Mama’s hand flew to her throat. She looked at me like I’d put my boot to her three-tier, buttercream-frosted wedding cake. No one else said a word. All of us knew which woman in the shop had a history of ruined marriages. I felt my face getting hot. My stomach churned around a leaden ball of biscuits and sausage gravy. Funny how you dream of saying just what you want to say, but it never feels as good as you think it will once it comes out.
The customer in Betty’s chair stepped into the strained silence and saved me. “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop earlier,” she said quietly. “But I heard y’all talking about C’ndee Ciancio, and I wondered if you knew she’d been staying at Darryl’s Fish Camp, out by the lake.”
Mama and I both burst out laughing at the same time, which felt good. Almost normal.
“C’ndee? At a fish camp? That’s like hearing Madonna’s been dishing up chili dogs at the Dairy Queen,” I said.
“Well, she was. I know, because I’m renting one of the cottages out there. Just until I find something better.”
I took in her cheap tennis shoes and bad teeth, and remembered how she’d told Betty she’d take just a haircut today: No shampoo, no blow dry, and no color. She had the look of hard times, and it’d probably be a good long while before she found “something better” than that rundown cottage at the fish camp.
“C’ndee could have been out there. Stranger things have happened, Mace.” Mama’s tone to me was snippy, but she smiled encouragingly at Betty’s customer. “What’s your name, honey?”
“Luanne. The only reason I mention C’ndee is because she’s gone now, and a lot of us wondered what happened to her.” She looked around, like she expected C’ndee to be lurking in the closet, listening in. Lowering her voice to a whisper, she said, “She really did a number on Darryl Dietz, the guy who owns the camp. He’s been mean as a striped snake and drunk ever since she left.” She paused. “Well, he’s always mean. But he’s been drunker than usual.”
“So C’ndee—Jersey accent, flashy clothes, cherry red Mustang—was going out with this Darryl?” I asked.
Luanne nodded, her newly trimmed hair a pretty frame for her worn face. “Darryl walked out on his wife and everything. The same wife he’s now trying to crawl back to since C’ndee disappeared.”
D’Vora nodded. “Oh, I’ve been there, Luanne. After I found out my no-account husband was cheating, I smashed the headlights on his truck and tossed his sorry butt out of the trailer. He can beg all he wants. He ain’t coming back, and neither is that stupid Rottweiler of his. Both him and Bear are as dumb as dirt.”
Betty pointed her scissors at us: “Can’t trust a cheater.”
“Amen to that,” Mama said. “Or a liar.”
Our spat was forgotten now, in the face of this fresh gossip.
“Cheating with C’ndee wasn’t the worst of it with Darryl,” Luanne whispered. “He’s beat on his wife more times than I can count.”
I didn’t know Darryl, but I could picture him, having visited more than my share of fish camps in my rowdier days. I thought about his wronged wife, and for some reason Alice Hodges’ face popped into my head. But, try as I might, I couldn’t conjure up an image of C’ndee running around with a guy with cheap beer on his breath and fish-gut stains on his shirt.
“What happened?” I asked Luanne. “Why’d C’ndee break it off?”
“We all heard she took up with somebody new. She left Darryl for another guy. He lives up here, in Himmarshee.”
Somebody at Darryl’s Fish camp was a fan of classic rock. Guns N’ Roses blasted loud enough to spook the cormorants off their perches on the boat docks. Maidencane grass vibrated on the canal banks. Cypress branches trembled, even though there was barely a breath of wind. “Welcome to the Jungle,” indeed.
Luanne hadn’t known who C’ndee took up with after she dumped Darryl. And, of course, that’s what all of us wanted to know. A little voice niggled at my brain, telling me that information might be important.
I left Hair Today, Dyed Tomorrow, and decided to poke around at the camp to see what I could learn. Between that or looking at hair in a picture book, it was no contest. Anyway, I’d pretty much given in to Mama’s will on the wedding. I’d likely regret that when I saw what hairstyle she’d chosen from that book.
