Envy(10)

The man behind the door asked, “How can I help you, Deputy Harris?”

“First off, I apologize for disturbing you. But I got a call earlier this evening. From a gal up in New York.” The man waited him out, saying nothing. “Said she was trying to track down somebody who goes by the initials P.M.E.”

“Really?”

“That’s what she said. I didn’t let on like the name registered with me.”

“Did it?”

“Register, you mean? No, sir. Can’t rightly say it did.”

“Nevertheless, you’re here.”

“I’ll admit she got my curiosity up. Never knew anybody to go only by his initials, you see. Don’t worry, though. ’Round here, we respect a person’s privacy.”

“An admirable practice.”

“St. Anne has a history of folks hiding out on her for one reason or another.”

The moment it was out, Harris wished he hadn’t said it. It smacked of an accusation of some sort. A long silence ensued. He cleared his throat nervously before continuing. “So anyhow, I thought I should oblige this lady. Came over in the department’s motor launch. Asked around at the landing and was directed here.”

“What did this lady from New York want?”

“Well, sir, I don’t rightly know. She said it wasn’t a legal matter or nothing like ’at. Just that she had business with P.M.E. I thought you might be a big winner in one of those sweepstakes, thought Ed McMahon and Dick Clark might be looking for you.”

“I’ve never entered a sweepstakes.”

“Right, right. Well, then…”

Harris tipped his hat forward so he could scratch the back of his head. He wondered why in hell the man hadn’t invited him in or, short of that, why he hadn’t turned on any lights. *footing hadn’t gotten him anywhere, by God, so he bluntly asked, “You P.M.E. or what?”

“Did she leave her name?”

“Huh? Oh, the lady? Yeah.” Harris fished a piece of notepaper from the breast pocket of his uniform shirt, which he was embarrassed to discover was damp with sweat. However, the man seemed not to notice or care about the dampness as he took the sheet and read what Harris had written down.

“Those’re her phone numbers,” Harris explained. “All of ’em. So I figured this business of hers must be pretty important. That’s why I came on out tonight.”

“Thank you very much for your trouble, Sheriff Harris.”

“Deputy.”

“Deputy Harris.”

Then, before Harris could blink, the man closed the door in his face. “Good evenin’ to you, too,” he mouthed as he turned away.

His boots crunched the shells of the path. The evening had deepened into full-blown darkness, and it was even darker beneath the canopy of live oak branches. He wasn’t afraid, exactly. The man behind the door had been civil enough. He hadn’t been what you’d call hostile. Inhospitable, maybe, but not hostile.

All the same, Harris was glad to have this errand over and done with. If he had it to do over again, he might not assign himself this duty. What was it to him if some lady from up north was successful or not with her unspecified business?

When he sat down on the seat of the golf cart, he discovered it had been dripped on from the tree overhead. His britches were soaked through by the time he reached the landing where he’d tied up the boat.

The man from whom he had borrowed the golf cart—no charge for lawmen—eyed him distrustfully as Harris returned the key. “Find him?”

“Yeah, thanks for the directions,” Harris replied. “You ever see this guy?”

“Now and again,” the man drawled.

“Is he a weird sort?”

“Not so’s you’d notice.”

“He ever make any trouble around here?”

“Naw, he stays pretty much to hisself.”

“Island folks like him okay?”

“You need any gas before headin’ back?”

Which was as good as an invitation to leave and take his nosy questions with him. Harris had hoped to get a clearer picture of the man who occupied the haunted mansion and hid behind doors when folks came calling, but apparently he wasn’t going to get one. He had no cause to investigate further—beyond his natural curiosity as to why a man went only by his initials and what a woman in New York City was wanting with him.

He thanked the islander for the use of the golf cart.

The man spat tobacco juice into the mud. “No problem.”





Chapter 3


“Just one more picture, please, Mr. and Mrs. Reed?”

Maris and Noah smiled for the photographer who was covering the literary banquet for Publishers Weekly. During the cocktail hour, they’d been photographed with other publishers, with their award-winning author, and with the celebrity emcee. The former women’s tennis champion fancied herself an author now that she’d had a ghostwriter pen a roman à clef about her days on the professional circuit.

The Reeds had been allowed to eat their dinner in relative peace, but now that the event had concluded, they were once again being asked to pose for various shots. But, as promised, the photographer snapped one last picture of them alone, then scuttled off to catch the exercise guru whose latest fitness book topped the nonfiction bestseller list.