“Wrong,” Mom said crossly. “The judge hadn’t signed your release papers yet, so technically you did commit a jail break. That’s a felony, Paine—worse than sinking Dusty’s casino boat! This time they could send you to a real prison.”
Dad folded his arms thoughtfully. “So I am a fugitive after all.”
“Congratulations,” Abbey muttered.
My mother was thoroughly exasperated. “No harm done? Are you kidding me?” she said to my father.
“Donna, all I meant was—”
He was spared by a knock on the door—the TV-dish repairman, waiting to be paid. Mom wrote him a check and returned briskly to the table.
“Paine, here’s what we’re going to do now,” she said, plucking the phone off its cradle. “We’re going to call Mr. Shine and tell him to arrange for you to turn yourself in. Then, if the sheriff is in a generous and forgiving mood, he’ll go ahead and release you—legally, quietly, and without further embarrassment.”
The word “embarrassment” hung in the air like a foul smell. Still, Dad didn’t seem to comprehend how much trouble he was in with Mom.
He said, “Honey, I’m not sure I can turn myself in to these people. There are principles at stake, basic human rights.”
My mother turned to me and Abbey. “Could I speak to your father alone, please?”
Outside, a car door slammed. Dad stiffened up.
My mother put down the phone. “Noah, see who that is.”
Abbey was already at the window. “It’s a cop,” she reported anxiously.
“No!” my father blurted, and hightailed out the back door.
Mom was so calm that it was spooky. She picked up Dad’s plate and placed it in the sink. When the deputy rang our doorbell, she told us to stay in the kitchen while she went to talk with him.
Abbey and I quickly cleared the rest of the table and started washing the dishes. We were so nervous that we worked like robots—she scrubbed, I dried and stacked.
The deputy didn’t stay long, which was a relief. I’d figured he would tear the house apart searching for Dad, but he never even stepped inside.
When Mom walked back into the kitchen, she smiled in a sad and tired-looking way. She was carrying some folded clothes, a toothbrush, and the paperback chess book that I’d brought to Dad in jail.
“The officer was simply returning your father’s belongings,” Mom said. “Apparently the sheriff is delighted that he escaped and has no intention of pursuing him—as long as he goes back and gets the paperwork straightened out.”
“You want me to look for him?” I asked.
“I’d appreciate that,” Mom said. “Abbey, could you run outside and water my orchids?”
My sister eyed her. “You’re trying to get rid of me. How come?”
“Because I need to speak with Noah privately.”
“The orchids died last January,” Abbey said with a smirk, “during the freeze. Remember?”
“Then go water the roses,” said my mother.
I found him at Thunder Beach. He was barefoot and hatless, sitting in the sunshine by the water.
“This is the place where you learned to swim,” he said.
I sat down in the sand beside him.
“Abbey, too,” he added. “Your mom and I used to bring you here almost every weekend. By the time you were three, you could dive to the bottom all by yourself and pick up a conch shell. You remember?”
“Not really, Dad. I was too little.”
“Know how this place got its name? A man was killed here in 1947 by a bolt of lightning. Bright clear day, not a cloud in the sky. All of a sudden—ba-boom! The thunderclap was so loud, it busted the windshield out of a dredge at Whale Harbor.”
“Who was he?” I asked.
“The man who died? I believe he was one of the Russells or maybe an Albury, I’m not sure. But he was standing right about here on the beach, cleaning his cast net, when it happened. He’d caught about three dozen mullet, and they all got fried to a crisp by that lightning bolt,” my father said. “Your Grandpa Bobby told me that story a long time ago. Why they call it Thunder Beach.”
I couldn’t help but notice how unusually sunny and clear it was. Dad must have seen me squirming because he said, “Don’t worry, son, it was a freak deal—what they call an atmospheric anomaly. Probably never happen here again in a million years.”
“Dad, come on home.”
“But what if it’s a trap? The sheriff, setting me up.”
“It’s not a trap. The sheriff never wants to lay eyes on you again,” I said.
The water boiled and a barracuda broke the surface, slashing through a school of needlefish.
