I WAS ALONE in the kitchen when I heard Rachel shouting a drink order from the boardwalk. I'd served a few of our guests Kashenkas earlier, and knew they'd be ordering them all afternoon.
The Kashenka is a trendy drink invented in Paris twenty years ago to honor a beautiful Polish cabaret dancer who worked near the Ritz hotel. It's made with pressed strawberries, white castor sugar and Polish vodka and served in a tall glass filled with cracked ice.
I figured if Rachel was calling for drinks instead of sending Tracy to the kitchen for them, both girls were obviously needed on the beach to tend to our demanding guests. My immediate problem was the lack of serving trays. I looked under the sink, in the hutch and even tried the broom closet, but couldn't find anything suitable for presenting the drinks. Maybe the guests wouldn't mind if I just used a dinner plate. I had just started trimming the strawberries, when I remembered the picnic basket Beth had taken to her sick friend.
The basket was on the counter, filled with apples. I took the apples out and turned the basket upside down to make sure it was clean, and noticed some scratch marks on the bottom. There was something unusual about them. They seemed to be less random and more of a deliberate design. I took the basket close to the back door to get as much light on it as possible, and realized what I was seeing was not scratches at all, but two distinct Roman numerals. I rubbed my thumb over the woven wood where the scratches had been made, and felt something sharp. I pried apart the area between the weave and discovered something had been wedged in there.
It was that exact moment I heard a man screaming. I cocked my head to the side to listen. It sounded like a Rebel yell, only louder, and more terrifying.
I dropped the basket, tore out the door and raced about twenty feet down the boardwalk and found a man lying in the pig pit. I hopped over the rail and got to him quickly and pulled him out and turned him over. He had a leg and arm cast and his shirt had scorch marks on the back. A few more minutes and this guy would have been burned alive. I turned him on his side and felt his pulse for ten seconds.
Though he was in serious pain, I could see he was going to live. He'd probably have permanent burn marks on his back, and might require skin grafts. His face and hair were caked with blood and sand and something about him seemed familiar. His eyes were wild with pain, and he was grabbing at his sling. I looked around for help and saw that no one seemed to have heard him or noticed me pull him from the pit.
"Don't move," I said. "I'll be right back."
I ran back to the kitchen, grabbed my cell phone and dialed 911 and gave them the details. I grabbed four bottles of water from the refrigerator and a roll of paper towels and ran back to the burn victim, who was trying to roll toward the sand dunes. I stopped him and turned him on his stomach and began pouring water over his back. I decided not to remove his shirt in case the skin might come off with it. I poured a second bottle of water on his back and then turned him on his side and opened a third bottle and poured it on his face and hair. I got him to drink a few swallows from my last bottle of water, and used the remainder to wet some paper towels. I dabbed at his face with the moistened towels, and though his broken nose threw me off a minute, I finally recognized him as the kid Rachel and I had pulled off the sand dune a couple of weeks earlier.
Only this time he had a broken arm and a full leg cast. And he was digging at his arm cast again, and shouting incoherently. Whatever he'd been trying to do to his broken arm, he stopped doing, and grabbed my throat instead.
I could tell the kid was trying to strangle me, but he was so weak he couldn't have crushed a grape. He seemed happy doing it though, so I let him keep trying. While he did, my thoughts turned to damage control. If he decided to sue Beth, she'd lose everything. But would he sue her? Of course he would-it's the American way.
Maybe I could buy him off, I thought. Whatever he hoped to gain from suing Beth would be a pittance to me. So we'd be okay from that angle. I'd take care of his doctor bills and give him double whatever he wanted from Beth.
With that concern out of the way, I wondered about the pig roast. I had a hundred paid guests coming for pork in a few hours. Could I salvage the dinner? I looked around and saw a few people here and there, but no one seemed to be paying attention to us, so sure, I could cover the pit up again and no one would need to know about the kid burning in it.
Unless he told someone.
I looked down at him and wondered if I should just kill him. I mean, I'd probably be doing him a favor, since this had to be the most accident-prone kid who ever lived. He'd die on his own if I'd just stop saving him.
But no, it wouldn't be right to kill someone just to keep from canceling a pig roast. And anyway the kid couldn't have known there was a pig roasting under his back. Maybe he'd figure it out later, and I could buy his silence before he blabbed it. In that event, maybe I could salvage dinner after all.
Except that the EMS guys would be on the scene within moments, and they'd have questions about the burn marks on his back. Could I set a quick fire and pretend he'd fallen into it? No. A good cover-up requires planning.
I'd just have to cancel the pig roast.
With that decision behind me, I started wondering a few things about the kid. Like why was he trying to strangle me? And why was he here? How did he break his nose and arm and leg? What had he been doing on the fire ant hill with the buck knife?
I thought about the knife a minute, and how it had fallen out of his pants pocket when the EMS came the last time. I reached into his sling and found a similar knife under his broken arm.
I was beginning to think this kid was trying to kill me.
I thought about his broken bones and wondered if they could have been sustained by falling through the plywood attic access door.
Killing this kid might be a good idea after all, I thought.
But then I heard the sirens from the EMS truck heading our way. I ran to the kitchen, hid the knife, and went out the front door to flag them down.