Deadly Pursuit (5 page)

7

Night sounds, drifting like echoes of dreams through the heavy tropical air.

From the mangrove swamp, the choral croaks of rain frogs, excited by the afternoon’s brief downpour. Out on the tidal flats, the cries of night herons, feeding.
Kee-o, kee-o, keer
: the song of a redheaded woodpecker nesting amid the forest’s mossy conifers. Everywhere, the background buzz of cicadas, an endless static sizzle.

The rippling shallows around the dock, dimly visible through gaps in the garden foliage, coruscated lazily in the starlight. The sparkle on the horizon marked Upper Matecumbe Key and the flow of traffic on Route 1.

There were nights when faint noises could be heard from passing boats, someone’s laughter or the tinny nocturnes of a radio wafted across the water by a westerly breeze, but not tonight. Tonight, Pelican Key listened only to itself.

“It really is perfect here.” Kirstie Gardner reached down to rub Anastasia’s smooth neck, and the dog eased out a sigh. “Like another world.”

Steve kicked off his loafers and curled his toes, reclining in the wicker lounge chair.

“I didn’t exaggerate, did I?” he asked quietly. “There’s something special about this place.”

“It’s the colors, I think. They’re more intense than in real life.” Kirstie laughed. “Listen to me. Real life. As if this isn’t real.”

“I know what you mean, though. The water—it’s not like water anywhere else. Stripes of color. Turquoise and teal. It ripples like a flag.”

“And the sunsets. The one tonight—I’ll bet they don’t have them like that even in Arizona.”

“The wildflowers ... the birds ... even the insects are colorful. Those big red and gold spiders are really something.”

Kirstie shuddered. “Yeah. They’re something, all right.” She waved off a whining mosquito. “Frankly, the bugs I could do without. They’re the one imperfection. The flaw in paradise.”

“The serpent in the garden,” Steve said lightly, then frowned. She saw the faraway look in his eyes she knew too well, the look that said he was drifting off into private thoughts. She spoke briskly, hoping to pull him back.

“That’s right. There’s always something around to foul up Eden.” The mosquito buzzed her again, and she annihilated it with a handclap. “But these darn bugs are worse than any serpent. There are more of them, and they’re annoying. In fact, they’re downright rude. The serpent, at least, was polite.”

Steve blinked, coming out of himself. “Was he?”

“Oh, I’m sure he was. Very smooth, very charming. Good-looking, too.”

“A good-looking snake?”

“He’d make you think so. Maybe by hypnosis. You’d trust him implicitly, though you couldn’t say why.”

“Eve was the one who trusted him. Maybe he’s only good at deceiving women.”

Kirstie smiled, pleased that he was playing along. “Back then, maybe. Women have a lot more savvy now. Today it would be Adam who’d pick the apple.”

“No snake could tempt me with any lousy apple. I can’t be bought that cheap.”

“What would tempt you?” she asked half seriously. “What would constitute an irresistible offer?”

Steve closed his eyes. A long moment passed before he answered. “Maybe ... to be young again. Young forever.”

“You’re thirty-five. Not exactly Methuselah.”

“I mean fifteen, sixteen. You know what we were saying about colors? That’s the way I felt back then. Not just about Pelican Key. About everything. The whole world was more ... I don’t know, more vibrant. More vivid.”

“And now it’s gone gray?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Young people have problems, you know. Growing up is no picnic.”

“I realize that. But when you’re a kid, your problems are outside you. Not ... not within you.”

“What’s within you that’s so terrible?”

“Nothing. Forget it.”

Kirstie sighed. How many times had he ended a dialogue that way? It’s nothing. Just forget it. As if she could forget. As if what troubled him was no more than an upset stomach or a passing headache.

She wanted to help her husband get over this midlife crisis he was having, or whatever it was that had him in a vise. But he wouldn’t let her help. Wouldn’t talk to her at all.

Of course, he had always been emotionally muted, somewhat distant and remote. For most of their marriage she hadn’t minded. The overly sensitive, encounter-group type of male had never interested her; she met enough of them at the PBS affiliate where she worked.

But a degree of masculine reserve was one thing; a total shutdown of communication was another. For months Steve had been moody almost to the point of clinical depression. And he refused to open up about it. Refused to let her share his pain.

