by P J Parrish
The smile faded. “Didn’t know him,” he muttered.
“You were his cell mate for five years,” Joe said.
“Didn’t know him.”
Joe pursed her lips. “Five years living together in a room the size of a closet and you didn’t know him?”
Rowen didn’t look up as he shook his head slowly. “It’s not good to get too close to people in here.”
Louis was watching Rowen carefully, watching that throbbing vein, watching his eyes not meeting Joe’s, watching him pulling against the table cuffs like he wanted to get away.
“Mr. Rowen,” Joe went on, “Ellis got out eighteen months ago. Who did he know here in Florida that he might have hooked up with?”
Louis focused on Rowen’s arms as he pulled against the cuffs. His arms were straining hard now, the muscles jumping out in high relief. Both arms were covered with tattoos. His left arm was an elaborate tableau showing a nude African woman with Medusa-snake hair standing atop a tombstone, surrounded by skulls breathing fire. There were hands clasped in prayer and a cross on his right forearm amid some elaborate swirls, a BE MINE on his hand and a ferocious snake that coiled up around his bicep and disappeared into his sleeve.
The snake was jumping now as Rowen flexed his arm against the metal loop.
“Mr. Rowen,” Joe said, raising her voice slightly.
Rowen looked at her with a jerk of his head. His eyes were bulged, and he leaned closer to Joe, speaking through clenched teeth. “I said I didn’t know Ellis. I don’t know his new boy either.” Rowen looked back at the officers by the door. “Get me out of here.”
The guards didn’t move. Joe stood up, the metal scrape of her chair echoing in the room. She looked at the officers.
“We’re done here. Thank you.”
Louis rose and they left the room, the door clanking shut behind them. They were silent as they were escorted back to the secured check-in area, where they picked up their guns and turned in their visitor badges.
They didn’t speak again until they were outside. Joe stopped to zip up her leather coat, Louis to pull up the collar of his jacket. The wind coming across the parking lot cut into them, sending the metal halyards on the nearby flagpole clanking like a frantically tolling bell.
“That was a waste of time,” Louis said.
Joe didn’t say anything as they hurried to the Bronco. Joe started it up and flipped on the heat. They sat waiting for the truck to warm up.
“Did you notice his tattoos?” Joe asked.
“Yeah, the snake woman was real cute,” Louis said.
“They were very well done,” Joe said. “Not your usual quick-prick with a needle and broken Bic. These were done with a gun.”
“Gun?” Louis asked.
She nodded. “The cons make tattoo guns out of slot car motors, hollowed out pens, batteries, and guitar strings. It’s a big deal to get a real tat. And they’re important to the inmate’s sense of self or belonging. An expert could probably analyze that snake woman and tell you more about him than a shrink could.”
“What’s the teardrop for?” Louis asked.
“They signify the murder of a friend.”
Joe picked up Ellis’s folder from the backseat and flipped through the pages.
“You looking to see what tattoos Ellis had?” Louis asked.
She nodded. “Here it is -- crosses, a naked woman, and a flying bird. No snakes or teardrops.”
“What are you looking for?”
“Some sign in the tats that Ellis, Rowen, and our unknown perp traveled in the same circles or gang. But I’m seeing nothing.”
“But that listing of Ellis’s tattoos wouldn’t necessarily include anything he got while in prison,” Louis said.
“True.”
Louis propped an elbow on the door of the Bronco and looked out at the flat gray landscape. They had come here hoping that an embittered inmate might actually say something to help them. It had been a long shot at best. Rowen was hollow and cold, his shell scarred with crude artistry only he understood. The man didn’t seem to care about Ellis, a small boy, or freedom. He didn’t care about a damn thing.
“Where to now?” Louis asked.
Joe shoved the truck into gear. “Might as well go home.”
CHAPTER 30
The moment Louis walked back into Susan’s living room he knew something was wrong. Wainwright and Jewell were standing shoulder to shoulder, watching the television. They didn’t even look at Louis.
