“Can you tell me anything else about the Hummers? Anything I can use to help the poor people who seem to be caught up in this Hummers International web?”
“I do feel sorry for them, you know, even though I hate that their misguided actions are hurting our cause. But I know what that desperation feels like, and before you figure out ways to cope, you’ll do almost anything to try to stop the Hum. I wish I could help.”
“Do you know anything about their retreats? What do they do in their sessions, do you know?”
“No one I know has ever been invited to one of those special retreats. They hold them three or four times a year, but it’s by invitation only. I’ve never wanted to attend, but I know people who still think maybe Joseph Siderius can teach them to control the Hum. They’ve petitioned Hummers International to attend a retreat, but they’re turned down every time. I don’t have any idea how they pick who’s going to attend.”
“Are the retreats inordinately expensive?” Time and time again, Sabrina had asked this question. “Follow the money” was the old adage. If Hummers International was a scam, where was the money? It had not escaped her notice that three of the five Hummers, Walter, Dennis, and Sophie, were most likely wealthy, but what about Lance and Patti? They seemed comfortable, but certainly not rich.
Veronica confirmed what Sabrina already suspected. “The price isn’t cheap, but it’s reasonable, I suppose.”
Sabrina tried another tack. “Have you ever heard any rumors, then, about what goes on at the retreats?”
“No, the people who attend the retreats are very quiet afterward. They never talk about what goes on. I’m sorry I can’t do more. The biggest help you can be to those poor people is to convince them to get away from Hummers International. There’s something else worth thinking about, as well. Those of us who suffer the effects of the Hum might very well be the miner’s canary for the rest of you. We may be the only ones to ‘hear’ the Hum, but it undoubtedly affects all of us.”
***
After she hung up the phone, Sabrina sat and contemplated what she had learned. When she was done with that, she contemplated her aching body and impressive bruises. She wondered if Sergeant Jimmy had any luck finding the car or truck that tried to run her down. Of course, Sabrina wasn’t even sure whether it was a car or truck, much less the color, the license number, or the gender of the person driving it. Last night, Jimmy shook his head and told her to go back to sleep and keep her doors locked. The only good thing was he didn’t express an opinion one way or another about her sanity, or lack thereof.
Sabrina struggled to her feet and hopped into the kitchen to warm up her hot tea. Calvin was waiting for her by the microwave. He had a premonitory instinct about when she was about to use the machine, delighting in repeating the sounds the buttons made when pushed.
And speaking of extrasensory perception, Sabrina was not at all surprised to hear Sally’s voice the next time the phone rang.
“Honey, what in all that’s holy is going on down there?” bellowed her best friend from Cincinnati. Sally wasn’t even pretending not to know that something had happened. Where did she get her information? By this time of the morning, the entire island knew about Sabrina’s near-miss the night before. Anyone could have called Sally, but who was the squealer? Sally would never admit how she came by her information.
“Good morning, Sally. How are you doing this morning?”
“A lot better than you, from what I hear! What happened?” Sally was opinionated, nosy, frequently insensitive, civic-minded to a fault, and Sabrina’s very best friend in the whole world.
Sabrina swirled her cup on the table, and Calvin darted after the tag from the tea bag as it fluttered over the side. He was keeping a close eye on her this morning. “Somebody tried to run me over last night. I’m banged up pretty good, but nothing is broken.”
“Don’t sound so disappointed.”
“Of course I’m not!” Though a sneaking part of her thought if her ankle was going to hurt this much, it might as well give her the satisfaction of being able to say it was broken.
“I’m not going to feed into your hypochondriacal fantasies by asking you to detail your injuries to me. I trust you will survive.” The only way Sally would be this blasé about her friend’s health was because she knew that Sabrina was basically intact. She had other fish to fry. “Who tried to run you down?”
“I have no idea. The police are out looking for the person, but as far as I know they haven’t found him or her yet.” And the chances they would find the perpetrator on a description of the slight yellowness of the headlights were pretty slim.
