Cutting Loose in Paradise

by Mary Jane Ryals

  If I trusted the garbage man, why not trust Grandma Happy? I wondered. She had predicted the tornado. I fingered the knife, then opened and closed it and put it in my jeans pocket.

  “LaRue, you there?” Madonna said.

  “Okay, yeah,” I said. “I was just putting a knife in my pocket. What did our garbage man see?”

  “He said some guy with slicked back black hair rode on the boat with her. He was driving, actually. OV said he recognized the driver as some guy in Wellborn,” Madonna said. “He thinks he’s the guy who buried Trina.”

  “Madonna, I think that’s who I’m going to see right now,” I answered. “Remember the guy in the photos we stole? That’s him. He’s Trina’s son.” A bobcat blazed across the road ahead of me.

  “Shit, girl,” she said. “Don’t go.” Suddenly I was elated, having seen a bobcat.

  “I have to. He can’t do anything to me at his office,” I said.

  “Ha. As if, girl. Someone killed Trina on her own boat.” I imagined her hands tied, the knife across her throat.

  “I have an Army knife if I need it,” I said. “Blessed by Grandma Happy.” I took the knife out again and flipped it in and out.

  “You be careful. Call me when you get out,” she said.

  CHAPTER 28

  I PULLED INTO THE FUNERAL HOME PARKING LOT and breezed past the receptionist area. The receptionist protested with some one-syllable sounds, jumped up, and followed me straight into Preston Edwards’ wood-paneled office. Someone needed to tell Preston to grow about an inch of sideburns, let the back grow in a tad, and blow the length out for a surfer boy/streetwise look rather than old man slick-back style from the fifties. I pulled out the fax of the copied coroner’s report and opened it up to face him. He came around the desk and told the receptionist, “Thank you, I’ll handle this.” He shut the door of the office on her face. He turned towards me with a stiff neck.

  “Please, have a seat, Ms. Panther,” he said, extending his hand, formal and rigid. He beckoned me to sit in a chair across from his desk. The surface of the desk had only a carved penholder and a marble paperweight, which held no paper under it. The only paper on the desk was a calendar. He returned to his side of the desk and sat with a sigh. I paced in front of his desk rather than sitting.

  “You know about this,” I said stabbing my finger into the now tattered copy of the coroner’s report. “That’s your mother,” I said pointing to Trina’s name. “You knew about this. And you covered it up. Or you killed her.” He winced. I stepped back away from his desk, hands on hips. I fingered the knife in my front jeans pocket.

  “Will you please stop shouting,” he said, looking coldly at me. He sat down himself heavily in his chair behind the desk. “This office has ears,” he said. Suddenly, he looked weary, his face long, and he looked at me with pleading eyes that nearly made me stop.

  “What the hell is going on here?” I said. “Did you try to kill Mac Duncan? I know who raised you, and I know why, too. So don’t start any bullshit with me, mister.”

  “Ms. Panther,” he said quiet as an accountant. “If you will lower your voice, I will try to communicate with you. Please.” He pointed to the door. “The office has ears. And please,” he gestured to the chair in front of his desk where I stood, “sit.”

  I sat down, scooted the chair close and leaned towards him across the desk. “Okay, talk,” I said. “First, why did you let this go?” I pointed to the crinkly coroner’s report.

  “They would have killed me, too,” he said. “Yes, it was Mother.” He took a breath that shuddered in. He blew it out. “You think I don’t know how bad this is?” He looked at me, his eyes blinking. Were his eyes watering? A photo of a St. Annes bayou, with palms leaning in towards each other, hung behind the desk. I stuck my hand in my pocket and felt the position of the knife.

  “So?” I said.

  “The group of them. The whole bunch. My dad would just as easily kill me as look at me. Like he did my brother.” He looked me dead in the eyes. I remembered what Isabelle had said, that some thought Fletch had pushed the boy in. Others, that the boy had fallen in and Fletch decided not to save him.

  “What did your mom know that made ‘the whole bunch’ kill her?” I asked.

  “She knew about the construction, the secret construction close to the river,” he said. “She knew they were planning to build on wetlands that would send effluent into the already polluted river. And that the effluent can cause cancers of all sorts.”

