The Butterfly Forest

SIXTY-THREE

When I pulled my Jeep into the Ponce Marina lot, there was only one customer left at the Tiki Bar. He was a charter boat captain I recognized. He wore a Gone Fishin’ hat, permanently stained from perspiration and faded in color. He sat at the bar in shorts, flip-flops, nursing a sweating bottle of Bud and watching Kim Davis wash and rinse beer mugs while a sit-com flickered silently on the TV screen behind the bar.

She looked up at me, her smile warm and genuine. “Hi, Sean. Thirsty?”

I smiled, “Could use a beer.”

She reached in the ice, pulled out a bottle of Corona and popped the top before setting it in front of me. I sat down and took a long pull from the bottle, the back of my neck tight as a coiled spring.

“The captain raised up his blonde eyebrows on his sun-scarred forehead. His eyes, crusted and red, looked incapable of opening all the way, a cold sore glistened on his lower lip. He said, “Now she don’t know my beer, and I’m in here least twice a week.”

Kim smiled. “That’s because you switch between Bud and Miller. Sean stays with the same thing, Corona.” She turned back to me. “I saw the news, the funeral and all of those people who turned out for that poor girl. Saw you on TV, too. Was that the mother of the dead girl, the woman walking next to you?”

“Yes.”

“I feel so bad for her.”

I said nothing. Sipped the beer and thought of Elizabeth back at her house, checking windows, double locking doors, turning on floodlights and turning off her judgment, which now was emotionally short circuited.

“Are you okay, Sean?”

I looked across the bar at Kim and smiled. She leaned in closer, a strand of dark brown hair falling over one eye. I said, “I’m okay. Have you seen Max tonight?”

“She sat on Nick’s lap earlier, during happy hour. I fed her a burger patty. She likes cheddar more than Swiss on her burgers.”

I shook my head. “Max has dog food on Jupiter, and I have more in this grocery bag, so it’s not as if she’s food deprived. Hanging out here, she’s going to start looking more like a pot roast than a wiener dog.”

“A tiny tummy and some curvy hip padding could be a sexy thing.”

“Just don’t pierce Max’s ears.”

“Does that mean I get to baby-sit my gal pal?”

“I might take you up on that. Dave always asks, but somehow Nick dognaps Max and brings her down here.”

Kim grinned. “That’s because the tourist chicks stop and talk to the nice man with the brown-eyed doggie. I’m not sure if Nick’s using Max or if it’s the other way around. I’ll walk her tonight for you if—”

“Kim, turn the volume up on the television.”

She looked over her shoulder, found the remote and raised the volume. A reporter stood in front of a home with police and emergency vehicles in the background, lights flashing, police officers moving in and out of the frame.

The reporter said, “… and police say she was unconscious and not breathing when they arrived. Paramedics did find a weak pulse, and she was resuscitated then rushed to Memorial Hospital where she is listed in critical condition. Earlier today, Elizabeth Monroe’s daughter, Molly, was buried at a funeral attended by more than three hundred people. She and her longtime boyfriend, Mark Stewart, were shot to death in the Ocala National Forest. A former San Quentin prison inmate, Luke Palmer, is being held as a suspect in the case. Police are saying Elizabeth Monroe’s situation may be the result of a suicide attempt. Just outside of Lake Mary, this is Steve Eldridge reporting.”

“Oh my God,” Kim said, turning back to me as I was walking out. “Sean!”

I’d left a few dollars under my unfinished beer and ran toward Jupiter.