Island of Bones (4 page)

Landeta didn’t answer. He headed straight into the dense trees, picking his way carefully across the exposed mangrove
roots. Horton stayed to question the old man. Louis decided to follow Landeta.

He entered a cave of branches, the sun suddenly gone. The stink was incredible
, a suffocating brew of fetid water, dank dirt and bird droppings. Louis started to gag and had to stop. The moment he did, the mosquitoes closed in.

He pulled a deep breath and trudged on, grabbing the mangrove branches to keep moving through the gloom. Landeta was a patch of white ahead, his dress shirt sweat-plastered to his back. Finally, Landeta stopped.

Louis struggled to his side and looked down.

For a second, he thought she was just a girl. But then he realized it was only because of the way the body was compressed into the tangled mangrove roots.

He guessed the force of the water had done it somehow, but it was still grotesque. The torso was facing outward, but was bent forward at the waist around a large root. The right arm was twisted back over the shoulder, the left arm hanging limp in front. The head hung oddly low on the chest, like the neck was broken.

Her face was hidden by her jaw-length hair, which hung lank and mud-caked, looking almost like dreadlocks.

Louis crouched in the muck. The sickly sweet smell of death rose up to him over the tidal stench but he didn’t move back.

He felt a slap on his shoulder and looked back to see a pair of latex gloves hanging from Landeta’s
gloved hand. He took them and put them on.

“What condition is the skin in?” Landeta asked.

“No separation or swelling.”

“Can you reach the head?” Landeta said.

“Yeah.”

“Pull it up.”

“I think her neck is broken.”

“Use the hair.”

Louis grabbed a hank of hair and carefully pulled up the head. Her mouth was open. So were her eyes. Blue...

“Do you see any wounds? Signs of trauma?” Landeta
asked.

“No.”

Louis looked at her twisted body, thinking about what Bev had told him about hurricanes smashing boats to bits.

“Can you move it?”

Louis looked back at Landeta. “What?”

“Can you move it? We need to see the back.”

She was wearing jeans, ripped at the knee, and a sleeveless white blouse. Louis grabbed the blouse and gave a pull but the body was held tight against its cage of roots.

“The roots are holding her,” he said.

“What?”

“The damn roots. Maybe we should wait for the medical examiner.”

“Maybe you should find another profession,” Landeta said.

Louis’s eyes shot back to Landeta. He was just staring back calmly.

Fuck you, burnout...

“Try,” Landeta said.

Louis inched closer, grabbed the blouse with both hands and gave the torso a hard tug. It took two more tries before the body slumped forward. There was a hole high on the back of the blouse.

“What do you see?” Landeta asked.

Louis leaned closer. “A bullet hole.”

“How big?”

“Big.”

“Gunshot residue?”

“She had to have floated here from somewhere else. Wouldn’t the water wash it away?”

“What do you think?”

“Hell, I don’t know. Probably.”

“Not if it was a contact wound. It would’ve burned the blouse. Do you see any?”

Louis shook his head, wiping away more sweat.

“Lift the blouse and look,” Landeta said.

It was hot and the whine of the mosquitoes and the smell was making him sick. He lifted the blouse, trying not to touch the flesh. There was a quarter-sized hole in her back, just under the bra. The tissue around the hole was bubbled and flaking. But no evidence of burning. He saw something on her neck and carefully moved her head.

“What is it?” Landeta asked.

“Another bullet hole. In her neck, left side. I’d bet it’s the same caliber as the one in her back.”

“Anything else?” Landeta asked.

Louis wiped his sweaty face and looked back at Landeta’s mud-caked trousers. “What?”

“Do you see anything else?”

Landeta seemed to be waiting for him to reveal some miraculous observation that only Landeta knew existed. If this was a test, he was getting damn tired of it. Where the hell was Horton anyway?

Louis leaned back to the body and let his eyes wander its length. He focused on her bare feet. They were badly cut up, especially the soles.

“She didn’t lose her shoes in the storm. She was barefoot,” Louis said.

“Why do you say that?”

“Look at her feet. They’re all cut up.”

Landeta didn’t move.

Louis was about to move away and leave Landeta to his little games when he had a sudden memory. A night a long time ago when he had stood over his bathroom sink trying to wash blood from a blue uniform shirt. He had ended up letting it soak for two days and still the blood did not come out.

