Deceived (A Hannah Smith Novel) (16 page)

Mica Helms’s “home address” turned out to be a junkyard in Glades City, which I thought was an intentional error until I saw the dog. It was a brindle-yellow pit bull, the same alpha female that had attacked me Friday, minus her pack mate whose head had been found in a freezer.

By the time I saw the dog, it was too late.

I had parked and walked to the fence, which was chain-link, eight feet high, with razor wire at the top. Inside, among rows of wrecked cars, was a trailer that looked lived in, but a sign on the door read
Office
. There was also a gravel path that seemed to invite business. I tried hollering to get attention but a machine—a wood shredder, it sounded like—made so much noise, I couldn’t hear my own voice. The noise came at me in waves and was piercing, so I covered my ears as I walked to the gate. It was a sliding gate, not open but slightly ajar. I looked around and tried hollering again. Pointless. There was a
Keep
Out
sign, but no warnings about a dog, so I slipped through the gate and walked toward the trailer.

Midway between the door and the fence, someone switched off the shredder, creating an explosion of silence that was so abrupt, I actually stopped and blinked my eyes. That’s when I heard a softer sound, a warning familiar from my nightmare, the low rumble of a dog.

I turned. The female pit bull appeared from behind a stack of tires, her dark eyes black in the afternoon sunlight. Because of the shredding machine, she was momentarily surprised to see a trespasser only a few yards from where she’d been dozing. The dog stiffened, as if in recognition, and bared her teeth, while her body hunkered lower for traction. I was already backing away when she roared at me and charged.

Attached to the pit bull’s collar was a galvanized chain. But how long? Was the chain anchored? The questions were displaced by panic. I turned and ran. The shock waves of the dog’s barking hammered at my ankles and pushed me faster. Then pushed me high into the air. Before I could understand what had happened, I was crouched on the hood of a car, my eyes affixed to the eyes of the pit bull as she hurled herself at me, her teeth inches from my face.

I threw up an arm and dived toward the roof of the car. When I looked, the dog was still at face level, jaws gnashing, but then she dropped from sight. An instant later, the animal reappeared, bug-eyed with frustration because the chain had stopped her just short of the car. She was jumping, her claws scrabbling against metal, trying to snatch a piece of me before gravity yanked her back to the ground.

I was atop a wrecked car, I realized. Its windshield was shattered, its metal so traumatized by collision, its roof creaked beneath my weight when I got to my knees, then my feet. I looked around, trying to understand what had just happened, while the pit bull barked and leaped and slathered itself into a frenzy. For now, though, I was safe—unless the chain broke. But was there a way to get back to my SUV? Still in shock, I had to think it through methodically.

Yes, there was a way to escape . . . if I scampered off the trunk of the car and stayed close to the trailer. But the chain’s perimeter circled perilously close to the gate. I was gauging the distance when I remembered the leather organizer I had been carrying. It contained my ID, a pad to take notes, plus a fine Kate Spade billfold that had been given to me by a friend. And . . . my cell phone!

Damn it.
I couldn’t leave all that behind!

I got down on my knees and infuriated the alpha female even more by peering over the side, where I saw weeds and a crumpled Marlboro carton but no leather organizer. That’s when I remembered something else that had been displaced by panic during the last few seconds: someone had switched off the shredding machine . . . and the gate wasn’t locked.

Where were the people who worked here?

“Hello!” I called tentatively at first, then yelled over the barking of the pit bull, “Who owns this dog?”

I didn’t expect an answer but I got it.

“Same person who owns the goddamn property you’re trespassin’ on!” A bully’s voice that came from the back of the lot. Then the man laughed, “By god, woman, you got some legs on you! You can run, I’ll give you that. But you just cost me ten bucks!”

I stood and searched the junkyard until I found two men, not one, at the back of the lot. Both tall, one skinny, the other man huge, with a massive face beneath a ZZ Top beard of gray and a belly that gave shape to his coveralls. The men had hands on hips and both were chuckling as if they’d shared some private joke while standing near a hill of tires and a machine, the words
Moline Industrial Shredder
stenciled on a yellow feeding hopper.

I hollered back, “Your dog almost bit me!”

