A Penny for the Hangman (28 page)

“Faison? He retired years ago.”

Karen giggled. “I mean his son, Joshua Faison, Junior. He has his father’s old job. He’s very nice. I wish I could call him now.” This thought made her remember something her father had said a little while ago. “You’ve never owned a telephone?”

“Nope.”

“Why not?”

She heard him shifting—or fidgeting, she couldn’t tell which—in the darkness. He said, “When you live like I do, with a low profile, it’s best not to keep a lot of stuff around that people might use to trace you. I’ve been off the grid so long, I don’t think about things like telephones. Besides, I don’t have anyone to call.”

“You do now,” Karen said. “You have me. The minute we’re out of here, we’re getting you a cell phone.”

There was a pause. Then her father said, “Go to sleep.”

“Okay.” She rolled onto her side, facing him, curling up into a fetal position. It was cold in the cave, but his jacket covered her, and the rhythmic sounds from outside soon lulled her into somnolence.

She’d come here for an exclusive story, and she’d ended up with so much more. Her father who was
not
her father but a deranged killer, and the sudden arrival of the father who
was
her father. And poor Don Price—she’d never seen a mutilated body before.

Her father—her
real
father—was here, and he would keep watch while she slept. She was safe as long as he was with her. She’d only felt this sense of security before with her mother and with Jim O’Brien. She wanted Jim to meet this man, get to know him. She knew Jim would like him.

The Discs

M
ARCH 11, 2009

Ah, Wagner! There’s nothing to compare to his music.
Tristan,
the one I’m listening to now, is my favorite.

Just back from the beach, where we made short work of that dreary Singleton. I left Carl there to bore holes in the old speedboat and clean up the beach.

Ah, the “Liebestod.” My favorite part; it always makes me cry. This is the music I associate with Wulf, with us as we were then. Why couldn’t he have gone along with the plan? Things would have been so different now….

Wulf sat in the dark, listening to his daughter’s even breathing, planning his next move. The storm was weakening, moving away, and he knew the day ahead would be warm and dry. Within hours, all evidence of this bad weather would disappear, evaporating in the intense tropical heat. The only mess left to clean up would be his own.

If he were to be honest with himself, he’d always known in the back of his mind that this reunion was inevitable. There was unfinished business between them. Still, it was an eventuality he dreaded. He’d always been a coward compared to Roddy, as his behavior on March 13, 1959, would attest. He certainly hadn’t been brave enough to stop Roddy—he’d passed out and missed the whole thing. But over the years, in long days and longer nights in prison, he’d secretly come to the conclusion that he wasn’t particularly upset about his father’s end. Still, when the time had come, when Wulf had raised the knife up over his father’s sleeping form, he’d been unable to do it. His mind and body had shut down. He’d woken to find himself on the wood floor of the veranda, dead bodies all around him. Roddy had knelt beside him, grasping Wulf’s right arm and knee in his bloody hands, shaking him.

“Wake up, Wulfie. Wake up!”

Wulf hadn’t gone with him, as Rodney had planned, leaving the weapons and carnage behind, racing down the hill to the waiting speedboat. If Wulf had run when he’d had the chance, they might have gotten away with it. Hank Vance would have been blamed for the crime. Instead, Wulf had been unable to move, and the arrival of Hank’s truck had prompted Roddy to panic and flee to the boat alone. Hank had found Wulf with the bodies and called the authorities. By the time Faison had escorted Wulf into Fort Christian, the Coast Guard people had been fishing Roddy out of the sea, kicking and cursing, and it had been all over.

Roddy’s plan—the version he’d given Wulf, anyway—had been to kill their four parents, take off in the boat, arrive home later that night to “discover” the crime and the sleeping housekeeper, then call the police. The two boys would say they’d been on Hangman Cay all day, and Roddy would helpfully mention Mr. Harper’s eight-thirty appointment with Hank Vance. The cops would immediately go after Hank, who wouldn’t be able to deny going to the house. Hank would tell them he’d simply found the bodies and run, but no one would believe him.

Hank, the black down-islander with a well-known history of animosity toward his rich, white employer—and two threatening notes in Mr. Harper’s desk to prove it—would have been arrested, tried, convicted, and possibly executed. Wulf hadn’t thought about it at fourteen, but he’d later realized the innocent foreman would have been yet more collateral damage of that terrible night, like Bernice Watkins. Roddy must have enjoyed killing her.

Roddy was up in that house on the cliff, waiting for him. Karen had found the photographer in the boathouse, and her description of his remains told Wulf all he needed to know. Roddy had the taste of blood in his mouth again, the scent of it in his nostrils. For all his civilized poses, he was more animal than human.

