“Want a beer?” I said. Madonna had left for the Hook Wreck to take over for her sub.
“I have to drive back to Tallahassee,” Jackson said. He was wearing a jacket, but he’d ditched the tie back at the scene. His curly hair was ruffled on one side, which made him endearing.
“Well, I’m gonna have one,” I said, pulling out a Molson.
“Actually, maybe I should stay here,” he said, glancing quizzically at me as he sat on the sofa, then looked out the window. “I’m not . . . coming on to you. I mean, for your safety. You stirred up a hornet’s nest, and the insects are coming back to bite.”
“Shit,” I said, sitting back down on the sofa next to him. I pulled on the beer, handing it to him to share. “Okay.” I walked back to the refrigerator to get him a beer.
“Never had a woman say that to me when I offered to stay,” he said. “So okay, force me to have a beer, then. By the way, the other detective took the lab samples and will get some answers by tomorrow, I hope.”
“What did you find?” I said, sitting a little too close for just friends. Handing him the fresh beer, I took mine back. “How is Mary?” I tipped the beer up. It felt good going down.
“Mary’s comatose. She OD’d on the same stuff Mac was poisoned by—Percodan.” He shrugged. “And booze. And other tranquilizers.” I stood up in alarm and faced him. “But we have some hair that doesn’t belong to you in the trailer, too, found near her body. You know, DNA testing doesn’t have all the answers. It’s just one way. And you’re a suspect.” He pointed the beer neck at me as he said it.
I clicked my bottle with his, and, hand on hip, said, “A toast. I didn’t poison Mary.” I took another sip and sat back on the sofa. “I didn’t poison Mary,” I said again. “But she was worked up when she found out I knew so much. And when she found out I knew Trina had been killed. And then I asked her what her alibi was.”
“So they’ll be after you next,” he said, looking at me seriously. “Right now, Fletch is beside himself. He’s a zombie. He’s at ICU with her now. He doesn’t know she’s probably not going to live through the night.”
“God, poor woman,” I said. “So she didn’t do herself in?”
He shrugged. “No evidence. Why would she choose to die that way instead of taking an overdose of pills with the booze? Someone is desperate now, it seems.”
We both finished off our beers in silence, listening to the bar noise coming faintly down the street. He looked at me and said, “Let’s turn in. First thing tomorrow, I’m going to take you out to the pit and show you how to shoot a thirty-eight.”
“Some kind of gun?” I said. He turned to me with eyes like the Gulf on a rainy day, deep, cloudy, brown-green. He put his hands on my shoulders as we faced each other on the sofa.
“You have to do this,” he said. “You don’t know who might be after you.” Here was this guy who wasn’t exactly being paid a lot to do any of it. He had the sweetest face I’d seen on a cop. I’d tried so hard to not like him. I’d tried to lust after Randy instead. Jackson was actually hotter in his way. He was classy, unassuming, smart without the baggage. And tall.
“I’m not sure that’s legal,” I said, teasing. “Aren’t you an on-duty cop? And you’re going to teach a murder suspect how to use a gun?” I leaned in and kissed him. I kissed him hard. He was surprised and pulled away.
“I can’t do this,” Jackson said, his eyes almost pleading. “I’m on this case. We can’t—”
I leaned in and said, “Shut up.” His eyes reminded me of the Magnolia River as I remembered it in childhood. That depth and clarity. He was looking back, diluting the angry fire in me. He took my face in his hands and kissed me on the forehead. Suddenly, his freckles, his slight baldness in the front of his scalp, his innocent face had all the sex appeal in the world. He pulled me closer. This was not peaches, but down comforter. Maybe a little bit of .38 pistol, too. He picked me up and took me to the bedroom, tucked me into bed and disappeared. I did not come to until Jackson’s phone rang.
“We were wrong about the poison,” Laura said on Jackson’s phone. I’d been sacked out for a few hours. It was the darkest time of night. Jackson appeared in the bedroom and had the phone on speaker. “It was a Dilaudid and Percodan overdose. Dilaudid is a Schedule Two narcotic. She couldn’t have gotten a Schedule Two without the doctor’s signature. And it hadn’t been prescribed for her. I checked. In whatever way the narcotic entered her system, she’s comatose.” Jackson was sitting up, putting on his sweater automatically.
