“Involved? I’d say you’re mighty involved. The both of you. Got Gulf water in your veins and sand in your shoes. Forever.”
“I know, Bert. But he says, let Duncan figure it out. That’s only right. But Liza and I can’t sit still on this.” Blanche shifted on the bench, sand needling her ankles. “I’ve got to get back over there.”
“Liza.” Bertie groaned. She had babysat for Liza. “My little blond sweetheart.”
Blanche put her arm around Bertie’s wide shoulders and squeezed. “She would love to see you, Bert. She is pretty broken up.”
“We talked. Still can’t believe what I was hearing. Is there anything new?”
“Not yet, but we are getting after it.”
Bertie took Blanche’s hand. “And how are you holding up? Cap? The job at the paper? And this awful plan for developing the island!”
“We’re getting along, but listen to this one. Mel says this guy was over here looking at Tuna Street. He wants to buy beachfront, and he was pestering Mel to come up with something.”
“The damn pluck. I’m not going. Bet you’re not either.”
“Bert, it makes me nervous, this development plan, the pressure to sell. To leave. I can’t.” Her chin dropped, shoulders slumped.
“Land sakes! I’m getting so bad,” Bert said. “Remembered the bread but not this other. Forgot to tell you what I heard out front here on the beach. Real late. After I pulled in. Swear it was right out there.” Bertie pointed across the sheets of white sand whipping in the wind. “Real strange.”
Blanche looked across the dunes in front, the sea grass doing a dance in the breeze. “What?”
“Moaning, or singing. Or something.”
“Probably the wind. Listen to that.” Blanche peered up at the tops of the whistling pines and out at the advancing waves.
“No, I know the wind. This was different. It was almost a chant. You haven’t seen anything, or anyone, strange hereabouts?”
“No, Bert.” She thought about the guy in the white van. He certainly was strange, but he wouldn’t be out there whistling and chanting.
Ridiculous.
“Well, keep an eye out. Whoever’s out there is going to get a good wash. Soon.” Ghostly clouds blew up heading north.
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” said Blanche. “But, really, I’m sick of surprises.”
They stood up. Bertie stretched. “I hear ya. But I think we’re in for it.”
The storm was coming. Fear nagged Blanche, but she pushed it aside for now.
She finished up quickly, threw a garbage bag over the television in the kitchen, rolled up the sisal rug, and flung it onto the sofa. The poster of Native Americans dancing and cooking fish next to their chickee had begun to curl, and, sadly, the storm would likely finish off the feast. Again, she thought of Gran and her stories about the Indians. Something had never been settled there, and the wind did nothing but stir the notion. Of ghosts and legacy? Of stories still to be told?
She snapped out of it, brought in the last of the lawn chairs, broom and buckets from outside, and she fastened the last of the shutters. The Taurus was crammed into the shed, and good luck there. She loved that car, but insurance would never cover it. She picked up a small bag full of clothing and a couple of books.
The rest was up to Wilma and her powerful lungs.
Blanche looked up into the pines, like soldiers, holding the sand in place around the cabin. She couldn’t stand the thought that someone wanted to kill them. The whistling high in the branches turned to a roar, and then retreated, the eddies of wind from the hurricane not far off. The treetops swayed and snapped, and then went silent.
Surely that’s what Bert was talking about. The sounds of the trees. What else could it be?
She walked out of the porch and over the carpet of pine needles. In the south, faint traces of rain striped the sky, from the clouds down to the Gulf. The grey sky moved northward, eating up the blue horizon.
Blanche turned to look back at the cabin, its logs interspersed with white stucco, its flat roof. The dark windows carved out of the logs. Eyes shut.
She waved at Bertie who stood on her deck looking out at the beach. She gave a thumbs up and folded her arms. The waves were closer now, roiling off the shore.
I
Blanche adjusted her bag. She was happy Bert was back, and it was good to know her old friend was holding down the beach.
