Muddy Waters

by Ellis Quinn

  “Bette, come on,” Marcus lamented, squeezing the bridge of his nose.

  What did he think, she was doing this out of spite? She said, “This has got nothing to do with you, Marcus.”

  “I didn’t say it did,” he said, saying it slow like he was mad at her.

  Marcus put his hands on his hips and looked aside. But then saw through to the kitchen. Pris and Jason were in there, drinking tea and laughing about something by the sink. Marcus said loud enough to be heard in the kitchen, “You two know this might be a crime scene?”

  Prissy and Jason stopped laughing, their heads turning toward Marcus. Jason was attentive, Pris was unperturbed.

  Marcus said to Bette now, “I need to get control of my crime scene. Bette, would you come over here with me a minute?”

  “Hang on a second, Sam,” she said, and gave Sam’s forearm a reassuring stroke as she passed. Marcus walked her a short distance, going up the two living room steps to stand at the tiled edge of the front hall foyer.

  She said, “I didn’t invite him over to spite you, Marcus.”

  “I know you didn’t. I didn’t say—”

  “You know that I have a son about this kid’s age, don’t you? If—God forbid—my son ever found himself in a situation like this, I sure would hope someone out there in this world would show him a shade of kindness.”

  “That isn’t what I’m talking about, Bette.” He had her attention now, standing with his hands on his hips still, chin jutting toward her and looking her in the eye.

  “What? . . .”

  “You know that kid—no, that young man—has got to be one of my suspects now.”

  “He didn’t kill anybody.”

  “Look, nobody knows who this Sam is. We’re taking his word for it. And he looks like he’s seen better days.”

  She looked over her shoulder where Sam stood, patient, but unsure of what to do with himself. He was forlorn, his friend murdered, expression hang dog, chewing his lip and hugging an arm across his ribs and rubbing the opposite elbow. “He’s not putting on an act or anything,” she said.

  “No, but it wouldn’t be hard to fake a friendship with somebody as reclusive as Julie was, Bette,” he said. “A person could come into town and concoct any kind of story, and no one could dispute it. We need to scrutinize—”

  “Ease back on the authority with a capital A. We all know you’re the law around here, Marcus, you don’t have to hit the kid over the head with it.”

  Marcus inhaled deep to calm himself. “You just don’t ever know when you’re in danger, do you?”

  “I’m not in any danger.”

  “You’re not, because I can tell you right now what I’m going to do—”

  “You can’t stop me,” she said.

  “I wouldn’t dare try,” he said, “but I am going to talk to this kid, set him straight, let him know I’ll have cops driving by the Fortune every fifteen minutes, might even have one of the officers hiding in the bushes with binoculars. Might even be me.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “You a Peeping Tom, Marcus?”

  “You watch me tell him.”

  “He’s already scared of you, Marcus. Just let him be.”

  “You’re not concerned the boy might be a killer?”

  “He’s not a killer, Marcus,” she said. “If you need him, he’s going to be at my place. If you’re coming to arrest him, you better bring some proper evidence. That boy might have his problems, but did you look in his eyes? He didn’t kill Julie.”

  “Says you,” Marcus said, jaw firm.

  She wheeled and stomped around him, down to the living room, where Sam stood like a sad sack with sloping shoulders and four fingers shoved in each of his jeans’ front pockets.

  She said, “Pack your things together, Sam,” then, glaring over her shoulder, “if Marcus’ll let you.”

  Sam nodded, a fractional smile tucked to one side.

  “Then you’re going to my place,” she said. “You hungry for some dinner?”

  Out on the Fortune’s back porch, facing the Chesapeake Bay, was where she learned why Sam’s fingers were stained black. The sun was setting, and the Bay was lit in gold and rose. The water was calm. The colors in the trees were deep and verdant, the air cold and crisp. It was a perfect autumn Chesapeake Cove evening. All those colors, all her mixing on the pallet, cadmiums, cerulean, ochre, and Chinese white to get that pinky sunset hue in the sky, and here, next to her, sketching on a pad of rough watercolor paper, Sam somehow captured its beauty—its sentiment even—in shades of gray.

