by P J Parrish
Black kids didn’t. That’s what the other kids used to say to him in school. Where’s your father, Louis? Why do you live with that white guy? Shit, even Diahann Carroll’s son didn’t have a father on that stupid Julia show. They killed him off in Vietnam.
Dear old Dad . . . missing in action.
He waited for Emily to answer. He wanted to know.
“They didn’t believe in marriage,” she said. “It was the sixties, California, free love and all that crap. Me coming along wasn’t enough of a reason for them to change their minds.”
“But they stayed together,” Louis said.
Emily nodded. “They loved each other. They loved me. Thirty-five years. Like I told Roberta, that counts. But kids can be cruel, you know? I guess a little part of me never got over feeling ashamed.”
Louis looked out over the water. He was glad she didn’t ask him about his own childhood. He was pretty damn good at compartmentalizing, too, and right now, he wanted to stick his past back in its box. He realized suddenly Emily had been speaking in the past tense.
“Your parents. They’re dead?” Louis asked.
She nodded. “Car accident when I was a senior in college.”
Louis watched as she pulled her slicker tighter around herself. “No other family?” he asked.
She shook her head. She took off her glasses and held them up in the waning light. “Salt spray. Got a Kleenex?” she asked.
“Sorry.”
She slipped them back on. “I love the water,” she said after a moment. “It fogs up my glasses, frizzes my hair, and clogs up my sinuses, but I love it.”
“Does the ocean look like this?” Louis asked.
She looked at him. “You’ve never seen the Atlantic Ocean?”
“Nope.”
She looked back out at the gulf. “It’s similar. Biscayne Bay, near where I live, looks like this some. The ocean’s a little wilder.”
“I had a partner once who told me I should live near water,” Louis said. “He was into astrology.”
Emily nodded. “You’re probably a water sign. I’m a Virgo. That’s an air sign.”
“I knew there was a reason we don’t like each other.”
She laughed. She had a great contralto laugh.
“So,” she said after a moment, “where are you going when the case is over?”
Louis didn’t answer. Why was everyone asking him that? He thought about his conversation with Candy. Candy, who had lived all his life in one place and couldn’t wait to pull up his roots and get to the “real world.” Candy, who believed that cops—or anyone—really had any control over how their lives played out.
Louis stared out at the water. The wind-whipped sea oats were whispering. Something else was whispering, there in his brain. Where are you going, Louis?
“Miami . . . you like it there?” Louis asked.
Emily smiled slightly. “I do now. It took a long time.”
“Why?”
“I went to Miami after I graduated because it was the farthest I could get away from California after my parents died,” she said. “Florida’s a big escape destination and I hated the place. Old people, humidity, cockroaches the size of small Cessnas flying across my kitchen.”
“But you stayed,” Louis said.
“Yeah. You can put down roots. Not an easy thing to do in sand, but it can be done.”
Louis waited a moment. “But you’re alone.”
She nodded slightly. “I have good friends, a few people who miss me when I’m gone. When you don’t have family, sometimes you have to just build one.”
She fell quiet again, burrowing into her rain slicker. Louis wanted to ask her more, though he wasn’t sure about what. He glanced at her profile, just her nose and those big black glasses poking out of the slicker’s collar. The moment was gone; she had retreated.
“Shitty sunset,” she said. “Let’s go eat.”
Chapter Twenty-three
Queenie Avenue was a narrow street pulsating with neon and the sound of blues melting with the low rumble of the storm. It was raining lightly as Louis and Emily made their way down the slick sidewalk. Here, miles from the water, the street smelled only of city things. Dumpsters, car exhaust, vomit, piss, and the aroma of frying chicken.
They had been walking the street for an hour now, wandering in and out of the bars and take-out joints. So far, no one had recognized Walter Tatum’s picture. Louis wondered if anyone would admit it even if they did. Queenie Avenue seemed like the kind of place that hid its secrets well.
They drew stares as they walked. Louis ignored them. Emily seemed nervous. He felt her inch closer as they approached the last bar. It didn’t even have a sign, just a Budweiser sign glowing in the night.
“I guess you’re in charge here,” she said.
He looked down at her. Her hair was a wet helmet of curls around her small face. “Feeling a little out of place, Farentino?”
She gave a snort. “I went to high school in Santa Monica, California, where every girl is a blond Amazon and every guy is blinded by a C-cup. I was a short, freckled geek with braces, glasses, and no tits.”
“Yeah, but you can change all that. Can’t change your skin color. Come on, last stop, and then we’ll hit a McDonald’s for hot apple pie.”
“There’s something to look forward to,” Emily murmured.
The bar was a small cavern, dense with smoke and dominated by a long bar. A jukebox glowed in the corner, illuminating an old table shuffleboard heaped with beer cartons. The place was packed, laughter mixing with the clink of bottles and Etta James singing “Losers Weepers.”
Louis headed for the bar, Emily at his heels. Louis squeezed between two men seated on stools. He motioned to the bartender, a skinny guy in a lime-green tank top.
