Island Blues (14 page)

He wondered if Sophie would be mad when she found out who he was. It was refreshing that she didn't seem to know, but he hated to deceive her. On the other hand, it was nice to leave all that behind him and just be Dennis Parker again, like he used to be back in his hometown. Some of the others knew, but Michael must have talked to them, because no one was saying anything. That was the condition he made before signing up for the retreat. Michael Siderius was happy to agree.

Dennis slowed as he reached the dock, disconcerted to see that he was the last to arrive. He started out planning to run to the dock, but when he saw he had more time, he decided to run the path by the water. He'd found that running helped the Hum, and he did it every chance he got. At home, he surrounded himself with thick insulation, TVs, fans, and indoor fountains. He'd even invested in a generator, after one hellish night spent without power. Without his appliances making white noise, he'd spent the night with pillows over his head.

Running also helped him forget for a while how much he wasn't looking forward to the upcoming session. But now he was late, and he jogged down and leaped onto the boat. The captain undid the lines as Dennis apologized for his tardiness. He was so busy pretending he wasn't noticing how great Sophie looked in her pair of jeans that it took him a moment to realize that Michael Siderius had a broken nose.

Now wasn't that strange?

After Dennis got himself settled in a seat, he looked back at the dock. A blond woman—was it Sabrina Dunsweeney, the nice island ombudsman?—was standing at the shore watching their boat leave. There was someone with her, and Dennis had to rub his eyes to make sure he was seeing clearly.

Chapter Twenty-five

Lima felt about as dumb as a floor rug for agreeing to this. He should have stayed on his rocking chair on the general store's porch, having a congenial conversation with Bicycle (the fact that Bicycle Bob did not participate in these chats did not bother Lima much) and pondering whether he would have sausage or country ham on his biscuit this morning. That's what he should be doing on a sunny Thursday morning, not standing on a beach on godforsaken Shell Island contemplating going for a boat ride on a banana peel.

“You can have the blue one, Lima.” Sabrina had the air of a long-suffering mother appeasing her three-year-old. As if
he
were the one being unreasonable.

“Don't care if it's blue or yellow, still looks as slippery as a banana peel. How am I supposed to stay on?” The two of them exchanged one of those looks, like when Grandpa starts talking to the clothes hangers.

Like he hadn't been on boats since the day he was born, and that was long before either one of these two were even a wrinkle on the foreheads of their parents. Lima and boats were simpatico; Lima and banana peels were another story. It didn't help that he was feeling queerly again, a little light-headed and breathless, not that he would say anything to yonder hypocat. She'd have him strapped to a stretcher faster than he could blink, on his way to the mainland for some white-coated teenager to stab him with needles that they swore wouldn't hurt. Since when did sharp pointy things jabbed into your arm not hurt? What good did it do to lie to people when they'd know you were a liar within two seconds?

“What're you looking at?” Lima turned to the dock master and did his best James Cagney sneer. James Cagney was a putz, so Lima didn't mind stealing his sneer.

“That sailboat out on the water.” The dock master didn't even flinch, which made Lima scowl even harder. He didn't like this lean, tanned whippet of a man, with his bright blue eyes and his smart comments. Shane, or Sal, that was his name. Sally, was more like it. Lima didn't trust him as far as he could see him.

“Lima, if you don't want to come, it's fine. Sam can take the kayak back up the beach and you can go to the lodge and get breakfast. I'll be back in a little while. You're really not dressed for this, you know.” Sabrina in her sensible screaming orange miniskirt and ruffled pea-green silk shirt. And
he
wasn't dressed appropriately.

A little boy and his mother passed them on their way to a homestead of chairs, towels, coolers, and beach toys staked out on the beach. The boy stared in awe at Lima while the mother smiled in generous amusement. Lima did his Cagney Special to them as well and the boy shrieked.

“I'm going. And I don't need any help. Just get out of my way.” This to the young dock master, who didn't look like any dock master Lima ever met, and he'd met a few in his day. In fact, the man looked about as untrustworthy as a four-dollar-bill as he helped Sabrina onto her kayak. He was copping a feel, was what he was doing. Lima hadn't missed the little looks and amusing banter between the two of them. The whole thing was about as cute as a coupla cats using a sandbox.

“Lima, be reasonable. You don't want to go, so why don't you stay here until I get back?” Sabrina asked in a rational voice, as if she was acting like the most rational person in the world. Which she wasn't, which was why he was coming along. The girl needed looking after. And if he couldn't talk her out of this whole thing, then he'd go along to keep her out of trouble.

It all started when he got back from seeing Mrs. Linler's second grade class this morning. He was just settling his tired bones in his accustomed rocking chair on Tubb's porch when here comes Sabrina flying up the stairs, almost stepping on Bicycle and having to turn back and apologize to the old boy. The whole time Calvin was just a screechin' on her shoulder, flapping his wings to keep his balance as Sabrina thrust a newspaper in Lima's face.

