Carolyn G. Hart_Henrie O_01

by Dead Man's Island

  I almost called out to him. A hot tub wouldn’t be my choice with an electrical storm coming. But I’ve never succumbed to maternal instincts with men.

  I wondered if we’d have time to finish breakfast before the rains began. The saccharine Hawaiian music was now sullenly counterpointed by an almost constant murmur of thunder.

  I pulled out a chair to join Roger’s table.

  Chase hurried up the wooden steps of the hot tub and jumped into the frothing water.

  He didn’t scream.

  It was more of a yelp, a sudden stricture of the vocal cords. His body arched, an unmistakable, violent, shivering contortion. With that single strangled sound he slid smoothly beneath the churning, gurgling water.

  11

  “Don’t!” I cried. “Don’t go near it. Don’t!” My voice was terrible, a rasping, desperate cry.

  It stopped them. Miranda, arms outstretched, halted only a few feet from the redwood tub.

  “My Isle of Golden Dreams” continued to play.

  Chase’s body broke the surface and bobbed facedown in the foamy water. A dead man’s float that wasn’t a summertime joke.

  “Don’t touch anything,” I shouted. “Miranda, for God’s sake, don’t!” I whirled to Enrique. “Quick. The power source. Get it off. Quick. Quick!”

  “Chase.” Miranda’s cry was a whimper, lost in a closer, harsher crack of thunder. Slowly she crumpled.

  Enrique half-turned toward the bathhouse, hesitated, then swung around and bolted off the patio, splashing through puddles to disappear around the side of the house.

  The generator, of course. That’s where he was headed. God, yes. There was likely a fuse panel in the bathhouse, but Enrique wasn’t going to take any chances.

  Smart.

  Valerie shoved back her chair. “My God, what’s going on here? What’s happened to Miranda? Is she dead, too?” She clutched her napkin, her eyes bulging as she looked frantically around, as if expecting death in some unknown, unknowable guise to wrap his arms about her next.

  “She’s fainted,” I snapped. I whirled. “Roger, circle around the tub. Stay the hell away from it. Take Miranda into the house. Don’t let her come back out here. Trevor, help him.”

  Trevor Dunnaway’s face looked like old linen left out to mildew. Numbly, he nodded and pushed back his chair.

  I didn’t bother to ask Burton to help. He hunched at the table, a half-eaten muffin crushed in one hand, staring in horror at the hot tub.

  “Dad,” Roger said thickly. He was on his feet, his face slack with shock, his eyes glazed with horror. “Got to get him out of—Mouth-to-mouth. Got to—”

  “If you touch that water, you’ll be dead, too.” Roger’s hands trembled in mine, like an old man with palsy. “Roger, listen to me. It’s too late. Only a cardiac defibrillator could get his heart started again. We don’t have one. There’s nothing we can do. Nothing.” Of course, Chase’s death could have resulted from instant asphyxia because of damage to the brain stem rather than heart failure. It depended on how the current ran, leg to arm or foot to head. But there was no way to bring him back from brain-stem damage either.

  Don Ho’s voice broke off in mid—lyric. The lights around the hot tub and on the patio flickered and then were gone.

  The silence was almost more grotesque.

  I stood between Roger and the tub until Enrique strode back to the patio, his dark face masklike.

  “Is all the current off, Enrique? Every bit of it?” I had to be sure.

  “The generator is turned off. There is no current on the island.” His dark eyes flickered toward the hot tub.

  I took a deep breath. I felt old and tired. More than that, I was stung by grief and anger. Chase had trusted me, and I had failed him.

  But if I could not save Chase, I would avenge him.

  The French door was flung open. “Hey, the lights—” Lyle stopped short, looked across the patio. “What the hell’s going on?”

  Valerie reached out to grip the back of her chair, and I knew she did it to keep from falling. “Our little vacation from hell has just provided its first death.” Her voice was thin and ragged.

  I looked at her sharply. Did she … could she think this was an accident? But there wasn’t time now to deal with Valerie.

  I gestured to Lyle. “You can help. We have to get Chase out of the tub. He’s been electrocuted. Valerie, Miranda’s stirring. Go see to her. Get her in the house.”

