The Girl in the Maze (2 page)

Lydia blew on her ring, rubbed the pearl against her dress. “Well, I hope you get your strength back by Wednesday. There's going to be a special night meeting of the County Commission to discuss the Tidewater Project. Are you familiar with it?”

“Yes.” Martha clicked her pen.
Focus.
“Before I came here, I read some news articles about it online. I understand it's going to bring new business to the county.”

Lydia slapped the map with the palm of her hand. The ring made a sharp
bang
. “Business? At what cost? The Tidewater Project is just the latest bid to grab Shell Heap Island and turn it into a cash cow. It's got our town torn into pieces. They've already taken so much of our coastline and turned it into hotels and subdivisions and golf resorts—Disneylands for the plaid-pants crowd. But not Shell Heap. No, they won't get it. Not as long as I've still got blood stirring in my veins.”

Lydia took a deep breath and exhaled. “I apologize. To think about those vultures, pecking over the remnants of our beautiful coast…” She began to roll up the map. “Questions?”

Martha shook her head.

“All right then. Stacey will help you with your paperwork, and she'll also tell you where to go for Wednesday night's meeting.”

Stacey brought over a note card with handwritten instructions. “Here you go, Martha. Be sure to get to the meeting early, if you want to find a seat.” She grinned ruefully. “And you might want to bring a football helmet.”

Vince handed Martha a tissue-wrapped package.

“Thank you,” Martha said. She held her elbows pinned against her sides to keep herself from unraveling.

“Don't worry, Martha. It's actually kind of goofy. Go ahead and open it. Please.”

Martha sat back in her chair, grateful to extend their time together for a few extra moments. She broke the cellophane tape and pulled the tissue apart, revealing an exquisite silken box. She turned it slowly in the palm of her hand. The cover was red, an Oriental design. Flowers and dragons.

“It's beautiful.”

Vince smiled, scratched the side of his beard. “It's called a good fortune box. A little something to help you face your dragons. Open the lid.”

Martha lifted the flat loop of ribbon attached to the lid. Inside, a plastic tray with eight individual compartments, each labeled with a different day of the week, and one extra. The tray fit inside the silken box perfectly. It burned her deep inside to think how long Vince must have searched to find one that would fit.

“It's a pill-minder,” Vince said. “I thought it would make your daily regime a little more pleasant.”

“Thank you.” Martha felt her eyes stinging.

Then Martha stood. She looked at the box, not at Vince. He came around the desk to embrace her.

The walk back to the Pritchett House took Martha along Tobias Avenue, a residential street lined with massive live oaks. Their limbs laced together like fingers over the center of the street, creating the effect of a sun-dappled tunnel. The air smelled of marsh.

She had made it through the first day. Everything had gone fine, except for that brief dizzy spell—that nightmarish vision, the thing in the squirming sack. Other than that…

She had even started transcribing the first tape. It was an elderly woman speaking in a thick patois. The woman spoke of the use of certain charms to ward off evil spirits.

“What are the charms made of?” the interviewer asked.

“Haiah,” the woman said, voice crackling like an old limb breaking in two. “Haiah, from duh cloze.”

Hair from the clothes,
Martha typed, after rewinding and listening several times. The woman's ancient, musical voice mesmerized her. She tinkered with the transcript, took out the unnecessary pauses, picked away the verbal flotsam, decided where to insert the paragraph breaks, until the whole interview began to flow. She looked forward to returning to the project the next morning. Working with words was a sublime pleasure she could still claim, something the illness had been unable to touch.

She turned onto the gravel driveway of the Pritchett House and walked along a row of moss-draped trees. There was a buzz of cicadas in the grass. Beyond the two-story clapboard she could see a glint of river in the waning sunlight.

As she entered the front door she could smell Rice-A-Roni. She heard a clatter from the kitchen.

“Hello?”

“Who is it?” Eileen Pritchett's voice sounded muffled in the kitchen, and vaguely annoyed.

“It's Martha. Just saying hi.” She heard Eileen mutter something indecipherable.

Martha stopped in the hallway, took out her cellphone, flipped it open.
No service.

