Amazing that anyone was out tonight. Cops, probably, keeping an eye on the island.
I leaned to see through my windshield. Squinted to glance through side windows. A tree was down…a garbage can rolled randomly along the road’s shoulder. Was that a car in the public beach parking area?
Lightning flared.
No. It was a big pickup truck. Or SUV.
Yes. Amazing that people were out.
I turned on Gulf Drive, then turned into Chestra’s estate, my headlights a vague illumination: Southwind, mailbox swaying; family cemetery, a garden of stone beneath bare trees; gazebo, a darkened sanctuary to the left; house of gray shingles ahead, upstairs windows bright.
I swung out of the truck, splashed my way to the door. Rang the bell, then knocked.
No answer.
I rang the bell again, then used my fist.
Door was locked.
I remembered telling Chestra to lock her doors when she went out as a precaution. Did this mean she was outside?
I wore my foul-weather jacket, but was already soaked, the ocean-heated rain helping me sober. No, the locked door didn’t mean she was outside. She could be outside, but she could also be inside playing the piano, listening to music.
I banged on the door again. No response.
If she was inside, she was safe. But if she wasn’t outside…?
I looked toward the beach. Saw a lightning bolt touch sand, the explosion instantaneous.
I rang the bell again. Nothing.
I turned the knob and threw my shoulder against the door, a last attempt…
40
When a vehicle turned into Mildred Engle’s driveway, Bern Heller was inside the house. He saw car lights pan across the woman’s bedroom ceiling, and thought: Damn. It’s gotta be cops. Nobody else would be out in this storm.
Cops, or someone desperate. Someone on the run—like Bern. It was because of something that had happened just after sunset, only a few hours ago. What a day.
It seemed longer.
Bern looked at the clock on the woman’s nightstand: 11:28. He’d been in the house for less than ten minutes. Yeah, about that. The front door was locked, but the downstairs sliding doors weren’t, so he had come in silently, hearing the wind whistle…then music coming from somewhere. Upstairs. Longhair kind of music. Fancy piano.
That’s where Bern headed. No one there, just the stereo playing.
Five minutes later, he was downstairs again. In Mildred Engle’s bedroom, going through drawers, and about to open her closet when the car lights stopped him.
Shit!
Bern ducked, went to the window, and peeked out: It looked like a pickup truck coming down the shell driveway, headlights yellow in the rain, the vehicle was so old.
Not like Moe’s fancy Dodge pickup with the big tires and gun rack, which was parked in a public access lot nearby. Bern had learned that tourist cars often sat for hours there without drawing attention from island police.
He watched as a man stepped out of the old truck, his head down in the angling rain. A big man, wide shoulders, about the size of the guy he’d seen exit the house a few hours earlier. The man he’d seen a few times last week. He came and went from the old lady’s house on a bicycle. Linebacker-sized, that’s the way he thought of the guy. Not by pro standards, of course. Small college.
It was a relief seeing it was the bicycle guy, not the cops.
The bicycle guy Bern could deal with, but it was still a serious matter because it was unexpected. One more surprise that caused things not to go according to plan.
B ern had been doing drive-bys for the last several days, checking out Mildred Engle’s house, planning how to work it. Staying positive, as he was determined to do. A plan was important, or else bad things happened…as he knew too well.
The first time he’d driven by Southwind was in his BMW sedan, which didn’t attract a look on an island with so many rich people. Tonight, he had the truck.
Changing vehicles—smart.
The last few nights, he had watched the woman move across the lighted windows. He’d watched the man come and go.
Irritating, they were together so much.
Bern hadn’t gotten close enough to bicycle guy to see his face. No need to. Who cared? It didn’t matter because Bern had seen the woman’s face. What a face, too. Quite a surprise! A nice surprise.
A couple of days ago, after dark, he’d crept up to her bedroom window—this window—and watched her get undressed by candlelight.
It was good timing because, for once, bicycle guy wasn’t around.
Oil lamps and candles, that’s about all the woman used for light.
Bern watched her pin her hair up, then peel a gold lamé gown over her head as she turned toward the window in bra, garter belts, panties, and stockings, her face illuminated for the first time by the candle on her dresser…
Jesus Christ…and there she was: the glamorous woman in the photograph. The cheekbones, her full lips, the smoky eyes dreamy looking, as if she was thinking about something sexy as she got naked. A man, maybe, the expression on her face naughty; enjoying something, it looked like, that women weren’t expected to enjoy.
She was a lot older than the picture, of course. But it was the same woman. Had to be. She hadn’t turned into an old hag, either, unless…wait a minute…
Something didn’t make sense.
If the woman he was watching undress was the glamorous woman in the photo, why had Jason Goddard said her name was Mildred Engle? The woman in the photo was Marlissa Dorn. The lawsuit-happy bitch, Mildred Engle, was supposedly the movie queen’s heir. Which meant the movie queen was dead. Right?
Could women relatives look that much alike?
Bern wondered about that, but not for long, because the woman leaned toward him and began taking off the garter belts, the tops of her breasts vanilla white in the bra’s half cups. Then she sat and stripped off her stockings.
It was a night of firsts: He had never seen a woman wearing stockings. Real stockings, not the panty hose things. And he had never seen an older woman naked.
It wasn’t like watching the neighborhood girls strip at the nudie bars south of Milwaukee. Her body was skin over bone, stomach firm, breasts flat but real, nipples as long and pale as they probably were when she was sixteen.
Damn. It didn’t matter what the woman’s name was, or how old. She was sexy. The old man had screwed her…or screwed her dead relative, the movie queen, which was close enough. That’s what mattered. Like visiting a museum. That’s the way Bern decided to approach it. Get her naked again and make the old girl bounce.
Then sit back and wait for the earth to rumble. It would be the sound of his grandfather rolling over in his grave.
B e positive, stay focused. In football, it was the only way to change momentum…
Was that true? A lot of stuff coaches said was crap, although Bern would only share that information with fellow athletes. It was not the sort of thing a man purchasing a Cadillac or a Florida condo wanted to hear.
Make a game plan, then follow it: That’s why Bern had been on Sanibel every free evening for the last week, getting to know the area. Which was convenient, in a way. Killing two birds with one stone because the beautiful yacht his idiot nephew had lost, the Viking, was tied up at a dock less than two miles away, near Sanibel Lighthouse.