When? It had to be right now. Tonight. She had no idea of Padraig’s plans, but she guessed she was supposed to die in an accident on the island. Probably a fall from the cliff. She had succeeded in stalling for the entire afternoon, but if she refused to go ashore with him in the morning, he would know for certain that she was on to his murderous intent. And then what? A blow to the head and her body tossed into the dinghy so she could be carried to the island and dropped from the cliff. No matter how she looked at it, time was against her. It had to be tonight.
She made a mental list of the things she would need. Some matches in a plastic bag so she could light a signal fire wherever she landed. A knife to cut twigs, or maybe even use in self-defense. A bottle of water and a few of the frozen breakfast bars. A length of twine to tie her supplies to her leg if she had to swim ashore. That was all she could carry.
Jennifer watched Padraig walking the deck down the port side that faced the island. She went to the galley and put on a pot of tea as her excuse for being there. Then she assembled what she needed and sealed her things in a kitchen bag. She had just slipped the bag under her belt when he came inside.
“I put a kettle on,” she said innocently. “You make some tea while I go below for a minute.” She walked past him and down the steps to her stateroom. He seemed more interested in the kettle than in her. Jennifer hid her supplies under the pillows, flushed the toilet, and went back up to the saloon.
“Chilly outside,” Padraig said, explaining why he was setting the teacups on the saloon table. He sat in one of the chairs. Jennifer went back to her place on the sofa. “But the sky is clear,” he went on. “Tomorrow will be a great day for exploring the island. We can look around in the morning, then maybe take a swim in the pond.”
She nodded. “Sounds great!” And then, to cover the panic that she was sure was giving her away, she continued the conversation from earlier. “You found you had feelings for me, and you came into New York every weekend to help me recover. So we had a second chance to make it together. But then you took up with Catherine …” She left the statement hanging so that it begged for an explanation.
“Your sister is quite a woman,” he began. “Drawn to the limelight like a moth to a flame. She knows it will burn her into ashes, but still she can’t resist.”
“That’s what you said about yourself,” Jennifer reminded him.
He nodded. “Sad but true. Catherine and I were made for each other by the devil. It’s a marriage made in hell. But still a marriage. She had all the money I would ever need, and I had the movie industry, the world’s biggest and brightest stage. She had to be a player, and she was willing to spend everything to have the world as her audience.”
Jennifer was puzzled. “She was already a celebrity.”
“Ahh,” he said. “But she has this magic mirror that she looks in every day. She asks, ‘Am I the fairest of them all?’ But there was always a movie star to edge her out. She couldn’t stand it! She had to hear the mirror say that she was certainly the fairest.
“Then one day she asked her question, and the mirror said, ‘No, Catherine. Your sister, Jennifer, is the fairest of them all. Look how Padraig O’Connell worships her.’ And at that point, darlin’, you and I were dead. Catherine came to Hollywood with an armful of poison apples.”
“But if you knew all this—”
“Don’t try to understand,” he said, answering the question he knew she was asking. “Only a moth understands the allure of the flame. To sane people, like yourself, risking everything for vanity makes no sense at all.
“But your sister was willing to put it all on the line. And I have to tell you, she was dazzling. More glamorous than the stars. Smarter than the producers. With more money than the studios. She came in like a vision, and people simply sighed and fell down. It was like Marilyn in the old days, making kings and presidents tremble. Or like the Japanese when they arrived with more money than the Hollywood tycoons had ever imagined. Within a week, she was a force to be dealt with. And there was I, a fading actor suddenly reborn in her aura, with people who wouldn’t buy me lunch suddenly wanting to invest millions. I may have been falling in love with you, Jennifer, but the fact is that you never had a chance.”
Jennifer went to the galley and returned with more tea.
“I knew Catherine hated me,” she said as she poured. “But I didn’t try to kill her. I swear I wasn’t the one who hired that actor.”
