Hanson coughed again.
‘I’ve seen enough Westerns to know what it means to be gut-shot.’
‘Oh that was then. These days – medicine has come a long way.’
‘Look inside the damned book, would you?’
‘Easy, fella. All in good time. Just answer me one question. How’d you know about that thing in New York?’
‘I don’t know. I just did.’ Hanson groaned. ‘Read about it in the newspapers I guess. Please. You got the wrong guy. I wasn’t even in this country in 1970. Get me a doctor.’
‘In due course,’ Parker said. ‘How did you read about it if you weren’t in the country?’
Parker was disappointed in Hanson. He was a lot weaker than he’d expected. But then he had squealed on his friends so maybe that was the indication of his character right there.
‘Wait – no. Sheriff Wilson mentioned it once. That’s it. One of the reasons he wanted out of New York. Dealing with that kind of revolting crime.’
Parker looked out of the window at the house opposite.
‘I want to know about the layout of the house and I want to know who’s in there.’
As Hanson told him, blood-loss kicked in. His sentences trailed off. Parker filed away all that he heard. He perked up when Hanson told him about Natasha Innocent.
‘A cop inside, you say? Better describe her so I know when I go in there.’
‘You’re going in there?’ Hanson slurred.
‘Sure. I’ve got a job still to do. I’ve got to find this Luke Hanson.’
‘You believe me?’ Hanson sounded so grateful.
‘Sure I do,’ Parker lied.
Hanson examined his face more closely.
‘You believe me - but you’re not getting a doctor for me, are you?’
He let out a sob. Parker’s gun was behind his ear, though Hanson couldn’t see it.
‘I know my way round wounds,’ Parker said. ‘Whoever shot you has killed you. Nothing anyone can do about that.’
‘Please…’
‘Best I can do is take away the pain,’ Parker said.
Hanson coughed again. There was blood in his mouth now.
‘You have morphine or something?’
‘I was thinking more about existential pain. The pain of existence? Do you know Camus?’
Hanson groaned. He was drifting now.
‘Who?’
Parker sighed.
‘Nobody reads anymore.’
‘If you have morphine … I’m really suffering here.’
Really suffering. Job done, then.
‘Nothing quite so medical,’ Parker said, squeezing the trigger.
Wilson was thinking two things about the Monet paintings. One that Julian was hiding them so Bartram was going to say they were stolen and claim on the insurance. The second, that Julian was going to copy them. He figured either way it was to do with the divorce. He called Nadine again.
‘Can you dig out Bartram’s New York phone number? I want to talk to his wife.’
He didn’t know she’d want to speak to him. The rich had a habit of keeping their own secrets. But he’d long been suspicious of Bartram. The fact he had the only harbour on the island made him a person of interest by default.
Wilson had always wondered whether Bartram was smuggling stuff in and out. Drugs, most likely. He’d talked to the US coastal service about it but they had come up with nothing. He’d staked out the house himself, on and off, when he first arrived on the island, but all he got was sleep-deprived.
The house was like a fortress and Wilson had never seen inside, even when negotiating emergency access to the harbour. Bartram had resisted the access and stalled but eventually had agreed the community could use the harbour in closely defined emergencies.
Wilson had been shown the small harbour from the garden. He had been led there down a path along the inside of the perimeter wall.
‘If there’s an emergency,’ Bartram’s man explained, ‘you don’t want to go through the house anyway. It isn’t on one level on the ground floor. There are steps and sunken areas. This is your quickest route.’
That was the nearest he’d got to seeing inside Bartram’s house.
The phone rang.
‘That was quick, Nadine,’ he said when he picked it up.
‘Nadine can wait,’ the Mayor said. ‘I want my update.’
‘Madam Mayor. You were right to be concerned about Earwaker’s unanswered phone.’
‘I gather.’
‘Indeed? Who told you?’
‘I keep my ear close to the ground,’ Horton said.
Close to Frank Bartram more like, Wilson decided.
‘I’m sure,’ he said. ‘So now we know why those folk at Barbara’s place are on the island.’
