Turtle Island (22 page)

‘What happened?’ For a moment Georgina felt dizzy, as the
shock began to register. She grabbed the edge of the chair for
support.

‘Are you okay?’ Leroy asked.

‘I’m alright...it’s just the run...it’s just the
run.’

‘I’ll get you a drink.’ Leroy walked to the kitchen and opened
the refrigerator door. A carton of opened grapefruit juice, three
pints of skimmed milk and an orange soda bottle, half empty,
greeted him.

‘Remind me not to come for dinner.’ He said quietly to
himself. His eyes cast over to the draining board by the sink. An
empty glass with a transfer on the clear surface saying ‘DRINK ME!’
was lying on its side waiting to fulfil its purpose. Leroy filled
the tumbler from the faucet.

‘Tap water good?’ He called in.

‘Yeah.’ Georgina’s voice sounded broken.

Leroy entered, holding the glass.

‘You sure you’re okay?’ He repeated.

‘This job, I get too involved sometimes. I always hate death.’
She sniffed, wiping her eyes with the corner of her sleeve. ‘Oh
God, I think I’m gonna be sick.’ Georgina straightened and steadied
herself, breathing deeply.

Leroy handed Georgina the glass, cold beads of water clung to
the surface of the tumbler like the tears that Georgina wanted to
cry but would only cry during the quiet moments alone.

Georgina looked at Leroy. The sadness evident in her face. She
shook her head. ‘It's just so sad...Korjca was a nice person. What
about Rick and his family, any leads?’ She changed tack.

Leroy grabbed his coffee and took a long slow gulp. ‘Your
hunch was right. Frusco and Rick...all of us I guess, except you,
were too keen to close the case back on Turtle Island.’ Leroy
paused. ‘Charles Fleisher wasn't our man; sure he was a bastard who
got his thrills by tying up and fucking his daughter’s teacher;
pardon my French. But he wasn't the Dentist or whatever name the
media wished to give him. He's still out there.’

‘Fleisher was part of something bigger.’ Georgina knew the
implications ran deeper than the surface impression. Apart from
having to return to Turtle Island and try to find the perpetrator
of the original crimes as well as find Rick and his family, she
also knew that there would now be a full enquiry by her superiors
into her actions in resolving the original case. Georgina shook her
head.

‘Shit.’

‘I know; it sucks.’ Leroy sympathised with modest
understatement.

The flight back to Missouri was as bad as Georgina had
expected. Air pressure played havoc with her sinuses, causing
excruciating pain, and bad turbulence only added to her misery. The
sudden drops in altitude churning the contents of her stomach,
which already had a higher than usual acid content brought on by
the anxiety of flying and bad news. She gripped the steady handle
in the toilet and hung her head over the open bowl, trying to force
the contents from her stomach, but to no avail. It seemed she was
destined to spend the entire flight suffering discomfort. Leroy sat
watching the in-flight movie, headphones secured over his ears. A
squeaky clean, edited version of ‘Along Came a Spider’. Leroy liked
Morgan Freeman as an actor; the man has a quiet, stately grace that
many in his trade would do well to inherit. In all the years that
Leroy had been flying it always amazed him how the airline industry
managed to mess up so many good films with just a pair of scissors
and a morality that was slightly higher than that of God. The plane
hit another bank of clouds, Leroy remained oblivious, engrossed in
the feature, nor did he notice that Georgina had been out of her
seat occupying the mid-cabin toilet for the best part of half an
hour. A stewardess knocked for a second time on the door and called
through.

‘Are you alright in there or do you need some
assistance?’

Georgina looked at her sallow complexion and splashed water
over her face once more.

‘I’m alright, I’ll be out in a minute.’

The plane rumbled through the cloudbank. Georgina gripped the
handrail tighter and wished that the plane would either hurry up
and land, or crash. In her present state of discomfort either
option would have suited her fine.

‘There are people waiting out here for the toilet, Miss
O’Neil.’ The stewardess voice called through the door once
more.

