Free A Purple Place for Dying by John D. MacDonald

black. With her eyes obscured, her face seemed totally without expression, and smaller than before.
    She directed me down into the village and told me where to turn. She sat erect and remote, purse in her lap, hands folded over the clasp. Violence leaves such vulnerable victims.
    "Where in the Bahamas?"
    "What? Oh, I don't think you'd know it. It was just about a mile long and about three hundred yards wide. It was near Old Mallet Cay."
    "South of the Joulters. On the banks, a little way in from the Tongue of the Ocean. It's very tricky water there. Plenty of coral heads."
    "Then you do know it!" Her voice sounded younger.
    "If it's the one I'm thinking of there's an old gray house there, pretty well storm-battered, near a nice little protected anchorage. Most of the island is volcanic rock. The house faces west."
    "That's it!"
    "Did you sell it?"
    "We never owned it. My father got it on a lease from the crown. Ninety-nine years. You can't sell those leases, you know. They can be passed along to the direct heirs, and when the time is up they revert. John and I have talked about going back one day."
    "Was there no inheritance?"
    "Mother's money was just for her lifetime. And it wasn't a big income, really. My father was always in total confusion about taxes. And he made fantastic investments. After everything was settled, John and I got a little over nine hundred dollars apiece. You know, I loved that island. There's a beach and a bar behind it. I can remember how lovely it was in the moonlight. The beach was like snow. We all used to get as brown as Bahamians."
    "You don't look as if you'd ever been in the sun."
    "I think I got too much of it when I was a child. My lips are allergic now. They puff up and break out in sores. I'd love nothing better than to just… lay in the sun and bake until the world gets far away"
    "How long since you've tried?"
    "Years."
    "They have some new things now. You know, miracles of chemistry. There's a paste that screens out every kind of ray."
    "Really?"
    "Guaranteed."
    "Could you get me some? Would you know what to ask for?"
    "Of course."
    "This may sound… perfectly idiotic to you. But… if you are right… if some horrible thing has happened to John, it would be easier for me to bear it if I could just bake myself all loose and weak and far away. It's like a drug for me. Mr. McGee, when did you last see that house?"
    "Two years ago, in the spring."
    "Did you go ashore?"
    "No. But I put the glasses on it. It's all shuttered. It looks sound."
    "I guess it would be a great deal of work to make it livable again, clean out the drains and cisterns and all that. We had a sturdy old boat, a dear thing. Four hours to New Providence, and that was the great event, picking the wind and weather, leaving when it was just bright enough to see."
    Her voice was lighter and more flexible when she talked of that, her posture. more relaxed. I made note of it. It could make her easier to quiet down, knowing that much about her.
    I took the long tilted curves of the mountain country, working up, and then through a pass and down the far side to a plateau country, to fenced areas where there was a coarse graygreen grass, to open land of mesquite, sagebrush, cactus. This was State Road 202, less traveled than 100, a little narrower and older.
    There were a few towns built in the Spanish pattern. The road curved around them, avoiding the old route of narrow cobbled streets constricted by walls, and on the newer road were the cafes and garages, small pastures of automobiles most brutally slain.
    As we neared Carson I could see, far beyond it, the mountains I remembered from the flight in, purpled with distance, streaked with high marks of canyon snow. The airport was on the north side of town. The terminal was new and small, pale fabricated stone and tinted glass panels.
    There was free parking in lots on either side of the building. A quarter mile away was a shabby sun-weathered hangar and private service area,