Slack tide (7 page)

"I didn't notice it until we got over there where the hght was good."

"Didn't notice what?" MacLaren said.

"That bruise on your cheek."

"Oh."

MacLaren touched his cheek hghtly with his middle finger, and his reply was not unduly delayed. A reasonable excuse came quickly to mind, but other thoughts arose

simultaneously that were less easy to dispose of. For he was wondering again about Ruth Kingsley, and why she had fled and where she was and how long it would be before the pohce picked her up. The minute she told her story they would come back to him, and what sort of excuse could he give for his silence?

There was no answer to this, and he could not understand what aberration of the mind prevented him from telling the story now. It was not stubbornness. It was not with any thought that by withholding this information he could do any good to anyone. Reason, logic, common sense—all these told him that he was only making things worse, and yet there persisted a faint hope that he might be able to find the girl first and learn why she had run away.

The medical examiner had said that Kjngsley had a wound on the back of his head. MacLaren did not think it could have been caused by the small piece of wood the girl had thrown. If this was so it must mean that he had been hit again. By Ruth Kingsley? Had she somehow managed to get back to the island? He did not befieve this, and in the end he made a compromise with his conscience. In the morning, if the girl had not been foimd, he would teU the story and try to find some explanation as to why he had not told it in the first place. Until then, he would let things ride.

"I got that when Ed Chaney woke me up," he said. "I heard this knocking, and I reached for my shoes in the dark. When I bent over, I banged my face against the side of the bedside table."

"Scraped your knuckle too, didn't you?" Lunt said.

MacLaren was ready for this one because he had seen the scraped knuckle before and had hoped that it would not be noticed by anyone else.

"Scraped knuckles are an occupational hazard of any boatyard. It happens all the time."

MacLaren wondered if he saw a gleam of doubt in Terry's bespectacled gaze, but there was no change in his expression as he thanked MacLaren for his help. He said he would see him in the morning, and then, in the same even tone, he said:

"It may be a httle diflFerent then. Youll be talking for the record. You can be thinking it over," he added, "in case you want to change any part of your story."

"Change it?"

"What the lieutenant means," Lunt said, "is that there could be a httle hole or two in it here and there—at least the way it sounded to us. In the morning it might be a good idea to tell the truth—all of it."

This had all been said in a very conversational tone. They said good night the same way before they started for the corner of the building and the car that was parked behind it.

7

WHEN DON MacLAREN had turned off the floodhght and locked the door, he went upstairs. Not bothering with

the living-room light, he crossed to the bedroom and started to peel ofiF his sweater. Then, abruptly, he stopped and sat on the edge of the bed, his glance touching the pajamas and robe he had put out for Ruth Kingsley.

He still did not know why she had fled, but he worried no more about his decision to wait until morning before teUing the truth. Instead, his mind went back to the moment when the block of wood had hit Kingsley. He saw, in fancy, the man turn and dive over the dinghy, and surface to strike out after it. Kingsley had not been unconscious then, which meant that unless there had been some delayed reaction he must have suffered an additional blow to make the wound the medical examiner had mentioned. If this was so, it meant that Kingsley had safely reached the other shore and had been struck down by someone on the island. Not necessarily by someone who lived there— though this seemed most hkely—but by some person who was on the island at the time.

Having come this far in his hypothesis, it now followed that since Kingsley's body had been found in the water, the blow must have been struck at, or near, the shorehne. If so, then he had either fallen in or he had been pushed.

Unable to find any other alternative at the moment, MacLaren's imagination moved on to consider the catwalk and the cruiser, and suddenly, his curiosity now too compelhng to ignore, he rose and pulled his sweater back in place, took a flashlight from a drawer, and left the room.

Downstairs the showroom was dark, and he left it that way as he let himself out the door. Standing a moment to let his eyes become accustomed to the semi-darkness left

by the lopsided moon, he glanced at the house across the way. Light glowed from two, widely separated, upstairs windows, but the ground floor was dark, and this in itself was reassuring as he moved to the floating dock and stepped into the skiff. When he pushed off, he used the oars instead of the motor and there was no sound but the faint rasping of the rowlocks as he headed for the island.

In the back of his mind was the thought that he might find the weapon that injured Kingsley on the catwalk or aboard the cruiser. Without knowing what manner of weapon this might be, he nevertheless constructed a hypothetical situation that seemed to fit the circumstances, and when he had tied up the skiff, he stepped up on the end of the catwalk.

Two strides brought him opposite the stem of the cruiser, and he paused a moment to glance into the shadowy cockpit and inspect the closed door which led to the owner's stateroom. Moving slowly forward, he came now to the deckhouse door. This stood open and he stepped aboard, one hand finding the grab rail. He could feel the craft rock shghtly with his weight, and he ducked his head as he stepped inside.

The interior seemed dark after the moonhght, but he did not want to use his flashhght until he could shield the lens in some way, so he turned left toward the wheel and the controls which stood to the right of the companionway leading to the forward stateroom. Then, before he could complete his first step, the overhead fell in on him.

He had heard nothing, felt nothing, sensed nothing. His preoccupation with his thoughts had short-circuited such

warning devices as instinct and intuition, and it simply had not occurred to him that anyone else might be aboard.

The blow on the back of the head was not a severe one, but it was none the less effective. The impact stunned him momentarily, and because he was off balance he went down, the flasUight jarring from his fingers and rolHng away from him.

He landed on hands and knees and was at once aware of the sudden rush of movement behind him. When he felt the boat rock again he knew that someone had jumped from the outer deck to the catwalk. In spite of the pain radiating from the back of his head, his mind cleared quickly. He knew that whoever had struck him had a head start and, instead of springing to his feet and following bhndly, he groped for the flashhght.

