He smiled and raised his glass to me. “I can do that.”
“I have one more favor to ask, too.”
“What is that?”
“I liked working with you, Quentin. Wednesday morning I’m supposed to tow a forty-three-foot sailboat for an out-of-state owner. Boat’s name is Wild Matilda. I’m just taking it upriver for the annual haul-out. My usual crew guy can’t make it. He’s taking a class. Do you think you could give me a hand?”
“No problem.”
I told him where and when to meet me. Quentin then finished off the last of his drink and said good night. Watching him head for the door, I caught Neville Pinder staring at me from the other side of the room. When our eyes met, he nodded at me, and then turned back to the thirty-something woman with eye-popping cleavage who had cozied up to him at the bar. She sat on a stool, her brown legs crossed and her elbows resting on the bar behind her. He leaned in and whispered something in her ear, and when she laughed, her whole torso bounced.
Did he have it in him to kill? Being a jerk and a loudmouth doesn’t necessarily mean you have what it takes to bash a man’s skull in. And why? Why did Nestor have to die? I thought about my conversation with Neville in Key West and remembered his words about Nestor disrespecting him. Would that have been enough? I didn’t think so. No, this was about the money. It was about the Power Play and all the other yachts with competent captains that had grounded recently. It was about a three-hundred-dollar tow becoming a half-million-dollar salvage job.
I was trying to decide whether or not I wanted to eat when I saw Ben walk in. I waved when he looked my way, and he joined me at the bar.
“Did you see Quentin out there?” I asked him.
“No, was he here?”
“Yeah, he just left. He was at the symposium, too.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, he’s got some job leads. So, first lunch, now dinner. Have you spent the whole day around here?”
“No, I had to run some errands this afternoon, but I decided to come back here—in the hope I might find you here. Have you eaten?”
“No, but I was thinking of heading home.”
He put his hand on the back of my neck, and I was certain my face flushed as I thought of B.J.’s hands and where they had been a few hours earlier.
“Stay,” Ben said. “Have another drink with me. I’ll buy you dinner. I’m heading back to Key West in the morning.”
The way he smiled, I was certain Ben thought he had been responsible for the sudden rise in my body temperature—and in a way, he was right. Not for the first time, I wondered what was wrong with me. Why was it that I couldn’t just settle down with B.J., get married, and feel the same things I assumed other women felt? Why was it that I could be so crazy about B.J. and yet still be attracted to other men?
I hiked my bag up onto my shoulder and said, “I really ought to go.”
Pete walked by on the other side of the bar, and Ben pointed to my beer bottle and shouted, “We’ll have another couple of these.” Pete nodded, delivered the two drinks in his hands, and before I knew it I had another bottle of beer in front of me.
“Ben, I’m going to make this fast. All of a sudden, I just don’t feel like being here anymore.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Him,” I said, indicating Pinder and knowing that it was really only half the truth. I felt I needed to leave before I got myself in trouble.
“Why? What did he do?”
“Quentin just told me the story behind the meeting we had this afternoon. There was some yacht, NautiBoy, and Ocean Towing took a simple tow where there was no peril to anybody involved—just a little grounding on a sandbar—and made it a salvage claim. It seems to me that Neville Pinder represents everything I’m coming to dislike about this business.”
“Tell me about it.”
I shook my head, watching Pinder. “Look at him. You know what he makes me think of?”
“No.”
“The wreckers. You know? The old Key West wreckers.”
“Like my great-great-grandpa.”
“Sort of. Not necessarily him—your relative, I mean— but guys like him. There were so many of them for a while there. Guys who didn’t know what else to do with their lives were flooding into Key West from all over the country after the Civil War, come to make their fortunes. Sound familiar?”
“You mean like the salvage business here today?”
“Yup. You ever hear about what happened down there when the government started putting up the lights on the reefs and the number of ships started declining, when they put the transcontinental railroad through, and ships began to have engines?”
