And it was. Steam still rose from the deadfall, but the flames were no longer visible. A fireman emerged from the trees and came toward us. Ben and Russ went to talk with him.
Matthew was in bad shape, shaking and twitching. I said to Stephanie, “Why don’t you and Matt go see if Jill’s turned up at home? I’ll check La’i Cottage and Malihini House, meet you later at Pali House.”
She flashed me a grateful look and went over to Matthew. Took his arm and said, “Matt, sweetie? Let’s go see if Jill’s come home.”
He turned to her slowly, his face so expressionless that it seemed as unformed as a baby’s. “Jill,” he said. “She’ll be at home by now.”
“Yes. And I don’t want to walk alone in the dark.”
He nodded and took her hand. Together they began moving toward the road.
The fireman was leaving, and Ben and Russ came back to the lanai, their faces grim. Ben said, “They’re pretty sure it was arson. One of the patches that didn’t catch was soaked with gasoline.”
Peter and I exchanged glances. “More of the same?” he asked.
“Why, now that you’ve called off the filming?”
“Maybe it was never about the filming.”
“Maybe.”
Russ put his hand on my neck, massaging it and staring out at the rain. It was letting up now, as if it had been sent for the exact purpose it had served. I looked up at him, saw the calm set of his features, and knew if I voiced the thought, he’d say that was what had happened.
One positive thing had come from the fire: it had saved me from taking an irrevocable step over a line that I still wasn’t sure I wanted to cross. I wasn’t a woman given to casual affairs and infidelity; neither was I one to lead a man to expect more than I could deliver. I’d play no more of these minor-league sexual games with Russ. When—or if—I decided to play, it would be in the majors.
I moved away from him. “I’ll get started looking for Jillian.”
Soft light glowed behind the shutters of La’i Cottage. I stopped under the dripping branches of an ironwood, frowning. I could’ve sworn the cottage was dark when Tanner and I passed it earlier. Perhaps Glenna had returned from Oahu?
The door was partway open, a silver of light falling along the lanai. I went across the grass and mounted the steps. Sound came from inside—a woman crying.
I pushed the door open, stepped inside. At first the cottage seemed empty. Then I saw her, crouched by a native canoe that had been made into a coffee table.
Jillian.
Her hair was wet and matted, her face streaked with dirt and tears, her pale yellow dress torn and filthy. She looked up at me and said, “I can’t find it.”
My first impulse was to go to her, hold her, but besides the pain in her eyes there was fear. I held back, asked gently, “Find what, Jill?”
She hesitated, shaking her head as if she’d lost her train of thought. The fear in her eyes faded, and bewilderment replaced it. She was shivering.
I grabbed an afghan off a rocker and moved toward her slowly, as I would have approached an injured animal. “Find what?” I repeated.
“The suitcase. It was right here under the table.”
“What suitcase? Whose?”
“Hers.”
Glenna’s? Her things were at Malihini House.
Jillian waved her arms violently. “It was right here!”
I moved closer. “Jill, why don’t we get you up off the floor, and—”
“It was here! I’ve got to hide it. And later I’ll send it… D’you know anything about overseas postage?”
Oh, God, she’d totally flipped out! I had to calm her, take her back to Pali House. “I don’t, but I can find out.”
“Will you? For me? And her? I can’t trust Matt. Or Mother.” She laughed harshly. “Certainly not Mother.”
Was “Mother” Celia? And who was “her”?
I took two more slow steps and knelt beside Jillian, wrapping the afghan around her.
And smelled gasoline.
It was in her hair and on her dress. Faint, but unmistakable.
Jillian had set the fire?
“Somebody ought to have it,” she said.
My mind was on overload. I wrapped the afghan more securely around her shoulders, said mechanically, “Have what?”
“The suitcase!”
Back to square one, and I had a feeling that if I questioned her further we’d follow the same elliptical path we’d taken before. “Look,” I said, “I’ll find it. I promise. And then I’ll ask about the postage. Everything’s going to be all right.”
