Read A Penny for the Hangman Online
Authors: Tom Savage
A Penny for the Hangman (3 page)
“Ms. Tyler?”
“Yes?” She looked up from the magazine. It was the waiter again, the one who had so admired Karen’s new bikini. He stood over her, holding out a cordless receiver.
“You have a phone call. He says you’re expecting it.”
Karen blinked at the instrument in his hand, then glanced down at the cell phone on the table. “But I thought—”
“The gentleman said he tried your cell number, but he couldn’t get through, so he called the hotel instead. I’m afraid cells don’t always work everywhere in the Islands.”
“Oh. Thank you.” She took the receiver from him, waiting until he moved away before raising it to her ear. “Hello?”
“Welcome to St. Thomas, Miss Tyler.” It was the familiar voice, low and clear, with perfect enunciation. She noted the “Miss” again, another clue that this was an older man, well bred and old-fashioned, as Harper or Anderman would be.
“Hello, Deep Throat,” she said, “or is it Mr. Huxley?”
He emitted a raspy sound that she interpreted as a laugh. “I trust you’re enjoying the hotel.”
“Yes, I’m having a lovely time. It’s very hot here, but it’s amazing how quickly you become used to the heat. The sun is marvelous. I’m getting a nice tan.” She was practically babbling because she was nervous, but she didn’t want him to know it. His next words shattered all hope of that.
“Well,” he said, “you don’t want to burn yourself, so stay under that umbrella.”
Despite the equatorial warmth, Karen felt a sudden rush of numbing cold inside her. It was a familiar sensation, one she’d experienced several times in her life, and she thought for a brief moment of the phantom presence she had frequently felt before, the prickling on her skin that she’d always referred to as The Watcher. The idea was immediately dismissed, however; her Watcher was a benevolent spirit, rather like a guardian angel, and this new stab of intuition, this unmistakable sense of being observed, was definitely unfriendly, hostile, perhaps even dangerous.
She slowly lowered the phone to the glass tabletop and gazed around her on the patio. The noisy gaggle of children in the pool; young, oily-limbed honeymooners stretched out on chaises; small groups of tourists and moneyed locals at tables, enjoying pre-dinner drinks in the last afternoon sunlight; attentive waiters in smart hotel uniforms milling among the tables. At least five people near her were talking on cell phones, and two of them were older men: a fortyish white guy in pink Jams and a sixtyish African American in a business suit. No, neither of those men could possibly be—
She felt another chill pierce the heat as the new fact occurred to her. Cell phones: everyone here on the patio was using them, and they were having no trouble with reception. Now, too late, the journalist in her put it together. There could very well be bad reception in certain parts of this island, but not here. A deluxe resort hotel such as this one would have that particular problem covered. She’d been too preoccupied to think of that when the waiter had handed her the hotel phone…
“Miss Tyler? Miss Tyler?”
Quickly recovering from her shock, Karen raised the phone again and spoke in what she hoped was her neutral journalist’s tone. “Yes, I’m here.”
“Ah, I thought I’d lost you. As I was saying, you should look around the island tomorrow, and Wednesday at noon my representative will call for you at your hotel and bring you to me. Is that amenable to you?”
Karen didn’t ask the obvious questions, but she thought them: Why Wednesday? Why not tomorrow, or tonight? Instead, she said, “That will be fine. Who—um,
whom
shall I expect?”
“Mr. Graves will fetch you.”
“Mr. Graves. Okay. I’ll be waiting in the lobby at noon on Wednesday.”
“Excellent,” he said. The voice was soft, polite but firm, utterly persuasive. Not for the first time in these phone calls, Karen was aware of this man’s charm. “Do have a look around the island tomorrow. Enjoy your sightseeing, and give my regards to MacArthur. Goodbye.” There was a click on the line, and he was gone.
Karen stared at the receiver for a moment before placing it on the table. She sipped her fruit punch, thinking
MacArthur?
Had he said
“MacArthur”
? Yes, he had definitely uttered that name, but she had no idea what he’d meant.
Another mystery. Whoever he was, he definitely loved mysteries. The hotel phone was an obvious ploy: His number was blocked, so he had no fear of her tracing the call, but using the hotel’s system was yet another little way of telling her that he was in charge of everything. Not that there was any doubt of that, but it was clearly important to him. Oh, well, she’d find out who he was soon enough—and if she met anyone named MacArthur in the meantime, she’d be sure to give him her mysterious host’s regards.
