I sat on the side of the road, shaking my head.
20
Allie was sitting in a chair staring out across the ocean when I returned. I didn’t waste time. I pulled up a chair and sat next to her. “I need to show you something.”
Surprise spread across her face when I pulled out my hour-old tablet phone. But not nearly as much surprise as what occurred when I pressed play. I turned the phone sideways, enlarging the picture. Jake’s semi appeared in the video. Then the Jeep. Then the truck driver’s jump to the Jeep. Then the separation of the two vehicles, followed by the explosion.
She was trying to make sense of it when I replayed it for her a second time. When it finished, I played her the surveillance video showing the entrance of Jake’s semi and the Jeep—driven by one person—the flash, and then the return of the Jeep now showing two people.
She looked confused. “What? What is this?”
I leaned back against the chair. “I think it means that Jake Gibson faked his own death.”
“What?” Her head was spinning. “Why?”
“I don’t have the answer to that.” I pulled out the envelope. “There’s more.” I spread the four sheets of paper across my lap. “This is a change-of-address form used by First General. It was filed by Jake a month after you two purchased the policy ten years ago. The new address is to a town in North Carolina. Oddly, it’s about an hour from my cabin. It’s near the interstate, so access for a semi like Jake’s wouldn’t be too difficult.”
Allie was having trouble putting all this together.
“I think Jake purchased the life insurance policy with you and then transferred ownership to someone in North Carolina where, I would guess, he also reassigned the beneficiary—while still allowing you to pay on a policy you no longer owned. If you hire an attorney, I think you’ll find this to be true. I also think you’ll find he’s lived at that address in North Carolina for quite some time.”
She shuffled the sheets of paper. “Well, who lives in North Carolina?”
I didn’t want to say what I was about to say. “I’m guessing Jake’s first wife.”
“What!” Her bottom lip was shaking and she was crying now, but it wasn’t sadness. It was growing anger. “But why . . . ? What would . . . ?”
“I don’t have answers for all of that. I could be wrong, but I’m guessing that Jake was married before he met you, and all the time you thought he was on the road, he was probably back home in North Carolina.”
Her voice changed. “With his other wife?”
“Yes.”
“But . . . that doesn’t answer why. Why pretend all those years?”
“I can give you one million reasons.”
She stared at the papers. “So here I am. The mourning widow. All torn up ’cause I think he’s burnt to a crisp and my last words to him were so terrible. So hate-filled. And he’s actually living with some floozie in another state.”
I nodded. “With a million dollars.”
“But . . . that would mean he planned this whole thing. That sadistic bast—”
I nodded. “A little more than ten years ago. And here’s something else. How many times did Jake eat at the Blue Tornado before you two started dating?”
She shrugged. “Dozen. Maybe more.”
“Did he stay at the motel?”
“Yes.”
“Why would a guy that drives a semi for a living detour so far off the interstate when it’s costing him time and money to do so?”
She shook her head. “Unless he was trying to find a woman who was tied to her eighty-hour-a-week job and hadn’t left the island in years and never went anywhere on vacation. So she would never discover he was a lying sack of—”
“I think Jake was looking for someone like you when he found you.”
“What, you mean, gullible?”
“Maybe unsuspecting and trusting are better words.”
She sat back, shaking her head. “How do we find out?”
I held up the certified mail receipts.
21
We drove up through Tallahassee, and because I loved driving back roads, we stayed on 319 up through Moultrie, then turned north on 33 up through Sylvester, finally dumping out onto I-75 at Cordele. Maybe Allie was trying to take her mind off what awaited. I’m not sure, but about the time our tires rolled off of Cape San Blas, she said, “It was good to see Bobby.”
I nodded. “It was good to see him sober.”
“You two ever talk?”
“You mean other than at Jake’s fake funeral?”
She twirled her hair with one finger. “Yes.”
“No. Not since we buried Mom.”
“Long time.”
“Yep.”
She continued. “He looked older. Looked good in his suit and with those two handsome bodyguards.”
“Maybe he’s finally found his place on this earth.”
She turned toward me. “I called him.”
“He told me.”
“He tell you I was actually looking for you?”
“Yes.”
“He said he didn’t know how to find you. Guess he found a way.”
“Actually, he did not.”
She looked surprised. “Then how’d you end up on the island?”
I told her. Starting with the snowstorm at my cabin. About Gabriella, Diego, and Catalina. About her brother, the trailer park, and how I saw the smoke.
“Bobby didn’t call you?”
“No.”
“And you turned toward home because you saw a spiral of smoke?”
I nodded.
“I guess Jake never counted on that.”
“Tell me about him. Start at the beginning.”
She backed up and described the last decade. How he was never really present. Married on paper only. They’d never had a vacation. He’d stay gone for literally months at a time. Calling every few days. Over the years, it dropped to once a week.
She said, “In ten years of marriage he was home maybe a total of a year. Maybe less. That truck only made money when it was rolling, so he was always on the road. And even when he was home, he wasn’t home. I don’t think we’ve slept in the same bed in three or four years. Maybe more. We ‘played’ married. That’s about it.”
