She snorted, but he could sense that one of her rare smiles was behind it. “You ready?”
“Lay it on me.”
“Amelia Wesson née Nolan is the daughter of the late US Congressman Beekman Davis Nolan—he went by Davis—who represented his district for thirty-two years.”
“Huh.”
“If you’d’ve been paying attention, you would’ve heard of him. He served on too many committees and advisory boards to list, presided over one congressional hearing in 1994 and another in ’98. A public safety bill that was voted into law bears his name, because he wrote it and introduced it. He was well liked and admired on both sides of the aisle.”
“Which side was he on?”
“He hailed from a state that usually goes red, but he didn’t always toe the party line. He was a flag waver, for sure, but he was often outspoken against diehard conservatives, especially when it came to personal-liberty issues. Abortion. Gay marriage. Like that.”
“Made enemies?”
“He had his critics. But his more liberal outlook also won him admirers on the other side. Basically, he was that rare bird that’s almost extinct in politics—a man of integrity. Even the people who disagreed with him admired him. Couldn’t be influenced by lobbyists, never backed down from what he believed in. His hero was Jefferson, and he quoted him a lot. By the way, do you want Harriet the Harridan in on any of this?”
“Not yet.”
“I didn’t think so. She’s cussing you over something.”
“Must have been that crack about her extra ten pounds.”
Glenda cackled. “Watch yourself. I’ve heard rumors that she’s into voodoo. Know what she did today? The portrait of her predecessor that hung in the lobby? She had it taken down. Said he was gone and that a new regime had taken over. Like we needed reminding. The bitch.”
Dawson shared her sentiment, but the less said about Harriet the better for his frame of mind. He redirected the conversation back to Nolan. “What about the congressman’s personal life?”
“Squeaky clean. Widowed in the midnineties. They’d been married since The Flood, and he never remarried. No scandals. Not one nekkid girl caught sneaking out of his office, no little boys in his shower. Social drinker, nonsmoker. On paper, he was a saint.”
“Find anything on the daughter?”
“Amelia. Middle name Ware. These southern names just kill me,” she mumbled as an aside. “Born May 1981, which makes her—”
“Thirty-two.”
“I can subtract,” she snapped. “Attended Vanderbilt. Active in various campus organizations. Took it upon herself to launch a food-and-clothing drive to help hurricane victims in Alabama and went herself to see that the goods got where they were supposed to go. Made national news. Yada yada.
“Graduated summa cum laude with a degree in history. Earned a master’s while working at a museum in Boston. Then she spent two years working at another in Baltimore. But when her father retired from public office—”
“Do you know why he retired?”
“No specific reason given. He made an announcement that he wasn’t going to seek reelection. Nothing noteworthy or suspicious. Just tired of it, I guess. He was nearing seventy.”
“Okay.”
“Anyhow…Where was I?”
“When her father retired…”
“Right. She moved back to Savannah and became his assistant. She served as his hostess, social secretary, Girl Friday. Together they sponsored fund-raisers for numerous charities.”
“Was she married to Jeremy Wesson during this same time?”
“Let’s see…yeah, there was an overlap of a few years. The congressman died in early 2010. Mrs. Wesson now works—”
“She goes by Nolan.”
“—as a curator at the—”
“Collier War Museum. Specializes in—”
“Look, if you’re so freakin’ smart, why’d you have me look up all this crap?
Which
, if we’re splitting hairs, you could’ve looked up yourself.”
“But I’m clumsy at it and you’re adroit.”
“Adroit, my ass. You just don’t want to take the time.”
“I just don’t want to take the time,” he admitted.
“Your time’s more valuable than mine?”
“No, you’re priceless, and I couldn’t do without you. You know that.”
“Yeah, yeah,” she muttered. “I’ve got photos of Ms. Nolan. She’s at least an eight.”
“Closer to a nine. And a half.”
“I swear to God, Dawson, you had better not have me doing all this work just ’cause you’ve got the hots for the lady. I’m not running a dating service here.”
