Bone Valley (9 page)

“Well, I don’t wants no lecture on bacon. I already done got one. From both of them, yesterday. But you wants one, go on and ask her how come she don’t got bacon.”

“Doesn’t have bacon,” Dolly said.

“I jes’ told you, she ain’t got no bacon.”

Oh hell. Screw that second cup of coffee, what I really wanted was the rest of that wine. I stood up and peeked in the refrigerator, but the bottle was gone. I peered into my trash, and found the bottle, presumably empty, in with the nonrecyclables.

“Recycle glass,” I said, glaring at Jimmie.

“Reckon them pieces of the china bowl what got busted are recyclable?” he asked back at me.

“Lilly, if you do not mind, could I have a word with you? Alone?” Josey asked.

“You go on, dearie, and gossip with your friend. I’ll cook us some breakfast and Jimmie will clean up the broken bowl,” Dolly said.

Ignoring them all, I put the wine bottle in the glass-recycling bin, washed my hands, finished brewing my coffee, poured a cup, got a plate and put one of yesterday’s leftover muffins on it and didn’t offer anyone anything except the back of my head as I walked out of the kitchen and into the dining room.

I sat down at the dining room table, bowed my head as if in prayer, then reluctantly looked up. Josey and Philip had both followed me.

“Alone,” Josey said, and looked at Philip.

“Quite a good idea,” Philip said. “No one could think in that circus in the kitchen.”

To Josey’s credit, she didn’t push the point of “alone” any further. With Philip still hovering, she asked me if I had left the phosphate meeting with Miguel and Angus last night.

I crammed my day-old muffin in my mouth to buy time to think. Had Josey seen me get into the red truck with the two of them? And what business was it of Josey’s, anyway, since Angus John’s murder was outside her jurisdiction?

“May I ask you, what is the reason for this inquiry?” Philip asked in his smooth seduce-the-jury voice and pulled off his glasses and smiled at Josey as if to distract her with his deep, black eyes. Still further to her credit, Josey was having nothing to do with that, and looked back at me and repeated the question.

Thinking of the safest lie I could on short notice, I swallowed and said, “Miguel drove me back to my car at Philip’s office on Manatee Avenue.” Thank goodness, I thought, that Philip had a satellite office in Bradenton and, that late on a Saturday, he alone would have manned it. So long as he backed me up, this seemed like a pretty good lie.

Josey looked like she was buying that story, so I sipped more coffee, and then asked, in my best innocent voice, “What’s going on?”

In terse and unhappy detail, Josey explained about the explosion. Philip and I both acted surprised and distraught.

After what seemed like the appropriate interval of gasping and dismaying, I asked, “What about Miguel?”

“Don’t know. Can’t find him or his red truck. Any ideas?” Josey peered into my eyes in a way I didn’t much like.

“They just dropped me off and didn’t talk about any plans.”

“Y’all want to come and get it,” Jimmie shouted from the kitchen. “Dolly done got a regular breakfast feast started in here.”

Taking the distraction for what it was—a gift of time to think—I smiled at Josey. “Please, join us for breakfast?”

“I could eat,” she said, which turned out to be something of an understatement.

Fortunately, Dolly had scrambled all of my eggs from free-range, organic-fed chickens—eggs, which, by the way, cost about four dollars a dozen—but I didn’t begrudge the food going down anybody’s throat because while Josey was eating, she wasn’t asking me questions I didn’t want to answer. But Jimmie was flitting around Dolly and saw the price tag on the egg carton. “Why you reckon those free-range eggs cost so much? Seems like if you jes’ let the chickens run around in the yard and fend for they’s self, it’d cost less. Don’t it?”

I nursed my coffee, declined toast because I wasn’t sure if Dolly had properly washed her hands before handling it, but ate the eggs because, after all, they were cooked and I couldn’t imagine why Dolly would stick her fingers, clean or unclean, in the cooked eggs, and I had to eat something more than a bite of a stale muffin because my supper last night had been wine and Xanax. Which, incidentally, produced a far better night’s sleep than I would have expected given the heart-to-heart discussion Philip had tried to instigate while I was passing out. While we ate, Bearess made soft, growly begging noises until she was stuffed from under-the-table handouts.

Finally, after more postbreakfast questions and dodges, Josey left, but not before she’d given me her business card and jotted down her home number and her cell phone number. Dolly and Bearess followed her out.

Jimmie, once prodded by my freely expressed anxiety, volunteered to hightail it down to the community center and move Miguel’s red truck, lest Josey discover it and think it interesting that it was so close to my own house.

“I left the keys in it under the seat,” I said, and Jimmie took off in an old-man jog toward the community center, leaving me alone, finally, with Philip.

“Did it ever occur to you to call 911, stay on the pier until law-enforcement officers appeared, and then tell the truth about what had happened?” Philip asked. “See, that way you would not have engaged Jimmie and me in a third-class felony, along with yourself.”

