"I guess that's right." It was a grudging assent.
He knew it was right.
Any rich man's will can provide a motive for murder if there is a legatee greedy ^enough to trade a human life for money or power. Chase's will was no different. Under it, every person on the island-including myself-might have good and sufficient reason from the police's point of view to commit murder. And Chase's statement to the contrary, none of us could prove we were unaware of its provisions or, at the very least, unaware of the likelihood of receiving some kind of bequest. Especially the family members.
Chase had certainly put me in the soup-if any-
thing happened to him-along with all the other legatees.
Now was as good a time as any to bring that up.
"I wish to be removed from your will, Chase. Immediately."
The stubborn resolve in his face answered me.
"No." His answer couldn't have been simpler or less equivocal.
I tried to keep my temper. "I don't want your damn money."
"I know that. But I shall decide who receives a part of my estate -a part of me, Henrie O. I have that right."
I didn't want to talk about rights.
Chase knew that.
He regarded me steadily. "Henrie O, now, after all these years, I want an answer. Why did you run away?"
I didn't want to look back. It reopened wounds that I had thought long since healed.
"Whenever I see an Indian summer day, Henrie O, I think of you and what you took away from me." There wasn't so much anger as great sadness in his voice.
I clasped my hands together and stared down at them, but I was seeing the office, jammed with desks, typewriters, a teletype. We had worked for a news bureau for a midwestern daily, and we had covered Capitol Hill. It had been the most exciting, demanding, exhilarating, passionate year of my life, and the most heartbreaking.
"The House Un-American Activities Committee. That college professor from Connecticut. A Holly-
wood actor claimed he was a Communist. It was the height of the witch-hunt. Before McCarthy took on the army-and lost. The professor's wife came in." I could see her as if it were yesterday, a woman in her early thirties with anxious eyes and a shaking voice. "She begged you not to run the story, said it would ruin her husband. He was up for tenure. She said he'd only gone to a couple of meetings when he was in college, that it didn't amount to anything. But you wouldn't listen."
I looked at Chase, at his intelligent, determined, puzzled face.
He didn't remember.
But I'd never forgotten.
"Agnes Moran, Chase. Her husband was Thomas Moran."
The name kindled no recognition.
"She was terribly upset." How paltry the words were. Even now-more than forty years later - I remembered so vividly the desperate fear in her eyes, the slight, musical voice ravaged by urgency. "She'd found out that you were going to break a story on her husband. She begged me to help persuade you not to do it. She said his career would Jbe ruined. She swore that he'd never done anything to hurt his country. I asked you to talk to Moran, get his side of it."
Chase squinted, then smacked his fist against his palm. "Oh, yeah, Moran. He was one of those saps that got mixed up with the Reds when he was in college. Hell, I had letters he'd written to some Russian official. I don't remember the details now, but he was so glowing about the new world order, that kind of thing. Oh, God, that was hot stuff then. That was
the series I did that first caught Elizabeth's dad's attention. That series set me up."
The series had resulted in a subpoena to Thomas Moran. That had gotten lots of headlines. His college had refused him tenure. The day Moran was to answer the subpoena, he had driven to Arlington National Cemetery and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and put a bullet in his brain.
Chase didn't remember that part of it.
When I reminded him, he merely looked surprised.
"I covered the funeral." The maples had blazed like fire, the oaks had been as brilliant as dollops of gold. "His widow saw me. She pulled away from the family, and she told me that you and I had killed him. She said she hoped we were satisfied to see a good man destroyed for no reason."
"I wrote a story. The facts were true." There wasn't an iota of regret in Chase's voice.
"Moran was served up like a fatted calf to satisfy the paranoia fanned by the malevolent senator from Wisconsin." Even after all this time I was angry, angry at the warping of freedom, the mind-jacketing the McCarthy years had begun.
Chase shrugged. "Moran should have had the guts to defend himself."
"But you didn't care whether he was innocent," I continued steadily. "All you cared about was a big story-no matter what it did to him or to his family."
"Big stories." He smiled faintly, and his eyes challenged me. "That's my business, Henrie O. I thought it was yours."
