In Harm's Way (A Martin Billings Story Book 3) Read online

  “Why?”

  “Crazy reasons. Alien plots, deep state shit — I didn’t pay that much attention, to be honest. I could deal with it at first; it wasn’t too bad until she decided I was one of the people wanting to kill her, or at least in their pay.”

  My stomach knotted. Nate had said his story would fit the facts, and I had to admit that it provided a glimpse into an interesting alternate universe where Donna’s paranoia ran rampant. That seemed wrong. I could accept she might be delusional, but not paranoid. I thought her attitude toward what she perceived as an attempt to kill her was rather blasé. “And she was being treated for this condition?”

  “And starting to make progress. Then, abruptly, her fear turned into violence, combined with a cunning I didn’t expect. She created a plan, assaulted a nurse, stole his car — ”

  “She beat up a male nurse? Those people are usually pretty well trained.”

  Nate’s face changed to a mixture of perplexity blended with a certain amount of pride. “Well, Donna studied martial arts for years. The job she had for Davis was teaching folks to use handguns, even taught a concealed carry class for a time, so it’s not like she’s some helpless yuppie.”

  “Ah.” Again, his story explained something, her familiarity with that Glock.

  “Anyway, she concocted a story… several actually, that she believes completely. I don’t know the details, but the main theme is that I am a direct threat to her life.”

  “Like a mob hitman, for instance?”

  He rocked his head back and laughed. “Is that what I am? And why would a mob hitman want his wife dead?”

  “Maybe because she was going to give the feds evidence that would put him away or upset his boss.”

  He sipped his rum. “That’s good rum.” Then he put the glass down. “I suppose that makes sense to her.” He frowned. “I could even see how it could sound plausible to a good Samaritan inclined to help her out.” I could tell that poor, naïve me was the good Samaritan he meant. “Whatever the current story is, I need to get her back to a place they can help her — this time one that has decent security.”

  It didn’t sound right. “I think you need to go talk to the local police. They are after her, and if you get in the way, they might think that is aiding and abetting a murderer. As things are, there is no way you can help her. She’s going to be arrested. Then, if you want to make the case for putting her in medical care, you’ll need to contact the US embassy and get their help to have her released into your, or someone else’s custody. That will require the permission of the local government.”

  He smiled thinly, as if in pain. “And every damn local authority will claim jurisdiction, right? Even if the embassy helps, or especially if they get involved, international negotiations are going to take a lot of time and money. There would be a shit load of paperwork.”

  “As much as I’m not a big fan of embassies, without official assistance, what options do you have for helping her? You can’t just track her down and catch a plane home. She’d never make it through the airport.”

  He grimaced. “I was afraid she might get into trouble, so I put together a plan. If I can find her and get her on the boat, then Nick and I could sail up island, maybe all the way to the US Virgins. Once she’s in the US territory, we’d be home free.”

  “She’d be a fugitive.”

  He shrugged. “If the officials on St. Anne found out what happened, then they’d be the ones needing to apply for extradition to get her back to stand trial. That would give us time to get a doctor to certify that she was crazy. She’d be getting the treatment she needs.”

  “Even from the Virgins, assuming you got her ashore, you’d still have to fly her to the mainland. She thinks you want to kill her. If she kicks up a fuss at the airport, you might have a problem.”

  He shrugged. “Her doctor gave me some sedatives. We can dope her up and tell the airline that we’d been on a sailing adventure when she took sick and I was flying her home for decent care.”

  It was, at best, a flimsy story. And the last part, at least, struck me as clearly improvised. That didn’t make it a lie, but at best it was doomed to fail big time. Maybe Nate needed medical help himself. How would you know?

  When he finished, he sat back and looked at me, his intense eyes measuring the effect his story had on me. I sipped my rum and looked around the room, noting the lazy motion of the lone barracuda in the tank behind the bar. That fish had problems of his own, but since he didn’t know it yet, he contentedly lived in the moment while I fumbled with the knots that tangled together two conflicting stories. I balanced this man’s calm, logical explanation of events with Donna’s rather bizarre tale, which, I had to note, had come on the heels of several outright lies.

  My problem was that Nate’s very pat and logical story stunk. It was wrong somehow. Something about the persona he presented, the story he told, didn’t fit together in any human, organic fashion. I refilled my glass and held it in both hands on the table, leaning over it toward him.

  “I don’t see why you came to me unless you think I’m hiding her. And if I had a reason to hide her, I wouldn’t help you.”

  He sighed again. “I came to you because I heard you had seen her. No one else even knows she exists. I had no idea what else to do.” The look on his face suggested that was a lie too.

  “I still don’t know what you expect from me.”

  “I assume that she spotted us the other morning when we sailed in. We tied up and checked in, then I went to the yacht club, thinking I could track down which slip Warren Davis was in. If she saw me, then that’s why she bolted out of here on that boat.”

  “So you think she killed Warren Davis?”

  “I don’t know. Hell, I didn’t know he was dead until you told me. But if she wanted to run and the guy tried to get her to calm down, tried to get her to put the brakes on… well, with her paranoia, she probably decided he was another enemy — somebody working for me, maybe.”

