Old School Bones (26 page)

WHEN Lou Votolatto finally pulls him off the witch, pries his hands from her throat, someone has turned on a lot of lights in the room. And Danny looks dead. Her tongue choked out, sagging from the bloody corner of her mouth.

Awasha lies on the floor in a pool of blood. Three EMTs pressing enormous gauze pads to her right cheek, chest.

Gracie sits hunched over on the couch. “Oh, no. Oh, no …”

There’s a burst of bloody tissue on the far wall where Danny’s last bullet scattered pieces of her half brother. His left kidney, to be exact.

“I tried to stop her, hotstuff,” he says as two cops lift him onto a stretcher and start out the door toward an ambulance. “But you were the one nailed her.”

Something ruptures in his chest. His throat gags. He heaves in his hands. Blood the color of wine. Liberty’s last bath.

Dead. That’s how he feels.

He’s standing on the sidewalk at the top of the arch of the Paradise Island Bridge connecting the resorts on the island to downtown Nassau. Cassie’s world. The rose tattoo throbbing now on his neck. The sailing yachts sliding beneath the bridge. Bum boats grinding up and down the harbor servicing the cruise ships at Prince George Wharf. And the water below clear, pale blue. He thinks he can see the fish schooling even from up here. Wonders what it would be like to jump. Die among their silver sides, fins flailing him. Their hard little lips nibbling at the rose on his neck.

“The bullet went through the top of your right lung. Came out just beneath your shoulder blade.” It’s not a doctor telling him this. It is Lou Votolatto. His dad is there, too, beside him in the surgical recovery room.

“I dreamed I was being eaten by a million little fish. I dreamed of the Bahamas.”

“You’re going to be just fine, Mo.” His father squeezes his hand, turns his face away as it folds up in tears.

“You’re a lucky son of a bitch, Rambo.” Lou is trying to distract him from his father’s melt-down.

He closes his eyes. Tries to remember. Feels Awasha rise again from under his left hand. Sees her spring.

Howling. Black hair flaming from her scalp. Her arms, hands, stretching. The first shot breaking the air. A pool of blood. EMTs pressing gauze to her cheek, chest.

“Where’s Awasha?”

“You’ve been through a tough surgery, kid.”

“Dad? Lou?”

“Everything’s going to be OK. They’re going to give you a sedative to help you rest.”

A nurse is fiddling with his IV drip.

“Is she alright?” His voice only an echo … slipping away.

He’s in a hospital room when he wakes. Got to be Cape Cod Hospital in Hyannis. He can see the gulls wheeling on the wind outside the window. And his dad is there. Not crying now. A frozen look on his face. The look he gets when the
Rosa Lee
is just about on the fishing grounds, when he’s staring at his fish finder, deciding exactly where he wants to set out for the first haul. It’s the Caesar Decastro that always reminds him of a picture he once saw of the bullfighter Manolete. Stoic. Resolved.

“Is she dead, Dad?”

“The one you choked? No. In jail.”

“I meant Awasha.”

His father’s eyelids flutter. Twice. The only show of emotion. “Hell of a woman. She probably saved your life … Her brother took her to the Vineyard.”

“Dad?!”

“She never regained consciousness … I’m sorry, son.”

He remembers something she told him about the Vineyard, scattering her mother’s ashes on Squibnocket Beach. Alice’s beach. Black Squirrel’s beach. He sees it.

The wind is up, churning the waves. Coating her cheeks with brine. Lifting strands of black hair off her back. Her cheekbones high, prominent. Nose fine and proud. Eyes set on the horizon. She stands in the bright sun balancing on jagged granite … in her yellow fleece pullover and jeans. Petite, almost anorexic except for full breasts. In the land of Maushop. Aquinnah.

And now Ronnie. With the hatbox containing the ashes, clutched to his chest. Plaid work shirt, khaki pants. Moccasins. The wind is driving tears over his face.

Gulls swoop. Dive on the bait fish. Screeching.