He smiled as though he knew the story well, but he rested his chin in his palm and focused all his attention on me. “Tell me.”
“It was the pressure of the marketplace. All of a sudden, there were too many wreckers and not enough ships wrecking on the reefs. There’s no real proof that it happened, but the legends say that some enterprising individuals came up with a plan to make wrecks—which back then meant paying off the captains or messing with the lights. What I keep asking myself is what would a modern-day wrecker do to—”
A glass crashed to the floor and a woman’s voice rose above the noise of the crowd. “You goddamn son of a bitch. Buying me one drink does not give you the right to put your filthy fucking hands there.”
The woman who had been laughing with Pinder was now screaming and making a scene. The way she slurred her words made it clear she’d had too much to drink. Pinder was just smiling at her, making no attempt to apologize. One of the waitresses ushered the screamer out the door, and Pinder moved down to join the other captains at the far end of the bar.
“Ben, that’s it. I’m out of here. Have a good trip back to Key West.”
He wrapped his hand around my wrist. “Please, Seychelle, stay. We have so much to talk about.”
I looked at his hand then lifted my eyes to his face. I didn’t like myself much in that moment. I was really tempted to push B.J. out of my mind and stay. Stay all night. And if I didn’t? Then once again, I hadn’t been playing fair with Ben. In a way, I’d been using him when I felt that B.J. was ignoring me. “Ben, no. I just want to go home.”
He released my arm. “Okay. I’ll walk you to your car.” He reached for his wallet and threw some bills on the bar. Then with his hand on the small of my back, he steered me toward the door. Once outside, he draped his arm around my shoulders. We walked to the parking lot in silence. At my Jeep, he slid his fingers under my chin and pressed his lips against mine.
I pushed away, startled. “Ben, no. I’m involved with somebody else.”
“You said you didn’t really call him your boyfriend. I was under the impression it was a sort of open relationship.”
For just a moment, I wondered if that was what B.J. thought, too, when he was studying cheek-to-cheek with Molly.
“No, Ben, I’d have to say we’re pretty monogamous.”
I looked at him as he stepped back away from the Jeep. He didn’t take those eyes off me. I knew then that Molly had been right about Ben and me. About how he’d felt back when we were kids. There was more to this than just tonight.
XIX
The last thing I needed at that point was a balky vehicle. Through the plastic side window, I saw him standing in the yellow-orange glow of the street lamp, his hands buried deep in his pockets. Under my breath I whispered to the statue on the dash, “Jesus, don’t fail me now,” not really expecting anyone to be listening, but covering all my bases just the same. I turned the key one more time and finally Lightnin’s engine roared to life. Dark smoke pouring from my exhaust pipe, I pulled out of the parking lot spewing water and gravel out of the puddles that had accumulated with the late rain.
I felt the tension ease out of my body the more distance I put between the Downtowner and myself. At Andrews and Sixth, I caught the red and my Jeep sputtered into stillness.
Shit.
> The red light reflected on the slick wet pavement, turning the entire intersection crimson. I glanced up at the rearview mirror. Mine was the only vehicle within sight. What was I expecting? That he would come charging after me? Not his style. He was better than that. I just hated myself for causing Ben Baker any more pain than he had already experienced in his life. He hadn’t had it easy as a kid—not by a long shot—and here I was putting him through more crap.
I turned the key again, and the engine ground but would not catch. The light changed the pavement to a sea of green and I turned the key again. On my third try, just as the light turned yellow, the engine caught. I roared on through as the light turned red.
I had one more stop this evening, and since it was getting late, I drove over the Davie Bridge a little faster than I should have on the rain-slicked streets. When I tried to brake at the bottom of the incline, my brakes felt soft and mushy. Old Lightnin’, my trusty Jeep, must be feeling her thirty years of age tonight, I thought as I stomped on the pedal to make the turn into Shady Banks. I noticed in the rearview mirror that the car behind me, the only one I’d seen on the road since leaving the Downtowner, did not turn into Shady Banks, and I relaxed a little more.
