Richard Laymon: Island

None of us had eaten anything all day, as far as I knew.

I, for one, was pretty hungry.

We sat in the sand around the fire, eating, passing the water pot around, and not saying much. Everyone seemed pretty upset.

Afterwards, Billie asked me to help her with the dishes, and I agreed. Glad to get away from the group, for one thing.

The “dishes’ were a mix of things: a couple of metal pots rescued from the bottom of the inlet by Keith, plus plastic plates, cups, knives, forks and spoons that we’d brought ashore for our picnic.

We didn’t want to mess up our beach with food scraps, so we carried everything out to the north point—leaving the beach behind and stepping carefully from rock to rock until we reached the very end (forty or fifty feet below the place where I like to work on my journal). We went around the tip, just a bit.

There was nothing to see on the other side. Just more water, beach and jungle.

Billie sat on a rock and dangled her legs in the water. She washed her dishes by bending forward and dipping them into the water between her knees. When I knelt near her and tried to scoop up some water in a pot, she shook her head. “Just put it down. I’ll take care of washing these things. I just wanted you along for the company.”

“I’ll help.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. There isn’t enough here to worry about.” She had brought a rag with her. Also, back on the beach, she’d scooped up some sand in one of the pots. While I watched, she rubbed the dishes with sand, wiped them with the rag, and leaned forward to rinse them with a dip in the water.

She didn’t seem to be in any hurry.

I sure wasn’t.

I liked being out there with her. For starters, Billie is great to look at. She had some major cleavage showing, and her breasts wobbled and shook because of the vigorous way she was washing the dishes. And then there was the way she kept bending forward to rinse things…

It wasn’t just her looks, though. Also, she’s a cool lady. She has always been very nice to me (too nice, if you ask Connie), she treats everyone decently, she has a sense of humor, she isn’t prudish (she’s almost immodest), she doesn’t fly off the handle every two seconds, and she seems to have loads of common sense.

Unfortunately, she didn’t pass on many of these traits to her daughter. Connie has some of Billie’s looks, but apparently didn’t inherit much of her temperament.

Anyway, it was very nice to be out there on the point with her. I tried not to stare at her all the time.

Each time she finished cleaning an item, she twisted sideways and reached up and handed it to me. I made a neat pile on a slightly higher rock.

We were almost done when she gave me a plastic fork, looked me in the eyes and said, “I have a feeling it might be Wesley.”

Her words took me completely by surprise, but I knew right away what she meant.

“It’s occurred to me, too,” I said. “He blew the boat on purpose?”

“Some kind of timing device, so he’d have a few minutes to swim clear before she went up.”

“I’ve seen that sort of thing done in some movies,” I said.

“And so, I’m sure, has Wesley.”

“Do you think he’d have the guts?”

“Never underestimate the guts of a weasel,” she told me. She patted the rock beside her, so I sat down. “I haven’t mentioned this to Andrew, yet. Not to anyone else, either. Wanted to see what you thought of the idea. You’re not an actual member of the family, for one thing. And you’re a good, sensible guy.”

“Well, thanks.”

“Look at the whole deal as an elaborate set-up,” she said. “Whose idea was it to give Andrew and I this boat trip for our anniversary? Wesley’s. Who made all the arrangements? Wesley. Who came down in advance to look things over? Wesley. Who picked this island for our little picnic yesterday? Who stayed on board while the rest of us came ashore? Who got blown up—supposedly?”

“He might’ve actually chosen this island as the place to stage the accident,” I suggested. “Maybe he toured around last week till be found a nice, uninhabited one.”

“Exactly,” she said. “He would’ve needed not only a deserted island, but one that’s out of the way—where we’re not likely to get found immediately.”

“Or at all.”

“And while we’re on that subject,” Billie said, “he could’ve left a trail of false information to make sure nobody misses us—or knows where to come looking.”

I nodded. I’d been nodding fairly regularly since the start of our talk.

“I bet he even came ashore,” I said.

“Here?”

“Yeah. He must’ve brought in a bunch of supplies and hidden them somewhere. For his own use, you know? Whatever he’s got in mind for us, I’ll bet his plan doesn’t include screwing himself out of stuff to eat and drink.”

“And what,” Billie asked, “do you suppose his plan might be?”

“What do you think?” I asked her.

“I asked you first.”

“Okay.” I took a deep breath. “For starters, Wesley wouldn’t do any of this if he really loved Thelma.”

“I agree. And he didn’t. I think he could barely tolerate her.”

“So why did he marry her?”

“She’s very rich. As are we all, thanks to Andrew.”

“Yeah. Okay. Is mere a way that this business of marooning us might make Wesley rich?”

“Sure. If he’s the only survivor.”

We looked at each other, and we both grimaced.

“What would he inherit?” I asked.

“What wouldn’t he?”

“Jeez.”

“So that’s his plan. Kill us all.”

“Maybe,” I said. “He’s gotten off to a great start—killed the toughest male in the group.”

“I don’t know about that.” She smiled. “Andrew’s a pretty tough hombre.”

“He’s probably next on the list.”

She shook her head. “Won’t let that happen.”

“We’ll have to talk to the others about this.”

“That’ll certainly endear us to Thelma. We’d better leave her out of it”

“Talk to them one at a time,” I suggested.

“Yeah.”

“We might be completely wrong, you know. I mean, this is all guesswork—sort of farfetched, too.”

“But it all fits,” Billie said.

“Yeah. The only thing is, sometimes things are the way they seem. Maybe Wesley did get blown up with the boat.”

“And Keith was killed by… ?”

“A restless native?”

A corner of Billie’s mouth turned up. “Maybe Gilligan did it.”

“Or the Howells.”

Billie smiled and shook her head.

I suddenly felt a little guilty for kidding around about Keith’s death. Getting serious, I said, “In a way, it doesn’t matter who did it. What matters is that it happened and the killer’s probably still out there. Whether he’s Wesley or someone else, it’s pretty much the same deal.”

“Except I’d sure like to know who we’re dealing with.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Me, too.”

“It isn’t quite as scary when I think of Wesley out there trying to knock us off. At least he’s not a complete stranger. If it’s not him, it might be someone ten times more dangerous.”

“Better him than some sort of deranged jungle-man.”

“I’ll say.”

“So, what are we going to do about our theory?” I asked.

“You don’t see any major holes in it?”

“No. I think there’s every reason to believe it is Wesley—except that maybe he was blown to bits yesterday.”

“Or maybe he wasn’t.”

“Nobody found any bits,” I admitted. “Which doesn’t mean he wasn’t blown up…”

“I’ve picked up one lesson from many long years of watching crappy TV mysteries,” Billie said. “Here it is: if the body isn’t found and identified beyond a shadow of a doubt—then the person ain’t dead. It’s almost always a ruse, and the ‘dead’ guy is up to no good.”