by Keene, Day
The screen door opened a third time and Sheriff White walked in followed by a half-dozen of his deputies. Mary Lou followed the deputies and stood at the screen door.
“Might be you could an’ then again mebbe not,” White said. He glanced at Phillips. “Don’t try to pull the trigger of that thing, fellow. Ef you do you’ll look worse than that blonde woman we picked out of the water. You’d be surprised what twelve or fourteen lead-nosed slugs can do to a man’s face. They’re most as bad as crabs.”
Phillips lowered the gun to his side, then his shaking fingers released it. His face began to twitch as if he were going to cry.
White pushed his hat back on his head. “The same goes for you, Mrs. Camden. You rich folks give me a pain where I’m too much of a gentleman t’ tell you.” He picked the gun from the coffee table and dropped it in his side coat pocket. “Hell. Me and John and Sam have had this thing figured out for some time, ever since we checked with Baltimore. I’ve been honin’ t’ make an arrest all day.” He glowered at Ames. “But what with Charlie a-swimmin’ an’ a-boatin’ all around the waterways, I was afeared he’d git his silly self kilt an’ I wanted him alive t’ testify against you.” White was indignant. “So I had t’ wait ‘till he called up from the Flamingo Hotel in Tampa, his voice so awed you’d think he’d jist discovered the Book of Genesis.”
His face even more haggard and lined than it had been, Ferris said, “You’ve been outside all this time?”
Sheriff White nodded. “With a tape recorder pushed up to one of the windows a-takin’ down everythin’ that was said. I thought it might simplify things at your trial jist in case you should git absent-minded and not be able to recall some of the deetails.”
Helene Camden began to cry.
“You’re two bodies too late,” White told her.
One of the deputies picked up the gun that Phillips had dropped. Mary Lou snuggled her hand into Ames’s.
“Hi, mister.”
Ames squeezed the hand in his. “Right back at you, missus.”
Unable to control himself any longer, Sheldon asked, “How did I do, Bob?”
“You took your part off good,” White assurred him. “But I’ve still half a mind t’ jug you for withholdin’ guilty knowledge. You knew Mrs. Camden was havin’ money troubles an’ if you’d ‘a’ spoke up at the inquest like you had a right to instead of figurin’ how t’ make a fast ten thousand dollars by buyin’ the Sea Bird cheap, it might have opened a line of testimony that would’ve saved us a lot of trouble.”
“I’m sorry,” Sheldon said.
“You should be.”
Helene Camden stopped crying and wiped her eyes. She looked from Ferris to Phillips then back at Ferris. “We aren’t any of us talking, understand? If we can have that damned recording barred, all the evidence against us will be circumstantial. And I have a half-million dollars to fight this thing.”
“I understand,” Ferris said. He didn’t sound too hopeful.
Sheriff White took off his hat and sat on the other half of the divided divan. “Now there are one or two little things I’d like to clear up before I take you into town.”
Ames wasn’t interested. He wanted to be alone with Mary Lou. “Before you start, Sheriff,” he said, “I wonder if — ”
White turned his faded blue eyes on him. “You wonder what?”
“Is there any charge against me?”
White debated the question. “N-no,” he decided. “I guess not.”
“And Mary Lou?”
“No. I never did think she kilt that maid. I was jist holdin’ her in protective custody.”
“Then is it all right if we go?”
“I don’t see why not.”
Ames gripped Mary Lou’s arm and started out the door, and realized he had nowhere to go. Mary Lou had sold the Sally to Sheldon. He turned back and looked at the fat ship chandler. “How’s for selling me back the Sally, Ben?”
“What’ll you give?” Sheldon asked.
“The fifteen hundred you gave Mary Lou.”
“Well, I dunno,” the fat man said. “The Sally’s a mighty good boat. Seems to me I ought to make some profit. I can get three thousand for her easy. Maybe even thirty-five hundred.”
White was an old man. He was tired. He, too, had been under a strain. “Goddamn!” he exploded. “Stop hagglin’ so I kin git on with my business. Sell him back his boat for what you paid for it or I’ll still jug you for withholdin’ pertinent knowledge.”
The fat man sighed. “Okay. Fifteen hundred dollars.”
“I’ll give you the money in the morning,” Ames said.
He closed the door behind them and he and Mary Lou walked down the drive to the beach road without once looking back. The crescent moon was higher in the sky now but the stars hung just as low.
Neither of them spoke again as they walked down the beach road toward the basin. Two fellow charter boat captains were standing in front of Harry’s Bar. The news had spread. Both men grinned at Ames and touched their caps to Mary Lou. “Hi, Charlie. Evenin’, Mary Lou.”
Ames and Mary Lou returned the greeting then cut in between Murphy’s drugstore and the Ways of Sheldon and went out on the sagging planking of the pier. The night was lovelier on the water. The basin reflected the moon and stars. The tide was running in and the Sally was straining at her mooring lines. Ames had never seen anything more lovely, with the exception of Mary Lou. He jumped down into the cockpit and lifted Mary Lou down.
He followed Mary Lou into the cabin and as usual forgot to duck low enough and bumped his forehead on the lintel.
It was cosy and intimate in the small cabin. Ames sat on the edge of his bunk watching Mary Lou move around the little galley, measuring coffee, looking to see if there were any cookies. Some day they might, or they might not, have a bigger boat. It was, Ames decided, immaterial. They had something much more wonderful. When the chips had been down both of them had believed in and trusted and tried to help the other.
Mary Lou came and sat on the bunk beside him. “About that five thousand dollars, Charlie. The money that was planted on you.”
Ames slipped his arm around her waist. “What about it?”
“Do you think Sheriff White will give it back to you?”
“I doubt that. I doubt it very much,” Ames said.
Mary Lou played with his fingers. “Well, I was just thinking. Do we really need a bigger boat, Charlie?”
“No,” Ames admitted. “We don’t. The Sally will do us for years. But what are you getting at, honey?”
Mary Lou said, “Well, they were kind of snippy at the club because I wouldn’t work night before last, so I told them where they could put their job. And I told them that went for next season, too.”
Mary Lou continued. “Even after we give Ben back his fifteen hundred dollars, we’ll still have fourteen or fifteen hundred dollars. And if we don’t have to save for a new boat — ”
“What then?”
Mary Lou continued to play with his fingers. “Well, we aren’t getting any younger, Charlie. We’ve been married for five years. And if we’re ever going to have any children — ”
In the deep silence that followed, the creak of the mooring ropes and the suck and gurgle of the tide were plainly audible.
Mary Lou raised her face. “Well?”
“Yeah. I see what you mean,” Ames said.
He kissed her lifted lips, then stood up and blew out the lantern and further words were unnecessary. The coffee and the Camden affair were forgotten as the night and their love filled the cabin.
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Bring Him Back Dead
Carnival of Death
The Big Kiss-Off
Too Black for Heaven
Who Has Wilma Lathrop?
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Copyright © 1953 by Graphic Publishing Co., Inc.
Copyright Registration Renewed © 1981 by Irene Keene (W) and Al James (C)
All rights reserved.
Cover image(s) © 123rf.com
This is a work of fiction.
Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, events, or locales in this novel are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. The resemblance of any character to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.
ISBN 10: 1-4405-5984-8
ISBN 13: 978-1-4405-5984-6
eISBN 10: 1-4405-5983-X
eISBN 13: 978-1-4405-5983-9