Claw Back (Louis Kincaid)

by Parrish, P. J.

  PRAISE FOR THE BOOKS OF P.J. PARRISH

  "Tense, thrilling...you're going to bite your nails!"

  —Lee Child, New York Times bestselling author

  "The kind of book that grabs you and won't let go. I absolutely loved it. Nobody is writing better private eye fiction anywhere than P.J. Parrish."

  —Steve Hamilton

  "Powerful stuff...The quiet sadness that underpins it all really got to me, the way Ross Macdonald always does. Among my favorite Florida crime writers are Charles Willeford, John D. MacDonald and Ed McBain. I'll have to add P.J. Parrish."

  —Ed Gorman, Mystery Scene magazine

  "A gripping and atmospheric novel that will remind many of Dennis Lehane. The author's ability to raise goose bumps puts her in the front rank of thriller writers."

  —Publishers Weekly

  "A wonderfully tense and atmospheric novel. Keeps the reader guessing until the end."

  —Miami Herald

  "A standout thriller. It is an intriguing and atmospheric story set largely on the grounds of an abandoned insane asylum, a haunting location that contains many dark and barbarous secrets. With fresh characters and plot, an suspense novel of the highest order."

  —Chicago Sun-Times

  "Island of Bones opens like a hurricane and blows you away through the final page. It's a major league thriller that is hard to stop reading."

  —Robert Parker

  "A complex, sophisticated mystery...a guaranteed can't put down book that absorbed me as much as The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo."

  —Triage RobertaGately.com

  CONTENTS

  PANTHERS ARE COOL

  READ AN EXCERPT FROM HEART OF ICE

  READ AN EXCERPT FROM DEAD OF WINTER

  MEET P.J. PARRISH

  BOOKS BY P.J. PARRISH

  CLAW BACK

  P.J. Parrish Copyright© Kelly Nichols and Kristy Montee aka P.J. Parrish

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author or publisher.

  Edition: January 2013

  To our sexy beasts

  Pearl, Bailey, Phoebe and Lucy

  CHAPTER ONE

  He hadn’t been inside in a long time.

  It was as dark as he remembered, and it smelled as bad. O’Sullivan’s was a cop bar. Located a block from the Fort Myers police station, it had the feel of a married guy’s den. Stale smoky air, cigarette burns on the tables, rows of trophies, a floor of crushed peanut shells and a big-screen TV permanently tuned to ESPN.

  Like all primitive habitats, it had a pecking order. City detectives had staked out the back of the bar; county detectives, out of legendary necessity, owned the tables by the men’s room so they could piss and moan more conveniently; the round tables in the middle belonged to the rank and file uniforms.

  And in the back, by the juke box, sat Lance Mobley. Arms spread across the back of the booth, perched under a Happy Birthday banner, he looked like a king on a red leather throne.

  Louis Kincaid waited until his eyes adjusted before he started back. He needed to see everything clearly right now because this wasn’t going to be easy.

  When he stopped at the table, Mobley was talking over his shoulder to a pretty lady in a blue halter top. No one was sitting in the booth with the sheriff, but the table was littered with empty bottles, heaping ashtrays and crumpled wrapping paper. Louis scanned the gifts while he waited for Mobley to finish flirting. A bottle of Leopold’s Gin with a card that read: Gin makes you sin. Three cans of John Frieda hair mousse duct-taped together. A bundle of cigars. And a twelve-pack of animal print condoms.

  Louis had known Mobley a few years now. Knew he was a publicity hound, an office iron-pumper, a ladies’ man, a closeted lounge pianist. But probably most important, he was a competent sheriff who used his charm and good looks to mask his lack of good judgment and investigative skills.

  Louis glanced around the bar. Half the Lee County cops -- and more than handful of city cops -- were here. No matter what Mobley was, his men liked him. And that was important.

  Mobley’s voice broke his thoughts. “Sit down, Kincaid.”

