Island Blues (9 page)

Chapter Seventeen

By the next morning, Sabrina had convinced herself that the whole incident on the causeway the night before was an accident. Most likely, somebody had too much to drink and didn't notice her until the last minute. It was regrettable that people still drank and drove, but it happened.

Sabrina looked up to discover that she had no idea where she was. As she spent a good bit of time lost, this did not concern her unduly. She always managed to find her way back.

It was a fine morning for a bike ride, though most people would not have ventured down the trail that Sabrina had chosen. Paths ducked and dodged through the trees, and Sabrina had to be on the lookout for homicidal trees and bottomless potholes. Every once in a while she would encounter a larger path and she would turn onto it hopefully, and each time the path would dwindle and grow aimless. After a while, she heard the sound of a creek, and she headed for it as best she could on the uncooperative paths.

This morning she confronted her massive to-do list, and one item had jumped out at her. “Find the welcome center.” It seemed ridiculous that Comico Island's Ombudsman did not know where the welcome center was located, and even sillier that she had not introduced herself to the people who manned the building. Surely they encountered people with problems all the time. It was imperative that they know to whom to refer those problems.

It was perhaps not the most urgent thing on her list, but Sabrina wanted to tie up a nagging loose end.

Sabrina rang the little bell on her bicycle, enjoying the cheerful jingle. She was close, she thought, but she was so hopelessly turned around now that she had no idea if she was pedaling toward or away from her destination. It had been more difficult than she thought to find the welcome center on a map. In fact, after perusing several maps of the island this morning, she still had not found it. It was only after looking through an old travel guide to the island, one of several that she had collected, that she found mention of its location.

She passed the first sign. Painted in faded black on weathered plywood, the sign read: “Comico Island Welcome Center” and below that “Enter at your own risk.”

Sabrina sped up, looking forward to free cookies and paper cups of lemonade. The “enter at your own risk” part of the sign was puzzling, but she knew whoever was there would be happy to talk to her.

The next sign read: “You've been warned.” As Sabrina accelerated past, she saw what looked like bullet holes peppering the wood of the sign, though of course they couldn't be bullet holes.

There was a clearing ahead and the burbling sound of the creek was increasing when she came to the final sign: “Are you stupid?”

This time she didn't even slow down. There was a building up ahead, and Sabrina pedaled faster.

Until the first shot buzzed by her ear.

Sabrina ducked and swerved into the woods as a second shot rang out. A thorny bush saved her from running headlong into a tree, but inflicted painful scratches to her arms.

“Hello!” Sabrina called. “My name is Sabrina Dunsweeney. Please stop shooting!”

“Dunsweeney? Any relation to Leah?” The voice was that of a woman, thickened with age and nicotine, tainted by virulent paranoia.

“Yes!” This wasn't strictly true, but the falsehood seemed harmless in the face of a shotgun. Sabrina had met Leah Dunsweeney, long-time inhabitant of Comico Island, and after exchanging extensive family histories, they concluded that their ancestors might have been kilt-wearing neighbors several hundred years ago.

“I don't like Leah. She used to steal my tomatoes when she thought I wasn't looking.” Another shot whizzed by.

“Surely not!” Sabrina could not imagine the staid, sedate Leah Dunsweeney stealing anything in her life.

“Are you calling me a liar? I said the woman is a thief!” This time the shot exploded in the tree above Sabrina's head, and wood fragments rained down on her head. Sabrina pulled herself farther into the bushes and decided that Leah Dunsweeney wasn't such a close friend, after all.

“You know, now that I think about it, she might have once stolen a pot holder from me,” Sabrina yelled at her unseen assailant.

There was silence. “What do you want?” The voice was closer. Sabrina peered through the bushes and saw a skinny figure holding a shotgun.

“I'm Comico Island's Ombudsman. I must have gotten lost. I was looking for the welcome center.”

The tall woman was in sight now, shuffling along in slippers topped with grinning rabbit heads. She wore a blue bandanna around her head and looked as if she hadn't missed a day of Jerry Springer in her life.

“Comico Island's Ombudsman?” The woman threw back her head and roared with laughter, the sound surprisingly robust coming from her gaunt frame. “You're the poor schmuck! Come on out, I want to take a look at you.”

Since her bush wasn't offering any protection, Sabrina had little choice but to obey. Leaving the bike in the embrace of the bristling branches, Sabrina backed out on her hands and knees.

“I'm Sabrina Dunsweeney,” she said, after climbing to her feet.

