Deceived (A Hannah Smith Novel)

by White, Randy Wayne

  “Anybody hit their head?” I called while I moved to the side of the boat. “We need an ambulance if you’re hurt.” It was a question I should have asked Mr. Chatham since he’d booked the trip, but fishing guide etiquette had gone out the window as far as I was concerned. Fact was, Chatham’s threat didn’t have my full focus. The tarpon was knocking my gear to pieces, fishing rods and cushions flying, so I tried to get a hand on the fish’s lower jaw while also steadying the boat—which was not easily done in water up to my chest. Mr. Chatham wasn’t helping, either, with his attempts to belly flop aboard, which was frustrating for us both. Finally, after another failed effort, he yelled, “I can’t do this with that goddamn fish banging around!”

  I seldom use profanity, don’t find it attractive, but rude talk was the least of my worries so I paid him no mind. But the younger man didn’t like it. He snapped, “Watch your language, Delmont!” Which surprised me because of the sharp tone, plus he’d hardly opened his mouth all morning. Even more surprising was Mr. Chatham’s reaction—silence. Just stood there, looking embarrassed, until Ransler got to the boat, leaned his weight on the gunnel, then said coolly, “After we get that fish in the water, you’re going to apologize to Captain Smith. Okay, Del?”

  “Just Hannah,” I corrected him, aware there was something else I’d misjudged: Mr. Chatham was working for Ransler or was his subordinate in some way, not vice versa.

  Joel was the younger man’s name. I asked when he was close enough to shake hands a second time. Then the two of us, by using our weight to lower the gunnel, slid the tarpon gently into the water.

  • • •

  MR. CHATHAM actually did apologize, muttering, “Guess I overreacted.” By then, he was sitting with his feet dangling off the side of the boat, both men watching me revive the fish. Joel was in the water, standing waist-deep to my right, while I walked the fish back and forth, hoping its gills would soon show some color.

  “Don’t blame you a bit, Mr. Chatham,” I replied, which prompted the younger man to give me a nod of approval. Thank god I looked up when he did it because that’s when I saw the dorsal fin—a metal-gray fin, tall as a scythe’s blade, thick as a steel bar. The fin cleaved the water in a lazy serpentine pattern, then disappeared behind Joel only twenty paces away.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked when he saw my expression change.

  “Get in the boat,” I said.

  “What?”

  “In the boat—now.” I had stopped what I was doing but didn’t raise my voice; didn’t want the man to stumble and fall if he panicked.

  He was carrying a bucket he’d been using to slosh slime off the deck and gestured with it. “The boat’s still a mess.”

  “Hurry up,” I told him, which is when he realized I was staring at something behind him, so he turned and looked. The shark wasn’t coming fast, but it was pushing a big wake, and the fin had reappeared.

  “Jesus Christ,” he whispered—profanity that seemed appropriate in this situation. Then began walking backward, slowly at first, then faster, which got the shark’s attention. When the fin turned on a line to follow him, the man swore again. “Holy shit!”

  Mr. Chatham was fretting over his antique fishing rod, which had been damaged by the collision, so he was oblivious, his legs dangling in the water, when he demanded, “What’s the problem now?”

  The problem was that the shark would have to cruise past both men before it got to me and might attack one or both of them instead of the tarpon I was reviving—an injured fish, I felt certain, that the shark had scented and was its actual target. There’s no telling what a feeding shark will do in murky water, so I called to Joel, “Don’t watch the thing, just get in the boat!” I was already moving toward the shark, pulling the tarpon along beside me, its streamlined body buoyant in my right hand.

  Once again, the shark submerged, this time in the hole where Mr. Chatham had nearly drowned, water so deep its wake disappeared and I lost track of the thing.

  “Where’d it go?” Joel sounded anxious when he shouted, and no wonder. He had reached the boat but was too much of a gentleman, apparently, to leave a woman behind.

  “He wants this tarpon, not me,” I called, raising my voice for the first time. “Do you know how to handle a boat?”

  “Why?”

