Paint It Black

Chapter Four

He found Bledsoe out in the lobby, staring at the wanted posters. Bledsoe turned when he heard Louis approach.

“Well?” he asked.

“Well what?”

“Did she talk to you?”

Louis leveled his eyes at the lawyer. “I don’t think I’m the ‘brother’ you thought I was.”

“I was hoping-”

“I know what you were hoping,” Louis interrupted. “It’s not going to work. Your client couldn’t care less what color I am.”

Bledsoe let out a sigh and bent to pick up his briefcase. He straightened, gazed out the glass doors, then looked back at Louis. “I’m sorry you had to come such a long way for nothing,” he said. “I’ll make sure you’re reimbursed for your expenses thus far.” He stuck out his hand.

Louis stared at it. “I’m fired?”

Bledsoe blinked. “But you said-”

“All I said was your client doesn’t like me,” Louis said. “I don’t like her either. But I don’t think she’s guilty.”

Bledsoe dropped his hand. “So you’re taking the case?”

Louis paused. “Yeah, yeah, I guess I am.”

Bledsoe’s lips tipped upward and he thrust out his hand again. Louis returned his sweaty handshake.

“I need to talk to the police chief,” Louis said.

“Dan Wainwright,” Bledsoe said quickly. “I already told him about you. He’s retired FBI, a bit of a hardass, unfortunately.”

Louis suppressed a sigh. “Great. How’s he feel about private investigators?”

Bledsoe was steering him toward the front offices. “I don’t know. All I know is he isn’t crazy about me.”

Dan Wainwright’s door was open and Bledsoe led Louis to it. Louis watched as Bledsoe stammered out an introduction and left, actually backing out the door like some supplicant. Louis turned his attention to the man before him. Wainwright’s pale blue eyes were steady on Louis’s face.

“You’re trapped in a room with a tiger, a rattlesnake, and a lawyer and you have a gun with two bullets,” Wainwright said. “What should you do?”

Louis shrugged.

“You shoot the lawyer. Twice.”

Louis didn’t smile.

Wainwright stared at Louis, shook his head, then dropped down in his chair with a sigh.

“Okay, I told Bledsoe I’d give you ten minutes. Clock’s running.”

Louis considered the man sitting across the desk from him. Dan Wainwright was about fifty-five but had the air of an older man. It wasn’t his face. It was heavily creased but ruddy with health and topped with an unruly but striking shock of thick white hair. It wasn’t his body either. Wainwright was six-five, maybe two-thirty, linebacker-gone-lax, and his head almost looked too small for his robust frame. It was something intangible, like the man were some plodding, primeval creature whose species was losing the gene wars. Louis thought of Ollie Wickshaw in that moment and how his old partner used to say that some people just seemed to have old souls. Dan Wainwright looked like he had been stalking the earth for eons.

“I just saw Roberta Tatum,” Louis said.

“A real sweetheart,” Wainwright said.

“You think she did it,” Louis said.

Wainwright nodded. “It’s classic. There was a pattern.”

“She has no record. Not even a speeding ticket.”

“I mean the abuse,” Wainwright said. “He knocked her around, she took it for years. Finally, she just snapped and bit him back.”

“I don’t get that feeling,” Louis said.

“Well, I guess that’s what she’s paying you for.”

Louis stared at Wainwright, trying to read what was in his eyes. He couldn’t tell if the man was annoyed or amused.

“You got your license?” Wainwright asked.

“What?”

“Your PI license. You gotta have one to operate in this state.”

“No,” Louis said.

“What about your gun? You need paper for that, too.”

“I’m not carrying right now,” Louis said, avoiding Wainwright’s gaze.

Wainwright pursed his lips, twirling slightly in his beat-up vinyl chair. He scribbled something on a paper and slid it across the desk. “Here’s the number in Tallahassee. Call them. I won’t bust your balls over the license for now.”

Louis slipped the scrap in his pocket. The phone rang and Wainwright answered it. Louis used the break to look around the office. Unlike that of his last chief’s, it offered no clues to the personality of its occupant. The furniture was old and spartan, a couple of scarred metal filing cabinets and a watercooler. On the walls, there was the usual glass case with police patches from across the country, a departmental photo that looked ten years old, several engraved IN APPRECIATION plaques, one from an Adrian, Michigan, civic group. There was also a glass box that held an FBI badge, a well-worn FBI sleeve patch and ID card, all mounted on a light green matte board that was scribbled with good-byes.

On the desk, there was one framed photograph of two kids, a boy of about six and a girl about eight. The only other personal item sat on a filing cabinet-an old deflated football encased in Plexiglas.

“Bledsoe said you’re from Michigan,” Wainwright said, hanging up the phone.

“I grew up around Detroit, worked in a small force up North,” Louis said. He wondered if Wainwright knew about his three months with the Loon Lake police. He hoped not. He needed this man’s cooperation; he didn’t need him to know why he had had to leave.

“I was born in Mt. Clemens,” Wainwright said. “I was with the bureau in Detroit from fifty-seven till I retired in seventy-nine.” He paused. “Detroit was a great town in those days. A doubleheader at Briggs, a couple of coneys at Lafayette.”

He saw the blank look on Louis’s face.

“How old are you?” he asked.

Louis tried not to bristle. “Twenty-six.”

“And you got a feeling about Roberta.”

“I’d just like to explore some things,” Louis said. When Wainwright didn’t say anything, he added, “And it would be easier with your help.”

Wainwright let out a sigh. “Look, Mr. . ”

“Kincaid. Louis Kincaid.”

“We all know what happened here.”

“Apparently. You moved awful fast on that arrest.”

“It’s got nothing to do with Roberta Tatum being black. It’s just the pattern.”

“I don’t know about patterns. I’m just after the truth here,” Louis said.

Wainwright’s pale blue eyes locked on Louis. “The truth. Interesting concept.”

He reached behind him and tossed a file folder across the desk. “Okay, here’s the truth.”

Louis didn’t move.

“Take it. Look at it. Whoever killed this poor bastard was really pissed. That’s passion, Mr. Kincaid. Strangers. . muggers. . whatever, they don’t have passion. Wives, now they’re a whole different story.”

Louis opened the folder. It was neatly organized and he flipped immediately to the crime scene photos.

Walter Tatum was on his back, spread-eagled. What looked like a green or blue shirt was soaked in blood and his face was a brown blur against the tan sand.

Louis felt his stomach quiver and he swallowed dryly. He turned the pages slowly. Knife wounds, some deep, some surface. . gaping wounds in dead flesh. A shotgun blast to the thigh. Tatum’s skin ripped apart, leaving a tattered, fleshy hole splattered with blood.

Then a close-up of his face. Roberta was wrong; Walter Tatum still had a face but it wasn’t the face she had known. It was swollen with black patches visible beneath Tatum’s cinnamon-colored skin.

Louis tightened his facial muscles to keep from gagging. He closed the file and put it down.

Wainwright was watching him. He nodded toward the watercooler. Louis went to it and filled a Dixie Cup. He stood with his back to Wainwright, staring at a Rotary Club plaque while he drank it.

He heard Wainwright hoist his large body out of the swivel chair and turned.

“Come on, then, if you’re ready.”

“Where?”

“You want to see the crime scene, don’t you?”