Island Blues (8 page)

Sabrina flexed her fingers, realizing that they were hurting from maintaining a death grip on the paddle. “What didn't they tell you?” This was no time to be subtle. She felt that she was getting close to something, but what?

“I didn't expect…” Patti waved her hand in a futile gesture, then shook her head and began paddling.

Sabrina paddled hard to catch up, her kayak swaying dangerously with her efforts. “Patti, I'm confused. I thought you all
wanted
to understand this voice of the universe. You say you just want it to go away.”

Patti threw an unreadable look over her shoulder and then paddled harder, forcing Sabrina to concentrate to keep up.

“Patti—”

An explosion of noise and froth beside her sent Sabrina's kayak careening back and forth. She opened her mouth to scream as she lost her paddle, and then her balance.

Down she went into the opaque, avid water.

Chapter Fifteen

“It came up right beside my kayak. Before I knew what was happening, I lost my paddle, and then splash! Right into the water. I just knew something was going to eat me. Of course, it's Mitchell's Day, so I should have known better than to be out on the water.” Sabrina picked up her glass of wine, noting in the reflection of the tawny liquid that her drying curls made her resemble Medusa. Since she was sitting in the Shell Lodge's swanky dining room in a fluffy white bathrobe, it probably didn't matter much what her hair looked like.

“It was a dolphin. He must have been chasing a fish or something, because he came up beside Sabrina's boat with a huge splash. It startled me too.” Patti took a bite of her lobster cake, which was topped with an avocado relish and mustard cream sauce.

“If it wasn't for Patti, I don't think I'd ever have been able to get back on that kayak. Of course after I floundered around for a while I realized that I could stand up. The water was only four foot deep.”

Dennis Parker laughed and reached over to fill Sabrina's wine glass, which had somehow become empty. The tall, country boy was more cosmopolitan this evening in his suave dinner coat and polite dinner manners, though he still looked as if he were too elongated for the dining chair in which he sat.

“Thank goodness you're all right, Lisa,” said Sophie Jacquette, and tears welled in her beautiful eyes. “I would have been so scared!” The model was dressed in some sort of fluffy crimson concoction that would have looked ridiculous on anyone else, but with her blond cap pinned back with a baby barrette and her flawless skin bared strategically, she looked stunning.

Sabrina was feeling too mellow to care about Sophie's continued inability to remember her name. The girl did seem genuine in her concern.

When Patti invited Sabrina to dinner, she almost declined. All she wanted to do was go home and change out of her dripping clothes and look in the fridge for some comfort food. But duty called, and besides, the prospect of driving home soaking wet wasn't appealing.

So here she was, savoring her blue corn crusted chile relleno, chock full of prawns, scallops and Monterey Jack cheese, but thus far she had not been able to manipulate the conversation to Gilbert's murder or Hummers International Incorporated. She'd been plain enjoying herself, watching Dennis' tentative courtship moves, and Sophie blossoming under his attention. Sophie had even told a few funny stories about modeling, though they were more funny-ouch than funny-ha-ha.

“And what do you do again, Dennis? You said you're in sports?” Sabrina asked, but she was interrupted by the “Love Boat” theme song.

Patti grimaced. “I'm sorry, I know it's rude, but I'm expecting a very important phone call. I'll be just a minute.” She retrieved her phone out of her purse and left the table.

“Do you follow sports at all?” Dennis asked, and looked relieved when Sabrina and Sophie shook their heads. “Well, in that case—”

“I think the food in this place is inedible, don't you agree?” Walter Olgivie stopped by their table and waved a disgusted hand around the restaurant. Buffed, polished and botoxed, the businessman was dressed in a suit that probably cost more than Sabrina's car.

“I think it's lovely!” Sabrina said in instinctive defense of the restaurant. Walter had spoken too loudly, and other patrons were turning to stare. As if they needed any more reason to stare with a cover model sitting at the table chatting with Medusa in a bathrobe.

“I'm sure you don't know the difference between good food and bad, but I can assure you that you are eating inferior fare.” Walter covered a hiccup with his manicured fingers.

“In fact, I am quite conversant with fine dining—” Sabrina began but Walter waved off her comments.

