Champagne for Buzzards (12 page)

I closed the day-old paper I was pretending to read and said to Tully, “Looks like Howie Sweet isn't coming.”

“Maybe they arrested him for killing Lucan.”

“I hate to say it, but it wouldn't hurt my feelings if it was over that easily. But it would leave Clay with a problem.”

Tully snorted and got to his feet. “You think I'm too old to look after a few horses? Come on; let's put them in the barn. Then let's all go into town for dinner. Marley wants to go in before that antique place closes for the night.”

A white sedan pulled into the yard. The man who got out of the car and went to help his passenger out was dressed in black and wearing a white collar. Now, when a minister comes to call, right away I know he's bringing trouble with him. “Pearl Sweet,” Tully said, naming the trouble.

The woman who got out of the car and glared up at the house wasn't sweet. Going on looks, her name should be Sour. Heavy and lumpy, with a vinegar face that could turn cream, she looked like she'd never passed a happy moment in her life.

Her mouth turned down, the corners of her deep-sunk eyes turned down and so did all the lines on her face.

As she walked towards us, with the minister following her like a puppy dog, she kept her eyes fixed on me. “Where's my husband?” she demanded, standing at the bottom of the stairs with her feet spread wide. Her fine gray hair flew away from her head in all directions, alive with static, the only animated thing on her.

“Evening, Pearl,” Tully said.

Her eyes didn't shift from my face.

“Hello, Mrs. Sweet, I'm Sherri Travis.”

She glowered. “You tell Howard to come out here right now.”

“I haven't seen Howie since he came over last night when the sheriff was here. This morning, when he didn't show up, we let the horses out and we were just about to bring them in. Are you saying Howie is missing?”

“He came here after breakfast, and never got home again, so don't you bother lying to me.”

I bounded to the edge of the stairs. “I'm not lying and I've had enough of the sanctimonious people of Independence thinking the worst of me.”

I started down the steps but Tully grabbed my arm. “Easy, girl,” he said, slowing me down and coming with me. At the bottom he stepped in front of me. “Now, Pearl,” he began, “you're barking up a tree that ain't got no coon in it. There's no one here but the four of us. Come up and have a cool drink and we'll talk.”

The door banged and Ziggy stepped out on the veranda.

“Hello, Pearl,” he said cheerfully. She didn't acknowledge Ziggy, never took her eyes off Tully and me.

“I smelt whiskey on his breath when he came home last night. If that's the sort of thing that goes on here now, I want no part of it. You know I don't hold with drinking, Tully.”

“I surely do, Pearl. I wasn't suggesting you drink no alcohol, just have a cold soda is all and we can talk about where Howie might be. He may be hurt or something, had an accident even.”

She straightened, shocked at this novel idea. “Accident, what accident?” She swung to the preacher. It had never occurred to her that her husband hadn't fallen into a pit of deprivation but had been the victim of some calamity. Why would she immediately think he was with another woman? There was an interesting story to be told about Howie Sweet.

“Come and set down for a minute, Pearl,” Tully said. “We can talk it over.”

She started forward, turned back, hesitated, started towards us again and then stopped. She'd probably sworn she'd never set foot in this house while Clay Adams' Jezebel was in residence. Tully went to her and took her arm, guiding her to the stairs. Pearl turned and looked when she reached me, undecided and conflicted. For a minute I thought she was going to spit on me.

Some folks like to hold onto outdated ideas of sin down here in Florida and things haven't changed all that much in the South from when I was a kid. Every time I think our Baptist past is…well, past, back it comes, ranting and roaring about damnation.

“Have you called your daughter?” I asked. “Maybe she knows where he is.”

She frowned. “Lovey and I don't talk. Howard talks to her but I don't.”

I made a rude sound and ran back up the stairs to where Uncle Ziggy cleared away the newspapers from the chair closest to the front door.

The door slammed behind me as I went into the house to look up the number for the diner.

