Saving Grace (Katie & Annalise Book 1)

by Pamela Fagan Hutchins

  “No problem. Thanks for the food,” he said. He put an arm around my shoulders for a side hug, and we parted ways.

  I got in my snazzy new-to-me Silverado and fussed and putzed with the gizmos and gadgets on the dash. Satisfied with my changes, I drove into Town. I headed straight to the Bank of St. Marcos to meet Doug for the closing on Annalise. Doug would never be my favorite person on the island, but we chatted amiably about my move, my new property, and hurricane seasons of yore. Ms. Nesbitt only kept us waiting for half an hour before she ushered us into the bank’s main conference room. I don’t know why it surprised me, but Ms. Nesbitt wasn’t the heavyset aging woman I had expected. Instead, she was petite, 5′1″ or less, and couldn’t have topped a hundred pounds. While she was well over forty, she looked younger than me. She wore a two-piece knit suit in dark green with gold buttons and a skirt that ended an inch above her knees. Her perfect legs ended in closed-toe black pumps. Very professional.

  Doug kissed her on both cheeks. “Good day. How are the husband and kids, Lisa?”

  It seemed all was forgiven between the two of them for the earlier almost-sale to her mystery buyer.

  “Oh, good day to you, too, Doug. We all good. Thank you for asking after them.” She turned her diamond-bright smile on me. “Congratulations, Ms. Connell. Welcome to our island, and to your new home.”

  “Thank you so much, Ms. Nesbitt. Now I just have to figure out how to finish the house so I can actually call it a home,” I said.

  “I set you up, Ms. Connell. The contractor for the buyer that fall through, he already know the house real good. He go up there and put a proposal together for you. He come with my highest recommendation. I give him your number. Here’s his card.” She handed me a white rectangle with “Junior” and a phone number written on it. Well, that would work.

  “Thank you. I appreciate that very much,” I said.

  “He meet you there today, then?” she asked.

  “Sure, that would be fine,” I said. Why the heck not, after all?

  Although the closing lasted two hours, Doug pronounced it speedy and a smashing success. The three of us parted jovially in the bank lobby. I got back into my truck and headed out to Annalise down Centerline Road. The Silverado rocketed over the road’s notorious potholes like a flying tank. I had dreamed of a big truck with a lift kit like this since I was an elementary schooler. I was punch-drunk in love with it already.

  Half an hour later, Annalise came into view. On a romantic whim, I parked on the side of the road to take a better look from this vantage point. I got out and a dilapidated car pulled up beside me, all its windows down and Puerto Rican music blaring. I felt a twinge of nervousness. Was I about to get robbed? I anticipated my defense, but relaxed when I saw a family in the car. They were doing the same thing as me—paying homage to Annalise.

  “Good day, miss. She’s beee-ewe-teefull, ain’t she?” the woman asked me, leaning her head out of the window. Children spilled over from the back seat to the front, tugging on her hair and pointing at the imposing structure standing tall in the distance like a peak above the mountain of trees in the valley below.

  “Good day to you, too. She is breathtaking,” I said, and shivered.

  I returned to my car and pressed on, eager to close the distance between me and my house. Half a mile from the house, I saw the gate. Stone columns without the stones around a gateless opening. My Grinch heart grew three sizes as I turned onto the driveway and made my way through the welcoming rows of guava bushes and flamboyant trees. When I pulled up beside her, I leaped out and ran straight to the front steps.

  I sat down and put my cheek against a pillar, and positive energy seeped into my body from the sun-warmed concrete. I closed my eyes and listened to the birds singing. The breeze cooled my face. This was my peaceful place, where I could leave the world behind and dream any magical dreams I wanted. Nothing could bother me and my fortress of a house.

  I whispered to her, “We are both going to be OK, Annalise, more than OK. I know we will.”

  Lost in reverie, I somehow missed the sound of footsteps.

  A voice behind me said, “’Scuse me, miss?”

  I jumped so high and fast that I scraped my cheek on the rough edge of the unfinished column. I turned and saw a dog and four shirtless local youth. One of the boys was riding bareback on a scruffy paint horse. Another carried some kind of long-barreled gun. The other two held machetes. If I had seen these young men in Dallas, I would have grabbed for my pepper spray. Who was I kidding? I would have grabbed for my pepper spray right then and there, if I’d had it with me. As it was, I positioned my feet shoulder-width apart, my right foot just slightly in front of my left, my knees soft, hands loose.

