Cooler Than Blood

by Robert Lane

  I had just returned from the hotel. Before I joined them, I placed the envelope with the pictures of Theresa Ann Howell in my fireproof safe and retrieved a box from the closet. As I started down my dock, I heard laughter. Probably laughing at me. On my dock.

  “Does it still hurt?” Jenny asked when I took a seat next to her. “I am so sorry.” She wore a bandage high on her forehead that blended with her skin tone. Rutledge’s gun had left a nasty mark.

  Morgan told me that on the trip home from Rutledge’s—I have no memory of it—she held my head in her lap and gushed apologies. She had since called every day to check in on me.

  “Not at all,” I said. “And you?” I felt ten years older than I did seven days ago, but I wasn’t going to lay that on her.

  “Never better. The doctor doesn’t think it’ll scar.”

  I glanced at Kathleen. “Everyone make introductions?” She wore the new dress I had bought for her.

  “Oh, yes,” she said. “We figured it all out.”

  Those words covered a lot of ground.

  She smiled and looked at Susan, who turned to me and added, “We managed just fine without you. We were discussing the trip to the hospital the night you found Jenny. Jenny said they rebandaged her head then had her on humidified oxygen for a while, due to her coughing. Kathleen said you didn’t want to go—”

  “But I,” Kathleen interjected, “had insisted. Not only to stop the bleeding, but also I wanted a brain scan—they called it a neuroimage—of your head. Morgan told me you sang ‘Old Kentucky Home’ on the ride back.”

  “And I,” Susan took over, “said, ‘How did that go?’ And Kathleen said—”

  “It was negative,” Kathleen cut in.

  What’s with the tag team? Have these women known each other for years?

  “In fact,” she continued, “the nurse offered to give me my money back. Said there was nothing up there to scan.”

  They all laughed. Again. At me. On my dock.

  Susan calmed down and said, “Jenny was telling Kathleen that she was almost out of the barn herself. She’d been swinging away at the door with the hatchet before you flew in.”

  I glanced at Jenny. “My head aches for nothing?”

  “I thought you said it didn’t hurt.” She sounded more pained than I felt.

  I held her hazel eyes for a moment. Her hair was straight and long. The last time I’d seen it, I’d registered it as molded sea oats. She wore a pair of Top-Siders. No one else wore shoes.

  I said, “Been meaning to ask you something.”

  “I think I know. The hatchet? Why I took a swing at you?”

  “Just curious.”

  “I had no choice. I’d been kidnapped three times, and I knew…I knew my time was running out. I found that hatchet and decided the next guy through the door got it. When the fire broke out, I went to work on the door right around the lock area that you broke through. But I was losing. I—”

  She hung her head toward the water, but brought it right back up. To our right and out a distance, a dolphin broke the surface and tossed a fish out in front of itself. The dolphin came up several yards away and tossed the fish again. They do that sometimes—play ball with dinner. Jenny paid no attention, or maybe she didn’t see it.

  “It’s the only part that gives me nightmares,” she continued. “The smoke—you just can’t believe the smoke. And it was a hatchet. Just a lousy hatchet.” She turned to me. “You came in high and scared me. How’d you do that? Come in six feet off the ground?”

  “I jumped.”

  “I don’t know what it was, but that wasn’t a jump. Then you fell, just collapsed, and when you got back up, I went after you. I am so sorry. I was in panic mode.”

  “Don’t worry. I’m glad you only nicked me.”

  “Trust me,” she said, shaking her head, “it wasn’t due to lack of effort. I went straight for you. I couldn’t believe how fast you reacted. I thought you were dazed, disorientated, but you practically jerked your head clean off your shoulders. Then Garrett was there and dragged us both out, and I have no idea how he managed that.”

  I had jerked my head with amazing speed. Did the bourbon actually help me? Something to consider.

  Susan asked me, “Do you remember much from afterward?”

