Black Joint Point

10

‘So you haven’t seen Jimmy since Monday?’ David Power asked Linda Bird. He didn’t like to sit during questionings; he liked to stand. Pace around the room a little like a lawyer. Because the interviewee was always nervous talking to the police, guaranteed nervous, even if they were as pure and innocent as a half dozen saints, and him standing made them a little smaller. That was the goal, make them feel small and they’d crack. The Encina County sheriff, Randy Hollis, sat across from Linda Bird, doodling interlocking circles on a legal pad.

Jimmy Bird’s wife looked up at David. Her hair was cut in a style last fashionable ten years ago, frazzled from home dye jobs. A small patch of acne scars, badly camouflaged with makeup, dimpled her cheeks. ‘Yes. I told you that already.’

She wasn’t feeling small enough yet. He crossed his arms. ‘No need to get upset, if you don’t got anything to hide, Linda.’

‘You either believe me or you don’t,’ Linda Bird said. ‘If he’s gonna keep asking me the same things again and again, like a fucking parrot, I’m getting me a lawyer, because then he’s just trying to trick me.’ She glared over at Sheriff Hollis.

‘I’ll call you a lawyer right now, Mrs Bird,’ Sheriff Hollis said. He had a low, pleasant voice, the kind that made for good radio. ‘But no one is accusing you of anything except being Jimmy’s wife, and we just want to know where he might have gone to.’

‘Jimmy mention any places he might like to go? Where’s he got family?’ David asked.

‘All his family’s either in the cemetery or Tivoli, and none of ’em like him.’

‘Names of his family in Tivoli?’

She gave them, an aunt and two male cousins.

‘Patch fired Jimmy, what, a year ago?’

‘Right before Labor Day.’

‘Why?’

‘Jimmy got mad that Patch wanted him to work on a Saturday and called him a motherfucker under his voice. Patch heard him and fired him on the spot. Jimmy begged him for another chance, but Patch said he’d crossed a line and he wasn’t getting even a toe back over it.’ Linda Bird lit a cigarette without asking permission; David glanced at Sheriff Hollis, who let it slide.

‘Did Jimmy hold a grudge?’

‘He really wanted that job back – Patch was a good man, easy to work for most of the time, and doing odd jobs for him wasn’t too much hard work – but Jimmy’s pride got the best of him. He talked about screwing Patch over.’

‘How?’

‘Flattening a tire, sugaring his tank. Kid stuff.’ She tapped ashes into a coffee cup. ‘He sure as hell didn’t mention murder. Jimmy don’t even like to spank our four-year-old. I’ve never been afraid of him and if he could go off and kill two people just like that’ – here she snapped her fingers – ‘Then I don’t know him. And if he’s gone dangerous, I want police protection for me and my little girl.’

A patrol officer stuck his head into the interrogation room. ‘David? Your other appointment’s here.’ David nodded and the dispatcher shut the door.

‘You got a suspect?’ Linda asked.

‘It’s on another case,’ David said.

‘Aren’t you the busy bee?’

‘How’s the marriage?’ Sheriff Hollis set down his pen.

A pause. ‘I filed for divorce last week. He knew it was coming.’

‘So he might have reason to leave town.’

‘He might. Although he’d hate to leave our girl, Britni. He does love her – I give him that, even if he don’t got the sense God gave a goose.’

‘Why’d you file?’ David asked.

‘Irreconcilable boredom.’

Randy Hollis leaned forward. ‘If Jimmy calls you, Linda, what do you do?’

‘Tell him to stay the hell away. If he’s innocent in this, then he should come forward. If he’s guilty, give up. For Britni’s sake. Is this all?’

‘Judge Mosley’s conducting an inquest. He may call you for a statement.’

‘He’s okay,’ she said with a contemptuous glance at David. ‘A judge’s robe ain’t the same as a uniform, doesn’t make a man turn mean.’

David felt his temper rise. ‘You be clear on this, Linda. Your husband calls you, you don’t offer him any help. You don’t want to be an accessory. I don’t want to be charging you. Putting your little girl through that grief.’