This may have been a mistake, because he wasted two or three seconds locating it, and by the time he looked out the deckhouse door there was nothing to be seen, no sound to be heard. By then he seemed to understand that further pursuit would be useless, and he put down the desire to turn on the flashhght and spray its beam across the island. There was a chance he might pick out something in the distance, but in doing so the hght might well attract attention from the house and this was something he wanted to avoid.

For another few seconds he stood where he was, scanning the half-ht landscape, the resentment growing in him as he grudgingly accepted his failure. When he explored the back of his head, his fingers found a small swelhng, but there was no blood and he could find no sign that the

skin had been broken. This made him wonder what he had been hit with, and now his mind came back to the thought that had brought him here in the first place: he had come to see if he could find a weapon, so why not get at it?

Moving over to the chart table, he took out his handkerchief and folded it twice before placing it across the lens of the flashhght. He found that it still worked, and the resulting glow seemed suJBGciently diffused so that it would not be noticed from the house. It was then, before he could move away, that he heard the sound.

Had it not been so still, MacLaren might not have heard it at all, but now, his nerves still tight and his instincts aroused, he was sure of it even though he could not identify it. All he knew was that it had come not from outside but from somewhere on the boat, a soft thudding noise that sounded as if someone had bumped against a bulkhead or the overhead.

He had been aboard several times talking to Danaher, and he traced the layout in his mind before he moved. Starting with the stem, he visuafized the cockpit, the owner's cabin with its double and single berths, the head, and shower. A companionway ladder, under which was the generator and the motor for the electrical system, led to the deckhouse where he now stood. Forward, on the port side, another companionway led to a galley and a second head. Beyond was another double cabin and then a bulkhead which separated this from the crew's quarters, which could be reached only from a deck hatch. Because the sound he had heard seemed to have come from below and somewhere toward the bow, MacLaren stepped round the

chart table and went below. The galley was empty. The door enclosing the head was ajar, and he pushed it open to make sm"e no one was there. The door to the forward stateroom was also closed, and now, still holding the folded handkerchief over the flashhght, he turned the knob and eased the door open.

The portside berth was empty and neatly made. It was as he craned his neck round the edge of the door that he saw her huddled in the comer made by the forward bulkhead and the boat's side.

In the first moment of his surprise, MacLaren saw only the white strained face and the fear-widened eyes that stared back at him. One hand covered her mouth as though she was afraid that without it some involuntary cry might escape her; the other was braced against the edge of the chest which separated the two berths. Not realizing that she had not yet recognized him, he stepped round the door, and this frightened her still more as she cringed in the corner.

"It's okay," he said, when he could find his voice. "It's me—MacLaren."

Even then there was no immediate reaction, no movement of her body. He still did not understand how she had got here or why she had remained, but he saw that she was dressed in a skirt and blouse. A hght blanket which apparently had covered her had been kicked aside, and her legs were tucked up under her. Her shoes were on the deck. Her jacket had been folded on the chest and a small overnight case stood near by.

When there was still no reaction, he put down the im-

JO SLACK TroE

pulse to speak comfortingly, and his voice was blunt. "Pull yourself together," he said. "Nobody's going to hurt you."

Slowly then, he saw her start to respond. She lowered the hand which had covered her mouth and the marks of her fingers remained on the skin. She let go of the chest. He could see her swallow and her breasts rose as she took a slow labored breath.

"Oh," she said. "I didn't know—I thought—" She swallowed and tried again, but this time MacLaren cut her off as he remembered what she had done to him.

"You ran out on me," he said. "Why?"

"I had to."

MacLaren didn't believe her. He said so. He reminded her that he had given her help when she needed it. He had provided a place for her to stay until morning, and he repeated his earher statement that there were laws to protect a wife's interests from an angry husband.

Traces of shock still remained in the comers of her eyes, but he had her attention now, and she sat up and put her feet on the floor. When she had puUed her skirt down over her knees, she looked at him.

"You just don't understand Ohver," she said. "You don't know what money can do. He had a doctor examine me in New York. He told him a lot of things about me that weren't true. He could find other doctors who might say that I should be committed to some institution. You just don't know," she said.

MacLaren did not argue with her. He thought she was exaggerating, but he also knew that in her own mind she was speaking the truth. He knew he had to tell her what

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had happened to Kingsley, but there were other things that he wanted to find out first, and now he rose and pulled the curtains across the ports so that no light would show from the cabin.

"All right," he said. "How long have you been here?"

"I—I don't know. What time is it now?"

"Nearly three. You sneaked down the back stairs. What time was that?"

"I think it was about an hour after you left," she said. "It could have been less. I'm not sure."

"How did you get here?" I swam.

"You what?" MacLaren said in quick amazement.

"I had to. It was the only way. I didn't have any money or any clothes—"

"Wait a minute."

MacLaren took a small breath and shook his head. He needed time to digest what he had just heard and to prepare himself for what was to follow. He sat down on the berth opposite her, and suddenly he remembered that the wet nightgown the girl had been wearing when he took her to his apartment had been missing when he went back to look for her. She had obviously put it back on again and— He let the thought hang and resorted once more to words.

"You put that wet gown back on again. You swam over here. Why?"

"I had to have clothes. I had to have money. I thought there was a good chance I could get them. If I had been able to get back to the village, I could have hired a car

to take me to New Haven. From there I could have got to New York somehow, before Ohver knew where I was."

She leaned forward shghtly, intent on making him understand.

"I have a key to the town house," she said. "There were some things I wanted to get. It wouldn't have taken long, and then I could have got a plane—" She paused and said: "I have a brother in Texas. I knew that once I got there, there was nothing Oliver could do about it."