“ Fred? How do you know my manager’s name? You tricked me! I’m not saying another word.”
I kept talking. “I think the person who helped you last night helped you bury Annie Sylvester fifteen years ago. Or at least provided you with some kind of alibi.”
“Just like Fred. What did I tell you?” Myles said. “Why bother with questions if you think you have all the answers?”
I said, “I have a few. Billy Sofvia worked for your family in those days, so it makes sense he helped dig the grave. But he’s dead. Died a POW.”
The man tried to hide his surprise but was still sitting up straight, listening.
I continued, “Billy knew you killed the girl. So you either had him fired or somehow steered him into the military. You wanted him as far from the Hamptons as possible. That means at least two people knew you killed Annie.”
His expression said Huh?
“Your parents fired the guy, so one of them either suspected or was sure of it.”
“They’re dead. Leave them out of this.”
“Then there’s at least one person still alive who knows-not counting me.”
He raised his voice. “Who have you been talking to?”
“Aside from the boys down at the bowling alley, you mean? Skull and Bones doesn’t come up that often.”
He turned to face me. “What does my fraternity have to do with.. . How do you know about-” Myles stopped himself because he was flustered, getting mad as he tried to put it together. “Look,” he said, “enough of your games. What’s going on here? One minute, you pretend to be a professional killer. Now you’re talking about things that no one can… that no one is-”
“Supposed to know?” I offered. “Maybe it would be easier if you answered in code. Eight for yes, seven for no. Did I get it right.. . Magog?”
“ Magog? My God!” He took a long, slow breath. “That’s enough. There’s no possible way for you to know that name unless you spoke to-”
I said, “There’s always a way. I know a lot about you, Myles. Almost every question I ask, I already know the answer. Lie to me and I’ll take you back to that road.”
“You sonuvabitch,” he said. “You have been setting me up!”
“ Eight for yes, ” I replied. “Now it’s your turn. Besides Billy Sofvia, who knew you killed the girl? Norvin Tomlinson? Or maybe you snuck off to your island hideaway and confessed to all of your fraternity pals.”
His voice dropped a notch. “Who told you about the island? There can’t be more than two dozen people who know about Tamarindo. Tell me the man’s name and I’ll tell you the truth, deal?”
I’d been referring to Deer Island off Maine, not a tropical island. Tamarinds are an equatorial fruit. But I covered my surprise by saying, “How do you know it was a man? It could have been one of your fraternity sisters. Women Bonesmen: Ever think you’d see the day?”
Myles said, “You’re wrong about that. There are no women, not in our fraternity. Ever, ” his tone so bitter that I realized I had stumbled on something important. I let him talk.
He said, “Who sent you? What are you, an attorney? A private investigator? You’re not really a hit man. This whole thing has been an act.” His voice was getting louder. “Goddamn it, pull over!”
On the road ahead, just before the turnoff to the beach, was a maintenance shed and parking area screened from the road by trees. I’d seen it while jogging to the Falcon Landing entrance. I swung into the parking area and switched off the lights, listening to Myles rant, “Did one of those bitches send you?”
I replied, “Your fraternity sisters would object to the generalization.”
“Those self-righteous, manipulative bitches, that’s who’s behind this. Are they trying to get even because of my lawsuit? Or because someone took what they think belonged to them?”
I said, “You robbed your own fraternity house?”
“You can’t steal what you already own… And I’m not saying another word until you answer me. And don’t try your tough-guy lines again. I won’t fall for it. You’re not a killer. You’re a goddamn actor!”
When I put the Range Rover in park, he reached for the keys. I pushed his arm away. When he tried it again, I laced my arm around his elbow, applied enough pressure to slam him back into his seat. I brought out the little Seecamp. When he turned to protest, I jammed the gun barrel under his chin and lifted. I continued lifting until the man was half standing, head against the car’s roof. He had to grab the sun visor for balance.
I said, “Somehow, Magog, you got the wrong impression about me.”
He said, “You’re hurting me,” but was thinking about it, reassessing, not yet convinced.
When he made an effort to pull away, I wedged a thumb under his jaw and my two middle fingers into the socket beneath his left eye and shook him. My grip was as solid as if his skull were a bowling ball. Ironic. He couldn’t pry my fingers loose but kept trying until I banged the back of his head against the window.
“Know what I found out tonight?” I whispered. “I’m no actor. You need to pay attention, Mr. Myles.” Slowly, slowly, I removed my hand from his face, adding, “I’ve killed better men than you.”
Myles made the reflexive, mewing sound again as he inhaled. Maybe it was the way I said it or maybe because it was true, but the man became as submissive as he’d been on the dirt road.
“I got carried away,” he said. “I’m… sorry. But prying into my personal business, especially fraternity business, I lose my temper.”
“A club for college boys. Do fraternities have a rule against growing up?”
“You could never understand. Even new members don’t understand. It’s not really a fraternity. It’s a noble society, hundreds of years old, left to a very few of us in trust. I’ve had a lot of shitty things happen in my life. But being a Bonesman is the one good thing no one can ever take away from me.”
“Must have been tough when the court ruled in favor of admitting women.”
“That doesn’t mean it happened,” Myles replied, the softness going out of him.
“Well… I don’t give a damn about Skull and Bones. That’s not why I’m here,” I told him. “I’m after the boy.” I was holding the cell phone. “This is how it works. You have five minutes. I ask a question, you answer. Hesitate or lie to me, I slam your head into the window.” I touched the record icon and placed the phone on the dash. “ Talk.”
I wanted to know about Tamarindo. How far was it? How private? Had he told the Cubans about the place?
When he said, “I might have,” I felt the same weird transference as when I had cupped the little chunk of granite in my hand.
The island was south of Myakka Inlet, he told me, only two miles from the man’s beachfront property at Falcon Landing. That put it about forty miles north-northeast of Sanibel, close enough that I was suspicious. I’d never heard of the place. But then he explained, “That’s what we’ve always called it. On maps, it either doesn’t have a name or it’s called something else. It’s about ten miles north of Hog Island.”
I had boated past Hog Island, but it took a few seconds to make a more important connection. Hog Island was where police had trapped and arrested Barbara Mackle’s kidnapper, Gary Krist. My intuitive senses, never strong, were suddenly and subtly displacing reason. But I continued asking questions to assemble proof.
Myles told me his family had owned the island since the 1920s. It was small, about fifteen acres, mangrove bushes on the eastern rim, coconut palms, and a section of beach that faced Charlotte Harbor. His grandfather had built a private fishing camp that had become a retreat for three generations of Myles men. Myles had used the island as an occasional meeting place for his Skull and Bones friends.
I listened closely, trying to see his eyes in the dim dash lights, as he told me the island’s main cabin was built of block and stone. It had a complicated lock system, steel rods through all windows and doors, to discourage vandals. “Even though there’s nothing really valuable inside,” he said. “Some fishing gear and canned food, that’s all. But we don’t want outsiders wrecking the place.”