The air almost too hot to breathe. Scorching his lungs. Air from a desert. And Africa.

A convulsion starts to rise in her brother’s chest, in his own. Black rattling.

Ronnie’s hand lifts the cover, opens the box as he swings to face downwind. The breeze starts to swirl the ashes out of the box, scatter them. Until they are nothing but a small cloud drifting away over the rocky beach, the breaking waves. Vanishing. With no word, no sign of hope or pardon.

“I wish Mom were here,” he says.

His father stares out the window. “She would know what to say.”

HE’S asleep when he feels a heavy hand shake his shoulder.

“Hey, kid, I brought some people to see you.”

He pulls the pillow off his face, blinks his eyes open.

Lou Votolatto is standing over him. Two females next to him: Gracie and a black woman he should know, but does not recognize.

He catches her eye, tries to read her face. If her skin were lighter—and she weren’t wearing go-go boots, a faux leopard coat—she could almost be his mother.

“Tedeeka? Teddie?”

“Hey, cha cha cha, baby.” She brushes past Lou, bends down and gives him a kiss on the lips. “You the man!”

Gracie, huge smile on her face, drops onto the other side of his bed, hugs him. Nearly pulls the IV out.

“Careful, ladies …” Lou sounds a little short of control. “The boy’s just four days out of surgery.”

“We can’t hurt him, He’s our knight in shining armor.”

More kisses. A nose-full of trashy perfumes. For the first time since his interlude on the fishnets with Awasha, he has the urge to bark.

By the time his guests leave, he has the picture. Well, part of it. Actually has a transcription of taped testimony he can read over. And over. As if anything it contains will ever make any sense. Ever compensate for what he’s lost.

He can see it all: Jean-Claude, his mother at his bedside in the hospital, ratting out his half sister. Big time. Bette Davis smile on his face. While Lou Votolatto’s tape recorder rolls.

JEAN-CLAUDE RAUSCHE

The little bitch broke her word, Mother. She said she would never tell anyone about Roxy and me and the club … if I never told anyone about her own sick obsession with that Puerto Rican
puta.

I know how Roxy died. Danny told me one night in the Harwichport house. Summer of ‘75. She told in return for my promising to never go public about her thing with that little tart … Roxy died by accident.

Sort of. She pulled a train for the Red Tooth guys. Just for the hell of it, I guess. Because Roxy was Roxy. Or maybe she was pissed because I had stopped paying attention to her.

Anyway, Danny heard about it. She couldn’t stand it because she hated those arrogant bastards … and she was sick in love with Roxy. Pissed. Jealous that Roxy had given away to Red Tooth what she would never give up to her. They got in a shouting match the day Roxy was supposed to leave school for the summer.

The fight ended with Danny heading over to my room in Hibernia House, over to the Club Tropical. She was going to tell me what Roxy had done, how Roxy had betrayed the club. Roxy chased her. Screaming, begging.

They had another fight at the top of the steps in Hibernia House. Danny pushed Roxy. She fell down the stairs. Broke her neck. Then Danny dragged the body up into the club room. Left Roxy for us (like “fuck you pricks”) to deal with. Just lovely.

LT. LOUIS VOTOLATTO

Where does Liberty Baker’s death fit in?

JEAN-CLAUDE RAUSCHE

Danny called me in early April and asked me if I had heard about the black girl who died at Tolchie. She said her girlfriend Awasha was on a mission to prove it was murder … and it had something to do with secret societies at the school. She said the Red Tooth gang was already starting to freak out. I might want to tell the Club Tropical guys to watch their backs.

LT. LOUIS VOTOLATTO

How does this implicate your half sister in a murder?

JEAN-CLAUDE RAUSCHE

Because I asked her why she was being so generous to give me this heads-up. It’s not like we’ve been close since boarding school, since Roxy died.

She said the stuff about Roxy and the drug dealing might come out. She didn’t think Red Tooth could go for that. They might try some dirty tricks or sick the police on my boys. Or her. They aren’t like the Club Tropical. They’re still alive and well. Flourishing, if you believe Danny.

