Paint It Black

by P J Parrish

“I don’t know—”

  “Nobody does,” she said abruptly. She let out a sigh. “It’s new, the unit, and what we do. It’s . . . new.”

  Louis tried to recall what little he had read about serial killers. He had read something about how police departments were starting to use psychologists as consultants. They were calling them “profilers,” the idea being they could figure out the twisted minds of criminals by poking around in the messes they left.

  “So you’re what’s called a profiler?” Louis asked.

  She looked surprised he knew the term. “I prefer ‘forensic psychologist.’ ”

  “Ah. A shrink,” Louis said.

  She shook her head. “I’m not a doctor.”

  You’re not a cop, either, Louis thought.

  They were up on the bridge now, heading back toward Fort Myers.

  “Wainwright doesn’t know any of this,” Emily said finally. “Unless he’s checked.”

  “He hasn’t checked,” Louis said. “You going to tell him?”

  She took off her glasses and began to clean them on the tail of her shirt. “I heard things about Dan Wainwright before I came. I think he is—” She stopped herself. “There are some people who aren’t open to new ideas.”

  Louis let a few moments pass in silence. For a moment, he considered asking her what the hell OPR was. But he didn’t want Wainwright to think he was checking up on him. He also didn’t want to do anything to make this case harder than it already was. Men were dying and he didn’t want to waste time playing referee between Farentino and Wainwright. They needed to get going in the same direction.

  “Listen, Farentino,” he said finally, “if I’ve learned one thing it’s that you don’t get much by muscling your way into things. We’re outsiders here, both of us. Wainwright is in charge, at least for now. You ought to respect that.”

  She lasered her eyes back to Louis. “And how many more bodies do we bury while showing this respect?”

  Louis tensed, a quick knot forming in his belly. How many more men are you going to bury, Chief Gibralter?

  Did she know? Had she checked him out? Did she know what had happened back in Michigan? She knew about Wainwright. She had all the resources in the world at her fingertips. She could easily have checked out his background. He would have done the same thing.

  He inhaled thinly, determined not to let her rattle him. He stared hard at the road, slowly allowing himself to digest her remark differently. He had to appreciate her sense of urgency; he felt the same thing. He was seeing faceless black men in his dreams. He didn’t want to see any more real ones.

  “Okay,” he said slowly. “So let me hear your theory.”

  “About what?” she asked.

  “About how this guy picks his victims.”

  “I need to study the pattern first.”

  “There is no pattern,” Louis said. “We thought there was, but he keeps changing. Except for the day he kills.”

  “Tuesday,” Emily said.

  She was quiet for a moment. “He has two needs,” she said finally. “He needs a place to live where he won’t stand out. But he needs a place to do his work that’s secluded.”

  Louis thought her choice of the word “work” was odd.

  “I’d say he lives near Fort Myers Beach,” Emily went on. “It’s crowded there, with lots of tourists and transients, and he would blend in. He wouldn’t live on Captiva or Sereno. The locals would know him. Also, serial killers tend to dispose of bodies away from where they themselves live.”

  “So you think he stalked them?”

  “It fits the usual pattern. He seems very impatient. I don’t think he stalks them for days on end. I think he zeroes in on them and then follows them until he feels the moment is good.”

  “Well, what about Tatum then?”

  “What about him?”

  “We think his murder was pure impulse.”

  Emily closed the file on her lap. “Why would you think that?”

  “Tatum was different than the other two. Tatum’s car broke down. When Wainwright’s men found it, the hood was still up, so we’re guessing Tatum was stranded there for a while before the killer came along.”

  “Came along,” she said. “Just came along, conveniently armed with his shotgun and can of spray paint.”

  Louis glanced at her, glad the sunglasses hid his eyes. “So you think Tatum was followed, like the others?”

  “Yes.”

  “From where?”

  “That’s what we need to find out.”

  Louis turned on his blinker as he slowed at a corner. She was making sense. Shit. Wainwright was going to love this.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  It was Emily’s idea to go see Roberta Tatum. When Louis told her that Roberta had already been questioned, Emily said simply, “Wives know things their husbands don’t know that they know.”