  Sam had a fountain pen, a single well-worn Number 2 sable brush, a crow quill, India ink, and a few tumblers of water. She sat next to him with her easel set up, five different kinds of brushes, painter’s glue; all that hard work and critical color selection to render a fairly close proximity to what her eye recorded. Right next to her, mournful Sam captured all of it in melancholy gray-scale beauty. No color. No gold. No rose. No verdant green in the shade of the tree line, no hint of blue in the spruce. Just somehow with flicks of his wrist and swirls and jots of his brush, he captured the moment with human eyes. His own eyes. This was how he saw the view. What she wanted to do was re-create the vista before her, but Sam spoke his truth to it. Used his skill and his heart to show everyone how it was he saw the world.

  “Your work is so beautiful,” she said.

  “Thank you, Bette,” he muttered and nodded. He had the crow quill now, held in a bright orange plastic gripper, scratching out finer details, bringing out focus in the foreground of his pen and ink drawing.

  “Look at the way you do trees. It’s all in your wrist,” she said, then felt dull. “I guess it’s in your heart,” she said.

  Sam smiled, eased back in the Adirondack chair, poked his orange pen nib holder into a glass of water. He held his sketchpad out from him now, surveying his own work. “You live in a beautiful spot, Bette. A wonder to behold.”

  “And you beheld it,” she said. “Sam, you have amazing talent.”

  “You’re not too bad yourself,” he said, setting his pad down on his knees and admiring her watercolor board propped up on its easel. He reached down now and patted Buster’s side, who slept at their feet between them. Buster’s tail thumped on the wood decking. To her dog, he said, “What do you think, Buster? Your dog-mom’s pretty talented, wouldn’t you say?” Buster thumped his tail harder, making eyes at Sam, with whom he’d become fast friends.

  Sam asked, “Can I top up your tea?”

  “That’d be great,” she said, and watched as his inky fingers plucked up Pearl’s rose-pattern Dalton and refilled both their cups of tea. Her phone dinged. For like the fifth time now. She snickered, lifted it from the table to read it.

  Marcus: You still alive?

  Marcus: Just text me a thumbs up

  Then five minutes ago, another text.

  Marcus: thumbs up might not be okay. We’re going to need questions and answers. What was the name of that place where you and I used to get the Canadian fries with the gravy and the cheese on them?

  Below that, she’d replied.

  Bette: McGillicuddy’s. Not in the Cove, up north at Taylors Island

  Marcus: I guess you’re still alive

  And just now, Marcus checking in again.

  Marcus: Hey remember that time we went to the fair down in Virginia, where we rode those horses? Having trouble remembering what car we took. Jog my memory

  She snickered again, texted in return.

  Bette: You had that crappy old pickup. It had vinyl seats but they were all worn with the foam poking through in spots, manual transmission, but you couldn’t get fifth gear

  That should tide him over. She wondered what Marcus would do if she started getting these answers wrong. Cruisers swoop into the Fortune’s driveway, big Jason Mitchum and little Stacy jumping out, guns drawn, storming through the house? While she’d been annoyed at first, she had to admit she was flattered by his concern. Touched, really. Her surliness a
t Julie’s house might not have been warranted.

  Sam still admired her painting. Very rough and representational right now. No heavy color to define the shapes, just mostly trying to capture the stillness of the water and the expanse of the sky. She said, “My mother taught me how to paint.”

  “And you grew up here?” Sam said, sipping his tea then looking up and around at the wraparound porch, the view, the jetty, the old boat house. He’d been wowed coming in to her 250-year-old home, handled just about every knickknack in the place, most of the things historical, noteworthy antiques. The style of the house was perfect Americana, he’d said, and he was amazed at the preservation of the place since it had been lived-in nonstop by Whaleys since 1779. Earlier, if you counted the house that had burned down.

  “Must have been amazing.”