‘Try it without proof,’ she said. ‘This ain’t Red China.’

She wasn’t going to get small, David saw, so he asked Linda Bird a few more questions he already knew the answers to and dismissed her. She left and David had his hand on the door when Sheriff Hollis said, ‘David. About Lucy Gilbert.’

‘What?’

‘Are you just taking another statement or questioning her as a suspect?’ Asked like he didn’t know the answer, and David could tell he did.

‘Questioning her.’

‘Why?’

‘She and Suzanne Gilbert are Patch Gilbert’s only relatives. They stand to benefit from his death.’

‘That aside, what you got on her?’

‘She runs a disreputable business.’

‘You talking about that psychic hotline thing?’ Hollis said. ‘How’s that disreputable? My mother calls it, says the girls on the phones are real nice and insightful.’

‘You like your mother pissing away her Social Security on phone psychics?’

‘She can piss her money how she pleases. I heard Lucy Gilbert’s dating Whit Mosley.’

‘So?’

‘His Honor’s not a big friend of yours, is he?’ Hollis capped his pen, gave David an unexpected frown.

‘We get along fine.’

‘No, you don’t. You’ve never gotten along with him. Never made the effort, far as I can see.’ Hollis stood, wadded up his page of doodles. ‘You got a reason to suspect Lucy Gilbert, a solid lead, you go for it. You questioning her because she’s the girlfriend of a guy who’s a pain in your ass, forget it. I won’t have an officer of mine abusing his position.’

‘I resent that. Deeply.’

‘I wouldn’t want you to resent it shallowly, David,’ Hollis said. ‘We clear?’

‘Crystal.’ David kept his voice steady. ‘I need clarification on some items in her statement. That’s all. In fact, my friend Judge Mosley and I are supposed to drive in together to Corpus for the autopsy results and to meet with the forensic anth team.’

‘Good. Keep playing nice.’ Hollis left.

David Power unclenched his fingers. Odd. Hollis was a Democrat; Whit Mosley had been elected on the Republican ticket, although Whit looked more like a guy who’d gotten lost and had wandered into a Green Party meeting and stayed for the fashions. Why would Hollis take Whit’s side? But he saw it then: both of them from old Port Leo families, the old moneyed families of the coast that didn’t include the Powers. Old family allegiances meant more than political party lines.

It wouldn’t buy you an inch with him.

He stepped out into the hallway. Lucy Gilbert stood there, along with an older woman he presumed was her attorney. The lawyer gave David a predatory glare, like a barracuda who’d missed breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

No sign of Whit. It surprised him; he thought Whit would be here, steam pouring from his ears. Perhaps, David decided, that was best for the moment. But he turned his friendliest smile toward Lucy Gilbert. You just make one teeny misstep, bitch, you had a thing to do with these murders, you’re mine.

‘Miss Gilbert? Thanks for coming in. I just had a few questions on your statement you gave the police. If y’all will just step this way

…’

Patch Gilbert’s older niece, Suzanne, lived in a grand development called Castaway Key, a series of streets and private docks that few born and raised in Port Leo called home. Her house sat facing St Leo Bay, and in the summer afternoon the bay hummed with craft: sailboats slicing the waves; jet skis buzzing like maddened bees; a pleasure boat loaded with urban weekenders cutting near the shore, extra-bad eighties dance music drifting from its deck. Whit rolled up the window.

Castaway Key was not aptly named. Many houses went for a quarter million and higher. Whit supposed anyone dressed like Robinson Crusoe, ambling along Castaway Key’s resort-named streets – such as Hilton Head Road or Cozumel Way – would be summarily brought to him on charges of vagrancy.

Suzanne Gilbert’s house was white and modern, and it glittered with windows large enough to drive a car through. Delicate palms and sprawling bougainvillea filled the beds near the curved stone driveway. Brightly painted Mexican tiles spelled out the house number. Suzanne, an artist, seemed flush rather than starving. Or maybe Suzanne was house-poor, and this mansion was a symptom of her supposed financial woes.

