The Little Death (31 page)

Swann was silent on the drive back to Palm Beach. Louis didn’t push it. He didn’t know the guy well enough to give him advice about his job or his life, but he sensed that Swann had nowhere to go. So as they left the bridge and pulled onto Royal Poinciana Way, he asked Swann if he wanted to come back to Reggie’s house for a beer.

Swann accepted quickly.

When they walked into the house, Louis stopped and stared. The main wall of the living room had been stripped of Reggie’s beloved Haitian paintings. In their places were two large bulletin boards covered with papers and photographs. The small dining table had been pushed to the center of the room. There Mel sat, his head bent low, magnifying glass in hand.

“What’s all this?” Louis asked.

Mel looked up. “Welcome to the pigpen.”

Louis and Swann came forward. The bulletin board
resembled the displays Louis had seen in big-city homicide rooms for major cases, and when working with the FBI on a serial-killer case three years ago.

Separated into columns and color-coded, the board offered an easy-to-grasp visual blueprint of their complicated and increasingly confusing investigation.

On the right side were the victim’s names across the top, with commonalities listed under each and linked in green marker. Under that were lists of physical evidence and subsequent leads formed. On the left side were the two women’s names and those of their husbands, followed by what they knew about each person. A final column had the heading what we know we don’t know. It was blank.

On the second board, Mel had tacked up Swann’s pilfered photographs of Durand’s crime scene and close-up shots of the sword and the boots and all of the other items they had found in Durand’s bedroom. Mel had even cut out pictures of Tucker and Carolyn Osborn and Tink and Dickie Lyons from the
Shiny Sheet
and hung them up.

“This is impressive,” Swann said. “Why do you call it the pigpen?”

“That’s what we called it back at Miami PD,” Mel said. “Whenever we had a big case going, we’d put all the stuff in one room and we’d sit in there drinking bad coffee and eating cold burgers and throwing shit at the wall.”

Louis knew it had probably taken Mel all day to put this together, given the trouble his eyes gave him with detail work. But Louis didn’t want to deal with headless corpses right now. He was worried about Reggie. And Swann. That wasn’t like him, to take the troubles of near
strangers to heart. And no one here in Bizarro World was supposed to give a damn about anyone else.

Louis went to the kitchen to get a beer. But the only things in the refrigerator were a quart of milk, orange juice, and two bottles of Evian.

Louis grabbed the bottles of water and returned to the living room. Swann looked up.

“Sorry, Andrew, we’re fresh out of beer,” he said. He tossed a bottle and Swann caught it against his chest. Louis dropped down onto the sofa and kicked off his shoes.

Mel put down the magnifying glass and looked up from his spot at the table. “What’s with the tone, Rocky?”

Louis opened the water and took a huge drink. “What tone?”

“We’re fresh out of beer because Mel was too busy hanging out at Ta-boo again to go get some.”

“Did I say that?” Louis said.

“You don’t have to say it. I can still hear it.”

“Give it a rest, Mel, will you?”

Louis looked over at Swann. He was standing at the bulletin board, staring at them both. He turned away, on the pretense of studying the photographs. Louis fell back against the cushions and closed his eyes. God, he wanted this case to be over. Nothing about it was making any sense, and every time he was able to empty his mind, Joe was there to fill it.

I want you to want something from yourself.

Right now, all he really wanted was to go home to his cottage and sleep in his own bed. He wanted to sit on his island, on his beach, and watch the sun melt into the Gulf.

“You ready to listen to what I found out today?” Mel asked.

“Go ahead,” Louis said, without opening his eyes.

“First, I’m close to finding the private eye that Osborn said spied on his wife,” Mel said. “Her rival, Morty Akers, died a couple years ago but I tracked down his former aide, who told me the PI’s name was Barney Lassiter.”

“Barney still among the living?” Louis asked.

“Yeah. He’s got a current PI license out of Okaloosa County up in the Panhandle, but his listed employer, Sax and Sax Services, went out of business a few months ago. So, I haven’t been able to zero in on Barney, yet but I got feelers out.”

Louis swung up to a sitting position. “Osborn told me Lassiter did stakeouts and surveillance,” he said. “What do you think the chances are he caught anything on film?”