  “Good afternoon, miss,” one of the boys said. “We didn’t mean to scare you. We didn’t think anyone here. We from there,” he pointed in the general direction of where I thought the Pig Bar was located, “and we like to come up here and do some limin’, time to time. Sometimes we stay in this house.”

  Underneath his twig-filled dreadlocks, this was a polite kid. I willed myself to act naturally. They were my new neighbors, after all. Sort of.

  I said, “Well, I bought this house. I like it a lot, too.”

  A chorus of “no ways” and “iries” rose up. “Irie” was, I had learned from my masseuse at the spa, a local expression that meant “that’s cool” or “it’s all good,” as in, “Ms. Connell, how that massage make you feel? Irie?”

  The boys wanted to hear what I planned to do with Annalise, which was a short conversation. I didn’t have the slightest idea yet. As we wrapped up our chat, Ms. Nesbitt’s Junior—or someone I really hoped was him, since it was a strange man in a truck parking beside my house—showed up. The boys waved to me and headed straight back down into brambly manjack I would have sworn was impenetrable moments before, making the sound of a rainstorm as they rattled the seedpods on the small tan-tan trees.

  The man I prayed was Junior was wearing low, baggy jeans and a knit Rasta cap over long dreadlocks. He was also carrying a few extra johnnycakes around his middle. I remembered what my father used to say about men with soft hands and wondered if it applied to contractors with big guts. But maybe his workers did the heavy lifting. I shouldn’t stick out my tongue at good fortune when it sent me a contractor referred by a reputable source and available to work so soon.

  “Good afternoon,” he said. “I’m Junior, here for Ms. Connell.”

  Phew, it was Junior. I hoped this, after the Wild Boys’ visit, would be the last of my scares for the day.

  Junior and I discussed in broad concept the work the house needed. “Tomorrow, early, I bring my plumber, my ’lectrician, and some boys dem to clean.” He gestured upwards and then made a broad sweeping motion. “Big clean. I put dem up on the scaffolding and they scrub down the ceilings and walls, way up high, all the way down low.”

  Cleaning? That sounded heavenly. We agreed he would bill me for time and materials and we shook on it. Junior got back in his brand-new dark blue Chevrolet Silverado. Well, well. It made my Silverado look like it belonged to the hired help.

  I saw Rashidi coming up the drive in his Jeep as Junior left, with Ava in the front seat beside him. Estate Annalise, otherwise known as Grand Central Station. I hugged Rashidi as he got out of the Jeep, then Ava, longer and tighter, after she came around from the passenger side.

  “I’m so sorry about your friend,” I said in her ear.

  She squeezed me and her head rubbed against mine as she nodded. Her phone rang. “Jacoby,” she said. “I have to take this.” She walked fifty feet away and sat against the thick trunk of a mango tree. Its heavily laden branches draped a shade of leaves and mangos three feet above her head. She kicked a rotten one away from her with her heel. She had tied her long curls back in a red scarf that doubled as a headband and a low ponytail holder, and she twisted the end of it around her finger.

  “So, the house like you remember her?” Rashidi asked.


  “Better,” I said. “Isn’t she fabulous?”

  “Yah mon, she fabulous. But what Junior Nesbitt doing out here? He hasslin’ you?”

  Nesbitt?

  “I hired him, at the highest recommendation of another Nesbitt at Bank of St. Marcos. Ms. Nesbitt, the bank officer there in charge of Annalise. Only I didn’t know him as anything other than Junior from her referral.”

  Rashidi chuptzed. “The little woman his sister.”

  “Did I mess up?” It was all about who you knew. And didn’t know.

  “Maybe he straightened out. I got your back. There is a problem, though, a big problem,” Rashidi told me.

  My stomach clenched. “What is it?”

  “You buying Annalise and all. This mean I gonna have to change up the grand finale of my rainforest tour. Ain’t no big thing if it just another ole rich white folk house.”

