Riley struggled to sit up as her mother continued to volley questions at her. “What did the sheriff’s office say? Did Ed talk to the sheriff? Where’s Wendell?”
She got out of bed, went into the bathroom, closed the door, threw her head back, and screamed silently. Then she scrubbed the taste of cheap white wine from her mouth, peed, flushed, washed her hands, and went back into the room.
“Well?” Evelyn’s penciled-on brown eyebrows formed perfect inverted Vs, and her face powder had settled into the deep furrows on either side of her lips.
Riley climbed back into the bed. “The sheriff’s office couldn’t tell us anything. Ed tried, but was unable to talk to the sheriff and, as to your last question, I have no idea where Wendell is.”
“I don’t understand any of this,” Evelyn said. “Wendell makes a wonderful salary at Belle Isle Enterprises. Your daddy saw to that. Honey, why didn’t you tell me things had gotten so bad?”
“I didn’t know things had gotten bad. I still don’t know that they have. There has to be some kind of a mix-up.”
“I should hope so! Everybody on the island is talking, you know. According to Frances Carter, that dreadful Payne woman was going around telling people Wendell had you served with divorce papers on the ferry today. Franny told her she was mistaken, but you know how people talk.”
Riley hesitated, then shrugged. “Andrea Payne is actually about half right. You might as well know, Wendell and I are splitting up.”
“I can’t believe you would do such a thing.”
“Me? Mama, what makes you think I’m the one doing the divorcing?”
“Because I know Wendell. He would never hurt our family by doing something like that. He adores Maggy. He would never let his daughter go through a divorce.”
“I notice you don’t say he adores his wife,” Riley said pointedly.
“Don’t be silly. Wendell is devoted to you, and you know it.”
“Unfortunately, I don’t know it. Mama, when was the last time you saw Wendell with me and Maggy?”
“You know I don’t keep track of things like that,” Evelyn said. “Anyway, Wendell’s a busy man, trying to provide for his family. He’s traveling between here and Raleigh and New York, and he’s got all these plans for the new development.… Your father wasn’t home much either when you and Billy were young, but that didn’t mean he didn’t love his family. And me.”
“Except for ten days ago when he came home to pick up his dry cleaning, Wendell hasn’t spent more than two nights in a row in our house in six weeks. He missed all five performances of Maggy’s school play in April. We haven’t had sex in seven months. That’s how much he loves his family.”
Evelyn recoiled as though she’d been spattered with hot grease.
“Don’t be crude.”
“It’s the truth,” Riley said.
Evelyn unknotted and then retied her scarf. “Is there … do you think…?”
“Another woman?” Riley said helpfully. “He swears there isn’t, but I don’t believe him. And, at this point, I frankly don’t care.”
Now Evelyn removed the scarf and was twisting it between both hands. Riley wondered, idly, if her mother would use it to garrote her thankless only daughter.
“Now listen, young lady. I won’t let you throw a perfectly good marriage away, just because your husband might be having himself a meaningless little fling.”
Riley hooted. “You won’t let me? Sorry, Mama. This is one thing you cannot control. Don’t you think I gave it the old college try? Don’t you think we’ve been in counseling for two years? Or rather, I’ve been in counseling. Wendell has been too busy ‘providing for his family’ to make it to any sessions since November.”
“Counseling,” Evelyn said with a dismissive sniff. “A waste of good money.”
“Not for me,” Riley said, dropping back down onto her pillow. “It was the best money I’ve ever spent.” She took the pillow from Wendell’s side of the bed and put it under her own head and gazed into her mother’s disapproving gray eyes.
“Riley Rose Nolan Griggs—you need to stop this selfish behavior right now. You need to think about that little girl sleeping in that bedroom across the hall. If you go ahead with this divorce, you will break that child’s heart,” Evelyn said, standing to go.
“I know it, Mama,” Riley said sadly. “And if I could fix that, I would. But I can’t raise her to be the kind of woman she needs to be if she sees her mother settling for a marriage that’s a lie. I need her to know that I deserve better. And that she deserves better, too.”
