P. Parrish - Paint It Black

“Can we talk to the clerk?”

Wainwright pursed his lips. “Sheriff says they’re handling it.” He looked out over the water. “Damn,” he said softly. “I hate to have them in on this.”

“This is your jurisdiction, isn’t it?” Louis asked.

“Technically. But I don’t have the men to do this kind of work and that asshole Mobley knows it. I have three uniforms on my little force, Kincaid. None of them has ever done anything harder than trying to take down Levon the other day.”

Louis guessed Mobley was the Lee County Sheriff and that there was some bad blood between the two men. Or maybe Wainwright was just embarrassed about having to admit his department’s inadequacies. The same thing had happened back in Michigan. What was it with cops and turf wars?

“Kincaid,” Wainwright said.

Louis glanced back at him.

“You’ve got good instincts.”

“Thanks.”

“Why’d you give up the badge?”

Louis felt himself tighten. The words I didn’t have a choice came to his mind, but he didn’t say them.

“I needed a break,” Louis replied.

Wainwright was looking at him. Louis waited, hoping he’d let it drop. Finally, Wainwright just nodded.

“Yeah, this shit can get to anybody,” he said.

It had been Margaret Dodie’s idea to bring Roberta Tatum some fresh clothes. Margaret said she didn’t think Roberta had any kin who cared about her-outside of her dead husband and her brother. And it didn’t seem right, she said, that an innocent woman should have to go home wearing dirty clothes. So she had Wainwright take her to the Tatum home and she selected an outfit. She asked Louis to deliver it.

Roberta had eyed him suspiciously when he handed her a blue linen pantsuit, shoes, and underwear. She offered no thanks.

Louis waited for her in Wainwright’s office. He paced, left alone with images of Quick’s splattered blood and Walter Tatum’s battered face. It was unfamiliar and unsettling, and he allowed himself to wonder if, given another twenty years, he would have the same sense of coolness that Wainwright had.

His eyes fell to the photo on the desk. Two kids but no wife. Where was she and how old were the kids now? Teenagers or young adults, far removed from their old man’s life?

“You still here?”

Louis turned to face Roberta Tatum. The linen pantsuit and matching shoes were probably meant for a dressy occasion and Roberta had not been able to do anything with her hair. Still, she looked different.

“You look. . nice,” Louis offered.

She grimaced and tried to smooth back her hair. He sensed he amused her. “I suppose you think I should thank you,” she said.

“I didn’t do anything. Chief Wainwright is the one who got the state’s attorney to move on dismissal.”

“They think I’m capable of killing one man but not two?” she said.

“Something like that,” he said. He didn’t see the need to explain the legal thinking behind it, that this case was no longer a domestic gone bad. It was obviously beyond that now, turning into something very different.

“You find my brother yet?” she asked.

Louis shook his head. “You want to tell us where he might be hiding?”

“You still think he did this?”

Louis stared at her evenly. “We’ve got two violent homicides that are, at this point, without motive. They seem to be the work of someone who is. . unbalanced.”

Roberta Tatum held his eyes for a second, then looked away.

“Mrs. Tatum, is there anything you’re not telling us about your brother?”

“Levon ain’t been right in the head for a while now,” she said slowly.

“What do you mean?”

“It started when he was about sixteen, when we were living over in Fort Myers,” she said. “He got in with a bad bunch. Then the drugs started and Mama and me couldn’t do anything with him after that.”

Louis waited, not sure she was going to offer anything more.

Finally, she sighed. “Levon wasn’t a bad boy. He still isn’t when he’s clean.”

“That’s not often, is it?” Louis said.

She shook her head slowly. “I’ve tried to look out after him. Me and Walter moved over here to make a fresh start. We put every dime we had into the store on Captiva, and finally started making a little money.” She paused. “Levon kind of came and went. We gave him a room in the back of the store and Walter paid him to do some work. He was okay for a while, but then he got messed up again and stole some stuff and Walter threw him out.”

Louis wondered how much of this Wainwright knew.

“Mrs. Tatum,” he said, “I have to ask you again. Do you believe your brother could kill someone?”

She didn’t answer. She didn’t even look at him. “You got a cigarette?” she asked softly.

“I don’t smoke. Sorry.”

Roberta pulled in a deep breath and turned to face him. Her black eyes glistened but she had retreated back into her hard shell. “You got any other suspects besides my brother?” she demanded.

He could tell she was waiting for something from him, anything that might help her believe her brother was innocent.

“No,” he said finally. “Not yet.”

Her eyes bore into him. “I read there’s another dead black man now. They think Levon killed that other man, too, don’t they?”

“Mrs. Tatum, Chief Wainwright-”

“Wainwright,” she snapped. “He thinks Levon did it because it’s easier. It’s easier to think that ’cause Levon is sick he did it. It’s easier ’cause black men kill black men every day and it’s easier than finding who really did it.”

Louis turned away. His head was pounding and his ribs ached like a son of a bitch. “Your lawyer is waiting outside to take you home, Mrs. Tatum,” he said.

“I know, I know,” she said.

When he turned to look at her, she was facing the wall again, seemingly examining the plaques on Wainwright’s walls. He sensed she wanted to say something more. He waited until she finally turned to face him.

“I suppose you’re still expecting your money,” she said.

“Your lawyer already took care of that,” Louis said. Bledsoe had paid him the fifteen-hundred flat fee. Not bad for a week’s work and he still had the return portion of his plane ticket.

“Who do you think killed Walter?”

The question caught him off guard. “I have no idea,” he said.

“Well, could you?”

“Could I what?”

“Have an idea? I mean, if you stayed around to look.”

She was staring at him, waiting for an answer.

“I think the police will work hard to find your husband’s killer, Mrs. Tatum,” he said.

Roberta stared at him a moment, then shook her head. “You really believe white men care about black men laying dead in the swamps?”

When he didn’t answer, she started for the door. She stopped and turned.

“I’m putting up a reward,” she said. “Twenty grand for anyone who finds out who killed my Walter. I want to know. Even if it is Levon.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Maybe that’ll get you motivated.”

She turned on her heel and was gone. Louis watched her stalk out the front glass doors and get into Bledsoe’s Honda waiting at the curb. He let out a sigh.

He went outside, lingering for a moment on the sidewalk, feeling the balmy night breeze on his face. Well, that was over. So where would he go from here? He sure as hell didn’t want to go home to Michigan. But he had no job here and couldn’t get one. Not without telling a potential employer everything. He had seen a few ads for security officers in the paper, but the thought turned his stomach. And no matter how desperate he got, he didn’t want to work on his own, hanging up some shingle and busting cheating husbands for fifty bucks a day.