Cutting Loose in Paradise

by Mary Jane Ryals

  He seemed furious. His voice was vacillating from very loud to deep. “Listen up,” he shouted. “Get over—get over in the corner so I can talk to you! Now! I need to call the poison unit again and have Mac taken to Memorial. No one will believe this happened, especially while I was here. But what I really can’t believe—” he stopped and walked away, swearing under his breath.

  I was furious. My kids had suddenly appeared behind me. “What’s going on, Mama?” Daisy said. “Is Mr. Mac sick again?”

  “Get your stuff now, both of you, please. Now.” I gulped back the shake in my voice. The redneck mafia was gathered around Mac. Everyone in the place had heard Jackson yell at me. But maybe Randy wouldn’t think me a pariah and a murderer, maybe he didn’t care what things Jackson yelled. I headed out the door to catch Randy as he left.

  Madonna stood outside smoking a cigarette. “Fucking idiot,” she said. “Doesn’t he know better than to drink poison?”

  “Madonna, call me tomorrow morning first thing on my cell,” I said. “Laura called. I have to do some things now. Please, don’t ask me any questions about it. I’m not allowed to say anything.”

  She nodded. “Where you three going?” she asked.

  “With Randy. I’m not going home, or anywhere where Jackson or Cooter or Fletch or anyone else can find me. Call me in the morning. Please.”

  CHAPTER 31

  OUTSIDE, the wind was spitting wet and riding chill from the north. The fog rolled like unsettled specters under the streetlights. The hundred-year-old oaks by the cove sighed heavily while the palms made a whoooo sound. Daisy clung to me, and Tay was silent behind me. The moon was still rising in the sky, more copper now.

  “So why can’t you drive yourself home?” Randy asked. He leaned on his car, one leg crossed over the other, his hand on the driver’s door.

  “I don’t want to go home, Randy,” I said. “Okay? Cooter just found the tea. He thinks I tried for a second time to poison Mac. The state cop just yelled at me, and I don’t want to go home right now.”

  I knew what I wanted from Randy. His eyes had gone cold when he glanced at me, but then he looked from Taylor to Daisy, and he shrugged. “Okay. Everybody get in.”

  “Mom, I guess I shouldn’t have brought the tea,” Taylor said, heaving his big backpack into the car. “I’m sorry, but Grandma—”

  “Don’t worry, honey. I didn’t poison Mac. This is much bigger than herbal tea,” I said, hugging him to me in the back seat. Meanwhile, Daisy had climbed into the front.

  “I like your car, Mr. Randy,” she said. “It’s clean. Our car is never clean. Mr. Randy’s car smells good, too. Mama’s smells like a chicken coop.”

  “Wonder why that is, Daisy-eat-anything-and-drop-everything-in-the car,” Tay said with sarcasm.

  “Wanna drive?” Randy said to Daisy.

  “I don’t think so, not tonight. It’s actually a very dark night,” she said in an adult way.

  The wind pushed the car a little sideways as we headed out. Randy had decided to hug the Gulf tonight, maybe to keep us from being spotted. Our town had a complex set of city blocks that allowed people to sneak around to get to different islands off the main island.

  “Okay, where do you want to go, LaRue?” he said. “What do you have in mind?”

  “Live Oak Island,” I said. “Trina’s house. I’m looking for something. I want to show you.”

  “Okay,” he said, no change of tone. He turned right at Gulf Drive, and we headed to Trina’s house.

  Stepping out of the car, I found Trina and Fletch’s place dark. Blacker than the interior of the car, and surrounded by water oaks with no streetlights nearby. Only the moon lit anything. It required a minute or two of eye adjustment. I wondered where Fletch was staying lately with Trina dead and Mary in the hospital.

  “I’m sitting here in the car with the kids,” Randy said. “Better take this,” he said, rummaging around in the glove compartment and handing me a small flashlight. I could smell the briny water in the near distance. I crept toe-to-heel like Grandma, padding over the dirt and decaying leaves of their yard, using the flashlight to check for night animals. As soon as I was out of sight from the car, I touched the .38 in my boot. I pulled the key I’d stolen from under the statue, unlocked the back door, and tiptoed in. I quickly turned on Trina’s computer.

