Eighteen —
Murmurs on the Storm

It was not a good way to start the day, but there it was. Her plea for help seemed to go nowhere, except out the door with Jack. Gone. She was just going to have to dig in by herself. With Liza. Of course, they would take all the care in the world finding out more about that scoundrel, Langstrom, and his plans for the island. Sooner or later, Jack was going to have to face the situation. He admitted he knew Langstrom!

It was early, too early in the day for a walk, but it would be good to pound away her frustration and sort out her thoughts. The Gulf was cool and inviting, the air wet and heavy and unusually hot and humid for an October morning, the summer heat lingering. She started down the steps, then retraced back to the porch, and sat down. She’d be drenched by the time she got back from the beach. She didn’t have time for a walk. She had hurricane prep to do around the cabin before she went to Liza’s, but in the meantime, she was a pot ready to boil. The stillness hovered as they waited for Wilma.

She closed her eyes, a breeze riffling overhead. She needed to think, get back to normal. But she was beginning to wonder…. Normal? What the hell is that? That next town hall meeting was coming up, and they weren’t prepared. They needed to get into that computer and those notes and see what was up. They needed ammunition.

She went into the kitchen for a third cup of coffee, dropped a couple ice cubes in it and a huge dollop of sugar—procrastinating her tie-down efforts before the storm. She grabbed the radio and clicked on to the country station. She wallowed in the music, the fiddles and sad stories. She always listened to the whole story—about the guy who was young and then old, the loves lost, the drunks, and dirt on the boots.

“Why do you listen to that stuff? All they do is complain,” Jack would say.

“Maybe. But the people are real.”

He hated it. If he were here, he’d grab the radio and turn it off. And then she’d turn it back on and so it would go with them. The thought made her chuckle. He liked real, too. She missed him and wished he’d stay around, for once.

She looked out the window south through the pines. She switched off the radio and turned on the small black and white television on the kitchen counter. It blasted details of the approaching hurricane, which was taking her time, like a large, grey, meandering beast.

Blanche wished it would come and go. Get it over with. There hadn’t been a devastating storm in years, not since Richard hurled himself out of the Gulf and turned most of the island upside down. They never knew what hit them. They rebuilt, just like they always did following a natural disaster. It was the man-made disaster that was most disturbing.

She went out on the porch and stared, transfixed, as the sky reshaped itself—dividing grey to the south and blue to the north. How precisely Wilma painted it. So neat, and balanced. Maybe that’s what they needed: a hurricane to bring them back in balance. In stormy times, they pulled together, and Blanche, in her own peculiar island-girl fashion, looked forward to the power of nature, awe-inspiring and commanding respect. The storm could also be counted on to give the place a good power wash. Wipe it clean. Shake some of those dead branches and mangos and coconuts out of the treetops. If she busied herself welcoming Wilma, she wouldn’t think about Bob, Jack, Sergi, and the rest of it.

Trouble was when the wind died down, there would be another mess to clean up. And Jack, and his heal-dragging, to deal with.

She moved the plastic chairs off the patio and looked for other potential missiles. Garbage cans went into the shed. She rolled the heavy wooden shutters down over the windows. They kept the cabin tight in high winds. But it wasn’t so much the wind; it was the water. When the hurricane blew through the Gulf, the water pushed farther onto shore at high tide and a wall of it had fearsome strength. Eventually, it percolated down into the great limestone aquifer under Florida, but, now, with less frequency. The increasing amount of asphalt slowed percolation. The water lingered, and pooled, causing damage to the landscape (and animals), foundations, and cars. The mosquitoes loved it. The situation was not going to improve—not with the plan looming.

Blanche sighed, twisting the edge of her t-shirt into a knot. She’d have to move off the beach, and stay over at Cappy’s. That’ll make him happy. Safe from the storm and murderers.

She looked around the cabin, ran her fingers over the old cedar door jam, tucked some cushions in a wooden chest. Seventy-five years, and counting, built in the early ‘20s when the island was settled. Log and frame, with a screened porch across the front, it had seen many storms wash through the front door. After a bad one, the soaked floor boards popped up into hills of wet slats. It took a week for the old wood to dry out and flatten back down, helped along gently with a hammer. There wasn’t a single surface that hadn’t gotten a good beating in a storm. It was the trade-off for living on the Gulf.

