He was only a flight away, but a flight away from where? Chicago? Texas? He’d always had a sense of adventure, and that had led him to travel, and, finally, into business in transport. He’d started as a truck driver in college, and now he owned a division of a trucking company with a conglomerate in Chicago. But he always found his way back home on Tuna Street. He was long overdue for one such visit.
He surprised her when he answered on the first ring. She sat down on the porch bench and stared off at the Gulf.
“Jack! Where are you?”
“Don’t I get a ‘Hi, I love you and miss you’ first?”
“Hi. I do love you and miss you.” She chuckled at the sound of his voice. “Now, tell me where you are.”
“I’m in Shit-cago. In traffic.”
“Well, glad I got you.”
“You got me, Bang. For about one minute.” He’d nicknamed her “Bang” when he was a toddler because he couldn’t pronounce Blanche. The name stuck, and it suited her off-the-hip nature.
She heard the blaring in the background. He was driving around, dodging buses and taxis. Cursing. Punching the buttons on the radio. Eating.
“We have a mess here,” she said. “It’s bad news. You better pull over.”
“Was just about to call you. I know.”
“You know? What?”
“Bob Blankenship’s been murdered. Jeez. I heard. Blanche, it’s terrible.”
“That’s what they’re saying. Murder. It’s not official yet, just happened this morning. But it’s not looking good. At all. How did you hear about it?”
“I have ways.”
“Well, OK, You have ways….What ways?”
Honking. Chewing. “I follow the news.”
“Really?” This was too confounding to pick apart in a minute or two. “When do you think you can come down here? How soon?”
“Don’t know. But, soon. Promise.” A bus revved up, the traffic exploded in her ear. “Wish I could get out of here right now…dammit… How’s Liza?”
“Not good. Please, Jack. We need to talk.”
“The thing is…”
“I have a feeling, I know it’s not much, but I have a feeling that the murder is connected to that other business. You know, those Chicago developers who were nosing around here on the island.”
“What? Come on, B.”
“No, seriously. It’s been growing on me. First this developer—Sergi Langstrom—shows up with all his posters and ideas. Then we have this meeting and Bob is murdered. Back to back. Bob didn’t want Langstrom and that bunch on the island, Jack. They’re gonna bring in the bulldozers.”
“Bang!”
“You’re in Chicago. Will you please look into this? You know people up there. See what you can find out about Sergi Langstrom. Ask around.” Jack was oddly silent. She waited, for about two seconds. “Are you there? Jack? Listen to me.”
“Uhhhh. Ask around about what? ‘Hey, did you murder Bob Blankenship?’ That kind of thing?” It was a response full of crumbs and slurps. “Sure. Right on.”
“Some help you are. Of course not. Just ask around, find out if there is any connection between Bob and Langstrom. Anything. He’s slick. A damn hairball.”
“Really? That’s pretty harsh. And crazy. But I’ll see what I can do, just to prove how crazy you are. In the meantime, may I emphasize, let Duncan do his work. Stay out of it.”
She ignored the staying-out part. She didn’t want to hear it. “Promise, Jack. Nothing’s right about all this business, I’m telling you. It’s all wrong.”
“No, it’s not right, but forget the theories. The authorities, Blanche. Remember, that’s their job, not yours.”
It was a clipped response, but she dug in. “I’ve got a job here, too, Jack. I have to do something. You know what this has done to Liza? To everybody? Bob was….more than just Bob.”
“Don’t you think I know that, B?” His voice softened, then blended into the screaming traffic. “He was an uncle, a dad when we didn’t have one. He helped me get my first set of wheels, and he did a lot of other stuff for us, and for everybody. But this business with the murder. It’s just real bad.” Tires squealed. Jack yelled over the noise. “I really have to go. We’ll talk later this week. Really miss you. I’ll get down there…Soon.”
Blanche held the phone away from her head. “Jack? When exactly can you come down here?”
He was gone. She flung the phone on the table. Connections were notorious on the island, but really? He wanted her out of it? Just like that?
He could help. He would. She had to believe it. He was in Chicago, but at heart he was an island boy. He loved Santa Maria Island, and Blanche. They had grown up together on Tuna Street, their quirky little stretch of shell and sand on the beachfront between Spring and Palm. Their cabin sat among a few old frame and log houses, this year, about 150 feet from the Gulf. And then there were the times the waves lapped at their door.
Gran left the cabin to the two of them. She’d taken on both of them after his mother ran off, and his father, another Jack in a long line of elusive Jacks, went missing for years. Presumed dead. Blanche’s Jack was the brother she never had. But sometimes he could be so…removed. Elusive, and unpredictable as his father and grandfather. He wasn’t inclined to check out Langstrom and that bunch. So she would make him do it.
Blanche sat there, stewing. She looked around the cabin. Which part was Jack’s? The porch? The empty wicker chair across from her? The matching table—where she and Liza had shared more than one tequila? The extra bedroom in the back with a mango tree that dropped fruit bombs onto the roof? His “alarm clock,” he would say.
Next to that tree, protected from the salt, orange hibiscus and flaming mandevilla edged the patio where hummingbirds darted about. In the front, sabal palms and sea grape, pines and bushes full of red berries grew out of the shell and sand dunes. Yellow and purple beach flowers twined through the snake grass and sea oats under the Australian pines, and farther out, the white frill of waves rushed the beach.
She stood up, stretched, and then took off over the pine needles toward the shoreline, determined to clear her head. She was bound to dump her frustration with Jack, her disappointment over the land development, and her terrible feeling of loss. If anything could fix her, it was the beach.
Sandpipers skittered in the foam. Balls of it broke away and flew across the sand like little round ghosts. The clouds towered, closing off the sun, then opened their huge white doors.
I wish he were here. I could make him see… See what? I can’t even see any of it clearly myself.
Blanche muttered as she walked along, off into the world inside her head. Talking to herself was like having a tiny counselor between her ears.
Many times, he’d said, “Bang, I’m going to call the mental hospital on you.”
He didn’t turn her in. They were a team. They hid out in the dune grass—from the ghosts of pirates and Indians—and climbed palm trees for coconuts and the mango tree to the top where the fruit was sweetest. Gran told them stories about the Miccosukee who lived on Gull Egg Key, and Jack became obsessed with exploring the tiny key off the north end of Santa Maria. He swam out into the Gulf until he was a dot on the waves, and he went alone. She was not thrilled at the prospect of meeting sharks and jellyfish in the dark water. She was always relieved when he made it back—with more ghost stories.
They were afraid sometimes, but youth was in their favor. They were always able to run, climb, or swim out of their fear. They abandoned all fear and sense when they snuck away from Dunc, Cap, and Gran and built their clandestine camps along the beach. Their hideouts of sea oats and palms promptly blew away. They always rebuilt.
Blanche realized Jack had changed. Lately, they had grown apart, and given their terse conversation on the phone, she had a feeling he would be the uncooperative Jack. If he didn’t show soon, she’d bug him until he did. This, he expected.
He knew something about the troubles on the island. She sensed it. He’d always been curious, and that would never change. She hoped, with just the right amount of nagging, she could get him to come up with something. She wasn’t going to back off.