A Penny for the Hangman (26 page)

She couldn’t will herself to move. This is the moment before death, she thought, this moment of complete paralysis. She stared, transfixed with fear, as a large hand came down from the darkness above and firmly wrapped its fingers around her arm. As she was lifted slowly up to a standing position, she heard a man’s low, clear voice.

“You must be more careful, Karen.”

Now she stood on the rock, leaning back against the boulder that had checked her fall, borne up by strong hands grasping her arms. The rain continued to pelt her and lightning tore at the sky as she looked up at the figure before her. She blinked, unsure, and in another celestial flash the face mere inches in front of her own came into focus.

That’s when she knew she was dead. She must have tumbled down the shelf and landed badly, perhaps broken her neck, and he had arrived to escort her to heaven, for this man was definitely her guardian angel, her Watcher. He’d helped her up in the rain on Hangman Cay as he had once helped her up in the rain on West End Avenue—and with the very same words.

Through the wind and the rain, Karen could feel his warmth. She stared into the eyes of her Watcher and smiled. He smiled back.

She fainted.

Letter from Harper to Anderman, March 13, 1981 (conclusion)

I never told you this before, but I will write it on this paper: I love you, Wulf Anderman. I think of you every day, dream of you every night, long for you every moment. I have even forgiven your cowardice and betrayal on the most important night of our lives. The years have crawled by, and I’ve seen humanity as it is. Insignificant people living inconseque
ntial lives, in a world that is loud and graceless and ordinary. The world outside Hangman Cay.

I dream of two things only: my blond god and our perfect island. And I will have both again, this I swear. I don’t care how long it takes or what the cost. I shall devise some means to bring you back to me. Think of it as a chess game, and I always win, remember?

Always,

Roddy

PS: If you decide to respond to this—and I hope you will—you know where you can reach me. I’ll be here for a while.

Gabby steered the
Turnabout
through the violent ocean, ignoring the rain and wind, which constantly besieged him. He had followed Mr. Brown’s instructions, circumnavi
gating Hangman Cay to the opposite side from the cove. Gabby had cut the engine while they were still a good distance out, and the man climbed down into the dinghy and puttered to shore. Not shore: rocks. Gabby watched through night-vision field glasses as the Whaler bobbed in the waves until it was under the big rock formation at the southern tip of Hangman Cay.

Mr. Brown handled the boat expertly, Gabby noted, tying it to a protruding boulder far enough out in the water to protect it from the breakers. Then he stepped onto the rocks, half in and half out of the water, and made his way toward the caves. Gabby could only admire his stamina: He was hardly a young man, and he had a heavy bag slung over his shoulder. The surf was fierce, washing over him so thoroughly that from time to time he disappeared from Gabby’s view. But he persevered, a man on a mission, until he reached solid land, turning around at last, soaked and streaming, to wave to Gabby. Gabby waved back, started his engine, and set off the way he’d come.

Mr. Brown hadn’t wanted him to leave, but Gabby refused the request to remain here awaiting further instructions, explaining that he needed to get the
Turnabout
safely into port. Clearly disappointed by that, Mr. Brown had requested the use of the dinghy, even offered to pay for it, so Gabby had sold it to him. With the money Gabby had just made, he could buy a new Whaler. This guy was crazy, Gabby decided, or he was desperate.

Of course Gabby had no intention of leaving here now, but he wasn’t going to share that information with Mr. Brown.

What the hell was happening on Hangman Cay? First the young man and woman yesterday. Now Mr. Brown, who was too free with his cash and too determined to get onto the island despite a raging storm. Gabby had recognized Mr. Brown on the dock in St. Thomas, and there could be no doubt about his identity. Part of Gabby’s job for Mr. Huxley was to inform him if anyone was trying to go to the island, but Gabby figured what Mr. Huxley didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. Or perhaps it
would
. Gabby smiled at the thought.

When the boat was a reasonable distance from Hangman Cay, he spun the wheel, moving the boat around in a wide arc. He turned off all his lights and slowed to a crawl, keeping the engine in its lowest gear. He knew these waters well, and despite what he’d told his passenger, he had no real fear for the
Turnabout
. But he had plenty of other fears. He checked in the cabinet beneath the wheel for his Luger.

