Michaela Thompson - Florida Panhandle 02 - Riptide Read online

  “Good. You have to get your mother’s permission, and then we’ll start.”

  Kimmie Dee’s face fell. “Get her permission? Why?”

  “Because she has to know what’s going on.”

  “She won’t care.”

  “You have to ask her. If you don’t, I will.”

  “I’ll ask her! Promise.” Although Kimmie Dee crossed her heart, Isabel wasn’t sure she’d really ask. Isabel was meddling in a sticky situation, but this way Kimmie Dee would get her boots. And the girl would be a perfect Marotte.

  After Kimmie Dee left, Isabel went inside. For a while, she had forgotten Harry Mercer. She had forgotten the anonymous letter. She would have plenty of time to think about them during her long evening alone.

  ELEVEN

  Harry Mercer wiped his hands on a rag and leaned over the engine again. A drop of sweat from his forehead fell into the works. Maybe that would do some good. Nothing else he tried was helping.

  Harry and Scooter had headed out in the Miss Kathy at daylight, but the engine trouble developed before they even reached the wreck site. Maybe they could have carried on, but as Harry had pointed out, all they needed was to have the boat die on them out there. If they had to radio for help, they might as well put up a billboard to advertise what they were doing.

  So they had lost the morning. Back at the Beachcomber, Harry was still tinkering, barefooted and shirtless, in the noon blaze. He had to get the sucker fixed. He couldn’t afford to hire somebody to do it. He had spent a lot of extra money on the salvage operation, figuring he’d get it all back tenfold. Which he would, but at this point things were tight.

  “Try it again,” he said to Scooter.

  Scooter cranked. Harry didn’t like the sound. He knew his boat, and he knew the problem was still there somewhere, underneath.

  “Sounds all right. I think you fixed it,” Scooter said.

  “Not yet.”

  “Harry—”

  “I said not yet, Scooter. Give me another minute or two, okay?”

  Leaning over the engine, screwdriver in hand, Harry felt his resolve crumbling. They didn’t have time to waste. They ought to be out working the wreck, not lolling around here. Every day that went by, every hour, increased the risk that somebody would get suspicious.

  Harry stared at the engine. To figure out what the underlying problem was, he’d have to dismantle the damned thing. He’d have to take off a couple of days, and he couldn’t.

  To show he wasn’t giving in to Scooter, he spent another ten minutes tinkering, tightening screws and so on, before he said, “All right. Let’s get the cover back on.” He wiped his hands on the rag again, dropped the screwdriver in his toolbox, and looked up to see Isabel Anders standing on the dock.

  Isabel was shading her eyes, looking at him. She was wearing white slacks and a loose white shirt. She looked cool and clean. She also looked nervous. She said, “Harry? I asked in the office and they said I’d find you here.”

  Harry was outraged. He was aware of Scooter standing nearby, aware of his own greasy hands and sweaty torso, and, more than anything else, aware that Isabel had felt free to waltz over here and seek him out as if she was entitled to.

  He crossed his arms. “They were right. Here I am.”

  “I wondered— do you have a minute?”

  “For what?”

  He saw her eyes cut toward Scooter. “I wanted to talk with you.”

  This was a moment out of Harry’s dreams, a moment he could never realistically have hoped for. He made the most of it. He gave her a long poker-faced stare. “Talk with me?”

  He could see she didn’t care for his attitude. She took a step backward. “That’s what I said. But it looks like you’re busy.”

  She had a hell of a nerve, getting snippy with him. Harry said, “I’m kind of busy, yeah. But you know what else? I haven’t got anything to say to you, Isabel, and I’m not interested in anything you have to say to me.”

  God, it felt good. Like lancing a boil. Harry went on: “I can’t stop you from being here, but I’m telling you to stay out of my way. I don’t know what you think you’re—” But Isabel had turned and was walking down the dock away from him, her back straight and stiff.

  Harry’s chest was heaving. He leaned next to the engine and tried to catch his breath. He wanted to run after Isabel and say more, shout more.

  “What was that about?” said Scooter. Scooter was in the shadow of the roof, beside the instrument panel.

