“What did he say?” Jackson asked.
“He said he needed the coffee, but that it tasted bitter,” I said. “I started drinking—” Don’t say your Indian grandmother gave you a tonic, I thought.
“Yes,” he asked, looking up from his notes.
I took a deep breath and let it go. “I started drinking some tea I’d brought from home instead,” I said.
“Tea. What kind of container was it in?” he asked.
“A thermos,” I said.
“In your things, your stylist bag, if that’s what you call it?” he asked. I nodded. Grandma and her teas. I’d kept the black bag by my side, hidden, but he’d spied it.
“What happened after you finished cutting Mr. Duncan’s hair?” he asked.
“He got up and crossed the room. I started to pack my gear, and then I heard my daughter Daisy start screaming, and then there was Mac, writhing on the floor.”
“Okay,” he said, scooting his chair up towards the desk a little, “this is important,” he said. “Did you remember seeing anyone else around you while you cut Mr. Duncan’s hair?”
“Sure,” I shrugged. “A lot of people.”
“Anybody come to mind?”
I thought. “No,” I said slowly. I couldn’t think of anyone who’d try to kill Mac.
“Was Mr. Duncan arguing with anyone, talking with anyone before the incident?”
“I don’t know—everybody. He’s kind of, he makes the rounds. But no arguing. He talked with Cooter Lutz, the cop, and Mary Lutz, his wife, and Randy Dilburn, the lawyer. Nothing weird. My friend Laura, who you know, and Madonna who’s coming back tonight, who you can meet.” The photo behind Mac’s office desk featured a boat with some guys standing around after a fishing trip. Mac and Fletch were in the black and white shot. “Oh, Fletch Lutz, Cooter’s brother—half-brother, whose wife just died. Nick the jeweler and his girlfriend.”
He was taking notes of all the names. “If you could give me any contact information on Mr. Dilburn, I’d appreciate it,” he added. I told him how to get to Randy’s house by the airstrip on the beach.
“Do you know anyone who was upset with Mr. Duncan?” he said.
“No. Everybody seems to like him,” I said. “He kind of skims over the top of things, you know?”
I wondered if he did know, but he nodded.
“Well,” I went on. “Actually, I don’t think Trina Lutz liked Mac. Trina was Fletch’s wife, who just died. But she didn’t like her husband, either, I don’t think. Come to think about it, I’m not sure who she liked. Kept to herself.” I shocked myself saying that. He did know about Trina’s suspicious death from Laura, but nothing more.
“The woman who was just buried today,” he said, sitting taller and with interest.
“Right,” I said. “Trina didn’t much like Mary Lutz, either, or her husband,” I said. “But you could say I’m trying to frame Mary, right? Because she witnessed me giving the coffee to Mac?”
“I’m not making any conclusions about anything right now, LaR—er . . . Ms. Panther. Is that a Seminole name?” he asked.
“Yes, it is. My dad is half. Makes me a quarter,” I said. “But we don’t kill white people. I mean, that is, I am a white person, basically.” He laughed.
“I was just curious about the name,” he said. “Okay, back to the questioning. Did she—Trina Lutz—tell you what she didn’t like about the Lutz woman, or the other Lutz man?”
“First off, there are lots of Lutz men. Big family, eleven kids, six Lutz men. I can’t remember. I don’t think anything specific. She would say disparaging things, you know? That Cooter didn’t have the brains God gave him. She seemed to dislike but feel sorry for Mary. Talked about how Mary was always pickled. But felt Mary had led a hard life.” I shrugged my right shoulder. “You know, hair stylists hear the gossip from clients.”
He nodded, scribbling. Then he gave one of those penetrating looks. His eyes were the clear green of the pond on Daddy’s place. I had one of those ridiculous sexual attraction waves. He got up, put on plastic gloves, picked up a Styrofoam coffee cup and walked around to my side of the table near the sofa. He smelled of pine deodorant. He squatted next to me to show me the inside of the cup. He tilted the cup slightly towards me. Now I smelled guy soap, but something exotic like frankincense.