“I swear, it’s vital background information for a story.”
“One you don’t want Harriet to know about.”
“Not yet.” He glanced around and realized that the corridor had virtually cleared. He needed to hurry, but he had a few more questions for Glenda and was afraid that if he didn’t ask them while she was being moderately agreeable, he’d be left wanting. “Do you have a current address for her?”
“Last one that surfaced was Jones Street in Savannah.”
Considering what had happened, he doubted she was still living there. “Where did the congressman live?”
Glenda told him. “One website had photos. Oak trees with Spanish moss. White columns. Deep veranda. Your basic Tara.”
“Is anyone living there now?”
“Don’t know.”
“See if you can find out. And work on getting a current address for her.”
“We’re looking at a holiday weekend, you know.”
“But you love me. You know you do.”
“In your dreams.”
Grinning, he started toward the elevator bank. “Anything else you can dig up will be greatly appreciated. Text, call, or e-mail me. Any hour.”
“I’ve got a life, too, you know. Never mind that it sucks.”
“One more thing. How did Congressman Nolan die?”
“Well, finally! I’ve been itching for you to ask.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because I saved the best for last.”
Today was awful, the reason being that Carl got furious at me.
I should have known better than to cross him. He’s been out of sorts lately, and I know it’s because of the guns that we were supposed to get, but didn’t. Some Cuban drug dealers waved their money around (I guess they have a lot of it, because everybody in Miami seems to be stoned on something!), and the guy that was supposed to sell us the guns sold them to the Cubans instead. That pissed Carl off, and for the three days since then, he’s been in a terrible mood.
He wanted to go after the Cubans, kill them, and take the guns, but Quirty (I still don’t know his real name) talked him out of it. He said it was crazy to f—with the Cubans, who had just as soon cut your throat as look at you. Carl said if you shot them first, they wouldn’t have a chance at cutting your throat. He was on a rampage.
But Quirty got some good smoke (probably bought off those same Cubans) and that calmed Carl down some. At least me and Quirty were able to talk sense to him about getting revenge.
I didn’t want to get into a war with those Cubans or anybody. I’m always afraid for Jeremy’s safety. Anytime I say that to Carl, he laughs and says nobody would dare lay a hand on his kid. But I don’t think the Cubans would be afraid of Carl, and maybe Carl knows that deep down because he didn’t shoot anybody.
Which could also be why he’s cross. He’s bored, is all. Since that bank job in Louisiana when Jim got shot, we’ve been laying low. On the news they said the robber had died at the scene, killed by police. But Carl doesn’t trust the news people to be telling the truth. He calls them puppets who only repeat what the cops and politicians want got across to the stupid public.
Carl says that if Jim lived even for a little while after he was shot, he could have talked, told them something about us. So we holed up in a trailer park in MS with a guy that Jim didn’t know. That way, even if he had ratted us out, we were still safe from capture.
I was glad not to be on the move, because Jeremy and I both got sick with runny noses. His cough was worse than mine. What my grandma used to call croupy. Taking him to a doctor was out of the question. I didn’t even ask Carl if we could, knowing what he’d say.
The man who put us up in his mobile home, Randy, thinks the world of Carl. Carl is his hero. He was nice to us even though Jeremy’s coughing must’ve kept him up all night like it did Carl and me. It might have been that, instead of kindness, that caused Randy to buy a bottle of cough syrup for Jeremy without me even asking.
After a few days, Jeremy got better. He stopped being so puny and whiny and started eating. Which was good because Carl had decided that it was time to move on. We drove into FL and kept going until we got here. Carl’s sixth sense told him the heat was off and it was safe for us to stay put for a while.
Miami is okay, I guess, but I don’t like this house. The mice seem to be making fun of me for even bothering to set traps. I hear them snapping shut all night long. I hate that sound! Come morning I’ll have to empty the traps of those limp little bodies. Much as I hate their scurrying around in the dark, I hate to see them dead. But no matter how many I catch, there’s ten more to take their place. The roaches are about as big as the mice.
