Identity (3 page)

The youngest child, their brother Rich, would forever be the baby of the family. It seemed he hadn’t matured a lick since their mother died almost five years ago. Her death had been rough on him, and now, at age twenty-two, he’d yet to deal with the loss effectively and move forward. He worked as a cook at the local wings and beer pub and seemingly wanted nothing further out of life.

Entering the house, Liza paused to press a kiss to her father’s forehead. He sat in his favorite easy chair watching a sports channel. This last round of focused chemotherapy had left him shrunken somehow. Gone was the overlarge, overloud man Liza remembered from her childhood. She still admired the hell out of him, however, as he was handling the fight against his illness with a grace and stoicism she found fascinating.

“Any calls, Pop?”

Tom looked at her with some confusion. “Are you expecting any?” he asked, his voice concerned.

Liza laughed and picked up the mail from the hall table situated just off the living room and rifled through it. “Damn, Pop, make a girl feel needed, why dont’cha?”

Tom laughed, realizing how his innocent question could be misconstrued. “Sorry, Baby Gal. No, no calls.”

“Shoot. I was hoping Hector would call me with the stats so I wouldn’t have to call the office myself. It’s always so uncomfortable when she answers.”

Tom fingered the remote, muting the patter of the announcers. “I thought Estella told you Gina wasn’t usually in the office after three o’clock.”

Liza studied a white envelope with the return address of Meadows Produce in Montgomery. She sighed. Another check. Money in the bank just didn’t replace a good relationship. “I know, Pop. It’s the one saving grace. I guess I’ll go call, even though,” she re-entered the room, glancing at her watch, “it’s cutting it a little close.”

“Well, what happened to you?” Tom asked, finally noticing her mud-coated clothing. “You’re going to ruin the rug.”

Liza looked down at the ancient braided rug that covered the pocked wooden floor. It had been in the house as long as she could remember and looked like it.

“Pop, come on,” she said, making a face. “This rug?”

Tom had the grace to look embarrassed. “What did you do, catch the fish with your hands?”

“No, it was a traffic accident, sort of. Fisherwoman versus jogger. Jogger won, I think.” She looked down at her overalls. “I guess I’d better go clean myself up. Hey, the jogger was a woman living at the old Carson place. Have you heard anything about someone moving in up there?”

Tom studied Liza’s face, his mind obviously whirring as he gave her question a good amount of thought. “Seems like Bernie Cohen said something about a new woman in town. Said she was a looker.”

Liza scowled. “Bitch, you mean. She’s ornerier than a water moccasin.” She paused in thought, looking much as her father had looked while thinking. “I guess she looks okay. A redhead.”

Her father just grunted, his interest having shifted back to the game, so she made her way down the hall to her bedroom. She’d wait another hour or so before calling Meadows. Maybe Gina would have left by then for sure.

In her room, Liza loosened her coveralls and placed them in the hamper just inside the bathroom door. She’d wash them later tonight before the stain set in too well. Alabama soil this low in the Gulf was sandy and heavy with white clay. It often left stains in fabric. She also removed her socks and boots, leaving them on the tile floor. Her T-shirt joined her overalls in the hamper and she switched on the shower.

The heat felt good. She stretched her left side under the stream to expand and warm the muscles that had been hit when she’d fallen on the cooler. Looking down she saw that a bruise had already begun to darken along the side where the edge of the cooler had caught her.

Her mind drifted to the woman. Shay. She remembered how she’d felt upon first seeing her, when she was lying there in the mud, fish flopping all around. Her hands idly soaped her body as she remembered their time together and how the wet clothing had hugged Shay’s delicate curves. She wondered what she had done to set her so on edge.

Liza shoved her head under the water, rinsing shampoo from her thick blond hair. She probably hated her and never wanted to see her again. Liza grinned into the stream of water. She seemed to be having that effect on just about all women these days.

