Twenty-Seven Bones

Machete Man who killed your wife.”

One thousand one, one thousand two, one thous-

“Who, then?”

“How well do you know your nearest neighbors, the Epps?”

One thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand three, one thousand four…

Endgame: the interview in the drawing room. Under the guise of brushing off the seat of his uncomfortable chair, Pender dragged it closer to Apgard’s silk wing chair and positioned it at a forty-five-degree angle.

“What can you tell me about the Epps?”

“They’ve been my tenants for six, seven years, something like that. I know they study bones, that they used to live in California, and that they spent the weekend in Puerto Rico at some kind of convention.”

“What do you know about Bennie?”

“The houseman? Not much. He’s Indonesian-from an island called Nias, I believe.”

“Think he’d know how to use a machete?”

“Bennie? He’s harmless.”

“How do you know that?”

“You get an impression of people.”

Apgard was starting to recover his composure, thought Pender. Time to make that bold move. “What would you say if I told you that a fingerprint matching the right index finger of one…”

Pender took his note out of the inside pocket of his sorry plaid sport jacket, opened it at random, as if consulting an entry.

“…Bennie Sukarto…”

He’d pulled the name out of the air. Sukarno and Suharto, the last two dictators of the country, were the only Indonesian surnames with which Pender was familiar. He was banking on the likelihood Apgard didn’t know Bennie’s real name either.

“…was found on the machete recovered in the lime grove?”

“I…Cheese-an’-bread, I-Wait a minute: are you saying that?”

Oh-ho, thought Pender. John Q. Citizen says right off how shocked and surprised he’d be to learn such a thing. Or wouldn’t be. One or the other-what John Q. doesn’t do at this point is shadow box with his interviewer, go back and parse the question. Have to play it careful now, though. Don’t let him suspect that you suspect him. Instead, involve him.

“We’re still waiting for confirmation from Interpol. Should have it by morning-then we’ll bring him in. What I’m trying to find out from you is, in your opinion, as someone who’s had dealings with them over an extended period of time, should we bring the Epps in, as well?”

“By all means,” said Apgard, after a pause so long Pender lost count of the one thousands. “Bring ’em all in. Strap the electrodes to their privates and get the truth out of ’em. Now if there’s nothing else…?”

“Nothing at present.” Pender rose. “Thanks for your time.”

Apgard remained seated. “You know the way out.”

3

From the drawing room, Lewis heard the front doors open and close. A car engine started up; tires crunched the wet gravel. Then quiet: the grandfather clock, the rain. He sagged in his chair. Doomed, was the word that came to mind. I’m fucking doomed. The reason he hadn’t gotten up to see Pender out was that he hadn’t trusted his legs. He was also a little nauseous-for a moment there, back in the vestibule when Pender first mentioned the Epps, he’d thought he was going to spew kalaloo, as they say on St. Luke.

One fingerprint. One careless little man, one lousy fingerprint, and my life is ruined. The last of the fucking Apgards. He looked around the drawing room. Satiny dark green wallpaper, gilt dado rail and cornices. Stately grandfather clock, bronze sun/moon pendulum ticking off the seconds. And over the fireplace-the old Danes couldn’t conceive of a house without a fireplace, even in the tropics-hung the ancestral portraits.

Don’t say hung. Don’t even think it. St. Luke still had the gallows. They’d done the Blue Valley boys one at a time. The Guv had described the proceedings in vivid detail when Lewis came home for spring break his second year in prep school. It was the hang-man’s first job in years. He’d botched the first one-the boy had strangled to death. Took him forever. Pissed and crapped and shot a load. Put the fear o’ God into the other ones, I’ll tell you that, me son, said the Guv.

The fear o’ God. The Guv was always talking about folks getting the fear o’ God put into them. Lewis didn’t fear God, because he didn’t believe in him. But God Almighty, he feared the gallows.

He pushed himself up from his chair, crossed the room toward the fireplace, his footsteps cushioned by the thick carpeting. He looked up at the oil painting of Great-great-grandfather Klaus Apgard. People always said Lewis favored him-which was why he still hung in the place of honor, dead center over the mantel. The eyes in the portrait were turquoise like Lewis’s, and they followed you around the room. They’d often given Lewis the willies as a boy.

Klaus had known some hard times too, thought Lewis. It was on his watch that the slaves had risen-he’d seen the family fortune through emancipation and the collapse of the cane industry.

To Klaus’s left was Great-grandfather Christian, the last Danish governor of the island. Married an American heiress to infuse the failing Apgard fortunes, and persuaded the Danish government to throw in St. Luke for lagniappe when it sold the Virgin Islands-Sts. Croix, John, and Thomas-to the United States in 1916.

To Klaus’s right was the portrait of Grandfather Clifford B. Apgard, Sr., the first governor of the newly minted U.S. territory. His favorite song was “The Bastard King of England.” Lewis had always associated the first verse with the first Guv-he ruled his land with an iron hand though his morals were weak and low. And accordingly, his son, Lewis’s father, whose portrait graced the staircase landing, had been a pillar of rectitude.

Five generations of Apgard men, thought Lewis, turning away from the fireplace and catching sight of himself in the gilt-framed mirror against the far wall. A planter, three governors, and a gallows-bird.

But there was still time. If the Epps and Bennie disappeared before they were arrested-poof! vanished! — there’d be no way to tie Lewis to any of this. He thought of the two hand grenades up in his bedroom and remembered the words of Bungalow Bill: Pull the pin, toss it in. No damn cave, no damn Cong.

On his way upstairs he passed his father’s portrait. The old man was frowning as usual. “Don’t worry, Guv,” said Lewis. “The family honor is-”

Safe with me, he was about to say. But he’d just thought of another possibility: what if Pender suspected the truth? The Epps had that alibi for Bendt’s murder-Pender might have figured out that Lewis was involved. But there was no evidence to link Lewis to the Epps-maybe Pender was trying to outsmart Lewis, to panic him into doing just what he was about to do: pick up the Epps and Bennie, tell them they were about to be arrested, and offer to hide them in the cave until he could figure out a way to get them off the island. (Boom.)

In that case, the cops might be waiting at the end of the lane. Wouldn’t do to drive right past them with the Epps and Bennie in the car-that’s just what Pender wanted Lewis to do.

The more he thought about it, the more sense it made. Why else would Pender have told him about the fingerprint and asked him his advice?

But if Pender was trying to entrap Lewis, that made his countermove-getting rid of the Epps tonight-even more urgent. What to do, what to do, what to do? Lewis paced the landing. How to get the Epps to the cave without being seen with them? If they drove away alone, they might be followed or stopped, and could implicate Lewis. If he drove them away, they might be followed or stopped, and Lewis would have implicated himself.

Was there a third option? Lewis asked himself.

There’d better be, was the answer. There’d goddamn well better be.