Black Widow Page 3

  “I’ve never been called weak in my life.”

  “That’s not the kind of weakness I’m talking about.”

  “Then why would I do something so damn stupid and destructive so close to my wedding?”

  I didn’t reply. The question wasn’t mine to answer. I waited in the chirring silence of frogs and mosquitoes until she made an attempt.

  “I worry that . . . no matter how good I get at pretending, I can’t change the blood that’s in me. I’m afraid, Doc. Scared that I’ll go back to being what I was born to be, no matter how hard I fight. What’s the term? Self-sabotage?”

  “Don’t be silly.”

  “The voice inside a person’s head may be wrong, but it’s not silly. It tells me I can’t change where I came from. Especially when I pull some crazy stunt like this. Your house and lab—that’s who you are. You told me that once.”

  Had I? I didn’t remember the conversation, so I said, “We identify with all kinds of things. But we don’t come preprogrammed. We make choices.”

  “It wasn’t by choice I grew up believing I was redneck trash. That little voice knows. Sometimes it tries to drag me back into the hole where Daddy lived.”

  “A panther would be easier to drag into a hole. That’s what I think.”

  We were out of the car. Shay stood facing me. I couldn’t see her clearly in the car’s parking lights, and for a moment I thought I’d made her laugh. No . . . she was crying. I let her lean into my arms and held her, face buried in my chest. As she sobbed, I stroked her hair until the spasms slowed.

  “You’re too stubborn to go back to that world. You’re also too smart— take my word.”

  “I wish I was as confident. I’ve worked so hard to get where I am, but that damn little voice is real. It keeps reminding me I’m Dexter Money’s daughter. It’s like a curse.”

  I gave her a little shake.“Women with master’s degrees don’t waste time on superstitious crap. They aren’t afraid of witches and dragons and trolls— unless you count the insurance adjuster you dated from South Beach.”

  The girl snorted, hiccupped, and began to sniffle. “Oh, God! Don’t remind me.”

  After a minute, I said, “Why don’t you come inside? Have some tea, lie in the hammock, and look at the stars until you calm down.”

  “Can’t. I have so damn much to do. Planning the wedding is pressure enough. Three hundred people, half of them speak French, and the only woman that ever impressed my future mother-in-law is a dead virgin named Mary. The perfect Catholic girl—kept her knees together but still gave birth to a saint like Michael. And Joseph actually believed her. Now I have to deal with this bullshit.”

  “She’s that bad, huh?”

  “Michael’s mother? Her name’s Ida. As in ‘I’d’a rather never met her. Ida is a ball-breaker, especially when it comes to other women—maybe because she has six sisters. Michael says they’re ball-breakers. Lots of family money, but still serious overachievers. All five are coming to the wedding. Now do you see why I ran away to the Caribbean?”

  “All six sisters, you mean.”

  “No . . . just the five. One’s an invalid; lives at a facility near Paris because of some kind of birth defect. His mother doesn’t talk about it—probably because it would be admitting her family’s not perfect.”

  I smiled. “Have you been getting any sleep?”

  “You’ve got to be kidding. Even if I take a couple of Xanax, I wake up in the middle of the night, my heart pounding so hard it shakes the bed. Sometimes I feel like I really am going insane.”

  “When did you start taking Xanax?”

  “It’s one of my prescriptions. Everyone takes Xanax. Or something like it. They’re mild.”

  “One of your prescriptions?”

  “Yes, Dr. Ford, I have more than one prescription. Do you even realize what a prude you can be? They’re for when I get overwhelmed. Like right now.”

  “Instead of taking a pill, stay here. I’ll be up most the night anyway, working in the lab. You’re not crazy; I think you’re having panic attacks. Talk to Tomlinson. He can discuss both from personal experience.”

  It got a chuckle, but her tone said, Why do I bother?

  Shay gave me a squeeze, pulled away as she wiped her eyes, then added a smile to prove she was under control. “Thanks, but I can’t stay. Beryl’s dad will be worried if I’m not home soon. You know how he is.”