His cell phone beeped as he parked. ‘This is Judge Mosley.’

‘Judge. Hi. This is Linda Bird. I’m Jimmy Bird’s wife. I think you know who he is.’

‘I know we want to talk to him, ma’am.’

‘Well, I just talked with that prick David Power. I don’t want to talk to him no more, and the sheriff said I might have to talk to you. So I’m talking because’ – she paused – ‘I find the deputy to be irritating.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘New Orleans. I think if Jimmy has run off he’s gone there. Couple of times last month I hear him, late at night on the phone, talking, saying, Alex. I thought it was some drunk friend of his. They love to get tight and phone each other. Like goddamned teenagers.’

‘I see.’

‘Then the phone bill comes. We don’t know people in New Orleans but there’s three calls there, late at night. I pay the bills, as I have the job. I ask him about who he’s calling, he says it’s a mistake. He’s a bad liar. I can tell he’s lying.’ She paused. ‘So then I think maybe Alex is a girl. In New Orleans. How he got a girlfriend in New Orleans is beyond me, but I’m telling you because I sure ain’t telling David Power. You want the number he called?’

‘Yes, ma’am, I do.’ She gave it to him and he jotted it down.

‘You tell David Power he better fucking treat me nicer next time he sees me, or I’m filing a complaint. I got a lawyer now, what with getting the divorce, and I am in a filing mood.’

‘I sense your resolve, Mrs Bird. Thank you.’

‘You set bond on my brother last year,’ she said. ‘An amount we could handle. We appreciated it. I’m voting for you next time.’

He thanked her, stared at the phone number, nearly laughed.

Suzanne Gilbert opened the front door as he headed up the stairs. She wore black jeans, a black T-shirt, black sandals. Idiotic in this heat, Whit thought. Artist mourning clothes. She was very fair, attractive, a good five or six years older than Lucy. Her cheekbones and chin and nose were all precise and perfect, as measured as an architect’s drawing.

She greeted Whit with a brief hug, so quick he wondered why she’d bothered. Whit suspected that Suzanne wanted to pat his blondish hair flat or put him in a suit, tidy him up for Lucy. He saw her eyes take in his clothes with disapproval: the faded polo shirt, the rumpled khakis, the sandals.

‘How are you holding up?’ he asked.

‘Barely am,’ she said in a tone that meant anything but.

Whit followed her into a high-ceilinged foyer and then to a living room. The furniture was modern and expensive, imported teak, leather surfaces of tan and black, the carpet a creamy white, brave for a beachside house. Abstract art filled the walls, lined the bookshelves. But all painted with the same crude hand, no eye for detail or form. Savagely mixed, the colors selected to hurt the eye. Jackson Pollock without the restraint. Whit sensed a sudden meanness in the pictures. They were ugliness disguising themselves as talent. He hated the pictures on first sight.

He followed her to an immaculate, steel-dominated kitchen. A man who looked like he might drag his knuckles when he walked stood by the granite kitchen counter, drinking a bottle of Dos Equis. Big, thick-necked, with a shaved-bald head and wearing a black T-shirt and faded denim overalls. A bracelet of intertwining tattoos whirled around one melon-shaped bicep.

‘I don’t think you’ve met my boyfriend, Roy Krantz. Hon, this is Whit Mosley. He’s the coroner and the JP here and he’s conducting the inquest into Uncle Patch’s death.’ No, he hadn’t met Roy. The few parties and events where Lucy and Suzanne crossed paths, Roy was always at home or sleeping or working on a sculpture. Roy shunned limelight, it seemed to Whit. Perhaps he had trouble fitting through the front door.

Whit offered a hand; Roy shook it and didn’t try to squeeze Whit’s fingers into pulp.

The phone rang. ‘Excuse me,’ Suzanne said. ‘News has spread, and people want to bring over casseroles and cakes. You know how it is when you have a death in the family. Everyone swarms over with comfort foods and you gain ten pounds.’

