Defiled

by Mike Nemeth

  Ready for her, I sat on the bridge from which I could see the front rank of cars in the parking lot. Santana’s “Put Your Lights On,” an eerie song that drips with suspenseful and portentous rhythms, blasted through the speaker system. Sweat dripped from my brow. The coffee turned cold and bitter. Dock noises annoyed me. The salt air smelled putrid. Minutes became hours. If Carrie didn’t come to the boat today, the game was lost; I had no more aces to play. By noon, I had lost my edge and the heat had sapped my energy. Rather than waste the day, I decided to cruise to the cove and anchor there for the night. Perhaps Glenda could drive to Fort De Soto Park and join me for some afternoon delight. The big diesels were warming up when my phone dinged. Connie’s text message read: Carrie is on the way to the boat. On cue, my adrenal glands pumped energy into my flagging system.

  I hustled down the dock to the parking lot and found a spot on a park bench that gave me a good view of arriving cars. If Carrie came alone, I’d meet her at the boat. If she was escorted, I’d walk away from the boat, up to Beach Road, and sit in a bar until they gave up on me.

  Fifteen minutes later, Connie’s blue sedan pulled into the lot and stopped near the street where I wouldn’t have seen it had I been on the boat. Carrie emerged and walked across the lot as Connie drove away. Carrie didn’t plan to disembark my boat at the marina. The good news was that her only help would arrive by water.

  Carrie was “dressed to kill” in high-heeled sandals and a beach cover-up that flapped open as she strutted, revealing a red bikini. It was an outfit designed to titillate, à la the Susan George character, so that I would be distracted and welcome her onboard.

  As she wound her way between cars, I loped down the dock and up the staircase to the aft cabin. I leaned out the side window, puffing on a cigar as she walked down the dock.

  When she reached our slip, she constructed a disarming smile and said, “Can I join you?”

  “Have we put the little problem with the Jag behind us?”

  “Connie said you’ll buy me a Bentley. Convertible, right?” She sounded like a little kid asking Santa for presents.

  I shrugged. “You’re not upset about the psychiatric exam?”

  She shrugged. “They didn’t find anything wrong with me.”

  That wasn’t entirely true. Pointing to the soft fabric bag slung over her shoulder, I said, “Planning to spend the night?”

  She gave me a coquettish smile. “I brought something comfortable to wear later.”

  A cold tremor, like an arctic earthquake, shook my body. I would have bet the Ferrari that the cloth bag contained conservative clothes so she wouldn’t look like a temptress when the cops came.

  “So you came to make a deal?”

  Carrie didn’t hide her frustration. Her charms were usually more than enough reason for men to let her have her way. In the exasperated voice all wives know how to use, she said, “My lawyer won’t do a damn thing for me, and she makes me ask for things I don’t care about so she can brag about the great job she’s doing. We can do better without the lawyers.”

  “I agree, but I have one condition: I want to know the truth about what went on in our marriage. Call it closure.” It depressed me to say that.

  “Then we need to have an adult conversation right now, to clear the air. You can ask me anything you want and I’ll tell you the truth, if you think you can handle it.”

  I didn’t want to hear a confession calculated to blame me for her indiscretions. I didn’t want to hear the grisly details of her affairs. I didn’t want to stare at her half-clothed body as she described what other men had done to her. I didn’t even want to hear the truth. I wanted her to lie, to deny her infidelity, so I could catch her in the lie and punish her for it.

  Pretending to be convinced by her argument, I acquiesced. “Come on up.”

  Relieved, she stepped onto the stern platform and headed up the built-in staircase to the aft cabin entryway. She walked straight to a deck chair, placed the cloth bag gently on the wicker couch, and flopped into the seat. “The engines are running. Were you expecting someone else?”

  “I was on my way to the cove down by Fort De Soto. Going to spend the night.”

  A faraway look came into Carrie’s eyes as her mental wheels spun. “You could get me a drink before we shove off.”

  I went down to the galley and mixed her a rum and Coke. When I returned to the aft cabin, she looked tense, her legs tightly crossed.

