by Anne George
“Jason Marley sounds like his face should show up on a door knocker,” I said. Sister and Fairchild both looked at me blankly. “You know, like in Scrooge. Jacob Marley, the partner. Scrooge thinks he’s seeing him because he’s eaten a greasy supper, but he’s really there to tell him he’ll be visited by the three spirits.” They continued to look at me. “Write his name down, Sister.” I bent to my coffee.
“I expect Laura’s already called him,” Fairchild said.
“What about relatives in De Funiak Springs?” Mary Alice asked.
“There’s a brother and a sister. The sister has a bad heart condition, though, and the brother is considerably older. I’d hate to alarm them unnecessarily.”
“You could just call them to chat, couldn’t you?”
“I could do that.” Fairchild put his cup on the tray and rubbed his hands across his eyes again. “I think what I should do, though, is call the sheriff.”
“Then that’s what you ought to do. Here,” Mary Alice reached behind her, got the phone, and handed it to Fairchild.
“I’ll call from my apartment.” Fairchild stood up. “I might drive over to the development and look around first. I just had a thought that maybe she went back to work and dropped off to sleep over there.”
“Very possible,” Mary Alice said. I agreed but didn’t believe it for a minute. The way Millicent had looked the night before had sent me a clear message: there was another man in the woodpile.
“You sure you don’t want us to call anybody? Jacob Marley?” Sister added as we followed Fairchild to the door.
“Not yet. But thank you for your help.” Another rub of the eyes. “When I woke up and realized she hadn’t been home, I panicked.”
Mary Alice patted his arm. “Everything’s going to be all right. You let us know, now.”
“I will. I’m sorry I bothered you so early.”
“Don’t worry about it. You call us.” Sister gave the departing Fairchild a little wave and closed the door. “Another man in the woodpile,” she announced. “Our no-longer-so-prim resident manager had herself a rendezvous last night, and they went to sleep. It happens to the best of us.”
I decided not to pursue that remark. I took my coffee out to the balcony and watched a single great blue heron wading in a small tidal pool. Several joggers had already made it to the beach, and the horizon was dotted with fishing boats. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and later it would be hot. But right at that moment, it was about as perfect as it gets.
Mary Alice followed me in a few minutes with sweetrolls and more coffee. “I’ll bet you it’s that Jacob Marley,” she said, handing me the sweetrolls and a napkin.
“Jason,” I corrected.
“Poor Fairchild.” Sister sat down in her swirl of pink. “Did you notice, Mouse, how his eyes looked like tragic pools of brimming tears? How his hands lay in his lap, lonely as an empty bird’s nest?”
I looked around at Sister. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Practicing my similes and metaphors for the writers’ conference. Pretty good, huh?”
“In all my years of teaching English, I promise you I’ve never heard anything quite like it.”
“Thanks. That’s what my creative writing instructor at the university said, too.” Sister bit into a sweetroll and wiggled it around on her tongue while she blew over it. “Hot! Hot!”
“You want some ice?”
“It’s okay.” Sister took another bite and wiggled it around, too, exclaiming, “Hot!”
“Why don’t you wait until they cool?”
“They’re not as good cool.”
I suppose that made sense.
“I’m thinking about sending the story I’m working on now to some literary journals,” she said. “I brought it to have it critiqued at the conference.”
“Have I read it?”
“I don’t think so. I’ll let you read it today. It’s about a wheelchair repo man.”
“A wheelchair repo man?”
“It’s real sad. He works for this company that sells wheel-chairs and when the customers don’t pay for them, they send this guy out to get them back. It’s chock-full of angst and existentialism.”
“Sounds like a winner. Nothing quite like a good dose of angst and existentialism.”
“It’s good, Miss Smarty Pants, and don’t you go being smartass about it until you read it. You just thought you were the only person in this family who knew about angst and existentialism, didn’t you?”
Fortunately, someone banged on the door again and saved me from answering.