  I stared at him blankly until I saw he was kidding me, and I laughed.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  That night, I moved in with Ava, a process which consisted of me dragging two suitcases, a carry-on full of toiletries, and my laptop bag from the truck to her couch. Or, rather the floor beside her couch. My Rimowa bags in Ultra Violet and Inca Gold stood in a colorful row like soldiers guarding the entryway from the living room to the kitchen.

  “Are you sure about this?” I asked again. “I could be homeless for months.”

  “I making room for you in there,” she said, pointing vaguely toward her bedroom. I now saw there was a smaller bedroom next to it, one without a bed. And with a lot of boxes stacked haphazardly in the middle of the room. “That OK with you?”

  “As long as you’re OK, I’m OK,” I said, and meant it. “I’ll stack the boxes against the wall and get a futon tomorrow.” I’d have to do it before Emily arrived in the late afternoon. Emily. I’d forgotten to tell Ava about Emily. Oops. “My friend Emily is coming tomorrow and staying on-island for a few days. I can’t wait for you to meet each other. You’re going to love her. Where do you think I should book her a room?”

  “If you have a futon, she can take the couch. Unless she just made of money.”

  That she was not. So we’d sardine together. Cool.

  After all that strenuous unpacking, we celebrated at Toes in the Water with burgers. We sat at a picnic table in the sand on a small ledge above the beach proper, not far from where a hammock filled with young children was swinging between two coconut palms. The tiny establishment consisted of a handful of half-filled picnic tables, a roofed patio bar and stage, and three structures in various states of sun-bleached, windswept disrepair. A faded mural of Toes in the Sand was painted on the side of one of them, and I caught a glimpse of the cook when he stuck his head out of another to take an order from the waitress. A communal washbasin inlaid with glitter and shells ran the length of the third building. If Annalise hadn’t already lured me away from Dallas, this place could have. I tingled with delight at the sound of the surf kissing the beach boulders goodnight.

  The sight of the ever-hopeful Jacoby was no surprise when he met us there. We’d already taken our seats when he walked in from the parking lot on the west side of the restaurant, carving a black hole in the sun behind him as he made his way over to our table. He expressed no delight at my presence, but it didn’t faze him, either. He stuck out his ham-sized paw and shook my hand. Please don’t hurt me, I thought. Then he sat by Ava and soaked her in as if I didn’t exist. I slid my feet out of my shoes and buried my bare toes in the sand underneath our picnic table, listening to Ava. She had a lot to say.

  “Everywhere I look, people still talking about Guy’s murder. It all over the TV, the paper. I can’t get away from it. All of it just make my blood chill. There a killer out there,” she said.

  Jacoby was digging his right heel into the sand with heavy thumps as she spoke. He said, “The detectives doing all they can to find the murderer. A lot of people hate that man, though. A lot of suspects.”

  “I know. I know. I just so grateful you kept me out of it, Jacoby.” She put her hand on his arm and stroked his skin with her thumb. I could see the goose bumps in his flesh. “It could have all been so nasty, instead of sad. It supposed to be sad when someone die.” Tears pooled in the corner of her eyes but didn’t fall.

  “Anything for you, Ava. You know that.”

  “Still, I don’t want you to get in trouble,” she said. “You took a big chance, helping me.”

  “No one gonna know except us. Everyone believe the call anonymous, and you make it from the hotel phone to 911, just like I tell you. You cover the phone with a cloth, disguise your voice, everything. They couldn’t even tell it a woman. It gonna be all right.”

  “He was a good man,” Ava said.

  I could see she’d taken a wrong turn in the conversation as Jacoby stiffened and spoke. “He a big man, but he no good. I coulda told you ’bout all his girlfriends before, if I knew about you and he. I’m sorry he dead, but I glad you not with him anymore.”

  Now it was Ava who stiffened. “Just please tell me if you hear something, anything, about who did it. Promise me, Jacoby.”

  “Yah mon. I promise.”

  Just when I was getting seriously uncomfortable, a perky waitress in a threadbare khaki miniskirt and braless lavender tank top diverted our attention.

  “Time for sunset shots,” she said from underneath her unfortunate overbite, setting three plastic cups in front of us. “Coconut rum, Cruzan, of course. Watch for the green flash.”