LT. LOUIS VOTOLATTO

Come on Jean-Claude. Get to the point. Your half sister and the death of Liberty Baker?

JEAN-CLAUDE RAUSCHE

Danny said that if the heat came down on either one of us that we had to cover for each other. That we had made a promise that summer after Roxy died. She said we had to stand by our word. She said we both had a lot to lose. She sounded nervous.

LT. LOUIS VOTOLATTO
So?

JEAN-CLAUDE RAUSCHE

So I asked her if she had something to do with this black girl’s death. She said she was trying to protect her girlfriend. The Indian sweetie.

LT. LOUIS VOTOLATTO

Did you believe her?

JEAN-CLAUDE RAUSCHE

No. Didn’t make sense. First she says the Indian chick is out to prove there’s a murder. Then she all of a sudden says she’s trying to protect her girlfriend. Like now her flavor-of-the-month is a player in this death. See?

LT. LOUIS VOTOLATTO

Was your half sister involved with Liberty Baker in some way?

JEAN-CLAUDE RAUSCHE

You think this is about jealousy again?

“MY parents are taking me back home to Hong Kong tomorrow.” Gracie reaches across the table for his hand as he sets down his glass of
vinho tinto.
“I don’t think I’ll ever be coming back. My dad’s pretty pissed at America.”

They are in the
churrascaria,
called Vinho Negro, near Inman Square where he took her so many months ago when Liberty’s death was so fresh it was all either of them could think about. The pain.

“Maybe it is the best thing. Get away from all of this. I wish I could go to the other side of the planet right now.”

“You have your fishing with your dad. It’s kind of the same thing.”

He nods, thinks that within a week he will be offshore in the
Rosa Lee
at the canyons with Caesar and Tio Tommy. Sun hot. The birds circling in the air, watching for a free meal. Radio broadcasting the Sox game. The blue sharks will be out there too. Basking. Probably humpback whales. Maybe right whales. And the schools of silver cod. Smelling like a certain kind of heaven. He wonders why he would ever want to be any place else … But there won’t be any seals. Not out there.

“You know, I’ve really had a massive crush on you, Michael.” She squeezes his hand.

He’s going to pretend she didn’t say this. “I heard Sufridge—Bumbledork—is getting fired. Lou says the U.S. Attorney’s Office is looking into Red Tooth.”

“Sometimes I was so envious and angry about what Doc P had with you. Sometimes I wished one of you was dead. Like that night I saw you two on the fishnets in Provincetown. And now …”

He feels her eyes on his, looks away. “You hardly touched your
moqueca.”

“Hey! Earth to Michael. Did you hear what I said? I just wanted you to know before I go, OK? I had thoughts about your body. And hers. Together. And sometimes I hated it. OK? Hated being the one left out. The kid. I wanted to be Ninja Girl, you know? I wanted you to see me as someone special. The way you saw her. And now, I don’t know. I feel dirty. I feel like shit.”

He withdraws his hand, lifts his wine glass. Stares at the purple fluid back-lit by the candle burning on the table. Sets it back down.

“I don’t know what to say, Gracie. None of this was your fault. You’ve been a superstar. There could have been no justice without you.”

“Jesus. Jesus Hell! You’re avoiding, Michael! I offer my heart, my soul. My deepest secrets! And you give me back what? Some fucking detached compliments?”

“What do you want me to say? You want me to tell you that if I were eighteen, I could fall hard for you? It’s true. But … but, Gracie, I’m not even a little like eighteen any more … And I seem to have lost my heart to.” He shakes his head. Can’t say Awasha’s name.

She pulls her napkin off her lap, throws it on the table. “Shit! Shit! Shit! How do we get them out of our minds? Everywhere I turn, every time I close my eyes. I hear their voices, see them. All the dead. Especially Lib. Sometimes I even smell them. It’s just fucking hard.”

