Now that I felt sure things were going to work out okay, I kind of let up a little in trailing the person ahead of me. I let him get farther and farther ahead, knowing that he would come out on Gulf Road a good hundred yards south of where Susan would be sitting in my locked truck.
After a while the sounds in the woods before me stopped entirely. And sure enough, a minute later I heard a starter whir, a motor catch and, after a brief roar of acceleration, the unmistakable hum of an auto being driven at high speed northward on Gulf Road.
I ran a hand across my forehead and found I was sweating. With relief, I suppose. Because there went our prowler in that departing car, and by the sound of it, he was going fast and far. Northward. Toward the bridge a mile beyond the Freebooter that connected Perdido Key with Crossbow Key. Toward Tampa and Clearwater. And a good long comfortable distance away from Susan and me… I hoped.
Susan. Now that the danger, if any, was past, I’d better get back to the road myself, I thought, and make sure Susan had made the truck without any trouble. So I angled off to my left through the woods, aiming at where my truck was parked. I was still too scared to want to expose myself on the open road, just in case. I didn’t fool around trying to keep quiet, though. I crashed through the brush just as loudly as our mysterious follower had done trying to escape me.
My thoughts were busy, too. I was picturing Susan sitting in my locked truck cab, waiting fearfully but bravely for the hero of her adventure—me—to rejoin her, so she could tell me how calm I had been under pressure, how brilliantly I had managed her escape from unknown peril.
That just shows how wrong you can be.
Because when I came out on Gulf Road three minutes later, right opposite the two palm trees where I’d parked the truck, the truck was gone.
And so was Susan.
CHAPTER 3
THE OSGOOD BROTHERS
For a second, I couldn’t believe my eyes. I thought I’d mistaken the spot. They must be the wrong palm trees. Therefore the truck and Susan must be close by, either up or down the road a piece. It’s hard to keep your sense of direction in the woods at night, I thought.
Then I looked northward on Gulf Road—the direction in which I’d heard the car departing minutes before. And I saw two red taillights rapidly dwindling in size as they sped away from me.
I recognized those taillights. They were shaped like shields and bigger than usual. They were the taillights of my pickup truck. “Hey!” I yelled after them without thinking. “Hey, Susan! Come back!”
They went around a curve half a mile away and winked out. I stood beside Gulf Road in the moonlight and worried.
After a bit, I thought I’d figured it out. Obviously the man who had followed us through the woods, and whom I, in turn, had followed back to the road, had had a car stashed away along Gulf Road near by. With me chasing him, he’d made it back to his car and taken off northward. So far, so good.
Now if Susan had already locked herself in my truck which was parked facing south, she had probably seen this guy dash out of the woods, jump in his car and drive past her. If so, what would she do then? Probably try to see what he looked like, I thought. Or even try to get his license number. But if his headlights blinded her so she couldn’t catch a glimpse of him? With a twinge I remembered that I’d left the truck keys hanging in the ignition lock. So it was at least an even bet that Susan might have scrambled into my driver’s seat, turned the truck around and started in hot pursuit of the stranger’s car. In which case, I thought, there ought to be tire marks on the roadside where Susan had backed the truck to turn it.
I looked down at the sandy road shoulder at my feet, and there they were.
I felt all right then for a moment until something else occurred to me. If I’d heard the stranger’s car start and drive off, why hadn’t I heard Susan start the truck and follow him?
Well, that was an easy one, I told myself. I’d been making so much racket in the woods myself that I couldn’t have heard a jet taking off a hundred yards away.
That’s the way I worked it out. All the same, I stood there on the edge of the road as uneasy as a blue heron with a half-swallowed fish until I saw headlights coming at me from the north at a fast clip. They began to slow a little about a quarter-mile away. Then I recognized the cockeyed beam of my truck’s left head lamp and stepped out in the middle of the road and waved my arms.
