South of Hell (Louis Kincaid Mysteries)

by P J Parrish

  “Tough doesn’t begin to cover it,” Shockey muttered.

  A woman emerged from the back room. Her eyes brightened when she saw them, apparently surprised to discover she had customers.

  “You want something to eat, Jake?” Louis asked.

  “Beefeaters, straight.”

  “How about a coffee?”

  “I said I didn’t need babysitting, peeper.”

  Louis looked back at the bartender. “Club soda for me.”

  The bartender set down both drinks. Shockey swallowed his shot of gin before the bartender had picked up Louis’s ten dollars. Shockey motioned for a second. Louis waited until Shockey downed it before speaking.

  “So, what happened? Did you get your ass chewed at work?” Louis asked.

  “I got my ass fired,” Shockey said.

  Louis was quiet as he picked up his change off the bar. Shockey should have been fired, but Louis wasn’t about to offer that opinion. He was almost sorry now he’d asked the man down for a drink. He had been in this situation before—spending the evening with middle-aged cops who for one reason or another were washed up. Sometimes it was a screw-up and flat termination; most times it was burnout. But Jake Shockey looked like a man hanging on to the last knot in the rope.

  “You can find another job,” Louis offered.

  “At thirty-six?” Shockey asked. “Most departments only want guys under thirty. Or women. Or…hell, you know it better than me…minorities.”

  Shockey was right. Things were different from ten, fifteen years ago. The rookies were younger and stronger, better trained and better educated. Being white and male was no longer the huge advantage it had been in the seventies and early eighties.

  “There’s other kinds of jobs,” Louis offered.

  “I could never be a peeper,” Shockey said.

  “What about security?”

  Shockey grunted and gestured for another shot of gin. He dug into his pants pocket for some money and came out with a twenty and a worn leather wallet. The kind a badge was kept in. He set the wallet next to his shot glass and pushed the twenty to the drink well.

  “Look,” Louis said. “Life throws you a curve now and then. I don’t have to tell you that. I know a guy in Florida who tried to hang on to his job even though he was going blind. Almost killed a kid before he realized he couldn’t be a cop anymore.”

  “How’s he doing now?”

  Louis took a long drink of his club soda. “He’s fine,” he lied. “Still adjusting, but he’s getting there. But you’re not going blind, Jake. You’re not old, and you can do other things.”

  Shockey picked up the leather badge holder and opened it. Sure enough, the depression carved for his shield was empty.

  “I’ve had this fifteen years,” Shockey said. “Bought it with my first paycheck. It cost me nine dollars and eighty-six cents.”

  Louis leaned on the bar and stared absently at the rows of liquor bottles, tempted to order himself a drink and swim the afternoon away in a bottle with Shockey.

  “Funny thing,” Shockey said. “I didn’t come here intending to be a cop.”

  Louis looked at him. “Here meaning Ann Arbor?” he asked. “Where you from, then?”

  “Grew up in Howell,” Shockey said. “Not far from the substation where we were the other day. My old man was on disability, and we never had much, but I made all-state my senior year and managed to snag myself a football scholarship to Eastern.”

  “What position?”

  “Running back.”

  “Did you graduate?” Louis asked.

  “Nah,” Shockey said. “I blew out a knee my sophomore year and had to drop out. I’d always felt like I was some kind of hometown hero, getting the scholarship and all, and I was too embarrassed to go home, so I just stayed in Ypsi for a few months, working odd jobs. Then one day, I saw the Ann Arbor PD was hiring.”

  Louis was quiet. It had been the same for him. He’d seen a similar ad, the summer after his senior year. He’d scored well on the LSAT and had a place waiting for him at the UM Law School. But an itch had set in that year, the need to get out from under Phillip Lawrence’s financial support, the need to see other places and meet interesting people. The need to make his own money, his own way in the world, and start living his life.

  By his twenty-first birthday in November, he was in uniform, patrolling the same streets he used to walk to class on.

  “You want another?” Shockey asked.

