The Writer (16 page)

“What is it?”

Adele held a finger up to her lips.

“Ssshhh, I think I hear someone coming.”

It was the sound of an outboard motor, and Adele was certain it was getting closer. Delroy began to nod his head.

“Yes, I hear it now too. The storm’s died down, hardly any wind outside. I do believe it’s coming this way. Maybe it’s someone from the sheriff’s department.

Adele felt the same familiar fear rise up within her as she had experienced in the basement of the university library. There was no rational explanation for why she felt the same. Rather, she simply knew it to be. Whoever was on the boat outside wasn’t law enforcement. It was the same man who had come for her in Bellingham.

“We need to hide.”

Delroy lifted himself off the floor with a grimace and began to pick up his blanket and then paused.

“What if it’s Decklan?”

Adele silently considered the possibility.

Maybe it was Decklan who followed me to Bellingham.

Though it was certainly possible, Adele’s instincts informed her it wasn’t likely to be Decklan stepping onto the private island in the middle of the night.

The sound of the boat motor suddenly died.

Adele pointed to the staircase.

“Upstairs, hurry!”

The two grabbed their blankets, glasses, Adele’s ever-present backpack, the nearly empty bottle of wine, and made their way up to the second-level hallway. Adele motioned for Delroy to follow her into the same guestroom she had stayed in earlier. Once inside, she proceeded to close the door until just a sliver of an opening remained that allowed a partial view out into the hallway.

“Now stay still.”

Delroy slowly placed the glasses and bottle onto one of the two bedside tables and then walked gingerly to where Adele stood on the opposite side of the room looking through the window into the inky darkness that dominated the other side of the glass.

Both Adele and Delroy heard whistling coming from outside, which confirmed to each of them they were no longer the only ones on the small island. Delroy took a sharp inward breath as the sound of someone trying to open the locked front door echoed throughout the home.

Seconds later he felt Adele’s right hand shoving him away from the window. She let him know what she saw with a whispered hiss.

“He’s right below us. I think he’s trying the back entrance.”

They heard the unmistakable creak of a door opening.

Someone else was in the home.

Heavy, shuffling footsteps echoed below them from the kitchen. Adele tiptoed to the cracked bedroom door and put her eye up to the small gap that allowed her to partially see down the hallway toward the top of the staircase.

Whoever had entered was still in the kitchen. Adele heard shuffling, drawers opening, and then a mechanical clicking noise. She nearly screamed when the sound of a woman speaking erupted from the first floor.

It was the voice of Bella Morris.

“Hello Mr. Stone this is your neighbor Bella Morris over here in Deer Harbor. I was hoping to speak with you about something I heard late yesterday, something I think you should know. I’d feel better telling you in person. You might think I’m crazy, and perhaps you’d be right, but I really need to tell you what I heard. Maybe it’s nothing and maybe it’s something, but I’d feel better at least letting you know. Please call me back at the store or you can stop by in person if you like. Good-bye.”

Adele looked behind her and saw Delroy staring with his mouth hanging open. He had heard the message as well. Then a voice cried out from the kitchen.

“Stupid old bitch! Mind your own d-d-damn business! That’s what my mother would say! She would have taught me that! Maybe she did! But you won’t say anything! No you won’t! Not anymore!”

Delroy stood shoulder to shoulder with Adele as they collectively held their breath and listened to the shouting voice.

“Not anymore! Not anymore! Not anymore!”

Delroy gasped and his right hand went to his side. He took a step backward and bumped into the nightstand. The wine bottle tipped over and rolled onto the floor with a muffled clunk-thud.

The shouting below went silent.

Adele closed her eyes tightly and waited.

Please-please, don’t come upstairs.

A footstep struck upon the bottom stair, followed by a second, and then a third.

It’s the damn library basement all over again.

Delroy whispered an apology for having knocked over the wine bottle.

“I’m so sorry. I’m just a clumsy old fool.”