“What is it?” Landeta asked.

“There’s no blood,” Louis said.

L
andeta was silent.

Louis stood up and looked at Landeta. His shirt clung to his body and he could feel the sweat dripping in his eyes.

“There’s no blood or stains on her clothes,” Louis said. “She was in the water when she was shot or went in right after.”

Horton came breaking through the trees at that moment, panting and sweating. He stopped abruptly when he saw the body.

“Jesus H Christ,” he whispered. He put a hand to his mouth.

Louis looked at Landeta, holding his gaze for a moment before turning to Horton.

“Two shots, Chief, in the back and neck,” Louis said yanking off the gloves. “And it had to have happened in the last two days, probably around the time the storm hit.”

Horton looked quickly at Landeta, but the detective said nothing.

“I’m guessing she was trying to get away from someone,” Louis said. He looked around the mangroves. “In a place that tore up her feet. She ran into the water and someone shot her.”

Horton was staring at the body. Landeta was looking at Louis. Louis looked back at the body.

He was noticing the style of the jeans and blouse. She was young, he guessed. His eyes went up to her face, to the open eyes and mouth frozen in a grimace of fear. What had terrified a girl so much that she would run into the face of a hurricane?

Louis heard Horton cue his radio. But he wasn’t listening. He was staring at the woman’s hand. It was lying across her chest, almost as if she were proudly displaying something.

A ring. On the fourth finger of the left hand. A white band.

He heard Horton come up to his side. “CSI and medical examiner are on their way. We gotta get her out of here be
fore the tide comes back in.” Horton paused, looking at the body. “Can’t believe it. Still no one reported missing from the storm.”

“Someone is missing her,” Louis said, nodding to the ring. “Probably her husband.”

Louis dragged a palm frond out to the road and tossed it on the ten-foot pile of debris. He paused to wipe the sweat from his eyes and watch the slow line of cars creep along the beach road. The causeway was open again. Things were getting back to normal.

Everything except his own cottage. The hurricane had to
rn away a section of his roof, right over his bed. Pierre had promised to fix it three days ago. But the roof was still covered with a tarp and he was still sleeping on the sofa.

A car slowed, and a woman leaned out the window. “Excuse me, is this Branson’s on the Beach?” she yelled out to Louis.

“Yeah, the sign’s down,” he said, pointing. He stepped aside and she pulled her Honda in, parking near the office. He was throwing another frond on the pile when the woman came up to him.

“Can you tell me where
I can find Louis Kincaid?” she asked.

“You found him,” Louis said.

Her eyes quickly took in his dirty jeans and bare sweaty chest. “Oh, I thought —- ” She held out her hand. “I’m Diane Woods.”

Louis pulled off his work gloves and shook her limp hand as he sized her up. Short dark hair, tall, in her mid-thirties. Conservative blue suit, sensible heels
that were nice but not expensive. And panty hose, even though the temperature was ninety-five. A secretary, he guessed, and from the pinched tired look on her face, another mother looking for help in getting a kid back from an AWOL ex.

He suppressed a sigh. Man, he hated child custody cases. Too much work for too little money, with the great payoff of watching a social worker stuff a crying kid into a car.

“I don’t know how this is done,” Diane Woods began.

“You want to hire me to investigate something, right?” Louis asked.

She gave a small nod, like she wasn’t sure.

“Why don’t you come inside and we can talk?” Louis said.

He led her into his cottage, setting aside the pile of laundry he had dumped on the sofa. She perched on the edge, clutching her big tote bag.

“Can I get you something, a soda?” he asked.

“Water?”

Louis brought her a glass of water then excused himself, going into the bedroom to throw on a T-shirt. When he returned she was just sitting there, the water untouched
, eyes downcast.

He flipped on the AC and the ancient wall unit gave a cough and began to spit out a thin stream of air that did little to dissipate the heat.

“So, what do you want me to investigate?” Louis asked, sitting in a chair across from her. Something about this woman told him to take it slow and easy.

“I read
—-” She paused. Then she reached in her tote bag and pulled out a newspaper. With a shaky hand she unfolded it and held out the section to Louis.

Louis took the paper. It was yesterday’s
Fort Myers News-Press,
the front page still filled with storm cleanup news. Louis looked up at the woman expectantly.