  “There was bad blood between us from a long time ago,” Harry said.

  Scooter didn’t say anything right then. He and Harry put the boat back together, got the equipment on board, and headed out for the wreck. They had dropped anchor and were suiting up to go in when Scooter said, “We’ve got to get rid of her, Harry.”

  “Who?” Harry asked, even though he knew.

  “Isabel. If you talked to her, you might find out when she’s leaving.”

  Sitting on the ledge, Harry put on his flippers. He said, “I don’t want to know anything she has to tell me.”

  The two of them somersaulted over the side. Conditions were better than they had been the past couple of stormy days, but their luck hadn’t changed. Scooter made the only interesting find, a spike with a coin stuck to it. Harry found another spike. They uncovered broken crockery, porcelain shards, a wine bottle.

  As they worked, Harry thought about Isabel standing there on the dock in her white outfit. She must think he was some kind of patsy who’d clap his hands and jump up and down at the sight of her.

  Harry watched Scooter through the haze of sand the equipment was kicking up. He wished Scooter hadn’t said that about talking to Isabel. Because in a way, he was right. It would be useful for them to know Isabel’s plans: how long she would be in the trailer; how long she would be in their way.

  Harry rested and watched the plume of bubbles from his breathing gear swirl toward the silvery surface above. Scooter could forget it. There was no way he would go back and talk to her now.

  When the light started to fail, they stowed their meager take in the tank on deck and chugged back to the Beachcomber. As they approached the dock, Harry said, “I guess I could go ask her when she’s leaving.”

  “It better be soon,” Scooter said, his voice flat and cold.

  Harry drove Scooter past the Anders driveway and on to the sandy palmetto-covered knoll where the steel tower of the Cape St. Elmo lighthouse pushed up above the pines. The road dead-ended at the base of the knoll, which was bounded by a fence.

  Taking the chest from the truck, Scooter ducked between the bars of the fence, and disappeared into the woods. They had a boat with an outboard motor moored not far away, at the mouth of the slough. Scooter would load the chest in the boat and take it to an old dock that was part of the Anders place. There was an overgrown path from the dock to the house. They went in and out of the house through one of the tall dining room windows on the side hidden from the trailer.

  After Scooter was out of sight, Harry lingered. He should get moving. He didn’t want to be caught hanging around here. It was time to go talk to Isabel.

  He left his truck at the top of the drive and walked down. Mosquitoes whined in his ears. There was a light on in the trailer and the curtains were open. When he got closer, he could see in the window. Isabel was sitting at a table, bent over something. He could guess what she was doing— drawing.

  She always loved to draw. All her class notes used to have drawings all over them. He took a couple more steps and saw her head jerk up. She had heard him. She stood and peered out, and he raised his hand. In a minute, the door opened and she stood silhouetted against the light.

  Isabel had changed out of her white outfit and now was wearing a pair of baggy shorts and a T-shirt. No shoes. Her hair was pulled back at the nape of her neck, but escaping from the band as it always did. She didn’t look thrilled to see him, but he hadn’t imagined she would. She said, “What are you doing here, Har
ry?”

  He waited, then took a step forward. “Can I come in or not?”

  She seemed to be thinking it over, but finally she stepped out of the doorway to let him by. She didn’t sit down or invite him to. Harry said, “What was it you wanted with me this morning?”

  She half-smiled. “I wanted to see if things were all right between us. I found out the answer to that.”

  “Well, what the hell did you expect?”

  She seemed calm, but he could tell she wasn’t. “I didn’t know you’d even remember who I was.”

  It was too late now to pretend he didn’t remember her. He wished he’d thought of it.

  He did remember, though. He remembered how dark her eyebrows were against her skin and the way her lips curled at the corners. He remembered, but none of it could touch him now.

  She said, “I didn’t think you’d still be anywhere near here.”

  Harry wasn’t going to discuss the shape of his life with her. He asked his question. “How long will you be staying?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  He had humbled himself and crawled for an answer, and he had gotten it: I’m not sure.

