Death By Drowning

by Abigail Keam

  “’Ou and I had nothing to do with that. I refuse to feel guilty about something that happened almost two hundred years ago. Should I feel guilty about what the Vikings did? Besides, every dog has his day and the Choctaws are making a killing with their casinos. Let’s drop the subject, okay?”

  “Why does he carry a gun with him?”

  “Does he?” I replied.

  “You know damn well he does. You can see it underneath his shirt. What’s going on here? I think he is more than just a nurse’s aide. Are you in trouble again, honey? I thought everything was over and done with.”

  Coming to my rescue, Baby lumbered over and placed his massive head in Irene’s lap. “Josiah, get this monster off me. He’s slobbering all over my skirt.”

  “Baby, lie down. Go on now. Lie down. Good boy. Good boy,” I said.

  Baby licked his jaws and the top of his nose before sneezing on Irene. As he shook his head, a long strand of thick, sticky drool fell on Irene’s canvas shoes before he lumbered off to find Jake. Pursing her lips with considerable restraint, Irene said nothing as she glanced at her stained shoes.

  I turned towards Irene. “Okay, let’s have it. How did ’ou know where I was?”

  “Everyone knows where you are,” replied Irene, pushing up her glasses a nose so thin at the ridge it looked like it could cut paper. “You can’t keep a secret like that in a small town like Lexington very long.”

  Seeing the confused look on my face, she said, “Matt has been sending out your mail from the Keene post office thinking he was being real sneaky. Well, golly, Josiah, Keene’s only got one building – the store that attaches onto the post office. Don’t you think someone that looks like Matt would be noticed? Women started driving by all hours of the day hoping they could catch a glimpse of him. It’s not every day you see someone that looks like Antonio Banderas in the flesh. To make a long story short, Miriam, the peach lady, lives in Keene and just went in one day while he was there and looked over his shoulder, so to speak. All the packages were addressed here in Key West. Then the funny little guy that got shot with you came back to town with a tan. When he wouldn’t tell anyone where he had been, we all assumed he was with you. So – here I be.”

  “Victor Mature.”

  “Huh?”

  “Matt looks like Victor Mature.” I took a sip of my lime drink. “Okay, I’ve got the how. Now, let’s hear the why.”

  Irene bowed her head. “I feel bad asking you since you’re still recuperating, but I’ve got no one else to turn to.”

  I reached over and clutched Irene’s hand. “My daughter told me that ’ou came or called every day that I was in the hospital, and that ’ou cooked for her. A person can’t have too many friends like that, Irene. If there is something that I can do for ’ou, I will try.”

  Irene lifted her glasses and wiped the tears away that threatened to spill down her pinched features. “It’s my sister’s boy – Jamie. You’ve met him?”

  “Once or twice.”

  “He’s dead, Josiah. Drowned in the river.”

  “I’m so sorry, Irene. When did this happen?”

  “Over two weeks ago. They say he drowned, but there’s something that just ain’t right about his death. He was on the river late at night. My sister has no explanation for what he was doing on the water after midnight. And the coroner said there was gasoline residue on his clothes.”

  I remained still while Irene caught her breath.

  “To make matters worse, that same night, the Golden Sun Vineyard caught on fire. Someone torched fire to their vines . . .”

  “So ’ou think that Jamie set fire to the vineyard, and as he was making his escape, he had an accident and drowned?” I interrupted.

  Irene shrugged.

  I paused. It took me longer now to collect my swirling thoughts and make sense of them. I know it was unsettling for people to sit together in silence. It’s considered rude, but since the accident, my mind was a machine slow in the processing of information. Irene waited patiently.

  “This Golden Sun Vineyard . . . isn’t this the winery that claims that they have discovered the heritage grape that served as Thomas Jefferson’s table wine and was the site of the first commercial winery in the United States?”

  “Yes,” replied Irene peevishly, “but we all know that my sister’s vineyard, the Silver Creek Vineyard, was the first in the United States.

  “Now don’t get huffy, Irene,” I said, “but I read in the paper that the Golden Sun Vineyard can prove their claims with journals, old deeds and letters. Did those claims worry your sister? Be honest.”

