Unexpected Dismounts (24 page)

So India packed Ophelia up and took her home. Ophelia held me hard and cried before she left, but when I whispered to her that India could teach her things I couldn’t—like how to dress, maybe—she smiled into my eyes.

I hoped Bonner would leave with them, but he didn’t. Which maybe was fine, since I would have been left alone with Sylvia’s memory, looking at me like I’d just broken curfew and saying, “Now, about you putting our home up for sale.” At least Bonner I could argue with.

Still, I turned my back to him and headed for the kitchen before I said, “You’re going to try to talk me out of this sale, aren’t you?”

He stopped me in the dining room with a surprising tug at my sleeve. “How can I not?” He looked down at the table. “I sat right here and helped the Sisters pick out the colors for their rooms at Sacrament House.”

“Don’t do that,” I said. “It isn’t easy for me, either.”

“So hold off. At least for a while. Now that Ophelia’s taken care of—”

“What about Zelda? She’s not going to be in rehab forever. ”

Bonner folded his arms and stared at them.

“What?” I said.

“I would do just about anything for you, Allison. You know that.”

“Unless it went against your own conscience.”

His face came up abruptly. “How did you know I was going to say that?”

“I don’t know. I just did. But I don’t get why selling this place for me would put you crosswise with your integrity.”

“There’s just something about it that seems wrong. I can’t put my finger on it.”

I shrugged. “Well, until you do—”

“Until I do, I don’t know if I can even list it for you.”

I stared at him. “We have a contract for the Taylor place!”

“You haven’t signed it yet. And neither have I.”

“You’re just going to let the deal fall through?”

“There are other Realtors.”

“None that I trust like I do you!”

“Then don’t do this.” Bonner pressed his hands into the table and leaned toward me. “I believe in Sacrament House every bit as much as you do, Allison, but I also have to trust my gut. And it’s telling me there is something just not right about this.”

He didn’t pull his gaze from me, even when I rolled my eyes and turned away.

“Do I do that to you when you get a Nudge?” he said.

“No.”

“So you’re the only one who can have them?”

I looked back at him. There was fear in his face—fear that I’d give him the answer he knew was wrong. That I knew was wrong.

“Where’s the contract?” I said.

He closed his eyes as if I’d slapped him. “In the car. I’ll go get it. There’s a list of other brokers with it.”

“No,” I said. “How long do we have without signing it before the Taylor deal’s off?”

“Forty-eight hours.”

“Keep it for forty-eight hours, then.”

“And then what?”

“I don’t know.” I swallowed the lump I couldn’t explain. “A lot can happen between now and Sunday night.”

“I hope a lot does,” Bonner said.

He left without mentioning the dinner we were supposed to have together, and I was fine with that. I needed to be alone, at long last, to sort things out.

But the minute he left, the stillness attacked me. I had to do something—something I couldn’t screw up.

I took a stab at cleaning out the refrigerator, but Hank’s assortment of leftovers made that too overwhelming. Laundry. I’d do laundry.

I ventured into Desmond’s room to collect his clothes from under the bed and over the chair and in the bottom of the closet. One random sock even hung over the side of his trash can. When I bent over to retrieve it, a penciled eye seethed up at me. I’d already drawn back my hand when I realized I was looking at Desmond’s eye-patch caricature.

I dumped the dirty underwear on the floor and pulled out the drawing. It had been crumpled, savagely, so that even after I smoothed it out, the cratered forehead was twice as disturbing as before. Who
was
this person? Or was it even human? The piece of Desmond’s artwork I treasured most was his depiction of God: a figure on a Harley who looked suspiciously like Chief. Could this be his rendition of Satan?

I shivered and started to re-crumple the paper, but I decided against it. I should probably show it to Chief and get his take on it.

So the clothes went into the washer and the drawing went under the cushion in the red chair and I went back to imagining Sylvia drumming her fingers and waiting for an answer.

“I don’t have one,” I said out loud. “And I’m about to flip my stuff all the way out.”

I was grateful for the sudden thought that I hadn’t told the Sisters about Chief yet. I grabbed my leather jacket and my Harley key and was all the way out on the porch before I realized I was functioning on automatic pilot.

You can.

I grinned. That wasn’t God’s voice. It was Chief’s.

You should.

I zipped up my jacket. I needed a ride. It had been so long since I’d felt that energy under me, so long since I had let my prayers and my questions roll themselves out with the throttle.