“What’s wrong?” Louis asked.
“Dead cop,” Wainwright said. “They found him about an hour ago in a convenience store over on Cleveland.”
Louis dropped his overnight bag on the floor and went over to the television. It was around three but the local news had broken into the soap operas, and the type below the talking head said WINK-TV EXCLUSIVE. There was a head shot of a dark-haired man wearing the green uniform of the Lee County Sheriff’s Department.
Joe came in, dropping her bag. “What’s going on?” she asked.
Louis held up a hand. Joe’s eyes went to the television.
“The deputy has been identified as Lieutenant Jack Zompa,” the anchorwoman read. “Police say the deputy was strangled and left in a restroom before being discovered, partially clothed, late last night by a custodian. Police will not confirm reports that the deputy’s uniform and gun may have been stolen. Sheriff Mobley could not be reached for comment.”
“Did you know him?” Joe asked Louis.
Louis shook his head, his eyes still on the TV. Zompa looked to be in his late thirties, with a full dark mustache and the steady-eyed gaze typical of police personnel file photos.
“I knew him. Good cop,” Wainwright said. “No wife or kids.”
“Thank God for that at least,” Joe whispered, her eyes not leaving the television.
Wainwright moved away, shaking his head. Louis started to take off his jacket and noticed Jewell. He was standing there, ramrod straight, his eyes intent on the television, his mouth hanging slightly agape.
Louis had a pretty good idea what Jewell was thinking, what he was feeling. The kid was young enough that he might not have had someone close to him die. And though he didn’t know the dead cop, any dead cop was like a death in the family.
He was trying to think of something to say when it struck him that there was something else there in Jewell’s eyes, something that looked close to horror.
“Jewell,” Louis said.
He didn’t take his eyes off the TV.
“Jewell, what’s wrong?”
The young cop’s blue eyes finally moved to Louis. “He was here,” he said.
Louis glanced back at the TV “Who? Zompa?”
Jewell shook his head, like he was trying desperately to figure something out. “Yes...no. I mean, a deputy came here yesterday. His name tag said Lieutenant Zompa.” Jewell nodded toward the television. “But it wasn’t that guy.”
“What do you mean?”
Jewell’s expression was turning sick. “It wasn’t that guy on TV. It was another guy, blond.”
“When, Jewell?”
“Last night, around six or six-thirty. I remember because it was dinnertime and I was getting hungry.”
Now Joe had joined Louis at Jewell’s side. “What did he say, what did he do?” she asked.
“I don’t —-” Jewell ran a hand over his face. “He just came in and sort of looked around. And then he left.”
Louis knew Wainwright had come up behind him but he kept his attention focused on Jewell. “Nothing else? Just looked around?” Louis pressed.
Jewell shook his head. “He went back toward the bedrooms, and I saw him looking in the little boy’s room. Mr. Outlaw was in there sleeping and I told Lieutenant Zompa —- the man, I mean —- to let him sleep. And then I remember Ms. Outlaw, she came out and started yelling at him.”
“What else?” Louis asked.
Jewell’s face had gone pale and he was sweating. “I thou
ght something was wrong, something about him was wrong.” He looked up suddenly at Louis. “His gun belt...it didn’t fit right It was too big for him or something, and his gun was hanging down too low.”
Wainwright pushed forward. “What did you do?”
Jewell stared at him. “Sir?”
“What did you do?”
Jewell blinked twice. “Nothing, sir,” he said softly.
“Nothing,” Wainwright said from between clenched teeth. “How could you do nothing? Didn’t you question him? Didn’t you ask him what he was doing here? Couldn’t you tell he wasn’t a cop?”
“Chief,” Louis said.
Wainwright ignored him. “Jesus H Christ! A fucking homicidal maniac walks right in, takes a nice long look around, and you do nothing?”
A redness had started at Jewell’s neck and was creeping up, flooding his face with shame and humiliation. He was trying hard not to look away from Wainwright.