“Are you at the hospital?” Jackson asked. Laura said yes. “Don’t leave alone,” he commanded. I was reaching for my sweatshirt, glancing down the hall at Daisy’s room. The hallway nightlight, a kitschy Virgin Mary, glowed red and blue. Quiet, luckily. Daisy tended to sleep like a bear in winter.
“I won’t. An old friend from the Sun is here with me,” Laura said. “He’s offered to let me stay at his place tonight. I gave him this story, so he gave me a place to stay.”
“Laura,” Jackson said, grabbing my hand as I stood up, squeezing it. “Someone’s calling you with threats. You may have someone tailing you.”
“Not a chance,” Laura said. “I’m not that important. But one thing—about ECOL.” We both waited. “This ECOL group formed five years ago and immediately started buying up wetlands around the river. At about that time, the county commission worked up a report that’s been under lock and key by local government officials since, covering up the sewage problem along the rivers and in the aquifer.”
“So they’ve been burying information about the problems in the wetlands?” I said.
“Yep. All the information about what nitrates can do, not to mention the bacteria on the other side of the river that can make you so sick. Australia has the same bacteria in some of its waters, and they’re doing a more thorough job of investigating the results. Plants die, people get cancer. Scientists have been conjecturing for years now that infection causes cancer, especially this kind.” It explained the leukemia, lung cancer, lymphoma, birth defects—the list of health problems contracted by people out my dad’s way. Grandma may be right again, I thought.
“Where’d you get the supporting documents?” Jackson said.
“I subpoenaed them,” Laura said, “and drove over and picked them up at the commission office when the big shots were on vacation—Christmastime is perfect for that.”
“What exactly did you find?” I said.
“First study was four years ago. Back up the Tallahassee waste water area, before they repaired their city sewage to keep it from free-flowing down our way,” Laura said. I knew that water ran straight down towards the Indian mound, all through the area where the Colberts, the Vickers, and the Coltons had lived. My family had only been lucky because we lived on a spring, which pumped water from its own source. Then again, the source was the same, it was all interconnected. But now Grandma was saying our water was bad. My kids, my dad, we’d all been drinking well water.
“Why—don’t they give a shit about people’s lives?” I said.
“LaRue, this guy at the power plant down the way, this Sturkey guy?” Laura said. “He used federal money to order the machines to do the development work. Sturkey isn’t going to let anything get in his way—certainly not the truth. I’ve seen others like him in action. I’ve seen him at commission meetings, at his workplace. It’s a religion to him, making money in whatever way necessary. He considers it progress, growth in the county.”
Jackson gave the phone to me. I paced, listening. “These kind of fanatics will ignore all the research that says the effluent causes infections and possibly auto-immune deficiencies, cancers, brain damage. The coal people who want to stick a plant up the road in Perry are the same way. I don’t even need to mention BP, do I?” I looked out the window at the Gulf, shimmying purplish under the nearly full moon.
Laura went on. “Same old problems—run-off and waste in the water. Same denial. Sturkey and ECOL, they’re all will
ing to do anything to keep the negativity covered up. I think he got these local guys involved—money talks. Sturkey comes from old Northeastern money, and he’s got the people’s money, too, since nukes are an energy provider.”
“You need to be extra careful,” I said. There was a long silence. I could hear the wind in the palms, always that relentless wind from the water. I’d always loved that sound. Right now I felt it was wearing me down like it did stone into sand.
“Don’t worry, I’m steering clear of Fletch and the bunch,” she said. “I gotta say, he looks awful. Kinda gray in the face.”
“Tell Laura to let us know about Mary,” Jackson interjected. “And to stay in touch.”
Jackson and I lay down on the floor of the living room again, my head on his shoulder, each of us staring off into space in the dark. The gleam of the only traffic light in town was blinking yellow-off, yellow-off. I suddenly felt like I was drowning in the Gulf, swallowing fishy-tasting water and oil and runoff muck. I must have finally fallen into a deep sleep, because I woke up to daylight. As I sat up, I groaned. My back hurt, and my butt was stiffly asking me why in middle age, I’d sleep on a hard cold floor. I shivered, covered myself with the blanket and lay back down. I could hear Jackson talking to Daisy about flying kites out at Dad’s. He was making coffee, and I heard the toaster spring up.
