Island Intrigue (14 page)

She had stopped by the one pizza shop, imaginatively named “Island Pizza,” on her way to the beach and ordered two large pizzas to be picked up around three o'clock. The pizza shop was just down from the lighthouse in a brand new strip mall holding the bank, the medical center, the liquor store and Maxorbitant's Gourmet Grocery. Sabrina had seen the mansions from the beach, and knew that this part of the island held the exclusive Lighthouse Estates, full of elaborate vacation homes big enough to house a small city.

Carrying her pizzas and her heavy bag, Sabrina walked toward home. As she came around the corner by the High Tide Baptist Church, a woman on a bike, with blond hair under a bright pink sun visor and reflective sunglasses, almost careened into her.

Sabrina had to step out of the road quickly to avoid being hit. The woman rode off, her back straight, and didn't even deign to acknowledge the near accident.

“Tourists,” Sabrina said with a huff. “They should be restricted to one part of town, and not allowed out.” After a moment, she laughed. “I think I'm starting to sound like a local.”

She came to Nettie's Cookie Shop and saw Nettie unlocking the door, taking down a sign stuck to the door as she did so. Nettie, wearing what looked like a flowery bed sheet and the flashing tiara, turned and smiled.

“How are you doing, Nettie?” Sabrina called.

“Just fine. I think I got a smidgen of a message from the other world this morning when I was making the dough for my buttermilk biscuits. A voice inside my head said, ‘Nettie, you done put in the butter already, girl,' and by the Stars of Juroon they were right! Here, I'll give you a bite of my new raspberry truffle.” Over Nettie's shoulder, Sabrina saw Thierry glance out from the door leading to the back room and then duck back inside.

“Some other time,” Sabrina said. “I've got to get these pizzas to seven hungry children.”

“Don't let me keep you from such a fine endeavor.”

Sabrina said good-bye and continued on her way, wondering why Thierry had looked at her with such dislike. What did she ever do to him? She also wondered if Nettie knew that she had spoken to Rolo. She wanted to ask the old woman about her son, wanted to hear her version of what happened so many years ago, but something held her back. Nettie carried a cloak of otherworldliness around her, and as practical as she may seem at times, she never seemed quite…here.

Pondering this, Sabrina mounted the steps to her house and opened the door. The kids would be here soon, and then it would be time to go to the rally.

A piece of paper, which had been lodged between the door and the weather sealing, fell to the porch floor. At the same time, Calvin came rushing out of the house, chattering furiously, his eyes crazed.

“BARK! BARK! Trill, trill, trill,” he shrieked. “Trill, trill, trill!”

Sabrina picked him up and stroked his small, quivering body as he chirped incoherently. She knew she shouldn't have left him out this morning. Usually when she left the house she put him in his cage. Today, he had looked so peaceful sitting on the windowsill that she had let him be. Now, he was beeping, and booming and chirping all at the same time, and Sabrina gazed down at his little head in puzzlement. None of the noises he was making made any sense to her. Her gaze fell on the piece of brown paper lying on the porch. Cradling Calvin, she stooped to pick it up.

In pen scrawled on a paper bag read:

Chapter Fifteen

The kids were back under the bleachers again, tying shoe laces together and sticking bubblegum on the bleacher seats.

Sergeant Jimmy McCall shifted his weight on the bleacher seat and then resignedly climbed to his feet. The spelling bee was nearing its close and Kitty Tubbs was spelling her way inexorably through “Neanderthal.” She and Terry Wrightly were neck and neck, the only two kids left.

Jimmy moved around the back of the bleachers. As he expected, it was Guy Garrison and Curly Lowry, poking each other and snickering while they looked up Stacey Tubbs' skirt.

“If I have to tell you one more time to keep out from under the bleachers, boys, you don't want to know what will happen.”

He'd found that unspecified threats sometimes worked better than concrete ones, because the perpetrators tended to think of the worst that could happen to them. This was where Jimmy's misspent youth worked to his advantage. Everybody knew he had left the island and gone to California when he was eighteen, and spent ten years riding Hogs and living rough. People didn't forget things like that, and he was viewed with a sort of superstitious awe.

