I straightened and faced him. “Could we see it?”
“Sure,” he said easily. “Right now? Come on.”
Madelyn put a hand on my arm. “Dramatic imaginings and wild accusations won’t help.”
“But—”
“Come downstairs,” she said. “We’ll all be more comfortable continuing the conversation there.”
When we were all seated Madelyn was the first to speak. She said, “Again we are faced with the question of accidental death against murder. We don’t know the answer.”
“This wasn’t supposed to happen!” Benita moaned.
“Control yourself, Benita,” Aldo snapped.
“Let’s be logical about this,” Aunt Madelyn said. “Mr. Granakee’s death could possibly have been from a heart attack. But it’s necessary that we address the question of murder. If he was murdered, could it have been for a reason unrelated to the possession of the artifact?”
“Like what?” Kurt asked.
“He said he had seen Justin plug in the cord to the lamp. Maybe he saw something else. Or maybe someone thought that he had, and killed him for that reason.”
A thought wiggled through my mind and darted out of it like the tiny yellow and blue fish that had sped under me in the cove. I tried to grab the thought, but I couldn’t. Yet I knew in some way it was important.
Aldo shifted in his chair. “This is all guesswork. I think we should go back to facts. Maybe there is something else that Benita heard last night, some clue that might lead us to a greater knowledge of what happened to Franklin Granakee.”
“No!” Benita screeched. “Nothing! I swear it!”
“But if you could be of help—”
“Don’t push her,” I said. “She really doesn’t know anything else. My veranda doors were open, and she was frightened, so she came into my room to talk to me. She told me she heard Norton—uh—Mr. Granakee cough.”
Benita groaned and pulled a pillow against her mouth.
“That’s all she heard,” I said. “I talked her out of being scared, and she went back to her own room to bed. That’s it.”
“There still may be something else, something she was unaware of at the time. If she thought hard about it—”
“Then she can tell the police when they get here.” I stood and shoved my chair out of the circle. “In case anyone’s forgotten, someone in this house could be a murderer. Do you think that whoever it is will help us solve the crime?”
“Where are you going?” Madelyn asked.
“To get my camera,” I said.
Kurt stood too. “No,” he told me. “Let me take the photos. You’ve already found out that it’s a disagreeable job. Where is your camera? I’ll get it.”
“Thanks,” I said, and gave a loud sigh of relief. “The camera is on my chest of drawers,” I answered, ignoring Benita’s muffled sob. I moved toward the veranda. “I’m going to walk on the beach for a while and try to think.”
“I should come with you,” Madelyn said, but Benita tugged her down.
“I really do want to be by myself for a little while,” I told her. “Besides, I think it would work out better if you and Benita stayed together.”
I trotted down to the beach. I had swum toward the west. I’d walk toward the east. The hot sand filtered in and out of my sandals, and occasionally I kicked at a large seed pod that had fallen from one of the trees or jumped over a fallen branch or piece of washed-up driftwood. I tried to capture the thought that had eluded me, going over and over the conversation, but nothing helped.
I was well out of sight of the house when I got that weird, prickly feeling again and knew that someone was watching. I stopped and looked back along the beach, but no one had followed me. I walked a little farther, all my senses as taut as a guitar string ready to pop. The unseen eyes were still on me, and I could hear the quiet rustling of grasses and the not-so-quiet snap of a stepped-upon twig.
I whirled to face the sound and picked up a short chunk of bleached driftwood that lay near my feet “Who are you?” I yelled. “Kurt? Ellison? Get out of there and stop spying on me!”
“Will you shut up?” someone hissed, and a face poked out of the bushes.
I was so surprised that I dropped my weapon. I was looking at a sun-bleached, sunburned guy who was probably not much older than I. He jumped out of the underbrush onto the sand, and I quickly scooped up the driftwood stick again, holding it high. He wore only torn cutoffs and ragged-looking deck shoes.
