The Complete Mystery Collection

by Michaela Thompson

The notation was: “River Pete A.— tobacco— 5 cnts.” “It doesn’t show his last name,” Isabel said, disappointed.

  “Don’t you worry. My Granddaddy never gave anybody twenty dollars’ worth of credit without knowing his last name. We’ll find it.” The pages crackled. “Here’s one for a sack of grits, but he just says, ‘River Pete.’”

  They continued through the pages. River Pete’s name appeared often. Sometimes he was River Pete, sometimes River Pete A., sometimes Pete A. The last name was not noted.

  “I’ll tell you what let’s do,” Donna said. “Let’s look at the last page. Maybe he made a notation at the end of the year.” She turned the remaining pages over. On the inside back cover, they found it—an underlined notation in the copperplate hand: “River Pete Addison took off owing $20.00. No Further Credit.”

  Isabel borrowed a piece of paper and wrote down, “Pete Addison, Gilead Springs.”

  “If you go there, you might track him down, I reckon,” said Donna. She sounded doubtful.

  Isabel put the paper in her handbag. At least she had a name, if she decided to pursue it. She thanked Donna and bid farewell to the black dog. Before returning to her car, she stood under the oak canopy and looked back at the landing. Donna Pursey was in her boat, working on the motor. The black dog sat on the bank, watching Donna. In the shadow of the Coke machine, the yellow dog slept.

  On the way home, Isabel thought about River Pete. He seemed more real to her now, after she had read in the ledger about his tobacco and cornmeal and soda crackers. Pete Addison. What had led him, she wondered, to send twenty dollars to settle his old debt with the Purseys?

  She reached the fire tower and turned toward St. Elmo. It was late afternoon and the atmosphere was hazy gold. Her mind turned once again to the day after the storm. Pete and John James had spent the day sawing up trees that had been blown down. Before John James left, Merriam saw Pete washing at the pump. Soon after that, John James gave Merriam the letter and the bottle.

  The thought came suddenly. Isabel braked, pulled over on the shoulder, and cut the motor off so she could concentrate.

  The bottle. John James found the bottle that day, when he and Pete were clearing the dead trees. The bottle had not been washed up by the storm. The bottle had been buried.

  She heard Clem’s voice, saying the Spanish had often salvaged wrecks themselves. Suppose survivors from the Esperanza had saved some of its cargo and brought it to shore. They might bury it, mightn’t they, on high ground at the base of a tree? With the intention of returning for it once they were out of danger?

  Except they hadn’t come back. Nobody ever came back, and what they had buried was undisturbed until the storm blew a tree down and Isabel’s grandfather John James and River Pete Addison cleared the debris.

  What had they found, besides the lovely Chinese porcelain bottle that John James gave his ten-year-old daughter Merriam?

  Isabel was still holding on to the steering wheel. She forced her fingers to relax. John James had given Merriam the bottle and a letter. The letter was gone. The bottle remained.

  Cows were grazing in a field nearby. Isabel watched them and tried not to succumb to the tantalizing thought that John James and River Pete had uncovered Spanish gold along with the bottle.

  Isabel thought, after all, she would go to Gilead Springs. She would go first thing tomorrow.

  The sun was setting when she reached Cape St. Elmo. She pulled up beside the trailer, parked, got out of the car. Unlocking the trailer door, she went into the semidarkness.

  The toiling of the air conditioner barely moved the tepid air. She dropped her bag on the table, kicked off her sandals, and walked barefoot into the bedroom. She would change into shorts and think about dinner. She turned on the bedroom light.

  In the corner by the closet door, something moved. Before she could focus on it, it began to undulate across the narrow strip of bare floor. She registered that it was a snake, a big one.

  She jumped for the bed, and watched the snake disappear underneath it. It was brownish green, as big around as her arm, and between three and four feet long.

  She tasted blood. She must have bitten her lip or her tongue. Her body was damp, sweat collecting behind her knees, sliding between her breasts. She heard a whisper of sound as the snake rubbed past her suitcase, then nothing.

