Flight Patterns (25 page)

“The busy bee has no time for sorrow.”

William Blake

—NED BLOODWORTH'S BEEKEEPER'S JOURNAL

Georgia

I
sat on Marlene's front steps and tilted back my beer bottle, letting the cold liquid slip down my throat. Marlene sat beside me, surrounded by her panting dogs, and in my own exhaustion I couldn't help but wonder why they were so tired.

The night air lay heavy and still, the sweat that coated my skin unable to evaporate. As soon as we'd finished searching every last nook and cranny in my grandfather's attic, I'd volunteered to look through Marlene's, just in case the soup cup had ended up there. After my grandmother had died, Grandpa in his grief had decided it would be easier to get over his sadness if he packed up everything that reminded him of her. I had saved some of Grandma's garage-sale finds before they could be hauled away and carted them over to Marlene's attic, where they still languished.

Among the few things that had escaped exile were a few of Grandma's paintings, because, he'd said, neither Birdie, Maisy, nor I
was a skilled enough artist to make replacements. Only the fact that he was right took the sting from his words.

“You looked in all the drawers in the house?” Marlene asked.

“Almost. I mean, there's the bedroom furniture we haven't gone through, but it wouldn't make sense for it to be there. And Maisy said she and Grandpa already looked. I'll look just because you mentioned it, but I'm not holding out any hopes.”

I drained the beer and had just set it on the step beside me when Marlene handed me another. “You deserve it, and you're not driving anywhere. You must be plum tuckered out, not to mention disappointed.”

I took the bottle without argument and popped off the cap. “Why am I even here? I should have known that finding that soup cup after all these years would be impossible. It's been too long. It was probably a flea-market find, and Birdie kept it as a memento of her mother. I always assumed she wanted me to keep it a secret to hide it from Grandpa. He throws away everything.”

“You're probably right,” Marlene said, taking a swig from her own beer.

“It's just . . .” I slapped at a mosquito on my exposed abdomen. I'd changed into cutoff jeans shorts and a vintage patchwork halter top when I'd headed up to Marlene's un-air-conditioned attic. It was nothing I'd ever wear in public, but I felt safe donning it for attic scouring. I continued. “It's just that when James first showed me his teacup and saucer, I was pretty sure it was the same pattern. I just need to
see
it. I pride myself on being very accurate in my estimates, and I don't want to be wrong if the answer is
this
close,” I said, holding up my thumb and index finger less than an inch apart.

I stretched my legs out in front of me, leaning my elbows on the step behind me. “Otherwise, why am I here?”

“Do you want me to answer that?”

I took a sip from my bottle. “Not really.”

“Well, whether or not you find this piece of china, or if they find
out who the man in your granddaddy's truck is, you can't leave until you've taken care of some unfinished business.”

“Sure I can.”

“But you won't. You're like your daddy with that streak of stubbornness as wide as the river. You've been looking for a reason to come down here where it didn't look like you were standing with your hat in your hand. And now you're here. What are you going to do next?”

I pulled up my knees and rested my chin on their rounded tops, searching for words, the beer making it difficult to catch my thoughts before they floated away. I looked up at the dusk sky and the pale outlines of clouds, but could only see fragments of broken china. “Nothing has changed. Not between Maisy and me, or with Birdie. I've tried; I really have. But I can't make people change. And I miss my job, and my house. My antique things.”

“You're right about one thing, darlin'. You can't make other people change.” She sent me a knowing glance, but I returned my gaze to the sky above again, and the moving bits of china that seemed to be searching for a place to fit like some giant jigsaw.

I took a deep breath, smelling the beer when I exhaled. “I told myself before I came over today that if I didn't find that soup cup, it was the universe telling me it's time to pack up my marbles and go home.”

“What about Becky?”

The hurt was there, even cushioned by the alcohol. “What about her?”

Marlene was silent for a moment. “I saw Becky when I stopped by the house. She reminds me so much of you when you were her age—same gnawed fingernails and all. She seems to be carrying a world of troubles on her little shoulders, though. You sure can't keep things from those young ones. They might not know what it is, but they know when things aren't right. It comes out when she talks, too.”

Marlene put her hand on my shoulder and began collecting our empty bottles from the steps. “I hate to think of her going into her teenage years like that. Kids aren't too nice about anybody different.”

And I should know
. I stared into the neck of my bottle,
remembering a childhood of playground taunts about my mother, who thought she was more than ordinary and walked around town with fake-fur stoles and high heels, looking as out of place in Apalachicola as a polar bear. My biggest mistake had been in trying to defend her, at least until I realized the futility of it and developed my own dubious methods of separating myself from her.

“Maisy is doing a great job with Becky and wouldn't welcome my interference anyway. Whatever relationship Maisy and I had is too broken. I can't fix it.”

“Not unless you're both willing to give up a little of your pride and resentment.” She raised her eyebrows before tilting the remainder of her beer into her mouth. “If you want things to change, you have to stop waiting for someone else to make the first move.”

I blamed the alcohol for my inability to argue with her, to let her know that I was fine with my life. That existing alone and without connections except to antiques and old china made life easier. And the past was an easy place to hide, an easy way to keep my eyes focused behind me instead of into a future I was afraid would look too much like my past.

Softly, Marlene said, “You need to give up something old if you want to gain something new.”

I thought of Maisy and me as we'd once been, the bruises of nine years of separation a riptide in my mind. I felt strangely close to tears trying to imagine Maisy out of my life again. “But what if I ruin everything?”

“What if you don't?”

