Claw Back (Louis Kincaid)

by Parrish, P. J.

  Louis grabbed a Heineken and started toward the porch, stopping as his eyes fell on the telephone and the answering machine. The machine’s steady red light stared back at him like a taunting eye.

  He had called Lily this morning but there had been no answer and he had to assume – hope – that Lily and her mother were still away at ballet camp. He still hadn’t told her he wasn’t going to make it up to Michigan in time for her birthday but he was determined not to break the news with a message.

  Louis took a swig of beer. He had called Joe, too. No answer at her cabin and he hadn’t had to guts the call her office, afraid he’d be told she was still on vacation.

  He took another long drink of beer. He didn’t want to think of her, lying in some big bed at the Ritz Carlton in Montreal with some guy.

  He brought the cold beer bottle up to his sweating forehead and closed his eyes.

  Screw this.

  He grabbed a second beer and went out onto the porch. The sea oats on the low dune beyond his yard were swaying slightly. If there was any air to be found, it would be down by the water.

  The beach was deserted. No one searching for shells, no one braving the bite of no-see-ums. Late August on Captiva. Even paradise could sometimes feel like hell.

  Louis dropped down onto the beach, wedged the unopened beer in the sand and took a drink from the open one. As he watched the sun’s slow descent into the gulf, he tried to will his mind to go blank. But Joe was there at his side.

  Have you ever heard of the green flash?

  No, Louis, but I suspect you’re going to tell me about it.

  It’s an atmospheric phenomenon where if conditions are just right, the top of the sun will turn green just before it disappears. The Celts believed that anyone who sees it can never be hurt by love.

  He had shut his eyes, giving in to the lull of the surf and he didn’t hear her come up behind him.

  “Hey there, stranger.”

  He looked up into Katy’s face.

  “I followed your footprints down here,” she said.

  He smiled and patted the sand. “Have a seat.”

  She sat down, cross-legged on the sand next to him. “Where have you been? I called you a couple days ago.”

  “I had to go down to Bonita Springs for a deposition. I’m testifying in an insurance fraud trial next month.”

  “I tried the sheriff’s office, too, but they said they hadn’t seen you around.” She paused. “So the job there didn’t work out after all?”

  He took a long draw from the beer. “Haven’t heard,” he said.

  Katy was quiet for a moment. “You see that picture of Mobley in the paper?”

  Louis nodded. “Yeah. He was holding my kitten.”

  “How do you know it was yours?”

  “I just did.”

  She chuckled. “I named it Lou.”

  Louis turned to her. “Lou?”

  She shrugged. “The only rocker I could think of was Lou Reed. The other kitten is named Nico, after his girlfriend.”

  “Lou...close enough.” He held out the second beer. “You want one?”

  She nodded, took the bottle and popped the top. After taking a drink she set it down in the sand front of her. “I called you because I wanted to explain about Hachi.”

  Louis knew that Mobley had reached a détente with the Seminole police chief and Keno had gone back to the reservation. No charges had been filed by anyone or against anyone.

  “I know it bothers you that he got away with it,” Katy said. “But you need to understand why he did it.”

  “Katy -–”

  She held up a hand. “I want to tell you.” She pulled in a deep breath. “I left the rez when I was twenty so I didn’t know much about him but Moses told me what I am telling you. Hachi’s mother died when he was very young and in the tribe your social place is counted only through your mother’s side. He was taken in by my great aunt Betty’s family even though she is of a different clan. Hachi was a lonely kid. Even after the ceremony --”

  She stopped to look at Louis. “The Seminoles have a special ceremony to recognize a boy’s entrance to manhood. Even after that, he couldn’t seem to find his place. He didn’t really belong to anyone or anything.”

  “Lots of people don’t fit in,” Louis said. “But they don’t commit crimes.”

  “But in his mind it wasn’t a crime.”

  “So why’d he go after the panthers?”

