The uniformed cops in the entry hall had already made room for the big man in the tan suit. His thick hair was combed straight back from a wide forehead and the years had turned it from black to charcoal. His face: carve it into a mountainside. You had to know how to watch his eyes and mouth to see what was really going on inside him. Now he walked into the room with his deliberate tread. His dark eyes ignored mine, taking in the scene even as his head barely moved. Robin stood beside him, her hand on his arm. Two of her could have fit inside him.
“Is this him?” Peralta spoke with uncommon gentleness. Robin nodded.
“What’s that, Miss Bryson? I need a positive identification.” Kate Vare took Robin by the arm and led her close to the body, waving an outstretched arm as if she were showing off a new car. “Was this the man you had been seeing?”
Robin wrapped her arms tightly across her sweatshirt, pushing up her breasts. Vare kept hold of her. “Yes.” Her eyes were wide and wet. “It’s Jax.”
“How do you know?”
“We were lovers.” Robin’s skin grew pale.
“Accomplices, maybe?” Vare held her close to the corpse.
Robin shook her head adamantly. “You don’t know anything.”
Vare released her grip. “Now I want these civilians outside.”
Peralta held up a hand. “Robin can sit in my car. Mapstone is still a deputy sheriff.”
Vare’s face dropped in dismay.
“I haven’t put through his papers yet.” He reached in his suit-coat pocket, produced my sheriff’s office identification card, then pinned it onto my shirt like a shabby medal. Peralta said, “I think we’ll both see what you’ve got.”
“Well, Mapstone’s history won’t do any good here,” Vare sulked. Peralta might have been the outgoing sheriff, but he was still close friends with the police chief, so she was stuck with us.
“La Fam?”
“Looks that way,” Vare answered.
Peralta grunted. I stood back, trying to keep up.
He produced a set of latex gloves and snapped them on, then stood over the kitchen island like a surgeon examining the work of a demented colleague.
“So did you track the package?” He already knew what had happened. It had only been twenty-four hours since I had last seen him, but somehow it seemed longer. I couldn’t tell whether I was glad to see him here or not. Considering Kate Vare was the lead investigator, I decided I was delighted.
Vare spoke reluctantly, pausing to give me the cop eye. “It was sent from the FedEx Office store on Central, uptown, you know, the old Kinko’s. Fake name and address of the sender. We’re going to interview the employee who saw the sender later this morning.”
