CHAPTER EIGHT
We didn’t say much that night. She didn’t ask and we didn’t offer. The circles beneath her eyes were deep and dark. She looked drained. Depleted. Bone weary. Having made her decision, she walked into my cabin, shut the door, and fell into bed.
She stayed there five days.
Every few hours I walked alongside the deck and glanced through the cabin window, where I found her curled up in bed, knees tucked up in her chest, arms wrapped around herself, seldom moving, pillow wet with drool. I think she’d been running on auxiliary, borrowing from reserves, for a long time. Like maybe longer than anybody suspected. When she did wake, she didn’t eat, didn’t talk. She quietly got up, went to the bathroom, sipped some water, and fell back in bed.
Steady called in and told them he was taking a few days off. They understood. They knew he was her priest and that her death would hit him hard. After he told them that he had been to Sky Seven the night before and that he was, more than likely, the last person to see her alive, they said, “Take all the time you need.”
They found the boat that first night. Search teams scoured the water. Pictures of divers holding jagged pieces of boat covered the front pages of the Miami Herald. One diver held her burned and mangled iPhone. The fallout was immediate and total. Her death consumed every channel, every outlet, every network, for a week. The second night, I made my way into Chokoloskee, pulled my baseball cap down over my eyes, and drank a beer at the historic Rod and Gun Club bar.
The bar was full of media and mourning fans. On the TV, all the Hollywood A-listers were making the late-night rounds talking about the tragedy. About their friend Katie. One report told how her flame-scarred iPhone had sold for six figures in an auction on eBay.
I finished my beer, got in my boat, and slipped back out into the trees. Out in the gulf, a makeshift shrine developed. Somebody put a huge cross constructed out of white PVC pipe next to the hull of her boat. Covered it in a wreath. Others tied or taped notes to it. Some tossed bricks wrapped with plastic bags holding tearful letters. Others dropped messages in bottles that floated wherever the current took them. A continual procession of boats I’d never seen made their way from Chokoloskee to “the graveside.” Some came from as far away as Miami. Within days, more crosses appeared. Some wooden, some metal, most were made from PVC or plastic tubing because it would last longer and weather the storms. Four nights after her “death,” more than seventy-five boats had anchored in what was being called a “water memorial.” A solemn affair. People talking in hushed tones. The smell of pot, stale beer, rum, and coconut oil. Some forty crosses now rose up in ordered rows out of the water. The networks had hired several barges, anchored close to the burned-out hull, showered it in a twenty-four-hour spotlight and transmitted around the clock as the ceremony continued and the number of boats grew—as if she might, at any moment, rise from the water.
But Katie Quinn was no phoenix.
One guy in a hundred-and-ten-foot yacht positioned two huge flat-screen televisions—maybe seventy inches—on the deck, wired them through speakers equally as large, and played her movies around the clock. The parties lasted all night. I drove the perimeter, outside of the light, amazed at the number of boats and people and their devotion to someone they did not know and had never met. I cut my running lights and returned under the cover of darkness. I knew it wouldn’t be long before someone with a camera and microphone stumbled upon us and started asking questions. “Did you see the explosion?”
That night, Steady and I moved both the Gone Fiction and Jody deeper into the islands where only the ghost of Osceola could find us. Which was good because the water was crawling with boats. Katie Quinn had been a spectacle in life and her fans were making sure her death was one as well. On the sixth morning, tucked well back in the trees, she woke. It was daylight. Steady and I were sipping coffee, twiddling our thumbs. She shuffled in; her eyes were slits. She sat at the table, pulled her sweatshirt sleeves over her hands and held them under her chin. The circles beneath her eyes were still there, just not as dark, and maybe not as deep.
Steady poured her a cup of coffee and the three of us sat in silence. After a few minutes, she nodded out the back of the galley. “The view’s changed.”
Steady nodded. “A lot of people are looking for you.”
She sipped. “What day is it?”
He spoke softly. “Saturday.”
