A Wild and Lonely Place

by Marcia Muller

  “Good. Where’s your friend? Still not home?”

  “He came in early this morning, and now he’s ferrying the Cherokee back to Santo Domingo.”

  “Nice of him.”

  “He owes me.”

  “So did Cam Connors.”

  Hy’s jaw grew tight. “Let’s not ruin a beautiful morning by talking about him. So, do you want to come along with us?”

  “I don’t think so. I want to call Renshaw to tell him we’re safe, and I’m waiting to hear from Mick.”

  He raised his eyebrows inquiringly.

  I shook my head, motioning at Habiba; she was staring down into the water but appeared to be listening intently.

  “Well, suit yourself. We’ll be back in a couple of hours.” He stood, held out his hand to the little girl. “Come on, sailor.”

  I watched them as they walked along the dock and angled across the sand to an old Chris-Craft that was beached under a stand of mangroves. Then I got up and went to the house.

  * * *

  I was back on the dock when they returned. Habiba was wearing a new floppy-brimmed straw hat that was more my size than hers; beneath it her face looked sunburned and weary. Hy didn’t look much better. Habiba waved at me and trudged toward the house. He came along the dock carrying a shopping bag.

  “Is she all right?” I asked as he sat down beside me.

  “Just tired. I sent her in to take a nap.”

  “What about you?”

  “I’ve had better days.”

  “Feverish?”

  “Some.” He patted my knee. “Don’t worry, McCone. It’s just taking the drugs a while to work.”

  And that in itself worried me, but all I said was, “You’d better see your own doctor when you get home. What’s in the bag?”

  “Fresh clothes for you and her. We stopped off at Marathon.”

  I opened the bag and pawed through its contents. The sizes of the jeans, Tees, light jackets, and athletic shoes were right. “Thanks. You did good.”

  “You’re welcome. Habiba helped me choose; she was very picky about your stuff.”

  “Funny kid. I saw her talking with you this morning. Did she tell you about her mother?”

  “Yeah. The kid’s gone through hell the last few days.”

  “Did she see what happened to Mavis?”

  “No. She was below deck in the main cabin, but she heard Schechtmann and her mother arguing above just before they got under way. There was a thump, then they were quiet, and after a bit Schechtmann came below and told her Mavis had changed her mind about making the trip. That panicked Habiba, and she wanted to go ashore, but Schechtmann said it was too late and locked her in the forward cabin. I think at that point she suspected what had happened but wouldn’t let herself believe it.”

  “She knows now, though.”

  “Schechtmann told her when they got to Jumbie Cay. He said Mavis had an accident.”

  “Sounds like murder to me.”

  “Yeah, and Habiba’s a potential witness. You can see why old Klaus wanted to keep her on the island—and why he’ll probably try to get her back. You talk with Renshaw?”

  “Yes. I didn’t have our flight number, so we’re to call him with our ETA when we change planes in Miami. He’ll send a car to SFO for us. I also talked with Greg Marcus.” Briefly I explained the situation with Joslyn. “I’m still waiting on Mick. He’s pulling together some data for me, and if it indicates what I think it will, I’ll have a handle on the bomber’s motive.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes, but I don’t want to talk about it till I’m sure.” I glanced at my watch. “It’s taking him a long time.”

  “Why don’t you call him?”

  “No, we’ll be in San Francisco later tonight. That’ll be time enough.”

  * * *

  At five o’clock that afternoon the heat at the Key West airport had given me a headache. To avoid dwelling on the pain, I concentrated on Habiba while Hy checked us in at the flight gate. When I’d awakened her from her nap she’d been curled in a fetal position on the bed in the room next to ours; now she looked as though she’d like to lie down on the floor and curl up again.

  “Are you excited about seeing your Grams tomorrow?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “She’ll be mad at me. Everything that’s happened is my fault.”

  “Habiba, none of it is your fault.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Why?”

  “My dad said so. He said that if I wasn’t born he and Mom would’ve been okay together, and then a thousand bad things wouldn’t’ve happened.”

