Where the Crawdads Sing(39)

“I’m going to miss you, Kya. Every day, all day.”

“You might forget me. When you get busy with all that college stuff and see all those pretty girls.”

“I’ll never forget you. Ever. You take care of the marsh till I get back, you hear? And be careful.”

“I will.”

“I mean it now, Kya. Watch out for folks; don’t let strangers get near you.”

“I think I can hide or outrun anybody.”

“Yes, I believe you can. I’ll come home in about a month, I promise. For the Fourth of July. I’ll be back before you know it.”

She didn’t answer, and he stood, jammed his hands into his jeans pockets. She stood next to him, but they both looked away, into the trees.

He took her shoulders and kissed her for a long time.

“Good-bye, Kya.” For a moment she looked somewhere over his shoulder and then into his eyes. A chasm she knew to its greatest depths.

“Good-bye, Tate.”

Without another word, he got in his boat and motored across the lagoon. Just before entering the thick brambles of the channel, he turned and waved. She lifted her hand high above her head, and then touched it to her heart.





19.


    Something Going On



1969

The morning after reading the second lab report, the eighth day since finding Chase Andrews’s body in the swamp, Deputy Purdue pushed open the door to the sheriff’s office with his foot and stepped inside. He carried two paper cups of coffee and a bag of hot donuts—just pulled from the fryer.

“Oh man, the smell of Parker’s,” Ed said as Joe placed the goods on the desk. Each man dug an enormous donut from the brown paper bag splotched with grease stains. Smacked loudly, licked glazed fingers.

Speaking over each other, both men announced, “Well, I got something.”

“Go ahead,” Ed said.

“I got it from several sources that Chase had something goin’ on in the marsh.”

“Going on? What do you mean?”

“Not sure, but some guys at the Dog-Gone say ’bout four years ago he started goin’ out to the marsh a lot by himself, was real secretive about it. He’d still go fishin’ or boatin’ with his friends, but made a lot of trips alone. I was thinkin’ maybe he got himself mixed up with some potheads or worse. Got over his head with some nasty drug thug. Ya lie down with dogs, ya get up with fleas. Or in this case, not get up at all.”

“I don’t know. He was such an athlete; hard to picture him getting mixed up in drugs,” the sheriff said.

“Former athlete. And anyhow, lots of ’em get tangled up in drugs. When the grand days of hero dry up, they gotta get a high from somewheres else. Or maybe he had a woman out there.”

“I just don’t know of any ladies out there that’d be his type. He only hung out with the so-called Barkley elite. Not trash.”

“Well, if he thought of himself as slummin’, maybe that’s why he was so quiet about it.”

“True,” the sheriff said. “Anyway, whatever he had going on out there, it opens up a whole new side of his life we didn’t know about. Let’s do some snooping, see what he was up to.”

“Ya said you got something, too?”

“Not sure what. Chase’s mother called, said she had something important to tell us about the case. Something to do with a shell necklace he wore all the time. She’s sure it’s a clue. Wants to come in here to tell us about it.”

“When’s she coming?”

“This afternoon, pretty soon.”

“It’d be nice to have a real clue. Beats walkin’ around looking for some guy wearin’ a red wool sweater with a motive attached. We gotta admit, if this was a murder, it was a clever one. The marsh chewed up and swallowed all the evidence, if there was any. Do we have time for lunch before Patti Love gets here?”

“Sure. And the special’s fried pork chops. Blackberry pie.”





20.


    July 4



1961

Dressed in the now too-short peach chiffon, Kya walked barefoot to the lagoon on July 4 and sat on the reading-log. Cruel heat shrugged off the last wisps of fog, and a dense humidity she could barely breathe filled the air. Now and then she knelt to the lagoon and splashed cool water on her neck, all the while listening for the hum of Tate’s boat. She didn’t mind waiting; she read the books he’d given her.

The day dragged itself by minutes, the sun getting stuck in the middle. The log hardened, so she settled on the ground, her back against a tree. Finally, hungry, she rushed back to the shack for a leftover sausage and biscuit. Ate fast, afraid he would come while she quit her post.

The muggy afternoon rallied mosquitoes. No boat; no Tate. At dusk, she stood straight and still and silent as a stork, staring at the empty-quiet channel. Breathing hurt. Stepping out of the dress, she eased into the water and swam in the dark coolness, the water sliding over her skin, releasing heat from her core. She pulled from the lagoon and sat on a mossy patch of the bank, nude until she dried, until the moon slipped beneath the earth. Then, carrying her clothes, walked inside.

She waited the next day. Each hour warmed until noon, blistered after midday, throbbed past sunset. Later, the moon threw hope across the water, but that died, too. Another sunrise, another white-hot noon. Sunset again. All hope gone to neutral. Her eyes shifted listlessly, and though she listened for Tate’s boat, she was no longer coiled.