Michaela Thompson - Florida Panhandle 02 - Riptide Read online

  Hating herself for doing it, Isabel had looked up Psalm 41, verse 9, and read: “Yea mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, hath lifted up his heel against me.”

  Isabel’s fingers closed on the bottle. Merriam let it go.

  Merriam pushed herself to her feet. “I want to lie down now.”

  “All right.” Isabel replaced the bottle in the canvas bag she’d brought it in. She walked with Merriam to the back bedroom, shook out the pillows, and turned on the ceiling fan.

  Merriam stretched out. Breeze from the fan stirred the hair on her forehead. She said, in a voice almost lost in the fan’s gentle whir, “I lost his letter.”

  Isabel returned to the bedside. “What letter, Merriam?”

  “The letter. He gave me a letter.” The sides of Merriam’s mouth had pulled down in a mask of misery.

  “What are you talking about?”

  Merriam’s eyes bulged. “Don’t be so careless!” she screamed. “Look what you’ve done!”

  Isabel recoiled. She had heard this too many times in her life already. “Stop it! Stop it!” she cried. There was an assortment of pill bottles on the bedside table. She thought she knew which pill would calm Merriam down.

  “Look what you’ve done!” Merriam howled. She thrashed on the bed, flinging her body from side to side. “You idiot! You stupid, careless girl!”

  Isabel grasped at Merriam’s arms, trying to hold her down. “I am not!” she cried. “I am not!”

  They wrestled grotesquely for a few seconds, and then Merriam broke free and sat up. Panting, she said, “I lost the letter. I lost it.”

  Isabel tried to fight back to rationality. “What letter, for God’s sake?”

  “Daddy gave it to me.” Merriam’s voice had dropped to a whisper.

  This was not part of the recitation ritual. “When? That same day?”

  “Yes.” The sudden hysteria had dissipated. “When he gave me the bottle, he gave me a letter for Mama. I lost it, Isabel.”

  “I don’t—”

  “I wanted to pick a flower to put in the bottle. There was Queen Anne’s lace by the path. I let go of the letter and the wind blew it away.”

  “Merriam—”

  “I went after it, into the deep woods. Everything was wet; the wind was blowing. I couldn’t find it. And he never came back. Never came back.”

  You careless, irresponsible girl. “It’s all right,” Isabel said.

  “No. No.”

  “Yes. It doesn’t matter now.”

  Merriam slumped against the pillows. “I never told. I couldn’t tell,” she said. Her eyelids drooped.

  After a few minutes, Merriam seemed to doze off as Isabel sat on the edge of the bed. So John James had left a letter, and Merriam had lost it. If the episode Merriam just described had really happened. If it had, Isabel began to see a connection: Merriam once lost an important letter; to atone for her mistake, she spent years making hapless Isabel toe the line.

  Merriam’s breathing became regular. Isabel returned to the front porch. She found Clem Davenant there, his tall frame folded into one of the metal lawn chairs.

  “I knocked, but there was some commotion going on,” he said. “Is Miss Merriam all right?”

  Isabel sat down. “I don’t know.”

  “What happened?”

  It was too complicated to explain. “She was talking about something that happened years ago.” She thought about it. “Actually, I think she’s getting better. Her memory is coming back, and some of what she says makes sense.”

  “Is that so? I never thought she’d get that far.”

  “Neither did I.” Isabel was sagging with exhaustion.

  From the back of the house came a low, anguished wail. Goose bumps rose on Isabel’s arms. Her eyes met Clem’s. “Oh God,” she said, jumping to her feet.

  He followed her to Merriam’s bedroom. Merriam was sitting up in bed, wild-eyed, her hair standing in tufts as if she had been pulling it. “Watch out, Isabel!” she shrieked. “Watch out!”

  Merriam scrambled away from them, toward the wall, while Isabel fumbled with the pill bottles.

  Clem reached out. “Calm down, Miss Merriam!”

  She shrank away, pressing herself into a corner “Watch out! Watch out!”

  Clem grasped her arms as she howled and fought, screaming hysterically. He held on, his face taut.

