Cutting Loose in Paradise

by Mary Jane Ryals

  “I’m sorry. I really am. But encouraging revenge—he’s my son,” I said. “He’s at a vulnerable age. He’s been in trouble at school, bringing his knife, and talking about security systems, accidentally blowing out the Main Street lights. Next thing you know—It’s got to—”

  “Mom,” Tay said from the room beyond us, “are you giving Mr. Randy a hard time?”

  “It’s okay, Tay,” Randy said. He turned back to me. “I’m sorry if I messed up your life. I really am. These deaths—it can make you nuts.” He ran his hand through his hair. He did have urgent eyes, and he was raised by a particular Southern church set of parents. He was an emotional basket case, and I was too busy and too fragile.

  “Randy, there are women all over the island who would love to go out with you,” I said. “If you want to find love again, you have to throw the past to the fickle Gulf wind. She’d want you to go on. Forgive, and open yourself up.” I was sounding like a rabid preacher. Maybe that was the language he heard.

  He didn’t say anything. He was looking at the floor.

  “Look, I care about you a lot, but I have to tell Jackson it was you who poisoned the coffee, it was you who poisoned the punch. Unless you are ready to do it yourself.”

  “Mommy,” Daisy said, “are you still back there?”

  “Okay, I’ll do it,” Randy said. I sighed and headed back down the hallway to my kids and my date. Randy asked the other cop if the two of them could speak outside on the deck. As soon as the sliding glass door closed on them, I saw that Randy began talking.

  THE SKY’S BACKGROUND eased from grayish to lavender. Then the coral began to disappear, and the lavender began to fill in the sky over the green-black Gulf. I fell asleep with my kids on Randy’s carpeted floor, Jackson hovering close by. When I woke up, Randy was gone. Jackson had called in the state forces. They’d whisked Randy away to get a statement. The sun stood brilliant in a powder-blue sky, and the wind had died. December. Christmas would be sneaking in, making St. Annes people exuberant. They’d be forgetting, for the moment, the past violent seasons on the Gulf.

  We headed back to town, the four of us, the kids sleeping, draped over each other in the back seat of Jackson’s car. I was trying to tune in some decent music on the radio, humming You can’t hurry love, No, you just have to wait.

  “So you’re back in business, back in the good graces of your town,” Jackson said. The sun was rising and trying to shine across the Gulf as we crossed from Randy’s place back towards town.

  “You sound like a medieval mayor, dude,” I said, flipping off the radio. “You know, I’m beginning to realize that in the long run, business people like Mac aren’t going to help. He did bring me business. But I’d rather have the steady income of the town and the few tourists who still come to see this old place. They got me through this period, you know? But I didn’t need him to get by,” I said. “I thought I did, but . . . I was wondering what would happen to my kids, my dad, everybody, if I ended up in jail.”

  “You know, I had this sneaking suspicion it was Randy dumping the drugs in drinks,” he said. “He’s one of those moody sulkers that women get sucked into liking.” I squirmed in the seat.

  “So how’d you figure out it was him, I mean ‘he’?” I asked. A few fishermen’s trucks and cars were parked at the fish place by the cove, and the sign blinked a blue “OPEN.” I could smell the biscuits and bacon and suddenly felt extraordinarily hungry.

  “Well, I never knew for sure, but after he was close and talking to you at the party last night, he made this smooth move of pretending to put his shoes under the table, and he pulled out a plastic bag from the left shoe. But you don’t always go arresting people right away, especially when you’ve got so many interconnected people, events, and it’s first-degree murder you’re working.” He looked at me sharply. “And you left with him, so I figured you’d beat him up good,” he added.

  “What? I had no idea he’d done it! You told me you didn’t want me to leave! Made a huge angry scene about it. How embarrassing is that?”

  “LaRue, you’ve got a long way to go if you’re going to be a detective,” he smirked. “Think about it from Randy’s point of view. If LaRue is the prime suspect, then he can leave without worrying. Off scot-free.”

  “You let me go away with him, knowing he’d tried to poison Mac? Me and my two kids? He could have killed all of us!”

  “Ha!” Jackson said. “Hardly. Two different kinds of explosives with a canny son and daughter. You had a gun, a cell phone, am I right? And you ended up putting one guy in the hospital, and one in jail? I think you all handled it okay.”

  Despite wanting to smack him, I realized Jackson had a point. I beamed. I belonged to my kids, and they were capable. We turned onto Main Street. This was our town. Dusty little boxes lined up along the Gulf coast or not, we belonged. Could we together defeat the huge corporations using our waters?

  At least I could say I saw one of those schemes snuffed out. We drove right up to the front door and parked, something possible in a small town. There’s so much to be said for that simple fact.

  “I kind of like this detective thing,” I said.

  “Oh, no,” he said, as we stopped in front of the cafe. “Please tell me you didn’t just say that.”

  I could see Madonna and Laura through the window, reading the paper and eating. The smell of fresh bacon and eggs and biscuits danced in the air. I was just a Southern girl, too tall, with two demanding kids, a faithful retired dad who didn’t know what to do with me, a nutty Indian grandmother, and here was a guy who liked me just fine. The kids roused when the car came to a halt, wiping their sleepy eyes.

  “Let’s go,” Jackson said.

  Jackson read my mind. “How do you account for your grandmother knowing when to send you tea?” he asked. I thought about how she knew the water was tainted, and that a tornado would hit Florida that day, that she knew to teach Tay how to use explosives a certain way, and lots of other things. We walked into the warm restaurant. The murmur rolled up at us, and people waved at us or gave us curious looks. Word had already gotten out.

  “Now that’s a mystery I can’t solve,” I said. “Maybe you should have a talk with the Little People who live in the trees.”

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