South of Hell (Louis Kincaid Mysteries) Read online

  Caches dans cet asile ou Dieu nous a conduits

  unis par le malheur durant les longues nuits

  nous reposons tous deux endormis sous leurs voiles

  nous prions aux regards des tremblantes etoiles

  His own college French wasn’t good enough to read it, so he called Dr. Sher that morning for a translation and had written it beneath the French:

  Hidden in this sanctuary where God has led us,

  united by suffering through the long nights

  we rest together, rocked to sleep beneath their

  cover we pray beneath the gazes of the trembling stars.

  He stared at the words, shaking his head. There was a logical explanation behind it. There had to be.

  Joe had been the one to bring up the idea that Amy might have a split personality. But Dr. Sher had discounted it as too rare. And even if it were true, it still meant Amy had to have learned French somewhere.

  That morning, Louis had made a phone call to the Hudson police and asked one of the cops to take a more thorough look inside Geneva’s home. The cop had called back a while later and told Louis he had no found no foreign-language books, no keepsakes from places afar, and no brochures, photos, or magazines that suggested that Amy had ever ventured far from home. The cop also said there wasn’t even a television in the home. And school records confirmed that Amy had stopped attending in the third grade.

  As for the neighbor, Mr. Bustin, the one Amy remembered for his Go Blue room, the cop found out that Amy had visited him only a few times, that he did not speak French or any other foreign language, and that he had nothing in his home that Amy could have picked up.

  A soft tapping drew his attention down the hall. A family was huddled at the end, a black woman and five children. One of the kids, a girl who looked about six, was banging on the wall with a broken Barbie doll.

  Louis folded the paper and put it back into his pocket.

  He had almost bought Amy a doll that morning. Joe had sent him to Kmart to pick up things Amy would need for her court appearance. He had walked around the store for a long time before he actually started putting things in the cart.

  His only experience shopping for kids was with Ben Outlaw. That was easy. Boys were quick, picking out T-shirts usually based on the cartoon graphic on the front. If things didn’t fit perfectly, Ben never cared. He’d just roll up the sleeves or cut off the cuffs.

  But Joe’s list for Amy had been very specific.

  Plain, not hip-hugger, blue jeans, size two. T-shirts with a minimum of a half-sleeve and no printing on the front, size small. A parka with a hood. Plain white underpants, no bikinis, size three. A pair of sneakers, size five. A plain white training bra, size 32A, no padding.

  The bra had almost done him in. He finally found a clerk who helped him with that one.

  Before he left the store, he had decided that he wanted to get Amy something personal, something Joe hadn’t put on the list. After ten minutes of walking around among the toys, he gave up and headed toward the checkout. As he passed the jewelry counter, he saw a display of cheap necklaces. He settled on a small heart-shaped locket on a silver chain.

  He hadn’t shown it to Joe or Amy at the hotel room, because he wanted to give it to Amy in private. He hoped it would help him make a connection that Amy hadn’t yet allowed him to make.

  The courtroom doors opened with a soft bang. Louis rose quickly as Shockey came toward him.

  “What happened?” Louis asked.

  “The kid was great,” Shockey said. “Judge Fells said he believed her stories about Brandt’s abuse, but he didn’t completely buy the fact that she may have seen Brandt murder her mother. He wasn’t willing to dismiss it totally, either. He wants Dr. Sher to dig deeper.”

  “How long did he give us?”

  “Ten days,” Shockey said. “In the meantime, Family Services will notify Brandt that he has a hearing coming up. Brandt will have to get a lawyer and fight to get her back. He still might be able to do that if we don’t come up with something to prove him unfit.”

  “Where does Amy stay until then?” Louis asked. “If Brandt even suspects she’s remembering things, she’ll need to be protected.”

  “Fells knew that,” Shockey said. “Amy understood it, too. Fells told her she had two choices. She could stay in the juvenile jail, or he could order a cruiser to sit outside her new foster home twenty-four hours a day.”

