Carolyn G. Hart_Henrie O_01 (3 page)

I looked across the sound. I thought perhaps I saw a green smudge of land against the horizon, low and lumpy.

I shaded my eyes. “How far is it?”

“’Bout six miles.”

“You can only get there by boat?”

“Yeah.”

I looked at Frank Hudson’s back. His shoulders were hunched. There was no sense of holiday pleasure here. I wished I could see his face. Why was he angry?

The boat picked up speed, spanked across the whitecaps. I raised my voice to be heard over the engine. “So there are no cars on the island?”

Hudson eased up on the throttle and looked briefly, contemptuously, back at me. “No cars. No phones. No TV. Nothing.”

“Is everything brought in by boat? People, supplies, newspapers?”

“Or it don’t come.” He pulled down on the bill of his cap, shading his hostile eyes.

“Who lives there?” I shifted a little in my seat. The Naugahyde upholstery was patched and a little lumpy. But the boat was well cared for, clean and tidy.

“Nobody. Not now.” The deep voice sounded angrier. “I don’t call comin’ a few weeks at a time livin’ there. ’Course he can do what he wants, can’t he? He owns the island, every inch of it. That’s what he said when he bought it and started to build. Said he could do what he wanted, where he wanted.”

I knew there were many small, privately owned islands off the coast, most of them serving as hunting preserves. I looked across the water with growing interest. A private island. With only Chase and his chosen guests.

Hudson shoved the throttle forward; the engine rose to a roar.

The sun slid behind a heavy bank of clouds. It was still hot, August, Low Country hot, but now the day had turned gray and ominous, the clouds edged by crimson. In the heavy, moisture-laden air the throb of the motorboat sounded like the buzz of an angry wasp.

Then I saw the island, dark and vividly green, low against the murky horizon. An isolated patch of land with no link to the mainland and therefore no connection with the sprawling, powerful empire of Chase Prescott, media magnate.

This was a Chase Prescott I didn’t know. What had happened to make the information mogul of America leave behind all the trappings of power? Chase seeking respite? That was at odds with everything I remembered. No matter how much he enjoyed drama, Chase surely wasn’t recalling the reclusive, nerve-ridden decline of Joseph Pulitzer, who had spent his final years in a tower with foot-thick walls
where he still suffered acute pain from the smallest of noises.

As we grew nearer, the boat bouncing on the short, choppy waves, I could see the ripple of spartina grass. The tide was coming in. Dense and impenetrable undergrowth choked the towering pines. There was no sight of a house or a dock. The island must have appeared just the same—fecund, wild, forbidding—to a party of seventeenth-century Spanish adventurers or to a brigantine filled with pirates.

Abruptly, as if reading my mind, Frank Hudson slowed his boat. “The house is at the other end of the island. You can’t see it from here.”

The motorboat turned south. Across the glistening, thick spartina grass of the marsh, I saw the low-lying land, the snarled tendrils of vines and ferns and bushes, a toppled pine, its trunk gashed by lightning.

It wasn’t hospitable. In no way did it evoke the image of a South Sea island, where life is easy and languorous. “Did Mr. Prescott have the house built or was it there when he bought the island?”

“Built it.”

“I would imagine that brought in quite a bit of money to the local economy.” I tried to envision the many, many barges it would take to haul in everything needed for the kind of house Chase would want. Barges and workmen.

“Yeah.” But the answer was a harsh sound in his throat.

“Do you live on the island?”

Hudson’s hands, large, work-worn hands, tightened on the wheel. “Not anymore. Not since Mr. Prescott took it.”

“Did he make you move?” Now I understood that anger. “Didn’t he have to pay for your property?”

Explosive rage burned in the dark eyes that looked back at me. “White men always have papers. The papers said the island belonged to some people up north. They came down to hunt a couple of times a year. It didn’t matter how long we’d lived there. They tore our houses down and made us move to the mainland. Us and the Willetts and the Browns and the Jorys. Oh, he gave us some money—for relocation”—the word was savage—“but it ain’t the same. It’ll never be the same.”

It was abruptly cooler beneath the darkened sky. The skin on my bare arms prickled.

“Does the island have a name?” I asked.

