The Coconut Killings

by Patricia Moyes

  At half-past three, Lucy was sitting in the snug of the Anchorage with the telephone in her hand. She was saying, “Cotton Producers’ Federation? Mr. Jackson Ledbetter, please… Yes, it is very important… Mr. Ledbetter’s secretary? Good afternoon, dear. Will you please tell Mr. Ledbetter that Miss Lucy Pontefract-Deacon wishes to speak with him? And hurry, please, dear. I am talking from St. Matthew’s in the Caribbean.” She looked at Henry and winked. “Thank you, dear. I thought he would… Hello?… Ah, hello, Jackson…”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  SEBASTIAN CHATSWORTH WAS delighted to put the Island Eagle at the disposal of Chief Superintendent Tibbett for the trip to St. Boniface.

  “How long will you need to stay there?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure. Not long, I hope.”

  “Well, it works out very well, because we’ve a member arriving on the flight from Washington at nine o’clock, so if you don’t mind waiting till then, the launch can bring you both back here.”

  “Business is picking up again, is it?” said Henry. Chatsworth smiled ruefully. “I wouldn’t call Jackson Ledbetter on his own a big rush of business,” he said, “but we can only hope that he’s the first swallow of summer, as it were.”

  Henry said, “Ledbetter? That’s Senator Olsen’s pal, isn’t it? He was here only a couple of weeks ago.”

  “That’s right. Had to get back to Washington when Olsen was killed—big CPF meeting—but now he’s determined to come back and finish his holiday, riots or no riots.”

  “I shall be interested to meet him,” Henry said. He did not add that there was little chance that he would do so before the next day.

  The Island Eagle arrived at the airport quayside at twenty past four. Commissioner Alcott had alerted the United States Customs and Immigration authorities to Henry’s visit, but all the same he was glad that he had made sure that his American visa was in order before leaving London. Once the formalities were over, Henry was escorted into a special crew members’ lounge to await the arrival of Captain Stapleton and his envelope.

  The 707 touched down a mere ten minutes late, and soon afterward Henry was shaking hands with a tall, slightly grizzled man who introduced himself as Joe Stapleton, conveyed Officer Stanton’s best regards, and handed over a small envelope containing a locker key. Stapleton then excused himself, explaining that he had only a half hour stopover before continuing the flight to Barbados.

  Next, Henry made his way to the Trans-American desk and asked about flight times to New York. As he had hoped, it was possible to fly to the big city that evening, leaving at half-past six, and to return in the early hours of the morning, getting to St. Boniface at eight o’clock. Henry booked himself on these flights, giving his name as Mr. Smith and his address as that of Jackson Ledbetter in New York—this being the only address in the city that came to his mind. Since this was a domestic flight within the United States, both name and address were accepted without demur. Henry paid his fare, checked in for the flight, and received his boarding pass. Then he made his way to a public telephone and called Emmy.

  “Look, darling, I’m going to New York… Don’t squeak like that. I’ll be back first thing in the morning. It’s not so far, you know… Now, ring the club and tell Major Chatsworth that I’m staying overnight on St. Boniface and that I’d like to be picked up by the first launch in the morning. And ring Commissioner Alcott—yes, he’s at the Golf Club—and tell him we should be able to get the search party going around ten o’clock… Yes, I’ll be going on it myself… No, darling, there’s nothing to worry about. Just following something up.”

  Henry hung up the telephone and walked out into the blazing heat and sunshine of the late West Indian afternoon.

  He had not visited St. Boniface before, and he was immediately struck by the hustle and bustle of the streets, the duty-free shops competing raucously for the business of tourists in search of liquor, tobacco, and perfume. Regretfully, he remembered that Tampica was well on the road to the same state of affairs, and yet, there was a color and vitality in the narrow, crowded streets that was undeniably appealing. Henry allowed himself to be lured into the cool dimness of one of the shops, where he bought a bottle of Emmy’s favorite scent and a silk scarf from Paris for a ridiculously low price. Then he made his way to the harbor.

