P. Parrish - The Little Death

Barberry watched Mel for a moment, then looked back at Louis. “The witness said he read in the Clewiston News that we found a body, so he thought he should report the fancy car,” Barberry said. “He said he just thought it was weird to see a car like that in a place like Clewiston.”

“A Rolls or a Bentley would have a very distinct kind of tire,” Louis said. “Did you get any tracks from the area of the cattle pen?”

Barberry shook his head. “No tires. Only dog paws, cowboy boots, work boots, and bare feet that probably belonged to Durand. Oh, and horse hooves, too.”

“Horses?” Louis said.

Barberry paused. “Yeah. It was some cowboys down there that found him.”

“If the ground was soft enough for all that,” Louis said, “didn’t you wonder why there were no tire tracks?”

Barberry shrugged. “The main road going in is asphalt and then hard-packed gravel. Kent probably parked on the gravel and made Durand walk to the pen.”

Louis couldn’t quite envision things the way Barberry described them. He couldn’t imagine that, out there in the middle of nowhere, there had been no tire tracks at all. The people who worked out there had to drive some sort of vehicles.

“What kinds of cars do Kent and Durand own?” Louis asked.

“Durand had some beat-up black Honda that’s been in the garage for three weeks. The older fudge packer doesn’t even own a car.” Suddenly, Barberry’s eyes shot to Mel. “Hey, do you mind not doing that?”

Mel paused, staring at Barberry, then snapped the Zippo closed. He set it on the desk, his eyes never leaving Barberry’s face.

“Kent would have needed a car to transport the body out there,” Louis said. “You’re going to have to tie him to a vehicle to make your case.”

“No shit,” Barberry said, bristling. “But Kent could’ve borrowed a car. I’ll place him behind the wheel of something, and once I do that, it’s over for him.”

“Swann told us Kent and Durand had a relationship,” Louis said. “Did you consider there might have been-”

Barberry smirked. “Another man? Sure, I thought about that. But why should I waste my time hunting down some phantom fag when Kent won’t even admit he was sleeping with Durand? Give me a fucking break.”

The phone on Barberry’s desk rang. Barberry answered it, turning his back. Louis looked at the accordion file. He wanted to see the crime scene and the autopsy photos.

Barberry hung up his phone. “Well, gentlemen,” he said. “It seems I have somewhere to go. Can I walk you out?”

Barberry gestured toward the door, leaving them no choice but to head in that direction. Mel pushed from the chair, and Louis followed him out to the lobby.

“Tell the fudge packer I’ll be over to see him soon,” Barberry said at the door, and started away.

“Hey,” Mel said sharply.

Barberry turned. “What?”

“Knock that shit off,” Mel said.

Barberry stared hard at Mel, like he didn’t get it. Then he gave him a hard grin. “Whatever you say, pal.”

Outside, they paused as Mel reached for his Kools and stood there in the hot sun, patting his pockets for his lighter.

“Damn, I left my lighter in there,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”

Louis slipped on his sunglasses. The whine of a jet coming in for a landing drew his eyes up for a second, then back to two uniformed officers coming up the walk. They didn’t give him a glance as they went inside.

At home, in Lee County, he was used to getting nods of recognition from the local cops. His relationships with the sheriff and the chief were prickly but at least respectful. But here, in Bizarro World, as Mel called it, nothing felt even close to comfortable. Not only was he hitting brick walls with two different police departments, but their own client was parsing the truth about his sex life.

Client. Louis shook his head slowly. Despite his loyalty to Mel, he wasn’t sure he wanted anything to do with Kent.

“They found the head,” Mel said.

“What?”

Mel came down a step, lighting up a cigarette. “They found Durand’s head,” he said. “It’ll be here in about a half hour.”

“How do you know that?”

“When I went back in for the lighter, I heard the phone conversation,” Mel said. He blew out a stream of smoke. “We need to go see the ME.”

“He isn’t going to talk to us, Mel,” Louis said.

“Why don’t you call Vinny?” Mel asked. “See if he knows the guy and can get us a few minutes inside.”

Vinny Carissimi was the Lee County medical examiner and a good friend of Louis’s, and there was a fraternity of MEs across the state, just as there was for cops.

“Let’s go find a phone,” Louis said.

The medical examiner’s office was located around the back of the building. Louis and Mel parked in the last row of the lot, next to a jail transport bus. They watched as a county van pulled up, letting out a deputy with an orange Igloo cooler.

A few minutes later, Barberry came around the corner of the building and disappeared inside. He reappeared forty minutes later, a little paler. Without lifting his head even to look around, he stuck his hands in his pockets and walked away.

Louis and Mel waited five more minutes before they went inside. The automatic doors opened with a wheeze, drawing the attention of a deputy standing farther down the hall, the same one who had brought in the Igloo cooler. Despite the NO SMOKING sign above his head, he was stealing a few puffs of a cigarette. He looked at Louis and Mel like a kid caught in the high school john, then managed to regain some sense of command.

“Hold up,” the deputy said. “Who are you?”

Louis paused. As a favor to Vinny, the ME was expecting them, but Louis couldn’t be sure the deputy wasn’t assigned by Barberry to guard the head from outsiders. So he lied.

“Dr. Vincent Carissimi, Lee County ME,” Louis said. “This is Detective Landeta. We’re here about the severed head.”

“Oh, well, then,” the deputy said, gesturing toward the door closest to Louis. “You go right ahead. Dr. Steffel is right in there.”

“Thanks.”

Louis held the door for Mel and followed him inside. In the large tiled room, three stainless-steel autopsy tables, empty and shiny, sat under hooded lights. Below the shout of industrial-strength Lysol lurked the sour whisper of rotting flesh.

A door near the back opened, and a small woman in green scrubs came through it. She was about fifty, with a pretty pale face and a short, dark pixie haircut.

“Louis Kincaid?” she said, coming forward with outstretched hand.

“Dr. Steffel?” Louis asked.

“Sue Steffel,” she said. She looked expectantly toward Mel, and Louis introduced him.

“I appreciate you letting us get a look at Durand,” Louis said.

“Vinny and I are old friends,” Dr. Steffel said with a smile. “If he vouches for you, then you’ve got to be okay, even if you are cops.”

“Ex-cops,” Mel said.

“There’s no such thing,” she said.

“Point taken,” Mel said with a smile.

Dr. Steffel crossed her arms and leaned back against a steel table, giving them both an appraising look. “Vinny says you’ve got an open mind.”

“A mind is like a parachute,” Louis said. “It only works when it’s open.”

“Well, in this room, I work only with the facts,” Dr. Steffel said. “And too often I find myself dealing with people who form their theories first and then try to make the facts fit.”

“People like Barberry?” Louis asked.

Dr. Steffel held his eyes for a long time, arms still folded.

“We’re just trying to find out the truth about Mark Durand,” Louis said.