“That’s what Matt says, but I don’t believe him. It was small. Tan. With a combination lock, the kind with three teensy dials. D’you really promise to find it?”
“Really.”
“Good. I’m responsible, you see. Tomorrow we’ll take it to the post office at Waimea. They don’t know me there. Most places they know me. I’m a Wellbright.”
“I understand.” I grasped her forearms, shocked at how thin they were, and began easing her to her feet.
“I’m the only one who cares. She’s been nice to me.”
Glenna hadn’t been particularly nice to her, that I’d noticed. Who on earth was she talking about?
“It’s good that you care, Jill. Now let’s go home.”
“Did you get caught in the storm? It came on so suddenly. That’s the way they start, you know. You have to keep in mind the safe places, so you can take shelter.”
“This way, Jill.”
“I had no idea it was coming. I was upset, so I went out walking all day long. I walked partway up the trail, then back to the forest. I walked… Did you see the harvest moon? So strange.”
“Watch that you don’t trip.”
“Yes, I have to be careful. I’m going to have a baby, you know. I hope it’s a boy. I don’t want a girl, not one with Ridley blood. There’s something wrong with them.”
“Walk over here so you’re not in the road.”
“Am I talking too much? I’m always saying things I shouldn’t. I make bad things happen. Did you get caught in the storm? I didn’t. I knew just where to go.…”
Matthew opened the door of Pali House as soon as I knocked. While I’d been locating his wife, he’d changed clothes—showered, too, judging from the comb tracks in his wet hair. When he saw Jillian, his face went slack with relief.
“Where’d you find her?”
“La’i Cottage. We’ll talk about that later. Right now she needs attention.”
“Give me a few minutes.” He took her arm and led her from the foyer.
I went into the adjoining living room and sat down in a big leather chair. I felt drained by the events of the evening, barely capable of marshaling a coherent thought. Closing my eyes and breathing deeply, I tried to empty my mind. I couldn’t quite accomplish that, but in a little while I felt better.
Matthew returned, went to the credenza, where a bar service was set out, and fixed himself a tall Scotch and water. Belatedly he offered me a drink, but I shook my head.
“She’ll be okay after a good night’s sleep,” he told me. “Thanks for bringing her home.”
I doubted Jillian would ever be okay unless he got her the psychiatric help she needed, but now wasn’t the time to address that issue. “You’re welcome,” I said. “Where’s Stephanie?”
“I sent her home. She’s exhausted.”
Weren’t we all? “Matthew, I need to ask you a few questions. Are you aware that Jillian’s pregnant?”
“That can’t be! We don’t—” He covered his embarrassment by sipping his drink.
“Well, she told me she is, and that she’s hoping for a boy. She doesn’t want a Ridley girl, says there’s something wrong with them. Wasn’t Ridley your mother’s maiden name?” I’d seen it in the background check Mick had run on Celia.
“… Yes.”
“What d’you suppose Jillian meant by that?”
“Damned if I know.
” Too quick a response. He understood what his wife had been talking about. “You say you found her at La’i Cottage. What was she doing there?”
“Looking for a suitcase.”
“A suitcase?”
“A small tan one with a combination lock. You have any idea what that was about?”
“Well, I’ve got a briefcase that matches the description, but I don’t know what she’d want with it or why she’d look for it at the cottage.”
“She seemed to want to mail it to someone. She asked me if I knew anything about overseas postage. And she wanted to take it to the post office at Waimea, where nobody knows her.”
“God, what is wrong with her?” He swallowed a third of his drink, eyes moving rapidly in thought.
“There’s something else,” I said. “The fire department believes the deadfall was doused with gasoline before it was set on fire. Arson. And I think your wife is the one who did it.”
“Impossible!”
“Her hair and clothing smelled like gasoline when I found her. Didn’t you notice?”
“No.” He set his drink down and stood up. “Let me check on something.”