“Good! That’s what she’s paid to do!” It was the bully graybeard. He was lumbering toward me and still laughing as he said to his partner, “Goddamn, most folks’ll jump up on that Chevy every time. Leave it to a woman to choose a Lincoln!”

Hilarious—both men roared.

What were they talking about? I looked around until I understood. Junked cars had been jammed tight into the lot. I could have chosen a rusting Chevy Malibu as refuge, but I had climbed onto the car next to it because it had looked bigger, higher off the ground—a Lincoln, apparently.

I felt my ears warming. “You let a dog attack people, then bet on where they run?
You’re
the animals!” I yelled.

I was so mad, it must have startled the younger man because he stopped. He stood staring at me for a moment, but then proved it wasn’t my anger that had given him pause. “Hannah . . . ?” he asked, his voice familiar. “God A’mighty, it is you—Hannah Smith! Harris, I know this girl!” The skinny man clapped his hands together, delighted, but then got serious and called to the pit bull, “Vixxy! Get your ass back in the kennel!”

The dog continued leaping at me but finally obeyed when graybeard, the ZZ Top giant, grabbed a chunk of pipe.

When it was safe, I climbed down and said to the skinny man, “Sorry to hear about your mother,” because, despite what had just happened, it was the right thing to say to Mica Helms.

•   •   •

MICA HAD BEEN
a tall boy in school but was now six-five, six-six—even he wasn’t sure—but looked taller because his body, instead of filling out, had only stretched longer as he grew, his skin tight on a boney frame that looked to be all elbows and ribs, but with a gaunt face and a set of shoulders that could have made him handsome were it not for the tattoos and the chemical sparking of his eyes.

Crack or meth?
I wondered.
Oxycodone, painkillers . . . or something new?

Mica’s nervous chattering, his barks of pointless laughter, made it evident that he was using again. The name of the chemical didn’t matter. His brain was starving. It made him a hunter, his glittering eyes always on the alert for a new source—or a new threat. Those eyes were studying me now as he said, “What if I told you donations to the museum were being kept right here? There’s a building out back—nothing fancy, but it’s safe. Would you keep your mouth shut? New donors might not like their family treasures bein’ stored in a junkyard—just temporary, of course.”

For ten minutes, we had been circling the subject of Fisherfolk Incorporated and I was getting impatient. “Would I tell the police, you mean?”

“The
po-lice
?” Mica said, making it a two-syllable word. “Why the hell you do that? Honey, I’m on probation. Last thing I’m gonna do is break the law. I don’t remember seeing your old fishing reels, but if your mamma’s stuff is there, I’ll find it.” He paused, patted the shredding machine affectionately, then smiled down at me. “But Harris runs this place. He didn’t like it when those cops come around asking questions about me . . . when was that, Saturday? He’d like it even less if he knew you was the reason.”

I didn’t care for Mica’s threatening tone. “From the way that dog minded Harris but ignored you,” I said, “maybe they should come back and ask him some questions, too. Is that what you’re making me do? Call police?”

Mica straightened as if insulted, then lowered his voice to say, “Hannah, you always was the world’s most pigheaded girl. Watch what you say around Harris Spooner! My first six months at Raiford, that man showed me how to jail. Baby, you don’t wanna mess with—” He glanced at the trailer where graybeard, in his coveralls, stood watching from the doorway, then gave up, saying, “Hell, you wouldn’t understand. Better to show you.” Mica waved me closer to the shredding machine. “Watch this,” he said, then hit a switch.

I stepped back, not closer, and covered my ears because of the noise. The shredding machine was built on a trailer so it could be towed and had a conveyor belt that led to a rectangular hopper at the top, a yellow box the size of a bathtub. Nothing I could do but stand there while Mica rolled a tire onto the conveyor and then wince when the tire dropped down into the chute. An auger inside the chute rotated the tire like a corkscrew while gradually devouring the thing. The noise, already horrendous, became an ascending scream. Beneath the chute were steel teeth on spindles that rotated in a blur and never slowed while streamers of black rubber, suddenly as light as ribbons, were vented into a metal container. Soon the tire disappeared.

