She tried instinctively to lift him, thinking that she should take him below and stretch him out on one of the settees in the main cabin, but he was heavier than he looked. She rolled him onto the seat cushions in the cockpit and stretched him out, to try to make him comfortable. She went below and rummaged in the lockers in the head until she found first aid supplies. She took them back up to the cockpit. She cleaned up Mike's cut and spread antibiotic cream over it, closing it with butterfly strips. She taped a gauze pad over the wound, and decided he would be all right where he was for the night, as long as it didn't rain.
Not knowing what kind of mood he would be in when he came to, she went below and locked herself in the forward cabin. The teak door wouldn't withstand much of an assault, but it would at least wake her up if he tried to open it while she slept. She collapsed on the double berth, and, drained by her angry outburst, was soon asleep.
Chapter 13
His Uncle Andy walked casually into the back yard where Mike was playing in the bamboo and called, "Where's that boy that lives here? I need a boy real bad, to help me with something. Anybody seen him?"
Mike had peered out of the bamboo cave, where he had his plastic soldiers digging in for a major battle, to see his favorite uncle, hand to his brow, pretending to scan the horizon. "Uncle Andy," he squealed with excitement, running to hug his knees, "Here I am!"
"Hey, boy," Andy said, dropping into a squatting position to be on eye level with Mike.
"What kind of help do you need?" Mike asked.
"Well, I need you to keep somethin' for me, Mikey. Somebody gave it to me, and there's no way I can manage to keep it. It needs a boy like you to take care of it right, don't you see?"
"Okay, Uncle Andy. What is it?"
"I'll just show you, and then you can decide if you can handle the job," Andy said, rising to his feet and reaching into one of the voluminous pockets of his pleated pants. "Not just any boy could handle this, see." Andy extracted a squirming brown and white puppy, barely filling his hand, and passed it gently to Mike.
"A puppy!" Mike shrieked. "What's his name, Uncle Andy?"
"Well, he's so young, I reckon you could call him whatever you want, but his mama told me she called him Randolph." Andy grinned.
"Like Santa's reindeer?" Mike asked.
"Nah, boy. That's Rudolph."
"Oh, yeah. Right," Mike said. "I like Randolph. I'll call him that. Can I really keep him?"
"Sure you can, Mikey. I got him just for you. A boy needs a dog. Best friend you can have." Andy smiled, watching Mike snuggling the ball of fur to his chest.
"Hey, Andy," Mike's mother said to her brother, surprise on her face. "Where'd you come from?"
"Hey, Cecilia," Andy said, hugging his sister. "I've got business up in Charleston tomorrow, and I thought if I left a little early, I could visit with you all."
"That's nice," Cecilia said, in a bored tone of voice. "What's that, Michael?" she asked with much more animation, looking down at the puppy. "You put that filthy animal down right this minute!" She slapped at Mike as he backed away. "They carry diseases!" she shrieked.
"B-but, Mama," Mike said, his lip trembling.
"'Don't you 'But Mama' me, young man. I told you to put that dog down."
"Cecilia, calm down," Andy said. "It's just a puppy. Our Suki whelped 'em a couple of months ago, and I saved this one just for Mikey. His name's Randolph and he's had all of his shots. A boy needs a dog. Be good for Mikey to learn to take care of him, see. You know we had dogs, growing up."
"Hey, Andy! Good to see you, boy," said Mike's father, interrupting the budding disagreement. He rounded the corner of the house into the yard, briefcase in hand. "You stayin' for supper, I hope?" He and Andy had been drinking buddies long before he had married Cecilia. In fact, Andy had introduced Jerry to her.
"Stayin' the evening, Jerry, if Cecilia don't throw me out over this puppy," Andy said.
Mike quietly retreated into his bamboo, Randolph cuddled to his chest, as the adults went into the house. "Look, Randolph. This is our cave," he said. "We can stay in here and nobody can bother us. You have to look out though, 'cause there's been a dragon in the next cave for a few days. I keep chasin' him off, but he comes back. You stay close to me, hear?" The puppy licked Mike's cheek.