She sipped again. Calculating the days. “Which one?”
He smiled. “You’ve been asleep for the better part of six days.” Steady held her hand in both of his. “Katie, I need to head back for a few days.” He glanced at me. “Leave you here with Sunday.” He smiled. “If you’re good, maybe you can convince him to take you to his cabin in the Glades.”
I spoke the only Spanish I knew. “Mi casa es su casa.”
He smiled. “I’ll be gone a few days. So long as you stick with him, no one will find you here. If you need anything, all you have to do is ask.”
She nodded. “Steady?”
“Yes.”
Her fingers mindlessly turned her mug. “How can you declare me ‘ashes to ashes’? I mean… that’s where you’re going. To my funeral. Right?”
He nodded, stared out across the water. “It is an ethical and moral dilemma but”—he glanced at me—“one I’m not unfamiliar with.”
She shook her head. “I can’t ask you to do that.”
He laughed. “Too late.”
“But…” Her voice cracked. “How can you do that when you know you’re lying?”
He sat back, crossed his legs. “I once heard the confession of a German who hid Jews in his basement for two years during Hitler. Said the SS routinely knocked and searched his house. He denied it every time. The family in the basement lived. Their children’s children bear his name.” He looked at me. “I think God looks at this the way He looked at that.”
She said, “How’s that?”
Steady patted the sweat on his forehead with his sleeve. “With a smile on His face.”
There really wasn’t much response when Steady started telling stories. We were silent a minute. I asked, “Why was he confessing that to you?”
“He wasn’t.”
“What then?”
“Towards the end of the war, he’d shot an SS officer in the face and wanted to know if I thought it was murder.”
“What’d you tell him?”
Steady stood. His complexion changing. His cross dangling from his neck. “I told him it was not.”
CHAPTER NINE
I drove Steady to Chokoloskee, where one of his priests picked him up. He had asked Katie for a list of things she needed, which she’d scribbled on a yellow sticky note. I made the rounds, picking up everything from toothpaste to feminine products to women’s deodorant.
The story was everywhere and on everyone’s lips. The general tone was remorse. Or loss. As in, “What a shame. What a waste.” And most folks were left shaking their heads. Given its proximity to the explosion site, the networks had filled every parking lot with antennae-topped trucks and out-of-place reporters all saying the same thing: “Katie is gone. And nobody really knows why. Long live the Queen.” Their attempts to make sense of it were getting nowhere. Probably good she wasn’t there to hear it.
My last stop on the way out of town was Delilah’s—a thrift store with shelves of secondhand and vintage castoffs. I guessed Katie’s size as a four but bought everything from a two to a six. I bought a few bathing suits, couple pairs of jeans, several T-shirts, a sweater, more sweatshirts, a windbreaker with a hood, some cut-off shorts, flip-flops, a wide-brimmed purplish hat fit for a lady, some big bug-eyed sunglasses that would hide half her face, a new pack of women’s Jockey underwear, and three bandannas: blue, lime green, and red.
I stepped into Jody—Costas on my face—cranked the engine, and let her sit idling while I stowed my purchases. A voice sounded over my shoulder. “I’ll give you five thousand dollars to rent you and that
boat for three days.”
I turned. A tall, skinny man, with dyed black hair in a ponytail, a voice recorder, and a point-and-shoot hung around his neck stood at the water’s edge. His eyes were piercing aqua blue; fingernails painted black, he looked to be wearing black eyeliner, and dragon-footed tattoos climbed up his neck and behind each ear. My first thought was Queequeg from Moby-Dick. A second portly man wearing a dumpy hat and carrying a large and expensive-looking video camera stood behind him. He reminded me of Smee in Peter Pan. Queequeg was my height, a little over six feet. Smee was shorter, stockier, had meatier hands. Both looked to be following the story and assured of their own importance.
I shook my head. “I’m not from around here. Wouldn’t be much help to you.”
