Bundled in one of Eddie’s old sweatshirts, strong legs wrapped in a blanket, Ruita sipped coffee as she said, “… That night, I suddenly realized we were really fighting over — nothing. I returned to the HOOKER to again ask you to have supper with me. However, foolish pride — fortunately — made me wait in a cluster of trees: I would surprise you when you awoke, came looking for me. But when the police came, I overheard them saying I was wanted for questioning about the murder … full of panic, I fled. You see, earlier, when I left you after our fight, I’d merely walked around Papeete, avoiding the crowded streets, couldn’t prove where I was at the time of Kitty’s death. So I hid.”
“Where?” I asked, rubbing her cold legs, so happy I wanted to cover her with kisses.
“It was very simple. I have a cousin in Papeete, a man named Fumer, whom I haven’t seen in at least 15 years — he was a sailor and away from the islands for a long time. I selected him of all my relatives in the city because he lives near the King Pomare Memorial, on the outskirts. Naturally they were delighted to see me and …”
“Didn’t they hear on the radio about the police looking for you?” Eddie asked.
Ruita laughed — a lovely sound. “You forget, at one time I was an avid reader of French mystery novels. In order not to worry them with the police, and to protect us all, I didn’t say I am Ruita, by my cousin — and their’s — Nitu — who lives in Forliga, one of the Tuamotu atolls. It was a harmless deception, we are of the same age, and I was certain they hadn’t seen her in years. Well, I knew I had to leave Papeete and that I would leave on the HOOKER. I had one of their sons buy me a snorkel and face mask — told them I was having an affair with Eddie and playing a joke on him — to make sure he wasn’t sailing with any other girl. Naturally, they were interested in such romantic intrigues — several times a day one of their kids bicycled to the quay — and this afternoon raced home to tell me you were making ready to sail. He was the lad in the canoe. The rest was too easy — in the twilight as he paddled near the HOOKER, I put on the snorkel, went over the side of the canoe. When you stopped to bawl him out, I was hanging to your dinghy, under it all the time the police searched the boat at customs. Once we were at sea … here I am.”
Eddie, who was at the tiller, nodded in admiration. “Ay, you have a beautiful head, inside and out, Ruita. Even if your cousins brag, they will talk about this Nitu — no word of your leaving Tahiti can possibly reach the police.”
Playing with her stubby toes, I said, “Hell with Roogona now — we will head toward Easter Island, some place off the beaten track. With the cutter we can sail around the remote islands for months without….”
“You want us to run, Ray?” Ruita asked.
“Run like hell! Honey, it was a mistake leaving Numega in the first place. I almost went crazy at the thought of you in jail … and the case against you is strong.”
“But now that we know about the pearl …?” Eddie began.
“Balls, we don’t actually know anything, merely have us a new theory about the murder. I’m not going to chance Ruita being picked up — ever!”
Ruita asked, “What pearl?”
When I told her what he’d learned from Karl, my wife said, excitement riding her voice, “Whoever stole the pearl, believes it’s worth a fortune — a perfect motive!”
“Ruita, I don’t give a fat damn about the pearl or finding the killer! Can’t you understand, we’re in a mess and all I want is out!”
“Being on the run for the rest of our lives, Ray, isn’t any ‘out,’ “ she said softly, squeezing my hand. “Nor is it possible — planes, the radio, have shrunk the Pacific. With all the publicity, the police will never forget this case — sooner or later we’ll be found.”
“She’s right,” Eddie added. “If we don’t show up in Roogona, they’ll send out an alarm for the HOOKER. We’ll be spotted, a plane sent for us — no matter what hunk of coral we’re hiding on.”
“Listen to me, we find some islet on one of the remote atolls, you put us ashore — we’ll get along. In time you can return to Papeete and have Olin secretly cash a check, buy us plenty of stores — return months later.”
“Ray, if Eddie returns to Papeete — no matter when — the police will grill him,” Ruita said.
“Then we’ll scuttle the HOOKER once we find our deserted island!”
“If you want to play it like that, I’ll sink the cutter,” Eddie said, without enthusiasm. “She’s really half your’s and …”
“Let’s stop all this wild thinking,” Ruita cut in, her voice gentle. “We’ve done no wrong, why live the rest of our lives in hiding? Eddie loves the HOOKER and we love Numega, our house, have our pearl hobby, our …”
“Both of you are talking with paper heads! We’re not only dealing with the police — who are damn well convinced you murdered Kitty — but also with a very real killer! Honey, know what was driving me off my rocker back in Papeete, when I couldn’t find you? I kept thinking you were dead! Another thing, we’re involved with a powerful and ruthless movie company who’ll stop at nothing to make more headlines!”
