Dead on the Island

by Bill Crider

  Kids these days are getting too smart. Must be all that TV they watch.

  "Not unless you want me to help Sharon," I said.

  "Maybe Sharon doesn't want your help. Maybe you just ought to leave her alone." She reached out and started taking papers off the stacks, one paper off each stack. There was purple printing on each sheet.

  "But you don't know, do you?" I said. "Maybe she needs my help."

  "I don't think so. I don't think she'd want anyone sent by her mother. Not now. I think she just needs to sort things out. She'll be back in school in a day or so."

  She'd managed to convince herself. Her hands picked up speed. The papers slipped easily off one another, and she guided them into a neat stack, tapping the bottoms on the desktop and stapling them together.

  "OK," I said. "Maybe I'll talk to you again, later on. If she doesn't come back."

  "She'll be back."

  Since she had never asked me to sit down, I didn't have to get up. I just walked back out through the office door.

  "Maybe," I said over my shoulder as I started back down the hall.

  ~ * ~

  It was well up in the morning now. The clouds were white and the sun was breaking through so often that the weatherman would have to classify the day as partly sunny. The temperature was rising, too, along with the humidity. It was going to be a typical day on the Island.

  I got in the Subaru and turned on the radio, tuning in to one of the oldies stations from Houston. It didn't matter which one. Out of the hundreds, maybe thousands, of hits in the '50s and '60s, their playlists seem to include only about forty records. You could hear everything the Supremes ever did, but you'd listen forever before anyone ever played "Smoky Places."

  This time I got lucky. Roy Orbison. "Running Scared." It almost restored my faith in radio.

  I didn't start the car, just sat there in the parking lot listening to the song and wondering how long it would be before someone came along to tell me that I was parked illegally. I didn't have a parking sticker, but I hadn't looked for a spot marked "Visitors."

  I thought about Sharon Matthews and her mother. I thought a little bit about Julie Gregg. Every case is different, but I couldn't seem to get a handle on this one. Julie appeared to think that Sharon might have taken off because of what she found out about her mother. I'd had that thought at first myself, and it could still be right. I needed to find out more about what kind of person Sharon was, whether she was accustomed to doing impulsive things like striking out on her own.

  I didn't think Julie would be much help. She'd clammed up when she decided that I was too close to Sharon's mother. I wondered what, exactly, Sharon had told Julie, and why. Well, I could always talk to her again. I started the car and drove down to The Strand.

  The Strand takes in roughly the area from Postoffice Street to Strand, bounded by 20th and 25th Streets. There are any number of artsy little shops there, selling everything from clothes to antiques to trinkets, most of them expensive. The tourists seem to like the restored buildings, and there were a few of them wandering around even on a Tuesday in February. The locals tend to avoid the place, as they do the beach, except in December when the Dickens on the Strand festival is held. Some of them even dress in Victorian costume then and parade around the streets. Some of them come to the Mardi Gras celebration in March, too, taking part in the parades and general good times along with the hundreds of thousands of tourists.

  During Mardi Gras, there's no possible chance of finding a parking spot, and I've been told that hotel rooms in the area go for nine hundred dollars or so, but today I parked with no trouble at all pretty near the shop I was looking for.

  I had to walk up the steps to the sidewalk, which was nearly as high as my shoulder. I could look back and see the Elissa, a square-rigged sailing ship, anchored at Pier 22.

  There were really two shops with practically adjoining doors not ten feet from the steps. One of them appeared to deal mostly in soaps, but the other, the one that interested me, had a window display intended to appeal to someone with a little money who was looking for something "different."

  There were kaleidoscopes, jars with clever sayings on them ("For Belly-Button Lint"), hand-made dolls, and even Christmas decorations. I opened the door and went inside, where there was more of the same, and even a watercolor portrait of Dolly Parton, fully life-size. There were tables with dolls on them, small rocking chairs with teddy bears sitting in them, and shelves loaded with mirrors and ceramic boxes and cloisonné thimbles. To the right there was a glass candy counter with a cash register sitting on top of it. The place smelled of potpourri.

