Seduced

TWO

We had crossed the Sematee county line and were into citrus-and-cattle country when, from a dirt road, a sheriff’s vehicle, green on white, appeared in the rearview mirror, and came up fast, until it was a car length behind.

“Shit,” I said, which is a profanity I often think, but seldom say aloud.

“I’ll be go to hell,” Reggie agreed. “God sure is testing us on this dark day. You’re going too slow, Miz Hannah, I done told you. Cops ain’t never seen the governor’s car when it weren’t speeding. Ain’t that true, Governor?”

The little man had been doing that for thirty miles, speaking to his dead employer, often in a confidential way not meant for my ears.

“I’m going almost sixty as it is.”

“That’s what I’m saying! Honey, mash that pedal like you got nothing to fear or the deputy’s gonna know something ain’t right.”

“This is nuts,” I replied, but sped up a bit anyway.

I was driving because I had insisted on driving. The alternative was to sit in the back with the late Harney Chatham, who was belted into a reclining seat that didn’t recline far enough. Our hope was, if his John Wayne Stetson stayed put, it would appear as if the big man were dozing, except his lifeless neck shifted with every turn in the road. So Reggie had to use a hand and his shoulder to maintain the desired effect. Thank god, the windows were tinted.

“Faster,” he said, “and slouch yourself down a bit. You gotta drive faster, Miz Hannah, and sit way shorter, more relaxed, sort of let your top hand drape-know what I’m saying?-if that cop is to believe you’re me. You’re one tall drink of water, if you don’t mind a compliment. It ain’t too late to put on my driver’s cap.”

That wasn’t going to happen.

Never had I ridden in a vehicle so large, so powerful and ghostly quiet. When the digital speedometer hit 70, I touched cruise control and checked the mirror. The squad car was still there, close enough I could see the deputy’s silver sunglasses and bulldog jaw.

I heard Reggie spin around in the backseat. “That’s good. He ain’t talking on his microphone. They always do that before they use the siren. Oh yeah… we got nothing to worry about.”

Nothing to worry about! I almost laughed. “Do you recognize the deputy? You’d better, because I went off and left my purse and my driver’s license is in that purse. If he stops us, don’t say a word. I’ll do all the talking-unless you know him. Do you know him?” Jabbering like a fool is something else I seldom do.

“Miz Hannah, a driver’s license ain’t the first thing he’s gonna ask about if he sees a dead body back here. So we ain’t gonna stop even if he tries. Those toggles next to the radio? We got emergency lights installed front and back on this here Lincoln. We’ll drive straight to the hospital and tell them the governor’s sick, maybe had a heart attack. Only part we’ll have to change is, we’ll say you was sittin’ back here when it happened.”

Speaking to his former employer, he added, “It’ll sound better if you died in the arms of a beautiful young woman instead of back here alone, with a man who’s your own chauffeur. That’d look bad. Don’t you think that’d look bad?”

“I think I’m about to fire you both as clients,” I snapped, “but the hospital’s not a bad idea.” I thought for a moment. “Are you sure the deputies around here all know this car?”

“There ain’t but one black stretch Town Car in all Sematee County,” he replied, then spoke to Mr. Chatham. “I thought you said she was Florida-born, Governor? That there’s a silly question, her not knowing your car.”

I straightened the rearview mirror to make eye contact with the deputy and offered a casual wave. I didn’t expect much, but that small gesture was enough. The man lifted his hand in response, then suddenly dropped back, did a U-turn, and sped off in the opposite direction.

“Didn’t we tell her?” Reggie smiled. “She’s got nothing to worry about, riding with us big dogs.” This was punctuated with a child-like cackle. Tee-hee-hee.

It would have been wrong to say what I was thinking to a man his age, so I drove in silence, knuckles white on the wheel. Good manners began to fail me, however, when I slowed to turn into the double-winged security gate at the Chatham estate. It was a wall of ornate wrought iron attached to miles of fenced pasture where horses grazed. In the far distance, a barn was visible beneath domes of cypress and oaks.

“Uh-oh,” Reggie said.

“Now what?”

“I forgot. Today’s Miz Chatham’s day off from the ranch. Don’t slow down-keep going.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Don’t even look. Go on, now, drive right on past.”

“You wanted his wife to be here?”

“I was counting on it. Mash that pedal.”

“Reggie,” I said, “I’m beginning to hope you’re in shock instead of just slap-flat dumb and crazy. I’ve about had it with you.”

“Honey, listen. That woman never leaves the third floor, or her office in the barn, normally. But Fridays is when the governor’s daughters and grandkids come to ride and play around the ranch. See there”-he pointed, and I saw a line of trail horses, children aboard-“and there’s a bunch more somewhere, I guarantee, clomping around in the house, makin’ a mess, getting peanut butter all over her upholstery. Lonnie Chatham purely hates them kids, but they love me and the governor like Santa Claus. See now why we can’t stop?”

