Island of Bones (32 page)

Louis pulled out his sunglasses and slipped them on. “Nah, I can’t. I got some things I need to do.”

“Okay. No problem,” Landeta said.

Louis heard the disappointment in his voice. “I’ll take a rain check, okay?”

“
Yeah. Fine.” Landeta turned and walked away.

Louis watched him for a few minutes. When Landeta got to the door of O’Sullivan’s, he hesitated only a second then walked on.

Louis pulled up in front of Frank’s house. His Civic wasn’t in the drive and there were a bunch of plastic-rolled newspapers lying in the tall grass. Picking up the del Bosque Bible, Louis got out of the car. At the front door, he rang the bell. He could hear it echoing in the house.

He jumped off the porch and peered in the front window. The drapes were open enough to let him see that the living room looked untouched, like no one had been home in a long time.

Louis went back to the door and reached into the planter for the key. It was still there. He unlocked the door and went in. The house had a closed-up smell, with the stink of old cigarette smoke still lingering in the air. But someone had taken the trouble to straighten things up some.

Louis went into the bedroom. The bed had been made, the ashtray emptied. Louis opened the closet. Frank’s library uniforms
—- his slacks, shirts, and ties —- were still there. He went to the dresser and opened the top drawer. It was empty except for a two pairs of brown dress socks.

Louis turned to look at the room. The bookcase. Its shelves were empty. Every book in the room was gone.

Back in the living room, he realized all the shelves there were bare, too. He turned toward the mantel. The picture of Diane was gone.

Louis let himself out, locked the door, and got back in his car. He sat there for a moment, hands on the wheel, staring at Frank’s house.

Where the hell could he have gone?

He started the Mustang and pulled out. On Cleveland Avenue, he turned left and headed over the Caloosahatchee Bridge. When he pulled into the lot of Diane’s apartment building, he spotted her Honda but not Frank’s Civic. He went up and rang the bell, the Bible under his arm.

He heard a sound behind the door and knew she was looking at him through the peephole. He also knew she wasn’t going to let him in.

“Diane, is your father there?” he called out.

She didn’t answer.

“I have something to give him,” Louis said. “Have you seen him?”

The door jerked open. Diane squinted out into the sunlight. Her hair was combed, her makeup perfect, too perfect. He could tell she had been drinking. Not today, but last night, and the bags had still not gone down under her eyes.

“Leave me alone,” she said. Her eyes darted past him out to the parking lot
. He knew she was looking for TV vans.

“I just need to give this to your father.”

Diane’s eyes went to his hands. “What is it?”

“His family Bible.”

“Family? Those animals out there on that island?”

Louis was tempted to open the Bible and show her the names of all her cousins and nephews. “It’s your family, too,” he said.

She threw up her hands. “Oh, no,” she said hoarsely. “I have no connection to them. They’re freaks, monsters. I have no family.”

“What about your father?” Louis asked.

“My father,” she whispered. Her hand shook as she ran it over her hair.

“Diane, have you talked to him?” Louis asked. “Have you heard his side of this or just what’s on TV?”

“I haven’t talked to him since...” Diane’s voice trailed off. She was leaning against the door jamb, like it was hard for her to even stand up.

“Do you know what happened thirty-five years ago?” Louis asked. “Do you know what he did? Why he left that island?”

She shook her head slowly, closing her eyes. Louis knew she had seen the television reports, read the stories in the papers. But Horton hadn’t released all the details yet, so whatever was getting out was vague enough to allow for conjecture and titillation. The public’s imagination filled in the rest.

Diane
had no way of knowing that if her father had not left his home thirty-five years ago, she would be buried in that island cemetery with the other babies.

Louis started to tell her, but then he stopped. It wasn’t his place. He had no right. It would have to be Frank’s decision to tell Diane the truth.

“He turned his back on his family for you,” Louis said.

“I can’t deal with this right now.”

“Diane, he’s your father. He’s all you have, for God’s sake. Talk to him.”

“I thought I buried my father,” she said. “Do you know what that feels like? I buried a stranger who only looks like him? I buried a man I don’t even know.”

She was struggling not to cry. But for the life of him Louis couldn’t figure out for whom.

“Leave me alone,” Diane said. “I just want to be alone.”

It was the way she said it, forcing out each word like it hurt, that gave him the briefest feeling of pity. How did a human being become so detached, so disconnected?

He knew he shouldn’t do what he was about to do, but he couldn’t help it
.

“You have a grandfather, you know,” Louis said. “Your mother’s father. He’s still alive.”

Diane’s eyes widened. “My mother’s father?”

Louis nodded. “Yeah, he lives over on Pine Island, St. James City. His name is James Reardon.”

“Does he --?” She stopped.

“Know about you?” Louis nodded. “He’s old and he’s not well. You should go see him, before it’s too late.”

Tears fell silently down her face. “I have to go,” she said. She started to shut the door but Louis put up a hand to stop it.

“Diane,” he said, “just tell me where your father is.”

The tears had left streaks on her powdered face. “He went back,” she said.

He let go of the door and she shut it.

The Deadhead throttled the boat’s motor up and turned his face into the breeze. Louis was sitting in the front, watching the gulls float and dip on the currents. The sky was pearly gray with coming rain and the water was choppy.

“Hey, man,” the Deadhead called out, “what you wanna go out to that creepo place for?”

Louis ignored him.

“I heard there was a cult out there,” the Deadhead yelled over the outboard. “I heard they was eating dogs and cutting off bab
y heads and all sorts of weird shit, man.” He shook his head. “Probably fried the dogs up and served ’em in that friggin’ restaurant.”

