Rebel Island Hotel
510-822-9901
Handwritten on the back was a date.
“June fifth,” I read.
“That’s today,” Garrett said.
“Yeah.”
“So what’s important about it?”
“Good question.” I slipped the card in my pocket and examined the candy skull. There was nothing special about it. Any Mexican candy store would sell them.
“That’s one of those Day of the Dead candies,” Garrett said. “Your friend here have a sweet tooth?”
“Maybe,” I said.
But something about the skull bothered me. It reminded me of something I’d read, or heard on the news…
Above us, the lightbulb flickered and went out completely, leaving us with nothing but the flashlight beam shining on the dead marshal’s face.
Garrett took a shaky breath. “Okay. Now can we get out of here?”
Maia had lit candles in the Colonel’s Suite.
Against my better judgment, Garrett took charge of Lane Sanford and led her away. He said they’d go find Alex, maybe drop in on the college guys, who’d resumed their hurricane party above us. Garrett would teach them how to make a good margarita. They could listen to Jimmy Buffett until the batteries in Garrett’s boom box wore out. It would cheer Lane right up.
Once they were gone, I lay down on the bed next to Maia and listened to the rain pounding the walls. There was a leak in the corner of the roof. Maia had put a silver cup under it. The drops sounded like tiny bells.
“Are we having a romantic getaway yet?” I asked.
Maia nudged my foot. “With a homicide magnet like you? A girl can’t help but have a good time.”
She snuggled next to me, wincing as she changed positions.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Just my back.”
“You sure?”
“Of course. Stop worrying. Tell me what you found.”
I got the feeling she was just trying to change the subject, but I told her about the bloodstain in the kitchen, and the business card and candy skull in Longoria’s briefcase.
“Bad,” she said.
“That was my expert opinion, too.” I nodded toward the AM radio on the dresser. “Any news come through before the generator went out?”
“Couple of garbled alerts. Power’s been knocked out in Corpus Christi. Some smaller coastal towns are underwater. The rainfall is setting records.”
“So the earliest we could expect the ferry—”
“Twenty-four hours at least. We’ll have to hope the phone lines get reconnected sooner than that. Or maybe a Coast Guard patrol will come by.”
“Damn, I would love that.”
She touched the space between my eyebrows—her way of telling me I was scowling too much. “You did the right thing, taking charge.”
“I didn’t take charge.”
“They need you to, Tres. I know you want to switch off that ability—”
“What ability?”
Instead of answering, Maia rested her head on my chest.
The wind outside battered the hotel. I could almost feel the storm pushing us toward the mainland, carving new channels out of the coastline.
“Who do you think killed the marshal?” Maia asked.
“I don’t want to think about it.”
“But you can’t help it.”
I hated that she was right.
“Chris Stowall’s business card was in Longoria’s suitcase,” I said. “And now Chris has disappeared.”
Maia picked at a button on my shirt. “Chris Stowall doesn’t strike me as much of a killer.”
“And yet he’s missing.”
“Whoever the killer is, he’s still in the hotel.”
“Are you sure it’s a he?”
“Unless you think Lane or Imelda did it. Or me.”
“Hmm. Probably not Lane or Imelda.”
She elbowed me. “Lane was telling me some disturbing things about her ex-husband. She made him sound abusive. And relentless.”
“Homicidal?”
“Possibly.”
“I doubt there’s a connection,” I said. “Lane admitted she hasn’t seen her ex here. With this storm, he couldn’t be outside. He’d have been blown all the way to Kingsville by now. And why would he target Longoria?”
“One of the other guests, then? Or the staff? Your friend Alex?”
My friend Alex.
I thought about the time Alex pushed me against a window on the third floor when I was around ten years old. I think I’d asked him what his parents did—some stupid, innocent question like that. He held me so far out my shoulders cleared the windowsill, his fingers digging into my forearms. None of your goddamn business, mama’s boy, he’d told me. Nobody asked you to come here! You got that?
Still, it was difficult to imagine Alex Huff shooting a law enforcement officer at point-blank range. As far as I knew, his only flirtation with guns had been his time in the military, which from his own account had been undistinguished—something about serving breakfast in Kuwaiti mess halls. Since then, his most dangerous hobbies had been his amateur fireworks, buying questionable real estate and hanging out with my brother.
“I don’t know about Alex,” I said halfheartedly. “He got scuffed up pretty bad somehow, and he’s acting nervous. I don’t trust him.”
“Because he’s capable of murder, or because he’s Garrett’s friend?”
“Whose side are you on, anyway?”
