Island Blues (18 page)

Chapter Thirty-three

Bicycle Bob was humming “Singin' in the Rain” as Sabrina maneuvered herself off of the bright blue moped and undid the bungee cords holding her crutches strapped to the sides.

“Where in the heck did you get that?” Lima sounded irritable. Rain made his joints ache.

Ignoring the raindrops that kept falling on her head, Sabrina arranged the crutches under her arms. Did she have them backward?
Was
there a front and back? “The moped? I borrowed it from May at the Blue Cam this morning.”

Lima and Bicycle watched her in fascination as she tried to climb the stairs on the crutches. It took three tries and a near-fall backward before she gained the porch and sank into a rocking chair beside Lima.

“It's raining, you're hurt, and you're running around on a moped?”

“I had things I needed to do.”

“What was so important you had to get out in this mess?”

In truth, it wasn't much of a rain. All morning, low clouds had wept a melancholy dribble that was more mist than rain. The rose-colored light reflected through the clouds made the grass appear a glowing emerald and the sky a strange bruised green.

“I had work to do,” Sabrina said in a lofty tone. “I decided to revisit the victims of the recent break-ins and see how they were doing.” And ask if any noticed the smell of fish on their burglar. It was slim, but it was all she had. Now she had nothing, however, because none of them had noticed a fishy smell.

“And what did you find out?”

“Not much. I went by Hill Mitchell's first, since his was the first break-in. At first he pretended he wasn't home, but he finally let me in.”

Lima massaged his knee. “It's a shame what's become of that boy. Both his dad and granddad were such pistols. His granddad was sheriff of Teach County back during prohibition, you know. So how does Hill turn out to be as soft as a bag of wet kittens? Makes no sense.”

“Then I went to see Maggie Fromlin. Remember, she was staying at the rental cottage and saw the burglar? But she couldn't remember anything else. They're having so much fun that they've decided to stay on a couple of extra days. Then, I tracked Missy Garrison down at the Tittletott House. She was waiting tables and angry because several of her tourist customers were being rude. Of course, she was wearing her ‘If you don't live here, go home' tee-shirt, so that might have contributed to their hostility, but who knows.”

“I don't know, things are getting pretty ugly.” Lima rubbed at a scab on his elbow. “Jimmy came by and he looked pretty tired. He'd been out all night breaking up fights at the bars between the tourists and locals. Oh, and he told me to tell you he didn't have any luck finding your attacker yet, but he was still working on it. Bye, Bicycle.”

Sabrina looked up to see that Bicycle Bob had risen and was wheeling his bike down the road, weaving unsteadily. He was too drunk even to mount the bike.

“He always gets worse this time of year,” Lima said, watching his friend go with a sad shake of his head. “One year we closed down the liquor store for these couple of days, thinking it might help, but he rode his bike onto the ferry and went to the mainland. As far as I know, that's the only time he's left the island for twenty years.”

Sabrina frowned. “What—”

“Oh no, you gotta go. There's Mary, and she's been on the warpath for you all morning. Go, go, go!”

Sabrina looked down the street and saw the rotund, determined shape of Mary Garrison Tubbs rounding the corner by the ferry docks. For a moment, with the memory of her flight off the bridge the night before shining like a newly minted badge of courage, she thought about staying and facing the woman. But she'd never been one of those people to say no to Novocain when having dental work done, so she struggled to her feet and grabbed her crutches. She swung over to the edge of the steps, and then stared down in dismay at the precipice before her.

“Sabrina!” The sound of her name being called in that irate, self-satisfied voice spurred her on. She half-hopped, half-fell down the stairs and swung her leg across the seat of the moped. It took her a moment to remember how to get the thing started, and by the time she did, she could feel the hot flames of Mary's breath practically on her neck. But now she had the roar of the engine to account for her sudden attack of deafness, and without bothering to secure her crutches, she took off with a spurt of gravel.

“See you later, Lima!” she called without looking back.

“
Sabrina!
” The enraged shout followed her down the street as she pinged the stop sign with her crutch at the corner of Tittletott Row, and almost took out an elderly gentleman taking pictures of the lofty mansions.

When her station wagon refused to start this morning, she agreed to accept the moped from May. It was coming in handy, even if she couldn't figure out how she kept activating the horn, or how to turn off the left turn signal.

Sabrina looked around to see that she had somehow ended up in battered, worn Waver Town. She thought about stopping by Nettie's Candy Shop for a blueberry muffin, but decided that she needed to get over to the Shell Lodge. Just as she was looking for a place to turn around on the narrow, pothole-infested street, she caught sight of a bright yellow bike being pushed by an erratic Bicycle Bob. He weaved his way through someone's yard, knocked over a pile of crab pots, and disappeared.

