Dark Destiny

by Edward S. Aarons

  He felt unsure of his voice and deliberately chose to misunderstand her. "Don't you trust Cap'n Joe?"

  "Of course. He's all right."

  Sam wondered. He had remained outside in the rain when Ellen parked her car. She had gone into the restaurant and he had watched her talking to the proprietor while he sat in the car. Joe Tydings had given her a key and then they talked a little more and Ellen came outside alone again. Sam had a sudden vision of the man calling the police at this very instant. He pushed it aside, knowing he could not afford any irrational suspicions.

  Ellen still hesitated. "Sam? Do you have any idea who did it? About Bill, I mean. Could it have been his own uncle?"

  "I don't know," he said. "Ashton is a strange man."

  "I never liked him," Ellen said. "But I can't conceive of him killing his own nephew."

  "Ashton could," Sam said. "But I have no proof of anything."

  "What will you do tomorrow?"

  "There's only one thing I can do," he said. "I'll keep diving for Gabrilan's boat. Benny told you about that, didn't he?"

  She nodded. Her voice was disturbed. "But won't that be dangerous-if the police spot you?"

  "I can't stay here indefinitely."

  "Will you wait for me tomorrow? I'll come for breakfast." She kissed him suddenly, her lips cool and smooth on his. He started to put his arms around her in the darkness, but she slipped away from him toward the cabin door. When she opened it, the drumming of the rain and the beat of the surf sounded much louder. Her figure was silhouetted against the lights from Cap'n Joe's restaurant.

  ***

  He was suddenly very much alone.

  He stood in the doorway watching the lights on her car vanish on the highway. The rain was cold on his face. He felt confused.

  Then a voice spoke to him from the darkness beside the cabin.

  "Good thing you let her go, kid. She's too good for you."

  It was Cap'n Joe Tydings. The man was a relative stranger to the islands, present only in the winter season and where he spent the rest of the year was a mystery to those on the keys. He had the far-seeing eye of a wanderer and the air of a romantic despite the obviously phony getup he affected. His eyes were not too friendly as Sam turned to him.

  "Were you listening to us inside?" he asked quietly.

  "Why not? I wanted to be sure Ellen was all right."

  "Why shouldn't she be all right?"

  "You tell me," the big man grunted. "I'm sorry she's mixed up with you, is all. She'd be better off if the cops got you and slapped you in the can for good."

  Sam asked: "Are you going to call the cops?"

  "I promised I wouldn't. So I won't. You hungry?"

  "No," Sam said.

  "Some liquor?"

  "No. Just some sleep."

  "All right. Get some, then."

  The big man walked away in the rain. Sam watched him for a moment, then shut the cabin door and stretched out on the cot by the seaward window. He was not sleepy. He felt angry toward Cap'n Joe. He didn't think the man had any right to comment on his relations with Ellen Terhune. Maybe Tydings thought that what he was doing for him gave him the right to say something about it, but Sam didn't think so. He sat up and looked at the dark sea. The surf made wide, irregular lines of white on the beach and even they became invisible when the reflected light vanished suddenly as the restaurant was closed. The night shut itself in around him.

  Now he regretted the angry pride that had made him refuse Joe's liquor. He needed a drink. He needed something to drive away the jitters creeping up on him. He got up and walked back and forth across the tiny cabin floor.

  Suddenly he felt weighted by despair. Far from accomplishing anything to remove the stigma of Charley's death, he had only succeeded in duplicating it for himself. Fear touched him, for himself and for those who had helped him tonight. Bill Somerset's death would not have happened if he hadn't gone back to Isla Honda, if he hadn't gone a little crazy about Bill's wife. He thought of Mona with a curious detachment now, remembering how she had been today, but untouched by the memories she evoked in his mind.

