Slack Tide

by George Harmon Coxe

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “Who cares?”

  “How do I know she’s your wife?”

  “Ask her.”

  MacLaren glanced down at the girl. Her shamed and almost imperceptible nod before she bowed her head was enough to tell him that Kingsley spoke the truth, but when he saw how small and frightened and pathetic she looked, he knew he had to help her. Kingsley’s next belligerent words helped decide him.

  “I told you once,” he threatened. “Stay out of this.”

  MacLaren ignored him and looked at the girl again. He felt Kingsley pulling her, and he held onto her other hand, resisting.

  “Do you want to go with him?”

  “No.”

  “That’s it then,” he said. “I’ll get you a room at the Inn and you two can talk it over in the morning after—”

  It was a characteristic of Kingsley that he turn mean when crossed. The people with whom he had surrounded himself had a luxurious life so long as they gave him no argument, and his reaction to this present frustration was both vicious and vindictive. Without warning, giving MacLaren no chance to finish, and still holding his wife’s arm, he hooked his left. MacLaren, surprised, but seeing the movement from the corner of his eye, could do no more than move his chin. The punch caught him on the side of the head and he went down, rolling but wary, so that when Kingsley stepped close and kicked at his head he was able to tip the heel.

  Kingsley tripped and went to one knee, cursing as he fell. He jumped up, furious, but this time MacLaren was ready, stepping inside a looping right as Kingsley charged, and hooking twice to the body. During the next minute or two he had no time for thoughts of the girl, no time for anything but Kingsley. He gave away height and weight, but he was in better condition and he had the advantage of a clearer head. He hated Kingsley at the moment and wanted to put him down, but he was not driven by the blind fury that had gripped his opponent.

  He was not sure how many blows he struck or how many times he was hit. He gave ground to the other’s superior weight and sensed that the girl was still there as Kingsley wrestled him to the edge of the dock and tried to knee him. To protect himself, MacLaren slugged inside and they broke apart, both teetering at the edge of the planking. Then, before Kingsley could lunge forward, his wife took a hand.

  Beyond the gas and oil pumps and water hoses was the icehouse, which had been put there for the convenience of boat-owners and was filled daily in season. The odd pieces of wood left over from the remodeling job had been swept into a neat pile by Larry Keats, and now one of these came hurtling through the night to bounce off the back of Kingsley’s head.

  MacLaren was as surprised as Kingsley, not so much at what the move accomplished, but that it was made at all. He did not see Ruth Kingsley hurl it, but he understood that in her panic she was afraid that her husband would be the winner and this was her way of helping.

  MacLaren was never sure about that piece of wood; he only knew it was not large. At the time he thought it was a short length of two-by-four, and he saw it glance off Kingsley’s head, saw the man stagger and try to glance round, more infuriated than hurt—or so MacLaren thought. For a second or two he teetered there on the stringpiece, arms waving as he lost his battle for equilibrium. Finally, seeing he was going over anyway, he twisted and dived clear of the dinghy, surfacing thirty feet out in the stream.

  With that MacLaren acted instantly as the sudden desire to laugh aloud rose within him. Freeing the painter, he dropped to his knees, swung the bow of the dinghy toward Kingsley, and gave it a mighty shove. Only when he rose and stepped back did it occur to him that the man might drown.

  “Is he a good swimmer?”

  “Oh, yes,” the girl said from the darkness behind him.

  “You’re sure?”

  “Positive.”

  The tide was not yet strong and MacLaren saw a hand come up and grab the boat. It was too dark to see much else, but as the distance widened, he thought he saw Kingsley try to pull himself up over the side. Then as the night obliterated the scene, MacLaren called out:

  “Keep going and don’t come back! … Come on,” he said to the girl. “He’s all right now.”

  She came docilely, like a person in shock as he took her by the arm and led her toward the showroom, her bare feet making no sounds and her arm cold and stiff in his grasp.

  “I’ve got an apartment over the office,” he said to reassure her. “When you get dried off I’ll phone the Inn and get a room for you.”