I hit the accelerator to jettison anger and held my tongue. A billboard that read Chatham Lincoln-Mercury-Ford flashed by before I slowed the limo to 60 and touched cruise control. “I’m going to park within a few blocks of the hospital and take a cab home, Reggie. After that, you’re on your own.”

“Please don’t, Miz Hannah. I got an even better idea now.”

“I bet.”

“At least hear me out. I should’a thought of this first.”

“My mind’s made up,” I said without looking around, or realizing I had made this claim before.

“You didn’t work for this man for goin’ on forty years. A man like the governor deserves to die in a respectable way.”

“That’s something you should take up with God, not me,” I countered.

“Would love to do that, lord knows I would. What I’m saying is, the governor should die with the things he loves best around him-not that he didn’t love your mama. He purely did. That’s why we can’t let him be hauled off on a gurney from a hospital parking lot. Most of the people who work there are too young to remember who he is or all he did for the folks in this county. Remember who ponied up the money for that museum near your mama’s home?”

This was true. Mr. Chatham had been generous when it came to helping fishermen in the area, and many illegal aliens as well, although some might argue that giving away cash earned by smuggling drugs could also be regarded as hush money.

I gripped the wheel tighter to keep myself from weakening. “Please leave Loretta out of this,” I said. “Go ahead. What’s your idea?”

“Oh, you’re gonna like it, ’cause this is a good one. Not ten minutes from here is the governor’s quail camp-Salt Creek Gun Club, way back in one of his citrus groves, a quarter mile on the Peace River. You’ve never seen a more beautiful spot.”

“I can’t believe this,” I muttered.

“Oh, you will when we get there. There’s a nice log cabin with shelves full of books, and a kennel for the shorthair pointers he used to run. They all dead now, too”-the little man’s voice cracked-“ain’t they, old friend? And all buried right there. Duke, and Buddy Rough, and ol’ Elvis. I sure do miss that Elvis. He was some kind’a dog, weren’t he, Harney?”

Harney was Mr. Chatham’s given name. I’d never heard Reggie speak to his boss in such an informal, affectionate way. Listing the dogs got to me, too. I was near tears.

“Yep, the gun club, that’s the place for you. It’s gonna get chilly tonight, so I’ll put you in the recliner and build a fire to keep you and them old dogs warm. Then later, when it’s safe, I’ll come back and find you already dead. Ain’t that smart? Make it all official-like.”

That broke the spell-almost. I’m no fool, but the little man wasn’t acting. The depth of his remorse bespoke the transience of life, and of love and loyalty. I could hardly trust myself to speak. “Reggie, I’m not going to be seen doing what you’re asking me to do. What about a caretaker? There has to be someone looking after the place. Someone who might, you know… come snooping around and offer to help with the heavy lifting?”

“Nope, just me. I got me a little cottage not far from there. Oh… and the new gentleman who manages the groves, Kermit Bigalow. He’s there sometimes during the week but never on weekends, and never this late. Miz Hannah, long as I live, I’ll never ask for another favor.”

It was a little after five. It would be dark in an hour.

I said, “Are you absolutely sure there’s no chance anyone will see us?”

“There’s only one road in, and the same road out. They’d have to come on horseback, once we lock the gate behind us.”

“There’re riding trails? You don’t mean public riding trails. If that’s the case-”

“They’re private, hardly ever used. They’s from back in the quail-hunting days. You got nothing to worry your head about. I promise.”

This time, I did laugh, a sarcastic chuckle. How many times had the chauffeur said that? All my instincts told me to drive to the nearest hospital and deal with the situation honestly. Yet I heard myself respond, “How far did you say the camp is?”

“Take the next right, that’s Bronco Road. Honey”-Reggie’s boyish cackle again-“we’re almost there already.”

Tee-hee-hee.

Parked outside a smaller wrought-iron gate, crested with the Triple C brand-Chatham Cattle & Citrus-the chauffeur hopped out, saying, “See how the chain’s locked? No one here but us,” then leaned into the backseat. “Relax yourself, Governor. I won’t be long.”

I drove through, waited until the gate was locked and Reggie was in the backseat again. “You said the cabin was set way back. How far?”

I was concerned because the road we’d been on, State Route 74, hadn’t been overly busy, but there was a steady flow of semis, many of them open-bedded trucks piled high with oranges.

“No, ma’am, we still got a ways to go.”

I hit the gas.

An asphalt lane arrowed through wide-open pasture that reminded me of photos of Africa. Humpbacked cattle with horns grazed in isolated islands of shade created by oaks with canopies the size of rain clouds. White ibis, on stilt legs, perched atop the dozing animals and ambushed flies, while one massive Brangus bull stood guard next to a windmill that pumped water.

“That’s Jessie James,” Reggie said. “He’s famous in these parts. Weighs most of a ton, and he’s serviced every kind’a cow there is. Rumor is, he has a taste for Thoroughbred horses, too. Even a truck or two, if they don’t move quick enough. No sir, you don’t want to turn your back on Mr. Jessie James.”

