by Carolyn Hart
“Not now, Henrie O.” His voice was hushed. “Thanks, but Connor’s frazzled. Such stupid stuff, raking up an accident from a year ago. She and I are going out to dinner by ourselves. I managed to get some tickets to the ballet, part of the Bermuda Festival. After all, we’re here to have fun. We’ll see you in the morning.”
“Lloyd…” But the door closed. I lifted my hand again, slowly let it fall. I wanted to talk to Connor. I’d get the truth out of her about that night. Abruptly, I swung away from the door, disliking myself for that swift, somewhat cruel thought. Yes, Connor with her insecurities and fears would be no match for me. I’d asked too many hard questions for too many years. I reached my door, opened it, stepped inside.
Did I have any right to ask hard questions of Connor? I stood irresolute in the center of my room, swept suddenly by the fatigue I’d refused to recognize throughout the day, confused by my uncertainty about how to proceed—or whether to proceed.
I turned to the closet, selected a long-sleeved white silk blouse and a velvet skirt. I dressed quickly. In only a moment, I looked in the mirror, brushed back my hair, tying it with a dark ribbon that matched my skirt. I studied my face critically: deep-set dark eyes, the fine web of lines across my cheeks, the firm mouth, stubborn chin. I smoothed on a bit of powder, added a bright lipstick. I looked like what I was, an unsmiling, worried, rather weary elderly woman.
Connor Bailey didn’t want my help. Nor did Lloyd Drake.
Why not leave it at that?
I had a sudden swift memory of the sodden lump of lifelessness on the sharp rocks beneath the headland. Yes, I’d rather thought George Smith was a brigand, ready to hold me up for whatever he could manage. Even though that might be true, he had been young and alive, perhaps heedless, but I didn’t think cruel. And now he was dead, either because I’d enticed him into a game of wits with a much more dangerous player or because he knew who killed Roddy Worrell.
Was I trying to prove that Roddy was murdered to avoid any responsibility for George’s death? Was this what propelled me, weary to the bone, to probe and prod and eavesdrop and conjecture?
I picked up my little black mesh evening bag and started for the door. All right. To be honest, I didn’t want to be responsible for George’s death. I might in the end discover that it was I who set in motion a deadly chain of events, culminating in his murder. If so, I would face the truth. But, whatever was to happen, I wouldn’t stop until I knew the truth.
A swift knock sounded. When I opened the door, Marlow Bailey looked at me uncertainly. She poked her horn-rims higher on her nose. “Mrs. Collins…” She stopped.
“Yes, Marlow?” If she wanted a report on my promised talk with Lloyd, I would have to confess failure.
“I wondered if perhaps…” Her fingers plucked at the top button of her blouse. I noticed the silver sheen of the blouse and the boxy fit of her blue velvet trousers and the sleek black pumps. Even in dressy clothes, Marlow didn’t look stylish. Was it her manner or the lack of makeup? The dash of pale pink lipstick only made her look paler. “Mother and Lloyd have tickets for the ballet. Aaron and I thought we’d go into Hamilton to the Coconut Rock. Neal and Diana are coming with us. We didn’t want to be here for dinner. George…”
I understood. No matter who waited our table this evening, we could not help but think of George.
“I hope you don’t think that’s awful.” Her tone was anxious.
“Of course not. It’s a very good idea.” I wished I’d thought of it, though I was much too weary to plan an outing myself.
“Then would you mind very much keeping an eye out for Jasmine? I don’t want to go off and leave her all alone without someone to be with her at dinner.”
I wasn’t surprised that it was Marlow who was concerned about Jasmine. The Connors of this world rarely see beyond themselves. How did the old saying go? A young mother makes an old daughter. I wished that Marlow would find more than this evening’s respite from her role as family caretaker, but I knew that was not going to happen in the Bailey family, now or in the future.
I smiled and nodded. “Jasmine’s fun. We’ll have a nice evening. You young people get out and forget all of this.” I didn’t mind taking care of Jasmine and I’d do my best to distract her from George’s death, though I imagined she would put it in the category of exciting things that had happened, like Roddy Worrell’s fall from the tower and the Gombey dancers.
