Death in the Polka Dot Shoes (31 page)

I told the duck-duck-goose story and everyone laughed. Martha must have taken great satisfaction in knowing that everyone in the room loved her, or at least cared enough to mourn her husband's death, and care for her during near death. Martha felt enormous appreciation for their support. I wondered about the magic of friendship, the bonds formed by people living together and depending on each other, just knowing about each other and all their problems. It was a warm sensation. When I first moved to Washington, it was the opposite. I was freed, unshackled from the small town bonds of responsibility for friends and neighbors. I wasn't responsible for anyone. Not the poor, because I didn't know any. They lived in another part of town. Not the sick, because I had few acquaintances, and none who weren't adequately covered by insurance and access to world class hospitals. Not neighbors, because I didn't know any. I remembered riding the city bus to work one morning, and falling into conversation with a middle aged woman who had once gone charter boat fishing from the Bayfront marina. When she got off, I realized I now knew more about her than anyone else in Washington, and I was fine with that. It was the freedom of anonymity, the exhilaration before the loneliness. Now I stood in a ballroom with hundreds of people who loved Martha, and through my family, me. I turned back to Martha's speech.

“I want to thank you all for your generosity and kindness,” Martha said. “To Lillian for putting this all together. To each of you who has cooked food, or driven me to rehab, or picked up my groceries.” And with these words she started to stutter. The tears eased down her cheeks. She started to change her course of thought.

“Many of you were Jimmy's friends. The watermen who knew his boat. Now we have his brother Ned on the
Martha Claire
. What a godsend he has been to me. And I thank you all for welcoming him back.”

I thought about making a smart remark about myself, something to lighten the situation, but then I decided no. This was Martha's time and it wasn't a light situation. It was deadly serious on several levels. I just stood still and admired my sister-in-law. How could anybody survive a husband's death, and then have her own life in danger? Where's the hope in that? Where is the force of nature that pushes people to the future, that keeps them searching for solutions? Somehow Martha still had it. She was moving slowly, but moving forward.

“I just want you all to have a good time, and I'll be out and about again soon. Thank you.”

She turned to rest a hand on her walker as the applause built in long and loud appreciation for her life.

I started to return to the dance floor when Simy touched my elbow. “I'm here,” she said.

It was near midnight when we made the unspoken move toward the door. Martha left the party at least an hour earlier, to a full round of applause from her friends, and the crowd started dwindling after that. I thought it was time for me to go. I didn't want to become the center of attention, although that may already have occurred. Lust always drives one to a sense of invisibility, and sometimes worse. So when I asked Simy if she had a purse, she knew the plan immediately.

We drove separate cars to her house, with me following because I had never been there. Her small home was much like mine, one of the weekend cottages built in the 1940s, with window air conditioners and baseboard heating added in the 1970s. It was a block off the water, surrounded by a small yard and other cottages. No lights were on in the neighborhood, although a few outdoor porch lights cast overburdened candles into the dark.

Simy had the house key in her hand and looked up at me just before easing it into the lock. I gave her the last sign of approval by bending down to touch her lips. She was accepting but swiftly returned to the key, no doubt aware of neighbors who had seen this ritual before. We forged through the door and Simy reached for a light switch that awoke a small cloisonné lamp in the corner of the living room. I noted the calculation of a wall switch connected to a table lamp, and realized that my own door switch would activate three overhead flood lamps, more calculated to guide ships to shore than lovers to bed. I might have to change that.

Simy took my hand, then reached for my neck and placed a long kiss that spoke my thoughts. She pulled away slowly and led me through a door with hanging strands of beads that must have been plastic because they didn't jingle. There was a nightlight on someplace, perhaps a wall socket that gave a yellow glow to the room. It was the kind of atmosphere, when combined with enough bourbon, that seemed quite romantic. She reached for my belt with customary boldness, or at least I assumed it was customary, and we fell into bed.

When she finally closed her eyes with a hand on my chest and her head on my shoulder, we drifted into sleep with ease and warmth. I spent a few minutes wondering what had just happened, and what the morning might bring, but I decided to wait for the day and see what kind of dreams lay ahead.

I felt her grow restless on my shoulder, then turn toward the wall to seek the unobstructed breathing that brings restful sleep. I turned the opposite direction, thinking I would sleep till daybreak, which for a waterman, wasn't too far off. It was only a double bed, not much room for stretching, and my eyes took one last glimpse down the edge of the bed toward the bathroom and closets, when I felt Simy move again.

She edged out of bed, and I watched her body move around the room. She opened the closet door and a small overhead light came on automatically. She turned to see if I was awake, but apparently didn't notice that I was. She reached for her bathrobe, a Chinese kimono with paintings of geishas in almost life-sized portraits. I was struck by their beauty and opened my eyes for a better look when something caught my eye in the corner of her closet. It was only for a second as she closed the door and went in the bathroom. But it registered. I raised my head, at least enough to begin thinking, and to wonder what I had seen. Then it came to me. A blue polka dot tennis shoe.

It can't be, I thought. What are the odds? I tried to think of the tennis shoes the Sheriff had shown me in his plastic bag. Blue with yellow polka dots had stuck. It seemed so impossible that my brother could be wearing such feminine shoes. They were so bright. And not even matching. I tried to think of the other one. I hadn't focused very long that day in the Sheriff's office, but I seemed to remember plaid. Something totally incongruous with the blue and yellow polka dots.

Jesus. Why would Simy have the same shoes? Unless they were a matching pair. Then I remembered the summer fashion rage, several years ago, when women would buy two pairs of tennis shoes, and mix and match them. So there would always have to be two pairs the same. Oh shit.

