John Locke - Now & Then
I knew about the smile. What I didn’t know was if she’d been planning to kill me with the syringe.
“Why’d you get it?” I said. “Seriously.”
“When I was a kid I got stung by fire ants,” she said. “In the drug store in Savannah, a guy was saying how bad they were this year. I wanted to be ready in case one of us got stung on the beach.”
That’s the funny thing about Rachel. When she wasn’t being crazy, she was quite capable.
We kept walking. I could tell she wanted to ask me something. Finally she did.
“Are you allergic to anything?”
“Cheesecake.”
“What?”
“It makes me fat.”
She might have muttered the word “asshole” under her breath.
We walked some more, and I said, “Nicotine.”
“You don’t smoke.”
“Still, it’s a poison. If you distill it and concentrate it to its purest essence, it’s one of the deadliest poisons on earth.”
“Is that the little black one in your kit?”
I keep a poison kit in my belongings. It’s essential in my line of work. I’d made the mistake of warning Rachel about it early in the vacation when I’d caught her about to dab some Ricin on her wrist, thinking it was part of my cologne collection. When asked why I carried a kit filled with poisons, I came up with the bullshit excuse that I was delivering it to the Justice Department in Miami.
“You need to stay out of that kit.”
“Fine, don’t worry. But is it the black one?”
“It’s the clear one, in the vial.”
“That’s the one that can kill you?”
“It is.” Though it was the clear one in the vial, like most poisons, I had built up an immunity to it over time. The only poison I’m unable to handle is Tetrodotoxin, or TTX. Of course, I would never tell Rachel that, nor would I carry TTX in my kit. I love Rachel, but I couldn’t trust her not to kill me.
“You must really trust me to tell me about your Kryptonite,” she said.
“Of course. How can a relationship thrive without trust?”
After a few minutes we were able to make out the lights and wrought iron balcony of The Seaside Bed and Breakfast. The balcony’s ironwork was famous, unique, and more than a hundred and fifty years old. It had been handcrafted in Boston and shipped to St. Alban’s Beach by rail. The architect who designed it was murdered in the alley behind the local bar the very night the installation had been completed. Local legend had it that the original owner of the Seaside had the architect killed so he wouldn’t be able to replicate the design elsewhere.
I said, “After we shower I thought I’d take the rental car to the hospital to check on the kid.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“Just to recap,” I said. “We’ll go inside, strip down, make sure we’ve gotten rid of all the ants, take a hot shower, make wild, passionate love, then drive to the hospital.”
“Whoa, cowboy,” she said.
“Whoa?”
“On the sex part.”
“Why?”
“You owe me an explanation. And an apology.”
“For what?”
“You said a relationship can’t flourish without trust.”
“I said that?”
“You did.”
“Then I stand by it.”
“Prove it.”
“Okay. How?”
“That comment you made about the Grady Twins.”
“What about it?”
“I don’t care how creepy they were. If you’ve had a threesome, I have a right to know the details.”
I laughed.
“Laugh now, pay later,” she said. “I’m not kidding, Kevin.”
“Heeeere’s Johnny!”
“Excuse me?”
“You know the movie, The Shining?” I said. “Jack Nicholson?”
“Uh huh.”
“Remember the kid on the tricycle?”
She thought a minute.
“The one in the hotel that’s riding up and down the hallways?”
“Right, the caretaker’s son.”
“Yeah, I remember. So what?”
“So he’s riding down the hall a hundred miles an hour and he suddenly sees the two girls and nearly shits his pants, remember?”
“Oh, God, yes!”
“The Grady Twins,” I said.
Chapter 5
THE NORTHEAST FLORIDA Medical Center is located on Fifth Street, St. Alban’s Beach. We were standing outside the kid’s room, talking to the attending physician, Dr. Carstairs.
“How is he?” Rachel said.
“Too soon to tell, but he’s on a ventilator, so he’s got a chance. Thanks to you folks and the luck of St. Alban’s.”
“A doctor who believes in luck?” I said.
“We’ve lost very few patients since I’ve been here. I’d call that lucky, wouldn’t you?”
“Some might be inclined to give you the credit.”
“They’d be kind to do so. But there’s something more at work here.”
“Such as?”
“The patients here have the best attitudes I’ve ever seen. They eat more, sleep better, complain less, and most important, they believe they’re going to improve.”