A string quartet played Cole Porter tunes. I studied Jasmine’s bent head. The peppermint-striped ribbon in her blond curls matched her striped blouse. I was puzzled. Instead of her usual bouncy eagerness, she was subdued. She’d scarcely eaten a bite. Perhaps she didn’t care for lamb. But the whipped sweet potatoes surely held child appeal.
Our little table was an island of silence in the dining room. None of the guests were boisterous, but there was a current of cheeriness: the clink of silverware, the lilt of the music, low-voiced conversations. Jasmine and I were the only members of our group dining in the hotel. I was glad we’d been placed at a smaller table. I supposed that Steve Jennings had joined either Connor and Lloyd or the youngsters. I’d been prepared to meet and deflect a barrage of questions from Jasmine, expecting that she would give free rein to her curiosity. Instead, when the waiter—Frederick—removed our dinner plates, Jasmine had scarcely said a word and her answers to my questions had been monosyllabic.
I don’t particularly pride myself as having great rapport with children, but I can usually get almost anyone to talk.
Frederick brought our desserts, Key lime pie for me and vanilla ice cream drizzled with a mixture of chocolate and raspberry sauces for Jasmine.
She stared at her plate, made no move to pick up her spoon.
I put down my fork. “Jasmine, don’t you feel well?”
Slowly she lifted her eyes. Her lips trembled. “I didn’t mean for George to die.”
I found it hard to breathe.
Her round face was young and unblemished, the skin smooth and pink, but the blue eyes that stared at me were dark and deep with pain.
“Of course you didn’t, Jasmine. I know that.” But children kill. Even a child could rush up behind a man and push. Oh, dear Lord, why?
“I was so mad at him.” She picked up the spoon, pressed it against the tablecloth. “He shouldn’t have talked about my mom that way. He—”
“George talked to you about your mother?” I was startled. Yes, George had spread rumors about Connor to Diana and apparently to others on the staff and among the guests. But I was shocked to think he would discuss Connor’s behavior with her ten-year-old child.
“Not me. Somebody else. I never saw who he was talking to. I was in the magnolia tree this morning—”
“The one by the cliff?” The tree was at the far edge of the hotel property. Limbs of the huge tree spread over the water on one side. The tree also poked over a wall marking the drop to a road that curled into a parking area for the hotel staff. I’d looked there when scouting out the terrain in search of an explanation for the ghost. There was a thirty-foot drop from the tree to the rocks on one side and the road on the other.
“Yes. I like to climb in the tree. It’s a secret place. I go back every year.” She turned the spoon over and over in her hands.
I felt a faraway echo of childhood, the delight in finding a niche unseen by the world, whether in a tree or a dim cave or a ridged gully or even a weed-fringed ditch—anywhere that adults would not go, a preserve where magic flourished.
“I slip out real early and climb up the branches and I feel like I’m hanging in the sky and no one knows. This morning I heard footsteps on the road. I heard George talking.” Her face crinkled in puzzlement. “I didn’t hear anyone else. He said”—she curled her fingers around the spoon—“that my mom was scared. He said maybe she deserved to be scared, maybe she wouldn’t chase around after married men again.” Jasmine’s voice shook. “Mom didn’t do that. It made me so mad that I didn’t hear for a minute and then it
was kind of mixed up. He said, ‘I just figured out what happened. I saw her go up in the tower after him. I ought to tell the police.’ George sounded like he was scared. He didn’t say anything for a minute and kept on walking. I heard his footsteps. His voice was farther away when I heard him again. He said he was going to meet the old lady out on the point and it would take more than five thousand—”
I was the old lady. While Jasmine hung in the magnolia tree and I was picking up the envelope from my floor, George was on a cell phone telling someone he’d figured it all out—the murder of Roddy Worrell?—and he ought to tell the police and it would take more than five thousand for him to keep quiet. Was he willing to keep quiet about murder, or was he talking about the secret of the ghost?
“That’s all I heard.” Jasmine took a deep breath. “I climbed down and ran to the tower. But it was locked.”
I was afraid she was going to say she followed George. I began to relax a little. “Why did you go to the tower?”
