Paint It Black by P.J. Parrish Page A

got some mental problems. And the MO was the same.”
    â€œExcept for the paint.”
    Wainwright looked at Louis. “Maybe the paint means nothing. Maybe Quick painted his house or something before he got here.”
    â€œHis dossier said he sold software for Novel,” Louis said. “You ever know a computer geek who got his hands dirty?”
    â€œLook, right now I don’t even know if these two murders are related. Right now, I gotta find Levon.”
    â€œAny sign of him yet?”
    â€œNo,” Wainwright said. “We got an APB out, and I have someone watching Roberta’s house and the store. Levon stayed in a room in the back sometimes. But he’s not coming back.”
    â€œSo what’s your next move?” Louis asked.
    Wainwright was looking out at the airstrip again. “I don’t know,” he said tightly.
    For several seconds, they just stood in the warm sun, soaking it in. Wainwright seemed absorbed in watching the planes.
    â€œI came here to retire,” Wainwright said softly.
    Louis waited, sensing Wainwright wanted to say something more. But Wainwright just let out a deep breath.
    â€œWell, I gotta get back,” he said, turning.
    Louis watched Wainwright walk toward his cruiser. He noticed he had a subtle limp.
    Wainwright stopped and turned suddenly. “Hey, Kincaid,” he called. “I just thought of something. I think I know where Anthony Quick was killed. Wanna come along?”

Chapter Nine
    He expected pine trees, mossy paths, and maybe a deer or two. That’s what preserves looked like in Michigan. But he was in Florida now, where the earth smelled of rotting things and the spindly trees were packed dense, their branches twisting up to the sun like tortured fingers, their roots curving down into the water like inverted rib cages. Mangrove trees, Wainwright called them, as they drove past a sign that said MATLACHA NATURE PRESERVE . They didn’t look like trees to Louis. They looked like skeletons frozen in the black water.
    The reserve was on the southern tip of Sereno Key, where the neat little neighborhoods ended and the land trickled off to melt into the brackish water. The water here was different than over on the bay. There, out in the open, it caught the sun and was moved by the tides and the wake of human activity. Here, it was dark, still, and primordial, frosted with a thin layer of algae.
    Louis looked out over the mangroves. “There’s no way someone could get through those trees and wade out to the water,” he said. “Where do you think he threw him in?”
    Wainwright lowered the visor as he took a curve in the narrow, hard-packed dirt road. “There’s an old boat ramp up here somewhere.”
    They passed a small wooden sign that said NATURE WALK . Louis craned back to look for a path but saw nothing but dense brush. “What the hell is there to see out here?”
    â€œBirds mostly,” Wainwright said. “Tree huggers like this place. It’s kept natural on purpose. I guess they feel it makes them one with God and all that shit. Me, all I see is a swamp.”
    Wainwright took another curve and stopped suddenly. They had come to a clearing where the trees opened abruptly onto blue sky. In front of the squad car was a wooden boat ramp that dipped down into the tannin-brown water.
    â€œThis is it,” Wainwright said. “The only place he could have dumped him.”
    Louis thought suddenly of the garbage on the causeway. “How do you know Quick wasn’t dumped somewhere else and the tide carried the body to where it was found?” he asked as he got out.
    â€œI checked with a fishing guide I know,” Wainwright said. “Bakers Point is a small basin, with little water movement. Plus I just got a feeling.”
    Wainwright was walking the ramp, his eyes scouring the planks. Louis joined him. The warped wood was old and sun-bleached to gray. But there was no