  I’d avoided looking at her, much like the day I’d walked into her house to meet McGlashan. I’m good at that—not looking at Susan Blake. I looked now. She wore long gold earrings, and as she tilted her head to see around Jenny, the left one swung out over the water. She looked younger than the last time I’d seen her. Her hair was different; it was shorter, and I wanted to tell her that it looked nice, but instead I said, “Bits and pieces.” But what I was thinking was, What type of woman owns a Grady-White and wears a tight black dress? I would never really know, but I knew my thoughts weren’t done with me. That’s the thing about our thoughts and questions—we think they’re part of us, but they aren’t. They have their own life, their own schedule. They can, and will, strike at any moment, on any subject, with brutal and naked honesty.

  “We’re having dinner with them, Garrett and Morgan, right?” Jenny asked. “I haven’t had the chance to thank them again.”

  “They’re kitesurfing. Due back any time.” I handed her the box. “For you.”

  She gave me a quizzical look. “For me?”

  “For you.”

  It wasn’t wrapped. She popped the top and pulled out her cheer T-shirt. I was surprised it wasn’t ripped. Billy Ray must have jerked it clean off her body.

  “Oh, my gosh,” Jenny gushed. Did I screw up? Maybe it was the last thing she ever wanted to see. For a delicate few seconds, no one spoke, and then Jenny turned to me and said, “Thank you. You can’t believe how hard I worked for this—and to keep it.” She shook her head, and her fingers caressed the garment. She neatly folded the T-shirt, placed it gently back in the box, and rested her hands on it.

  “Help me in the kitchen?” Kathleen said to Susan. Kathleen and kitchen—the only familiarity they shared was the first letter.

  “Thought you’d never ask.” The two BFFs departed. I was surprised they didn’t hold hands and skip.

  Jenny and I sat for a silent minute. What was she thinking? I had my opportunity. I wanted to know; I deserved to know.

  “Been meaning to ask you something else,” I said, echoing my earlier comment.

  Jenny glanced at me. “Yes.”

  “That night on the beach? I heard the cut tape of your conversation with Rutledge. You don’t have to—I mean, if you’re uncomfortable, I certainly understand. If you don’t mind, I just wonder if you could give me the whole story.” It came out pretty damn awkward, but I was wary of leading her where she didn’t want to go.

  “You think I left something out?”

  “Maybe.” I thought of point-blank asking Jenny if someone else was there that night, but I didn’t want to scare her off. Was she protecting someone? Did someone else kill Billy Ray Coleman?

  She nodded as in approval, waited a second, then said, “I don’t mind. I already told Susan.”

  I wasn’t sure if “I don’t mind” was something that carried utmost sincerity when prefaced with a pause, so I gave her an exit. “I can just get it from Sus—”

  “No, silly.” A gust of wind tousled her hair, and she brushed it off her face, although by the time her hand had gotten there, the wind had already corrected the mess it had made. “I thought I was a goner…I’d pretty much shut down. You know about my father’s boat, right? The Trojan? You mentioned it in your delirious stage.”

  “I do.”

  “I used to pump it out with a busted hand pump in the cuddy. It was a slim shaft with no handle that fit perfectly in my hands. But it was difficult, since my hands were always slippery with teak oil. My dad…” She shook her head, and I caught a brief smile. “He couldn’t set foot in that boat without cleaning it.”

  The more I learned about Larry Spencer, the more I lamented that
our time didn’t cross.

  “Anyway…” She brought her legs up under her and sat Indian style. “My hands were greasy—Billy Ray was smeared with lotion, which didn’t surprise me. His skin was fire red. My hand reached out, although for the life of me, I don’t remember sending that signal. I felt a mangrove branch. I wrapped my greasy hand around it. It felt exactly like that old pump in the cuddy of the boat. I jabbed it into Billy Ray’s stomach. But then everything sort of froze. He started to reach for it—no way was my single plunge going to save me, and…I didn’t know what to do.”

