Island Blues (19 page)

Chapter Thirty-five

Sabrina watched in shock as Sam was handcuffed and put in the back of a police car. He did not look at her as he was driven away.

“What in the world is going on? Sam didn't kill Gilbert! I've found out all sorts of things. You need to listen, Jimmy!”

“Sabrina, please calm down. We don't arrest people unless we're sure we have the right guy.”

“But you don't!” Sam couldn't be a murderer!

“Sabrina, I know you liked the man, but you need to calm down and listen to me. Can we please go inside out of the rain?”

Sabrina followed Jimmy toward the lodge's back door, her mind reeling with questions. It made no sense! Why would Sam kill Gilbert? Because Gilbert kicked his cat?

Sergeant Jimmy took her crutches and handed her into a seat near an open window inside the empty restaurant. Sabrina noticed that rain was splattering on the inside windowsill, but made no move to close the window.

“Sabrina, it looks like he did it. His arrest wasn't my decision to make, but I probably would have done it too. The evidence is pretty damning.”

“What evidence?”

“We just searched his boat and found Gilbert Kane's camera hidden away, the one we know Kane took to the island in his duffel bag. There are bloodstains on the camera.”

“Bloodstains?”

“We haven't tested it yet, but it's a pretty good bet it's the victim's blood. And that's not all we found on the suspect's boat. He had an entire file on the Hummers International organization, and specifically Gilbert Kane and Michael Siderius.”

Sabrina stared at Jimmy in shock. Why in the world would Sam have amassed a file on the Hummers?

“You know I'm telling you this in complete confidence, right?”

Sabrina nodded, unable to speak.

“By his own admission, Myers was the last one to see Kane alive, and the kayak with the victim's blood on it had Myers' fingerprints all over it.”

“Well, of course they were!” Sabrina felt on safer ground. “He was the dock master.”

Jimmy shrugged. “Sure, if it wasn't for everything else. There's more, you know. We know why he did it.”

“Why?” She felt like covering her ears with her hands. She didn't want to hear this.

“The suspect's sister committed suicide last year. He blamed Hummers International for her death. She attended one of their retreats, and as soon as she came back she took an entire bottle of Xanax. Myers was convinced that the Hummers drove her to kill herself, but there wasn't any proof of this. She was involved in a bad divorce and her husband wouldn't leave her alone, despite several restraining orders. The conclusion was that she killed herself to get away from him.”

“How awful!”

“It gets worse. The husband came after Myers, broke into his house a few nights after the sister killed herself. Myers shot him to death. There were some who thought he might have set up his sister's husband so he could kill him. They looked at Myers long and hard, but eventually cleared him.”

Sabrina remembered Sam's flippant comment soon after she first met him:
I was afraid you were going to grill me until I confessed that I cheated on a math test in the fourth grade and killed a man last year.
She'd assumed he was being facetious.

He wasn't.

It made a horrible kind of sense. She had heard the depth of pain in Sam's voice as he talked about his sister. If he thought Hummers International was responsible for her suicide, it was almost believable that he might come after Gilbert. Were Michael and Joseph next on his list?

“But why did he blame Hummers International for her suicide?”

Jimmy shook his head. “I don't know all the details, but the officials in Atlanta didn't find it creditable.”

Sabrina shook her head, trying to suppress the tears welling in her eyes. It was silly for her to cry over Sam, but somehow she felt so sorry for him, tortured this long year over his beloved sister's death.

“I'm sorry, Sabrina, but it doesn't look good. It's not a coincidence he's here using an assumed name and posing as a dock master. He's taken indefinite leave from his university, so he must have been planning this for a while.”

“His university?”

“He's a professor, or at least that's what he used to be.”

“Sabrina!” A frowning Matt Fredericks came toward their table.

“I've got things to do.” Despite his bulk, Jimmy rose gracefully to his feet and tipped his hat at Matt as he made his way out into the rain.

“Sabrina, I need to talk to you.”

