Barbara flared her nostrils.
‘I’m a chemist now? How would I know? Sulphuric? Hydrochloric? Just acid.’
‘Well, what were you doing with it?’
‘A friend of mine doing chemistry got me some from the university labs.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I asked him to.’
Ruth took Barbara by the shoulders and gave her a little shake.
‘What did you want acid for? What have you done?’
Barbara freed herself and laughed. It was an ugly sound.
‘Well, there are lots of things I thought of doing. Throwing it in Robert’s face. Throwing it in that bitch Rosalind’s face.’
Ruth let her shoulders go and stepped back.
‘But who did you throw it at?’
‘I threw it at his car, Ruthy. Just his car.’
Early evening, Luke Hanson was nursing a Bud in The Catalyst, listening to Patti Smith’s Because The Night booming out on the juke-box. Luke had heard Springsteen’s own version when he’d gone to Atlanta to catch the Darkness at the Edge of Town tour. Trying to live a normal life.
He’d wondered sometime if his life might have gone a different way. He’d once thought about making a go of music. He wasn’t a great musician but he could carry a tune.
He sighed. Who was he kidding? Certainly not himself. He was trying to focus on music and ‘normal’ stuff in his life to push out the bad stuff. But his interest in music was already tainted. Back in the day he’d been on the edge of the music scene: criminals found the rock business easy-pickings.
Joni was into music. Especially Latin American. She liked to dance. Old-time stuff. She’d introduced him to mambo and salsa and shing-a-ling and boogaloo. In her living room, hip-swivelling to Ricardo Ray’s On the Loose or Joe Cuba’s Bang Bang. He could still see her, smile flashing, skirt swirling, calling out:
‘Come on, honey. Come over here and do the boogaloo twist.’
‘What’s the boogaloo twist?’ he said laughing.
‘Freedom, honey. Total freedom.’
Since he’d picked up the tail coming away from Joni’s funeral he’d been bent out of shape wondering if her death was from natural causes. Had that scum somehow got to her just to draw him out from cover?
He was tossing up whether to leave the island sooner rather than later. He was pondering whether he should go pro-active and have Lewis and Santiago killed.
He thought he was being pretty relaxed about his options. He looked along the bar to the Englishman he’d heard about, bow-backed, nursing a beer. He looked behind the bar at the hand-written Buddhist prayer thumb-tacked there by Ray – to keep out the evil spirits, Ray had said, with only a nod at the pun:
May all beings be peaceful. May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings awaken in the light of their true nature. May all beings be free.
Hanson dipped his head. Yeah. Right.
As the sun sank into the sea, Sheriff Wilson sipped tequila from a shot glass. He’d cruised up Blackbeard’s Pike - the one road that went the entire length of the island - because he liked to toast the sunset from the viewpoint here.
The Mayor had called and asked him to drop by next day and now he was thinking about the job interview that had brought him to the island.
It was over a drink in Savannah. He’d been expecting to meet a good ole boy but instead the Mayor was a stylishly dressed businesswoman with a hint of Jane Fonda about her.
‘Kathleen Horton,’ she said. ‘And I’ve heard a lot about you, sir.’
Wilson looked across the bar table at the trim, upright woman with the well-coiffed hair sitting across from him. Horton had one scarlet-nailed finger pulling down on the corner of her generous lower lip. The Mayor was a looker all right.
Nothing Wilson could think to say about her remark, especially since it made no real sense to him. He tilted his head, waiting for her to go on.
‘You’re a pistol,’ she said.
He started to demur.
‘No – you are. That’s a plus in my books.’
‘I’m a law enforcement officer.’
‘Indeed you are. But we’re looking for a person with a certain pragmatism.’
He shrugged.
‘Along the way you learn when to be flexible and when you mustn’t give ground.’
‘I take it that means you’ve learned. Maybe the hard way?’
‘Best way to learn,’ Wilson said, holding her look. She looked away first. ‘But would you have me cut corners?’
It was the Mayor’s turn to smile. She showed a lot of teeth.
He needed the job. That was the bottom line. After what had happened he was desperate to get out of the city and the city cops were desperate to be shut of him.
He wasn’t such an idiot he’d hit on the Mayor during the interview but there was definitely some chemistry going on. They were staying in the same hotel, though on different floors. As they entered the lift, three rounds of beer with whisky backs later, the Mayor leaned in and showed him her room key.
‘You’ve got the job so your answer won’t affect your job prospects but do you want to come up for a nightcap in ten minutes?’ She saw his expression and laughed. ‘Let’s do it just the once, get it out of the way. Otherwise fucking each other will be hanging over us all the time you’re working for me.’
Wilson accepted the invitation. And it was just that night. But it was all night. And more than once.
Ruth stayed out in the yard until she was sure David had gone to sleep. He’d come back to Barbara’s house drunk and she didn’t want to talk to him when he was in that state. She was lathered in mosquito repellent and covered from head to toe but she could still feel creatures biting her all over.
She was coming to the conclusion there was no future for them and was wondering if there ever had been.
