Dead on the Island (11 page)

Bolivar Peninsula isn't far from Galveston,
just across the Bay, but the only way to reach it is by ferry.
Unless you want to go the long, long way around. The state runs the
ferry service, and if you don't make the trip on a weekend, the
wait isn't usually too long. The boats run every fifteen minutes. I
could find out Shelton's address from his employer if I had to.

"One more thing," I said. "No one's seen
Sharon since last Friday. Was she in school that day?"

"I think so," Julie said. "That's the day we
had a test in government class, and we got them back today. The
teacher called her name when he was passing them out, so she must
have taken the test."

"Did she seem nervous that day, anxious
about anything?"

"You mean besides the test? No, I don't
think so. I don't remember anything different about her at
all."

"Think about it," I said. "Think hard. Did
she say anything? Did she mention Terry?"

She brightened, and I could have kicked
myself. Leading the witness, that's what they call it in court. No
matter what she said now, if it involved Terry Shelton, I'd wonder
if she really recalled it or if I'd prodded her into a false
memory.

"I do remember something," she said. "Right
after the test we went to the soft drink machine for a Pepsi. She
said something about having a date with Terry that night, but that
it would be a lot different from their usual dates. I asked what
she meant, but she said she couldn't tell me. She seemed a little
excited, but not nervous or anything."

"And she didn't tell you anything more about
it?"

"No. We just drank the Pepsis and that was
it. She went off to another class."

I leaned against the door frame and thought
about what Julie had said. It sounded as if she were telling the
truth and not as if she were creating a memory to please me.
Everything seemed to be forcing me more and more toward the murder,
as much as I wanted to avoid it.

"Thanks, Julie," I said. "You've been a
help." I turned to go.

Her voice stopped me. "Do you think Sharon's
. . . all right?"

"Sure," I said over my shoulder. "She'll
probably be back in school in a few days."

"I hope so," she said.

I went on down the hall, thinking that our
dialogue had almost reversed itself since our first talk. The
trouble was, this time I was trying to string her along. After
everything that had happened, I really didn't think she'd ever see
Sharon Matthews again.

~ * ~

I located a pay phone and called Dino. Ray
answered. When I identified myself, he said that Dino wanted to
talk to me.

"Tru?" Dino said when he came on.

"That's me," I said.

"I got that information you wanted. It may
mean something to you. It does to me, but I don't know what."

"So tell me."

"That Chuck Ferguson does own The
Sidepocket. Ray and me, we never heard of him, that's why Ray said
he couldn't be sure who really owned it. Anyway, here's the funny
part. Until a few months ago, Ferguson was just the manager. The
club was owned by Jimmie Hargis. You heard of him?”

I'd heard of him. He was a big name in low
circles. He owned a few "straight" clubs, but mostly his name made
the news when the cops closed down one or another of his peep-shows
or nude bars.

"I've never met the man," I said. "What
about you?"

"I've met him. And this is straight from the
horse's mouth. Ferguson bought him out."

"You mean Ferguson bought everything Hargis
owned?"

"No, no. Just that one club. But it's still
funny."

"Why?"

"Because Ferguson is just a small-timer.
Just a guy who runs a place. Where does he get the money to buy a
club from somebody like Hargis?"

"That's a good question," I said. "You got
the answer?"

"Hargis didn't ask Ferguson any questions. I
guess you know how that goes. He was just glad to get the money,
times being what they are."

What Dino meant was that the city of Houston
was cracking down on the topless clubs and peep shows and Hargis
was having his own version of a money crunch.

"So it was a cash sale?"

"That's right. Except that Hargis had to
loan Ferguson the money for a while. He didn't say what the juice
was, but you can bet it was plenty. Anyway, Ferguson met the
payments. Paid everything off right on time. So now he owns the
place."

I didn't say anything for a second or
two.

"You still there?" Dino said.

"I'm still here. Just thinking."

