Actually it was the little jump of arousal he’d felt that had stirred his temper. He’d gripped her fingers, pushing her hand aside, and risen. “No,” he told her angrily—and too loudly.
“Dane, don’t leave me.”
“Sheila, I can’t leave you if I’m not with you.”
He’d turned and left the bar. Nate had seen them, of course. He hadn’t known what they were saying, but since he was at the end of the bar, he must have heard the anger in Dane’s voice. And damn if Cindy Greeley hadn’t been there, too, that day—he hadn’t seen her until then, but there she was, with Nate at the end of the bar, showing him the new T-shirts she’d designed for his bar.
He’d said hi to Cindy and gone on.
That night Sheila had shown up at his house. She’d told him not to worry, she was just stopping by, seeing what he was up to. They were still friends, right?
“Friends, Sheila,” he had told her, and let her in.
At first she had been so casual.
She’d asked him about what had brought him back. He’d told her it had just been time to come home. She hadn’t believed him, but she had pretended to.
“I think, for you, everything changed with Joe.”
He hadn’t answered that. Instead he’d said, “Sheila, what the hell are you doing?”
“Getting by. I should marry some nice guy and settle down. Problem is, there aren’t that many nice guys out there. Besides, you knew me when I was young and sweet and innocent. Okay, I was never innocent. But I was a little sweet.”
“You were married to Larry Miller. There’s a nice guy.”
“A boring guy, I’m afraid. I like excitement. Or maybe every nice guy is a boring guy. I don’t know. You know what, Dane? Men just don’t come in the kind that I really want to keep. Actually, I may be a real voice for my sex.”
“Oh?”
Sheila had laughed, and looked stunning. “Yeah. Guys are usually ratty to women. They fall in love…lust first, most of the time. They marry, they cheat.”
“Not all of them. I’d say it’s pretty even.”
“Not on your life! Trust me. Men always seem to need someone to bolster their egos. Some guy told me once that it’s just natural. You know, survival of the species. Long ago, guys had to sow their seed, just like lions, or some shit like that. Mate all they could so their DNA would go on and on. Instinctively they’re still that way—except, of course, that they don’t really want to procreate anymore, because on the not so instinctive side, something resembling brains kicks in and they don’t want to pay child support. But some guys are innately bad, maybe not even in a way they can help. Look at all the old geezers looking for trophy wives. Sixty-, seventy-, even eighty-year-olds throwing out wives they’ve had for years, finding some beach bunny and patting themselves on the back for having a kid when they’re members of AARP. Makes ’em macho.”
“Sheila, you know, I have friends who have been left by their wives, taken to the cleaners big time by them.”
“See, there you go. Defending your sex.”
“I’m not trying to defend anyone. I just think that people in general aren’t always so great to others. I’ve seen plenty of men behave like real assholes. I’ve seen some women who are just as cold and calculating.”
“Different thing,” Sheila said, waving a hand in the air. “Someone should do a study on it. As for me, well, I guess I’ll just go on thinking that I’m standing up for my sex, using guys like paper cups, tossing them out as soon as they get a bit soggy.” She’d looked at him then. “Dane…are you sure…I mean, sometimes, way back when, we’d get together when neither one of us had a steady thing going.”
“Sheila, you’ve got to trust me here. I’m not what you’re looking for. But I will give you a speech, which is what you need. You’re beautiful. You deserve ten times more than you’re giving yourself. Not to mention the fact that your lifestyle is dangerous. There are a bunch of assholes out there, not to mention the fact that these days the world is full of sexually transmitted diseases, some of which can kill you.”
She’d laughed then. “Oh, great! You think I’m infectious. Dane, I’m careful as hell.”
“No, you’re not. If you were, you’d be looking for something more than money.”
“It’s not just money,” she said softly.
“Then…?”
“I told you, I’m making up for all the assholes out there.” She’d leaned against the pillows on the sofa then, watching him with a rueful smile. “I hear you’re in deep mourning over something gone wrong. I can help. I can make you feel better. If only for a night.”