“Yes, but who would want to run you down, Sabrina? When you lived in Cincinnati, nobody even knew you were alive, much less wanted to kill you.”
Sabrina thought about that for a moment. Was it worth having people know she was alive, if that knowledge made them want to kill her? It reminded her of the old puzzle about the tree in the forest. Would the tree rather have stayed alive and upright, rather than prove its existence by falling so someone could hear it?
Sally was finishing up with “…sure you don’t want to come back to Cincinnati? At least you could walk the streets in safety. Well, unless you decided to wear a ‘I hate Parrotheads’ tee-shirt just before Jimmy Buffett is scheduled to perform at Riverbend Music Center, but then you’d just be an idiot. Honey, the only thing you had to live for before was that horrible, drunken mother of yours, and when she died you were lost. Then you found the lump in your breast. I’m not sure quitting your job here and moving to that godforsaken island was the best medicine for you.”
“I’m doing fine, Sally. I think this is a good sign. It means I’m doing my job. I must be getting close to something, or why else would someone be trying to shut me up?” Sabrina looked down at her ankle, seeing it in a new light. Now it seemed to shine with the virtuous glow of an injury received in the line of duty.
“Sabrina, really, how are you doing?” Sally’s tone dropped to a solicitous, you-can-tell-me-anything tone. “Are you still having to visualize your armor every day?”
“No, I haven’t had to do that for a day or two. I’ve been too busy to think about it.” Actually, having to jump off a bridge and swim for her life made her feel pretty strong. She wondered if she could remember how she felt as she soared off that bridge the next time she was feeling vulnerable. Wasn’t saving yourself from a determined killer the act of a brave person? She wished now she had done a swan dive, or maybe a cannonball.
“And you have no idea who it could have been?”
“I’ve been thinking about that…” And she had, all last night as she tossed and turned, starting at every creak and groan in her apartment. Who would want to kill her? And why now? The fact that she was scaring someone was good, but not if she had no idea how.
“I don’t understand how you could have made someone so mad that they tried to run you down. What in the world are you doing on that godforsaken island? Do I need to come and knock some heads together?”
“I’d love to see you, Sally, you’re welcome anytime. Calvin misses you.”
“You’re changing the subject,” Sally grumbled. “Have you gone out on a date yet? Honey, you know you’re not going out on any dates because you don’t have any confidence in yourself. How are you ever going to—”
“It was good talking to you, Sally, but I’ve got to go. Bye!”
Chapter Thirty-three
Bicycle Bob was humming “Singin’ in the Rain” as Sabrina maneuvered herself off of the bright blue moped and undid the bungee cords holding her crutches strapped to the sides.
“Where in the heck did you get that?” Lima sounded irritable. Rain made his joints ache.
Ignoring the raindrops that kept falling on her head, Sabrina arranged the crutches under her arms. Did she have them backward? Was there a front and back? “The moped? I borrowed it from May at the Blue Cam this morning.”
Lima and Bicycle watched her in fasci
nation as she tried to climb the stairs on the crutches. It took three tries and a near-fall backward before she gained the porch and sank into a rocking chair beside Lima.
“It’s raining, you’re hurt, and you’re running around on a moped?”
“I had things I needed to do.”
“What was so important you had to get out in this mess?”
In truth, it wasn’t much of a rain. All morning, low clouds had wept a melancholy dribble that was more mist than rain. The rose-colored light reflected through the clouds made the grass appear a glowing emerald and the sky a strange bruised green.
“I had work to do,” Sabrina said in a lofty tone. “I decided to revisit the victims of the recent break-ins and see how they were doing.” And ask if any noticed the smell of fish on their burglar. It was slim, but it was all she had. Now she had nothing, however, because none of them had noticed a fishy smell.
“And what did you find out?”
“Not much. I went by Hill Mitchell’s first, since his was the first break-in. At first he pretended he wasn’t home, but he finally let me in.”