“Ray, Ray, take it easy, we don’t have to make a decision this second, or this night,” Ruita said, pouring a cup of the strong coffee. “From what you’ve told me, Matt and Herb, Walt, they all seem almost as upset as you were, about my being under suspicion. They did offer to help in any way they could. Let’s combine both our ideas.”
“What’s that mean?” I asked, putting sugar in her coffee, stirring it with my finger.
“Well, as Eddie said, we have to go to Roogona, or the police will be sure I’m aboard, start an air hunt for the HOOKER. Once we arrive in Roogona, I’ll leave the HOOKER underwater, using the snorkel again — hide on an islet, if there is one, or in the mountains. Be quite simple — remember, to the movie popaas all ‘natives’ look alike. Wearing my hair differently, I could probably be one of the extras and not be noticed! Also, I’ve never been on Roogona, to the islanders I can pass myself off as Eddie’s girl.”
“That’s too much of a risk!” I told her.
“To go rushing off, on the run, would be more of a risk, dear. We reach Roogona, and as your slang goes, play it from there by ear. We can all work on the stolen pearl angle.”
“Work? We’re not detectives!” I shouted.
Ruita reached over to kiss me. “Ray, would I do anything to spoil our happiness? Be realistic, darling, even if we could find some empty island where living conditions are tolerable … how long would it be, a month, a year, before the inter-island gossip grapevine mentions a tall popaa and an island woman alone on some coral hunk, bring the Papeete police? We’re safer going on to Roogona, where I remain in hiding, and see what we can learn about the pearl. If we learn nothing, find no clues to the killer, then we can always try your plan.”
“But we’re getting involved again! Why take any chances, let’s get away while we can.”
“Ray, Ray, we’re involved in this whether we want to be or not,” Ruita said. “We don’t exactly have a free choice.”
Eddie said, “She’s right. If we’re caught on the run — say, a year from now, what chance will we have then of finding the murderer?”
“Goddamnit, you both sound like kids playing at cops and robbers!” I snapped, and immediately was sorry I’d opened my big yap: Eddie and Ruita glanced my way, their brown faces telling me to stop acting the all-wise, big white popaa.
Eddie said, “Since the killer doesn’t know we’re on to the pearl, that gives us an edge. One thing is for sure, we have to go on to Roogona, or the cops will suspect Ruita being with us. Ray, you agree to that?”
I nodded — although I didn’t agree.
“Okay, once there we’ll see how the cards fall. Meantime, we have at least nine days to make plans, so no sense knocking our brains out now. I have a lime pie, anybody hungry?”
“I’m starved — a lime pie!” my wife said, eagerly.
As usual, when a Polynesian dismisses something from their mind, they really drop it: it minutes Eddie and Ruita were eating the pie, enjoying themselves. I guess if more people could do that, there would be less need for psychiatrists in the rest of the world.
During the ten days it took us to reach Roogona, Eddie and Ruita acted as if they hadn’t care one — it was like the old days on the HOOKER. There weren’t any fixed watches, whoever was awake relieved whoever was at the tiller, or did the cooking. Eddie was full of his old yarns about his days as a pork and beaner pug.
I was the only one full of worry. Twice we passed ships — a tourist liner so high out of the water it looked frightening; the other boat an old island tramp schooner. Each time Ruita remained below. But we had a hot argument when a jet streaked overhead and she stayed on deck, telling me, “Don’t be silly, they’re flying at 15 or 20 thousand feet, can’t possibly identify me.”
We slept and ate well, played cards and made small talk — as if this was merely another trading trip. All the time I was tighter than a drum in the rain, only relaxed when Ruita’s demanding body was next to mine on the cabin bunk, in such a tight embrace even the HOOKER’S brazen roaches couldn’t come between us. But after such passion sessions, I only worried all the more at the possibility of losing my sexy wife.
On the morning of the ninth day out of Tahiti, Eddie — with his usual instrumentless-but-on-the-nose-navigation — pointed to some ugly frigate birds wheeling above us, said we’d see the Marquesas before night. In the afternoon he nodded at a bright spot on the pale blue horizon, announced, “The reflection from Roogona’s harbor.”
