A Whisper of Danger (40 page)

As the motorcycle slowed to a stop, Jess jumped down and ran up the steps onto the verandah. The carved front door stood ajar.

“Spencer?” she called. She stopped in the living room. The picture over the sofa was gone. Panic clutched at her throat. “Mama Hannah! Splint!”

“Are they here?” Behind her, Rick was breathing hard. “How about the little room next door?”

He took her hand, and they sprinted across the room. The pictures there were gone, too. No green-eyed little Omar. No Miriamu.

“Splinter!” Rick shouted. “Hannah? Where are you and Splint?”

Rick ran just paces ahead of Jess through the honeycomb of rooms. Dark. Empty. Nothing. They dashed out into the courtyard. The Scrabble game lay spread out on the dining table. The two chairs were vacant.

“I’ll check Splint’s bedroom,” Rick said. “You search the storage rooms and the kitchen.”

Sobbing, Jess ran from room to room in the house’s lower level. All were empty. Silent. She could hear Rick calling his son as he searched the upper floor of the house. His voice took on a note of desperation.

“Splint! Splinter, this is your dad. Where are you, buddy?”

In moments Rick was racing down the front staircase. “Any sign of either of them?” Jess asked.

“Nothing. I’ll check the beach.”

“I’ll go with you.”

“No.” He put his hands on her shoulders. “Trace our path back down the driveway toward the road. Search the lawn on both sides. If Omar’s as good as his word, the police should be on their way by now. The minute you spot the police car, tell them what’s going on. If you can’t find me right away, go with them to Nettie’s house. I’ll catch up on my bike.”

“Rick, what if she hurt Splint? What if he’s lying wounded somewhere . . . bleeding . . . ?”

“We’ll take care of him.” He held her close for a moment. “I love you, Jessie. We’ll find our son.”

Tearing apart, they ran in opposite directions. Jess could hear Rick calling as he started down the long cliff-side staircase. She closed her eyes, shuddering. One push. One shove, and Splinter would tumble over the rail. Fall to the cliffs below.

Blinded with tears, Jess hurried down the driveway. “Splint! Splint, it’s Mom. Where are you, sweetheart? Mama Hannah, please answer me!”

She searched around the pots Solomon had organized in long neat rows. She combed through a stand of palm trees. She lifted back a tangle of vines. She looked up into the Red Hot Poker tree.

The Renault engine was gone. The Renault itself was gone.

“Rick!” she screamed. Grabbing her skirts, she hurtled back down the road. She stopped at the rail and hung her head over. “Rick! The engine is gone. The car—it’s not there!”

In moments, he was racing back up the stairs. “The Renault?”

“It’s gone. The whole thing. When Omar and I left this evening, the engine was still hanging from the branch. Now it’s vanished.”

“Solomon must have driven it away.”

“How can you be sure? Maybe whoever stole the paintings stole it, too.”

“Too heavy to steal. The engine’s got to be back in the car. That means Solomon’s been here tinkering most of the evening. Maybe he knows where Splint is. Maybe he’s seen Hannah. Any idea where Solomon lives?”

“In the village down the road.”

“Let’s go.”

“What about searching Nettie’s house?”

“Omar and the police will be there any time. Maybe Splint and Mama Hannah are there. Let’s find Solomon first.”

In moments they were back on the motorcycle, flying down the road with moonlight sparking off the gravel that shot out from under the tires.
“In the village, nothing is a secret,”
Miriamu had told Jess. Maybe someone there would know. Maybe someone had seen Splint.

“Stop here!” she called when the motorcycle approached the small grocery store. “I know these people.”

Rick stopped the bike, climbed off, and hammered on the door. A man’s dark head peered around the corner of the corrugated tin building. He gave Jess a broad smile of recognition.

“
Jambo
, madam. You would like me to take you to Zanzibar town on my bicycle?” he asked. “I have no goats tonight.”

“Akim!” Jess exclaimed. “Akim, do you know where I can find Solomon Mazrui’s house?”

“Ndiyo, memsahib.”
He emerged from behind the building. “You would like me to show you?”

“Yes, please.”

“Come, come. We shall walk. It is not far.”

Rick slipped his arm around Jess as they followed Akim down the single narrow road. The African strolled along, waving at friends and pointing out the homes of his many family members. He was telling them all about his most recent trip to the Zanzibar market when Jess interrupted.

“Akim, this is a very urgent matter,” she said. “Can we please walk faster?”

“In Africa, nothing is urgent,
memsahib
. All things are
shauri la Mungu
.”

“The affair of God.” Rick held Jess tightly. “Trust God. Trust him. We have to.”

“Aha! This is the house of Solomon Mazrui!” Akim pointed at a small, tin-sided bungalow. “Thank you very much.”

“Thank
you
, Akim.”

“It’s okay, anytime. And if you wish to ride on my bicycle, just come to the shop. There you will find me.”

Jess gave him a faint smile as Rick knocked on the green door. It opened a crack to reveal a pair of dark eyes.

“Ni nani?”

“Miriamu? It’s me, Jess!”

“Memsahib!”
Miriamu drew open the door. “Come inside.”

“Miriamu, something’s happened to Splint!” Jess rushed in and took the woman’s hands. “This evening, I found out that Nettie Cameron killed Dr. bin Yusuf. When I went back to Uchungu House, Mama Hannah and Splint were both gone. And then I noticed that the Renault engine isn’t hanging from the tree anymore. Did you see anything unusual? Does Solomon have any idea—”

“Hi, Mom!” Splint walked into the front room. “Hi, Dad. What’s up?”

