The Second Richard Deming Mystery MEGAPACK™: 23 Classic Mystery Stories

Mother Love

Originally published in Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, April 1981.

Ostensibly Pamela Quillan purchased the island of Paraquito from General Alfredo Mendez because she wanted an isolated retreat to recover from the breakup of her sixth marriage. But the underlying reason was simply that she didn’t own an island, and when you are a chain store heiress with four hundred million dollars to ease your boredom, you can afford to indulge multi-million-dollar whims.

General Mendez’s reasons for selling the island, whose ownership by his family traced back to a sixteenth-century royal grant by the king of Spain, was more apparent than Pamela’s reason for buying. Technically Paraquito, which was situated in the Mona Passage halfway between the islands of Hispaniola and Puerto Rico, was part of the Dominican Republic. After backing an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the government of the Dominican Republic, General Mendez thought it discreet to unload his ancestral home and run for Europe before it occurred to the government to confiscate it. Pamela got it lock, stock and barrel for eight million dollars.

Although supposedly subject to the laws of the Dominican Republic, for all practical purposes the only law on Paraquito for 400 years had been the decrees of the Mendez family, whose power rested on the simple economic fact that the Carib natives were living on and farming Mendez land, which put them in the same relationship to the island’s owner as that of medieval serfs to their barons. The Indians, still nearly as primitive as they had been when the first Spanish conquistadors landed on the island, were used to and accepted despotic rule.

Pamela inherited this absolute power when she acquired title to the island.

Although the initial idea behind the purchase had been to isolate herself from the outside world, Pamela quickly fell so in love with the island that she seldom visited the various other homes she maintained around the world, even after her marital scars healed. Paraquito possessed something increasingly difficult to find anywhere: a combination of unspoiled primitive beauty and all modern conveniences. The twenty-room house, surrounded by several smaller buildings that housed servants and livestock, was as up-to-date as a Hilton hotel, yet was within walking distance of primeval jungle.

Pamela’s favorite spot became the tide pools on the coral reef off the north shore, clear across the island from the house. The south shore was an unbroken stretch of white sand beach. The northern shore was bounded by a solid line of towering cliffs that looked down onto a pounding surf. A single wide stream, fed by a central lake, poured through a gap in the cliffs, giving the only access to the reef. The tide pools were always full of fascinating things such as star fish, sea horses, sea anemones and baby octopuses, as well as a great variety of colorful shells. Pamela could spend hours investigating them.

On her first visit she innocently suggested to her muscular young Indian guide that they take a dip in the relatively calm stretch of water between the reef and the cliff some hundred yards away. Paxhali gazed at her with his mouth open.

“Shark,” he said finally. “Too many shark.”

Frowning at the gently rolling surface. Pamela suddenly saw three large fins simultaneously emerge and race away in formation. Paxhali saw them too.

“Great white shark,” he said. “All big fellow, maybe eighteen, twenty feet long. Sometimes grow thirty feet long.”

“Are there any off the south shore too?” she asked apprehensively, thinking of the many times she had swum there.

“Oh, no. Water too shallow. Deep here, also full of fish. No worry about swim off south beaches.”

Learning that the lagoon was infested with man-eating sharks didn’t spoil Pamela’s enjoyment of the reef because it seemed apparent there was danger only if you went swimming. Because of the excellent fishing, the lagoon was always dotted with native canoes, which the sharks made no effort to molest. Pamela felt that if the flimsy canoes were safe, her fiberglass speedboat had to be.

A small thorn in her garden of happiness was her discovery of the title the natives had bestowed on her. She learned of it the day Paxhali brought a shy teenage Indian girl to the house and asked Pamela’s permission to marry.

“Why do you ask me?” Pamela inquired.

“Because you are La Madre.”

“I’m not your mother,” Pamela said indignantly. Only forty-two, and looking no more than thirty as a result of diet, exercise and plastic surgery, she resented the suggestion that she was old enough to give motherly advice.

