Bound for the Outer Banks (5 page)

Polishing off bacon, two eggs over medium, two pieces of raisin toast, grits, and a waffle, also known as the Waffle House All Star Special, Agent Jefferson grabbed the lemony yellow ticket and walked up to the register to pay. He took out a government Mastercard and handed it to Phoenix, who, like other waitresses, manned the register as well as waited tables. Ella figured Waffle House stops on government business were impossible until 2006 when Waffle House began accepting credit cards. The company had fought accepting them tooth and nail worrying that the cards would slow down their speedy process. Ironically, these days it took longer for people to dig the cash out of their wallets or purses and have change counted back than to just swipe a credit card.

Six hours of driving and an additional stop at a Fayetteville, Arkansas Waffle House later and they were crossing the Alligator River. The Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge was fifteen miles from their destination of Manteo on Roanoke Island. The speed limit through the refuge was thirty miles per hour to protect the local red wolves from ending up as road kill. Ella read as many of the signs through the refuge as she could as they passed by. The refuge was home to black bears, alligators, wading birds, and red wolves. It gave Ella some comfort to think about a New York Italian hit man trying to covertly negotiate a swamp full of water moccasins, bears, and wolves.

In a small town like Manteo, outside of tourist season, any strange car would be noticed. It was the final week of tourist season so maybe the powers that be at the FBI had actually thought this location through, and it had nothing to do with the fact that this was Blythe Beatty Barrantine’s old stomping ground. Since she was convinced she had never spoken of Manteo to Dante, Ella had relaxed about her new hideout. Dante assumed she was a Mississippi girl through and through who happened to spend every school year the first sixteen years of her life in Brooklyn, New York. She was his “Southern Belle” as he used to refer to her.

When Dante Vitali first met Ella she was residing in a yellow, coastal bungalow in Biloxi, Mississippi and as far as Dante knew her roots were tied to the great state of Mississippi. Ella had never made him any the wiser. Ella decided it was better if she didn’t go into the soap opera younger years of her mother’s North Carolina upbringing and her harum-scarum existence immediately following. She didn’t want to divulge any of it whatsoever to her new sophisticated lover.

Approaching her mother’s hometown which she had never visited, Ella could feel the adrenaline making her heart race. She would arrive not as Blythe Beatty’s daughter Eleanor, but Belle Butler, reclusive freelance writer. Freelance writer was the occupation given to her by the FBI along with her porn star sounding name. She agreed that freelance writer was very general and vague and would be appropriate for anyone in protective custody. For instance, topics for a sophisticated woman might include, home and garden, fashion, fundraising, theater, orchestral music, and antiquing. Those for a salt of the earth male could be hunting and fishing, farming, land and forest management, and mechanics. A computer nerd about to expose financial fraud or racketeering might write about gaming, IT issues, computer repair or write technical manuals. With writing as a faux career just about anyone could bullshit their way through a conversation about the phantom job they did for a living which was how southern folks referred to careers. Not “What is your occupation?” or “Where do you work?” It was always, “What do you do for a living?”

In all the cities Ella had been placed, New Orleans was by far the city where people were the most inquisitive about the new girl on the block. Ella loved living in the familiar city she and BeBe frequented on summer weekends. But she was used to the standard line of questioning from the neighbors and had learned how to abruptly stop it so they wouldn’t get too curious about their cloistered neighbor.

The New Orleans accent was “Hey Dare!” thick and lazy. Ending consonants were always optional and reaching the tongue to the very front of the mouth to form the “th” digraph was clearly too much effort so the tongue stayed where it was and “th” became interchangeable with the letter “d” as in the infamous “Who Dat?” idiom which originated in New Orleans minstrel shows but as late was a chant for the New Orleans Saints professional football team.

Ella would answer, “Hello there.” She’d try to keep walking, biking, gardening, or whatever she happened to be doing at that moment, but the folks of The Big Easy were persistent. After a little chit chat the inevitable more personal questions followed.

“You married?”

“No,” Ella would answer continuing to look down, hopeful to look uninterested.

“Awwwwee now, a pretty guhl lak you?”

“Thank you, but not yet,” she’d answer. Always thanking a person for a compliment just as BeBe had instructed.

“Whatcha do for a livin’?”

“I’m a freelance writer.”

“Whatcha write about?”

Ella would answer trying to be intentionally vague. “Women’s health mostly.”

“What kind of stuff?”

At this point Ella would realize that the line of questioning could continue “til the cows came home” as her mother would say. It was time to bring out the big gun.

