“I’m afraid Maddy wouldn’t exactly be happy to see me.”
“Why do you say that?”
“It’s a long story, but a few months back he got down several thousand dollars at the track, and some not-so-nice guys I’d been involved with kinda took it out on him. Really did a number on his face. Later, when I bought him out of
Gorda
and he paid off his bookie, he didn’t cut me any slack. Still maintains the whole thing was my fault.”
“Sounds like my bro.”
When we’d first come in, I had noticed the red light was blinking on my answering machine, but I had wanted to take these few minutes to catch up with Pit first.
“Hope you don’t mind, but I’ve got to check this.” I pushed the button and a female voice, slightly accented, started to speak.
“Allo. This is Martine Gohin.” I sat down on the couch and lowered my head over the machine, anxious to hear every word she would say. “I heard about this Earth Angel child on the television, and I would like to help you very much. I am working on my radio show this morning, but if you could join me at my home for lunch, that would be very nice.” She went on to give her address and cell phone number. I checked my watch. I had about an hour to spare—just enough time to swing by and check on Jeannie and Solange.
When the machine clicked off, Pit asked, “Earth Angel? What are you into now?”
I told him the most abbreviated version of the story that I could manage.
“Is there anything I can do to help?”
“Might be. How are your navigation skills?”
“Great. I was the navigator on the last delivery up from St. Maarten.”
“Okay, then, here’s the problem: I want you to find out how this kid and the dead woman ended up in that part of the ocean. If they weren’t on the
Miss Agnes
, then I’m spinning my wheels trying to find folks who were aboard that boat. You’ll find the position where I picked up the dory entered in
Gorda
's log. The pilot charts are here in the cottage somewhere— probably at the top of my closet. I think Solange and that woman were set adrift from the
Miss Agnes
as she was making a run across the Gulf Stream. Problem is I can’t quite make it all fit in my head. The
Miss Agnes
sank more than a day before I found the kid. Why hadn’t they drifted much farther north if they were riding the Stream? Was there some kind of cross current? It would be great if you could find that out for me. Check the Gulf Stream stats for that date, call NOAA if you have to. Let’s see if we can figure out where the boat set them adrift, and then where these smugglers might have their camp.”
“Will do.” Pit saluted me, then headed to the kitchen for another beer.
After changing from my work clothes into a clean pair of jeans and a Hawaiian print shirt, I jumped into Lightnin’ and took off.
Jeannie lived in a neighborhood called Sailboat Bend, upriver from my house. Sprinkled throughout Sailboat Bend are some of the oldest houses in Fort Lauderdale, pretty little Key Westy Conch cottages, half of which were undergoing some form of rehab. The rest of the neighborhood is dominated by bleak cement blocks of government-subsidized housing, and the place Jeannie lived fell somewhere between the two extremes. Her apartment was on the second floor of a concrete-block building that dated back to the fifties. There were only four apartments in the building, and it was set back on a lushly landscaped lot and shaded by a huge hundred-year-old oak tree. The oak’s trunk split into three parts right at ground level, and the nail holes throughout the branches were from all the different tree houses folks had built through the years. Hurricane Andrew had destroyed the last tree house, and Jeannie was petitioning her landlord to allow her to build a new one. Even without a tree house, the tree was her boys’ favorite playground, and I was surprised, when I pulled into the yard, not to see them up there hanging from its branches.
At the top of the exterior staircase I called Jeannie’s name through the screen door, hollering to be heard above the blasting TV. I recognized the music from Sesame Street. Assuming the kids were watching that TV in the family room, I imagined that someone could easily walk right in the front door and snatch a kid without being seen or heard. So far, I wasn’t impressed with Jeannie’s security.
“Morning!” shouted Jeannie. “Welcome to our madhouse.” She punched several keys on an electronic keypad, then opened the door and waved me in.
“Geez, Jeannie. Wouldn’t it be pretty easy for some crazed kidnapper to punch through that screen and snatch the kid?” She smiled and pointed to the screen. “See that thread, how it’s different? It’s wired into the alarm system. I installed these screens last winter after an irate client’s husband came gunning for me one night over a divorce I was working. I needed security, and I hate air-conditioning, so I wired the screens.”
