The Little Death Read online

  THE

  LITTLE

  DEATH

  BOOKS BY P. J. PARRISH

  The Little Death*

  South of Hell*

  A Thousand Bones*

  An Unquiet Grave

  A Killing Rain

  Island of Bones

  Thicker Than Water

  Paint It Black

  Dead of Winter

  Dark of the Moon

  * Published by POCKET BOOKS

  THE

  LITTLE

  DEATH

  P. J. PARRISH

  POCKET STAR BOOKS

  New York London Toronto Sydney

  The sale of this book without its cover is unauthorized. If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that it was reported to the publisher as “unsold and destroyed.” Neither the author nor the publisher has received payment for the sale of this “stripped book.”

  Pocket Star Books

  A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  1230 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, NY 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2009 by P. J. Parrish

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Pocket Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  First Pocket Star Books paperback edition March 2010

  POCKET STAR BOOKS and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales at 1-866-506-1949 or [email protected].

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  Cover design and illustration: Jae Song

  Photograph of ghost orchid: Mick Fournier

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  ISBN 978-1-4165-2589-9

  ISBN 978-1-4391-6923-0 (ebook)

  For Barbara Parker,

  writer, teacher, mentor, friend.

  Let us alone. What pleasure can we have

  To war with evil? Is there any peace

  In ever climbing up the climbing wave?

  All things have rest, and ripen toward the grave

  In silence—ripen, fall, and cease:

  Give us long rest or death, dark death, or dreamful ease.

  —Tennyson, The Lotus Eaters

  THE

  LITTLE

  DEATH

  Chapter One

  Something wasn’t right. He could tell from the baying of the dog.

  It wasn’t the normal barking that came when the dogs had come across a cow mired in a mud hole. It wasn’t the frenzied yelps that signaled the dogs had cornered a boar in the brush.

  This was like screaming.

  Burke Aubry shifted in his saddle and peered into the darkness. A heavy fog had rolled in before dawn, and it distorted everything—shapes, smells, but especially sound. The barking seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once, rising and falling with every shift of the cold morning wind.

  A rustling to his left. He turned, ears pricked.

  Just a cabbage palm. Its thick trunk, hidden by the fog, seemed to float above the ground. The wind sent the heavy fronds scraping against each other. It sounded like the rasp of a dying man.

  Movement in the corner of his eye. The dark mass took shape as it came toward him, the blur hardening slowly into horse and rider.

  It was Dwayne. Aubry could tell from the red kerchief he always wore around his neck. A second later, another, smaller shape emerged, a large yellow dog following close behind the horse.

  Dwayne drew his horse up next to Aubry’s. “You hear that?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You think one of the curs got into it with a boar?”

  Aubry didn’t answer. He was listening to the baying. It sounded like it was coming from the south. But none of the men or their dogs were supposed to be down there.

  He jerked the radio from his saddle. “Mike?”

  A cackle of static. “Yeah, boss?”

  “You working the east ten pasture?”

  “That’s where you told us to go.”

  “Are all of you there?”

  A pause. “Yes, sir.”

  “What about the dogs?”

  “Dogs?”

  “Are all your dogs with you?”

  “They’re all—”

  “Count ’em, Mike.”

  Seconds later, he came back. “Ted says his dog has gone missing.”

  A high-pitched yelping rose on the wind. It was coming from the south, Aubry was sure this time. He keyed the radio. “Mike, get the men down to Devil’s Garden.”

  “Devil’s Garden? But—”

  “Just do it, Mike.”

  Aubry stowed the radio and turned to Dwayne. “Let’s go.”

  Even in the fog, he knew where he was going. He had been working the ranch for nearly four decades now, and he knew every foot of the four thousand acres, knew every tree, every swamp, every fence. He knew, too, that no living thing, not even a dog, had any reason to be in Devil’s Garden.

  They headed south. They crossed a stream and entered a thick grove of old live oaks. The gray fog shroud wrapped the trees, softening their black, twisting branches and webs of Spanish moss.

  The baying was loud now. It was coming from the direction of the old cow pen. The pen was one of the largest on the ranch but had been abandoned twenty years ago. Aubry urged his horse on. Suddenly, the yellow dog darted ahead of them through the tall, wet ferns.

  Dwayne whistled, but the dog was lost in the fog.

  The men prodded their horses to a fast trot. The dark wood of the pen’s fence emerged from the mist. Two dogs now, barking and growling.

  Aubry got off his horse, pulling out his rifle. He scaled the fence, and the barking drew him deeper into the maze of holding pens.

  He reached the large central pen and stopped, rifle poised to shoot if the dogs were confronting an animal. But the mass that the dogs were hunched over wasn’t moving. Aubry heard Dwayne come in behind him and then Dwayne’s sharp command to the dogs to heel. Ears flat, fur raised, the dogs backed off.

  Aubry approached the mass slowly, rifle ready.

  The pale flesh stood out against the black dirt. At first, he thought it was a skinned boar carcass. Then he saw the arm. A step closer, and the rest of the mass took shape. A leg, and then a second one bent at a horrid angle under the hump of a bare back.