Looking confused, the young Indian guide said, “You are the mother of all, Señora.”

“All who?” Pamela demanded.

“Those on the island. I can no marry Wawaiya without you permit.”

While being regarded as a mother figure by some 120 °Carib Indians didn’t particularly appeal to her, Pamela grudgingly found some humor in it. “All right, you have my permission,” she said. “When’s the wedding?”

“At the new moon. Twenty day.”

“Am I supposed to give away the bride?”

“Wawaiya and I would be honor.”

“All right,” Pamela said indulgently. “Give me a few days notice.” Later she inquired of Juan DiMarco why the natives had bestowed the La Madre title on her. Pamela had inherited the affable thirty-six-year-old bachelor from General Mendez, for whom DiMarco had served as overseer. In Europe the general didn’t need an overseer, but the island still did. DiMarco supervised the native farms and the fishing industry, handled the export of grain and fish, the import of needed goods, and generally ran the business of the island.

“The natives are essentially children,” the overseer explained in answer to Pamela’s question. “The senior male member of the Mendez has been called El Padre for generations. You are the first female ruler Paraquito ever had.”

“What do you mean, ruler?”

“Don’t you understand that you have absolute power here, Pam? You could order natives whipped, or even shot, if you wanted to.”

“That’s terrible! I would never do either!”

“There’s nothing to prevent you being a benevolent dictator, if that’s your bag,” DiMarco said with a smile. “It will bemuse the natives, because the Mendezes were pretty despotic. But they’ll adjust to it. They’ve been adjusting to the whims of dictators for four hundred years.”

“Don’t call me a dictator,” Pamela objected. “I just bought the island, not the people on it.”

“You bought the whole ball of wax,” the overseer told her. “You may as well get used to reigning.”

When Pamela was ready to come out of her self-imposed isolation, it was unnecessary for her to leave the island in order to rejoin the international jet set. She merely let it be known that she was back in circulation, and the Beautiful People came to her, the possession of 400 million dollars being a powerful social magnet.

She started in a small way by scheduling what she whimsically called her “coming out party” for about two dozen of her closest friends. One of the invited guests was the internationally famous race car driver, Baronet Ambrose Harding. He was an old friend, but it occurred to Pamela that there was at least a possibility that their relationship would now ripen into something even more intimate. The baronet had been divorced from his second wife about the same time Pamela was shedding her sixth husband. He was about ten years younger than her, but all except her first husband had been several years younger. While she was not yet consciously husband hunting, she looked forward to seeing the baronet in his new bachelor status.

All but a half dozen of the guests would arrive aboard various yachts. The other six, who all happened to be on the Riviera when their invitations arrived, were flying together from there to San Juan, where they were scheduled to land at 7:30 Saturday morning. Because Ambrose Harding was in that group. Pamela decided to go along when her pilot flew her private plane to meet them.

Pamela and Juan DiMarco breakfasted together at six Saturday morning. Tom York, the pilot, had already breakfasted and was checking out the jet prepatory to taking off for Puerto Rico at six-thirty.

They were just finishing breakfast when the distant sound of a drumbeat came from the interior of the island. There was no rhythm to the sound, merely being a series of discordant thumps, repeated several times.

“What’s that?” Pamela asked DiMarco.

He shrugged. “I don’t read the drums.”

“Read them? You mean some kind of message?”

“Uh huh. Louquo can read them.” He turned to the Indian girl who was just pouring them second cups of coffee. “Tell the criado principal to step in, Pahali.”

The chief servant was a wizened but erect man of seventy. After listening to the drumbeat, he said that one of the natives of a village near the central lake had been bitten by a water moccasin.

Pamela said in surprise, “I thought there weren’t any snakes on Caribbean islands.”

“The moccasin is the only kind on Paraquito,” Louquo said with a curious air of apology. “What does La Madre wish to reply?”

“Don’t call me that,” Pamela said irritably. “I’m not your mother. Why should I reply anything? Isn’t it just a news bulletin?”