I twisted my neck to look up at my aunt. “You're supposed to tell me that I've given it my best shot and it's time to go home.”

“Darlin', I'm not going to tell you to do anything—only you can decide what you're going to do next. I just don't think leaving right now is the answer. But this thing with your granddaddy and Birdie has got me worried. I'm thinking that you and Maisy are going to need each other. You're a lot stronger together than you are apart.”

I held the cold bottle against my neck, and saw Maisy's face as I'd
seen it in the crowd at the Seafood Festival ten long years ago. Being there when I was supposed to be traveling the country with my latest boyfriend and his band would have been shocking enough. If only that had been the worst of it.

“We were. But that was a long time ago.”

The sound of an approaching car caught our attention as we watched the beam of two headlights turning into the drive, illuminating the slopes and curves of Nessie's serpentine cement back. I stood, too, wondering who would be stopping by at this time, then relaxed when I recognized Lyle's cruiser.

I remembered what I was wearing and turned to Marlene in panic. “I've got to go change.”

She waved her hand at me. “You look fine, and Lyle's not interested anyway.” She winked, then turned to go inside.

“You're leaving us alone?”

“Sugar, you and I both know I don't have cause to worry.”

“It's not you I'm worried about. What if somebody else drives by and sees us? It'll get back to Maisy before sunrise.”

Marlene seemed to consider for a moment before putting down the beer bottles and reclaiming her seat on the top step.

Lyle parked the car on the white oyster-shell parking area in front of the house. He left his hat in the car but carried something I couldn't identify in the dim porch light.

“Hey, Miss Marlene. Hey, Georgia.” His eyes didn't even register my outfit, and I found myself wishing that Maisy were there to see for herself.

“Can I interest you in some garden statuary, Officer?” Marlene asked with a smile, but Lyle and I both knew she was only partly joking.

“No, ma'am. I actually came to see Georgia. I went to the house to see Maisy first, but she was tutoring a student. Your grandfather was sleeping, or at least he was pretending to, so I figured I'd come find you.”

The weight of the humid air pressed down on my skin, burning me, making me want to dive into the bay and swim as far away as possible. Birdie had once told me that she woke up each morning like
that, feeling pursued, hunted. That all she wanted was to disappear into her empty spaces. I'd never really understood her until now, looking into Lyle's eyes, and knowing that whatever he was about to tell me would make any sudden departures from Apalachicola much more complicated than gassing up my car and loading the trunk.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Just remember that if anybody asks, I wasn't here. I can't be, since I'm not working this case anymore. This is just a social call, all right?”

I nodded slowly. “Sure, Lyle. Whatever you say.”

He held up the objects in his hand, and they looked like two clear Ziploc bags with something no bigger than a wallet inside each. “Can we go in the kitchen?” he asked. “We'll need better light.”

Marlene stood and held open the door for us, and we filed in behind her, the dogs yapping at her heels. “I'll go get out of your way and take the dogs. If you want anything to drink, help yourselves. There's sweet tea in the fridge.”

We thanked her and sat down, and I watched as Lyle placed the bags on the table.

An old book and faded postcard, each partially blackened and spotted with mold, stared out at me from their plastic prisons. The postcard was closest to me, and I could barely make out that there was faded handwriting scrawled across the back.

“It's not that I don't trust any of the other guys on the force to do a good job, but I figure knowing Ned as well as I do might be an advantage. And if I discover anything, I'll pass it on so that it doesn't come from me.”

Lyle flipped the postcard bag over to reveal the picture on the front. Half of it showed a beautiful white-sand beach and aqua waters; the other half showed the old Gorrie Bridge, the through-truss swing bridge that had been replaced in 1988. In what had once been bright red letters splashed across the right-hand corner were the words, “Welcome to Florida!”

“Where did these come from?” I asked, although part of me thought I already knew.

“In your granddaddy's truck.” He cleared his throat. “Inside a jacket pocket the, uh, occupant was wearing. The postcard was stuck inside the book, which is how it survived pretty much intact.”

I picked up the book. Its beige cloth cover was spotted with mold, and it felt soft under my fingers, like a knit sweater. I sounded out the title in my head, my tongue slipping over the unfamiliar words.
Voyage au bout de la nuit
. “Have you looked inside it?”

He nodded. “A name was handwritten on the inside of the front cover that is faded but legible, and managed to avoid the mildew that ate up most of the bottom half. The first initial is ‘G,' and the last name is Mouton. Could be our truck thief, or not. The copyright is 1939. I asked Miss Caty at the library about it and she looked it up—second edition. She also told me the translation of the title is
Journey to the End of the Night
.” He drummed his fingers on the table. “As you can probably guess, it's all in French. Can't read a word of it.”

Our eyes met in mutual understanding. “As far as I know, my grandpa doesn't speak a word of French, either. So if that book was found in his truck, my guess is that it belonged to the man found inside.”

“That's what I thought.” He leaned forward and tapped his index finger on the postcard. “This one baffles me completely.”

I picked it up again, trying to make out any of the writing. The sender's name was completely obliterated, as were any dates or postmark. But the front photo was definitely Apalachicola, and pre-1988, when the current bridge was built.

“It looks like the address is almost legible,” I said. “Has anybody examined it more closely?”

“Yeah, we did.” He fumbled in his breast pocket. “I wrote it down here—someplace in France. Maybe your grandpa has heard of it—I figure he can nod or shake his head, right? And if he hasn't, maybe you or Maisy remembered him mentioning it.” He placed a small piece of paper on the table and slid it toward me.