Jasmine hunched her shoulders. “The ghost was there last night. I thought maybe Roddy would hear me. Roddy liked my mom.” There were tears in her voice. “And Mom liked him. George was wrong about Mom and I thought Roddy wouldn’t like what he’d said. I wanted to go up to the top but I couldn’t. But I thought a ghost could hear anyway, so I leaned close to the door and I whispered.” She dropped the spoon, placed her small plump hands over her mouth.
“You told Roddy what George said.” I pictured that small figure of outrage, leaning close to the thick wooden panels of the tower door.
Her blue eyes stared at me unblinkingly.
“And then…” I moved my chair, reached over and gently pulled her hands down from her face, held them tight in my own. “You asked Roddy to punish George. Is that it?”
Tears spilled down her face. “I didn’t mean for him to die.” She gulped back a sob. “I didn’t mean—”
“Jasmine, it doesn’t matter what you whispered to the door. No one was there. No one heard. Not a ghost. Not anyone. There is no ghost. There was no ghost. It was a trick that George”—and someone else, someone to whom he spoke that morning—“planned. I know how it was done. Listen closely.” I told her about the box kite and the phosphorus. “The kite is locked in the Sports closet right now. Tomorrow I’ll show it to the police.”
It was like watching sun spill over a dark landscape, chasing away purple shadows, turning water iridescent, creating harmony and peace. “It wasn’t me.” She breathed the words in a soft little sigh.
“No, darling. It wasn’t you.” I let loose her hands, smiled. “Now, eat your ice cream before it melts into a huge puddle.”
She grabbed up her spoon. “I love chocolate and raspberry.”
Chocolate and raspberry, a delectable combination. George and the person to whom he spoke, a deadly combination?
I ate my Key lime pie and waited until Jasmine finished her ice cream before I spoke. “Jasmine.”
She was comfortable now, her head bobbing in time with the music. I didn’t want to frighten her, but I knew she must be careful. I leaned across the table, held out my hand. “Let’s make a pact. We won’t tell anyone but the police about your climb in the magnolia tree.”
Jasmine’s eyes sparkled. She grabbed my hand, shook it so hard I had to catch the tower in the center of the table to keep it from falling. “I promise.” Relieved of her sense of guilt, she bounced eagerly in her chair. “I almost followed George down to the shore. I wish I had!”
If she had, she would likely have met a murderer hurrying up the slope in the dusky tunnel.
“But I was hungry.” Her tone was regretful.
And so she lived.
When I left Jasmine in her room, I made her promise not to open the door to anyone but Marlow. I waited until I heard the lock click.
Tomorrow I was going to tell Chief Inspector Foster everything.
thirteen
THE siren was far away, no more an intrusion into sleep than the rattle of palm fronds or the click of footsteps. Sleep was a weight of darkness, thick and warm. The siren wailed nearer, piercing that cocoon of comfort. I woke, pushed back the light covering. By the time I reached the sliding door, lifted the bar, fumbled with the lock, and stepped out on the balcony, shivering a little in the night breeze, I was wide awake.
I saw no flames, but there was an acrid smell of burning and the whirl of warning lights spangled the darkness beyond the terraces. The terraces…I had a sharp, ugly presentiment. It took me only a moment to dress. I tucked my room key into the pocket of my slacks and grabbed a sweater as I plunged out of my room. No one else appeared to have awakened.
As I crossed the upper terrace, the lights were clearly visible, alternating red and white flashes. Men’s voices rose above the scuff of boots, the mechanical whir of unreeling hose, and the throaty rumble of the fire engine. Suddenly, water hissed. The smell changed from the dry crackle of fire to charred dankness. By the time I reached the steps to the lower terrace, my nose wrinkled at the stench of doused flame.
The pool area blazed in light, but the snack bar and dressing rooms were dark and shadowy, illuminated by spotlights from the fire trucks. Tendrils of smoke trailed up into the night sky. On the far side of the pool, Mrs. Worrell watched the brisk but controlled efforts of the firemen in their bulky yellow coats and red helmets. The lights in this area shone brightly, obviously on a different line from the electricity for the serving area and dressing rooms. Submerged lighting in the pool cast a green glow upward, turning Mrs. Worrell’s pale face the color of a greengage plum. Her gingery hair, cramped close to her head, was uncovered tonight, but she wore the same red corduroy robe and a too-large pair of a man’s leather loafers.
