by Tom Shepherd
You had to be there.
It was awful.
I held my nose and thrashed upward, forcing myself not to yield to the pounding hunger to inhale the ocean into my lungs. Then I broke the surface, gasping, shrieking, choking on sea water, and howling for Tanella. But a wave crashed, crushing me under a wall of foam. It was like riding a roller coaster without the car. I panicked.
God! She was wrong—this wasn’t the Channel, it’s the Atlantic side. We bobbed up into the hurricane!
I tumbled down a cliff of surf. The wet mountain collapsed so hard that green stars popped all around me in sea and sky. I screamed for Tanella, but the roaring breakers drowned my cries. Hauled to the surface again by rolling swells, I glimpsed rain-battered pilings and a lone boat tossing at anchor. This really was the channel side! And the waves were heaving me toward the stone jetty of the Barrier Island wharf.
Last thing I remember is plunging below the surface once more as the white peak of an alpine wave curled into a tunnel and caught me in its pipeline. I tumbled toward those arms of stone.
Sixteen
Scarlet and butternut. Warm red behind a curtain of ash. Flecks of yellow daggers scraping diagonally across gray-and-red drapes. I licked my lips, tasted wet sand, and cracked my eyelids. Leaden sky and groaning surf, but no rain. I was alive, beached, looking into the overcast.
And then I remembered the dream. Red hair and hazel-yellow eyes. Elya came to me, right here on the beach. Her furrowed brow and worry-filled eyes communicated that I was badly messed up. I couldn’t feel my legs or move my arms. She waved a hand-held gizmo over my body and I saw rainbow colors and slipped back into deep sleep. When I awoke again, Tanella was standing over me.
“Nothing fractured?” Tanella looked like a drowned poodle. Sand peppered her black hair, and her T-shirt was so wet the Spirit Creek Dolphin drooped into the valley between her boobs.
Sitting up, I felt my arms with each hand, then rolled in the sand to check legs and feet. I was terrified the pain had not yet started from multiple broken bones, like a paper cut doesn’t hurt at first, but later throbs like poison hellfire.
“Do I look as bad as you?” I said.
“Worse. An explosion in a spaghetti factory.”
“Aaaack!” I grabbed my hair. “Where are we?”
“Old sandbar above the pier. Look. The waves carried us around the dock, deposited us at the high tide mark.”
About two hundred yards to our left the skeleton of a floating pier wobbled in the receding tide. A lone cabin cruiser was still moored snugly. And I remembered...swept along by the sea...spinning like a goldfish in a Maytag...so exhausted I couldn't swim—then I touched sand underfoot. The storm spewed me on the beach like Jonah’s whale, and I collapsed into sleep. Then the dream.
“Did you see a redhaired woman?” I said. “Here on the beach?”
“No,” she said. “Did you see Antonucci?” Tanella said.
“Yes!—it was gross. I about swallowed half the ocean.”
“I wanted to make sure he was dead.” Tanella offered a hand and pulled me to my feet. “But I couldn’t hold my breath any longer.”
“Girl, that man was seriously dead. World-class dead. Deader than the Atlanta Falcons in January.” I shuddered as the pale corpse, eyes open and grinning, floated in my memory. "Yuk!—gross!”
“Why would somebody murder Peter Antonucci?” she said.
“Maybe they hate turtles?”
“Sally Ann, this is serious!”
“You don’t have to shout.” I stretched, amazed to be alive with no broken bones. “What time is it?”
“Lost my watch. Tide’s going out—I’d say we’ve been lying here at least two hours.”
“So, the storm’s over? We slept through the hurricane?”
“Just a squall, pushed ahead by Hagar. If we surfaced in a hurricane, we’d be standing at St. Peter’s desk right now, trying to look innocent.”
I recalled my vow. “Tanella, do you think I’d make a good nun?”
“No.”
“Neither do I.” I thought about the Elya again. “You’re sure you didn’t see a red-haired woman? She was right here!”
“There are no footprints in the sand leading to or away from us.”