  “It worried her a touch. People would think that she was lying all those years.”

  “She based her claims on oral history and legend which, unfortunately, is sometimes inaccurate. But if that is all ’ou’ve got to go on, no one can fault her for making those claims.” My left hand began to twitch which it now does when I am tired. “Still, I don’t see how I can help, Irene.”

  “You know people, Josiah. You have resources that my sister and me don’t. You know how the system works after what you went through with Richard Pidgeon’s death. I know it’s a lot to ask, but if you could just look into it when you get back home, I’d be much obliged. I’m a-tellin’ you, Josiah, something in my bones tells me that boy was murdered.”

  Observing Irene’s fervor, I nodded, but privately I didn’t know what I could do. I could barely walk. Coming to my rescue, Jake poked his head out from his bedroom and called, “Boss Lady, time for bed.”

  I looked apologetically at Irene. “We’ll pick this up tomorrow, Irene. I’m very tired. I’m still building up my strength.”

  “Of course. Do you need help?”

  “Nope, this is part of my therapy. I now have to get ready for bed on my own. Jake has a monitor in my room, so if I fall, he can hear me.” I tugged on the muumuu. “And everything is kept together with velcro. Jake’s idea. I have to work my way up to buttons and zippers.”

  Whatever thoughts Irene had as she watched me limp to my bedroom, she kept to herself.

  I awoke around two in the morning to catch Irene sitting in the same patio chair. A storm had cut loose and was raining heavy sheets of silvery droplets. Irene’s silhouette played against the reflection of the pool on the property’s pink stucco wall. Streaks of bright lightning illuminated her calmly smoking, while watching the night sky from the protection of the covered patio.

  Sighing, I pushed Baby over to the side of the bed, away from my spine. He didn’t even flinch. All the bedroom doors opened on to the patio. I heard Jake get up from his bed, peep in my door and then check on Irene. They spoke and then he went back to his room. His mattress squeaked as he climbed back in bed. Within minutes an occasional snore sounded from his room. It seemed that only the women were beset by worries.

  Over the next several days, I pumped Irene for information concerning her nephew while we went sightseeing around the island. After extending our walks a little more each day, Irene would bring me home by taxi, so I could take a long nap and then finish my pool therapy. After dinner, I was ready for bed. While we occupied ourselves, Jake made arrangements to close the house and to transport Baby and me back to Kentucky.

  On the last day of her visit, Irene pulled me into a brightly painted beauty shop on Catherine Street in the Cuban section of Old Town. There were pictures of the Madonna on the mirrors at every station and old black and white snapshots of a young Cuban woman standing in a deserted Paseo del Prado in Havana or with the El Morro Fortress in the background, smiling and waving at the person taking the picture.

  “Josiah, I don’t want to fuss, but you need to have your hair done. You shouldn’t go back to Kentucky looking like . . . well, like you do.” She played with my hair, which was three inches long in some areas, four inches in others along with a bald patch here and there. “I’ve made arrangements for a total make-over and I’m gonna pay for it. That’s the least I can do for you. I’ve ’splained everything
to this here lady.”

  I started to protest, but Irene motioned towards a grim-looking woman who gently took me by an arm and deposited me into her chair. I looked again at the snapshots and determined the older beautician working on my hair and the young girl in the picture were one and the same. Irene, with her Kentucky country accent and the Spanish-speaking woman prattled like old friends, both obviously disgusted with my appearance. The Cuban lady tsk-tsked while Irene clucked like an old hen when discussing my hair. Irene dug out an old photo of us together from her purse and negotiated the color of my hair with the beautician. The beautician nodded and her work began in earnest.

  I couldn’t stand to look in the booth mirrors, so I pretended to be asleep for most of the time. My eyebrows were waxed and chin hairs plucked first. Then the work on my head began. My hair was colored, trimmed and styled. A hot solution of bath oils soaked my raggedy-looking feet. Afterwards toenails were painted, as were my fingernails.

  After several hours, Irene said, “Let’s put some make-up on her.” Before I could open my mouth to protest, Irene said, “Shut up, Josiah. This is my party.”

