The Mystery of Dolphin Inlet

by James Holding

  “I’m glad you admit it.” She gave her head a shake. “And when it comes down to it, it could have been Roscoe Chapin who tried to kill you just now, couldn’t it?”

  I hesitated. I’d been thinking the same thing. “He’s one possibility, sure. If the guy actually tried to kill me. Roscoe Chapin could be doing a little scuba diving off Dolphin Inlet as easy as anybody else, I suppose.”

  “See?” Susan cried triumphantly. “You think so, too!”

  “And so?” I could see she was getting ready to give me some kind of an argument.

  “I think you ought to tell the police about it, that’s all!” she said earnestly. “I thought so in the first place, and I think so even more now that you’ve been wounded by that man under the water. And now that I’ve found this letter signed R.C.!”

  I sighed. “You’re probably right, Susan,” I said. “And right now, I’m mad enough at that character to report him to the F.B.I., the C.I.A. and the Supreme Court! So I’ll tell Mike about him.”

  “All right. Will you promise to tell him all about this business? All about it? Promise?”

  “Sure,” I said. “I have the feeling I’d be nuts not to, as a matter of fact. First thing tomorrow.”

  “Why not now?”

  “Today’s Mike’s day off. And besides, I have to get back to work.”

  She smiled. “That’s right of course. Well, good-by, then, and don’t forget.”

  “I won’t.” I got out of her car and went to our pickup truck and got in. I said, “Thanks for the efficient first aid, Susan.”

  “It was a pleasure.” She backed her car to turn it.

  “It was a pleasure for me, too,” I said. She straightened away and headed north, waving.

  I waved back. Then I turned the truck and headed for home.

  The wind was freshening, backing around to the northeast. The first time the Gulf came into view from the road, I could see the waves were getting up fast. Heavy surf was pounding in along the Key. The air was chilly. The sun had disappeared under a gray overcast. It looked as though we were in for a pretty decent spring storm.

  I wondered whether Perry Osgood and Mr. X in their little outboard would be able to make it through the growing waves of the Gulf to Dolphin Inlet.

  CHAPTER 9

  MIKE SEBASTIEN LENDS A HAND

  The storm blew itself out during the night. When I went to see Mike Sebastien at police headquarters in Fiesta Village next morning, the sunshine we’re so proud of in our state was back again. The Gulf was still kicking up rough, but the wind was gone.

  Gloria, of course, was full of curiosity when I asked her to handle the market chores alone for an hour or so, and started to kid me about Susan taking up all my working time. She was more curious than ever when I told her I wasn’t going to see Susan, I was going to see a certain Mike Sebastien, a member of Perdido Key’s police force.

  She said, “Why don’t you telephone him, Pete?” which was a sneaky way of trying to learn what it was all about. She figured to listen to my end of the conversation on the fish market phone. I broke down and told her the whole thing then, because I knew Mike would tell her anyway. So she shooed me out of the market about quarter to ten when things were quiet for a while.

  Mike is a black-haired, black-eyed, good-looking fellow who stands six-three in his socks and causes most of the girls on the Key to practically faint when he looks at them. In his uniform, driving the Key’s only patrol car, with the police emblem on the side and the red bubble on top, he’s pretty handsome, I guess. He’s half-Spanish and half-Seminole Indian and a great guy, actually, even if I do pretend to Gloria that I think he’s a jerk just to tease her sometimes.

  Anyway, Mike was alone in the one-room headquarters, which is only big enough to hold two desks face to face—one for Mike and one for Sergeant Carroll, his superior—along with a couple of uncomfortable straight chairs, a gun rack on the wall, a water cooler in one corner and, in a converted closet outside the door of the office, a telephone switchboard and police transmitter in charge of Edna Jennings, a sharp old lady who used to teach kindergarten in Sarta City. Edna Jennings knows me, because I was in her kindergarten class, so she sent me right in to see Mike.

  “Hi, Pete,” he said to me, “how’s Gloria?” All I do is remind him of my sister. I sat down in one of the straight chairs.