“It must have been a dream. But she seemed so real.”
“What’s coming isn’t a dream but a nightmare.” Tanella looked down the channel toward the open sea, just visible beyond the southernmost tip of Barrier Island. Lead clouds clumped together against a gray overcast.
“He’s coming, Sally Ann. The monster approaches. Out there, beneath the horizon. He’s gathering strength. He’ll be here soon.”
“Don’t talk like that. You’re scaring me.”
“Let’s go.” She limped a little as we started up the sand toward the parking lot.
“You're hurt,” I said.
“Just bruised, I hope. Let’s hurry.”
“Lean on my shoulder,” I said.
“How are your ankles?”
I winced, covering it with a smile. “Fine. Fine. Lean on my shoulder, and let’s go.”
We stumbled upslope leaving tracks in the wet sand.
The Island Club Hotel was practically deserted by the time we hobbled down the semi-circular driveway to the carriage porch. The two black guys from Atlanta worked from ladders to mount plywood sheets over the windows at ground level.
“This hotel is a registered National Historic Site.” Tanella shook her head ruefully. “Yet they’re driving steel nails into century-old window frames. Tell me this storm isn’t going to be formidable.”
“They’re already calling it Hagar the Horrible,” I said.
“I doubt it will be a cartoon character.”
Moses the bartender paced under the carriage roof. When he saw us he mopped his face with a handkerchief and waved. “Your folks will be glad you’re here. You two look half dead.”
“Only half?” I said.
Tanella mouthed a silent “Thank you” for letting her lean on my arm to relieve the twisted ankle. She grasped the handrail and pulled herself up the steps.
“You been swimming?” Moses said. “That ain’t very smart.”
“We were almost murdered!” I said. “Tony McClure was shot—
“Slow down, chile. You needs to be talking to the po-lice.”
“—then we fell down an elevator shaft and got swallowed by the tide and Peter Antonucci—”
“Where is Inspector Borkowski?” Tanella said, interrupting my runaway babble.
“Still on the island. So’s your dad.”
“They didn't take him to Brunswick?” she said.
“They tried. I heard Borkowski phone for some uniforms to make the transfer. By the time they got here, we were all stuck.”
“Stuck?” I said. “How stuck?”
“Y’all don’t know? Drawbridge malfunctioned. Jammed sky-high. Ain’t nobody can get on or off the island ‘til she’s fixed. And with Horrible Hagar coming, they’s nobody in God’s Creation dumb enough to climb up that bridge an’ fix her.”
Tanella leaned against a roof support post. “We’re going to ride out the hurricane here?”
“Well, Mr. Bennett called somebody high-up in the government and they’re supposed to be sending a helicopter from Hunter Army Airfield. But until they get here, we’re nailing the shutters and moving everything upstairs. Most everybody got off—only a handful of us fools stayed to finish up and got caught.”
“What about boats?” I said.
“All gone.”
Tanella shook her head. “At least one big cabin cruiser’s still moored at the pier.”
“Oh, that’s Antonucci’s,” Moses said. “He’ll probably do what a lot of folks do when their boats get caught—sink it in place. Let it ride out the storm below water, then raise it after the hurricane.”
“He won't need a boat anymore,” I said.
Tanella shot a “shut up” look my way, then asked Mo
ses, “When is Hagar due?”
“About midnight. Right at high tide. Some old timers—they left hours ago—said the island will go under water when the storm surge hits.”
“Those poor baby turtles,” Tanella said.
“Turtles!” I croaked. “What about us?”
Moses wiped his forehead. “They’ll be a bad moon rising tonight.”
* * * *
Our suite of rooms was unlocked. When I turned the knob and pushed, I found myself looking down the blue steel barrel of a handgun. I could see the little round heads of the bullets tucked in their chambers around the revolver. Freezing, I tried to screech, but no sound escaped. Tanella grasped my arm with her nails, and the smell of cigarette smoke swept into my nostrils. Bitter, like scorched hay. Behind the gun—a red golf shirt.
“I’ve been looking for you kids,” the gunman said.
