Nicole Peeler - [Jane True 01] (3 page)

And which, I suspected, had driven my family apart.

My mother, Mari, had turned up naked as a jaybird one night right before
an awful storm hit. My father and the other young men of the town had been
racing around for the preceding few hours, helping people board up the windows
of the shops and houses that lined our small main street and central square.
Then, out of nowhere, his buddy Trevor had let out a low whistle of surprise at
the same time that Louis said, “Holy shit,” in the awestruck voice he used when
they went to the big Fourth of July celebration in Bangor to see a real
fireworks display. My father, along with just about everybody else who lived in
Rockabill at the time, had looked up to see a naked young woman, black hair
swirling down to her waist, sauntering down the street as if she had an
invitation that specifically requested “stark naked, only, please.” No one
moved, except my big brave father, who took off his coat and went and put it
around the young woman’s shoulders. She smiled up at him, and that’s the moment
he says that he knew he loved her and couldn’t live without her.

For propriety’s sake, he’d taken her to the Grays’, Rockabill’s only bed
and breakfast at the time. That it was strategically so close to our house was
never mentioned in the official story. Nick and Nan were still alive and in
charge, not Stuart’s nasty parents, Sheila and Herbert. Nick and Nan gave her a
bed for the night but weren’t all that surprised when they woke up to find it
empty. Nor were they surprised when they found the girl and my dad at the local
diner that morning, sharing a big breakfast of bacon and eggs and pancakes. I
came around about a year later into an ideal family. My parents adored one
another; Nick and Nan served as the perfect surrogate grandparents (my father’s
parents had passed away before I was born), and soon Jason joined his
grandparents, Nick and Nan, to take his place as my best friend and soul mate.
For six years I lived as happily as a child could live. Until the night another
big storm struck, one almost as bad as the one that was raging the night my
parents first shared a bed together. That morning, my mom was gone as suddenly
and inexplicably as she had appeared.

Then I learned the truth about our family: that the cozy nest of
happiness in which I’d enjoyed growing up was a sham. Rockabill, except for
Nick, Nan, and Jason, had never accepted my mother. Many in the village
considered her dangerously different and were happy to have their worst
suspicions confirmed by her abandonment of her husband and young daughter. That
a young girl whose mother had deserted her deserved any sympathy was trumped by
the fact that I looked almost exactly like her: the same dark hair and eyes,
the same pale skin, and, as I grew older, the same dangerous curves. Rockabill wasn’t
an overtly religious community, but our Puritan ancestors must have channeled
Melanie Griffith down through the generations.
Like her mother,
they
whispered,
that girl has a bod for sin
. The whispers had stuck, growing
into shouts as the years went by and other worse things happened.

Angrily, I swam and swam, letting the powerful currents and riptides of
the Old Sow and her piglets jostle me back and forth. I wanted to lose myself
in the whirlpool, and she was always happy to oblige.

The Old Sow used to be the bane of Rockabill’s fishermen and had killed
more than her fair share of our men. Now, however, she was our livelihood: the
tourist attraction that we depended on for sustenance. She was one of the five
biggest whirlpools on earth, and boats had to be careful to avoid her. But
there I was, plunging along her outermost boundaries like a naked little seal.

I didn’t know why I was such a powerful swimmer, since I was so small,
or why I loved it so much. And yet I was never happier than when I was in the
water. If I was honest with myself, there was more to it than that. I really
had
to swim. It was as much of an addiction as it was a desire. Not that I
understood the implications of that need. I knew my swimming was the key to
something, but it was that annoying, anonymous key that hung on every inherited
key ring. The key that didn’t fit any door in the house, or any drawer in the
office, or any suitcase in the attic. Swimming was my mystery key that
constantly nagged me with its presence. But, no matter how many locks I tried,
it never revealed anything about what it concealed.

I tried to push away my negative thoughts and focus on my delight as the
thunder clapped and the rain poured down, causing the ocean to buck in
response. The storm that was percolating when I drove home from the grocery
store had struck while my father and I were eating dinner. It was all I could
do to get through the meal without banging down my fork and running off into
the night like some maenad. I was still so angry from my biweekly run-in with
Linda that I was short-tempered with my father. Which made me feel guilty,
which made me feel frustrated, which made me feel even more angry…

When I got like that only a swim helped.

And if any old swim was therapeutic, a swim during a storm was better
than Prozac. Maybe it was because my mother had appeared, and disappeared,
during a storm that made me so obsessed with them. But I was never happier than
when the sea was wild and thrusting and angry and I was roiling around in it as
powerless and riveted as one of Linda’s paperback heroines confronted with her
first unbuckled swashbuckler.

A particularly strong wave dunked me, and I realized I was getting
dangerously close to the Old Sow. Who, in her bounteous unpredictability, was
happily swirling away despite the fact that she should really be quiet at this
time of night. But I was so pissed off that only really rough water was going
to do for me tonight. Whenever I had a run-in with Stuart or Linda, I couldn’t
help but think about my mom. Her disappearance was like a sore tooth demanding
to be prodded.

I used the riptide caused by one of the Sow’s piglets to help shoot me
up into the air so I could dive back down, like a porpoise. I landed more
heavily than I’d anticipated, the piglet forcing me into a strong current that
wanted to carry me to her mother. I fought hard to free myself, but the current
had me in its vicelike grip. The Old Sow was nowhere near the most powerful of
the earth’s whirlpools, but she was far too strong even for my freakish
swimming abilities. I had gotten way too close, and it was taking everything I
had to extricate myself from the current.

I was fighting and fighting, but not going anywhere, when I felt the
panic start to rise. If I did drown, I’d be so pissed off. It would prove that
everything they’d said about me after Jason’s death was true, even though it
was a total pack of lies.