“I’m right about Dusty dumping crap in the water,” Dad said.
“I know you are.” I told him that the sewage tank at the dock was broken, and how the crew of the Coral Queen had faked hooking up the hose to it.
“I figured it was something like that,” he said bitterly. “Lice Peeking knows all about that scam, I bet.”
“Dad, I’ve got more bad news. Lice Peeking is gone.”
“No!”
I told him about the bald guy with the crooked nose coming to Lice’s trailer, and about the bloodstains Shelly found later in her Jeep.
“She thinks Dusty Muleman killed Lice, or had him killed, to shut him up,” I said.
My father looked horrified. “I can’t believe that,” he said, but his voice was shaky.
“Abbey thinks we should pack up and run to Canada,” I said.
“What do you think, Noah?”
“I think it’s awful cold up there.”
“No doubt,” he said quietly.
“And those snowmobiles, Dad, they’re even noisier than Jet Skis.”
“That’s a fact.”
“So we’ll figure something out. We always do,” I said. “Come on home.”
Dad was lost in thought, staring gloomily up the shoreline toward the mouth of the basin where the Coral Queen was moored.
He said, “Dusty offered to drop the charges against me because he doesn’t want the bad publicity from a trial. And he got rid of Lice as a warning to anyone else who knows the real story about the casino boat, anyone who could back me up.”
“Makes sense,” I said.
“But if Lice is really dead, it’s all my fault.”
“No, Dad. If Lice is dead it’s because he was greedy,” I said. “He didn’t want to tell the truth unless he got money for it. If he’d gone to the Coast Guard way back when, like he should have, Dusty would’ve been shut down a long time ago. So let’s go home. Please?”
“The water looks clean today, doesn’t it? Though you can’t always tell just by looking.” He got up and slowly waded in, trailing his fingers along the surface.
“Your Grandpa Bobby used to bring me down to the Keys three, four times a year,” he said. “When I was about your age, I stood right here and watched him catch a fourteen-pound muttonfish off the wings of a stingray.”
“On what?” I asked.
“A chunk of frozen shrimp,” Dad recalled. “I bet there hasn’t been a mutton snapper on these flats in ages. Lots of reasons—fish trappers, pollution, too many boats. That’s what people do when they find a special place that’s wild and full of life, they trample it to death.”
He spun around to face me. “Noah, you understand why I sunk the Coral Queen, right? Every time Dusty empties her holding tank, it’s like flushing a hundred filthy toilets into God’s ocean!”
It made me sick to think about it. Still, I couldn’t afford to let my father get himself all wound up again. There was something else I needed to tell him; something even more important.
“Mom wants you to come home right now,” I said. “She said it’s not open for debate. No more speeches, she said, no more excuses. Just come home.”
“Aw, she’ll settle down.”
It was like talking to a brick wall … so I took out the sledgehammer.
“Dad, listen to me,” I sa
id. “Mom’s thinking about filing for divorce.”
“What? No way!”
“I overheard her say something on the phone to Grandma Janet.”
My father stood knee-deep in the water, blinking and cocking his head like he wasn’t sure if he’d heard me right.
“She actually used that word. Divorce?”
“Loud and clear. She’s already spoken to Mr. Shine. Abbey was eavesdropping.”
“Oh man,” Dad sighed. “What a mess.”
At long last, reality seemed to be sinking in. I could see he was really worried about what Mom might do next. So was I.
“Come on,” I said, “let’s go.”
He reached down and scooped up a baby blue crab, which he cupped in his hands. When he bent down to inspect it, the crab promptly fastened its miniature claws to his nose and hung there, like a weird painted ornament. My father and I broke out laughing until the crab let go and plopped back into the water.
“Go tell your mom I’ll be home shortly,” he said. “We’ll take the skiff out this evening—you, me, and Abbey. Catch some snappers for supper.”
I felt pretty good when I hopped on my bike and headed for home. I’d done the tough job that I needed to do, and Dad had responded the way I’d hoped. As I rode along, my thoughts were still bouncing all over the place and I wasn’t paying attention to what was ahead of me.
