Bone Valley

by Claire Matturro

  She could.

  After that, everybody else sucked up ice cream with goo on top. I had two modest scoops of vanilla, and no goo. But if I’d known this was almost going to be the last ice-cream parlor outing of my relatively young life, I would have had double chocolate with chocolate syrup.

  Chapter 20

  Well, damnation.

  Odell must have been a tad more security conscious than I’d figured.

  That is to say, the key was no longer under the big rock by the door. No matter how many times I flashed my flashlight at the damp dirt under the rock, no key appeared.

  Well, that certainly put a kink in my plans for an easy B and E. But, hey, lawyers thrive on challenges. So, in a sort of optimistic jitter, I started rolling over rocks, hoping Odell had merely moved the key to another hiding place. The overhead security light beamed down enough brightness to aid my search, which is one thing I don’t get about security lights—don’t they just help the burglar see better while he breaks in?

  Grateful for my gloved hands, I picked up enough rocks to count as an upper-body workout at the Y, and still didn’t find a key. I checked over the door frame, under the mat, and in expanding circles outward, searched for pots or fake stones that might hide a key.

  Nothing.

  Being a lawyer, I’d come prepared with a backup plan of operation. I had the lock picks I’d sweet-talked out of Henry, along with his fifteen-minute lesson, which, as it turned out, proved to be woefully inadequate. Having Henry with me right now would have been much better: Henry, the dutiful son of a locksmith who had worked summers with his dad until he had a B.A. and a real job, Henry the malleable, Henry who wore a suit to our last B and E. Henry who might have made the lock picks do what I couldn’t seem to do—that is, open the damn lock. But Bonita had made me promise not to take Henry with me ever again on anything that was illegal. That was one sure sign she was favorably inclined to his proposal—that is, not wanting him arrested in case she did marry him. Given Bonita’s morality and strict religious outlook, in her mind a felon wouldn’t have made a good role model for her five kids.

  Yeah, I could have used Henry. But I had promised.

  So there I was, dressed for B and E bear with my gloves and my flashlight and my soft-soled shoes, in a deserted parking lot, outside a deserted building, which possibly contained secrets that would enlighten me on any number of topics, including my dead client and my live wanted-for-questioning client.

  And I couldn’t get in the damn building.

  Cursing, I gave the lock picks one more whirl, until even I knew they wouldn’t work, and then I tucked them back into my pocket, and glared at the building, thinking hard on my next option. The front door had a decorative panel of glass, which I could break out and maybe open the lock from within—but I didn’t want to make the B and E obvious, so I passed on that for the moment.

  With my flashlight, I did a careful study of the front, then I walked around the office building, studying the windows in the back. Low windows with burglar bars and high windows with none.

  I counted sixteen screws in the burglar bars on the window to Rayford’s office, and only the one I’d already played with was anything like loose. And wouldn’t you know it, I didn’t have a screwdriver in my car.

  I studied the high windows again. High windows with no bars, high windows that might be unlocked.

  So how hard could it be to reach those high windows?

  I poked around in the dirt below them, testing for solid footing. Not for me, but for my car. My idea being that I could drive my Honda out back, climb up on its roof, slide open the window—if it wasn’t locked—and crawl into the office that way.

  The dirt seemed solid enough that I didn’t need to worry about getting the Honda stuck, but I would definitely leave car tracks that would suggest to anyone who walked around the building that somebody had been up to something. All in all, I had hoped to come, see, conquer, photocopy, and leave without a trace.

  Giving up my plan was out of the question, so I drove the car under the window, parked it, climbed up on the roof, figured I could take a page from Angus’s book and wipe out the car tracks with a palm frond or something on my way out, and in short order became profoundly grateful I was both tall and persistent. I wrenched the unlocked window open.

  So, if this lawyer thing and the grooming school didn’t work out, maybe I had a calling for common burglary. Could I actually make a living at that? I wondered.

