The Paradise Affair

by Bill Pronzini

  Part of the embankment had been carved into a terrace of shelves. On these lay dozens of full and partial skeletons, some wrapped in decaying tapa cloth, others arranged on powdery mats, one wearing an elaborate necklace made of what might have been shark’s or whale’s teeth fastened with braided hair. Piles of bones and detached skulls were heaped together in hewn niches. Interspersed among these grisly remains were artifacts of the sort he had seen in the Millay ranch house—fiber nets, drums covered with some sort of fish or animal skin, rotting feather standards, spears and arrows and daggers, calabashes and gourds and woven baskets.

  But it was none of this that held his attention and triggered his wrath, even though the discovery was not completely unexpected. He subscribed to the theory espoused by Mark Twain’s Pudd’nhead Wilson: “When angry, count to four; when very angry, swear.” And so he blued the dank air with a string of sulfurous oaths the originality of which would have made Mr. Clemens himself proud.

  For he stood not just in an ancient burial cave, but in a modern one as well. The human remains that lay sprawled at the base of the embankment were a long way yet from being a skeleton. And even at a distance, the upturned face was identifiable in the flickery lantern light.

  He had finally caught up with Lonesome Jack Vereen.

  A quick inspection revealed two bullet wounds, one in the upper torso, the other just below the left temple. Crusts of blood surrounded the wounds, splotch-stained the rock floor next to the body. Shot and killed here at least two days ago. There was no offensive odor, as there had been with Nagle’s corpse; the cold here had acted as a temporary preservative.

  Quincannon yanked at his bad ear, hard enough that it throbbed when he let go—an involuntary gesture of frustration. First Nevada Ned, dead of a morphine overdose the cause of which was likely never to be explained, and now Vereen dead of lead poisoning—both scoundrels sent to Satan before he could get his hands on them. Weeks of chasing the pair in Oakland, San Francisco, San Jose, then across nearly three thousand miles of ocean and over two blasted islands … all for naught. By design or accident or divine perversity he had been cheated out of his due as a peerless detective. Unfair. Infuriating. Insufferable. By all that was holy, he would not stand for such a finish!

  He drew a deep breath, took a firm grip on his emotions. Then, with the lantern held high, he examined the rest of the cave. There was nothing else of import to be seen, no sign of the personal belongings Vereen had carried away with him from the Hoapili Street bungalow. Satisfied, he set the lantern down and searched the pockets in the dead grifter’s once neatly tailored, now torn and soiled clothing. Empty, every one.

  Vereen would not have left R. W. Anderson’s stock certificates and bearer bonds anywhere in Honolulu, of that Quincannon was certain; he would have carried such valuables on his person. The one who had done him in had them now, along with however much was left of the two thousand dollars in stolen cash. Who else but the man who had not drawn a sober breath since Monday, whose fear and nervous strain were at least partly the result of guilt? Who else but Stanton Millay?

  But why? Not for the bonds or certificates, the aggregate worth of which did not amount to enough to entice a wealthy rancher into committing homicide. A fit of rage after discovering that he had been swindled? Possibly, but why do the deed here in the burial cave? Murder could be done and bodies safely made to vanish anywhere in this volcanic wilderness.

  Why come to the heiau at all, for that matter? Unless …

  Quincannon swung the light along the shelves for a closer look at the artifacts scattered among the bones. None of them seemed to be of much value to anyone except an archaeologist or a museum curator. If something of value had been secreted here by Polynesian high priests in ancient times, it must have been removed long ago.

  He started to turn away from the open crypts. In the sweep of light as he did so, his eye caught movement among the rocks on the high ledge farther down. His reaction was immediate, instinctive.

  He had already dropped the lantern and was flinging himself sideways when the rifle flash came.

  20

  QUINCANNON

  The bullet missed him and shattered the lantern, sent it bouncing and crashing across the floor. He landed on his right shoulder and skidded into the opposite wall, the boom of the shot repeated in lustily reverberating echoes all around him. Two seconds later the Navy Colt was in his hand and he was squirming into a pocket of shadow behind Vereen’s corpse, the weapon thrust out in front of him.

  There was a second shot, the slug missing high and showering him with lava chips and dust. Behind him, the shattered lantern had left a trail of burning kerosene, but the reservoir by now must have been a quarter or less full; the flames were low and before the sniper on the ledge above could trigger a third round, they flickered out. The tube, then, was plunged into blackness as thick as india ink.

  Quincannon scrambled backward and sideways toward the middle of the cave. Then, again, he froze in place. The stillness that followed was as absolute as the dark. Now he and whoever had been trying to kill him were on equal footing. If either of them fired, the muzzle flash would betray his position and make him a clear target.

  A stalemate, but one that couldn’t last. Sooner or later he or the shooter would have to make a move.

  How many seconds or minutes crept away Quincannon had no idea. In such darkness you quickly lost track of time. And it was difficult, if not impossible, to gauge the exact source of any sounds—both an advantage and a disadvantage.

  Well?

  His heightened sense of smell picked up a new scent on the air currents. And then something broke the silence—a distant dripping and thrumming. Ozone. Wind and rain. The kona storm had commenced outside. Before the ambush he would have grumbled at the fact. Now he saw it as a potential boon to his chances.

