Nila's Babies

by Jac Simensen

  “Hah! She can see again,” Hattie cackled.

  Myra pulled Maggie’s green dress down over her new tattoo, then turned toward the hallway.

  “Now for the children. Hurry!”

  The twins were both awake and sitting upright on the floor of the playpen. As Hattie approached, Julie started to wail. Myra reached down and picked up Janna, who immediately joined Julie in her loud cries.

  “The needle,” Myra hissed, her hand outstretched.

  The rusty spring on the kitchen screen door squealed and then the door slammed.

  “I’m Deputy Williams,” the pudgy, uniformed blonde said with a smile as she entered the living room. “Thanks for helping, I can take over now—I have little ones of my own.”

  10

  “She’s quite fortunate. If the puncture were half an inch lower, the blade would have entered her liver. That would have been serious. Scans show no internal damage. What sort of sharp instrument was it?”

  “Scissors,” said Gordon.

  The doctor scowled. “Nasty.”

  “Nasty’s the right word.”

  “She’s your wife?”

  Gordon shook his head. “She’s our nanny—she takes care of my baby daughters.”

  “I see; that explains it. She was in shock when they brought her in and kept asking for her babies, over and over.”

  Gordon felt the muscles in his throat constrict and tears sting his eyes. “There was an intruder in the house, and Nila protected the girls. They’re fine—nothing happened to them. Can I see her?”

  “She’s had a transfusion—she lost a fair amount of blood. Other than that, and the hole in her side that we’ve stitched up, she should be fine. We need to keep her overnight—possibly even for two nights. With puncture wounds, there’s heightened risk of infection. Also, I want to be sure that there are no lasting effects of the shock. She’s sleeping, so it would be best if you waited until morning to see her. Come after breakfast; she should be alert by then.”

  “Can I just stick my head in the door? It’s been a crazy day. I’d feel a whole lot better if I could just see her breathing.”

  “Sure, I’ll walk with you to the nurses’ station and ask someone to escort you to her room. Don’t wake her. You’ll be able to talk with her in the morning.”

  Gordon nodded. “I understand. Thanks.”

  The doctor opened the door to the surgical consulting room. Sheriff’s Deputy McGill and another uniformed policeman rose from their chairs, which were just outside the room.

  Deputy McGill motioned toward the consulting room. “Is Miss Rawlings going to be okay, Mr. Hale?”

  Gordon smiled. “Yes, Deputy. Thanks to you, she’s going to be okay.”

  The deputy returned Gordon’s smile. “That’s good news. Mr. Hale, this is Detective Lieutenant Tildon from the County Sheriff’s Department. He’ll be handling the investigation.”

  Detective Tildon offered his hand and Gordon shook it. “Mr. Hale, I know you’ve had a traumatic day. Do you think you could answer a few questions while events are still fresh in your mind? I promise—no more than twenty minutes. Then Deputy McGill will drive you home.”

  “My girls?”

  “Deputy Williams is with them, Mr. Hale—she has children of her own. I just spoke with her, and she said that your girls have had their dinner and are sleeping. Would you like me to call her again, so that you can speak with her yourself?”

  Gordon shook his head. “I don’t think that’ll be necessary.”

  The doctor looked at his watch. “If you gentlemen will excuse me—Mr. Hale, I’ll leave instructions at the nurses’ station for someone to take you to see Miss Rawlings when you’re ready.” He pointed to the consulting room. “Officers, you can use this room for your interview.”

  Gordon shook the doctor’s hand. “Thanks, Dr. Cooper.”

  Detective Tildon took a seat behind the small desk, and Gordon and Deputy McGill sat on the wicker chairs in front of the desk. The detective took a small digital recorder from a leather case. “Mr. Hale, I’d like to record this conversation. Tomorrow we’ll ask you to sign a transcript. Is this okay with you?”

  Gordon nodded. “Sure.”

  “Mr. Hale, you’re the owner of the house where the incident took place?”

  “Yes. I inherited the house from my mother. It’s been in my family since it was built.”

