It was as if he’d dropped a bomb in her lap. He knew Sergi Langstrom from his business dealings? His new business?
Well, welcome to the small world of the United States, from Chicago to Florida.
“Don’t stay out of it.” She stood and faced Jack. “You have to get in it, and find out all you can about him. He’s shady as hell. The changes he and that bunch want are not good.”
He stood up, tipped the beer bottle back. “Come on, B. Don’t start. You’re making assumptions. Leaping to conclusions is more like it.” He walked toward the end of the porch and looked out through the pines toward the Gulf, a sadness in his eyes. “It’s complicated. And I don’t know what’s going to happen. I just know, I miss you, I miss it. Santa Maria. But in the end, I don’t know what we can do. About any of it.”
“Don’t say that. We have to figure this out.” She didn’t quash the desperate tone. “We need specifics. You’ve got to help, Jack.” She thought of Liza, but he couldn’t help there. Liza’s information was gold and she didn’t want to spend it. She’d keep those revelations about the emails and notes quiet until they knew more.
“Wish I could.” He still didn’t look at her.
“We’ve got another meeting coming up. What do you think? Will Langstrom blow it? Give himself away?”
“I don’t see that happening. The guy’s got millions behind him, Blanche. That’s what I’m saying.”
He clamped his mouth shut and dropped into the chair. Blanche walked back to the kitchen in a zombie state. Her thoughts were making her brain numb and her feet like bricks. She brought out Jess’s chicken salad from the deli and lit a few candles, hoping to shed some light. Jack eyed the chicken. He was ravenous. He gulped down another beer.
Blanche had to dig more out of him, but she waited. She sighed. Some things never changed. If you put a dead horse in front of him, he’d eat the whole thing. With barbecue sauce on it. She hadn’t finished half her beer. She couldn’t eat. She willed herself to be patient, and calm. It would be the only way to get to him. Then he looked up. He couldn’t avoid Blanche’s scrutiny.
“You should probably listen to Cappy,” he said. “Stay out of this, Bang. Keep a low profile.” Even as he said it, he knew he was talking to air.
“Everybody wants me to go away. Keep out of it,” she said. “I can’t let it go. For one thing, we’re not only talking about losing the island. We’ve lost Bob. You know, Bob. Come on, Jack. This can’t all be happening.”
“Well, it is happening. Bad shit happens. That was also one of Gran’s favorite expressions. We just have to deal with it best we can.”
“You told me Langstrom and that bunch are part of your Chicago conglomerate. Why can’t you have some influence there?”’
“They are in a whole other division. I’m new. I don’t know if I can change things.”
“You could. If you gave a damn.” She leaned on the table, her arms taut as boards. She wasn’t being fair, or calm, but she couldn’t shut her mouth. She stood at her full height of just over five feet and stared a hole through him.
Jack lounged in the armchair, gazing out at the water. Jack was being Jack. He could be as stubborn and independent as Blanche, but they were two halves of one whole. They finished each other’s sentences and laughed at the same jokes. They were as close to being brother and sister as any two could be, but just like many siblings, nowhere was it more apparent that two who are most alike can also be most opposed. They had their own opinions, and they fought. Loudly.
“Jack!” Her face was beet red, fists clenched. She flopped back down. “I’ve been counting on you. Maybe you can’t stop the development. But, then, maybe you can do something. You have to ask around! Please?”
He forced a smile. “Blanche, how many ways do I have to say it. It’s not our business, at least this murder investigation isn’t. And as for the development, I don’t know. Let’s see how this plays out. We keep going at the same two problems, and we’re getting nowhere. Really, neither one is our worry right now.”
“You can’t just go back to Chicago like nothing is happening down here.”
“Calm down. I only care about you. The cabin could blow away, and one day it probably will, but I don’t want you to be in danger. Yes, Bob is dead. That is bad, really bad, and the only thing you need to do right now is take care of yourself. I can’t make it any clearer than that.”
“Jack, why are you here?”