He had to admit, the thought had been tempting. But Sheila couldn’t really give him anything. And there was nothing he could give her.
“No good, Sheila,” he had told her softly.
And still she’d stayed. They’d had some wine, played chess. She was a good player. Then they’d had some more wine. And finally it had been really, really late, and she still hadn’t gotten up to go.
“I wish you’d want me, Dane.”
“Sheila…”
“What’s wrong with me?” she asked for the second time that night.
“Nothing. You’re beautiful. It’s what’s wrong with me, and the fact that I don’t think we’re particularly good for each other.”
Then that smile. “You know what? I don’t sleep with that many guys. I string them along pretty far, but…I like gifts, good food, expensive bottles of wine. I swear, Dane, I’m not diseased or anything. I’m smart and I’m careful, and more selective than it might appear. And I always carry protection. Dane, dammit, I know you’re hurting, but…don’t you ever just get urges, need some kind of relief? I’m perfect for you. I know you don’t love me, and I don’t want anything from you except to be around sometimes…. You can turn off the lights, drink yourself into a stupor, and I won’t mind. And it’s not like it’s something you haven’t done before, a place you haven’t been before.”
She’d made a move for him. Chess pieces had fallen to the floor. And he’d had a lot of wine, a lot of pain, a lot of guilt and self-recrimination, and a lot of longing. Sheila was beautiful. So overtly sexual she was impossible to ignore. Maybe men were nothing more than slightly evolved beasts. She hadn’t been wearing a damn thing beneath her red dress, and she’d made a point of letting him know it.
“Sheila, I’m telling you, it just wouldn’t be right.” But there had been a guttural quality to his voice then.
“I don’t care, Dane. I don’t care. I just want to stay. For one night.” She stood then. With definite talent, she let the red dress fall to the floor. “Call it a mercy fuck,” she pleaded.
He wasn’t sure he could throw her out naked. He wasn’t sure he wanted to.
It hadn’t occurred to him that she was scared of leaving. Chalk it up to arousal and maybe even a certain ego. Before he knew it, she was on her knees before him. Her eyes were pleading.
And Sheila was good at what she did.
They hadn’t wound up in his bed, but right there, on the couch, where they’d played chess. He’d awakened feeling a dull throbbing in his head. Sex. Like eating food with no taste. Breathing in and out because the lungs did so without the commitment of the conscious mind. He didn’t want to hurt Sheila. They’d both been banged up enough. He didn’t want to talk, either.
Hadn’t needed to.
Sheila had gotten right up, grabbed the red dress and walked to the door, pausing long enough only to look out to make sure it was light. “Thanks,” she’d said, not turning back.
“Hey, my pleasure,” he said lightly, hoping to make them both feel better.
Still, she hadn’t looked back. That was when she had said it.
“Help me, Dane.”
“I’m trying to help you, Sheila. You don’t want to listen to me.”
Then, still with her back to him, “You can’t help it that you don’t love me. I don’t expect you to…. I don’t love you, either…Well,
as much as anyone, but…I just…”
Then she’d turned for a minute.
“I need help.”
“Sheila, we can get you some help—”
She’d laughed, cutting him off. “A psychologist for my nympho tendencies?” She shook her head. “You don’t understand. And I can’t…explain.” She had stood in his doorway just a moment longer. In the soft pink light of dawn, he thought he saw a brief look of desperation cross her face.
“I look tough, but…I’m afraid.”
“Jesus, Sheila, then you’ve got to change your lifestyle.” His outburst had brought him to his feet. “Quit picking up strangers and going off with them. Settle down with a different goal in mind, rather than striking a blow against men for all women, or whatever it is you think you’re doing.”
A slow smile had crossed her face. “None of you have ever known just what it was like, being me. And…as for my crusade…Oh, Dane! You just don’t know how fucked up men are.”
And then she’d left.
God, she had needed help! He hadn’t seen, hadn’t known, how much.
It was the last time he had seen her.
Alive.
