This Side of Death

Ch. 4 Discarded Things

Sitting back against a tree atop a log, I watched the fire unfurl itself up into the canopy of trees branches arching over us high above. Six little filets along with twice baked potatoes of garlic, onion and sour cream had filled our empty corners. Fruit salad and brownies had taken their place on top of that.

I showered, cleaned fish and began cooking before waking my napping guest and serving our more than adequate little dinner. Tired but grateful, she had sat in silence as she ate, lost in the realization that the world she had surrounded herself in had suddenly vanished over the railing of Witch Candle Bay's bridge. An uneasy tension grew in the silence. Secrets do that to people. Attempted murder does as well.

"Kendel," I had began talking to her. "You don't need to share anything with me. Your secrets are your own. We're out here in the middle of wood and sea. No one for miles and miles. You were snatched from death's door and now you've had your life handed back to you. Not to dismiss the seriousness of it all, but in a sense, you've been born again, Kendel. I've never been thrown off a bridge but I too have had my moments of doubt and pain. If I may, I imagine what you're feeling now can be interpreted one of two ways. The path is yours to choose. You can go down that dark road of hate and revenge or you can choose life and love. Everything is new to you and the world is now open to be rediscovered all over again. You are truly what the preachers call, born again."

"I've been there," her silence had me continuing. "It gives one cause to wonder -was it fate or was it God? Either way, I'm glad it turned out as it did. I'm glad I was there beneath the bridge. I'm glad that you had the will to fight and survive. I really don't know how I would have handled it if you hadn't bobbed back up that final time. It scares me to think about it -for my own selfish reasons. To have been so close and then not to have been able to do anything about it?" I physically shook off the shutter.

It was my time to stare into the fire. Off, somewhere in the periphery of deep wood and consciousness, I heard the hooting of an owl. I guess we all, at one time or another, survey the places we have been and the experiences we have shared and choose one place better than all the rest to hideaway in. Mine was somewhere between water and woods. Somewhere between sandy beaches and salt spray and moss carpeted forest floors and pine resin. Add to each a sparkling fire beneath an open sky and I'm in Paradise. I thought of Adam, wakened by the Lord himself, rolling over to see the woman who had been created just for him.

"This morning when I rolled over," I spoke from my stupor, "it all seemed a dream to me. As if I had read it in a book or just seen it in a movie the night before. It still has that surrealistic aftertaste to it. Yet it wasn't a book or a movie. It was real!" I said with emphasis. "It was real."

"I don't know who this guy is or why he thought he had to throw you off a bridge, but you're safe now -safe as safe can be. I know my tent is not exactly the Ritz, but it's yours for as long as you want it. I've got enough provision to last us a week -if I can find some fresh water around here, even longer than that. For whatever it is worth, only a fool would throw a pearl of such great worth into the sea." I was rambling and making a fool of myself but I was old enough and sane enough not to care. "And if I may be so bold, may I give this little warning-go slow. Take your time thinking through whatever you are planning from here on out. I don't know the particulars of your story. It might be wise to run straight to the cops. Then again, it might not. I can't counsel you one way or the other with what little I know."

I looked at her hard but saw only the emptiness of confusion behind those big brown eyes. And the more I looked at them, the more I disliked the man who had caused that hurt. I continued chattering while she sat quietly with a blank look, focused on nothing.

"There have been a couple of times in my life when I had my table of clutter cleared off. Clutter of things you thought were so important to possess or to strive for. After twenty-five years of selfless dedication, I walked in one Monday morning only to be told not to let the door hit me in the ass on the way out. Twenty-five years. And all those people I worked with of whom I thought were my friends... Then only weeks later, after 35 years of marriage to be handed divorce papers. Those were two body punches, two moments in time when I realized that life is really only about you and those few family and friends who continue to stick by your side through thick and thin. Nothing else really, honestly matters. I imagine you might be weighing all those things as well. I just caution you —just take a deep breath. Thank the good Lord for what you do have."

