Pineapple Turtles

by Amy Vansant

  Jimenez’ phone rang and he answered. Shana and Carl both locked gazes on him as if they had targeting systems built into their brains.

  “What is it? Do they have him?” Shana stood as he ended his call. She grabbed Jimenez’ free arm, gripping it so he couldn’t avoid answering. Carl tried to grab her other hand to pull her back down to her seat and she jerked it out of his reach.

  Jimenez put his phone on the table and put his hand on the fingers she used to clutch his sleeve.

  “We have him.”

  Shana felt her legs go wobbly. She squatted to the ground to keep from falling. “Oh thank God, thank you, Jesus. Thank you, thank you.”

  Carl shook the detective’s hand and helped Shana back to the sofa. She knew it embarrassed him to see her squatting at the detective’s feet but it felt as if all the strength had left her legs.

  “Can we see him now?” she asked.

  “Sure. Sure. They’re taking him to the hospital—”

  Shana felt another wave of dread rise in her chest. “He’s hurt?”

  “No, no—sorry. They just have to check him out. Standard procedure. I’ll take you there.”

  He led them to his cruiser. As Shana and Carl walked, gripping on to each other’s arms, Jimenez explained how they’d meet the other officers at the hospital, where their apparently unharmed baby would be checked out as a safety precaution.

  The drive took forever but Shana felt as light as air as she entered the hospital. She knew in a few moments, she’d be holding little Mason in her arms again, kissing his fat little chipmunk cheeks. Her mistake had been erased, the weight of this most horrible day lifted from her shoulders. Carl wouldn’t hold it against her now. They would fall back into their roles and everything would be fine. She’d never take her eyes off Mason again.

  She turned into the examination room, trying hard not to break into a sprint.

  There he was with the doctor, gurgling, happy.

  Mason.

  My beautiful boy.

  She dove to take him and Carl grabbed her arm. “Wait honey, wait until—”

  She flashed him a look that said touch me again, I dare you.

  He lowered his hand and offered the doctor an apologetic look.

  She knew then, she had the power back.

  Everything is back to normal.

  “He’s fine,” said the doctor, handing Mason to Shana. “The baby’s unharmed.”

  Shana scooped Mason into her arms and held him tight against her chest.

  “Oh baby, oh baby, I’m so sorry.”

  She lowered him to stare into his gurgling face.

  Mason. Mason. Mason—

  The realization started as a creeping prickle, working its way up her neck, like a praying mantis making its way up her spine.

  Something’s wrong.

  Mason’s smell was off. Maybe they’d used a different product on him?

  No. It wasn’t only his smell.

  Something about his eyes is wrong.

  They weren’t the right shade, but more than that, he refused to look at her. He always looked at her. Mason always stared right into her face and grabbed for her nose. It was one of their things. From the very first day when the nurses insisted he couldn’t even focus yet, he still stared right into her eyes.

  She looked at the doctor.

  “What’s wrong with his eyes?” she asked, hoping he had an explanation.

  But she could already feel the chant starting in her head.

  No. No. No.

  The doctor smiled. “Well, he’s still blind, of course.”

  Blind? Shana shrieked the word in her head, but her lips never opened. They couldn’t—she felt frozen again.

  Carl said the word out loud. “Blind?”

  The doctor scowled. “You didn’t know?”

  Shana looked at the baby. She could see it now. She could see it everywhere. His hair wasn’t as sandy, his nose was broader. She turned him over and pulled down his little pants, cheap ones, not the ones they’d bought for him during their last trip to Palm Beach. Not the ones he’d been wearing.

  The freckle above his right butt cheek is missing.

  The world began to swim around Shana.

  “It isn’t Mason.”

  Someone snatched the baby from her arms as she fell.

  Chapter Eight

  After individually checking in with their families, Frank, Mac and Tommy drove to T.K.’s house and knocked on what was now only his wife Elizabeth’s door. No one answered.

  “She’s asleep. Knock harder,” suggested Mac.

