Death Island

by Joan Conning Afman

  * * * *

  They had spent two more nights in the jungle, well hidden and listening for sounds of pursuit, but had heard nothing. Talon revived more quickly than Danny could have imagined, with nuts berries and fruit to eat, and plenty of fresh water. The Tribe had barely fed him, he told them, throwing him bones already chewed and stripped of meat, and nearly inedible parts of the animals they’d killed—the paws and tails. Danny also felt better now that his anxiety over Talon was relieved. He was more rested, and his own wounds were healing under Martin’s ministrations.

  Martin was an amazing man, Danny thought, not for the first time. He knew just what leaves would stop the bleeding on Talon’s wounds, and which herbs would alleviate the pain. They did not dare build a fire, but Martin found them plenty of food and showed them where to find water. As they approached the camp, Drew and Clay took their leave.

  “Thanks for your help,” Danny said, sincerely grateful. “We couldn’t have done it without you.”

  “Oh, yeah, we could have …” Martin began, then grinned at the brothers. “But you sure made it easier. Thanks.”

  “Sure you don’t want to go back with us?” Danny asked. He had gained an immense amount of respect for this savvy pair, who preferred to make their own way on the island, neither bonding with the Village nor the Tribe. The details of their horrendous crimes had sickened him, yet who knew why people acted as they did in the circumstances in which they found themselves? Here on Death Island, they were practically model citizens.

  “You might get voted off some year,” Danny said.

  “Eh!” Clay shrugged. “Actually, we sort of like it here. Not such a bad life, if you ask me. I don’t think we’re geared to civilization.”

  “I could use a woman now and then,” Drew put in.

  “There are monkeys,” Martin said, making Danny wonder fleetingly if Martin had actually done that. The man was so blasé. You never knew when he was just mouthing off and when he meant it. Everyone laughed, and the brothers left, striking out toward the red cliffs.

  The guard posted at the gate of the Village saw them coming from his perch on the corner turret and had the gate open for them when they arrived. He had alerted Jake and Evan, and they and other Villagers came out, grinning broadly and cheering, to welcome them.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Charlie watched Pierre LeGrande fuss with his cravat, pat down his trousers and more or less ignore her, as he waited for the light to go on that would indicate he was on the air. He had not seemed at all happy as he welcomed her in the Green Room. In fact, she had not expected to see him in person at all, but he had gone back there, wearing a semi-scowl that he attempted to turn into a smile as he greeted her.

  “Well, well, Mrs. Adjavon. Finally we meet in person.” He extended his hand, and she gave him hers, which he dropped after the briefest of handshakes, as if her flesh were contaminated. “We’ll be on in fifteen minutes,” he informed her. “Peter will bring you in when I introduce you, and you’ll sit in the chair next to mine.” He didn’t offer her a glass of wine, which she knew he would have on his side table.

  At this point, she felt she could have used something stronger than the coin-machine coffee she had been drinking for the several hours she had been there, being dressed in clothing other than her own, having her make-up done, her hair trimmed, rinsed, colored and brushed out. Looking at herself in the mirror, she didn’t see Charlie Adjavon at all. But protest as she might, she had been stuffed into the shocking pink suit with the too-tight, too-short skirt, the fluffy pink blouse she wouldn’t have been caught dead in, and sparkly shoes with heels so high she wondered if she’d make it on stage without stumbling. It was all theater, she knew that, but she hated looking like a cross between a prostitute and a Barbie doll. Well, if the congregation had disapproved of her calling meetings, writing letters and going to bat for an innocent man, they would certainly have something else to be shocked about after tonight’s Death Island show aired.

  He had paused and looked her over.

  “I don’t usually look like this,” she said, interpreting his reaction. “I’m a much more casual person.”

  “You look like a younger, thinner Tammy Faye Baker,” Pierre replied, “but that’s what the audience expects. If we want them to watch, you can’t go out there like a dowdy Connecticut farm wife, wearing khaki and navy blue, gray streaks in your hair. We had to glam you up a little … a lot,” he amended, smiling his oily smile. “And you do look glamorous, Mrs. Adjavon. The ratings should go sky-high.”