"His name is Maximilian Rudolfo," she spoke without warning. "I met Max about a year after my husband left me for a younger woman. The first thing I remember noticing about him was his laughter. It was quick and unpretentious. Hearty. And it made me feel good." Briefly she paused in reflection, still trying to see good where I saw nothing but evil. "And he spoke with that lovely Latin accent. Ya, I was at a vulnerable time in my life as well. I think now maybe that was what drew him to me. I guess I'm in one of those epiphany moments that you referred to. Max is/was a predator on the prowl and I was wounded prey."

Her voice had a distant ring to it. She was speaking as if all alone; as if recounting the facts only to herself.

"He treated me nice. He treated me like a lady. He was gentle and mannerly. That's a rare breed anymore, especially up here. Whenever we parted company, he seemed to leave without ever having asked for anything. Everything, it seemed when I thought back on it, was always about me. That is a very powerful thing to a woman -to have a man treat her better than he treats himself."

I watched a shallow, shy smile lighten her face as she chuckled to herself while swirling the pine needles laying at her feet with a stick.

"After meeting him I began receiving anonymous gifts delivered to the office. The parcel post man and I got to know one another on a first name basis because they were so frequent. Sometimes it was four or five times week. It took me a long while to put the two of them together. Flowers. Candy from far away places. I suppose it was the postcards that gave it all away. Venezuela. Spain. London. Japan and Rio. Never signed. Always anonymous. Sometimes a smilie face but nothing more. And when he came back into town and our paths crossed, somehow I knew it was all from him. Something said in his smile. Something in the way his eyes examined me, looking for hints of gratitude yet never seeking it any obvious way. Never a word."

"That took place like three or four months after my divorce was finalized and Fred officially and finally left me for his spring chicken with long legs and big boobs. And it stayed that way for a good six months. All of winter. Then last spring on one of his visits, Max asked me if I would like to go out to dinner one night. But I was still living in denial at the time. I was still deluding myself that Fred would soon find out that giggles and young breasts were a poor substitute to home and family." Again she laughed, this time leaning forward to throw her stick into the fire. "Silly little woman. My world was worrying about bills and a independent teenage daughter. I said no to Max. But it didn't phase him the way it sometimes phases other men. He just quoted some piece of poetry in that wonderful masculine voice of his and made me laugh at his jokes until I was crying so hard that I had to beg him to stop. Then he just walked away. I don't think you men know how much a woman likes it when you leave the ball at the other end of the court. I didn't need somebody right then that needed someone else. When Max turned and walked away, it reminded me so much of my father, when my father knew that all I needed was a hug and not a lecture. I'd figure it out, I think he use to tell himself. So before Max reached the door, I changed my mind. Women do that you know!" A fresh though pained smile lit up her face as she sucked in her lower lip and nibbled on it a bit before continuing.

"We went out to eat for four nights in a row. All the girls at the office were laughing and teasing me about my Latin lover, making the most off colored remarks. If there had been a man within ear shot of them, I swear his ears would have burned off. But it was right after that the gifts stopped showing up at the office. Phoo," she said, blowing a lose strand of hair back off from her face. "It made me second guess all my assumptions. The girls didn't miss noticing it either. It was real strange and kind of kiltered my world a little bit. I began trying to put a face to all that generosity other than Max's. But I couldn't. Then they started appearing again, about two weeks later -at the house!"

"I think Max was gone a couple of months that time. He came back about midsummer when the mosquitoes where in all their glory. Max is not an outdoors person. He likes to pretend otherwise during early spring and late fall, but he never fooled me. Climate control is his poison."

"Any way, getting back to the gifts. Sometimes I would press him on something expensive like crystal or a piece of jewelry that would show up from time to time. Really expensive stuff. One day I had to drive into the city, so I took along a bracelet that had come the day before. I took it to a jeweler to see what its worth was. You could have knocked me over with a feather. 'Seventy-five thousand -easy', I was told. The jeweler continued begging me to sell it to him right up to the point of me walking out the door. I can remember walking back to the car, suddenly aware that I had a seventy-five thousand dollar bracelet in my purse. It scared the living hell out of me. Why on earth would a man give me a seventy-five thousand dollar bracelet? And where the hell was I going to wear it. It's not like we get dressed up a lot around here. You know what I'm saying?"