Wulf reached inside his bag and grasped the gun, reassured by its presence. Whatever happened to him, Karen would return to her life, to the young man in New York who loved her, to her friends. He settled back against the rock wall, listening to the waning thunder, watching over his daughter.

The Discs

M
ARCH 12, 2009

It’s nearly midnight. Tomorrow is the day. Fifty years! We’ll be together, where it all began.

I moved heaven and earth to get this place. I hope Wulf appreciates the gesture. I came down here from Boston a few years ago, done up like Toby and bearing his passport, and met the people interested in buying Tamarind. It wasn’t difficult to convince everyone that I was my brother, merely a matter of tinted contact lenses, a beard, and a show of intoxication. The excellent Mrs. MacArthur made an excellent offer. I signed Toby’s name, took the money, and ran straight to London, where I camped out on the doorstep of the woman who’d inherited Hangman Cay from her parents. I had to do some fancy talking to get her to sell the island to me—or, rather, T. H. Huxley—but she finally did.

When I went back to Boston, to Toby, he was far gone with his booze and drugs. It wasn’t hard to get him to sign a new will. As for his car accident, I drained the brake fluid and sent him off—drunk, as ever—in a rainstorm to buy more liquor. I wept tears of joy as I signed all the papers that put the family fortune in my hands. The lawyers thought it was grief for my dearly departed brother. I sold the Boston house and spent the next few years roaming the world, waiting for the day when I could slip, unnoticed, into my new home, the only home I would ever need. Hangman Cay—mine, at last!

And in all those years, wherever I roamed, whatever I did, I always kept up on Wulf. I even once went to Taos, New Mexico. There he was, in a little mud dwelling near the highway, not far from a reservation where the deer and the antelope play, for God’s sake! How could he end up in a place like that? I only saw him from a distance, but he looked wonderful. He was always gorgeous, but he’d actually improved with age.

I’d painted him from memory at Raleigh, and the portrait was the only possession I took with me when I finally left that wretched place. In Boston, I hung it in my bedroom until Toby was gone and the house was sold. Then I put it in storage along with my childhood books and the family china, waiting for the eventual move to Hangman Cay, when I could hang it here, on the living room wall. I gaze at him every day, laughing on that beach, age fourteen, the only beauty in my otherwise dull existence.

Midnight. H
APPY ANNIVERSARY!

Mr. Singleton is in the boathouse, and Carl and the cow are tucked in their bed, halfway to hell. Miss Tyler is probably crouching in the caves—she must be cold and wet, poor dear. The important thing is that she’s still here. And tomorrow morning, Wulf will come sailing into the bay, to the rescue.

I can hardly wait….

“Good morning.”

Karen looked up to see the large man looming over her, and her first reaction was to recoil. She actually thrashed her body and pushed herself backward, away from the figure. Her head collided with the rock wall behind her, and then it all came back. This man smiling down at her was the last person on earth who would ever want to harm her.

She smiled back at him. “Good morning. Did you get any sleep?”

“Don’t need much,” he said. “How do you feel?”

“I’m all right, but I’ll feel better after breakfast.”

He frowned. “Breakfast?”

“Sure,” she said. “My favorite.” She reached inside her shoulder bag and came up with the big packet of peanut M&Ms and the bottle of Evian water she’d purchased in the hotel two days before. She handed them to him. “You start on these while I go powder my nose.” She crawled past him and out of the cave.

If anyone had ever suggested to her that someday she’d remove her jeans and crouch down in the ocean to pee, she would have laughed at the notion. This morning, it seemed to be the least unusual of all the things she’d experienced on Hangman Cay. She quickly dressed again, glancing around to be sure no one was watching her. She half expected to see Rodney Harper or Carl Graves standing on the escarpment above the caves, leering down at her, but there was nobody anywhere.

She found her compact mirror and checked her face, wincing at the little cut above her right eyebrow and the puffy, discolored skin around it. Her hands and arms were scratched from the fall down the rocky shelf, and one of her knees throbbed slightly when she moved. Purple bruises dotted her limbs, and there was a large one on her stomach that caused a slight aching similar to the pain in her knee. But she was fully functional, mobile; that was the important thing.

The day was bright and warm. She stared around at the vivid sight of ocean, rocks, and trees, amazed at the fact that last night’s raging storm might never have happened at all. The hot morning sun had evaporated the rain, and even the usually violent breakers were smaller. Now she had to convince her father to leave this place with her. She made her way back to the cave, forming her argument in her mind.