I don’t like Quirty’s girlfriend, either. She’s sneaky and sly. She reminds me of a cat we had when I was little. He’d had one of his eyes scratched out, which scared me already. But he’d come up on me before I knew it, and that gave me the willies. I was glad the day he crawled under the house and died.
Anyhow, this gal of Quirty’s prances around and shows off, especially in front of Carl. The worst thing happened yesterday when Jeremy tipped over a bottle of red nail polish while she was painting her toenails. Barely a drop spilled on the floor and I got it right up. But she pinched Jeremy’s arm, twisting the skin so it hurt him really bad. I lit into her, and before it was over, the men had to break us apart. I think I would have killed her if Carl hadn’t stopped me.
The pinch left a dark bruise on Jeremy’s arm, and that riled Carl, too. His mood went from bad to worse, so that today, when he saw me with the camera, he blew his stack.
It was an old Polaroid I found in a cabinet when I was setting a mousetrap. Quirty said I could use it to take some pictures of Jeremy. Carl’s never allowed any pictures of us, but I wanted at least one baby picture of Jeremy.
I think it was the smell that gave me away. The chemicals inside the camera make the pictures stink when you peel them off and coat them with that stuff. Carl came storming in and caught me red-handed. He grabbed the camera and banged it against the edge of the kitchen table over and over again till it broke apart.
Jeremy got scared on account of all the racket and started crying. Carl ripped up the picture I’d taken and told me never ever to take any pictures.
After the blow-up, Quirty said maybe we’d worn out our welcome.
It’s decided that we’ll pull out tomorrow. I won’t be sorry to leave this mousy house and that sneaky slut. But at least here in south FL the weather is warm. We spent all last winter in MN and I nearly froze. But I won’t complain no matter where we go, so long as Carl keeps us together.
I haven’t let myself wonder about what will happen when Jeremy is old enough to understand that we’re outlaws and don’t live like other people. I daydream about us having a normal life and being like other families. But it will never happen, so I had just as well stop daydreaming about it.
Carl’s been saying things that scare me, things like our lifestyle being hard on kids, like Jeremy will be needing to go to school in a few more years. When Carl starts talking about the future—and I know how he is once he gets an idea into his head—I get petrified that he’ll leave Jeremy behind somewhere.
I think back to Golden Branch. That horrible day. The worst day of my life so far. The labor was bad. I thought for sure I’d die of that. Then all that shooting! Lord, I was scared!
When Carl bent over me and told me that the others were dead and that he had to go
right that second
, I couldn’t believe he meant it. I was bleeding. Hurting something awful. But he was serious as serious can be. He said if he stayed, he’d be killed or caught. Did I want that?
The whole rest of my life was decided in that moment. Because, truth be told, I didn’t want to be killed or captured, either. Which I guess makes me the worst kind of coward, the worst kind of person.
It was cold and rainy. I remember running through those wet woods to where Carl had hid the car. I was holding Jeremy against me so tight, afraid I’d trip and fall with him, or that he’d cry and give us away. I was still sorta scared that Carl would go off and leave us if we didn’t keep up. I should count my lucky stars that he took us at all.
Even after we got away, I couldn’t stop crying over it. To this day, every time I think back on that morning, I cry buckets.
P
lease, Mom?”
“You can get back in after you’ve had some lunch.”
“Five more minutes?”
“After lunch.”
“One more minute?”
Placing her hands on her hips, Amelia gave six-year-old Hunter
the look
.
She got a very downcast “Okay” as he waded out of the surf. “We were just starting to play.”
She draped a beach towel over his shoulders and used a corner of it to dry the saltwater off his face. “Funny that I always seem to make you stop just when you’re starting to play. Race you to the umbrella?”
