Evangeline and I stood there knee-deep in the ocean, and I saw the truth in her eyes. I had been right: Alain Duval was Janie’s father. The warm August water suddenly seemed too cold for her. She shivered, turned, and thrashed toward shore. But I was in front of her.
“Get out of my way!” As intended, her whisper slapped against my ears but didn’t reach shore.
“I’ll get out of your way,” I said in my own low, tight voice. “I’ll get out of your life, if that’s what you want. You can find yourself another flunky to keep the wolves away.”
She paused and flashed a look at Janie, whose laughter was mixed with that of my children.
“But if I stay,” I continued, “you’ve got to level with me. I won’t play this game any longer unless you do. This is your only chance. You won’t get another one from me. I can’t afford the risk. Too many people are already dead.”
She was an excellent actress. She reached down and brought up her hands full of water and emptied them over her head as she laughed for the audience onshore.
“All right,” she said. “I’ll tell you whatever I can. You can sell your story to the tabloids and make a fortune when this is over.”
“I’m not a story seller. Does Duval know that he’s Janie’s father?”
“I was going to tell him when you took me to him. I thought he deserved to know, but at the last second I couldn’t.”
“I thought there was more to that visit than just an apology for leaving him.”
“You were right. But he can count months and I’m in the news every time I sneeze, so he’s probably guessed she’s his daughter. God knows the tabloids and magazines have speculated enough about who fathered her, and he’s on their list of suspects.”
“Do I need to know the names of the other contenders they’ve considered?”
“I think Prince Charles and our beloved former president Joe Callahan are two of the names you might recognize.”
“That probably helped sell some papers.”
“My groundskeepers tell me that for several weeks there’ve been more people than usual asking questions in Cragmoor village, but there are always reporters and paparazzi doing that. A couple of them tried to get into the local clinic this spring when Janie fell off her pony and lost some skin from her arm.”
“Did they succeed?”
“One of them stole her riding gloves before the security people got them out the door. Maybe they auctioned them off. I don’t know what a pair of Janie’s bloody gloves would go for on the fan market.”
An idea occurred to me: “Alain Duval might have been willing to shell out quite a bit for a good DNA sample.”
Her actress’s smile went away. “My God! I never thought of that!”
I raised a hand to calm her. “He doesn’t know where she is. This little island is a pretty big place when you’re looking for one small girl.”
“I’ve got to get her home to Scotland! I can protect her there!”
I felt sorry for her, but like Margaret I may have been mourning for myself. “That’s what castles are built for,” I said gently, “but you won’t be able to get her there today. Listen. She and Diana are hitting it off pretty well. Let Janie sleep over with Diana tonight. Duval will never think of looking for her at our place. You can make plans to ship her home tomorrow, if that’s still what you want to do.”
“I don’t know…”
“While you were looking at the photographs on our wall, did you notice the pistol shooting trophies on our mantel? Those belong to Zee. She’s what people out West used to call a heller with a gun. No kidnappers will come through our door while Zee’s there. And I’m like Scarlett O’Hara: I can shoot pretty well if I don’t have to shoot too far. I think Janie will be quite safe. We’d better go ashore. People will start to talk.”
“All right,” said Evangeline as we sloshed toward the beach, “we’ll do it your way. I can take Janie home first thing tomorrow.”
We reached shore and Evangeline lay down on her beach towel beside Zee. “Your husband has persuaded me to let my daughter sleep over with Diana, but I know enough about these kinds of plans to clear them with the wives and mothers first.”
“I think Diana and Joshua would love it,” said Zee with a smile, “so consider it a done deal. That is, of course, if the children approve.”
The children approved.
“In that case,” I said to Zee, toweling myself dry, “I’ll leave Mrs. Price and Janie to ride home with you while I attend to some other business with what’s left of the afternoon. You have those items I mentioned earlier, I presume.”
Zee patted her canvas beach bag. “Of course. Wasn’t it Mrs. Swiss Family Robinson who had a bag with absolutely everything in it that you’d ever need to survive on a desert island? I’m just like her.”
I blew her a kiss, got into the white Explorer, and drove away down the beach. When I was out of her sight I stopped and called Jake Spitz.
Jake turned out to be at the Edgartown police station, coordinating security and murder investigations with the state and island cops, so I drove there. The station was surrounded by parked cruisers and other cop cars. I parked behind the firehouse next door and walked back.
The chief’s office was crowded with uniformed and plainclothes police. The first one who saw me was Olive Otero, who immediately got up to close the door but was stopped by the long arm of Dom Agganis.