“Peanut butter,” Daisy said. “Mama said it’s better for you than butter. She’s a health freak.” I heard rummaging around, and then Daisy laughing softly. “It’s got a face,” she said. “Can I eat the eyes? They’re raisins, right?” I’d never been able to get her to eat raisins. Ever. I pretended sleep, savoring the smell of toast and fresh coffee.
Soon, he had her out the door and in his car on the way to school. Last night’s doom and gloom had left me temporarily. I could learn to live with this, I thought, finally getting up and pouring an already made cup of coffee.
I STOOD HOLDING A .38, wondering what I was going to wear to the party Saturday.
“This sucks,” I said, then pulled the trigger. Jackson and I were standing at the forested corner of Dad’s property, surrounded by pine trees and bear grasses. I’d canceled my appointments for the morning. All the sexiness I’d felt getting up that morning burned off. The shock of the sudden loud bang, the buck back against me as it fired.
“You’re strong enough,” he said. “Steady the arm. Don’t think about the jolt you’re going to get afterwards. Focus on the target. Think about the family you have to protect.” I’d finally hit the target. He showed me how to put the safety on and how to carry the gun in the waist of my jeans.
“You sure that safety won’t go off?” I said. “I’ve got valuables down in these pants.”
CHAPTER 30
FRIDAY. A THICK FOG HAD MOVED IN, and Dock Street looked hazy and forlorn, the bait shop shut, restaurants on the dock street closed until tonight when the big Christmas costume party would occur. By now the word was out that Mary was near death. A second mysterious death, or near death on the island. People were clustered together inside warm places whispering their theories. I’d walk past the cafe, the restaurant, the post office, and people inside would look out, stop talking, and watch. The Christmas lights on the streets shone in broad daylight.
I focused on the party. Parties made sense. They had no depth, they cost a lot. But parties pushed away our gloom.
I’d kept the shop closed, but I was still busy, sweeping the floor, cleaning mirrors, brushes, rearranging shampoo and conditioner bottles. Mary’s heart was beating more strongly, Madonna had reported. And more miraculous than the virgin birth, Madonna had also passed on to me that Mary was five months pregnant, and the fetus, it seemed, was thriving.
Since the news media had picked up on Mary’s situation, she was protected by law enforcement 24-7 now. A guard hovered in the yellow halls of the hospital constantly. Who’d take care of that baby? I wondered. Whose baby was it? I turned on the radio to hear “Jingle Bell Rock” by Brenda Lee, which I couldn’t help but sing along and dance to.
And I went about my life as women have done forever in the face of trouble: by keeping the small things as they’d always been. As the sun sank and people clamored to town for distraction, I changed my mind about closing the shop. Work connected us with the world. I opened the shop and stuck a sign out that said, “Free haircuts for all St. Annes Night party attendees.” Laura breezed in for a spruce up before she headed back to Tallahassee to check on news of Mary for the paper and to pick up her guy friend.
“Give me something wild,” she said, bouncing into the chair. “I’ve invited the reporter from the News to be my date tonight.”
“Really?” I said. “Tell me about him.” She wouldn’t. She told me she’d introduce him tonight.
Her eyes were the round brown of a sunflower center, so I decided to choose a color opposite on the color wheel for her hair. I plaited a turquoise strip of ribbon into her hair and swooped one side of her hair close to her eye. The rest I swirled into a lazy updo, teasing the back for lift. The other side I pinned behind her ear. “Put on black eyeliner and a deep wine lipstick. Your nerdy glasses will just look naughty librarian,” I advised. The phone rang.
Cooter, telling me he’d found Tay out on the road by Dad’s property discharging explosives. “Let me talk to him, Cooter, please,” I said, putting down the bobby pins I had in my mouth.
“What, Mom,” Tay said, already on the defensive.
“Get back to the pit. Do not, I repeat, do not explode anything else today. Otherwise, Cooter will take you in. Jail, you hear me, JAIL!” My yell echoed around the hair salon. Laura gave me a shocked look.
