Death Island

by Joan Conning Afman

  Beneath the dead pilot’s remains, in a cabinet under the seat, he found a ball of string, a length of rope, a pair of scissors, some tarnished silverware, and other items, and stashed them all together in one of the overhead compartments. Gagging, he dragged the remains of the pilot out of the plane and into the woods, out of sight. He kicked some dirt over him, and followed that up with twigs, fallen limbs, and leaves.

  The remains of the pilot had been bones and rags. Any stench from that should have been long gone, but something foul still remained. Danny searched under the seats, where he found several small decaying animals—moles, rats—he wasn’t sure what they were. He forced back his gag reflex, held his breath, grabbed all of them up together and threw them outside the plane. He wished he had some of those scented candles Katie used to burn at home—but, like everything else in his life now, that was just so much wishful thinking.

  With the debris, pilot and carcasses gone, the stench in the cabin was much less pronounced. But much of it still had clung to Danny. I won’t be scoring on any first dates smelling like this, he joked to himself. Bitterness surged into his throat. Don’t kid yourself, Bud; short of a miracle there won’t be any dates in your future, period.

  It would do. As a matter of fact, it was practically an inn, compared to sleeping in a ditch under a log. He found two tarps in fair condition and spread them out over the seats. With the armrests down and the backs reclining, he and Tom could stretch out across the seats and maybe even catch a decent night’s sleep.

  Tom! Danny jerked back to the present as he suddenly realized that Tom should have returned by now with something, no matter how inadequate, for them to eat. With a jolt of apprehension, he jumped from the cabin and set off at a trot in the direction Tom had gone.

  Half an hour of searching yielded no trace of Tom. At first Danny called softly, not wanting to alert any unfriendly entities lurking in the forest. Then, louder—

  “Tom! Tom, answer me for God’s sake!”

  Neither God nor Tom appeared to hear. There was only the deep, eerie silence of the forest, and the occasional chirping, rustling, or twig snapping that he recognized as natural.

  He went in a little deeper, cautiously, wondering how far Tom might have ventured. A few more steps and a slant of light led him to a small clearing. As he stepped out from the trees, he saw Tom’s body, sprawled at the edge of a marshy pond. He advanced with small careful steps, his eyes raking the edges of the forest as he approached. Finally, choking in horror and disbelief, he gazed down at the mutilated corpse. Tom was unmistakably dead.

  Chapter Eight

  Heather’s absence was duly noted at the next Death Island television viewing at the parsonage. Charlie was acutely aware of the raised eyebrows and sidelong glances flashing between the other women.

  Finally, Sarah, kicking off her shoes and tucking her long legs up under her on the sofa, asked, “Is Heather sick?”

  Her tone was innocent, but Charlie, who had long practice in reading between the lines, heard the real, underlying question. Why is Heather not here?

  She smiled at Sarah. “Try some of these,” she urged, passing a plate of appetizers. She offered the dish with one hand, while passing Sarah a small plate and napkin with the other.

  Sarah helped herself to several of the bagel rounds.

  “Brie and sun-dried tomato?”

  Charlie nodded, ignoring Sarah’s quizzical look. As if on cue, the doorbell chimed. Charlie set the plate down on the coffee table and left the den. She was conscious of the slap of her leather soles against the polished wooden floor of the living room as she went to the door. She could just imagine the whispered conversation in the den.

  “That must be Heather,” Sarah, ever the optimist, would breathe to Mindy.

  “I don’t think so,” Mindy would respond. She would throw Sarah a meaningful look, and whisper, “I don’t think Heather will be back.”

  Charlie’s returned with her guest. “You both know Diana Wilmont.” She gestured to one the pale blue leather loveseats that made up a pair. “Have a seat, Diana, and help yourself to something to eat.”

  She turned to Mindy and Sarah, who together occupied the other loveseat. “Diana’s already addicted to the show, so I thought she’d be a great addition to our group.” She paused, then added, “Since Heather can’t make it anymore.”

  Sarah and Mindy exchanged glances.

  “Nice to have you,” Sarah said, tossed her mane of black hair and smiled at Diana.

  “Likewise,” Mindy said.

  Diana was tall and slim, with a long, rather horsey face and large gray eyes that gave her a perpetually startled expression. Her dark hair was pulled back into a complicated knot at the back of her neck.

