by Mark Romang
Annie walked up and stood quietly behind him. She peered over his shoulder at the painting he worked on. Its lifelike detail stunned her.
Like all his other works it resonated with emotion. She and Claire viewed a dizzying collection of masterpieces over the past three days. But this oil painting contained a haunting quality about it that Rome’s famous ones lacked.
In the painting an old man in shackles sat hunkered on the stone floor of a gloomy dungeon and wrote feverishly on a parchment scroll. Malnourishment whittled away at the elderly prisoner’s gaunt frame. Only a thin layer of flaccid skin stretched across his knobby bones, and his wizened chest and face appeared sunken. Apparently he had been incarcerated for quite some time. A dirty white beard hung down to his shriveled stomach and a tangled mane of greasy hair dangled over his eyes.
Half-alive or half-dead, the old man cheated mortality long ago. Yet despite his declining health and deplorable living conditions, the prisoner appeared content. Somehow he had risen above his dire circumstances and found purpose in his hardscrabble confinement.
Annie wondered to whom the old man wrote. There seemed to be great urgency applied to his task. Perhaps he realized his death approached and busied himself writing his last will and testament, or maybe he drafted an appeal for his release.
The irony of life imitating art struck Annie hard. Although he wasn’t locked behind literal bars, guilt incarcerated Rafter. But like the elderly prisoner in the painting who found contentment and purpose in writing, Rafter found solace in his artwork.
Annie decided to make her presence known. She took a deep breath, crossed her fingers and said, “I’m curious, who is the old man in your painting, and who is he writing to?” She must have startled Rafter because she saw his shoulders flinch.
He turned and looked at her. His captivating eyes lingered on her for what seemed like minutes. “The old man is the Apostle Paul, and he’s writing to Timothy, his ministry partner.”
“The painting is beautiful,” Annie said. Their eyes remained locked together like cell mates, but Rafter showed no signs of recognizing her. During the flight over, she prepared herself for this possibility. She had only spent a few hours with him, and that night her facial features had been camouflaged by bruises and swollen flesh, and her hair had been wet and matted with mud. Unless Rafter recognized her voice, her identity would remain a mystery.
Rafter smiled modestly. “It means a lot to hear someone express their appreciation for my artwork.
“You don’t know who I am, do you?”
Rafter’s disarming smile evaporated. “I apologize if I should know you. But don’t take it personal. I don’t even know who I am these days.”
Annie blinked. Rafter’s puzzling comment threw her thoughts into confusion. She wondered what he could possibly mean by it. Had he lived his assumed identity for so long he’d forgotten his true identity? Or had the personalities of Jon Rafter and Matthew London melded inextricably together to form a hybrid identity? “Okay, I’ll give you a big hint. My name is Annie McAllister. But you once knew me as Annie Crawford, the FBI agent.” She waited expectantly for a flicker of recognition to register on his face.
Rafter shook his head. “I’m sorry, Annie. Names mean nothing to me. My past is a mystery I haven’t yet solved.”
Annie couldn’t believe her ears. “Just what exactly do you mean by ‘My past is a mystery I haven’t yet solved.’?”
Rafter bent down and set his palette and brush carefully on the ground next to his paint tubes. He straightened back up and looked at her with somber eyes. “It’s embarrassing to say this, but I think I have amnesia.”
Annie chuckled despite herself. “Amnesia? You really expect me to believe that?”
Rafter looked briefly up at the Italian sky, and then refocused on her. “I know it must sound absurd, but I swear it’s the truth. My past only goes back a few months.”
Annie took a half-step forward. One of her instructors at Quantico once told her that people being interviewed find it difficult to lie when their interviewer is uncomfortably close. “Okay, for conversation sake, I’ll play along with your amnesia claim. But you have to tell me everything you can remember for the past five months. I’ll fill in the blank spots prior to that,” she said.
Rafter folded his arms across his chest. “Sounds fair. But can you first tell me my name? It stinks not knowing who I am?”