“That seems like a fair enough question. I normally don’t just show up in the Gulf to dunk my favorite cousin, and then piss her off.” He was usually pretty good at diffusing a difficult situation with that crooked smile, and he knew it.
“Yeah, well, why? I’m awfully glad you are here.”
“I’m here to see you. You called. Remember? I’m sorry I missed the memorial, but I couldn’t get away.”
“Langstrom. Chicago. And? Out with it.”
“Jeez, you are a regular Rottweiler.”
“That so.”
“I hesitate to say it, Bang. You probably won’t like it.”
“Try me.”
He drew a breath, put his hands flat on the table. “This Sergi Langstrom. I more than ran across him. I have met him. I’ve sort of dealt with him.” Jack looked sheepish.
It was a relief to get somewhere, probably far from the truth, but at least he’d pulled the web a little tighter. “Join the fan club. Who hasn’t run across him? He’s everywhere, and he means to take over. I even met him on the bridge at the beach, and he bandaged my toe.”
“Hmm. I can’t imagine how all that went down, but OK.”
She stood up. “You know he wants to destroy the island.”
Jack pushed his chair back and looked Blanche squarely in the eye. “That’s not exactly the case, B. You have to trust me on this.”
“What are you talking about? I saw the plans, and so did everyone else in that meeting last week. He means to build a mall and take out all the streets and houses. Then he and his bunch will go after the rest of the island and there won’t be a pine tree or a bird left around here. And, again, I just can’t get it out of my head that there is some connection between the murder and Langstrom.”
“Bang, that is preposterous.” He avoided her beseeching look. “Langstrom may be here now, but he works in Chicago, and Bob was here. I don’t think there’s any connection. And why do you keep insisting? You don’t have a single link between the two.”
“They knew each other, and Liza’s got proof. Maybe Langstrom didn’t do it himself. Maybe he and that bunch he’s hooked up with hired someone to get rid of Bob.”
“Oh, great. Your feelings and murder and real estate development? Damn, Blanche, you just aren’t making any sense. And what kind of proof does Liza have? Bob knew him. So. What.”
“I know. It sounds crazy. But I’m going to do this. I’m getting back to Liza, and we’re going to look into this. Together.”
“How? With your detective license?”
“Very funny.” She didn’t see anything funny in this. She was fuming.
Jack glared at her. He was tall, and his size would have been intimidating to anyone but Blanche. She still liked to remind him that once she’d beaten him in arm wrestling.
“B. Please.” Now his tone was gentle. He reached for Blanche and pulled her ear, a signal they had that all was right with the world. Their world.
She jerked away, her teeth digging into her lower lip, and threw herself back down in the chair. Jack paced up and down the porch.
“All I can say is that I know a little about the guy, and I don’t think it is going to be as bad as all that. He’s definitely not a murderer, so just drop it. And, in just the little we’ve met, I started to think that he genuinely wants to work with us on the development. I hate to bring it up. But that’s it. That’s all I can say.”
“Don’t even put Langstrom and genuine in the same sentence. Except to say he’s a genuine phony.”
“Genuine phon
y. Really.”
“You know what I mean.”
“No, I don’t, and there’s no proof of what you say, Blanche.”
“We’ll see. If everything is so great, why do you all keep telling me to back off? What harm is there in asking a few questions?” She drew her legs up under her, and curled into a ball. She looked like a bun with a burned top. She was beyond disappointed, and now she was getting angrier by the minute. Every day seemed to end the same way, and it wasn’t getting any better.
“It’s the murder. Why take the chance?” In the low light, he seemed to be fading away.
“I’m begging you.”
“We’ll talk. You know that. Let’s wait until we know more. But right now we know zilch.”
She needed sleep. She’d talk to him in the morning. The only thing she knew for sure was that she was not going to back off. Ever. Except now, to go to bed. Get some wits about me, as Gran would say. It was one of the wisest decisions she’d made all day.
“Your room is made up, towels in the closet.” She jumped up and pushed the wicker chair out of her way, almost toppling it over. She put her hands on her hips and blew out the candles, leaving them almost totally in the dark. “Good night.”