By necessity, the interior was furnished simply and defied the water. The sofa, chairs, and an old dining table stood off the floor on wooden legs. The walls and furnishings had wavy white watermarks, one for each storm it had withstood. They matched the inked lines in the door frame that dated Blanche’s growth to just over five two, Jack past six feet. She couldn’t say the cabin wasn’t family.

Cap’s place offered a bit more protection. His old house’s foundation was elevated a couple of cinder blocks off the ground so the Gulf flowed right under it. Agnes of ‘72 had not damaged Cap’s nor Blanche’s too badly, but that storm had truly left her mark. Regulations after Agnes mandated that all housing be built fourteen feet off the ground. The rule produced a scattering of “bird houses” throughout the island, which was fitting given that Santa Maria was a bird sanctuary.

She was hurrying, and thinking about what to tie down, what to throw out, and where to look for the key to the shed when she saw Bertie coming around the stand of pines that divided their property. “You’re back!” yelled Blanche over the rising wind. She ran to hug her old friend.

“Yeah. What great timing,” said Bertie. “Murder. Hurricane. Sergi Langstrom. Why stay away?”

“Oh, Bert!” She held Bert’s shoulders and looked into those eyes peeping out of her soft, pink face, and then she hugged her again. “So you know about Bob.”

Bertie’s smile crumpled. “Hope Duncan is making a miracle happen. Whoever would do such a thing?” A gust of wind blew off the Gulf and carried a funnel of sand toward them.

“There you have it. It’s in the wind. We don’t know, but we have to find out.” They fell silent, except for the whistling in the pines. The opaque sky was mashed potatoes, the waves bottle green with frothy caps.

“How have you been, Bert? How was the drive?”

“Can’t complain.” She sighed. “Actually, never felt better, except for the hitches in my gitalong. Lord, what’s this world coming to?”

She fussed around in a shopping bag. “Got somethin’ here.” She handed Blanche a loaf of cinnamon apple bread, fresh from the Alachua bakery. Bertie always passed through the northern Florida town on her trip back from Michigan, and she never forgot to pick up the treat. The Upper Peninsula was already feeling the onset of winter, so she timed her arrival on the island to get out of the cold.

Blanche took the bread and held it to her nose, grateful for the scent of cinnamon and nutmeg. “Thank you! Come on. Let’s toast some and have a quick cup of tea.”

“Can’t right now. But I’ll take a rain check. Literally.” Bertie looked at the southern sky. “Besides I don’t think this is a good time for a tea party, girl.”

Blanche laughed. “Guess you’re right.”

Alberta Van Satter was one of the staunch, some said stupid, who held her ground in a storm, as had her mother before her. The Van Satter cottage was cypress, weathered to iron like Blanche’s, and had a tight attic and heavy shutters with wide slats that rolled down from under the eaves. She’d cultivated thick sea oats and snake grass and sabal palms facing the Gulf for protection. The cinder block foundation stood two feet off the beach. Bertie would tie herself to a beam before she’d move out.

“Say.” Bertie planted her frayed Keds about a foot apart. “I saw Jack pull out of here early this morning. He sure did have a look on him. Like a cow shite on a frosty morn.”

As peeved as she was, Blanche laughed. It was a perfect description of the scowl Jack might wear, especially early in the morning. “We had it out, you could say. He doesn’t want to get involved, and he doesn’t want me to get involved. In the murder investigation, or the development plans.” They migrated toward the cement bench between their properties and sat down. Two gulls on the beach.

“Involved? I’d say you’re mighty involved. The both of you. Got Gulf water in your veins and sand in your shoes. Forever.”

“I know, Bert. But he says, let Duncan figure it out. That’s only right. But Liza and I can’t sit still on this.” Blanche shifted on the bench, sand needling her ankles. “I’ve got to get back over there.”

“Liza.” Bertie groaned. She had babysat for Liza. “My little blond sweetheart.”

Blanche put her arm around Bertie’s wide shoulders and squeezed. “She would love to see you, Bert. She is pretty broken up.”

“We talked. Still can’t believe what I was hearing. Is there anything new?”

“Not yet, but we are getting after it.”

Bertie took Blanche’s hand. “And how are you holding up? Cap? The job at the paper? And this awful plan for developing the island!”