Annie nodded. “Your birth name is Matthew London. But you’ve been using an alias for the past several years. Most people refer to you as Jon Rafter.” His sun-bronzed face blanched to bone china at the mention of using an alias.
“Am I a fugitive?”
“Not really. Now can we get back to your memories, or lack thereof?”
“Okay, this won’t take long. There are only four memories, and I’m not sure where they fit chronologically. They’re also disturbing.”
“Thanks for the warning,” Annie said. She watched Rafter close his eyes and exhale a deep breath. His forehead scrunched up as he started scanning his mind for lost memories.
“I remember standing in a bedroom. A little girl lies dead in a pool of blood on her bed. Nearby in the same room a man sits in a rocking chair and holds a shotgun in his lap. The man suddenly turns the gun on himself, and before I can stop him, shoots himself in the head.
“I remember driving at night on a dirt road. It’s raining very hard. At the end of a driveway my headlights sweep across what looks like a body. I pull to a stop and climb out of my vehicle, an old pickup truck, and walk up to the object. I discover my suspicions are true. A body lies face down in the road. I turn the body over and recoil at the sight of a badly beaten female. I can’t tell if she’s alive or dead. So I feel for a pulse and find a very weak one. I load the woman into a pickup and drive up a long, tree-lined driveway, stopping at a large house. I carry the injured woman into the house.” Rafter’s eyes snapped open and he panted for breath. He looked like he’d just escaped from an asylum.
“Who is the woman?” Annie asked as goose bumps broke out on her scalp. Hearing Rafter recount her recent brush with death made her shiver.
Rafter shook his head. “I don’t know. That’s where that memory ends.”
“Are there more?”
“Yes, I told you there are four.”
“I’m sorry. I forgot,” Annie apologized. “Please continue.”
Rafter closed his eyes again. “I’m steering a johnboat through a swamp. There’s an epic hurricane blowing through the region. It’s raining hard--a blizzard without snow. Lightning cracks the sky. I suddenly feel a sharp pain stab my chest. As I fall overboard I realize I’ve been shot.”
“You obviously survived the gunshot,” Annie said, unable to keep herself from interrupting.
Rafter nodded. “Thanks to the dog.”
“Dog?”
“A giant black dog pulled me from the water and up to solid ground,” Rafter explained.
“What happens next?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know. That’s the end of that memory.”
“And the last one?” Annie asked.
Rafter fidgeted. “This memory takes me up to present day. And I think it explains my amnesia.”
“Okay, I’m all ears, Jon.”
Rafter nodded soberly. “I’m still in the swamp, and the hurricane eye-wall is passing directly overhead. I’m now operating a personal watercraft and, for whatever reason, I’m chasing a man riding another Wave Runner. I hear a slow-building roar and witness trees toppling over like dominos. The next thing I know I’m sucked off the seat of the Wave Runner and into a tornado, right into its vortex. It’s a mammoth twister, probably an F-3 or F-4, and there are all kinds of storm debris whipping around in its vortex. Something strikes the back of my head and everything goes black. When I awake I find myself sprawled out on a sandbar. I don’t know where I am or who I am. All I know is I’m in tremendous pain and can’t move my legs.
“I make an
attempt at self-examination and determine my pelvis and both ankles are broken. I realize I’m going to have to set the broken bones myself. So I fashion some splints out of tree limbs lying within my reach. Then I begin a long recuperation process. I counted each sunset and sunrise. I figure I was on the sandbar for nearly two months before I was finally able to walk without pain.”
Annie fingered her tennis bracelet. As farfetched as Rafter’s story sounded, she believed every word of it. There were definitely tornadoes that night in the Atchafalaya Basin. Plenty of them. And a blow to the head could legitimately cause amnesia. “You’re lucky an alligator didn’t crawl up on that sandbar and start chomping.”
“Oh, they tried to. But the black dog kept them at bay. He stayed by my side throughout my convalescence. Then one day he took off and I never saw him again.”
