Lemon Reef

by Robin Silverman

  Khila had woken Nicole by tapping on the window of Del’s old room; they’d been driving around ever since.

  “She doesn’t want to go with Talon,” Nicole said.

  Pascale returned from the kitchen with a glass of milk for Khila. Khila shook her head. Pascale rested the glass on the coffee table and sat down beside Khila on the couch. “You don’t want to go with your father?”

  Vigorous head shake.

  “You’re sure?” I asked.

  “I’m sure.” She examined me for a moment, her expression solemn. Then she said, “They’re making me call Marcella mom.” Her eyes welled up. “You don’t believe me?” she said, even though there was no indication of disbelief. “Look.” She pulled a silver chain from her pocket and held it up to reveal a dangling charm, expecting me to take it, which I did. “My father makes me wear this.” It was a medallion, intentionally broken in half. The half Khila had was inscribed with the word daughter. Glaring up at me, Khila said, “Guess what the other side says.”

  “Mother?”

  “Yes. And guess who’s wearing it.” Facial scrunch, as if she’d just been assaulted by a bad smell. “Marcella. I’m not going with my father. I know he’s gonna hit me again if my mother’s not there to stop him. And I don’t want to call Marcella mom.”

  Not only was Khila the splitting image of Del, but I saw a determination in her eyes and a tightness in her mouth that reminded me of Del when she was being stubborn. And for Del, stubbornness was often connected with loyalty, as it was for Khila in this moment. I was moved by how similar they were, how spirited Khila was, how unapologetic about her devotion to her mother. She was doing everything in her ten-year-old power to stay close to Del, and I was going to help her in any way I could.

  I began by telling Ida to call the police and to let them know Khila was at Pascale’s and that we needed their help.

  “I don’t know if this is going to work,” I said, “but I’ll try to help you stay here if that’s what you want.”

  She watched me, her face slightly more open.

  The police, I knew, had the authority to let Khila stay with Pascale on an emergency basis, while Child Protective Services investigated any concerns. CPS could place Khila temporarily with Pascale if the concerns were substantiated. Pascale could then file for permanent guardianship in probate court. It was a long shot, especially since Talon had never abused Khila directly, at least not to the extent that CPS would get involved. But there was the law that made domestic violence in front of a child child abuse. And we had a few more things going for us. Khila was ten and articulate and definite; we had a tape recording and other evidence of Talon physically abusing Del; Child Protective Services had access to his juvenile history; and Khila’s mother had just died. Presumably, that would garner some sympathy from CPS and the court, and give Khila’s request more weight.

  Had I thought it through better, I would have realized that when we called the police, they would notify Talon, and he would no doubt get to the house before them, which is what happened. It seemed like only seconds before Talon blew open the living room door. He was red faced, bloated with rage, and he immediately began screaming at Pascale.

  “You were behind this. I’ll take you apart, do you hear me? You fucking drunk. You mess with my family again and I’ll take you apart.” He shifted his pointer finger from Pascale to Khila. “Let’s go. You have any idea how worried I’ve been? You’re in so much trouble.”

  Khila started to cry and shake her head.

  Nicole was standing by the living room window, a few feet from Talon. She discreetly slipped her hand into her leather pouch, and I wondered if she was going for her blade. From where I was standing, my back to the wall separating the kitchen from the living room, I could see out past Nicole to the street through the picture window. I began scanning for the police. Pascale lifted off the couch and placed her frail body squarely between Talon and Khila.

  Talon began reaching around Pascale to grab Khila; Pascale shifted to block him. Nicole stepped in to stand beside Pascale and squared her face with Talon’s in a standoff. She had her hand deep in her bag, and I knew she was ready with the switchblade. I opened my cell phone to call the police again. Talon started to break through Pascale and Nicole and put his arm out to grab Khila. Khila moved to stay out of his reach. From behind came a scream—a war cry—followed by a bang-cracking sound: a chair flipping over, its back slamming against the linoleum.