  “Pretty amazing,” she said. “For a time.” And in Sam’s company, she felt comfortable, almost eager to expose herself. To render to him some of her own heartbreaks and hardships. Why she left the Cove, all the things that had ruined this happy home. But she didn’t know him. There was something about Sam that resonated with her, but she didn’t know him. Still, the urge was strong.

  “I have a son your age,” she said.

  “Twenty-two?”

  “Yes, on the button,” she said. “He’s at school right now.”

  Sam wanted to know where Vance went to school, and she told him all about Vance, his love for science and nature, and the good work he was doing out at sea.

  She asked him how he knew Julie, tentative, some of Marcus’s cynicism leaking into her brain somehow. Worried she would ask and he would say something chilling like Julie was the first woman I ever wanted to strangle. And how fast could Jason and Stacy get here with those guns drawn if she texted Marcus she was in danger?

  “Met her one year at an art festival,” Sam said, his quiet voice even tinier with the strain of bereavement. “Our booths were side-by-side. Julie and I really hit it off. We kept in touch after that. Whenever I come by this neck of the woods, well it wasn’t here I met her, it was out in Delaware, Bethany Beach area.”

  “I know it.”

  “We’d split a booth together when I came around. She was a good friend. I’d write letters during the year, let her know where I was going to be, get to that town, and there’d be a letter waiting for me at the post office.”

  “You guys know you can email?”

  “Could if I had a computer,” he said.

  “You’re a Luddite.”

  “Through and through,” he said. “Proud to be.”

  “Sometimes I like to disconnect, too.”

  He said, “That’s definitely what I am. Disconnected.” He curled up in the generous seating of the Adirondack chair, folding his legs underneath him and sitting cross-legged on the seat’s cushion.

  She said, “There’s something you’re running away from?” biting the lining of her cheek, hoping Sam felt as comfortable as she had a few minutes ago; maybe if she cracked his shell, she could split the egg and drop his yoke into the batter.

  “Aren’t we all running from something?” He turned to look at her, the gold light lighting up his watery blue eyes. Sunlight sparkled there, and it made him look weepy. She nodded, hypnotized by his agonal gaze.

  “I am,” she said. “I ran far away from home.”

  “And what got you running, Bette Whaley?”

  The answer was on her lips; she wanted to tell him. Tell him of her mother’s beauty, and how much she loved her. Everything that woman meant, and her grandmother, too. Wanted to tell him what happened to her mother, but her throat was stuck. Anxiety closed off the sphincter of her esophagus, and her eyes went as watery as Sam’s. She sniffled and said, “You first.”

  Sam closed his eyes, and the spell was gone.

  He shook his head no, then pinched the bridge of his nose; an action much like Marcus, though Sam’s one of pain, not one of exasperation.

  She said, “You don’t have to.”

  He opened his mouth, his gaze lost somewhere out on the Bay. He reached down now, and patted Buster on the side again, said, “It’s getting late, and this has been such a long and terrible day.”

  “You going to go to bed now?”

  “If that’s all right with you,” he said, his voice thin and hollow.

  “See you in the morning, Sam,” she said, and watched as he hefted his light weight as if it were a ton, his arms straining to lift himself out of the chair.

  He shuffled past her, and Buster raised his head to see where Sam was going. Sam went in through the sitting-room door, and when it closed behind him, Buster lay his head down again. She reached down and rubbed his head, scratched his ear and thumbed over its triangle shape.

  “That boy’s got some weight on his shoulders,” she said.

  THE NEXT MORNING

  Bacon sizzled in the pan as Sam descended the steps and came into her kitchen, Buster running around greeting him good morning. Last night she’d offered to run a load of laundry but he demurred. She pressed, and eventually he allowed her as long as she let him manage it; he didn’t want her taking any more care of him. This morning though, she’d taken his things from the dryer and folded them, put them in a wicker basket and left it on a stool under the island. He saw it right away, and he beamed, went to the pile and ran his hand over one of his sweatshirts on top, folded in a thick and faded lozenge.