The old man shook his head. “The message is meant for you. It asks if you can obtain some white-man medicine.”

“Don’t the natives have any treatment for snakebite?”

“Yes, señora, for ordinary bites. But this was in the neck.”

“Jesus,” DiMarco said. “We’ll have to get the poor devil to San Juan for antitoxin.”

Frowning, Pamela asked Louquo how long it would take to get the snakebite victim to the house.

“Two hours, perhaps, with the fastest canoemen.”

Looking at her watch, Pamela said, “If the plane’s on time, we could be back by then.”

Staring at her, DiMarco said, “You certainly don’t plan to take off now, before the victim gets here.”

“I certainly don’t plan to let my guests cool their heels for two hours at the San Juan airport.”

After gazing at her for several more seconds, the overseer said to the aged criado principal, “That will be all, Louquo,” then said to the maid serving them, “We won’t need you anymore either, Pahali.”

When both servants were gone, Pamela said, “I take it you want privacy because I’m going to get a lecture.”

DiMarco nodded. “About the facts of life on Paraquito. Will you get it through your head, Pam, that you are absolute ruler here, and as such have some definite responsibilities?”

“I am not absolute ruler!”

The overseer made an impatient gesture. “You are in the eyes of the natives. They’re used to despotic rule, and could understand harshness, or even cruelty, because a long line of Mendezes subjected them to both for four centuries. But the Mendezes, like most enduring despots, also took care of their subjects when the need arose, much as harsh parents rise to protect their children in emergency, even though they tend to abuse them other times. The natives are accustomed to regarding the island’s owner as a sort of all-knowing parent, which is why they labeled you La Madre. A cruel mother they could understand, but they would never forgive indifference.”

“Why are you making such a big deal of it, Juan? I’ll be back in two-and-a-half hours at the latest.”

“You don’t know that. The flight into San Juan may be late. The victim could get here in an hour and a half, anyway, instead of two. Louquo’s no canoeman. Believe me, it’s extremely important, not just for humanitarian reasons, but for your status on this island, that you wait.”

Tom York came in to tell Pamela the plane was ready for takeoff. Rising to her feet, Pamela said to the overseer, “Tell Louquo to have the patient brought here, and that Tom will fly him to San Juan as soon as we get back.”

It did take less time than Louquo had estimated for the canoemen to traverse the winding jungle stream from the lake. The snakebite victim arrived shortly after eight a.m. and was given a bed in the servants’ quarters. At nine Pamela contacted the house by radio. There was no phone service on the island, but there was a shortwave radio room in the house, and Tom York had instructed all the house servants in its operation.

Juan DiMarco was out on the veranda, peering east in the hope of spotting the returning plane when the call came. The weather was clear, with a limitless ceiling, he was happy to see, but the ocean was getting rough. The guests arriving by yacht would probably be late, he thought, because headway against such high seas would be difficult.

When Louquo came to tell the overseer that their employer was on the radio, he hurried to the radio room and said into the mike, “Juan here, Pam.”

Pamela’s voice came from the speaker quite clearly. “Any of the guests show yet, Juan?”

“No, and they’ll probably show late, because seas are running high. The snakebite victim has been here for nearly an hour, though. What’s the holdup?”

“The flight was late. How is he?”

“It’s a she, not a he. She looks to me like she’s dying.”

“Well, tell her we’re doing everything we can for her. There’s been a slight change of plans. I’m not going to be able to get back for a while, so I’ve made other arrangements. I want you to run the woman over to Mayagues in the speedboat. The public hospital there has been alerted that you’re coming. They don’t have any snakebite antitoxin, but I’ve arranged for some to be trucked there from San Juan.”

“Pam, there isn’t time for that. The victim’s dying.”

“Nonsense,” Pamela’s voice came from the speaker. “Mayagues isn’t more than eighty miles from there, and the speedboat can do fifty miles an hour. You can get her there faster than I could fly back for her.”