“Okay if I use the phone?” she asked through the swinging door.

The door opened a crack and her landlady peered out, eyes magnified by thick glasses. “How's that?”

“I need to make a phone call.”

“Long distance?”

“Yes. I have a calling card.”

Eileen pursed her lips. “Go ahead, but remember the rules. No more than ten minutes.”

“I'll make it short.”

When Vince answered, he sounded distracted.

“Martha! How are you? How are you doing?” Martha heard other voices in the background, a clink of dishes.

“I'm at the rooming house. I just got back from my first day on the job.”

“How did it go?”

“It went well, I think. The people who work there seem nice.”

“Terrific. I want to hear more, but I'm actually at a restaurant right now. It's a dinner for the university trustees. Can you call me in the morning? We'll talk longer. Let me know how things are going, okay?”

“Okay.”

Martha spindled the phone cord around her fingers, wondered if she should mention the vision—the squirming thing
.
“Vince?”

“Yes, Martha?”

“Nothing.”

“Are you all right?”

“Yes.”

“You can do this, Martha.”

“I know.”

“I have faith in you. Don't forget to take your meds. I want you to call me tomorrow, okay?”

After dinner and a warm bath in the claw-foot tub at the end of the hall, Martha slipped into her red dragonfly kimono and headed back to her room. She moved quickly to avoid being seen by the Pritchetts or by Mike, the tenant in Room A. The kimono was getting too small now and a little frayed at the edges. She had sealed the frays with superglue twice. The robe was a gift from her father on her fifteenth birthday, the last one they spent together, and she planned to keep wearing it as long as she could.

Martha closed and locked the door to her room and paused to survey her handiwork. The paper Chinese lantern, thumbtacked to the ceiling in the corner, looked out of place, but at least it added a festive touch. Hanging on the wall by the bed was a framed picture of Martha and her father holding a fish they'd caught at Lake Hartwell.

She unpacked the remaining items in her suitcase—a pair of sneakers, a few office items, and a ceramic pig wrapped in newspaper. A relic of high school ceramics, “Piggy Marley” sported a painted-on psychedelic tie-dyed shirt and John Lennon glasses made from pipe cleaners. The animal's stoned expression and dreamy, half-lidded eyes always made her smile.

She put the pig on the windowsill, kicked off her slippers, and felt an impulse to celebrate.
First day, on your own. You made it.
In the old days, her choice might have been to sit by the river and watch the sunset while slowly sipping a glass of white zinfandel. Or maybe call up a couple of her college friends for an impromptu meeting at Jagger's, where they could hang out, trade gossip and rumors, and discuss the physical merits of various professors, or lack thereof.

It's so awful. All she's been through. Poor thing…

God, how that kind of talk annoyed her. Those visits in the hospital, talking about her as if she weren't there, or too sedated, or just made stupid by the drugs. Most galling of all was the presumption that previous events in her life had anything to do with it. She survived all that, dammit. This was something else. This was biological.

Martha went over to the sink, took out her silken pill-minder. She popped the plastic lid marked “Monday” and tapped a trio of pastel tablets into her palm. Zyprexa, 5 mg. Clonazepam, 2 mg. Niacin, 200 mg.

This nightly ritual was her lifeline, her insurance against ever having to go back to that terrible place. She could still smell the stench of antiseptic, could picture the whiteness of every wall, every uniform…having her fingernails cut to the nubs, being forced to drink paper cups of viscous liquid that turned her into a zombie, getting stripped to her underwear and wrapped in ice-cold sheets until she began to shake. The needles, and tests…so many tests. Her body ached at the memories.
Never again.

She turned the iron handle marked “C.” The faucet spat and coughed, ran brown, then clear. She looked into the oval mirror above the vanity at a face she barely recognized. Her light brown hair hung limp and stringy from the humidity, like damp moss. Her gray eyes, her most striking feature, seemed dull. In pictures, her eyes had sparkled with curiosity and mischief. She had been pretty.

You still are. You are a woman with a future. You will
not
be defined by this.

