A Penny for the Hangman (27 page)

Wulf smiled in the darkness, glad that his daughter was unable to see it. Here she was, pumping him for information, interviewing him as though he were a featured story in her magazine. She clearly expected to become involved in all this, and while Wulf intended to confront Rodney Harper, Karen was not going to be there. As soon as morning arrived and the storm died down, she was getting the hell out of here. If he told her that, he’d just get an argument, so he decided to humor her and answer her questions. Hell, they were stuck here for a few hours anyway. Why not?

He told her about himself. He’d been released in February of 1981 and lived in a town near the Florida prison for one year. In that time he’d gone to New York, hired the detective and the law firm, and met Grace.

“Did you ever think of getting married?” Karen asked. “I mean later, when you were back in Florida, when you heard that my mother was expecting me. Was there any talk of the two of you—?”

“Yes,” he said. “We spoke of it at length. But we both knew it wasn’t a good idea. Considering how romantic she was, your mother could also be pragmatic. Still, I was in New York when you were born; I got to hold you for a while in the hospital. Your mother’s coworkers were there, Bob Colson and the secretaries, and they all knew who I was, of course. But Grace asked them to keep quiet, so they did. I guess you’ve seen your birth certificate at some point….”

“Father: Unknown,”
Karen quoted. “Mom wouldn’t talk about it, only that my dad had died in a car accident.”

He grimaced. “We both knew that we couldn’t use
my
name. Anyway, I saw you when you were born and many times over the years, whenever I went to New York. But always from a distance. No contact—that was something we agreed on.”

“Did it ever occur to either of you that
I
might have something to say about all this?”

“No,” he said. “You didn’t have a say—we agreed on that, too.” He couldn’t see her in the dark, but he heard her exasperated groan. Smiling at his first experience of paternal complacency, he continued. “After Florida, I moved around for a while, working wherever I could. The family money had all gone to relatives in Denmark, so I was flat broke. I worked all over the South, then the Midwest, and finally New Mexico. I never stayed in one place for long; I was always afraid someone would recognize me or ask too many questions. I was a car mechanic, plumber, construction worker, housepaint
er—whatever. But I saved every dime I made. I went to New York at least once a year, and I paid Frank Macy to send me monthly reports on you and your mother.”

“Interesting,” Karen said. “When Rodney was pretending to be you last night, he told me he—I mean
you
—only went to New York once. I guess he didn’t want me to know this part of the story. Did you and Mom ever see each other again?”

“A few times. We had dinner now and then, and once, when you were away at summer camp, we were together for a few weeks. In Taos, I was living in a motel, working there as night-shift manager, passing the time by reading mysteries and thrillers, a habit I’d picked up in prison. And one day—I’m not sure what possessed me—I went to this place called Papa V.’s Trading Post down the highway and bought some legal pads and started to write. I wrote my first story at the motel desk, then I typed it up. I took it with me to New York the next time I went.

“Your mother read it, of course, and liked it. She showed it to Bob Colson, who knew a literary agent. Next thing I knew, Jonathan Brown was a published author. I saved up to buy a house, and I’ve been there ever since.”

Karen said, “Your agent and your publishers
—they don’t know who you really are?”

“Nope. Bob Colson never told them, and I sure didn’t.”

“So,” she said, “I guess you’ve been happy.”

“I like writing the books, and I have all the money I need, but no, I wouldn’t say I’ve ever been happy. I was hoping I might someday convince your mother to tell you who I was, maybe even marry me, but then she was gone. Macy sent me a fax—I’ve never had a phone. I got to New York too late.”

“You were at the funeral,” Karen said. “I saw you there.”

“Yeah.”

They were silent for a while, and he could hear her breathing in the dark. Outside, the rain had finally stopped but the lightning continued intermitte
ntly. He sat beside her, feeling her warmth, thinking, This is my daughter. She’s twenty-seven years old, and she’s an interesting woman….

Karen broke their silence. “So, why T. H. Huxley?”

“Thomas Henry Huxley was a big chess player,” he said, “and his friend Charles Darwin gave us the theory of evolution. But it was Huxley who actually coined the word that best described their beliefs: atheism. Roddy always loved that. He was full of romantic notions about Nietzsche’s Superman and Huxley’s atheism, and somehow it all got mixed in with Hitler’s
überkinder,
you know, the so-called “master race.” With his IQ, Roddy felt justified in adding himself to that elite group. He honestly believed—maybe even still believes—that he is superior to all other human beings.”

