“Hey, P.
I” the detective called from the bottom of the steps.
Louis hurried to him
.
“You can identify the kid, right?”
Louis nodded.
“Come on then. Walk on the paper and don’t touch the walls.”
Louis followed him up the stairs. He could hear the dull slap of his shoes on the concrete steps, but everything else seemed muted. Everything was dark, cold, and close and for a moment he felt like he was blacking out. But he knew he wasn't. He had just turned it all off —- the fear, the dread and the images. Something had kicked back in, a coolness he had
learned a long time ago.
He
followed the two men into a reception area, down a hall, and to a small room -— more like a closet —- off the main office. Two men were standing over a carved wood chest that looked like a cheap import people put at the foot of their bed. It was no more than three feet long and two feet wide and sat about five inches off the ground on short wooden legs.
There was a small padlock on the front that one of the men was working on getting unlocked. Under the chest, dripping from the bottom, was a widening pool of blood.
The detective glanced at Louis. “You sure you want to see this?”
Louis nodded.
The lock gave way and the cop on his knees looked up at them. The detective with Louis reached down and opened the trunk.
Bloody w
hite skin. Blond hair, matted with blood.
Jesus. Jesus.
It wasn’t Benjamin. It was a woman. A tiny woman, her body crammed inside the chest, her face, hair, arms covered in so much blood she looked as if she were floating in it.
Louis felt his chest shudder with a long breath and he stepped back.
“You know this woman?” someone asked.
“What?”
Louder. “Do you know this woman?”
“No, no.”
“All right, thanks. You can go.”
Louis drew his eyes off the woman and looked around the room. “Was there a kid? A small boy about eleven? Did anyone see a boy?”
The cops shook their heads.
“Go wait outside,” someone said.
Louis turned, trying to clear his head. Benjamin must have been here. He had to have been. But what the hell had happened?
“Take a hike, P.I. You’re done here,” the detective hollered
.
Louis left, pausing in the outer office.
His eyes swept over the room. He had seen none of this on the way in. He’d been too focused on what they were going to find in the back, but now...
There were papers scattered everywhere and
the desk chair was overturned on the floor. The headrest and surrounding carpet were stained black with blood. The beige file cabinets were streaked with bloody prints and spatter. Louis stared at the white wall over the desk. There was a long arc of blood, the tail splaying high on the wall.
He recognized the pattern. He had seen it once before. He knew Austin’s throat had been cut and the long red arc was spray from the artery.
“You done looking, sport?” the detective asked.
Louis didn’t answer him, heading out into
the night. He could feel the cold air rush against his sweating face as he hurried down the steps. For a minute, he thought he might be sick.
He stopped at the bottom, drawing in a breath, the neon of nearby stores a bright blur against the red and blue lights. He heard the detective come up behind him.
“Hey, P.I., in case you were wondering,” the detective said. “We just ID’d the victim. His name was Wallace Sorrell.”
“Sorrell?”
“Yeah.” The detective pulled out a notebook and started writing something. “What’s your name?”
“Louis Kincaid.”
“Where’s your office?”
Louis was staring up at the open door of Pacific Imports. It wasn’t Austin. He wasn’t dead. Then where the hell was he? And where was Ben?
“Hey, I asked you a question, P.I.”
Louis looked back at the detective. “What?”
“Where’s your office?”
“Captiva. It’s near Fort Myers.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know where Captiva is. They got enough over there on that little island to keep you busy?”
Louis ignored the question. He was looking back up at the office windows.
“What’s the kid’s name?” the detective asked.
“Benjamin Outlaw. He
’s eleven. They left Fort Myers about three or four hours ago. Maybe longer.”
“Description?”
Louis gave him one, but his mind was already kicking back into gear, eager to ask his own questions.
The detective took down Susan’s name and address, and the description of Austin
’s car, then slapped his notebook shut
“Thanks. We’ll be in touch.”
“Hey,” Louis said. “This Sorrell guy, who is he?”
“He and your
runaway Ex Outlaw were partners in that import business. The woman in the chest was probably the secretary.”
“What did they import?”
The detective started to answer him, but stopped. “Uh-uh. No way. You need to take that crappy little P.I. license back to paradise and do your investigating over there. It ain’t no good here.”
“It
’s good all over Florida,” Louis snapped.
The detective snickered. “Miami
ain’t Florida.”
Louis didn’t move.
“Go home, P.I.,” the detective said. He walked away.
Louis stared at the phone, unable to bring himself to pick up the receiver. He didn’t want to tell Susan that he hadn’t found Benjamin. He didn’t want to tell her what he had seen at Pacific Imports.
He glanced at the television. The first thing he had done after he checked into a room at the Airport Days Inn was to
switch on the TV and scan the channels for news of the Pacific Import murders. But there had been nothing so far. Apparently, two slashed bodies wasn’t big news in Miami.
He looked at his watch. The eleven o’clock news was coming on.
With a sigh, he picked up the phone to call Susan.
She
answered on the second ring.
“Susan,
it’s Louis.”