Luckily, lights were still on when I pulled up in front of the Sparks’ house. I knocked on the door lightly, hoping not to wake Sarah, but trying to raise someone inside. After a couple of minutes, Catalina opened the door.
“Thank God,” she whispered as she opened the door wider to let me in. She threw her arms around my neck.
I peeled her arms off me. “What’s wrong?”
She held her finger to her lips and made a shushing noise.
She showed me down the hall into her small bedroom and closed the door behind us. “Mrs. Sparks is sleeping.”
“Where’s Arlen?”
“I do not know. He left after we returned from the market and I have not seen him since.” She motioned for me to sit on the small twin bed. “He was here,” she said.
“Who?”
“The man who killed my husband.”
“What?”
“Look. There.” She pointed to the box we’d retrieved from the Dean Lopez Funeral Home – the white cardboard box that contained Nestor’s ashes. It was resting on top of the dresser; hanging off the front was a Saint Christopher’s medal on a silver chain.
“What am I supposed to see?”
“The medal. When I left to go shopping with Mr. Sparks, it was not there. I have not seen that medal since the day I kissed my husband good-bye. I come home today and it is there, just as you see. Someone was here, in this room.”
“No, Cat, that’s crazy,” I said, but I was picturing the tightly made bed in my own bedroom. “There’s got to be another explanation.”
“It was not Mr. Sparks—he was with me. Nor she— she cannot walk. And it was no ghost. It was flesh and blood.”
“Catalina, what the hell is going on?”
“I tried to telephone you but I got no answer. I think he is warning me. Telling me to be quiet.”
“Cat, I’m sorry. I thought you’d be safe here.” I hadn’t noticed before how much she had changed in the past week. Her face looked less rounded, more gaunt, and her big brown eyes had hollows beneath them. “Are you okay?”
“I am fine, Seychelle. I will not leave this house. I like her very much. And she needs me. I will not be frightened away.”
“One thing at a time. What about your doctor? When do you go next?”
“I canceled the appointment. I have a little money we saved to get an apartment, but it will not be enough to pay the hospital. We thought we would have insurance for the baby through Nestor’s job.”
“You have to see the doctor. You’ve been through tremendous stress.”
“But I am very healthy.”
“You’re a nurse. You know what can happen.” I also knew—too well. “Don’t worry about the money. The baby and you come first. We’ll figure out a way to pay.”
She opened her mouth as though to argue again, but then closed it. After several seconds she said, “You are right. Thank you. I will do this for her.” She rubbed her hand over the top of her belly. Then she reached out to me. “Give me your hand.”
I reached out. If I had known what she intended to do, I never would have done it, never would have let her take my hand. I would have changed the subject, rushed to the bathroom, done just about anything to avoid it.
She placed my hand palm-down on the side of her belly. “There. Can you feel it?”
Something small and sharp pushed into the center of my palm.
“I think it is her elbow,” Cat said.
It pushed again, this time at the base of my fingers. The muscles of my throat tightened and my eyes blurred. I saw the tiny arms, hands, fingers. The closed eyelids, the petite mouth. The bluish gray skin. It was so long ago, but once loose, the memory was bright with detail. I pulled back my hand as though her belly was charged with electric current and I’d just been shocked.
“It is frightening, yes? I feel the same. It is a real person inside me.”
It took me a few seconds to calm my breathing, to shake off the mental pictures. “I’m certain you’ll be a great mother,” I said and I thought, unlike me.
“Thank you. It will not be easy to do this alone. I never imagined I would not have my husband for help.”
For a moment, neither of us spoke. I worked at pushing back the unwelcome images. I had come here for a reason.
“Catalina, there is something else. I went to see Ted Berger today.”
A twitch pulled at her mouth. “What did you learn?”
“I don’t think he had anything to do with it, Cat. It’s not him.”