  Katy let out a sigh. “It’s complicated. The tribe has doctors but they also still have shamans.”

  “What, like medicine men?” Louis asked.

  She nodded. “They use plants and animal parts to treat our people. They are important in our ceremonies and are very respected in the tribe. Hachi wanted to go to medical school but didn’t even make it through high school so he decided he was going to become a medicine man.”

  “You just become a medicine man?”

  “No, and that was the problem. Shamans are chosen and trained from boyhood.”

  Louis was quiet, watching the sunset. “You said something back at the shack about Keno wanting to use the panther to help your aunt. Is that what this was all about?”

  “Yes,” Katy said quietly. “He believed that if he could get the placenta of a mother panther he could use it to cure Aunt Betty’s sickness. That’s why he tried to take Bruce, to mate with Grace. But then he realized Grace was already pregnant. And he came to get me to help.”

  Louis shook his head. “I have to ask, Katy. Is he mentally ill?”

  She sighed. “No, just lost. And desperate to help Aunt Betty, to stop something no one can stop.”

  They fell silent. The sun was hovering just above the horizon as the sky began its slow kaleidoscopic color shift.

  Katy leaned forward, drawing her finger through the sand to make two intersecting lines.

  “What’s that?” Louis asked.

  “The world,” she said.

  “I thought the world was round?”

  “This is the world of man’s two souls.”

  “I thought we only had one.”

  In the waning light he saw her smile. “Humor me,” she said.

  “Okay, go ahead.”

  “The Seminoles believe we all have two souls,” she said. “The first one is the one that leaves our bodies when we die. The second one, the ghost soul, leaves the body when we dream and it sort of just wanders around until we wake up.”

  “I’ve had nights like that,” Louis said.

  “Well, our dream soul needs to travel to the north, but sometimes it gets lost and goes across the solopi heni. That’s our word for the Milky Way, the road that leads to the west. The west is where the dead souls go. If a ghost soul wanders into the west then when the person wakes up their ghost soul is forever sick.”

  She brushed the sand from her hands. “That’s what happened to Hachi.”

  Louis was staring down at the lines in the sand. “Do we all go north in our dreams?”

  She looked over at him and smiled. “Yes. The north is the place of happiness.”

  Louis was quiet. A sudden breeze blew in from the water, cool and smelling of rain. Far out over the gulf, a zigzag of lightning lit up the purple clouds then it was dark again.

  “It’s getting late,” Katy said. “I better go.”

  “Want to go get a burger or something?” Louis asked.

  “I can’t. I’m going over to see my aunt. And I want to talk to Moses about working part time on the reservation.”

  “Really? Doing what?”

  “They can use a good vet.” She paused. “I want to get back inside. You know what I mean?”

  “Yeah,” Louis said. “Yeah, I do.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Louis stopped at the glass doors to the county building and squinted at his reflection.

  Not bad for an off-the-rack Dilliard’s clearance suit. It fit him perfectly, though he knew it wouldn’t have six months ago before he started working out
. He had hit for a Ferragamo blue tie and crisp white shirt to go with the charcoal gray suit. He looked like he could be going to a job interview or a funeral.

  He wished he knew which one it was going to be.

  Louis yanked open the door and was met inside by icy air and a cacophony of voices. Suits and deputies were everywhere and radio traffic echoed through the tiled halls.

  It had been almost a week since he had found Grace. Mobley had finally called him at seven this morning, waking Louis from a sound sleep.

  He expected Mobley would grudgingly concede the job, saying something like “It’s a done deal. Come in later to start your paperwork.”

  But he hadn’t said that. He said something else.

  We need to talk. My office. Two sharp.

  Louis had crawled out of bed and sat there for a minute, his hopes slowly dying as he started to question the reasons for Mobley’s terse phone call.

  There was a chance Mobley was just screwing with him again. Making him wait, making him hold his breath. Mobley had already said he had done a good job, and the sheriff’s photo with the kittens had been picked up by newspapers as far away as Arizona. How could Mobley not give him this job?

