Bound for the Outer Banks (7 page)

The agents actually believed Ella when she would cry and insist she didn’t know what Dante was referring to. After all she was risking her life to testify against him and from all the bawling and squawling she had done the first two months away from Dante, they knew she had loved him deeply.

After the second month, hidden surveillance cameras revealed Ella doing nothing but binge eating Haagen – Dazs and sour cream and onion Pringles, breaking into tears, and cursing Dante while holding her only picture of them together. The agents realized she really had loved him and the only thing she had been guilty of was choosing the wrong guy to hang her hopes and dreams on.

“Chief, she has something they want and they are damned and determined to get it. I don’t know what she knows that she doesn’t know she knows, or what she has that she doesn’t know she has or what, but whatever it is, it’s big.” Flynn said in a sober voice. “You know that island and those waters. Keep her safe while we figure out what this stupid ass missing piece is.”

No one wanted to bring down Dante Vitali and any other member of the Sacra Corona Unita more than Chogan Montauk. The organization had murdered three agents in the last six months, including his best friend, and it had almost landed him behind a desk becoming an impotent paper pusher. If protecting a little mob loving beauty queen for a few months would lead to the demise of the members responsible for his friend’s and fellow agents’ murders, then he’d be happy to do it, besides there were worse places to be than back in Wanchese on Roanoke where he was a “hometown boy done good.”

Chogan picked up the file and nodded to Flynn.

“We’ll be in touch,” Flynn said to Chogan as he pulled open the office door.

Chogan never looked back and one day later he was bound for The Outer Banks of North Carolina just like Flynn had ordered.

Chapter 8

Ella surveyed her new home. At least it was an open concept floor plan and not a bunch of chopped up rooms like the last place. She had felt like a rat in a maze every time she made it to the kitchen. As in every one of her temporary residences, the walls were painted a tea stained off white.

Ella missed the deep bright colors of her place in Biloxi. BeBe had never shied away from color and thought that it completely affected one’s mood. “I’m telling you. I could get half of America off antidepressants if they’d just let me put a little color on their walls!”

Whenever Ella wanted a new look for her room in New York, BeBe would take her to the Sherwin Williams store and allow her to pick any color. She’d had bubble gum pink until she was six and since then had gone through a palette of Florida Orange, Cobalt Blue, Sunshine Yellow, and a color that could only be described as a mixture of deep purple and magenta.

BeBe was not a seamstress by any stretch of the imagination, but she could sew a little and would always create a new duvet, shams, and window valances to match the new color scheme. She showed Ella how to thread the sewing machine and coached her on the spatial aspects of sewing.

Ella begged her mother to let her take sewing lessons at a craft store. BeBe was delighted that she was interested. After learning how to use basic patterns, Ella began sewing Halloween costumes for herself. Soon her friends commissioned her to sew theirs and after that Ella began dabbling in designing and sewing her own clothing. After being asked to sew all the costumes for the theater department at school, Ella knew that fashion and design were her calling.

As Ella looked around the dreary cottage, the wheels began turning in her mind regarding what the place really needed. She’d decide on a color scheme first and then go from there. Her last three places had been coral with green, hot pink with sky blue, and chartreuse with deep purple. She decided that the palette for this cottage would be aqua with a punch of red.

Ella unpacked her few belongings and placed them in the drawers in the smallest bedroom. She picked the bedroom on the front side of the house even though it was a bit smaller than the supposed master bedroom on the back. Concluding that anyone attempting to gain entry into her house would probably not do so from the front, Ella thought this was a wise choice, especially when the front faced Cemetery Road of all places.

Ella decided that Roz was right. It wasn’t the dead she needed to worry about. Ella had always tried to be vigilant and be wary since Dante’s thugs were after her. She still didn’t understand why the Crown’s rank and file were so determined to find her. She’d been over everything a thousand times with the agents. All she knew was that Dante was on the run from something and he decided to take her with him without consulting her of course. She’d already ratted out his location in Berlin where agents promptly nabbed him and she was willing to testify that he’d basically kidnapped her. She wished she knew what this stupid missing piece was she had been constantly interrogated about but she was clueless.

