by P J Parrish
“Where’d Horton go?” Landeta asked.
Louis froze. He knew what Landeta was thinking.
“Mel, no,” he said.
“I said, where’s Horton?”
“Over there by the fountain.”
Louis watched as Landeta followed the sound of the water over to the fountain. He watched as Landeta touched Horton’s shoulder and said something. Horton looked down at Landeta’s hand, but he didn’t move.
The two men talked for several more minutes. Finally, Horton took the gold shield.
Horton walked away, the dog tugging him toward the parking lot. Landeta was just standing there. Louis knew he couldn’t see him so he went over to him.
“Why did you do that?” Louis asked.
“It was time.” Landeta was still looking off in the direction that Horton had gone. There was something different about Landeta suddenly. It was small but Louis could see it there in the slight drop of his shoulders, the laxity in his face. It was as if the damn gold badge had been the only thing holding him upright.
“Mel, look, I know —- ” Louis began.
Landeta’s eyes came back to Louis. He smiled slightly. “Come on. I’ll buy you a beer.”
CHAPTER 37
Landeta looked at him from across the table, his long fingers wrapped around the glass of Diet Coke. They had driven to O’Sullivan’s in silence, Louis leaving Landeta to his thoughts. But they had been here for five minutes and the man still hadn’t spoken.
“Mel, we need to talk about this,” Louis said.
“It was my decision. Don’t feel sorry for me.”
“I wasn’t.” Louis stopped. Truth was, he was feeling sorry for Landeta.
“I’m concerned,” Louis said.
“I’m not Frank Woods, Kincaid. I won’t jump into the sound on you.”
“What will you do then? Go back to Miami?” Louis asked.
Landeta shrugged, his gaze wandering over to the two off-duty cops sitting at the bar. He twirled the ice in his glass. “Do you remember that day in my office, when you stopped by to get the baby skull?”
Louis nodded.
“I asked you how long it took before you didn’t miss being a cop anymore,” Landeta said. “Do you remember?”
“I didn’t really answer you,” Louis said.
“You didn’t have to. I already knew. I knew the answer that day back in the mangroves when we found Shelly Umber’s body.”
Louis waited until Landeta took a drink and set the glass down on the cocktail napkin.
“You knelt there, down by Shelly Umber’s body, and told me what you saw even though you were choking on the damn smell,” Landeta said.
Louis shrugged. “Yeah, well, I guess you never stop wanting to be a part of it. Even the bad parts.”
“What was it you liked most?” Landeta asked.
Louis shifted, uncomfortable. There was an unfamiliar sense of intimacy hovering over the table, and he wasn’t sure he liked it. He had talked shop with lots of guys, but it was always bullshit, no real words or emotions. And he sure as hell wasn’t used to anything personal coming from Landeta. He suspected the admission about the blindness that night in his apartment was nothing but a temporary slit, an emotional wormhole opening into a black space for a millisecond before closing up again.
But now Landeta wanted to talk. He needed to talk. More than that, he needed someone to sit here and listen.
“Well?” Landeta asked.
Louis wet his lips, staring at his Coke. “I liked the mystery,” he said. “I just liked solving the damn mystery. And even in cases where there was no mystery about who, I always wanted to know why.”
Louis waited to see if Landeta laughed. But Landeta was just looking at him through the yellow glasses. Finally, he picked up his sweating glass. The cocktail napkin stuck for a moment, then fell to the table. Landeta reached for the salt, shook some out onto the napkin, and set the glass down. When he picked up the glass again, it didn’t stick.
“Old bartender’s trick,” he said when he saw Louis looking at him. Louis looked over at the two off-duty cops. They were sitting there, both staring silently into the mirror over the bar, sipping their beers.
Louis looked back at Landeta. “So what about you?”
“What did I like best?”
“Yeah.”
Landeta leaned forward on his elbows. “A lot of guys say it’s the power, the authority trip, you know? And there’s the whole thing about wanting to help people, but that wears off real quick.”
Louis nodded slowly. “So what was left for you? I mean, when it wore off?”
Landeta’s brows were knit, like he was thinking about the question for the first time and not coming up with anything that made sense.
“You got any brothers or sisters?” he asked finally.
Louis hesitated. “Yeah, one of each, both older.” But I haven’t seen them since I was seven and I don’t know where they are or even if they are alive.
“I was an only child,” Landeta said. “My father died when I was eleven. A couple of months later, my mom dropped me off at my Aunt Shirl’s and left for the bright lights of Indianapolis. I went out on my own at seventeen, bummed around the country for a couple of years until I ended up down in Pensacola. Worked on an oyster boat for a year and eventually joined the police force there when I was twenty.”
Landeta took a drink and set the glass down. “I remember my first roll call, sitting there in that room of blue shirts. It was the first time in my life I felt I was part of something.”
“A family,” Louis said.
Landeta smiled. “Yeah, but a family you could get away from when you went home at night. That’s what I liked most about it.”
Landeta’s smile faded and he picked up his glass, swirling the ice around. “Aunt Shirl. Haven’t thought about her in years. What a tough old bird, about as tender as those damn skinny chickens running around out in her yard. But I did learn one thing from her —- that there were no free rides in life, that I had to earn my keep.”