  The detective asked Gordon a number of background questions and then came to the purpose of the conversation. “Mr. Hale, is this your permanent residence?”

  “No. My permanent home is in Concord, Massachusetts.” Gordon went on to describe the circumstances of Karen’s illness and death and his time at the beach house with Nila and the children.

  “Your nanny, Miss Rawlings, is British?”

  Gordon told them the details of Nila’s time in America and of her visa status.

  “Do you have access to her passport?”

  “She showed me her visa when I first hired her. I’m sure she keeps her passport in her room.”

  “Do you think you could find it for us when the deputy takes you home?”

  “I guess I could, but I’d rather not. Can’t it wait until Nila returns to the house?”

  “The sooner we can establish positive identity, the better.”

  Gordon nodded. “Let me think about it. I don’t like the idea of rooting through her things.”

  “How well did you know Margaret Cartwright?”

  “She’s dead, I take it?”

  Lieutenant Tildon nodded. “Right.”

  Gordon told the story of his DUI, the Castle Key exile, the torrid summer romance with Maggie, and the unwanted letters and phone calls that followed.

  “So, you haven’t seen Miss Cartwright since you were nineteen?”

  “That’s right—not once. As I told you, we had a summer fling, nothing more than that—at least as far as I was concerned.”

  Gordon put his hands on his knees and leaned forward. “I have a question for you: What in the hell was Maggie doing in my house with a gun in her hand?”

  Tildon took off his glasses and began to wipe them with a tissue he had pulled from a box on the desk.

  “Looking for money, Mr. Hale—money and anything valuable. Miss Cartwright was seriously addicted to heroin. Seems that she hadn’t had a fix in some time and was getting desperate. Looks like she came here to loot her parents’ house but got chased off by the security system. We’re getting information from Florida Highway Patrol that she may have killed a liquor store clerk up near the Georgia state line four days ago and got away with a few hundred dollars and the Chevy that’s in your driveway. Seems like she holed up somewhere upstate for a few weeks before driving to Castle Key...There are arrest warrants out for her in New Orleans as well.”

  Gordon grimaced. “Good God.”

  “We’re just starting to piece the story together. Deputy McGill will tell you all we know when he drives you home. Heroin turns people into animals, Mr. Hale, animals. Just before she came to see you, she tried to rob Mrs. Stickles, who runs the bedand-breakfast over by the Castle Hill Inn. Miss Cartwright had been staying there overnight. Mrs. Stickles is a tough old bird; she pushed the fire alarm rather than cough up her cash. Miss Cartwright ran out the door with a gun in her hand. That’s when Deputy McGill spotted her. After he called in the plate number, we knew that we had a stolen car and probably an armed felon to contend with. The deputy followed her to your house and was waiting across the road for backup to surround the place when you pulled into your driveway. I think you know the rest.”

  Gordon shook his head. “Not in my wildest dreams,” he mumbled to himself.

  “Mr. Hale, I have just a few more questions and then Deputy McGill will take you home. Is that okay?”

  Gordon nodded.

  “It’s important to the outcome of this investigation that you answer as clearly as possible. Do you understand?”

  Gordon nodded again. “Yes, I do.”
<
br />   “Can you tell me what happened when you pulled into your driveway this afternoon? What time was it?”

  Gordon sat up straight in the chair. “About 3, or 3:15. The first thing I saw was the old Chevy. I didn’t think anything of it—I assumed that someone had come to the wrong address, or gotten the beach house confused with the big house. Since we share a common driveway, it happens every once in a while. I parked the Buick next to the other car and entered the house through the back kitchen door—no one ever uses the front door.”

  “Did you see anyone?”

  “No. I put the mail and the packages I was carrying on the kitchen table. About ten or fifteen seconds after I entered the house, Deputy McGill came to the screen door. He put his finger up to his mouth, and I could see he had his gun drawn. Just as the deputy entered, there was a lot of noise coming from the nursery. The hall that leads from the kitchen to the nursery is about thirty feet long—I was standing in the kitchen, at the end of the hall.”

  Lieutenant Tildon interrupted. “Where was Deputy McGill?” he asked.