Mica watched me, not the shredder, and his glittering eyes warned
It could happen to you.

“Shut it off!” I ordered.

Instead of hitting the switch, he peeked at the ZZ Top giant again, his manner suddenly secretive, then signaled for me to follow as if he didn’t want Spooner to know. So I followed.

Anything was better than standing near that awful machine—or so I believed until I was told how the man with the gray beard, Harris Spooner, had disposed of his late wife.

Mica led me behind tires and through more wreckage that screened us from graybeard’s view. In the far corner of the property was a metal building where weeds sprouted along the fencing. The building was to our right, but we turned left and didn’t stop until we were among a row of vehicles that had crashed so violently, they resembled bread loaves all blackened by rust and fire. In red paint on a windshield, someone had scrawled
Death Cars
, as if designating the area a theme park.

“How’d you like to have been in that van?” Mica asked me, taking out his lighter and cigarettes. “Cops had that towed in last week. Still some flies around it—see ’em?” He leaned his head, exhaled smoke, then offered the pack to me. “Menthol? I got used to ’em in the joint.”

Out here, the noise of the shredder wasn’t so bad and there was more sunlight. I could see that Mica’s skin was pale and that his teeth were blackening at the roots. I had read somewhere that decay was common in meth addicts because their mouths stopped producing saliva. I wouldn’t have made the connection if Mica hadn’t grinned at me, but he did.

“I didn’t come here to provide entertainment,” I said. I had retrieved my organizer and was taking out my cell phone.

“Just explaining why you shouldn’t piss off my Uncle Harris.”

“Your
uncle
?”

“Grandma’s little brother,” he said, and pointed toward the van wreckage. “I’d rather been riding shotgun in that mess than have ol’ Harris stuff me in a shredder. Hell, he’d do it, too! That boy’d still be in Raiford if they could’a found more than a piece or two of his wife. Harris, he might look messy, but when it comes to his work, that boy’s goddamn tidy!” Mica took a long drag of his cigarette, his message sent, then asked, “How many years it been since we seen each other, Hannah-han?”

Hannah-han. As a toddler, Mica had been unable to pronounce my name, and the nickname had stuck with the Helms children. Which might have been endearing, but Mica was still grinning while his eyes ogled the contours of my blouse.

“I was hoping we could talk like adults,” I replied, concentrating on my phone. The mention of Harris Spooner’s wife being found in pieces had made my stomach roll, and I didn’t want to show he’d upset me.

“Go right ahead, I’m enjoying the scenery. By god, you’ve filled out, girl!” Apparently, Mica expected me to smile at the compliment. I didn’t, which offended him enough to trigger his temper. I was scrolling through recent calls when he added, “A body like a Q-tip, that’s the way I remember you looking. No . . . what was it kids called you? Oh! Pizza on a stick ’cause of them pimples! One thing that hasn’t changed is your shitty sense of humor. Honey . . . you need to loosen up.”

Even as a boy, Mica had had a viper’s tongue and the brains to hit his target where it hurt most. His words stung, but the girl he was taunting was long, long gone. I remained calm. “There’s nothing funny about stealing from old folks, people you’ve known all your life,” I said. “But I’ll admit that someone played a pretty good joke when they listed you on the board of directors.”

I had shown him the Fisherfolk membership form but hadn’t mentioned that I had been hired to investigate the organization. It was unprofessional of me, no doubt, but mentioning his directorship now wiped the grin off Mica’s face. He had been lounging against the fence but stepped away. “Who told you that?”

I said, “I don’t know what all Loretta gave you, but the items I mentioned belong to our family, not her. I’ve got a right to know the thief’s name, don’t I? So I checked public records. Crystal’s name’s there, too, but I can’t imagine her being involved in something like this.”

Mica did a vaudevillian take, the one where the comedian’s cheeks bulge instead of spitting water, then sputtered, “You sure as hell ain’t spoke with Crystal in a while, have you?”

“I plan to see her next,” I said.

“The hell you are!”

“Before the funeral, if you wouldn’t mind giving me an address. Is she doing okay?”

Mica played along. “Well, let’s put it this way: Crystal got religion long enough to gain a hundred pounds—but I imagine she’s improving since Mamma died.”