“Hey,” he said, holding both palms up in a peace sign. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
“Who are you?” I asked as I lowered the driftwood.
He looked down the empty beach in the direction from which I’d come and seemed satisfied. He sat on a large chunk of driftwood and said, “My name’s Pete Michaels.”
“What are you doing on this island?”
“Lying offshore.”
“You’re what?”
“I anchored my sailboat in a cove, girl.”
“I’ve got a name,” I said, “and it isn’t ‘girl.’ It’s Andrea Ryan.”
“I bet that everyone calls you Andy,” he said.
I studied him carefully. Surely he wouldn’t have had the reason or the opportunity to have murdered Judge Arlington-Hughes or Norton—uh—Franklin Granakee. I didn’t think I had to be afraid of him.
It was a delayed reaction, a real Three Stooges double take. I suddenly dropped the driftwood and gasped, “Pete! You have a boat!”
“I knew it would thrill you, once the idea sank in,” he said.
“No! You don’t understand! We need a boat to get off this island!”
“What happened to the one you came in?”
“It won’t be back until late tomorrow afternoon.”
“And you’ve got a heavy date tonight back in the States. Sorry. My boat’s out of commission.”
I dropped down on the driftwood next to him and rested my elbows on my knees, my head in my hands. He leaned over, looking up into my face. “Won’t I do?” he asked. “You could tuck a flower in your hair, and I could hum something out of tune, and we could dance.”
I had to smile. Pete was a nut, but I liked his sense of humor. I wished that Rick could loosen up like this once in a while. I pushed Rick out of my mind, sat up, and said, “There are a lot of blanks to fill in. Why don’t you go first? Tell me how you happen to be on this island.”
“Okay,” Pete said. “It’s a short, sad story. I was looking for a place to anchor and trying to beat some threatening squalls that were moving my way, and what do you know, the wire from the wheel to the rudder snapped, and I didn’t have a spare to replace it, so …” He broke off. “I told you, this is a sad story. Could you look a little more sympathetic?”
“Can you still sail your boat?”
“Not with any accuracy.”
“Then I am sorry,” I said. “You don’t know how sorry. Where’s your sailboat now?”
“I managed to make it into a cove, pulled up the centerboard, and anchored it. It was dark by then, so I went to sleep.”
“That’s all? You just went to sleep?”
He shrugged. “What else? There weren’t any good movies playing. Oh. Maybe I should mention that I’m not a morning person, so daylight kind of passed me by for a few hours. Next step was to scout around. At first I thought I was on a deserted island, but late in the afternoon I cut across to the north side and came across a house. Yeah! I said to myself. Maybe somebody there had a wire I could borrow. That’s when I heard a motor and saw your boat pull up.”
“You were the one who was watching me!” I said. “I could feel it.”
“You’re worth watching,” he said, and continued without a pause. “Should I tell you about the judge?”
“You know him?”
“Unfortunately.” He cocked his head and studied me. “You’re not his daughter or niece or anything like that, are you?”
When I shook my head he said, “A month
ago I went into Palm Beach to look around, and I was dressed like this. I guess I should have worn a tie, because I got picked up for vagrancy.” He shook his head sadly. “Last year I had an old sorehead math teacher who didn’t have a sense of humor and brought charges against us just because we hot-wired his car and left it on the lawn in front of the courthouse. So when Judge Arlington-Hughes was told I had a record, he let me sit in jail all night, then read me the riot act. I’d probably be there yet, except I kept demanding that I be allowed to call my father, who’s a big-shot lawyer in Miami.”
He paused and said, “Look, Andy, I didn’t say I had class. Okay?”
“I’d probably do the same thing,” I said. “Anyhow, you hadn’t committed any crimes. You shouldn’t have gone to jail.”
“Yeah,” he said, and smiled. “When I saw you I knew we’d think the same way about things.” He paused. “I’m not a bad guy, Andy. If you talked to my mom, she’d tell you.”
“I didn’t ask for a reference,” I said. “Go on with your story.”
