Anything was better than standing near that awful machine-or so I believed until I was told how the man with the gray beard, Harris Spooner, had disposed of his late wife.
18
Mica led me behind tires and through more wreckage that screened us from graybeard’s view. In the far corner of the property was a metal building where weeds sprouted along the fencing. The building was to our right, but we turned left and didn’t stop until we were among a row of vehicles that had crashed so violently, they resembled bread loaves all blackened by rust and fire. In red paint on a windshield, someone had scrawled Death Cars, as if designating the area a theme park.
“How’d you like to have been in that van?” Mica asked me, taking out his lighter and cigarettes. “Cops had that towed in last week. Still some flies around it-see ’em?” He leaned his head, exhaled smoke, then offered the pack to me. “Menthol? I got used to ’em in the joint.”
Out here, the noise of the shredder wasn’t so bad and there was more sunlight. I could see that Mica’s skin was pale and that his teeth were blackening at the roots. I had read somewhere that decay was common in meth addicts because their mouths stopped producing saliva. I wouldn’t have made the connection if Mica hadn’t grinned at me, but he did.
“I didn’t come here to provide entertainment,” I said. I had retrieved my organizer and was taking out my cell phone.
“Just explaining why you shouldn’t piss off my Uncle Harris.”
“Your uncle?”
“Grandma’s little brother,” he said, and pointed toward the van wreckage. “I’d rather been riding shotgun in that mess than have ol’ Harris stuff me in a shredder. Hell, he’d do it, too! That boy’d still be in Raiford if they could’a found more than a piece or two of his wife. Harris, he might look messy, but when it comes to his work, that boy’s goddamn tidy!” Mica took a long drag of his cigarette, his message sent, then asked, “How many years it been since we seen each other, Hannah-han?”
Hannah-han. As a toddler, Mica had been unable to pronounce my name, and the nickname had stuck with the Helms children. Which might have been endearing, but Mica was still grinning while his eyes ogled the contours of my blouse.
“I was hoping we could talk like adults,” I replied, concentrating on my phone. The mention of Harris Spooner’s wife being found in pieces had made my stomach roll, and I didn’t want to show he’d upset me.
“Go right ahead, I’m enjoying the scenery. By god, you’ve filled out, girl!” Apparently, Mica expected me to smile at the compliment. I didn’t, which offended him enough to trigger his temper. I was scrolling through recent calls when he added, “A body like a Q-tip, that’s the way I remember you looking. No… what was it kids called you? Oh! Pizza on a stick ’cause of them pimples! One thing that hasn’t changed is your shitty sense of humor. Honey… you need to loosen up.”
Even as a boy, Mica had had a viper’s tongue and the brains to hit his target where it hurt most. His words stung, but the girl he was taunting was long, long gone. I remained calm. “There’s nothing funny about stealing from old folks, people you’ve known all your life,” I said. “But I’ll admit that someone played a pretty good joke when they listed you on the board of directors.”
I had shown him the Fisherfolk membership form but hadn’t mentioned that I had been hired to investigate the organization. It was unprofessional of me, no doubt, but mentioning his directorship now wiped the grin off Mica’s face. He had been lounging against the fence but stepped away. “Who told you that?”
I said, “I don’t know what all Loretta gave you, but the items I mentioned belong to our family, not her. I’ve got a right to know the thief’s name, don’t I? So I checked public records. Crystal’s name’s there, too, but I can’t imagine her being involved in something like this.”
Mica did a vaudevillian take, the one where the comedian’s cheeks bulge instead of spitting water, then sputtered, “You sure as hell ain’t spoke with Crystal in a while, have you?”
“I plan to see her next,” I said.
“The hell you are!”
“Before the funeral, if you wouldn’t mind giving me an address. Is she doing okay?”
Mica played along. “Well, let’s put it this way: Crystal got religion long enough to gain a hundred pounds-but I imagine she’s improving since Mamma died.”
“That’s a terrible way to speak!” I told him.
“Don’t care if it is. It’s true-those two hated each other. If you want Crystal’s address, check with the loony ward or call her probation officer.”
I let that go by saying, “The funeral’s tomorrow, Mica. I expect I’ll see her.”
The man had lost track of the days, though. I could tell by the blank look on his face. “Tomorrow’s Thursday,” I reminded him. “Services are at Kirby Funeral Home, then burial’s at the cemetery on Pine Island Road. I’m sure Crystal will be there, but maybe you have other plans.”
He pointed a finger and stepped toward me. “You stop your damn nagging! And stay away from my sister!”
“What I’m going to do is call a sheriff,” I said, concentrating on my phone, “and get all your threats down on paper.”
That made him even madder, but Mica was too smart to put his freedom and his starving brain at risk. “Hold on a sec… please?” He waited until he had my attention, then the meth addict tried to become a salesman. “For one thing, Fisherfolk is a legal nonprofit, so no one’s stealing nothin’. If you checked the records, you know that’s true. Give me a chance and I’ll prove what a good deal it is for the folks around here.”
“Someone filled out all the right forms,” I countered, “which means it wasn’t you. Was it a doctor named Alice Candor? Or maybe a company she and her husband own. I’ll find out anyway, so you might as well tell me.”
Mica recognized the name, I could tell by the thoughtful look he affected, but seemed unaware of a connection. “Some doctor’s name’s listed in the records? Show me, I’d like to see if it’s true.”
“I didn’t say that. But if that’s who you’re working for, be careful. She’s a psychiatrist, Dr. Alice Candor. She treated prison inmates before she came to Florida. And if she’s treating Crystal, there’s something Crystal should know. This woman did experiments on her patients. The paper she published is on the Internet.”
What kind of experiments? I could see the question forming in Mica’s eyes, but he couldn’t ask without conceding that he knew the woman.
“It’s the truth,” I pressed. “This was in Ohio, but she’s here now. Is that how you got involved? There’s no shame in going to a rehab clinic, Mica, but Dr. Candor is a dangerous choice.”
The man was becoming agitated and tried to regain control by saying, “She don’t have anything to do with what we’re doing-and what we’re doing is legal.”
“Doesn’t mean it’s right,” I said, which was Joel Ransler’s line but seemed appropriate.
“Right?” Mica snorted, then turned to me with a wild look in his eyes. “Name me one time this state treated people like us right. Think about it, girl! Families like ours-there was just a handful who settled this state. They put up with the ’skeeters and heat and snakes long enough to turn this shithole swamp into prime real estate. Our people put fish and citrus on the tables of Yankees who treated us like redneck trash. Then how’d they thank us? Soon as there was enough Ohioans, they voted the net fishermen out of business.”
He began to pace, using his boney hands to gesture. “They closed our co-ops but sold commercial licenses to any asshole from ’Bama or Georgia who plunked down seventy-five bucks. Japs and Cubans, too, running factory ships twelve miles off Marco Island-shit, I seen it, girl! Then taxed us out of our houses, and said, ‘Oh, by the way, you can’t net no more mullet or trout or pompano, neither!’” He snapped his cigarette away. “If there’s anyone who should understand why our people deserve a museum, it’s you, Hannah Smith.”