  Louis slid into the booth. Mobley grabbed a bottle of Jack Daniels and poured himself another shot.

  “You want a drink?” Mobley asked.

  “Sure.”

  Mobley tried to signal the bartender, and when he was ignored he searched the cluttered table for an empty glass. He found a used shot glass beneath a crumple of gold paper and filled it for Louis.

  Louis let it sit in front of him.

  “So what did you want to talk to me about that was so important you’re interrupting my birthday party?”

  “You told me to meet you here,” Louis said. “You never said you’d be at a party.”

  “Fuck it,” Mobley said. “Talk to me.”

  Louis glanced down at the whiskey and decided to drink it. His throat was still burning when he spoke.

  “I’m here to ask you for a job,” Louis said.

  Mobley’s brow shot up and his eyes took a moment to focus. The bar was noisier than hell but suddenly it seemed as if there was no one here but the two of them.

  “I want back inside,” Louis said. “I want to wear a badge again.”

  Mobley continued to stare at him, but as understanding sank in, his lips tipped up in a small smile.

  “And I didn’t think this day could get any better,” he said.

  Suddenly someone slapped Mobley on the back of the head, mumbled something about the sheriff getting lucky tonight and wandered away. Mobley paid him no attention, his gaze still on Louis.

  “You’re too old,” Mobley said.

  “I’m twenty-nine.”

  “You look thirty-five easy.”

  “It’s seasoning.”

  “You’re too controversial, too well known as a PI,” Mobley said. “I don’t need any deputies who get their names in the papers.”

  “You mean deputies who get their names in the papers more than you do.”

  “See, that attitude is exactly what I’m talking about,” Mobley said. “You’ve been rogue too long. You’ve forgotten what it’s all about, lost respect for things like protocol and even fucking rank.”

  Louis leaned over the table. “Listen to me,” he said. “I graduated pre-law from Michigan. I trained in one of the best police academies in the country and graduated third in my class. I’ve been shot at, stabbed and nearly hanged and have worked with some of the best investigators in this state and in Michigan on half a dozen cold cases. With all due respect, you have no idea what kind of cop I was or what kind I will be. Sir.”

  Mobley’s dimmed expression never changed. For a few moments, the bar was a cacophony of noises -- clinking glasses, deep throated laughter and the pounding music of Guns and Roses’s “Welcome to the Jungle.”

  “No,” Mobley said, turning back to his drink. “Go ask Chief Horton for a job. He seems to like you.”

  “The city is on a hiring freeze,” Louis said. “You’re not. I saw the notice two days in the newspaper.”

  “We’re hiring deputies only,” Mobley said.

  “I don’t care where I start.”

  “I said no.”

  Louis sat back, staring at the empty shot glass in front of him. He hadn’t wanted to make the argument he was about to make -- it seemed desperate and self-serving to use his race to pry an opening in the tightly shut d
oor. But truth was, his brown skin was exactly what Mobley needed right now.

  “I also read something else in the newspaper,” Louis said. “Your department is facing seventeen counts of employment discrimination. I hear the justice department is coming down to review your hiring and promotion files.”

  Mobley shoved his glass aside and leaned into Louis. “Those charges are bullshit. I don’t have a bigoted bone in my body. Everyone knows that.”

  “I guess you can tell that to the DOJ when they get here,” Louis said. “And trust me, once they get a hold of you they never let go.”

  Mobley was quiet, grinding his jaw.

  “Did you know,” Louis continued, “that there are some police departments in the south that are still under DOJ hiring quotas from the 1960s?”

  “You’ve managed to sink lower than I thought possible,” Mobley said. “Threatening me with discrimination. Get out of my bar.”

  Louis didn’t move, instead ordering two beers to give Mobley time to simmer down. After the sheriff had taken a long pull from his bottle, Louis went on.

  “Listen, sheriff,” he said. “I don’t like affirmative action either, though I know that even now there are some companies that still need it forced down their throats. But I never took advantage. I didn’t even put my race down on my college application.”