And now…suddenly, even his palms were sweating. What was the killer going to do next to implicate him?
He had to get to the truth.
Andy Latham lived on the Gulf side of the key.
It was something that had always pleased Kelsey, although she wasn’t sure exactly why. Key Largo wasn’t big enough for her to feel any advantage of distance just because he lived on the other side of US1. But she had never liked Andy Latham, and during all the years when they had been growing up, Sheila had hated her stepfather.
He fished for a living, as many people in Key Largo did. He lived off the main road on a little piece of property that tenaciously clung to the ability to be called land, off a small street that had once been little more than mangrove swamp but had been turned into viable land with fill from the dredging for a nearby hotel harbor that had been built in the late fifties.
It wasn’t more than a ten-minute drive from the duplex to Andy Latham’s house. Once upon a time it had been a pretty decent structure. Back in the fifties, contractors had known the full vengeance of storms. The home had been built well out of concrete block and stucco. It was a small house, two bedrooms, a kitchen, a living room and an open back porch that led straight to the dock and Andy’s fishing boat. Kelsey knew the house fairly well because Sheila had lived in it until she had turned seventeen, when she had gotten work at a now defunct seafood restaurant. She had never asked to stay with any of her friends but first had taken a little room at the home of the restaurant owner, then gotten her own apartment on the day she turned eighteen. Kelsey could remember her folks talking about Sheila, saying that they should take her in. But there had been a hesitance in their wanting to do the good deed, and since Sheila had pointedly told Kelsey she wanted to be entirely on her own, she hadn’t pushed the matter.
She wondered now if things might have been different if she had.
Even as she turned off the main road and headed southwest down the poorly kept county road that led to the few scattered houses on the street, the sun seemed to take a sharp drop toward the horizon. There were still some pinks and grays in the sky, which was good, since Latham had no outside lights on, and the front yard was dangerously overgrown with shrubbery and weeds.
So much for it being daylight.
Kelsey couldn’t quite get her little Volvo into the drive, so she parked on the heavily rutted street. Getting out of the car, she wished she had changed into jeans. Twigs and high grass teased her legs as she made her way to the excuse for a front walk, and she was certain that every creepy crawly thing in the brush was making a beeline for her bare legs.
At the door, she knocked, looking at the sky. She reminded herself that she wasn’t afraid of Andy Latham, he was just a scuzz.
“Yeah? What do you want?” Latham demanded, throwing open the door.
The strange thing about Andy Latham was that he wasn’t a bad-looking man. He had been younger than Sheila’s mother by about five years when they had married, Kelsey knew. She reckoned that made him about forty-five now. He was tall, with the lean strength of a man who spent his life occupied in physical labor. When he wasn’t fishing, he worked odd construction jobs and had managed to keep his lean appearance all these years. His face was weathered, like that of many men down here who had spent years outside in the sun. He had keen hazel eyes and a full head of dark hair, only lightly dusted with gray. Tonight, he was dressed decently in jeans that appeared to be both clean and fairly new. He was wearing a polo shirt that also appeared to be clean and even pressed.
“Why, if it isn’t little Kelsey, all grown up,” Latham said before she could speak.
“Hi, Mr. Latham. Yes, it’s Kelsey Cunningham.”
“Come in, come in,” he said, stepping back. Kelsey felt as if he were wearing the look of a spider who had unexpectedly come across a fly already caught it its web.
Looking past him, she could see the interior of the living room. It hadn’t changed much. The old place actually had a coral rock fireplace, and the overstuffed chair in front of it was the same one that had been there as long as Kelsey could remember.
And also just as she had remembered, there were beer cans littering the floor next to it, along with wrappers and leftovers from various fast food chains. Latham had never air-conditioned the place, preferring to leave the back glass doors open to the patio all the time for the breeze. Air-conditioning cost too much money; natural air was cheaper. Many people relied on it when their houses were set in the shade of overgrown trees, taking advantage of the cooler air that came off the water. But in Latham’s case, the open doors didn’t seem to bring in the breeze. The smell of decaying fast food and fish seemed to permeate the house. Flies buzzed around an empty French fry wrapper.
