Paint It Black

“No,” Louis said.

“What about your gun? You need paper for that, too.”

“I’m not carrying right now,” Louis said, avoiding Wainwright’s gaze.

Wainwright pursed his lips, twirling slightly in his beat-up vinyl chair. He scribbled something on a paper and slid it across the desk. “Here’s the number in Tallahassee. Call them. I won’t bust your balls over the license for now.”

Louis slipped the scrap in his pocket. The phone rang and Wainwright answered it. Louis used the break to look around the office. Unlike that of his last chief’s, it offered no clues to the personality of its occupant. The furniture was old and spartan, a couple of scarred metal filing cabinets and a watercooler. On the walls, there was the usual glass case with police patches from across the country, a departmental photo that looked ten years old, several engraved IN APPRECIATION plaques, one from an Adrian, Michigan, civic group. There was also a glass box that held an FBI badge, a well-worn FBI sleeve patch and ID card, all mounted on a light green matte board that was scribbled with good-byes.

On the desk, there was one framed photograph of two kids, a boy of about six and a girl about eight. The only other personal item sat on a filing cabinet—an old deflated football encased in Plexiglas.

“Bledsoe said you’re from Michigan,” Wainwright said, hanging up the phone.

“I grew up around Detroit, worked in a small force up North,” Louis said. He wondered if Wainwright knew about his three months with the Loon Lake police. He hoped not. He needed this man’s cooperation; he didn’t need him to know why he had had to leave.

“I was born in Mt. Clemens,” Wainwright said. “I was with the bureau in Detroit from fifty-seven till I retired in seventy-nine.” He paused. “Detroit was a great town in those days. A doubleheader at Briggs, a couple of coneys at Lafayette.”

He saw the blank look on Louis’s face.

“How old are you?” he asked.

Louis tried not to bristle. “Twenty-six.”

“And you got a feeling about Roberta.”

“I’d just like to explore some things,” Louis said. When Wainwright didn’t say anything, he added, “And it would be easier with your help.”

Wainwright let out a sigh. “Look, Mr. . . .”

“Kincaid. Louis Kincaid.”

“We all know what happened here.”

“Apparently. You moved awful fast on that arrest.”

“It’s got nothing to do with Roberta Tatum being black. It’s just the pattern.”

“I don’t know about patterns. I’m just after the truth here,” Louis said.

Wainwright’s pale blue eyes locked on Louis. “The truth. Interesting concept.”

He reached behind him and tossed a file folder across the desk. “Okay, here’s the truth.”

Louis didn’t move.

“Take it. Look at it. Whoever killed this poor bastard was really pissed. That’s passion, Mr. Kincaid. Strangers . . . muggers . . . whatever, they don’t have passion. Wives, now they’re a whole different story.”

Louis opened the folder. It was neatly organized and he flipped immediately to the crime scene photos.

Walter Tatum was on his back, spread-eagled. What looked like a green or blue shirt was soaked in blood and his face was a brown blur against the tan sand.

Louis felt his stomach quiver and he swallowed dryly. He turned the pages slowly. Knife wounds, some deep, some surface . . . gaping wounds in dead flesh. A shotgun blast to the thigh. Tatum’s skin ripped apart, leaving a tattered, fleshy hole splattered with blood.

Then a close-up of his face. Roberta was wrong; Walter Tatum still had a face but it wasn’t the face she had known. It was swollen with black patches visible beneath Tatum’s ci

Louis tightened his facial muscles to keep from gagging. He closed the file and put it down.

Wainwright was watching him. He nodded toward the watercooler. Louis went to it and filled a Dixie Cup. He stood with his back to Wainwright, staring at a Rotary Club plaque while he drank it.

He heard Wainwright hoist his large body out of the swivel chair and turned.

“Come on, then, if you’re ready.”

“Where?”

“You want to see the crime scene, don’t you?”

Chapter Five

There was garbage everywhere. Beer bottles, soda cans, bits of Styrofoam coolers, McDonald’s wrappers, fishing line, broken flip-flops, Cheet-Os bags, rotting bait fish, and used Pampers. It lay there in the rocks at the water’s edge, a blob of color and stench, baking in the hot sun. Up on the causeway, the sun glistened on the silvery water. But there, just three feet below, the place where Walter Tatum had taken his last breath was a cesspool of human detritus.

Louis stood up on the swale looking down at it. Someone had already ripped down the yellow police tape and it lay tangled in with the junk. The rest of the shoreline didn’t appear so littered. Wainwright came up to stand beside him.

“How come there’s so much junk here?”

Wainwright shrugged. “The way the tide goes. It gets caught here for some reason. Usually, the crews clean it out.”

“Were you able to get anything from this?” Louis asked.

“We hauled two bags out of here after we took the body. This stuff is all new.” Wainwright kicked a bottle down into the rocks. “People are pigs,” he said.

Louis shielded his eyes to look down the causeway road. There was light traffic, a few fishermen casting nets in the surf a couple hundred yards away. “Who found the body?” he asked.

“Some kid fishing. It hadn’t been here long, the ME figures less than twelve hours maybe.”

Louis stared at the nearby trees—some sea grapes and tall scraggly pines that didn’t offer any real cover. “I don’t think this was pla

“They would if they were following him,” Wainwright said. “The wires on the distributor cap were loose. We know someone pulled up behind him, but it was too wet to get a tread.”

Wainwright motioned toward the sand and gravel alongside the road. “He was shot here, then he was dragged, still alive, over there. That’s where he was stabbed and beaten.”

Louis kicked at the shells and gravel. Why shoot someone in the leg out in the open on the road? Why not shoot him in the chest and get it over with? Why use precious time to stab someone you could have killed instantly with a shotgun? And why the torturous postmortem beating? Maybe Wainwright was right. Maybe the murder was personal.

“What gauge shotgun?” Louis asked.

“Don’t know. ME isn’t done yet. I’m expecting the report later today or tomorrow.”

Louis glanced at Wainwright. “You really think Roberta Tatum is this smart? Or even this lucky?” he asked.

“I think she’s that mean.”

Louis sighed and started back toward Wainwright’s cruiser. He heard Wainwright’s radio go off and someone say something about a suspect.

Wainwright shoved the radio back in his belt. “We got him.”

“Who?” Louis asked. “The brother?”

“Yup. Walked right up in front of my surveillance team at Roberta’s store. Let’s go.”

He didn’t act like a wanted man. Hanging out in the shade of a gumbo limbo tree, Levon Baylis drew slowly on his cigarette and watched the blue puffs drift lazily above his head. He glanced to his right, not suspiciously, but out of boredom, tired of waiting on someone.

Reaching under a baggy orange T-shirt, he scratched at his stomach, hefted his balls, then walked a few feet across the sandy parking lot, coming out of the shadows. The sun glinted off his bald head. He was a big man, no less than six-three, with gleaming biceps and thick legs.

For a moment, Louis thought he was heading into the grocery. It was a small wooden structure, painted blue and white, with ISLAND DELI AND LIQUOR above the window. But then Levon headed toward the back.