  It was a man, naked.

  Aubry stopped. There was no head.

  “Hey, boss, what we got—”

  Aubry heard Dwayne’s sharp intake of breath as he saw the corpse.

  “Jesus,” Dwayne said.

  Aubry pulled out his radio.

  “Ah, sweet Jesus, where’s his head?” Dwayne whispered.

  Aubry keyed the radio. “Mike? Get back to the house and call the sheriff.”

  “What?”

  “Just do what I say, Mike. Tell them there’s a dead man. Give them directions to the old cow pen in Devil’s Garden.”

  “Dead man? Who?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Aubry clicked off and pocketed the radio. He heard a retching sound and turned. Dwayne was leaning on a fence
, wiping his face.

  Aubry looked back at the body. He felt the rise of bile in his throat and swallowed hard. Shifting the rifle to his back, he squatted next to the body.

  He could see now that there were deep slashes across the back, like the man had been cut badly. And it looked like the head had been cut off cleanly, almost like it had been sawed off. He scanned the pen as far as the fog would allow but didn’t see the head.

  He looked down. He realized suddenly that what he thought was black dirt was sand saturated with blood. The black pool spread out a good four feet from the body. He stood up and took two long strides back. The toes of his boots were black.

  His radio crackled, but he didn’t hear it. His brain was far away, and suddenly, the memories he had tried so hard to bury were right there with him again. Another spread of blood, a different body. Once again, the outsiders would come here, men with guns, badges, and questions. Once again, he would have to stand silent and watch as the waves ate away yet more of his island.

  The pain hit him, a knife to the heart, and he closed his eyes.

  The wind died suddenly, and the quiet moved in.

  He looked up, to where the fog had burned off, leaving a hole in the sky. He blinked rapidly to keep the tears away, watching the patch of sky until it turned from blue velvet to gray flannel.

  An owl hooted. A hawk screamed. Then came the soft mewing cries of the catbirds. The day was coming alive in this place of death.

  Chapter Two

  The top was down on the Mustang, and the road ahead was empty. Louis Kincaid was not sure exactly where he was going.

  He had never driven this road before. On all of his trips over to the east coast, he had taken Alligator Alley, which cut a straight, expedient slash across the Everglades from Naples to Fort Lauderdale. Always in the past, he had arrived quickly, done his job, and headed straight back home.

  But this time, an impulse he did not understand had led him to the back roads.

  The map told him he had to stay on US-80, but the highway had changed names several times already, narrowing to meander through cattle pastures and tomato farms, offering up a red-planked barbecue joint, a sun-burnt nursery, or a psychic’s bungalow. Three times, the speed limit dropped, and US-80 became Main Street, passing Alva’s white-steepled church, La Belle’s old courthouse, and Clewiston’s strip malls. From there, the towns fell away, leaving only the vast flat expanse of the sugarcane fields, broken by a row of high power lines, marching like giant alien soldiers to the horizon.

  The wind was hot on Louis’s face and the scenery was a blur of color—the high green curtain of the cane and the denim of the December sky. The sun was behind him, and he had a strong urge to turn the car around and head back home. But he had made a promise and had to see this thing through.

  Soon he reached the sprawling suburbs of West Palm Beach. The fast-food joints and gas stations grew denser the farther east the car went, ending in the pastel warren of old downtown West Palm Beach.

  At the Intracoastal, Louis steered the Mustang onto a low-slung bridge that connected the mainland to the barrier island. He had the thought that the bridge looked nothing like the one that led from Fort Myers over to his island home on the Gulf. The Sanibel– Captiva causeway was a plain concrete expanse that leapfrogged across rocky beaches dotted with kids and wading fishermen.

  This one looked like the drawbridge to a Mediterranean castle, complete with two ornamental guard towers.

  The bridge emptied onto a broad boulevard lined with majestic royal palms and fortresslike buildings that looked like banks. There was no welcome sign, no signs anywhere. He guessed he was in Palm Beach now.

  “Mel, wake up,” he said.

  No sound or movement from the passenger seat.

  Louis reached over and jabbed the lump. “Mel! Wake up!”

  “What?”

  “We’re here. Where do I go?”

  Mel Landeta sat up with a grunt, adjusted his sunglasses, and looked around.

  “Take a right on South County Road,” he said.

  “Where? There’s no street signs.”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t been here in a long time. The island’s only fourteen miles long and a mile wide. If you hit the ocean, you’ve gone too far.”

  Louis spotted the street name painted on the curb and hung a right. The financial citadels of the boulevard gave way to boutiques and restaurants.

  “Where we meeting this guy?” Louis asked.

  “Some place called Ta-boo. Two more blocks and hang a right onto Worth Avenue. You can’t miss it, believe me.”

