Paint It Black

Finally, Louis pulled out four snapshots, yellowed with age, their edges curled. The first one was a white woman and three white kids, standing on a beach. The second one showed the same thin blond woman in front of a truck—laughing with two men who could have been friends, lovers, or uncles. The third picture was another shot of the woman and the kids, sitting on a brown sofa with a dog. Louis was suddenly very sure the blond woman was Heller’s mother.

There was no sign of Tyrone in any of the shots—except in the last picture. It had been taken in front of a gray house. It showed the white woman and the three white kids, but someone had painstakingly glued on a cutout of another child—a child with dark brown hair and tan skin.

Mobley came up behind him, staring at the drawings. “What’s that?” he asked.

“Family album,” Louis said, tossing the pictures on the desk.

“Kincaid, I just got off the radio with Horton. Why didn’t you tell me about the damn file on Heller you found?”

“I figured Horton would.”

“Yeah, he did. And he told me it says Heller killed his own father.”

“So?”

“So, what the fuck is this then?”

Mobley was holding a greeting card. “We found a Father’s Day card. Doesn’t look that old.”

“Maybe Heller has a kid somewhere,” Louis said.

“It’s from Heller,” Mobley said, handing it to Louis.

Louis looked at the signature beneath the greeting inside. It had been written with a black marker and simply said Ty. He lowered it and glanced around the bedroom.

Had it been meant for his dead father, a man who still lived in his mind? Or a phantom father, an invented father whom Heller could call his own?

“Until I read that file, I don’t know what I’m looking for in all this shit,” Mobley said. “We need to wait for the CSU guys.” He started to the door and turned back.

“Don’t move anything else, Kincaid.”

Louis didn’t reply. He had seen enough anyway. He walked from the bedroom, back out to the dingy kitchen. He felt someone behind him and turned. It was Candy.

“Dispatch called. You have a message waiting for you at the station.”

“From who?”

“A Captain Lynch. Said he needs to talk to you about Tyrone. Said it was urgent.”

Louis sighed. “He’s heard the news. Damn it. I should’ve gone to tell him myself.”

Candy nodded toward Mobley. “They got this covered. We know who we’re chasing and we know he did it. Let’s go see Lynch now.”

Louis nodded, slipping past the deputy who was sorting through stuff from a kitchen drawer. Louis stopped in the living room.

The rotting fish odor hit him again, only this time it was different, tinged with the stink of bloody clothes and an almost palpable feeling of despair. The rain beat on the metal, pounding like Heller’s fists against faceless men.

The photographs came back to him. That small brown face, pasted into the family photos.

The anger he had felt back at the station was coming into sharper focus now. But what had he been angry about? Heller and his inability to deal with his reality, his blackness? The woman who had killed a child’s soul? The father who wasn’t there to save him? He was angry at all of them.

In some small, strange, distant way, he understood Heller. He hated him, hated what he had done, but he could understand. The need to be part of something more than himself, the need to belong to someone. He had lived it himself. He knew what it felt like to be different . . . and ignored because of it.

He had felt it back in Mississippi, even at age seven, seeing people staring at his light skin. He had felt it in the foster homes, hearing the other kids whisper. He had spent so much time searching for acceptance and finding only turned heads. Finally, he had stopped looking. By the time Phillip Lawrence had come along, he had almost closed up completely.

Louis realized he was still holding the Father’s Day card. He set it on the kitchen counter.

“Louis, let’s go,” Candy said. “This place gives me the creeps.”

Chapter Forty-four

Candy let the car idle for a minute, watching the rain pummel the windshield. Louis could barely make out the white blur of the Miss Monica.

“This rain is what they call a Palmetto Pounder,” Candy said.

Louis didn’t reply. He was too preoccupied, trying to figure out something that had been bugging him during the short drive from Heller’s trailer to the wharf. Heller had set up his own disappearance. But why?

To see if Captain Lynch reacted with concern? Or to see who showed up to take the report?

“Sereno base to Sereno three, come in.”

Candy keyed the radio. “Go ahead, base.”

It was Myrna the dispatcher. “Is Louis with you?”

“Right here.”

“Emily Farentino wants to talk to him. Switch to cha

Candy handed Louis the mike. Louis waited. Now what?

“Louis, this is Emily.”

“Go ahead,” he said.

“I had a thought after you left,” Emily said. “It’s about Heller.”

Louis had to lean in toward the radio to hear her over the sound of the rain on the roof of the car. “Go ahead,” he said.

“Something’s been bothering me and I haven’t been able to figure it out,” she said. “Something Heller said in the shack. I mentioned it to you when you came to see me at the hotel.”

Louis felt Candy’s eyes on him. “What is it, Farentino?”

“When Heller asked me why I was there . . . I had the feeling he was expecting someone else.”

“You told me that already.”

“I know, but I think he was expecting someone else to show up and take the report. I just remembered something else he said to me. He said, ‘Where is he, where is he?’ It was the first thing he said to me. It didn’t register. I guess I was too scared.” She paused. “He was expecting one of you.”

Louis hesitated, his finger poised on the mike button.

“Do you understand what I’m saying?” she asked. He did. Heller had been expecting him to show up that night.

“Be careful,” Emily said.

“We will,” Louis said. He clicked off and glanced at Candy.

“Are we getting out or are we going to sit here?” Candy asked, reaching for his rain cap.

Louis turned off the engine. “Let’s go,” he said.

He slid out, squinting into the rain, hoping Lynch was still onboard and that he still had not heard the news about Heller. Television wouldn’t have had it yet, unless someone had leaked it. There was still time for Lynch to get the bad news the right way.

They hurried toward the docks and Louis stopped at the rear of the Miss Monica. He could hear the engines idling. He hesitated, a knot gathering in his gut. What was wrong? He had always been able to deliver bad news before. But now, now he was seeing Roberta Tatum, Anita Quick, and June Childers. And he didn’t want to see Lynch’s face when he told him. For the first time, he was really begi

“Man, I hate getting wet,” Candy said. “Let’s get this over with.”

Louis glanced at Candy, who was huddled down into the upturned collar of his yellow raincoat. Louis looked at the open bar. There were only a handful of customers, including a sheriff’s deputy. Louis saw a second sheriff’s department car swing into the parking lot.

“Why don’t you get a cup of coffee,” Louis said. “It might be better if I talk to Lynch alone.”

“I hate coffee,” Candy said. He stopped fumbling for the latch on the boat’s railing and hopped over.

Louis climbed over the rail after Candy. He slipped and his feet hit the metal flooring with a thud and a skid before he caught himself.

“Lynch!” he called out.

Louis shaded his eyes from the rain and looked around the boat. There was a large enclosed cabin, its roof forming a second deck. A steel ladder co