by P J Parrish
Louis opened the door, and let himself out. He paused at her window, peering through the slats in the blinds.
Diane was wobbling back to the kitchen. Louis watched as she pulled open three different cabinets before finding the gin. She raised the bottle to her mouth and slugged down a shot.
He turned away and started down the steps. A car door slammed in the parking lot and a man got out.
Louis froze on the top step. Shit, it was Frank. And there was nowhere to go, no place to hide before Frank saw him.
Louis stopped on the top step as he watched Frank Woods lock his car. He turned and looked up at his daughter’s apartment, his eyes settling on Louis, fully illuminated in the amber light.
Frank spun and hurried back to his car, jumping inside. Louis started to call to him, but stopped.
Hell, what could he say? I was just here telling your drunk daughter I wanted to quit spying on you?
Frank threw his car in reverse and squealed out of the parking lot. For a second, Louis thought about following him. But what was the point?
Louis rubbed his gritty eyes. The hell with it. He was tired and he was going home. There was one Heineken left in the fridge and it had his name on it.
CHAPTER 12
One Heineken hadn’t been enough. After a fitful night, he was awake but just lying there, sweaty and tired. The sheets were kicked to the floor and even Issy, who usually slept by his side, had retreated to the cool of the terrazzo floor.
The phone rang and he glanced at the clock. Eight-thirty a.m. He let it go ten times but it wouldn’t stop. Finally, he rolled out of bed and picked it up.
“Mr. Kincaid? This is Diane Woods.”
She was speaking carefully. He knew that meant hangover.
“He’s disappeared,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“My father. He’s gone.”
“How do you know?”
“I called him first thing this morning. He didn’t answer, and when I called the library, they said he hadn’t come in. I am on my way over to his house now. Will you meet me there? He might be inside. He might have done something to himself.”
“Look, Miss Woods, you really should go —- ”
“Please. I don’t want to go in there alone.”
Louis had been leaning on his knees, head down. He sat up. “Where are you?”
“I’m at home.”
“Okay, meet me at his house in a half hour.”
Diane’s Honda was in the drive of Frank’s home, and she got out as he pulled up. She was dressed in a dark skirt and red blouse, her hair neat around a made-up face. She was wearing sunglasses despite the fact it was overcast.
“Thank you,” she said softly.
“Maybe we should call the police.”
She shook her head. “Please, just come in with me.”
He followed her to the porch. It was covered with leaves and there were a couple of copies of the News-Press. A white plastic planter hung by the door but there was nothing in it but dirt. Diane reached up to the planter and dug out a key.
“You don’t have your own key?” Louis asked.
She turned to look at him but he couldn’t see her eyes through the dark glasses. “No. Why would I?”
You’re his daughter, Louis thought, but he let it go.
“He leaves a key outside because he is always losing his own,” Diane explained, unlocking the door.
Louis went in first and did a quick walk-through of all the rooms. There was no one in the house. He came back to the front door, where Diane was waiting.
“He’s not here,” Louis said.
Diane shut her eyes in relief.
Louis turned and looked around the living room. It looked much like he had imagined. Plain, a little run-down, like no one really had the time or energy to invest it with the small things that made the difference between a house and a home.
The living room was browns and tans, the furniture nondescript and old. Cheap bookcases, filled to bursting. There were a couple of generic framed landscapes on the walls but there was nothing to really speak of the personality of the person who lived here. Nothing except a framed photograph on the end table next to an ashtray overflowing with cigarette butts. It was of Diane, her hair longer, her smile shy, her cheeks and lips tinted pale pink in the style of old high school senior portraits.
The room smelled of cigarettes, must, and something Louis recognized but could not name. He had smelled it once before, in the closed-up cabin of an ex-cop named Lovejoy. It was the lonely odor of one man alone, undiluted by fresh air, sunlight, or the perfume of other human beings.
Louis heard the rasp of drapes and turned to see Diane working at closing the gaps facing the street. Then she turned. She had taken off the sunglasses and she was looking at the room.
She looked at Louis. “I...I’m sorry, the place is a mess.” She went to the overflowing ashtray, picked it up, and looked around the room, like she wanted to empty it. Then she just set it down on the dusty table.
“My father is not the neatest man,” she said. And then she gave Louis an odd smile, like she was apologizing.
“Can I look around some more?” Louis asked.
She nodded and headed toward a back room. The bedroom drapes were drawn so she turned on the overhead light. Louis paused by the door, looking at the room.
It was like the living room, the bed unmade, another overflowing ashtray, a jumble of clothes in a laundry basket in the corner. In the open closet, Louis could see the white shirts, brown slacks, and jackets that made up Frank’s library uniform. On the nightstand, there was a plate with a half-eaten sandwich and a small stack of books with one volume spread open, facedown. A pair of half-lens reading glasses were lying on top of the book.
Louis picked up the book. The title was “Theory and Practice of Romance Etymology.” Louis set it back, putting the glasses on top exactly as he had found them.
“I don’t think he’s gone anywhere. At least not for good,” he said. When Diane didn’t answer he turned to her.