They fell into silence again. Louis watched as the two cops at the bar got up and left. He looked back at Landeta and saw that he had also been watching the cops.
“Did you tell Horton?” Louis asked. “About your condition, I mean?”
Landeta nodded. “At least he doesn’t think I’m a burnout anymore. I don’t know what’s worse, pity or contempt.”
Louis looked down into his glass.
“Horton said he’d try to find me something on a desk,” Landeta said. “I said thanks but no thanks. I don’t need any free rides.”
“Shit, Mel, is that why you quit? Because you think you’re useless now?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Then what?”
Landeta’s lips drew back in a small smile. “Now I can do everything you can do.”
Louis just stared at him. Then slowly, it hit him. That day back in Horton’s office, when the chief had asked him to work on this case with Landeta “unofficially.” No pay, no badge, but with the implicit understanding that with fewer legal restraints, Louis could do things that Landeta could not.
“I want to finish this,” Landeta said.
Louis was stunned. “You quit so you could freelance?”
“Why not? You do. It’s why Horton put you on the case,” Landeta said. “Besides to babysit me, I mean.”
Louis put up a hand. “Okay, there are things I can do that a cop can’t. But you think me waving my PI license in their faces is going to make those people let us search their island?”
“I didn’t plan on asking them.”
It took Louis a moment. “Wait a minute. You plan on just cruising out there, pulling in to some shady little inlet, and just taking a look?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s trespassing.”
“Actually in Florida, you can’t be charged with trespassing until you’ve been warned at least once. I didn’t see any signs posted anywhere
out there, did you?”
When Louis started to answer, Landeta held up a hand. “Don’t answer that.”
Louis was shaking his head. Landeta leaned close over the table.
“Look, we just take a boat over there at night and pull in somewhere away from the restaurant. We take a camera, we look around a little, eavesdrop a little. Maybe we hear or see something we can take back to Horton. Like the name Mary Rubio.”
Louis was still shaking his head.
“We’ll be in and out in an hour.”
“No way, Mel. Count me out.”
Landeta leaned back in the booth. He paused then pulled out his cigarettes. He lit one and took a long drag, blowing the smoke out slowly.
“Look, they took me off the Yahweh thing over in Miami,” Landeta said. “I just want this one last chance to finish something.”
Louis wouldn’t look up, but he could feel the pull of Landeta’s eyes on him.
“Remember when Woods floated up? You remember what you told me? You told me I didn’t care about finding the other girls.”
“I was pissed,” Louis said. “I know you want to find them.”
“So do you. Let’s do it, damn it.”
Louis stared at the table. He couldn’t deny he felt a spark of interest. And more than that, a bizarre sense of excitement at the recklessness of it. But he was remembering the long night spent in Frank Woods’s tent, so stiff with irrational fears that he couldn’t move.
Louis looked at Landeta across the table. But he also knew that if they didn’t go out there, it was over. Frank Woods was dead. Horton would let the case fold up quietly with no official resolution, and eventually, Shelly Umber’s file would be sent down to that storage room to collect dust and mold like the five others.
Landeta was waiting.
“Okay,” Louis said. “When?”
“Tonight.” Landeta set a couple of dollars on the table and stood up. “We’ve got things to do. Let’s go.”
Louis slid out of the booth, and let out a long breath. Landeta heard it and turned.
“Look at it this way, Rocky,” he said. “We’re earning our keep. Aunt Shirl would’ve been proud.”
CHAPTER 38
The moon hung low over the water. The boat’s motor gave out a low gurgling as they headed out into the middle of the sound. The lights of Captiva were growing smaller, dimmer, and Louis watched them, his hand gripping the throttle, his head filling with things he didn’t want to think about.
Like what they were going to do. It was illegal, no matter what kind of a spin Landeta tried to put on it.
He looked up to the bow where Landeta sat, face turned up to the warm night breeze. Look around a little, eavesdrop a little. We’ll be in and out in an hour.
Louis tried hard to relax his hand on the throttle but it was no use. His whole body was one giant knot. He let out a long breath.
“What’s the matter?” Landeta asked.
“Nothing.”
“Bullshit. What is it?”
“Nothing, I said.”
Louis strained to watch the water ahead of them. He could barely see it in the thin light of the rising moon. He couldn’t see any land ahead.
“Mel, are you sure —-?”
“Yeah, just watch the channel markers. Keep the red ones to your left.”
Landeta had told him he could find the island, that he knew enough about navigation from his days working on the oyster boats. But it was so dark, so far away from anything. And they were depending on Landeta’s ability to read a map of the sound that they had gotten at Sutter’s Marina when they rented the boat.
A flashlight flicked on up at the bow. “Head her left,” Mel said. “About eleven o’clock. The guy at the marina said there was a light on the dock. Keep an eye out for it.”
The moon slipped behind a cloud, plunging them into darkness. Something splashed in the water and Louis jumped.
“It’s a fish, Kincaid. For crissake, it’s nothing to be afraid of,” Landeta said.
