The Paradise Affair

by Bill Pronzini

  Yet she lay wide-awake in the guesthouse bed, unable even to doze. Tonight’s tragedy might have only peripherally affected her, but she could not get what she had ear- and eye-witnessed out of her mind. The vague shadow shape hovered like a chimera.

  She listened to the muted night sounds, enduring the muggy, overheated air. Kona weather. The words of the tubby little man on the deck of the steamer Saturday morning came back to her: The Polynesians believed that kona weather is “dying weather.”

  Prophetic for Nevada Ned Nagle.

  And now for Gordon Pettibone.

  14

  SABINA

  Later that day she had two visitors, the first not unexpected, the second whose purpose was something of a surprise.

  Margaret came to fetch her when the first caller arrived at the main house midmorning. Emil Jacobsen, captain of detectives, Honolulu Police. He unfolded himself from a chair in the living room when they entered—a tall, spare man with a long, narrow face and jaw, and a skullcap of iron-gray hair, clad not in a uniform but a tan business suit, white shirt, and plum-colored bow tie. Margaret plainly would have liked to remain while he spoke with Sabina, but propriety won out over curiosity and she silently withdrew.

  The captain introduced himself, favoring Sabina with a courtly bow and a solemn smile as he did so. His manner was not quite deferential. And expressive, she thought, of more than an ordinary amount of professional interest.

  When they were seated he said, “As I’m sure you’ve surmised, I asked to speak with you regarding the death of Mr. Gordon Pettibone.”

  “Yes, but there is really nothing I can tell you that I didn’t tell Mr. Oakes last night. Other than I regret having given in to impulse and trespassed on the Pettibone property.”

  “Understandable in the circumstances. Would you mind repeating exactly what you saw and heard?”

  “Not at all,” she said, and did so. Including mention of the shadow shape. It was seldom wise to withhold anything from the police, John’s views about the efficacy of the law notwithstanding, and would have been downright foolish to do so in a foreign land.

  Captain Jacobsen was not stirred. “So you can’t be certain that you actually saw such movements?”

  “No, I can’t.”

  “You had yet to step over onto the Pettibone property at the time?”

  “That’s correct. The angle of view from where I stood was oblique and the light from the window not bright.”

  “An optical illusion,” he said, and punctuated the statement with a positive nod. “The circumstances of Mr. Pettibone’s death are such that he could have died in only one of two ways, by accident or by his own hand.”

  “The circumstances?”

  “He was alone in his study, the door and both windows locked. The door had to be broken down—the noises you heard following the shot.”

  “Yes, I thought as much,” Sabina said. “May I ask what conclusion you’ve reached?”

  He studied her for a few seconds, as if trying to decide how candid he should be. Then, “I am satisfied that Mr. Pettibone took his own life, though it’s up to the coroner to make the final determination.”

  That was not the verdict she had expected. “Mr. Oakes seemed adamant that the shooting was accidental.”

  “Very adamant, understandably so, but incorrect. Mr. Pettibone kept his pistol in his bedroom—he deliberately took it into the study last night. There were no cleaning supplies in the study, so that couldn’t have been his purpose. Everything points to suicide.”

  “Wasn’t the fatal wound in his chest? Mr. Oakes said it was.”

  “It was, yes.”

  “Don’t those who commit suicide by firearm usually shoot themselves in the head?”

  “Not always. A bullet in the heart is not uncommon.”

  “Did Mr. Pettibone leave a suicide note?”

  “No, but that is also not uncommon. And his dying words are surely meaningless.”

  “Dying words?”

  “He was still alive when Mr. Oakes and the houseman broke in. He spoke three words before he died. ‘Pick up sticks.’”

  Sabina repeated the phrase. “Is it certain that those are the words he spoke?”

  Captain Jacobsen raised and lowered his long jaw affirmatively. “Mr. Oakes, the houseman, and Mr. Pettibone’s secretary all heard them.”

  “Do any of them have an idea of what he meant?”

