Island of Bones (15 page)

Louis slid into the old wicker chair on the porch and propped his bare feet on the small table. In his hand was a Heineken and in his lap was the baby skull.

It was hot again tonight, the black velvet air hanging heavy and dark over the still gulf waters. The cottage next to his was empty, eliminating any nearby lights. Far out in the blackness he could see a twinkle of white. A ship. A low star. He couldn’t tell.

All the girls were on his mind, but it was Neil Fielding who nagged at him, closed up tight in that tin-can trailer, waiting to die.

He took a long slow drink of the cold beer.

How long did it take for guilt to kill a man? How long could you live with the stink of your failings until the bitterness ate away your soul?

Cliff Parker had sexually abused his step-daughter Emma. Neil knew it and couldn’t stop it and then couldn’t stop himself from leaving when it got to be too much.

Just go, Emma had told him.

And I did,
Neil said.

Louis took another drink of beer. It had taken the entire drive back to Fort Myers for the stuff inside him to finally ooze its way to the surface. Maybe if the drive hadn’t been so long or if Neil Fielding hadn’t been so pathetic, he himself wouldn’t be sitting here now holding a baby’s skull and thinking about that gray February afternoon eight years ago when Kyla had appeared at his dorm door
.

He closed his eyes. It used to be easy. Easier. It used to be easier. Easier to keep the lid on the box where he hid these things. The box had been there inside him for as long as he could remember, since he was little. He could even see it sometimes, a hard black metal thing with a rusty hinge and bolt. He could even feel it sometimes, a cold lump wedged somewhere up high in his ribs, so high that it made breathing hard. The box hurt but it worked. It held fast.

Until now. Now things were breaking out, getting loose and flying around inside him. Screaming in his ear, making him sweat at night, the loudest voice screaming,
You should have done better, you should have been better.

He opened his eyes and looked down at the skull.

Isabella Maria Carreira de los Reyes. He had memorized the name, even looked it up in a Spanish dictionary. It meant “of the kings.” Such a grand name for such a short life. Somebody’s daughter.
Vios con Dios, preciosa angelita.
Go with God, precious little angel.

Car lights swept the south end of the porch and Louis
drew his feet off the table. He set the skull down and moved to the screen. He was surprised to see a Fort Myers police cruiser pulling in.

The headlights went out and a tall thin man got out of the passenger side.
Louis knew immediately it was Mel Landeta from his arrogant walk. The second man emerged and Louis recognized the young deputy who had helped him with the skull the day after the storm.

“Wait in the car, Strickland.”

Louis watched as the young cop stopped, let out a sigh, and got back in the cruiser. Shit, now what? Had Landeta commandeered his own personal chauffeur?

“Why aren’t you answering your phone?” Landeta
asked, coming onto the screened porch.

“I went down the road to eat,” Louis said.

Landeta was looking through the open door to the living room. His eyes swept across the porch and back up to Louis. He ignored the skull on the table.

“You get down to see Fielding yet?”

“Yeah, come on in.”

Landeta paused just inside the door. He was taking in the worn rattan furniture, the small kitchen, the bookcase
. He focused finally on the two old prints of the cockatoos that hung over the sofa.

Louis moved past him and put the skull back on the shelf
amid the mementoes. “You want something to drink?”

“You got a Diet Coke?”

“Dr Pepper.”

“Water. No ice.”

Louis went to get a glass. When he came back out, Landeta was sorting through the books that Louis had left out on the table. They were the books on runaways he had checked out of the library that first day he had met Frank Woods. After leaving Neil Fielding’s place earlier today, Louis had started skimming through them, trying to find some insights into the girls’ psyches.

“Here,” Louis said.

Landeta took the water. “I went to get some files today,” he said. “Wanted to take a look at the reports on the other missing girls. Funny thing was the records clerk said you already went through them. I told you I would take care of that.”

“You didn’t seem anxious to do it,” Louis said.

“I don’t like people going over my head, Rocky.”

“I don’t like to be kept waiting outside your door.”

Landeta stared at him then took a drink of water. “I ran some background checks on them. All of them, including Emma Fielding.”

“And?”

“They no longer exist,” Landeta said. “Not one has filed a tax return, used her Social Security card for a job, applied for a credit card, or even gotten married. There’s not even a driver’s license renewal for any of them.”

Gone. Just vanished. Louis thought about what Rosa in Immokalee had
told Angela, that she should go and never come back.

Landeta wiped his brow. “Fuck, it’s hot in here. Don’t you have air in this place?”

