“I don’t want to think about it,” I said truthfully.
A knock on the door made us all jump. I opened it to see the subject of our conversation standing there looking worried. For a moment I was spooked.
“’Morning, Patricia Anne,” she said. “Is Fred here?”
“Sure. Come in.”
“I just wanted to know if he knows where Eddie is.”
“Fred,” I called. “Do you know where Eddie is?”
“He was talking to Fairchild in the parking lot when I came up,” Fred called back. “Why?”
Laura stepped into the apartment. “Because the car’s gone.”
“He probably went to get the car gassed up,” Fred said.
“I did that yesterday.”
“Or maybe to check on the new house,” I volunteered.
“I doubt it, but can I use your phone? I’ll call Jason Marley and ask him to look out his window and see if he sees the car.”
After a short conversation, Laura hung up, smiling. “He’s there. Jason says he sees him at the boathouse. I know you think I’m crazy to be so worried, but the first sign we had of anything being wrong with Eddie was that he got lost between here and Blue Bay. It took him four hours to get home.”
“We don’t think that at all,” I said. “Do you want to go over there? I’ll take you.”
“If you don’t mind. I’m not sure he’s totally clear about all that’s happened and us leaving today.”
“I’ll go with you,” Sister said.
“Me, too.” Frances chimed in.
“I’ll watch ‘Sunday Morning’ while you’re gone,” Fred said. Which is how he missed out on everything that happened.
I slipped into the bedroom and called Major Bissell. He wasn’t in, so I left word with the man who answered that I was taking Laura Stamps to Blue Bay Ranch to get her husband.
“Okay,” he said. I could hear the Roadrunner’s cackle in the background.
“This is important. Call and tell him.”
“Yes ma’am.” The man chuckled, hopefully at Wiley E. Coyote.
Going down 98, I hoped Major Bissell was already at Blue
Bay Ranch, Sister said she felt like something was going to happen, and Frances admitted she wanted to see the pink house and Jason Marley again. But all of this was discussed later, well after the fact. As we turned into the Blue Bay Ranch gate, none of the three of us had the slightest idea what was going to happen. Except, of course, I knew what possibilities existed.
We came to the bay and to the lavender house. The Stampses’ car was parked in the driveway.
“Thank you so much,” Laura said, opening the door.
“We’ll make sure Eddie’s all right before we leave.” Mary Alice got out of the car. Frances and I followed her.
“Thanks. He’s probably out at the boat.”
To this day, I can see little sun-dried Laura walking hurriedly around the house and onto the pier with us following. The sun was shining and there was a sailboat regatta on the bay.
“Look at that!” Frances exclaimed. “Isn’t that beautiful?”
“Eddie!” Laura called, striding down the pier. “You on the boat?”
Eddie came from the small cabin and waved. “Hey, honey.”
Laura turned to us. “He’s fine, y’all. Thanks.”
“Come on, I’ll take all of you for a ride,” Eddie called.
“Some other day,” Sister called back.
“Berry’s here.” Eddie motioned backward to the cabin as Berry appeared on deck.
“Hey, pretty ladies,” he called. “What brings you out so early?”
“We just brought Laura over,” Mary Alice answered. “How’re you feeling?”
“Much better. Sorry about last night.”
“Don’t be. I had a good time.”
Laura was standing on the pier beside the boat. “Come on, Eddie,” she said, holding out her hand. “We’ve got to go.”
“I want to go out in the boat,” he said. “Berry wants to take a ride.”
Laura stepped onto the boat and took her husband’s arm. “Come on, sweetheart.”
Berry grinned. “You better go, old buddy.”
Just at that moment, the Florida Marine Patrol van pulled into Jason Marley’s driveway.
“What in the world is this about?” Mary Alice wondered aloud as Major Bissell and two other officers got out of the van.
“Turn around,” I whispered to her and Frances. “Go back to the car.”
“What are you talking about?” Sister asked.
“’Morning, Lieutenant Bissell,” I called. “We’re all over here. Mr. Stamps and Mr. West are on the boat.” I grabbed Sister’s arm. “Back up, damn it.”
