Death in a Family Way

by Gwendolyn Southin

  The higher she climbed, the steeper the trail became. She pulled herself up using the roots and rocks lining the path, her breath rasping in her throat. Oh, God help me! she found herself praying over and over to a God she wasn’t at all sure existed. She pulled herself over the rim of another rock ledge, and not realizing that she was out in the open, she paused momentarily to reconnoitre. There was a sharp crack and something splintered the boulder just to the right of her, sending shards of rock flying, one of them gashing her cheek. Instinctively, she let go of the root she was holding to touch the blood that was trickling down her face. The laugh from below made her frantically search for the root again and use it pull herself to the relative safety of the salal engulfing the next part of the path. Taking a quick look down through the brush, she saw that Cuthbertson and another man were already standing on the ledge where she had rested only fifty feet below her. Cuthbertson was holding something to his shoulder. A rifle! Hanging onto a strong root with her left hand, she reached over to a large rock imbedded in the earth and wrenched it free. It went scudding down through the underbrush, taking a shower of pebbles with it. The yell from below told her it had found its mark, but she knew that it wouldn’t hold them up for long.

  In sheer desperation, she found the strength to pull herself even higher up the slope, and glancing upward, she could see that the rough trail veered slightly to the left. She had to get there before Cuthbertson used his rifle again.

  His sarcastic voice floated up to her. “There’s nowhere to go, Maggie.”

  She hesitated for a split second before reaching for another rock. “Damn you!” The muttered words rasped out of her dry throat as her scratched and bleeding hands wrenched more rocks and gravel out of their holes. Her feet in the over-large boots searched for footing as she resumed the climb, and then the left boot started to slip off. Desperately, she clenched her foot to keep it on, but it was no use. The boot went sliding down the slope and she cringed as she heard the crow of laughter from the men below. Another crack of the rifle and the zing of the bullet hitting the ground just above her made her cry out in terror. Her feet went from under her and she found herself swinging in the air, hanging onto a large root by one hand. Reaching over to a boulder to steady herself, she scrabbled in the gravel to regain her footing. She didn’t even try to stop the second boot joining its companion, but the sound of the two men laughing even harder just gave added impetus to her determination to escape. The muscles in her arms screamed in pain as she pulled herself up and around the curve in the path.

  She lay on her stomach momentarily and drew in great gulps of air, but the sounds of the two men scrambling up behind her quickly got her to her feet. Sobbing, she clambered up the remaining boulders onto a narrow animal track and began to run. But although the going was easier, her bare feet marked every stick and stone, and she realized it would be much easier for her pursuers in their boots.

  The track, weaving in and out of the towering salal, monster ferns and other straggling bushes, was almost tunnel-like, but every now and then she caught glimpses of blue sky and sunlight filtering down through the trees, and she realized that the path lay just below the ridge that formed the summit of the hill. Gasping and holding her side, she ran faster, but the tree roots caught her feet, and she lost time as she climbed over the broken branches that littered the path.

  Thwack! The bullet ricocheted off a large fir tree. They were closing in on her now. Oh, my God! Oh, my God! In spite of her exhaustion, she picked up speed. It seemed that she had been on the track for hours, climbing over fallen logs, wading through streams and slipping down gullies. But after awhile there was no more shooting. They were probably so confident of getting her in the end that there was no need for them to hurry. They could save their ammunition to finish her off.

  Suddenly, the trail divided. One path continued below the summit and the other, she could see, plunged downhill. Sliding downward on the loose gravel, she felt her feet going from under her and grabbed at the small trees and bushes that lined the path. When she hurtled out into the open, she found that she was on the edge of a sloping cliff. Where could she go? The voices of the two men quickly made up her mind for her, and she launched herself downward on her backside toward the sea crashing on the rocks below.

  Dazed, bruised and bleeding, she came to rest on a small stretch of pebble beach. The incoming tide crashed over her legs, and Maggie, lying on her back, looked up at the watery sun peeping through the low scudding clouds. What was the use of running anymore? They would get her eventually. She had nowhere to go. She had nowhere to hide. All they had to do was shoot her where she lay.