Finally Wainwright broke away with a dismissive wave of disgust. “I gotta call Mobley.” He started to the kitchen and stopped to look back at Jewell.
“You stay right here.”
Jewell’s eyes skittered to Louis and then he quickly looked away. He turned and went to stand at the door.
Joe muted the TV and tossed the remote on the sofa. “I could use a drink,” she said softly. She disappeared into the kitchen.
Louis looked at Jewell. For a moment, he wanted to tell him he understood, that he himself had once let a killer slip away. But he knew there was nothing he could say that could make Jewell feel better. Jewell had to find his own way out of this.
Louis started off to the kitchen, hoping Joe had left him something from that bottle of cheap brandy.
The house was filled again with cops, and now the dark green sheriff’s office uniforms dominated the plain blacks of Wainwright’s Sereno Key force. Three SO detectives were wandering around the house, in and out of the bedrooms. Two more SO uniforms were standing guard by the door. A crime scene tech had been brought in but when Jewell told them the intruder had worn gloves, there was little for the tech to do. There was little for any of them to do.
Except the sketch artist. She was sitting at the kitchen table with Jewell, working her pad and pencil as Jewell quietly gave a description.
There was no place to sit and it was too cold to go outside, so Louis finally found a place in the hallway where he could stand and be out of the way. From his vantage point, he could see Sheriff Lance Mobley and Wainwright in the kitchen near Jewell and the artist. Wainwright was not a small man, but now he looked dwarfed by Mobley.
Louis could hear their voices growing louder as Mobley ripped into Wainwright for everything from the chief’s failure to establish a secure perimeter to his oversight of not keeping a clearance list of who was allowed in the house. Jewell was just sitting there, the angry words flying over his head, trying to keep focused on the sketch artist.
Louis shook his head in disgust. He had to get away from this. He rose, went quickly through the kitchen and pushed open the door to the Florida room.
The cold air felt good after the stuffiness and chaos inside. He paused to pull in a deep breath.
He saw someone sitting in one of the lawn chairs in the far shadows of the porch. He knew it wasn’t Joe. She had left to go check in with her own department.
“Susan?”
She didn’t answer. He went over to her. She was curled into a ball, a blanket wrapped around her. She didn’t look up at him.
Louis pulled over the other lawn chair and sat down in front of her.
“Susan,” he said, reaching out.
They were too far away from the kitchen window for him to see her face clearly, but he could see the hard set of her jaw, the rigidity in her body that could only come from shock at this point. All these people in her house again, all these uniforms, and they weren’t here for Ben now. They were here because of a dead cop.
“Susan, listen to me,” Louis said. “I know what you’re thinking. But this is still about Ben.”
Susan looked up at him for the first time.
“What’s going on in there right now will help the case, help us find Ben.”
Susan stared at him. “You don’t get it,” she said quietly.
Louis had his hand on her arm. He could feel her body shaking through the blanket.
Her eyes were intense on his. “You don’t get it,” she said. “I touched him. He was in here and I touched him.”
She brought up a hand to her mouth, closing her eyes, as if she were trying not to be sick. Mobley’s voice carried out to them, angry and cold. Susan shut her eyes tight and pulled back, away from Louis’s hand.
He knew what she was thinking. It’s their fault this monster got in. They can’t protect me. They can’t bring back my son. Neither can you.
“I’m going in,” Susan said suddenly, throwing off the blanket.
“I’ll leave you alone,” Louis said.
“No, I need to do something.” She stood up, looking toward the kitchen. “Maybe I can help with the sketch.”
She left Louis sitting alone on the porch.
CHAPTER 31
Wednesday, January 20
Adam Vargas set the last of the little plastic cowboys on the windowsill and looked at them. They all had different poses. Some with lassos. Some with guns. There was one with bowed legs that was meant to sit on a horse and it couldn’t stand up by itself, but he had set it there anyway, laying it on its back. He’d have to get him a horse.
He heard footsteps and turned to see Ellis coming down the hall, bare chested, his jeans low on his waist. He had slept late, like he always did.