You can do it
, Chief had said.

I had to trust him on that.

Chief’s Road King did feel different from my bike, heavier, maybe, and somehow more responsive to my touch. As I left the Spanish-moss-blowing-in-the-breeze part of St. Augustine behind, the soft night began to wrap itself in fog, covering the Magic Moment clientele in the gutter who had already called it a night, and leaving only the hopeful picture of old Maharry turning off the lights in C.A.R.S.

I felt
There is good, yes?
soothing my face in the cooling air.

Yes. There is some good.

But I didn’t feel the good when I pulled up to Sacrament House and cut off the engine. Every light in the place was on and the shades and curtains were drawn and pulled like the Castillo de San Marcos preparing for attack. As I hurried up the walk, someone pulled back the front drape a quarter of an inch.

“This is not good, yes,” I whispered to God.

Mercedes opened the door, eyes flashing.

“Come in, Miss Angel. Everybody freakin’ out in here.”

I stepped inside the door, and her face immediately changed.

“You got somethin’ good to tell for once,” she said.

They would speak of nothing else until I gave them the news about Chief. Although Jasmine cried and Sherry hugged my neck and Mercedes said mmm-
mmm
at least five times, whatever they were holding back bled through.

“All right, ladies,” I said. “Give it up. What happened?”

“It wasn’t anything,” Sherry said.

“Yes it was!” Jasmine cried.

“All right, just hush up.” Mercedes stared at them both until Sherry jerked her face toward the wall and Jasmine plucked a Kleenex out of the box.

“I don’t want you to hush up,” I said. “I want one of you to tell me what’s going on. Please.”

“They were already here when I got home from work,” Sherry said. “So I don’t know anything.”

“They aksed you questions too,” Jasmine said.

“
Who
?” I said.

Mercedes rolled her eyes. “It was two cops. Asking us if we knew anything about what happened to Ophelia. Like we would, like just because we used to be on the street we know everything about every hooker ever lived in this town.”

I couldn’t stop a sigh of relief. “That’s a good thing. It means the police are finally getting serious about finding the person who raped her.”

“Huh,” Sherry said.

“What does that mean?”

She tightened her ponytail, inspected her nails, did everything but answer. I looked at Jasmine, who melted under my gaze.

“I don’t much like that Ophelia girl,” she said. “She was a high-price ho thinks she better than us. But it was still like a insult to all of us, the way them cops was actin’.”

“Which was how?” I looked at Mercedes.

“Anybody with two eyes could see they didn’t give a rip ’bout Ophelia bein’ raped. They just want to put it on somebody so they can go about they business.”

“What kind of questions were they asking?” I said. “Wait. Nicholas Kent wasn’t one of them, was he?”

“That freckle-face boy?” Jasmine shook her head. “Unh-uh.”

“Officer Kent wouldn’t treat us like we trash,” Mercedes said. “They was all like, ‘we know don’t nobody change that much. You can get us samples from johns and we can wrap this up.’”

“Samples?” I said. “DNA samples?”

“They think we’re still working the streets,” Sherry said. “I’m over there slaving my butt off with my father, trying to stay clean, and they come in here telling me to turn tricks so they can ‘wrap it up.’”

I was sure my head was going to explode if I didn’t physically hold it together with both hands.

“What did you tell them?” I said.

Sherry sniffed. “I didn’t tell them anything. I don’t talk to cops unless I absolutely have to.”

“Mercedes?”

“I was afraid to open my mouth.”

“They threatened you?”

She licked her substantial lips. “No. I was scared I was gon’ threaten
them.
It was Jasmine set ’em straight.”

“What did you say to them, Jazz?” I said.

“I just tol’ them Sacrament House Sisters don’t sell they bodies no more. Not for nobody.”

Mercedes finally smiled. “She tried to tell ’em about Jesus, but they didn’t want no part of that.”

I wasn’t sure Jesus wanted any part of them either, whoever they were. And whoever they were, I was going to find out.

Once I was sure the Sisters were finished freaking out, I left the House and hurried to Chief’s bike, my cell phone already in my hand. Nicholas didn’t answer, but I left him a message and hoped he could hear the fury in my voice. Maybe it was a good thing he didn’t pick up. I might not have been able to refrain from calling his brothers in uniform what no woman of God should call anybody. Even if they
were
jackals.

