Over Yonder, page 15
“And I need to know why my son gouged a man’s eye in a hotel laundry room.”
She nodded.
Then she turned on the computer monitor.
* * *
The call came early afternoon. Woody was working on the sundeck, using a reciprocating saw to cut rotted boards. Anything to take his mind off the events of the last few days. The radio was playing the Braves’ first spring training game of the season. He was drinking an IPA that was cold enough to hurt his teeth. But it made his nose ache less. He planned on having a few more beers and polishing the last one off with a hamburger for supper tonight. Forget veganism. Forget yoga. Forget no alcohol.
The phone was lighting up on the floor. He released the trigger of the saw, wiped the sweat from his forehead.
“This is Woody.”
“Hello, Father Barker, my name is John Grader. Federal Bureau of Investigation.”
Woody turned down the radio. His mind was jolted out of its current state of overactive thinking, and he didn’t know what to say. Working with his tools was almost contemplative. In the days since he got out of prison, it was such menial tasks that kept his brain engaged.
“You still there, Father?” the voice asked.
“I’m not your father.”
“Sorry. Catholic. What should I call you?”
“How about you start with why the FB of I is calling me at all?”
“This is a follow-up call about the man we arrested, the guy who assaulted you. Peter Tabares. I believe you remember him.”
“Rings a bell.”
“Yeah, well, he’ll be lucky if he ever sees out of his left eye again.”
Woody looked at the work he’d been doing. The teak floor was 50 percent new wood. He still had a long way to go. The myth about Brazilian teak is that it never rots. The truth is, if the teak is neglected long enough, it will rot just like pretty much everything else on planet Earth.
“Tabares was released by Birmingham PD three days ago,” Grader said.
“You have to love the American justice system.”
Silence.
“Anyway,” said Grader, “that’s why I’m calling. It was the bureau who initiated Peter’s release because we can’t follow him if he’s locked up. And Peter Tabares is the subject of a high-security investigation. He was involved with your ex-wife, Melinda Boyer, briefly. They were part of a local neofascist militant organization that considers themselves patriots. They live off-grid, crap in buckets, Don’t Tread on Me, that kind of stuff.”
Woody took a swig from his bottle. “He was definitely her type.”
“Well, here’s the thing . . .” The guy on the phone paused.
The pause lasted a little too long. Woody could hear the guy sigh.
“If I were you, I’d be ready for One-Eyed Pete to come knocking. What has your daughter already told you about him?”
“Nothing. She lied to me.”
“Did she say whether she knows Tabares at all?”
“It was kind of hard to hear past all the lies.”
The phone went quiet for a while.
“Still there?” asked Woody.
“That’s interesting. Don’t you wonder what she’s hiding?”
“I wonder a lot of things.”
Woody heard the rifling of papers on the phone.
“I really shouldn’t be disclosing any of this. Is this a secure line?”
“I’m a Verizon customer.”
“I have to be careful what I disclose here, Father. This is sensitive information, what I’m about to tell you.”
“I’m a sensitive guy. I’m still not your father.”
The agent paused again. This time for longer.
“Listen, I don’t know what Tabares’s involvement is with your daughter, but I know this has everything to do with some sort of disagreement between him and Melinda. This guy is top tier. He’s the wrong guy to bring home to meet the fam, if you catch my drift. This guy’s pals have been convicted of some pretty horrible crimes. In Canada they are classified as a terrorist organization.”
“How nice.”
“Birmingham PD wouldn’t have known anything about Peter because none of his history will show up on their system. Right now the bureau keeps this information firewalled for federal eyes only. The police thought he was a disgruntled boyfriend or some thug.”
Woody set his longneck bottle on the teak railing.
“And what is he?”
“A dangerous guy. That’s what he is. And if he’s after your daughter, my guess is that it’s because she has something he wants. Maybe something Melinda stole from him. Do you know what that might be?”
Woody’s alarm bells were going off. “How about you tell me.”
Sigh. “It’s classified. I’m not at liberty.”
“Lucky me.”
“And my colleagues aren’t going to tell you any of this either, because this would compromise our investigation. But I’m a dad. You’re a dad. And from one dad to another, I thought you should know that your daughter’s involved in some pretty scary stuff.”
“Thanks. Now I can rest easy.”
The guy cleared his throat again. “I’ll be in touch. And remember, this conversation never happened, totally off the record. Surely we understand each other here, right?”
“We do. And don’t call me Shirley either.”
* * *
The Gulf Beach Library computer consoles were lined up in a long row. Most of them had users.
Amos watched Caroline reach into her pocket and withdraw a small tin box with the yellow Gadsden flag on it. The timber rattler was coiled. Tongue out. Christopher Gadsden designed the flag based on a political cartoon drawn by Benjamin Franklin in 1754. The rattlesnake was a popular symbol representing the American colonies. There were regiments in the military that used the flag. The Third Infantry used it. The marines. The navy.
“Don’t tread on me,” he said.
“What’s it mean?” she asked.
“It means don’t tread on me.”
Caroline flicked on the monitor, then closed her internet browser, which was showing all sorts of Google maps with routes outlined in blue.