  Louis shook his head as Shockey ordered two more shots for himself.

  “Man,” Shockey said. “What am I going to do? This is all I know. And Jean…what about her? Who’s going to help her now?”

  “I’m going to stay around for a while,” Louis said. “You can still help me. Off the record, you know.”

  Shockey glanced at him and turned away. He finished one shot but suddenly seemed in no hurry to pick up the other one.

  “Fuck, maybe I should just let that go, too,” he said. “Maybe she isn’t even dead. Maybe she just took off on me, too.”

  “You don’t believe that,” Louis said. “And you’re making excuses.”

  Shockey toyed with the empty glass, turning it slowly between his thumb and finger.

  “I lied to you,” Shockey said softly. “And I lied to her.”

  Louis sighed and rubbed his brow, his gaze drifting again to the Remy Martin bottle behind the bar. There was only one thing worse than listening to a drunk cry in his beer: having to do it sober.

  Shockey finally downed the second shot and slammed the glass down on the bar. “I’m nothing!” he said. “Fucking nothing.”

  “Calm down.”

  “Fuck you, peeper, and fuck Brandt, too. Fuck all of ’em, the god damn sonofabitches.”

  The bartender looked over. “Keep him quiet, would you?”

  “Jake, come on,” Louis said. “Let me take you home.”

  “Fuck you.”

  Louis leaned down to Shockey’s ear. “The bartender’s going to call the cops,” he said. “Don’t make things worse by getting your ass arrested. Come on.”

  Shockey pushed off the stool so hard it tipped. Louis caught it, and as he straightened it, he noticed the brown wallet still lying on the bar in a puddle of gin.

  Louis picked it up, stuck it into his pocket, and followed Shockey out into the hotel lobby and to the front doors. Shockey stumbled as he pushed through them, digging again in his pockets to find his car keys.

  Louis caught up with him outside. “I’ll drive you if you can remember your damn address.”

  Shockey ignored him as he pulled his entire pocket inside out, dumping everything—keys, coins, bills, and slips of paper to the asphalt.

  “Damn it,” Shockey muttered.

  “I told you, I’ll drive you,” Louis said, snatching up the keys. “You argue with me, and I’ll deck you.”

  “Fuck you, peeper.”

  “Come on, let’s go.”

  “Wait,” Shockey said. “I need my money.”

  Shockey knelt to gather his bills and loose change off the ground. Louis thought about helping him but changed his mind and stepped out from under the portico and into the sun. For the first time since he’d arrived in Michigan, there was a spring warmth in the air. It felt good.

  “Oh, shit,” Shockey said, pushing clumsily to his feet. “I forgot about this.”

  “What?”

  Shockey held out a small piece of paper. “This is a message for you. One of the sergeants gave it to me this morning.”

  Louis took the paper and unfolded it. It was a note, written on a piece of Ann Arbor PD stationery. The handwriting was bold and dark:

  Lily wants to meet you.

  Tomorrow, 1:00 p.m.

  Halo Hat Shop,

  122 West Cross Street, Ypsi.

  Don’t disappoint her, please.

  Eric

  Shockey looked up at him with unfocused eyes. “Something important?”

  “Yeah, very important
,” Louis said, sticking the note into his pocket. “C’mon, I’ll drive you home.”

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Louis sat at the window of the sub shop, staring out at the Halo Hats store across the street. He had been sitting here for a half-hour now, nursing a cold coffee and working up the guts to go over there.

  He looked at his watch. Two minutes to one.

  He tossed a couple of bucks on the counter, got up, and went outside. He paused, tugging on the collar of his khaki jacket. It was in bad need of a dry cleaning, and a button was missing on one pocket. He wished he had packed his blue blazer. But how the hell could he have known when he left Florida that he was going to be meeting his daughter?

  Daughter…

  He ran his sweating palms down his thighs. At least his jeans were clean. And his loafers were shined. He had paid ten bucks last night at the hotel to send them out.

  He stared at the shop across the street.