  Sam stretched out on the cot again and took of the few remaining cigarettes from the crumpled pack in his pocket and smoked slowly, staring into the darkness. He told himself to stop thinking about Mona and Ellen, about tonight. Tonight was the result of the past, an inexorable march of events that had started on another stormy night here on the islands. He listened to the surf and the rain and thought of all those who had an interest in Isla Honda, of those who in one way or another had been connected with Charley. He thought of the two Cuban agents, Gabrilan and Jaquin. Only after the two men had left Isla Honda that night three years ago had the tragedy happened. Only after the boat was gone had Charley killed himself. Sam groaned and twisted on the cot. Why had Charley done it? Why had he accepted defeat and treachery that way? It was contrary to all his memories of his brother. Charley had been a man of pride and dignity, an honest man, respected by everyone. Or was that memory just a trick of his mind? He couldn't know. It was too late to ever know. The more he thought about it, the more Charley became a stranger to him, a haunting enigma misted by time.

  With an abruptness created by exhaustion, Sam fell asleep.

  The rain stopped at dawn, leaving the sea turbulent and chalky with disturbed coral sand. Sam awoke some time later, alarmed and confused until he identified the shabby little cabin with the night before. He was aware of hunger, but he didn't get up. There was a wash basin, none too clean, and a lavatory behind a curtain in one corner of the cabin. Finally, he dressed and then sat on the cot and stared at the beach.

  He tried to plan for the day, but his thoughts felt sticky with the increasing heat and the confinement of the cabin. He knew he couldn't stay here for long, but he was unable to decide on his next step. The thing to do was to wait for Ellen to come for breakfast as she had promised.

  By nine o'clock no one had approached the cabin and he decided to risk a public appearance in search of coffee. He wished he had a radio so he could know what was going on.

  He was at the cabin door when the woman knocked and came in with a breakfast tray. She was short and stout, of middle age and her dark eyes touched him impersonally.

  "Buenos dias. Como estad?" she asked.

  "Hungry," he grinned at her.

  She started out. She was wearing a white apron over her ample hips and he guessed she was one of Cap'n Joe's waitresses. He wondered if she could be trusted. She did not seem overly concerned about him.

  "Will you ask Cap'n Joe to come here?" he asked.

  "He says for you to be patient, senor. He will see you presently."

  She went out. Sam looked after her, impatient and troubled, then turned to the breakfast, worried about Ellen being so late. There were bacon and eggs and half a loaf of crisp Cuban bread and a pot of strong, hot coffee. He was surprised by his appetite. There was a fresh pack of cigarettes on the tray and Sam smoked one, appreciating someone's thoughtfulness. He could not complain, he decided, but as the minutes of the morning ticked away into another hour, he became restless again, feeling imprisoned and futile. He could not imagine what was delaying Ellen.

  At ten o'clock Barney Suarez rapped quickly on the screen door, then came in sidewise, looking behind him. Benny looked as if he hadn't slept all night. There were dark smudges under his eyes and his mouth was nervous. He grinned quickly, then the grin vanished.

  "You are all right, amigo?"

  "Where is Ellen?" Sam asked. "I was just about to get out of here."

  "You must not do that. It would be impossible."

  "Are the police still looking for me?"

  Benny sighed and sat down on the cot. "For murder, Sam."

  "Then they actually think I killed Bill?"

  "It is obvious. They questioned poor Estella and me for half the night when we returned home. It was a very difficult time and Estella had nightmares this morning. It is unpleasant to live with a nervous woman like
that, amigo."

  "What did you tell the cops?"

  "Nothing."

  "Was Frye with them?"

  Benny nodded unhappily. "He was in the forefront. They are determined to capture you, Sam. It is in all the newspapers. Everyone is alerted. It would be impossible for you to get off the keys."

  "I don't intend to leave," Sam said grimly. "What about Ellen?"

  "She was afraid to come. The police are watching her and she did not dare risk being followed."

  "What about you?"

  "I avoided them, amigo."

  Sam sat down again and looked at Benny's dark, unhappy face. He offered Benny a cigarette and smoked one himself. Benny looked at the empty breakfast tray, his eyes vacant, his face defenseless. It wasn't good, Sam thought, to put his friends through this trouble.