“Okay, I guess that’ll work. So how is she?”
“Not much change. Come on and see for yourself.”
She led me back to the apartment’s third bedroom, which she had made into a family entertainment room with a big TV, video games, stereo, and shelves covered with children’s books, toys, and puzzles. Jeannie’s two boys sat cross-legged on the rug in front of the TV, chuckling at the antics of Cookie Monster. Behind them, Solange sat on the couch, limp, staring at the TV with unseeing eyes. Her eyes didn’t even flicker when we came into the room.
I sat down on the couch next to her and put my arm around her thin shoulders. “Morning, kiddo.” She didn’t flinch, blink, or react at all. I could feel the bone and muscle through the thin white T-shirt, and her body felt stiff and rigid. It was as though there were something inside her, and she was holding on to keep it deep within. I looked up at Jeannie. “Has she eaten anything?”
“Not much. I spoon-fed her some applesauce, and I think some of that got down. She goes when I put her on the pot, but she won’t get up and go by herself. I’ve never seen a kid in a state like this. It’s kinda creepy.”
I pulled the child to me and rested my chin on her head. She smelled of Johnson’s Baby Shampoo. Bill Cosby was on the TV making faces at Big Bird, and the boys on the floor were laughing. Jeannie disappeared down the hall.
I closed my eyes and squeezed the rigid, thin shoulders, trying to make her understand that I would do anything I could to make her pain go away. Even at twenty-seven years old, I had felt terribly abandoned when Red died, and I realized the term orphan applied to me. What would that feel like at her age? I had to find her father. I whispered into her hair, “Remember what I said before. Whatever it takes, I promise.”
The phone started to ring as I walked out of the family room. Jeannie came out of the kitchen and handed me the portable. “It’s for you.”
“How do you know?”
“Trust me.”
I pushed the button. “Hello?”
“What the hell were you thinking?”
“Good morning to you, too, Rusty.”
“The hospital called the cops, you know. You’re lucky you’re not in jail right now. Only reason you aren’t is because your lawyer called me, and I was able to give the cops a plausible story.”
“Your concern is touching.”
“I’m not kidding, Seychelle.”
“Neither are the people who want to hurt this child.”
“And you two think you can protect her better than the cops?”
“They got to her yesterday when she was under your protection, right?”
He sighed. “How is she this morning?”
“No different. Still looks like she’s catatonic. But she’s no worse, and nobody else has been able to get to her. We told you we would be bringing her to Jeannie’s, and you agreed. What, you think we should have waited for you guys to chum out more paperwork and then leave a forwarding address with the hospital?”
“No, we don’t work that way. You need to trust me a little more here, stop thinking you need to do this on your own. And I sure as hell don’t like getting blindsided by cops asking where she’s disappeared to. I look stupid if I don’t have the answers.”
“Well—”
“Hey, watch it.”
“Leave me an opening like that, and I just can’t resist.”
“Yeah, yeah, that’s what all the women tell me.”
“Well, maybe I’d be nicer to you if you had offered to share your catsup with me.”
On the other end of the phone I could hear someone talking to Rusty, then more muffled voices as he covered the phone with his hand and talked to someone who was, presumably, in his office. The conversation ended and Rusty came back on the line.
“Sorry about that,” he said, his voice deep and serious. “Seriously, Seychelle, you’ve just got to stay in touch with me.”
After our earlier conversation, I was tempted to ask him what part he wanted me to stay in touch with, but from the sound of his voice he was no longer in a mood to play.
“For now, she’s in good hands here with Jeannie. What about you guys and the DART board? What have you and your friend Miss D’Ugard found out about who was behind the
Miss Agnes
?”
“We’re working on it. That’s not your concern.” I wasn’t sure whether he meant the working of DART or his friendship with Miss D’Ugard. He sounded peeved all of a sudden. “In fact, aside from the fact that you found her, what is your concern in this? Why not just turn her over to the authorities and get on with your life?”
Damn this man. One minute he wants to play, the next minute he’s on the attack? “Rusty, if I were to walk away right now, what are her chances of staying in the States?”
“Honestly? Not good, unless someone can find a relative.”
