Sandman

by William W. Johnstone

  “Sand?”

  “Yes. The inspector thinks they went for a midnight swim and were surprised by intruders when they returned. But what was odd was the amount of blood. I mentioned that there should have been more, but the inspector just grunted. I’m sure there should have been more blood.”

  Connie looked over at the death house. “Will this delay our leaving?”

  “I asked that. The inspector said he doesn’t think so. He’ll be over to take our statements and verify our address, but he made it clear that we’re not suspects.”

  “That’s nice of him,” Connie said drily.

  “He will go through our cottage, though, and check our possessions, as he put it.”

  “I suppose he has to do that.”

  “It’s his job, honey.”

  * * *

  The inspector was very thorough. Very. And very polite as he went about his business inside, while half-a-dozen officers poked and prowled outside and under the cottage by the whispering sea.

  Neither the inspector nor his men found anything. “Not that we expected to,” he hastened to add, with a smile. “It’s just something we had to do, due to the proximity of the cottages, don’t you know?”

  “Right,” Connie said. She wasn’t sure she liked this inspector; but then, her associations with stateside police officers had been very limited. She was friendly with the chief of police back home, but Mike wasn’t nearly so officious as the inspector.

  But then, she finally concluded, maybe the man isn’t officious. Perhaps he’s just very good at his job.

  “Now, then,” the inspector said, “you are planning to leave day after tomorrow, is that correct?”

  “That’s right,” Mark said.

  “Ah, good! I mean, I’m not implying I’m glad to see you leave; it’s just that there is a New York City police officer coming in. Correction, a retired police officer. Rather young to be retired. My word, he’s only forty-three. But, no matter. He’s coming in this evening. He’s the brother of the slain woman. Donna. This man may wish to speak to both of you.” He looked at Mark and Connie. “Is that acceptable to you?”

  It was.

  “Fine. After we remove the bodies, my men will seal off the cottage, and a guard will be posted. Someone will be close-by around the clock. For your protection.” He smiled at Janis, then lifted his eyes to Mark. “I thank you all for your cooperation. I am, of course, dreadfully sorry for this awful business. We’ll be seeing each other again. Oh, by the by, Mr. Kelly . . . how did you injure your hand?”

  Embarrassed and red-faced, Mark told the inspector the truth of the matter.

  Paul listened, a smug smile on his face.

  The inspector smiled. “Yes, quite. I checked the clinic, of course. I never like to leave loose ends dangling. It’s so . . . untidy, don’t you know? Well, good day.”

  Paul smiled as he wolfed down his huge bowl of cereal. The inspector gave him a rather queer look, arched one eyebrow, and then left, without another word.

  Mark and Connie did not catch the look, but Janis did, and she understood it. Paul was as cold-blooded as a shark; nothing about the awful murders had upset him. But then, Janis recalled, Paul had expressed his dislike for Dean and Donna several times. She had paid no attention to it, then, for Paul hated everybody.

  “I bet it was bloody and gory and sloppy in that cottage,” Paul said.

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” his father said. “Good God, Paul, how can you sit there and grin about it?”

  The boy’s grin widened. “Can I have some bacon and eggs? Real runny eggs. With lots and lots of ketchup.” He laughed strangely and rocked back and forth in his chair. Then his gaze locked with his father’s. “How’s your hand, Daddy?”

  * * *

  Leo Corigliano had pulled the pin on his career in the NYPD after twenty years on the job. He had risen fast: five years in uniform, and then fifteen years as a detective. He had retired a lieutenant. And not everyone was unhappy about his retiring. Leo enforced the law. Period. He rocked boats. It didn’t matter a damn to him who he arrested. From Hizzoner’s office on down. Get him on a case and you couldn’t shake him loose. He never closed an unsolved file. He just made copies of the paperwork and took it home with him, to work on during his off-time.

  He solved a lot of cases others gave up on, because the department was overworked and understaffed, or they were pulled off the case. Sometimes for political reasons, mostly for legitimate ones.