Too soon, his mother called him in to wash up for dinner, and she made him leave Randolph in a cardboard box by the back door. After dinner, Mike followed her into the kitchen, while Uncle Andy and his father pushed their chairs back from the table and lit up their pipes. He could hear the puppy whining outside the door. "What's wrong with Randolph, Mama?" he asked.
"I expect he's hungry, Michael. Puppies have to be fed, you know. They aren't toys."
"I'll feed him Mama. What can I feed him?"
She warmed a little milk and poured it into a bowl, breaking up the leftover dinner rolls to make a mush. "Give him this, but don't bother him while he eats. Just put it in the box."
He watched Randolph lap up the warm, milky mush and go happily to sleep while his mother did the dishes. Then she bathed Mike and put his pajamas on him, taking him into the dining room to say goodnight to his father and his uncle.
"Night, Mikey," Andy said, giving his nephew a hug.
"G'night, Uncle Andy. Thanks so much for Randolph. See you in the morning," Mike said, turning to give his father a hug and a kiss on the cheek.
"I'll probably be on the road by the time you get up, Mikey, but you take care of Randolph, you hear?" Andy said.
"Yes sir," Mike said, as his mother led him to his room and tucked him in.
Mike lay in bed until he heard the adults telling one another good night. He got up quietly, and after he heard his father start to snore, he slipped out the back door and picked up Randolph, sneaking back in to bed with the puppy clutched in his arms.
He awakened sometime later, feeling a soft mist on his face and an aching in his head. Randolph was not there. Mike felt an overwhelming sense of panic and loss as he felt the area around himself. Gradually, as he gazed at the stars overhead, he realized that he had been sleeping in the cockpit, dreaming about the puppy his uncle had given him so many years ago. He looked up at the sky, remembering waking up that morning and missing Randolph. He had gotten out of bed and checked the box outside the back door, only to discover that the box was gone. He had run into the backyard, where he had found his mother hanging out the laundry to dry.
"Mama! Mama, where's Randolph?" He remembered asking her. He could still feel the sense of panic after all these years.
"That nasty thing? I gave him to the egg man. He'll be happier on that chicken farm. Get yourself inside and get dressed before somebody sees you. You know better than to come outside in your pajamas," she scolded, pulling a fresh piece of green bamboo from the hedge and grabbing his wrist with her other hand.
He had not dreamed about the dog for years, at least not that he remembered. The old familiar black mood was heavy upon him, as he wondered why he had slept in the cockpit last night. He pulled himself to a sitting position and registered the mingled aromas of coffee and bacon wafting up from the companionway.
"Who's cooking?" he asked himself quietly, alarm displacing his lingering feeling of profound loss. Did he have company aboard? He looked around, recognizing the anchorage as Portsmouth, Dominica, in the gray, misty light of a Caribbean sunrise.
Chapter 14
"Bonjour, Mike," Michelle said, as she balanced a breakfast tray in her left hand. She emerged gracefully from the companionway and folded out the cockpit table, placing the heavily laden tray carefully on the table to avoid sloshing coffee. She looked guardedly at Mike, not sure what to expect after last night. She had decided to pretend nothing had happened; that seemed to be her least risky option, leaving Mike to determine what would happen next. She noticed that he was gazing at her with open curiosity on his face, almost as if he didn't know her. That was puzzling, but better than she had hoped.
"Good morning," Mike sa
id, bleary eyed, as he wondered who this angel with the dazzling green eyes could be, and how she came to be cooking breakfast on his boat. At the same time, he felt strongly drawn to her, as if she were an important part of his life. He felt almost as if he were in love with her, but how could that be, if he didn't know who she was?
"Are you have sleep okay? I worry that you are not comfortable, but I am not can make down the ladder with you, last night," she said, smiling at him as she planted a brief kiss on his forehead.
"I'm okay," he replied, probing gingerly at the bandage on the side of his head. "I'm afraid I can't remember what happened." He hoped that a sufficiently vague response would elicit some explanation from his companion.
"You are stand up and fall, last night, and hitting the head on the thing down there," she explained, pointing vaguely at the deck, where Mike noticed a bloodstain.