“Is that the sort of crude story you share with all women visitors?” I asked. I didn’t mean it to come out as sharp as it did.

“Sorry, dear. Truth is, ma’am, I feel like laughing and crying all at the same time. Guess my emotions got the best of my manners.”

Through another gate, which was open, a mile of orange trees crowded in close. There was row after row, their odor fragrant, with the window down, yet they were a sad sight to behold. The disease, citrus greening, had curled and severed the leaves like a killer storm. The fruit, which should have been ripe on the branches, lay withered and bitter on the ground.

“Are all Mr. Chatham’s groves like this? He should be harvesting now.”

“That ain’t a happy topic,” Reggie responded.

“He lost the entire crop?”

“You’d have to ask Mr. Bigalow that question.”

“Our trees have it, too. Most of them anyway.” As I said it, I reminded myself of Marion Ford’s advice to check the entire orchard.

On both sides of the road, the citrus grove ended as abruptly as a cliff. There was a third gate, also locked, a log mantel above with a large lacquered sign:

Salt Creek Gun Club

Members Only

“We didn’t really sell memberships,” Reggie said, after opening the gate. “It was built more for socializing when the governor was running for election. ‘Shakin’ hands is good,’ he’d say, ‘but three fingers of scotch is better.’ You’d be surprised, Miz Hannah, at some of the famous names been here. Two U.S. presidents, I can think of, and Walt Disney hisself. Remember what you said about Mr. Disney?” (Reggie was speaking to his boss, I realized.) “You said, ‘That there man is up to something.’ He ain’t laid a card on the table, but you knew, yes you did. This was back when the Disney folks was buying up land under different names all around Orlando but keepin’ it secret. Only man in this state wasn’t surprised is sitting right here next to me.”

Not since the sheriff’s car had I risked a look in the mirror but did now: two old friends huddled shoulder to shoulder, one tiny and frail, the other big, with a lolling, chalk-white face, the Stetson no longer a necessary part of the charade.

A strange feeling came over me. I hadn’t known Mr. Chatham well, and didn’t approve of his affair with my mother, which I’d told him to his face. Yet the man had been kind to me. He’d treated me with respect-as an equal, in fact, which was rare for men of his age, or men of wealth and power no matter their age.

Even rarer, he had entrusted me with the truth regarding the affair with my mother, and also about his early drug-smuggling years. The man had owned three shrimp boats and kept them busy running between what he called Pay Day Road, which was south of Sarasota, to the Yucatán, and sometimes Panama. Rather than spend the bundles of cash, Chatham had had the foresight to live poor during that period and take his time converting the cash into silver and gold, which he’d hidden away. A small part of the profit was filtered into buying a car dealership, the first of several in Sematee County. The cattle ranch and citrus groves came later, as did his two-term lieutenant governorship.

His affair with Loretta had continued throughout those decades and survived Chatham’s two wives, three children, many grandchildren. It had also weathered at least one murder, several funerals, a brain aneurysm and two surgeries, after which the man, without me knowing, had privately, and sometimes anonymously, tended to my mother’s every need.

Once again, I had to wonder, Why had they never married?

I wasn’t Mr. Chatham’s daughter, as I knew for certain, but my biological father had abandoned us early on. As a child, this was a painful mystery until I had aged enough to understand that Loretta, even before her stroke, was wildly unpredictable and near impossible to live with. Yet, the famous man in the limousine’s mirror had, in his way, been devoted to her all these years.

Why?

I had never understood, nor had I summoned the ill manners to ask the man. Now the opportunity was gone.

Asphalt melted into a winding shell drive edged by oaks and shady moss. A wooden bridge clattered beneath our tires; cattails battled palmettos on both sides of the road, flattening into pine forest acreage. Beyond the rise of an archaic sand dune, a section of river and a two-story cabin appeared, each log layered by white caulking, beneath a pitched tin roof that flared to shade a porch with a view of the river. Through the trees were outbuildings, a barn and a corrugated-steel maintenance shed, with farm machinery, much of it rusty, sitting out beneath a warm winter sky. In a triple carport floored with sand was a beat-up truck that, according to Reggie, Mr. Chatham sometimes used to shuttle back and forth to his home.

It would be a way of explaining how the great man had arrived here alone.

“Don’t you think?” the aging chauffeur asked softly.

I wasn’t sure he was speaking to me, but replied, “About what?”

“Such a pretty ol’ Florida sort of place,” he said, “the way Florida used to be. Roasted many a hog in that fire pit yonder, and quail was thick along the river; they’d flush into the palmettos. Our pointers had them a time dealing with snakes. See that stretch of wire grass and river oats? That was a good place, too.”

This made little sense. “Should I park near the back porch or the front?”

He answered. “Either one, but pull up close. I’ll fetch a handcart. I ain’t as stout as I used to be.”

Then he got back to his original question, which was, “Miz Hannah… don’t you think this is where you’d want to die?”