Blanche’s feet pounded the road back to Liza. White blossoms swirled like snow, the palms crackled. She would not lose the cabin in this hurricane; the islanders would not lose their home. She refused to give in to the possibility. And somehow if they did, it would be better than losing it to Sergi Langstrom.
Cappy warned her, and she tried to listen. He was philosophical about changes, resigned to them, but try as she might, she couldn’t go there. The changes meant loss, and she wouldn’t accept it. But she couldn’t deny his words.
Cappy lived in the present, and he saw possibility in the future. She needed to be more open, to accept some things, and if she didn’t, she would be closed to possibility, and opportunity. She’d be stupid not to listen to the Cappers.
But, in the end, it was not enough. They had come this far, and there was nothing to do but keep going. She would never give up the cabin. And they were damn well going to find out who killed Bob.
She slowed down and walked down the misty road. The island seemed deserted. Lightening cracked the sky and a roll of thunder followed, clouds raced over the tops of palm trees. The trees glistened, the flowers shone with wet brilliance, and bright petals blew around like confetti at a wild party. Her hair, eyelashes, face were damp. She was nearly soaked to the bone, and that was fine. She turned into the storm. It gathered strength, and she headed into it.
Nineteen —
Hurricane Party
Blanche bent to tighten the strap on her sandal. Still no running shoes. She had no interest in shopping and even less in rummaging through her closets. She wore the same t-shirt, rinsed and dried, and now more wilted and damper than ever. Liza had called. “I have a mess of stuff here, Blanche. Come over right away. Please. The hell with the storm.”
The timing was not good for detective work. But Blanche and Liza were of one mind: Make the most of a rainy day while the island hunkered down and before Wilma had her way with the utility poles.
The pines whistled; the Gulf roared. She loved the sun, but something about a good storm zapped her to the ends of her nerves. The wind abated and then started up again, fresh and terrifying. A scent of salt and fury in the air.
One neighbor was packing up to leave the island, but most of them didn’t see the point. Like Blanche. They had short memories and were willing to live with a beauty that would throw a tantrum once in a while. They would tie down like they always did and get through this one, and then another and another.
Cappy was expecting her later, but for now, Liza. She had news.
Blanche dashed across the parking lot, the backpack slapping her hip, just as a blast of rain and wind rattled the front door of Sunny Sands. Liza scurried past the window with a batch of papers. She seemed to ignore the palm trees bending outside her door, the boats tossing up and down like toys in the marina. The island floated in a cloud of mist. The first bands of the storm had arrived.
“Wow. Am I glad to see you,” said Liza.
“Same here, girl.” Blanche started to hug Liza and thought better of it. She dropped her wet bag in a corner.
A small television screen sputtered with flashes of white and green. A forecaster danced around, pointing to Wilma approaching from the south. The island appeared to be clear except for a darting weather pattern.
Liza finished pushing chairs and coat racks and wastebaskets into a closet, but she left the bare bones for them to sit on—and the computer against the far wall. She stacked some papers into a cardboard box as she clicked around the desk in her high heels, waving a cigarette. Liza reached for a hug, despite the ra
in cloud Blanche was wearing. She hoped it would put out the cigarette.
“What’s with the cigarette?” Blanche was a reformed smoker. She’d never seen Liza with a cigarette.
Liza looked at the Marlboro Light like it was a foreign object. “I don’t know. Haven’t had one in years.” She took a drag and made a face. “Tastes terrible. But I’m accepting the abnormal. Helps me cope.”
Again Blanche heard Gran. This too shall pass.
Liza tossed the last of the manuals, nudged a chair against the wall.
“Can I help?” She was anxious to see what Liza had in store and less inclined to rearrange the office.
“Oh, honey. I’m about done here. They say this storm won’t be too bad, but you never know. You can’t count on anything these days,” said Liza. She moved the azalea and a potted orchid away from the window.
“True. Is everything good at your condo? All tight over there?” Liza’s condo at Westbay Moorings was only two blocks away. Blanche peered out the window at the pathway disappearing in the rain.