Sabrina hesitated, but concern for the drunken man won out. It looked as if he was headed for home, but she better follow and make sure he got there. Bicycle Bob was never sober, but this degree of meandering inebriation was unusual. She would have to remember to ask Lima why this time of year was worse for Bicycle.

The narrow road that led to Bicycle Bob's house was tucked between two dilapidated houses. The road didn't look like much more than a path into someone's backyard, but she had been this way before, so with confidence she drove through the carport and around the swing set. In the heavy woods beyond the houses, the road twisted and turned through heavy overgrowth, marked here and there by driveways that led to invisible houses. Long after the road seemed to peter out, she kept going, looking for the paths around logs and even wading through a small stream. She'd lost sight of Bicycle, but she knew that he could traverse this road quicker than she with his eyes closed. Double or even triple vision wouldn't slow him down one bit.

Finally, she reached the ramshackle, neon-colored structure that Bicycle called home. The first time she visited Bicycle, she was amazed at the colorful, incoherent murals that swirled over the broken, warped boards of his siding. Psychedelic fish fashioned out of coconuts swam in a sea of net across the front porch, and less identifiable objects made from beer cans marched up the front steps.

As Sabrina negotiated the steps, she called, “Bicycle! It's Sabrina Dunsweeney!”

She knew he was here, as his yellow beach bike was parked near the stairs. She made it onto the porch and ducked under the net, swinging with coconut fish and brightly painted sea shells, to knock on the screen door. A moment later, Bicycle appeared and wordlessly held the door open in invitation.

Some instinctive gene for neatness must have been rooted in Bicycle's subconscious, because with the exception of a work table piled with paint supplies and beer cans on the counter in various stags of dissection, the house was clean and straight. She knew that Bicycle's mother and brother, Sergeant Jimmy, stopped by often to bring him food and paint supplies, but she didn't think they were obsessively cleaning his house. That was all Bicycle.

Even in the last stages of drunkenness, Bicycle was a different person in his own home. He still did not speak, but he swung a hand for Sabrina to sit and opened the refrigerator in silent inquiry. Since the only beverages in sight were alcoholic, Sabrina shook her head with a smile. As she turned to the small living room, she stopped in shock.

Joseph Siderius sat on the couch, and vivid red stains splattered his hands and clothes.

Chapter Thirty-four

After a moment, Sabrina saw that what she first took to be blood on Joseph Siderius was actually red paint. Several cans of it were spread across newspapers on the coffee table in front of him, and he was concentrating on painting designs on a piece of driftwood. Though there were cans of blue, green and yellow paint as well, he ignored them in favor of various shades of crimson and orange.

“Hello, Joseph. I didn't know you knew Bicycle.”

Joseph looked up, and it took a moment for his eyes to focus on her. Then his gaze sharpened and he smiled gently as he nodded in greeting.

Sabrina looked around and saw that Bicycle was working on a beer can, using a knife to peel the aluminum into layers which he was arranging into a shape only he could see.

“How long have you two known each other?” She didn't expect an answer, and was not surprised by a burst of loquaciousness from either of the taciturn men. In fact, they had gone back to work on their various projects and did not seem aware of her presence.

Sabrina remembered Michael complaining that Joseph had started disappearing ever since arriving on the island. Was this where Joseph had been? How in the world did Bicycle Bob and Joseph meet? Though after watching them for a few minutes, she saw there was a natural affinity between the two silent men. Both were locked in an inner place, their own reality preferable to the real world.

Sabrina went to sit next to Joseph on the couch and he shifted his weight to give her room. She watched him hesitate between a bright stop-sign red and a darker, rust red before settling on the second color. He dipped the brush into the paint and bent close to the driftwood. As he concentrated on his work, she realized what she had taken for careful squiggles were equations of some sort. Even if she had been mathematically literate, it would be impossible to read them, however, as he had painted hundreds of them across the surface of the wood, overlapping this way and that.

At one point Joseph looked up at her and smiled, and he reached a hand out to lay on Sabrina's wrist. Sabrina clasped it with her own hand, and smiled back. She wondered how this benign man had produced a son like Michael. On second thought, from all accounts, Joseph used to be a different person. How had he metamorphosed from a driven scientist, determined to discover the source of the Hum, into this quiet man who was content to observe the contents of his soul? How could he be teaching anyone how to control the Hum when, as far as she could tell, he didn't speak?