Olive bent and scowled at me from under that arm. “We don’t need you here, Jackson. This is a professional meeting.”
“Mind your manners,” I said. “You’re forgetting that my taxes pay your salary.”
I have no idea why Olive and I rub each other wrong, but the poet had gotten our feelings down pat when he wrote:
I do not love thee, Doctor Fell.
The reason why I cannot tell;
But this alone I know full well:
I do not love thee, Doctor Fell.
“All right, you two, knock it off.” Dom put Olive back in her chair and stepped between us. “What brings you here, J.W.?”
“I’m looking for my boss.”
Jake Spitz said, “What’s up?”
“I want to know more about Hale Drummand.”
All eyes and ears turned toward me. Spitz, being FBI, naturally didn’t want to share information with the others until he was sure they needed to know. A lot of police officers and organizations are like that, much to the benefit of criminals who otherwise would have shorter careers.
“Let’s step into the next office,” said Jake.
It was empty, and Jake shut its door behind us. “What about Drummand?”
“Was he ever stationed on the West Coast?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Jake, did you ever notice that you answer questions with other questions?”
He smiled. “Yeah. It’s a professional thing. I get paid to ask but I don’t get paid to answer. Why do you want to know about Hale Drummand?”
“It’s my turn to answer a question with another one. Did you know that Alain Duval is the father of Evangeline’s daughter, Janie?”
“I’ve heard that rumor along with some others. Is it true?”
“Yes, and I think he knows it, although Evangeline never told him. Tell me something: Has the FBI ever investigated Duval’s organization?”
“We investigate a lot of oganizations,” said Spitz tonelessly.
“Was Drummand involved in that investigation?”
“Maybe.”
I liked him but not enough to spend all afternoon trying to get him to talk to me. “Come on, Jake, I’m not wired. Nobody is going to hear what you say. Besides, I’m working for you, remember? Was Drummand involved or not?”
“Why do you want to know?”
“Because if Duval knows that Janie is his kid, he may want her back, and if he does he may be the guy whose spies were watching Evangeline’s house, and because Drummand went over there and now he’s dead.”
“That’s two ‘ifs’ and one fact. Keep going if you’ve got anyplace to go.”
“Drummand was a trained agent and he was armed, but he didn’t hesitate to go across to the point, where he got himself killed by whoever was over there. How did that happen?”
“You tell me.”
“I don’t have to tell you, Jake. You already know. He went over there because he saw somebody he recognized and apparently trusted enough to let down his guard. If he was involved in the investigation of Duval’s organization, he may have made a friend or two with some of Duval’s people. It wouldn’t be the first time a cop befriended a criminal he’s investigating. Well, was he involved in that earlier investigation or not?”
Spitz gave some thought to what he’d say, then nodded. “I guess it doesn’t matter now, because Hale’s dead, but I don’t want this going any further. You understand?”
“I don’t work for NBC.”
“Okay, then. Hale infiltrated the Followers of Light. He was just the kind of guy Duval liked to have as a Simon Peter. You know what a Simon Peter is?”
“I do.”
“Hale was a marine when he was a kid and he still looked the part. And he could act slightly wacko when he needed to. He became a Follower after passing himself off as a religious militant in need of a leader and an organization. Hale was inside the ashram for almost a year before they started to look at him funny and we took him out for his own safety.”
“Was he in real danger?”
“He thought he might be, so we took him out before anything could really happen. The point is that while he was a Follower he hung out with some of the Simon Peters and made friends of one or two.”
“Are they here on the island?”
Spitz frowned. “There are Simon Peters here, but I don’t know if any of them were Hale’s pals.”
“How did Drummand die?”
“Actually, probably pretty painlessly. Somebody caved in the back of his head and then cut his throat. He turned his back on somebody.”
“Did he still have his piece?”
“Right on his belt, as if he was meeting someone he knew and trusted. Smart of whoever did him in to leave the gun. If it had been taken and we found it later, it could tie the thief to the killing.”
“What do you think of my theory?”
“It’s a theory. I don’t have a better one. Knowing that Duval is the girl’s father gives it more credence than some of the others we’re kicking around. You have any more questions?”
“No. Do you?”
“A lot, but none you can answer.”
“What happened to the Duval investigation?”
“Lots of smoke but not enough fire to bring charges. Unofficially, Duval is making a lot of money and has a lot of ambition for a man of purely spiritual interests.”
“Are there any men with purely spiritual interests these days?”
“Only you and me, J.W.”