“On Trina’s computer screen,” I said. “So it must be someone important.” A long silence followed.
“Don’t tell me you’re breaking and entering her house now,” he said, exasperated. God, he was by the book. This man just wouldn’t break a rule. And I was even more exasperated and didn’t want to tell him why.
“Just once,” I said. “And hey, I need you to track down a license plate for me, will you?”
“So you can go break and enter there, too?” he said. “LaRue, you can’t just go ransacking people’s—”
“I’m not ransacking anything,” I said, feeling hot, throwing the covers off. “Do you know that Trina also had a dentist appointment at one p.m. on the day of her death?” The line went silent. “And she had written down the word ‘Cove’ at three o’clock? At about four, she was on a boat, Mac’s boat. After that sometime, she died.” I didn’t let him speak. I went on, stomping through the house, putting on water for tea. Hell, I’d go find the kids. “There was someone in the house while I was there, Jackson, and it wasn’t Fletch. Madonna lured Fletch to the bar so that I could get in and look. I need you to get the tag number because whoever it was sneaked out the front door.”
“LaRue, this is not the Keystone Cops,” Jackson said with some forced patience. “You could get killed if there’s a murderer out there who’s trying to keep things quiet. I want you to stay away from that house.” I could tell he was getting agitated. I reminded myself I had good reason not to tell him about the hair and shoe polish warning. I also made a note to ask Madonna to check the license plate instead.
“I know it’s not Keystone—hey, don’t get condescending with me, buddy,” I said. “Just because you live in a big city and have a professional job doesn’t mean squat. I’m out here with two kids who need to eat, and you’re in Tallahassee sitting on your thumbs for all I know.” I could see the spit flying out of my mouth. I was glad he couldn’t.
I remembered the letter addressed to ECOL. How could I have forgotten it? I’d put it in my underwear drawer. I’d look at it later. I wasn’t about to tell him about this yet either. The line was silent for a good several seconds.
“Buddy, huh?” he said. “Sitting on my thumbs, huh?” He snickered. “You’re a feisty one. Okay, you’ve convinced me there’s a lot more going on than meets the eye, LaRue. But a screensaver with a boy’s picture on it doesn’t—” he broke off, fearing I’d blow up again. “I need hard facts. Evidence. I have to stay on my work at the state. I’m worried about your safety, too.”
My snooping around in houses probably did seem less important than his keeping a job. “I’m sorry you have to deal with grim things. And this might seem like trivia to you, Jackson,” I said, my voice starting to shake, “but my kids’ friend and mine had her neck slashed and died for no damn reason. That’s serious. To me, that’s grim as well.”
“Okay,” he said. “Don’t cry on me, I can’t stand that. Give me the license plate number. I’ll chase it down for you. Sorry. A lot’s going on around here right now. Just let me tell you what else I found out for you between interviews with gang members,” he said.
“I’m listening,” I said, snuffling. “But first the license plate.” I gave him the number.
“I found out our little Tiffany spent the last two years of high school in PACE, a school for wayward girls,” he said. “And Sturkey’s the Chairman of ECOL and the Chair of the County Commission in Madison County, right next to you.”
“Sheesh,” I said. “Sturkey’s a crook in cahoots with our Sheriff’s Department for our county and the big realtors. What’d Tiffany do?”
“She stopped talking to anyone, went from sulky teen to not talking—and started doing tricks for drugs.”
“Dang,” I said. “Doing tricks? Who ever knows about another person?” All the humanity who came to St. Annes, running and running from life, from concrete, from the law. Thinking somehow this place was a haven. Thinking Saint Anne could save them, was the end of the universe. People ran until they got to the edge of land, and all that was left was water. When the water didn’t baptize them, they tended to crash and burn. Or leave. But not Tiffany. It looked as though she was learning the architecture and real estate business. I could almost feel for her, that desperation.
“Jackson?” I said. “There was no blood on the carpet in Trina’s study. No stains, nothing. And the carpet is white.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Despite your law breaking ways, I’m convinced she didn’t die in her house.”
“Thanks,” I said. Finally, I thought. An admission.
“Oh, I called the garbage man, OV,” he said. “He wouldn’t talk. He hung up on me.”