  “Damn you!” she cried. “I’d rather drown.”

  She rolled onto her bleeding knees and forced herself upright. Stumbling over the slippery green rocks showing so clearly through the icy water, she waded deeper and deeper until the rocks fell away beneath her and she started to swim.

  • • •

  NAT GAZED HELPLESSLY at Cubby’s empty berth. “You did your best to tell me about the bastard, Maggie,” he said out loud. “I was too dumb to see what you were getting at.” The ghostly grey mist hanging over the deserted yard and the slight breeze that rocked the boats gently at their moorings gave the whole place a look of unreality. He shivered, turned on his heel and started up the ramp to his car. “Collins,” he muttered. “That’s who I need to talk to.”

  He parked in the first available RESERVED FOR RESIDENTS spot, bounded up the steps to the apartment building’s entrance and leaned on Collins’ buzzer. While he waited, he caught a glimpse of himself reflected in the polished brass mailboxes and saw an unshaven, hollow-eyed man looking back.

  “Who the hell is it?” Phillip Collins’ voice came over the intercom.

  “Southby.”

  “It’s damn near four in the morning!”

  “Lemme in.”

  “Get lost!”

  “It’s important.”

  “Call in the morning.”

  “Look, Collins, it’s about . . .” Nat realized that he was talking to a dead receiver. He leaned on the buzzer again.

  Collins’ irate voice answered. “Go away or I’ll call the cops.”

  As Nat reached for the buzzer again, the entrance door opened and a bleary-eyed man carrying a lunch pail shuffled out into the chill morning. Nat grabbed the door before it swung closed and raced for the stairs. He took them two at a time to the second floor and hammered on Collins’ door.

  It opened suddenly and Collins, wearing only striped boxer shorts, stood glaring at him. “I warned you, Southby . . .”

  “Let me in.” Nat pushed past him into the foyer.

  “What the hell’s going on?” Collins still held the door open.

  “Quiet!” a man shouted from the doorway of the adjoining apartment. “Some of us want to get some sleep.”

  “All right,” Collins said in resignation, closing the door, “but it had better be good.”

  “Just tell me,” Nat said, grabbing the other man’s arm, “are you in on this scam with your wife’s aunt or not?”

  “Scam? What the hell are you talking about?”

  “This baby racket. Smuggling. Whatever it is.”

  “Who is it, Phillip?” A blonde twenty years younger than Collins—her hair mussed, puffy face smudged with last night’s makeup—appeared, clutching a pink satin robe around her self.

  “Go back to bed, Steph,” Phillip Collins snapped. “I’ll deal with this.” Then, turning to Nat, he said, “You’d better explain.”

  “Maggie Spencer is missing.”

  “Maggie Spencer?” Collins asked, mystified.

  “And the Larkfield woman has something to do with it.”

  “Aunt Violet?” Stephanie Collins came further into the room. “She couldn’t be.”

  “Your aunt is capable of anything,” Collins said scathingly.

  Nat turned to the woman. “Larry’s your brother. Right?”

  “So what?” />
  “There’s at least three of them in this thing—Cuthbertson, your brother and your aunt—and Maggie stumbled onto it.”

  “Who the hell is Maggie?” Collins demanded.

  “My secretary, that’s who! And I need your help.”

  “What can I do? I don’t know anything about it!” Collins answered in exasperation. “And what’s all this got to do with you and your secretary?”

  “We got called in to find Ernie Bradshaw’s cat, then your boat got smashed up, and old Ernie was murdered . . .”

  “But Larry explained about the boat, honey,” Stephanie interjected, gazing anxiously at her husband.

  “I bet he didn’t explain that he was smuggling pregnant teenaged girls across the line with it,” Nat answered her.

  “Larry wouldn’t do that . . .”

  “Shut up, Steph! Let him get on with it.”

  As quickly as possible, Nat explained the situation. “And Maggie figured it out and that’s why they took her,” he ended up.