I had to sit on the Road King for a good five minutes before I felt safe to ride. Even then I took off too fast and almost lost it on the first turn. I was shaking when I got to West King and headed back toward the historic district. That was probably why I didn’t notice at first that the car behind me was way too close.

“Come on, back off,” I muttered into my helmet.

I tried slowing down, hoping the driver would get frustrated and pull around me. There was virtually no traffic at that hour. It wasn’t like he couldn’t pass.

But the more I geared down, the closer he crept to my tail pipe. If I lost any more speed I wasn’t going to be able to keep my balance. Ahead, the light at the St. George Street intersection turned yellow. I rolled the throttle and bulleted through it. The driver of the car gunned its engine and ran it right behind me.

Tentacles of fear threatened to wrap themselves around my brain. I had to get away from this loser before my already unsure riding landed me in the gutter.

Toques Place was only a few yards away. I still hated those alleys on a bike, but I waited until the last second to downshift and made the turn without dumping it. The only light ahead of me came from the beam from the Road King, which meant I narrowly missed that same line of trash cans I’d almost taken out before. Using up the last morsel of my wits, I reached out and grabbed one as I rode by. I had to speed up to keep from hitting it myself, so I wasn’t altogether sure it fell over. I didn’t dare look back, though, not until I reached the other end. I could only steal a glance before I rounded the corner onto Hypolita. The car still sat there, behind a domino pile of garbage cans.

Even through the lifting fog I could see it. A black car, with black windows.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Although the dark car didn’t find me to follow me home, it chased me for hours in my dreams, and I woke up at dawn marinating in my own sweat. Someone else was evidently awake, too, because I was just stepping out of the shower when my phone rang.

I hoped it was Nicholas Kent, who still hadn’t gotten back to me, but it was Ms. Willa, who greeted me with, “How is a person supposed to sleep with you roaring through the back alley like a Heck’s Angel in the middle of the night?”

Not knowing which part of that to try to unpack, I just laughed.

“I fail to see the humor,” she said, though I could hear it in her yippy bark. “Why didn’t you stop by while you were in the neighborhood?”

I grabbed my bathrobe and struggled into it with my one free hand. “Like you said, it was practically the middle of the night.”

“Well, what about now?”

“I’m sorry?”

“I said what about now? I want to talk to you.”

Since Ms. Willa seemed to get whatever she wanted, I said I’d be there in thirty minutes. Besides, twice I’d thought she was going to write a check for Sacrament House. Maybe the third time was the charm.

“And don’t bring that noisy piece of machinery with you,” she said.

“Yes, ma’am,” I said.

I got dressed and was about to go out the door when I saw Desmond’s silhouette of Ophelia’s rapist on the bistro table with a Post-it note attached.

Opie Taylor made this copy and left it for you. Hank

It took me a second to realize she was talking about Nicholas. There was so much going on that I couldn’t keep up with, I didn’t even try to figure out when all of that had taken place. I rolled the drawing carefully and stuck it in my bag and took off on foot for Ms. Willa’s.

It was one of those late-March mornings in north Florida when the air is so soft you wear it like a cashmere sweater. With the sun playing against the coquina walls and the moss roses starting their journeys through the flower beds, I had a hard time believing this was the same labyrinth of dark alleys I’d ridden through with my heart up to my tonsils the night before. I wondered if maybe I’d just overreacted.

The disgruntled man in bermuda shorts and a canned tan picking up trash containers at the end of Toques told me otherwise. I hurried past and turned onto Cuna, the cashmere air forgotten.

Speaking of fine fibers: When I arrived, Ms. Willa was already decked out in a chartreuse silk number that did nothing for her complexion. I was glad to see she hadn’t gone for the matching hair today. Just as before, she didn’t get out of the chair. The same unsmiling Hispanic woman let me in, and Ms. Willa told me to sit on the brocade love seat and pour the tea.

Like I said, Ms. Willa was used to getting what she wanted.

“I see you didn’t waste time dressing for the occasion,” she said.

“You told me to come right over,” I said. “I don’t wake up looking like I’m ready for the Easter parade the way you obviously do. Sugar?”

“Milk. That’s the only way to drink tea.”

I handed her the china cup, but she just looked at me.

“You’re right attractive when you aren’t telling everybody to go to hell,” she said.

