October Fury: With linked Table of Contents

By Wilson Roberts

Set in the early 1980s, a time when air travel was uncomplicated, when people still smoked in offices, restaurants and bars, 'October Fury' is the final novel in the St. Ursula trilogy, featuring Frank James, poet and private detective. St. Ursula is a British Caribbean island very near to the American and British Virgin Islands. Herbie Lewis, a local bar musician asks Frank to investigate the death of his brother, Jeff. While it was ruled to be an accidental drowning, Herbie is convinced that Jeff was murdered. As a hurricane approaches St. Ursula and the Virgin Islands, Frank and his friend Chance are drawn into a confrontation with unscrupulous marketers, owners of a pyramid scheme that purports to be founded upon religious principles. The narrative, alternately tense and humorous, follows Frank and Chance as the storm builds and hits St. Ursula, the fury of the storm mirroring the fury of events as they discover the truth of Jeff's death and the crimes and corruption surrounding it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wilder Publications, Inc.
• Release date: Nov 16, 2015
• ISBN: 9781515402251

Book preview

ONE

BAD STORM coming. Herbie Lewis slid off his piano stool and led me to a table in the Quarterdeck Bar where he plays and sings several nights a week

Life in Paradise. I said with the stock irony of expatriates on St. Ursula.

Wiping perspiration from my eyes, I looked over his shoulder at the Caribbean, gray, flat with no breeze. They say it could be a category four hurricane by the time it gets here.

Hurricane Dorothy. It’s in the Leeward Islands already. Thin and pale, red hair fading to gray, he gestured toward the water, a cigarette between his thumb and forefinger. Ashes fell on his shirt, spotting its hibiscus blossoms and palm fronds.

I hope it doesn’t make a direct hit.

Your place buttoned down?

As much as you can button down a frame house with an open structure.

I’m ready, he said.

You didn’t ask me to meet you here to talk about the weather.

No. Staring at the table top, he took a deep drag on his cigarette, drew in his lips and sighed.

Why then?

 My brother’s death was no accident. No way in hell. He was too good a swimmer.

Good swimmers drown.

Not Jeff.

You sound pretty sure.

He nodded quickly and looked me in the eyes. Katherine doesn’t think it was an accident.

I talked to her at the memorial service. She didn’t say anything like that.

You know they met on St. Ursula three years ago, he said. He’d just gotten the job managing Island Financial Trust and met her two days after moving here. They were married a month later.

I’ve heard the story. It’s a small island.

Too small sometimes.

You think he was murdered?

Herbie shrugged and sighed. It sure as hell wasn’t an accidental drowning.

According to the newspaper, the official police report is that Jeff got drunk at a party at Long John’s Landing over on Queen Anne Island and drowned swimming back to his boat.

Queen Anne is part of the British territory of St. Ursula. ChrisWay, an American pyramid manufacturing and distribution company leases the island from the Government. ChrisWay distributors are born again Christians who sell Bibles, religious statues, pictures and medals, books on inspirational topics espousing conservative religious and social views, soaps molded in the shape of crosses, and tape recorded sermons of fundamentalist preachers and gospel singers. They also have a line of Biblical scenes painted on black velvet.

His face tight, his voice strained, Herbie shook his head. I don’t buy the official crap. You know as well as I do that the cops are corrupt, inept assholes. Would you trust them to conduct an investigation?

Herbie was right. The kindest thing to say about St. Ursula’s police is that they are inefficient. I get half my jobs from people who agree with that.

I’m going to give you another one, if you’ll take it.

You want me to check into it? I looked around the place. Behind him cardboard skeletons and orange-eyed black cats turned in the small breeze stirring beneath the Deck’s ceiling fans. A sign behind the bar advertised the annual Halloween party, the words Come As You Aren’t written in red magic marker.

Who else could I ask? Herbie shrugged and played silent piano on the tabletop. Howard Penn says Jeff’s death was an accident and he’s Chief Inspector of Police. I can’t investigate and I can’t afford to piss him off. You know as well as I do, unless you’re a Belonger, born and raised on St. Ursula, you’ve got to be careful about poking around in Ursuline affairs. He gets a bug up his ass about me and the next thing you know I’m kicked off the island.

It happens, I said, waving my hand to fend off smoke from his cigarette.

Like Win Stearns and George Andrews because their restaurant was hurting Howard’s cousin’s place. It’ll be a mess here if he ever defeats L. Arthur, he said, referring to L. Arthur Parker, the current Prime Minister.

