“What did she say had been done to her?”
“She said a gang of Hawaiian hoodlums had grabbed her, pulled her into their car, robbed and beat her, and tossed her back out again.”
“She didn’t say anything about sexual assault?”
“Nothing. And she only wanted a ride home. She was adamant about no hospital, no police. Just get her home. Her husband would take care of her, she said.”
Mrs. Clark made an interesting addition to her husband’s observations: “We all noticed her evening gown seemed undamaged. Later, George and I read about five boys…assaulting her…and we both wondered how her gown could be in such good condition.”
At the lookout, I parked the car just off the dirt road and, hand in hand, Isabel and I moved to the edge of the cliff and, prompted by the sound of crashing surf and whooshing air, peered down at the fabled Blowhole, a shelf of rock extending like the deck of a ship into the sea, silvery gray in the modest moonlight, white breakers rolling up over it. The opening toward the front of the ridge of rock looked small from up here, but it had to be three or four feet in diameter. Nothing happened for a while; then finally several waves surged in with increasing force and, like the whale blowhole for which it was named, the rocky spout geysered water, trapped in the cave below and propelled out in fountains of foam, streams of spray, twenty or thirty feet high.
Isabel held on tightly to my arm. “Oh, Nate—it’s breathtaking…so lovely….”
I didn’t say anything. Its beauty hadn’t occurred to me; what had was how you could walk right out on that shelf and, between geysers, drop something into the cave below. Something or someone.
Over to our right was a tiny bay within high shelves of rock, a small pocket of beach beckoning us. Towels tucked under our arms, we went looking for a footpath, found it, and, hand in hand, with me in the lead, made our way down the steep, rocky slope, treading gingerly in our sandals, laughing nervously at each misstep.
Finally we were down on the pale sand, between high walls of rock, a tiny private beach at the foot of the vast ocean. We spread beach towels, and I stripped to my trunks as she shed her polka-dot skirt and jacket down to her form-fitting white suit. Pale as her flesh was, in the glow of the muted moonlight, she might have been nude, the wind rustling her boyishly short blond hair. The only sound was the lazy surf rolling in and the wind surfing through foliage above.
She stretched out on her towel, her slender, rounded body airbrushed by moonlight. I sat on my towel, next to her; she was drinking in the beauty of the night, I was drinking in hers.
Finally she noticed my eyes on her and then she settled her gaze on me. She propped herself up on an elbow; at this angle, her cleavage was delightful.
“Mind if I pry some more?” she asked innocently.
“You can try.”
“I can understand your admiration for Mr. Darrow. I understand family ties. But this is more than that.”
“I don’t get you.”
“He’s taken you under his wing. Why?”
“I’m cheap help.”
She shook her head, no, and the blond hair shimmered. “No. Look at Mr. Leisure. He’s a top Wall Street attorney, and I get the feeling he’s working for peanuts, too.”
“Your point being?”
“Clarence Darrow can finagle just about anybody into helping him out. It’s like the President asking you for help, or Ronald Colman asking you to dance.”
“I wouldn’t care to dance with Ronald Colman, thanks.”
“Why you, Nate?”
I looked out at the ocean; the little beach had small rock formations here and there that the gentle surge of surf splashed over idly.
“Let’s go for a swim,” I said.
She touched my arm, gently. “Why you?”
“Why do you care?”
“I care about you. We’re sleeping together, aren’t we?”
“How exclusive a list is that?”
She grinned, chin wrinkling. “You’re not going to get out of it by making me mad. Like the gangsters in the movies say—spill.”
She looked so cute, her eyes taking on an oddly violet cast in the non-light, that I felt a sudden surge of genuine affection for the girl wash over me in a tide of emotion.
“It’s because of my father.”
“Your father.”
“He and Darrow were friends.”
“You’ve said that.”
“My father didn’t want me to be a cop. Neither does Darrow.”
“Why not?”
