“Why the change of heart?”
She paused long enough to light another cigarette. “There’s no change of heart, MacMorgan. I hate him. I hate him quite thoroughly. I just don’t think he’s a murderer, that’s all. I would have divorced him long ago if he . . . had not given me certain social freedoms and all the money I could want.”
“You’re the one who said he was brutal; that he liked to hurt his women.”
She massaged her forehead with her fingers, thinking. Almost as if talking to herself, she said, “That’s true. It’s all true.” She looked up at me, as if she had finally accepted the possibility. “My God, you don’t really think he had something to do with those awful murders, do you?”
Behind me, I heard the Irishman’s heavy footsteps on the stairs. I had heard him earlier—the sound of a door creaking. But this was his way of letting me know he was ready. I looked at the beautiful Lady James, the horror in her eyes. “Maybe,” I said. “Just maybe. . . . ”
17
At ten-fifteen that evening the phone rang. I could hear the Irishman’s fluted voice coming from the cottage. He was a bulky silhouette against the window, nodding somberly.
For the hundredth time, I forced myself to piece together every chunk of random information I had acquired. I sat in the sand, arms bunched around knees, looking toward the starswept sea. Behind me, coconut palms framing the cottage rustled in the land breeze. And above, Orion the Hunter trailed its way across the chaotic rush of universe. Another beautiful night in the tropics. Only I saw it as anything but beautiful. Even the moon seemed laden with a red corona. And the freshening wind seemed to whisper of death.
The sea moved over the reef in gleaming swells. My eyes moved upon the line of swells, focused, blurring, then focusing again. For how many centuries has man been burdening the sea with anthropomorphisms, assigning it human frailties? An angry sea, a nervous sea, a sea that brings peace—the words of men who do not know the sea. There is only the equation of salt and mineral and protoplasm; a perfect biological order subject to the whim of wind and universe, hell-bent on reproduction; a continuance. And what greater affirmation of life could someone want?
Thoughts drifted randomly as my mind cast back and forth seeking motive, method, and reason for the insanity of the last few days.
There had to be something I was missing; something I had overlooked.
But what?
What?
The Irishman’s search had turned up negative. He had searched every room and closet in the house except for the kitchen, where the maid had busied herself washing dishes. But he had found no sign of young Thomas James. In the boy’s room, he had confirmed my observation of the alarm clock. He had searched the stacks of rock albums, found the hidden magazines, and had proved to himself that the telescope had remained untouched since our earlier visit.
In short, he had found nothing new. So it had to be me. I had to be overlooking something; some piece in the puzzle.
I heard O’Davis hang up the phone and clump across the porch outside.
“That was Government House, Yank.”
I looked up. “They hear anything?”
“The kidnappers made contact twenty minutes ago by VHF. Same garbled voice. No recordin’ of the lad this time. They want a plane ta drop the money about sixty miles north of here—not far from Cuban waters. He gave loran coordinates.”
“Midnight tomorrow?”
“Aye.”
O’Davis sat down beside me in the sand. “I figure you an’ me can drop in place of the money. Maybe rig a big chute so we kin lash’erselves together or somethin’. If the kidnappers stick to their word, the boy’ll be safely away in a dinghy.”
“Why not be waiting there with patrol boats and blast them out of the water?”
“They won’t be comin’ after the money with other boats or planes in the area—radar will probably tell ’em. An’ they won’t radio the lad’s location till they’re safely away. We’re jest goin’ ta have to chance takin’ ’em by surprise, you and me. If we kin overpower ′em . . . make one of ’em talk . . . hell, who knows.” The Irishman sighed. “This is bloody bad business, Yank. Nothin’s workin’ out. Everywhere ya look, nothin’ but false trails. Sorry I brung ya in on it.”
“Seems I remember getting you into a jam or two.”
“Aye. But ya never got one of me ladies killed in the process.”