  As he spooled out the story, I wondered about this Warren Davis. Even though he was, in his own way, a central figure in all this, I hadn’t paid him much attention. After all, I’d been trying to put distance between me and everything to do with this crazy woman. I felt like a fish in Jackson’s nets, in that the more I struggled to get free, the more entangled I got.

  “If you are right, if your story is the real one… where did she get a gun? She didn’t fly down to the islands with it in her purse.”

  Surprise colored his face, then vanished. “Warren Davis was a gun nut. Sonofabitch probably had it on the boat. He could’ve had a whole arsenal. Why does that matter?”

  I decided to tell him. “Because Donna tells me she thinks you killed him. She saw you sail in, but watched you go straight to his boat, not anywhere else. When you left, she went back and found him dead. That fits the facts that I know just as well as your story.”

  That got me a sad look. “She’s working you, partner. But at least she’s sticking to a single theme now. I guess I should be glad of that. Usually, she’s all over the map.”

  His attempt to look sincere and concerned had a hollow ring to it. I gave him my best futile shrug. “As I asked: What do you expect me to do?”

  He shrugged. “Help me find her and get her away from here so I can get her proper care. Loose like this, all sorts of things can go wrong.”

  “Help you out how?”

  “Just take me to her. I don’t know my way around. Once I find her, Nick and I can handle things from there.”

  My hackles were up again. “What does ‘handle things’ mean… exactly?”

  He wrinkled his nose as if he smelled something rotten, something like my uncooperative attitude. “Well, if you can get me close to her, I’ll give her the sedative. Then Nick and I can get her to our boat quietly. We can slip the lines and be gone in an hour.”

  “You don’t plan to check out?”

  “Why bother? I can’t
risk someone seeing us taking her on board and calling the cops and going through the formalities gives the authorities another chance to fuck up my plan to get her to a doctor.”

  “Because when you get wherever you are going, the Port Captain there will want to know why there are no exit visas in your passports or any departure forms among your ship’s papers. That will be a complication. I don’t know that her passport isn’t still on Davis’ boat. All those ‘details’ sound like embassy level complications to me.”

  “Don’t worry yourself. That’s for me to deal with.”

  “This is confusing. First you tell me that your whole plan focused on avoiding complications and now you dismiss them. Why is that, Nate?”

  “I meant details like involving the authorities,” he said. “As far as entering and exiting countries, hell, I can take her ashore in the dinghy. Once we are in US waters we won’t need any damn entry visas. Anyway…” he waved a hand, “Nate and I can work that out. Those are details.”

  That was true, after a fashion, although it occurred to me that dumping her body out at sea, then showing up at an island that doesn’t care so much about paperwork and simply flying home, simplified even those details. And, if Donna wasn’t the nutcase he made out, job done.

  “Well, all this… involving me falls apart because I don’t know where she is,” I told him. “Even if I wanted to help you, I can’t take you to her.”

  He looked surprised. “Really? Then how does your part of her plan work?”

  “Nate, I’m patiently trying to explain to you, in simple words that I don’t have a clue what her fucking plan is. We don’t exactly have a trust-based relationship. She told me that. She said that since I had to go see the police and have a chat — ” I glanced at my watch, “— whenever they get back and open up the station — that I should tell them her story, the one she asked me to tell them. When they ask where she is, as we all know they will, I’ll tell them exactly what I’ve told you, that I don’t have a clue. I doubt they’ll be happy to hear that; it isn’t likely Inspector George, who is an insightful guy, will believe me any more than you do.”

  “No idea where she is at all?”

  “Look, I’ve only seen the woman exactly twice in my entire life and both times it was on my boat.”

  He scratched his head. “You don’t even know her… then why are you helping her?”

  “I’m wondering that myself. The best I can come up with is that it is the only way to untangle myself from a mess I got involved with by trying to do a good deed. Rescuing her got me under the spotlight for this murder. Now, since I have to talk to the cops this morning anyway, if I tell them what I really know, which isn’t much, and present her case to them, then maybe they’ll get off my back. If she is their prime suspect, I want that discussion to be between them and her with me out of the middle. Given that plan, having you show up and trying to get me to do other shit is a major fucking setback.”

  That surprised him. “This is interesting. Do you mind telling me the story Donna wants you to tell them?”

  “No problem. She told me that she came here trying to get away from you, and that when you showed up, you killed Davis. She found the body and tried to run.”

  He nodded. “Right. So, you clear the air, point me out as the murderer, they lock me up, she goes on her merry way and all is right with the world?”

  “I think that is what she has in mind. Something like that.” I shrugged. “It isn’t my plan, but it has merit.”

  “And after that?”

  “She said she’d call so I can tell her what they say. She is worried I’d lead them, or maybe you, to her, so I don’t have a need to know her location.”

  He scowled. “When is she calling?”

  I laughed. “How the hell would I know? This afternoon, maybe.” I saw the look he gave me. “She didn’t give me a time. She just said she’d call after I talked to them.”