“I think I'll go and find another drink,” he continued. “It's the only thing that helps this noise in my head. If I drink enough I can go to sleep at night. Earplugs sure as hell don't work, and those sound machines helped some at first, but not anymore. You'd think that after seeing the best doctors in the country over the last six months I'd have a better remedy than good old Glenfiddich. I might even take a couple swigs tomorrow morning before they cart us off for another session. I'm not sure I can take another one sober.” He staggered away toward the door.

“Is this Hum that bad, then, that he needs to drink it away?” Sabrina toyed with the remains of her marvelous relleno and hoped she sounded casual.

Dennis and Sophie did not look at one another. “It's the voice of the universe,” Sophie said in sonorous tones at the same time Dennis said: “We have a special gift.”

The party line, Sabrina noted. Michael and Joseph Siderius were nowhere in sight, but these two were maintaining the Hummer platform. Did they believe what they were saying? Their neutral expressions were unrevealing. Perhaps believing their hum was otherworldly gave them comfort.

Or perhaps what they were hearing
was
the voice of the universe. Who was she to say?

“How long have you two been hearing the Hum? It must be exciting to have such a rare gift.” She was watching for reactions, and this time she was rewarded. Both grimaced.

“It's not very exciting,” Sophie admitted. “Master Joseph says it is a cross we must bear for the rest of the world, and only when we understand what the universe is saying will it subside. I've been hearing it for a couple of months, but hopefully after this retreat I will be able to control and understand it.”

Dennis nodded. “I first heard the Hum about three months ago. It was in the middle of my season, so I didn't have time to pay much attention to it at first. It's gotten worse and worse, and finally I decided I had to do something about it. Nothing else worked, so Master Joseph must be right. If he's not right, I don't know what I'll do.”

“It'll work,” Sophie said in a bright voice tinctured with desperation. “I can already feel it working. The rituals
are
working.”

“What rituals?” Sabrina was quick to ask when she saw the identical expressions of dismay on the young faces.

“Nothing—” Dennis began while Sophie sat in mute consternation.

“What did I miss?” Patti asked, arriving back at the table in a whirl of colorful skirts and perfume. She sat down, her face drawn and worried, and did not seem to notice the relieved expressions on Sophie and Dennis' faces.

“Is something wrong?” Sabrina asked, forgetting her mission for a moment in the face of Patti's obvious distress.

“I need to find Michael Siderius. I might have to leave early,” she replied.

“But why?” Sophie cried. “No, Patti, you can't leave until we're done!”

“I don't want to,” Patti answered, her face grim, “but I'm being sued. I've been in negotiations for months, but now the witch has decided to sue if I don't give in to her ridiculous demands. Have we seen Michael this evening? I need to talk to him.”

“I think he eats with Master Joseph in their rooms,” Sophie said. “I've never seen them down in the dining room, have you?”

“I saw Gilbert a time or two in here, but he always sat by himself except the one time I saw him talking to Lance,” Dennis said. “They looked like they were arguing, so I didn't even stop to say hello.”

Sabrina recalled Lance Mayhew, the withdrawn, forgettable Hummer she had met that morning. She couldn't imagine him arguing with anyone. He seemed too vague.

“Well, I'm sorry to have to run, but I need to go.” Patti waved a distracted hand as she left the table.

“I hope everything's all right with her,” Sophie said, her face echoing Patti's worried expression. “This lady that's suing her, she and Patti went to high school together and argued over some guy. I think they've hated each other since then. The woman's rich as anything, but she wants whatever Patti has. Patti doesn't need this on top of everything else.”

“Poor thing,” Sabrina said, and her hand was making little abortive patting motions on the table. “I wonder if there's anything we can do to help?”

“It's all so horrible,” Sophie said. “What more can possibly go wrong?”

***

Sabrina made her way down the well-lit back steps of the lodge, enjoying the fresh, laundered smell of her clothes. Matt was an efficient manager. When she returned soaking wet from her kayak trip, he offered a hotel bathrobe and to have her clothes washed. She thanked him for his kindness and asked him a question that had been bothering her.