Ellis went into the kitchenette of the single-wide trailer, and opened the Styrofoam cooler, bending to peer inside.
Vargas could see the bird tattoo on his back, wings spread, beak tilted up toward a sun. There was a naked woman on his left arm and that stupid one on his hand, but Vargas liked the bird best. The bird meant something -- escaping, flying to a better place, Aruba.
Vargas looked down at the smooth white skin of his own arms, holding them out in front. His whole body was like that -- pale, almost hairless, unmarked by the black ink of prison artists. Just the way Byron liked it.
“Are we out of Pepsi?” Ellis asked.
“Sorry.”
Ellis grabbed a can of beer instead and leaned on the short bar that separated the kitchenette from the living room. He was shivering.
“You look like shit,” Vargas said. “You feeling okay?”
“I’m tired. I’m tired of running. I’m tired of this shit-hole place. I’m tired of the cold. I’m just tired, Adam.”
Vargas was quiet. He spotted a sweatshirt draped on a chair and went to get it, holding it out to Ellis.
“I’m sorry I screwed it up,” he said. “I’m sorry I couldn’t finish it while I was in there.”
Ellis gave him a weary look. “You did good. You found out what we needed to know.” He took the sweatshirt and pulled it on.
“Yeah, but now what?” Vargas asked. “We can’t get back in there and Outlaw sure as hell ain’t coming out any time soon. What we going to do now, Byron?”
Ellis came around the bar and sank into a tilted three- legged chair, one of the few pieces of furniture left in the trailer. “I don’t know,” he said.
Vargas was quiet. He never heard him say that. He always knew what to do. He watched Ellis, watched him staring at the wall. Vargas knew he was thinking about getting warm on some beach on Aruba. Thinking maybe that they were never going to be able to fly off to the sun.
Vargas went back to the windowsill, bending the broken blinds to look out through the dirty window at the gray day. He picked up one of the cowboys, rubbing it gently with his thumb.
“Hey, By?”
Ellis glanced at him. “What?”
“I was just thinking.”
Ellis waited patiently.
“I was thinking, you know, about on
the TV yesterday at the motel when they said Outlaw was dead?”
Ellis nodded slowly.
“Well, you and me know that ain’t true. But I bet Uncle Leo doesn’t.”
Ellis just stared at him for a second, thinking. “What are you saying?”
Vargas shrugged. “Just that Uncle Leo doesn’t know we didn’t get the job done and that maybe he doesn’t need to.”
Ellis sat forward. “You’d lie to your uncle about something like that? You’d take his money knowing you hadn’t done the job?”
Vargas hesitated, staring at the little cowboy. He’d never lied to Uncle Leo before, but things were different now. Everything was fucked up. They had killed too many people, the cops had Byron’s name and they were on the run, having to hide out in this shit-hole abandoned trailer with no food, no heat, no electric. If they didn’t do something quick, they were never going to get out of this.
Vargas looked at Ellis. “Yeah, I’d lie to him.”
Ellis didn’t say anything, and for several minutes they just sat there, listening to the rattle of loose aluminum on the roof.
Finally, Ellis rose and paced slowly around the tiny room. “You’d have to go there alone,” he said softly, turning back toward Vargas.
“I know.”
“You’d have to go today.”
“I know.”
“And once we leave, you’ll never be able to come back,” Ellis said.
Vargas set the cowboy in the window. “I know that, too.”
Again, they were quiet.
“Okay,” Ellis said, nodding. “Okay. Let’s do it. Let’s do it now.”
Vargas stood up and started toward the back of the trailer for his jacket and keys. He stopped and turned back.
“Are you sure about this?” Vargas asked.
“It was your idea, Adam. And it’s a good idea.”
Vargas shifted from one foot to another.
“Look, there’s no other way,” Ellis said “Don’t worry about Leo. He’s got money, Adam. Guys with money can get out of things. And maybe if the cops go after him, he’ll be so busy trying to get out of this mess he’ll leave us alone.”