As it turned out, there wasn’t an argument. He was already standing outside the entrance, his bag slung over his shoulder. He handed her the candy and bottled water; he’d consumed exactly half of both. He glanced at his watch.

“It’s just after eight,” he said. “The Whaler is tied to the rocks about fifty yards that way, on the other side of this point.” He jerked a thumb to his left. “Be careful climbing out to where the boat is; some of the boulders are partially submerged, so they’ll be slippery. Take the boat and head for Tortola, and get to the police there. Tell them Mr. Huxley is really Rodney Harper, and he murdered your friend—that should get them here in record time. And
don’t
come back with them. Stay in Tortola. I’ll—I’ll join you there when this is over.”

She didn’t like the way he’d said that, as though he wasn’t sure he could keep his promise, but she let it pass. She also decided not to argue. She wondered if this was how all fathers sounded when issuing instructions to their children; she had no point of comparison.

“Mr. Graves is the one to watch out for,” she told him. “He’s a big, mean-looking ex-con; he looks like he bench-presses tractors in his spare time. His wife is okay, I guess—she saved my life, so go easy on her. Rodney Harper limps—he uses a cane—so, I don’t think he should be a prob—”

“Bull!”
her father said, startling her. “That limp was for your benefit, Karen, to make you think he was less dangerous than he is. It’s his favorite chess strategy: Give your opponents the impression that you’re helpless, then wipe up the board with them. That’s how he wins. But don’t worry about me. I can take care of myself.”

She stared. “With the gun in your shoulder bag?” He registered surprise, and she smiled grimly. “Hey, I’m a reporter. We’re nosy. I saw it when you got the batteries. Please don’t do anything—”

“Karen, it’s time for you to go,” he said. “I need you to go now. Do you hear me?” She stared at him some more, and he repeated, “Do you hear me?”

She smiled.
“ ‘Your tale, sir, would cure deafness.’ ”

Wulf blinked. “That’s—what? Shakespeare?”

“
The Tempest
. A little joke I had going with your friend up at the house.”

“He’s not my friend,” he said.

“I’m glad to hear it,” she replied.

Father and daughter stood there, regarding each other. She felt a sudden, overwhelming urge to touch him, to make physical contact, so she raised her hand and placed it gently on the side of his face.

“I’ve only just found you,” she whispered, willing herself to keep the tears from her eyes. “I don’t want to lose you now. We don’t even know each other yet.”

Her father raised a rough hand to cover hers on his cheek. He smiled in a hesitant, shy way and didn’t reply directly to her statement. Instead, he said, “I love you, Karen. I’ve always loved you.” He leaned down to kiss her lightly on her forehead, and then he said, “Go.”

She nodded and moved aside to let him pass. He stepped down into the breakers and waded around the farthest boulder, then climbed up onto the escarpment. Karen followed him that far, standing in ankle-deep water and watching the imposing figure moving up the rock shelf, one hand securely placed over the shoulder bag that contained the scary-looking gun. When he reached the forest at the top, he paused and looked back at her. With a final smile and a wave of his arm, he continued on his way, marching off into the trees and out of sight.

Only then, when he was gone, did she allow the tears to fall.

The Discs

M
ARCH 13, 2009

This is a day unlike any other day, ever, in the history of the world
. I remember writing those words once before, on my fifteenth birthday. They were true then, and they are true now. This is the day I complete what I started a lifetime ago. This is the day that guarantees our immortality.

He is here.

I was up all night, eager for the morning. The storm finally died out at about four a.m., and I stood on the terrace, listening to the silence that followed it. When the sun rose just after five-thirty, how beautiful my island looked in the first light of day! Of course curiosity got the better of me, and I ventured out to see what I could see.

I took the forest path across the ridge to the other end of the island, and that’s when I saw the Whaler tied to an outcropping of rocks. I stole closer to the Hangman caves, just to be sure. I crossed the shelf down to the water beside the farthest boulder and peered around it.

He stood at the water’s edge, just in front of the biggest cave in the center, our Tintagel of long ago. He was gazing out at the water, glancing back occasionally at the cave entrance. Miss Tyler was probably inside—I’m sure they met up on this tiny island. He was deep in thought: I know that look of old. I felt a thrill of purest pleasure at the sight of him here, where he is supposed to be. Where he was always destined to be.

I made my way back around the point until I reached the Whaler. I untied it and gave it a shove. It drifted a moment, then got caught in the northerly current, gliding off past the other end of the island into the open sea.

Back at the house, I showered and changed, and I made breakfast. I’m on my second cup of coffee here at the computer in the office. I’ve turned off all the alarms and motion sensors, rather beside the point now that he’s here. He’ll be along directly, I should imagine….