  “Where would you put it, where?” I said aloud. Then I thought carefully about where Preston would have looked. I turned off the computer and headed to the back. If you wanted to keep something from your husband, where would you put it? In a safe. Under something. In a closet where he wouldn’t think to look.

  The carpeting in the house muffled all sound. Too quiet. I wanted out. Did Preston have the key? Where would another one be? If she went for a boat ride on her last day alive, she’d have left her purse home. Beside her bed. I found it under the bed, her keychain, and a tiny key that had a taped message on it that said, “recipes.” What man would think to look for incriminating evidence in a recipe box? I raced back to the study piled neatly with large boxes of files and fished around in the closets with the flashlight. Nothing. Finally, I gave in and turned on a small light that sat atop the desk in the room. Then I spied a metal file box big enough to hold a box of folders and opened it. Way at the back, a lean recipe box under some empty file folders. Please, I whispered. My hands were trembling. The key worked.

  Out sprang a bundle of letters, some pretty old, the paper brittle and browning.

  I took in a breath and began to scan. One from Preston, one from Mary, one from an attorney in Mexico City, others from locals—Mr. Colbert, Mrs. Colton, who lived in the swamps and had died of leukemia. Sadly, their two death certificates. Lots of letters smashed into this recipe box.

  “Mom,” I heard faintly from the window facing the road. Daisy shouting from Randy’s hybrid, right outside the window where I was working. She must have seen me turn on the small light. “I want to go now. It’s too scary here.”

  “Mom, come on!” Tay said. “You’re—come on!”

  I snatched up the whole box and key and contents, locked the door, and fled down the back stairs. Everyone was complaining when I got in the car. It’s cold, it’s late, you could get arrested, what are you doing? Have you lost your mind?

  “Shut up, goddamn it!” I said. The three of them went silent. “I found hardcore evidence here. This is the stuff she never got to use on Fletch or Mac. She had an appointment with Mac on her books the day she died.”

  Randy started the car up, wheeled slowly down the block, turned at the U and headed back towards Gulf Drive. I went on, waving the box in the air.

  “This was what she had on those guys.” I was a little breathless. “Sorry kids, I guess I should be sheltering you here, but this is the gruesome truth. The day Trina died, she went to Mac’s office to tell him what dirty business she knew he and Fletch were into, and he behaved as friendly as ever. I expect Mac got in her car with her and rode with her to the house.”

  The moon was a high shiny dime in the sky now, and Randy, a cool blue-black silhouette driving silently, finished his U-turn and headed back out towards town.

  “Trina and Mac had a cup of coffee or something. Mac promised her something—that he’d clean up the site, something to keep her quiet.” I wondered if Randy had been listening to my theory, as his silhouette finally nodded. “Mac dropped a mild tranquilizer in Trina’s tea and offered to take her out on the boat, pretending he’d show her something. She agreed—she was tranquilized, after all.”

  “Mama, I don’t understand,” Daisy moaned.

  “Shh!” Tay said. “Be quiet for the first time in your life!” He smacked her with the palm of his hand and she stifled a wail. I turned around and gave him a look, then turned back around, ignored them and continued.

  “Preston was also on board at the invitation of Mac, and Fletch, and the thug. Trina went to sleep. They threatened Preston, knocked him out, and cut her throat. Then dumped them at the fun
eral home. Madonna and I went on Mac’s boat and found the knife. Jackson had it checked out. It matched Trina’s blood type.”

  There Randy sat, emotionless, calm, driving to his place. Why had he been on the boat the same night I had been, looking for something? For what? “Okay, now what?” Randy said. He turned and looked at me.

  “One more favor, please?” I said. “Take me down to the real estate office, but down the cove side so people won’t notice I’m breaking in.”

  Daisy started to whimper. “Mama, I’m scared. What if you get caught? What if—”

  “Shut up, Daisy,” Tay said, putting one arm around her. Now he understood what had been going on.

  “Tay, don’t strangle her, all right?” I said. He sat back. “Change places with her, how about it?”

  “Don’t you want me to go with you?” Tay said.

  “Okay,” I agreed. “Let Daisy sit back here for now.” We stopped the car at the corner of Gulf Drive, and they swapped places. Daisy curled up into me. It gave me comfort, too. I gave instructions to Tay. “You can’t speak unless it’s an emergency, and don’t touch anything. Just be the lookout, okay? No arguing with me.” He nodded.