  “No,” he said. “Evidently the words had no specific meaning—the delusional rambling of a dying man in extremis.”

  Perhaps, but it seemed a strange phrase for a man such as Gordon Pettibone to have uttered at any time, much less with his last breath. For no particular reason it put Sabina in mind of the old nursery rhyme: One, two, buckle my shoe. Three, four, knock on the door. Five, six, pick up sticks. Very strange, indeed.

  The captain was scrutinizing her again. His smile, now, had an ironic edge. “You’re very inquisitive, Mrs. Quincannon. A result of your profession, no doubt. Mrs. Pritchard told me that you and your husband operate a detective agency in San Francisco.”

  Drat! Margaret meant well, but Sabina’s accounts of her experiences had resulted in a touch of idolization that had loosened her hostess’s tongue. That explained the captain’s added professional interest.

  He said, “I don’t believe I’ve heard of a woman detective in the private sector. You must be unique in the profession.”

  The one thing that irritated Sabina almost as much as having men criticize or scoff at her chosen livelihood was having them consider her “unique,” as if she were a freak of nature instead of an emancipated woman toiling willfully and successfully in a man’s game. Captain Jacobsen, at least, showed no disrespect. In fact, he seemed mildly intrigued.

  She curbed her annoyance. “Not at all,” she said. “I was employed and trained by the Pinkerton Agency, as several other women have been, before I entered into partnership with Mr. Quincannon. Nearly a dozen years’ experience, all told.”

  “Commendable,” he said, and seemed to mean it. “Mrs. Pritchard sang your praises with what I have no doubt is complete justification. But you are in Honolulu on vacation?”

  “I am, yes.”

  “Your husband has business here and on the Big Island, I understand.”

  Margaret again, not that the source mattered. An explanation of John’s absence would have had to be tendered in any case. But not a full explanation, even if one were demanded; he would provide the details of his pursuit of Lonesome Jack Vereen and the late Nevada Ned Nagle if and when he delivered Vereen to the local authorities.

  “He does,” Sabina said, “a private matter on behalf of a client who demands discretion. I’m sure you understand.”

  “I do, unless it in any way breaks or circumvents Hawaiian law.”

  Time for a little white lie. “I assure you that it doesn’t.”

  Captain Jacobsen accepted that and did not press her further. He rose, said it had been a pleasure meeting her, bowed again, and took his leave.

  After he was gone, Sabina briefly, gently, and mildly remonstrated with Margaret, asking that she please not reveal her and John’s profession to anyone else. Margaret apologized profusely, and that settled the matter.

  * * *

  Sabina’s second visitor arrived unannounced at the guesthouse shortly past noon. She had just finished partaking of a light lunch brought by Kaipo and was perusing an article in the current issue of the Honolulu Evening Bulletin criticizing the burgeoning influx of American warships and military personnel when the knock came on the screen door. She opened it, and there stood Philip Oakes.

  “I hope I’m not intruding, Mrs. Quincannon,” he said. “I’d like to speak to you. May I come in?”

  “Speak to me about what, Mr. Oakes?”

  “My uncle’s death. May I come in?”

  There was none of Saturday evening’s flirtatiousness in the way he looked at her, nor was he nattily well groomed or his manner urbane, so it wa
s not a foolishly ill-timed attempt at seduction that had brought him. He seemed more upset today than he had been when she’d spoken to him last night. His voice and eyes were both beseeching.

  She allowed him inside. He waited until she had reseated herself at the rattan table, then occupied the second chair and mopped his face with an embroidered silk handkerchief. In the close confines of the porch she detected the odor of whiskey on his breath, but it was not strong and he was nowhere near intoxicated. A large drink or two to settle his nerves, at a guess.

  “I’ve come to ask your help,” he said.

  “My help? To do what?”

  “Prove that my uncle’s death was an accident. An accident. You’re a detective, aren’t you? Captain Jacobsen told me you were after he spoke with you.”

  Oh, Lord. The police detective had been no more circumspect than Margaret had in keeping her profession confidential. “Yes,” she admitted, “I am. In San Francisco.”

