The Bungalow (35 page)

That evening, Jennifer’s cell phone rang inside her purse on the balcony, where I sat watching the waves roll softly onto the shore. The sea sparkled in the light of the crescent moon overhead. “Honey,” I called out to her through the French doors, “your phone’s ringing.”

She bounded out to the terrace in a pair of green pajama pants and fumbled through her bag. “That’s funny,” she said. “I didn’t think I’d get any reception out here.”

“Hello?” she said into the phone. I listened half heartedly to the one-sided conversation. “You’re kidding.” She listened for what seemed like an eternity. “Oh.” She paused, disturbed by something, then smiled. “Well, I’m very grateful. Thank you. Thank you so much. I’ll ring you when I’m back in Seattle.”

Jennifer ended the call and sat down in the wicker chair next to mine. “It was the woman from the archives,” she said, stunned. “They found him. They found the artist.”

I blinked hard, remembering her exchange with Genevieve earlier.
Can it be possible?
“He’s not . . . is he?” I hated to admit it, but Jennifer’s imagination had me hopeful.

“I’m sorry, Grandma,” she said. “No. It’s not Westry.”

I nodded. “Of course,” I said, feeling childish for linking the stories the way I had.

She watched a seabird fly overhead, following it with her eyes until it was out of sight. “The artist died four years ago,” she continued.

“Sorry, honey,” I said, patting her hand.

“It’s OK,” she replied, forcing a smile. “At least the mystery’s solved now—well, sort of. Now that I know who he is, I might be able to talk to his family.”

“That’s right,” I said. “Wish we had a bottle of champagne around.”

“Why?”

“To toast the occasion.”

Jennifer gave me a confused look.

“Honey,” I said, “you finally found your guy.”

Jennifer leaned her head against my shoulder. “You’ll find yours, too,” she said. “I have a feeling that it will all work out.”

“Maybe,” I said, hoping she couldn’t hear the doubt in my voice, because my heart told me I was too late.

Just as we had planned, Genevieve met us on the beach the next day after breakfast. “Morning,” she said, approaching with a cheerful smile. She carried a backpack, and her curly hair pushed out of her white floppy sun hat.

“Thank you so much for meeting me today,” she said once we were a good distance away from the hotel. “I can’t tell you how exciting it is to be closer to the answers.”

“I hope I have the right ones,” I said quietly, preparing myself for what lay ahead. “Tell me what you know about the crime already.”

“Well,” she said, adjusting her backpack, “I know only what the islanders know, or believe they know—that the man who committed the murder was responsible for a series of pregnancies on the island, several native women and an American nurse.”

I nodded. “I didn’t see him,” I said quietly, looking out at the stretch of white sand before us. “It was too dark. But the only man it could have been was Lance.”

“Lance?”

“Yes,” I said. “He was the man my best friend, at the time, was seeing. He left her in a terrible predicament—pregnant and alone, while he continued his philandering with the native women.”

Genevieve stopped suddenly and turned to me. “Anne,” she said, “I don’t understand. If you knew all of this, why didn’t you tell? Why didn’t you report it?”

I sighed, clasping my hands tightly together. “I know how it must sound, but it’s more complicated than that.” The bungalow was close, so I gestured to a bit of driftwood near the shore. “Let’s sit for a moment. I’ll tell you what I know.”

We sat down on a beam that had washed up on the shore, gray and smooth from years of battling with the surf. I pointed behind us. “That,” I said, “is where I watched him put a knife to her throat.”

Genevieve covered her mouth.

“I hovered in the shadows until he was gone, then ran to her. I held her in my arms as she fought for life, for air.” I shook my head. “There was nothing I could do for her. She was dying. Westry appeared moments later. He and I remembered the stash of morphine in my bag. The nurses always kept supplies of it in their medical cases. It could end her pain; we both knew that. I was reluctant at first, but as I watched her labored breathing and heard the way her lungs gurgled, I knew it was the only way. The morphine was more than enough to end her suffering, and end her life. She died in my arms.”

Genevieve patted my arm. “You did the right thing,” she said. “It’s what any of us would have done in the same situation.”

I wiped away a tear. “It’s what I’ve told myself all these years, but in my heart, I knew I could have done more.”

“Like report the crime?” Genevieve asked.

“Yes.”

“Tell me why you didn’t.”

I nodded. “It was Westry’s idea to keep quiet. He told me it was for our own good, that we would be charged for the murder. But I don’t think that was the real reason. Westry would never run from justice unless there was an important reason.” I looked out to the shore, remembering him on that night, so sure, so strong. He had known something I hadn’t. “He spoke of protecting someone,” I continued. “If we went to the authorities on base, he feared that something terrible might happen. I trusted him.”

“Do you have any inkling of what he may have meant by that?”

“I don’t,” I said, throwing my hands in the air. “Believe me, I’ve thought about that night for seventy years now, and I’m no closer to understanding his concerns than I was seventy years ago.”

Genevieve sighed.

“But,” I continued, “as I mentioned last night, I do have something to show you. A clue. I tucked it away the night of the murder, hoping it may be of use one day years from then, when the truth was ready to be told. That time may be now.”

I stood up, and Genevieve and Jennifer followed my lead.