At that moment, she became aware of a vague thrumming sound that gradually grew louder. She looked around to see if Bicycle's refrigerator had cycled on, but the sound was now singing through her head, billowing and falling, throbbing along her nerve endings until all she could do was close her eyes. She felt as if she was falling, swirling down a rushing, humming drain.

Then it was gone, and Sabrina looked up to find that Joseph had removed his hand and gone back to painting his indecipherable equations on the piece of wave-washed wood.

***

Sabrina was still a little dazed as she drove the moped toward the Shell Lodge. What had happened to her? Was that the Hum? Did Joseph somehow tap her into it, or did she have a particularly nasty panic attack, complete with vertigo and the sound of blood rushing in her ears?

She wasn't sure, but she still didn't feel right.

Sam was pulling in when she arrived at the Shell Lodge. Several police cars were taking up prime parking spots, so he parked the Lodge's Jeep in the loading zone and hopped out.

“I would turn around and go back the way I came, if I were you,” he said amiably as he watched her maneuver herself off the moped. “You're persona non grata around here today. By the way, you look like you got hit by a car. What happened this time?”

Sabrina regarded him for a moment, and then shook away her suspicions. After talking to everyone else involved in the break-ins and not finding anyone else who noticed a fishy smell, she was inclined to think Sophie was imagining it.

“What do you mean, turn around and go back the way I came?” She fitted the crutches under her arms, wincing at the raw spots. Her head was still buzzing, and it was difficult to think.

“Matt has been looking for you, and he sounds pretty pissed. He asked if I let you borrow a kayak yesterday.”

Sabrina paused. So Michael told Matt about the incident at Rainbow Island. Well, it was embarrassing, but she had expected it.

“That Michael Siderius came around too. Said he noticed the two of us were chummy, and that I better not let you take out any more kayaks if I knew what was good for me. Oooh. I was shaking in my boots.”

They both looked down at his leather sandals.

“What have you done to get everybody's panties in a bunch?” Sam had finished unloading the Jeep and stood looking at her with a pile of boxes in his arms.

“It's a long story. I wanted to ask you a question. I saw you looking through a box the other night and it looked like a box of bottles. What was it?” The thrum in her head was making her reckless, but she felt as if she was close, though she wasn't sure to what. The box was something she wanted to cross off her list because she was convinced it was unrelated to what was going on. Sam's expression went blank and her confident assumption of his innocence collapsed.

“When did you see the box?” His voice was neutral, but he couldn't hide his agitation.

“I don't know. The other night.” She was being evasive, but she didn't like what she was seeing. She backed up as best as she could on the crutches. “You seem upset.”

“My sister was a glassblower. After she died, I kept some of her favorite pieces. I take them out and look at them every once in a while. The other night, someone broke into my boat and smashed them and a lot of other things. They dumped over the cooler of fresh chum and left my fridge wide open so everything stank by the time I got home.”

“Somebody broke into your boat? When was this?” Sabrina stared at Sam in incredulity. Here was another break-in she hadn't heard about.

“It was my night off, Wednesday. I usually take the Mako and spend the night out fishing. I didn't get back until early Thursday morning, and by that time everybody was so excited about the attack on Ms. Sophie, I didn't even bother to mention it.” He shifted the boxes in his arms, grimacing at the weight of them.

“It's possible that someone ransacked your boat, got splattered with chum, and then went on to Sophie's cottage. That's why she smelled fish on her attacker!” Sabrina was suffused with excitement. It was another piece of the puzzle, and though she wasn't at all sure how it fit, the fact that there were more pieces on the table was encouraging. And besides, she found that she believed Sam's story, which relieved her. She hadn't realized how much she was hoping he wasn't guilty of the vicious attack on Sophie.

Sergeant Jimmy came up the path from the marina and stopped when he saw them.

“Jimmy, I have something to tell you!” Sabrina cried, and Sam slowly turned around. The sergeant and the dock master regarded each other for a long moment, and some sort of understanding seemed to pass between them.

“Sabrina, I need you to step back, please. Nicholas Samuel Myers? Could you please put down those boxes?”

Sabrina looked at Sam. His face was clean of expression as he lowered the boxes to the ground. Several more police officers were coming up the path, and they all stopped when they saw Sam. One put his hand to his gun.

“Jimmy, what—?”

“Sabrina, please get behind my car and stay out of the way. He could be dangerous.” Sergeant Jimmy was circling around toward Sabrina, and Sam watched him with hollow eyes.

One of the other police officers said, “Nicholas Myers, I am placing you under arrest for the murder of Gilbert Kane. You have the right to—”