by Diane Capri
The breeze was light out of the east and the sky nearly cloudless. The walk from the Shiftless Sands to the beach was less than a block, past the other motel and efficiency apartment rentals with names like the Oceanside Hideaway and California Dream Inn. None of them was nearly as tacky as the Sands, and their parking lots were filled with traveling cars. The narrow asphalt lane deadended at the beach, and a vacant lot filled with tangled sea grape trees was echoing with the competing songs of mockingbirds, green parrots, and finches.
When I reached the sand, it was easy to pick out B.J. in the handful of surfers sitting on their boards, floating over the smaller swells, waiting for the perfect wave. His sleek but muscled brown body and black hair stood out among the slight and slender blond boys. He was the only one without a rash guard or wet suit, even in the March water that most Floridians found quite chilly. The other surfers seemed to watch him, taking their cues from him. When he started to paddle, selecting a certain wave, the others followed, trusting his judgment, but keeping out of his way.
I walked down to the water’s edge, arriving just as B.J. kicked out, abandoning his wave to the sharp shore break, and he waved at me. I nodded in return, then turned south, heading toward the Dania pier. I hadn’t exercised in days, and my leg muscles felt tight and resistant when I started to jog. I sucked the sea air deep into my lungs and tried to flush out all the accumulated stress and craziness of the last couple of days.
I needed some time to think. Especially about B.J. Something about the status of our friendship had changed last night. I wasn’t sure I liked the change, but it was irrevocable.
He was fresh out of the shower and the surfboard was back in its rack when I returned to the apartment. “Would you like some tea, something to eat?”
I shook my head.
“Feel free to shower if you want.”
“No, I’ve got to get back and clean up my place. I’ll shower at home. I’ve got a job at eleven.”
“I can take you right now if you want.”
I didn’t understand why, but I felt like being as uncooperative and disagreeable as I could.
“I think that would be best.”
We didn’t talk in his truck at all. I felt him looking at me several times. I was afraid to return his glances, afraid he would see something in my eyes to let him know that I was just like all those other girls who lusted after him. I didn’t want to join the ranks of B.J.’s exgirlfriends. What had made me think that I could have something different with him? It was about a fifteen-minute drive to Bahia Cabana, where I had left Lightnin’, but in that silence it seemed much longer.
We pulled up alongside my Jeep. “Oh great.” There was a ticket tucked under the windshield wiper.
“Things could be worse,” B.J. said.
“Yeah, right.” I climbed out of the El Camino and leaned back in through the open passenger window. Bouncing the palm of my hand against the side of the El Camino’s window frame, I said, “Thanks, man,” and turned away. From the corner of my eye, I watched the truck pull out onto A1A.
Me and B.J.? I had to put it out of my mind. There was no way that could ever work out.
***
On my way home, I stopped off at my favorite breakfast spot, a drive-through gourmet coffee place, and ordered an onion bagel and a big café con leche. I drove to a little park overlooking the river and ate my breakfast in the Jeep. It was a hot morning for March, and the coffee brought a mist of sweat to my upper lip. The usual Saturday morning parade of pleasure boats putt-putted down the river carrying throngs of white, lotion-smeared bodies from the western edges of the county. Many folks who lived out in the suburbs spent their whole lives inside their air-conditioned homes on treeless landfill lots. There were places out there where Red used to take us back when we were kids, places where we could launch our old Sears aluminum skiff along the side of the road and pole our way through the sawgrass, fishing for bass. Those places don’t exist anymore, the land’s changed so much. Bulldozers and truckloads of fill have made driveways where folks now park their boats so they can drive fifteen miles east on weekends and launch their boats at one of the ramps along the river.
Back at the cottage, Abaco greeted me like I had been gone weeks. She had a doghouse on the grounds of the Larsen place, but usually I let her inside for the night. After a thorough belly rub, I opened the door to the mess, determined not to be discouraged. Nothing had changed. I scooped up some dry dog food from the torn bag on the floor, put it in Abaco’s dish outside, and filled her water bowl.
