Black River (7 page)

“Yes. What is it? Has something happened to Jack? Is he hurt or in some kind of trouble?”

“Ma’am, we’re so sorry to have to tell you this…but there’s been an accident. Your husband was killed.”

Laura dropped the hand towel. Her heart hammered in her chest. She couldn’t breathe. She stood there, holding onto the doorframe. Knees weak. Nauseous. She couldn’t walk. Couldn’t move. Paralyzed from the words that hit her with the force of a sledgehammer in her stomach.

The taller officer reached for her. “Please, Mrs. Jordan, sit down.”

She pushed his hand away, breathing fast through her nostrils. She turned, almost stumbled in the foyer, running to the hall bathroom. She jerked the door open, dropped to her knees, vomiting an undigested peanut butter and jelly sandwich into the toilet.

Sean O’Brien followed the GPS directions to a rural neighborhood of older homes in south Jacksonville. He read the addresses on the brick mailboxes, turning into a concert driveway that wound through a large, fresh-cut lawn and around stately oaks up to a 1920’s Greek revival style house with columns shading a wrap-around front porch. Baskets of white and red impatiens hung between each of the round pillars, a half dozen wicker rocking chairs sat motionless on the porch.

O’Brien climbed the four brick steps up to the porch as a breeze tickled two wind chimes, their jingling compositions drifting across lush grass and into the deep shade of blooming azaleas and camellias. He stood at the front door a moment, the sound of a horse whinny in the adjacent pasture. O’Brien pressed the doorbell and could hear the soft cascade of bells followed a few seconds later by the canter of heels on hardwood floors.

A forty-something woman opened the door, partially. Her raven-black hair framed an attractive face filled with suspicion. She wore pearls around her long, slender neck, her blouse exposing full cleavage. Her dark eyebrows were pencil-drawn and arched above ice-blue eyes. “Can I help you?” Her voice was southern, laced with mistrust. “We don’t need a new roof, driveway paved, or the lawn cut at this time.”

“Good, I don’t do any of those things very well.” O’Brien smiled. “My name’s Sean O’Brien. A man who owns an antique store in DeLand, Florida, gave me your contact information. Are you Ellen Heartwell?”

“Yes.”

“I’d like to talk with you briefly.”

“What about.”

“A painting.”

“What painting?”

“It’s one that was done around the time of the Civil War.” O’Brien opened the folder he carried and showed her a copy of the picture. “This old photo was donated to the Confederate Museum in Virginia, and no one knows the identity of the woman. The fellow who owns the antique store said he bought the matching painting from you. I was hoping you might know who this woman was…or maybe shed some light about the painting.”

“Is it still in his store?”

“No, it was sold, and we can’t locate the buyer.”

The woman looked away, her eyes following purple martins flying in and out of the gourds hanging from the pole near a massive live oak tree. “It was here at the house for a long time. This was my grandmother’s house. She passed last year. My husband and I moved in, it’s the way she wanted it, in her will and whatnot.”

O’Brien nodded.

“Anyway, Mike and I had to get rid of a lot of clutter. We took an ad out in one of those Civil war re-enactor magazines and had a garage sale of sorts. It’s amazing at how many people showed up. One man in particular was very angry we sold the painting. But it was first come, first serve.”

“Did he tell you his name or where he lived?”

“No, and I didn’t ask. Not after his snarky attitude. I’m glad he didn’t buy it. Grandma wouldn’t have approved.”

“What do yon mean?”

She smiled. “Grandma was a great person, she had a hard time letting go of stuff. Not that she was a hoarder, she just kinda had a personal relationship with her things…especially that old painting.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, Grandma had always been active in the Daughters of the Confederacy. The Civil War was still fought, in spirited debates, when she and Granddaddy had family and friends over for a party, especially in the summer when the azaleas were in bloom. They’d grill a pig on a spit, drink beer—mint julep’s if it was near the runnin’ of the Kentucky Derby. It was after one of those parties when I first heard Grandma talking to the painting.”

“Talking?”

“Yes, and sort of listening too. I remember, even as a little girl, standing in the foyer and hearing Grandma speak to the painting like she was chatting with a real person. She’d even pause and carry on. Like I said, she had some kind of connection with the things she collected, especially that painting.”

“Was there anything written behind the painting, on the other side?”

“I don’t recall ever looking, and Grandma or my parents never mentioned it.”

“Any idea where your grandmother got the painting?”

“I believe she bought it from an estate sale many years ago. It came with some old magazines, Saturday Evening Post and Colliers. Grandma kept them stacked neatly in an armoire under the painting, and it hung on a wall near the fireplace for about as long as I can remember. I’d ask my parents if they were still alive. Mama might have known.”

“Did you ever glance through any of the old magazines?”

“Not that I can remember. Why?”

“Just curious.”

“I’m sorry, but I have to run. Mike and I are entertaining friends soon.”

“Okay, but one last question…do you know the name of the woman in the painting?”

She inhaled deeply, her eyes shifting back to the purple martins in flight. She exhaled and said, “I remember one time, I was about eleven…I believe Grandma had consumed a couple of glasses of wine. I hid in the foyer behind a tall vase when I heard her talking to the painting. She said the name Angelina. I never forgot that. So I always assumed that was the name of the woman in the painting, but I don’t know for sure. Oh, something else, she said the secret of the river would always be a family secret. I never knew what Grandma meant by that, and I never had the courage to ask her.”

O
’Brien walked down L dock toward his boat,
Jupiter
, thinking about his conversation with Ellen Heartwell. He watched the setting sun begin to turn the Halifax River and inlet into an inland sea of sparkling copper, gold, and deep reds. The tide was receding, creating exposed sandbar islands in the bay, the brackish scent of mangrove roots blowing across the tidal pools from the soft nudge of a western breeze.

