The Girl in the Maze (14 page)

She put the root on the bedside table and rolled over again and her nostrils began to pick up a scent. Smoke? Yes—a familiar scent. Tobacco, burning cloves. A specific brand of cigarettes.

She turned her head and wasn't at all surprised to see a shadowy shape perched on a crate next to the left wall. A white caterpillar of ash clung to the end of his cigarette.

You keep looking around, Lovie. Is something wrong?

Martha turned her head away. “You aren't here.”

You're just splashing around in de-Nile again, Lovie.
Are you just going to lie there and take this?

Martha tried to focus on the shimmer of the night creatures outside the window. She listened for Jarrell. Where did he sleep? Did he snore? If so…

Lovie, haven't you learned anything? I thought we weren't going to be soft in the head anymore.

Lenny fell silent. Martha waited, counted slowly to ten. She turned back and he was still there, taking a draw from the cigarette. It glowed orange. He exhaled, and faint wisps of smoke curled around the knob of his head.

You're in danger, Lovie.

“I know,” Martha replied.

I'm only concerned about your safety. You're not being very cautious, are you? He's out there. Now's the time for action.

Martha looked around the room again, as if searching for an answer.

Don't trust him. You can't trust anyone. Haven't you learned that?

“He saved me.”

What for, Lovie? Stop kidding yourself. What's he really up to, right? Maybe he killed that woman. He was there, too, wasn't he?

Martha folded the pillow around her ears. “Go away.”

I'm just lookin' out for you, like I always do. You better think about it. Consider your options.

“He's bigger than I am. And stronger. Plus, I'm injured. I don't have any choice but to trust him.”

There are always choices, Martha.

Martha lifted her head. The first thought that sprang to her mind was
knife,
but she pushed it away. She didn't want to find that. Hoped she wouldn't.

Look over there, Martha. In the corner.

Martha picked up the penlight Jarrell had left for her on the bedside table and scanned the room. The small disk of light passed over knotted planks, clutter. Leaning in the corner—old tools. A broom, a rusted shovel. Hanging on a nail from one of the beams, a gooseneck crowbar. Blue steel.

“I could never use it, Lenny.”

Think of it as a precaution.

Martha listened for any sound of movement outside the cabin, then swung her legs out of the bed. She limped over to the corner, picked up the crowbar, hopped back.

She lifted the thin mattress and slid the crowbar across the steel bands of the bed frame, then lay back down on top of it. The hard shape pressed against her through the mattress.

Morris skinned the wrapper from a stick of beef jerky and looked out across a sprawling graveyard of cars, boats, and appliances. Across the road, wasps darted in and out of the rusted remains of a Ford Falcon. Through the broken passenger window, Morris could see the papery dome of the nest, big as a grapefruit.

He took a bite of the jerky, checked his watch. In the morning light, a billow of orange dust rose along the dirt road beyond the chain-link fence. A shiny dark blue pickup truck drove through the gate and wove along the ruts and pulled to a stop in front of the elm tree.

Wallace Bowden killed the engine and got out, scanning the fields. He looked nervous. He came around the front of the truck wearing a flannel shirt, a baseball cap, and dark glasses. Funny, Morris thought, how Bowden seemed important, even powerful, on the commission dais, with his blazer and string tie. But not here, not today.

Bowden flipped up the lenses of his Oakleys. “Christ, Aubrey, what are you doing wearing your uniform?”

“Why shouldn't I? I'm the sheriff.”

“What if somebody sees us out here talking?”

“Nobody's going to pay us any mind.”

“But what if somebody sees us?”

“It doesn't matter. But they might wonder why the commission chairman is dressed like a secret agent.”

“Dammit, Aubrey, this ain't no joke. A lot of money has already changed hands.”

“Everything's under control.”

“What about that girl? Have your boys found her yet?”

“Not yet. You know how the tides are here. But we're going to search every creek and piss-way between here and Savannah. She'll turn up.”

“I don't understand how in the hell your boys let her get away in the first place.”

“She didn't get away, Wallace. She fell in the river, that's all.”

Bowden paced in the weeds. “I ain't going to sleep a wink until that's confirmed. This thing could get out of hand, Aubrey.”

“Look, Wallace, you aren't the only one whose ass is on the line. We've all got to stay cool. This is no big deal. That girl is dead; she's got to be.”

“How do you know? What if somebody helped her?”

“Who would have been there? Who could have known? Think about it.”