  He hurried off, giving her a dainty finger-wave in retreat. Charlie didn’t think she could sit down in the skirt without ripping it, unless she pulled it up around her waist. That hardly seemed like a viable alternative, so she stood. She thought about what was going to say. Her lines had been scripted for her; not word for word, but she had been rehearsed on what Pierre would ask her, and the kind of responses she would be expected to give.

  She took off the high heels after a while, and waited in her bare feet, swilling down yet another cup of the horrendous coffee. Finally, Peter appeared in the doorway. “It’s time. Come with me, Mrs. Adjavon, please.

  She followed him, smoothing down the contours of her skirt and trying to maintain a graceful step on the slippery floor. She stopped behind Peter as he pulled the curtain back and peered out onto the stage.

  Pierre set down his glass of wine, turned a little in his chair and half-rose. “And now, Ladies and Gentlemen, here is our very special guest for this evening. Please welcome Charlotte Adjavon, better known to her friends in Northington, Connecticut, as Charlie.”

  The audience broke into wild applause, which was just what the sign, which the cue man held up, said: ‘wild applause.” There was cheering, too, and a few whistles.

  Charlie shook the hand Pierre offered her, this time clasping his other hand over hers as if she were his favorite person on earth. Charlie felt her face turn red, but she smiled in the direction of the camera aimed at her and sat down. She heard the skirt give a little in its back seam and prayed silently that she would not be required to get up and walk across the stage at some point.

  “Charlie,” Pierre began, holding up a hand to silence the audience, “I can’t thank you enough for agreeing to appear on our show. I know how hard this must be for you after all you’ve been through.”

  The audience sighed its sympathy.

  “We all extend our deepest sympathy on the untimely death of your husband and your good friend, Sarah Bishop. What a horrible thing for you to have to go through, and how strong and brave you were.” His face was very close to hers as he leaned toward her, and the odor of his aftershave, or whatever he was perfumed with, nearly made her gag.

  She looked down at her hands in her lap as the audience clapped again, more subdued this time, on cue. She stole a glance at them. Hundreds of faces stared at her from beyond the stage. Some were smiling at her, and most wore expressions of curiosity.

  She nodded her thanks.

  “Now, Charlie,” Pierre said, his voice sliding from sympathetic to brisk in a three-second transition, “we have followed your efforts to prove Danny Manning’s innocence on this show throughout the last year, even as we followed his trials on Death Island. You must feel that something good came out of all that happened, now that Danny has been pardoned and is coming home.”

  “I’m just grateful that an innocent man was finally proved innocent and won’t have to suffer any more for crimes he didn’t commit,” Charlie said. The audience went wild with yelling and applause, and Pierre himself nodded and smiled over their heads, looking thrilled with Charlie.

  “And,” Pierre continued. “Viewers all over America have voted Talon Larsen off the island, so two men will be coming home with full pardons!”

  The audience cheered again.

  He turned back to her. “You paid a price for all that, though, Charlie,” he said. “I understand that your husband, who was the minister of a large Pre
sbyterian church in town, as well as the congregation, were not happy with your efforts to go public with this.”

  “They weren’t,” Charlie said, wishing she could have a drink of water and that the studio lights were not so hot. She felt her extra-heavy make-up begin to drip. “But in the end they were glad I did it.”

  “And the real axe murderer, a man named …” Pierre looked thoughtful, “A man who held a high office in your husband’s church …” He looked at her, as if asking her to supply the name, so she did, right on cue.

  ‘Nathaniel Spencer,” she said. “He was Head of Session, which is about the most influential position in the church, next to the minister, of course.”

  “Hmmmmm,” Pierre murmured, shaking his head in pretend disbelief. “A man who pretended to be a godly man, who in another secret life had murdered six women in Connecticut over a five year period. And he was a former policeman from Alaska, isn’t that true?”