  After a while, Merriam’s eyes unfocused and her strength ebbed. She took her pill meekly. As Clem lay her down, the back door slammed and Bernice called, “I’m back! Everything all right?”

  Isabel’s eyes met Clem’s. Neither of them answered.

  THIRTEEN

  “You went to see her. I know it,” Kathy Mercer said.

  Still in his swimming trunks, his body sticky from salt water, Harry Mercer stood in his bedroom. Kathy was sitting in the middle of the gold quilted bedspread. Her nose was red. Fortunately, the girls had gone off to camp for two weeks.

  “With who?” Harry had more than a suspicion that this wasn’t his night.

  “You know who.”

  Harry started unbuttoning his shirt. He had ferried a boatload of assholes out spearfishing, worried about the engine some more, locked horns with Scooter as usual, and hauled his butt home for this? His shirt hanging open, he untied his sneakers and took them off, scattering sand on the wall-to-wall carpet, but to hell with it. “I don’t know who, so you better tell me.”

  Kathy’s eyes narrowed. “Isabel Anders, that’s who.”

  Harry felt a deep rumbling of fear. “I don’t know why you think that,” he said, a response so lame he might as well have kept his mouth shut.

  “You don’t?” Behind her glasses, Kathy’s eyes looked like huge brown accusing blobs. “I think it because I know it’s true.”

  Harry needed to work up some righteous indignation, but he wasn’t sure he could. He dropped his shirt on the floor and said, “Kathy, tell me exactly what you think is going on.”

  “I know what’s going on!”

  “Well, fill me in.”

  Kathy’s face and neck were blotchy, almost as if she had a rash. Her nostrils were flaring in a way that Harry did not like. She drew an unsteady breath. “You went to see Isabel Anders yesterday evening. You parked your truck right there in her driveway.”

  God damn this gossiping town. Yes, he had gone to see Isabel yesterday. Yes, he had parked in her driveway. And it had been as pure and innocent as the driven snow, but he might as well have been screwing his brains out with her, for all the good his virtue had done him.

  Miraculously, righteous indignation began to seep into Harry, after all. “Well, did any of your nosy friends tell you she came looking for me? Came to the Beachcomber and said she wanted to talk to me?” He could see by her face that this was news to her. He pressed his advantage. “Yes, she said she wanted to talk to me, so I did stop by her place a few minutes—”

  “Just because she wants to talk to you doesn’t mean you have to go to her place!”

  Harry had sand between his toes, his trunks were scratchy and dry, and he wanted to take a shower. Most of all, he wanted Kathy to shut her mouth. “That’s right,” he said in the most scathing tone he could manage. “I wouldn’t have done it if I’d known it was a mortal sin.”

  She wasn’t giving up. “Why didn’t you tell me you went there?”

  “I sure don’t know, Kathy. I guess I thought I was a grown man, not a snot-nosed kid you had to keep watch over.”

  “What did she want to talk about?”

  He exploded. “What is this? I’m telling you nothing happened and it wasn’t important. Now back off!”

  Kathy seemed to shrink. She looked pathetic with her blotchy face and blobby eyes. In a hushed tone, she said, “You were in love with her.”

  “Oh my God Almighty.” Harry thought about throwing something, but there wasn’t anything handy. He settled for clenching his fist and bonking himself on the forehead. The proble
m was, all those years ago when he and Kathy were courting and he was still smarting from the way Isabel had treated him, he had told Kathy things. He had told her what a bitch Isabel was, how badly she had treated him, how much nicer Kathy was than Isabel. “Kathy, that was high school. Do you know how long ago that was?”

  He could hear her sniffling. When she didn’t come back with anything, he said, “I’m going to take a shower.”

  Once he was in the shower, thoughts of Kathy and her accusations melted in the steam and he returned to the topics that currently preoccupied him— Isabel and the porcelain bottle.

  All day, all this crummy day, Isabel and the bottle had faded in and out of Harry’s consciousness. He wondered whether Isabel had taken the bottle to show Miss Merriam, as she’d said she would, and what Miss Merriam had said. According to Isabel, Miss Merriam’s father had given her the bottle in 1922. How had he come by it? That was what Harry wanted to know. It could have washed up on the beach, maybe, but Harry had not found one unbroken piece of porcelain out at the wreck. If the bottle had bumped along on the sea bottom and was finally tossed ashore by a wave, how had it stayed whole, not even nicked?

