Murder in the Wind

John D. MacDonald

Murder in the Wind

Certain minor liberties have been taken with the geography of the Florida West Coast. There is a Waccasassa River and a bridge over it on Route 19. However, there is no bypass road nor wooden bridges. And, of course, the old house does not exist.

To anyone who might be skeptical of the possibility of Route 19 being inundated during a hurricane, it can be pointed out that this highway was under water in the vicinity of Yankeetown and Withlacoochee Bay during the 1950 hurricane known in the area as the Cedar Key Hurricane. Residents of Yankeetown were evacuated because of fear that the Florida Power and Light Company dam might burst. By the time it became apparent that it would have been a far better idea to evacuate the residents of Cedar Key, Route 24 was under water and impassable.

Though the chance is statistically remote, there need only be the unfortunate conjunction of hurricane path and high Gulf tide to create coastal death and damage surpassing the fictional account in this book.

Except for a slow oily swell, the Caribbean Sea was flat and quiet and eerily still on the morning of Sunday, October fourth. Sarrensen, Captain of the Swedish motor vessel
Altagarde,
had a late solitary breakfast in his cabin. He had slept poorly and his digestion, never reliable, was bothering more than usual on this trip.

He was a small quiet remote man with a soured expression and a reputation for reliability. It was after nine when he climbed to the bridge, nodded to the Third, checked the log and the heading, and walked out onto the port wing of the bridge. He put short blunt fingers inside his belt and pressed against the area of a stomach cramp and looked at the sea world around him. He did not like the look of the day. The sky, though cloudless, was too pale. The sun was fierce and white. The flat sea had the look of a blue mirror on which warm breath has been blown, misting it. It was impossible to see where the sea ended and the sky began.

The immediate destination of the
Altagarde
was Havana, about five hundred nautical miles away. He looked at his gold watch and looked at the sky and estimated their time of arrival at nine on Monday evening. But he did not like the look of the day.

He walked in and stood by the Third and looked at the barometer. Low. Not dangerously low, but significantly low.

“Still slipping,” he said.

“Not much. It’s pretty steady. Been about where it is since six. I told Sparks to pick up all the weather he can.”

“Good.”

Sarrensen walked out onto the starboard wing. He leaned his arms on the rail and gave a small grunt of pain at an especially sharp stomach twinge. There was no sense of motion in the
Altagarde.
It moved smoothly across the featureless sea, rocking but slightly to the long slow swells. The wake was a ruled line behind her. Through the soles of his shoes, and in the tremor of the rail, Sarrensen felt the deep and comforting
cha-gah, cha-gah, cha-gah
of the turning shaft.

He took out his watch and timed the swells. Somewhere between five and six a minute. In these tropical waters the norm was eight. A hurricane reduces the incidence of the swells, and sends them radiating out in all directions from the center of the storm, moving sometimes as fast as eighty miles an hour, moving far ahead of the storm, carrying a sure warning to primitive peoples of the islands. He carefully noted the direction from which the swells were coming in relation to the compass direction of the ship. Then he went below.

At three o’clock in the afternoon on Sunday, October fourth, the wind began. It came out of the east. It was a fitful, elusive, teasing wind. It riffled the misted blue of the sea. Infrequent gusts, almost as sturdy as a squall, pressed against the steel flank of the
Altagarde,
and she would roll in response. Sarrensen went out onto the starboard wing. Streamers of high cirrus cloud radiated from a point on the southeast horizon. Sarrensen faced directly into the wind. It was a rule of thumb, as old as the half-rule of man over the sea, that in the counter-clockwise winds of hurricanes in the northern hemisphere, when you face into the wind your right hand points at the storm center. It gave new confirmation of the direction the swells had told him. It was far from him, behind him. Knowing the location of it stilled some of the uneasiness he had felt all day.

The
Altagarde
radioed her position and reported the estimated position of a tropical disturbance. The report was relayed to Miami where it became a partial confirmation of previous reports. At the time the report was received the tropical disturbance was termed an area of suspicion. By five-twenty on Monday evening the first search aircraft entered the area and radioed back sufficient information so that by the time of the six o’clock news broadcasts the disturbance had been dignified by awarding it the name of Hilda. It was the eighth storm of the season.

But it did not begin, as though on signal, with the designation of a name. It began earlier, and in a timeless way. Flat sea baking under a tropic sun. Water temperature raised by the long summer. The still air, heated by sun and sea, rising endlessly, creating an area of low pressure to be filled by air moving in from all sides to rise in turn.