She took a deep breath and looked out the open window over the sink. The tide was high. Glass-smooth pathways meandered between shadowy fields of marsh. A pulsing chorus of frogs and crickets filled the night air, rising and falling like the breath of a sleeping animal.

The scene lulled her for a moment, the tapestry of shadow and sound blending into a seamless whole. It almost didn't register at first, the hint of movement among the stand of reeds, where the river curved away into darkness.

She blinked and squinted. Seconds later it was there again—an orange flickering light, like the end of a cigarette, bobbing and swaying. Martha leaned forward, her nose almost touching the window screen. The shape multiplied, split into several firefly orbs, each moving and darting, the water rippling now, swirling the scattered reflections. An icicle of dread formed in her gut as the orange shapes steadied and gathered into an irregular line. Grouped together they began to glide. They drifted slowly down the river with the hint of a larger, shadowy mass following below.

Martha remembered a technique Vince had taught her:
Look away for a moment. Then look back.

She turned from the counter, faced her room, and named each furnishing.
Wallpaper. Brass bed. Quilt. Armoire. Lantern.
Holding her breath, she slowly turned back toward the window. Nothing there now. Not even a ripple. The same nothing she'd seen moments ago. Just a dark stretch of moonlit water. She allowed herself to breathe again.
Nothing is good.

Martha tossed the evening's pills into her mouth and washed them down with the tepid water. She hung the kimono on a hook inside the armoire and climbed into the creaky bed, sliding between the cool sheets.

She looked at the jumble of shadows in her room, the water stains on the ceiling, the faded frieze of the wallpaper. She closed her eyes and could hear no voices. Just the sound of the marsh, its shimmering night melody
. Nothing is good.

Jarrell Humphries put down his oar and swapped it for a sawed-off broomstick. He knelt in the bow of his wooden skiff and probed the water, searching for the center of the narrow channel. He planted the broomstick and pulled the boat forward. The hull brushed against the muddy bottom of Pullman's Creek, making whispery sounds.

The moon floated on the surface of the water like a lily. Jarrell worked quietly, sweating, accompanied by an orchestra of night sounds—frogs chirping, the buzzing of crickets, and somewhere nearby, the nervous call of a whip-poor-will.

A few hundred yards away, near the center of the Oracoochee Sound, the big white cabin cruiser tipped slightly. The stern was toward him, and in the glow of the running lights he could see the name,
MOON MIST,
stenciled in tall letters.

Three men stood inside the cabin, bathed in fluorescent light. One of them Jarrell could identify from here, just from the way he moved and the lunky shape of the head. Jarrell had been following that fish-belly for months; had watched him go out on his fishing trips and come home with an empty hold; had trailed him on his night runs to the island to plant his “evidence.”

Jarrell pulled off his knit cap, letting his dreadlocks spill out, and massaged his scalp in the cool night air. What he was about to do was stupid, not to mention illegal, and it would take a hell of a lot of nerve. He pressed the knob to light the dial on his watch. Ten forty-five. Half hour, tops, before low tide would eliminate his escape route.
Don't chicken out. If you're ever going to bust this sucker, now's your chance.

He was animated by anger, the same devil that had possessed his father. For years his old man had attempted to conquer the beast with legal documents and injunctions, amassing legal fees that drove their family to the edge of bankruptcy. Later, the fight had turned inward, and he tried to drown the thing in a sea of Jack Daniel's, sought to hide from it in pool halls and juke joints, until finally it reached up and closed its fist around his heart.

This time, things were going to be different.

Jarrell tapped the outside of his jeans pocket to make sure the Sony digital recorder was still there. He clipped another tool—his folding trench knife—onto a carabiner that hung from a belt loop. Finally, he pulled a camouflage net over his head and stretched out flat on his belly, chin propped on his backpack, eyes just above the prow. He dipped an oar into the water and began to row silently toward the cruiser.

When he reached the hull he stashed the oar and put his hands out to make sure the two boats didn't bump. He maneuvered his skiff so that he was concealed below the prow of the larger boat. He could hear the men's voices now, and they weren't discussing NASCAR, or exchanging fish stories, or telling racist jokes. They were talking business.