He was back in five minutes, his face ashen. “I checked the supplies in the garage. We keep a good amount of gasoline on hand for the gardeners’ tools and in case we need to use the auxiliary generator. Almost all of it’s gone.”
“Could Jillian have gotten at it while you were out looking for her today?”
He took his drink to the credenza and free-poured Scotch, nearly filling the glass. “Well, Jill’s sly and has been known to slip in and out of places without anybody being aware of her.”
“But is she strong enough to cart heavy containers all the way to the deadfall?”
“She’s stronger than she looks—all that hiking. And the gas was stored in plastic containers. If she was planing this beforehand, she could’ve removed small amounts without anybody noticing.”
“You have any idea why she’d want to set fire to that tract of land?”
He didn’t reply.
I repeated the question.
He shook his head, but I could see understanding dawn in his eyes as he made connections. “Look, did you say anything about this to anybody else?”
“No. I brought Jillian directly here.”
“I’d like you to keep it to yourself till she’s lucid and I can question her.”
“That’s fair.”
Matthew moved to the window overlooking the patio, stood with his back to me. The outdoor spotlights prevented me from observing his reflection in the glass. After a moment he said, “Thank you again for finding Jill, Sharon. It’s been a very long day, and Mother’s funeral is tomorrow afternoon. I’d like to be alone now.”
The chopper was still on the lawn in front of Malihini House, and Tanner must have been at Stephanie and Ben’s. I went up the hill, peered over at the garage to see if Peter’s Volvo was parked there. It wasn’t, but if Glenna had returned she might’ve parked at the cottage and walked over to the Moris’ to see what was going on. The house here was dark, but I made a quick check for her anyway. All the rooms were empty.
Back outside, I stood at the top of the slope for a moment, listening to a heavy vehicle move along the road. The last fire truck departing. When its sound had died away and the night was quiet, I went downhill and through the rain-wet papaya trees to the cottage. No Volvo. Glenna must’ve decided to stay overnight on Oahu.
On the other side of the vegetation that screened it from the cottage, the Mori house was still illuminated inside and out. For a few seconds I considered going over there, but decided against it; I wasn’t up to making explanations about Jillian right now, and the talk that Tanner had promised me could wait.
The cottage was dark, as I’d left it. I went inside, turned on a small table lamp. Its glow lit up the center of the room, but didn’t touch the clotted shadows around the periphery. I stood still, taking a physical and emotional reading.
Temperature: warm. Humidity: high. Smell: damp wood, some mildew, much dust and age. Age in the book bindings, the artifacts, the structure itself. Age in the emotions that were trapped here, too. I could feel nothing of Peter and Glenna, in spite of their recent presence. But I could feel Elson Wellbright as if he were in the next room.
A cerebral man, yes. But a passionate man as well. Unhappy, longing for things that had passed him by. And what else?
Afraid.
I closed my eyes, breathed deeply, listened to the sound of the nearby sea. Other, more practical, investigators might scoff at this intuitive technique, but it had always served me well.
As surely as minute traces of years-old blood on fabric can be revealed under certain types of light, so can emotions trapped in a dwelling place be revealed to one who is receptive. I was receiving them now: hope, passion, anger, fear.
No, not anger—rage. And not fear—terror.
“Sharon?”
I started. Opened my eyes and saw Peter standing in the doorway.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Yes. I was just…” Now, how the hell could I explain what I’d been doing without convincing him that his investigator had totally lost it?
He came all the way inside. “You feel it too.”
Surprised, I nodded.
“It gives me nightmares. I haven’t had a decent night’s sleep since I moved in here. Glen hasn’t, either.” Then he looked around. “Speaking of Glen, is she back yet?”
“She wasn’t when I checked Malihini House a few minutes ago.”
“Damn! Guess she’s really angry with me.”
“Maybe she’s just coming to terms with the situation in private. The fire’s completely out now?”
“Yes. We’ve decided the land has to be cleared. If Matt wants a monument to our father, let him replant it as it was before Iniki.”
