P. Parrish - Paint It Black

They had been up all night. Emily had worked feverishly, still plowing through the VI–CAP files. She had also called everyone she had already contacted, telling them to switch their focus to white suspects and racially motivated crimes. New faxes had begun coming in around eleven this morning, forming a pile on the table next to the discarded ones that focused on black suspects. Every hour, Candy had come in and deposited new faxes on the table. Emily doggedly went through each one, methodically reading it and assigning it its own file.

Louis had felt sorry for her and stayed to help, even though he thought the chances of finding a related case this way was like trying to find a lost pearl on the beach. But he had to admire her stamina if nothing else.

In the background, Louis could hear the crackle of the radio. Another shift was signing on after a long night of surveillance. Now it was four in the afternoon. They were still waiting for a fresh body to turn up. And they were all running on adrenaline, stale coffee, and frayed nerves.

Wainwright picked a bear claw out of the Dunkin’ Donuts box on the desk.

“Did the lab call back yet on whether Van Slate’s knives match?”

“Not yet,” Louis said. “They do have something on Roscoe Webb, though. No hairs, but they did find hair cream under his nails. It’s standard Vitalis.”

“Did Van Slate’s alibi check out?”

Louis nodded. “The bartender at the Lob Lolly said he was there until it closed at two and then he left.”

“So Van Slate couldn’t have been in that parking lot with Webb,” Wainwright said. He took a bite of the stale bear claw and tossed it back into the box.

“You find anything in the new VI–CAP stuff?” he asked.

“Nothing.”

“Fuck. When are we going to catch a break on this?”

Emily slammed down the phone. Louis and Wainwright looked over at her.

“Assholes,” she said. She felt them staring at her. “He says he doesn’t have time to look up cases that are five years old.”

“Farentino, look at it from their standpoint,” Wainwright said. “You’re asking them to stop whatever they’re doing and search for a case you don’t even know exists.”

“We have to find the first murder,” she said firmly. “It will tell us who he is.”

“Goddamn it, we can’t even solve these murders,” Wainwright said. “If you want to waste time looking for something that might have happened five years ago, be my fucking guest.”

Wainwright looked at Louis. “But don’t tie up my men with your hocus-pocus bullshit.”

“Dan-” Louis said.

Emily stared at Wainwright. “You narrow-minded old fart-”

“Farentino,” Louis said quickly.

“You don’t have a clue about what I’m doing here,” Emily said. “And you don’t want to know. You don’t want to know anything new, anything that doesn’t fit into your testosterone-poisoned world.”

Wainwright took a step toward the table, his blue eyes boring into her. “Testosterone? You wanna talk hormones, lady? It takes testosterone to do this job,” he said.

“And what does it take to work in OPR?” Emily shot back.

Louis stared at Wainwright. He thought he saw a flicker of embarrassment cross his face.

“Farentino, you’re the one who has no clue,” Wainwright said calmly.

Emily took off her glasses, pinching the bridge of her nose. She rose slowly, without looking at either of them. “I need some air,” she said.

She left, closing the door hard.

“Shit,” Wainwright muttered.

“She’s working her ass off, Dan,” Louis said.

“I know. I know.” He went to the watercooler, poured a cup, and slurped it down.

The phone on the conference table rang. It was Wainwright’s extension. Wainwright made no move to pick it up.

“You going to get that?” Louis said.

Wainwright grabbed the receiver. He listened, gave a few grunts in response, and hung up.

“That was the lab,” he said. “Van Slate’s knives aren’t even close. But they did identify the foreign tissue on the broken blade. It’s fish guts. Snapper, to be exact.”

Louis rose quickly. “He’s a fisherman.”

“Maybe,” Wainwright said. “The lab is still trying to match the blade, but they’re pretty sure it’s a fillet knife of some kind.”

Louis glanced at his watch. “I’m going to the docks. Can I take unit three?”

“We’ll take my car,” Wainwright said.

Louis paused. “What about Farentino?”

Wainwright looked at the files on the table. “She’s got her own work to do.”

It was nearly five by the time they turned onto San Carlos Boulevard, heading south toward Fort Myers Beach. Louis wove impatiently through the heavy traffic.

“Slow down, Louis,” Wainwright said.

“The boats get in around four-thirty at Fisherman’s Wharf. If we miss them, we have to wait till morning.”

“You know, that isn’t the only marina here. There’s dozens of them, and he could be working any one of them,” Wainwright said. “There’s a shitload of ’em near the beach here, a couple on Sanibel, more over in Cape Coral and up in Bokeelia, a couple on the river. And we got to consider the fact this guy could be back bay instead of ocean.”

“Back bay? The clerk at the Holiday Inn mentioned that. What is it?” Louis asked.

“Fishing for snook or tarpon in the bays and flats in small boats, usually with a hired guide. If our guy is a guide, we’ll never find him. There’s hundreds of them operating around here.” He let out a breath. “He could work at a bait shop or behind the fish counter at Winn-Dixie, for all we know.”

“But Quick was seen at Fisherman’s Wharf,” Louis said. “We know that for a fact.”

“So says your shrimp woman,” Wainwright said.

They pulled into the lot at Fisherman’s Wharf and got out. Beyond the snack bar, Louis could see four charter boats at dock, including the one with the broken generator he had seen on his first visit.

The wharf hummed with activity. Knots of sunburned men in polo shirts and bermudas were watching the crews haul the day’s catches out of the freezers and onto cleaning tables. The tourists were joking and gulping beer while crewmen silently and swiftly went about the business of filleting the fish. Other grim-faced crewmen hosed the decks and packed up lines and poles. The sun was in a deep slant now, and everyone just wanted to go home.

Louis watched the crewmen. They were all shapes and sizes, some wiry, some beefy. Any one of them could be the killer. Louis felt a spurt of adrenaline. He could be watching him right now and not even know it, but at least the net was finally narrowing.

He and Wainwright split up, each taking photos of the blade and Anthony Quick.

At the first boat, the Island Lady, Louis showed the photos of Quick and the blade to the captain and two crewmen, but none of the men recognized either. It was the same at the second boat, where one of the crewmen said that in his twenty years in the business he had never seen a fillet knife with a curved blade.

Louis waited near the bar for Wainwright to finish with the final boat of the four. As Wainwright drew near, Louis could tell he had had no luck either.

“Nothing,” Wainwright said.

“Damn, I was so sure,” Louis said. “You question every crewman?”

“Yeah. Shit, he could be right here under our noses but how are we going to tell?” Wainwright looked out over the water, then up to where the cars inched along on the skyway bridge. “I think we should head over to Deebolts before they clear out for the day.”

Louis nodded, not able to hide his disappointment. Laughter drifted over to him. The tourists had taken their party to the bar. Gulls circled overhead, their raucous cries competing with the men’s laughter and the thump-thump of Bob Seger singing “Night Moves.”