  Upstairs he turned on the living-room lights, and she went with him to the bedroom as unprotesting as a child. She stood mute and shivering, her face slack and apparently unaware that the soft curves of her young body were so intimately revealed by the thin wet gown. After his first glance, MacLaren turned away to produce a turkish towel, clean pajamas, and his flannel robe. Because traces of fear and hysteria still lurked in the corners of her green eyes, he did all this matter-of-factly, not looking at her directly again or wanting to embarrass her.

  “Give yourself a good rubdown and then put these on,” he said. “I’m going to make some coffee and call the Inn. Come out when you’re ready.”

  He put the water on for coffee and poured out a small brandy, but when he went to the telephone the word from the Inn was bad. The owner would like to accommodate him and most likely there would be something in the morning, but for tonight there was no room to be had.

  Ruth Kingsley had rolled up the sleeves of the pajamas and robe, but when she came out of the bedroom the overall effect of the trailing skirt was comic and she seemed to realize it. What fear remained was deep inside her, and there was color in her cheeks where the towel had left its shine. She seemed now to have control of her emotions and she gave him a shy, tentative smile.

  “I don’t know how to thank you,” she said.

  “Drink this before you try.” MacLaren handed her the brandy as an odd embarrassment began to work on him. He busied himself fixing a chair for her. He said coffee would be ready in a couple of minutes. Then, as she settled herself and sipped her brandy, he told her about the Inn. “So,” he said, making it sound unimportant, “I guess you’ll have to stay here for tonight.”

  “Oh?” she said, her eyes wide and serious.

  “There’s a cot downstairs I can use. You can have this place to yourself.”

  He saw the trouble stirring again in her gaze. She looked down at the glass and her shoulders sagged.

  “They’ll come back,” she said woodenly.

  “Who?”

  “Oliver and Harry Danaher. I had to hit Harry to get away.”

  He accepted the last statement without comment and said he doubted if they would come back. “If they do,” he said, “they won’t get in. This is private property.”

  He stood up to take the glass and pour the coffee. When he sat down again he had a chance to look at her and realize how different she was from the blonde he had seen that afternoon. The blonde had the stilted walk and haughty manner of a high-priced model. This girl seemed so entirely different that he wondered not only how a man with Kingsley’s reputation had been attracted to her in the first place, but why, knowing his reputation, she had ever consented to marry him. Even without make-up she was as pretty as a model and just as young, but the prettiness had a wholesome, unassuming quality that seemed as natural as the other girl’s was affected.

  “I thought I knew everyone on the island,” he said. “How long have you been there?”

  “I’m not sure—well, since Oliver moved in.”

  “But that’s nearly three weeks.”

  He saw her nod and stared at her until, out of nowhere, came an answer that seemed almost too fantastic to accept. He remembered his increasing interest in the house on the island, his recent visit to Sam Willis and the questions he had asked. Still looking at her, he finally put his thoughts into words.

  “Were you,” he asked quietly, not yet ready to accept the picture his imagination was conju
ring up, “in that shlittered room at the back?”

  “Locked in,” she said simply.

  He stood another moment watching her, his tanned craggy face somber and the dark-blue eyes grave and resentful as he began to sense the possibilities which lay behind the girl’s wild flight. He did not understand how or why such things could happen, but he did realize that this was not the time to question her.

  “Okay,” he said. “Don’t worry about it tonight. They have laws in this state to take care of husbands who slap their wives around, so no one is going to bother you.” He walked over to the door and nodded toward the bedroom. “That one’s got a lock on it. If you want anything just come to the head of these stairs and yell.”

  4

  MACLAREN WAS not sure how long he had been asleep. He knew he had been asleep because he had been dreaming about some silly operation that had to do with boats, a fuzzy sequence that had no point and made no sense. Now he found himself staring up through the darkness, still not knowing what had waked him until the noise was repeated. He knew what it was then, and rolled over on his cot, aware that someone was at the door.