“Not today, I can’t. I told you the seas are running high. We would be lucky to make it in four hours.”

“Juan, there’s nothing else to be done, so don’t argue. We have to fly the plane to Nassau.”

“Why?”

“Because Piggy and Sue Barton are stranded there. Their yacht has engine trouble. They phoned a message to the San Juan airport because they knew Tom was meeting the seven-thirty a.m. flight.”

DiMarco said, “For God’s sake, Pam, this is more important than your friends’ inconvenience. Call them back and tell them to rent another yacht. If that’s the Bartons I think it is, they have nearly as much money as you.”

The voice coming from the speaker was sharp and definite. “Juan, Piggy and Sue’s convenience is a lot more important to me than that of an ignorant savage I have never even seen. I am not those people’s mother, you know, regardless of what they think.”

The overseer had a sudden idea. “Why can’t you charter a plane to send the serum and a doctor here?”

“I already thought of that. There’s nothing available small enough to land on our airstrip. The local police have helicopters, but they aren’t allowed to fly them into the jurisdiction of a foreign country. I’m not going to argue with you any more, Juan, because I don’t have time. You had better get moving. Over and out.”

DiMarco flipped the microphone switch from Receive to Transmit and said, “Wait a minute, Pam.”

There was no reply.

Irritably the overseer turned away from the mike. Louquo was standing in the doorway.

“You hear all that?” DiMarco asked the old man.

Louquo nodded impassively.

“Then you know the situation. Have one of the maids make some kind of bed in the boat and have the patient carried down to it. Make sure she’s wrapped warmly in blankets.”

“Si, señor,” the old man said.

It was nearly two p.m. when the small jet returned from Nassau loaded with guests. They had already started partying on the plane, and everyone was in such a gay mood, Pamela completely forgot to inquire about the snakebite victim until she suddenly realized a couple of hours later that Juan DiMarco was missing. Then she hunted up Louquo to ask what had happened.

“Señor DiMarco took the girl in the boat right after you radioed,” the old man said.

“Girl?” Pamela said. “I thought it was a woman.”

“Well, yes, señora, but a young one. About eighteen.”

“Juan should be back by now,” Pamela said with a frown. “I didn’t mean for him to wait until the patient is fully recovered. Ask him to report to me as soon as he returns.”

The boat didn’t return until six p.m. By then all the guests had arrived and the party was in full swing. Juan DiMarco found Pamela on one of the upstairs balconies with a handsome, bronzed man she introduced as Sir Ambrose Harding.

The overseer’s clothing was drenched with salt water and he looked exhausted. After politely shaking hands with the baronet, he said to Pamela in a tired voice, “Louquo said you wanted to see me.”

“Yes. How did things go?”

“About as I expected. She was dead on arrival. The doctor figured she’d been dead about an hour, which means about three hours after we left.”

“Three hours? It took you four hours to make eighty miles?”

“I told you it would.” After a period of silence, DiMarco added, “At the request of the father I brought the body back. He went along in the boat. According to native belief the girl’s spirit would forever wander instead of entering the eternal jungle if she weren’t buried on home ground.”

“I see,” Pamela said. There was another period of silence before she finally said, “I’m sorry.”

“I knew you would be,” the overseer said.

Making an abrupt about-face, he went back inside.

“What was that all about?” the baronet asked.

“One of the island’s Indians was bitten by a snake. Juan took her by speedboat to Mayagues on the west coast of Puerto Rico, about eighty miles from here. Unfortunately he didn’t get there in time.”

“That’s too bad,” the baronet said.

Pamela grew conscious of someone standing in the arched doorway onto the balcony. Glancing that way, she saw it was Louquo.

Because she suspected he had been standing there listening to the whole conversation with the overseer, her tone was a trifle sharp. “Well?”

“When does the señora wish the buffet served?” the old man inquired in his most formal manner.

Glancing at her watch, Pamela said in a more pleasant tone, “Not for about an hour, Louquo. Give the guests a little more cocktail time.”

