“They say they got a right.”
“Devereaux wasn’t worth the spit on the sidewalk. But we don’t punish the family.”
• • •
I BELIEVED A FIGHT or an attempt to flee the house had begun in the living room and ended in the kitchen. Dishes and glassware were broken. Cutlery from a wooden knife block was splayed on the floor. The icebox door was open, a carton of milk on its side, leaking into the vegetable tray. The air-conditioning units were turned on full blast, the back door key-locked, the key gone.
Even in death, Axel’s face resembled a boiled egg, the eyes open wide, disbelieving. His wrists were fastened behind the chair with plastic ligatures. A short baton had been shoved down the throat and into the chest, prizing up the chin. But I doubted that was the cause of his death. A leather loop, one with three knots tied in it, had been flipped over his neck. The burns went a quarter inch into the tissue. A Lincoln-green felt cap hung with tiny chrome bells had been snugged on his head.
The medics and the ambulance were the first to arrive, then Helen and Bailey and Cormac Watts. Through the front window I saw a television truck and the automobile of a Daily Iberian reporter coming up the road. Sean was in the backyard. He was wearing latex gloves. He bent over and picked up a key and used it to open the back door. “Why would the killer want to lock up a corpse?”
“To give himself as much time as possible to get out of town.”
“You suspect he cranked up the air conditioners?”
“That’s the way I’d read it.”
“Damn, I wish I’d pulled in when I saw that woman run out the back door.”
“Axel dealt the hand a long time ago, Sean. He was a cruel, evil man, and he died the death of one.”
“Ain’t nobody deserves going out like this,” he said. “Look at the butt end of the baton.”
“What about it?”
Sean nudged a claw hammer on the linoleum with the tip of his shoe. “Whoever done it went at it like he was driving a tent peg.”
Helen and Bailey came through the hallway. Both of them stared silently at Devereaux’s profile. Neither showed any expression.
“The back door was locked from the outside,” I said. “Sean found the key in the backyard.”
“You saw somebody leave in a black SUV?” Helen said to Sean.
“Yes, ma’am,” he replied. “Hauling ass.”
“You didn’t get a number?”
“No, ma’am, the headlights was off.”
“You didn’t go after it or call it in?” she said.
“I didn’t have no reason to at that point.” He lowered his head, his cheeks coloring.
“What’d you think the hat is about?” Helen said.
“He’s the Fool in the tarot,” Bailey said.
“The tarot again?” Helen said.
“Bailey is right,” I said.
“I didn’t say she wasn’t,” Helen replied. “But what the hell does Devereaux have to do with fortune-telling cards?”
“The Fool represents pride, arrogance, and presumption,” I said. “He’s portrayed whistling as he’s about to step off a cliff. He has a staff over his shoulder. Joe Molinari had a walking cane plunged through his chest.”
“I have a hard time buying in to this symbolism crap, Dave,” she said.
“Know a better explanation?” I said.