  “Get in and start the damn engine!” I yelled, and began pulling the fish toward the boat, taking leaping strides in the slow-motion way that water requires. My language must have surprised the man because he vaulted immediately aboard and was already lowering the motor while he asked again, “Where the hell did he go?”

  Rather than answering, I continued my slogging stride because I didn’t know. The whole time I was debating whether to leave the tarpon behind or try to save it. The fish’s tail was moving, its gills were working, but it was in no condition to sprint for its life. I’m not sentimental when it comes to fish, but the sight of a rolling tarpon never fails to produce a glow in me. They’re such lean, powerful creatures. They’re never uncertain in their movements, and their scales reflect the sky like mirrors, so a six-foot tarpon is as close to liquid sunlight as anything alive. I’ve got nothing against sharks—well . . . except their goatish eyes and brutal ways. Even so, it seemed wrong to allow such a pretty fish—and one that had injured itself on my boat—to become an easy meal.

  As I grabbed for the transom, I yelled, “Pull the anchor!” then felt silly because Joel had already done it—all but the last few feet of line, which had just broken free. The man had the line coiled in one hand and was leaning with an outstretched arm to pull me aboard. I refused to let him do it, though, until I’d yelled to Mr. Chatham, who was standing at the controls, “Put the boat in gear—slow idle. You know how to do that?”

  “Look at the size of that thing!” I heard Chatham whisper, looking down at the water, which made me jump, so I was safely over the transom but still hanging on to the tarpon when the shark appeared behind us, the boat idling forward now.

  A great hammerhead shark, twelve feet long, a couple of hundred pounds, its space-alien eyes were separated on a stalk of gray as wide as a broomstick. The shark had its bearings. Knew exactly where the wounded fish was and accelerated toward us with the slow stroke of its tail.

  “A little faster,” I told Chatham, then said to the younger man, “Help me slide him onto the deck.” Meaning the tarpon. “Put a few hundred yards behind us, we can finish reviving him. No guarantees, but at least he’ll have a chance.”

  “Smart,” Joel replied, and got on his belly. Then, when we had the fish braced between us, he looked at the slime on his clothes and said, “It’s going to take you days to clean this boat.”

  No, it took only an hour because my clients insisted on helping. The three of us had survived an adventure and rescued a fish, which changed the mood from businesslike to friendly. It was Mr. Chatham who suggested they help, saying, “How about we take a break, then finish the trip when we’re done? Where can we find some towels and a hose with freshwater?”

  My childhood home, where my mother, Loretta, still lives, that’s where—and only two miles from Captiva Rocks. It’s an old house of yellow clapboard on a paw of land where three thousand years ago people built shell pyramids as temples. Tourists new to Florida are always surprised to hear this, but it’s true. From the water, the remains of those shell mounds looked like rolling, wooded hills as we approached. There was also a row of tin-roofed cottages—cabins, really—built along the bay, and docks where mullet and stone-crab boats floated, which raised Mr. Chatham’s spirits even more.

  “That could be a scene from the nineteen hundreds,” he said, reaching for a camera. “What’s the name of the place?”

  “Sulfur Wells,” I told him. “It’s an old fishing village, and not easy to get to by car. Because the lots are so small, folks call the cabins Munchkinville. Most only have one bedroom.”

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p; Mr. Chatham was nodding as if he were way ahead of me. “Sure, Sulfur Wells. My family used to own property here, but it’s been years since I’ve come by water. That’s why I didn’t recognize it. Good call, Hannah!” The man smiled at Joel Ransler, and added, “I told you I chose the right fishing guide.”

  It seemed like a pleasant compliment until I learned that Delmont Chatham was from a well-known family in neighboring Sematee County—Chatham Chevrolet, Chatham Citrus & Cattle—and they owned a lot of property. His deference to Ransler suggested that he had inherited the name but not the money, which wasn’t unusual. Mr. Chatham collected antique fishing equipment, it turned out, which is why he’d been so upset when the tarpon shattered his vintage rod. His hobby, and his family’s history, gave us something to talk about, because my great-grandfather—who’d built the yellow house—had also been one of the area’s first fishing guides.

