there was some trouble in the Bahamas. I traveled to Nassau, but could never locate you. I know you said not to come, but I just couldn't stay home.'
'I saw you at the Paradise Island casino, and on Marsh Harbor.'
There was a tense, cautious quality in the attentive way she watched me, and the faintest contraction of her mouth showed that the statement was like a blow across an open wound. 'But why didn't you
…?'
'You were on the move, I couldn't catch up with you.'
She looked calmly, straight at me with the faintly proud look of stressing her calm, but it cracked a little, in the faintest change of her voice. 'I'm sorry I missed you.'
'Maybe we better get started,' Glossman said, nodding to me. 'Let's have your report.'
Lynn concentrated on the nail polish of her index finger.
Reaching for my brief case, I shuffled some papers. 'Lynn came to my office two weeks ago requesting that I locate her missing sister, Rene.' Monotonously I plodded through the events leading up to the identification of the body in a Miami morgue by Lynn, casually mentioning that Steve Henderson and I lifted a set of fingerprints from the body, and that Steve sent them to the FBI Identification Division in Washington, D.C.
Watching Lynn closely for a reaction to this information, I saw that there was none. She continued to pick at the fingernail, waiting for me to continue.
'Rene Renoir was put aboard an airplane in Bimini. She was drugged, and she was dying.'
Lynn folded her hands in her lap, drew her knees tightly together, cocked her chin ever so slightly, and struck a pose of steely self-containment.
'Following her trail from Bimini back to Nassau resulted in my being kidnapped, transported to Abaco Island, and ordered killed by the same individual responsible for Rene's death.'
Pausing, I watched Lynn carefully. She uncrossed and crossed her legs and concentrated again on her fingernail. There was no other reaction. The Federal Agents were silent, attentive. Glossman and Moran stared at me.
I continued. 'That individual's name was Ignacio Sanchez, a smalltime scumbag running dope throughout the Bahamas. He is dead, along with a few of his operatives who were killed during a drug deal that went bad.'
There was a perceptible change in Lynn's posture. She raised her head a little and looked at me. It was only a glance. Then she looked at Glossman and spoke. 'Well, I guess that finishes it. Poor Rene met the wrong people. It got her killed. She was unlucky, and it is very sad.' There was coldness in her voice, and her face hardened as if in open admission of some forgotten pain.
Maybe it was only I seeing her reactions, reading something into the situation because I knew the truth. Maybe there is no difference in voice patterns, body posture, or galvanic skin response. Maybe it is all in the imagination of the observer.
Glossman leaned back in his chair. 'Are you sure it was this Sanchez fellow who had Rene killed?'
'Yes, Mr. Glossman, I'm positive. But there is more.'
'Proceed.'
'One of Sanchez's henchmen, a local Bahamian we knew only as Barrel-chest, made a dying confession detailing Rene's death.'
Lynn suddenly turned with a brusque, brief movement toward me. 'You were there when Sanchez was killed?'
'Yes. Dave Billingsly and I were there. We both listened to every word Barrel-chest uttered as his lifeblood drained away.'
Glossman looked at me and nodded. Lynn saw this, and for the first time outwardly showed some perplexity. Her face paled to a look of confusion, a crack in the armor. Looking at her reminded me of a scene straight from Hamlet. I had the leading role and didn't want to miss a cue or drop a line.
'When Lynn first came to my office, she was advised that I work alone. Having an amateur involved is dangerous. She chose not to take that advice, and could have endangered all of our lives.'
'My sister was dead, I had a right to try and find out who murdered her.' She spoke slowly, as if lashing me with her words, but the emotion was one of a useless effort to defend her actions.
There was a soft tap on the door of Glossman's office. His secretary entered, walked up to my chair and handed me a folded sheet of paper. Smiling, she patted me on the shoulder, turned and walked out, closing the door. Glancing at the note, I put it under the papers in my hand pretending it was of no importance, although it was extremely helpful at the moment.
'Why don't you relate to us what this Barrel-chest fellow said as he was dying.'
'Yes, Mr. Glossman, but first I'd like to ask Lynn why she failed to tell us she flew to Miami on the day Rene sailed aboard the Stede Bonnet?'
It was the first challenging question, and I saw the look of a peculiar pain growing in her eyes. Things were taking a vastly different turn from what she was prepared to deal with this morning.
'I didn't think it important. I flew down to wish her Bon Voyage. When I got the card a couple of days later, I had no reason to think anything wrong.' There was no sound of honesty in her voice, no tone of truth or falsehood, only indifference.
Reaching over, I lay the copy of her round-trip airline ticket to Miami on Glossman's desk. Bill Moran picked it up and sat back in his chair reading it. The ticket had been paid for with Lynn's American Express credit card.
'Barrel-chest, Jay,' Glossman prodded.
'He was the one who botched the kill on Rene. His orders were to do away with her while Sanchez spent a couple of days with a lady friend on Abaco Island. For some reason known only to him, he felt sorry for Rene, didn't want to kill her.'
The two FBI Agents shifted in their seats. Glossman leaned back in his chair. Bill Moran threw the copy of the airline ticket on the desk, turned and looked at Lynn.
'Go on.'
'He couldn't kill her, so he pumped her full of drugs, hoping to keep her sedated, blank her memory, until she got back to the states. Out of sight, out of mind, so to speak. Only he gave her too large a dose of drugs. It killed her. When Sanchez learned Barrel-chest didn't dispose of Rene as ordered, he went into a rage and shot him.'
There was silence in the office. Every eye focused on Lynn Renoir. She drew on the rich blue-blood Southern heritage, both a gift and curse, that old rigorous restraint of emotions. I watched her grapple with her rage, then gain leverage, and subdue them, all in the space of seconds. I wanted to applaud her triumph.
'Finish it up, Jay.'
'Barrel-chest told us Lynn ordered the kidnapping and killing of her sister, and it was she that Sanchez spent the two days with in Abaco.'
She leaped from the chair and stood directly in front of me. The fury in her cold, icy eyes was evident. She trembled all over, the same way that she had done in the bar in Miami the day she identified her sister's body. 'My sister has been murdered by some drug pusher and, because of your incompetence, you accuse me of having something to do with it?' She remained standing before me as if consciously letting me see that she had nothing to hide. Her fists were clinched, feet spread slightly apart. Under different circumstances, she would have been sexy and alluring in her arrogance.
'Sit down, Lynn,' Glossman ordered. 'Maybe you better get it all out, now, Jay.'
She settled into the seat, her dress rising past her knees, ignored this time. There were whispers of silk on nylon, and a teasing glimpse of her thighs, a mystery that made most men light headed.
Standing, I looked at a sheet of paper in my hand. Pointing directly at Lynn, I said, 'This woman is not Lynn Renoir, she is Rene.'
All eyes turned to her. The FBI agents sat up straight. Bill Moran leaned forward and studied her face. In the second that she grasped what I'd said, her body sprang upright in the chair with a single curve of motion, immediate and violent like a cry of rebellion. I paused, watched her fight for control. It was not a simple struggle, or a brief one. She looked at me, wordless. She was afraid, too scared to hide it. She gripped the edge of the chair with the fingers of both hands. The blood squeezed from them, leaving them white, the nails blue. The spasm of fear was stronger than her grip. Despite trying, she kept trembling.
'The fingerprints we lifted from the body in the morgue were identified as Lynn Renoir. Once this was learned, the rest was easy.' Lifting the note Glossman's secretary handed me; I read the name printed on it aloud.