  Diana smiled a toothy smile. “I know you from Garden Club,” she said to Mindy, “and both of you from P.T.A.” She turned to Charlie. “I’m so pleased you invited me! A little surprised, but glad to be a part of the group.”

  “The show comes on in a few minutes,” Charlie interrupted, taking charge of the conversation. “Let me explain our little system.” She handed Diana the notebook. “I know it’s a little grisly, Di, but what we do is place bets on who might die during the program.” She shrugged. “So far this year, nobody’s guessed right, so the pot is pretty big.”

  “How much is it now?” Mindy asked.

  Charlie took back the book and flipped through the pages. “Three hundred dollars!” she exclaimed.

  “Okay—I’ll bet on Martin,” Sarah said. “He’s a show-off and has a mean streak. I want someone to get him.”

  “Oh, I think he’s really entertaining,” Mindy said, giggling. “I hope it doesn‘t happen, but my vote goes for Danny. I think he’s a threat to Martin, and Martin won’t stand for that much longer.”

  Charlie felt a sudden sharp pang in her chest. Danny?

  She caught her thoughts up short. If Danny had done the dreadful things he was accused of, of course he deserved to die. But if he hadn’t done them—

  “Charlie?” Sarah asked. “Who gets your vote?” The women had already laid their ten dollar bills in a neat pile on the coffee table. Charlie added hers, and slipped them into an envelope paper-clipped to the back cover of the notebook. “I’ll take Javonne,” she said. “I think they’ll all gang up on him now that there are three of them, for their own safety.”

  “That leaves Tom,” Diana chirped. “Put me down for him.”

  Mindy laughed. “You’re throwing away your ten bucks, Di. Tom’s harmless, and now Danny’s protecting him like he’s his big brother.”

  Charlie waved them into silence, and turned up the volume on the set. “Here it comes,” she said. She sank down next to Diana on the loveseat.

  “What a show we have for you tonight!” Pierre LeGrande’s aristocratic face filled the screen. The picture receded, in order to show him closing his trademark book, wine-colored leather with gold trim. He set it down carefully on the small table beside his chair.

  “Does Danny Manning actually think he can build a plane and fly himself off Death Island?” LeGrande asked. He permitted himself a shake of his head and a grim chuckle. “In fifteen years, nobody—I repeat nobody—has escaped from Death Island.” He picked up the cut-crystal wine glass from the table, swished the ruby liquid gently, and raised it to his lips.

  “He’s building a plane,” Sarah breathed.

  Shhhh!” Mindy hissed. Her attention was focused on the screen, but out of the corner of her eye, she watched in covert fascination as Diana picked off the bagel rounds one by one until the plate was empty.

  Charlie rose quietly as LeGrande faded and an entertaining commercial for a soft drink filled the screen. Before the ad faded, she would return with bowls of corn chips and mixed nuts, and a dish of dip hastily mixed together from two partial containers in the refrigerator. It would have to do, no matter what it tasted like. She didn’t think Diana would notice anyway, judging from the speed with which the plate of appetizers had
disappeared.

  She heard the commercial in the background, and behind it, the voices of the three women.

  “Oh, thanks!” Diana said, as Charlie set the dishes down. “I love brazil nuts!” she exclaimed. She rifled through the nuts, finding two or three of the large white nuts and closing them up like jewels into her curled hand.

  LeGrande put the wine down. “I said we had a show for you tonight, and I meant that,” he intoned. He fingered his chestnut beard. “Danny thinks he can build a plane, Javonne is still on the loose, Martin is in a big snit, and …” he paused for dramatic effect, as his face folded its corpulent folds into a serious expression, “someone will be murdered.” He sounded for all the world like Donald Trump on that old hit series, The Apprentice.

  “Oooooooh!” said the four women in chorus.

  “We’re all logged in,” Charlie said. “We’ll see who it’s going to be.” She watched in fascination as Diana dug several corn chips at once into the dip.

  The hour flew by. When Danny halted and spoke to the black snake microphone, Charlie felt the familiar feelings of doubt and apprehension rise up inside her. He seemed so sincere, so intelligent! How could he have committed such horrible crimes? Was he really guilty of murdering his own wife, Katie, in cold blood?