“And I’m working on that. That’s your answer.”
I found Jeannie in her study sitting at her computer, and I handed her the portable phone. “Mr. Rusty Elliot is not going to be much help in the Save Solange project.”
“Typical bureaucrat.”
“I don’t know. I can’t figure him out. One minute he’s flirting and seems like he’s going to help me out, the next minute he’s Mr. Immigration drawing the line on ‘undocumenteds,’ as he calls them. Anyway, I’ve got to run around and see what I can find out about Solange’s dad.”
I hesitated before turning for the door, listening to the sounds of canned laughter from down the hall. “Collazo really thinks she’s in danger, Jeannie. Maybe we should just let the cops look out for her. Are you sure you’re all going to be okay here?”
Jeannie stood up to her full height and reached up to the top of the bookshelf in her den. She glanced at the door to make sure no kids were watching, then lifted up a shotgun. “I normally keep this baby locked up because of the kids, but I got it out last night. Nobody’s gonna touch that kid.”
I smiled at her. “And God help them if they try, right?”
Jeannie turned her head and winked at me. “Exactly.”
Martine Gohin lived in Victoria Park, where most of the homes had been built in the fifties or earlier, little cinder-block two-bedroom, two-bath, tile-roofed bungalows. Since the early 1990s when the area became very popular, those little homes had sold for well over $200,000. Martine Gohin’s house stood out on the street because of the color—a light salmon with cornflower blue shutters and a bright yellow door. She seemed to be making a statement with her colors, proclaiming her Haitian heritage in this mostly Anglo neighborhood. A minivan was parked in the driveway, so I assumed she was home from her radio job.
The girl who answered the door smiled shyly when I told her who I was. Her hair was plaited like Solange’s. She wore a simple white cotton shift, but her body had the ripe round-ness of budding puberty. I guessed she was about thirteen years old. She motioned me to come in and kept her head lowered.
“Are you Mrs. Gohin’s daughter?”
She shook her head and walked down the hallway, then pointed through the dining room to open French doors that led out to a wood deck. A very short black woman leaned over a glass table, arranging flowers in a vase, and she looked up when my sneakers squeaked on the dining room tile.
“Oh, allo. I did not hear the doorbell.” She gripped my hand hard with her fat fingers. “I am Martine Gohin, and you must be Miss Seychelle Sullivan. I thought we would eat lunch out here on the deck.” She swept her arm around in a 180-degree arc. “I love the fresh air.”
The wood deck was elevated a couple of feet above the green lush foliage of her backyard. Huge fronds of elephant ears arched over the water of a pond full of colorful fish. I recognized banana and papaya trees, heliconias, orchids, birds of paradise. Her yard looked like something out of a magazine. “Wow, it’s beautiful out here.”
“I enjoy gardening,” she said. She pointed to a cute little shed made to look like a cottage in the back of the yard. “I find it very relaxing to work out there. I have everything I need to pot and germinate many of my own seedlings. It is my passion.”
The girl still stood at her side with her eyes downcast. When Martine turned to speak to the girl, she had to look up at the child. “
C’est tout, Juliette
.”
Though Martine Gohin stood less than five feet tall, there was a sense of power about her. Her body was thick, and she wore dark glasses with heavy frames. I settled in the chair she indicated and accepted the tall glass of iced tea.
“So what can I do for you, Miss Sullivan?”
“I assume you know that I am the one who found the little girl they’re calling the Earth Angel.”
“Yes, the little Solange. I read about it in the paper.”
“Let me explain what I’m trying to do, and then maybe the rest will make sense to you. See, when I found that girl two days ago, I told her—promised her, really—that I would do whatever I could to help her stay in this country.”
“I wish more people felt as welcoming to Haitian immigrants.”
“I know what you mean. But now the Immigration people tell me that the only way she can stay is if I find a relative. And since the girl told me her father is American, I’m determined to find him.”
“She spoke to you? In English?”
“Yes.”
“That is very strange. I saw her at the hospital. Twice, actually. I guess you know I work for the police sometimes as a translator, but when I saw her, she refused to speak. No Creole, no English, nothing. The police need to interview her if she is speaking now.”