Murder and Mayhem (39 page)

When Danny took her hand he was surprised at the
strength in it.

“Danny Richards, and, Nicola Madison,” he said nodding
in Nicola’s direction. “It’s been a pleasure meeting you and your lovely
family, Gina.”

“You have a nice day, Danny. And I hope you enjoy your
vacation.”

Gina turned to Nicola and clasped her hand warmly.
“Nicola. I’ve enjoyed meeting you.”

“I enjoyed meeting you too, Gina. Take care. And good
luck with the hibernation,” Nicola added.

As the woman walked away, she turned and waved.
“Thanks, Nicola, I will need all the help I can get,” she said as she slipped
her dark glasses on. She knelt on the sand and hugged her son.

Danny took hold of Nicola’s hand and headed down the
beach leaving Gina, Thomas and faithful dog, Cindy, to enjoy the sunshine that
would all too quickly become just another memory as the cold weather set in.

Nearly a mile from the lighthouse, but still within
easy sight of the small family group, Danny dropped down onto the sand and
tugged Nicola down with him. They lay with their hands clasped behind their
heads and listened to the sound of the sea as the sun warmed their faces, their
minds drifting, letting thoughts pass like clouds.

Gold and coppery hues washed through Nicola’s hair as
the gentle breeze off the ocean blew it in swirls across her face. She closed
her eyes and listened to the sound of sea birds calling; a car thundering past
on the otherwise deserted road and the sound of the wind as it rustled through
the dry grass that served as a break between beach and street. In the distance
she could hear the high pitched excited voice of Thomas, and Cindy barking.
Every now and then Gina’s voice floated up to them as their minds drifted,
allowing thoughts to pass like clouds.

Danny propped himself up on his elbow and gently ran
his fingers over her face; the skin was smooth and lightly tanned. When Nicola
opened her eyes, small lights played in them.

“Tell me about Sara?” she said as the hushed words
were carried away on the breeze.

When Danny pushed his sunglasses onto the top of his
head and cupped her face between his hands, Nicola looked into dark eyes filled
with secrets he could never share, and knew the answer before he spoke the
words.

“No, Nic. Now’s not the time. You’ll just have to be
patient with me.” Danny slid his sunglasses on and gazed up at the sky. Through
the dark lenses, it was without color and the clouds, diffused – like the face
that haunted him.

Hidden from view behind tall sea grasses that acted as
a windbreak, a beige-colored rental car sat by the side of the road where a man
wearing a wide brimmed hat, pulled low over blond hair that curled along the
base of his neck, and created shadows on his mirrored sunglasses, sipped coffee
from a take-out cup, and watched gulls riding the foam capped waves. The wind
off the water rustled through the sea grass and the high pitched voice of a
small child and barking dog drifted up to him. The skin at the corner of his
mouth twitched as anger bloomed in his chest like an old friend. He knew it was
not good to be locked up with his thoughts, but he had nowhere else to take
them, so he allowed them to gather and feed at his heart.

*****

After dinner Ross and I were in the bedroom keeping
Rosie company. I’d finished another chapter and Rosie wanted me to read what I
had written, when she was taking a nap.

*****

The rising moon was almost full. It appeared so close
to the earth the craters and the face was clear.

Waves crested against the hard-packed sand as Danny pulled
the SUV onto the shoulder of the road and switched on the parking lights. They
walked back along the narrow strip of road covered in a fine layer of sand
blown up from the beach, with the grit crunching beneath their shoes, like
broken eggshells.

The restaurant was packed as people made the most of
the last of the warm weather. The efficient staff cleared a recently vacated
table on the terrace that had a view of the ocean.

Once they were seated, a waitress took their order and
returned with a bottle of chilled water and two glasses, followed by large mugs
of coffee. A middle-aged couple pushed past wearing T-shirts with the words
Indian Wells splashed across the back in bright colors. Danny, noting the name,
recalled something Nicola had told him during one of their many late-night
phone calls.

