It was so light, and the whole thing fit neatly into his hand. He stared into the empty sockets, little holes no bigger than pennies.
What color had its eyes been?
Brown, like hers? Or gray, like mine?
What had its hair been like?
Coarse, like hers? Or soft, like mine?
What color was its skin?
Black, like hers? Or... like mine?
Louis set the skull down on the table and took a step away from it. He could see her in his mind, see her face the way it had looked that last day he saw her. Jaw clenched, tear-filled eyes that snapped with anger.
It’s yours, Louis, you know it is.
Shit, Kyla, what do you want from me? I’m twenty years old and I don’t want my life to be over!
Your life! What about mine! I’m getting rid of it!
Go, then. Just go....
Louis reached up to wipe the sweat off the back of his neck. The room was stifling, like the night breeze had suddenly died.
He heard a noise out in the dark and a moment later, he saw Pierre coming up the steps. He was lugging a large fan.
Pierre pushed open the screen and came in, setting the fan down with a huge exhalation.
“Voila!” he said.
“I still want a new air conditioner,” Louis said.
“Yes, yes,” Pierre said, flapping a hand. His eyes went to the skull on the table. He stared at it for a long time then turned to look at Louis.
“What is that?” he asked.
“A baby,” Louis said.
“Mon Dieu. Where did you get it?”
“I found it on the beach.”
Pierre’s tan face went a little chalky. “Dead babies on my beach?”
“No, no...it’s old.”
“Who is it?”
Louis shrugged.
Pierre started to pick it up.
“Don’t touch it, please.”
Pierre backed up, looking at Louis oddly. “You are not going to find out who it is?”
“It could have come from an abandoned cemetery. There’s no way to know.”
“You should ask Bessie,” Pierre said.
“Who?”
“Bessie Levy. She knows about old things.”
“Is she a historian or something?”
Pierre frowned. “Historian? Oh, no. Bessie is une vieille femme. She has been here forever, up in Bokeelia. She is old, very old, that is all. And maybe a little gaga.”
Pierre wagged a finger at his temple.
Louis sighed. He had been thinking about trying to trace the skull ever since Landeta had asked him what he was going to do with it. But he knew he needed to spend his time on Frank Woods. Diane Woods had already paid him five hundred dollars. And he hadn’t done much yet to earn it.
Louis picked up the skull and carefully laid it back in its box. He heard a whirring sound and turned to see Pierre positioning the fan near the sofa.
Pierre spread an arm out to the fan. “You will sleep good now.”
“I doubt it,” Louis said.
CHAPTER 9
It took an hour to get through the traffic jams in Cape Coral and another half hour before he was past the new subdivisions that were sprouting like mushrooms after a heavy rain. By the time Louis touched on to Pine Island, he knew he was going to be a good forty minutes late.
“Be on time. I got a hot date at four,” Bessie Levy had told him on the phone. She had hung up without another word.
Louis turned north on Stringfellow Road. The Federal Express box on the passenger seat slid and he grabbed it before it fell. He glanced down at the skull, but it was snug in its bed of Styrofoam peanuts.
Chances were slim to none that the woman could tell him anything about the skull. Even if she could pinpoint where it might have come from, there was no way he could ever find out its identity.
Still, it was like starting to read a book and leaving it unfinished. And searching for a nameless baby was a helluva lot more interesting than tailing a boring middle-aged librarian.
He had been wrong about Frank Woods. He wasn’t ordinary. He was dull —- depressingly, desperately dull.
The last three days and nights spent watching him had been like watching paint dry. Watching the guy get into his old Honda Civic at seven forty-five every morning. Following him to the library. Trailing him to the Denny’s down the block at noon. Waiting for him outside the library and tailing him home again. Sitting in the Mustang, watching the blue light of the television play against the drapes until Woods turned it off at eleven-thirty and went to bed.
Three days and three nights and the guy hadn’t changed his routine. Right down to sitting in the same seat at the Denny’s counter and ordering the same patty melt with fries. No one came to visit him and Woods never went out. The only change in the man’s stupefying routine came on Saturday, when Diane came over to pick him up and they went to Shoney’s for dinner. They returned ninety minutes later and Diane dropped him off, barely stopping long enough to let the guy out at the curb before she sped off. Louis noted that she looked upset, but Frank seemed his usual mundane self. He went inside and a moment later, the blue light of the TV came on.