The tall man shook his head and stepped down into my boat. The cameraman followed. “I doubt it. I’m a pretty good judge of people and based upon your weathered skin, the tan on your face from the sunglasses, the way you handled this boat coming in here, and the proficiency with which you navigated the stores around town while the rest of us are tripping over ourselves, not to mention the well-used look of this meticulously manicured boat, and the darkened cork handles on your fishing rods, I’d say you know these waters about as well as anyone.” He held up a wad of cash. “Seven thousand.”
It was about here that I started wondering if he’d witnessed my purchases at Delilah’s. “Thanks, but”—I patted the console and deflected it—“she’s not for hire.” I kept my eye on his cameraman because the moment he clicked that thing on and started pointing it in my face, he and his camera were going in the water.
He smiled. “What about you? Everything can be bought.” I hadn’t been around this guy more than fifteen seconds but I already wanted to take a shower. I untied the bowline and was returning to the console when he stepped between me and the wheel close enough for me to determine that the black lines beneath his eyes were in fact tattoos. Permanent guyliner. His voice was smug, giving insight into his elevated opinion of himself. “I’m Katie Quinn’s authorized biographer. And the only one to”—he raised both eyebrows—“authorize her, if you know what I mean.” He glanced away, then back at me while the success of his prowess resonated across the water. “I’m also the author of the current number ten on the New York Times best-seller list. Based on the feeding frenzy”—he tossed his head back—“I should be topping the list by tonight.” He pointed toward the gulf and tried to sound casual. He thought I’d be impressed. I wasn’t. He continued, “Based on recent events, we’re releasing a new edition with a few new chapters. The authoritative work.” He pointed at Smee. “CNN is producing a documentary on my research. Airs late next week and several more times this month.”
I revved the engine. “Well, good luck on your work.”
He put one hand on my shoulder while snapping behind him with his other. “Do I know you?”
I looked at his hand. “Doubtful.”
“I rarely forget a face.” Smee shouldered his camera, pointed it at my face. The red light on the front told me he was recording. I didn’t hesitate. I bumped it into reverse and slammed the throttle down. Evidently, neither were boat people. The jolt threw Smee and his camera in the water. Queequeg landed on his butt in the bow. I knelt over him, my face inches from his. “You want to walk off this boat, or exit like your wet friend there?”
He stood, eye to eye with me, and said nothing. He was slick. Undeterred.
Frothing at the water’s surface, Smee treaded water while cussing me and my entire lineage because his forty-something-thousand-dollar HD video camera was sitting in fourteen feet of water amid a bed of oysters. I’m pretty sure salt water isn’t too good for digital recordings.
Queequeg stepped off. His wad of cash lay on the bow wrapped in a rubber band. I fingered it, then tossed it at him. He caught it and his eyebrows creeped together. A small crowd had gathered at the dock. Time to disappear. I pulled my hat down, turned Jody into the wind, and took the long way home.
What should have taken an hour took me almost four, which was more than enough time to convince me that with all the increased shark activity my boat was the last place Katie Quinn needed to be. She might as well be sitting on a bench in Central Park.
The sun was setting when I hopped up on the back of the Gone Fiction and found her sitting on the bow, back to me, knees tucked into her chest, staring out across the mangrove tops. I knelt and she sniffled, then wiped her face with her sleeve. She shook her head. “You’d think I’d be empty by now.”
I didn’t respond.
She looked up at me. “Do you think I’m wrong for doing this? For putting Steady in the position he’s now in?”
I shrugged. “I’d say you are in uncharted waters. I’m not sure anyone like you has ever done what you’re doing. If they have, they did it really well ’cause we don’t know about it. This one’s not black or white, but maybe several shades of gray.” She tried to smile. “If it’s okay with you, let’s just deal with right now, right now. I think it best if we left here for a few days. I have a cabin…” I pointed northeast. “Up in the Glades. It’ll be quiet. Steady knows where it is. He’ll find us when he’s finished”—I smiled and shook my head—“telling everyone how dead you are.” I stood.