  Ida, a shape-shifter, morphed from sitting, to lunging, to wrapping both hands around Talon’s throat. They looked momentarily merged, like a grotesque creature with two heads and four legs. She’d caught him by surprise and had managed to lock on before he had a chance to fend her off. Ida squeezed. Talon’s eyes bulged, and he made a thwarted gargling sound.

  “Liar,” she screamed. “Monster.”

  Talon used one hand to try to pull Ida’s hands off his throat and with the other pushed his palm into Ida’s nose. Her nose began to bleed, but she held on.

  I stood frozen, looking on in horror. Nicole rose to protect Ida, blade now firmly in hand. Pascale twisted, gripped Nicole’s wrist, bent it back, and peeled the knife away from her. Given how infirm Pascale had seemed in the last week, I would never have believed she could move like that.

  Talon hit Ida again, ripped her hands from his throat, lifted her off the ground, and slammed her into the wall behind him. Ida made a loud oof sound, air rushing out of her lungs. She slid down the wall to a sitting position, blood still trickling from her nose to her mouth and chin. I moved toward her from one side and Nicole from the other to see if she was okay. Ida used one hand to pinch the bridge of her nose to stop the bleeding and put the other hand up like a stop sign, signaling to us that she was fine. She had a remarkably nonchalant expression on her face.

  Talon held his throat, spit flying from his mouth like sparks. “You fucking, sick bitch.”

  Ida glared at him over the fingers clipping her nose and said, “You have no idea what a sick bitch I am, and you better pray that you never find out.”

  Talon turned to Khila and said, “We’re leaving. Now!” He reached to grab her. He kept one eye on Nicole. Pascale shifted again, keeping herself between Talon and Khila. Nicole stepped in farther, placing herself shoulder to shoulder with Pascale.

  Khila said, “I’m not going with you.” She was on the couch, knees pulled to her chest, arms wrapped around them, tears streaming. “I want to stay with my grandmother.”

  Ida pulled herself to standing and passed me on the way to the bathroom. She indicated again that she was okay, even smiled slightly. Strangling Talon had been satisfying for her.

  I was still with my back to the wall, cell phone in hand.

  Talon said, “Khila, get up.” He was eyeing Pascale as he spoke, sizing her up, trying to figure out if he could just bulldoze through to Khila. Then he eyed Nicole, who did seem to pose the bigger problem for him. He knew that if given a reason, she would kill him and call it self-defense. But that wasn’t enough to deter him. He shouldered through Pascale and Nicole and grabbed hold of Khila’s arm.

  Khila cried out and looked to me now, her face soaked, her gold eyes desperately sad and fearful.

  My heart was racing; I felt as if I had abandoned all reason, but I couldn’t stop myself. I jumped in and grabbed Talon’s wrist. It was like a small tree trunk, thick and round, the edges of my fingers barely making it to the underside of his forearm. On shaking legs and consciously trying to keep my voice from quivering, I looked him in the eye and said, “Khila’s not leaving with you until the police tell us she has to.”

  Ida came back from the bathroom and moved in next to me. Now four of us surrounded Talon, staring him down, providing a barrier for Khila. Talon twisted his wrist to get loose of my grip, which forced him to release Khila’s arm. In the twist, I felt his immense strength, and I knew he could easily have broken through us and taken Khila if he’d wanted to. Instead, he stepped back and eyed me, awa
re, I think, that I was a witness he did not know, and he was uncertain what to make of me or how to behave in front of me. He remained, even in this moment, cautious and scheming.

  To me, he said, “Who the fuck are you?”

  As if it were the opportunity she’d been hoping for, Khila jumped from the couch to behind Pascale, hooked her neck around Pascale’s waist so she was looking Talon in the eye but still had Pascale between them, and declared, “That’s Jenna. She’s Mama’s first love.”

  Talon said, “What?” He took a few steps back and nervously grinned. He turned an eye to me, then to Khila, and then finally to Pascale. “What is she talking about?” To Khila, he said again, “What are you talking about?”

  “Sounds pretty clear to me,” Nicole said, the corners of her lips edging upward.

  “Khila,” I said, “how do you know that?”

