A Whisper of Danger

by Catherine Palmer

  “Oh yeah? I’d like to see it sometime.” Splint walked down the steps, his eyes darting back and forth between the two adults standing in the courtyard. “So, what’s going on?”

  “Breakfast time,” Jess said. “Did you wash your hands?”

  “I mean what’s going on with you guys? Have you been crying, Mom?”

  “I’m just a little tense, Splint.” She pulled back her son’s chair. “I didn’t sleep much last night. How about you, sweetheart? No more nightmares?”

  “Nah. To tell you the truth, I think I was just kind of hungry last night.” He picked up his fork. “Remember we had to eat that Indian curry for lunch? And then for supper all we had was samosas. I bet it was just hunger pangs.”

  Jess glanced at Rick. He gave her a wink.

  “Hunger’ll do that to you,” he said, sitting down beside Splint. “We’ll take along some extra snacks when we go out on the water today.”

  “Hey, am I going with you again? All right! Can we explore the new wreck site? Are you going to let Hunky go at it with the airlift? A slave ship—that’s amazing. You know, the first thing we ought to do is put down a grid. I’ll help you with that. But what about those eels that nearly got Mom?”

  “I’ll take my speargun.”

  “Cool! So, what do you think we’ll find at the new site? Draw me a diagram of everything you discovered so far.”

  Splint slid a paper napkin in front of his father and grabbed a croissant. Rick took a pen from the back pocket of his jeans. He took a bite out of a roll and set it on his plate as he leaned over the napkin and began to sketch.

  “See, here’s where the anchor lies,” Rick said around a mouthful of bread. “It’s crusted over in a lot of places, but it’s in remarkable shape for the number of years it’s been underwater. The ring’s still in place, and both flukes look great.”

  “Flukes?” Splint asked, his own mouth so full of bread it came out sounding like fooks. “Are those the finlike projections on the ends of each of the anchor’s arms?”

  Jess watched the two of them for a moment, and she had to bite her lip to keep from laughing out loud. Brown heads touching, they were bent over the diagram shoulder to shoulder. Oblivious to the world around them, munching on bread they weren’t even tasting, they discussed the anchor as though there were nothing more important in life than the condition of the anchor and its fooks.

  “Bwana Hunky has come,” Hannah said, passing by Jess with a plate of sliced mangoes. She paused beside the younger woman and studied the two at the table. “I think they do not see or hear anything but each other.”

  “Like father, like son,” Jess murmured.

  Hannah smiled. “This is a good thing you have done, toto. In Swahili we say, Mwana umleavyo, ndivyo akuavyo. As you nurse your child, so he grows up.”

  “I hope you’re right, Mama Hannah,” Jess said. “Tell Hunky and his crew to come on in and join us. We might as well get this day off to as crazy a start as possible.”

  After the divers left for the morning, Uchungu House settled into an uncharacteristic calm. The rainstorm had left everything damp and muggy. Jess thought about Dr. bin Yusuf ’s artwork as she cleared the breakfast table. Giles Knox had been right about one thing. The paintings and sculptures did belong in a safe, dry environment.

  But should she do business with the gallery owner? Undecided, Jess spent the morning painting impala and monkey illustrations in her studio bedroom. From the balcony, she could see Solomon laboring over the engine that still hung from the Red Hot Poker tree. Miriamu was singing in the kitchen below. Later in the morning, Hannah strolled down to the beach to have her usual prayer time.

  At noon, Jess ate lunch on the sand with Hannah. They could see the diving boat out in the bay, but it was almost impossible to distinguish one figure from another. After lunch the police showed up again. This time they talked to Solomon, Miriamu, Jess, even Hannah. They examined the small storage room behind the stairs where Splint had found the bloody urn. Then they counted steps, took measurements of distances from one room to the next, and drew diagrams of the house.

  The policemen had just left when a crew from the electric company showed up. They examined wires and drew more diagrams. Jess tried to keep painting, but her thoughts were on Splint and Rick anyway, so it hardly mattered that her work had been disrupted all afternoon.