  “He had entered the kitchen and was standing behind and to the right of me, looking down the hall toward the nursery.”

  “You’re sure about that?”

  Gordon nodded. “Positive.”

  “And then?”

  “A woman in a green dress staggered out of the nursery. She had her back to us—I don’t think she saw us in the kitchen.”

  “Why do you say she didn’t see you?”

  “As I said, she had her back to us and her focus seemed to be the nursery. She grabbed something from the hall table just outside the nursery door. When she turned toward the nursery, I could see that it was a gun.”

  “Where was she pointing the weapon?”

  “Into the nursery.”

  “The nursery and not the kitchen?”

  Gordon nodded.

  “Mr. Hale, could you please answer audibly for the recorder?”

  “She was pointing the gun into the nursery.”

  “And then what happened?”

  “Deputy McGill shouted for her to drop the gun.”

  “What exactly did he say?”

  “He said, ‘Police, drop it! Drop the gun!’”

  “You’re positive that’s what he said?”

  “Positive.”

  “Did Miss Cartwright drop the gun?”

  “No. She turned and pointed her gun down the hall at us—the deputy and me.”

  “And then?”

  “She fired her gun. Maggie fired at us.”

  “There’s no doubt in your mind that Miss Cartwright fired her weapon first?”

  “No doubt at all; Maggie fired first. The deputy returned her fire. He hit her in the throat and she fell to the ground. For a few seconds, I just stood there while Deputy McGill pushed past me and kicked the gun away from Maggie’s body.”

  Tildon turned off the recorder. “Thank you, Mr. Hale. I’m sorry we had to trouble you. Deputy McGill will take you home when you’re ready.”

  Gordon let out a deep sigh. “Thank God the deputy saw her getting into the Chevy.”

  ~*~

  Gordon stood a few feet from Nila’s bed, looking down at her. The sheets were pulled up to her neck and only her head was visible. Her long brown hair cascaded over the side of the pillow and her complexion was pale—probably, he thought, from the blood loss. Her full lips were turned upward in what seemed to be the beginning of a smile. A tear ran down Gordon’s cheek, then another, and he began to sob. The nurse moved into the room, gave him a few tissues from the bedside table, and gently steered Gordon into the hall. “Mr. Hale, would you like to find a place to sit down?”

  Gordon continued to sob and slowly shook his head from side to side. “We almost lost her—I almost lost her.”

  11

  “You was real lucky we got to the druggy bitch’s body ’fore the cops took her away—real lucky. It’d be a real pain in the ass keepin’ you pumped up long enough to prepare another girl. You sure she’s still under your control?”

  Myra sighed. “She bears my mark. I marked her before we put her in rehab. She’s mine, alive or dead.”

  Hattie shook her head. “I’m not so sure about that. Why’d she go to the little house, ’stead a comin’ here to you?”

  “I’d forgotten that Maggie had a sexual relationship with the Hale boy. About ten years ago when the contractors were putting a new roof on this old house, I’d come here in the summer without you to check on the construction. I saw her with him—she was magnificent! The next winter, his mother told me about the casual sex between the two of them and I decided that I needed Maggie. She was beautiful and sensual and very reckless—just what I wanted. That’s when Clarisse started tracking her.”

  “So, you think she was comin’ to you?”

  “I’m sure she was being drawn to me, but the power of her sexual memories took her on a temporary detour next door. Our Maggie is an erotically driven girl. That’s one reason I choose her—it’s time to put some fun back in life.”

  Hattie frowned. “What they think about you takin’ on the druggy bitch?”

  “It’s none of their business—and none of yours, either, you stupid girl. I told you to stop calling her a druggy, you hear?”

  Hattie didn’t like the emotional buildup in Myra’s voice and changed the direction of the conversation. “When is she comin’? This would be lots easier if she was still alive.”

  “I worried they might take the body over to the mainland, so I made her leave the place where they took her and go hide in the mangroves until tomorrow night. She’ll come here tomorrow night. You be ready; you hear me?”

  “You sure you be strong enough to do it all at once?”