Lovey answered. Like me she worked long hours, about the only way to make it in the restaurant business. After I told her the situation she said, “I haven't seen Dad all day. I wondered why he wasn't in, but with Lucan…” her voice caught and she fell silent. Then she said, “Oh, God.”

“Do you think your dad is running away?” Bad as that question was I didn't have the good sense to stop there but added, “Do you think he killed Lucan?”

“I don't know. I don't know anything anymore.”

“Where else should we look for your dad?”

“I don't know. Here, church, home and the ranch, those are the only places he goes. I've called the minister and he was going over to see Mom, see if she knew where Dad is.”

“Does your father have a cell?”

“No.”

“Okay, I'm going to call the sheriff.”

“I'll do it, might be better coming from me.”

“All right, I'll go tell your mother that your father is really missing.”

“Tell her…” but that was as far as she got. She sighed and said, “Never mind, she knows already. I'll call you back.”

Tully came into the kitchen and got two glasses from the cupboard. While he put ice and water in them I told him about what Lovey had said. “Doesn't look good,” Tully said. “I would have thought Howie was a man who never strays too far from what he knows. Something must have sent him off.”

We went back out and told Pearl and the minister that Lovey was getting in touch with the sheriff.

“I'm the Reverend Bates from the Independence Pentecostal Gospel Chapel,” the man in black said to me. “We surely do thank you for your kindness.” “Why would you think Howie was here?” I asked. Behind me Tully said, “Leave it, Sherri.”

“No, I won't leave it. Has Howie done this sort of thing before?”

Pearl's jaw worked like she was chewing spit.

“So where did you find him last time he disappeared?” I asked.

Reverend Bates cleared his throat. “Perhaps he's had an accident. We'd best check the hospitals.”

Pearl looked at him. “You're right; he could have been in an accident.” She was relieved by this thought. She'd rather Howie was dead in a ditch than in the arms of another woman. She set the glass down and struggled to get out of the chair.

Getting out of those old wicker chairs with the sagging bottoms wasn't easy at the best of times, but even worse for someone of Pearl's bulk. After thrashing about for a bit she finally managed to break free and get to her feet. As she went by me she said, “I'll pray for you.”

“Could you send money instead?”

“Sherri,” Tully admonished.

Her progress down the stairs, on knees that didn't seem to bend, was painful to watch.

“Y'all come again real soon,” I called as the minister opened the car door for her.

“You just can't resist, can you?” Tully asked as the door slammed shut behind Pearl.

“Hey, why should I behave better than they do? They were quite willing to think the worst of me. As if I'd have anything to do with Howie Sweet.”

He shook his head in disgust, “Let's go do the horses. Joey will appreciate you better than Pearl. You and that horse got a lot in common.”

The antique store was called Play It Again. It had once been the opera house in the glory days of Independence. An over-the-top structure with plaster gargoyles and other things stuck onto the stucco façade, bargains overflowed out onto the sidewalk. While Marley and I went inside to check out the deals, Tully and Zig went to the Gator Hole to pick up the gossip.

As we climbed the stairs I said, “You have to give them points for honesty and a sense of humor.” I pointed to a sign in the window that said, “We buy junk and sell antiques.” Inside, every inch of space from floor to ceiling was covered with stuff, some of it trash and some of it valuable and some just strange, like the pile of projection equipment from the old movie theater that had been in this building back in the fifties. Furniture, household goods and estate jewelry, Play It Again had it all.

Marley was in the throes of a shopping orgasm. “The great thing about Florida,” Marley told me, “is people move down here with all their favorite pieces and when they die their kids don't want to pay to have them shipped north again. There are always wonderful antiques to be had cheap.”

“If you say so,” I said, looking at a table lamp from the fifties with an orange shade and lots of silk fringe. “Maybe I should send this to Laura Kemp.”

“Maybe you should check out the price tag before you decide.”

I had a look. “Seventy-five dollars?” The price tag killed my shopping urge. “Maybe I'll just slip over to the Gator Hole and see if anyone knows where Howie is. I can buy a lot of beer for seventy-five bucks.”

