Saving Grace (Katie & Annalise Book 1) (16 page)

When we pulled up in front of Ava’s nondescript white masonry house, I decided I’d have just enough time to shower before I went to see the investigator if I could get her to pick up the futon. I pulled out a fistful of bills.

“Ava, could you get someone to run you out to buy a futon? I smell awful, and I only have time to shower if I don’t go to K-Mart.”

“No problem, mon,” she said, taking the money and getting out of the car.

I ran into the house and made a sharp right into the shower. She had decorated her blue bathroom with swirls and twirls of seashells glued right to the wall in a Nautilus pattern. The room was so small that I had to stand partway in the shower to blow-dry my hair. I donned a yellow linen sundress. I wanted to feel put together when I saw Walker, and this appointment had me out of sorts. I’d left three voicemail for him the week after the McMillan trial, none of which he’d returned. Then, of course, I’d seen him last night, only to have him pretend he didn’t see me.

“Jacoby on his way to get me,” Ava said as I left.

“Thanks,” I yelled as I ran out the door.

I cruised past the farmer’s market downtown, where for half a block, islanders displayed their wares in wooden bins under thatch-roofed huts. Big green breadfruit. Ovals of avocados. Bunches of tiny babyfinger bananas and their larger cousins, the starchy plantains. I couldn’t wait to do my shopping there. A round-bellied black woman sat in a rocker on the sidewalk, legs splayed, fanning herself with a paper plate as a handful of customers milled around between the bins.

I found a parking place on King’s Cross street about a half block from Walker’s office. As I pulled into the spot, a paw reached out and pushed on my thigh. Oso used my leg as leverage for his stretch, raising his hindquarters until he was in the perfect downward dog position. I guess I’d learned something in the Peacock Flower’s yoga class, after all.

I wasn’t used to carting a half-grown dog around town. What was I supposed to do with my new pal? I couldn’t leave him in the truck on our first day together. He’d feel abandoned. I clipped the leash to his collar and tugged.

“Let’s go, Oso,” I said.

Oso pulled back against the leash. OK, so he needed some training. No time like the present to start. I tugged again. He shook his head back and forth and chuffed. I looked at the clock on the dashboard. Emily would arrive in one hour. I had to hurry.

I approached Oso through the passenger’s side door and scooped the sixty-five-pound dog into my arms. Whoa, some puppy. I hefted his front legs over one shoulder to take some of his weight, then I slung his leash and my purse strap over the other shoulder. I’d just put him down when we got to Walker’s place. I shut the door with my hip and started down the street, then caught a glimpse of myself in a window. I was a red-haired version of a 1950s movie star, and Oso was the giant beaver stole over my outfit. Pretty ridiculous. I couldn’t do this again or I’d have escaped my crazy cat lady reputation in Dallas only to become the crazy dog lady on St. Marcos.

Walker’s office was only four doors down from my primo parking space, which was good, because I don’t think I could have dragged Oso any further. I didn’t have to go even that far, though, because Walker was leaving his office and locking his door behind him as I approached. I’d passed a law firm and a surf shop before Walked turned and saw me. He grunted.

“Mr. Walker, good afternoon,” I said. Oso squirmed.

“I’m on my way out,” he said.

“I can see that. Would you mind if I just walked with you for a moment?” I looked at the dog. “Oso, be still.”

“Actually, yes, I do mind. I’m not ready to discuss your case with you, and I don’t hold private client conferences in public.”

We were the only two people within one hundred yards in either direction, but I decided not to debate the relative public-versus-private aspects of conversing with me here. Oso decided he wanted down right that second, and he made it happen.
Okay, then.
I caught the end of his leash and wound it around my hand twice.

“When will you be ready to update me, Mr. Walker?” At this point, I just wanted a report, and to be done with him. Then I could regroup.

Oso lunged toward Walker and growled, nearly pulling my shoulder out of socket. I didn’t mind at all. Rashidi might be right about this dog escort business. Oso’s instincts were spot on. I didn’t like Walker much, either.

“Mind your dog,” he said, stepping back.

“Oh, he won’t hurt a fly,” I cooed, hoping I was wrong. “As to you updating me, since I’ve moved to St. Marcos, I’m available tomorrow. Or the next day. Any day. You name it.”

He didn’t remark upon or react to the news of my relocation. What great manners. “Wednesday. Wednesday at ten,” he said.

“Perfect. Oso and I will meet you here Wednesday at ten.” Walker was already backing away again when I remembered that I had another question to ask him. “Oh, Mr. Walker? Who was that man you were sitting with at Toes in the Water last night? The guy staring at my friend Ava and me?”

