Job came in as they were finishing tea, and the boy had the tact to excuse himself. Job did not look like a governor now, any more than he ever had, but he was behaving like one.
“Your papers are still in your desk, Tash, just as you left them,” he said. “I didn’t know what you wanted to do with them.”
“There’s nothing important,” she answered. “If someone will throw them all in a carton and send them over to my apartment, I can sort them out there.”
“Are you home for good?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then I’ll have the carton delivered right away.”
“Before long, we’ll have to start our own packing,” said Jo Beth. “I’d much rather stay here in our own home, but Job feels we should move into Leafy Way as soon as we can.”
“When will Leafy Way be ready?”
“They say a month now. Knowing contractors, that probably means two or three months.”
Tash turned back to Job. “There’s something I’d like to ask you: Are the police satisfied, now, that Halcon is the man responsible for Jeremy’s death?”
“Of course. Do you doubt it?”
“Captain Wilkes came down to Sotavento.”
“That troublemaker! He’s driven by his sense of guilt. It was his job to protect Jeremy, and he failed.”
“It may not have been solely his fault.”
“What do you mean?”
“He has some new ideas about all this. I came here today because I thought I ought to pass them along to the police through you.”
“And what are they?” Job smiled indulgently as one smiles at a precocious, but pre-logical child.
“He doesn’t believe that Vivian’s death was an accident. He believes that someone deliberately short-circuited the fire alarm and replaced the burnt-out fuse half an hour later, so the alarm wouldn’t go off until the fire was out of control.”
Job was no longer smiling.
“That could only be done by someone inside the house.”
“That’s just what Captain Wilkes says. He believes Jeremy was betrayed by someone he trusted in his own household.”
“Can he prove it?”
“I don’t know.”
Job was no longer smiling.
“Not a nice thought. When will Wilkes be back?”
“Tomorrow.”
“What would you think about my appointing him as a special prosecutor? He’s a lawyer as well as a policeman.”
“That’s a good idea. He’d give anything to solve this case, just because he feels guilty.”
“Then why did he resign?”
“Didn’t you ask him to?”
“No.”
“He seemed to think you expected it.”
“I didn’t.”
“He must have misunderstood something you said.” Job and Jo Beth walked with Tash as far as the hall. “What became of that Chinese painting, Dragon Playing with a Pearl?” she asked.
“Carlos gave orders before he left for Sotavento that all Jeremy’s personal things should be packed and stored until his heirs could get here.”
“Who are his heirs?”
“Some distant cousins, I believe. Sad, isn’t it? Jeremy should have had children.”
“Yes.” Tash repeated the words. “Jeremy should have had children. And now, I must say good-bye.”
“Can I reach you at your apartment in the next few days?” asked Job.
“Oh, yes, I’ll stay there until Wilkes’ questions are answered.”
“And where will you go then?”
“Anywhere except here.”
Compassion stole into Jo Beth’s eyes, and she ventured a little nearer the edge of all the things they had left unsaid.
“I hope things work out for you. I shall think of you often, and I hope you will always think of me as a friend. We were Jeremy’s people, and we should hang together now he’s gone. We are the only ones who know how many hopes were buried with him.”
“I’ll call you as soon as I’ve talked to Wilkes,” said Job. “I suppose you’re on your way home now?”
“Yes, but I’m going to stop first at the beach.”
“At the beach! Why?”
She couldn’t say, because that’s the place where Jeremy first kissed me. So she simply said: “Good-bye!” and ran down the steps to her car.
Further Lane ended where the last of its macadam rose up a steep incline to the crest of a sandy hill.
Tash stopped the car at the very edge of the macadam, close to three tall, old pine trees with trunks almost as thick as a man’s waist. She shut off the engine, shifted gear, and sat still, listening to the steady pounding of the surf.
Beyond white horses you could see a choppy ocean flecked with foam as far as the horizon. The twilight was gray, the color of dreams; under that bleak sky, the sea was slate-blue. Hard to believe that only a thousand miles or so to the south that same ocean was jade and turquoise.
She glanced at her watch. She had been here ten minutes.
She ought to go now.
Suppose Bill Brewer was trying to return her call?
Still, she sat without moving and listened to the wild keening of the gulls and watched a sandpiper flicking along the wet edge of the beach.
Why not get out and walk down to the sea that Jeremy had so loved?
She stood still beside the open door of the car, resting one hand on its wide handle while she looked up at the skyscape she had been unable to see from under the roof of the car.
Each cloud was a different shade of gray, from iron to pewter to dove color, all overlapping and all moving, languidly, almost imperceptibly.
She did not hear a sound behind her, but she felt a sudden, gentle nudge from the car door standing open close beside her. The next thing she knew, searing pain darted through her chest. The car had rolled backward a little way downhill, but it had been forced to stop when the heavy, open door pinned her against the huge trunk of the nearest pine tree.
That tree and her body kept the car from rolling farther, the way big stones wedged under the rear wheels will keep a car from rolling backward downhill. Her
