by Kelly Lane
Then, I couldn’t believe it.
I hit the canoe with my hand.
Kicking hard, with the next stroke, I stretched as far as I could, and I was able to grab ahold of the pointed canoe stern. Skeets was smacking my hand as I threw my leg over the side. Then, I heard Pottie Moss tell her brother to stop.
“It’s alright, Skeets. Let the poor girl up. After all, she’s only trying to do what’s right, aren’t you, dear?”
Huffing and puffing, draped across the center seat in the canoe, finally, I caught my breath.
“Why, Pottie Moss? Please, tell me. Why?”
CHAPTER 55
All the light in the sky disappeared. In the middle of the swamp, it was pitch-dark. As the little Sea Horse engine puttered us farther and farther away from Alligator Island, Skeets, Pottie Moss, and I could still hear the group calling for us to come back and pick them up.
“Why?” I asked again. “Why did you murder Dex?”
“And what makes you think I did any such thing?”
“Nothing else makes sense, that’s why. Because at your place on Saturday, you said there was a bottle of oil in the bag you’d delivered to Claudia, only when I eventually discovered the bag, it was in Dex’s room, and there was no bottle of oil. That’s because Dex must’ve pulled it out. And the bag must’ve been his, not Claudia’s, as you’d thought.”
“Why’s that?”
“Claudia does everything for Dex. She’d probably done the shopping. Or carried the bag for him while they’d been shopping together. Oh, I don’t know! Still, I know the bag was Dex’s . . . the tee shirt inside was a size extra-large, and that’s definitely not Claudia’s size!”
“That’s for sure.”
“And I saw the sheriff and his deputy pull a bottle of olive oil from down in the weeds near the pond. And I know Dex was delirious after he had a snack in the kitchen that night and before he died at the pond. I’ll bet the bottle of olive oil was the one from the shopping bag, and that he used it in the kitchen to get a snack. Which means he wasn’t poisoned at all during the tasting party; he was poisoned afterward, with the bottle of olive oil that you somehow tainted with poison at your place before you returned it to Claudia. Only it was Dex’s olive oil, not Claudia’s.”
Pottie Moss heaved a big sigh.
“Actually, if you must know, hon, it was a mistake,” Pottie Moss said, calmly. “Pure and simple, I meant to kill that insufferable Claudia woman. That bitch is too damn big for her own britches. Always havin’ a dyin’ duck fit about everything. Why, she had me waitin’ on her like she was the Queen of England! Ain’t no other way to say it; she just made my ass itch.”
“I don’t understand.”
Off in the distance somewhere, an alligator growled.
“Why does that not surprise me? You and your uppity sister Miss Daphne with all her money from her fancy dee-vorce up in Atlanta, y’all wouldn’t know a damn thing about what it’s like to struggle to get along and put a meal on the table. No, siree, y’all think nothin’ about poaching another woman’s payin’ customers.”
“That’s not true.”
“No? Did it ever occur to all y’all that me and Skeets, we really needed the money these obnoxious folks from Boston agreed to pay us? We needed it to eat. And Skeets has got big medical bills!”
“Now, Pottie Moss, don’t go frettin’ folks about our personal problems,” said Skeets.
“Skeets, what the hell is wrong with you? I just told this woman that I murdered a person, and you’re goin’ on about lettin’ her in on our personal problems?”
“Shoot, Pottie Moss, I just figured you were kidding . . .”
“Oh, be quiet, Skeets. This whole stinkin’ mess is your fault, anyways.”
“My fault?”
“Yes. ’Cause I have to stay home and take care of you and your diabetes all the time, I can’t go nowhere, do nothing, or even get a decent paying job! Did ya ever think of that, little brother? Do you think that I like doing laundry and servin’ naked strangers who come to my house and mess it up all the time?”
“Gosh, I’m sorry, Pottie Moss.”
“Every time someone sets a naked butt down on my furniture, that’s another time I gotta come back later and wipe it clean with a Clorox towelette. I’m tired, Skeets.”
