Dead Man's Island
Henrie O - One
by
Carolyn G Hart
Prologue
I don't consider myself an
angel, avenging or otherwise, but I can't always accept fate as the answer. Timing makes all the differ-
ence.
There exists a rather charming school of thought that the motorist who looms out of the fog at precisely the right moment or the fatherly old man who takes a lost child's hand and leads her to safety are heavensent messengers.
Unknown to themselves, of course.
It was the episode in the hotel lobby that made me, Henrietta O'Dwyer Collins, ponder the imponderable and my role in it.
Had I come downstairs one minute later, Willa Benson would have been sitting pretty.
But I was strolling past the reception area a few minutes after eight with nothing more in mind than a
leisurely jog. Midway down the polished pink-and-white-marbled hallway, my right shoelace flopped loose. I propped my Reebok on the edge of the heavy blue porcelain planter. As I tied the lace, I glanced at the mirror that reflected me in navy sweats and, behind me, the hallway and the ornate mahogany front desk.
That's why I saw the sleek, satisfied, sly look on Willa Benson's plump face as she turned away from the front desk and looked down at the envelope in her pudgy hands. What made it doubly interesting was the contrast between that unguarded expression, one of malice laced with amusement and contemptuous pleasure, and her usual demeanor of chirpy congeniality as she dealt with the needs of Mamie Duvall, the frail, elderly woman whom she served as a companion.
So I yanked on the shoelace, reworked it, and continued to watch the mirror and the pink-cheeked, motherly-looking woman with the envelope in her hand.
What made it triply interesting was that she didn't open the envelope. Instead, she moved out of sight of the clerk, ripped the envelope-the unopened envelope-in half, then stuffed the pieces in her purse, still looking pleased and satisfied in a thoroughly nasty way.
I suppose most people might have seen all of the above and shrugged, thinking it none of their business, no matter how intriguing. Not I. As soon as the elevator door closed behind Willa, I walked to the lobby desk.
There are clerks and clerks. This young lady had a big smile and she always tried to please.
"Any messages for me, Anita?"
"No, Mrs. Collins. I just sorted the mail."
I half- turned, then paused. "Oh, Mrs. Duvall's expecting an important letter. I told her I'd ask."
"It's on its way to her right now. The lady who's with her, Mrs. Benson, just picked it up."
So I was right. This was mail for Mamie Duvall -not for her canary-faced companion.
I breathed an audible sigh of relief. "Oh, I do hope it was the letter from Sheila, the one she's hoping for."
"Well," Anita said brightly, "it was postmarked from Phoenix-and it looked like a woman's handwriting."
"That's the one." I beamed. "I believe I'll go right up and talk to her."
As I waited for the elevator, I saw my own reflection: dark hair silvered at the temples, dark eyes that have seen much and remembered much, a Roman-coin profile, a lean and angular body with an appearance of forward motion even when at rest-and the angry light in my eyes. I can't abide meanness. And I didn't need a minute's consideration to decide that Willa Benson was up to something very mean indeed.
I didn't go to Mrs. Duvall's room, of course, but to my own and my telephone. Sometimes you pick up as much by what people don't say as what they do, and I figured I had a line on Mamie Duvall.
I'd played bridge several evenings with a trio of elderly women, one of whom was Mrs. Duvall. Mamie Duvall was a soft-voiced widow with a pale, aris-
tocratic face, mournful blue eyes, and a sad droop to her mouth. She had the least to say, but she listened hungrily to the other players' tales of family and friends. Bonhomie was encouraged at Monahan House, an amiable, quietly friendly compound in the Shenandoahs offering golf and horseback riding, tennis and croquet, gently spectacular views of wooded ridges and valleys, sedate activities-bird walks, bridge, guest lectures -for guests, even spa waters for wan health-seekers. Not, actually, my usual kind of vacation spot, but an old friend owned it, and I'd come for a week's visit. I was leaving tomorrow. So, I understood, was Mrs. Duvall.