  His thoughts touched the past, considering Benny when he had worked for Charley long ago. Sam remembered him as a small, dapper man, always friendly, always smiling, working at a small desk in Charley's library at Isla Honda. He was suddenly impressed by the change that the years had wrought in the little man. Now Benny looked and acted as if he had been a shrimp fisherman all his life, with no knowledge of intricate business such as he had once displayed. A thought came to him, and he wondered how to express it.

  "Benny? I was wondering about you and my brother." He watched Benny's face tighten just a little. The man smoothed his thick, graying hair. "You weren't at Isla Honda the night Charley died."

  "No, chico, I wasn't. To my everlasting regret."

  "Where were you?"

  "But I have told you many times," Benny said. "I was in Havana on your brother's business. How could you forget? When I came back, the tragedy was two days old. There was nothing I could do. John Ashton and young Bill were already gone from the house. The police were in charge. I thought of you so far away, like a lost lamb, chico. I wrote to you and offered you a home with me."

  "I remember," Sam nodded.

  The time after Benny's letter, while in Korea, had been a bad one. The world he had known was destroyed piecemeal, day by day-the house sold, his boatyard sold, everything slowly vanishing. It was probably a hard blow to Benny, too, since he had just married Estella. Benny's salvation had come with a job in the fishing fleet, work that was alien to him, since he had been a clerk and secretary all his life before that. Estella must have wept many tears at what she would consider Benny's degradation. With an effort, he pushed aside his thoughts, conscious of Benny's sad, liquid eyes accusing him.

  "What is it you think of me, amigo? I will help you all I can. Do you doubt me?"

  "No," Sam said. "It's all right." He paused. "Where was Ellen last night, when Bill was murdered?"

  Benny looked angry. "Out walking. She said so herself. These doubts are not worthy of you, Sam."

  "Perhaps not. Still, I have to think about it."

  "You have a plan in mind for the future?"

  "We've got to find that boat, Benny. I'm convinced Gabrilan's craft sank three years ago when he left Isla Honda with Jaquin. If we can locate it and bring up some proof of what happened then, maybe some of the money, we'll know better what to do."

  "It is not much to hope for," Benny said. "It is almost an impossibility. Besides, that will not clear you of this murder."

  "But I can't sit here idly forever."

  "I could get you to Cuba," Benny offered. "You could stay with Estella's family in Havana. It would be safe there."

  "No," Sam said. "I don't want to run away. I'll stay here. It's the only place I can do myself any good."

  "Perhaps you are right. In that event, I hope you will not be angry with me, amigo."

  "Why should I be angry?" Sam asked.

  "I have agreed to something. She came to me this morning-she telephoned that is. The widow-Mona Somerset."

  Sam stood up alarmed. "What did she want?"

  "She thought I could tell her where you were hiding. She insisted on it."

  "And did you?"

  Benny smiled wryly. "No, amigo. Not yet. She is waiting. She says she must talk to you and it is important. I asked her to give me the message for you, but she refused. It is for you alone, she said. She is a very beautiful woman, amigo."

  "I know," Sam said. "Take me to her."

  10

  They walked down the beach from the cabin, away from Cap'n Joe's restaurant. It was good to get out of the confinement of the hot little room. There were only a few cars parked in front of the main building. The sea glittered under the hot morning sun. It was as if there had never been a storm last night. The beach curved slightly and in a moment the restaurant and the cabins were lost to sight behind a screen of scrubby pines and palmettos. The beach became stony and narrow. Sam started to sweat under the tropical sun.

  "There is a little road that comes down to the water, only a quarter of a mile from here." Benny halted. "I told her to wait there. She will not connect that place with Cap'n Joe's. Do you want me to go with you, amigo?"

  "Maybe it would be better if I went alone."

  "Then I will wait for you in the cabin."

  The little man turned and went back the way they had come. Sam walked on, moving at a slightly faster pace. He felt surprise at the way he anticipated seeing Mona. It was more than the prospect of gaining what information she had. He wanted to see her for herself, to discover what had happened to his emotions last night when he was with Ellen. He knew that this sort of thing was apt to prove disastrous and that he should have thoughts only for the problem at hand. But he could not help himself. He walked faster.