  I can’t do this.

  He let out a long breath, trying to slow his heart, then walked across the street.

  Halo Hats was wedged between a Domino’s Pizza and a coin laundry. Louis peered through the front window, but it was so filled with hats he couldn’t see anything inside.

  A woman emerged suddenly from the door—a thin, imperious black woman in a red suit. She gave him a quick glance, then strutted off down West Cross Street, a pink and white halo hats box bouncing against her thigh.

  Taking in a final deep breath, Louis pulled open the door and went in.

  A bell announced his arrival. But there was no one in the shop to greet him. At least as far as he could see. All he could see were hats. An explosion of color—blues, purples, yellows, greens, reds—hats of all shapes and sizes mounted on wire displays like flowers turned to the sun. And there was a smell to the place, overwhelmingly sweet, like the magnolia gardens he had smelled in the South.

  He heard a hiss and turned.

  A black woman was standing there holding out a can of Glade. She stared at him like he was an insect, the air freshener suddenly brandished like a can of Raid.

  “Yes?” she said.

  “I’m Louis Kincaid,” he said. “I’m here to see Lily.”

  She was a large woman, her ample body covered by a caftan printed with sunflowers, her broad face crossed with lines that put her age somewhere near sixty-five. But it was her eyes that held Louis—piercing and filled with judgment. The same eyes he had felt on him that day Eric Channing had pulled him over in Ann Arbor.

  “I’m Alice Channing,” the woman said. “Lily’s my grandchild.”

  Eric Channing suddenly emerged from the back. Before he could say anything, the bell tinkled, and two women came in, stopping behind Louis because there was no room to move in the tiny shop.

  “Momma, go take care of your customers,” Channing said.

  The woman held Louis’s eyes for a moment longer, then, with a shake of the head, she came forward. Louis squeezed back into a rack of hats to let her pass.

  Channing motioned Louis forward with a wave of his hand. Louis followed him behind the register and into the back room.

  She was sitting on a bench in a corner, almost hidden behind a stack of boxes. She sat with her back straight, ankles crossed, her small hands gripping a pink drawstring bag. She was wearing a pink leotard and tights, a filmy little skirt, and pink ballet slippers. Her eyes went first to Channing, who had stopped at the door, arms crossed over his chest. Channing gave a subtle nod of his bald head.

  Lily looked at Louis from under spirals of golden-brown curls.

  Kyla…she was there in the girl’s high, broad forehead and full lips.

  But he…oh, God, he could see himself there, too. He was there in her pale gray eyes.

  He came further into the room, not knowing where to stand, exactly. There was no room for him on the bench, and he wasn’t sure she would let him sit down there anyway.

  “What should I call you?” she asked.

  “How about Louis?” he said.

  She nodded and brushed at something on her tights. Her face scrunched in thought when she looked back up at him.

  “You’re bigger than I thought you’d be,” she said.

  “Is that okay?”

  “Yes,” she said. “People can’t help how tall they are.”

  Louis glanced at Channing. He wished he would leave them alone, but Louis understood his need to stay. Channing didn’t know Louis, and he probably just wanted to make sure he said nothing inappropriate. In fact, he seemed mildly amused at Lily’s last comment.

  Louis took a step closer. The room was very small, and he had a thought that maybe she felt overwhelmed by him. He knelt down.

  Her eyes found his again. He was the one who felt overwhelmed.

  “Where do you live?” Lily asked.

  “In Florida,” Louis said. “Do you know where that is?”

  “Yes,” she said. “It’s shaped like an upside-down thumb at the bottom of the country. The capital is Tallahassee.”

  “That’s right,” he said. “It’s also where Disney World is. Have you ever been there?”

  “No,” she said. “But I took the train to Chicago and saw the Degas ballerinas at the museum of art. I’ve seen the Nutcracker, and I saw Cats, too. At the Fisher Theater.”

  He shook his head. Here he was talking Disney World, and this little girl was telling him about museums and ballets. Kyla always had more class than he did.