  “There is nothing to stop you from practicing your trade here, is there? Detective business is why your husband went to the Big Island, isn’t it?”

  Sabina swallowed a sigh. “The captain seems convinced your uncle died by his own hand.”

  “Jacobsen is wrong. My uncle would never have committed suicide. Never.”

  “You’re sure of that?”

  “Positive. He was too fond of himself, had too much to live for. Great Orient Import-Export, his position with the Reform Party and the annexation. Yes, and finishing the book on ancient Chinese history he was writing. I told Jacobsen all of this but he wouldn’t listen, just wouldn’t listen. His investigation was cursory, he made up his mind in a hurry. The man is an incompetent blockhead.”

  “An incompetent blockhead doesn’t become a captain of detectives,” Sabina said.

  “He does if he was given his position for political reasons. Jacobsen was. He must have been.”

  “What makes you think I am any more competent than he? How do you expect me to prove him wrong?”

  “Come with me to the house, conduct your own investigation. There must be something the police missed in my uncle’s study, something they missed. I’ll pay you. I’ll pay whatever your agency charges in San Francisco.”

  “Payment is not an issue,” Sabina said. “Why are you so desperate to prove your uncle did not take his own life?”

  “Suicide is bad for business. Bad for business. A blot on the family escutcheon.”

  “Come now, Mr. Oakes, you’re not being frank with me. There must be more to it than that.”

  He was silent for a few seconds, as if debating with himself. Then, “Oh, very well. The main reason is insurance.”

  “Insurance?”

  “A life insurance policy with an American firm. Twenty thousand dollars. Twenty thousand dollars! I happen to know that I am the beneficiary.”

  “I see. The policy contains a nonpayment clause in the event of suicide, is that it?”

  “Yes. Twenty thousand dollars is a substantial amount—all that is likely to come to me and I won’t be cheated out of it. I won’t be cheated.”

  “But surely you stand to inherit your uncle’s home, his share of the import-export business…”

  “Not the business,” Oakes said. “There are ironclad agreements with the other partners … no, I don’t stand to inherit his share. Or the house. Likely he left it to his business partners, or the Reform Party. Or his paramour.”

  “Paramour?”

  “Miss Earlene Thurmond.” His lip curled disdainfully as he spoke the name. “That is what she was, you know, in addition to her secretarial duties. His paramour.”

  Sabina let that pass without comment.

  “No financial bequest to me, that is the point,” Oakes said. “No money except the insurance. Not even a token amount in his will, he told me that. Not even a token amount.”

  “In that case, are you certain you’re still the beneficiary of the insurance policy?”

  “Certain, yes. Positive. My uncle was manipulative, autocratic, but he wasn’t a complete bas … wasn’t completely heartless. He hadn’t much sense of family loyalty but he did have some. Not enough, but some.”

  Once more Sabina was silent. Unbidden, the lines from the old nursery rhyme again intruded on her thoughts. One, two, buckle my shoe. Three, four, knock on the door. Five, six …

  “Pick up sticks,” she said aloud.

  “What? What’s that?”

  “Pick up sticks. Captain Jacobsen told me your uncle spoke those words before he succumbed. You haven’t any idea what they mean?”

  “No. He never said anything like that before. Never. Out of his head with pain. What does it matter?”

  “Perhaps it doesn’t.” And perhaps it did.

  Oakes mopped his forehead again. “Will you at least come to the house and look through the study? At least that much, Mrs. Quincannon?”

  Sabina’s inclination was to politely but firmly decline. She did not like Philip Oakes and she found his mercenary motives distasteful. And yet there were puzzling aspects to Gordon Pettibone’s death that were not satisfactorily explained by Captain Jacobsen’s conclusion of a willfully self-inflicted gunshot.

  The fact that 3:00 A.M. was a curious time for a man to choose to take his own life; the gunshot wound in an unlikely location for a suicide; that inexplicable dying utterance of “pick up sticks”; and the shadow shape that might not have been imaginary after all.