Of course, he had come back, like he always knew he would, and settled down to live the clean life.

“Yes sir.” Guy and Curly had the good sense not to play the smart-alecks. Though, at sixteen, they were smart-alecks and it was an effort for them to pretend otherwise. They made a fast exit and Jimmy sighed. Probably going outside to sneak a cigarette. Jimmy wondered if he had ever been that young and stupid, and knew that he had, and more.

“Why, Jimmy McCall, I certainly hope you're not under there looking up our skirts!” Jimmy looked up to see the painted and plucked face of Elizabeth Tittletott peering down at him, coquettishly holding her long skirts against her legs.

“No, ma'am.” Jimmy ducked back from underneath the bleachers.

He looked around with satisfaction. Nobody crowding the fire exits, nobody trying to call out the answers to the two children still battling for the title of champion.

As usual, the spelling bee had turned into a Towner/Waver competition. The flannel-shirted Wavers, smelling of salt and mud, were loudly cheering on Terry Wrightly. The more restrained Towners, though many still in flannel shirts, were rooting for Kitty Tubbs. Jimmy just hoped it didn't dissolve into a free for all, Towners against Wavers. It had been known to happen, though not in recent times.

The gymnasium was almost full, and Jimmy had to admit that those rich folks over in Lighthouse Estates had really added a lot to the community. When Bill Large had realized that his boy would be attending a school with only five rooms, and no gym, he put together a coalition of the eleven year-round residents of Lighthouse Estates and raised money for the gymnasium. It was somehow annoying that the man who raised that monstrosity of a brick hotel on Hurricane Harbor had also significantly added to the well-being of the children on the island. Of course, Bill Large, who was unable to keep his mouth shut for very long, soon ruined any good feeling he had amassed when he commented that it was just like the lazy islanders to wait for an outsider to come along and do what needed to be done for their children.

Jimmy stifled a yawn as Terry Wrightly spelled “Trotskyism.” Where did they get these words?

He looked up in the bleachers where Darlene and the kids were sitting. Joe had disappeared, and Jimmy hoped he hadn't joined his friends Guy and Curley out in the parking lot. If that was the case, he'd let Darlene handle it. She was a lot better at the discipline stuff than he was. She saw him looking at her and gave a small, private smile. She had promised him a backrub tonight.

His walkie-talkie crackled, and Jimmy listened as Billy eagerly reported that he was pulling over a brown Camaro, New Jersey license plates, for speeding out on Long Road. Jimmy sighed. Billy was a good boy, and he meant well. He really did.

He hoped the driver of the brown Camaro hadn't been drinking. Visitors to the island seemed to be under the impression that when they were on the island they were outside the reach of the law. They drove a hundred miles an hour down Long Road, drank ten shots of tequila at the Ride the Big One Pub and then drove through Selma Tubbs' flower bed, and smoked pot on the front porch of the Tittletott House.

The good news was that was about the extent of the crime on Comico, except for some small-time burglary of empty vacation houses. It was still enough to keep him and Billy busy. Hell, half the time poor Darlene had to dispatch for them. And if the driver of the brown Camaro was drunk, Billy would have to bring him to the station, and Jimmy would have to go down and administer the breathalyzer, since it was state law that the arresting officer couldn't administer the test. Then they would have to drag Bright Lowry away from the spelling bee, and have him set the bond for the guy.

“Caliginous. C-A-L—” Kitty was spelling.

The radio crackled again. Billy had issued a speeding ticket and a stern speech about the dangers of speeding. Jimmy relaxed. His dern back was hurting again, though he really didn't want to admit it. Every time he went to Doc Hailey, the man insisted that if he lost weight everything would be fine. It just got plain discouraging after a while. He was big-boned, and he hadn't been under two hundred pounds since he was in the tenth grade.

But Darlene always knew when his back ached, and made time to give him one of her special back rubs. She tried her best to feed him right. It wasn't her fault he'd rather have a cheese and ham omelet, with extra bacon, extra grits and hashbrowns for breakfast than the Grape-Nuts and lowfat milk that she tried to serve him.

