Death in the Polka Dot Shoes

by Marlin Fitzwater

  Horace had lived on a boat, but he hadn’t spent much time running one. He did remember, however, that the most dangerous moment for a neophyte was jumping on and off a boat, or somehow getting wedged between a boat and the dock. So he checked his footing carefully and made the leap.

  “How about tying her down?” Chum shouted as he turned off the engine. “I’ll go see if I can find someone.” He jumped off the boat and headed for the little white shack at the end of the dock.

  Johnny Simmons had long blonde hair that fluttered carelessly around his neck and a certain innocence in his tanned face that belied his years as a Deputy Sheriff who roamed the Keys. He heard the Scatback maneuver into the vacant slip at the Ocho bait shop, raised himself out of a torn corduroy recliner, and mentally ran through his options. The first was to do nothing and see if indeed the boat wanted fuel, or to wait and see who got off the boat, perhaps telegraphing their intentions, which could be nothing more than to find a hamburger and beer.

  It could be a drug trafficker wanting to rendezvous with a later arriving boat. It could be a lost family that needed shelter before moving on to Key West. So he just watched.

  Johnny was stationed up the coast at Key Largo and in his six years with the Sheriff’s office had arrested very few boaters. His law enforcement record was bad. But his attitude was good. He liked the work and never asked for a raise, reasoning that he didn’t do much real work, didn’t want much responsibility, and he was developing an expertise. He could recognize and identify almost any boat made in the United States, and specialized in reciting the life story of any Captain or owner, just by looking at his boat, or at least by examining its upkeep and on deck appurtenances. He also read the internet alerts of boats traveling the East Coast with hidden purposes. The Scatback drew his attention because it wasn’t shiny clean, like a charter boat, or cluttered with chairs and people like a family boat.

  Johnny was Deputy Sheriff but today he was just watching the bait shop and gas pumps for his friend, Mia, who had gone to Miami for the day, so he turned on the gas pumps’ switch and started for the dock. He didn’t see Chum, who had apparently veered off to visit the outdoor restroom and shower facilities on the far side of the park. But he noticed Horace standing on the dock near the pumps.

  Chum turned to look back and noticed Johnny heading for Horace, and he stopped in his tracks, edging slowly back behind a large palm tree. He saw Johnny ask Horace if he could help, but it was difficult to pick up the conversation. Horace was shaking his head and gesturing toward the south, perhaps pointing in the general direction of Mexico. Then Johnny held out his arm in a directing way, pointing to the bait shop, and the two started moving away from the dock and toward the building.

  Chum spotted the Sheriff’s car parked on the far side of the lot, and sure enough, it looked like Johnny and Horace were headed in that direction. It was getting dark and Chum wished he had waited a little longer before entering the harbor. He didn’t move, not wanting to draw attention to himself or his boat. Then he saw the cruiser’s door open, a front seat light came on and Chum could see that Horace was getting in the backseat, and the other fellow got behind the wheel and reached for his dash, probably the on board communications. It certainly looked like the cop was interviewing Horace and checking his computer for information on the boat. Not a good sign.

  Horace was shaken by this sudden appearance by a cop with an attitude. He and Chum had never discussed what to say if they were stopped by police or Coast Guard, in fact, it never felt like they were running from the law. But he knew there was something terribly wrong or his uncle wouldn’t be paying him to meet Chum and stay with him.

  Horace hadn’t told Johnny, the Deputy Sheriff, anything about the boat or himself, but he asked to call his home. Johnny agreed and Horace pulled his cell phone out of his blue jeans. He dialed the number for Parkers, Maryland. When the voice came on the line, Horace paused, then said, “Uncle Ray, I need your help.” The Blenny Man pulled the phone away from his mouth and said, “Shit,” before raising it again to ask the problem.

  Chum was trying to think through his dilemma. He stayed behind the tree but figured he didn’t have much time. Horace must not have mentioned him, or the Sheriff would be looking for him. He must not have mentioned the boat wasn’t his, or the Sheriff would be searching it. But he knew that Horace would reveal all these facts soon, and once he started proclaiming his innocence, all kinds of calls would be made to try and identify the owner. Most significantly, there would be a call to the Coast Guard. And Chum knew that his new friend would not wait long to say they were headed for Mexico. That gave the Coast Guard quite a distance to find the Scatback and its “wanted” Captain.