"I want to know what this has to do with
Sharon. I mean it sounds funny, all right, but so what?"

"I don't know yet," I said.

"Well, when
are
you gonna know?"
Dino's voice was sharp with impatience.

"I don't know when. But I'll be in touch." I
hung up the phone before he could say any more.

I went out to the parking lot. The weather
had turned so warm and humid that you'd hardly guess it was
February. I pushed up the sleeves of my sweatshirt and unlocked the
car.

I hadn't been lying to Dino. I really had no
idea what was going on, but I knew
something
was, something
that had to do with the disappearance of Sharon Matthews.
Eventually a pattern would begin to take shape, or I hoped that was
what would happen. Until it did, there was nothing I could do but
talk. Find out a little here, a little there, until things began to
make some kind of sense.

I was nearly certain now that Sharon and
Terry Shelton's murder were somehow tied together, but I didn't
know how. The disappearance and the murder had occurred at about
the same time, and Sharon and Terry had been seen together at The
Sidepocket talking to a man who now denied even knowing them. A man
who had suddenly come into a good bit of cash money. But Sharon had
also discovered some disturbing information about her family
history at about the same time. How did that fit in? Or did it?

My theory was that there was always a reason
for a disappearance. I'd never been able to find one in Jan's case,
and that one thing bothered me more than any other. If there was no
reason, none at all, then she was dead. But who had killed her? And
where was her body?

I tried to stop thinking about Jan. She
didn't have anything to do with Sharon Matthews.

It was still early afternoon. It was time to
try tapping two of my pipelines into the gossip of the Island, two
people who might have some inkling of things out of the ordinary.
Usually these two would know more about adults than about troubled
teenagers, but I didn't have any better sources to try, even though
only kids seemed to be involved here. To tell the truth, I was
beginning to suspect some of the adults were more involved than
they were telling me.

One person who might know something lived
right on Broadway, in a house that had been part of the city for
well over a hundred years. Sally West's family wasn't one of the
Big Three families that had built the Island, but her roots went
almost back to Galveston's beginnings. Her ancestors hadn't amassed
quite the fortunes others had, nor had they attained quite the
fame, but the people who counted knew about them. Sally was the
last of the line. Her husband had died young, and she had refused
to marry again, thus leaving no one to carry on the family name.
Instead she lived in decaying splendor and kept up with everything
that happened through a series of visitors, most of whom hoped to
get some of her money in one way or another.

Dino had introduced me to her, and I was
something of a novelty. All I wanted was information, not money or
influence. Sally liked me, and I still dropped by every now and
then to exchange information. That's what Sally called
gossiping--exchanging information.

I stopped by a liquor store and bought of
bottle of Mogen David wine. Despite her nearly patrician standing,
Sally had modest tastes. With the wine in a plain brown paper sack
I drove to her house, which was practically across the street from
a fried-chicken franchise.

The house was red brick, built up high, with
white lattice-work on the front porch. Wide concrete steps led from
the ground level up to the porch. I mounted them and knocked at the
screen. I'd left my cane in the car. I limped a bit, but not enough
to matter.

And old black man opened the inner door. I
had no idea how old he was; he might have been as old as Sally, who
was eighty-nine. He might have been older. Or younger.

"Hello, John," I said.

"Hello, Mr. Truman," he said, in the same
way he might have addressed me had I shown up at the doorway a
hundred years earlier. "Come in, sir."

I opened the screen and stepped in, handing
him the wine. He took it, but neither of us mentioned it.

"Miz Sally's in the parlor," he said.

I walked a few steps down the high-ceilinged
hallway, and then turned through a wide double door to my right.
There were worn throw-rugs on the hardwood floor. The furniture was
all wood, and there was a baby grand piano in the back of the room.
A white lace piano shawl was draped over it. There were a reclining
couch and a love seat and several wooden rockers with cane bottoms
and backs. Sally West was sitting in one of them, rocking
gently.