Lima massaged his knee. “It’s a shame what’s become of that boy. Both his dad and granddad were such pistols. His granddad was sheriff of Teach County back during prohibition, you know. So how does Hill turn out to be as soft as a bag of wet kittens? Makes no sense.”
“Then I went to see Maggie Fromlin. Remember, she was staying at the rental cottage and saw the burglar? But she couldn’t remember anything else. They’re having so much fun that they’ve decided to stay on a couple of extra days. Then, I tracked Missy Garrison down at the Tittletott House. She was waiting tables and angry because several of her tourist customers were being rude. Of course, she was wearing her ‘If you don’t live here, go home’ tee-shirt, so that might have contributed to their hostility, but who knows.”
“I don’t know, things are getting pretty ugly.” Lima rubbed at a scab on his elbow. “Jimmy came by and he looked pretty tired. He’d been out all night breaking up fights at the bars between the tourists and locals. Oh, and he told me to tell you he didn’t have any luck finding your attacker yet, but he was still working on it. Bye, Bicycle.”
Sabrina looked up to see that Bicycle Bob had risen and was wheeling his bike down the road, weaving unsteadily. He was too drunk even to mount the bike.
“He always gets worse this time of year,” Lima said, watching his friend go with a sad shake of his head. “One year we closed down the liquor store for these couple of days, thinking it might help, but he rode his bike onto the ferry and went to the mainland. As far as I know, that’s the only time he’s left the island for twenty years.”
Sabrina frowned. “What—”
“Oh no, you gotta go. There’s Mary, and she’s been on the warpath for you all morning. Go, go, go!”
Sabrina looked down the street and saw the rotund, determined shape of Mary Garrison Tubbs rounding the corner by the ferry docks. For a moment, with the memory of her flight off the bridge the night before shining like a newly minted badge of courage, she thought about staying and facing the woman. But she’d never been one of those people to say no to Novocain when having dental work done, so she struggled to her feet and grabbed her crutches. She swung over to the edge of the steps, and then stared down in dismay at the precipice before her.
“Sabrina!” The sound of her name being called in that irate, self-satisfied voice spurred her on. She half-hopped, half-fell down the stairs and swung her leg across the seat of the moped. It took her a moment to remember how to get the thing started, and by the time she did, she could feel the hot flames of Mary’s breath practically on her neck. But now she had the roar of the engine to account for her sudden attack of deafness, and without bothering to secure her crutches, she took off with a spurt of gravel.
“See you later, Lima!” she called without looking back.
“Sabrina!” The enraged shout followed her down the street as she pinged the stop sign with her crutch at the corner of Tittletott Row, and almost took out an elderly gentleman taking pictures of the lofty mansions.
When her station wagon refused to start this morning, she agreed to accept the moped from May. It was coming in handy, even if she couldn’t figure out how she kept activating the horn, or how to turn off the left turn signal.
Sabrina looked around to see that she had somehow ended up in battered, worn Waver Town. She thought about stopping by Nettie’s Candy Shop for a blueberry muffin, but decided that she needed to get over to the Shell Lodge. Just as she was looking for a place to turn around on the narrow, pothole-infested street, she caught sight of a bright yellow bike being pushed by an erratic Bicycle Bob. He weaved his way through someone’s yard, knocked over a pile of crab pots, and disappeared.
Sabrina hesitated, but concern for the drunken man won out. It looked as if he was headed for home, but she better follow and make sure he got there. Bicycle Bob was never sober, but this degree of meandering inebriation was unusual. She would have to remember to ask Lima why this time of year was worse for Bicycle.