  In the three years Louis had been in Florida—despite the fact his PI cases had taken him from Tallahassee to Miami—he had never made it over to Palm Beach. But he knew what Worth Avenue was: the Rodeo Drive of the South, minus the movie stars. He slowed the Mustang to a crawl, looking for a parking spot. Some of the store names he recognized—Armani, Gucci, Dior, Cartier—but most didn’t register. What did register was the almost creepy cleanliness of the street. From the blinding white of the pavement to the gleaming metal of the Jaguars and Bentleys at curbside, Worth Avenue had the antiseptic look of an operating room.

  He pulled the Mustang in behind a black and gold Corniche. Mel sniffed the air like a dog. “Ah, the sweet smell of money.”

  The only thing Louis could smell was perfume. It took him a moment to realize it was wafting out on an arctic stream of air-conditioning from the open door of the Chanel boutique. A security guard, dressed in blue suit and tie, was stationed just inside the door.

  Mel got out and stretched. He pulled his black sports coat from the backseat and slipped it on, then looked at Louis.

  “Did you bring a jacket?” he asked.

  Louis stared at him.

  “A sports coat,” Mel said. “I told you to pack one.”

  “It’s eighty degrees,” Louis said.

  “Get it,” Mel said.

  Stifling a sigh, Louis popped the trunk and shook out his blue blazer. The Chanel guard had come out to stand just outside the door and was watching him.

  “Hey, buddy,” Mel called out. “Which way is Ta-boo?”

  The guard’s eyes swung to Mel, giving him the once-over before he spoke. “Two blocks back,” he said.

  They headed east down the wide sidewalk, pausing at a corner for a Mercedes to turn. Louis’s gaze traveled up the imposing coral stone façade of the Tiffany & Co. building to the statue of Atlas balancing a clock. It was one-forty. They were late.

  “You still haven’t told me how you know this guy,” Louis said as they started across the street.

  “I knew him when I was with Miami PD,” Mel said. “I helped him out once when he got in a jam.”

  This was certainly more than a jam, Louis thought. Reggie Kent was the prime suspect in a murder. A murder gruesome enough to have made the papers over in Fort Myers. A decapitated body had been found in the fields on the westernmost fringe of Palm Beach County. The head had not been found, but the mutilated corpse was identified as a Palm Beach man named Mark Durand.

  The sheriff’s department had connected the dots, and they had led sixty miles east and across the bridge, right to Reggie Kent’s island doorstep.

  That was all he knew, Mel had said. Other than Reggie Kent was scared shitless. And that he was innocent, of course.

  “This must be the place,” Mel said.

  The restaurant’s large open window framed two blond women sitting at a table sipping drinks. Inside, it was as cool and dark as a tomb, the long, narrow room dominated by a sleek bar. Beyond, through a latticed entrance, Louis could see a main dining room.

  Louis knew that Mel probably couldn’t see well. His retinitis pigmentosa allowed him to see blurred images if the light was bright, but at night or in the dimness of a bar, he needed help. Not that Mel would ask.

  “What’s this Reggie guy look like?” Louis asked.

  “I haven’t seen him in ten years. Blond, stocky. Nice-looking g
uy, I guess.”

  The bar was packed, mainly with more blondes, who had given them a quick, dismissive once-over. There was a man sitting at the far end, waving a hand. Louis led Mel through a sea of silk and tanned legs.

  The guy who had signaled them slid off his zebra-print bar stool. “Mel,” he said, “My God, you haven’t changed a bit.”

  “Neither have you, Reggie,” Mel said, sticking out his hand.

  Louis knew Mel couldn’t see the guy well, but the lie brought a smile to Reggie Kent’s face as he shook Mel’s hand. In the blue reflected light of the saltwater aquarium behind the bar, Louis could see Reggie’s face clearly. He was probably about fifty, but his round, pale face had an oddly juvenile look. His skin was pink and shiny, almost like the slick skin of a burn victim. Wisps of blond hair hung over wide blue eyes. He wore a pink oxford shirt beneath a light blue linen blazer and white slacks.

  As Reggie Kent hefted himself back onto the bar stool he revealed a glimpse of bare pink ankle above soft navy loafers. The whole effect made Louis think of a giant Kewpie doll.

  “You’ve saved my life,” Reggie Kent said.

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Mel said.

  “Yes, yes, of course.” Reggie ran a hand over his brow. The bar was frigid, but Louis could see a sheen of sweat on the man’s face.

  “This is Louis Kincaid, the guy I told you about,” Mel said, nodding.

  Reggie focused on Louis. “You’re the private investigator.”

  His voice had dropped to a whisper, and his blue eyes honed in on Louis with intense curiosity before darting away. “You need a drink. How rude of me. Yuba!”

  The bartender appeared, a tall woman with long, sleek black hair and almond-colored skin, wearing a white shirt and a black vest.

  “You need a refill?” she said in a softly accented voice.

  “Yes, another Rodnik gimlet. And whatever my friends are having. Just put it on my tab.”

  The woman hesitated.

  “What?” Reggie asked.

  “Don says I can’t run a tab for you anymore,” she said quietly. “I’m sorry, Reggie.”