She took off in the direction of their camp up the beach, where Grant was already rummaging in the picnic hamper. She slowed in order to let Hunter overtake her and smiled as she watched his strong young legs churning.
The sand was warm against the soles of her feet. There was just enough breeze to counteract the sun’s heat. She deeply inhaled the salt air and smiled over the simple pleasure of being here, on the sea island, her favorite place on earth. The courtroom and the taxing testimony of yesterday seemed far removed. God bless the judge for granting her five whole days before having to return to court and face cross-examination. She’d determined not to think about the trial or the disturbing memories it evoked and, instead, to enjoy these last official days of summer with her sons.
Who, at the moment, were squabbling over a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich.
“I want this one.” Grant, who’d just turned four, clutched the plastic-wrapped sandwich to his chest in an effort to keep his brother from snatching it.
Removing her wide-brimmed straw hat, she ducked beneath the beach umbrella and dropped down onto the quilt. “Hunter, leave Grant’s sandwich alone and choose another. They’re all alike.”
“Exactly alike.” Stephanie DeMarco joined them, setting a small cooler between the boys to help defuse their spat. “Who wants a Capri Sun?”
Amelia had hired the twenty-year-old to be the boys’ nanny for the summer, and it had proved to be an ideal arrangement for everyone. Stef, as she preferred to be called, was a college student majoring in elementary education. Having grown up in landlocked Kansas, spending three months on an Atlantic beach was her idea of heaven. She’d come with impeccable references.
Having Stef living with them, and more or less on call twenty-four/seven, had enabled Amelia to live in her beach house on Saint Nelda’s Island for the entire summer, rather than having to go back and forth between the island and the mainland only for weekend stays. Stef kept the boys occupied while Amelia worked in her upstairs office for a few hours each day. If her presence at the museum was required, she had child care while she made the round trip to Savannah by ferry.
Thanking Stef for the drinks, Amelia thought again what a godsend the young woman had been. The boys adored her, but, being no pushover, she was strict about baths, bedtime, and behavior. During the day, she kept them busy and entertained with educational projects and ample playtime.
An easy relationship had developed between the two women, more like a friendship than that of employee and employer. As she passed Amelia a bottled iced tea, Stef shook her head with derision. “Beats me why you come to the beach at all, covering up as you do. You look like Lawrence of Arabia.”
Amelia didn’t take offense, but laughed with self-deprecation as she plucked at the damp hem of her sheer caftan. “I used to tan when I was younger.”
“I know it’s bad for you. But I love to be bronzed.”
Amelia assessed Stef’s voluptuous shape, barely contained inside the two pieces of her bikini. “Bronze looks good on you,” she said, to which Stef laughed.
After lunch and as soon as Amelia had slathered the boys with more sunscreen, they grabbed their pails and shovels and headed toward the shoreline. “Don’t get in the water until I’m down there,” she called after them.
“Want me to take a shift?” Stef asked.
“Thanks, but they haven’t had much time with me the past few days. I’ll stay with them if you’ll go to the store.”
“Sure. I saw your list on the kitchen counter. I added plastic wrap. Have you thought of anything else?”
“Lightbulbs. The one on the back porch is out. And don’t rush back. I’ve been gone a lot this week. You deserve some ‘you’ time, and I need quality time with the boys.”
“Thanks, boss.” She saluted Amelia as she started toward the dunes that separated the house from the beach.
Amelia joined Hunter and Grant and together they waded into the surf. “I thought this beach ball had a leak,” she remarked as she tossed it to Hunter. The last time she’d seen the colorfully striped ball, it had been lying deflated in a corner of the porch.
“It got fixed.”
“Did you thank Stef for doing that?”
“She didn’t do it. It just got fixed,” he said. Then, “Watch, Mom!”
He executed a belly dive, which Grant imitated and came up choking. They played in the shallows until they were good and pruney, then trooped back onto shore, where Amelia oversaw the building of a sand castle, complete with turrets and a surrounding moat that she filled with seawater. “A moat was used to protect the castle from attacking enemies.”
