It's a Sin to Kill (7 page)

The cooking utensils presented a problem. Mary Lou had decided to pack them in a paper carton. There were always cartons in back of the drugstore. She got one and returned to the
Sally
.

There wasn't much to pack. A few pots, a few pans, a coffee pot, four plates, six cups and saucers.

Mary Lou stopped in her packing and looked thoughtfully into the small cabinet. Then she unpacked the utensils and dishes she'd packed.

There were six saucers but only five cups. One cup was missing. She lifted the pressure lantern from its peg and walked out into the cockpit. Charlie had a habit of leaving coffee cups strewn around. Half of the time he left his cup on top of the live bait well, even on the low roof of the cabin. But the sixth cup wasn't in the cockpit. Mary Lou closed her eyes. She'd said:

That's your story
.

Yeah
, Charlie had told her.
I
'
d just come in from catching my bait. I was making a pot of coffee when she came out on the pier and asked how much I'd charge to skipper the
Sea Bird
down to the Keys then up to Baltimore
.

Mrs. Camden?

Yeah. I said Yd have to think it over. Then she asked if she smelled coffee. I said she did. She asked if she could have a cup. I invited her to come aboard and I gave her a cup of coffee. And that's the last I remember
.

Mary Lou opened her eyes. It was fantastic. Or was it? To the best of her knowledge, Charlie had never lied to her before.

She fought a small wave of nausea. Whatever he'd done, Charlie loved her. And she'd walked out on him cold. She hadn't even told him she was standing by. She'd been ashamed to in front of so many people. She'd been thinking of herself not Charlie. She had allowed her hurt pride to come between. Even when she'd walked out at the end of
the inquest, she'd known she was going to stand by Charlie. But Charlie didn't know. Right now he was sitting in a cell thinking he hadn't a friend in the world.

Mary Lou looked down at the black water lapping at the sides of the
Sally
. She wished she was smarter than she was. What if someone had somehow doped the coffee and both Charlie and Mrs. Camden had been drugged? She wouldn't put it past either Mr. Camden or Mr. Ferris. Both of them were cool customers with a bloated sense of their own importance. She knew. She had to fend off the advances of men just like them six nights a week at the Beach Club, younger men who had married or attached themselves to older women. Especially Mr. Camden. He'd have felt worse if his pet dog had been run over. He'd been much more concerned about his wife's diamond ring than he had about her.

Mary Lou forced herself to think. The basin was unlighted. She might have come home any minute. She probably had come home a few minutes after Charlie had left the
Sally
with Mrs. Camden. The easiest way to dispose of a coffee cup one didn't have time to wash thoroughly would be to toss it over the side.

On impulse, she slipped out of the housecoat she'd put on when she'd taken off her evening gown and lowered herself over the side of the
Sally
. The water was cold with night but the tide was slack and there was no pull to it Here the water was two fathoms deep. She doubled her body into a knot and dived. Her groping hands encountered bottom, nothing more. She broke water, filled her lungs with air and dove again, this time farther from the boat.

There was little debris on the bottom. The basin was scoured by the tides. Mary Lou dived a fourth, then a fifth time. On her sixth dive her right hand encountered a small hard object. She grasped it and kicked her way to the surface. There was no moon. The light from the stars was too dim for her to see the object clearly. Treading water, Mary Lou shook her hair from her eyes and felt the object with both hands. It was the missing cup. At least, it was a cup.

Here was proof of Charlie's story. He and Mrs. Camden had been on the
Sally
. Charlie had made coffee. Then someone had thrown the cup that he or Mrs. Camden or both of them had used over the side of the boat.

Mary Lou swam back to the
Sally
holding the cup carefully in one hand. There were no trailing ropes. The transom
was too high for her to reach. She swam ashore and walked back out on the pier, hoping she wouldn't meet anyone. The water had molded her sheer scanties and bra to her body until they were merely an extra layer of flesh.

Back in the cabin of the
Sally
she set the cup on the small galley and examined it as she toweled her body. It was one of a set. It was the missing cup. She could tell because the bowl was glazed and there was a small chip in the handle.