  Lightning exploded. The jagged silver-white spear was brilliant against the pitch-dark clouds. The boom of thunder followed immediately.

  The storm was almost upon us.

  Miranda began to sob, heavy, choking sobs. Valerie, her voice gentle, said, “Come with me, honey. We have to go inside. There’s nothing we can do for him. Come with me.”

  At the hot tub the men—Lyle, Roger, and Enrique—worked to get Chase out of the water. The limp body slipped from their hands once. Roger gave a guttural moan. Trevor gently pushed him aside. “Let me.”

  It took Lyle standing in the tub finally to push the body up where Trevor and Enrique could pull it over the side. Roger reached up and vainly tried to cushion his father’s fall to the ground.

  There would be some bruising after death from this rough handling, but other than the scrape on his left arm from the awkward hoisting over the tub’s wooden edge, Chase’s body was unmarked.

  Lyle sloshed down the ladder.

  The smell of chlorine eddied around us. I would always remember that odor and the muttering rumble of incessant thunder and the unending flicker of lightning.

  Chase’s face, slack in death, appeared utterly at peace. We looked down at him, the Chase we knew in form but with that fierce spirit forever quenched.

  Roger fell to his knees beside his father, gripped one flaccid hand, and began to cry, great tears that rolled silently down his cheeks.

  “All right,” I said quietly. Tears are sometimes a luxury that cannot be afforded. “Lyle, let’s use the chaise longue over there”—I pointed across the pool—“as a stretcher, and take Chase—”

  “Wait a minute.” Lyle yanked on his khaki shorts, soggy with tub water. His wet T-shirt sagged against his chest. “How the hell do you know so much, lady?” His eyes were hard.

  Burton jumped to his feet, pointed at me. “She said Mr. Prescott was electrocuted. How did she know that?”

  I was impatient. “Because I can think—and because I was awake on Thursday night when the power went off. I should have paid attention to my own instinct. I was out on the grounds when the lights came back on, fifteen to twenty minutes later. I heard someone coming from the direction of the generator. But when I called out, no one answered. Why not? Anyone abroad on an innocent errand should have responded.”

  No one interrupted. Lyle leaned forward, his hostile buccaneer’s face intent. Roger had picked up a fallen towel and was gently drying his father’s hair, smoothing it. Trevor stared stolidly at the hot tub, determinedly keeping his eyes away from Chase’s body. Enrique rocked back on his heels, wary and suspicious. Burton hung back on the patio, his face white with fear.

  “I told Chase what had happened. I urged him to be careful in view of the poisoned candy he’d received. But when someone shot at him yesterday, I suppose we both were more concerned with a direct attack. I thought as long as he was with someone else, he would be safe. I should have kept on thinking about those lights going out—and why someone might have wanted the power turned off.”

  “Okay.” Lyle’s agreement was grudging, but he no longer sounded accusatory. “I get you.” He turned toward the tub. “But how the hell did it happen?”

  “I suggest”—I raised my voice over a clap of thunder—“that we find out.” The wind was rising, raising goose bumps on Lyle’s skin, tugging strands of my hair free, fluttering the napkins on the breakfast tables. “Burton.”

  The secretary started.

  Maybe my voice was a little sharp, but I was in a hurry. The rain wou
ld be upon us soon. “Get a notebook. Quick. Then get back down here and take notes of every single thing that we do.”

  Burton hesitated.

  “Pronto.” My voice was whip-sharp.

  He darted a glance at Roger, then turned and scurried off the patio.

  I didn’t waste time.

  “Enrique, how is this tub emptied?” I stepped toward it.

  “There is a drain, there, near the bottom.” He squatted on his heels and pointed.

  A high, clear voice announced, “I wouldn’t touch that thing for all the cocaine in Bolivia.” Valerie crossed the lawn toward the pool. Her face was the color of old putty. She gave the tub a wide berth. She cradled a pale pink comforter in her arms. “Miranda wanted me to bring this out—for Chase.”

  Roger pushed up from the ground and took the comforter. He laid it gently over his father.