Bowden pulled off the baseball cap, ran his fingers through his thinning hair. “I just don't know, Aubrey.”

Morris took a bite of the jerky. “What about the others?”

“The partners? They're fine. They bought into the whole story.”

“They think it was just a tragic thing that occurred?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. That's what they should think. 'Cause that's the way it was. Right, Wallace?”

Bowden nodded pensively. “Yeah. Okay.”

“What about Hoshima? Have they had anything to say about this?”

“No. The suits don't care about nothing. All they want to know is how soon they can break ground. They've already lined up a barge service to bring over the backhoes.”

“Good. Tell 'em we're just about ready.” Morris felt confident and wanted Bowden to feel the same way. That's why he agreed to this meeting in the first place. It was a damn fool idea, but the last thing he needed was for one of the partners to freak out. Morris touched a button on the commissioner's flannel shirt. “Wallace, are we doing this thing or not?”

Bowden blew through his lips. “Yeah, we're doing it.”

“Good. Then let's just stay the course. You're overreacting to a small setback. Everything's falling into place perfectly. She'll turn up.”

Bowden flicked the dark lenses down. “Well, we better hope she doesn't turn up alive. If she starts talkin', people will listen. I don't care if she is nuts.”

“She won't turn up alive,” Morris said, crumpling the wrapper. “You can count on that.”

Martha sat with her knees drawn up, back against the cabin wall, watching a triangle of sunlight slowly advance across the planked floor. She'd been listening to small sounds outside, clinks of metal and equipment, rattles.

The front door swung inward, pushed by Jarrell's shoulder. He carried a plastic dishpan. “Good morning, sunshine.”

Martha tightened, stared at him. Would he notice the missing crowbar?

He put the bucket down on the wooden table in the corner of the room. “Are you all right?”

Martha nodded. Jarrell rolled up the shade in the window, then crossed over to her and looked at her. “You don't look like you slept well.”

“No. I hardly slept at all.”

“Why don't you come on out and have a look at the island, before it gets too hot?” He held his hand out.

Don't let him help you,
Lenny whispered.

“No, I can do it,” Martha told him, putting her good foot on the floor and taking hold of the crutch.

Three rickety plank steps led down from the cabin entrance and onto the squishy soil of the tiny islet. Banks of fog hung over the marsh, suffused with a golden glow. A few hundred steps ahead, a narrow tidal creek threaded its way through a shimmering green corridor.

Martha turned around to have a look at the cabin, her halfway house for the past two days. Posts supported the one-room frame structure a foot above the ground. The roof was covered in a layer of green palmetto fronds.

She inhaled deeply, tasting the air of the marsh. It was muddy and thick, with a hint of rotten eggs. The vivid greens and golds of the landscape stood out in sharp relief, as though a veil had lifted. She remembered this sensation of heightened reality from before. It came just before the voices began.

“Well, you want to see this place or not?” Jarrell asked, and Martha turned toward him. “The master bedroom,” he said, gesturing toward a hammock strung between sweet gum trees and draped in mosquito netting.

“I'm sorry to take over your cabin,” Martha said.

“I actually prefer to sleep out here,” Jarrell said. “Not much to see around this sand spit, I'm afraid. Six trees, about a dozen palmetto bushes, and one shy garter snake.” He stepped toward a wooden table where metal parts were laid out on a towel. “Coffee? You look like you could use it.” Steam rose from a metal percolator on a camp stove.

Martha hesitated. She was supposed to avoid caffeine with her medications.

But you aren't on your medications, Lovie,
Lenny whispered.
You're already dangerous.

“Okay, sure.”

Jarrell poured steaming black coffee into a chipped ceramic mug and handed it to her, then sat at the table and got to work cleaning and reassembling the metal parts that had been laid out in neat groups—machine-threaded screws, tubes, pins, an irregular, multifaceted housing.

“A carburetor?” Martha sat across from him, trying to distract herself from Lenny. Jarrell glanced toward her, used the back of his hand to scratch at his faint goatee, which was shaped like an anchor.

“Yeah,” he said, twisting one of the machine screws back and forth in the fold of a rag that reeked of gasoline. “You know about engines?”

“Some. I used to help my father work on the lawn mower.”
Just keep talking.
“He was good with mechanical things. We had a boat.”

Jarrell nodded, putting the screw aside. Martha watched him work, trying to read his body language. His arms looked powerful. His skin was smooth, olive-brown.