  Leo tried to get on with Internal Affairs. But he didn’t. Everybody knew he hated a dirty cop.

  He had never married. His job was his wife, his lover, his mistress. There had never been room in his life for a woman on any permanent basis. And though he always had girlfriends, he never got too serious with any of them.

  He was of medium height, medium build, medium weight. Not a lady-killer, but not unattractive. His eyes were blue, his hair prematurely salt and pepper. He had killed two people in the line of duty, wounded four. And he’d spent two years in the Army. Two tours of duty in ’Nam, as an MP. He really did not have to work. His parents had died when he was twenty-one, and his sister, Donna, was ten. Leo had raised her. She had been more daughter to him than sister. Their parents had been moderately well off, and all the money and property had gone to Leo and Donna. Then it was discovered that the elder Corigliano had taken out an insurance policy on himself and his wife, many years ago. For half a million. Paid double if death was accidental. Which the Coriglianos’ had been.

  Leo found himself with a lot of money on his hands. He set up a trust fund for Donna, and played the market with his share. The broker got lucky, and Leo and Donna got wealthier.

  Upon retirement, Leo set up a private investigation firm, and worked just as hard at that as he had as a gold shield. In less than a year’s time, Leo had more business than he and his operatives could handle. They did no keyhole peeping.

  Leo Corigliano. A tough cop. A loner. A man who appeared untouchable, cold.

  * * *

  “This Mark Kelly,” Leo asked the inspector, “his story check out?”

  “Oh, yes. Clinic records support it. Mark Kelly owns a thriving business in some town with an incomprehensible and unpronounceable name, in Arizona. His wife is a well-known writer. Does those dreadful romance things. The American authorities were quite helpful in this. The Kellys are squeaky clean. All but one of them.”

  Leo waited. He had dealt with the British before. He knew they loved suspense.

  “The boy, Paul. The police chief in this town, whose name I cannot pronounce, and I am astonished that anyone else can”—he spelled it out—“Tepehuanes is as close as I can get, was quite helpful. Seems the boy has given his parents trouble for years. And he’s only eight. Almost nine. Nothing serious, mind you. He’s just a disagreeable little tyke. I could get little more from the man. You Americans are so close-mouthed about your juveniles.”

  “Far too close-mouthed. There’s no such thing as a bad kid, you know. It’s all society’s fault.”

  “Do you believe that, Mr. Corigliano?”

  “Hell, no!”

  “Good.”

  “What else did the chief say about the boy?”

  “His words?”

  “Yes.”

  “I finally got out of him that his juvenile officers had picked the boy up several times. Skipping school, complaints from other parents that the child was a bully, that he killed small domestic animals. The chief said he wouldn’t trust the boy in church, and wouldn’t believe what he said if he was in the middle of a Bible factory.”

  “Sounds like a real nice kid. And, of course, the parents don’t know how much of this is going on?”

  “That is correct.”

  “Same old story.” Leo patted his pockets, then remembered that he’d quit smoking. Again. “Got a cigarette?”

  “Oh, yes. Dreadful habit I just can’t seem to break. ”

  The men lit up.

  “I’ve qu
it a dozen times,” the inspector admitted.

  “Me, too.”

  Leo was told the why and how of Mark’s hand injury.

  “An eight-year-old tore the belt from his father’s hand? What is this kid, half-gorilla?” He waved that away. “The blood on the bedroom floor . . . ?”

  “Eh? What?”

  “The blood on the bedroom floor, where Mark Kelly is supposed to have bled. You find any?”

  “No. But I didn’t expect to.”

  “You’ve lost me, Inspector.”

  “I made only a quick check of the floor. I plan to have a team in the moment the Kellys leave. You know as well as I do that no matter how you scrub, you can’t get it all. It’s still typeable.”

  Leo nodded. “Then you’re not buying the Kellys’ story? ”

  “Oh, I don’t think the mother and father had anything to do with it. And it would have been physically impossible for the children to have done that.”

