“No, it’s an ongoing investigation,” she said. “You know there’s only so much he can say.”
She saw Jeremy Gray was next to them, studying the paper that explained the trip to Atlantis in the Bahamas, donated by one of the local travel agencies.
“Hey!” he said, as if just noticing she was there. “Great display of...stuff!” he said. He flashed Tate a smile, as well. “Raina, for that pet thing you’ve offered, I’m taking it you aren’t into training alligators?”
She laughed. “Nope. I’m too much of a coward. I don’t see how anyone manages that whole alligator wrestling thing. I’ve seen the size of Big Ole Mac out in the village.”
“A little secret—we’d never wrestle anything as big as Big Ole Mac,” he told her. “Like everything else, it’s learned.”
“I don’t think I’d be into learning,” Tate said, shaking his head.
“Well, when people ran south, they learned to live with alligators. And snakes and mosquitoes. That’s why we have chickee huts to this day—usually built up, to keep creatures away. Make use of our natural wood, thatched roofs using our palm fronds—hey, we knew survival out here.”
“You still have a chickee?” Tate asked him.
Jeremy laughed. “I have a nice little house made of concrete block and stucco that I sleep in at night. I do have a chickee in my yard. Nice to hang out in when you’ve been in the pool.”
“Oh. On reservation land?”
Jeremy nodded. “We really are aware of modern standards of living. I’ve got cable, too.”
Tate chuckled good-naturedly. “Of course, I wasn’t implying you all were backward in any way. If I was offensive, I’m truly sorry. But I do have some friends up in Broward who practice the whole going back to culture and nature kind of thing.”
Jeremy nodded an agreement. “I was not offended. I, too, have friends who embrace the old ways. Thankfully, they help keep our culture alive. But we bring down some of the biggest music acts in the country when we have powwows, and we don’t care if they’re Native, African American, white as the driven snow, yellow, red or pink.”
Larry walked up, smiling. “And we do love our casinos. Talk about revenge on the white man!”
They all laughed. Raina looked past Tate as she did so. Axel was in conversation with Tate’s father, Jefferson Fielding, Jordan and Mya.
She excused herself, remembering she was supposed to throw twenty dollars’ worth of raffle tickets in the Atlantis bowl for Clive the Clown. It took a few minutes to write his name on them. While they’d call out the numbers, the winners didn’t have to be present to collect their rewards.
Elly was soon back onstage after that, telling them they were welcome to keep mingling, but the raffles were about to end and volunteers would be collecting all the bowls with the tickets. She’d soon be calling out the numbers, once everyone could get comfortable to see their tickets.
Raina smiled at her friends as she headed back to the table, texting Clive his numbers. As she was doing so, Axel joined her at the table.
“I guess this will be rather long,” he said.
“Not so bad,” she assured him. “Elly is quick and good at this.”
And Elly was.
Raina hadn’t seen Axel put tickets anywhere, but apparently he had done so and had given his tickets to Jeremy. She saw him smile as he pushed them over to Jeremy and a number came in. The ticket won a complete set of fishing gear. Jeremy appeared exceptionally pleased when he lifted his hand indicating he had the ticket. He stood and brought his number to Elly for verification. Everyone clapped and the night went on.
Her training session was won by a teenager who looked to be very excited, and Raina was definitely pleased.
Clive won a spa day.
She was amazed to discover she’d won the trip to Atlantis. Jokingly, all her friends turned to her, suggesting they should be her “plus one.”
When she sat down, Axel was looking at her, grinning.
“Oh, I’ve always wanted to go but just never found the time or the occasion. Now, I’ll have to! Have you seen the pool? The dolphin encounters?”
He laughed and told her he’d piled the rest of his tickets into a day with a trainer at the Dolphin Research Organization down in Marathon. “There is nothing like a good animal encounter to shake it off after a difficult case,” he told her.