“Don’t touch it,” he said. “Just look.” Inside the bottom was a white filmy powder about half an inch high. “Do you know what that is?” he asked.
I shook my head no. His red hair was fine and short and wavy. He had begun to bald in front. I could fix that hair.
“I’m very sorry, but you’re the leading suspect in the case for now,” he said. “You’ll be on release unless other evidence appears—”
“What!?” I said, pushing up and away, standing beside the chair. “What is it?” I pointed to the cup. He stood now.
“Percodan,” he said. “Whoever wanted to do Duncan in really wanted him dead, and knew him well. He showed signs of an allergic reaction to the stuff. Do you have any experience with Percodan?”
“I—I—I think I took Percocet once. I had a kind of reaction to it. You know, a rashy thing,” I answered, stumbling with my words. “Will he be okay?” I asked, rubbing my arms. Jackson moved back behind the desk, a wrinkle in his brow.
“Don’t know yet. I’m trying to figure out why you didn’t have any reaction to the coffee. I’m going to need to see what’s in your thermos.” My heart sank. I couldn’t show hesitation though.
“Okay,” I said.
He took the thermos. “We’re taking your stylist’s bag to the lab. Until we find out more, you’re the leading suspect. It could make the news.”
“You can’t!” I said simply and grabbed the bag back, gave him the thermos. I plopped down hard in the chair. “I have two kids to support. No one will come to my shop if they think I killed someone!”
“It’s the law, La . . . Ms. Panther,” he said a little stonily. A change flickered over him. “I’ll be in touch tomorrow,” he said. “I think we were supposed to meet on this other matter anyway, if I’m not mistaken?” I looked into his eyes. I couldn’t see anything.
Madonna was waiting for me as the door opened. She waved and looked at me questioningly.
“Right. Eleven tomorrow morning,” I muttered to Jackson. “At the hotel? Breakfast? I’ll try not to poison anything.” It was a reckless thing to say, but he fought a smile.
“May I walk you ladies home?” he said. I wondered. Were we in danger? No, he probably had the hots for Madonna.
“That would be nice,” I said. Damn, I had Southern manners down pat. I wanted to tell him where to go and what to do with his notes. Instead I was saying ‘that would be nice.’ “If you don’t mind, could we take the long way around the dock to drop Madonna off at her car near work? I’m just—I’m so wound up now, I think a walk—”
“Of course,” he said, opening the door for us both. “I’d enjoy that.”
ON THE WAY HOME, Jackson, Madonna and I didn’t talk much. The night wind blew cold and squally, so we huddled in our jackets and hurried along the dock street. The fog moved thick in the cove, and the clanking of metal sounded as a pulley banged up against the boom on a pleasure sailboat. The streetlights had fluttering haloes. Waves crashed and smashed against the sea wall, their bubbles leaping up into the air. A tabby cat skittered across the road. Jackson pulled each of us gently to the left side of the road when a car came up behind us and passed. A man and a woman from the wedding party, drunk, heads out the window, singing, I would die for you, I would kill for you, I would steal for you, I’d do time for you.
“That is a stupid and ugly song,” Madonna said.
“I think it was their first dance song at the reception,” I said.
Madonna bid us goodnight, key in the lock of her door as she looked at me like “Will you be okay?”
I nodded vaguely, and we said goodnight. On the bridge over the Marina Cove that connected the dock
street on the Gulf to the corner of Riverside and Port St. Leon Street where I lived, Jackson lifted his nose and sniffed the ocean.
A white cat crossed in front of us. “Smell of ocean. Lots of cats in this town,” Jackson said.
“Don’t be surprised to see a raccoon’s face peering at you from somebody’s kitchen,” I said. “They feast on the fiddler crabs and find their way into our old Cracker houses.”
“Raccoons? In town?” Jackson said.
“Skunks, too. Out at my family property, the alligators eat the raccoons.” I loved to shock people with this.
“You get more interesting by the minute,” he said, as we walked to the stairway that took me to the apartment. “What’s this family property you’re talking about?” he asked.
“Oh, the rock pit and the spring,” I told him. “Where my grandmother and dad live.” I explained our magical spring, created from roadwork. Now we approached the stairs to my apartment.
