Flesh and bones

35

I raced north on U.S. 1 from Islamorada. She would have been headed south from Miami. The farm in Homestead was closer to her.

I prayed I wasn't too late.

I was doing eighty, occasionally ninety, passing RVs on the two-lane road, staying in the passing lane where the road widened every few miles. Flying past the shell shops, convenience stores, and telephone poles topped with osprey nests. The Olds 442 had stiff springs and a rear stabilizer bar, a 400-cubic-inch V8 throwing off 350 horsepower, and shitty brakes for a muscle car. It didn't matter. I wasn't going to slow down until I got there.

The top was down, and the wind tore at my face, bringing tears to my eyes. At least I told myself it was the wind.

I stayed on the highway, ignoring the Card Sound bridge, and slid onto a gravel road just before the turnpike entrance south of Homestead. The engine was roaring, the tires kicking up a tornado of dust as I pulled into Bernhardt Farms just after seven o'clock.

As soon as the engine died, I heard the sweeping whoosh of the irrigation towers in the field behind the farmhouse. But no other sound. The house was dark. A Land Rover and two Jeep

Wranglers were parked in the driveway. So was Chrissy's Mustang convertible, the hood still warm.

The front door of the house was cracked open, and I headed inside. Down a darkened corridor, past the kitchen, through the living room, down another corridor. A light shone through an open doorway from a room at the rear of the house, the side facing the mango fields. I walked toward the light and I heard her voice.

"… going to kill you," Chrissy Bernhardt said.

A man's gravelly laugh. "Don't think so."

I walked through the open door. Same varnished pine walls. Same boar's head on one wall, a rack of antlers on another. The jalousie windows were open; the paddle fan whirred overhead. Chrissy stood to one side, ten feet from me, another ten feet from Guy Bernhardt, who sat on a leather chair.

She was holding the Beretta 950 in a shaky hand. Her hair was a mess of tangles, her dress wrinkled, and her eyes puffy. She was the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen.

Guy Bernhardt was holding a bourbon in one hand, a 12-gauge shotgun cradled across his knee with the other. The barrel was pointed at Chrissy's midsection.

"Glad you're here, Lassiter," he said, without taking his eyes off his half sister.

"I want both of you to put down your guns," I said. "You first, Guy."

He laughed again. "Me first? With this homicidal maniac pointing a gun at me? I don't care if you did get her off. She shot Pop, tried to kill him, even if someone else finished the job."

"You're going to take the fall for that," I said.

"No way, Lassiter. I had nothing to do with it. How was I to know crazy old Larry Schein was a killer? Twice, in fact."

"Bullshit! You put him up to it, first with Chrissy, then you told him to get his ass to the hospital and finish the job."

"Prove it! You think I'll crack like that fruity shrink?"

"I remember everything now, Guy," Chrissy said. "Every detail, the way your voice sounded, the smell of your breath, the pain, the nightmares. Over and over again." She sobbed. "I'm going to kill you."

"No, Chrissy!" I shouted, taking a step toward her.

"Stay back, Jake!" She wheeled the gun toward me.

I stopped, and she swung the gun back toward Guy.

"As I recall," Guy said, "Sis is not a very good shot. And that peashooter holds what, twenty-two shorts? Whadaya think, Lassiter, should I let her get off the first one like the good guy in a western?"

"You're not a good guy. You're a bucket of slime."

"Or should I just splatter her guts on the wall? I've got a right to defend myself, and I've got my witness. This deranged woman shows up at my house, waving a gun, threatening to kill me. I know her propensity for violence. What's a man to do?"

"You kill her, you'd better kill me, too," I said.

His eyes flicked toward me. "Ah, chivalry. Chrissy, here's a man who didn't run out on you. That's a first, isn't it? You see, Lassiter, Sis has trouble holding on to men. Freaks out sooner or later, and they take off. Pop always thought she was high strung. But we know the truth, don't we Sis? You're wacko."

"You ruined my life," she said, eyes filling with tears.

"You had every break, so don't blame me," he said bitterly.

"I don't get it, Bernhardt," I said. "Why'd you set her up? Hadn't you done enough to her?"