  Two big white cruise liners lay at anchor offshore, and many small launches were ferrying passengers to and from the quay. A few fishing boats huddled together at one end of the wharf, like survivors of an endangered species. Several large pleasure boats waited to set out on garishly advertised trips to Tampica, St. Thomas, and St. Mark’s. Up at the far end of the quay, a cluster of little motorboats jostled each other like ducklings, while their black skippers lounged on the jetty, smoking and chatting. Henry made his way toward them.

  As soon as they saw him coming, several men jumped to their feet and began asking Henry where he wanted to go, extolling the virtues of their boats. Henry mentioned St. Matthew’s Golf Club, and at once a gloomy silence descended.

  A skinny, gray-haired man in tattered blue jeans—whom Henry recognized as the boatman who had brought Tom Bradley to St. Matthew’s—said, “Sorry, man. We don’t go there. Take you to Priest Town if you want,” he added, on a more cheerful note.

  “Why don’t you go to the Golf Club?”

  The grizzled skipper shook his head. “Golf Club’s got its own boats,” he said. “Don’t allow nobody else to land at their jetty.”

  The other men nodded and murmured agreement.

  Henry said, “Well, a non-club boat landed there last Friday night.”

  A chorus of dissent went up. “No, man. No way. Couldn’t be so.”

  “This was late at night,” Henry said. “Perhaps nobody noticed.”

  This time, the dissent was even more vociferous. It emerged from the confused medley of sound that private boatmen did not operate after dark. Only a specially ordered club launch could possibly have conveyed a passenger back to St. Matthew’s at that hour.

  “I was told,” Henry said, “that some of you do occasionally work at night.”

  Looks were exchanged, and then the gray-haired man said, “A few of us do, sure, man. But you said the Golf Club.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Well, there’s only two men on St. Boniface can find that channel in the dark. One is my brother, and he’s been away in St. Thomas for two weeks. The other is me, and I was home with my wife Friday.”

  A round-faced young boatman piped up, “It could have been the Pelican.”

  “The Pelican?”

  “Sure, man. That boat there, at the end of the jetty. Mr. Owen’s boat.”

  “Who’s Mr. Owen?”

  “Very important man on St. Matthew’s, Mr. Owen. Keeps the Pelican here for fishing trips and such. Fine man with a boat, Mr. Owen.”

  The older man broke in. “You crazy, Harvey. Mr. Owen’s not been on this island in a couple of weeks. Why, the last time we saw the Pelican go out was back in March. You remember, man. The day Senator Olsen got killed.”

  Trying not to sound too eager, Henry said, “You’re sure about that?”

  “Sure I’m sure, man. Mr. Owen come down here jus’ before lunchtime. Said he was goin’ fishin’, like he often does. He was back around half-past four, and I remember because we was jus’ listenin’ to the radio and there was the fellow breakin’ into the regular program to say as how Senator Olsen got murdered. That really shook Mr. Owen up—seems he knew the senator. White as a sheet, he went—said he must get back to St. Matthew’s in a hurry. But he didn’t take the Pelican. He went off to pick up the club launch.”

  “With his fish?”

  “He didn’t have no fish. He’d catch big ones for sport, and throw ’em back.”

  Henry said, “Owen. That’s a familiar name. I think I may know him. He’s a tall, thin chap, isn’t he?”

  “Right, man.”

  “And he’s British.”

  The boatmen exchan
ged glances. “How’s that?”

  “Well—he talks the same way that I do.”

  Heads were shaken. “He talks like anybody else… Regular guy, Mr. Owen…”

  “But he ain’t been here, not since back in March,” added the older skipper.

  “Oh, well,” Henry said, “I must have been mistaken. It must have been a club launch last Friday.” He walked slowly back to the airport.

  Manhattan on a spring evening glittered and snapped and crackled and lifted Henry’s heart as it always had done since his very first visit. A ridiculous city, higher than it was broad, constantly on the brink of disaster, always throbbing with a special sort of magic. New York, New York, it’s a wonderful town… Ask any New Yorker, and hear him grumble. Then ask him if he’d live anywhere else in the world.

  The address that Tom Bradley had given as Jackson Ledbetter’s New York apartment turned out to be a mini-skyscraper, a mere thirty stories high, located on a residential street in the East Sixties. Around its ankles, a few brownstone houses still managed to cling to existence, but on every street corner a new building seemed to be under construction. Chic restaurants with blue-canopied entrances lined the north-south avenues, while on the east-west streets delicatessens offered delicious European carry-out foods. It was, Henry decided, a most desirable address.