The next morning Ella decided to take a bike ride around Manteo to get the lay of the land and to see if there was an Ace Hardware nearby. It seemed that every small southern town that apparently wasn’t worthy of a Home Depot or Lowe’s always at least had an Ace. Subscribing to BeBe’s theory of color affecting one’s mood, Ella always brightened up her temporary abode with color even though she wasn’t allowed to do it by painting the walls.

Since Ella had already biked in on the central part of the island entering Manteo from the South, she decided to head north on Waterfront Street. She rode through the northern most part of the historic downtown area and saw more local artists’ shops, a Lost Colony souvenir shop, and a few bistros and restaurants. As she exited the more touristy area, she began to see more utilitarian businesses which catered to the locals, including a dry cleaner called Flora’s Fluff and Fold, a Roanoke Community Bank, and a small Ace Hardware.

The Ace had garden tools and fishing supplies hanging from hooks on the front next to stacked porch swings and brightly colored wooden Adirondack chairs.

Ella parked her bike on the bike rack placed in one of the parking spaces, and walked past stacks of colorful clay pots forming a front walkway to the front door of the store. Ella pulled the door open and a tiny brass bell jingled signaling the proprietor that he had a customer. As Ella stepped across the threshold, a salt and pepper colored Giant Schnauzer came trotting toward her.

“Bobby Lee Majors! Get back here!” A tall, thin, older gentleman stepped from behind the counter in jeans, a chambray button down, and the classic red vest with the Ace Hardware logo over the left breast pocket. Ella couldn’t help but think that this guy looked like the quintessential “helpful hardware man.”

“Don’t worry,” the man said. “The only way he would hurt you is if he licked you to death.”

Ella loved dogs and missed having one. BeBe had always made sure that Ella had a dog because she believed that children who had pets grew up to be more compassionate people. Ella believed her mother to be right.

The door closed behind Ella and the jingling stopped. She knelt down but was still face to face with the Giant Schnauzer who weighed eighty pounds and had paws like a bear. Miniature Schnauzers Ella had seen often since they were a favorite among New York City apartment dwellers, but she had never seen a Giant Schnauzer. Bobby Lee commenced to licking her face, neck, and hands. Ella didn’t mind at all and scratched Bobby Lee behind the ears.

“Bobby Lee, get over here on your spot,” said the hardware man. Bobby Lee dutifully obeyed and trotted back to the round, knotted rope rug at the end of the checkout counter.

Ella’s last dog had been a long haired Chihuahua named “Pepe.” He died not long before Ella went off to Saint Stanislaus, so there hadn’t been any animals in Ella’s life since, due to the boarding school not allowing pets, college life, barely having enough money to feed herself, and last but not least, the romp around the globe accompanying her kidnapper. She swore the first thing she was going to do when this ordeal was over would be to get a pet. She might even get two for good measure.

“I love Schnauzers, but I’ve never seen a Giant Schnauzer,” Ella said, still staring at the massive dog.

“Most people haven’t,” the man answered. “He’s a rescue. I think the family didn’t bargain on just how big he was going to get. I figured that’s just more of him to love.”

Ella was impressed with a man who openly spoke of love, even if it was referring to man’s best friend.

“So how did Bobby Lee come by his name?” Ella inquired.

The gentleman smiled and explained, “When I saw him with that long gray beard and those intense eyes, I realized he looked exactly like a painting of Robert E. Lee I once saw in the Smithsonian.”

Ella nodded. “I see the resemblance.” Ella thought about this man visiting the Smithsonian and wondered what his story was. BeBe always told Ella that every person had a story and no matter how mundane their life might seem on the surface, you could bet they had experiences worthy of a novel or at the least a novella.

