“I didn’t hear about that. Where was she?”
“She’d flown over to the Big Island to pick up Francis. School’s out all next week.”
“Qual’s right. It must be embarrassing as all hell for an eighteen-year old to have his mother dropping by all the time. Does she think he can’t find his way home by himself? Anyhow, it’s a good thing you heard about it ahead of time. I’d like to meet this fabulous Francis. Who told you Joanna was going over to the Big Island to pick him up? Marshal?”
“Uh-uh. It was Qual.”
“Hmm. That’s funny. I wonder how Qual found out?”
Kay shrugged. “Probably David Rouse. Qual seems to have developed quite a friendship with him lately. David was even out to dinner at Craig and Qual’s. Maybe that’s why Qual’s become so interested in the case.”
“Maybe it has something to do with why he was so ready to go along with Hank’s scheme to spread the notion Rouse is in the clear. It’s just not like Qual to go along with any sort of false rumor-mongering.”
“I think it’s because he’s absolutely convinced Rouse is in the clear, which makes it all even more puzzling. If he’s so sure, why hasn’t he shared the information with us. It’s just not like him at all.”
“Well, whatever his motivation, it’s our job to let the Forbes-Dalquist ménage know Hank no longer considers David Rouse to be a likely suspect.”
Kay looked unhappy. “It’s going to be a strange, half lie. I’m as convinced as Qual is that David Rouse didn’t kill Bart Cain, but I also know Hank thinks Rouse is the murderer. What a weird situation.”
***
Gil Iwamoto greeted them warmly as they drove up to the building site. “Hey, strangers, where have you been. Most people spend all of their time underfoot when their house is being built, and I can’t even get you two out here once for love nor money.”
Sid and Kay both expressed genuine astonishment and approval at the speed with which the building was now going up. The half finished concrete slab Kay had seen the week before was complete, and the house’s framework was virtually all up. Three workers were wrestling the last of the rafters into place, and the sound of heavy metal coming from a boom box reverberated through the skeleton structure crowded with planks and sawhorses and tools. The rooms now seemed to be of proper size, and Kay could even envision the finished product with the furniture in place.
The three of them wandered through the house, slipping between the two-by-four studs to avoid the dangling electric cords, stepladders, table saws and other paraphernalia scattered throughout the various rooms. Gil had a blueprint in hand and was marking off the electrical outlets on the studs.
“Electrician and phone company, next week,” he announced. “We can still make changes if you see anything that needs changing.” Kay was concerned about the telephone jacks, and she and Gil made the rounds to check them out. Sid stood in front of the rough-in for the front window and looked out at the ocean. He knew this would be his favorite spot, and wondered what kind of recliner he should get to make full use of the spectacular view.
Reluctantly, he yielded to Kay’s signal to leave.
***
Cliffhouse did not seem quite so imposing to Kay now that she had seen her own house in a somewhat more finished form. As they drove up, they spotted Marshal in front of the long garage looking under the hood of his Ferrari. Sid expected to see a puzzled expression on Marshal’s face and a general aura of helplessness and alcoholic haze about him. Instead he found a Marshal who seemed to know quite well what he was doing. A sudden picture of Marshal on the cruise with a grease streak on his wrist flashed across Sid’s mind. Marshal waved a small box-end wrench at them, and they went over to where he was working.
“It’s a beautiful engine in these cars,” Marshal said by way of greeting. “I can’t resist tinkering with it.”
“I didn’t know you had this kind of talent, Marshal,” Sid said, noting at the same time how Marshal appeared to be quite sober.
Marshal smiled. “I rather imagine most people who know me would react the same way. Actually I’ve enjoyed playing mechanic ever since grade school. If I’d had my way, I’d have taken vocational courses instead of wasting my years on a liberal arts education. Dad wanted me to be a poet or an architect or some such thing. He made his money in a tool and die mill on the East Coast, and decided his son wouldn’t get his hands dirty the way he did. There was no way I could get through to him to convince him this was my interest,” Marshal pointed the wrench to the complex piece of machinery under the hood, “and not Keats or Frank Lloyd Wright.”
