Hurricane Bay

by Heather Graham

  Jorge listened quietly the whole time. When Dane had finished, the girl rose and told Jorge that she wanted to go right away. She had a friend at the house, so she could leave. She wasn’t due at work until later.

  Kelsey still didn’t entirely understand what had been happening.

  “Why is she afraid to go to the police?”

  “Her son was just smuggled in from Cuba.”

  “But…he’s her son. Won’t the immigration laws protect him? Does he have a father back in Cuba, or family that will fight for him?”

  Dane shook his head. “No.”

  “Then I’m sure he’ll be all right.”

  Dane looked at her, and she knew that he didn’t want to betray a confidence, even to her. And then she understood.

  Jorge Marti had smuggled the boy in.

  “Oh,” she said softly. She didn’t intend to make Dane say more. But she felt a strange warmth inside. She was proud of Jorge. The world could be awful. What had happened to Sheila was beyond awful.

  But there were wonderful people in the world, as well.

  “They’ll have reached the Sea Shanty before us,” Dane said. “Let’s just say we stopped for gas.”

  “Sure.”

  The others were indeed there. Cindy hopped up and hugged Kelsey tightly, then did the same to Dane. They didn’t speak about Sheila right away, and Kelsey quickly asked her how she was.

  Cindy was dismissive of her own injury and as distraught as the others about Sheila. Kelsey saw, when they took their seats at the table, that she had finished her first beer and was pouring her second.

  Kelsey, at the end of the table, frowned with concern as she watched her. “You just had a major crack on the head. Should you be drinking like that?”

  “I don’t know any other way to drink,” Cindy said, trying to speak lightly.

  “Cindy…”

  “I didn’t take any of the pain medication they sent home with me. I’d rather douse myself with beer.”

  “But if you have a concussion…”

  “I’m fine,” Cindy insisted. “I was fine last night, but they wanted me to stay for observation. They observed me. I’m fine. I don’t even have a knot on my head anymore.”

  “You’re sure you hit the hurricane shutter?” Kelsey asked.

  “What else? I was running around barefoot like an idiot.” She paused and actually smiled. “Kelsey, it was just a comedy of errors. Nate went out the back. In beautiful blue boxers, I’ll have you know. Larry was following me—in the buff, except for a sheet. It all happened so fast. We wanted to catch the bastard. Larry tripped on his sheet, on the way out. He was cute as could be,” she said, trying to make Larry smile. She glanced at him affectionately where he was seated at the rough wood table beside her. “Naked as a jay, tummy down on the sheet. Great butt, Larry. Just thought you should know. Anyway, stupid me, I kept going, I was running, and…pow, I went down.”

  “You didn’t see the hurricane shutter?” Kelsey asked.

  “If I’d seen it, I wouldn’t have slammed into it.”

  Dane, next to Kelsey, leaned forward. “I think she’s trying to find out if you’re certain that you were hit by the hurricane shutter.”

  “Well, what else could it have been?” Cindy asked.

  Dane looked at Nate and Larry.

  Nate shrugged. “I found her under the shutter.”

  Larry seemed to emerge from his fog enough to join the conversation. “Nate had just reached her when I managed to wrap the sheet around me again and get out there, but yes, the hurricane shutter was right there.”

  “And had anyone tried to jimmy the lock?” Dane asked.

  Nate and Larry looked at each other.

  “I don’t know,” Nate admitted.

  “You didn’t call Gary Hansen’s office?” Dane said.

  “Shit, we called an ambulance. We were worried about Cindy. We went into the hospital with her.”

  “And later…?”

  “Later we were half dead, and we fell asleep…and then we got the call about Sheila,” Nate said.

  “But…you still haven’t called the cops to check the yard?”

  “Jesus Christ, Dane!” Larry exploded. “We just found out that Sheila is dead.”

  “Murdered,” Nate said, staring at his beer.

  Dane leaned forward. “And I intend to see that her murderer is caught,” he said angrily.

  “All of you, stop it,” Kelsey protested.