  Chum edged back to the dock, as darkness gave definition to the lights along the pier. He had decided to make a run for it, and now was the time for speed. He climbed over the gunnels of his boat, then rushed from one cleat to another, untying the dock lines and letting them quietly drop in the water. He went in the main salon, not wanting to expose himself on the flybridge, and started the engine. He knew it would be heard, but he had no choice. He backed the boat away from the dock with no lights, and slowly headed out to the channel. When he reached open water beyond the jetty, he slowly increased the speed, heading for deep water. He kept looking back, but seeing or hearing nothing. Maybe the Sheriff’s Deputy was already calling the Coast Guard.

  At about a mile out, Chum turned on his GPS to see his location. It lit up a six-inch screen with a map of the coast. He pushed the zoom button and the map backed away showing the entire coast. But he could still see the red line that the GPS had marked in the ocean as Chum had made his way from Cape Hatteras to New Smyrna to the Keys. It is perhaps the grandest feature of global positioning. No matter where the boat goes, the Captain can always find his way home by simply following the red line back. Chum located the Scatback on the map. It was a black diamond at the end of the red line. Mexico was to the right, but Chum turned his boat to the left and put the diamond on the line.

  “I’m going home,” he muttered to himself. “Or as close to home as I can get.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Lillian Wildman wasted no time in organizing the community to help Martha. First, she went to Nails Hardware Store carrying a pickle jar with a computer generated label taped to the side that said: For Martha Claire Shannon. She assumed, no doubt correctly, that everyone in Parkers would know Martha and her condition, or they would know the minute they saw the pickle jar. The clerk at Nails, who had been counting out bolts and screws for 30 years, would tell them.

  Lillian set the jar on the counter. “Margaret,” she said, “I’m sure you know about Martha Shannon. Could we put a jar here for donations?” “You sure can,” Margaret said as she lowered her glasses to her chest. “How is she?”

  “She goes in for her operation Thursday. Brain tumor. I don’t know what her chances are, but it’s bound to be costly.”

  “Is it cancer?” Margaret asked.

  “Probably,” Lillian replied, “but we won’t know for sure until they operate. We don’t know much about it, but they’ve gone all over America looking for a doctor.”

  “Who’s helping her?” Margaret asked.

  “Well, Jimmy’s brother Ned is with her. That boy seems to take on all sorts of things, first the crab boat, then a law office, and now he’s helping Martha. I don’t know that he’s much of a crabber, but he sure has taken care of Martha and Mindy.”

  “Well, we’ll help any way we can,” Margaret said.

  “I know,” Lillian said, as she moved away from the counter and toward the door. “I’m going over to the Moose hall now and see when we can get a fundraiser going. I’ll let you know.”

  The Moose Lodge in Parkers is a red brick building in the middle of town with no shrubs to enhance the questionable beauty of unadorned bricks. It was built for function and is maintained for the same purpose, mostly bingo nights, weddings and other gatherings of more than 50 peopl
e. I was last there for a family celebration to mark the return of a war veteran by nearly a hundred proud parents, relatives, friends and acquaintances. The Moose hall is a perfect venue for groups such as this because the rental cost is modest, there are no food preparation costs or minimums, and the renters can do almost all the work themselves. The veteran family, for example, brought all the food themselves in huge bowls of chicken salad, potato salad, and cut fruit with cakes and pies of every stripe. Afterward you can throw away the paper plates, serve wine or tea and the whole thing might not cost more than a few hundred dollars. And if you can prove the rental is for a good purpose, like a fundraiser for someone sick or dying, the special rate kicks in. Sometimes it’s free. Further, if you want to have a silent auction, as Lillian thought about doing, you can probably clear two or three thousand dollars after paying the costs. Lillian has this down to a science, at least a couple times a year. The only question in her mind is the date that will allow the most people to attend. And she has a good mailing list for that too.

  Incidentally, I’ve never met anybody who is actually a Moose Lodge member, although I do envision a group of guys saluting a moose, pledging a commitment to community service, and planning Fourth of July parties. I do know they make enough money to keep the place sparkling clean, the wood trim around the windows freshly painted, and the maple wood paneling in mint condition. The bar that runs the entire length of the building, and can be used for buffet purposes, is spartan but adaptable to many purposes.