“All set. Calvin has the shutters down, outdoor stuff in the storage shed. Thanks for worrying.” Liza had not forgotten her White Rose Musk and the curling iron. She dressed for every occasion, even for Wilma. She wore a tight purple top and black stretchy pants, a moon on one thigh, the sun on another. “He’s going to come by later and walk me over.”
“I’m dying to hear what you found.”
Liza gave Blanche a sly look. “It’s good, Blanche. Real good. Or real bad, depending on whose point of view.” She clicked over to a recessed counter and small fridge. “We have some digging and sorting to get to. And some drinking and eating. How about we have ourselves a little hurricane party while we plan what to do with Sergi!” She stopped abruptly, one hand on hip, one eyebrow lost in a curl. She waved the cigarette and sprinkled ash in her hair.
Liza spread a lacy napkin on top of the desk. Blanche was starving, and, drat, if she hadn’t forgotten Bert’s cinnamon bread! She started opening an assortment of deli cartons packed with pink and white seafood. “Crab Louie! Bet Marge made this.”
“Sure did. She had to close up early, and I was only too happy to take it off her hands.”
Blanche fluffed the ash out of Liza’s curls. She kicked off her wet sneakers and curled up on the chair.
The cigarette dangled from Liza’s glossy lips. Blanche shook her head. But the smell of burning tobacco was nostalgic, tugging at her willpower. What if I just give up?
Blanche had seen some mania in her day, and Liza was a maniac. She yanked a chair closer to the desk. She dragged on the last of the cigarette and sizzled it out in the dregs of her coffee in a foam cup.
“Here’s to the storms in life.” She jammed the corkscrew into the top of a bottle of La Crema, not bothering to remove the foil.
Blanche held out a plastic wine glass. “To the end of them. Especially the murd… bad stuff.”
Liza poured the chardonnay. Almost to the top. She took a sip, and lit another cigarette. “Come on now. Perk up. We need our strength.”
Liza only picked at the seafood salad, but Blanche demolished hers. Margie’s homemade Thousand Island Dressing was delicious, the crab, plump and sweet. They sipped and the storm rattled away. But then Liza was up again. She crunched the cartons to a pulp and flicked open a garbage bag. “Now, you know what we need? Emails for dessert. Got some sweet ones!” she said. “To go with another bottle of wine.” She paused in her circuit around the room. She looked across the street to Decoy Duck’s Package Liquors, but the lights were out. “Oh, well.”
Blanche was a little fuzzy around the edges. She needed a water layer to dilute the booze, so she went to the cooler. She brought a cone of water to Liza, who seated herself at the silent gray computer. A doorway in the dark.
Liza plugged in Bob’s username and password. “Makes me feel he’s still here. Sort of. I just can’t give him up.” She leaned in and began clicking away through the pages of Bob’s emails. There were hundreds.
“When I go in there, I can almost hear him.” She looked near tears. “He always had such a good sense of things. What would he do with this?”
Blanche would never know. It was up to them now.
Liza’s forehead creased with concentration. “We know for sure Bob did not back that development. He wouldn’t cooperate with them. We can start there. At square one.”
“Whatcha got?” Blanche pulled a chair around next to Liza. A sign clattered past the window and flew across the parking lot to nowhere. They hunched over the screen as Bob’s email popped into view.
“Oh, yeah. This is going to take some sorting, Blanche. And connecting, one thing to another. I don’t feel much like a detective, but this’ll do.” Liza looked less like a detective and more like central casting. But she had a pen stuck behind her ear, the computer up. She waved at a stack of notebooks. “We need to cross-reference these emails. And I have notes Bob wrote about appointments and phone calls. I put them in a separate box.”
All Blanche could think was this: Evidence. In black and white. On paper. “Did you hear phone conversations, too?” She was positively gleeful.
“I did. Trying to think.” She looked again at the rattling windows. One high heel hit the ground.
“Phone conversations?”