Now it was midnight. Gabby would make his way back to the relatively sheltered spot where he’d dropped Mr. Brown off. He’d wait there for the storm to pass.

And he would watch.

F
RIDAY,
M
ARCH 13, 2009

“In His Own Words”
by Karen Tyler

(Karen’s fourth and final article for
Visions
magazine was never submitted. It was replaced at the last minute by a conversation with director David Chan and the two young stars of
Bad Boys,
conducted by
Visions
film critic Kathleen Meyerhoff.)

Wulfgar Anderman sat inside the cave, his back against the sheer rock wall, looking down at his sleeping daughter. They were stretched out in the small, enclosed space, back far enough from the entrance that the waves didn’t reach them, and he’d rested her head in his lap. He’d found her flashlight on the rocks, so there was a dim light, just enough to see her. It was dank and chilly in here. The air was ripe with a salty smell he remembered. Fifty long years it had been, and not once had he ever imagined he’d return. But here he was.

And here
she
was: That was the important thing. From the moment two days ago, in the Trading Post back in Taos, when Wulf had read the message from the detective in New York, he’d feared arriving here too late. He’d had no idea what that lunatic was planning for his daughter, but he knew it wouldn’t be pleasant. She’d clearly been lured to St. Thomas on a pretext, an offer no journalist would be able to resist. Her presence here was the single thing on earth that could possibly have brought Wulf back to this place. Roddy knew that.

He’d just come ashore here, on the rocky end of the island, when his daughter had burst from the trees and come running out onto the sloping shelf above the caves. He’d watched in horror as she slipped and fell, and then he’d rushed to her side. He’d retrieved her flashlight and shoulder bag, and he’d found the machete as well, but first he’d lifted her up in his arms and brought her to the cave. He’d moved slowly, carefully down off the ledge and around the farthest boulder, shielding her from the breakers with his back, and his feet seemed to remember exactly where to tread. He and Roddy had made the journey a hundred times when they were boys. This cave had been their castle, their fortress by the sea.

He’d laid her down carefully inside the grotto and gone back outside for her things. Placing them beside her, he’d checked on her again. Her even breathing, steady pulse, and an occasional little moan informed him that she was all right. The cut on her forehead had stopped bleeding, as had the scratches on her hands and arms. He’d covered her chest and bare arms with his jacket and left the cave.

Reconnaissance had been Wulf’s next order of business. He moved silently across the rock escarpment to the path across the ridge, through the woods at the top of the island. The forest was denser, more overgrown than it had been fifty years ago, but he remembered the way, even in the storm and without the benefit of any kind of light. When he emerged from the trees at the edge of the house’s patio, he dropped to a crouch and moved cautiously forward, stopping ten feet from the building. There would probably be alarms of some kind, down in the cove and up here, around the house and inside it, so he scanned the façade for evidence of trip wires or infrared beams. He didn’t see anything of the sort. He moved closer and squinted through the windows into the dark living room. It was empty. He crept along the building to the lighted windows beside the front door and looked in at the great hall.

And there he was, after all these years: Roddy.

Wulf hadn’t seen him in exactly half a century, yet he would have known him anywhere. Those eyes were so blue, so cold, so full of disdain for everyone and everything; they hadn’t changed a bit. He was perfectly bald, which came as a surprise, but he was in good shape, not fat or gone to seed. He had grown to be an impressively handsome man, and it seemed somehow fitting that he was dressed in full dinner regalia: black tie, cummerbund, and shiny shoes. Roddy was kneeling at the bottom of the stairs, wiping a small red stain from the floor with a paper towel.

As Roddy rose to his feet, he paused, cocking his head. He glanced at the front windows, and Wulf shrank farther back into the rainy shadows. It seemed almost that Roddy sensed his proximity, felt his heat, smelled him. He practically sniffed the air, as a predator does before closing in for the kill. Then, with a shrug, Roddy wadded up the paper towel and climbed the stairs. He proceeded along the gallery and disappeared inside the farthest door on the right, shutting the door behind him.