Big stories. Yes, I'd had more than a few. And so
had my husband, Richard. But neither of us had ever -knowingly-broken a story for our own advancement or broken a story when we knew the official attack was politically motivated. Yes, we had had to cover those kinds of stories when they became news, but we had never originated them. I had no Willie Horton stories on my conscience.
I'd left the cemetery that long-ago morning and gone to my apartment and packed. I had made up my mind. I couldn't love a man who sacrificed human lives for his own advancement.
Chase sighed. "I suppose I should have known. You've always had a quixotic streak, Henrietta. But I thought-hell, I thought you'd been seeing Richard, decided he was the man for you. And I wasn't going to come after you-if that's the way you felt."
I shook my head. "No. That's not what happened. I went back to Kansas, to my mother's sister. Richard followed me. He tracked me down-and he asked me to marry him."
I had been honest Math Richard when he came. He had still wanted to marry me. I had said yes, and it had been the best decision I'd ever made.
"I called and called your aparfment." Chase sat up straight and leaned toward me, his eyes blazing. "Finally I knew you were gone and not coming back. Nothing's ever hurt me that much."
He was so close to me, close enough to reach out and touch. He still radiated that animal energy, that high, intense enthusiasm for life and success and power. He was still extraordinarily handsome with his high-bridged nose and deep-set eyes and full lips and firm chin.
Different indeed from my equable, steady, honorable husband, Richard. Richard's face had been broad and open. He had had reddish-brown hair and hazel eyes and a crooked grin. And he had been a loving husband and father.
Chase slumped back in his chair. "You never knew it, but I kept track of you through the years, you and Richard and Emily."
I didn't answer.
"T
he three of you made quite a team."
"Yes. Yes, we did."
I had made a choice years ago.
I stood and so did Chase.
We looked at each other without pretense.
"I came here, Chase. I will do my best for you. But that is all I will do."
He walked with me to his study door.
As I started to leave, he reached out, caught my hand. "I wish," he said softly, "that I had been Richard."
I managed a smile though I felt close to tears. "Oh, Chase, it wouldn't have been the right kind of life for you. Richard and I never had a dime. Richard and I never owned a newspaper or a television station. We had a lot of laughter, but we scrimped from payday to payday."
"You had fun."
"Yes. But then, be honest, Chase. So did you."
He grinned at that. "By God, so I did. And I built an empire. An empire, Henrie O." It was almost as if a trumpet sounded behind his words.
I slept fitfully, images of past and present intertwined: the agony in my heart as I'd packed so long ago and caught a train to Kansas City; Richard's face when he found me the next week; Emily as a newborn, so tiny and delicate and dark; the many, many years and many, many journeys. I was in an airplane, a propeller-driven twin engine, and it bucketed and banged its way through the sky. Rain streamed against the windows, and there was an odd, harsh thumping sound -
I came awake abruptly. Somewhere a shutter banged in the wind, and rain splashed steadily against the windows.
I twisted and turned, "wishing for the thick, black, comforting curtain of sleep but miserably aware that it would be hours before sleep would return.
Finally I gave up and snapped on the lamp next to the bed. Three-thirty. With a sigh I got up and went to the alcove. I made some decaffeinated tea and found a fresh, small loaf of pumpkin bread. At least I would always remember Dead Man's Island for its exemplary hospitality.
I got a pad from my purse. I'm fond of To Do lists.
To Do
1. Obtain extensive background Information on Betty.
2. Search for evidence of instability in Miranda's past. Drugs?
3. Why wasn't T. Dunnaway among those C.P. had investigated re the Leaks to the unauthorized biographer?
4. Is Burton Andrewsreally the wimp other men judge him to be?
5. Talk to Roger again. Who would 'have better reason to be bitter about Chafe's -
Explosions shattered the night.
First a series of rapid, harsh cracks in quick succession, then an enormous, concussive burst of sound. That horrendous boom rattled the windows, assaulted the eardrums, a huge, tearing, roaring, mind-numbing detonation.
By the time I reached the window and flung aside the shutters, the blaze was far beyond anyone's control. Not the finest fire-fighting equipment in the land could have saved the Miranda B., captured in a round and glowing ball of flame. The lovely yacht writhed, blackening in her incendiary prison as tongues of fire fed by diesel fuel sparked high in the night sky and swiftly spread from the shattered boathouse to the pier. As I watched, the skeletal frame of the boat collapsed inward.