She was looking around the room, her mouth hanging slightly agape, her eyes not quite concealing her disgust. He knew now why she didn’t have a key to her father’s house. It gave her an easy reason to stay away.
She saw him staring at her and went slowly to the bathroom. “His toothbrush is gone,” she called out.
“Maybe he’s spending the night somewhere. Maybe he has a girlfriend.”
She came back into the bedroom. “You’ve been watching him. He doesn’t have a girlfriend. He doesn’t even have any friends. He barely has a life.”
Louis watched her as she went to the bureau and slowly pulled out the top drawer.
“You sound like you’re embarrassed by him,” Louis said.
She spun around. “I’m protective. How can anyone be embarrassed by their parent? They are what they are.”
She went back to searching through the drawers, but more slowly now, like she had no idea what she was looking for.
“What happened to your mother?” Louis asked.
“She died when I was seven,” Diane said.
“How did she die?”
She shut the drawer, turning to face him. “He didn’t kill her if that’s what you’re wondering. She died in a car accident. He was at work when it happened.”
Louis didn’t reply.
Diane took a deep breath. “My father raised me alone after that. It wasn’t easy for him. He’s kind of a closed man, didn’t ever really understand me, I suppose.”
Louis glanced around the room. More bookcases like the living room, the shelves all filled. There wasn’t even room to slide in a pamphlet. Louis scanned the nearest shelf. The books all appeared to be scholarly stuff, many of the books about foreign languages. No novels or light reading.
Louis turned back to Diane. “Do you notice if anything else is missing?”
She looked around, shaking her head. But then she stopped, and moved to the closet
. She pointed to the shelf.
“His rifle,” she said. “He kept it in a case on that shelf.”
“How long has he had it?”
Diane blinked. “Forever. I mean, it’s old. I remember I used to watch him clean it when I was little. He would take it out of the case, lay it out on a towel on the kitchen table, and spend hours cleaning all the parts and then put it all back together again. He never took it out except to clean it.”
“He didn’t hunt?”
She shook her head. “He wasn’t interested in the outdoors. I never saw him use it. Not once. I always got the impression it was an heirloom or antique or something and that was the only reason he kept it. He never said.”
“Do you know what kind it was?”
She shook her head.
“Think. Did he ever call it a Savage?”
“I don’t remember. I don’t care. I hate guns.”
Louis’s eyes scanned the bedroom once more. There was a desk crammed in one corner. “Is that where you found the articles?”
Diane nodded and went to the desk, pulling out the top drawer.
“They were in here,” she said, handing him a leather binder. “I put them back after I made the copies I gave you.”
Louis flipped through the book. It was an old date book from 1983, but most of the pages were blank. There was an occasional reminder of an appointment, but nothing out of the ordinary.
He sifted through the stack of papers under the book. Utility bills, receipts from local stores, statements from the Lee County Library Credit Union, a dry cleaner’s claim stub for three pairs of men’s slacks.
He found a receipt dated yesterday. It was from Seven C’s Bait and Tackle Shop in Fort Myers.
“Does your father fish?” he asked.
“No.” Diane’s brow furrowed. “He won’t even eat fish. He’s allergic to it.”
Louis glanced into the untidy bathroom and turned back to Diane. “Show me the rest of the house.”
She led him to a small second bedroom that she said used to be hers as a child. The room was as neat and orderly as a lawyer’s reception area. They ended up in the kitchen.
It was a mess. The Braun coffeemaker still had a cup or two left in it. There were dirty dishes in the sink and an egg- encrusted pan on the stove. Louis glanced around, and seeing a door, walked to it. It opened into a small garage. Small slits of sunlight squared the garage door. He tried the light, but it was burned out. Stepping down into the shadows, he used the light from the kitchen to maneuver the two steps. He spotted a flashlight and turned it on, shining the beam over a cluttered tool bench, storage bins, and the garage walls. The light flashed on something metal in a corner and Louis went to it.
It was a fishing rod, hung on two brackets. It was an old rod, coated in dust. But from the little Louis had learned about fishing, he could tell the rod was expensive, not something your average pier-dangler would have in his garage.
There was a second set of identical brackets below the rod, empty.
Louis took a step and something crackled under his foot. He trained the light down and it picked up several large white plastic bags with the red letters TAL BRODY’S SPORTS CITY. He started going through the bags.
Diane came up behind him. “What are you looking for?”
Louis didn’t answer. Finally he pulled out a small paper and trained the flashlight on it. It was a sales receipt. The first item was a Coleman Sundome tent.
“He’s gone camping,” Louis said.
“Camping?”
Louis held up the receipt. “In a brand-new tent. And with a new lantern, first-aid kit, water bottles, the works. Six hundred and eighty dollars’ worth.”
Diane took the receipt and shook her head slowly. “My father has never spent a night outdoors in his life.”
“You said he doesn’t fish either.” Louis shined the beam up on the rod and empty brackets.
