“It’s bits and pieces, least that I can remember. I see the big gators tearing up something, and I hear screaming. I see you and Kim; last night I saw Mama, too. And I keep hearing the screaming.” Her face went white at the memory.
He reached over and smoothed her cheek, hoping to bring back some color. “Are they our gators you’re seeing? Can you tell?”
She shook her head. “I can’t see where they are, just that there’s a bunch of them.”
If anyone fell into one of the holding areas, it’d likely be Owen. Owen and Winn were at a friend’s farm for the day. Shar was supposed to feed their gators this morning. No way would she ever accidentally fall in. He didn’t like how upset Tullie was over these dreams. It made him uneasy.
“I’ll call your mom.” He grabbed his phone from the truck and dialed Shar’s cell number. There was no answer, but that didn’t necessarily worry him. She sometimes forgot to charge it. He called Southern Comfort, too, to tell Kim he’d be coming by in a while. No answer there either.
When his phone rang, he figured it might be Shar returning his missed call. It was one of the deputies at the Naples sheriff’s office. “You wanted me to let you know when those two boys bailed out. Well, they left about an hour ago.”
Enough time for them to reach town. “Thanks.” Even though they hadn’t set the fire, he didn’t trust them.
Tullie asked, “Uncle Zell, what’s wrong?” when he hung up. “Was it Mama?”
“No, it wasn’t. I gotta go,” he told both her and Smitty.
“I want to go with you,” she said, climbing into his truck before he could say otherwise.
“What’s the matter?” Smitty asked as Zell handed him the three rabbits Tullie had been playing with.
“Clem and Billy Bob are out of jail. I’m going to check on Kim, make sure she’s all right. Tullie, out of the truck.”
She crossed her arms in front of her. He didn’t have time to wrestle with the girl. He hopped in and headed out. Maybe Kim had gone to the hardware store.
Her truck wasn’t at the bar or at the store, but JoGene’s was. Zell stopped and caught him just as he was heading out. Zell wasn’t sure what his expression was, but it must have looked a little wild.
JoGene raised his hand as though to ward Zell off. “I don’t like that look on your face. I took care of everything like you said to. She can have the bar. I don’t want it anymore. I’m talking to Reverend Macey about taking over his beer and worm business.”
He wasn’t going to get into JoGene’s accusations right then. Later, yes, but not then. “Have you seen Kim today?”
He blinked, readjusting his train of thought. “Yeah, heading north. I was pulling into the marina, so I didn’t see where she went after she crossed the bridge. I assumed it was to your place or maybe to her place.”
Tullie had been listening to the conversation from her open window. As Zell walked back to his truck, she asked, “Is Kim all right? I got that feeling again, Uncle Zell. It hurts right here.” She placed her clenched fist to her chest.
“I’m sure she is. Maybe she wanted to take in her house again, you know, get right inside with what happened.”
He headed toward her house. Then he’d check his place. He glanced over at Tullie, who was lost in dark thoughts. In concert with those dark thoughts, the sky opened up with a loud crack of thunder and dumped rain on them.
“Charlotte, what are you doing?” Kim’s strained voice squeezed out of a throat almost too tight for air. This had to be a joke or maybe a test of some kind.
She raised the gun as Kim reached for the door. “I’m protecting my own. Maybe with the last of your family gone, the past can finally rest. Ernie may be a problem, but we’ll just have to see about him.”
Kim’s throat went dry at those words. “You did something to Ernie?”
“No, but I tried. He ran off, scared like a rabbit.”
Kim hardly had the wherewithal to feel relieved, not with a gun in her face and three hundred hungry gators behind her. She could hear them thrashing around, fighting for who got to sink its teeth into her first.
“You’re doing this to protect Winn, aren’t you? He killed Rhonda. And Elva. Charlotte, you don’t have to do this.”
“Yes, I am doing this to protect my father. Just like I killed Rhonda to protect him.”
Kim’s mouth dropped open. She gained her senses, wanting to keep Charlotte talking. “But why?”
