The Shadow Box (16 page)

“Oh, yeah,” he said brightly. “This is interesting about
the gold.”

Inquisitive, Doyle would note later, but discursive. He
had an unsettling habit of leaping between subjects as if
indifferent to the one that was of immediate interest to
his audience.

“You want to bring gold into India,” he began, “you
have to smuggle it. Otherwise they tax the hell out of it
to protect their own gold fields which are down around
Madras.”

“Madras,” echoed Fat Julie. “Like in Madras shirts.”

“Thank you.”

“Kid's smart,” said Fat Julie proudly. “You listen to this.”

“Yahya here,” Johnny G. continued, “says one time a
car drove in, they searched it and came up empty until a
border guard scratched it by accident. The whole damned
body was made of gold.” He shook his head as if in
wonderment. ”I mean, this is
India.
Didn't you always think India was poor?”

Doyle closed his eyes. “The chemical, Johnny. Finish
about the chemical.”

Johnny G. smiled. “You already guessed, right?” He
flipped back to the beginning and read from the page.
“It's manufactured by a company in Akra, which is near
Calcutta. It's called Bhatpara Chemical. Bhatpara Chemi
cal is a wholly owned subsidiary of . . .” He smirked
expectantly at Doyle.

Doyle frowned. “AdChem?”

“Give the man a cigar. That's also where the gold
goes.”

A
s Fat Julie signaled the waiter to bring menus, Doyle looked across at the nervous Pakistani, who had not uttered
a word. He wondered why they brought him. He threw a
questioning glance at Johnny G.

“Just wait,” said the younger Giordano. “We'll get to
the good part in a minute.”

Chapter
12

M
ichael Fal
l
on,
at that hour, was on the ferry
to Woods Hole.
He had not, he told himself, set out to see the famous
Megan. The most she had to do with it was that she started
him thinking about getting a boat of his own. Nothing big
at first because he probably wouldn't have the time to
enjoy it, let alone keep it up. Maybe a Boston whaler that he could use to buzz around the island. Whalers have a
shallow draft. Perfect for clamming and for running up
onto quiet beaches.

A used one had been advertised in Saturday's paper. It
was up in Vineyard Haven sitting at the town dock. He
drove over to see it on Sunday morning.

The town dock happened to be near the ferry landing.
The ferry to Woods Hole just happened to be in and was taking passengers. On an impulse, similar to the one that
brought him here, Fal
l
on bought a round-trip ticket and
walked aboard.

This had nothing to do with Megan. All he wanted was
to sit out in the sun with a cup of coffee, enjoy the cross
ings, then wander around Woods Hole, which he still had
never actually seen, until it was time to catch the next
ferry back. But he just
might
amble by her slip if he can
find it. Check out her boat. See what she really looks like.

Fallon saw her before the ferry reached the landing.

He spotted her boat first. Millie said it was a ketch,
blue hull, white top, with hatches and rails of richly pol
ished teak. He saw only one ketch. It fit that description.

There was no one on the deck but suddenly, near the
stern, a diver in a wet suit broke water. She, if that was
Megan, had been down cleaning her bottom. Fallon
watched as she rinsed off a scouring pad and tossed it
aboard. Next, without the aid of a swimming ladder, she launched herself up and over the gunwale. Fallon held his
breath. She unbuckled her SCUBA tank and stowed it in
the aft locker. She stripped off her hood and shook out
her hair. The hair was blond but a bit darker than he'd
imagined and it wasn't tied back. But everything else was
the same. The height, the weight, even the way she moved.
He couldn't see the eyes.

She slipped out of the wet suit and draped it over the
railing. Underneath, she wore a one-piece bathing suit that
was nearly backless. The front of it covered her entire
chest and tapered to her throat. She reached behind her
neck to undo it. A male voice near Fallon said, “Hey,
check that out.” Another said, “Man, I'd like some of
that.”

Fallon felt a flash of anger. He threw an annoyed glance
toward the source. Three young men of college age had
been watching as well. One of them met his eyes and
nudged the others. “You got a problem, buddy?” he said.

Fallon wanted to say, “Yeah, I've got a problem with
your mouth.” But he didn't. He remembered Doyle's
warning and, that aside, he knew that getting into a brawl
over a girl he'd never met would be terminally dumb.
He looked away, back toward the boat, but by then she
was gone.

He stayed on the upper deck watching, hoping that she would reappear. Ten minutes went by. Passengers were
walking off. Some had already reached the parking lot.
He was about to turn away, hurry down to the gangway
deck, when she emerged from the cabin hatch. Now she
wore short cutoff jeans and a loose-fitting blouse. She was
knotting its ends at her waist, leaving the midriff bare.

Her stomach looked rock-hard. And she had tied her hair
back. Dried and straightened, it was now a lighter shade.
She was, to his astonishment, just as he had envisioned
her.

Fallon,
he told himself.
Get a grip. You have about as
much ESP as a banana.

The phrase “pretty little thing/’ he realized, tends to
narrow the field in terms of height and weight. It suggests
that she's young. Women who live on boats, and who
single-hand them in any weather, do not look like couch potatoes. And they would have good color and their hair,
unless black, would be some shade of blond from the
bleaching effect of the sun. It's the same with women
skiers. Downhill racers. They all look like Megan for most
of the same reasons. They might be pretty little things but
any one of them could run ten miles cross-country without
breaking a sweat.

Anyway, he still hadn't seen her eyes. Maybe he was
wrong about the eyes.

“Pretty boat,” he said.

“Thank you.”

She was busy replacing a block on her traveler. She had
not looked up when he approached. But when he spoke
she seemed to stare, for just a beat, at nothing. Fallon saw
the logo of the boat's maker.

”A Cheoy Lee,” he said. “It's what . . . thirty-six
feet?”

“Thirty-four.”

“Full keel?”

She shook her head. “Shoal draft. Centerboard.”

“U
m
...
my name is Michael Fallon.”

She paused for a moment, chewed her lip. She nodded
slightly but did not volunteer her own.

Another stare. She seemed to be concentrating. She
would still not look at him but now he could see her eyes. They were not gray. They were an olive color. Why, he
wondered, does he have this thing about eyes? But he was
right about them being sad.

“Fallon,” she repeated. “You're the man who bought
the Taylor House?”

He was startled. But pleased.

“Could I ask how you knew that?”

“Small island, Mr. Fallon. And you're wasting your
time.”

She went back to her work on the traveler.

”I . . . didn't come about the laughing children. If that's
what you think.”

“They're called starlings.”

“Starlings?”

She nodded.

“U
m
. . . What's that? Some psychic term for lost
juvenile spirits?”

She looked at him at last.

“It's a
bird
term, Mr. Fallon. You have starlings in
your attic. Sometimes they get in the walls. It can sound like giggling.”

She turned away again.

“Then the house isn't haunted?”

“It wasn't until now.”

For the second time this morning, Fallon was getting steamed. He moved a step closer to ask what the hell that
crack was supposed to mean. Suddenly, the muscles in her
shoulders tightened. She dropped the block and spun to
face him, the screwdriver in her hand as if it were a
weapon. He stepped back quickly, both hands raised, his
expression one of bewilderment. At this, she seemed to
catch herself. She let out a breath and lowered the screw
driver to her side.

”I have work to do, Mr. Fallon.”