Seventeen
“Where’ve you’ve been for the last few hours?”
Inspector Norman Borkowski jammed the pistol in a waist holster and snuffed out his cigarette in an empty penny bowl by Dr. Blake’s unmade bed.
“It’s a long story,” Tanella said.
“You kids had us worried sick. Professor Thornburg asked me to look for you. Sorry if I scared you, but there’s been a second murder. That comedian, Tony McClure, was blown away in his room.”
“Fourth murder, counting Carsten O’Malley,” Tanella said. She told him about Peter Antonucci.
“So, the old turtle lover drowned on the job? Kinda poetic. Loggerheads get him?”
“Turtles don’t pump iron,” I said. “He was tangled in a rope and weights.”
“Can’t you see my father is innocent?” Tanella said. “He’s been in custody all day, so he couldn’t have killed Mr. Antonucci.”
“Don’t know for a fact that Peter Antonucci is dead. If he is, he could’ve been swept off his boat by a squall. Hell, I got caught in the storm myself and got soaked in the parking lot. Had to change clothes.” Borkowski took out a fresh cigarette and sat on the peach love seat.
“Isn’t that against the law?” Tanella said. “Smoking in a public facility?”
“Maybe in Augusta. Not Glynn County.” He lit the cigarette and puffed away. “Assuming you saw Antonucci’s body and assuming he was murdered. Thanks to that damned, stuck drawbridge I can’t get an M.E. out here to look at the body. So, I don’t know when he died. Could be separate crimes. First, Dr. Blake kills Clancey Beaumont—purely in an act of rage, not premeditated. Then somebody else shoots McClure, drowns Antonucci. Two killers. Maybe even three.”
“That’s not what happened,” Tanella said softly.
“Kid, I have five witnesses who heard your father yelling at the victim at the approximate time of the murder.”
Tanella told Inspector Borkowski the whole story about McClure’s confession, and how the third person at the drug drop on the beach the night before was the one who shot Clancey Beaumont today, and McClure himself had mimicked Dr. Blake’s voice.
Borkowski sat on the loveseat, smoking quietly while she described how we escaped down the abandoned dumbwaiter shaft, out to the Barrier Island Channel by the sewer system.
“Helluva story,” he said. “But McClure is dead. So, your Father remains my best suspect until I can find this mysterious third druggie.” He took a final drag, then crushed his smoke in Dr. Blake’s penny bowl. “If he exists at all.”
“Are you serious?” I said. “You think we crawled into a sewer and nearly drowned just to tell a lie?”
“Hey, kid, I get paid to catch criminals. People lie every day. People lie with both hands on the Bible, swearing on their mother’s graves. I don’t like stories. I like evidence. Show me your evidence.”
“Your shoes are muddying the carpet,” Tanella said. “My father always takes his muddy shoes off at the door.” A lone tear trickled down her cheek. “Mother taught him in Korea. I was too little to remember her. All I’ve ever had is Daddy.”
My eyes were moist, too. Even Borkowski relaxed his sneer into a sigh. “You two look awful. Get cleaned up. I’ll take you to Dr. Blake. He’s in a single on the second floor.”
“Great!” I said.
Tanella just nodded.
“We’re not staying here much longer, are we?” I said. “Moses the bartender said there’s a chopper flying in from some Army base.”
“Arrives within the hour,” Borkowski said. “Soon as the whirlybird lands, we’re all out of here.”
“Good news at last,” I said.
* * * *
The uniformed cop guarding Dr. Blake was a black dude named Sergeant Springer. He was a smallish guy, about as tall as your average ninth grader, with a thick neck and arms like a pro wrestler. Borkowski ordered the policeman to let Tanella and me into the room. They locked the door behind us. Dr. Blake was sitting in a corner away from the window, hands in his lap, staring at the unlit overhead light. A neglected New York Times hung like an apron over his knees, and his white shirt showed traces of ring-around-the-collar. Nathaniel Blake was a careful dresser; he always wore a tie. I had never seen him like this, an unwashed man slumped in shadow. It hurt to look at him.