David had come in under her radar all those years ago. She was crashing around from heartache to heartache at the time, playing it safe but also hurting herself by choosing men she could never have. Married men; hopeless men. But exciting men, charismatic men. Men who lit up a room, men who scintillated.
And they used her. She recognised it later but then she thought she was in charge, a liberated, independent woman. She was acting at the time. She wasn’t a great actress but she had the looks and she got by.
She did some telly, small parts in movies and a lot of rep up and down the country. That peripatetic life – on tour or on location, thrown together with strangers for an intense period of time – lent itself to brief, passionate love affairs that seldom outlasted the duration of the job.
One of the difficult things to come to terms with in her life was her recognition that she wasn’t very good at the thing she was passionate about. Now, of course, that seemed an exercise in vanity, a minor thing to deal with.
David had been a neighbour in the converted Victorian villa in Richmond that housed her first, tiny flat. They’d said hello on the communal staircase but she had never thought twice about him. The flats had a summer party in the garden. David, a little drunk, had come on to her so strongly she’d almost laughed out loud. But she was feeling lonely after a bad affair ended. Frisky too.
And then he turned out to be really nice in bed. Really nice.
But that was then.
Chapter Six
Wilbur Parker left his car at the bottom end of Main Street the next morning and walked the half-mile to the library. That was a mistake. Even with a constant breeze coming off the ocean the heat was intense. By the time he got there he was soaked in sweat. The wig and false moustache were both itching like hell.
A cheerful woman behind the information desk pointed him in the direction of the electoral roll and other public registers. He spent the next couple of hours, the sweat chilling on him in the fierce air-conditioning, getting some kind of handle on the citizens of Paradise Island.
‘Got what you wanted?’ she said as he started to leave.
&nbs
p; ‘Mostly,’ he said, forcing a smile. Cheerful people irritated the hell out of him. He gestured around. ‘Pretty quiet in here.’
‘Lot of folks get off the island in August. Find the heat too much. You here for the golf or the nature?’
‘Little bit of both. You worked here long, ma’am?’
‘Call me Carrie. All my adult life. I’m an islander.’
‘So you’ve seen ‘em come and you’ve seen ‘em go, I guess.’
‘To tell you the truth, not many people go. Once people come here – even a lot of holidaymakers like yourself – they pretty much stay.’
‘I can see why. Beautiful place – except for the heat…’
She laughed. She had good teeth and a good bosom, which she was clearly aware of as she leaned towards him.
Parker knew he was a good-looking guy when he was on, even with the rug and false moustache. Could bang pretty much any woman he wanted if he put his mind to it. His problem was that he didn’t particularly put his mind to it.
However, on this island, he was feeling itchy. Maybe it was the heat. Or the bugs that were driving him crazy. He looked down at what she was showing him. Nice. But she was too damned cheerful.
‘People coming to live here all the time, eh?’
‘All the time. Wouldn’t you?’
He nodded. Gave a little tug on the corner of his moustache.
‘Wish I could. Friend of mine told me about the island. Moved down here a couple of years ago. Maybe less. I was hoping to bump into him.’
‘He didn’t give you his new address?’
Parker laughed. It sounded hollow to him.
‘You know what artists are like.’
‘An artist? Maybe I know him.’
‘Well, he’s kind of an all-kinds-of-artist artist. Oriental cook. Martial arts expert. Painter…’
Parker trailed off. He was out of his depth.
‘Well, what’s the name of this master of all arts?’
‘That’s the problem,’ Parker said. ‘He does his stuff under different names.’
‘Wanna give me one?’ the woman said, showing a hint of irritation.
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Parker said. ‘Maybe Todd Clearing?’
He watched her reaction carefully. None.
‘Don’t know him.’
He had a thought. Essential information could be found in the most unlikely places.
‘Say – do most people register with the library when they come here?’
‘Biggest take up of a library card in Georgia,’ the woman said, showing her teeth again in a big grin.
‘So he may have…?’
Her mouth crimped. He saw the second hint of another side of her. She would be like a barometer: one minute up, the next down.
‘Our records are not public, sir.’
‘No, of course. I didn’t mean…’ He gave her what he hoped was an expansive smile. ‘Okay, well, nice talking to you. I’d better get back into that heat.’ He touched his moustache again. ‘Hope to see you around town, ma’am.’
Her smile came back.
‘I hope so too.’
Natasha Innocent watched the English woman walk along the dirt road and disappear into Barbara’s house. Seldom had she seen anyone look unhappier. The woman was trying so desperately to hold her head high she had it cricked right back, leading with her chin, which did nothing but draw attention to her tension.
Innocent noticed that Gus Levy had been watching the woman too. Well, even in her misery she was a looker. And whilst Levy might be a preacher he was still a man. She continued to watch the slender, soft-faced man puttering around in front of his house. Suddenly he turned to face Innocent and waved. She flushed, embarrassed and surprised that he’d been aware she was watching him. She raised her own hand then turned away from the window.
Time for work. She looked at the stave and the hand gun in its holster on the sofa and sighed. Wilson carried the .357 Magnum but she preferred the lighter Colt Special. It still had a weight to it though. This weather, it was definitely no fun being a law-enforcement officer, weighed down as you were with around 30lbs of essential equipment.