As he spoke, Marshal begin to wipe his hands off with a cloth. “Come on into the garage, and I’ll show you Mark’s prize. It was one of the few things we had in common.”
The garage stretched out along the cliff edge to the north of the house. There was room in it for at least a half-dozen cars. Three automobiles occupied the large structure. It was the vehicle in the last of the spaces Marshal was heading toward. “What do you think of that? It’s a 1920 Hupmobile. It belonged to Mark’s Dad, and it’s all original equipment—even original accessories, including jack, hand pump, floor mats, everything.”
The car was impressive, even to two people like Sid and Kay, whose chief interests in automobiles was their usefulness as transportation.
“Mark used to spend hours working on it. That’s the main reason he had all this other equipment.” Marshall gestured at the impressive array of tools and machinery lining the rear wall. “Mark could have opened up a full scale car repair garage here if he’d wanted to. He had all the equipment for doing anything needed to a car, from changing the engine to repairing flats.”
Marshall shifted back to discussing the sleek white automobile which looked as though it were poised to take off. He walked over to the Hupmobile and passed a hand over its roof. “I think it’s a great piece of machinery in its own way, but it’s more of a fancy toy than an automobile as far as I’m concerned. Francis has shown some interest in it. It would be nice if he takes it over. It would be a real shame just to let it sit here and develop Hawaii rot from the sea air.”
Kay decided this was as good a time as any to bring up Denise Rouse, though she had no idea what Denise’s visit to Honolulu had to do with anything. “Why was Denise Rouse in Honolulu last month?”
A sober Marshal was a different person from a drunken Marshal, Kay quickly realized. Marshal grinned at the question. “I should have known you’d uncover that tidbit of information sooner or later. I suppose you know she got in touch with me.”
Kay nodded. “Twice, in fact.”
Marshal’s grin widened. “Looks like I’m getting my money’s worth. You folks must have a whole research staff over there to be able to run down all this information. Yes. She did call me. She came to Hawaii to pick up some things she had in storage. She’s a collector of antique glassware, and she wanted to supervise the packing and shipment. While she was here, she ran into my ex-wife, not entirely accidentally. Sibyl and Denise were never exactly fast friends. Sibyl always insisted Denise was the reason why we broke up.
“It doesn’t happen to be true, but Sibyl isn’t someone whose mind is easy to change. So when she heard Denise was back in Hawaii, she apparently ran her down special to tell her she was going to give David full details about the so called affair between me and Denise. Denise was worried that if the story did get back to David they’re would be a custody battle over the kids. It’s a damn fool notion, because David’s just not the kind to act that way. I told her so in no uncertain terms. It took her a couple of long phone conversations, but I think she left Hawaii convinced, finally.”
Kay decided the information she’d just gotten deserved further digestion and suggested they go see the rest of the family.
Walking back to the house, Kay asked about the real object of their visit, Dolph.
Marshal nodded. “He’s around. So’s Kerwin and a bunch of landscaping help. The place is overrun with people, today. That
’s the biggest drawback to this place. It takes an army to keep it up. Fortunately, Joanna has the good sense to shoo the whole mob off at five.”
The affidavit was quickly signed, and Kay asked Marshal to once more go over his memories of the Honolulu cruise, particularly the first day spent on the Jomark.
The narrative differed little from his original description. The only hesitations and discrepancies were in the matter of his drinking. The one drink became several, but these had been carefully spaced out over the afternoon. Again, he made the claim he was cold sober when he left the Jomark sometime around six in the evening.
“Did you spend any time in your stateroom during the day?” Kay asked.
“Uh-uh. Those little cubicles make me claustrophobic. I spent just about all day out on the rear deck. Dolph and Bart served the meals out there. I did a little swimming, which was pretty much it.” With a grin, he added, “Strenuous life, what?”
“Did you go back for anything in your stateroom around ten or eleven in the morning?” Kay pressed.