“Not very likely,” Swann offered. “If he had, he would have used it against the senator. I’ve never heard one piece of dirt on her. In fact, she’s made her name drafting ethics reform and touting family values.”

“That don’t make her a saint, Andrew,” Mel said.

“I never said she was,” Swann said. “I’m just saying she seems like a pretty unlikely candidate for the kind of sleazy adultery we’re talking about here.”

“Let me tell you something, son,” Mel said. “When it comes to sex, no one is an unlikely candidate. Anyone with working genitals can be enticed if the drought has been long enough.”

Swann turned back to the bulletin board. Louis sensed that the conversation embarrassed him. Or maybe
he had heard the slight condescension in Mel’s voice. He forgot that Mel didn’t know about Swann’s suspension yet.

“Did you ever hear of those monkeys called bonobos?” Mel asked.

“Spare us,” Louis said.

“They’re a lot like chimpanzees,” Mel went on unfazed, “but unlike chimps and gorillas, the bonobos are almost completely nonviolent and nonterritorial. And do you know why?”

“I said spare us.”

“They’re sex maniacs,” Mel said. “They have sex at every opportunity, as a greeting, a goodbye, before they eat, after they eat. They can even be passing a strange monkey in the jungle and they’ll stop and—”

“We get the picture,” Louis said. “What’s your point?”

“My point is, maybe if people were more like bonobos, they wouldn’t find themselves curled in a fetal position on a therapist’s couch. Or end up killing each other.”

Mel’s pontificating left the room in a tired kind of silence. Swann stayed at the board, studying the photographs with the expression of someone trying to figure out a piece of op art.

“I have something else to share,” Mel said.

“Enough with the bonobos,” Louis said.

Mel ignored him. “I found the manufacturer of those ostrich boots. It’s a company called Safari Soles. I called their factory in Minnesota and although the lady was very nice, she told me we would need a warrant to get access to sales records.”

“Shit,” Louis murmured.

“You know any judges here we could convince, Andrew?” Mel asked.

Swann shook his head. “Not anymore.”

Mel looked to Louis with questions, but Louis held up a hand, telling Mel not to push it. Mel shrugged and turned back to his notes.

“I’ve saved the best for last,” Mel said. “I spoke with Dr. Steffel today. Since the sword didn’t match the wounds, I wanted to ask her if she’d had any time to compare other blades and come up with something that was at least consistent.”

“Did she?”

“She thinks it was a machete,” Mel said.

Louis sat forward. “Like a cane machete?”

“She couldn’t be that specific,” Mel said. “But when she told me that, I had the same thought you’re probably having. Who in Palm Beach would have a machete lying around the mansion?”

“Tucker Osborn has one,” Swann said.

They both turned to stare at him.

“How do you know, Andrew?” Louis asked.

Swann let out a long breath. “About four years ago, I got called to a domestic there. The senator was crying, and Mr. Osborn was pretty drunk. He was waving a gun and yelling.”

Swann got quiet.

“There’s no such thing as privacy in a murder case, Andrew,” Louis said.

Swann nodded. “I had to get Mr. Osborn quieted down, so I took him into his study. That’s when I saw all the swords and stuff. He’s got a closet full of them, including machetes.”

“Who called you?” Mel asked.

“Bitner, her assistant,” Swann said. “The senator would have never called.”

“You got anything else about the Osborns you think we ought to know now?” Mel asked.

Louis heard the sarcasm in Mel’s voice. He hoped Swann hadn’t.

“Tink Lyons told me her husband goes hunting with some guys here,” Louis said. “She didn’t mention Osborn, but I got the feeling she knew the guy.”

“You think Lyons and Osborn were in this together?” Swann asked.

Louis shrugged. “You know them. What do you think?’’

“I don’t think they know each other well,” Swann said, shaking his head. “I just don’t see it.” He turned back to the bulletin board, studying the photographs. When he spoke again, his voice was soft.

“You really think these two men are capable of torture and decapitation?”

“With the right motivation,” Louis said.

“Lots of women here cheat on their husbands. No one really cares,” Swann said.

“A guy might care if the other man is a Mexican immigrant who can’t even speak English,” Mel said.

Now Swann was staring at the photograph of Emilio Labastide. “There’s a five-year gap between Labastide’s and Durand’s murders,” he said. “Are you saying this is some organized thing?”

