THIRTY-FOUR

I had only one shot at this ploy—and a renewed determination to live. In spite of my inner journey, my effort to forgive Jude, I’d almost let his aura force me again into the role of victim. No way. I corked thoughts of failure and zoomed into a win-win mode. Turning to face Ace, I looked up at him and held his gaze while I lifted my right foot and then slammed it against his instep. He yelped, jerked his injured foot up, and teetered off balance just long enough for me to shove him through the well opening.

Kerplunk! He hit the water and surfaced bellowing and splashing.

Stepping back from the well rim, a wave of relief flooded through me and I grabbed a deep breath. I heard nothing except his shouts, his spluttering that echoed against brick and rose from a safe distance.

“Bitch!” he screamed. “Bitch! You’ll pay for this. You’ll…”

Did he still have his gun? Do guns work if they’re wet? I peered cautiously into the well, my whole body shaking from excitement and fear. No gun. I did a double take when I saw him standing—with no gun. The water measured neck deep, and he stood wiping moisture from his face and eyes. A spider clung to his left ear lobe, but he didn’t seem to notice—yet.

I had expected to see him dog paddling to keep his head above the surface. In a way it relieved me to see him standing. I’d hate to be responsible for killing someone, drowning another person, even in self-defense. Once I reached help, I’d tell the police where to find Ace and let him try to talk himself out of a kidnapping charge along with two murder charges.

My hands stopped shaking, but my heart still pounded. It took me a few more moments to realize that I had Ace Grovello where I wanted him—at my mercy. I pulled my mini-tape recorder from my pocket and turned it on. Maybe I could top off this triumph by getting a taped confession for the police.

“Ace, what did you hope to gain by killing me? Didn’t you realize the authorities would find you out sooner or later?”

No response.

“Ace, how about telling me exactly what happened between you and Dyanne Darby.”

“You dumb bitch!” Ace spluttered and slapped at the spider that had begun crawling into his ear canal. “You think I don’t know you want to record a confession. Well, that’ll never happen. Not here. Not today. Never. Save your little tape machine for your patients’ complaints.”

“The law might go easier on you if you confessed to the Darby murder, if you confessed to threatening me and Maxine Jackson to keep us from investigating, if you confessed to kidnapping me from Beau Ashford’s yard. And what about Nicole Pierce? I’m betting you shot her.” I enjoyed taunting him. “They say confession’s good for the soul, Ace. How about it?”

I gasped when Ace disappeared. Maybe he’d suffered a seizure. Heart attack. Stroke. Maybe I had killed a man after all. But no. In the next instant his head broke the surface and he brandished the gun in his right hand. I backed off. Do guns work after they’ve been submerged? I backed off even farther.

“I’m leaving now, Ace. I’ m heading for help—Punt, the police, anyone. Want a last chance to confess?”

“You bitch.”

“I sympathize with your poverty of vocabulary, Ace.”

“Bitch!”

“After I’m rescued I’m coming back here with the police. Don’t disappoint me. Don’t go away. You wouldn’t do that, would you?”

I left the well site and the house with Ace still shouting about a female canine, and I followed our footsteps back to his car. I looked to each side, ready to run in case an iguana or a raccoon might be lurking nearby. Hey! The car! Maybe I could drive away from this horrid place.

I yanked the car door open and slid under the steering wheel. Wishful thinking. No key hung in the ignition. Key West living has taught us locals never to leave car keys lying around—especially never in an ignition. So much for my escape-by-car idea.

I left the Lincoln. Stepping behind it, I began following the trail it had made through the thicket. Ace’s two arrivals and one departure had left flattened scrub brush. Walking over the trail required less energy than making a fresh path, and surely Ace’s route would lead to a road. All the time I walked, I kept looking for a clearing where I might stand and be seen by searchers flying overhead. But I saw none.

A lumpy black snake slithered across my path. I looked carefully at its tail. No rattlers. Maybe its inner lumps marked breakfast rats. I didn’t panic. Maybe I was beyond panic. I wondered what lay beyond panic. Craziness? I hoped I wasn’t cracking up. When someone found me, I wanted to be able to tell them a straight story about what had happened to me. I didn’t want to jabber like an idiot. I wanted to be able to lead the police to that well and to Ace.