“That’s not really surprising, Jackson. He doesn’t know you,” I said. “You’d have to get Laura or me to take you over there, someone from here.”
He agreed. It was late, so I hung up and collapsed in the bed to rest my eyes before I went to check on the kids.
I HEARD THE SHOUTING downstairs in the street. Now what, I thought. The last time anybody’d made a scene downtown was when that raccoon tried to get a bag of groceries from old Winnie Destin, the oldest, loudest woman on the island late last summer. Finally, Tay had gone down and shooed the raccoon off.
I stepped out onto the balcony that overlooked Main Street. Taylor was standing straddled in the street like a dueling cowboy, and Daisy hid behind him. He was shouting at a boy who looked about twelve, one of the oystermen’s sons, Ronnie Hastings. Taylor had him by nearly a foot in height.
“What did you say?” Taylor said, his fists balled. “Say it again. Say it again, and I’ll knock your head off!”
“I didn’t say nothin’,” the Hastings boy said.
“Say it again!” Taylor crouched now, his hands now open and stiff the way I’d seen them when he was doing the karate stuff. “I’ll show you what a Japanese kung fu fighter does for a living.”
“I ain’t said nothin’.”
“Don’t you ever say nothin like that again, you hear me?” Taylor said. “You will not have a voice to tell it again, ’cause I will knock your throat out. Nobody picks on my sister. I know what you said.”
I waited, praying please Tay, give it up, please give it up. Finally the boy’s face changed, drooped, and out of his mouth came, “I ain’t goin’ near her.” He turned and walked away. Taylor was frozen in his karate stance, looking a lot like his dad, thin and strong, far too angry and lost together. His dad didn’t have violent tendencies, but he’d habitually hung out in St. Annes bars when we’d visited from Jacksonville and one night ended up getting beat up by a boatload of loggers. Cracked three of his ribs. Daisy was clinging to Tay’s T-shirt. Slowly, as the boy backed away, Tay straightened.
“Let’s go, Daisy,” Taylor said. I heard them climbing the steps. I was making myself a brandy when they walked in. They entered looking winded and guilty. Their eyes both were wide, and they plopped down on opposite sides of the living room, each on a sofa, breathing heavily.
“So what was that all about?” I said, sitting in the rocker at the end of the living room sofas, between them. They looked at each other.
“Nothing, Mom,” Taylor said, making a fist and pounding it into his other fist.
“Nothing, Mom,” Daisy said. Sometimes they had a deeper alliance with each other that drove me nuts, but wasn’t that what a mother wanted? For her kids to share a loyalty for the rest of their lives?
“Didn’t sound like ‘nothing’ to me,” I said. “Sounded like maybe you were threatening someone smaller and younger than yourself.”
“Mom, you don’t know everything,” Taylor said, smoldering. He kicked the coffee table, which I ignored.
“Yeah, Mom,” Daisy said.
Suddenly, Taylor stood, his fists balled, and he said, “Stay away from him, Daisy. I mean it.” She cowered.
“Taylor!” I said. His breath came in and out, rasping. He never shouted like this at his sister.
“I will,” Da
isy said in a small voice. He stomped back to his bedroom and slammed the door. I sat on the sofa with Daisy and she held onto me tight. I sang to her, Just another manic Monday.
AFTER THE KIDS had left for school the next morning, I walked over to City Hall to put an index card on the bulletin board advertising myself as a hair stylist. Sometimes rich tourists might want a cut and dye during big fishing weekends. And some folks might come for a week’s vacation and decide it’s time for changes, and why not start with a new hairstyle?
Then I got in the truck and headed for Wellborn to look for Busy Bee Florist. In Wellborn, I found the shop in the most dead of three strip malls across from the big Wal-Mart. The store spread out across what had housed a Pic N Save. As I pushed the door open, I was welcomed by the rich scent of fresh plants, that cool damp feel of greenhouses. Orange tiger lilies, yellow mums, and white daisies sat loosely in shiny buckets decorated with cheesy dolphins and rainbows. Primroses in vases. Tropicals and semi-tropicals decorated with orange and red ribbons for Thanksgiving and turkeys with bows. At the back, two women worked. One, short and excessively blonde, was laying out her victim roses, pulling leaves, cutting stems, then rolling the flowers in colored cellophane. The other, a medium-sized woman with a trim brown-shaded pageboy, was twisting off flower heads and sticking them on a wreath in the shape of a heart. It reminded me of the big silver cross near Trina’s grave. I caught the eye of the brown-haired woman, who came out, wiping her hands on her apron.