“Didn’t you tell me you have family in Indian Wells?”

Nicola nodded. “Yes, my grandparents, on my mother’s
side. Granny Madison lives in Palos Verdes Estates on Redondo Beach, in Los
Angeles.”

“Do you get to see them much?”

“I used to visit them often when I lived in L.A, but
since the accident I’ve only been back a couple of times. I know I should, but
it just seems all too hard.”

Sea birds wheeled above the waves, calling. The air
was filled with the tang of salt and seaweed – and cooking from the restaurant.
In the twilight small clouds on the horizon skimmed across the purple and
orange sky.

Nicola played with her water glass. “Indian Wells is
off Interstate-Ten, near Joshua Tree National Park.”

Danny nodded, and said, “I’ve been through it a couple
of times. Some years ago I traveled I-10 through Phoenix, Houston, and Baton
Rouge, to Mobile, Alabama–then north to Montgomery, and Birmingham, the place
of segregation, freedom riders, and Martin Luther King. It’s all right there,
in Alabama…”

*****

“You’ve got a mate in Alabama haven’t you, Ross?”

“Uh-huh. Decatur.”

“Where’s Decatur?” Rosie asked.

“It’s up near Huntsville on the
Tennessee River. It’s a real pretty place. I’ve stayed with Pete a couple of
times while Bee stayed with you.” He took a sip of coffee and said to my
sister, “Would you like me to tell you a story, Hon? I think you’ll find it
amusing.”

Rosie laughed. “All your stories are amusing, Ross.”

Drew, home for the weekend grabbed a chair and joined
us in the bedroom.

“Ross is going to tell us a
story about a friend of his who lives in Decatur,” Rosie told him.

“Is that the one in Alabama?”

“Yeah, on the Tennessee River.”

“I went there way back in my
college days to some kind of music festival. Sorry, Ross I didn’t mean to
interrupt,” Drew said.

“That’s okay, Drew. Well, this one time I was staying
with Pete we got to talking about music. Now Pete’s in his late sixties, early
seventies, I think, so his taste in music goes back much further than mine.
Pete’s never married and has only two passions in his life, Harley Davidson
motorcycles, of which he has quite a collection–and bluegrass music.”

“Nothing wrong with a good collection of bluegrass
music,” Drew interjected. “I’ve got the odd record or two, myself.”

We all laughed. Drew’s collection of bluegrass music
is legendary. At last count it stood close to 1,000 CD’s, DVD’s and old records
going back to the Appalachian roots of the twenties.

“There are a couple of really good bluegrass singers
I’d pay premium dollars to hear,” Ross continued. “Anyhow this one time I was
staying with Pete he tells me this story...

“He said that in the mid-seventies he was going to a
bluegrass festival in south-western Virginia to see a couple of good ole boys
who were really big in the bluegrass music scene at the time, Ralph Stanley and
Bill Monroe.”

Drew nodded. “I’ve got a couple of their records. I
think Ricky Skaggs used to be in Ralph Stanley’s band way back in the seventies
along with another great country singer, Keith Whitley, who became a star in
the late eighties, before he drank himself to death. What a waste of good
talent that turned out to be.”

“You’re not kidding. That man could really sing.
Anyway, this festival was at the old homestead, up in McClure, where Ralph and
Carter Stanley had grown up. So Pete and his mate set off in this old 1956
Lincoln Premiere...”

“My God, a 1956 Lincoln Premiere. I used to have one
of those. It had a back seat big enough to fit a football team in.” Drew
laughed. “Boy we used to have some fun in that old thing. Sorry Ross, go on.”

“That’s okay. Apparently the directions they’d been
given were pretty sketchy. They were told to go to Norton and just follow the
signs. But when they got to Norton there weren’t any signs. So they stopped at
a gas station and asked some guy if he knew where the blue-grass festival was.

