Hurricane House

by Sandy Semerad

  Womanizers, she learned, see women as the enemy. They think a real man must control, manipulate and deceive. Like the rapist, the womanizer seeks power and superiority. Many of these men had fathers who escaped their families through work, divorce, or alcohol.

  The landline rang, drawing Geneva’s attention to the caller ID. It showed a Washington, D.C., area code. Rather than answer, Geneva slammed Loughton’s picture against the bar.

  “Hi, Gen honey,” Loughton announced after the beep. He paused, as if waiting for her to answer. When she didn’t pick up, he pronounced her name in syllables as he often did when she displeased him. “Ge-nee-vah, keep an eye on that hurricane and call me. Everything is going great here. I can’t wait to tell you about it. I miss you. I love you.”

  Geneva shot his voice a bird. Loughton was incapable of loving anyone. No surprise, he often quoted a famous racecar driver: “If you’re feeling safe, you’re not going fast enough.”

  Dee was his pit stop, an entertainer’s applause, sex without intimacy. Geneva was the home stretch, the cross necklace he wore, the spare tire in his trunk.

  She heard her cell phone vibrate in her purse like a little mouse being electrocuted. She knew without looking Loughton was calling again. At the same time, someone knocked at her front door. She walked over, looked through the peephole, and saw a man in a hooded slicker.

  Chapter Seven

  Gerry, Alabama, Maeva’s Home

  I scooped up the scattered mail from the floor, opened the door, and waved to mailman Bobby. “Thanks,” I yelled. In this rain, Bobby could have easily left the mail in the box at the curb. Instead, like a gentleman, he’d dropped it in the chute Mom had installed when Dad could no longer walk.

  I opened the top letter.

  Internal Revenue Service

  Small Business and Self-Employed

  Dear Maeva Larson:

  Your federal income tax return for the year 2004 has been selected for examination...

  I held my breath and reread the letter, thinking the IRS made a mistake. Then, I remembered what Adam once said, “You need to hire someone other than ‘deaf as a stumpkin Lumpkin’ to do your taxes.”

  I knew I couldn’t rest until I checked the returns my eighty-year-old accountant Lawrence Lumpkin prepared against my own records. Mr. Lumpkin had been doing my family’s taxes since I could remember, and I trusted him.

  I remembered I’d stored most of my receipts in the attic, but not the 2004 information, a tough year after Adam’s death. I’d left those inside the Silverado after writing everything down for Mr. Lumpkin and sending him my mileage log. I was on the road more than I was at home, and I thought it made sense to take the receipts with me. Good thing, I hadn’t given everything to Mr. Lumpkin. His home office burned to the ground last year. Soon after the fire, his son and daughter placed him in a retirement home.

  It took me a while to wrap my mind around going through all those receipts. First I decided to do an Internet search to see if Tara Baxter’s death had any similarities to others in the Florida Panhandle. Adam had told me about a website that featured missing persons and mysterious deaths, and I decided to check it out. I needed to relieve my doubts and make sure Tara’s death didn’t involve foul play. The thought she might have been murdered had plagued me ever since I discovered her body. Call it intuition.

  In surfing the web, I found what I suspected, but hated to see: two women from the Panhandle had mysteriously disappeared in the last few months.

  Chapter Eight

  Paradise Isle, The Pink Palace

  Roxanne Trawler adjusted the showerhead and grabbed the Mane shampoo. The same brand she’d used on her beloved Beagle, Mesha, who died last year. Everyone teased Roxanne about the Mane. In fact, Tara had teased Roxanne about the shampoo the day they’d driven down to Dolphin for that tragic Fourth of July weekend. “You’re silly, shampooing with dog and pony stuff,” Tara had said.

  Roxanne lathered her hair and reflected on the ill-fated trip to Paradise Isle. She drove her Porsche. They listened to Fleetwood Mac—a gift from Tara’s mother—on the CD player. They stopped several times along the way, because Tara said she had to “pee.” Then made one final stop at the Dolphin Super Wal-Mart where they bought groceries.

  “Beautiful day,” Tara had said. “A cloudless sky the color of your eyes.”