“Discretion being the better part of valor,” I said. “Besides, it wasn’t like I saw anything helpful.”

“We need to have a serious discussion about the nature of our relationship,” he said.

Yeah, he’d mentioned that last night.

“But first, I need to make sure neither of us is placed in further jeopardy with the law by any oversight on our part in our recent fabrications.”

That must have been Philip’s way of conceding it was now officially too late to just tell the truth. So we spent the next half hour making sure we hadn’t overlooked something, or contradicted ourselves.

We were on the arrogant brink of thinking we’d pulled one over on Josey when Jimmie returned to announce that the truck was already gone. “That’s what leaving the keys in it’ll do now days,” he said. “Tell you what, ’n my day, weren’t nothing to leaving keys in the truck, leaving your house doors unlocked.” He shook his head. Then he spread his arms out wide in what I’d come to recognize as the poetry-recital prelude.

“Like that girl says,” Jimmie said, “‘every time I go back, the island is smaller. Even the iron hills of Alabama slip out beneath me in red circles that end in the Gulf.’”

What’s erosion got to do with rising crime rates? I wondered. As for the red truck, I just figured some free-range teenagers had found it and were in Coconut Grove by now.

“What girl?” Philip asked.

“This girl that wrote herself a book of poems. She’s always losing stuff and feeling real bad. I’m learning all the verses ’fore I gives the book back to Lilly.”

Philip looked at me oddly. “Back to you? A book of poetry? You like poetry?”

“Oh, she jes’ loves it,” Jimmie said.

Then I stopped listening to them. I was thinking about Lenora. Someone with some sensitivity needed to drive out and tell her about Angus.

Okay, so, yeah, maybe sensitivity wasn’t my strong suit, but I’d give it a whirl. Also, I wanted to see if she knew where Miguel was—perhaps he was even with her. After all, I had some serious questions for that good-looking boy who took me on a date to trespass and nearly got me blown up.

Even with my
sharp sense of direction, I had a hell of a time finding Lenora’s backwoods wildlife rescue. But after a few scenic tours of the wrong dirt roads, I bumped my way into her front yard. The same beat-up Volvo I’d noticed on my first visit was parked under a tree.

Lenora was sitting on the front steps of the porch of the worn-out cracker house, her head bent down, and when I sat beside her and she finally looked up, I figured from her expression she already knew about Angus.

“I’m very sorry,” I said.

“Thank you.”

“I know Angus was a big loss for you.”

Lenora didn’t speak, but put her head down again. There was such weariness and despair in that gesture that I knew any sensitivity on my part meant waiting before I asked about Miguel.

We sat there for a long moment. From inside the house, I could hear the baby birds chirping for food. A cool breeze blew over my face, and I caught a whiff of honeysuckle. I took a long stare around the place, at first searching for any hint of Miguel’s presence, past or present. Then I was just looking.

Everywhere I gazed, I saw something that needed fixing, cleaning, moving, or feeding.

Lenora needed help.

I pulled out my cell phone thinking I’d call Jimmie and pay him to do whatever needed doing, but then I took stock again. Lenora needed more than an old man could do, even as spry a one as Jimmie. I punched in the number for my brother Delvon, a born-again, dope-smoking, Jesus-loving man in his prime with a strong back and a good heart, even if he was apt to dress like John the Baptist and speak in tongues at inappropriate times. Delvon was the caretaker of my apple orchard in north Georgia, the haven to which I hoped to retire, sooner being better than later.

After a long series of rings, my brother said “Praise the Lord” over the phone so loud that Lenora lifted her head and looked over at me, and then, as if that required too much effort, she put her head down again.

“You need to get somebody to drive you to Atlanta and get on a plane as soon as you can. Fly into Tampa or Sarasota, whichever is quicker. I’ll pay you back for the ticket.”

“I know Jesus said suffer the little chirren, but he didn’t say nothing ’bout suffering broke-heart fools and I don’t care if Farmer Dave is my best friend on the face of this earth, he’s about drove me nuts. He brought him back a burro over from the Grand Canyon.”

This was the first I’d heard that Dave, an old boyfriend from my outlaw adolescence who last year had almost gotten me arrested or killed, or both, was back in Georgia, where he often hid out between adventures, tending my apple orchard with Delvon. I took it as good news that he’d returned to the orchard. “How’d he get the donkey to Georgia?”

“He hitchhiked with it.”

I wondered for a moment who in the world would pick up a fifty-one-year-old man with pigtails and a donkey, especially nowadays when everyone is afraid of everyone else.