But these factors alone could not create
hurakan.
There must be added the thousand miles an hour spinning of the earth itself. The warm currents rose high, and there was the effect of drag, the way a speeding car can raise dust devils along the dry shoulder of a highway. The spin began slowly at first, very slowly. At times it died out and then began again. It covered a great area, and the winds spun slowly at the rim of the wheel, but more quickly toward the hub. It gathered momentum. It began to gain in force and speed and it seemed to feed upon itself, to gain greater life force as it began to move slowly from the area where it began, began to move in the long curved path that would carry it in a northwesterly direction until, on some unknown day in the future it would at last die completely away.

As it moved it pushed the hot moist air ahead of it, and the moisture of that air, cooled by height, fell as heavy drenching rain.

Man spoke across the empty air above the sea. The location, direction, velocity were charted. Man warned man. Prepare for this violence that is now aimed at you.

But the other living creatures were warned in other ways. They were affected by the barometric changes. Birds turned away from the path of the storm. On small keys legions of fiddler crabs marched inland, ponderous claws raised. The fish ceased feeding and moved at lower levels.

By eight o’clock on Monday night the wind velocities near the center of the disturbance were measured at eighty miles an hour. The hurricane had begun its lateral movement. At from fifteen to eighteen miles an hour it moved north-northwest toward the long island of Cuba. It was carefully watched and plotted.

In Miami, a city wise in the ways of hurricanes, sucker disks were fastened to the big shop windows and thumb screws tightened the disks to rigid metal uprights that would keep the windows from picking up the vibration that would shatter them. Men climbed on roofs and put additional guy wires on television aerials. The sale of radio batteries was brisk. Drinking water was stored. Gasoline stoves were taken out of storage. There was a flavor of excitement in the city, even of amiability, as man accepted this immediate and understandable tension in fair exchange for the tiresome tensions of his everyday life.

At some time during the middle of Tuesday, October sixth, Hilda changed direction. She picked up her great gray skirts and moved west. Ten billion tons of warm rain had fallen heavily on Cuba and, at two in the afternoon, the gusts which struck Havana reached a measured peak of fifty miles an hour. They began to fade in intensity and the rain stopped.

Key West got the rain too. And winds no more serious. Hilda skirted them and moved on into the Gulf of Mexico. Precautions were relaxed in Miami. The cities of the Florida West Coast began to prepare as Miami had prepared.

By midnight the sky over Cuba was still and the stars were clear and bright. It was then that the sky over Key West began to clear. In Naples it was raining torrents. And in Fort Myers. The rain had just begun in Boca Grande. The rain did not begin in Clearwater until three in the morning…

Jean Dorn had been awakened by the rain at three o’clock. When the alarm awakened her again at seven it was still raining. She turned off the alarm before it awakened Hal. He should get as much sleep as possible. He would be driving all day. She pushed the single sheet back and got quietly out of bed, a tall blond woman with a sturdy body, which was just beginning to show the heaviness of pregnancy. Before she went to the bathroom she looked in at the children. Five-year-old Stevie slept on his back, arms out-flung. Three-year-old Jan, still in a crib, slept curled in a warm ball. In the gray light of the drab morning both children looked very brown from the long summer of the Gulf beaches.

They were healthy little animals, full of energy. Three days in the car was going to be very wearing indeed. She decided to wake them at the last possible moment.

Jean walked from the children’s room to the living room.

Rain was drenching the patio, a hard thick rain that looked as though it would never end. She looked at the room she had loved, at the furniture so carefully selected, and she felt a grayness in her heart that matched the rain. Now there was nothing personal left in the room. They had disposed of some things. They had packed the things they couldn’t hear to part with. The rest went with the house. Cold phrase. It goes with the house.
And my heart goes with the house,
she thought.

If they had only known. If they had only been just a little wiser. Bought a less pretentious place. Then they might have been able to stay longer, might have been able to hang on until the turning point came and they would be able to stay on in this place they both loved.

Defeat was a very bitter thing. They had never suspected that it would happen to them. They were the golden ones. The undefeated. Accustomed to the warm bright smile of good fortune.

Two years ago Hal Dorn had been an Intermediate Consultant with Jason and Rawls, Industrial Engineers, in New York. He was well-paid, well-thought-of. They had been married six years and, after Stevie was born, they moved out of their uptown apartment to a small house in Pleasantville. They had met in college, and theirs was a good marriage. Hal, dark, lean-faced, tense, was a perfect foil for her blond calm, her sense of fun.

Though Hal often complained that his work was a rat race, Jean knew that he enjoyed responding to the challenge of it. The future seemed certain. Were Hal to stay with Jason and Rawls he would become a Senior Consultant, and perhaps later a junior partner.

Change began two years ago in a doctor’s office. Stevie’s attack of asthma had been so bad this time that she had been in panic. She could remember the doctor’s words. “I don’t think we’re going to be able to do much good with medication with Stevie. He may eventually grow out of it. What he really needs is a different climate. A warmer place. These winters are criminal. But I guess it would be impossible for you people to pull up stakes and get out.”