  The trip turned sour when Roxanne confronted Tara about her drinking. “Too early to start bending your elbow, isn’t it?”

  Tara feigned surprise. “What are you talking about? “That flask you carry in your purse, your frequent trips to the Ladies Room. And I can smell it on you.”

  “Oh, come on, Rox, don’t spoil everything. Drinking is what people do on vacation.”

  “Your daddy drank himself to death, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to allow you do the same thing. You have a great future. Don’t screw it up.”

  “What great future?”

  “Your dancing. And the Miss America Pageant, to name two.”

  “Rox, you need to start paying more attention to your own life instead of trying to control mine. In case you haven’t noticed, Mason is as horny as the day is long. You need to give him some poontang before it’s too late, Ice Princess.”

  Tara’s cheap shot hurt worse than a torn cartilage. “Ice Princess” indeed, Roxanne had worn every sexy frock Victoria’s Secret sold to keep Mason from coming home late and falling asleep in front of the television. “Did Mason tell you that, Tara?”

  “Pretty much.”

  Roxanne’s face burned with anger. “First of all, Mason is the one rejecting me these days, and second, I’m disgusted to know my husband told my cousin—and best friend—he’s not getting any sex from me.” Roxanne slammed her foot on the brake to keep from hitting the car in front of her. “Kindly explain when and how often you and Mason have discussed our sex life.”

  Tara’s tears streaked her cheeks. “I guess I do drink too much and say things I shouldn’t.” She touched Roxanne shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

  Roxanne brushed Tara’s hand away. “Answer my question.”

  Tara sobbed, “We didn’t. I lied.”

  Roxanne scraped the fender of her Porsche while barreling into the garage.

  Tara jumped out of the car, slammed the door shut, stormed into the house and grabbed a bottle of Jack Daniels from the bar. “I’m going for a walk.”

  Roxanne spent the rest of the day on her third-floor deck, watching the ocean and fighting back tears with a gigantic lump in her stomach. At dusk she’d spotted Tara talking to a man too far off to recognize.

  Roxanne wished now she’d gone down there after Tara, but at that time, she was still fuming over their argument. If Tara wanted to get drunk and be a slut with every man she picked up, then fine, Roxanne remembered thinking. But when Tara didn’t come back that night or the next morning, Roxanne had walked out on the beach calling her name. Later she’d called police to report Tara was missing and told them about the man she’d seen Tara talking to, although she didn’t really have a good description of him. The police officer seemed unconcerned. “Too early to file a missing persons’ report,” he’d said.

  The pounding rain and whistling wind outside brought Roxanne back to the moment. Her painful memories, along with the hot shower, made her feel weak and disoriented.

  She plopped down on the Falorni Marni toilet and stared aimlessly at the stack of magazines on the shelf in front of her. A House Beautiful Magazine sat on top of the pile of Mason’s law journals. He was so proud of the two-page spread featuring the Pink Palace he’d given the magazine top billing over his precious law journals. He’d even underlined “A sanctuary of art with a feeling of early Rome, the master bathroom commands the second floor.”

  “I prefer a smaller space, less like a Roman temple,” Roxanne had told him, but he ignored her.

  The landline rang and she knew, without picking up the phone, it was Mason. Why not ignore him? He’d ignored her.

 
Roxanne searched through her CDs and selected Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. She bowed deeply to her imaginary audience and transformed herself into a dying swan queen. Her bathroom archway became the backstage entrance.

  The harp and celesta cued her to dance forward. She stepped through the master bedroom, precise as a laser, her jumps quick and soft, legs perfect with every turn as she envisioned herself wearing a flowing, pink skirt. She pirouetted, once twice, three times, until a jarring noise made her stop.

  Was someone clapping? She looked around the room, in search of the noise. It seemed to come from the walk-in closet.

  Roxanne turned down the volume on Tchaikovsky and listened. She no longer heard the clapping sound, only the rain and hail pounding the tin roof. She walked to the closet, bracing herself for the unknown as she opened the louvered door and flicked on the light. To her left, she saw Mason’s Hawaiian shirts, summer suits and scuba gear. On the right, she’d hung her frilly blouses, Capri pants, jeans, jogging suit, and that mink coat she needed to store. Her red sequined dress—notorious for slipping off its hanger—had fallen in a heap on the floor.