  “What did Amy choose?”

  Shockey smiled. “It was the damndest thing I ever saw,” he said. “The kid stood up and said, ‘How come I can’t stay with Miss Frye? She can protect me. She has a gun.’ So the judge turned to Joe and said, ‘What about that, Sheriff Frye?’”

  “What’d Joe say?”

  Shockey laughed softly. “You should’ve seen her face, but I could tell she couldn’t say no to that girl. Joe said she’d stay until the next court date. Now all I gotta do is get the department to pick up the hotel tab, and we’re all set, at least for ten days.”

  The doors opened again. Joe and Amy came out. Amy was talking to her, excited about something, but he could tell Joe wasn’t listening. Her mind was three hundred miles away, in Echo Bay.

  “Look, guys,” Joe said. “I have got to call Mike. I don’t know how I’m going to explain this. Amy, would you stay here with Detective Shockey for me? For five minutes?”

  “Are you coming back?” Amy asked.

  “Yes,” Joe said. “You’ll be fine with Detective Shockey. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Joe hurried off to find a pay phone. Amy pushed her hair from her eyes and wandered to the bench to sit down. There was a woman sitting farther down the hall, nursing a baby. The woman’s breast and the baby’s face were covered with a cloth diaper, but still Amy watched them, fascinated.

  Shockey looked at his watch. “I gotta go. I have a meeting with my lieutenant at eleven. I have to bring him up to date on this stuff.”

  Louis looked at Amy. “Go ahead. We’ll be fine.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah.”

  Shockey went over to Amy and explained to her that he had to go, then gestured to Louis. She gave him a small nod and watched him until he disappeared out the glass doors. Then she glanced around, probably looking for Joe. When she didn’t see her, her eyes came to Louis.

  He walked to her slowly. She watched him, but to his surprise, she didn’t look as if she was going to run. He sat down next to her and reached into his jacket pocket. Her eyes followed his every move, showing nothing but wariness until he withdrew the locket and held it out to her.

  “I’d like to give you this,” he said.

  Amy stared at it. “That belongs to her,” she said.

  “No,” Louis said. “It’s for you.”

  Amy picked it from his palm and opened it. “There’s nothing in it,” she said.

  “You can put anything inside you want.”

  Amy closed the locket and looked up. Her expression was no longer one of fear but of curiosity. She was staring at him so intensely that Louis had trouble sitting still.

  Behind him, he heard the familiar clip of Joe’s boots on the tile floor. Amy hid the locket quickly in her back pocket.

  “Where’s Jake?” Joe asked.

  “Went to report in.”

  Joe’s eyes went from Louis to Amy. “You guys ready?” she asked.

  Amy rose and walked to Joe. She wanted to take Joe’s hand, but Joe pulled gently away from her and started to the door. Louis rose to follow but stopped partway across the lobby, catching sight of an Ann Arbor uniform. Then he saw the face and the bald brown head of Sergeant Eric Channing.

  Channing came forward. “You got a minute, Kincaid?” he asked.

  Joe heard Channing’s voice, and she and Amy paused at the door and looked back. Louis waved them on.

  “You guys go ahead,” he said. “I’ll catch up.”

  Channing waited for them to leave. He drew a hand from his pocket and ges
tured to the bench. “Have a seat.”

  “I’ll stand, thank you.”

  “Sit down. Please.”

  Louis dropped to the bench. Channing glanced to the doors, then down the hall, and finally took a place next to Louis. Louis braced himself, not wanting another confrontation. But if this was going to be another warning, Channing was approaching it far differently from the first time. His expression was not that of a combatant but of a man who needed something.

  “I told you I’d be watching you, and I have,” Channing said.

  “Look—”

  “Be quiet,” Channing said. “Let me have my say here. That girl you were talking to just now, is she the one I’ve been hearing about around the station? The strange one you and Shockey found at that farmhouse?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Word is you’ve fought like hell to keep her out of the system and convinced your girlfriend to take care of her.”

