The Little Death (26 page)

“I know, I know,” Mel said. “I’m not laughing, believe me. It happened to me once. It’s called
la petite mort.”

Louis shook his head.

“The little death,” Mel said. “That’s what the French call an orgasm.”

“Mel, she passed out cold,” Louis said.

“Well, sometimes with intense orgasms, there’s a decrease of blood to the brain, to the orbitofrontal cortex, to be exact. That’s the part of the brain that is involved in behavioral control.”

“How do you know this?”

“I told you, it happened to me once. The woman went out like a light, and I thought I had screwed her to death. After I got over myself, I did some research and found out I wasn’t the big stud I thought I was.”

Louis was quiet. He remembered something she had said while he was making love to her.
Die with me.
At least now it didn’t seem so damn weird.

“Forget about it, Rocky,” Mel said. “Forget about her. And you should call Joe back. A woman like her doesn’t come around very often, and you’d be an ass to let her go. Believe me, I know.”

Louis looked over at him. He had wondered a million times why Mel and Joe had broken up all those years back. Mel had said only that it was because she was a rookie just getting her start, and he was so much older and going blind and didn’t want to be a burden on her. He was sure Joe felt nothing but friendship for Mel now. As for Mel’s feelings, he had heard Mel talk with regret about only one thing in his life: the time his pride over his growing blindness had kept him behind the wheel of the squad car that had hit a kid and left him paralyzed. Mel had never before mentioned any regret about Joe.

Louis stared at the photograph of Sam for another moment, then his eyes went to the phone on the nearby table. But no words were coming, nothing that was an answer to Joe’s words that had stung him most:
I want you to want something for yourself.

Louis tossed the newspaper onto the table. He rose abruptly and went to the window, squinting as he stared out at the ocean.

“I called Vinny about bringing Labastide home to Immokalee,” Mel said.

Louis was grateful that Mel had said something. “What did he say?” he asked, without turning.

“Vinny got a pretty good price from a friend of his who owns a funeral home. Think Margery will be okay with four grand?”

Louis turned. “How much was the exhumation and autopsy?”

“Seventeen thousand.”

“Well, she said she liked the kid,” Louis said. “I’ll guess we’ll find out how much.”

Louis came back to the sofa and grabbed the social register. He started toward the door.

“Where are you going?” Mel asked.

“To find Tink and Dickie,” Louis said.

“Do you want me to come along?” Mel asked. “We could stop for a drink on the way back.”

Louis hesitated. “I think I want to go alone.”

Mel shook his head. “Rocky, you’ve got to stop digging yourself deeper into this shithole funk.” When Louis didn’t say anything, Mel went on. “When you decide to put down the shovel, I’ll be here for you.”

Chapter Twenty-two
 

Richard and Tricia Lyons lived in an oceanfront mon-strosity of a house. It was not one of those pretty Mediterranean Mizners that actually had some character. This was a new pastiche palace with Greek columns, gaudy chandeliers, and a grand arched entryway hung with faux-Versailles mirrors.

Carrying the humidor in the Saks shopping bag and led by a butler who wrongly assumed he was a pool guy named Marine Mike, Louis took the long walk through the canyons of the house. He knew very little about interior decorating, but there seemed to be little continuity in decor from room to room.

A white baby-grand piano basked in a rainbow of light from the cathedral-sized stained-glass window. A twenty-foot aquarium took up one entire wall, stocked with tropical
fish and lobsters. An indoor Jacuzzi sat smack in the middle of a room filled with garden furniture. There was a twelve-foot marble statue of a Greek-gowned woman in one corner. The statue’s toes were painted bright red.

Louis followed the butler outdoors to a jungle of palms and bushes with pink saucer-sized hibiscus blossoms. Beyond was a large kidney-shaped pool, its water the deep blue of the Electric Popsicle cocktail Louis had tried once down in Key West.

“Hello.”