  “Anyway,” Harry said. He shoved his hands in his back pockets. This had been a useless exercise. As he drew breath to say good-bye, he noticed the bottle.

  There, over against the wall, was a blue-and-white porcelain bottle.

  It was sitting on a spindly wooden table under a photograph in a heavy frame. A Dutch bottle, or gin bottle, those square ones were called. Even from where he was standing, he recognized the pattern of blue flowering branches and birds against a white background.

  Harry crossed to the bottle like a sleepwalker. It was whole, not a fragment— completely intact, not even chipped. The pattern was identical to the pattern of the fragments they were finding at the wreck. “Where did you get this?” he asked.

  “It’s sort of a family heirloom.”

  She had stayed by the door. Her tone told him she thought he was acting strange. He lied, “I think my grandmother used to have one like it.” He slid the tip of his forefinger gently over the surface of the bottle.

  “My grandfather gave it to Merriam when she was a little girl, right before he disappeared.”

  Harry had to act normal now, but nothing was normal. “When was that?”

  “Back in 1922.”

  “Huh.” Harry pinched the bridge of his nose. “And— where did your grandfather get it?”

  “I don’t think anybody knows.” After a moment, she asked, “Are you all right, Harry?”

  He forced himself to turn away from the bottle. “How is Miss Merriam?”

  “Not very well. She’s moved in with a woman named Bernice Chatham. A practical nurse. Bernice is going to look after her for a while.” Isabel was looking at the bottle. “I just thought of something. I wonder how Merriam would react if I took the bottle next time I visit. It might stimulate her, don’t you think?”

  Good. Good. He wanted to know what Miss Merriam had to say. “I guess it might.”

  “I think I’ll do that tomorrow.”

  There was an awkward silence. Harry said, “I better go. My wife will have dinner on the table.”

  Isabel saw him out. Harry wasn’t as eager for her to leave Cape St. Elmo as he’d been before. She might as well stay until he found out more about that Chinese bottle.

  TWELVE

  Merriam took the blue-and-white porcelain bottle out of Isabel’s hands. Tears rolled down her cheeks. Unchecked, they dropped from her chin and spotted the front of her dress.

  Isabel dug in her bag, brought out a tissue, and blotted Merriam’s face. The two of them were sitting on the screened front porch at Bernice Chatham’s. Bernice was out grocery shopping.

  “I didn’t mean to make you cry,” Isabel said. It was too bad. Her idea of bringing the bottle to show Merriam had seemed the one constructive outcome of her reunion with Harry Mercer.

  Seeing Harry again, talking to him, had been disturbing. Harry’s anger was one reason, certainly, but, to be honest, her motives in seeking him out had not been pure. She’d told herself it was because of the anonymous note, but she had been curious, too. Possibly even titillated. In the end, reluctant to disturb their fragile truce, she hadn’t mentioned the note.

  To be honest, she had felt afraid, even though it was only Harry. Harry, her first lover.

  He had looked much the same. More lines around the eyes, heavier in the gut. And a wariness— was it wariness?— in his face that she didn’t remember. A sense of something guarded, hidden.

  She couldn’t figure out his reaction to the porcelain bottle. She hadn’t bought his explanation about his grandmother owning a similar one. Possibly he recognized it as a valuable antique. It could be, for all she knew, although she could hardly imagine Harry as an expert.

  Anyway, he had given her the idea of bringing the bottle to Merriam, and now it was lying in Merriam’s lap while Merriam wept. Isabel put her hand out. “Why don’t you let me put it away?”

  Merriam came alive. Jerking the bottle out of Isabel’s reach, she cried, “It’s mine!” She pushed her chair back, making a grating noise on the concrete floor. “Daddy gave it to me!”

  The azalea leaves pressed against the screen, oppressive and suffocating. The metal arms of Isabel’s chair felt sticky. “Fine, Merriam. Fine. Keep it.”

  Merriam cradled the bottle. “Then he went off,” she said more softly.

  Best to stay on this familiar turf. Isabel could recite the story by heart. “There had been a big storm,” she prompted.