  “My brother wouldn’t be mixed up in anything like that.” Stephanie Collins turned to her husband. “Tell him he’s wrong, Phillip.”

  “Your brother’s a rotten little bastard,” Phillip Collins said to his wife. “I should’ve known he was up to something illegal.”

  “You’ve never liked him,” Stephanie cried. “You think you’re too good for my family.”

  “For Chrissake,” Nat interrupted, “let’s get on with it.”

  “You’ve got to believe me, Southby,” Collins said. “I didn’t know anything about this!”

  “But you must know where the hell they could have taken her!”

  “We don’t even know this Maggie person,” Stephanie said, shrugging.

  “Where does Cuthbertson go when he’s out fishing? Does he own a summer place? A cabin or something like that?”

  “No,” Stephanie answered quickly. “He doesn’t have anything like that.”

  “Yes, he has, you little bitch!” Collins turned on his wife.

  Stephanie’s face paled. “No, I . . . I . . .”

  “I know about your little . . . junket with Cuthbertson.”

  “But I . . .” Stephanie stammered.

  “Going to visit my sister,” Collins mimicked.

  “For Chrissake,” Nat snapped. “Stop bickering. Where is it?”

  Stephanie crossed her arms over her chest and looked toward the window. “I don’t remember.”

  Collins grabbed her arm and put his face close to hers. “Tell him where the place is, or I’ll . . .” He let the sentence trail off.

  “You’re hurting me,” Stephanie whimpered, trying to pull herself away.

  “It can’t be more than a few hours away,” Nat interjected. “He was back here with his boat the morning after Maggie disappeared.”

  “Tell him, Steph,” Collins said, pushing her toward Nat.

  “It’s on an island.”

  “Where? What’s the name of the island?” Nat demanded.

  “I don’t remember,” she sobbed. “He’ll kill me.”

  “And I’m going to kill you if you don’t tell him where it is,” Collins said in a low voice. He turned to Nat. “I’ll get a map from my desk.”

  “It’s only a little island,” she said, turning to Nat.

  “Please try and remember where,” he pleaded.

  “We stopped at this place near there for groceries. Pender Harbour, I think it was called.”

  Collins returned with a survey map and spread it on the table. “Now, Steph,” Collins said, grabbing his wife roughly by the arm, “point to where the island is.”

  “There’s so many,” she wailed.

  “How long did it take you to get from Pender Harbour to the island?” Nat asked.

  “I dunno. About twenty minutes, I suppose,” she answered.

  “Is it a small house? Big one? What?”

  “It’s big.”

  “Can you see it from the sea?” Nat asked in exasperation.

  “There’s lots of trees.”

  “Did you see it from the sea?”

  “It was dark. He only turned the dock lights on after we landed,” she answered sullenly.

  “What are you going to do?” Collins asked, letting go of his wife’s arm.

  “Right now,” Nat said, striding to the telephone, “I’m calling Mark Farthing. He’s with the homicide squad.”

  “You can’t bring the police into it,” Stephanie Collins pleaded. “What about Larry and my aunt?”

  Nat looked with loathing at Stephanie’s tear-streaked face. “I think they deserve everything they get.”

  Nat had to hold the phone away from his head when Farthing heard his voice. “Now what?” he shouted.

  “I know where she is.”

  “Who?”

  “Maggie. If you listen, I’ll fill you in.”

  “Make it fast.”

  “There isn’t much time, Farthing. Please just listen . . .”

  “You can use my boat,” Collins offered. “I’ll get changed and come with you.”

  • • •

  THE HEAVY SWELLS OF the incoming tide and the weight of Maggie’s clothing hampered her efforts to swim. The nylon floater jacket would have to come off. Treading water and inadvertently taking huge gulps of seawater, she struggled to get her arms out of the jacket and watched it drift away. Among the logs floating in the tide was a branched tree adorned with seagulls, and she swam to it and grabbed at a jutting branch. The gulls rose, shrieking at her intrusion, and Maggie, scared that they would alert her pursuers, plunged deep under the derelict tree and came up cautiously on the other side among its branches. Looking back toward the shore, she could see the two men standing on the cliff’s edge, peering out to sea. Numb with the intense cold and choking on the salt water as she bobbed up and down on the waves, she watched them confer. Cuthbertson pointed down to the beach, and the other man—who she was now sure was Larry Longhurst—promptly slid down the steep slope and started to search along the narrow strip of beach. Her focus was on Longhurst when there was a sudden shout from Cuthbertson and she saw him point out to sea. Oh my God! The jacket. She watched him raise the rifle and fire.