“Nope. No need to.”
“What about the others?”
“I couldn’t say. Joanna had her usual romances. Sam spent most of the day bending David’s ear. Francis was scarce. He was doing a lot of schoolwork he’d brought along. All the others were back and forth. Don’t ask me to remember anything specific about any of them. Besides,” he continued, his eyes narrowing, “it doesn’t have much to do with my case.”
Kay could see she’d pretty well drained the tank, at least down to the level where no more would run out easily, and said, “We want to ask Dolph a couple of questions. After we’re pau, where can we find the others?”
“We’ll all be out by the pool. I’m going to take a dip, myself. Too bad you don’t have you’re swim suits along. Perfect time of day for a plunge.”
***
Sid did the questioning in the kitchen. Dolph continued to clean the fresh vegetables, preparing them for the cook while talking to the two attorneys.
“It must have been about ten-thirty when I started in on the staterooms.”
“Is that usually the time you start when there are people on board using the staterooms?”
“Yes. By then the breakfast is over and the lounge is cleaned up.”
“Do you always start with the same stateroom?”
Dolph thought about the question for a moment. “They usually aren’t all occupied. I guess I do always start with the first occupied one on the starboard side.” Dolph rewarded Sid and Kay with one of his unusual smiles. “It goes back to my hotel worker days. If you establish a daily routine, you aren’t as likely to forget a room.”
“Where was the scuba bottle, exactly.”
“It was on a chair—one of those wicker chairs with loose cushions. Each stateroom has one.”
“Was the bottle sitting right out in the open?”
Dolph gave it a moment’s thought. “No. It was partly covered by a towel, but I saw it almost as soon as I came into the room. I always change the towels and linen every day, so I naturally picked the towel up and threw it into the laundry sack.”
“You didn’t move the bottle?”
“I had no reason to. That goes back to hotel days, too. A standard rule is: never touch personal belongings unless it’s absolutely essential to move them for cleaning purposes.”
“You said there was no one else in any of the staterooms at the time. Are you sure of that?’
Dolph shrugged. “I can’t be positive, but I don’t think there was. I think I did hear someone come though the passageway once or twice. There could have been a lot more traffic than that. Even though I leave the doors open when I’m working, each of the staterooms has its own bathroom, which I clean. So I wouldn’t hear anyone while flushing the toilets and scrubbing. That’s another thing I learned in my hotel days. If you don’t do anything else, clean the toilet. Guests are more likely to complain about a dirty toilet than anything else having to do with room cleaning. “
“Were any of the other stateroom doors open while you were there?”
“I really couldn’t say. That’s one thing that’s different from the hotels. Passengers on the Jomark don’t worry about theft, so they aren’t particularly concerned about closing their doors. Rough seas will do the door closing if they’re left open, but when we’re moored, the doors are as likely to be open as not. So I just can’t say.”
Chapter 22
The Olympic-sized pool and its surrounding tiled deck stretched out for more than a hundred and fifty feet along the cliff at the south end of the house. The house, itself, marked off one end of the pool area. A tall cyclone-fence stood bare along the cliff side and was completely hidden by a thick and tall hedge of white oleander on the other. A heavy nylon shade cover at the northern end of the pool provided a shelter under which the attorneys found the family clustered in lounge chairs.
What was most startling was the loud sound of the waves crashing against the cliffs. Later, when Kay asked Joanna why the waves could not be heard in the house, she learned Mark had had it heavily insulated. “You can still hear them at night when the house is quiet. I rather enjoy the muffled sound. It’s like the white noise David experimented with a few years back to keep you from feeling pain. It is rather soothing, you know.”
Marshal, stretched out in a lawn chair with a tall glass in his hand, was making up for lost time. Sid and Kay declined his offer to mix them a drink. Joanna was surprisingly friendly, immediately putting the latest romance aside to welcome them. Sam was off the coast of Australia in her narrative which she was inflicting on a patient, young, fair-skinned young man who had to be Francis.
Joanna introduced him. Francis nodded his acknowledgment and fixed his dark eyes on them.