“Taking a trip?” asked Amos.
She removed the flash drive from the box and plugged into the port on the computer. The machine took a few seconds to recognize the drive. Amos donned his reading glasses so he could see better what she was doing.
The drive showed up as Samsung on the finder bar. She clicked to open the contents, and inside was a single folder icon entitled 04071865–05101865. She clicked on this thingie. A large subdirectory of files and more thingies appeared. She told him the thingies were all image PDFs, whatever this meant.
Caroline clicked an icon, and the screen was instantly filled with an image of a scanned photocopy of an ancient handwritten page. An extremely high-resolution image, fully zoomed in, with one stroke of the cursive letter taking up the entirety of the monitor. Caroline zoomed outward until the page fit the screen like a tattered piece of yellowed paper.
“What am I looking at?” he asked.
“I don’t know. That’s the thing, I can hardly read it.” Caroline squinted at the screen.
“What do you mean you can’t read it?”
“I don’t read cursive.”
Amos almost passed a gallstone. “You’re joking.”
But she wasn’t. The ornate script was almost illegible to someone from her generation. Caroline was a Gen Z kid, belonging to that curious and unfortunate group that was prohibited from learning cursive in school but was given detailed lessons on proper care and maintenance of their iPad tablet.
Amos leaned in close. The lines were impossibly straight, but the calligraphic letters titled so far to the right, with so little to distinguish one letter from the other, that the page looked as though it were full of scribbled hieroglyphs.
Reading the document took concentration until the word usage and sentence syntax finally opened themselves up to him. The sentences were difficult to put together because of the archaic language. Also, the author used few commas, if any, and every couple of words were marred by oxidation on the page.
The letter went:
My dear wife,
I am now permitting myself to write to you under one condition viz: that my letter shall be not examined by my Atty. Genl. or any subsequent members of my cabinet before it is sent to you. Your eyes and your eyes solely are to see the following words. This will sufficiently explain to you the omission of subjects on which you would desire me to write. We shall converse of family matters later and see to the present matter of importance I presume it is however you know of which subject I am to write.
To-morrow it will be two months since we were suddenly and unexpectedly separated and many causes prominent among which has been my anxiety for you and our children have made that quarter in seeming duration long, very long. I sought private solitude to write to you that I might make some suggestions as to your movements and as to domestic arrangements but I have been occupied as I am sure you know while I flee U.S. military forces who pursue us.
Amos shifted in his seat and leaned closer to the monitor. “What in the . . . ?”
Caroline did not respond.
He read onward to the bottom of the page.
You will realize the necessity of extreme caution in regard to our correspondence. The quid nuncs if they hear you have received a letter from me will no doubt seek to extract something for their pursuit and your experience has taught you how little material serves to ignite their flames and this material should result in nothing short of mania among them. Therefore I wish to leave you with a forthright and evident pathlight within the following letters to guide you onward to a gilded reward.
I desire strongly for you to burn these correspondences upon reading and do pray such letters shall not survive one moment of daylight lest our foes certainly locate the tonnage of the treasury which is lawful property to the Confederate States of America. And in the following correspondences shall I disclose to you where such gold and silver is presently hidden.
—Jeffn Davis
Amos removed his glasses and looked at her.
Caroline was clasping the gold pendant on her necklace tightly.
“Where did you find this?” he asked.
“It was my mom’s.”
Chapter 30
Elizabeth knocked on the sliding glass door of the foredeck. The door was locked. She yanked on the handle a few times, but the door didn’t move. She beat on the door with the flat of her hand, but there was no answer.
“Where’s Daddy?” asked Rachel. Elizabeth’s daughter was carrying a pink overnight backpack. She was holding her plastic Tupperware box of toys beneath her arm. It was Friday; she would be staying at her dad’s for the weekend.
“I don’t know, sweetie. But he’s around here somewhere. I can see his truck in the parking lot.”
Elizabeth beat the glass again. Boom! Boom! Boom! “Hello!”
After a few minutes of knocking, the sliding doors unlatched and parted slowly. Just a crack. But it was not Woody. Behind the glass was Caroline. The young woman was wearing a blue maternity blouse with white daisies and jean shorts. She smelled like sunscreen.
“My sister!” yelled Rachel.
Rachel wedged herself through the cracked doors and hugged Caroline as though they had not seen each other in a few millennia. Caroline hugged her back.
“Where’s Woody?”
“I don’t know,” Caroline replied. “I think he had to go to the store, and he told me to lock the doors.”
“Lock the doors? Why?”
“I don’t know. He just told me not to let anyone inside.”
Elizabeth shouldered her way past Caroline. She had not been aboard since Caroline moved in a week ago, and the place was already cozily disgusting.
“This place is a wreck.”
Caroline cleared her throat and put her hands in her pockets.
The den was a mess—more so than usual. The sofa sleeper was pulled out, the bed unmade. There was an overturned five-gallon bucket serving as a makeshift nightstand. The place smelled like a frat house and pizza boxes were piled up. Elizabeth lifted one of the boxes, which contained part of a Canadian bacon and olive pizza.
