Garden of Evil (24 page)

I listened to Joey's breathing, fearing it might stop. Beads of sweat sprang to life on my scalp, worming their
way toward my forehead like tiny maggots. Staring into the dark, I saw another ghost. The young father on his way to Disney World with his little son. They would be there now, had he not chosen to stop at that time, at that place. Had he not seen Keppie.

His last words echoed. “He's a good little citizen, and I want him to grow up good and have a good life.” If we survive this, I promised the ghost, I will see to that and make it happen.

Dozing at last before dawn, I dreamed I was having sex on a hot and sultry long-forgotten Fourth of July. The sheets were damp and rumpled against my skin, the darkness smelled like our bodies, and sheer drapes billowed in a breeze bearing the scent of frangipani. I looked eagerly at my partner's face, hidden in shadow—and awoke with a start, Keppie's face close to mine.

“You awake?” she whispered, her palms on my knees.

“What do you want?”

“You know.”

I
CLOSED MY EYES, HOPING THIS WAS YET ANOTHER
nightmare. Her hot breath singed my cheek.

“No way,” I whispered.

“Gimme one good reason.”

“I can give you lots,” I hissed. “Mosquitoes have bitten me half to death, which does nothing for my libido. I'm straight. I'm sleep-deprived. There's an innocent child in the car. And last but not least, your lovers' life expectancy is usually about three and a half minutes. Those reasons good enough? If not, I can come up with some more.”

Her laughter caused Joey to turn in his sleep. “You'll change your mind,” she murmured confidently. “I've seen you look at me. I know you want it.”

“I'll let you know when,” I said, and turned over, knees together, arms across my chest.

I never went back to sleep, exquisitely aware of every movement in the car. Keppie was restless. She got out and I heard her walking around, spotted the glow of her cigarette in the dark, and heard her humming some mournful country-and-western song.

The pale and misty woods echoed with bird calls one minute, sweltered in sudden daylight the next. Life in the
woods, with towering trees and dense summer foliage blocking out the rest of the universe, left me claustrophobic.

Dehydrated and speckled with red mosquito bites, Joey cried forlornly. He wanted to watch cartoons.

“Show me a TV set,” Keppie told him, stretching and yawning, “and we'll turn on the 'toons. Go ahead, boy, just run out there in the woods; you find the set and we all can watch.”

Joey sobbed and clung to me.

“Jesus Christ!” Keppie snapped. “That little bastard's enough to make a woman swear off motherhood.”

“We've got to get him some food and water,” I said. “He's feverish. He's too little for this. I feel miserable myself.”

She cut her eyes at me and sneered. “You had your chance last night. I'da made you forget food and water. You'd feel a helluva lot better. What is wrong with you people? I went without eatin' for seven days once. Didn't hurt me none.”

“Why?” I reached for the notebook. “What happened? Why did you fast?”

“No reason.” She shrugged and tuned in the radio. “Just wanted to see what it felt like.” No mention of us on the news. There was trouble in Bosnia, a small plane crash near Orlando, and the governor had signed Ira Jonas's death warrant.

“They're itchin' to pull the switch, can't fry the poor bastard fast enough!” Keppie raged.

“He was convicted nearly fourteen years ago,” I said.

She turned off the radio and stormed out of the car. She checked beneath the hood, then slammed it down with a crash. “Okay! I'm sicka your bitchin' and moanin'. We're hitting the road! We're outa here!” She glared at us and frowned. “But first take him on down to that stream, wash him up, and comb his hair so he looks half decent. You too. I ain't takin' either one-a you anywhere lookin' like that.”

Half an hour later, washed and in fresh clothes, we again lumbered along forest trails in the SUV.

“Shoulda waited till after dark,” Keppie groused. “But I can't deal with all this whinin' and complainin'. Rattles my damn nerves.”

Joey looked listless in his car seat.

“We're going for breakfast,” I told him. “Want some juice and cereal?” He nodded mournfully.

“You know what I've been craving?” I told Keppie.

“I know, baby. I know.” She raised a wicked eyebrow.

“No, for Pete's sake. A big juicy mango.” I leaned back, imagining it. “Skin the color of a sunset, sweeter smelling than flowers. A shame they're so messy.”

“Easiest way is to git naked and eat it in the bathtub,” Keppie said, steering the SUV around a huge petrified stump, artifact from some ancient hurricane. “My mama won prizes for her mango chutney. Had rows and rows of glass jars lined up, all ruby, green, and gold.”

