Muddy Waters

by Ellis Quinn

  “We’re going to show you how you do it,” Pris said, “First, you better roll up them sleeves . . .”

  * * *

  They all taught Sam the proper way to enjoy a Maryland crab feast. Told him how it wasn’t quite the same as a community feast, but the crab was the same. They showed him how to crack crab, how to pull the back fin, the jumbo lump; they rinsed their fingers in pails of water at the table side and laughed at the cuts they got on their fingers.

  Something about seeing Sam chewing with his cheek puffed out, lips all shiny from butter, made her feel real good. That was the point of a crab feast celebration. Celebrating the things you had. A momentary abundance. A glorious moment of gluttonous celebration. A reminder it was so good to be alive.

  It was great to encircle Sam in their group and share with him something so joyous. He took to it, getting right in there, and Pris engaged him on the kitchen at the crab and how they steam and prepare for a feast, and Sam listened intently, nodding, chewing and smiling.

  Cherry checked her watch again, said to Bette, “I gotta go in a couple minutes, it’s cuh-razy at the Bean.”

  “It’ll all be over in a couple days,” she said, “you can get your rest then.”

  “I do love having a busy business,” Cherry said, wiping dry her shining fingers.

  “That’s the whole point, I guess, isn’t it?”

  Cherry leaned close and said, “How’s Vance doing?”

  “I think it’s me should be asking you that,” Bette said, winking. “Bet you you talk to that boy more’n I do these days.”

  THAT EVENING

  Bette geared the old Bronco down, coming to the curve at Church Creek. Around the curve would be the rickety wood trestle bridge that was wide enough only for one vehicle, and you didn’t want too much speed coming around the corner if you had someone coming right at you. When she was seven, she remembered coming out this way with her mother to see a heating oil truck that had skidded off the road and nosed into the creek, its big butt end rising up out of the water, after it’d come around the corner too fast and met another truck on its way across the bridge and swerved aside to avoid a collision. The oil truck had stayed nose down in the creek for five days before they could get the right kind of truck out here to tow it free.

  She was looping around the town rather than going straight through while it was so busy with the crab festival and a few of the roads being blocked off to vehicle traffic. The north side of town was where she headed, to the Cove Country Store, a general store that had a bit of everything, from hardware to comics, ice cream to feed grain. The one reason she drove to this particular store: black watercolor paint. The country store had a small selection of art supplies, and the art store in town would be closed at this time of evening, so it was an emergency trip. Sam was at home, and he’d expressed how he’d like to go out on the patio and draw this evening, and it sounded like a great idea. The kid was inspiring her to reach further into herself while she painted, to express herself rather than being measured and appropriate in her approach. Sam reminded her that the act of creating art should be fun, exploratory, and not just a lesson in mechanics. Tonight she wanted to work with a lot of black and knew there wasn’t enough left in her set.

  Back at home, she’d left Sam and Pris and Buster. They’d had a big dinner (she was determined to stuff Sam’s skinny frame with as many calories as she could while he stayed with her), and Pris napped on the couch while Sam took Buster out for a walk on the beach. Sam had really come around today. Grief took its toll on him, for sure, but he was adjusting to the knowledge his friend had been murdered. He’d begun to relax around her and Pris, which was great to see.

  It was early evening, not yet dark, the light leeched and everything in the shade of blue. Her headlights swooped the corner as she rounded the bend to the trestle bridge, bathing the grassy shoulder in pale yellow. There were no oncoming headlights traveling through the bridge, so she let the clutch pedal of the old truck go and headed through in second gear.

  Now her headlights lit up a lone figure standing out of the way, leaning on a wide wooden side rail of the ancient bridge, looking down at the creek water flowing below.

  It was a youngish man, maybe in his mid-thirties, elbows on the rail, hands clasped together; his head hung down in a classic pose of funereal glumness. She set the clutch pedal down and coasted past him. The man didn’t register the passing of her truck, and she rattled by, stopping at the other end of the bridge and watching him in her rear-view mirror. She had a terrible notion of hearing about him tomorrow at the Bean, everyone gossiping about the man who killed himself jumping off the Church Creek trestle bridge.