  “So what’s your point?”

  “My point is, you need some brown faces in your department and you’ve got one right in front of you asking you for a job.”

  Mobley shook his head. “You don’t get it, Kincaid,” he said. “We’ve gone out of our way to find qualified minorities. I’m not stupid. I know I can’t police this community with nothing but white men, but I’m telling you the quality of human being I need just isn’t out there.”

  “Maybe you haven’t looked in the right places.”

  “I have a damn good recruitment division,” Mobley said. “And we’re going to solve this so-called race problem. I don’t need you and all the dead bodies you seem attract.”

  Louis looked away, hand around the beer bottle. He knew Mobley wouldn’t make it easy, knew he’d have to grovel some, but he had thought he could talk him into it. Though he still had his detractors, his reputation as a PI in southwest Florida was a damn impressive one and he knew he might be able to take that to a place like Miami or Orlando. But damn it, he wanted to stay here, in Fort Myers, on Captiva, in his little gray cottage. Near the water. Near the handful of people he had let into his life.

  “Lance,” someone called, “You got a call at the bar.”

  “Tell them I’m in the shitter.”

  “It’s Undersheriff Portman. Better take it.”

  Mobley mumbled something and looked to Louis as he started a long slide out of the curved booth. “I got to take this call,” he said. “Don’t be here where I get back.”

  Louis watched Mobley stagger toward the bar where he leaned on his elbows and picked up the phone. Louis drew a breath and put a five on the table.

  Half-way to the door, he stopped and took another look around O’Sullivan’s. It was one level above a dive with its sputtering neon and cracked leather booths. He had never found a place like this when he was wearing a badge. Back in Ann Arbor, flush with a criminology degree and a rookie’s idealism, he had decided he was too smart, too good to be part of the gritty off-duty lifestyle of a cop. And in Mississippi, the only tavern in town had been decorated with a confederate flag.

  Outside, the August air was still and scorched-smelling, baking the buildings and sidewalk like they were rocks in a kiln. Louis headed toward his Mustang.

  “Kincaid.”

  Louis turned to see Mobley standing in the doorway of the bar. His hair was the color of hay, his skin as bronzed as a lifeguard. A cigarette hung limply from the side of his mouth.

  “You really serious about wearing a uniform again?” Mobley asked.

  “I told you I was.”

  “Okay, I’ll give you a shot.”

  “A shot?”

  Mobley tried to take the cigarette from his mouth but the paper stuck to his dry lip and he had to peel it off. It took him a moment to refocus on Louis.

  “I got this situation going on I’m going to deputize you for.”

  “Deputize me?” Louis asked. “Is that even still legal?”

  “Yeah, kind of,” Mobley said. “Anyway, doesn’t really matter. I can do what I want.”

  “Right.”

  “You’ll get a temporary badge and ID card,” Mobley said, “but no uniform. You’ll wear street clothes. Jacket and tie.”

  In ninety-nine degree heat. Mobley was screwing with him but that was okay. He had a jacket. Somewhere. In his truck maybe, from that last case he had worked over in Palm Beach.

  “So, consider this a test, Kincaid,” Mobley said. “You pass it -- and only I decide if you do -- and I’ll get you in front of my hiring board with a five-star recommendation.”

  “You got a deal,” Louis said. “When do I start?”

  “I’ll get you your credentials tomorrow, but you can start right now.”

  Louis squinted up at the sun. It was already three. He looked back at Mobley.

  “Okay, what’s the job?”

  “I want you to go pick up a dead cat.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  It wasn’t just any cat.

  This one weighed about a hundred and thirty pounds and had claws that could rip a man to shreds.

  The panther was lying on its side, motionless, on the baking cement of the pool deck. Louis stood about ten feet away, sweat dripping down his face, muscles tensed. He moved closer. Close enough to see the cat’s big pink tongue hanging from its mouth.