  The beach became overgrown with wild thickets that reached down to the water's edge, but there was a clearly defined path that skirted the worst of it and after a few moments he came out on an open area and saw the weather-beaten shack that perched like a drunken pelican on stilts driven into the sand. There was a rutted road leading inland from the clearing through the brush and Mona's yellow convertible gleamed among the dark green foliage. Sam paused and looked at the scene carefully. He saw no one, not even Mona. The place filled him with a definite uneasiness. It was too quiet, too serene. The gray little shack looked abandoned, but there was a skiff pulled up on the beach and turned bottom up as protection against the rain. The wind made a rattling noise in the brush, the surf sighed and chuckled gently on the beach. He moved forward into the clearing and circled the shack and then he saw Mona sitting on the beach.

  She was alone. She had her back to him and was staring at the sea, hugging her knees under her chin. Her dark hair was lustrous in the hot sunshine. Sam looked at the parked car in the brush. It was empty. No one else was around. He walked toward the girl on the beach.

  Mona heard him coming and turned quickly, smiling.

  "Sam! Thank goodness that little man told you where I was. I was beginning to think he wouldn't send you to me. Are you all right?"

  "So far," he said soberly. He did not smile. He sat down beside her, a little distance away, his back to the sea so that he could watch the rutted road that led to this place. He wondered if he ought to get up and look inside the shack, but he did not want his mistrust to appear so obvious. "How do you feel?"

  "I didn't sleep much," she said. "You can imagine. Are you sure you're all right?"

  "I'm okay as long as the cops don't catch up with me," he said bluntly. "What have they been saying?"

  Mona shrugged. Her figure was sleek and smooth in the abbreviated clothes she wore. "Ashton told them he was sure you had killed Bill. He didn't attempt to spare any of my feelings. He told them you and I were in love with each other and that you killed Bill to be rid of him. You can imagine the sort of questions the police asked me after that."

  "Didn't you deny what Ashton said?"

  She looked at him. Her blue eyes were wide. "Why should I?"

  He felt exasperated. "But you know I didn't kill Bill."

  "I know that. I told them as much."

  "But you didn't deny that business about you and me?"
/>
  "No."

  He didn't know what to say. Her eyes were frank and candid watching his face. He felt angry and then perplexed, faced by her calm challenge. He wanted to deny it and then he wondered why he should. He didn't know the truth about it himself.

  "You made it look worse than ever," he said.

  "If you're innocent, you'll be all right."

  He laughed wryly. "You ought to know better than that. I've already been tried and convicted. You know I didn't kill Bill," he said again.

  "I know."

  "Are you going to help me?" he asked.

  "If I can. That's why I'm here. This isn't easy for me either, Sam. I haven't had an easy time of it. I can't remember feeling right about anything, ever since I married Bill. Do„ you want to hear about it?"

  "If you have time."

  "Nobody knows I'm here," Mona said. "There's plenty of time. You ought to know about it. Maybe it will hurt you, but I think it will be good for both of us. You see, I can't shed any tears over Bill's death. I hate the ugly way he died, of course, but I don't miss him. We hadn't been in love with each other for a long time. Maybe we never were.

  "Bill married me for my money," she said flatly. "It was obvious from the start. I should have known better, but I thought I loved him and I was willing to take a chance. Bill never loved me though and that was where I made my mistake."

  "How can you be sure?" Sam asked.

  Her smile was wry. "It was plain enough. I was a fool, that's all. I thought the money part of it was unimportant and it really seemed that way to me, but it wasn't to Bill. I know how you feel about him and you're probably resenting what I say because of your boyhood loyalty to him. He meant well, I don't deny that. He tried to be kind, but it gradually made me feel merely tolerated for the things I could buy him. I didn't understand it, because when Bill was alone with me, he could really be sweet and gentle. It was Ashton who influenced him and made him grow up the way he was. It was Ashton who made him marry me for my money."

  Into the girl's voice had crept a deep and violent hatred when she mentioned Ashton's name. Her face was pale. She didn't look at Sam. She seemed to be talking to the sea and he kept quiet.