Footprints in the Sand

by Mary Jane Clark

  “Why?” asked Terri. “It’s very sad, but sitting around and feeling awful isn’t going to bring Levi back. Your wedding is in two days, Kathy. It’s a joyous occasion, and it should be celebrated. Besides, it will probably do us all good to get our minds off things we can’t do anything about.”

  It was comforting to finish up in the kitchen. Piper took a toothpick and poked small holes in the surface of the still-warm layers. Then she mixed key lime juice with some confectioners’ sugar and drizzled it over the cake to let it sink in overnight. After unmolding the layers, she wrapped and stowed them in the walk-in refrigerator. All the while, Piper thought about Levi.

  On the phone the night before, Jack had said Sarasota law enforcement thought that Levi was responsible for Shelley’s death. Did Levi think the police would be coming to arrest him? Was that why he killed himself?

  It was hard for Piper to believe that the sweet guy with the gentle smile and real artistic talent was capable of killing anyone. She thought about his demeanor when he’d delivered the hex sign. Levi had been subdued as they praised him and his artwork. He hadn’t even wanted to be paid.

  But there was something else that bothered Piper. When she followed him out to the parking lot, Levi had refused the money a second time. He’d insisted that the hex sign was not just for Kathy and Dan.

  Then who else was it for?

  Piper took her phone from her pocket. She called Jack, but he didn’t pick up, so she left a message.

  “Jack, you know that Amish kid you told me the police suspected in Shelley Hart’s death because they found his cell phone near where her body was discovered? Well, he committed suicide. I don’t even . . . Call me, Jack. I’m flipping out.”

  Chapter 74

  Neighbors had been gathering at her parents’ house, ostensibly to offer comfort. But Miriam heard them whispering about “the abominable sin” that Levi had committed. Everyone was standing in judgment of him and “that awful deed.”

  Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.

  Miriam’s eyes were red-rimmed, and it was all she could do not to scream. She wanted to run away from all of them and their unwavering verdict on Levi’s desperate actions. But Miriam couldn’t leave her parents when they needed her most. Her mother was weeping; her father hadn’t uttered a word.

  She watched as the police arrived and declared they wanted to search Levi’s room. As they looked under his simple single bed and rifled through the drawers of the plain pine dresser, Miriam knew what they were hunting for. They wouldn’t find it.

  Levi’s suicide note was already tucked into the pocket of Miriam’s apron.

  Chapter 75

  Piper rode with Kathy to meet the others at Sarasota Jungle Gardens. The original plan had been to spend the afternoon amid the ten acres of verdant tropical vegetation and meandering trails, enjoying bird and reptile shows designed to educate and amaze. Kathy and Dan had thought it would be a fun way to entertain their guests.

  “This all seems so silly now,” said Kathy as she drove north on the Tamiami Trail.

  Piper reached over and touched her cousin’s shoulder. “I know it must be so hard for you, Kathy. I’m sorry.”

  “I’ve got to get it together and stop weeping and moping around,” said Kathy. “I don’t want people feeling sorry for me. It’s Shelley and Levi and their families we should feel sorry for.”

  “Does Shelley’s family live around here?” asked Piper.

  “Her parents are dead, and you know she had a brother who OD’d. She has another brother in the service. He’s asked that she be cremated when the body is released. He’ll organize some sort of memorial service when he comes home. But Levi’s family? That’s another story. The whole Amish community considers itself Levi’s family.”

  They traveled on, passing the twenty-five-foot-high statue that stood on the downtown bay front. It depicted the famous kiss in New York’s Times Square on V-J Day. An American sailor had taken a young nurse in his arms, swept her backward, and passionately kissed her. The photograph taken at the moment became iconic and served as an inspiration for the giant statue. Now visitors routinely stopped to have their own pictures taken beneath the kissing couple.

  “I love that thing,” said Piper.

  “Me, too,” said Kathy as she reached over and turned on the radio. “Were things really simpler then, or did it just seem that way?”