  Frank frowned and glanced at his watch. It was nearly ten. “Nah. I don’t want to wake her just to upset her. We’ll come back in the morning.”

  “What if that guy gets here first?” asked Tommy.

  Frank paused. “He said seven in the morning, didn’t he?”

  “He might have lied.”

  Frank ran his hand over his thinning hair. “What does that mean? Are you suggesting we sleep in her back yard?”

  Mac hooked a thumb toward the large gravel driveway. “We could sleep in our cars.”

  Frank chewed on his lip. He didn’t relish the idea of sleeping in his cruiser. On the other hand, he didn’t know what the stranger might be up to—big corporations could be slippery. They might sneak over in the middle of the night and establish some sort of claim to T.K.’s land, and with the King gone, he felt a need to protect Elizabeth from the jackals out to steal her land.

  He huffed a sigh. “Fine. I’ll stay here. You guys can go home.”

  Tommy and Mac both shook their heads.

  “Nope. We’ll stick it out with you,” said Tommy.

  Frank noted the light in T.K.’s back yard was dim enough he didn’t have to stare at his friend’s bruised chin any more. “There’s really no point—”

  Mac held up a hand to silence him. “Wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  Frank shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

  They walked to their cars and crawled inside to sleep. From the back seat of his cruiser, Frank called his wife, Darla.

  “Turns out I’m not coming home tonight,” he said when she answered. She sounded sleepy.

  “Tell her to come get your laundry,” she mumbled.

  Frank chuckled. “I’m not cheating on you. I told you, there’s trouble out at T.K.’s farm. I have to be here at the crack of dawn, so there’s no point in coming home and trying to get any sleep. I’m a little worried they might try and sneak in early.”

  He heard Darla grunt and he could picture her sitting up in bed.

  “Remind me again? T.K.’s your Gopher friend who died?” she asked.

  “I told you.”

  “I don’t really listen to you.”

  Frank sighed. “Yeah. This big company’s trying to take his land. Me, Mac and Tommy are out here to stop them.”

  “Why?”

  “To help his wife and family—”

  “No, I mean why is some company trying to take his land?”

  “Oh. I dunno. We’ll get it worked out tomorrow. I’m going to delay them until I can get hold of a judge. Get an injunction or something.”

  “Okay. Whatever. What about Bob? Is he still with you?”

  “Last I heard he and Herbert were going to Bob’s to watch House Hunters.”

  Darla laughed. “Mariska is going to kill those drunken idiots if they show up this late.”

  “If you see Bob tomorrow, tell him to come out with as many bodies as he can bring. We might have to block the tractors or something.”

  “Recruit people to throw themselves in front of tractors. Got it. I’ll get right on that. Good night.”

  “Good night.”

  Frank hung up and tried to find a comfortable position in his car. He grunted and rolled from one side to the other.

  The back seat of a police cruiser isn’t built for comfort. Who’d have thought.

  ***

  Frank awoke at two, his right knee achi
ng. The backseat wasn’t long enough and he’d been sleeping in a fetal position.

  This isn’t going to work.

  Unable to find a comfortable alternative, he left the car and wandered to a hammock hanging between two palm trees in the corner of T.K’s back yard. He crawled inside of it and it sagged to within an inch above the ground.

  He held his breath waiting for it to collapse.

  It didn’t.

  Good enough.

  He nodded off. In his dreams, he lounged on the tropical sands with a beautiful long-haired girl. She lay beside him and he could feel her dark, furry hair touching his cheek—

  Wait a second.

  Frank pressed his mental rewind button and replayed. Tropical beach. Beautiful girl. Dark, furry hair against his—

  That was it.

  Furry.

  That’s not right.

  He opened his lids and saw a dark eye peering at him so close he could touch it.

  He let out a whoop!

  On the ground beside him, Mac and Tommy sat straight up and took a token swing at each other, both whiffing by a foot. Their movement scared Frank all over again and he let out another yelp before his mind and T.K.’s back porch light clued him where he was and the pieces began to fall together.

  “What? What is it?” asked Tommy panting.