  “It is,” Charlie replied. She wondered when he was going to ask her about Danny, how she had become convinced of his innocence, and why she had decided to do something about it. She had her speech all prepared, how Paul had taught her that doing the right thing was the most important thing of all, no matter what the price.

  “Now, about Danny,” Pierre began. She smiled at him. Here it comes, she thought, the reason I went through everything I went through. To her surprise, he hooked his arms behind his head, and leaned back in his chair. “How long had the affair between the two of you been going on?”

  The audience gasped along with Charlie, no cue cards needed.

  “A-affair?” she stuttered. “I did not have an affair with Danny!” She glared at Pierre. “He was a casual friend.”

  The TV host smirked at her. “Your best friend, Sarah, had an affair with your husband. And you got back at him by having an affair with Danny Manning.”

  “I did not!” she protested, feeling her face grow hotter by the second. “I knew him, I liked him, and I was convinced he was not the kind of man who would murder women, especially his wife, Katie. They had a close, loving relationship.”

  The audience laughed its disbelief on cue.

  “Look at the way you’re dressed,” Pierre went on, leering as he looked her up and down. “I can see why he was attracted to you.”

  “You’ve got it all wrong!” Charlie yelled. She jumped up, hearing the seam rip in the back of her skirt. “Your people dolled me up like this for the show. I never dress like this!”

  Pierre smiled and deliberately raised his glass of wine to take a sip, while she stood there, fuming. As he replaced the goblet on the table, he turned his smile on the audience. “We would never dress up a minister’s wife to look like a slut,” he said. “I think the evidence speaks for itself, Mrs. Adjavon, but we thank you for coming on the show, and we will all be watching as Danny and Talon are taken off the Island. You’ve been invited to go along and rescue your lover, isn’t that so?”

  She was so angry she couldn’t answer. She grabbed the glass of wine and dashed the liquid in his face. Throwing the glass on the floor, she fled from the stage.

  She heard Pierre yelling, “Cut! Cut!”, but she also heard the audience laughing, and she knew the cameras were following her, zooming in on the split in the back of her skirt, which was growing wider with every step she ran.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  “Hey, I remember that guy, Danny Manning,” Phil said. “Remember, Bert? We flew them out here about six months ago, or so. That fat blubbery guy couldn’t stop crying.”

  “Closer to a year,” Charlie said, looking out of the window of the military plane. The ocean lay underneath, miles and endless miles of it. It had taken nearly an entire day to fly this far, and they were hours away yet.

  “They voted him off the island, a guy like that?” Phil asked, shaking his head.

  “And we have to go pick him up. What a world!”

  “No” Charlie said. “He was found innocent after all. The Indian boy, Talon, was voted off. We’re supposed to pick them both up.” She continued to stare out the window, her heart in her throat. When the plane had left Bradley International, as far as she knew, Danny and Talon had escaped from the Tribe and were on their way through the jungle back to the Village. But anything could happen, and they had no way of knowing that rescue was its way.

  “What happened to the guy Danny was dropped with?” Bert asked. He hoisted a dark beer bottle to his mouth, drank noisily and belched.

  Charlie looked down at her hands, twisting in her lap. “He was killed early on, in the first few weeks.”

  “I knew he wouldn’t last,” Phil said with a chortle. “That kind—you can always tell. He was so scared he pissed his pants. That other guy, though, Danny—”

  “He was never guilty,” Charlie interrupted with some heat. “They caught the real murderer in the act.”

  “In the axe!” Bert chortled.

  Charlie bit her lip and turned her head away from the two guards. Never would she be able to erase the pictures in her mind, indelibly etched there forever, of her husband, Paul, and her one-time friend, Sarah, crumpled on the rug, their lives oozing away in front of her eyes. And Nathaniel Spencer—who’d have thought it? She had thought him a straight-laced, insufferable prig, not a man with a self-appointed, God-driven hatred toward women he deemed unworthy to walk the earth.