  So far, her story was what she had given Rutledge. Perhaps my suspicion that she had omitted something was unfounded. She cut her eyes out to the water as a girl on a Jet Ski skimmed the bay’s surface. She straightened her back and focused her gaze directly at me.

  “My father walked out of the mangroves like he’d never left me. He said, ‘Pump, Jenny. Pump.’ And that’s exactly what I did.” Her eyes were sure. If she expected me to question her story, she gave no hint. “I didn’t let him down,” she said, batting at her hair again. “I’m not that old, but some things in life you’re lucky to get a second chance at, and I wasn’t going to let him down. I pumped like the boat was sinking. I pumped because they put his death in the same article they put the deer harvest in. I pumped because I got crap for a mom, and I pumped because I wanted to kill Boone. I pumped”—she let her breath out as if she’d been holding it—“because I wanted to make him proud, and I thought it might be the last time I ever…I ever saw…”

  Jenny’s eyes welled up, but she didn’t look away from me. If I’m ever in a fight and I get to pick sides, I’m picking this girl first. Her body gave a light shudder. She blew her breath out, and her shoulders settled down. Her eyes returned to the water. “I don’t think I let him down, all those years ago when I couldn’t pump very well. Heck…” She gave a slight shrug. “I was barely twelve. I know this, though.” She turned to me. “He sure as hell didn’t let me down. When I needed him, my father was there.”

  Her words on the tape now made sense. No way was she going to tell Rutledge that her daddy had popped out of the mangroves and talked to her. Who knows what tricks the mind plays? Who’s to say what’s real and what isn’t? Perhaps natural laws themselves bow to the challenge of a father’s love of his daughter.

  “Pump, Jenny. Pump,” I said.

  “That I did,” she replied with a dismissive smile that was unbecoming of her. “I found myself on top of Billy Ray, that mangrove stick riding up and down, with his insides clinging to it like the thick motor my daddy used to drain out of the Trojan in the fall.”

  “Well, there’s a pretty sight.”

  She looked right at me, hesitated, then said, “How’d I do?”

  Who did she see right then?

  I heard Susan’s words as we stood in Jenny’s bedroom and she described Jenny’s father. “He was a lot like you.” I cut my thoughts short to address her question in a timely manner, as I didn’t want too much emptiness between her question and my answer. “You did fine. Just fine.” I felt as if I should put my arm around her and give her a good hug. I didn’t, and that haunts me to this day. Maybe if you can’t decide who you are, you’re nobody at all.

  We joined the others, as Garrett and Morgan had returned. I started to introduce Susan to them, but it wasn’t necessary. Garrett and I migrated to the seawall away from the others.

  “I talked to McGlashan,” I said, knowing McGlashan wasn’t Garrett’s prime interest but putting it off as much as I could.

  “And?”

  “Surprised, but not really. He said, looking back, he should have picked up signs that Rutledge wasn’t going by the book in looking into Jenny’s disappearance. The fact that she had left Ohio without telling her mother had clouded his judgment.”

  “You ever find out what Super Bowl team McGlashan played for?”

  “He didn’t. A friend did. Died of cancer and left the ring to him. McGlashan loved the game, but a birth defect left him with a gimpy shoulder. He was a water boy and spent his youth feeling sorry for himself. He wears the ring in memory of his buddy and to remind himself of how lucky he is.”

  “You meet Dangelo?”

  “At the hotel.”

  “And?” he asked for the second time. Garrett held little interest in the peripheral.

  “The pictures are in my safe.”

  He waited for more, and when I didn’t offer it, he came back with, “Didn’t show them to him, did you?”

  “No.”

  He looked out toward the bay, where a towboat cautiously approached a small cruiser on the sandbar. “That’s your call.”

  “It’s my call.”