  No, I didn’t know. Shay had been unofficially adopted into Beryl Woodward’s family during college, but all I knew about the father was that he’d made a pile of money buying floundering hotels and turning them into five-star resort spas. He would be giving Shay away at the wedding. For some reason, Shay found the topic awkward, so seldom mentioned it.

  I asked, “Does he know what happened on Saint Arc?”

  “Bill? Good lord, he wouldn’t believe it, anyway.”

  “What about Beryl?”

  “About being blackmailed? I told you, my bridesmaids don’t know anything.”

  “That was before we agreed to be straight.”

  “I am being straight. There’s no reason to drag the girls into this.”

  “If you haven’t discussed it, how do you know they weren’t sent the same video samples?” It wasn’t the first time I’d asked.

  “Because I would know, okay? I’m the one who rented the beach house, so my personal information’s all over that goddamn island by now. And there was no reason for the girls to give out their e-mail addresses. So why involve them?”

  “I can think of a hundred and nine thousand reasons. You paid the whole tab.”

  “I told you right off the guy wanted money. I told you I was negotiating.”

  “You didn’t tell me it was six figures.”

  “Maybe I’d have done it different if it wasn’t for the life insurance. At first, the jerk wanted a quarter million. We settled for what I had in cash.”

  “That’s very thoughtful. You have lucky friends.”

  “We’re like sisters. They’d do the same.”

  “That’s what’s surprising. You’re so close, I’d think you’d want to share the burden. Or at least warn them.”

  “We are close,” Shay replied, her voice louder. “Just like Michael’s close with Beryl’s fiancé. And Liz’s fiancé. And he’s pals with Corey’s husband, even though Vance is a dick. They were fraternity brothers at Gainesville, for God’s sake. Summers, Michael and Elliot both worked for Beryl’s father, renovating old hotels. That’s the point. We are a tight little group. If one of our guys finds out, all the guys find out.”

  “I guess that makes sense.”

  “Does that mean I get an A?” she snapped. “I thought that part was obvious. How many times have you heard me talk about Michael and his buddies? Maybe you need to lie in the hammock and get some rest.”

  That quick, the tears were gone.

  “No reason to get mad.”

  “I’m not mad, just tired. We can talk tomorrow, but tonight? I don’t feel like repeating myself.”Abruptly, Shay was her alpha-female self, sliding into the car, impatient and eager to get going.

  She was also lying again. Why?

  I THOUGHT ABOUT IT as Shay drove away. I didn’t doubt she was protecting her bridesmaids. The video might contain shots of them that were equally graphic. But it was also possible that something else happened that night on Saint Arc, and the camera had captured it.

  Shay hadn’t lied about being intimate with a stranger. For a young bride, what could be worse? So it had to be something she considered even more incriminating. A crime . . . an accident . . . what?

  The pressure was getting to her. There’d been an edge of hysteria in her voice. Telling. The girl didn’t rattle easily.

  It worried me. On another level, it also disappointed me—my small, selfish reaction to the girl being human instead of the caricature I had created. I admired Shay Money, so I’d constructed that caricature to mirror my own conceits.

  The girl wa
sn’t exaggerating when she spoke of her toughness. Shanay Lucinda Money grew up motherless, servant to an abusive seven-foot, three-hundred-pound father who brokered dogfights and smuggled cocaine. Once, when Shay’s ninth-grade boyfriend misspoke, Dexter Money had stripped the boy naked, then forced his daughter to watch while he spanked the kid raw. The boy was so intimidated, he never told the cops.

  At sixteen, Shay single-handedly extracted herself from Dexter’s influence, moved out, moved on, and changed lives. She got her GED while working a full-time job, then continued studying her butt off until she was offered academic scholarships at the University of Florida. The troubled girl with the redneck accent gradually vanished, along with her name. Shanay Lucinda became Shay—just Shay.

  The reinvented Shay knew what she wanted, and where to find it. Even with the scholarships, she had to work nights, but she still found time to seek out the wealthy and the well-educated. She wangled invitations to their parties, then stayed quietly in the background, listening and remembering, until she’d learned the social niceties.

