The deckhand of the Fort Morgan-Dauphin Island ferry uncoiled a hawser and set it on the white-painted deck. He tapped a cigarette from a pack and leaned against the side rail to study the passengers. Vacationers, mostly: mini-vans with Midwestern tags, kids pointing at gulls hovering above the foaming stern, parents shooting pictures of the approach to Dauphin Island like it was a big deal. The ferry was about half-full, fifteen or so vehicles, a couple of them pulling boats. There were a few bicyclists. All seemed to be tourists, not unusual this time of year.
No, the deckhand thought, noticing the older guy standing on the foredeck, staring intently across the blue water; no tourist there. Tanned deep, like it went to his bones. Faded blue work shirt, worn khaki pants, scuffed Wellingtons. Ex-construction guy, maybe; but not a laborer - a surveyor, something like that.
The deckhand lit his cigarette, set his elbows on the railing and stared across the mouth of Mobile Bay, waiting as the pilot spun toward the ramp. The red-and-white craft shuddered as the engine dropped RPMs.
“Give you a buck for one of those smokes,” said a voice from the deckhand’s shoulder. He spun, saw the old man two steps away.
“Sure, mister.”
The deckhand shook a cigarette from the pack, waved off payment. He flicked his lighter for the older guy, who leaned in and cupped the flame. He took a drag and coughed heavily.
“You OK?” the deckhand asked.
The older guy gave a half smile, looked at the cigarette. “Not used to smoking. It’s been a while.”
“How long?”
“I quit January 1, 1980. A resolution. Couldn’t manage it on just a year changing, had to make it a decade.”
The deckhand raised an eyebrow. “Why start again now?”
The older guy took a lungful of smoke, held it a few seconds, let it drift from his lips and nostrils. He stared at Dauphin Island. “Helps me wait.”
“What you waiting for?”
“Answers,” the older man said, taking another pull on the cigarette. “Thirty-five years’ worth.”
Lydia hung up the phone and walked to the deck doors. She opened the curtains and stared over the Gulf, swaying slightly, as if dancing to music in her head. A flock of gulls tumbled by, white splashes on blue sky.
I lifted my head, called to her back. “How did you convince someone to take your place in the courtroom? To become the Crying Woman?”
She stopped swaying. I was at enough of an angle to see her face go oddly slack, followed a few seconds later by a smile rising to her lips. Lydia turned to me, neck flushed, her breathing fast and shallow, as though aroused.
She crossed the room in four fast steps and jumped on my chest. Air exploded from my lungs. She smiled down as I struggled to breathe.
“I didn’t have to convince the pathetic little loony, Ryder. She begged me to hand her the veil. I kept saying, ‘No, Cheyenne, it’s a holy moment.’ She wept and wailed. Finally I sighed and said, “All right, Cheyenne; don’t breathe a word to anyone, and you can go to heaven with Marsden instead of me. I’ll show up in a couple weeks.’ She took instructions to the letter, blew her little head into soup. The cops rounded up a few space cadets who confirmed the woman called Calypso was the Crying Woman…ergo Calypso was dead. No one knew enough to put it all together, so no hounds on my trail.”
She stepped off my chest and I gasped for breath. Lydia fell to the couch beside me, poked my ribs with her toe.
“Marsden’s ego laid the groundwork, Ryder. Rumors handled the rest. Along with selected pieces of art fed into the system.”
“The stolen work of Trey Forrier.”
For a brief and strange moment, Lydia’s eyes glazed over, her jaw slackened. It took another second for her face to re-engage.
She said, “You found out about Forrier? And doped out who I was? You’re worth the pittance they pay you. Truth be told, a major reason I selected Dauphin Island was to keep an eye on you. I like to keep the major players close, make sure they’re performing correctly. And, of course…” She raised an eyebrow, waiting for me to finish the sentence.
“To end our participation when it’s no longer needed.”
“You were good, Ryder. But since I gave you nothing but disconnected moments of art and weirdness, there was no way you’d catch on. Not in time.”
“Weirdness like the Cozy Cabins? Candles and flowers and rinky-dink jewelry?”
“Pulled you into the case, didn’t it?”
“All the way through verification,” I admitted.