  Chapter 76

  Cryder took the clipboard from the nurse and quickly signed the release papers. He was running late. Umiko was waiting for him at Jungle Gardens. Not that he had any real desire to go. But she was such a fan of the place. When the invitation had come, Umiko had begged him to take a second afternoon off that week and come with her. This wedding and the run-up to it were taking far too much time.

  “All set, Roz,” he said as he entered the hospital room across the hallway from the nurses’ station. “Roberta can take you home now.”

  Roz was dressed and sitting in a chair, her hands crossed over each other in her lap. She looked uncertainly from the doctor to the woman she’d been told was her daughter.

  “It’s all right, Mom,” said Roberta. “It’s all right if you don’t remember everything—if you don’t remember me. Everything’s going to come back to you. You just have to relax.”

  Roberta glanced meaningfully at Cryder. “Right, Doctor?”

  “Physically you’re in very good shape for a woman your age, Roz. That’s going to serve you well. Just go home, eat, and sleep and return to your routine. Your procedural memory hasn’t been affected, so all the things you automatically knew how to do before, like brushing your teeth or reading the newspaper, you’ll still know how to do. I can’t predict exactly when your declarative memories, the personal episodes and abstract facts you knew, are going to return, but chances are they will. It just takes time.”

  Chapter 77

  The car eased into the parking space at Jungle Gardens. Kathy reached to turn off the ignition.

  “Wait a minute,” said Piper as she heard the news announcer’s words coming from the radio. “Listen.”

  “For the second time this week, the body of a dead female has been discovered in Sarasota. This morning sanitation workers found a body as they emptied the trash in the Dumpster behind the Alligator Alley Bar & Grill. The woman has been identified as thirty-four-year-old Jo-Jo Williams. Williams, mother of three, worked as a waitress at the bar. The bar’s owner told police that Williams left the establishment at approximately eleven o’clock last night, two hours before her shift usually ended.

  “Meanwhile police continue trying to find out what happened to Sarasota resident Shelley Hart, whose body was found buried on Siesta Beach this past Tuesday. The sheriff’s department is asking for help from anyone who may have information about either case.

  “In sports, the Florida Gators—”

  Piper snapped off the radio and turned to Kathy. “Since I arrived, there have been two murders, a suicide, and an old woman run off the road,” she said, incredulous. “When I think of Sarasota, I visualize palm trees and blue-green water, not killers and bodies. What’s going on?”

  To enter the gardens, visitors had to pass through a low, flat building that served as a gift shop and ticket booth. Kathy and Dan had arranged and paid for admission in advance. Their guests gathered in the reception area, perusing information pamphlets and all the items for sale while they waited for everyone to arrive.

  Piper was surprised to see Isaac. He was talking animatedly with Umiko Robbins, gesturing expressively, smiling and giving no sign whatsoever that he’d been informed of his nephew’s suicide.

  There were quite a few people Piper didn’t recognize at all, wedding guests who had arrived from out of town only that morning. Kathy introduced her cousin around.

  “Not only is Piper my maid of honor, she and her mom are making the we
dding cake,” Kathy explained proudly.

  Brad came up to the group, wearing an absurd hood decorated to look like the head of a parrot. The bird’s beak jutted out of his forehead.

  “How do I look?” he asked.

  “Ridiculous,” said Piper, laughing in spite of herself.

  Her cell phone rang just as she noticed Cryder Robbins enter the reception area, his tie askew and his face a bit flushed.

  She looked at the number on the phone’s display and clicked quickly to answer. “Jack! Can you believe it? Isn’t it terrible?”

  “About the Amish kid?” asked Jack. “Yeah, it is. But there’s something else, Piper.”

  “What?”

  “Another murdered woman,” said Jack.

  “Wait. The one in the Dumpster at the Alligator Alley bar?” asked Piper. “I just heard about it on the radio.”

  “Yes. Are they reporting that the cops think it’s directly related to Shelley Hart’s murder?” asked Jack.

  “Uh, no. Why? What did you hear?”