So she was here last night. Who could she be? Where did she come from? "Mine?" he wondered, fingering the bandage with one hand and pointing at the bloodstained deck with the other.
"Oui! You are bleeding when you fall. I am scare at first you are die, but then I see you are still alive but not wake up, and I make the bandage, but I am not enough strong to move you to the bed, so you are sleeping here."
"I see," he said, taking a gulp of coffee to wash down a mouthful of bacon and eggs.
"Are you feeling how, Mike?" she asked, concern on her face.
"Better and better," he said, truthfully. Food and coffee were a miracle cure, it seemed.
"You are not swim today, because the bandage," she said, looking worried.
"No, not today," he agreed, wondering at this comment.
"When Robert is coming soon, I tell him that we are snork at the reef tomorrow, maybe, when you are better, instead not today, like we say to him the day before today."
"Yes, I think so," Mike said, drinking more coffee.
Mike was beginning to piece together some of his recent history, now. He had been in Dominica for a few days, playing tourist with this beautiful girl. What was her name? It will come to me, he thought, his gaze caressing her bikini-clad body. Those curves seemed quite familiar. Had they been sleeping together? They had been arguing about something last night, but he couldn't remember what. Something about another woman, maybe, but he couldn't remember any other women, since his wife left him. There was that woman those Morris people had asked him about, but he didn't think he actually knew her. What had Jim Morris called her? Dani. Dani, that was it, and somebody had asked him yesterday where he had last seen Dani. He had no recollection of a woman named Dani, and then this girl who had brought him breakfast had been angry last night. Something about his not telling her about Dani. Why did everyone keep asking him about Dani? One of the colorful water taxis pulling alongside interrupted his thoughts.
"Good morning, Mike, Michie." the man in the water taxi said.
Mike gave an absent-minded wave as the woman, Michie, she must be, responded.
"Bonjour, Robert," she said. "We are wanting to snork not today the reef, but in the morning. Mike has injure on his head that we must wait, okay?"
"Sure, Michelle, tha's irie," Robert replied. "You need anything fo' the head, Mike?"
"No, Michie fixed me up, Robert. Thanks, though," Mike said, pleased that he now knew the woman's name. Michelle, or Michie. Devereaux clicked into his mind, unbidden. That must be her last name, he realized. Things were clearing rapidly.
"Okay, then, I come tomorrow, an' we go snorkel on the reef 'roun' the point." Robert started the big outboard and idled slowly away, making a call on his cell phone as he waved goodbye.
Michelle took the breakfast dishes below and started cleaning up the galley as Mike sipped more coffee, sorting through his scrambled memories. Yes, now he could remember most of what happened yesterday.
He and Michelle had quarreled, ostensibly about Dani. He still had no memory of Dani, but he clearly remembered that Michelle had been upset when the men, whoever they were, had said that Dani had been aboard Sea Serpent recently. He had told Michelle about being alone ever since his wife left him, years ago, and Michelle was angry because he hadn't told her about Dani. He had been upset because he wanted Michelle to stay with him permanently, and she wouldn't agree. That was before the two men had introduced this whole Dani thing, too. He shook his head sadly.
He had the puppy dream last night. He'd spent enough time with shrinks when he was in foster care to know that the dream was triggered by fear of loss. The shrinks didn't quite get it, though. Yes, it was about fear of loss, but it was a warning to him from his subconscious; one that he had learned through painful experience to heed. In taking the puppy away, his mother had taught him a valuable lesson. If you let yourself care about something, you made yourself vulnerable. And here he was, falling in love with Michelle. She seemed to reciprocate his feelings, although she hadn't given up on the notion of moving ashore in Saint Martin. He needed to watch himself. Michelle had not yet mentioned their unpleasant interlude. Perhaps she hoped he had forgotten about it; that could mean that she wanted to put it behind them. He would just keep quiet about it and see where their relationship went from here, but he would keep his guard up, just the same, in case he had to deal with her the way he had dealt with Missy.