Jarrell caught a glint in the corner of his eye and crouched low. A beam of light painted the tips of the cordgrass along the bank, then glided slowly across the water.

“What are you worried about, Aubrey?” one of the men said. “Something out there? Are the frogs going to hear us?”

“Who else would be out here this time of night?”

“Water's as flat as a bedsheet.”

The light skimmed the water once more, then clicked off. Jarrell heard footsteps going into the cabin. He stood and took a peek over the prow. He could see the three men gathered around the table in the galley. One of them he recognized as Wallace Bowden, the chairman of the Amberleen County Commission. Bowden was sliding plats and diagrams out of a cardboard tube and flattening them on the table while Fish-belly and a third man, some tall dude in a plaid shirt, looked on.

Jarrell gripped the chrome railing of the
Moon Mist
and pulled his skiff along until it was next to the larger boat. One of the tinted windows of the cabin was open to the night air, and now he could hear the men's voices clearly.

“So this here's where they're going to put the golf course?” Bowden said.

“Jack Nicklaus design, the grade—”

“Look at that.”

Jarrell hooked a tie line to a cleat on the
Moon Mist
. He pulled the digital recorder from its waterproof pouch, placed it on the gunwale, and pushed
RECORD
.

“And this over here is going to be a water park. Hotels all along through here—”

The guy in the plaid shirt let out a slow whistle. “They're really going to go first class with this thing.”

“That property out there—that's a gold mine. It's just sitting there, unutilized. So let's do this, and let's do it right.”

“Let me tell you, we could do a lot worse than Hoshima,” Bowden said.

Jarrell lifted his head a little higher so he could see them. Fish-belly leaned against the counter, listening.

“The tax revenue from this project will spread far beyond Shell Heap,” said the tall man. “Hell, this county's been in decline, what would you say, two decades or more? This is money that will come back into our community as well. It would pay for a new high school, redevelopment of the Bay Street park area. It will attract new business to Main Street.”

“We can use the revenue to clean up, get rid of the crime problem—”

“What about the Geechees? You can't buy 'em out.”

“It's not the Geechees I'm worried about, Larry.” It was the first time Fish-belly had spoken.

“I know. It's that woman.” Bowden pulled off his glasses, wiped them with his shirttail. “I like Lydia. But she's tenacious as a bulldog. She's got connections in the Georgia legislature. She'll find a way to stop this. You know she will.”

“How much has Hoshima deposited?”

“They've wired five million.”

“We better send it back.”

“Dammit, Wallace, we can't send any money back. Some of us have already—”

Jarrell held the rail with one hand, tilted the recorder with the other to make sure the red light was on. His heart was beating so hard he feared they might hear it.

Fish-belly stepped forward, holding his palm outward. “Look, nobody is going to stop this deal, everything is going to fall into place. The stage is set. People are scared shitless about the drug problem.”

“He's right,” Wallace said. “We just push through with eminent domain tomorrow. We've made a strong case. If we move fast, we can beat the politicians to the punch.”

There was another pause. The boat tipped a little, and Jarrell stumbled. His chest slid against the hull, his knife clacked. He cupped his hand over it and waited. The men resumed their discussion with no sign they'd heard him.
That was a close one, you dumbass.
He carefully removed the knife from the carabiner and put it on the runner of the skiff.

“I think we've heard you, Wallace.”

“Are we in agreement?”

“I think we're all in agreement here.”

There was another moment of silence. Jarrell imagined they were shaking hands, giving high-fives—whatever white guys do when they decide to turn everything into shit.

“Let's don't dwell on this. How about one of those Coors? Aren't we supposed to be fishing?” Then, a nervous laugh.

Jarrell turned the recorder off, pushed it into a waterproof bag, sealed it. He let go of the chrome rail and slid quietly back down to the skiff. He had his prize. He reached up to unloop the tie rope from the cleat, and he heard a splash next to the skiff.
Shit—the folding knife—

“What was that?”

“Did you hear something?”

“Probably a fish.”

Jarrell quickly maneuvered his boat back under the prow. Too quickly. He heard a squeak as the two boats rubbed together. The spotlight came on and swept the water.

