The Little Death

Chapter Five

After he left the medical examiner’s office, the first thing Louis did was put the top down on the Mustang. Anything to get the smell of the rotting head from his nose.

They were heading west into the low sun. Louis slowed the Mustang to a crawl as the WELCOME TO CLEWISTON, AMERICA’S SWEETEST TOWN sign came into view.

“Is this berg as ugly as I remember it?” Mel asked.

Louis eyed the Dixie Fried Chicken joint. “It’s a good place to pass through, I’d say.”

“I was thinking that may be exactly what that tan luxury car was doing.”

“What do you mean?”

“If you were driving from coast to coast, this is an easy route. The car could have been coming over from the west coast and just passing through.”

Louis was quiet. Mel was right but only to a point. In the three years Louis had lived in Fort Myers, he had never once seen a Rolls-Royce or a Bentley. Even out in the moneyed neighborhoods on Sanibel and Captiva, the most extravagant cars he ever saw were Mercedes-Benzes and BMWs. Still, there was plenty of big money down near Naples, where a Rolls wouldn’t have been out of place.

“We need to stop and ask where this Devil’s Garden place is,” Louis said.

“Go a couple miles west of town, then turn left when you see the sign for the airstrip,” Mel said.

“How do you know that?”

“I asked the receptionist back at the ME’s office while you were in the can.”

They were out of Clewiston now, the stores lining Sugarland Highway giving way to the black dirt of the fallow fields. Louis spotted the sign for the airstrip and hung a left. They were heading due south, away from the cane and vegetable fields into pastureland divided by low wood fences. Clots of cattle stood motionless beneath the low branches of the live oaks, snow-white egrets perched on their rust-brown backs.

Louis knew there were cattle ranches in Florida, but he had always assumed they were somewhere north, maybe by the horse farms up near Ocala. It hit him again, as it had on the drive over, that Florida was many small unexpected worlds within its one large obvious one.

The road was deserted. Except for an occasional shed or other outbuilding in the pastures, there were no houses, no stores, no sign of human activity. It was, Louis thought, a good place to dump a body.

But the body hadn’t been dumped. Mark Durand had been murdered out here. How had his murderer gotten him out here? And why bother to go so far from Palm Beach when any freeway drainage ditch or canal would have done the job?

They were coming to an intersection. A small state-issued green sign said: DEVIL’S GARDEN. Louis pulled the Mustang to a stop on the side of the road.

Mel sat up in the seat and adjusted his sunglasses. The yellow lenses maximized contrast, so Louis suspected Mel could see pretty much what he himself could see: a T-section stop sign, a cluster of gigantic live oaks swagged with Spanish moss, and miles of pastureland.

“Why’d we stop?” Mel asked.

“We’re here.”

“Where the hell is the town?”

“There is no town.”

Mel surveyed the empty pasture and blew out a sigh. “Fucking Barberry. He knew there was nothing here. How are we going to find this damn cattle pen?”

Louis spotted a small sign in the weeds on the other side of the road. He got out and went to it. MARY LOU’S STRAIGHT AHEAD. He hadn’t noticed any stores as they drove in. Back in the car, he turned the Mustang around and headed back north.

“We giving up?” Mel asked.

“Not yet.”

A quarter-mile down the road, there was another sign with an arrow pointing right. The small cinder-block building sat back from the road in a dusty parking lot. There was an empty rust-pocked pickup truck at the lone gas pump.

“You coming in?” Louis asked as he parked.

Mel was squinting at the store. “Bring me a Coke.”

The interior of the store was dark after the brightness of the sun, a cramped warren of shelves holding canned goods, cereal, motor oil, and baskets of mangoes and blackening bananas. A skinny girl of about ten in a dirty sundress and dusty bare feet was staring longingly at a display of penny candy. Louis spotted an old cooler in the back and got a Coke. As he passed the girl, he paused, fished in his pocket, and held out a quarter. The girl hesitated, then took it.

“Thanks,” she whispered.

“You’re welcome.”

At the counter, Louis waited until the man behind the register was finished ringing up a six-pack of Tecate beer for an old fellow with a biblical beard.

“I wonder if you could help me out,” Louis asked as the man handed him his change.

“You lost?” the man asked.

“Sort of. Did you hear about the body they found out here last week?”

The man glanced at the old geezer, who was staring out the door at the Mustang. “Everybody around here heard about it,” the counterman said.

“Do you know exactly where it was found?” Louis asked.

“Can’t say that I do.”

“Why you wanna know?” the old man asked.

“I’m helping the police with the case,” Louis said.