  It could be that this was all a coincidence and John James Anders had bought the bottle at the dime store. It could be, but Harry didn’t think so. He wasn’t ready yet to speculate about what the answer was. He had debated telling Scooter but had decided not to tell him quite yet.

  Harry stepped out of the shower and dried off. When he came out of the bathroom, the towel around his waist, he had actually forgotten all about the scene with Kathy and was surprised to see her sitting on the bed.

  Kathy gave him a tragic look. She whispered, “I’m so sorry, Harry.”

  “Yeah. Me, too.”

  She got up and came close to him, putting her arms around him, resting her face on the damp hair on his chest. Harry forced his arms to slide around her shoulders.

  “Do you forgive me?” she said.

  “Sure.”

  Harry knew they’d have to make love later. He prepared himself mentally, and it went all right. After Kathy was asleep beside him, he didn’t drift off for a long time.

  ***

  The next day Harry had an early-morning dive trip with some people from Atlanta. He had planned to drop by Isabel’s place in the evening, when they could have a chat and he could take another look at the bottle. When he saw her on the dock as they pulled in about noon, Harry felt cheated, as if she had shown up on purpose to deprive him.

  She was on a bench by the bait tanks, drawing in her sketchbook, her hair tucked under a beaten-up straw hat. He helped the Atlantans off the boat and waved them good-bye, then crossed the warm tar-smelling boards to where she was sitting.

  “I came to tell you I talked to Merriam yesterday about the bottle,” she said. Her face was covered with bright specks from the sun shining through the weave of her hat. Damp squiggles of hair were plastered to her forehead.

  “You did?” Harry was uncomfortably aware of Scooter, on the deck of the Miss Kathy, coiling lines and getting the equipment ready for their trip to the wreck this afternoon. Despite the sloshing of the waves under the dock and the faint drumming of the jukebox in the restaurant, Harry thought Scooter could probably hear at least some of what they were saying.

  “The story was pretty much as I remembered it,” Isabel said. “Merriam’s father— my grandfather John James— gave her the bottle in 1922. It was the last time she ever saw him.”

  If Harry asked her to move away to somewhere Scooter couldn’t hear, Scooter would want to know why. “What happened to John James?”

  “I guess he drowned. There had been a bad storm, and he insisted on getting in his boat and taking off for St. Elmo. No sign of him was ever found.”

  “Miss Merriam didn’t say where he got the bottle?”

  “I don’t think she knows.”

  “Hm.” Harry rubbed his cheek. “There had been a storm, you said?”

  “From the way she described it, it must have been close to a hurricane— big tides, trees knocked down.”

  “Sounds bad.” Bad enough to pulverize a porcelain bottle.

  She squinted up at him. “Now can I ask you a question?”

  “Sure.”

  “Why are you so interested?”

  Damn. “I don’t know. The bottle sort of… caught my eye.”

  He could tell she didn’t believe him, and he didn’t blame her, but he wasn’t going to say any more.

  She didn’t press. She closed her sketchbook and got to her feet. “That’s it, then.”

  He wasn’t ready for her to go yet. “Hang on a minute. How’s Miss Merriam doing?”

  “She’s a lot better than she was. Some of her memory is coming back.” She turned to go and raised a hand in farewell. The bright specks danced across her face like spangles on a fancy veil. The rest of his questions withered in his throat and he let her walk away.

  Behind him, Scooter’s feet hit the dock as he jumped from the boat. The next minute, Scooter was saying, “What bottle, Harry?”

  Isabel was walking through the breezeway that separated the dock from the parking lot. “Nothing. Just a bottle I noticed at her place.”

  “Don’t give me that shit.”

  Scooter’s mouth was close to Harry’s ear. Harry could feel Scooter’s breath. It was no use. Harry said, “She’s got a porcelain bottle. Blue and white, mint condition. Same pattern as those shards we’ve been taking from the wreck. I was trying to find out where it came from.”

