by John McMahon
The houseboat was maybe twenty feet long, with space for two people to live, and two tiny decks.
“You wanted the Tracker, right?”
Harry smiled like a cat, and I could feel an upsell coming.
“This is plenty of boat for us,” I said, and grabbed a life jacket. Held it out to Marvin, who begrudgingly put the bulky thing over his tiny frame.
We waved goodbye to Harry and throttled off, moving slowly into the big water.
Once we were settled in and had our lines in the water, Marvin turned to me. He was a patient man, but he also knew me.
“You wanna tell me what happened?”
“I was involved in a shooting,” I said.
“The one at the school?” Marvin asked.
“That, yeah,” I said. “But another one. I didn’t kill the guy in the second one, but . . . it went south on me. A cop’s son died in the cross fire.”
“Jesus,” Marvin said. “They pull you from duty?”
“Nope,” I said. “But they might still and there would’ve been some questions. So I beat them to the punch. Told the chief I needed a couple days to sort things out.”
“Good,” he said. “It’s good to regroup, Paul. Take some time to think. Reflect on your actions.”
I looked out at the long expanse of Schaeffer Lake. When we left home, there were red smears in the morning sky, but they’d disappeared by now, leaving behind a pale blue canvas brushed lightly with cumulus.
I checked out the gear aboard the boat and showed Marvin an umbrella rig, which was basically a fishing line that terminated into six or eight leads. The end was shaped like a mobile you’d see above a baby crib, with each lead dangling with bait. Marvin and I had seen guys trawling with these and mocked them. But since it was onboard, we thought we’d at least give it a shot. When in Rome, right?
I put my waders on but left the front unzipped and rolled them down to my waist, to catch the spray. Then I let out about a hundred feet of line and motored at three miles an hour, the umbrella rig moving behind us.
We caught four stripers in about ten minutes, each of them around fifteen pounds. But it wasn’t as fun as the fishing we were used to, so we threw them in the cooler and slowed the boat down. Stored the umbrella.
Marvin put out his reel, and he told me a story about his best friend, Barry, when he was ten. How they’d go out at midnight and catch crawdads—the cockroach of the sea, as Marvin called ’em. “Mudbugs” was the term his friend Barry used. Then they sold the bugs to folks looking to hook flounders and catfish.
Marvin pulled in another striper, and I grabbed it in the net. “Thank you, Lord,” my father-in-law said every time a fish landed on deck.
By three p.m., we had fifteen fish and were sitting in each of the two captain’s chairs, talking with no lines in the water. All along the coastline, ravenna grass grew thick. If you wanted to swim to the edge, you’d barely be able to climb through it and onto land.
Marvin sat back for a moment in silence, and his silhouette blocked the light until all I could see was a line of pink around the fluff of his hair. He was a good man. I knew a dozen guys who didn’t get on with their father-in-law while their spouse was alive and, well, here I was, sitting with the old man, fishing on my day off.
“Paul,” Marvin said to me, “I gotta tell you something.”
“What is it?” I asked.
When he moved closer, I smelled Old Spice and Ivory soap.
“This is somethin’ you need to listen to. And maybe other folks won’t tell ya.”
“Okay?” I went quiet.
“You were a good husband to my daughter. But you can’t hold on to that forever, y’know?”
I didn’t respond.
“Look at these raggedy old bones.” He pointed at himself. “You shouldn’t be out here with me. You’re young. You need to get out and meet someone. You got your whole life to live still.”
I stared at Marvin. Had I been holding back out of respect for him?
“Okay,” I said. “I appreciate you saying that.”
We motored back to the dock about fifteen minutes later in silence.
I remembered Marvin seeing me with Sarah Raines, the city medical examiner, who I’d dated for five months earlier this year. He seemed uncomfortable around her, but maybe I’d imagined that. Maybe it was me.
We drove home, and I studied the sights on the way back, the truck creaking quietly with just the sound of the wind whipping across two open windows.
About ten miles northeast of the city, high on a bluff above the road was a sign for a business converting lawn mowers into racing mowers.
“You ever seen one of those races?” I asked, but Marvin shook his head.
“I remember my daddy bringing me to one,” I said. “‘Look at these great hillbillies, Paul,’ he’d said to me.” I didn’t understand the statement as a ten-year-old. My father was a complex man. In one moment, he was in awe of these men and their skills with a motor. In the next, he saw them as rednecks.
I dropped Marvin at his place.
Helping him in with his gear, I gave my father-in-law most of the fish. Then I drove home and brought everything straight into the garage.
I showered, tidied up, and started some laundry.
Thinking of Marvin’s advice about getting out there, I searched my bedroom for the business card where Kelly Borland, the teacher from the school shooting, had written her phone number.
I found it and stared at the card. Beside her number, she’d drawn a small heart. This was probably not the type of woman Marvin had been talking about. A victim in a shooting.
A couple minutes later, I grabbed my phone and called her.
Strange, but I actually felt butterflies.
“Hey there,” I said. “It’s P. T. Marsh.”