The waves slapped against the hull. Blackbirds cawed. Hudson’s heavy shoulders shook. I realized he was laughing. “Oh, yes’m. It has a name. Mr. Prescott don’t like it. He calls it Prescott Island. But that’s not the real name.”

“What is it?” I grabbed a railing as the boat picked up speed.

“Dead Man’s Island.” His deep voice resounded with satisfaction.

I stared at the dense, forbidding tangle of growth.

Dead Man’s Island. There had to be a reason.

“Why?”

Hudson, too, was watching the island slide by. “Everybody still talks about it—and it was almost a hundred years ago. The big storm. The biggest one ever. After it was over, they come to the island to see how it went here. You know what they found”—eyes
darker than coal searched mine—“when they come over? Not a living soul. Everybody drowned. Every last one of them. The bodies—swollen and smelly—they was snagged in the trees and caught in the brush. Up there on the high ground, the ground where Mr. Prescott built his house. Before that storm this was Fortune Island. But from that day to this ain’t nobody called it nothing but Dead Man’s Island.”

I shivered. From the sudden breeze, of course.

But in my heart I knew better. My Irish mother would have said a goose had walked across my grave.

O
pulence.

That was my immediate judgment.

The massive pale yellow house dominated the ridge. It was in the Georgian colonial style, the two-story central segment balanced by two-story wings on either side. Colonnaded porches extended from every portion. Scarlet bougainvillea cascaded over walls and balconies. But the eye was caught and held by bed after curving bed of roses, roses so vivid, so gorgeous the eye was dazzled: crimson and rose, pink and vermilion, butter yellow and white, primrose and palest ivory, mauve and deep coral. A central fountain, bordered by pink marble, flung a shining column of water skyward. Dark green cypress bordered the flower beds.

This house and its gardens were a spectacular achievement, a paean to human ingenuity and determination.

But it was also an aberration.

Elegance had no place on this wild and untamed island. The Georgian house and its fairy-tale gardens were at war with the luxuriant vines and unchecked shrubbery and encroaching weeds, the unstoppable, uncontrollable fecundity of subtropical land.

The house was light and bright and airy.

Behind it loomed the darkness of the vine-choked maritime forest.

As the motorboat entered the small harbor, a slender, small-boned man in crisp khakis and a short-sleeved sport shirt bustled out onto the pier. This, of course, was a substantial pier, so new the wood was hardly weathered. Midway jutted a covered boat-house.

Hudson held the boat steady as I climbed up the ladder to the dock.

The young man on the pier beamed a welcoming smile, but it was as automatic and meaningless as a showgirl’s curved lips. “Mrs. Collins, how lovely to see you. Mr. Prescott asked me to welcome you to Prescott Island. I’m his personal secretary, Burton Andrews.”

Burton Andrews had a boyish build and a youthful manner, but face-to-face I could see the faint pouches under his eyes and the fine lines on his forehead. His discontented air betrayed that nothing ever quite lived up to his expectations.

He took my bags, ordered Hudson with, I thought, unnecessary condescension, to be sure to return the following week—“Mr. Prescott said the guests will all be staying for a week. Now, that’s Thursday next, do you understand?”—then chattered
as he led the way ashore past the boathouse and the cabin cruiser docked inside. “That’s the
Miranda B
., just back from her yearly overhaul in Miami. A gorgeous boat. Mahogany trim throughout. I’m sure Mr. Prescott will take everyone for a spin sometime this week. It has a crew of three, but Mr. Prescott’s given them a holiday. He usually does that when he’s in residence on the island. He likes to have as few people here as possible. To be
intime
, you know. That’s why Hudson’s bringing over the guests. Of course, arriving in Hudson’s old outboard isn’t nearly as pleasant as traveling on the
Miranda B
.”

Behind us the
pop-pop
of Hudson’s boat faded. We reached the end of the pier.

“Mind your step now, Mrs. Collins. It’s six steps down—”

Did the fool think I couldn’t count?

“—and the oyster shells can be a little tricky, humpy,
vous savez
.”

I didn’t bother to answer. I lengthened my stride. How did Chase put up with this nattering idiot?