  She was putting the final touches on Impala’s big birthday gala—complete with visitors from the previous books: Anteater, Baboon, Cheetah, Dik-Dik, Elephant, and so on— when Giles Knox drove up in a long white limousine. Jess watched him from her balcony as he emerged, looked around, smoothed down his natty ecru safari suit, and tucked his mirrored sunglasses into his shirt pocket. As he walked past his chauffeur toward the verandah, he ran his hand over his hair. Beneath her, Jess caught the unmistakable scent of roses.

  Not wanting Miriamu to have to make the trip upstairs to alert her, Jess went on down to the sitting room. If Giles Knox was a killer, he was certainly the most dainty one she had ever heard of. He looked as slender and fragile as a hothouse flower. On the other hand, despite the urn’s weight, both Splint and Nettie had managed to carry it without too much trouble.

  “Mr. Knox,” she said, pulling open the carved front door. “I see you decided to pay me a personal visit.”

  “I should have preferred to ring you up first, of course, but it’s quite impossible to telephone Uchungu House,” he replied, holding out a thin-fingered hand. “I’m sure you’re well aware of that.”

  “Yes. Won’t you come in?”

  He was already walking through the door, his gaze fixed on the large painting of the storm scene that hung over the sofa where Rick had spent the night. “This is simply magnificent, isn’t it?” he gushed. “But what’s this? Oh, dear! Oh, my goodness gracious . . . do you see this? Look, Ms. Thornton. Mildew!”

  He presented the small green spot as though he were announcing an Academy Award. Jess leaned over the sofa and squinted. “I see it,” she said. “It could be mildew. Or it might just be a speck of green paint.”

  “I should think I know mildew when I see it! This is worse than I had anticipated. A painting of this caliber . . . covered with mildew.”

  “It’s not exactly covered.”

  “Ms. Thornton, may we speak frankly?”

  “Sure.” She gestured to the sofa. Knox declined to sit. “But you might as well know up front that I haven’t made up my mind what to do about Dr. bin Yusuf ’s art.”

  “I gathered that. I awaited your decision in Zanzibar, of course. When you failed to respond, I was compelled to leave the island and return to the business of overseeing my galleries. In the meantime, my dear Ms. Thornton, I have had further contact with the collector I mentioned to you who lives in America.”

  “The Hollywood guy?”

  “My client is a most distinguished patron of the arts, madam. He is quite concerned about the status of Dr. bin Yusuf ’s art. And when I tell him about the . . . the—”

  “The mildew. Yes, I’m aware I need to make a decision.”

  “Today I have come for one purpose and one purpose alone.” He paused and cleared his throat. “I beseech your permission to begin cataloging every single work of art in Uchungu House.”

  “But that would take days.”

  “I am prepared for that eventuality. Once again, I have booked a hotel room in Zanzibar in the fondest hope that you will give my request serious consideration.” He took a step toward her and leaned close, his cloud of rose water enveloping Jess. “Madam, once I have organized and cataloged all the valuables, I shall consult my client. Within a few days after that telephone call, I should be able to present you with a concrete offer.”

  “Are you telling me you want me to give you free rein of Uchungu House? For as long as it takes? There are pictures and sculptures everywhere, Mr. Knox. The storerooms are full.”

  “Full!” He took a monogrammed white handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his
brow. “Oh, my. Please, Ms. Thornton, I cannot overstate the urgency of this matter.”

  “I understand your feelings of urgency. You’ve had this big offer dangling for . . . for a long time. . . .” Jess stopped speaking and studied the gallery owner. “By any chance, did you work with this famous Hollywood client before Dr. bin Yusuf ’s death? Did you know how badly your client wanted the art?”

  “Of course I knew! I am the primary worldwide supplier of African art, madam. I am intimate with my clientele.”

  “Did you personally ask Dr. bin Yusuf if he wanted to sell his work? Did you ever come out here to Uchungu House and talk with him?”

  “I visited briefly. The man refused to consider selling even one piece. His behavior toward me was . . . it was . . . unconscionable!” He wrapped his thin fingers around Jess’s upper arm and pulled her from the west sitting room into the east. “Do you see this portrait? It’s very small and quite badly framed. The canvas is almost inconsequential in size. In this very room, Dr. bin Yusuf and I were discussing the matter of my valued client, and I begged him to let me show the portrait. Just this one tiny painting! Do you know what he said to me?”