  “What construction?” I said. “At Magnolia Gardens?”

  “ECOL,” he said. “Across the river. They’re pushing through a development that they’re not calling a development on the Magnolia River across the way from Magnolia Gardens.”

  I knew this, but hearing it verified by him angered me. I stood up. My fists were balls. I started pacing.

  “Please, LaRue,” he said, going informal. “The receptionist is Fletch’s second cousin. I just found out last week. I don’t dare fire her right now.” He motioned for me to sit down, and he leaned over the desk. I sat. He put his head in his hands and spoke softly.

  “They had me drive the boat—at gunpoint—up the back of the Magnolia, near St. Annes in a small cove,” he said, his voice quivering. “I tried to knock the gun out of this big thug’s—dude’s—hand, and they knocked me out and the rest I don’t know. . . . Except—” He stopped, and drew his lips in. He glanced at me, then shut his eyes and put his head in his hands again. “When I woke up, I was here—in there,” he pointed to the door, “where you were later when you were doing her hair.” I nodded. He cleared his throat and steeled himself. “I woke up on the floor next to Mom’s coffin. Fletch, my father, was sitting next to me, waiting for me to wake up, a gun in his hand. He threatened me. Said I would be next if I opened my mouth.”

  “So it was Fletch?” I said.

  He shook his head no and shrugged, bouncing a look at me and away as if he were talking to the floor. “I can’t say for sure. Fletch was there, but there was some big lug ex-military guy with a silencer and a—”

  “Then why did they kill her with a fishing knife?” I said. “The blood on the knife on the boat—it was human blood. I know, I found the knife on that boat days after.”

  “To pin me, I expect, in case it ever came out,” he said. “It would look like an inside job, not a professional thing. I do get her inheritance, another reason he might want me dead.”

  A reason for this funeral director to want her dead, too. I took in a deep breath and let it go. “How do I know you’re not lying?” I said.

  “You don’t,” he said, looking at me. “I just hope you can see it in my eyes. Because they will come after me if this gets out.” A long silence lingered between us. He leaned back in his chair, pale. He seemed so alone suddenly. “I just hope you know what you’re doing. But you check for yourself,” he said, whispering. “Go out to the place where they’re digging. See if they’re not building roads and signs and surveying lots and putting in old-time septics. They work at night. And on weekends.”

  “That’s my place, my home. People are dying left and right,” I said, my voice shaking with anger. “Who said they could—I will—How can they get away with this?”

  An oil spill was beyond my control. Hurricanes and floods, droughts. But not this. This was home. A family spring, the sinkholes for swimming, the rivers we all fished in and swam in, the place we all worked our butts off to keep.

  “It’s their secret,” he said. “And Mom found out. She was ready to go to the Feds about it, and they shut her up.” He was looking at the floor.

  “How do you know?” I stood up again. “I—I—I’m sorry. She was my kids’ friend.” I took in a breath and let it go. “I’m sorry you lost your mom. Your first mom.” I sat down again. The room was quiet, and I heard the AC click on. “How do you know this?” I said. “I’m trying to find out. I’ve been pegged with trying to kill Mac Duncan, and I could take the rap for something I have no
clue about. I just stepped into the middle of it without knowing. I have two kids, and I need not to be in jail, okay?”

  “I’m in the same boat, so to speak,” he said grimly. He stood up and wrung his hands, walked to the door, tried it to make certain it was locked. “It’s the ECOL group,” he said, turning around. “Since Fletch works with Sturkey at the nuclear power plant, and Mac has money and real estate, they’re working together. Someone is paying Fletch to do the work of getting the machines out there. Paying people off to keep quiet.” He came back to face me. We both sat down in the two chairs in front of his desk.

  I looked at Preston next to me, as I was beginning to think of him. His mother dead. No brother. Is this what murderers did to innocents? Snatch away their loved ones and leave them with only silence?

  “Why would anyone do these things?” I said. “Kill a stepson, kill the water, the animals in it, kill his own son?”