  But it might not be completely up to Mobley. Maybe there were other hoops to jump through, other people Louis had to face. The undersheriff. The lawyers handling the EEOC lawsuits Mobley was facing. Maybe even the county board of supervisors who probably weren’t too eager to let Mobley hire a P.I. whose face had been on the cover of “Criminal Pursuits” magazine.

  Which is why Louis had gone to Dilliard’s this morning and bought the suit he couldn’t afford and shined his only pair of dress shoes with a banana peel, a trick he had learned in the academy.

  If he was going to stand up before a firing squad at least he’d look good.

  Mobley’s reception area was empty. Ginger’s desk looked abandoned. Photos, the pink ceramic pen holder and the plants on her credenza were gone. So was her nameplate.

  The office door opened and Mobley came out. His eyes swept over Louis. “Nice threads. What happened to your old blazer?” he asked.

  “Don’t ask.”

  Mobley didn’t smile but his eyes showed a hint of amusement as he led Louis into the office. It was ice cold, the force of the air conditioner rattling the closed blinds. Mobley’s desk was stacked with folders and papers. His inbox had overflowed into the empty outbox. The trashcan was stuffed. A pile of newspapers covered his back shelf.

  “Sorry for the mess,” Mobley said. “I’m short-handed.”

  “Where’s Ginger?” Louis asked.

  “She got promoted.”

  “To what?”

  Mobley had to think for a minute. “Executive Director of Compliance for Fair and Equal Employment Opportunities in Law Enforcement Environments.”

  “Sounds like a lawyer’s job.”

  “She is a lawyer,” Mobley said. “Passed the bar last month.”

  Louis had always assumed Ginger was another of Mobley’s empty-headed bimbos. He did that too often, he realized, assuming things. He had made assumptions about Katy, about Indians, about hunters and even about panthers. None proved accurate.

  “Sit down, Kincaid.”

  “I’ll stand, if you don’t mind.”

  Mobley picked up a folder. “This is what took me so long to get back to you,” he said. “It’s the results of your background check.”

  Louis said nothing.

  “I suppose I should have made my original offer contingent on a background check since no matter how much I might want to hire someone, some things in a man’s past are automatic eliminators that I can do nothing about.”

  Louis stiffened his spine, trying not to show his disappointment.

  “I don’t particularly like some of the things you did when you were in uniform in Michigan,” Mobley said. “And I don’t like how you’ve handled some of your cases here in Florida. Or the large number of shitheads you’ve had to shoot.”

  Louis stayed quiet, fighting the urge to just thank Mobley for the chance at wearing a badge and get the hell out of here.

  “But,” Mobley went on, “no matter your methods, you’re an honest man. Your moral compass, to coin a phrase, is pointed in the right direction.”

  He had it. He had the job.

  “I can teach a man a lot of things,” Mobley said. “I can’t teach integrity. You’re hired.”

  “Thank --” Louis cleared his throat. “Thank you, sir.”

  “It’s only as a deputy,” Mobley said.

  “I’m fine with that.”

  “You’ll go through all the formalities,” Mobley said, opening a drawer. He pulled out another file, opened it and started through the papers inside.

  “Here’s a packet of some of your pre-hire paperwork. You’ll have to report for a drug test, take a physical, take a psych exam --” Mobley looked up at him. “You can get through one of those, right?”

  “I think so.”

  “You’ll have two more interviews,” Mobley said. “The path is greased unless you say something to really piss someone off, so try to show some respect to the oral board, okay? They’re kind of old guard.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Mobley handed him the folder. “Anyway, there’s more junk in there. Personnel and emergency contacts forms, health and life insurance, academy registration crap. There’s a guy down in Human Resources named Archie. He sets up all the tests. You need to see him before you leave here.”

  “Today?”

  “The next academy class starts September 15,” Mobley said. “I called in a couple of markers with FDLE to get you admitted to it. If you want this job, you’ll make that other stuff happen. Am I clear?”