  I slumped down in my chair yielding to exhaustion. It was past my naptime. Finally, I heard, “Josiah, open your eyes and look in the mirror. Trust me.”

  After seven months of deliberately not looking at myself, I opened my eyes to a three-paneled mirror. The woman before me had a jaunty spiked haircut of golden red hair. Her green eyes stood out against the dark eyeliner and bronze makeup. I touched my cheek. No – that wasn’t makeup. That was a tan. I felt my jaw line and brow. I lifted my hair to see the telltale signs of plastic surgery. My fingers lingered on the fading welts, scratches, and surgeon’s cuts. I sat back in my chair and stared at the woman in the mirror before me.

  “Everything lines up,” I gushed breathlessly.

  “Yep, they did a good job putting you back together. Nothing seems out of kilter. They even matched up your eyeball sockets.”

  “I have cheekbones,” I said.

  “That’s cause you’ve lost so much weight, they stand out. If you lost more of that belly flab, you’d be a stunner.”

  I gaped into the mirror at a woman I hadn’t seen for many years. “Irene, do I look ’ounger to ’ou?”

  “Like you did when I first met you.” Irene chuckled. “Your daughter told the surgeons, while they were working on you to make you look younger. That girl never misses an opportunity. I was there when she told them, ‘now don’t make her look too young, just younger.’”

  Laughter gurgled up my throat and escaped into delighted hoots. “Oh my gawd!” I cried ecstatically. “I thought I looked like the hunchback of Notre Dame. I actually look presentable. What a freaking relief!”

  The Cuban hairdresser started speaking to me in Spanish, which I don’t understand but it didn’t take a translator for me to realize that she was happy too. “Good lady,” I said, “thank you. Thank you.”

  Irene helped me out of the chair and we walked out of the tiny little beauty parlor with the Cuban lady chatting merrily behind us. She called to people in the street, who strolled over to take a good gander at me. One middle-aged man gave me a thumbs-up before joining his buddies playing chess across the street. Several matrons reached up and rearranged my bangs during a heated debate with the hairdresser. She pushed them away and taking a comb out of her apron, gave my hair a final pat.

  Jake was waiting with a cab. He did a double take and then broke out into a broad grin. When he saw tears in my eyes, Jake gave me a big hug. “I told you it wasn’t that bad. The docs did a good job on you.”

  I let Jake help me into the cab while Irene dug in her big purse for a handkerchief. I ruined my eye makeup blubbering all the way home. After giving me a final once-over, Irene declared me fit for society and that she could go home satisfied.

  A day later, she left on a commuter plane bound for Miami, but not before she laid her hands on my head and gave me her blessing. “And Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until the breaking of day. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched the hollow of his thigh; and Jacob’s thigh was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then he said, ‘Let me go.’ But Jacob said, ‘I will not unless you bless me.’ And he said to him, ‘What is your name?’ And he said, ‘Jacob.’ Then he said, ‘Your name shall be Israel for you have striven with God and with men and have prevailed.’”

  “In other words, keep the faith, baby.”

  “Keep on keeping on, Josiah. It’s all we can do. See you in Lexington.”

  A week later I boarded a rented RV with Jake, Baby, my new paintings, lots of hair dye and a driver heading for Kentucky. I counted every mile marker going home as I craved to walk on the sacred hunting grounds of the Shawnee.

  I also had a mystery to solve.

  5

  We turned onto the gravel driveway that divided two mowed pastures with new plank fences. Bluebird boxes nailed to the fence posts sparkled with blue-pink flashes of hurrying nesting pairs rushing back and forth. Past the bird boxes, into the left pasture grazed a stallion whose coat gleamed blue-black in the spring sunlight. He stared at the passing RV before contemptuously galloping to the far side by jumping across the stream that divided the field, his black mane and tail fluttering in the wind. A couple of nanny goats trotted after him.

  In the other pasture grazed several old racers that had been rescued from the butcher’s block. They good-naturedly raced the RV the length of their field.

  The redbuds, their full, pink glory fading, were accented by the white blooms on the dogwood trees as they were beginning to reveal their flowers in the patch of woods beyond the clearing.

