“I hear you. You got anything to drink left?” Louis asked.
“Yeah, I got twelve cases of Coors back there that’s hotter than dog piss.”
“I’ll pass. How about a bottle of brandy?”
Roberta moved away and returned with a bottle of Remy Martin.
Louis shook his head. “I can’t afford that.”
Roberta rolled her eyes. ‘Take it, damn it. I saw an ad for booze the other day and I thought of you. Went something like claret’s for boys and wine’s for men. But brandy is for heros.”
“I’m no hero,” Louis said.
“Don’t I know it.”
Roberta leaned against the counter, fanning herself with a copy of the Island Reporter. Louis came to the store at least once a week but he hadn’t noticed until now that she looked thinner. Two years had passed since her husband, Walter, had been murdered, and he wondered how she was doing. Not that he would ask. Even though he had played the main role in finding Walter Tatum’s killer.
A man and woman came in, their sunburned faces animated. The woman was carrying a handful of shells.
“Could we bother you for a bag?” she asked Roberta.
Roberta gave her a cold stare, then snapped a plastic bag off the rack and thrust it at the woman. The couple left.
“Damn tourists, like buzzards picking through the garbage,” Roberta muttered, fanning herself again. “What the hell do they think they’re going to find out there anyways?”
Louis paused just a beat. “I found a skull.”
Roberta threw him a look. “Yeah, right.”
“I’m not kidding. I found a skull on the beach.”
Roberta stopped fanning herself. “What? You mean a head?”
“No, it’s a clean skull. It looks like a baby skull, but it looks old,” he added, as if that made it easier to accept.
Roberta came closer. “A baby? What did you do with it?”
“It’s back at my place.”
“It’s in your house? Where at?”
Louis shrugged. “In a chair wrapped in a shirt.”
“You just left a baby’s skull in your chair?”
“Well, it’s a comfortable chair.”
“That’s not funny.”
“C’mon, Roberta. It’s not like it’s...” He paused, watching her. “Like a fresh victim.”
Her black eyes pierced him. “You ever had a baby?”
“No.”
“Ever even been around one?”
Louis shook his head, but he was remembering a moment long ago. He’d almost had one.
Roberta let out a huff. “Didn’t think so.”
“Christ, Roberta,” he said, “I’ve seen bones, skeletons before. It’s no big deal. It’s just a skull.”
She began to stuff his groceries into a bag. “Yeah, just a skull you leave in your chair and make jokes about. It’s no joke. It’s what’s left of a baby. You hearing me?”
Louis felt his neck muscles tighten. “I’m hearing you.”
She thrust the bag at him. “I doubt it.”
Louis reached into his pocket for some money. Roberta shook her head when he held out the bills.
“Pay me later. The register ain’t working anyway.”
Louis hesitated, wanting to make things right but not understanding why Roberta was so bent out of shape in the first place. “I have to report it. You know anybody with a radio?”
“Nope.” She turned away, fanning herself with the newspaper again.
Louis picked up the bag and started out the door.
“Talk to Jay Strickland.”
Louis stopped. “He’s got a radio?”
“Should have. He’s a cop.”
“Where do I find him?”
“Last time I looked, he was out front. Can’t miss him. Red hair, like Woody Woodpecker.”
Louis stepped out into the sun. He spotted Strickland’s spiky red hair immediately in the knot of men in the parking lot. Strickland was wearing cutoff jeans and a faded Hawaiian shirt, but Louis could see the police radio sticking out of his back pocket. He approached and introduced himself.
Strickland gave him a handshake and an easy smile. “Kincaid, yeah. I’ve heard the other guys talk about you. I was hoping we’d get to meet sometime.”
Louis eyed the other men. “Could we talk in private, Officer?”
“Sure.”
As they moved away, Louis studied the deputy. He didn’t seem to be much older than his own twenty-seven years. Probably younger. Louis filled him in, and Strickland’s expression turned somber as he put on his cop face.
“Can you call it in?” Louis asked.
“Sure. But I can tell you no one can get out here for hours, because the causeway road is out. I’m only here ’cause I live over in Sanibel.” He nodded to an old green Vespa and grinned. “Rode over on my hog.”