June Bug (9 page)

I sidled closer to the main stage and looked around for familiar faces. I thought I spotted Jed playing one of the bongos, but the flickering light of the tiki torches made it hard to make out details.

“You need to stay close to your mother, and don’t eat anything fried or with sugar.”

I turned and saw Peyton and Leylanda standing five feet behind me. Peyton was executing a little-girl hip wiggle to the tropical beat, and Leylanda was grasping her hand tightly.

“Hey, Peyton!” I danced my way over to the little girl and we both boogied for a minute, much to the chagrin of Leylanda. “This looks like fun, eh?”

Leylanda stared icily at me. “Peyton, this is not
fun
. This is culture, and we are here to see a theater performance. Say goodbye to Ms. James.”

I put out my hand, and Peyton shook it, deftly palming the Fruit Stripe gum I had concealed there. “See ya around, Peyton.”

“See ya.”

I walked away from the center of activity and around to the front of the lodge. Samantha Krupps was sitting on the front steps smoking a cigarette stuck in one of those long black-and-white holders that Natasha used on
Rocky and Bullwinkle
. I glanced around for Jason but didn’t see him, so I walked over to her.

“Hello, Samantha.”

When she turned to look at me, I could see her black eye, sullen and purplish under her unnaturally dark eyebrows.

“Wow, that’s a shiner.”

“No shit.”

All of her chattiness from the day before was gone, and I saw no reason to play at small talk. “Jason hit you?”

She dragged deep off her cigarette. Her eyes looked hazel in the gathering night, and I could see the black roots at her hairline. She scowled into the distance.

“What city did you say you’re from?”

“I didn’t.”

“Niagara County, I think you said.”

She looked at me from the corners of her eyes and tensed up. I knew she wanted to look around for Jason, but she showed admirable restraint.

“So, you any relation to the woman who lost the diamond necklace here in the late twenties, Samantha?”

“People call me Sam.”

She was talking. I needed to keep her going as long as possible, because I knew as soon as Jason showed up, she’d shut down. “Hi, Sam.” I smiled at her and hoped it was open and friendly. “What’s there to do in Niagara County?”

“Not much, unless you like catering to tourists.” She smiled without humor. “Must be like being here, almost. I was a CNA for a while, a waitress here and there, sold garbage at gift shops. You name it, I did it.”

I knew from Gina that a CNA was a certified nursing assistant, and with the proper training, a CNA could be a home health aide. I decided to bluff. “I know who you took care of when you were nursing.”

“You mean my aunt? So?”

Her self-assurance caught me off guard. I was certain Regina Krupps didn’t have any living relatives, or they would have been mentioned in her obituary. “So, I know she was the one who lost the diamond necklace in this lake. Regina Krupps.”

Sam looked genuinely bored and pressed her thumb and forefinger together softly and slowly, like she was applauding the tiniest show.

I changed tacks, determined to regain the upper hand. “How’d you meet Jason?”

Sam took a final puff on her cigarette and ground it into the side of the stairs. She started to insert another one in her holder, and then tossed her holder into the bushes and slapped the cigarette straight in her mouth. “He came to a shop I was working at part-time. He wanted to get married to this fat redhead. We sold wedding packages, sort of like Vegas. He took one look at me and left her.” She laughed icily. “Aren’t I lucky?”

I ignored the question. “Why’d you come out here?”

“To meet Jason’s family.” She fidgeted, dodging the question and avoiding my eyes.

“So you and Jason do any diving since you got here?”

“Ha! You couldn’t get me to go in a lake to save a baby. If I can’t see the bottom, I don’t get wet.”

This jolted me. I assumed Jason had rented three sets of gear so he and Sam would each have a set, with one set left over for the fake body. If she didn’t dive, Jason had an unseen accomplice who was probably a lot scarier than Sam.

A cold hand grabbed my neck, and I squealed. I turned to face the vacant smile of the ringmaster, who, dressed as a lion tamer, had given me the Romanov flyer in the nursing-home lobby yesterday. “We need a lovely lady to help us get this show started!”