  One of the uniformed soldiers came forward and growled an order at Bert and Phil. “You two go sit in the back of the plane, and leave Mrs. Adjavon alone. She’s had enough to deal with.” He sat down next to her as the other two men left. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Adjavon. Those two don’t have an ounce of couth between them. How are you doing, Ma’am? I’m Jerry Forbes. Can I get you some coffee or anything?”

  “No, I’m all right, thanks,” Charlie replied. “When are we switching to the helicopter?”

  The soldier looked at his watch. “About two hours, and then it’s another hour to Death Island. I guess Danny Manning is going to be one surprised guy!”

  She smiled. “How will you know where he is?”

  “Oh, we always know,” Jerry said. If he’s in one of the cabins we’ll just circle until he comes out. Then we’ll use the megaphone to instruct everyone else to clear the area, and we’ll swoop down and pick him up.”

  “What about the Tribe? What if they show up and try to interfere?”

  “We’ll give them fair warning, but if they try to stop us in any way, we’ll mow them down. We did it once before.”

  “I remember,” she said softly. “I saw it on TV.”

  Jerry cleared his throat. “I’m sorry about your husband,” he said. “It must be very difficult without him.”

  Charlie nodded. “It keeps replaying in my mind,” she said, “like a tape you can’t turn off.”

  “You did a great thing, going to bat for Danny like you did,” he said. “Going national like that, going on the show even, with that slimy LeGrande. If I were on Death Island, I’d sure want you in my corner.”

  She allowed herself a small smile tinged with bitterness. “He didn’t want me to do it, you know, my husband, that is. He nearly divorced me over the whole thing.”

  “Well,” Jerry said, looking uncomfortable, “I don’t know why things work out the way they do, but I do know Danny Manning should be one happy guy to see you!”

  She nodded. “Probably. I think I’ll try to nap a little before we land and board the helicopter. Thanks for your concern, Jerry.”

  He stood and gave her a little salute and a grin. “It’s an honor, Ma’am. You’re one gutsy lady. “I’ll keep those two jerks in the back. Have a good rest.”

  Charlie leaned back against the leather seat and closed her eyes. Almost instantly the horrible, bloody scene rose before her and began to replay itself. Sarah, buck-naked, screaming and bloody, lying on the beige carpet of the Manning’s bedroom, her luxurious dark hair dulled by her own blood, flailing her arms and legs. And screaming. Would Charlie ever be a
ble to wash those screams out of her mind?

  She opened her eyes. More blue ocean, nothing in sight. She was tired, but it was too dreadful to see those scenes again. Paul—fighting with his bare fists against Nathaniel Spencer, a man he had thought a friend and supporter in the church, transformed into a man whose face was a mask of hatred, a man with an axe. And the noise—everyone yelling, her own screams mingling with theirs. Paul’s final moments, his agonized gaze fixed on her face, his blue eyes begging for the forgiveness he could not ask for as Nathaniel buried the axe in his throat.

  Then he had turned on her. She hardly remembered what she did, but the police surmised she had picked up the small cherry desk and smashed Nathaniel in the head. One powerful blow, and he collapsed. Barely alive when the police arrived, he lived long enough to clear Danny’s name and admit to all the other axe murders. A pity he had never been banished to Death Island.

  She sighed and closed her eyes again. Sarah’s beautiful face filled her vision, but Charlie willed it away. Paul was dead, and it was because of Sarah. It was Sarah Nathaniel had been after—a dark-haired beauty to add to his collection. And then Charlie , because she was getting too close to the truth.

  Paul and Sarah. At first Charlie had thought it was Heather he was screwing, and Sarah had encouraged her to believe it. Would Paul have left her for Sarah? Charlie sighed. She just didn’t know. Exhausted, she let sleep claim her, and she slept fitfully until the plane landed.

  The black helicopter was larger than she had imagined. Charlie felt a thrill of anticipation as she climbed the stairs into the body of the big black hornet. Soon … soon, she would see Danny, and he would be free! She didn’t know what fate had in store for him, or for her, or for them, and to think about that now seemed traitorous to Paul.