Diane was staring at the fishing rod. “That can’t be. He doesn’t even like being near water.” Her voice was soft, like things were just now coming back to her. “I remember once, when I was little —- I must have been little, because it was just after my mother died —- we were down by the pier and there were these boats. I asked him if we could go out on one. But he said we couldn’t. He said he didn’t like the water because he couldn’t swim.”
She turned abruptly, heading back to the kitchen.
Louis found her standing in the center of the living room, eyes vacant.
“I thought I knew him,” she said softly.
Louis stopped a few feet from her. He felt like telling her the first thing that had popped into his head -- that no one really knew their parents. You only knew the idealized version —-dependable, de-sexed and devoid of human failings. If you were lucky. If you weren’t lucky, you saw your parents in all their ugliness. Like the sad woman he remembered withered in her addiction. Or the faceless man in the faded photograph, the only image he had of his father.
He turned to Diane. “Look, Miss Woods, I think you are worried for no real reason.”
“No reason! What about the articles?”
“By themselves, they mean nothing.”
“Then why did he keep them?”
“Why don’t you just ask him?” Louis said firmly.
“I can’t,” she said.
Louis shook his head. A voice inside was telling him to just leave and not get pulled any further into some messy emotional drama with this woman and her old man. Besides, even if he were to go after Frank Woods, he didn’t know where to begin. There were a million places he could hide in, not just the usual campgrounds and parks but dozens of forgotten little islands where a man could put in a boat and get lost forever.
“I’m leaving,” he said. He went back into the kitchen. She followed and grabbed his arm.
“Wait. There’s something else,” she said. She let go of his arm. “Please, just wait.”
She disappeared back into the bedroom. When she came back, she stood there for a moment, her eyes searching his face.
She held out her palm and he looked down.
In her hand was a white coral ring. It looked exactly like the ring Louis had seen on the finger of the dead woman on Monkey Island.
“You’ve had that the whole time?” he asked.
She nodded.
Louis looked away, his chest tight. “Where did you find it?”
“In a box in the bottom of one of his desk drawers.”
“You never saw it before?” Louis asked.
Diane shook her head. “No, never.”
“What about your mother? You’re sure she never wore it?”
She shook her head again. “No, her wedding ring was a plain gold band. After she died, my father gave it to me.” She held up her right hand. “I wear it now. It’s the only thing I have to remember her by.”
She looked like she was going to cry. It struck Louis that it was the first time he had seen her look genuinely upset.
“You should have given me that ring the first day,” Louis said. “How the hell can you expect me to waste my time on something when I don’t have all the evidence?”
“If I had given it to you, you would’ve turned it over to the police.”
“Damn right. And that’s still what I’m going to do,” Louis said. “This is important. This is more than just suspicion. This is a link, Miss Woods. To a murder victim.”
She closed her fist quickly over the ring and stepped back.
Louis held out his hand. “Give it to me.”
“No.”
“Suit yourself. I’ll just tell the cops what I know and what you have and you will be charged with obstruction. How’s that?”
“You can’t do this to me.”
“You’ve done it to yourself,” Louis said. “I’m leaving. Put your last check in the mail.”
Louis started away but she grabbed him again. This time, he jerked away and spun to face her.
“Look, lady —-”
>
“I’ll give you five hundred dollars more to find him first. Just give him ten minutes. Talk to him, please.”
Louis headed to the front door and pulled it open.
“A thousand!”
He turned. “You can’t afford that. Look, just —-”
Diane came to stand in front of him. “You said yourself he’s an ordinary guy. You said he was normal."
Louis rubbed his face. “I don’t know what normal is any more than you do, Miss Woods.”
“Please,” she said. “I just want this to be quiet.”
Louis just looked at her.
“The police,” she said, “I don’t want...”
Her voice trailed off and Louis knew what she wanted. Or rather didn’t want. Diane Woods didn’t want to see the spectacle of her father being hauled into the police station on the nightly news. For a moment, he was disgusted. But then, who in their right mind would want to be part of the circus?
He looked at her balled fist. And there was the ring. No way was she going to give up that ring without a fight, and he had no authority to take it from her. Hell, for all he knew, she was just going to go throw it in some canal as soon as he left.
“All right. If I don’t find him by tonight, you give me the ring and I go to the cops.”
She nodded. “Just find him. And make sure he doesn’t get hurt...or try to hurt himself.”
Louis looked back around the room, his eyes falling on the filled ashtray. There was a book of matches next to it. Louis picked it up. Sutter’s Marina. He knew that place. It was down the street from Roberta Tatum’s store. It was a popular place for fishermen or anyone looking to rent a boat or catch a ferry.
“Now what happens?” Diane asked.
Louis pocketed the Sutter’s Marina matches. “We hope your father has just gone fishing,” he said.
CHAPTER 13
The leather-faced guy behind the counter at Sutter’s Marina handed Louis the picture of Frank Woods and went back to picking his teeth.
“So have you seen him?” Louis asked.
“Not sure. Maybe.”
“Think harder.”
The guy tugged on his sweat-stained ball cap. It was embroidered with a blue Grateful Dead bear. “You a cop?”