  “Children can lift a machete, too, Inspector.”

  “Oh, quite. But it wasn’t done with a machete.”

  Again, Leo waited.

  The inspector sighed. “This is not easy for me, Mr. Corigliano—”

  “Leo, please.”

  “Very well, Leo. Stanford for me. Old family name. I . . . ah, would not recommend you view the bodies. They have been positively identified. By a number of people and by their drivers’ licenses. They had friends here, Leo. They met here last year. You might not have known that.”

  “Were the Kellys here last year?”

  “No. They have never been here. At least not under that name. Leo”—he leaned forward—“the Kellys didn’t do it. Dean and Donna Mansfield were literally ripped apart. Torn apart. There was not a clean cut to be found. And not nearly enough blood.”

  “What happened to the blood?”

  Stanford shrugged.

  “What do you have on these islands with the strength to tear people apart in the manner you just described to me?”

  “Nothing.”

  Leo decided to let that drop for a moment. “Prints?”

  “Many. So far, they all belonged to the Mansfields or the cleaning people.”

  Leo stood up. “Let’s go see the bodies.”

  “Now? Really, Leo! It’s the middle of the night. And I’m bending the rules by asking you not to subject yourself to this unpleasantness.”

  Leo stared him down. The inspector sighed. Stood up. “Oh, very well. This way. We’ll take my car.” He looked at Leo. “Be advised, their heads were torn from their bodies and stuck up on the bedposts.”

  “Not cut off?”

  “No. Torn off.”

  “Muscles and tendons stretched and ripped.” It was not a question.

  “Hideously so.”

  “Let’s go.”

  * * *

  Leo took it all without changing expression. The inspector watched his face and marveled at his control.

  Either that, or Leo was an emotional brick.

  Without taking his eyes off what was left of his sister, Leo said, “She was worth a lot of money, Inspector. So you’d better put me on your suspect list. She hadn’t had time to change her will.”

  “In this day of computers, it takes about fifteen minutes to check someone’s financial standing, when governments cooperate. We have an excellent rapport with the American authorities, so I put you on the list and then took you off in less than an hour’s time.”

  “Yes, quite.” Leo gently mimicked the inspector. “Drugs, you know.”

  “Yes, quite.” Stanford understood that Leo was joking to hide his grief.

  “That’s the last of my family, Inspector. The end of the line. Except for some cousins I’ve never met and have no desire to know. I’m not even sure where they live.” He was staring at his sister’s head. The body had been more or less reconstructed.

  Stanford said nothing.

  “You can cover it up. When your people are through . . . well, we’ll talk about shipment later.” He looked more closely before the sheet covered her.

  “What are you looking for, Leo?”

  “Bite marks. But all I can see are bruises. And the body is blue-white.”

  “There is no blood, Leo.”

  “Drop the other shoe, Inspector.”

  “When I think you’re ready for it.”

  “You’re the boss. I have to accept it.”

  “Thank you.”

  Outside, away from the smell of chemicals and the smell of death, Leo breathed deeply of sea air perfumed by flowers. “It’s a beautiful place, Stanford.”

  “It is that. And it would be more so if not for a recent resurgence of an odious and ancient rite.”

  “Oh?”

  “Vodun.”

  “What’s that?”

  The inspector glanced at him. “Voodoo.”

  * * *

  Leo did not meet with the Kelly family. He rented a car, bought a pair of high-powered binoculars, and found a place where he could observe them.

  He had called his office. When he returned to the mainland, he would know everything there was to know about the Kelly family. He would know things about them they had forgotten.

  He watched them pack, watched them leave; and he was waiting at the cottage when Stanford and his team arrived.

  “You don’t mind if I watch, do you, Inspector?”

  “Not at all.”

  The inspector set his men to work and then went over to Leo. Corigliano watched the team work for a few minutes, then nodded his head and walked away. They were as good a crew as any he’d seen.

