The Cantaloupe Thief (16 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY

From the Brisseys' cove on Lake Hartwell, Branigan had to drive only six miles of winding country road until hitting I-85 North toward the South Carolina line. About the time she crossed over, making her third pass over the lake, she received a call on her cell phone. She fumbled in her purse to catch it before it went to voice mail. It was the public information officer at the South Carolina Department of Corrections: Billy Shepherd had been released on May 10.

She did a quick calculation — not quite four weeks ago. She wondered if he was making his way home to Grambling.

Davison and Branigan stopped for lunch at a fast-food café overlooking the final finger of Lake Hartwell. They ate at an outdoor picnic table so Cleo could have the run of the place. Branigan wanted her to get plenty of exercise so she'd sleep on the long ride to the coast. Davison ate ravenously, downing a hamburger, cheeseburger, French fries and ice cream in the time it took his sister to eat a grilled chicken sandwich.

He looked sheepish. “There's not a single minute I don't want a drink,” he confessed. “I guess putting anything in my mouth is better than nothing.”

Branigan was glad he had never taken up cigarette smoking. From what Liam said, nicotine withdrawal was the hardest of all of the addictions to overcome. She didn't mention it, because she didn't want to give Davison ideas.

She tried to think of things to talk about that dodged the mines. But she didn't know what the mines were. So she was relieved when after lunch Davison slept — slept through the back roads to bypass Greenville, slept through the merging with I-385 north of Clinton, slept through most of I-26 that linked upstate South Carolina to Charleston and the Isle of Palms.

As she drove, she thought of the abuse Davison had visited upon his body in the past twenty-five years. He'd been doing drugs and alcohol longer than he hadn't. It was a wonder he was still alive.

She looked over at the passenger seat, where he lay, face slack against a pillow he had brought from the house. In sleep, his face looked no older than his forty-one years, and Branigan allowed herself to wonder what his life might have been like. Law school after college. Practicing, maybe in Atlanta or some other big city, but like her, ultimately returning to Grambling. Marrying. Raising Chan. Being a family of four-plus with Mom and Dad, rather than the sad threesome they had become.

When he woke sixty miles outside the Isle of Palms, she couldn't wait any longer.

“I've been trying not to ask too many questions,” she said with a sideways glance as he stretched and yawned. “But I really want to know how you've been living.”

“Okay. What do you wanna know?”

“Have you been living on the streets?”

“Sometimes.”

“When and where?”

“That's hard to answer. Sometimes I'd have a job for a year or more and get an apartment. Sometimes I'd stay with friends. Sometimes I'd work day labor and pay upfront for a motel room for a week or more. But the money always ran out, and I'd end up on the street.”

“Literally?”

“Well, yeah. In Columbia once, I had a nice tent in the woods for nearly a year. In Atlanta, I stayed in a shelter. One winter in Myrtle Beach, I slept in a campground bathhouse. In Asheville, a boarding house that charged $40 a week. I was pretty flush then. Oh, and once I joined a carnival that looped from Florida to Texas. They put us up in travel trailers.”

“You're kidding. What do you know about carnivals?”

“You don't have to know anything to put up tents and pull 'em down. And I actually ran a game booth one season.”

“What game?”

“The one where you throw plastic rings over big soda bottles. On one swing into Texas, we crossed over the border into Mexico. That's where I really saw poverty. We don't have it too bad up here.”

Branigan turned to look at him for so long that he motioned for her to return her eyes to the road.

“That's hard to picture,” she said.

“You get used to it.” He yawned again.

“But why would you want to?”

“It's not a question of
wanting
to. I went to rehab twice that Mom and Dad don't know about — a Salvation Army in Texas, and a gospel mission in St Louis. Then I'd get out, have all this time on my hands, meet some guys, and the next thing I knew someone was offering me a free smoke. That's no excuse, I know. But that's what happened.”

That made four times he'd tried rehab. Branigan's chest pinched as she realized how hard he'd tried.

“I don't quite know how to ask this...”

“Go ahead,” he prompted. “You're on a roll.”

“Well, you seem to be doing well this week. You've had — what? — four days clean now?”