  But there was no one in the shop but me.

  I threaded my way around the tables and chairs to another room located to the back of the shop. There were more shelves, covered with coffee cups that had handles shaped like alligators. There were lamps made from sea urchins.

  But there was no one there, either.

  I made my way back to the cash register. The shop couldn't run itself. Maybe Terry Shelton, if he was working that day, had gone out for coffee. Maybe he would be back in a minute.

  I waited.

  No one came. I looked out the front window. There was no tourist traffic on the sidewalk. I waited some more. Still no one.

  After nearly fifteen minutes, I decided to go next door. The place was filled with soap of every description, or at least every odor. As soon as I opened the door, I was almost overpowered.

  The soap covered the shelves and the counters. It was in baskets and boxes. It was wrapped and unwrapped. I had a sudden urge to go home and take a shower.

  There was someone behind the counter, and I wouldn't have minded if she went home and shared the shower with me. She was about twenty-six or -seven, tall, with an aristocratic face and nose. I'm a sucker for an aristocratic nose. She had on a pink warm-up suit that matched the wrapping of most of the soap.

  I walked over to the counter. "Business seems pretty slow," I said. I'm never at a loss for a conversational gambit.

  She didn't seem to mind my lack of snappy patter. She was probably bored by the inactivity.

  "It'll probably pick up in the afternoon," she said. "It usually does.” She had an alto voice that did strange things to the base of my spine. I fantasized briefly about Humphrey Bogart and Dorothy Malone in the bookstore scene in The Big Sleep.

  "Seen many people going in next door?" I said.

  "Not many. I saw you, though."

  "I couldn't find anyone to help me. There's no one at the cash register."

  She leaned forward, resting her elbows on the counter. "You wanted to buy that portrait of Dolly Parton, right?"

  "Not really. Now if it were painted on black velvet, I might be interested."

  She laughed. It was deep and throaty, not aristocratic at all. "To match the one you have of Elvis?"

  "No, of John Wayne."

  She looked at me, really looked at me, for the first time. I found myself wishing that she wore glasses, so that she could take them off like Dorothy Malone had done.

  "I'd have guessed that you were more of the Clint Eastwood type," she said. "You do kind of squint, you know."

  "Comes from too much time in the sun."

  "You're no beach bum, though."

  "Not exactly. I'm more of a generalized kind of a bum."

  "And you really aren't interested in Dolly Parton?"

  "Well . . ."

  "Her picture, I mean."

  "To tell the truth, no."

  "I don't suppose that I could sell you a bar of soap, either."

  "I don't object to smelling good," I said. "But I wouldn't want you to think I'm a sissy."

  "I don't think you'd have to worry about that." She smiled. "So. What did you want next door?"

  "I wanted to talk to a kid named Terry Shelton. But like I said, there's no one there."

  She thought about that. "That's strange. I mean, we aren't exactly in a rush hour here, but no one would go off and lea
ve the shop wide open. Not even Terry."

  "You know him?"

  "I know him a little. From being around here."

  "What's he like?"

  She stood up, taking her elbows off the counter. Then she walked around to stand beside me. "He's, well, flakey. A little weird. But nice. Are you sure nobody's in there?" She peered out the door as if she might be able to see inside the other shop.

  "I wouldn't bet my life that he wasn't, but I stood in there for nearly fifteen minutes and never saw anyone."

  She walked to the door. I followed her. There were no tourists on our side of the street, though we could see people walking up on Mechanic Street at the crossing a block away.

  "Should we do something?" she said.

  I'd been wondering the same thing, but I wasn't sure what we could do.

  "Maybe we should go over there and look," she said. "He might've had a heart attack or something."

  "How old is he?"

  "Old?"

  "I've never met him," I said, "but I was under the impression that he was a little young to be a heart attack risk."

  "Oh. I guess you're right. He's younger than I am, I'm sure."

  I refrained from asking how old that might be.

  "Let's go over there and check," she said.