“Because she was causing trouble, just like Elva did and like you’re doing now. Rhonda played up to my daddy, taking advantage of the fact that he was broken-hearted after my mama’s death. She might have been a teenager, but she was a vamp. She thought she could get her nails into him, and she nearly did. She got pregnant and demanded that he marry her. What she didn’t count on was that he’d be jailed for statutory rape if anyone found out he’d fathered her child. He couldn’t marry her.”
Her child. “Ernie is your half-brother.”
She sneered. “Quaint, ain’t it? I overheard Daddy and Zell talking about it. They wanted to protect my feminine sensibilities, you see, keep me out of it. They hashed over their options, and Zell proposed a deal to her: Daddy would pay child support if she’d keep her mouth shut about who fathered that bastard child of hers. She did, apparently, because no one ever found out. Luckily Ernest took after Rhonda and not Daddy. I would have gouged his eyes out if they’d looked like ours.” Her talons clenched on the gun as anger flared in her eyes. “When she was about to turn eighteen, she started putting the pressure on him again. I think Daddy intended to marry her, too. No way could I have that girl as a stepmom. No way would I let her win. She’d have ruined the family for sure.”
“So, you killed her,” Kim finished.
“No, I threatened her at first, tried to scare her away. It was her lie that pushed me over the edge.”
“She told Winn she was pregnant.”
“Exactly. And you even found out about that. Yes, she showed him a positive pregnancy test. See, Daddy had been seeing her on and off for those intervening years. He was lonely, and she filled a need, I suppose. Zell tried his damnedest to keep him away from that girl, but she had him good. Except that right after she turned eighteen, Daddy shot your father. Then he married Kitty because he felt responsible. That pissed Rhonda off big-time.
“Daddy kept promising to divorce Kitty after a bit and marry her, but he kept putting her off. I think he came to like Kitty, even if he was still sleeping with Rhonda. Rhonda got desperate and produced the test. Zell didn’t believe her, but Daddy did. There was something that I knew: if a negative pregnancy test sits for longer than fifteen minutes, it can show a second line. Either way, I wasn’t going to stand for it. Either she was lying or we were going to have another bastard child around. While Zell and Daddy discussed how to deal with her—she was threatening to turn him in for the first statutory rape if he didn’t marry her—I started planning.”
Charlotte’s voice, along with the sky-shattering thunder, was irritating the gators even more, particularly since they were still waiting for their meal. Kim kept feeling around for a handle on the inside of the door as Charlotte talked.
“See, Zell’s always been the one to clean up after Daddy. They thought I couldn’t handle the truth, but I’m stronger than they thought. This time I would clean up the mess and shield my brother from it all. I wanted to be the one to make things right. So, I went to Rhonda’s place pretending I had money. She got into the truck with me, and I bashed her on the head with a hammer, again and again. Then I drove to the house and told Daddy what I’d done. I thought he’d be proud of me.”
Her laugh was bitter, and her eyes filled with moisture. “He yelled at me, told me I was crazy. I was only trying to protect him! That’s what I told him. And he held me and said now he would protect me. That he was long overdue. He called Buck to help him get rid of the girl’s body. They jammed a stick up her so it’d look like a sexual crime in case she was ever found.”
Kim touched something that felt like an emergency latch. She felt around for a release lever. “So, it was them I saw driving out to the swamp.”
“Yeah. Buck had suggested feeding her to the gators, but Daddy was afraid something would be left in the tank. I’m going to make sure no one ever finds you.” She scanned Kim. “You don’t wear a lot of jewelry. I’ll be checking after the next flushing of the tanks to be sure that belly button ring of yours isn’t left behind or pooped out. Folks around here will think you gave up and left. Someone will see your truck heading toward Miami, I’m sure. I should be back before anyone even knows I was gone.”
Kim thought about screaming for help, but she’d never be heard over the torrents of pounding rain. The only person who might hear it would be Dewey, who would probably do whatever Charlotte told him to. Her frantic mind tried to sort through her options as Charlotte said, “Don’t think I like doing this. I actually do like you. And Zell, he does love you. That presented another problem. Having you as part of the family would be even trickier. Since you didn’t die in the fire, I was hoping you’d at least get scared and leave.”