CHAPTER FOUR

Odd. There was a dim light shining in her office. Who would be in the office at this hour? It was too early for the cleaning crew and besides, they usually had every light blazing while they worked. Jim William, at the front desk, should have warned her she had a visitor. Jim was responsible for noting the after-hours coming and going of the employees and patients in the Health Network building. She’d stood by his desk for several minutes too, shaking the wet snow off her umbrella into his waste can. They’d even made small talk, for goodness’ sake! She paused in the hallway, uncertain. She shrugged off her fear. This building was about as secure as a building could be. Obviously, it must be someone approved by Jim or he would never have allowed the person inside.

The doctor moved slowly toward the door, keys in hand. The keys were unnecessary. The door was open, gaping several inches wide. Instead of wisely backing away and calling for help, Dr. Rachel Frye leaned her weight against the door, pressing it open with no sound. Gingerly she stepped inside, tiptoeing so her heels wouldn’t tap on the tile entryway. It seemed there was no one inside at first, and then she saw the man. He was short, his long dark hair streaked with gray, and he was wearing a dark blue flannel shirt over tan trousers and hiking boots. As Dr. Frye watched, the man cursed softly and opened yet another drawer.

“Hey there, what are you doing? This is my office and you can’t be in here.” Dr. Frye’s indignant tone was automatic, a knee-jerk reaction to the violation she felt. She switched on the overhead lights. The fellow looked up and fixed her with bright blue eyes set in a scarred, gaunt face.

“Where do you keep them,” he asked, his voice rough and urgent, a slight foreign accent evident. “The patient files?”

“What files? You need to leave. Now!” She moved toward the telephone, peering closely at the intruder, trying to remember if he was a patient. If so, it might be something she could handle by herself.

“Who are you? Are you a patient? I don’t think I recognize you…” He was older than she’d originally thought.

“The files,” he repeated, moving toward her. Though short, he was sturdy in build and no less menacing than a taller person. “The patient records, where are they?”

Dr. Frye suddenly realized anew the possible danger. She moved back a step and stiffened her spine, unwilling to show her fear. She lifted the handset, certain now that she needed help.

The powerful man moved with eel-like grace through the room and was on her before she had a chance to complete dialing the front desk. As she fell, she thought about her gentle, helpless husband Lawrence. He’d be lost without her. As would her patients. Unable to catch her breath as the man’s hands closed about her throat, she stared into his eyes with sudden recognition as the light dimmed around her. Sorrow filled her; sorrow for herself and for those she was leaving behind.

The assailant stood above her, chest heaving with exertion. His gaze was hard and dispassionate. He looked at his hands as if amazed that they could so easily crush a neck. After a moment, he resumed his methodical search of the office, finally grabbing up the woman’s briefcase which had fallen, from her lifeless hands, to the floor.

CHAPTER FIVE

Placide’s Place was like a second home to Liza. She’d visited often with her mother, coming several times a week to the large house overlooking Dooley’s Folly to visit her grandmother,
la Mémé,
Rosaries Hinto, and to eat cucumber and cream cheese sandwiches washed down with sugary hot tea. As Liza approached the wide side door today, striding along the narrow, pocked sidewalk, she inhaled the familiar perfume of wild roses and touched their laden, swaying branches.

The tall, two-story home was fashioned of ruddy, locally created brick supported by eight-foot-long, twelve-inch-square beams of paisley-patterned black locust. It had been built when the area had been covered by ancient trees that had to fall before a home could be built. Sturdy panels of this wood made up the thick, iron-hinged doors as well. Liza, as a child, had spent much precious playtime battling to swing open their heaviness.

Inside the house, more of this wood, shiny from years of polishing, adorned the walls and most interior surfaces. When younger, Liza had fantasized that she was on a great ship, a cramped sailing vessel, trapped on a windless sea. Her grandmother’s minimalist attitude and sparse decorating style had inadvertently fueled this fantasy.

This hilly, rugged section of Maypearl was one of the oldest in the area. While most of rural Maypearl featured pine thicket and scrub growth in the sandy, poor soil, this area was more like cooler northern climes, with towering deciduous trees such as elms, oaks, dogwoods and beautiful crape myrtles and even some evergreen trees such as ficus and holly. Coming here was much like entering another world, one that an older Liza cherished now more than ever before.