Driving down to the station she thought about Barbara, the English actress who’d made such a big impression on the island. She’d integrated quickly but then she was gregarious and extrovert and everybody took to her. Innocent liked Barbara but never felt she had much to say to her. She felt the same about most of the people hereabouts though.
When Barbara was installed her home became a kind of common meeting place, almost a frat house, people dropping by whenever they felt like it.
Innocent and Sheriff Wilson both lived on this same quiet street, a dirt road still that ran parallel to the beach about fifty yards back in the woods. It was somewhat isolated from the rest of the island and so had developed its own sense of community. Pretty much everybody was up for drinks or a barbecue party almost any time.
Innocent had been born here. Her parents, teenage sweethearts, had moved on to the island in the late thirties to work for the Pierpoint Morgans. At that time these wooden houses were for those who serviced the wealthy in various ways.
When the government persuaded the rich to move off, most of the servants went with them. Innocent’s parents stayed and scraped a living providing accommodation for those rare visitors who came for the nature.
Innocent grew up here. She knew every creek and backwater, every stretch of swamp and marshland. She loved it. Vowed when she was around twelve that she would never leave. Pretty much kept to her word too, working at the nature centre in the marshes on the west of the island for years, still living at home. Until her confusion about her sexuality became more than she could handle.
She moved to Atlanta, looking for anonymity so that she could explore her feelings. The whole thing was a disaster. She found no answers and hated city life, couldn’t wait to get back on the island.
The mayor suggested she apply for a vacant deputy job. She thought Horton was joking at first, even if the suggestion came up at Innocent’s father’s funeral. Innocent had spent the previous two years nursing first her mother then her father. Six months after her mother died of cancer, her father died of a broken heart. It still brought tears to her eyes to think how that good, loving man just fell apart when the love of his life died.
At the wake the mayor asked her what her plans were.
‘Well, I know I’m going to get a lodger,’ she said. ‘This place is too big for me. Aside from that I haven’t thought.’
‘Call me Monday, I’ve got a proposition for you.’
The offer surprised her but the more she thought about it, the more she wanted to do it. She thought she could work with Sheriff Wilson. She liked him well enough. Heck, everybody on the island did, especially the women.
That was the only thing she’d been worried about – Wilson’s reputation as a ladies man. But once she’d got that fixed, it was working out fine. She didn’t have Finch’s ambition to be a big city cop. She was happy to be on the island, doing something useful, living the good life with Josie.
She still believed it was a kind of fate that brought Josie into her life. She’d advertised for a roommate just for company and then this vision had shown up.
‘How tough are you, Sheriff?’
Mayor Horton was leaning forward in her chair, showing off her cleavage.
‘Not tough at all, ma’am,’ Wilson said. ‘I thought I explained at my interview that what I brought to my post was experience, negotiating talents and an ability to find my way around the legal system.’
‘You mean that last for cutting corners?’
‘I don’t think I implied that.’
‘And a cool head. I think a cool head was mentioned.’
‘I don’t recall. May I ask why you’re asking?’
‘Because you have a front on you that if I was a man would send me one of two ways. Either I’d watch out because you look plenty tough – or I’d want to try you out b
ecause you look plenty tough.’
‘In your case, Madam Mayor, I’d roll over and show you my belly.’
‘You might not be the good judge of character you think you are if you think that would work with me.’
He smiled.
‘Hope Mr Bartram wasn’t causing you any trouble, ma’am.’
Wilson had almost collided with Frank Bartram on the steps outside the town hall. As usual, Bartram had his head down. Most weekenders were fine and friendly, grateful to have a small part of Paradise Island. Bartram acted like he was bestowing a favour on the island by his very presence. He tried his best to ignore everyone on the rare occasions he shared the sidewalk with lesser beings.
No mean feat - the ignoring everyone – on an island as small and friendly as this one. Wilson expected to develop tennis elbow, the number of times he tipped his hat in the course of a casual perambulation.
‘Frank,’ Wilson said in greeting.
Bartram scarcely glanced at him.
‘Hi, sheriff,’ he mumbled as he hurried off down the street.
Wilson had caught movement at the window of the mayor’s office. He nodded at the mayor, standing there watching him watch Bartram. She crooked her finger to him in return then turned away.
‘And what’s Mr Bartram’s hurry on such a fine morning?’ Grady Cole said, appearing quietly beside Wilson. Wilson turned to Grady Cole.
‘Are you part ghost, the way you crept up on me there?’
Cole grinned.
‘Didn’t mean to spook you sheriff.’
‘I wasn’t spooked but maybe we need you to carry a bell. How’s business?’
‘Fair. Just fair. Something I wanted to talk to you about. In private.’
‘Sure. I’m just about to see the Mayor. She wants a word too.’
‘Maybe you could drop by the shop when you’re done?’
Wilson looked at his watch.
‘When I say the Mayor wants a word, I’ve never known her to stop at one. So, depending on how many extra words she intends, I’ll say maybe. But definitely in the afternoon, if not.’
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