“I write about things like vaginal dryness, female condoms, and pelvic pain during sex.”

“Oh,” was the standard response followed by a reason why the neighbor needed to get back home as soon as possible.

Agent Jefferson pulled off the side of the road on a gravel covered area beside an old spring where a crumbling concrete picnic table sat. He retrieved Ella’s roadster bike out of the back of the trunk after unhooking several sets of colorful bungee cords. He sat it on the ground then pushed the kickstand in to place. Ella grabbed Old Finnegan out of the backseat. Agent Jefferson said, “Let me get that for you.”

“Oh, I’ve got it,” replied Ella. She knew that ultimately she’d be responsible for lugging around her own suitcase so she had packed light.

She lifted “Old Finnegan” across the top of the basket secured to her bicycle’s handlebars. When she first saw the bike she thought it looked exactly like Miss Gulch’s bike from the Wizard of Oz, the mean old spinster who takes Toto away from Dorothy at the beginning of the movie only later to show up again as the Wicked Witch of the West in the Land of Oz. Ella quickly got over this when her bicycle became her only source of transportation and the basket was used to carry her groceries, laundry, garbage, and anything else she had to transport.

Balancing herself on the bike, Ella hit the kickstand with her heel while she steadied the old suitcase precariously balanced on the basket. Agent Jefferson reached into the inside pocket of his suit and pulled out an envelope with “Belle Butler” scribbled across the front. The envelope would contain her new address, a key to the house, and any special instructions. Inside her new home was always a paid in advance tracfone to contact the authorities with. A second cell phone for her personal use was also always waiting. This particular phone would only function within range of the nearest cell phone tower. She could not contact anyone outside that range nor could anyone contact her who was placed farther than the reach of the closest tower.

Ella was never delivered to her new city by an agent stationed within that state, hence the nine hour drive from Georgia with Agent Jefferson. No one but the team in D.C. at the Federal Bureau of Investigation headquarters was to know Ella’s exact location. Using an agent located close enough to drive easily to Ella’s new destination might prove too tempting if his curiosity got the best of him. Also the fact that Ella was an exceptionally beautiful woman didn’t help.

After Agent Jefferson handed Ella the envelope, she knew he would leave and not look back. He would begin the long drive back to Atlanta and an internal GPS would track him to make sure he did not drive into the town of Manteo where Ella would now be residing. Ella was always dropped off one mile from her destination. It was up to her to scout out the address by merely exploring on her bike or asking locals where her new street was located. She always stopped and asked because keeping the old vintage suitcase securely on the basket for any length of time was not an easy proposition.

Both of Ella’s feet were placed firmly on the ground as she watched Agent Jefferson execute a perfect three point turn and take off back to Atlanta. Ella took a deep breath and rode towards her new life and her mother’s old one.

Chapter 6

After riding her bike approximately half a mile on a two lane road lined by a thick forest of hardwoods and Longleaf Pines, Ella came to a small bridge over a wide stream. Up ahead she could see a lone yellow flashing light at a small intersection. As she approached, a scallop bordered white sign read Manteo left, Nags Head straight, and Wanchese, right. These were all names she was familiar with from when BeBe’s would reminisce about her Outer Banks home.

When Ella was small she used to think many of the place names associated with The Outer Banks sounded silly. It was only after she’d done her own research on the rich cultural history of the area for a history project did she fully appreciate names like Dare, Wanchese, Kitty Hawk, Currituck, and Rodanthe which was pronounced Roe-DAN-thee. When Ella was small she would twirl around repeating Roe-DAN-theeeeeee with her tongue pushing through the space where her two front teeth had left a gap. BeBe would always say, “Well it’s easier to say than Chicamacomico!” And Ella and BeBe would hold hands and spin around repeating in a song like fashion, “Chica-maco-mico! Chica-maco-mico! Chica-maco-mico!” BeBe had told Ella that Chicamacomico was an Algonquian Indian word meaning “sinking down sand” but the locals decided it was too hard for anyone else to say which was bad for tourism and they named it Rodanthe. To this day no one really knew where the name came from. Ella would always think how lucky her mother was growing up beside the ocean, building sand castles, and playing in the surf with her best friend Harmony.