  Diana’s words echoed Charlie’s thoughts. “I honestly don’t think Danny killed Katie,” she said. All necks swiveled in her direction. She shrugged. “They were a really devoted couple, crazy about each other.”

  “How do you know that?” asked Charlie, though she already knew the answer. It was the reason she had invited Diana to join the group.

  “We worked together at Midtown General,” Diana said. She paused to fish another brazil nut out of the dish. “Katie was a nurse there. I work there, too, and I knew her pretty well.”

  “What do you do?” Mindy asked.

  “Administration,” Diana replied. “I kept track of who does what when, and where everyone is at a given time. Katie and I sometimes had lunch or coffee break together. She had nothing but great things to say about Danny. She thought she was the luckiest woman in the world to have him.”

  “He never abused her or anything like that?” Charlie asked, looking at Diana.

  “Oh, no, never!” Diana replied. “I met him when he dropped in to take Katie to lunch at the hospital, and after that my husband and I had dinner with them a couple of times. Seemed like a great guy to me.”

  Seemed like a great guy to me, too, Charlie thought.

  “I think he was totally steamrollered,” Diana said.

  Mindy and Sarah watched the exchange between the two women with interest.

  Sarah turned to Charlie. “What does Paul think about all this?”

  Charlie gave a little sniff of exasperation. “He won’t talk about it,” she said. “Sometimes he gets into these … what I call ‘lofty’ moods. When he came back from West Palm he said he’d had a ‘spiritual experience’ and he didn’t want to tarnish it by discussing a grisly murder.”

  “But Paul knew Danny, didn’t he?” Sarah probed. “Didn’t he say anything when Danny was arrested?”

  “Danny did some work on the church kitchen,” Charlie said evenly. “And, yes, when he was arrested, Paul seemed quite perturbed.”

  “Perturbed”? Diana’s tone confirmed the incredulous look on her face.

  Charlie flushed. “I’m not in charge of Paul’s emotions,” she said.

  They fell silent, watching as the cameras focused on Martin, leaning against the ruined plane.

  “That smirk of his really gets me!” Sarah groaned. “I want to slap it off his silly face.”

  The program drew to a close, and they all watched as evening began to smother the island and Danny started to look around for Tom. The cameras followed him as he set off into the woods. Mindy sat hunched up and brooding, her hands clapped over her mouth. Sarah bit her lip, straining forward, as if to see better into the woods. Charlie—trained by years of the congregation watching her for signs of stress not to betray her feelings with nervous habits—sat quietly, watching. Diana finished off the nuts and half the corn chips with the rest of the dip.

  At last Danny stumbled onto the scene of Tom’s grisly demise and stood, devastated, over the body of his hapless friend. Charlie looked at Sarah and Mindy, sitting across from her. “We have a winner,” she said.

  She unclipped the envelope from the folder and handed it to Diana.

  “Oh, I couldn’t!”

  “You won it fair and square,” Mindy observed.

  “But it doesn’t seem fair! This is the first time I’ve ever been with the group!”

  “Well, it’s like Bingo,” observed Mindy. “If you come up with the right numbers, you win. Doesn’t matter if it’s your first time.”

  “Bingo!” Sarah echoed.

  “Well, okay,” Diana shrugged. She accepted the envelope from Charlie with a little bow. “Thank you!”

  Sarah unfolded herself from the blue loveseat and stood. “Gotta go,” she announced. “See you all next week? You, too, Diana?”

  Diana nodded and glanced at her watch. “I should be going, too. Thanks again, Charlie. It was really fun.”

  “See you next week!” Charlie said. She walked Sarah and Diana to the door. When she returned, Mindy fixed her with a mischievous grin.

  “Okay, out with it.”

  Charlie chuckled. “I can never hide anything from you.” She was glad to have a few minutes to relax with her best friend. She gestured at the dishes on the coffee table. “Did you ever see anything like that? I’ll have to make enough food for the Chinese army next week.”

  “I could hardly keep a straight face,” Mindy said. “I’ll bring something next week—a big tub of popcorn, maybe. But why Diana, Charlie? And what happened with Heather?”

  Charlie froze, wondering what Mindy might have heard.

  She decided to ask. “What have you heard?”

  “Hey, this is me!” Mindy leaned forward. “I know—everyone knows, Charlie—that she has a humungous crush on Paul, but nobody thinks they’re having an affair.”