“Matt, did you hear they arrested Sam for Gilbert's murder?”

“They did?” Matt shook his head. “I wondered why they were asking for Sam's employment records.” He stared after Jimmy, and then turned back to Sabrina with a stern look. “I've been looking for you. I heard about what you and Lima Lowry did yesterday on Rainbow Island. How could you? The whole reason you were here was because the Hummers were complaining about their lack of privacy! And then you go and interrupt them yourself? It makes no sense.”

“I know.” Perhaps the trip to the island wasn't such a good idea after all.

“Now, Michael Siderius is insisting that I ban you from the lodge until they leave, and I'm inclined to agree. You've caused more problems than you've solved, Sabrina. I think you should leave now.”

Sabrina had nothing to say. She got to her feet and reached for her crutches. Matt's face was determined but regretful as he held the screen door for her. It was his responsible, general manager face, the one he used when he had to fire an unsatisfactory employee. And
she
was the unsatisfactory employee.

“I've spoken with Mary Garrison Tubbs, just so you know.”

Sabrina nodded without looking back. Of course he had. Could things get any worse?

***

“You're fired, Sabrina.”

Mary Garrison Tubbs had found her sitting on the front porch of the general store. This time there was no escape.

“What are you talking about, Mary?” Lima glared at Mary, but the woman didn't even blink at his hostile tone.

“I'm saying Sabrina is fired. I've been trying to find her all day, but as usual, she's been off gallivanting instead of doing her job. The council voted last night to remove her from the ombudsman position due to gross negligence.” Mary shook her head in disgust. “I can't believe how badly you've messed this up, Sabrina. I didn't have high hopes for you in the first place, but I never thought you'd make things worse, rather than better. You've let us all down.”

Sabrina stared fixedly at her hands. Nothing like this had ever happened to her before. She'd always received glowing commendations when she was a teacher.

“Sabrina has been doing her best,” Lima said huffily. “She's done a lot of good things.”

“Like what? The problem between the tourists and locals has gotten much worse since she started, you know, and Vicki Carroway is still one step ahead of us. Both Matt Fredericks and Michael Siderius, the two people she was supposed to help resolve their differences, have come to a consensus on only one item: they want Sabrina fired. For goodness' sake, the whole reason she was at the lodge was to help ensure that group's privacy, and then she goes and interrupts them herself. I've heard you had a hand in that as well, Lima. You should be ashamed of yourself!” Mary's face was as scarlet as her hair as she stamped one sneakered foot. “It's intolerable!”

“
You're
intolerable, Mary!”

“I understand,” Sabrina said, interrupting the face-off between Lima and Mary before it got any more acrimonious. “You're right, Mary, I've let down the entire island and I'm sorry. Of course you are right to fire me. I would fire me, too. I should have quit days ago.” She got to her feet. She had to get out of here, now. She felt like she was disintegrating.

“Sabrina…” Lima said.

She shook her head and made her way down the stairs to the moped.

***

“I'll be out by Monday,” Sabrina told Vicki Carroway. “I'll pay this month's rent, but I'll be leaving right away.”

The property manager nodded, her eyes bright with malice. Her long silver hair was piled on top of her head, and she was wearing a smart coral suit that made Sabrina realize how wet and bedraggled she was. It was amazing how little she cared.

“Couldn't hack it, could you, Sabrina? Ha! I'm not surprised. I'll be keeping your security deposit, you know, don't even bother asking for that back.”

“I wasn't.” Sabrina turned to leave.

“By the way, I've got a new group booked to arrive in a few weeks. It's ‘Pedophiles Anonymous.' What do you think about that?”

Sabrina hesitated a moment, but it wasn't her job any longer. She shook her head and left without saying a word.

Then she went home to pack.

Chapter Thirty-six

Lima cleared his throat outside Sabrina's door. His throat didn't clear, so he tried again. And again.

The door swung open and Sabrina stood staring at him wide-eyed. “Lima, are you all right? It sounded like someone was trying to start a chain saw out here.”

