The Complete Mystery Collection

by Michaela Thompson

  44

  Back to Tupelo Branch

  Cecil’s motor was more powerful and his boat was bigger than Josh was used to, but by the time he reached the Big Cypress he had adjusted. The local law had been very accommodating, letting him borrow a car and a boat. He suspected it was so he wouldn’t look too closely at the sheriff’s ties with the Calhoun brothers. What did it matter anyway? Josh thought. With Sonny dead and Bo wounded, the Calhouns would be out of commission, at least for a while. And even if Snapper wasn’t prosecuted, his still was in ruins. Amos and Murphy would be picked up eventually. The people of St. Elmo would have to find other sources for corn liquor. Josh didn’t doubt they would manage to do that.

  He tried to keep his mind on these matters and not think about anything else. He wished he hadn’t been that way with Lily. He wished she hadn’t—He concentrated on watching the river and trying to gauge how much it had risen during the storm.

  The tupelo bushes were half under water when he turned into Tupelo Branch, and muddy water extended into the swamp. When he reached Sue Nell’s camp, he saw that the dock was under water, so he tied his boat to the front steps. She stood on the screened porch watching him, her arms folded.

  “You’re all right,” he said as he climbed up.

  “It wasn’t that much. Just a big blow.” She cocked her head to one side as he opened the door. “You look like hell.”

  “I don’t want to talk right now.”

  I know I shouldn’t, but I can’t help it, thought Josh as he kissed her. Grief and confusion fell away in his intense longing for Sue Nell. I have to, he thought, his hands gliding over her body. Never to do this again. I couldn’t stand it.

  Afterward, he played with her loosened hair as they lay in the bunk. Now, he thought. “I have to tell you something,” he said. “I shot Bo.”

  Her body went rigid against him. She sat up and searched his face. “Is he dead?”

  “No. But he’s in jail. I’m the law. He and his brothers killed a man.”

  “The law?”

  With anguish, he felt her shrink away. “Revenue agent,” he said. “I’ll tell you something else. Diana Landis was killed with Bo’s cast net.”

  Her lips moved for a moment before she said, “How do you know?”

  “Lily Trulock recognized the weights on it. She knows they were made with Bo’s mold.”

  She shivered. He saw goose bumps on her arms, a golden hair sprouting from each.

  “I thought maybe Bo killed Diana with that net,” he said. “That’s what I thought at first.”

  “And now?”

  “You tell me.”

  She shook her head. “I thought you knew all along,” she said. “I thought that’s why I was going to bed with you, because you knew. When you told me about finding her body.” She gave a strangled laugh. “I thought that’s what this was about.”

  “It isn’t.”

  She got up, and he lay without moving and watched her dress. Finally he said, “When I got here the other night, you’d just put the new net in Bo’s boat?”

  She nodded. “I worked all day and all night. I wove that damn thing faster than you’ve ever seen. I took his mold, and I made more weights. He hardly ever fishes. I figured he’d never know.”

  “He took it out when he went to raid the still on the island, and he saw it was made sloppy. He told Lily Trulock.”

  “I took his boat to go see Diana,” Sue Nell said. “I guess because it was fancier than my bateau, to go to her fancy boat in. I wanted to tell her she couldn’t have Bo, no matter if he wanted to go or not.

  “I found her all tied up. Hog-tied, like a present. I reckon that preacher boy did that. I saw how easy it would be to whip the hide off her, and I got Bo’s net, and twisted it, and hit her with the weights. You know, she never thought I’d kill her. She begged me not to break her nose.”

  “And you kept on.”

  “I kept on.”

  “Why?”

  “I hated her, with those damn poems. I hate him, too. He would have gone, eventually. I hate them both.”

  Josh folded his hands behind his head. “And when you saw she was dead you dumped her in the water.”

  “I thought she’d sink. It didn’t work, though. I didn’t wait to make sure, and the net got caught.”

  “And then I came along and found her,” said Josh. His eyes barely moved when Sue Nell picked up the pistol from the shelf. “Tell me something before you shoot,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Did you ever care about me at all? Really want me at all?”

  “No.”

  Josh closed his eyes. He didn’t wince when the gun went off.

  45

  Saying Good-Bye

  Lily sat behind the counter reading the Saturday Evening Post, waiting for the mid-morning ferry. Three days had passed since the storm, which had not after all been a hurricane. “Close to a hurricane, though,” Lily had told Aubrey. “Close as I care to get.”

  The weather was hot again, but not as hot as it had been before. Something in the air suggested fall. The primary election was in less than two weeks.

  Someone walked in. She looked up, saw that it was Josh, and put her magazine down. He was dressed in a dark blue suit, with a white shirt and a tie. His hair was newly cut. He looked like a stranger.

  “I was hoping you’d stop in,” said Lily.

  “Sure I came. I had to say good-bye.”

  “Going back to Tallahassee?”

  “For right now.”

  He walked around the store, glancing at the shelves, opening the drink cooler. “Have yourself a Coke,” said Lily. He opened one and dug into his pocket. “My treat,” she said.

  He took a swallow. “You know they got Amos and Murphy.”

