Carolyn G. Hart_Henrie O_04 (13 page)

I had most of them pretty well assorted in my mind at
this point. Joss was an actor, Gretchen a writer, Megan a model. “What does Wheeler do?”

For the first time, Anders looked genuinely amused. “Oh, he has a sailing sloop and takes out charters. Tough duty, right?”

“And you, Anders?” I asked.

“I stayed in Dallas. Somebody had to take over the foundation. I was elected.” He tried to sound casual, but he couldn't suppress his satisfaction.

“Anders.” Peggy's voice was anguished.

Anders ignored his wife, just as he ignored anything that wasn't connected to the passion of his life, protection of animals and the environment.

There was no trace of the charming, ebullient Joss when he looked levelly at his brother. “You're a fool, Anders.”

Anders looked dourly from Joss to me. “Am I?” He shoved back his chair, stood. He raised his voice a little. “I thought Mrs. Collins might like a little truth in packaging. Even if it isn't her usual beat.”

The other diners looked toward us.

“What is your usual beat, Mrs. Collins?” Elise Ford's voice was smooth, polite. She stood near our table, a shawl over one arm.

“I'm between projects right now.”

The silence lasted just an instant too long and I was aware of a wave of malignity. I looked searchingly at each of them in turn, but all I saw were inquiring expressions.

Elise raised an eyebrow. “Do you intend to write another true-crime book soon?” She lifted her voice. The words carried clearly across the lanai. She reached Belle, held out the fleecy white wrap.

Belle slipped the shawl around her shoulders. She, too, looked toward me, her face clear and cold in the moonlight like marble statuary in a garden.

So Elise had indeed been busy this afternoon. I supposed
Belle now had my entire dossier. Had that seemingly innocent question been planned by the two of them?

I pushed back my chair and stood. “I've written one true-crime book. Several years ago. But at the moment I'm between projects. I'm looking forward to learning more about this lovely island. And getting to know all of you.” I smiled. “It's been a fascinating evening. Good night.” I didn't mind leaving the party early.

Let them wonder if there was a fox in the chicken coop.

I
wasn't going to bed. I had other plans. It took me only a few minutes to reach my room and change into a navy pull-over—the mountain air was crisp and cool—and dark slacks and sneakers. I waited on my lanai, watching the shadows of the valley change shape as clouds drifted across the moon. I wanted to plunge into the night now, to wrest facts from fancies, but I had to be patient and give Lester Mackey time to reach his quarters.

I felt pressed. It was like driving on a torturous mountain road with a heavy truck crowding too close behind. A sense of imminent danger flashed deep in my mind like a beacon on a foggy night. I felt an unaccustomed lack of control, although I am old enough and, I hope, wise enough to know that any semblance of control is illusory. At best, we can control our responses to a world often chaotic and fortuitous. But I am also old enough and wise enough to heed inner warnings. I wondered whether my fear—and fear it was—
sprang from my awareness of the undercurrents swirling about the dining room or from that wave of malignity I'd sensed so keenly at the last. Uneasiness consumed me, yet I was in a wild hurry. I had to discover the hidden design before it was too late.

Too late for what?

Why, why, why was I here?

I paced like a caged beast until the swaths of light falling from the lanais into the valley one by one disappeared. Finally, it was dark and quiet, only the torches on the lanais flickering against the velvet of the night.

I felt as though I'd burst free from chains when I climbed down the steps from my lanai to the narrow path.

I always travel with a pocket flashlight. I carried it with me, but the intermittent lighting along the path and the wands of fire from the torches gave sufficient illumination. I was glad. I didn't want a bobbing light to attract attention. It would be difficult to explain this late-night excursion.

I stepped carefully. In hiking parlance, this was an exposed trail. A misstep could be fatal.

I reached the path beneath the dining room. I stopped still when I heard the music. I supposed it was Joss, once again at the piano. Now he played “Star Dust.” I was transported across the world to a nightclub in Hong Kong when Richard came back from Vietnam. We danced, his arms tightly around me. I rested my head on his shoulder. I didn't want the moment or the music ever to end. I could feel the beat of his heart through his jacket, steady, strong. Alive.

A bird cawed, for an instant drowning out the song. I looked down. But I couldn't see the drop in the darkness. Or the kukui trees where it all ended for Richard. Somehow I moved forward. I hated to leave behind the familiar notes. I wanted to cling to them because they brought Richard back, if only for a moment.

I felt dreadfully alone when I curved around the bluff. I
reached the stairs leading up to the kitchen area and edged up the steps. No torches flared on this lanai. I slipped quietly up the passageway, alert for any sound or movement. I darted into the garden, sought refuge in the deep shadow of a koa tree. I paused, smelling the sweet fragrance of its pollen, and looked around the shadowy garden. The only movement was the rustle of the shrubbery in the breeze.