‘We do?’
‘Stealing a few million dollars worth of Frank Bartram’s paintings.’
‘You don’t say.’
‘I do. I’m about call in the SWAT from Savannah-Chatham.’
Horton cleared her throat.
‘That again. Let’s not be too hasty.’
Wilson glanced over at Lester.
‘Ma’am?’
‘You heard, Sheriff.’
‘Should I be taking this call in private?’
Lester heard and understood. He walked out into Natasha’s kitchen.
‘Madam Mayor, I omitted to mention they murdered Julian and Evangeline. Pretty damned brutally, if you must know.’
‘I know that too and I’m very sorry.’ Horton’s voice was crisp. ‘But I have every confidence you can handle it. Remember what I said about what happens on the island stays on the island?’
‘I think it’s gone way beyond that.’
‘No it hasn’t.’ Horton was forceful but then silent. After a moment: ‘Harry, do you know why I employed you?’
‘We’ve done this.’
‘Because you’re tainted, Sheriff. And that makes you pliable.’
‘Tainted?’
Wilson couldn’t hide the indignation in his voice.
‘You thought you could hide what you did?’ Horton said, her voice surprisingly matter of fact. ‘You think we’re not going to check?’
Wilson could see Lester in the kitchen doorway, chewing on a fingernail.
Horton continued: ‘You’re a bright guy. You knew.’
‘I’m losing your point here,’ Wilson said.
‘Let me spell it out. We keep your secret, you keep ours.’
‘What’s happening isn’t your secret,’ he said. ‘I’ve got three dead bodies and a dozen kidnapped people, including one of my officers. You’re suggesting I signed on for keeping quiet about something like this?’
‘I’m suggesting that you fix it or you go down with the boat.’
Another pause.
‘Okay,’ Wilson said. ‘Although I thought this was a boat-free island. But I need to know what is going on.’
‘No. You don’t need to know what is going on. What you need to know is that nothing and nobody leaves the island.’
‘At what cost?’
‘Let me worry about the math.’
‘Hello, the house!’
‘What the fuck?’ Jimmy said as Johnny Finch, in what looked like one of Ray’s loud Hawaiian shirts and a baggy pair of Bermudas, came into the yard carrying a case of beer against his chest with bags of chips perched on top. Innocent watched him through the sliding doors. What was he playing at?
‘Replenishing supplies!’
Finch came into the house.
‘H-e-r-e’s Johnneeeee!’ he bellowed. Then stopped in his tracks and looked around the room.
When Jimmy stepped over, pointing his gun at Finch, the situation seemed to dawn on the deputy.
‘How the hell did you get past the police cordon?’ Jimmy said.
Finch seemed to shrink.
‘What police cordon?’ he said. ‘I just came along the beach from the Catalyst.’
Jimmy aimed a blow at Fi
nch’s head with the butt of his gun. Finch ducked away, almost comically hanging on to the crate of beer, though the bags of chips cascaded down onto the floor.
‘Sit your ass down, Johnny,’ Jimmy said.
Finch look from Jimmy to Donny. He glanced across at Innocent then, almost meekly, walked over to the sofas. He put the beers down on the floor and sat beside Barbara, glowering but deflated.
‘Hello, ducks,’ Barbara said, giving his bicep a squeeze.
Karen was sitting cross-legged on the floor beneath the phone when it rang again. Jimmy and Donny were standing by the open doors, eating chips, muttering to each other and glancing over at the group, a couple of whom were tending to Chris’s stomach wound with towels and a first aid kit. The bullet seemed to have gone straight through, missing his vital organs.
The new arrival, Johnny, was slouched on the sofa, chugging one of the beers he’d brought. This was the strangest damned robbery Karen had ever been involved with.
‘Answer the fucking phone,’ Jimmy called without looking over.
‘I thought you were in charge,’ Karen shouted back.
‘I’ll be in charge of your ass if you back-talk me.’
Karen reached up and took the telephone off the hook.
‘Hi,’ Sheriff Wilson said, his voice cold.