She had hoped that visiting the island would revive his spirits. Apparently not.

“You didn’t find it, did you?” she asked quietly. “What you came here looking for?”

“I’ve had a great time.”

“But you didn’t find it.”

He shrugged and smiled. “Maybe because I don’t know what I’m trying to find.”

“I don’t, either.” The words came out harsher than she’d intended.

Steve looked away. “Well,” he said with forced levity, “we’ve got one more full day on Pelican Key before old Peg-leg Pice picks us up. Maybe I’ll find it tomorrow. If I do, I’ll let you know.”

Kirstie refused to match his bantering tone. “Be sure you do.”

After that, no more words for a while. They listened to the night beyond the patio. A vireo trilled a courtship melody—a whisper song, it was called, in recognition of its delicate airiness. The female of the species must love being seduced so gracefully. Kirstie smiled at the thought.

She had learned the names and habits of many tropical birds in the thirteen days since Pice had left them on the island, after unloading their luggage and supplies and showing them around. The house, he’d explained, was equipped with dual generators that supplied electricity for appliances and hot water; a two-way radio would keep them in contact with the outside world. The UHF emergency frequency was 243.0; VHF, 121.5.

“If there’s any problem and for some reason you can’t use the motorboat, just get on the air and let ’em know about it in Islamorada. A boat can be here faster than a frog can jump.” He’d smiled, showing a cracked tooth like a paint chip. “Don’t worry, though. Nothing will happen—except you’ll have a great time. And in two weeks I’ll be back to collect you, and you’ll hate me for it.”

His prediction had proved accurate, for the most part. Despite Steve’s continuing remoteness, Kirstie had enjoyed their stay on Pelican Key, and she believed her husband had also. She was almost sorry to see the vacation end.

They had left the island only twice, taking the motorboat over to Upper Matecumbe Key to replenish their supply of food and other necessities. Not all their meals had come from the grocery store, though. The garden supplied fruit and vegetables: oranges, limes, grapefruit, breadfruit, sapodilla plums; tomatoes, asparagus, eggplant. Once, they’d dined on fresh snapper, caught by Steve as he lounged on the dock with a fishing pole. Baked, lightly seasoned, and brushed with lemon juice, it was the best thing she’d ever tasted.

Pelican Key offered many diversions. They had motored out to the reef and snorkeled among the coral gardens, spying on schools of parrotbills and beau gregories in their wonderland of spiral towers, rococo ridges, and white sand holes. They had played Frisbee with Anastasia on the beach, explored the dense hardwood forest, waded in the tree-shadowed cove, made love in a madly swaying hammock on the porch.

Some of their leisure had been enjoyed indoors. The bedroom featured a well-stocked bookcase. Kirstie had read
I, Claudius
and was halfway through the sequel,
Claudius the God
. There was a TV also, but at Steve’s insistence they hadn’t turned it on even once. Hadn’t listened to the radio either, except for daily monitoring of the NOAA weather frequency, a necessary precaution in hurricane season.

So far the weather had been clear, with occasional thundershowers to relieve the heat. Still, even the possibility of a hurricane had made real to Kirstie the isolation of this place, so unnatural to her after the hectic suburban life she was accustomed to, the balancing of careers and quality time, the whole dizzy yuppie scramble. It was good to get away from all that for a while—and good to know that it would be there when they returned.

Kirstie wondered if Steve would agree with the second part of that thought. Was he ready to head home the day after tomorrow, to go back to the life of a corporate attorney while his wife resumed scrounging for contributions to PBS?

She watched her husband, his face limned by starlight and the pale glow from the kitchen window. Wire-frame glasses shielded his gray, thoughtful eyes. His short brown hair was in need of combing. He was thin, almost skinny, not very muscular; work left him no time for an exercise program, but at least he didn’t smoke, thank God.

A rumpled T-shirt and cut-off jeans were his only attire. He hated dressing up, felt imprisoned by a jacket and tie. Lately he seemed to feel imprisoned by a lot of things.

He was staring past the rhododendrons and the trellises of bougainvillea, out to the sea. That distant gaze was the same one she had seen so often in recent months, as he looked past her, always past her, out a dew-frosted window or upward at the purple bellies of rain-pregnant clouds.

