Free First Light by William G. Tapply, Philip R. Craig Page B

Jackson?”
    â€œKatherine Bannerman.”
    Her sharp eyes grew careful as they looked up into mine. “Some private detectives talked with me about her some time ago. I told them everything I could.”
    â€œI have their report.” I told her about the job I’d taken and that I’d gotten her name from Gladys White. “Gladys said that you were close to Kathy, and that she may have confided in you.”
    She studied me, then nodded coolly. “We talked.”
    â€œDid she mention going away? Back to her husband, maybe, or maybe someplace else?”
    â€œI don’t think she’d have gone back to him.”
    â€œWhy do you say that?”
    She shrugged. “Men aren’t dependable. I should know. My husband left me, and my boyfriend has wandering eyes. They wandered on Kathy Banner-man, among others. If you want to know the truth, I think she probably looked back.”
    I decided to leave that one alone. “What did Kathy say about her husband?”
    Myrtle’s voice was icy. “Look, I don’t really want to help him find her, Mr. Jackson. If she wants him to find her, she’ll let him know.”
    I nodded. “The deal I have with her husband is that if I find her I won’t tell him where she is unless she okays it. He says that all he wants to know is that she’s all right.”
    â€œSure he does.”
    I shifted to safer ground. “How did you two meet?” She seemed glad to talk about that. “In the stampline at the Post Office. She had one of the support-group flyers that Gladys White puts up on the bulletin boards all over the island. We got to chatting, and she started working with us. We got on pretty well. Common interests, common problems, you know?”
    â€œWhat kind of problems?”
    â€œWhat do you think? Men.”
    I should have guessed. “Did she ever talk with you about going off-island?”
    Myrtle shook her head. “No, and I think she would have, if she had plans. But on Labor Day weekend last year, she just left without a word to anybody. Something must have come up suddenly.”
    â€œYou haven’t heard from her since?”
    â€œNo, and I’m a little surprised by that.” There was a touch of hurt in her voice.
    â€œDid she have a man in her life while she was here on the island?”
    She ran a hand through her long brown hair. “She wanted to make up for lost time, she said, and I knew what she meant. We’d both married slugs, if you know what I mean.”
    â€œMaybe I do.”
    She looked at me, and the corner of her mouth turned up. “And maybe you don’t, because you’re not the slug type. Zee Madieras wouldn’t marry a slug.”
    While I was deciding how to respond to that, she went on: “Anyway, since we were each alone and she didn’t know the island scene, I took her to the Hot Tin Roof and to the Atlantic Connection, where she could meet people and dance.”
    â€œAnd did that happen?”
    â€œYes. Men liked her and she liked them. She liked being out and around. She was sort of innocent, you know?”
    â€œHow do you mean?”
    She smiled. “There’s only one guy I ever heard of who didn’t inhale, but Kathy hadn’t even tried it, so we did some dope. She liked it, and we hung around with some people who liked it, too.”
    â€œAnybody special?”
    â€œNo. She met a lot of men, and dated some, but she didn’t go home with any of them. Or if she did, she didn’t tell me.”
    â€œWould she have told you?”
    Myrtle shrugged. “I think so. I’d have told her. I think she just liked having a social life for a change. She didn’t have one back with hubby, I guess. He was a drone, just like my ex.”
    A picture of Bannerman’s gravestone leaped into my head. On it was written:
    JAMES BANNERMAN
BENEATH THIS STONE
LIES A SLUG AND A DRONE
    â€œSo there were men,”