“Hey,” I said. “I’m from St. Annes. I’m helping out a lawyer who represents Trina Lutz’s estate, and I wonder whether you can help us. On November tenth, she was kindly sent a wreath, a silver mum cross, by a Eunice M? Fletch Lutz has lost the address and we would like to thank her.”
“I don’t think we did any flowers on November tenth by that name,” she said.
“Would you do me a favor?” I said, “and just check your records to be sure?”
“Name was Parsons,” said the small blonde woman from the back.
“What?” the brown-haired woman said, looking one-upped.
“The name is Parsons. I remember ’cause she was black. And she wanted that color, silver. Put Eunice M on the card, but paid with a check that said Parsons. Little old lady,” she said, wiping her hands and coming out front. The brown-haired woman had some frizz, and she could be a gorgeous auburn. She went to the back, glancing curiously around at me. She brought the small card file to the front and pulled one under P. “Yep. Eunice M. Parsons. Signed the card as Eunice M. thirteen-eighty Southwest Fourth Street, Wellborn. You need the zip?”
“No, thank you,” I said. “You’ve been a huge help. Do you ever go to St. Annes?”
“I love St. Annes,” she said. “You’re lucky to live there. My boyfriend and I love to fish there. He’s got a little bass boat, so we don’t go out far, but we like to ride along the Magnolia River below the lower bridge. Guess we’d better get down there before the oil creeps in. We been meaning to. God’s country.”
I handed her a Cutting Loose card. “I do hair if you ever come in. I’m on the corner of Main Street at the highway. I’ll give you a good price on a first-time color. My color’s a bargain, too.” I have a fault of not liking to see good people with botched hair color. She thanked me, and I waved goodbye. I felt sure the women would wonder why a hair stylist was enquiring for an attorney.
I was in the back streets of town, the old Wellborn, Black Wellborn. A white clapboard church stood on the corner of Second Avenue. I turned and cruised down a narrow street shaded with old oaks and Spanish moss. On one side stood a long graveyard and baseball field. On the other, shotgun houses—one-way-in and one-way-out houses—painted bright colors like purple and yellow and green. This old neighborhood even had a sidewalk, uncommon for this part of Florida. Gardens out back. I passed Eunice M.’s house. The mailbox said Eunice Parsons. I pulled off to the other side of the road, walked across the street and up the front walkway. No one answered the door. The next-door neighbor opened her door and looked out.
“You looking for Eunice?” she asked.
“Yes, I am,” I said. “Is she around?”
“She’s off visiting her daughter over in St. Joe for the holiday,” she said, eyeing me up and down. Thanksgiving was tiptoeing in. It would be upon us in two days. Vacation was not on my brain.
“Oh, well, I’m just a friend of Trina Lutz’s down in St. Annes, somebody who was an old friend of hers. Passed away a couple of weeks ago,” I said.
“Oh, yeah, that lady who killed herself?” she said.
“Yes,” I said. I hadn’t hesitated. “Sad, wasn’t it?”
“Uh huh,” she said, giving me the up and down again.
“Well, I’m LaRue Panther,” I said. “I’m from St. Annes. I knew Trina was friends with Eunice. I’ll come back another time. I just wanted to catch up with her is all.” I tried to smile. I waved as I headed back to the truck.
“She should be home Thursday evening,” the neighbor offered. “She can’t stay away from that garden for long. Baby lettuce and these impatiens need real good care in the winter weather.”
“I’ll try back then, hear?” I said. On the way home, I stopped to see Daddy and Grandma Happy. They were both sitting in Daddy’s living room. Daddy was reading a magazine, and Grandma was looking at an herb catalogue. I invited them to a turkey dinner. I dreaded the invitation, because Grandma always had a lecture about how Americans didn’t have good holidays. No fancy dancing, she said. No Green Corn Dance.
“I ain’t thankful for nothing white people did,” Grandma Happy said, plopping down her magazine when I mentioned our getting together to be grateful for having each other in the cold season.