“I'm fine, I'm fine,” Lima mumbled, and shoved the bottle of whisky into Sabrina's hands as he entered her apartment. He'd never seen her
drink
whisky, but it had been ingrained in him by his mother that whisky was what a body needed in a crisis. And this was a crisis, Lima saw, as soon as he looked around the small living room.

Calvin was hopping from one suitcase to another, chattering in a worried frenzy. Drawers and cabinets stood open, and piles of knickknacks and clothes littered every available surface.

“Sabrina, what are you doing?” He took the bottle back from her and went to the kitchen to pour himself a shot. He gulped it down, and then poured another in the same glass and handed it to Sabrina.

“I'm packing, Lima.”

“I might have been born eighty-something years ago, but I'm not stupid. I can see that. What I want to know is why?” He took the still full glass from her hand and swallowed down the whisky. It did nothing to ease the pain in his chest.

“I'm going back to Cincinnati.” She said the words with simple certainty, and turned back to folding a scarlet blouse. As she was about to put it in the suitcase, she paused, and then dropped it into a box marked “Goodwill.”

Lima shook his head and sat in a chair, ignoring the clatter of tins that hit the floor. He should have come earlier. He'd been telling himself for the past two hours that he needed to get off his lard butt and come, but with the way he was feeling and…well, he really didn't want to. He liked Sabrina, he did, but he didn't like dealing with emotional women, and he'd had a feeling that going to talk to Sabrina was going to be like talking a howling cat down from a tree.

He'd been wrong. And late. Sabrina wasn't upset or panicked. She was calm and resigned as she moved around her apartment, discarding her bright wardrobe in the Goodwill box and placing Calvin's toys in a suitcase. He was carrying them out again as soon as her back was turned.

“Why are you leaving, Sabrina? Could you please stop that gosh-dern fiddling and sit down for a minute?”

Sabrina looked up, and though her expression was calm, her eyes were barren. “It's over, Lima,” she said, and sat down. “You know what I saw on my way back from Vicki Carroway's office? I saw a sign on the bait shop down by the harbor that read ‘Tourist Roast this Sunday.' I heard a vacationing family talking about packing up and going home early because they were so miserable here on the island. Everywhere I looked I saw unhappy vacationers and grumbling locals. It's like a rot is eating away at the fabric of the island, and now it's all falling apart.” Sabrina was looking right at Lima as she spoke these words, trying to make him understand what she had seen. Lima didn't need to understand, he'd seen it for himself. On his way here, a man had jumped out of his car and punched another man who had jaywalked in front of his car.

“Sabrina, you can't blame yourself for what's going on. You did the best you could.”

“I was right all along, you know,” she said, and now her gaze was over his shoulder somewhere, and he felt like he was watching someone on TV. He could watch, but he couldn't break through that smooth wall of impassivity. “I didn't want to take the job. I knew I'd let everybody down.”

“Sabrina…” He was helpless. He hated this type of thing, he never knew what to say and he was left feeling dumber than a headlit rabbit.

“I never should have come here at all. I thought everything would change if I moved here. There seemed to be a magic about the place, a special shine that I thought would wear off on me if I lived here. But it didn't work that way. I need to go back to my old house in Cincinnati, and my old job. At least I felt safe there.”

“I want to tell you about Bicycle Bob,” Lima said, before he even knew what he was going to say, just to shut her up before she said any more irretrievable things. He stopped, and thought a moment, but the interest in Sabrina's eyes convinced him this was the right thing to do.

“Bicycle?” She leaned forward. “Is he okay?”

Lima leaned back in his chair, satisfied with what he was seeing. She wasn't completely frozen inside, no matter how hard she was trying to turn down the thermostat.