From the shadows, Wulf studied the length of the building, particularly the lighted windows of the kitchen. Gabby had informed him that there were two other people in the house, a husband and wife who worked for Roddy. Wulf was not prepared for a run-in with them. The husband had been described by Gabby as a tough customer, big and muscle-bound. Wulf would hold off on further inspection tonight. Besides, Karen might wake at any moment, could already be awake, and he didn’t want her to be alone and afraid.

He’d hurried back as he’d come, feeling his way through the wet bracken and trees of the rainy forest, then across the rock shelf and around the boulders, splashing through the breakers to the cave. Karen lay just as he’d left her, still asleep. He’d eased himself down beside her, gently raised her upper body from the hard stone floor, and rested her head in his lap.

He felt for the flashlight and switched it on, careful not to shine it directly in her face. Her mother had been very pretty, and he had no false modesty about his own looks, and this young woman was the result. Karen was the melding of two smiles and two excellent brains. She was tall and slender, like him, and unlike her mother, who’d been smaller and more curvaceous. Wulf had been described as lanky, and this trait, translated to the feminine with Karen, would be called willowy. He smiled at the sight of his beautiful daughter.

Now she stirred, and he was filled with a sudden anxiety. Though he’d watched her from afar, he didn’t know her at all, and she might not be delighted to learn who he was. She opened her eyes and looked directly up into his blue eyes, identical to hers. They studied each other in silence for a moment. Then she blinked, and a slow smile spread across her lips. She sat up, twisting her body around in the confined space. She leaned back against the rock, turning her head to study him some more in the glow of the flashlight. Her gaze was so frank, so penetrating, that he instinctively turned his head away. When she finally spoke, her first words were:

“Wulfgar Anderman, I presume.”

The Discs

F
EBRUARY 28, 2009

I called her again tonight, and this time I said I was Deep Throat. She’s a clever girl; she’s already figured out that I’m one of “those awful boys,” but she doesn’t know which one. I must shave my head, get rid of this telltale hair….

Karen sat beside Wulf Anderman in the cave, studying him in the weak light. His hair was white now, not the dazzling blond it had once been. His skin was deeply tanned, which, like the full head of hair, supported the illusion that he was ten to fifteen years younger than sixty-four. His eyes, she noted, were the same vivid blue as her own. With his mustache, jeans, boots, and work shirt, he looked like nothing on earth so much as a gracefully aging cowboy.
My
cowboy, she mused. He has come to my rescue.

They were silent at first. He was looking away from her now, as though fascinated by something in the darkest corner of the grotto. Karen realized that he was waiting for her to make the first move. She smiled again.
Bashful
—it was a word she wouldn’t have imagined to be appropriate for so large and powerful a man. She felt no fear of him, despite their situation, and she wondered why. Of course he knew who
she
was, and over the years he’d gone out of his way to see her, check up on her.

“West End Avenue,” she said.

He blinked, and a tentative smile came to his face. “Yes.”

She observed the face some more, wondering how she could have ever mistaken the other man for him. Now, in the flesh, his identity was clear. The old pictures of Wulf and Rodney came back to her: one fair and smiling, the other dark and brooding. They were as different as two people could be.

“Rodney Harper told me he was you,” she said. “He’s been pretending to be you since I got here yesterday. But I suppose you know all about that.”

He stared at her in obvious surprise for a moment, and then the energy seemed to drain from him. He leaned heavily back against the rock wall and shut his eyes.

“Oh God,” he murmured. “So,
that’s
the game, is it?”

“Yes,” Karen said, “that’s the game. You two like playing games, don’t you?”

He was watching her again, but he didn’t answer her question. Instead, he asked one. “What exactly did he say to you?”

She recounted everything the man in the house on the cliff had told her, from Wednesday’s lunch to her awful discovery in the boathouse. At the end of her story, she paused, uncertain, then decided to press on. She had to hear him say it. “Are you really my father?”

“Yes.”

She nodded, absorbing that expected but still amazing fact. Then she asked, “How did
he
know that?”

Her father shrugged, gazing off at the dark corner again, listening to the rain outside. “Roddy knows everything.”

