by Lori Wilde
When I could bear it no longer, I pushed to the surface and broke forth into darkness.
I gasped, drawing cool, musty air into my oxygen starved body.
I had made it. I was inside the cave, enveloped in complete blackness. I had no idea what was going on outside.
In the inkiness, I groped through the water, my hand outstretched until I hit the rough, rocky area.
It took more effort than I expected to haul myself from the water. I sat trembling on the stone ledge, my mind completely numb, unable to process the events that had transpired.
Gloria Swiggly had murdered Rocky because he’d been blackmailing her husband for accidentally killing Tim Kehaul in a very kinky game of slap and tickle.
And I had just married Sam Conahegg.
Who might very well be dead.
In a matter of minutes I’d gone from a wife to a widow.
I COULDN’T STAND IT. No matter what Sam had told me to do, I simply could not remain in hiding and wait without knowing what had happened to him.
By now the Swigglys surely had assumed I’d drowned. But they would probably keep searching for my body. Knowing that I carried their secrets, they had to make sure I was dead.
My predicament seemed hopeless. I certainly couldn’t stay here forever. Especially when Conahegg might be injured and needing me. But I had no doubt the Swigglys were patrolling the river.
If only I had a weapon.
The cave was eerily silent. And cold. I shivered and wrapped my arms around myself. My scrub suit stuck to my skin.
I had to go back.
Taking several steps, I eased into the water and my sneaker slipped against something on the rock floor.
Curious, I reached down to see what it was.
A wooden handle. A metal blade.
My heart leaped with joy.
From the murky depths, the hunting knife Sam had lost when he’d rescued Denny on our camping trip. A knife matched against a thirty-eight and a shotgun wasn’t much but it was something.
“Thank you.” I whispered a prayer to the heavens.
Clutching the knife between my teeth so I could have my arms free for swimming, I dived under the water and swam from the cave.
The shift in lighting was immediate, going from total blackness to a murky haze which grew brighter as I got closer to the surface.
I came up as near the shoreline as I could manage. Feeling like an alligator, I took a quick, deep breath then submerged to my eyeballs and scanned the river.
The Swigglys boat bobbed not twenty feet away.
My heart lurched.
Both Miss Gloria and Ray Don were leaning over the opposite side of the boat and hadn’t spotted me. The Reverend had an oar in his hand and was poking at something. When I realized what they were looking at all hope withered and died inside me.
Conahegg’s body.
He was floating facedown in the water. A bloom of bright red blood trailing out behind him.
Instantly, tears filled my eyes and my upper lip began to quiver so violently, I was afraid I would drop the knife. My greatest fear was realized.
They’d shot Conahegg.
And I’d lost my lover.
A shudder ripped through me. I never imagined anything could hurt so badly. The Swigglys had stolen Conahegg from me before I’d had a chance to tell him that I did love him.
No!
Guilt assailed me first. It was my fault. I should never have allowed Conahegg to throw me in the water. I should never have left him to face those hypocritical sons of bitches alone. He’d needed me and I had glibly swum away to save my own hide.
What kind of woman was I?
Then anger replaced my guilt. There was nothing I could do to correct my mistakes. Guilt wouldn’t bring Conahegg back but I’d be damned if I’d let the Swigglys get away with murder.
I swam for the boat with revenge in my heart and not a plan in mind.
“Ray Don!” Miss Gloria’s shout carried loudly over the water. “There she is!”
Miss Gloria swung around, the shotgun in her hand. She pulled the trigger, and the recoil sent her reeling. Lucky for me she was a shitty shot.
The pellets scattered a wide arc behind me.
Knife still clutched between my teeth, I submerged like a World War II submarine taking on the German fleet. I came up at the bottom of Swiggly’s craft, grabbed onto the prop and began to rock the boat back and forth. It was a crazy, irrational thing to do. If they started the engine I was dead. But I was so filled with rage and grief over what they’d done to Conahegg, I couldn’t think straight.
Miss Gloria screamed.
I let go of the prop and surfaced at the back of the boat, not sure what was happening. Treading water, I kicked back, preparing myself at any moment for a shotgun blast to the face.
