Undertow

by Sydney Bauer

  She was on The Cruisader. The day was still bright and sunny and the yellow light danced like little fairies over the rippled surface of the water. On closer inspection, she saw they were fairies, millions of them so happy and free, diving, leaping, turning, skipping on their glass-like playground.

  She was alone. Where were the girls?

  That’s right, she remembered, the fairies had taken them by the hand and shown them how to do their pretty dance. She could see them now. Francie and Mariah were smiling, tiptoeing across the water’s surface, waving to her as they approached the cruiser to hop back on board. She heard Teesha laughing and turned to see she was already safe on the cruiser behind her. Her long brown hair decorated with seaweed, which sparkled like Christmas tinsel dripping with beads of silver stars.

  Christina was still dancing. The fairies had her by both hands, spinning and spinning in circles of such pure delight that Rayna almost felt cruel calling her back in.

  ‘It’s time,’ she heard herself say.

  But Christina did not hear her, she just smiled and waved as she spun further and further away into the distance. Then Teesha spoke behind her and she turned to face her daughter. Only it wasn’t Teesha anymore but Christina. Her skin was like porcelain, the long dark hair now closer to white than blonde.

  ‘Where’s Teesha?’ she said.

  ‘Out there,’ Christina smiled. ‘See.’

  Rayna strained to see her, she caught flashes of her wet hair whipping up in the wind as she spun in a dance of joy.

  ‘Come back,’ she called. ‘Teesha, come back.’

  She felt the tears stinging her eyes as she forced them to make out her daughter, now a single spark amongst millions.

  ‘Don’t leave me,’ she yelled through her sobs, knowing she was lost forever. ‘Teesha, I’m so sorry. Come back.’

  She realised she spoke those final words aloud as dream merged with reality in one elongated extension of horror. She was awake now, and the feeling of loss was all too real, and then for some reason it came to her. Something about Christmas, the tinsel, Christmas was about snow and good cheer and Santa Claus and sleigh bells.

  Officer Wu was talking to Detective Petri. He repeated something about Rudolph . . . Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer. Then there was a second reference. When was it? The day she was arrested?

  This is what she had been hoping for – finally a question she could answer that did not cast her actions in guilt but shed new light on the activities of the real criminals. Finally a fresh insight that might give them an edge. For the first time in weeks, she felt a welcome wave of hope. Well, maybe not a wave, but certainly a ripple.

  ‘This has to mean something,’ she whispered to herself as she lifted her feet onto the too small prison bunk and lay her head on the flat, narrow, prison-issue pillow.

  Rudolph Haynes. Petri had been talking about him. Haynes had people everywhere. He had been calling the shots from the very beginning.

  12

  She was in love with him.

  ‘Ma’am . . . Ma’am, are you all right?’

  It was Agnes. She was behind her

  How long had she been standing there, holding this white magnolia? She had been examining its perfect petals and pondering the fine balls of moisture which sat like mercury on the pale cream crests and falls, when he entered her thoughts again. He hadn’t done – not for years, but so often of late. Perhaps it had been the magnolias – Louisiana’s flower and all that.

  ‘Yes . . . yes of course, Agnes.’

  Elizabeth Haynes got the feeling Agnes had been ‘watching’ her over the past few days and it was really starting to anger her. Anger! The emotion came as quite a surprise. She had never felt anger towards Agnes before. The mild-mannered housekeeper had been with them for years and Elizabeth knew she too would be experiencing grief.

  ‘I was just arranging the flowers,’ she managed a smile. ‘Would you mind asking Nelson to prune the side hedge this morning? It is looking a little untidy.’

  ‘Yes Ma’am. Can I get you anything?

  ‘No. No thank you Agnes. I’m fine.’

  Agnes nodded her perfunctory gesture of goodwill before moving along the corridor to tackle the vacuuming in the master bedroom. Elizabeth heard her open the bedroom door and plug in the vacuum cleaner. She took solace in the cover of its drone.

