by Sean Black
She took a step towards him, the barrel of the shotgun dancing over various body parts until her aim settled on his backside. The muzzle jabbed hard into his hip, then shifted around until it settled between his butt cheeks. He grimaced.
Mimsy threw her head back and laughed. “Always knew you couldn’t be trusted, RJ.”
She turned away. “Lyle? You see her? She dead or what?”
37
As the adrenalin jolt of the crash faded it was replaced by pain. The worst was in her right leg. It was excruciating, unrelenting, like someone had pushed a red-hot poker against her shin.
The airbag had begun to deflate, allowing her a better view of the inside of the Honda, although “view” was a rather grand word for the eight to nine inches of visibility she had in the darkness.
Slowly, she began to take an inventory of her body. What she could and what she couldn’t feel and move. Her chest was sore from the airbag, but no more than that. She had been winded, but her breathing had slowly stabilized. Her arms, her hands, they were all working. She flexed her fingers to make sure. Her hips seemed fine, and she appeared to have sensation everywhere, which told her she hadn’t sustained any spinal or neck damage, or at least no paralysis.
Her head was clear, although the blinding pain from her right leg made consciousness a mixed blessing. She wiggled her toes, the action sending a fresh flash of pain all the way up her right side.
She was alive. Maybe with a broken leg, but that put her in the lucky category. If she had hit a tree head on she was in no doubt she’d have been dead, even with the car’s modern safety equipment.
From what she could tell, the car was lying passenger side down. It was in water, but not submerged. The water that had been seeping in appeared to have stopped, its level found. Another stroke of good fortune for which she had the Lord to thank. Some of her friends and colleagues in New York teased her for her belief in God, but at times like this she was glad of it. He would see her through, she was sure of it.
She reached down and grabbed the seatbelt. She tried to sit forward and free it from over her chest but the pain in her leg made her sit back, close to tears.
There was a splash outside the car. Her heart jumped, her mind suddenly filled with what might be outside, lurking in the water but now on the move.
From the dread feeling of entrapment she found herself thankful for the car’s metal frame and body around her.
Could it be some of the local wildlife come to check her out? Possibly as their next meal? She scolded herself for the thought. She needed to stay calm and present, not allow her imagination to run wild. Any alligator or snake within half a mile would have taken off in fright at the sound of the Honda smashing its way through the trees and landing in the water.
But they’ll be back.
She shook her head from side to side, trying to dislodge the unwanted thought.
The sound came again. Someone moving through the water towards her.
“Hey, I’m here,” she called.
A rippled wave of water swelled against the bottom of the windshield. She called out again, only to be met with silence.
Then, from nowhere, a face appeared at the driver’s window. A man’s. He was staring at her with a blank expression.
He lifted his hand and the beam of a flashlight blinded her.
She watched as he looked back over her shoulder and called, “She’s alive.”
The way he said those two words chilled her. His tone was of disappointment rather than relief. The way he said it hinted at work unfinished, a job that was some way from completion.
She waited, staring back at him, hoping to find some flicker of humanity in his eyes as he looked back at her.
What would her end be? Would he haul open the door, drag her out and hold her under the water? Would his hand come up with a gun?
“Please,” she said, still straining to find some connection. “I’m hurt.”
He looked at her for a second more. She heard someone call to him. It sounded like Mimsy but she couldn’t say for sure. Then his face disappeared.
Cressida bit down on her lip, bracing herself for the inevitable stab of pain as she grabbed for the steering wheel and tried to push the door open. It was no good. It was too heavy, and she was too weak.
She waited for the face to reappear. She heard the sloshing of water as he waded back to the bank. Then there was silence.
* * *
On the road, Mimsy climbed down from the bed of the truck as Lyle walked towards her, shaking the water from his legs. He glanced at the shotgun.
“What do you want me to do with her?” he asked Mimsy.
38
The sound of the splash in the water echoed for a moment. Slowly, from the water’s edge, dark shapes began to move, huge tails flicking as they scurried from the land, and slipped almost silently into the water, ready to gather whatever had just landed.
They moved just beneath the surface towards the receding sound. The darkness was no barrier.
A few seconds later the water erupted again as they went after it, tails and bodies thrashing as they fought for their share. One shape, larger than the others, cruised towards the churning water. The others melted away as Curious George bore down on the frozen hunks of meat.
At the side of the pond, Sue Ann lifted another chunk from the pile and tossed it as far as she could into the water. A few smaller ’gators moved into the water, ready to go after the scraps.
Sue Ann lifted more and more from the pile, tossing it in until it was all gone, and it seemed like the entire pond churned black and silver in the moonlight.
She paced back and forth, watching the feeding frenzy. She had been trying to contact Lyle for the past hour, with no luck, and she had a bad feeling that she had done the wrong thing. That her phone-call had put her husband in more danger than he’d already been in.
All she could do now was make sure his animals were well fed. That and pray. For her husband. For Lyle. For herself.
39
“Are you sure about this?” Lyle asked, pulling the final branch over the gap in the roadside carved out by the Honda.