  “That was something, wasn’t it? The Coast Guard people spotting them when they got back to the boat?”

  “Murphy’s screaming about Snapper being involved in the still, but I’ll bet Snapper gets out of it somehow. And wins the election.” He shook his head.

  “Something I wondered,” said Lily.

  “What?”

  “When Bo was looking for Murphy and Amos. Did you know where they were?”

  “Guessed. There was a little inlet where Murphy moored that cabin cruiser. It was a protected place. I figured they were on board, waiting it out.”

  “More comfortable than the Elmo House, probably.”

  He smiled slightly. “Probably.”

  “I heard they’re going to tear the hotel down, now.” She adjusted the lid on one of the candy jars. “Wesley’s daddy came and took him back to Montgomery. I reckon they won’t be putting money for a youth worker in next year’s church budget.”

  He finished his drink and put the bottle on the counter, then rocked back on his heels, jingling the change in his pockets. “Well,” he said.

  Lily cleared her throat. “I’m sorry about Sue Nell.”

  Josh looked away. “What you don’t know. I thought she was going to shoot me. I didn’t even care. If I had thought she was about to kill herself—”

  “I guessed that.”

  “She must have hated me. You couldn’t do that to somebody unless you hated him.”

  “Maybe she didn’t know what else to do. Maybe she didn’t want to kill you, and that was the only other choice she thought she had.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Yes. Maybe.”

  Josh leaned against the counter. “How are you and your husband doing?”

  “All right, I guess. He talks more.” She paused. “I wish you the best.”

  He colored. “I’m sorry I got mad with you. I didn’t want to believe what you were saying.”

  “I know.”

  “And thank you for stopping me, not letting me kill Bo Calhoun.”

  “Everybody was wrought up.”

  They were silent. Then he said, “You ever get to Tallahassee?”

  “Not too often. You never can tell, though.”<
br />
  “If you do, you call me up.”

  “Sure I will. And if you ever get back here—”

  “Sure.” He stood straight. “I’ll see you, then.”

  “Have a good trip back.”

  The door closed behind him. Lily sat running her finger down the bottle he had left on the counter, making designs in the moisture on its side. When she heard the ferry’s engine, she took the bottle and put it in the rack. She wiped the ring of moisture from the counter and stood waiting to greet her customers.

  THE END

  Dedication

  To Alan

  WE GUARANTEE OUR BOOKS… AND WE LISTEN TO OUR READERS

  We’ll give you your money back if you find as many as five errors. (That’s five verified errors— punctuation or spelling that leaves no room for judgment calls or alternatives.) Or if you just don’t like the book—for any reason! If you find more than five errors, we’ll give you a dollar for every one you catch up to twenty. Just tell us where they are. More than that and we reproof and remake the book.

  Email mittie.bbn@gmail.com and it shall be done!

  Also by Michaela Thompson:

  PAPER PHOENIX

  FAULT TREE

  VENETIAN MASK

  The Georgia Maxwell Series

  MAGIC MIRROR

  A TEMPORARY GHOST

  The Florida Panhandle Mysteries

  HURRICANE SEASON

  RIPTIDE

  HEAT LIGHTNING

  About the Author

  MICHAELA THOMPSON is the author of seven mystery novels, all of them originally published under the name Mickey Friedman. She grew up on the Gulf Coast in the Northwest Florida Panhandle, the locale described in Hurricane Season, and still spends a significant amount of time there. She has worked as a newspaper reporter and a freelance journalist, and has contributed mystery short stories to a number of anthologies. She lives in New York City.

  Praise for RIPTIDE, a Michaela Thompson Florida Panhandle Mystery :

  “A ripping good yarn… [Thompson] deftly weaves these diverse strands into an exciting tale.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “[Thompson’s] novel—with an imaginative plot, some rousing action, a black-hearted villain, a cute kid, some gently ironic humor, and a heroine who's appealing without being perfect—is sure to keep readers entertained.”

  —Booklist

  RIPTIDE

  A Florida Panhandle Mystery

  By

  Michaela Thompson

  booksBnimble Publishing

  New Orleans, La.

  Riptide

  Copyright 1994 by Mickey Friedman

  All rights are reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  eBook ISBN: 9781625173805

  Originally published by St. Martin’s Press

  www.booksbnimble.com

  First booksBnimble electronic publication: February, 2014

  riptide: n. a tide running against another or others, creating turbulent waters

  —Oxford American Dictionary

  Prologue

  Early-morning fog hung over the bay, dampening the heavy-headed sea oats on the dunes. No birds cried. Milky dull green waves broke and spread with no more noise than water makes slopping in a bucket.

  The lighthouse was set back from the beach, on a gentle rise sketchily covered with scrub palmetto and clumps of coarse grass. Its top was lost in whiteness. Standing at the base of the skeletal metal tower was a man wearing a lightweight windbreaker in a red lumberjack plaid. The man had been standing there a long time, leaning back on one of the structure’s supports, bending a knee to rest first one foot and then the other against it.

  When the muffled drone of an outboard motor reached his ears, the man straightened. He walked toward the beach and stood at the end of the dunes.