  “I called down there to see what I could find out about Levi Fisher and his suicide, if that’s what it even was. They didn’t find a note. Anyway, my source told me that there was a newspaper article about Shelley’s murder tucked into the dead waitress’s car visor. It seems she circled the part about Shelley last being seen at the Whispering Sands Inn. She crossed that out and scribbled ‘AA B&G’ in the margin.”

  “What?” Piper exclaimed, loud enough to attract the attention of the others in the reception area. Her mind fired rapidly. What if the waitress had seen Shelley at the bar? Could she have served Shelley and perhaps someone she was with? Did Shelley’s killer realize that the waitress could identify him? Could that be the reason she was killed and tossed into the garbage container?

  Piper took the phone away from her face. All eyes turned toward her as she called out, “Can someone tell me where the Alligator Alley Bar & Grill is?”

  Brad stepped forward. “Yeah, it’s way out on Bahia Vista, past Pinecraft. It’s a dump, lots of lowlifes, but they have great burgers.”

  Piper spoke into the phone again. “So what do the police know? Does anybody at the bar remember seeing Shelley?”

  “Nobody yet,” said Jack. “But the place doesn’t really get hopping till dark. Tonight somebody might remember something. Meanwhile they’re looking through credit-card receipts to see if they can find anything that connects to Shelley.”

  “Jack, apparently Alligator Alley is a dive. I’m not sure the customers are going to be jazzed about cooperating with the police. Maybe if somebody who isn’t a cop went over there and asked around—”

  Jack cut her off. “Don’t even think about it, Piper,” he said adamantly.

  “Come on, Jack. It’s no big deal,” she said. “I have some free time tonight. I could just go get a burger and see what happens.”

  “I mean it, Piper. Do not go there! Understand?”

  Chapter 78

  The moment Piper called out, asking where the Alligator Alley Bar & Grill was, his antennae registered danger. Slowly, unobtrusively, he moved closer to her and listened.

  “Maybe if somebody who isn’t a cop went over there and asked around . . .”

  What was that nosy bitch thinking?

  “I have some free time tonight. I could just go get a burger and see what happens.”

  Damn her. Piper just might be able to weasel something out of somebody. When he took the credit-card receipt and cell phone from the waitress’s purse after he killed her, he thought he had removed anything that could connect him with Shelley. Sure, the credit-card company had the information in their system, but if the police checked, it would show simply that he’d been at the bar. It couldn’t prove he’d been with Shelley. Only an eyewitness could make that connection.

  But what if somebody else at the bar had noticed him with Shelley that night? Or what if the waitress had told somebody that she was meeting him to extort money in exchange for her silence? If Piper asked around at the bar, she might find out something. In a place like the Alligator Alley Bar & Grill, Piper was more likely to come up with information than the cops were.

  As Piper ended the phone call, he stepped away. Pretending to be very interested in the collection of tropical animal toys on sale, he waited as everyone began filing through the admission portal. Glancing around, he made certain that nobody was looking at him. He grabbed a rubber alligator from the display bin, stuffed it into his pocket, and followed the others into the gardens.

  Chapter 79

  Who knows the difference between an alligator and a crocodile?”

  The spectators who were gathered in the bleachers around the shallow pool glanced at one another to see if anyone could respond to the guide’s question. When everyone remained silent, Dan answered.

  “First of all, they’re from different families of crocodilians. Alligators and caimans are from the Alligatoridae family, while crocodiles are from the Crocodylidae family.”

  “Hey, Dan!” shouted Brad. “Speak English.”

  Everyone laughed.

  Vin raised his hand. “Alligators have more rounded jaws. Crocodiles have more pointed ones.”

  “That’s right,” said the guide. She pointed to the ferocious-looking reptiles in the pool. “See, the long, narrow, V-shaped snout of the crocodile is very different from the alligator’s wider, U-shaped one. Because of their jaw shapes, the teeth of an alligator’s lower jaw tend to be hidden. On crocodiles they’re visible.”