I thought of the lehua trees Elson had planted in 1969, in tribute to Mona Davenport. Some things could never be replaced. “Peter, you mentioned the feeling in this cottage.”
“I think my father was very unhappy here.”
“Mona Davenport described him as contented. He certainly sounded so in his journal.”
“Maybe I made a mistake in not reading it. I had very little contact with him after I left the Islands.”
“From what I read into the journal, he left here because of another woman, someone he’d met in his travels.”
“Good for him. He deserved some happiness.”
“She may have been from Santa Fe, New Mexico. At least, that’s where they planned to go. My operative’s checks didn’t turn up any traces of them there, though.”
“Well, I suppose he could’ve taken another name. When you’ve got money, it’s easy to buy a new identity.”
“Why would he feel he had to go to such lengths, though? And why move so far away? Why not just divorce your mother and move to one of the other islands?”
“Maybe the woman was as attached to New Mexico as he was to Hawaii, and he was in love and willing to make concessions. Besides, this is a small island, a small state. Even smaller when you’re a member of a prominent family. My father probably wanted to make a fresh start someplace where people wouldn’t constantly be pointing to him and rehashing his scandalous first marriage. He and Mother were not saints.” He glanced at his watch. “Nearly midnight. I’ll walk over to Malihini House with you, see if Glen’s back yet.”
I nodded, glad that Peter, in his concern for Glenna, hadn’t thought to ask about his sister-in-law. I’d keep my promise to Matthew until he’d had time to talk with Jillian.
APRIL 7
Kauai
12:02 A.M.
As Peter and I walked toward Malihini House, I heard the helicopter’s engine start up, followed by the flap of rotors. Dammit, Tanner was leaving without the discussion he’d promised me!
Peter said, “Russ is flying Matt and Jill to Oahu.”
“What!”
“Apparently sh
e’s had some kind of breakdown, serious enough to make him decide to check her into a hospital over there. A decision I heartily applaud.”
And a decision Matthew must have made hastily after I left him. “Why’s he going at this hour? Wouldn’t it be easier to get her admitted in the morning?”
“It may take Matt a long time to make up his mind, but then he moves full steam ahead. Probably afraid that if he doesn’t he’ll change it again.”
Or maybe he was in a hurry because he was afraid Jillian would be charged with arson. Even though I’d promised to say nothing about her being responsible for the fire, there was always the chance that someone had seen her transporting the gasoline cans to the deadfall, or that the cans would be recovered and traced to Pali House. Matthew had chosen to put a shield of influence and money around his wife.
When we reached the lawn, the chopper had cleared the trees and headed out to sea. I watched it, wondering if Tanner would return here tonight. Wondering if I wanted him to.
Peter looked up at the garage. “Glen’s still not here. Tomorrow morning I’ll call my friend who owns the equipment-rental house, ask him if he spoke with her and what her plans were.”
“Let me know what you hear.”
He said good night and left me.
I went up the slope to the lanai and collapsed in a chair. The sky was clear again, the Milky Way scattered across it like shaved ice. Odd to think of coldness on this warm night, but after the feelings I’d experienced at La’i Cottage I felt chilled at the bone.
My thoughts drifted to Hy, and I wondered where he was tonight. Usually I had some sense of him, no matter how far apart we were, but now I felt as if I were calling a cell phone that had been turned off. I tried to picture him in a hotel room in Honolulu, but couldn’t. An airport? An airliner? Yes. He’d left, or was leaving, the Islands. He was working at shutting me out, in order to give me the latitude I needed to deal with the investigation and with Tanner. Working at it single-mindedly, but not with total success.
“Give it up, Ripinsky,” I said softly. “We haven’t lost each other yet.”
11:35 A.M.
When Peter came by, I was sitting on the lanai with my coffee. Weariness born of the previous day’s events and a restless night after Hy left had caught up with me, and I’d slept for nearly ten hours. While I was feeling refreshed and ready to tackle the investigation, Peter looked as though he’d spent the same ten hours wrestling with nightmares.
A Walk Through the Fire Page 17
