Where the River Ends (20 page)

26

JUNE 5, MORNING

J
ust after daybreak, a mile south from Boulogne, we crossed Scotts Landing. A local boat ramp on the Florida side used mostly by fishermen. There’s also a trailer park, rope swing and bait shop where they sell crickets, minnows, worms, artificial baits and absolutely no beer whatsoever. Lining the boat ramp a sign reads WARNING:
IT IS NOT ADVISABLE TO GO SWIMMING AFTER IT RAINS, SUDDEN AND DANGEROUS UNDERCURRENTS OCCUR EVEN WHEN SURFACE APPEARS CALM, IN MEMORY OF SAM COVINGTON
, 1/12/89 to 4/30/04.

Undercurrents occur whenever too much water starts swirling between a river’s banks. The increased volume changes how she flows. When she is full and overflowing her banks, she sucks down the surface and rolls it along the bottom, only to resurface it a few feet later.

The parking lot at Scotts was filled with people milling around, comparing baits and telling fishing lies, but we needed water and some food so I tied off the canoe and told Abbie to hang tight.

Somewhere somebody was frying sausage and eggs. I walked into the store and was immediately “Howdied” by four guys at the counter. I waved and tried to disappear among the grocery aisles. The wall above the cash register was decorated with locals’ pics of their largest catch, first deer, biggest hog or senior prom date. Sort of a Wall of Fame. I was filling my arms with saltine crackers, a jar of peanut butter and a few bottles of Gatorade when the guy behind the counter raised his remote control and pointed it at the TV. “Hey, ya’ll, shut up.” He mashed the volume button several times. “Here it is.”

The blue background of the weather channel flashed onto the screen with the words
SPECIAL REPORT—HURRICANE ANNIE. INCHING CLOSER.

A reporter wearing a yellow rain slicker and standing in sideways rain said, “Five days ago, Annie strengthened and measured the fourth-lowest pressure ever measured in an Atlantic hurricane, tying with Hurricane Camille of 1969. On May twenty-sixth, Annie recorded sustained winds of a hundred fifty-five knots or a hundred eighty miles per hour, spinning itself into a class five hurricane with winds gusting at over two hundred miles an hour. On May twenty-seventh, Annie moved west and then northwest with sustained winds exceeding a hundred and eighty, causing the governor to evacuate the Florida Keys, Miami and most everything south of Disneyworld.” The weatherman smiled and shrugged. “Given the pictures we have been broadcasting, along with the radar pictures, folks didn’t seem to need much convincing to evacuate.” He held up a map of the state. “The three main routes out of Florida, I-95, I-75 and I-10, are little more than parking lots, promting the governor to reverse southbound flow making all lanes northbound.” The woman behind the desk in Virginia asked a few questions to which the reporter nodded and said, “She’s acquiring energy and mass like the Tazmanian Devil. Through evaporation and sea spray, a hurricane in this stage sucks up more than two billion tons of water a day. Each whirling second, it circulates some two million metric tons of air in, up and out of itself. In doing so, it releases enough energy in one day to equal the energy of four hundred twenty-megaton hydrogen bombs. If scientists could convert all that energy into something they could shove down powerlines, it would supply the United States for six months.” Satisfied with his science lesson, he paused to answer another question. He said, “Most of South Florida is a ghost town and will be for days to come as folks try to return to their homes. Problem is, Annie isn’t finished with us yet. From midday on the twenty-seventh to early on the twenty-ninth, Annie hovered over Florida, tormenting Florida’s west coast and bringing a definite stop to any highway traffic. Flooding is rampant. More to come after this…”

The man behind the counter flipped the channel and waved off his four friends. “Ya’ll hush! Here it is. Four to one says the sucker killed her, dumped the body and is sitting on some beach in South America counting her money.”

I looked up but something inside me told me I didn’t really want to watch.

The commercial ended and the bottle-blond newswoman turned to the camera. “And in national news, former supermodel and Charleston designer Abbie Eliot is missing.” Abbie’s picture flashed upon the screen, followed by a running slide show of some of the images from her career. “Her husband and local Charleston portraitist, Doss Michaels, is being sought for questioning and is a suspect in what is described as ‘possible foul play.’” On the screen, Abbie’s picture moved left, making room for my face as it flashed upon the screen. I don’t know where they’d gotten my picture but it looked like a mug shot. “Following a double mastectomy four years ago, Abbie Eliot, once widely thought of as one of the ten most beautiful women in the world, became the unofficial spokeswoman for breast cancer survivors when she invited the public to follow her through her radiation and chemotherapy treatments. But two years ago, the cancer returned. This time to her brain. We take you now to a press conference held by her father, the former governor of South Carolina and now in his fourth term in the United States Senate. Senator Coleman.” The screen flashed to a live shot of the Colemans’ house on the Battery. Senator Coleman, dressed down in jeans and a white oxford shirt, opened the front door, walked onto the porch and spoke over the railing to the cameras below. “Good morning. Thank you for coming.” He panned the crowd of reporters. “Two years ago, Abigail Grace’s cancer was found to have spread.” He was never too comfortable with the way Abbie so publicly talked about her breasts or their absence once they were gone. He turned and pointed to the back of his own head. “The cancer traveled upward and took root somewhere in here. She has what is called a stage four central nervous system metastasis. These several lesions can be found in the back or base of her brain, which because of their sensitive location, exclude surgery as an option of treatment. Abigail Grace is a fighter, so like everything else in her life, she has fought this.” He wiped his face with a handkerchief. “As many of you know, I was the donor for her second bone marrow transplant. But that, too…didn’t take. Something I think about every day.” He folded the papers in front of him. “Two weeks ago, we ran out of options, brought her home, circled the family and called hospice.” He took a deep breath, back beneath the limelight. The sympathetic father—courting and counting the votes. He beckoned behind him to his wife—Abbie’s stepmother—who stepped forward and put her arm around him. “We know that Abigail Grace would want to be here with her family.” His practiced tone and measured cadence were near perfect. “She needs to be under the constant supervision of her doctors. We don’t know Doss’s intentions…” My picture flashed a second time onto the screen, filling the top right-hand corner. “He’s our son-in-law and has been for nearly fourteen years, but certainly his actions cannot be in her best interest if he has taken her from her family and her doctors in what could very well be the last few days of her life.” Senator Coleman looked directly into the camera and held up his right arm, beckoning someone off camera. A shorter man wearing a doctor’s coat and a serious expression stepped into the frame, where the senator put his arm around him. The senator cleared his throat. “This is Dr. Wayne Massey.”

