by Sam Cheever
The water was mud brown and still, dotted with tall, knobby stumps that Cal was busily working to avoid. They were rounded at the tops and usually found in clusters. “Those don’t look like any tree stumps I’ve ever seen before.”
“Swamp cypress knees,” he told me. The root of a swamp cypress grows straight down into the bayou, as long as the tree is tall. But since they’re underwater most of the time, they sprout these knees, which are really outgrowths of the roots, so they can catch air.”
“Hmm, who knew?”
Cal’s gaze slid in my direction. I noted the soft crinkling in the corners of his eyes. The sun glinting off the water was blinding.
“You should have gotten sunglasses,” I told him.
I’d dug sunglasses out of my gator purse and slathered sunscreen over my exposed parts. It was one of many perks in carrying around a large bag. I always had room for emergency supplies.
“Don’t like ’em. Never have.”
Alrighty then. I lay back and trailed my fingers for a couple more minutes.
Cal shifted a little on his bench and jerked his chin upward. “You might want to pull your hand in.”
I glanced where he was looking and gave a little squeal as the inspiration for my new purse slithered by not more than five feet from the boat. The gator had to be ten feet long. “Holy spumoni!”
When I looked at Cal, he was grinning. “You should see your face.” He laughed, and something warm spread in my belly. “Ha. Smart guy.” But I grinned back, happy that the stick in his fine posterior seemed to have softened a bit. “How much farther is it?”
A light breeze wafted a sewage-like scent over the water and I coughed, covering my nose with my hand. “Never mind. Obviously, we’re close.”
“You might want to break out that stuff Miles gave us.”
I was way ahead of him. I had my purse open and was pulling the little plastic jar out. “So, you never told me what you and Miles talked about.”
“While you were shopping?”
I handed him the jar, arching an eyebrow at his grin. “It was a cool store. Sue me.”
He laughed, shaking his head. I couldn’t help noticing how the intense Alabama sun painted his coal-black hair with blue highlights. He had the most beautiful, thick black hair, which waved a little on top and curled just over his ears.
“…boat. He said the guy always paid cash.”
I shook myself out of my daydream and sat up straighter. “Wait…Miles sold Bubba a boat?”
Cal cut the power on the motor. “Among other things, yes.”
“What kinds of things?”
“Things you wouldn’t use in a ramshackle cabin on a stinky fishing island.” He jerked his chin toward something behind me.
I turned and saw a series of small, broken down buildings dotting the island we were slowly approaching.
The boat lurched gently forward. Cal was using a long pole to maneuver it around several clusters of the tree knees.
“Sheets, blankets, cookware. He bought some DVDs.”
My eyes widened. “No electricity out here,” I offered unnecessarily.
“Nope.”
“Then, this is a wasted trip.”
“Not necessarily. This is where the body was found. Miles told me exactly where it was. I’d like to examine the spot.”
I nodded. “’Kay.”
“Miles said Bubba was seen on Stink Island several times by a local alligator hunter named Borne, so they knew he hung out here.”
I looked out over the muddy water, wondering where I’d heard the name Borne before. Then I remembered. “The woman who made my purse is named Borne. I wonder if there’s a connection.”
“In a town as small as Bent? There has to be. I’ll ask Miles about it when we get back.”
A movement on the bank drew my eye. I watched in horror as a huge gator slithered off the sandy-looking soil into the water. “Um, did you bring any kind of weapon?”
“Just my wits.”
I frowned. “Nothin’ against your wits but—”
“There!” He pointed to a spot where the water swelled inward in a small cove. A large cypress tree arched out over the water, its lower branches tangling in a clump of knees. “There’s no boat. I wonder who took it,” Cal mused aloud.
He poled our boat toward shore and ran the front end onto the tall grass covering the ground along the water. “You wait here until I make sure nothing’s lurking up there.”
“What if there is? You gonna charm it to death?” I really didn’t want to plunge into that tall grass without knowing what was in it, but I was surprised to discover I didn’t want him to either.