  “So, why do I find you sitting here and not talking to the police?”

  I liked that he was impatient. If he wasn’t the concerned husband, it gave me an advantage, besides, I didn’t like him much. If the island sense of time had him off balance, I liked it. “I have to wait until the police station opens.”

  “It’s not open?”

  I gave him a scowl. “Would I have to wait if it was? It might be open now, but no one was there when I went by before.”

  That got his eyebrows to move. “Well, when you do have that chat, I’d appreciate it… greatly, if you didn’t mention my little plan.”

  I smiled. “I understand. If I gave them a heads up about your scheme, it could disrupt the odds of your success,” I said.

  “I’d prefer they didn’t know we’d ever met.”

  I found myself wishing we hadn’t. Bad things would come of this. “I want this conversation with the police to go as smoothly and simply as possible. If the inspector doesn’t ask the right questions, I’d have no reason to volunteer information.”

  “I’m delighted to hear that. So, after she calls…”

  It was my turn to shrug. “How the hell would I know? I’m hoping that’s the end of my involvement, but I have a hunch I don’t get to decide that.”

  “No,” he said. “That wouldn’t be like Donna. She likes being in control and hates letting go. Well, I’d like to talk to you again after you see how this works out.”

  I slapped the table. “I’ll tell you what… I’m sure that after I see the inspector, I’ll need a drink. To accommodate all my needs, I’ll come back here and wait for her call,” I said. “It’s a good place to wait.”

  He nodded, digesting everything. “Fine, then we can chat again later.”

  I downed my rum. “I look forward to it,” I lied. There were too many players in this game, too many versions of parts of stories. I was growing tired of it. But I had no idea what I might do next until I got an earful from both the police and Donna.

  “Me too,” he said.

  Rather than give in to my inclination, an unreasoning desire to punch Nate in his smiling mouth, I stood and walked out of the bar, heading for the police station. I wanted to get this over with. As I walked down the cobblestone street, I found myself wondering if Donna could be telling the truth about Nate being a professional killer. He certainly wasn’t what he seemed to be.

  It was late enough that, with luck, someone might have gotten to the station and hung out the open sign.

  9

  Bad luck, even persistent complication can’t go on forever, and by the time I got back to the police station, it had reopened for business. Not that I looked forward to this chat, but I need to get it off my to-do list.

  When I walked in, the inspector even seemed pleased to see me.

  “I wasn’t sure you’d come,” he said. “I like being wrong about things like that. Misplaced mistrust is a good thing. It’s reassuring.”

  “Hell, I was here before you, but the shop was closed. The sign said you’d gone to come back. So I left to come back too.”

  He saw I wasn’t giving him a hard time, but just explaining. “We got busy doing a little investigating,” he said. “Work like ours isn’t always good for office hours when you don’t have a budget for receptionists.”

  “Of course not. I’m not good with office hourse either. And I’m not even sure why I’m here, other than you asked me, nicely, to drop by this fine morning.”

  “Partly I needed you to reassure me you weren’t going to leave the island; partly I was hoping that maybe you thought of something more you might like to tell me, now you had time to think.”

  “What kind of something?”

  “Something that’s gonna make my life easier and help me close this case.”

  “I do have new information for you, but I don’t know if it will make your life easier. Might complicate it a bit.” One rising eyebrow distorted his perfectly good interrogator scowl. “I sure hope you weren’t expecting me to po
p in and confess to a murder.”

  “A man can hope,” he said. “But you have new information?”

  “Yes.” I sat in a chair and looked at him. “When we first met at The Barracuda, you surprised me by telling me about this murder.”

  That earned me a slightly raised eyebrow. “So you said.”

  “Since then, it seems things have gotten pretty complicated.”

  “Murder be a complicated thing,” he said. “Still and all, it comes down to a story about one person killing a next one. The law says that when that happens, someone gotta pay the price.”

  “True,” I agreed. I was smiling to myself. The good inspector hadn’t been back in the islands long and already his phrasing, his word choices were reverting to the island patois. The attraction of England, the snobbery about English things and speech, seemed to wilt quickly under the tropical sun. “And you think that you can simplify things if you arrest this Donna Devro for the murder.”

  “That a fact. It is my exact plan.” He sat behind his desk, his large frame settled comfortably in a wooden desk chair that had to be ancient. I wondered if he brought it from England.

  “So, you are pretty certain that Donna murdered the guy on his own boat?”

  “Aren’t you?”

  “I’m not sure, but then I’m not the trained professional.”

  He smiled at the dig. “Clever detective logic tells me that she probably is the one. She took the boat out. I doubt she’d claim that she wasn’t aware of the dead body on board.”

  “No, that doesn’t seem likely. If you put a foot in the cabin, he was obvious.”

  “That means, it isn’t a big stretch of the imagination to be thinking she’s the one who did it. If she didn’t, then she must know who did it. My guess is she killed him and the little unfortunate side trip on the reef is all that kept her from getting rid of the body.”

  “What if what really happened was that she took off in the boat because she was running from the killer?”