  Frank fought to sit up in the low-slung hammock. “What are you two doing out here?”

  “We both got up to pee at the same time, saw you over here and decided we’d better setup camp next to you.”

  “On the ground?’

  Tommy shrugged. “You already had the hammock.”

  “Why’re you screaming?” asked Mac.

  Frank closed his eyes and thought about the eye he’d seen. One eye, big, dark, on the side of a head...he ran through the possibilities until he’d narrowed them down to one suspect.

  “Rabbit. I think. He was goin’ for my earlobe. I woke up just in time.”

  Mac shook his head. “Jeeze, Frank, I nearly had a heart attack.”

  Frank peered at his watch. It was five-thirty. His hip ached and the early morning dew had added fifteen pounds to his uniform. He shivered in the already eighty-degree heat. His body still pulsed from the adrenaline dumped by the rabbit’s visit.

  “Floppy-eared, bloodthirsty sonuva—if I’d had my gun—”

  Mac chuckled. “Good thing you didn’t. You probably would have killed us all.”

  Frank clambered out of the hammock and stretched before finding a discreet spot behind a tree to relieve his bladder. When he returned to the others, he motioned to Tommy. “You’re up. Why don’t you make yourself useful and get us some breakfast?”

  “Good idea.” Tommy headed off in the direction of T.K’s house.

  Mac handed Frank the folded piece of dark green plastic on which he’d been sleeping. “Here. Take this to sit on. Ground’s all wet.”

  “What is it? A trash bag?”

  Mac shook his head. “Used to be a trash bag. My wife sews them into rain slickers. I had a bunch in my trunk. I was supposed to try and sell them to the guys at work.”

  “But you gave her the money and just kept them to avoid the embarrassment of letting your co-workers know your wife makes slickers out of trashbags?”

  Mac nodded. “Yup. I can see why you’re sheriff.”

  They sat on the ground facing each other, arms wrapped around their knees.

  “My bones hurt and my clothes are soaked,” muttered Frank.

  “Yep. This was a bad idea. We should go talk to Elizabeth. Maybe borrow some of T.K.’s clothes.”

  Frank spotted Tommy already on his way back and his shoulders slumped. “Looks like he got breakfast from T.K.’s garage.”

  Tommy approached and lowered a six pack of beer to the ground at their feet. He pointed at the green plastic sheeting beneath them. “Hey, give me my rain slicker.”

  Mac pulled another modified trash bag out from under him and handed it to Tommy.

  Frank jerked a beer from the six pack and held it up for Tommy to see. “I was thinking more like a donut.”

  Tommy shrugged. “Beer’s the same thing. It’s liquid bread.”

  Frank decided it wouldn’t be wise to deal with the marauders while wearing his uniform and smelling of beer, particularly at seven o’clock in the morning. He put down his unopened beer. Tommy and Mac drank their breakfast and appreciated the wonder of T.K.’s final home-improvement project. Three weeks before he died, tired of being bed-ridden and confined to a life of afternoon talk shows, T.K. had dragged the bombs he’d collected as a child out of the garage. The yellow-grey dummies now stood like sentries around his smallest tomato field, the one located closest to his house. Four coveted dud silver bombs marked the corners. Spaced much too far apart to be useful, the bomb fence wouldn’t stop furry pests unless they happened to be a marauding band of tomato-eating cattle, but they added a feeling of security to the crop.

  For a man with T.K.’s advanced case of lung cancer, building a bomb fence proved to be a poor sort of relaxation. Elizabeth returned from the food store that fateful day to find him collapsed on his compost heap, dead.

  Tommy pulled a candy bar from the pocket of his jacket and proceeded to pick the fuzzies from its half-eaten end. “We gotta get a plan rollin’ here.”

  Frank’s stomach growled. “We’ll talk to that bastard when he gets here, tell him we need time to go over the papers. At eight I’ll call the judge and get him to stop this.”

  “What if they don’t listen?” asked Mac.

  “All we can do—” Frank’s gaze settled on Tommy’s candy bar. “What is that?”