The voice was airy and unsure. Louis looked around and, seeing no one, ventured out from under the greenery and into the sun. A woman stood on the flagstone patio, a tawny-colored Afghan dog at her side. With its long, combed layers of hair, sagging face, and red-rimmed eyes, the dog had the look of an aging rock star after a long night.

Sadly, the woman resembled her pet. Wearing only a white swimsuit, she was rail-thin, with loose, deeply tanned skin cut with so many tiny lines she looked shrink-wrapped. Her hair could have been a wig created from the dog’s hair, a long pageboy that wasn’t moving in the breeze.

The woman sucked on a cigarette in a gold holder. “Hello,” she said again.

“Hello,” Louis said.

“You’re not Marine Mike,” she said.

“No, ma’am,” Louis said. “My name is Louis Kincaid. I’m a private investigator working for—”

“Reggie,” she said.

“Yes.”

The woman blinked and glanced toward the house.
In profile, her long fake lashes protruded like fishhooks. Above them were streaks of green shadow. She was wearing a large teardrop ruby necklace.

The woman’s aqueous blue eyes came back to him. “I should offer you a drink,” she said. “I don’t know where Gerald is. Did he tell you where he went? Should I call him?”

“I don’t need a drink, ma’am,” Louis said. “Thank you anyway. May I ask—”

She moved away from him, taking the long way around the lagoon to a small table in the shade. She picked up a glass, then, apparently seeing it was empty, reached for her terry-cloth robe instead. Her hands shook as she tried to find the holes for the sleeves.

He walked around the pool to her. “May I ask if you’re Mrs. Lyons?”

She turned so quickly she seemed to lose her balance. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t like people coming up behind me. I’m sorry.”

“I apologize.”

“No, it’s I who should apologize. I should have introduced myself to you, and then you wouldn’t have had to pester me for the information, would you?”

He was quiet, beginning to wonder if this woman was completely lucid.

She turned back to the table, picked up a silver cocktail shaker, and refilled her glass with a cranberry-colored liquid. “These are very good, you know,” she said. “But they have the naughtiest name.”

There were two empty glasses on a silver tray, and she picked one up. He was going to get a drink whether he wanted one or not and decided not to argue.

“They’re called Sex on the Beach,” she said, pushing the glass at him. “I had one at a party last New Year’s, and I just fell in love.”

He accepted the glass.

“Take a sip,” she said, touching his hand. “Go on. Seize the moment, as they say.”

He took a drink. As she watched him, her eyes lit up with delight. For a second, he wondered if she was going to break into giddy applause.

“Do you like it?” she asked.

“Yes.”

The dog was suddenly between them, circling his mistress and licking the sweat off her bare legs. She murmured an apology to the animal, whose name was apparently Barkley, then set her glass on the ground. Louis watched in amazement as the dog lapped the glass dry. Its toenails, he realized, were painted the same red as the statue he had seen on his way in.

“Sit, please. Sit,” she said.

For a second, he thought she meant the dog. “Me?” Louis asked.

She stared at him, her fishhook lashes fluttering as she gave a little laugh. It sounded like the tinkle of wind chimes. “Of course, you,” she said, gesturing toward a chair.

He didn’t move. “Mrs. Lyons, I’d like to ask you a couple of questions about a—”

“Tink. Please,” she said. “I’m Tink to my friends. Been Tink for forty years now, ever since I was ten.”

Christ, even Mel could have seen this woman was not fifty. Given the leathered skin, the bottle-shaped breasts, and the road map of purple on her legs, she was easily sixty-five, even if it was an expensively preserved sixty-five.

Louis set his drink on the table and reached into the shopping bag. “I’d like to ask you about something,” he said. He withdrew the box and held it out to her. “Do you recognize this?” he asked.

Her eyes widened. “That’s Dickie’s humidor. Where did you get it?”

Louis hesitated, not sure how much to tell her. If the humidor had been a gift from this woman to Durand for his services, why did she seem surprised that it was missing from her home?

“You didn’t give it to anyone?” Louis asked.

