by Howe, A. E.
“What in heaven’s name!” Mrs. Lachlan said when she saw Josephine. The odd-looking young woman was behind her.
“I’m so sorry. I was fooling around with the baron’s pistol and the darn thing just went off. Silly of me. I don’t know a thing about guns. I just thought that, with a murder in the hotel, I ought to have some sort of protection.” Josephine worked hard at selling her helpless-woman impression.
“You should leave those things alone. Where is the baron?”
“He’s in his room. His sun allergy, you know. He told me that I better come out here and tell you what happened.”
“Is he all right?” Mrs. Lachlan sounded unsure.
Josephine looked past her at the strange young woman who had helped with the meals and cleaning. The woman looked much more distressed than Mrs. Lachlan.
Did she know that those creatures were in Dragomir’s room? Did she tell them where to find him? Josephine wondered. If so, then the fear in her eyes was all for her accomplices’ safety.
“The baron is fine. He’ll be down for dinner after it gets dark,” Josephine reassured Mrs. Lachlan while watching the girl’s eyes. They kept flicking toward Blasko’s door. “He’s fine,” Josephine said, putting the emphasis on the pronoun.
The young woman seemed to pick up on it and looked straight at Josephine with suspicion in her eyes.
Josephine turned away from both of them and went back into Blasko’s room. To her relief, the coffin seemed undamaged. Looking the box over carefully, she felt sure that he was all right.
She cleaned up the room and locked the door leading to the balcony. Satisfied that she’d done everything she could, she settled down in the most comfortable chair in the room with the revolver on her lap.
About four in the afternoon, she heard men coming up the stairs. From the conversation she could hear, she figured out they were the men sent from the funeral parlor on the mainland to gather up Wallace Brock’s body. Forty-five minutes later, she heard them grunt and grumble as they carried the body down the stairs.
The treasure hunters returned at almost six. Josephine felt assured enough of Blasko’s safety that she stepped out to talk with them. A single look at Donavan told her that she hadn’t missed anything but bugs, heat and humidity.
“Nothing,” he told her. “The island’s all sand. I could bury a car out there today and, if there was a decent wind tonight, you wouldn’t be able to tell where it was tomorrow. It’s like the snow back home, only it never melts. Though I damn near melted in all this heat.”
“What’s the next step?” Josephine asked him.
“We’ll go back tomorrow. There are only three choices. Find the other half of the letter, give up, or search some more. We all agreed to continue the search.”
“What if one of you has the other half of the letter?”
“Ha! We’ve agreed to sleep in one room. The ladies get the bed.” Donavan sighed. “I can’t wait for a bath.”
Josephine watched him walk away, his head hung low and his attitude defeated.
For the next two hours, Josephine paced Blasko’s room. Her nerves were on edge as she wondered if Grace and Anton had made it home safely. Waiting for Blasko to wake up only added to her anxiety. Had the two creatures she’d found in the room done something that she hadn’t noticed? Had Blasko been able to recover from the wound to his chest? As she waited for sunset, the hands of the clock on the mantel moved at a maddeningly slow pace.
At last she heard the sound of the interior locks on the coffin being pulled open. With a creak, the lid rose and Blasko sat up, looking much better than the night before.
Before he could say a word, Josephine threw herself across the room and wrapped her arms around him.
Shocked at her presence, he could only ask, “Where is Anton?”
“I asked him to drive Grace home.”
“To Sumter? Why?”
“I have several questions for Bobby and the colonel.”
“I thought I heard… Something disturbed my sleep. But I was still healing and couldn’t…”
“Things have happened.”
Josephine helped him out of the coffin. Taken aback by her distress, Blasko sat with her on the bed and held her close as she went on to tell him about Brock’s death and the two intruders who had tried to break into his coffin.
“Who do you think killed Brock?” Blasko asked when she was done.
“One of the group… maybe. I was sure of it until I found those two… creatures in your room. If they broke in here, then they might have done the same to Brock. Drowning would seem like a logical way for them to kill someone.”
“But you found his gun under the mattress… He would’ve had to have been taken by surprise, or been met by overwhelming force. Otherwise, there would have been a loud struggle.”
“Add to that the fact that I think he was a police officer. Just from the way he was acting around us and the others, it’s clear that he was cautious. I don’t think he would have let the two men I saw into his room without his gun on him.”
“Could they have picked the lock? Or come in from the balcony?”
“The door onto the balcony was unlocked. But there weren’t any pry marks and I can’t imagine that Brock wouldn’t have locked it before going to bed.”
“So he let whoever killed him into his room.”
“There is one other possibility,” Josephine said reluctantly. “I think the young woman who works for Mrs. Lachlan may be… one of those things. I’m pretty sure she knew that those two men were in your room. I suspect that she let them in… or gave them a key.”
“So they could have come in without his knowing it and hit him with something in the back of the head.”
“Maybe. But I looked at his pillow and there wasn’t any blood or hair on it.”
“Mmmm. But you say there was definitely blood on the tub?”