  The Tatum home was a yellow stucco cottage, buried behind a riot of banana trees and purple bougainvillea vines. A storm was gathering over the bay by the time they arrived, and deep shadows moved in the junglelike yard where the windswept palm fronds played treble to the bass of approaching thunder.

  They had called ahead and Roberta was waiting for them. She stood behind the wooden screen door, a stocky silhouette in a caftan of orange and green that billowed around her in the breeze. Her hair was concealed beneath a matching turban, giving her round, fresh-scrubbed face a stretched and youthful look.

  Emily spoke first. “Mrs. Tatum, we’re sorry to bother you—”

  “Have you found him?” Roberta said, her eyes going to Louis.

  “Levon, or your husband’s killer?” Louis asked.

  “Either.”

  “No.”

  Roberta sneered. “That’s what I thought.”

  “May we come in, Mrs. Tatum?” Emily asked.

  Roberta’s eyes slipped to Emily, then back to Louis. “Who’s she?”

  “This is Agent Farentino. FBI.”

  Roberta made no move to open the screen door. She was staring hard at Emily.

  “Mrs. Tatum, please,” Louis said.

  Roberta shoved open the door. “This is what they give Walter,” she said as she moved away. “A cookie and a meatball.”

  Louis entered first and Emily followed slowly. He found himself in a small living room, with a kitchen off to his left. The rough-textured walls were painted a soft gold and the furniture was a pleasant mishmash of overstuffed sofas and rattan. A rainbow-hued Kilim rug covered the tile floor, and there were several beautiful wood sculptures around the room that looked to be good copies of African primitives. The jalousie windows were open to the breeze, and with each waft of air came the smell of stewing tomatoes and distant rain.

  “You have a lovely home, Mrs. Tatum,” Emily said, edging forward through the archway. Louis followed, his gaze going past the tiny dining room to the open French doors that offered a glimpse of pool and greenery. He could hear wind chimes dancing.

  Roberta grabbed a pack of cigarettes off an end table. “All right, what do you want?”

  “The night your husband was killed—” Emily started.

  Roberta’s sharp glance silenced her. Roberta waited until she was sure Emily didn’t plan to speak again, then looked at Louis.

  “Where did Walter go when he left here?” Louis asked.

  Roberta shrugged. “How would I know?”

  “Give us a break here, Mrs. Tatum,” Louis said. “We’re here to help you. You told me you want this bastard found and we’re trying to do that.”

  “You and I both know why they aren’t looking too damn hard.” Roberta turned away, picking a bit of tobacco carefully from her lip.

  Louis could almost hear Emily bristle and he lifted a hand to keep her from intervening. She was no match for Roberta.

  “We’re doing everything we can,” Louis said.

  “It’s been almost a month,” Roberta said. “And what do you have? You can’t even find Levon.”

&
nbsp; Louis rubbed his forehead. “We will.”

  Roberta laughed softly. “I heard about your piggyback ride. I wish I could’ve seen it.”

  “Mrs. Tatum,” Louis said slowly, “are you going to help us, or not?”

  Roberta suddenly seemed deflated and she sat down, resting her forearms on her knees. The cigarette dangled from her long fingers.

  Emily seized the moment. “Mrs. Tatum, we think if we can recreate your husband’s whereabouts the night he was killed, we might have a better idea what happened.”

  Roberta looked up at Emily, then at Louis. He could read in her eyes that she wasn’t going to tell Emily Farentino a thing. He was about to ask Emily to go outside when Emily spoke again.

  “You were his wife, Mrs. Tatum. You know things that could help us. Please.”

  Roberta took a deep drag on the cigarette. She fell back in the chair, staring at the wall.

  “I wasn’t his wife,” she said. “Not legally, anyway. But we were together for twenty-two years and that counts for something.”

  Emily hesitated, then sat down on the sofa opposite Roberta. “My parents were together for thirty-five years, and they weren’t married, either,” she said.

  Roberta looked up at Emily.