As though weight gain were her biggest worry. Whit thought she needed a cheeseburger. But he gave his solemn, conducting-the-inquest nod. ‘Of course.’ She left the kitchen, scooped up a phone in the living room, spoke in a low voice.

‘You’re Lucy’s guy,’ Roy Krantz said. His voice was low and flat and sounded like it had been honed in a prison yard.

‘Yes.’

‘How’s she holding up?’

‘She’s talking to the police right now.’

Roy raised an eyebrow. ‘And what’s she saying?’

‘Family secrets, probably.’

Roy made a noise of thick beer-swallow, kept staring at him.

Suzanne returned. ‘Something to drink, Whit?’ Her voice glimmered a little too cheery, a little too hostess-bright.

‘No, thank you. May we talk now? Privately?’

‘Sure.’ Suzanne glanced at Roy, then led Whit down a hall thankfully empty of abstract art-pukings. Two doors opened off the hall: one to a concrete-floored room cluttered with small iron sculptures of gulls, palm trees, flamingos, and assorted equipment; the other to another studio, bright windows framing the view of the bay. A huge canvas leaned near one window, covered with a stained dropcloth. A worktable stood nearby, dotted with oil paint in blues, mustards, venomous greens, as though poison dripped on its surface. Finished paintings – more of the obnoxious scribblings that hung in the living room – decorated the walls.

In one corner a huge roll of paper lay unfurled, with smears of bright acrylic paint dried on the paper. Whit glanced at it, then glanced again. Two round magenta globes looked like they’d been pressed on the paper from small, pert breasts. A roll of lime paint looked like a hip; multiple handprints lay in blue and pink. Other blobs resembled kneeprints, footprints, and one squat figure eight looked like apple-green testicles. Suzanne wore a bent little smile on her architectural face.

‘You’re very prolific’ Whit nodded toward the calmer paintings on the wall. It was the only compliment he could think of.

‘I get bored working on a painting too long, so I paint quickly. But they sell quickly, too.’ An offhand shrug.

‘They’re very interesting.’

Interesting apparently didn’t cut it; she frowned. She sat on a paint-splattered stool and he settled on its twin across from her.

‘You’re probably wondering why I don’t paint the bay, with a wonderful view.’ Suzanne crossed her legs, dangled a black sandal off one alabaster foot.

‘No. But you want to tell me.’

She gave a solemn smile. ’Everyone here paints the bay. Every stupid little dabbler who can barely hold a brush between their fingers. And the required frisky gulls, little boats, swaying palms. Tiresome.’ She pointed at one small painting, framed in silver, a violent swirl of purple spirals, gray crosses, and white froth that looked like nothing more than idle slapping of paint by an angry child. ‘That’s the bay. My interpretation of it. No adorable dinghies, no fishing grannies, no endangered whooping cranes winging back to the refuge. The bay as it is. Hard. Cruel. Like life is.’

He didn’t think she knew diddly about hard life in this grand house. Maybe he should have her call Linda Bird. ‘I’d like to know about your relationship with Patch.’

‘Are you asking as a judge or because Lucy’s said an unkind word or two?’

Now that was interesting. ‘As a judge.’

‘I loved Patch. Who didn’t?’ She tucked her sandal back on her foot. ‘Artists live up to our stereotype now and then, get moody and mean when the work sucks. Patch always pulled me out of the blues, gave me a slap on the fanny when I needed it.’ She spoke with the air of the artist, playing out each nuance until it wasn’t a nuance anymore. But he saw in the dusky light how brittle her eyes and mouth looked under the fresh makeup. She had cried and cried hard.

‘Did he ever help you in other ways? Say financially?’

‘You ask that like you know the answer already.’

Whit shrugged.

‘You know, Lucy doesn’t make it easy to love her sometimes, does she? She does have a mouth.’ She lit a cigarette, a thin, ladylike coffin nail in a pink pack, then offered him one. He declined.

‘She told you garbage about me with great reluctance, right? Much wringing of hands? She got a vibe, right?’