“Pottie Moss, you’re not making sense,” I said. “You said you wanted to kill Claudia . . .”
“Well, let me explain it to you, missy. That Claudia woman drove me insane, with her whining and complaining. Then she and the others just jumped up and left . . . to go to a better place. Your place. Knox Plantation. And as if that wasn’t upsetting and insulting enough, she called and insisted that Skeets and I bring over their luggage, all their luggage, to their new fancy digs at Knox Plantation. And she said that we had to pack it all up, too!”
“That is pretty bad . . .”
“Plus, she said she was canceling the corporate credit card that was on account with us, and she wouldn’t even pay for the time they’d already stayed with us if we didn’t deliver the packed luggage right away.”
“Wow. That is bad . . .”
Pottie Moss was waving her arms excitedly.
“So I packed everything up and hauled it over to your place. Only when I got there, the woman started havin’ another hissy fit ’cause I forgot to bring some shopping bag she left in her room. So, back I went to my place, looking for the damn shopping bag. And before I even found it, the woman called me on the phone yelling about the way I’d packed her stuff. I hadn’t folded her pretty panties the way she liked ’em folded, she said. And I’d mixed her dirty laundry with her clean laundry . . . blah, blah, blah.”
Pottie Moss stopped for a moment and took a deep breath. Skeets looked like he was as shocked and befuddled as I was about the whole story. Outside the canoe, alligators were snorting and bellowing all around us in the swamp. The group on the island had stopped calling.
Pottie picked up her story again.
“So then, after yelling at me, the woman hung up on me. Rude. So, I finally found the stupid shopping bag she wanted me to bring her. It had all sorts of touristy stuff from downtown. You know, junk, like we said before. And I saw there was a bottle of Knox olive oil inside the bag. And, don’t ya know it, I went and got all mad again . . . Here I was, working like a dog, when you folks at Knox Plantation were gonna end up making all the dough, I thought. And, I was thinkin’ that y’all would probably get another five-star review on the Internet, while I’d get squat. Squat! After all I’d done. Then, all of a sudden, I had this idea. I read about it in a mystery once. I could poison the bitch from Boston with one of your bottles of olive oil. She’d be dead, and y’all would take the blame. It was brilliant. I could kill two birds with one shot of poison!”
“I just can’t believe I’m hearing this.”
“Me, neither. You’re real smart, Pottie Moss,” said Skeets.
“Thank you, Skeets. So anyway, it doesn’t take me long to figure out what to use. Belladonna. Agatha Christie used it all the time in her stories. Well, at least a couple of her stories. And I even had some nightshade growing in the yard. So I went out, grabbed a handful of the pretty berries, and used my juicer to squeeze out as much poison berry juice as I could. Then I took one of Skeets’s syringes . . .”
Pottie Moss flipped open the lid on a little cooler, grabbed a syringe, and held it in the air. I was pretty sure the syringe was loaded . . . with something.
“. . . and I loaded it up with the poison berry juice. Then I stabbed it into the cork in the olive oil bottle and pushed all the poison inside. Then, I pulled the syringe out and smoothed over the top of the cork, so no one would see that I poked a little hole in it. Then I delivered the shopping bag with the poisoned Knox olive oil to your place, and I went home and waited. I gotta tell ya, I was absolutely thrilled to bits the next
day when I heard another person had died at your place. I mean, it could’ve been weeks before anyone’d opened the bottle of olive oil. I didn’t know whether I’d be able to wait that long.”
“And it could’ve been consumed by anyone!” I cried. “Did you ever think of that, Pottie Moss? What if an innocent child had ingested it!”
Not that Dex had deserved it, either . . . Oh, what’s wrong with me . . .
Pottie Moss shrugged.
“That dead person was number four this summer for Knox Plantation. Wasn’t it?”
“Yep,” said Skeets.