“Welcome to paradise, as you called it,” Louis said. He went over and switched on the wall unit. It clattered and wheezed and finally sent out a weak stream of cool air. Landeta took his glass of water to the sofa.

Issy saw him coming and jumped down, settling into a chair across from him. Landeta sat down stiffly on the sofa. He sipped the water, his eyes on the floor.

Louis went to the kitchen and brought back a fresh Heineken. “You didn’t come all the way out here to chew my ass about those files. Why are you here?”

“The girls aren’t the only ones without a past. Frank Woods doesn’t seem to have one either.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, there are no records. No birth certificate, no marriage license, no school records. Nothing before 1952. Everything after that says Frank Woods, friendly librarian.”

Louis took a drink, thinking. “He told me at the campground he went to high school in Sarasota. You checked that out, right?”

Landeta nodded. “Of course I did. He didn’t attend school there or anywhere else we can find. He lied to you.”

“What about Diane’s mother?” Louis asked. “Can’t we trace her?”

“You know her maiden name?”

Louis shook his head. “Call Diane.”

“Oh, yeah, she’s real cooperative. Let me tell you what happened today.” Landeta
finished his water in one gulp. “After we finished searching Frank’s house, we went to hers.”

“Why?” Louis asked.

“Well, according to you, she has a coral ring. That’s evidence. But according to her, there is no fucking ring.”

“What?”

“We tore that apartment apart. She just stood there and watched us. We didn’t find shit. So now we’re trying to get a warrant for her office.”

“She’s a principal. You know what’s going to happen if you go charging in there?”

Landeta shrugged. “That’s her problem. All she has to do is give us the damn ring.” He looked up at Louis. “If it exists.”

“I saw it
.” Louis leaned against the kitchen doorway. “I suppose you want me to try.”

“You still working for her?”

“Well, I haven’t been officially fired. Yet.”

“Does she like you?”

Louis wasn’t sure he wanted to tell Landeta that Diane still had hopes of him bringing Frank Woods in for questioning quietly. Landeta was looking at him, his eyes steady behind the yellow lenses.

“No, she doesn’t like me,” Louis said. “I’m not sure she likes anyone.”

“Well, we need the ring and she knows you, at least. While you’re at it, find out the mother’s maiden name. Convince her it’s for her father’s own good.”

“I’d be lying to her.”

A small smile spread across Landeta’s face. “I can’t believe you actually said that. We lie all the time.”

“Not to families. At least I don’t.”

“As far as I’m concerned, she’s half the problem in this whole case.”

“What’s the other half?”

“You. You don’t want to admit that Woods is probably a serial killer and his daughter is a paranoid weirdo who needs to quit playing mama to her daddy and find herself a man.”

“Your compassion is overwhelming, Detective.”

“And yours is overflowing,” Landeta said.

The cottage was quiet. Louis could hear Issy purring.

“Are we done?” Louis asked finally.

“No, tell me what you found out about the girls.”

Louis walked to the table and picked up a folder. He hadn’t yet bought a typewriter, so his reports on the girls were written in longhand, formatted and dated like a police report.

He held out the folder to Landeta. “Go ahead. Take a look.”

Landeta looked up at Louis, elbows on his knees. “Just tell me about them.”

“I’m tired of reading and interpreting and narrating this goddamn case to you. You want the information, you read it.”

Landeta stood up, taking the folder. “I’ll take them with me.”

“The hell you will. I’ll drop you a copy tomorrow.”

“They’re part of the case file. They go with me.”

Louis stood right in front of him. “It’s my work. It stays here.”

Landeta hesitated then tossed the folder to the sofa. He moved to step around Louis, and his knee caught the edge of the table. The empty water glass toppled to the terrazzo floor, shattering.

Landeta glanced down
then continued toward the door. “Sorry about that,” he muttered.

He shoved open the
screen door, and Louis followed him to the porch.

“You’re a real jackass, you know that?” Louis called.

Landeta ignored him, continuing on toward the cruiser. Officer Strickland was standing near the gumbo limbo tree, smoking a cigarette.

“Let’s go,” Landeta called to him.

Strickland watched Landeta walk to the car and climb in the back, slamming the door.

“How’d you get stuck with chauffeur duty?” Louis asked.

Strickland shook his head. “Chief said a guy of his reputation gets what he needs to do the job.”

Landeta’s bald head appeared out the car window. “Let’s see a little hustle there, Officer,” he
said.

Strickland tossed the butt to the sand and ground it out. “I hope I’m shot dead before I get that old,” he
said, heading to the car.

Louis closed the door and walked to the kitchen. He pulled
out his notebook to get Diane’s phone number.

Convince her it’s for her father’s own good.