The weekend was not as great a success as Pamela had hoped. The guests seemed to enjoy themselves, but Pamela was disappointed in Ambrose Harding. While he obliquely implied that he was available for an affair if Pamela were interested, he made it quite clear that he had no desire to remarry which ruled him out completely so far as she was concerned. Despite her six husbands, there was a puritanical streak in Pamela that made it impossible for her to enter into casual affairs. As a matter of fact, the reason she had married so many times was that she was incapable of sleeping with any man out of wedlock.

On Monday morning when Tom York flew the Baronet and his party back to San Juan, and the Bartons on to Nassau, Pamela did not go along. When the last yacht departed shortly afterward, she suddenly felt lonely. Hunting down Louquo, she told him to send someone to Paxhali’s village to tell the guide she wanted to take the speedboat across the island after lunch.

Paxhali showed up a little after one p.m., and they took off along the winding jungle stream leading to the central lake about one-thirty. When the speedboat shot from the mouth of the freshwater outlet into the lagoon, only one old man in a canoe was fishing. Pamela waved to him as they went past, and he waved back.

The tide was just starting to come in when they arrived at the reef. Paxhali, as usual, pulled the bow of the boat up on the reef, then stood on guard near it while Pamela went to examine the tide pools.

Today there was an unusual wealth of sea life in the pools. Pamela became so fascinated that she was unaware of how much time had passed until water began to lap over her canvas shoes. Then, glancing around, she saw that only the higher portions of the reef were still above water. She was going to have to wade back to the boat.

At that moment she realized that although Paxhali still stood where she had left him, the speedboat was gone. Her gaze skimmed over the water in all directions, and she spotted the boat just as the pounding surf carried it crashing against the base of the cliff, smashing it to pieces.

How careless of Paxhali, she thought, irritated but hardly alarmed. There was no cause for alarm because the old man in the canoe was heading for the reef.

Paxhali stepped into the canoe while Pamela was still wading through knee-deep water in that direction. By the time she reached the high spot where the young Indian had been standing, the canoe had drifted off a dozen yards. Pamela stood looking at it expectantly, waiting for its return. Paxhali was seated in the boat’s center and had picked up a paddle. The old man in the stern had his paddle in the water and was moving it just enough to keep the canoe stationary.

After a few moments, Pamela said, “What are you waiting for? Tell him to bring the canoe over here, Paxhali.”

“He understands English, señora,” the young Indian said. “His name, Pia.”

Pamela said to the old man, “Pia, come here and get me.”

Pia stared at her unblinkingly, still moving his paddle just enough to keep the canoe in place.

“What’s the matter with him?” Pamela asked on a high note. “I thought you said he understood English.”

“I guess he close his ears,” Paxhali said. “He Wawaiya’s father.”

“Who?” she asked blankly.

“Wawaiya, my bride-to-be. You remember, the one bitten by la serpiente.”

Pamela gazed at him openmouthed.

“We would return for you, La Madre, but we have no time,” Paxhali said tonelessly. “Is something more important we must do. Is the funeral of Wawaiya today, and we must hurry there to make sure her akamboue, her spirit, goes to the eternal jungle.”

His paddle sliced into the water, turning the canoe toward shore. Then both blades were driving the canoe toward the outlet with powerful strokes.

“Paxhali!” Pamela screamed. “Come back! Pia!”

The canoe shot through the wide gap in the cliff and disappeared upstream.

Pamela screamed for help until the water was halfway up her thighs, but no one answered. Eventually she had to swim for shore because she had no other choice.

Her only chance was to make for the outlet, because at high tide the surf raged against vertical rock either side of it. She thought she was going to make it until she got within twenty yards, but then discovered the current of the freshwater stream was too strong to swim against. It kept pushing her back.

She continued to struggle against the current until she was too exhausted to struggle any longer, then despairingly let it carry her back toward the reef.

She had been lucky on the way in, but halfway back to the reef the sharks discovered her.