  The motor cut off, its cessation intensifying the hush. A moment or two later, the man in the plaid jacket heard splashing. A figure in a hooded black wetsuit came in view, pulling a blue boat with a ragged canvas top through the shallows. The diver beached the boat in the listless surf. His back was turned and he didn’t hear the lumberjack approach. He reached into the boat and pulled out a burlap sack. The sack seemed heavy, and when he placed it on the packed sand, it made a faint clatter. The diver flexed his shoulders and turned to see the lumberjack a few yards away. He stood still on bare feet as the lumberjack came closer.

  The two looked at one another. The diver’s clenching toes dug in the sand. When the lumberjack shifted his weight, the diver could see the gun clipped to the belt of the man’s jeans.

  “Reckon I better have a look in the sack,” the lumberjack said. He stepped forward.

  The diver bent sideways, as if going for the sack, but at the last minute he pulled a paddle out of the boat and swung it at the lumberjack with all his strength.

  The broad part of the paddle caught the lumberjack in the face and knocked him backward, down on the sand. The lumberjack shook his head and blood spurted from his nose. When he tried to sit up, the diver smashed the paddle on the back of his neck. The lumberjack pushed himself sideways into the softly spreading waves. He lurched to his hands and knees, his head hanging, a string of mucus and blood dripping into the water. The diver hit him once again, and as he listed forward, the diver dropped the paddle and pushed the lumberjack’s head down into the swirling water and mushy sand.

  When the lumberjack had stopped struggling, the diver sat back on his haunches. His body was heaving. “Don’t you come at me,” he whispered to the lumberjack’s corpse. “Don’t you come at me.”

  The diver splashed salt water on his face and replaced the heavy sack in the blue boat. He gripped the lumberjack under the arms and hauled him over the side of the boat. The lumberjack flopped into the bottom like a red plaid fish, but heavy and gone already, without gasping and thumping or arching death throes.

  The diver splashed his face again. Blinking rapidly, he turned toward the dunes and saw the old lady.

  She stood skinny and still as an egret, her white hair ruffled on top. She clutched a gray sweater around her. He could feel her accusation moving toward him, sharp and clear.

  The diver glanced at the boat where the lumberjack lay and said, “I didn’t—” But it was no use. “Oh hell,” he said, and surged up the beach toward the old lady.

  She ran faster than he would have credited, her blue-veined legs scissoring, her battered sneakers and crew socks churning through the sand, but of course he caught her. He clasped her shoulders and shook hard, her head jerking back and forth, but still she glared at him, a look so unyielding he got carried away and clipped her a good one with his fist. Her mouth fell open, her eyes turned up, and she fell out of his grasp, disjointed as a handful of toothpicks.

  He hadn’t had more than two seconds to contemplate her sprawled there among wiregrass and dollar weeds when from down the beach he heard a child’s voice, thin and piercing, singing:

  He’s got the whole world

  In ’is hands

  He’s got the whole wide wor-hurld—

  The diver left the old lady where she lay and ran back to the boat. His body was slick with sweat inside his wetsuit. He pushed the boat out, guiding it, scrambling in when the water was thigh-deep. From here, the old lady looked like a log, a pile of seaweed— like nothing at all.

  He found the lumberjack’s boat on the other side of the lighthouse, at the mouth of the slough. The mist was still heavy as he towed it out, the waves curling and falling lazily, buoys looming up and defining themselves as he passed.

  He dumped them out past the shoals. The lumberjack made barely a splash in the dead air as he went over the side. When the diver pulled the plug on the lumberjack’s boat, he stood in it a minute or two, feeling the water start to take it, feeling it start on its long trip down.

  Part I

/>   1

  Isabel Anders had been unemployed for two months when the letter arrived. Somehow being fired in March, a cold, mean month in New York but a month when it is reasonable to hope for spring, had seemed an additional cruelty.

  Spring, with its supposed promise of renewal, had arrived late and chill. Isabel monitored it from the window of her apartment while she refined her portfolio and honed her resume. The leaves on the chestnut tree in the garden below unfurled as she made endless follow-up phone calls. The bushy, undisciplined privet became a haze of green, and now Isabel could look down and see it busy with finches and sparrows, tough little New York survivors.

  Unlike, Isabel was beginning to fear, herself.

  Isabel was an artist, or so she fancied on good days, but she had no desire to be a starving artist. For ten years, since shortly after her twenty-fourth birthday, Isabel had been happily and productively employed in the art department of a small publishing house. She had loved every aspect of it— designing books, selecting typefaces, doing jacket illustrations. She had been good at it, too, or so she encouraged herself to believe. Publishing fell on hard times, though, and her employer was not spared. First the fat was cut, and then the lean, and after a while Isabel herself was sliced away.

  During a determinedly manic period right after she was laid off, Isabel made much of welcoming the crippling blow as an opportunity. At animated lunches with her former colleagues, she rhapsodized about the projects, long deferred, she would now have time to tackle. “I always wanted to try a children’s book,” she would say. “I started one once, based on a French fairy tale. I can’t wait to get back to it.” Her companions, fearful they might be next to get the chop, cheered her on and picked up the check. The French fairy tale, The Children from the Sea, remained on the closet shelf.