“And don’t you be calling it a donkey in front of Dave,” Delvon said. “It’s a burro. He’ll sure tell you that. From the Grand Canyon. Apparently, they’re shooting ’em out there ’cause there’s too many of ’em, and he rescued this one. I know that man is nursing heartache, but, praise Jesus for this lesson in patience, that man is driving me crazy.”

Passing over the technical point that if one was already crazy, one couldn’t be driven there, I started thinking about Delvon actually getting on a plane. “How long’s your hair?” I asked.

“Don’t know.”

“You don’t know how long your hair is?” So, I guess that answered any unspoken question about his current drug consumption. “Well, look at it.”

There was a clank, and I imagined the phone at the other end hitting something.

“My brother,” I said to the top of Lenora’s head. “He and his friend Farmer Dave run an apple orchard in north Georgia for me. He’s due for a visit. He likes animals. He’s real handy. I think he could help you out here.”

Lenora made a grunt that I took for a positive response.

“Sixteen and a third inches,” Delvon said over the phone.

“What?”

“My hair. You forget? You asked me how long it was.”

I sighed. In addition to being long, Delvon’s hair was red. And, he was tall. There was no overlooking him in a crowd. He’d have to get to the airport a good three hours ahead to clear security. “Do you have a driver’s license?”

“Yeah. Got one Dave and me bought last time we went to Atlanta. You can just about buy anything there these days. Name’s Frank Straight on mine. His is Earnest Straight.”

Again, I sighed. Yeah, security at the airport would be touch and go. At least he wasn’t conspicuously Middle Eastern, so maybe they’d let him on a plane.

Over the phone, I heard slamming noises in the background, and then a braying noise, followed in short order by a Willie Nelson song about lost love. “Are you letting him bring the donkey in the house?” I asked.

“Can’t stop him. It’s not near as messy as you’d think. And another thing, he plays that same damn song over and over again. I mean, I like Willie, but—”

“Delvon, listen to me. You need to get to Atlanta, get on a plane, and come here as quick as you can. There’s a woman here who needs your help.”

“Okay, why didn’t you jes’ say so? Takes about two hours to get to the airport from here. I’ll get the first plane out I can get.”

“You got a credit card?”

“Got about thirty of them.”

“Thirty?”

“Yeah. All in different names. Case I need to flee the country.”

“Any in the name of Frank Straight?”

“One.”

“Good. Be sure to use that one to buy the ticket. You’ll need a picture ID to get through security. Try to look”—what? normal would be beyond the ability of a six-foot, two-inch man with sixteen inches of red hair—“like, you know, you’re not going to hijack the plane. Call me from the airport when you get to Tampa.”

We said our good-byes, and I put up my cell and asked Lenora, “What can I do?”

“Help me into the kitchen, would you?”

Together we stood up, she staggered a bit and I held on to her, and then she made little dry-heave noises, but pulled herself together and we struggled up the steps, across the porch, rested in the doorway, and then eased into the kitchen, where she sat down.

“Chemo,” she said, and that effort seemed to exhaust her.

“You got any ginger ale? I’ll fix you a glass.”

“Could you roll me a joint instead?”

“Yes.”

“Freezer,” she whispered.

Delvon would have been proud of the speed at which I found the pot, rolled a joint, and lit it for her. I had to hold the joint for her at first, but then, as it soothed her, she took it and finished it.

“Thank you,” she said. “It stops the throwing up better than any drugs they’ve given me.”

“Let me go feed the birds. You just rest.”

“I will be fine,” she said.

“Sure. I know you will, but I’ve got the time to help out today.” A bit of a whopper, as I had a full day of worry and agitation planned, but I wasn’t about to leave her alone with all that raucous bird-hunger noise. I stood up and moved into the racket, grabbing the puppy food blend and a bowl of water.

As I was stuffing food into the beaks of baby birds, I calculated how long it would take Delvon to get here, and whether I should ask Lenora today what she could tell me about Angus and Miguel, or wait until she was stronger. Maybe Miguel was the one who told her about Angus being blown up? But how would he get out here without his truck? And, if he’d come to see Lenora, how could he possibly have left her here, sick and alone?

Such questions distracted me from the ick factor as I fed the baby birds. But then I stopped in front of the baby blue jay and contemplated skipping it since the same bird had previously bitten me. While studying on that, I heard a car drive up, and peeked out the window. Damn, a sheriff ’s department vehicle.

I grabbed the jay out of its cage for my cover story.

Officer Detective First Class Josey Something Farmer came right up the steps and into the room, and took a long, hard look at me, hard enough I must have squeezed the baby jay, because it squawked something terrible and then pecked repetitively at my hand.

“Interesting,” Josey said.

“What? Blue jays?”

“You.”

“Me?” I smiled at Josey. “I’m just a volunteer, feeding the baby birds.” I all but chirped myself.

“You. Just popping up at the phosphate meeting. Now here. What with M. David having your bio in his pocket when he died, and Ang…er, is Lenora here?”