“Of course you weren’t.” He laughed as she sat back down. “How could it have been you? The truth is that it was me.”
“You? It can’t be. You just told me that Catherine was your rebirth. You were living in her aura—”
“True. But I was paying a terrible price. My God, but she can be an awful bitch. She was grinding my face in the mud. Humiliating me in front of my friends. She had used me just long enough to get into Hollywood and to make sure that your face would never pop up again in her magic mirror. The thing about Catherine is that she suffers no rivals. She destroys them lest they distract from her magnificence.”
“But how? You were out in Hollywood. And he was struggling in New York.”
“Now, try to be kind, Jennifer. I may be past my prime, but people still recognize me. Particularly aspiring young actors. It was Will Ferris who spotted me at that health club. And he made two passes at me. First just to introduce himself and to wonder if there was anything I could do to help his career. I gave him the standard answer: Send a picture to my agent. Then, a couple days later, he sprang at me in your doorway. Just wanted to let me know that if there were anything he could do to work with me—absolutely anything. When actresses say that, it’s an invitation to take them to bed. With actors, they’re covering their bases on the chance you might be gay. He was a pathetic little twit, but I did ask for his card and promise that I’d look for something. As I was leaving him, he called after me: ‘Remember, Mr. O’Connell … anything.’”
“Even murder?” Padraig had to be exaggerating, Jennifer thought. Even desperate people didn’t hire themselves out as killers.
“Even murder,” Padraig answered, “and the price was quite reasonable. Pocket change to keep him solvent. A small part in my next film. Maybe two brief appearances and a couple of lines. There isn’t an aspiring actor in the world who wouldn’t kill for that kind of opportunity. I placed the call from a public phone at Kennedy Airport, using a stage voice and giving a fake name. The money was cash, your cash, as a matter of fact. He would never turn on me, because I really would have given him the part. But even if he wanted to, there was no way he could turn the deal back to me. And then, of course, the idiot got himself killed, so I was never in any danger.”
“But Catherine was still alive,” Jennifer reminded him.
“True. That’s what you get for dealing with amateurs. A whack on the head and he could have thrown the body over at his leisure. Instead, he tried to drag her kicking and screaming out onto the balcony.” Padraig sighed and shook his head in despair. “Amateurs,” he repeated sadly.
There was one more question, but she couldn’t ask it. Why, after having tried to kill Catherine, did he get back together with her? She couldn’t ask, because she wasn’t supposed to know that Catherine had been his partner in planning their trip. Catherine was his accomplice in the murder he was about to commit. Her murder. And to ask the question would be to hurry the moment of execution.
Peter found the wobbly shed on the water’s edge deserted. “If she got aboard in Blue Hill, it would have been here,” the town’s only police officer explained. “The other docks are for fish and lobstah.”
“It was here,” Peter said. He had heard from the hired captain who had brought the trawler over from Camden. This was the dock. “Can we talk to the owner?” he asked.
“Not really. He’s been dead for quite a while.”
“Well, who runs this place?”
“His daughter, I suppose.
“Where can I find her?”
“In Boston. Works for a big company down there.”
The pier, it seemed, was just there: a convenience for anyone who wanted to use it until the channel filled with silt or the building collapsed. “I’m going to need a boat,” Peter said, “and someone who knows how to run it.”
The policeman nodded. “Plenty of boats available. Nothin’ fancy like that trawler you’re lookin’ for, but lots of good seaworthy workin‘boats. I can probably set somethin’ up for yuh.”
They drove to a four-building town across the gravel road from the water. There were a dozen boats bobbing in the darkness. The officer knocked on a door, greeted a young man in his underwear, still in his teens, who was trying desperately to grow a beard to go with his long, unkempt hair. “Kevin, here, knows the area good as anyone. Got a nice seaworthy dory.”