Unfortunately.
One second I was pedaling full speed, the next I was hurtling over my handlebars. I landed hard on my right shoulder and rolled. When I came to a stop, I was flat on my back.
Staring up at the pinched, angry face of Jasper Muleman Jr.
“Hey, dorkbrain, where’s your training wheels?” he said.
I heard a dumb hick laugh that was unmistakably Bull’s. He and Jasper Jr. must have spotted me coming and ducked into the woods to wait. I sat up and saw my bike on the ground, a freshly snapped gumbo-limbo branch sticking out of the front spokes.
“That’s original,” I said to Jasper Jr.
Bull snatched me up by the collar and dragged me into the trees. I could hear Jasper Jr. running after us. When we got to a clearing, Bull straightened me up, spun me around, and pinned my arms.
Jasper Jr. got right in my face. “So where’s your big white-trash bodyguard? The one who knocked over my wheelbarrow.”
I wondered if he already knew that something bad had happened to Lice Peeking.
“He wasn’t my bodyguard,” I replied. “He was my personal chauffeur.”
Jasper Jr. said I was a real comedian. Then he hauled off and slugged me in the gut.
“That’s for Snake Creek,” he snarled, “for making me sink my johnboat.”
The punch knocked the wind out of me, and I went limp as a noodle in Bull’s grip. I remember thinking of something clever to say, but all I could do was squeak like a leaking balloon. It seemed to take forever to catch my breath, and right away Jasper Jr. slugged me again.
“And that’s for your crazy father sinking my father’s boat,” he said.
At that point the world turned fuzzy and gray, and I thought I was history. My mouth was flapping but absolutely nothing was coming out.
I heard Jasper Jr. say, “Bull, you wanna turn?”
“No, bro, I’m good,” Bull said, and let me drop to the ground.
Immediately I closed my eyes and let my tongue hang out and pretended I was dead. It might work fabulously for possums, but it sure didn’t work for me.
Jasper Jr. kicked me so hard in the thighbone that his big toe made a sharp popping sound. He started hopping around and hollering that I’d busted his foot. Bull remarked that it was usually a smart idea to put on shoes before you started kicking somebody. Jasper Jr. told him to shut up and gimped away, moaning. I heard Bull chuckling as he followed his wounded friend back to the road.
I would’ve been chuckling, too, if it hadn’t hurt so much.
TEN
It isn’t easy pretending everything’s wonderful when you feel like you’ve been thrown off the roof of a building. Luckily, there weren’t any bruises that Mom or Dad could see because this time Jasper Jr. had socked me in the stomach (not my eye), and the ugly knot on my thighbone was covered up by my pants.
I didn’t tell my parents what happened because they would’ve freaked and gone straight to Dusty Muleman, or maybe even the police, which was not how I wanted to handle it. So I just sat around like a lump in front of the television, trying not to move. In the summer I’m always outdoors—fishing or snorkeling or skateboarding—so Abbey got suspicious about me hanging around the house every day. Mom thought it was weird, too, but she was busy keeping an eye on my father.
Mr. Shine had arranged for Dad to return to the jail and surrender himself. The sheriff couldn’t wait to send him back home, although a judge put him under “house arrest” until the Coral Queen case was settled. To keep track of his whereabouts, they clipped an electronic bracelet on Dad’s right ankle. If he stepped so much as three inches past our front door, a signal would beep at the sheriff’s station and they’d come after him again.
For a week we were like a seminormal family, except that my father wasn’t allowed out of the house. One of us always stayed with him, not just to keep him company but also to make sure he didn’t try anything cute, like prying off the ankle bracelet.
We played lots of video games and watched fishing shows on ESPN and didn’t talk at all about Dusty’s casino boat. Abbey’s new project was building an Olympic village for hermit crabs, and Dad really got into it. Abbey and I collected the crabs (there were scads of them in the woods along the Old Highway) while my father sat at the kitchen table working with his tools. Before long he’d put together a miniature track, a lap pool, a pole vault, even a hurdle run.