He was right. Howard Penn disliked expatriate Americans and Brits. If he was Prime Minister he’d work to deport any of us who committed even minor infractions of the island’s laws and mores. That’s what we put up with to live here.

Too bad he’s not more like his uncle Willis.

I don’t know anyone as honest as Willis Penn, I said. He’s the grand old man of St. Ursula politics.

And Howard’s the asshole of the island.

He is.

Screw Howard Penn. Herbie looked around to see who might have heard. You’re friends with Parker, right?

We’re allies of a sort. He’s found me useful, and gives me room do quiet investigations.

And he’d let you look into this?

Maybe, if he thought it could make Howard look bad.

That would be a nice side benefit.

I smiled. If Jeff’s death wasn’t an accident, somebody killed him.

There was a nearby splash as a pelican dove for a fish.

Herbie raised his glass, tilting it in my direction. I believe that.

Who’d want to kill him?

I don’t know. That’s why I want you to look into it.

I sighed and shook my head. It’s a pretty vague premise for me to start ruffling feathers here.

Please Frank. He gave me a sad pleading look.

After letting him hang for a moment, hoping he’d tell me to forget it, I agreed to see what I could find out about Jeff’s death.

I can’t pay much.

I usually want a seven days cash retainer, but for you I’ll take payment in contingency fees and a favor.

What kind of favor? His brow furrowed. He glanced at his watch and stood. Time to get back to work.

I love it. I offer you a great deal and you get suspicious.

What’s the favor?

If I turn up anything valuable I keep a third of it, otherwise you don’t owe me any money. That’s the contingency part. The second part’s the favor. You get me a two nights a week gig playing guitar and singing here at the Deck.

I’ll get you the gig, no problem, but the best you’ll get out of the first part is one third of the family bad luck.

I’m not busy right now. I rarely am. I laid a couple of bucks on the table and left the bar. As I walked to the parking lot, Herbie called me back.

Talk to Katherine.

I nodded. He smiled, waved and walked back into the Deck. By the time I climbed behind the wheel of my robin’s egg blue ‘52 Packard Caribbean I could hear him playing the piano, his rough voice singing the words to Stormy Weather.

LIGHTS WERE ON at Katherine’s house. I parked in her narrow turnaround and knocked on the door.

Hey, she said in her Carolina drawl. She was carrying a glass and I smelled the gin from where I stood outside the screen door. Pushing it open, she leaned forward, offering me her cheek.

Hey. I said, giving her a light kiss. Herbie wants me to talk to you.

I told him to leave things alone.

He doesn’t believe Jeff’s death was an accident.

It was. Her voice was as flat as the Caribbean waiting for the storm.

He told me you agreed with him.

Well I don’t. She opened the door and waved the glass at me. Martini?

Extra dry.

In other words, you want a glass of gin.

Exactly. Neat

I followed her into the kitchen. She poured gin into a glass, a slight tremor in her hand as she held it to me.

What do you think happened to Jeff?

He drowned. Her voice sounded forced. "We sailed to Queen Anne on The Cotton Blossom, moored offshore and took the dinghy to Long John’s for the evening. He left the party around two am saying he was going to swim back to the boat. When I went back to the Blossom it was almost three. Jeff wasn’t on board. I assumed he’d swum back to Long John’s for more partying and I went to bed. She lit a cigarette. We were going to sail to Tortola early the next day and put the boat into dry dock to get it ready for the winter season. When he wasn’t back at daybreak I called the police."

And the police found nothing.

"Zilch. Nada. Zero. They searched the island and when they found no sign of Jeff they began diving in the waters between the beach and The Cotton Blossom. They found Jeff’s body below the boat. She took a long drink from her glass of gin. Howard Penn went out of his way to tell me the details how his arms were splayed out, and how his face was bobbing against the fiberglass bottom. His pants were caught in the prop and that kept him from rising to the surface."

A master of description, our Howard, I said.

A goddamn mother fucking bastard. She took a long drink and refilled her glass.

I’ve heard that before.

Sighing, she put her hand on mine and spoke in a whisper. Herbie’s right. Jeff’s death was no accident.

You just said it was.

I’m scared.

Of what?

Not what. Whom.

Whom? Don’t hear that word much anymore.

She wiggled her glass. Forget it.

You think someone killed Jeff?

Do you?

It’s fishy.

She walked toward a chair, staggered and almost fell. Not a good metaphor, Frank.

Herbie wants me to look into it.

She took a deep insuck of breath, a shadow of fear flashing over her face.

