by Rick Outzen
I was in no shape to steer the Sundancer. My equilibrium was shot, making it hard to stand.
“You need to lay down,” Jace said. “You’re bleeding.”
Julie was worn out, but she wouldn’t leave her father’s side. Behind them, the sun began to peek over the horizon.
Jace said, “Let’s take you downstairs and put you on one of the beds.”
“But we need to get our alibis straight.”
“Julie and I will handle our end,” Jace said.
They placed me on a bed in the bow of the Sundancer and used pillows to keep me from rolling off. I tried to work out what I would tell the police at the dock, but I only got to “Bo beat the crap out of me . . .” before I passed out.
“Mr. Holmes?”
I opened my right eye and saw a female police officer standing over me.
“Can you get up?”
I shook my head. “I want my attorney.”
Her bulletproof vest made her look like one of the Teletubbies, but I couldn’t remember there being a blue one. Maybe she was a Care Bear.
She said, “Your attorney is on the dock. The paramedics are going to take you off the boat and check you out.”
“I can walk with some help,” I said. My voice was hoarse.
“Good thing,” I heard a male voice say from the deck. “There’s no way in hell we can get a stretcher down there.”
Slowly, painfully, they walked me up the curved steps, past Hines’ body and helped me off the boat. They lifted me onto a gurney on the Palafox Pier dock.
Gravy appeared at my side. He whispered, “My God, Walker, what happened?”
“Hines attacked me . . . his gun went off,” I said.
A crime scene technician stopped the EMTs before they put me in the ambulance.
“We need to swab his hands,” she said.
“No,” said Gravy. “Not without a warrant.”
A thin man in a blue windbreaker came to the technician’s aid. “Is there a problem here, counselor?” he asked.
Gravy apparently knew the man. He must have been with either the police or state attorney’s office. Gravy said, “Jack, my client needs to get to the hospital. I’m not letting your guys maul him. Clearly he’s a victim here, not a suspect.”
Jack said, “We have sufficient probable cause to swab Mr. Holmes’ hands. You know that, Gravy.”
“No, it’s fine,” I said giving Gravy a slight nod. “Let’s get it over with.”
He said, “This is over my objection, but he’s the client.”
I noticed a young, sandy-haired man talking with Jace and Julie Wittman away from the police officers.
“Who’s that?” I said nodding in their direction.
Gravy said, “Charlie Wilbrant, an attorney friend. I suspected Wittman might need representation. Don’t worry; it helps us.”
While the tech swabbed my hands for gun powder residue, Gravy conferred with the head EMT, police investigator, and Clark Spencer. I hadn’t noticed him earlier.
Gravy returned. “They are taking you to Sacred Heart Hospital. You need to be fully checked out. They will keep you overnight.”
“Just get me home,” I said.
“Listen. The police and state attorney’s office will leave you alone while you’re under the care of a doctor at the hospital,” said Gravy. “I’ve agreed to have you at the state attorney’s office at 10:00 a.m. on Monday.”
“It was self-defense—” I started to say.
“Stop, no more talking,” he interrupted. “Tell the doctors and nurses about your injuries, but say nothing else. You understand?”
I nodded.
“I’ll see you at the hospital,” he said as they hoisted me into the ambulance. “Don’t say a fucking word.”
The next eighteen hours were a blur of x-rays, shots, and stitches. I threatened to strangle a male nurse when he tried to insert a catheter. I won that battle.
I remember seeing a different person sitting in my room reading the same copy of People magazine every time I opened my eyes. Gravy, Mal, Summer, Jeremy, Theodore, Bree, and even Tiny took turns in the chair. The only ones from the Insider missing were Big Boy and Yoste, who had taken time off to work as deckhand on a charter boat in Destin and was oblivious to my status. Summer told me that Dare was taking care of the dog.
“She visited you once while you were sleeping but couldn’t stand to see how badly you were injured,” said Summer. “Watching over Big Boy is her contribution to your recovery.”
