Robert B. Parker’s Someone to Watch Over Me

54

Back at the cottage and lying in bed, I still felt the rocking of the boat.

Hawk was off reconnoitering with Karena while I rested and checked in with Susan. The jalousie windows were cranked open and the back door ajar. You could hear the ebb and flow of the surf. Wind chimes tinkled from the back porch.

“Your dog ate another shoe,” Susan said.

“Was it a good one?”

“All my shoes are good ones,” she said. “This one was a Jimmy Choo.”

“Thank God she didn’t get both.”

“Yes,” Susan said. “I can’t wait to hobble out to an expensive dinner when you get home.”

“Just hold on to my arm,” I said. “No one will notice.”

“Other than her appetite for fashion, Pearl’s been a sweetheart,” she said. “She whines and whimpers, keeps walking to the door waiting for your return.”

“The sound of her master’s voice.”

“Or maybe it’s because you feed her while you cook.”

“Just a nibble here and there.”

We were set to meet Godfrey and his contact late that afternoon. I planned to spend the hours in between on a towel by the water’s edge. I had found a Styrofoam cooler under the sink and packed it with ice and a six-pack of Kalik. There was no reason Hawk should have all the fun.

“Any luck?” Susan said.

I told her about meeting up with Godfrey and the stout Captain Rex, who may or may not be able to bend metal bars in his teeth. I left out the part about me getting seasick. I didn’t wish to burden her with my maladies.

“When will you go?”

“Soon,” I said. “I hope. Until then I plan to rest and drink beer.”

“That’s very selfless of you.”

Susan was quiet for a moment. I closed my eyes and the bed stopped moving up and down.

“I hope this doesn’t cross any boundaries,” she said. “But in your absence, Mattie and I did some further checking into Steiner’s friend, Poppy Palmer.”

“And you learned she’s actually a kind and giving person.”

“Um, no,” Susan said. “She seems to be a fucking train wreck.”

“Was that a headline in Psychology Today?”

“Did you know her father committed suicide?”

“No,” I said. “I did not.”

“He was a self-made man,” she said. “Born to an impoverished family in London, he made his fortune in real estate but ended up losing it all. Owned a string of resorts in Portugal and a professional football club. That’s soccer to the ugly American. Oh, and he also hung himself at their country estate at Christmas. Poppy was there. She was thirteen.”

“And that made her susceptible to Steiner?”

“No,” Susan said. “I think that made Steiner susceptible to her.”

“Come again?”

“After I read about her father, I went to a message board and reached out to some therapists in Boston,” she said. “This is sometimes done in cases of someone being a threat to themselves or others.”

“And what did you find?”

“I heard back from a therapist who would not confirm or deny she worked with Poppy,” Susan said. “But apparently, if we were talking about Poppy, there was an indication of years of physical and sexual abuse by the father. This goes back to what we’ve already discussed.”

“Poppy wants to master that time,” I said. “By creating it again and again.”

“Wow,” Susan said. “You were paying attention.”

“And what about Peter Steiner?” I said. “What makes him do what he does?”

“Oh,” Susan said. “I just think he’s plainly fucked up.”

“Do you mind speaking slower?” I said. “Your fancy terminology confuses me.”

“Of course it does.”

“Did the therapist think that’s why Poppy’s father killed himself?”

There was silence between Cat Island and Cambridge. A small yip on the other end of the line. And then more barking.

“No,” Susan said. “She thinks Poppy may have had something to do with it.”

“At thirteen?” I said.

“Never too young to kill your sexually abusive father.”

We spoke for another minute or so or until Pearl insisted on getting one of her many daily walks. I hung up, changed into my swim trunks, grabbed the cooler and a pair of sunglasses, and walked to the small back porch.

I looked out at the cool blue ocean and dialed Epstein’s number in Miami. After two rings, he picked up.

“I have a theoretical question for you,” I said.

“For which I will give you a theoretical reply.”

“If I happened to help free an American citizen in a foreign land, would Uncle Sam assist me with the paperwork needed to get her home?”

“Does this theoretical person have a passport?”

“She may,” I said. “But she may have to leave in a hurry.”

“I don’t see that being a problem.”

“And there might be others with her.”

“How many?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you know?”

“That when she returns home, she’ll have a wild story to tell.”

“She a kid?”

“Fifteen.”

Epstein let out a lot of air.

“International travel with a minor for sexual purposes?” Epstein said. “Yeah. I’d be interested in hearing her story. Will you be flying back through Miami?”

“I can.”

“See that you do.”