“It’s over, Hilda,” he said into her ear. “You’re safe.”
His professional eye cataloged other details. The soles of her feet were cut. A slim, expensive-looking gold watch was still on her wrist, diamond engagement ring still on her plump finger. Her nails were torn and bloody and there were bruises on her arms. She fought back.
“Excuse me, Dwayne, while I examine her. Hilda,” he said gently, “I’m going to undress you now.”
Her eyes were tiny slivers between swollen lids. “Doc,” she said. Her damaged mouth formed the words clumsily, her teeth stained red. There was a gap in front where one had been knocked out. “I—”
“Quiet now, Hilda,” said Doc. “You’re okay. We’re gonna get you fixed right up. Nothing but a few scrapes and bruises. You’re gonna be fine.”
Headlights swept through the room. Outside, the scrape of tires on gravel, the slam of a car door. Nelson entered, dragging with great intensity on his cigarette. From his overprecise movements, Doc could tell he was still drunk.
He was nearly overwhelmed by the urge to punch Nelson right in his pretty mouth. To have been blessed with a treasure such as Hilda and leave her to walk home alone late at night… He forced himself to focus on the examination. Gently, he unbuttoned her dress and noticed that her silk drawers were in place and undamaged. He carefully palpated her limbs, listened to her lungs, tested her abdomen for soreness. The damage seemed to be confined to her head and face. Who hates you enough to do this? Someone who wanted you never to be beautiful again.
Nelson cleared his throat. “Is she… Will she be okay?”
“I don’t know,” said Doc. Where were you when she needed you? He studied the body on the table. His skills with the needle were adequate for patching people up on the battlefield but not for fine plastic surgery. She might have brain damage. The nearest hospital with the right facilities was ninety miles away, over small, rough roads. His best would have to be good enough. “If she pulls through, she will be…different.”
Dwayne entered with a curt nod in Nelson’s direction. “How is she?”
“There’s a nasty bruise on her temple. Need to keep an eye on that.” Doc wiped his hands, pushed his glasses higher up his nose. “Broken cheekbone, broken nose, and a bunch of cuts that need stitches.” He glanced at Nelson, who seemed extremely calm for someone in his situation. “She wasn’t…violated. I’ve sedated her. Got to keep her here for treatment and observation.”
“For how long?” asked Nelson.
“I don’t know,” Doc said again. He could not fathom Nelson, not at all. Most husbands would be focused on what could be done to help. They might pray, or cry, or beg Doc to save her. They might be filled with murderous rage. He looks like he has somewhere else to be. “She should really go to the hospital, but I don’t want to move her just yet. She’s still in shock.” And yes, he admitted to himself, there was another reason: she needed someone who cared about her. “Nelson, send Mama to me. I need her help.” Everyone called Missy’s Mama by that name, Doc included.
Nelson nodded. “Did she say…anything?” His eyes were bloodshot. Stubble darkened his normally smooth jaw.
“No, she said nothing.”
“When can I talk to her?” asked Dwayne.
“In another twenty-four hours, I’ll know more.”
“So if you don’t need me for nothin’, I guess I’ll go—” said Nelson.
“Where were you?” shouted Doc, hands clenched together. “Why was she walking alone? At night? What’s wrong with you?” Anger suffused his muscles with electric tension. He had never been a fighter, always looked for a way to go over, under, around a conflict. Even as a boy, he would run away, much to the disgust of his father. But at that moment, he could have cheerfully dismembered Nelson without the need for any tools.
“Doc,” said Dwayne, with a hand on his arm, “there was an argument, after you left, between the Kincaids. They—”
“My…wife,” said Nelson quietly, picking tobacco out of his teeth, “was drunk, and when she’s drunk, she’ll go with anybody.” He said to Dwayne, “You saw her, dancing with that…that—”
“Henry Roberts,” said Dwayne evenly. “She tried to dance with him, Nelson, but he refused.”
“Yeah, but you could see it in his face, he wanted to,” said Nelson. “That’s what they all want, all of them who’ve been away. They come back thinkin’ they’re better than they are. That’s what they all really want.”