When Blanche got up the next morning, the sun was shining, which it usually did before a hurricane, and Jack was gone. He’d left a note on the dining room table: PLEASE, listen to me. Be careful, and just leave it alone. I love you. Jack.
Eighteen —
Murmurs on the Storm
It was not a good way to start the day, but there it was. Her plea for help seemed to go nowhere, except out the door with Jack. Gone. She was just going to have to dig in by herself. With Liza. Of course, they would take all the care in the world finding out more about that scoundrel, Langstrom, and his plans for the island. Sooner or later, Jack was going to have to face the situation. He admitted he knew Langstrom!
It was early, too early in the day for a walk, but it would be good to pound away her frustration and sort out her thoughts. The Gulf was cool and inviting, the air wet and heavy and unusually hot and humid for an October morning, the summer heat lingering. She started down the steps, then retraced back to the porch, and sat down. She’d be drenched by the time she got back from the beach. She didn’t have time for a walk. She had hurricane prep to do around the cabin before she went to Liza’s, but in the meantime, she was a pot ready to boil. The stillness hovered as they waited for Wilma.
She closed her eyes, a breeze riffling overhead. She needed to think, get back to normal. But she was beginning to wonder…. Normal? What the hell is that? That next town hall meeting was coming up, and they weren’t prepared. They needed to get into that computer and those notes and see what was up. They needed ammunition.
She went into the kitchen for a third cup of coffee, dropped a couple ice cubes in it and a huge dollop of sugar—procrastinating her tie-down efforts before the storm. She grabbed the radio and clicked on to the country station. She wallowed in the music, the fiddles and sad stories. She always listened to the whole story—about the guy who was young and then old, the loves lost, the drunks, and dirt on the boots.
“Why do you listen to that stuff? All they do is complain,” Jack would say.
“Maybe. But the people are real.”
He hated it. If he were here, he’d grab the radio and turn it off. And then she’d turn it back on and so it would go with them. The thought made her chuckle. He liked real, too. She missed him and wished he’d stay around, for once.
She looked out the window south through the pines. She switched off the radio and turned on the small black and white television on the kitchen counter. It blasted details of the approaching hurricane, which was taking her time, like a large, grey, meandering beast.
Blanche wished it would come and go. Get it over with. There hadn’t been a devastating storm in years, not since Richard hurled himself out of the Gulf and turned most of the island upside down. They never knew what hit them. They rebuilt, just like they always did following a natural disaster. It was the man-made disaster that was most disturbing.
She went out on the porch and stared, transfixed, as the sky reshaped itself—dividing grey to the south and blue to the north. How precisely Wilma painted it. So neat, and balanced. Maybe that’s what they needed: a hurricane to bring them back in balance. In stormy times, they pulled together, and Blanche, in her own peculiar island-girl fashion, looked forward to the power of nature, awe-inspiring and commanding respect. The storm could also be counted on to give the place a good power wash. Wipe it clean. Shake some of those dead branches and mangos and coconuts out of the treetops. If she busied herself welcoming Wilma, she wouldn’t think about Bob, Jack, Sergi, and the rest of it.
Trouble was when the wind died down, there would be another mess to clean up. And Jack, and his heal-dragging, to deal with.
She moved the plastic chairs off the patio and looked for other potential missiles. Garbage cans went into the shed. She rolled the heavy wooden shutters down over the windows. They kept the cabin tight in high winds. But it wasn’t so much the wind; it was the water. When the hurricane blew through the Gulf, the water pushed farther onto shore at high tide and a wall of it had fearsome strength. Eventually, it percolated down into the great limestone aquifer under Florida, but, now, with less frequency. The increasing amount of asphalt slowed percolation. The water lingered, and pooled, causing damage to the landscape (and animals), foundations, and cars. The mosquitoes loved it. The situation was not going to improve—not with the plan looming.
Blanche sighed, twisting the edge of her t-shirt into a knot. She’d have to move off the beach, and stay over at Cappy’s. That’ll make him happy. Safe from the storm and murderers.