“Daddy?”
“Hi, Baby,” he said with a brief smile.
“Are you okay?”
“Anatomically, nothing is missing,” he said. “I’ve felt better.”
“How’s your head?”
“Ever been clubbed by a toaster?” he said.
“Oh, Daddy...”
Tanella wept and they hugged for the longest while. Her dad kept saying, “It’s okay, Tee. It’s okay.”
I went to the window and watched rainwater dripping off the eaves of the building. Why do adults always tell you it’s okay, when you know friggin’ well it isn’t?
Finally, Tanella dried her eyes with the edge of her T-shirt and told him what happened to us. He brushed the newspaper off his legs and leaned forward, his eyes following as she crisscrossed the room. Tanella finished and sat on the edge of the bed while Dr. Blake gathered his thoughts. I couldn’t look at Tanella and her dad, so I pressed my nose against cool glass and felt the rain tapping on the window.
“You could have died,” Dr. Blake said finally.
“We’re okay. And we’re going to find the truth.”
“Absolutely not!”
“Please listen to me. The drawbridge jammed upright before Mark McClure was shot. Whoever murdered him—and Clancey Beaumont and Peter Antonucci—is still on Barrier Island.”
“You, Sally Ann and Eric will lock yourselves in our suite until the helicopter lands to evacuate you.”
“If the real killer gets off the island, we'll never catch him.”
“I will not have my daughter playing detective while a madman is trying to murder her.”
“I have several good ideas—”
“Inspector!”
Borkowski poked his head into the room. “Done already?”
“Will you please ensure these two children and their friend, Eric, are safely locked away? Under armed guard, if possible.”
“I don’t have the manpower.”
“Lock them in here.”
Borkowski frowned. “C’mon, Doc. You’re the murder suspect. Suppose you hold Miss Palmer and your daughter hostage.”
Dr. Blake leaped up, fists raised. “That is outrageous!”
“Will you please calm down? I’m only doing my job, sir.”
“Let’s talk about your job, Inspector. When I get my phone call, it’ll be to the governor of Georgia. Not his secretary—I have his private number.”
Borkowski stepped inside and closed the door. “Dr. Blake, you’re a murder suspect, but you haven’t been booked yet. You’re not getting a phone call until you’re in the county lock-up.”
“These children were almost killed, and you're refusing to protect them?”
“No, I didn’t say that. Look, we don’t know what really happened to them. Kids exaggerate.”
/> “Tanella doesn’t.”
“Okay, I’ll assume they’re telling the truth. Somebody did try to kill them. So, until the bird lands, they’ll stay with me. It’s the best I can do.”
Dr. Blake sat in the corner and draped the newspaper over his lap again. “I accept.”
Eighteen
We found Eric in the video arcade. Inspector Borkowski took us to lunch but left to make phone calls. He said we’d be safe in a public place like the Grand Dining Room of the Island Club Hotel. I sank into a chair by a white pillar; Tanella leaned on the white table cloth.
Moses strutted out of the kitchen and slid a tall red menu in front of us. “I’m cooking, too. We’re down to three staff members, unless Mr. Bennett decides to hustle baggage hisself.”
“I want a corn dog,” Eric said, thumbing through the menu. “Do they make Shirley Temples this time of day?”
“I can’t make no mixed drink for a kid.”
“It’s only cherry juice and ginger ale,” Eric said.
Moses smiled. “Just testing.”
Tanella rested her head on a beige doily while I ordered a fruit salad. “Nothing for me,” she said with closed eyes.
“Miss Blake, you’re missing a culinary delight.” Moses collected the menus and disappeared into the kitchen.
Eric leaned toward me. “He wasn’t testing us. He sucks as a bartender.”
“Oh, you’re the big expert on mixed drinks?”
“No, but—”
“Just shut up, Eric.”
“You shut up!” He pushed his chair back, crossed his legs and turned away from me. I was hoping he’d get up and stomp away, but the lure of corn dogs stapled him to the chair.