“Lizzie Garrison.” The woman stood with her hips thrust forward in a wide-legged aggressive stance. She held the gun down at her side as she surveyed Sabrina from head to toe. Then she laughed again, a hoarse, barking sound, and said, “Seems we're fellow civil servants. I run the welcome center. Come on up to my office.”

She was talking as she strode up the road, her torso floating back like a helpless kite as her hips led the way. They rounded the last curve and a one-roomed hut, crouched on the edge of a small creek, came into view. A sign, almost as large as the house, read: “You Have Reached the Comico Island Welcome Center. Now Go Away!” One rocking chair stood on the porch, which Lizzie claimed without even looking at Sabrina.

“They came by and told me they'd hired someone, and to send anyone who came by with a problem to you. I forgot your name as soon as they said it, though.”

“Sabrina Dunsweeney.”

“Any relation to Leah?”

“No.”

“She's a thief, you know.”

“I know.”

Sabrina cast around for a place to sit, and then settled for standing at the foot of the stairs. “How long have you been doing this?” Sabrina looked around at the bare dirt yard and the shack, which looked as if it were one board away from a pile of scrap wood. It was about the most uninviting place she'd ever seen.

“Thirty years. They decided they needed a welcome center about the same time I was in that accident that cost my Jarvis his life, and left me in a coma for six weeks. After that, I couldn't work so good, so they hired me to run the welcome center, and I've been doing it ever since.” Lizzie ran an appreciative eye around her yard and nodded with satisfaction. “The people who make it out here, I listen to their whinging, and send them on their way. I even write up reports and send 'em to the town council if I think it's necessary.”

Sabrina remembered the several scrawled notes in her pile of complaints. They must have been from Lizzie. One of them, she remembered, was dated this week. What did it say? Something about a crazy man complaining about privacy. That would jibe with what she already suspected.

“Did you have anybody out here this week?”

Lizzie nodded, and took a bag out of her pocket. Using two fingers, she stuffed a wad of chaw inside her lip, giving her mouth a pugnacious, bulldog sneer. After a moment, she spit a stream of brown liquid through her teeth, narrowly missing Sabrina's feet.

“Man came by at the beginning of the week. Mad as a wet hen right off the bat, complaining about some damn-fool thing.” Lizzie picked up a jar that stood on the table beside her chair and took a long draw of the brown liquid it contained. “Want some?”

“No, thank you.”

“I still make it the way my grandpappy, Foster Garrison, used to do it, even using an old felt hat to strain it, and if it doesn't have the right color,” Lizzie leaned forward, and horribly, winked, “I spit some of this here tobaccy juice in it.” Sabrina was profoundly grateful she had refused the drink. “Course, Grandpappy Garrison was stupider than a fisherman out on Mitchell's Day. During prohibition, he got rich bringing in liquor from rum row for the guys who ran the rum-running on the island, Kenneth Fredericks, the one who built the Shell Inn, and his buddy, David Harrington. Then Grandpappy gambled it all away. After prohibition, he was so poor that when he lost a bar of soap in a hurricane he complained about it until the day he died.” Lizzie snorted in disgust and raised the jar in remembrance of poor, stupid Grandpappy Garrison.

“This man who came by.” Sabrina refused to be distracted. “Was he a stout man, with glasses? Did he say he was the spokesman for Hummers International Incorporated?” Gilbert had mentioned going to the island's welcome center at Sabrina's first and only meeting with him.

“Yeah, I reckon that was him.”

“What did he say?”

“You expect me to remember every complaining tourist who wanders across my doorstep, then you're stupider than a blade of grass. Matter of fact, didn't you say you were related to Leah?” A hand went out to the shotgun standing beside her against the wall.

“Leah, the thief? No, absolutely not.” Sabrina was sweating, and she flinched as the next string of spit hit her shoe. She kept on, though. “Do you remember anything odd about him? Somebody killed him, you know.”

“I thought he was crazy as a loon, is what I thought. After he got off the phone, he started talking to himself, and walking in circles. Reminded me of a rabid dog I had once; had to shoot him to put him out of his misery.” Lizzie was caressing the shotgun now.

“Wait a minute,” Sabrina said, trying to blink the sweat out of her eyes, “you said ‘after he got off the phone.' Did you hear who he was talking to?”

Lizzie snorted. “Like I cared. But he seemed agitated enough afterward that I offered him some of this here 'shine. I was afraid he was going to blow a gasket right in my front yard. He must have been well on his way already, because it didn't take much for him to start babbling away. 'Fore I knew it, he was sitting on my stairs telling me his life story.”

“His life story? What did he say?”

Lizzie waved a hand and took another long swig. “Like I listened.”