‘Hi, yourself.’
‘How are things going in there?’
He didn’t sound like he cared.
‘Could be better. We got a new arrival. Two go, one arrives. Kind of karmic don’t you think?’
‘I wouldn’t know.’
Jimmy was making ‘what does he want?’ gestures. Karen shrugged.
‘You asked,’ she said to Wilson. ‘Why are you calling?’
‘You’re in deep shit, ma’am. I know why you’re on the island. I know what you’ve stolen. What I don’t know, number one, is why you felt the need to kill Julian and Evangeline. Then, number two, defile them in that gross way.’
She heard the anger in his voice as she stared at Donny and Jimmy.
‘Remind me how we did that last thing?’
Wilson was silent for a moment.
‘Okay, I get you. But the rest you cop to?’
‘I steal stuff. That’s all I do. Period.’
‘I want to believe you. But I’m looking at three deaths since you guys came on the island. Someone is accountable.’
Karen dropped her voice.
‘Jesus, what a mess.’
‘That’s one way of saying it.’
Karen sighed.
‘Has the balance of power shifted?’ Wilson said.
‘That bus will take how long to get here?’
‘Any injuries?’
‘My husband is resting right now.’
‘Not permanently, I hope.’
‘That could depend.’
‘And the hostages?’
‘Fine and dandy, though some of the females are attracting bugs. Perfume, I guess.’
‘Might that situation include you?’
Her voice got tougher.
‘I can handle myself.’
‘Glad to hear it. What did you mean two people have come out and one gone in?’
‘Some guy called Johnny pitched up with some beers. The blonde ran for it and the Osmonds threw the guy with the bullet in his gut out in the backyard. Tom somebody.’
‘You killed Tom?’
‘I said he had a bullet in his gut, I didn’t say he was dead.’
‘Glad to hear it,’ Wilson said. He realised his hand was aching from gripping the phone so tightly. He heard a commotion on the other end of the line.
‘Karen?’ Silence. ‘Karen?’
Then ragged breathing. He held his own breath. Then:
‘You’re Jimmy right?’
More ragged breathing.
‘Jimmy, I know it’s you. I hear you and your brother are in charge now but since I doubt your brother knows which end of a phone to speak into I’m guessing this must be you.’
‘What you want?’
‘Jimmy Ruffin? Like the singer? What does become of the broken-hearted, Jimmy?’
‘So you know who I am. So what?’
‘You and Donny have quite a pedigree.’
‘Give it time and you’ll find out what that means, cop.’
‘I think I already do. You’ve killed at least two people and shot my friend, Tom.’
‘You mess with me,’ Jimmy said. ‘I’ll kill everybody.’
‘I thought you were the voice of reason in your little inbred duo,’ Wilson said. ‘I thought it was Donny who was the wild man of the mountains. All those pigs ears he chomped on over the years.’
‘We both chomped on them, Sheriff.’
‘Give up now. Things will go better for you that way. The only alternative is – well, actually, you have no alternative. This island and the causeway isn’t the end of it. You know I have the legal right to go anywhere I damn well please in the state to track you down. It’s right there: Title 15, Chapter 16 of state law. You can’t go anywhere I won’t follow. And, believe me, I will.’
‘If you’re alive,’ Jimmy said.
‘I hear that. But let me tell you something else. Perhaps you don’t realise this island is slap bang in the middle of a host of government and military installations. The Federal Law Enforcement Training Centre relocated a couple of years ago from Washington D.C. down to Glynco.
‘Up on Parris Island we have the Marine Corps training centre. Then there’s the FBI. They’ll definitely want to get involved.’
Jimmy sniffed loudly.
‘The point is you haven’t called on any of these people, have you? Otherwise we’d have heard by now. Why is that, I wonder?’
Wilson managed a chuckle, although he wanted to rip this guy’s throat out.
‘Oh, that’s simple enough. I don’t need them. Paradise Island is no sort of Paradise. Sure it’s a pretty thing at high tide. But it’s surrounded by swamps and mud-flats. There is a swift flowing channel between here and the mainland that only a fool would try to swim. In other words you’re stranded here until I say otherwise.’