Georgina wiped her mouth with a paper towel and stared once
more at her reflection in the mirror. Tiny blood vessels in the
whites of her eyes were rupturing, streaking tramlines of blood
toward the iris and pupil. The pain in her head increased as she
felt the aircraft rise in altitude, leaving her stomach
floundering. A third knock at the door prompted her to reach out
and unlock the latch. She opened the door to be greeted by the
exasperated face of one of the passengers. A young man with a
serious attitude problem. He ‘dussed and tutted’ as he barged past
Georgina, before she could make her way out of the small cubicle.
She staggered back to her seat, using the headrests to steady her
progress and slumped down next to Leroy, who remained unaware of
her discomfort.

‘This is a good film.’ Leroy said without breaking eye contact
with the screen on the back of the headrest. Georgina reached
forward for the sick bag, hating every second of the flight. She
rested her head back, closed her eyes and prayed for sleep, while
gripping on to the small white bag. Every noise, every whine of the
engine, every voice that talked, from whiney children to arguing
couples, entered her head, nothing escaped. Her senses suddenly
seemed to be on hyper alert and try as she might to sleep, she
couldn't. The blackness of closed eyelids was not a sanctuary as
purple and blue flashing spots invaded the darkness. A menagerie of
thoughts and images started to play games inside her head, memories
of her time at Turtle Island six months previously. Faces; Korjca's
smiling slightly rounded face. Her pure white skin. The sight of
Karen Fuller's dead body lying sprawled and naked, under the dead
weight of Charles Fleisher. Georgina had her own in-flight movie on
constant play.

The sound of the cabin bell resonating broke the images.
Georgina opened her eyes. The film on the screen had finished and
been replaced by a map showing an animated aircraft moving over an
area marked Missouri. The no smoking sign was illuminated and the
captain spoke over the address system informing her that they were
about to land in approximately ten minutes.

‘You been asleep.’ Leroy informed her.

Somehow she had managed to fall asleep, but how and when, like
most sleep, would remain a mystery. As the plane started its
descent to the airport, Georgina gripped the armrests tighter, her
discomfort now displaced by her fear of crashing. The landscape of
Missouri came into view through the small window to Leroy's left.
The plane would pass over Turtle Island before landing, Leroy
watched out for the small enclave surrounded by water. Georgina
eyes were clenched as tightly shut as were her hands encompassing
the rounded ends of the armrests. As the plane lowered, cars came
into view, milling around, carrying people making their way home
after a long day at work. The aircraft followed the highway that
led to Turtle Island. Independence Bridge appeared, the link to the
Island. Car headlights were being switched on as dusk began to
settle over Missouri. Within three minutes the plane’s tyres were
touching down on the airport runway and Georgina's heart rhythm
began to settle to a more accustomed pattern.

The air temperature was warmer than Portmorion but much more
comfortable than her previous visit. Early 60's Fahrenheit,
Georgina guessed. Leroy loaded her small case into the boot of his
car, while she pulled a cardigan around her shoulders just to keep
the coming night chill away.

Jo-Lynn tried to move her legs; the cold water was doing its
level best to numb them. She curled her toes constantly to keep the
circulation of blood moving in them. She no longer had any idea how
long she had been kept tied to the chair. The darkness and the cold
water were the two constants that remained unchanged throughout her
ordeal and both played havoc with her senses. Time was irrelevant;
it became suspended, like her senses. The tape over her mouth was
uncomfortable at least she could swallow and breathe with ease
though she didn't know how much longer she could last before
hypothermia began to set in as the cold began to seep through her
bones. She prayed that Ray was no longer immersed in the water. If
he was, she feared for his life. The thought of him sitting in the
cold water, alone and afraid, was about the only thing spurring
Jo-Lynn on, keeping her from crumbling, she needed to be strong for
Ray. She promised herself that she would take any half chance, any
opportunity at all, to escape. Jo-Lynn tried to call through the
tape, she desperately wanted to hear from her son, some sign of
life, a noise, a muffled cry, anything would be welcome but her
effort was left unanswered. She tried to move her legs, break the
tape that was binding them together.