“I was so happy. I knew that my plan had worked. The bitch was dead, and your business—my competition—would be down the drain in no time. Only later, I heard it was one of the men who’d died. Not the bitchy woman. Dang, I thought. I was real sad. Until I realized that I’d have another chance!”
“I don’t understand . . .”
“I figured that I could get the bitch tonight. Only, she spent the entire time sandwiched between the Doublemint Twins, so I haven’t been able to get a shot at her, or her drinks. And believe me, I’ve tried everything except . . .”
Pottie lunged toward me.
“This!”
She stabbed at me with the loaded syringe. I managed to grab Pottie’s wrist, keeping the syringe in her fist away from me. We struggled, wildly rocking the narrow canoe back and forth in the water, nearly capsizing the boat. Still steering the little engine, Skeets was yelling something, but I couldn’t hear what he was saying, because Pottie was yelling and swearing at me.
“I’ll kill you all!” she shrieked. “I hate you skinny bitches! All of you!”
Pottie threw me to the bottom of the canoe, but I managed to kick her hard in the ribs as she bent over me with the syringe, poised to stab me. Still, I had a hold on her wrist, keeping her hand with the syringe inches away from me. With my other hand on the gunwale, I managed to pull myself up, and we thrashed violently around the little boat as I kept squeezing Pottie Moss’s wrist, desperately trying to keep the poisoned needle pointed away from me.
With one hand steering the little engine, Skeets was batting me on the head with an oar as Pottie jabbed me hard in the stomach with her other fist, knocking the wind out of me. I fell backward, this time landing on the gunwale. Then, sitting on me, she was one-handedly wrapping a heavy rope around my legs—I think she was trying to tie them together—while I still clung to her wrist. I was half in and half out of the canoe when she finally wrenched her wrist free from my hand. Something knocked me hard in the chest.
Pottie lunged at me with the syringe. Only this time, I managed to roll away.
And down into the swampy water below.
CHAPTER 56
When I’d rolled off the canoe and into the swamp, I’d planned to grab ahold of the canoe and hoist myself back in. I hadn’t counted on not being able to breathe. Or kick. Pottie really had punched the air out of me, and I couldn’t get a breath. I couldn’t even gasp. Plus my legs were tangled up in the big rope.
It was a terrifying feeling.
I was sinking. And under the water, I could hear the little Sea Horse engine as it moved farther away. There was another humming sound as well, but I couldn’t place it.
It felt like time slowed down as I was dropping deeper down into the swamp. I was tiring fast.
Lifting my head up under the water, I did a two-legged butterfly kick once, as hard as I could. Then, with everything I had, I kicked again. Without air, I thought my chest would explode. My insides pounded. Then, just at the moment I broke the surface of the water, my lungs expanded and I was able to gasp for air.
My legs were still tangled in rope. And to stay on the surface, I had to keep butterfly kicking . . . hard. I’d soon be exhausted. Still, I’d made it without drowning. I kept gulping for air, pushing aside scores of lily pad plants.
Of course, I don’t have to tell you what I heard next.
A big alligator growl.
And it didn’t sound all that far away from me. Not far enough, anyway.
As my panic deepened, off in the distance, I saw a light. It was a bright spotlight, quite far off. Still, it was heading in my direction. And I heard the high-pitched hum of an engine.
A boat!
But would anyone see me in time? Or at all?
Kick harder, Eva! Harder!
There was another growl. Closer this time. And another, more like a roar, coming from behind me somewhere.
I kicked furiously, thrashing in the water, trying to get myself as far up and out of the swamp as possible. Waving my arms, I tried yelling as the boat quickly approached. Underwater plants and detritus brushed against my skin, freaking me out . . . I kept imagining the stuff was a hungry alligator, rubbing up against me.
“Help! Help me! Help!”
Yelling was probably completely ridiculous, considering whoever was inside the boat certainly couldn’t hear me over the roar of the boat engine. Still, if I hadn’t yelled, it seemed like I wouldn’t have been doing enough to save myself . . .
“Help!”