Whit said nothing.

‘Lucy was born with a finger pointing at someone else. Artists see patterns, honey, and I’ve seen plenty of this one.’

‘She said you asked Patch for a large loan.’

‘I was a little short on cash between paintings and asked Patch for help. He said no, I said fine, we were fine. He’s not a bank. I understood.’

‘You asked for a hundred thousand?’

Her eyes went wide. ‘Good Lord, no. I asked for ten thousand. I got it from a friend. It’s being paid off, no problems.’ She tapped ashes into a crystal ashtray on the worktable, her mouth thinned. ‘A hundred thousand. She ought to use that imagination for noble causes.’

‘She said it’s what Patch told her.’

‘She’s dead wrong.’

‘She and Patch seemed to have a good relationship.’

‘Lucy likes people who have things and will give them to her. I’m not one of those people. Patch was. He doted on Lucy, just a bit too much.’

‘Can you think of anyone who’d want Patch or Thuy dead?’

‘He only dated widows, and he was successful at it. I could see he might make another man jealous. Thuy, Lord, no. Gentle and kind as a lamb. Retired teacher, loaded with patience. I adored her.’

‘You and Roy were here in town on Monday night.’

‘Yes. I already gave a statement to the police. We were here, watched the news, turned in.’ She paused, tilted her head, gave him a melty smile. ‘We fucked. Twice. So we were awake until midnight or so. That’s not in the police statement but I don’t mind total honesty with you.’ Her smile shifted; his skin prickled.

‘In a bed or on the canvas?’

The smile widened. ‘You have a good eye.’

Yeah, it’s real tough to make out painted, squashed boobs. He saw the perfection of her face created a sense of emptiness – like a house with no curtains in the windows. ‘Roy’s what to you, social engineering?’

‘Radio Lucy strikes again.’ She shrugged. ‘It was a minor drug conviction, ten years ago. He’s clean.’ She exhaled a cool little stream of smoke. ‘He was here all Monday and Tuesday with me, okay? Working. He’s an artist, too. His studio’s across the hall. Sculptures in metal. Gulls, lighthouses, coastal art for the gift shop crowd. He’s not an artist at my level but he has potential.’

Whit glanced at the body prints on the paper on the floor and thought he saw Roy’s rather limited potential at work.

‘It’s a lot of land at stake. With Patch gone.’

She frowned, as though he had dragged a dirty finger across one of her artworks. ‘Well, the Gilberts have owned most of Black Jack Point since before Texas was Texas. It totals about three hundred acres. Fifty acres is mine. Fifty is Lucy’s. Uncle Patch owns another two hundred.’ She shrugged again. ‘I’ve no idea of the details of Uncle Patch’s will. I would suppose Lucy and I inherit. But we never discussed it.’

‘But if you needed ten thousand dollars, why not sell some of your land?’

‘We’ve always had an unspoken agreement not to sell, except as a group. Patch wanted to hold on to the family land, even when solid offers came in. Lucy and I always deferred to him.’

‘Have you gotten many offers on the land?’ Considering the value of waterfront property in parts of Texas, Whit wondered if the land provided a hard motive.

‘One, oh, a month ago. I got a phone call from a real estate investor in Corpus. I wasn’t interested, but I did refer him to Patch because he was so persistent.’

‘Who was that?’

‘Stoney Vaughn. He’s got a big-ass house up on Copano Flats. Tedious type. I met him once at a Port Leo Art Center function. And another offer, about a year ago, from a company in Houston. We just say no. We don’t want to sell. I don’t know if that will change now, with Patch gone.’

The bottle of Glenfiddich had been from a Stoney. Maybe interesting, maybe not.

He thought of the skeletons. ‘Patch ever mention any archaeological value to the land?’

Suzanne didn’t answer for a second and he wondered if she knew about the bones. David and the DPS team had kept it out of the papers thus far. But a freakish detail like that was hard to muzzle with so many people now involved. She stubbed out her cigarette, glanced up at him through the trail of smoke. ‘An archaeologist wouldn’t find anything except old dead Gilberts and their junk.’