“Dear God. Grand Central.” Mary Alice got up, brushed the crumbs from her peignoir, and headed toward the door. I followed her, curious, half-afraid that it was Fairchild with bad news.
It was Millicent. Not the Millicent of the night before at the Redneck, but an older, tired version with no makeup and uncombed hair, wearing the same outfit she had had on at the Redneck, which had obviously been slept in.
“Good morning, y’all. I’m sorry Fairchild bothered you. I had a couple of drinks and I’m not used to it, and I just plain went to sleep in the parking lot at the Redneck.” Millicent smiled wanly. “I’m real embarrassed about it.”
“Don’t worry your head about it, Millicent,” Sister said. “It happens to all of us sometimes. We’re just happy to see you’re okay.”
“Thanks.” Millicent looked relieved.
“You want some coffee?” I asked.
Millicent shook her head. “I’ve got to go calm Fairchild down. Did you know he was about to call the sheriff?”
“He was scared,” Sister said.
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“Her eyes were tragic pools of brimming tears,” I said as Sister closed the door. I scooted down the hall out of her reach.
“Hmmm,” Sister said. “Hmmm.”
“And what was that ‘it happens to all of us’ bit? I’ve never gotten drunk and passed out in a parking lot.”
Sister looked at me, looked through me. “What have you done, Patricia Anne?” She walked into her bedroom and shut the door.
Oh, God. I walked back heavily to Sister’s balcony where the sweetrolls I had acted a fool about cooking stared at me accusingly. What had I done? Had I ever been as kind, as generous, as much fun as Sister? I sat down wearily while angst and existentialism covered me like a blanket.
“You okay, Mama?” Haley was dressed in pink shorts and a white T-shirt. Her strawberry blonde hair and olive skin seemed to glow in the sunlight reflected from the beach. Well, I had done this, I thought. I had produced this golden woman.
“I’m okay,” I said. “Just thinking.”
“You look sad. You’re sure you’re all right?”
“I’m fine. What time is it?”
“About ten. What was all that commotion early this morning?”
I was explaining Millicent’s disappearance when Mary Alice walked out onto the balcony and handed me several sheets of paper. “Here,” she said, and went back into the apartment.
“You and Aunt Sister have a fight?” Haley asked.
“Not really. I think I’d better read this right away, though.”
“I’ll go get some cereal.”
I took the story into our bedroom, shutting the door so I could concentrate. And somewhere in the middle of the wheelchair repo man’s angst, mine began to disappear. By the time I finished, I was laughing so hard I was sobbing. The repo man was a Poor Soul: Charlie Chaplin eating his shoes, Buster Keaton with the wall falling around him. In one scene a ninety-year-old woman in a wheelchair was chasing the bumbling repo man, hitting him with her cane while he tried to apologize. Woody Allen could play this part, I thought.
The door opened. “Well?” Sister asked.
“It’s great!” I said truthfully. “He’s Everyman with a conscience and the job from hell. I wonder why that’s so funny.”
“Funny?” Mary Alice scowled. “It’s not. It’s sad, Patricia A
nne.” Then, after a pause, “Come on, let’s go to the beach.”
Frances arrived about three; we had left a note on the door that we were at the beach. Mary Alice and I were in the shade of a huge umbrella, both of us half-dozing, half-reading, with Factor 45 sunscreen coating us, and Haley was taking a dip in the water when Frances flopped down on the sand beside us. She had on unwrinkled linen beige pants (don’t ask me how) and every strand of her blonde hair was caught in her usual chignon.
“Hey, y’all,” she said. “Did you order this weather?”
We admitted that we had. Eighty-three degrees and a nice sea breeze in June is a day to be savored in Destin.
“You want a Coke or a beer?” I asked. “Or do you want to go unpack first.”
“Beer first.”
“You got it.” I reached in the cooler and handed her one. “You want one, Sister?” I asked. We were still being polite to each other. She took one.
“I thought you were going to be at a writers’ conference, Mary Alice,” Frances said.