  Lily...

  The Academy was a sixteen-week course. Before today, making it up to Michigan to see her was going to mean only a two-week postponement. Now it would be four months. And there would be no vacation time for a year at least.

  “Yes, sir, we’re clear,” Louis said.

  Mobley motioned to the door. “You need to get your ass out of here,” he said. “I have the final interviews for Ginger’s job.”

  Mobley reached for the door, but before he opened it, he put a hand out. Louis shook it.

  “Thank you, sheriff.”

  “Just don’t screw me on this, Kincaid.”

  “Not a chance.”

  Mobley opened the door. Three striking young women in business suits, sitting in chairs along the wall, looked up.

  The first had flowing dark brown hair, large brown eyes and long shapely legs crossed at the knees. Hispanic.

  The second woman wore her black hair sleekly pulled back, set off with gold hoop earrings and red lipstick. African- American.

  The third woman was petite, with silky black hair cut around her face in a swish-swish style that made her look younger than she probably was. She wore no make-up but she didn’t need any. Her skin was smooth as porcelain. Asian.

  Louis looked back to Mobley and raised a brow. “Interesting group of candidates,” he whispered.

  “Yeah,” Mobley said. “Diversity is a beautiful thing.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  It was past four by the time Louis finished up with Archie in Human Resources. He exited the station, a fat folder of forms under his arm, and stepped out into the thick August air.

  At the Mustang, he paused to yank off his blue tie and suit jacket and tossed them on the passenger seat along with the folder.

  The buzz of getting the job was still there. After almost six years without one, after all these years working in the shadows as a PI, he was finally going to feel the sweet weight of a badge again.

  Damn, he wanted to share this moment with someone.

  Mel. But then he remembered that he had gone to Atlanta with his girlfriend Yuba to meet her mother. It had surprised him that things had gotten that serious for his friend, but he was happy for him.

  Susan Outlaw and her son Ben. They wouldn’t r
eally understand how important this was.

  Sam Dodie. His old chief from Mississippi would get it but Sam and Margaret were roaming around out west somewhere in their motor home.

  Phillip. But his foster father was thirteen-hundred miles away up in Michigan and this wasn’t something that could be celebrated over the phone.

  Joe...

  More than anyone she would know what this meant to him. But he wasn’t ready to talk to her yet, wasn’t ready to find out if her trip to Montreal had been her way of moving on after their argument last Christmas.

  Louis looked over the hood of the car toward the station, watching as two cops come out in street clothes, laughing as they headed toward their cars, probably bound for O’Sullivan’s and after-shift unwinding. For a second he considered going there but he decided to wait until he had a badge, until he was finally one of them.

  He got in the Mustang, started it up and turned the air on high. For a moment he just sat there, hands on the wheel, squinting out the windshield into the low-slung white sun.

  Katy.

  Katy would get it.

  He glanced at his watch. She’d still be at her office for at least another hour. He slammed the Mustang in gear and peeled out of the lot.

  Her desk was empty but there was a full cup of steaming coffee sitting amid the mess of papers. There was no one else in the office, so Louis headed back toward the area holding the panther cages.

  There was Katy, standing behind a metal table holding a plastic baby bottle. Jeff was beside her, a wadded up towel in his hands.

  “Louis!” Katy said, looking up.

  “Hey Katy,” he said. “How’s it going, Jeff?”

  “Fine, Mr. Kincaid.”

  “Louis, it’s Louis, okay?” As he came forward he realized Jeff was cradling a panther kitten in the towel. It was squirming and making raspy mewing noises.

  “Oh man,” Louis said. “Is that Lou?”

  “Yup,” Katy said.

  “He’s gotten big in a week.”

  Katy nodded. “He’s going to be a really big boy, maybe over one-forty.” She held up the bottle. “Hold him tight, Jeff. Let’s give him the rest of his vitamins.”