I stepped cautiously on the crushed-shell path, moved around a thicket of bamboo. Lester Mackey's quarters were straight ahead. His lanai was softly lit. I saw a dark shape in a chair. A cigarette glowed. The acrid smell overlay the sweet scents of the garden.

I reached his lanai. Mackey was slumped in a wicker chair. Beside him on a small table was a half-full whiskey tumbler and a pint bottle. I didn't wait for an invitation. I pulled a wicker chair close to him.

The moon spilled out from behind a cloud. The silvery light smoothed out the anxious lines in his face, made him look young, and I knew I had a glimpse of him as he'd appeared when he and Belle first met.

“You go back a long way with Belle.” My tone was easy, friendly.

“Yeah. Yeah, I do.” His tone was guarded.

“You were her driver in 'Nam?”

He stubbed out his cigarette. “I don't talk about 'Nam.”

A cloud slid over the moon. It was suddenly dark, but not a comfortable dark.

I pressed. “Why not?”

He splashed more whiskey in his glass. “Are you a fool, lady?”

“Were you wounded?”

He took a deep drink, held the glass. “I don't talk about 'Nam.”

“What did you hate? The Vietcong?”

“I'd take the Vietcong over—” He stopped abruptly.

“What happened to you?” Something ugly, something dark, and he carried the scar within him.

He drank again, emptying the glass. “You writing a book?” The words were ever so faintly slurred.

“Not right now.” Equivocal. Deliberately so.

“Everybody thinks you are.” He picked up the pint, emptied it into the glass.

“People can think what they want to.” I hoped it worried the hell out of them.

“A book about CeeCee's kidnapping.” There was no mistaking the tension in his voice.

“Richard came here to talk to you about what happened to CeeCee.” I spoke with utter authority.

Once again Mackey was rigidly still, just as he'd stood in the shadows at dinner. But he wasn't going to escape me.

“There's more to what happened at the lake than has ever been revealed.” God, how I wished his face were clear again in the moonlight. “Richard told you what Johnnie Rodriguez said.”

The evening breeze rustled the shrubbery.

“No, he didn't.” His denial was swift, harsh. “He asked me if I saw anybody that night at the lake when I found CeeCee's car. That's all.”

So Richard indeed talked to Mackey before he died. It was like winning the pot at poker. I'd come all this way, wondering, hoping, uncertain. Now I knew. Richard had faced this man with the knowledge he'd gained from Johnnie Rodriguez. Whatever had happened existed in the recesses of this man's mind.

I was close, so damned close. “What did you tell Richard?”

“I saw nobody.” But Mackey pressed his hands over his face for a long moment. When his hands dropped, he gave a ragged sigh.

He was lying to me. I was sure of it. I wanted to grab his thin shoulders, shake them, demand the truth.

“But Richard told you he'd talked to Johnnie Rodriguez, didn't he?” I demanded.

“No. He didn't say anything about that.” The answer again was swift. And such a lie. Richard came to Kauai because of what he'd learned from Johnnie Rodriguez. Lester Mackey and Johnnie Rodriguez were together that evening between six and seven o'clock, the time when CeeCee Burke disappeared.

I've asked thousands of questions, listened to thousands of answers—from cops and crooks, from politicians and movie stars, from ordinary people and not-so-ordinary people. I've been lied to a lot. I won't say I can always spot a liar, but I knew Lester Mackey was lying.

“You
said
you found CeeCee's car. What really happened, Mr. Mackey?” I punched on the flashlight.

The beam caught him for an instant, sharp as a pinned butterfly, his pale blue eyes squinting in protest, his thin face strained and wary, a trace of tears on his lined cheeks. All right, dammit. He still grieved for CeeCee. Or too much whiskey made him tearful. But he was a liar and I was going to know the truth. I kept the beam on his face. “You and Johnnie Rodriguez hung out together.”

He crooked his arm in front of his face, shielded his eyes. “He worked for me.”

I lowered the light, just a little. “Johnnie's mother didn't like it. Why?”

He made no answer. His eyes fell.

“Was Johnnie handsome?” I asked gently.

“It wasn't anybody's business.” But he didn't look at me.

“No. I don't suppose it was. You and Johnnie. Except that night it's my business. It's everybody's business. You and Johnnie together. What did you see? What do you know? It was still early—six o'clock, wasn't it?—when you said you
found CeeCee's car. What did you and Johnnie do between six and seven? Where were you, Mr. Mackey?”

“We were getting stuff ready for the party. Just like we always told everybody.” His voice was blustery, but thin. He frowned. “Johnnie's mother. You talked to her? And to Johnnie?”

The night air was cool, but his second question was even more chilling.

“Oh, no. No, I didn't talk to Johnnie.”

“Why not? He'll tell you. Same as I have.” But he watched me so closely.