  Topher Bloom – so tall and dark and handsome. Just like a movie star. Not the macho variety, more the brooding sensitive type like . . . like Montgomery Clift. Yes, that was it! Montgomery Clift.

  He was Spence’s son, the boy with no mother who attended the local public school and helped his pa work on their cars on weekends. Elizabeth had known him for as long as she could remember. He was her friend, her confidant, her first true love.

  Unlike his father, Christopher Bloom was not born to overhaul engines or recharge batteries. He was destined for greater things: as an actor, an artist and perhaps one day, a director. She could remember the Saturdays they would sneak away to O’Connor’s Movie House. How old would they have been? Thirteen, maybe fourteen? Topher had found a broken air vent which led down behind the stalls and there they would sit, at the back, on the floor, watching the newsreels and funnies and holding hands as they anticipated the start of the main feature.

  She shut her eyes and saw them – Rita Hayworth, Clark Gable and so many more. For those few hours they would feel like Hollywood royalty, taking part in their dreamlike adventures with Topher feeling all ‘Errol Flynn’ by sweeping his girl in the back way and gallantly avoiding the one dollar ticket fee every single time.

  Such daring, such romance.

  Of course, old man O’Connor knew what they were up to and, luckily for them, found their spirit more amusing than aggravating. It was, in fact, O’Connor who gave Topher his first ‘proper’ job as a theatre usher, Friday nights and weekends, which meant he got to see the movies for free and, even better, he got paid to watch them. She knew his name would be magnified on that screen one day, she was sure of it.

  The vacuum cleaner stopped and took Topher with it. She looked down and realised she had pulled three flowers from the vase, allowing water to drip on the carpet and petals to fall near her feet. She felt a mild panic flood through her veins. If Agnes noticed she would tell her husband, and that was the last thing she needed.

  ‘Topher,’ she said, as if needing to validate her thoughts and remind herself that he actually did exist.

  She picked up the petals, wiped the side table with her handkerchief and replaced the magnolias before turning to move quickly along the hallway to the washroom.

  He could have lived his dream. Could have, would have, should have. If only she had not stolen it from him.

  ‘Something isn’t right about her,’ said DA Loretta Scaturro, taking another sip of her lukewarm chamomile tea. ‘She’s just too rehearsed.’

  Scaturro was having Sunday brunch with Roger Katz out on her large, Harbourside, sun-drenched balcony. She found it hard to believe it was only a week since they were last here together. They said the wheels of justice moved at a snail’s pace, but whoever ‘they’ were, they obviously had never done business with Rudolph Haynes.

  ‘Teenagers, Loretta, they’re all like that these days – sassy, overconfident.’

  Katz and Scaturro had spent Saturday afternoon with Francine Washington and her parents. Loretta was concerned about her robotic performance in front of the grand jury and wanted to sit down with the girl face to face.

  ‘It’s more than that, Roger,’ she said, returning her china tea cup to its matching saucer. ‘Her testimony has changed a little from the initial statement.’

  ‘Only to our benefit.’

  ‘That’s just it. It feels like she is trying too hard to help us. Why would she do that?’

  She said this suspecting she knew the answer, but wanting to see how Katz would respond. All she got was a shrug.

  ‘First of all,’ Scaturro went on, ‘Francine said Martin used t
he word “floating”, now she says it was “floating face down”. In her statement she said Martin told her “you three were just lucky”. Now she’s saying it was ‘look at yourselves, you three are lucky’ which she says she took to mean they were saved because they were African–American. For God’s sake, it’s all becoming a little too melodramatic, don’t you think?’

  ‘Most murders are, Loretta,’ said Katz, his hands up in a gesture which indicated she should know this better than anyone. ‘Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.’

  ‘Speaking of mouth, her father is a huge liability,’ she went on. ‘He keeps interrupting her like he’s prompting from a script.’

  ‘Look, she ain’t the sharpest tool in the shed, she needs a little reminding that’s all. I’ll have her prepped for trial. I don’t see what you’re complaining about. Our case is getting stronger by the minute.’