“I don’t know if I’d call it lucky,” I said. “Miracle might be a better word.”
“Then let’s put it this way,” he said. “If you’re going to get sick or injured anywhere in the country, this appears the best place to be. And not because of me.”
Dr. Carstairs was short and squat, late forties. His head was completely bald in the middle, and he’d grown his fringe hair long enough to form a short pony tail in back.
“Incongruous,” Rachel whispered, trying out a word I’d taught her months ago, when she first started cheating on her husband.
“Compensatory displacement,” I whispered back.
She arched an eyebrow and I wanted to take her right there. She caught my look and smiled, then turned back to face the doctor. While she looked at him I studied her profile, and—okay, I know it’s corny, but time seemed to freeze. Rachel nodded her head, responding to something the doctor had said, and I realized I’d been focusing on her sexuality so intently, I’d missed it. Rachel somehow managed to keep her focus on the doctor despite my sexuality. What willpower she must have!
“Sensitization?” Rachel said.
“That means he had to have been stung by fire ants at least once in the past, probably as a child. The first stinging event often fails to cause an allergic reaction. But the second can be deadly.”
“Who is he?” I said. “Any guess how long he’d been lying there?”
“There was no identification, and none of the nurses know him, so he’s probably not local. We were sort of hoping you might know who he is.”
“No clue,” I said.
Something tugged at my brain, making me wonder what kind of kid comes to town and walks around with no wallet, no cell phone, no money in his pockets—but has the sharpest knife I’d ever seen. I could always take it down to the P.D., and have the locals lift his prints. If he had a police record, I’d be doing them a favor. On the other hand, I didn’t want to buddy up to the local police if I didn’t have to. A little town like this, they probably have plenty of time on their hands. If some over-achiever gets a bug up his butt and begins checking too deeply into my background he might find some inconsistencies.
Dr. Carstairs said, “As to how long he’d been lying on the ant hill, I’d have to say not very, because anaphylaxis occurs rapidly, within seconds to a minute. If I had to venture a guess, I’d say two, three minutes, tops.”
Rachel said, “That poor kid must have been walking up from the beach when he got stung.”
I said, “I think you’re right. He was probably walking up from the beach and saw the car full of jerks heading in his direction, got scared, and ducked down for cover. Then the ants got him.”
“Poor kid,” she said. “Alone and scared.”
“Yeah,” I said.
But with a hell of a dangerous knife.
Chapter 6
NEXT MORNING I checked Rachel’s pulse, kissed her on the cheek, and climbed out of bed. I left her a note to say I’d be back in time for the eight-thirty breakfast, then I put on some shorts and running shoes and hit the road.
With a four-thousand-year-old history rich with ancient Indians, marauding pirates, seafaring captains, railroads, shrimpers, saloons and sharks, St. Alban’s, Florida, is a visitor’s paradise.
I headed north on A1A and turned left on Coastal, followed Coastal all the way to the tiny airport that served Amelia Island, turned left again on Farthing, and wound up back on A1A, a couple miles south of the Seaside. Six minutes later I passed the area where we had our run-in with the homeboys and then the place where we saved the kid. I sprinted a half mile, then slowed to a cooling jog and stopped a few yards shy of the Seaside’s front gate. The owner, Beth Daniels, was pulling weeds from the stone path that led to the front door.
“Enjoy your run?” she said, greeting me with a smile.
“Very much so.”
Beth was fortyish, recently widowed, disarmingly attractive. She and her husband were said to have had legendary personalities, but she’d been in a deep funk these past months, consumed by the effort required to keep her husband’s bed and breakfast dream alive. Charles had gone to Atlanta on business, suffered a heart attack, died within minutes, leaving Beth deeply in debt. Within weeks of his untimely death, she’d lost her cook, her waitress, and her caretaker. She had only one staff member left, a part-time cleaning lady.
“One thing I noticed while running,” I said. “In store front windows, on telephone poles, and even a billboard: posters about the girl who went missing last year.”
Beth nodded. “Libby Vail.”
“What I was wondering, the posters say she went missing in Pennsylvania.”
“That’s my understanding.”
“So why place them here in Florida?”
Beth dabbed at the light sweat on her face and forehead with the back of her garden gloves. “When it first happened, the police interviewed Libby’s college roommate. She told them Libby always talked about coming to St. Alban’s to research her family tree.”
