“I was wondering,” said Burt, “if you found everything intact in your purse.”
“Certainly,” she said in a disinterested voice. Then, curiously: “What has that to do with it?”
Burt shrugged. Of course she wouldn’t mention the heroin, and he’d better drop the subject before she suspected that he knew. Strange that the woman showed none of the drug’s stigmata; still, it was hard to pick a well-fed hypo out of a crowd, unless she happened to be on the nod or badly strung out...
“You understand about this afternoon,” she said, leaning forward in a way that brought a soft double-pressure against his back. “I wanted to invite you in for a drink, but I knew he was coming. I didn’t want him to find—”
Burt laughed.
“What’s funny?”
“I’ve seen women who come on strong when their husbands are near, then turn cold when it’s safe.”
“Oh?” Idly, her fingers stirred the hair at the back of his head. “You think I’m one of those?”
“I think you enjoy the game, yes. I could die of old age waiting for the pay-off.”
“Tell you what you do, Sergeant March. You know the island. You name it. Time, place, everything. I’ll meet you.”
Burt stopped laughing. “I think you’re trying to set me up, Mrs. Keener. Don’t.”
She was leaning on him, her chin gently gouging his shoulder. Her breath was warm in his ear. “What are you afraid of, Sergeant March? I thought cops weren’t afraid of anyone.”
“That’s enough. I’m leaving.” Burt started to get up, but her arms slid around his neck and pulled him back. The soft breath against his ear became wetness, then sharp, biting pain. He twisted and overturned the chair. He fell and felt her soft form rolling beneath him. He struggled to his feet and put his hand to his ear. Warm blood trickled down his neck. He felt foolish and resentful, as though he’d been tricked into performing in a slapstick comedy.
“Damn!” Burt looked down at the woman. Her beach robe was in drastic disarray, but she didn’t seem to notice. She was laughing, and there was a bright red wetness on her lower lip.
“You need a good beating,” he told her.
“Really?” She sat up with her arms braced behind her, stretching her long muscular legs out on the concrete floor. “Go ahead, Sergeant. Do your duty.”
“Oh hell—!” He whirled and tore open the screen door. Behind him her laughter trilled high above the sound of the surf. As he walked back to his cabin, he realized this was almost the same scene he’d walked out on earlier. Except that Joss had no ulterior motives; or if she had, they were hidden even from Joss herself. Mrs. Keener had a sick thing going, and Burt had a feeling her husband was a part of it.
He took a shower before going to bed. It helped a little.
Three
Next morning Burt found a shining new padlock on the door of cabin two. He shoved his hands into his pockets and regarded it with a feeling of frustration; he had merely glanced toward the cabin as he walked along the beach, feeling normal curiosity, and now... now he felt an aching desire to go in. The detective syndrome, he thought; you see a locked door and you want to look behind it. Or is that a burglar syndrome? Maybe there wasn’t much difference.
He walked toward the club. It was a gray day, and a steady east wind carried moisture in such fine particles that he didn’t know it was raining until he found his hair damp. The lagoon was like a blanket being shaken; the surf washed over the jetty and made tentative passes at the pilings which held up the beach club. Rolf’s launch was gone, and Burt could hear Joss’s voice raised in shrill anger behind the kitchen.
He found her standing over Coco, who was squatting on the ground, sullenly picking a scab on his instep.
“What’s wrong?” asked Burt.
Joss turned, looking sheepish. “This ignorant ass let the rowboat drift away last night.”
Coco looked up. “Mist’ March, I leave it on the beach where the surf do not reach.”
“Let’s go see.”
In front, Coco showed him the boat’s keel mark in the sand. It extended three feet above the line of coral, driftwood and coconut husks which marked the high-water point.
“She lie here when I go to sleep,” said Coco. “Not here this morning.”
“You must have moved it,” said Joss.
“No, mistress. I am sure.”
They all stood looking at the marks in the sand as though, if they looked long enough, the boat would materialize. Finally Coco shuffled off, mumbling. Joss shrugged. “Weather like this bugs these people. They don’t know it, but it does.”
Burt walked with her to the club. “What bugs me is losing the boat.”
Joss waved her hand airily and sat down at a table. “Hell, it wasn’t worth much. It’s just that one by one all my rowboats disappear. That boy gets out there day-dreaming and a boat gets carried onto the rocks; he forgets to put in a drainplug and a boat swamps; he goes skin-diving alone and his boat drifts away.” She sighed and signaled Godfrey to bring coffee. “I’ll get another one made on Bequia. Meanwhile there’s no problem. I just bought a pile of supplies, food and liquor, with the money I got from Keener and Smith. And O’Ryan will be through again in two or three days.”
“Suppose somebody gets sick?”
“You feeling bad?” She eyed him quizzically, then shrugged. “I’m sure, if there was an emergency, Rolf Keener would lend his launch.”
At that point Burt realized what really bothered him about losing the rowboat. Rolf Keener now had the only means of transportation on the island — and Rolf Keener had gone out early this morning to check his launch.
“Where’d the Keeners go?” he asked.
“For a cruise,” said Joss.
Burt frowned at the frothing sea. Fifteen-foot rollers broke against the rocks around the lagoon and sent up explosions of spray. Black-toothed rocks bit through the surface each time a wave receded.
“He’s in no danger, Burt,” said Joss. “He’s got twin outboards, besides his inboard engine, and he seemed to know what he was doing.”
“Yes,” said Burt. “He gives that impression.”
Godfrey brought two mugs of French coffee, hot and strong and heavy with chicory. Burt sipped it slowly, squinting out beyond the dripping thatch. He thought about Rolf, not because he feared for his safety, but because he wondered what could lure a man out to sea in this weather.
“You made a good impression on him,” said Joss after a long silence. “He said you could keep cabin one. He wants you for a neighbor.”
Burt gave a wry smile. “I wonder what else he wants.”
“Why?”
“He told me his life story last night. Some men do it because they like to talk. Rolf isn’t a compulsive talker. I think he wanted to exchange confidences.”
“Did you?”
“Wasn’t much more I could tell. He knew I was with the police, searched my wallet while I was out cold.”
Her mouth dropped open. “No! But that doesn’t sound like—”
She broke off as Jata appeared at the railing and morosely held up a mop and a bucket. “Miss Joss, how I’m cleaning cabin two?”
“You’ll have to wait, Jata. Mr. Keener wants to be there when you clean.”
The old woman’s blue-black, wrinkled face settled slowly into a mask of fury. She turned and strode off, somehow managing to convey injured dignity in the way she planted her large bare feet on the sand. Burt regarded Joss with a question in his eyes, and Joss looked down into her coffee. She spoke defensively:
“It sounded perfectly reasonable when he explained it this morning. I... didn’t realize how it would sound.”