“The story on the bottom,” she said, nodding.

Louis looked back at the newspaper. There was a story about the body they had pulled out of the mangroves on Monkey Island. She was still unidentified but there was a close-up photograph of the ring with a caption saying police were hoping someone would recognize it.

“I think I might know something about her,”
Diane
Woods said softly.

Louis waited, but when she said nothing, he leaned forward. “Do you know who she is?” he asked.

She shook her head.

“Do you know who killed her?”

Diane Woods looked at her shoes. Louis held the newspaper out to her. “I think you should go to the police,” he said.

She looked up quickly. “No.”

“If you know something, you need to go to the police.”

She was silent.

“Why did you come to see me?” Louis asked.

She didn’t answer. She was just sitting there, head bowed, tote bag clutched to her chest.

Louis ran a hand over his sweaty face. “I can’t help you if you won’t talk to me,” he said. He started to rise.

“No, please.” She looked up at him. “I found th
is same article in my father’s desk drawer yesterday. He had clipped it out.”

“So what?”

Diane Woods’s brown eyes were scanning his face, like she was looking for something there. He had seen it before in people looking to hire him —- hope that he could put something right, something that had gone horribly wrong in their lives.

He sat back down. “Why are you here, Miss Woods?”

She hesitated then reached into her tote bag again. She handed him a folded paper.

He opened it. It was a Xerox of another newspaper article. The headline said
NO CLUES IN MISSING GIRL CASE. There was a small photograph of a teenager with the name Emma Fielding under it. The girl
was thin-faced, with limp blond hair and a curiously flat gaze —- and looked nothing like the young woman he had seen in the mangroves.

Then he noticed the date on the article
-- June 18, 1953.

He looked up at Diane Woods.

“Why are you showing me this?” he asked.

“I found it in my father’s desk...with the
new article. I think he killed her.”

Louis’s eyes went from the copy to the current
News-Press
. “Which one?” he asked.

“Both,” she said.

Louis took a breath, sitting back in the chair. The articles were thirty-four years apart. “Do you know this girl?” he asked, holding out the 1953 article.

“No.”

“Then what’s the connection?”

“I don’t know. All I know is I found both these articles paper-clipped together and hidden in my father’s desk.”

“Maybe he knew her. Maybe he’s got some fascination with missing people or homicides.”

Diane shook her head slowly. “He doesn’t
.”

Louis stood up, turning his back to her. He glanced again at the old clipping then turned back to her. He was going to tell her he didn’t want the case, and that anything she knew, no matter how insignificant, needed to be told to the cops
. But she spoke first.

“He has a rifle,” Diane said. “The newspaper said the woman in the water was shot with a rifle. He has one.”

“Anything else?”

“He’s acting strangely. We always go out to dinner on Saturday. He’s missed dinners. And he seems...depressed.”

Louis glanced back at the newspaper then shook his head. “That’s it? There’s nothing else?”

“No,” Diane whispered. “Nothing else.”

Louis let out a sigh.

“Please,” she said quickly. “Just check into it. Just watch him and follow him. Let me know if he does anything strange. Can’t you do that?”

Louis shook his head. “I have to go to the cops if I have a suspect.”

Her eyes teared. “No, no. If you do that, he won’t have a chance. The newspapers, TV...they will say he did it even if he didn’t. His life will be ruined. He couldn’t take that, he just couldn’t take that.”

“That’s not the way —-”

“Yes, it is. You know it is. You know how they treat suspects. He’d lose his job, he’d be ruined
. It would kill him, Mr. Kincaid.”

Louis stared at her.

“I just want you to watch him.” She wiped at her eyes. “Can’t you just do that?”

Louis shook his head slowly.

“Can’t you talk to him, maybe, without letting him know who you are? Can’t you just tell me if...”

Her voice caught and she dropped her eyes to her lap.

“What if I find out he did it?” Louis asked gently.

Diane’s shoulders dropped and she let out a long sigh.

“I would have to go the cops,” Louis said. “You understand that, right?”

She
nodded, her eyes still downcast.

“You understand that you’re hiring me to investigate your father and that you might not like the result?”

When she looked up at him her eyes still held that desperate look of hope. “I have to know,” she said.