by P J Parrish
Louis reached down and started to pull the little marker out of the mud, then stopped. He knew he shouldn’t move it; it was part of a crime scene now. But if left, it might tumble into the water.
Setting the Bible in the leaves, he picked up the marker and moved it a few feet toward the others, kneeling to secure it in the dirt. Wiping his hands on his jeans, he rose. He picked up the Bible and started back toward the restaurant.
CHAPTER 49
Louis could feel the sun on his face, and it stirred him awake. He rolled over on his back and kicked off the sheets, hoping a small breeze would wash over him. But the humid air was still.
The phone rang. He ignored it, lying perfectly still until it stopped. He wondered what time it was, but then decided he didn’t care. He stared at the ceiling, his brain unable to kick into a new day.
The phone started ringing again.
Shit.
He pulled himself up slowly, planting both feet on the floor. When he put his face in his hands he could feel bumps and ragged skin against his palms. He tried to stand. His back muscles were knotted and his thighs burned.
How long had he slept? What time was it?
The phone finally stopped. He limped to the kitchen and started searching the cabinets for coffee. Issy curled against his legs.
He shook some Tender Vittles into her bowl, then went back to looking for coffee. He found a bag in the fridge and shook it. It was empty.
He stood there, leaning on the refrigerator door and staring into the shelves. Orange juice. That would work. He opened the carton and took a long swig. It burned like acid on his split lip.
“Jesus Christ!”
He wiped his mouth, wincing. Man, he needed to go see what he looked like. As he walked back through the living room, his eyes caught the book shelf and the small skull sitting there.
He went over and picked up the skull, turning it over in his hands. Was it possible this skull had washed away from the del Bosque cemetery?
He glanced around his living room. The Bible that Ana del Bosque had asked him to give to Frank was on the sofa. He set the skull in the chair and picked up the Bible. Taking it to the table, he put on his reading glasses and sat down, opening the Bible to the family tree on the frontispiece.
The tree went back to the 1800s, twisting with branches of double Spanish surnames. Louis recognized the name Marcelo Leon del Bosque as the man Bessie Levy had told him was the original emigrant from Spain. Next to him was his wife, Bianca Quinones Marquez y del Bosque. But the other old names meant nothing to him so he decided to start with the present and work backward.
He found Roberto’s name at the bottom and traced it up until he found his great-grandmother, Ana del Bosque.
Under Ana’s name were her children: the oldest son, Edmundo, and Francisco and his twin brother, Emilio. Ana had another child, a daughter named Taresa. She had been born in 1931 and died in 1932.
Taresa was the only girl baby on the tree who had a name.
The other entries said only BABY GIRL with the dates of their deaths. There were five such entries on the del Bosque tree.
Five entries, five graves. So who had been buried in the old grave that had been washed away? Ana’s daughter, Taresa?
Louis closed the Bible. He knew he could never prove it. No one would be able to tell when the sixth grave had been disturbed, any more than they could pinpoint the exact age of the skull he had found on the beach.
He looked back at the baby skull on the chair.
“What do I call you now?” he asked.
The phone started ringing again. Louis rose and grabbed it. “Kincaid,” he said.
“You should’ve been here an hour ago,” Horton said.
“Yeah, I know, Al.”
“We’re waiting on you. Come to the interrogation rooms.” Horton hung up.
When he got to the station, Louis saw two TV vans and Heather Fox standing on the grass doing a remote. He drove around back and parked among the cruisers to avoid her. Inside, he made his way down the hall, and was buzzed into the holding area. An officer waved him to a window.
Behind the glass, seated in a chair, he saw Ana del Bosque. Her gray hair had come loose from her bun, falling down the sides of her thin face. She wore paper shoes and a shapeless orange smock.
Horton was standing over her. He looked frustrated, with the slow boil of anger reddening his neck.
Louis looked at the officer. “She got a lawyer?”
“Refused one.”
Louis looked back. Horton walked a circle around Ana, hands on his hips. “So, you’re telling me all those babies died naturally?”
Ana sat stiffly, her knotted hands in her lap. “I told you no such thing. You make assumptions.”
“Then what happened to them?” Horton asked.
Ana did not reply.
“Well, let me tell you something,” Horton said. “Emma Fielding told us the babies were killed as part of some ritual you people perform.”
“It’s Emma del Bosque, and you are lying.”
Horton leaned into her. “You’re all going down for this. Every last one of you. It won’t matter who actually murdered those babies —- you’re all guilty. And we’ll prove it when we dig them all up.”
“You’re digging up the graves?” she asked.
“Yeah, all of them.”
Ana’s eyes closed briefly.
“And then we’ll start on the other graveyard,” Horton said. “I wonder how many murdered people we’ll find there.”
“You’ll find —-” Ana stopped.
Horton waited. Louis knew Horton had poked a hole in Ana’s facade and now he was just waiting to see if it opened further.
Ana looked up at him slowly. “If I tell you the truth, will you leave my family in peace?”
“The live ones or the dead ones?” Horton asked.
“Both.”
Horton shook his head. “I can’t promise that.”
Ana took a breath, her small chest rising and falling under the orange material.