  “Dane, call the cops now—they’ll go out and look around. Maybe Gary can even post a man at the duplex.”

  “Yeah, he will. The police are on the lookout for Latham,” Dane said. “Excuse me while I make that call.”

  “Wait. Wait just a minute. We need to make a toast. To Sheila. To tell her we loved her,” Cindy said. “No matter what her sins may have been.”

  “Right. We’re the ones who cared,” Larry said. “I mean, that matters, doesn’t it? We all loved her. In the end, what matters is that you had people who cared.”

  Nate poured from the pitcher on the table into two more glasses for Dane and Kelsey. Then they all solemnly raised their glasses.

  “To Sheila,” Kelsey said.

  “May she rest in peace,” Nate added.

  “Let’s pray that she’s found it at last,” Cindy murmured.

  “Amen,” Dane said.

  Then he rose and left the table. Cindy watched him go.

  “At least…”

  “What?” Nate said.

  “At least Dane has…something to do. He can help catch Sheila’s killer…Latham, if it really is Andy Latham. While we…well, we’re just sitting here, and we can’t do anything but think about her. I’m glad about Dane, though. When he first came back to the Keys…” She looked at Kelsey and shrugged. “It looked like he was going to become a lounge rat.”

  Dane was standing about twenty feet away. As she watched him, Kelsey thought that it was a fitting day.

  Rain had followed them.

  It had stopped now. But the sky, usually so bright and blue, was gray.

  Dead gray.

  As if he read her mind, Nate said, “The day is right for mourning, isn’t it?” He lifted his glass, as if to heaven.

  “See, Sheila? Even the elements know you’re gone. The day is weeping.” He set down his glass and studied his beer. “We’ll get that sick bastard,” he murmured. “Count on it, Sheila. We’re going to get him.”

  Dane came back and sat down. He sipped his beer, set it down and looked around.

  “What’s the matter?” Cindy asked him.

  He smiled ruefully and shook his head. “I don’t know.” Then he said, “Excuse me.” He stood again, and walked through the restaurant, then went out toward the parking lot.

  “What are you doing?” Kelsey asked him when he returned a few minutes later.

  “Nothing, I guess. Being really paranoid. I thought I saw someone.”

  “I’m sure you did,” Nate said, indicating the tables near them, where tourists sat, having stopped in for the lazy, rainy afternoon. “Customers. It’s a public establishment, Dane.”

  “Yeah, I know. I just had a strange feeling.”

  “Did you see anything?” Cindy asked, perplexed.

  “No. Just a feeling.”

  “We’re all having them,” Larry murmured. He shrugged. “After all, we know there’s a murderer somewhere out there.”

  CHAPTER 17

  By seven that night, they had eaten and commiserated, and they were silent with one another. Dane had kept in touch with Gary Hansen, but there had been no sign of Andy Latham. They also learned from Hector Hernandez that the police were sorry to intrude, but they would all be needed for questioning, as Sheila was now a murder victim and not just a missing person.

  Kelsey watched Dane’s face as he spoke with Hector on the phone. His features were almost as dark as the day. She was certain that he, as the last one to see Sheila, was going to bear the greatest scrutiny, even if the
police were looking for Andy Latham and might be able to tie him to all the murders.

  Cindy and Larry drank heavily, but Nate was as slow in imbibing his beer as Dane and Kelsey. He had made himself the designated driver.

  They stayed at the Sea Shanty until tacitly agreeing that it was time to go.

  Nate, Larry and Cindy were determined to spend the night in the duplex, and they were actually hoping that the backyard prowler was going to show up, since Gary Hansen had a man from the sheriff’s department stationed at the house.

  They left after a round of hugs and with the knowledge that they all needed some sleep.

  Dane was silent as he and Kelsey headed out to Hurricane Bay. The weather still seemed fitting. The sky had gone from dull pewter to the deep gray of a battleship. As he parked the Jeep, the wind was whipping around them, but at the moment it wasn’t raining. He got out and headed for the house, then turned. Kelsey thought he was heading for the docks, but he wasn’t.