I dreamed Mari visited me. She sat in the chair with her legs folded under her. Her long brown hair draped over her shoulders and a red Hotty Toddy T-shirt. I could smell her. She smiled.
Oddly I wasn’t shocked that she was visiting me. Mari was never far away, always waiting to reappear and make me face my past. I tried to keep the guilt in a box in the corner of my mind, but my memory refused to be restrained.
The police never found her killer. Campus security discovered her nude body in the woods behind the Tad Smith Coliseum near fraternity row. They first questioned me, but I had plenty of witnesses that verified where I was. Later forensics found the attacker had red hair, which kept me off their suspect list permanently.
I cried and sat with the Gaudet family at her funeral. I almost dropped out of Ole Miss. Everywhere I went on campus and in Oxford reminded me of Mari. I contemplated suicide. Dare stood by me and refused to let me give up.
But I knew that Mari’s death was my fault. I should have been at the crisis center to pick her up. The damn story wasn’t more important than her. It was my dark secret, something I never said aloud or admitted to anyone—not to Dare, Mari’s parents, or my priest.
I became a journalist to prove, in some weird way, that Mari’s death wasn’t in vain. I pushed myself hard, did the dangerous, impossible investigative pieces to show her I was a great writer and could save the world, even though I couldn’t save her.
My editors speculated I had a death wish. Maybe they were right. No, that sounded nobler than it was. I had a dark secret that drove me to expose evil and corruption so I could find redemption.
I said, “Mari, I am so sorry.”
She said, “I know. Walker . . .”
A shadow blocked my view of her. She was about to say something else. A nurse stood over me to take my temperature and pulse. When she left, Mari was gone.
34
Before I checked out of the hospital early Sunday afternoon, Gravy brought me the Sunday edition of the Herald. The headline read, “Holmes Kills Hines.”
“We are going to sue the shit out of them for this,” he said. Gravy was angry.
I laughed. “Well, it’s true, sort of.”
“I’m demanding a retraction,” he said. “Dare has already threatened to pull all her advertising from them.”
“No, we will demand the same placement when I’m cleared,” I said.
“Why are you laughing?”
I said, “I don’t know. Get me out of here and to a bar so we can talk.”
At the End o’ the Alley Bar in the Seville Quarter complex, we sat in the courtyard. We found a low, black cast iron table in the shade and got the waitress to turn a fan in our direction. Gravy had vodka and soda. Though I refused any pain medication that morning because I knew I would be sitting in a bar by the end of the day, I chose to ease myself back into drinking and ordered soda water with a lime.
I wore my Dodgers cap to hide my bandaged scalp and Ray-Bans to cover my black eye. I gave Gravy most of the story but decided not to mention Julie firing the gun. If I had to tell him, I would, but not yet.
Gravy said, “Wilbrant has advised his clients not to make a statement to police. The Wittmans aren’t going to talk.”
“Shit,” I said. “I’ll be arrested for murder.”
Gravy took a sip of his drink and shook his head. “No, Charlie is doing exactly what I expected him to do. You will be free to tell your side of what happened without worrying about them contra
dicting you.”
“What if the state attorney doesn’t believe me?”
Gravy asked, “Have you seen yourself in a mirror? You’re lucky you can walk.”
He waved for the waitress to bring us some snack mix. Gravy continued, “The only bruises on Hines were on his fists from punching you. He had your blood on his shoes from the kicks he delivered to your ribs and back. He owned the gun. It doesn’t take Jessica Fletcher or Hercule Poirot to solve this case.”
He handed over the mix. It hurt to chew, but at least the nuts tasted better than green jello.
Leaning back in his chair, he said, “Spencer isn’t going to push charging you.”
“How can you be so sure?”
Gravy smiled, “Well, for one thing, Hines had the cell phone of the recently deceased Pandora Childs in his back pocket. The woman was found dead in his condo. If he ever had any doubts, our boy Spencer now knows that Bo ain’t no hero.”
