Carolyn G. Hart_Henrie O_01 (24 page)

Valerie looked down, abruptly made the sign of the cross. But the blue eyes that turned to me were not grieving. “Miranda’s in bed. Valium and hot tea. I told Rosalia and Betty about Chase, and I told them to stick together. You should come inside, too, Roger. It won’t do any good. To stay out here with … him.”

Roger shook his head. “I can’t leave him here.” He looked down at the damp towel in his hands, then abruptly flung it away.

Thunder exploded overhead.

I looked impatiently toward the house. Where was Burton? “All right, we’ve got to hurry. Roger’s right. We mustn’t leave Chase out here. Trevor, will you and Lyle please use that chaise longue, the one that straightens out all the way …”

I didn’t have to explain.

Lyle and the lawyer, their faces set and white, were awkward at their unaccustomed task, fumbling when they tried to pick Chase up. One dead hand kept slipping free to dangle over the side of the webbed chair. Roger reached over to tuck the comforter under his father’s body. Lyle and Trevor slid the shrouded bundle onto the webbing, then picked up the impromptu stretcher and looked at me.

“I think the storage area.” I looked toward Enrique. “The refrigerated room.”

After an instant of hesitation the makeshift cortege started off. Roger stood uncertainly for a moment, then followed, head bent.

Valerie and I watched them carry the holiday furniture
with its macabre burden around the corner of the house.

The actress shuddered. “Going to put him in an icebox. Jesus.”

I ignored her and approached the hot tub. I circled it, moving a few inches at a time. It was difficult to see in the murky light. I wished I had a flashlight. I ran my fingers lightly along the wood.

I found what I expected, next to the wooden steps that led up to the rim of the tub. The cord was brown, just a bit lighter than the redwood, caramel against cordovan. It was taut against the side of the tub. I looked at the ground, poked aside a mound of oyster shells with the tip of my sneaker, and spotted the electrical tape that fastened the cord tightly to the bottom of the tub.

Valerie followed me, looking uneasily around, taking care not to touch the tub.

The flagstoned path to the hot tub was bordered by vigorous stands of monkey grass. Lights fashioned like luminarias ran on both sides of the path, spaced about four inches apart. These were included in the system that afforded music around the pool.

The cord disappeared into the monkey grass.

Lightning exploded. The explosive crack sounded so near, Valerie and I cringed. She gripped my arm, her fingernails sharp against my skin. “God, that was close. We’d better get the hell—”

Burton reluctantly edged out onto the patio. “The lightning’s too close. Just because you’re crazy doesn’t mean I have to—”

“Bring the notebook here,” Valerie ordered. “Then go hide your stupid head.”

His face resentful, Burton dashed out to us, shoved the notebook and a pen into her hands, and turned and ran back to the house.

Valerie took the thick-tipped pen and began to draw, her eyes measuring, her hand surprisingly swift. In a few, economical strokes the hot tub, its steps, and the cord took shape. She held the drawing up for me to see. “Stage design” was all she said.

I pulled back a sheaf of monkey grass.

No expense had been spared in installing this wiring system. The metal-sheathed pipe supporting the luminarias also contained extra outlets every few feet.

I pointed to the first outlet.

Valerie sketched the cord leading up to it and the innocuous brown plug inserted in the outlet.

I borrowed her pen, eased the plug out of the socket.

The first drops of rain, cold and hard, spattered down as the men came around the side of the house. Roger was in the lead. He broke into a heavy run. The others followed suit, and they all passed him. Valerie and I hurried to the patio.

“Cover the drawing,” I directed.

She grabbed up two cloth napkins and wrapped them around the notebook.

“Hurry,” I yelled at Enrique, “drain the tub.”

He looked out at the rain, then shrugged impassively. Pulling a pair of canvas work gloves from his back pocket, he ran to the tub and crouched beside it.

The wind gusted, and rain billowed onto the patio.

Lyle, shivering, his arms tight to his body,
watched impatiently for a minute. “Yeah, this has to be done. But it won’t matter a damn if we don’t get some help. I’m going back inside, get back to the phone.” He hesitated, gave me a stark, abrasive look, then turned to Roger. “If you want my advice—and you may not—but here it is. Watch like a hawk. Make sure you know what’s going on, what’s found.”