Wulf moved carefully along the hilly ridge at the top of the island, scanning the dense tropical forest around him for signs of activity. Sunlight dappled the surface of the water far below him, on both sides of the island.

He’d made up his mind what he was going to do back in New Mexico three days ago, reading that fax in the Trading Post under the watchful eyes of Yolanda Velasquez. Last night’s long vigil in the cave beside his sleeping daughter, with the storm howling just outside, had only served to reinforce his resolve. Karen was more than Grace’s daughter, more than a living embodiment of the woman he’d loved. Karen was the one good thing he could point to in a life full of misfortune. And the greatest misfortune of all was his friendship with Rodney Lawson Harper. Today, one way or another, it would end. Otherwise, he’d never be free of Roddy.

The difference between fourteen and sixty-four was clear: Wulf the boy had thought getting rid of his parents was an acceptable proposition, whereas Wulf the man had a better grasp of ethics, a hard-earned appreciation of the value of a human life. A lesson learned behind a succession of locked doors, in tiny cells, over long days and months and years when survival became his most important goal. He’d decided that he would always keep clear of his former friend. As long as Roddy was willing to go along with that arrangement, Wulf was content to ignore him and get on with life. But that wasn’t how it had played out; so, here he was, back on Hangman Cay.

Now Wulf had something—
someone—to defend. He must protect Karen, keep her safe, no matter what he had to do or what happened to him.

The sun had fully risen, and the day was warm. A few drops clung here and there, and an occasional glint of sunlight on not-yet-dried pools of moisture. Clutching the shoulder bag and studying every shadow around him as he passed, he crept forward through the trees.

The Discs

M
ARCH 13, 2009 (CONTINUED)

I’ve collected an interesting assortment of toys for this enterprise. There were the security things, of course, and the rifles and this little revolver, not to mention the cell phone jammer. And I have one more device that I shall make use of presently….

Karen dried the tears from her eyes and went back to the cave. She collected her shoulder bag, leaving the machete where it lay on the cave floor, and set off through the shallows in the direction her father had pointed out to her. The slippery rock formations in the water all around the wide shelf at this end of the island proved relatively easy to climb over, as long as she watched out for sea urchins. There seemed to be an infinite number of these odd creatures tucked into the crevices in the half-submerged boulders, and she’d been warned about the extreme discomfort of coming into contact with them. She moved gingerly through the shallows, scrambling up and down the rocks as they arrived before her, shaded from the sun by the towering monoliths on her left.

She came around a point that marked the corner between the south shore of the island and the eastern side, and paused to get her bearings. She stood on a flat boulder with the waves lapping around her wet sneakers. The cliffs no longer shaded her, and she raised a hand to shield her eyes from the harsh light that poured down on everything.

The sparkle of sunshine on whitecaps blocked her vision, but she thought she caught a glimpse of something—a boat?—far out to sea. She couldn’t make out exactly what it was, or how far from shore, but it was too distant to hail. She could scream and yell and jump up and down here on these rocks, but no one aboard would be able to see her.

Her father was on his way to the house, and Rodney Harper was not alone there. He was ably assisted by the hulking Carl Graves. Wulf had a gun, but Rodney and Carl were most certainly armed, too. Her father was marching into their lair, and they were two against one.

She stood on the half-submerged boulder, breakers crashing at her feet, staring at the wet, rocky way before her. The Boston Whaler was just ahead, around the curve of the point, and she could reach it in a matter of minutes. She could start the motor and glide away, past the other end of Hangman Cay and due north to the big island in the distance. Whatever happened here, she wouldn’t be a part of it. She’d be free, safe, away. She could go to Tortola, then back to St. Thomas, New York, and Jim. Jim—she thought of his smiling eyes, his happy grin, the warm solidity of him as he greeted her in the airport terminal and folded her in his arms….

Two against one.

Karen was no coward. Wulf Anderman was her father, and he would never let anyone harm her. He was the man her mother had loved, and Grace’s memory was reason enough. Karen would not leave him to face those awful men alone. It was time to even the odds.

She turned around and made her way back to the cave.

The Discs

M
ARCH 13, 2009 (CONTINUED)

This will be my legacy, this running diary of my wonderful plan. My notebook of fifty years ago is locked in this desk drawer along with these discs. But all that has been mere preface to this day….

Wulf crouched in the tall grass beside the ridge path, in the shade of a big flamboyant tree in full, bright red bloom. He could just make out the front of the house through thick leaves and vivid flowers. He drew the gun from his shoulder bag and checked it. Six rounds, one chambered. Eighteen more in the box in his bag, if it came to that.