Olivia and I were friends, good friends, and becoming closer, but it would be a while-after a mojito or two, perhaps-before I could allow myself the irreverence of suggesting that “dog” had been a misprint in the Holy Scripture.
As mother talked, she was lounging in her La-Z-Boy next to the fireplace where, even on a July morning, the owl andirons blinked at me as warmly as they had when I was a girl on winter nights. While I finished my coffee, she cranked the chair’s handle, got to her feet, and marched to the window as if to prove something.
“No clouds yet. What time’s your date? By six we’ll have wind, she’ll be pouring by seven-and don’t say I didn’t warn you!”
Loretta spoke in such a wistful way, I had to smile. “I hope it does rain!” I replied and meant it. The reason had to do with Marion Ford, who had invited me to look through his telescope after dinner. It was our third date in three weeks-if you counted an afternoon spent fly-casting for tarpon, another slogging through the mudflats. And I did even if he didn’t. So far, the biologist had been fun, attentive, easy to be with, respectful, and very proper, but that’s all.
I appreciate good manners in a man, but his passion for improper behavior had become a more interesting quality, which I could now admit. After three formal dates-sort of-and several phone conversations-brief as they were-we’d both proven our respectability. Now I was willing to risk Marion Ford’s transgressions-if he could be maneuvered into trying.
The biologist had a way about him. His low voice vibrated through my rib cage when he spoke. The spark of our elbows bumping hummed in my abdomen for hours. Quiet as he was, Marion Ford had something boiling inside him. Rage or passion, darkness or light, I had yet to find out, but my bawdy aunt’s journal had hinted at both, as I’d discovered by rereading it the night before. I’d also learned from her writing that the biologist and his strange hippie friend both had a fondness for storms. Maybe a good soaking was just the thing to loosen Marion Ford’s behavior.
That’s why Loretta had failed to dampen my spirits on this summer morning by threatening my evening with a Thunder Moon that brought rain.
Instead of stumping her, though, my optimism about bad weather only provided another opening to show off the powers God has granted Loretta after damaging her brain with a stroke.
“I bet you do hope it storms!” she cackled. “A real frog choker. One of those Gulfstream thunder-boomers that causes men to puff up, throw the covers back, and a single woman to jump. A skimpy black dress and lightning. I’d call that an unfair way to trap an innocent man”-my mother turned to smile at me-“if I didn’t know what a good girl my sweet Hannah is.”
Because the last part sounded more like the mother who’d raised me, I had to clear my throat while I checked my watch. It was morning twilight, birds outside twittering, impatient for the heat of sunrise. I had a full day ahead of me. While Loretta continued to ramble, I stood and took my cup to the kitchen.
Lawrence Seasons and Martha Calder-Shaun were expecting me by ten a.m. to sign insurance papers and to discuss an LLC for my investigation agency-a business I’d agreed to continue as long as I could still book charters on the side. Since having a private talk with Martha, I no longer felt uneasy around the woman. In fact, I liked her better. I had been right to suspect she knew more about Sybarite than she’d admitted but wrong about her knowing-or warning-Ricky Meeks.
“Sure, I considered doing the Key West cruise,” Martha had explained. “Sounds like it could be a lot of fun-with the right people. But I had nothing to add factually when you brought it up. You disapprove on some kind of moral grounds? That’s your problem, kiddo, not mine. But it’s not illegal-and why risk pissing off Larry?”
The woman was plainspoken, a trait I admire, which is why I had offered to give her fly-casting lessons during her next visit to the islands. In return, she’d agreed to give up on seducing me.
“It would’ve turned into a brawl, anyway,” the attorney had smiled, and then added something rude about both of us battling to be on top.
Something I still felt uneasy about, though, was posing in Darren’s studio. Around one p.m., I would be having lunch with the photographer and Nathan to talk about scheduling what Darren referred to as “your first sitting.” Whether there would be a second sitting, let alone a first, was something I didn’t mind discussing if it made Nathan happy. But there was too much happening in my life to make a decision today.
Plus, I didn’t have time to pose. At five, I was supposed to be at Elka Whitney’s house for drinks and a movie. An old one that the breakfast cereal heiress had selected after one of our nightly phone sessions: Double Indemnity, starring Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck. Elka had been uncommonly sweet to me after hearing some of what had happened on Drake Key, so we had shared movies and conversation often during the last three weeks. That would give me just enough time to shower and change before meeting the biologist at his lab. Sunset and moonrise are simultaneous, as they always are on a full moon, so Marion had told me to be at Dinkin’s Bay, where his lab was located, around eight.
While I moved around the old house, collecting my things, Loretta remained at the window, a new subject on her mind.
“They still talk to me at night, you know. Mothers crying, a famous Indian king bawling for revenge. Who else they got to comfort them, now you’ve gotten rich?” She was referring to the centuries of people her new neighbors had displaced with a septic tank, so I listened more closely. After all, a smart man-strange as he was-had taken my mother’s claims seriously. As a daughter, it would have been rude not to show similar respect.
“Have you taken a look at the Mausoleum lately?” Loretta asked me.
I stopped what I was doing and glanced over. Locals usually referred to the concrete structure as “the Walmart” or “The Bunker,” as if Nazis had built the thing.
“Tomlinson called it that,” I remembered, then walked to join my mother at the window. “He still stops by?”
“Tomlin-who? Oh… you mean Tommy. Tommy Scarecrow, that’s his Indian name. Him, me, and Billie Egret, we’ve done three ceremonies to purify what those stupid fools have done. Build a big fire in the ceremonial plaza, chant, and smoke the pipe. Billie, he’s teaching me the Green Corn Dance. In return, I tell him secrets the ancient king says in my ear at night. The king gives me orders sometimes.”
Smoke? The news hit me harder than her claim of conversing with dead royalty. My mother had never smoked in her life. Could the contents of that ceremonial pipe explain why she had been so spunky of late? According to some things I’d heard about Tomlinson, it was possible. Before I could ask, though, she made enough room at the window for me to view the structure that had decapitated three thousand years of Florida history. The concrete walls had been too dark to see when I’d arrived that morning. Now I could.
“My Lord,” I moaned. “Not again, Loretta!” Instead of Day-Glo orange, she had used a brush and the same color of citrus yellow I had paid painters to use on the porch.
“You try refusing a dead Indian king!” the woman pouted, but then took the offensive. “Besides, Scarecrow held the ladder for me, so it was safe. Tommy’s got backbone! He’s the one you should be wearing skimpy dresses to impress. That man’s as smart and sweet as they come-plus he’s got ways of making a woman smile.”
My bawdy Aunt Hannah had felt the same about Tomlinson, from what I’d read in her journal. But I’d also read interesting details about my date, Dr. Ford, that made me want to reply something tart.