P. Parrish - The Little Death

It had lost its pacifier and started to kick and punch at the air and make those weird little snorty noises babies made when they start to get upset. Then it burst into a wail.

Rosa was there before Louis could pick up the pacifier. She swept the baby into her arms. The baby put its head against Rosa’s shoulder, eyes wet and worried. It reminded Louis of the way the family dog looks at its owner when it knows something sad has happened to him.

“Thank you, Mrs. Díaz,” Swann said, holding out his business card to her. “Gracias por decirme la verdad y por perdonarme.”

Rosa tucked the card into her pocket and looked to Louis. Her eyes were brimming with fresh tears. “I want to see Emilio’s grave,” she said. “Can you tell me where he is buried?”

Louis couldn’t tell her that her brother was no longer buried anywhere but lying in a morgue cooler. He thought about Margery’s check. He’d filled in the dollar amount for $50,000, with no idea of how much of that they’d actually use. Or if all of the costs would meet with Margery’s approval. But this was going to have to be one of them.

“Do you have a cemetery here in Immakolee?”

Rosa nodded. “ Sí, but I have no money to bring Emilio here. It must be… muy caro .”

“Don’t worry about it,” Louis said. “It will all be taken care of.”

Rosa thanked him and said something to Swann in Spanish before she took the baby to the bedroom. Swann watched her, ran a hand across his mouth, and left the apartment.

Down in the parking lot, Swann pulled his sunglasses from his pocket but didn’t put them on. He stared toward the horizon, his eyes slightly pink.

“Just because he got a girl pregnant doesn’t mean he wasn’t gay,” Louis said.

Swann looked back at Rosa’s apartment and then to the ground. He seemed to be having trouble shaking the profound grief that had enveloped both of them upstairs.

“Yeah, I know,” Swann said. “And I pressed her on that. She said she and Emilio had a gay cousin in Mexico and that he was okay with that, and had he himself been that way, he would’ve been open about it. But she was absolutely sure he wasn’t. They… were really close.”

Swann sighed and slipped on his sunglasses, seemingly grateful to have something to hide behind. Louis thought about their visit to the Lee County morgue and how Swann had stood over a rotting corpse without so much as wrinkling his nose. But faced with a young woman to whom he owed the mother of all apologies, he was nothing but mush.

“You need a drink, Andrew?”

Swann nodded. “Yeah. Sounds good.”

They headed toward the Mustang, the sun on their backs. As he unlocked the car door, Louis glanced up at Rosa’s apartment. There were two heavyset women waddling toward the open door, probably already sensing the bad news. He was glad Rosa would have people with her.

“Okay, I got a question,” Swann said.

Louis looked at Swann across the canvas top of the car. “Go ahead.”

“We now have no reason to think Labastide was gay,” Swann said. “And we don’t have much of a reason to believe Mark Durand was really gay.”

“Right.”

“In fact, both these guys, if the rumors prove to be true, were seeing married women,” Swann said. “So where do we go from here?”

“Did you ever hear a rumor about Labastide, or anyone like him, being run from some woman’s bedroom by a jealous husband?” Louis asked.

Swann shook his head. “Not a word. Who told you that?”

“Margery Laroche,” Louis said. “But she wouldn’t tell me the woman’s name. Think you can get it out of her?”

Swann looked up at Rosa’s door. “After that, I can face anything.”

They were gathered on Margery’s loggia. Louis and Mel were sitting on the rattan sofa. Swann was perched on an ottoman in the corner. Margery was ensconced on the lounge with the four pug dogs on her lap.

“I feel like Susan Hayward in I Want to Live, ” she said.

Louis stifled a sigh. Mel didn’t bother.

Swann cleared his throat. “Mrs. Laroche,” he said, “we’re not interrogating you. We’re just asking for your help.”

She eyed them all and pulled the dogs closer. “Well, it feels like you’re ganging up on me, and I don’t like it,” she said.

Mel rose suddenly and went to one of the arched windows, his back to them. Swann looked pained. They had been there for a half hour, trying to get Margery to divulge the name of the woman Emilio Labastide had allegedly bedded, but Margery refused to tell them. Louis knew that Mel was about one minute away from scaring Margery with an obstruction-of-justice charge, even though he had no authority.

And Swann? Louis glanced over at the guy. He looked miserable, like someone was beating up on his mother.

“Margery,” Louis said firmly, “I want you to listen to me very carefully.”

“You, too, Louis?” she asked. There it was again, “Loo-EE.”

“Margery, you hired us to help Reggie Kent,” Louis said.

“But I already told you that he was at my birthday party that night,” she said. “That’s an alibi, right?”

“It’s not enough,” Louis said. “We can’t help him unless we can prove someone else killed Mark Durand. You saw that jail. If Reggie is convicted, he will be sent away to prison. I’ve been to Starke, and it makes the Palm Beach County jail look like, like…”

“The Bath and Tennis Club,” Swann said.

Louis glanced at him, then looked back at Margery. Her wide red mouth was still a hard line.

“You have to tell us the name of the woman Emilio Labastide was seeing,” Louis said.

“Louis, dear,” Margery said softly, “this is not like the real world. People here don’t have jobs, so they have to find ways to keep busy. They shop, drink, do drugs, eat lunch, screw around, and gossip.”

“Margery-”

“Let me finish,” Margery said. “Everyone loves to hear the dirt. But they’re afraid to death of being ostracized. If you talk too much, you’re out. I told you before, this is a very small island.”

She looked at Swann. “You know this,” she said. “Just last week, one of your men had to go down to the docks and pick up a certain gentleman who was sitting there naked, zozzled on coke, wearing handcuffs and a purple bra. Your man didn’t blink an eye, just put him in the backseat and drove him home.”

Swann pursed his lips, his face reddening slightly. Mel had turned around and was listening.

Louis knew he had to try another tactic. “Margery, you said that everyone has affairs but that people here don’t sleep down,” he said. “So, why would this woman bother with a man like Emilio Labastide?”

Margery glanced at the other men before coming back to Louis. “Power is everything here,” she said. “Men get their power from money. Women have to get it through their looks and who they marry. Well, that makes the women really jitzy-you know, anxious?”

“I need the name, Margery,” Louis said.

She ignored him. “See, there are always young women coming here to find rich men,” she said. “Every season, they swoop in like swallows, all these pretty-baby vamps with their fake blond hair and silicone boobs. It’s quite a ridiculous spectacle, really, these horny old coots chasing after them and then ditching their wives for younger models. Quel triste. ”

Louis slumped back on the sofa.

“You see, status is everything to women here,” Margery said. “Where you sit at a ball, how big your jewels are, if you live north or south of Sloan’s Curve, whether you get into the B and T or not. Women here will do anything to preserve their place, to avoid becoming substrata.”