The Huguenot Thief

by L. K. CLEMENT

  Amarintha floored the accelerator, or at least as much as you could floor a VW bug engine. She had to finish this house. Fannie would make sure Ava had food, shelter, and clothing. She would also pester Ava until her granddaughter found a husband and produced a great-grandchild. They would be ok.

  Chapter 11

  Jack arrived home with the blueprints for Amarintha’s house, planning to finish the estimate that night. He needed the business. He’d have to do some of the detail work himself on the house, but that was ok—anything to keep him from dwelling on Kate.

  The idea that his wife had been missing for four weeks was still intolerable. What had happened to her? The morning she had disappeared, Kate had been gone when he woke up, and he figured she was still angry with him over the argument the night before.

  He had gone to a jobsite on James Island where he was building a boat dock. At lunchtime, while eating a sandwich in his truck, he received a call from Adam Chalk’s assistant. Sobbing, she told him that Adam had died on the Ravenel Bridge, and then asked Jack if he knew where Kate was. The College needed her to come in immediately. Jack had pulled out his phone to call his wife, and then saw that she left him a voice mail. Expecting to hear a message about Adam’s death, Jack was astonished to hear:

  “Jack, I’m sorry we can’t talk, but I’ve got to go away for three days. The College might be leading a project. It’s important. Adam can tell you more; call him when you can. I’ll be back in three days.”

  In bewilderment, he listened to the message twice more, and then hurried to the College. Chalk’s hysterical assistant yielded no other useful information other than the fact that there had been an early morning meeting. Adam had been at work, but rushed out around 10:00 a.m.

  Jack raced home and scoured the house for a note he was certain existed somewhere in the messiness of their home and finally found a Post-it note on the floor in front of the refrigerator.

  Jack, I tried to reach you, but couldn’t. I have an opportunity to be the lead investigator on a project that could change the course of the history around French relics. Call Adam and he’ll tell you about it. I’ll be gone for three days. The break will be good for us. Kate

  Change the course of the history of relics? Where had she gone? He frantically looked for any other evidence of where Kate had gone, and found her passport missing, as well as her computer and some clothes. When he found the bottle of lithium still in the bathroom, fear added to his anger and confusion. Why had she left the lithium?

  Jack logged on to their credit card account. There were no charges for a plane ticket. He called Chalk’s assistant, and asked her if she would see if the college had issued any plane tickets for Kate. She promised she would, right after she arranged for substitutes for Dr. Chalk’s classes. That would take a while, he thought.

  The doorbell had rung, and when Jack opened the door, a tall black man was holding a Charleston Police Department badge up for him to read.

  “I’m Detective Frank Edson; may I come in?”

  Jack motioned the man inside, mute with fear that something had happened to Kate.

  The two men stood in the small foyer. “I’m actually here to see your wife, Dr. Strong. We’re investigating the death of her boss, Adam Chalk. You heard about that, a couple of hours ago?”

  “Yes, I did, but my wife isn’t here; she’s out of town.”

  “We need to speak to her, Mr. Strong.

  Jack put his hand on the door. “I’ll tell Kate to call you when she gets home.”

  “Exactly where is your wife, Mr. Strong?” asked the detective, who took a fractional step towards Jack.

  Jack stepped back and leaned against the wall, not looking at the detective. “I don’t know. It’s something with work. She left me a voice mail and a note that Adam would tell me where she was going, and I got the messages too late to talk to Adam.”

  “Let’s sit down,” said the detective.

  Jack led the police officer to the small living room and motioned him to sit. They sat facing each other over a mahogany coffee table. Jack cleared a space and put his phone down, looking at the detective. “Detective Edson, my wife left me a voice mail about ten this morning. I’ll play it for you.” Jack fumbled with his phone and played the message for the detective, his phone speaker barely audible.

  Detective Edson brought out a small notebook, and after the voice mail finished asked, “Anything missing from the house?”

  Jack swallowed, and managed to say, “Her passport, purse, computer, and some clothes.”

