Mareta was soaking up the sunshine on the hospital balcony when I stopped by to see her early the following morning. The cast had been removed from her leg the day before and she had just finished a strenuous session of physical therapy. What I could see of her leg was white and wrinkled. An aluminum crutch lay across her lap. She used it to pull herself to her feet. “Watch,” she said gaily. “I’m almost ready for that dancing you keep talking about.” She limped slowly and, I judged, painfully, a few yards down the balcony and back. When she collapsed into the chair her face was pale and strained.
“Great,” I said. “When are they going to let you out?”
“They say a week or ten days.”
“Why so long? Why not today?”
“What have I got to go to?” she said wistfully. “And I can’t go back to work like this. They’ve got plenty of room, and the government picks up the bill, so they’re in no hurry to get rid of me.”
“All that for a sprained ligament,” I teased.
“A very badly sprained ligament,” she said through pouty lips that immediately broke into a wide grin. I reached over to squeeze her forearm It felt warm and healthy from being in the sun.
I hesitated, then told her about the activities of the past few days. She gasped at the account of the previous night’s shooting and her face suddenly hardened. “A couple of ideas occurred to me,” I said, a little disconcerted by the intensity of her expression. “I just spent half an hour over at the post office calling a friend of mine in San Francisco, asking him to check them out. But there’s something I’ve got to know more about, even though I don’t know whether it ties in or not. Tell me about Patrick, and your accident. Everything you can.”
Her eyes veiled over. “Must I ?”
I nodded somberly.
An hour and a half later I knew more about Patrick than I wanted to. I knew about Patrick’s relations with Mareta, with Danielle Payton, with Bob and Susan West, with Chatoune and Yves and Marie-France and Hinano and all the rest of the swinging band. And none of it, as far as I could see, was of any use.
I left Mareta sitting drained and pensive on the balcony and drove on into town. Tama, I knew, was at the Hotel Taaone, interviewing the Wests and trying to dig spent bullets out of hibiscus bushes and taro leaves.
I parked behind the cathedral and walked up to the offices of Jackie Laurent, swinging doctor. There were two Tahitian women and a Frenchman in the waiting room, but Tahiti medicine seemed to run its course a little quicker than it did in the States, and within twenty minutes I was sitting in front of his desk. He pumped my hand and smiled at me expectantly.
I spent ten minutes giving him enough information about the events of the past week to keep him happy and to justify my nosing about, then said, “If this was a detective story all the loose ends would come together nice and neat and there’d be one elegant solution explaining everything.” I shook my head ironically. “I never saw it happen like that while I was a cop on the force, but now that I’m kind of a private eye, who knows? I can always hope.”
He nodded, as if what I was saying made sense.
“I don’t like coincidences,” I went on. “Practically the first day I’m here I run into Patrick Atatia, or his body. He’s part of a swinging circle. Then I meet the Wests. They’re part of that same group. First they get me involved with their problems, then with a kidnapping. The woman who’s been kidnapped is another member of that same group.” I held up my hands as if to say, How much, oh Lord, how much?
“It’s a small island,” said Jackie, unimpressed.
“That’s so. But even so.… I think it might all tie together. There are questions that nobody seems to be asking about the death of Patrick Atatia. Like: Why did he kill himself? Why did he try to kill Mareta? Is there any way he could have been mixed up in this kidnapping, and if so, is that what caused his death?”
Jackie Laurent frowned. “How do you mean? He was dead before Danielle disappeared, wasn’t he?”
“Patrick sounds like just the sort of yoyo with a screw loose who could easily wake up one morning and find himself involved with a kidnapping,” I said. “He could have been mixed up with the actual kidnapping itself, in the planning stages, let’s say. He then might have had an attack of remorse, or he feared he was going to be exposed, so he killed himself. Or he might have been completely innocent, and learned something he shouldn’t have, and got himself killed by the kidnappers.”
“What!” Jackie’s mouth fell open. “But, but.…”
“Yeah, I know. Mareta says he drove them over the cliff. But in my kind of job I’ve seen a lot of people who’ve suffered accidents or assaults: they’re in shock, their memories are dim and confused, reality mingles with dreams. You’ve seen them too. I know Mareta pretty well now, and I still haven’t been able to discover any other reason for Patrick wanting to drive them over that cliff. It doesn’t make sense. And when something doesn’t make sense, you begin to look for another explanation.”