“Do you know who that is?” She stuck her finger at the paper, but since she had it practically shoved up his nose it was hard to see one way or another.

Lima removed the paper from his nasal cavity and stared at the picture of the young man caught in flight as he stuffed a basketball through a hoop.

“Sure. That's Dennis Parker, one of the best basketball players in the country. They say gravity and him never met, and you'd believe it when he goes flying up in the air to dunk a ball.”

“Lima, what in the world are you wearing?” Sabrina stared at him in bemusement for a moment, and then shook her head. “Never mind. It's Dennis Parker, that's who it is. One of the best basketball players in the country.” She said this in a voice like she was accusing the boy of routinely crapping in the flower beds.

“That's what I said. I've never seen anybody play like him.”

“Dennis Parker, this famous basketball player who everyone knows about, is staying at the Shell Lodge, and no one told me. Did you hear me, Lima?
No one bothered to mention it.
”

“Sabrina, are you all right? You're looking a little high-strung there. Sit on down before Calvin blows a sprocket.” The bird was feeding off his mistress' emotions and resembled nothing more than a howling swirl of buttercups.

“What else did they not bother to mention? How could they not tell me something like that? No one's been honest with me, and here I thought I was getting somewhere! They probably all know who the murderer is and are not bothering to mention it
to me
!”

Sabrina was shouting and Bicycle stood up to leave. He didn't like any type of strong emotion and was apt to go off and hide when someone started yelling or crying. Lima didn't blame him. He'd like to go off and hide right about now.

“Sabrina, would you sit down!”

She blinked like he'd struck her, and he felt guilty, like he'd kicked a kitten. Not that he liked cats, but he didn't make a practice of going around and kicking them. Cats got even.

Sabrina sat back down.

“I need to put in my notice. I need to tell them this whole thing was a mistake, and that they need to find another ombudsman. I should have done it days ago.” Her voice was soft and trembly. Now Lima wished she was yelling.

“You were just hired a few days ago.” Practical and matter-of-fact, that's what the situation called for.

“Well, I should have quit the first day, then. Then maybe Gilbert wouldn't have died, Missy's house wouldn't have been broken into, and islanders and locals wouldn't be walking around looking like they wished they had assault rifles hidden up their sleeves.”

“You get a promotion when I wasn't looking? They're calling you God now?”

“Please?”

“I think you're giving yourself a lot of credit, thinking you could be responsible for this whole mess. You're doing the best you can to clear up a bad situation, but there are things outside your control, you got to accept that.”

“No, I don't.”

“What?”

“Accept that things are outside my control. If I were good at my job, I would be in complete control at all times.” Sabrina was stroking Calvin, and the little bird was calmer, but danged if he didn't look sad now.

It was hard to stay practical and matter-of-fact in the face of blatant unreasonableness. “Stop feeling sorry for yourself, Sabrina! Do the best you can, that's all anyone asks.”

“Doing your best isn't good enough if you fail and let people down. And if I couldn't even win the Hummers' confidence enough for them to tell me who Dennis Parker is, then I'm just a failure.”

She went on and on like this, and Lima listened with as much patience as he could muster, which mostly consisted of disgusted stomps and irritated spits off the side of the porch. Finally he couldn't take any more. “Let me see if I understand: you think if you'd done a better job, these people would have confided in you more, and by now you'd have solved this murder.” He said it to show her how post dumb she was being, but she nodded in pure miserable agreement.

“They won't even tell me what they're doing on the island. They go off for these private sessions, but none of them will talk about them. Maybe if I knew what happened in their meetings, I'd understand more about what was going on with them. Those sessions are the key to the Hummers, I just know it.”

“There you go. You just need to find out what goes on in those sessions.”

“Lima, that's it! You're absolutely right!”

Lima rocked his chair, feeling complacent and pleased with the world, and most especially the intelligence God had seen fit to bestow on him.

Until Sabrina outlined what she had in mind. Now, as he stared down at the kayak in front of him, he wondered why God hadn't seen fit to grant him a few more I's and Q's.

“I said I don't need no help,” Lima snarled at the man named Shane or Sal, who had gotten Sabrina into her kayak and was now looking at him with a sardonic smile.

“You know, there's a tortoise in a zoo in Australia that's more than 170 years old. It's one of the tortoises Charles Darwin took from the Galapagos back in 1836, and it's still alive and kicking.”

Lima stared at the man, and then shook his head in disgust. “If you ain't got nothing intelligent to say, keep your dang mouth shut.” He turned to the kayak and sat down on it, balancing his weight to compensate for the rocking of the waves. It was just a boat, after all, and if there was something Lima knew about, it was boats. Well, that and a whole lot of other things too, but boats in particular.