  The detective made a note. “And you have no idea of where she might be?”

  Jack rubbed his head, and said, “No, I don’t. I thought I might ride around the airport and find out if her car is there. There isn’t a charge for an airline ticket on our credit card, but I called the college. They’ll check to see if a ticket was issued.”

  Detective Edson made a few more notes, then said, “Mr. Strong, you do know that Adam Chalk’s death is being treated as deliberate, a murder to be exact.”

  Jack looked past the detective at a trophy on the wall Sara had received for soccer in high school. “A murder,” he said slowly, turning his head back to look at the detective. “I thought his car went off the bridge in an accident.”

  “No, his car was actually picked up by a commercial garbage truck and shoved into the girders of the bridge. It fell into the river before Chalk could get out.”

  Jack bolted up, remembering Adam’s convertible. He had always warned Kate not to ride with the man in what Jack thought of as a death trap. “Are you sure my wife wasn’t in the car?”

  “No, she wasn’t. We’re sure.”

  “How do you know?”

  “There were many witnesses on the bridge. Chalk was alone.”

  “Who would murder Adam?” said Jack. “He’s a college professor.”

  The detective stood and closed his notebook. “That’s what I’m trying to find out. The last person who saw Adam Chalk was his assistant, and before that your wife. We need to talk to her.” He handed Jack a business card and they both walked to the front door.

  Jack watched the detective turn to leave, and before he could stop himself, he put his hand on the doorjamb. “Wait,” said Jack. “My wife is missing, and only Adam knew where she was. Now he’s dead. You’ve got to help me find her,” he added, his arm now blocking the front door.

  Jack remembered Detective Edson’s face when the two men’s eyes met; it had been kind and non-judgmental. “Mr. Strong, we will be trying to locate your wife, and I’ll let you know what I find out.”

  After the detective left, Jack had driven to the airport and spent two hours driving through every single parking lot. He finally found her car, opened it with the extra key on his ring, and sat in the driver’s seat. He opened the glove box and the trunk and found nothing. Nothing but what he always bugged her to carry: a flashlight, jumper cables, a first-aid kit, and last year’s Christmas present to her, a small tool kit. With his head on the steering wheel, he had wept.

  The next morning, he went to see Detective Edson and filed a missing person report. He told the detective about finding Kate’s car at the airport. He also told the detective about Kate being under treatment for bipolar disorder. The detective had been quiet, listening, and assured Jack that if his wife were still missing forty-eight hours after her expected return home, he would add her to the missing person’s database. This database, the detective said, was regularly reviewed by hospitals when an unidentified person was admitted, an unspoken acknowledgement of Kate’s medical condition.

  The meeting ended with Detective Edson walking Jack to the lobby and saying, “Mr. Strong, our department will continue to look for her because we need to talk to her. I’ll call you when we learn anything new. In the meantime, I suggest you call your family; perhaps they can help.”

  Nothing had h
elped. Kate seemed to have been teleported from the airport parking lot to a space ship. Now, four weeks later, their daughter Sara clung to the life raft that Jack had given her—that Kate was in a hospital, unidentified, and eventually would be identified.

  Jack and his daughter didn’t talk much about Kate’s disappearance, both of them determined to be optimistic when in the other’s presence. Kate was the force that held the three of them together. Without her, he and Sara floundered, pretending to each other that nothing was wrong, that Kate would be home soon.

  “Dad,” Sara said. Jack looked up from the blueprints to see his daughter standing in the doorway of the kitchen. She moved to the table. “Dad, I need your advice about something.”

  “Shoot,” he said.

  “I have a friend whose mother has cancer. She tells my friend that everything is fine; the house is going to be finished, and she needs to finish—”

  “Wait, cancer—you said her mother has cancer and is building a house?”

  “Yeah, some kind of cancer of the liver or something.”

  “Brain.”

  “Huh?”

  “Her cancer is in her brain. Unless you’re not talking about Ava’s mother, Amarintha.”