Unfortunately, the average hermit crab isn’t particularly athletic, having to haul a clunky seashell around on its back, so the sports competition part of Abbey’s project sort of fizzled. Most of the crabs hunkered down and refused to budge. Still, it gave Dad something to do that kept his mind off the Coral Queen.
Until Shelly showed up late one afternoon.
Abbey watched her get out of the Jeep and said, “This oughta be good.”
Shelly was dressed in her casino-boat bartender’s outfit, which was loud and skimpy. She wore high heels and stockings that looked like they were made from a mullet net. As I opened the door to let her in, I decided it was probably a good thing that Mom wasn’t home.
“Long time no see,” Shelly said to my father, and gave him a brisk, businesslike hug. Then she introduced herself to Abbey, who was gawking at the barbed-wire tattoo on Shelly’s bare arm.
“How about something cold to drink?” Dad offered.
“Iced tea would be super. I can’t stay long,” Shelly said.
We all sat down in the living room, Shelly crossing her legs and sipping her tea. My father was on the edge of his seat, looking like he was dying to pepper her with questions.
“How you doin’, Noah?” Shelly said to me.
“Great.”
“Feelin’ okay?” She gave me a narrow look to let me know that she knew I wasn’t telling the truth. It was creepy how sharp her radar was.
“So, how’s work?” I said, eager to change the subject.
“Work is work,” Shelly replied. Then, turning to Dad: “Paine, what’s that thing on your leg?”
My father explained about the electronic bracelet. “I’m on house arrest. You believe it?”
“Boy, that really sucks,” Shelly said.
Out of nowhere Abbey asked about the tattoo. That’s one thing about my sister, she’s not afraid to say anything.
Shelly smiled and traced one finger along the dark blue links. “That’s a story for when you’re older,” she said. “It was a long night and a bad party.”
“But why barb wire?” Abbey always called it “barb” wire.
“To show the world how rough and tough I was,” said Shelly. “To be honest, I wish
it was daisies instead. This thing’s gonna look mighty stupid when I’m eighty years old and my grandkids are askin’ how come I got a cow fence painted on my arm. Hey, Paine, can you take a bath with that ankle gizmo, or would you get all electrocuted?”
Dad laughed. “Naw, it’s waterproof.”
“Amazing,” Shelly said.
“Any word from Lice?” I asked hopefully.
She shook her head. “But I got some other news. That’s why I stopped over.”
We waited as she glugged a long drink from her glass.
“They’re at it again,” she said. “Dumpin’ the toilet tanks into the water. Last night I stayed late to restock the bar, and I saw it for myself. Dusty was already gone with the money, and I guess the crew didn’t know I was still there.”
I noticed that my father’s fists were clenched on the arms of his chair. Abbey saw it, too.
“They just hung the hose off the side of the boat,” Shelly went on, “like it was business as usual.”
“What time was this?” Dad asked.
“Between one and one-thirty. The marina was empty,” Shelly said.
Abbey spoke up again. “That man is major scum.”
“No doubt,” said Shelly. “And here’s what else. The big bald guy with the Z-shaped nose? The one who came to see Lice that night before he went missing? His name’s Luno, and he’s Dusty’s main muscle. I think he’s from Morocco or someplace like that.”
I purposely didn’t look at Abbey. Neither of us had told my father that she’d bitten Dusty’s goon that night at the marina when he snuck up and grabbed her. Dad would’ve gone bonkers if he found out.
And Mom, well, forget about it. We’d already be halfway to Saskatchewan by now.
“What if they get suspicious and start hassling you?” I asked Shelly.
“Why would they? Think about it from Dusty’s point of view. Why would I come back to work for him if I knew he and Luno were mixed up in Lice’s death? Heck, I’d have to be suicidal, right?” Shelly winked. “Naw, Dusty bought the whole sad story. He thinks I wanted my job back just because Lice left me broke. And I’ll be honest, the money’s not too shabby.”
Dad stood up and started pacing back and forth.