  The second entrance to the burial chamber must be somewhere up near the ledge where the shooter was hidden, so the sounds of the storm would be louder in his ears. That would make any noises down here even harder to pinpoint.

  In his mind’s eye Quincannon could see the shape of the chamber and his relative position. He calculated the distance to the turning behind him. Then he made his move, propelling himself backward and sideways on forearms and knees, deliberately making as much clatter as he could.

  As he’d trusted, he drew no fire. He skittered across to the embankment, then backward into the turning. The floor there was not as smooth; sharp edges ripped through his clothing, gouged and sliced into his skin. He permitted himself a small outcry at one of the sharper cuts of pain. When his hands or feet encountered loose rock, he sent them rattling across the floor.

  Still no rifle fire.

  The confusion of sounds was his ally, and so was the fact that the farther he withdrew along the tube, the more the sounds would diminish in the rifleman’s hearing. The shooter would have no way of knowing that his target was heading back the way he’d come.

  Once into the turning, Quincannon clawed himself upright and felt his way backward along the wall, still generating random noises. He kept this up until he reached the juncture with the first tube and entered that one. He’d gone far enough by then, he judged, to have passed out of earshot. He stood motionless, waiting, listening to the charged silence.

  It might have been five minutes or longer that he stood there. He was a man of steel nerves, but the pitch blackness had begun to have a slightly claustrophobic effect on him. The urge to strike a lucifer alight was strong. He countered it by moving a short distance back into the larger tube, then groping forward along the wall—cautiously, now, with pauses after every step to listen for sounds of pursuit.

  The silence remained so acute it was like a pressure against his eardrums.

  When he finally arrived at the turning into the burial cave, he stepped out from the wall and took the packet of matches from his pocket. He set himself and flicked one aflame on his thumbnail, then immediately snuffed it and flung himself
to the side.

  Nothing happened.

  No rifle flashes, no echoing reports.

  He changed position, struck three additional matches before he was satisfied that his trick had worked. The sniper must have believed that escape had been sought through the ruins, and so had gone down to the heiau to set up another ambush there.

  With a freshly lighted lucifer held aloft, Quincannon moved ahead to where the ledge jutted above. Two more matches showed him the way up to it, and revealed the opening that the shooter had used to enter the tube.

  This passage, like the one in the temple, had been hand-hewn through porous rock and proved to be a much easier and more direct route to and from the burial chamber. It wound and twisted narrowly, climbed, then dipped for fifty yards or so. The currents of air grew stronger, the beat of rain and distant thunder gained volume. Up one last rise, and then he could see a slit of wet, gray daylight ahead.

  He approached the aperture cautiously, the Navy cocked and extended. Outside, he could make out a small flat space surrounded by glistening black rock. He eased his head through the opening. Lines of rain slanted down like thin silver needles, but the full force of the storm had yet to be unleashed; the cloud-roiled sky was the color of a livid purple and black bruise. The hiss and pound of waves lashing the shore was like a low cannonade. All he could see was bare rock.

  He stepped out, hunted up a declivity that led out of the flat space, followed it until he reached a point where the roiled ocean came into view. A few seconds after that, there was a loud boom and a spout of water burst upward below and to his left—the blowhole erupting again.

  Now he knew where he was. The path down from the road, he judged, should be close by.

  This proved to be the case. He located the path, hunkered there to reconnoiter. The ledge and the blowhole were now visible, but there was no sign of the shooter. Mindful of the slick footing, he started down.

  He had almost reached the ledge when he spied the shooter, forted up behind a rock with the barrel of his rifle trained on the entrance to the heiau. The man’s identity came as no surprise—Sam Opaka. Sent to do Stanton Millay’s bidding, or possibly his sister’s.

  Quincannon paused to wipe rain and spray from his eyes before he closed the distance between himself and the luna. His foot, when he moved again, dislodged a stone and sent it rattling down. It was a small noise, all but lost in the voice of squall and sea, but somehow Opaka must have heard it. Either that, or the man possessed a sixth sense for danger.

  Opaka moved with an almost startling swiftness, in one continuous motion levering himself to his feet and bringing the rifle to bear. He fired before Quincannon did, by a second or two, but his aim was off; the bullet ricocheted harmlessly off rock. Quincannon’s shot, even though it, too, was hurried, found Opaka’s arm or shoulder and caused him to lose his grip on the rifle. But it did not take him down. He shouted something in a voice even wilder than the storm’s, and came rushing forward as Quincannon reached the ledge.

  It was not in Quincannon’s nature to shoot an unarmed man. Then again, it was not in his nature to curry harm to himself by standing on principle. He triggered a round at the onrushing man, aiming low. To his astonishment, he missed entirely—a rare occurrence that he later blamed on the storm and the poor footing.

  He had no chance to fire a third time. Opaka crashed into him and sent them both tumbling across the fissured surface of the ledge.

  The blowhole spewed a roaring fountain of water just then, drenching them both in its downpour. They rolled over in a clinch, the luna coming up on top as foamy water swirled and tugged around them. But he was one-armed now; the bullet must have shattered bone in the other arm and rendered it useless. Even so, he was bull-strong and fending him off no easy task.

