Hurricane (7 page)

The corbeau birds took to the air without protest as the women moved up the hill, letting the thermals carry them skyward until most were dots circling below the huge, fast moving clouds. Julie looked up at the vultures, so beautiful and graceful in flight and so awkward and ugly on foot.

They reached the top of the hill and passed the first abandoned house. Julie stopped to catch her breath and Meiko walked over to the building that had been beaten down by years of neglect, wind and rain.

“
Careful,” Julie said, as Meiko stepped up on the concrete porch.

“
I’m just going to look inside,” she said. Then she screamed and jumped back as several bats flew out of the dark living room, most of them missing her face by inches.

“
You can go in now,” Julie said, fighting back a laugh.

“
No, I won’t,” Meiko said.

“
You’ve scared them all away.”

“
How do you know?”

“
They’re more afraid of you, than you are of them.”

“
How can you say that, Mom?”

“
You’re still here. They’re gone,” Julie said.

“
I’m still not going in.”

“
We don’t have time anyway, we have to go. We’re in a hurry, remember?”

“
Yeah,” Meiko said.

Julie turned away from the abandoned house, glanced at the water tank, cracked and overgrown, and the other house, then started down the hill, making her way on the path to a tiny beach below. The beach was only ten feet wide, but it would have been an excellent place for children to play, and when they tired of the water they could scamper across the land bridge and have the small island to themselves. It must have been a wonderful place once.

“
Move over, slowpoke.” Meiko scooted by Julie, moving so fast she tripped and slid part way down the hill before she caught herself, laughing. Then she stopped. “It seems wrong,” she said, getting her footing and getting back on her feet, “laughing so soon after Daddy…” She let the sentence dangle.

“
It’s okay, darling,” Julie said. “He wouldn’t have minded. He’d want you to keep on laughing.”

“
Mom, look.” Meiko bent over.

“
What is it?”

“
I don’t know,” Meiko said, straightening up. “It must have gotten tangled up in my shoe as I slid down the hill.” Meiko studied her treasure. “It’s an American half dollar on a silver chain.”

“
Can I see it?”

“
Sure.” Meiko handed over the necklace.

“
It’s a silver Kennedy half dollar. Kinda rare, because they only made them in the early part of 1964, then they switched to the copper-silver sandwich. Your father used to carry one of these, but he lost it on a stupid bet.”

“
What was the bet?” Meiko asked.

“
He bet on Mondale over Reagan,” Julie said.

“
That was a stupid bet,” Meiko said, laughing.

Julie looked at the coin and lost her smile. “The date’s wrong,” she said.

“
Come again.”

“
Remember I said 1964 was the only year they made silver Kennedy halves?”

“
Yeah.”

“
Look at the date,” Julie said, and she passed the necklace back to her daughter as a slight shudder ran through her.

Meiko noticed the shudder and felt it herself as she stared at the coin. She handed it back to her mother and the electricity between their fingers as they touched sent tingles running down both their spines.

“
I feel like I’m walking in the Twilight Zone,” Meiko said.

“
2124,” Julie said. “I’ll lay you any odds you want that it’s not a minting error.”

“
What’s it mean?” Meiko said.

“
Someone had it made up special. I wonder why?”

“
Or it accidentally dropped out of someone’s pocket as he climbed back into his time machine.”

Julie slipped the necklace over her neck and shuddered anew as the half dollar slid under her halter top and slipped between her breasts.

“
Kinda feels like someone’s walking over your grave, doesn’t it?” Meiko said.

“
Yeah,” Julie answered, “just like that.” She started down the hill, heading toward the small beach. She wiped sweat off her forehead and hair out of her eyes. Then she saw the overturned boat hidden under the foliage that overgrew the island.

Meiko came up behind her and both women stared at the boat. Meiko spoke first. “If he was too hurt to crawl up the hill to the shelter of those houses, he might’ve crawled under the boat for shelter, and maybe died there.”

“
And with the rise and fall of the tides the body gradually worked its way out from under the boat just as we happened to be motoring by.”

“
Something like that.”

“
That would explain why the current didn’t take it out to the open sea two weeks ago, and it would also explain why the vultures hadn’t eaten it.”

“
But if he was too weak to crawl up the hill, how’d he turn the boat over and why would he pull it under those low branches to hide it?”

“
Exactly.”

“
Someone else turned the boat over, dragged it under the bushes and stuffed him under there.”

“
I think so,” Julie said.

“
You’re saying you think someone killed him? That it was murder?”

“
Yes,” Julie said, fingering the half dollar through her halter top.

Meiko studied the overturned boat, then looked back up the path they’d come down. “Is that why you docked on the far side of the island?”

“
I don’t know why I didn’t come round to the beach. Maybe it was because I was afraid of what we’d find, or maybe it was because of that,” Julie said, turning and cocking her head.

“
What? What do you hear?”

“
Dinghy coming,” Julie said.

Meiko started down the small beach.

“
Stop,” Julie called out.

Meiko stopped. “Why? I just want to see who it is.”

“
We might not want them to see us.”

“
Oh.”

“
Hurry. Quick. And keep down.” Julie bent low and started back up the hill, moving fast, like a soldier in combat. Meiko scurried after her keeping as low as her mother. They were in the foliage and closing on the two abandoned houses when the dinghy rounded the bend.

“
What are we gonna do?” Meiko asked, panting.

“
Don’t know. Let’s wait and see.” They moved behind the house closest to the beach and waited as the sound of the dinghy grew louder, till the chugging motor seemed like a jackhammer thundering along Julie’s spine. She wiped sweat from her forehead, but could do nothing about the moisture forming under her arms and between her legs.