She stopped me. Suspicious. “Something happen in town?”
I thought about lying but decided I’d sidestep it. “The town and every square inch of water between here and there is crawling with people looking for any scrap of you. They’re pretty pushy, too.”
She tilted her head, her voice changing tone. “You didn’t answer my question.”
She was smarter than I gave her credit. “I bumped into a black-haired, ponytailed guy with tattoos running up his neck who said he was your—”
She stood and made quotation marks with her fingers. “ ‘Biographer.’ ” She shook her head. “He couldn’t write his way out of a wet paper bag.”
“He seemed to think a lot of himself.”
“His name is Richard Thomas. Goes by ‘Dicky.’ Should be ‘Tricky Dick.’ ”
“What’s up with all the black?”
“It’s the color of his heart pouring out his skin.” She crossed her arms and began climbing below. She spoke over her shoulder. “Your place in the Glades, is it safe?”
I smiled. “Depends on how you define ‘safe.’ If you mean safe from snakes and alligators. The answer is no. If you mean safe from people, then yes. It’s like going to Mars. Listen…” I glanced in the direction of Chokoloskee, trying to lighten the tension. “I just bought deodorant for myself for the first time in eight years. My social graces are not really up to date. If I offend you, well, it’s not intentional. I’ve been alone a long time.”
She stood on the aft deck, looking up at me. The breeze was warm but she looked cold. “You said you value your secret more than mine.” She waited. It was a question. Not a statement. I didn’t answer. She tried again. “Did you… murder somebody? I mean, is that why you’re out here?”
I considered how to answer. I did so indirectly. “Have you ever murdered anyone?”
“Just myself.”
I smiled. “Well then, you’re in good company.”
She stopped me. “Do you always answer questions with other questions?”
I answered without looking. “Only when I know that the answer will hurt me.” I handed her the two plastic grocery store bags. “The things you asked for. Along with some clothes. I guessed at your size.”
She half smiled. “Thank you.”
A helicopter buzzed the treetops en route to the site of the explosion. “We’d better get moving.”
CHAPTER TEN
We closed up Gone Fiction, left her anchored in a dense section of mangroves, and I cranked Jody. Katie stepped down holding a plastic grocery bag stuffed with her clothes. She shook her head. “It’s been a long time since everything I owned could fit in one bag.” She stowed it. “I once paid over five thousand dollars for a piece of lugga
ge to hold my shoes, but I’m not sure it was as useful as that bag.”
When I turned away from the gulf, she set her hand on my arm. The first time she’d touched me in some way other than anger. “Would you mind driving me by the—or my memorial?”
I would not say that I had grown comfortable with Katie Quinn. Nor her with me. Our movement around each other was more like oil and water—sharing a necessary border but not necessarily mixing. “Sure.”
In driving her back to her watery grave, the idea occurred to me that dogs often return to their vomit, but I didn’t share that with her. From a distance, we circled the growing circus. A small charter boat carrying a captain and one passenger floated near the site of the explosion. Death tours. Somebody was already making money off this. Katie stared at the singular frame in the back of the charter boat. She squinted, then shook her head once. “Silvia. My housekeeper.” The woman knelt in the back of the boat, prayed, threw something in the water, then stood and motioned the charter pilot to return her to port. Katie shook her head. Her bottom lip trembled slightly. “No one will ever work for me again.”
Despite her attempts to suppress them, Katie’s emotions bubbled near the surface and her stoic ability to control them was fading. Cracks in the dam. Words dangled on the tip of her tongue.
I studied the boats—the muted party. It struck me as strange. So off-key. All these fans—the “show” of mourning—and yet the only two broken hearts belonged to Silvia and Katie. Most everyone else seemed saddened at the loss of a silver-screen someone they did not know and had never met but who had given them what they wanted. Who had filled their need. These rum-drunk, coconut-oiled people were saddened at what she had given them and what they could no longer get—not at Katie’s tragic end.