Island of Bones

by P J Parrish

  “Look, I’m sorry, Louis,” he said. “I didn’t mean anything by that. You know I’ve got a lot of respect for you. It’s just that I haven’t been home since they issued the warning, I’m stretched too thin and I’m running on empty.”

  “Apology accepted, Chief,” Louis said. “Anything I can do to help out maybe?”

  Horton shook his head. They slowed to go through a flooded area, the Crown-Vic’s wake washing up into someone’s driveway.

  “How come you didn’t apply for the opening?” Horton asked.

  It was Louis’s turn for silence. He had known about the opening for a patrolman. Once, he had come close to calling Horton. But he hadn’t, and he knew he never would. He did owe Horton an answer though.

  “I’ve kind of gotten used to working freelance, Chief,” Louis said.

  Horton glanced over at him. “You get that PI license yet?”

  Louis nodded slowly without looking at Horton.

  “Gun?”

  “Yeah, a Glock.”

  Horton raised a brow. “Well, I guess that makes it official.”

  They followed the other car as it made the turn onto Fowler heading toward the river.

  “So what are they saying about Landeta?” Horton asked. Louis hesitated and Horton saw it. “Come on, I need to know.”

  “That something happened and he’s lost it.”

  Horton let out a sigh. “A few years back Mel had an accident. He was in a pursuit and some kid ran a light. He hit Mel broadside. Mel came out okay but the kid ended up a paraplegic and his family sued. The kid was at fault but the city didn’t care. They settled the suit and got Mel on breaching departmental policies. He said he was forced to resign.”

  “Tough break,” Louis said.

  He was thinking that Landeta didn’t look old enough to be near pension age. He had the lean body of a basketball player. The bald head, he guessed now, wasn’t bad genes but probably a style choice to go with the black suit, white dress shirt, black tie, and yellow aviator shades.

  “How old is he?” Louis asked.

  “Forty-five. Been a cop since he was twenty.” Horton was quiet for a moment. “Mel’s a good man,” he said again.

  There was something final in Horton’s tone that let Louis know the subject of Mel Landeta was closed.

  At the docks, the three of them boarded the patrol boat. Landeta took a spot standing by the officer who was driving, his eyes trained straight ahead as they motored down the river toward the open waters of Pine Island Sound.

  Louis’s eyes scanned the riverbanks. Many of the homes had missing shingles and tiles, and one old bungalow had a bright blue plastic tarp covering a large hole on the roof. Splintered docks floated near battered seawalls and giant twists of metal and gray screening hung over pools like shrouds.

  “Where we going?” he asked Horton.

  “Monkey Island up near Useppa. Uninhabited, just a bunch of mangroves.”

  Louis had heard of Useppa. It was an exclusive private island club of homes. You had to have a boat —- and big bucks -— to get there. Monkey Island on the other hand was probably just one of the hundreds of little scrub keys that pockmarked the sound.

  “So, what about the skull?” Louis asked.

  “Oh, yeah. I overnighted it to the State Bureau of Archeological Research,” Horton said.

  “Archeologists?”

  “Yeah, it’s standard procedure when we’re not sure what we’re looking at,” Horton said. “The skull could’ve floated out of a cemetery or some damn Indian burial ground or something.”

  He saw Louis staring at him.

  “Calusa Indians. We got a mess of their burial places around here. So every time we find a bone we gotta call the eggheads in Tallahassee.”

  “And?” Louis asked

  “They check their files to see if the place where it was found matches somewhere in their computers, like a historical or aboriginal type of place. Your find didn’t match anything. They don’t believe the skull is an Indian bone or anything weird like that.”

  “So what do they think it is?”

  Horton shrugged. “They don’t know and they don’t care. So they’re sending it back to me.”

  “Were they able to tell you anything about it?”

  “They said it probably got dredged up during the storm, maybe from an abandoned waterlogged cemetery or the bottom of the gulf. Plus, they said it was at least fifty years old. No rush on solving that one.”

  “I guess not,” Louis said.

