Grayton Winds

by Michael Lindley

  I heard her take a deep breath and then say, “Yes, he came by again last night and fortunately Sheriff Crowe was over for dinner. He finally convinced Miller to leave, but it got a little ugly.”

  We got down to the shoreline and we let Melanee walk out into the shallow surf. We sat down together to watch her. Sara sat with her arms wrapped around her knees. After a while I said, “You can’t go back with him.” She didn’t seem to react, but just kept looking out at her daughter splashing in the waves. “I don’t pretend to know anything about…”

  She interrupted me and said, “That’s right, you don’t know a damn thing!”

  “Sara, I’m sorry and I know I have no place in any of this, but Melanee needs you.”

  Tears started to form in the corners of her eyes. “Don’t you think I know that?” she said, and sniffed and wiped at her eyes. “Don’t you know it breaks my heart every minute I’m away from her?”

  I sat in confused silence for a moment. “I’m sorry,” I finally said. “I really don’t understand.”

  She looked at me with the saddest expression. “It’s just not right for her to be with me for now.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked. “Your daughter needs you to be with her. What’s in New Orleans that could possibly keep you away from her?”

  “It’s probably plain to see I’m not much of a mother,” she said, looking back at her daughter. “It’s better if I’m away.”

  “How could it possibly be better?”

  “Like I said, you can’t begin to understand,” she replied with irritation rising in her voice.

  “So you’re going to run away with Boudreaux again?” I asked.

  She shook her head slowly and then put her face down in her arms.

  The Howard boy’s body had been taken away to town by the sheriff and as the late evening sun began to fall near the horizon, I left the house and walked over to the hotel to check on Lila and Sara. I found them sitting together on the porch, each wrapped up in sweaters against the wind coming in off the Gulf. Melanee was inside playing a delightful tune on the piano, a low almost hypnotic ballad that filled the night air with a soft comforting sound. I pulled another chair over close to the two women and sat down. Both acknowledged my arrival with forced smiles after a very long and troubling day. We all sat together for a while without speaking, looking out across the dunes to the water beyond, listening to the waves rumble up onto the shoreline. The sky was melting into darkening shades of purple and orange and the palms rustled in the breeze.

  Sara stood up and pushed her chair back against the wall. “I need to get Melanee off to bed now. You will all please excuse me?”

  “Good night, honey,” Lila said, taking her hand briefly as she walked by.

  We listened as Sara took her daughter up the stairs to her room. Echoes from the little girl’s music seemed to linger. I looked over at Lila and asked if there had been any new developments with Seth Howard’s murder.

  “No, Lucas talked to everyone,” she said.

  “Yes, I know. He stopped over to the house and asked me a few questions as well,” I said.

  “Mr. Palumbo went back into town tonight and Louise hasn’t come out of her room,” she replied softly. “I just don’t know what to think or do about all this, Mathew. I really don’t want to get in the middle of it, but I also don’t think I could live with myself knowing what’s been going on with his wife and that boy.”

  “I think we should both let things work themselves out for a day or two and see what the sheriff comes up with on his own.” She seemed agreeable to that approach. Then I had to ask her about Sara and I told her about our discussion earlier down on the beach.

  Lila shook her head, not able to hide the sad expression that came over her face. “Mathew, Sara has a terrible problem that’s got hold of her and I’m afraid it’s damn near killing her. It makes me so mad and I keep trying to help her. When she first left Nashville she was so young and it breaks my heart every day to think I let her go. I thought they were all decent people, the band she was singing with I mean.” She paused for a moment to calm herself. She pulled a handkerchief out of a pocket and wiped at her eyes. “I don’t know if it’s drugs or alcohol, or both, Mathew,” she said weakly, her voice cracking as she tried to hold back tears. “That damn Boudreaux’s only made it worse since she’s been over in New Orleans. He keeps her supplied with what she needs and she just keeps falling deeper into this downward spiral.”

  I was frankly shocked by all this and just sat there looking at her for a few moments. “Has she tried to get help?” I finally asked.

  “I haven’t been able to get her near a doctor.”

  I thought about Miller Boudreaux and my anger rose trying to imagine how a man could treat a young woman like this and come between Sara and her family. “We can’t let her go back, Lila.”

  “Don’t you think I’ve tried?”

  “Can we get her some help around here?” I asked.

  “There’s a good hospital over in Tallahassee, but I can’t get her to even talk about any of this. I know it’s breaking her heart about Melanee.”

  “And yet she’ll leave again.” I said.

  Lila nodded. “It’s a terrible sickness, Mathew, and once it gets its grip into you, well it’s just a nightmare. She rarely sleeps and after we’re all in bed I know she’s drinking or doing whatever.”

  “We’re not going to let her go back this time, Lila,” I said, and she looked at me with the saddest expression I think I’ve ever seen.