He picked up his paddle, ignoring the small crowd that had gathered on the beach.

“Hey, look at the clown on the kayak!”

Lima didn't even glance back as he paddled away. Dern fools, that's what they were.

Chapter Twenty-six

Sabrina watched Lima paddle toward the entrance of the cove and tried to muffle a sigh.

“I don't know what's gotten in to him,” she said to Sam as she dipped her paddle in the water. “He's not usually so rude—well, I guess that's not true, but, anyway, I'm sorry. I thought that story about the tortoise was very nice, even if he didn't.”

“I don't know why he would have thought it was nice. I called him an ancient old turtle who moves slower than molasses.”

“I thought you meant—” Sabrina gave up. “Well, that was rude!”

She tossed her head, and then regretted it when the kayak rocked alarmingly. Without another word she paddled after the clown, complete with white paint and bulb nose, who was weaving an erratic path in the wrong direction.

Lima did so love to dress up. When she found him on the porch at Tubb's General Store, he'd just gotten back from entertaining Mrs. Linler's second grade class and was still garbed in full clown regalia. He would remain in character most of the day, Sabrina knew from experience. He would grumble that now he was all dressed up he didn't feel like taking off the outfit, but in reality he loved the attention.

What she'd never expected was that Lima would insist that he accompany her to Rainbow Island to spy on the Hummers. Never in her wildest dreams. She told him she had to leave right away, thinking that the fact he was dressed like a clown would dissuade him. She should have known better. If anything, it had made the whole expedition more appealing to him.

So, here she was, on a covert expedition to Rainbow Island with a scared bird on her shoulder—Calvin didn't like big bodies of water—and a clown in tow. All she needed was to pitch a tent and she could call the whole thing a circus.

“This way, Lima,” she called. She had finagled directions from Sam when he returned from delivering the Hummers to Rainbow Island. He didn't even ask why she was headed over there.

“I know how to get to Dead Man's Island,” Lima shouted back, “and if you keep going that way, you're going to run into an oyster bar because it's nigh on low tide.”

Sabrina was too tired to argue. She turned her kayak to follow Lima's.

She had not gotten to bed until late last night. By the time she asked Michael Siderius who bloodied his nose, and he took off without answering, it was close to eleven. Then she had to drive home and go through her nightly going-to-bed ritual, which took a good hour, so it was well after twelve by the time she got to bed.

Tired and lethargic was not the best way to start any day, but it grew worse after she encountered a tourist and local screaming at each other down in the Blue Cam Restaurant, and then saw Dennis Parker's determined young face on the front page of the newspaper.

How could they not tell her? They all must have known. No wonder everyone kept looking at her so funny when she said the news people were interested in Sophie. The model was small potatoes compared to famous basketball player Dennis Parker. She looked like a fool, and everyone must be laughing at her, thinking it was hilarious to keep such a secret from her.

But she was back on track now. She was convinced that the Hummers' private sessions were key. After all, the reason Sabrina became involved in this whole mess in the first place was because Gilbert and Michael were complaining that they needed more privacy for their sessions. And the reason that Gilbert was on Goat Island was because he was checking out the island for their sessions. Furthermore, none of the Hummers would talk about what went on at the sessions. There was something fishy there, and nothing was going to keep the truth from Sabrina this time.

A wake from a motor boat caught her off guard and almost flipped her into the water.

“Catch sharks right about here all the time,” Lima yelled to her cheerfully. Now that he was away from Sam, his good mood had returned.

Rainbow Island, or Dead Man's Island as it had been called for a century, was not far from Goat Island, where Gilbert Kane met his fate. Sabrina glanced at her watch: almost ten-thirty. Sam had dropped the Hummers off at ten, and wasn't due to pick them back up until one, so she had plenty of time to scout around.

Another boat zoomed by, and Calvin shrieked as he gripped her shoulder with needle-sharp claws. Sabrina gritted her teeth and managed to hang onto her balance.

It was a beautiful day, which explained the number of boats on the water. Clear and calm, with enough of a breeze to keep the air limber and cool. The water was a flirty blue today, playfully flashing glimpses of sandbars and glimmering fish, and tossing small white waves up just for fun.

As they got closer, Rainbow Island revealed itself to be a run-of-the-mill spoil island, a strip of beach and grass circling a thick growth of bushes and trees. The underbrush looked more and more forbidding as they pulled their kayaks up onto the sand. An osprey circled, shrieking, and then dipped down to pick a stick off the beach and wing its way back toward its nest.

“Dang shrilly birds, always yelling about something. Well, we're here. Now what?” Lima, red wig askew and wearing only one shoe, had found a tree trunk on which to sit. Sabrina worried at the heaviness of his breathing; the kayak ride must have been too strenuous for him.

“Why don't you wait here? I'll go reconnoiter.”