The crowd around the pool was thinning, and soon she would go inside to dress for dinner. The sun was low on the horizon beyond the harbor, and shadows were lengthening. There was a golden tinge to everything—her first tropical sunset. She looked around, admiring the rich filter of color, consciously avoiding any further inspection of the people nearby. This man, if he was really here observing her, was definitely not her Watcher, her friendly spirit, and he would reveal himself to her in his own good time. Until then, she knew it was pointless to seek him out. She would never find him.
She made a mental note to tell Jim about all this when she called him tonight. She knew that her boyfriend didn’t fully approve of her being here. She wondered if she was being wise in allowing this stranger to call the shots. Then again, she was determined to get a good story, and she just might have to take a few risks for it.
She picked up her cell phone and called Information.
“What listing, please?”
“The
Virgin Islands
Daily News,
” Karen said. She listened for the number and punched it in, and a woman answered. “Hello, this is Karen Tyler from
Visions
magazine. I believe my editor arranged for a photographer—”
“Oh, yes, Ms. Tyler. Your photographer will be Don Price. He’s not here right now, but I can take a message.”
“Don Price,” Karen repeated, picking up a pen and jotting the name in the margin of her magazine article. “Please ask Don Price to meet me in the lobby of the Frenchman’s Reef Wednesday at noon. Did my editor discuss finances?”
“Yes, that’s all been arranged,” the woman said. “I’ll give Don the message.”
“Thank you,” Karen said, and she disconnected. She’d have someone with her at the interview on Wednesday. A man. Jim would approve of that.
With a sigh and a shrug of her newly tanned shoulders, Karen picked up
Visions
again and returned her attention to the final paragraphs of her article.
“Paradise Lost” (conclusion)
In the strict social hierarchy of the Islands at that time, Bernice Watkins was a prime example of the lower echelons. She was the Harpers’ live-in cook-housekeeper, in charge of the house and the other three West Indians who worked there, two women and a man who came in as daily help.
Bernice was a “down-islander” from Dominica, one of many illegal aliens who crept into St. Thomas to find good-paying work, hoping the local Immigration Services would look the other way. The 29-year-old single mother of a 5-year-old boy was grateful for the job and the accompanying room and board provided by the Harper family. She’d emigrated just in time to have her baby on American soil, so he was a U.S. citizen, and she, as his mother, was granted a work visa. She was a plump, pleasant woman and a good cook whose only known flaw was a weakness for gin. She’d been with the Harper family just over four years, having obtained her post soon after her son was born.
At 6:00 in the evening that Friday, March 13, Dr. and Mrs. Anderman arrived at Tamarind for dinner. For the two couples, Friday night meals together were a long-standing tradition, with alternate Fridays hosted at alternate homes. Their teenage sons never attended these parties; they were usually off somewhere else on Friday evenings. Neither the Harpers nor the Andermans kept close tabs on their sons.
This week was the Harpers’ turn as hosts, and Bernice served them their customary pitchers of martinis on the veranda. Then she went to the kitchen to prepare the salad, roast lamb, and potatoes she would serve at exactly 8 p.m., as ever. She had already dismissed the day staff; she always saw to the Harpers’ evening meals alone.
At 7:30, the four people on the veranda had consumed two pitchers of martinis, and they were uncharacte
ristically quiet, dozing in their rattan chairs. In the kitchen, Bernice, who had sneaked her usual martinis from the pitchers before serving them, was also feeling unaccountably tired, so she decided to sit at the breakfast table for a few moments before going into the dining room to set the formal dinner table.
By 7:45, all five people in the house were asleep, overwhelmed by the secobarbital that had been added to the martini pitchers. In the silence that descended on Tamarind with the encroaching darkness, two slender, dark-clad figures detached themselves from the shadows among the trees and made their way toward the lights of the veranda.
Bernice’s 5-year-old son, Gabriel Watkins, was also asleep, but he was in his bed in the old slave quarters, the outbuilding behind the main house where he lived with his mother. He was the incident’s only survivor.
At approximately 8:00 o’clock, the killing began.
They were unlikely criminals in the least likely place on earth. This Friday, March 13, fifty years to the day after the murders, David Chan’s new film,
Bad Boys,
opens in theaters everywhere. It is the latest chapter in the ever-growing legend of the crime that sullied Paradise and shocked the world.
