Death in the Polka Dot Shoes

by Marlin Fitzwater

  That’s easy for you to say, I thought. The empty boat was rocking wildly. We weren’t in any real danger. But sometimes when a wave raised the port side of the Martha I could see the man’s face in the water, white and unresponsive.

  “Why doesn’t he look up, or wave?” I shouted. “Is he dead?”

  “I hit him with the damn line, and he didn’t take it,” Vinnie said. “I’m going in.”

  I realized Vinnie had put on his life jacket while I was talking. He kicked off his tennis shoes, threw his cap on the deck, and jumped into the Bay, not two feet from the victim.

  Christ, don’t hit him, I thought.

  Vinnie was with him instantly, threw back the man’s head and turned his body like it was a rubber toy. He took a few seconds to get his legs untangled from the victim, took about three strokes and he was beside the boat. I shut down the engine, mostly because I didn’t know what else to do, and I didn’t want anybody caught in the propeller. I rushed to the side of the boat and looked down at Vinnie’s nearly bald head, with a few strands of hair draped across his head like wet seaweed. Vinnie was nearly cheek to cheek with a small head of coal black hair that showed no sign of life. I fell to my knees, waited for the boat to rock low once more, then grabbed the arm of the motionless man and flung him into the boat.

  “Jesus,” I shouted, not realizing how small he was, or how the adrenaline had increased my strength.

  Vinnie had both hands on the side of the boat and was heaving himself in as I laid the man on the deck and started yelling at him.

  “Wake up.” But there was no response.

  Vinnie quickly turned him on his stomach, hit him on the back, and water seemed to rush from his mouth. He was a little man, with narrow features, and eyes that didn’t open, but were set in deep wells. Even for a drowning man, he looked desolate, like he just crawled out of a cave.

  Vinnie flipped him again, on his back, and blew into his mouth. That’s all it took. The man just started all his systems, like the dashboard of a car that lights up on ignition. His eyes opened. He coughed, again and again. His arms rose as he tried to turn on his side.

  “Get her started,” Vinnie said, as he tried to help the man get in a comfortable position for coughing and breathing.

  “Get the boat,” the little man said. It was a weak voice, pleading. “Don’t leave the boat.”

  Criminently, I thought, I almost forgot about the guy’s boat. But who cares. The first rule here is save the victim.

  “I’m OK,” he said, “get the boat.”

  “Where the hell is the boat?” I muttered, swinging the Martha Claire around to find the circling power boat. It was off my stern, circling at a fairly good speed, maybe seven knots. Like a figure skater, repeating the same circle over and over.

  Vinnie was sitting on the deck with his new acquaintance, but he looked up enough to suggest, “See if you can get close enough to board her.”

  “Hell no,” I replied, knowing I couldn’t do that even if it could be done. She was going too fast.

  “How much gas does it have?” Vinnie asked his new friend.

  “Fifty hours,” he muttered.

  “Fifty hours!” I exclaimed. “We could be here for days. Let’s call the Coast Guard.”

  “Wait,” Vinnie said. He struggled to untangle himself from the man on the floor. He raised the man’s body and leaned him against the engine box. “It will be warm,” he said. “Sit here and hold onto the side.”

  I kept the Martha within a few yards of the pleasure boat, but I couldn’t hold the circle and I couldn’t hold the speed. I would fall behind, and then cut across the circle in the water until I caught up again. The boat had made so many circles that its wake seemed like a permanent scar in the water.

  Vinnie went below and came back with a dark green army blanket, my father’s. It had been given to Dad by his brother, who fought in the Philippines during World War II. Uncle John had once sent me a hollow coconut from Guam that was finished into a bank, and every year on my birthday he would send a silver dollar to put in the bank. The blanket still had the Army’s insignia stenciled on one corner, but there was a sizable hole in the center where some battery acid had leaked on the blanket.

  “Is that for the guy?” I asked as Vinnie emerged from the vee birth.

  “No,” he said, “the boat. Pull Martha into the circle wake of that boat. Wait as long as you can, so you know Martha is on the same course as the cruiser. I’m going to throw this blanket in the circle and hope the cruiser hits it. Once I throw, get the hell out of there so it doesn’t hit us.”