  Jess shook her head. Though she hadn’t paid much attention to the picture since her initial sweep-through cleaning of Uchungu House, she remembered the haunting expression of the little boy. Now she took a step forward and studied the portrait carefully. There was something about the light-skinned little boy . . . something about the child’s green eyes. . . .

  “Did you see those weird green eyes of his?” Splint spoke those words once, but when? “That guy gave me the heebie-jeebies. . . .”

  Omar Hafidh.

  “Ms. Thornton?” Giles Knox asked. “Do you have any idea what Dr. bin Yusuf said to me about this small, inconsequential painting? He said, ‘You may not have it. And you may not have this one, either,’ at which time he pointed to this little painting of the woman with only half her face revealed. ‘You may not have any of my works,’ he told me. ‘They are my life, and you will not take my life.’”

  Jess swallowed. “You will not take my life?”

  “That’s what he said! Can you imagine? This little painting, clever though it is, can hardly be considered extraordinary. The one in the sitting room, however—Storm at Sea—now that canvas! That canvas is a masterpiece!”

  Jess walked over to the picture of the woman. Suddenly she recognized it, too. The woman was Miriamu.

  “I tell you, I have never met such a stubborn, willful man in my life,” Knox continued, oblivious to Jess’s epiphany. “Artists can be temperamental, of course. Well, you should know that. You’re an illustrator of some sort, I believe you told me. At any rate, I’ve dealt with some difficult artists. But Dr. bin Yusuf . . . that man . . . he was exasperating. So easily outraged. So very . . . bitter.”

  “Bitter?” Jess turned.

  “Oh, indeed. He was a man eaten through with bitterness. Impossible to see why, of course, with all his talent. He had so much. But the longer I knew him, the more I watched him wither. Devoured by his personal demons.”

  “That doesn’t sound anything like the artist I knew in Dar es Salaam.”

  “People change. Something happened to him in the last years of his life. I don’t know what it was. Something quite dreadful, I think. He never got over it. Never forgave. It consumed him. The man became totally impossible to reason with. But his works were still brilliant—still magnificent! Dear Ms. Thornton, do consider my request to catalog the contents of Uchungu House. I assure you I have the utmost respect for this art. I shall handle it with the greatest care, and when I am finished, I have no doubt you will thank me generously for my work.”

  “Thirty-five percent, as I recall,” she said. “That’s pretty generous, all right.”

  Jess crossed her arms and regarded the gallery owner as he strolled around the room inspecting the paintings. Had Giles Knox murdered Dr. bin Yusuf the day they argued? Clearly both men had been angry. The artist had stated he felt his life was threatened. When he refused to give up his artwork, had Giles Knox picked up the nearest thing he could find and bashed Dr. bin Yusuf in the head?

  Shuddering, Jess followed the man with her eyes. Maybe Knox was a killer. But he didn’t scare her. In fact, she was getting just a little tired of this whole business. She wanted to know who had murdered her friend, and she suddenly decided it was time to find out for herself.

  The Zanzibar police detectives said they were doing all they could. But she lived right here at Uchungu House. She could study, question, examine—even draw diagrams of her own. She could spend hours at a time in the company of every person who might have been involved in the murder. Solomon Mazrui. Miriamu. Hunky Wallace. And now she had Giles Knox within reach.

  “All right,” she said. “I’ll give you three days. You can come first thing in the morning along with Hunky Wallace and his divers. I’ll expect you to go at sunset when they leave. Don’t talk to my son, and don’t bother my employees. I’m painting under a deadline—yes, I’m aware that’s not very artistic, but it’s how I make a living, Mr. Knox—so I’ll ask you not to disturb me unless it’s an emergency. When you’ve finished, I want to see everything you’ve cataloged. Give me a complete list. Only then will I consider what your client has to offer. This is no guarantee I will accept it. Agreed?”

  Giles Knox’s face blossomed like an unfolding rose. His eyes lit up. His nostrils flared. His lips parted. “Oh, my dear Ms. Thornton!” He ran across the room and grabbed both her hands. “You’re a dear! I knew you’d come round. Three days! Yes, that’s superb! Magnificent! Thank you so much.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “Tomorrow morning, then! I’ll bring pastries, shall I? Enough for the divers and everyone!” He gave each of her hands a kiss. Then he whisked out of the room.