The narrow road that led to Bicycle Bob’s house was tucked between two dilapidated houses. The road didn’t look like much more than a path into someone’s backyard, but she had been this way before, so with confidence she drove through the carport and around the swing set. In the heavy woods beyond the houses, the road twisted and turned through heavy overgrowth, marked here and there by driveways that led to invisible houses. Long after the road seemed to peter out, she kept going, looking for the paths around logs and even wading through a small stream. She’d lost sight of Bicycle, but she knew that he could traverse this road quicker than she with his eyes closed. Double or even triple vision wouldn’t slow him down one bit.
Finally, she reached the ramshackle, neon-colored structure that Bicycle called home. The first time she visited Bicycle, she was amazed at the colorful, incoherent murals that swirled over the broken, warped boards of his siding. Psychedelic fish fashioned out of coconuts swam in a sea of net across the front porch, and less identifiable objects made from beer cans marched up the front steps.
As Sabrina negotiated the steps, she called, “Bicycle! It’s Sabrina Dunsweeney!”
She knew he was here, as his yellow beach bike was parked near the stairs. She made it onto the porch and ducked under the net, swinging with coconut fish and brightly painted sea shells, to knock on the screen door. A moment later, Bicycle appeared and wordlessly held the door open in invitation.
Some instinctive gene for neatness must have been rooted in Bicycle’s subconscious, because with the exception of a work table piled with paint supplies and beer cans on the counter in various stags of dissection, the house was clean and straight. She knew that Bicycle’s mother and brother, Sergeant Jimmy, stopped by often to bring him food and paint supplies, but she didn’t think they were obsessively cleaning his house. That was all Bicycle.
Even in the last stages of drunkenness, Bicycle was a different person in his own home. He still did not speak, but he swung a hand for Sabrina to sit and opened the refrigerator in silent inquiry. Since the only beverages in sight were alcoholic, Sabrina shook her head with a smile. As she turned to the small living room, she stopped in shock.
Joseph Siderius sat on the couch, and vivid red stains splattered his hands and clothes.
Chapter Thirty-four
After a moment, Sabrina saw that what she first took to be blood on Joseph Siderius was actually red paint. Several cans of it were spread across newspapers on the coffee table in front of him, and he was concentrating on painting designs on a piece of driftwood. Though there were cans of blue, green and yellow paint as well, he ignored them in favor of various shades of crimson and orange.
“Hello, Joseph. I didn’t know you knew Bicycle.”
Joseph looked up, and it took a moment for his eyes to focus on her. Then his gaze sharpened and he smiled gently as he nodded in greeting.
Sabrina looked around and saw that
Bicycle was working on a beer can, using a knife to peel the aluminum into layers which he was arranging into a shape only he could see.
“How long have you two known each other?” She didn’t expect an answer, and was not surprised by a burst of loquaciousness from either of the taciturn men. In fact, they had gone back to work on their various projects and did not seem aware of her presence.
Sabrina remembered Michael complaining that Joseph had started disappearing ever since arriving on the island. Was this where Joseph had been? How in the world did Bicycle Bob and Joseph meet? Though after watching them for a few minutes, she saw there was a natural affinity between the two silent men. Both were locked in an inner place, their own reality preferable to the real world.
Sabrina went to sit next to Joseph on the couch and he shifted his weight to give her room. She watched him hesitate between a bright stop-sign red and a darker, rust red before settling on the second color. He dipped the brush into the paint and bent close to the driftwood. As he concentrated on his work, she realized what she had taken for careful squiggles were equations of some sort. Even if she had been mathematically literate, it would be impossible to read them, however, as he had painted hundreds of them across the surface of the wood, overlapping this way and that.
At one point Joseph looked up at her and smiled, and he reached a hand out to lay on Sabrina’s wrist. Sabrina clasped it with her own hand, and smiled back. She wondered how this benign man had produced a son like Michael. On second thought, from all accounts, Joseph used to be a different person. How had he metamorphosed from a driven scientist, determined to discover the source of the Hum, into this quiet man who was content to observe the contents of his soul? How could he be teaching anyone how to control the Hum when, as far as she could tell, he didn’t speak?
Island Blues Page 19