  “You weren’t going to tell me?” Scooter’s tone was dead flat.

  Harry let it go. “She said she would ask the old lady about it, and she did. Since you were listening so hard, I don’t reckon I have to repeat what the old lady told her.”

  Scooter didn’t answer. Harry turned and saw him looking toward the breezeway. Isabel was no longer in sight.

  FOURTEEN

  The diver crouched in the garage, his eyes on the house. He had been waiting for an hour or more, letting the feel of his surroundings sink in. He had walked along the alley, a rutted track bordered by unkempt bushes and an occasional sagging wire fence. A dog barked occasionally, but dogs always barked every now and then. In his progress, the diver had made no more noise than a cat.

  The garage smelled musty, and the space was filled with junk— plastic-swathed furniture, sheets of plywood, an air-conditioner with the front panel missing. The car was parked in the driveway, convenient for the diver to use as cover when he approached the house. The right time would come. He would know when it arrived, would feel it inside him like a latch unfastening.

  He flexed his fingers in the tight rubber gloves, shook his shoulders out. He emptied his mind, leaving himself open to the fugitive stirring of the air, the smell of mown grass, the gradations of shadow between his hiding place and the window that was his goal. He took a deep breath and then he was moving.

  If anybody was watching, he knew he would feel their eyes. He crouched low beside the car, his steps cautious but not tentative. He lingered there only a couple of seconds, adjusting to the new angle, before crossing to the house.

  The back door had an awning of white metal slats. He stood beneath it, breathing shallowly through his mouth. Almost there.

  He left the back stoop and slid along the side of the house to the windows at the corner. The sills were little more than waist-high. The closer window was half-obscured by a camellia bush. The diver stepped over the lower branches, ducked, and carefully straightened his body. Now, his face was close, almost pressed against the window screen.

  A mirror above a dresser shimmered on the far wall, like the surface of moonlit water. The bedroom door was closed. The foot of the bed, an expanse of gray, was on his right. A ceiling fan circled overhead. Louder than its drone was the sound of hoarse snoring.

  The window screen was fastened with a simple hook-and-eye latch. He unclasped a diving knife from a sheath snapped to his belt loop. Maneuveri
ng as gently as he could, he worked the blade between the sill and the screen. After only a few passes, the screen was unhooked. He refastened the knife in its sheath.

  He waited a minute or two. The snoring continued. He pulled the screen out just far enough to allow himself to slip under it. Easily, he hoisted himself to the windowsill and lifted one foot and then the other over into the room. Standing next to the bedside table, he could see her now, a bundle of bedclothes, a few spikes of white hair, a curved nose. He couldn’t see her face.

  Three steps and he was beside her. The fan stirred the air. He could smell perspiration and a medicinal odor, like mouthwash.

  He allowed himself a moment to look around. There was a second pillow, lying on the floor beside the bed. He wouldn’t have to use the one she was lying on.

  His fingers closed on the extra pillow. Soft. Real feathers, probably. Swiftly now, no more hesitating, he bent forward and pressed it against the old woman’s face.

  She barely struggled. Sedated. Her arms and legs twitched in feeble protest, but there was no sound. As he pressed down, the diver got an image of a ship bucking in the waves, shuddering, foundering, succumbing to the sea at last. He removed the pillow, shook it out, then dropped it to the floor again.

  Somewhere in the house, a toilet flushed.

  The diver stood by the bed, rigid, listening. Within seconds, footsteps approached the door. In two steps, he was across the room, kneeling beside the dresser. He heard the knob turn, the door open. The ceiling fan whirred, drying the perspiration on his face. He heard a cough.

  Another cough, another second or two, and the door closed. The footsteps receded. The diver waited several minutes before he stood. The motionless figure on the bed was in deep shadow. He strode to the window, swung his feet out, and lowered himself beside the camellia bush, pushing the unlatched screen closed behind him.

  His senses were almost painfully acute. He knew how these glossy camellia leaves would taste, bitter and woody and bracing. He could feel the pressure of his feet on the ground, was aware of the hillock of fine dirt at the tree’s base, the knobby surface of a fallen twig.