He watched Karen Tyler close her magazine and stand up from the table, reaching for her blouse and cell phone. The waiter hurried over with her check. She asked him to recommend a place for dinner in the hotel, and he told her about a restaurant on the lower concourse, where a steel band would perform. She thanked him and went inside.
The man on the patio watched her go. He’d heard every word of her end of both phone calls, and she had clearly stated her agenda. Today was Monday, and at noon on Wednesday an emissary would escort her to her interview. She was expecting to be joined by a photographer from the
Daily News,
a man named Don Price….
Smiling to himself, Sidney Singleton followed Karen Tyler into the hotel, just as he’d followed her to Kennedy Airport yesterday, and to this island. She didn’t know he was here. Hell, even Gwen—her colleague and his girlfriend—didn’t know he was here. On Wednesday, when Karen’s escort arrived, she would lead Sidney to her informant, and he would beat her to the punch, getting her story and publishing it before she did.
Sidney entered the lobby on the trail of Karen Tyler, unaware of another set of eyes watching him from a table at the far end of the terrace.
Karen gazed out of the canopied, open-air tour bus as it rattled along, delighted by the smiling people and vivid Caribbean scenery. Some of the natives waved to the people in the bus, and the tourists waved back. Interspersed among the tropical splendors were occasional strip malls and shopping centers of glass and cement and aluminum siding, fronted by asphalt parking lots and all-too-familiar signs: McDonald’s, Pizza Hut, Kmart, Cost-U-Less. Many changes had come to the island since the time of the Harper/Anderman affair. Hardly surprising, she mused; in those fifty years, the population of the U.S. Virgin Islands had doubled.
Despite the jarringly modern touches, tourism was still clearly the main industry here. The bold hues of the native clothing and the bright paint jobs on the buildings—magenta, lime green, and DayGlo orange were favorites—contributed to the festive, exotic atmosphere. The natural greens and blues of the land and water were startling, difficult to believe, as was the climate. The sun poured down on everything with a clarity and intensity unusual for Statesiders, as American mainlanders were called. Karen felt her body relaxing in the warmth of the trade winds.
The bus moved up steep hills and down even steeper ones, pausing at lovely views and beautiful places: Drake’s Seat, Magens Bay, Mountain Top, old Fort Christian on the waterfront. The fort was of particular interest to Karen, being the place where Harper and Anderman had been detained and tried in 1959. The tour guide mentioned that fact, of course, and everyone in the bus peered at the building with renewed interest, snapping cell phone cameras. The invoking of those two notorious names was enough to titillate the visitors, as the locals were clearly aware. The scandal was now part of the island’s folklore, and those long-ago teen killers were good for business.
There was one place on her tour that Karen found unusually affecting, strictly for private reasons. They got out of the bus in Market Square at one end of Main Street, and the guide told them they had two hours to explore the downtown area before the tour moved on. They were to be back in Market Square at noon. Everyone else took off toward the crowded shops and alleys that lined the narrow street, and Karen stood in front of the big, noisy, open-air structure that had once been the headquarters of the region’s slave auctions, perusing her complimentary guidebook. She studied the map of Charlotte Amalie, realizing that the place she sought was close to where she stood. She walked down the bustling street in the opposite direction from the one her fellow tourists had taken, and in moments she came upon it.
Sts. Peter and Paul was an imposingly handsome Catholic church, built in 1848, according to the guidebook. Karen found a scarf in her purse and put it on before she went inside. It was quiet at this hour, with only a few people in the sanctuary, their heads bowed in prayer or contemplation. The contrast between this shadowy environment and the teeming street outside was startling at first, but she adjusted to the peaceful atmosphere. She dipped her fingers into the font and genuflected, entirely out of habit, and proceeded up the aisle to the nave. The rows of candles here gleamed in the dim interior before the altar. She knelt and lit a candle for her mother.
Karen did this in a Catholic church in every new place she visited. It was her own personal pilgrimage, a fond reminder of her only relative, the woman who had loved her and raised her to be a capable, intelligent adult. Karen had never really understood Grace’s fierce devotion to God, never having felt it herself despite her mother’s best efforts, but she’d gone to church with her every Sunday, and she’d never admitted her secret skepticism—her agnosticism—aloud to her mother.