I heard the water still running in the sink, assumed Simy was brushing her teeth, so I slipped out of bed and edged to the closet. I pushed open the door just enough to activate the light. I saw the blue shoe in the corner, and I looked for the other shoe. I remembered that these mixed shoes were put together by buying two pair of shoes, and wearing one from each. So there had to be a second shoe. In a flash I saw it. Then the light clicked off in the bathroom. I jumped back a step and closed the closet door, meeting Simy as she emerged.

I mumbled. “You OK?”

“I'm fine,” she said.

She moved back to the bed and I stepped into the bathroom, thinking, what the hell do I do now? Get out. Get out was all I could think of. My mind was racing toward frightening thoughts. What if she had been on the boat? What if she killed my brother? What if she wants to kill me? And I remembered how easy it was, how she had picked me up at the dance, and like a fool, I had once again fallen for her interest. No, that seemed impossible. But I had to leave.

I opened the bathroom door and left the light on.

“What's the matter, Neddie?” she asked.

“I have to leave,” I said. “I have a client coming this morning and I have to get my act together.” Simy knew more about crabbing and watermen than I did, so I didn't want to use fishing as an excuse for getting up. But she would know nothing of the law. I might have an early morning client.

I started searching for my clothes, and dressed as quickly as possible, although my hands were shaking and buckling my belt somehow seemed difficult.

Simy rolled in bed and looked at my shoes as I struggled with them. “Just leave the front door unlocked,” she said.

I breathed easier, realizing she wasn't going to get up. I could avoid that long kiss at the door and promises to call or at least talk tomorrow. Still, I needed to get out quickly and I was getting scared. What if she wondered about the closet door and realized what I had seen? No, I had closed the door or the light would be on. I moved through the beads and watched my feet carefully in moving toward the front door. I didn't want to stumble. The door opened easily. I stepped outside, and hurried to my car. No lights were on in the neighborhood so it couldn't be more than four or five o'clock. I felt for my watch but it wasn't on my wrist. I thought I had stuck it in my pants pocket before getting into bed. But it wasn't there. Then I felt it in my rear pocket with my wallet. I pulled it out and noticed, 4:30 a.m. I started the car and backed into the street, turned the wheel and started for home.

Then I realized I couldn't go home, or anywhere that I might be found. What if Simy had called others to say I had seen the shoes? Or what if she was getting dressed right now and searching for a weapon? But I also knew the only safe place to go was a police station, so I headed for Annapolis, yet I knew no one there. Especially in the middle of the night. How could I explain this story?

Instead I fumbled for my cell phone, trying to get my thumbs to land on the right numbers for the Sheriff of Hatteras, North Carolina. I figured to let him contact the local police, which he must have consulted on this case anyway. I turned at the next corner and headed back into Parkers and the one place I would feel safe, at least for a while. The
Martha Claire
. The safety of the open sea.

Chapter Twenty-Four

My hands were shaking when I started to ease the
Martha Claire
out of her slip at the Bayfront because in truth, I didn't know what to do. It seemed entirely possible that Simy was totally unaware of my discovery, which opened a related line of inquiry in my mind about why she seduced me just last night. If she had been on that boat with my brother, and if she was involved in his killing, why on earth would she want a relationship with me? Other than magnetic charm, of course.

I started to ease the throttle forward and realized I had forgotten to release the spring line from the side cleat. I yanked the throttle back to neutral, worked the line free, and returned to the throttle. The
Martha
Claire
banged against the dock pylons, first one side and then the other, until I was finally free, and could turn into the main channel. I edged my speed up to six knots, “no wake” speed, and settled back in the captain's seat to collect my thoughts.

I had called the Sheriff from my car, got him out of bed, and told him the story of the shoes, how Barbara Bush in the late 1980s had virtually started this fad of buying two sets of highly decorated tennis shoes, then mixing them so they didn't match. And if my brother was wearing a pair when he went overboard, there must be another pair in somebody's closet, and there was. I found them. Although the Sheriff had a little trouble understanding why I was sleeping with the shoes, and how Simy was connected to Jimmy, and the watermen, and Parkers in general. He nevertheless said he would have local police pick her up for questioning, and confiscate the shoes, soon, presumably within hours. I had a feeling that would unravel the whole scheme.

As so often happens on the Bay, the sun rose in a startlingly clear sky, bright as a spoon reflecting quiet shimmers on the surface, but within an hour heavy grey clouds the color of aged boat docks were covering the sky. I headed the
Martha Claire
toward my field of crab pots near the shore. My mind wasn't really on it, of course, and I didn't even have bait to reset the pots. But I figured I could pull a few just to see if there was an overnight catch. The first two I pulled up were empty, so I gave up the task, and decided instead to head home. This entire trip was just to burn up energy, and divert me from the confrontations ahead. There was no real reason to stay on the water.

I called Vinnie on the cell to tell him I had the boat.

“Holy jumping geehosafat,” he yelled when I came on the line. “What have you done?”

“What's happening?” I asked.

“Three screaming cop cars came barreling through town nearly two hours ago,” Vinnie said. “Word is they blocked off the street in front of Simy Sims's house, got on the bull horn and ordered her out the front door. Neighbors are up, calling everybody in town. Word is you were putting the moves on her last night and took her home from the Moose Lodge. Fact is, everybody in Parkers knows it. Velma put two and two together, got scared, and went over to Martha's house. She's scared you died, or Simy died, or somebody killed you both. Where the hell are you?”