My Jeep bounced over a rutted driveway into an open yard circled by a dozen or so ramshackle cabins. A rusted-out muscle car sat up on concrete blocks, hood popped. The stadium-volume rock came from a boom box on a lawn chair next to the car. A big guy in jean overalls and no shirt held a wrench and bobbed his head to the beat. By the looks of the ancient car and the size of him, he might have more luck just adding some tires and pushing the old heap wherever he wanted to go.
I gave a short toot on my horn, just in case there were dogs. Of course they might be deaf, considering the Guns N’ Roses. Sure enough, a coonhound rose from one of the crooked wooden porches and loped, barking, toward the Jeep. Mr. Overalls lifted his head from the engine block and whistled to call the dog. I was surprised he was so young, mid-twenties maybe. Vintage hard rock must be enjoying a renaissance. Mercifully, he hit the volume button on the boom box just as Axl Rose entered full scream.
I drove up to the decrepit car and spoke from my window. “Camaro, huh? What year?”
He ran a hand over the fender, which seemed to be more grey body filler than actual metal. “Sixty-nine,” he said. “Found her in a sugarcane field over near Clewiston.”
I took another look at the car and resisted the urge to ask him if he was crazy. “Well, good luck.” I said instead. “Is the dog okay with me getting out?”
“Sure,” he said. “Slash only goes after what I tell him to.”
That was reassuring, I supposed. Climbing slowly from the Jeep, I offered a closed fist to the hound so he could sniff at me. I guarantee I smelled better than the dog did. I scratched a little behind his ears, until he seemed satisfied I wasn’t there to do harm to Overalls. As if I could. The guy had at least a hundred pounds and six or seven inches on me. Losing interest, the dog walked back through the dirt yard to Cabin No. 7. He settled himself in the shade next to the door, and went back to sleep.
“Nothin’ a coon dog loves more than a front porch.” I leaned against the Jeep’s fender, and smiled at Overalls. He didn’t smile back.
“What can I do for you?”
Right to the point. I followed his lead.
“Have you seen Darryl, the guy who owns this place?”
He jerked his head toward the docks. “There’s a fish-cleaning table back yonder, under them cypress trees. That’s probably where he’s at.”
I thanked him.
“Enjoy,” he said, cranking up the music again.
I smelled dead fish and cigarette smoke before I spotted Darryl. He stood at a high wooden table, which was washed by a faucet. As he cleaned his catch, he tossed heads and innards into the dark water of the lake-access canal below. He was bent over the task, but I could see the strong line of his jaw, and a thick head of tar-black hair. As he worked his knife, sinewy muscle stood out across his arms and broad shoulders. I got a pretty good look at his build, because he wasn’t wearing a shirt. Just filthy jean cut-offs and bare feet covered in the mucky sediment that plagues the natural sand bottom of Lake Okeechobee.
Darryl looked like a creature right out of the swamp.
I thought I’d been pretty quiet coming up. But his head lifted for just a moment, like an animal getting a scent in the wild. He didn’t turn around, and the knife never stopped, but he knew I was there.
“Yew lookin’ for me?” His voice was pure Florida redneck.
“Depends,” I said. “Are you Darryl?”
He nodded, still cutting. The sun reflected off the silver blade of his long knife. Slice. Glint. Slice. Glint. Slice. Glint. I waited, expecting he’d turn around to talk to me, but he didn’t. So I walked a little closer and situated myself alongside the fish table. When he tossed a handful of gills and guts from a bla
ck crappie right next to my boots, I spoke up.
“I wondered if I could ask you a few questions.”
He shrugged. Slice. Glint.
“I’m a friend of C’ndee Ciancio’s.”
The knife paused for just an instant. He quickly recovered his rhythm.
“I know you two were going around together.”
“So? What’s it to yew?” Slice. Glint.
He had me there. I wasn’t sure why I was so interested in C’ndee’s love life. I just knew I was. I’d learned in the last year or so to pay close attention to things that don’t seem to add up.
“Her friends have been kind of worried about her behavior.” I prayed the Lord wouldn’t strike me down for lying, though I couldn’t imagine He took much interest in a low-down snake like Darryl Dietz. “We’re trying to find out who she’s seeing,” I continued, “because we want to make sure she hasn’t hooked up with somebody dangerous.”
The knife went still. For the first time, he raised his face to me. I had to admit he was handsome, in the same way you can admire the beauty of a rattlesnake while still knowing its bite can kill you.