He yanked me toward the makeshift stage, and I stopped struggling when I realized all eyes were on us and the music had stopped. Talk about not blending into a crowd. I could be naked and in flames and be less obvious.

“Ladies and gentlemen! Welcome to the world-renowned Romanov Traveling Theater!” His voice carried across the island and over the lake. The bongo players sprinkled throughout the crowd started slapping their skins in a slow and steady rhythm while chanting a low “Hiya, ha hiya.”

“Tonight, we have a rare treat for you! In addition to the enticing entertainment provided by our island performers, you will get a preview of the local production of William C. Shakespeare’s
The Taming of the Shrew
!”

William C.? Hadn’t it been William S. before? Who were these Romanovs? It was now full dark outside the circle of tiki-torch light, and I tried to slink away into the inkiness. The ringmaster snatched me back.

“This beatific lady has agreed to take part in our opening extravaganza by partaking in our disappearing act! Lady, have we met before?”

I nodded my head yes.

“The lady says no! This is our first meeting! Island assistants, please bring out the magic case.”

There was a somber bongo roll, and two of the skirt-clad bongo players hoisted a heavy box to the center of the earthen stage. The box was about five and a half feet tall, and from a distance, I’m sure it looked ornate. Up close, I could see it was covered in cheap plastic designed to look like carved wood. There was a door on the front without a doorknob. The ringmaster tapped the door, stepped inside and then out to show that it was a real box, and pounded the three sides to show it was solid.

“Assistants, please lead our lovely volunteer inside!”

I was starting to panic. Public speaking is bad, but public disappearing is worse. The bongo players grabbed my wrists and dragged me toward the box as I dug my heels in. I couldn’t reach my stun gun and felt like a character in a Shirley Jackson story as the crowd hooted and hollered in glee. I turned to beg the bongo players to let me go and saw Jed grinning dopily at me.

“Jed!” I hissed. “What are you doing in a skirt and why the
hell
don’t you let me go!”

“Easy money, Mira, and don’t worry.” His grin struck me as dopier than usual. “This is a cool trick. I got to do it once in rehearsal today. You’ll be fine, dude. Just play along.”

I relaxed not at all but gave up fighting as they shoved me into the box. The front closed like a coffin door, and the ringmaster’s voice became muffled. I had to crouch down, my knees and shoulders scraping the cheap wood. The inside of the box smelled like sweat and vinegar.

“I will say the magic words, tap three times on the box, and show you our lovely volunteer has disappeared! Abracov, dabrocov, Romanov!”

There were three taps on the box, but I’m sure I was the only one who heard them over the deafening cracks of a fresh round of fireworks. Without warning, I was jerked out the back of the box as shards of light exploded from the front. Four hands shoved me into a container just big enough to hold me in the fetal position, and I felt myself being carried off. There was enough room to breathe but not enough to struggle. Fortunately, my hand had been clutching my purse when I was thrust into this tiny jail, and I concentrated on working it inside.

I was sweating with the exertion of small movements by the time my fingertips brushed against the solid plastic of my little soldier. I grabbed onto it, determined to force some involuntary bodily functions out of whoever was transporting me as soon as they let me out.
If
they let me out. Clearly, reappearing wasn’t an integral part of this disappearing act.

I heard the sounds of the island party fade, gradually replaced by the sounds of feet on gravel. I considered yelling, but I wouldn’t be heard over the noise of the party. I knew there was only one exit off Shangri-La—the strip of gravel that was the driveway—which meant there was now water on either side of me. I didn’t want to give anyone a reason to dump me in it. Maybe this was just a harmless magic trick and I’d be let go as soon as I was totally out of sight of the audience. I concentrated on taking slow, deep breaths and was comforted by the familiar smell of Whiskey Lake and the plants that grew around my house.