I had a laptop and modem with me. It was child's play to tap into the hotel system. I pulled up the Duvall registration: Mrs. Marguerite Duvall, 2903 Egret Marsh Road, Pensacola, FL 32505. Ten minutes later, courtesy of the Pensacola library system, I had the telephone numbers of her neighbors on either side and across the street. I did a little more exploratory work - newspaper morgues are so helpful - and came up with the date of death for Marguerite's husband and, more important, the obituary list of survivors: his daughter, Pamela Duvall Wilson of Phoenix, Arizona, and one grandson, Thomas Charles Wilson, also of Phoenix.
Dolly Garrison, who lived across the street from Mrs. Duvall, never suspected I wasn't a long-lost cousin of Mrs. Duvall's trying to get in touch. "Why, it's the funniest thing. First Mamie's daughter called, oh, a couple of days ago, and now you! Pam says her mother's number is unlisted! Why on earth! Nobody I know has an unlisted number…"
I worked fast. Needless to say, I missed my jog, but by the end of the day I knew all about Marguerite Duvall, her daughter, Pam, and her grandson, Tommy. I knew about Mamie Duvall's broken hip and the woman, Willa Benson, who'd answered her ad for live-in help. But the real low-down came when I talked to Pam. "I've written and written…"
The last- minute airline ticket and the change to my own reservations and the purchase of two more last-minute tickets was pricey, but I happen, thanks to some recently published novels, to be rather well-heeled at the moment. (Is that perhaps a qualification for avenging angels?)
I made a great show of delight and surprise when I reached row 10 on the flight to Pensacola and found I had the window seat next to Mrs. Duvall and Willa. I insisted that Mrs. Duvall take the window seat. I was happy to sit in the center.
I took particular pleasure in noting Willa's not-quite-concealed relief at being relieved of duty.
I haven't asked tough questions for more than half a century without learning how to get people to talk.
Mamie Duvall was a heartbreak waiting to be unloaded.
"… can't find any trace of my daughter. Willa's helped me. She's called everyone who knew Pam, but she and Tommy left her apartment withou
t leaving an address and I haven't heard from her-not a phone call, not a letter-for almost a year now. Willa even talked to the police in Phoenix-that's where Pam lived-but they told her all they could do was file a missing-persons report." Mamie's face crumpled.
"Something awful's happened to Pam and Tommy. No word, nothing…"
I dredged it all out, how Willa had handled everything, had made all the inquiries.
Mamie pressed a sodden handkerchief to her reddened eyes. "I don't know what I would do without Willa. She's the only person I have in the whole world now."
I reached out, gently held a frail arm in my hand. "No, you aren't alone. In fact, I have wonderful news for you. Pam is all right. She's been trying to get in touch with you for more than a year. She loves you very much, and she and Tommy will be at the airport when we land."
My voice is clear. It carries.
Willa's head jerked toward me. Shock loosened the muscles in her face. There was no smugness there
now.
1
I flew to St. Louis the next
day, then drove to Derry Hills, my present fairly permanent residence. I kept thinking of mother and daughter reunited, the saccharine interloper vanquished. In contrast, how fortunate I was in my life, even though I was now a widow. My relationship with my own daughter, Emily, is strong and loving, and I take great delight in Emily's family. For myself, I'd spent more than fifty years as a reporter, enjoying every minute. Those days are behind me now, but I face new challenges every day. I welcome them.
My life is full. And happy.
I was glad to be back, suddenly eager to get to work on my new book. I hurried inside the house. I was just unzipping my suitcase when the phone rang. I reached for it with no hesitation.
"My dear, it's good to hear your voice."
That was all Chase said. He didn't identify himself. He didn't need to. Even after all these years I recognized that confident, assertive voice. Truth to tell, I would know it anywhere this side of the grave. Still, it was characteristic of Chase to assume he would instantly be known, characteristic of that fine, careless arrogance that had vaulted him to immense wealth and power.
1 didn't answer.
"Henrie, please hear me out." There was a faint sound that might have been the ghost of laughter. "Or should 1 call you Henrie O?"
That caught my attention as nothing else could have. It argued knowledge of me, Henrietta O'Dwyer Collins, long past the time we'd shared.
"Hello, Chase." I said it pleasantly and evenly, as though we had parted the day before, not four decades before. I heard my own voice, controlled and noncommittal, with a sudden sense of inevitability. Subconsciously 1 had, for more than half a lifetime, expected this call. "What do you want?"
That drew a familiar bark of laughter. "God, you never change, do you?"