  A glance at his watch told him it was twelve twenty. Beyond the office door he could see a light of some kind. As it spread across the showroom floor, he kicked off the blanket and sat up, reaching for his trousers. He stepped into them quickly, buckled them on, and put bare feet into his shoes, not bothering to lace them. He started for the door, then stopped as the things Ruth Kingsley had said and his own speculation on other things she had not mentioned flashed through his brain. Turning to the roll-top desk, he opened a drawer and took out a .32 automatic. He was moving when the knock came again, making sure the safety was off as he balanced the gun in his hand.

  The thoughts of Oliver Kingsley and his reputation were still with him as he stepped into the showroom and crossed toward the door. Not knowing what to expect but ready now, he turned the key and pulled at the knob, stepping aside as he did so to keep away from the light.

  “Mac?”

  MacLaren grunted his reply, aware that there was but one man outside, that the voice belonged to no one on the island, but not yet recognizing it.

  “Ed Chaney,” the man said. “Thought I better wake you.

  MacLaren felt his muscles relax, and he let his breath out slowly, feeling a little embarrassed now and pocketing the gun before he stepped outside. Ed Chaney was an ancient townsman who lived on a small pension, odd jobs, and fishing. Shad season was his busy time, but this was behind him now and apparently Ed had been out on the river to see what else was biting.

  “What’s up, Ed? Trouble?”

  “Looks like. Weren’t sure what I’d better do…. This way, Mac. I’ll show you.”

  They were crossing the planking then, angling toward the small floating dock, Ed’s light showing the way. Beyond the hills on the far bank of the river a late, lopsided moon had risen to cast its glow over the inlet and the island. Lights showed in the lower-floor windows of the house but here the line of cruisers was dark, even the Annabelle III, the shadows they cast looking black and impenetrable. Yet now, as MacLaren followed Chaney down the tilted catwalk to the dock, he saw something on the edge that seemed even blacker than the shadows, and suddenly a tension grew in him where none had been before.

  He followed Chaney across the dock. Then he stopped short when the flashlight focused on the body of a man that lay on its side, the dock canting somewhat so that the feet and ankles were not quite clear of the water.

  “Rolled him up the best I could,” Ed said. “Guess the tide brought him in. I had turned in from the river and was coming along close by these slips of yours, and then, right against that first piling”—he waved an arm to indicate the boat slip closest to the mouth of the inlet—“I saw this thing, most of it under water.”

  He took a breath and said: “His shirt had snagged on a nail just below water level, and when I got him loose, I saw I couldn’t heave him into the skiff alone, so I put a line under his arms and towed him up here…. I could see he was dead. Wasn’t much else I could do.”

  MacLaren had not moved since Chaney had begun to talk. Now, almost afraid to ask, he said: “Did you see a dinghy out there, Ed?”

  “There’s a dinghy upstream now.” Chaney swiveled his flashlight and at the far end of its beam, beyond the dock at which the yawl still was berthed, MacLaren could make out a dinghy that looked very much like Kingsley’s.

  “Yeah,” he said, and when Chaney swiveled his flashlight back to the dock, he made himself walk the remaining few feet until he could bend over the inert and sodden figure.

  “That Kingsley fella from the island, ain’t it?” Ed said.

  He said other things, but MacLaren did not hear him. He was peering down into a once handsome face that was now vacant-looking and blue-white in the flashlight’s rays. When he was sure, he rose stiffly, cold all over, not from the chill in the night air but from things that were congealing inside him.

  He kept telling himself that this could not have been his fault, or the girl’s. The blow from the stick she had thrown could not have been severe; he had seen Kingsley pull himself into the dinghy, though this, he knew, was not quite true. He had seen Kingsley try to pull himself over the side. Suppose he hadn’t made it? Suppose he had slipped back into the water, more hurt than he, MacLaren, had suspected?

  He shook his head to clear it, the questions which seethed through his brain unanswered. He glanced at Chaney’s gear-laden skiff, at his own skiff with its plastic-covered outboard. He looked at Chaney’s gnarled figure with its patched woolen trousers and hip boots folded to the knees, aware that the old man was eyeing him curiously.