  “You decided not to interview the Kellys, Leo?”

  “I’ll catch up with them in Tepehuanes. I’d as soon they didn’t know who I am ... yet.”

  “They didn’t do it.”

  “No.” Leo spoke slowly. “I don’t think they did either. But the boy makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up.” He glanced at the inspector. “Do you know that boy, Paul, prowls half the night?”

  “My man reported no such thing, and he was on guard both nights since the incident.”

  “The kid is slick. I was watching from the brush just above the cottage. He waited, both nights, until your guard made his walk-around. Then he slipped out his bedroom window and hightailed it over that little crest there.” Leo pointed. “A dune, I guess you’d call it.”

  “Did you follow him, Leo?”

  “I tried. But that little sneak is good. He lost me both nights. I do know he met a tall man and a very shapely woman. Just up the beach.” He pointed again. “That way.”

  Stanford was silent for a moment. “A tall man and a shapely lady. Were they black?”

  Leo scratched his chin. “I think they were. Yeah, I’m sure of it.”

  “And they did what, Leo?” The inspector was writing in a small notepad.

  “I couldn’t get that close. I assume they talked. I don’t know about what. I do know the man and woman Paul met are the quickest people I’ve ever encountered. Blink your eyes and they’re gone. Damnedest thing I ever saw.”

  “So far,” Stanford said ominously. He ignored Leo’s quizzical look. “Was the man wearing a shirt?”

  “Ah . . . no. He wasn’t. And neither of them left any footprints, either.”

  “No. They never do.”

  “You know these people?”

  “I know of them. They pop up now and again. Searching for something. Or someone. I think they’ve found that someone this time.”

  “Stanford, you’re sounding a bit weird. You want to tell me what’s going on?”

  With a sigh, Stanford hauled out a box of cigarettes and lit up, offering one to Leo. Leo produced a pack of his own, and both men smiled grimly.

  “The legend says the man and woman you saw were killed around the turn of the century. They were, and still are, so the stories go, the high priest and priestess of a voodoo cult. Very unsavory people. It is said they come from the earth, and can return to it at wi
ll. No prints in the sand. And because they come from the earth, that is where their executioners made their mistake: they buried the bodies instead of burning them and sealing the ashes. Louis Mantine and Nicole became one with the earth . . . again.”

  Leo was staring at Stanford as if the inspector had gone around the bend.

  “You really believe that crap!”

  “It isn’t crap. Black magic works. I’ve seen it done. Seen what happens. But this is much more than black magic. The cult of the sand people has existed as long as there have been inhabitants on these islands. Hundreds of years. Maybe thousands.”

  “The ... sand people?”

  “Yes. They usually succeed only in frightening the wits out of people, but there have been other rather macabre murders—among tourists, that is. God only knows how many have occurred back in the interior and on the other islands, but I’ve run into two other such cases since I’ve been on the force. A young couple in 1960, and another murder in 1974. These were rumored to have been the work of the sand people.” Stanford was silent for a moment, the muscles in his jaw bunching. His eyes had gone hard as flint. “The MO in all cases, including that of your sister and her husband, is identical. There will be few clues, Leo. Believe it.”

  “Now, wait just a second. Are you telling me that some sort of . . . creatures murdered Dean and Donna?”

  “We don’t know, Leo. We don’t know what they are. No one has ever seen them and lived to tell about it. At least not that we know of.”

  “But you just said tourists have had the wits scared out of them.”

  “Rustlings in the night. Strange misshapen forms. Screams that have been recorded—animal experts say they don’t come from human or animal sources. Elusive shapes that possess unbelievable strength, and seem to have the ability to vanish at will. Into the earth.”

  “I don’t believe I’m hearing this from you!”

  The inspector said nothing in rebuttal. He sat and stared out at the calm blue waters.

  “All right then, Stanford, tell me this: Why hasn’t this been covered in the press?”