Both he and Mimsy were covered with dirt having spent the past forty minutes or so running the truck up and down to cover the tracks where the Honda had left the road, then pulling down branches to conceal the gap.
Now anyone driving down this road in the daylight, which wouldn’t be many people, would have no idea of what had happened. Not unless they looked closely anyway.
He had to hand it to Mimsy: for a woman of her age, she could do a power of work when she had to. She’d always had that inside her, the ability to get down and dirty with the best of them. Not that he was sure RJ would have agreed.
Mimsy put her hands on her hips. “You go and shoot someone, that’s murder,” she said. “That same someone runs their car off the road into the swamp and doesn’t come out? That’s just careless. Nothing to do with us.”
Lyle looked at the branches. Mimsy had a point but he wasn’t sure that was how other people would see it. If you left someone to die, maybe it wasn’t a crime like shooting them, but it wasn’t good either. In fact, some would say it was worse. The woman was suffering bad. He’d seen it in her eyes, heard it in her voice.
And what if she made it out? he wondered. What then?
Mimsy seemed to read his concern. “Don’t worry. She ain’t gonna be going anywhere. You said she was good and stuck, right?”
“Yeah, she’s pretty busted up.”
“Tell you what, if it makes you feel better, I’ll come down here in the morning and make sure she’s still there.”
He was going to ask if she wasn’t worried about anyone seeing her if she came back but decided against it. She might change her mind, ask him to do it, and he’d done enough dirty work for one lifetime, never mind one night.
“What about RJ?”
“You leave old RJ to me,” said Mimsy.
40
Cr
essida sat in the wreck. She reached up, pulled the handle, trying to push the door open, but gravity was against her. She scoured the cabin, hoping to catch sight of her cell phone, but she couldn’t see it.
Last she remembered, it had fallen under the seat. It was probably still there, submerged in the water.
The pain in her leg hadn’t subsided. If anything it had gotten worse. It was pain like she had never felt before, so persistent and sharp she felt almost feverish.
The truck that been out there had left now. She had heard it drive away.
They were counting on her not getting out. On her dying there.
She had to steel herself. From somewhere she had to discover the strength to get the door open, and clamber out.
No one was coming to help her. No one knew she was here. This was on her. And if she did manage to get out of this alive, she was going to make old Mimsy pay. But not in the way she had planned when she had come down here.
41
Lyle pulled the pickup truck in next to the dock. He and Mimsy got out, both still caked with dirt from hiding the gap in the roadway. Mimsy was holding the shotgun as they walked to the rear of the vehicle.
She motioned for him to drop the tailgate. He climbed up onto the back, and hauled RJ to the edge, moving his legs so that they dangled over it and sat him up.
“Take it off,” said Mimsy.
Lyle peeled back the thick grey strip of tape covering RJ’s mouth. He had a bloody nose and his face was all banged up from being thrown around the back of the pickup when they’d been chasing down the reporter.
RJ took in a couple of deep breaths. He stared at them both.
“I’m sorry, RJ,” Lyle told him. “You didn’t give us much choice.”
RJ kept staring at him. “That so?”
“Don’t blame Lyle here,” said Mimsy.
RJ’s chin dropped to his chest and he let out a hollow, sarcastic laugh. “Nothing’s ever anyone’s fault around here, is it, Mimsy?”
Mimsy took a step towards him, the shotgun pointed to the ground, but her hand settled near the trigger. “You think I wouldn’t find out about you trying to talk to that reporter? You’ve been hanging around town ever since she got here.”
“I’m not going to apologize for wanting to tell the truth.”
Mimsy threw her head back. “Oh, you’re so high and mighty, these days, aren’t you? Like you’re innocent in all this.”
“No, I’m not innocent. I’m going to have live with what I’ve done, and I’m going to have to answer for it too, when I’m gone.”
Mimsy let out a loud sigh. “Things happen, RJ. Things that people don’t mean.”
“Like lynching an innocent woman because of the color of her skin?” RJ shot back.
“There was nothing innocent about her. You know it as well as I do.”
RJ started to cough. He kept coughing, almost doubling over. Lyle looked worried. “You want some water?”
RJ spat out a gob of bloody phlegm onto the ground. “Sure.”
Lyle walked back to the cab, and reappeared with a bottle. RJ’s hands were still bound together with a length of rope. Lyle raised the bottle to his lips and tilted it back so he could drink.
“Thanks.” He looked back at Mimsy with a mixture of pity and anger. “You know she was innocent. Innocent in all of it. At every single turn. But you wasn’t.”
Mimsy raised the shotgun. “RJ, I’m warning you.”
“Go to hell, Mimsy. You know and I know what happened was all Adelson’s doing. She didn’t show up at your house with a stack of Bibles and fall crazy in lust with him. He forced himself on her.”
As he spoke she grew more and more angry. Her face flushed, and she began to tremble with rage.
RJ looked at her, defiant, not caring if she pulled the trigger. He’d already accepted he was dead from the time they’d caught up with him, trussed him and flung him into the back of the truck. He guessed that went double after what they’d done to the reporter.