“Branigan, I've had nine months clean before. But sooner or later, I go back. I always go back.”

“One last question and I'll stop. For now. Have you ever been homeless in Grambling before this week?”

She held her breath. The thought of Davison living in woods or under bridges or in abandoned houses in Grambling was somehow more horrifying than knowing he was homeless in another city. He was silent for so long she didn't think he was going to answer.

“No,” he finally said. “I was afraid of running into people I knew. Embarrassing you and Mom and Dad and the rest of the family.”

She nodded past the lump in her throat. They continued in silence for the next fifteen miles.

Then he spoke softly. “Brani G, you don't have to feel bad. There's nothing you could've done. Nothing anybody could've done. It's me. It's my problem, my sin, my weakness, whatever you want to call it. But it's all mine.”

“I know,” she said. “I guess I just wish you cared about yourself as much as we care about you.”

He didn't say anything.

She tried again. “When you're part of a family, your choices affect everyone — not just you. I wish you cared enough about us — about Chan and Mom and Dad and me — to get sober.”

He said something she didn't catch. “What?” she asked.

He sighed. “It's not about choice.”

 

As soon as they crossed over Highway 17 onto the Isle of Palms, they stopped at a grocery store. Branigan bought grapes, strawberries, blueberries, cheese, crackers, soft drinks and paper towels. Davison added Oreos and a half gallon of chocolate chip ice cream.

“We're only going to be here two days,” she protested.

“It'll be gone.”

She rolled her eyes.

“Not going to make daiquiris?” he teased, reading her mind.

“Not this trip.”

He didn't argue. As they rolled over the bridge spanning the inland waterway, they hit their window buttons at the same instant. Branigan threw back her head and laughed as the brackish wind poured in. The wind whipped her hair into her eyes. This moment was one of the best of any beach trip.

“Oh, man!” Davison shouted. “It's been a long time since I smelled that.”

The bridge to the Isle of Palms dumped them abruptly at the town's main intersection. To the left, the road passed between two nicely landscaped shopping strips, then curved in front of a white clapboard Methodist church before becoming the beachfront drive. It passed a mile or more of private homes before veering into Wild Dunes, a private golf enclave.

Branigan turned right instead, zig-zagging to the block-long downtown with its condos, beachfront bars, and stores featuring ice cream and beachwear. She drove slowly on the street that was divided by a palm-lined median. They quickly passed through the downtown and entered the two-lane oceanfront boulevard. Beach houses on stilts lined both sides of the road.

The Isle of Palms didn't look like other South Carolina beaches, which were a mix of 1950s shabby and post-2000
nouveau riche.
The Isle of Palms looked newer, sleeker, more consistently wealthy. That was because it had been hit a direct blow by Hurricane Hugo in 1989. The Category 4 storm had uprooted the namesake palms and destroyed many of the houses — spinning some into the middle of the street they were now traveling. A few underwent renovation, but many homeowners couldn't afford to rebuild. Prices skyrocketed. New buyers came in, razed the debris and built seafront mansions.

One of the few exceptions was the Powers house. Somehow their modest beachfront cottage, snuggled into a tangle of vegetation, had survived. Located halfway between the tiny downtown and the inlet that separates Isle of Palms and Sullivan's Island, the sturdy house on stilts was all but hidden by wind-bent scrubby post oaks, palmettos and palms. Branigan suspected the neighbors had added more trees to screen the house from their view.

She pulled into the unpaved driveway. Crushed oyster shells crunched beneath the Civic's tires. Cleo began to bark excitedly as Branigan maneuvered under the trees that grew right up against the house.

She and Davison saw the weathered sign at the same time, and laughed. Their dad had replanted the trees uprooted by Hugo, and now a twenty-five-year-old pair of palms flanked the roadside porch, straight and tall.

The name with its silly double meaning endured:
Twin Palms.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Friday night was pizza night at Jericho Road. St Mary's Catholic Church brought it in, and the church's youth group served soft drinks and sweet tea. Pizza was popular, and the dinner crowd swelled far past the shelter's eighteen residents to seventy-five homeless and community residents. Because Liam was adamant about making Jericho Road mealtimes a fellowship of the entire community, the Catholic youths also sat self-consciously to eat. Charlie and Chan, far more accustomed to dining at the shelter, joined Dontegan and Liam and Liz before heading out to a pool party.