“It’s a fair question, Nelson. Where were you while your wife was being beaten?” asked Dwayne.
“At the club,” he said. “We went there after you carted off those idiots from the camp.”
Dwayne crossed his arms, said nothing. Doc had seen this before. The big man used silence as an interrogation tool. Few people could withstand the power of it or resist the urge to fill the vacuum with words. And so it proved this time.
“What?” Nelson asked as he lit another cigarette from the butt of his last one. “Why you looking at me like that? You think I…?” He looked from Dwayne to Doc. “My own wife?”
“Plenty worse things been done by a man to his wife,” said Doc, deliberately avoiding Dwayne’s eyes.
“There’s at least five people who’ll tell you where I was,” said Nelson, “’cause they were with me.”
“I’ll need those names,” said Dwayne.
“Sure, sure,” said Nelson with a bitter laugh and a shake of his head. “And then once you’ve wasted enough time talking to the good, upstanding people of this town, you’ll maybe go and look for the nigger bastard who did this. Ain’t got far to go, Deputy. Just follow the smell.” And he went out into the night, leaving a cloud of smoke that hung in the air long after he had left.
Hilda was floating, floating, not on water but on clouds. The clouds were soft but supported her weight easily. She felt light, free. Pain was there too, but like a bell ringing far, far away. She could ignore the ringing if she chose and just float. Before, the pain had been close, oh so close. It had filled her up in a blaring, pounding symphony of pain. And then Doc’s face had appeared and it moved away. Someone had held her hand. She let the soft clouds take her.
• • •
Dwayne arrived back at the station just as the darkness of night was giving way to a pinkish gray dawn. A burst of noise greeted him when he opened the door.
Two-Step yelled, “We got rights! I want my lawyer!”
His pals, crammed with him into one of the holding cells, shouted their agreement, along with slurs about Dwayne’s parentage. Stan banged the water ladle on the bars. “And you got to clean this up!”
Ike snored in the other corner of the cell, despite the racket around him, a pool of congealed vomit at his feet.
The visiting cops were sitting around a card table between the cells. They were several hands into a poker game, judging by the pile of pennies on the table. One of them said, “I’ll see your five cents and raise you a SHUT THE HELL UP!” toward the cells. He tossed a handful of pennies on the table.
“Everything under control?” Dwayne asked.
“Yep,” said the cop. “Goddammit, Floyd! You keep cheatin’ and you ain’t gonna play with us no more.” To Dwayne, he said, “Guy in charge of the camp, Superintendent Watts, is on his way over to take charge of those animals.” He indicated Two-Step’s cell with a sharp jerk of his head.
“Who you callin’ animals, pig?” asked Two-Step. “Oh, you mean the animals that bashed in that lady’s head tonight?” He leaned forward through the bars, hands folded casually. “Those animals?”
“How do you know about that?” asked Dwayne. “Maybe you managed to fit some assault and battery onto your dance card tonight too? From what I hear, it’s your specialty. And there was plenty of time”—he consulted his notepad—“between when she wandered off and you turned up to ruin the party. Maybe
you made a little detour.”
“I know all about it,” said Two-Step, “thanks to the Four Stooges here.” He nodded toward the cops at the card table. “They must think locking us up makes us deaf too. But I tell you something.” He lowered his voice, beckoned Dwayne closer to the bars. “If my boys did get hold of her, she’d be a whole lot more messed up than she is…if you get my meanin’.” The pale eyes in the plump, sunburned face gave him the appearance of a malevolent cherub.
Dwayne was forced to acknowledge the truth of what he said. There was no way that Two-Step’s gang would have confined an attack to just her face. “If you know something, Two-Step,” he said with quiet intensity, “you’d better give it up.”
“All I’s sayin’ is look and ye shall find.” His slow, sly grin chilled the air in the room.
“I’ll deal with you later.” Dwayne went into his office to begin the paperwork.