  We stood in silence for a few seconds. He turned, looked me in the eye, and headed to the side of the house. I assumed he’d shower off the salt with better success than he would have in accepting my decision not to show Dangelo pictures of his daughter, Theresa Ann Howell, emerging from work, drinking cocktails with friends, and buying a bouquet of brilliant flowers at the farmers’ market in Republic Square Park. That was to have been accompanied with my promise that bodily harm would befall her with a nod from my head if anything happened to Kathleen. To absolve him from the temptation to initiate action against Kathleen—and then to fake innocence by creating distance between himself and such action—I had planned to implicitly state that I couldn’t care less whether he was remotely responsible. It was a simple plan to protect Kathleen, and like I said, I always operate best when I possess clear goals.

  Second-guessing and indecisiveness mounted their inevitable counterattacks. They swarmed my mind like invigorated adversaries. Was Dangelo being straight with me? I already knew that, at best, he’d been disingenuous when we’d discussed his knowledge of Rutledge at the restaurant. Why would I trust a man who belonged to an organization the FBI could easily trace to dozens of murders? I should’ve shown him the pictures of his daughter, let him know I have nuclear capabilities. Instead, I acted in what I thought was an intelligent and rational manner.

  Hey, Jake, I thought, guess what goes with cooler than blood? What? Dumber than shit!

  Kathleen voice, like a guardian angel warring evil spirits, switched on in my head: “What kind of man would that be?” Now mine: Would I feel the least bit of remorse holding another man’s daughter as a hostage to accomplish my goals? What type of woman owns a Grady and…To hell with questions I can’t beat back but am too chickenshit to answer. Are we more than one person? Can we love more than one? That question cuts two ways. Double hell with it. The greatest illusion of all is that every question has an answer.

  “Jake?”

  I should’ve played my card. But I’ve still got it, and I know—

  “Jake?”

  Garrett was ticked, and he was right. Did I let my memory of an encounter with a barking little girl influence such a decision? Good God. But I can play it anytime. Maybe tomorrow morning. That’s what I’ll do. Tomorrow morning I’ll—

  “Hey.”

  I turned. Kathleen was in front of me. We stood on the lawn a foot from the seawall. The others had gone into the house. Her hair was down. It was the color of the late stage of a sunrise, when the orange and red are gone and the sky and clouds are a vibrant yellow, just before the blazing ball brightens the sky and extinguishes all color. “You look…pensive,” she said. “It fits you poorly.”

  I gave a slight shrug. “You know”—I put my arms around her waist—“I’ve been slightly preoccupied the past few days. I don’t know what you’ve been doing, where you’ve been, or—”

  “I like you that way.”

  “What way?”

  “Preoccupied,” she said. “Gives me freedom for my preoccupations.”

  “You look wonderful in that dress.”

  “Thank you. I—”

  “I bought you a dish.”

  “Okay…jumping around a bit, aren’t we? What dish?”

  “The Silver Springs porcelain d
ish.”

  “Ah…I see.” She gave a slight nod and a smile. “You’re right. I keep the car fob in it, don’t I? Well, we both forgot—otherwise you would have vigorously defended yourself after my statement that this was the first item you ever bought me. That’s what we get for running around in circles that only occasionally interlope. Let’s touch the brake, shall we? Take me reading in the morning.”

  “Reading?”

  “In the kayaks. Remember?”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “Are we just doing questions? If you’re busy, that’s—”

  “No, no. I’m not busy at all tomorrow morning.” I kissed her forehead. “It’ll be my pleasure. And sometime…”

  “Yes?”

  “We’ll take the sunset cruise. See what it’s like from the other side.”

  Kathleen brought her right hand up to my left cheek and held it there. “I know we will.” She said it with the absence of a smile, which seemed strange, for Kathleen smiled at everything.

  We turned to go inside, but not before I caught a glimpse of the red channel marker, its pulsating reflection on the darkening water streaking toward me in a jagged, attacking line. It was always blinking, warning us of the fine line between a good day on the water and a bad day, between the safety of the deep and the dangers of the shallow, between who we want to be and who we become after we slide off the razor’s edge and our answers shatter the calm, mirrored waters of our illusions.