“And dragons,” Grant said.
Hunter rolled his eyes. “There aren’t any dragons, stupid.”
“Are too!”
“Hunter, don’t call your brother stupid,” Amelia said. “Never. Understand?”
“Yes, ma’am. But tell him that dragons are make-believe.”
“Well, make-believe or not,” she said, “this moat is keeping them out.”
Later, they lay on the quilt in the shade of the umbrella while she read to them from two storybooks. Before she finished the second one, Grant had fallen asleep, his head in her lap. Hunter rolled over onto his tummy and pillowed his head on his folded arms. In seconds, he, too, was asleep.
Amelia set the books aside and gazed at the two loves of her life. Hunter’s hair was dark and grew in undisciplined swirls around his head, as her father’s had. Grant’s hair was straighter and lighter with the russet tint of hers.
Both had blue eyes, a genetic gift. She was glad she didn’t have to look into their eyes and see Jeremy’s. Although, she had once found his dark eyes extremely attractive. It seemed another lifetime ago that he had looked at her with love and adoration. It
was
another lifetime ago. The last time he’d fixed his eyes on her, they’d been filled with hatred and wrath.
Pushing the unwelcome thought away, she stretched out onto her back, and, with a hand on each son so she could feel their sweet breathing, she fell asleep.
* * *
They had spaghetti for dinner. While they were eating, Amelia mentioned the beach ball to Stef. “Weirdest thing,” the young woman said, as she helped Grant twirl noodles onto his fork. “I’d thrown it away, but it showed up yesterday patched and inflated.”
“How’d that happen? It didn’t heal.”
“Maybe Bernie,” Stef said, shrugging, more interested in the mess Grant was making than in the beach ball mystery.
When they finished, Stef began clearing the table. “If you’ll do the dishes, I’ll bathe the boys,” Amelia told her.
“Are you sure? Compared with bath time, doing the dishes is a snap.”
Amelia smiled. “True. But I’ve missed the boys this week. Even when I was with them, I was distracted.”
Stef turned from the sink and said hesitantly, “There’s a write-up about the trial on the front page of the local newspaper. It mentions your testimony. I brought a copy in case you want to read it.”
“No, thanks. I’ve kept the TV off during news time, too. I know all I need or want to know about it.”
She shooed the boys upstairs. They put up token protests, but she soon had them stripped and in the tub. She knelt beside it to supervise the dispensing of liquid soap, which often got out of control.
Just before plunging her hands into the bathwater, she automatically reached to remove her watch.
It wasn’t on her wrist.
Although it wasn’t an expensive, diamond-studded model, it was the last gift her father had given her before his death, and for that reason alone she cherished it. Staring at her bare wrist, she mentally backtracked, trying to remember when she’d taken it off. While preparing dinner? Before joining the boys in the ocean had she dropped it into her beach bag? She couldn’t remember doing either.
Her thoughts were interrupted by an arc of bright-blue soap being squirted from the dispenser and landing on the front of her shirt. “Hey! Enough.”
After their bath, she was almost as wet as they were. She oversaw their teeth brushing, got them into their pajamas, and listened to their prayers. By lights out, she was exhausted.
Stef was waiting for her in the kitchen with a glass of cold white wine. Amelia took it gratefully. “I’ve misplaced my wristwatch. Have you seen it?”
“No, but I’ll keep an eye out for it.”
“I’m sure it will turn up.” Amelia sipped her wine, sighing with pleasure. “You must be angling for a raise.”
Stef laughed. “The pay is adequate, but I would like to go out for a few hours tonight if that’s okay.”
“Sure. I’ll even loan you my car.”
“Thanks! I appreciate that. It’s a little nerve-racking riding my bike in the dark.”
“Where are you going?”
“Well, as you know, choices are limited.”
The island’s only village amounted to several establishments clustered near the ferry dock: a general store; a boat-rental place that also had two gas pumps and a live-bait tank; a real estate office that was open only on weekends, when the sea island drew visitors from the mainland; and a café and bar called Mickey’s.