  “She’s okay,” I answered him. “Mike, have you got a minute? I’d like to tell you about a funny thing that happened to me yesterday…”

  His black eyes glinted at me. “You mean police business?”

  “I guess so, Mike.”

  “Shoot,” said Mike. “What happened to you that was funny?”

  “A guy tried to kill me with a speargun under Dolphin Inlet,” I said.

  He stared at me. “That’s funny, all right. Hilarious. You kidding?”

  I told him the whole thing as fast as I could talk. Mike lit a brown paper cigarette and listened to me without a word.

  When I finished, I wasn’t a bit surprised to have Mike wag his head at me and say, “Pete, I think you’re maybe making a big thing out of a lot of little unrelated incidents that really don’t mean much by themselves.”

  “Maybe,” I said, “but I’d hate to get killed by one of those unrelated little incidents, Mike.”

  He grinned. “Who wouldn’t? But take it from the top, Pete. If your wallet was searched while you swam at Dolphin Inlet, you can’t complain. You were trespassing. If somebody followed you and Susan in the woods, what can we do? Maybe they had as much right there as you did. Or maybe they thought you were following them! The rental car being used by a guy named Roscoe Chapin doesn’t prove a thing about Roscoe Chapin himself. He rents a car, he can use it any way he pleases. This Mr. X could be Hamilton Osgood or the Governor of Alaska, it’s none of our business until he breaks the law. The R.C. initials on this note”—Mike tapped the charred paper I’d given him—“could be anybody, as you pointed out yourself. And anyway, what can we do on the basis of a piece of partially destroyed private correspondence that you kids stole…yeah, stole…out of Osgood’s burner basket?”

  He was going to brush it all aside as meaning nothing, I could see that plain as day. I said, “Mike, you may be right about all those incidents. But it’s a little more serious to the police when somebody tries to kill somebody, isn’t it? I wasn’t trespassing then. I was out in the open Gulf when that bird shot his spear at me. How about that?”

  Mike shrugged his heavy shoulders. “I’d guess there are three possibilities on that, Pete. One, the scuba diver thought you were a shark and shot at you in terror of his life. That’s the most likely. Second, he was so startled at the sight of you that he shot before he realized what he was doing. Blind impulse. You were pretty startled yourself, you say. And third, it’s perfectly possible that when he grabbed onto that rock on the bottom to hold himself against the surge of the swell, he jerked the trigger of his gun by mistake during his struggle to stay put. He didn’t intend to shoot his gun at all. Much less at you. The thing just happened to be pointing your way at the time.” Mike smiled suddenly, showing his big white teeth under his thin black mustache. “You got to remember, Pete, that the guy was only four or five feet away from you when the gun went off. According to your own story. If he’d been trying to spit you, he ought to have been able to do it at that range, oughtn’t he?”

  “Maybe not,” I said. “I took off for the surface just as the missile was released. If I’d have been a second later, he’d have hit me.”

  “Well, I’m glad he didn’t,” Mike said heartily.

  “Thanks,” I said. “Thanks a lot. Then you don’t think there’s any tie-up between all these screwy incidents, as you call them, and Roscoe Chapin?”

  “The chances are a hundred to one against it.”

  “But there is that one chance, all the same, isn’t ther
e?”

  “Sure.” Mike was brisk. “Here’s something else to keep in mind, though. You asked for all these things that have been happening to you, Pete. You’ve been…snooping…haven’t you?” He coughed. “Trespassing on other people’s property? Aggressively messing around where you’ve no business to be. Right?”

  “Well, I suppose you could call it that.”

  “I call it that. Figure it out for yourself, Pete. If you’d dated Susan What’s-her-name in the regular way, and not gone fooling around Dolphin Inlet, none of this would have happened, would it?”

  “It did happen, though, Mike. That guy shot at me, and it’s a creepy feeling.”

  “Don’t I know it?” Mike said with instant sympathy. “I’ve had a few scares like that myself.”

  I sighed. “We’ll stay away from Dolphin Inlet from now on.”

  “You do that. And you’ll find everything will be safe and peaceful.” Mike looked at me. My face must have shown I wasn’t entirely satisfied by his reassurances. He was quiet for a second, then he said, “You still think there’s a chance it was this Roscoe Chapin character who shot that spear at you, don’t you?”