  Shay once said to me, “People who inherit wealth tend to inherit beauty. You ever notice that? But they seem less hung up on looks when it comes to choosing a mate. That’s not as true of people who pile up their own fortune—you know, guys who want trophy brides. Why, do you think?”

  The question was touching: Shay has a buxom, Southern, pheromone sensuality, but she’s not a great beauty, and the question implied that a man who’d inherited wealth would be more likely to find her attractive.

  I’d told her I was a biologist, not a social scientist. That was Tomlinson’s field. Even so, I was impressed by her gift for observation, and her unsentimental approach to mapping a future. Shay was soon an accepted associate of that interesting caste known as Old Money. Once married to Michael Jonquil, she would become a full-fledged member.

  I saw less and less of her, but she stayed in touch.

  Through the generosity of her new friends, Shay had spent two weeks skiing the Alps. She’d spent a jet-set summer attending parties in Italy, France, and Switzerland. During her travels, she established a reputation as a first-rate organizer, and it leap-frogged her several rungs up the corporate ladder when she went job-hunting.

  The redneck girl with cheek had been transformed, but her core toughness remained. Or so I believed. I had never seen Shay lose control. Never saw her concede to weakness, nor look back in fear. Never saw her cry—until tonight.

  A tenet of biology is that trauma catalyzes change. It’s true on a cellular level. It’s true on an emotional level. Something traumatic had happened that night on Saint Arc. What?

  As I walked the boardwalk to my lab, I slipped my hand into the briefcase and confirmed the video was there. No . . . I did it because my first instinct was to borrow a Minicam, lock myself in a room, and watch the tape from beginning to end. It contained information. Maybe an answer.

  What had the lens captured? Why was the tough girl so frightened?

  The cassette was tiny, half the size of my palm. It was unsettling how easily the lives of four complex women had been harvested, digitized, and trivialized on a few ounces of recyclable plastic.

  Put this videotape in the wrong hands, and touch play? Their futures would be erased.

  4

  TOMLINSON WAS IN THE LAB, barefooted, wearing a baseball uniform, jersey unbuttoned, hair braided Willie Nelson style. He was talking on the VHF radio when I pushed the screen door open, and he paused to wag a warning finger. Quiet.

  He’d been as irreverent and optimistic as ever, but was also dealing with a loss of personal confidence, so I attempted humor. “Sorry. I thought this was the men’s room.”

  I closed the door, crossed the breezeway to my quarters, and went inside, switching on lights. I use yellow bulbs near windows because mosquitoes have primitive eyes that don’t recognize the color yellow. The little bastards do not fly toward light they cannot see.

  Mosquitoes come with the location. I live in what is known as a “fish house”—two small houses built over water on stilts, under a single tin roof. In the early 1900s, fish were stored in one house, fishermen in the other. I now own the property—outdoor shower, rain cistern, and wobbly boardwalks included. Shay was right. I like the place. It’s become part of who I am.

  Dinkin’s Bay Marina, three hundred yards down the mangrove shore, is a neighbor. Another is Tomlinson, whose sailboat, No Más, is moored equidistant from the docks, although he behaves as if he owns my property, too—irritating, at times.

  Tonight, though, it was okay. He’d been at the propane stove earlier—I could smell fried fish—and he is one of the few self-anointed gourmets who doesn’t overcook seafood. Just as uncommon, he cleans up after himself.

  I walked beneath ceiling fans to the galley, where I found a platter of snapper, fresh lime, and mango slices. I squeezed lime on the fillets until they glistened, I squeezed lime on the mango, then went through the day’s mail as I ate.

  There was a manila envelope from a medical lab in Tampa. It contained copies of an MRI brain scan my neurologist had ordered because of headaches that had become more than occasional. I assumed they were caused by a head injury. The doctor wasn’t convinced, so I spent half an hour in a tube that bonged and clanked while electron magnets scanned.

  The neurologist had already called with the results, so I only stared at the envelope for a moment before I pushed it aside. Then I stacked bills atop it, separating envelopes that were addressed by hand.

  There was a letter from an Iowa attorney that I knew would be distressing—it concerned my daughter, and visitation rights. Two other letters from women were of mild interest. A fourth letter, from a man, was of uncommon interest. I studied the labored handwriting. The return address read, Merlin T. Starkey.