A beat passed.
“Detective Marsh,” I clarified. “You came by the precinct—”
“Oh, sure. How are you?” Kelly said, her voice cheery.
We small-talked for a minute, and when that went quiet, she cut to the quick. “So you hungry for that dinner?”
“Well, I wouldn’t presume you have no plans tonight.”
“It’s no big deal,” she said. “Remember, Detective. Just dinner. No ring.”
I laughed at this, and she said to give her two hours and then come by. Gave me her address.
I hung up and poured a glass of orange juice from the fridge. A floating circle of mold dropped down the ribbon of juice and into the glass. Which caused me to promptly toss it down the drain and clean out the whole fridge. I’d wait and have a Coke at dinner.
I took Purvis for a walk and let the laundry go through the cycles while I watched a recording of that afternoon’s Bulldogs game against Arkansas State. The Dawgs trounced the Red Wolves 55–0, and it looked like the decision to let that quarterback go to Ohio State wasn’t so bad after all. Who knows? The quarterback carousel was a funny one in college football these days. For all we knew, Fields would go on to be a Heisman finalist at Ohio State the following year.
20
By eight p.m., I had met Kelly Borland at her condo, and we’d walked to a restaurant that was six blocks from her place, called Olive and Chive.
Kelly had a striking look—an oval face framed by a mane of frizzy curls that ended just past her shoulders.
The red dye she’d put in her hair was fading, and her natural brown shade was starting to peek through.
At the restaurant, I ordered the Dijon chicken, and she got a Caesar with steak atop it.
She told me about an issue the residents of her condo complex had been having with an older neighbor.
“This guy’s eighty-five and lives there with his son,” she said, lifting her white wine and taking a drink. “But he sneaks out all the time. Forgets where he is after a few
blocks.”
I shook my head. “I saw that years ago on patrol. It’s as common as missing kids, you know.”
“Missing adults?”
“These days, yeah.” I nodded, finishing my chicken.
A second glass of wine came, and she lifted it to her lips. I was having a Dr Pepper.
At some point, Kelly reached a hand across and laid it on mine. “Listen, I googled you,” she said. “Read about what happened to your family. I figured I’d tell you that, rather than have you wonder. I wanted to say I’m sorry.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I appreciate that. How are you feeling, by the way?” I asked. “I mean—since everything went down?”
“Well, I’m kinda stir-crazy, to be honest,” she said. “We’re all on leave for another couple days, but they told me to take three weeks now, so I started painting today.”
“Is that like . . . therapy for you? Artistic release?”
“I guess,” she said. “But I’m used to working, you know?”
“I do,” I said. “I’m on leave too.”
Kelly cocked her head at me, confused. “Yesterday you said you were on a new case.”
“Yeah, that ended.” I chose my words carefully. “So I finally got a chance. For a break.”
Kelly lifted the glass. “To time off, even if we don’t think we can handle it.”
I smiled, cheering her with my glass of soda.
“To time off,” I repeated.
The waiter cleared our table then, and Kelly explained how she’d grown up in Tallahassee and moved to Charleston as a teenager. Her mother was an E.R. nurse, and her father worked in a machine shop as a foreman.
After supper, we walked back, and I stood outside her place as she finished her story. It ended with her taking a leap of faith on this new school in Mason Falls. A place that had ten times the resources of her old school.
We hit that awkward moment. Was she going to ask me up? Did I want to start something with a woman who is this fragile after a school shooting?
“Do you wanna come in for a minute?” Kelly asked.
“Sure,” I said, and she unlocked the front door.
Inside was an expansive room, one that suggested someone had taken down a spare bedroom and made one giant space. Leaning against the walls, but not hung, were bright orange paintings on stretched canvas, most of them hard to make sense of. Across many of the pieces, a few dots or lines sat against a field of color.
“You coming or going?” I pointed to the screws that were sunk into the wall, a few feet above where each painting leaned.
“I took the old art down,” she said. “To make way for new stuff.”
I stared at the artwork. The paintings on the far wall looked like a splash of flecks to me. Like someone had made a mistake with their brush.
“You don’t like ’em,” she said, nervously tucking a string of curly hair behind her ear.
“No, I just, uh . . . they’re modern,” I said. “I’m ignorant of art. Wouldn’t know what to look for.”
Kelly broke open a bottle of wine. “You want a glass?”
“I don’t drink,” I said.
“Right,” she said. “Dr Pepper. I thought that was about driving home.”
We sat down on her couch, and I thought about Kelly changing her whole life to come here for this school. And now the shooting happened.
“These kids in your class—are they talented?”
“Oh yeah,” she said. “Your boss’s daughter, Avis. Her freehand sketches are amazing.”
“And it’s that much of a difference?” I asked. “Falls Magnet versus your old school?”
“Oh my God, P.T.” She sat up, sipping from her glass. “Back home we were begging the parents to bring in paper towels and using house paint. Here, we have a fifty-thousand-dollar paint studio that rivals a college.”