“I never told anybody that!”

She pondered the tea for a moment. “No, I guess not. That was probably me. I get the two of us confused. We’re on the same mission.”

“Are we?” I put two cubes of sugar in my tea and then wished I hadn’t. Their failure to dissolve indicated they might have been in the bowl since Ms. Willa’s society debut. “And what is our mutual mission?”

“We both want to see Troy Irwin go down.”

I sagged. “That’s not my mission, Ms. Willa,” I said.

She ignored me as she attempted to peel the newspaper from the piecrust table at her left elbow. The old fingers looked stiffer than usual this morning, and the length of the nails didn’t help. I was about to offer to get it for her when she was finally successful enough to get it into her hand and wave it toward me.

“Page Two, Column A,” she said. “Read that.”

I set down my tea and looked at the section she already had it folded to. The paper smelled like it had been soaked in Ms. Willa’s lavender talcum powder. I stifled a sneeze.

“‘Alleged Rape Reported’?” I said. “Is that the one you want me to read?”

“That’s one of your girls, isn’t it?”

“It is. Ophelia Sanchez. You washed her feet.”

“Was she assaulted?”

“She was.”

Ms. Willa jabbed her arthritic index finger at me. “Then why does it say ‘alleged’?”

“Because—”

“I will tell you why. They think she’s lying. The police, the doctors, everybody. They think because she was a—how did they put that? Let me see it.”

She snatched the paper back and squinted at the print. “Right here. ‘Sanchez’—they couldn’t even call her by her first name—‘has been arrested twice for solicitation.’ Why don’t they just come right out and say she was a—”

“You’ve got me, Ms. Willa,” I said. I stood up and went to the window, but the sunlight dancing through the lace had lost its charm. “What I don’t understand is why it’s just now making the paper. It happened a week ago.”

“Because this town is so determined to keep its so-called image, the powers that be will do anything to cover up a stain.” She dropped the newspaper back on the piecrust table in disgust. “This has Troy Irwin’s fingerprints all over it.”

I turned from the view of the town in question and returned to the chair. “As much as I would love to blame anything I can on Troy Irwin, I don’t get the connection.”

“My word, child, he owns the
Record
and everybody who works there. The chief of police has his hand in Irwin’s pocket. He bought that new wing at the hospital, so everybody in a white coat bows down to him.” Ms. Willa’s eyes seemed to grow closer together. “I like that girl. She shows promise. But she won’t amount to a thing with this following her like a bad smell. I want to help you take Troy Irwin down.”

There was something about this I wasn’t understanding. I folded my hands under my chin. “Maybe it would help if you told me what exactly it is that you have against him.”

She licked her dry lips as if she relished the opportunity. I might regret asking, but I settled in to hear.

“I was only married to my late second husband, Quincy Livengood, for fifteen years,” she said. “Married him when I was sixty-four, and he died five years ago.”

There was nothing wrong with her arithmetic.

“Before that I was Willa Renfroe for thirty-five years.”

Renfroe. That was a name I recognized, vaguely. It made me uneasy enough to have belonged to one of my father’s associates.

“Now he was my first husband, you understand.”

I wasn’t sure I did. It was hard to keep up.

“Harold Renfroe built a successful financial firm in St. Augustine from the ground up, and he never borrowed a dime to do it. He was a man of integrity and a genius with money.” Ms. Willa’s voice went from proud to shrill. “And then Chamberlain Enterprises put him out of business, and it killed him.” She worked her mouth, forcing the web of lines into a sad dance. “I held your father personally responsible, not only for Harold’s death, but for my being left virtually penniless.”

I rubbed at the ache in my chest. “Unfortunately, Ms. Willa, you weren’t the only one that happened to. My father was a ruthless man and I’m ashamed to be related to him.”

“I know you’re nothing like him or we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

I looked around at the camelback sofas and the Lladró clowns watching us from the china cabinet. “If you were left with nothing—”

“I was rescued by Quincy Livengood. He was a bachelor of some means.”

Ya think?

“And he promised to support me and help me seek restitution from Chamberlain Enterprises.” Her eyes nearly met over her nose. “By then it was being run by Troy Irwin, who still had peach fuzz on his cheeks. But he was evidently trained by the best, or the worst, I should say.”

“My father,” I said.

“Quincy was never successful in taking Irwin down. He left me everything, and I know I should be satisfied with that.”