“And the phone call the night he died?”
“I was mad. Said some horrible things. Things I never should’ve said.” She paused. “But knowing what I think I know now, I should’ve said more.”
South Georgia rolled along outside the window.
“After we hung up, he tried”—she made quotation marks in the air—“to make it home. Tired as he was. You know the rest.” She bit part of a cuticle and spit it onto the floorboard. “He had probably been sleeping in his other bed with his other wife and was good and rested when he jumped into that Jeep.”
“What had you planned to do with the life insurance money before you found out there isn’t any?”
She laughed. “Pay off my debt. Reopen the restaurant. The cottages.”
“You still love it?”
“It’s what I know. I know how to take that place and make people happy. I love seeing the smiles and hearing the laughter. Always have. My dad was a lot of bad things, but one good thing was his belief that people would come from all over to sit on that beach and stare out across that water and eat good food. There’s something peaceful there. And I think he was right.” She looked at me. “I think at one time you believed that too.”
“I did.”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“And you’ll tell me the truth.”
“Yes.”
“You give me your word?”
“Yes.”
“What happened to you?”
“Which part?”
She tapped her chest. “The part that included me.”
“Well, about forty-five years ago, I went on vacation twelve thousand miles away—”
She interrupted
me. “You told me you were going to California.”
“I lied.”
“Why?”
“Didn’t want you to worry.” I paused. “But either way it didn’t matter, because when I came home two years later, you were dressed in white and marrying my brother.”
She rubbed her palms together and closed her eyes for a long second. “Yes . . . I did that. But . . . you disappeared. Silent for two years. I needed someone to hold me.”
I tried to make light of it. “Well . . . maybe you could’ve chosen someone other than my older brother.”
She leaned closer. “I needed to hear from you. No letter. No nothing. Why?”
“That might be tough to explain.”
“Try me.”
“If I died, and chances were good that I would, then I didn’t want to leave you standing over my grave holding a handful of tearstained letters. If I left you nothing to hold on to, you could cling to someone else. I was trying to make it easier for you if I didn’t make it home.”
“Would’ve been nice to know that then.”
“Even when I did make it home, you wouldn’t have wanted anything to do with me.”
“What happened? Where’d you go? Where’ve you been?”
I laughed. Something I hadn’t always been able to do. “That’s a long story with little to interest you. And a lot that I’m not real proud of.”
“Does it hurt to tell it?”
“Some.”
She placed her hand on my arm. “Tell me.” She propped her feet on the dash and laid her head back against the headrest. Air coming in through the open window was tugging at her hair. “Jo-Jo, I want to know about your life.”
I switched hands on the wheel. “How far back am I going?”
“September 15th, 1972.”
I squinted. “Second most painful day of my life.”
“What was the most?”
“The day you married my brother.”
“You’re not going to let that go, are you?”
“Well, we should probably talk about it.”
She twirled a finger through her hair and looked away. “We already covered that. Worst decision I’ve ever made. Although, in light of recent events, it may be second worst. If it makes you feel any better, I’ve had two really bad marriages with very little love and zero tenderness.”
We were talking with the ease of two kids, forty-five years ago.
“I’ve been with two men—”
I raised my hand. “And I’m not one of them, mind you.”
She smiled. “True. As I was saying, I’ve been with two men, neither of whom sent chills up my spine the way your hand in mine once did. Or your kiss on my lips.” She paused. “You ever marry?”
“No.”
“Ever been in love?”
“Yes. Twice.”
“When?”
“Once when I was younger.”
She smiled and twirled a finger through her hair again.
“Then later, after I’d been in-country for a couple of years.”
“Where was she from?”
“Europe. She was a singer.”
“What happened?”
“The war.” I shrugged. “Didn’t take.”
Her eyes were glassy when she spoke. “When you came back . . . why didn’t you come back here?” A tear broke loose. “You promised.”
I slid my hand into hers. I drove several minutes. Trying to find an entry. “I was in a bad way . . . I’d seen a lot that wasn’t good, and it clung to me. I was trying to shake it and couldn’t. I wanted nothing more than to be with you. I just didn’t want you to have to be with me.”
She reached up and placed her index finger on my lips. “But what if I wanted to be with you?”
“The guy that came back wasn’t the guy that went away. He was a powder keg, and even I didn’t know when I’d go off. Even now I have flashbacks and I’m not in control. You just have to trust me on that one. When I came home, so much in me was ‘off.’ The part in me that felt had been blown up. Literally. I landed in California to Berkeley kids spitting through the fence at me. Throwing rotten fruit. And I could not understand that. I’d just spent twenty-four months trying to stop people from dying, and then these people I didn’t even know cursed me as I walked off the plane. I looked around and wondered, What is wrong with this world?
“We had to spend a few days debriefing in this huge warehouse. The military wanted to know what I knew. Most guys went home in a day. Me, they were still talking to after two weeks. They wanted me to re-up. I said, ‘No, thank you. I’ve done my time.’ All I wanted, the only thing that kept me alive in that terrible place, was the thought of coming home to you. Of a life with you. Of walking that beach and letting you and those waves wash all the evil off of me. So they finally let me go. I looked out the window and those kids were still screaming at the fence. I asked my CO, ‘Do I have to wear my uniform out of here?’ He said, ‘You can walk out that door however you want.’ I threw my uniform in the trash. I threw all my medals in the trash. I threw everything having anything to do with the military in the trash and slipped out the back door in civilian clothes.”
I glanced in the rearview as a new T-top Corvette approached and passed us in the left lane. Tanned couple. Laughing. The guy was driving with one hand. Holding the girl’s hand with the other. Her long hair was flapping in the breeze. They were singing a song I couldn’t hear. He accelerated and their red taillights disappeared in the distance. It was a good picture of us. Most everything we’d ever dreamed and never lived was silently passing us by.
“Given all I’d encountered, the military recommended a few weeks at a war treatment program. I had a feeling that was a good idea, so I spent a month there. Trying to put the pieces of my mind back into one skull. After a month I checked myself out and rode a bus to the Cape. Thumbed a ride to the restaurant, and when I got there, I found a party in full swing. I was so excited. I—” I paused. Looking at her. Her eyes were trained on me.
“I had bought a ring before I came home. Silver. A green stone. They said it was an emerald. Had it in my pocket. I walked up the steps. And there was my older brother, dressed in military uniform, a chest full of medals, holding your hand. His ring on your finger.” I paused as the memory returned. “I knew if I stayed there, I’d kill him. But I’d seen a lot of that and I had enough control of my faculties to know that would not fix the hurt in me. So I threw the ring in the ocean, returned to California, re-upped, and did two more years in a country where my government denied my existence.”
She was quiet awhile. Then she whispered, “Tell me about the war.”
I sucked between my teeth. “I’ve spent the last four and a half decades trying not to think about the war. It’s difficult.”
“Any good memories?”
“When we first landed, the first time, I was stationed at a place called Camp California. Sort of a play on words for all the drafters. Anyway, we had these outhouse-things, tall metal buildings, built over a fifty-five-gallon drum. Given that many soldiers, the contents of the drums had to be burned twice a day. My first day in-country, they asked for volunteers for poop duty. We had another name for it, but you understand. I raised my hand. Every morning and evening, when we weren’t on patrol, we’d pull those drums out, fill the remainder with diesel, light it, stir it, and then tend it while the fire burned the contents. Nasty work, but easy. During the rest of the day, I lay in my hammock on the beach and watched what happened on base. It would pay dividends later.
“One of the guys that tended the fire with me was Tex Lewis. Great big ol’ guy. Our second month in, we got in this mess one night and he got hit. Bad. I laid his head across my lap. He asked me to pray the Lord’s Prayer over him. So I did. I prayed and watched the light slowly fade from his eyes. Somewhere in that moment, that’s where the anger came in. And I let it. I told myself that if I was to get home to you, if I was to make it out of that godforsaken place, then I had to forget what I
loved and learn to be worse than the guys outside the wire. So I did.
“When I re-upped and they sent me back, I didn’t take anything off anybody. I built myself a hooch on the beach of the South China Sea and hung a hammock between two palm trees. I’d lie there at night and listen to the bombs in the distance. They were always bringing in entertainment for the guys at the rear, and one night they brought in this lady singer. Beautiful. Sultry. Sang like a canary. And for some reason she picked me. It was the strangest experience. During the evenings, she’d hop on a helo and they’d take her to another base, where she’d entertain the troops. I’d hop on another helo and they’d drop us in a country we weren’t supposed to be in, and we’d serve death for dinner and then fly out. And then she and I would meet at my hooch, I’d bathe in the ocean and wash off the blood, and then we’d walk hand in hand down the beach like two normal people. The crazy thing was how normal it felt, when it was anything but.”
“Did you love her?”
“I don’t know that I was capable of that. I liked having her around, and she took my mind off of you, but there was so much beneath the surface. She saw it, and I think it scared her. By my third year I was having some pretty bad dreams. I woke up one morning, and she was black and blue and lying unconscious on the floor. I had no memory of doing that. Later that week, she took a gig somewhere in Europe. For the next decade or so, whenever she’d put out a new record or song, I’d listen.”
“How many men were in your unit?”
“Sixty-two.”
“How many came home?”
“Including me?”
She nodded.
“Four.”
She swallowed and stared through the windshield a long time. “Do you keep in touch?”
“One committed suicide. One died of cancer. I lost touch with the last when they put him in prison. Don’t know if he’s still alive or not.”
She sucked in a deep breath and covered her mouth.
I continued, “The military would fly me home to deliver my men to their families. Sometimes it was just me and one casket. One time it was me and twelve caskets. I’d leave over there, fly thirty-six hours, deliver my friends, or their pieces, to their loved ones, fly thirty-six hours back alone, land, hop on a helo, and they’d drop me back in the jungle. Somewhere in that process, the place in my heart that felt things like love and desire died. It just quit feeling.”