  I said, “If you’re ready to go, we can shove off.”

  “Aren’t you going to have a drink with me?”

  “I’ll get a beer when we’re ready to talk.”

  I went down to the dock and released the mooring lines. As I reentered the aft cabin, Carrie emerged from belowdecks with consternation on her face.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. I used the head.”

  Looking for her stuff. I climbed onto the bridge. She followed and took a seat in the co-captain’s chair. As we eased out of the berth, into the channel, and through the mouth of the harbor, she said, “I miss this. Let’s go out in the Gulf and ride up along the beaches like we used to do. Then we can go to our spot offshore and wait for the lights to come on in Clearwater.”

  I remembered what Connie had said: If she wants you to go out into the Gulf, up to Clearwater, you’ll know she didn’t come to give you hugs and kisses. I neither agreed nor disagreed. We sat in silence, the breeze in our faces, as I sailed southward through the Bay toward the Sunshine Skyway Bridge. Carrie sat motionless, sipping her drink, appearing to enjoy the wind in her face. It was like a pet rattlesnake was coiled on my living room floor. It seemed passive but could strike at any moment. As we approached the massive bridge, I carefully maneuvered away from the shipping channels crowded with container ships and tankers, all in a line like airplanes landing at a busy airport. I swiveled in my chair to scan the water behind us. There were no Boston Whalers following us.

  When I turned back around, she made a toasting gesture with her glass. We drank, and more at ease, she said, “Can I have my diary back? You can keep the yellow diamonds. I’d have preferred sapphires to match my eyes, but you were never good at selecting presents for me.”

  You ungrateful slut! You don’t even know why I gave you the present. I said, “The cops searched the boat and didn’t find anything of yours.”

  Her sneer became a snarl. “The cops couldn’t find their ass with two hands and a flashlight. Before I leave the boat, I want all my stuff back.”

  “And I want my gun.”

  She smirked. “I don’t have your gun.”

  “You broke in once to steal the financial records and the sex tape, and you broke in a second time to steal my gun, so don’t act like you’re innocent.”

  A faraway look came into her eyes. If she had been strapped to an MRI machine, her brain activity would have looked like a Google map tracking Manhattan taxi traffic. Hundreds of thoughts were leaping from synapse to synapse.

  She said, “I took the financial records with me when I moved out of the beach house. I had forgotten about the tape, only found it because my lawyer made me go through the records. I thought I could use it to twist your arm, but you outmaneuvered me.” She made another toasting motion with her glass.

  Liar. You tripped the alarm. As we motored westward, under the Pinellas Bayway and toward open water, I said, “I know you’ve been reading the emails I send to my lawyer. You had Scott Simmons put an email snooper on my computer.”

  She laughed an unladylike guffaw. “Scott wouldn’t pee on me if I was on fire. He hates me for stealing his daddy away from his mommy.”

  “It’s a crime to tap email, shadylady44. Did you know that?”

  For just an instant, a thundercloud passed behind her eyes but the weather cleared quickly. She said, “You have me confused with someone else. If you want the truth about us, get to it.”

  I shrugged. “Did you do it for the money?”

  “The divorce?”
>
  “The marriage.”

  “No, not only. My family was broke, so I needed someone to support us, but I was also attracted to you. You were handsome, classy, a professional man with good prospects, as they say. We made an attractive couple. I got what I wanted, and so did you—you got a trophy wife. Now we want other things.”

  “I would have kept my end of the bargain, but you cheated on me.”

  She wasn’t surprised by the allegation. “It’s not cheating if you’re in love. Lots of men saw how unhappy I was and wanted to comfort me, but I only let the man I love have me.”

  I believed her. Carrie judged her self-worth by the reflection she saw in the eyes of others; her entire life was like a selfie posted online, hoping someone would give her a “like.” Those other men were used to build her self-esteem but not to sleep in her bed.

  “MD?”

  She snickered. “So you have read my diary. I wasn’t smart enough to wait for his divorce the first time, but this time I insisted. When you stopped caring about me, he came back into my life and I needed that.”