He walked past a twenty-year-old Hatteras that had a long string of Japanese lanterns draped and glowing over its cockpit. A woman’s laughter came from the open salon doors mixing with Willie Nelson’s singing of
Blue Eyes Cryin’ in the Rain
on her indoor speakers.

O’Brien approached Nick Cronus’s boat,
St. Michael
, looking to see if Max was on the boat. Nick’s salon door was open, the scent of a crab boil—garlic and bay leaves, coming from the galley. O’Brien stepped onto the cockpit and stood by the screened-in open salon door. “Hey Nick, something smells great. Is Max on your boat?”

Nick stepped up from the galley, wearing a white apron, wooden spoon in one hand, a Corona in the other. He opened the screen. “She’s hangin’ with Dave. I had to run up to the store. I was outta Old Bay and garlic. I pulled forty pounds of crabs from my traps, sold thirty pounds, kept the rest for a couple of dinners. I’m shuckin’ oysters, too.” Nick was fresh from the shower; his dark hair combed back, moustache trimmed, and a bounce in his step. O’Brien picked up on it.

“You have company coming, Nick?”

“How’d you know?”

“
St. Michael
looks a little more…well dressed.”

Nick grinned, rolling his sleeves up to his beefy forearms. “Yeah, my old boat cleans up good, and I picked up the beer bottles. Her name’s Marlena. Met her at a flea market in Sanford. She was working the craft beer tent. Gotta love a woman who enjoys a fine brew. She said she really likes seafood. So, of course, I invite her to the best floating seafood restaurant in all of Daytona, and Ponce Inlet, my boat. She’s due here in about a half hour. Dave is coming over to get a bowl to go. You want some, too?”

“No thanks. Save it for your guest.”

“I have plenty in the pot. Always do, it’s the Greek way. Speaking of flea markets, how’d you do at the antique shop? Find the painting?”

Max barked. O’Brien turned around and watched her scampering across the dock, Dave following, the revolving beam from the Ponce Lighthouse making its first sweep of the night across the low-lying clouds. Dave inhaled deeply through his nose and grinned. “Ahhh, the aroma of a fine crab boil. Smells great, Nick.”

“I got blue crabs, stone crabs—but no
she
crabs.” Nick raised his arms like a maestro and laughed. “Lemme fix you fellas a couple of takeout bowls. Not that I don’t enjoy your company. Come in. Sean was just about to tell me how he did at the antique shop.”

Dave grunted. “Tell us the painting was there, and you have it.” He eased his frame down on a barstool.

Nick held up a paring knife and shouted, “Found a pearl! Hot damn! That’s a good sign.” He came up from the galley with a platter filled with shucked oysters in a bed of shaved ice. He set the platter down on his wicker coffee table and used a small fork to lift a bluish-white pearl from the tissue of a fresh oyster. “Look at that.” Nick grinned, his dark moustache rising. He held the pearl in the palm of his large hand. “A gift from Poseidon. I will re-gift it and give to Marlena…when the moment is right.” He winked. “Eat fellas. I squeezed fresh lemon juice, a dusting of white pepper, and a touch of tabasco over these babies.”

Dave chuckled and reached for the pearl. “Most people devour oysters for their alleged libido-enhancing properties. However, Nick finds a lucky charm, a perfectly round pearl, in the belly of the bivalve.”

Nick shook his head, eyes animated. “It’s not an alleged libido pick-me-up. For centuries, the Greeks used this as their Viagra. Eating oysters with a beautiful woman was part of the mating ritual. The Greek way is no forks. Lips to shells, look the woman in the eye, together they suck in the oyster and instantly inspire the mouth on its way past the heart to stomach…to central station. That’s the libido, gents.”

Dave set the pearl in the center of a rubber coaster that read:
Bottoms down here
. He picked up a half shell, letting the oyster slide into his mouth. He closed his eyes, savoring the tastes. “Ah, Nicky…these are delicious. Come to think about it, goddess Aphrodite rose from the sea in the half shell of a mollusk. At this moment, let’s assume it was that of an oyster. Sean, you were about to update us on the painting. Was it in the antique shop?”

“It was there, at least at one time, but not now.”

Dave downed another oyster. “So you didn’t find it.”

“That’s correct. But I did find a trail, a rather cold one.” O’Brien told them what happened and then added, “The house and all its belongings was inherited by a granddaughter and her husband who began selling off what they considered to be leftover clutter, the painting being a good example. They sold it and a stack of old Saturday Evening Post magazines to the guy that owns the antique store in DeLand. He sold those months ago to a couple—man and a woman—who paid cash. No name. No address.”

Nick untied the apron and hung it on a hook in the galley. He said, “Cash is king at swap-shops and antique stores. It’s like bidding in an auction. The price for something old, and often not working, is what the collector is willing to pay for it. That stuff’s hard to track.”

Dave pushed his bifocals up and on his head. “Well, Sean, if you’ve reached a dead-end, maybe the option now is that your client can advertise in art or Civil War memorabilia magazines and blogs to see if someone has seen it. If he can find the buyers, in this case the unknown couple, maybe they’d be willing to sell. Excuse the pun, but perhaps the old painting is simply gone with the wind.”

O’Brien smiled. He slid the copy of the photograph from the folder and studied the picture. “The granddaughter, Ellen Heartwell, mentioned that her grandmother, a woman who was a long-time member of the Daughters
of the Confederacy, used to stand in front of the painting, especially after a couple of glasses of wine, and speak to it.”