  The telephone was in the living room, out of reach. Nobody would hear if she screamed. The window was too small to squeeze through. Sweat ran into her eyes and she wiped it away with her skirt.

  Isabel! Listen to me, young’un! It was Merriam talking. If you’re going to live out here, you got to know a few things.

  Ten-year-old Isabel didn’t want to know about snakes. Sullen and unhappy, she refused to look at Merriam.

  I’m talking to you, Isabel!

  Isabel hadn’t seen the snake’s head clearly, so she didn’t know for sure, but it could’ve been a cottonmouth moccasin. If it was, she was in serious trouble. Cottonmouth will surely bite you if he gets the chance, and he’s full of poison.

  Merriam had killed a rattlesnake in the parlor once, broken its back with a broom handle. They’d had cottonmouths and other water snakes around the shed and even, once or twice, under the house when the weather had been especially wet and the creek rose.

  It was too late to worry about how the snake had gotten in. She had to worry about how to get it out.

  The snake would be afraid, too. It would hide if it could, but would surely attack if it felt threatened. If it stayed where it was, under the bed, Isabel could get across to the top of the dresser without touching the floor. From the dresser top, she could launch herself through the bedroom door into the living room and make it outside to run for help.

  A cottonmouth doesn’t coil to strike like a rattlesnake, Isabel, but it will lunge at you. The trick of it is to keep distance between you and the snake.

  Isabel would be happy to keep distance between herself and the snake. It was her dearest wish.

  If you got to hurt it, throw something and smash the head. Or use a pole to hit it with.

  She scanned the room. The bulkiest items in her reach were a hairbrush on the dresser and a flashlight on the bedside table. As for poles, the closest one was a broom hanging on a hook on the kitchen wall. The crowbar she’d used to get into the house was in the cabinet under the sink.

  Getting from the bed to the dresser would be easy. The room was so small, there was very little space between them. The bed springs creaked as she eased her body toward the foot of the bed.

  Suddenly, the snake shot from beneath the bed and slithered through the door into the darkening living room. This time, she had a better view of it. She couldn’t be positive, but she was pretty sure she hadn’t seen its eyes. A harmless snake— you look down, you can see its eyes. A cottonmouth, you can’t. That’s one way to know.

  Blood was beating in her neck and temples. The living room was a pool of shadow, the snake nowhere in sight. After catching her breath, she eased herself to the head of the bed and got the flashlight from the bedside table. She returned to the foot and switched the light on.

  The faint beam didn’t illuminate much. She could see a stretch of bare floor, the end of the sofa. No snake.

  Hoping for a better view, she climbed from the foot of the bed to the dresser top and shone the beam through the door again. She could see more of the sofa this time, but still no sign of the snake.

  Did snakes like to hide in dark places? She wasn’t sure whether Merriam had expounded on that subject. If it wanted darkness, it could have gone behind the counter dividing the living-dining room from the darker kitchen.

  Her sneakers were on the floor at the foot of the bed. They wouldn’t deflect a cottonmouth’s fangs, but she’d feel better wearing them. She bent down and fished them up. Still sitting on the dresser, she put them on and double-tied them. This was no time to be stumbling over loose shoelaces.

  The shoes made her feel safer and able to think more c
learly. The overhead light in the living room could be controlled from two switches— one just inside the front door, one next to the bedroom door. Turning it on had to be the next step. That meant getting down from her perch and walking across the floor.

  Once more, she raked the flashlight beam over the portion of the living room she could see. She slid her legs around and put her feet on the floor. Breathed. Took a step. The floor seemed flimsy, creaky. She sensed that the snake, wherever it was, could feel her every move vibrating against its body.

  Another step and she was in the doorway. She reached around the corner, felt for the light switch, and turned it on. She tensed herself to jump back.

  Now, she saw it. It was in a corner again, this time across the room, on the far side of the front door. If she could get the door open, it might be persuaded to leave. The door was opposite the end of the kitchen counter. She would have to get up on the counter and reach across to the doorknob. It would be a stretch, but she thought she could do it.

