Start Screaming Murder

Chapter Six

She sat thinking about it for so long that I began to wonder if she’d heard me.

Then she said in a sobered tone, “You’re not working for Alex at all. You’re a cop, aren’t you?”

“I give you my word, sweetheart...”

“I don’t think I’d better talk to you any more until Alex gets back.”

Her mind was made up. That small, cute chin had a stubborn tilt.

“All right,” I said. “I’ll level with you. I was, in a way, working for your father. I was trying to locate Bucks and came out here to inquire around. Mr. Lessard asked me to let him know if I found Bucks.”

“So you found him.”

“No. Somebody else found him in the way that you mean.”

“Then why trouble yourself further?”

“I’m a private detective. I have my reasons.”

“I’ll bet you have.” I saw anxiety growing in her eyes. She stood up with much difficulty. “Go away,” she said, “you got no business here.”

“You don’t seem very put out by Bucks’ death.”

“Why should I? He was another crud.”

“You didn’t seem to feel that way about him.”

She stood swaying, holding the back of the deck chair with one hand. “Now who in hell could have told you that? A Tampa female he was trying to make jealous?”

“Was there room for jealousy?”

“Oh, cripes, he thought every woman was gone on him. I annoyed him a little because I was bored.”

“The Tampa police might like to hear about it.”

“You’re not scaring me any, old pal Ed.”

“That sounds like a denial.”

She moved away from the chair. Her mind mustered dignity, but her legs refused to go along. She tipped toward the rail.

When I sprang and caught her, she screamed softly. The sensuous contours of her lithe body writhed around. Her nails flashed across my cheek.

She wheeled away dizzily, came in contact with the rail, and pinwheeled over the side.

I rushed to the rail and looked at the darkening water. The last drops of the shower caused by her fall rasped back to the surface.

As the water stilled, I saw the shadow of her under the surface. She was rising slowly, limply.

I plunged in feet first, grabbed her around the waist when the water quit roaring over me. Threshing, I somehow got us both to the surface. Gagging on sea water, blowing it out of my nose, I used a combination of dog-paddle and dirty wrestling tactics against the water.

I made it the few feet to the ladder, grabbed and held on. The dead weight of her draped across my forearm tried to pull us back. As soon as I got breath, I decided she was lighter in the water.

I ducked under, shoved her across my shoulder, and pulled again at the ladder. The rope stretched with a small sound like clean, thoroughly rinsed hair.

I hoisted her on deck, stretched her out face down. She didn’t need artificial respiration. Already she was groaning sickly.

She turned over slowly and looked up at me. Droplets of water were on her face, her lashes. With the playsuit plastered to her, it was hard to keep my mind on business. I kneeled beside her and picked her up. She lay against me in limp exhaustion, arms and legs dangling. The liquor and shock of the water had sapped her. With the dew of the warm, salty bay on her face, she looked vulnerable and incredibly tired.

I moved aft, stooped, and carried her down the hatchway. There was a lounge of sorts, a small galley, and beyond that a companionway. The first door I tried was locked. The second opened as my fingers, extended from under her, turned the knob.

I pushed the door with my foot. The cabin was small, with a bunk down one side, a built-in sort of combination dressing table and storage compartment down the other. The single porthole stood open. An exhaust fan was humming softly somewhere in the boat, bringing a continuous wash of air from outside.

I placed D. D. on the bunk and stepped back to get my breath. A glanced showed me that the cabin was like the rest of the schooner, worn from hard usage and lacking in the finer points of meticulous care, but sound and serviceable.

“Thanks,” she said, very quietly.

“What did you expect me to do? Where are some towels?”

“There. That top drawer.”

I got out a towel, pitched it to her, and helped myself to a second.

She acted as if she wanted to sit up, but she was too weak.

“Maybe you need a doctor,” I suggested.

“Nope. Another drink will get the old corpuscles in motion.”

“Don’t you think...”

“Uh-uh, Ed. No lectures. You just saved my life. Want to kill me by refusing me a drink?”

“I’ll go topside and dry out,” I said. “Give you a chance to change. You can get your own drink.”

“Mean old bear, aren’t you?” She was able to giggle again.

I went on deck, took off my shirt, and wrung it out. I pressed my wallet between folds of the towel. The rest of my clothes would have to dry where they were. I used the towel to dry my face, arms, back, and chest, and then I put the shirt on again.

I heard the scuff of her footsteps. I turned and saw her coming forward. She’d put on a light blouse and skirt: In the early darkness she looked wan, pale, the ash blonde hair still limp about her face.

I looked at the drink in her hand. “Trying to fall down dead in that stuff?”

“Would it matter to you?”

“For some strange reason, yes. You remind me of somebody. Some quality the two of you have in common. Her name is Tina.”

“Is she beautiful?” D. D. asked.

“Very much. She’s a show girl — all three feet of her.”

I caught the change in her face. She turned and moved toward a deck chair. I took her arm and put enough pressure on to force her to face me.

“Where is she, D. D.?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You were jarred when I mentioned her.”

She laughed. It sounded weak and forced. “No — I was thinking of a kid three feet tall being a show girl.”

“She’s a midget.”

“Oh?”

“Knew Bucks Jordan,” I said.