“Mama?”
Kim saw the puzzlement on Charlotte’s face before they both turned to find a soaking wet Zell and Tullie standing near the door.
“Shar, what are you doing?” Zell kept his voice calm despite his utter disbelief.
“Get out of here!” Charlotte shouted, turning the gun back on Kim when she started to move. “Let me handle this.”
Tullie started to rush forward, her face wet with tears and rain. “Mama, the dream about the gators. Please, stop! The gators are going to eat me.”
Zell grabbed her by her shirt.
“Get her out of here,” Charlotte and Kim both said.
“You have to get back in the truck.” When Tullie shook her head, Zell pushed her out the door and locked it.
While Charlotte was preoccupied with Tullie’s desperate cries, Kim turned the small knob and pushed the door open. The gun skittered across the floor as Charlotte was shoved forward. She lunged toward Kim, who was moving through the doorway. Kim dropped and grabbed at her legs, sending her to the floor in the open doorway. Charlotte kicked free, screaming unintelligibly. She got to her feet and held onto the half wall.
Zell pulled Kim against him and grabbed the gun. The gators were churning and hissing now; the sound even overpowered the rain.
Charlotte’s eyes were wide in her pale face. “Zell, we’ve got to get rid of her. She knows too much.”
Pain mixed with the shock on his face. “Shar, what are you talking about?”
“We’ve got to get rid of Kim. I know you like her, but there will be other girls. It’s to protect the family. She’ll turn me in, even if she promises not to. I know she will. If we get rid of her, we can keep this our secret.”
Zell said, “Come here, Shar.” He held his hand out to her. “We can work this out.”
Charlotte’s gaze darted between Zell and Kim. It remained on Zell for a moment, wet with tears of desperation. “Zell, tell me you’ll help. You’ve protected Daddy all these years. Protect me now. I had to kill them to protect our family honor.”
“Them?” he asked.
“Rhonda and Elva. I only did it for the family. I didn’t want that girl to mess things up. Elva, she was blackmailing me. Nobody knew Rhonda kept a diary. She hid it in her sister’s shed in the bottom of a box of gardening stuff. Elva bought the box at a church sale, of all the damn luck. Rhonda had written about me threatening her. Elva contacted me anonymously through letters. She said she ought to turn it over to the police. It would re-open the investigation and point it right at me. She said that wouldn’t really do anyone any good now. She was greedy; she wanted twelve thousand dollars. So, I paid her, a little every month out of the house account. I was supposed to throw the money into the swamp from the highway coming into town.
“I knew that the blackmailer would either keep asking for money or eventually turn me in. I decided to find out who it was. I had Dewey throw the money while I waited in a skiff someone kept at the dock north of Elva’s place. I saw her retrieve the package. I had to do it, I had to.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Please, Zell, push Kim in. We can keep it our secret. Daddy doesn’t ever have to know. Or Owen. We can tell Tullie this was a misunderstanding. That I was going to shoot a gator or something, and Kim accidentally fell in.”
“No one else is going to die, Shar.”
“Then it’s all over. I’ll go to jail, everyone will know about Rhonda and Daddy’s bastard child…they’ll know it all. They’ll say the Macgregors are crazy people. There will be news shows about us, dissecting our lives—me. I’ll have done all this for nothing.” She glanced at the gators behind her and then quickly turned back to Zell and Kim. He had inched closer but stopped again. Charlotte said, “Promise me you won’t tell anyone the truth. If not for me, then for Tullie.”
Kim said, “I promise.” Anything to get her to walk forward.
She turned to Zell. “Promise me, big brother.”
“Just come here,” he said, his voice strangled with emotion. “We’ll make it all right.”
“No. I’ll make it all right.”
As Zell lunged for her, Charlotte stepped over the edge and into the gators. Kim let out a scream as he reached for his sister. The gators instantly covered her, pushing her beneath the water in a frenzy. Kim grabbed at Zell as he began to climb down into the holding area.
