CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

A Study in Pointillism

Even conservatively dressed in jeans, cowboy boots, and western shirt snapped high enough to remove any hint of provocation, Martinique was a hit with the members of the Madison River Liars and Fly Tiers Club. Sean had never seen her in a social situation and was surprised to find her outgoing, quick to laugh, and able to stand her ground when the conversation on the porch turned to African politics, Robin Hurt Cowdry’s perspective colored by his experience growing up in Zimbabwe during colonial rule and then having his family’s farm confiscated when Robert Mugabe initiated his fast-track resettlement program, Martinique’s by her Fulani heritage.

“Yes, but of the two of us I’m the real African,” Cowdry said. “My family’s been on the continent five generations, since it was Southern Rhodesia in the 1890s. We’re buried in African soil.”

Martinique had told him to extend his forearm along hers. “I rest my case,” she said.

When Sean went inside to call Sheriff Ettinger on the club’s landline, he doubted anyone on the porch would notice his absence. None of the members had taken their eyes off Martinique since she stepped out of the Land Cruiser. Ettinger picked up on the first ring. Without preamble, Sean sketched in the details of his conversation with the congressman. Her response—“hmm”—was followed by a half minute of silence. He could envision her rubbing her chin, staring into the middle distance. Then she said she also had some news, how about he drop by her house in the morning.

Patrick Willoughby was showing Martinique the proper way to grip a fly rod—“like you’re shaking its hand, thumb on top,” he was telling her—when Sean rejoined the group outside. “My good man,” Willoughby said, “with your permission, Polly and I are going to spirit this young woman down to the river and teach her to flycast. It’s always best to learn from someone who is not in the family, don’t you agree, Polly?” Polly agreed. Martinique gave Sean a covert wink as they walked away.

“You might have argued you weren’t part of her family,” Jonathon Smither said. He was turning a pheasant on the grill.

“I don’t think it would have done any good.”

“Probably not. Just be thankful it isn’t me teaching her how to cast.” He gave Sean one of his wolf grins. “I’d be teaching her about gripping something other than a cork handle.”

Cowdry, sitting in an Adirondack chair, smiled briefly. He was sipping a glass of Scotch and didn’t look up.

So Sean fished alone in the hour before dinner. Above him was one of those summer skies that people who live in the East can’t believe are for real, the light over the Gravelly Range lavender bleeding to pink, the clouds rimmed with golden light from the setting sun and the river a study in pointillism, as wavelets bounced colors back and forth and trout made quick swirls to take caddis pupae from the surface film. Sean felt the bamboo bend a dozen times before he heard the old iron triangle ringing from the porch. As he walked downriver to check on Martinique, her saw her sitting on the bank with Sorenson, engaged in deep conversation. Willoughby had apparently gone back to the clubhouse ahead of them.

“What are you two talking about?” he asked.

“Only the meaning of life.” Sorenson patted Martinique’s hand. “I wouldn’t let this one get away if I were you.”

Martinique stood up, her jeans wet from the grass. She gave Sean an impulsive kiss and they helped the old fly tier to his feet.

After dinner, when they said their goodbyes and were driving in the Land Cruiser toward Ennis where Martinique had left her car, Sean said, “Kissing me in public. I might have a chance with you after all.”

“I don’t know,” she said. “You’re used to the couch and the cats. Maybe you’ll be content to stay downstairs tonight.” But she put her hand on his thigh as she said it. Then, in a wistful voice, “Poor Polly Sorenson, he doesn’t know whether he has two months or two years. It’s a reminder we don’t live forever. We can’t count on tomorrow.”

“He mentioned something about his health to me last week, having OPED, initials like that. He didn’t say anything about it being that serious.”

“It’s COPD, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. For most people it isn’t a death sentence, but he has some scarring between his lungs and chest wall from an old injury that compound the symptoms. Basically, his lungs are filling up with fluid. He’s dying of asphyxiation and the only thing the doctors can do is slow down the progression with medication. He says he’s lived a full life and made his peace with dying. He just doesn’t want his last hours to be spent in a hospital bed, fighting for breath. I’m afraid I didn’t learn much about fly casting from him. He opened up to me right away, he said I reminded him of somebody he knew once, some girl he fell in love with after the war and he always regretted they didn’t marry. So”—she squeezed Sean’s thigh—“in the spirit of no regrets, I don’t think I’m letting you out of my reach tonight.”

After he had dropped her in Ennis and was following the taillights of her car north toward the converted grain elevator, he thought about what she had said. Many people suffer from debilitating diseases that end in prolonged, painful death. The fact that Sorenson shared a similar prognosis with the men whose bodies had been found on Sphinx Mountain could not be considered anything but a coincidence. What made Sean frown inwardly was something Willoughby had said at their first meeting, about Polly Sorenson being the only club member who had spent any time with Congressman Crawford. He had even been invited up to the mansion for dinner. Was that, too, a coincidence? He was too tired to think straight, and then he was on the driveway to the grain elevator and Martinique was waiting at the door, having beaten him there by five minutes.

She had already changed into a black silk kimono embroidered with red hibiscus flowers. She waited until they were inside before putting her arms around his neck, the loose sleeves of the kimono sliding up to her shoulders. She held him at arm’s length the way she had the first time, in the coffee kiosk, when she had said, “I’ll go out with you, Mr. Sean Stranahan who’s nice to cats.” This time, she didn’t say anything.

•   •   •

In the morning she served him cheese grits, saying that it was her father’s favorite breakfast and he’d always told her that no one could make them the way she could.

“I take it you were a daddy’s girl,” Sean said.

“I was.”

“Did he name you Martinique?”

“No, that was my mother. Martinique is an island in the West Indies. It was discovered by Christopher Columbus and the story of the name is that when his ship was coming in the women on the shore called out ‘madinina, madinina.’ My mother always wanted to go there, to any tropical island really. But the closest she ever got was listening to Jimmy Buffett sing about them.”

She put down her coffee cup and took Sean’s hand.

“My mother wasn’t easy to live with. After Daddy died, she overdosed on lithium. She wasn’t trying to kill herself, it was just that she got into the habit of taking a couple extra pills to treat her depression. I found her lying on the couch. That was March last year. Two years watching my father die and then that happens. It changed me. Last night I was afraid I would start to cry while we were making love, and you’re so nice and you’d see me sad and you’d get yourself all dragged down with me and then you’d leave this morning and never come back and I couldn’t blame you. And just look at me, I’m crying now.” She wiped at the tear track below her left eye.

“I’m still here, Martinique.”

She nodded, her eyes shiny. She tried to collect herself.

“Can I get you another cup of coffee? There’s only a little.”

“I couldn’t handle any more than a B-cup,” Sean said.

“Now you’re making fun of me.” But she was smiling in spite of herself. “The guy who hired me asked me if I’d consider a boob job. He said I couldn’t sell snow cones in the Sahara with these breasts.”

“Then why did he hire you?”

“He liked my face. He said when I smiled, it was so sad it made men want to take care of me. Some smile, huh?”

She stood to get the coffee, but Sean didn’t let go of her hand and pulled her around to him.

“Do we have time? I thought you had to go see the sheriff.”

“The sheriff can wait.”