Grace had only ever wanted one thing in the world: her daughter’s happiness. She’d forfeited the love of her own staunchly Catholic parents when she’d told them she was pregnant out of wedlock and refused to name the father. They’d assumed he was one of the married men at the law firm where she worked, and they’d disowned her, cast her out of their Brooklyn home, never spoken to her again. They’d never so much as laid eyes on Karen, nor she on them. Grace Tyler moved into Manhattan and fended for herself and her child until the day she died. Now, in this quiet church, Karen silently thanked her mother again for all her sacrifices, and she apologized again for her own lack of religious faith. It was at moments like this that she missed her mother the most.
She paid for the candle in the collection box on her way out of the church, then spent an hour exploring Main Street. She made it back to the bus in Market Square just in time. The other passengers were laden with shopping bags of duty-free treasure; jewelry, cigarettes, and liquor were amazingly inexpensive here. Enough of the sights, she decided; time to get to work. Her rental car would be waiting for her when the tour bus arrived back at the Reef. She’d have a quick lunch in the hotel and head for Tamarind.
Thinking of the house made her think of the man on the telephone yesterday and her sensation of being watched while she spoke with him. She looked around at the smiling, sunburned tourists in the bus. No one seemed unduly interested in her. Nobody had followed her into the church or in the street afterward. She was fairly sure that she was unobserved—for now, at least.
Oddly enough, being the object of remote scrutiny was something she’d grown used to feeling, long ago.
Karen Tyler’s Journal
A
PRIL 26, 2002
I’ve always thought of him as The Watcher.
I first became aware of him when I was 11. It was a rainy afternoon in April, exactly like today, and I had just left school to walk the three blocks north along West End Avenue to my home on 81st Street. I usually walked home from school with Amy Friedman from my building, but she was out with the flu that day, so I was alone. I was wearing my favorite yellow slicker, the one Mom always called my “Doris Day,” and I clutched my plastic Barbie umbrella in one hand and my Barbie book bag in the other.
There had been some discussion about my occasionally walking to or from school unescorted. Mom didn’t like the idea, but I argued that I was quite old enough. I knew all about strangers with candy and offers of rides in unfamiliar cars and all the other vital warnings issued to latchkey kids, and I felt confident that I was not a “little girl” anymore, Barbie accessories notwithsta
On that April day, I first glimpsed one possible downside of my feverishly defended independence. From the moment I walked down the front steps of the elementary school on 78th Street, I had the distinct feeling of being watched. I turned up the avenue and headed homeward, clutching my Barbie bag tightly against my side under the umbrella so it wouldn’t get wet. There weren’t many people around, and the few I saw rushed past me, bent under umbrellas, oblivious.
But there were eyes on me—an odd expression, but it’s exactly how it feels when it happens. My first instinct was panic. I couldn’t turn around to look behind me for fear of what I might see. I had recently watched a forbidden horror movie on cable when Mom wasn’t around to stop me, some
Friday the 13th
or
Elm Street
flick, and with the pounding rain and the darkened sky, I imagined Jason Voorhees or Freddy Krueger right behind me, all but breathing down my neck. I walked faster across the next street, just making the light before it changed, and then I broke into a run.I didn’t get far. I could see my building now, on the other side of the avenue at the next corner. Our doorman, Mr. Meehan, was nowhere in sight—he’d be inside, of course, waiting in the lobby for the shower to pass. I was alone on this stretch of pavement with whatever was producing the steady, wet footfalls just behind me. I came to the corner of 81st and dashed into the crosswalk, not even looking at the signs. There was a sudden screeching of brakes and the shriek of a car horn beside me. I glanced to my right to see a taxi come to a halt mere inches from my right leg. I raced toward the sidewalk. My foot crashed into the curb and I went down, sprawling in the torrent that rushed through the gutter. I was on my face, winded, with water and leaves flowing past me. A distant male voice was furiously cursing me in some foreign language.
I pulled myself up onto my hands and knees and retrieved the book bag from the stream, looking around for my umbrella. I was dazed, disoriented, soaking wet. The shock of the fall had made me all but forget my fear and the footsteps behind me. I might have forgotten them completely if a gloved hand had not suddenly arrived before my face, holding out my Barbie umbrella to me. At the same moment, another gloved hand grasped my elbow and gently pulled me up to a standing position.
A man’s deep voice said, “Are you all right?”
“Yes, sir,” I murmured, grasping the umbrella. I glanced up at the figure towering above me, but I couldn’t see much of his face. He wore a brown raincoat with the collar turned up, sunglasses, and a tweedy-looking hat. He might have had a mustache, or I might have imagined that later.
“You must be more careful, Karen,” the man admonished. “You shouldn’t run out into the street like that.”