‘No earlier settlement on the land?’

‘Indians must have passed through or hunted there, I guess. Black Jack Point’s always been wild country, though. I don’t think anyone else ever built there but us crazy Gilberts.’ She lit another cigarette. ‘Speaking of crazy Gilberts, what do you see in Lucy? Do you mind me asking? Yes, she’s very pretty but she’s very contrary and a bit too high-maintenance.’

‘She drives me nuts. She makes me laugh. She makes me think. For me that’s pretty good.’

‘Laughing is good. Sexy.’ Her voice went a little lower.

‘I bet Roy’s a real giggle factory.’

‘He can be very sweet,’ she said, letting her smile grow. ‘But I do bore easily.’

‘I’m allergic to paint,’ he said. ‘I’d like to talk to Roy now.’

Her smile – more carefully crafted than her paintings – went flat. ‘Sure.’

They returned to the den. Roy lay sprawled on the couch, drinking a fresh bottle of Dos Equis, watching Jeopardy! He didn’t look up at Whit.

‘Roy, Whit needs to talk to you,’ Suzanne said.

‘I barely knew Patch. What is the Tower of Pisa?’ he said to the television, playing Architecture for $200. He was right.

‘It took a lot of strength to beat a man like Patch to death,’ Whit said.

Roy Krantz didn’t take his eyes off the screen. ‘Probably not. What is photosynthesis? You dumb asses.’

Whit leaned down, grabbed the remote, cut off the television in the middle of Botany for $600. ‘Pardon me. I’m speaking to you. As part of a death inquest. If you don’t want to answer questions here, you do it in a courtroom.’

Roy stood. Whit was tall but this guy was an oak. ‘I told you, I don’t know shit. And I don’t like to miss my program.’

‘Roy.’ Suzanne shook her head.

‘I’m sorry, baby.’ For the first time Whit saw tenderness in Roy’s sun-hardened face. ‘Sorry. Okay.’ He crossed his arms. ‘I never got to know him, Judge. He decided in the first ten seconds of our acquaintance I was trash. So we declined to occupy the same place at the same time.’

‘Let’s talk prison records.’

Roy walked into the kitchen, got another beer, offered a bottle to Whit. Whit shook his head. ‘I ran some dope for a school buddy, I got caught, I cut a little deal, school buddy didn’t. I did a short stint and I’ve been spotless. Now I got my life back together here with Suze, doing my art, and people just want to piss in my beer.’

‘Y’all do much gambling?’ Whit asked.

Roy glanced at Suzanne and she said, ‘Lucy.’ He glanced back at Whit with a smirk. ‘Actually, we do, and we have the means to and we’re not in over our heads. I don’t suppose it’s occurred to anyone that maybe Mrs Tran was the target, not Patch. You grilling her family like this?’

‘I couldn’t say.’

‘You come after me just because I got a record, that’s the easy thing to do. Just as easy to get yourself sued for false arrest. For reporters to get a call to say some poor ex-con who’s become a model citizen is getting hassled. You can’t fucking bully people, man.’

‘I didn’t realize you felt bullied by me,’ Whit said. ‘Please don’t cry.’

Roy took a step forward. Suzanne put a hand on his thick forearm. ‘Roy. Don’t let him bait you.’

‘I’m not baiting anyone,’ Whit said. ‘Thanks for your time. I can see myself out. I’ll let you know if you’re needed to testify at the inquest.’

Whit drove out of Castaway Key. He remembered the time the land had been developed, this thin sliver of near-island, when he was a teenager. Once this was rough country, not too different from the Gilbert land, thick with salt grass, jutting out into shallow water with a handpainted sign that read PLEASE DON’T PET THE RATTLERS. And how much is this land worth now? Whit wondered. Millions. So how much is that family land really worth to Suzanne Gilbert? Or maybe to her way-smarter-than-he-looks boyfriend?

He didn’t want to think about how much it might be worth to Lucy.