The Paradise Affair

18 Sabina

The side porch opened off of the kitchen. Cheng showed her the way after she encountered him in the central hallway. She took the opportunity to ask that he tell Miss Thurmond she wished to speak with her and to please wait with Mr. Oakes in the parlor. The houseman, used to being given orders and to obeying them unquestioningly, went to do as she requested.

Outside, Sabina went around to the rear of the house. Starting in close to the wall, she walked slowly back and forth for a distance of several feet on either side of the shutter-free window, her body bent forward and her eyes searching the ground. When she failed to find what she sought, she moved outward by two paces and repeated the process. She had to do this five times before her efforts were rewarded.

The first object she spied and quickly picked up was an irregular chunk of light-colored wood the size of a cookie, wafer-thin along one edge, tapering gradually to a thicker, rounded outer edge. The thin portion was scraped in two places, top and bottom. She slipped the piece into her skirt pocket and continued her search.

It did not take her long to find the second chunk of wood, for it was black and of a similar shape and somewhat larger size. One of its edges, too, was thin and flattish, the surface on one side scraped and marred by a tiny gouge the size of the splinter. This piece joined the other in her pocket.

She returned to the side porch and reentered the house. Before going to the parlor, she took a few moments to compose herself. Her exertions in the fiery glare of the sun had made her feel a trifle light-headed. Prickly oozings of perspiration glazed her face and trickled on the back of her neck; her blouse felt as if it were pasted to the skin between her shoulder blades. She loosened the garment, wiped away as much of the perspiration as she could with her handkerchief. Lord, how good a cold shower would feel just now!

Earlene Thurmond was waiting in the parlor with Philip Oakes, the two of them sitting stiff-backed some distance apart and ignoring each other. Both stood when Sabina entered. The young blond woman was indeed Junoesque, broad-hipped and abundantly endowed above the waist. Her eyes were a light gray, her mouth a somewhat pinched cupid’s bow. It was impossible to tell what she was thinking as she faced Sabina; her round countenance was as unreadable as a closed book.

Oakes had a glass in one hand; the amber color identified its contents as whiskey undiluted by either water or soda. He had not had enough of it to visibly affect him. His gaze was both expectant and impatient, as were his words when he spoke.

“What took you so long? Did you find out anything?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Not sure? What do you mean, not sure?”

“Just what I said.” Sabina gave her attention to Miss Thurmond, introduced herself.

“Yes, Mr. Oakes told me your name and why you’re here.” The woman was attractive only until she opened her cupid’s-bow mouth; her voice had a thin, reedy quality that befitted a less statuesque woman. “I don’t know what I can tell you that you don’t already know.”

“Perhaps nothing. Do you mind answering a few questions?”

“Not at all.”

“Have you an opinion as to how Mr. Pettibone died?”

“It may have been an accident, as Mr. Oakes believes, or it may have been suicide. The police think it was the latter.”

“They’re wrong,” Oakes said. “Wrong!”

Sabina said, “One or the other, then. You don’t suppose it could possibly have been foul play.”

Miss Thurmond arched one of her pale eyebrows. “Foul play? Of course not. The door and windows were bolted on the inside. Mr. Oakes and I made sure of that.”

“Which of you first checked the windows?”

“I don’t recall. Does it matter?”

“I’m just curious. Could it have been you?”

“I believe it was Mr. Oakes.”

“No, it wasn’t,” he said. “No, it wasn’t. I remember now... she told me the windows were locked when I came back from talking to you outside. Then I went over to have a look for myself. But I still don’t see that it matters.”

“Were they always kept closed and bolted during the day?” Sabina asked Miss Thurmond.

“Almost always, yes. With the drapes drawn over them. Mr. Pettibone didn’t care for the view.”

“The drapes were open on the night he died, weren’t they?”

“Yes, they were. He must have opened them for some reason. They were drawn when he and I left the study earlier that evening.”

“Did he check to see that the windows were bolted before you left?”

“Yes. Usually he did.” The eyebrow arched again, interrogatively. “I don’t understand what the windows have to do with what happened.”

“Neither do I,” Oakes said. “He was careless with the pistol, fired it accidentally — that is what happened.”

Sabina asked the secretary, “Do you have any idea why he went into the study armed with the pistol?”

“No. Unless he planned to use it on himself.”

The annoying Mr. Oakes interrupted again. “He didn’t, I tell you! He didn’t!”