“That so? Then how come you don’t know where the body was?”

“I’m not looking for trouble. Just a little help.”

The old man held Louis’s eye for a moment, then turned away. So did the guy behind the counter.

Louis picked up the Coke and pushed through the door. Back at the Mustang, he handed the Coke can to Mel.

“Any luck?” Mel asked as he popped the top.

“We’re on our own.”

Louis noticed the little girl coming toward the car, carrying a small brown bag. She stopped before Louis, her jaws working a wad of bubble gum.

“I know where they found it,” she said.

“Where?” Louis asked.

The girl looked at Mel and back at Louis. “Five dollars.”

Louis laughed. The girl didn’t break a smile.

“I tell you where it is for five dollars,” she repeated.

“Mel, give her five bucks,” Louis said.

“Forget it.”

“Give her the money.”

Mel grunted, dug in his pocket, and held out a bill.

The girl started to grab it, but Mel pulled it back, holding it just out of her reach.

The girl pointed south down the road. “Go past the sign for Devil’s Garden. The next road you come to, turn left. Take the road to the end. The pen is there. But it’s real old, and you have to look hard for it in the weeds.”

“You gonna trust this little extortionist?” Mel asked Louis.

“Give her the money,” Louis said.

Mel handed over the five. The girl stuffed the money into her dress pocket and ran off, her bare feet kicking up dust whirls in the still air.

Louis got back into the car and headed south. He almost missed the turn. The car left asphalt for rutted gravel. The trees grew thick overhead, an arching tunnel of live oaks. They passed a sign that read state land archer preserve.

The gravel road ended abruptly in some high weeds. Louis stopped the car. About fifty feet ahead, he saw a spot of yellow-crime tape hanging limp on old wood.

“Why’d you stop?” Mel asked.

“The road ends. I don’t need a flat out here. Let’s walk it.”

Louis shut off the engine. An overwhelming quiet surrounded them, as heavy as the humid, still air. Then came the metallic whine of cicadas.

“Watch your step, Mel,” Louis said. “The ground’s pretty rough.”

The pen was a skeleton of rotting old wood. Its shape was hard to discern in the chest-high weeds, but it looked to be a series of fenced areas fronted by a narrow incline that rose about six feet from the ground, like it was meant for loading animals. Louis’s only frame of reference for what he was seeing was a couple old westerns. Hud came to mind, and that scene that had always bothered him, the one where the cowboys were talking about having to shoot their diseased cows, and the stupid animals were crammed into a pit, bumping into each other with panicked eyes.

Mel came up to his side. He pulled a handkerchief from his pants and ran it over his glistening bald head. “Does this look as bad as I think it does?”

“Yeah. Looks like it was abandoned a long time ago.”

They picked their way through the weeds and into the first section of the pen. The ground was sandy dirt, and the high sides of the gray wood made the space feel like a large wooden cage.

The cicadas stopped screeching. The quiet flowed in.

“See anything useful?” Mel asked.

“Not really,” Louis said, his eyes scanning every inch of the fences and sand. “Just some rusted chains hanging on a gate.”

They went into the next section, but it was the same as the first. A narrow passageway led to another pen. It was a maze of rotting wood, weeds, and sand. Then, suddenly, the space opened. They were in a large pen, maybe thirty feet square, with a small listing lean-to tucked in a corner. Another ribbon of limp yellow tape hung from the fence.

Louis went to the center. It looked like a portion of the sand had been scooped out with a shovel.

“This is where he was killed,” Louis said.

“How can you tell?” Mel asked.

The sun was starting its descent. Louis figured Mel couldn’t make out any details now. “It looks like the crime-scene guys might have taken soil samples.”

Louis scanned the ground. It had rained during the last week, so there was nothing left of the prints Barberry had mentioned. There didn’t even seem to be any evidence of blood.

Louis stood still, listening. No sounds now. Even the birds had retreated to their night roosts. There was no feeling, either. And he had always been able to get a feeling about a murder scene in the past. It was nothing he could put his finger on, nothing he could articulate. And he never told anyone about it. But he had learned to trust the weird vibration that sometimes came when he stood in the place where a person had taken his last breath.

But there was nothing here. Except for a strange feeling of something old and buried. Like an abandoned grave or-

“I can’t see it.”

Mel had spoken in a whisper. Louis turned to him.

“Can’t see what?” Louis asked.

“Reggie. I can’t see a guy like him coming out here and whacking off someone’s head. A guy like him wouldn’t even know this place was here. Shit, we barely found it.”