  Her momentum from having confronted her father carried over. She put her hands on her narrow hips, pushed her chin forward, and said, “My mama told me.” Khila lifted her face, tears running down it. “She said if anything happened to her, I should ask my grandma to find you. She said you would help me.” Khila glared at her father. “I’m not going with you and Marcella.” To me, she said, “I’ll run away.”

  Talon looked around with a stunned expression, his shoulders caving, his hugeness shrinking—air out of a beach ball. Maybe it was the emergent realization that Khila would not merely go along with his plan; maybe it was how the people in Del’s life were finally fighting for her; maybe he was already beginning to understand killing Del wasn’t going to save him from his powerlessness and despair, after all, but his face cracked in a way that hinted at surrender.

  Talon watched Khila for a moment, his eyes growing larger and more porous—the way a sponge expands as it absorbs water. He fell back into the chair behind him and put his face in his hands. He looked like a little boy now who’d been held at arm’s length, his punches repeatedly coming up short, until he’d punched himself to exhaustion. It had been like hitting air, trying to destroy aspects of Del’s inner life he’d had no access to—her attachment to Khila, to her family, maybe even to the person she’d known herself to be when I knew her.

  I stood staring at Khila, unable to speak. Then my eyes went to Pascale. Pascale had a slight smile on her face. She lifted a brow, nodded, and said, “How’d you think I knew you were a lawyer.” Her smile stretched a bit wider, her gaze fell to the top of Khila’s head, and she said, “You were her idea.”

  My throat tightened, tears began slipping out. “Khila, you sent for me?”

  “I just told my grandma that my mom said she should call you.” Khila tightened her ponytail and jutted her chin. “She wanted to take me to California. There were these people she talked to who were gonna help us get to you.”

  I felt an ache deep in my chest, unreachable by breath, my pulsing heart floating on rapids down a river of sorrow that was our history—and now our destiny. It was a strange combination of buoyancy and sadness, a mixture of pride for Del, for our devotion to each other over time, together with a sense of devastating regret over missed opportunities and moments of failed courage.

  Through the living room window I noticed a police car pulling up—then another, and another. Men in uniforms were quickly at the already-open front door. I prepared to explain, got ready to give my argument as to why Khila should not have to go with her father if she didn’t want to, when a white car pulled up with an official seal on the driver’s side door. It was the medical examiner’s vehicle.

  An officer entered the house and asked for Talon Keller. Talon looked up with an innocent expression and nodded. His expression turned to shock as the officer began saying, “You’re under ar—” He stopped when he noticed Khila.

  Pascale gathered Khila up in her arms and whisked her from the room.

  “You are under arrest for the murder of your wife, Adeline Soto.” Now there were other police officers there, pulling Talon to stand, cuffs out, guiding his arms to behind his back. “You have the right…” The cuffs zipped tight.

  Just then, Dirk Beasley stepped out of the ME’s vehicle. I ran out to greet her, passing Talon on the way. His head was down, his shoulders rounded. He looked small and frightened. He met my eyes and I met his. He seemed confused, as if he felt misunderstood.

  To the ground, he said, “She always does this, makes me look like the bad one. She always comes out smelling like a rose.”

  “Who?”

  Eyes back to mine. “Del.”

  My stomach clamped. I don’t know if it was his pathetic expression or his referring to Del in the present tense, but I was sure that in a bizarre way it was news to him when I said, “Del’s dead, Talon.”

  He scrutinized me, his black, beady eyes scanning my face, taking in this information. He pinched his brows and pressed his lips together, concentrating, working to grasp it, deciphering it, as if communicating with someone who speaks a different language, sifting through the bits and pieces of common understanding to arrive at a shared idea: death. He knew not of it.

  I left to see Beasley.

  Crossing the grass, I asked, “Did Del’s body test positive for cyanide?”

  “I don’t know yet.” She closed her car door. “I came to talk to her family, because I’m recommending a criminal investigation. I got to thinking after you left and decided to have the crime team take one more look aboard the boat. I went with them this time.”

  We took a few steps in the direction of the house.