They probably didn’t know it because they were too busy covering their tracks, but he’d seen the whole thing. He’d wriggled as hard as he could to get free, but it had been no use.
“You just couldn’t accept that he wanted her more than he wanted you. Wanted her so much that he did what he did. That was why you made sure she was murdered. You didn’t hang her from that tree, but you might as well have. And all because the man you were gonna marry was an animal who couldn’t control himself.”
Her finger was on the trigger now. She had the shotgun aimed straight at his head. She was all ready to blow it clean off his shoulders.
“You want to make your peace with the Lord, you’d better do it now.”
RJ shuffled his butt cheeks from the tailgate and stood up. He stood where he was, not moving, less than ten feet from the hot end of the gun.
“Already done. Guess I’ll see you down there, Mimsy.”
Her finger started to squeeze. It was a tough pull and her fingers weren’t as strong as they had been.
As she grimaced with the effort, Lyle’s hand reached from behind her, and pushed the shotgun barrel into the ground in front of RJ. The gun went off, peppering the ground with birdshot.
Mimsy turned on him. “What the hell you have in this gun?” she shouted.
“Give me the gun, Mimsy,” he said. “You ain’t killing RJ. He’s one of us.”
“One of us? You hear what he was going to do? You were there too. In fact, if I remember rightly, you supplied the rope. Ran in and got it from the back of the diner.”
Lyle’s hands closed around the gun and he succeeded in wrestling it from her. He shifted his weight so he was facing RJ, and that was who he addressed. “That’s right. I did. I brought the rope, and you got rid of her, RJ. That means we’re all in this. No easy way out. Not for you. Not for me. Not for any of us. You think you’re being all brave, clearing your conscience, but that would ruin how many lives? How many families’ lives? You think Sue Ann would be able to cope without you if you’re dead or in jail for the rest of your life?”
RJ cast his eyes down, his defiance diminished for the time being. He didn’t think Lyle had ever before spoken that many words at one time in his life. Lyle seemed to have surprised himself because he scuffed at the ground with the toe of his boot, and added, “You know I’m right about Sue Ann. And I can’t live like this.” He jabbed a finger at Mimsy. “Not with her lording it over everyone, pretending like her shit don’t stink when this would never have happened without her and her crazy ideas.”
Mimsy rose back up. “The Fourteen Words are not a crazy idea. It’s what kept this country together. For years.” The Fourteen Words ran: “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.”
“Oh, bull crap,” said RJ. “Take people as you find them. That’s the only thing that makes a lick of sense and you know it.”
Lyle snapped open the shotgun. “We have to know what you’re going to do, RJ. It’s as simple as that.”
“You mean am I gonna talk?”
“Yeah,” said Lyle. “We have to know.”
“And if I say I am, and nothing will stop me?”
Lyle stared at the shotgun chamber. “Then I reckon the next one won’t be birdshot.”
“That how it is?”
“That’s how it is.”
RJ stared up into the inky black night sky.
“Sue Ann would struggle. That’s true. She didn’t want me coming here.” He looked at Mimsy. “Just in case you’re looking for someone to blame, she tried to talk me out of it.”
“We know,” said Mimsy. “She called Lyle.”
RJ rounded again on Lyle. “And you called her?”
“She’s the mayor,” said Lyle.
RJ shook his head. “Ain’t that the truth. Okay, I’ll stay quiet. How about that?”
Mimsy’s eyes narrowed. She obviously wasn’t sure whether or not she could believe him. Or trust him.
�
��You give us your word?” said Lyle.
“Yes, I do.”
Lyle looked to Mimsy for the okay.
She seemed to be mulling it over. Her brow was furrowed with deep lines, and her lips were set in a pout. “If you don’t, it’s not you we’ll be coming for next time. It’s that little wife of yours.”
RJ didn’t take the bait. He offered a solemn roll of the shoulders and a nod. “I understand.”
42
As Ty was being released, he walked past one of the three bikers he’d shared the tank with. The man did a good job of being distracted by the tiled flooring in the reception area. Ty pushed through the front doors of the Florida Highway Patrol barracks and out into the early-morning Florida sunshine.
The day was warm, and muggy, the air heavy with the threat of an impending storm pushing in from the Keys. Ty would have a court date to deal with but right now that was future-Ty’s problem. Present-Ty needed to get to the motel and check on Cressida King.
Eight hours and counting was an uncomfortably long time to be out of touch with your principal when you were a lone bodyguard. He knew that Lock had spoken with her, and that she’d confirmed she was at the motel Lock had directed her to, but he’d be a lot happier when he was back with her, and they could plan on what she wanted to do next.
The hours inside the cell, with sleep next to impossible, had given Ty time to think. At first he’d been a little leery of the young reporter’s idealism, but a short dose of Darling hospitality had given him a different angle. If she wanted to keep pursuing the story, he’d have her back, no matter how long it took. The gig might have begun as a diversion from reassuring super-rich Chinese folks about their safety, but now he was all in. If Cressida was seeking justice for Carole Chabon, it was his job to help her deliver just that.