  She frowned as she watched him walk to the same spit of the beach where Nate had stood earlier that day.

  She walked up behind him. He knew that she was there.

  “I failed her,” he said after a moment.

  Kelsey felt the same way herself. “We didn’t fail her,” she said. “We were all her friends—despite her sins. Then again, it’s not as if we’re all without our quirks and problems. She was friends with all of us, too, no matter what. But you didn’t fail her, Dane, any more than any of the rest of us did. Sheila was going to do things her own way, no matter what.”

  He nodded after a moment and turned for the house.

  Kelsey followed him in.

  Once they were inside, Dane double-locked the doors. He walked toward the kitchen. “I need an aspirin. You want one?”

  She shook her head. “I’m all right.” She hesitated. “I think I’m going to take a long bath and lie down. Is that all right?”

  He nodded. “I’m going to call and make sure they’ve got a man stationed at the duplex. I want to talk to Jorge again, too, see if Marisa did go to the police.”

  Kelsey nodded and went up the stairs, feeling drained. She ran hot water into the tub, then found herself digging through his toiletries, wondering if she would find bath beads and glad when she didn’t. She didn’t want to think that Dane had downplayed his recent relationship with Sheila.

  He did have shampoo. She poured some into the tub to make bubbles. Then she leaned back in the water, letting the heat warm her. But when she closed her eyes, she kept seeing the photograph of Sheila. The medical examiner’s office had tried, she was certain, not to make the picture any more shocking than it had to be, but they hadn’t been able to hide the remnants of the tie around her neck. It hadn’t been removed yet—the forensic investigators hadn’t finished with her.

  Something about the picture, besides the awful image of what had once been the face of a beautiful woman, was disturbing. It had teased at Kelsey all afternoon, but for the life of her, she couldn’t figure out what it was.

  Dane tapped softly at the door. “I’m taking the diary downstairs to read. All right?”

  “Sure.”

  “You all right?”

  “Yeah.” She was quiet for a moment. “At least we know.”

  He was silent. “At least we know,” he repeated.

  He left, and Kelsey settled back in the tub. Her head was pounding. For the longest time she just lay there, listening to the pounding. She decided it was her pulse.

  The water grew cold, and she got out of the tub. She found clean underwear in her bag and slipped into one of Dane’s T-shirts, which, despite her height, fell comfortably to mid-thigh. She wanted to lie down and let sleep dull the image of her friend that persisted in remaining in her mind’s eye.

  She lay down and closed her eyes, but when she did, she saw Sheila.

  She sat up and noticed that Dane had taken the diary but not the pile of papers. Maybe there was something she had missed.

  She lifted the pile of papers and started going through them again. She came to the drawing Sheila had done as an adult. Then she drew out the one she had done as a child. She frowned. They were poor drawings, of course. Sheila had never had the least interest in art; she had always been impatient whenever Kelsey had wanted to stop and sketch a scene.

  She looked from one picture to the other. The female in both drawings was obviously Sheila. She had put the little mole on her left cheek in both drawings. But the man appeared different. In the second drawing he seemed straighter and heavier. Not fat, just heavier. As she puzzled over the pictures, she leaned forward. Her motion sent the pile of papers flying, dropping from her lap to the floor in disarray.

  Softly cursing herself, she rose, then got down on her knees. The pictures had scattered on the floor, and some had slid beneath the bed. As she collected them, she hit one of the floorboards. To her astonishment, it moved.

  Her first thought was that she needed to tell Dane he had a faulty floorboard. Then curiosity got the best of her. As she pressed it, she saw that it could be removed. Dane must keep his private papers here. Or personal objects. Or…

  It was none of her business.

  A strange feeling settled over her, and she warned herself that this might be like opening Pandora’s box.

  She couldn’t stop herself. She pulled up the floorboard.

  Shock, like being squeezed by icy fingers, settled over her.

  Then fear and amazement set in. She wasn’t just seeing Sheila’s face in death in her mind’s eye, she was seeing it in Polaroid color.

