P. Parrish - The Little Death

“Where’s the road?” Louis asked, trailing Aubry through the high weeds.

Aubry pointed west. “Over that way. I brought us in the back, by way of one of the cow trails.”

“Cow trails?” Louis asked.

“Yeah, the ranch is cut through with scores of them. But you have to know where they are.”

“So, all the cowboys who work for you know how to get here without using the road?” Mel asked.

“Cowmen,” Aubry said.

“What?”

“Cowmen. We don’t use that word ‘cowboy.’ It takes a man to do this work. Got no use for boys here.”

They were at the back end of the old cow pen now. There was a small structure that Louis had noticed on their first visit. It was made of the same bleached wood as the fences, and its tin roof was rusted red. It looked like one good wind would blow it away.

“What was that for?” Louis asking, pointing.

“That’s where we did the branding, but this pen ain’t been used for near twenty years now,” Aubry said. He ducked under the rails, and they followed him into the large central pen strung with the yellow crime-scene tape.

“This is where we found the body,” Aubry said, pointing to the depression in the sand.

Louis couldn’t see the man’s eyes behind the sunglasses, but he heard the catch in his voice. Still, he had to ask.

“Can you describe things for us, Mr. Aubry?” Louis asked. “It might help.”

Aubry cleared his throat. “Well, like I said, we had to pull the dogs away first. That’s when we figured it was, well, it was a human we were looking at. There was blood everywhere. I mean, I’ve seen cows slaughtered, so blood doesn’t bother me. But this was…” He stopped, took off his sunglasses, and ran a hand over his face. “The head was gone, and at first we thought one of the dogs had got it. But… well, it was just gone.”

“They found it later,” Louis said.

Aubry gave a tight nod. “That’s good, I guess.”

“Is there anything else you can remember?” Louis asked.

Aubry seemed to be staring at a spot on the ground. “The man, he was laying facedown, and he was naked. His back was all cut up like he’d been whipped.”

Louis flashed back to the two horses he had seen tied up outside the Archer house, to something coiled on the saddle.

“Mr. Aubry, do your men carry whips?” he asked.

Aubry nodded. “With all the trees and brush, ropes are about as good as skis in a desert. We use dogs and whips.”

“Did Barberry ask you about your whips?” Louis asked.

His clear blue eyes didn’t waver. “He saw that we carry whips, so he took the five we had. Then he asked me how many other men I had working for me. I said we had twenty all told. He ordered me to call them all in.”

“You were questioned?” Mel asked.

“Yeah, we were questioned.” He almost spat out the last word. “They made us all go in the bunkhouse, and they took statements. We were there all afternoon. Lost a full day’s work. Then about sundown, Barberry got a call. He came back and lined my men up and started yelling at them.”

“Yelling? About what?” Louis asked.

“Stuff like ‘You hate queers, boy? That why you whipped that little faggot to death?’ And then he-”Aubry paused to draw in a deep breath. “Then he started in on Lee Marion, started accusing him of being queer. Lee’s kind of a little guy, but he sure…” Aubry paused. “Anyway, I almost had to pull a couple of my men off Barberry. Now, I had a tussle or two with the law when I was young, so I know you can’t win with those types. But that Barberry, he had no right to disrespect my men like that.”

Louis could pretty much imagine what had happened. Barberry had scored a lucky hit with Durand in the fingerprint database, and Durand’s record had popped up, complete with his prostitution arrest. From there, Barberry’s primitive brain needed little help in making the leap to hate crime. And Barberry was certainly mean enough to take it a step further and try to bait Aubry’s men with innuendo.

Emilio Labastide hadn’t been whipped, but the whip connection to the Archer men was too powerful to ignore. “Mr. Aubry,” Louis asked. “The twenty men who work for you now, were any of them here five years ago?”

“Almost all were. Except Ron. I told you that he died.”

Louis was quiet.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Aubry said. “But I know these men. These men work here and live here, some a long time. Some of them were here when Jim Archer ran things, and when Jim died back in sixty-five, they stayed on out of loyalty to Libby Archer. We’re like a family here.”

“People do things that surprise even their families, Mr. Aubry,” Louis said.

“I know that,” he said. “But you gotta understand something. This place, this ranch, it’s almost like an island. We watch over each other here, and what happens in the outside world is almost foreign to us.”

Louis caught Mel’s eye.

“My men wouldn’t do something like this,” Aubry said. “And they sure as hell wouldn’t do it here.”

“Here? What do you mean?” Louis asked.

“Devil’s Garden,” Aubry said. “It’s Mrs. Archer’s special place-sacred is what she calls it-and all the men know it.” He shook his head slowly. “Not here.”

Louis watched him walk away, then turned to Mel. He could barely see him in the quickening dusk.

“Well, if nothing else, this trip got us twenty more suspects,” Mel said.

“Not if you believe that Aubry knows his men,” Louis said.

Mel shrugged and turned his face toward the faint ribbons of orange and pink resting on the dark blue horizon. Louis wondered if Mel could see the colors or if he simply sensed the beauty.

“You’re good at getting feelings about things,” Mel said. “What do you think happened here?”

Louis turned and looked back at the cow pen. The dark had descended, leaving only the black shapes of the fence and trees. All he could see now was a fluttering yellow tail of crime-scene tape.

There was no “feeling,” as Mel called it. There was nothing. Just cool air and silence.

The clock chimed, its sweet sound carrying in the stillness of the house. She waited until she counted twelve chimes, then slid from the bed and went downstairs.

The marble was cold on her feet as she went quickly through the rooms. The white lights of the Christmas tree glowed in the dark. At the front door, she opened the small box and punched in the code to deactivate the alarm.

She hurried to the back of the house, passing the closed door of the study without a glance. At the French doors, she paused, looking out over the patio. The pool lights cast shimmering shadows on the swaying palm trees.

She switched off the lights, and the pool went dark. She unlocked the door.

Her heart was beating too fast, and she thought briefly of her doctor and his warnings. But she didn’t care. It felt good. And it had been a while since she felt good.

She retraced her steps through the house and up the sweeping staircase. All of the rooms were dark; she had made sure of that. There was no one in the huge house but her; she had made doubly sure of that, even sending Greg on his way early with the excuse that she was too tired to work.

Back in her bedroom, she paused. Everything was just right. Fresh new linens, the lights on dim. The candle, smelling of orange blossoms- was that a cliché? -glowed on the night table. She felt a twinge of guilt over the candle- what kind of woman spent $300 for one candle at Neiman’s? — but she didn’t care. She had simply wanted it.

She went to the dressing table, looked down at the selection of perfume bottles, and picked up the small, square crystal bottle. She removed the stopper and ran it over the skin between her breasts, then put the bottle of Jicky perfume back in its place. She paused, looking at the larger bottle hidden behind the others. She picked it up, pulled out the stopper, and brought the bottle up to her lips. She closed her eyes as the scotch burned down her throat.