  Came back into her life. I’ll be damned. Dr. Richard Puralto, MD, is the other man.

  “So you did cheat.”

  “You can call it cheating if it makes you feel better, but I don’t. I only did what you forced me to do.” Men cheat for sex; women cheat for emotional comfort.

  Carrie sat primly, exuding self-righteousness—a woman as innocent as a golddigging cheater could be because her sins were the natural byproducts of a modern marriage.

  “Where is WW?”

  She laughed and swept her hand from horizon to horizon. “Right here on your White Whale.”

  Of course! That was her derogatory nickname for the Wahine II. “Are you going to make a life with this guy? Is that why you want to take me to the cleaners?”

  “We won’t get married anytime soon. For a relationship to work, a woman should be financially independent. That’s where you come in.”

  You insulting bitch! We reached the go/no-go point, and instead of turning northward to run past the beaches, I turned the boat to the south, toward Mullet Key and the private cove. As soon as I made the turn, she knew what I had done.

  “Where are you going? I want to go up to Clearwater.”

  “The cove is a better place to talk. There are big rollers out in the Gulf, so the cove is safer.”

  Her voice rising with irritation, she said, “I thought this ride was for me.”

  “I told you I was going to the cove, and you asked if you could come along. Why are you getting testy?”

  “Well, shame on me for thinking you might do something I want to do.” Carrie gritted her teeth and growled. “I’m going to get another drink.” She picked up her cell phone and her bag and went belowdecks, but she neglected to take her half-full drink glass with her.

  For several minutes, I cruised slowly southward and wondered if she’d emerge from the cabin with guns blazing. I considered locking her in the cabin, but it was too soon for that.

  When Carrie returned, I had my hand under the dashboard, close to my gun. She wasn’t carrying a drink and she wasn’t holding a gun either, so I relaxed. She seemed calm as she came to the bridge to collect her drink. Then she took a seat in the aft cabin. I guessed she had given her daddy new instructions about our destination.

  I said, “Come back up here so we can talk as we’re cruising.”

  “I can talk from down here. I want the Bentley you promised me.”

  Getting right to it. “Sure. What will you give me in return?”

  “Why do I have to give something up?”

  “Because it’s a negotiation. You have to give in order to get. You always had trouble with that principle.”

  “Connie said you agreed to the car and the house.”

  I shrugged. “The house is no problem. You can buy it from me.”

  Shouting now, she said, “I don’t have credit, and you know it!”

  Still calm, I said, “You don’t need credit, you have stock options. Give me back forty thousand options, and you can have the house and everything in it.”

  She stood up and stomped her foot. “Forty thousand! You think I’m stupid?” She gesticulated with her glass, and her rum and Coke sloshed over the rim and onto the deck. “The wife always gets the house. My lawyer said so.”

  “Let’s go to trial and see if she’s right.”

  She wore a nasty smirk as she said, “There will never be a trial.”

  “That’s right.” I snapped my fingers like I had just thought of something. “You’ll be in the looney bin after the shrinks read your diary.”

  “I’m not crazy!” She whirled around and grabbed a candy-striped cushion off the wicker sofa and threw it across the cabin. It ricocheted off the wet bar, bounced end over end, and dove through the entranceway and into the ocean.

  “You’ve kidnapped me,” she said. “I’m going to scream for help if we pass a boat.”

  “Go stand up in the bow showing your ass. It’s what you’re good at. I’ll stop for the first boat full of horny rednecks so you can have some real fun.”

  Carrie moved toward the steps to the bridge and gesticulated with her long-nailed hands. “All I’ve ever been to you is a sex toy.”

  “That’s all you’ve ever wanted to be, for me and everyone else.”

  “Must be nice to think you’re Mr. Clean, but I know you cheated with Glenda, and Connie told me how you tried to get her into bed. I’m surprised she didn’t let you; she’s tried to steal every boyfriend since Chance Dickson in high school.”

  “Look who’s rewriting history. I know you stole Chance from Connie. She told me all about it.”