The three police officers came striding over to the Stampses’ pier.
“’Morning, ladies,” Lieutenant Bissell said. Then, whispering, smiling as if we were having a pleasant conversation, “What on God’s earth are you doing here?”
I smiled and whispered back. “We came to get Eddie Stamps. How the hell did I know this would happen? You should have been here an hour ago.”
“Hey, Lieutenant Major,” Eddie called.
“Hey, Mr. Stamps!”
“Who’s the woman?” one of the officers asked.
“It’s Laura Stamps,” I said.
“What the hell is going on?” Sister asked.
“I think we have our murderer,” Major Bissell answered.
“Y’all don’t run. It’ll spook him. Just turn around slowly. Be prepared to hit the ground.”
“Oh, shit!” Frances said.
Laura Stamps was looking at the police officers. She was still standing on the boat, though, holding Eddie’s arm.
“Mrs. Stamps?” Major Bissell called. “Could I see you for a minute?”
“What for?”
“It’s about the permit to relocate the septic tank.”
How in the world had he thought of that on the spur of the moment? I almost forgave him for being so slow getting here.
“You need to talk to Eddie, too,” Laura called. She stepped out onto the pier and reached back for Eddie’s hand. He pulled away. “Come on, Eddie. We need to see what Major Bissell wants.”
We had almost made it off the pier. Laura turned and walked toward us and the three policemen, looking back over her shoulder. “Come on, sweetheart.”
“Mr. West and Mr. Stamps, we need to talk to you,” Major Bissell called. “If you would please get off the boat.”
“Oh, Lord, they’ve got guns!” Frances said. And, indeed, each of the marine patrol officers was aiming pistols toward the boat.
“I’m just taking Berry for a ride, Laura,” Eddie called. “We’ll be back after a while.”
I didn’t see what happened next, but Sister did. She said Eddie turned to the dash and reached down toward the ignition. Berry West screamed, “Oh, shit!” and dived into the water. And then the whole world became hell.
The force of the explosion knocked Frances and me to the pier and Sister into the water. Metal and fiberglass whistled by like bullets. Some gut instinct told me to roll over the
edge of the pier, that lying there with my hands over my ears and with my butt in the air wasn’t going to go a hell of a long way in contributing to my longevity. Frances credits me with saving her life, but the truth is that she was in my way. I shoved her into the water and went in behind her, which meant that when the second explosion took out the boathouse, we were hanging onto a piling under the pier.
“Sister!” I screamed. “Sister!”
A wall of heat came roaring over us. The world was filled with raining lumber and the smell of molten fiberglass.
Frances grabbed my arm. She was saying something but I couldn’t make it out. The thought flitted through my mind that I might never hear again.
“Sister!” I screamed again.
Frances tugged my arm and pointed. I turned and saw Sister hanging onto the piling behind us.
“Are you okay?” I yelled.
I think she said, “That son of a bitch Berry West!”
The rescue squad came over the bridge for us again. By this time we were on a first-name basis with them. Mary Alice, Frances, and I were okay and were simply taken into Jason Marley’s house for hot showers and aspirin. Eddie was dead; Laura, badly burned, was transported to the burn center in Tallahassee. The policemen miraculouly suffered only minor burns and injuries, and as for Berry, he had disappeared.
It wasn’t until the next day that we found out all the details. And a hectic twenty-four hours it was. The three of us couldn’t hear, so everyone was having to shout at us, as well as us shouting at each other. (Dr. Nachman said he thought it was temporary. Thought?) Mary Alice was furi
ous at me because I had figured out Berry West was the murderer and hadn’t told her.
“It was simple!” I shouted.
Later on, when we could hear, Major Bissell would fill us in on all the details, many of which were supplied by the critically injured Laura, and many of which we had already figured out. Berry had become Millicent’s lover, hoping to get her to sell him the remaining three hundred acres. She refused because of the environmental impact. Then he had enlisted Laura Stamps’s help with promises of money. She was in a vulnerable position, faced with Eddie’s illness. Laura was with them on the boat the morning Millicent was killed. She swore they didn’t intend to kill her, that Berry forced Millicent onto the boat knowing how frightened she was of water and had her sign a bill of sale for the land. Suddenly, furiously, Millicent had turned on Berry with the gaff. They struggled and Millicent was killed. Maybe a jury would believe it.