Susan pulled up beside me a minute later, smiling at me from the driver’s seat as sweet as sugar. “Well, hello there,” she said gaily. “Are you going my way?”
I grunted and she slid over and I got under the wheel. “You had me scared,” I said to her. “What was that all about?”
“While I was waiting for you in the truck, I saw somebody run out of the woods down there and zip across the road. He got into a car that was hidden under the trees, started up and turned on his lights. The next thing I knew, he drove right past me as though demons were after him.”
“Not demons,” I said modestly. “It was only me.”
Susan laughed. “I know, Pete. I tried to see who was in the car but I couldn’t. I was pretty sure of one thing, though…it was the man who scared us in the woods. So I just kind of subconsciously turned the truck around and followed him.”
“Huh!” I muttered. “What was I supposed to think when I came back to the truck and found you’d disappeared?”
She put out a hand in an appealing gesture as I started the truck south. “I’m sorry if you worried about me,” she said. “Or was it only your truck you were worried about?” I grinned at her in spite of myself.
She went on in an excited voice, “I got close enough to the car to get the license number.”
“What was it?”
“16E-714.”
“Florida?”
“Yes.”
“That’s a rental car.” I looked at Susan. “You know something? You’re quite a kid.” I meant it, too.
We were quiet for a minute or two. Finally I said, “I don’t suppose you could tell anything about his looks when he ran across the road?”
“Only a vague impression that he was short and sort of heavyset. You know, squatty, like a wrestler.”
“I sure wish I knew what he was up to,” I said. “Both this afternoon with my wallet, and tonight in the woods. The whole thing gives me a feeling I don’t like.”
Susan said, “I think we ought to tell the police.”
I considered that. “Well,” I said, “it’s a kind of a thin story to tell them, Susan. My wallet in the wrong pocket, and some stranger we think was following us in the woods. We were probably trespassing ourselves, when you come right down to it.”
“Maybe. But what about the license number? Don’t you know anybody who could find out who rented the car?”
“I know Mike Sebastien, my sister’s boyfriend. He’s a cop.”
“Then…”
“He thinks I’m some kind of a nut right now,” I said. “You know what a guy thinks of his girl’s little brother! If I tell Mike about our experience tonight, he’ll think I’m out of my mind.”
“Tell him anyway, why don’t you? I’d like to know who was in that automobile I chased.”
“How far did you chase him, by the way?”
“This side of the Freebooter. As soon as I got close enough to get his number, I turned around and came back for you. Aren’t you glad?”
“I’m hysterically happy,” I said, “that you remembered me at all. You still want to go to the movies?”
“Why not? It’s early.”
We drove on south, as full of talk as a couple of sparrows on the edge of a birdbath. As we drove across the causeway to Sarta City, Susan said, “Anyway, Pete, I do wish you’d tell Mr. Sebastien, that policeman, about it.”
I compromised. “I’ll tell Pop about it first,” I said. “He was born here on t
he Key and knows practically everybody and every place on it, down to, and including, the black bears. If he thinks I should tell Mike, I will.”
So that was the way we left it. The spy picture in Sarta City wasn’t awfully good, as it turned out. I bought Susan a pizza after the show and we got back to the Freebooter by eleven-thirty. On the way, we fixed it up to go sailing together two days later, on Sunday, in one of the sailboats the Freebooter provides for its guests.
When I got home, Pop was fitting in the living room reading the newspaper as though it was morning instead of midnight. He’s even bigger than I am, a couple of inches over six feet, and plenty husky. He fills up his easy chair so he makes it creak when he moves in it. His face and arms are burned brown as an old mahogany table from being out of doors so much. He’s a pretty terrific guy, to tell the truth.
I sat down on our red sofa across from him, and waited until he looked up and said, “Hi, Pete.”
“Hi, Pop,” I said. “Any luck last night?” The old, old question everybody always asks fishermen. I hadn’t seen Pop since the evening before.
“Some,” he said. “We took some nice kings off Crossbow Light.” He gave me a kind of quizzical look. “Gloria says you had some luck yourself today.”