  Chapter Seventeen

  There is a graceful cadence to the rhythms of a new day along the Gulf of Mexico. As the first glint of soft light from the coming morning sun shows in the dark sky to the east, the night’s predators begin to find their way back to their daytime sanctuary and the hunted peer out cautiously at the prospects of the coming day. Those with a less nocturnal nature venture out. Seabirds flying high over the water looking for schools of baitfish chased near the surface by bluefish or sharks slash down into the water and the abundance of morning food. Sand crabs peer out from their holes and scuttle about in their tireless fashion. Sandpipers scurry along the shore break, darting away from the incoming waves and pecking along the sand for any edible morsel.

  Cruising formations of pelicans float along the shoreline, rising and falling together on the currents and just above the rising swells of the surf. Fishing boats and other trade ships make their way out beyond the far sandbar and a few early-rising fishermen stand out in the surf, casting long rods and heavy baits. Depending on the direction of the wind, the water can lay flat and clear with an offshore breeze or churn dark and foreboding in a relentless series of white-capped swells when it blows from the west or the south. The tall sea oats along the dunes sway on the push of the breeze and after a night of strong winds, wavy patterns of blown sand curve along the beach.

  It can also be a time of peaceful contemplation and reflection, a few moments alone before the heat of the day and complications of life’s realities become all encompassing. Usually among the first out along the shore as the sun would rise each morning, I came to welcome the steady patterns of life and more and more began to feel part of all that was happening around me. On this particular day there was a ridge of low clouds rushing off to the south, deep purple and threatening rain. The wind was blowing with a slight chill from over the dunes to the north, providing a welcome relief from the summer heat.

  As I walked back up through the dunes, squishing through the soft white sand and enjoying the feel of its coolness oozing up through my toes, my mind was drifting back to recent events, dwelling particularly on the dilemma that Lila Dalton faced with her daughter Sara and little Melanee. Then I saw a car parked in front of the house that I recognized immediately. There was a large man sitting in the driver’s seat dressed in a dark suit with a big hat on. My sister Maggie was sitting on one of the porch chairs and my friend Champ, the mockingbird,
was bouncing about on the railing, imploring her with various shrill comments that he wanted to be fed. Of course, Maggie had no idea as to the interpretation of mockingbird talk and she kept trying to shoo Champ away, most unsuccessfully. In spite of all that had been happening lately, I had to laugh at the whole situation.

  “I see you’ve met my friend, Champ,” I said as I walked through the front gate of the worn picket fence. Champ obviously heard me coming because he jumped back down along the rail and turned his attention to me, the easy mark that had become his meal ticket as of late.

  “What is the problem with this crazy bird?” Maggie asked, rising cautiously and coming down the steps to greet me with a long embrace. “How are you, little brother?”

  “It’s great to see you,” I said, holding her close. “Frankly, I’ve been better.” I took her inside and poured coffee for us I had made earlier. We sat down in the living room and I told her about Seth Howard and the Palumbo’s and then about Lila Dalton and her daughter and granddaughter. I was about to share recent events with the glorious Eleanor, but decided that could wait.

  “My, there certainly is some drama in this nowhere little place,” she said. “Almost as exciting as back in Atlanta.”

  “Why have you come all the way down to the coast?” I asked.

  “It’s just dreadful up there right now. Daddy and his men are almost bunkered down in this fight with the O’Leary’s, since Jess, you know?” she said with pain welling up in her voice. “I swear they’re all going to kill each other and my dear husband, Desmond, has got himself right in the middle of it all.”

  I asked her how bad it was really getting and she went on to tell me all of my father’s men were carrying guns now and she and our mother were not allowed to travel around town without armed escorts, including the big bodyguard that was out in the car. She had read in the paper that one of the O’Leary’s men had been killed in a shootout on the south side of the city. When she had asked our father about it he had refused to discuss it.

  I was still struggling everyday with the nightmare of the loss of our brother Jess and the empty space that ached inside. His betrayal with Hanna was still a fresh and vivid stain on my memory, but far overshadowed by the tragedy of his death. When she had finished, I said, “Please don’t ask me to go back up there.”

  She reached across and placed her hand on my arm. “Daddy asked me to come. He really wants the family all back together in Atlanta where he can make sure we’re safe and honestly with Jess gone, he needs you to help with this war he’s found himself in.”

  “And he thinks you can persuade me?”

  She nodded and then looked out the window across the barren dunes and scattered cottages. “Mathew, you can’t stay down here forever.”

  “Don’t be so sure,” I responded quickly.

  “What can you possibly do?”

  I told her I was coming to feel at home here and that I was making friends. I went into some detail then about Eleanor and that we were getting along quite nicely. I talked about the progress I was making on my book, but mostly I tried to emphasize there were people down here now I cared about and who needed my help, too.

  “We’re family, Mathew,” she said.

  “I told him, in no uncertain terms, that I wanted nothing to do with his business and my conscience is still quite clear on all of that.”

  She looked at me for a few moments, seeming to contemplate my mood and comments. “Father wanted me to tell you he won’t ask again. He’ll cut you off brother and I mean completely.”

  I smiled back at her with an easy peace within myself.

  “You all will just need to understand I don’t care about that and I sure as hell don’t care about his money.”

