Island of Bones(81)

“I told you not to talk to the customers. Get inside.”

“You don’t have to be so rough,” Louis said. “I was just being friendly.”

“We don’t need friendly. Go get on the boat.”

Carlos del Bosque grabbed the trash can and easily lifted it up and over the edge of the bin. He shook the garbage loose, then turned back. When he saw Louis still standing there, he edged forward.

“I said go get on the boat.”

Louis threw up a hand. “Okay, okay. No problem.”

“And don’t come back. We don’t want your business.”

Louis walked away, running his arm across his brow. He slipped his sunglasses back on, and glanced back at Carlos del Bosque. The man hadn’t moved, his eyes fixed on Louis.

Louis looked at the restaurant. He could see Roberto on the porch, his face pressed against the screen. Louis started to the dock. As he approached Landeta, the sound of his footsteps on the dock made Landeta look up.

“You stink,” Landeta said. “Where the hell you been?”

“Helping the kid with some garbage. He told me his mother was named Mary and that she’s dead.”

“Mary Rubio?”

“He didn’t know. But he’s about ten years old, and Mary Rubio disappeared in 1973. That means he could be her kid. And, Mel, he looks a little like her.”

“What about Frank? Did you ask him if he had an Uncle Frank or anything?”

“Didn’t get a chance. The father came over.”

“What did he say?”

“He told me not to come back.”

Landeta was quiet, looking back at the restaurant. “You’re right,” he said. “Something’s wrong here. I can’t see it, but I can feel it.”

“The name Mary is a real connection,” Louis said. “You think it’s enough to take to Horton?”

Landeta nodded. “We’ll go see him as soon as we get back. If Mary Rubio died on this island, she’s probably buried here somewhere. Maybe we can get a search warrant.”

He pulled out his cigarettes and lit another one, drawing hard on it as he looked back at the restaurant.

"Hic solutio est,” he said.





CHAPTER 36




Louis and Landeta walked across the grass of Centennial Park. They could see Horton sitting on a bench near the river, a small brown dog jumping at his feet. Occasionally, the dog stopped jumping long enough to eat something out of Horton’s hand.

“I didn’t know he had a dog,” Louis said.

“I did,” Landeta said.

“Did he tell you?”

“No, I smelled it on him.”

“Bullshit.”

“Just like I knew you had a cat.”

“You saw my cat.”

“I smelled it long before I saw it.”

“Cats don’t smell. You must’ve smelled the litter.”

“Maybe you should change it more often.”

“Fuck you,” Louis said.

Horton was dressed in baggy yellow Bermuda shorts and a loose-fitting blue shirt. It was odd seeing him out of uniform, Louis thought. Uniforms always added a certain stiffness to a man, but Horton looked relaxed. His eyes, fixed on Louis and Landeta, were shadowed by the bill of a Buccaneers cap.

They stopped in front of him.

“Well, isn’t this the picture,” Horton said.

“We’ve come to a few conclusions,” Landeta said.

“About what?”

“Frank Woods and the dead girls.”

“The only dead girl we got is Shelly Umber,” Horton said. “You haven’t proven to me that any of the others are dead.”

“We haven’t proven they’re alive either,” Landeta said.

“Then where are the bodies?” Horton asked.

“On Away So Far Island,” Louis said.

Horton frowned. “You mean that place out in the sound with the old restaurant?”

“Yeah,” Landeta said.

The dog was straining against his leash, edging toward some bushes. Horton pulled him back a bit, eyeing them. “Okay, let me hear what you got.”

Louis went first. “Away So Far is owned by the del Bosque family and they don’t let anyone out there except for lunch.”

“I know that,” Horton interrupted. “They like their privacy. So do I.”

“The name del Bosque means ‘of the woods’ in Spanish,” Louis went on, “and it’s a logical jump that Frank Woods’s real name could be Francisco del Bosque. We found out that Sophie Woods and one of our missing girls, Angela Lopez, were both thought to have a Hispanic boyfriend.”

Horton was silent.

“We can’t find any history on Frank Woods before 1952 -- no school, no records, no childhood,” Landeta said. “We suspect his childhood was on the island.”