“Hand me that flat screwdriver?” Jarrell held the housing together between his thumb and finger, looking at her. Their eyes locked for a moment.

Don't trust him, Lovie.

Martha felt herself tightening again. She wanted to slip back inside, return the crowbar to where it belonged. She handed him the screwdriver, then took a sip of the coffee. It was strong and acidic.

He knows about the crowbar. He knows.

“You know,” Jarrell started, “you don't look like what I'd expect.”

“From what?”

“From someone who's…you know…”

“What? A loony?”

“Well, that's not the word I would have chosen. I just meant to say, you look fine.”

“Thank you.” Martha looked into her coffee cup, swirled it nervously. Jarrell tightened a screw on the carburetor.

He's lying.

“How's your leg?” he asked.

“Better, I think. Still aches a little. Where'd you learn to treat an injury like that?”

“I worked as an assistant last summer in the emergency room at Grady Memorial. We got a lot of bullet wounds in there. Not hard to treat, really, unless they get it in the head or the heart. Car accidents are worse.”

Jarrell put down the screwdriver, picked up a steel cup, and swabbed the inside of it with a sponge.

“So, if you don't mind my asking, what's the plan here?” Martha asked.

“The plan is to hide for a while.”

“Won't they just keep looking for me?”

“I don't know. According to the paper, they should be looking for you in the bottom of the river. I'm hoping in a few days, things will cool off.”

“Then what?”

“I'm still working on that part.” Jarrell fit the steel cup onto the housing and secured it with a wing nut.

“What if I don't want to hide here? What if I want to turn myself in?”

“Then you're on your own. I'm not taking you back into town.” Jarrell gestured toward the marsh. “I wouldn't try walking, either. You won't get very far. Out here, the mosquitoes alone could kill you.” Jarrell picked up another screw from the table. “We need evidence. Something that connects Morris and the commissioners to that investment group.”

“You mean the Heron Group?”

“Yeah.”

“Lydia asked me to try to find out who they were, the partners.”

“Any luck?”

“Not really. But I did notice a funny coincidence—the letters in
Heron
match the middle initials of several of the commissioners. Except for the
O
.”

Jarrell paused, looked into space. “Funny. Morris is one of the partners. I'm pretty sure of that.”

“I wonder if his middle initial happens to be
O
?”

“I don't know. But why would they be dumb enough to weave their identities into the name of their little corporation?”

Martha gazed at the glinting river. “Morris is into word games. I heard him say that once.”

“I'll tell you one thing. The whole deal is as crooked as a dog's hind leg. We just need to find a way to flip over the rock, so everybody can see all the squirming shit underneath.” Jarrell reassembled the rest of the carburetor and tightened the parts together with the screwdriver. “C'mon,” he said.

“Where are we going?” Martha asked.

“To get some things I need.”

The small wooden craft puttered between walls of verdant marsh grass. The tide had receded from the narrow channel, exposing glistening, dark gray mudflats.

“Are you sure we can get back through here?” Martha asked. She watched armies of fiddler crabs scurry into wet burrows on the banks ahead of them.

“Tide's already turned.” Jarrell kept his eyes focused on the channel, working the tiller. “This is the slack tide. As low as it gets today.”

They passed one tributary after another, some little more than mud basins with narrow trickles of water.

“See what I mean about getting lost?” Jarrell said.

“Are you sure you know where we're going?”

“Yeah. I
own
this marsh.” Jarrell took a fork in the creek, and the channel widened, merging into a broad silver crescent of river. The fog had cleared and the view opened up, revealing vast prairies of grass. To one side, trees were visible in the distance, while in the other direction the marsh seemed to stretch to the horizon. Jarrell throttled the engine and they picked up speed. The breeze felt good against Martha's face. She was relaxing. They cruised past more tributaries, platoons of fiddlers on every bank, and the occasional seabird foraging in the mud. A few hundred yards ahead, the dark finger of a wooden pier came into view.

Jarrell slowed the skiff and guided it toward the pilings. They were black and encrusted with oyster shells. He tied a rope to a cross member and killed the engine. He stood and planted one foot on the lowest rung of the ladder.

“Let's go,” Jarrell said.

“Where are we?” Martha asked.

“You'll see.”

Martha tried to stand up in the boat, but it wobbled, causing her foot to slip. She plopped back onto the wooden seat. Jarrell hooked his hands under her shoulders, lifted her out of the boat, and put her on the sun-warm planks of the pier. Then he eased the skiff out of view between the pilings. “C'mon, hurry,” Jarrell said, climbing up the ladder. “We don't want to be seen.”