  Geared into reverse, she wound her grandmother’s old truck backward until she was aside the man. He turned now, left-facing over a shoulder. The man’s expression was hollow and tormented, not unlike her houseguest Sam.

  She had to lean across the passenger seat to wind the spindly chrome crank and lower the window. Cold night air rushed in and tightened her cheek flesh. The man must be freezing out at night in a polo shirt and shorts. She called out the window to him, “You all right?”

  He shook his head no, his expression unchanged, and in the odd moment she felt a chill of fear sliding in along with the cold air. This sad specter of a man, out alone at night, luring unsuspecting women so he could strangle them . . .

  Then it was like the man could register in her own features her sudden fear. He corrected himself, stood straighter, worked his mouth around like he would speak. He turned and showed her his palms, like he tried to express he was harmless. The urge to wind the window crank clockwise and seal herself off was strong, but she waited to hear what the man would say.

  He shook his head no again, but this time raised his weary eyebrows, saying, “I’m okay, but, well . . . not really.”

  “Do you need any help?”

  He looked to his right, to the overlapping cones of her headlights’ glare on the graying timbers of the bridge. “I came out for a walk and I got turned around.”

  “You’re lost?”

  Now he nodded, his lips wriggling around and his eyes reddening. “Yeah. I’m lost,” he sighed, then turned to face her. “I . . . My wife . . . was killed today.”

  * * *

  The man whose wife was strangled this morning rode shotgun in the Bronco. She was in the country store, black watercolor paint and a new sable brush and a couple Snickers bars in her hand, waiting in line and watching out the front windows of the store where the light fell through her Bronco’s windscreen and onto her strange passenger.

  The man had told her his name was Pete Headley, and apologized for his demeanor. She told him she understood, considering what had transpired today. He nodded again, appeared at a loss, and she told him to get in. Marcus had said the woman who was strangled overnight had a little boy, which meant Pete Headley’s little boy was by himself if his father was lurking on bridges in the middle of the night.

  Her phone dinged again, held in her free hand, and she turned up the screen to read.

  Marcus: Where are you now?

  She texted in return.

  Bette: I’m at Cove Country. Pete’s in my truck

  Marcus: How’s he doing now?

  She told him, and then Marcus asked how she was doing.

  Bette: A little freaked out but I’m good. I’m glad to take him home. He is out of it

  It was her turn next in line, and she set her items on the counter and the old boy rang them up for her. She paid in cash while he put them in a paper bag.

  Before she’d ever let Pete in her truck, she’d texted Marcus to make sure he vouched for the man, and that someone knew she was picking up strangers at the side of the road when there was a killer on the loose who was strangling women in the Cove.

  Another text as she passed through the old double doors, jingling the little bell hanging above by a red string. She paused on the store’s wraparound porch, leaning on bags of black oil sunflower
seeds and reading what Marcus had sent her.

  Marcus: Why are you always making me worry like this?

  Bette: Someone’s got to keep the calm cool and collected on their toes

  Marcus: You’re working overtime on it

  Pete watched her solemnly through the truck window. She smiled kindly at him and tucked her phone in her pocket.

  * * *

  Back on the road in the Bronco, Pete seemed to have come around a little, eyes more alert and looking out at the road as she headed toward town again, to where Pete said he lived.

  He said, “Thanks again, Bette, for watching out for me.”

  “Can’t have you hanging out on bridges in the middle of the night. You don’t know there’s trolls that live under em?”

  “That old folk tale? Never heard of one who lives under the Church Creek bridge.”

  It was nice to see he could accept a small amount of humor and felt good enough to share it back. She said, “You know Church Creek? How long you been coming to the Cove?”

  “Oh, no, I haven’t been here but one time before,” he said. “I saw the creek name labeled somewhere when I was walking. I left my place and got lost in thought, just kept walking. I don’t know how I got so far from the home where I’m staying.”

