The Boeing 747 landed with a thump and began to coast toward the small terminal building. David. T.C. shook his head, thinking he’d seen just about everything in the last few years but this . . . Hell, it wasn’t his place to ask a lot of questions. It was his place to help. Explanations would come later.
He filled out the quarantine form, grabbed his suitcase off the rotating carousel, passed through customs, and walked to the waiting area, where Laura said she would meet him. The electronic doors slid open and T.C. found himself facing a wall of faces. To his right, chauffeurs held up signs with names printed in capital letters. On the left, local guides wore shorts and T-shirts, their signs stating the name of a hotel or tour group. T.C.’s eyes searched for Laura.
A minute later, he spotted her.
T.C. felt something sharp slice through his stomach. Laura was still the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, still ravishing enough to knock any man to his knees, but David’s disappearance had crawled all over her and attacked with a vengeance. She was practically unrecognizable. Her high cheekbones were sunken. Her eyes were dark circles staring out with bewilderment and fear, the bright blue color terrifyingly dim.
She ran to him and he hugged her reassuringly.
“Anything new?” he asked but the answer was all over her face.
She shook her head. “It’s been two days, T.C. Where could he be?”
“We’ll find him,” he said, wishing he was as confident as he sounded. He took her hand. There was no reason to stall the investigation. He might as well dive right in. “But let me ask you something, Laura. Before David vanished, did he have—?”
“No,” she interrupted quickly, not wanting to hear that word. “Not in more than eight months.”
“Good. Now where can I find the officer in charge of the investigation?”
“Palm’s Cove only has two officers. The sheriff is waiting for you at his office.”
Forty minutes later, the taxi pulled in front of a wooden building marked TOWN HALLand GENERAL STORE. There were no other buildings on the street. The lone structure looked like something out of Petticoat Junction , except for the surrounding lush tropics.
“Listen, Laura, I think it might be best if I speak to the sheriff alone.”
“Why?”
“Look at this place,” he said. “It looks like something out of Bonanza, for chrissake. I doubt the sheriff here is much of a progressive thinker. Out here, women’s lib is probably a concept for the distant future. He may be more willing to talk if I speak to him alone, cop-to-cop sort of thing.”
“But—”
“I’ll let you know the moment I learn anything.”
She hesitated. “If you think it’s best . . .”
“I do. Just wait out here, okay?”
She nodded mechanically, her eyes wet and glassy. T.C. got out of the car and walked down the path. His head was down, his eyes finding the weeds popping through the cracks in the worn cement. He raised his line of vision and stared at the building. It was old, the paint chipped, the structure looking as if a good push would topple it over. T.C. wondered if it was age or the climate of the tropics that made the wood look so weathered. Probably both.
The front door was open. T.C. leaned his head through the frame.
“May I come in?” he asked.
The Australian accent was the first T.C. had heard since landing. “You Inspector Conroy?”
“That’s right.”
“Graham Rowe,” the man said, standing. “I’m sheriff of this town.”
While his words were those of a sheriff in a cheap Western, his accent and size were not. Graham Rowe was huge: a mountain of a man who looked like Grizzly Adams or some professional wrestler. A gray-blond beard captured his entire face, his hazel eyes serious and piercing. His green uniform with shorts made him resemble an overgrown Boy Scout, but T.C. wasn’t suicidal, so he kept that thought to himself. A bushwhacker hat with its right side tilted up rested on his head. A rather large gun and an equally large knife adorned his belt. His skin was leathery and lined but not aged. T.C. guessed him to be in his midforties.
“Call me Graham,” he said, extending a giant hand/ paw. T.C. shook it. It was like shaking hands with a catcher’s mitt.
“They call me T.C.”
“You must be tired after that long flight, T.C.”
“I slept on the plane,” he said. “What can you tell me about your investigation?”
“Kind of anxious, huh?”
“He’s my best friend.”
Graham moved back behind his desk and beckoned T.C. to take a seat. The room was bare except for a twirling fan and the many rifles hung on the walls. A small holding cell was in the left-hand corner.
“Not much really,” the sheriff began. “David Baskin left a note for his wife saying he was going swimming and he hasn’t been seen since. I questioned the lifeguard at the hotel. He remembers seeing Baskin shooting baskets by himself at around three in the afternoon. Two hours later, he saw Baskin walking up the beach heading north.”
“Then David didn’t go for a swim?”
Graham shrugged. “He might have. There are swimming areas all over the place but there’s no supervision where he was walking, and the current is mighty powerful.”
“David’s a great swimmer.”
“So his missus tells me, but I’ve lived here all my life, and I can tell you when one of those damn currents wants to drag you down, there’s not much a man can do but drown.”
“Have you begun a search for the body?”
Graham nodded his head. “Sure have, but not a trace of the lad so far.”
“If he had drowned, should the body have shown up by now?”
“Normally, yes, but mate, this is northern Australia. More things could happen to a man in that ocean than on your subways. He could have washed up on one of the small unmanned islands or gotten snared on jagged coral in the Barrier Reef or been eaten by Lord knows what. Any one of a million things could have happened to him.”
“What’s your theory, Graham?”
The large Aussie stood and crossed the room. “Coffee?”
“No, thanks.”
“In this heat, I don’t blame you. How about a Coke?”
“Sounds good.”
Graham reached into a small refrigerator behind his desk and took out two bottles, handing one to T.C.
“You say you’re mates with this Baskin, right?”