  Valerie looked down, abruptly made the sign of the cross. But the blue eyes that turned to me were not grieving. “Miranda’s in bed. Valium and hot tea. I told Rosalia and Betty about Chase, and I told them to stick together. You should come inside, too, Roger. It won’t do any good. To stay out here with … him.”

  Roger shook his head. “I can’t leave him here.” He looked down at the damp towel in his hands, then abruptly flung it away.

  Thunder exploded overhead.

  I looked impatiently toward the house. Where was Burton? “All right, we’ve got to hurry. Roger’s right. We mustn’t leave Chase out here. Trevor, will you and Lyle please use that chaise longue, the one that straightens out all the way …”

  I didn’t have to explain.

  Lyle and the lawyer, their faces set and white, were awkward at their unaccustomed task, fumbling when they tried to pick Chase up. One dead hand kept slipping free to dangle over the side of the webbed chair. Roger reached over to tuck the comforter under his father’s body. Lyle and Trevor slid the shrouded bundle onto the webbing, then picked up the impromptu stretcher and looked at me.

  “I think the storage area.” I looked toward Enrique. “The refrigerated room.”

  After an instant of hesitation the makeshift cortege started off. Roger stood uncertainly for a moment, then followed, head bent.

  Valerie and I watched them carry the holiday furniture with its macabre burden around the corner of the house.

  The actress shuddered. “Going to put him in an icebox. Jesus.”

  I ignored her and approached the hot tub. I circled it, moving a few inches at a time. It was difficult to see in the murky light. I wished I had a flashlight. I ran my fingers lightly along the wood.

  I found what I expected, next to the wooden steps that led up to the rim of the tub. The cord was brown, just a bit lighter than the redwood, caramel against cordovan. It was taut against the side of the tub. I looked at the ground, poked aside a mound of oyster shells with the tip of my sneaker, and spotted the electrical tape that fastened the cord tightly to the bottom of the tub.

  Valerie followed me, looking uneasily around, taking care not to touch the tub.

  The flagstoned path to the hot tub was bordered by vigorous stands of monkey grass. Lights fashioned like luminarias ran on both sides of the path, spaced about four inches apart. These were included in the system that afforded music around the pool.

  The cord disappeared into the monkey grass.

  Lightning exploded. The explosive crack sounded so near, Valerie and I cringed. She gripped my arm, her fingernails sharp against my skin. “God, that was close. We’d better get the hell—”

  Burton reluctantly edged out onto the patio. “The lightning’s too close. Just because you’re crazy doesn’t mean I have to—”

  “Bring the notebook here,” Valerie ordered. “Then go hide your stupid head.”

  His face resentful, Burton dashed out to us, shoved the notebook and a pen into her hands, and turned and ran back to the house.

  Valerie took the thick-tipped pen and began to draw, her eyes measuring, her hand surprisingly swift. In a few, economical strokes the hot tub, its steps, and the cord took shape. She held the drawing up for me to see. “Stage design” was all she said.

  I pulled back a sheaf of monkey grass.

  No expense had been spared in installing this wiring system. The metal-sheathed pipe supporting the luminarias also contained extra outlets every few feet.

  I pointed to the first outlet.

  Valerie sketched the cord leading up to it and the innocuous brown plug inserted in the outlet.

  I borrowed her pen, eased the plug out of the socket.

  The first drops of rain, cold and hard, spattered down as the men came around the side of the house. Roger was in the lead. He broke into a heavy run. The others followed suit, and they all passed him. Valerie and I hurried to the patio.

  “Cover the drawing,” I directed.

  She grabbed up two cloth napkins and wrapped them around the notebook.

  “Hurry,” I yelled at Enrique, “drain the tub.”

  He looked out at the rain, then shrugged impassively. Pulling a pair of canvas work gloves from his back pocket, he ran to the tub and crouched beside it.

  The wind gusted, and rain billowed onto the patio.

  Lyle, shivering, his arms tight to his body, watched impatiently for a minute. “Yeah, this has to be done. But it won’t matter a damn if we don’t get some help. I’m going back inside, get back to the phone.” He hesitated, gave me a stark, abrasive look, then turned to Roger. “If you want my advice—and you may not—but here it is. Watch like a hawk. Make sure you know what’s going on, what’s found.”