“He said he didn’t, but pointed to a guy with a pickup
at the gas pump who had a couple of bloodhounds in the back, and a couple of
shotguns racked under the back window of the cabin. Pete said he looked like a
real mountain man. He was dressed in dirty overalls and had half his teeth
missing, the rest black, and had a week’s growth on his face, and wild looking
eyes. Pete said he looked like he was right out of Deliverance, you know…, the
movie.”

Everyone laughed.

“So, they walked over to Deliverance Man and told him
they were looking for the Ralph Stanley show. The guy told them to follow him
and he’d wave them off when they came to the turn-off.

“I don’t think I would have gone with him. Would you,
Ross?” Rosie said.

“Hell. No! Not in those backwoods where you could
disappear and never be heard of again. But Pete’s a big guy so they probably
figured it was two against one; and the mountain man was real puny, the odds on
him getting the drop on them were almost negligible,” Ross said.

“Well, anyway, they followed him and eventually the
pick-up stopped and the guy pointed up a dirt road. Pete and his mate weren’t
sure where he was pointing, but the guy took off in a cloud of dust leaving
them scratching their heads, wondering what they were getting themselves into.
They drove the old Lincoln up the side of the hill along the dirt road that was
little more than a track past abandoned cars that had been airmailed into the
trees.”

“What do you mean–airmailed?” I asked.

“You know–they drive the car to the edge of the cliff
and jump out just before it goes over the side. It lands in a tree at the
bottom of the ravine. I saw it happen in Australia once, but it was done by accident–not
design.”

Everyone laughed.

“Sounds a bit like flirting with death, to me,” Drew
said.

“They’re probably out of their trees on moonshine and
wacky-tobaccy when they do it so they’re would have been feeling no pain, and
thought they could fly.”

“Probably.”

“Anyhow, back to the story: Pete
said he and his buddy drove up the hill past rundown and abandoned shacks with
rusted out shells of cars in the yard, and discarded furniture and appliances,
until they came to an old barn that had a poster with Ralph’s picture on it and
thought they must have been getting close. But the dirt track just kept winding
its way around the top of the ridge seeming to go nowhere. Then, suddenly they
heard music and yelling in the distance, but couldn’t figure out where it was
coming from, because the sound echoed around the canyon. 

“After another mile or so they
came across a couple of teenagers walking along the side of the road. They
asked them where Ralph’s place was and they said it was back where the poster
with Ralph Stanley’s picture on it was tacked to the side of a barn.

“So they went back to the old
barn and noticed what looked like a dirt track barely visible through the thick
underbrush, and headed up. When they finally emerged at the top of the ridge
the place was packed with RVs and tents and people everywhere. And there was
Bill Monroe and Ralph Stanley in the middle of the crowd having a grand old
time. Pete said there must have been oh, hundred- hundred-and-fifty banjos and
fiddles up there. I told him some folks would say a hundred and fifty banjos at
the bottom of the Tennessee River would be a good start, but Pete just laughed,
and said it was a vicious lie. He reckoned it was the best bluegrass music he’d
heard and the best time he’d ever had.”

“That must have been really
something. Wish I had been there,” Drew said.

“Me too. Mountain men aside, It
did sound like fun,” Ross said, and added,
“Apparently,
a couple of years later there was an article in the paper that said Bill
Monroe, in his seventies at the time, a so-called devout Christian, had been
arrested for hitting his girlfriend with a Bible. The caption under the
picture, Pete said, read, ‘Bible Belter’.”

“Mmm,” I said, with a vacuous mouth.

Ross stood up and moved towards the door. “I’m heading
to Fairfax to pick up some bike parts,” he said. “Can I get you girls anything
before I leave?”

“Nothing for me, thank Ross. What about you, Hon?”

“No nothing. That was a nice dinner, thanks Ross,” she
said, patting her stomach even though she’d barely eaten enough to keep a
sparrow alive.