  “What’s that have to do with you?”

  “Just answer the question,” Channing said. “That true?”

  “Yeah, so what?”

  “I was standing over there, watching you a few minutes ago with her,” Channing said. “You surprise me, Kincaid. You handled that pretty good.”

  “What do you want from me, Channing?”

  “Five more minutes.”

  Louis shook his head and leaned on his knees. There was a trio of lawyers coming toward them, and Channing waited until they had passed before he spoke.

  “I have something to show you,” Channing said.

  Channing reached into his back pocket and withdrew a worn brown wallet. He opened it and flipped through the plastic sleeves. When he found the photograph he wanted, he held the wallet open to Louis. Louis took it and looked down at the picture.

  Her hair was a puff of cascading ringlets, light brown with streaks of gold, as if the sun had lightened them. Her small face was the color of caramels. Her lips were pink and full like Kyla’s. Her eyes were gray and somber—like his own.

  “Her name is Lily,” Channing said. “She’s eight years old, and she’s yours.”

  Louis stared at the picture, everything numb but the hard pounding of his heart.

  “Kyla lied to you, but she was only trying to protect Lily,” Channing said. “Don’t hate her for that.”

  Louis finally pulled his gaze up and looked at Channing. “What changed her mind?” he asked.

  “Kyla didn’t change her mind,” Channing said. “If she had her way, you would’ve left here and never known. It was my decision to come here and tell you. When I leave, I’m going to go home and tell her what I’ve done.”

  Louis looked back at the photograph. It was a long time before he was able to bring his gaze back up to Channing. “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why would you jeopardize your marriage to tell me this?”

  Channing let out a breath. “About a year ago, Lily started asking questions about her real father. Kyla and I gave her the standard stuff about how some parents aren’t grown up enough to be parents, and eventually, mostly because she could see how much it bothered her mother, she stopped asking.”

  Louis was staring at the photograph again.

  “But I know she hasn’t stopped wondering,” Channing said. “Kids who don’t know their fathers never stop wondering. And things like that leave a hole in a little girl’s heart. And I love Lily enough to admit it’s a hole I can’t fill.”

  Channing rose and held out his hand for the wallet. Louis stood up and looked down again at the photograph of Lily, reluctant to let her go.

  “Can I see her?” Louis asked.

  “I figured you’d ask that,” Channing said. “I would’ve been real disappointed in you if you hadn’t.”

  “But I don’t want to make a mess of it,” Louis said. “And I don’t want to make things harder on you and Kyla.”

  “I appreciate that,” Channing said. “But I’ll handle Kyla. You just…”

  His voice broke, and he cleared his throat.

  “You just sit tight and let me find the right time and place. I’ll get back to you, okay?”

  Louis gave Channing the wallet. It took him a moment to find his voice, another moment to find any words.

  “Thank you, Sergeant,” he said.

  Chapter Seventeen

  They had driven less than a mile when Louis asked Joe to pull over. He needed a quiet, empty space for this conversation. When he saw the Law Quad, with its open courtyard, he decided it was as close to a park as he would get.

  Joe didn’t ask why they were stopping. She didn’t question him when he led Amy to another bench about fifteen feet away and asked her to sit there and read her book. And Joe didn’t say a word as he sat down next to her and let almost a full minute pass before he pulled his eyes from the stained-glass windows of the Law Library and met hers.

  “I have a daughter,” Louis said. “Her name is Lily.”

  Joe stared at him, not in shock at the news but in a tenuous kind of control.

  “Channing seemed to feel that no matter what Kyla thought, it would be better for Lily if she knew about me.”

  “Kyla doesn’t know he told you?” Joe asked.

  “No.”

  “Don’t you think that’s rather unfair of you two?”

  Louis hadn’t thought about that, and Joe was probably right. But whatever had compelled Channing to tell Louis, it did not change what needed to happen now.