"Fuck you! You don't know how it was. You don't know how Pop spoiled her. Nothing was too good for little Chrissy. And her mother was even worse. I was a barnyard animal to Missus hoity-toity Emily Castleberry Bernhardt. While she was having high tea, I was up to my ass in manure. But Pop's the one I couldn't forgive. His only son, his own blood, and he treated the migrant workers better than me. My hands would bleed from cutting cane, while darling Sis was on the beach with her rich friends, making fun of me."

"I never made fun of you. Never."

"Shut up! Pop tried to make it up to me later. Brought me into the business. What else was he going to do with it? But I always remembered. Every insult. Every abuse. And I'd already made Chrissy pay, hadn't I, Sis?"

"Why did you kill him?" Chrissy cried. "You would have gotten the money anyway."

"Pop couldn't see the future with his bifocals. I gave him the facts. The well fields are running dry, and there's no other answer but to desalinate. I'm building the biggest reverse-osmosis plant in the country. Hell, with advanced membrane technology, I can turn brackish water into drinking water cheaper than a conventional system, and I can sell it for whatever I want. If you're dying of thirst, Lassiter, how much will you pay for a glass of water?"

"That's why you're dumping all the water into the bay," I said. "You're trying to dry up the South Dade wells."

"Supply and demand, Lassiter."

"Daddy never would have gone along with it," Chrissy said.

Guy barked a laugh. "You're right. The damn fool wouldn't. Didn't think it was right to get rich selling water. Be like some Arab sheik, he said, only worse, selling water to his fellowman. Quoted Isaiah to me: 'Every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye and eat.' That old hypocrite. I told him I knew my Bible, too. What about Proverbs? 'Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.' "

Still pointing the shotgun at Chrissy, he sipped at his bourbon and said, "I've had my secret bread, haven't I, Sis? Now it's time for stolen waters. Hell, it's all free, seven hundred feet down. All the water you want. And I can turn it into dollars. Hundreds of millions of dollars."

"What about the brine?" I asked. "What do you do with millions of pounds of salt laced with mercury, arsenic, and heavy-metal ions?"

"I'll be a son of a bitch," Guy said. "You've been doing your homework. We could use deep well injection, but it's expensive as hell. We could dump it in the ocean, but the EPA would be all over us. Or we could buy every politician in Tallahassee and just dump the stuff."

"Where?"

"Limestone quarries, swamps, anywhere."

"That's crazy. It would pollute the groundwater."

"So then they'd need us pulling up water from the Floridan Aquifer even more than before, wouldn't they? A nice symmetry there, don't you think?"

"You're out of your mind," I said. "You'll never get away with it."

"Oh, we'll make some show of lining the dumps, do some solar evaporation, play around with some new techniques to keep the boys at DERM happy. But if I were you, I wouldn't want to drink any well water in the county once we get started."

"You're nothing like Daddy," Chrissy said. "He was a good man." Shakily she raised the gun, then steadied it with both hands.

Guy's drink crashed to the floor and he raised the shotgun until it was pointed at Chrissy's head. "You're a witness, Lassiter. She's gonna shoot me!"

"No!" I shouted.

Neither said a word.

Total silence except for the whir of the paddle fan and the whoosh of the irrigation towers in the fields.

Chrissy's hand shook.

A sly grin spread across Guy's face. "Sis, you may be crazy, but you're still the best piece of ass I ever had. Tight and juicy."

"You bastard!" she cried.

The gun danced in her hand as she sobbed.

The rest took just a few seconds.

Guy Bernhardt steadied the shotgun with both hands.

I watched as his finger tightened on the trigger.

I took two steps and dived for him. Startled, he swung the gun in my direction.

The first explosion was soft, a car backfiring behind me.

The second explosion was a mountaintop exploding with volcanic force.

I ended up on the floor, the discharged shotgun in my hands, a hole the size of a cantaloupe in the knotty pine ceiling, I looked up at Guy. His eyes were open. Dead between them was a dime-sized black hole. Behind us, Chrissy was saying something, but my ears were ringing. I turned in time to see her eyes roll back and her knees buckle. I caught her just before she hit the floor.