Nothing happened.
Was she out of ammo?
I peered at the boat, which seemed to be empty, then I heard a loud keening sound of sorrow that matched my own anguish.
Then I saw the shotgun flying off to one side. Miss Gloria straightened. She’d been leaning over something in the bottom of the boat. I couldn’t see Swiggly. I used the opportunity to snag the boat’s ladder with both hands and pull myself aboard.
Swiggly lay on the floor like a landed tarpon. His face was beet-red and he was clutching his chest with both hands.
“Ray Don, Ray Don,” Miss Gloria sobbed.
He was having another heart attack.
The nurse in me reacted before the potential murder victim in me had a chance to rationalize the situation. I stepped forward to see if I could help.
Miss Gloria heard me and she faced me, her eyes wide as if surprised to see me alive and well and back on board her boat.
“You!” she shrieked and grabbed for the pistol on the dashboard. It was closer than the shotgun.
But I was quicker.
Knife in my hand, I slashed her upper arm.
She screamed, dropped the revolver and clutched her wound. I grabbed the gun and turned it on her.
“Sit down, Miss Gloria.” My heart was racing, my body exhausted, my emotions a wild tangle. “It’s over.”
Gloria dropped to her knees beside Swiggly, whose eyes had rolled back in his head. His respirations were extremely shallow, and he was sweating profusely.
“Please, you’ve got to help him. You’re a nurse. It’s your duty. You can’t let him die.”
“You killed Conahegg,” I pointed out.
“Please,” Gloria begged. “I love him. No matter what Ray Don’s done. I’m begging you, don’t let him die.”
Every fiber of my body urged me to move forward, to do what I could for Swiggly. But if I did I’d be leaving myself open to attack from Miss Gloria. I couldn’t fend her off and tend Swiggly at the same time.
I stood frozen by my dilemma.
At that moment, the boat rocked heavily.
“He’s stopped breathing,” Miss Gloria shrieked. “Do something, do something.”
I turned my head to the back of the boat. My pulse leaped with rapture.
Impossible.
Lazarus from the grave.
Conahegg pulled himself up the ladder with one hand. His expression grim with pain, his clothes saturated with water, a bullet hole in his right shoulder oozed blood.
I rushed to him. “You’re alive, you’re alive,” I repeated. “You’re alive.”
“Just barely.” He grinned and slumped against the seat, his face pale. To me he was the most glorious sight in the world. He waved a hand. “Give me the gun,” he said. “I’ll watch out for Miss Gloria, you give Swiggly CPR.”
I knelt beside Swiggly and did what I do best. Conahegg had Miss Gloria get behind the wheel and drive the boat back to the Swigglys’ mansion.
After a few minutes of CPR, Swiggly roused and blinked up at me, his color ashen. He whispered, “I never meant to kill Tim.”
“It’s over,” I said.
“Don’t judge Miss
Gloria too harshly.” His lips were dry. He coughed. “She did what she had to do.”
“Shh,” I said. “Rest.”
To my surprise, we were met at the dock by a swarm of sheriff’s deputies trailed by my mother. Her eyes were sharp, her posture erect. She didn’t wring her hands or begin discoursing on some frivolous, unrelated subject. She’d shed her aura of perpetual dreaminess and seemed like any other concerned mother. Not since my father’s death had she looked so capable.
“Mama?” I pushed aside my bangs which clung to my forehead like wet seaweed. If her body had been invaded by the pod people, I wasn’t complaining.
The deputies closed in on Miss Gloria and Swiggly. Mama closed in on me. At some point, someone called an ambulance. I searched for Conahegg but he’d disappeared with one of his deputies.
Mama touched my shoulder. “Are you hurt?”
“Fine.” I tried to say it lightly as if I hadn’t almost died, but to my horror the word came out in a sob. Oh, no. I couldn’t break down. Not in front of Mama. She needed me to be strong, to take care of her.
But I was wrong.