  Terrified, she submerged again, hanging onto a tree branch. She held her breath as long as she could, then, cautiously resurfacing, she glanced around. To the right of the cliff was a headland and beyond it a small cove. Keeping her head low and forcing herself to swim slowly, she began to push the rolling log toward the headland.

  • • •

  NAT PUT THE PHONE DOWN. “Farthing will be here in twenty minutes.”

  “Do you want my boat?” Collins asked.

  “No. He says the Coast Guard just got their first Sikorsky helicopter and they’re itching to use it. But he wants both of you along for the ride.”

  “No!” Stephanie cried. “Not me.”

  “We’re both going,” Collins said to his wife, pushing her toward the bedroom. “Get your clothes on.”

  Nat watched the two of them go down the hall, then, sinking into a leather armchair, he closed his eyes. The sharp ring of the phone on the table beside him had him on his feet in an instant. “Yeah,” he barked into the instrument.

  “Sarge says to be down on the street when he gets there. And bring your map.”

  As he replaced the receiver, Nat looked up to see Collins coming back into the room. “She’s putting on her makeup,” he said in disgust.

  Nat zipped his jacket and the two of them started for the front door, neither of them noticing that the red extension light was glowing on the telephone. A few minutes later, Stephanie came down the hall. “Do I have to go, Phil?” she whined. “You know how I hate planes.”

  “You’re going,” he answered and held the door open for her.

  “You’re the only one who can identify the place,” Nat said.

  “Not from the air,” she wailed.

  “Come on, let’s go,” Nat ordered.

  On the way t
o the Richmond airport, Farthing leaned over to Stephanie. “I’m counting on you to show us where this island is.”

  “I keep telling you guys it was dark when I was there.”

  “How long were you there? A few hours? Overnight?”

  She gave a sideways glance at her husband, who was sitting beside Nat. “Overnight,” she mumbled.

  “Then you did see the place the next morning!” Farthing said triumphantly.

  “I . . . uh . . . I stayed in the cabin coming back. It was cold.”

  “You must have known something was going on between your brother and Cuthbertson,” Farthing persisted.

  “Why should I?” she answered quickly. “It was just me and Cubby there.”

  “How far did you say it was from this island to Pender?” he asked.

  “I already told you. I don’t remember.”

  Farthing leaned back in the seat. “I hope for your sake, Mrs. Collins, your memory returns once we’re in the air.”

  It was six-thirty by the time they arrived at the airport. On the way, Farthing had been on the radio, making last minute arrangements for the helicopter and talking to the Coast Guard in Pender. The rotors were in motion when they pulled into the terminal. At any other time, Nat would have been thrilled at the prospect of his first flight in one of these remarkable new craft, but all he wanted now was for this monster to get off the deck. The bright yellow aircraft seemed immense as they climbed aboard through the five-foot sliding door into the main cabin. The pilot made a quick introduction to Sandman and Kepler, his two crewmen, who in a matter of minutes had Nat and the Collinses buckled into the fold-up seats that faced each other on either side of the long, wide body. Farthing took one of the front seats near the pilot, the map spread out over his knees.

  Once airborne, Herb Sandman walked to the rear and lifted down one of the black wetsuits hanging there on pegs.

  “What are you doing?” Nat shouted above the noise of the engines.

  “There might not be a place to set down on the island. Got to be ready to go in by sea,” Herb shouted back.

  “I’m coming,” Nat said, unbuckling and jumping up from his seat.

  “You done any diving?” Herb said, looking dubiously at Nat’s rotund body.