  His daughter now looked directly at him with her cobalt eyes. “Dad, how do you know about Ava’s mom’s cancer? Oh, is it their house you’re working on?” She gestured to the blueprints on the kitchen table.

  “Yes. She had to remind me that we had met at the Farmer’s Market. When I met her today, I didn’t recognize her at all. She looks—well, she looks sick.”

  Sara sat down at the table with her head down. She eked out, “Dad, I miss Mom. I want to tell Ava to come back home. You never know what’s going to happen.” She began to cry.

  Jack looked at his calloused and cut hands. He wanted to hold his daughter; he should hold his daughter. The sobbing continued, and she made the decision for him, moving her chair next to his. She put her head on her father’s shoulder. He rested his lips against Sara’s forehead and kissed her. “It’s ok, kiddo. I miss her too. The police are still looking for her. They will find her. Her car wouldn’t have been at the airport if anything bad had happened to her.”

  Sara lifted her head. Her eyes looked like wet sapphires. For the hundredth time she said, “Dad, I just don’t understand why Mom hasn’t called, or texted—not even a letter to let us know where she is.”

  “Honey, we talked about this before. I think she’s in a manic episode, like the one she had after you were born. I don’t know why it happened now, especially since she’s been taking her meds. We will find her, I promise.” Jack said this forcefully and confidently, a confidence he did not feel.

  Kate could be mercurial, oblivious sometimes when working on a project, but never thoughtless. For Kate not to call Sara meant the worst. How and when was he to tell his daughter that Kate was likely dead?

  Sniveling, Sara wiped her eyes. “What should I tell Ava? She’s super brainy, but if she comes home, she won’t be able to study. She’d become her mother’s nurse. I know her.”

  The return to the question of whether Ava should come home jolted Jack.

  “Dad, what would you do?”

  Jack was silent, wondering what Kate would say. Finally, he said, “Let’s go downtown and get something to eat. We’ll figure this out.”

  Sara said, “Let me get my phone.” She walked back to her bedroom. Jack could hear running water.

  Jack rolled up the blueprints and washed his own hands. When Sara returned, they hugged, Jack holding onto his daughter for a long moment. Both were silent as he drove his old pick-up truck, windows open, down King Street. Spotting an open parking space, they wedged the old truck into it and fed the meter.

  Sara wanted to go to Leo’s, a small diner, now open only Monday through Friday because Leo had gotten tired of explaining to the weekend tourists what grits were. Locals filled the restaurant. As they walked in, a couple of people nodded. Jack knew they would leave it at that. Unlike a death, no one knew what to say to a disappearance.

  She picked up the menu even though she never ordered anything but a BLT. Leo caught Jack’s eye and mouthed “the usual” with a raised eyebrow. Jack nodded.

  When the bell on the front door rang behind them, Jack saw Sara staring at whoever had entered. He turned around to see Amarintha Sims standing in the doorway looking for a table. He studied her under the guise of looking for their waiter. She seemed even smaller than she had this morning—slight and fragile. She was wearing an old loose tunic and jeans and another crazy scarf on her head under a straw hat. Her glance finally found him. She smiled slightly and waved. Finding nowhere to sit, she turned to go. Jack got up suddenly and motioned her over.

  “Amarintha, please—sit with us.”

  “Oh, no, that’s all right.”

  “I insist. Sara wants to see you,” he said and walked over to take her arm. It was like a twig.

  Jack led her over and seated her next to Sara.

  “Hello, Sara, it’s nice to see you. Usually you and Ava show up in Charleston about the same time,” Amarintha said, picking up the menu.

  “Hi, Ms. Sims, I didn’t go back for spring semester—you know, because of Mom.” Sara looked at her sideways, trying not to stare.

  Jack squirmed a bit in his seat. “I’m sorry I didn’t remember meeting you in the market.”