  “And where is that, where’m I taking you?”

  “It’s a rental out on the Rothman Road, it’s just outside of the town, not too far.”

  “The Rothman Road?” That was where Julie Hartsfield lived, the house where she and Pris had discovered Sam. “Nice places along Rothman,” she said.

  “Yeah. Miranda chose it online. It’s nice, the house we rented.” He sighed then, thinking of his wife who was now gone, Bette figured. “It was nice.”

  “Are you going back to Delaware now?”

  He shook his head, saying, “I need to stay in town for the police, and . . .”

  When Pete trailed off, she asked, “How’s your little boy?”

  “He’s . . . I don’t know how he is. Honestly, I don’t know. He’s only four, and . . . I don’t think he’s registered what it means, what happened to his mom. I’m struggling to be strong for him, but he’s trying to comprehend it all through the lens of my behavior. I think he still wants to go to the festival, because he sees me trying to make the best of this.”

  “You should take him,” she said. “I don’t see the harm. He’s going to process this in his own way, and maybe the more gradual he comes to accept it, the better it’ll be for him.”

  “I don’t know what to do,” Pete sighed, then put his face in his hands; not crying, just breathing deep, the air whisking through the seams of his fingers. “This is all so unexpected, so out of the blue. I don’t think I’m processing it myself, either. All I know is to be strong for my boy.”

  “That’s enough,” she said. “It’s your duty, and you’re doing it. Maybe having your boy to take care of will armor you against what you must be going through.”

  His vacant gaze cast out the windshield, and his hands slipped lower, pinky fingers pulling down on the corners of his mouth, watching the Bronco’s headlights glare on the gravel road as they rounded the Waverley Road, headed toward Rothman. “We just came for a crab festival. I still can’t believe this happened.”

  * * *

  The place Miranda Headley had chosen for her family to stay during the crab festival was two properties before Julie’s home on the dead end road called Rothman. Just like Julie’s place, the home Pete had rented for them to stay the weekend was a Tudor-style bungalow at the end of a long and well-groomed gravel drive.

  Was the first murder a case of mistaken identity? Had the killer come to the wrong house and followed the wrong woman onto her boat and strangled her? It wasn’t impossible to think that Miranda Headley had been the intended target in the first place, and mistaken identity got Julie killed. What other reason could there be for such a coincidence? So the question now would be why did someone want Miranda Headley dead?

  It might have been better not to mention any more about Miranda and Julie Hartfield being murdered for Pete’s sake, but she had a curious and compulsive mind. She said to him, “Did you know the other woman who was killed three days ago lived just down the street from where you’re staying? Two houses down from this one.” In a house that looks exactly like yours.

  Pete looked up, unalarmed but puzzled. His eyes shifted aside in the pale greenish hue from the Bronco’s old flat dashboard. “I didn’t . . . No, I didn’t know that. Just down the street?”

  “Uh-huh. I wonder if that means anything,” she said, as if wondering aloud to herself. But she watched Pete’s expression.

  He said nothing more, though she let that fact hang in the air, and soon she was stopping out front of the bungalow, all the lights off. She said, “I’ll stay with the headlights on till you get in,” bothered by his poor parenting skills. What kind of father would go out for a walk while his four-year-old son was at home? Of course, she was assuming his son was here alone.

  Pete paused, his hand on the Bronco’s door lever. “Thanks again for bringing me home. I’m sorry if I seemed out of it . . .”

  “I understand, Pete.”

  “That’s good. I know you do.” His shoulders seemed to grow heavier. “Under normal circumstances, most people would say I can’t stop talking, but now . . .”

  “I can’t even imagine what you’re going through. And I’m so sincerely sorry for you, sorry for your son, sorry for your loss. If you need any help while you’re here, just give me a call. I gave you my number.”

  He nodded and touched a palm over the chest pocket of his polo shirt, where he’d tucked the slip of paper she’d given him with her phone number written on it.