“Bob McCall was the kid we all knew was going to leave the island, almost before he could even talk. Some kids are like that. They aren't cut out for this place, more and more of 'em, really. His brother Jimmy, now, he left for a spell and went to ride Harleys in Californ-ee-ah, but he came back and settled down like we all knew he would. Bob, though, he was different. He had that restless look about him, that look that said he wanted to DO something with his life, and those were some big ole' capital letters. He meant it, and right after high school he joined the Peace Corps and went off to Africa or Australia, or one of them beleaguered countries, to help the starving children. Then he did the college thing and went to work at one of those places, the ones that put the ads on TV about how you can save a kid for the price of a cup of coffee a day. He was a lawyer, and his specialty was suing these big companies that tell everybody they're helping the poor, hungry children, and then dump a few rotten apples on them and pocket the rest of the money.

“He got married, and he brought his wife to the island every Christmas, and she was a sight to behold. One of the sweetest, most fragile-looking things you ever did see. Bob adored her, you could see that plain as day. That last Christmas, she was expecting, and I've never seen two people so happy.”

Lima found that the clog was back in his throat, and he leaned forward and poured himself a belt of whisky to clear it. Then another, to ease the growing pressure in his chest. He'd pound his fingers with a hammer if he caught a tear in his eye. That would give him something to cry about.

“Then we heard the news. It was a car accident, and Bob's wife was in a coma. They knew right off she wasn't going to make it, but they kept her alive for a while to try to save the baby, but it didn't work. They both died, and Josie McCall held a nice memorial service on the island, though they buried them up north. Bob didn't come. We heard that he quit his job, and Josie didn't hear from him for a long time. No one did. A couple of years later we started hearing rumors about someone living at the old McCall homestead in the woods. It had been abandoned for years after the McCalls decided to move to town. Then we saw Bob. He would come to town for his liquor, and it looked like he hadn't drawn a sober breath for the past two years. We thought he'd snap out of it. We waited for a while, and then Josie started holding little interventions for him, got all of us together to confront him. He was still talking then, and after a while he told us to leave him alone, that he was trying to survive. Did we want to see him dead? That was what got us. He swore if we messed with him in any way, tried to put him in one of those dry-out places like some were talking about, that he would kill himself. We left him alone after that, and he's been like this for twenty years. Tomorrow or the next day is the anniversary of his wife's death, and he always gets worse around then. Then he goes back to being the same old Bicycle, painting his coconuts and riding his bike. He gave up, you see, just didn't want to try no more.”

Lima felt very tired as he leaned back in his chair. He felt kind of sick, actually.

Sabrina was silent, her big blue eyes welling with dismay and sympathy. She started to say something, and then stopped.

Lima stood up. He was afraid if he didn't leave now he was going to be sick. “You think on that tonight, and I'll be back tomorrow,” he said with as much dignity as he could muster with vomit hovering in the back of his throat.

“Lima, are you all right?”

“My nephew, Kealy, the one I told you got an envelope full of cash? He got another one, and he's going to treat me to dinner at the Pub tonight, so I need to be moving along.” Lima felt as if he was on one of those rides at the carnival, the one where they stand you up against the wall and close the door, and the next thing you know you're going around so fast that you're stuck to the wall.

“Your nephew got another envelope full of cash? What in the world is going on?”

“I don't know, but if there's anyone who deserves it, it's him. That side of the family has had bad luck ever since Gerry Lowry committed suicide back in the twenties. Kealy's the only one left now, because the rest of them have either drunk themselves to death or died young some other way.”

“Did you say Gerry Lowry? I've been thinking about that note, the one the burglar dropped at the rental cottage. You know, the one that said, ‘Mit,' ‘Har,' ‘Gar,' and ‘Fred.' I think I know what it means. And now that you've said that your nephew is Gerry Lowry's only surviving relative, I can't help but wonder—Lima?”

Lima felt an explosion of pain in his chest, and he put out his hand to brace himself on the table, but the table wasn't there and he felt himself toppling in slow motion toward the floor.

“Lima!”

His last memory before darkness closed in was the sound of Sabrina saying “I know I have an aspirin in here somewhere” and “Dammit, is it two breaths and fifteen chest compressions or the other way around?”