Instead, my mother took care of me. She wrapped a blanket around my shoulders and guided me over to Swiggly’s cement picnic table. “There, baby,” she murmured. “It’s all right. Mama’s here.”
She sat beside me, put her arms around my shoulders and held me as she had when I was a little girl. I reveled in her attention, buried my head against her neck.
“Where’s Denny?” I asked. “And Aunt Tessa?”
“Shh, stop fretting. Tessa went to pick Denny up at Braxton’s. Don’t worry. He’s okay.”
“Ally?”
I looked up to see my sister standing on the dock with us. Dressed in a blue jean jumper and a pink gingham blouse she looked like Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, not my wild child younger sister. Gone was the nose ring and the Dracula makeup. Even her midnight-black hair had been restored to its natural chestnut color. Beside her stood the priest from Saint Patrick’s Episcopal church, Father Frank Turner, and he had his arm around her waist.
A huge lump formed in my throat. It was an emotional day. Hell, it had been an emotional two and a half weeks. Had only seventeen days passed since that night Sissy shot Rocky in our garage? So many things had changed, it seemed like a lifetime ago.
“What are you doing here?” I whispered. “The deputies were looking everywhere for you.”
She reached out and took my hand. “I know.” She smiled shyly at the priest. “Frank brought me home. I came to tell you what had happened with Rocky. I was ready to face the music.”
“Face the music? But you didn’t kill Rocky.” I frowned, confused.
“No,” Sissy said, “but I was involved in something else. I needed your help. I needed your advice.”
“But you weren’t here,” Mama chimed in.
“I’m sorry,” I interrupted. “I should have been here for you guys.”
“No, don’t apologize, let me finish. I had to call the police,” Mama continued, smiling. “I handled everything for Sissy.”
My mother’s pride in herself was unmistakable. She’d accomplished something important without any help from me. I was proud of her, too. When the rubber met the road, she’d come through.
“You did a great job, Mama.” I kissed her cheek.
“Thank you, dear.”
“Where have you been?” I asked Sissy.
“Hiding out in my church.” Father Turner stepped forward and offered me his hand. I shook it.
“You’ve been giving her sanctuary?”
“Yes.”
I turned to Sissy. “Why didn’t you call me?”
“I couldn’t. Not until I could prove my innocence.”
“Tell me what happened.”
“Go ahead,” Father Frank urged.
“I’m not proud of what I did,” Sissy said. “But I’m the one who really found Rocky’s body, Ally, not you.”
“You already knew he was dead when I told you?”
“Uh-huh.” She took a deep breath. Father Frank squeezed her hand. “I knew Tim and Rocky were up to something illegal. Rocky owed Dooley Marchand three thousand for the demo record and Tim had gotten in deep gambling. Tim borrowed money from Dooley and couldn’t pay him. So he was performing sexual favors to pay off his debt, but I know he hated it.”
Ah, I thought. So Dooley Marchand was the blond man Tim’s neighbors had seen with him.
“Rocky asked Tim if he wanted to make a lot of cash and get Dooley off his back. Tim agreed. They targeted Reverend Swiggly for a blackmail scheme. Apparently, Darlene, who’s from Swiggly’s hometown in Louisiana, told Rocky he was gay. They plotted for Tim to have sex with Swiggly while Rocky would secretly videotape their liaison. Except no one expected Swiggly to get kinky with the autoerotic asphyxiation and accidentally kill Tim. But I didn’t know any of this until after I found the tape.”
“You’ve got a copy of the tape?”
Sissy nodded. “After I let Denny off at the house last Saturday night, I went back over to Rocky’s and found him dead. I panicked and I touched the belt around his neck. He’d told me that in case anything bad happened to him that he had hidden a tape and if I viewed it I’d know who to blackmail.” Sissy ducked her head. “I admit, I was going to go through with the plan and blackmail whoever was on the tape and keep the money for myself.”
“What for?”
“I wanted to move out. Get a home for Denny and me.”
“Really?” I stared.
“Well, at first it was to get away from your bossiness. At least that’s what I told myself. But then I realized that as long as we stay here, I’m never going to grow up. I need to leave for my own growth.”