Ella continued to inquire about the dog’s name “What about the Majors part? I heard you call him Bobby Lee Majors.”

The helpful hardware man chuckled and looked down at the counter. “That was an add on. You see young lady, well before your time there was a popular television show called The Six Million Dollar Man. Lee Majors was an actor that played an astronaut who’d been in a horrible accident and they basically rebuilt him to the tune of six million dollars. I don’t have that much in Bobby Lee but it feels close.”

Ella smiled. She’d heard BeBe complain many times that she should be allowed to claim Pepe as a dependent considering the expenses of owning a pet in New York City.

The man continued. “The local no kill shelter was having an adoption drive down by the marina and the big Schnauzer was the only one who hadn’t been adopted that day. The shelter representative told me the big ones were always the last to be adopted. Considering I’m six foot four I could identify with the big mutt. I adopted him and thought I’d gotten a pretty good pet for free, but I added the Majors to his name when he ended up costing me a whole lot more. He got Parvo, got into a scuffle with a raccoon, and ate a nutcracker Christmas ornament which lodged in his intestines. I took him to visit my aunt and she’d put out rat poison behind the deep freezer. Bobby Lee Majors stuck his snout behind it and took a big helping. He had two blood transfusions, extra platelets, and he spent a week in the pet hospital in Columbia. He tried to run with a long stick in his mouth and one end hit the ground and impaled the other end of the stick into the top of his mouth and he had to have palate surgery. So my free dog ended up costing me more than my first house. They just keep rebuilding him like Lee Majors on the Six Million Dollar Man. That’s why his full name is Bobby Lee Majors.”

Ella laughed, “You must love that dog.”

“Oh I do,” said the man. “I keep thinking that one day he’s going to redeem himself and save my life or something, but then I wake up. My name is Art by the way.” Art extended his hand to Ella.

“My name is Belle.” Ella shook his hand firmly the way BeBe had taught her. “I just moved here.”

“Welcome to Manteo, Belle. What can I do for you?”

“I need three 4 x 8 pieces of foam insulation, a gallon of aqua paint, a large drop cloth, one edging brush, a small trim brush, a large brush, one paint pan, four cans of red spray paint, one flathead screwdriver, one Phillips head screwdriver, a small bag of nails, and a small hammer.” Ella reeled off her list of materials from memory. She’d bought the exact same items three times before with the exception of the color of the paint.

Raising his eyebrows, a puzzled Art asked, “Didn’t I see you ride here on a bike?”

Already having anticipated Art’s next question Ella replied, “Don’t worry, I can put the paint supplies in my basket and I can balance the foam boards on my head.” She’d become quite ingenious and industrious since those first days out of college living in Biloxi on a song, praying her money would last until she got a job and her first paycheck.

“Oh, I’m not worried, I’m sure you’re capable of that but since you can borrow my old pick up there’s really no reason to show me your Chinese acrobat-on-a-bicycle skills.”

Ella smiled and thanked Art for the offer. She picked out all of her items with Art shouting directions to each position on the aisle, while he mixed Ella’s paint. She had picked a swatch of “Cayman Waters.” After they packed the bed of the truck, Art handed Ella the key.

“Aren’t you worried I might abscond with your truck?” asked Ella.

“Not really,” replied Art. “I figure if you steal this old thing you need it a lot more than I do. Anyway, any young lady who knows how to use the word abscond in a sentence is probably not a high risk for grand theft auto.”

Ella thought how handing a complete stranger the keys to your vehicle in New York would be unthinkable, but in the South it seemed like second nature in order to help a neighbor. The folks in Biloxi had been like this too. Ella was happy to be back in the South. After freezing her ass off in Kalispell, Montana, having her fill of rude, uppity acting people in Connecticut, and feeling invisible in family centric Salt Lake City, she was happy to be back in the friendly South.

“Aren’t you going to ask me where I’m going?” quizzed Ella.

“No, it doesn’t really matter where you’re going,” replied Art. “It just matters that you come back.”