As she toweled her hair, she started to cry and couldn't stop. Charlie hadn't been unfaithful to her. Every word of his story was true. She stopped crying and one corner of her mouth turned down. Someone thought they were a pair of rubes. Someone was playing them for chumps. Just because she worked at the Beach Club and Charlie was a charter boat captain.

She combed her hair and made up and put on her best dress, a combed white wool with a wide hand-tooled Guatemalan belt. She wouldn't wait until morning. She'd take the cup to Sheriff White right away and explain where she'd found it. If Sheriff White refused to believe her, she'd go to the State's Attorney. If he wouldn't listen to her, she'd take a bus to Tallahassee and talk to the Attorney General. It could be that even after its twenty-four hour immersion in the water, the cup would contain some trace of whatever drug had been used on Charlie.

Mary Lou debated how to carry the cup then wrapped it in a dry towel and put it in the suitcase with the elephant bank and Charlie's clothes. On second thought, she took the money from her purse and laid the fifteen hundred dollars flat on the bottom of the suitcase under Charlie's clean shirts and underwear.

One by one, the lights along the shore were winking out as the residents of the bait camps and the small cottages on the pass and the owners of the big houses on the bay called it a night. Only the jukes and the Beach Club were still lighted and would be for hours. She could call a cab from Harry's.

It was late, much later than she'd thought. Night was blending into early morning. The black waters lapping the sides of the
Sally
were beginning to gurgle and spin in little whorls around the creosoted pilings, gathering force and
momentum as slack tide ended and the water in the bay began to feel the irresistible pull of the outgoing tide.

Mary Lou fitted a small knitted hat to her still damp hair and took a last look around the cabin to see if she had missed anything Charlie could possibly use. She couldn't see a thing. She could buy him a carton of cigarettes in Harry's with love from Mary Lou.

She brushed at her eyes with the back of her hand. She was damned if she'd cry any more. The time for crying was past. What she wanted was action on Charlie's behalf. She meant to see that there was some.

From force of habit she locked the cabin of the
Sally
. Both she and Charlie always did. So did most of the charter boat fleet. Not that the tourists stole. But the charter boats were so quaint and the tourists were hell on souvenirs. Shep had caught one trying to lug off his compass.

Mary Lou set the suitcase on the pier and stepped up on the weathered planking. She'd almost reached the T, when she sensed or thought she sensed someone lurking behind a crooked piling.

She lowered the suitcase to the pier. Her voice was small. “Who's there?”

The only answer was that of the gurgle of the tide and the uniform creak of the mooring ropes of the long line of unlighted charter boats.

It's my nerves
, Mary Lou thought. Her nerves were shot Small wonder. Perhaps she'd have a coke and rum in Harry's while she was waiting for the cab to come out of town. The coke and rum that Charlie had offered her that morning.

She grasped the handle of the suitcase and started on again.

As she passed the crooked piling a white arm holding a short piece of pipe cut through the night in a short but vicious arc. The pipe struck the back of her head. Too stunned to scream, still clinging to the suitcase, Mary Lou fell to her knees and the piece of pipe found her head again.

She continued to kneel in an attitude of prayer. One star of all the millions in the sky grew brighter than the rest. It grew in size and brilliance until it filled the sky. Then the star exploded in a shower of shooting sparks and all was dark and silence.

S
HE WAS
cold. She was tired. She would dive once more, then give it up as hopeless. It was, after all, a fantastic story. It wasn't likely the cup would be on the bottom of the basin.

Mary Lou dived down and down in her quest. Her groping hands were unable to find bottom. The pressure on her chest increased until she felt as if she were being crushed. She opened her eyes on a wet black wall of water. She wasn't diving. She was drowning.

Fighting panic and the invisible force hurrying her along in the wet black void, she forced her body to the surface. Her lungs felt as if they were bursting. She had to breathe.