“That’s a terrible way to speak!” I told him.

“Don’t care if it is. It’s true—those two hated each other. If you want Crystal’s address, check with the loony ward or call her probation officer.”

I let that go by saying, “The funeral’s tomorrow, Mica. I expect I’ll see her.”

The man had lost track of the days, though. I could tell by the blank look on his face. “Tomorrow’s Thursday,” I reminded him. “Services are at Kirby Funeral Home, then burial’s at the cemetery on Pine Island Road. I’m sure Crystal will be there, but maybe you have other plans.”

He pointed a finger and stepped toward me. “You stop your damn nagging! And stay away from my sister!”

“What I’m going to do is call a sheriff,” I said, concentrating on my phone, “and get all your threats down on paper.”

That made him even madder, but Mica was too smart to put his freedom and his starving brain at risk. “Hold on a sec . . .
please
?”
He waited until he had my attention, then the meth addict tried to become a salesman. “For one thing, Fisherfolk is a legal nonprofit, so no one’s stealing nothin’. If you checked the records, you know that’s true. Give me a chance and I’ll prove what a good deal it is for the folks around here.”

“Someone filled out all the right forms,” I countered, “which means it wasn’t you. Was it a doctor named Alice Candor? Or maybe a company she and her husband own. I’ll find out anyway, so you might as well tell me.”

Mica recognized the name, I could tell by the thoughtful look he affected, but seemed unaware of a connection. “Some doctor’s name’s listed in the records? Show me, I’d like to see if it’s true.”

“I didn’t say that. But if that’s who you’re working for, be careful. She’s a psychiatrist, Dr. Alice Candor. She treated prison inmates before she came to Florida. And if she’s treating Crystal, there’s something Crystal should know. This woman did experiments on her patients. The paper she published is on the Internet.”

What kind of experiments?
I could see the question forming in Mica’s eyes, but he couldn’t ask without conceding that he knew the woman.

“It’s the truth,” I pressed. “This was in Ohio, but she’s here now. Is that how you got involved? There’s no shame in going to a rehab clinic, Mica, but Dr. Candor is a dangerous choice.”

The man was becoming agitated and tried to regain control by saying, “She don’t have anything to do with what we’re doing—and what we’re doing is legal.”

“Doesn’t mean it’s right,” I said, which was Joel Ransler’s line but seemed appropriate.

“Right?”
Mica snorted, then turned to me with a wild look in his eyes. “Name me one time this state treated people like us right. Think about it, girl! Families like ours—there was just a handful who settled this state. They put up with the ’skeeters and heat and snakes long enough to turn this shithole swamp into prime real estate. Our people put fish and citrus on the tables of Yankees who treated us like redneck trash. Then how’d they thank us? Soon as there was enough Ohioans, they voted the net fishermen out of business.”

He began to pace, using his boney hands to gesture. “They closed our co-ops but sold commercial licenses to any asshole from ’Bama or Georgia who plunked down seventy-five bucks. Japs and Cubans, too, running factory ships twelve miles off Marco Island—shit, I seen it, girl! Then taxed us out of our houses, and said, ‘Oh, by the way, you can’t net no more mullet or trout or pompano, neither!’” He snapped his cigarette away. “If there’s anyone who should understand why our people deserve a museum, it’s you, Hannah Smith.”

I looked at my phone again. Birdy Tupplemeyer, Joel Ransler, and Tomlinson had all left phone messages, but it was Birdy’s number that I had selected. My thumb had remained poised, though, while Mica talked. The question I was asking myself was
Is he exploiting the truth or does he believe what he’s saying?
because much of what he had said was true.

Exploiting,
I decided. It didn’t take long to make up my mind.

•   •   •

MICA HAD GOTTEN
some coaching. It showed when he went into his sales pitch, telling me, “Picture a whole room showing what the Smith family did for Florida. Old photos of your Aunt Hannahs, your grandfolks, all the famous Smiths.” He used his hands to create a wall for me to imagine. “Your granddaddy’s fishing gear, that would look good up there, too, wouldn’t it? Same thing for my family—a place where tourists could enjoy our family’s pictures and antiques.”