I decided I’d work first, shower later. Taking several big lawn-size garbage bags and spreading them around the cottage, I told myself to throw away everything I could live without, to clean out the debris that was cluttering up my life.
I got my easel set back up and found my paints, which were intact. I found my telephone answering machine under a pile of books and papers and plugged it back in. I cursed myself for not having thought of it sooner. It was possible I’d lost a job or two because a client had been unable to reach me. I also dug my handheld VHF out of the debris and turned it on to monitor channel sixteen. With that payment to Maddy, I’d pretty well cleaned out my checking account, Neal had cleaned out my reserves, and basically, I was broke. I wondered how Jeannie was making out with the salvage claim. I picked up the telephone receiver and dialed her number.
“I tried to call you last night, but there was no answer right up to midnight,” she said.
I brought her up to date on the break-in, Burns, the guys on the beach, and Maddy’s unforgiving stance.
“Jeannie, only one person on earth knew where I kept that money. I think he tried to make it look like a break-in and maybe got a little carried away, but I’m pretty sure Neal was the one who made this mess. It looks like he’s in trouble, and I’d like to think he’d help me out if things were reversed.”
“You said those muscleheads on the beach thought he was alive, too.”
“Yeah, and they seemed to think Neal would contact me.”
“These guys are playing a rough game. I just wish we knew what it was. No wonder you’re not answering your phone.”
“Actually, I spent last night on B.J.’s couch,” I said. I felt like I needed to talk to somebody about it. “I think I even messed up my friendship with him.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I kissed him.”
“So?”
“Well, he’s B.J.! And this wasn’t just a hello-goodbye kiss. I mean, Jeannie, he works for me.”
She didn’t say anything.
“Jeannie, B.J. and I have always just been friends. Buddies. I don’t know what the hell I was thinking.”
“Maybe you were just thinking about being lonely. How long has it been since you and Neal split up? Six months?”
“Closer to seven.” I didn’t let on that I knew the exact number of weeks, down to the day, since the last time I’d made love to a man. “I’m just not ready for another relationship, Jeannie. I like living alone. And B.J.—has he ever lasted more than a month or two with one woman? I don’t have any desire to join the ever-growing club of B.J.’s old girlfriends.”
Jeannie chuckled. “The lady doth protest too much. I don’t think you know what you want. And as for B.J., my guess is that he hasn’t met the right woman. Well, I’m afraid I don’t have any better news for you. I haven’t been able to find out who owns the Top Ten. I traced it as far as an offshore corporation in the Cayman Islands, but I can’t find out anything from those goddamned island bankers. That attorney you said visited you, though, what was his name again?”
“Hamilton Burns. A real blue-blood type.”
“Let me see what I can find out through him, and I’ll see if I can get them to sign a salvage form. Then we’ll present them with our settlement offer.”
“I need the money, Jeannie. As soon as possible.”
“Don’t worry about my end. You just watch your back, girl.”
“There’s
one more slight little problem, Jeannie.”
“I get worried when you talk about slight problems.”
“Well, it’s just this cop, Collazo. I did say I would go give a statement yesterday, but with everything that happened, I didn’t have time.”
“So get your butt over there, girl.”
“I’ve got a job this morning, I can’t. And it’s a little more complicated. He said I should have my attorney present. He thinks I killed Neal and Patty.”
“What?”
“I know, it’s crazy, right?”
Jeannie didn’t say anything at first. I could almost hear her thinking. “Seychelle, listen to me. Whatever you do, don’t talk to the cops without me. As soon as you’re finished with that job, we’ll go over there together. Do you hear me?”
We said our goodbyes, and I got back to work. Soon the front room started to look habitable again. But the bedroom was another story. I didn’t own enough clothes as it was, so I couldn’t just throw all that stuff out. I sorted and folded and hung things back up in the closet. When I went to hang up my one and only long formal-type dress, I noticed something was missing. Normally, when I slid that dress—actually a bridesmaid gown I’d had to wear to the wedding of a fellow lifeguard—into the closet, I usually had to make sure I didn’t snag its lace on the valve on top of my scuba gear. But there was no tank in the closet, nor in the bedroom anywhere. I went out into the front room and looked all around again, thinking maybe I had somehow overlooked the gear out there. Nothing.