I just smiled, realizing that she had a story to tell, a weight to get off her mind. I was all ears.

"But he would just smile and wave at me with his eyebrows and take a sip of his drink and act like he knew nothing about it, teasing me about my shy admirer. Ya, right! A seventy-five thousand dollar admirer? Not within two hundred miles of here could I find anyone with that kind of money to throw around. But I suppose it was all part of his scheme -a snare for the unwary."

Normally that would have been my queue to contradict her. To say that he still loved her. To say that he meant everything he had said or had done but somewhere, somehow, something had gone bad wrong. To say that the scoundrel had fallen into desperate times and was not acting himself. Perhaps someone was blackmailing him and in a twisted perversion of insanity he had thought it was better to lose her than to reveal the trouble he was in. But men fallen into bad times do not throw the loves of their lives over a bridge in the middle of the night.

Dawn sighed, sinking back into her chair, reviewing her past in the confusion of her mind.

"Rudolfo Maximilian -just call me 'Max'- Clarke. He rolls into town about one week out of every six for the last two years. Supposedly working for some high tech company that installs and maintains big national telephone systems. Real smart. Multilingual. Multi-degreed. Long, jet black hair worn in that suave Latin way, all glossy and pulled back tight against the scalp -just the right length of pony tail hanging out back behind. Big heavy eyebrows and beautiful white teeth. I use to tease him he had a smile of a Realtor who had just sold a ten million dollar house."

"He drinks expensive brandy out expensive crystal. He knows the titles of every song you've ever heard. He quotes poetry. He can sing to you one moment in romantic French -the next in dream-creamy Spanish. Takes two days to cook his world famous poached salmon complete with this creamy, to-die-for, lemon sauce. To die for! Ha. Ha. The great Valentino who would wake me in the middle of the night and swoop me up in his arms and take me down to the beach and make love to me until we were both so exhausted that we just laid there until the morning sun sent us both scurrying back to the house half dressed." Again she laughed out loud to herself in a mocking tone. "Or not dressed at all. Oh, he knew every angle. And he knew how to play them all against the other. Always careful to do or say all the right things. Always careful not to admit to any of them. Always careful to have others think and do what he wanted them to do without ever actually dirtying his own hands. He is a regular Bill Clinton, I tell you. Always careful to cover all his tracks. I guess he thought he covered the last one when he threw me off the bridge. And to think I married the man!"

"You what?"

"Okay, so I'm not the best judge of character. But when somebody moves a million five into your bank account, you have a tendency to trust them."

"How much? A million and a half DOLLARS?"

"And that was before the wedding bells. After the wedding we lived the life of royalty. He took a sabbatical from work. There was nothing but snow up here so it wasn't like I was going to be missed. We spent the first two weeks of our honeymoon on a sailboat anchored in Great Harbor on Jost Van Dyke Island down in the British Virgin Islands. Sandy, sun warmed beaches. A waterfront full of little churches and a plethora of bars to drink from at night. When we wanted to be all a lone he would pull anchor and sail us over to White Bay just off Black Rock Point. There was a small camp ground on the eastern part of the bay but no one was there. We had the whole place all to ourselves. Clothing was for when a boat passed by or to pack inside your bag before swimming to shore. We made love at a drop of the hat. He was insatiable -and I loved it! I turned forty-eight while we were there. I never felt so healthy or so wanted, so completely desired in my entire life."

"I thought you said your last name was St. Claire." I said in a skeptical puzzled frown.

"St. Claire is my maiden name and after the divorce from Fred I reclaimed it and never want to let it go. It was no big deal to Max and I must admit, I was a bit taken back by his seemingly lack of concern. Obviously it only played further into his hand."

Kendel Dawn St. Claire then drew her feet up close and rested her chin on two lovely dark skinned knees. It was one of those decidedly feminine poses. She was neither pouting nor brooding. She was not morose. She just slid off into better times and brighter days. Quiet and thoughtful, she was like a sailboat caught in slack waters. A brief deadness of spirit had settled in on her. I wondered about things like how dark her skin got after two weeks of BVI sun, sand and surf -clothing optional. I wondered about her comment that Fred had left her for bigger breasts. I wondered where a million and a half dollars had come from and where it was headed next. I wondered.

