wall-to-banister rug. No pack of matches with a bar name, no cigarette with lipstick, no feather, no boot mark, no nothing.
Ms. Maple was standing a few steps down the staircase, her face level with this landing, watching me intently.
It occurred to me this was something me and Tapes didn’t need to get involved in badly. We were outsiders and most of these people were local; that’s a no-win situation.
But Henry B., she’d called him.
I’d worked a while in Tallahassee and never thought much about the governor. I’d disagreed with much of his politics—hell, I disagree with most politicians’ politics. Politicians are people we pay who hire other people to spend our money.
But he’d sat right there in the crowded cab of my GT and sweated from running and talked about the weather. Everybody talks about the weather.
3: MONDAY, 7:30 A.M.
Everybody watched me descend the stairs. I felt like a cockroach on a bald man’s head.
Tapes, of course, was head and shoulders above the crowd. His eyes showed something which translated into a “Be careful” warning.
John Dellum Ionata, the lieutenant governor and soon-to-be head man, fixed me with his grizzled visage and tracked me all the way down. He wore khaki shorts and a khaki safari shirt with shoulder straps.
Near the bottom, I said self-consciously, “Not much up there.” I thought again of Henry Beauchamps Gonzáles, looked at John Dellum Ionata, and kind of liked the late governor’s penchant for three-named people.
Ms. Maple was standing in front of Ionata. “Very suspicious, John. That man is an itinerant, and here for no reason. He won’t give his name.” She was looking accusingly at me.
“There’s an old saying,” I told her, “about the more people I meet, the more I like my dog. And I don’t have a dog.”
She stared a challenge at me.
“He gave his name to me,” said Silas Smith, fingering a pockmark on his neck. “It’s Billy Birthday.”
One of the guys in the camo hunting fatigues snorted loudly and elbowed his buddy. “Get that, Orlo? Billy Birthday.” All three hunters, or whatever they were, laughed.
Nobody else did.
Mary Lynn, the recent divorcee who’d intrigued me last night, watched me with one blue eye and one brown eye, compelling me to wish I could put some fire in those same eyes. I’m a grown man, but I sure dream like a boy. Once last night, I’d got close to her; her auburn hair smelled faintly of gardenias. Besides, I could never resist a pony tail. And, what the hell, Rebecca was in Tallahassee and we’d parted ways. Mary Lynn had stopped hiccupping. She’d also hiccupped last night during her speech, but it was in a corner of the lounge and I couldn’t hear her words.
“Your honor,” said the big one in camo known as Orlo, “them two strangers ain’t from around here. The old lady says they coulda done it.” His voice was low and caused me the proverbial chill. “They was the last one to see him.” Orlo was as large as Trooper and had linebacker eyes.
Why did Orlo want to pin a murder on me and Tapes?
The pregnant woman burped, turned aside, and vomited against a plastic potted fern. Served it right.
Mary Lynn hurried to her side. “This is no place for you. The shock could—”
“The shock did,” said the woman who looked like she was gonna explode from the middle. I guess dead bodies lying around and people conversing over them would make you sick if you were about to have a baby.
John Dellum Ionata took charge. “Mary Lynn, get her to her room and see that she’s comfortable. You help, too, Angie.” He looked at the old lady and she nodded. He was obviously trying to defuse the situation.
The geek was still standing alongside the staircase whimpering.
Ionata fixed Orlo and his two cronies with a command glare. “Everybody is innocent until proven guilty.”
Hell, I could’ve said that.
The three simply watched him, one drooling a bit from the corner of his mouth. I wondered if he wasn’t one of those guys you read about who was a result of his mother and father being brother and sister. But, for once, I kept my mouth shut. We didn’t need any more trouble.
Ionata turned to Trooper. “Sober up. Coffee and a cold shower.”
A great gust of wind shook the whole building and most likely did damage to one or more of the upper stories of the wings. Everybody turned their gaze upward for a moment.
Not me. I watched Mary Lynn leading the pregnant woman off. Mary Lynn had a fascinating walk, too.
Angie Maple was walking hesitantly; probably afraid she’d miss something.
The lieutenant governor ripped his gaze downward. He reminded me a little of Poppa Smurf, what with his gray beard and piercing eyes and all. His voice wasn’t Smurf-like, though, it was pure Florida cracker.
“Silas,” he said, “get a camera and—”
“I don’t have one, sir—”
“I do,” said Ms. Maple and hurried off.
Back then cell phones didn’t have cameras.
“Then,” said Ionata to the Inn’s manager, “go find a doctor or a nurse or a midwife.”
“It’s too dangerous out in the storm,” I said, not caring about Silas Smith, but knowing that to be a fact.
“Are you a weatherman?” asked Ionata softly.
“No, sir, but I was out there a little while ago and it’s gotten worse,” I said, showing a bit of testiness in my voice. Ionata angered me with the weatherman comment.
He continued to stare at me. He was probably thinking I had reason for no one to leave the Inn. “Are you willing to attend to a birth?” His voice was warning me,
“If I have to,” I said, edgy at the prospect.
“You a doctor?” said Ionata.
Orlo snorted and his two fellows followed suit.
I shook my head. “No, sir, but I’ve delivered a baby.”
“Where?” demanded Angie Maple returning with a 35mm camera, flash and all.
“In Colorado, if you must know. An emergency situation like this. In the bed of a pickup under a tarp. This’ll be a snap.” I snapped my fingers. It wasn’t any of their business, but I’d let the them-against-us crowd get to me.
Ionata addressed everybody, several of whom were now sitting in overstuffed chairs and whom I hadn’t had a chance to catalog yet. “If anyone here knows anything about childbirth, or knows anyone else here at the Gaspar Inn who does, please come forward.”
I