  The last time I had been home, the leaves had been turning orange.

  We slowly passed the old ’baccer cure barn that nestled in a once-neglected tobacco field which had been recently tilled. It was freshly painted black with a bright quilt square of a star blazing its forehead. Missing planks had been replaced and weeds cut from around the base of the early twentieth-century relic. From inside the open doors of the barn peeped a new tractor. A llama and her new baby, several feral cats along with a flock of wild turkeys, using the barn as a base, scurried to the woods upon sighting the RV.

  My, my but Matt and Shaneika had been busy in my absence. The RV rattled passed Matt’s caretaker’s shack, which had been painted dark green with sea green shutters and door. A shiny metal roof graced the top. New patio furniture sat on the front porch and several flowerbeds had been excavated, waiting patiently for their new occupants. Japanese maple trees, Kentucky bamboo and ornamental birch trees lay casually strewn, still in their burlap balls. I could see Matt had plans for my little cottage.

  The dusty gravel road gave way to the more expensive pea gravel that had been raked into a wavy pattern. We turned the bend and there stood my house, the Butterfly, but not as I had left her. Water thundered down from her middle copper gutter making a spectacular waterfall splash creating a small rainbow at its granite basin. The windows winked back with shimmering clean glass. The flowerbeds were raked free from years of debris with new native plants and trees freshly planted. The house’s limestone and wood looked as though it had been power washed for it was free of weather and age stains. The Butterfly looked brand new.

  “Man oh man,” whistled Jake. “This is some house.”

  “I haven’t see the Butterfly look this good since she was built.” I clapped my hands together. “Oh, she’s a grand old lady.”

  When the RV stopped by, I had to wait until Jake let me down the handicap lift with Baby wagging his tail beside me.

  One of my daughter’s over-muscled minions opened the front alcove door. Baby growled and leaned against me, putting pressure on my bad leg. I patted him reassuringly while trying to shift his weight.

  “Good afternoon, Mrs. Reynolds. I trust you had a pleasant trip. My name is Cody and I’ll be assisting you until your daughter returns. There have been some security chan
ges. I will explain those after you’ve had a chance to rest.” He exchanged glances with Jake, and then went to help the driver retrieve our luggage.

  “Cody?” I murmured to Jake. “Sounds like he’s named after a horse.”

  “Don’t underestimate him. Cody’s very good.”

  I limped through the bamboo alcove and passed through the double steel doors. I paused in the foyer, inhaling the house’s new odors. She smelled from the damp of the river, Chanel No. 5 and fresh paint.

  As I roamed the rooms, the song from the Wizard of Oz “can you even dye my eyes to match my gown” – from when Dorothy and her compatriots first entered the wondrous Emerald City – wouldn’t leave my head. I began humming the tune. I was just as enthralled with what I saw as had been the tin man, scarecrow and lion. And just like me, the Butterfly had had an overhaul.

  New polished riverbed limestone counters graced the kitchen. The backsplash was inlaid with Kentucky agate. The house’s inside concrete walls had been freshened while the classic 50’s and 60’s furniture, sprinkled here and there with antiques, had been steamed, cleaned or polished. My treasured Nakashima table was burdened with a dramatic flower arrangement of birds of paradise. In fact, large flower arrangements in huge glass vases graced all the living areas. My art collection had been rehung and ceiling lights installed to highlight the most dramatic pieces. I counted the paintings. Uh oh. Some were missing.

  I spotted my art glass collection and smiled. Stephen Powell had fixed his piece and returned it to me. It was standing by itself on an eighteenth-century dough table by a window. For a moment the sight of it reminded me of my struggle with O’nan and I felt chilled, but the piece seemed to reach out to comfort me with its startling beauty. I limped over to examine it. I couldn’t tell where it had been damaged. Good. But I didn’t like it on the dough table. Somewhere in the house was a column with a built-in light box that illuminated from the bottom up. That would really bring the piece to life, but I didn’t see it. Maybe O’nan had broken it during his rampage. I would think about that tomorrow. “After all, tomorrow is another day,” I whispered to myself mimicking Scarlett O’Hara’s voice.