  “All night, it blew,” Merriam said dreamily. “We stayed down in the back parlor the whole night long. The wind was howling, the trees cracking, and along about midnight you know what happened?”

  Of course Isabel knew. “No. What?”

  “Somebody came knocking at the window. I was so scared. Daddy pushed the curtain back, and River Pete was out there.”

  River Pete had been a local character, a sometime hunting and fishing buddy of John James. He occasionally figured in Merriam’s stories of her youth. “So River Pete came in out of the storm?”

  “Came in and spent the night. You know, he used to live in a driftwood shack down on the beach. Did odd jobs at Pursey’s store. That night, his shanty blew clean away.” Merriam fell into silence.

  To keep her talking, Isabel said, “What happened the next morning?”

  Merriam’s lips moved, then stopped. Her eyelids half-closed. After a minute, she continued: “Daddy and Pete went out at daylight to look around. Trees uprooted, branches blown down. I watched from the upstairs veranda. Waves were breaking practically in the front yard, salt water running down the drive.”

  Merriam must have used these same words on the afternoons she and Isabel stood in obeisance in front of John James’s photograph. The story was as ritualized as the Apostles’ Creed. In Isabel’s role as listener, all she had to do was put in a question now and then. “The house was all right, though, wasn’t it?”

  Merriam nodded. “It was God’s mercy. The only thing that happened was, we lost the wash pot. We had an old iron wash pot out in the back, where Mama boiled the clothes, and it was gone. I reckon it washed away. I wouldn’t have credited it, the pot was so heavy, but I reckon that’s what happened.”

  As a child, Isabel had been intrigued by the disappearing wash pot and by the idea of boiling clothes over a fire in the backyard. She said, “It was never found? Not even out in the woods later?”

  “Never. Mama had to get a new one to boil Johnny’s diapers.” She grimaced. She was approaching the nub of the story. “Johnny had colic the whole day, wouldn’t hush at all.”

  That colicky baby had been Isabel’s father. As she had so many times in the past, she imagined his cries, the tearing wind, the downed trees, the encroaching sea.

  “Daddy and Pete were cutting up fallen trees,” Merriam said. “We could hear them sawing. Toward afternoon, when the water was l
ower, Daddy crawled under the house to check the foundation. He came out covered with mud. Afterward, he cleaned up and told Mama he was taking his boat to St. Elmo that very afternoon. Mama didn’t want him to go. She said it was blowing too hard, that the seas were too high. He said he had business to do.”

  That stubbornness wouldn’t be credible in some men. In John James Anders, who had constructed his dream house in the wilds of Cape St. Elmo and driven his family to ruin with impossible schemes for railroads and amusement piers, it was completely in character. He would go out in the wake of a hurricane if he took a notion, and he had taken a notion.

  “River Pete was still in the yard,” Merriam said. “I saw him stick his head under the pump and rinse off his hair and beard and scrub the mud off his hands, but after that, I didn’t see him anymore. Daddy said he’d best get on, and he said to me, ‘Merriam, walk along with me a ways,’ so I went out with him.”

  “That was when he gave you the bottle.”

  “We got on toward the landing.” Merriam’s voice was remote. “He said, ‘You better go back to Mama now,’ and he pulled this bottle out of his coat pocket and said, ‘Here’s a play-pretty for you, Merriam.’ I took it and hugged him good-bye. He never got to St. Elmo, and he never came back.”

  That was it. Rest in peace in the briny deep, John James Anders.

  Isabel heard a lawn mower. She smelled fuel oil and cut grass. Merriam picked up the bottle and looked at it for a long time. Then she held it out. “Take it, Isabel.”

  Isabel didn’t move. She said, “It’s yours.”

  “No. You take it.”

  Isabel sat still.

  Some months after Isabel ran away from Cape St. Elmo with Ben Raboski, Merriam had tracked her down and written to say that Isabel was disinherited. The letter had been brief, and Isabel remembered it well. “My goods and chattels are none of yours,” Merriam had written. “You turn your back on me, Isabel. So be it. Now I turn my back on you.” Under the signature— a stark, upright Merriam— was a reference to the Bible: “See Psalm 41, verse 9.”