The rain fell. Not an especially strong rain, just steady and wet and dispiriting. This wasn't the rain that would come with the hurricane but the product of the peripheral clouds associated with that storm. Even so, it was damp and unpleasant on the breakfast patio. But we all stood there, most in varying states of nighttime disarray, and watched our means of escape from the island disintegrate within the curling, quivering, devouring flames.
We waited in silence and grim foreboding as
Chase and Enrique came up the path, returning from their fruitless journey to the steps of the pier. That was as near as they could go to the blaze. In the glow from a garden light Chase's face was rigid with anger. Enrique's dark eyes flickered uneasily.
Miranda, childlike in a short pink and white cotton nightie, darted out in the rain and caught Chase's arm. Her voice was thin and high. "Chase, Chase, I'm so frightened. What happened to our boat?"
Her husband put his arm around her, pulled her with him toward the porch. "Come out of the rain, my dear." His tone was gentle. When they stepped beneath the roof, he looked at the rest of us, his face harsh.
Valerie's exquisite silk negligee was in odd contrast to her haggard and witchlike face.
Roger's blond hair stuck out in tufts on his head, and his face was swollen with sleep. He had the rumpled look of a teddy bear.
The thick mat of dark hair on Haskell's chest glistened in the light. Wearing only red-plaid boxer shorts, he stood with his hands on his hips, staring out at the flames, his arrogant face somber.
Lyle's hastily tied seersucker robe bunched unevenly around his waist. He, too, was barefoot and barelegged. His dark red hair lay sleekly on his skull. His mouth was closed in a tight line.
In wrinkled khaki slacks and a creased knit shirt, Trevor stood with his arms tightly folded across his chest, his mouth turned down in a heavy frown.
Burton clung to one of the porch pillars, his face ashen. He was the only man on the porch in a pair of pajamas, pale blue cotton shorts and top.
I was dressed. I can dress in seconds, and my walking shorts and a shirt were at hand. Tennis shoes took but a moment, and I smoothed my hair up in a bun and pinned it as I ran downstairs.
Betty and Rosalia, both in long cotton gowns, waited just inside the French doors, not comfortable with joining us, too frightened not to stay near.
"I can't believe…" Chase began violently. Then, as Miranda shivered in his embrace, he took a ragged breath. "There's no point in standing out here getting wet. Let's go inside."
He led the way to the living room.
We trooped silently after him.
Chase led Miranda to a couch, then turned to face us. "One of you is a goddamned fool."
That loosened tongues.
"It's your boat," Valerie snapped. "Who else would know how to blow it up?"
Roger turned on her. "Don't be an idiot. Why would Dad do that? It's nuts!"
"Why did he invite us here to start with?" The actress's voice rose, dangerously near hysteria. "Talk about nuts - "
"Shut up, both of you." Lyle's voice was ugly. "Something damn crazy's going on, all right, and we've got to figure it out."
"But nobody would destroy the boat deliberately. Would they? Would they?" Miranda's frightened eyes sought Chase.
I decided to toss in an observation. "Dynamite."
That was all I said, but the quiet it evoked was instantaneous.
Every eye turned toward me. Even Chase's.
"Dynamite. Three sticks, I'd say. Those explosions ignited the fuel."
"Christ, that id what it sounded like." Lyle looked at me sharply. "Who the hell here would have dynamite?"
/> If there was an answer, none of us knew it.
"That's not the point." Haskell strode to the center of the room. "It doesn't matter-not now-who blew it up or why. But we've got to get the hell off this place."
Miranda smoothed her flimsy nightgown down closer to her knees. "We have plenty of food, and we thought everyone was staying until next Thursday anyway. So… I know it isn't pleasant… the way things have turned out, but it will be all right…"
She and Haskell were so close in age, but his face was old when he looked down at her. There was pity and affection and a desperate sadness in his gaze. "Randy," he said gently, "the storm. There's a big storm coming. A hurricane. And it will wash right over this island."
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