“Okay. That private eye-muscleman who works for the judge knew my dad and said I was who I claimed I was, so they just told me to get out of town. The PI, who ought to get picked up for carrying a concealed weapon, escorted me to the city limits and kicked me across the invisible line.”
“That’s terrible!” I said.
“Yeah, so when I saw the two of them get off that boat—”
“The private eye? He wasn’t on the boat.”
“Sure he was. Tall, dark-haired, looks like a football player. His name’s Frank Bartley.”
I stood up, trying to sort all this out. “There’s someone who looks like that who works for the judge, but he’s a secretary, and his name is Kurt Cameron.”
Pete got up, too, standing so close to me that I could feel the warmth from his arm next to mine. “Secretary? That’s what he calls himself? Don’t believe it. Ha! Don’t believe anything he tells you.”
CHAPTER
9
“But my Aunt Madelyn knows him,” I said.
“I bet she didn’t know him in Miami,” Pete said. “Bartley used to work there, and he did a couple of investigative jobs for my father. I recognized him.”
“Why would he use another name?”
“Private investigators use aliases all the time. Fake jobs, fake business cards, you name it—fake. Maybe he used the name of Kurt Whatever when he worked jobs for the judge so people wouldn’t find out he’s a PI. A secretary stays in the background, right? Nobody wonders about a secretary.”
I thought about it a minute. Pete was probably right. “Do you want to come to the house and see if Ellison can find the wire you need to fix your boat?” I asked him.
“Not with the judge and the muscleman there,” he said.
Of course. He didn’t know. So I filled him in on everything that had happened. Well, not exactly everything, because I didn’t tell him that I had taken the artifact.
When I finished he let out a long, low whistle. “No wonder you want to get off this island,” he said. “I’m with you. How good are you at the dog paddle?”
I must have looked awfully discouraged, because Pete took my hand and said, “Come on. I’ll cheer you up. I’ll show you my boat.”
He led me along a natural path among the trees, and I could see that the woods were crisscrossed with these grassy open strips and spots. In some places we had to push away branches or vines, but the going wasn’t difficult. The island was narrower than I thought, so it didn’t take us long to reach the small cove where Pete’s boat was anchored.
It was a beautiful little boat, about twenty-five feet long, with a tiny cabin. Pete waded to one side of the boat. The water was about hip deep where he stood. “If you don’t mind getting wet, you can come aboard. But keep your shoes on. There are some spiny things just under the water here that you shouldn’t step on with bare feet.”
I didn’t mind getting wet. I was curious. I followed him up the aluminum ladder to the deck.
“The wheel’s out here,” Pete said, “but take a look below. That’s where I live.”
I leaned in to see a tiny cabin that was laid out with a padded bench on one side, a table over a compact ice chest, stove, and sink on the other side. “Tucked up in the bow is my bed,” Pete said, “and beyond the door at the side is the head. Would you like something to eat?” He jumped down into the cabin, opened the nearest cupboard, and pulled out some packages of Twinkies. I climbed down the short flight of steps and sat on the padded bench.
“Do you cook?” I asked.
“Sure. Anything that comes in a can. I’m self-sufficient.”
He sat next to me. We split a package of Twinkies and drank some warm cola. “Ice melted,” Pete explained.
“You are in a bad way,” I told him. “Do you want to see if Ellison has got some tools so you can work on your rudder?”
“I’ve got tools,” he said. “It’s the wire that I need.”
I stood up, nearly bumping my head on the low ceiling. “Why don’t I look around for a wire? There must be a storeroom or shed or something where they’d keep things like that at the judge’s house. Just show me what I’m supposed to be looking for.”
Pete frowned. “That’s out of the question. Too risky.” He leaned across me, resting one arm on the doorframe, effectively blocking my way. “I don’t like the idea of your going back there for any reason.”
“Neither do I, but my aunt’s there,” I said. “Besides, if I don’t show up, they’ll probably come looking for me and find your boat.”