“I killed Mateo.”
“Who’s he?”
“My husband. I killed him in January of 1932. He is buried in the other cemetery, along with the rest of my family.”
Horton walked in front of her. “How’d you kill him?”
“I shot him.”
“What about the babies?”
Ana was speaking so softly, Louis had to lean closer to the intercom to hear her.
“I killed them, too,” she said. “All of them.”
“How?”
“I smothered them,” she said. “No one else was involved.”
Horton was speechless.
Ana looked at him. “Is that enough?”
“Why?” Horton asked. “Why just the girls?”
She looked away. "De illo loqui nequam —-”
“Don’t start that shit, lady.”
But Ana was finished talking. Louis knew it. She closed her eyes, crossed herself, and folded her hands.
Horton let out a breath. “Stand up, Mrs. del Bosque.” When Ana stood, she barely reached Horton’s shoulder. “You know by telling me this, you’ve confessed to the murder of six people?”
Ana gave him a small nod.
“And you’ll be going to prison? You know that, right?”
Her eyes moved to Horton’s face. “Not for long,” she said softly. “Not for very long at all.”
A few minutes later, Horton came out of the room. He stopped when he saw Louis.
“My office,” he said. He went briskly down the hall and Louis followed.
When they walked in, Louis was surprised to see Landeta sitting by the window, his elbow propped on the sill. There was a small television on the credenza behind Horton’s desk, filled with Heather Fox’s face. The sound was muted, and under her chin in red letters were the words AWAY SO FAR CULT?
“Did you hear that crock of bullshit?” Horton asked Louis. Then he looked at Landeta. “The old bag co
nfessed to killing every one of them and her husband.”
Landeta looked at him slowly. “Isn’t that what you wanted?”
“Oh, yeah,” Horton said. “I got a whole family full of murdering sonofabitches and the only one I can put in jail is an old woman who will probably die before the ink’s dry on her confession.”
Louis and Landeta were quiet.
“And if that’s not enough,” Horton went on, “I got a gun-toting daddy who wants to know why he can’t see his newborn daughter, and the rest of them are talking to me in Spanish.”
Louis looked away. He didn’t need this. Not today.
Horton took a breath. “Add in the three very strange women who keep asking me when can they go home, some guy who only looks like Frank Woods lying in the morgue, a graveyard full of baby bones that will take forensics a year to excavate, and two dead Mexicans, one of them shot by you, Kincaid, and we got a real mess here.”
“Spanish,” Louis said.
“What?”
“They’re Spanish, not Mexican.”
“You think I give a shit what they are?” Horton asked.
Louis was silent.
“And you know what’s even worse?” Horton continued. “The old lady’s confession will probably stand up. Not one of those other loonies is telling us a damn thing we can use. And no ME is going to be able to tell how those babies died. Not after all these years.”
“You got Frank Woods,” Louis said. “Maybe he’ll tell you the truth.”
Horton shook his head. “Oh, yeah, the original suspect. He’s been away from that island for thirty-five years, Kincaid. How much do you think he really knows? Or can prove?”
“He knows more than you think,” Louis said.
“We questioned the man for three hours, Kincaid. He ain’t talking and I have nothing I can hold him on.”
Louis thought about Frank and Emilio, wondering not for the first time if Emilio’s death really had been an accident. A month ago, he would have said Frank didn’t have it in him to murder someone. That had been his instinct from the start, the reason he had pursued this case. He had always felt that Frank didn’t kill those women. But had he killed Emilio? Had he been so desperate, so driven to survive, that he had murdered his brother to take his place? Louis wasn’t so sure of what was inside any man anymore.
He looked over at Landeta. He was cleaning his glasses with a tissue.
“But we do have one thing,” Horton said, his voice tinged with sarcasm. He waved a piece of paper. “The bullet that killed Shelly Umber came from that Tomas guy’s rifle. Nice piece of work, gentlemen...killing the only real suspect we had.”
The office fell silent. Horton raked his brush cut with his thick fingers, and sunk into his chair.
“Al,” Louis said, “where’s the boy?”
“With DCF. He’ll go into foster care for a while.”
Louis looked at the television. Heather Fox was interviewing some guy with glasses. The name underneath him said he was a child psychologist and cult deprogrammer. Louis knew they were probably talking about Roberto.
“You know what this whole mess amounts to?” Horton asked. He looked up at Louis, then over at Landeta, waiting for an answer. “I think your whole fucking Rambo act is going to end up being for nothing.”
Landeta stood up suddenly. “Tell that to Louisa in a couple of years.” He walked out.
Horton watched him leave. “Who the hell is Louisa?” he asked Louis.
Louis didn’t answer. He just stared at the television. They had switched to a shot of the island now. Louis could see the yellow crime scene tape stretched between the trees, and the cops standing on the dock, watching for gawkers.
Horton sank down in his chair. He glanced at the television then looked at Louis.
“Don’t you have anything to say for yourself?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Louis said. “You asked me to work this because I could play it different than a cop could. I could get it done in a way your guys couldn’t. And that’s exactly what we did, Al.”