After the café’s dinner hours, the bar stayed open and was the only nod toward a nightlife on the island.
“Mickey’s?” Amelia asked. Stef nodded. “Meeting someone?”
Stef grinned and said with cheek, “Maybe.”
“Same guy?”
“Maybe.”
Amelia laughed. “Does he have a name?”
“Dirk.”
“What does he do?”
“He works on boats. I don’t know the specifics.”
“Is he a permanent resident? Maybe I know his family.”
Stef shook her head. “This is his first summer here.”
“When do I get to meet him?”
“We’ll see how things go.” Changing the subject, she asked, “Will you be all right here alone?”
“Of course. I’ve been staying here alone since I was eighteen and finally talked my daddy into allowing it.”
“Yeah, but you’ve had a rough week.”
“I’m fine. I may treat myself to a long bath. This will definitely help relax me.” She raised the glass of wine. “Thank you.”
“I figured you could use it.” Stef picked up her small purse and lifted Amelia’s key ring off the hook as she passed through the back door.
Amelia followed to lock it behind her. Noticing the bright porch light overhead, she said, “Thanks for changing the bulb.”
Stef paused on her way to the car. She looked at Amelia, then at the porch light, then back to Amelia. “I didn’t. The bulb just must have been loose. I guess it came back on by itself.”
After she drove away, Amelia remained standing on the threshold, one hand on the door jamb, the other on her chest where her heart had begun beating hard and fast. The lightbulb hadn’t been loose. It hadn’t come back on by itself. Because when Amelia noticed that it had burned out, she had removed it from the fixture.
* * *
As if the lightbulb and beach-ball puzzles weren’t enough to fray her nerves, she was upset over her missing wristwatch. In the utility room, she upended her beach bag and went through the contents item by item. She checked the windowsill above the kitchen sink where she sometimes placed it before doing the dishes. She even put her hand down the garbage disposal.
Upstairs, she thoroughly searched her bathroom, bedroom, and dirty-clothes hamper. The hamper yielded a piece of Lego, but nothing else that didn’t belong there.
Sitting on the side of her bed, she reconstructed her morning. She distinctly remembered pulling on her swimsuit, slipping the caftan over her head, then fastening her watch onto her wrist as she slid her feet into a pair of flip-flops.
It had to have come off somewhere on the beach.
She checked on the boys, who were sleeping soundly in their twin beds, then went back downstairs, got a flashlight, and switched it on as she descended the front steps.
The boardwalk that connected the house to the beach was only two feet wide. The planks were old and weathered. Fearing splinters, she didn’t allow the boys to walk on it with bare feet, although the soles of her own feet had been toughened on these same planks every summer for as far back as she could remember. Back to when her mother was in the kitchen humming under her breath as she peeled fresh peaches for the cobbler she would bake. Back to when her father had warned her from his rocking chair on the verandah to be on the lookout for jellyfish.
The saw grass on the dunes rustled in the breeze. The moon was still rising, but even if it had been high in the sky, it wouldn’t have shed much light. It was a narrow crescent, what her father used to call a “fingernail moon.”
The tide of nostalgia and homesickness that assailed her was far stronger than the gentle surf. The lacy foam left on the sand when the soft waves receded sparkled in the beam of her flashlight. She walked along the packed sand, searching for a glint of gold, that precious, tangible connection to her father.
Using the house as a reference point, she made a U-turn and started back the other way, going a little farther up the beach where the sand was drier. She repeated that slow, zigzagging route, moving a little farther away from the shore on each lap. Eventually she acknowledged the futility of the search. If the watch had been lost on the beach, it had probably been washed out to sea with the ebbing tide.
Nevertheless, she searched more carefully around the area where they’d set up camp that day, even dropping to her knees at the spot where she’d staked the umbrella. She sifted handfuls of sand through her fingers.