The fog was lifting from my brain. I thought of dozens of holes in whatever story I gave the state attorney’s office. I asked Gravy, “Isn’t Spencer going to want to know how I got on the boat? About these rope burns on my wrists?” I pointed to the stitches on my cheek. “This was caused by Jace’s ring.”
The attorney shook his head and sighed. “I forget sometimes that you aren’t from here. Pensacola likes neat, Walker. Always has, always will. Spencer doesn’t want to run down a lot of rabbit trails. His boss will tell him to close the case and not cause Hines’ grandparents any more pain.”
“What about Frost?” I asked. “Couldn’t he try to take over the investigation?”
“The Herald’s headline calling you a murderer is all he wanted. Any investigation would only clear you.” He took a sip of his beer. “No, the good sheriff thinks he has what he needs to dry up your advertising.”
“So I’m worse off than before the shooting,” I noted.
Gravy said, “Not so sure. You took a tremendous beating and walked away alive. Most people are impressed, and the old guard is a little scared of you. Not a bad combination for an alt-weekly publisher. The Insider won over many more supporters than Frost and Peck can pull away from you. Your next issue will fly off the stands, and advertisers will be begging to be in the newspaper.”
He ordered another drink and looked at my injuries. “Damn, you must have driven him mad.”
I didn’t respond and looked off in the distance. The muscular bartender was reading the Herald. He looked in my direction. Recognizing me, he gave me a thumbs up.
I said, “So what do I say Monday?”
“Nothing until we get a use immunity agreement.”
The pretty green-eyed waitress with long, blonde curly hair brought more beer to the table. “This Jack and coke is on Barry,” she said motioning towards the bartender. “He said he’s a fan. Are you someone famous?”
Gravy said, “Yes, he’s an MMA fighter.”
“Could I have your autograph?” she asked me.
I showed her my heavily-bandaged right hand. “Maybe another time.”
Disappointed, she headed back to the bar. I heard Barry’s laugh when she shared what had happened.
“What does ‘use immunity’ mean?”
“You can tell your story, and they can’t use any of your words against you in court,” said Gravy.
I said, “And they will believe it was self-defense.”
“Yes.”
Dare walked up as we were finishing. She had Big Boy with her. Wearing a yellow sundress and matching sandals, she sat down in between us. The dog licked my bandaged hand and sat down under the table next to my feet. His wagging tail tapped on my legs.
“I figured we would find you two in a bar,” she said smiling. She asked the waitress to bring her a glass of Chardonnay and a bowl of water for Big Boy. I figured Gravy must have texted her our location.
“I’m heading out,” Gravy said as he got up. “I’ll have the bar keep the tab open for you.”
He kissed Dare on the cheek and turned to me, “I’ll pick you up for breakfast at eight and then take you to Spencer’s office.”
Dare asked Gravy, “Is he okay?”
“He’s about as okay as Walker Holmes can ever be,” he said.
Dare looked at me a long time before she said anything. “Take those sunglasses off,” she said. “I want to see your eyes.”
She winced when I dropped my disguise. “Oh, Walker, Bo did this to you?”
I nodded and looked away. The waitress was reading the Herald article. She played with her curls, and her lips moved as she scanned each word.
“Why?” asked Dare.
I lied to her, something I swore I would never do. I would tell part of the truth, but not all.
“Bo stole the money from the Arts Council. When he learned Childs might talk to me, he killed her and lured me on his boat,” I said.
Dare was owed answers. It was my turn to be interrogated.
She said, “I don’t understand why Jace and Julie were on the boat if Bo planned to kill you.”
I said, “Hines had convinced his brother-in-law that they could negotiate with me and get me to back off.”
“They should have known better,” said Dare. “Why Julie?”
I lied, “I don’t know. Too busy dodging fists.”
She said, “And you killed Bo in self-defense.”
“Yes, he waved the gun at me. I grabbed it, and it fired twice,” I said. “It’s a little hazy. The doctor says I have a concussion.”
Dare nodded her head. She wanted more details but wouldn’t get them from me.