"We flew out of Tortola to Puerto Rico and stayed one night in Rincón at the Horned Dorset Primavera chateaux, eating lobster by candle light and bathing in the luxury of marble. We slept in a four poster bed and even though the air conditioning was on, slept with the doors open to the verandah which overlooked the ocean. I thought I was an angel in heaven. We then flew to London the next day and then to Paris two days after that. Max spent an obscene amount of money there. I suppose that was the first time I really stopped to wonder who he was and how I was suppose to fit into his life."

"Before we left on our honeymoon, Max had contracted some people to put a deck on the house that ran all the way down to the boat house. I was concerned about the money but he drove me into town and had me notarized as the primary beneficiary over his stocks and his insurance policy. His stock portfolio left me gasping for air. I mean, I knew there were people in the world with money like that, but not to meet them and certainly not to marry them."

Kendel Dawn abruptly stopped speaking. Starring down three feet in front of her toes, captivated by a sudden revelation, she gasped for air. Talking through the hands which she held in front of her mouth, she shared her realization with me.

"The insurance policy. Sure." Looking back up at me, her eyes as wide and as deep as they had been the night before when she first caught sight of me. Continuing she said, "He took out an insurance policy right after we got back from our cruise. I didn't think anything of it. I mean, a man having that much money doesn't need an insurance policy. Not really. I didn't think anything of it. He insured himself for ten million and me for half that."

Crazy like a fox, I thought. Not greedy. Just shrewd. An insurance company wouldn't spend much time investigating a claim which amounted to less than the beneficiaries checking account balance.

"Tell me something -if I'm permitted to ask?" I asked.

Her two big brown quizzical eyes blinked twice. "Sure."

"Do you own the house outright?" I watched as Dawn once again drew her hands to her mouth and drew another whistling breath of sudden awareness. I had paid off my own house a dozen years earlier only to see it transfer hands. It seemed our story lines were different in detail but not in degree.

"He paid off my mortgage. I mean it wasn't a mortgage, just a loan I had taken out using the house as collateral. He did that right after paying for the deck and paying for the insurance policy." As if divining my next question, "He's got the deed. Oh my god. It's in the safe deposit box and I gave him the second key. He's got everything. Audrey moved out after graduation. And here I thought he was happy because he had me all alone to himself. Just me and Max alone in that big house. What a fool I've been. We never even thought about Audrey if something were to happen to me."

Dawn sunk back into the chair. In a way, she had died in those cold, dark waters. She was only now realizing that the world which Kendel Dawn St. Claire had so carefully constructed and fortified had been, in the briefest of moments, been stolen away from her as good old, Latin lover Max threw her over into the drink beneath Witch Candle Bay.

"Bastard! Just wait. Just wait till I show up at the front door with the police. Boy, I want a picture of that!"

"Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Just a minute thar missy. Stop and think a while. You got hood winked pretty good. And the argument I heard up on top of that bridge last night wasn't about whether or not to throw you off from it. No. . .now that I think of it -he was arguing about the timing of it -not about you just up and disappearing! Don't you understand? This way he doesn't get any of that insurance money. He won't see a nickel of it until the body is recovered or some fool coroner issues a death notice. He can't even up and sell the house without drawing attention to himself. And he doesn't want that now does he? No. The stupid lout has gone and painted himself in a corner. And he knew it. Not unless he can con that death notice. I'm sure he woke up this morning thinking twice about having you suddenly up and disappearing. He can't very well tell them to go drag Witch Candle Bay without implementing himself. He'll have to wait ten years before insurance company signs off on that policy. Then everything is up for grabs. But I don't see that. He has to somehow have you show up dead. After a time he will claim grief, sell everything and move away, freeing himself to do it all again. And he'll have everyone saying, 'Poor grieving widower'." Once again I was drawn to her eyes. "He's done this before."