  Charlie examined her fingernails and didn’t answer.

  “Do you, Charlie?”

  She looked up. “I don’t know,” she said. “All I know is I have reason to suspect now, that I didn’t before.”

  Mindy waited expectantly.

  After a pause, Charlie took a deep breath and plunged in, telling her about finding the earring in Paul’s file, and the blow-up at the restaurant.

  “Wow,” Mindy said softly.

  They both looked up as they heard the front door open. Footsteps hesitated, then crossed the living room.

  “Hello!” Paul said with a practiced cheerfulness.

  Charlie gazed up at him, feeling the customary jolt inside at the sight of his face. Other women might not find him handsome, but she loved his lean, aristocratic look, his face acquiring more character every year. His sandy hair, just showing its first streaks of gray, fell over one side of his forehead. He pushed it back with a gesture of weariness.

  “Come and join us!” Charlie invited.

  “No thanks, I’m exhausted,” he said. “I’m going straight upstairs. You ladies enjoy yourselves.”

  His footsteps retreated, and they heard them disappear up the stairs.

  “He looks tired,” Mindy observed.

  Charlie shrugged. “What do you expect with an eighty hour week? Meetings, meetings, meetings!”

  “Okay,” Mindy said, settling back, “Why Diana?”

  Charlie sighed. “She knew Katie and Danny. I wanted to know what she thought of them.”

  “You’re going to a lot of work just to satisfy your curiosity, aren’t you?” Mindy asked. “And in the meantime, you’re snubbing one of your best friends. What are you getting out of this?”

  “It’s not just curiosity,” Charlie said, feeling a note of testiness creep into her voice. “I don’t know, Mindy. I knew Danny slightly, too—and I just do
n’t think he killed those women. He comes off, when you talk to him, as just a heck of a nice guy, sincere, real. I agree with Di that he was railroaded. Someone else is guilty, and that person is still out there. That wasn’t just a copycat murder down on the shore last week. That was the real deal.”

  “Well, you can’t do anything about that,” Mindy said. She stood up. “I’m not one to butt into other people’s affairs, Charlie, but I don’t think Heather ever touched Paul. They don’t have anything going on, and maybe you should try to mend fences with her.”

  After she left, Charlie sank back down into the soft blue leather, relishing the feeling of it adjusting around her body. She knew Mindy was right. She should call Heather, apologize. Tomorrow, maybe.

  People said she was the ‘perfect minister’s wife,’ and she tried to live up to their expectations. The Bible said you were supposed to forgive seventy times seven—although it also said one should not commit adultery. What choice did that leave her?

  She heard the shower running. She visualized the hot water streaming over Paul’s long, lean body. She loved him for more than his face and his body. Like Heather, Charlie adored that combination of spirituality and intelligence that was common to clergymen. She couldn’t lose him—not to Heather, not to anyone. She stood up abruptly.

  Maybe Paul wouldn’t be too tired to make love. She was in the mood, and it would reassure her that he was her, all hers.

  But even as she resolved to go upstairs and seduce her husband, part of her mind remained fixed on Danny. Pushing through the jungle. Helping Tom. Circling the plane. Looking for Tom, finding Tom. His obvious anguish.

  He hadn’t murdered Katie, or those other women either. In her heart of hearts she knew it, and her mind knew it, too. She had to help him, but how?

  Chapter Nine

  Danny woke after a mostly sleepless night filled with tortured awakenings—Tom’s bloodied face and body invading his consciousness again and again. In one thankfully brief nightmare, Tom stood by the pond where Danny had found him, his arms outstretched as if begging him for help. Frantic to help his friend, Danny struggled against the invisible forces that kept them apart. And there was Charlie. Following the strange and tangled world of dreams, she appeared in some of the scenes. In one she stood by Tom’s prone body, staring down at the murdered man. Then she looked up and said, “I know you didn’t do it.” And in yet another scene, he was kissing her, or was it Katie? She felt so soft, so sweet, and he could still smell the faint lilac scent of her shampoo as her hair brushed his face. He awoke with a jolt, blinking his eyes hard, convinced he was still dreaming. The aroma of roasting meat filled the dim interior of the plane. He glanced at the door. The rocks and heavy metal scrap he had piled in front of it were intact.