“Yes. And I don’t believe the sheriff’s version of events for a moment. He just doesn’t want anything to do with this island.”
“After what I’ve seen, I can’t say that I blame him.” Blasko was deep in thought. “The easiest explanation is that someone Brock knew knocked on his balcony door, or came there by prearrangement.”
“Someone he trusted.”
“Precisely. He let them in and, during the course of their meeting, he turned his back and they took the opportunity to hit him over the head.”
“Then dragged him into the bathroom and drowned him in the tub.”
“Could you have done it?” When Josephine looked puzzled, Blasko explained. “Do you think that you could have physically hit him over the head and put his unconscious body into the tub?”
“He wasn’t a big man. A little taller than me, but yes, I think I could,” Josephine answered. “You’re wondering if Neith or Jamila could have done it. I’d say yes. It wouldn’t be easy, but it’s definitely possible.”
“Would he have answered the door in his underwear if it was one of the ladies?”
“Depends on why they were coming to his room,” Josephine said and felt herself blushing. “Of course, he was an arrogant man, so if a lady knocked on his door in the middle of the night, he might have assumed that her reasons were romantic.”
“But one of those two?”
“They’re both attractive.”
“That’s not the point. If he was suspicious of the group, would he really have dropped his guard, even if he thought he might… ah… spend the night with one of them?”
“My experience with men is that they are always ready to drop their… guard for a pretty woman,” Josephine said.
“Yes. And I would have said that about myself until the day I saw a Turkish woman seduce and slaughter one of my closest allies. Now that I recall the incident, the word ‘slaughter’ doesn’t do justice to her work,” Blasko said thoughtfully.
“I don’t want to hear about it.” Josephine shook her head. “I say it must have been one of the remaining five.”
/> “Motive?”
“Money. More of the treasure and less to split.”
Blasko nodded, but suggested another theory. “If Brock was a policeman, then maybe he had information that the killer didn’t want anyone else to know. Such as who killed your attacker.”
“I can see that.”
“Or Brock was the one with the other half of your letter,” Blasko said contrarily.
“Then that would mean there are two murderers in the group. Brock and whoever killed him.”
Blasko nodded. “It’s not impossible, though I agree that it seems improbable. Especially if no one has yet found the treasure. I could more easily imagine someone going over the edge if they already knew the location of the artifacts and the gold.”
“Makes sense. So if there is only one murderer, then he or she has the other half of the letter. Brock might have been onto him and so the killer had to silence him.”
“It makes sense as to motive,” Blasko cautioned, “but it confuses the opportunity. If Brock was on to the killer, he wouldn’t have let them into his room without retrieving his gun.”
“Maybe there are two people involved. A woman to entice him to open the door, followed by the killer. Maybe she even knocked Brock out before letting the killer inside.”
“Anytime you involve more than one person, I think the probability goes down. No one in this group seems to trust any of the others enough to involve them in their plan.”
They were silent as they thought about all the possibilities. Finally, Josephine said, “You need to get ready for dinner. I want to prove to Mrs. Lachlan that I didn’t kill you.”
“We’ll tackle the suspects after dinner?”
Josephine nodded. “They will object after spending the day on that island, but they did agree to be questioned.”
“If they’re tired, then their guard might be down,” Blasko said, reaching for his coat and tie.
Josephine went to her own room to freshen up. Spending the afternoon cooped up in a sultry hotel room had left her feeling like she’d been out in a rainstorm, and not even a refreshing rainstorm.
Downstairs they found a dispirited group sitting around the dining room table, picking at the pork chops Mrs. Lachlan had served them. The young woman who helped her was busy serving drinks and avoided making eye contact with Josephine.
After Blasko and Josephine joined the group, there was little conversation. Almost everyone who had gone out to the island seemed to be suffering from various degrees of sunburn. Only Neith appeared not to have been burned due to her dark complexion.
“Maybe we should take tomorrow off,” Captain Hume suggested, looking up from his plate. This suggestion received hard stares from everyone else.
Josephine said, “The baron and I want to talk with each of you this evening. Remember our agreement.”
“Why?” Donavan asked.
“Because we had a deal.”
“Well, then, talk to me first. I don’t plan on being awake much longer than it takes me to get upstairs,” Donavan told her.
“We will all uphold our end of the bargain.” Hume seemed to have aged ten years in the last twelve hours.
“Thank you,” Blasko said. “We need to solve these murders before another person is killed.” His words caused everyone around the table to look at each other with something less than charity in their eyes.
“Sheriff Gentry said that Brock’s death was an accident.” Jamila never looked up from her plate.
“None of us believes that,” Zhao said. “I, too, want to see the killer caught.”
“Are you saying I don’t?” Donavan seemed to take an unusual amount of umbrage at Zhao’s statement. Josephine suspected that something must have happened between them on the island that day.
“We all want the person who killed Brock to be apprehended. Plain and simple,” Hume said with a bit of his old starch back in his voice. “I’ll talk to you anytime you want.”
“Thank you, Captain. We’ll let you all choose the order you want,” Josephine said.
