P. Parrish - The Little Death

“Can I help you fellas?”

The man’s deep voice carried in the quiet. Louis waited until Mel had gotten out of the Mustang and then approached the porch.

“Mr. Archer?”

“Nope. Who are you?”

Mel had come up beside him. “We’re investigating the homicide of the man found on your land.”

“That so?”

Louis had a better view of the man’s face now. Skin like old leather, a scraggly gray mustache bracketing a hard mouth. No way to read the eyes hidden behind mirrored sunglasses. The man was probably in his sixties, but he was huge, at least six-five and solid. He was standing with legs apart, hands held out from his sides, like a bear guarding his den.

“Can we speak to Mr. Archer, please?” Louis asked.

“I’m Burke Aubry, the foreman. You can speak to me.”

Louis came forward a few steps. “We understand the body was found by workers here. Can you tell us anything about it?”

“I already talked to that county cop,” Aubry said.

“You talked to Detective Barberry?” Louis asked.

Aubry hesitated and gave a curt nod.

“Mr. Aubry,” Louis said. “We’re not working with Detective Barberry. We’re private investigators. If we could-”

“I told you, I got nothing more to say,” Aubry interrupted. “Now, I’d appreciate it if you would just go away and leave us be.”

He started for the door.

“Mr. Aubry,” Louis said.

Aubry turned back, one hand holding open the screen door.

“Why didn’t you tell Detective Barberry about that other body five years ago?”

For a moment, Aubry didn’t move. Then he slowly let the screen close and came out to the edge of the porch.

“Five years ago, one of your men found a headless body just over the county line,” Louis said. “Why didn’t you tell Barberry?”

Aubry tilted up his chin, and the sun caught the mirrored sunglasses. “I didn’t tell him because he was disrespectful to Mrs. Archer,” he said.

Mel came forward. “Mr. Aubry, Barberry is a sonofabitch. He’s trying to make a case against a man we believe is innocent. These two murders might be related, and if they are, we might be able to prove our case. We could use your help.”

Aubry was silent, just staring down at both of them. “Thought you cop types all stuck together.”

“We’re not cops,” Louis said.

Aubry considered this for a long moment, then slowly came down off the porch. Up close, he was even more imposing. His jeans were worn to white at the knees, his boots cracked with age. His denim shirt looked new, and there was a logo above the left pocket of a cowboy with the stitched words hunter whips. Around Aubry’s meaty neck hung a handsome multicolored scarf that Louis recognized as a Seminole Indian pattern.

“What do you want to know?” Aubry asked.

“Who found the body at Devil’s Garden?” Louis asked.

“Me and my other man,” he said. “We were rounding up some calves nearby.”

“Is that state land?” Louis asked.

Aubry nodded. “Yeah, Mrs. Archer sold off that parcel to the state about ten years ago. It’s about ten acres. They’re going to make a park out of it someday, I guess.”

“So, you wouldn’t normally be in that area?” Louis asked.

Aubry shook his head. “Nope. My men were just southwest of it. But one of the dogs smelled something and took off. We followed, and we got to that old cow pen down there, and the dogs were going crazy. I figured it was a dead boar, so we went in to pull the dogs away. That’s when we saw it.”

“You saw the body yourself?”

Aubry nodded tightly. “I told my man Dwayne to get the dogs out of there, and I radioed back to call the police.”

“Tell us about the first body five years ago,” Louis said.

“Not much to tell there,” Aubry said. “One of my men, Ron, was hunting down a cow-they wander far sometimes-and the dog had a scent, but it was just outside our property and onto some state land. The state’s okay with us going, so Ron did. He found the body and called the Lee County folks, since that’s where he was.”

“The Lee County sheriff?”

Aubry nodded. “They asked Ron some questions for their report. We never heard from them again.”

“Does Ron still work here?”

“Nope. He passed on a few years back.”

Louis looked at Mel, but he didn’t seem to have any other questions, either.

“Is there anything else, Mr. Aubry?” Louis asked. “Any small thing you can remember might be helpful.” When the man didn’t say anything, Louis took a step toward him. “Mr. Aubry, the man they found five years ago-he had a sister. She’s still looking for him.”

Still, the man didn’t move.

“Thank you for your time, Mr. Aubry,” Louis said, and started away.

“Wait.” Aubry cleared his throat. “There’s something I didn’t tell the Lee County folks. I don’t know if it means anything now. I mean, I read in the papers that they never did find out who that man over in Lee County was, so I figured who would care?”

“His sister cares,” Louis said.

Aubry dropped his head for a moment. “Okay,” he said softly. “It was about a week after Ron found that body, and we were sitting around one night drinking. Ron got pretty drunk and broke down. I thought it was just, you know, having to see that body. I mean, I saw the one…”

His voice trailed off, and he wiped a hand over his face. “Anyway, the next morning, Ron came to me and said he found a necklace near the body. He took it, and he said he felt real bad stealing something from a dead man.”

“Did you tell the police?” Louis asked.

Aubry shook his head slowly. “Didn’t see the point. I didn’t want Ron to get in trouble. The man was dead and buried. I didn’t know he had kin.”

“What happened to the necklace?” Louis asked.

Aubry hesitated. “I kept it. I don’t know why I did. But if you think it might help, I got no problem handing it over.”

“Thanks.”

“It’s at my place. It’s not far from Devil’s Garden. Why don’t you two ride over with me? We could stop at the old cow pen if you want.”

Louis was about to say that he and Mel had already seen it, but he realized suddenly that Burke Aubry could tell them more than any half-assed report Barberry had produced.

“We appreciate your help, Mr. Aubry,” Louis said.

It was only a mile or so to Aubry’s bungalow. They waited in the Jeep until Aubry returned. Aubry got in, uncurled his big fist, and dropped something in Louis’s hand.

It wasn’t just a necklace. It was a crucifix. And although Louis couldn’t be sure without checking, it looked like a match to the one Rosa said Emilio had given her.

“What’s the matter?” Mel asked from the backseat as Aubry started up the Jeep.

“I’ll tell you later,” Louis said, pocketing the crucifix.

They set off for the cattle pen, leaving the gravel roads for the kidney-jarring terrain of the pasturelands. The warm air that rushed over their faces was thick with the smells of fresh earth, swamp water, and manure.

There didn’t seem to be any road, not even ruts. But Aubry obviously knew where he was going. As they bounced along, the landscape morphed from flat, yellow grass to clusters of humpbacked palmetto palms and then a gathering of live oaks. It was as if they had passed through three separate states in a matter of minutes.

“How much farther?” Mel shouted from the backseat.

Aubry pointed to a stand of trees in the distance. He said something, but his words were smothered by the wind. Finally, he pulled to a jarring stop.

Aubry hopped from the Jeep with the spryness of a much younger man. Louis and Mel followed. They trudged through heavy brush and waded across a shallow marshy river, its banks rimmed with cattails. The sun was low in the sky, giving Louis his only bearings. From what Louis could tell, they had come to the abandoned cattle pen from due south. There was no sign of the gravel road he and Mel had taken on their first trip here. From this direction, it looked very different from the rest of the land he had seen so far on the Archer Ranch. It was heavily wooded, mainly with the same live oaks he had seen back at the ranch house. But these trees were even larger, great, twisting black things swagged with Spanish moss, so thick and high that they blocked out the sun. It was like they had entered some strange primeval oasis.