Cal reached down by his feet, pulling a long, curved blade with a wooden handle out from under his bench. “Miles suggested I bring this scythe. He said the island gets a little wooly this time of year.”
I watched him step from the boat and start the process of forging a path through the grass. It didn’t take long for me to forget to be worried about him and instead find myself focusing on the delightful play of muscles under his shirt as he swung the scythe.
The scenery, which was already incredible despite the wooliness, had just gotten a heck of a lot better.
6
We found Bubba’s camp about a hundred yards from the water. A merry coil of snakes was living under his blanket. Luckily Cal found that little gem instead of me! And the wind and rain had all but battered the ramshackle collection of sticks and cardboard to the ground.
Bubba’s food stores consisted of badly opened cans of tuna fish and soup, and a plastic container of something that might have been bread before nature started making penicillin out of it.
Using two fingers to minimize exposure to the nasty yuckies, I plucked a soggy magazine off the crate Bubba had apparently been using as a table. A naked woman wearing only a Santa hat fell out of the mag and spread herself toward the ground. “Ugh!” I dropped the porn mag, centerfold and all, to the sandy ground. “He lives in a box propped up by sticks, but he spends money on porn?”
Cal shifted a filthy pair of jeans aside with his boot. “And your point would be?”
“Right.” For a moment there, I’d been thinking like a woman. All rational and stuff. “Nothing here but a lot of dirt, germs, and things that require eye bleach.”
Cal picked up the jeans and searched the pockets, coming up with a stick of gum and an inexpensive bottle opener. “That’s not exactly true.” He picked through the fire pit just outside Bubba’s tumble-down hut with a long stick.
Something flashed golden from the depths of the ashes.
“What was that?” I crouched down beside him, grabbing my own stick. We dug around in the ashes until we saw it. A gold coin, covered in soot but still whole.
Cal pulled it out of the ash, rubbing it clean with his thumb. He frowned.
“Why would he try to burn a coin?” I had a sinking feeling that my father’s mind had been fractured in his final days.
Shoving aside the charred logs, Cal dug into the dirt beneath the fire with his stick and turned up more coins. “He wasn’t trying to burn them. He hid them underneath. Pretty smart, actually.”
Okay, that made me feel better. I straightened, tears suddenly flooding my eyes as I looked around. It was such a sad, stinky place to die. Cal gathered the coins and stood, holding them out to me.
I took them, sniffling. “Thanks.”
He looked uncomfortable for a moment and then reached out and squeezed my arm. “I don’t think I’ve told you, Felicity. I’m really sorry about your dad.”
The tears that had been building behind my lids spilled out and I gave a soft sob, covering my mouth in an attempt to hold back the tsunami of emotions building in my breast. Cal stepped closer and I collapsed against him, sobbing. He held me for a long moment, until I could get myself under control, and then, clearing his throat, stepped away. “We should get back.”
I nodded, digging in my purse for a tissue. I started to fo
llow him, my gaze still focused on the inside of my purse, and my foot hit something in the tall grass, sending it clattering into a rock. I looked down and saw a plain plastic bottle with a lid. I picked it up. “I wonder what was in this.”
Cal plucked another bottle from the grass and, frowning, another one. He held the bottle to his nose and grimaced. “It definitely wasn’t cold syrup.”
Straightening, Cal held the bottle out for me to sniff. The acrid scent of strong booze stung my nostrils. “Ew. What is that?”
“If I’m not mistaken it’s moonshine.” Cal looked around, finding several more bottles buried in the tall grass. “And it looks like your…” He glanced at me, two lines of worry burrowing down between his midnight brows. “Bubba was buying a lot of it. Which means we need to find out who in Bent is selling the stuff. If we’re really lucky, they might be able to tell us how he spent his last hours.”
Apparently, the local hunter Miles had told Cal about was Lena Borne’s brother, and he lived with her. Miles gave us directions to Lena’s place south of Bent about a mile. I thought we were lost for a while. The narrow, winding roads leading us from Bent to the Borne cabin were more dirt than gravel and made me feel like we’d strayed off into the wilderness and were driving in maddening circles.