“It doesn’t start until tomorrow. It’s a three-day thing with a reading on Friday night.”
“Hey, Frances!” Haley called.
“Lord, look at that child’s shape!” Frances waved. “Did any of us ever have a waist like that?”
“Patricia Anne did,” Sister said graciously.
“But you had boobs and I didn’t.” We smiled at each other.
Frances looked at us, puzzled, but she was too polite to ask us why we were being so nice to each other. Instead, she scooped her hand into the sand and said, “Goodness, this is wonderful.”
Haley came up, got a towel, and found a place in the shade of the umbrella. There were two little girls building a sandcastle close to the water, and WUWF was playing Beethoven’s Sixth, nice beach music. There was no hurry; there was no supper to cook, no sweet Woofer dog to walk. Bless his heart. But Mitzi would be good to him.
We finally left the beach, almost in slow motion. We helped Frances unpack her car, got her settled, took showers, decided we would have dinner at The Summer House, an old Victorian mansion on the bay. We even dressed for dinner, as much as you ever dress in Destin: a sundress for Haley, skirts for Sister and me, and a split skirt for Frances. And we set out for The Summer House.
We were headed into another beautiful sunset. “Drive down to the end of Holiday Isle, Aunt Sister,” Haley said. “We can show Frances all the blue herons, and maybe we’ll see the green flash.” And Sister turned left and drove down Holiday Isle.
The road ends at a dune. We got out and clambered up so we could see the sunset. To our right, across a large inlet, was Destin Harbor, where fishing boats were being berthed for the night. To our left was the Gulf. We were standing on a small spit of beach that tends to disappear during storms and then rebuild. It’s a favorite place for seabirds, particularly the herons. The water is shallow enough there for good fishing.
We came down the dune and walked toward the water. The sun was in our eyes, but we saw several of the huge birds had waded into the water.
“This is so beautiful,” Frances said.
Mary Alice reached down and picked up a beer can. “Drives me crazy when people dump trash off the boats.”
“There’s a whole garbage sack,” Haley said.
And that’s exactly what it looked like, a white plastic sack filled with garbage at the edge of the water. And that’s what we thought it was until we were right on it. Sister was slightly ahead, so she was the first one to see what was really lying on the beach, close enough to the water to be lapped by small waves. “My God!” she exclaimed, stepping back, holding out her arms to stop us. “It’s a person!”
Chapter 5
For a moment, there was utter confusion. I think Frances screamed. I know she stepped back into me, knocking me flat on my behind on the hard sand. I remember her arms whirling like windmills as she tripped over me and tried unsuccessfully to keep her balance.
“Is he dead?” Haley asked, looking around Mary Alice at what we had thought was garbage.
“Definitely.” Mary Alice took a step closer.
“Dear God,” Frances moaned into the sand.
“Are you hurt?” I whispered. I don’t know why I was whispering. It just seemed the thing to do.
“Dear God,” Frances moaned again. “A dead body.”
Mary Alice and Haley were creeping toward the form at the edge of the water as if it might do something unexpected, like sit up and say, “Trick or treat.” I sat up and a pain shot through my tailbone. “Shit!” I muttered.
The sun was close to the horizon, shining right into my eyes, but I saw Sister and Haley stop. Sister turned to Haley and said something, and they began to back up. I groaned and got to my feet. Pain! I’d busted my butt for sure. I started shuffling toward them.
“Stay back, Mama,” Haley said. Her face was strange, contorted. “It’s Millicent Weatherby and you don’t want to see her.”
I stopped. “Millicent? Millicent’s dead?”
“Run to the car, Haley,” Sister handed her the keys. “Call 911.”
“That’s Millicent over there?” I pointed to the form in the water. “That can’t be Millicent!”
Frances moaned. She was on her hands and knees in the sand, her face hidden in her arms, her behind stuck up in the air.
“It’s Millicent.” Sister sat down beside Frances. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
“Put your head down, Aunt Sister,” Haley said. “Take deep breaths. I’ll be right back.” She sprinted across the dune toward the car.