  “Just as well,” Horton said. “Last thing I need right now is an infant homicide.”

  They were out in the sound now. It was coming up on eleven a.m. but there were no other boats out and the water was as flat and silver as a mirror. The driver throttled up and the boat cut across the water, heading north.

  The motor’s noise made talk impossible, so Louis sat back in the seat. He was disappointed about the skull. Then it occurred to him how sick it was for him to be disappointed that it was not a homicide but probably a natural death that happened half a century ago.

  That was the cop in him, the part that felt a rush every time a body washed up or a question mark came up. It was the part of him that would never go away. It was why he was tagging along with Horton now, like some voyeur, hoping for a vicarious cop fix.

  After about a half hour, the boat slowed. They were approaching a small thatch of dark green that looked more like a discarded clump of sod than an island. Horton stood up, his eyes scanning the greenery.

  “So what are you going to do with it?” Louis asked.

  “With what?” Horton asked.

  “The skull.”

  Louis saw Landeta glance back at them.

  Horton shrugged. “Hell, I dunno, Louis. Stick it in the evidence room, I guess. Maybe I’ll give it to Vince.”

  “Vince? Why?”

  “He has a skull collection in his office. Has them lined up on his bookcases like bowling trophies.”

  Louis looked down at his hand, seeing the small skull in his palm. Man, he just couldn’t see it sitting on some dusty old shelf in the evidence room next to rusting guns and rape slide smears. And he sure couldn’t see it ending up being just a macabre souvenir on the medical examiner’s shelf.

  He thought of Roberta Tatum again. It's what’s left of a baby.

  They were slowing, coming up alongside an old skiff bobbing empty. Then he saw a man in a wide-brimmed hat waving at them from the mangroves.

  “Can I have it?” he asked Horton.

  “The skull? Why?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe because I found it.”

  “Hell, I don’t care. I’ll give you a call when I get it back.”

  The officer looked back at Horton. “Low tide. This is as far as I can go without grounding her, Chief,” he said

  Horton surveyed the island still a good twenty-five yards away. The water ahead was shallow, leading to a stretch of black mud leading into the dense, twisting roots of the mangroves.

  “Shit,” Horton muttered.

  With a grunt he hoisted himself over the side and landed with a splash in the knee-high water. He started slogging toward the man in the straw hat.

  Louis watched as Landeta calmly took off his suit jacket, folded it, and laid it on a seat. Then he carefully climbed out and eased himself down into the water. He started slowly after Horton, his arms held up, a gold watch glinting in the sun.

  The driver was looking at Louis. Louis glanced at the mangroves, then back at the patrolman.

  “I guess I should leave my shoes on,” Louis said.

  “I would, sir. Don’t want to cut yourself on those oyster shells or kick up a stingray.”

  Louis got in the water. It felt good, cool after the hot sun. But the feeling vanished as he reached the mud flats. The low-tide stench was overwhelming and the black mud sucked him ankle-deep as he trudged toward the mangroves. When he pulled up next to Horton and Landeta, he was breathing heavy and sweating.
>
  The man who had been waiting for them was wearing tattered shorts and a shirt, a grimy straw hat covering his hair.

  “I’ve been keeping an eye on her,” he said. “I had to leave to call the cops but I came right back. She ain’t moved. You can see her good now that the tide’s out.”

  “How’d you find her?” Horton asked.

  “I fish for mullet every night around here,” the man said. “At dawn, I went in to pull my nets. That’s when I saw the white thing in the water by the roots. I thought it was just a trash bag but when I went close I saw that it weren’t. So I got out of here and called you guys.”

  “Where’s the body, Mr. Peg?”

  Louis turned at the sound of the deep soft voice. It was the first thing Landeta had said all morning.

  “Peg, it’s just Peg.” The old man pointed into the gloom of the mangroves. “Over theres. You don’t mind if I stay here, do you?”

  Landeta didn’t answer. He headed straight into the dense trees, picking his way carefully across the exposed mangrove roots. Horton stayed to question the old man. Louis decided to follow Landeta.