He had been about 10 years old when the stray he called Missy had wandered into the back yard for the first time. The mutt watched Mike from a cautious distance as he played by himself. When he sat down to rest in his cavern in the bamboo, the dog had approached him and put her head in his lap, looking up at him beseechingly with her big, trusting brown eyes. Mike had stroked her head and she had licked his hand. After dinner that night, when he had been taking out the garbage, he had slipped a paper plate of leftovers to the scrawny animal. She had begun to follow him everywhere, accompanying him to school, traipsing along beside him on the way home, and playing with him in the bamboo in the afternoons. He remembered the lesson of the puppy, and kept Missy a secret from his mother.
As long as he kept Missy out of the house, it was easy enough to keep the secret. His mother had "nerves," as she called it. Her nerves had gotten much worse over the years, probably because of Mike's growing independence. She stayed in the house all the time now, the sharp edges of her days padded by tranquilizers, except for two weekly excursions. On Wednesdays, she would drive to a nearby beauty parlor and have her hair done, and on Thursdays, she would go to the grocery store for the week's shopping. Otherwise, she was a recluse. During the summer, when he was out of school, she made Mike accompany her on her outings. Now that he was old enough to be noticeably out of place in the beauty parlor, she allowed him to wait in the car and read, but she still insisted that he come into the grocery store with her. He never minded the grocery store, but he had detested having to sit in the corner of the waiting room at the beauty parlor and amuse himself while all the women chattered to one another. All the women except his mother, that is. She was as self-contained there as if she were sitting alone at home. She had seen Missy a time or two when she ventured out of the house on Wednesdays or Thursdays, and had shooed her out of the yard, but she had no inkling that Missy had become Mike's pet.
By the time Mike was 12, he had become something of an outcast at school. The other boys had bullied him, and he had lived in fear. Eventually, his parents discovered the problem, and typically, his father tried to deal with it by going to the authorities, which inevitably made the problem worse. His mother had reacted by picking a stalk of bamboo, and admonishing Mike that if he couldn't whip "those other boys," she would whip him until he could. He learned to fight, at first as a cornered animal. After a few successful encounters with his former tormentors, he discovered that he was stronger, faster, and tougher than "those other boys" were. Soon, he became the kid to beat in a fight, not just for his peers, but for older boys as well. But he had motivation that they didn't understand. He knew what would happen if he went home as a loser.
One older bully, Jack,
found out about Missy, and thought he had discovered Mike's weakness. Jack lived a few blocks away, and he had noticed Missy trailing along in Mike's footsteps. He reasoned that he could use the dog to torment Mike. He set about charming Missy, petting her and giving her treats any time he found her without Mike around. One afternoon after school Mike was walking along with Missy, and Jack and a couple of his henchmen approached. Mike was ready for trouble, but he was somewhat surprised when Jack stopped several paces away, dropped to a squatting position, and whistled softly. Missy ran happily to greet him, tail wagging wildly as she scampered into his embrace. He greeted her as Sal, and she licked his face. "What're you doin' tryin' to steal my dog, Reilly?" Jack complained, grinning wickedly as he stood up, holding onto the dog's collar and passing her to one of his friends.
Mike's face betrayed no emotion as he stood, relaxed, waiting. He sensed Jack's other companion dropping to hands and knees close behind him as Jack stepped into arm's reach, ready to shove Mike over backwards, using his friend's body to trip him. Mike dropped quickly to his hands, shooting his right foot out backwards in a snap-kick that connected with the side of the boy's head. The boy rolled to his side, unconscious, as Mike quickly brought both feet under his own center of gravity and lunged forward, delivering a vicious head-butt to Jack's groin, knocking him to the ground in sudden agony. The third boy was standing slack-jawed, holding Missy's collar, when Mike turned to him. He released his grip and took to his heels.
Missy approached the groaning Jack and started licking his face. He held her off with one hand, nursing his injury with the other. "Didn't know she was your dog, Jack," Mike snarled, grabbing the dog's neck with one hand and her muzzle with the other, twisting her head around until there was a soft pop. "I'd have killed her sooner." The lifeless dog convulsed as Mike tossed her onto Jack's chest and spit in his face.
Bluewater Killer: A Serial Murder Mystery Set In Florida and the Caribbean (Bluewater Thrillers Book 1) Page 8