Jack nodded. “Mom once told me that I shouldn’t see it as a story which blamed the world’s troubles on a woman; I should simply remember that the world would have been a very dull place if Pandora hadn’t been inquisitive.”
It was a calm day, just enough wind to move us along. The sea was smooth, Jack was an able skipper, and we made our way out onto the bay in an easy fashion. For all I cared, it might as well have been a sunny summer afternoon. Even though it was gray above and below, there was still something uplifting about being out on the water.
“It’s good to see you smile, Irene,” Jack said. I noticed we were all looking content.
Frank made his way over and sat next to me.
“Any more news about the case?” Jack asked.
“Not much,” Frank said. “Hernandez is working on identifying some hairs he found in Sammy’s wounds.” Seeing Jack’s look of puzzlement, he added, “Dr. Carlos Hernandez, the coroner.”
“You mean he’ll be able to tell who the hairs belonged to?” Jack asked.
“They don’t belong to a human being. We thought at first that they might be from a goat. But they didn’t match up with the goat hair samples he had. So now he’s going through samples of other animals to try to match it up.”
“Any other hair or fibers?” I asked.
“Some, but you have to remember that just finding a hair or a type of fiber doesn’t prove much. Carlos is putting in whatever time he can on it. He verified that she wasn’t killed in the field. And he did find wool fibers, so maybe those came from the blanket you heard them talking about.”
Frank changed the subject after that, and I let myself be distracted from thoughts of Sammy’s murder. I looked out over the water, felt the breeze, listened to the two men talking. We sailed out beyond the breakwater, and headed down the coast, away from the boats going to Santa Catalina Island. Although eventually I was feeling at ease again, I wore down fairly quickly. Frank noticed.
“You’re tired, aren’t you?”
I nodded to him.
“Take her below,” Jack said. “Sleep for a while, Irene, and I’ll take us back in.”
Frank helped me down the companionway ladder and forward into a bunk. He lay down next to me, gently stroking my hair. He leaned over and gave me a long kiss. We hadn’t kissed like that in a while.
“I have a good mind to untie those sweatpants,” he said.
“Frank! Not with Jack right above us.”
He laughed and left me. I fell asleep quickly.
When I woke up, we were back in the marina. Frank helped me up the ladder. Just as we cleared the hold, I saw a sleek yacht going by, looming above our much smaller craft.
“Whose is that?” I asked.
“Oh, that’s Malcolm Gannet’s,” Jack said.
“Gannet?” I said, just as the name painted on the yacht’s stern came into view.
The
“The Pony Player,” I said, and suddenly felt the blood drain from my face.
32
“IRENE? Irene? Are you okay?”
I looked blankly into Frank’s worried face, my mind still flooding with images of being in a small, cold, dark room; of being beaten; of being afraid I would be killed. Dice rolling across a bare wooden floor.
“Sit down,” I heard Frank saying, as if from a great distance. “Try to put your head down.” I let him position me without resistance; I couldn’t seem to will myself to do anything.
When I had recovered somewhat, I lifted my head and said, “Sorry,” and took a few deep breaths. Frank and Jack were anxiously watching me. I was shaking. I started to talk to them, but it was no good. I wanted the fear to pass, but it was like waiting for a long freight train at a railroad crossing.
“He’s the one,” I finally managed, but my mouth was so dry it came out a whisper. “He really is the one,” I said again. “Malcolm Gannet. The Pony Player.”
“The fourth man?” Frank asked.
I nodded.
“How do you know it’s Malcolm Gannet?” Jack asked.
“Devon and Raney kept talking about someone they called the Pony Player. They also said he was the big boy. They were afraid they might be set up to take a fall for Paul or the Pony Player. I got the impression that Devon and Raney didn’t do the actual killing — they were there, but Paul or maybe this Pony Player were the ones that actually carried out the murders.”
I thought over what I had heard Devon and Raney say, placing Paul Fremont in their cryptic references to Sammy’s murder. I looked up at Frank.
“Paul had a knife. After they killed Sammy, he cut this Pony Player with the knife, so that it had both the Pony Player’s and Sammy’s blood on it. Devon and Raney had a blanket they were going to use in the same way — so that if they were caught, they had a way to protect themselves, to implicate this same Pony Player.”
“That was when you broke the window,” Frank said, remembering what I had told him. “Devon took the blanket and hid it somewhere in Las Piernas.”