“We’re all staying in the same room now.” He tapped his nose. “Security, you know.”
“Good. And we’d prefer that you all don’t talk about what we ask you. No comparing notes,” Josephine told him.
“Like real detectives. I served on the adjutant general’s staff for six months during the Great War. Did a little investigating myself. I’ll help out if you need it.”
Josephine just smiled politely at the captain.
Chapter Nineteen
After dinner, Josephine and Blasko set up a table and chairs for the interviews in Josephine’s room. Eric Donavan was the first to knock on the door.
“I want to say right off that I think this is a waste of time,” Donavan stated as he took his seat across from them.
“You didn’t raise any objections when you wanted to get a look at my letter,” Josephine said.
“I didn’t get a look at the letter. Zhao did.”
“That was the deal.”
“And I don’t like it. I think he’s got the other half and spent the day misleading the rest of us. I believe his plan is to sit on it until we all get tired and go home.”
“You think he was purposefully misleading you today?”
“That’s what I said. Can’t prove it without looking at the letter.”
“We went through that when we made the deal. Forget it,” Josephine said. She let him pout for a minute, then asked, “How well did you know Wallace Brock?”
“Met him here like the everyone else. All I know is what he told me.”
“Which was?”
“He said he was a professor of cultural anthropology at the University of Chicago. Said his specialty was Mesoamerican culture; you know, Mayans, Aztecs. That’s why he was here. The letter to his department listed a number of Aztec and Mayan artifacts.”
“Did he seem like a professor to you?”
“Are you talking about the stereotypical professor with pince-nez glasses and his face always in a book? No, not really. Seemed like a tough guy; I thought he could be a cop of some sort. I wasn’t at all surprised when we found that gun under his bed. ’Course he might have just been another guy who served in the Army. But my vote is ‘no’ on the professor gig.”
“What about you?” Josephine asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Are you who you say you are?”
“Hey, I thought you were investigating the murder.”
“Murders, plural. Yes, we are. And knowing all the players at the table is a good first step,” Blasko said with authority.
Josephine watched him, amazed at the power of her blood to heal him. He’d waved away any concerns she still had about his wound as though it had been nothing.
“I’m exactly who I say I am,” Donavan mumbled. “Trust me, no one else would want to be me, and I have a hard enough time being me. Not sure I could pull off being anyone else.”
Josephine believed him.
“You told me who you are, and why you’re here. Did you know any of the others before you came to the island?” she asked.
“I’d heard of Captain Hume. He’s made a couple of impressive discoveries in the Middle East. The rest…” He shrugged.
“Who do you think is the killer?”
“I told you, Zhao.”
“What makes you think it’s him?”
“He’s cold. Also, I was with him all day today. I tell you, he was leading us around by the nose. We’d start searching one place and then he’d get some new idea. What’s really screwy about it is, it’s not like him. When we play cards, he knows what he’s going to do as soon as he looks at his hand. Hell, he knows what I’m going to do before I do it. Trust me. He’s your man.”
“Where were you yesterday morning around nine-thirty?”
“When you were attacked? I guess I was up in my room writing,” he said cagily.
“Writing what?”
“A bloody paper for a mag
azine. What do you think? My department head is breathing down my neck. If this treasure doesn’t pan out, I need a back-up plan, so I’m writing a couple of articles.”
“On the fishermen?” Blasko asked, thinking about his conversation with Donavan that first night near the docks.
“Anything I wrote about them, I couldn’t get published. Not by any normal magazine.”
“What would you write?” Blasko pressed.
“Have you seen them? I mean up close? I think they’re a breeding… I should say an inbreeding population. You’ve seen the way they walk. Their skin is worse. A mutation or disease that’s genetic. I don’t know. I tried to talk to them down at The Dragon. Big mistake. I didn’t tell anyone, but after I asked a couple of questions and didn’t get any answers, I left the bar and got rolled. Funny thing was, they didn’t take my wallet or my watch. They just pounded me with wooden clubs. The kind you use to kill a big fish when you land it. They kept hitting my chest and stomach so the bruises wouldn’t show, telling me to stay away if I knew what was good for me.”
“But they didn’t kill you,” Blasko said.
“Obviously not. They weren’t trying to. They were sending a message and I got it loud and clear.”
“Can you tell us anything else about them?”
Donavan sighed. “When I was working on my doctorate, I went to New Guinea to observe some of the tribes there. They were peaceful as long as you posed no threat. Even friendly sometimes, but it was like walking on a razor’s edge. If the mood shifted and they thought you were a danger to them, there’d be no question what would happen to you. No negotiation. No trial. No hesitation. They’d kill you, and they just might eat you as well. That’s what it feels like when you get close to these fisherman, that they’re all of a kind. Their deformities make them closer than a normal human social group. Like isolation and inbreeding did with those tribes in New Guinea.”
“One of them attacked me last night,” Blasko said, watching Donavan closely. Josephine tried to hide her surprise that he’d mentioned the attack.
“You got too close.” Donavan shook his head. “I’m exhausted. Can we wrap this up?”
