Black River

THIRTY-FOUR

Kim Davis was washing a beer mug behind the bar when Dave Collins and Nick Cronus walked in the Tiki Bar. Kim dried her hands and said, “No Sean and no Miss Max. What gives?”

Nick grinned. “Max knows you serve hushpuppies on Wednesday. She stays clear of the Tiki Bar on Wednesdays.”

Kim smiled as Dave nodded and said, “I think Sean’s at his river cabin doing whatever he does in pure solitude.”

“You guys want to sit at the bar or take your favorite table next to the window?”

Dave grinned. “Nick likes the table because it gives him a view of the crosswalk to the beach and the bevy of bikini-clad ladies who park their cars in the lot and walk over to the seashore.”

“Somebody has to keep tabs on tourism.” Nick’s dark eyes danced.

Dave said, “Nick, I need to get a battery charger out of my car. Why don’t you claim the tourism table before the lunch crowd arrives. I’ll take the grouper sandwich and have the coleslaw rather than hushpuppies. In Max’s honor, of course.”

Nick started toward the table. Kim dried her hands on a towel and said, “Nicky, I’m taking a short break. I need to talk to Dave.”

He grinned. “You can always talk to me.”

She smiled and followed Dave out the breezeway into the parking lot, the screeching of seagulls over the marina, a charter boat diesel cranking as a first mate cast lines across the transom.

Dave turned back to Kim and said, “I hope I left my tablet charger in the car. Is everything okay, Kim?”

“No, it’s not okay. I’m not sure what the word okay is supposed to mean anymore. I’ve been following the news and that viral video. What if the man who died was murdered on the movie set? I told Sean that I may have met the guy the day I spent in casting, waiting to audition. I just saw the man’s distraught wife — now his widow, in that news conference on TV. She didn’t pull any punches. She believes her husband was murdered for the diamond. And, all this stuff about a Civil War agreement between the South and England, it’s like a very dark door opened after Sean began hunting for the painting.”

“To further the coincidence, it was the same painting you’d seen months ago in that antique store. A painting bought by the couple we’re talking about, and the husband is now dead. I believed Sean sensed it wasn’t an accident from the onset.”

“I wish that old man had never walked into the restaurant. I worry about Sean.”

“I know you do, Kimberly.”

“He’s always been somewhat mysterious. He won’t discuss the war or most of the things he saw as a homicide detective. But now, especially after he learned about his family — what happened to his mother, his insane brother, and the fact he has a niece he never knew about until recently, it’s somehow changed Sean.”

“Perhaps it’s made him a little more introspective, as it would anyone. He still maintains a sense of humor, but I’ve seen him when he’s had a dark day or two. He usually confines himself to the solitude of his river cabin when that cloud moves over him. Perhaps it’s PTSD. He won’t discuss it.” Dave opened the trunk to his car, searched, and lifted out a small black battery charger. “Eureka! Now I can finish the book I was reading.” A breeze blew through the fronds of the royal palm trees. Dave cut his eyes to Kim and said, “You really care deeply about him, don’t you?”

“Yes. Is it that obvious?”

“May I ask…do you love him?”

She pushed a strand of dark hair behind one ear and smiled. “You get to the point, don’t you? I’ve tried so hard not to, but Sean’s the kind of man who is easy for a woman to love, even as mysterious and unknowable as he can be, he gives to others unconditionally. And he never asks for anything in return. His heart is just as attractive as his face. Because of a trait like that, it sometimes opens the door to bad characteristics in others. When Sean’s helping someone, it’s usually because someone or some thing in society is wronging that person. I think the love he had for his deceased wife was buried with her.”

Dave inhaled deeply and watched three white pelicans sail over the marina. “I believe that being loved by someone can help you gain strength, Kim. But courage is gained by loving others. I think this is how Sean shows it now. Maybe he always did, I don’t know. But I do know that the sheer courage Sean pulls from somewhere, often facing down threats to his own safety, may be the kind of sacrifice that is the ultimate demonstration of love.”

“Sean’s a knight in tarnished armor. Could be it’s the flaws visible beneath the armor that adds to his charm.”

“Elizabethan nobility and chivalry at its finest.” Dave hugged Kim and asked, “Have you told him how you feel?”

“I’ve tried to show him. Please don’t say anything. I shouldn’t have told you.”

“Kim…that shall remain between you and Sean. However, in all my career in government service, I’ve never met anyone quite like him. You’re right, he won’t say much about his time in the Middle East. I’ve managed to find out that he was captured. The enemy tried to break him, to brainwash him. Somehow, against great odds, he persevered and then he escaped. What he had to do to survive, to get out alive, is probably very far beyond the breaking point for most of us. But Sean isn’t like most of us. I’ve thought about it often. He’s intellectually fearless. That formidable courage we talked about is somehow imparted in his DNA and rises to a boil when he’s in the ring for someone he’s trying to help. And I think it’s because of his instinctive acuity of right and wrong — or good and evil. When you couple that with his inherent grasp of human nature, of things in or out of the natural order…that’s his gift…and sometimes a bad curse.”

“There’s something else I haven’t told him, but I feel the need to tell someone. You’re like the cool uncle to me. You know that my dad died when I was sixteen.”

“I remember you telling me that.”

“You mentioned Sean might have PTSD. I think I might too. It started a few weeks after those men broke into my house. The things they did…and said…what they did to my dog.” She glanced at boats in the marina and then looked up at Dave. “They were seconds away from holding my hand over the gas burner on my stove. And then Sean surprised them. I have bad dreams that won’t go away. I’m not sleeping well. Sometimes now I think I’m being followed, especially when I leave work. It happened before the mysterious rose showed up in my mailbox, and happens when I least expect it. A sort of panic. Anxiety.” She hugged her upper arms.

“It’s completely understandable and justified. And what you’re doing now is the way to treat those mental wounds. Talk about it. Don’t swallow it back inside your heart. It’s a cancer of the soul that’s vented by the therapy of honest communications.”

“Does it cause hallucinations?”

“You mean nightmares?”

“No. In broad daylight. I think someone’s following me. But I’m not certain. It’s like a movement you catch out of the corner of your eye. When you look back, nothing’s there.”

“You said you’re having a difficult time sleeping. Sleep deprivation can cause what you’re experiencing.”

“I want to buy a gun, Dave. And I want to do it today.”