  “What do you want to do, Donald?” he said.

  MacLaren knew what he wanted to do all right. He wanted to talk to Ruth Kingsley before he talked to the police. He wanted to be sure she was safe in bed. To give himself a little time he said:

  “I can phone the police from the office, Ed. I should think you could go home if you like. They’ll want to question you but that can come later.”

  It may or may not have been the right thing to do, but MacLaren never had a chance to find out. Because just then a car rolled past on the street above and beyond the parking-lot, the main town street which ran from the center to the community wharf and the Yacht Club. There was a sound of tires on asphalt as the brakes locked, and then a spotlight sprang to life, swiveled, and finally focused on them. A second later, the light went out and the car backed up. It swung quickly into the lane leading to the parking-lot, rolled down the hill and made a wide sweep, the bright beam highlighting the upper half of their bodies before it passed on.

  A moment later the engine was cut and the lights dimmed. A door slammed and they stood unmoving, peering into the darkness as a bulky figure took shape and heels pounded on the planking above. When MacLaren saw the distinct shape of the hat and knew that this was Sergeant Wyre, the resident state policeman, he wondered if there was an alarm out for Kingsley or whether Wyre was just making his nightly rounds. Then, as the sergeant spoke, he knew it did not matter.

  “That you, Mac? Who’s with you? … Oh, hello, Ed,” Wyre said when Ed Chaney put the light on his face. “Thought I saw someone down here. What’s up?”

  “You saved us a call,” MacLaren said wearily. “We’ve got something for you.”

  Wyre came down the sloping catwalk on the double when Chaney’s light angled on the body. He bent over it, asked for the light, whistled softly. After another moment he straightened up, his voice blunt and business-like as he asked his questions and Chaney answered them.

  “When I saw what it was,” Chaney said, “I thought I better roll him up here before the tide got hold of him again.”

  “You did the right thing, Ed,” Wyre said. “Wonder how the hell it happened. Looks like he’s been dead quite a while too…. Well, I’ll get on the radio and get the medical examiner over here. You two better stick around.”

  He went
quickly to his car and started the motor to activate the radio. They could hear his voice but the words were indistinct, and now MacLaren mounted to the main dock and was waiting there when Wyre came back. He had to find out about the girl, and he wanted to get rid of the pistol, which now made an uncomfortable pressure against his hip.

  “I guess this will probably take awhile, Sergeant,” he said. “Is it okay if I get some socks on and a sweater?”

  “Sure,” Wyre said. “Just don’t take too long, hunh?”

  MacLaren crossed the darkened showroom and entered the office to put the pistol away before he snapped on the light. He kicked off his shoes, put on his socks, and replaced the shoes, lacing them this time. He pulled off his pajama top and donned a shirt. When he had put on his sweater, he was ready to go upstairs.

  There was no answer when he knocked on the door at the top, so he went in and turned on the light. He saw then that the room was empty, but the bedroom door stood open and this surprised him. He called the girl’s name three times before he entered the darkened room, and somehow he knew even then that no one was there. When he turned on the light he saw that neither of the twin beds had been used. The pajamas and robe that he had lent the girl lay on the nearest one. Other than this there was no sign that anyone had been here at all.

  In the second or two that it took him to understand what must have happened, he stood there, the wonderment growing in him. Finally, as a partial answer came to him, he wheeled and strode through the living-room to the kitchen beyond. The back door stood at the opposite end of the room and the key was in the lock. When the knob turned and the door opened, he knew the key had been used, and he stood a moment staring down at the parking-lot, accepting the only possible conclusion but not yet believing it.

  He closed the door and locked it again. He went slowly back to the bedroom, his gaze absently scanning the room while he tried to bring some order to the confusion in his mind. He realized finally that the nightgown the girl had worn was missing, but since this did not make much sense he stepped to the oversized closet and opened the door. Yet even as he looked at the clothing which hung there he knew that he could not make an exact inventory. He could not possibly tell what, if anything, was missing.