But then, as if by magic, the current around me slacked off, just for a
second. With an almighty effort I was free, backing respectfully away from the
Old Sow and her progeny. I treaded water, still feeling the adrenaline surging
through my veins. I couldn’t believe I’d been dumb enough to get that close. I
was cursing my own stupidity as my heart thudded in my chest, partially from
exertion and partially from fear.

Then everything froze: My heart felt like a cold hand had shot out of
the water and wrapped around it, stopping it midbeat. My brain ceased all
coherent function. Only my hands and feet continued treading water as if on
autopilot, keeping me afloat.

I’d gotten out of the Old Sow unscathed, but somebody else hadn’t.

I could see a shape bobbing in the grasp of the main whirlpool like some
nightmarish buoy. And I knew from terrible experience that it had to be a human.
If I thought I’d been afraid before, I nearly Roadrunnered it to shore as my
fight-or-flight response kicked in. Every fiber of my being told me to get the
fuck out of the water and not face whatever was out there.

It’s not that I thought it was some kind of monster. I assumed it was
somebody I loved: dead and drowned, because of me.

Who could have seen me come to the cove? I’d come from my house, through
the back door, and out through our woods. Nobody lived by us except the Grays,
and Sheila and Herbert wouldn’t be hanging around outside on a cold night like
this. That left Stuart, but if Stuart
had
thought I was drowning he
certainly wouldn’t attempt a rescue. He’d sit down and light up a cigar to
celebrate my demise.

That left my father. At that thought my heart, which had tentatively
begun beating again, seized right back up.

But then my brain kicked in. My father knew I swam even if he didn’t
talk about it, and he wouldn’t attempt a “rescue.” So the only way I was going
to find out if, once again, I’d gone and killed somebody was to get that body
out of the Sow.

The real whirlpool, whose little, eddying piglet had just about drowned
me a minute ago. Shit.

I swam a wide circuit of the Old Sow, trying to figure out how the hell
I was going to get out there. But it was impossible, there was absolutely no
way to get any closer. Nevertheless, the body was doing an obscene dance,
caught as it was in the whirlpool’s currents. I couldn’t leave it like that. It
had been a person up until quite recently and probably a person I knew. Panic
rose, and I told myself not to go there.

I backed away, treading water.
Think, Jane.

But nothing was coming to me. There was no way I could get any closer
than I was, and watching as the body was sucked under the waves and then forced
back up to the surface made my anxiety and fear all the more acute.

My emotions were roiling inside of me. I tried to suppress the memories
but seeing the body caught up in the whirlpool was like watching a video
recording of that other horrible night. But I closed off my mind to those
memories. I wasn’t going there; nothing could make me go there. As I struggled
to get my fear under control another emotion rose to the fore—anger. I was
totally pissed off. What the hell was
another
body doing in my
whirlpool? How many times did I have to find a body? Shouldn’t bodies be like
lightning and avoid striking the same person twice?

I gritted my teeth and willed myself to focus on the here and now, on
the tiny bobbing speck at the mercy of the Old Sow. The body was caught in the
strong currents circling the whirlpool’s epicenter, but she must have been
losing power for it seemed as if the body’s circles had gotten larger and
looser.
Of course it is
, I thought, honing in on my anger to help keep
my fear at bay.
I am Jane True: corpse whisperer.

The body was definitely coming free of the Sow. She didn’t appear to be
quieting, but her internal coil must be loosening imperceptibly, sending
outward what she once drew near.

Come on
, I thought impatiently, ignoring my fear and purposely
stoking my bad temper. I preferred anger to memories, any day.
Come to Jane…

The bobbing figure was getting closer, but one of the piglets had it
now. In my frustration I nearly screamed. I could now see the body was that of
a man, and I didn’t think I recognized him as one of Rockabill’s residents.
Who
are you?
I thought, before turning my attention to the hungry piglet. “You
let go!” I shouted, even though my voice didn’t make a dent in the cacophony
created by the storm and the roiling ocean.

But as if it had heard me, the piglet spat out its gruesome plaything.
The man was finally free of the Sow, and a helpful current was carrying it
straight toward me. I shuddered, not only because of the approaching corpse but
also because of the uncanny resemblance of this night to that other night.
You
will
not
think about that!
I thought, shutting that door in my mind
before it could fully open.

Besides, here in the present, the unknown body was nearly at arm’s
length—

Gotcha!

I now had hold of the corpse, and I started towing it to shore. The sea
was rough and it was a long swim to get me and my heavy burden back to land.
But I was nowhere near as exhausted as I’d been that other night, so the swim
went quickly and soon I was close enough to the shore that I’d have to stop
swimming and get my legs under me to walk without letting go of the body.
Whoever he was, he was fully clothed and getting more and more awkward to
handle. And I still hadn’t gotten a good enough look at his face; the sea was
too rough for me to stop and turn him so I could see.

I managed to haul myself up to a standing position and drag my burden
onto the public beach. I collapsed next to it, trying to get my breath back.
The swimming hadn’t been so bad, but lugging him that short walk had nearly
killed me.

I was also getting a bad case of the heebie-jeebies. As the adrenaline
faded, and with the struggle to get the body onshore over, I was now
contemplating the fact that I had been clutching a corpse.

I had to touch him again, too, if I was going to see who the hell it
was.

The body was facedown in the sand. When I went to turn him, I got a good
look at the back of his head and my gorge rose.

There was a big flap of scalp hanging off the back of his head, showing
an expanse of very white skull that was obviously smashed. The sea water had
washed away the blood, but that made it worse. It was not often we got such a
stark reminder that underneath our own fleshy little faces was one of those
leering white skeletons that symbolized death and decay in every culture. I
thought I saw a little bit of brain peeping out from a particularly bad crack,
which really made me want to puke.