“Yo,” the bartender said, “I didn’t do it and I don’t know who did.”
“He ain’t no cop, Jackie,” piped up one customer.
“Sure he is.” The bartender smiled at Louis. “Ain’t you?”
Louis nodded. The bartender’s eyes drifted behind Louis to Emily. “That your lady?”
Louis ignored him and held out the photo. “Do you know this man? His name is Walter Tatum.”
The bartender looked at the photo. “That dude is dead.”
“You know him then?”
“Everybody know Walter.”
Louis felt Emily press in behind him. “He was a regular here?” Louis asked.
“Yup.”
“Was he here March first?”
“Shit, that was three weeks ago, man . . .”
“It was a Tuesday.”
“Tuesday? Why didn’t you say so? Yeah, Walt was always here on Tuesdays.”
“Are you sure?” Louis asked.
The bartender turned to the far end of the bar. “Hey, Lucille! Ain’t Tuesday the night Walt Tatum always here?”
Louis looked to the end of the bar. Even in the gloom, he could see her, a large, tawny-skinned woman with an elaborate fountain of red braided hair and huge hoop earrings that glinted in the bar lights.
“Why you asking about Walter?” she yelled back.
“This man here is asking.”
Emily sidled up. “You going to talk to her?”
Louis nodded and walked down the bar. The woman saw them coming and her eyes flared with contempt, but Louis suspected it was at Emily, and not him.
“Do you know Walter Tatum?” Louis asked.
A few other patrons had gathered, interested in what was going on. Lucille stared at Louis with heavily made up Cleopatra eyes. Then she looked down into her glass.
“Leave me be. I’m grieving here.”
“For Walter Tatum?” Louis asked.
“Walter was my man,” she said.
Louis caught Emily’s eye.
“Was Walter here Tuesday, March first?” Louis asked.
Lucille didn’t answer or look at him. Finally she nodded.
“Were you with him that night?�
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Lucille nodded again. “He left about two,” she said. “Said he couldn’t stay.”
Louis wondered if Lucille knew about Roberta. Or vice versa.
Lucille spun to face him suddenly. “You know who killed him?”
“No,” Louis said.
“They saying in the papers a white man did it,” Lucille said bitterly, “one of them skinheads or something.”
“We don’t know that for sure,” Louis said. The crowd was pressing close around. Louis glanced up at Emily. She was standing very still, like she was trying hard to blend into the inky smoke. Her face looked very small and very white.
Louis looked back at Lucille. She was staring hard at Emily.
“What are you doing here?” Lucille demanded suddenly.
“I’m an FBI agent,” Emily said. Her voice was firm but her hand fumbled as she reached for the badge that had disappeared into her raincoat.
“Did Walter leave alone?” Louis asked quickly.
Lucille looked back at Louis. “Yeah. He said he was tired and was going home to sleep.” She smiled wanly. “He was always tired after I was done with him.”
Her friends snickered.
“Is there anywhere he might have stopped?” Louis asked.
The bartender had wandered down and was listening. “Not much traffic out there after midnight. All the action’s out on the beach and that’s ten, twelve miles from here.”
“Okay, thanks,” Louis said.
They left the bar. It was raining harder, and they didn’t talk as they hurried back to the car.
Emily let out a breath, leaning back into the seat.
“I would have come to your rescue,” Louis said.
“Shut up,” Emily said, wiping her face on her sleeve.
They sat there for several moments, the thumping bass from a nearby bar beating time to the rain on the roof. Finally, Louis started the car and they pulled out. He took the most direct route back toward Sereno, staying on busy Summerlin Road until they reached the causeway. At the boat trailer parking lot, Louis pulled in and stopped.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Just thinking.”
For several minutes he just sat, watching each car as it made its way past, into the darkness toward Sereno Key.
“This was a waste of time,” Louis said. “The killer did not stalk Tatum from Queenie Boulevard.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“No white guy would hang out there,” Louis said.
Emily nodded. “Zone of comfort,” she said.
“What’s that?”
“Serial killers operate within a zone of comfort,” she said. “And you’re right. If the killer is white, he would not have blended in or felt he could stalk his victim from Queenie Boulevard.”
They were silent for a moment.
“Maybe he isn’t white,” Farentino said. “Have you considered that possibility?”
“Yeah . . . but just for Levon.”
“Serial killers rarely choose victims outside their own race,” Emily said. “It’s part of the pattern.”
Louis looked out at the water. Something Roberta Tatum said came back to him. Something about Wainwright believing the killer was black because it was easier to accept black genocide than white racists murdering out of hate.
He looked over at Farentino. Was it easier for her, too?
“My gut says the killer’s white,” Louis said.
“Is that a professional or personal point of view?” she asked.
He put the car in gear. “I don’t know,” he said.
Chapter Twenty-four
Louis took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. There was too much information spinning in his mind. Did the killer stalk or was he an opportunist? Why did he paint them? Where did he live? What was his connection to Sereno Key? And why did he kill so viciously?
He rose, stretching his back muscles. He heard his bones crack as he made his way to the coffeepot. Wainwright was on a call on the south end of the Key, and Farentino hadn’t shown up yet.