  “I want to fill this place up,” Lillian told the executive secretary of the lodge. “And I want the first Saturday night next month. This is a fundraiser for Martha Claire Shannon. She’s one of us, a waterman’s wife, a local girl, and she has a brain tumor.”

  “You bet,” he replied. “We all know the Shannons, and we’ll help.”

  “Can I get the special rate?” Lillian asked.

  “You bet,” he said.

  “How about a dance band,” Lillian said. “We don’t need to be glum just because it’s for Martha. Let’s have some fun. And dancing raises the most money anyway.”

  “I remember Martha Shannon and her husband Jimmy were here one night about five years ago,” the secretary said. “They were having a hell of a time. Dancing and yelling. Jimmy stood up at one point and declared a toast to all the watermen. At hearing that, ole Patrick Moonsocket got up and chugged a whole pitcher of beer. It was running down his face and his shirt was soaked. His wife was screaming at him to stop. And hell, he wanted to drink another pitcher. But by then he was drunk and dizzy and could hardly sit down, let alone drink another one.”

  “Wasn’t that the night we had a dance for Mabel Fergus when she got married again?” Lillian asked, knowing full well that the dance was one of Parkers’ most notorious evenings. Mabel had run off with the owner of the Parkers Marine Railway, Sampson Brown. Sampson ran a crab boat out of his little marina and did a booming business with the Sampson Marine Railway. The railway ran from the water behind his house, up a gentle slope about thirty yards into a covered repair shop where Sampson performed boat maintenance of every kind.

  A Scotsman named Thomas Morton invented the marine railway in1818 by extending rails well into the water, running a wooden boat cradle into the water at high tide, and floating a boat to be repaired onto the cradle. Then men or horses would pull the boat out of the water. He called it “slipping” a vessel.

  Sampson Brown just called it hauling, and he used an electric winch to pull the boat to his shed. If the electricity was down, Sampson could use his pickup truck and pull the boat up the rails without much trouble. Sampson could pull a boat and power wash the barnacles off the bottom, or even repair an engine, in very little time. Between the railway and the crabbing, he became a relatively wealthy man and a reasonable target of affection for Mabel Fergus. Indeed, her marriage at age fifty to Sampson would just about lock up the waterman business in Parkers, a fact no one seemed to bemoan, and everyone wanted to celebrate. There was no better place to do it than the Moose Lodge, and the ensuing party had the parallel effect of making a folk hero out of Jimmy Shannon. Right up until his death by tuna, he was known as “that guy who joined ole Moonie in chugging beer at the Moose,” and his wife Martha was given high marks for sticking by her man in his inebriated condition. These are the kind of incidents that create reputations for a lifetime in Parkers.

  Lillian left the Moose Lodge knowing her fundraiser was off to a good start. The date was secured, and the Lodge, which is a community service organization with a special interest in health care issues, found this cause appealing. Plus, it would bring together the very fabric of the community. She was so excited by the prospect for a successful event, that she stepped out of the club into the sunlight, rummaged her purse for her cell phone, and slid behind the wheel of her car to complete the last segment of her mission.

  Lillian hit her automatic redial and the phone started ringing in the Calico Cat, where Effie Humbolt started pushing around swatches of cloth to find her portable telephone, an instrument that never seemed to be in its cradle and often had batteries which needed charging. Effie’s phone was a testament to her large circle of friends and relatives that received daily nurturing by telephone. Lillian knew she would be perfect to organize the food service, and childcare if need be, for Martha Claire.

  “Effie,” she said to the instantly recognizable voice, “this is Lillian Wildman and I’m calling about Martha Shannon.”

  “I know,” Effie said. “Isn’t it unbelievable? How could all these terrible things happen to her, in such a short time? I don’t know what to do.”

  “Well, here’s my thought,” Lillian said. “I’m arranging a fundraiser at the Lodge to give her some quick cash. I don’t know whether she needs it, but it’s a way for everybody to help out. And in these times, it can’t hurt.”

  “That’s good,” Effie said. “When is it?”

