Marcia Talley - Tomorrow's Vengeance

‘Surely…’

‘Insurance money. That’s what keeps this place afloat, trust me. I cashed in everything to buy into Calvert Colony and it would be pennies on the dollar – pennies! – if the place goes belly up.’ He slapped the table so hard it nearly knocked over Christie’s Diet Coke. ‘And all because of a little slam-bang-thank-you-ma’am. Jerry and Nancy are good folk and look what’s happened to them.’ For a moment I thought the colonel was going to slap the table again, even harder. ‘I just don’t get it.’

Ah ha, I thought. It didn’t take long for word about the investigation to get around. Not surprising, though, since people like me were being called in for interviews.

‘I’m taking steps to protect my investment,’ he said.

‘Steps? What kind of steps?’ Christie wanted to know.

‘A little friendly persuasion,’ he said, looking grim.

I didn’t like the way the conversation was going. ‘Nate…’ I paused to consider my words carefully. ‘I don’t think there’s much anyone can do now that the incident’s been reported and the health department’s already involved.’

‘Him and his big, blabby holier-than-thou mouth.’

I frowned and opened my big, blabby mouth in protest. ‘We don’t know…’

The colonel cut me off. ‘See this?’ he said, making a fist and thrusting it in my direction. It was hard to miss an opal set in a gold signet ring so large it should be registered as a lethal weapon. He rapped it three times on the Formica tabletop.

Ring knockers. Service academy graduates. We had them at the Naval Academy, too.

‘West Point. Class of 1956.’ Tap-tap-tap . ‘I have buddies who fought guys like Abaza in Operation Desert Storm. They’re not our friends. None of them.’

‘That’s right,’ Christie chimed in. ‘Dickie’s writing a book. His experiences in Afghanistan would make your hair stand on end.’

The colonel winced.

‘Seems to me that Al-Qaeda is the enemy,’ I said, ‘or the Taliban. Not Muslims in general.’

‘Don’t be naive, Hannah. Look around you. They’re out there trying to kill Americans every single day.’

‘They’re cowards,’ Christie said. ‘You’ve seen the videos, Hannah. They wear masks.’

I wondered how much of this diatribe, if anything, Nancy was picking up on, but she seemed oblivious, sipping contentedly on her milkshake, quietly humming along to a fifties tune playing softly in the background.

Still, the colonel had wound Christie up. ‘What kind of person hijacks a schoolbus and shoots a thirteen-year-old girl in the head?’ she sputtered. ‘And what was Malala Yousufzai’s crime? Huh?’ Christie paused but didn’t wait for an answer before practically shouting, ‘She wanted to go to school!’

‘The shooter and the cleric who ordered that attack are hiding out in Afghanistan,’ the colonel informed us. ‘It’s one of the most corrupt governments in the world. The U.S. has squandered billions of dollars there. About as effective as giving a teenager a bottle of booze and the car keys.’

‘Savages,’ Christie grunted. ‘You can’t make peace with savages.’

The colonel reached across the table, covered Christie’s hand with his own and squeezed. ‘Kindred spirit,’ he said, winking.

Paul and I had friends, former midshipmen, who’d lost their lives in Afghanistan. At some visceral level I agreed with the colonel, but I refused to tar the Abazas and our other Muslim friends with the same brush used to tar the Taliban. Nothing was going to budge this old vet from his anti-Muslim platform, however, so I decided to retreat from the battlefield before I said something I ended up regretting.

I pasted a smile on my face and said, ‘Be a sweetie and fetch me a couple of plastic lids and one of those cardboard caddies, would you, Nate? I promised Nancy a walk in the garden, and so far I’m failing miserably.’

The blast of hot air that hit us as we stepped out of the building with me carrying the caddy nearly took my breath away. I urged Nancy along the path as quickly as I could, seeking a spot in the shade where we could finish enjoying our shakes. I remembered the stone bench in the cherry grove and headed that way – through the flowerbeds, up the path and over the bridge spanning the lily pond where the rowboat and the remarkable glass sculptures lay.

The Tranquility Garden was beautifully designed, so perfect in every detail, I thought as we settled onto the bench, that not a single leaf or blade of grass would dare to be out of place. Elves undoubtedly swept through the garden while the rest of us slept, putting everything to rights.

I slipped fresh straws out of their paper sleeves, tucked the trash into my pocket, jammed the straws through the plastic lids, then handed the Oreo shake to Nancy. She put the straw to her lips and began sipping happily.

‘Ahhhh, perfect,’ I said to nobody in particular as I took a sip of mine. Plain chocolate, thank you very much, as rich and delicious as a Dove bar.

But not everything was perfect. Something was off in the garden today. A wrong note, a discrepancy, a flaw in the carefully staged landscape around me.

It was the rowboat, I decided. When we sat there before, hadn’t it leaned at a slightly different angle? And the glass balls had completely filled it, surely, but now some of the smaller ones had tumbled out, littering the ground.

I squinted. Was that a shoe? Had one of the residents lost…?

‘I’ll be right back,’ I said to Nancy. Her head bobbed as she took another sip of her Oreos and cream. She closed her eyes, smiled with pleasure and took another sip. You do good work, Hannah, I thought as I rose from the bench.

Slowly, still casually sipping on my milkshake, I approached the rowboat. When I was about ten feet away I could see that the shoe was a sandal. It had a sock-clad foot in it and, as I moved closer still, I saw that the foot was attached to a leg wearing khaki trousers.

Paul’s parting words echoed in my head: ‘You, too, Hannah. And no dead bodies, OK?’ Shit . Was I cursed, doomed to stumble over bodies for life, rerun after rerun like Jessica Fletcher on Murder She Wrote ?

I should back off now, I knew. Take Nancy by the hand, return to Blackwalnut Hall. Call 9-1-1. But… perhaps he – she? – was alive and needed help.

I glanced back at Nancy and was relieved to see she was still concentrating on her milkshake, oblivious.

I approached the rowboat cautiously and leaned far to the right to get a better view.

The leg belonged to Masud Abaza, who was beyond any help on this side of paradise.

Safa’s husband lay face up, his sightless eyes staring at the sky, the tremor in his hands stilled forever. Blood had congealed on a vicious wound to his temple and stained the manicured grass under his head. It seemed obvious that some savage blow had killed him, and yet, protruding a good two feet out of the center of Masud’s chest was a giant purple icicle. An art installation gone bad, I thought, suppressing an insane urge to giggle. As if a blow to the head wasn’t sufficient, Masud’s killer had uprooted one of the artist’s decorative glass reeds and driven it straight into the poor man’s heart.

‘Gardens of perpetual bliss: they shall enter there, as well as the righteous among their fathers, their spouses, and their offspring: and angels shall enter unto them from every gate (with the salutation): “Peace unto you for that ye persevered in patience! Now how excellent is the final home!”’

Quran 13: 23-24

My own heart thumped, leapt and turned within my chest. I hugged myself hard, trying to calm its frantic pounding. I closed my eyes and counted slowly to ten, breathing steadily. When I opened my eyes again it was as if nothing had changed. The sun still shone, the birds still sang, the honeybees still flitted from flower to flower and Nancy Harper was still occupied with her milkshake, staring at a pagoda-shaped birdfeeder – Grand Central Station for chattering finches and a pair of cardinals – and humming quietly to herself.