“Now, Ma,” Daddy said, winking at me, “you love your grandchildren, don’t you? They’re white, too.”
“No, they ain’t. Long as I’m alive, they’s Indian.” She loved to go on about how Indians could have blue eyes on the reservation. Unfortunately, my kids weren’t culturally Native American, but saying that would only pour kerosene on the fire.
“Grandma, Thanksgiving will taste great,” I said. “I’m doing a beer can turkey, too, that you taught me to make, on the grill.” Actually, the recipe called for chicken, but I thought I’d try it with turkey. What it amounted to was putting a half-drunk beer can filled back up with secret sauce into the center of the turkey, standing the bird on its rump in a pan, and letting it cook over a fire so that the steam tenderized the meat. She just stared at me, so I said, “And if you’d make some squash, the kids would get to see how Indians on the rez really eat.”
“Humph,” she said.
“We’ll be able to watch the pre-season games,” I said.
“Seminoles playing?” she said. She meant the Florida State University team nicknamed Seminoles, not the tribe. The Seminole and Miccosukee Indians on south Florida reservations were huge fans of the Seminole football team.
“Okay, then,” she said, grinning. “I like that football.”
CHAPTER 19
TWO DAYS LATER, it was a Thanksgiving holiday morning. I put Randy on the beer can turkey outside at the grill around eleven. The deal was that I’d cut his hair in return. Which was no small order. He had a vain streak and usually had about five ideas for his hair very specifically laid out in his mind, most of which wouldn’t work. Still, it guaranteed I wouldn’t be blamed for a bad turkey. I’d manage upstairs while he cooked on the ground-floor patio.
As usual, a November winter day in St. Annes meant low gray clouds, little sun, and maybe a heavy rain, a day of humidity like a sauna bath. “Yeah, the sunshine state,” I mumbled as I stared out the front window. Daisy and Taylor were in charge of setting up a buffet table for the food. Everyone would have to do cafeteria style and sit where they found a place in my house.
Laura arrived with a blueberry pie and whipping cream. “What can I do to help?” she asked. I told her “Nothing,” as I took the pie. She went to the sink and began wash
ing the used dishes. Madonna breezed in a little later with potato salad and her boyfriend Mickey, who’d been on the road in a truck for a month. “We pounded way too many beers last night,” Madonna said. “Celebrating our reunion.”
“Come on in,” I said. “I heard turkey and a Guinness is the antidote for a hangover.”
Daddy and Grandma Happy showed up at noon. Daddy had some of his sweet corn and heirloom tomatoes he’d canned from the summer, and Grandma brought the squash dish. The soon-to-be-licensed-in-something-at-community-college Tiffany meandered in to see what we were up to. She asked for a haircut, which I promised to give her later in the day to get rid of her. I didn’t trust her to spend a meal with my family.
“Where’s the TV?” Grandma Happy said once she’d put down her casserole dish.
“Over here where it always is, Grandma,” Taylor said, pointing to the sofa nearest the screen.
“How about making me some coffee, Taylor,” Grandma said. “Just some Folgers in the can for me. Don’t give me none of that goddamn seven-dollar-a-cup Starbucks. Don’t like the taste. Just boil up some water and throw in the coffee. Best way to have coffee, you ask me.”
“Mom,” Taylor came in the kitchen saying, “what’s she want me to do?” I explained that you just boil water, throw in the coffee grounds, let them boil for a couple of minutes, let them settle for a few minutes, then pour the coffee into a mug. “Yuk,” he said, shaking his head.
“Oh, you know she loves you best,” I said. “That’s why she wants you to wait on her.”
“Taylor?” Grandma called from the living room. “Where’s the Seminoles on this thing?”
Meanwhile Daddy wanted to know where the grilling was going on, so I asked Madonna’s boyfriend to accompany him to the courtyard downstairs.
“The Seminoles aren’t playing yet, Grandma,” Taylor said.
“What’d he say?” Grandma said. Laura went to the living room and turned on the pregame show. Laura, quiet as usual, watched amused. Grandma seemed blissful watching the sports announcers anticipate who’d win, while in the background the cheerleaders waved their pompoms around fiercely.
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