“What did you eat out there?” Annie asked. “It’s a miracle you survived.”
“Frogs, turtles, crawfish, even an occasional bug. I made a crude fishing net out of a cabbage palm plant and caught a few small fish. I didn’t feast, but I didn’t starve either.”
Rafter kicked at the ground. “I would’ve traded some of my food for fresh water. I could never seem to fashion a suitable container to boil water in. Bacteria in the water brought about hallucinations and made me violently ill. But my choices were drink and get sick, or not drink and die. I chose to drink.”
Annie shook her head. She had always thought calamity and heartbreak followed her around without pause. But Rafter definitely cornered the market on hardships. “A massive search was carried out for you. Almost the whole town showed up to help,” Annie said.
Rafter’s face turned downcast. “I heard them. Some of them got pretty close to me once. I yelled out to them, but apparently they didn’t hear my weakened voice.”
Annie sighed. “If not for all the water we could’ve used bloodhounds to find you,” she said. “So then what? Don’t tell me you slogged several miles through a swamp on partially mended legs.”
Rafter finally noticed the pigeons absconding his lunch. He picked a pebble off the ground and threw it at them. The birds scattered and then regrouped to bother a group of people leaving the church. “Nope, I floated out. The hurricane blew down a tremendous amount of trees. I lashed together some ash saplings with fronds from a cabbage palm plant and poled my way out of the swamp.”
“You’re just a modern day Robinson Crusoe, aren’t you?”
Rafter laughed. “Yeah, and I even had a canine version of Friday to keep me company.”
Annie backed up a couple of steps. Now that she wasn’t trying to trap Rafter in a lie she felt uncomfortable standing so close to him. For such a masculine man, his lips were very beautiful and she had to restrain herself from touching them. “But why didn’t you report to a police station once you made it back to civilization? Chances are the police could have identified you right away.”
Rafter shrugged his shoulders. “That’s what I should have done. I guess I was too embarrassed to ask for help. I thought if I came to Rome I might remember some things.”
“Why did you think that?”
“Because nearly every night I spent on the sandbar I dreamed of the Sistine Chapel and the artwork covering its walls and ceiling. I liked the dream at first, but then more and more, it disturbed me. I dreaded going to sleep at night. The dream frightened me more than all the alligators and snakes moving around me. But I figured there had to be some significance to it or I wouldn’t keep dreaming it. So I came to Rome hoping to learn how it ends.”
“So how does the dream end?”
“I don’t know. After I arrived in Rome I never dreamt it again. But I guess coming to Rome hasn’t been a total waste. I discovered I can paint. And thanks to you, Annie, I know my name now.”
“I’m glad I could help you.”
“But knowing my name and knowing who I am are two different things, Annie. I told you everything I can remember. Now it’s your turn to answer questions.”
“Not yet. I have one final question. But after that I promise I’ll tell you everything you want to know,” Annie said.
Rafter uncrossed his arms. “What is your question?”
“I tracked you as far as Ohio. Then you simply vanished. How did you do that?” She watched him nod his head sheepishly.
“After I left the swamp I worked for a few weeks cutting sugar cane. Almost all the other sugar cane workers were illegal. We were all paid in cash. One of them knew some people who helped me acquire some identification papers, including a passport. And then a crop duster I met while working on the farm flew me to Ohio.”
“Why Ohio?”
“That’s as far north as he would fly me with the amount of money I gave him. After that I threw my lot in with some hobos, and we rode the trains up to New Jersey, where I wrangled a job on a container ship bound for Portugal. From Lisbon, I drifted through Europe, eventually ending up here. I’ve been in Rome for about three weeks now.”
“No wonder I couldn’t track your movements,” Annie grumbled. “I only checked conventional travel logs.”
“Insufficient funds forced me to travel on the cheap,” Rafter said with a smile.
