19
The raw smell arose near a thick growth of oaks. Whit stood upwind of the grove. It was two-thirty Friday morning. A couple of summer-house kids, looking for a less crowded makeout spot, had found the battered winch truck nestled at the edge of the live oaks, just beyond the western city limits of Port Leo, away from the busyness of the beaches and the harbor. Jimmy Bird’s body lay curled on the seat, the bullet hole in his temple surrounded by a direct-contact, mottled bruise from the gun. The gun – a. 45-caliber – lay on the truck floor, below Jimmy’s dangling hand. The DPS crime-scene crew pulled the body from the truck after their initial photographing and scene work. Whit filled out an authorization of autopsy form.
David finally came up to Whit to countersign the authorization.
‘I suppose this wraps things up, Judge.’ David scribbled his name across the sheet below Whit’s signature.
‘Yeah,’ Whit said.
‘Get the doubt out of your voice. There’s a note in Jimmy’s shirt pocket. Reads: “I’m sorry for what I did Monday.” Broken shovel in the back of the pickup. And these were in his pants pocket.’ David pulled a plastic Baggie from a paper bag, laid it flat on his palm, turned his flashlight onto his hand. A half dozen coins, roughly cut, clearly old, a shield capping one, a man’s head crowned with laurels decorating another, one silver, the rest gold.
‘These look old,’ Whit said. ‘Holy shit. I was right.’
‘Let’s not jump to conclusions, Your Honor. Maybe Patch had a coin collection – we don’t know. Jimmy might have stolen these from the house.’
‘Lucy never mentioned Patch collecting coins. Neither did he.’
‘Found cash and Patch’s credit cards in the glove compartment. He’s got to be the guy who did the break-in. This doesn’t have to be complicated.’
Whit leaned in, examined the coins through the plastic. ‘There’s a date: 1818 – see? This one’s 1820. Good God.’
‘Yeah. And I know where you’re going, back to this buried-treasure horseshit.’
Whit lowered his voice to a whisper. ‘David. Look. Don’t think of this as buried treasure. See it from another angle. It’s archaeology. If there were professors out on Black Jack Point doing a dig for artifacts, and they got killed and dumped there, you’d have to consider people stealing those artifacts as a possible motive. Right?’
David nodded.
‘Well, maybe this was just a dig we didn’t know about. That no one knew about.’
David didn’t nod, just shook his head.
‘So, David, maybe Jimmy had accomplices. And if these coins are part of a treasure, where’s the rest of it?’
David spat into the grass.
‘Why are you resistant to this?’
‘I’m not about to go in front of the press, or let Sheriff Hollis go in front of the press, and say those people got murdered over buried treasure,’ David said. ‘Christ. If that wasn’t the case, we’d be fucking laughed out of town. No way are we going public with this. Let’s just be real quiet about it right now, see what else we learn.’
It was as much as Whit could hope for. ‘But we’ll find out how much these coins are worth, right?’
‘Yes, obviously.’
‘I suspect they may be worth quite a bit,’ Whit said. ‘Jimmy couldn’t have been depressed over being broke. Maybe Dr Parker’s colleague, the one who identified the other relics – her name was Dominguez, right? She might know about coins.’
‘You let me worry about that. I want to confirm if Bird’s tire tracks match the tracks we found on the Gilbert property, and I want to see if there’s any extra fingerprints on that truck or gun. Let’s go wake the widow, Judge.’ He shook his head. ‘Much as I don’t like Linda Bird, I don’t want to tell her that her husband’s dead.’
When he got back to Patch’s, Lucy was awake, curled on the couch in a robe, watching the bargains unfold on the Home Shopping Network. He told her what had happened.
‘But I don’t think Jimmy Bird killed them,’ he said at the end.
She sat up. ‘Christ, Whit. David Power’s been breathing down my neck. He finds the killer, and now you’re going to debate him? What the hell is it between you two?’
He told her about the coins in Jimmy’s pocket. ‘They look old, very rare. Gold and silver. Why would he have those?’
Lucy folded her hands in her lap and said after a moment, ‘Patch had some old coins.’
‘You never mentioned that.’
‘Well, we don’t usually discuss my uncle’s heirlooms.’
‘I didn’t know he was a coin collector.’
‘He wasn’t. He got them from his dad, I think. I don’t really remember. He said once they were valuable. He didn’t keep them out in the change plate, Whit. He had them in a drawer in his study.’
‘How would Jimmy know where they were?’
‘I have no idea. Maybe he made Patch tell him where they were. Maybe he knew from when he worked here before. I don’t know.’ Her voice rose, got an edge.
‘Okay, Lucy, okay. Did he have them insured?’
She stared. ‘I don’t fucking believe this, Whitman. You don’t believe me.’
‘I do.’
‘I don’t know if he had them insured. Jesus. That Jimmy. Goddamn him. Uncle Patch never should have hired him in the first place.’ She got up, went into the kitchen. Whit followed her, watched her pour a glass of water, pick at a cookie from the many comfort plates on the kitchen table. ‘He killed them, then I’m glad he’s dead.’
‘There’s nothing more to be done tonight. Let’s go back to bed.’
‘Fine. Okay.’ She gulped down her water.
In bed, he spooned next to her, his arm over her, listening to her breathe. He could hear she wasn’t falling asleep.
‘Whit?’
‘Yeah?’
‘I’m sorry I snapped at you. This has all been upsetting.’
‘I’m sorry, too.’
‘I thought finding out who did this to them would make me feel better.’
‘Probably not right away, hon.’
‘I just need you to not be trying to one-up David Power.’
‘It’s not about a competition. I’m trying to help you.’
‘Do you think David sucks as an investigator?’
‘No. I really don’t. But I think he abuses his power. I think he’s hurt about his life, he’s mad at the world, and he’s a spoiler. He knows how to push my buttons.’
‘Only works if you allow them to be pushed.’ She rose up on one elbow. ‘You’ve got a confession from a dead guy with a motive. Please stop pushing. Please? I can’t take it anymore. I want this over and done.’
‘Okay.’
‘I can tell when you’re not sincere, and it has nothing to do with vibes. I’m serious, Whit. I want you to stop.’
‘Okay.’
She settled back into his arms, he didn’t give an answer, and finally he heard her sleep. Only then did he close his eyes and let himself drift away, and in his sleep his breathing matched hers.
Lucy decided to put in a day at work and Whit, not due at court for two hours, followed her into Port Leo. Early Friday morning was not phone-jamming rush hour at Coastal Psychics Network. The little office was squeezed in between a grimy doughnut shop and a grimier liquor store in an old strip shopping center that had never seen better days. Two bored college students sat on duty at the phones, a black woman reading a physics textbook, chewing on the end of her highlighter, and a white woman watching Today.
‘Hi, y’all. Slow night?’ Lucy asked as they walked in.
‘Yeah.’ The first woman looked up from her textbook. ‘People just don’t have problems like they used to.’ She slipped a tarot card into her textbook, shut the book.
‘It’ll pick up,’ the other psychic said. ‘We’re moving into the Bored Housewives hours.’ There was an embarrassed silence. ‘We’re sorry about your uncle, Lucy.’
‘Thanks, Amanda.’
‘You don’t want to talk,’ Amanda said. ‘It’s okay. I sensed that in your aura. Let me know if you want a reading later.’ She glanced at Whit. ‘Oh, dear, isn’t someone’s aura a little thin today.’