“Louis? Where are you?”
“I’m still in Miami.”
“Miami? Why?”
Louis rubbed the bridge of his nose. “No word yet? No calls?” he asked.
“No...
no. I would have beeped you.” He could hear a breathy exhaustion in her voice, like she had cried hard and had nothing left. “Louis, why are you still in Miami?”
He took a deep breath. “Something’s happened,” he began slowly. “At Austin’s business office.”
“Oh no, oh God...”
“Susan, wait. It’s okay
. It’s not Ben. I didn’t find him. Not yet.”
She was
gasping softly. He could imagine her, sitting alone in the small dark kitchen at the yellow Formica table. Suddenly, he wanted to be there with her, to hold her.
“Austin’s business partner is dead,” he said. “He was murdered.”
“Murdered? What? How?”
“I don’t know. I was over at
the office but the cops won’t talk to me.” He glanced at the television. The weather was on. It was going to get colder. “Susan, I’m going to stay here, see what I can find out --”
“Where are you? I can be there in
—-”
“No, you stay there. If Ben comes home, you’ve got to be there.”
She was talking, but not making sense, just a torrent of words coming out in a babble, like a crazy person talking to herself. She
was
crazy...crazy with fear and worry.
“Susan, stop. Calm down,” Louis said firmly.
Her voice dwindled to a small sob.
“There’s something else.”
“God, what?”
“Whoever killed the partner might be after Austin.”
She was silent but he could hear her heavy breaths.
“They might know about you,” he said. “And they might figure he’ll go back there.”
“Here?”
“I’m calling Dan Wainw
right and having him send an officer.”
“To sit at the curb?”
“To sit in the house.”
“In my living room?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t want a cop in my house all night
.”
He closed his eyes briefly. “Susan, if you saw what I saw tonight, you’d want him in your bedroom. Trust me on this, please.”
He heard her choke back a sob then her voice came back in a whisper. “Okay.”
“Try to stay calm. I promise you, I’ll find Benjamin.”
“I know,” she said. “I know you will.”
Louis waited a few seconds until he heard
the click of her phone. Then he pushed down the button, waited for a dial tone, and called Wainwright
Louis gave him a quick rundown on what he had seen in Austin’
s office. Wainwright agreed to go to Susan’s himself. Louis thanked him and hung up.
Louis glanced at the TV
. The newscast had started and Louis saw the letters below the anchors: “Double Murder in Little Havana.” He picked up the remote and turned up the volume. But after a minute, he knew there was nothing in the report that he didn’t already know. The woman in the chest was, in fact, the office secretary and police were estimating the deaths happened sometime earlier in the day.
Louis leaned back against the headboard,
the remote slack in his hand as he stared at the screen. The newscast had moved on to a frost report about farmers in west Dade covering tomatoes with netting. But Louis didn’t see it. He was seeing that slash of red on the white walls, seeing that woman’s bloody body bent into a fetal curl of death.
He rubbed his face. His gut was telling him Austin was dead. And Benjamin was, too. Whoever had done this was cold-blooded enough to kill a secretary who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. They wouldn’t stop at a boy.
Louis closed his eyes.
Ignore it... ignore your gut feeling for once.
And replace it with what? Hope? Faith? Whatever it was that was keeping Susan going right now?
Louis pushed himself up off the bed and went into the bathroom. He flicked on the light and stared at himself in the cold light of the white-tiled cubicle. He ran the water, splashed some on his face, and went back to the bed.
He switched off the television and sat on the edge of the bed. In the sudden quiet, the outside sounds filtered in to him. The tire-hum of the nearby freeway ramp, the muted screech of a jet taking off overhead, the clatter of the ice machine, and a babble of Spanish out in the hallway.
How in the hell was he going to do this? He didn’t even have a map
of Miami, let alone a badge. He stared at the phone. But it was either find a way to investigate or head for home, tail tucked between his legs, just like that detective said.
Louis picked up
the receiver and dialed a Fort Myers phone number. It rang eleven times.
“Mel, it’s me, Louis.”
“Louis? Shit, what time is it?”
“Just after eleven.”
“Morning or night?”
“Night
. Mel, I need your help.”
“Just a second.”
Louis heard the clunk of the phone and then the click of a lighter. He waited until Mel came back on line.
“Okay, what’s up,” Mel said, exhaling.
“I need your help. I’m in Miami and —-”
“Miami? What
the hell you doing over there?”
“I’ll tell you later. You still got any pull with Miami-Dade PD?”
“Why?”
“I’m looking for a lost kid and need help getting information.” Louis filled Mel in on everything that had happened
. Mel was quiet for a moment.
“Shit, Louis,” he said “You know I didn’t leave there under the best of circumstances.” He paused
. “How do you know the kid isn’t already dead?”
“I don’t
,” Louis said.
Mel exhaled
again. Louis could almost see him, sitting there in the dark of his apartment, remembering what it was like to work a case.
“You want me to come over there?” Mel asked finally.
Louis tried not to hesitate. “Not yet. Let me try to work it alone.”