“I wouldn’t worry too much about C’ndee if I was yew. That’s one girl who can take care of herself. I’d worry about the poor guy she took up with instead.”
“Why’s that?” I asked.
The smile he gave me was as cold as the ice in the chest full of fish at his feet. As I waited for him to answer, an osprey’s plaintive scree sounded from a tall pine. The breeze sighed a bit, rustling a Confederate flag on a pole. Axl Rose crooned “Out Ta Get Me.”
“Well?” I prodded.
He picked up the burning cigarette that had been balanced on the table’s edge. With a hand covered in fish blood, he drew it to his mouth and took a drag nearly to the filter. Then, he flicked the butt into the dark water and silently bent his head again over his mess of fish.
Slice. Glint. Slice. Glint.
I started to rephrase my question. I managed, “Who …”
“You’re a nosy bitch, yew know that?” His hiss was low and menacing, like a rattler before it strikes. “We got ways out here to deal with people who don’t know their place. Now, I’m gonna ask yew nice to take all your questions and shove ’em. And then get the hell off of my land.”
Slice. Glint.
He didn’t have to tell me twice. I think what convinced me was that final, violent jerk of the knife, all the way from tail fin to head. I hurried to my Jeep and lit out of there, but the rutted driveway would let me go only so fast.
In the rearview mirror, I noticed Overalls fooling with a boat in a slip near the fish-cleaning table. How long had he been there? Then, I saw Darryl step from the dock into the yard to watch me go. His black eyes were hypnotic, holding my gaze without a blink. Heart pounding, I had to wait for traffic to pass before I could pull out onto the paved road. Behind me, Darryl propped a foot up on a tree stump. His eyes moved to the knife in his hand, and so did mine.
My last image of the camp was Darryl testing the sharpness of that silver blade by shaving a hair off his bare leg.
Barreling along US Highway 441, I’d put five miles between me and the fish camp before I finally felt my grip begin to loosen on the Jeep’s steering wheel. I was holding on like I expected Darryl to vault into the driver’s seat and yank me out with those blood-stained hands.
That was one creepy dude, for sure.
What had C’ndee Ciancio been thinking? I can understand occasional slumming. Bad boys can be exciting. Plus, let’s face facts: One of my exes showed up shirtless on Cops. It’s kind of hard for me to criticize another woman’s flawed taste in men.
But Darryl? He seemed to go beyond dangerous to deranged.
I searched through my purse on the passenger seat for my cell phone. I needed to call my boss. Nothing like hearing all the afternoon tasks that awaited me at work to banish the image of Darryl and that knife.
Slice, glint. Slice, glint.
I hit the speed dial for the park office. The cultured purr on the other end of the phone was reassuringly Rhonda, my way-too-gorgeous-for-government-work supervisor. Not only did she carry herself like an elegant African queen, she was smart, too. I always told her she was wasting her time shuffling schedules and pushing papers at a nature park in middle Florida. She could have been a model-turned-mega-industry, like Tyra Banks. But Rhonda had moved home to Himmarshee from New York to help care for her ailing grandmother. She wound up as the boss for the county’s parks.
“How are plans coming for the big day, Mace?”
She’d been great about arranging my shifts to accommodate my obligations to The Wedding of the Century.
“Don’t get me started,” I said. “Suffice to say the ring-bearer’s a yappy dog in a top hat, my dress makes me look like a lime pop with a parasol, and Mama can’t serve enough booze to make anybody forget this is the fifth time she’s tied the sacred knot of matrimony.”
“That bad, huh?” Rhonda chuckled. “Listen, no pressure, but I just wanted to check if you’re still doing that sunset nature walk tomorrow. I’ve had a few calls about it, so I know there’s some interest. I can handle it if you can’t.”
Damn. I’d completely forgotten. I was about to beg off, but I didn’t want to take advantage of Rhonda. She wasn’t really the nature-loving type; and I might need another favor before the week was out.
“Absolutely,” I said. “I’ll be there early enough to feed the critters and then do the walk.”
There was a pause from Rhonda’s end. “About the animals, Mace … Ollie nearly ate a raccoon that found its way to the bank of the gator pond today. Some church school kids who were at the park on a field trip were awfully upset. Their teacher complained about nightmares.”
