The Dead Season (6 page)

***

Frank raced down the hill toward the boathouse and met Heather coming the other way.

"Hurry!" she cried. "Randolph Tyler's been murdered, and Joe is chasing the killer!"

The storm seemed to have weakened a bit, but Frank suspected it was only a brief pause, that it was the eye of the storm and the worst was yet to come.

He knew he had to hurry and pushed himself to hurry even more.

Huge waves were washing into the entrance of the boathouse.

"Joe!" cried Frank. His voice seemed small in the huge space, which was rapidly filling up with water.

There was no answer.

Frank took one look at the rising water and decided he had no choice. He had to go in.

Once inside, he saw Tyler's body, now beginning to bob and float in the pulsing waves.

Again Frank had no choice.

He knew he'd have to search for Joe after he saw to it that the body was safe.

Frank slowly dragged Tyler's body out of the boathouse and found a relatively dry spot for it on the side of the building. Here, at least, it would not be washed out to sea.

Frank's only hope now was that the same could be said of his brother.

He ran around to the entrance of the boathouse. It was completely covered in water now.

Still, he had to go in.

He had to find Joe.

The going was incredibly difficult. The water was freezing, and his arms and legs were getting stiff in the cold.

He pushed through one step only to be pulled back toward the entrance when each wave receded.

And each new wave brought more water into the building, raising the level so it was now almost up to Frank's shoulders.

He had no idea how long it took, but he was finally at the back of the boathouse.

There was nothing but a blank wooden wall. There was no sign of Joe and no sign of the Ghost Gunman.

But Heather had seen them both go in, and the only way out was the way Frank had come in.

Where could they be?

Before Frank could consider that more carefully, he had another problem to deal with.

The storm was at its peak now. The water in the boathouse had risen to a point several inches over his head, and a fierce undertow was pulling at Frank's legs.

The undertow dragged him under.

Frank was trapped at the back of the building underwater, and there seemed to be no way out.

An hour or so later Frank was sitting in the dining room wearing dry clothes and wrapped in a blanket against the chill. He wondered when he would feel warm again. After all, he was in the tropics.

Police Sergeant Chester Wrenn stood in a corner of the room.

"Any sign of Joe?" Frank asked.

Sergeant Wrenn shook his head no. "But you shouldn't worry too much. I understand your brother is strong and healthy. Chances are good he's somewhere safe waiting for the storm to end."

"I hope you're right," said Frank.

"More tea, Frank?" asked Callie.

"Thanks."

Frank sipped the warm, sweet tea and knew he'd soon recover. He also knew there was so much to be done.

"Has Tyler's body been picked up?" asked Frank.

"Yes," replied Gary. "The sergeant and I got it."

Janet entered the room carrying a tray of sandwiches. "Help yourselves, everyone," she offered.

"Where's Heather?" asked Frank.

"Asleep," Callie told him.

Sergeant Wrenn said, "Now that everybody's here, I'd like to ask a few questions."

"Of course," said Gary, "but this isn't everybody."

Frank nodded as he sipped his tea. As an outsider, he didn't want to come on too strong and was happy that Gary was speaking up.

"Who's not here?" asked Wrenn. He was slender and young and a native islander. He had not acquired the hard edge of an overworked police officer yet.

Janet said, "Two of our guests - Mr. Gaines and Mr. Logan. They're in their rooms, but I'll go get them if you like."

"No," said the sergeant. "I'll speak to them later."

He turned to Frank first and said, "Well, why don't you tell me what you know."

"Right now, what I know is that my brother is out there somewhere," said Frank, gesturing to the storm that continued to rage outside. "And we've got to find him. He may be hurt."

With a patience that seemed genuine, Wrenn said, "We'll do what we can when we can. There's nothing we can do till the storm breaks. I was barely able to get here myself. We can't be risking men's lives."

It was not what Frank wanted to hear. What if Joe was in danger?

"So then," Wrenn continued, "tell me what happened."