  "OK," I said. I didn't have anything better to do, though I didn't think we'd find anything I hadn't already seen.

  We went out the door of the soap shop and into the door of the shop where there was no one at home.

  "See?" I said. "Not a soul around."

  She glanced over the shop. "There's another room."

  "I've been in there. Nobody there, either."

  I walked over to the cash register. In keeping with the shop, it was not one of the new electronic models, but an old cast-iron one. You had to know how to make change yourself to operate one of those babies.

  "What did you mean about Terry being weird?" I said.

  "Well, I don't know exactly. He's always talking about those heavy metal groups. You know. Metallica. Whitesnake."

  "And that's weird?"

  "Not really, I guess, but for someone his age it sort of is. I mean, most guys grow out of that stuff by the time they get out of high school, but not Terry. He goes to all the concerts, buys the T-shirts and wears them to work, plays their music all the time." She looked around the shop. "I knew something was wrong. I don't hear the music. He's not supposed to play it loud; the owner gets upset. But it's always on so you can hear it."

  "I don't even hear a radio," I said.

  She pointed to a grille set in the wall over a shelf in the back of the shop. It was only then that I noticed that the shelf disguised a door set in the wall.

  "There's a radio in the storeroom," she said.

  "I'll check it out," I said. "You wait here in case a shopper comes in." I wasn't sure that I'd find anything, but I thought it might be better to look alone.

  It was just as well that I did. I opened the door, swinging the shelf out with it. There was no light on in the storeroom, but I could see that the walls were lined with rough shelving that was covered with cardboard boxes of various sizes. I could also see, in the light spilling in from the room where I stood, a pair of white leather Reebok shoes in the floor. The shoes were on feet, which were attached to legs. I opened the door farther. There was someone lying on the floor of the storeroom. He was lying face down, so I couldn't see what he looked like. On the back of his T-shirt were the words "IF IT'S TOO LOUD YOU'RE TOO OLD" in red letters outlined in gold.

  I had a feeling that I'd found Terry Shelton.

  5

  The girl from the soap shop, whose name I learned was Vicky Bryan, called the police, who questioned us separately. I'd dealt with the Galveston police before, when I was looking for Jan, but I didn't know the one who was grilling me, a detective named Gerald Barnes. I didn't feel any particular obligation to tell him I'd been looking for Shelton. I just said that I'd been in the shop, noticed that no one was around, and gone next door to see if the girl inside knew what was going on.

  It was a mistake.

  What can I say? I was rusty. I hadn't been into a serious investigation for quite some time. I should have realized that Vicky would remember I'd been asking questions about Shelton and that she would see no reason not to mention that fact.

  Barnes was mildly chapped. "You're trying to dick me around," he said after returning from a consultation with the cop who'd been talking to Vicky. "I really don't like to be dicked around. It's boring, and it's a waste of time."

  Barnes was not an imposing man. In fact, he was somewhat slight, and he wore glasses. He looked more like a computer programmer than a cop. But the implied threat in his voice was real enough, and I figured he could back it up. He could get help if he needed it, and I couldn't.

  "Look," I said. "I'll level with you." I gave a look at my license. "I'm working with a collection agency. This guy's three payments behind on his car and one step ahead of the repo man. I'm the last chance he gets. And then I come in here and find him dead. You think I wanted anything to do with a murder? All I wanted was out. I just didn't want to be involved. The girl didn't know my name. I could have skipped, but I told her to call you while I stayed here. You can ask her. I don't want anything to do with this. I'll call the agency and have them send the repo man out. Then I'm outta here. I'm history."

  Barnes gave me a speculative look through his black-rimmed glasses and brushed his thin brown hair off his forehead. "What's a Dallas snoop doing here on the Island?"

  "I'm working out of Houston now. Haven't had time to file the change of address."

  He took a notebook out of the inside pocket of his brown jacket. "So what's your Houston address?"

  I gave him one, along with a phone number. I hoped he wouldn't check it. "You need me, you get in touch," I said. "I'll be glad to help out."