Only one thing kept me from saying something to Cal as he struggled to make sense of Miles’ directions, the winding brown ribbon of the bayou with its twisted skirt of Spanish-moss-draped cypress was never far away.
Homes on stilts dotted the wildly beautiful landscape, some pretty and grand, and others looking as if they’d melted into the rough setting and become one with it. When we finally pulled into a rutted mud driveway in front of Lena Borne’s place, I realized she lived in one of the latter.
A rough-sided wood cabin with a rusted tin roof crouched on the shore of the muddy water, surrounded by a thick tangle of cypress that all but obscured the tiny cabin from the road in a silvery frill of Spanish moss.
When Cal knocked on the door, I looked around the yard to make sure we didn’t have any spiky-backed, long-jawed visitors.
Something slithered along a branch of the bald cypress that overhung the cabin, but I didn’t see any gators lurking in the scrub grass near the house.
Heavy footsteps sounded from inside the home. The windowless, interior door swung inward, leaving only a flimsy screen door between us and the biggest man I’d ever seen. He peered down at us with one eye, the other hidden behind a black patch like a pirate’s.
“Lena’s at the shop.” The man’s voice was breathy, the tone located somewhere in the midrange. Much higher than I would have expected for a man. Especially one who could look Sasquatch right in the eye. But he spoke in a very cultured way, which was also at odds with the wife-beater and jeans covering his tall, meaty form.
“Lyle Borne?” Cal asked.
Borne narrowed his one good eye and twitched the toothpick between his lips. “And whom might you be?”
“I’m Cal Amity and this is Miss Chance.” He paused as if waiting for a reaction to the names. When he didn’t get one, he went on. “Miles over at the Bayou Bodega gave us your name. We’re looking into the disappearance of Miss Chance’s father.”
Lyle’s one good eye skimmed my way and assessed me from head to toe, darkening with interest.
I threw up a little in my mouth.
“He’s not here,” Lyle informed us, closing the door in our faces.
Cal and I shared a surprised glance. “What now?” I asked.
Another door slammed at the back of the house.
“Now we go talk to him out back,” Cal responded.
Lyle Borne was limping toward a rickety-looking dock hanging over the water when we rounded the corner.
“Mr. Borne…”
The big man stopped and turned. I gasped as I took in his left calf. It was misshapen and scarred. He glanced down and chuckled. “That was just a baby. About four feet long. I surprised him from a nap.” He spoke of the maiming of his person as if it were a fond memory. A lovely trip down memory lane.
Borne reached inside the neckline of his wife-beater and pulled out a string bearing several long, curved objects. He tapped one of the smaller ones. “This is all that’s left of the little jerk. Well, this and a few pairs of boots.” He tittered like a high school girl at a slumber party.
Cal showed my father’s picture to Borne. “Have you seen this man before?”
Borne tucked his decorative kill record back under his shirt and took the picture from Cal. He stared at it for a minute and then handed it over. “I ran into him on Stink Island a month or so ago. He was sitting on a blanket next to a raging fire. Though it was hotter than heck that day. And he was drinking some of Irene’s moonshine.”
Cal and I shared a look before I skimmed a questioning look toward Borne. “From a plain plastic bottle?”
Borne glanced at me. “Yes.”
“We found several empty bottles around his camp on Stink Island.”
Borne nodded.
“Did you talk to him?” I asked Lyle hopefully.
His face softened a bit at the hopeful sound in my voice. “No. He liked to keep to himself. Folks around town started calling him Bubba. I guess they thought the name was ironic. You know, because he was so stand-offish. About the furthest thing from a brother there could be.” Borne mused over the thought as if it intrigued him and then shrugged. “Anyway. I’m off to do some fishing. You folks know the way out.”
