Shea didn’t see him fall; she turned away. And the hue and the cry of the storm kept her from hearing him hit the floor. When she looked again, after several seconds, he lay facedown and unmoving on the tiles. She did not have to go any closer to tell that he was dead.
There was a hollow queasiness in her stomach. Otherwise she felt nothing. She turned again, and there was a blank space of time, and then she found herself sitting on one of the chairs in the living room. She would have wept then but she had no tears. She had cried herself dry on the terrace.
After a while she became aware that she still gripped Tanner’s automatic. She set it down on an end table; hesitated, then picked it up again. The numbness was finally leaving her mind, a swift release that brought her thoughts into sharpening focus. When the wind and rain lulled again she stood, walked slowly down the hall to her bedroom. She steeled herself as she opened the door and turned on the lights.
From where he lay sprawled across the bed, John’s sightless eyes stared up at her. The stain of blood on his bare chest, drying now, gleamed darkly in the lamp glow.
Wild night, mad night.
She hadn’t been through hell just once, she’d been through it twice. First in here and then in the kitchen. But she hadn’t shot John. She hadn’t. He’d come home at nine, already drunk, and tried to make love to her, and when she denied him he’d slapped her, kept slapping her. After three long hellish years she couldn’t take it anymore, not anymore. She’d managed to get the revolver out of her nightstand drawer... not to shoot him, just as a threat to make him leave her alone. But he’d lunged at her, in almost the same way Tanner had, and they’d struggled, and the gun had gone off. And John Clifford was dead.
She had started to call the police. Hadn’t because she knew they would not believe it was an accident. John was well liked and highly respected on Salt Cay; his public image was untarnished and no one, not even his close friends, believed his second wife’s divorce claim or that he could ever mistreat anyone. She had never really been accepted here — some of the cattier rich women thought she was a gold digger — and she had no friends of her own in whom she could confide. John had seen to that. There were no marks on her body to prove it, either; he’d always been very careful not to leave marks.
The island police would surely have claimed she’d killed him in cold blood. She’d have been arrested and tried and convicted and put in a prison much worse than the one in which she had lived the past three years. The prospect of that was unbearable. It was what had driven her out onto the terrace, to sit and think about the undertow at Windflaw Point. The sea, in those moments, had seemed her only way out.
Now there was another way.
Her revolver lay on the floor where it had fallen. John had given it to her when they were first married, because he was away so much; and he had taught her how to use it. It was one of three handguns he’d bought illegally in Miami.
Shea bent to pick it up. With a corner of the bed-sheet she wiped the grip carefully, then did the same with Tanner’s automatic. That gun too, she was certain, would not be registered anywhere.
Wearily she put the automatic in John’s hand, closing his fingers around it. Then she retreated to the kitchen and knelt to place the revolver in Tanner’s hand. The first aid kit was still on the table; she would use it once more, when she finished talking to the chief constable in Merrywing.
We tried to help Tanner, John and I, she would tell him. And he repaid our kindness by attempting to rob us at gunpoint. John told him we kept money in our bedroom; he took the gun out of the nightstand before I could stop him. They shot each other. John died instantly, but Tanner didn’t believe his wound was as serious as it was. He made me bandage it and then kept me in the kitchen, threatening to kill me too. I managed to catch him off guard and throw coffee in his face. When he tried to come after me the strain aggravated his wound and he collapsed and died.
If this were Miami, or one of the larger Caribbean islands, she could not hope to get away with such a story. But here the native constabulary was unsophisticated and inexperienced because there was so little crime on Salt Cay. They were much more likely to overlook the fact that John had been shot two and a half hours before Harry Tanner. Much more likely, too, to credit a double homicide involving a stranger, particularly when they investigated Tanner’s background, than the accidental shooting of a respected resident who had been abusing his wife. Yes, she might just get away with it. If there was any justice left for her in this world, she would — and one day she’d leave Salt Cay a free woman again.
Out of the depths, she thought as she picked up the phone. Out of the depths...
Hooch
The three of us were in the cab of the chicken rancher’s truck, heading to Bringle’s Cove on the Sonoma County coast to pick up a whiskey shipment from Canada. The second truck, the bigger Graham, was five minutes or so behind us. It was five in the morning and there was hardly any traffic, but you never want to run trucks close together so it looks like a caravan, no matter what the hour. Angelo was driving and the kid, Bennie Sago, was in the middle between us. He had his Thompson gun tight between his knees, his skinny fingers sliding back and forth over the butt. My chopper was propped against the door, Angelo’s up behind the seat. The payoff money was in a sack underneath. Nobody touched that but me.
The kid was antsy as hell. Not scared, far as I could tell, just excited. This was his first run with Angelo and me. Twenty-three, twenty-four, face like a beagle, straggly mustache, hair slicked down flat with pomade. Too cocky, too mouthy for my liking, but I had to put up with him for the time being. He’d been working for Renzo four or five months now, hired on as a favor to a gee Renzo knew in the Central Valley, and the jobs he’d done so far were up to snuff. When Renzo told you to partner with somebody, you didn’t argue.
“Three hundred cases coming in, right, Joey?” this Bennie said for the second or third time.
“I already told you.”
“Some twelve-year-old Scotch, too,” Angelo said. “Twenty cases.”
“Twelve-year-old? Sure be swell to get a couple of bottles of that.”
“Don’t even think about swiping any,” I said, “you know what’s good for you.”
“Hey, Joey, I was only kidding,” the kid said. He gave a nervous little laugh. “I’d never do nothing like that.”
“Damn well better not.”
He was quiet for half a mile. Then he said, “You think we’ll have any trouble?”
“No.”
“I don’t mean with the Coast Guard or the Feds. Fix is in up at Point Arena, right? Draw them all up to Mendocino County while we make the pick-up down here. But what about hijackers?”
“What about them?” Angelo said.
“Never know when they’ll show. On land or on the ocean.”
“No trouble with hijackers in over a year.”
“Could still happen, though.”
“Not this run. Don’t wet your pants worrying about it.”
“I’m not worrying.” The kid’s fingers kept sliding over the Thompson, fondling it like you would a woman. “Just thinking what it’d be like to see some action.”
“You wouldn’t like it.”
“I don’t know, maybe I would.”
“You just think you would. Get into a shootout, you’d wet your pants for sure.”
“Not me. Uh-uh, not me.”
“You ever fire that Thompson at a man?” I said.
“No. Just target practice so far. But it wouldn’t bother me none. I’m ready, willing, and able.”
“Sure you are. All hot to trot.”