N
INETEEN

“Splint!” Jess threw her arms around her son. Sobbing, she held him as if she’d found the greatest treasure in the world. “Splint, oh, sweetheart, I’ve been so worried. What happened? Where’s Mama Hannah? Why are you here at Miriamu’s house?”

“Don’t have a cow, Mom.” He looked at Rick. “She can be so emotional sometimes.”

“I’ll try to get used to it,” Rick said, wiping his own cheek with the side of a finger.

“I came over here to Solomon’s house to play
bao
with him,” Splint explained. “It’s this really cool game where you have a board with two rows of cups. You put rocks in the cups, see, and then you—”

“Spencer Thornton, what happened tonight?” Jess said, gripping her son’s shoulders. “What happened at the house? Where’s Mama Hannah? Where’s Nettie Cameron?”

“Nettie went down to the police station.”

“The police came for her?”

“Just to talk, you know. See, here’s how it all happened. Nettie knew how interested I’ve been in slavery ever since we found out about the shipwreck. So she told me about a place she knew of that had a really deep pit where they used to keep slaves—like the one Rick said he’d visited at Mangapwani. Nettie said the slave hole she knew about had a stone covering it, but she was wrong. When we got there, the pit was wide open. And really deep, too! You should have seen it. If anyone ever fell into it, they’d be a goner.”

“Oh, Splint!” Jess covered her mouth with her hands.

“Anyway, Nettie suggested I climb onto this little ledge partway down in the pit to see if I could find any steps or a ladder or anything. She had me by the arm, and she was letting me down into the slave hole, when all of a sudden Solomon drove up in the Renault! Can you believe that? He fixed it!”

“That’s wonderful,” Jess choked out.

By this time, Solomon himself had stepped into the front room. He looked at Jess, his dark eyes hard.

“The motor wished to begin working again,” he said.

“I’m so glad,” Jess whispered.

“Yes. It was a good day for me to follow the child and the woman.”

“Thank you, Solomon.”

He nodded. “The police had spoken to me and Hannah at Uchungu House. They were searching for
Memsahib
Cameron. They had decided to question her.”

“Something about the fingerprints,” Splint put in. “See, they could only find Nettie’s and mine on the urn. So they wanted to talk to her about that. I guess she’ll remind them that she was the one who took the urn into town that day.”

“I expect she will,” Jess said.

“Mama Hannah stayed with the police—that’s where she is now—but Solomon went over to Nettie’s house to check on things. One of her workers told him where we had gone. When Solomon got to the slave hole he jumped out of the car,” Splint said. “He walked right over and grabbed my arm away from Nettie and pulled me back up. He said it wasn’t a good idea for me to go down into the pit. Slave holes don’t like visitors.”

“I see.”

“And then here came the police with Mama Hannah. They talked to Nettie for a while, and off she went with them. After that, Solomon suggested I come over to his house for a game of
bao
.” Splint leaned close to his mother. “I think he guessed I was kind of nervous about that slave pit.”

“That was very nice of him.”

“Yeah, and Miriamu made me this awesomely good kind of African bread with sugar on it.
Mandazi
. We’ve had
mandazis
and tea, and Solomon and Miriamu said I could come and visit them anytime, because they don’t have any kids and they really do like children. Can I come back for a visit, Mom? I promise I’d let you know where I was going.”

“I’d be very happy to have you come and visit Solomon and Miriamu.” Jess smiled at the African couple. “I don’t know how I’ll ever repay them for what they’ve done tonight. Rick, would you mind taking Splint outside for a minute while I talk to Solomon. Splint, go with . . . go with your father.”

Beaming, Splint linked his arm through Rick’s. “Good night, Miriamu,” he said. “Good night, Solomon.”

“Good night,
toto
,” Miriamu said.

When the door shut, Jess took both of Solomon’s hands and held them tightly. “You saved my son’s life,” she said. “How can I thank you? What can I do for you?”

“You give us good work. That is enough.”

“But Solomon—”

“For many years I worked for Ahmed Abdullah bin Yusuf. That man was empty. His heart had no love. Then he saw Miriamu. He painted her picture. You saw it? He painted only half her face, because she would not turn to him.”

“I love Solomon,” Miriamu said softly. “Only him.”

The big man slipped his arm around his wife. “That man wished to be like the bird in his big painting. You know it? Ahmed Abdullah bin Yusuf wished to fly above the storm. But he could not. He was like the palm tree in his picture, always bending to the ground. Before he died, he became empty no more. His heart was filled. But not with love. Anger.”

“Bitterness,” Jess said. “He couldn’t forgive himself for giving up something he recognized he desperately wanted. A child.”

Solomon looked at Miriamu. “We have no children,” he said. “But we do not grow bitter.
Shauri la Mungu.
It is the affair of Allah.”

Miriamu’s lips curved into a beautiful smile. “And now we have the happiness of the
toto
.”

“Yes,” Jess said. “Enjoy Splinter. Teach him. Open his eyes to your food, your games, your whole way of life. Help him learn to love as you love.”

“Ndiyo, memsahib,”
Solomon said. “Tonight I will go to the police station and get Hannah. Then I will return the Renault to Uchungu House, now that the car likes to go.”

Jess nodded and leaned toward Miriamu. “The painting Solomon spoke about with the palm tree in the storm . . . and the painting of you . . . they are missing from the house.”

“No,
memsahib
. The thin man who smells of roses came in the evening and moved all the paintings to another room.”

“Giles Knox?”

“He said he would begin to measure them and take photographs in the morning.”