I swallowed a big gulp of swamp. It wasn’t long before I felt too tired to yell anymore. I simply couldn’t get enough air. The boat was approaching at a shockingly fast speed. There was a splash in the water, off to my right. Did I see a tail? I wasn’t sure which would be worse: getting eaten up by an alligator or chopped up by a propeller blade.
“He-elp!”
I kicked harder, still trying to lift myself out of the water as high as I could so whomever was in the boat would see me. Frantically, I flapped my arms. The high-powered spotlight was almost close enough to shine on me. I was sinking.
I gasped for air.
Did I hear another alligator roar?
Popping my eyes just above the water, I was blinded by the high-powered light. There was another big splash.
Please see me. Please see me. Please see me.
I closed my eyes, kicked, and waved like my life depended on it—it did. I knew the boat was close; the engine noise was very loud. Then all of a sudden, it stopped. There was no engine noise at all. I opened my eyes, just above the water, to see the spotlight swinging slowly back and forth, surveying the swamp around me. I kicked hard, trying to lift myself above the water.
“Help,” I croaked. I could barely speak, let alone yell.
The light moved across the water until I was blinded again. I was dead center in the light.
Oh, thank heavens. I don’t think I can kick much longer . . .
“Oh, Christ,” I heard him say.
Please . . .
The rope around my legs was heavy. I was going down. I couldn’t yell anymore. Couldn’t kick. I was too tired . . . too tired . . .
The engine started up again. Actually, it sounded like two outboard engines. With the light still focused on me, the boat crawled in my direction.
“Babydoll, is that you?”
About ten feet from me, I heard the engines shift into neutral. Then they shut off. I kicked again, giving it everything I had, to raise my head above the surface of the swamp.
“Who else would it be?” I said hoarsely. My legs felt like jelly. I sunk down into the murky swamp water again.
Slowly, the midsize aluminum boat, painted in a green and brown camouflage pattern, drifted across the water to stop beside me. I kicked one more time, lifting my head out of the water.
“I can’t . . . swim . . . Legs tied . . .”
“Give me your hand, Babydoll. It’s alright. You’re gonna be alright. I’m right here.”
Buck reached over the side of the boat to grab me.
Suddenly, I felt a jerk from below. Next thing, I was underwater.
CHAPTER 57
It was all pretty much a blur after that. I remember seeing Buck’s horrified expression as I gulped for air just be
fore being pulled down into the muddy swamp. I remember a lot of thrashing, water churning, weird grumbling noises, shouting . . . then for a moment I was back on top of the roily water again. That’s when I caught a glimpse of Buck in the boat, pointing a pistol in my direction.
I think I shouted, “No!” Still, maybe I only thought it. Whichever it was, I was certain of one thing: I was scared for my life.
There was more turbid water, bubbles, thrashing, churning, all sorts of crap under the water. I was going up and down, my head was above the water, then below the water, then above the water . . . but just for a moment. I saw Buck dive over my head into the swamp. And then I went down, finally realizing that the gator had a hold on the lines around my feet and was diving deeper. After that, I went down, down, down. It was noisy. Chaotic. I couldn’t get any air. And I just don’t remember any more.
CHAPTER 58
I heard night creatures. They were loud. Screeching all around me.
“Eva!”
I felt myself shudder. Then I choked and coughed up water.
“Oh God,” he said, relieved.
I opened my eyes to see Buck bending over me. I heard water slapping the side of the boat as I coughed again.
“Don’t ever do that again, baby. You hear me?” Buck whispered.
Water dripped from Buck’s face onto mine. I’d coughed up a boatload of swamp. At least that’s how it felt. He kissed my cheek.
“Christ, don’t do that again,” Buck mumbled to himself. He turned away for a moment, holding his hand on his forehead. He heaved a deep breath.
“I won’t,” I whispered. “I promise.”
He turned back and smiled. Except, his eyes were worried.
“I was about to give you CPR.”
“That sounds like it coulda been fun,” I said weakly.
“Aren’t you the comedian tonight. Here, try to sit up.”