  “It counts,” Emily said.

  Roberta’s eyes welled. She looked away.

  “Mrs. Tatum,” Emily said, “is there anything you can tell us about the night Walter died?”

  Roberta wiped a hand across her eyes. “He used to like to go over to Hibiscus Heights in Fort Myers,” she said softly. “They got a couple of joints over there that run all night. He’d drink and then I’d feel him crawling into bed when the sun was coming up.”

  Louis waited, glancing at Emily.

  “I used to worry he’d drive off that bridge one morning and kill himself,” Roberta went on. “Never thought . . . never dreamed somebody would do it for him.”

  “What are the names of these places?” Louis asked.

  “You can’t miss them,” Roberta said. “There’s a string of them on a little street called Queenie Avenue. But they don’t get going till after eleven. Anyone who works late there will know him.”

  Her voice had gone flat, her gaze vacant. The long ash from her cigarette fell to the rug. She didn’t seem to notice it.

  Louis spotted a framed photo on the television and went to it. It was a photograph of Roberta and Walter. It had been taken on a cruise ship and they were in formal wear. They were smiling like prom-goers.

  “Can I take this, to show around?” he asked.

  Roberta looked up at him. It took a moment for her to focus on the frame. Then she rose suddenly and disappeared into another room. She came back and thrust something at Louis.

  “You take this instead,” she said.

  It was a snapshot of Walter, taken at a Christmas party. Walter was smiling and wearing a Santa hat. His face was blurry.

  “Mrs. Tatum—” Louis began.

  She snatched the frame from Louis and set it back on the television. “You use that one,” she said, nodding at the snapshot.

  Louis motioned to Emily and she headed toward the door. Roberta followed them. As they reached the door, Roberta grabbed Louis’s arm. He turned, but Roberta waited until Emily had walked toward the car before she spoke.

  “Don’t let them fuck around on this,” she said. “Make them understand Walter is important. Walter is important, you hear me?”

  “I hear you, Mrs. Tatum,” he said.

  Roberta let go and Louis stepped out, letting the screen slap shut behind him.

  Emily was standing at the squad car, waiting. The temperature had dropped at least ten degrees with the coming rain and she was hugging herself, as if cold.

  Louis glanced at his watch. “It’s only five o’clock. No point in going to Queenie Boulevard until later tonight. We might as well go back to the station. Or do you want me to drop you off at the inn?”

  Emily was looking at something across the street and didn’t answer.

  “Farentino?”

  Her head snapped back to Louis. “What?”

  “I was asking you if you wanted me to drop you off at the inn.”

  “No.” She hesitated. “Could we go get some dinner maybe?”

  There was something in her voice that caught him off guard. She wasn’t coming on to him; there wasn’t even a hint of that kind of vibration. But she wanted something. Maybe she just didn’t want to be alone. Shit. He kept forgetting that when he went home to the Dodies’ cheerful company each night, she was stuck alone in a mildewed hotel room.

  “I could use a burger or something,” Louis said. “Come on, I know a good place.”

  Chapter Twenty-two

  The clouds chased them over the Sereno causeway and onto the mainland. But the rain still had not made its appearance by the time Louis stopped to pay the toll at the Captiva causeway.

  Emily had been quiet during the drive, and now she had closed her eyes. Louis let her doze and drove on. When he finally pulled into a parking lot and cut the engine, she stirred and looked around.

  “Where are we?” she asked.

  “Captiva,” Louis said. “The Mucky Duck.”

  She nodded slowly. “Oh, right. Burgers.”

  They got out and started up to the restaurant. Louis pulled on the door but it was locked. He saw someone inside and knocked on the glass. The waiter looked up and then pointed to his wrist, mouthing the words “half hour.”

  “I forgot. They don’t start serving until five-thirty,” Louis said. “You want to wait or go somewhere else?”

  Emily was looking at the beach. “Isn’t this where he dumped the homeless man?” she asked.

  Louis nodded. “Near here.”

  “Show me,” Emily said.