I sat back expectantly. What I was waiting for, I suppose, was a thoughtful silence while the good doctor respectfully mulled over the considered opinion of the big-time police officer. What I got instead was a sharp giggle that became a full-bellied horselaugh. I looked at him first with astonishment, then with growing indignation. What I’d just propounded wasn’t as ridiculous as all that.…
“But my dear Monsieur LaRoche,” he said with an infuriatingly superior smile, “of course there’s a reason for the unfortunate Patrick Atatia trying to do away with himself and the charming Mareta.”
“There is?” I said hollowly.
“Certainly. A rather trivial one, to my mind, but.…” He shrugged elaborately. “Different people, you know.…”
“If you could possibly tell me,” I said with a dignified composure worthy of Colonel Schneider: I hate being laughed at.
“Of course, of course.” Dr. Laurent leaned forward confidentially. “I can’t tell you why your investigation seems to be leading you to all the leading swingers of Tahiti—you’re just lucky perhaps.…” He broke off to chuckle at his own wit. He really was an intolerable person.
“Well?” I said brusquely.
“Somewhere, not long ago, I haven’t been able to track down where, Patrick picked up a rather virulent strain of sexual herpes. As you may know, a number of these herpes varieties are presently incurable. You’re stuck with them for life. Evidently Patrick contacted it somewhere…outside our little circle. Naturally, he was…ostracized once we became aware of it. That sort of thing does put rather a pall over a friendly gathering, don’t you think, Monsieur LaRoche?”
“Merde,” I muttered. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
“How could you? And naturally it’s the sort of thing a well-brought-up young lady like Mareta Atatia would be…reluctant to—”
“Has she got it?” I said brutally.
Jackie shook his head. “Actually it’s not all that easy to transmit. And I believe that their relations…were really quite limited.”
I nodded.
“As I’m sure you’ve noticed,” he went on, “Mareta does have rather a sharp tongue. No? Ah, of course. You see her demure and sedated, lying in the hospital in her bed of pain. Believe me, Monsieur LaRoche, you’re seeing only half the woman. The other half is sharp, tough, abrasive, and with a hair-trigger temper. Once Patrick was incautious enough to permit her to know about his…little ailment, she made life a living hell for that poor fellow.” He smiled maliciously at the reminiscence. “So not only was he blackballed from his little group of friends, he now no longer dared to set foot inside his own door for fear of being bludgeoned to death by her tongue. And then, of course, Mareta told him she was divorcing him.… That, I suppose, was the last straw. A few days later he drove them off the cliff.…”
“Hrmph,” I said ungraciously. I got to my feet and stalked to the door.
Jackie’s voice behind me was cheerful. “I adore being helpful.”
* * * *
The day dragged on. I had a lunch of sorts and drove over to the Commissariat. Tama was out, so I went on to Punaauia. The only one at home was Bobby Lee Tanner, Payton’s campaign manager. He was on the lawn, fending off questions from a dozen bored media people. I sneaked by them and lay on my bed in the guesthouse and tried to nap but sleep wouldn’t come. So you were wrong, I said to myself. It’s nothing criminal. Anybody can be wrong. Even LaRoche.
Impossible thought.
I got up and took a cold shower and drove back to town. I walked the streets and visited the market and sat in cafés drinking coffee until my watch told me it was 4:00. That was seven in the evening in San Francisco, and Charlie Hennigan was waiting for my call. So I strolled up the waterfront to the public telephones at the post office and had the operator put me through, collect. He could always send me the bill.
“I’ve got a couple of surprises for you,” I told Tamara and Charles Wentworth Payton fifty minutes later. Bobby Lee Tanner sat on a corner of the living room couch, his plump fingers endlessly rolling and unrolling a copy of the National Geographic.
“Well?” said Payton impatiently. “What is it?”
I grinned at him mirthlessly. “I can say it in a few words. My pals Bob and Susan West are the kidnappers of your wife, Danielle.”