Twenty-Seven Bones

2

Lewis Apgard left the Great House late Wednesday morning feeling a little logy from the sleeping pills Vogler had prescribed. His first stop was the office of Apgard Realty, on the second floor of an eighteenth-century stucco building on Dansker Hill. A jewelry store featuring coral necklaces and duty-free timepieces rented the first floor from Lewis. His secretary Doris, an attractive distant relation from one of the darker branches of the family, was just updating the rent accounts when he arrived.

“Good mornin’, Cousin Doe. Tell me a good word,” he said in dialect, walking around behind her and peering over her shoulder at the computer screen.

“Good mornin’, Cousin Lewis. Only two delinquents dis mont’, two Corefolk,” she said, scrolling back up to the beginning of the file: Arena, Andrew; Bendt, Francis. The first was a surprise: as a full-time bartender at the King Christian, Arena was one of the more solvent denizens of the little village in the forest.

The second was not. Fran Bendt was a freelance reporter for the Sentinel, whose career in the States had been derailed by a coke habit and a penchant for voyeurism, but whose nose for news was somehow still as sharp as ever. If he was short of funds, he might have some information or candid (extremely candid) photos to offer in lieu of rent. Lewis asked Doris to beep Bendt and set up a meeting at the Sunset Bar at Bendt’s earliest convenience, as long as his earliest convenience was no later than high noon.

On St. Luke, high noon was high noon all year round-the island did not observe daylight savings time. The freelancer Bendt, an unprepossessing man with a scruffy beard that failed to hide a complexion moonscaped with adolescent acne scars, was sitting at the bar nursing a beer when Lewis arrived, wearing chinos, a short-sleeved white shirt, sandals, no socks.

After Lewis had taken care of some business with Vincent, involving half an ounce of rain forest chronic (Hokey hadn’t said anything about giving up weed), he and Bendt walked fifty yards down the beach, the reporter carrying a beach umbrella and two plastic folding chairs.

Bendt set up the umbrella and chairs. Lewis filled his corncob pipe with chronic, took a wasteful toke, more than his lungs could hold, then, wreathed in smoke, passed it over. “So what do you know that I don’t, chappie?” he said when he’d finished coughing.

Bendt took a more circumspect hit and waited for it to dissipate entirely in his lungs before he spoke again. “I do have something for you, but you’re going to have to give me your word it doesn’t go any further. ’Cause it’s big, and it’s real tightly held-only about a dozen people know, and most of them are cops.”

Lewis was impressed. “Word,” he said, and they dapped knuckles.

“Okay, you remember that little girl that disappeared two years ago?”

“The one whose body was found under the Judas Bag tree?”

“Right. Well, you know she was murdered, right?”

“No, I thought she cut off her own hand and buried herself for a gag.”

“Very funny.” Bendt took another toke before handing the pipe back; again he held it in until his exhale was devoid of smoke. “Last Friday I’m monitoring the police band, I hear there’s something going on in the north end, by the cliffs. I get there, every cop on the island is climbing around the rocks. It turns out two bodies have washed up with the hurricane tide, one male, one female, and guess what body part both of them are missing?”

“I’ll take a wild guess-a hand?”

“Right hand. Same as the Jenkuns girl. Which means we have a serial killer on our little island. And according to Mr. Faartoft, he’s been asked not to print it-so much for the public’s right to know. Oh yeah, and they’re calling him the Machete Man.”

Lewis suppressed a shudder: Queen Charlotte and Auntie Aggie used to frighten him with stories about the Machete Man. “Who else knows about this?”

“Lemme see…Faartoft, the cops, the coroner, and of course us-you and me. But that’s not all. Did you see this morning’s paper?”

“Not yet.”

“There’s a picture on the front page-missing man from Florida.”

“What’s the tie-in?”

“He’s one of the victims who washed up last week. But all the story says is that police are looking into a disappearance, anybody who might have seen the guy please contact the SLPD, blah blah blah. Not exactly journalism at its finest. I’ve been thinking seriously about selling the story to one of the Virgin Islands papers, or the San Juan Star, so the news will filter back down here and people can start watching their asses a little closer.”

Lewis blew a smoke ring, watched the breeze coming off the sparkling sea tear it to rags, passed the pipe back to Bendt. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you, chappie.”

“Why not?”

“Blow your job for one story? That’s the definition of killing the goose that lays the golden egg.”

“Golden egg, my honky ass! That cheap sonofabitch Faartoft ain’t paying me in golden eggs.”

“Think of the rest of us, then. You weren’t here for Blue Valley, you don’t know what can happen.”

“You mean other than more people getting their hands cut off?”

“I mean, news gets out that there’s a serial killer called the Machete Man active on St. Luke, you can kiss the cruise ships bye-bye. Then there’s a ripple effect. No cruises means no tourists, no tourists means restaurants start shutting down, people can’t pay their rent, which is bad for me, ad revenue in the Sentinel drops, which is bad for you….”

“Okay, okay, I get it.” Bendt took a last hit, handed Lewis back his pipe. As Lewis rose to leave, though, Bendt gave him the wait-a-sec-I-just-thought-of-something-but-I-don’t-want-to-blow-the-toke wave. “Hey, I almost forgot.” He handed Lewis an envelope. “I snagged these a couple weeks ago, been saving ’em for you.”

Lewis peeked into the envelope. The photos were of Holly Gold in the shower, shot from above, through the screen window of the building known to the Corefolk as the Crapaud.

“What do you think?” asked Bendt.

“I think we’re even-steven on the rent this month,” said Lewis with a grin.