  I didn’t ask the purpose of this blanket maneuver, but it seemed significantly easier than trying to jump into a moving boat.

  I found the wake just after the boat went past, threw Martha in neutral, and waited for the cruiser to circle again. It took a couple of minutes to come around. Finally, it was bearing down on us when Vinnie threw the blanket and screamed, “Go. Go. Go.” We lurched forward, causing our guest to roll on the floor. But Vinnie never lost balance or line of sight. He saw the cruiser approach the blanket, devour it under its sharp bow, and the blanket disappeared under the hull. And then the cruiser coughed. Like a child with someone’s hand over its mouth. Muffled. Then another cough. And the motor died. The cruiser stopped and within an instant was floating in the water as helpless as a styrofoam cup. The blanket had become entangled in the propeller just as Vinnie had calculated, and the big engine stalled.

  Vinnie moved in close to the helm and said, “If you can get close, I’ll board the boat and we can tow her in.” He was looking me right in the eye, I think to see if I was shaken by the whole experience.

  “Vinnie,” I said, “if I ever drive this boat again, even for one minute, I want you by my side.”

  “You got it boss,” he said, moving to ready his jump.

  Chapter Four

  Opening my law practice beside a Calico Cat linen store in what passes for the only shopping center in Parkers was not part of my long-term plan. It was actually Effie Humbolt’s Calico Cat store, with a subtitle: linen and things. More things than linen, and mostly bolts of cloth that appeared to be Laura Ashley knockoffs, priced for the local sewing circles. I noticed a predominance of rose designs, in colors ranging from pink to green, familiar to every family who uses wallpaper. I hadn’t seen much wallpaper since leaving Parkers because the style in Washington had moved to plain walls and ceiling molding, or an occasional stripe. In any case, it gave the Calico a homey feeling that I appreciated, even though my new law office would be spartan modern with plain walls, a wooden desk with Queen Anne legs that I picked up at Rick’s Antiques shop out on Route l, three walnut chairs of mixed origins for the vast clientele expected soon, and a Persian rug of mixed ancestry that gave me the illusion, at least, of some class. All the furnishings totaled less than three hundred dollars and strengthened my sense of frugality.

  Every endeavor in life has its fears. The workboat certainly raised physical fears, but the law practice raised economic fears. Clients might never come. Our profession has historically had this high minded idea that lawyers can’t advertise for clients. Too unseemly. But it’s perfectly fine, even recommended, that we join every low life civic club in North America and grovel before the most corrupt politicians available in the hopes of winning a fee. In my case, two hundred dollars an hour.

  I made much more than that at Simpson, Feldstein and James, and I had other amenities I didn’t deserve, like a walnut paneled office with leather chairs and pictures of horses jumping over fences in the nearby Virginia hunt country. I had never actually met a horse, but I knew them to be great symbols of wealth and pedigree, often associated with white fences and acreage. In defiance of this legal tradition and with a tip of the hat to local pride, I hung a picture of an oyster boat with two old guys raising hand tongs from the misty waters of the Bay. I liked the freshness of starting my own office.

  I didn’t have a library, but it seemed unlikely I would n
eed a lot of precedents anyway. I did have a piece of computer software titled: Practical Law Applications. It could have been called a floppy disc for the mellow minded, but it included a sample will with blank spaces to fill in; sample real estate agreements; and instructions for filing civil lawsuits on behalf of any aggrieved party. I figured if I used two out of three I could survive.

  I was straightening the furniture when Mansfield Burlington grasped the outside door handle, leaned back on his heels to read the stenciled gold letters, Ned Shannon, Attorney at Law, and entered.

  “Hello Burl,” I almost shouted.

  “What,” he said, “no waiting room. No big busted secretary. No cases of empty law books.”

  “You mean empty cases with no law books.”

  “You heard me,” he said.

  “No capital, huh,” he said. “I’m here to help. Your first client. I need a new will.”