Dwayne was interrupted an hour later by the thick-necked, mean-eyed camp superintendent. He entered the office, an unlit cigar between his teeth. Trent Watts had a well-deserved reputation for strict discipline bordering on cruelty. I would not want to be in Two-Step’s shoes when they get back to camp. The poker game had broken up, the visiting cops gone home.
“On behalf of the U.S. government,” said Trent, cigar clenched in his jaws, “I assume responsibility for these…men.” He spared barely a glance at Two-Step and his gang. “I assure you, they will not venture into town again without supervision.”
“In that case, Trent,” said Dwayne, unlocking the cell door, “they’re all yours.”
The men filed out into the grubby early-morning light. Over his shoulder, Two-Step called, “Missin’ you already, Deputy.”
• • •
Missy was feeding Nathan his breakfast of mashed banana. She and Mama had stayed all night with him, waiting and talking, getting more worried with every hour that the Kincaids stayed away. To pass the time, Mama made her recount every word that passed between her and Henry, especially the part about going for a walk together the following night.
“And what you say?” Mama had asked.
“I told him I might be able to fit it into my busy social calendar, between the cotillion dance and the mayor’s ball.”
Mama was snoring now, head propped on her hand. Mr. Kincaid came in and let the screen door bang shut. He looked like someone run over by a steamroller. “Good Lord,” said Missy. “What happened? Where is Missus Kincaid? We been so worried.”
Mama woke with a start and a “Whuh?”
He said nothing for a moment, and she thought he had not heard. Then he said, so low she had to lean in to hear, “Missus Kincaid has… There has been… She was attacked, on the road. She’s hurt bad. Last night, after the party.” He sat down at the kitchen table. “Doc is taking care of her. He don’t know how long, or if… It may be…a while.”
“Attacked!” exclaimed Missy. “Who did it? Oh, Mr. Kincaid, who would want to hurt her?”
Nathan began to whine, sensing the distress in her voice, so she gave him more banana while she fitted the pieces together in her mind. Hilda had no friends, no social circle at all, since she had shut herself away. The only people she saw were her family and the folks who did for her: Missy and Mama, Selma and Lionel, and a few other workers. Workers like Henry, who had fixed the hurricane shutter that banged in the wind. It felt like someone had filled her stomach with ice and started to twist, although the morning was already hot.
“I think you know very well who did it,” he said, but calmly, like it was purely incidental.
Mama poured him a cup of coffee. Her eyes flashed a warning to Missy.
“Can I go see her?” Missy asked, wiped her hands on her apron. “She’ll need her things. I’ll make up her bag.”
Mr. Kincaid sat with his head in his hands. Then he said quietly, “Wilma, you need to go help Doc.”
Missy exchanged a look with her mother. No one ever used her real name.
• • •
In Hilda’s bedroom, Missy hurriedly pulled a bag from the top of the closet. Her hands were clumsy. She put in fresh underwear, just ironed from the day before. The day before, when everything was different. She paused and stroked the fine silk. She imagined Hilda in Doc’s office, without all her pretty things around her. Hurt, alone, confused. Her husband had lost interest and didn’t care who knew. She a silly, selfish, vain woman most days, but she don’t deserve this.
“Missy,” said Mama sharply, “get a move on. Get me her toothbrush, her slippers—”
“She need her makeup,” said Missy. “She cain’t be seen in public without her rouge, her lipstick, her face powder.” Missy felt the tears come and blinked hard. As Hilda got fatter and fatter, she had put more and more effort into her complexion, her hair, her jewelry, curling her lashes just so. As if everything below the neck was someone else’s department.
“Missy,” said Mama more gently, “she ain’t at a hotel. Just the necessaries.”
“Mama, could she die? Could that happen?”
“Doc won’t let it,” she said and shoved a hairbrush into the bag. “Why Mr. Kincaid think we know who did this? What went on last night at the barbecue?”
“All kinds of foolishness. Those country club ladies were hanging on Mr. Kincaid like ticks on a dog. And Missus Kincaid, she got so drunk, she even tried to dance with Henry, can you believe that?”
