Something was funny.
She didn’t know what it was, but she knew that something was funny, the same way she could tell when some guy was going to make a pass at her the minute the door to the apartment was locked. Something was funny, and her first instinct was to call the police, but that would mean driving all the way back to Big Pine, which was where she’d find the nearest phone. Besides, suppose she was wrong? Suppose nothing at all was funny, except maybe a silly middle-aged waitress who was imagining all kinds of crazy things? They ought to make nail polish in different flavors, she thought.
So come on, she thought. How about it?
Well, I could drive back to Big Pine, she thought. And call the police from there. And meanwhile, Mr. Parch’ll be in already and What’s-His-Name who answered the phone would have told him I’d be there at nine-thirty. By the time I get to Big Pine and back, it’ll be ten, maybe ten-fifteen, and I’ll be arriving with cops, no less. That’ll sit just fine with Mr. Parch, the state troopers coming into his place. That’s just what he needs. Though maybe we’ll all have a good laugh at how silly and suspicious women can be, yeah, fat chance. Amos’ll be yelling his bloody nigger head off about the diner being full and nobody to wait on customers — assuming those six guys in the Ford had even gone to the diner. But where else could they have gone? To Luke’s marina maybe, to hire a boat, how about that?
Hey, brainless, what do you say to that?
They’re businessmen who want to rent a boat for the day, get out on the water, fish a little, drink it up.
Ginny shrugged.
Yeah, it’s possible, she thought.
With everybody saying a hurricane is coming?
Mmm.
Maybe I ought to drive back to Big Pine and get to a phone, she thought. But suppose I call the cops and this is nothing? Maybe I’d better check first.
How?
I can’t move the barricade aside and drive the car into town because if something is funny, well, that’d just be asking for it. But I can’t leave it parked here on U.S. 1, either. If everything’s all right in there, all I’ll get is a ticket for my troubles, besides being late and in dutch with Mr. Parch. So where can I.
Hey, she thought.
The Westerfield house.
There’s nobody there this time of year. Myron Westerfield and his wife don’t come down till after Christmas. I’ll just park the car in the driveway, and then cut across the highway into the thicket — probably get eaten alive, but I can’t just go marching down 811, can I? Not if something’s wrong in there. Well, maybe I can work my way along the beach instead. I’ll have to see.
Ginny pursed her lips, thinking furiously. Then she nodded, shrugged, put both hands on the wheel again, glanced into the rearview mirror, and immediately made her U-turn.
Roger Cummings was fifty-four years old, a tall man with hair graying at the temples — he rather enjoyed the cliché of distinction — a well-preserved athletic body, and a manner of speaking that left a person feeling he had been severely reprimanded for a grievous wrong he had committed.
When the car pulled into the driveway of the Westerfield house, Cummings was in the upstairs bedroom, shaving. He frowned and put down the razor and then, because the bathroom window was made of frosted glass, went into the bedroom to take a look from there. He could not see beyond the bend in the driveway, but he was sure an automobile was on the road because he heard the sound of its engine being cut, and then silence.
“What is it?” Sondra said from the bed.
“Shhh!” he said sharply.
The bedroom was silent as they listened. The car did not start again. They heard the sound of birds in the mangroves outside, the sound of water gently lapping against the Westerfield dock, the sound of an airplane somewhere high overhead, the sound of plumbing in the house, and of palm fronds rattling in the backyard — but not the sound of an automobile engine.
“Is it a car?” Sondra asked.
“I think so,” Cummings answered.
“Can you see it?”
“No.”
“Did you order anything, Rog?”
“No.”
“Then who can it be?”
“I don’t know.”
Sondra Lasky sat up in bed, a troubled look on her face. She was a slender girl with features that seemed even more youthful than her twenty years, a palely turned delicate beauty in her face, a narrow mouth, large inquiring eyes. Her neck was long and graceful, her hair blond and clipped very close to her head, exaggerating the impression of extreme youthfulness. Her breasts were small and immature, the nipples suggested rather than defined. There was about her an appearance of vulnerability which was not too terribly far from the truth and which, in part, accounted for her attractiveness to men. Sitting up in bed naked, with the sheets twisted around her long legs and narrow waist, her lower lip caught between her teeth, she seemed the total picture of perplexed innocence.
“You don’t think your wife—” she began, and Cummings immediately said, “No.”
“Then—”
“I don’t know, Sondra. I’ll go down and check it now.”
“All right,” she said, and nodded.
He went back into the bathroom to finish shaving, and then washed his face vigorously, and dried it. Quickly he threw the towel into the hamper and went back into the bedroom to put on a shirt. As he went out of the room, he said, “Get dressed, Sondra.”
“Be careful,” she said.
He would not admit to himself that he was in any way concerned about the unexpected arrival of this automobile. He had not even seen the car yet, and so his mind had an opportunity to create several varied images of its appearance, but none of the images pleased him. The first car he visualized was one driven by an imaginary private detective who had been hired by Faye and who had followed him and Sondra all the way down here to the tail end of the country. The car was a rented automobile and had been waiting for the private detective at the airport in Miami. He had immediately hopped into it, and come after them to Ocho Puertos. He was now making his way up the driveway with a camera and a witness, but Cummings was going to surprise him by meeting him halfway, instead of in bed and on top of Sondra.
The second car he visualized was one driven by the Florida Highway Patrol who had noticed that the Westerfield house was occupied and were wondering why, since Westerfield and his wife never came down until the end of December. They had parked their patrol car at the top of the drive because they didn’t feel like crossing that narrow ditch just before the bend. They were now striding to the front door in suntanned splendor, where they hoped to knock and — in the approved polite manner of cops everywhere — ask just what was going on here. Cummings would then have to explain to the best of his ability what he thought was going on here.
He would have to say that he was a very good friend of Myron Westerfield, who was the tax collector in the small Connecticut town where Cummings owned a large rambling stone house and forty acres of land that his great-great-great-grandfather had fought for in the American Revolution. He would then go on to explain that usually he lived in that house with his wife and his nineteen-year-old daughter when she was home from Vassar on holidays, but that he also maintained an apartment in Arlington, Virginia, because... well, he’d have to be careful about that, he supposed, about mentioning Arlington at all. That’s right, he would leave Arlington out entirely; there was no need to mention it. He would simply say that Westerfield was a good friend of his and that he had given him the house for a nine-day vacation starting yesterday, October fifth, and running through Sunday, October thirteenth, by which time he expected to be out of Ocho Puertos and back North. Maybe he ought to be careful about mentioning his friendship with Westerfield, too. But if they were policemen, he had to tell them something; he had to explain what he was doing in Westerfield’s house.