I didn't contradict him. But, of Bourse, 1 had. The young woman he recalled was almost lost in the mists of memory, and those particular memories I had no intention of resurrecting. The reckless young reporter whom Chase had known so well was now a woman who had spent five decades covering fires, disasters, wars, revolutions, murders, and public scandals.
"What do you want?" It wasn't quite a challenge, but it came near.
He was silent. That was unexpected. Chase with
nothing to say? Had the glaciers melted? The sun turned back in its orbit?
Finally, grudgingly, he spoke in a troubled tone I'd never imagined hearing from Chase. "Henrie O" -and there was no hint of laughter now, there was only a naked, helpless honesty-"Henrie O, I need your help."
I wanted to put down that telephone as if the call had never come. I wanted to return to my life as I had lived it for so long. But I continued to hold the receiver in a tight grip. Finally, as reluctantly as he had spoken, I answered. It was the answer that had been foreordained more than forty years before.
I took time to glance at my mail and substitute fresh clothes for soiled ones. Before I closed the suitcase, I took out the two framed photographs I always carry with me. I glanced at the picture of my late husband, Richard, and wished that he was here now, with his grave thoughtfulness and quick, steadying humor. It was Richard who had first called me Henrie O. He claimed I packed more twists and surprises into a single day than O. Henry ever did in a short story. The studio portrait of my daughter was recent, and it captured Emily's beauty, glossy ebony hair, vivid aquamarine eyes, a finely boned face. Emily-the delight of my life. I looked from one familiar, beloved face to the other, then placed the photographs on my bed and closed the suitcase. I called Emily's home in the Rio Grande valley and left the message that I would be gone for another week, visiting a friend in South Carolina. Then I was ready to leave. It was
easy enough, physically, simply to turn around, pick up the bags, and head back toward St. Louis and the airport. Chase had already made a reservation for me at the Marriott there, where the ticket for tomorrow's flight awaited me.
The rental car smelled like stale cigars. I had all the windows down despite the late-afternoon August heat and humidity-sodden air. I hadn't been to the South Carolina Low Country in some years. Not, in fact, since 1979 when I'd covered the aftermath of Hurricane David, which had left 78 dead and caused nearly half a billion dollars in damages. Hurricane Hugo had killed 21 when it struck a decade later. Worse was to come. The most devastating natural disaster in United States history was Hurricane Andrew. Striking in the early morning hours of late August 1992, this ferocious storm killed 38 while cutting a swath of destruction across the southern tip of Florida, obliterating 25,000 homes and causing $20 billion in damages and another $10 billion in clean-up costs. Experts had long feared that a hurricane on this scale would wreak havoc along the heavily populated corridor running from the tip of Florida all the way to Washington, D.C., but forecasting has become so expert that evacuation measures worked well in saving lives.
I glanced down at the sheet containing directions. I'd received the sheet in a Federal Express packet that morning at the hotel. My flights had been uneventful, St. Louis to Atlanta, Atlanta to Charleston. I'd had
sions down memory lane and to speculate about what lay ahead. The directions I'd been sent showed the route to follow, but they shed no light on what to expect at journey's end. Simply a two-sentence note in Chase's unmistakable, backward-slanted handwriting:
You've always had an uncanny ability to sniff out the truth, Henrie O. I'm counting on you. Chase.
I fiddled with the static-ridden radio, caught the latest news-cesspool politics dominated the election with heated charges and countercharges over crime and welfa
re issues; more Americans out of work as Labor Day approached; Tropical Storm Derek churned toward the Caribbean, picking up speed, and was predicted to reach hurricane status by tomorrow-and enjoyed the occasional glimpse of herons and snowy egrets in patches of lush marsh. Once off the interstate I was grateful for the map as I followed first one, then another and another and another pine-shrouded blacktop, each more distant from habitation, more remote. I almost missed the final turnoff, but at the last minute braked and wheeled to my right into Coffin Point Lane. Gray dust swirled up from beneath my wheels. I blinked and coughed. This track could scarcely count as a road. It was just two deep ruts in the gray dirt. Long-leaf pines towered overhead, blocking out the hazy sunlight. Resurrection ferns poked into the dusky lane, slapping against the car. Several miles farther on the track plunged out from beneath the pines to
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