And that’s when it hit me. That’s when one of the stray bits of information—an offhand remark—fell suddenly, neatly into place.
The Irishman looked at me. “What ’n hell’s come over you? Look like ya’ve seen a ghost or somethin’.”
“Maybe I have.” I checked my watch. “You think that clunker car of yours can make one more trip into Georgetown?”
“Me fine little red Bess?” He snorted. “She’d take us ta Florida if they’d build a bloody bridge!”
“Good.” I stood up, brushing off sand. “And let’s take the Thompsons—just in case.”
The gates to Sir Conan’s estate were closed now. It bothered me. Maybe she had already gone and returned. We drove past once, straining to see house lights through the foliage.
“Looks like someone’s still up.”
“Aye. Maybe that ugly maid of theirs.”
“We need to pull off the road—someplace we can watch the drive without being seen.”
O’Davis found a wagon trail into the thicket of buttonwood and mangrove. He backed in and switched off the lights. Water in the Fiat’s radiator gurgled. With windows open in the humid March night, mosquitoes soon found us, whining around our ears. I checked the green glow of Rolex. Ten forty-five.
“It has to be her,” I said again with finality.
“It made sense when ya told me the first time, Yank. But the more I think about it, the crazier it sounds.”
“It is. Because she’s crazy. When she told me Sir Conan was the sadist it was some kind of weird personality transference. She’s the one. I didn’t catch it at first. And then it all fell into place. She said there was no way her husband could have committed both murders. And that was only an hour or so after Dia was killed. How could she have known?”
“Maybe Sir James came home and left again before we got there. She coulda been coverin’ fer him.”
“No way. She hates him. That’s no act. And it’s turned into a sexual quirk. But she’s smart. She didn’t want me to convince her too easily that her husband was the killer. But she’s the one who planted the seed—remember? I can only guess about the kidnapping. But of one thing I’m sure: It was staged. You’re the one who said it—just too many false trails. That boy is somewhere on this island. And I’m sure the woman knows where. Maybe Sir Conan, too. He’s not stupid. When she snaked the kid away, he probably caught on quick. A staged kidnapping would be one way to divert attention from the fact your wife has committed murder and stolen your son.”
“Family honor,” the Irishman said softly.
“Right. As you said, he’s got a lot of important connections and a lot of power. If the fictitious kidnappers never show, and they just happen to find the boy wandering around Grand Cayman, who’s going to press for an investigation? I’m sure he’d pack the two of them up and be back in England before the dust even settled. He’d get some discreet psychiatric hearing held for his crazy wife, send the boy away to some private school. When you think about it, what alternative does he have? Tell the court his wife has a nasty habit of killing his mistresses, both real and suspected? That’s like admitting your wife wants a divorce because you only beat her occasionally.”
“Okay, Yank. Say she killed me little Cynthia because she suspected her of havin’ a fling with Sir James. An’ maybe she got ta worryin’ about me havin’ seen the whole thing from the bushes and decided ta do away with me, too. That still doesn’t explain how she got ahold of Cynthia’s Jaguar.”
“No,” I said, “it doesn’t. We’ll ask her about it when we see her.”
We waited and waited in the darkness and mosquitoes, and still nothing happened.
The Irishman, face on huge hand, drifted off to sleep, snoring softly. I sipped at a third bottle of Red Stripe from the little plastic cooler in the back, spitting Copenhagen out the window.
And then I saw it: a sudden splash of light on the trees along the driveway.
I nudged O’Davis. He came awake gaping and stretching. He grabbed my bottle of beer, chugged it halfway down, and shook himself. “There, and I’m feelin’ much better. What’s afoot?”
“A car, I think. Coming down the drive.”
The lights continued to pan along the high copse at the edge of the yard, then switched off abruptly. It was nearly two A.M. and the moon was drifting low toward the westward horizon, but there was still enough sheen to see the dim shape of Lady James’ Bentley. It stopped at the gate, a courtesy light flared on, and she got out, looking each way down the road. Involuntarily, I found myself ducking back. But the chances of her seeing us were zero.