But Cal didn’t seem to hear the dismissal. He was walking toward the dock, where two aluminum boats bounced gently against the thick wooden posts. One boat had a motor, and one didn’t.
He walked to the end of the short pier and crouched down, examining the back of the boat without the motor.
“Hey. What are you doin’?” Borne asked. He limped quickly toward Cal.
Cal stood up, his expression stony. “Where did you get this boat?”
“That’s none of your business,” Borne growled.
Cal nodded. “Technically, that’s correct. However, if I call the sheriff and tell him you have possession of a boat with the hull identification number of a murder victim’s missing boat, it’s gonna be everybody’s business real quick.”
I was impressed. My PI could be pretty ruthless. For the first time, I realized he was much more than a pretty face. But just in case, I looked around for a rock or something to beat Borne senseless with when he went after Cal.
Amazingly, the big man deflated at Cal’s tone. When he spoke, his voice had gained a pleading note. “Look, he didn’t need it anymore. He was dead. I thought I’d sell it on eBay and make a little money to help Lena pay the bills.”
“You saw the body, and you didn’t tell anybody?” Cal asked.
Borne grimaced, shrugging. “When you say it like that it sounds so bad. He was just a homeless guy. I figured the bayou would take care of him the way the bayou does. No harm, no foul.”
That was it. Something clicked inside me, and I stalked over, poking my finger into Lyle Borne’s fleshy chest. “No harm, no foul? Are you flippin’ kidding me? That homeless person was my father, you dimwitted jerk. He had people who loved him…who were worried about him. You had no right…” My voice broke, and I had to stop. I covered my mouth with a trembling hand and turned away. “I’ll be in the car, Cal.” I didn’t look back. Didn’t hear the rest of the conversation between the two men. There was an angry roaring sound in my brain, and heat burned my cheeks.
I was mad. So incredibly mad. Madder than I’d ever been.
My cell phone rang, and I thought about ignoring it. Especially since I didn’t recognize the number showing on the display.
I reached the Jeep and realized I was too mad to sit down, so I started to pace. Eventually, my cell stopped ringing. I paced back and forth between the house and the car. Back and forth. Back and forth.
Raised male voices pulled me out of my angry thoughts. I considered Cal, wondering if he was safe.
My cell rang again. I swore, hitting Reply. “What is it?”
Silence pulsed for a beat and then. “Felicity?”
I blinked. Stars burst before my eyes and my legs turned to water. I dropped to the bottom step leading up to Lena Borne’s porch. “Daddy?”
“Honey, you need to leave Bent. Get as far away from here as you can. It’s not safe here.”
“But I—”
“Just leave, Felly. Don’t argue. Take your PI and go. And don’t try to find me again.”
7
“Are you sure it was him?” Cal asked, his handsome face filled with concern.
I stared numbly through the windshield, dazed. “I’m sure. I recognized his voice. And he called me Felly. He’s called me that since I was eight. Nobody else has ever called me that.” Except, once in a while, my cousin Joey. But it definitely hadn’t been her on the phone.
Cal’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. “I’m pleased for your sake that he’s alive.” He glanced my way. “But it sounds like he’s in trouble.”
I nodded. “Yeah. I guess that’s why he ran away to South bum-truck. He must be running from someone.”
“That would explain why he created a body double.”
I frowned. “Huh?”
“Bubba. Obviously, your father was paying him in gold and sending him into town to manage his business for him.”
“Oh. Yeah. That makes sense.” I thought about it for a while. That would explain the wildly divergent descriptions we’d been getting about Bubba. “So all we need to do is figure out which activities were Bubba’s and which were my father’s.”
“Unfortunately, that’s not all we have to do. We also need to figure out who killed Bubba.”
“Right.” The knot in my stomach that had loosened a bit when I’d heard my father’s voice tightened again. “We need to find my dad.”
“I agree. But first, I think we should talk to the sheriff. Maybe he has some ideas who killed Bubba.”
I pulled a loose piece of string from my beaded alligator purse. “It looks to me like Lyle Borne killed him.”