Adele reached down slowly with her right hand and picked up the bottle by its thick glass neck. If the man coming up the stairs intended to make his way into the bedroom, she had no intention of allowing herself to be an easy victim.

A loud, shrill whistle pierced the nighttime silence outside Decklan Stone’s home. Adele let out a long, grateful sigh as she heard footsteps return to the kitchen and then the home’s back door open and close. She returned as quickly and quietly as possible to her earlier location near the bedroom window and looked out to see the same burning cigarette light she had seen the last time she stayed overnight as Decklan’s guest.

Two male voices murmured outside, but their tones remained too low for Adele to hear what was being said. The men abruptly left the area below the window, and a short time later, the sound of an outboard motor coming to life was heard, followed by the motor’s increasingly distant drone as the boat journeyed across the nighttime waters on its way back to Deer Harbor.

“There were two of them?”

Adele nodded.

“Yes, and I’m almost certain who they were.”

It was the very same stutter.

Without saying more, Adele moved out into the hallway and then down the stairs, going slowly at first, and then after making certain no-one else was in the home, she moved into the kitchen and located the answering machine.

The tape was gone.

Delroy lightly hit the countertop with a closed right fist.

“Damn! They took the tape with them.”

Adele’s face broke out into a sly grin as she reached into her back pocket and withdrew the very same recorder she had used to interview Decklan Stone with. She proceeded to replay Bella’s message, having earlier kept her wits enough to record it as it was first being played by the intruder.

Delroy looked upon her with bemused amazement and an entirely new level of respect.

“Why you clever, clever girl. . .”

“You intend to make a call? I don’t believe we have service out here.”

Adele shook her head as her finger moved from left to right across her cell phone screen.

“No, I took a picture of a photo originally taken years ago in Roche Harbor. I think I might have missed something. Here it is.”

Delroy stood in the kitchen’s near-absolute darkness and watched Adele’s eyes peering at the illuminated image on her phone. She hit the zoom feature, stared at it a second longer, and then nodded her head.

“Look at the person in the background behind Decklan and Calista. Do you recognize him?”

Delroy squinted as he held Adele’s phone in front of him.”

“You mean the young man there?”

The former professor’s head snapped upward as his eyes widened.

“That’s Will Speaks, the sheriff’s son!”

Adele abruptly turned and began to leave the kitchen. She paused and pointed back at Delroy.

“Wait here. I’ll be right back.”

Delroy could hear Adele running up the steps to the second floor and then seconds later, running back down them. She entered the kitchen with her backpack and proceeded to retrieve the French magazine she had taken from the library that contained the long-ago feature story on Decklan and Calista Stone.

Adele scanned the photographs in the article using the magnifier app on her cell phone. After a few seconds she tapped one of the black-and-white pictures with her right pointer finger.

“There, take a look.”

Delroy gazed at the photo showing Decklan and Calista walking hand in hand toward the entrance to the Roche Harbor Hotel. Adele handed him her cell phone.

“Look at it with this. Check out the upper right hand corner of the photo.”

Delroy Hicks leaned down close until his face was merely inches from the magazine. Then he stood up and shook his head from side to side.

“It’s the Speaks boy again, staring at them.”

“Two photographs, taken weeks, or perhaps even months apart, and Will Speaks happens to be in both of them. Why is that?”

Delroy returned Adele’s phone and stuffed his hands into his front pockets.

“It is an oddly remarkable coincidence.”

“No, not if Will Speaks was watching them,
following
them.”

Delroy removed his hat and ran his fingers through his hair.

“Why on earth would he be doing that? I understand he suffered some mental challenges in his youth, likely exacerbated by his mother’s death, but now that he’s a man one would hardly know that to be the case. He seems normal enough, at least what little I’ve seen of him.”

Adele recalled how Will had looked at her in Deer Harbor after her visit with Decklan Stone. She also remembered something the former sheriff told his son that morning, poking Will in the side as he did so.

Don’t you even think about it!

