Oil Change: A Nina Bannister Mystery (The Nina Bannister Mysteries Book 4) (25 page)

It all remained like this for a period out of time, all changes elemental and thus of great and no importance, until they reached John Giusti’s house.

“So here we are!”

“I love your place, John. It’s my favorite house in the world!”

They could not yet see the great sea-straddling monstrosity that was John and Helen’s house yet, of course. They first had to park in a driveway that looked like a deer blind, get out of the van, get the dog and ferret out of the van, and brush their way through a narrow path that led through shrubs and scrub oak, gradually descending on its way down to the sea.

But the walk was worth it, of course.
       

Finally, she could hear the ocean, rumbling and grating not more than a few yards over the top of the encircling trees.

But she still could not see the house.

“How did you find this?”

“A client of mine. He was a crazy architect.”

“Where is he now?”

“I think he’s been institutionalized.”

“That’s comforting.”

“Here. Let’s push through these last bushes and…”

“Wow!” she could not help exclaiming. As she always did when she visited John and Helen.

For there, laid out before her, was a wide, long, pier at the end of which glowed what would have been a magnificent beach house, had it been on the beach.

It was not.

It was an ocean house, perched as high above the surging waves—twenty feet or so, she judged—as her own shack was perched above the beach.

Helen stood in the doorway, beckoning.

The house, all vast glass windows, seemed to reflect a thousand images of her, the various animals around her, and the sea beneath her.

Nina started forward, feeling the pier wobble a bit, the boards swaying ever so slightly as she walked upon it.

“Nina! So good that you could come out!”

“I wouldn’t have missed it!”

“Hope you like Italian!”

“Love it!”

She turned for a second. The beach was behind her now, narrow but perfectly white, dark pine forests impinging upon it, as though the trees were trying to drive the sand into the water.

Then she walked on until, John following close behind with the Labrador on the leash, she was at the door.

“Come in! Come in!”

She stepped inside.

And in so doing, she stepped outside.

For there was, strictly speaking, no inside.

There was furniture. Heavy, mahogany, leather couches, tables, chairs, rugs and things a man would have to sit on and lie on and put things on and have some woman come in from time to time and clean.

But she was still more outside than inside, the vast glass walls magnifying everything on the coast, from birds that skimmed low over the ocean to lights twinkling miles to the south in Cape Hatteras, to slowly moving freighters that made their way like moving oil splotches hurled upon the clean azure evening sky and now oozing horizontally along it—to the waves, always the waves, swelling, throbbing, falling, and rising again, having vowed never to allow stillness to anything in the universe.

“We hadn’t seen you since..”

“I know.”

Helen was radiant, as usual, her dark eyes glittering like specks of coal which, when illumined, would have burned the color of her crimson gown.

“What a terrible day, Nina. How you’ve gotten through all of this…”

“Well, Helen, it isn’t much more terrible than something we all had to go through earlier. And we made that. The community can make this, too. And the Ramirez family will survive. Senora Ramirez still has Hector and Sonia.”

They were in the kitchen now, with soft white light coming from a fluorescent tube above the oven, and a vast glass wall to their left showing an epic film version of
The Ocean by Moonlight.

The meal followed soon thereafter, marvelous, as she knew it would be.

A glass of red wine; another glass.

Desert: chocolate mousse.

And then, with the ocean spread out silver beneath them and the wind making its soft moan through the yellow pines that encircled the house, they told ghost stories.

John told “Oh Whistle and I’ll Come to you my Lad,” and “Who’s Got My Golden Arm.” Nina told “Thus I refute Beelzy.” Helen told “The Monkey’s Paw” and then went in to get the coffee ready.

She had been gone five minutes or so when she reappeared, a concerned expression on her face:

“Nina, I don’t know if I should mention this..”

“What?”

“Well?”

John stepped forward and asked:

“What is it, Helen?”

“Television.”

“What about it, honey?”

“There’s a broadcast on. The eight o’clock news. I’ve been glancing at the little portable tv just while I finished making the coffee.”

“And?”

Helen took the obligatory deep breath that proceeds distasteful news.

“It’s a big press conference.”

“So?”

“The governor of Louisiana and the governor of Mississippi are holding a joint press conference.”

“I can’t think of anything more boring than…”

But Nina interrupted:

“It’s Aquatica, isn’t it? Has something happened out there?”

Helen was quick to cut her off:

“No! No, it’s nothing like that! They’re just announcing something.”

“I’d like to see,” said Nina, almost beside herself. “I feel close to some of those people out there, in spite of the fact that I made a fool of myself.”

“You did no such thing,” said John. “You were just trying to help everybody. Anyway let’s go in the den. The big wall tv is in there.”