“Have you seen him since—since then?”

“No, but he sent me a letter once.” He reached for the wet shoulder bag lying beside him and rummaged through it, finally pulling out a little envelope and handing it to her. “This should explain some of it to you.”

She glanced at the envelope before extracting the letter inside, recognizing the handwriting from the note in the guest bedroom earlier. The paper had once been white, but now it was yellowed with age, creased, and crumpled.
March 13, 1981
. The anniversary of the incident…

She read it twice, and her father waited quietly, gazing out at the rain above the turbulent ocean. The breakers crashed against the rocks with almost soothing regularity, bringing the water just inside the entrance before receding for the next assault. Karen noted two things: the name of the private detective Rodney Harper had recommended to Wulf and the building sense of desperation near the end, the open statement of love and desire. She didn’t know how to proceed on that subject with this complete stranger, so she latched on to the former detail instead.

“Franklin Macy,” she said, handing the paper back to him. “I’ve seen that name before.” She told him about the letter she’d glimpsed in Carl Graves’s glove compartment.

Wulf Anderman grunted, still looking out at the rain. “I should have known that guy was working for Roddy as well as me. That explains a lot. I’ve always wondered how Roddy knew where I was all this time. And he’s the one who told Roddy about you. Damn. If I ever get back to New York, I think I’ll pay that little creep a visit.”

Karen suppressed a smile. Not having a father or a brother around while growing up, she’d never experienced this particular emotion: A male relative was prepared to defend her by any means necessary. As chauvinistic and barbaric as it was, she had to admit that it was also comforting.

But now there were matters to discuss. “So, in other words, you’ve both been using the same detective to keep tabs on each other. Where have you been all this time, by the way?”

He told her. When he mentioned what he did for a living, she gasped.

“Jonathan Brown?” she cried. “
You’re
Jonathan Brown?
The Devil Knows I’m Dead?
I
loved
that book!”

He shrugged. “Thanks.”

“No,
really
!” she insisted. “I’m, like, the world’s biggest mystery fan! Ask anybody! I mean, my
cat
is named Ruth Rendell! This is
so
incredible! But, if you don’t mind my asking, why Jonathan Brown? Where did that name come from?”

He shrugged again. “John Brown sounded marginally better than John Doe, and it looks better on dust jackets.”

Karen smiled at that. Then she remembered something else, and her smile faded. “
He’s
got all your books up there. And he’s been calling himself T. H. Huxley.”

“That figures,” he muttered. “But right now, the important thing is that Macy told me you were coming down here, which means Roddy told him to tell me. Roddy used you to get
me
here. And here I am. The question is, What the hell happens now?”

A bright flash lit up the entrance to the cave, and seconds later a huge explosion of thunder assaulted the enclosed space, causing the rock walls to vibrate with the repercussion. Karen gave an involuntary jump, and she must have cried out. His warm hand immediately clamped down on her wrist.

“Steady,” he said. “It’s okay, Karen. You’re going to be okay.”

And she was in his arms. She hugged him tightly, feeling his hands on her back, and she realized with a shock that she was crying, sobbing softly against his chest. In front of her tightly closed eyes she saw the elegant man back at the house, the note from Mrs. Graves, the obscene heap of body parts that had so recently been the boisterous but otherwise perfectly harmless Don Price. Her father held her in silence, not moving, merely waiting for her to collect herself, and something in his solid stability reached out to her, soothed her, returned her to something close to normal. She pressed her cheek against the rough, wet denim of his shirt, thinking, This man is my father. My
father
! Nothing will ever be the same again….

She extricated herself from his embrace and leaned back against the rock, smiling sheepishly in the dim light. The flashlight had begun to flicker, and he reached down and switched it off. They sat in the dark, side by side, and she could hear his steady breathing, feel his warmth. Okay, she thought, now it’s
my
turn to take the lead.

“First of all,” she said, “how did you get here?”

The Discs

M
ARCH 4, 2009

The package arrived today from New York. Frank Macy has outdone himself once more. He used his connections to snag a hot copy of
Bad Boys
. I watched it first thing, and now I have it here, waiting for Karen Tyler….