Marley turned a wire rug beater over in her hands in a way that made me pay attention. “I want you right here with the credit card in case I find something we need.”

“Don't you think you should wait until tomorrow when we've seen what we've got?”

Something caught her eye. “Oh, look a gramophone.”

“I don't think we need one of those.”

She tapped me on the behind with the rug beater. “What we need is drapes for those front windows, or lace curtains.”

“I'm so not a lace curtain kind of person.”

“Great, then don't wear them, but the bay windows would like them just fine.”

A handsome man in his late forties came down the aisle towards us. Simon Ghent and Marley had an instant understanding, a true meeting of minds. They quickly forgot I was there.

“I've got the perfect thing,” he informed Marley after she told him what she was looking for. “Take them home and try them. If they don't work you can bring them back.”

He went to a huge old trunk full of dusty velvet where Marley started making sounds of pleasure like Prince Charming was making all the right moves.

“How much?” I asked. Marley held them up and asked, “How many?”

They stretched some red velvet out between them. The drape must have been over twelve feet long. “They'll be way too long,” I said in relief.

“They're supposed to be. They puddle on the floor,” Marley told me. “Excess, it's all about excess, baby, no restraint here.”

“Yeah? How much are they?”

“You can have them all for a hundred and fifty.”

“What?” I yelped.

Marley said, “We'll take them.”

It was another half-hour before I could drag Marley out of there and over to the Gator Hole.

At the door of the bar, the noise from inside was enough to drive you back outside. Tully and Zig hadn't lied about the place, an old-fashioned, nasty, dark-brown hole that time had missed. It was like coming home and I was grinning like a fool.

Inside it smelt of every beer that had ever been spilled on the floor and every bucket of grease that had been eaten there. The floor was made of some kind of wood that was beaten down and turned black from thousands of stomping boots grinding in the dirt. A long bar stretched along the wall opposite the doors. The room was so packed, people had to stand sideways to get a place to plant their elbows and their beers.

A low whistle welcomed us as we stepped inside. At first glance there weren't but half a dozen women in the room and not one of them was under the age of fifty so the hearty welcome was explained. The men cleared a path for us but the noise didn't diminish.

This was the kind of bar I'd come of age in, the kind of bar where fights broke out as easily as laughter. It made my heart beat faster and my lips stretch into a crazy smile of joy.

“Wow, I'd like to have half this crowd in the Sunset,” I told Marley over my shoulder as I made my way through the horde of bodies.

Marley leaned forward so I could hear her. “No you wouldn't. They wouldn't pay your prices.”

“But there wouldn't be the overheads. It's all relative.”

“Looking for someone?” A grinning ranch hand blocked my way.

Tully clapped a hand on the guy's shoulder. “Yup, and she just found him.” Tully handed the ranch hand his pool cue.

“Come on.” Tully bellowed to be heard over the loud drinking voices. “Let's go somewhere we can think.”

“You're getting old, Tully,” I shouted back at him. “You come to a place like this so you can't think.”

“Yeah, that's the trouble with a place like this. Half the people that walk through the door leave their brains behind.”

“Well, I like it.”

“You like it so well, why don't you buy it. Dole Legger wants to sell and I wouldn't mind being able to drink for free.”

“You already do.”

He laughed and looked around for Ziggy, who was still leaning over a shot at the pool table.

Zig looked up at Tully, nodded and took his shot, and then he stood and held out his hand to collect the money from the other guys at the table.

“The big guy hasn't lost his eye,” Tully said as Ziggy shouldered his way towards us.

“I think it's all about gaining, not losing for Uncle Ziggy. He's going to hit three hundred soon.”

“Already has,” Tully replied.

Zig and Tully bulldozed their way through the crush, with Marley and me following in their wake.

“Is it always like that?” I asked when we were on the sidewalk.

“Naw,” Tully said. “Only Saturdays, all the hired hands hit town on Saturdays. You don't want to be in the Gator Hole a couple of hours from now.”