Jimmy looked around the room again, and wondered how long this spelling bee was going to go on. Kitty and Terry had been spelling against each other for almost a half an hour. It was past time for Bradford Tittletott's speech to begin.

Jimmy looked for Bradford, and found him near the front of the bleachers, surrounded by Tittletotts. Jimmy looked away, frowned and glanced back at Bradford. The man looked ill. His face was as pasty as dough, and his eyes were flickering nervously toward the front door.

Ah, Jimmy thought, the great Bradford doesn't like public speaking. But then, that wasn't right either. He'd heard Bradford speak in public before, and he had been his normal, self-assured self.

Sitting near the Tittletotts was the blond woman who was talking to Lima this morning. He searched his well-oiled memory: Sabrina Dunsweeney, that was her name. Fed the cats. Red convertible. He had been seeing a lot of her lately. She really had made inroads into the local population, which was not at all easy to do. She was organizing some sort of play for the kids, he'd heard. Lima was going around bragging that he was the “creative director” for the play, which wasn't surprising since Lima somehow or another had managed to worm his way into every dramatic production on the island for the last fifty years. Lima was a frustrated actor, was what he was. But it was good that the kids had something to do, besides smoking and looking up girls' skirts. Miss Dunsweeney was leaning forward, hands clenched as Terry Wrightly stumbled through “malevolence.”

Miss Dunsweeney wasn't the only one holding her breath as Terry spelled. Nettie Wrightly, in her white robes and some godawful blinking hat (Jimmy couldn't shake the feeling that she looked like Luke Skywalker in those robes and half expected her to go around intoning, “The Force be with you.” Maybe that would be next month) was watching with intense, dark eyes, her lips moving in what was probably some witchly incantation. Thierry, the boy's no-good father, was sitting beside her and he looked about half-lit. As Jimmy watched Nettie, he saw that she kept glancing to the front door, like she was expecting someone.

Terry got through his word, and the Wavers, who had segregated themselves on the opposite end of the bleachers, rose to their feet. Kitty Tubbs, her small face white and pinched, stood for her word.

Jimmy noticed that Bradford had started to shake. What was wrong with the man?

“Extirpate. E-X-T-I—” Kitty started.

At first, Jimmy couldn't see what everybody was staring at, though he heard the clanking as the front door slammed open. He wasn't very tall, and Albers Lowry was standing right in his view of the front door. He could see Kitty Tubbs though, and her mouth seemed to be frozen in a wide “O.”

Then Dock moved out into the open floor in front of the bleachers, and Jimmy understood what everybody was staring at. And he knew that he had a serious problem on his hands.

“Billy, I think you better get over here,” Jimmy said into his radio.

***

Sabrina was enjoying herself, though she couldn't believe how long the two kids were holding out. Terry was pleased when she gave him the role of Romeo this afternoon, though he kicked his feet and tried to act nonchalant.

She was relishing her popcorn and listening to the various conversations going on around her. Most were about the choice of words, though several people were complaining about the rally preparations and the lack of organization.

“They paired me up with Virginia Tittletott to do the Fighting Flying Fish Float, and she spent the whole time drifting around and then just disappeared. I had to get Edie and Millie to help me with the streamers and balloons. Durn Tittletotts!”

When someone came banging through the metal doors of the gymnasium—the doors had been clanking and clanging every time somebody went through them, but this was especially loud—almost everybody had looked toward the doors. Kitty stopped spelling and looked confused, then terrified.

Sabrina blinked a couple of times to make sure she wasn't seeing things, and then she stared in horror at the old man who was slowly walking across the gymnasium floor, tears streaming down his face.

“Dock!” Nettie's shocked voice echoed through the gym, and it seemed to release the paralysis on the crowd's collective vocal chord. Low murmurs rose, like a strengthening breeze rushing through the dying leaves of the fall trees.

Dock stopped when he heard his wife's voice, but he just stood in the middle of the gymnasium floor, the tears coming faster, if noiselessly.

He was covered in blood, from head to toe.