  A thousand bad things—including him killing Chloe Love and and Schechtmann killing Mavis. The son of a bitch had no right to blame anything on this psychologically abused child!

  I squatted down and put my arms around her, feeling more bone than flesh. “You know,” I said, “fathers aren’t always right. Sometimes they have…things wrong with them that make them say things that just aren’t true. Remember what your dad said about the sharks getting you if you tried to swim away from Jumbie Cay?”

  “…Yes.”

  “Did the sharks get us?”

  “No.”

  “See?”

  Hy came up behind us. “We’ll board in about twenty minutes.”

  Habiba stiffened.

  I said, “It’s only Hy—”

  “No, there’s my dad.”

  I turned my head and looked around Hy. Dawud Hamid stood at the podium talking to the clerk. She frowned and shook her head. He leaned forward, banging on the counter with the flat of his hand as he spoke.

  Asking if a child of Habiba’s description had checked in. Thank God the airline wouldn’t give out that sort of information!

  But how the hell had he known we’d be flying out of Key West?

  Hy had looked over his shoulder, too. Now he stepped between the podium and us. He held out his hand to Habiba, and she grabbed it. Clung to it with whitened knuckles as they turned and began walking away from the gate. I followed, staying close behind her and blocking her from Hamid’s line of sight.

  Halfway to the security checkpoint Hy ducked into a recessed hallway leading to a service door. I slipped in behind him.

  “Is it Hamid?” he asked.

  “Yes. Let’ wait and see what he does.”

  Habiba stood between us, her panicky eyes moving back and forth between Hy’s face and mine. “Please don’t let him take me back!”

  “No way,” he said tightly.

  I took the oversized straw hat from her head, pushed my hair up, and plopped the hat on top. Then I looked out toward the flight gate. Hamid was striding up the concourse, a scowl spoiling his handsome features.

  I motioned for Hy and Habiba to get back. Stepped out after Hamid had passed and began walking the same way. He moved stiffly and angrily. Brushed against an old woman struggling with two carry-on bags and didn’t bother to apologize. As he headed into the ticket lobby he seemed to calm down; his step became sure and fluid—the gait of a predator.

  The small airport was sleepy at this early evening hour. The season was over here, the heat intense; the few people in the terminal moved in slow motion. I kept a good distance from Hamid and drifted toward a bank of phones.

  He went to the American Eagle counter. Took out a credit card and brandished it self-importantly, motioning toward the concourse.

  He planned to take our flight.

  The clerk took the credit card. She ran it through, then issued a ticket and boarding pass. Hamid snatched them up and strode toward the phones; I slipped into one of the kiosks, watching him as he made a brief call. When he hung up he went directly to the gate where our flight was boarding.

  Hy and Habiba were still in the hallway where I’d left them. He was squatting, his arms around her, her face pressed against his shirtfront. I touched her lightly on the head and said to him, “Let me have my ticket.”

  “What?”

  “Hamid�
��s taking the flight; so am I. You and Habiba grab a cab and check into the nearest hotel.”

  “McCone—” He hesitated momentarily, then held out the ticket envelope. “I’ll page you in Miami.”

  * * *

  The plane was a turboprop, some thirty seats, max. Too damn small for traveling incognito. I pulled the straw hat lower on my forehead as I approached the gate. Hamid had already crossed the tarmac and was ascending the steps. When I handed my boarding pass to the woman at the gate I pointed to him and said, “That good-looking dark-haired guy who’s getting on—do you remember what seat he’s in?”

  The attendant grinned and winked. “You noticed him, too. Next to last row, and you’re at the front. Try switching after they reach cruising altitude.”

  “Thanks.” I hurried outside, one hand clamped on the hat. As I crossed to the plane I hunched so I appeared a couple of inches shorter; once inside, I kept my head lowered. My seat was in the second row, and I slid in quickly. Curled up, my feet on the companion seat that Habiba would have occupied, and pulled the hat over my face.