She yielded beyond the pressure of my hand, her body sliding toward me. The touch of her length against mine was firm but pliant. There was an aura about her like the warm damp of the tropical water whispering against the hull of the Sprite.

“If you’re trying to parboil me,” I said, “you’re making a fine start.”

“Good,” she murmured. Her arms slid around my neck.

Tampa, cops and a possible murder rap faded to the dark side of the moon. The green eyes were half closed, the lips parted. My breathing clogged up.

Then I reached and took her wrists in my hands and broke her grip.

“Only I keep thinking about Bucks,” I said, “and the fact that he came to this boat, then deserted it, then ended up dead.”

D. D. showed no embarrassment in being rebuffed, no anger, no scorn. She looked at me a moment. Then she pulled herself away, walked to the deck chair, and sat down. She still had the remains of the drink in her hand. She studied it briefly before she killed it.

The raw liquor brought a small cough from her. “You know something,” she said in a liquor-strangled tone, “you’re old-fashioned, that’s what. Furthermore, you’re a damn fool. On top of that, I don’t like your insinuations. My father and I are not murderers. We’re... I guess you could call us vagabonds. We wander as we damn please. Maybe the Shangrila we’re looking for isn’t on the face of this earth. But that’s our own business, isn’t it?”

She looked at me over the empty glass. “We came here as tourists, pure and simple. Bucks worked for us briefly. Then he quit. We haven’t seen him since.”

“All pure and simple,” I said.

“That’s right — and you can get the hell off this boat, Ed, or should I say Mr. Rivers?”

“Maybe I’ll stick around and talk to your father.”

“Alex will tell you the same thing I have.”

“I don’t doubt that, D. D. But I’d like to hear it from him. There might be a minor variation or two.”

“Not tonight,” she said. “Over the side with you, or I’ll radio the authorities.”

She set the glass beside the chair. She stood up. Maybe it was the liquor, or she was dredging deep into her reserves. The weakness in her was gone now.

I went over the side and got in the flat-bottom. As I cast off, I looked up at her. She’d followed me to the rail.

“Ed...”

I sat holding the oars while the skiff drifted a few feet.

“Ed, thanks anyhow for fishing me out of the drink.”

“Any time,” I said.

As I rowed in, I reflected on the fact that she could have phrased it differently, taken a completely opposite mental attitude and point of view. After all, if I hadn’t gone out to the Sprite, she never would have fallen overboard and endangered her life in the first place.

I docked the flat-bottom, walked down the rickety wooden pier, and spotted a light under the pines thirty yards or so away.

The light came from a weathered, frame cottage that was mostly screened-in porch. At a table on the porch the bait camp operator was wolfing fish and hush-puppies, washing the grub down with coffee from a thick mug. He was still clothed only in jeans and sneakers. I wondered if he’d ever had a shirt on.

Swarms of mosquitoes welting my hands and face, I knocked on the screen door. The proprietor belched comfortably, got to his feet, and picked up a newspaper from a pile of magazines on an old rattan chair.

He cracked the door, reached out with the newspaper, and scared the mosquitoes off. Then he told me to come in.

He took in my rumpled condition. “You lost my boat?”

“No, it’s snugged in the slip.”

“That’s good.” He returned to the table and resumed eating, having a wonderful time with handfuls of greasy mullet.

He stopped eating when I moved to the table and shoved my identification under his nose. “Ed Rivers, the private cop. I’ve heard of you. Regular Tampa landmark, ain’t you. Only I told you the first time you was here, I don’t know nothing about the Sprite or the people on her. The water’s for free. She can anchor where she likes.”

“You’re not at all curious.”

“Nope. Don’t pay.”

“The Sprite came from Peru.”

“Did she?”

“Not by herself,” I said.

“Don’t seem likely, does it?”

“There had to be a crew. Must be a deckhand or two kicking around someplace.”

He continued eating, digging chunks of white flesh of mullet with his fingers and shoving them into the fish oil smear of his mouth. “I figure they’re Americans on the boat, or foreign folks with the right papers. Ain’t heard of no law getting broke. Don’t believe in poking my nose, neither.”

I creased a twenty dollar bill and laid it beside his plate. A brown lump of hush-puppy stopped halfway to his mouth.

“Two fellows,” he said. “They were on the Sprite when she dropped anchor.”

“Do you know their names?”

“Heard them talking. Kincaid and Smith.”

“Where are they now?”

“Don’t know.” He slid the twenty off the table. “They came ashore the day after she anchored. Way they acted, I figured they’d been in ship’s quarters long enough. Wanted pavement under their feet and bright lights around them.”

“When was that?”

“Couple weeks ago. Maybe longer. I think it was on a Thursday. You know how it is. Same hot sun, same sky day after day. Time don’t mean much.”

“Have they been back?”

He nodded. “Now and then.”

“Like on a schedule?”

“How would I know?”

“What do they look like?”

“I dunno. Just a couple guys.” He thought for a moment. “Dressed okay, talked polite. But tough. Not in the mouth or walk where it don’t count. Tough.”

“You know the Scanlons?”

“I’ve seen them.” He pinched up the last flecks of mullet. “They go out to the Sprite regular.”

“They didn’t come in on her?”

“Nope. Showed up the day she got in, though.”

“Sounds like,” I said, “they came from some place else, arriving here specifically to meet the Sprite.”

He grunted. He’d had his quota of talking for a week.