He poured a cup of coffee and stepped back to look at the bulletin board. Yesterday, they had moved it from Wainwright’s office to a small adjoining conference room. That had been Emily Farentino’s idea. She said she needed room for her files, room to work. So rather than let her share his desk, Wainwright had moved everything to the conference room. She had immediately taken over the table, spreading out files, photographs, and papers.
The bulletin board was still covered with the color-coded note cards. Wainwright dutifully kept it maintained. Emily ignored it, sticking to her carefully organized files. Officer Candy had walked in this morning and nicknamed the whole mess “the war room.”
Little did he know, Louis thought ruefully.
He stirred in three sugar packs. He took a sip, grimaced, and stirred in one more. His gaze drifted up to the photos on the bulletin board of the homeless man’s pulverized face. The gruesome photo was becoming as familiar as his own face in the mirror. It was with him day and night. He stared at it now, his neck muscles tightening. Gone . . . just gone. No eyes, no mouth. It was as if the killer had wanted to erase him.
Nothing in his experience had prepared him for this. Not all the grisly pictures in the manuals, not the decomposed body found in a field that he had responded to back when he was a rookie. Not even what had happened in Michigan.
Was evil born or bred? He had heard other cops talk about it, but he had always figured it was something best left to shrinks and priests. But now, he found the question lurking in the back of his mind. The rational part of him, the part that had read all the books and heard all the experts, that part of him believed monsters were made, molded from shortcircuited brain chemistry and society’s illnesses.
But after he had seen the homeless man’s brutalized face, the other part of him, that vestige that still held all the primal fears and the dark terrors of childhood, that part of him was feeling the brush of something cold.
“Louis!” Officer Candy hollered from the front office. “I think you better come out here.”
Louis put the cup down and went to the door. The outer office was a square room with a couple of desks, a radio console, where the dispatcher sat, and a counter for complaints.
The double glass entrance doors were bleached with morning sunlight and all Louis could see was a giant silhouette against them. He knew who it was immediately and he tightened, adrenaline surging forward. But he didn’t move.
The silhouette didn’t move either.
He heard Candy’s voice to his left. “Chief’s five minutes away.”
Louis kept his eyes on the doors. “What about the sheriff’s department?” he asked softly.
“Ten minutes.”
Louis squinted into the light, trying to decide how to play this. The dispatcher glanced at him and he motioned for her to stay still.
The silhouette shifted slightly and let out a breath that sounded like a heater fan kicking on.
“Levon,” Louis said firmly. “Levon, come over here. Nice and slow.”
Levon didn’t move.
“Levon,” Louis said, “did you hear me?”
“I hear you.”
Louis took a step toward a chair. “Levon . . . please.”
Levon hung his head, then started toward Louis. He had to turn to get through the doorway. Louis kept his hand on the chair, but moved behind it.
Levon came into the light of the office and Louis could see his eyes were swollen and his lips were cracked and dry. He was barefoot and moved as if his legs were made of lead.
When he got to Louis, he held out his wrists. Louis stared at them, then glanced backward for Officer Candy. Candy stuck a set of his cuffs in his hand and Louis snapped them over Levon’s large wrists.
Louis looked up into Levon’s face. The whites of his eyes bulged like Ping-Pong balls, but Louis wasn’t sure if it was from drugs or fear. But he wasn’t taking any chances.
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“Levon, I have to put you in a cell. Do you understand that?”
“I hear ya.”
Louis took one arm and Candy hurried ahead to open all the doors. Levon moved along silently and by the time Louis got to the cell door, Candy was waiting.
Levon went inside and immediately lay down on the bunk, letting out a deep-throated groan. Candy closed the door and Louis followed him out. They closed the outer door.
“Shit,” Candy breathed.
Louis glanced at him. “Right.”
The front door opened and Farentino walked in. She wore white cotton pants that looked as if they had been wadded into a ball for weeks, and a purple shirt. She stopped short when she saw their faces.
“What’s the matter?” she asked.
“We have Levon Baylis in custody,” Louis said.
She swung her briefcase onto the counter. “Have you questioned him yet?”
“Waiting for Wainwright,” Louis said.
They heard the screech of tires outside, and seconds later the glass doors opened and Wainwright came in. He stopped short, glancing around.
“Where is he?”
“In the lockup,” Candy said.
“Anyone hurt?”
“He surrendered, Dan. Just like that.”
Wainwright hurried past them, and they followed him back to the cell block. Wainwright stopped in front of the cell. Levon was curled into a ball on the bunk. They could hear his labored breathing.
“Anyone Mirandized him yet?” Wainwright asked.
“No, sir.”
Wainwright began the speech. “You have the right—”
Levon let out a long, agonizing wail that ricocheted off the walls. Louis glanced at Wainwright. “Think he’s sick?”
“You have the right to remain silent—”
“Ugghhgg!”
“Fuck,” Wainwright said.
“Berta!” Levon screamed. “Ber-taaaaa!”