Ella figured now was a good time to open the envelope and see what her new address was. The small card inside the envelope read 20 Cemetery Road, Manteo, North Carolina 27954. Beneath the scrawled address was a silver squared key, scotch taped to the card. It always irked Ella that by the time she had finally memorized her new address and zip code and was just getting settled in to a routine, The Bureau would send word for her to pack her suitcase that she was being transferred. Ella figured it was a small price to pay to stay alive until Dante and the others were safely behind bars. Ella had no idea who “the others” were. This was merely what they were referred to during her interview at the American Embassy in Berlin. This was where she turned herself in and explained her predicament to the legal representative whom she secretly suspected was an undercover CIA officer who’d been summoned from some secret place.

She’d been told how Dante and “the others” were ruthless and were wanted on all kinds of charges from counterfeiting, money laundering, gunrunning, drug trafficking, and murder. Ella was shocked. She’d just assumed Dante had embezzled some of the money he handled for his “investors” which was the only word he’d ever used. She’d never asked him for what company he worked and had never heard him utter the names Morgan Stanley, Charles Schwab, or Edward Jones. These things only first occurred to her during the embassy interrogation. My God, how naïve can I be? she thought. She remembered what BeBe had said about people doing insane things when they were in love. She guessed her lack of due diligence in researching the possible criminal history of her boyfriend to rule out ties with deadly Mafia organizations counted.

“Cemetery Road, Manteo, North Carolina. You’ve got to be kidding,” Ella said aloud. “I hope this isn’t some spooky foreshadowing.” Having Cemetery Road as the address for your new hideout from Mafioso hit men could not be a good foreboding she concluded. Well, she was here and there was really nothing she could do about it. Pedaling into the little town, Ella was struck by its beauty. She began to pass large two story Victorian homes, some of which had been turned in to bed and breakfasts and little inns. On the right was a tiny shotgun house with a small porch displaying bonsai trees. The small yellow sign out front read in a beautiful scrolled font
Outer Banks Bonsai
. Then clearly added later, in freestyle handwriting, were the words
and gifts
. Making a living selling only bonsai trees would prove pretty difficult Ella figured. Even during the height of tourist season Ella figured one could not live on the sale of bonsai trees and bonsai trees alone.

Up ahead was a gray cedar shake cottage with pine garlands woven in and out of the front porch banisters. The garlands were decorated with red and aqua glittered balls. A large white wreath made of oyster shells embellished with red glittery starfish adorned the front door. Ella didn’t find this odd in the least although it was late July. Most of the towns Ella had been placed in for safe keeping were tourist towns since they had to be incredibly pedestrian friendly to accommodate Ella’s current “no vehicle” status, and every one of the towns dubbed as a tourist destination had contained a Christmas shop. Most of the time the signage used the word Shoppe instead of shop, giving the store a quaint, old fashioned feel. She’d finally come to the conclusion that the sight of anything Christmas got people excited, a Pavlovian response left over from childhood Ella guessed. She also figured that apparently owning one was lucrative or there wouldn’t be so many.

As Ella passed fishing charter businesses, more inns, and churches, she arrived at the edge of the downtown business district which had cobblestone streets lined with shops, galleries, and restaurants. The downtown architecture was a mixture of turn of the century red brick buildings with arched windows and fancy wood trim, or stacked, wood framed, coastal cottages with double porches. The different type of architecture was due to a fire in 1939 which had destroyed two thirds of Manteo’s downtown waterfront district.

Parking her bike in front of a small red cottage with blue trim, Ella placed Old Finnegan on the ground and wound the cable of her bike lock through the spoke of the wheel and the handle of her suitcase. She’d made the mistake a few times of trying to let the old case remain balanced on the bicycle’s basket after she secured the kickstand only to watch the handle bars swing wildly to one side and have both bike and suitcase come crashing down. Ella didn’t think Manteo was exactly a high crime city but she’d been sternly warned to use the lock religiously or The Bureau would not replace the bike and she would have to pay for a new one out of her own pocket from her meager living stipend. Living more leanly than she already was would be almost next to impossible in Ella’s eyes, so she heeded The Bureau’s words and locked the bike faithfully.

The cottage had a colorful sign placed in the center of the gable which said, “RAZ’matazz.” Ella wondered what type of place RAZ’matazz might be since there was no other indication. She thought it could be anything. After all, Manteo did have a bonsai store, for goodness sake. Ella opened the navy blue door and a little bell rang signaling her entrance. Inside the store the walls were lined with vivid paintings, while the center of the store was filled with jewelry, sculptures, and metal art.