Don’t. I told him not to talk to you.

But he did.

Leave it alone, Frank.

What do you think will happen if I don’t leave it alone?

She refilled her glass. Just leave it.

I nodded and put my unfinished drink on the table. She was drunk and afraid. I would hold my questions until she was sober. I chugged my gin and gave her a quick hug.

See you later. I let myself out.

SHE STONEWALLED ME, I said to my friend Chance the next morning when I told him about Herbie’s request that I look into Jeff’s death and Katherine’s reaction.

She said she’s frightened, right?

Of what?

He gave me a booming laugh. Finding that out is your job.

Do you think there’s anything to Herbie’s suspicions?

He shrugged. How should I know? You’re the detective.

We were on the bridge of his yacht, Maybelline, II, moored in the middle of Great Harbour, rocking in the wake of passing boats, his dinghy, The Flustered Bush tethered behind us.

Lots of people have taken their boats to Hurricane Cove to wait out the storm, he said, referring to a sheltered bay on the south side of the island. The sky was hazy, the sea still flat, the air hotter than the day before.

 People don’t understand why man as rich as you refuses to pay marina fees. Chance is worth millions between what he made from his St. Ursula television station and what he inherited from his father, who was described in his New York Times obituary as the world’s richest novelist.

It’s my old pirate and smuggler habits, Chance explained. Avoiding dock fees might seem like small potatoes but it’s a critical link with a past of living hand to mouth in the islands for twenty-five years.

And doing things Interpol would love to know about.

What does Liz think about Jeff? He ignored my comment and rested his feet on a bright chrome rail, sunlight glinting from the rings on his toes. He wore a pair of Madras shorts and a white linen vest without a shirt.

I haven’t talked to her yet. You got a beer?

Talk to her. She and the girls came here to be with you after you bailed her out of that mess with her crooked surgeon husband and his drug ring last year.

I asked you for a beer, and she won’t move in with me.

Hell, you spend so much time together that you might as well be living with her. She’s your partner in the detecting business and you haven’t talked about Jeff’s death and Herbie’s suspicions? He looked up and grinned at me. You’re drinking a lot.

You’re the one in AA. I drink, but I don’t get drunk and do stupid things.

I’m allergic to alcohol. It makes me fall down and say things I don’t remember.

We both laughed and dropped the subject.

He shifted his feet with their be-ringed toes to the deck and sat upright in the chair, pulling his long gray hair back into a ponytail, fastening it with a rubber band he’d been keeping around his wrist. Sitting between the sun, and me his huge bulk blocked the light in a one man eclipse.

You’re right. I should have talked to Liz. I haven’t gotten used to the idea of having a partner yet and we’re not almost living together. She insists on keeping her own place and comes to visit me occasionally.

Are they good visits?

Very good.

And she stays overnight?

Almost. She goes home in time to get Julie and Hannah up for school.

How often?

Two or three nights a week.

You’re almost living with her. Talk to Liz about this Jeff Lewis thing.

Maybe she’ll be able to get more out of Katherine than I can. Stretching and yawning I leaned over the rail and stared into the water, glad he’d dropped the subject of my drinking. Chance has a good sense of what’s productive and what isn’t. At least in regard to other people. His own appetites and proclivities are less well managed.

I was surprised when Jeff drowned, he said. I watched him swim in the races at Carnival last summer. He was good. Not fast enough to win the sprints, but if there’d been a marathon to the British Virgin Islands and back, Jeff would have won.

There was a distant motor sound and Liz’s dinghy bounced across the harbor, looking like an inner tube with an eggbeater. She stopped alongside Maybelline II and threw me a line.

You boys talking men things? She climbed aboard and stood on deck, left hand on her hip, the right hand shielding her eyes from the morning sun.

Actually, Frank’s talking to me about the business you two are supposed to be partners in, Chance said. It looks like you’ve got your first job together.

Nice of you to let me in on it, Frank.

I drove past your place last night, I said. All the lights were off.

What time?

Close to eleven.

I was in bed by ten. Hannah and Julie are hyper over their school Halloween party. They dragged out a dozen different dresses and poured over every picture book they could find. I was exhausted by the time they realized they didn’t have the slightest idea of what they were going to wear.

I gave her smug look. See, you should have moved into my house at Smuggler’s Bay instead of buying that mini estate. Then you’d have someone to relieve you from time to time.

She patted my cheek and made a wry smile. Discussion number seven hundred and thirty six on Topic Number One: Why Liz Ford has not set up housekeeping with her dearest friend and only lover, Frank James, poet and private eye.

