Read Online Paint It Black by P.J. Parrish - Free Book Online Page A

looking at him. Louis waited, hoping he’d let it drop. Finally, Wainwright just nodded.
    â€œYeah, this shit can get to anybody,” he said.
    Â 
    Â 
    It had been Margaret Dodie’s idea to bring Roberta Tatum some fresh clothes. Margaret said she didn’t think Roberta had any kin who cared about her—outside of her dead husband and her brother. And it didn’t seem right, she said, that an innocent woman should have to go home wearing dirty clothes. So she had Wainwright take her to the Tatum home and she selected an outfit. She asked Louis to deliver it.
    Roberta had eyed him suspiciously when he handed her a blue linen pantsuit, shoes, and underwear. She offered no thanks.
    Louis waited for her in Wainwright’s office. He paced, left alone with images of Quick’s splattered blood and Walter Tatum’s battered face. It was unfamiliar and unsettling, and he allowed himself to wonder if, given another twenty years, he would have the same sense of coolness that Wainwright had.
    His eyes fell to the photo on the desk. Two kids but no wife. Where was she and how old were the kids now? Teenagers or young adults, far removed from their old man’s life?
    â€œYou still here?”
    Louis turned to face Roberta Tatum. The linen pantsuit and matching shoes were probably meant for a dressy occasion and Roberta had not been able to do anything with her hair. Still, she looked different.
    â€œYou look . . . nice,” Louis offered.
    She grimaced and tried to smooth back her hair. He sensed he amused her. “I suppose you think I should thank you,” she said.
    â€œI didn’t do anything. Chief Wainwright is the one who got the state’s attorney to move on dismissal.”
    â€œThey think I’m capable of killing one man but not two?” she said.
    â€œSomething like that,” he said. He didn’t see the need to explain the legal thinking behind it, that this case was no longer a domestic gone bad. It was obviously beyond that now, turning into something very different.
    â€œYou find my brother yet?” she asked.
    Louis shook his head. “You want to tell us where he might be hiding?”
    â€œYou still think he did this?”
    Louis stared at her evenly. “We’ve got two violent homicides that are, at this point, without motive. They seem to be the work of someone who is . . . unbalanced.”
    Roberta Tatum held his eyes for a second, then looked away.
    â€œMrs. Tatum, is there anything you’re not telling us about your brother?”
    â€œLevon ain’t been right in the head for a while now,” she said slowly.
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œIt started when he was about sixteen, when we were living over in Fort Myers,” she said. “He got in with a bad bunch. Then the drugs started and Mama and me couldn’t do anything with him after that.”
    Louis waited, not sure she was going to offer anything more.
    Finally, she sighed. “Levon wasn’t a bad boy. He still isn’t when he’s clean.”
    â€œThat’s not often, is it?” Louis said.
    She shook her head slowly. “I’ve tried to look out after him. Me and Walter moved over here to make a fresh start. We put every dime we had into the store on Captiva, and finally started making a little money.” She paused. “Levon kind of came and went. We gave him a room in the back of the store and Walter paid him to do some work. He was okay for a while, but then he got messed up again and stole some stuff and Walter threw him out.”
    Louis wondered how much of this Wainwright knew.
    â€œMrs. Tatum,” he said, “I have to ask you again. Do you believe your brother could kill someone?”
    She didn’t answer. She didn’t even look at him. “You got a cigarette?” she asked softly.
    â€œI don’t smoke. Sorry.”
    Roberta pulled in a deep breath and turned to face him. Her black eyes