For a long while nothing had seemed to interest him. Then in March, he’d chanced to see an ad for Pelican Key in a travel magazine. Until then he hadn’t known that the elder Larson had died, or that the island was now available as a getaway spot.

Immediately he latched on to the idea of going there. His determination to do so became an obsession. Coming up with the money meant taking a knife to their savings, and Kirstie resisted until she saw that he would not be denied.

Still, it was not the island as such that mattered to him or occupied his thoughts; she knew that. It was youth, or innocence, or some other intangible thing he felt he’d lost.

She wished she could help him. But she didn’t know how.

Anastasia yawned and stretched supine on the patio tiles, her left ear ticking irritably at a mosquito. Kirstie smiled down at her, enjoying the beauty of the animal, the lean limbs and supple angularity of a purebred Russian wolfhound. The dog was three years old, milk white, her long hair the color and texture of fine silk. A bushy tail fanned out behind her like a silvery spray of moon rays.

Poor Ana was exhausted now, after her earlier encounter with the frog. She had discovered it in the garden shortly after sunset. Its madcap hopping had first perplexed her, then driven her frantic with frustration as the frog eluded her pursuit. Finally she’d hounded the frog into the trees on the verge of the garden, where with a final buoyant leap it had vanished into a deep thicket of anemone.

“I still can’t get over how new this place looks,” Steve said suddenly, and she knew his mind had been leafing through a scrapbook of memories again. “When we used to come here, it was like an ancient ruin. Literally uninhabitable. The garden was completely overgrown, and the orchard was a jungle.”

“Orchard?” She’d explored the entire island a dozen times and had seen no evidence of one.

“Oh, it’s long gone now. Swallowed by the forest, I guess. But back in the twenties this was a lime-tree plantation. Where we’re staying was the owner’s place. Those ramshackle row houses about a hundred yards from here—they were the workers’ quarters. I’m surprised Larson didn’t have them bulldozed.”

Kirstie had never asked him about the island’s history; vaguely she’d assumed he wouldn’t know much about it. But she should have known better, shouldn’t she? In many ways this was the most important place in the world to him.

“Why was the plantation abandoned?” she asked, stroking Anastasia’s back with her bare foot.

“The Depression shut it down, and the big hurricane drove off whoever was still here in 1935.”

“Hurricane?”

“It was a monster. Roared out of the Atlantic on Labor Day morning. There was a train running on the old railroad tracks, picking up evacuees. When the hurricane made landfall at Upper Matecumbe, it just knocked that train off the tracks. Eight hundred people died.”

“Eight hundred.” Kirstie drew a breath.

“They were still finding skeletons in the jungle years later ... Sorry. I shouldn’t have mentioned that.”

“It’s all right. I’m just as glad I didn’t know it before we got here, though.” She shook her head. “That’s a terrible story.”

“It’s not the only one. I don’t know, maybe this part of the Keys is cursed. Sometimes I almost think so. Take the name Matecumbe. Nobody’s certain what it means, but a good guess is that it’s a corruption of the Spanish words
mata hombre
.”

“Kill man,” she translated uneasily.

“The Indian name was Cuchiyaga, which means essentially the same thing. Then there’s Indian Key, south of here. The Spaniards called it Matanzas: ‘slaughter.’ Legend has it that hundreds of French sailors were massacred by Calusa Indians on that island after their ships foundered on the reef. May not be true, but there was a Seminole raid on the settlement there in the mid-eighteen hundreds. Some of the settlers made the mistake of hiding in wells. The Indians found them and poured in boiling water.”

“My God ... Who told you all this, anyway?”

“Jack Dance. I thought he was making up stories, but later I researched the area’s history on my own. It was all true.”

“Were horror stories a principle topic of conversation with him?”

“Not often. His sexual conquests were more frequent seeds of discussion.”

“Yours, too, I guess.”

“I didn’t have much to say on that subject at the time. Certainly not compared with Jack. He was a ladies’ man, even at that age …” He looked away, and his words trailed off.

“Have many people died on Pelican Key?” Kirstie asked, unwilling to let him slip into memories and silence again.

“Not as far as I know. But they’ve had other kinds of bad luck. Remember those salt ponds near the cove?”