“For Pete’s sake,” Evelyn snapped. She pointed at the half-empty wine bottle on the nightstand. “I can’t talk to you when you’ve been drinking like this. I’m going to bed now. And in the morning, we are going to have a serious talk about life, and your totally unrealistic expectations of marriage.”
She snatched up the wine bottle, took it into the bathroom, and poured the wine down the commode with deliberate ceremony before stomping out of the honeymoon suite.
“Should have done that hours ago,” Riley murmured, turning over to go back to sleep.
9
“Hey, Nate. Look at that crowd over there at the marina.”
Annie Milas was standing in front of the large picture window in the office on the top floor of the ferry building. It was the first Saturday of summer, a bright, clear day. She’d been going over the accounting books with her son to assure him that all was well with the family business. Trying to convince him that it was time for him to get on with his life.
Nate looked up from the spreadsheet he’d been studying. He walked over to the window and looked out. A black-and-white Baldwin County sheriff’s cruiser was parked at the end of the marina dock, its blue light flashing. A small crowd of people had gathered, all of them craning their necks and staring down at the water where a pale yellow Boston Whaler and a sleek thirty-six-foot sailboat were moored.
“Probably a dead shark or something washed up,” Nate said dismissively.
“I don’t think so,” Annie said, shaking her head. “They wouldn’t call out the sheriff for a shark.”
“Maybe somebody vandalized one of those boats there,” he mused, watching as a uniformed deputy leaned over the dock, taking photos with a 35mm camera.
The deputy was laid out flat on his belly now, his torso hanging over the edge of the concrete bulkhead, as a man hung onto his legs to keep him from falling in.
“They’re not looking at the boats. That deputy is taking pictures of something in the water,” Annie pointed out. “Wonder what it is?”
“I suppose you think I should wander over that way to find out?” he asked, bemused. “When did you turn into the official Belle Isle busybody?”
“I keep my eye out for trouble, that’s all,” Annie said. “I’d go myself, but I’m expecting a call from Wayne. He’s supposed to pick up some groceries for me at the Harris Teeter when he gets to Southpoint.”
“I’ll go,” Nate said. “But I promise you, it’s probably nothing.”
* * *
Nate sauntered over to the marina. The crowd had grown larger in the twenty minutes since he’d accepted his mission, and they’d been pushed back, away from the water, by the cops. Probably two dozen people were now clustered at the near end of the bulkhead. A set of police barricades had been set up to block access, and the frizzy-haired female deputy who’d been on the ferry yesterday was standing guard. From the scowl on her face it was apparent that she was praying for an excuse to handcuff or at the very least Mace somebody.
“Hey, Nate, how’s it going?” A scrawny, balding, deeply tanned man with tattoo sleeves on both arms slapped him on the back.
It took Nate a moment to connect the face with a name. He’d known Marty Connor, a second-generation commercial fisherman, since high school but hadn’t seen him in years.
“Going good, Marty. Real good.”
“Sorry about your old man,” Marty said. “Captain Jo
e always treated me right. He was a good dude. And your mom, she’s a real nice lady. Even if she did flunk me in fourth grade. Twice.”
He had the wheezy, labored laugh of a lifetime chain smoker. And although it was only 9 a.m., Marty Connor already reeked of cheap booze.
“Thanks,” Nate said. He pointed toward the end of the dock. “What’s going on?”
“Shiiiiit,” Marty said. “It’s a floater!”
“You mean, like a body? A dead person?”
“Damn straight.” Marty thumped his bare, bony chest. “And I’m the one who found him. I went out early this morning, chasing redfish, but nothing was biting so I came on back. I tied up in my usual spot, and I was just kinda, you know, walking the dock, checking things out when I looked down and saw him. A guy, floating there, with some rope kinda tangled around him. Tellin’ ya, man, I about crapped my Fruit of the Looms!”
“I’ll bet.”
“Not gonna lie,” Marty said, lowering his voice. “It shook me bad. I went back to my truck—I got a bottle of Jim Beam I keep under the seat for, like, emergencies—and I hit it hard, cuz I had the shakes so bad. After that, I called nine-one-one.”