Peter shook hands and then followed Kevin into a single large room that held his bed, his stove, his fishing gear, and his office. “Make yerself at home,” Kevin offered, and then he disappeared into the bathroom to get dressed. Peter remained standing in the middle of the room. That was about as comfortable as he was going to get.
He helped carry supplies down to the dock, where a big, open boat was tied up. Then he watched while the young man poured cans of diesel oil into an exposed tank in the center of the boat. “I can get us some sandwiches,” Kevin said. Peter peeled two tens from his wallet, and Kevin promised to be back in an hour.
An hour, Peter thought. There wasn’t much sense in leaving now. They would do better waiting until near sunrise, and then be out in the bay when the sun came up. But an hour was an eternity when Jennifer was out there someplace with a man who was planning to kill her.
Jennifer sat on the edge of her bunk, as alert as she had ever been. Her cabin door was closed and locked, but light from the saloon leaked through the louvered panel. She had come below as soon as she had cleared away the tea. Padraig had embraced her, kissed her cheek, and then gone forward to his own stateroom. The small twelve-volt lamp in the saloon was to serve as their night-light.
She could see out onto the afterdeck through the portholes that were high up above her bed. The deck and the railings were clearly illuminated by the single anchor light that burned on the stern. She could see the line from the inflatable dinghy tied to the cleat just inches away.
She had put on her bathing suit, a one-piece sports model that was ideal for swimming. Over it she wore jeans and a windbreaker, and her sneakers with no socks. She planned to keep the sneakers on, so that if she had to swim, she would have them for land. Her supplies were jammed into the pocket of her windbreaker, tied to a string that was fastened around her ankle. There was no sound aboard the boat. Padraig was certainly asleep by now at the other end of the trawler. It was time!
But she wasn’t ready. The boat had swung at its anchor, and as she looked out from the portholes, she couldn’t find Pennobquit. It was apparently overcast—there was no starlight on the water—so she had no reference to give her a heading. She had pulled open the hatch in her overhead so she could see straight up. She couldn’t find any familiar pattern of stars. When she pulled away in the dinghy, she wouldn’t know whether she was heading back in toward land, or out into the open sea. She’d have to wait a bit longer, until it was closer to sunrise. She would need at least a small trace of light to get her bearings.
Another problem was that she couldn’t decide on her best escape route. If she stood on her bed, she could get her head and shoulders through the hatch. But just barely. Then it would be a struggle to pull herself up. She would probably bang against the hatch and the deck, which would make noise. And there was a good chance that she might get stuck halfway through.
The other route was to leave her cabin and go up into the saloon. That would mean going toward Padraig, but she could do that quietly and, if he was sleeping, without disturbing him. She could ease open the sliding door out to the deck with a minimum of noise and then be over the rail and into the dinghy. But if Padraig was awake, watching just as she was, even the slightest sound would bring him up into the saloon.
Both routes had their dangers. Neither was attractive. But she had to escape. Waiting for a better opportunity didn’t make sense.
Then there was the engine. It had to start on the first try. When she got into the boat, she would take the mooring line with her and drift a few feet away. If the engine started, she would be on her way before he even made it up on deck. But if it coughed and sputtered, she would be a prisoner in the boat, probably in the glare of the trawler’s spotlight; and she might not know which direction to swim.
She waited an hour, counting the minutes on her wristwatch. She was about to start forward into the saloon when a distant sound stopped her. She listened carefully. A door closed ahead in the bow. She heard the toilet pump running. Padraig had gotten up. She sat down and began counting off another fifteen minutes. She also changed her mind about her escape route. If she had gone forward a few seconds earlier, Padraig would have caught her. She decided to go up through the hatch.
She slid it open again. Then she stuffed the blanket and pillows into her empty duffel and pulled it up onto the bed. By standing on it, she could give herself another two feet of height. And if her hips were tight in the hatch opening, she would have something to stand on to give her additional leverage. She stuck her head out into the night air and looked around. There were no stars, and she still couldn’t find Pennobquit. But she could see her way to the dinghy clearly in the glow of the anchor light. She pulled back down and thrust her hands up ahead of her. She had to wiggle as her head, surrounded by her arms, squeezed through. But then she could stand up quite easily atop the duffel. She almost smiled at the ironic advantage of being a bit flatchested.