She found her
Mémé
in the solarium, planting lemon basil plants into long wooden window boxes.

Spying Liza, her grandmother rose and brushed her hands on the long apron she habitually donned each day.

“
Eliza, bon bebe, comment allez-vous
?” She pulled Liza into a gentle embrace.

“
Bon, et tu
?”

“
Bien, veritable
.”

Liza laughed. Clearly, her grandmother knew why she was there. “You’d better say you’re okay. Chloe called yesterday and said you’ve been feeling poorly. What’s going on?”

Rosaries shrugged, “
Le c’est les goutte
.”

Liza frowned. “
Les goutte?Je ne comprends pas.
Speak English, Grandmother.”

Mémé
frowned at Liza but complied. “The gout. Pain in the foot,” she said in a heavily accented patois. “You know I have no patience with the English.”

Liza laughed. “And you know Pop sure doesn’t speak French at home. I’m so out of practice.” She sobered. “Is it still hurting?”

“
Non
, it eases.”

“You know it’s what you eat, don’t you? All that shrimp.”

“
Crevette
? How you mean the shrimps?” She studied her granddaughter with a smile dancing about her lips. Liza, as usual, wondered if
Mémé
was playing with her, pretending ignorance.

“Too much shrimp or meat makes the gout worse. You need to stay away from seafood until it gets better.” She smiled sympathetically. “I know that’ll be hard for you.”

“Yes, the shrimp is my favorite,” Rosaries agreed. “It will be hard but I will try less of it. The doctor says this too so I must listen. Enough of the pain. Come now and tell me about the family.”

Liza held her grandmother’s arm close as they moved into her cozy, well-lighted kitchen.

Placide’s Place had been built by Liza’s maternal great-grandfather, Renoi Boulanger, in the late 1800s after moving from Canada to the lower forty-eight. After his death, the house had passed down to his only daughter, Rosaries. She and her husband, Chayton Hinto, had shared it for more than forty years.

The era of its construction and the subsequent years had given the house a worn elegance. Though built in the Deep South, it was laid out very differently from most Southern homes, which featured wide-open spaces. Placide’s Place, probably because it was built by a warmth-seeking French-Canadian, had small rooms that led one into the other or playfully skirted a logical connection. When young, Liza had delighted in losing herself in the confusing passageways and intriguing crawlspaces. She would then call out until Papa Chayton, a pure-blood Dakota Indian, would come find her. After guiding her into a main hallway, he would fold his arms and study her as if seeking answers, looking every bit the stereotypical cigar-store decoration. Liza would simply laugh and hug his legs, for his dark, leathery skin and long black hair was incongruous against his modern tie-dyed T-shirts and denim shorts.

The kitchen was the largest of the original rooms and served as the heart of the home. It offered a huge hearth, the fireplace rigged with iron hooks for cooking in stewpots. The room had been modernized around this hearth, but upon first glance, a visitor easily could be thrust back into the nineteenth century. During family gatherings, everyone gravitated here, mostly during mealtimes, ignoring the more formal dining room less than twenty feet away. The scarred oak table was the site of many heart-to-hearts, especially as Liza dealt with the loss of her mother, Sienna, Rosaries’ beloved only child.

As
Mémé
busied herself with filling the teakettle, Liza settled at the table and let her mind reminisce about those days and the talks that had been her salvation during that difficult time. The loss of Papa Chayton just months later had cast a five-year pall on the entire family.

“Where are you going to put the window boxes?”

Mémé
shrugged. “They’re for the solarium because that plant smells so good. But for no place in fact.”

“Particular.” Liza’s correction was so automatic that neither woman noted it.

She glanced out the large window next to the table. From this vantage point, she could see the tree-shrouded roof of the Carson house. Her thoughts flew to Shay and their strange encounter.

“Hey,
Mémé
. Have you met the people who moved in over at Carson’s?”

“Hmm?” Rosaries lit the gas flame under the kettle and took a seat across from her granddaughter.

“
Carson place.Qui est-ce qui habiter?”

“
Pas que je sache
. There’s a mystery there.” She shrugged. “From the…Blue?...this man comes and he say he looking for property.”