“Oh, he still believes it,” Karen said, “and he may be right. He certainly outsmarted me, and now he has you here, to join him again in Paradise. But you failed him in his great scheme, and you never answered that letter.”

“Yes,” Wulf said. “I think he got me here to kill me.”

They sat in silence for a while, thinking about that.

“So,” Karen said at last, “what’s our plan?”

Wulf smiled to himself. He already loved this girl, but now he was really beginning to like her.

The Discs

M
ARCH 10, 2009

She is at the hotel in St. Thomas, and Carl was right about the young man following her. His name is Sidney Singleton, and Carl overheard him calling the
Daily News
and canceling the photographer, Don Price. Well, he might as well join the party. They will walk right in with eyes wide open. But not for long…

Karen found her shoulder bag in the dark, then felt around in it for the tiny sewing kit she always carried. Another one of her mother’s legacies:
“Keep a needle and thread handy at all times.”
She located a safety pin and used it to repair the bag’s broken strap. The mundane action calmed her as she spoke.

“I don’t understand him,” she said. “He’s such a gentleman in so many ways—he wears tuxedos and safari suits, he always has the right wine for the right meal, he quotes Shakespeare and listens to Wagner, and he has these charming old-world manners. But I saw what he did to Don Price, and the whole world knows what he did fifty years ago. How can one man be both of those people?”

“I don’t know, Karen. I’ve never understood him, either.”

She drew in a deep breath and bit the bullet. “He’s obviously in love with you.
Obsessed
is a better word. Were the two of you ever—um—you know…?”

“Lovers? No, Karen. I’m not so inclined, never have been, and he knew better than to try it. My father—Well, never mind. We won’t go into all that now.”

“Okay,” she said, “but you should know that the new movie about you pretty much implies that you two were involved in a sexual relationship.”

“Yeah,” came the reply. “It’s been implied in most of the books and movies and that play on Broadway. They also say we both killed everyone. But they don’t have all the facts.”

Karen remembered something else. “Last night, when he was pretending to be you, he said that you made him promise not to harm the housekeeper, Bernice Watkins. Was that the truth?”

“Yes.”

Her relief at this news was interrupted by sounds in the dark beside her. He was rummaging in his bag; she could hear scrapes and thumps as he unscrewed the flashlight, removed the old batteries, and put in new ones. The light clicked on, and she blinked in the sudden glare.

“You just happen to carry batteries in there?” she asked, staring down at his worn leather shoulder bag.

“Yeah,” he said with a shrug. “Now we can see. I need your cell phone.”

She checked her shoulder bag, then remembered. “It’s on the bedside table in the guest room. I kind of ran out of there. But I haven’t been able to get a signal here anyway, so it would be useless.”

“Well, that’s that,” he said, frowning. “Karen, listen to me. I need you off this island. You don’t know what he’s like, but I do. He got you here by pretending to be me, and he made damn sure that nobody else knows where you are. Still, I’m sure he has phones that work, and computers and security equipment. Have you been feeling tired since you got here, sleeping a lot? He was drugging you. That’s how he did it the first time, at Tamarind. And you just told me what he did to the guy in the boathouse. I don’t want you here when I go up there!”

“Okay,” Karen said at last. “Let’s talk about it in the morning, when it’s light, when this storm is gone. In the meantime, I guess we’re relatively safe here, right? I mean, they wouldn’t come out in this, not all the way over here, would they?”

“Probably not,” her father said, “but you never know with Roddy. You get some sleep. I’ll keep watch.”

She was exhausted. It was the aftereffect of the shocks and surprises that had arrived in so short a time, overloading her senses. And the drugs, of course. She thought of the tea, the coffee, and the wine, not to mention the food. Drugs—how could she have been so stupid? Oh well…

He clicked off the flashlight, plunging the small space once more into darkness. Karen lay back against the smooth rock wall behind her and closed her eyes, listening to the surf and the faraway thunder.

The man who sat beside her was a loner, a quiet type who’d lived his post-prison life as inconspicu
ously as possible. He wrote novels and lived anonymously, in out-of-the-way places. He’d given up the woman he loved and any chance of personal happiness to ensure the happiness and well-being of their daughter. Despite the legend around him, Wulf Anderman wasn’t a killer and never had been. He was as ill equipped for this situation as she was, and now she spoke this thought aloud.

“We’re the wrong people, you and I,” she said. “We shouldn’t be here. Let’s just get out of here and leave Rodney Harper to Lieutenant Faison.”