Within another few hours we began to close in on the island, seeing the mountain top and later even the coconut palms. Eddie put the cutter on a new tack, bringing us on the rear of Roogona as twilight fell. Then we started a slow circle of the island, with me at the tiller and Eddie sitting on the bowsprit — a form of masthead piloting — listening to the sounds of the waves, able to tell if we were approaching water too shallow for the HOOKER’S modest draft. With our running lights off, we slipped into the harbor and ran along a hunk of shelf reef — a good mile from the main curve of the harbor and the village. Mostly the reef was under seven or eight feet of water, but here and there ragged bits of coral split the surface and there was this bit of coral — an islet — about 30 feet in diameter with a cluster of coconut palms and a few ragged bushes.
Ruita, sitting in the cabin hatchway, thought it would be an ideal hiding place. We dropped anchor some 50 yards away and I swam ashore. The little island was deserted, although from the few cans I stumbled over in the darkness, it was probably used now and then for a picnic grounds, or as a lovers’ nest. I couldn’t find a spring; and the rustling of coconut crabs in the night was a lonely and spooky sound.
Swimming back to the HOOKER I told them what I’d found and Ruita said, “It sounds fine.”
“I’m not sure if there’s water, but we’ll be anchored nearby, so….”
“No, you must anchor in the harbor. If the cutter is so far from the village, people will get curious. I’ll take water ashore with me now,” my wife said.
“She’s right,” Eddie said. “We anchor here, islanders and the movie crowd are sure to come out and visit the HOOKER. We’ll row you ashore now with water and food.”
“There are coconuts, I will not need other food. Nor will I make a fire.”
I said, “Honey, wait up — you’ll need food, a tent, a small gas stove.”
She shook her pretty head. “Food will attract birds, while any fire might be seen. I shall need nothing but a knife, and not even that, really, for I shall live as my ancestors did — make a lean-to with palm leaves, eat well on coconuts and crabs. Ray, no argument, it will be simple enough for me to do — and safer. Believe me.” She reached up and stroked my face.
I didn’t go for the idea of her being there alone. Ruita must have read my thoughts, for she added, “During the day you musn’t visit me, either, under any circumstances. But each night, at about this time, I’ll swim to the HOOKER.”
“That I don’t buy — there can be sharks around. No, every night, when it’s dark, I’ll tell everybody I’m going fishing, row over. Eddie, do you have a pistol?”
“A Luger.”
“Wrap it in oilskins. Ruita will take that, too.”
“Ray, there’s no need,” she began. “I’ll be perfectly …”
“Honey, I’ll feel better if you have a gun. Otherwise — no dice.”
“All right, but only to make you feel better.”
Wrapping a knife and the Luger in a plastic cookie bag, Ruita tied them around her waist, along with a pareu cloth, Then taking off the sweat shirt and pants she was wearing, she slipped over the side of the HOOKER. Towing a can of water, she swam with a quiet breast-stroke … in order not to make waves, leave a phosphorescence wake in the dark water.
In the night, I couldn’t see if she reached the islet. Eddie, who was leaning far over the side, listening, suddenly stood up, announced, “Ruita’s on the island.”
“How can we be sure? She might have had a cramp….?”
Eddie cupped his big mitts, whistled once. Seconds later there was an answering whistle. Grinning at me, he said, “Now stop worrying, put on the running lights while I haul anchor. If anybody asks why we stopped — we went aground on the reef in the darkness.”
Using the motor, minutes later we dropped anchor near the DOUBLE-TAKE. The yacht was dark and quiet, only her riding lights on, while on Roogona kerosene lamps flicked dimly in some village huts.
Some distance away from the village — the spot the islanders were to clear for the movie people — a large generator began to purr and seconds later a great spotlight flashed, showing a marvelous street of stately huts, while on the beach near the set I thought there was a wrecked ship … but using glasses we saw it was a sort of sawed-off stern of an old English sailing vessel resting on the sand. Several white men in over-alls began hammering away on one of the larger huts.
Eddie said, “Guess that’s how Papeete looked two hundred years ago. Crazy — bet they flew those carpenters in from the States, instead of letting the islanders build the real thing. Let’s go ashore, see what’s shaking.”
“Tomorrow: I’ll stay here,” I said, not really listening to him, my ears straining for the sound of a Luger in the clear night.