“You ever heard of hunting clubs?” Mel asked.

Swann shook his head.

“There’s this place up near Gainesville where rich
guys go to hunt safari-style,” Mel said. “It’s private land stocked with everything from African antelope to water buffalo and you pay based on how big a trophy you want. They even have corporate packages so businessmen can entertain their buddies. There’s a big psychological element to hunting in a pack. Some guys really get off on it.”

“You think we’re dealing with some kind of murder club?” Swann asked.

“Like you said, Andrew, people here get bored easily.”

Swann looked like his head hurt. “Are there other husbands in this club?” he asked.

Louis and Mel exchanged glances.

“We don’t know,” Louis said.

“Are there other women?”

“We don’t know,” Louis said.

They were all quiet again. Swann was staring at the photograph of the sword now. “If Tucker Osborn’s sword wasn’t the murder weapon, what was it doing in Durand’s bedroom?” He looked back at Louis and Mel. “And why did he have Dickie Lyons’s humidor?”

“We’re thinking they were gifts, like the watch,” Mel said.

“We don’t know if Labastide or Wyeth got any gifts,” Louis said.

“What about the gold crucifix?” Swann said.

“Sex and religion… not a good mix,” Mel said.

They were all quiet, thinking. Louis laid his head back and closed his eyes. For a long time, the only sound came from the open sliding glass doors—the soft hiss of the waves breaking on the beach.

“Maybe they weren’t gifts,” Louis said quietly.

“What do you mean?” Swann asked.

Louis sat up, rubbing his face. “Except for the watch, the stuff Durand had didn’t seem like anything he would really want. An antique sword that he couldn’t sell. Ostrich boots two sizes too small. And expensive cigars that he wouldn’t smoke.”

Louis glanced at Mel. He could tell he had come to the same thought.

“He stole them,” Mel said.

Louis nodded.

“But why?” Swann asked.

Louis locked eyes with Mel. He knew Mel couldn’t read his expression but he suspected Mel could read his thoughts. “He knew that once he left that bedroom, he was nothing to them,” Louis said. “It was his way of kicking them—and maybe their husbands—in the teeth.”

Mel rose slowly and headed to the kitchen. Swann watched him, then turned back to Louis.

“So, the women paid these men for sex?” Swann asked.

Louis nodded. “Hernandez said they found eight grand in Wyeth’s apartment. There’s no proof it was drug money. Do you remember seeing anything in Durand’s file about a bank account?”

“Yeah,” Swann said. “But he had only about a hundred bucks in it. Maybe he stashed it somewhere around here.”

Louis had been thinking the same thing. But Barberry’s men had tossed the whole house and he himself had searched Durand’s room pretty thoroughly and found no money.

“What about Labastide?” Swann asked. “Rosa sure doesn’t have any money.”

“Yeah, but she told you that Emilio had a girlfriend back in Mexico. Maybe he was sending cash home.”

Mel came back, carrying a martini glass filled with orange juice. He set it in front of Louis.

“What’s that?” Louis asked.

“Call it a peace offering. Enjoy it because there’s no more vodka. But I promise I will go buy some tomorrow, dear.”

Louis smiled and took a drink of the screwdriver. “I don’t suppose there is any food in the house?”

“There’s some French Muenster cheese in there,” Mel said.

“I refuse to put something in my mouth that smells like a dirty jockstrap.”

“I swear, Rocky, sometimes you’re just—”

“Can I interrupt?” Swann asked.

Louis looked at Swann. He was holding the photograph of Rosa and her brother and looking like a man who needed to think about anything but facing his boss tomorrow morning.

“What is it?” Louis said.

“I’ve got one more question,” Swann said. “Maybe we can link the men. But these two women have nothing in common. They aren’t even friends. How the hell did they come to share the same lover?”

Louis glanced at Mel. Swann’s question was one they had not yet asked themselves and at the moment, it seemed a glaringly stupid thing to miss.

He rose and went to the bulletin board. He looked at the photographs of Tink Lyons and Carolyn Osborn. One woman older and neurotic; the other attractive and successful. What were they missing?

He remembered something Margery had told him, about how easy it was for men to manage their affairs but how hard it was for the women to do the same.

Louis reached into his pocket and pulled out the orchid sprig. It was wilted, now the color of dried blood.