  “Come right in, Burl. You’re in great luck, because I’m having a first time special on wills, one thousand dollars for the whole process or two hundred dollars an hour.”

  “How long will it take?”

  “About five hours,” I replied, “but it could go longer.” I saw Burl doing the math in his head and realizing the thousand dollars was a floor in this process, no matter what happened.

  “You would be good in the used car business,” Burl joked.

  I had spent so many years as part of a legal team, advising corporate clients on regulatory laws related to safety and environment, that it made me nervous to define a simple legal service and state my fee. At Simpson, Feldstein and James, all that was done for me. Furthermore, I was getting nearly three hundred dollars an hour there and the firm had devised so many ways to hide the fees that I never had to actually say to anyone, “My fee is….” Rather, it was part of a proposal, presented on paper and explained to the client by one of our administrative partners, who painted our merits with such gusto that people actually couldn’t wait to pay us the big money. Indeed, they usually breathed a sigh of relief just knowing that our firm would keep them out of jail, or avoid a fine of even greater dimensions than our fee. Corporations would always rather pay the fee than a fine. It puts them on a much higher road for their public relations team. And over the years we had even made it an honor to pay our fee, a distinction like winning the Purple Heart for being shot in the rear.

  “I hear you saved the Blenny Man,” Burl said unexpectedly. “Not many people will thank you for that one.”

  “Who’s the Blenny Man?” I asked.

  “Word is you and Vinnie plucked that little mouse out of the water, and then towed his boat home like a lost dog.”

  “We did pick up a guy, but I thought his name was Ray,” which was what I thought Vinnie told me.

  I remembered that the guy did look like a little mouse, wet and wrapped in a blanket, with black hair draped in every direction. He hadn’t said much, except thanks for the coffee. Vinnie gave him a mug on the way back to Parkers Marina. I did remember that when he raised the cup to his lips, his teeth were shaking, and his hands were unsteady when they grasped the handle. On his left hand was a diamond ring that looked out of place, and when he saw me notice it, he pulled his hand back under the blanket, still holding the mug with his right. No doubt new wealth. Even so, I hadn’t paid much attention to Ray as we nursed his boat into an empty slip at the end of the pier. Vinnie climbed onto the pier, tied the bow line to one piling and the stern line to another. I helped Ray out of the Martha and took back the blanket, all without him saying a word. He looked like a stray animal standing on the dock. We left Ray and his cruiser at the Marina and maneuvered the Martha Claire out into the creek channel for the few hundred yard trip to the Bayfront. At least that’s the way I remembered it.

  “Who is he?” I asked Burl.

  Mansfield looked across the office, raised his long frame from the chair and picked up the dictionary, one of three books that I simply couldn’t start a business without. The other two were from my first year in law school. Mansfield always looked elegant, even in tan pants and a blue shirt. Sometimes, like today, he wore an ascot, which was so out of place in Parkers that it looked natural. At the Willard Hotel, I would have placed an ascot as among the most pompous of apparel, belonging either to a dandy or a nutcase. But Mansfield pulled it off, the way a fur coat looks all right in church if the lady is elegant in every stitch. Burl was that way, with leather docksider shoes that were richly brown, not scuffed or polished. His brown leather belt was wide, and catalog proper for the ensemble. I made a mental note to dress that way myself, although it seemed unlikely to happen. I just can’t seem to shake the inevitability of wrinkles.

  Mansfield Burlington picked the dictionary from my desk, flipped through the early pages, and ran his finger to the correct word. He stood erect and read from the dictionary: “Blenny. Any of several small, spiny-finned fishes of the family Blenniidae, having a long, tapering body. Blennius, a kind of fish. Blennos slime, mucus: so called from its slimy coating.”

  He looked up. “Now tell me that isn’t the man you so ceremoniously pulled from the depths of the Bay.”

  “That’s him,” I replied. “But is that his reputation? Slimy?”

  “I rather like the term, ‘spiny-finned,’” Burl said. “Reminds me of a skinny little man I met in Paris. I commissioned a painting he never painted, but he took my money, tried to take my girlfriend, and denied it all till the day he went to jail for forgery.”