As we walked, Burton Andrews kept up a swift stream of comment in his flat midwestern—Iowa, perhaps—accent, peppered with bad French. “The main house is eight thousand square feet. Every comfort imaginable,
bien sûr
. Behind it there are separate quarters for the servants and a huge storage building that houses our own gas-powered generator, extra foodstuffs, garden machinery, and supplies. It even has a restaurant-size freezer room. We never lack for anything here on the island. Mr. Prescott expects excellence, and he wants all who stay on Prescott Island—”

That afforded me a flicker of grim amusement. Prescott Island: Dead Man’s Island. I looked forward to discussing nomenclature with Chase.

“—to be healed by its special peace. Peace and quiet, that’s what you will find here, Mrs. Collins. The ring of the telephone, the bleat of the fax machine—none of that intrudes here. Peace and quiet and, of course, the ultimate in service. We have a staff that can attend to every need, but the main work—trimming, gardening, thorough cleaning, restocking of supplies—occurs only once each week.” His arm swept out, encompassing the dazzling gardens. “Every Wednesday a crew arrives from Charleston. That makes it possible for six days out of seven to be devoid of irritants. No lawn mowers, no leaf blowers, no hedge trimmers. Instead we have sailing and swimming, books, films, hammocks for siestas. It’s quite heaven on earth, Mrs. Collins. Even for those of us who have to work while we’re here.”

I wondered how that description would strike Frank Hudson. And I didn’t miss the little sting in the tail of Burton’s panegyric.

The secretary prattled on. “It’s a brilliant arrangement. But, of course, Mr. Prescott specializes in brilliance, as I’m sure you are aware, being such an old
amie
.” His oyster-gray eyes slid toward me, curious and expectant.

I didn’t ante. “It’s been a number of years since Mr. Prescott and I have seen each other.”

Every word Burton uttered made me further regret my decision to come here. I despise ostentation.

Now I should be clear. I do enjoy
luxury
, but I prefer it to be luxury within decent bounds. Thorstein
Veblen understood conspicuous consumption; the 1890s in the United States was the heyday of the vulgar display of riches. Until now. One hundred years later greed still runs rampant. Today’s CEOs receive obscenely bloated paychecks even as businesses and industries scramble to “downsize,” a comfortable euphemism for the wholesale firing of middle management.

Prescott Island was not my kind of place. I would have preferred Dead Man’s Island, with its four families.

We had reached the gardens. The scent of roses swirled around me, a thick, sweet, heady perfume. And hot—only Houston or Calcutta could be more oppressive. I was awash with sweat.

“I’m sure you’d like to have a chance to rest from your journey.” The secretary’s voice had the jolly assurance of a ward nurse. I itched to tell him so. “I’ll take you to your room. Mr. Prescott would like for you to join him in his study in an hour.” He glanced at his watch and said precisely, “That will be at seven minutes after five.”

I paused—we had just reached the central fountain—and looked at the open-air porches. There were three: one a living area, another obviously a breakfast nook, and a third, the closest to the swimming pool, a leisure lanai with hammocks and deck furniture. All were unoccupied.

The air was so hot it shimmered. I recognized another scent threaded through that of the roses, the faint, acrid stink of insecticide. That figured. Otherwise, this idyllic retreat would be uninhabitable. I
doubted that even heavy spraying would prevent swarms of mosquitoes at dusk.

No insects.

And no people.

“Where is everyone?”

Burton Andrews blinked, then looked about and gave a twittery laugh. “
Eh bien
, it does seem deserted, doesn’t it? But that’s the charm of Prescott Island, Mrs. Collins. So different from life on the mainland, where it’s people, people everywhere. Here we are far from the vale of tears that is the world. And”—his voice became more matter-of-fact—“it’s terribly hot this time of day. Guests are encouraged to do what they wish, when they wish. Mrs. Prescott presides over tea every afternoon in the living room. Inside, of course. With the air-conditioning. I’m sure some of the guests are with her now. Others may be resting, walking—” He looked around. “Well, of course, the heat!” He shifted my larger case from his left hand to his right. I had my carry-on piece. “But Mr. Prescott told me to take you straight to your room, to give you a chance to relax and—”