  ‘All I’m saying is, we need more than Francine Washington. Girls like that cannot be trusted. Any jury, particularly one with a reasonable percentage of African–Americans, will find it hard to believe this woman is capable of murder. And if Francine Washington is our main witness, well . . .’

  ‘Look,’ said Roger again, topping up her tea and serving her some more strawberries with her Danish, ‘we cannot forget the core issue here. A teenage girl is dead because this woman decided to bypass one girl’s welfare to save three others who didn’t need saving in the first place. Think of Christina. She didn’t even get the option of resuscitation, just because she was white. No one has the right to play God – least of all a bigot like Rayna Martin, good track record or not.’

  Loretta wiped the corners of her mouth, contemplating her deputy’s reasoning. She had to give it to him, he was good. He played the heartstrings like a virtuoso. The jury would lap it up. But Cavanaugh was good too, very good in fact, and they would be extremely naive to think he . . .

  Her thoughts were interrupted by the ring of her telephone. She excused herself from the balcony and went inside.

  ‘Scaturro,’ she said, a greeting normally reserved for the office but these days she found it hard to distinguish between work and home.

  ‘It’s Jim Elliot.’

  Her first response was to walk further away from the balcony – in fact all the way into the kitchen.

  ‘Jim, I . . . how are you?’

  ‘What the hell are you playing at?’

  She didn’t know what to say. The last time she had spoken to Jim Elliot was in fact their last night of lovemaking, the night they both agreed the affair had to stop. It pained her to realise her heart was racing, she still had feelings for this man.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ she said.

  ‘Look, I have no idea what the hell you were thinking but the tie was a mistake – a big mistake. My wife opened the box, she wants to know why a “Loretta” is sending me a tie for my birthday with some ridiculous personal note attached.’

  ‘What did it say?’

  ‘What? You wrote the damned thing. Listen, I don’t have time for this, my family are waiting for me in the car. It’s over, has been for a long time. It was just sex, Loretta, so get over it and leave me and my family alone.’

  She clung to the receiver, listening to the beep, beep of the disconnected call. Then, still in a daze of confusion, she turned to see Katz standing in her kitchen doorway and the receiver leapt from her grip in a moment of pure horror.

  ‘Loretta, are you all right? Who was it? Was it a crank call? Should I call the police? We can trace . . .’

  ‘NO,’ she shouted, and it was Katz’s turn to jump.

  ‘I’m sorry, Roger, it was just a family matter. Nothing serious, but if you wouldn’t mind I . . .’

  ‘Sure, sure, let’s pick this up tomorrow morning. You sit down, take a load off. Families can be a bitch right? I’ll let myself out.’

  She heard the door click behind him and then walked slowly to her room. She picked up a tissue to blot her lipstick, tidied the perfume bottles on her bureau and then made eye contact with herself in her dresser mirror. Not knowing what else to do, she moved over to her bed and fell on it face down, burying her head in her pillow. And then she cried, from deep inside, sobbed like a teenager in the throes of the depths of rejection.

  You had to hand it to him, thought Katz as he skipped down Loretta’s front steps and clicked on his car key to unlock the doors of his convertible red corvette. He was smooth. An evil son-of-a-bitch, but very smooth.

  Katz knew that whatever just happened upstairs was orchestrated by Haynes and would no doubt have his boss back in line by the morning. He patted himself on the back for being smart enough to side with the winning team on this one. If Loretta continued to rock the boat, although he suspected she was back on board after this morning’s little surprise, she’d just fall out, leaving more room for him.

  Women, he thought. Why the hell did they have to go and complicate things by getting all moralistic. He bet that Davis girl was like that – scruples up to her eyeballs, and what pretty eyes they were too. When this was all over he might give her a call. Not now of course, God no, imagine the trouble that would cause. But maybe after all this settled down? Something sweet and discreet.

  He smiled to himself and swung into the driver’s seat settling on the cool, soft leather; he turned on the ignition, revelling in the soft but powerful purr, and turned his face upwards, feeling the sun on his cheeks and the sea breeze on his hair. Then he put on his sunglasses and slid his foot over towards the accelerator, before pressing down, smiling, and burning some serious rubber all the way home.