I wondered if he’d practiced these lines on Mrs. Padilla and the others while he continued, “Then you got your Browns and Weeks families. The Padillas, the Hamiltons, and Joiners—you know all the names. Hell, the Woodrings alone should have a whole room. Same with the Chatham family and the Colliers—don’t matter they’re rich or poor,” Mica smiled while his eyes sought my approval.

“The Chathams, huh?” I said, suddenly more interested. “Are they paying to have this museum built?”

“Everybody’s got to chip in. It wouldn’t be fair otherwise.” Mica stood straighter, his smile broadened.

I had to smile, too, when he said that. “You were never known for fairness, Mica Helms. Tell me the truth. How much you charging Loretta and the others to get into this museum of yours?”

Before he answered, he studied me, his manner now asking
Can I trust you?
It was his reluctance that told me my suspicions were accurate.

“What you’re really doing,” I said, “is tricking old people into signing over their property,
aren’t you
? Especially waterfront. That’s why your mother moved out of Munchkinville, I’d bet. She signed over her cottage, then you got her preaching to her friends and handing out donation forms. Mica”—I tried to stop myself but couldn’t—“Mica, did it ever cross your mind that your mother might still be alive if she’d lived closer to her friends? I’m not going to let that happen to Loretta!”

He glared a glassy warning, then tried to settle himself by lighting another cigarette. He smoked and paced in a circle, but he was too mad, and too mean, not to punish me for guessing the truth. Finally, he stopped and faced me. “You always did act like Miss High-and-Mighty. Well, let me tell you something, girl. You’re just mangrove trash, no better than the rest of us.”

I deflected the insult by replying, “If that’s true, maybe I’d understand why you’re stealing from your own people.”

Mica pretended to give that some serious thought, then seemed to drop his guard a little. “Well, honey, truth is, I ain’t the dumb little kid you remember. I figured something out. Back in the day, folks around here made money. I’m talking piles of cash. Now that they’re old, most of ’em are happy to donate to a place that will show off their family history. Plus it helps ease the
guilt
they feel—which I’m sure you already know.” He let that sink in before adding, “Mamma was tickled pink to help spread the word about Fisherfolk. Same with your own sweet Loretta. So I don’t see it as stealing.”

What was that supposed to mean?
I told him, “I didn’t hear you mention any pot haulers on your list of names.”

“Didn’t I?”
he said, and gave me a look that asked
How can you be so damn naïve?
At last, I understood. He was hinting that Rosanna Helms and Loretta had both been involved in smuggling drugs.

“That’s cruel, even for you,” I said. “Your mother’s not even in the ground yet, and Loretta hated boats. Still does! Show some respect!”

Mica laughed that away while a silky wink came into his tone. “Instead of fighting me, you could be helping collect donations. I wouldn’t expect you to work for free. You’d be paid on a percentage basis—like all charities do it. Hannah-han”—he spoke my name as if I was already a conspirator—“some of our people had so much cash lying around, they didn’t know what to do with it. You think they put it in banks? You think they paid income tax on that money? Hell no! They
hid
it—and killed more than one man to protect what they were doing.”

“You’re talking about your father,” I said.

“Goddamn right I am! Didn’t you hear me say folks around here got reasons to feel guilty? Daddy was a mean sonuvabitch, but he wasn’t dumb. Think how much you could sock away if you made ten, twenty million cash, and didn’t pay the IRS? If I’m right, someone owes us both. Think of this as collecting your inheritance, ’cause that’s the way I see it.”

Once again, taxes had been mentioned, but that ended the conversation as far as I was concerned—and also explained why Mica Helms might have ransacked his own mother’s house. Hunting for cash, hunting for
something
.
I started toward the gate while tapping numbers on my phone.

“Hey . . . hey! Who you calling?” Mica followed, the cigarette clinched between his teeth.

“That sheriff’s deputy,” I replied. “I’m less tolerant of bullying since Friday when you chased me with an axe. Or was it him?” I looked toward the trailer, but Spooner had vanished from the steps.

“You’re crazy!” Mica hollered, but then surrendered in a rush by promising to return Loretta’s donations if I hung up the phone.