  As Roxanne reached for the dress the lights flickered and died. No way she planned to hang around the pink palace with no electricity.

  She felt her way out of the dark closet and fumbled through her chest of drawers for something to wear. By the time she’d located shorts and a t-shirt, the lights came back on.

  Roxanne sighed in relief and changed her mind about leaving. She turned up the volume on Tchaikovsky; then returned to the closet to re-hang the sequined dress. Roxanne’s sense of order wouldn’t let her leave the dress on the floor.

  Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake muted the storm outside and gave her enough confidence to enter the closet on her toes. She bowed, as if receiving a standing ovation, and picked up the fallen garment. She heard no clapping this time, but beneath the dress, she saw a pair of men’s loafers, tapping out Tchaikovsky’s melody.

  Chapter Nine

  Gerry, Alabama, Maeva’s Home

  After researching and printing the information on the missing women, I ran out into the rain for my receipts and travel logs. The Silverado was parked in an unsheltered driveway. My tee-shirt and denim overalls were soaked by the time I reached it.

  If I’d built a garage, I would have driven the truck in there. Dad had planned to build one before the ALS crippled him. Of course, nothing was stopping me from building the garage.

  I quickly opened the truck’s storage bin behind the cab and located the cardboard box. Being careful not to drop it, I lifted the large box and stepped down from the truck’s running board. I would have been okay if I hadn’t looked up. I heard the crack of a tree limb breaking off from the tall pine too close to the house and the noise startled me.

  That’s when I lost my grip on the box. The entire contents, receipts and tax records, went sailing in the wind and rain.

  I raced around, grabbing at wet slips of paper, spiraling in the wind, but my efforts proved to be futile, and I’m sad to say, I recovered very few receipts by the time I heard the landline inside the house ring and ring and ring again. I thought the call must be important because whoever it was wouldn’t stop calling.

  I ran inside to answer it. Might as well continue my recovery efforts once the storm had quieted. “Yes?” I panted into the phone.

  “Maeva?”

  “Yes,” I repeated, unable to identify the woman’s voice.

  “Hi, it’s Lilah. How’ve you been?” Lilah’s mom and dad once owned a home in Gerry. She’d grown up there, but she’d married and left for Sea Grove Beach before my family moved to Gerry. I met Lilah for the first time when Catastrophe Claims, Inc. sent me to do the claim on her two-story, four-bedroom on stilts after Hurricane Ivan came through and blew shingles off her roof.

  “Could be worse. How’re you doing?” I frowned at the soggy box and the few tax records I’d managed to recover. I examined one of the receipts. It was wet and illegible.

  “I’m trying to get to London. The Panama City Airport canceled my flight, thanks to the hurricane. I can catch a connection in Montgomery leaving tomorrow morning. I’m on my way there now.” “Are you going to London for work or pleasure?” “Meeting Jay, my fiancé. I’m sure I’ve mentioned him to you.”

  “Oh, yes, you did. He’s a...uh...musician, right?”

  “That’s right. Jay’s finishing up a gig and wants me to join him. So I’m taking two weeks off.” Lilah’s voice sounded happy and I smiled at her obvious delight.

  “Sounds like fun. Hope y’all have a wonderful time.” “Thanks, Maeva. We will if I can ever get there. Before I leave, I’d like to talk to you if you have the time.”

  “Sure, go ahead.”

  “Not over the phone. I’d like to come visit you this afternoon. May I?”

  “But you said you’re catching a plane to London.”

  “I’m spending the night in Montgomery. Flight leaves tomorrow. Right now I’m not far from you, but I’ll need directions.”

  “It’s the split-level, A-frame, facing Lake Gerry, off Hartford Highway. Coming from your way, turn left after the patch of kudzu and pines. Mr. Simmons’ horse pasture is on the right. When you see it, look left and pull between the two brick pillars with ‘Larson’ across the top.”