  Brad called out again. “Either one can do the job. Those babies will rip you to shreds.”

  After the show the guide invited anybody who wanted to hold one of the baby alligators. “Don’t worry,” she said. “It’s safe—the gator’s jaw is taped shut.”

  As they got up from the bleachers, most of the spectators merely stopped to look at the small alligator. A few reached out and touched it. Piper was the only one who took it in her arms and held it, feeling its snakelike skin and spiky scutes. Vin frowned as he took a picture for her with her cell phone.

  “Thanks, Dad,” she said. “I’m putting that on Facebook immediately.”

  That was brave of you, Piper,” said Umiko as the group traveled on to the next exhibit. “I have no desire whatsoever to hold one of those things.”

  “Not so brave when the snout is taped shut,” said Piper, fiddling with her phone as she walked. “It wasn’t exactly alligator wrestling. Still, it’s a great picture. Look.” She held up the phone for Umiko.

  “I’m going to put it up now,” said Piper as she began pressing buttons on her phone.

  “What do you mean, ‘put it up’?” asked Umiko.

  “On Facebook,” said Piper. “I post it on Facebook so all the people I’m friends with can see it. Then they make comments on the picture and we all get into some back-and-forth online.”

  “You do that?”

  “Mm-hmm. One person writes a comment, and then another responds, then another and another. It’s fun.”

  “So you just put up pictures?” asked Umiko.

  “Not always,” said Piper. “Sometimes I just post something I’m thinking about or something that happened to me. I post a picture when I have one I’m into. Like this picture of me and the alligator. Last night I took a picture of that netsuke at your house and posted it. The one with the monkey and the octopus?”

  Umiko’s brow furrowed. “Oh, Piper. I wonder if you should have done that. I wouldn’t want thieves to come to our house. The netsuke are very valuable, you know.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Piper, feeling bad that she had upset Umiko. “Nobody knows where I took the picture. But if it really bothers you, I’ll take that picture down.”

  As they reached the reptile house, Piper hesitated while Umiko entered with her husband.

  “I heard that,” sai
d Vin, shaking his head. “When are you going to learn, Piper?”

  “Learn what?”

  “To respect people’s privacy.”

  “Oh, come on, Dad. I do respect people’s privacy.”

  “Lovey, I’m just saying you have a very bad habit of sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong.”

  The flamingos were incredible. The flock of bright pink- and coral-colored birds roamed freely on the sweeping green lawn and waded in the large, open lagoon. Piper was mesmerized by their striking feathers, their graceful long necks, and their stiltlike legs.

  “How do they do that?” Piper asked of no one in particular. “The way they stand on one leg and tuck the other one beneath their body. I’m telling my yoga instructor that we need to start calling the ‘eagle’ pose the ‘flamingo’ instead.”

  “No one’s really sure why they do that,” said Dan as he walked up beside her. “Some think flamingos have the ability to make half their bodies go into a state of sleep, and when one side is rested, the flamingo will swap legs and then let the other half sleep.”

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out some coins. “Want to feed them?”

  “Sure,” said Piper, watching while Dan inserted the quarters into what reminded her of an old gum-ball machine. Small feed pellets poured out.

  “Oh, wow,” she said as the flamingos walked right up and nibbled the pellets out of her hand. As she giggled at the feel of their curved beaks, Piper looked up and saw Isaac staring at her. When the pellets were all gone, she went over to him.

  “Isaac, I just wanted to say that I’m so sorry about Levi. I didn’t know that you and he were related until Kathy told me today.”

  “Thank you,” said Isaac. He shrugged and shook his head. “I guess it hasn’t fully hit me yet. Levi was such a sweet kid, but he had a troubled soul. I think that whole rumspringa experience became overwhelming. Though he never told me so, I think he probably couldn’t face the idea of breaking the news to his family that he didn’t want to be Amish. And he didn’t want to live a life of shunning. I know too well how gut-wrenching and hopeless those feelings can be.”