  “No date yet, but we’ll let everybody know,” Lillian said, referring to the organization of women she was about to put together. “But I think we’re going to have a more immediate need. I talked to Martha and she’s going to have this operation within days. My God, it’s a ten hour operation and they take a whole side of her head off. The doctors won’t even project an outcome, except she has a five percent chance of dying and a fifteen percent chance of paralysis. My God, Effie, they’re talking about all sorts of terrible things.”

  “How long has she had this thing?” Effie asked.

  “Maybe 20 years,” Lillian said, “and she isn’t going to survive this with a couple of aspirin and a week in bed. We have to help with food, and rehabilitation, and that darling little girl of hers.”

  “What about Ned?” Effie asked, thinking of her office neighbor.

  “I don’t know,” Lillian said. “But I know the watermen will take care of him. Vinnie is running his boat. I don’t know anything about his law practice, but I think most of his clients are local and they’ll understand. I’m not sure Neddie bargained for a family in this deal, but he’s got one now, and I’m sure he can do it.”

  “Neddie’s life in Washington may seem pretty good right now.”

  “Don’t say that Effie,” Lillian said. “That boy is home now and we’re going to take care of him.”

  “What do you want me to do?” Effie asked.

  “Can you do the food, for say two weeks, after she comes home?” Lillian requested. “Contact the wives, schedule them, figure out how many days a person can live on beef stew, and maybe make sure a few desserts are included. That should get us started and we’ll figure out the long-term later. We just don’t know what condition she’s going to be in.”

  “I’ll do it,” Effie said. “What about transportation? Her rehabilitation could be over at Johns Hopkins or some place else. We may need a car schedule.”

  “I’ll get someone else to think about that,” Lillian said. “You know that book club that meets at the Bayfront. Those are young wives with a li
ttle free time, and they have good eyes for driving. I’ll get them organized.”

  The town of Parkers was about to roar into action.

  Chapter Twenty

  Two incredible things happened to Martha during her “preparation” for the operation at Philadelphia’s Good Conscience Hospital, getting admitted and the pinholes. Just getting in the place at 5:00 in the afternoon was traumatic. Tons of people were streaming out the double glass doors to the main lobby, apparently at quitting time or at least time for a shift change. I didn’t know anything about hospitals except that it must require a huge staff to run the place day and night. And if Dr. Nablani wanted to prep Martha at 7:00 at night, there must be a large night crew that could operate the place at full steam.

  We weren’t quite prepared for such an old hospital. It looked to have had about three hundred additions since the end of World War II, and each one represented the advance of architecture. Jutting out of flat walls with small square windows would be a circular room with floor to ceiling glass made of the thick smoky cubes so popular in the 1950s. I could imagine it as a solarium for brain operation patients where things didn’t go quite right; the patients were moved to the light where they could sleep all day waiting for a miracle to happen. Then there was a two story glass waiting room on the second floor signifying the invention of escalators, probably in the 1960s, and clear windows allowing maximum sun. And finally, another large wing wedged between the old building and a ten story parking garage.

  But these were all superficial impressions, and in fact, most of my memory of that first night is a blur. Somehow we were whisked into the brain surgery wing, Martha was told to hang her clothes in a closet because she would be wearing them home in a couple of hours, and I was ushered down the hall to a small waiting room. One should never go to a hospital waiting room at the end of the day. Magazines were strewn everywhere. Newspapers were stacked on the corner table but all the sections were out of order and I knew there would be jelly or sugar residue on the inside sections. A family of Latinos was seated on the plastic covered couch, with one child asleep on her mother’s lap and a teenager stretched out on a lounge chair, disheveled, tired and drinking from a Coke can. Their conversation indicated that a family member had been in surgery most of the day, and they had heard nothing. Mom and Dad were scared to death and the kids were just exhausted. I pictured myself at the end of tomorrow, after I had devoured several cans of soda pop, read every newspaper twice, and probably had lunch in the basement cafeteria with no windows and bland food. This was not a good start. I hoped at least for a cleaning crew. The doctor’s plan was to do the ‘prep’ tonight, and we were to arrive at the hospital at 7:00 a.m. the next morning for the actual operation. So I didn’t expect the ‘prep’ to take long.