Island of Bones(62)

Vince snatched off the earphones. “What?”

“Vince, Frank Woods said something to me in a foreign language. It might have been Latin. What does this sound like to you —- hicks looty?”

Vince grimaced. “You sure you heard him right?”

“I don’t know, man. It sounded like hicks and then looty.” Louis paused. “No, it was lootio. And then es, like the letter S.”

Vince repeated the phrase several times under his breath, then shook his head. "Lapsus linguae, Louis. You must have heard him wrong.”

The sound of a door made Louis turn. It was Octavius, the diener.

“Vince, the guy’s daughter is outside,” he said.

“His daughter? What does she want?”

“Says the cops told her to come over and identify her father.”

“Identify him?” Vince said. “I thought they already did that.” He glanced at Louis. “Don’t tell me somebody screwed this up.”

Louis glanced at the door. “I don’t know, Vince. I tried to call her at her school but they told me she wasn’t available. I don’t know who told her to come here.”

“Damn it,” Vince said. He went over and glanced at a clipboard, holding his bloody-gloved hands aloft. “This says he has already been ID’d and released.”

He came back to stand by the body. “If I had known this, I wouldn’t have cut him. How does this shit happen?”

Louis didn’t respond. He wondered if Landeta had screwed up somehow. Or had he done an end-around and contacted Diane Woods after Horton had told him to let Louis handle it?

“Octo, get him covered up,” Vince said, snapping off his gloves and tossing them in the trash. “I’ll go out and talk to her.”

“Let me do it,” Louis said.

“Why?”

“I need to.”

“Be my guest. Give me five and then you can bring her in.”

Louis went out into the hallway. Diane was standing by the receptionist’s desk. She was dressed like she had just come from school. She was biting her nails. She stiffened when she saw him.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded.

“Diane, I have to talk to you.”

Her eyes went to the double doors. “Is he in there?”

“Yes, but —-”

She started to go by him and Louis caught her arm. “Wait, Diane.”

She pulled away, glaring at him. “Stay away from me.”

She hurried through the doors. Louis followed, catching up to her before she got to the autopsy room. He caught her by both arms and spun her away from the door’s window.

“Diane, listen to me.”

“Let go of me,” she said. It came out as a whimper and Louis realized she was shaking. She bowed her head, her body growing heavy in his hands. He backed her up and gently lowered her onto a bench. She covered her face with her hands.

He thought she was going to cry, but when she lowered her hands, her face was dry, her eyes empty.

“I can’t do it,” she said.

“It’s all right,” Louis said. “He looks...asleep.”

She didn’t seem to hear him. “You don’t know what it’s like,” she said quietly. “You don’t know what it’s like to get the calls from the parents, the school board. Or to go in there every day and hear them whispering, knowing they are talking about it, and then you walk into the lounge and they shut up.” She looked up at Louis. “My car, when I went out to the parking lot today, my car, there was red paint on the windshield. I think one of the kids...”

Her voice trailed off and she shook her head. “I can’t do it. I just can’t...do...it.”

Louis leaned back against the cold tile wall, looking down at Diane Woods. Any pity he had felt for her was fading fast. Her father —- her only living relative —- was lying in there dead and the only thing she could mourn was her own reputation.

“They need an ID,” he said.

She looked up at him and then the door. She rose, smoothed her hair and followed Louis into the autopsy room.

She stopped when she saw the body, her eyes going up to Vince and then back to the table. Vince had taken off his bloodied apron and was standing at the top of the stainless steel table. A plastic sheet had been draped over the gaping Y-shaped incision in the chest. Louis was relieved to see that Frank Woods did, in fact, look asleep.

Diane hadn’t moved. She was just standing there, maybe five feet away from the table, her eyes locked on Frank’s face.

“Yes, it’s him,” she whispered. She looked at Vince. “Can I go now?”

Vince came forward and held out his hand. “I thought you might want his wedding ring back,” he said.