“Those were for me,” Caroline said, pointing at the boxes. “He won’t eat them. He says you wouldn’t want him to.”
Elizabeth tossed the box onto the floor and looked at the clothing hanging all over the place, secured with clothespins. Girl’s clothes. Elizabeth removed one of the garments from the ceiling’s hanging lamp. It was a pair of pink maternity panties, and they were still wet.
“Why are these hanging from the ceiling?”
“He doesn’t have a dryer,” said Caroline.
“That’s not what I asked.”
“He said hang them somewhere out of the way.”
“The marina has a laundry room. You can wash and dry your clothes there.”
“He won’t let me leave the boat today.”
“Why not?”
Rachel was jumping up and down. “I like your daisies,” she said, pinching the fabric of Caroline’s shirt. The little girl’s hands were all over Caroline. There was a magnetism between the two of them that Elizabeth did not want to understand. They were sisters but strangers. Children are more willing to expand the boundaries of family than their adult counterparts.
Elizabeth turned to Rachel. “Get off her.”
“What?” asked Rachel.
“I want you to go wait outside in the car.”
Rachel’s little face broke. “What? Why?”
“Do as I say.”
“But I thought I was staying with Dad tonight?”
“Car, right now. We’ll talk about that in a second.”
Rachel sulked off and flung herself on the foredeck outside the glass doors. It wasn’t exactly the car, but Elizabeth would deal with that later.
“Didn’t he remember that his daughter was coming over today? Why is he gone?”
Caroline shrugged. “I’m sorry. Why do I feel like this is all my fault somehow?”
Elizabeth marched into the back bedroom on the main deck. When she opened the door, she discovered that the room had been girlied up considerably. Pink bed spread. Multicolored lights dangling from the ceiling. New clothes in the closet with tags still on. Magnetic phone charger by the bed. Expensive items. All Elizabeth could see was money Woody didn’t have, being channeled toward expenses he couldn’t afford, to support a child he did not need in his life.
“Where did all this come from?”
“All what?”
“All this stuff.”
Caroline looked around the room. “Target?”
Elizabeth shut the door. “Okay, whatever.”
She went into the bathroom and clicked on the light. There were beauty items all over the counter. The gray cat was eating from a small bowl. There was a litterbox that needed changing next to the shower.
“So did he say where Rachel is supposed to sleep tonight?” asked Elizabeth. “God knows, there’s no room on this boat. Is she supposed to sleep in the engine room? Or maybe she’s going to sleep cuddled up next to a power saw?”
“Where did she sleep before?”
“In the bedroom.”
“She can still sleep in my room.”
Elizabeth flipped off the bathroom light. “Your room?”
“I mean, his room. I mean, that room, the one back there.”
Elizabeth thundered into the galley. The sink was overflowing. The counters were littered with chopped onions and dirty knives. A slow cooker was going. The whole place smelled like garlic and spice. She lifted the lid. It was hamburger chili. She searched through the garbage and found a foam tray of 80 percent lean ground beef. “I thought you said he was still vegan.”
“The chili is for me,” said Caroline.
Elizabeth slammed the lid onto the Crock-Pot. “Sure it is.”
The lid fell off the pot and onto the floor, splattering beef juice everywhere.
“We’re done here.”
She started to leave the boat. On her way toward the door, she kicked a stack of books from a side table. She watched the pyramid of volumes pertaining to meaningless historical things fall to the floor. Elizabeth almost tripped over a book about the antiquity of Chinese Han art.
“I’m really sorry,” said Caroline. “I can tell you’re upset. I feel like this is all my fault somehow. Have I done something wrong?”
Elizabeth pigeon-stepped over the fallen books and began gathering empty pizza boxes into her arms.
“Is there something I can do to make this better?” asked Caroline.
“I’m not mad at you,” said Elizabeth, peeking over the stack of boxes. “This is just really bad timing. Woody’s only been out for three months, he’s in bad health, and he’s not ready for a teenager in his house. It’s nothing personal; this is just a bad idea.”
The room went quiet.
“Three months?” Caroline repeated. “Been out of where?”
Elizabeth dropped the pizza boxes in the corner near the overflowing trash receptacle, then punched them to crease them in the middle. “I’m sorry, what are you asking me?”
“You said he’s only been out for three months. Out of what?”
Elizabeth stopped. She turned to face the young woman. The kid’s eyes were the same color as Woody’s, and her skin was deeply freckled. She really was a striking girl.
“You mean he hasn’t told you?”
Caroline shook her head.
“Woody just got out of prison for killing a woman.”
Chapter 31
Woody’s truck pulled alongside Caroline. She was walking on the sidewalk at a medium clip, clutching the gray cat in her arms, her backpack on her shoulders. She was wearing her old clothes. The Snoop Dogg shirt and the stretched-out yoga pants with holes in them. He pulled the truck beside her, riding the wrong lane with hazards flashing. Cigar in the corner of his mouth.
“May I be of some assistance, ma’am?”
She did not speak. She kept pace. He could see that her skin was reddened from the sun. Her nose was burnt too. The bruises on her face were clearing up.