Tay didn’t argue. I supposed he understood since Cooter had picked him up. Then again, maybe not. It was Cooter.
“Friggin’ frig!” I said, slamming the black retro phone down too hard on the counter. “He’s exploding things out on the state road!” I said to Laura as she calmly put her earrings back in. What was there to say? ‘Oh, it’s okay—so he’s a potential terrorist and jailbird—he’s still your sweet son?’ She squeezed my hand with her soft hand as she was leaving.
A tourist couple stopped by and wanted haircuts. They’d been traveling for months in an RV and finally were going to get civilized again, they said. I gave the guy the complete head shave, leaving the half an inch of silver fuzz he wanted, as he’d just pierced his ear. His soft hair was falling like fur all around me as I wondered—had Mary’s depression finally gotten to her? Was that why she had yelled at me?
The hardest question came to me as stark as this customer’s almost bald head. Did I do something to trigger Mary’s self-destruction?
When the dude’s hair was finished, I took the phone outside to catch what little sun I could, pacing the sidewalk and calling the hospital. Mary was stable, and still in a coma, the nurse’s station informed me. The phone rang. It was Jackson.
“Are you calling to tell me you can’t make it tonight?” I said. My ex had done that one plenty. I stared at the sidewalk crack.
“No,” he said. “Calling to tell you what I found out about Mary’s health history.”
“Go ahead, but please don’t let it be bad.”
He asked if everything was okay, and I assured him it was. I would have a scheduled customer in just a few minutes.
“She’s had three pregnancies that we know of, traced over twenty years. The first, an abortion, one born with a birth defect and died of SIDS at home in Cureall, and one miscarriage,” Jackson said. “What was she doing in Cureall, anyway?” I could hear cop radio noise in the background. I remembered Mary saying to Daisy that she’d always wanted a little girl. And there was Fletch, who seemed to despise his own children, enough to kill one of them, or let the child die. Willing to kill the other one as an adult.
“Cureall’s where she and Fletch have that little love nest of theirs. I have a feeling it wasn’t SIDS. Fletch seems to like getting rid of kids,” I said, running down the litany of Fletch’s v
iolence with even his own children. “Poor Mary.” The line was silent.
“No wonder she was in a recovery place,” Jackson said. “Or no wonder she had so many problems producing babies.” A car from out of town drove past, then another. Things were picking up for the big night of events.
“Did she try suicide, or is she in the hospital because she was pregnant again, or because she was talking to me?” I said. “And did those babies not make it because of Fletch or because of the poison in her water?” My neck felt tight.
“LaRue, you can’t blame yourself. She was given a high dose of Dilaudid and she took Percodan and drank alcohol with it.”
“Okay,” I said. “Can I call you back?” The tourist lady was patiently waiting for me, flipping through a magazine.
“That’s okay, just concentrate on tonight,” he said. “I’ll come by around seven-thirty? Want me to pick the kids up at the pit?” He was too good to be true. But I didn’t like depending on anyone but Madonna and Laura.
“Thanks for thinking of it, Jackson. Tay and Daisy are going to drive in together. He’s got the van. But thanks a million,” I said. The tourist lady with the now-shave-headed man was sitting down in the chair, anticipating.
Jackson continued. “Don’t handle any of the food. No tea antidotes for medications. Don’t bring a thing. Don’t touch a thing. Someone could easily try to frame you or poison you. Now, do you have your thirty-eight?”
“Yes,” I said. “It’s tucked into the inside pocket of my camos.”
“No food, no coffee, no tea antidotes?” he said.
“No,” I said, as I put the cape around the lady and snapped it at the neck. I’d take my scissors in case. I always had.
“Okay, then. We’ll boogie till we drop,” he said. “Forget your troubles.”
“Right,” I said. “I wish you were right about that.” I hung up the phone.
Next, the lady wanted her head shaved. I talked her into leaving an inch and bleaching it white blonde. After an hour, they both left twinnish and happy. They tipped well, and I needed a nap. I closed up shop, clomped upstairs and got into the bathtub, and then went straight to bed.
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