  I nodded.

  Mike hesitated a minute, then leaned forward and lifted the telephone on his desk. He spoke into it. “Get me the Freebooter Motel, Edna. The office.”

  While he waited, he toyed with a pencil, tapping the desk. He said, “Since you’re Gloria’s brother, I’ve decided to give you the very best treatment we have, Pete.” This was supposed to be a joke. I didn’t think it was funny. “I’ll go take a look at this Roscoe Chapin of yours, if you like. That make you and Susan feel better?”

  “You bet!” I said, caught by surprise. “Gee, Mike…!”

  His call came through. He asked the desk clerk at the Freebooter whether they had a Mr. Roscoe Chapin registered there as a guest. I could hear the clerk’s reply. “Yes,” she said. “In cottage eighteen. Shall I ring him?”

  “Don’t bother,” Mike said easily. “I’ll come out there and see him personally sometime in the next day or so.”

  “Who shall I say called him?” the clerk asked.

  “Perdido Key Police,” Mike said. The girl’s gasp was audible even over the phone. Mike laughed. “Nothing to worry about, miss. Routine traffic inquiry.” He hung up and turned to me. “Want to go along?”

  “Now?”

  “Why not? Get it over with. He won’t be expecting me yet. And it’ll relieve your mind quicker, eh?”

  “Let’s go,” I said.

  Mike left word with Edna where we’d be. We went out and got in his police cruiser. “Siren, Pete?” he teased me as we pulled away from headquarters.

  I was suddenly uncomfortable. I felt foolish. I said, “No, for gosh sakes, Mike, no siren!”

  It didn’t take us long to cover the ten miles to the Freebooter. Mike turned in through the stand of royal palms that lined the drive to the office, and drove on until we saw the number 18 in black numerals over one of the cottage carports. As we went past Susan’s cottage, twelve, I hoped I’d catch a glimpse of her, but no such luck. Her car was there, though. She and her mother were probably on the beach.

  Mike stopped the cruiser in front of cottage eighteen and set his brake. I said, “His car’s not here, Mike.”

  Mike shrugged. “Maybe I should have warned the desk girl not to mention my call.”

  “You think he’s skipped?”

  Mike grinned at me. “Not likely. Why should an innocent tourist take it on the lam just because a small town cop wants to ask him about a minor traffic violation?”

  “Maybe he’s not so innocent, after all!”

  “We’ll see.” Mike pushed the doorbell of cottage eighteen. Nothing happened. We waited a minute or two, then Mike gave it another try. No action.

  I looked around. A maid with clean sheets and towels in her hands was about to go into cottage twenty next door. I said to Mike, “Maybe that girl can tell us where Chapin is.”

  Mike walked over, smiling. His splendid appearance fixed the maid in her tracks. He said, “Do you do cottage eighteen, miss?”

  “Yes,” she said in an admiring murmur.

  “Know Mr. Chapin, the occupant?”

  “Just by sight. I’ve seen him several times when I’ve done his cottage.”

  “He doesn’t answer his bell. And his car’s not in the carport. He hasn’t checked out and left, has he?”

  She shook her head. “Not so far as I know. I just finished doing his cottage before you came. His stuff’s still there.”

  “Oh, good,” Mike said. “I wanted to ask him a couple of questions. I can do it some other time.”

  The maid’s eyes got round with excitement at the thought of the police being interested in one of the Freebooter’s guests. One of her guests. She clutched the sheets and towels tight against her. “What’s Mr. Chapin done?” she asked.

  Mike said, “Nothing important. We think he may have finessed a stop sign. Wherever he went, you didn’t see him go, eh?”

  “No, sir.” She struggled with her curiosity, then asked timidly, “You sure that’s all he’s done? Ignored a stop sign?”

  Mike looked at her. “Why?”

  “I thought maybe he was leading a double life,” the maid said. The way she said “double life,” you could tell she’d been reading something like that in one of those confession magazines.

  “What makes you think that?” Mike asked. “Does he act suspicious in any way?”