Kelsey didn’t want to set foot inside the house.
“No, no, Mr. Latham, I didn’t come by to bother you. Looks like you’re ready to go out.”
“I am, I am, but there’s always time for an old friend. Come on in. Can I get you something? Beer, or…beer or water, I guess. Aren’t you looking fine, young lady. Well, I guess big city life agrees with you.”
“I have a good job that I like very much,” Kelsey said. “Really, I don’t need to come in, I just came by to ask you about Sheila.”
If she was going to talk to Latham, she was going to have to step inside, Kelsey realized, since he was already walking into the living room.
She entered cautiously, leaving the door open behind her.
Latham had to check two beer cans before finding the one that still had something in it. His back was to her as he finished off the contents and stared into the fireplace.
“Mr. Latham, I was just wondering if, by any chance, you knew where Sheila was.”
He turned to face her then, hands on his hips, staring at her.
“Why? What has the little tramp done now?”
“She hasn’t done anything, Mr. Latham. She was supposed to meet me down here, but she hasn’t shown up since I’ve arrived. We were supposed to meet yesterday at lunchtime. She hasn’t been home, and it seems no one has seen her in a week.”
To her amazement, he started to laugh.
“She’s only been missing a week, and you’re worried?”
“We had plans, Mr. Latham.”
He looked her up and down for a long moment. “You can call me Andy, you know. You’re an adult, all grown up.”
“Yes,” Kelsey said politely. “But since you’ll always be Sheila’s stepdad to me, it’s just more comfortable to call you Mr. Latham.”
Kelsey didn’t know why it seemed imperative to keep as close to the door as she could, but it did.
Latham started shaking his head as if he were looking at one of the craziest people on earth. Then he laughed again, a sound with no amusement. “Well, missy, I can promise you—I’m the la
st person Sheila would come to and report her whereabouts. Raised her when her ma up and died on me, and what the hell did I get for it? A slap in the face and a kick in the ass. She never once thanked me for keeping her after her ma died. Never realized that I hadn’t adopted her, that I didn’t owe her squat, that I put myself out to keep her in clothes and put food in her mouth. From the time she was ten years old, she was a little bitch, hassling me for the way I lived, knocking me for not making enough money. She hightailed it out of here the minute she could. And she only comes back when she wants money.”
Despite her unease, Kelsey felt compelled to defend her friend. “If I’m not mistaken, Mr. Latham, Sheila’s mother left money to you for the express purpose of raising Sheila. And I believe there are also several joint trust accounts.”
“Little wiseass, aren’t you, girl? The whole lot of your generation, not a bone of gratitude in you. What do you think it costs to keep a kid in school? Go to the doctor, the dentist, buy books, paper, clothes. Hell, her mother couldn’t have left enough money for what Sheila has cost me. I don’t give a damn whether I ever hear from her again or not.”
“But she has to keep in touch with you, because of the money,” Kelsey persisted.
Latham took a step toward her.
Out on the streets, she thought, he wouldn’t have scared her. If she hadn’t known him, he might even have appeared to be a decent looking and friendly kind of fellow. An all-around American male, the type to watch football on a Sunday afternoon, play armchair quarterback and show up for work on Monday morning to talk over the game with the guys.
Except that he smelled a little like fish.
But she did know him. She knew he had taken a belt to Sheila several times when she had lived at home.
And he made her nervous as hell.
She took a backward step toward the door.
“Look, I’m really worried about Sheila,” Kelsey said. “If you do hear anything from her, anything at all, please have her get in touch with me right away.”
“And where would that be, missy?” he asked. He was walking toward her again. She had the strangest sensation that if he touched her, she would somehow be marked for life. The remaining light outside had faded. The living room was lit by one weak bulb in a lamp with no shade. The pale light fell on the carcasses of mounted fish on the wall, and the head and neck of a tiny key deer with glassy eyes.
Hurricane Bay Page 4