  “You have a key to this place, too?” Randy said. “Perhaps I should change my locks? Or is it my boat you want?” I chose to ignore him, especially since I’d stolen his ECOL file and my fingerprints were still on it. The pines were whipping around on Gulf Drive, their shadows in the sky looking like the hair of untamable women.

  “Randy, if anyone comes, drive off. Regardless, drive off,” I said.

  “Mama—” Daisy said. Everyone shushed her. It’ll be fine, Don’t worry, It’s just a precaution, we were all saying to her. By the time we got to the highway, only eight blocks from the real estate office, she was blubbering. I asked Randy to pull the car over, and I took her outside and picked her up, smelled her little-girl smell, and held her tight.

  “Daisy, you’re my precious girl.” I smoothed her silky hair. “I do not want you to get into any trouble. Nobody’s going to get hurt, okay? In case the police come by, it’s better for everyone if you weren’t there. The law doesn’t like having little kids involved. They could take you away from me, and I don’t want that to happen. If anything happens, you can go with Mr. Randy. He will take you out to Grandad’s, okay?” I was rocking her against me, humming Humpty Dumpty. Even though it was one of those scary songs, it always had comforted her as a baby. Daisy was about a third of my weight, but I had so much adrenalin going, I didn’t feel it. “Please trust me. It’s going to be fine.” She stopped crying, and I put her back in the car next to me. Her braid had strands wisping all about her face and neck now.

  We headed for the back side of the real estate office where the cedars and palms grew tall on Fishhouse Cove, and the moon shone huge and orange over the water. Tay and I got into the back door. He watched each window and door. After I found the file, we headed straight out again.

  “What in the hell now?” Randy said.

  “Please take me to your house,” I said. “We can sort through this at your place tonight, and then I can call Jackson. The kids can sleep on your floor in the other bedroom with me where it’s soft and carpeted. I just can’t go home now. I live too close to town. Please. No one will know I am at your place.

  “Okay,” Randy said. “First you want a ride, then my house, and next, I’m sure you’ll need the boat to escape to where? The Caymans?”

  THE CLOSER WE GOT to Randy’s house, the more I wondered if this was the place we should have come to. Laura’s was the last house along the airstrip neighborhood that was lit. No one seemed to be home. Life was not evident out here at all. The wind was blowing trees almost sideways on the tiny peninsula.

  In my hand I held my daughter’s hand. The letters of people deceased and those still alive who’d suffered from Fletch’s and Mac’s deadly hands sat in my lap. The water and its nitrates and bacteria and the aftermath in their bodies had probably slowly killed these unknowing victims. Low clouds raced over the coppery moon. Nothing but nature’s darkness and a moon that saw too much.

  “Mommy, why are we going to Mr. Randy’s? I just want to go home,” Daisy said sleepily.

  “We’ll be there in just a minute, sweetheart. It’s quieter out here. Be patient,” I said. Tay swung around to yell something at his sister, his faux dreads rising up like palms in the wind. I shook my head no. He turned around and let out an exasperated spit of air.

  Once inside, we all let down with growling sighs and began to warm and to settle. Randy offered Daisy a big T-shirt. I saturated a washcloth in hot water, cooled it a bit, and wiped her face with it. Randy made us hot tea. He and Tay sat in front of the big glass doors facing the deck and the Gulf, watching the ocean crashing in hard, the sagging moon’s reflection surfing to shore. It was a spring tide, an extremely high tide with the full moon.

  I lay down with Daisy on the floor of the bedroom where Randy had dropped a couple of sleeping bags for us. “Why are we here?” she said, using Tay’s backpack for a pillow.

  “I thought we’d be safer,” I said. “Somebody has tried to poison Mr. Mac again. Some people think I did it, and they might come around to bother us at our house tonight. They don’t know we’re here. We’ll go home tomorrow. I almost forgot—tomorrow’s Fish Day at Grandpa’s! Maybe you can catch a fish, and we can have it for dinner!”

  She sat up. “Can I use the orange squiggly lure you and Grandpa always fight over?”

