Loretta exchanged her tissue for the TV remote and swung her face toward the television. “Don’t begrudge a dead woman a bunch of old fishing tackle you never used in the first place.”
“That’s not an answer,” I countered. “Besides, more than just a reel is missing. Where are the framed photos of Great-grandma and Aunt Sarah? There was a mesh gauge for weaving nets that was over a hundred years old. And a bill of sale for cattle from the Confederate Army signed by-”
“Which is why it belongs in a museum, not your Uncle Jake’s Army trunk!” Loretta interrupted. Then snapped, “Pinky’s dead-go to her house and steal the junk back, if you want it so bad. She’s not around anymore to stop you!”
I had suspected a connection between our missing antiques and the drawing of a museum on the pamphlet, so what I’d just heard wasn’t shocking news. What bothered me was the look of secret triumph fixed on Loretta’s face. There had to be a reason. Had she intentionally steered me to the subject of Teddy Roosevelt’s fishing reel to avoid admitting something far more serious? Yes, I decided. It explained why she’d appeared surprised when I declared she had nothing to feel guilty about.
“There’s something you’re not telling me, Loretta,” I said.
“Next, you’ll be accusing me of a crime,” she responded, “or of sleeping with a married man-as if you’ve got room to talk.”
Now I was very suspicious. Never before had she tried to bait me by alluding to a love affair she had kept secret for years-but that’s what she was now attempting.
I knelt by the recliner again and asked for the third time, “Tell you the truth about what, Loretta? You were afraid I found something when I was at Mrs. Helms’s house. What are you hiding from me?”
Right away, from the sad, sincere look my mother gave me, I knew what came next was a lie or another small truth meant to throw me off the track. “It’s about that membership form you found at Pinky’s,” she said, meaning the Fisherfolk pamphlet. “I think you’ll be proud when I explain about our family history’s being preserved. But, Hannah darlin’? You’re the one who never used Teddy Roosevelt’s fishing reel or the rest of that junk, so please don’t get mad when I do.”
FUMING ONCE AGAIN, I let the porch door bang close and was almost to the dock when I noticed that Levi Thurloe was across the street, standing in the mangroves, watching me. Not hiding, exactly… Or maybe the strange man was hiding because he backed deeper into the bushes as I approached the road. Never in my life had Levi frightened me, but he did now-a silent presence dressed in coveralls who looked huge in the shadows and was holding something, a tool or a broken branch, in his hand.
I had to make a decision. If I crossed the road, as I’d intended, the path to the dock would take me within a few yards of Levi. Turn right, the road curved along the bay toward the marina and the row of rickety docks and cottages we called Munchkinville. Because of what Loretta had just told me, I had a reason to go there. I wanted to knock on every door and ask owners if they, too, had donated some of their property, or even all of it, to a nonprofit organization that was collecting for a museum that, for all Loretta knew, existed only in the mind of some architect she’s never met. Even if Joel Ransler hadn’t offered me the job, it was a task I would have undertaken because that’s exactly what my mother had done-signed over some of her property, how much I was still uncertain.
“It’ll save me taxes!” was the only explanation she would offer.
I thought for a moment, then turned right to avoid Levi but took only a few strides before my spineless behavior angered me enough to reconsider. No one, especially a poor, brain-damaged man I’d known since childhood, was going to scare me away from my own boat. So I did an about-face and crossed the road, calling, “Come out of those bushes, Levi, before mosquitoes eat you alive!”
Instead of doing it, though, the man crouched lower as if unconvinced I could see him. It was a strange reaction even for Walkin’ Levi, which should have stopped me in my tracks but only made me more determined. “You come out of there and talk to me or I’ll come in and get you!”
Several slow steps the man took, his weight crunching branches, before he appeared in the shadows next to a buttonwood tree. A hammer-that’s what he was holding in his right hand.
“I don’t know nothing,” he mumbled, responding to a question I hadn’t asked. Then lifted his head enough to look at me, which was unusual and didn’t last long but enough to notice that his eyes appeared as glazed and cold as glass. His earbuds were still missing, too, so maybe the absence of music had left the man alone in his head. Or had his expression always been so empty? He avoided eye contact, so I couldn’t be sure, but I had an uneasy feeling that something inside Levi Thurloe had changed.
The boldness in me vanished. “I’m… sorry, Levi, I shouldn’t have raised my voice like that.”
The man’s chin dropped to his chest. He looked at his muddy boots, looked at the hammer, then picked a leaf off his coveralls, which he rolled between his fingers.
Now what should I do? Leave him alone, a voice in me said. Keep moving and pretend this never happened. But we were here, only a few yards apart, and there could be no avoiding a handyman who worked next door. So I pushed ahead, saying, “Loretta told me you used the truck to deliver a box to Mrs. Helms. That she asked you to do it and you had permission. I shouldn’t have doubted you the other day. You forgive me?”
A shrug was my reply. Levi began tapping the hammer against his thigh-hopefully because he was eager for me to be gone and not because he was agitated. What I wanted to ask was Why were you so frightened on Pay Day Road? but couldn’t summon the courage. So I kept my tone chatty and stuck to a subject that had to be addressed. “I’m sure you took great care of the truck, no need to discuss that. But the thing is, Levi-”
He sensed a rebuke, and the man’s nostrils widened to gather air, which caused me to pause, before I continued, “The thing about using the truck is, you probably shouldn’t drive unless you have a license. See… my mother’s not as fussy as some when it comes to breaking the law or going to jail. But if the police pulled you over, and if they checked your-”
I stopped talking because, for the second time in my life, Walkin’ Levi risked eye contact, and what I saw scared me. The police-my choice of subjects could not have been more thoughtless. It was the source of the problem between us. Because of me, Levi had been questioned by Billy, the tough detective, and he was still mad. I had no idea why anger had motivated him to spy on me from the mangroves, but now was not the time to discuss the police or even to hint that Levi might be arrested.
I took a step back and fumbled to change the subject. “On the other hand, the worst thing for an old truck is not to be used-so let’s just forget it… okay?”
Was it my imagination or were Walkin’ Levi’s knuckles whitening as he gripped the hammer tighter? The man didn’t respond, so I asked, “How’s your new job going? You probably heard the news about Mrs. Candor’s little dog.”
That, at least, got a response. Levi’s big head swiveled toward the oaks at the top of the mound behind the cement house. “Yeah… she hunts at night,” he said, meaning the great horned owl, not Alice Candor, I felt certain, which would have made no sense. Then his head swiveled back, dodging eye contact, and offered me further reassurance by repeating what he’d told me in the truck, “But you’re nice.”