Nate’s eyes were riveted toward the end of the dock. There were two deputies now, and they were straining, lifting something with ropes.
“Any idea who it is?” Nate asked.
“No, man. There was a bunch of seaweed and stuff covering his face. I took some pictures with my cell phone, but after that I boogied out of there as fast as I could.”
They heard a siren approaching, and both men turned to see a rusting white ambulance turning into the marina parking lot.
The driver pulled the vehicle up to the police barricade and rolled to a stop. The driver and another man got out. They were both dressed casually, in shorts and T-shirts, which Nate found strange, until he remembered that the Belle Isle Volunteer Fire Department also ran the only ambulance on the island. The two men opened the ambulance-bay doors and pulled out a collapsible rolling gurney. One paused, pulled a pack of cigarettes from his back pocket, and lit up before continuing on.
“Everybody back,” the female deputy bellowed. The crowd parted, and the volunteers began pushing the gurney toward the end of the dock.
“Not in any big rush, are they?” Nate murmured.
Marty cracked a wide grin. “Hell, what’s the hurry? That dude ain’t getting any deader.”
The morning sun beat down on the bystanders’ heads. A mosquito buzzed around Nate’s face, and he slapped at it until it left a black smear on the palm of his hand. Nate’s shirt stuck to his back, and he began to wish he’d grabbed a hat, or at least his sunglasses, before leaving the office. After more than a dozen years in California, he still couldn’t get used to the brutal humidity of the coastal South. Still, he lingered on, accusing himself of the same morbid curiosity that kept everybody else standing around on the first Saturday morning of summer.
He tried to think of something to talk about with Marty Connor. “Fishing good this year?”
“Nah. Sucks so far. My wife wants me to get a real job on the mainland, and I might have to if things don’t pick up.” Marty turned to study his old classmate.
“Hey. I hear you went out to California and invented some kinda Web site. Kinda like Bill Gates, or that Facebook dude, Mark Wahlberg.”
Nate didn’t bat an eye. “You mean Mark Zuckerberg?”
“Wahlberg, Zuckerberg, same difference. So you hit it big out there, right?”
“I did okay.” Nate tried to change the subject. He stared up at the Carolina blue sky, shading his eyes from the glare. “Think it’ll rain?”
“Nah. Hey, uh, word around town is you might be looking to do some hiring for the ferry, what with your dad being dead and stuff. You know, I got my commercial captain’s license awhile ago.”
“Good for you,” Nate said, already dreading what would come next.
“What’s the pay for a ferry captain these days? Pretty sweet, I bet.”
“I think the pay’s decent, but I wouldn’t really know, because my mom handles all that stuff. But if you want to put in an application, I’m sure she’d consider you.”
“Oh.” Marty’s shoulders drooped. “Yeah, okay. Maybe I’ll do that.”
They both contemplated the probability of that happening for a moment.
“Here comes the corpse,” Marty said, pointing toward the bulkhead. The ambulance attendants walked the gurney with the corpse, zippered into a gray vinyl bag, toward the barricade, and the crowd silently parted to let them through. Just before the attendants passed, Marty whipped his phone from his pocket and clicked off a series of photos.
“I gotta go,” Nate said suddenly. The heat was too much. It was all too much. What a depressing start to the long weekend.
“Yeah, see ya,” Marty said.
10
“Riley!” For the second time in a few short hours, somebody was shaking her awake. She opened one eye. It was daylight, but just barely.
“Not again,” Riley groaned. She opened the other eye. Billy stood beside her bed. His face gleamed with perspiration, his thinning dark hair was pasted to his scalp, and his white T-shirt clung to his chest.
“Wake up, Riley. The sheriff is here,” Billy said.
“Thank God.” She swung her legs over the side of the bed and ran a hand through her own tangled hair.
“Good old Ed,” Riley said, yawning. “He must have gotten hold of the sheriff last night. Now maybe we can get to the bottom of this foreclosure bullshit.”
