Making my way to the steep steps leading to the lab door took fifteen minutes. There was only an occasional flash of light from inside. Crouched in the shadow of the steps, I waited for my heart to quit pounding, breathing to slow. Wiping the stinging, salty sweat from my eyes, I could smell myself, it was the odor of a frightened animal.
Easing up the steps, hoping they wouldn't squeak from my two hundred and forty pounds, I saw that the door was open. There was a light switch just inside on the right. I flipped it on, the light blinding me momentarily. George stood at the rear of the lab near where the files were kept. He spun around, startled and blinded by the explosion of light.
"What the…?" He put a hand over his brow to shield his eyes.
"Hello, George," I said calmly. "What are you doing? I thought we were saving this until after daylight?"
The file folder he was holding seemed to burn his hand. He quickly dropped it into an open drawer and closed it. The lid was up on the copy machine; a sheet of paper still lay on the photo-plate.
"You scared me," he said, regaining his composure. "I couldn't sleep, came down to get some work done." He glanced involuntarily at the copy machine, then back at me. "Why are you up so early? What time is it anyway?"
"About four." I walked to the copy machine. He reached for the sheet of paper. "What's that, some damaging evidence against poor Vickey?"
"What do you mean?" He looked down at the page.
"Let me see."
"This is none of your business. It's only notes I made on embryo inoculations."
"Then let me see."
He backed away, his face turning red. He stood to his full height of six four or five. The fire in his eyes blazed at me. In a fair fight, I thought that I could take him, but I had never been in a fair fight. If it came to one with George, I knew that it would not be fair, either.
"It's over son. We know everything except why? Anna and Vickey both loved you like a brother."
"I don't know what you're talking about." His eyes darted around.
"We know about your friendship with Sabado. He couldn't keep his mouth shut, told some people who couldn't keep theirs shut, either. He was a bad choice."
"You're wrong."
"You had him pour the attractant on Anna's wet suit, and to try and kill me, but he botched it, killed Susan Weems instead."
"You're crazy. Why are you saying all these things?"
"I didn't mind that you tried to have me killed. I've had professionals try it, but Susan Weems, that was bad. When you drowned Vickey, that was the worst."
"She drowned while drunk. I had nothing to do with it."
"Yes, she had water in her lungs, but you held her head under long enough for it to happen. When you realized she knew everything you'd been up to, you had to kill her. It's too bad that once the killing starts it has to continue. This time it worked against you."
George looked horrified. Most amateurs do when someone slaps them in the face with the end of their life. His eyes darted around the lab. His long arms and massive hands hung limp at his side.
"I'll bet you've been making up a file folder to cover your lies. Too bad I insisted on coming out to the island to see it. You didn't expect that to happen. What you didn't understand was that Anna had already been through all the files. There was no note from Vickey."
He started to rock back and forth, arms swinging at his sides. There was panic in his eyes. "You're crazy."
"Was it worth it, George? All the killing, all the insanity?"
The movement was quick. For a moment I thought that I had not really seen it. He grabbed the bang stick and was holding it in a big paw. The twelve-gauge shotgun shell looked huge and deadly.
"It's doesn't have to be like this, George. Think about your family. They wouldn't want it to go this way. Think, son."
With a primordial scream that stood the hair up on the back of my neck, George lunged at me with the bang stick. I saw it coming straight for my chest. Things seemed to move in slow motion. There was no conscious thought of reacting, it was pure reflex, but it was enough. The bang stick slid under my left arm, missing my chest by millimeters.
The magnum jumped five times in my hand. It was the way I'd been taught to shoot; five rounds, under two seconds, one round left to clean up. The feel of the recoil, the smell of cordite, the noise; they all flooded my brain with familiar, unpleasant memories. Now there would be more.
Sitting for a long time beside young George's body, I saw the surprised, innocent look on his face. The big, meaty hands lay limp, the once mischievous eyes now vacant, bland, and lifeless. I thought about death and how the life of the dead is more the survivor's affair than their own. I also knew the next thing I had to do would be the hardest, and that would be to tell Randolph Lenoir how and why his son died, and who killed him.
Walking over to a small mirror hanging on a wall, I pressed my forehead to its cool surface. How, I thought, does one go about forcing the mind into blankness after the most ruthless function of my faculty has kept me alive, but had to kill again to do it? Stepping back from the mirror, I looked hard at what I saw. It was not a pretty sight.
EPILOGUE
We slipped our mooring lines at exactly midnight. It had been two weeks since George Lenoir died in the research lab on Cat Island. A true tragic waste of human life.
We were a good crew. Guy expertly motored his sailboat out the narrow, winding marina into the channel. Hebrone Opshinsky and I handled the lines, coiling and stowing them neatly away. Anna Yillah and Guy's wife, Mildred, sat in the cockpit sipping hot coffee. Standing in the bow holding onto the forestay was a scraggly-haired young woman, small of stature and wearing khaki shorts and shirt, callused feet bare. This was Hebrone's girlfriend who lived on board Pilar with him and Savage. She worked as a cashier at the marina restaurant. Her name was Joanne, Joanne Fourche, Vickey's older sister.
The sky was clear, the stars so brilliant they seemed to float down among the tops of the sails and sink into the sea. The wind was northwest at ten knots, and when we rounded the sea buoy off Ship Island we would have a downwind run, straight to Key West, our destination. The forecast was excellent; seas two to four feet, westerly winds at ten to fifteen knots. The next weather front was not due for at least four days. This would be a halcyon trip across the Gulf of Mexico.
At four a.m., I took the helm. Captain Robbins had ordered a standing watch of four hours on and eight hours off. The first watch stayed on deck. A feeling of nausea nagged at me as it always does the first couple of days at sea. Being on deck in the fresh air with my hands and mind occupied helped. The sea smelled clean and salty, like a slow breath of sunlight. The swells and waves undulated in the wind like the long hair of young girls standing on a sandy beach in a stiff breeze.
Looking behind Picaroon at our wake revealed a glowing trail that disappeared quickly in the darkness. We were alone on the sea and our keel left no track as we sailed in silence and solitude into the night.
Everyone soon migrated into the cockpit. Anna was the first to break the silence. "Take us through it again, Jay, for the last time. Maybe we can better understand and so put it to bed."
Glancing around at the faces, I saw their expressions etched sharply in the shadows from the binnacle light. They looked as if I could somehow explain the complexities of the human mind in all its follies. I could not.
In the end, it was a tragic case of money, fame, and youthful impatience gone horribly wrong. It exists, always has, always will.
When I finished talking, nobody said anything. Guy and Mildred went below. Hebrone and Joanne followed soon after. Anna stayed in the cockpit with me. We sailed into the night.
At false dawn the wind lay. By the time the sun broke the surface, not a breath of air stirred. We lay ahull, the sea flat calm. The water lay undisturbed like a huge slab of blue glass.
Suddenly I was aware that everyone had returned to the cockpit. We dared not start the engine and break the peacefulness. It
would take much longer to reach port, but for moments like this, it was worth it. This was the beginning of a glorious day, and I thought, Godspeed to the crew of Picaroon.
THE END
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Check out all ten books in
The Jay Leicester Mysteries Series:
Blood on the Vine
Some People Die Quick
Blind Overlook
Icy Blue Descent
The Electra File
Popping the Shine
Four Nines Fine
The Underground Lady
Akel Dama
The Candela of Cancri
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