She broke water and filled her lungs with air. One glance at the black silhouette looming still blacker against the night was enough to tell her she was in the center of the pass not far from the bridge. She wasn't diving for the cup. She'd had it. Someone had knocked her out on the pier and rolled her body into the pass. Mary Lou fought to breathe. Her mind cleared slowly. She brushed her hair out of her eyes with one hand. Whoever had knocked her out hadn't rolled her off the pier. They'd rowed her to the center of the pass. The tide wouldn't have pulled her out of the basin this fast.

She stood a moment treading water, gulping air, glad there was no moon, hoping that whoever had hit her hadn't seen her break water. The back of her head felt numb. Her wool dress was binding her legs. Her wide leather belt felt like it was cutting her in two. She could hear, or thought she could hear, the creak of muffled oar locks. Then the pull of the outgoing tide swept her under the pier.

Mary Lou caught at one of the great concrete pilings and the accumulated barnacles tore at her hands. A huge fish cut the water nearby, leaving a phosphorescent wake. She hoped it wasn't a shark.

The pull of the tide was too strong. The barnacles were too sharp. Now she was out from under the pier. The tide was hurrying her toward the distant line of white breakers
and rip tides, where the swirling waters of the pass poured into the Gulf.

Mary Lou turned on her back and floated until she could breathe normally again. This was the route Helene Camden's body had been meant to travel. But the blonde woman had been dropped two hours later when the tide had begun to slacken.

Mary Lou unbuckled her wide belt and let it drop away from her body. She kicked off her shoes then fought her way out of her dress. Now she could swim. She turned on her side. The breakers were closer now. Once the rip tides caught her, she would be helpless. She kicked out strongly, forcing her body through the water, swimming to the right obliquely. If she could bring up on the hook, she could wade ashore from there. Even at high tide, less than three feet of water washed over the bar.

She swam for what seemed hours, not daring to rest or float. She tried a crawl then a side stroke, alternating between the two in an attempt to conserve her strength. Then one of her thrashing arms struck bottom. She was on the bar. Mary Lou lowered her bare feet to the sand and stood a long time, panting, sobbing with relief, fighting the pull of the tide. Then she waded ashore through waist-deep water, pausing from time to time to rest or glance at the sweep of headlights, as an occasional car crossed the now distant bridge.

She didn't know who had struck her. She didn't care. That was for Sheriff White to determine. Only one thing was clear. Charlie hadn't killed Helene Camden. Helene Camden had been killed by a man or a woman willing to kill a second time to cover up the first murder that he or she had committed.

When she reached the beach, Mary Lou sat on the sand until her legs and arms stopped trembling. The sand still retained some of the heat of the day but the night wind was cool on her bare flesh. She got to her feet and walked along the beach, chafing her arms and thighs to warm them. She didn't dare go back to the
Sally
for a dress. She couldn't go into town as she was.

There was a line of unlighted rental cottages on the hook. She cut in closer to them. Most of them had clotheslines strung from their porches to a wind-blown palm or stunted Australian pine tree. Most of the clotheslines were draped
with damp bathing suits. Mary Lou picked one that she thought would fit her and found an almost dry white terry cloth robe.

She struggled into the bathing suit and zipped it, then put on the white robe. It was damp but it cut off the wind. She could return them in the morning.

The important thing right now was for her to contact Sheriff White and tell him what had happened to her….

• • •

There were lights in the lobbies of the hotels, in the Owl Diner, in the railroad station and in the all-night filling station on Fourth Street, but for the most part, Palmetto City slept. The long rows of green benches were deserted. With the exception of an occasional police cruiser and the Street Department crews sweeping and hosing down the streets, there was little vehicular or pedestrian traffic.

There were also lights in the Palmetto City police station. In the small back room of the station, reserved for county use, Sheriff White lighted a fresh cigar as he got to his feet.

His voice was unutterably weary. “Okay. Have it your way, Charlie. It's your story and you're stuck with it. But for my money, the whole affair stinks. I've a feeling we're being diddled.” The aged sheriff was indignant. “Why, that smooth son-of-a-bitch of a Camden didn't feel as bad about his wife being daid as I would about losin' a five dollar bill.”