I sat down gingerly beside Mary Alice. And then there were several strange minutes I’ll remember all my life. Everything seemed beautiful, peaceful, and surreal. The sun touched the water and I imagined I could hear the sizzle; several blue herons sailed in on giant wings to join the others on the beach. A small boat crossed the inlet to the harbor, the music from its radio louder than its engine. A moment or so after the boat’s passage, its wake stirred the white bundle that was Millicent Weatherby. Millicent who was dead, whose body was being pushed higher onto the beach by small waves.
None of us spoke for a few minutes. We heard the sirens as the rescue squad left the fire station across on the mainland. Then another siren crossing the bridge.
“I wonder how often they see drownings,” I mused.
“Too often,” Mary Alice’s head was still down so she was talking to the sand. “But this isn’t one of them.”
“What?” I asked.
“Oh, Lord, Mouse! It looked like someone tried to cut her head off!”
“What?” I said. “What are you talking about?”
“They’re coming!” Haley called from the top of the dune. Just at that second, the last of the sun was swallowed by the water with a great green gulp.
“Someone killed Millicent?”
“Oh, Lord!” Sister moaned.
“Oh, Lord!” Frances echoed.
“They’ll be here in a minute.” Haley sat down beside me and took my hand. “Are you okay, Mama?”
“Her throat was cut?”
“Be grateful you didn’t see her, Mama. And she’s been in the water, so her body’s probably damaged other than that. You know, by sharks and things.”
“Shut up, Miss Open Heart Cut People’s Guts Out Nurse,” Sister said into her hands. “Lord! And to think we saw her this morning all in one piece.”
Frances burrowed her head deeper into the sand. “Oh, God! There are pieces missing? I’ll never touch seafood again.”
“Sorry, Frances,” Haley apologized. “I was just speculating. Of course there aren’t any pieces missing.”
“Well, quit speculating,” Sister grumbled.
I jumped in. “The child said she was sorry, Mary Alice.” I patted Haley’s hand.
“It’s okay,” Haley said. “We’re all just rattled.”
The sirens were screaming down the Holiday Isle road now. A few of the herons, disturbed by the n
oise, took off, running a short distance on their stick legs before they lifted into the air.
“What do they do for broken tailbones?” I asked Haley.
“Put a shot of xylocaine in it. Cortisone. Why?”
“I think Frances broke mine when she knocked me down.”
“Shut up,” Frances said. “Everybody shut up.”
And we did. The sirens wailed to a stop at the dune and three uniformed men and one woman came scrambling over it, carrying all kinds of heavy and totally unnecessary resuscitation equipment. We all stood up to meet them, including Sister who was about as green as the sky had been a few moments before.
“You the women who called?” the youngest of the men wanted to know.
“I did.” Haley took a step toward them. “There’s a body over there.” She pointed toward the white form that was Millicent, and that had now washed farther up on the beach.
Lugging their heavy equipment as if they expected to perform a Lazarus miracle, the four hurried toward the body. The four of us stayed where we were. We watched as they circled the white bundle, as they conferred. Finally the woman broke away and came back to us.
“She’s wet,” she said. We looked at each other, puzzled.
“She’s part way in the water,” Sister stated the obvious.
“Was she like this when you got here?”
“Wet? Yes. Dead? Yes. Why?”
“If she’s wet she belongs to the Florida Marine Patrol, not us. We’re the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Department. We’ll call them.”
“You’ve got to be kidding,” Haley said. “How long will it take for them to get here?”
“Depends. Sometimes they’re right in the harbor. Sometimes not.” She turned around and yelled at one of her cohorts, “Buddy, get the marines.” Then she turned back to us. “Sorry about this, but it’s out of our jurisdiction.” She shook hands with Mary Alice who was standing closest to her. “I’m Lisa Andrews. Are you ladies okay?”
“Been better,” Sister admitted. “We know the lady.”
“Really?” Lisa Andrews took out a notepad. “Who is she?”