  Merlin Starkey had been a cop in the Everglades south of Sanibel. Years ago, he’d investigated the boat explosion that killed my parents, back when I was a kid. Officially, it was ruled an accident of “undetermined cause,” but Starkey and I both knew better. For years, I blamed it on a faulty fuel valve installed by my crazy uncle.

  Wrong, Starkey informed me awhile back. He knew who did it, he’d told me—but he wouldn’t share the name until after his own death.

  I had read Starkey’s obituary in last week’s newspaper. Even so, to see the man’s shaky handwriting days after he, too, had gone to ground was unexpected, and I was momentarily flummoxed.

  Merlin Starkey was an old-time Southern cop: Stetson hat, boots, string bow tie with ingratiating manners that masked a nasty disposition. He’d bait punks with his slow, dumb drawl—“You tellin’ the truth, young captain?”—professional enough to baton the big city out of them without leaving a bruise. But the man kept his word.

  Here was proof, the letter he’d promised. Inside was the name of the person responsible for the deaths of my mother and father . . . the person who’d murdered them, or so Starkey had insinuated.

  I am not sentimental. Even as a child I was impatient with the ceremonies of childhood. By the time I was nineteen, I’d logged too many miles to abide unnecessary baggage. But I have a sustained interest in learning the truth. Not a driving interest, but an interest. As a biologist, assembling puzzles is what I do.

  Finally, here was a puzzle’s last piece.

  Who did it?

  So why did I now find myself reluctant to open Starkey’s letter?

  Strange.

  I held the envelope between thumb and index finger, as if it were evidence, then held it to the light. It was inexpensive paper, taped at the back, stationery folded inside, no writing visible. I shook it, sniffed it, and nearly smiled. It smelled of horse stalls. Distinctive. Starkey had used Copenhagen snuff until the end.

  He’d written my name and Sanibel Island, FLA with a fountain pen. But my address was squeezed between in blue ballpoint, a woman’s hand—the old man had sealed the envelope, but didn’t know my address, so a nurse or maybe an attorney’s secretary
had added it later.

  What did these additional fragments matter? I was stalling. Why?

  Did I fear the truth? Or treachery? The same crazed uncle I’d blamed for the explosion was guilty of swindling Starkey, and Starkey had nursed a grudge for fifty years. Maybe duping me, a nephew, was a way of finally getting even. What if the note was blank? Or Starkey had named an innocent person?

  Or . . . did I fear something else?

  Enough.

  I placed Starkey’s letter on the counter by the stove with the rest of the mail. I’d waited a lifetime to learn the truth. I could wait another hour . . . if there was truth to be learned.

  There were more pressing matters. I opened the letter from the Iowa attorney I’d hired—distressing, as expected, and out of my control. So I turned my attention to things I could control. I’d promised Shay that her video would be safe. My past was past. Her future was bright. Maybe brilliant.

  I washed the platter, then carried the briefcase to my sleeping quarters and pushed the bed aside. Beneath was a recent addition: ship’s carpentry. By turning two flush-set brass locks, I could remove a section of flooring and access a locker that was roomy, dry, and difficult to find.

  From the locker, I took a fireproof box, swung it onto the bed, and unlocked it. Inside, I hid the evidence of Shay Money’s secret weekend among mementos of my own secret life: notebooks, counterfeit passports, emergency euros, emeralds, and Mayan jade from the jungles of Central America.

  There was also a gold locket engraved with a smiling full moon. I held the locket for a moment before sealing the box away.

  AT THE LABORATORY DOOR, I called, “Permission to enter?”

  Once again, Tomlinson raised an impatient finger. He turned from the radio’s mic and said, “You’re not gonna believe this one. Something very weird’s happening out there tonight.”

  I asked, “Weird on the Tomlinson scale, or by amateur standards?” as I placed my briefcase on the dissecting table, and crossed the room to a row of saltwater aquaria. The aquaria were glowing rectangles inhabited by fish, squid, octopi, and predatory shells that I’d collected from local waters. There were also a couple of new specialty tanks.