The old woman directed her driver on a road that took them toward the state park and nature center. The blacktop was crumbling in places and pitted with potholes. Wooden directional signs pointed toward a bathhouse, wilderness camping area, wildlife interpretive center, and conference center.
They drove under a thick canopy of live oaks, sweet gums, and pines. Clumps of palmettos crowded up against the shoulder of the road, and Brooke caught glimpses of some primitive-looking log cabin structures where the vegetation thinned out.
“Interpretive center,” Josephine said, sniffing. “These fools don’t know the first thing about the wildlife on this island.” She pointed at a low concrete-block building with smoked-glass windows. “That’s their conference center. Don’t ask me what they confer about, though.”
They rode in silence through the half-empty campground. Here and there, Brooke spotted tents and picnic pavilions, and occasionally they passed a family hiking or biking along the road. It looked innocuous—idyllic, even—but Brooke could feel the anger radiating from Josephine as she glared at what she saw as the state’s intrusion on the environment.
“This is what they intend to do with my land if they succeed in taking it,” Josephine said, scowling at two teenagers who sped by on all-terrain vehicles.
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about today,” Brooke said, sensing an opening. “I conferred with a former colleague of mine, and he had some suggestions about how it might be possible to deal with the state’s efforts to buy your land.”
“Steal it, you mean. What sort of suggestions does this colleague of yours have?”
“First of all, we need to get an independent appraisal of your property. Do you know if your Atlanta lawyers have an updated appraisal?”
“Maybe,” Josephine said. “I can’t keep track of all the correspondence they’ve sent over the years.”
“I can ask them to share their files, but you’ll need to contact the law firm, by registered letter, to notify them that you’ve hired me to work on the matter. I drafted a letter, and if you approve, you can sign it, and I’ll send it out today.”
“All right.”
“We can certainly continue challenging the state’s offer as being unfair and inadequate,” Brooke said. “But that doesn’t halt the condemnation; it only slows it down.”
“I want it stopped,” Josephine said. Her bony fists clenched and unclenched. “That’s what this is all about. I won’t rest until I know the state will never be able to take my land.”
“I understand,” Brooke said soothingly. “But our options are fairly limited. One way we might approach it is through political means.”
“How’s that? I don’t trust politicians. Never have.”
“Do you have any connections in the state legislature?” Brooke asked. “Do you know your local state senators and representatives?”
Josephine wrinkled her nose. “I used to know Jimmy Carter’s mama. She was nice, even if she was a Democrat. And Preiss played golf with Talbott Hicks, who was our U.S. senator from this district, but he’s long dead. Back in my churchgoing days, I knew Maralai Graham, who was in the general assembly, but she’s dead too. And Mike Stovall, he was our state senator, but I believe he got indicted for racketeering last year.”
“How about anybody who’s alive?” Brooke asked, stifling a laugh. “Or not currently incarcerated?”
“Jenks Cooper is still alive, and I don’t believe he’s gone to prison yet. He’s the state representative from our district.”
“Great. Do you know him?”
“I know his grandmother and his mother and his wife,” Josephine said. “Lovely women. Jenks is a scalawag, but aren’t they all? I believe he’s some sort of vice president at my bank.”
“Anybody else?”
“There’s the governor,” Josephine said.
“Ooh, good. You know Governor Traymore?”
“Of course. I’ve known Tubby since he was a child. I contributed to his election campaign, as a favor to his mother. Personally, I don’t think Tubby is all that bright.”
“Are you friendly with anybody in local politics? Like somebody on the county commission? Judges, anybody like that?”
“Certainly,” Josephine said. “They all come here with their hats in their hands to ask for money. I never give them as much as they expect, but I don’t send them away empty-handed.”
“Do you feel up to making some phone calls and writing some letters?”
“I don’t see why not. Do you really think it will do any good?”
“It might,” Brooke said. “The state always seems to be strapped for money. They can’t even maintain the parks we have. So how can the state justify spending millions and millions of dollars to acquire land for another park? Especially one you can’t even get to by car?”
Josephine gave her an appraising look. “I believe I might have underestimated you.”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Brooke said. “When we get back to the house, if you’re not too tired, I’ll help you write letters to everybody you can think of at the state level, protesting the state’s attempted land grab, pointing out what a giant misuse of taxpayers’ money it would be, and so on. On the county level, we need to figure out what you pay in property taxes every year and remind the commissioners how much revenue will be lost if your land gets turned into a state park.”
“All right,” Josephine said. Behind the thick-lensed glasses, her eyes glittered with excitement. “Maybe I’ll even call Virginia Traymore. After all, I did make a hundred-dollar contribution to her son’s campaign.”
Brooke rolled her eyes. Georgia’s governor, Tubby Traymore, was a multimillionaire developer. He hardly needed Josephine Warrick’s hundred dollars.
“My colleague has also offered to handle your estate work. As I said before, it’s a conflict of interest for me to have anything to do with that, since my mother is a beneficiary.”
“I’ll want to meet him first,” Josephine said. “When can he come see me?”
“As soon as you’d like,” Brooke said.
They’d reached the exit sign for the state park, where the road veered sharply off to the left.
“Where now?” she asked.
“Take the beach road,” Josephine said.
“Sure thing,” Brooke said. “That’s a part of the island I haven’t seen yet.”
*
After a quarter of a mile, the pavement transitioned to a bumpy crushed-shell road. Palmettos and cabbage palms closed in on either side, their fronds slapping against the side of the truck. Brooke slowed, downshifted into third gear, and steered the truck around the worst of the potholes, but some were unavoidable.
At one point she started to apologize for the rough ride, but a glance revealed Josephine with her head slumped against the passenger door, snoring softly. The interior of the truck was silent except for the soft shunting noise of the old woman’s oxygen tank.
She drove for fifteen minutes, unsure about her exact location, but eventually, the terrain changed. Palmetto thickets gave way to dense stands of gnarled and stunted live oaks, whose dark gray trunks acted as a windbreak for the seashore just beyond the tree line.
Here and there on the other side of a towering hedgerow of sea grapes, Brooke glimpsed a stretch of beach and heard the waves crashing. The wind whipped her hair around her face, and she was thankful for the break in the oppressive heat in the truck’s cab. Meanwhile, Josephine slept on.
Finally, she saw a pull-off point on her right, a hard-packed section of shell that gave way to a path down to the beach. Brooke pulled in and shut off the ignition. The beach stretched temptingly in front of her, totally empty of any sign of human activity. Blue-green waves lapped at the shore, and seabirds skittered along the sand. A mosquito buzzed against the windshield.
“Josephine?”
“Hmm?” The old woman blinked slowly, seemingly confused.
“Is this the spot you wanted me to drive to?” Brooke asked.
“Hmm?”
“The beach road,” Brooke said. “You asked me to take you to the beach road. Is this the spot you had in mind?”
Josephine nodded. She sat up straight, bracing her hands against the cracked vinyl dashboard, staring out at the seascape unrolled before her.