  It got better after I tied up at the dock because my mother was on her way out. She and her friends were taking a courtesy van to play bingo, as they always do on Fridays, so there was no time to explain why a strange man—Joel—was escorting me up to the house. I was relieved. Loretta has never been an easy woman to deal with, and the stroke she had three years ago has not made her any less of a trial to me, her only child.

  • • •

  I FELT LUCKY the rest of the day. And my good luck held into late afternoon, when, at the hospital, a woman physician interrupted my story about the hammerhead shark and dispelled Tomlinson’s warnings about giant fish and messages from God. “Your biologist friend has to take it easy,” she said. “No strenuous exercise. But he’s done with hospitals for now. I’ll see him in a few weeks.”

  Tomlinson had been so relieved, he’d hugged the physician, and told her, “Float on, honey!” which was the sort of thing Tomlinson says even to heart surgeons.

  The previous few weeks had been difficult for all of us, particularly Marion Ford. In late February, the surgeon had spent two hours removing the tip of a stingray barb from Ford’s chest, then repairing what she had described in the waiting room as “a tiny laceration of the right ventricle.” To comfort the dozens who had gathered there that night, she had added, “All he needed was a simple stitch or two—we’ll know more in a few hours.”

  What the doctor knew, what we all knew, was that Marion Ford had nearly died. The week that had followed had been a roller coaster of good news, then complications that included one awful night that Ford had spent on a ventilator in ICU. Looking through a window at a person you love being inflated and deflated like a child’s toy is painful and proves the line between life and death is as thin as a newborn’s skin.

  Now, six weeks later, I felt lucky indeed—as did Ford’s many friends at Dinkin’s Bay, on Sanibel Island, where we returned at sunset to share the good news.

  That night, though, the biologist chose not to stay late at his own party. Instead, he invited me, alone, to his house for a “quieter celebration.” We shared a bottle of wine and attempted to make small talk until the tension I felt made it impossible to speak a coherent sentence. After that, there was no talking—no conversation, anyway—despite the doctor’s orders about strenuous exercise.

  I didn’t slip into my own bed until first light.

  My mother peppered me with barbs and questions, saying things like, “Is that a bounce in your step or are you walking funny?” And, “Because you didn’t phone last night, I worried about a car wreck or worse. Are you in some kind of trouble with the law?”

  I’ve lived on my own for years, I didn’t have to explain, but it was the opening I’d been waiting for. “No, Loretta,” I replied, “but I’m tempted to call the police right now. I was in the attic yesterday while you were at bingo. The big trunk was open and some of the family things are missing. Know anything about it?”

  I’d discovered it while attempting to show Delmont Chatham the fishing tackle stored in the attic, particularly a reel that had been given to my great-grandfather by Teddy Roosevelt. Roosevelt had come to Captiva Island in 1917 to harpoon giant manta rays and he’d been impressed by the young boy who would become Captain Mason Smith. The former president had also written a small book about the trip called Harpooning Devilfish, in which he had mentioned my great-grandfather. The book was gone, too.

  Yes, Loretta knew something about it. I could tell by the way she sniffed and instantly changed the subject.

  “Have you noticed that idiot dog’s not barking?”

  She was referring to the neighbor’s toy Pekingese. The question was irksome because, fact was, I had noticed the unusual silence. My mother continued, “It’s because of what happened last night. An owl snatched that dog while he was outside weeing and carried him to the tree above my bedroom. The moon was so bright, I saw the whole thing.”

  I sighed. Another one of my mother’s stories. And, really, I didn’t care. Nor did I care about my neighbors. They had finished their warehouse-sized concrete-and-stucco a few months earlier, after flattening a centuries-old Indian mound in the process, but had only recently moved in. The destruction of what had once been a shell pyramid was repellent, but I wasn’t going to be lured off on a tangent.

  “We were talking about that missing fishing reel,” I insisted.

  “How’s a woman who gets no sleep expected to remember anything?” she said in an accusing way. “Lord A’mighty, you’ve never heard such a terrible yowling in your life, and pray you never do. You’ve seen that monster owl—he roosts in the oaks behind the house.”