“Don-T!” Chan greeted Dontegan with a fist bump. Dontegan grinned a response. As his wife and children talked soccer with Dontegan, Liam quietly slid his plate next to Rita, seated on the other side of the round table. Chairs on either side of her remained empty, due to Rita's sharp tongue and sharper smell. Liam gave up momentarily on his pepperoni pizza and took a gulp of tea.

“Rita? I'd like to ask you something.”

Rita grunted. Liam took it for assent.

“Ten years ago, a woman was murdered in her home downtown. Stabbed to death in her kitchen. Mrs Alberta Grambling Resnick. Were you living here then?”

Liam thought he saw a cunning gleam enter Rita's watery eyes. “Yeah.”

“Did you hear anything about it back then?”

“What if I did?”

“Well, the newspaper is working on a tenth anniversary story because it's still unsolved. My friend Branigan is talking to people who might know something. People the police wouldn't think knew anything.”

Rita wiped her mouth with a grimy sleeve. The powerful smell of urine washed over Liam, turning his stomach. He breathed through his mouth and tried not to flinch.

Malachi came up quietly on the other side of Rita, sat down and began eating with gusto.

Rita bent over her pizza, and for a moment Liam feared she was going to pass out in her plate. Then she spoke so quietly Liam had to lean in. “Don't know nothin' 'bout no ol' lady gettin' stabbed.”

Liam persisted. “But I heard you had been talking about a lady who was murdered downtown.”

“Who said that?”

Liam didn't want to get Dontegan into trouble with Rita. “I can't remember.”

“Well, maybe the ol' lady asked for it. Maybe she all stuck up and wouldn' share the wealth.” She cackled.

Liam sighed. “That's no reason for murder, Rita, and you know it.”

Rita stood abruptly. “If a person can't eat in peace, ain't no use stayin',” she said, leaving her plate and cup on the table. She lurched away. “Damn nosybody do-gooders.”

Liam's eyes followed her departure, watched her stiffen as a newcomer entered. She put her head down and scuttled toward the side door. Liam stood to greet the newcomer, who was heavily built, wearing mud-streaked work pants and a dirty T-shirt. Liam offered his hand.

“Welcome to Jericho Road. I'm Liam. Can I get you some pizza?”

“Yeah,” the stranger muttered.

“Are you new in town?” Liam asked, as he signaled the St Mary's teens for a plate and drink. Something about the man was familiar, but he muttered only another “yeah”. Liam indicated a vacant spot at his table, asking, “What's your name, friend?”

The stranger ignored the invitation, walking instead to an empty table. “'Metrius,” he said over his shoulder, then hunched over his pizza, clearly wanting to be left alone.

Liam met his son's eyes across the table and gave a shrug.

“Did you make Rita mad?” Chan asked.

“I guess I did.”

“It don't take much,” Malachi said. “She take offense quite easily.”

Liam laughed. Malachi cracked him up, the way he mixed formal English with street slang. He liked Malachi, had repeatedly offered him a room at Jericho Road. But apparently the long-time homeless man had no use for sleeping inside.

“Your daddy didn't do nothin' to that woman,” Malachi told Chan. “Somethin' bad got a-hold of her. Ain't nothin' Pastor Liam done.”

Chan frowned, took a bite of his pizza.

Malachi turned to Liam. “She ain't telling the truth either. I heard her say the same thing you was asking her 'bout. V and I were under the bridge last winter. She came in our tent, drunk and babblin' 'bout she might get rich if she told what she knew 'bout some ol' lady gettin' stabbed. Said the rich-ass family would pay to keep it quiet. Then she passed out, so V and I didn't pay no mind.”

“Did she mean the Resnick family?” Liam asked. “Is that who would pay to keep it quiet?”

“Don't know. She just called 'em rich.”

Liam stood, and whispered to Liz that he had to make a quick phone call from his office. He wanted to tell Branigan what he'd heard before his friend walked into any more of the Resnicks' homes.