“No, sir,” I said, already moving away from him, out into the avenue crosswalk. “Thank you, sir.”
I reached the other side of the avenue and ran to my building, aware of my wet hair and clothes and book bag. Mr. Meehan materialized to usher me inside, clucking and fussing as I dripped water across the lobby. I sagged against the elevator wall as I rose up to the 5th floor, shaking from the delayed shock, glad that Mom was not home to see me in this state. No matter—I’d have plenty of time to take a bath, change, and hang my clothes to dry on my closet door, and Mom would be none the wiser when she got home from work at 5:30.
I was sitting on the edge of my bed, removing my sneakers and socks, when the odd thing about my accident first occurred to me. I stopped, staring down at the sock in my hands, and then rose and hurried over to my bedroom window. The rain had let up and the sun was out again, so when I looked down at the street outside I saw it clearly.
The corner across the street was empty. The tall man with the hat had vanished as mysteriously as he’d appeared. But I hadn’t imagined him—I knew it then just as I know it now. He helped me up when I fell, and I’d never seen him before.
But he knew my name. He had called me Karen.
Sidney Singleton was waiting in the lobby of the Reef when the tour bus pulled up to the front entrance. He watched as the tourists tumbled out and bustled into the hotel, loudly making plans for lunch and swimming and sailing. The lone passenger who neither tumbled nor bustled was Karen Tyler. She went over to a counter in the lobby and spoke to a clerk. The girl handed her a key attached to a bright red plastic medallion that read
avis
. Karen thanked her and moved off toward the elevators. Sidney followed.
She didn’t take the elevator but descended a staircase to the lower level and entered a concourse of shops under the main lobby. He watched her browse in various shops, ultimately purchasing skin moisturizer, Evian water, a bag of peanut M&Ms, and two paperbacks. These last items involved a long inspection of a large array of titles. Sidney smiled when he noted her selections: Craig O’Brien’s latest thousand-page doorstop and a mystery novel by Laura Lippman. She took the shopping bag with her purchases out onto the terrace overlooking the pool. Sitting at a table in the sun, she ordered lunch.
Sidney chose a table away from hers and ordered a sandwich and a Coke. She pulled the big book from the shopping bag and began reading while she ate. After a few pages, she gave up in obvious despair and switched to the Lippman novel. Sidney nearly laughed aloud, understanding perfectly. He’d never been able to read the dense, much-awarded prose of Craig O’Brien, either, but Karen Tyler was trying to be loyal. He and Karen had never met—a good thing, considering what he was planning—but Gwen had told him that Karen was living with Craig O’Brien’s son, James, a fledgling writer whose novels were much easier on the eyes than his father’s world-class masterpieces. Karen was having no trouble reading the Lippman novel, and this told Sidney something else about her. Karen Tyler—a journalist who loved mysteries—clearly identified with Lippman’s brave newswoman detective. No surprise there.
If Sidney was going to buy the Manhattan co-op he’d had his eye on, this was his opportunity. Leaving Karen Tyler on the terrace with her book, he went back inside the hotel and found a shop in the arcade that sold cameras. He knew nothing about them, so he chose the most impressive-looking Nikon digital model on display, wincing at the price. The clerk, a friendly young native man, gave him a quick crash course in basic photography, a box of photo discs, and a strap that would allow him to hang the thing around his neck. Sidney maxed out yet another credit card and left the shop.
He took up a position on a couch in the lower lobby where he could watch Karen Tyler out on the terrace, pulled out his cell phone, and called the
Virgin Islands
Daily News
. He assumed the name of one of Gwen and Karen’s male coworkers at
Visions
magazine and asked to speak to Don Price.
By the time Sidney was through with his phone call, Karen was on the move again. She came into the hotel and passed right by him without a glance in his direction, heading for the elevator. She’d be going up to her room to drop off the shopping bag, he reasoned. He bounded up the stairs to the main lobby to wait. She emerged from the elevator a few minutes later, now wearing a light blue sundress, and went out to the parking lot.
She and Sidney had identical gray rental cars, Chevy Cavaliers, a few spaces away from each other in the crowded lot. Just before Karen Tyler got into hers, she stopped and glanced around, making a study of the lot. Sidney ducked between cars to avoid being seen. Then she got into her Cavalier and drove up the hill, away from the hotel. He followed at a discreet distance. He wondered where they were going but also why she’d looked around like that, as if aware of being watched….
Karen Tyler’s Journal