  “What is your job?” Lily asked.

  “I’m a private investigator,” Louis said.

  “What’s that?”

  “Well,” Louis said, “it’s a little like being a police officer, but you work for yourself, not for a department.”

  “Are you married?” Lily asked.

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, I just haven’t made that decision yet,” Louis said. “It’s not something people should do until they’re ready.”

  “Is that why you didn’t marry my mother?” Lily asked. “You weren’t ready?”

  Here it was, the first of the tough questions.

  Louis glanced back at Channing, but there was no answer there. He stared at the carpet for a few seconds, trying to find the right words to explain something like this to an eight-year-old. But then he realized she had said it more aptly than he ever could.

  “I was immature,” he said. “Do you know what that means?”

  “Yes,” Lily said. “It means you act like a child when you’re old enough to know better.”

  “That’s right.”

  She lowered her head, and for a moment, her face was lost behind the cascade of curls. Her voice was almost a whisper. “How old were you when you made me?” Lily asked.

  Louis closed his eyes for a second. “Twenty.”

  “How old are you now?” she asked.

  “Twenty-nine.”

  “So, you didn’t get mature at all until now?”

  If he could have vanished from the room, he would have. What the hell was he supposed to say? The truth was, he didn’t know she existed. But if he said that, her next question would be What did you think happened to me? And he sure couldn’t answer that one.

  He couldn’t even bring himself to meet those tender eyes until he heard Channing clear his throat.

  “Lily,” Channing said. “Mr. Kincaid didn’t know where you were. When he and your mother broke up, they stayed mad at each a long time and didn’t talk.”

  Thank you, sergeant.

  Lily seemed to accept that explanation, and she looked back at Louis, her eyes deep with a new thought.

  “Do I have more grandparents?”

  “My mother has passed on,” he said, “but you have…”

  He paused. He was about to tell this girl she had a grandfather whom he not only knew nothing about, but whom he despised.

  “You have a grandfather,” he said. “But I haven’t seen him for many years. Not since I was a baby.”
<
br />   She blinked, a strange shadow coloring her eyes. “So your father never got mature, either?”

  She was breaking his heart.

  “No, I guess not.”

  “My daddy’s father isn’t mature, either,” she said, looking to Channing. “He lives in California and doesn’t care about us.”

  Louis glanced at Channing. He shifted his weight, obviously uncomfortable that Lily had revealed this little slice of family history to Louis. But it explained Channing’s motives in telling Louis about his daughter. Channing was a man with holes in his heart, too.

  When Louis looked back at Lily, she was studying him, her gaze moving slowly over his face, then to his hair, and finally coming back to his eyes. It was an intriguing stare, and he wondered what her next question would be.

  “Is your father white?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  Her face scrunched again. Louis wondered why Kyla had never shared at least this part of Lily’s ancestry with her. Or maybe she had told her there was some white blood in her but not where it came from.

  “So that makes me a quarter white?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Louis asked. “Does that bother you?”

  “No,” she said. “I like how I look. Momma says I’m like a bouquet of wildflowers put together by God and all the prettier for it.”

  Louis smiled.

  Lily sighed and folded her hands in her lap, the little drawstring purse hanging from her wrist. She didn’t seem to have any more questions. But Louis was wondering what she was thinking. Would she simply dismiss this as a necessary but uneventful meeting, or did she want something more? And again, he couldn’t ask. He did not want her to feel obligated to see him again. He looked again to Channing for help.

  “Lily,” Channing said, “if there’s nothing else you want to say to Mr. Kincaid, it’s time to go.”

  Lily hesitated, then pulled open the drawstring purse. She dug inside and pulled out a photograph. She held it out to Louis.

  “This is a picture of me,” she said. “You can have it. If you want it, I mean.”

  Louis took it. “Thank you very much, Lily.”

  She pushed off the bench and padded to the door in her pink slippers. She turned back to Louis, but before she spoke, she took Channing’s hand. His large fingers closed tightly over hers.