“Stroke of luck,” he said.
“I could use some of that right now.” I felt nervous. “Well, thanks,” I said, folding my arms. “See you in the morning.”
He pointed to the top of the stairs where a yellow bulb lit the landing. “What’s that?” A potted palm with a tag hanging from it sat at the top of the wooden steps. “I don’t know,” I said, surprised. Lately, I’d been trying to decorate the shop with a variety of palms. We walked up the stairwell to check it out.
“Don’t touch it,” Jackson said.
I leaned over to read the tag aloud. “Don’t worry about Mac,” the note said. “He deserves it.” Typed on a typewriter from maybe the 1980s. No signature.
“May I?” Jackson said. He took out a handkerchief and held the card. He flipped it over. “May I take this as evidence?”
“Yeah,” I waved as if to brush it away. I leaned against the wall. Since he’d been so protective and scrutinizing, I was trusting him. “Will you check out the inside for me?” I handed him the keys. He disappeared inside while I sat on the stoop. He came back out and assured me no one had tried to trespass. I got up and went to the doorway.
“I just want this day to be over,” I said, sighing deeply. I turned and thanked him again. He smiled and showed his dimples, turned, the back of his jacket trim on his tall body. I shut and locked the door, glancing at the clock. It was nearly 3 a.m. Palms along the street clattered in the wind against the dining area screen. The quilt folded at the end of the bed was a welcome sight. It was the uncanny wind that whirled and reminded me a snow might roll in. The wind’s whirring kept me awake for only a few minutes before my consciousness let go.
CHAPTER 11
I BOLTED UP IN BED, the digital clock radio flashing electric blue numbers. The day had begun without me. I stumbled to the kitchen to get coffee on, then scribbled out a list of people who might come to the shop for haircuts. If I were detained or called, shut down, I could at least eke out a living for rent, mortgage, and food now, and go under the table later if necessary. I jotted down thirty clients’ names.
I watched the news as I made up the list. I couldn’t stop following the spill’s story in the mornings when the kids slept—and it seemed odd they weren’t here this morning. The network ran a summary of what was happening: In April the explosion of the BP well had occurred, and it took until July for authorities to cap the gushing oil. That meant that the Gulf was covered under “a sheen of filth” that covered an area the size of Scotland. Then the drama of BP’s money setting off cannons to scare the birds from the oil impact. By August, the Panama City Gulf beaches opened for business, but by September every storm brought more oil to shore. Now, we had holes in the food chain.
Fishermen out of work but working for BP now began to complain of their eyes burning. Those subcontractors who used dispersant to dissolve the oil began vomiting brown phlegm, had headaches, dizziness. Experts from the Exxon Valdez spill came down to help and noticed exactly the same symptoms in the two oil spills—high blood pressure, diarrhea, cancer, chronic fatigue—in five hundred workers.
As winter slowed the hurricane and storm weather down, things finally began to settle. And hell, it was Christmastime. People wanted to forget, and the news networks did as well.
At 9:30 I finished the list and picked up the phone to call Laura. The line seemed dead.
“Hello?” I said.
Someone cleared her throat. “LaRue?” came Mary’s timid voice over the wire.
I felt like hanging up. “Yes?” I said.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “I don’t even remember—I barely remember last night. When I got up, Cooter told me what I’d done, accusing you and all. I—I don’t know what to say.”
“It’s okay, Mary,” I said, swallowing a long slug of coffee. “I can see how you’d have thought I did it. But I didn’t. I did not. Mac is my—he helps me out business-wise. He’s been good to me.”
“I know. I don’t know what came over me,” she said. “I’m just real sorry.”
“Well, I’m being watched,” I said. Might as well let her know what she’d dumped on me. “And I have no way to make a living if I end up in jail. So I’d better get going.”
“LaRue, I’m just real sorry—”
“It’s okay. Have you heard how Mac is?” I asked.
“No. I think he’s at the hospital. You could call his room.” She added, “You know Mac’s real special to me.” I wondered again if she were having a fling with him, too.
“Right,” I said.