She looked around the cabin, ran her fingers over the old cedar door jam, tucked some cushions in a wooden chest. Seventy-five years, and counting, built in the early ‘20s when the island was settled. Log and frame, with a screened porch across the front, it had seen many storms wash through the front door. After a bad one, the soaked floor boards popped up into hills of wet slats. It took a week for the old wood to dry out and flatten back down, helped along gently with a hammer. There wasn’t a single surface that hadn’t gotten a good beating in a storm. It was the trade-off for living on the Gulf.
By necessity, the interior was furnished simply and defied the water. The sofa, chairs, and an old dining table stood off the floor on wooden legs. The walls and furnishings had wavy white watermarks, one for each storm it had withstood. They matched the inked lines in the door frame that dated Blanche’s growth to just over five two, Jack past six feet. She couldn’t say the cabin wasn’t family.
Cap’s place offered a bit more protection. His old house’s foundation was elevated a couple of cinder blocks off the ground so the Gulf flowed right under it. Agnes of ‘72 had not damaged Cap’s nor Blanche’s too badly, but that storm had truly left her mark. Regulations after Agnes mandated that all housing be built fourteen feet off the ground. The rule produced a scattering of “bird houses” throughout the island, which was fitting given that Santa Maria was a bird sanctuary.
She was hurrying, and thinking about what to tie down, what to throw out, and where to look for the key to the shed when she saw Bertie coming around the stand of pines that divided their property. “You’re back!” yelled Blanche over the rising wind. She ran to hug her old friend.
“Yeah. What great timing,” said Bertie. “Murder. Hurricane. Sergi Langstrom. Why stay away?”
“Oh, Bert!” She held Bert’s shoulders and looked into those eyes peeping out of her soft, pink face, and then she hugged her again. “So you know about Bob.”
Bertie’s smile crumpled. “Hope Duncan is making a miracle happen. Whoever would do such a thing?” A gust of wind blew off the Gulf and carried a funnel of sand toward them.
“There you have it. It’s in the wind. We don’t know, but we have to find out.” They fell silent, except for the whistling in
the pines. The opaque sky was mashed potatoes, the waves bottle green with frothy caps.
“How have you been, Bert? How was the drive?”
“Can’t complain.” She sighed. “Actually, never felt better, except for the hitches in my gitalong. Lord, what’s this world coming to?”
She fussed around in a shopping bag. “Got somethin’ here.” She handed Blanche a loaf of cinnamon apple bread, fresh from the Alachua bakery. Bertie always passed through the northern Florida town on her trip back from Michigan, and she never forgot to pick up the treat. The Upper Peninsula was already feeling the onset of winter, so she timed her arrival on the island to get out of the cold.
Blanche took the bread and held it to her nose, grateful for the scent of cinnamon and nutmeg. “Thank you! Come on. Let’s toast some and have a quick cup of tea.”
“Can’t right now. But I’ll take a rain check. Literally.” Bertie looked at the southern sky. “Besides I don’t think this is a good time for a tea party, girl.”
Blanche laughed. “Guess you’re right.”
Alberta Van Satter was one of the staunch, some said stupid, who held her ground in a storm, as had her mother before her. The Van Satter cottage was cypress, weathered to iron like Blanche’s, and had a tight attic and heavy shutters with wide slats that rolled down from under the eaves. She’d cultivated thick sea oats and snake grass and sabal palms facing the Gulf for protection. The cinder block foundation stood two feet off the beach. Bertie would tie herself to a beam before she’d move out.
“Say.” Bertie planted her frayed Keds about a foot apart. “I saw Jack pull out of here early this morning. He sure did have a look on him. Like a cow shite on a frosty morn.”
As peeved as she was, Blanche laughed. It was a perfect description of the scowl Jack might wear, especially early in the morning. “We had it out, you could say. He doesn’t want to get involved, and he doesn’t want me to get involved. In the murder investigation, or the development plans.” They migrated toward the cement bench between their properties and sat down. Two gulls on the beach.
Saving Tuna Street Page 9