I’m going down to check the oil level in my engines, Chance said and disappeared below.

Private eye and poet, I said.

Your boys are grown and on their own. You’ve been divorced for years. Do you think you’re ready to take on another family? What did you want to talk to me about last night?

I filled her in on my talks with Herbie and Katherine. She sat cross-legged on the deck, her red hair blown into curly wild locks from the dinghy ride out to Maybelline II. She was tanned and healthy and beautiful, picking at her fingernails with her thumbnail as I talked. When I finished she stopped. Hands resting on her knees, she stared at some middle space in Great Harbour between the boat and shore.

Katherine she said she’d told Herbie not to talk to you.

Right.

And she sounded frightened?

She admitted it.

And she told you to butt out?

Not in so many words.

How, exactly, did she sound frightened?

She told me she was frightened, I repeated.

But her voice, her face, how did he sound, look?

Like she was gasping for air to get the words out. Her eyes were watery and her hand was shaking.

What were her exact words?

‘Leave it alone, Frank.’

Did you ask her why?

I dropped it. She was drunk and didn’t want to talk.

Sometimes you’re too nice. You don’t like to push people and you back off.

I don’t mind pushing people, but I don’t want them knowing I’m pushing them. Unless they’re scumbags. I like scumbags to know I’m pushing them.

Let’s both go see Katherine, she said.

TWO

KATHERINE WASN’T HOME. After looking for her in the Quarterdeck and at the bar at the Tabard Inn, where I keep my office on the second floor, we found her in a lounge chair on the deck of her boat, eyes closed, a book open on her lap, an empty bottle of gin lying next to her. She hadn’t stirred at the sound of our dinghy approaching. I cut the engine and called for permission to board. When she didn’t respond, I edged the dinghy up to the stern. Liz tied it to a piling on the dock and we climbed aboardThe Cotton Blossom.

She shouldn’t have been left alone, Liz said, looking from the bottle to Katherine. Nobody should be neglected at a time like this."

Who would have stayed with her?

If I’d known she was alone I would have insisted she come to my house.

She put a hand on Katherine’s shoulder and gave her a gentle shake. Katherine brushed the hand away, grunted and tried rolling over on her side. Liz grabbed her around the waist, keeping her from falling off the chair.

Katherine, she said, patting her again, this time less gently. It’s Liz Ford. Wake up.

Katherine opened her eyes. Pulling herself to a half sitting position, she ran her hands through her hair.

What time is it? Rubbing her eyes, she swung her legs off the lounge and sat hunched over, turning her head from side to side.

Ten thirty, I said.

Christ, look at me. I’ve been sitting here since sunup. God, I feel awful. Her words slurred as she spoke with the false control of a drunk.

Liz sat on the deck next to her.

I want you to come back to my place, she said, her arms encircling Katherine. This is a lousy place for you to be right now.

"I need to be alone. Besides, The Cotton Blossom is pretty spiffy." There was a note of false brightness in her voice. She pulled away from Liz and stood.

Katherine Lewis was a striking woman. In her early forties, she was almost six feet tall with blonde hair hanging below her neck. Freckled and darkly tanned, she fought the same battle against weight fought by most of us from forty on. Unlike most of us, she came down on the winning side.

What are you two doing here?

I wanted to see how you were doing, Liz said, before I could speak. Frank told me you sounded frightened last night.

Death is terrifying. When someone you love dies you’re bereft. Alone. Desolate. Without hope for the future. You mourn losing them and you mourn your own death in advance. That’s what I’m doing. Fixating on Jeff’s being gone forever and my own death in the future. That’s what makes us human, you know, the ability to foresee our deaths. Her eyes dull and red, Katherine spoke in a tight monotone, her lips barely moving.

Liz gave her a soft smile. I thought the contemplation of life was what made us human.

That’s how much you know. Wait until you’ve lost someone.

Liz didn’t reply as she put her arm back on Katherine’s shoulder. I thought of her losses, of the horror she had faced and how it had led to our relationship and to her bringing Hannah and Julie from the Philadelphia suburbs to live on St. Ursula.

What happened? Her hand was on Katherine’s shoulder.

Leave it alone. I told Herbie to leave it alone. I told Frank to leave it alone. Now I’m telling you. Leave it alone. Let it be an accident and put it in the past. I’m going to sell the boat, go back the States, and it’ll all be over.

Herbie thinks Jeff was murdered. I overstated Herbie’s position as I stood in front of her, my face inches from hers.