Who knew Gilbert was going to Goat Island yesterday afternoon? If the killer went by kayak, as looked to be the case, then he or she would have had to know that Gilbert was going to be on the island. Sabrina asked Dennis and Sophie if they knew Gilbert was going to the island, and they both agreed that he hadn't said a word about his plans at the meeting.

“I didn't even tell Mr. Kane about our idea until after their afternoon meeting was over,” Matt replied when questioned. “He came back fifteen minutes later and asked if I could arrange for Sam to take him to the island in an hour. Most of that time he spent in the bar. You'll have to ask Pete—that's the daytime bartender—if Gilbert talked to anyone at the bar. He'll be back on at ten in the morning.”

“Could someone have overheard you talking to Sam? Someone who overheard you say Gilbert would be on Goat Island?”

Matt ran his fingers through his hair. “Ah…Let's see. I called Sam right after Gilbert left. It's possible someone was standing in the lobby when I called, but I really don't remember anyone in particular.”

That was all he could say.

She clutched Sam's clean windbreaker to her chest, deriving all the warmth she could from it without actually putting it on, and headed down the dim path toward the dock and the sailboat Sam indicated was his. From the top of the hill, she could see lights on it, so she assumed he was still awake. He was not around when she arrived back from her disastrous kayak trip, so she didn't have the chance to return the jacket. Which was good, since it gave her the opportunity to ask him a few questions.

She stepped onto the dock, glad for the small solar-powered lamps that trembled on top of the pilings. Even the shadowy flickers were better than nothing.

At the end of the dock floated Sam's sailboat, emanating soft music. Something brushed against her ankles and she looked down to see a small black cat butting its head against her shin.

“Hello, little guy.” Sabrina stooped to rub the feline behind the ears. She missed the two cats who had kept her company during her first difficult month on the island. They came with the cottage she rented, and when her month at the idyllic place was over—as much as she would have loved to stay, the house was rented out for the rest of the year—the cats stayed behind, along with the wild pony who had made himself at home in the backyard. She stopped by every once in a while to say hello.

“Good kitty,” she crooned, and stood back up to face the sailboat. She debated how to make her presence known. There was no doorbell to ring or front door upon which to knock. She crouched a bit and peered through a window, or whatever boat-speak was for the openings-through-which-one-saw-the-outside. Sam was sitting at a polished wooden booth, a box in front of him. He seemed to be lost in thought as he stared down at whatever he held in his hands. She could not see what it was, as the box blocked her vision.

“Sam! It's Sabrina!” she said, and then repeated herself louder when he did not look up. The second time he heard her. He looked toward the window and then hastily put something back in the box—was it a bottle?—and stashed the box under the table. He stood for a moment, and then leaned down and shoved the box farther underneath the booth and firmly out of sight.

Then he stood and headed for the door.

Chapter Sixteen

Sabrina hesitated a moment before accepting Sam's hand to help her step across onto the sailboat. He did not seem surprised to see her as he led the way to a small back deck, where he had a camp chair set up next to a cooler. A plant, a boisterous African violet, if Sabrina was not mistaken in the dim light, added a cozy touch to the scene.

“I wanted to bring your coat back,” Sabrina said, which was the first thing she had said since Sam appeared on the deck of his boat. She wanted to ask him what was in the box he furtively stowed under his table, but good manners prevented her from asking. Better manners would be to manufacture some excuse to go down into the cabin and sneak a look.

“I'm not sure what I would do without it,” Sam said, accepting the jacket. With the innate neatness of a seaman, he folded it and stowed it in a nearby compartment before pointing Sabrina to the chair and opening the cooler.

“Drink?”

“No, I'll only stay a minute.”

Sam shrugged and pulled out a bottle of water. He was dressed in jeans and a dark long-sleeve cotton pullover, and his feet were bare. Somehow his bare feet were endearing, and Sabrina forced herself not to stare at them. They were very ordinary feet, after all, but they made him seem vulnerable. It was not a characteristic she was comfortable applying to Sam.

“How was your kayaking trip?” Sam asked, sitting down on the cooler and taking a long swig from the bottle.

“I fell in.”

Sam sputtered, and water ran down his chin. “Did you really?”

“Yes.”

