“I wondered that myself. But I was in the office the other day when the honeymooners-I suppose we should call them the doctor and her husband rather than the honeymooners now-well, they asked Lila to call them a cab to take them to town, and it occurred to me that Allison could have been following Jerry around and overheard him do the same thing. Then she left before he did and just waited for him to run into her there.”
“I suppose that’s possible. It’s an awfully small place. It would be easy for that to happen.” Susan thought for a moment. “I think we should call the police and tell them about the person who assaulted you.”
“Oh, I do, too. Maybe they’ll free Jerry before dinner.”
“Kath…”
“Susan, I know it’s not realistic, but I can hope, can’t I?”
“Sure. You stay here. I’ll go over to the office and call them.”
“Great.” Kathleen closed her eyes, and Susan headed off on her errand.
Lila was in the office and she looked up, concerned, when Susan walked in. “Is Mrs. Gordon feeling worse? Shall I call for a doctor?”
“No, Kathleen’s fine. She wants to talk to the police. I wonder if you would call them for her.”
“Of course. May I ask what’s the matter?”
“I think Kathleen should be the person to talk about this,” Susan said.
“Of course. There should be an officer at her cottage in a very few minutes. Perhaps the lawyer who is handling Mr. Gordon’s case should be called, too.” Lila’s hand hovered in the air above the phone.
“No, I think just the police. Thanks. I’ll go back and tell Kath that they’re on the way.”
“Good. Mrs. Henshaw…”
“Yes?”
“Our island police may not wear fancy uniforms or have a lot of sophisticated equipment, but they’re not idiots.”
“I-I don’t know what you’re saying,” Susan admitted.
“Just that they are not as credulous as you would like to believe.”
“I don’t believe that they are anything like that,” Susan said firmly, turning and heading back to Kathleen’s cottage.
As Lila had promised, two uniformed police officers were on the deck of the cottage almost before Susan had finished telling her friend what Lila had said.
As well as being prompt, they were polite, professional, and completely unwilling to believe Kathleen’s story.
“I think you fell and hit your head,” the youngest officer stated. “Head injuries can be strange. You may have imagined the big man coming up and hitting you.”
“I didn’t say anything about a big man! I said someone! How do you think I got this bump on my head if someone didn’t hit me?”
“You fell. You hit your head. It happens,” the older man said in an offhanded manner.
“I’m telling you that I was assaulted. You should file a report. You should be asking me questions. You should start to look for whomever it was who did this to me! You are holding my husband without any real reason at all, and there is someone loose here who has criminally assaulted me! That person and the murderer could be-very possibly are-the same person! And you’re doing nothing!”
“Mrs. Gordon, we are not doing nothing. We will file a report, which will require much paperwork. We will investigate your allegation that this strange man-or woman-knocked you out. If there is a crime here, we will do our very best to find the person who committed it. But there is no connection that I or my partner can see between this and the brutal murder of Miss Allison McAllister. Except for the involvement of your family in both crimes.”
“I-what? But that’s ridiculous!”
“Not so ridiculous. Let me tell you a story.”
Kathleen ground her teeth so tightly that Susan could hear them skid, but she merely nodded and the police officer began.
“Years ago when my father joined the police force, there was another murder on the island. A young woman kill another young woman. She think if this other young woman dead, then the woman’s fiancé will fall in love with her and marry her. But he did not love her, and in time, he found another woman to love. So, as you might guess, the woman who murdered his first fiancé murdered the second. That’s when we caught her, of course.”
“So what? You just proved what I was saying to you! If you think Jerry killed Allison, do you think he assaulted me, too? While you have him locked up? Are you nuts?” she asked, sitting up in bed and scowling at the men.
“This is a small island, Mrs. Gordon, but we have our bad people, too. A person who is locked up, a person of means as your husband appears to be-” He stopped and looked around the luxury cottage before going on. “A person like that could hire a bad person to do these things for him.”
“My husband would not hire someone to hurt me!” Kathleen said, standing up and yelling right in the oldest officer’s face. “Get out of my cottage. Now!”
“We must file report. We’ll be back for you to sign it,” the younger man said.
“I won’t sign anything,” Kathleen said, turning her back on the men. “Now please leave my cottage.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
“You should lie back down,” Susan said, trying to guide Kathleen toward the bed. “Please, Kath. You can’t help Jerry unless you take care of yourself.”
Kathleen sat on the bed. “I don’t seem to be capable of helping Jerry period.”
“I’m going to call Frances Adams. Maybe she can help us.”
“Who?”
“Frances Adams. The American embassy representative on the island.”
“Oh, yes. I met her. That might be a good idea,” Kathleen said quietly.
“Are you all right? Are you feeling nauseous? Faint?”
“I’m just terribly tired. You know, I think I will lie down for a while. Maybe take a nap.”
“I shouldn’t leave you alone.”
“You should. I’m okay, Susan. Just unhappy and tired. You go do what you have to do. Maybe you can help Jerry. I sure don’t seem to be able to.”
“I’ll call Ms. Adams.”
“And I’ll take a nap.”
“You shouldn’t be alone.”
“I’ll be fine. One thing about these louvered windows-someone will hear if I call out.”
“I guess so. You know one thing that bothers me about this place?”
“What?”
“The lack of phones. I hate the fact that Lila or someone in the office overhears all our conversations.”
“We should have brought international cell phones. You can rent them. Jerry actually suggested it, but I didn’t want him checking in with work and vetoed the idea. What an idiot I was.”
“You had no idea all this was going to happen.”
“You can say that again.” Kathleen closed her eyes.
“Do you want me to wake you up for dinner?”
“When are you going to eat?”
“Around seven?”
“I’ll meet you in the restaurant. Save me a seat.”
“Sure. See you then.”
“Uh-huh.”
Susan smiled. Kathleen was already drifting off to sleep, so she quietly shut the door and started toward the office, stopping to stick her head in the gift shop. James was lounging against the wall, smiling seductively at the attractive young woman who was sitting behind the cash register pretending to work. Susan thanked him for his help in organizing and moving Kathleen, then explained that her friend was resting. “She promised me she would yell out if she needed something. Since you’re close by, I wonder if you would just keep an ear out-just in case.”
“Of course. Lila expects us to do all we can to help the guests. I’m here until six tonight. If she calls, I’ll run.”
“Thank you so much,” Susan said, thinking that she was going to have a lot to remember when it came time to pass out tips.
Lila was in her office with the door closed. A woman Susan didn’t recognize was manning the desk. “I need to make a phone call,” Susan said.
“Of course, Mrs. Henshaw. Do you need a phone book?”