“You’re different,” Oliver said wonderingly. “You’re not the same at all.”
She looked ahead through the mist, slowing for the last turn. “I’m Crissy,” she said. “Your dear Crissy. Look what your dear Crissy did, all for the sake of love. I’m the same. The world is the same world. You make it or you don’t make it, honey. Nobody picks you up and brushes you off and gives you another run at it. You do what you have to do before somebody does it to you.”
“But it wasn’t like I thought,” he said.
“When it’s for real, it never is, Olly.”
She saw the obscure shell road and made her turn. It was a mile and a half south of the turnoff to her house. She drove slowly until the headlights shone on the palm bole she’d had Oliver place across the road when they had driven out, hoping it would discourage any lovers or fishermen who sometimes used this road to drive down to the shoreline.
He got out and lifted the end of the log and walked it out of the way and got back into the car.
“Remember what comes next?” she asked.
“I sail you back and leave you off at your place and bring the boat back here and drive home. Tomorrow I hitch a ride over and walk in and sail the boat up to Dinner Key.”
She put the car in gear and drove ahead slowly. “And if they question you, you don’t know anything about anything.”
“Oh God, Crissy! I... I can’t even stop thinking of how — heavy he was...”
“You’ll be fine,” she said. “Believe me, darling, you won’t worry about it at all. Everything will come up roses.”
As she neared the end of the road she looked to see if the headlights picked up any gleam of metal from parked cars, but the area was empty. They had found the place while sailing. She slowed and parked near the foundations where an old frame house had burned down years ago. She parked on a slight down slope. Headlights shone on his sailboat tied to the small remaining section of an old rotten dock. She turned the lights off and got out. The wind from the west was still blowing gently, moving the mist that was coming off the water.
They went down to the sailboat. She said. “Oh, here’s the car keys. Wouldn’t that be great, to go off with them.”
He put them in his pocket. He leaned and put the case aboard. He said, “I... I’m sorry I couldn’t do...”
“It’s over, dear. It’s done. That’s all that matters. Darling, before we run the sail up, would you look at the main sheet there near the transom on the port. There seems to be a turn of the jib sheet around it and it could get jammed in that roller thing. The flashlight is in that little...”
“I know.” He stepped aboard. She followed him. He got the flashlight and knelt, peering at the lines.
“It looks all right to—”
At that instant she stabbed the muzzle of the single-shot 22 rifle into the socket of his right ear, pulling the trigger as she did so. It made a quick, hard snapping sound. He dropped and the light went out and he began a savage thrashing down there in the bottom of the boat. She backed quickly and sat on the dock planks and pulled her feet out of the way. Elbows and knees and heavy bones thudded against the bottom of the sailboat. He made the effortful grunts of combat. The boat rocked, swaying the tall naked mast back and forth. There was a quivering drumming sound of unseen arm or leg against some solid part of the boat, a muscular tremor faster than she would have believed possible. Then there was silence. The small rocking stopped, the mast motionless. The breeze from the west held the hull a few inches away from the dock, affixed by bow and stern lines. She slid aboard cautiously. He was face down, head toward the stern. She wrapped his right hand around the action of the rifle, pressing the fingers against the metal. She wrapped his left hand around the middle of the barrel, thumb toward the butt. Then she placed the weapon down, butt toward the stern, close beside him, pushed his thumb through the trigger guard, pressed it against the trigger.
She took the little packet of scratch paper out of the hip pocket of her slacks. It was slightly damp. The last draft of the note. Floor plan of number ten. She worked his wallet out of his hip pocket, put the packet in with the few dollar bills he had, and replaced the wallet. She became aware of acrid odors of urine and excrement. She freed the bow line first, as Oliver had taught her to do under such circumstances of wind and mooring. As the bow swung slowly out, she ran the mainsail up and belayed the halyard around the cleat in the way Oliver had taught her. She freed the stern line. The boom swung to starboard, and she let off on the main sheet, and, other hand on the tiller, her feet braced near his back, she sat and sailed northward up the shoreline, staying well enough out for the mist to hide her from anyone on the shore, yet not so far out she would fail to see the corona of the outside floods she had left on against the mist. She came upon that haloed light sooner than she had expected. The only sound was a gurgle of water around the transom and rudder, a faint rattle of halyards against the stick.
She went by the lights and, staying well out, brought it around, close hauling it, pointing it close to the wind, peering into the mist, rehearsing the things which had to be done quickly. When the dock appeared she found she was too far out. When she turned toward it, she turned right into the eye of the breeze. The sail flapped. She thought, with a touch of panic, she would not have the momentum to reach it. She scrabbled, caught the boat hook, leaned and caught the edge of a dock piling. As she pulled the stern in, the breeze caught the close-hauled mainsail, heeling the boat and almost breaking her hold. But then she was able to grasp a dock line in her right hand. She put the case up on the dock. She found the loop and slipped it over the tiller. She let out on the main sheet until the boom was angled far enough out to port. She wedged the sheet into the safety cleat, stood quickly and scrambled onto the dock, banging her knee painfully against the edge of it. She rolled and looked out and saw the Skatter moving out into the mist. The rattle and gurgle died. The mainsail was a tall blur and then it was gone. It would go aground, she was certain, on the western shoreline of Eliott Key.
She snatched the case up and moved swiftly, limping slightly, into the shadows of the shrubbery near the foot of the stone stairway. She waited and listened and watched, and then moved quickly from deep shadow to deep shadow, moving behind the flood lighting. Dressed in the dark clothes, she walked quickly along the terrace to the sliding doors to her bedroom. She had left the draperies a foot apart. She looked into her bedroom. It gave her a strange feeling to see, in the glow of the night light, the woman shape under the light blanket, blonde hair snuggled into the whiteness of the pillow. She put the case down, lifted the corner of the mat outside her door, took the thin spatula, slid it through the crack and lifted the catch free. She put the kitchen implement in the waistband of her slacks, rolled the door open, picked up the case and edged through, into the bedroom coolness, into the place of all her scents and lotions and fabrics. She yanked the draperies shut, reached through and locked the sliding doors again. Took three slow steps and fell to her knees, and then rolled slowly onto her side. She pulled her knees high, tucked her head down, held her clenched fists between her breasts. After each long slow exhalation she felt a clenching and tremoring of her belly muscles, somewhat like the residual quiverings after orgasm. She felt the texture of the rug against her cheek and temple. She smelled her own sourness, a sharp pungency of nervous sweat.