Mel coughed. “Okay. I’ll make a call. I got this friend on the force, Joe Frye.”
“I appreciate it Mel.”
Two hours later, the temperature had plunged to forty degrees. Louis shivered as he got out of his car, wrapping his arms across his chest as he looked at the nondescript wooden building facing him. It didn’t look like a restaurant. It was more of a low-slung shack set down among some rundown buildings strung along a poorly lit narrow street. But this is where Mel had told him to meet Joe Frye. The detective was just coming off swing shift and had agreed to meet him.
The restaurant was called Big Fish, but Louis didn’t see any sign. He could certainly smell fish, though, a dank smell that hung in the cold still air, mixing with diesel fumes and river funk. He went up to the door and went in.
A bar on the left with rattan stools and a small dining area to the right. There were French doors that opened out onto a deck, but tonight they were shut against the cold. The place was empty, just a guy behind the bar putting glasses in a dishwasher. He looked up at Louis. “We stopped serving at eleven.”
“I’m looking for Joe Frye. Is he here?” Louis said.
“Joe?” The bartender smiled. He cocked a head to the French doors. “Sure. Outside.”
It was dark out on the deck, the inky Miami River reflecting the gaudy green and purple
neon lights of a nearby office building. Louis saw the glow of a cigarette and then a dark form sitting in a chair, long legs propped up on the railing.
“Detective Frye?” he said, going forward. “I’m Louis Kincaid.”
The legs came down and Joe Frye stood up. Louis caught the dull shine of a black leather jacket as the detective stepped into the light coming from inside the restaurant.
Joe Frye was tall, with hair pulled back in a ponytail and a face all angles and lines. Slender, lanky, with just enough curves to tell Louis that Joe Frye was a woman.
“So,” Joe Frye said. “How do you know Mel?”
Louis had a sudden flash of Mel, sitting in his apartment laughing his ass off.
“He’s a friend,” Louis said.
She stared at him, the shadows playing across her face like black fog. A flash of a pale eye, and the fine cut of a white cheekbone.
“A good friend?” she asked.
“The best I got,” Louis said
.
She came forward
, passing by him and moving to a wooden table. She slid her hip onto the edge, looking out at the river.
“How’s he doing?” she asked.
Louis wasn’t sure how much she knew about Mel’s blindness, and he hesitated. She saw it.
“I know he
’s got RP,” she said. “He told me before he left here.”
“He gets by. He can still see some.”
She was sitting fully in the yellow light of the restaurant now, her eyes still on Louis’s face. She was looking at him in a way that was oddly familiar but he couldn’t place just who had stared at him like that before.
She looked down, picking a piece of lint off her dark pants. “So, who are you chasing here in Miami and why?” she asked
.
Louis pulled the photo of Benjamin from his pocket and came to her, holding it out.
“His father took him. We thought he was heading to Australia but he never got on the plane.”
She took the picture, holding it up to the light before she looked back at Louis. “Mel didn’t tell me this was just a custody case.”
“It’s not,” Louis said. “The boy’s father was partners with the guy who got sliced up in the Little Havana double-homicide today.”
She looked at him with new interest and then down at the photo again. “When’s the last time you heard from the father?”
“This afternoon. He was visiting his ex-wife in Fort Myers, took the kid for ice cream and never came back.” Louis felt the cold wind come up behind them, and he shivered, stuffing his hands in the pockets of his jacket.
“What kind of business did the father and his partner run?” she asked.
“Imports.”
She almost smiled. “Imports. What, drugs? Exotic animals?”
“The father said it was furniture, chests, lamps, you know.”
“People don’t execute lamp importers.”
“I didn’t see anything in the office that would indicate what they imported.”
“You were there?”
Louis nodded.
“What did the scene look like?”
Louis drew a breath. “Blood everywhere. It looked like they cut the partner’s throat while he was still at his desk. I’m figuring the secretary was cut up but still alive when they put her into a chest, given all the blood on the floor.”
“Was the place ransacked?”
“Yeah, drawers open, papers on the floor.”
“Sounds like drugs to me,” Joe said, handing Benjamin’s photo back.
“The mother’s a lawyer,” Louis said. “I don’t think she had any idea her ex was into anything like this.”
“And you?” Joe asked. “Where do you fit in?”
“I’m a private eye, that’s all,” Louis said. “I was trying to track the father down before he left the country.”
Joe eyed him for a moment and he knew she heard the lie in his answer, just as she had seen the hesitation when she asked about Mel.
She slipped off the table, her long body reminding Louis of how his cat, Issy, moved when she rubbed up against the furniture.
“So, what do you want from me?” Joe asked.
“I need to know where to go from here. I need to know what happened there and what you guys think the killers were looking for.”
She was silent, shaking her head slightly.
He started to say something, then just held up a hand. “Forget it. Sorry to bother you,” he said.
She let him get almost to the restaurant door before she spoke. “I’ll help you.”
He stopped, turning to face her. A second or two passed. The only sound was the lapping of the river against the pilings.