“Shut up and drive,” Louis said. He had already paid him
the hundred bucks he owed him and now twenty more. He didn’t need to listen to his shit.

The Deadhead was silent the rest of the way, pulling the boat up to the dock about thirty minutes later. There were
two police boats there, and several officers were standing in the yard of the restaurant.

The officer nearest the dock saw the Deadhead coming in and started to wave him off. Louis recognized Jay Strickland, the
cop on Sanibel with the Vespa. Louis signaled him, and Strickland motioned the boat in.

Louis could see the yellow crime scene tape up at the restaurant
. It was cut and flapping in the wind so he knew the restaurant had already been cleared.

Louis picked up the del Bosque Bible and got out, telling the Deadhead to wait for him. Strickland met him in the middle of the dock and walked with him toward the restaurant
.

“This is some case,” Strickland said.

“Yeah.”

“They aren’t telling us much, you know,” Strickland went on. “Is it true, about the babies and everything?”

Louis stopped. He could see the confusion in Strickland’s eyes, and all the questions any normal person, any father, might have about this whole sick thing. But he could also see there was no way in hell it could be explained.

“I can’t talk about it
,” Louis said. “Sorry.”

Strickland nodded.

Louis shifted the Bible to his other arm. “You seen Frank Woods around?”

“He’s inside,” Strickland said. “Chief called and said
he could go in the restaurant since the techs were finished with it. I thought it was strange but the chief says technically the island belongs to him now so we can’t keep him out.”

“Thanks.”

Louis went inside. It was dim and cool. The chairs were all upended on the tables and there were some cardboard boxes stacked on the floor near the entrance. They were filled with books. Louis looked up at the bar. The Poussin painting was still there.

“I should take that down.”

Louis turned to see Frank standing by the kitchen door. He was wearing old khaki shorts and a faded green T-shirt. His right shoulder was wrapped in gauze. He came farther into the room, looking up at the painting.

“I was about Roberto’s age when I started working in here,” Frank said. “I remember when my uncle Alfonso came home with it. It was right after he came back with his wife. He said he found it in an old store over on Pine Island. No one ever told me what was going on in the painting. I always thought they were just having a party.”

Frank looked at Louis. “It’s by Poussin. It’s called ‘The Rape of the Sabine Women’."

“I know,” Louis said. “I also know what it means.”

Frank looked back at the painting. “Do you see the woman in the middle, the one who is listening to her abductor? She isn’t fighting him at all. She’s going peacefully.”

“That didn’t make it right,” Louis said.

Frank let out a breath. “No, of course not. The Romans had a way of idealizing their crimes.”

Louis watched as Frank went over to a table and took off one of the chairs. He set it upright and sat down. His eyes were traveling slowly over the restaurant.

“The women weren’t abducted, not like most people might think,” he said.

Louis came in and set the Bible down on one of the tables. “How was it done?” he asked.

“When a del Bosque man came of age at eighteen, he was told to go off the island and find his wife. That’s how I met Sophie at the drugstore.”

Louis thought about the paragraph in Frank’s book about the Asturian rite of passage, how the young men would ride through the
village symbolically beating the women.

“Emilio and I used to take turns going over to Pine Island to get the things we needed, and he was the one who saw her first,” Frank went on. “But I was the one she wanted.”

Frank was staring at the painting. “He never forgave me when we got married. But Mama told him he had to find his own wife. So he brought Emma back.”

Frank looked over at Louis. “I know you think it was wrong, that the women were too young, that they didn’t know what they really wanted. But they were happy here. They were loved and taken care of. They didn’t want to leave.”

“Shelly did,” Louis said.

Frank shook his head.
“Tomas was mean. And he didn’t have the patience to find a woman who wanted to come.”

“So he abducted Shelly?” Louis asked.

Frank nodded. “And he raped her.”

“And then he shot her when she tried to escape,” Louis said.

Frank nodded again, more slowly. “That’s when I knew things were changing out here. That’s why I came back. I thought I could...” His voice trailed off and he ran a hand over his face. “I don’t know what I thought.”

Louis came forward to stand in front of Frank. “How in the hell could the women be content when you were killing their children?”

It had started to rain, drumming softly on the roof and sending a briny breeze through the restaurant. Frank didn’t answer or look at Louis. He was staring out at the open door. Louis knew he wasn’t going to talk. Frank Woods knew the “why” behind all of it, but he would never tell it. He hadn’t told Horton. He wasn’t going to tell now. He would go to his grave protecting his sick, twisted family. Suddenly, Louis just wanted to get out of there.

“I have something for you,” Louis said. He put the Bible down on the table in front of Frank.

Frank looked at it. “Where did you get this?”

“Your mother told me to give it to you.”

Frank ran his fingers over the worn cover.

“She told me to tell you something,” Louis said. “It sounded like
ut sciat qui esset
.”

Louis waited, but Frank didn’t look up. “Does that mean anything to you?”

Frank didn’t move.

“Fuck this,” Louis
said and started for the door.

“So he knows what he is,” Frank said. He looked up at Louis. “
Ut sciat qui esset
. It means ‘so he knows what he is.’”

Louis shook his head. “So what the hell are you, Frank?”

Frank opened the Bible to the frontispiece. He pressed his palm gently down on the family tree.

“I had a sister,” Frank said. “I was very small when she was bo
rn but I remember her. I remember when she was born she had all this beautiful dark curly hair.” Frank didn’t look up. “But there was something wrong with her, her back was twisted. I remember hearing them talk about it, Mama and my two uncles. I stood outside the door one night and listened but I didn’t understand. Then the next day, Taresa was gone. When I asked Mama what happened to her, she told me that Taresa was God’s mistake and He had taken her back.”