  A thump to the side of the head rendered Quincannon briefly cockeyed. It also added fuel to his rage. He swore, bucked, heaved Opaka off him. Blinked his eyes clear. The Navy was still clutched tight in his hand; he cracked the luna on the cheek with the barrel, a blow that sent him reeling.

  When Opaka stumbled upright he was close to the blowhole. In the tube below, the surf snarled and hissed and let loose another jet of foaming water. The boil of it coming out of the mouth-like opening churned up around the luna’s feet, caused him to lose his balance. He toppled over, sliding and splashing in the swirling backflow, clawing at the rock as he was pulled backward.

  There was nothing Quincannon could do. An instant later, in a wild churning of arms and legs, Sam Opaka vanished into the blowhole.

  21

  SABINA

  The subconscious mind was a problem-solving marvel. It kept right on functioning independently while the conscious mind was asleep, sorting through memory and supplying elusive answers to troubling questions. When Sabina awakened on Thursday morning, she knew what it was she had overlooked, or rather failed to recognize, in Gordon Pettibone’s study, and therefore the probable meaning of his dying words and the significance of RL462618359. Combined, they explained why the shooting had taken place in the study in the dead of night, and part of the motive for the crime.

  But she needed to verify her suppositions before she acted on them, which meant another visit to the Pettibone house. She consulted the cameo watch she wore pinned at her bosom when dressed; it was not yet eight o’clock, early enough that Philip Oakes should not have left for Great Orient Import-Export, if in fact that was his intention today.

  She dressed hurriedly, pocketed the two pieces of driftwood and the envelope containing the sliver of wood and line of letters and numbers, and left the guesthouse. Once again she took the shortcut across the Pettibone property, went around to the front of the house and rang the bell. She had to ring it twice more before Cheng opened the door.

  “It’s urgent that I speak to Mr. Oakes,” she told him. “Is he here?”

  Yes, he was. Apparently he hadn’t arisen yet. When she repeated the urgent need to speak with him, Cheng allowed her to enter the foyer and climbed the staircase to deliver the message.

  She had to wait several minutes before Philip Oakes appeared, clad in a wine-red robe, his usually slicked-down sandy hair hastily combed. Eye bags and other sleep marks made him look even more dissipated. “What is it, Mrs. Quincannon? What is so urgent?”

  “It’s imperative that I have another look inside the study.”

  “Imperative? Imperative? Why?” His expression brightened. “Have you thought of something to prove my uncle’s death was accidental?”

  Sabina said evasively, “We’ll discuss that at a later time. May I have that look?”

  “Yes. Of course.”

  He led her down the hallway to the study door. “Alone again, please,” she said then. “I won’t be more than a few minutes.”

  “Very well. As you wish. I’ll be in the parlor.”

  She spent no more than fifteen minutes inside the study. Suppositions verified.

  In the parlor she said to Philip Oakes, “Now the police need to be summoned.”

  “The police? The police?”

  “Yes. Captain Jacobsen, if he is available.”

  “… Ah! Then you do have proof!”

  “I believe I do, but not of an accident. Your uncle, Mr. Oakes, was murdered.”

  * * *

  Captain Jacobsen was available, fortunately, and soon arrived in a police van with two uniformed officers, who waited for him outside. He wore the same clothing as the day before, the only difference being that his bow tie today was magenta, but his manner was more brusque than it had been in the Pritchards’ living room.

  “I must say I am surprised that you involved yourself in this matter, Mrs. Quincannon.”

  “I did so at Mr. Oakes’s request. And not because I expected to reach a conclusion other than yours.”

  “But you did reach a different conclusion. According to the telephone call from Mr. Oakes, you contend his uncle’s death was neither suicide nor accident but a case of homicide.”

&nbs
p; “With just cause.”

  “Do you suspect who committed the crime and how it was done?”

  “I do, and I believe I can prove it to your satisfaction.”

  “If so,” he said, “I will bow to your superior detective skills.” There was no irony in the words. He seemed not at all resentful of the possibility of having made an incorrect diagnosis, or of being proven wrong by a woman. A rare breed of police officer, Captain Emil Jacobsen.

  Philip Oakes and Earlene Thurmond were called for and the four of them gathered in the study. Oakes, dressed now in one of his dapper suits, was excited and eager, if still somewhat skeptical; he had tried unsuccessfully to talk Sabina into explaining while they waited. Miss Thurmond had not been told why the police were summoned—she had remained in her room until Captain Jacobsen’s arrival—but she had to have some idea. Though her demeanor was as phlegmatic as it had been the previous afternoon, there was tension in her movements, her rigid stance.

  “You have the floor, Mrs. Quincannon,” the captain said. “Tell us why you believe Gordon Pettibone was murdered.”

  “Murdered? Is that what this is all about?” Miss Thurmond’s exclamation was scornful. “The notion is preposterous. He was alone in here with the door and windows bolted.”

  “One of the windows was not bolted,” Sabina said.

  “That isn’t so, they both were. I told you yesterday that Mr. Oakes and I both checked them.”