With as much detail as he could recall, Frank described the events of the afternoon, starting with the gunshot, finding Tyler's body, dragging it out of the boathouse, and searching for Joe. "Does the boathouse fill up with water often? Frank asked Gary, interrupting himself.

"Whenever there's a flood tide or a storm. Quite often, really," the young hotel owner answered.

"Is there any reason your brother might have for wanting to shoot Randolph Tyler?" asked the sergeant, returning to the point.

"Of course not!" Callie cried.

"I'm speaking with Mr. Hardy, young lady," said Wrenn. "You'll get your turn."

"My brother would never shoot anyone," Frank said evenly.

"Of course," said Wrenn.

He turned to Gary, Janet, and Callie, who were sitting across from him at the dining room table. "And you, what did you see?"

"Almost nothing," said Janet. "We went out sightseeing and came back when the storm blew up."

"That's right," continued Gary. "When we got here, the storm had hit pretty hard, and we found Heather in the back. She was pretty hysterical by then."

"And what did she say?"

Callie answered. "Very little, at first. She said there'd been a shooting. Call the police. But we couldn't get too much out of her for a while."

"I called you," Gary said, "and Janet and Callie put her to bed."

"So then," said the sergeant in his soft, lilting speech, "the situation as I see it is that one of the island's most prominent citizens has been murdered, and there are two possible witnesses: one is hysterical and the other is missing."

He paused and seemed to be enjoying the fact that he was the center of attention. He took a sandwich from the tray, sampled it, and said, "Very good."

He ate in calm silence for a moment and then said, "I will speak with the hysterical young woman." The sergeant nodded at Janet and said, "If you would be so kind as to accompany me to her room?"

"Of course," said Janet.

When they left, Frank shared what he had uncovered at the library with Callie and Gary. He told them about the payments that an official with the initials EBJ had received from Wiley Reed and that the governor in those days was named Elmer Bradley Jamison and that Jamison had disappeared in late 1929.

"Shouldn't you tell all this to Sergeant Wrenn?" asked Callie.

"It's too soon for that," said Frank. "I don't know what any of it means yet, and he's got his hands full just now with the Tyler murder."

Frank turned to Gary and asked, "Does any of what I told you jibe with what you know about Wiley Reed?"

"As a matter of fact, it does," said Gary, and as the storm howled just outside the dining room window, he regaled Frank and Callie with the highlights of the legend of Wiley Reed and his disappearance.

As Frank listened to Gary he wondered if his brother had vanished into thin air as Wiley Reed had.

***

Joe was very much alive, and at that very moment was still pursuing the Ghost Gunman He was no apparition, though. This was a flesh-and-blood man, one who had fought with both Frank and Joe. A man who had probably murdered Randolph Tyler.

They had been playing cat and mouse for hours in a series of tunnels that crisscrossed under all of Runner's Harbor.

The masked gunman, who had bolted past Joe into the darkness of the boathouse, turned almost instantly and sneaked back out the entrance.

He had eluded Joe and ducked into a small shed next to the boathouse.

When Joe got to the shed, it appeared to be empty, but a window on the rear wall had a sill that was three feet thick.

Joe knew no one would construct a window like this, so he poked around until he bumped a small lever on the side of the window, tripping a door. A door leading to a mazelike series of underground tunnels.

After hours of running after the masked man, Joe was totally turned around because all the tunnels were so dark. Airshafts at random intervals offered thin gray shafts of dim light, but generally the corridors were pitch-black.

Spider webs laced across the tunnels and caught on Joe's face and in his hair. Rats screeched and darted at his feet as Joe splashed through puddles of water.

He tried not to think about any of this, but focused all his attention on the gunman. Joe knew he had to stay within earshot of the sound of the man's footsteps and not let him get too far ahead. The darkness and the fact that the killer seemed to have a clear idea of where he was going made things all that much more difficult for Joe.

Wiley Reed was a smart man, thought Joe, and had obviously built this system as a means of avoiding enemies.

It was that confidence in the tunnels that had led to Joe's trying another tracking method. From time to time he would shout at his quarry, "I'll get you! You know I'm going to get you."