  He shook his head slowly. “You’d have to ask him. I have a feeling he’s—” He put his finger to his head to indicate that Fletch was crazy. “He doesn’t care about anything. He’s borderline psychopathic if you ask me.”

  “Okay, if Mac’s in on it—and you think he is?” I said.

  He nodded, gave a one-shouldered shrug. “Can’t be sure, but wouldn’t he have some notion, all that work going on?”

  “Of course he does—he had Tiffany forge the signature,” I reasoned, slowly. I was in way over my head. Why can’t I just cut, color, and style hair and be done with it?

  “How do you know the receptionist is . . . spying?” I said.

  He winced. “They told me as much. Said they were watching me. When Mother called to tell me she wanted to show me what they were doing, they knew. They could only know from hearing the phone conversation here. I remember—when I swung open the door to go—Mother had sounded urgent on the phone—the receptionist was just hanging up the phone herself. I’d thought she was listening in on occasion, but I didn’t know. After that, it was all over.” He looked at the floor. “When Mother and I met to take the boat out, we had left the main docking area, you know, by the Cove?” I nodded. “Well, Fletch drove up in his speed boat with Mac and another guy, began talking to Mom.”

  He stopped, swallowed his shaking voice, and went on. “And they anchored the speed boat, came aboard, and the big guy with Fletch took over the driving. We were far enough out on the waterway that no one from shore could see us, you know. They drove us at gunpoint up to the Magnolia River.”

  His whole demeanor had changed. His eyes showed terror and a haunted vacancy.

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll go to the back side of the Indian mound upriver to see if you’re telling the truth. I’m taking protection with me, so if there’s anything . . .”

  He stood, staring at me. “Be careful,” he said. “If I were you, I’d take guns.” He looked at me meaningfully. “And back up.” I nodded and turned for the door, not looking back as I braced myself for passing the snitch.

  I breezed past the receptionist, beaming. I recognized her. She was a Colton, the one out in the swamps who’d nailed a sign on the highway that said, “Kill Obama.” I gave her a wave and said, “Have a great day!”

  “TAY, GRANDMA WANTS YOU TO DRIVE OUT THERE,” I said, headed back to St. Annes and on my cell phone. “She has something for you.” My kids at home, four blocks away from a possible murderer.

  “Cool!” he said. “Just what I’ve been waiting for! Got my knife back today.”

  “Honey, you leave that knife at home,” I said. “I mean—don’t take it to school again.” I felt like a hypocrite.

  “Mom, I know,” he said. “I know, I know, I know.”

  “How’s your sister doing?”

  “She’s hungry,” he said.

  “Please fix her something to eat, okay? For me? I’m on the road from Wellborn.”

  “Whoa!” he said. “The fire truck just went by.” I could hear it from the phone. That was rare.

  “Well, you stay put or go out to Grandma Happy’s. You’ve got your sister. Just stay put for now, please? I’ll be home soon. Probably a restaurant fire. See you soon.”

  OSPREYS AND EVEN EAGLES soared over the swamp grass, which looked like wheat, spotted with small clearings where water lay, reflecting the brilliant blue sky. Taylor’s van headed the opposite direction on the road, towards me. Towards the pit. I slowed and held my hand out the window. We stopped on the county road, side by side, facing opposite directions, as no one was coming either way but the two of us—mom and son.

  “Don’t worry, Mom,” he said. “Madonna is with Daisy. I’m going to spend the night out here, okay?” I frowned, hesitated. “Come on, Mom,” he said. “I’m hanging out with Grandma. What kind of trouble could that be?”

  “What kind of question is that?” I said. “Okay, then. See you tomorrow.” I reached my arm out of the car across the middle of the highway and he reached his out of the van. We clasped and I squeezed his hand.

  “You worry too much, Mom,” he said. We drove off. I called Laura. I figured I’d tell Laura to give Madonna a call, catching them both up on the day’s events.

  “Laura Knight,” she said, out of breath.

  “It’s me,” I said. “Have I got news.”

  “So do I,” she said grimly. “Just found out Mary’s probably dead.”

  “What?” I said. “Did you say, ‘Mary’s probably dead’?”