“Bo was a murderer, Dare,” I said. “I think he killed Celeste Daniels and Pandora Childs and would have killed me if he could have gotten Jace and Julie drunk enough to pass out.”
She said, “Celeste Daniels? The cold case you wrote about on your blog?”
I nodded. “He all but admitted the girl’s murder because she had dumped him, and his screwed-up ego couldn’t handle rejection. As far as Childs, Gravy said the police found her cell phone on Hines’ body. Plus, she died in his condo.”
She asked, “Will all this come out?”
“Probably not, no evidence on the Daniels’ murder and not enough to conclusively pin Childs’ death on Hines.”
She said, “Jace heard Bo. He could testify on your behalf.”
“On the advice of legal counsel, the Wittmans aren’t making statements.” I really wanted to take a sip of the Jack and coke, but I finished off the last of my water instead. I tried to calculate in my head when I had taken my last pain pill and if it was too soon to drink alcohol.
“So, it’s only your word on what happened,” Dare said. She played with the snack mix, looking for almonds.
“Gravy told me that Pensacola likes neat.”
Dare said, “This is a weird place, but I guess it’s no different than most Southern towns.”
We sat alone with our thoughts for several minutes. I tossed Big Boy a peanut.
“Some in this town will always see you as a killer, even if it’s declared self-defense,” said Dare. “They won’t ever forgive you.”
“Probably not,” I said. The pain was a dull, distant roar.
The waitress didn’t quite know how to deal with me, but she smiled when she brought us more snack mix.
“I read the newspaper. You killed a man, but Barry says they got it wrong that you’re some kind of hero,” she said, nodding towards the bartender.
“I’m not a hero,” I said, reaching out my left hand. “I’m Walker Holmes, publisher of the Insider.”
“I’m Heather,” she said, shaking my hand.
After she left, Dare said, “You still have your fans.”
I smiled, “Well, I’m kind of a big deal.”
We laughed. Damn it felt good to laugh again.
Dare hesitated to ask her most important question. I didn’t rush her.
She asked a different question instead. “Have you heard what Jace told the med
ia?”
My stomach sank. Should I have trusted an enemy?
“No, what did Mr. Wittman say?” I asked.
“He refused to talk about the incident on the boat but announced that he and his daughter would be moving to Mobile, Alabama, as soon as the investigation was closed. He plans to enroll Julie in a preparatory school there,” Dare said.
“And Save Our Pensacola and the referendum?”
“The television station found some old codger who said they would continue the fight,” she said. “But without Jace’s leadership and charisma and Bo’s money the petition drive will fail.”
A minor victory for me.
Dare still tried to gather the nerve to ask her question. She set her jaw and looked at me.
“What about Sue?” she asked.
“Though I can’t prove it, I think Bo poisoned her,” I said. “He stole the money and cheated on her with Childs. Sue probably found out and was going to leave him, so Hines arranged for her to overdose on her meds, most likely by mixing pills into her food.”
Dare asked, “Did he tell you that?”
“Not directly, but when I called him out for it, he became even more enraged and pulled the gun on me.”
She nodded her head several times, accepting my conclusion as she absentmindedly touched each of the pearls around her neck.
“Thank you,” she said, wiping away a tear. “I’d hug you, but I would hurt you.”
I smiled and reached out to touch her hand. “Thank you for believing in me.”
“Do you need a ride?” she asked as she stood to leave.
“No, I’m going to sit here for a few minutes,” I said. “The loft is only a block away. Big Boy will get me home.”
“If not, please call me,” Dare said as she kissed my right cheek, the one without stitches.
I put on my Ray-Bans and enjoyed the afternoon sun. In my head, I started to compose my cover story about the demise of Save Our Pensacola. Wittman would hardly be mentioned.
My phone vibrated. Bree texted, “How are you?”
I replied, “Alive.”
“Where are you?”
“EOA.”
“Want company?”
I finally took a sip of my drink and replied, “Oh, yeah.”