  I started to tell her to take mine away, but the words didn’t come out. The bartender counted backwards from ten, and all the patrons held their shot cups aloft.

  “Three, two, one,” he shouted.

  Jacoby and Ava threw back their shots. I looked around in the fading light, taking in the rolling waves as they broke over the reef twenty yards away, the curve of the shoreline as it folded into the two miles of white sand around Cape Bay, and the green of the palm tree tops extending down the beach toward the hills of the rainforest. I was at peace here. I didn’t have to contend with Nick’s draining presence or flip-flopping witnesses. Here, I could do moderation. I could be smart, be measured. I was in control. I downed my shot and savored the delicious and instantaneous flood of warmth through my body. As I stared westward over the horizon, the sun sank, and I saw a flash of green light.

  I jumped to my feet. “I saw it!” I yelled. “I saw the green flash!”

  The bartender rang a bell above his head. “Green flash, everybody. She saw it.”

  Ava and even Jacoby slapped me on the back. “I only seen it once, myself,” Jacoby told me. “Powerful good luck.”

  That would make for a nice change. The waitress showed up again, barefoot like us, this time with a pitcher of margaritas.

  “Green for the green flash,” she explained, and handed me a cup. “On the house.”

  “Thanks!” I said. “This is what we drink where I’m from. That and Lone Star beer,” I said. “Want some, y’all?”

  Ava emptied her water in the sand, and Jacoby followed suit. They both held out their empty cups. I poured. “To the green flash,” I said.

  Ava said, “To the singing sensation, Ava and Katie.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “Just drink,” she said. “Then I explain.”

  I drank, swallowing slowly, enjoying the reunion my bloodstream was conducting with its old friend tequila, then refilled our glasses.

  “OK, so here what I thinking, and don’t stop me until I’m through,” Ava said. “I have a synthesizer and sound system. I buy it cheap from a continental who drink himself into an island stupor. Same old story. Anyway, I do a couple of solo gigs, getting my feet wet, but solo don’t do so good here. Katie, you and me, we sound goooood. More depth. More range. Plus, two hot chicks better than one. Four breasts, you know.”

  Jacoby acted as if she’d said something profound and I spit margarita in a jet-propelled arc that hit the guy at the ne
xt table. Oops. But he was pickled, and didn’t notice.

  There was no reason not to join musical forces with Ava. The point of studying music in college was the joy of making it. I thought of all the hours I’d spent in tiny soundproof rehearsal rooms with my voice professor at piano, a metronome beside me, and a music stand in front of me. Again, Katie. Round your mouth. Open your chest. I remembered the two best years of my life, of a standing bass, a snare drum, an electric keyboard, and a guitar, my lips against the microphone. It was so long ago. The only time I sang now was after three or four shots on karaoke night.

  My throat tightened. The joy of making music. That was the subject of the last good conversation I’d had with Nick, back in Shreveport. I almost smiled as I recalled him talking about his high school garage band, Stingray. I had defended lead singers, a category of musician he defined as egomaniacal. By reflex, I looked for messages on my iPhone. Nope. As if. I was the one who’d deleted his last message, anyway. “Why not?” I said. “Sign me up.”

  “Yay! We gonna be the toast of the island!” Ava said, and hugged me.

  “Was that we gonna be toasted? Because I think I am already,” I said.

  “Oh, hush you mouth,” Ava said.

  So I was to be Eliza Doolittle, and Ava my mentor. I didn’t want to be another Ava, though. I could never out-Ava the real Ava. Everywhere she went, her ribald personality lit up the room and a horde of male admirers vied for her attention. I was the awkward one, the redheaded stepchild, too tall, too thin, too many angles. I needed my own shtick. I could do elegant as a foil to her sexy vamp, for instance. I knew my fine-boned features spoke of class, whether I had it or not. So I wouldn’t copy Ava, but I could certainly emulate her confidence and learn about the island music scene from her.

  She began instructing me right away on the art of performing for slightly disinterested audiences, starting with the nearest one—Jacoby. She grabbed my margarita-free hand and pulled me to the square concrete stage. We stood under the peaked palm-frond roof and faced the ocean, and it roared its approval. Ava blocked out where she wanted us to stand, demonstrated a few easy dance steps, and explained how she sets the equipment up in relation to the microphones.