She opened her suitcase, found a pair of shorts, and pulled them on under her nightgown. “Tell him I’ll be down as soon as I’m dressed, okay?”
“Riles? I don’t think this is about the house.”
She stood and studied her little brother’s face. It was pale and drawn.
“Then, what’s the sheriff want with me?”
“Sit down, okay?”
She sank down onto her unmade bed and pulled one of the feather pillows onto her lap.
Billy sat down beside her.
“Bebo, you’re scaring me now. Tell me what’s going on. Please?”
He took a deep breath, and then another. The room was cool, but he was sweating profusely now.
“It’s Wendell. There’s been some kind of accident.”
Riley gripped the pillow with both hands. “Where is he? Is he all right?”
“No.” Billy shook his head. “No, honey. Wendell is dead.”
She hugged the pillow to her belly like a life raft. “That can’t be right.”
He put his arms around her, and she tried to pull away, but he hugged tighter. “It’s true. I’m so, so, so sorry. That’s why the sheriff is downstairs. He won’t tell Mama why he wants to see you, but I know it’s because … of Wendell. They found his body this morning. In the water, at the marina.”
“That’s not right,” Riley repeated. “It can’t be Wendell. He wasn’t even on the island. It’s a mistake.”
“I wish,” Billy said. “I was coming back from my run about an hour ago, it was still dark, and a sheriff’s car went zooming past me on the loop road.” He ran a hand through his damp hair, leaving it standing up in little tufts. “You never see cops here, right? So I just, kinda followed the road until I saw where they were going. And it was the marina.”
“A fisherman found him. He was … I mean, his body was … tangled in some lines. I saw his face, honey. It was Wendell.”
“No.” She felt like screaming, but it came out as a whisper. “It’s somebody else.”
“It was Wendell, Riles. It was. But the sheriff, he’s downstairs in the kitchen with Mama. He wants to see you. I told her I’d come get you.”
Riley searched her brother’s face for some tip-off, a tell. He was a notorious practical joker.
“It’s true, Riley,” he said softly. “You know I wouldn’t kid about something like this.”
“Swear it,” she said fiercely, hugging the pill
ow so tightly she could feel sharp feather quills stabbing the tender skin of her inner arms.
“I swear. To God. Remember Ray Warren? We played T-ball together as kids. He’s a member of the volunteer fire department. He was driving the ambulance, and he saw me standing there, and he told me, because he knows you’re my sister. It’s Wendell. They found his wallet in his pants pocket. And then they brought me over, and I identified him.”
“No. No. No.” She buried her face in her hands. Her eyes burned, but the tears didn’t come.
Her heart was beating a mile a minute, and her chest—it felt like a lead weight was perched there.
She looked up at Billy, gasping for breath. “I can’t … I can’t…”
He patted her back gently. “Come on. You can do this.” The palm of his hand was warm as he made circles on her back. “Slow it down. Breathe in. Breathe out.”
Five minutes passed. Her cell phone dinged quietly on the nightstand, registering incoming e-mails. Without thinking, she grabbed it up. Wendell. Maybe he was e-mailing to let her know there’d been some gruesome mistake. Maybe he was waiting on the ferry dock in Southpoint right now.
The e-mail was for a Scoutmob deal for an oil change and lube job. She thrust the phone away.
“Okay?” her brother asked.
She nodded.
Billy went to the suitcase and handed her a T-shirt. “Come on, Riley. You need to get dressed and go talk to the sheriff. Please?”
She stared down at the T-shirt and some part of her brain registered that it was a hot pink walkathon shirt from some charity benefit she’d done for the television station. She folded it neatly in her lap.
“He’s been down there for half an hour now. If you don’t go downstairs, you know Mama’s going to come up here.…”
“No,” Riley said quickly. “Okay. I’ll get dressed.” She stood up, but her knees were shaking so badly she had to cling to the bedpost for support.
“Where’s Maggy? Tell me she’s not down there. I don’t want her…”
“She’s still asleep,” Billy said quickly. “It’s not even nine yet. You go on down. I’ll stay up here and wait for her to wake up.”
The Weekenders Page 7