He watched her struggle, fascinated by the maternal bond that
was driving her forward, forcing her fight, driving her on, giving
her strength that He knew all too well. He held a torch, the
temptation to turn it on, let her know why she was here. It was
nearly time for an explanation, things were becoming a little
clearer in His head. The time was getting closer...closer. He stood
up; sending tiny ripples of water to splash against Jo-Lynn's legs
and continued watching her face all the time. The image speckled,
through the night sight strapped to his head but none the less
effective. He turned and looked at the chair beside Him and saw the
body of Rick Montoya, slumped half unconscious, bound to the seat.
To His side were three steps leading to a small platform with a
further seven steps, going up to a door, whose white luminescence
was almost blinding through his night sights lenses. He walked up
the steps and through the door bolting it shut from the
outside.

Jo-Lynn sat for a moment, listening hard in the dark for any
noise from Ray. She tried to shuffle her chair, dragging it toward
the corner where she had a brief glimpse of her son. She inched the
chair forward slowly. The sound resonating in the hollow cavernous
room, followed by the sound of water breaking against the far wall,
and her own efforts escaping from her lips as muffled anxiety. She
wanted to call her husband, wake him; work out a plan to escape.
She moved the chair sideways. One of the legs fell in to a rut, a
divot under the pitch-black murky water causing Jo-Lynn to
overbalance and fall sideways. Her face felt the embrace of water
in the dark, as her head submerged. Momentary panic swept through
her as her body remained tethered to the chair. Instinctively, as
the chair began to topple, Jo-Lynn inhaled a deep lungful of air
and closed her eyes. The sensation of water over her head whilst
strapped to the chair, filled her with dread. She tried to lift her
head, turning it to one side. The thought ran through her mind as
to how long her lungful of air would last. The prospect of drowning
in this hell spurred her on. Jo-Lynn tried to establish her
bearings but it was almost impossible, down was up, up was down,
everything was black. Her feet seemed to be above the water level,
she hoped that she was lying on her back, bubbles began to escape
from her mouth as the pressure inside her chest increased. She knew
that soon she would have to exhale and after that, barring a
miracle, she also knew it was just a matter of time until she would
have to breathe in. She rocked the chair trying to unbalance it
from its prone position, each effort resulting in more air escaping
from her lungs. One last attempt finally moved the chair from her
back to her side and with it the last gasp of air in her lungs, her
face briefly felt the rush of cool air and in that fraction she
breathed in, before once again being submerged. She wanted to
scream; anger and hatred began building to an explosive level
within her. The chair settled on its side. The top of her head was
just above the water level now but her nose and mouth remained
below the surface. She held onto her last breath and struggled and
kicked with all her might, unwilling to let her life end without a
fight. The tape that secured her shoulders suddenly gave and she
was able to lift her head above the water. She breathed in through
her nose, feeling water flow down her throat. She swallowed and
tried to gulp the air filling her lungs.

The car bumped over the ramp as it drove on to Independence
Bridge. The sensation woke Georgina from a brief doze. Sleep
overcoming her almost as soon as she rested her head back against
the restraint. Leroy drove along with the radio low; thought's
buzzing through his head, all the time thinking, trying to obtain
some sort of grip on the case. He was determined to resolve the
case within his last three weeks but he was equally resolved to
leave on the set date. He had lost Lia once and had no intention of
doing so a second time. Georgina looked through bleary eyes at the
dashboard and the windscreen ahead of her, for a moment she was
back in her hire car during that sunny day six months previously.
The Saturday of the basketball match. She remembered the tooth on
the dashboard, the small child’s tooth. The one time that the
killer made contact with her. The whole incident forgotten or lost
during the hunt for Charles Fleisher. The tooth would be sitting in
a plastic bag tagged as evidence, never to be used, as no trial
would follow the death of Fleisher. The ends of the case had all
been wrapped up so neatly with his death. Dead men don't talk. She
could see the tooth lying on Leroy's dashboard, so vivid was the
image she almost reached forward to grab it.