P. Parrish - The Little Death

“Painting? What kind?”

“This horrible landscape,” Reggie said. “I found it in the back of his closet.”

“Do you think he could have stolen it from one of the women?”

Reggie shook his head slowly. “I doubt it. It was very amateurish, not anything the women I know would own. I thought maybe he bought it for me as a gift. So I stuck it back in the closet and prayed I’d never have to look at it again.”

Louis remembered seeing a Haitian painting in Durand’s room, once right after the search and again when he and Mel moved in.

“We need to know exactly what this painting looked like,” Louis said. “Was it Haitian?”

“I told you, it was an amateur thing,” Reggie said. “It was this vulgar cowboy painting with dogs and horses…”

“Cowboys?” Louis leaned in closer. “You need to think hard here. Did Durand ever tell you where he got that painting?”

“No, but I can tell you the name of the artist,” Reggie said. “It was signed in the corner. Archer.”

Louis looked at Swann. He looked like someone had just given him a kick in the gut, but the intensity in his eyes told Louis that Swann’s mind was already racing toward the cattle pen in Devil’s Garden.

“We need to go,” Louis said. “You hang in there, you hear me? I promise you, it’ll be over soon.”

“One way or another,” Reggie whispered.

A single yellow floodlight was the beacon that led them through the driving rain to Aubry’s bungalow. His old Jeep was parked next to a small stable.

Louis and Swann hurried up to the porch. Louis knocked, the sound drowned out in the clamor of the rain beating on the tin roof. Finally, the door opened.

Aubry stood there, holding a beer. “What the hell?”

“Mr. Aubry, we need to talk to you,” Louis said.

“Must be pretty damn important for you to come all the way here on a night like this.”

“It is, believe me.”

“Well, get in here, then.”

They stepped into a dimly lit room, warm from a blazing fireplace and pungent with the scent of fresh pine. Next to the coral-rock fireplace was a Christmas tree decorated with carved wood ornaments and old-fashioned bulb lights.

Louis stayed by the door, dripping on the plank wood floor, Swann shivering behind.

“Come on in and sit down,” Aubry said. “You aren’t going to get anything wet that I care about.”

Louis sat on the edge of a lumpy sofa covered with a blanket. A small yellow mutt with large pointed ears and a long snout looked up at them from its place in front of the fire, then laid its head back down.

Aubry came out of the kitchen and tossed each of them a towel. “I’d offer you a beer, but this is the last one,” he said, holding up his bottle. “I was thinking of going up the road to Mary Lou’s for a six-pack.”

Louis dried his face with the towel. “We’re fine.”

Aubry sat down in a beat-up lounger by the fire. “So, what’s this about?”

“We have another missing man,” Louis said.

“Dead?”

“We don’t know. We’re hoping he’s still alive.”

“Well, you’re not going to find anyone out there in that rain tonight,” Aubry said. “So, I don’t know what help I can be.”

“Louis?”

Louis looked over at Swann. He first saw the gun rack with two rifles, but then his eyes found the spot of color on the wall next to the rack.

It was a framed painting of men on horses roping a red steer, with yellow dogs running in the green grass.

Louis turned back to Aubry. “You said David sketched. Did he do paintings, too?”

Aubry nodded toward the painting. “That’s one of his over there. I’ve got others. Why you asking?”

“One of his paintings turned up in Palm Beach,” Louis said. “And we have to find out how it got there.”

Aubry was silent.

“The last time I was here, we talked about David’s friends,” Louis said. “Could David have given one of his paintings to a friend?”

Aubry shook his head slowly. “David was pretty private about his art stuff. He never thought they were much good, and I told you Jim was funny about it.”

“Is there any chance some of his paintings could have been left in the house and his father or mother gave them away?” Louis asked.

“No,” Aubry said. “David was getting ready to go off to University of Florida, and he asked me to keep his art stuff. He wouldn’t have left any paintings inside the house for his father to find.”

“I know I’m grasping at straws here, Mr. Aubry,” Louis said, “but can you think of anyone who was around this ranch twenty-eight years ago who could have found their way to Palm Beach?”

“You never know what paths people are going to take,” Aubry said, “but the folks who were around here back then, especially those close to the family, they aren’t the kind of people who’d feel at home in a place like Palm Beach.”

Louis didn’t know where else to go with this. Why couldn’t he see the connection between David Archer’s world and Mark Durand’s? Who or what did they have in common?

“Louis,” Swann said, “we need to head out to the pen.”

“You fellas aren’t going anywhere in that fancy car you got,” Aubry said. “You’ll be caught in the mud for sure.”

“Will you take us?” Louis asked.

“Why? You think your missing man might be laying out there already dead?”

“It’s been twenty-four hours since he disappeared,” Swann said. “Two of the three victims were killed the same night they vanished.”

Aubry set the tray down and disappeared again down a hall. He returned wearing a rain slicker, boots, and a cowboy hat. He had a second rain parka for Louis.

“Don’t have another slicker,” Aubry said to Swann.

“No problem. I have one in my trunk.”

“You armed?” Aubry asked.

“I am,” Louis said, patting his belt beneath his windbreaker. “Andrew’s not.”

Aubry pulled two bolt-action rifles from the rack, made sure they were loaded, and handed one to Swann. Louis tried read Swann’s expression as he took the rifle. He knew the academy trained recruits in all weapons, but he doubted Swann had shot any type of gun for a good many years.

Louis put on Aubry’s slicker, and they left the house. Swann got his bright yellow raincoat from the BMW’s trunk.

It took them about ten minutes to get to the pen. For the first half-mile, the old Jeep slid over the sloppy ground with seemingly no traction. Then the tires hit something solid, and Louis knew where they were. Aubry was taking them in via the gravel road he and Mel had used on their first visit just two days ago.

Aubry brought the Jeep to a stop a few feet from the fence, the blackness before them pierced only by two foggy beams from the headlights. Between sweeps of the wipers, they stared at the labyrinth of fences.

“Let’s take a walk,” Aubry said.

They grabbed flashlights and stepped into the rain. Louis pulled up the hood of his parka. When he looked back at Swann, the fluorescent stripes on his raincoat sleeves and the words PALM BEACH POLICE stood out even in the dark.

They split up, Aubry and Swann heading to the left, Louis to the right. It was hard to hear anything over the steady beat of the rain and just as hard to see anything in the flashlight’s beam.

Louis walked slowly, sweeping the light over the dirt, searching for anything that looked out of place. A hump on the ground, a glint of a metal buckle, a gleam of pale, wet flesh. But there was nothing to see. Nothing to hear but the plink of rain and the occasional creak of a rusty gate in the wind.

Louis paused at the fence of the largest pen. He had a decent view, but he couldn’t see every inch, nor could he see what was on the other side of the small lean-to.