The gold Plymouth left the cemetery and headed south on U.S. 1, down through Jensen Beach and Stuart.
“Where to now?” asked Coleman.
“Our next stop,” said Serge. “But first I need to make a stop before our next stop.”
He pulled into a strip mall and opened the door.
“I’ll wait in the car,” said Coleman.
“As a general rule, that’s the best plan.” Serge went inside . . .
Coleman was unconscious when Serge returned, head resting against the passenger window and trademark drool stringing down from his lower lip.
Onward, south. Hobe Sound, Tequesta, Jupiter.
Coleman stirred from his liquid-induced nap. “Hmm, huh, where am I?”
“Still in the car.”
Coleman reached down between his legs and popped a Schlitz to restore chemical equilibrium. “Did you get your meerkat back at that pet store?”
“No,” said Serge, racing south into Juno Beach. “I didn’t have any clue that they’re like a thousand bucks, and they’d have to order one. Plus the pet-store guy told me that meerkats may be social creatures among themselves, but they’re a little confused by the whole pet concept. Some never conform to domesticity, constantly screeching and jumping on lamps, and the ones that do work out will keep peeing on your clothes to mark you as their owner.”
“That’s messed up,” said Coleman.
“Not exactly the definition of a support animal,” said Serge. “I want a pet to wind me down.”
“You’ll figure something out.” Coleman took a long swig of beer. Suddenly: “Ahh! Shit! What the hell?” The can of Schlitz went up in the air, Coleman batting and bobbling to catch it, foam everywhere.
“Are you spraying beer all over my car again?”
“Not my fault.” Coleman finally got a handle on the can and pulled his neck way back in alarm, looking down in his lap in terror. “What the fuck is that thing?”
Serge glanced over. “Say hello to Mr. Zippy, my new ferret.”
“Ferret?”
“When a meerkat became a non-starter, the pet-store dude suggested a ferret because they’re roughly the same size and cuteness factor, easier on the wallet, and they don’t pee on you. Not much.”
The ferret began chattering at Coleman. “Get him off me! Get him off!” Beer flew again.
“You’re frightening Zippy!” said Serge. “You need to win him over. Give him that Cheeto.”
“Where?”
“Where else.”
“Oh.” Coleman picked it off his shoulder and tentatively extended a hand. Mr. Zippy snatched it, munching away. Then he climbed over the shoulder of a wide-eyed Coleman. “Where’d he go?”
“To explore the back seat.”
“You’re just going to let him run loose in the car?”
“It’s what I’d want if the roles were reversed,” said Serge. “Now back to live action! Our next stop is some more Florida connective tissue, this time leading from Hurston. In her now-acclaimed 1937 classic, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora depicts the hard life of African Americans along the southern shore of Lake Okeechobee early last century, culminating with the Great Hurricane of 1928—”
The ferret jumped on the dashboard and ran along the windshield, then jumped down and disappeared again.
“Jesus, Serge, how can you drive with that going on?”
“It’s actually quite comforting.” A calm grin crept across his face. “After the storm, Zora described the formidable task of dealing with almost three thousand bodies, so many that it took at least four burial sites . . .”
The Plymouth entered West Palm Beach and navigated south on Tamarind Avenue, into an economically scuffling section of the city, or, among the whites, the other side of the tracks. They parked on the corner of Twenty-Fifth Street.
“Hurston’s novel described the mass burial activity here, but the site became so forgotten that even those who knew about it didn’t have the exact location, and a warehouse was almost built on top of it. Luckily, community leaders stepped in and hired a Miami firm that used ground-penetrating radar to discover a seventy-by-thirty-foot trench.” Serge placed paper against stone. “This is the granite memorial they erected in 2003.”
Coleman curiously watched Serge.
“What?”
He pointed. “Where’d you get that?”
“This?” Serge looked down at something new on his chest attached to shoulder straps. “From the pet store. It’s like those things that moms wear to carry infants.”
Mr. Zippy poked his head out the top of the canvas pouch and looked around.
“He’s growing on me,” said Coleman.
Back to the car. A couple miles south on Dixie Highway, another stop.
“There’s the Norton Museum of Art. Remember? From the Everglades mural?”
“We’re going there?”
“No, other side of the street.”
“On one condition,” said Coleman.
“Now you’re setting conditions, are you?”
Coleman told him what it was. “. . . Pleeeeeease!”
The pair walked through a grand stone archway into Woodlawn Cemetery.
“Because of segregation at the time of the hurricane, the mass grave for the whites was here. Unlike the others, they got pine boxes . . . How’s it working out over there?”
Coleman smiled and looked down at the pouch on his chest. “I think Mr. Zippy likes me.” A burst of chattering and then a tiny head disappeared. “So you came to see another mass grave?”
“Not this time.” Serge led the way through the ancient grounds until stopping at a stone with the name Charles William Pierce.
Coleman gently patted the pouch. “Who’s that?”
“A bonus find unconnected to the hurricane, so how can I not stop?” Serge knelt to rub again. “In 1888, Charlie became one of the state’s first legendary ‘barefoot mailmen.’ Because there was no land route back then between West Palm and Miami, mail carriers would make a six-day, hundred-and-thirty-mile trek, much of it traversed on foot along the beach, hence the name . . .” He turned and began running back to the car. “We’re off!”
“Come on, Mr. Zippy!”
Chapter 21
Four Years Earlier
A loud bell rang nonstop.
The local junior high was dismissed for the day. Kids poured out the doors like the Berlin Wall had fallen. Backpacks, skateboards, cell phones. Someone pushed someone else into the bushes.
A Dodge Dakota quietly eased up to the curb across the street.
A girl texted as she crossed the road.
“Excuse me?” Crack hung out the window. “Miss?”
She looked up. Uh-oh. Stranger Danger.
“Don’t be scared,” said Crack, checking the scrap of paper from the pawnshop. “I’m just looking for my nephew. Do you know a Ricky Aparicio?”
She pointed back at the school gates.
Captain Crack stretched his neck. “Which one?”
“I thought he was your nephew.”
“Been a long time.”