“You must have heard
something.
”

Lizzie shrugged. “He was talking about a snake, I remember that.”

“A snake?”

“Yeah. He said he was holding onto a slippery snake, and he was losing his grip on it, and he was afraid if he gripped it too hard it would turn around and bite him.”

“Did he say anything else?”

“Oh, he said he was tired of his partner, that he was like a big stupid puppy he had to keep on a leash.” Lizzie paused and took a guzzle from her jar. “He also said death was stalking him. He said he was amazed every morning that he'd survived the night.”

***

Sabrina was just finishing up her research at the library when she heard someone say, “Hey, Mrs. Hillkins, someone said they saw Miss Sabrina come in here. Is she here?” It was Lou Beth Tubbs, one of Mary Garrison Tubbs' numerous grandchildren. The woman had strong genes as well as a strong personality, because every one of her children and grandchildren bore a striking resemblance to the short, plump woman. Poor things.

Sabrina grimaced and pushed back from the computer. Thankfully, she was done. After leaving the welcome center, she had come straight to the library, intent on discovering as much as she could about the Hummers and Gilbert Kane. She ran into Marilee Howard, however, and spent an hour poring through college admissions books with the lanky, young redhead before turning to her own research.

Sabrina braced herself as Lou Beth came around the corner of the computer station. Any missive from Mary Garrison Tubbs was bound to be unpleasant.

“Miss Sabrina,” the portly girl said loudly, “Grandmama Tubbs says you better quit loafing around and get to work. Missy Garrison's house got broken into last night, and everybody knows it was some tourist, because no right-minded person would mess with Missy's world-famous driftwood collection. Grandmama Tubbs wants to know what you're going to do about it!”

Chapter Eighteen

Missy Garrison, a plump, dark-haired woman who favored blue jeans and dangly earrings, opened the door wearing a tee-shirt that said: “Save the planet. Stop breeding.”

“Sabrina! Did you hear what happened? I'm going to kill the little bugger when I catch him.”

“I'm sorry, Missy. I wanted to ask you a few questions, if you have the time?”

“Sure.” Missy opened the door and joined Sabrina on the porch. On the island, front and back porches often served as extra living rooms. Being shown to the wicker furniture on the porch didn't mean your host thought you smelled, or found you otherwise offensive. It just meant that a cool breeze off the water made that location more pleasant than inside. And this spot was very pleasant, overlooking acres of greening marsh grass undulating under the soft caress of the wind. Calvin murmured in contentment and settled onto the arm of the chair.

“First of all, have the police been here yet?”

“I called Sergeant Jimmy last night.” Missy pulled a soda out of a small refrigerator and offered one to Sabrina.

“Did you see the burglar?” Sabrina held her pen and notepad at the ready, prepared for the onslaught of words. Calvin pecked at the top of her soda can.

Missy scowled. “I couldn't pick him out of a lineup of one, Sabrina. Actually, I didn't even see him. I heard him run out the back door, but by the time I got there, he had disappeared into the marsh. But let me tell you something, it's not going to stop me from finding him and peeling his—”

“You keep saying ‘him,'” Sabrina interrupted, not at all anxious to hear what Missy had planned for the crook. After a full night of stewing, it was bound to be inventive. Her first impression of Missy had been that of a good-natured Jane-of-all-trades—Missy waited tables, drove a cab and was the town's registrar—who liked to wear provocative tee-shirts. Since living on the island, she'd heard stories about Missy's legendary temper. “Why do you think it was a man? Why not a woman?”

Missy snorted. “What woman would be stupid enough to do something like this?”

“You're saying it was a man and a tourist? All this from the sound of his footsteps?”

Missy gave her a pitying look. “Only a tourist would be stupid enough to think they could steal my collection and get away with it. It had to be a tourist.”

“Why is that, Missy?”

“First of all, anyone on the island knows I won't rest until I find this…person. And second, what would someone on the island do with my collection? They couldn't very well put it on their wall at home, you know. People would recognize it as mine.”

“But surely, driftwood is driftwood, how could anyone know for sure?”

Missy stared at her in amazement. “How could they not? You haven't heard about my driftwood exhibit?”

Sabrina felt as if she had admitted to not noticing that the sky was frequently blue. “Well, no, but—”

“Believe me, my driftwood is unique.”

A pony wandered into Missy's yard and fell to nipping at the grass. His coat was a crazy quilt of brown and white and his mane and tail were shaggy and long. He did not seem to notice or care about the women on the porch, though Missy clucked at him in recognition.