The gunman never responded, but the reverberating sound provided Joe with a guide through the darkness.

Joe was getting weary of the chase. It had been several minutes since he had last heard the killer, and he wondered if the man was still in the tunnels or if he had made an escape. He strained to hear any sign that the gunman was nearby.

Finally his concentration was paying off. He couldn't see the killer, but Joe could hear the man, breathing hard, just a few feet ahead. Joe moved faster.

Once again an airshaft illuminated the passage enough so that Joe could see a turn in the tunnel.

He approached the corner slowly, cautiously, and as quietly as he could.

From around the bend came a whispered plea. "Help me. I'm hurt."

Joe rounded the corner. He had caught his man.

***

The lingering storm was making Frank very restless, and he knew he had to do something or go crazy.

If he couldn't search for Joe, he could at least search for answers.

Frank was sitting in the dining room with Callie, staring at half a sandwich on his plate. It looked very unappealing to him.

"Is there anything I can get you?" asked Callie.

"No, thanks," answered Frank. "Really. I'm just not hungry."

He was forming a plan of action for the evening when Earl Logan sulked into the dining room and demanded supper. "Where're Gary and Janet?" he growled. "I'm hungry."

"They're in the kitchen," said Callie. "I'll get them for you."

When Gary came out to see what Logan wanted, Frank quietly excused himself, saying he was tired and wanted to lie down. He quickly went to the second floor.

Frank was surprised to find Logan's room unlocked, because the man had been so paranoid every time Frank and Joe had approached him. Frank took it as a sign that his luck was turning for the better in this case.

We could use a little good luck, thought Frank as he forced himself not to think about where Joe might be at that moment.

It was soon clear why Logan felt no need to keep his door locked. There was almost nothing in the room. At least nothing on top of the two chests of drawers.

As quickly as he could, Frank checked out one chest and found only a few pairs of socks and three sets of underwear. In the closet there was nothing. Logan had apparently traveled to Barbados with almost nothing.

The other chest of drawers was completely empty.

There was only one more place Frank could think to search. There he had some luck. Between the mattress and box spring were about a dozen pieces of sheet music. Most of the tunes were old standards, and among them was the Gershwin song "Someone to Watch Over Me."

Of even more interest was a newspaper article from the Sunday magazine section of a 1967 edition of the Chicago Tribune that described the adventures of a Prohibition-era bootlegger from Barbados named Wiley Reed. The story told of Wiley's marriage to Millicent and how the song "Someone to Watch Over Me" had been played at their wedding party on the pavilion. The article included a photo of Runner's Harbor and went into great detail about a treasure buried somewhere on the grounds of the hotel that had never been found. It told of the legend of Wiley's ghost and how the ghost now haunted Runner's Harbor, protecting the treasure.

"You need any help rifling through my personal property, you just let me know," said Earl Logan, standing at the door to his room.

Frank had been sitting on the bed while reading the newspaper account and stood up to face Logan.

"What gives you the right to sneak into my room?" challenged Logan.

"A man's been murdered," said Frank.

"From what I hear, your brother did it."

"My brother's no killer."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning an ex-convict who's playing the piano in the middle of the night to scare people might have a lot of explaining to do."

Logan squirmed a bit in the doorway but said defiantly, "Who says I'm a con?"

"I couldn't help but notice the tattoos on your hands," said Frank. "They're the kind men give one another in prison to pass the time. Do you want me to make a phone call to confirm my suspicion?"

"I did my time. I'm clean."

"I believe you, but tell me about this," said Frank.

Logan's story was simple. He had served more than twenty years for armed robbery, and his last cellmate had been an old-time bootlegger who loved to tell stories about the exploits of the famous Wiley Reed. The old-timer described Runner's Harbor in such detail that Logan felt he had already been there. The most interesting part of the story, which may or may not have been true, was the fact that Wiley's ghost was said to come out at night if "Someone to Watch Over Me" was played on the piano in the pavilion.

"You might say I've had some luck in that regard," said Logan.