But the elderly man in the first house knew. Turned out that Tomlinson had guessed correctly.
Hannah Smith Darroux was not the sun-wizened fishwife that I imagined she would be. She was like nothing I could have imagined—my imagination is not that fanciful. When Tomlinson knocked at the screen door, the floor of the porch on which we were standing began to vibrate with the weight of approaching fdotsteps; a steady, authoritative thud. I expected a man to answer. Instead, the door swung open and a woman confronted us, asking, "Help you?"
Tomlinson didn't speak for a moment, and then he said, "Huh?" as if he'd been dozing.
The woman said, "Huh what? Do I know you men?"
"We're . . . looking for Hannah Darroux."
"Pretty close, but what you found is Hannah Smith. What's your business?"
Tomlinson cleared his throat; he seemed to be having trouble speaking, but he was probably reacting to a kind of sensory overload. He had been as unprepared as I for the woman who stood in the doorway. Hannah Smith Darroux was well over six feet tall—probably six two, six three. Balanced on long crane legs, she had a busty, countrified body: big hands, shoulders, and bony bare feet. I guessed she would weigh 155, maybe 160. She wore jeans and a blue denim work shirt with the tail knotted and bloused loosely above skinny adolescent hips. I guessed her to be in her mid-twenties, maybe a shade older. Her hair was Navajo-black, the whole heavy gloss of it combed over onto her right shoulder as if she didn't want to be bothered with it. She wore no makeup, no jewelry of any kind—not even a wedding ring. The result was a kind of unconscious stylishness. She had wide, full lips, deep sun lines at the corners of her brows, good cheekbones, a squarish quarterback's jaw, and dark perceptive eyes that looked from Tomlinson to me, then back to Tomlinson, taking us in, assessing us, then dismissing us as unimportant. I saw no telltale redness in those eyes. The widow Darroux hadn't done much crying.
"I know this hasn't been the best of days, Mrs. Smith, but I'd like to speak with you. For just a few minutes."
"If I had a few minutes, I'd throw you in my dryer and close the door. You're drippin' all over my porch."
"Oh . . . well, see, I had a little. . . encounter down at the fish house—" Tomlinson was backing down the steps, trying to wring more water from his shirt.
"Arlis Futch throw you in, or just have one of his boys do it?"
"Actually, I sort of fell—"
"Men that fall off docks ought to live in the mountains. If you're sellin' something, I suggest you try Denver. Wet the porches there."
"Seriously, I'm not selling anything, Mrs. Smith—"
"I should say you're not. Question is, why are you bothering me?"
Tomlinson opened his mouth as if to speak, then stopped to collect himself. By continually anticipating what he was going to say, then interrupting to reply to it, the woman was not only keeping Tomlinson off balance, she also was establishing a weird dominance that had even me wishing he would finally say something that would interest her.
After a second or two, he chose the direct approach. "I'm here because your late husband asked me to come. My friend pulled him out of the water this morning; I was at the hospital with him when he died. My name's Tomlinson, his name's Ford."
Which threw her off her rhythm. Caused her to narrow her focus, partly out of suspicion, I sensed. "Jimmy told you to come here?"
"Sit down, I'll tell you everything."
"Before he died, right? Not something crazy, like talking from the hereafter? You seem that kind to me."
"I am! You've got a good eye for people, Mrs. Smith. You want to give transsphere communications a try, we can discuss the possibilities later. For now, though, the only thing he ever said to me was while he was still alive. His last words."
"But the cops told me, this Lieutenant somebody, that Jimmy never regained consciousness. Now you're saying he spoke to you?"
"The police haven't interviewed me yet. I'll tell them, but I'd rather tell you first."
"I see." She pressed a long index finger to her lower lip, a reflective pose. "You could be cops just tryin' to trick me into something. The county cops or the A.T.F.—they already took up half my day. And me with mortuary arrangements, a million things to do. You try to trick me, I reckon my attorney would have to nail you to the wall. Or you could be reporters, same thing. They were nosing around here earlier."
I found it impressive that she differentiated between the sheriff's department and the federal Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms officers.
Tomlinson said, "We're not cops and we're not reporters. Civilians, that's us. Just concerned human beings. I'm telling you the truth."
"Jimmy told you something before he died."
"He spoke to me. Yes."
"What about your friend?" She turned and gave me her full attention for the first time. For a moment, just a moment, I thought I saw her react: a mild flash of recognition, as if she had seen me before, so was scanning the memory files, searching for confirmation.
I said, "A few words. Not much."
She was still staring at me, pondering, when from inside the house came a man's voice: "Anything wrong, Hannah?" Looking through the doorway, I could see a man walking toward us through what appeared to be a sparsely furnished living room. He wore a desert-gray safari-style shirt and matching shorts; a big man in his mid-thirties who took his appearance seriously; the contemporary backpacker and kayaker look— which seemed out of place on Sulphur Wells. He wasn't quite as tall as Hannah, but he had the tight muscularity that I associate with collegiate sports—soccer, lacrosse, tennis, that sort of thing. He had to poke his head over the woman's shoulder to speak to us. "Can we help you fellows?"
"They're here to talk to me, Raymond, not you. You stop by tomorrow, we'll finish our business. 'Bout four or five, before I go to work."
"Do you know these men?"
She gave him a warning look. "Tomorrow, Raymond."
Raymond reached around and placed his hand on the woman's arm, a territorial gesture. "Hannah's had a terrible shock today, fellas, so I think it would be best if—"
That quick, the woman had Raymond by the elbow and was hustling him past us down the steps, off the porch, and into the shell driveway where some kind of utility vehicle sat in the shadows, a Ford Explorer maybe. Heard her say, "Damn it, Raymond, if I want a guardian I'll have you fill out an application. Not that you'd be high on the list. You want to talk business, come tomorrow. You don't, that's fine too."
Raymond mumbled something, mumbled something else, then started his car.
Striding back to the porch, Hannah said to Tomlinson, "You get those clothes off. Yeah—right where you stand. Nobody comes down that road much, but I'll turn off the porch light if you're modest. You"—she was speaking to me—"take your muddy shoes off and get inside out of the mosquitoes while I find your friend a towel and some of Jimmy's dry things. . . ." She was still staring at me. "What did you say your name was?"
I told her . . . and watched her expression soften slightly. "I know who you are; I've seen you. At the Conservation Board meeting at Tallahassee. You were 'bout the only one that had anything good to say about us commercial people."
Which wasn't true, but Hannah Smith had the politician's knack of making people eager to please.
I said, "I told them what I believed, that's all."
"But you had a good way about you. You talked soft. All those facts and numbers—but not too many. People listened. When you got done, -I thought maybe, just maybe, we had a chance."
"I'm surprised I didn't notice you."
"Oh, I was in an' out of the room, carryin' papers, makin' sure our men were where they were supposed to be. Tryin' to organize fishermen is like trying to organize a bunch of snakes. I had my hands full. I was there— one of the green hats. I just blended in."