Right.

He glanced up at the clock. Almost eleven. It was too late now to call. He’d call her in the morning. When he was sure she was sober.

The rain beat against the windshield, the pounding so loud he could not hear his radio. Louis slowed when he saw the sign SCHOOL ZONE.

He hadn’t wanted to come here.
He tried calling Diane, starting at six-thirty a.m. But he kept getting the answering machine. He figured she was pissed. And she was blaming him.

Having your home searched was the ultimate humiliation for anyone, but for Diane Woods it would be devastating. Cops were never careful. He knew her
Gourmet
magazines had been dumped to the carpet, the perfectly arranged drawers left tossed and open, her books pulled from the shelves.

Why the hell didn’t she just give them the damn ring?

Louis passed the WINK-TV van sitting just off the school grounds. Heather Fox, wearing a yellow raincoat, was standing under a canopy. Her cameraman was soaked, his equipment wrapped in plastic.

Louis parked as far away from the van as he could and dashed toward the school entrance. Heather Fox didn’t see him until it was too late. He jerked open the school door, pausing just inside to wipe his face.

The old smells of high school flooded back to him —- fried chicken, dust, and musty gym clothes. He could hear the faint
thump-thump
of a basketball somewhere. There was a trophy case to his left with the usual sports paraphernalia in it. Next to it was a row of portraits of the administration -- two pictures of women assistant principals and one of the male athletic director. There was a blank spot in the middle where one picture had been taken down. Underneath was a plaque that said MISS DIANE WOODS, PRINCIPAL.

He saw a glass-enclosed office with the sign ADMINISTRATION above the door and went to it.

A couple of students glanced at him as he entered. It was a large office, dominated by a U-shaped desk and painted a cheerful blue that matched the orange and blue industrial carpeting. There was a sign over the desk that said CAPE CORAL HIGH SCHOOL, HOME OF THE SEAHAWKS. There was a big orange and blue stuffed bird in the corner. It was wearing a hat that said BREEZY.

The woman behind the desk finished with the two boys and sent them on their way. She looked up at Louis.

“Can I help you?”

Louis was looking over her shoulder, into the glass- enclosed office. He could see Diane in there, on the phone. She didn’t see him.

“Would you tell Miss Woods that Louis Kincaid is here to see her?”

“Well, I think Miss Woods is
—- ”

“Just tell her, please.”

The woman must have heard the cop-edge in his voice because she began backing up toward the office, eyes on Louis. She turned and poked her head in the door. Louis saw Diane crane her neck to look his way. She looked like a trapped animal.

Diane
slowly hung up the phone. Her eyes took a long time to focus on him then they moved slowly to the secretary. “It’s okay, Maggie.”

Louis went in. Maggie retreated, closing the door.

“I can’t believe you came here,” Diane said. “How could you do this to me?”

“I came to help you, even though you don’t seem to want any help.”

“You let my father become a suspect. Do you have any idea how that feels?”

“For him or you?”

She looked away, out the window. When she brought up a hand to brush her hair behind an ear, it trembled. “What do you want?” she asked.

“The ring.”

She looked him dead in the eye. “There is no ring.”

Louis came forward and leaned both hands on the desk. Diane rolled her chair back in surprise.

“Look, lady, I’m sick and tired of your shit,” he said. “You told me to find your father. But you won’t lift a hand to help me. I don’t know what’s going on between you two. I don’t want to know.” He jabbed a finger toward her face. “But I don’t like being jerked around. Now where is the damn ring?”

Diane was staring at him in shock. He saw her eyes shift to the door and he knew the secretary outside had heard every word he had said.

Diane looked back at him. “I lost it.”

“Try again.”

Diane sat there, frozen in the chair. Then suddenly, amazingly, her eyes teared up.

“Please,” she whispered. “You don’t know what it’s been like. The TV people won’t leave me alone. I can’t go out of my apartment, I can’t leave my phone on the hook.”

She wiped angrily at her eyes. “Today when I got here, I found out that someone took a felt-tip and wrote “wanted” on my picture outside in the hall.”

That was why the picture out in the trophy case was missing, Louis thought. He stood up, backing away from her desk.

“It’s going to get worse,” he said “They’re getting a warrant to search this office. You know what that’s going to be like?”

He nodded out toward the desk where the secretary and now two other women were clustered, whispering and looking their way. “Do you really want them watching it? You want them to see the cops coming in here, going through your desk, your trash, tearing this place up like they did your home?”

Diane looked ready to cry again. But Louis could see the boil of anger beneath it.

“Give me the ring,” he said.