When she finally stopped and lowered the windows, I nearly wept at the welcome
whoosh
of passing traffic. Back in the real world at last. She waited for a lull, eased onto the road, and drove toward the outskirts of a small town.

“There's a place,” I cried.

She eyeballed the small convenience store, passed it, and pulled off the road. I carried Joey as we walked back.

“Get some insect repellent and calamine lotion,” I said, as she tossed items into a little basket.

My parched lips tingled at the cooler. Forget flavored iced tea, cappuccino, and diet soda, all that orange-and purple-flavored water. What my body craved, needed to replenish itself, was water, good old aqua—designer label, spring, purified, or, worst-case scenario, just plain tap—straight up and ice cold.

Even Joey lifted his flushed face from my neck, blinked, and began to look around, as though sensing the presence of food and drink.

Hands shaking, I twisted the cap off a cold and sweaty water bottle, fed Joey small sips, and then took a long draft myself. We carried the supplies back to the car and raised the hatch. Keppie had bought white bread, billowy, cloud soft, and full of empty calories. She slathered on mayo with a plastic knife, heaped on the lunch meat manufactured from some mystery animal, and fixed sandwiches that tasted so good I nearly moaned with pleasure. We had milk, water, potato chips, and bread-and-butter pickles. Keppie had also stocked up on the latest tabloids and local newspapers, which she devoured. Our story was on an inside page.

“Looks like I been real busy.” Georgia police were investigating possible links between the Kiss-Me Killer and a homicide outside an Atlanta night club and reports of a sighting farther north, in Marietta.

She removed the license plate from the SUV with a screwdriver and folded both inside a newspaper. We strolled back to the convenience store, to buy a few more things and use the rest room. Then I bent over Joey, brushing off his clothes and helping him with his grape juice as, behind us, Keppie switched tags with a parked Chrysler LeBaron.

Back on the road, a new tag on the SUV, I asked where we were headed as she turned south.

“Sure as hell ain't Atlanta,” she muttered. “Know where I'd like to go? Ochopee.”

“Down south, out in the 'glades? Why there?” My heart beat faster. Ochopee was only about sixty miles west of Miami.

“They just had another skunk ape sightin',” she said. “'Cordin' to the paper. Tour guide and a buncha British tourists seen it.”

No wonder police were confounded trying to track her. Her elusive trail was based on whatever curious events or tourist attractions captured her imagination.

“Seven feet tall, covered with hair, and he smelled bad,
like a skunk.” She glanced back at Joey in his car seat. “He was watchin' 'em, lurkin' behind a veil of Spanish moss and spidery air plants drippin' off the cypress trees at the edge of the swamp.”

“He's Florida's Bigfoot, the Sasquatch of the swamp, the Abominable Snowman of the subtropics,” I said. “There've been stories for years. He's an urban myth that people see after a couple of six-packs.”

“Has to be somethin' out there. Everybody who seen it can't be lyin'.”

“Some reporters think it's a local character playing games to scare tourists.”

“Well, he better be fast and hold onto his ass, cuz one-a these days he'll scare some tourist with a gun.”

I visualized a headline:
KISS-ME KILLER SLAYS SKUNK APE
. Would they have sex first?

I felt giddy. We were out of the woods and rolling south, toward home, toward Miami, wheels singing on the road. Buoyed by a sense of relief and optimism for the first time since we dropped Joey's father down the sinkhole, I nearly joined in as she sang along with some country song on the radio about “wild whiskey and mm.”

Then another news report on Ira Jonas plunged her into a tirade.

“Somebody with balls could go right over there and bust him the hell out.”

“Off Death Row?” I asked.

“That guy in Texas escaped.”

“Yeah, but they found him dead.”

“At least he died trying, not when
they
decided he would die. He cheated 'em! Probably woulda made it if he had outside help. Bonnie and Clyde did it once. Broke in and rescued a cousin or somebody.”

“But look what happened to them.”

“Not till later. Jesus Christ, Britt! Land a chopper inside the walls, step off guns blazing, those corrections officers'd run like rabbits.”

“Where would you get a helicopter?” I asked. “They cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. How would you fly it?”

“You don't go out and buy one, for Christ's sake! You take a ride in one-a them sightseeing choppers, hold a gun to his head, and the pilot'll do anythin' you say. I swear, I don't know how you've lived this long. You ain't got a resourceful bone in your body.”

Who cared enough to carry out her fantasy of a Death Row rescue? I wondered. No one who knew her.