And I needed her to go for mine. Where had she acquired this sudden insight? I slanted a glance at Father Frank. He smiled and I had my answer. “So what happened next?”
“Rocky said he’d hidden the tape in a safe place but he was killed before he could tell me where. Then I remembered he’d had a videotape with him when we went to Tim’s funeral but that was the last I saw of it. I figured he’d stashed the tape somewhere in the church.”
“And that’s where I found her,” Father Frank said. “In the chapel, searching for the tape.”
“I didn’t tell Frank what I was doing of course. Not at first.” Sissy sent an adoring glance in the priest’s direction. “But he was so kind. He gave me something to eat, let me stay in his house, eventually I told him everything and he helped me to see that blackmail was the wrong answer. Together we searched for the tape and found it. When we watched it and saw who had killed Tim, we called the sheriff’s department and they told us Sheriff Conahegg had gone to Swiggly’s house. When we went over to Swiggly’s place and didn’t get an answer, we came here. Mama called the deputies.”
“Can I have a hug?” I asked, tugging off the now-damp blanket. I had some kind of green mucky seaweed stuff on my clothes, but Sissy didn’t seem to mind. She hugged me like she hadn’t hugged me in years.
“I was so scared,” she said. “So frightened. I was so scared that you were dead. That Swiggly had killed you.”
I put a hand on her shoulder and allowed her to cry. “It’s all right,” I said gruffly. I held her for the longest time, then a deputy came up to us.
“Miss…” He spoke to Sissy. “Would you like to come with me? We need your full statement.”
“Where’s Sheriff Conahegg?” I asked the fresh-faced officer.
“He’s out front by the ambulance but he’s refusing to go to the hospital.”
“What?” I said. “Let me at the old goat.”
“Ally,” Mama said.
“Uh-huh?’
“Can I talk to you a minute?”
I wanted nothing more than to go to Conahegg but I couldn’t ignore the change in my mother. “Sure.”
“You know,” Mama said, “Tessa and I have been talking. We think it’s about time we got our own place, too.”
I swallowed hard. “You mean leave the river?”
Mama touched my cheek. “You’re the one who loves it, daughter. It’s your home. Not mine. It really hasn’t been since your father died.”
“You mean I’ll be living there alone?” Turns out I wasn’t going to have to kick my family out. They were jumping ship on me. Honestly? It felt as if Atlas’s boulder had rolled from my shoulders.
“We’ll just be moving into Cloverleaf. Not far. Tessa’s been eyeing a cute little house on Lee Street.”
“How long have you been planning a move?”
Mama shrugged. “Since you met Sam. We figured as long as we were living here that you’d never have a life of your own. Sam’s the right man for you. Ung told Tessa.”
I stared at her, mouth open. It was a conspiracy, a plot.
“Go see about him,” Mama said. “If anyone ever needed you, it’s Sam.”
“He doesn’t need me! He doesn’t need anyone.”
“Oh yes he does. He’s too stubborn for his own good and you’re the only one I know stubborn enough to challenge him. Go, daughter.”
“Okay, I’ll go.” Mama, Tessa and Ung might be certain that Conahegg was the man for me, but I wasn’t so sure. Regardless, I stalked up the hill, trekked through the Swigglys’ pristine palace and out the front door to the ambulance. Conahegg was leaning against the hood looking pretty tired, but when he saw me his face lit up.
“What’s this about you refusing to go to the hospital?” I asked.
He rolled his eyes. “I didn’t refuse to go to the hospital, I refused to go in an ambulance.”
“How are you planning on getting there then, smart guy?”
“You’re going to take me.”
“I am?”
“Yes.”
“Do you really think that’s wise? You’ve got a bullet in your shoulder.”
“The paramedics packed the wound. I won’t bleed all over your car. Besides, I’ve had worse.”
“I’ll bet. You scared the life out of me. When I saw you floating facedown in the water I was sure you were dead.”
“Did you miss me?” He quirked a corner of his lip upward.
“Yeah,” I said gruffly. “I kinda did.”
“I want to talk to you, Ally. Alone.”
