Susan just smiled and continued on toward the resort’s office. If she couldn’t see James right away, she’d have to make do with Jerry.
Lila looked up from her paperwork and put a professional smile on her face when Susan walked in the open doorway of the resort’s small office. “Mrs. Henshaw. Can I help you?”
“I hope so. I want to see Jerry Gordon. Could you call me a taxi and then tell the driver where I’m going? I’m afraid I don’t know exactly where Jerry’s being held.”
“I would be happy to, but if he doesn’t know you’re coming, you may not be allowed to see him. It’s not open house down at the embassy, you know.”
Susan, who never knew exactly how to react to people who were polite by profession, realized that she didn’t like this woman very much. “I’ll take my chances,” she answered, smiling back.
“Then I’ll order you a taxi. Do you want the driver to wait for you, or would you rather call another cab when you want to return? Waiting costs next to nothing, I might add. There are few planes arriving at this time of the day, and the driver would most likely be idle if you weren’t using his services.”
“Then I’d like him to wait,” Susan decided. “I’ll just go get my purse and I’ll be back here in a moment.”
“That will be fine.”
Susan didn’t see either Jed or Kathleen on the way to her cottage. She took a few minutes to write Jed a message in his book telling him where she was going and what time she was leaving. Kathleen, she decided, would most likely figure it out on her own. The taxi was waiting for her when she arrived back at the office. She climbed in the back of the 1964 Chevrolet Biscayne and gasped as the driver zoomed off, causing a blizzard of coral pebbles to fly into the air behind them.
Since Susan and Jed had arrived at Compass Bay in the dark, this was the first time she was seeing any part of the island other than the resort itself or its neighboring beaches. She was stunned by its beauty and its poverty. The taxi driver sped down the narrow roads, inadequately paved and in danger of crumbling into the sandy soil or being reclaimed by indigenous tropical plants. Children, accompanied by scrawny dogs, hung out in bare yards around broken-down houses. Big black birds scavenged in open garbage cans. Just when Susan began to wonder where the town was located, they arrived in it.
The town was charming. Comprised of a few streets of brightly colored storefronts and open-air restaurants, it was only slightly more crowded than the country they had been passing through. At the end of the main street, a few buildings had been built from gray stone on an outcropping of rock over the ocean. The cab stopped in front of the largest of these buildings, and the driver turned around and smiled at Susan.
“I wait, yes?”
“Yes, you wait. I’ll be back soon.”
“Take your time,” he urged, helping her from the car. “Take your time.” He leaned against the hood of his car, crossed his arms, and closed his eyes.
Susan turned and walked up the stone steps to wooden French doors standing open to catch the breezes coming off the water. No one seemed to be around, and she continued on into the building, her sandals slapping on the tile floor. Susan walked down the long center hallway lined with offices. She peered in open doorways, seeing desks littered with papers, but the employees were evidently somewhere else.
Continuing on through the hallway, she came to another pair of French doors, which opened onto a large porch where a party was in progress. About thirty people were sitting around, talking, laughing, and consuming Danish pastry along with mugs of coffee and dainty glass cups filled with pink punch. Susan stopped, unwilling to break into the group. Jerry was being held somewhere in the building. She’d just go back outside and see if she could figure out where.
“May I help you?” A tall woman with long flowing gray hair and darkly tanned skin detached herself from the group and came up to Susan.
“I’m looking for Jerry Gordon. I understand he’s here somewhere.” Susan glanced at the happy gathering before continuing. “I’m Susan Henshaw. I’m a friend of Jerry-”
“I know exactly who you are, Mrs. Henshaw. And I’m sure Mr. Gordon will be very happy to see you. He’s being held on the ground floor. Well, it’s actually a basement. I’d be happy to take you there.”
“But your party-” Susan began.
“Is drawing to a close. One of our colleagues is getting married and moving back to the mainland. We’re celebrating his good fortune and mourning his coming sadness.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Everyone is happy to see him married, but we will miss him and he will miss the island. This is a remarkable place to live, Mrs. Henshaw-not for everyone, no doubt-but those of us who fit in here have found something special, and most of us feel a keen sense of loss when forced to give it up.” She smiled and then pointed down the hallway. “I’m neglecting my manners. I’m Frances Adams. I’m the highest-ranked United States government employee on the island.”
“Then you’re the woman who managed to have Jerry imprisoned here rather than in the local jail,” Susan said.
“Yes. Don’t give me too much credit. The police department here is unwilling to antagonize the wealthier people on the island, some of whom are the owners of the few places we have like Compass Bay. They were happy to have our help. If anything goes wrong during Mr. Gordon’s incarceration, they will not be to blame.”
Susan walked behind Frances Adams and considered her elegance and style. Susan had always admired women who didn’t deny their age by dyeing their hair and then wearing it in a puffy, short, middle-aged style, but flaunted their streaks of gray and managed to turn them into something individual and even sexy. She doubted if she would have the nerve to adopt the style herself, but she admired those who did. “Well, I’m glad you helped Jerry. I understand the jail here is pretty awful.”
“Worse than awful.” Frances Adams turned a corner and started down a wide stone stairway, worn by many decades of use. “How is your investigation coming? Have you found any other viable suspects… if you don’t mind my asking,” she added when Susan didn’t answer immediately.
“I don’t mind you asking, but I was just wondering how you know I’m looking into Allison’s murder.”
“Mr. Gordon told me. He says you have solved murders in the States. I believe he is counting on you to get him out of this situation.”
Susan began to chew off her lipstick. “I’m doing the best I can, but… The problem is that I know Jerry and I know Kathleen, his wife now, and I knew his first wife, June. June was Allison’s sister and I thought I knew Allison. I mean the Allison I knew then isn’t the Allison that I met here.”
“Are you saying you believe someone borrowed her identity? That she isn’t who she claimed to be?”
“Oh, no, nothing like that. It’s just that she’s so different from when I used to know her. There’s probably nothing odd about it at all. People do change.”
“Do you think so? In my experience very few people do change. Not really. Oh, they may look different and many of them claim to be different, but underneath it all they remain the same. It takes an unusual person to actually become someone other than who they started out to be. But you may know much more interesting people than I come across on this little island.”
Susan doubted it. She tried to explain. “I know what you mean-sort of-but the Allison I knew years ago wouldn’t have inspired enough feeling for someone to have killed her. She was… almost negligible. I know that doesn’t sound very nice, but…”
“It doesn’t, but it does make sense. Certainly a person who is murdered must be a person who inspired strong passions-in the killer if no one else.”
Susan had never considered this before. They had arrived at the bottom of the stairway. Four uniformed men were sitting around a makeshift table, playing cards. Another man, cradling a large gun in his arms, leaned on the wall next to a metal door. “Is Jerry in there?” Susan asked, nodding toward the door.