They huddled out of sight as the motor slowed, then went into neutral and finally died when its operator hit the kill switch.

“
They’re at the beach,” Meiko whispered.

“
I know,” Julie said, and they both listened to the sounds of two men grunting as they pulled their dinghy up onto the sand.

“
I still say this is a waste of time.” The thickly accented voice traveled well in the still morning air.

“
Kurt,” Julie whispered.

“
Yeah,” Meiko whispered back.

“
It’s gotta be here somewhere.” The second voice also carried a German accent up the hill.

“
Dieter,” Julie whispered, quieter than before. Julie knew both the voices from the three months they’d spent in Trinidad Yacht Services, Dieter’s shipyard.

“
There’s the boat.” Kurt said. “How do you suppose he got it here and how do you think he managed to turn it over?”

“
He was a pretty plucky man,” Dieter’s more refined voice said.

“
He was a fat slob.”

“
He had a lot of guts.”

“
If it’s here, we’re never going to find it.”

“
Not if we don’t start looking,” Dieter said.

“
He was wearing it.”

“
If that’s the case then we might as well give up, and I didn’t get where I am by quitting.”

“
We can’t comb the entire island for a key,” Kurt said, “and even if we find it, we’ll still need the number.”

“
I have a feeling if we find the key we’ll find the number. Our fat friend had courage, but he wasn’t ever accused of being too bright. There’s a reason why he had his wife’s name tattooed on his arm.”

Julie strained her ears, but for the next few minutes all she heard was the rustle of the wind through the trees and she imagined that the two men were looking for their key. Again she fingered the half dollar hanging between her breasts and she wondered if it had anything to do with what they were hunting. And she wondered why they were speaking English when Kurt would obviously be more comfortable with German.

“
How about up there?” Dieter’s voice rose up from below.

“
No way he could have made it up there,” Kurt answered, and Julie clenched Meiko’s hand and tried to wipe the picture of Kurt’s face from her mind. Most of it vanished, but the picture of the jagged scar on his right cheek remained.

“
We’ll look anyway,” Dieter commanded.

Still holding Meiko’s hand, Julie led her into the first of the abandoned houses, the one Meiko had almost entered earlier.

“
Mom,” Meiko whispered, resisting, but Julie’s tug was urgent and Meiko followed. They went into the musty darkness, through a small living room still full of worn and decaying furniture, into a dark windowless hall and on into a bedroom with boarded windows. The bedroom was almost as dark as the hallway, but a few faint slivers of light creaked in through the cracks in the boards.

Meiko pointed up and Julie followed her finger with her eyes and saw that a part of the ceiling across the room had fallen down over the years. Light peeked in through the cracks in the roof and she heard the rustling sound of small animals in the rafters above. Meiko tugged on her shoulder and pointed to the floor on the other side of the room. It was covered in guano.

“
Bats,” she whispered.

“
Quiet.”

“
I don’t like bats.”

“
They’ll hear you.”

“
The bats or the men?”

“
Both.”

Meiko took her mother’s hand again and squeezed it as they heard the two men outside. Julie squeezed back and bit her lip as one of the bats dropped from the ceiling and fluttered toward the door. Another, then another dropped and followed the first toward the light.

“
Shit,” she heard Kurt scream. He had been as startled by the bats as Meiko had been earlier.

“
Just bats. Harmless,” Dieter said.

“
I’m not going in there. I’ll stay till dark and search this bloody island, but I’m not going in there.”

“
Right, I’ll go.” Dieter said, and Julie and Meiko held their breath as Dieter entered. “We should have brought a flashlight,” he said.

“
I’ll pull the boards off the windows,” Kurt said. Julie heard him move around to the side of the house and then had to fight a scream as Kurt wrenched a board from a window only inches from where she was standing. Light flooded into the room.

“
Can’t see anything,” Kurt said.

“
Shit! Mother fuck!” Dieter yelled, then there was a crash as his huge form collided with the floor. “Come round, quick.” Dieter howled and the women heard Kurt scramble around to the front of the house.

“
What happened?”

“
Stepped on a broken bottle.”

“
Should have worn shoes.”

“
Shut up.”

“
Can you get up?”

“
Not without help.”

“
It’s just a cut. It doesn’t look that bad.”

“
You’re going to have to help me out of here.”

“
What about the key?” Kurt asked.

Then Dieter let out a scream that pierced the air. Julie almost rushed out to help him, but Meiko clenched her hand tightly and Julie knew that she was right. Better to keep quiet and unobserved.

“
Careful, you son of a bitch!” Dieter yelled. “It really fucking hurts.” And Julie wondered once again why they weren’t speaking German between themselves. And where had Dieter’s accent gone?

“
What do you want me to do?” Kurt asked.

“
Just get me out of here and into the open air. Then you’re gonna have to go for help.”

“
You can’t get into the dinghy?”

“
Not with just you to help. I’m gonna have to be carried.”

What a wuss, Julie thought. She’d fractured two ribs and broken her right femur in an auto accident ten years ago. It hurt, plenty, but she didn’t simper and sob and she didn’t scream in agony. Her only concern had been for Hideo who’d been knocked unconscious by the speeding drunk driver. All Dieter had was a cut on his foot and he was whining like a little boy.

He screamed again and she used the cover of his sound to cross the room. She was still holding Meiko’s hand and her daughter followed. Julie decided to risk a peek around the door and had to fight back a sneeze when the side of her face came in contact with the dusty door jamb.