She lit a cigarette. “Death Row inmates don't get to work like other prisoners. It's a bitch. One shower a week. No exercise with the others. Fucking lousy. Specially when somebody don't really belong there.”

“Are you saying Jonas is innocent?”

“Hell, I don't know shit 'bout his case. I'm just sayin' that sometimes somebody who's there shouldn't be.”

She meant herself, I thought, incredulous at how she could think she was anything but a winning argument for capital punishment.

 

Keppie exited the turnpike in Palm Beach, went east to the Atlantic Ocean, and drove along the beach. My eyes eagerly drank in the sight of endless blue water, always different, always the same. They had thirsted for that as much as my body had for water.

South Florida is more year-round playground now than winter resort. We cruised with Bentleys, Rolls-Royces, and BMWs, down Worth Avenue, past small elegant arcades and Mizner buildings with tiny passageways and exclusive shops tucked beneath the stairs, past French bistros with New York waiters wearing black tie and white aprons down to their ankles.

“This is my style,” Keppie said, and parked at the marina. We strolled along the boat slips to see the lavish multimillion-dollar pleasure craft from all over the world
and the old money elegance of the yachtsmen in whites and navy blazers.

“Let's go,” Keppie said. “We got us some shopping to do…. Now, you listen,” she warned, as she strapped Joey into his little harness. “I'm dead serious. You run off or cause any kinda commotion and he'll be with his daddy again quicker than this.” She briskly snapped her fingers. “Wanna take responsibility for that, you just try me, girl.”

“I understand,” I said. “But why stop here? Why not just go on south?”

“Because I am in the mood to shop,” she said.

The first sales clerk did not take us seriously until Keppie had her wrap up a $400 pair of designer cargo pants and a silky little $320 blouse that went with it.

The clerk snapped to attention.

We shopped a swath along the avenue where pampered pooches lap fresh water from tiled doggie bars while strolling with their owners. Keppie used credit cards and cash, stopping three times to hit ATM machines, as we loaded the car with shopping bags and boxes. Keppie gravitated to casual chic: Lily Pulitzer pastels that showed off her tanned legs and sang out that the wearer was not a tourista and a little fifteen-hundred-dollar Nantucket handbag that was dainty but large enough to accommodate a gun.

She kept Joey at her side. When his little harness raised eyebrows, she spoke sadly about his “disability.”

“I have to keep him close by at all times,” she explained, her sweet face troubled. “It's life-threatenin'. His seizures come on all of a sudden, just like that. I keep his medication right here.” Patting her purse, she turned to me, smiling. “He's got my sister here to thank. Without her, he wouldn't be alive today.”

Tomorrow, I thought, we'll be near Miami, on my turf. The advantage will be mine.

At a motel, we filled our small room with her newly purchased treasures, including a five-pound box of Godiva
chocolates, a sterling silver comb and brush set, handbags, high heels, and little strappy sandals.

She had bought clothes for us all. Joey got cotton pjs in a puppy print and a three-piece ensemble: striped shirt, cotton pants, and a little fishing vest he would probably outgrow in weeks. We were Keppie's captive audience as she modeled the clothes, striking poses, flashing new diamond stud earrings and a gold bangle bracelet.

We bathed and dressed to go out. She fussed even more than usual with her hair and makeup; then we paraded to the car in our new clothes—on our way to dinner, I thought. Instead, Keppie drove to the big glassed-in convention center. On the marquee: 23
RD ANNUAL ORCHID SHOW
.

“Always wanted to see one-a these,” she said, steering us to the box office.

Perfume and aftershave mingled with the delicate fragrance of thousands of species on display. Orchids everywhere, in every shade.

Only eighty miles from home, I scanned the crowd hoping to see a familiar face, while Keppie struck up a conversation with a stranger. The badge on his blazer identified him as a judge.

“Were you aware that orchids are the largest family of flowering plants in the world, with about twenty thousand species?” he asked her.

I did not hear her response, but the flirtatious lilt to her laugh chilled my blood. I turned to stare, and my mouth dropped open. I wanted a familiar face, but not his. The classic profile and prematurely silver hair belonged to Sanford Rutherford DeWitt, grandson of a robber baron, heir to a vast fortune, a senator's son, a governor's brother, and a criminal defendant.

An oft-married playboy, DeWitt had been tried on a highly publicized rape charge three years earlier. The victim, a fledgling photographer at a little shiny sheet that covered Palm Beach high society, said he had invited her
to photograph him at his mansion, where she was assaulted, overpowered, clothes torn, camera broken.