  The flight was forty-nine minutes and uneventful. I was first through the door and into the terminal, where I staked out a position in the nearest bank of pay phones. Hamid came through the gate and stopped, looking around impatiently. A man approached him and offered his hand. They conferred briefly, then began walking up the concourse. After a moment I followed.

  They say socialites and criminals can immediately sense their own kind. Maybe that’s also true of investigators. Everything about this nondescript gray-haired man in resort clothes told me he was a private detective.

  The two followed a hallway to the concourse where the American flights departed, went into a cocktail lounge, and took a table next to the railing that separated it from the main traffic way. I kept on to the next gate where a plane was arriving and mingled with the people greeting it. Hamid seemed on edge and kept looking around for a waitress; finally one appeared and took their order.

  I was trying to gauge how close I could get to them without being spotted when a familiar name came over the loudspeaker:”…Hy Ripinsky. Paging Hy Ripinsky…”

  Clever man. I smiled and moved toward the courtesy phones, still keeping an eye on Hamid’s table. “Where are you?” I asked when Hy came on the line.

  “A Ramada near the airport.” He gave me the number.

  “I’ll call you back.”

  The waitress was setting drinks on the table now. She offered popcorn, but Hamid waved her away. I moved to a pay phone where I had a better vantage of the bar and inserted my credit card. Punched out the number Hy had given me while watching the two men talk. Hamid gestured impatiently. The other man listened and replied calmly, the way I would to a client who was being unreasonable but whose business I didn’t want to lose.

  “So what’s happening, McCone?”

  “Hamid’s meeting with someone whom I’m ninety-nine percent certain is a private investigator. They walked over to the concourse where the San Francisco flight leaves, so I guess he plans to take it. How’s Habiba?”

  “Relapsed into speaking words of one syllable.”

  “Are you worried about her?”

  “Not particularly. I’d do the same in her situation.”

  “And how’re you?”

  “Better, now.”

  Hamid’s companion was talking, sculpting his words with his hands. He motioned toward the concourse where the American Eagle flight had landed, then in the direction of the field. Hamid shook his head and leaned forward, speaking intensely and tapping the table with his index finger.

  “McCone?”

  “It doesn’t look as though the meeting’s going too well. Hamid’s upset.”

  The investigator waited until Hamid concluded his tirade, then made a conciliatory motion and started to speak. Hamid cut him off and spoke loudly—delivering an ultimatum, I thought. The other man shook his head. Hamid stood, and this time his words carried: “I don’t have time to listen to your excuses. You’re fired!” Then he strode out of the lounge and down the concourse toward the gate for the San Francisco flight.

  “Looks like he’s going to board the flight,” I said to Hy, “but I want to make sure. I’ll call back in a while.”

  The investigator still sat at the table, looking both rueful and faintly amused. I glanced along the concourse and saw Hamid push through the crowd around the podium, his anger loosely reined now, his expression making people move aside. He waved his boarding pass at the gate attendant and rushed down the jetway.

  I left the phone booth and went to the cocktail lounge.

  Hamid’s investigator was ordering another beer. He didn’t look overly concerned about being fired, and he didn’t seem surprised when I sat down opposite him.

  “Nice surveillance, Ms. McCone. My client didn’t make you, and I wouldn’t’ve either, if I didn’t know you.”

  I frowned. “We’ve met?”

  “A number of years ago at the National Society of Investigators convention in San Diego. You wouldn’t remember me, but of course you made an impression because of the murder and the job you and your colleague from San Francisco—I forget his name—did of solving it.”

  “I see. If you made me, why didn’t you tip Hamid?”

  “He and his associates aren’t interested in you, only the kid, and she’s not in evidence. Besides, Hamid’s a horse’s ass and too violent for his own good; he’d’ve probably attacked you on the spot. That kind of trouble I don’t need.”

  “You’re right about that violence, Mr.…?”

  He produced a business card: Kent Maynard, Maynard Associates, Boca Raton.

  “Mr. Maynard, am I correct in thinking Hamid fired you?”

  He smiled and reached for the beer that the waitress set down. When he cocked an eyebrow questioningly at me, I shook my head and he motioned her away. “He can’t fire me.”

