When the Pirate Prays. James B. Johnson
lighthouses.”
“Right,” she said and ticked another finger down. “You know nobody, and you were with Henry B. just before he died. It’s all very suspicious.”
“Who are you and why all these questions?” I said.
“I, sir, am Angela Maple,” she said with a harrumph in her voice. “Who are you?”
“Shortcut.”
“I mean, what’s your name?”
“Shortcut.”
“I need all the information I can get.”
I groaned. “Why don’t we leave the investigating to the authorities?”
“What authorities?” she asked.
“Beats me. Trooper?”
She harrumphed again. “Trooper’s an alkie. Henry B. kept him on because of loyalty to a friend; he’s not much of a bodyguard.”
Suddenly, I realized I was dealing with a pretty shrewd woman. Aggravating, but intelligent. She’d been thinking while I was reacting. “You know, Mrs. Maple—”
“Mizz.”
“Sure, whatever. If we’ve no authorities and we’re stuck here, we’ve a problem. We’ve a dead governor, the outside world doesn’t know it, and he’s not going to get any, ah, fresher the longer he lays down there.”
“Lies,” she corrected. “But we’ve got the lieutenant governor here, too. And Henry B.’s chief aides.”
“Then it ain’t our problem,” I countered. “Let ’em sort it out.”
Gingerly she stepped to the broken railing. “He’s down there now.”
I figured she meant the lieutenant governor.
We were both waltzing about, not saying the one thing we both thought.
Ms. Maple looked at me. “I wonder who killed him?”
“And why,” I added.
“There’s the other thing, too,” she said.
“No authorities, no crime scene investigation; when the storm passes, everybody will be gone.”
“That about sizes it up,” she said.
Somebody had deliberately murdered the governor of the fourth largest state in the United States and was going to get away with it—more than likely—because a storm was bottling us all up, and keeping others away.
On the wall next to the overturned table was a rack from which hung several tennis racquets.
She started down the steps. “Let’s go see what the future governor has to say.”
“Right.” As she went down, I knelt and studied the floor. No clues. In all the movies there’s always a clue. Shows to go you real life ain’t like they show us on the big screen—or the small screen, for that matter. By now Perry Mason would’ve had Paul Drake headed in the right direction.
I flipped my finger in the puddle of water, absently tasted it, and wiped my finger on a wrinkle in the wall-to-banister rug. No pack of matches with a bar name, no cigarette with lipstick, no feather, no boot mark, no nothing.
Ms. Maple was standing a few steps down the staircase, her face level with this landing, watching me intently.
It occurred to me this was something me and Tapes didn’t need to get involved in badly. We were outsiders and most of these people were local; that’s a no-win situation.
But Henry B., she’d called him.
I’d worked a while in Tallahassee and never thought much about the governor. I’d disagreed with much of his politics—hell, I disagree with most politicians’ politics. Politicians are people we pay who hire other people to spend our money.
But he’d sat right there in the crowded cab of my GT and sweated from running and talked about the weather. Everybody talks about the weather.
3: MONDAY, 7:30 A.M.
Everybody watched me descend the stairs. I felt like a cockroach on a bald man’s head.
Tapes, of course, was head and shoulders above the crowd. His eyes showed something which translated into a “Be careful” warning.
John Dellum Ionata, the lieutenant governor and soon-to-be head man, fixed me with his grizzled visage and tracked me all the way down. He wore khaki shorts and a khaki safari shirt with shoulder straps.
Near the bottom, I said self-consciously, “Not much up there.” I thought again of Henry Beauchamps Gonzáles, looked at John Dellum Ionata, and kind of liked the late governor’s penchant for three-named people.
Ms. Maple was standing in front of Ionata. “Very suspicious, John. That man is an itinerant, and here for no reason. He won’t give his name.” She was looking accusingly at me.
“There’s an old saying,” I told her, “about the more people I meet, the more I like my dog. And I don’t have a dog.”
She stared a challenge at me.
“He gave his name to me,” said Silas Smith, fingering a pockmark on his neck. “It’s Billy Birthday.”
One of the guys in the camo hunting fatigues snorted loudly and elbowed his buddy. “Get that, Orlo? Billy Birthday.” All three hunters, or whatever they were, laughed.
Nobody else did.
Mary Lynn, the recent divorcee who’d intrigued me last night, watched me with one blue eye and one brown eye, compelling me to wish I could put some fire in those same eyes. I’m a grown man, but I sure dream like a boy. Once last night, I’d got close to her; her auburn hair smelled faintly of gardenias. Besides, I could never resist a pony tail. And, what the hell, Rebecca was in Tallahassee and we’d parted ways. Mary Lynn had stopped hiccupping. She’d also hiccupped last night during her speech, but it was in a corner of the lounge and I couldn’t hear her words.
“Your honor,” said the big one in camo known as Orlo, “them two strangers ain’t from around here. The old lady says they coulda done it.” His voice was low and caused me the proverbial chill. “They was the last one to see him.” Orlo was as large as Trooper and had linebacker eyes.
Why did Orlo want to pin a murder on me and Tapes?
The pregnant woman burped, turned aside, and vomited against a plastic potted fern. Served it right.
Mary Lynn hurried to her side. “This is no place for you. The shock could—”
“The shock did,” said the woman who looked like she was gonna explode from the middle. I guess dead bodies lying around and people conversing over them would make you sick if you were about to have a baby.
John Dellum Ionata took charge. “Mary Lynn, get her to her room and see that she’s comfortable. You help, too, Angie.” He looked at the old lady and she nodded. He was obviously trying to defuse the situation.
The geek was still standing alongside the staircase whimpering.
Ionata fixed Orlo and his two cronies with a command glare. “Everybody is innocent until proven guilty.”
Hell, I could’ve said that.
The three simply watched him, one drooling a bit from the corner of his mouth. I wondered if he wasn’t one of those guys you read about who was a result of his mother and father being brother and sister. But, for once, I kept my mouth shut. We didn’t need any more trouble.
Ionata turned to Trooper. “Sober up. Coffee and a cold shower.”
A great gust of wind shook the whole building and most likely did damage to one or more of the upper stories of the wings. Everybody turned their gaze upward for a moment.
Not