  He led the way through the sea oats and down the sandy slope. They walked the hundred yards or so to where the body had been found. The gulf water was churning gray-green, and the beach was deserted except for two elderly women walking in the surf with a bounding Irish setter.

  Emily stood staring at the spot where the body had lain. Louis watched as her eyes traveled up toward the sea oats dancing in the wind.

  “We think the beating and stabbing took place up there and then he was dragged down here,” Louis said.

  Emily’s eyes narrowed. She walked slowly up to the sea oats. They came up nearly to her waist. She stood there, arms wrapped around herself, staring down at the sand. The sound of the setter’s barking carried on the wind.

  Louis went up to her. “Farentino,” he said. “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing,” she said.

  “Look, if it’s something Dan—”

  She shook her head quickly. “No, it’s not Wainwright.”

  “Then what?”

  She was looking now at the elderly women and their dog.

  “I was thinking about the homeless man and wondering if anyone is missing him,” she said.

  Louis said nothing.

  “He had to have someone, somewhere,” Emily said.

  The wind gusted, sending the sand swirling around them. Emily’s slight body swayed with the sea oats.

  “Someone is missing him,” she said.

  Her voice was soft, but without emotion somehow. Louis couldn’t read it or her face. Was she talking as a cop or a woman? It was the closest she had come to saying anything personal. If, in fact, that was what she was even doing. For a second he considered trying to say something comforting. But for what? Did she even need it? Shit, she’d probably take his head off if he tried. Christ. He had come to appreciate the way her mind worked, but anything more than that would be like trying to cozy up to a porcupine.

  “Let’s go back,” she said suddenly.

  She started back up the beach toward the restaurant. Louis followed.

  When they got back to the Mucky Duck, they still had ten minutes to spare. Emily retrieved her neon-green rain slicker from the car and they sat on a picnic table
of the restaurant’s patio. Emily was quiet, hunched down in the slicker like a bird, looking out at the gulf. Whatever the reason, she still didn’t seem inclined to talk.

  “This is ridiculous,” Louis said finally.

  “What is?”

  “Eating at five-thirty,” Louis said. “That’s what blue hairs do. Next thing you know, I’ll be wearing boxers.”

  Emily’s lips tipped up. “So you’re a briefs man?”

  “None of your business, Farentino.”

  She shrugged. “You’re the one who got personal, Kincaid.”

  They were quiet again.

  “Back there with Roberta,” Louis said. “You were good with her, you know.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “That thing you said about your parents. It worked.”

  She turned to face him. “It’s true,” she said.

  The challenge in her voice caught him off guard. He just stared at her.

  “You think I made it up to get her to talk?” she asked.

  “What? Hell no,” Louis said quickly, his own anger sparking. “Jesus, Farentino . . .”

  She turned away. A car pulled in behind them, a door opened and closed. The restaurant was open.

  “So, you still want to eat or not?” Louis said.

  “In a minute,” she said quietly.

  The wind was getting almost cold now. Louis burrowed down into his windbreaker. The sky was slate gray, with a smudge of pink faint on the horizon. It looked as bleak as a Michigan sky. So much for seeing another one of those great Florida beach sunsets Dodie was always yakking about it.

  “Look, Kincaid,” Emily said, “I’m sorry.”

  He stifled a sigh.

  “What Roberta said about twenty years counting for something. That made me think about my parents, that’s all.” Emily paused. “And I haven’t done that in a while.”

  “Why not?” Louis asked.

  She smiled wryly. “I’m good at compartmentalizing.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Putting my feelings in neat little boxes.”

  There was the sound of more cars and voices in the lot behind them.

  “Why weren’t they married?” Louis asked.

  The question had just popped out. He knew it was because his own parents hadn’t been married either. His own father hadn’t even stayed around long enough for his first birthday. And his alcoholic mother had lost all three of her kids to child services. He had grown up believing that white kids didn’t have such secrets. Sure, those guys on Bonanza didn’t have a mother. Neither did Opie or the kids on My Three Sons, unless you counted Uncle Charley. But white kids all had fathers, didn’t they?