I counted to a hundred to make sure I could make my mind obey. Then I said the alphabet forward and backward. Backward alphabets are hard to say, but I think I got it right. Those exercises kept me from thinking about Ace. But only for a while. Once I thought about him again, my mind whirled. There was a possibility he could escape from the well. Maybe he could find toe holds, hand holds, in the crevices between the bricks and climb out. Or maybe he could press his back against the wall, stretch his feet forward far enough to brace himself against the opposite wall and wiggle his body up, over, and out. I realized I should have pulled the well cover back into place and weighted it down with something—a rock, something from the house, anything heavy. Too late for that now.

The hum of a motor overhead shook me from my morbid thoughts about Ace and the possibility of his escape. I scanned the sky until I saw the helicopter.

“Here! Here!” I shouted, knowing the pilot couldn’t hear me above the noise of his motor. But shouting, the sound of my voice, offered release. “Here! Here!” I’d lost the towel I’d taken from the house when Ace appeared.

I jumped up and down and waved my arms, but the pilot didn’t see me. The helicopter flew on past. Was that pilot blind? Couldn’t he see the smashed-down trail the car had left? I stood still, hoping to hear the motor again, hoping to see the pilot return. No. That didn’t happen. Not then. But after a few more moments, I heard the motor again. This time I hoisted a fallen palm frond and waved it above my head until I thought my arms might break from its weight.

I dropped the branch when I saw the helicopter turn and begin flying low over the area. Again, I jumped and waved, and this time I could see Punt’s face at a window. He waved back, but the copter turned away again. No safe place to land, I guessed. Too many trees. Too much scrub brush. I dropped down, deflated, defeated.

Then the copter turned again and flew in lower. I saw something falling from it. A long rope. A harness. Punt and the pilot planned to haul me up.

I couldn’t cope.

I didn’t have the strength to hang on to a rope or slip into a harness.

I’d fall.

But in spite of my negative thoughts, I jumped up and leaped to grab the rope when the copter flew low. I couldn’t work my body into the harness, but I managed to hold on to the rope.

I thought of the vendors at Smathers who sold parasailing rides to tourists. I remembered pictures of marines parachuting into Iraq. I had no parachute. I hung dangling from the end of a rope that I might lose my grip on at any moment. But I managed to cling to it until I felt Punt and a helper tugging me up, up, up.

At last Punt, lying flat and leaning over the edge of the copter doorway, managed to get his hands under my arms and tug me to safety.

“Are you okay?” Punt shouted into my ear as I lay there on my stomach panting and speechless.

I could only nod. It took lots of inner fortitude to hold back tears of panic and exhaustion mixed with relief and joy and to give a weak smile of thanks to the copter pilot and Punt’s helper. Motor noise made talking impossible, so we didn’t try for conversation until we touched down near a kayak and boat rental business at the fishing camp between No Name and Big Pine.

After thanking the copter pilot and helper, Punt and I waved them goodbye and watched them lift off and head toward Miami.

“Oh, Punt! You’ve saved my life!” I didn’t ask him how I could thank him. “There’s an abandoned house hidden in the thicket on No Name. And Ace’s trapped there in a well behind the house.”

“Drowned?”

“No. Wet and very much alive and angry. And he has a gun—a loaded gun. He had it in his hand when he hit the water. Then he dropped it, but he ducked under the surface and came back up with it. Will a wet gun work?”

“That depends.”

The arrival of a police car interrupted Punt’s explanation of what the workings of a wet gun might depend upon.

“How’d they get here so fast?”

“I called them from Miami and then called them again from the copter when we spotted you. Also called your Gram to tell her you’re alive. I knew she’d be frantic when she found you missing last night. Also asked her to call Maxine.”

Two officers stepped from the police car—Jeff and Hillie. Jeff’s face had flushed to match his red hair. He reminded me of a coiled spring straining for release. Hillie ran his hand over his balding head, looking as laid back as Sunday morning. I wondered how those two managed to work together without driving each other crazy.

Jeff invited us into their car where we sat for a few minutes while I gave a synopsis of my kidnapping and lockdown in the abandoned house. I had barely finished my story when a gray Ford approached and parked alongside us. Again wearing his Hog’s Breath Saloon T-shirt, Randy sat hunched behind the wheel with Maxine in the passenger seat and Gram seated behind them. I gasped and reached for Punt’s hand.

“How’d Randy know where to find us? The shrimping job didn’t work out?” I whispered the questions as if to verbalize them might be a bad omen. Randy slipped a plug of Skoal into his mouth and as he began chewing, the scar on his cheek blazed red.