  He entered a cave of branches, the sun suddenly gone. The stink was incredible, a suffocating brew of fetid water, dank dirt and bird droppings. Louis started to gag and had to stop. The moment he did, the mosquitoes closed in.

  He pulled a deep breath and trudged on, grabbing the mangrove branches to keep moving through the gloom. Landeta was a patch of white ahead, his dress shirt sweat-plastered to his back. Finally, Landeta stopped.

  Louis struggled to his side and looked down.

  For a second, he thought she was just a girl. But then he realized it was only because of the way the body was compressed into the tangled mangrove roots.

  He guessed the force of the water had done it somehow, but it was still grotesque. The torso was facing outward, but was bent forward at the waist around a large root. The right arm was twisted back over the shoulder, the left arm hanging limp in front. The head hung oddly low on the chest, like the neck was broken.

  Her face was hidden by her jaw-length hair, which hung lank and mud-caked, looking almost like dreadlocks.

  Louis crouched in the muck. The sickly sweet smell of death rose up to him over the tidal stench but he didn’t move back.

  He felt a slap on his shoulder and looked back to see a pair of latex gloves hanging from Landeta’s gloved hand. He took them and put them on.

  “What condition is the skin in?” Landeta asked.

  “No separation or swelling.”

  “Can you reach the head?” Landeta said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Pull it up.”

  “I think her neck is broken.”

  “Use the hair.”

  Louis grabbed a hank of hair and carefully pulled up the head. Her mouth was open. So were her eyes. Blue...

  “Do you see any wounds? Signs of trauma?” Landeta asked.

  “No.”

  Louis looked at her twisted body, thinking about what Bev had told him about hurricanes smashing boats to bits.

  “Can you move it?”

  Louis looked back at Landeta. “What?”

  “Can you move it? We need to see the back.”

  She was wearing jeans, ripped at the knee, and a sleeveless white blouse. Louis grabbed the blouse and gave a pull but the body was held tight against its cage of roots.

  “The roots are holding her,” he said.

  “What?”

  “The damn roots. Maybe we should wait for the medical examiner.”

  “Maybe you should find another profession,” Landeta said.

  Louis’s eyes shot back to Landeta. He was just staring back calmly.

  Fuck you, burnout...

  “Try,” Landeta said.

  Louis inched closer, grabbed the blouse with both hands and gave the torso a hard tug. It took two more tries before the body slumped forward. There was a hole high on the back of the blouse.

  “What do you see?” Landeta asked.

  Louis leaned closer. “A bullet hole.”

  “How big?”

  “Big.”

  “Gunshot residue?”

  “She had to have floated here from somewhere else. Wouldn’t the water wash it away?”

  “What do you think?”

  “Hell, I don’t know. Probably.”

  “Not if it was a contact wound. It would’ve burned the blouse. Do you see any?”

  Louis shook his head, wiping away more sweat.

  “Lift the blouse and look,” Landeta said.

  It was hot and the whine of the mosquitoes and the smell was making him sick. He lifted the blouse, trying not to touch the flesh. There was a quarter-sized hole in her back, just under the bra. The tissue around the hole was bubbled and flaking. But no evidence of burning. He saw something on her neck and carefully moved her head.

  “What is it?” Landeta asked.

  “Another bullet hole. In her neck, left side. I’d bet it’s the same caliber as the one in her back.”

  “Anything else?” Landeta asked.

  Louis wiped his sweaty face and looked back at Landeta’s mud-caked trousers. “What?”

  “Do you see anything else?”

  Landeta seemed to be waiting for him to reveal some miraculous observation that only Landeta knew existed. If this was a test, he was getting damn tired of it. Where the hell was Horton anyway?

  Louis leaned back to the body and let his eyes wander its length. He focused on her bare feet. They were badly cut up, especially the soles.

  “She didn’t lose her shoes in the storm. She was barefoot,” Louis said.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Look at her feet. They’re all cut up.”

  Landeta didn’t move.