  He put the notebook back in his pocket. He didn't look as if he'd believed a word I'd said, but eventually he let me leave.

  ~ * ~

  I wanted to talk to Vicky some more. I thought she might know more than I'd been able to find out so far, but I had to talk to Dino first. This was turning out to be a little more complicated, not to mention dangerous, than I'd expected.

  Terry Shelton had been killed by someone strong. I didn't have time to look at him very long, but there was hardly a mark on him. My guess was that his neck had been broken. I hadn't searched his body, but I'd looked around the cash register and found a package of Camel filters with a matchbook stuck down in the cellophane. I'd slipped the package into my pocket. How was Barnes to know I didn't smoke? The matchbook was from a Houston club called The Sidepocket. It was the only clue I had, if it was a clue.

  Barnes had kept at me for a long time, so it was well after the lunch hour. I wanted to eat before I talked to Dino, and Shrimp and Stuff was on the way home. I pulled the car in behind the building and parked. Shrimp and Stuff doesn't pretend to be fancy, but the food is cheap and good.

  I opened the door of the restaurant and stepped in, glancing at the menu hanging from the fourteen-foot ceiling over the cash register. The menu items were painted on two pieces of wood, brown on white, but the prices were inked on poster board and stuck beside the menu names, just in case another oil spill came along and drove up the price of seafood. It had warmed up enough outside so that the ceiling fans had been turned on; the blades revolved slowly over the few tables in the place. I stepped up to the register and ordered a shrimp and crab po-boy, told the cashier my initials, and sat down to wait.

  When my initials were called out, I went up to the counter and got my sandwich. There were only a couple of other late diners, and I hardly glanced at them. My mind was on Terry Shelton and Sharon Matthews, for whom things didn't look too good right then. Obviously her disappearance was more than just a runaway. If it involved murder, as it appeared to do, it was getting beyond my area of expertise. I could find people, or I used to be able to, but murder was a
nother thing entirely.

  To make matters worse, I'd already lied to the cops about my interest in the case. If they ran into me again, they weren't going to be pleased. And that was understating the case. I had the idea that if I gave Barnes half a chance, he would charge me with everything but mopery and stash me so far back in one of the TDC's correctional units that I'd never see the Gulf of Mexico again. Some people just don't like private eyes, especially private eyes that lie to them. And who could blame them?

  I finished my sandwich, gathered up my Styrofoam plate and the crumpled napkins, and threw them all in a large brown trashcan. A hand printed sign attached to a railing behind the can said, "SAVE ALL BEER BOTTLES." I wasn't sure whether it was a command or request, but I didn't have a beer bottle anyway, so I went on out.

  I drove over to Dino's tan-colored Tudor house, stopped the car, and got out. Ray answered the door. I was beginning to expect him to be dressed in livery, but he was wearing a brown suit that clearly had no unnatural fibers in its composition, a crisp white cotton shirt, a silk tie with a sort of paisley pattern, and brown shoes. Probably Stacy-Adams. I could never figure anyone who would wear a suit in the middle of the day, but maybe if I'd looked a little more like Ray, Julie Gregg would've talked more to me.

  "You admiring my outfit or trying to remember your sales pitch?" Ray said.

  "I need to talk to Dino," I said. "It's important."

  "It better be. He's in the middle of Days of Our Lives. You know, 'Like sands through the hourglass . . . . '"

  I said I didn't know.

  "Well, you better come on in anyway."

  He led me into the living room, where Dino sat on his couch watching the television set. He was crouched slightly forward, holding the remote control device in his left hand. He was wearing a Hawaiian shirt and a pair of blue slacks, much more casual than Ray, though still not in my class. Ray and I stood respectfully silent until a commercial for a feminine hygiene product came on.

  "Those damn ads always embarrass me," Dino said, which I thought was a strange remark for a man whose entire personal fortune--which was no doubt considerable--was based on the income of a huge gambling and prostitution operation. He turned the television's sound down and looked at me. "What's happening?"