“I fell off the boat, just like the newspapers said, but I didn’t drown.”
“I can see that,” Paul said.
Ralph Jennings smiled. He’d always been quick with a smile, always the charming young man with the bright future. Helen hadn’t been able to resist him. “I made it to shore somehow, but I was dazed and didn’t remember clearly. It took me a couple of days before I was myself, and by that time Finley had told everybody I’d drowned. I didn’t know what to do.”
“So you did nothing.”
Jennings averted his eyes. “Well, I guess so.”
“What have you been doing for five years?”
“Sailing, mostly. I’ve been working on a cruise ship out of Miami. I always liked the sea, you know. We make several runs each year between the various Caribbean ports, and to Bermuda. I only get to New York in the summer.”
He was talking too fast, telling too much, and yet not enough. “What do you want me to do, Ralph? Helen’s remarried, you know.”
“I know. I saw it in the papers last winter. You probably won’t believe this, but every year when I got to New York I’d say to myself, maybe this summer I’ll call her. This year, with the remarriage and all, I figured I should. But the shock might hit her pretty hard — that’s why I called you first.”
“Weren’t you ever curious about your three children?”
“Sure. Sure I was curious.” His eyes were pleading, but somehow to Paul the pleading wasn’t quite sincere enough. “You must think I’m some sort of a monster.”
“You disappeared and let Helen think you were dead. You left your three children without a father.”
Jennings ran a hand through his dark hair. “They had the insurance.”
“Which will now have to be paid back.”
“I don’t know, Paul. I don’t know what I was thinking of! So I was wrong! What can I do about it now?”
“Helen’s pregnant, you know.”
“I didn’t know. How could I? Who is this guy, Paul?”
“Jack Winegood. He makes a pretty fair living as news director on one of the smaller New York radio stations. A good enough living so they can afford a cottage on Fire Island.”
“Is that where she is now?”
Paul nodded. “Do you really want her to know you’re still alive?”
“Of course! We’ve got to get this thing worked out.”
Paul sighed and stood up. “I’ll go talk to her, see how she’s feeling. The police might take a dim view of your defrauding the insurance company, you know.”
“I didn’t get the money. And she was acting innocently. She didn’t know I was alive.”
“How long will you be in town?”
“The ship sails the first of next week, but I’ll stay longer if necessary.”
“It’s too late to see her tonight,” Paul decided. “I’ll take off from work tomorrow and go see her in the morning. Stay close to your phone around noon.”
“Right.” He held out his hand. “And thanks, Paul.”
“Don’t thank me. You’re in big trouble, as if you don’t know it.”
The street was still hot, but he didn’t really notice. On the way back to the apartment he stopped for a couple of stiff drinks.
In the morning he drove out to Long Island’s south shore and took one of the summer ferries over to Fire Island. The day was clear and a breeze off the ocean was just strong enough to make the heat bearable. He strolled along the boardwalk until he reached his sister’s cottage, then went out through the sand to where he saw them at the water’s edge. Helen was there with the three children and another woman, enjoying a morning swim in the salty surf.
As he approached, Helen stood up to greet him. “Playing hooky from work? This is only Friday, isn’t it?” The white one-piece bathing suit was flat against her stomach, with no sign as yet of her pregnancy. At 29, she still looked like a college girl, and acted like one sometimes, too.
“How are you, Sis? Just thought I’d take a run out to see you.”
“Great! Do you remember Sharon O’Connell? She was a bridesmaid at my first wedding.”
Yes, he remembered Sharon O’Connelclass="underline" tall and graceful and eternally sad, a serious girl in a world that needed one. He shook hands with her, noted the absence of a wedding ring on her left hand, and wondered what she’d been doing with herself. “I didn’t recognize you at first. How’ve you been, Sharon?”
“Fine. Just fine, Paul. It’s been a long time.”
“You working in New York?”
She nodded, studying him through heavy eye makeup that seemed out of place on the morning beach. “I still do a little modeling, though both the years and the pounds are catching up with me. I went to a party here last night and ran into Helen. She invited me to spend the night, since Jack was working.”
He turned to his sister. “Jack’s in town?”
Helen nodded. “Covering the U.N. thing. He hopes to get out for the weekend.”
“I wonder if Sharon would excuse us for a few moments, Helen. There’s something I want to talk to you about. A family sort of thing.”
Sharon rose to her feet on cue and grabbed the children’s grasping hands. “Sure, you two go ahead. I’ll take the kids for a run down the beach.”
Paul watched her go, the long tanned legs kicking up sand as she ran. He was remembering that she’d once dated Ralph Jennings, a long time ago when they’d all been younger.
“Now, what’s all the mystery?” Helen wanted to know.
“I’m afraid I’ve got a bit of surprising news for you. Last night—” He was interrupted by the ringing of the telephone in the cottage. Helen ran to answer it and he slipped out of his sport jacket, relaxing on the sand. Far off down the beach, Sharon and the children splashed noisily along the surf.
Helen came back after a few moments, her face pale even through the suntan. “That was Jack,” she said.
“What’s the matter?” His heart was pounding with sudden apprehension.
“He said... he said Ralph was alive. He said Ralph was alive until this morning, but that somebody had murdered him.”
Ralph Jennings had died in the motel room where Paul had met him. He’d been shot in the forehead at close range, with a small-caliber pistol that made little noise. It appeared that he’d just opened the door to admit his murderer when he was shot. Another guest had discovered his body near the half-open door around eight a.m., and Jack Winegood had been covering the story for his station when Ralph’s identity was determined.
Paul left Helen at the cottage with Sharon and the children, and caught the next ferry to the mainland. An hour later he was with Jack Winegood in his office.
“How’s Helen taking it, Paul?” the big man asked. Jack was not a great deal unlike Ralph Jennings, though he’d always lacked Ralph’s twinkle of charm. He was a businessman, and his business was the news.
“She’s stunned, of course.” Paul told Winegood about Ralph’s phone call, and their meeting of the previous night at the motel.
Helen’s husband nodded as he listened. “The police will want to talk with you. That may have been the last time he was seen alive.”
Paul had already considered the possibility, and he didn’t like it. To his knowledge, on the previous evening he was the only one who knew that Ralph Jennings was still alive — and certainly that was one of the prerequisites for the killer: to know Ralph Jennings was alive. “You’d better get out there with Helen,” he told Winegood. “I’ll see the police.”
He didn’t, however, go directly to the police. They would only tie him up with hours of questioning or worse. There was somebody he wanted to talk with first.
Oat Finley had been a neighborhood character when Paul and Helen were growing up on the New Jersey coast. He’d come back from the war to open a boat charter service that allowed him plenty of time to sit on the dock and smoke his pipe. There had been those who spoke of an old war injury, of Oat being not quite right, but he’d always been friendly enough to Paul and his sister.