She shook her head but showed no other reaction to my characterization of Herbie’s concern.

He’s just dead and that’s the end of it. I’m going to drop his ashes on the water tomorrow at dawn.

I shut my eyes for a moment. Jeff’s been cremated?

Today. They’re doing it sometime today.

Was there an autopsy?

She shook her head. Nobody mentioned it.

I need an autopsy report.

What good’s an autopsy? Katherine asked.

Maybe a lot, maybe nothing.

I looked at Liz.

You need to call and find out if he’s been cremated yet, she said.

"You have to do things face to face on this island. Phone calls are a waste of time.

She gave me a quick shooing wave. Go. I’ll take care of Katherine.

I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself, Katherine slurred.

Liz shook a finger at her. No way. We’re packing enough clothes for you to stay at my house in Chaucer for a few days.

I headed for Norton Greville-Hughes’ office at the Sir Francis Drake Hospital. Greville-Hughes is senior medical officer at Drake. He’s also the surgeon, the pathologist, the hospital administrator and St. Ursula’s Medical Examiner. He performs those duties when he’s not tied up on the golf course or in a regatta sailing around the islands in his custom made sailboat with several young stateside women crew members stretched out on the foredeck, sunning themselves in the nude.

The hospital is a dark reinforced concrete building, the first floor filled with offices and labs, the second floor holding ten patient rooms, each with four beds. The windows are small, covered with plastic screening and wooden louvers. Most people who get sick on St. Ursula try their best to get to a hospital in the States or England. If they’re too ill to get that far, they’ll settle for Puerto Rico. If they’re too ill to make it to Puerto Rico, they’re either dead or put into The Drake for what custodial care it offers before they die or manage to get to a real hospital.

The woman at the reception desk outside Greville-Hughes’ office was absorbed in a crossword puzzle book. She did not look up as I walked in. I stood in front of her for a silent moment before clearing my throat. She still didn’t look up.

I’d like to see Dr. Greville-Hughes, I said.

He’s busy. She didn’t raise her eyes from the puzzle.

It’s important.

He can’t see anyone this morning.

Is he in surgery? It’s almost noon.

What’s a five letter word for ‘Please sir, he’s busy. Could you come back another time?’ She paused, bit the eraser end of her pencil and pretended to fill in the crossword blocks. I’ve got it. Scram. She still had not looked at me.

I leaned down, resting my palms on the top of her desk. It’s a matter of life or death.

I hear that several times a day. It rarely is.

Are you going to announce me, or am I going to leap over you and storm his door?

He’s been drinking. She smiled at me.

Which is the real you? This smiling lady or the snot who just insulted me?

Sorry. My job is to protect Doctor. If you’re going to leap over me like you say you are, then it becomes my responsibility to protect him from your moral indignation by warning you that he’s probably crocked to the gills.

Of course he is. Dr. Greville-Hughes is always crocked, except during the chess tournament.

One must have one’s priorities. Go on in, if you have to. He won’t answer if I buzz him.

I caught him behind his desk swatting flies and smoking a cigar, the front of his white guayaberra shirt covered with ash.

Hullo James. His hair gray and straight, hung uncombed over his forehead. His skin was pasty white.

How long have you lived in the islands? I asked.

Twenty-five years, maybe twenty six or seven. Hard to tell, the way I drink.

You’re addicted to golf and sailing with naked women, so why do you look as though you’ve never been out in the sun?

Not as a result of clean living. He nodded at a half empty Beefeaters bottle, an open tonic bottle beside it. Beer or gin?

Beer.

He pointed at a small refrigerator next to a skeleton held together by screws and wires. Help yourself and get me one. I like a beer between my gin and tonics

I popped two beers, handing him one. He put down his half full glass of gin and tonic and chugged the beer down in what seemed to be three swallows.

You here to challenge me to a golf game, a chess match or a sailboat race? Or just to drink? God I hope you’re not sick. I can’t stand sick people. They give me the creeps, don’t you know.

I stopped by to find out about Jeff Lewis’ autopsy.

Dead people. I hate dead people worse than I hate sick people. They’re depressing as hell, don’t you know. Autopsy information is released on a need to know basis. What’s your need to know, James?

Herbie hired me to look into Jeff’s death. He doesn’t think it was an accident. I’m a representative of the family. Therefore I have a need to know.

Greville-Hughes took a long swallow of gin, briefly studied the remaining contents of the bottle and drained it. He belched. "Technically, I don’t