I stopped beside her. “What happened?” I watched a knot of firemen near the snack bar.
She shot me a sharp glance, but her reply was civil enough. “A fire in one of the storage areas. Dr. Mackenzie”—she gestured over the hill—“a neighbor, had a late emergency surgery and was coming home. He smelled smoke. He called nine-one-one, then roused me. I can’t imagine…There’s nothing that could possibly cause a fire there.”
A fire in one of the storage areas…I knew what the arson experts would find—a broken window at the back of the Sports cupboard, some kind of flammable liquid. I knew everything but who’d done it.
The clump of men by the dressing rooms listened to a big man who gave low-voiced instructions. He gestured toward the Sports closet, then turned and walked toward us, impressive in his shiny white helmet and slick yellow coat. His black boots grated on the pool apron.
Mrs. Worrell took a step forward. “I’m Thelma Worrell, the manager. Is the fire put?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He was the kind of man who would stand easily on the deck of a ship or handle a rowdy crowd or make love to a willing woman. Heavy cheeks and a burly build told of many meals well taken. His voice was deep and sure. “Captain Wilson. There’s no danger. The fire was localized, confined to the back of a narrow closet. A police constable will be here shortly to secure the area until a thorough investigation can be made in the morning. There is clear evidence of arson.”
“Arson?” Mrs. Worrell scarcely managed the word, a whisper of shock and disbelief.
“Yes, ma’am.” He pulled off thick beige gloves. “When we arrived, you said none of the unit was kept locked except for the food service area.”
Mrs. Worrell stared past him, one hand tight at her throat. “That’s right. In the winter, we lock up the snack bar after tea is finished. In summer, of course, the snack bar is open until ten. But the dressing areas are left open.”
The fire captain lifted his gloved hand, pointed. “The long and narrow room just past the men’s dressing room—”
Mrs. Worrell nodded. “The Sports cupboard. It’s left open. We’ve not been troubled by petty thievery—”
The fire chief’s hand fell. “That door was locked. We axed down the door. That’s where the fire was.”
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sp; Mrs. Worrell wrapped her arms tightly across her front. “That’s impossible…”
I didn’t listen as her voice rose and fell. I didn’t follow as she and the fire captain moved toward the burned-out area, picking their way among the hoses. Yes, that door was locked. My fingerprints were on it. Someone else tried the door this night and could not gain access, but the locked door was no ultimate barrier. Now the kite was gone. It scarcely would take one flicker of flame to destroy that flimsy contraption of paper and balsa wood. Quite likely the coating of phosphorescent paint added fuel and brightness to the flame.
How much difference was it going to make that the box kite no longer existed?
I stood in the early-morning quiet on one side of yellow tape strung from a spindly branch of an African tulip tree at the corner of the building to a metal stanchion at the edge of the patio. On the other side of the plastic strip, jumbled boot prints marred the muddy ground. A portion of the back wall of the pool complex bore traces of the night’s blazer a smashed window, scorch marks, traces of soot.
Footsteps clipped on the cement siding of the pool. “Good morning, ma’am. This area is presently closed.” The young police constable placed her hands behind her back, waited for me to move on.
I did, but as I climbed the steps to the upper terrace, I knew the smashed window was the means taken by the arsonist to toss some kind of burning material into the Sports closet. I pictured a stealthy figure slipping through the night. Was the window broken with a rock? And then, quite likely, a cloth soaked in gasoline was tossed onto the kite. Did a gloved hand poke through the window with a taper of some sort, hold it until the blaze was well under way?
I was midway across the upper terrace when I saw Chief Inspector Foster standing in the doorway of the hotel. I touched the envelope in my pocket that held the note from George Smith and walked to meet him.
The cardroom was becoming quite familiar to me. I sat opposite the chief inspector. He dropped a lump of sugar into his coffee, slowly stirred. The note from George Smith lay on the desk in front of him. On a legal pad, he’d made a series of notations in tight, neat printing. When I had finished—and I kept nothing back—he turned the pad toward me. “Would you say this is an accurate representation, Mrs. Collins?”