  “Candy bar. I had it in my jacket. Want some?”

  Frank grimaced. “No.”

  Mac looked as if he was about to snatch the candy from Tommy, but then he cocked his head. “Hey, you hear something?”

  The low grumble Frank thought was his stomach grew louder. He stood. Beyond the field, he saw dust rising from the road.

  He hung his thumbs behind his soggy belt. “Here they come.”

  Chapter Nine

  Angelina walked into the room on the tenth and uppermost floor of the Loggerhead Inn, her teacup Yorkshire terrier, Harley, tucked in the crook of her elbow. She nodded to the nurse sitting in a padded chair in the corner of the suite.

  “I’ve got him for a bit,” she said.

  Without word, the nurse gathered the book she’d been reading and left. Angelina moved to the door separating the sitting room from the adjoining bedroom and rapped on it.

  “Mick, it’s Angelina. I’m coming in. Pull up your pants.”

  She always said that. It was their thing.

  She opened the door. In a hospital-style bed a salt-and-pepper-haired man lay still, his eyes closed, arms at his side. Chrome safety bars rose on either side of him to keep him from falling out of the bed during one of his occasional seizures. Light filtered through the thin orange draperies, giving the room a strange after-the-bomb yellow glow.

  But it sort of is the end of the world for you, isn’t it, Mick?

  Surprised to be caught off guard by Mick’s stillness again, Angelina opened the drapes to let in more natural light and cracked open the window. January in South Florida had the winter breezes picking up and the air cooled the skin instead of just pushing the humidity back and forth. Angelina knew Mick liked the smell of the outdoors. If he were dreaming, somewhere in that locked skull of his, it might be nice for him to believe he was outside, where he belonged.

  She took a seat in a wicker chair beside the bed, shifting when a cracked piece of cane poked at her spine. Months of the nurse and herself sitting, standing and sitting again had turned the relatively new chair shabby-chic before its time. She made a mental note to get a new one. Something more sturdy, yet comfortable.

  “How are you doing today, sport?” she asked, patting his hand.

  He didn’t answer. She wasn’t surprised.

  “Good. Me too. Same as alw
ays. Except, one thing. I think there’s someone downstairs looking for Siofra.” She paused and smiled. “I know. Who isn’t looking for her, right? I’m just not sure what to tell her. Tell the young lady, that is, not Siofra. Do you want me to tell her the truth?”

  Angelina placed Harley on Mick’s chest and the little dog circled twice before laying down. Angelina continued.

  “She says she has a picture and the call came from Charity, Florida, over on the other side. You know the place. I saw her as she was coming in. Just a glimpse, but she looks like—” She grimaced.

  He doesn’t need to know that yet.

  “It’s all pretty weird,” she said instead.

  Angelina figure-eighted the tip of her index finger between his knuckles. His permanent tan had faded. Age spots had grown more prominent. His skin felt crêpey, so she added another item to her mental list.

  Moisturize his hands more often.

  “Ah, Mickey. I wish you were here.”

  Angelina lay her head on his chest beside Harley and let her head rise and fall with his breathing. The dog stood and licked her forehead once before pouncing on her face. She sat up and tucked the dog back into her crooked elbow.

  “I guess I’ll play it by ear. Right?”

  She stood and offered Mick a close-lipped smile. A trail of tears drew shiny lines from the corners of his eyes and made it look as if he were crying. On the side of his head closest to her she traced the wide scar that never lost its angry red glow. It traveled five inches from above his ear and arced around to the back of his shaved head. A network of blue vein roadways ran in every direction beneath his thinning skin.

  She patted his hand again. “I’m glad we had this little talk. You always know what to do. You always did.”

  Angelina made her way out of the room and entered the main living area just as the nurse returned. She pointed back to the bedroom. “Thanks, Martisha. Can you be sure to moisturize his hands? They’re looking a little dry.”

  Martisha nodded and Angelina headed back downstairs to the lobby.

  Time to talk to Charlotte.

  Chapter Ten