He turned without waiting for an answer and strode toward the French doors.

Roger looked after him, his kindly face puzzled.

“It’s good advice,” I said dryly. “Even if it’s directed at me.”

“Or perhaps,” Valerie volunteered tartly, “a good offense makes the best defense. I for one don’t trust anybody on this bloody island.”

Enrique straightened. He hurried back to the patio and shook himself like a wet dog. “The water’s out,” he announced.

“Thank you.” I turned to Valerie. “I want you to come with me and watch, then you can sketch what we find.” Lightning glittered overhead; deafening thunder erupted.

Valerie looked up. The bones of her face shone in sharp relief in the unearthly glow from the sky. But she didn’t refuse me.

I held out my hand. “Enrique, the gloves, please.”

“They are wet.”

“That doesn’t matter.”

He stripped off the gloves, which were very damp but not sodden, and handed them to me.

Valerie put the notebook on the table, using a plate to anchor it against the wind.

We reached the hot tub and climbed the steps.

Roger and Trevor were close behind us.

But that was all right. The more who saw, the better we could report to the authorities.

If, of course, we survived the onslaught of a hurricane against a sea island.

I wouldn’t have taken odds on that.

But taking odds wasn’t my job at the moment.

Looking down into the rain-splashed hot tub was.

Roger drew his breath in sharply. “Oh, my God, look at that!”

I pushed open the swinging door to the kitchen with my knee, clutching a damp cardboard box in my arms. I was wet through and cold, but I had work to do before I dried off and changed clothes.

Rain slammed against the windows of the darkened kitchen.

“Rosalia?” I called as I stepped inside.

My eyes widened.

The meat cleaver in Rosalia’s hand wobbled. She held it over her head, poised to attack. Betty stood behind her, pressed against the side of the refrigerator.

“It’s all right,” I said quickly. “I just want to talk to you, Betty. I need your help in trying to find out who killed Mr. Prescott.”

The lights in the kitchen flickered, then came on.

I hadn’t told Enrique to turn the generator on, but he’d obviously decided to do so. Good. Our situation was frightful enough without the added discomfort of dark and shadowy rooms.

Perhaps it was the lights that reassured Rosalia.
The kitchen once again was an oasis of normalcy, the sparkling cleanliness of the tiled workspaces, the shiny copper bottoms of the pans hanging above a central workstation, the homely familiarity of a suds-filled sink. Here, it was hard to believe a man had been murdered a thousand feet away. Slowly Rosalia lowered her arm.

“I do not know what to do,” the housekeeper began apologetically. “Tengo miedo. Who will come, what will happen? What took Mr. Prescott? Enrique say he jump into tub and die. But that is not right. Mr. Prescott is not a young man, but he is a strong man. And someone shot the gun at him. I am afraid.”

“We are all afraid, Rosalia, and you are wise to arm yourself. You and Betty must stay together. That will keep you safe.” I put down the box on the central workstation.

Her jet-black eyes regarded me sorrowfully. “Mr. Prescott, he wasn’t alone.”

It was a twist of the knife in a wound that might never heal.

No, Chase hadn’t been alone, and I had been so confident he would be safe so long as he was in sight of others.

“No.” I managed to keep my voice even. “He wasn’t alone, but he was the victim of a trap, a very clever trap planned and put into operation Thursday night. Let me show you.” I gestured for them to come close.

They approached hesitantly.

I rested my hands on top of the box. “This is very important. I want you both to look—and especially
you, Betty—and tell me if you’ve ever seen this before.” I opened the box.

It was not a remarkable portable hair dryer except for its size. I travel with one that is scarcely larger than my hand. I hadn’t used it here because the guest bathroom contained a hair dryer. That, too, was a small one. This one, made of pale gray plastic, was huge, the motor casing a good five inches in circumference, the nozzle four inches long with a two-inch diameter. Its only distinguishing mark was a hairline crack that ran from a wedge-shaped chip in the rim to midway down the length of the nozzle.

Rosalia spoke immediately. “No. I have never seen it, Mrs. Collins.”

Betty stared at it with a sick fascination. “That is what killed Mr. Prescott?”