  I punched out the screen, crawled through the window, gauged the likelihood of harm in jumping from the window to the floor, and, risk-benefit analysis finished, I lowered myself down and dangled from the windowsill by my fingers, inhaled, and let go. A little tough on the knees in the landing, but nothing a good oomph sound and a solid curse didn’t cure.

  Bingo! I was in Rayford’s office. Rayford’s office with all the file cabinets. Given that I was alone, it was three in the morning, and I was as close to the middle of nowhere as you can get in Sarasota County without taking an airplane to another country, I flipped on the lights.

  Yeah, okay. Not my best move as it turned out.

  I didn’t really know what I was looking for, so I started with the obvious—his desk drawers. Bills, booze, crap, and copies of the orange-defamation lawsuits complaints, and a long letter from the attorney who had signed the complaint. I glanced at it, saw it was an analysis of the suit, but didn’t readily appear to contain clues on the bigger issues, and I switched on the copy machine in the corner and put the letter on top. Worth copying to study later, I figured, but not worth memorizing on the spot.

  While the copy machine hummed and droned to life, I plundered the first filing cabinet, which seemed to be all orange-grove stuff, well organized, but wholly useless to me. After checking the back and the undersides for hidden files, I slammed it shut.

  The second filing cabinet was locked.

  Oh, good. I mean, yeah, oh good. Rayford probably never in his whole life read the “Purloined Letter,” a Poe classic, and didn’t know the best place to hide something is in plain sight. No, he’d lock up his important stuff. Kinda like drawing a red arrow to it.

  Hoping for a cheap lock, as opposed to the complex dead bolt on the front door, I dug out the lock picks and tinkered. Within about ten heartbeats, the lock unlocked. Way to go, Henry, I thought, pocketed the picks, and went to plundering.

  Who would ever have thought the man was so impeccably organized? Suddenly, I had a warm and fuzzy feeling for Rayford. He had, get this, a file labeled “M. David/Groves” and one labeled “Groves” and two that made my heart go all a twitter, “Groves/Sales” and “M. David and Gyp.” In a jiffy, I had those files out and was heading to the copy machine, when I heard in the not-too-distant distance something that made my heart jump into my throat and about choke me.

  The sound of a car or a truck approaching.

  I jumped for the light switch, hoped the place went dark before the driver saw a light on, and checked Rayford’s door with my heavy-duty, hurricane-proof (read: expensive) flashlight, and discovered it was already locked. Secure for a few more moments, I grabbed up the lawyer’s letter and my collection of M. David files. So much for leaving no trace behind. I headed back for the high window.

  When it hit me: I didn’t have a ladder. I couldn’t drive my Honda inside, and I wasn’t tall enough to leap up into the high window.

  The burglar bars on the lower windows closed that escape route.

  Nothing to do but shove Rayford’s desk under the high window, which I started doing, briefly horrified by how heavy it was and how much noise dragging it made.

  I paused to listen to the sound of the car outside. Closer, closer, close, engine off.

  Someone was jiggling the door, and tapping at the burglar bars out front, while my chest pounded and my hands and forehead sweated.

  While I wiped my hands on my jeans, I heard someone walking around outside, then footsteps near the burglar-barred windows of Rayford
’s office, and then someone banged on the window.

  “Lilly, Lilly, let me in. It’s Miguel. We need to talk.”

  Miguel?

  Miguel breaking and entering into Rayford’s office?

  Or, Miguel following me and waiting for that perfect chance to snuff me? I mean, if his plan to drown me had been wrecked by the red-faced man and the kid-rescue, then surely this presented him with an even more ideal spot. Alone. Night. Deserted building. Hapless, unarmed victim, and nothing obvious to tie my dead body back to him.

  “It’s Miguel, let me in, Lilly. We need to talk. Now. Open the door.”

  Yeah, right.

  “Lilly, I saw the light. I know your car. I need to talk to you.”

  So, the light hadn’t been a good idea, and, of course, he would recognize my ancient Honda. I made a pledge then and there to get a gold sedan or an SUV like everybody else in the legal world so my car wouldn’t keep giving me away, and then I fingered the heavy flashlight, and slapped it against my palm. Solid. Heavy. Police officers used flashlights as weapons, didn’t they?