The light in the room was dimmed by white
curtains at the window, but I could see her plainly. She was
wearing a dark floor-length dress, and she had a shawl around her
shoulders. Her hands gripped the arms of the rocker to help her
propel it. If she had stood, she would probably have come up to
about my belt, I thought, though I'd never seen her stand.

She looked up at me, her eyes bright in her
wrinkled face. "Truman," she said. "How nice of you to drop
by."

"Hello, Sally," I said. I felt a little shy,
because I hadn't been to visit for quite a while.

"Don't stand there looking awkward," she
said. "Come in and sit down." Her voice had a slight quaver in it,
but you had to listen for it. Otherwise you might mistake it for
the voice of a much younger woman.

I stepped into the parlor and sat in one of
the rockers. Just about the time I got settled, John came into the
room with the Mogen David on a silver tray. He had poured some of
it into two crystal glasses. He offered the tray to Sally.

"Thank you, John," she said. "And thank you,
Truman."

"You're welcome," I said. John brought the
tray over to me, and I took the second glass.

"Leave the wine, please, John," Sally said.
He put the tray on a small table near my chair.

I took a sip of the wine. It was a little
too warm and a little too sweet for me, but what did I know? I
drank Big Red.

"How have you been, Truman?" Sally said
after knocking back a hefty swallow of the wine. She liked it a lot
more than I did.

"Fine," I said.

"I don't suppose you've come to tell me
anything new about your sister?"

"No," I said. "This is about something
else."

"I see." She took another swallow. "You're
working again?"

"Yes," I said. "I'm working again. Not for
myself this time."

"Good. I've often wondered if you would ever
stop your brooding and get back on your feet."

"I was ready," I said. "I just needed a
push."

"And who gave it to you?"

I told her.

"Ah, Dino. I knew his uncles well, of
course. The Island was a different place in those days."

Her eyes drifted around the room. She had
seen quite a few changes in her long life. On the wall, a little
higher than the level of the piano, there was a black mark about
six inches wide and a foot long. It indicated the level to which
the water had risen in the storm of 1900. She hadn't seen that, but
she hadn't missed it by much.

Her eyes came back to rest on my face. "And
what are you doing for Dino? I do hope it's interesting."

"It is. But it's confidential."

She drank the last of the wine in her glass.
I still hadn't taken a second swallow. "Confidential?" she
said.

"I can tell you, but you can't tell anyone
else."

"Oh, then, that's all right. As long as
I
know. Could you do me the favor . . . ?" She extended her
glass, and I got up and refilled it.

I sat back down and told her the story,
leaving out a little, but not much. I told her more than I'd told
Dino about the fight at The Sidepocket.

"Goodness," she said. "Maybe you were better
off when you were vegetating there in that old house, doing a bit
of painting to make ends meet."

"I'd forgotten what a sarcastic old lady you
are," I said.

She laughed. "At my age, it's about all the
aggression I have. Now, what do you think I know about any of
this?"

"Not much. Maybe nothing. But there's one
thing that's been bothering me. Why is Dino so interested in this
Sharon Matthews? I know that her mother was one of his uncle’s
girls, and I can understand the concept of family loyalty, up to a
point. But he's really worried about this. If you could talk to
him, you'd know what I mean. You can hear it in his voice."

"Dino doesn't get out much," she said. "I
was afraid for a time that you might become like that."

"I've wondered about him," I said. "Does he
ever leave that house?"

"Hardly ever. He's become like me, though he
is not so much a prisoner of his body as his mind."

"Come again?"

"You've been away from the Island for quite
a while, haven't you? Too long, really, for you to have noticed, I
suppose."

I couldn't quite make out her meaning. "I
guess I'm not following you exactly," I said.

"What do you remember most about when you
were young? Most about the Island, I mean, not about yourself."

I thought about that for a minute. "I don't
really know," I said finally. "Times seemed better then, but maybe
I was just younger."