Now Walker was turned away from me and striding in the opposite direction from me and my truck. “I wasn’t at Toes in the Water,” he said, not even slowing down.

I pulled into the airport parking lot with no time to spare. I circled the lot three times before I saw a couple on the way to their car with twins pulling Minnie and Mickey Mouse suitcases. One was crying and the other kept dropping her suitcase, and their progress was agonizingly slow. When they were finally loaded into their car, I pulled into their spot, although I had to stare down a driver in a silver Lexus to get it. Apparently, she didn’t believe in waiting her turn.

The St. Marcos airport is small by stateside standards, but its runways are big enough to land some of the largest planes in the world, or so our captain had told us on my last flight in. Like most of the buildings on the island, it was stucco, and it was painted a festive salmon pink. There was a large private hangar on the far left, then a hangar for small Caribbean airlines. The ticket counters were in the middle of the airport, and customers queued up there under a porch-like roof. On the right side of the ticket counter was the door to Customs and Immigration, and beyond that was the hangar for the commercial flights to the states. The baggage claim area occupied the far right-hand side of the structure.

The smell of jet fuel lingered in the air and taxi drivers milled around the entrance to the bag carousels, offering their services and a rum punch to every traveler that passed. Piped in steelpan music played in the background, loud enough to hear over the rumble of the crowd deplaning to the left of baggage claim.

Oso and I met Emily at the deplaning passenger door. She had to be hot in her Wrangler jeans and white long-sleeved western shirt. And cowboy boots, of course, high-heeled cowboy boots, brown with turquoise inlays and stitching up the sides. Emily might dress for the Dallas legal scene at work, but when she didn’t have to play the part she reverted to her Amarillo roots. Her tall blonde hair was drooping and the strap of one of her cherry-red carry-on bags had pinned a large section of it down on her left shoulder, but she had a million-dollar smile on.

“Katie!” she hollered, which made me smile back.

“God bless you for packing in carry-ons,” I said. I hugged her, then picked up one of her bags. “You saved us an hour.” Plenty of people would be standing shoulder to shoulder in high humidity waiting for bags that only had to move thirty feet from the plane to the conveyor belt.

Emily hardly heard me. She was crouched down on the ground loving up Oso. In addition to the horses and cows on their small ranch, Emily’s family had raised some kind of hunting dogs. She kept pictures of them in her cubicle at work. Retrievers? Pointers? Spaniels? I didn’t know. Dogs for sure, though.

“I visit Rich’s family in Colombia every Christmas,” she said. “I figured quasi third world is the same everywhere.” She stood up. “Can I take your dog?”

I handed her the leash. “Be my guest. He hasn’t had any training yet, so you’ll get a shoulder workout. His name is Oso.”

I picked up her other bag. Now I was balanced.

“He’s perfect. I’ll have him trained before you know it. Won’t I, Oso? Because you’re a good, good boy, aren’t you?” she said.

Oso wagged his tail and fell in on her left as we walked to the car. I loaded her bags into the back of the truck, then pushed the clicker to unlock the doors.

“I hate to break it to you, Katie, but there’s not a thing wrong with Oso’s training.” Emily laughed and opened the door to my truck. “Up, Oso.” The dog jumped in obediently. “But don’t worry, I’ll have you trained by the time I leave instead.”

“Ha ha,” I said. But what was the saying about no bad dogs, only bad owners?

I exited the parking lot and decided to take the long way back to Ava’s. It was lunchtime, and I wanted to give Emily a taste of island culture. I turned right, toward the road that cut across the west side of the island. We’d swing near Annalise and cut back through the rainforest to drive along the beaches of the north shore.

Emily chatted as I drove. “You’re  so damn tan, after only two days. Wait, no, your freckles have just gotten closer together,” she said.

“I can’t even disagree with you on that. I’m a freakin’ snow leopard. But it looks good from a distance. You, though, Ms. Rodeo Barbie, you will have a killer sunburn when you go home. Two words: sun screen.”

“Who, me?” She slung her hair over her shoulder with a dip of her head, then batted her eyes. Her personality was a positive force that was already pushing out most of the poison left over from my Walker encounter.

“Was Rich OK with you coming?” I asked.

“Rich Shmich,” she said, rolling her eyes. “I love the man, but this isn’t the trip for him. He needs testosterone around or he doesn’t know what to do with his machismo self.”

Just then, my heart leapt into my throat as a tree branch ripped the driver’s side mirror off my truck. Emily screamed.

