Bahama Crisis

She wants to take Karen to Abaco, at least until I get settled and can make other arrangements. She has two kids other own, and that might be better for Karen. "

Mike looked a shade relieved.

"It would be better," he said positively.

"Children brought up by old folk sometimes turn out funny. You're starting to think, Tom."

We talked about it some more and then I changed the subject.

"There's something I can't understand. I don't see why Perigord should be conducting this investigation personally. He's a Deputy-Commissioner, the top cop on the island. I shouldn't have thought this would warrant it."

"You're running yourself down," said Mike.

"You're a prominent citizen on Grand Bahama. And you say he knew Julie?"

"So he says. He says he met her at the school, at PTA meetings. I didn't go to many of those."

"Maybe he feels he has a personal obligation."

"Perhaps. But then there's Hepburn. Luke Bailey tells me Hepburn is a narcotics officer, and he did give Pete's rooms a good shakedown.

There's something behind all this, Mike. "

"Imagination!" he scoffed.

"Probably Hepburn was the only officer handy in the precinct house at the time." He got up and stretched.

"I'm going to bed; I'm not as young as I was." He looked down at me.

"Tom, I've been a doctor all my life until I retired three years ago.

I've seen a lot of people die and a lot of grief in families. Tell me; have you shed one single tear since Julie went? "

"No," I said flatly.

He walked to the corner cupboard, poured four fingers of brandy into a glass, and brought it back to me.

"Drink that, relax, and let yourself go. There's no fault in a man crying, and bottling it up can harm you." He turned and walked out of the room.

Mike was a kindly man and a good man. He had once said that being a doctor made a man a fair jackleg psychologist and he was right about this. I sat for a long time holding the glass and just looking into its brown depths. Then I swallowed the lot in two long gulps. The brandy burned going down and I gasped. Fifteen minutes later I was sprawled on the settee and crying my heart out. I cried myself to sleep and awoke in the early hours of the morning when I went to bed after turning out the lights.

It was ac ceptance that Julie and Sue were dead; and Pete and an unknown man. The acceptance brought a curious kind of peace; I still felt numbed in my mind, but I felt better and was a functioning man.

Mike had known what he was doing.

Four days later I took Karen to Abaco, and Debbie came with us. It was then, in the presence of Peggy and Bob, that I told Karen that her mother and sister were dead and that she would be staying with her aunt and uncle for a while. She looked at me, wide-eyed, and said, "They won't be coming home? Ever?"

"I'm afraid not. You remember when Timmy died?" Timmy was a pet kitten who had been run over by a car, and Karen nodded.

"Well, it's something like that."

Tears welled in her eyes and she blinked them away.

5i "Timmy didn't come back," she agreed.

"Does that mean I won't see Mommy and Susie not ever?" Suddenly she bust loose. She burst into tears and tore herself away.

"I don't believe you," she cried, and began to wail, "I want my Mommy. I want my Mommy."

Peggy caught her up in her arms and comforted her, then said over her shoulder to me, "I think a mild sedative and bed is the best thing now." She took Karen away.

Bob said awkwardly, "It's hard to know what to say."

"I know but the world goes round as usual. It'll take me a bit of time to get used to this, but I'll pull through. Where's Debbie?"

"On the patio."

I looked at my watch.

"We'll have to get back; the plane is needed.

I'll come across as often as I can at least once a week. "

Debbie and I did not talk much at first on the flight back to Grand Bahama; both of us were immersed in our private thoughts. It was a long time before I said, "I suppose you'll be going back to Houston."

"Yes," she said colourlessly. Presently she said, "And I thought I had troubles."

"What happened?"

She laughed shortly.

"Would you want to know?"

"Why not? We can cry on each other's shoulder."

"A man happened or I thought he was a man. I thought he loved me, but he really loved my money. I happened to pick up a telephone at the wrong time and I heard a really interesting conversation about the big deals he was going to make and the life he was going to lead as soon as he'd married me. The trouble was that he was talking to another woman, and she was included in his plans."

"That's bad," I said.

"I was a damned fool," she said.

"You see, I'd been warned. Billy was against it all along because he didn't trust the guy and he made that very clear. But would I listen? Not me. I was grown up a woman of the world and I knew it all."

"How old are you, Debbie?"

"The ripe old age of twenty-five."

"I had my fingers burned, too, when I was your age," I said.

"That was before I met Julie You'll get over it."