“You'll do what?”

“I'll go look around. Then I'll come back and get you.” She said this with no particular sincerity, because if she had her way, Lima would get no farther than this patch of sand.

Lima waved her away without arguing, which, she thought later, should have been her sign, but she was too revved up to notice. She struck out through the underbrush, her skirt and shirt catching on every branch they came across. It felt like little hands were pulling her backward. But she persevered. Rustling in the undergrowth indicated that she was not alone, but she tried not to think about what kind of animal was producing the sounds. Something slithery and scaly, no doubt, and it was better not to think of such things.

The trees worked as an effective canopy, and the light was gloomy and dim. Already she had numerous bug bites and scratches, and she feared her outfit would never be the same. As for her decorative sandals, they'd been ruined pretty much after her first step.

It felt like she had been pushing her way through undergrowth for hours, and Sabrina was so turned around she wasn't even sure from which way she had come. It was a small island; surely by now she would have run across some sign of the Hummers? If she didn't hurry, they would pack up and leave and this whole journey would have been in vain. Now that she had calmed down, she was beginning to feel it wasn't such a good idea anyway.

A few minutes later, she heard the sound of a soft drum and low chanting, and Calvin chattered with delight. She must be getting close. She slowed down and tried to quiet the noise of her passage, but she still felt as if she was making about as much noise as a medium-sized bulldozer. Calvin, who was whistling at the butterflies, wasn't helping, but he was too excited to hush. He loved butterflies.

She reached the edge of a clearing, and for a moment she thought she had found the Hummers.

Instead she saw Lima.

He was in full military crawl, snaking through the tall grass toward a patch of trees. Judging from the sounds emanating from within, this was where the Hummers were performing their rituals.

She was about to go after Lima, who had popped his head up to look around and then resumed his belly-crawl, when she noticed that there was someone else standing in the trees nearby. He was staring at Lima in open-mouthed disbelief.

Sabrina glanced back at Lima and acknowledged that he was a sight to inspire disbelief in about anyone. It wasn't every day that you saw an eighty-year-old clown doing a passable imitation of a low-crawl through the weeds for no apparent reason. Lima was pretty good at it, and Sabrina reflected that it was possible he learned the technique in World War II. Either that, or he was imitating John Wayne again. Lima imitated John Wayne at every opportunity.

Sabrina looked at the stranger, and realized that she recognized him. He was the bald, burly man who had given her the cold shoulder at the bar and then run into her last night. He was holding a camera, but his instincts must have failed him, because otherwise he would have been taking a picture of Lima. How else would anyone ever believe his story later?

What was he doing? Was he a reporter? That was the only thing that made sense. How did he score a room at the Shell Lodge, though? All the other reporters were staying in town, Sabrina knew. This morning she received calls from two hotel owners complaining about them, and adding this new task to her to-do list almost toppled it.

Sabrina didn't know what to do. She was contemplating her options when Calvin caught sight of a large, colorful butterfly and broke out in enthusiastic comment about it. The burly man looked around and saw her. His eyes widened, and then he turned and disappeared into the woods.

Lima stood up, and the marsh grass he had stuck into his red wig for camouflage wilted. “Will you quieten that dang bird down, everyone will hear us!” he roared.

There was sudden silence from the trees, and then a murmur of voices and a crashing of underbrush indicating someone was coming in their direction.

“Come on!” She gestured to Lima to hurry, but he shook his head and pointed in the opposite direction.

“I don't know what fun, scenic route you took to get here, but I plan to take the shortest trail back to the boat.” His hearing aid must have been malfunctioning again, because he was speaking in nothing less than a bellow.

The crashing was getting closer, and now someone was shouting. Sabrina abdicated her illusion of free will and bolted after Lima as he made for a nearby path. Unfortunately, with only one big shoe, Lima's gait was hampered and they were being overtaken.

“Hurry, hurry!” she panted, and Calvin chittered his agreement.

“Last one back to the dock is a rotten egg,” Lima gasped as they reached the beach.

Sabrina shoved her kayak into the water. She jumped onto it, but missed her mark and ended up waist deep in the water, a swirling whirl of yellow feathers in her face as Calvin tried to climb her head. Lima had just mounted his kayak and was paddling frantically when she stood up right in front of him.

“Lima!”

Sabrina caught hold of the back of Lima's clown suit and hauled him out of the water. Calvin was shrieking in terror, but he managed to hang on.

“I'll be fine if you let up the death grip,” Lima wheezed. “Where are the dern kayaks?”

They looked around for them, but the commotion from their struggle and the outgoing tide had floated the kayaks out of their reach. Sabrina turned to go after them when a voice caught her up short.

“Sabrina, what in the world are you doing?”

Sabrina and Lima turned to see a group of puzzled Hummers standing on the beach.