  “Before you launch into another historical tirade on the French, tell me about the Blenny Man,” I said.

  “Insurance,” Burl said. “I think he sells it because he looks so much like death that it frightens people into buying. Also, he has no shame and will push himself into any gathering.”

  “Burl, I’ve never heard you so expansive in your disgust for someone,” I said. “What did this guy do to you?”

  Burl was really warming to the task. “You know when you look through the security hole in your door, and there’s a distorted face with fat cheeks looking back at you – that’s Ray Herbst. I’ve known him for years. Everything about him is distorted.”

  “Well, he doesn’t know much about the water,” I ventured.

  “More than you think,” Burl responded. “He probably was taking a leak when he fell off the boat. That could happen to anybody. Blenny has had a hundred boats in his life; he prowls around the marshes of this place and turns up on remote islands for every crab festival there is.”

  “Why are you so down on him?” I asked.

  “The resort,” Burl said, looking at the floor. “He’s fighting it.”

  “But so are you.”

  “That makes it worse. He’s on my side,” Burl said. “But I don’t believe him. I’m telling you, Neddie, if the Blenny Man darts in here to say thanks for saving his dark heart, grab your belt cause he’s trying to steal your pants.”

  Mansfield was becoming a bit of a grump in his old age. But I could see why he was one of the most respected men in the county. He helped everyone who asked for it, and he helped in ways that mattered. He doesn’t give money to charities, probably because he doesn’t have a lot, but he gives himself. He attends all the church dinners, Elks Club bingo nights, and oyster feasts, usually wearing his own apron that’s dark blue with red letters on the front that says Field and Bay. He’s very proud of his career and his magazine. It’s his identity. Along with his ascot, or his bow tie.

  “Once we get this “will” business settled, I want to talk about the Hijenks,” Burl said. “We’ve got to stop it.”

  “Now hold on a minute,” I said. “I may have a conflict here and I’m not ready to discuss it.”

  “What conflict?” he asked.

  “I’m a lawyer, among other things,” I said. “And I might have a client in this fight.”

  “Don’t you desert me boy,” Burl said with a smile. I knew he wasn’t really upset. Burl is a democratic soul, and understands everyone has a right to t
heir views. Just the same, I’d rather not antagonize him, not with my first one thousand dollar fee hanging in the balance.

  “Burl, here’s a simple agreement to sign that says I’ll do the will and you’ll pay for it. And I’ve attached a form that will get you started thinking about your will. It will help you make lists of things. Account for your money and property. List your relatives and friends you want to leave things to, then come back and we’ll talk it through.”

  “Damn, if you’re going to make a major production out of this, I sure don’t want to be paying the hourly rate.”

  “Burl, for one thousand dollars, you get everything I know for as long as it takes,” I said.

  “Neddie, my boy, welcome to Parkers. Again, I’m sorry about your brother.”

  “Thanks Mansfield,” I said, using the formal name. I stood to see him out and he moved toward the door. He took the handle and started to turn it, then looked back at me to add, “You know, your brother was working for the CRI.”

  “I know Burl, thanks for coming in, and I’ll get right on the paperwork for your will.”

  This was turning out to be a busy day.

  Diane Sexton wasn’t due in Parkers until two o’clock, well after I would finish lunch with the Calico Cat, Effie Humbolt. By lunch I mean a piece of Dominos pizza, catered by Effie from the pizza shop located in the far end of our building. To call our offices a professional building may have been a stretch. We had an insurance agent, who was independent, meaning he represented a lot of companies when he was sober. Fortunately, there are a lot of insurance companies out there so you can go through quite a few in a lifetime of overindulgence. We also have a second hand clothing store, which does quite well because we have so many available customers. And we have a real estate firm that deals almost exclusively in local property. Its owner is Pippy Plotkin, who is called “Pigskin” because it is alliterative and because Pippy paints his car in maroon and gold colors with Washington Redskin logos on the doors and an Indian in full headdress on the hood. Pippy makes a lot of money churning beach houses and fishing cottages, then he spends it all attending out of town football games. I’ve only met him once, but Effie says he’s a pip.