“Hell yeah! I saw something, Aubrey, I think—I saw the edge of—”

“You mean somebody—”

Jarrell could hear cursing and the sound of a locker door opening and closing.
Fuck.

He heard the fat-ass's heavy footsteps on the front of the prow, and the slide-click of a rifle bolt.

The night was silent for a moment, except for the frogs and crickets. Then the rifle boomed against the night air.

“All right, you sons of bitches!” Fish-belly yelled. “We've seen you! How many of you are under there?”

Jarrell looked across the water. He needed to get his boat into Asher's Creek, where the cruiser couldn't follow. But the creek entrance was two hundred yards away, across open water.

“I've got a loaded rifle with a laser scope,” the man on the prow was saying, “and I know how to use it. Come on out from under there, nice and slow. I need to see all your hands up in the air, squeaky clean.”

Jarrell scrambled toward his outboard motor. He had cover—at least for a few seconds—under the prow of the cruiser. He gave the gasoline bulb a quick squeeze and yanked the starter pulley. The engine sputtered to life. He adjusted the tiller handle to a slight angle, locked it down. Then he took off his belt and wrapped one end around his wrist and hooked the buckle over the skiff's oarlock.

“Wallace!” Fish-belly yelled. “Turn on the ignition, and ease the boat back a little so I can see them.”

The
Moon Mist
's engine rumbled, the transmission engaged

Jarrell rolled over the side of the skiff and into the dark water. The river felt cooler than the night air, but not by much. He gripped the side of the skiff and kicked, pointing it toward the entrance to Asher's.
Okay, Fat-ass. Get ready for a surprise.

“There he is. I know that kid. That's Astrid's boy. What's his name—”

“Jarrell—”

Jarrell gripped the belt strap with his right hand and ducked his head. He reached up to give the engine's throttle handle a full twist. The skiff lurched forward and ripped out of the water, dragging him like a rag doll. He turned his face from a blinding wall of spray. Above the roar of the motor and the blast of the water—gunshots.

The water rushed over his head in a flume. The belt loop felt like it would pull his arm out of its socket. Jarrell reckoned his boat would be veering to the right from the drag of his body. That's why he'd locked the tiller at an angle.

He felt his shoulder slam against the muddy river bottom, then his hip hit hard, nearly knocked him loose, but the boat kept going, plowing through rushes—

The motor made a strangling sound, died. Jarrell lay in the muddy shallows next to the skiff, and he could hear the approaching rumble of the
Moon Mist
. He rolled over, crawled behind the skiff, and peeked over the edge. He expected to see Fish-belly standing on the bow of the boat, rifle drawn, ready to scatter his brains like chum.

But Jarrell didn't see the other boat, nor shoreline, nor river. Just cordgrass. Tall rows of it. He'd made it into the creek and plowed into the bank.

The gunshots started again and a spume of mud exploded on the bank next to him. Fish-belly was shooting blind through the grass. Jarrell dragged the skiff to the middle of the narrow channel, climbed in, and rowed. Crouched low, he moved slowly, following the sweet spot in the center of the creek. Just enough tide left to make it through, if he was careful. But the
Moon Mist
couldn't follow, not in this waterway. Couldn't even get close.

After several hundred yards, the channel deepened, and Jarrell cranked the engine. Another quarter mile cruising at low throttle, and he was alone. A vast labyrinth of grass and tides lay before him. His kingdom. Fish-belly and his county cronies couldn't touch him here. Not ever.

Jarrell leaned back, let his breathing slow, and smiled. He was covered in mud, his knees ached like a mother, but he was free.

He straightened his leg, reached into his wet jeans pocket, pulled out the dry bag. His heart jerked when he felt the contents through the plastic. Instead of single object, he could feel separate pieces, like broken glass.

He slid the recorder out. It was in two halves, connected by tiny wires. A piece of green circuit board lay exposed. He killed the skiff's motor and turned back to attend to the recorder, cradling it in his hand like a robin's egg. He pushed the
PLAY
button. Nothing. He punched the button again and again.

No voices. Nothing to hear at all, except for the lap of the water against his boat and the ceaseless murmur of the marsh.