  I could see the sad expression appear across my sister’s face. She looked down at the floor and shook her head slowly. Then she quietly said, “I guess I knew that’s how you’d feel.” She reached in her purse and pulled out an envelope and handed it to me. I looked inside and there was a thick stack of $100 bills. “I figured you were going to need a little more cash to see yourself through down here, for a bit longer anyway. Don’t tell Daddy.”

  I thanked her and tried to give it back, but she insisted. “You’re not going to just turn around and head back, are you?” I asked. “You need to stay for a day or two, or as long as you like. This is a glorious place.”

  “What could possibly be glorious about snakes and sand storms and crazy birds flying around my head?” she asked, and we both laughed. I moved over next to her on the couch and hugged her.

  “Thank you for coming down and please stay a while.” She nodded reluctantly. “Did you bring any other clothes?” I asked, looking at her finely tailored dress and fitted hat, clearly out of place in this little beach settlement.

  “You know me, always prepared.” She walked over to the door and yelled for her driver, Sidney, to bring one of her bags in. When she had changed into something more casual and appropriate, a pair of slacks and a light blouse, I took her over to the hotel and introduced her to Lila Dalton. Sara and Melanee had gone down to the beach for an early morning swim. We made arrangements for two rooms at the hotel for Maggie and her assigned escort, Sidney. Lila and Maggie seemed to hit it off immediately and the innkeeper took my sister off on a tour of the little hotel and then out to show her around Grayton Beach. Sidney went upstairs to put their bags away. He passed Palumbo coming down, who I noticed got very concerned by the arrival of the big stranger, his hand hovering close to the gun under his jacket.

  “Who’s the goon?” he asked when he came up to me in the lobby.

  “He’s here to keep an eye on my sister. She’ll be staying for a couple of days. Nothing to worry about,” I said, trying to reassure him.

  “I have nothing better to do than worry,” he answered, looking up the stairs again. “It’s part of the business.” We walked into the dining room and he poured a cup of coffee from the credenza in the corner. We sat down together at the long dining table. “The old sheriff worked me over pretty good about Seth Howard. Told the asshole I had twenty witnesses in Panama City who could vouch for me. He finally agreed to check them out.”

  I resisted the urge to tell Palumbo about his wife and the now dead and gone, young Seth Howard. What possible good could come from it, only the real likelihood he would be furious and take it out on his wife? I watched the man sipping his coffee, trying to read his implacable face. How many other men had he murdered or had killed in his long career of crime and violence? I thought about the strange selection of friends I had happened across in this little town.

  “What’s your sister down for?” he asked. I explained everything that she had told me and about the escalation of the feud with the rival bootleggers. “It’s a damn dirty business, a tough business… a real tough business,” he said, going up to get a couple of muffins that were on a tray. When he sat back down he leaned over close to me and said, “Told you I had a few friends up there in the city.” I nodded. “Asked one of them to do a little checking on the situation.”

  “I told you not to get involved,” I said, irritated he had initiated such a course of action.

  “I know what you told me. Since when has what you think ever stopped me from doing whatever the hell I damn please?”

  “Palumbo…” I started, but he interrupted me and continued.

  “One of my friends called me back down here last night. You and your family have a real problem up there.”

  “That’s hardly news,” I said.

  “Who’s this asshole, Desmond Raye?” he asked, and I looked up with sudden alarm. Before I could answer, he said, “Your sister’s damn husband, right?”

  I nodded, looking him straight in the eye. He took a big bite out of one of the muffins and I waited for him to finish, watching crumbs fall down over his big belly and onto the floor.

  “The sonofabitch’s rattin’ out your family, Mathew.”

  �
��What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Seems he’s playing both sides of this thing,” Palumbo said.

  “He’s working for O’Leary?” I asked, pushing my chair back and standing up in disbelief. He shook his head yes, as he took another bite. “Are you sure?”

  “Sure as shit, young man,” he said. “I got excellent sources up there in Atlanta. This Raye fellow’s been settin’ your old man up. Wants a bigger cut of the business.”

  I was completely stunned by all of this and immediately thought of my sister out walking around with Lila. I could feel the anger burning up from deep in my gut. I went out the door and found Lila and Maggie a few minutes later down at the covered pavilion at the beach. Sara and Melanee were off in the distance splashing down in the shallow break of the surf. I told Maggie I needed to speak with her privately and Lila excused herself to go back up to the hotel. When I told her about Palumbo’s story implicating her husband in a terrible plot against the family she looked away toward the green and blue waters of the Gulf and stood there silently for a few moments before speaking.

  “Obviously, I’m not surprised,” she said. I asked her if she had any notion of what he was up to and she reassured me that she hadn’t really imagined it was anything as sinister as this, but that he had been acting so differently since I had left Atlanta and our father had asked him to get more involved in the business. “Are you completely sure about this?” she asked.

  “Palumbo is not one to speculate or act on rumor,” I said.

  Suddenly the implications of all of this seemed to catch up with her and I could see her proud bearing and posture deflate before my eyes. I had always questioned her attraction to the strange and aloof Desmond Raye. Seeming to read my thoughts, she said, “Desmond and I have had such an odd time together. Believe it or not, he was so charming when we first met. I know I had never met another man more caring and attentive.”

  “I don’t recall seeing that side of the man,” I answered.