“Yes.” I glanced around, spotted a pad by the telephone. It was easier to explain with a drawing. I drew the hot tub and its interior steps. “The hair dryer was taped against the right side of the interior steps”—I marked an
X
there—“then the cord, taped at five-inch intervals—waterproof tape, of course—came up the side of the tub, curled over the top, and ran down the redwood siding in the shadow of the exterior steps. The tape was tightly fastened at the bottom, then hidden under the monkey-grass border until it was plugged into an outlet.”

The wet dryer reeked of chlorine. Would I ever smell chlorine without a sickening lurch of memory?

“The bubbles,” Betty said faintly.

I understood what she meant and once again recognized the working of a shrewd mind.

Rosalia stared at Betty, puzzled.

“That’s right,” I agreed. “Mr. Prescott didn’t see the hair dryer down there—no one who used the tub saw it—because the water jets kept the surface moving.” Bubbles, lots of bubbles. I would never listen to Don Ho’s champagne music again with pleasure. “I don’t know if the hair dryer would have been noticed, even with the jets turned off, because this is a deep tub—five feet, I think—and the steps probably cast a shadow. In any event, he obviously didn’t notice.”

Betty’s fingers picked at her polished-cotton uniform skirt. “I can’t say for sure. But I saw a hair dryer just like this one. Gray and big. I left it in the suitcase because we have hair dryers in all the bathrooms.”

God, was it going to be this easy? I couldn’t believe my good fortune. “Whose suitcase, Betty?” I asked quietly.

Her hands clenched. She knew how much this mattered. Her answer was almost a whisper. “Mr. Dunnaway’s.”

Thunder boomed.

I passed Lyle in the upstairs central hall, sprawled in a crimson silk loveseat. He still worked the phone, his red hair still unbrushed, his bony, unshaven face intent. He ignored me as I walked by. I saw no one else.

Eerily enough, in contrast to the cataclysmic roar of the storm, the creaking and groaning of the house, the clatter and bang from outside as trees crashed and debris hurtled through the air, the inside of the house—all the lights blazing—was totally quiet. When I reached my room and stepped inside, I felt like a
ghost returning to an ages-distant haunt. My covers were thrown back, just as I’d left them when the banging shutter awakened me early that morning. There was the notebook—with its list of information to seek—that I’d dropped when the
Miranda B
. exploded.

I placed the box with the hair dryer on the desk and picked up the pad.

Now I could never ask Chase why Trevor Dunnaway wasn’t among those his private detective investigated in regard to the vicious gossip supplied to the author of
The Man Who Picks Presidents
.

Betty had identified the deadly hair dryer as Trevor’s.

But Trevor and I had stood together and heard the shots fired at Chase on Friday morning.

Surely we weren’t dealing with two separate murder plans—the shooting and the electrocution?

I couldn’t believe that.

Though they certainly were entirely different methods. Weren’t they?

I pulled off my soggy clothes, draped them in the bathroom. I looked longingly at the shower. It would be wonderful to get warm.

Like an echo in my mind, I heard Chase saying: “I’m going to get warm first.”

I yanked a towel from the heated rack—oh, God, the luxuries on this island—and briskly rubbed the warm, soft cotton against my chilled body. I took time to dry my hair, then hurried back into the bedroom, slipped into a fresh blouse, slacks, and socks. But I put my soggy tennis shoes back on. They might be wet, but they afforded a good deal more traction
than leather-soled shoes. They would work better if I had to scramble into a rescue helicopter or boat. Not that a boat or helicopter could reach us now. No transport made by man could survive these battering winds.

But all of this merely occupied the perimeter of my mind. I was trying to sort out what had happened and what I should do. But I couldn’t get past the fact that nothing jibed.

I picked up a brush, swiftly brushed my hair, and began to pin it up.

If the murderer had put the hair dryer in the hot tub on Thursday night, why hadn’t Chase been electrocuted when he jumped in the tub on Friday morning?

Had the hot tub been intended merely as a backup plan in case the shooting at the point failed—as it had?

How did the destruction of the
Miranda B
. fit in?

Its sole effect—so far as I could see—was to maroon everyone on the island with a hurricane approaching.

Surely that was the act of a madman. Was there a single person on this island who didn’t understand the gravity of remaining on this sliver of low-lying land in the path of a huge storm? Was killing Chase worth risking the murderer’s own life?