  Jess couldn’t help but chuckle as she watched the man practically skip to his limousine. As the long white car crunched across the gravel driveway, she turned back to the painting of the green-eyed boy. Why had Dr. bin Yusuf painted a portrait of Omar Hafidh? Omar was his nephew, of course, but why had the artist kept this particular painting for himself—when he’d given several others to the boy’s mother? Was family much more important to Dr. bin Yusuf than anyone had suspected? Maybe he and Omar had developed a special relationship through the years, and no one but the two of them knew about it.

  But why had Dr. bin Yusuf so vehemently refused to part with the other little canvas? Jess turned to the portrait of Miriamu. Only half a face. Why had he painted her that way? And why Miriamu? Had she just been an available model? Or had Dr. bin Yusuf pursued her romantically, as Nettie Cameron claimed. If Miriamu had been Solomon’s wife at the time, of course her husband would have been angry at the situation. Angry enough to kill?

  Why hadn’t Dr. bin Yusuf put these little paintings in his storerooms? Why did he keep so many far more valuable canvases in storage while giving these two paintings a place of honor in his home? Why wouldn’t he even consider selling them?

  “They are my life,” he had told Giles Knox, “and you will not take my life.”

  But someone had.

  Giles Knox wasn’t the last visitor of the day. Andrew Mbuti, Rick’s coworker, roared up on his own motorcycle at sunset to meet the divers. He came loaded down with a stack of mail for Uchungu House. Jess greeted him, sorted through the letters, read the lengthy missive from James Perrott, and then wandered down toward the cliff-side staircase to watch the boat come in.

  In spite of the bustle, she had been lonely all day, she realized. Lonely for her son. Lonely for Rick. How could she have changed so much in such a short time? Not many weeks ago, she would have sworn she despised Rick McTaggart. Now . . . now how did she feel? She liked him. She trusted him. She cared about him. Did she love him again? Could forgiveness ever take her that far?

  “I have received a letter from your sister Tillie and her husband in Mali,” Hannah said, joining Jess at the top of the
steps.

  “How is Tillie?” Jess asked.

  “She has good news.”

  Jess took the letter and scanned the familiar handwriting. “Tillie’s pregnant! She’s going to have a baby. She’s going to be a mother. Oh, Mama Hannah, I miss Tillie so much. I was always closer to her than I was to Fiona. I wish I could see her.”

  “She has written that she may come to stay in Nairobi for the baby’s birth. In Nairobi they have good hospital care. Also, Tillie’s husband, Graeme, is wishing to write a story about another explorer of Africa. This time in Kenya.”

  Jess glanced down at the letter. “He wants to write about Joseph Thomson, the guy who explored Maasai Land in the late 1800s! I bet Grant could help him with his research. You know my brother—he does those anthropological studies all the time. I think he’s on Mount Kilimanjaro with the Maasai these days. I wonder how Grant would get along with Graeme.”

  Hannah smiled. “I believe they are two of a kind.”

  “That would be great, wouldn’t it, Mama Hannah? Tillie and Graeme could move to Nairobi, and then Splint and I could fly up there for a visit. Tillie hasn’t seen Splint in years. Maybe we could even track down Fiona. She’s somewhere out in the Serengeti with her elephants. I’ll bet Grant knows where to find her.”

  “Ehh.” The old woman folded the letter and slipped it into her bodice. “Perhaps one day I should go to visit your brother.”

  “But we need you here. Splint needs you. We don’t know who killed Dr. bin Yusuf. And I told Rick all about Splint, which could turn into a big problem. I still have to tell Splint who his father is. That could throw him off-kilter for days . . . even weeks. School is starting, and who knows how he’ll react to that. My paintings are due in London. And Giles Knox—”

  “Ehh. We are blessed to know that God is always with us,” Hannah murmured.

  Below on the beach, the divers were straggling out of the water and onto the sand. Splint had spotted his mother and was waving tiredly. Jess realized once again how thankful she was for Hannah’s presence in her life. She had come to rely on her beloved ayah’s strength and wisdom. To Splint, the old woman was a best friend.