Annie smiled back at him. “Okay, Jon, you answered all my questions. Now I’ll live up to my end. I’ll give you the condensed version of your past. You can hear a more detailed version later, okay?” Annie didn’t wait for a reply. She began, starting with when he was still Matthew London, a hostage negotiator with the NYPD, and ending with him rescuing her and Gabby at the Boudreaux fishing shack.
“Are you the woman I found lying in the road?” Rafter asked when she finished minutes later.
“I am.”
“You clean up well, Annie. You’re beautiful.”
Annie blushed. She didn’t know what to say other than, “Thank-you.” She watched Rafter’s charming smile abruptly transform into a frown. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m disappointed I fled New York the way I did. I wished I would’ve just stayed and faced my problems. What I did seems so cowardly.”
“Don’t beat yourself up, Jon. You were duped. What you thought you saw wasn’t reality. It was all an illusion.”
“Are you positive that Brian Delani and his family are in the Witness Security Program?”
“I am. And I have it from a credible source in WITSEC that the Delanis are quite content with their new lives,” Annie said reassuringly. “Brian Delani makes his living these days as a financial advisor. His wife teaches English at a community college. And little Samantha is now a precocious teenager. They all live happily ever after somewhere in the Southwestern United States.”
“I’m glad things worked out for them,” Rafter said, his face beginning to soften.
Annie nodded. “I’m just sorry the Delanis’ good fortune came at your expense.”
Rafter shook his head. “Don’t feel sorry for me, Annie. My bad karma is mostly self-imposed, I think.”
“We all make mistakes, Jon. I might have done the same thing under the circumstances.”
“There’s one thing I don’t understand, Annie.”
“What’s that?”
“If I’m not a fugitive, and you’re not here to arrest me and take me back to the states, why are you here?”
She’d been expecting the question. But hearing him ask it still caught her off guard. She tried to remember Claire’s wise advice about what to say. “Just tell him the truth, Annie. You can never go wrong telling the truth.”
But she couldn’t tell Rafter she loved him, especially since he’d forgotten almost all the short time they’d spent together. She finally settled on spinning a half-truth. “I’m deeply indebted to you, Jon. You saved my life on two occasions. And I wanted to express my gratitude in person. So, thank-you.” She stepped forward and embraced him. She planted a light kiss on his whiskery cheek.
“But thanking you doesn’t seem like enough. The only way I know how to cancel this debt is to help y
ou resettle in the states. If you’ll allow me, I’d like to help you do that,” she said as she released her embrace.
“Do I have a place I can call home if I go back to Louisiana with you?”
“As a matter of fact you do. You own a Greek-Revival plantation house.”
“I do?”
Annie nodded. “An elderly lady named Rose Whitcomb died a few weeks ago. She owned the house and bequeathed it to you. You were the caretaker of the house for several years, and Rose wanted you to have it.”
A light flicked on in Rafter’s hazel eyes. “Is the house the same one I carried you into the night I found you?”
“It is. And the house is amazing on the inside. You’ve painted beautiful murals on the walls. It’s really quite striking what you’ve done. Unfortunately the exterior is in woeful shape and will take a small fortune to refurbish.”
“How much is a small fortune?”
“I don’t know. I’m not an expert when it comes to such things. But I would guess a quarter-million dollars to start. Maybe more.”
Rafter gulped. “Did Rose also leave me the money needed to repair the house?”
She shook her head. “I’m afraid not.”
“How did I make my living before the accident?”
Annie hesitated. She didn’t want to embarrass him. “You were self-employed. You harvested crawfish and alligators. You also sold a few paintings to a gallery in New Orleans, but not enough to pay taxes.”
“Great. What am I going to do with this house? I can’t afford to fix it, and who would buy it in such disrepair?”
“I would. I’ve recently given a great deal of thought to opening a bed and breakfast. Your house would be perfect for that.”
“Are you serious? You really want to buy it?”
“Yes. But only if you continue living at the house as a resident handyman and curator of the art gallery.”
“Art gallery?”
“You’ll understand as soon as you step into the place. There’s plenty of space for both guests and viewing rooms.”