I was standing in the middle of the room in that sort of dreamy far-off space of deep contemplation when the phone rang. The noise startled me back to the here and now. I had to reach across three fat black trash bags in the kitchen to pick up the phone. I was beginning to think that maybe everybody should get their home ransacked periodically—it forced you to do a really good spring cleaning.
“Hello.”
“Miss Sullivan. Detective Collazo. I’ve been trying to get in touch with you.”
This guy sure was persistent. “Look, Detective, I’ll go in and make a statement as soon as I have the time.”
“Today. You will make the time.”
“I’m getting ready to do a job this morning, and—”
“But that is not the main reason I called this morning.”
“Okay. So?”
He paused. “You knew a young woman by the name of Elysia Daggett.”
I drew in my breath sharply and felt a prickly sensation creep up my spine. He had used the past tense. No.
“Yes,” I said. “I know her.”
“This morning, at approximately six-thirty A.M. . . .” I could hear the sound of paper rustling as he flipped through the pages of his notebook. When he began again, it was clear he was reading directly from his notes. “A Fort Lauderdale resident, riverfront home, raised an anchor used to prevent his boat from damaging itself against the dock. Lodged in the prongs of a—” I heard the rustling of paper as he turned a page in his notebook. “—Danforth-type anchor was the upper right arm of a nude body. Female. Body was partially wrapped in a blanket. Rope binding the ankles attached to a broken piece of cinder block.” He coughed, and I could hear the sound of him snapping the notebook closed. “We won’t know the exact cause of death until we get the M.E.’s report.”
No, no, no. I just kept chanting the same word over and over in my head. I was hearing what he was saying, but it wasn’t registering in my mind. The words were searing straight through to my guts.
“Miss Sullivan, are you still there?”
“Yes.” No, no, no.
“We ran the prints and made the ID. She had a record. The brick tied to her ankles was not heavy enough to prevent the body from moving in the current. We assume it was dumped somewhere upriver and the outgoing tide carried it down until she snagged on this anchor. We checked with her last known residence, a facility called Harbor House, and they gave us the name of her employer. I am here at the Bahia Cabana at this moment, and the manager tells us she left work with you yesterday.”
I couldn’t speak. My hands were shaking so, I could feel the phone vibrating against the side of my head.
“Miss Sullivan.”
She was so beautiful. The little sailor suit. The white heels that clicked so authoritatively on the tile floors. I could see her laughing, laughing at being alive, her auburn curls splayed out in the back of B.J.’s El Camino, kicking her bare feet in the air. Stop shaking, Seychelle. This isn’t so. It can’t be. Oh, child, Ely. No.
“At Harbor House, they say she never returned last night. You were the last one seen with her, Miss Sullivan.”
“No.” The word finally seemed to explode out of my mouth.
“Start with when you left the restaurant.”
“No. I wasn’t the last one to see her.” Finally, something I could focus on. “We dropped her off at Harbor House last night. We waited until she went inside. She got home. I saw her go inside.” I was gulping air. My lungs couldn’t seem to process the oxygen, and my chest hurt. “It must be someone else. It can’t be Elysia.” Maybe if I kept talking, didn’t give him a chance to say any more, it would all turn out to be a big mistake.
“The body has been identified.” There was more paper crinkling. “A James Long, executive director of Harbor House. Said he’d known Miss Daggett more than two years.”
“There has got to be a mistake,” I said. Elysia had mentioned that name just last night. What had she said?
“No mistake. At this point we are unable to determine if it was an accidental overdose or intentional. We haven’t ruled out suicide, but due to the marks on the body, it appears unlikely at this point. And I doubt very much she tied the brick to her own ankles.”
“Overdose? Ely wasn’t an addict, Detective. Not anymore.”