She pushed the high wrought-iron gate open, returned to the car, and turned left toward Georgetown, lights still off until she was well down the road.
When O’Davis deemed it safe, we pulled out and followed her in darkness, the winding asphalt a gray ribbon. Land crabs were dark shapes, scurrying before us.
At the edge of Georgetown, when she disappeared around a curve, the Irishman switched his lights on. It was a Sunday night and there was no traffic. But the city was illuminated, silent. And a car with no lights would just arouse suspicion—maybe Lady James’.
She headed out the Ocean Road along Seven Mile Beach. The Bentley toured along at sixty, and O’Davis had to make the Fiat kick and sputter to keep up. I noted wryly that once again we seemed headed for the little settlement of Hell. But at the convergence of roads, she veered right instead of left.
It was a small beach house not far from the Canadian’s estate. We had driven the final two miles in darkness, headlights off on the desolate stretch of highway. The beach house showed itself in the distance as a stilted shape behind a line of Australian pines at the edge of the sea. We did not see Lady James turn in so much as notice that her car just disappeared.
“That’s got to be it,” I said, whispering for no good reason.
“We kin park in the trees and walk the, say, last half mile?”
“Let’s make it the last three-quarters of a mile, just in case they have a guard posted.”
The Irishman switched off the engine and let his little red car coast down the road, finally pulling off into a line of mangrove cover. I grabbed the two Thompsons—freshly stripped and oiled—and we headed along the gray strip of highway in the silence of Grand Cayman, two-thirty A.M. A night heron squawked somewhere, and our footsteps seemed unnaturally loud upon the shell marl.
As we got closer, the beach house grew in shape and definition. It was a stylish board-and-batten cottage built on rows of stilts. It glowed pale white in the moonlight.
The covering of Australian pine needles blanketed our approach. We moved from shadow to shadow, both at once, keeping a sharp eye out for a guard.
But there was none.
The house was dark. But the Bentley sat in the drive—along with Sir Conan’s Mercedes. I couldn’t figure it out. But then the Irishman nudged me, pointing. Like many stilthouses, this one had a small paneled apartment built beneath. A yellow rind of light filtered from beneath the door.
“May be a window on the other side.”
“Aye. Let’s have a look.”
We moved along the seaward side of the house. The surf roared and spouted upon the bluff below. The wind was heavy, weighted with salt.
We could hear the voices even before we got to the window; animated voices in half-whisper. I lifted one eye up over the windowsill, the Irishman looking from the other side. There was a kerosene lamp on one of those plank picnic tables stained to resemble redwood. Near the lamp was a jar of peanut butter, half a loaf of bread, and a dozen tins of canned food.
Sir Conan James and his alcoholic wife stood face to face in the haloing light. She looked angry. He just looked worried . . . and very, very tired.
“ . . . because I’m not about to let you back out now, that’s why!” she was yelling in the same hoarse whisper. She stabbed out her cigarette in an empty can and lit another.
“But Elizabeth, can’t you see, it’s hopeless! I was mad to go along with it in the first place!” He took her pleadingly by the shoulders. “Can’t you understand? Murder has been committed! Not one. Two! And the blood is on your hands, my dear,
your hands!”
She knocked his arms away. “Don’t expect me to cry over your two dead whores. I won’t, do you hear me? I won’t! I warn you, Jimmy, if you give in now I’ll tell them it was you who killed them. And just see what kind of scandal that brings. Why, the American is already sure that it was you!” Her eyes narrowed and her voice dropped. “Don’t you see, it
will
work. Tomorrow night when the whole Cayman police force is off looking for Tommy, a chartered plane will be waiting for us at the airport. We’ll fly to Kingston. People can be bought there. We’ll have our papers changed; well go to South America. It would take them years to get us out of there—if they tried. But they won’t. Your friends will see to that.”