“How did Mr. Pettibone seem to you that evening, Miss Thurmond? His state of mind, I mean.”

“He was grumpy because the book he was writing wasn’t going well. Otherwise, he seemed all right.”

“Had he shown any recent signs of despondency?”

“Not that I could tell. He was his usual self around me.”

“And what was his usual self?”

It was a few seconds before the woman answered. “Demanding and particular. He wanted everything done a certain way.”

“Did you get along well with him?”

“For the most part.”

“No friction of any kind?”

“Well, he wasn’t exactly generous, but you probably already know that. We never had words about my salary, though. Or about anything else. I know my place.”

Oakes emitted a rude snorting sound. Neither Miss Thurmond nor Sabina paid him any mind.

“Then you were satisfied with your position?” Sabina asked.

“Yes, quite satisfied,” Miss Thurmond said. “It won’t be easy to find another that includes room and board. Certainly not in Honolulu.”

“May I ask how you came to be employed by Mr. Pettibone?”

“Employed as his private secretary, you mean? I held previous secretarial positions at Great Orient Import-Export, first in the San Francisco office and then in the branch here when an opportunity for advancement opened. He found my work to be exemplary, and when he offered me this position, naturally I accepted.”

“Are you planning to move elsewhere now that he is deceased?”

“As soon as I can make arrangements to return to San Francisco. There is no reason for me to remain here.” She added, “Mr. Oakes certainly doesn’t require my services.”

“I require none of your services, that’s right,” he said with emphasis on the noun. “None of them.”

She continued to ignore him. He might not have been in the room at all as far as she was concerned. “If you have no more questions, Mrs. Quincannon, there are things that require my attention.”

“No more questions. Thank you for your candor.”

“Not at all.”

When Miss Thurmond was gone, Oakes said pettishly, “I don’t like that woman. I’ve never liked her. She’s a tramp. A trollop.”

The insult dripped rancor and bitterness. His dislike of Earlene Thurmond, Sabina suspected, was rooted in the rejection of advances made to her before or after she had moved into this house. It must have been a severe blow to his ego to think that she was willing to share his uncle’s bed and not his.

“Well, Mrs. Quincannon?” he said then. “Can accidental death be proven or can’t it?”

“I’m afraid not.”

The sound he emitted this time was one of distress. “But it is possible, isn’t it? It has to be.”

She was growing very tired of Philip Oakes and his obsessive behavior. She was hot, sticky-damp, still slightly light-headed, and not at all inclined to put up with him any longer. She said, “We have nothing more to discuss just now, Mr. Oakes,” and started out of the parlor.

He followed her. “What do you mean, ‘just now’? You’ll have something to say to me later? What? When?”

Lord, give me strength.

“Later,” she repeated firmly. “Now if you don’t mind, I’ll be leaving. You needn’t walk me back to the Pritchards’. Unless you have an objection, I will take the same route across the side lawn as I did last night.”

He had no objection, or at least none that he voiced. And he had the sense not to follow her through the kitchen and out the side porch.

She felt better after a wash and a short rest in the guesthouse bedroom. She had just finished changing into fresh clothing when Margaret appeared with an invitation to dinner. Sabina declined, pleading a headache. Margaret, fortunately, had no knowledge of her visit to the Pettibone house, so she did not have to make explanations or fend off questions.

The short rest had cleared her head; she sat on the porch to think over what she’d found at the Pettibone house and what it implied. She had no doubt now that Gordon Pettibone had been the victim of foul play. Nor was there any question in her mind of who had done the deed, or of how the sealed study had been entered before and exited afterward; that was the easily solvable part of the conundrum.

What she did not know yet was the why of it — the motive, the choice of place and time. Without that knowledge, or at least a clear idea of what those factors might be, she was reluctant to take her suspicions to the police.

She had the feeling that Gordon Pettibone’s dying words were the key to why. The meaning of “pick up sticks” continued to elude her, yet she felt that she ought to be able to figure it out. There must be something she was not considering. Something she had been told? Something she had overlooked in the study?

There was a stirring at the back of her mind. Could it have something to do with that index card she’d found in the Bible? She fetched the envelope on which she’d written the letters and numbers from the card, stared at the line until her eyes ached. RL462618359. Incomprehensible. Then she thought: By itself, yes, but perhaps not in conjunction with something else.

If only she could remember what it was that she had been told or had overlooked...