  “Please don’t pretend I resemble that woman you met. I do not, and everyone knows it. Besides, I didn’t recognize you either. The bald head is new.” Amarintha looked directly into Jack’s eyes. Now he could see that the smiling woman from the market was still there. At the home site today, he hadn’t noticed that she had eyes of two different colors. One was green, and one brown, and the vibrancy of the green eye against her pale skin was somewhat eerie.

  She looked at Sara again and took her hand. “How are you really, sweetie? I know you must really miss your mom.”

  Well, here is one person who isn’t afraid to tackle the issue head on, Jack thought. He briefly wondered whether she had ever met Kate. He interrupted. “We had the surveyor over after you left. Now I’m ready to bring the subcontractors in to dig the piers. Why are you building now?”

  Amarintha did not seem perturbed at his comments. “My father bought the property years ago, and it’s taken me this long to save the money.”

  “I know you have to finish it within four months, but no one said why.”

  “That’s about all the quality time I have left,” she said. “I’ve had chemo. I’ve had radiation. That’s about all medical science can do.”

  Jack looked at Amarintha. This woman seemed happy in spite of what was happening to her body and he felt radiating warmth from her. An image of chickens under the Piggly Wiggly heat lamp popped into his head. He flinched, realizing that the radiation and chemotherapy treatments had indeed been cooking her body.

  Amarintha leaned over, held Sara’s hands in hers, and looked directly at her. “Sara, I’m so happy you and Ava are friends. She has trouble being social.”

  “I know. I actually have to force her to go out with me, you know, just to eat and stuff. She is worried about you and misses. . . .”

  Sara put her head down to keep from crying. All three were silent.

  Amarintha put the menu down, stared into space, took one gulping breath, and began to cough. The pallor of her face moved from translucent to cherry as she put her fist to her mouth. One hand tightened on the table, as though to thrust the cough away and still she could not stop. She put the napkin to her mouth, shoved herself away from the table, leaned over, and gasped. All the diners were now staring.

  Wavering a bit, Amarintha stood. “I need to go,” she said, barely breathing. She stumbled to the door. Before Jack could help her, she fell to one knee, pushed herself up, and grabbed the knob as if exiting the diner would solve eve
rything.

  Jack followed her outside. Amarintha insisted she was all right, but he ignored her protests and helped her to her car. He opened the door and eased the now marble pale woman into her seat. Amarintha lifted her hand in an attempt to wave, and Jack shut the car door. He turned, and saw Sara watching both of them through the diner’s picture window. Jack stepped aside and watched the VW bug drive off.

  He returned to the diner and stood by the table without speaking. When he leaned down to retrieve Amarintha’s napkin, he noticed the red flecks on it, and left it there. Sitting down, he pressed his thumb and index finger on his eyelids. When he opened his eyes, he saw Sara staring at him with tears in her eyes. Jack shifted, looked away, and finally said, “I think you should call Ava and tell her to come home.”

  Chapter 12

  Amarintha had accepted Jack’s quote without any questions and sent him a deposit. The two of them now met at the site every day, and each time he saw her, she looked more diminished than she had at the restaurant. Amarintha reviewed decisions with him in a manner that suggested she was committing to memory the entire unbuilt house, questioning him closely about the view from each window and wanting to know how the sun would light each room. No one ever came with her to the site, and Jack didn’t know whether Sara had talked to Ava about coming home or not. Neither of them mentioned what happened at Leo’s Restaurant.

  Jack rose each day at 5:00 a.m. to study the missing persons sites that Detective Edson had shown him. By 7:00 a.m., he felt depressed and tired, knowing he had ten hours of work ahead of him. The hours he dreaded most were the meetings that served as social events for their attendees, dragging out discussions that could have been resolved with a five-minute phone call.

  Yesterday, the BAR had wanted to interview the owners on either side of Amarintha’s property to ensure that they would not object to her modest Charleston single. Richard Anderson, the neighbor closest to Amarintha’s lot, hadn’t had any objections, but Jack wasn’t so lucky with the owner on the other side: a Mr. Jameson Whitcomb, a hedge fund billionaire who lived in New York.