He knew it was a fish but his body didn’t. It had gone into some weird automatic response mode, the same way it had that night he spent in Frank’s tent.
“We’ve gone far enough,” Landeta said. “You should be able to see the light.”
Louis was silent, his eyes straining in the darkness. The moon emerged and he saw its glint on the water. And then something else.
“I see something,” he said.
“Where?”
“Over to the right, about two o’clock.” He leaned forward, squinting. “It’s a light. I’m sure it’s a light.”
“Okay then. All you have to do now is aim at it.”
The light was growing larger. Louis could now make out the dark outline of the mangroves.
“Where’s the Deets?” Landeta asked.
“In the backpack,” Louis said.
“Put it on now. We’re going to need it when we get close.”
They had tried to think of everything they would need for a few hours of surveillance. Mosquito repellent, gloves, flashlights, a pocket knife, a camera with low-light film, and Landeta’s portable police radio. They both had guns strapped to their hips.
It hadn’t even occurred to Louis to question Landeta about his .45. He knew Landeta would probably never pull it tonight, let alone shoot at something he couldn’t see. What he needed was what all cops needed, the feel of it on his hip.
“Kill the motor,” Landeta said softly. “Island people know the sounds of their home, especially at night. We don’t want them to hear anything out of the ordinary.”
Louis cut the motor and Landeta picked up an oar. Louis did the same, and they paddled quietly in toward the mangroves. As they paddled past the dock, Louis tried to find the restaurant in the gloom of the trees and brush. Finally, he picked out the white boards, but all the lights inside were out.
They were heading to the western side of the island, looking for some place behind the fence where they could pull in. But Louis could see no dry land, no way into the tangle of mangrove roots. If they could just get off the water and under the cover of brush, they would have a chance of pulling this off. But out here in the open water, with the moon moving among the clouds, they could easily be spotted.
Finally Louis saw a break in the black mangroves. He made a correction with his oar to move them in and Landeta picked up the hint, matching his movement.
“Mel, duck,” Louis whispered as they entered the tiny inlet.
Landeta hunched just in time before a mangrove branch raked across his back. He stayed down as Louis paddled into the dark tunnel. About twenty feet in, the boat bumped on ground.
“Stay here,” Louis whispered. He could see just enough to avoid tripping over the high-arching roots as he stepped out of the boat. Mud sucked at his boots. He looked around in the spare moonlight. Up a slight incline, he could see dry land where the mangroves stopped.
There was a cloud of mosquitoes in his ears, around his nostrils and mouth.
He went back to Landeta and leaned close. “You’ve got about six feet of mangrove roots then it’s dry land,” Louis said.
Louis helped Landeta climb from the boat, following as Landeta felt his way across the twisted roots. Landeta slipped once, his boot sinking into the black mud. He whispered something and kept going.
“You got the backpack, right?” Louis asked.
“Yeah.”
Louis led him up the incline. When Landeta’s feet hit the flat ground, he stopped drawing in a breath. He pulled a black ball cap from his back pocket, and slipped it on his head. Then he pointed to the moon as if to tell Louis he was covering the shine of his bald head.
They stood there, perfectly still. At first, Louis heard only the silence. Then the small noises crept up out of the darkness. The whine of the mosquitoes, the murmur of the water, the hiss of the wind in the trees.
He could feel his heart quickening as the sounds grew. The scurry of something at his feet, the rasp of something
ahead of him. A bird? A branch against another? His heart seemed to be pulling his chest muscles inward.
He felt something on his back and jumped. It was just Landeta’s hand.
“What do you see?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
“Look again.”
Louis pulled in a deep breath. “There’s a path. I think it rims the water.” Louis was looking down the path, looking into the tunnel. The moon slipped behind a cloud, and the darkness engulfed them.
His skin hurt, as if he were being burned. It was the same thing he had felt that night in the tent. As if every nerve in his body were on fire.
He couldn’t think. He couldn’t move. The darkness was pressing close, too close, like he was back in that closet in that house in Detroit.
Landeta’s hand was still on his back. “Louis?”
He couldn’t breathe.
“Louis, I can feel you shaking.”
“I’m okay. I’m...”
“You’re afraid.”
Silence.
“Of what?”
“I don’t know.”
“It’s darkness, that’s all, Louis. That’s all it is.”
Silence.
“Take a breath.”
Landeta pressed on Louis’s back. Louis slowly inhaled. “Take a step.”
Another press on the back, pushing him gently forward. Louis moved toward the tunnel.
“You can’t trust your eyes now,” Landeta said.
Louis drew in another breath, deeper this time. He felt the pressure of Landeta’s hand on his back lessen slightly but not drop away. He knew Landeta was waiting for him to move them forward. He walked toward the tunnel, Landeta’s hand on his shoulder.
CHAPTER 39
They stopped to tie a small piece of white cloth to a tree. It was Landeta’s idea, a way of marking the opening in the mangroves where they had left the boat. Then they followed the path as it wound along the mangrove shoreline. The moon slipped in and out of the clouds, giving them a chance to get a sense of their surroundings.
To the left were the mangroves, creeping out into the open water. To their right was a jungle of heavy brush, vine-tangled trees, and stands of shallow black water.