  “Is it dead? It’s dead, right?”

  He glanced back at the old woman standing at the open sliding glass door. She was holding a small poodle whose curly white hair and anxious eyes matched her own. The damn dog had barked non-stop from the moment Louis set foot on the patio but at least for the moment it was just shaking, like it was having a seizure.

  “Yes, ma’am, I think it’s dead.”

  The pool pump kicked on with a loud groan and gushing noise.

  The poodle went into a barking frenzy. Louis looked back at the woman who was trying hard to keep it from jumping out of her arms. When he looked back at the big cat it still wasn’t moving.

  No, it wasn’t dead. Its chest was moving, just barely.

  “Ma’am,” he called back over his shoulder. “I think you’d better take your dog inside.”

  “What?”

  “Please go inside the house.”

  He waited until he heard the sliding door close. The barking was muted now at least. He crept closer to the cat and squatted down.

  It was about seven feet long from nose to tail’s end with a tawny brown coat that was white on the belly and tipped in black on the tail and ears. Its yellow eyes were open but unfocused and its mouth hung open, showing its tongue and large teeth.

  Louis had never seen one alive before, just pictures in magazines and those black silhouettes on the road signs cautioning people to drive slower. But he knew it was a Florida panther. He knew, too, that there weren’t many left in the wild. And he knew that this one was dying.

  He craned his neck, trying to get a better look at the big cat but he couldn’t see any wounds or any blood. The only thing that seemed off was that the animal looked too thin. Louis could see the gentle rippling of its ribs as it labored to breathe.

  Louis jerked the radio from the back pocket of his chinos and keyed the special frequency Mobley had assigned him.

  “Kincaid to Lee County base.”

  A pause. “Identify again?”

  “Kincaid. Louis Kincaid.”

  Another pause. “Who is this?”

  “Kincaid. I’m on temporary assignment for Sheriff Mobley and –-”

  “One moment.” The radio went silent. Louis wiped his sweating face and looked down at the panther. He couldn’t see the ch
est moving anymore. He inched closer and gently nudged a back paw with his shoe. The leg moved and Louis jerked back.

  The radio squawked to life. “Okay, Mr. Kincaid. What’s your business?” It was a woman dispatcher. She sounded young, with the sweet calming tone of a kindergarten teacher.

  “I need to speak to the sheriff ASAP.”

  “He’s unavailable.”

  Louis glanced at his watch. It was past four. Mobley was probably still at O’Sullivan’s laughing his ass off.

  “Miss, I could use some help here,” Louis said. “I’ve got a Florida panther here on someone’s patio and -”

  “Panther?”

  “Yeah, it’s –”

  “You’re sure it’s a panther?”

  “Yeah, I’m sure.”

  “Does it match the BOLO description?”

  Bolo? What the hell?

  “Read me the BOLO, please,” Louis said.

  The dispatcher read the be-on-the-lookout alert put out by the Fish and Game Conservation Commission. As far as Louis could tell the description matched the panther, right down to the bulky radio collar it was wearing.

  “Is it dead?” the dispatcher asked.

  “Not yet.”

  And that was what was going to help Louis pass Mobley’s damn test. He knew Mobley didn’t care about a dead cat. A dead panther found in the wild wasn’t news. The sad fact was the cats were routinely killed by cars. But a rescued live panther found on an old lady’s patio in Lehigh Acres was another story. A story that the TV cameras –- and Lance Mobley –- wouldn’t be able to resist.

  “I need to contact the Fish and Wildlife people,” Louis said. “Can you patch me through to someone, please?”

  “I can notify them for you.”

  “I’d like to speak to them myself,” Louis said.

  “One moment, Mr. Kincaid.”

  A minute later a man came on the line and Louis told him about the panther on the patio. The man asked no questions, only for directions to Elsie Kaufman’s house. He asked Louis to stay until a ranger arrived.