  She added: “And don’t you worry. I know Detective Seabolt personally”—Pete’s disquieted eyes drifted her way—“and there’s no one better you’re going to want on the case. Believe it or not, he’s had some experience with murder cases in this town. The Cove might not be as sleepy as it seems.” She sighed, and Pete waited to hear her out. “Detective Seabolt’s kind of a local legend,” she continued, “so don’t you worry, he’s not going to rest, I swear it, not till we’ve got Miranda’s murderer behind bars.”

  “We?”

  “The town,” she said, though she’d meant herself, but now didn’t want to seem like she would encroach on his grief, “the town won’t let this rest. I guarantee it.”

  His lips pursed, contemplating what she’d said, and his hand pulled back the Bronco’s door handle. “Thank you for the encouraging words, Bette,” he said, “you’ve been very kind tonight.”

  “Glad to help a stranger in need,” she said as he stepped out of her truck.

  “Maybe I’ll see you around,” he said, eyes cast down like he was lost again.

  “Take care.”

  With that he closed her door with a thunk and she watched him cross into her headlights and then up the path to the unlit front door. He fumbled with keys, unlocked the door and disappeared inside without turning back for a final wave. The lights stayed off.

  “That poor guy,” she whispered as she geared the truck in reverse, then rolled out the drive in a wide crescent, headed back to Rothman, then straight home to discuss this development with Pris.

  THE NEXT MORNING

  A grizzled old crabber with a bushy white beard and faded denim ball cap showed the gathered crowd out back of his vessel how you measure a blue crab and tell if you can keep it or not. He used a beaten old metal slide ruler to show the one he held was over five inches.

  In a real hard-to-understand old-timey Eastern Shore accent he grumbled, “N some time of a year, gotta be five’n a hurff. Lemme jes warsh iss’one”—he used a pail of water to rinse off the blue crab he held in a large hand, then flipped it over, its legs crawling the air—“n’now I show yuh how to check if yuh’s got a boy’un. Better come close’n get yer glersses on.” Now he broke up in a wheezy pipe-smoking laugh, the crowd joining in
and peering closer, and the man demonstrated how to sex the crab, explaining how you can’t keep the females, so you better go on and check if’n you don’t want a fine.

  She’d gone this morning for a walk by herself on the beach, Sam and Buster back at The Fortune, Sam helping out by doing the dishes. It was too nice out to stop walking and she never turned back. Now she was in town, the place lively and loud, packed with tourists. She’d ended up walking by the Cracked Crab, up the macadam path to town, then dipped behind the Maritime Museum to see the old original Chesapeake Cove seaport, which the museum maintained. It was here she lined up to watch the demonstrations offered. There were crabber boats lined up along the port, and the tourists could gather behind draped chains on the grassy edge before the port drop-off and watch the various demonstrations; how to lay out trotline, how to put out crab traps, how to sex a crab . . . There was a state trooper there, on land and behind a booth, who’d answer any questions about all the new crabbing laws meant to help preserve the Bay’s blue crab population.

  At the foot of the Crockett Lighthouse she bought a funnel cake from a vendor, the hot pastry handed to her as big as a dinner plate and covered in frosted sugar. She stood in the shade of the lighthouse and ate, watching out over the Bay and not feeling as bad as she’d usually feel as the end of October approached.

  The Crockett Lighthouse had been out in the Bay for most of its life, which had to be over a hundred years or a hundred-and-a-half. It was a screw-pile lighthouse, the bottom of the Bay here too soft and sandy (Vance’s eleven-year-old voice in her head: Duh, well, of course, it’s an estuary) for proper construction, so they had to screw the pilings way down into rock. Sometime before she was born, the lighthouse became redundant, and it was too beautiful to destroy, so the town made a museum and they hauled the old lighthouse onto land where it sat on the historic seaport on its iron legs, cut down so it stood only a head taller than her; the lighthouse was beautiful and a Chesapeake Cove landmark, a two-story hexagonal wood house with dormer windows, and a copper-roof cupola up top where the light would have shone.