At first it had seemed impossible. But it was Hal who said, “Good Lord, Jean, it’s just a job. It isn’t a dedication. Suppose I have to start something new. I’m thirty-one. And how in hell could we ever forgive ourselves if…” He did not have to finish the sentence.

It had taken a lot of thought and a lot of planning. They got less for the Pleasantville house than they had hoped. It had been sold furnished. It was Hal who had seen the opportunities on the Florida West Coast. The firm had been sorry to lose him, but Mr. Rawls had been very understanding when they told him about Stevie.

They had sold themselves the idea of change, and they had begun this new life with optimism and excitement. Hal had specialized in accounting procedures, and so, in downtown Clearwater he had opened a small office. Harold Dora, Consultant. Jean had found the house for them. A little more than they had expected to pay. A nice home in Belleaire in a neighborhood where there were other small children.

They had been so certain that they could make it, that they would never fail. Hal, with all his tireless energy, could not be defeated. But he had been. Soundly whipped. He had picked up some small accounts. Some bars, a few neighborhood stores, a small boat company. But not enough. He had given up the office to cut expenses. He worked at home. It did not help enough. She cut every possible penny from their expenses, but it was not enough. The meager reserve dwindled as their fear grew. There was no one to turn to, no one in all the world.

And she had to watch Hal tearing himself apart. That was perhaps the worst part. He found a full-time job in a warehouse and he would work on his accounts at night, often falling asleep at his desk. He became thinner and more silent and he became irritable with the children.

A month ago they came to the end of the line. Hal said, “We can’t do it. We can’t make it. We’re licked. We’ve got to go back while we can still afford to go back, or I don’t know what’s going to become of us. We’ve got to get our money out of this house and go back. I’m… sorry, Jean. I’m so damn sorry.” And, shockingly, he had wept and she knew they were tears of exhaustion.

He had gone up on a day coach. He was gone four days. He came back with a smile she knew was too cheerful. “I start October fifteenth with Brainerd.”

“But what about…”

“Jason and Rawls? So sorry. Full staff right now.They don’t like their people to take off and then try to come back. It won’t be the same kind of money with Brainerd. But it will be enough. Thank God, it will be enough.”

“The next time we come back here, we come to stay,” she said.

“Sure,” he said. “Sure. The next time.”

“Stevie’s had two years here, Hal. He’s never been so healthy. We had to give him those two years. We can’t be sorry about that.”

She looked through the side windows of the kitchen and saw the station wagon in the car port. It was the same car they had driven to Florida. It was packed to the roof. The luggage carrier on top was heavily laden. There was a small nest for Stevie and Jan just behind the front seat.

With all my worldly goods I thee endow.

She wondered why she should think of that phrase. She sighed and reviewed what there was to do. Pack the few remaining items. Have Hal dismantle the crib and stow it in the wagon. Lock up and leave the keys in the mail slot in the front door of the real estate agent who had sold it for them. Have breakfast in the diner and head north up Route Nineteen. End of episode.

She remembered how it had been when they had left Pleasantville. Farewell parties. Silly parting gifts. Gaiety. Confidence. “Going to live in Florida, hah? Wish I had it so good.”

But even though they had friends here, good friends, they were leaving furtively. The good friends knew the score. It happened so often in Florida.
The Dorns? Oh, they had to go back north. Couldn’t quite make it. Damn shame, too. Nice people. But you know how it is. Everybody thinks they can come down here and make a living. One of the toughest places in the world to make a living unless you can come in with enough money to set up a real tourist trap.

There would be no pleasure in saying good-by. Better to write them after getting settled in the north. Maybe, one day, there’d be a chance to visit them. She knew that they would not try again. Not ever. It had taken too much out of Hal. It had taken something away from him. It had taken some of his spirit. She knew that his confidence in himself would never be the same again, and thus it was possible that others would never have the same confidence in him. It could be that the bright future was forever lost. That was too bad, for his sake. But it could not change her love. Nothing could change that.

She woke Hal and then went in to get the kids and dressed. Stevie woke up in a sour mood. He had been a real beast about leaving. He did not want to leave. He liked it here. He did not see why they had to leave. He didn’t want to be anywhere else in the world but right here, forever. Jan sang her placid little morning song and ignored the querulousness of her brother.

When she went back to the bedroom, Hal sat on the side of the bed staring out at the morning. “Great day for a trip, eh?”

“It can’t rain this hard very long. Up and at ’em. I’ve got to fold these sheets.”

He stood up slowly. “Very efficient, aren’t you?” The way he said it made it unpleasant.