  No, I hadn’t, but I’d heard him calling, a baritone boom-boom-boom that was sometimes answered by owls on neighboring islands miles away. “Maybe some sweet tea will improve your memory,” I said, and went to make it.

  “I’m not going to sit here and lie,” she continued, pressing her advantage. “I didn’t like that ugly ball of hair. He’d hike his leg on my collards and pooed in the garden—any wonder I haven’t made greens lately? That new neighbor woman and I had words about that, believe me! But the dog hasn’t been born deserves to be eaten by a giant bird.”

  My mother sat back in her recliner, reached for the TV remote and added, “Suppose I could use something cool to drink, darlin’. This time, don’t be so stingy with the sugar.”

  I had no idea, of course, that the missing reel would turn out to be significant or that its disappearance would convince me that my mother and her friends were being victimized by thieves whose conscience had been replaced by sickness, and who were capable of theft, and even murder. So I allowed my attention to waver. Had Loretta actually seen an owl swoop down and grab the neighbor’s pet Pekingese? The woman’s damaged brain followed strange branches and was sometimes confused. However, she was also smart enough to use that impairment to disguise her true motives or to conceal her own bad behavior. Truth was, I suspected that she’d probably sold the reel or traded it for marijuana, which she had never admitted using but was quick to praise as a healing drug. Loretta had always been tricky when it suited her needs, a trait I’d found irksome even as a little girl.

  “There’s no reason to make up stories,” I warned, ice crackling as I poured tea into a pitcher. “I just want to know where the family antiques have disappeared to.”

  The reel and the book weren’t the only items missing from the attic.

  “The dog’s dead,” Loretta repeated. “You’ve been here, what, an hour? How many times you heard that little rat yapping?” She motioned toward the pitcher. “And don’t forget the sugar!”

  It was true that the dog barked all day most days, including yesterday when my clients had followed me up the shell mound to the house. But on this warm April afternoon, I’d yet to hear a peep.

  “That is kind of strange,” I said.

  “Biggest owl I’ve ever seen,” my mother replied, as she’d just proven her point.

  “Maybe I should go next door and ask about him.”
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  Loretta sat up straight. “Don’t you dare! Say anything, those people will suspect I had something to do with it. Besides, they probably started drinking already. Afternoons, they sit on the porch and play tropical music. I can practically smell the booze.”

  My mother’s tone forced an awful possibility into my head. “Loretta, please tell you didn’t hurt their dog.”

  My mother didn’t make eye contact. “What in the world you talking about?”

  “You heard me. Did you run over that poor little thing last night or take him somewhere? Someone used Jake’s truck—don’t think I didn’t notice it’s been moved.” Yesterday, my late uncle’s old Ford had been in the carport where it belonged. Now it was parked in the shade of an avocado tree.

  “How could I?” she answered. “You took my keys and cut up my driver’s license.”

  The part about cutting up her license was fantasy, but I was thinking, Uh-oh. “Someone used that truck,” I said, “and it wouldn’t be the first time you snuck out on your own.”

  My mother glared. “Now you’re accusing me of being a dog killer and a liar!” She got to her feet and shuffled toward the counter, where I let her slip past, then watched as she poured her own tea and dumped in half the sugar bowl.

  “A neighbor borrowed it, if you have to know,” she replied after a sip. “Check the yard for owl pellets. Also pieces of curly red hair and a blue ribbon. Bound to be spread all over the property. Probably a collar, too, but I doubt owls eat rhinestones.”

  Incredible, I thought, she means it, and had to fight back a smile. The ugly fact was, I wanted to believe her story. The Pekingese had been as mean-natured and snappish as the new neighbors themselves. Twice the little dog had cornered me on our dock, yapping his shrill head off, then nipped at my ankles as I went by, once breaking the skin. Had I filed a lawsuit, as some suggested, my worries about paying my mother’s medical bills might be over because the neighbors were rumored to be wealthy. I didn’t sue, of course. Didn’t even bother to do a background check on the people to confirm if the rumors were true. My late uncle’s business is a licensed, bonded private investigation agency, so I know how to access such information, but snooping into people’s private lives is not a privilege I abuse.