She described all the equipment that Falls Magnet had, most of it in that attached room where the shooter had entered. The one with the kiln and the press. It crossed my mind that there was an elephant in the room.
A man had held a gun to her head. And I was the one who’d saved her life by killing him. Neither one of us had said a word about it all night.
I excused myself to use the restroom. As I washed my hands after, I decided that I’d bring it up. At least to clear the air. I was no saint, and I didn’t want her to see me that way.
“Hey,” I said, coming back out. “I was thinking that it might be good to—”
I stopped as I rounded the corner to the living room.
Kelly was asleep. She’d kicked off her shoes and curled up on the couch.
I looked around. Thinking about the pathos of a woman who had been this close to taking a bullet. I had been in that situation myself before, and there could be a sense of PTSD.
A trauma that might cause you to drink too much, especially around someone who you know won’t hurt you. Who already saved your life.
I covered her with a blanket and turned off the lights. At the front door, I checked the bottom lock to make sure if I turned it, she’d be locked inside and safe.
It worked like I thought, so I left her there to sleep off the wine.
21
By ten a.m. the next day, my phone started ringing while I was about to take Purvis for a walk. I recognized the number as Kelly’s.
“Hey,” I said. “How are you?”
“Hungover,” she answered. “I haven’t drank in a while, and I feel a strong urge to know how rude I was. Did I fall asleep mid-conversation?”
I explained to Kelly how I’d come out from the commode and found her asleep. Put a blanket atop her and locked up.
“What a gentleman,” she said. “I’m getting a coffee. You told me you’re off of work, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Tell me your order and where you are. I’m coming by with a caffeine apology.”
I gave her my address, and Purvis and I took a walk. As I got back to the house, I saw Kelly getting out of a silver Honda CR-V.
She was wearing black leggings and a scoop-neck blouse. The outfit showed off what a good body she had even better than last night’s ensemble.
She met me on the porch and handed me the coffee. Then she leaned over and rubbed the folds of Purvis’s face.
“Red brindle and white,” she said. “He’s gorgeous.”
I smiled and sat down. This was how Lena always referred to Purvis. “I call him brown all the time, and true bulldog lovers accost me.”
“They’re right,” she said. “No such thing as a brown bulldog. What’s his name?”
“Purvis.”
“What are you two doing today?” she asked in cute voice, pulling Purvis into her lap. A string of drool hung from his mouth, and I wiped at it before it landed on her leggings.
“I dunno,” I said. I mentioned I’d gone fishing the day before, and she told me she used to go with her dad as a kid.
“We’d fish on a place called Lake Talquin,” she said. “I’d kayak around in the mornings, and in the afternoon my dad and his best friend would drink beers and hook largemouth bass and speckled perch.”
“Would you wanna go fishing for a couple days?” I asked. It was sudden, and as soon as I said the words, I felt unsure about them.
Kelly’s eyes got big, and she gave me a funny look.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Too much, right? It was supposed to just be dinner. No ring, no reel.”
She laughed and made crazy eyes. “Don’t worry. I have all my stuff in the car, ready to move in. I know the dog likes me, at least.”
It was easy talking to her, and a minute later, we were just laughing, the dog between us, and the hummingbirds darting across the lawn and hiding in the hibiscus.
“I don’t know that I’m ready for anything, P.T.,” sh
e said. “I wasn’t even sure I wanted to stay—”
“I shouldn’t have brought it up,” I said. “Forget that I said it.”
“No,” she said. “Let’s get out of town together. We could probably both use a break.”
I nodded, hesitant.
“I just can’t promise I’m ready for anything,” she said. “Physically. You should know that first.”
“We’ll just fish and relax,” I said. “You can fall asleep mid-conversation, and I’ll get the message.”
We laughed some more, and then I called up Harry Glavis, up by Schaeffer Lake. He told me all his boats were out except the houseboat.
I mouthed to Kelly—“houseboat”—and she shrugged, mouthing back “sure.” He also gave me the number it went for, for a three-day and two-night rental. Then I made him give me the law enforcement discount.
An hour later, we swung by her place to get some clothes and dropped Purvis over at Marvin’s.
The morning sky was a silver-blue, and we got on 908, heading northeast. Kelly wore a floppy hat on her head, and she rolled down the window in my truck. The breeze blew at the curly strands of her hair, and I thought about drives up this way that I’d taken for cases. How every highway was a trip to see some suspect or witness. How work had slowly become my entire identity. My connection to every part of this region.
Did I want that to be my future—or could I change?
We arrived to see the houseboat on the dock, its green and white colors playing off the wood trim of the cabin and cockpit.
We pushed off, and Kelly loaded the groceries we’d picked up along the way into the galley, and put our clothes away. We barely knew each other, but it felt okay somehow.
I motored out into the deep water, taking my rod out and locking it into place on the starboard side of the boat.
I piloted around the lake slowly, pointing at waterfront property. Big six- and seven-bedroom places that had been remodeled recently. And more secluded houses from the 1970s and ’80s. Older, but on perfect little inlets.