“Yeah. Now let me see…” Liza pushed away from the desk. She went to a tiny alcove that served as a kitchenette and produced a bottle of Irish whiskey and two glasses. “Sometimes I think better when I drink. I need to maintain an altered sense of reality.”
“Reality could use a little bending.” Blanche poured.
Liza plopped a crate of papers on the desk. “Let’s have a look here. I need to check something. Something he wrote in one of these emails. I told Duncan about this. Haven’t heard a word.”
Duncan was plodding along, the definition of the wheels of justice grinding slowly. Maybe he knew more than was advertised, but he seemed unwilling to share it.
They hadn’t heard from Langstrom in a while. He seemed to have gone underground since the town hall meeting. Another was scheduled soon, but first they needed to get their act together. Blanche was leery about which boot the developer would kick them with next. They needed to kick back. The developers had a plan, and Blanche and the residents didn’t. Sometimes Blanche woke up in the middle of the night and felt like she was suffocating, helpless to do anything about it.
She looked over at Liza and hope niggled in the pit of her stomach. Just maybe they had something here. Finally.
Twenty —
Digging for Gold
Blanche picked up a marker and drew a web on Liza’s whiteboard. She began outlining what they knew so far. She stuck bubbles of names and bits of information on the board. Bob. Murder. Langstrom. The plan. They needed more names, dates, times, and places. It was all somehow connected, but she fought to reserve judgment. She didn’t have any idea how it all fit together. But as a visual person, Blanche could see that the web was starting to make some sense already. All she had to do was turn into Spider Woman and leap from one point to the next. And save the town.
The computer cast an eerie glow in the nearly dark office. Some light filtered through the wooden slats. Wilma thumped and cracked outside.
They raced against the storm. They still had electricity, but one well-aimed palm frond would end it. They’d be sitting in the dark, probably for a day or more. They needed a head start before fresh hell broke loose.
Liza swiveled back to the whiskey. She poured two more fingers into each glass. Blanche shrugged. “Drown the shamrock.” And she tossed it back. Liza took a sip and set the glass down with an emphatic clink.
Blanche’s throat burned but it was a false sense of warmth. The adrenaline and whiskey did not mix well.
“Look at these emails,” Liza muttered. “Where do we go from here?”
“Back to the beginning?” Blanche stared at the web, her mind wandering. How would I look in a blue and red
suit with no hair?
“A lot of this mail is related to those calls.” Liza sipped again, her lips puckered. “I hate to think back. It must have been the beginning of a very bad time for him. It seems the phone conversations got worse. Sort of testy, and threatening. That would be about three months ago.”
Blanche noted the call pattern on the board. “We need to check the notes and see who he was talking with.”
“It’s here. Somewhere.” She scrolled through some pages. “I told Dunc about it, but he seemed so distracted.”
Blanche drew a large green circle for Chief Duncan and connected him to the early warning. He had his own special bubble in the web. “Duncan. You gotta love him. Mostly.”
“Well, I don’t want to wait on him. Acted like I didn’t know what I was talking about.” She waved at the computer. Big mistake for Duncan. They both meant to pursue this to the ends of the earth.
“I hear you. But if we find anything, we should bring it to him.”
“He’s checking with county.” Liza rolled her eyes.
“You said you shared some with him? How much? There’s a ton of stuff here.”
“I just couldn’t get into it, at first. I was so angry, and sad.” Liza frowned. “It was so ugly—the calls especially. Bobby had put his foot down about that development. Fortunately, he dated some of this, and I have notes on my calendar. Let’s put up what we can.” She pointed to the board.
Blanche paged through one of the notebooks, but it wasn’t making much sense. “Who was calling here? Looks like this happened a little closer to the meeting.”
“Some outfit in Boiling Brook, or something like that. Up in Chicago.”
“Bolingbrook?”
“Yes, that’s it.”
“No name there.” Liza slumped and stared at the screen.
Saving Tuna Street Page 10