Marshal pulled up a couple of lounge chairs for the newcomers. Sam interrupted her chatter and momentarily gave them her attention. The unfocused eyes turned sharp, suddenly resembling her grandson’s much darker ones. “Marshal tells me you seem to be still interested in the Bart Cain murder. Do you have a client?”
While the question momentarily caught Sid off guard, he realized this was an ideal opportunity to pass along Hank’s fabricated story and to embellish it with a great deal of truth. “Not really. We almost had one. Qual spoke to David Rouse about the possibility, but they agreed the police wouldn’t do anything on the basis of the slim circumstantial evidence. Hank—Lieutenant DeMello—is exploring other leads. Anyway, Qual is absolutely convinced David didn’t do it.”
While he was speaking, Sid was aware he was being watched closely by three pairs of eyes. Even in Marshal’s case, Sid could not be sure whether or not the older man was surveying him through a space in his lids, as he lounged back in his chair with his eyes apparently closed. Joanna was certainly listening attentively. Sam and Francis seemed to be checking his features and trying to read his mind.
“Well, that’s a relief,” Joanna said. “None of us ever suspected David. If you knew him as well as I do, you never would have either. He’s the kindest person imaginable. Frankly, I think the whole thing was a tragic accident, and no one was responsible–except Bart picked up the wrong bottle at the dive shop. Isn’t that a possibility?”
I might as well be hanged for a ram as a lamb, Sid thought. “I suppose that could have happened,” he said aloud, trying unsuccessfully to keep the certainty it had not out of his voice. “It wouldn’t be the first time a scuba diver made a mistake and killed himself. It’s a dangerous sport.”
Joanna and Sam nodded in agreement, but before they could say anything, Kay broke in. “We’ve already spoken to Marshal about the Honolulu trip, and I wonder if any of you could add to what he had to tell us.” Kay didn’t care for this group interrogation method, something Hank would have been appalled at. Lacking the power of a police badge, she felt she had to settle for the current mass approach. “Do any of you remember where you were between ten and eleven the morning you arrived in Honolulu?” she asked. “More spec
ifically, did any of you go down to your stateroom between ten and eleven?”
Francis spoke up immediately. Kay was startled by how deep his voice was. “I must have spent all morning in my stateroom. I had some exams I was studying for.” His mouth smiled, but his eyes did not. “I guess I was trying to make up for all the studying I hadn’t done the rest of the semester.”
“Were you there all morning?”
“I took a couple of breaks.”
“Did Dolph come around to clean your cabin while you were there?”
Francis shook his head. “He must have come in during one of my breathers.”
“Did you hear anyone else going in or out of the staterooms?”
“I wasn’t paying much attention. I think I did hear people walk down the passageway a few times, but that’s all.”
Kay turned to Joanna and found some of the woman’s coldness had returned. Even before being asked, she said, “I didn’t go back to the my stateroom any time between eight or so, after I dressed, and noon when I went back briefly to clean up for lunch. Then, I didn’t go back in until Marshal left around six.”
Sam shook her head, and was already turning to Francis to describe the harbor at “Birth, Australia.”
Kay was not sure whether the shake of the head was a ‘no’ to her unasked question or a refusal to answer it. Convinced their primary mission had been accomplished, however, she did not feel it worth trying to unravel Sam’s intent.
Before leaving the house, Kay said, “Just a minute, Sid. I have one more question to ask Dolph.” They found Dolph and the cook sitting at the kitchen table smoking.
“Sorry to bother you again, Dolph, but could you tell me how long it took you to clean those staterooms the first day in Honolulu.”
“They were in pretty good shape. Much better than most hotel rooms. I must have been through in about an hour and a half. Not much more than that, because I started putting lunch together at noon.”
“You did definitely clean all of them?”
Dolph showed a touch of annoyance. “Of course. I cleaned the six passenger ones. I didn’t bother with the one Bart and I shared. Captain Silva insists he take care of his own, so I never go in there.”
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