

“Cow
men
, son,” Aubry said. “And no, like I told your friends when they were here before, no man of mine, then or now, would have stolen that boy’s whip. Not from
that
boy and not that whip.”

“Then someone had to have taken it from David that day in the woods,” Louis said.

Aubry’s eyes came slowly to Louis. There was a sad kind of reckoning in them, as if his twenty-eight-year-old struggle between what he hoped to be true and what he feared to be true was finally coming to an end.

“Is there a chance he could have encountered a
stranger out there and been robbed or bullied into a fight?” Louis asked.

Aubry shook his head. “You have to understand. This place is like an island. We all know each other. We protect each other. Strangers just don’t wander onto the land. It’s not their world.”