“Sure. He was asking the owner of the plane for a lift to Key West.”
“How do you know?”
“Standing right next to me,” said Ben.
“Did he seem worried, anxious, in a hurry?”
“So would you be, man! He done told the owner his wife called him and their kid was sick. The girl, she say that was real bad, they should help him. So the owner said he could ride with them to Key West.”
“Was there anyone else nearby?”
Ben thought for a while. “Only the other man helping load the luggage,” he said. “Employed by the owner, I think.”
“What did he look like, this other loader?”
“Never seen him before,” said Ben. “Black man, not from Sunshine. Bright-colored shirt, dark glasses. Didn’t say nothing.”
The Cessna rumbled up to the customs shed. Ben and Favaro shielded their eyes from the flying dust. Favaro saw a rumpled-looking man of medium build get out, take a suitcase and attaché case from the locker, stand back, wave to the pilot, and go into the shed.
Favaro was pensive as he studied the scene. Julio Gomez did not tell lies. But he had no wife and child. He must have been desperate to get on that flight and home to Miami. But why? Knowing his partner, Favaro was convinced that he had been under threat. The bomb was not for Klinger. It was for Gomez.
He thanked Ben and wandered back to the taxi that waited for him. As he climbed in, a British voice at his elbow said, “I know it’s a lot to ask, but could I hitch a ride into town? The cab rank seems to be empty.”
It was the man who had just gotten off the Cessna. “Sure,” said Favaro. “Be my guest.”
“Awfully kind,” said the Englishman as he put his gear in the trunk. On the five-minute ride into town, he introduced himself. “Frank Dillon,” he said.
“Eddie Favaro,” said the American. “You here for the fishing?”
“Alas, no. Not really my scene. Just here on vacation for a bit of piece and quiet.”
“No chance,” said Favaro. “There’s chaos here. There’s a whole crowd of London detectives due in soon, and a whole bunch of journalists. Last night someone shot the Governor in his garden.”
“Good Lord!” said the Englishman. He seemed genuinely shocked.
Favaro dropped him on the steps of the Quarter Deck, dismissed the cab, and walked the few hundred yards through the back streets to Mrs. Macdonald’s boarding house. Across Parliament Square, a big man was addressing a subdued crowd of citizens from the back of a flat truck. It was Mr. Livingstone himself. Favaro caught the booming roar of his oratory.
“And I say, brothers and sisters, you should share in the wealth of these islands! You should share in the fish caught from the sea, you should share the fine houses of the few rich who live up on the hill, you should share the ...”
The crowd did not look very enthusiastic. The truck was flanked by the same two large men who had torn down the Johnson posters in the Quarter Deck Hotel in the lunch hour and put up their own. There were several similar men throughout the crowd seeking to start a cheering response. They cheered alone. Favaro walked on. This time Mrs. Macdonald was in.
Desmond Hannah touched down at twenty to six. It was almost dark. Four other, lighter aircraft had just made it in time and were able to depart back to Nassau before the light faded. Their cargoes were the BBC, ITV, the Sunday Times man sharing with the Sunday Telegraph, and Sabrina Tennant and her team from BSB, the British Satellite Broadcasting company.
Hannah, Parker, Bannister, and the four Bahamian officers were met by Lieutenant Haverstock and Inspector Jones, the former in a cream tropical suit and the latter immaculate in his uniform. On the off-chance of earning some dollars, both of Port Plaisance’s taxis and two small vans had also appeared. All were snapped up.
By the time formalities were completed and the cavalcade had descended on the Quarter Deck Hotel, darkness had fallen. Hannah decreed there was no point in beginning investigations by flashlight, but he asked that the guard on Government House be continued through the night. Inspector Jones, much impressed to be working with a real Detective Chief Superintendent from Scotland Yard, barked out the orders.
Hannah was tired. It might be just after six in the islands, but it was eleven P.M. on his body clock, and he had been up since four A.M. He dined alone with Parker and Lieutenant Haverstock, which enabled him to get a firsthand account of what had actually happened the previous evening. Then he turned in.
The press found the bar with unerring and practiced speed. Rounds were ordered and consumed. The usual jocular banter of the press corps on a foreign assignment grew louder. No one noticed a man in a rumpled tropical suit drinking alone at the end of the bar and listening to their chatter.
“Where did he go after he left here?” Eddie Favaro asked Mrs. Macdonald. He was seated at her kitchen table while the good lady served up some of her conch chowder.
“He went over to the Quarter Deck for a beer,” she said.
“Was he in a cheerful mood?”
Her lilting singsong voice filled the room. “Bless you, Mr. Favaro, he was a happy man. A fine fish for supper, I was preparing him. He said he would be back at eight o’clock. I told him not to be late, or the dorado spoil and go dry. He laughed and said he would be on time.”
“And was he?”
“No, man. He was an hour and more late. The fish done spoil. And him talking nonsense.”
“What did he say? This ... nonsense.”
“He didn’t say much. Seemed worried bad. Then he said he seen a scorpion. Now you finish this soup up. That one bowl of God’s goodness in there.”
Favaro stiffened, his spoon halfway to his lips. “Did he say a scorpion, or the scorpion?”
She frowned at the effort of recollection.
“I thought he said a. But he mighta said the,” she admitted.
Favaro finished his soup, thanked her, and went back to the hotel. The bar was rowdy. He found a place near the far end, away from the press crowd. The end stool was occupied by the Englishman from the airstrip, who raised his glass in salute but said nothing.
“Thank God for that,” thought Favaro. The crumpled limey seemed at least to have the gift of silence.
Eddie Favaro needed to think. He knew how his friend and partner had died, and he thought he knew why. In some mysterious manner, here in these paradise islands, Julio Gomez had seen—or thought he had seen—the coldest killer either of them had ever met.
Chapter 3
Desmond Hannah began work the following morning just after seven, while the cool of dawn still lay on the land. His starting place was Government House.
He had a long interview with the butler, Jefferson, who related to him the Governor’s unswerving habit of retiring to his walled garden about five each afternoon, to take a whiskey and soda before the sun went down. He asked how many people would have known of this ritual. Jefferson frowned in concentration.
“Many people, sir. Lady Moberley, Lieutenant Haverstock, myself, Miss Myrtle the secretary—but she away with her parents on Tortola. Visitors to the house who had seen him there. Many people.”
Jefferson described exactly where he had found the body, but he averred that he had not heard the shot. Later, this use of the word shot would convince Hannah that the butler was telling the truth. But he did not yet know how many shots there had been.
The forensic team from Nassau was working with Parker on the grass, looking for spent cartridges ejected from the killer’s gun. They searched deep, for careless feet might have trodden the small brass case or cases into the earth. The feet of Lieutenant Haverstock, Inspector Jones, and his uncle Dr. Jones had walked all over the grass on the night of the killing, erasing all chances of useful footprints.