  Through the big plate-glass doors leading to the lobby, Henry could see a burly, red-faced doorman sitting at the desk, reading Playboy. Next door to the apartment building was the entrance to a small, elegant restaurant, and Henry was glad to find that he could give a good imitation of perusing the framed menu beside its door while at the same time keeping an eye on the brightly lit lobby. Sure enough, within a few minutes he saw his chance.

  A middle-aged couple—the man in tuxedo and black tie, the woman in evening dress and mink—emerged from the elevator and spoke to the doorman, who hastily stashed his magazine under the desk and rose to his feet. He pulled on his cap, and a moment later was out in the street making for the corner of First Avenue, waving and whistling for a cab. Henry walked into the lobby, exchanged a nod and a smile with the couple, and made for the elevator. Soon he was on the seventeenth floor and outside the apartment rented by Jackson Ledbetter.

  Here his actions would have surprised an onlooker—but fortunately, there were none. He took a small knife from his pocket and made a little scratch on the door, near the lock. Then he wandered to the end of the corridor and for ten minutes enjoyed a magnificent view from the window over the lights of Manhattan, before riding the elevator down to the lobby again.

  The doorman was back at his desk. He looked up in a bored way as Henry came out of the elevator—then did a double take and scrambled to his feet.

  “Hey, you. What you doing here?”

  Henry stopped. He said, “Visiting.”

  “Visiting who?”

  “Mr. Jackson Ledbetter. Apartment Seventeen B.”

  The doorman was getting steadily more suspicious. He said, “Now just a minute. For one thing, Mr. Ledbetter ain’t here. And for another, I never seen you before. And for a third, don’t you know it’s not allowed for visitors to go up in the elevator till they’ve been announced?”

  Henry smiled deprecatingly. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m from England, and I don’t know the rules. Anyhow, there was nobody here when I came in, so I just went up.”

  “I only been out a coupla minutes, getting a cab for— Here, Mr. Ledbetter’s not home, right?”

  “Right,” said Henry.

  “Well, it’s near a quarter of an hour since I went out to fetch that cab. What you been doing up there all that time?”

  “Writing him a note. When I found he wasn’t there, I left a note for him by his front door.”

  “The tenants’ mailboxes is down here. Any notes, you leave with me.”

  Henry said, “Do you know when Mr. Ledbetter will be back?”

  “Naw. He’s away for several days, that’s for sure.”

  “Any idea where he is?”

  “Waal…” The doorman hesitated.

  Henry’s hand went to his pocket. He said, “I’ll be honest with you. I’m a detective. Just checking up on a few things for a client. If you could just tell me where Mr. Ledbetter is…”

  A greenback note changed hands unobtrusively. The doorman said, “No secret about that. He’ll be in Washington, D.C. He’s there more than he’s here.”

  “As a matter of fact,” Henry said, “I’m really more interested in where he was last Friday night and Saturday morning.”

  Another bill changed hands, and the doorman grinned. “You’re out of luck there. He was here.”

  “On his own?”

  “So that’s how it is, is it? Well, he never brings no broads here, that’s for sure. Kinda cold-blooded, if you ask me. No, sir—he was here, and he was on his own.”

  “How can you be certain?” Henry asked.

  “Because I was on duty Friday evening when Mr. Ledbetter came in, around half-past five. He told me he had some telephone calls to make and work to do, and that he didn’t want to be disturbed. Anyone asked for him, I was to say he was out.”

  “And did anybody try to visit him?”

  The doorman shook his head. “Nobody. Not before I went off at midnight, anyways.”

  “And Saturday morning?”

  “I saw him again Saturday morning. I came on at nine o’clock, and not long after he came in from the street. I noticed he’d gone out early, and he said yes, he’d just stepped around the corner to get a newspaper.”

  Henry said, “That’s very helpful. Thank you. Here’s my card.”

  “I bet,” said the doorman, “you’d like it if I didn’t mention to anybody that you were here.”

  “On the contrary,” Henry said. “By all means, tell anybody who may ask.”

  The doorman studied Henry’s card, rubbing his forehead. At last he said, “You British?”