Again, ya think?

“But I still lie in the bed sometimes with a bitter taste in my mouth because that company cost my first husband his life, and not just his, as you say. Troy Irwin is still undermining everything that ever
was
good about the people of substance in this town. He doesn’t think of us as people. You saw him at Cordova that day. He didn’t even know who I was.”

Ms. Willa let out a long, uneven breath and caved slightly into the chair. Her face was gray, and I was sure that wasn’t due to wearing an all-wrong shade of green.

“You don’t have the money,” she said, “but you’ve got the good. I’m a bitter old woman, but I do have the means. Together, we can stop him.”

I pushed out a long breath of my own. This would be the answer to so much of what was roiling around in my life. In all our lives. Bonner wouldn’t have to list my house. Desmond and I could stay there. There would be a place for Zelda and Ophelia and more.
Wouldn’t there, God?

I got nothing. Except the image of India having a stroke if she heard what I was about to say, what I
had
to say.

“Ms. Willa,” I said. “There is a part of me that wants to storm the Bastille and march down St. George Street with Troy’s head on a pole.”

“Now you’re talking,” she said.

“But I can’t take your money and use it for that. If you give to Sacrament House, it has to be so we can buy a second house for more women who need help, not so we can outbid his investors and buy up all the businesses on West King Street. Your money has to be given to what we are
for,
not what we’re
against.
”
I shrugged. “Besides, although I’m flattered, I don’t know why you think I could pull off what neither of your husbands were able to do, and they were financial wizards.”

Ms. Willa jerked forward in the chair so sharply, I thought she was the one having a stroke. “They didn’t have your passion,” she said. “That’s what this town needs.”

“Then this town needs God,” I said. “Because that’s where it comes from. It’s not me.”

The old head shook. “I don’t understand you, Allison Chamberlain,” she said. “But I think I admire you.”

Evidently not enough to write a check. Or make an offer. Or tell me she’d think about it. The meeting was clearly over, and I left more confused about Ms. Willa than ever.

One thing I was grateful to her for, and that was for bringing the pathetic excuse for a newspaper article to my attention. On my way home, I stopped at the Monk’s Vineyard. It wasn’t open yet, so I left the rolled-up silhouette on the doorknob with a note for Lewis, explaining what I needed him to do. I hoped the old journalist was better at convincing editors than he was at making lattes.

At noon, Desmond and I headed out to see Chief, with one false start.

When I wheeled the Road King out of the garage, I tossed Desmond his helmet, which didn’t bear a scratch from the accident.

“I shouldn’t hear any whining today,” I said. “I can’t make you wear your leathers. We’re going to have to replace those. They kind of took it heavy in the accident.”

I stopped because he was shaking his head, harder than he had to for just about any reason.

“What’s wrong?” I said.

“I don’t wanna ride no bike without leathers,” he said.

I faked a smile. “
Now
you start listening to me. Okay, wear your old ones. They’re a little short, but they’ll work.

He still shook his head.

“Nobody’s going to give you grief for wearing high waters,” I said.

“It ain’t that!”

His voice shot up into the atmosphere and with it his cocky confidence. A little boy stood before me, all but scraping his toe in the dirt.

“Desmond, are you afraid?” I said.

He didn’t answer. He just looked miserable.

“Anybody would be,” I said. “That was a scary experience. Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t even think about whether you’d be ready to get back on a bike.”

“S’all good.”

“No, it’s not. But you need to speak up about stuff like this, all right? I’m a lousy mind reader.”

Actually, I wasn’t. I could see right through his helmet of hair to the fact that riding a Harley wasn’t the only thing scaring him into silence.

“We can take the van, no problem,” I said. “We might need to pick up some stuff from Chief’s place anyway, so we’ll need it. Is that cool?”

“That’s cool,” he said.

But I was right. He was still scared spitless.

He was no more at ease when we got to the hospital, which completely mystified me. I couldn’t figure out why he wasn’t tearing down the hall ahead of me to see Chief. But I didn’t ask because I wasn’t sure he even knew.

“Is it okay if we go in?” I said to the nurse on the new floor they’d moved Chief to.

“The social worker’s in there with him,” she said. “But you know what, go on in. I think it would be a good idea.”

I was about to ask her why, but Desmond tugged at my sleeve. “How come Mr. Chief need a social worker?”