“Oh, but I do.” It would be a walk down memory lane for me, a flashback to a misspent youth I was starting to miss and romanticize.

Tully and Zig walked ahead of us, disagreeing where we should go to eat. Seemed Zig thought we should go to Lovey's café but Tully wanted a place he could get a beer with his meal. Lovey didn't serve booze. Maybe she hadn't strayed as far from her mother's teachings as it seemed.

Their argument was ended by Marley saying, “I want a glass of wine.”

We headed past a tattoo parlor to a restaurant called The Veranda. It was a two-story white clapboard house with a broad veranda across the front. The tables on the front porch were all filled, so we opted for a table out back on worn decking under trees strung with lights. The air was full of the scent of orange blossoms from the field behind the restaurant. Soft music floated from speakers in the trees.

We'd barely given our drink orders when I asked, “Okay, has anyone seen Howie?”

“We just kinda asked if anyone had seen him today because he hadn't shown up for work,” Tully said. “Some guys thought he was out celebrating 'cause Lucan was dead, figured he was drinking himself silly. Those two had a real bad history. Lucan punched Howie out once.”

“Wasn't that all old history?”

“Seems Howie had a long memory for grievances.”

“Was there anything else?”

Tully grinned. “Howie has gone missing before. Not quite the upright citizen Pearl would like him to be. Other than that, no one seems to have any idea where Howie is.”

“Maybe he's been murdered like Lucan,” I offered. The three of them lowered their menus and looked at me. “Well, surely I'm not the only one wondering about that.” Their shocked expressions said I was.

Behind Tully a determined man was striding towards us. Tully read my face and turned to see who it was before climbing to his feet and offering his hand.

“Evening, Richard,” Tully said, shaking the man's hand. Turning to Marley and me, he said, “This here is Richard Arby. He owns Sweet Meadow Farm, the citrus farm next to Riverwood.”

Pleasantries were exchanged and Mr. Arby joined us, leaning on the table and getting down to business. “Your father and I play the odd game of pool over at the Gator Hole late in the afternoon,” he told me. “How do you like Independence?”

“Well, I'm more of a beach person, I guess. Not real interested in country things.”

He beamed at me as if I'd just complimented his favorite child. “This isn't the place for you; you have to be born here to take to it. If you can talk Clay into selling his farm, I'd be very pleased and pay him top dollar. He'll make money on the deal.”

“Have you asked Clay if he wants to sell?” He frowned and said, “We got off on the wrong foot.”

“You'll have to take your offer up with Clay.”

“I have. He's being stubborn. He's just playing over there, raising a few horses. I need his water, can't run my outfit without it.”

“Maybe Clay has plans for Riverwood,” Marley put in.

“What plans?”

Marley shrugged. “I don't know but I'm sure there are lots of things he might do with it. What about making it an orange grove?”

He snorted. “You don't know anything about growing citrus, do you? First of all, he doesn't have enough land. Back in the forties a man could make a pretty good living off as little as forty acres of trees. Not now. Growing citrus isn't a hobby like them horses he has. Over the years I've lost thousands of trees to canker disease, hurricanes, pests and freezing. It took years to build up my spread and even with all I've survived it may be the cheap juice coming in from Brazil that kills me. They have lots of land and cheap labor down there.” He raised a forefinger. “That's what makes them the number one producer of orange juice in the world and what makes Florida second. No one here wants to work in an orange grove. They all want to work indoors at something like stocking shelves.”

Marley wasn't giving up. “There must be other things Clay can do with the land.”

“Like harvesting the turtles?” He laughed. “Adams already tried to stop Lucan from doing that.” He leaned forward on the table, counting his arguments off on the fingers of his left hand. “A turtle brings a dollar to a dollar and a half a pound sold into the Asian market. On good days you could take fifteen to twenty turtles, nearly three hundred pounds' worth. Fresh water turtles have been a source of food for locals forever in Florida, and hunting for soft-shell turtles has always been a source of income for many people around Independence. It's called ‘cooter' on local menus. You see that listed, you know you're getting fresh turtle.”