  The snake was a still, dark form in the shadows. Her eyes on it, Isabel moved through the doorway. In another couple of steps, she had reached the sofa. She stepped up on it and walked across the sagging cushions to the end nearest the counter. From there, she snagged a dining chair and stepped on it, then moved from the chair to the counter.

  Her activity had disturbed the snake again. It was sliding up and down the floor of the kitchen, seeming to search for a way out. Isabel crawled to the end of the counter. She reached but couldn’t touch the doorknob.

  Her fear, while real, seemed remote. She didn’t have time for it. She eased herself onto her stomach on the counter and inched forward, her outstretched fingers reaching for the doorknob and the latch beneath it. Her arm, shoulder, and the tendons in her neck ached with the effort. If she overbalanced, she would land on the floor. With her left hand, she clung to the edge of the counter.

  At last, her groping fingers touched the lock, gripped it, turned it. Her fingertips slid on the smooth surface of the doorknob, but after a couple of tries she managed to turn it and pull the door open.

  The agitated snake remained in the kitchen. It showed no inclination to make for the door.

  There was still the broom.

  The broom was hanging on the opposite wall of the kitchen, but the kitchen was only a few feet wide. Isabel got to her feet. She leaned forward until she overbalanced, then caught herself against the opposite wall. She retrieved the broom from its hook and heaved herself back to the counter.

  Now, she was prepared to break the snake’s back with the broom handle. Except that given her position, and the lack of space for a windup, doing such a thing was physically impossible. She would have to practice her sweeping, another talent honed under Merriam’s tutelage.

  Isabel clutched the broom in both hands, leaned forward, and with all her strength swept the snake toward the front door.

  It moved a few feet but didn’t like it. She saw the white cottony lining when its mouth opened. She swept again, harder, pushing the writhing creature toward the door. One more thrust and it was out, sailing through the air. She jumped down and slammed the door.

  For reasons she couldn’t explain, she climbed back onto the countertop and sat cross-legged, holding the broom. She was still there fifteen minutes later when Harry Mercer arrived.

  27

  Harry hammered on the door until he heard Isabel say, “Come in. It’s open.” He had known what Scooter had done as soon as he found the bathroom door open and Sis the cottonmouth gone. His chest ached with the desire to get his hands on Scooter and kill him.

  Isabel was sitting cross-legged on the kitchen counter, holding a broom across her lap. Her face was milky white. She said, “Harry, a cottonmouth got in here.”

  Harry closed the door behind him. “Where did it go?”

  “I swept it out.” She waved the broom with an odd smile. “I swept the damn thing out. You should’ve seen it. You know”— she giggled— “Merriam killed one, a rattlesnake, with a broom once, but I just swept it. Like a conscientious housewife.” She laughed again, a breathless rasp, and said, “What in the hell are you doing here, Harry?”

  He said, “Let me get you a drink. All right? What have you got?” He walked into the kitchen, opened cabinets. He found a bottle of gin, poured some over an ice cube, and put the glass on the counter beside her. “Do you want me to help you down from there?”

  She frowned. “No, thanks. I got up here by myself all right.” She picked up the glass and drank. “Didn’t I tell you not to come over?”

  “I thought maybe you’d changed your mind.”

  She drank more gin, giving him a look he couldn’t read. “So here you are.”

  “Yeah.”

  Isabel seemed to be waiting, giving him a chance to say something, but when he didn’t take it, she said, “How did that snake get in here, do you think?”

  He couldn’t look at her. He shifted his gaze. “Got to be an opening somewhere. Around the pipes, maybe. You want me to look?”

  She stayed up on the counter, drinking her gin, while he checked the pipes. After a while, he said, “I’m going to look outside. You got a screwdriver? And a flashlight?”

  “The screwdriver’s under the sink. The flashlight? I guess I dropped it over there, on the sofa.” As he went out, she said, “Be careful. It’s still out there somewhere.”

  He shook his head. “It’s in the slough by now.”

