“The college girl you said you murdered ’cause she expected you to have two dicks—your IQ being half the male average. Funny. Man, how do you come up with that stuff?”
The look on Moe’s face. That was funny.
Bern placed his hand on the back on the Hoosier’s Wrangler jacket, feeling for the tape recorder or microphone that had to be hidden somewhere.
As he did, he steered the man outside to see if there were cops around in unmarked cars listening.
No cops. No unmarked cars for half a mile down the road either direction.
Bern said, “Moe, let’s go for a walk,” and led the redneck past the collapsed barn, boats sitting in rows, to the little hill where the dumbass had dug up the barrel. But there were a couple of guys fishing near the boat ramp. Witnesses.
Shit.
So Bern said, “Moe, let’s go for a ride.”
They took the redneck’s Dodge pickup, Bern at the wheel, and turned down a sand road bordered by mangroves. Moe started crying when Bern found the tape recorder in his jacket pocket.
To get the truth, Bern had to slap and kick the shit out of the Hoosier, who was tougher than expected. But he finally talked. The tape recorder was Moe’s idea, because he wanted to cover his ass, no cops involved. And, yes, he had told them about the dead girl in the barrel.
Moe was sobbing. “I hope this doesn’t mean my job here’s been terminated. My old lady would break off our engagement.”
Jesus, the guy’s IQ took a nosedive every time he opened his mouth. Maybe air was leaking into his brain through a bad tooth.
Bern replied, “Well, Moe, it does kind of create a trust issue.”
He used the Luger.
B ern was still at Mildred Engle’s bedroom window, peeking from behind the curtain, watching as the man from the pickup truck approached the house. He watched the man pause, standing like an idiot out there in the rain, looking at something. What?
The moon.
It wasn’t raining as hard now—the storm came in waves—but even so. Bicycle guy was a dumbass to stand there and get soaked.
Bern watched the man approach the house, then he heard the doorbell ring. Heard it ring again. Now the man was pounding on the door.
Bern stepped away from the window and walked toward the door, a pistol in his hand. It wasn’t his imitation German Luger. It was Moe’s chrome-plated cowboy pistol, the .357 revolver that the cops had recently returned after deciding, yes, the Hoosier had done society a favor shooting his attacker.
The cylinder was loaded with five pinky-sized bullets, hollow-points that expanded when they hit flesh. The missing slug had certainly done a job on the Cuban, hitting him in the arm, but killing the man, anyway.
Bern hoped the other five were just as lucky. Good omens in the heavy handgun that he now raised as he approached the door where the man, bicycle guy, was hammering away with his fists.
If the man opened the door, Bern would shoot him. He was sure of it. First, though, maybe he’d ask him where Mildred Engle was. Bern had been upstairs and downstairs; hadn’t seen her. More important, he hadn’t found the promissory notes that were supposed to be somewhere in the house.
Bern had to have those old loan documents. They were the main reason he had come to Sanibel. No, after what had happened this afternoon they were the only reason. The loan documents, signed by Frederick Roth—the real Frederick Roth—he needed them.
The promissory notes and the Viking. Without both, he was screwed. No way to pay for his new life in a country Bern had yet to choose—as if he’d had the time. And no way to escape.
All because of that trailer lizard Moe.
Outside, the man was still pounding on the door. Then, after a brief silence, the frame and brass lock both cracked when he tried to knock the door open with his shoulder.
The guy seemed determined. Did he somehow know the old lady had company?
Bern aimed the revolver, chest height, and pulled the hammer back…
41
When I threw my shoulder against the door, I felt the wood frame and dead bolt screws give. I stepped back to ram the door again but caught myself.
A dead bolt. Didn’t that tell me something? If the door was bolted, Chestra was inside.
No…she could have bolted the front door, then exited through the downstairs sliding doors, beach side.
My jacket had a hood. I held the hood tight as I splashed my way around the house to check, moon almost bright enough I didn’t need my flashlight. The glass doors were open, curtains billowing.
Strange for her to leave doors open…
I stepped inside to have a look—a light showing down the hall, beneath her bedroom door. I called her name.
Chestra?
Called once more.
Should I go to her room and knock?
No. Decided that would be intrusive.
I turned to look at the beach. The wind and rain were abating. The cyclone’s volatile bands traveled in incremental waves, the space of each lull shorter as the storm’s center neared. In a few minutes, the gale would resume.
If she was out there, now was the time to find her.
I closed the doors, and started along the path to the beach.
D uring the last storm, she’d led me in the direction of Sanibel Light. I remembered that.
When I reached the beach, I took a chance and retraced our course, then began jogging toward the point. To my right, the sea was a deafening darkness. In the far distance, the lighthouse was awash in monstrous clouds, each frail starburst reflected skyward, then absorbed as if ingested.
Over the Gulf, there was a flash of lightning. Another. The horizon was briefly illuminated by random voltage, an electrical pattern as intricate as synaptic nerve fiber.
Ahead, the automated beacon revolved with indifferent synchrony: two one-second flashes followed by darkness, over and over; a metronome warning to mariners that was issued every ten seconds.
Light-light…dark. Light-light…dark. Light-light…dark.
Ahead of me, at the surf’s edge, I saw movement…
What?
A person. Far down the beach. I saw the figure only for a moment as the beacon flared: a human silhouette tethered to its shadow.
A person, yes. Someone walking toward the lighthouse.
I jogged faster, leaning into a water-heavy wind. The storm was freshening. I knew it would rain soon.
It did. I heard the curtain of rain before I felt it: a xylophone patter backdropped by the drumming percussion of waves. Sand beneath my feet vibrated with each breaker’s weight; soft rain became a torrent. Wind arrived, a tumid wall that made it a struggle to run.
I was close enough to see it was a woman: a solitary figure, head down, dressed in pale clothing that caught the wind like scarves.
I jogged for another minute.
“Chestra?”
The figure turned.
I was close enough to see. It was her.
“Doc…? Doc!”
“Yeah.”
She held her hands out. I took them. “My God, what are you doing on the beach? I’m so happy to see you, kiddo!”
We were closer to the lighthouse; moonlight was diffused by clouds. Rain was angling.
“I was worried. Storms, I know you love them. So I came looking. Chestra, this is crazy. I’m taking you home right now—”
I was silenced by a sizzling explosion. Lightning. A blue glare illuminated Chestra’s face, her water-soaked hair. It was an incandescence so pure that I felt as if I were seeing her for the first time. Extraordinary. Had I once really thought she was old?
I found myself unable to speak. I had never been face-to-face with a woman as beautiful as Mildred Chestra Engle.
“What’s wrong, Doc?”