Crap! In order to avoid head-on collisions, I tended to drive as close to the left—and the bush—as I could. Sometimes this worked out better than others, roughly in proportion to when I was paying attention to what I was doing. This time, I’d gotten close enough to do about $350 worth of damage.

“Nice driving,” Emily deadpanned.

“Woopsie,” I said.

“How did you get used to driving on the wrong side of the road?” She craned her neck to see around the next curve.

“I’m not yet,” I confessed.

Emily gripped the armrest like it was a life preserver as we whipped through the trees. “Are we there yet? I’m too young to die.”

“Almost, but let’s stop for lunch first.”

“Is there a Dairy Queen around or something?”

“Or something,” I replied.

I pulled to a stop at the Pig Bar.

“This place serves food, and you eat it?” Emily’s mouth hung open and her upper lip curled down tightly as she took in the ramshackle grass-roofed hut.

I led her in. Now wasn’t the time to tell her I’d never tried the food here before.

By the time we left, though, Emily had wrapped Nancy, the proprietress and head cook, in a big bear hug and proclaimed herself a devoted fan. This had been Emily’s first johnnycake and Caribbean fry chicken, so I understood her enthusiasm. She had ordered a second johnnycake, and then a third for the road.

“Really?” I asked her, laughing.

“I know. If I don’t work it off, I’ll be the size of Goldie before I leave.” Goldie was her favorite horse, and not a small one at that.

Oso sat inert by her side, hoping for a scrap of leftovers, but Emily didn’t leave a crumb.

We arrived at Ava’s twenty minutes later, and Ava and Emily hit it off, as I knew they would. Neither was the jealous friend type. They wouldn’t be besties without me, but I bridged the divide between vampy Ava and wholesome Emily.

Ava offered us a bowl of fresh mangoes. “From Jacoby,” she said.

“I’d love one,” Emily said.

Ava pounded a mango against the table with its skin on to soften the fruit inside. When she had it pulped to her liking, she tore a hole in one end and sucked out the liquefied fruit. Ava made mango sucking sexy, like soft porn. Ava pounded another and offered it to Emily.

Emily stared at it. “Lord have mercy,” she said.

“Here, Emily,” I said. I took the pulverized mango from Ava, went into the narrow yellow galley kitchen, and tossed it at the garbage can. It knocked the hinged chrome top inward and fell to the bottom with a thunk. Oso sat on the Saltillo kitchen tile with his head cocked, studying me. “Dogs don’t like mangoes, boy.” I grabbed another mango, washed it and my hands, peeled and cored the fruit, then sliced it into hunks. I pulled a plate decorated with a spray of peonies from a mismatched set in Ava’s whitewashed cabinets and slid the slippery pieces of fruit onto it, then brought it back to Emily.

“Thank God,” she said.

“What?” Ava asked, but the gleam in her eye was knocking her halo askew.

I unloaded Emily into the living room that I had stayed in the night before, then went into the extra bedroom and saw the new futon with its black wooden frame. It was unfolded into its bed position, sans sheets. Details. I would put some on it later, if Ava had any more. Other than  the futon and a wall of boxes, the room was empty. A orange and yellow metal sunburst three feet across adorned one wall, the sole decoration in the space.

Ava brought out a lighted tabletop mirror and her large bag of makeup. She started painting on her performance face at the round green Formica-topped dining room table.

“Hey, I want you up there with me tonight, so get your slut face on, too,” she instructed me.

“You’ll get used to her,” I said to Emily. “Either that or you’ll be scarred for life, but either way you’ll never forget her.”

Just then, Ava yelled at her fat black cat. “No, Elvis! Don’t eat the lizard.”

“Lizards make cats sick, but Elvis loves them,” I explained to Emily.

“They make him hack up white goo on my sofa cushions and go loopy, and I hate them,” Ava said.

Emily pointed at Ava. “I love her,” she said to me. “Capital L Love her.” She put her hands on her hips and cocked her right one. “I just can’t believe you’re singing for money, Katie, since you’ve given it away for free at every open mike in Dallas for years.”

“Hoo, that a good one,” Ava said. “But I ain’t paying her tonight. This here a tryout.”

“Har de har har, tryout,” I said.

But truly? I was nervous. I had barely glanced through the playbook Ava had given me when we got home from Toes in the Water the night before. Sure, I could read music like a pro, but I hadn’t done it in years. I had a newly ripped cuticle to show for my fears. I found a band-aid under the sink in Ava’s bathroom and hid the damage.