  “I’ll be ready—you just get everything organized. I’ll be ready.”

  ~*~

  The twins were fast asleep, and Deputy Williams was on her way home. While Gordon and Nila were at the hospital, the police had photographed and documented the gruesome scene in the hall and the medical examiner had removed Maggie’s body. Mrs. Kavlosky would clean up the blood and gore in the morning. The nursery carpet would need to be replaced.

  It didn’t take Gordon long to locate Nila’s passport. It was in the first drawer he opened—the top drawer of the cherry dresser in the guest room. Next to the passport, he noticed what seemed to be several hundred dollars in cash rolled up in a rubber band. Beneath the passport, he discovered an unfinished letter addressed to Nila’s sister in London. It was the sort of airmail, onionskin-paper mailer where you wrote your message on the inside of the envelope and then folded the whole thing back up into a featherweight package.

  Back in the kitchen, Gordon handed the passport to Deputy McGill, who promised to return it the next day, and then left.

  Gordon looked at the stack of mail on the kitchen table. It was as if it were still afternoon and he had just come home from the post office. He opened the bottle of Chablis that he’d bought to drink with the stone crab, poured out a generous glass, and then dumped the remainder of the bottle into the sink. The wall clock in the study softly chimed twelve. Gordon smiled. The clock was one of the few possessions that Karen had shipped from their Concord house.

  Gordon sat at the kitchen table and, out of habit, twirled the wine glass in his right hand. He mechanically sorted through the pile of mail; there was nothing of interest. The mind-bending emotions of the day had helped Gordon finalize the answers to two of the three questions that had obsessed him for weeks.

  He and the twins weren’t going back to Concord. They were going to stay in Florida. Although he couldn’t rationally explain the decision to himself, he knew they belonged here—the three of them. They weren’t going to live in the beach house, either. He would build or buy a bigger family home somewhere in the area, but probably not on Castle Key. Uncle Duncan was in full agreement with Gordon’s proposal to establish a branch of their law firm in southwest Florida. Gordon’s specialization in property
law was an ideal fit with the Suncoast housing boom. The firm had already assisted one Boston developer with a Florida project and had developed contacts with law firms in Charlotte and Sarasota counties. There was the inconvenience of taking the Florida bar exam, but it was only an inconvenience.

  Gordon had decided that he wanted Nila to be his wife. He had explored every dimension of this decision with the painstaking thoroughness of a legally trained mind. He was sure that Nila wasn’t a replacement for Karen. Gordon had loved Karen; he still loved Karen. Karen was his physical, spiritual, and intellectual partner. Their minds had continually parried together. They read books together and analyzed the characters and their motivations. She read passages aloud from the Victorian romance novels that were her academic specialty. Karen could sense Gordon’s every need and see through the surface of his moods. He could do the same for her. He experienced maximum sexual fulfillment watching Karen’s face as he guided her to orgasm, while—with her words as well as her touch—she would drive him to the peak of sexual excitement before they came together in an explosive climax. Yes, Gordon was sure that Nila wasn’t a substitute for Karen. He didn’t need a replacement; he would carry Karen in his memory and in his heart until he died. He also knew that his heart was young and that much love remained—love that needed to be shared.

  Nila was most unlike Karen. Where Karen was a curvy, effervescent pixie with milk-white skin, jet-black hair, and green eyes, Nila was quiet, soft-spoken, and slim, with brown hair, amber eyes, and honey-brown skin. He knew that his decision to remain in Florida and his decision to ask Nila to be his wife were intimately tied. Karen was the perfect life partner in New England. Improving the decoration of their eighteenth-century colonial home, skiing on winter holidays, hosting family gatherings and parties for friends and business associates, and juggling the demands of both an academic career and a suburban household. Nila would be a life partner for the warmth, sunshine, and casual informality of the Gulf Coast. Her languid movement was a tropical ballet and her bright laughter was the sound of warm water rushing over an island waterfall. To be in Nila’s presence was to find pleasure in the small details of living—bathing the babies, peeling vegetables, or sketching on the beach. She performed each task with grace.