I let that go by. I said, “Pop, I want to ask you something. Okay?”
“Shoot,” Pop said. So I told him what had happened to Susan and me in that crazy inlet that night, and about my wallet changing pockets there that afternoon. He listened to the whole thing before he said a word. He’s a good listener. He put his newspaper down, and filled and lit his pipe while I talked. When I finished he said, “Whereabouts did you say this inlet was, exactly?”
“About halfway between here and the Freebooter.”
Pop nodded to himself and blew out a cloud of blue smoke. “Dolphin Point,” he said then. “That’s what your point of land is called, the one shaped like a dolphin’s dorsal. And the inlet behind it is Dolphin Inlet. Most of that strip of woods and beach in there around the cove is private property.”
“Who’s it belong to? I didn’t see any houses.”
“Couple of fellows named Osgood. Perry and Hamilton. They’re brothers, unmarried, middle-aged and kind of stand-offish. Least that’s their reputation since they settled down there a year or two back. Stand-offish. Most folks don’t even know they’re in there, and those who do keep away from them because they’re so grouchy and crusty, usually. They like their privacy, I guess. So I reckon you were trespassing when you went in there for a swim, Pete. And when you took Susan in there tonight, too.” He took his pipe out of his mouth and gave me a grin. “Gloria says this Susan is a real dish,” he said. “How about it, Pete?”
I pretended my ankle was itching and scratched it. I shrugged. “Look, Pop,” I said, “where do the Osgoods live?”
“In a little beat-up beach cottage around the other side of Dolphin Point. They bought it from an old fisherman named Jude Skanzy along with the land around it about a year ago, I think. Got it for peanuts, too, the way I heard it.”
“The other side of the point?” I said. “You mean you can’t see their house from the inlet side?”
“Nope. It’s pretty well hidden by a stand of trees. You can make it out from the Gulf, but only barely. It’s so weathered and needs paint so bad it kind of blends into the landscape. You got to look hard to make it out at all.”
“Do you think it was one of those Osgood brothers, then, who moved my wallet this afternoon, Pop? And followed Susan and me tonight?”
Pop shrugged. “Sounds like them. They don’t like anybody butting into their inlet, I know that. I suppose they were curious about who you were this afternoon and took a look at your driver’s license, maybe, while you were swimming, to find out.”
“Why would they follow Susan and me tonight?”
“Same reason. Wanted to see what you were up to in their bailiwick.” Pop grinned at me again. “Those two shellbacks don’t recognize romance when they see it, of course. Wouldn’t understand a boy and a girl taking a simple walk in the moonlight together. You got to remember that.”
I shook my head. “It still seems queer to me, Pop. What do those birds do out there?”
“Fish a lot, I guess,” Pop answered. “They keep a couple of boats in a short blind canal on the inner curve of Dolphin Point, I know that. I’ve seen them fishing in the Gulf occasionally from an outboard, and doing some scuba diving from a bigger boat.”
I remembered the fisherman I’d seen in the mouth of Dolphin Inlet. “I guess I saw one of them, then. The other Osgood brother must have searched my clothes.”
Pop knocked the dottle out of his pipe. “Pete, I don’t know exactly what the Osgoods’ line is, but they must be interested in studying Gulf currents, or underwater geology, or marine biology or something to do with marine research, anyway, because it seems to me I’ve heard that once in a while they bring in specimens of various kinds to the marine laboratory down on Halfmoon Key. Anyway, they’re harmless, that’s for sure. Before they bought the Dolphin Inlet property they used to drift around Florida a lot, although they were born right here on the Key. They even took a trip to Europe not long back, the way I remember it. Their father was a handyman and plumber and left them a few bucks when he died. They blew most of it on that European trip, I guess—on that and the Dolphin Inlet property and their boats.”
“Then what do the old buzzards live on now, Pop?”