Adele had no idea what the words meant, but believed she was getting closer to something very significant. The former San Juan County Sheriff had been adamant she not return to Decklan’s island home, and then Bella Morris intervened on Adele’s behalf, shooing the sheriff away.

And now Bella is dead, but not before trying to speak with Decklan about something important.

“Now consider the fact that whoever broke into Decklan’s home knew he had one of those old-fashioned answering machines. Hardly anybody uses those things anymore, but those two men outside this house knew. The one who came inside went right for it. You said yourself Decklan didn’t even have you over here. He would visit you in Roche Harbor. So knowing that, who might have known about the answering machine? Maybe Bella mentioned having left a message on an answering machine, but then who would have had the opportunity to hear her say that?”

Delroy’s eyes narrowed. He sensed Adele was closing in on something he feared might be better left alone.

“You have some kind of plan working itself out in that young head of yours, don’t you?”

As crazy and dangerous as it might prove, Adele was determined to see it through. When she told Delroy of her intent, he chuckled and then nodded his agreement; though, he was clearly nervous. He would help her because, in doing so, he thought it possible to help his friend Decklan. Delroy feared the writer was losing his will to live, and he had no intention of outliving Decklan Stone.

The two slept in shifts, worried the visitors might return to the island. They managed just a few hours between them.

Delroy knocked lightly on Adele’s bedroom door and cleared his throat.

“So you sure you still want to do this thing?”

Adele needed no time to answer. Her resolve persisted.

“Yes.”

Delroy appeared to be working the kinks out of his neck as he rolled his head from side to side. Then he gave Adele a long look, shrugged his shoulders, and confirmed his own willingness to help her with the plan.

“OK, then let’s go.”

The walk the two made to the hidden cove and the awaiting runabout brought about the benefit of a water-chilled, pre-morning breeze that pushed back any residual fatigue, which in turn sharpened their senses and further solidified Adele’s resolve to proceed.

The journey across the water to Deer Harbor went smoothly, benefitted greatly by the absence of any waves. Delroy moved the small boat to the very back corner of the marina where it was least likely to be seen. He and Adele tied it up to the dock and then began to make their way toward the ramp that connected the marina to the island.

The stench of burned wood and plastic permeated the area, growing more intense the closer they came to what remained of Bella’s store. Delroy paused at the blackened wood frame. It had yellow and black, police tape wrapped around it that read, “Do Not Cross.”

“What a terrible shame. This was a fixture of the islands, as was Bella herself.”

Adele ignored Delroy’s maudlin sentiment. She had a more immediate concern.

“There it is. That’s his boat.”

Delroy could see the outline of a small, battered fishing boat.

“I do hope you’re sure, because I don’t want to be involved in potentially sinking the wrong boat.”

Adele nodded.

“Yes, that’s it. That’s the one.”

Delroy glanced at the vessel and then looked back at Adele. Seeing her determination to proceed, he let out a quick sigh and made his way down to the boat.

“Keep an eye out for anyone. I’m going aboard to find a wrench.”

Adele stood at the top of the ramp as a lookout. She estimated they had no more than fifteen or twenty minutes before daylight.

“Found one! He’s got tools scattered all over this thing. He appears to have the organization of a homeless man!”

Delroy emerged from the back of the fishing boat carrying a small wrench in his right hand. He swung his legs over and onto the narrow, metal-framed swim step that hung off the very back of the vessel as Adele silently prayed the old man didn’t fall off into the water with a loud splash that might alert others to their presence.

“This won’t be fun.”

Delroy groaned as he leaned down onto all fours and then slipped his thin right arm through the narrow gap between the boat’s swim step frame and the aluminum transom. He sucked in a breath between clenched teeth when the frigid water encased the entirety of his forearm as his fingers ran along the water-slimed exterior of the boat transom’s surface.

He had been the one to suggest using the sheriff’s boat as a distraction but as his teeth began to chatter from the water’s seemingly near freezing temperature, Delroy began to regret the idea.

Then he located the small brass drain plug and allowed himself a satisfied grin.