P. Parrish - Paint It Black

Louis paused, his eyes locking on Tyrone Heller’s tawny skin. “We do it, too. To ourselves. No darker than a brown paper bag,” he said softly. “That’s the ideal.”

Louis turned away from the bulletin board. He went to the table, dropping into a chair, rubbing his tired eyes.

“You think the killer picks these men based on the exact shade their skin is?” Wainwright asked.

“Yes. It’s too big a coincidence.”

“But how many white men really notice shit like that?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. .” The thought was there, on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn’t make sense of it. “Maybe he’s working toward someone who looks like the real object of his hatred.”

“A white man?”

Louis nodded.

“Then why involve the black guys at all? Why not just kill a white guy?” Wainwright said sharply. “Shit, this makes no sense. This guy is hung up on race one way or the other. It’s what drives him.”

Louis turned, his own frustration bubbling over. “Then explain the faces getting lighter. I’m telling you he knows exactly who he wants and in what order.”

Wainwright leaned on his desk and drew in a deep breath. The room was quiet except for the occasional spatter of radio traffic.

Finally, Wainwright spoke. “So you think his last victim will be white?”

Louis nodded.

“I don’t know, Louis. That sounds kind of farfetched.”

Louis looked at Wainwright tiredly. “Not if that white man is himself.”

Wainwright blinked. “Suicide?”

Louis didn’t answer.

“But what if he’s not on self-destruct?” Wainwright asked. “What if it’s some other white person? What if it’s Farentino?”

Louis stared at him. Jesus. He hadn’t thought of that.

Sleep was impossible.

Around six, Louis took out a squad car and headed to the wharf. He saw other cruisers-Sereno, Lee County, Fort Myers, they were all out, searching. The radio traffic was muted. Too quiet.

He went across the bridge and turned down Estero Boulevard. The street was almost empty, the tourists still asleep, the honky-tonk neon silent. The radio traffic had deteriorated to the occasional unit just checking in. The stretches of silence had grown longer.

He pulled into a parking lot and got out of the car. He walked to the beach and stood gazing out at the dark expanse of sand and water. The sky was a murky gray, that soft blanket of half-light that covered the earth just before dawn.

Quiet. Just the sweet lap of the waves curling gently against the shore and stretching endlessly into the darkness.

He walked slowly across the sand, stopping at the water’s edge.

He had grit behind his eyes, his neck and shoulder muscles throbbed. And his head. . his head pounded, and he couldn’t think, couldn’t even move now, couldn’t do anything that would make any difference.

His mind was gripped by images of what he might be doing to her. He couldn’t erase them, couldn’t change them.

It would almost be easier to be in her place, have some measure of control, no matter how small.

Oh Jesus, he hurt.

And he knew now what lay behind the emptiness in the eyes of June Childers, Anita Quick, and Roberta Tatum. He knew now what haunted Wainwright.

Dealing with what the evil leaves behind .

He tightened, against the sense of impotency and the vivid images that had been building all night in his head. He felt pain, as if his gut had been taken and twisted into a knot. He sank to his knees in the sand.

He felt a coolness on his knees and opened his eyes to see that the waves had crawled to his knees.

The waves retreated and came again, and he watched their rhythm numbly, finding a strange comfort in it. For a long time he didn’t move, lost in the cool, bleak grayness of the dawn.

From somewhere in the distance, he heard a voice. It was Wainwright. The radio in the cruiser. They were calling him.

He stood and trudged back to the car. He grabbed the portable and responded.

“Kincaid to Sereno One.”

Wainwright’s voice sliced through the silence. “They found her, Louis. She’s status four.”

The street in front of the Fort Myers Police Station was blocked with TV news trucks: WEVU, WBBH, WINK. A crowd of reporters and photographers milled around the entrance: the News-Press, Naples Daily News, Tampa Tribune, St. Petersburg Times. Even USA Today and the East Coast papers had made the trip this time. Louis pushed his way through and burst through the door.

A burly patrolman stopped him just inside. “You Kincaid?”

Louis nodded and the man pointed down the hall. Al Horton and Wainwright were coming out of Horton’s office. They saw Louis approach and pulled the door shut.

“How is she?” Louis asked.

“Good shape overall,” Wainwright said. “She’s got a laceration on her left forearm she won’t let us fix.”

“Mentally?”

“Cool as ice. I couldn’t believe it,” Horton said, shaking his head slowly. “I mean, this bastard had her in a shack of some kind, bound in a chair, a hood over her face. He cut her arm just before he let her go.”

“Jesus,” Louis whispered.

“That isn’t all,” Horton said. “She says he killed Heller while she was there.”

“She saw it?” Louis asked.

“No. She heard it.”

Louis ran a hand over his face. “How’d she get away?”

“He left her in the shack and she eventually wiggled her hands from under the rope,” Horton said. “When she got out, she found a phone and called 911.”

“Where was she?” Louis asked.

“About a mile from Fisherman’s Wharf, in an abandoned storage shack. It’s near where the shrimp boats put in. Our guys are already there.”

Horton shook his head again. “You should’ve seen her when they brought her in, Louis. She refused to go to the hospital, just kept telling us that she was ‘evidence.’ ”

“Evidence?”

Horton nodded. “She asked for a crime scene tech, a change of clothes, and a pad to write down her statement. The CSU guy is in there with her now.”

Louis glanced anxiously at the door.

“We have paramedics on standby,” Wainwright added.

The door opened and the tech man come out, carrying a black case, a plastic bag holding Emily’s clothes, and a smaller bag holding a wadded black cloth.

“I’ve got all I could,” he said.

Horton nodded and the tech left. Louis moved by Wainwright and went into the office.

Emily was seated in an armchair, facing Horton’s desk. She was wearing an oversized gray sweatshirt that said FORT MYERS POLICE and sweatpants that billowed over her bare feet. Her helmet of red curls was crushed from where the tech had combed for evidence and her face was streaked with a mixture of dried sweat and tears.

Louis stared at her. Something was different. Her glasses. He had never seen her without them. He noticed now that her eyes were brown, underscored with shadows. A two-inch bandage circled her left forearm. Louis could see blood seeping through the gauze.

He slid into the chair across from her.

“How you doing, Farentino?” he asked softly. She looked at him, her eyes slightly dazed, but steady. “Hey, Kincaid,” she said softly. “Have you found my glasses?”

Louis nodded. “Yes, but. . I’m sorry. . I didn’t think. .”

She looked away. “That’s okay.”

Louis glanced back at Wainwright, standing behind him, then back at Emily. Tentatively, he reached over and took her hand. She didn’t seem to notice.

“He came up behind me in the lot at the bar,” she said. She stopped and looked over at Horton.

“You’d better turn on the tape,” she said.