  No sign of Sis outside. Harry pushed through the bushes at the back of the trailer, shining the light in front of him. Insects whirled in its beam. He found the place where the pipes led into the kitchen. The metal cladding around the opening was rusty and loose. Although the gap didn’t seem large enough for a snake of any size to get through, Harry tightened the screws.

  He also shone his light on a ventilation panel that was hanging loose, affording a larger opening. That’s where Scooter had put Sis in. He probably brought her over in the plastic garbage can. Harry snapped the panel back in place.

  When he went inside he said, “I found it. Out by the kitchen pipes. I tightened it up for you.”

  She climbed stiffly down from the counter. “I was thinking I might have to sleep up here.”

  One important thing he did have to say. “I left Kathy.”

  She frowned. “You what?”

  “I left Kathy.”

  “Who’s Kathy?”

  “My wife.”

  He could tell by her face that she’d had enough. She looked ready to scream and blow her top. He rushed on. “It was going to happen sooner or later. Anyway, I wanted to tell you she’s the one who wrote those letters to you.”

  “What?”

  He should have left this for another time, but he wasn’t sure there would be one. “I had told her about us, a long time ago when she and I were courting. She never forgot, and when you came back, she got worried.” He had hit a snag. “She told me she wrote the letters because she was worried—” He stopped, then tried again. “She was worried that I still loved you,” he said. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

  She didn’t say anything. After a minute, he said, “Anyway, I’m glad you’re safe.”

  She looked directly into his eyes. “Are you?” she said, and he saw in her face that Scooter was right. She had gone into the house. She knew.

  Loss and desolation filled him. He said, “I would never hurt you, Isabel.”

  Her lip curled. “Wouldn’t you? You don’t think it hurts me to know that you’ve been using my house – Merriam’s house— as your base of operations? You’ve been sneaking around salvaging a Spanish wreck, Harry. What happened to Merriam? Did she figure out what you were up to? Did she disapprove of you breaking and entering her property? Because I’ve figured it out, and I disapprove, believe me.”

  It was the worst. Worse than the worst. After a silence Harry said, “You take care, all right?” Lifting a hand in farewell, he left. The lock on the door clicked behind him.r />
  28

  After Harry left, Isabel called the Marine Patrol. She told the woman who answered the phone that she wanted to report an illegal salvaging operation that was being carried on using a property of hers as a base of operations. Explaining the situation was challenging, and she wasn’t sure she had convinced the woman that she wasn’t drunk or insane. Eventually, she had agreed to call back in the morning.

  She had hardly slept, in fact could barely make herself stay in the trailer at all. Thoughts of the cottonmouth alternated with thoughts of Harry Mercer, and by the time day broke she knew she had to get out. She called the Marine Patrol again, and this time got someone who sounded fairly interested in her story. He said they had an operative in the area who would be in contact with her, but there was no indication it was going to be immediately. She would try calling again later, but in the meantime she was getting out of Cape St. Elmo. She packed an overnight bag just in case, and took off for Gilead Springs. Although the trip was a long shot, compared with her other preoccupations its outcome seemed admirably predictable: Either she would find some trace of River Pete Addison in Gilead Springs or she wouldn’t.

  At almost noon, she passed the Gilead Springs city limits. It was a small town, formerly a spa where people came to take the waters from warm sulfur springs. Those days were long gone. Now, the town consisted of a Taco Bell, a brambly old cemetery, a few beautiful Queen Anne houses, a row of unimposing stores, and the Gilead Springs Lodge, a cavernous stone building dating from the glory days of Gilead Springs.

  Across from the Lodge was the county courthouse. The courthouse would be as good a place as any to start looking for Pete Addison.

  The echoing halls seemed deserted, and Isabel soon remembered it was lunchtime. She wandered until she found a door with PROPERTY RECORDS painted on it in gold. She tried it, expecting to find it locked. It wasn’t. A gray-haired man in shirtsleeves sat at a desk, eating a sandwich— tuna salad, judging from the smell. When she appeared, he put it down, dusted his fingers, and listened attentively to her query about people named Addison who might have owned property in the area.