  “Oh no!” She seemed sorry she’d raised the question now. “Mr. Chapin’s a very nice man. Polite and generous and minds his own business.”

  “Then what’s all this about a double life?” Mike asked her gently.

  “Only that he didn’t sleep in his bed last night,” the maid informed us. “And a couple of other times in the three weeks he’s been a guest here, I haven’t had to touch his bed in the morning, because if wasn’t slept in.”

  Mike laughed. “That’s hardly a crime. I daresay he’s got friends living around here with whom he spends an occasional night.”

  “Then why does he pay forty dollars a day to sleep here?” the maid said swiftly. “That’s sinful extravagance, if you ask me!”

  “It sure is,” Mike agreed, “but it’s none of our business if a man wants to throw his money away. Is it?”

  Mike has that trick of keeping people off balance by finishing a lot of his sentences with a question like that. The maid fell silent.

  Mike said, “Well, thanks, miss, for your help. I’ll drop in and see Mr. Chapin when he gets back. No hurry.” He put a hand on my arm to turn me toward the police car, and lifted his trooper’s hat politely to the maid. “Adios,” he said. Gloria told me that when Mike says good-by in Spanish like that, any girl would simply hate to see him leave, he sounds so romantic. I didn’t think his Spanish did much for the maid. She just stood there, awkwardly, and watched us leave.

  In the car, Mike started the motor and said to me, “We have nothing against Roscoe Chapin to warrant any investigation of him or any expenditure of official funds on him. Not even an infraction of traffic rules, Pete. Of course, I’ll at least talk to him on the phone, and find out in short order whether he’s your underwater marksman or not.”

  “How?” I asked.

  “Question of alibi,” Mike said. “I’ll ask him where he was when the man shot at you yesterday. He tells me. Can he prove it, I ask him. He says certainly, and names witnesses or something that will back him up. I check out the alibi, find it holds up and bingo! We know the guy with the speargun was John Q. Tourist maybe, but not Roscoe Chapin. Then you can stop worrying about the guy. Check?”

  I was convinced. “Check, Mike,” I said. “And thanks for taking all this trouble today. Sorry I bothered you.”

  He punched my shoulder. “Forget it. Any brot
her of Gloria’s will soon be a brother of mine!” He began to whistle. We rolled toward the highway.

  I looked ahead through the windshield as we followed the motel drive past the scattered cottages. I said, “Hold it!”

  “What now?” He slowed down.

  “That’s Susan Frost in front of cottage twelve, flagging us down,” I told him. “The girl who was with me at Dolphin Inlet…”

  “Oh, yeah. I’ll be glad to meet her. Your sister says she’s quite a dish.” He brought the cruiser to a halt beside Susan, who was standing on the edge of the drive and making semaphoring motions with her arms. She had on jeans and a shirt that was too big for her by four sizes. She looked great.

  “Pete!” she said as we pulled up. “I thought that was you I saw in this car when you went by our window a few minutes ago.”

  Mike and I got out and I introduced him to Susan. She gave him a smile and said, “Oh, I’ve heard a lot about you, Officer Sebastien!” and the way she said it made Mike grin at me. Susan went on, “And what did you find out about Roscoe Chapin at cottage eighteen, Pete? I saw you stop there.”

  I told her we’d found out nothing. Except that Chapin had slept out last night. And I told her that Mike thought we were away out in left field with our suspicions of Chapin, anyway. She could hardly wait until I finished to say, “Well, I’ve found out something that I think is kind of sinister, officer!”

  “Oh?” Mike murmured, all politeness.

  “Yes. I just happened to be talking with one of the bellboys here at the Freebooter who helps you unload your bags and things when you arrive, you know?”

  “Just happened!” I wondered about that.

  Mike nodded. “You said sinister,” he kidded her. “What did you learn from this bellboy that was sinister?”

  Susan took a deep breath. “He just happened to be the bellboy who helped Mr. Chapin unload his luggage when he checked in here three weeks ago,” Susan said “And guess what? The bellboy said that Mr. Chapin had a lot of scuba diving gear in the trunk of his car, along with his bags!”