The reverberations of road were replaced by the rustling of brush, and I knew we were in the woods about half a mile north of the Shangri-La main lodge. When you’re leaving an isthmus, there’s only one direction you can go, and if we weren’t on the road, we were in the woods. Someone had an interest in stealing me away from tonight’s action, but this seemed a pretty dramatic way to go.

Suddenly, the jostling stopped, and I was set down gently. The front of the container was opened.

“Du—”

I leaped and zapped, once on the hand held out to help me up and once on the upper shoulder of the other carrier. I looked wildly from Jed’s falling face to the slumped body of the other bongo player. I recognized him from the bait shop. He had sold me a newspaper and Lemonheads last week and asked me how I liked the weather. I forced myself to blink and breathe. I knew from the footfalls I had been listening to that it was just the three of us in the woods, and two of us were currently ass-to-stars on the forest floor. I looked around and took in the two elm trees in front of me knotted together like lovers, the faint hum of the crowd on Shangri-La, and the whisper of breeze in the treetops. I was stiff from my temporary confinement, and looked over at what I had been carried here in. It was one of the bongo drums, a little bigger than the rest, with a side that opened out. It was probably built just for this trick.

I leaned over and felt Jed’s pulse and then the pulse of his friend. They were both a little rapid but healthy. I considered sticking around to apologize, but then thought better of it. Both guys were probably so high that this zapping wouldn’t even be a blip on their radar screens. Besides, everyone knows it’s not cool to transport a chick to the woods in a carrier disguised as a bongo drum.

I jogged back toward the road and the party on Shangri-La. When I reached the edge of the woods, I slid my sandals off, laced them over my shoulder, and dropped down to the water’s edge. The trees lining the shore of the pond side of the lake would keep me out of view. I skirted the lake, my feet sinking in the swampy beach. I envisioned leeches hanging off my toes like spaghetti noodles. It was gross, but being quiet was more important than being bloodsucker-free.

My plan was to make sure Sam and Jason were in the crowd, then sneak into the main lodge and up to the master bedroom. I estimated that I could be in and out in under five minutes. It was likely I had more time than that since whoever had an interest in my activities had already done their best to remove me from the island and wouldn’t be expecting me back so soon, if at all.

I peered through a patch of weeping willows at the frenzy of the Romanov show, the bright light from the tiki torches making the scene vivid and ensuring my invisibility in the shadows. I couldn’t see what was going on in the center, but people were seven deep all the way around. I spotted Sam leaning against a tree on the far side, her cigarette holder in place again, smoking and looking bored. It took me a while to find Jason, but it was worth the effort. He stood about fifty feet from me and on the other side of the crowd from Sam, looking uncomfortable as a bedecked Kennie leaned into him, her hand on his upper thigh.

She was talking animatedly, and every swing of her arms promised to release one of the mammoth breasts shoved into the black rubber of her tank top. Her natural hair was buried under the red, green, and yellow braids of extensions, and she wore a tie-dyed skirt and Rasta sandals. Her red lipstick and green eye shadow complemented the cacophony of color. This was clearly her effort to attract a younger man, and I applauded it. No woman, no cry.

I took advantage of the distractions to sneak into the lodge through the darkened kitchen. I made my way up the main stairs, fishing in my purse for the skeleton key I had brought with me. I had the wild idea that it might work in a house as old as this one with all the original locks intact.

I reached the second floor and made my way to the massive master bedroom door, placing my hand on the cool crystal doorknob, and was startled when it swung open. “Hello?” I whispered. There was no answer, so I traded the skeleton key for the stun gun and my penlight and tiptoed in. Moonlight spilled across the carpet, illuminating a major mess and a minor carpentry project.

The bed was unmade and strewn with clothes, there were empty Coors Light bottles and two full ashtrays scattered on the floor, and all the furniture had been moved to the far side of the room. It looked like a rock band had stopped by, but that wasn’t as shocking as the closet. The door had been taken off its hinges, and the interior was ripped apart. It was as if a hundred razor-toothed beavers had gone at it—the paneling was shredded, the wallpaper hung in strips, and there were holes punched in the Sheetrock.