She rose slowly and turned her back to him. He watched as she slipped her hand inside her blouse. She turned back. Louis held out his hand and she dropped the ring into it.

“Now get out of my office,” she said
.

“Not yet,” Louis said. “I need some information. I need to know about your mother for starters.”

Diane sat back down in her chair, shielding her eyes with a shaking hand. “I told you she died when I was little. I don’t remember much about her.”

“What’s her maiden name?”

“I don’t know.” She looked up at Louis and saw the disbelief in his face. “I don’t know,” she repeated tightly.

“What about family records?”

“I never saw any.”

“What about your birth certificate? What does it say under your mother’s name?”

“I don’t know. I...I never looked at it.”

“What about your father?” Louis pressed. “Where is he from? Where did he go to school?”

Diane was frowning slightly. “I...he never said anything.”

“
Is he from Fort Myers? Did he ever mention Sarasota?”

She was looking up at Louis now and he could see a change in her expression, an odd confusion, like she was
looking at something that was supposed to be familiar but seeing something different.

“Diane, we can’t find anything about your father’s background before 1952,” Louis said.

“That’s the year I was born,” she said.

Louis didn’t respond
. He just let it sink in.

“I need your mother’s maiden name, Diane,” Louis said.

A bell rang and Louis could hear the bustle and laughter of kids out in the hallways. He saw Diane’s eyes shift and he looked over his shoulder to see a wiry teenage boy come shuffling into the outer office, his head bowed, backpack dragging.

Diane pushed herself up from her chair. “I’m sorry, I have something I have to take care of,” she said.

“It can wait,” Louis said

Diane shook her head. “No, this can’t. That boy out there was accused of stealing another boy’s radio and I know he didn’t do it.” Her eyes drifted out to the boy outside. “I know Ricky didn’t do it even though his father thinks he did
. His father is coming in and I have to convince him his son needs some attention...not another slap.”

Louis stared at Diane. “But you’re not going to help me,” he said
.

“I can’t trust you,” she
said, shaking her head.

“Little late for that now,” he said.

“Yes, it is,” she said. “Now please leave.” Her eyes were pleading.

Louis turned and left the office. The boy looked up at him as he went past. At the entrance, Louis paused and looked back toward the administration office. He could see Diane leading the boy into her office, an arm over his skinny shoulders. Louis turned up his collar and darted out into the rain.

“Hey! Kincaid! Louis Kincaid!”

He saw a flash of yellow coming up on his right. Heather Fox had seen him. He kept going.

“What are you doing here, Kincaid?” she asked, falling in step. He could see the cameraman hustling over, fumbling with the camera.

“Were you here to see Diane Woods? Did she have anything to say about her father?”

Louis kept walking.

“How did she look? Did she look upset? Did she
—-”

Louis spun. “Get out of my face,” he said.

Heather Fox’s cheeks had black tracks from where the rain had run her mascara. “Don’t get testy,” she said. “She won’t talk to us and I’m just trying to get a feel for her. She seems like a cold fish to me and —-”

“Leave her alone,” Louis said.

Heather smiled. “Hey, I’m just doing a job here. Just like you.”

Louis sprinted to the Mustang. He started the engine and sat there for a moment, listening to the rain beat on the convertible’s top. He unclasped his hand and looked at the coral ring.

It was just a simple band but finely carved, like someone had taken great care with it. He slipped it on his left pinky. It was so small it didn’t even go over his first knuckle.

Had it been worn by Emma Fielding? Or any of the other missing girls? Had Frank made them wear the rings as some perverse symbol, like he was marrying his victims before he killed
them?

Louis slipped the ring off his finger and put it in his pocket. He pulled out of the lot and headed west. When he hit 41, he turned north and followed the highway out until it narrowed to the two lanes leading to Pine Island. The rain was still heavy by the time he pulled into Bokeelia. He parked the car at
the marina across from Cap’n Con’s Fishhouse.

He didn’t know why he had come out here. Maybe to think, get a clear take on things that were increasingly less clear. He sat there, looking out at Charlotte Harbor. He could make out the out
line of Bessie Levy’s stilt house, but the driving rain had turned everything else into just a gray expanse of sky and water with no horizon to separate the two. The gray would blur with rain and then the wipers would sweep across, giving him a moment of clarity before the blur came back.

Endless gray...and a few seconds when he could see the dark green islands far out
in the harbor. All those countless little islands out there where Frank Woods could be hiding. All those islands where he could have buried those girls.

He knew in that second, knew that was where he would find Frank. He would be with the victims.

The wipers slapped a clear picture of the islands into view and then it was gone.

Now all he had to do was find the right island.