  “I was struck,” Beasley continued, “by how spotless the boat was. Someone had definitely cleaned up. So I asked the next question: Cleaned up how? And that’s when I noticed the vacuum cleaner standing right there against the wall in the cabin. We checked the bag in our first go over, and it was empty. This time, we took the whole machine apart, and we found a half-smoked cigarette in the brush roll. There were traces of cyanide in the filter, and we’ve got a partial print match on the paper.”

  “Talon’s?”

  She nodded. “Adeline’s DNA on the same cigarette gives us the murder weapon. With the stuff Adeline left in that box, Dr. Mansfield’s analysis, and the cigarette, we’re feeling pretty confident about talking to this gentleman.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Two Weeks Later

  It was two weeks before Beasley officially released Del’s body. I had gone back home and now returned to Miami with Madison to attend the funeral. Much had already changed. Beasley’s tests had detected cyanide, Talon had been charged with murder and was being held without bail, and Khila had been placed with Pascale. The district attorney had agreed to talk with Steve McCulick about Sid. When news got out that the police had a videotape of the murder, the guys who’d actually killed Thomas had begun racing each other to offer State’s evidence against one another and Talon.

  Pascale had given me some of Del’s ashes, and I wanted to take them to Lemon Reef before the public funeral planned for that afternoon. We arranged to meet up on the bay side in the morning. Gail and I had already rented a boat and some diving gear by the time Katie arrived. As she pulled up to the dock, we were surprised to hear the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Scar Tissue” blaring from her open windows.

  “I think we’ve moved into the nineties,” I said.

  Gail laughed.

  Soon after, Ida and Nicole arrived with Khila shouldered between them. Madison and I had visited with Khila the day before when we’d gone by Pascale’s to get the ashes. I’d shown Khila Del’s wooden carvings and told her about each one. As was true for Del, Kurma was Khila’s favorite. But this was the first time I was seeing Nicole or Ida since my last visit. Ida’s bruises from her fight with Talon had healed. She seemed sober and solemn. She said hello to me and then averted her gaze quickly in apparent shame.

  “Hey,” Nicole said, joining me on the boat. Her marble-sized dimples magnified her smile. She hesitated, swayed, punched me in the arm. “How are ya?”

  I laughe
d, happy to see her, too. “I’m fine.” I lifted my chin at Khila. Her expression remained implacable, but she did return the gesture.

  “Where’s Madison?”

  “At Gail’s house. I thought it was just the five of us.”

  “Khila insisted on coming,” Nicole said. “She wants to go to the reef with you.”

  “Do you know how to dive?” I called out to Khila.

  She and Ida were playing cat’s cradle with a piece of string they’d found. Khila turned her attention from the game and stationed her sober eyes on me. After a few seconds, she nodded. Ida and Nicole were nodding, too, and smiling like a pair of proud new parents. I did get the feeling Khila would be the most backed-up person on the planet with these two beside her.

  “Oh yeah!” Nicole said. “I can vouch for that. Del taught her. She’s good at it. Even has her own gear.” Nicole gestured to the small tank and the mesh bag she and Ida had brought with them.

  “How is she doing?” I asked more quietly.

  “I’m not a shrink,” Nicole said irritably. She handed me Khila’s stuff to secure. Then, “I don’t know,” she conceded. “She doesn’t talk very much. We’re thinking maybe we’ll get her a therapist or something. God knows, if we raise her, she’s gonna need one.”

  “Good.” My response, a mere nod, was nonchalant, but I knew what a huge concession that was for this family who never asked outsiders for help.

  Then Nicole said quickly, as if to get it over with, “I’m going to one, too. A therapist.” She faced away. “I started this rehabilitation program—for crazy felons. It helps us get jobs and mental-health services.” Now she was looking at me again, seeking approval. I smiled, trying not to show too much enthusiasm in fear it would raise the stakes for her. “I was wondering”—Nicole moved foot to foot nervously—“if you’d write me a recommendation. I need a letter from someone who doesn’t have a record for this training program. It’s to be a welder.”

  Of course I will.