  The first article in the space beneath the floorboard was a picture of Sheila. When life had just left her. Sheila’s eyes were still open. Her lips were blue…her face tinged with blue.

  And she was on the beach. Dane’s beach. A corner of the dock could be seen at the edge of the picture.

  Even if the picture hadn’t shown her on Dane’s beach, it would still have pointed clearly to Dane as the murderer. She knew what had been bothering her about the picture she had seen at the morgue.

  She had recognized the remnants of fabric around Sheila’s neck. The tie. It was Dane’s tie. She knew it because she had given it to him for Christmas years ago. She had given one to Joe, as well. It was a hand-painted tie. There were sea creatures moving through a background of blues and grays. The ties had been special. She had labored over them for a very long time. Seeing it now, before the water and the muck had conspired to hide the pattern, it was obvious. So obvious.

  Sheila. Dead. On Dane’s beach. Strangled with Dane’s tie.

  Horror…fear…constricted her throat and every muscle for untold moments. She tried desperately to get her mind to function. She couldn’t panic.

  She had to get out.

  She remembered the day she had first talked to Dane. How he had told her to go home.

  What an idiot she was! The signs had all been there. Sheila had left the Sea Shanty with Dane. Sheila had slept with Dane the last night she’d been seen. Sheila’s earring had been on Dane’s floor.

  Dane had killed Sheila.

  And she, Kelsey, like a fool, hadn’t wanted to believe it. He had been so convincing. He had gone to the strip clubs looking for suspects. He had pursued Andy Latham. Of course he had. He was going to see that the murders were pinned on Latham….

  She forced herself to rise. She looked across the bed where he had left the .38 special that morning.

  The gun was gone.

  She picked up the receiver in the bedroom, then replaced it as carefully as her shaking fingers would allow. Dane was on the phone.

  She looked around the room. He was a private investigator. There had to be another weapon around somewhere. She looked under the bed, then went through several of his drawers. She saw that she had left the board up and panicked anew, so she ran back and replaced the picture and the board.

  She couldn’t stop shaking. And she wasn’t reasoning anywhere near as well as she should have been.
/>   The picture was replaced. The board was replaced. There was no weapon to be found. He would come up the stairs at any minute.

  She would never be able to hide the fact that she knew he was a murderer. A sick murderer. He had taken a picture of his victim as a trophy.

  She started for the door. She needed her purse and her cell phone. He was probably at the dining-room table, where he had set up his home office. That meant she had to go out the front door without being noticed. She could do it.

  She was in a T-shirt, barefoot. No time to change, but she did need her shoes. Sandals, but better than nothing. The ground was strewn with crushed shells and pebbles. She would never make it barefoot. She slipped on her sandals and hurried to the door. Her purse was downstairs. She had left it on the table.

  The table where Dane was undoubtedly working.

  Her phone was in her purse. She needed her phone. No, she needed to get the hell out of there. She knew the way off the island. And she could run. She couldn’t keep up with Cindy at the gym, but she was fit enough, and terror would give her wings.

  Kelsey left the bedroom and moved to the top of the stairs. He wasn’t on the stairway, at least. She started down, praying the old wood wouldn’t creak.

  At the foot of the stairs, she paused. Then she crept silently toward the rear, desperate to see where Dane was and what he was doing. If only he were in the kitchen, she could slip into the dining room and grab her purse.

  She looked cautiously into the dining room. Dane was at the table, drumming the surface of it as he spoke on the phone in a low tone.

  She saw her purse, just inches from his hand. His own cell phone was sitting right in front of him.

  She bit her lip and backed away. She had to get off the island.

  Kelsey turned and headed for the front door. As silently as she could, she turned the bolts. They seemed to snap open as loudly as a clash of cymbals, but she knew the sound was only in her mind. She opened the door, then closed it carefully, praying he wouldn’t know she was gone until she was far from Hurricane Bay.

  Dane heard the deep sigh on the other end of the phone line. Gary Hansen spoke patiently despite the sound.