  “I love the smell of laundry,” he said. “You miss it when you’re out on the road all the time.”

  “I’d miss it for sure,” she said.

  Sam was sheepish and didn’t know what to do with himself, tucking his hands in the front pockets of his jeans, and swishing his mouth from side-to-side. He said, “Anything you need help round here with?”

  “We’ll see,” she said, “I think there’re other things we’ll do today. . . . How’d you sleep?”

  “Oh,” he said, like he was caught off guard, looking away and running a hand through his hair. “Pretty amazing. No, really amazing actually. It’s been a while I could sleep stretched out.”

  “You had a nap at Julie’s yesterday.”

  The mention of her name got him to wince. “I just crashed on her couch with my sleeping bag for a blanket.”

  Now she returned to the pan where the bacon popped and hissed, and she turned the slabs over. They were almost perfect. She said, “Vance always says there’s nothing better than waking up to the smell of bacon.”

  Sam smiled, and though she still saw hurt in his eyes, he had a magnificent smile when he showed it.

  He said, “Your son’s not wrong. He’s very lucky to have such a great mom.”

  “Do you ever get home much?” she asked and then worried his parents may be the source of his hurt.

  But Sam said, “No, I haven’t been home in a few years.” It seemed he missed them. “Wow,” he said then, changing the subject and looking to the counter. “Bacon and coffee. That’s a great combination.”

  “Help yourself, there’s a pot ready there.” And as Sam poured himself a cup of coffee, she said, “We should head by my friend’s café at lunchtime. She makes amazing cappuccinos. And the best baked goods. . . . No offense, but I think you could do with a couple big meals in you.”

  Sam sat at the island, moved closer the creamer, then patted his narrow midsection, his stomach practically concave. He patted it like a drum and it made a tight and hollow sound. “I sure enjoyed your dinner last night.”

  She said, “And that was on short notice,” taking the bacon off the pan, transferring it to two plates where she had buttered toast. Then she heaped scrambled eggs and oven-hot hash browns, and she served it all up for both of them to eat at the kitchen island.

  She said, “Would you like to do some drawing again? I’d love it.”

  Sam nodded and said, “I think that would be great. Help me take my mind off of this.”

  She stopped chewing, looked forlorn for a second, and chewed her lower lip. She s
aid, “I sure am sorry about your friend. I never got a chance to meet her, though I wanted to. I just took up the painting again like I told you, and a friend told me about Julia in town, and how I should meet up with her. I never got the chance.”

  “You would’ve loved her,” Sam said, and resumed eating. He forked scrambled eggs into his mouth hungrily, using a finger to push a too-large mouthful past his lips. He chewed, put up a finger to show her he had something more to say. He said, “Julie would’ve loved you, too. Hands down, I guarantee it. You two would’ve been like this,” he held up two inky fingers wound like a caduceus.

  “It is such a tragedy. I really wish this wasn’t the way things worked out.”

  Sam nodded, wiped his mouth with a napkin, wove a piece of bacon through the tines of his fork, curling it up in a roll before popping it in his mouth. He chewed, and she waited for him to say more, but he didn’t. He bit into his toast now, his body posture sagging, whatever morbid thoughts creeping back in after he’d been flooded coming down the stairs with her friendship and home cooking and the smell of bacon, the smell of coffee, and bright sunlight coming through the windows. He was a tough nut to crack. There was a lot going on and she wanted to know more, but it would only be in due time.

  She said, “We’ll spend the morning together, later I’ll take you to my friend Cherry’s café, then we can go down to the public beach or one of the parks, spend some time drawing.”

  “We’ll bring Buster with us,” he said, looking down to where he lay on the oval cotton rug..

  “That sounds like a great day. And you’re staying another night. I won’t take no for an answer.”

  He nodded, showing a small tug of a smile.

  “Shoot,” she said, clapping her hands as it hit her. “We should go to the Brewery for lunch. Cherry’s place will be packed, anyway, but I bet I can get us table-side service out the back.”