  “Why? Because the person who actually retained you is Klaus Schechtmann?”

  Maynard merely smiled and sipped his beer.

  “Did Hamid tell you why he’s going to San Francisco?”

  “That isn’t completely clear. He seems to be ricocheting around, hindering more than he’s helping.”

  “So why didn’t Schechtmann come along, keep him in line?”

  “I think you know the answer to that.”

  So Maynard was aware of the warrant on Klaus. “Have you worked for Schechtmann before?”

  “Collected some accounts receivable.”

  Read that gambling debts. Kent Maynard wasn’t the mild-mannered man he appeared. “I suppose he presented this as a child-custody case.”

  He nodded.

  “Then you’d be better off fired. It’s not that simple. The child’s mother was killed—”

  He held up his hand like a traffic cop. “I don’t want to know.”

  Typical attitude of the nineties-style investigator, and one that probably would have made me more successful had I embraced it. “No, I guess you don’t. And since you’ve seen that I don’t have the child, you really have no further interest in me, now do you?”

  He smiled. “Oh, yes, Ms. McCone, I have a great deal of interest in you. I assume that you had the kid in tow when you spotted Hamid at Key West. You’ve stashed her someplace, probably with your pilot friend, and you intend to hook up with them again. And I intend to stick with you—very closely.”

  He knew about Hy.

  “Right now,” he went on, “my people are canvassing the Key West hotels and charter and rental services. We’ve got people on surveillance at general aviation here, as well as at Orlando, which is the only other airport they could take a commercial flight to.”

  “Why are you telling me this? I can contact him and warn him.”

  “I’m telling you so you’ll be aware of how hopeless your situation is—and how thorough and well financed we are. By all means, go ahead and warn your friend. Won’t make any difference in the long run. Why don’t y
ou save yourself a lot of trouble and turn the kid over to me?”

  I ignored the question. “My pilot friend—how do you know about him?”

  He shook his head and smiled again.

  Didn’t matter how he’d found out about Hy; he still didn’t know his name, or he’d have recognized it when it came over the loudspeaker. He would have flaunted that knowledge now. It wasn’t a large advantage, but an edge nonetheless.

  I suspected how Schechtmann and Hamid had found out we’d flown to the Florida Keys: Kenny the cab driver had not been as uncurious about our visit to the old sugar plantation as I’d assumed. He’d followed us through the thorn forest, heard Hy ask if we wanted to go to the Keys, and later contacted Schechtmann through his fellow driver, Slow Eddie Frazier. In a tourist area with a poor standard of living the residents are alert to the slightest scent of profit, and they’ll sell anything they stumble across.

  I should have paid more attention to the rustlings I’d heard in the thorn forest. I’d take a lesson from that mistake and be doubly on guard now.

  Maynard said, “Why don’t you just tell me where the kid is? Give her up and go home. Nobody’s interested in you or your friend.”

  The hell they weren’t. Maynard had to be stupid if he actually believed that.

  I studied his face: lines around the eyes that suggested long nights of vision-straining surveillances; lines around the mouth that suggested long years of disappointment. In spite of the embossed card and the talk of his people, I sensed Maynard’s operation was a small one, and that Klaus Schechtmann was a major client whom he wouldn’t want to disappoint.

  Maynard’s muddy brown eyes were studying me in a similar fashion.

  A good private investigator has to be a good actor: we adopt false facial expressions; we tell lies with body language; we alter our personas with vocal tone. We’re two-sided: lying while seeming truthful; dripping sincerity while drowning in duplicity. Maynard was doing all of that, and pretty well. But not well enough to fool this actor.

  I said, “Well, we both know the business. You do what you have to.”

  He spoke a bit too eagerly. “You’ll turn the kid over?”

  “No.” I pushed away from the table and stood. “Right now I’m going to those phones—right over there where you can see me. I’ll make some calls. Long ones, so you might as well stay here and finish your beer. In fact, have another, on me.” I dug a five-dollar bill out of my pocket and set it on the table.