P. Parrish - The Little Death

“You have more than enough information to talk to your prosecutor,” Louis said. “You know Reggie Kent didn’t murder Durand or either of the other two. What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Nothing’s wrong with me,” Barberry said. “I’m still looking into those other two guys, the bartender and the Mexican, like I told you I would. An investigation takes a lot of time. You know that.”

“Have you even talked to your prosecutor about the possibility of a serial killer?” Swann asked.

Barberry turned to Swann. It was clear he still hadn’t forgiven him for playing double agent between the sheriff’s office and two rogue PIs.

“I ain’t had time,” Barberry said.

“Have you talked to anyone?” Swann asked. “Your chief of detectives? Your sheriff, for God’s sakes? This is not just a routine homicide anymore.”

Barberry glared at Swann, his jaw grinding hard on the gum. A small twitch fluttered the loose skin under his eye.

“You haven’t told a soul, have you?” Swann said.

Barberry held Swann’s eyes for another second or two, then turned slowly to his desk and picked up the phone. “Excuse me for a moment,” he said.

Swann crossed his arms and looked away. Louis wondered who the hell Barberry was calling right in the middle of a conversation. Then, just as he heard a muffled male voice on the other end of the phone, it hit him.

“Yes, Chief Hewitt,” Barberry said. “I appreciate you taking my call. I thought I should let you know that one of your officers has been wasting your department’s time hanging around over here, trying to elbow his way into a homicide case we’re trying to work.”

Swann spun back to Barberry. A red flush crept up his neck as he listened.

“Swann,” Barberry said. “Andrew Swann, that’s right. Yeah. It’s about that guy Reggie Kent. Yeah. Yeah, right. Well, I would appreciate it if you’d have a word with him.”

Barberry held out the phone. Swann seemed frozen, the red in his neck now coloring his face.

“Your chief wants a word with you, Andrew,” Barberry said.

Swann took the phone. Barberry didn’t even give him the courtesy of some privacy. He stood close as Swann lowered his head and listened.

“Yes, sir, I understand. Yes, sir… yes, sir… yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

Swann hung up and, without a word, left the squad room. Louis looked at Barberry, who was unwrapping a stick of gum.

“You son of a bitch,” Louis said.

Barberry laughed. “Yeah, well, like that little spic in Hendry County said, ‘Don’t come over here and fuck with me on my turf.’ If and when any charges are dropped against Kent, you’ll be the first to know. Now, go away and let me do my job.”

Louis found Swann in the parking lot, leaning against the Mustang, head bent and arms crossed. He looked up when he heard Louis’s footsteps. His cheeks were still bright with color.

“You okay?” Louis asked.

“I’ve been suspended,” Swann said.

Swann made no move to get into the car. For a second, Louis couldn’t read Swann’s expression. Then he realized he had seen it once before, ironically on the face of a woman. He had been called out on a domestic abuse, and the woman had been sitting there, her face bloody, tears in her eyes, as she watched them haul her husband away. She said she had finally gotten up the nerve to leave him, and it was all there in her face-anger, humiliation, and relief.

“Come on, Andrew,” Louis said. “Let’s go home.”

Swann was silent on the drive back to Palm Beach. Louis didn’t push it. He didn’t know the guy well enough to give him advice about his job or his life, but he sensed that Swann had nowhere to go. So as they left the bridge and pulled onto Royal Poinciana Way, he asked Swann if he wanted to come back to Reggie’s house for a beer.

Swann accepted quickly.

When they walked into the house, Louis stopped and stared. The main wall of the living room had been stripped of Reggie’s beloved Haitian paintings. In their places were two large bulletin boards covered with papers and photographs. The small dining table had been pushed to the center of the room. There Mel sat, his head bent low, magnifying glass in hand.

“What’s all this?” Louis asked.

Mel looked up. “Welcome to the pigpen.”

Louis and Swann came forward. The bulletin board resembled the displays Louis had seen in big-city homicide rooms for major cases, and when working with the FBI on a serial-killer case three years ago.

Separated into columns and color-coded, the board offered an easy-to-grasp visual blueprint of their complicated and increasingly confusing investigation.

On the right side were the victim’s names across the top, with commonalities listed under each and linked in green marker. Under that were lists of physical evidence and subsequent leads formed. On the left side were the two women’s names and those of their husbands, followed by what they knew about each person. A final column had the heading what we know we don’t know. It was blank.

On the second board, Mel had tacked up Swann’s pilfered photographs of Durand’s crime scene and close-up shots of the sword and the boots and all of the other items they had found in Durand’s bedroom. Mel had even cut out pictures of Tucker and Carolyn Osborn and Tink and Dickie Lyons from the Shiny Sheet and hung them up.

“This is impressive,” Swann said. “Why do you call it the pigpen?”

“That’s what we called it back at Miami PD,” Mel said. “Whenever we had a big case going, we’d put all the stuff in one room and we’d sit in there drinking bad coffee and eating cold burgers and throwing shit at the wall.”

Louis knew it had probably taken Mel all day to put this together, given the trouble his eyes gave him with detail work. But Louis didn’t want to deal with headless corpses right now. He was worried about Reggie. And Swann. That wasn’t like him, to take the troubles of near strangers to heart. And no one here in Bizarro World was supposed to give a damn about anyone else.

Louis went to the kitchen to get a beer. But the only things in the refrigerator were a quart of milk, orange juice, and two bottles of Evian.

Louis grabbed the bottles of water and returned to the living room. Swann looked up.

“Sorry, Andrew, we’re fresh out of beer,” he said. He tossed a bottle and Swann caught it against his chest. Louis dropped down onto the sofa and kicked off his shoes.

Mel put down the magnifying glass and looked up from his spot at the table. “What’s with the tone, Rocky?”

Louis opened the water and took a huge drink. “What tone?”

“We’re fresh out of beer because Mel was too busy hanging out at Ta-boo again to go get some.”

“Did I say that?” Louis said.

“You don’t have to say it. I can still hear it.”

“Give it a rest, Mel, will you?”

Louis looked over at Swann. He was standing at the bulletin board, staring at them both. He turned away, on the pretense of studying the photographs. Louis fell back against the cushions and closed his eyes. God, he wanted this case to be over. Nothing about it was making any sense, and every time he was able to empty his mind, Joe was there to fill it.

I want you to want something from yourself.

Right now, all he really wanted was to go home to his cottage and sleep in his own bed. He wanted to sit on his island, on his beach, and watch the sun melt into the Gulf.

“You ready to listen to what I found out today?” Mel asked.

“Go ahead,” Louis said, without opening his eyes.

“First, I’m close to finding the private eye that Osborn said spied on his wife,” Mel said. “Her rival, Morty Akers, died a couple years ago but I tracked down his former aide, who told me the PI’s name was Barney Lassiter.”