I was also aware the objective might be a whistle-stop. Or a life-changing destination.
As the women inside might agree, the distance that lies between the two is incalculable.
Marion Ford was on my mind. Under the guise of awarding him a partnership, I’d hoped to meet him for dinner to explain the windfall he might share.
Pure optimism on my part. The biologist is a difficult man to locate, let alone pin down. I think it was only out of concern for my mental health that, a few days after my return from Choking Creek, he answered the phone.
“How’re you holding up?” he’d said. “That was quite a story in the newspaper.”
Ford didn’t read newspapers, but the deception was a kindness. Because of recent headlines, I couldn’t fuel my skiff without being gawked at or congratulated for courage I do not possess.
“Fine, just fine,” I replied.
The biologist understood. He skipped to the reality of the matter, saying. “Yeah. It can take a while.”
We’d met at sunset on Useppa Island, a small, historic resort that lies equidistant between his lab and my transient floating home. Dinner transitioned smoothly into a night in the Barron Collier Suite, on the second floor of the Collier Inn.
Champagne wasn’t involved; several margaritas were. Ford is not an abstemious man, but he is disciplined. It took some effort to charm him into more than one drink.
Charming him into bed proved more difficult. The dangers were obvious, and my efforts had the flavor of desperation, which we both realized. With a less understanding friend, I would have felt humiliated.
With the big Victorian suite to myself, I slept alone.
Long after midnight, wearing a silken robe, I’d gone out on the balcony and counted stars. Literally counted them. It was a technique the biologist had suggested when overwhelmed by emotion or the horror of certain events.
“Do math problems. It’s the only way to disengage the right side of the brain. You’ll be surprised.”
Ford, a left-brained pragmatist, was correct if I used a pencil and paper, but counting stars did not work. Details, odors, sounds-particularly sound-came spiraling back. All I had to do was close my eyes to relive events in present tense:
Larry Luckheim clings to my skiff, unaware of the monster elevating itself behind him. He says something defiant-the words don’t register because my world has gone silent. The chrome pistol barrel is all I see until, there it is! the serpent’s head, a mass of diamond scales wherein twin goat’s eyes glow. Its mouth is stitched. In my mind, a flash association is made: a zombie; the way a zombie’s lips are sewn.
The mouth opens. A tongue slaps out, two pitchfork probes taste the air. They taste Larry’s skin, the heat of his flesh. The tongue slaps data back inside to a reptilian brain.
The python stiffens, alert. Its Doberman-sized head tilts toward the water. My gun sights are not wide enough to frame the distance between the two lucent eyes.
The snake sees Larry.
I attempt to shout but can only whisper, “Move! Get away from there.”
Larry, looking up, screams. I pull the trigger once, twice, yet the python strikes, and the fang-on-bone crunch is sickening. Twenty feet of reptile has spilled itself into the water before I realize the screaming has stopped.
The man’s head has disappeared inside the snake’s hinged jaws. The man’s body is aswarm with frantic scales and splashing while the python coils. A squealing noise escapes the chaos. It ascends to penetrating animal decibels.
I lower the pistol as I watch. I turn away, nauseated… then stumble toward the machete, unsure if I am willing to help.
I am not willing but do it anyway when I hear Larry moan, “Help me, I’m hurt… I can’t see!”
The snake, in its death throes-and a bullet in its brain-has released the man who intended to rape me. This is something Larry will admit when he’s out of the hospital and in a prison psych ward. He has lost an eye, and most of his mind, but a bit of his conscience will return.
On Useppa Island that night, more than a month ago, no wonder it had been impossible to sleep.
Now, alone in a parking lot, waiting for Roberta, the details had lost some of their sting but not all. Just as the biologist had counseled, it would take a while. A lifetime, perhaps.
Raymond Caldwell had proved that. A week after his “disappearance,” a weary search party, while hacking through vines, found a giant loaf of reptilian scat. Inside were fragments of hair and bone… and one shiny, bright copper bracelet.
When detectives yet again challenged my decision to rescue Larry but leave Caldwell behind, I silenced them with a truth that was also a lie:
I only had one pair of handcuffs.
The obstetrician was a methodical woman-very thorough, Roberta had warned-so I waited in my SUV rather than a room full of balloons and cheery women who had not shared a smile when shuffling off to pee.
That was okay. I had work to keep me busy while awaiting appointments of my own. Inside my vintage leather shoulder bag, separated from the laptop compartment, was my checkbook, my wallet, and other business-oriented necessities. A folder containing documents relating to Salt Creek Gun Club was there, but no signed deed.
Not yet. Lonnie Chatham, not by choice, had entered a labyrinth known as the criminal justice system. In the cement cap of a weir that spilled water, police had found her confession written twenty years earlier. In the crocodile pond, they’d also found a femur belonging to the real Sabin Martinez, a professional “Lysol man” who, for reasons unknown, had fallen for at least one fatal lie.
That’s what I suspected anyway. And what I intended to tell the district attorney later in the day-among other things, including my conviction that Reggie had been murdered, too. Dear, dear Reggie. In this life, there are people we meet too late to appreciate all that is good and loyal in them, or to benefit from what they have to teach.
I’d thought a lot about the little chauffeur. It is impossible not to cling to the past. And just as impossible not to move on.
My deposition was scheduled for four p.m. It was now one-thirty, which wasn’t much of a cushion on a day that included a meeting with the Gentrys and, hopefully, the Friday-night party at Dinkin’s Bay, where the biologist lived.
Maybe he would be there; more likely, he would not. A man on the run does not keep a calendar, nor is he likely to answer the phone.
Marion Ford was on the run. Before Useppa, I’d only suspected the motives for his sudden departures and long absences. That night, though, he’d told me just enough to spare my feelings.
As a seductress, I was a failure. As the friend of a man in danger, however, my desire to provide comfort was genuine. The next morning, very early, we had both found solace in a space that, only twice in my life, had I allowed myself the freedom to explore.
I had no problem admitting this to myself-unlike my first indiscretion. With the biologist, it was different. Once, we had been lovers. Like me, he lived alone. He would probably die alone. Marion Ford would never have cause to say to me, “Please admit it was more than just a kiss.”
Kermit Bigalow had said something similar. Just thinking about those words still caused me to wince with regret.
In my bag was a letter I’d written to Sarah, expressing my sadness about the death of her father. I’d gone on and on, about what a fine man he was and how much he’d cared for her, because I knew the letter would never be sent. It was my way of attending a funeral I had no right to attend.