“So, this person stole some of your driftwood display. What—”

“No. He didn't steal anything.”

“But I thought you said—”

“I never said he stole anything. I chased him off before he could steal them or worse. I found a handsaw lying on the table. I'm wondering if he wasn't planning on desecrating the pieces instead of stealing them. Sometimes the tourists find the display offensive.”

“Desecrating? Offensive?” Sabrina felt as if she'd wandered into a tea party where all the participants were speaking pig Latin.

“Sure. Not everybody understands what I'm trying to do with the display. I'm showing the beauty and grace of nature in my pieces, in all its primitive shapes and forms. Some people just don't get it.”

What in the world was so difficult to understand about a driftwood display? “Nothing was taken, but you found a handsaw near your display.”

“Yes, and all of the pieces on the wall were removed and were lying on the table next to the saw. He was planning something, the sneaky little—”

“Let's go back to the beginning. You said this took place right after dark last night. That's pretty early for a burglar to be rummaging through someone's house. How did he know you wouldn't be home?”

“The jerk set me up. I thought he was a legitimate fare. He called me to come pick him up from the mainland, and while I was over there, he broke in. So busy doing God-knows-what,” Missy's dark expression spoke volumes about her suspicions, “he didn't hear me until I was in the kitchen. Then he ran like a scared rabbit.”

“It wasn't a crime of convenience.” A breeze born of fragrant mud and briny pools laden with squirming life riffed through the marsh grass and brushed pungently across Sabrina's face. “Your house was targeted. I wonder why?”

“It's because of my collection!” Missy was exasperated at Sabrina's denseness. “On Sundays, on my days off, I do tours of the driftwood. Tourists come out and pay to go through the display. A lot of them come back year after year, and some locals even bring guests by. I had quite a crowd on Sunday. I serve tea and cookies on the porch, and I even ran out of cookies, there were so many people here that day. Some days I don't get anyone, and some days it's a crowd. You never know.”

“People pay money to come see your driftwood. Hmmm.” Missy was an enterprising woman. She could probably convince people to pay money to inspect the contents of her refrigerator, so Sabrina shouldn't be surprised they would pay money to look at driftwood.

“I told Sergeant Jimmy I couldn't describe who was here on Sunday. There was a family—I wish parents wouldn't bring the rug rats if they're just going to come running out and demand their money back—and several couples, and a man who came in one of the hotel rental Jeeps. The tourists all look alike, you know? All squinty eyed and sunburnt. I visually tune them out after a while.”

Sabrina tapped her fingers on the arm of her wicker chair and scrawled a note in her pad. “I suppose Sergeant Jimmy took the handsaw for fingerprints.”

“I wanted to keep it. I thought of a perfect way to use it when I catch up with that guy.”

Sabrina didn't ask. She'd have to talk with Sergeant Jimmy and ask his opinion of this newest break-in. She was a little disappointed he didn't call to tell her about it last night. She would have to impress on him how vital it was to keep each other in the loop.

“What time did you do the tours?”

“I run them from noon to four every Sunday. It's my only day off from the Tittletott House. I'm surprised you haven't ever come by. Though some people are not intelligent enough to understand the concept.” Missy smiled sweetly.

“I've never heard about it, Missy.” Sabrina was pretty sure she was intelligent enough to understand the concept. Well, reasonably sure, anyway. How hard could it be to grasp the cosmic meaning of a driftwood display?

“Oh, I'm sure you'd get it, you being a schoolteacher and all. Well, come on, I'll give you a free tour. You probably want to see the scene of the crime anyway.”

Sabrina followed Missy into the house.

“Watch your step. My great-grandfather Garrison built this house in the twenties, and he did a haphazard job at best. I never knew him, but my Aunt Lizzie said he was always drunk more than he was sober, so I guess that explains a lot.”

Missy opened a door leading into the back room. The walls, including the windows, were draped with swaths of black velvet, and black glossy tables lined the room. On top of the tables and attached to the walls were the driftwood pieces.

“It's very nice,” Sabrina began as Missy hit the switch that illuminated the spotlights.

It took Sabrina a moment to absorb what she was seeing. Then she gasped, but tried to swallow the sound into a cough so as not to offend. Calvin imitated her, sounding like a consumptive washing machine.

“Well, what do you think?” Missy gazed proudly around the room.

“It's certainly…interesting,” Sabrina managed, trying not to stare overlong at any one piece. Each of the driftwood pieces was polished and carved into various animal and human forms. They were beautifully done, if you could get past Missy's selection of subject.

Sabrina smiled weakly as she gazed around at the collection of reproductive organs Missy had carved.