“Would you like me to take you to it?”

“Yes,” Genevieve said eagerly.

Jennifer steadied me as we pushed through the brush and made our way farther into the jungle.
Look at me, schlepping through the jungle at my age.
But age didn’t matter now. Nothing mattered but truth, and I was intent on finding it.

I stared ahead, attempting to get my bearings. “Yes,” I nodded to myself. “It should be right over here.”

The landscape looked different, of course, but I knew when I saw the large palm in the distance that we were close. I pushed ahead of Jennifer and Genevieve and hastened my pace until I reached the base of the old palm. I knelt down and sank my hands into the moist soil, excavating as much dirt as I could.
It has to be here.

“Can I help?” Genevieve asked, hovering over the pile of dirt I’d amassed with my bare hands.

I shook my head. “Just a few minutes longer, and I should have it.” Soil caked my hands and arms. It got under my nails in a way that may have bothered me years ago, but I didn’t care now. I’d never been so close to justice. I could smell it. And a moment later I could feel it.

My hand hit something hard about a foot below the surface, and I worked harder to secure an opening to retrieve it. I gasped.

“Grandma, are you OK?” Jennifer whispered, kneeling beside me.

“Yes,” I said, producing the package I’d hidden so long ago. I unwrapped the ragged fabric, formerly the hem of my dress, which was now in shreds from moisture and insects, and produced the knife.

“The murder weapon,” I said to Genevieve. “I searched for it after he threw it into the jungle, then I buried it hoping to find it again when the time was right.”

Like a forensic expert, Genevieve pulled a ziplock bag from her backpack and carefully placed the knife inside. Then she handed me a wet wipe for my hands. “The time is right,” she said quietly. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me,” I said solemnly. “Just bring Atea the justice she deserves.”

“I will,” Genevieve replied, examining the knife through the bag. “These inscriptions—the unit and issue numbers—they have to mean something.”

“They do,” I said. “They’ll lead you to Lance.”

“Good,” she replied, tucking it into her bag. “I can look this up with help from the army’s historical society. They keep records of everything from the war. It’s how I found you, after all.”

I smiled to myself as we walked in silence back to the beach. It felt good to set the truth free, and I felt lighter for it.

Genevieve’s cell phone rang inside her backpack, and Jennifer and I excused ourselves to the shore, where I submerged my hands in the salty water, cleansing them of any residual dirt—and evil—that had clung to the knife.

“I’m proud of you, Grandma,” Jennifer said, kneeling down next to me. “That took a lot of courage, what you did.”

“Thank you, dear,” I said, patting my hands dry on my pants. “I should have done it years ago.”

We walked back up the beach to where Genevieve stood, still talking on her cell phone. “Yes, honey,” she said. “I promise, I’ll be home later and we can have that dinner together we talked about.” She paused. “Love you too, Adella.”

The hair on my arms stood on end.
That name. I haven’t heard it uttered since, since . . .
I looked at Jennifer and the expression on her face told me she’d made the connection too.

“Excuse me,” I said to Genevieve moments later. The hotel was in sight now, and I could hear the splashing and laughter of swimmers echoing up the shore. “I couldn’t help but overhear you say the name Adella.”

“Oh,” she said, “yes, my daughter.”

“It’s such a beautiful name,” I said. “You don’t hear it often.”

“You don’t,” she said. “I’ve never met another Adella in my life, actually. It’s my middle name. I was adopted, you know, and it was supposedly the name my birth mother had chosen for me.”

I looked away, unable to hide the emotion rising in my heart.

“My parents felt compelled to keep it,” she said, looking thoughtful for a moment. “When my own daughter was born, it was the only name that felt right.”

“Anne,” she said, concerned, “is something wrong?”

“No,” I said, collecting myself. “I’m fine. I was just wondering if you ever met your birth mother or tried to find her.”

“Believe me,” she said, “I’ve tried. My parents would tell me nothing of her.” She looked lost in thought for a moment, then her mouth formed a smile. “A schoolteacher once told me my mother had to be French because I had a perfect French nose. But, I’ll never know. The records were destroyed long ago.”

“Well,” Genevieve said, clasping her hands together. Now that I’d put the pieces together, I could see that her eyes were the eyes of Kitty in her youth. “Here I am, going on about myself and keeping you out in the hot sun. It’s been an emotional morning. I should let you rest. Why don’t I come by tomorrow when I have some news about the serial numbers on this knife? I should know something by the afternoon.”

I nodded. “That would be lovely,” I said, my head spinning.

“We’ll have a lot to talk about, then.”

“We will,” I replied, tucking a stray curl behind her ear, the way I might have done if Kitty had been standing in front of me just then.

“I
’m going to run down to the beach for a while,” Jennifer said the next morning. I could smell coconut shampoo in her freshly washed hair as she leaned in close. “Want anything? A croissant? A latte?”

I smiled. “I’m fine, dear.”

As the door clicked shut behind her, I pulled out Westry’s journal and continued reading his letters. I pored over the yellowed pages, learning about the life he’d led without me, and the love he’d harbored, a love that seemed to grow stronger and clearer by the year. When I reached the final page, dated five years ago, my heart seized: