Where the River Ends - Charles Martin [126]
Abbie lay her head on the timber and stared at the far bank. “Look at all those people.”
“Yeah.”
She coughed. “I think we caused some trouble.”
“It was no trouble.”
ST. MARYS SLIPPED BY. Seagulls strutted along the docks and pelicans perched on rooftops waiting for the shrimp boats to return and empty their nets. Cedar Point appeared on our left, so I kicked into the current, cut us across the water and slid us across the top of the marsh grass and through the schools of mullet that had gathered there. They, too, were seeking safety. The water nudged us inward, gently lodging our one-log raft onto shore.
We’d done it. All the way from Moniac.
I lifted Abbie, walked up on the beach and knelt, laying her head gently on the sand. Rising above us stood thirty or so sunflowers, some eight feet tall and in full bloom. They had followed the sun as it had fallen behind the trees, and now they were aimed down at us.
Abbie pushed her feet down into the sand, her toes resting in the water. She took a deep breath and her face relaxed—telling me that she remembered. “Honey…Abbie?” A helicopter sounded in the distance. “Honey…Abbie…” Her eyes fluttered. “We’re here.” I could hear men running toward us in the marsh. Her father’s voice in the background.
She turned toward me and wrapped her arms about my waist. I wiped her face with the scarf but the bleeding soaked through. I cradled her head. Words came hard. “Abbie…?”
She pulled my hand to her face, placing my index finger just above her ear and closed her eyes.
A few minutes later, she was gone.
49
THE FIRST DAY
The sun broke through the bars of my cell and landed on my face, warming my skin but little else. It was the same sun that we’d woken to yesterday morning. Bright, lonely and now hollow. The kid next to me chewed on what was left of one of his fingernails while both his legs bounced like popcorn.
A dozen or so men crowded the cell where they held me until my hearing with the judge. Given that it was Sunday, I imagine the judge wouldn’t be too happy about it. Strike one. The kid leaned in. “What ’choo in fo’?”
I hadn’t slept in four or five days, so I pushed the words around my mouth before getting them out. He was skinny, and his eyes never seemed to land any one place. Where do I start? “Uh…umm…murder.”
His eyes lit. “You bust a cop?” The walls around me were littered with graffiti, but I don’t know where they got a pencil given the cavity search they had given me before they walked me in here. I shook my head. He spat a nail sliver. “Who?”
A man next to me stood, walked to the wall urinal and peed everywhere but in the urinal. It ran down the wall and trickled into a drain on the floor. “My wife.”
He quit chewing on his finger, his eyes settled on me and then grew wide. “You da dude dey been talkin’ ’bout on TV. You da one done kilt the sen’tor’s daughter. That model.” He snapped his fingers. “The one on all the magazine covers. What her name?”
Most of the faces in the cell turned toward me. I whispered, “Abbie.”
“Yeah, da’s it. You da dude that kill Abbie.” He shouted across the room, “Hey…dis da honkey that shot the swimsuit model.”
“I didn’t kill her.”
He shrugged, legs bouncing again. “Well, she dead.”
I shook my head. A large, smelly man lying in the corner lifted his head off his arm and said, “Nervy! Shut the hell up.”
The kid sat quiet a minute and nodded at the big man. He whispered, “He call me Nervy cuz he say I got nervous legs.” A minute passed. “And if he tell you to shut up, you better do as he say. He big.” Another minute passed. “You shoot her?” I shook my head. “But dey say dey foun’ a gun. A fo’ty-fi’.” I tried to translate but couldn’t. He whispered more slowly. “A forty-five.” I nodded. “Wuz you gunna?” I looked at him