“I'd talk to Johnnie if I could, Mr. Mackey. Johnnie knew something about the kidnapping. I know that. But I can't talk to Johnnie.” I waited, stared at him. “Johnnie's dead, Mr. Mackey. They say”—I spoke quite clearly—“that Johnnie was drunk and fell off his pier. He drowned.”

“When?” Mackey's voice was deep in his throat.

“A couple of weeks after Richard fell from the trail here.”

The breeze rustled in the trees, a forlorn and lonely sound.

“Johnnie's dead. Richard's dead. Tell me what you know, Mr. Mackey. For God's sake, tell me!” It was a demand and a plea.

“Johnnie…I never thought…” He pushed to his feet, turned away.

“Mr. Mackey—”

But he kept on going.

As I watched, he entered his quarters and the louvered shutters closed. The sound of the bolt was loud. And final.

 

I walked slowly along the path, reaching the garden in front of the house. It was late enough now that the house lay quiet, the dining room empty, only an occasional light left on in the string of lovely rooms. I walked softly, noiseless in my sneakers.

Sibilant whispers sounded over the silken rustle of the wind-stirred shrubbery. I stopped, listened. Why should anyone whisper? Whispers indicate stealth. Whispers also indicate private conversations. I hesitated. But I was not simply a guest enjoying a holiday weekend. So I stepped even more lightly and cautiously came around a bend in the path.

There were no lights here, but in the silver glow of the moon I saw a man and a woman standing close together in a heavy shadow near a clump of ti shrubs. Body language shouts. Both leaned forward, their bodies as tense and hostile as boxers squared off in a match. She spoke, her whisper a whistling hiss. He kept shaking his head, bullish, impervious, dismissive.

I wished I knew the geography of the garden better. Did the path continue past these shrubs, curving back into the main part of the garden? Or was this a quiet dead end, a carefully chosen spot for this angry encounter?

There was no way I could approach any closer without being seen. And I wanted very much to know who these combatants were. I carefully retraced my steps until I found a multi-trunked jacaranda. I slipped between trunks and settled down to wait.

It wasn't long. Hurried footsteps sounded. Keith Scanlon passed so close to me I could have reached out and touched him.

I wondered what Belle Ericcson would have thought had she seen her husband's face in the moonlight. There was no trace of the evening's genial host. He stared straight ahead, his face furrowed in a tight frown.

I stayed hidden. But no one else came around the curve. I waited a moment, but there was no sound, no telltale crunch of footsteps. I moved quickly. The path did indeed skirt the ti shrubs, leading back to the central part of the garden.

I reached the tiled walkway near the dining room. I saw
no one. I had no idea who had quarreled with Keith Scanlon. But I could be sure of one fact. It wasn't his wife.

Keith Scanlon had been a welcoming host, though somewhat ill at ease. I'd wondered why. Now I really wondered. I'd observed an impassioned encounter. What was the cause? And with whom did Keith Scanlon have such an intimate, angry relationship? What made it necessary for this clandestine meeting? Was the woman he met one of the family? That would be very interesting indeed.

 

Click. Click
.

I stopped by the open archway to the game room.

There was no mistaking the huge figure of Stan Dugan bent over the pool table. He moved the cue with swift accuracy, caroming a ball into a side pocket.

I came up beside him.

He flicked me a cool glance. He chalked his cue, aimed, another ball rolled into a corner pocket. The unsparing light above the pool table revealed every aspect of his blunt-featured face: the deep-socketed eyes, the hawkish nose, the seamed skin, the determined mouth.

“All right. You've made it clear. You're a tough son of a bitch.” I gave him a level look and tossed a question that I hoped might surprise him. “Is that why CeeCee fell in love with you?”

The last ball rolled silently into a pocket.

Dugan placed the cue in the rack, his face stern. I thought his reserve was going to hold, that I was up against a bedrock suspicion I couldn't disarm. Then a fleeting smile touched his lips. “I never asked her.” He leaned against the pool table, folded his arms. “She never said.”

“You loved her?” A bald question, but I asked because I had to know.

A hot, angry light flickered for a moment in his cold eyes,
then it was gone. “What the hell difference does it make to you, lady?”

I'd touched him on the raw. Maybe that told me what I needed to know. “Mr. Dugan, stop fighting me. We're on the same side. I want to know who killed CeeCee. So do you. That's why you came here, isn't it?”

His big hands balled into fists, then, slowly, he loosed them. “That's why
I
came, Mrs. Collins. But how about you? Are you here looking for a killer? Or looking for a way to make big bucks, write a book that will put you on easy street forever?”

“I'm looking for facts that will lead me to a killer. If I can get those facts by pretending to be writing a book, yes, I'll pretend.” My voice was harsh. “I will do whatever I have to do, Mr. Dugan, but I am going to find out the truth. And I want you to help me.”

We stared at each other.

I know what Dugan saw, an older woman with dark hair touched with silver and dark eyes that have seen much and remembered much in almost a half century of delving for facts.