  Louis was about to move away and leave Landeta to his little games when he had a sudden memory. A night a long time ago when he had stood over his bathroom sink trying to wash blood from a blue uniform shirt. He had ended up letting it soak for two days and still the blood did not come out.

  “What is it?” Landeta asked.

  “There’s no blood,” Louis said.

  Landeta was silent.

  Louis stood up and looked at Landeta. His shirt clung to his body and he could feel the sweat dripping in his eyes.

  “There’s no blood or stains on her clothes,” Louis said. “She was in the water when she was shot or went in right after.”

  Horton came breaking through the trees at that moment, panting and sweating. He stopped abruptly when he saw the body.

  “Jesus H Christ,” he whispered. He put a hand to his mouth.

  Louis looked at Landeta, holding his gaze for a moment before turning to Horton.

  “Two shots, Chief, in the back and neck,” Louis said yanking off the gloves. “And it had to have happened in the last two days, probably around the time the storm hit.”

  Horton looked quickly at Landeta, but the detective said nothing.

  “I’m guessing she was trying to get away from someone,” Louis said. He looked around the mangroves. “In a place that tore up her feet. She ran into the water and someone shot her.”

  Horton was staring at the body. Landeta was looking at Louis. Louis looked back at the body.

  He was noticing the style of the jeans and blouse. She was young, he guessed. His eyes went up to her face, to the open eyes and mouth frozen in a grimace of fear. What had terrified a girl so much that she would run into the face of a hurricane?

  Louis heard Horton cue his radio. But he wasn’t listening. He was staring at the woman’s hand. It was lying across her chest, almost as if she were proudly displaying something.

  A ring. On the fourth finger of the left hand. A white band.

  He heard Horton come up to his side. “CSI and medical examiner are on their way. We gotta get her out of here before the tide comes back in.” Horton paused, looking at the body. “Can’t believe it. Still no one reported missing from the storm.”


  “Someone is missing her,” Louis said, nodding to the ring. “Probably her husband.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Louis dragged a palm frond out to the road and tossed it on the ten-foot pile of debris. He paused to wipe the sweat from his eyes and watch the slow line of cars creep along the beach road. The causeway was open again. Things were getting back to normal.

  Everything except his own cottage. The hurricane had torn away a section of his roof, right over his bed. Pierre had promised to fix it three days ago. But the roof was still covered with a tarp and he was still sleeping on the sofa.

  A car slowed, and a woman leaned out the window. “Excuse me, is this Branson’s on the Beach?” she yelled out to Louis.

  “Yeah, the sign’s down,” he said, pointing. He stepped aside and she pulled her Honda in, parking near the office. He was throwing another frond on the pile when the woman came up to him.

  “Can you tell me where I can find Louis Kincaid?” she asked.

  “You found him,” Louis said.

  Her eyes quickly took in his dirty jeans and bare sweaty chest. “Oh, I thought —- ” She held out her hand. “I’m Diane Woods.”

  Louis pulled off his work gloves and shook her limp hand as he sized her up. Short dark hair, tall, in her mid-thirties. Conservative blue suit, sensible heels that were nice but not expensive. And panty hose, even though the temperature was ninety-five. A secretary, he guessed, and from the pinched tired look on her face, another mother looking for help in getting a kid back from an AWOL ex.

  He suppressed a sigh. Man, he hated child custody cases. Too much work for too little money, with the great payoff of watching a social worker stuff a crying kid into a car.

  “I don’t know how this is done,” Diane Woods began.

  “You want to hire me to investigate something, right?” Louis asked.

  She gave a small nod, like she wasn’t sure.

  “Why don’t you come inside and we can talk?” Louis said.

  He led her into his cottage, setting aside the pile of laundry he had dumped on the sofa. She perched on the edge, clutching her big tote bag.

  “Can I get you something, a soda?” he asked.

  “Water?”

  Louis brought her a glass of water then excused himself, going into the bedroom to throw on a T-shirt. When he returned she was just sitting there, the water untouched, eyes downcast.