  He turned without waiting for an answer and strode toward the French doors.

  Roger looked after him, his kindly face puzzled.

  “It’s good advice,” I said dryly. “Even if it’s directed at me.”

  “Or perhaps,” Valerie volunteered tartly, “a good offense makes the best defense. I for one don’t trust anybody on this bloody island.”

  Enrique straightened. He hurried back to the patio and shook himself like a wet dog. “The water’s out,” he announced.

  “Thank you.” I turned to Valerie. “I want you to come with me and watch, then you can sketch what we find.” Lightning glittered overhead; deafening thunder erupted.

  Valerie looked up. The bones of her face shone in sharp relief in the unearthly glow from the sky. But she didn’t refuse me.

  I held out my hand. “Enrique, the gloves, please.”

  “They are wet.”

  “That doesn’t matter.”

  He stripped off the gloves, which were very damp but not sodden, and handed them to me.

  Valerie put the notebook on the table, using a plate to anchor it against the wind.

  We reached the hot tub and climbed the steps.

  Roger and Trevor were close behind us.

  But that was all right. The more who saw, the better we could report to the authorities.

  If, of course, we survived the onslaught of a hurricane against a sea island.

  I wouldn’t have taken odds on that.

  But taking odds wasn’t my job at the moment.

  Looking down into the rain-splashed hot tub was.

  Roger drew his breath in sharply. “Oh, my God, look at that!”

  I pushed open the swinging door to the kitchen with my knee, clutching a damp cardboard box in my arms. I was wet through and cold, but I had work to do before I dried off and changed clothes.

  Rain slammed against the windows of the darkened kitchen.

  “Rosalia?” I called as I stepped inside.

  My eyes widened.

  The meat cleaver in Rosalia’s hand wobbled. She held it over her head, poised to attack. Betty stood behind her, pressed against the side of the refrigerator.

  “It’s all right,” I said quickly. “I just want to talk to you, Betty. I need your help in trying to find out who killed Mr. Prescott.”

  The lights in the kitchen flickered, then came on.

  I
hadn’t told Enrique to turn the generator on, but he’d obviously decided to do so. Good. Our situation was frightful enough without the added discomfort of dark and shadowy rooms.

  Perhaps it was the lights that reassured Rosalia. The kitchen once again was an oasis of normalcy, the sparkling cleanliness of the tiled workspaces, the shiny copper bottoms of the pans hanging above a central workstation, the homely familiarity of a suds-filled sink. Here, it was hard to believe a man had been murdered a thousand feet away. Slowly Rosalia lowered her arm.

  “I do not know what to do,” the housekeeper began apologetically. “Tengo miedo. Who will come, what will happen? What took Mr. Prescott? Enrique say he jump into tub and die. But that is not right. Mr. Prescott is not a young man, but he is a strong man. And someone shot the gun at him. I am afraid.”

  “We are all afraid, Rosalia, and you are wise to arm yourself. You and Betty must stay together. That will keep you safe.” I put down the box on the central workstation.

  Her jet-black eyes regarded me sorrowfully. “Mr. Prescott, he wasn’t alone.”

  It was a twist of the knife in a wound that might never heal.

  No, Chase hadn’t been alone, and I had been so confident he would be safe so long as he was in sight of others.

  “No.” I managed to keep my voice even. “He wasn’t alone, but he was the victim of a trap, a very clever trap planned and put into operation Thursday night. Let me show you.” I gestured for them to come close.

  They approached hesitantly.

  I rested my hands on top of the box. “This is very important. I want you both to look—and especially you, Betty—and tell me if you’ve ever seen this before.” I opened the box.

  It was not a remarkable portable hair dryer except for its size. I travel with one that is scarcely larger than my hand. I hadn’t used it here because the guest bathroom contained a hair dryer. That, too, was a small one. This one, made of pale gray plastic, was huge, the motor casing a good five inches in circumference, the nozzle four inches long with a two-inch diameter. Its only distinguishing mark was a hairline crack that ran from a wedge-shaped chip in the rim to midway down the length of the nozzle.