“What about him?” Landeta asked nodding toward Louis.
Horton glanced between Louis and Landeta. “Nothing’s changed in spite of your comments on TV yesterday. Work with him, Mel. That’s an order.”
Landeta watched Horton move into the crowd then looked out at the bay. He said nothing but there was an emptiness in his gaze, a slight slump to the shoulders. Louis wondered if Landeta knew about the talk behind his back. He wondered if Landeta knew how close he was to not being a cop anymore.
He remembered suddenly what Landeta had said back in his office that day he had come in to pick up the baby skull.
So how long did it take before you didn't miss it anymore? And his thought at the time: Try a lifetime.
Louis drew in a breath. “Look,” he said “if it makes you feel any better, I agree with you on the other women. If you want —-”
Landeta’s head jerked back to Louis. “You think I need your shit-ass opinion to make me feel better?”
Louis tightened. “I only meant I understand how you must feel, with the chief shutting you down like that, that’s all.”
“You don’t understand shit.”
“Okay. You’re right,” Louis said. “I don’t understand you or him. But how can you not pursue the other women? Or maybe you’re just not seeing the connection. Is that it?”
“I see more than you think,” Landeta said “I see a hot- shot private eye who doesn’t have the guts to even try to put on a badge again.”
Louis leaned into him. “And I see a burn-out playing it easy just to keep his job.”
Landeta curled a fist, his body rigid. “You sonofabitch.”
Louis stared at him for a second, then stepped back. “I’m out of here,” Louis said, turning away.
“Where you going?” Landeta called out.
“To the morgue with Woods,” Louis shot back over his shoulder.
“Make sure he doesn’t get away from you this time,” Landeta yelled.
CHAPTER 29
“He couldn’t swim.”
Vince Carissimi looked up at Louis but then the medical examiner just shrugged and went back to weighing Frank Woods’s heart. Louis was staring at Frank’s body lying on the stainless steel table.
“Louis, he committed suicide. He wanted to die,” Vince said. “You didn’t kill him, for crissake.”
“I didn’t save him either.” Louis shook his head slowly. “How in hell does a person drown himself?”
“Easy,” Vince said. “You just take a deep breath and give up. It’s more common than you think. People drown themselves all the time —- bathtubs, lakes, pools. Hart Crane jumped off a steamship. Virginia Woolf walked into a river. Tchaikovsky, Ophelia, Jerry Baskin.”
“Who’s Jerry Baskin?”
“The bum in that movie ‘Down and Out in Beverly Hills.’ Tried to off himself in Richard Dreyfuss’s pool.”
“This isn’t funny, Vince.”
“It rarely is. Nemo ante mortem beatus.”
Louis just stared at him, waiting.
“Nobody is happy before his death,” Vince translated. He put his earphones back on and returned to his work. Louis was close enough to Vince to hear Janis Joplin singing “Summertime.” He moved away, going up to stand at the head of the table.
It struck him again how different Frank looked from the first time he had seen him in the library. Then, with his salt- and-pepper beard, bad haircut, pale skin, and stooped posture, Frank Woods had looked every inch the hermit bookworm he had been. But the three weeks he had spent as a murder suspect and then a hunted man had changed him. His hair was longer, his skin made leathery by the sun. His body looked almost sinewy, and even in death his face wore an odd expression of what -—puzzlement? Confusion over what had happened to his life?
Why had he done it? Guilt over killing those women? Fear of facing his daughter? Nobody is happy before his death. That was certainly true of Frank.
Louis glanced down at Frank’s left hand, at his gold wedding band. For the life of him, he just couldn’t see this man killing six women. But why had he confessed?
And those strange foreign words Frank had said in the restaurant. What was that all about?
Shit, what had he said? Something about hicks loot... hicks looties?
Louis was thinking about all the books in Frank’s house, all those language books, but he couldn’t recall seeing books on any one particular language. Linguistics, language origins, that kind of stuff.
Hicks looty ... was it Latin?
“Hey, Vince,” Louis called out.
Vince’s head was bobbing rhythmically. Louis picked up a towel and tossed it across the table, hitting Vince in the chest.