Martha followed him across the gangway, a good ten feet above the mudflats, careful not to let her crutch poke through the gaps between the planks. At the end of the pier they took a dirt path up a slight, grassy rise and reached a fenced yard and a pale green house—a place Martha recognized.

“I was here before,” she said. “There was a cookout here, and—”

“Shhh! I know.” Jarrell gestured for her to follow him across the yard.

They climbed onto the porch—the same porch where Martha first met Lady Albertha, sitting in the rocker at the end, watching the yard with her milky eyes.

“Wait here,” Jarrell said. He rapped on a sliding glass door.

Martha leaned against the clapboard wall and looked out at the clear blue sky, trying to connect the dots in her mind. Beyond the fence stood the oak tree where, just a few days ago, she had spotted something strange lurking in its branches. The glass-eyed thing.

“Were you here?” Martha asked.

“What?” Jarrell rapped on the glass again.

“During the cookout—last week—were you hiding over in that tree? With binoculars?”

“We can talk about that later.” Jarrell pulled at the aluminum handle, but the door wouldn't budge. He knocked again, more insistently.
“Mama.”

A pause, then the sound of a latch, and the door slid open a crack.

“Jarrell…what you doing, boy? What are you doing?” Martha recognized the voice—Astrid Humphries.

“Mama—let us in the house, quick—”

The door started to slide shut. Jarrell inserted his foot.

“Just listen, Mama. Just for a minute.”

“I don't know what you think you're doing, boy, but I'll not have any part of it. The police were here yesterday, and—”

“The police?” Jarrell clamped a hand on the aluminum doorframe.

“Yeah, they're looking for you, boy. All over town.”

“What did you tell them?”

“The truth, of course. I told them the truth. I haven't seen you. Nobody sees you. You're like a shadow.” Astrid tugged at the door. “Let go of my door.”

“Mama, just listen to me. That girl didn't do it. She's alive.”

“What are you talking about, boy?”

“The girl, she's with me. She's out here right now. Just look.” Astrid's face emerged from the opening, turned toward Martha. Her eyes widened and she pulled back. “Have you lost your mind, Jarrell?”

“She didn't kill nobody.”

Astrid yanked at the door, causing it to wobble in its track.

“Hear me out, Mama.
They
killed Lydia.”

“
They
who?”

“Who do you think? The commissioners. The sheriff. They killed her so they can do whatever they want out here.”

“That's not what the paper said—”

“Never mind what the paper said. Does that girl over there look like a psycho killer to you?”

Astrid poked her head through the opening again and took a longer look. Martha lowered her eyes, took in her own appearance. Stained shorts, dog-eared Adidas, no bath in two days. Killer or not, she felt pretty shady.

“She was
framed,
Mama. It was the people behind the development deal. We can prove it.”

Astrid looked back at Jarrell, tears pooling in her eyes. “They're looking for you. The police were here. Your future—what about your future? What are you doing, boy? What are you doing?”

“Just let us in, Mama. Five minutes, give me five minutes to explain. If you don't buy it, we'll get out of here. I promise.”

Astrid looked back and forth between them for another moment, then sighed and slid the door open. “All right, I'll give you two minutes. That's all.”

Jarrell parted the vertical blinds and gestured for Martha to follow. They stepped into the AC chill of Astrid's living room.

“Wait here,” Jarrell said to Martha, motioning toward a velveteen couch. “You can sit down. It's all right.” He and Astrid went down the hallway and out of sight.

Martha perched on the edge of the couch, uncomfortable. She leaned her makeshift crutch against the backrest and took in the room. On the glass coffee table, upscale magazines—
Smithsonian, Southern Living, Ebony.
Creamy Berber carpet. At various places, exquisite baskets and other objects woven from green sweetgrass fibers. At the far end, a glass display stand with dozens of framed photographs. Family pictures. Several showed an older man she recognized from a photo on the wall of Jarrell's cabin—smiling, silver stubble of beard. Presumably his father. Then a photo of Jarrell, much younger, in an orange-and-white Little League outfit. A picture of Astrid and the older man standing together, smiling. Happy people.

They don't know about you, do they, Martha?
Lenny's voice issued from an air-conditioning vent next to the sofa. Martha took a magazine from the coffee table and placed it over the vent. From an adjoining room, she could hear different voices—Astrid's and Jarrell's. Their cadences rose and fell.