The Lower Deep (26 page)

"Your wife? No,
m'sié."

"You sure?"

"Positive."

So Alice had not gone to Cap Matelot. Up to now there had been a chance—ever so slight, of course—that she might not have been lying about that.

Where had she been during her absence from home from Thursday evening to Sunday morning? Right under his nose, maybe, with some boyfriend in the town?

T
hat Friday night, while the massive search for
Ginny Jourdan continued, Lieutenant Roger Etienne walked the beach at Anse Douce again and thought of the time he had found the corpse of Lawton Lindo there. A man who believed in playing hunches, he had checked the cove several times since without finding anything.

Tonight he had come late, after spending the evening with a lady friend in the town. As he trudged along the water's edge he even softly sang a verse of the St. Joseph love song for which George Benson's boat had been named.

Ou-mem avek mwen, nou se deu pigeons

Ou'a pé joui la vie jusqu'a ce que nou mouri.

 
(You and I together are two pigeons

who are going to enjoy life till we die.)

After tonight he would stop coming here, Etienne promised himself. At least, he would come only if a solid reason presented itself. The cove was depressing now, a place of ghosts. And he was tired. His men were tired. First there'd been the baffling loss of the
Ti Maman
with three people on board, complicated by the Langer woman's not-too-credible story of how it happened. Then the disappearance of the Jourdan girl. Then his discovery of Lindo's body.

Had all this happened in a more sophisticated country, the village would undoubtedly be crawling now with media people and curiosity seekers. Thank God he didn't have to contend with that. But he was being questioned by his superiors. And to judge by their reaction to his answers, they were not too impressed with his efficiency.

To make matters worse, tonight had turned cold and rain was falling.

As he walked the water's edge, his flashlight beam roved ahead of him and his gaze traveled with it in search of anything unusual. But the rain so reduced visibility that he could make out little more than the white froth of low-breaking waves. Nearing the gully filled with coral boulders, he damned the sense of duty that had brought him back here and wished he were home in bed. Or, even better, back in that other bed he'd occupied earlier.

Suddenly his light picked out a pale, running shape at the near edge of the gully—an apparently naked human form that seemed bent on reaching the protection of the boulders before being seen.

Etienne yelled "Stop!" and broke into a run, using his flash as a searchlight. But luck was against him. He stumbled over a piece of driftwood half buried in the sand. The flashlight flew from his hand. By the time he had recovered his balance and retrieved it, his quarry was nowhere to be seen.

Breathing hard, he stopped to weigh the problem. Down among the coral chunks were a number of places where a person might hide. More than once, when on the prowl for marijuana users, he had found kids there. But the layout was a maze. To rush in like a wild bull would be a mistake.

Descending slowly to the gully floor, he sprayed the boulders with his light. "All right, you, whoever you are! I may not be able to find you, but I can wait as long as you can. Even for daylight if I have to. Let's cut it short, shall we?"

No answer came from the rock pile. He saw nothing move.

"Okay, have it your way." He found a place to sit. "But if I get bad-tempered, I'm just likely to use my gun instead of my legs when you decide to make a break for it. I'm warning you."

Still no answer.

He let a good five minutes go by, his light out now so his eyes would adjust to the wet dark. The rain came down harder, working its way through his khaki uniform. He shivered. But it must be even more uncomfortable for someone not wearing any clothes, he thought with satisfaction. And again he recalled the two other times he had come across naked people here at Anse Douce: one a teenage schoolgirl, the other a dead, shark-torn patient from the Azagon.

A wind had sprung up now, and off in the rainy darkness surf broke with a monotonous, muted rumble on an unseen stretch of shore. Too much noise, he thought uneasily. When his quarry did make a break, he might not hear anything.

He did, though, because the sound was close. From off to his left came the tinny clunk of an empty can being kicked or knocked into some coral. Twisting himself in that direction as if the sound itself had jerked him around, he switched on his light. Someone on hands and knees was try
ing to crawl away from him through a gap between boulders.

A girl. And not naked as he had expected, but wearing blue jeans and a blue denim shirt. Barefoot, though.

Trapped in the pool of light, she stopped crawling and slowly rose to her feet, then turned even more deliberately to face him. She said nothing, and Etienne walked down to her, not halting until he was close enough to reach out and hold her if she tried to run.

"Ginny Jourdan," he said. "Where have you been?"

She shrugged. Then she looked down at her bare feet, saw the empty beer can that had betrayed her, and gave it a savage kick. It went clattering among the coral rocks with a racket that lasted for many seconds, during which time she cursed it with controlled fury. She was no longer the
Ginny Jourdan he knew, Etienne realized. This young woman was one to be wary of.

"You were naked when you ran in here," he said. "You must have had these clothes hidden here."

"I don't have to answer your questions!"

"Don't you? Well, all right, if you say so. You have to come with me, though." His hand closed over her arm. "So let's go."

She twisted herself free and spat at him. "I can walk! There's nothing the matter with me!"

"Okay, walk. But don't try running again."

Using his flash to light the way up the gully slope for both of them, he stayed close behind her. When they were out of the gully and striding along the shore toward town, he said tentatively, "You going to behave yourself now, Ginny?"