  Add all those together, and she knew what John would have made of the bundle. If the two apparent anomalies were nothing of the kind, and “pick up sticks” was not just nonsense but some sort of dying message, then it was possible Gordon Pettibone hadn’t shot himself on purpose or by accident—that someone had put the bullet in his heart despite the fact that the study doors and windows had all been locked.

  John, if he were here, would surely accept the investigative challenge; conundrums of this sort intrigued him. If she refused the opportunity, he would chastise her for it when he found out. And be perfectly right in doing so. She had, after all, been instrumental in solving a few conundrums herself.

  “Very well, Mr. Oakes,” she said. “I’ll do as you ask.”

  15

  QUINCANNON

  Quincannon left Kailua shortly past dawn on Wednesday morning.

  Rain had pelted down again during most of the night, but at this hour the sky above the village was clear. Banks of clouds on the horizon were not quite dark enough to be the harbingers of another storm; an intermittent offshore breeze carried no scent of ozone. The ever-present muggy stickiness suggested another blistering, if dry, day ahead.

  The hired wagon was little more than a wooden cart with iron wheels, but its bed was large enough to hold a trussed prisoner on the return trip; now it contained only his borrowed carpetbag and a package of food and bottle of water provided by Abner Bannister. As for the creature in the traces, Quincannon had never seen one quite like it. A Kona nightingale was smaller than the four-legged asses he was used to, and resembled nothing so much as a leathery-skinned mouse grown to fifty times its normal size. He had eyed it skeptically on first encounter; it seemed incapable of either the stamina for a thirty-mile trip or the ability to move along at any but a retarded speed. The impression, at least in the early stages of the trek, had proved false. The animal trotted along the muddy, heavily rutted road with no evident strain and at a pace almost equal to that of a horse.

  Kailua lay in lowlands dominated by vast plantations of coffee and sugarcane. The road ran on a more or less level grade through the fields, then began to skirt the edges of inland hills grayed by volcanic ash. Ancient lava flows from Mauna Kea had permanently scarred the landscape, leaving humped, blackened rocks to mark their path to the sea. The volcano loomed high and wide to the east, its snow-covered crest sheathed and mostly hidden by clouds. The Polynesians, Abner Bannister had told him, considered it kahunu—a bad mountain—because of the devastation caused by its eruptions.

 
; By nine o’clock the heat had increased and lay heavily on Quincannon’s head and shoulders. His sweat-encrusted Panama hat provided some protection from the harsh sunlight, and he allowed himself frequent sips from the water bottle. He stopped once to give the Kona nightingale a drink and a bait of grain, using the hat for a bowl. Otherwise the donkey trotted along without apparent need for rest.

  Shortly past eleven by his stem-winder they crested a hill, from where he could see a considerable distance along the rugged coast. Huge blackened lava swaths cut through the greens and browns; some of the beaches were of black sand, an oddly unreal sight in their fringes of coconut palms. Where the road descended near one of these, he stopped again and sought shade under one of the palms in which to partake of the sandwiches and fruit Bannister had packed for him.

  The day wore on. Mile after mile jolted away. He passed the small fishing villages that were noted on the map, Kawaihae and Puako, but saw no one on the road other than a lone rider on horseback—a cowhand from one of the ranches, from the look of him—and a handful of donkey carts driven by natives who regarded him with stoic interest, doubtless curious as to what had brought a large bearded stranger into their backcountry midst.

  Sun flame and the moist air turned his disposition as black and bleak as the lava scars. There would come a day when he would look back on this adventure as an example of the ends to which an implacable detective would go to bring his quarry to justice. But that day was a long way off.

  Mostly he rode with his mind empty, but once he thought of Sabina and wondered how she was spending her day. In much more pleasant circumstances than he was, he hoped. Seeing the sights with Margaret Pritchard, or lounging on the Waikiki beach in the shade of a coconut palm after a refreshing swim. The thought of immersion in the surf, despite the fact that it was as warm as bathwater, made him feel even hotter and he thrust it aside.