She jumped from the couch and went from window to window, checking outside, talking over her shoulder. “Verification was the big problem. I sold snippets for years, swatches. Major brokers like Walcott would quasi-verify petty mementos, of course, part of the game: ‘Well, it does seem in the reputed Hexcamp style…’ But provenance for an entire collection? For that I needed a potent authority figure to say, ‘Yes, I believe Marsden Hexcamp created this art.’”
“Nothing less than a member of the Psychopathological and Sociopathological Investigative Team.”
She turned and winked. “I’d buried Marie two nights before, planning on creating someone to be my expert. But that meant cutting in a confederate, very costly and dangerous. Then I saw your picture with that ridiculous award, read the story. Here was my authority figure - steeled jaw, eyes ablaze with righteousness, a touch of pompous ass. I dug Marie up, washed her off, and built my little motel scene. I put out bait and my expert came sniffing.”
“And finding Coyle’s prints. Imagine that.”
“I made Rubin take me there last month. ‘I wanna fuck somewhere sleazy, Rubin, like where whores fuck…’ He had his own special needs, loved the idea. I figured his fingerprints were still on something in that crummy joint, so it fit perfectly into the plan. By the way, the tape you heard was from a deal a couple years back, Florida politicians and developers divvying up a major construction project.” She looked at Coyle’s head with amusement. “And Rubin always talked like that, nervous, like every project was a state secret.”
“You must have had fun with Harry and me, making up the swatch that came to Coyle, gave you nightmares.”
“That’s the trick to a good lie, Ryder, detail and images. When I left the motel, it hit me I should have left art with the body…to give you your first Marsden moment.”
“So you mailed one to the convent the next day.”
She poked her toe into my ribs again. “It hooked you, right?”
“Close,” I admitted.
“I snuck back and stuck the art above Wicky’s rotting head, called that idiot reporter again: ‘Heidi Wicky in Elrain…’”
“Why did you have to kill them?”
“I was in Orange Beach a couple months back, a restaurant, and Wicky walked in. Figure the odds. Her eyes about popped out. I’m not sure if she believed what she saw, but I couldn’t take the chance. They might have started talking among themselves; word might have gotten to an old ex-cop named Jacob Willow. He put an end to our arty little experiments years ago, still gets a wild hair up his moldy ass every now and then, pokes around. I should have added him to my collection of final moments decades ago.”
“I gave her a chance. I pulled up beside the moron, said hi. Unfortunately for her -”
“She recognized you. Turned and ran.”
Lydia winked. “Not far.”
“And Coyle? He wasn’t a collector, right?”
She grinned. “That shit framed on his wall? Came from a trip to the hardware store and butcher shop: nails, cords. A couple shirts I rubbed with a pork roast. A chunk of dried cow tongue. Took me under a day to set up.”
“Hamerle didn’t think Coyle was a collector, but I didn’t buy it. Hamerle had nothing to do with this either, I take it?”
“Warren couldn’t jack off without an instructional video. But he had been Marsden’s lawyer way back when.” She jabbed me with the foot again. Hard. “But you know that, don’t you, Mister Bright Boy?”
I nodded.
“You’re so sharp, Ryder. Let’s play Match Wits with Lady Calypso: What was my main reason for working at Hamerle, Melbine and Raus? Hint: It wasn’t Rubin’s negotiating expertise, though his reputation added another wonderful layer of validity.”
The foot in my side again, toying with me, a cat with a trapped mouse. “Come on, Ryder. Think it through, if you can.”
I thought of friends who seriously collected baseball cards, firearms, antique clothing - all shared one commonality: they knew the arcana of their field. The answer dawned on me. It was brilliant.
I said, “You communicated with potential bidders on office stationery. Major collectors recognized Hamerle’s name as the lawyer who’d defended Marsden Hexcamp. Hamerle told us he got calls from collectors trying to coax information from him. You created a golden connection.”
She mimed applause. “No one knew where the art went after Marsden’s death, but everyone had a theory. Most speculated his lawyer ended up with it, or knew where it was. The letterhead confirmed their suspicions.”
She stood and looked down on me, triumph in her eyes.
“They wanted to believe, I handed them art. They wanted a connection, I handed them Hamerle. They wanted verification, I handed them you.”