  “I need to go, LaRue. Don’t know anything yet, but I want to get to their trailer before Cooter does. Heard it on the police radio. You know, they can’t confirm the death, but that’s what the police said to the ambulance. A neighbor found her on the floor. Dead, the neighbor said. No visible signs of a murder attempt. Just comatose. Then—”

  “Oh, my god,” I said. “I was just there a few hours ago. Oh, shit. Laura—”

  She spoke calmly, quietly. “Meet me there, at their trailer, on your way back to town. You didn’t do it. Be there. We need to talk to whoever we can to get the real story before whoever starts trying to cover it up. Jackson will be there, too.”

  Jackson walked over to greet me when I arrived at Mary’s trailer. He wore plastic gloves and held a couple of small opaque bags.

  “How did you get here so fast?” I said. A Leon County ambulance had pulled out just as I turned in.

  “I’m an investigator,” he reminded me, pointing to the sporty navy Nissan he was driving. I jumped out of the car, adrenalized. He must have seen that I was freaking out. He shrugged. “Seriously, I heard it on the radio and came down to collect evidence before it could get botched up. She’s not dead, just nearly dead. The neighbor found her and thought she was dead. I have another detective with me.” He tossed his head towards the trailer. His hair looked softly red, golden, beautifully curling without any stylist help from me.

  “Oh, god,” I said, looking at the yellow tape he had stretched across the open door. The other detective ducked under the tape and headed down the trailer’s shaky stairs. I was shocked. Suddenly, I realized that Jackson, despite all he had to do, had made the effort to haul ass down and bring another cop along. And that, in fact, he’d always been listening, paying attention to the police radio after the poison incident in my little county.

  “What’d you find?” I said, leaning on the car, fiddling nervously with the knife in my front pocket. He shrugged.

  “She was poisoned,” he said. “Rather not talk about it right now,” he said, glancing at Fletch in his truck, who was just squealing to a halt. “Stay cool, LaRue,” he said out of the side of his mouth.

  Jackson raised his hand to welcome Laura, who pulled up behind Fletch. Jackson leaned in close. Why was I feeling like kissing him at a time like this? I actually wanted to push him down on the ground and cover him. “I don’t want you to get rattled, okay? Keep a very low profile.” His eyes pleaded.

  “Okay,” I nodded. “In fact, maybe I should go.”

  “LaRue?” he said. “Do.” He waved his ar
ms for emphasis. “Go home. Please, do as I ask.” He lowered his voice. “First, speak to Fletch. Tell him you’re sorry to hear the news. Then get in the car and have Madonna keep you and the kids company. I’ll come by after that. Don’t open the door for anyone besides us.”

  “Tay’s visiting Grandma,” I said. He must have heard the distress in my voice.

  “He’s probably better off out there,” he said. “I’ll be by soon. I’ll alert your father, but no one else. Okay?” I nodded, smiling a weak half-smile.

  WHEN I WALKED into the house, Madonna was looking through cookbooks, seeing what dessert my daughter might want. “How about strawberry shortcake?” Madonna said to Daisy as I opened the door.

  “Jesus, Mary, and the baby Jesus. This is freaking me out, all this killing,” Madonna said when I appeared in the door.

  “What killing, Mama?” Daisy said, running from behind Madonna to cling to my waist.

  “Oh, Mary’s sick,” I said. “She went off to the hospital in Tallahassee. Madonna’s just talking.” I was trying to keep the shake out of my voice and hands.

  Now, I kissed her face and sat her down with a glass of milk that Madonna handed me. “Mac and cheese will be ready in about two minutes.”

  CHAPTER 29

  LATER THAT EVENING, when Jackson arrived, I wanted only to cling to him, someone, and stay there, to forget everything. Instead, I handed him a bowl of mac and cheese. I was feeling impatient, wanting Daisy to be asleep.

  And faking that everything was okay. Waiting for Jackson, tall, lean and calm, to finish eating his mac and cheese with Daisy. I listened to his middle-range voice as he read her a story on the sofa, and then I watched as he tucked her in. And I waited for her to drift off to sleep. But finally the time did come, and I filled him in on my conversation with Preston at the funeral home. He didn’t say anything. He said his first concern was for my safety.