She stood and walked the short distance across the room and stared at the white box on the dresser. “But I have to be certain.”
“I’m not saying I don’t believe that something or someone killed Nestor. I just don’t think Berger had anything to do with it.” I went ahead and told her all of it, from the photos that the young man had shown to Ben and me to Berger’s story about his Danish lady friend. She paced the room as I talked.
“And you believed him,” she said, settling into the small wicker chair next to the bed.
“Cat, it’s too easy to disprove. I don’t think he would have made the whole story up.”
“With him, anything is possible. There is something I have never told anyone. But perhaps you will understand if I explain. When Nestor first went to interview, I went with him. Mr. Berger had invited us both to lunch in his offices. We sat at a conference table and a gentleman served us. At the end of the meal, when he agreed to hire Nestor, he sent my husband to another floor for papers. While Nestor was gone and I was still in Mr. Berger’s office, he touched me.”
“What do you mean?” I asked the question even though I was pretty sure I knew.
She picked up a scarf off the arm of the chair and began twisting the fabric as she spoke. “He said things to me. Said I was the reason he was hiring Nestor—because I was so beautiful. Then he came over and tried to kiss me. He put his hand under my blouse and touched my breast.” Her face screwed up in a grimace of disgust. “His hand squeezed my arm so hard it left a bruise. I was struggling, pushing him away, when he heard Nestor coming and stepped back. My husband walked in looking so happy to have the job of his dreams, and I could not say anything. I felt dirty and ashamed.” She looked up from the mangled scarf and tears streaked down her face. “Every time he comes near me, he touches me, and it makes me feel so filthy. If I was the reason—do you see? I have to know.”
I remembered that morning in the restaurant in Key West. Berger had leaned down and kissed her on the cheek and it had been obvious that the gesture was unwelcome. “So that day, with Jeremy on the boat. Berger had been in your cabin?”
She nodded without raising her head.
“Did he do anything to you?”
Lifting her head she said, “No, he is not intere
sted in me now.” She held her hands on either side of her belly. “He was there to tell me that later, after the baby is born, if I need money, he will pay. He treated me like a whore and he enjoyed it.”
“I’m sorry, Catalina. You should have told me.”
She nodded at the white box, the medal, and the chain. “He would do something like this. He takes pleasure in others’ pain.”
“I’ll see if I can find this Danish woman. I’ll check out his story. But you know, even if it does turn out that Berger had something to do with this, that would mean it was him—not you. You can’t take this on yourself. You’re not in any way to blame for what happened to Nestor.” I stood up, preparing to go, and she looked up at me with those huge dark eyes sunk so deep into her face.
“You will find out for me, yes?”
I took her hand and squeezed it. “Yes, I promise.”
I turned the key a third time and listened to the Jeep’s engine struggling to catch. I clicked the key off and sat in the front seat feeling the street’s quiet settling around me. I didn’t need this just now. I stared at the silhouette of the Jesus statue on the dash. In daylight, the thing was bleached nearly white, but now, on this unlit street, only the black outline was visible against the white hood. Time had changed the look of it. In fact, most people who rode in my Jeep no longer recognized what it was. But me, I still saw the familiar features that time had long since worn away.
Come on, Lightnin’, you can do it. When I gave it one more try, she coughed to life. Fearing she was going to stall again, I revved up the engine and let out the clutch, making my tires squeal on the pavement as I took off.
Fortunately, at this time of night Davie Boulevard had little traffic and I nursed the Jeep down the deserted street, coughing and sputtering all the way. I kept my eyes on the few cars around me, watching for a tail; while in the rearview I could see the smoke coming out of my exhaust, the streets were almost empty.
It wasn’t until I’d crossed into Rio Vista, my neighborhood, that I saw a pair of headlights in my rearview mirror. Because I expected the engine to stall, I slowly coasted through the stop signs, fearing what would happen if I came to a halt. The lights behind me did likewise, keeping a distance between us of just over a hundred feet.
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