Seated behind a counter covered with a glass mosaic mermaid, sat a woman with long auburn hair and fair skin. Ella thought to herself that this woman, who also had piercing green eyes, looked exactly how Ella had always pictured a mermaid, but a little older. She had a dainty nose and a wide smile with large, but not obnoxiously so, teeth.

The lady behind the counter must have noticed that she was being sized up and looked at Ella and said, “Hi, I’m Roz.”

Shaking herself from the exhausted trance she was in, Ella replied, “Hi Roz, I’m Belle.”

“Well I cannot believe it!” exclaimed Roz.

Ella stood frozen. Can’t believe what? She thought. That I look like the spitting image of Blythe Beatty? Ella prayed this woman hadn’t recognized her as being kin to the Beatty’s. After all, folks in Biloxi used to say, “Sweetheart, you look like you crawled right out of your mother’s butt.” After hearing this a few times as a child, Ella stopped taking it literally as children do, and she looked forward to hearing it. She’d always thought that BeBe Barrantine was beautiful and secretly hoped that she would favor her when she grew up.

Ella shook herself from her daydream. “You can’t believe what, ma’am?”

“You said ROZ. When I introduce myself, because of my accent, most Southerners think I’m saying RAZ. When I moved here, I got so tired of correcting people that I just started going with it, hence the name of my shop, RAZ’matazz. You’re the only Southerner who understood me say Roz.”

“Oh,” laughed Ella. “I’m not southern. I’m just kind of southern. My Mom was from the South.”

“Girlie, don’t you know there’s no way to be ‘kind of’ southern. It’s like being ‘kind of’ pregnant. It just isn’t possible. I hear the accent so in my eyes and ears you’re southern. Where’s your Mom from?” asked Roz. Although Roz had only lived in the South for five years, she’d fallen into the habit of asking people where their momma was from which apparently was a mandatory question in the South when meeting someone for the first time. This question would be guaranteed to be followed with, “And where’s your daddy from?”

Ella gave her standard answer, “My mom’s from Biloxi.”

“Oh,” said Roz. “Trading one coast for another?”

“I guess you could say that. I’m a Pisces,” She explained.

“Ooooohhh! So am I! We’re going to get along just fine!” Ella was indeed a Pisces and fit the description to a tee. It would only be fitting that she enjoyed living near water. She was also selfless, introspective, and artistic. Even though BeBe believed that there must be something to astrology since she was convinced every person’s astrological sign described them perfectly, she forbade Ella to read a horoscope.

“Honey, you can use it to try to figure out if you and a Taurus would be good together and stuff like that, but I think those horoscopes are evil just like the Bible says. They might persuade you to act in a way you wouldn’t, like a self-fulfilling prophecy. You just deal with what the Good Lord gives you,” BeBe would say.

Ella was anxious at this point to steer the conversation away from her. “So where are you from, Roz?”

“Sedona, Arizona. I used to have a pretty lucrative gallery out there displaying my own art and a few others, but I unfortunately fell in love with an art investor who used to frequent my gallery, a Gemini, Lord help me.”

Ella shook her head from side to side in a knowing way since she had found out through her limited foray into astrology that Gemini’s were the sign most likely to cheat.

“After two years of sheer bliss he dropped me like a hot potato for a new artist in town…..a glass blower.” Roz put her chin down and raised her eyebrows.

“Ew,” grimaced Ella.

Roz continued, “So I packed my cat, two dogs, and a cactus in my MINI Cooper and started driving, kind of like Forrest Gump when he took off running. I just drove aimlessly until I couldn’t go any farther, and that’s how I ended up here.”

Ella stood perfectly still, her only thought, “My God you must really be attached to that cactus.” But then Ella realized that the cactus was Roz’s “Old Finnegan.” Roz had uprooted herself from her home, her business, and all that she knew, and the cactus was her connection to all that she knew before, just as Old Finnegan was the tie that Ella had to her old life, her parents, and her time at Saint Stanislaus, ties to Ella’s grandparents and family whom she had never met. She now understood why Roz traversed the country with a cat, two dogs, and a cactus in a vehicle the size of a matchbox.

Ella smiled and took out the small sheet of paper from her jean pocket. “Could you tell me where Cemetery Road is?”

“Sure,” replied Roz. “It’s two streets due west and runs parallel to the street you’re on which is Waterfront Street. You going to make a visit to a deceased family member?” Roz asked, curious about this attractive girl, clearly traveling alone.

“Unfortunately that’s where the cottage is I’m renting. I’m afraid it’s going to be too close for comfort to the cemetery by the sound of the address,” Ella said with a frown.