“No, they’ll kill you, too!”
He leaned down, searching for her with the gun aimed at the gators. He was trying to shoot at them without hitting her. Finally, he shot up in the air, probably hoping to distract them. But it was already too late. Way too late. The truth of that was in the blood-colored water. Kim pulled him away from the platform and toward the door where the drumming rain washed away the sounds of the gators. He collapsed, and she let him take her with him. Her stomach churned, and she was covered in sweat.
“I’m sorry,” she managed to say, looking into his shell-shocked face.
Tullie was no longer pounding on the door. Kim hoped she’d gone back to the truck. Neither of them was ready to face her yet.
“She was trying to kill you,” he said in a robotic tone.
She pressed her face against his soaked shirt. “She thought she was doing the right thing, protecting her family. She thought she was protecting you.”
“She was crazy. She wanted me to help her cover it up.” He seemed to come out of the haze of shock. He shoved away the small gun and cradled her face in his hands. “She wanted me to help kill you. Are you all right?”
Kim nodded. “Are you?”
He didn’t look all right. He looked pale as he stared past her. “No more cover-ups. I don’t expect you to lie about what happened here. We’re telling the police everything. I don’t want to lose you over this.”
After pursuing the truth for so long, justice looked as bleak as the sky overhead. Charlotte was right: there would be reporters, a lengthy investigation, and speculation. The family would be put through hell. She imagined Tullie’s solemn face and imposed Ernest’s lost face over it. She remembered her own pain and shock over losing her father, and then recently, discovering the truth.
“We’re not going to the police.” She got to her knees and faced him. “Charlotte has been punished.” She glanced back toward the holding area. The gators had quieted down again, and the rain had lightened. Thunder rumbled from a distance. “There’s no need to punish the rest of the family, especially Tullie.” She touched his face as he began to understand what she was saying. “There’s nothing to be gained by telling the truth. There’s only much to be lost.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
He pushed himself to his feet and helped her up. He glanced toward the holding tank, closed his eyes and lowered his head. “What about what Tullie saw?”
“We’ll tell her there was an alligator loose
on the walkway, and that’s why Charlotte had the gun out. That’s why we were tense. It’s happened before.”
He pulled her hard against him. After a few minutes, he said, “Why were you out here? This was the last place I expected to see your truck. I only came here because of Tullie’s gator dreams.”
She started to tell him about Charlotte’s offer to help Kim pass his test but halted. No need for him to know his own test had been used to nearly kill her. “We were just talking, that’s all. Let’s go tell Tullie the news.”
“She probably already knows. Maybe she knew all along.”
EPILOGUE
Zell walked up to the door and knocked. Kim opened it and took him in for a second. It was the first time he’d worn a tropical shirt since what they called “the accident.” Only Winnerow and Owen had been told the truth. Everyone else in town had mourned only for a terrible accident, even giving Kim condolences for witnessing it. Tullie’s feelings told her there was more to the story, but so far she hadn’t pressed. Kim knew Zell was having a hard time coming to terms with what Charlotte had done. She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed seeing those shirts…or the brightness in his eyes.
“You really don’t have to knock,” she said. “It’s your house.” Kim had moved into Zell’s house while he was living at Heron’s Glen to be close to Tullie. They had put their relationship on hold over the last four months while they focused on helping the girl through her grief.
He lifted a shoulder. “It’s your place for now. Ready to go?”
“To some mysterious destination? I don’t know. I guess I’m game.” She glanced behind him. “Where’s Tullie?”
Between Kim, Zell, and Winnerow, the girl was never left alone. Helping Tullie heal had been a way for all of them to heal. Old grudges and bad feelings had been set aside…hopefully for good. Winnerow had even given Kim a hug goodnight after dinner last week.
“Owen’s back. I guess four months of traveling around Florida helped him work through his grief. He was pretty messed up. I wasn’t sure if he was ever going to come back. He seems all right. He’s even ready to get back to work at the farm.”
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