  “How do you feel about this, Louis?” Joe asked.

  “I’m…”

  He paused.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I only know that when I looked at her picture, I wanted to know her. And I was glad she exists.”

  “Why? Does it ease your guilt?”

  He heard something in Joe’s voice that gave an edge to the question.

  “No,” he said. “It doesn’t ease anything. Like I said, I just want…”

  “Her forgiveness?”

  He didn’t like that question, either. “Joe, I’m trying to share something with you here,” he said. “I don’t need you to heap more shit on me over this.”

  Joe turned away, her shoulders stiff, her sharp profile even sharper with the tight set of her lips. He looked beyond her to Amy. She was examining the locket, opening it and closing it.

  “Why do I have to know exactly how I feel about this right now?” he asked.

  “Because you’re about to turn a little girl’s life—and her mother’s—upside down,” Joe said. “You can’t walk into that not knowing if you have what it takes to see it through.”

  “I understand that once I walk in, I can’t walk back out. I know that.”

  Joe met his eyes. “You walked out once.”

  “I was twenty and scared to death.”

  “And you’re not scared now?” Joe asked.

  He pushed off the bench and stepped away from her. Then he stopped, knowing he was doing the one thing he just said he wouldn’t do, walking away when it got tough. And this was only a conversation with the woman he loved. If he couldn’t answer her questions, how was he going to answer Lily’s?

  He turned to face Joe. “Of course I’m scared.”

  Joe’s expression softened.

  “But now that Channing has opened the door, for me not even to acknowledge her existence would be worse for her than if she met me and hated me.”

  Joe nodded.

  He had never told her much about his own father, Jordan Kincaid, just the fact that the man had left long before Louis had a notion of what a father was. Maybe this would somehow help her understood why he had never talked about him. But still, as Louis watched Joe now, she seemed to be struggling to summon the emotional support she knew was expected.

  “I wasn’t trying to give you a hard time,” she said softly. “I only wanted to offer an objective perspective. There are a lot of emotions at stake here, and sometimes we can’t see through our own.”

  “I know.”
>
  She looked over to Amy. “We’d better get going,” she said. “We’re going to be late to meet Shockey.”

  Louis nodded and walked to Amy. She had the locket in her lap, pushing something into the heart-shaped space. He thought for a moment that maybe she had found a small picture somewhere or ripped one from a magazine. But it wasn’t a photo she was placing in the locket; it was strands of what looked like her own hair.

  She closed the locket quickly as he neared. “Is it time to go see Detective Shockey?” she asked.

  “Yes. Are you ready?”

  Amy stood up, hid the locket in her back pocket, and followed him and Joe back to the Bronco.

  They met Shockey in a downtown café. All of the tables inside were full, and they were forced to sit outside under an umbrella that did little to protect them from the cool breeze and the cloudy skies.

  Louis turned up the collar of his jacket and watched Amy. She wore a hooded UM sweatshirt. The hood was down, and her cheeks were pink, but she didn’t seem cold. She seemed to like being outside, interested in the bustle of students and traffic around her, and he found himself again wondering how isolated her life must have been in Hudson with only a sick aunt for company.

  Joe ordered Cokes for herself and Amy. Shockey ordered a beer, and Louis asked for a club soda.

  “This is the deal,” Shockey said, leaning over the table. “My boss says we can’t get any judge to sign a search warrant for the barn based on Amy’s dream.”

  “We knew that,” Joe said.

  “So I called the Livingston County tax assessor this morning,” Shockey said. “Brandt’s farm is in tax foreclosure. It’ll go up for auction in less than two months.”

  “So?” Joe asked. “Until it does, it still belongs to him.”

  “Yeah, but it helps,” Shockey said. “My boss thinks between that and the fact that Brandt hasn’t lived there for nine years, we can make a good case to search the farm on the premise that Brandt abandoned it and forfeited his rights to consent.”

  “Abandonment takes ten years in this state,” Joe said.