‘Or until you’re dead,’ Jimmy said, hanging up the phone.
Wilson looked at Lester.
‘Time to call in the FBI?’ Lester said.
‘We can handle it,’ Wilson said, putting a piece of gum in his mouth. He clicked on his radio.
‘Hal? You receiving? What’s happening around the back of the house? Hal?’
Silence.
‘Sounds like his radio is dead, Sheriff,’ Lester said.
Wilson looked across the road.
‘I hope it’s just his radio,’ he said.
Natasha looked over at Johnny Finch. He’d been keeping his head down, which was unusual for a man known for his cockiness. She’d expected him to be sitting jiggling his leg. He drove her mad doing that whenever he was cooped up – his words – for any length of time. But he seemed beaten - slumped and still and quiet.
Why had he come into the house, then? Surely he knew that it had been seized? Or had he been off all this time looking for Mr Smith? No - he must have made contact with the Sheriff at some point, mustn’t he? Was he all talk? Was it was simply that he was scared shitless? She was scared too but her anger was trumping her fear. And it was time to act.
Wilson moved slowly through the brush. He found Hal knifed to death under the live oak and the rage came on him. Oh he wanted to kill for sure. He leaned back against the gnarled tree trunk and took deep breaths. He knew about rage, knew its most likely outcome.
He could see a light in Tom Haddon’s house. He walked over to the back door, gun in hand. He saw a blood trail going into the house. He peered through the screen door. The kitchen looked to be empty.
He opened the door, conscious of it squeaking, and stepped into the room. There was a trail of blood leading around the table. A blood-soaked body was slumped against the wall, the face half blown away.
Wilson recognis
ed what remained of Tom Haddon. He backed against the wall. Had the kidnappers wanted Haddon dead they could have killed him in the house. This must be the work of Mr Smith, concluding Haddon was Hanson. How had Mr Smith made the identification?
Christ, as if Wilson didn’t have enough on his plate. Wilson had to assume Mr Smith had killed Hal too. Where was Smith now? Upstairs? Wilson cautiously moved to the staircase.
He went through Haddon’s house slowly. He couldn’t think why Mr Smith would still be here when he had completed his mission but he wanted to be sure. A part of him hoped he’d confront the man who’d coldcocked him. Another part hoped he wouldn’t.
When he’d confirmed the house was empty Wilson went out the front door and headed back to his makeshift HQ at Natasha’s house - unaware Mr Smith was just that moment entering Haddon’s house from the kitchen.
Parker had been concealed in the back of the white van, watching next door’s yard and Haddon’s house. He’d seen the Sheriff find the cop’s body then follow the blood trail into Hanson’s kitchen. He couldn’t afford to leave Wilson on the loose out here when he went in the house next door to get the paintings.
He slipped out of the van and crept to Hanson’s screen door. He knew its telltale squeak well by now so opened it infinitely slowly. It was halfway open when he heard footsteps coming down the staircase. He paused. He heard the front door close.
He entered the kitchen and listened. Not a human sound. Wilson had gone. Parker looked around the kitchen. He went over to the bookshelves and took out the book Hanson had indicated.
When he opened it a couple of sheets of thin paper fluttered out. Folded pieces of newsprint. Parker opened them. The first was from The Times of India. Dated December 1970. A photo of a much younger-looking, dazed-looking Tom Haddon standing on some steps surrounded by half a dozen Asians in suits. The headline: ‘American drug smuggler given reprieve after one year in prison.’
The second was from the Picayune Sentinel, January 1971. It was an interview with Haddon, obviously a local boy.
‘I spent the whole of 1970 in the black hole of Calcutta,’ Haddon said in the article. ‘I’d gone to India the year before to an ashram. I was in Goa and didn’t give these cops a bribe so they planted drugs on me and said I was a dealer. The judge tossed away the key. Took a year for the American consulate to sort it.’
Paradise Island Page 20