Richard Laymon: Island

Besides, everybody needs to know we have a killer out there.

One or more killers.

Savage natives?

Who knows?

Maybe one of us did it. Possible, but not likely. Andrew’s probably the only one strong enough to hoist Keith up a tree like that. Unless a couple of the women teamed up to do it. No motive for anything like that, though, as far as I can see.

Oh, shit. The search party is coming back.

Gotta go.

They came out of the jungle with Andrew and Billie supporting Thelma. She was hobbling along between them, putting almost no weight on her left leg. Her left ankle was wrapped with Andrew’s black leather belt.

Kimberly brought up the rear. She kept turning around and looking back into the jungle.

All of them were flushed and sweaty.

As they walked closer to me, Andrew shook his head.

“No luck?” I asked.

“He could be anywhere out there. No sign of him at all. I take it he hasn’t put in an appearance around here?”

“Nope,” I said. Then I asked Thelma, “What happened to you?”

“I’m such a klutz,” she said. “I slipped and twisted my ankle.”

“Could’ve happened to anyone,” Billie told her.

“We’ll go out looking again,” Andrew said. “Needed to bring Thelma back, and we ought to get some food in us.”

They lowered Thelma onto the collection of rags and towels that she’d shared last night with Kimberly and Keith.

Kimberly kept walking. “I’m going in to cool off,” she said as she passed us. She was scratched, shiny with sweat, dirty, and had bits of green sticking to her skin.

“Did something happen to her?” I asked, when she was a fair distance off.

“There wasn’t any stopping her,” Andrew said. He shook his head as he watched her stride toward the shore. “She crawled into tight places, went through bushes, scampered up rocks. Wore me out just watching her. What a kid—all I could do to make her come back with us. Keith better have himself one damn good excuse if he turns up okay.”

“He won’t,” I said.

Andrew, Billie and Thelma all suddenly looked at me.

“He won’t what?” Andrew asked.

“Turn up okay. I found him. Just a few minutes ago. He’s been killed. Hanged, I think.”

Thelma’s mouth fell open and she started to blink at me very rapidly.

Billie murmured, “Oh, my God.”

Andrew mashed his lips together and shook his head. Then he said in a low voice, “Better show me. You two stay here,” he told the gals.

“What about Kim?” Billie asked.

I turned my head just in time to see Kimberly, up to her thighs in the dear blue water of the inlet, raise her arms and dive under.

“No point in telling her anything until we’re sure,” Andrew said. “Jesus wept. What is there, some damn conspiracy to turn all my daughters into widows?”

When he said that, Thelma started to cry.

Kimberly surfaced and began to swim, her back flashing sunlight.

“Let’s go, chief.”

We hurried. As we went, he asked how I’d discovered the body and was I sure it was Keith. I left out the part about falling down, but told him the rest As for being sure of the identity, I pointed out that Keith was the only guy who had disappeared and the body in the tree was wearing a shirt exactly like Keith’s, so I figured it was a pretty good bet.

“Don’t be smart about shit like this,” he told me.

I apologized.

“That’s my girl’s husband you’re talking about, and he was a good, decent man. Unlike that fuckhead who blew himself out of the water yesterday.”

When we got into the jungle, we had to wander around for a while, but finally I found the right place. The crumpled pages of a paperback book marked the spot, so to speak. That wasn’t Keith’s tree, but it worked as a landmark. I took a few strides away from it, looked up, saw Keith and pointed.

“I reckon that’s him, all right,” Andrew said.

“I think he probably came out here during his watch,” I said. “You know, figuring it’d be a good time to take care of business, everybody else being asleep. Only someone was out here waiting for him.”

“Or followed him when he left the beach,” Andrew added, and gave me a look. I couldn’t see his eyes too well, his sunglasses being in the way, but I knew what sort of look he was giving me.

“If you think I did it, you’re nuts. Why would I do it?”

“You’ve got the hots for Kimberly, so you take Keith out of the picture…”

“You’re nuts!”

“You can’t take your eyes off her.”

“Bull. And anyway, I’m not dumb enough to think she’d fell into my arms just because Keith isn’t around. What kind of a moron do you think I am? And how in hell do you think I could possibly hoist a guy Keith’s size that high into a tree?”

“It could be done,” Andrew said.

“With a winch, maybe.”

“A block and tackle.”

“Have .you seen me running around the beach with a block and tackle hanging outa my trunks?”

“Steady there, chief. Don’t blow a gasket, I’m just speculating.”

“Well you can quit speculating about me. How do I know you didn’t kill him? I bet you could hoist a guy up there without a block and tackle.”

“What’s my motive, Sherlock?”

“You tell me.”

“Shit. He was the salt of the earth, that boy. Shit!” Andrew suddenly jabbed a finger toward the body. “Get up there and cut him down. Kimberly sees we’re gone, she might get suspicious and come looking.”

“You want me to climb up there… ?”

“You betcha, chief. I’m a sixty-year-old man, for Godsake.”

“Sixty?”

“Bet yer ass.”

“You’re in better shape than me, anyway.”

“I know that, and you oughta be ashamed to admit it.” He dug the Swiss Army knife out of a front pocket of his shorts, and tossed it underhand to me.

I fumbled it and had to bend down to pick it up.

“Get up there. Haul yer ass. Kimberly comes along and sees him swinging up there with his dick in the wind, she’ll have nightmares the rest of her life.”

I figured that Andrew was probably right about that.

My swimming trunks didn’t have a pocket and I wasn’t wearing any shirt, so I kept the knife shut and slid it down the top of my right sock. Then I started climbing the tree.

It wasn’t my idea of a good time.

For one thing, I was worried about falling. For another, I was on my way up to a dead guy. I’d had about as much experience with dead bodies as I’d had with live gals. Basically, none. And I would’ve liked to keep it that way. (Not about the gals, about the corpses.) If being dead wasn’t bad enough, he was as good as naked. There’s just about nothing I’d rather see less than some guy without any pants on. Especially the front of him, which is the section that was turned toward the tree trunk—and me.

I made sure not to look at him, and kept my eyes on the tree while I climbed. After a while, his bare feet showed up in my peripheral vision.

I turned my head and saw where the rope was tied off. I didn’t look up to see where it came from. Obviously, though, it went upward from around his neck, was looped over a limb above his head, then came down—sort of behind him. It was wrapped and knotted around a limb just a little distance below his feet.

Which meant I could cut him down without climbing any higher, if I was willing to squirm out on the limb. The idea didn’t appeal to me. To get within reach of the rope, I would need to go under Keith—and nudge his feet out of my way. If that wasn’t bad enough, what was going to happen when I cut the rope? He would fall on me, that’s what.

I wanted to be out of harm’s way when I cut him loose.