But the day of the explosion, Sister yelled into my ear, “Laura tried to warn me, didn’t she?”
“Berry was going to use your money to buy the land!”
“The hell you say!”
Haley held up her hands for silence. “Why did he kill Emily?” she wrote on a Post-it and handed it to me.
“She knew! She was spending the night at Jason’s house and saw them leave. She also saw them come back without Millicent. Laura told Major Bissell Emily walked down to the boat to find out what had happened while Berry was cleaning it.”
“Can of worms!” Frances shouted.
B
y the next morning, things had calmed down considerably. In fact, they were almost back to normal, with Sister mad at me for figuring out what was going on and for talking to Fairchild and Major Bissell without telling her. Also, according to Sister, it was entirely my fault that we were almost killed and that we would forever and a day suffer from deafness.
“They don’t call it being deaf any more!” Frances yelled. “It’s audibly challenged!”
Haley and Nephew had left the night before after they had determined that we were okay.
“I wouldn’t go,” Haley said, hugging me beside Nephew’s piled-up Porsche. “But Papa’s here to take care of y’all.”
“You remember
The Grapes of Wrath
?” Sister said as they pulled out of the parking lot. “How everything they owned was tied on top of their car?”
“All that Porsche needs is a California Or Bust sign,” I agreed. I turned around to find Fred, but he had already gone back into the condo.
“Is Fred okay?” Frances asked.
“What?”
She pointed toward the building. “Fred. Is he okay?”
“He’s all right,” I said. “He’s upset because we had such a close call.” Which was true, and which I felt guilty about. I swear marriage is such a peculiar, delicious arrangement.
So I wasn’t surprised to wake up by myself the next morning and to see Fred walking down the beach in the distance. I got some coffee and joined Sister and Frances on the balcony. That was when I was informed that our deafness was my fault.
“Lord, Sister!” I said. “Major Bissell was supposed to have arrested Berry an hour or so before we went down there. How was I to know it would take him longer to get some of the information because it was Sunday?”
“What information was he looking for?” Frances asked.
I propped my feet up on the railing. “A couple of things. One was his record as a land developer, and the other was a connection between him and Laura Stamps.”
“What did he find?”
“That Berry West was basically a con man. He’d been involved in a couple of developments but both of them had gone bust. A lot of people had invested money in them, bought lots, et cetera and lost all they’d invested. Criminal charges were filed against him, but somehow he’d managed to squeak out from under them. It’s why he left Georgia, though. I doubt he could have gotten away with another scam there.”
“What about Laura?” Frances asked.
“She’s his sister-in-law. His wife was Eddie’s sister. That’s how he found out about Blue Bay Ranch.”
“Tell me his wife died a natural death,” Sister said. “I’m sure you know.”
“Well, yes, I do, and she did.”
Frances sipped her coffee thoughtfully. “I’m glad Jason wasn’t involved. What I can’t figure out is how you knew it was Berry and Laura.”
“Put two and two together,” I said. I’m sure Sister said, “bullshit,” but my ears were ringing so I could have been wrong. “I woke up at five o’clock in the morning and—remember that dream I told you about? About someone making somebody get on the elevator?”
“I remember.”
“Well, I was half awake and suddenly I realized it was Berry’s voice I had heard. You know how you get those insights sometimes?”
This time there was no mistaking the “bullshit!”
“Shut up!” I told Sister. “Anyway”—I gave her my schoolteacher look—“I figured it had to be Laura he was having the fight with. She hadn’t done something she was supposed to do. And what could that be? I asked myself.”
“I’m sure you’re going to tell us,” Sister said.
“The answer came to me clear as a bell. Laura was to deliver Millicent to the boat.”
“God!” Sister moaned. “That man was just after my money and I tongue-kissed him.”