“LaRue?” she said. If she apologized again, I was going to hang up. “Did you ever stop to think maybe from a different angle? Like maybe somebody’s trying to put you out of business?”
I hadn’t, but now I did. And thanks for your efforts in that, Mary, I wanted to say.
“Well, you’ve certainly given me some food for thought,” I said. Clichés. I used clichés when I didn’t really want to talk to people. “I need to go, Mary. But thanks for the call. And please do keep me informed.” I hung up before she could say anything else.
I rang up Laura and told her about my grueling interrogation with Jackson. “So I’m a leading suspect now. Can I count on you as a witness for me?” I said.
“Of course, LaRue. And that’s dismal. Daisy’s just getting up. She’s going to have that French toast I promised, and then I’ll drop her off at Randy’s. Okay by you? I’m supposed to have breakfast with you and Jackson, you know. Doesn’t look like snow, but how would we know? Never snows here.”
I decided the plan for the kids was okay, as long as Randy didn’t mind. “See you at eleven.”
Then I called Randy. “Taylor’s sleeping like a cat,” he said. “You know how cats sleep ninety percent of the time. Seems teenagers do the same.”
“Yeah, he’s storing up energy to find ways to point out my hypocrisies and faulty logic,” I joked.
“He’s a good kid, LaRue.”
I asked him if he minded taking Daisy on the boat ride, as snow looked like it had traveled north.
“Of course not. I told you that last night. I like kids.” Well. He liked kids.
“Thanks, Randy. I should be home by mid-afternoon. Make sure Daisy gets sunscreen.” He promised, adding that it seemed odd to be worried about snow and sun damage at the same time. “The new weather,” he said, and we hung up.
I called Tallahassee Memorial Hospital and was connected to Mac’s room right away. Tiffany answered.
“Oh, hi, LaRue,” she said.
“How is Mac?” I said.
“Oh, he’s fine. They pumped his stomach. That stuff is really dangerous if you’re allergic, but he was lucky. The poison ward here is one of the best in the country. He doesn’t blame you, LaRue.”
“Oh. Well,” I said. “Can he talk?”
“No. They want him to rest. But maybe tonight if you wanted to come over. Or tomorrow.” I’d known him longer than Tiffany had. This annoyed me, so I stayed silent. “LaRue?” she said. “Who’d want to kill Mac?”
/> “I don’t know. Sure wish I did. I have no motive whatsoever. He sends me business. If you get any ideas about his enemies, will you let me know?”
I told her what had happened with Mary, and that I might have no business now, as the leading suspect in the murder. She didn’t say anything except hmmm, then was quiet.
“Maybe Mary did it,” she said.
“Why do you say that?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” she said, hesitant. “She was so quick to accuse you?”
“Well, she was drunk. Beyond drunk. I’m not sure what she’s capable of.”
“Well, I think she has a thing for Mac,” she whispered. “The jealous type, you know?”
Oh, boy, I thought, maybe Mary is a true polygamist. “Well, I don’t know about that. But I do know I could be sent to jail, damn it.” I didn’t say I’d never planned to be sole income earner for an extended family. I needed to pay December rent, a mortgage, buy groceries for kids. I didn’t express just how dirty and tough things had been for me the past few years. Right now with the spill, everybody had that story. Still, I wasn’t sure I wanted her to know. “Please tell Mac I’m sorry this happened. And I’ll come visit tomorrow.”
“I will,” she said, sounding like she was thinking about anything but that. Bored. Preoccupied. If she’d been anything like I’d been at her age, her head was set on what she’d be doing tonight for fun. And how sad my boring, rotten life must be.
I hung up and headed out the door. The wind blew slowly, almost thoughtfully, in some nearby tall pines in a vacant lot. I spotted a pleasure boat out on the horizon as I made my way to the Island Hotel for breakfast. But what I really wanted was to get in that boat and float away.
LUCKILY, CARS OUTSIDE THE HOTEL had tags from Ontario and from nearby Florida counties to the north and west of us. Signs of Europeans abounded, too, as a rental Volvo, a VW, a Beamer, and a Mercedes outlined the perimeter of the place.
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