“Search me. They seem to get along all right.” He fixed me with a severe look. “And what’s more, Pete, I don’t like your calling the Osgood brothers ‘old buzzards.’ Buzzards, maybe, but not old. Is that clear?”
“You said they were middle-aged.”
“That isn’t old.” Pop was forceful. “I’m middle-aged myself, so I know. And Perry Osgood is just about the same age as me.”
“He is?”
“Yep. He was in my class at high school, matter of fact.”
“Oh. So that’s how you know so much about them?”
“Sure. It’s over twenty years since we were in school.” Pop stood up and his easy chair creaked. He went to our bookcase beside the closed door to Gloria’s room. Gloria was sound asleep inside, so Pop kept his voice low when he said, “Perry’s picture is here in my high school yearbook.” He pulled his tattered yearbook out of the bookcase and turned the pages for a minute. Then he came over and held the book open for me to see. “That’s him,” Pop said. “The ‘old buzzard’ who spoiled your walk with Susan in the moonlight.”
The picture showed a lean-faced, serious-looking kid with a sharp chin and big ears that seemed to stick out pretty far because of his narrow head. He had a lot of curly hair but hardly any eyebrows. Perry Osgood hadn’t been any prize-winner for looks, I could see that, but who was I to talk?
Pop said, “Perry was tall and skinny when he was young, and he’s still that way.” He flicked a finger against Perry’s picture. “Doesn’t look much like a guy to be scared of, does he? Even in the woods at night.”
“I wasn’t exactly scared, Pop. I was just kind of worried about Susan.”
“Sure.” Pop kidded me with a straight face. “That’s only natural.”
“Well,” I said, “maybe I was a little scared.” I frowned. “If it was one of those Osgood brothers trailing us in the woods, how come he turned tail and ran when I charged him? It was his property.”
Pop said, “With the moonlight, whoever was spying on you could see you plain as day. All of a sudden you come roaring across the beach at him. You’re a big husky kid, Pete. You look fighting mad. With the result that you scared him more than he scared you.” Pop nodded. “He’s afraid you’ll catch him and clobber him, even if he is on his own property. The Osgoods never were what you’d call real brave, Pete.”
I said, “What about the car he took off in?”
Pop’s shoulders
went up in a shrug. “What about it? It was a rental car, you said. The Osgoods don’t own a car themselves, far as I know. And there’s a hundred reasons why they might rent one temporarily. You scared him so bad he wanted to get away from you fast, that’s all. So he used the car that was right there handy.”
“Would it be parked on Gulf Road?”
“Sure. That’s the closest you can get to the Osgood shack with a car.”
I stood up. “Well, thanks, Pop. Susan thought I ought to tell the police—or Mike Sebastien, anyway—about it. But if it was one of those Osgoods who followed us, I guess I won’t. Would you?”
Pop put his yearbook back in the bookcase. “Forget it,” he advised. “You accidentally ran into one of the Osgood boys tonight, that’s all. And he tried to check up on a couple of snoopers in his private cove and got chased for his pains.”
“Okay.” I started for my own room. Then, remembering Susan’s description of the man who had run across the road, I asked one last question. “What’s Perry Osgood’s brother look like, Pop? Hamilton Osgood, is that his name?”
“Everybody called him Ham,” Pop said, “when he was a kid. He was ten years younger than Perry and me. And built real close to the ground. Six inches shorter than Perry, the way I remember him. But I haven’t laid eyes on him for years.”
“That was Hamilton spying on us tonight, then,” I said. “Good night, Pop. It’s been a big day.”
Pop picked up his newspaper. “Good night, son.”
I shut my door and got undressed. I felt tired and fresh, let down and excited, sleepy and wide awake, all at the same time. I was yawning my head off but all of a sudden I kind of hated to waste time sleeping when there were such interesting things to think about as Dolphin Inlet and the Osgood brothers. And Susan.
You know what I mean?
The Mystery of Dolphin Inlet Page 3