“That’s understandable,” Frances said. “He was kind of cute. I guess he’s spread all over the bay now, though.”
We thought about that a moment. Then I continued with my story.
“I remembered that we hadn’t asked Fairchild about those three hundred acres that weren’t part of the Blue Bay Ranch
parcel. So I simply got up and went over and asked him if Berry West had approached him about buying the property. He had. Fairchild also knew that Laura was deeply worried about the money she would need for Eddie’s illness. Anyway, we called Major Bissell. He said they were already honing in on Berry.”
“But why did he blow the boat up and how did he do it?” Frances wanted to know.
“I think I know,” Sister said. “No matter how much they washed the boat, some of Millicent’s blood would still be on it. Blow it up and the evidence was gone. Berry fixed it where the exhaust fans wouldn’t come on. He knew a spark from the ignition would blow it sky high.”
“And it could have been anybody who turned it on,” I said. “Even little Sophie Berliner who was out there looking around. Which makes me think he’d gone over the edge. He was a two-bit criminal, not a murderer.”
“That’s crazy, Mouse. Tell Millicent, Emily, and Eddie he wasn’t a murderer,” Sister said shivering.
A small, black-clad figure approached the stile from the beach. She looked up and waved at us.
“Sophie will be okay,” I said. And something told me it was true. But I crossed my fingers anyway.
We heard the front door slam and Fred came out onto the balcony. “Patricia Anne,” he said, “you and I are having lunch at the Redneck Riviera.”
At least I think that’s what he said.
We four women had wished for an adventurous vacation. And we had gotten one, a lot more than we bargained for. It was hard to believe that it had been just a week ago that Mary Alice, Haley, and I had had supper at the Redneck and had run into a radiant Millicent. So much had happened, I
almost expected the restaurant to be changed somehow. The lunch crowd was smaller than the dinner crowd, but other than that the same college girls in their Dorothy Lamour sarongs served from the same menu.
Fred and I got a table by a window that opened directly onto the beach. The breeze was so strong, we had to anchor our extra paper napkins with a bottle of ketchup. Over the bar, CNN was on, but with the sound turned off, an interesting effect. Some message the manager was trying to relay?
“You clean up good,” I told Fred. He had on navy shorts and a light blue knit top that made his skin glow.
“Thanks. So do you.”
That was the extent of our conversation until our food was served. Even while we ate, “Pass the ketchup” was about it. Fortunately, on the beach right outside our window, a parasail unit had set up shop. It was fun watching the customers being lifted hundreds of feet into the air, to see how the boat slowed as it turned to come back, making the parasailers think they were going to be dunked.
“You know,” Fred said finally, “I had a long talk with Haley yesterday.”
“What about?” I watched a woman fall flat as she landed on the beach. She got up laughing.
“She says I’m too careful, not impulsive enough. But, damn it, Patricia Anne, you’re too impulsive. Like going over there yesterday and nearly getting yourself killed.”
“We’ll work something out,” I said idly. Another parasailer was swept from the beach. I looked back at Fred. “Is that what’s been eating you today?”
“You scared hell out of me.”
“I know.”
He sighed. “But I think she’s right. I am too careful.” He motioned for our check and took my hand. “Come on.”
We walked down to the parasail group. Sure, they agreed, we could both go up at the same time.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” I said. “You don’t have to prove anything to me, Fred.”
“Nope. Damn it, Patricia Anne, Haley’s right. It’s time we did some fun things.”
“Y’all run a little as the boat takes off and as you come back, too,” the guy told us.
And we did it! Fred and I went parasailing. He held me tight and we soared into the air, out over the Gulf. The sky was a bright blue, the water emerald. We were so high, we could see Jason Marley’s pink house over on the bay.
The boat turned and we dipped to the water, our feet touching, and then we soared up again swiftly. Up into the warm, sensual air.
The beach came up to meet us and we ran a few feet as we had been instructed.
I turned to Fred. “Oh, darling, that’s the most exciting thing we’ve ever done!”
“Aargh,” he said and threw up on my feet.
Now that’s what I call true love.