“Whoever dumped her probably assumed it would be a long time before anyone even missed her.”
“She’s not like that.”
“You did see her last night. You left her work with her.”
“Yes. And the last time I saw Elysia, B.J. and I dropped her off in front of Harbor House and watched her walk in the door. Somebody buzzed her in around, oh, I don’t know, eight o’clock last night. I know she made it home last night.”
“You are coming in to make a statement today about the Krix case.”
I stared at the phone, my stomach suddenly nauseated, the remains of my morning bagel threatening to revisit.
“Miss Sullivan?”
“Yes.” My voice sounded to me like that of a ten-year-old.
“You are coming to the station today.”
“Yes, okay.”
“We’ll speak more about the Daggett girl then. And Miss Sullivan . . .”
“Yes?”
“The Coast Guard has suspended the search for Neal Garrett’s body. It has been over forty-eight hours.”
I didn’t say anything at first. The silence dragged on, broken only by the occasion pops and crackles from the phone line. “What do you want from me, Collazo?”
“I want to know what really happened out there.” He paused expectantly, but I just let the silence drag on. “And perhaps you will be able to explain something to me: Why are so many people connected to you turning up dead?” He hung up the phone.
I slowly settled the receiver back in its cradle.
It didn’t feel real. Surely I could get in Lightnin’ and drive over to Harbor House and she would be there, laughing, telling me that it was all a goofy mistake. Her curls would be bouncing, her eyes sparkling.
In the distance, the Jungle Queen, a popular tourist cruise boat, tooted her horn for one of the bridges. I stared out the window at the estate across the river. The main house was shuttered and blind-looking. Closed up against the ravages of weather and crime and time. I wanted to close my own shutters, block out the world. I shut my eyes, and fat tears dropped to my cheeks. It was real, wasn’t it? And it seemed Collazo had finally asked me a real question. This time, I w
anted to know the answer, too.
Chapter X
Galen Hightower bought the Ruby Yacht six years ago when the seventy-five-year-old ketch lay abandoned and half sunk in an estuary in Rhode Island. A podiatrist, Hightower had come up with the idea for the Happy Feet franchises. He was hoping his name would push Dr. Scholl’s off the map, and he was making more money than a person that tacky had a right to make. Granted, he didn’t pay much for the seventy-two-foot steel hulk when he bought her, but he had sunk over half a million into the boat since. He thought she was gorgeous, and there was some dubious connection to Errol Flynn and a few other 1920s film stars that he was using to make his investment in “historical preservation” tax deductible. He talked on and on about the history of the boat, and I had a tendency to tune him out because there was no avoiding the fact that, historical or not, the boat was just plain ugly. Squat and tubby with a ridiculously high wheelhouse and short, stubby masts, she didn’t even look like a sailboat. The interior boasted two claw-footed bathtubs and several carved teak cherubs, and Hightower had added garish orange-red velvet upholstery. The whole thing was a case of too much money and far too little taste colliding on the waterfront.
I had agreed to tow the Ruby Yacht up to River Bend Boatyard for Hightower’s annual haul-out at eleven that morning. The boat had a dangerously small rudder, and the first time he had tried to take her upriver himself, the incoming tide had carried him right into the Andrews Avenue Bridge. He lay there listening to his mast and rigging scrape and grind against the steel bridge for ten minutes before the irritated bridge keeper finally opened the span.
I pulled myself together by showering and dressing in clean blue jeans, a T-shirt, and sockless deck shoes. I didn’t have time to wash my hair, so I just tucked it inside a black baseball cap.
The ride down the river seemed different; the colors of the broad lawns, empty swimming pools, and barrel-tiled roofs were less vibrant, less alive, but I knew that what had really changed was me. I piloted the Gorda through the bridges and the turns, past the buoys and the traffic of the waterway, but I saw little of it. The world had become a dull and empty place, and I felt a certain numbness inside. Keeping busy might keep the tears at bay, but it didn’t fill the hollowness in my heart.