With her hands on the deck, she was able to push herself up higher and felt the supply bag in her jacket pocket squeeze through. She kicked off from the duffel and launched herself up with her hands. But her hips jammed into the opening like a cork in a wine bottle. For a moment she seemed trapped. But bending forward pulled her butt through, and wiggling from side to side cleared her hips. She turned her body until she was sitting on the deck with just her feet hanging down through the hatch.
She froze, listening carefully. There was a breeze, and the sound of waves lapping on the side. But she couldn’t hear any movement in the saloon. Carefully, she lifted her feet, swirled around, and dropped them silently on the deck. She leaned out so she could see the narrow part of the deck that led forward, past the sliding door, and up to the bow. Padraig was still inside, probably down in his cabin. She stood and swung her leg over the rail. Then she was on the steps down to the swim platform. She held her breath as she worked the knot that secured the dinghy. Then she stepped carefully aboard. The dinghy rocked under her but settled when she was able to squat on the thwart. She reached back to the engine and touched the starter switch. Nothing happened.
She blinked into the darkness but wasn’t able to make out the controls. Why hadn’t she thought of a flashlight? One lever seemed to be a shift lever. She moved it slowly until she found the middle position that was probably neutral. Then she noticed a valve on the line from the gas can and moved it open. A quick glance told her that she had already drifted a boat length away from the trawler. Jennifer hit the starter switch again. This time the engine growled noisily, shaking the dinghy as it tried to start.
It turned over again and again with a grinding noise that seemed deafening in the still night, but it wouldn’t catch. And then light flashed through the forward portholes, followed by a blast of light from the galley.
In a panic, she forced herself to study the switches, now visible in the light from the trawler. The gas line was turned off, and she twisted the valve open. At that instant, the saloon door rattled open, and Padraig was out on the deck, screaming, “Jennifer. Where are you going?” He ran aft.
She touched the starter again, and once more the engine cranked. “Catch, dammit,” she yelled to hersel
f. She pushed harder on the starter button, as if that could make a difference. But there was still no ignition.
Padraig was swinging over the rail, his shadow spreading over the flickering light in the water. Jennifer glanced at him, but her attention was on the engine. She never saw him reach down and lift the end of her mooring line out of the water. She still thought she was free until she felt her drift being checked. When she looked up, she saw Padraig hauling the dinghy back toward the trawler.
She tossed forward and began working the knot that secured the line to the inflatable. It was almost free when his hand locked down on hers. “It won’t start without these, I’m afraid.” In his other hand he held the two spark plugs that he had taken from the engine. Then he was reaching out to her. “Come on up here, darlin’. You’ll catch your death of cold sitting out there like that.”
There were any number of things she could have done. Use her leverage when she had her feet on the swim platform and pull him past her and into the water. Knee him the instant she was aboard, then push him over. Or even pick up the small oar that was on the bottom of the inflatable and swing it like a weapon. But her defeat was total. She felt ridiculous for her pathetic attempt to escape. She let herself be helped up the ladder and pushed back over the railing.
Padraig saw the cord that came from her jacket pocket, and he pulled out the kitchen bag with her survival things. “Oh, dear God, girl, where did you think these toys would get you?”
“Away,” she answered.
He shook his head in despair. Then he took her arm. “Come inside and let me fix you a cup of tea.” As she stepped into the cabin, she saw the first trace of morning, barely bright enough to mark the eastern horizon. If she had made her escape, she could have easily found her way home.
Jennifer sat silently on the edge of the sofa while he set a steaming mug of tea in front of her. “Drink that. It will warm you.”
Good Sister, The Page 28