Tink placed a hand over heart, breathless. “Goodness, no,” she said. “Dickie would kill me if I gave his humidor away. I would never. In fact, I’m not even allowed in his room.”

Louis glanced at the house. He’d love to get inside Dickie’s “room,” but if his wife wasn’t allowed, there was no shot for him.

“What else does he keep in his room?” Louis asked.

Tink suddenly turned, looking around for something. She seemed confused, whispering things Louis couldn’t understand.

“Mrs. Lyons, are you all right?”

“Yes, yes,” she said. “Is that my phone? Do you hear my phone?”

“No, ma’am.”

“I’m sure it’s ringing,” she said, starting toward the house. “Harriet must be in the laundry. She can’t hear the phone when she’s in there.”

The dog hurried after her. So did Louis, gently reaching for her arm to stop her. When she faced him, her eyes were wide and brimming with tears.

“Are you going to arrest me?” she asked.

He let go of her arm and took a step back. The right thing to do would have been to reassure her that he couldn’t arrest her or anyone else. But he didn’t care about making her feel better. He wanted answers.

“Why would I arrest you?”

She clasped the lapels of her robe and looked to the house, as if she was afraid they might be interrupted by someone.

“Mrs. Lyons, is your husband home?”

“No,” she said softly. “He’s out of town.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know exactly,” she said. “He’s hunting. He hunts those big awful pigs in the Everglades. They go every year.”

“Who goes?” Louis asked. “Who does your husband hunt with?”

Again she looked to the house. Louis followed her gaze. A maid stood near the French doors, watching them.

“Harriet is watching us,” Tink whispered. “She’ll tell Dickie you were here. He won’t like that.”

“That’s okay,” Louis said. “I’ll deal with your husband. Now, tell me, who does he hunt with?”

“Well, there’s Bus Hamilton and George McMillan and—”

“Does he ever hunt with Tucker Osborn?”

Tink looked up, her eyes suddenly clear and bright blue, as if she’d just realized she was being interrogated and had said too much.

“You need to go now,” she said. “You need to go and never come back. I haven’t done anything wrong. I was
only lonely. There’s nothing illegal about being lonely. Now, go. Or I’ll call Chief Hewitt to come and remove you.”

Louis wanted to pursue her “loneliness,” but he didn’t need a confrontation with Swann’s boss, nor did he need to be exiled from the island at this stage of the investigation. He backed away from Tink and bent down to slip the humidor back into the Saks bag.

Tink reached for it. “That’s Dickie’s,” she said. “He’ll want it back.”

“Not yet,” Louis said, pushing her hand aside. “It’s evidence in a murder case.”

“Whose murder?”

“Mark Durand,” Louis said.

Tink stared at him, her faded pink lips agape.

“You remember good old Mark, don’t you, Tink? I heard you two were real good friends.”

“How dare you insinuate that I knew that despicable man,” she said.

Hell, he had come this far. What did he have to lose?

“Oh, you knew him,” Louis said. “Problem was, Dickie found out about you two. And he didn’t like that very much, did he?”

Tink Lyons did her best to puff herself up with indignation, but there was a real look of fear in her eyes.

“Get out,” she said.

Louis picked up the Saks bag, and with a small bow, he turned and started back through the jungle. He was almost back to the house when a spot of fire red caught his eye.

It was a good three feet tall, sitting on a table in the shade. The exact same red orchid he had seen in the Osborn house.

With a glance back toward the pool, he broke off one of the flowered sprigs and stuck it in his pocket.

He felt the weight of someone’s stare and spun. It was just the Afghan. It was sitting three feet away, its sleepy eyes fixed on him.

Louis retraced his steps through the house, listening to the
click-click
of the dog’s nails as it followed him. There was no sign of the butler. After a few false turns, Louis finally found the front door and let himself out. The Afghan came out with him and watched him every step of the way.

After leaving Tink Lyons’s home, he headed straight to Clean & Green in West Palm Beach. He showed the owner, Chuck Green, the red blossom he had taken from Tink’s patio. Green was surprised to see the orchid.