“Did the cops trace her here?”
“No, she just seemed to disappear off the face of the earth. But when the story came out about her wanting to come here, the whole town got involved. We held candlelight vigils, and her parents came down and made some appeals on TV. Even the FBI set up a command post for a few days, but nothing came of it. Still, the town embraced the story, and every month since her disappearance, we’ve held a weekend celebration in Libby’s honor.”
“Celebration?”
“Like a festival. People come from all over the country. Some folks have come all the way from Europe.”
“But your bed and breakfast isn’t benefitting from all the business?”
“It’s the only thing that’s kept us going this long,” Beth said. “The whole town, for that matter. But with the economy the way it is, Charles had some investments in Atlanta that went bad, and we mortgaged this place to the roofline. Now interest rates are up and we’re struggling to keep it going.”
I glanced at the parking area. She followed my gaze and said, “Oh, I should have said something. Rachel left about thirty minutes ago. She took the car.”
“She say where she was heading?”
“No. Sorry.”
I waved my hand in the direction of the parking area. “The other guests?”
Beth sighed. “Gone.”
“They left before breakfast?”
“You haven’t had the privilege of tasting my cooking,” she said. “If you had, you’d understand.”
I smiled. “Surely you’re kidding. Breakfast is easy.”
She pursed her lips and made an expression that would have been adorable, had she not seemed so sad. She looked uncertain, as if she wanted to say something, but was trying to work up the courage.
“I don’t suppose you want the chef’s job?” She looked at me like a woman seeking space on an over-crowded lifeboat.
I could only think of two things in life worse than being a cook at a B&B in St. Alban’s Beach, Florida.
“I need a caretaker, too,” she said.
Being a caretaker was one of them.
“And a waitress.”
That was the other.
I looked at the six hundred year old live oaks surrounding the place.
“You’re overrun with squirrels,” I said.
“The one problem Charles was never able to solve,” she said. “Now we’re about to implode from them. Do you have any suggestions?”
“The branches are giving them access. They’ve worked their way into the eaves. Your attic is crawling with them.”
“You’ve heard them?”
“I have.”
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “In better times I’d offer you a refund.”
I held up my hand. “Not necessary.”
She smiled again. “You’re very kind.”
I motioned to the porch. “Let’s sit a minute.”
She cocked her head slightly, as if trying to decode my meaning.
I ignored her expression and climbed the steps and sat down facing her. Beth stood her ground.
“What are you up to, Mr. Creed?”
“I’m thinking about your offer.”
“You’re joking.”
“Probably.”
She moved closer. “You’d consider it?”
“I am considering it.”
We were quiet a moment. I must have had a curious expression on my face because she said, “What on earth are you thinking?”
I laughed. “I’m trying to picture Rachel as a waitress.”
Beth shared my laugh. She climbed the steps and sat beside me, then thought better of it, and scooted her bottom a proper distance away, just beyond the top of the steps. She allowed her legs to dangle off the porch, and removed her gloves.
She said, “It’s easier picturing Rachel as a waitress than you as a cook.”
“A cook and maintenance man,” I said.
“That too,” she said.
She laughed some more, and let it fade into a chuckle, and then we were silent again. She seemed to be regarding me in a different way, and I could feel her eyes studying my profile. When I turned toward her she quickly lowered her eyes.
“I can’t pay much,” she said.
“How bad are things with the bank?”
Her eyes began to well up. She bit her lip. “I’m on my last gasp.”
I stood. “Give me a couple minutes.”
I walked down the steps and circled the house, checking the foundation. I studied the overhang of the roof long enough to find two places where squirrels were getting into the attic. There were probably others. The thing about squirrels, they attract other pests, like mice and snakes. Who knew what might be living in that old attic?
The Seaside had a private wooden walkway that I followed down to the beach. The footboards were okay, but the handrails needed replacing. At the end of the walkway, there was a charming sitting area with two benches. Just beyond, a dozen steps led to the type of hard-packed sand you find on Atlantic coast beaches.
Today the sea action was moderate. Frothy waves tumbled onto the shore, dumping tiny white coquina shells that wiggled their way into the wet sand. I heard a noise, looked up, and saw a group of sea gulls traveling a straight line just beyond the surf, scanning the waves like supermarket shoppers checking the shelves for their favorite food items.