  “Hmmm, maybe, if you’re a really good girl. Now lie down and try to relax. Remember how I taught you to take deep breaths to relax? Try that now, okay?” She took five deep breaths, then was quiet. Within five minutes, she was breathing steadily, deeply, asleep.

  I came out to the living room, and Randy poured hot tea. Tay was looking at me quizzically, his black and white face smeared now. My impulse was to say, Look at your face! But I curbed it. “Come help us look through this stuff,” I said. He sat down. Then he said, “I’m tired. I’m going to go keep Daisy company.” I nodded and held my arms up for a hug.

  “Don’t you want to take off your . . . face mask?” I said. He shook his head somberly. “I can sleep like this.” He wandered off down the hallway.

  Randy and I began to open each letter, reading them to ourselves. Outside the wind was whooshing through the pines, and the waves boomed in the distance against the coastline.

  “Did you hear that?” I said. “I thought I heard a car drive up and the engine go off.”

  “No, it’s the weather. And you’ve got the Gulf so close, you hear all kinds of things,” he said. “The house creaks, you know. You get used to it,” he said.

  “God, listen to this,” I said. “It’s from Edwards, written years after his brother drowned, to his mom: ‘I haven’t wanted to write this letter, because I know it would anguish you more. You had to give me up, and I understand that. I know you know he let my brother drown. Now, years later I’ll tell you the story . . .’ Blah blah . . . ‘thought I was asleep in the lower deck . . .’ so forth . . . ‘Jay was only five, and was walking on the edge of the boat and slipped and fell into the Gulf. I heard him come up gasping, then back down again . . . he came up again, and I heard, “Help me!” I thought Fletch would go in after him, but he didn’t, just watched my baby brother go under, left him there. I was too traumatized to do anything. I’ve always felt guilty about this. Later, when I pretended to wake up, I looked him in the eyes . . . flat as paper dolls, watching me now.’ ” I laid the letter down and took a deep breath.

  “Yep. They’re bad,” Randy said, shaking his head slowly. He had swollen eyes and a deep crease between his brows. He needed a hair trim, or maybe just a shave. I was antsy. Loose strings of hair hung down his neck in the back. “I just read a letter Mr. Colbert wrote to Trina about nitrates and the invasive bacteria in the waterways, about the infections that assist tumor growth in animals and people, about the deals ECOL was making out on the state road.” He threw t
he letter down and sat back. “Colbert had done some research into these septic tanks and runoff. He went to Mac’s office with a list of a hundred ways people get sick living near this kind of waste. Mr. Colbert was in the last stages of cancer then. He showed Mac what his neighborhoods without proper septic had begotten. A wasted, blue-lipped man.”

  “I’m not sure what goes through these guys’ heads,” I said.

  “They don’t think,” Randy said. “They stopped thinking sometime long ago.”

  I thought I could hear brush moving outside. The strong wind had the palms clattering away. I touched the side of my boot. Randy didn’t notice, intently reading the next letter. I should probably drink some Kava tea, one of Grandma’s specialties.

  I read again. “Oh, my god. Mary did write Trina. ‘I know how you must feel, Mrs. Lutz. My little baby Adam, even if he did have a defect, was mine, and didn’t deserve to die. He was mine. I left that day to get him some extra small diapers, and I came back and Fletch told me the baby had died and that Mac, who’d just moved to town, had called the morgue to have him taken away. I didn’t even get to say goodbye. . . .’

  “Oh, my god, why didn’t she tell somebody?” I said.

  Randy said. “No wonder she drank so much. No wonder she—”

  “Yes,” came a voice from the kitchen, “that’s why she did it, that and the other miscarriages.”

  In walked Neptune, or Mac dressed as Neptune, rather, silver beard missing. He had his own .38 in his hand. The kitchen was dark except for the incandescent bulb over the stove.

  “Put that away,” Randy demanded, standing up. “LaRue’s kids are asleep in the back.” My blood went to ice. I slowly reached down to my ankle as if to scratch, tapped my boot, then stood.

  Mac’s silvered hair shone yellow under the bulb. Such pretty hair. Such a waste. What a strange thing to think. He was smirking, looking handsome, but now it took on a sinister quality I’d avoided noticing before. I wished to hell Randy hadn’t mentioned my kids.