She kissed me. She was pretty convincing. “What about the old lawyer, Mr. Lindy? He had a gun. He was in the hallway.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I don’t understand what he’s doing here. On the other hand, he’s a lawyer. He’s got to be close to eighty. He could barely hold that .45. Did that look like a .45 wound in Longoria’s chest?”
Maia shook her head. She looked a little green.
“Sorry,” I said. “Forgot you were feeling squeamish.”
“It’s okay. But that doesn’t leave many people. At least…people we know of.”
“If the killer wants to get off the island, there aren’t many options.”
“None,” Maia agreed. “It doesn’t make sense that Longoria would bring a fugitive here. This island’s a dead end.”
I closed my eyes and listened to the storm.
The sound was familiar. Then I realized the storm sounded just like a freight train—the way the Kansas-Texas used to roar past the Arguello family house, back in high school. I wished it didn’t sound like that.
“I don’t want to solve this problem,” I said. “I’m an English teacher.”
“You’re thinking about Ralph.”
The image never went away—Ralph lying on the shoulder of Mission Road, staring into the sky. He’d taken a gunshot to protect Maia. He’d died and left a wife and kid behind. No matter how many times I replayed it, trying to convince myself there was nothing I could’ve done…PI work had brought me nothing but pain. It had never been just a job. It had seeped into every part of my life, endangered everyone I was close to.
“Ralph wouldn’t want you to quit,” Maia told me. “That wouldn’t make him feel better.”
“Nothing can happen to you or the baby.”
“Tres, you can’t control everything. You can’t stop things from happening.”
The storm roared. There was a draft somewhere. The candles flickered and guttered.
Maia propped herself up on one elbow. “Did you hear that?”
“What, the wind?”
She listened, looking around the room until her eyes fixed on the door. “Someone’s outside.”
I didn’t ask how she knew. I got out of bed.
“Tres.” Maia pointed to her luggage.
I retrieved the .357 from her suitcase and I went to the door.
I threw it open, but there was no one there. The hallway was dark and silent. I realized I was making a great silhouette if anybody wanted to take aim at me. The candlelight behind me was the only illumination.
As I stepped back inside, paper crumpled under my foot.
“What is it?” Maia asked.
I picked up the envelope. Hotel stationery, cream with brown lettering: REBEL ISLAND HOTEL. It was unsealed with the flap folded in, the contents too thick for a single letter.
I should’ve been more careful. It might’ve been a letter bomb for all I knew.
But I opened it and looked inside. Newspaper clippings. I unfolded them—articles from the Corpus Christi Caller-Times and the San Antonio Express-News, a few pieces printed from the national wire services. I scanned the headlines. Among the articles was a white card with a note handwritten in pencil, carefully anonymous block letters.
“Well?” Maia asked.
I showed her the note. Two simple words:
FIND HIM
“A warning,” I said. “About our killer.”
10
Alex crouched in the attic. He hammered the last support beam in place, but he had no illusions that it would help. The ribs of the building were trembling. Leaks were sprouting in so many places he felt like he was in the hull of the Titanic.
The attic was crammed with Mr. Eli’s old leather suitcases. They smelled of lilacs. The old man had once been a traveler. He’d crossed Europe on trains and sailed a steamer to China. He’d visited Istanbul and Cairo. And then for reasons he never explained, Mr. Eli settled on Rebel Island, stowed his luggage, his clothes and his mementos in the attic. He threw away all his shoes except his slippers and vowed never to leave.
Above Alex’s head, there was a ripping sound, more of the mansard roof getting scoured away. Soon Mr. Eli’s things would be exposed to the wind, swept off to Refugio County.
Let them get ruined, the old man would’ve said. A man’s better off without his baggage.
Alex climbed down the ladder and closed the trapdoor. He stood in the hallway, his wet clothes dripping on the carpet. He should’ve run away from this place months ago. What the hell was he still doing here, pretending he could make things right?
He stared at the doorway of Jose and Imelda’s room. It had always been the servants’ room, probably as far back as Colonel Bray’s time. Once, Alex’s parents had lived there. His mother had been bedridden during her final years. Alex would leave the window open so she could hear the sea. The room would be filled with light, the sounds of gulls and the smell of salt. On days when his father took out the fishing boat, she would close her eyes and listen to the sound of his engine as it receded into the Gulf.
Years later, when Alex had finally gotten up the courage to leave the island, his father hadn’t understood. Why join the army? Why leave the coast? Even Mr. Eli had told him it was a mistake.
There’s nothing out there for you, Alex.
But they’d let him go, and it didn’t take him long to realize they were right. Eventually he had come straggling home. He’d reconnected with his old friends. He’d tried to help them, the way Mr. Eli would’ve wanted him to.
And in exchange, he’d been deceived, betrayed, used. His fists tightened.