“Kitchen.” Then I thought about the pot, the papers, and the roach, all on the kitchen table. “But she’s pretty tired. You wait here, right here, and I’ll go check on her.” Trying to block Josey, I ran into the kitchen, still clutching the pecking little bird monster, but Josey followed right behind me.

Still hoping to block the pot from Josey’s vision, I stood between her and Lenora. “Lenora, I’d like for you to meet Officer Detective Josey, er…Farmer and—”

Josey pushed past me in half a heartbeat, glanced at the marijuana roach, and said, “I’m homicide, not vice.” She looked right at me. “And Lenora and I have met. I brought her some wounded goats once and she nursed them.”

Josey turned away from me and put her hand on Lenora’s back. “How are you?”

“Fine. I will be fine. Lilly is helping me feed the birds.”

“Why don’t you let me take you home?” Josey asked.

“Tell me what to do,” I said, “about the others, I mean the animals. I’ll feed ’em, or whatever, and you can go home, rest.”

“Thank you. But by the time I explained it, I could have done it. I’m feeling better.” Lenora slid back her chair and made a motion like she was going to get up. Then she saw the jay in my hand. “Strong little fellow. Didn’t have a feather on him when we got him, he was so young. He’s almost a brancher now, past infancy. Why don’t you take him home with you?”

Why on earth would I want to do that? I thought, but held my tongue.

“Take some of the puppy food mix, but you’ll need to wean him off the wet chow pretty soon. Right now, you’ll need to feed him four or five times a day—you can’t be leaving him alone and unfed all day. You’re lucky; when they are real little, you have to feed them every twenty minutes during the day, but nature lets the mother birds rest at night. He’s ready for seeds and bugs now.”

Josey reached over to help Lenora while I contemplated mothering an ill-tempered blue jay.

“He’s pretty close to being ready to leave the nest. You need to get him ready for that. Hang his cage near a window, or on a porch,” Lenora said. “Get him used to your backyard. Then in a week or so, move the cage outside. Feed him only seeds and bugs. When he starts flying around in the cage, leave the door open. When he’s ready, he’ll go. But keep putting food in the cage until he stops coming back. You have to keep feeding them until they learn to get it themselves.”

I’d pretty much stopped absorbing the information at the feed-him-bugs part. How, exactly, was I to get said bugs?

While I was still pondering the bug-food issue, I heard the peep of my cell phone from inside my purse on the table. The irate jay continued to squawk and peck in my other hand as I answered.

“Midnight, coming into Tampa,” Delvon said. “Delta.”

“Put your hair in a ponytail, and wear normal clothes,” I said, and glanced at Josey. “No contraband, you hear?”

“Praise the Lord,” he said, and the line went dead.

“I’ll go put him back in his cage and finish feeding the rest of them,” I said, hoping that when I was done with that, Josey would have left and I could ask Lenora about Miguel. But shoving mush down tiny throats wasn’t something I could hurry too much, not unless I wanted a casualty rate, and it was pushing late afternoon when I got done and went back into the kitchen.

Of course, Josey was still there. That ruled out any questions about Miguel because I didn’t want to redline my connection to the man who owned the boat that blew up, killing Angus, in light of the fact that I had lied to Josey, an Official Person, about my presence on the dock.

Besides that, the two of them had their heads bent together and they weren’t paying me any attention. I heard Josey say, “Angus,” and saw Lenora nodding. Leaving seemed to be a good thing for me to do, and I eased out silently.

But not silently enough.

“Thank you, Lilly. And don’t forget to take the juvenile jay,” Lenora said.

On the way out, I snatched up the cage and glared at my new charge. He screamed so insanely on the car ride home, I named him Rasputin.

By ten-thirty that night, having fulfilled my evening agenda of fretting, I threw myself behind the steering wheel of my ancient Honda and headed north, toward the Tampa airport. The traffic was heavy, but a nice break from listening to Rasputin share his shrilly critical view of his new home.

Naturally, Delvon didn’t get off the Atlanta Delta flight at midnight.

I went to the official Delta counter where a frazzled young woman took a superior tone with me, but finally agreed that a Frank Straight was booked as a passenger on the flight, but had not boarded the plane.

No, he wasn’t booked on any other flights according to her computer, she said, after I had asked. Type, type, type on her little Delta computer, then she looked up at me with an even less friendly look. “What exactly is your connection to Frank Straight?” she asked.

Suddenly I decided to leave the counter, and did so without answering.

Once safely out of sight of the Delta counter, I punched in the north Georgia apple farm number on my cell and let it ring until even the donkey must have been beside herself from the noise.

Frigging great.

A mean, bad man had drowned; an angry, good man had exploded; a tenderhearted, sick woman had too many hungry mouths to feed; I had custody of an irate juvenile jay; and now my brother was missing.