  If Miguel got inside, I’d just have to hit him over the head and make my escape, carrying the files with me.

  In no time at all, there was a crash of glass in the front of the office, and the front door scraped the floor as it opened.

  I put the M. David files on the corner of Rayford’s desk, which was now more or less under the window, but not quite close enough to use as a ladder, and I crouched in the corner behind the door, holding the heavy flashlight with both hands.

  So how hard did you have to hit a man with a flashlight to knock him out? I wondered. Something, strangely enough, not covered in law school’s criminal law 101.

  Chapter 21

  It might not sound like it’s that hard to do, but let me tell you—running at top speed with armloads of M. David files wasn’t easy.

  Two of the files dropped and I was too scared to stop and pick them up. So I kept up my fifty-yard dash, made it to my car, which fortunately I’d left unlocked on the theory that it was three a.m. in the middle of an orange grove and there wouldn’t be much transient traffic waiting to steal my purse and my Handi Wipes. Gasping now, I threw the files on the seat, got the key out of my purse and in the ignition in record time—if there isn’t an Olympic event for this, there should be—and I hauled buggy out of there.

  With Miguel and his red pickup too soon on my tail.

  There being no traffic on Sugar Bowl Road, I couldn’t weave and duck between other cars and had to count on speed alone to keep ahead of Miguel and his truck, and hope he couldn’t run me off the road. I had the passing thought that I should have punctured his tire, though with exactly what I wasn’t sure, and made a mental note to get something sharp and long to carry in my purse so I could puncture tires if this ever came up again. That should make passing security at the courthouse an interesting break in my routine.

  Then I concentrated on driving as fast as an old Honda Civic can go.

  Which turns out to be pretty fast. At least enough to keep me ahead of Miguel, who hung in there and kept honking his horn as if I somehow had managed not to notice he was following me.

  By the time I hit State Road 72, where, despite the wee morning hour, there was traffic, and plenty of it, mostly trucks, I had enough of a lead to think.

  And to conclude that perhaps I needed to consider giving up this B and E thing. It wasn’t nearly as much fun as it used to be.

  For one thing, Miguel had not only scared me, but ruined my attempts at sneaking away without leaving a trace. Now there was a busted window, a jimmied filing cabinet, a copy machine left running, and M. David files in the black loam behind the office. Not to mention car tracks.

  But at least there wasn’t a body—mine.

  After he had tried to sweet-talk me into unlocking Rayford’s office door, Miguel had simply hurled his thin but strong body against it. The sound and the fury of the first hurl suddenly and thoroughly convinced me that I wasn’t really up to the task of rendering him unconscious with a flashlight, and inspired by the potential threat of imminent harm, I’d run into Rayford’s private bath—seeking a second locked door or a weapon or just in a blind panic—but lo and behold, there was a small window over the toilet and it didn’t have burglar bars.

  So, okay, if Rayford had paid an expert to design his security, the man needed to seek a refund. Using the toilet as a ladder, I was up and out, not without some difficulty in juggling and grasping the M. David files, but I slipped through that window just about the same time Miguel busted through Rayford’s outer office door, and shouted, “Lilly, Lilly, it’s me. I won’t hurt you.” Or some such nonsense.

  I decided his actions were louder than his reassurances—I mean, come on, you don’t convince a girl you are harmless by smashing in not one, but two locked doors—and I sprinted for the Honda like the horsemen of Armageddon were on my tail.

  So here I was, twenty minutes after my mad-dash escape, dodging giant trucks on 72, and, suddenly, going home didn’t sound like a good idea.

  I mean, Jimmie was spry, but old, and the Glock was at the bottom of the Peace River and Bearess was sleeping next door with Grandmom, and I wasn’t at all sure just how sturdy my doors were.