“I don’t know … I guess I should say that they have gone to a better place. They are not suffering. We have to let them go.”
Like Vóvó. Like my mother, Maria. Alice. Awasha. And the living who will never come back. Cassie. Filipa. Tuki.
“We have to believe they are at peace.”

“While that bitch is still alive?”

He feels the bullet go through his lung again. “Remember what Teddie Baker said to us in the hospital? ‘Justice will be served now. She just takes her own sweet time.’ I want to believe Teddie’s right.”

“You mean like what goes around, comes around? Doc P probably would have some trippy Indian way of explaining that. Circles of life or something.”

He stares into his wine glass again. Sees nothing.

“Come on Michael. I need some closure here. Help me.”

He lets out a long, slow breath. “I saw Lou Votolatto this afternoon.” As soon as the words are out of his mouth he knows they were a mistake. He shouldn’t be getting into this with Gracie. Not with her so touchy, so raw.

“So?”

“Yesterday Denise Pasteur confessed.”

“To killing Liberty?”

“Manslaughter in the death of Roxana Calderón.”

“What about Liberty? Liberty’s why we went through this hell.”

“It doesn’t matter anymore.”

“I can’t stand this! There’s something you’re not telling me. Fuck, Michael!”

“The cops found out stuff we didn’t know about. Denise Pasteur wanted to be the next head of Tolchester-Coates. She had been promoting herself behind the scenes for years. Back in January the trustees of the school made her an offer in private. They were going to force Sufridge to retire, and crown her.”

“What’s that have to do with Liberty?”

“The D.A. thinks that history paper you two were doing on the secret societies opened up Pandora’s box. On multiple fronts. Danny Pasteur was advisor to the school newspaper. She must have heard about your and Liberty’s investigation into the clubs from the student editors or writers. Maybe she even saw that video Liberty had on MySpace, the Old School Bones one.”

“You mean it could be the school paper was planning to tap into what Liberty and I found and do their own exposé?”

“She had to have felt threatened, feared you guys would find out about Club Tropical, Roxy … and her. Wreck everything she had been working for. Totally tarnish her in the eyes of the trustees, especially the Red Tooth types.”

“Or maybe some of the editors are Red Tooth and they were sworn to protect club secrets. They have a good thing going supplying drugs, right? No Club Tropical to challenge them now. And Red Tooth could be in hundreds of these kinds of schools. Like the goddamn mafia.”

“The police are looking into it.”

“So Red Tooth killed Liberty after all?”

“The D.A. thinks not. He thinks Red Tooth set up Ronnie Patterson for the drug bust and burned his house. Maybe even beat you in bed that night. And got Awasha fired. All to stop our investigation, shut us down. They thought we were the threat. They didn’t know about Denise Pasteur.”

“Who felt threatened by us too.”

“She saw the big picture. Saw that our investigation was as big a pain to Red Tooth as to her.”

“You think Denise Pasteur could have put that awful message in Liberty’s physics book and the boast about Red Tooth in the headlines herself … to make Red Tooth look bad? Take the spotlight off her?”

He shrugs. “If she could weasel a car from the Singletons and use it to nearly kill me, I guess she could write a racist threat and doctor some headlines to hide her tracks.”

“And kill Liberty.”

“We’re speculating.”

She stares at the plate of
moqueca
in front of her. “That bitch tried to fucking kill us all. I was there!”

For a second he tries to reflect on Denise Pasteur’s ambition, decades of anger at an aristocratic male hierarchy, her tortured love life, an abiding jealousy of the boys, a desperate need for credence.

But his head fills with the crack of gun shots again. First one. A second. A third. Fourth.

“She murdered Liberty.” Gracie is suddenly sobbing.

“We’ll never know for sure,” he says. The words just fly out.

“Why? Just tell me why, Michael! Why won’t we know?”

“Denise Pasteur hung herself with her sports bra in her cell this afternoon.”

“Fuck all!”

Exactly.