As Rhonda spoke, I watched a big truck gaining on me in the rearview mirror. It always surprises me how fast people drive on this narrow stretch of the road that rings Lake Okeechobee.
“Did you hear me, Mace? Can’t you do something to make sure none of the other animals have access to Ollie’s pond?”
“Gators eat raccoons, Rhonda. That’s nature. We’re a nature park.” I glanced at the mirror again. The driver’s face was shadowed by the brim of a beat-up straw hat. Was the truck going to pass me or run me over?
“I’m aware it’s nature, Mace. But it may be just a little too much reality for young kids to witness. And suppose there was a toddler down there on the bank instead of that raccoon? Oh my god, that would be horrible. Not to mention the liability.”
I didn’t answer. Now the truck was right on my bumper, flashing its lights.
“We might have to talk about getting rid of Ollie, Mace.”
The truck’s horn blasted. I couldn’t hold this conversation right now with Rhonda, not with some moron about to race up my tailpipe. “I hear what you’re saying, Boss. Let’s talk about it when I get in, okay?”
I rang off quickly, dropped the phone on the seat, and gave my full attention to the truck behind me. I’d had a bad experience last summer, when I was run off the highway into a roadside canal. That night, I’d been caught by surprise. Now, I wasn’t about to let the same thing happen again. I began tapping my brakes, signaling to the driver to back the hell off.
Slowing, he leaned out the window and gestured for me to pull over. When he did, a slant of sunlight revealed his face. It was the big man in overalls from the fish camp. A knot of fear formed in my chest. I sped up; he did, too. I slowed to a crawl; so did he. We were miles from anything. A deep canal ran close by my side of the road. Huge trucks rumbled past in the other lane, hauling sugarcane or sod.
I could keep going, and take the chance he’d bump me off the highway. Maybe I wouldn’t be as lucky this time. Or, I could stop and see what he wanted. I eased off on the gas and reached for the tire iron I learned to keep hidden under the seat.
He slowed as I did, pulling off on the narrow, grassy shoulder. The water was so near, I could smell the mud and the grassy scent o
f hydrilla floating on the canal’s surface. Easing open my door, I kept my eyes on the rearview as he hefted his bulk out of the truck. His hands hung by his sides; no weapons. Then again, those overall pockets were so big, he might be carrying a cannon and I wouldn’t see it. My fist clenched around the metal rod, which I’d brought to a ready position on the seat.
As he approached, I flew out of the Jeep, waving my tire iron. A look of utter surprise flitted across his face.
“Don’t come another step closer. My other hand’s on the phone in my pocket, ready to speed dial 911.” I cursed the fact I’d actually left my cell on the seat where it fell. I prayed my voice didn’t sound as shaky as I felt.
He raised his hands, palms showing in a gesture of submission. “Whoa, ma’am. I don’t mean you no harm. I just want to talk to you.”
I lowered the tire iron a half-inch. “You weren’t exactly chatty earlier.”
“I couldn’t talk at the camp. That bastard Darryl keeps an eye on everything that goes on there. He’s my stepfather.”
I immediately felt a surge of sympathy for Overalls. Looking at him now, I realized he was no older than Maddie’s college-girl daughter. “What’s your name?”
“Rabe, ma’am,” he said.
“Dietz?” I asked.
He spit on the ground. “Hell, no. Darryl married my mama, but I still have my daddy’s name. Adams. All Darryl ever gave me was black-and-blue beatings.”
I dropped the tire iron a bit lower, feeling faintly ridiculous.
“Sorry I scared you,” Rabe said. “I was just trying to get your attention. I heard you asking Darryl about that woman, C’ndee.”
Now I realized why Rabe had been at the boat dock: He was watching; listening. Kids who grow up in a home with alcoholism and abuse learn those skills early.
“What about C’ndee?” I said.
“I heard the two of them fighting before she cleared out of camp. If you’re worried about her, you might have cause. Darryl’s a real violent man. I watched him beat Mama for years, and she’d always go back to him. He used to do me the same way, until I finally got big enough to knock him stupid.”
Mama Gets Hitched Page 7