  Calling the sheriff ’s department was out of the question, given that my front passenger seat was covered in the spilled paperwork I had stolen after I’d climbed in a window in someone else’s office without their consent, implied or otherwise.

  As I whipped around a slow-moving and suspiciously weaving car, apparently scaring the probably drunk driver into spinning off onto the shoulder, I realized I had only one safe haven to go to.

  Philip.

  And so I went, spinning my Honda into his driveway at precisely 3:47 a.m. and banging on his door with rising levels of anxiety.

  Philip was wearing a dark silk robe over his pajamas, nattily clothed in the wee hours of the morning, having taken the time to properly cover himself for company despite the shrill probability that it wasn’t the Avon lady calling, but trouble.

  He looked so calm and GQ that I wanted to slap him.

  But then I wanted to hug him, and did so in great relief, and we tumbled back into the house and he locked the door, and flipped on a light and studied me.

  “No blood,” he said. “So what is going on that you need to—”

  “Miguel is chasing me,” I said, and grabbed him for a second hug, and with my face muffled in his silk robe, I gave Philip the sixty-second version of my second outing of the night.

  “Did he hurt you? Are you all right, Lilly?”

  “Yes, fine, fine, but Miguel is out there, maybe still chasing me, and—”

  “Then let me move your car into the garage and out of sight,” Philip said, like he’d had plenty of practice with this very type of thing.

  Hell, he was a criminal-defense attorney in Florida. He probably had had practice with this sort of thing.

  “And bring in the files in the front seat, would you?” I asked as I shut and locked the door behind him, my heart beginning to slow into its regular rhythm.

  Chapter 22

  Philip was sitting behind me on his king-size bed, his big, strong fingers massaging my sore neck. It felt delicious. So, okay, he wasn’t a trained Rolfer, but then he hadn’t busted down doors to try to kill me either. Besides, my skin still tingled from his recent devotions and our hot shower in the early morning. His legs straddled my hips and I could feel their pressure against me. I knew he wasn’t eighteen, but I thought he might be good for another round, and I knew I was.

  But as my fingers inched out to suggest just such a thing with just the right touch, Philip dropped his hands. “Maybe we should get some coffee and look at those files you salvaged.”

  My word, I really, really liked this man. I bang on his door before dawn, send him out into possible danger to hide my car and fetch some files I had stolen, and then he comes back inside, showers me, makes love to me, rubs my
neck, and then comes up with a word like salvaged. Instead of stolen.

  Maybe I loved him.

  Maybe I could marry him.

  But I didn’t have to figure that out just right at this precise moment because the man had said “coffee” and suddenly that was the thing I needed more than anything else, even more than another round of great sex, and we untangled ourselves and went to the kitchen, where he put the twice-filtered water on to boil and ground the beans. While Philip putzed with the coffee production, I dove into the salvaged files like a person looking for the lost winning lottery ticket.

  Philip being the only other human besides me who fusses so over a cup of coffee, I had time to discover from these files that Rayford was not only organized, but ruthless in keeping paperwork.

  A man after my own heart in some ways. Too bad he was otherwise such a yahoo.

  What I learned from reading through the salvaged files was this: While M. David was the CEO of Boogie Bog, and the sole partner in the corporation that owned Delilah Groves, that is, before Rayford owned an interest in the groves, M. David had himself ordered the dumping of the waste phosphogypsum in his own groves. And detail-oriented cowboy Rayford had photocopied the documentation.

  Why would M. David want to poison his own orange groves?

  Philip handed me a steaming cup of coffee, topped off with just the right amount of organic soy milk, and kissed my ear. “I put in a half teaspoonful of sugar because you had such a hard night,” he whispered.

  I sipped, I let the caffeine enter my circulatory system, convinced, and not for the first time, that some evolutionary mistake had rid our own bodies of the ability to make our own caffeine—I mean, our bodies can manufacture vitamin D, why not caffeine?

  While I pondered that, Philip read over my shoulder. “Why would he put that toxic waste in his own orange grove?”

  Yes, hadn’t I just asked myself the same thing?