“We’re getting along, but listen to this one. Mel says this guy was over here looking at Tuna Street. He wants to buy beachfront, and he was pestering Mel to come up with something.”

“The damn pluck. I’m not going. Bet you’re not either.”

“Bert, it makes me nervous, this development plan, the pressure to sell. To leave. I can’t.” Her chin dropped, shoulders slumped.

“Land sakes! I’m getting so bad,” Bert said. “Remembered the bread but not this other. Forgot to tell you what I heard out front here on the beach. Real late. After I pulled in. Swear it was right out there.” Bertie pointed across the sheets of white sand whipping in the wind. “Real strange.”

Blanche looked across the dunes in front, the sea grass doing a dance in the breeze. “What?”

“Moaning, or singing. Or something.”

“Probably the wind. Listen to that.” Blanche peered up at the tops of the whistling pines and out at the advancing waves.

“No, I know the wind. This was different. It was almost a chant. You haven’t seen anything, or anyone, strange hereabouts?”

“No, Bert.” She thought about the guy in the white van. He certainly was strange, but he wouldn’t be out there whistling and chanting.

Ridiculous.

“Well, keep an eye out. Whoever’s out there is going to get a good wash. Soon.” Ghostly clouds blew up heading north.

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” said Blanche. “But, really, I’m sick of surprises.”

They stood up. Bertie stretched. “I hear ya. But I think we’re in for it.”

The storm was coming. Fear nagged Blanche, but she pushed it aside for now.

She finished up quickly, threw a garbage bag over the television in the kitchen, rolled up the sisal rug, and flung it onto the sofa. The poster of Native Americans dancing and cooking fish next to their chickee had begun to curl, and, sadly, the storm would likely finish off the feast. Again, she thought of Gran and her stories about the Indians. Something had never been settled there, and the wind did nothing but stir the notion. Of ghosts and legacy? Of stories still to be told?

She snapped out of it, brought in the last of the lawn chairs, broom and buckets from outside, and she fastened the last of the shutters. The Taurus was crammed into the shed, and good luck there. She loved that car, but insurance would never cover it. She picked up a small bag full of clothing and a couple of books.

The rest was up to Wilma and her powerful lungs.

Blanche looked up into the pines, like soldiers, holding the sand in place around the cabin. She couldn’t stand the thought that someone wanted to kill them. The whistling high in the branches turned to a roar, and then retreated, the eddies of wind from the hurricane not far off. The treetops swayed and snapped, and then went silent.

Surely that’s what Bert was talking about. The sounds of the trees. What else could it be?

She walked out of the porch and over the carpet of pine needles. In the south, faint traces of rain striped the sky, from the clouds down to the Gulf. The grey sky moved northward, eating up the blue horizon.

Blanche turned to look back at the cabin, its logs interspersed with white stucco, its flat roof. The dark windows carved out of the logs. Eyes shut.

She waved at Bertie who stood on her deck looking out at the beach. She gave a thumbs up and folded her arms. The waves were closer now, roiling off the shore.

I

Blanche adjusted her bag. She was happy Bert was back, and it was good to know her old friend was holding down the beach.

Blanche’s feet pounded the road back to Liza. White blossoms swirled like snow, the palms crackled. She would not lose the cabin in this hurricane; the islanders would not lose their home. She refused to give in to the possibility. And somehow if they did, it would be better than losing it to Sergi Langstrom.

Cappy warned her, and she tried to listen. He was philosophical about changes, resigned to them, but try as she might, she couldn’t go there. The changes meant loss, and she wouldn’t accept it. But she couldn’t deny his words.

Cappy lived in the present, and he saw possibility in the future. She needed to be more open, to accept some things, and if she didn’t, she would be closed to possibility, and opportunity. She’d be stupid not to listen to the Cappers.

But, in the end, it was not enough. They had come this far, and there was nothing to do but keep going. She would never give up the cabin. And they were damn well going to find out who killed Bob.

She slowed down and walked down the misty road. The island seemed deserted. Lightening cracked the sky and a roll of thunder followed, clouds raced over the tops of palm trees. The trees glistened, the flowers shone with wet brilliance, and bright petals blew around like confetti at a wild party. Her hair, eyelashes, face were damp. She was nearly soaked to the bone, and that was fine. She turned into the storm. It gathered strength, and she headed into it.