Then came the marvel of walking through John and Helen’s house. The walls were doors, the roofs were walls, and air seeped in from everywhere, delightfully cool, whispering out of hidden crevasses that served as ventilation ports. There were animals all around, of course, most of them dogs, but cats here or there, and slinking little reptiles that peered around crags in the wall structure or out from gurgling fissures.

Finally, they entered a smaller interior room, from which, incredibly, The Gulf of Mexico could not be seen.

They sat down in darkness and leather; John turned the lights even lower, and Helen operated the remote control stick that caused most of one wall to become life-sized images of smiling politicians.

The worst kind
, thought Nina, settling in and somehow wishing for popcorn.

Another switch of the remote, and sound enveloped them.

It would have been better
, Nina found herself speculating,
if they had simply stayed in the kitchen and watched the small tv.

But here they were.

And here was a man, identified with text scrolling across the bottom of the screen, as the press secretary to the governor of Mississippi.

“All right, so much for introductions and preliminaries! And, John, down there in the front row, from
The Chicago Sun Times
, I want to say how much I like that hat you were wearing today on the golf course!”

General laughter.

Camera on John from
The Chicago Sun Times
, who was also laughing.

“I’m just kidding you, John.”

More laughter.

I hate these people
, thought Nina.

“But seriously, folks, it’s time to get on to the more urgent and pressing matters. As all of you know, there were some pretty serious and even frightening things said last week about Louisiana Petroleum, and specifically about the installation known as Aquatica.”

Silence.

Camera pans to reporters.

All of them are texting.

Camera pans back to podium.

“The statements made were false. They were completely without foundation. How such nonsense came to be printed in a newspaper with the reputation of
The New York Times
—well, that question is still being looked into, and will be for some time. There is a great deal of discussion going on in Baton Rouge and in Jackson—because the states of Louisiana and Mississippi are co-partners in the operation of Aquatica, and the mutual trust enjoyed with Louisiana Petroleum—at any rate, there is much discussion about starting hearings at the state level to ascertain ultimate blame for what was almost a complete panic.”

Wonderful,
thought Nina.

Where would she most enjoy being roasted by a roomful of politicians? Jackson or Baton Rouge?

And why couldn’t Louisiana have made New Orleans its capital?

“Right now, though, we are here in Baton Rouge—and we have invited our neighbors from the state house in Jackson—to announce a party. And you all know the citizens of Mississippi and Louisiana luuuuuve to party!”

Huge raucous laughter.

Some moments before order can be restored.

The spaghetti
, thought Nina.
The spaghetti!
”

“But to offer this invitation, I’m going to invite up here to the platform, one of the most important cogs in the machinery of Louisiana Petroleum, Dr. Sandra Cousins, who is not only one of the head engineers out at the rig Aquatica—but who is also their chief in charge of public affairs. Sandra?”

And there she was, as perky as ever. Sandra Cousins.

Beaming at the camera.

“Thank you thank you thank you, people of Mississippi and Louisiana!”

More applause.

Applause dying now.

Nina sat forward in her seat.

“What do they have you doing, Sandy?” she whispered.

“I have great honor tonight. It’s an honor bestowed upon me by the executives of Louisiana Petroleum, working in conjunction with the state governments of Mississippi and Louisiana. As you know, Louisiana Petroleum is responsible for supplying energy to a great many citizens and installations of those two great states. And one of the lynchpins of our ability to do this is the Aquatica, upon which I have the honor to be based. But Aquatica is not just an ‘instillation;’ it is a home to many of us. And a magnificent home it is. It is a factory, an ocean liner, and a magnificent hotel, all in one. Those of us honored to work on it are constantly fascinated by its state of the art equipment. And, I might add, its beyond state of the art FOOD!”

Laughter and applause.

“And that is why we feel remiss. We have been keeping the wonders of Aquatica all to ourselves. But now we want to show it off to the world!”

More applause.

“And so we, in conjunction with the major political parties of Mississippi and Louisiana, are throwing a party! A gala! If you will. We’re inviting two hundred very special people—entertainers, political leaders, school teachers, college professors, scientists, writers, you name them—to come out to the vessel Aquatica in two weeks’ time, on Saturday evening, June 28—to enjoy a tour of the facility, plus a summer fireworks display at sea, followed by the most sumptuous dinner y’all have ever had! Furthermore…”

“Well, that’s interesting,” said Nina.

John smiled:

“You think you’ll be the guest of honor?”

“I will not, definitely, be the guest of honor!”

And they all laughed.

But as time would prove, they were all to be completely wrong.

Neither Nina nor John nor Helen were truly late night people. She was home by nine forty five.

By ten o’clock she had straightened up in the shack and was thinking of going to bed.