  “I apologize for the short notice,” Lilah said. “I hope it’s okay for me to pop in. I need to give you the information you wanted.”

  “Of course, but promise me you won’t notice my house. Looks like the hurricane already came through here.”

  “No worse than mine.”

  After I hung up from Lilah, I stripped out of the wet jumper, put on a terry jogging suit and reflected on my uncanny connection with Lilah. No question our histories are similar. She lost her parents and then her husband died. Very sad, but she had no reservations about sharing her story the day we met. I shared with her, too. As a matter of fact, I released a flood of emotional sharing. I was going through the anger stage of grief then and looking back, I’m ashamed to say I vented too much. “I can’t understand why Adam had to go after that pedophile without backup?” He knew the guy was dealing drugs and dangerous,” I remember saying.

  “Maybe he couldn’t wait to nail him,” Lilah had offered.

  “Yeah, but he’d already gotten the little girl out of the house safety. He should have called for backup before returning.”

  “Get over it,” I could hear my sister’s voice saying.

  I melted down anyway. Sobbed while I washed my face, over and over, brushed my teeth and brewed coffee. When the doorbell rang, I dried my eyes for the umpteenth time and took deep breaths before greeting Lilah. “Hi, come on in. Great to see you.”

  “Hi,” Lilah said, struggling with her umbrella, trying to close it.

  “Don’t leave it outside. It’ll blow away.”

  Lilah paraded her dripping open umbrella and a trail of expensive perfume inside the house. She wore a silk, lavender pants outfit and had her blond hair in a French twist.

  “I really apologize for popping in on you like this,” she said, hugging me.

  I pointed to the beige couch. “Have a seat. I’ve made coffee. How do you take yours?”

  “Cream and honey. That is, if you have honey. If not, just cream.”

  “You like honey in your coffee, too?” Lilah nodded.

  “Did you have Mrs. Skipper in seventh grade?”

  Lilah smiled, looking lovely, though wet and windblown. “I did.”

  “She thought honey could cure everything.”

  Lilah threw back her head and laughed. “I know. I loved her and her southern drawl, even though she confused me when she said the equator was a line—in her accent it sounded like li-on—running around the earth.”

  “That’s funny,” I said, pushing the rock collection aside to make space for the coffee tray with two gold china cups and saucers, paper napkins, silver spoons, the half-filled coffee pot, Half & Half in a cream pitcher, and a ja
r of honey. “My place is a wreck. I’ve been trying to make a dent in cleaning it today.”

  “Don’t apologize,” Lilah said, reaching inside her tote, withdrawing a reporter’s pad. “These are my notes. You said you’d be interested in reading everything I found out about Tara Baxter.” Lilah pressed her lips together, as if weighing her words. “As I mentioned, Centennial Magazine hired me to write an article on the Miss America pageant. Tara Baxter, if she had lived, may have become the next Miss America.” Lilah shoved the pad at me. “After you’ve had a chance to read my notes, I’d like to know what you think about the information I uncovered on Tara’s death.”

  I poured Lilah’s coffee before I reached for the pad. “Thanks for sharing your notes. I searched the Internet today, looking for reports of missing and murdered women in the Panhandle.”

  “So you think Tara’s death wasn’t an accident or isolated occurrence.” “I just don’t know what to think, Lilah. That’s the problem. I can’t seem to erase the image of her, and I feel obligated to find out what happened.”

  “On your Internet search, did you find other missing women in the area, where foul play was suspected?”

  “Two women were reported missing this year.”

  Lilah withdrew a new pad and pen from her purse. “What are their names and circumstances?”

  “Helen Rapier from Panama City Beach and Karen Lovett from Pensacola. Both young, single, professional. Helen was participating in a triathlon when she disappeared. Karen was scheduled to fly out of Pensacola for a business meeting in Atlanta, but she never made the flight.” I flipped open the pad Lilah had given me and glanced through her notes.

  “I’ll check into this when I get back, and also, I’ll give you a copy of my article when it comes out.”

  “I’d appreciate that. Tara’s death definitely needs a closer look, and as you know, my sister and I own property on Paradise Isle. I’m very familiar with the area.” I poured coffee for myself.