Sam wiped his chin, leaned back against the rail, and stretched his feet out in front of him. The deck was small enough that this brought his legs within brushing distance of Sabrina's skirt.

“I wanted to ask you a question. When Matt called to ask you to take Gilbert over to Goat Island, was there anyone standing nearby when you took the call? Anyone who could have overheard you and known Gilbert was going to the island that afternoon?”

Sam was silent. He seemed to be staring at the sky, and after several moments of resisting the urge, she finally looked up. She once watched a reality show where an actor stood on a busy street and stared up at the sky. A camera rolled as person after person stopped and looked up as well. Soon a crowd gathered, pointing up at the sky and tall buildings, while telling each other knowledgeably what they were seeing.

This time, however, there was truly something to observe. The sky was a sheet of black onyx, smooth and shiny and flecked with the bright silver of stars. Sabrina felt she could reach up and pull the stars out of the sky one by one, stringing them into a cold, incandescent necklace.

“Did you know that they are training wasps to detect drugs and explosives? The wasps only take five minutes to train, and they're very good at finding contraband. The problem is they keep dying. They only live 12 to 22 days, you see, so you have to keep training a new bunch over and over again.” Sam spoke to the glory of the heavens, his words so low that Sabrina had to strain to hear. She waited, accustomed to his obfuscatory ways by now.

“One person's exercise in futility is another's salvation, I suppose.” He sighed and looked back over at Sabrina. She could barely see his eyes gleaming in the small string of Christmas lights strung up on the mast. “No, no one was around when Matt called about my taking Kane over to the island. If the killer had asked, I would gladly have divulged the information, but no one asked. I didn't tell a soul. Perhaps it was a fortuitous coincidence for his killer to be on the island at the same time as Kane. The universe works that way sometimes, you know.”

The small black cat dropped down into Sam's lap and he rubbed its ears as it rumbled its pleasure.

“What's the cat's name?”

“I don't know. Cat, I suppose.”

“Your cat doesn't have a name?”

“He showed up right after I got here. I wonder sometimes if he's going to leave the same way he arrived, but so far he seems content to stay around. When I leave, he may decide to come with me, he may not.”

“How long have you been here?” The strange conversation with an almost impalpable man in the dark was making Sabrina feel light-headed.

“A couple of months. I'll probably be around a couple more. I like it here.” He continued to rub the cat, and Sabrina sat with absolutely no urge to move. Sam didn't seem to find it strange that they should sit in silence in the near dark for a while.

After a while, Sabrina stirred and stretched. She felt alive and pleasantly numb. “I need to be going.”

Sam nodded but didn't speak. The only sound she heard was the ragged purr of the small nameless cat as she left.

***

Sabrina steered her station wagon down the narrow causeway that linked Shell Island with Comico. Clouds covered the moon and stars and no lights shone from the bulk of Comico Island in front of her. That section of the island was national park land, and nobody was out and about at this time of night.

Sabrina drove slowly over the causeway, conscious of the large rocks that lined the road and the lightless water just beyond. It was still Mitchell's Day, after all, and she did not want another run-in with the waters of the sound. Once was quite enough for one day.

The night was dark and thick, and her headlights seemed to make no headway against it. She slowed down even further, glad that there was no one behind her to complain.

Suddenly, she heard the roar of a motor. When she looked in the rearview mirror, she saw headlights bearing down on her at a high rate of speed. Someone was in a hurry. Flustered, she sped up, and then swerved to the shoulder. Large rocks loomed, and Sabrina yanked the car back onto the road.

Behind her the car was almost upon her, and at first it didn't look as if it were going to slow down or even try to miss her. At the last minute, the approaching vehicle slowed and then skidded around her, but it went by so close that Sabrina would have had trouble sliding a piece of paper between their cars. She slammed on the brakes and instinctively veered toward the rocks again. Sparks flew as her bumper skimmed first one rock and then another. If the other car got any closer, it would push her onto the rocks and into the black water beyond.

For just a moment, it looked as if that very thing was going to happen, but then the other car sped up and roared off down the causeway.

Sabrina stared at the departing vehicle with shaky disbelief, noticing just before it disappeared out of the range of her headlights that it was a Shell Lodge rental Jeep.