  Rayna was so excited to see David and Sara enter the Suffolk County Prison interview room. She could tell by their expressions that her newfound enthusiasm was written all over her face as she hugged Sara and shook David’s hand with both of her own. She had had a rough night, but could not help but think the dream had been some kind of gift. It may not be much, but it could set them on a road to proving some form of conspiracy.

  ‘I’m so glad you’re here,’ she smiled. ‘I thought of something, last night. On one hand it scares the hell out of me, but on the other it could help us prove Haynes is interfering with this investigation.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ said David, now visibly excited and signalling for them all to sit down.

  ‘Well, last night I had a dream, it was horrible, but that’s not the point. It helped me remember something. It took me back to the day of the accident and something Officer Wu said. Not to me but to the detective.’

  She knew she wasn’t making sense so she took a sip of the latte David had brought for her and slowed down.

  Rayna had been talking to Tommy Wu.

  ‘I remember his radio kept buzzing. He started to walk away from me to take the calls, so I couldn’t hear too well. But those radios are loud and even though I probably wasn’t listening on a conscious level I could tell the Officer was frustrated, upset even.

  ‘It seemed he was being hassled by a detective. I am pretty sure it was Detective Petri.’

  Rayna told them she heard an exchange that went along the lines of:

  Officer Wu: Look Detective, I’m busy, I am trying to get a statement. For all we know she could be going into shock so just let me do my job.

  Det Petri: Just do as I say, get a cell phone and ring me on a secure line on this number _______. Did you get that? Do it now.

  Officer Wu: Petri, I don’t have the . . .

  ‘So Officer Wu comes over to me and apologises for the interruption and goes to borrow a cell from one of the paramedics. He calls the number and it picks up straightaway. But now I can only hear one half of the conversation.

  What is it, Detective?

  No, I am standing here on my own.

  I’m sure. What is this all about?

  No, Leigh and I have it. But this is Gloucester’s jurisdiction and . . .

  Okay, okay. I heard you, it’s our case. But unless you plan on coming up here to question her yourself, you
had better let me get on with my job.

  What? I can’t do that, she hasn’t been charged with anything.

  Susan is busy with the girls.

  Look, the woman is an attorney, I can’t ask her that. It will sound ridiculous, especially coming from an Asian–American.

  Are you saying what I think you’re saying, Detective, because in case you hadn’t noticed Petrovski, your ancestors didn’t exactly arrive on the Mayflower either. What the hell is this all about, who wants to know this stuff?

  Is that meant to be funny? Rudolph the Fucking Reindeer? Look, Detective, a girl is dead and I’m trying to speak to the woman who just spent half an hour trying to bring her back to life. I’ll have her at the station within the hour and you can talk to her then.

  Officer Wu had hung up the cell, returned it to the paramedic and walked back to Rayna.

  ‘That was the first reference. Then there was the day I was arrested, a week ago today.’

  Rayna explained how Petri and his partner, a young detective named Victor Rico, had come to her home, read her her rights, and bundled her into the car.

  On the way into the station Petri tells Rico to pull over so he can use a pay phone. Rico seems pissed, but he is obviously the subordinate of the two so he pulls over. Petri gets out for maybe three minutes, then is back in and telling Rico to deliver the prisoner up front. Rico complains but Petri says there is some kind of obstruction to the back entrance and it is the only way in.

  Who told you that? It was fine this morning.

  Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer, that’s who. Now shut the fuck up so we can get the lady into the system.

  ‘He must have thought he was being funny, maybe he is just stupid, but it had to mean something,’ said Rayna.

  David agreed. ‘So, if Petri was referring to Haynes in both instances, the Senator was told about his daughter’s death as soon as the accident was called in. Petri probably told him before Joe even got to the house.’

  ‘They must have a prior relationship,’ said Sara.

  ‘Probably.’ David turned to Rayna. ‘He must have wanted Tommy to force you into saying something incriminating regarding Christina’s colour, give away your racial preferences.’