Jeff Abbott - Black Joint Point

‘We get along fine.’

‘No, you don’t. You’ve never gotten along with him. Never made the effort, far as I can see.’ Hollis stood, wadded up his page of doodles. ‘You got a reason to suspect Lucy Gilbert, a solid lead, you go for it. You questioning her because she’s the girlfriend of a guy who’s a pain in your ass, forget it. I won’t have an officer of mine abusing his position.’

‘I resent that. Deeply.’

‘I wouldn’t want you to resent it shallowly, David,’ Hollis said. ‘We clear?’

‘Crystal.’ David kept his voice steady. ‘I need clarification on some items in her statement. That’s all. In fact, my friend Judge Mosley and I are supposed to drive in together to Corpus for the autopsy results and to meet with the forensic anth team.’

‘Good. Keep playing nice.’ Hollis left.

David Power unclenched his fingers. Odd. Hollis was a Democrat; Whit Mosley had been elected on the Republican ticket, although Whit looked more like a guy who’d gotten lost and had wandered into a Green Party meeting and stayed for the fashions. Why would Hollis take Whit’s side? But he saw it then: both of them from old Port Leo families, the old moneyed families of the coast that didn’t include the Powers. Old family allegiances meant more than political party lines.

It wouldn’t buy you an inch with him.

He stepped out into the hallway. Lucy Gilbert stood there, along with an older woman he presumed was her attorney. The lawyer gave David a predatory glare, like a barracuda who’d missed breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

No sign of Whit. It surprised him; he thought Whit would be here, steam pouring from his ears. Perhaps, David decided, that was best for the moment. But he turned his friendliest smile toward Lucy Gilbert. You just make one teeny misstep, bitch, you had a thing to do with these murders, you’re mine.

‘Miss Gilbert? Thanks for coming in. I just had a few questions on your statement you gave the police. If y’all will just step this way

…’

Patch Gilbert’s older niece, Suzanne, lived in a grand development called Castaway Key, a series of streets and private docks that few born and raised in Port Leo called home. Her house sat facing St Leo Bay, and in the summer afternoon the bay hummed with craft: sailboats slicing the waves; jet skis buzzing like maddened bees; a pleasure boat loaded with urban weekenders cutting near the shore, extra-bad eighties dance music drifting from its deck. Whit rolled up the window.

Castaway Key was not aptly named. Many houses went for a quarter million and higher. Whit supposed anyone dressed like Robinson Crusoe, ambling along Castaway Key’s resort-named streets – such as Hilton Head Road or Cozumel Way – would be summarily brought to him on charges of vagrancy.

Suzanne Gilbert’s house was white and modern, and it glittered with windows large enough to drive a car through. Delicate palms and sprawling bougainvillea filled the beds near the curved stone driveway. Brightly painted Mexican tiles spelled out the house number. Suzanne, an artist, seemed flush rather than starving. Or maybe Suzanne was house-poor, and this mansion was a symptom of her supposed financial woes.

His cell phone beeped as he parked. ‘This is Judge Mosley.’

‘Judge. Hi. This is Linda Bird. I’m Jimmy Bird’s wife. I think you know who he is.’

‘I know we want to talk to him, ma’am.’

‘Well, I just talked with that prick David Power. I don’t want to talk to him no more, and the sheriff said I might have to talk to you. So I’m talking because’ – she paused – ‘I find the deputy to be irritating.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘New Orleans. I think if Jimmy has run off he’s gone there. Couple of times last month I hear him, late at night on the phone, talking, saying, Alex. I thought it was some drunk friend of his. They love to get tight and phone each other. Like goddamned teenagers.’

‘I see.’

‘Then the phone bill comes. We don’t know people in New Orleans but there’s three calls there, late at night. I pay the bills, as I have the job. I ask him about who he’s calling, he says it’s a mistake. He’s a bad liar. I can tell he’s lying.’ She paused. ‘So then I think maybe Alex is a girl. In New Orleans. How he got a girlfriend in New Orleans is beyond me, but I’m telling you because I sure ain’t telling David Power. You want the number he called?’

‘Yes, ma’am, I do.’ She gave it to him and he jotted it down.

‘You tell David Power he better fucking treat me nicer next time he sees me, or I’m filing a complaint. I got a lawyer now, what with getting the divorce, and I am in a filing mood.’

‘I sense your resolve, Mrs Bird. Thank you.’

‘You set bond on my brother last year,’ she said. ‘An amount we could handle. We appreciated it. I’m voting for you next time.’

He thanked her, stared at the phone number, nearly laughed.

Suzanne Gilbert opened the front door as he headed up the stairs. She wore black jeans, a black T-shirt, black sandals. Idiotic in this heat, Whit thought. Artist mourning clothes. She was very fair, attractive, a good five or six years older than Lucy. Her cheekbones and chin and nose were all precise and perfect, as measured as an architect’s drawing.

She greeted Whit with a brief hug, so quick he wondered why she’d bothered. Whit suspected that Suzanne wanted to pat his blondish hair flat or put him in a suit, tidy him up for Lucy. He saw her eyes take in his clothes with disapproval: the faded polo shirt, the rumpled khakis, the sandals.

‘How are you holding up?’ he asked.

‘Barely am,’ she said in a tone that meant anything but.

Whit followed her into a high-ceilinged foyer and then to a living room. The furniture was modern and expensive, imported teak, leather surfaces of tan and black, the carpet a creamy white, brave for a beachside house. Abstract art filled the walls, lined the bookshelves. But all painted with the same crude hand, no eye for detail or form. Savagely mixed, the colors selected to hurt the eye. Jackson Pollock without the restraint. Whit sensed a sudden meanness in the pictures. They were ugliness disguising themselves as talent. He hated the pictures on first sight.

He followed her to an immaculate, steel-dominated kitchen. A man who looked like he might drag his knuckles when he walked stood by the granite kitchen counter, drinking a bottle of Dos Equis. Big, thick-necked, with a shaved-bald head and wearing a black T-shirt and faded denim overalls. A bracelet of intertwining tattoos whirled around one melon-shaped bicep.

‘I don’t think you’ve met my boyfriend, Roy Krantz. Hon, this is Whit Mosley. He’s the coroner and the JP here and he’s conducting the inquest into Uncle Patch’s death.’ No, he hadn’t met Roy. The few parties and events where Lucy and Suzanne crossed paths, Roy was always at home or sleeping or working on a sculpture. Roy shunned limelight, it seemed to Whit. Perhaps he had trouble fitting through the front door.

Whit offered a hand; Roy shook it and didn’t try to squeeze Whit’s fingers into pulp.

The phone rang. ‘Excuse me,’ Suzanne said. ‘News has spread, and people want to bring over casseroles and cakes. You know how it is when you have a death in the family. Everyone swarms over with comfort foods and you gain ten pounds.’

As though weight gain were her biggest worry. Whit thought she needed a cheeseburger. But he gave his solemn, conducting-the-inquest nod. ‘Of course.’ She left the kitchen, scooped up a phone in the living room, spoke in a low voice.

‘You’re Lucy’s guy,’ Roy Krantz said. His voice was low and flat and sounded like it had been honed in a prison yard.

‘Yes.’