It took me a second to recognize him. Television does funny things to a person. The senator was right. Wayne Massey was a good doctor. Had more plaques on his wall than he had space for them. He was a specialist studying the blood-brain barrier and had approached us hoping Abbie would join his study. The senator leaned forward. “Dr. Massey is one of the leading researchers in the country in studying conditions such as Abigail’s.” I noticed how carefully he chose his words.

Within the last month, we’d called him—we were covering all our bases. Dr. Massey listened to us, asked thorough questions and at the end of the day, he could only recommend a course of treatment that would not change the outcome, only prolong it a few weeks. And even that he couldn’t guarantee. Those were his words, not mine. The choice not to enter into that course of treatment was Abbie’s. The end of the phone call sounded something like, “The medical community I represent simply cannot help her. I am sorry.”

At what point do you stop fighting? At what point does some quality of life take precedence over the possibility of a few more incoherent and painful, or at least more painful, weeks? I don’t have the answer to this, but I do understand the question.

The senator knew that we knew Dr. Massey. And we knew that he knew, because he’d arranged it through his office. He also knew that Dr. Massey could offer us nothing. Standing in front of the cameras, Dr. Massey was little more than a prop. A stunt. The public did not know. Hence, the reason he was there.

The senator continued, his face growing more pained: “Dr. Massey would like another opportunity to assess Abigail’s condition and consider a new course of treatment. Possibly…” He held his hands out like the scales of justice. “Well, we just have no idea what is available or might be in the days to come.” He patted Dr. Massey on the shoulder. “We’re not finished fighting.”

He was shrewd. In the span of a few seconds, the senator had raised an unspoken question: Was I—the sketchy, jealous son-in-law riding the coattails of the world-famous model—keeping Abbie from a possible treatment and cure? Was my kidnapping—because that’s what this was—motivated by the intent to murder? In so doing, he was circling the edges of a bold-faced lie, yet what did he care? He knew that the best way to enlist the public’s help was to dangle the question and create the perception. Because in the court of public of opinion, perception equals reality. I might as well have had a rope around my neck.

The senator gathered his composure. “Doss…please bring my”—he placed his arm around Abbie’s stepmom—“…our daughter back to us…while there’s still time.”

Cameras returned to the newswoman, who tapped her pencil on the desk in front of her. She turned to her male counterpart who had been quiet throughout her report. “When I was fighting breast cancer, Abbie Eliot was a great encouragement to me. Even”—the woman’s eyes glossed over—“writing me a note of encouragement when I lost my hair.” The guy behind the counter mashed the mute button and threw it on the counter. “I hope they catch the son of a—” The ice machine dropped a tray of ice and drowned him out but I got the picture. A trial before the court of public opinion would not be lengthy. I quietly set down my groceries while the conversation ramped up. I slipped out a side door, walked down the boat ramp, untied the canoe and pushed off with unusual force.

Abbie sat up. “You okay?”

I dipped my hat in the water, soaking the brim, slid it back on my head and let it cool me from the top down. I nodded.

She pressed me. “What?”

“Your dad.”

“What’s he doing now?”

“What he’s good at.”

“Press conference?” I nodded.

She chewed on her lip. “That bad?”

“Denim shirt. Front porch of the house. Katherine standing behind him.”

“You’re not serious.”

“Yep.”

“You know…he really doesn’t like you.”

“Tell me about it.”

To be honest, I’d be doing the same thing if some guy I didn’t like had my daughter off on some river when she should be at home with me. Only difference was, I knew what was best for Abbie. He didn’t. And deep down, he knew that, too. ’Course, he’d never admit it.

The problem with the senator tracking us down was that he would exert his will over ours. He’d stick Abbie in some sterile bed surrounded by people she didn’t know in an environment she did not like. For some thirty-two years now, he had counted the votes of people who’d told him he knew best. After so long in politics, he had grown to believe that if he knew what was best for his constituents, then he obviously knew what was best for everyone. And that “everyone” included his family. No power on earth could convince him otherwise. I didn’t doubt his intentions. The senator wasn’t evil. In truth, he really didn’t have a bad bone in his body. He was arrogant, but I knew he loved his daughter. But loving her and knowing what was best for her, or what she wanted, were entirely different things. “Honey, I think he’s just trying to protect you.”

“From what?”

That part was easy. “Me.”