  That unladylike guffaw erupted again, this time with a touch of hysteria. “My sister is delusional. I made him take her to the prom so she wouldn’t be a wallflower, and she tried to get him to do her. He brought her home early and took me to all the after-parties. Travis was conceived that night, in Chance’s car.”

  Later I would take the time to process this conflicting information, but right now all I wanted to do was hurt her. “You always seal the deal with sex. Only way you ever get a man.”

  “You son of a bitch!” She threw her drink at me, and it bounced off the windscreen, showering the instrument panel with ice and a sticky liquid. As she stepped over to the wet bar to grab a liquor bottle by its neck, I pulled my cell phone from my pocket and put it on video record. I aimed it at her as she cocked her arm to throw the bottle at me.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” I said. “It won’t look good to the shrinks.”

  She slammed the bottle back into its rack. Smiling for the camera, she said, “I’m going below to change clothes. I’m not comfortable with a rapist leering at me.”

  “Too late. I’ve got your costume on tape,” I said, but she was gone down the hatch to the cabin. To change into the modest clothes she wanted to have spattered with my blood.

  I grabbed the Beretta, racked the slide, and placed it within easy reach. Then I cut the engines back to idle and sprinted down the steps to the cabin hatch. I peeked inside but couldn’t see Carrie. Guessing this would be my last chance to neutralize her, I swiftly pulled the hatch closed, flipped the hasp across the eyelet, and slipped the padlock into place. With more than a little trepidation, I slammed the padlock shut and officially committed a kidnapping.

  Trembling uncontrollably, I moved back to the bridge and inched the throttles forward. That’s when I picked up the radio microphone, dialed in the emergency frequency, and broadcast a Mayday: “Being attacked by armed men.” I gave as my positional coordinates the latitude and longitude of the private cove. As I cruised, I picked a rag from beneath the instrument panel and wiped down the gauges and controls.

  Carrie attempted to open the hatch and come topside but found it locked. She pounded on the cabin hatch repeatedly and shouted profanities. It reminded me of the time she had trapped a scorpion on the kitchen floor by placing a la
rge water glass over it. When I tried to dispose of it, I found the scorpion relentlessly striking the side of the glass in a vain effort to escape. It was an impressive display of blind anger, and that is the display Carrie now made—blind anger at being locked belowdecks. I advanced the throttles as far as I dared given the traffic on the Intracoastal Waterway. At eleven knots, it would take me another ten to fifteen minutes to reach the cove. Traveling at blue water speeds from his marina near Clearwater, Harlan would be close behind, but marine cops patrolling the Fort De Soto area should beat both of us to the cove.

  The insistent ringing of a phone broke my concentration. It wasn’t my phone in my pocket and it didn’t sound muffled, as though it were coming from belowdecks. I looked around the bridge and then walked down into the aft cabin. In her agitated state, Carrie had failed to take her phone with her below. It lay on an end table and was vibrating and jumping around like a tarantula ready to strike. I saw that the caller was Travis, probably wanting to confirm the rendezvous location and time. When I answered the phone, the kid nearly choked.

  “Is my mom there?”

  “Oh yeah, but she’s busy doing what she does best … you know what I mean?”

  “It’s not a joke, Randle. I need to be sure she’s alright, so have her call me.”

  “I’m not joking, Travis. I’ll have her call you as soon as she’s done.”

  I punched the “end” button and chuckled. Since Carrie had failed to take her phone with her, she wouldn’t be broadcasting any Maydays of her own.

  As I neared the cove, I slowed to a snail’s pace, eased through the mouth of the cove, and reversed the engines to halt the boat’s momentum. I wanted to be certain I wasn’t sailing into an ambush. No other boats were in the cove, so I turned to the right, into the cove’s open water, and spun the boat around so I could back up to the dock. When I was about ten yards away from it, I threw the throttles into neutral and went down to the bow to lower the anchor. When it touched bottom I gave it ten more yards of chain, then locked the anchor chain so no more slack could play out. Back in the bridge, I put the boat into reverse and gave it some power until the anchor set and the boat was caught up short. The stern platform was less than three feet from the dock. When the police got there, they could just walk out onto the dock and step onto the boat.