Louis left, closing the door behind him before Horton could say anything. He hurried out of the station and through the crowd of reporters. He saw Landeta standing at the corner, waiting to cross the street.
Landeta heard him coming and turned. “Horton’s right. They probably will never face charges, you know.”
“Fuck it,” Louis said.
The WALK sign started blinking and Louis took a step. Landeta followed. They walked on in silence for a moment.
“Louisa?” Louis said.
“I couldn’t name her Melford,” Landeta said. “And if you laugh, I will shoot you, right here on the street.”
They turned down Hendry Street. “You going to walk me all the way home?” Landeta asked.
“Shit no,” Louis said.
They stopped, facing each other. Louis knew what Landeta was thinking, what he was feeling. Whenever a case was over, no matter how it turned out, there was always that letdown that came after the adrenaline had stopped pumping. That feeling of being spent yet still itchy to get back to the high. He knew how much Landeta was going to miss it.
“Hey,” Landeta said. “How about coming back to my place for a sandwich or something? We can stop and pick up some Heinekens.”
Louis met Landeta’s gaze and could see it in the man’s eyes that he wanted to talk. Hell, needed to talk.
Louis pulled out his sunglasses and slipped them on. “Nah, I can’t. I got some things I need to do.”
“Okay. No problem,” Landeta said.
Louis heard the disappointment in his voice. “I’ll take a rain check, okay?”
“Yeah. Fine.” Landeta turned and walked away.
Louis watched him for a few minutes. When Landeta got to the door of O’Sullivan’s, he hesitated only a second then walked on.
CHAPTER 50
Louis pulled up in front of Frank’s house. His Civic wasn’t in the drive and there were a bunch of plastic-rolled newspapers lying in the tall grass. Picking up the del Bosque Bible, Louis got out of the car. At the front door, he rang the bell. He could hear it echoing in the house.
He jumped off the porch and peered in the front window. The drapes were open enough to let him see that the living room looked untouched, like no one had been home in a long time.
Louis went back to the door and reached into the planter for the key. It was still there. He unlocked the door and went in. The house had a closed-up smell, with the stink of old cigarette smoke still lingering in the air. But someone had taken the trouble to straighten things up some.
Louis went into the bedroom. The bed had been made, the ashtray emptied. Louis opened the closet. Frank’s library uniforms —- his slacks, shirts, and ties —- were still there. He went to the dresser and opened the top drawer. It was empty except for a two pairs of brown dress socks.
Louis turned to look at the room. The bookcase. Its shelves were empty. Every book in the room was gone.
Back in the living room, he realized all the shelves there were bare, too. He turned toward the mantel. The picture of Diane was gone.
Louis let himself out, locked the door, and got back in his car. He sat there for a moment, hands on the wheel, staring at Frank’s house.
Where the hell could he have gone?
He started the Mustang and pulled out. On Cleveland Avenue, he turned left and headed over the Caloosahatchee Bridge. When he pulled into the lot of Diane’s apartment building, he spotted her Honda but not Frank’s Civic. He went up and rang the bell, the Bible under his arm.
He heard a sound behind the door and knew she was looking at him through the peephole. He also knew she wasn’t going to let him in.
“Diane, is your father there?” he called out.
She didn’t answer.
“I have something to give him,” Louis said. “Have you seen him?”
The door jerked open. Diane squinted out into the sunlight. Her hair was combed, her makeup perfect, to
o perfect. He could tell she had been drinking. Not today, but last night, and the bags had still not gone down under her eyes.
“Leave me alone,” she said. Her eyes darted past him out to the parking lot. He knew she was looking for TV vans.
“I just need to give this to your father.”
Diane’s eyes went to his hands. “What is it?”
“His family Bible.”
“Family? Those animals out there on that island?”
Louis was tempted to open the Bible and show her the names of all her cousins and nephews. “It’s your family, too,” he said.
She threw up her hands. “Oh, no,” she said hoarsely. “I have no connection to them. They’re freaks, monsters. I have no family.”
“What about your father?” Louis asked.
“My father,” she whispered. Her hand shook as she ran it over her hair.
“Diane, have you talked to him?” Louis asked. “Have you heard his side of this or just what’s on TV?”
“I haven’t talked to him since...” Diane’s voice trailed off. She was leaning against the door jamb, like it was hard for her to even stand up.
“Do you know what happened thirty-five years ago?” Louis asked. “Do you know what he did? Why he left that island?”
She shook her head slowly, closing her eyes. Louis knew she had seen the television reports, read the stories in the papers. But Horton hadn’t released all the details yet, so whatever was getting out was vague enough to allow for conjecture and titillation. The public’s imagination filled in the rest.
Diane had no way of knowing that if her father had not left his home thirty-five years ago, she would be buried in that island cemetery with the other babies.
Louis started to tell her, but then he stopped. It wasn’t his place. He had no right. It would have to be Frank’s decision to tell Diane the truth.
“He turned his back on his family for you,” Louis said.
“I can’t deal with this right now.”
“Diane, he’s your father. He’s all you have, for God’s sake. Talk to him.”
“I thought I buried my father,” she said. “Do you know what that feels like? I buried a stranger who only looks like him? I buried a man I don’t even know.”