“But turtles aren't just being hunted for the local area, now,” I put in. “They're being hunted to extinction to sell into the Asian market. At the rate Percell was mining this turtle resource it would soon be wiped out — one man's greed overcoming nature and common sense.”

“You sound like one of those artists,” Richard Arby said. There was no mistaking his disgust.

The artists, glass blowers, painters and potters that had moved to Independence for cheap housing, were very big on the environment, and had supported Clay in his efforts to stop the massive killing of turtles in Jobean Lake and the creeks emptying into it. The argument over turtles had divided the town, with the artists and newcomers on one side and the ranchers and longterm residents on the other. The separation had always been there, but now it was out in the open and bitter.

“Thanks to Clay Adams, you're screwed round here if you was planning to make money off turtle hunting.” He stretched back in his chair. “The only thing valuable about Adams' property is the water and that's only valuable to the Breslaus and me.” He smiled. Clay's unfortunate position was the first happy thought he'd had since I met him.

I had enough of the joys of farming. “Howie Sweet didn't show up this morning. Have you seen him?”

“Nope, but then Howie and I aren't on the best of terms. He'd hardly stop by.”

“His disappearance is a little worrying, given what happened to Lucan.”

“Lucan was already halfway drunk when he came into the Gator Hole Thursday night; didn't take much more to have him staggering. His killer should have let him drive home, probably would have climbed a tree with that old truck of his and saved all the bother.”

Marley said, “You don't seem too upset at his death.”

He shrugged. “So who is?”

“April Donaldson,” I answered.

“Well, she'll get over it. It ain't like he's a big loss.” He read our faces, scratched his nose and said, “Excuse me, shouldn't make light of it, a man is dead.” His apology faded when he added, “But not much of a man.”

We were back at Riverwood by nine o'clock and we all straggled off to our beds shortly after.

City habits die hard. Even though there were no other houses around, no other people, I went to pull the drapes across the window. I hate the bare empty eye of a dark window. I always feel something is out there watching. This time I was right.

I jumped away from the window. There was something out there. Then I saw it again. Now I leaned on the sill to see what had caught my eye.

In the woods lights danced. Not small lights, mind you, but more like search lights, the kind that hunters mounted on their vehicles to hunt down prey in the dark.

I started to call Tully but what could he do? I sure didn't want him going out there to check out the lights. Whatever was happening out there, well, I didn't want to know.

It was going to be a long night. In a house that wouldn't lock, out in the middle of nowhere, and the only people to hear me scream were two guys in their sixties who could sleep over the sound of each other's snoring. How important was this party? Maybe I should just go back to Jac.

The dead haunt my dreams. Unwelcome and uninvited, they accuse and threaten. That night I dreamt of Jimmy. Suddenly awake and in a sweat, the damp sheet tangled around me, I searched for what had jolted me from my dreams. I kicked off the binding shroud and listened to the dark.

Every sense was alive. Blood pumped madly through my veins. Against the screen a dying insect rattled his death throes. Was it that? Was that why I had awakened? Or was it just the old nightmare of a purple beach cottage, of being chased through a hurricane, trying to find a safe place to hide. In my nightmares I'm always trying to hide. My body was rigid with listening. Feeling hunted — like someone's quarry — was an old, terrifying nightmare, drenching me like my sweat. I'd gone months without nightmares but now they were back.

Somewhere outside in the dark a small animal screamed and went silent.

I strained to hear the sounds of someone coming for me. The same terrifying thought, the cruel possibility night always brought, “Is this the night Lester returns for me?” The monster from my past, my dark obsession, seemed real and true. Certainly the panic and fear were real.

Tonight there was an added dread. Lester wasn't the only one who might come after me. There was a face in the woods. Or it could be Boomer Breslau, loud and sure of himself, breaking down doors to get at me. Tonight there were too many reasons for panic to talk myself out of it. I laid back down, waiting…too afraid to get out of bed, too afraid to turn on the light, too afraid to act.

The old wood on the stairs creaked and then went silent.