Page 52 of Camino Ghosts

Dud Nash, the other lawyer, said, “Oh yes, name’s Gifford Knox. Good crime writer. I’ve read him.”

“Never heard of him,” Wilson said.

That’s because you haven’t cracked a novel since high school, Dud thought.

Wilson was frustrated but never angry. His father, Rex, the founder, had been a hothead who cursed and threw things at subordinates. Wilson was far more professional, and far richer, and believed in keeping his cool. However, it was apparent that he was losing patience with the slow progress at Panther Cay. He wanted the largest casino in North Florida and was convinced it would mop up with Atlanta traffic.

“When’s the trial?” he asked.

Riddle replied, “Same. Still May eighteenth. Nothing should delay it.”

“And we offered the old lady half a mil, right?”

“Right,” replied Dud. “And she said no.”

“She’s never had a dime, lives on Social Security, and she turned down half a million in cash?”

“She did.”

“Okay. Offer her one million dollars to go away. Got it?”

Jeff smiled and said, “Yes, sir, boss. We’ll get it done.”

“The boys in Tallahassee have the funding for the bridge. A hundred and sixty million dollars. The banks have approved our first series of construction loans, two hundred million. What the hell are we waiting for?”

8.

After six months on the island, Diane had met far more people than Steven had met in six years, not that he was trying to compete. She had a knack for remembering names, so people remembered her. She stopped by the bookstore almost every day, said hello to Bruce and to every other person who worked there, and took the time to chat for a few minutes. She knew the baristas in the coffee shops, the waitresses in the restaurants, the clerks in the dress shops. She visited Sid Larramore at The Register at least once a week and traded gossip. She also spent time in the vaults reading past issues. She jotted down every name that she might one day come across. She flirted with the beat cops, the deputies, and the charter boat captains at the harbor. She watched the court dockets and kept up with cases. She got fresh with some of the lawyers but never went too far.

And she had spent so much time with Lovely that they had become close friends. Diane coaxed her, and Miss Naomi, to a new café downtown, one that was not around back in the day. They had a long lunch and had so much fun they did it again. Lovely invited her to come sit on the front porch and have iced tea. Lovely had so many stories, and Diane would stop her and say, “That’s a new one. Mind if I tell Mercer?”

Mercer was always a topic of discussion. Diane told her everything, regardless of whether she had cleared it with Lovely. Occasionally, the topic of money was mixed into the conversation, and Lovely had little to say. Over time, though, Diane began to suspect that she wasn’t exactly dependent on a Social Security check. Her life was simple and there was little to spend money on. She had purchased the house fifteen years earlier and there was no mortgage. Her only extravagance was clothing, her colorful robes and turbans and scarves. Lovely, always reticent, finally admitted that she ordered her wardrobe from a store in Queens. She produced a catalog—Kazari’s African Boutique—and allowed Diane to flip through it. Pages and pages of colorful dresses and robes, and the clothing wasn’t cheap.

“You must have quite a wardrobe,” Diane said, practically begging for a look.

“It’s nice,” Lovely said. Her front door remained closed.

Once, on the porch, Diane was taking notes as they worked through Lovely’s employment history. She was quick with the dates, but, as Diane had already learned, the dates were proving to be flexible. After she left Dark Isle at the age of fifteen, she moved to Santa Rosa and went to school. She and her mother were practically starving and both worked wherever they could, primarily around the canneries. When Lovely was in her early twenties, she began working as a housekeeper in various hotels along the beach. This was not unusual; many black women worked in the resorts, hotels, apartments, and fine homes. When she was about fifty-five, she landed a nicer job working in a large home, one of the Victorians, in central Santa Rosa. The owner was Mrs. Rooney, the widow of an older man who had passed years earlier. Mrs. Rooney was from “up north” and had a different view of race relations. She and Lovely became close friends and relied on each other. Lovely was still required to wear her housekeeper’s uniform each day, and Mrs. Rooney would never think of having dinner with her in a restaurant, but things were slowly changing.

When Mrs. Rooney died, she left Lovely some money. She had never told anyone how much and wasn’t about to tell Diane, regardless of how cleverly she prodded. Miss Naomi said she had never heard the story.

It helped explain why Lovely was not impressed with money. When Steven and Diane met her in Bruce’s office and told her that there was a million dollars on the table, she scoffed at it. Her only reaction was “I wish they’d stop offering money. I ain’t for sale.”

It was exactly what Steven wanted to hear.

9.

In anticipation of spring break, Mercer began dropping hints that she wanted to return to the island and paint the inside of the cottage. Now that the outside was pristine, they should work on the interior. The walls had not been painted in decades. They owned the necessary supplies—brushes, ladders, pans, rollers, drop cloths, everything but the paint—and they were somewhat experienced now that they had painted the outside. The interior would be much easier, she thought.

Thomas wanted to go skiing in Utah. He mentioned this a couple times but it apparently went unheard. A mysterious phone call from his editor at The Atlantic got his attention. He was needed in New York to review the final edits for his lost submarine article. Away he went, and Mercer drove ten hours to the beach with only the dog. The little family was happy. She needed some quiet time to write and work on her book. Thomas, who had shown little talent with the brushes, had avoided manual labor. The dog would get to sleep on his side of the bed.

Mercer and Diane talked by phone at least an hour a day. They emailed and texted constantly and couldn’t wait to hang out on the island. Even as a paralegal, or office assistant, or whatever she was supposed to be at her card-table desk in the cramped kitchen at the Barrier Island Legal Defense Fund, she was supposed to keep the firm’s work confidential. She did not. At least not when she wanted to talk to Mercer about the Dark Isle litigation. Steven Mahon sort of gave her the green light. They reasoned that Mercer was writing an in-depth book about the case and would find out everything sooner or later. She could be trusted. Lovely had given her approval for the two women to discuss her life and the lawsuit.

The first night on the island, Diane arrived at the cottage with a pizza and a bottle of inexpensive red wine. They talked nonstop for three hours and watched a movie. Diane slept on the sofa. The following morning, she was up early with a pot of coffee and reading Mercer’s first draft.

10.

Noelle cooked dinner for Mercer the following night and they ate on the veranda with Steven and Diane. With surprisingly little embellishment, Bruce told Mercer the story of Noelle sniffing out Lenny Salazar as she examined the new condo for her client. If Lenny had a direct financial connection to Tidal Breeze, and one had certainly not been proven, Steven said he planned to go after the judge.

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