Louis was quiet. He had been thinking the same thing. But how much did Mel really know about this Kent guy?

Louis went over to where Mel was and waited until Mel had lit his cigarette. “What are we doing here, Mel?” he asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Reggie Kent. Why do you care what happens to a guy like that?”

“A guy like what?”

Louis was silent. A hot current started up his neck.

“Gay,” Mel said. “You can’t even say it, for crissake.”

“That’s not-”

“And you’re wondering how I even know a guy like that.”

The way Mel had drawn out the last two words made Louis fall silent again. Mel took a long drag on his cigarette.

“I met Reggie about fifteen years ago, when I was a sergeant with Miami PD,” Mel said. “One of my guys called me on an assault. It was Thanksgiving, and the only reason I was working that night was because I switched with a guy who wanted the day off to be with his family. When I got there, I saw Reggie sitting on the curb, all beat up. The uniform pulled me aside and said the two guys who attacked him were in a bar across the street. The uniform wanted my permission to no-action it.”

Mel blew out a long stream of smoke. “The uniform said it wasn’t worth the paperwork to go arrest them.”

“What did you do?” Louis asked.

“I told the uniforms to leave,” Mel said. “Kent said he didn’t have anyone he could call, so I drove him to Jackson Memorial.”

Mel tossed the cigarette to the sand and ground out the butt with his heel.

“I went back to check up on him the next day,” he said. “Turned out he had a concussion. Almost lost an eye. He was in the hospital for a week. I went back and saw him a couple of times. The nurse told me he never had any visitors. No family, either.”

Louis watched as Mel worked his jaw. It was the same agitated gesture he had done back at the sheriff’s office, just before he told Barberry to “knock off that shit.”

“So, you and Kent,” Louis began. “You became friends?”

Mel shook his head. “Nah. But at Christmas, he sent me a fruit basket at the station.”

Louis smiled.

Mel smiled, too. “Yeah, I took some shit for that.”

“But you never saw him?”

“Nope. But every year, he sent a Christmas card to the station.”

“How’d he find you after you quit?” Louis asked.

“Beats me. Somebody at the station probably told him I had hired on with Fort Myers PD. My home number’s in the phone book.” Mel took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “I was shocked as hell when he called me. Our paths crossed once a long time ago. That’s all.”

The sun was setting, great streaks of red. Louis wanted to start back so they wouldn’t be caught out there when the dark came. But Mel had pulled out the Zippo and another Kool. The lighter flared and snapped closed with a sharp clink. Mel’s face was lost in the dusk.

Again, the question came to Louis: What were they doing here? What was he doing here? Swann and even Barberry looked down their noses at him because he didn’t have a badge. But he was used to that. He was even used to being the only black guy in a town of whites. What he wasn’t used to was feeling like some kind of insect because he wasn’t wearing the right jacket.

Face it, Kincaid, this isn’t about Reggie Kent. It’s about you not feeling like you fit in.

“I know you don’t want to take this case,” Mel said.

Louis looked at him. Mel was a silhouette, the tip of his cigarette glowing.

“I’m just not sure there’s a case here, Mel,” Louis said. “I’m not sure we can be any good to this Kent guy.”

“Is it because he’s gay? That’s not like you to-”

“No,” Louis said. “That’s not it.”

“What’s bothering you, then?”

“Nothing. Nothing’s bothering me.”

Mel took a long drag on the cigarette. “Something’s eating at you, Rocky. It’s been going on for a while now. You aren’t a barrel of laughs even in the best of times, but lately-”

“Gee, thanks.”

“You know what I mean.” Mel’s cigarette glowed in the dark. “Is it Joe?”

Louis was glad Mel couldn’t see his face. Truth was, it was Joe, in part. He hadn’t seen her in months, and they had barely talked on the phone since Thanksgiving. He loved her, but he had the feeling now that they were drifting, and he wasn’t sure anymore it was toward each other.

“All right,” Mel said. “You don’t have to tell me.”

They were quiet for a long time. A cricket started up nearby. Louis could barely make out the yellow crime tape now.

“I want to try to help Reggie,” Mel said. “And you know I can’t do this alone anymore.”

Louis heard the catch in Mel’s voice, knew how hard it was for him to admit that.

“Let’s give it a day, all right?” Mel said. “See how far we get.”

Louis shut his eyes. No vibration. No feeling. No sense of what had happened in this strange place. His intuition was telling him only to get out of there.

“Let’s go,” Louis said. “You better take my arm.”

Mel put a hand on Louis’s sleeve, and Louis led him out of the darkness.