“She what?” Mama froze midzip.
“Yeah, she sashayed up to him, but he was just polite and respectful to her. No harm done.”
“No harm done,” repeated Mama to herself and pulled the zipper closed. “We see about that.”
Across town, Selma lay awake next to Jerome and watched the stars fade into the blueness of morning. It was not his rumbling snores that deprived her of sleep. She was well used to them. All through the night, she had replayed the events of the barbecue in her mind. Images flashed like the glint of Ike’s knife, the glee on his face when Ronald’s blood flowed, almost the same color as the lake of sauce around the big, fly-covered mound of pork. That ridiculous barrier down the middle of the beach, utterly flimsy yet imbued with such power. Might as well divide up the sea or the sky. Will there be one gate for coloreds and one for whites when we get to Saint Peter? And then the veterans had to come and smash the place up. She could not understand Henry’s attachment to that bunch of crazy winos in their stinking huts. As time went on, she reckoned, things got no better. Only worse, always worse. Folks never tired of coming up with ever more inventive ways to hurt each other. Seems they had endless energy for that. It sickened her, all of it. At times like these, she felt the best thing for Heron Key would be to sweep it all away—the stupid grievances, going back nearly a hundred years, and the more recent ones. The coral beneath their feet was soaked in these old hatreds. It needed to be scraped clean, and then maybe they could make a fresh start. Yes, that’s what we need. A fresh start.
It was time to act.
She pulled on a robe, shuffled around the partition to the kitchen, and lit an oil lamp. No need to worry about waking Jerome; he had put away enough beer to keep him out until noon. She set the coffeepot on the stove to heat. Morning sounds came to her through the open door. Chickens squabbled, the palms rustled in the stiff breeze, and the ever-present surf shushed in the distance. Sure enough, the raccoon was at the cistern again. She just caught sight of his backside disappearing under the lid. She would retrieve him later. Her grievance was not with the animals. They would be spared, as far as she could manage. But the people…they would learn a hard lesson. She opened the Bible to a random verse, as she often did when needing inspiration, and was rewarded: We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame. It was a sign she was on the right path. That’s what we need around here, she
thought. More hope. And less shame.
It would be her biggest, most complicated spell ever, and she wondered if her powers were up to the job. It would be better if Grace were there. She would call on her spirit to help. Together, they would do what needed to be done.
As the first warm rays of daylight fell in through the open door, she retrieved the battered book of spells and went to work.
Chapter 10
Jenson Mitchell, proprietor of Heron Key’s general store, closed his Bible and poured himself another cup of coffee. His morning routine never varied: Bible, breakfast, barometer. It was his favorite time of day, before the store was open, when he could be alone with his thoughts, before customers and deliveries started to arrive. The neatly stocked shelves pleased him with their order and purpose. His mother, Trudy, had cleaned the window at the back where he served the coloreds so it sparkled in the early light.
He turned toward the front window, blew on his coffee, and surveyed the little town with pride. It gave him satisfaction to think that he knew every inch of it. The store occupied the geographical center of the town, which seemed right, well back from the beach but in earshot of it—like everything else in Heron Key. His eyes roamed toward the south end, where Zeke’s shack was camouflaged by the mangroves, past the marina in front of him, toward the country club and public beaches to the north. The Kincaids and their wealthy neighbors had their fine houses close to the water, to get the best of the sea breezes. Poorer whites and all the coloreds had more modest dwellings farther from the water, separated from each other by the Key lime grove. The town had been nothing but a speck until the railway joined it up to the rest of civilization in 1906. And now that the veterans were building that bridge, folks rich enough to have cars would be able to drive right across the cut instead of waiting for a ferry. His family had seen it all, having lived in Heron Key for generations, and were proud to be of original Conch stock. Mitchell’s store had stood in the same place all that time. The heavy wood construction was tied together with massive steel bolts that fixed the structure down into the coral of Heron Key itself. In a way, he liked to think he was the same, embedded solidly in the town. He was comforted by solid things, things he could see and touch. All was in order on this fine morning.
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