“I’m a demon packer-upper,” she said lightly.

He looked at her and then looked away. It was not often lately that he looked directly into her eyes. When he did she saw the lost look in his eyes, the uncertainty. “At least that bucket won’t overheat on us. It’s damn sticky feeling, though.”

“I guess it’s the tail end of that hurricane.”

“We’ll be out of the way of it soon enough.”

“Hal, I’m sort of anxious to see autumn in the north. People raking leaves. Football weather. All that.”

“How obliging of you.”

“Please, darling. Don’t.”

“Then stop being pollyanna and trying to make everything come out cozy and perfect. It isn’t coming out cozy and perfect, so why not admit it.”

“And go around wringing my hands and moaning?”

“Like I do?”

“I didn’t mean that and you know it. Hal, let’s try to be a little bit cheery, even if it hurts.”

He clapped his hands sourly. “Goody, goody. We’re going on a trip.” He trudged to the bathroom, head bowed, pyjamas too baggy on his body. She looked at the closed door and sighed again and finished folding the bedding. She put on her Dacron skirt and a light-weight blouse. She took the bedding into the kitchen and put it on the counter near the carport door.

They left at eight o’clock. Before they left she went in and took one last look around. The house was bare and impersonal. It was as though they had never lived there. They dropped off the keys. They ate at the diner. Hal seemed to be making an effort to be pleasant. Stevie was naughty enough to merit the threat of a spanking. They drove out toward the Courtney Campbell Causeway and turned north on Route Nineteen. The heavy rain cut visibility. The quality of the light seemed more like dusk than morning. All cars had their lights on. The wipers swept solid water off the windshield. She touched Hal’s arm lightly and was relieved when he smiled over at her.

A few miles from Clearwater they turned on the car radio. “… to give you the latest word on Hurricane Hilda. Hilda is now reported to be in the Gulf about a hundred miles west and a little north of the Tampa Bay area. The central West Coast is experiencing heavy rains as far north as Cedar Key. Though the experts predicted that Hilda would begin to lose force during the night, it is reported that wind velocities near the center have actually increased and are now as high as a hundred and fifteen miles an hour. After moving on a steady course for many hours, the northward movement has slowed and it is less easy to predict the direction the storm will take. The Louisiana and Texas coasts have been alerted. We now return you to the program already in progress.”

Hal turned the radio off after two bars of hillbilly anguish.

“Could it come back in to land ahead of us?” Jean asked.

“Could what come?” Stevie demanded, leaning over the front seat. “Could what come?”

“The hurricane, dear,” Jean said, knowing that it might take his mind off the woes of leaving Clearwater.

“Wow!” Stevie said, awed.

“This rain, Stevie,” Hal said, “always comes ahead of a hurricane, but we’re sort of on the edge of it. It’s going up the Gulf and I don’t think it will cut back this way.”

“I hope it does,” Stevie said firmly.

“And I most fervently hope it doesn’t,” Jean said.

“It would be pretty improbable,” Hal said. Ahead of the car, in the gloom, he saw the running lights of a truck. He eased up behind it, moved out, accelerated, dropped back into his lane in front of the truck.

I can do this,
he thought.
I can drive just fine. I can boil right along in the old wagon without endangering my three hostages to fortune. What else can I do? Shave neatly and tie my shoes and make standard small talk. And make a living in a very narrow and specialized profession.

We went down there with over seven thousand dollars and now we have twenty-one hundred left, and the car, and what we’ve got with us. Clothing that has seen better days.

If it was only that. A loss like on a crap table, or taken by somebody who forced a window. But there’s the other loss. Esteem. Husband who couldn’t make it. Father who dropped the ball.

And he knew that was the area of greatest soreness. Father:

… sitting there in the dark front room on a winter afternoon. A room seldom used. Front room in a mill town house, one of a row of houses all rubbed gray as with a dirty eraser. Down across the viaduct were the slag piles, with skin frozen harsh in winter so that they could be the great dead lizards that Miss Purse told the class about—nobody knew why they’d all died. She said some men thought that a small rodent-like animal had multiplied and it was that animal that ate their eggs.

Slag heaps, and down beyond the town the silent red night fire of the furnaces—silent in the distance but when you went down there they huffed and roared like dragons that were alive.

Jerry’s dad comes home at night black as licorice. And startling white around his eyes. Comes home walking, trudging up the hill, loose Thermos in the black tin bucket going clink as he steps. But your father is at the mill, not in the mines, and he comes home clean because foremen have a place where they can wash up. His nails are black but he smells of hard yellow soap and when you are little you run down the hill and he picks you up and his great arm is like a bar of iron, holding you once too tightly so your leg went to sleep but you didn’t tell him, and fell when he put you down on the porch.