“I shouldn’t let you go to the house alone. I’ll come with you.”
“A stranger shows up on the island and two men die. You know what the people at the house will think, especially because they don’t like the idea that one of their group might be a murderer. They’ll all be suspicious of you.”
“Are you?”
I looked right into his eyes, but I couldn’t read his thoughts. “I haven’t any reason to be,” I answered.
He straightened to let me pass, then followed me up on the deck. “Okay. Go back. You know where I am, and I’ll be checking on you.”
“Deal,” I said.
“Do you know how to get back?”
“I ought to find the house if I keep heading west.”
“It’s a little longer, but a lot easier, if you just cut across to the beach on the other side,” he said.
But I wanted the quickest route, so I headed through the woods. At first the going was easy, but thick patches of trees blocked the sky and the sun, and I had to guess a couple of times on my direction. The woods were quiet—too quiet. The silence was like a fog that crept after me, that would crawl over and smother me. Frantically, I deserted my plan to head west and made for the north beach, pushing through underbrush, scrabbling and tripping, until I broke clear, falling on my knees on the sand.
The sunlit water was so peaceful and beautiful that I felt like a fool, like Benita in her hysterics. I had let my imagination capture me, the way I had when I was four and was sure there was a monster under my bed. I sat on the sand for a few minutes, catching my breath, then followed the beach north until the judge’s plantation house lay ahead, a foreboding blob of shadow in what should have been sun.
As I came toward the house I saw Ellison wiping his hands on a rag and heading toward the door to the kitchen. I ran up the front steps to the lower veranda and through the front door. Someone had left on a table lamp in the living room, and it cast a puddle of light. So Ellison had finally fixed the generator. Good. I felt much better knowing we’d have electric light tonight. I flipped off the lamp switch and went upstairs to my room.
Everything in my room looked the same as it had, so there was no reason for the creepy feeling that someone besides me had been in it. I checked the small closet, and my clothes were hanging where I had left them. Well, almost where I had left them. The bottom half of my pajamas was hanging on the hook over the top half, and
I always hang up my pajamas with the top on top.
It was a shock to think that someone had searched my room. Then shock gave way to an anger so intense that the room took on a dull, reddish haze. How dare they!
I sat on the edge of the bed and tried to calm down. What could they have found? Nothing. I hadn’t brought much with me. There wasn’t much of anything in the room. The candlestick and candles and matches were still on the chest of drawers, next to my camera. My camera had been moved, but I had expected that because Kurt had used it.
I reached to pick up the camera and discovered that the back had been opened. Had Kurt used up the rest of the roll of film? No. I groaned in frustration and slammed one fist on top of the chest. The film was still in place. The back had been opened to expose the film. The whole roll was ruined.
Had Kurt done this? It didn’t make sense. Why would he take the shots, then deliberately spoil them? Was his offer just his way of discovering the location of my camera and covering himself so that he could do this to the film?
Any of them—Aldo, Benita, Ellison, or even Aunt Madelyn—could have opened the back of my camera.
I closed it with a snap and walked out to the veranda, leaned on the railing, watched the brilliant sea, and fought the desire to curl up in ball and cry.
“It’s unbelievable!” Benita’s voice rose to a high, excited pitch. Her voice was coming from a room far down on the veranda, a room with the shutters wide open. If she was in that room, then Aunt Madelyn was probably with her. Maybe they could tell me something about my ruined film. Angrily, I strode down the veranda and stopped at the open doors.
Madelyn was on her hands and knees, searching under the single, double bed. Benita was pawing through the top drawer in a chest of drawers, and Aldo’s back was toward me as he rummaged in the closet.
“He won’t come back. I know it, I know it!” Benita was saying.
I stepped into the room and shouted at them, “What are you doing?”
They looked at me and froze, eyes wide like wild rabbits caught in headlights on the roadside at night.
The Island of Dangerous Dreams Page 8