  “That’s right.”

  “A British cop?”

  “Yes.”

  “Guess that accounts for it.”

  Henry left the doorman shaking his head in bewilderment and went out again into the invigorating Manhattan evening.

  As a matter of fact, it was only about half an hour later that the telephone on the doorman’s desk rang. He picked it up.

  “Avenue Tower apartments… Oh, yes, sir, good evening, sir… Well, as a matter of fact, yes, sir… Some sort of an English cop, sir… Yes, he left a note… Well, it’s a bit…well, the fact is, sir, I’d have to go up and get it… Well, it was like this, sir. I was out for a minute or so, calling a cab for Mr. Studmeyer, and this guy comes in and doesn’t understand, being British… Yes, went up in the elevator and left a note when he found nobody home… Yes, sure, hold on, sir…”

  A couple of minutes later, the doorman was back at the desk telephone. He seemed embarrassed and ill at ease. “Well, sir, it’s funny, but there’s no note that I can see… No, not very long… Well, say ten minutes at the outside…or five…no, probably less than that… What’s that? Scratches like the lock was picked? No, sir. No, certainly not… Well, a lot of the doors are old, aren’t they, sir? Might easily have a little mark on ’em. Wouldn’t mean anything, would it, sir?… No, of course not, sir, but you know how it is if a tenant wants a cab… No, sir…yes, sir…good night, sir.”

  The doorman hung up and mopped his brow. Then he began to mutter extremely uncomplimentary remarks about British policemen under his breath. Doormen’s jobs were not all that easy to come by in New York.

  Henry, meanwhile, was walking among the glitter and squalor of Broadway, wishing that Emmy was there to share it with him. A vaguely remembered bell at the back of his mind sent him to Sardi’s restaurant for a wildly expensive dinner, and to his delight he found himself mopped up by a slightly frenetic party of English actors and actresses, several of whom he had met in London, whose show had opened that evening, and who were carrying on the tradition of dining at Sardi�
�s while waiting for the all-important New York Times review to roll off the presses. He left the happy party, with regret, sometime later to catch his plane from Kennedy Airport.

  The flight back to St. Boniface was uneventful. Henry dozed most of the way, opening his eyes only to take in the majesty of sunrise over the blue Atlantic Ocean. At five minutes to eight the plane touched down, slightly ahead of time owing to tail winds. Formalities went smoothly, and Henry had no baggage to claim, so he was waiting on the quayside by the airport when the Island Eagle came into sight, roaring across the bay and throwing up a fine plume of white spray. As the launch approached the jetty, Henry noticed that she carried a woman passenger. Another departing club member, he supposed—must be almost the last. And then he saw that it was Teresa Chatsworth.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Chatsworth. Come over to do some shopping?”

  “No,” said Teresa shortly.

  “Why don’t you come ashore before I get on board?” Henry extended his hand.

  “Because I’m not going ashore, Mr. Tibbett,” said Teresa. “I came over so that we could have a talk on the way back. A private talk.”

  Henry grinned. “That’s very flattering.”

  “It wasn’t meant to be. All right, Franklin, you can cast off. We’re not expecting anybody else.”

  As the launch headed out to sea again, Teresa led the way into the small forward cabin, where conversation could not be overheard by the crew. She sat down, motioned Henry to do the same, and lit a cigarette. Then she said, “Now, Mr. Tibbett, perhaps you’ll do some explaining.”

  “Explaining?”

  “Please don’t try to look innocent. For a start, what were you doing in New York last night?”

  “Emmy told you, did she? Oh, just some business.”

  “I wonder what business could take you snooping around Mr. Ledbetter’s apartment in the middle of the night?”

  Henry nodded appreciatively. “The grapevine is efficient,” he said. “It was private business, Mrs. Chatsworth.”

  Teresa said angrily, “You were brought here, Mr. Tibbett, to solve the murder of Senator Olsen—in other words, to wrap up the case against Robbins and get the island back to an even keel. Instead, you have brought nothing but trouble. Robbins has escaped and murdered another innocent man, if not two. Diamond and her gang have used the whole thing as an excuse to stir up violence, and the club is facing ruin. I’m putting it to you that you either do the job you were sent to do or you get off St. Matthew’s, and fast.”