She turned to glare at him, her only answer a further tightening of already thin lips.

"Don't try anything," he warned. "Don't even walk fast. I'm pretty quick on my feet, in case you don't know it. And if I have to carry you home over my shoulder, I will."

This time she did not even turn her head, but paced doggedly on, ignoring him.

"You hear me?" he demanded.

She stopped and swung herself around, her hands on her hips. His light touched her face and revealed a glitter in her eyes that he had never seen in any woman's eyes before. What was it with this girl and Anse Douce? Had she been here the whole time she was missing—the whole eight days—holed up in some hiding place?

"You needn't be afraid I'll try to get away from
you," Ginny said, speaking very slowly and deliberately now. "I didn't have to come back, you know."

On the hard sand just above the sea's edge they faced each other: defiant teenage girl and determined but apprehensive army officer.

"You didn't have to come back from where, Ginny?"

"The place I disappeared to."

"And where was that?"

Her reply was a mocking laugh, and then she refused to say anything more, simply resuming the walk and ignoring his attempts to continue the conversation.

That walk to Pointe Pierre and up through a sleeping Dame Marie to the army post was the longest one of Etienne's life, and he was limp with relief when it ended. Commanding the girl to sit, he detailed one of his men to guard her and picked up the phone. Hoping to God it would work, he called Louis Clermont.

From the way Clermont answered, it was obvious he had been aroused from a sound sleep. "Yes?" he grumbled. "Who is it?"

"Roger Etienne, Doctor, at the army post. I have Ginny Jourdan here. Can you come over?"

"I'm on my way," Clermont growled, and hung up.

The police post was only a short walk away, but the St. Joseph doctor took his car in anticipation of having to drive the girl home. At the post he found a sergeant standing over the girl and the lieutenant seated at a desk, watching them both. The young woman whose disappearance had turned the whole district upside down for more than a week now sat quietly, seemingly half asleep, on a bench against the ocher-hued station wall.

Clermont hunkered down in front of her.

"Ginny," he said gently.
           

She glanced at him as if she had never seen him before. Then with complete indifference she looked away.

"Ginny, are you all right?"

"If you mean do I need a doctor, the answer is no!" Her voice was shrill with defiance.

Clermont stood up again, leaned forward, and put a hand to her chin. Gently but firmly he turned her head so he could study her. As Etienne had earlier, he noticed a dramatic change in her eyes.

He saw other things the army man had not noticed. "She's exhausted, Roger," he said to the man at the desk. "You suppose I could take her home to her folks?"

"No," Etienne said. "She could run away again."

"Well—maybe you're right." Clermont frowned at the girl and did some heavy thinking. There ought to be some tests run on her, he decided. Behind such a complete about-face in personality could be some sort of physical upheaval. He himself didn't have the equipment for such tests, nor would he completely trust his solo evaluation of them even if he did. The best place for her right now was the excellent private hospital in Cap Matelot run by his and Steve Spence's friend, Dr. Edouard Beliard.

He explained this to Etienne, who at first
seemed about to shake his head, then reluctantly nodded.

"There are some questions I'd like to ask her first, though," the lieutenant said. "Remember, she's given us proper hell for a whole week."

"Later, Roger."

"You sure?"

"She needs a good rest before being questioned. Let me take her to the hospital. If you like, you can send a man along with us to keep an eye on her."

"I don't want to go to a hospital!" Ginny Jourdan shrilled. "I want to go home!"

"So you can run off again?" Clermont said gently.

"You needn't be afraid of that."

"I'll be the judge of what to be afraid of when I've looked you over, girl." And had a psychiatrist talk to you, he silently added.

"I don't want to be looked over. Not by you or anyone. I won't be!"

Clermont reached for her hands, but she snatched them away. With a sigh, he shook his head at her. "Ginny, do you have any idea what you've done? Never mind all the trouble you put us to before, when Roger found you naked at the cove. This time you've stood the whole town on its ear. I swear to God everybody for miles around has been looking for you. Roger, here, has been catching hell for not finding you." He suddenly frowned and said to Etienne, "Where did you find her, anyway?"

"Anse Douce again."

Clermont sucked in a breath. "What in God's
name is it with Anse Douce, Ginny? Why won't you tell us?"

She looked away.

"What's going on there?" Clermont begged.

No answer.

Then, "I want to go home," Ginny said in a suddenly dulcet voice. "Please? Take me home?"

"After Dr. Beliard and I have had a good look at you."

"If I agree to go to the hospital and you don't find anything wrong with me, can I go home?"

"Of course. But first you're going to be a good girl and cooperate with us. Right?"

She hesitated, then nodded.

"And you're going to tell us where you've been. Right?"

"If I can remember. I don't remember now."

Clermont looked at her and wondered. Another case of amnesia? It could be. He hadn't really questioned the honesty of Mendoza or Henninger. But for some reason he did not quite believe what he was hearing now. Maybe because Ginny had been gone so much longer and at first had been so hostile.

"All right. We can begin with the hospital, anyway." He turned to Etienne. "Just let me use your phone to call her folks, Roger. And I'd better give the hospital a ring, too. It isn't exactly the St. Joe General. They might appreciate a call before I walk in with such a celebrity."