Sun, Sand, Murder Read online

  This particular Friday was true to form. When I entered the Cow Wreck Beach Bar and Grill shortly before noon, the bar was empty. The only sign of life, if it could be called that, was the fiftysomething vacationer in a Speedo on the beach, being delicately broiled by the midday sun. Belle was nowhere to be seen but I heard some rustling from the storage lean-to at the back of the bar. I found Belle on her knees near the cot she had kept for Paul Kelliher, stuffing something into a trash bag. She started as she saw me when she turned to get up.

  “Oh, Teddy, you are going to be my death sneaking up like that.” Belle placed her hand on her chest and closed her eyes for a moment to compose herself.

  “Sorry, Belle, I didn’t mean to startle you. Slow morning?”

  “Just Mr. Too Much Flesh, Not Enough Speedo out on the sand. Complains about prices. Complains about no German beer. I got Heineken, ain’t that close enough? I decided to do some cleaning back here rather than just sit and watch all that pale skin go from baby pink to lobster red. You here for lunch?” Belle placed the garbage bag off to the side and stepped between me and it as she spoke.

  “Not today, Belle. What are you getting rid of? Not any of Kelliher’s things, I hope?”

  “No … no. There are none of his things left here. You took them all with you last week.” Belle’s hands flitted in a nervous gesture toward the bag. “Just some old odds and ends I need to clean out of here.”

  “Like what, Belle? Mind if I take a look in the bag?” My curiosity was piqued. Was there something in the bag that Belle did not want me to see?

  Belle frowned. “Yes, I do mind. Are you saying I’m holding back something about Professor Kelliher, Teddy? Are you suspecting me of something? After I treat you like a son? After I fed you all those lunches? You come into my own place and get all po-lice-man with me after I been so good to you? I don’t hide anything from you but I don’t have to take this from you, constable or not. Come into my own bar and insult me.”

  “Belle, don’t be this way. I’m just trying to do my job.”

  “So you do think I am hiding something from you?” Belle huffed.

  “Well … if I could just look in the bag.”

  “Get out of my place,” Belle said, bristling with anger. “Get out, and when you come back to accuse me and search the next time, you better have a search warrant from a magistrate, not just be on some damn fishing expedition.” Glaring at me, Belle seized the garbage bag.

  Belle was within her rights to refuse to let me look in the bag. She was within her rights to order me to leave. And there was no way I could get a search warrant from a magistrate for an investigation I had been expressly ordered not to conduct. I did the only thing I could do. I left. When I looked in my rearview mirror as I drove out of the crushed-coral parking lot, Belle was standing at the entrance to the bar, hands on hips, making sure of my departure.

  My regular patrol route followed the two ruts of sand road that ran parallel to the north shore. As I did on every patrol, I drove down the side paths to the beaches at Keel Point, Bones Bight, and Windlass Bight. A check with binoculars at each beach revealed nothing but the sea, the gulls, and the occasional wading cow. Lingering at Windlass, I ruminated over the falling-out with Belle. Here was a person I had known for years and seen almost daily. Why had she suddenly been so defensive? Had I been so ham-handed with my questions as to cause someone I considered a friend to be offended? Or did she really have something to conceal?

  My eyes tracked the flight of a pelican as it skimmed the water, abruptly rose, and then folded its wings into a dive. When the bird bobbed to the surface, the tail of a sprat poked out of its bill for a moment before being tipped down its gullet; pretty simple and straightforward for both the pelican and the sprat. Why couldn’t it be as simple and straightforward for me? Just go to Belle, ask the questions, and get the answers. Solve the crime of Kelliher’s murder, and go back to life as it was, no disruptions, no turmoil, easy days and quiet nights. Back to the rhythm of my life. Maybe that was what set Belle off, my disruption of the quiet rhythm of her life.

  It was not fair to Belle, though, to think what I wanted was also her desire. It dawned on me that there was a simple and straightforward explanation for her anger. It was because I had treated her as a suspect. And without any basis in fact, just because I thought she was acting furtively with the bag of trash. Was she really, objectively, acting as if she had something to hide? Not objectively, until I had all but accused her. And why had I done that? Because the Mistress purred “cherchez la femme” at me and I was not smart enough to actually develop real evidence and uncover real clues. In short, Belle was angry at me because I was an incompetent policeman.

  A competent policeman, I realized, would have no reason to suspect Belle. She had cooperated fully when I had come to her for information on Paul Kelliher, told me what she knew and turned over his belongings to me, including the maps and what might turn out to be my best clue, the coded notebook. Paul Kelliher’s killer would not have done that. And Belle had no motive and, to my knowledge, no gun to carry out the crime. I decided I owed her an apology.

  I backed the Land Rover around and drove toward the main road. Stopping where the beach path met the twin ruts of the road, I glimpsed a flash of mango yellow low on the horizon.

  The VI Birds helicopter appeared to have just lifted off from the airport. Staying low, it took a direct course over Flamingo Pond, toward the sea and the US Virgin Islands. Thinking I might still encounter any passengers who had disembarked at the airport, I turned east. My apology to Belle would have to wait until tomorrow.

  The loop road along the north shore meets the airport road at one of the three actual intersections on Anegada. In any other place, there would be a stop sign or traffic light. On Anegada, the two sand paths simply meet at a right angle. Turn south and you pass the airport and eventually reach The Settlement. Turn northeast and in a couple of miles the road tops the low dune at Loblolly Bay and ends.

  I had intended to turn south at the intersection but the thinnest pall of road dust hung motionless in the air to the northeast. Whoever had landed at the airport had already driven off toward Loblolly. I turned northeast and in less than a quarter mile spotted the source of the dust parked in the circular driveway of Frangipani House.

  Chapter Twelve

  Frangipani House is something of an aberration for Anegada. The only residence built anywhere north of the east-west axis of the island, it is one of only two properties here that could aptly be called “high-end.” Constructed in the late 1970s by the third wife of a British record executive as her post-divorce refuge, it boasts modernist styling and the island’s only swimming pool.

  When the divorcée’s ex-husband went bankrupt and the alimony payments dried up, the house was the only hard asset for her creditors to squabble over. The litigation took just short of a decade on the glacial docket of the high court in Road Town. Frangipani House was finally sold at auction and then passed through the hands of a series of owners until the present pair, a fashion designer from New Jersey and his FDNY firefighter husband. They had restored Frangipani House to its full disco-era chic and now rented it out by the week or month.

  The white Mitsubishi Montero parked at the front door was one of two rental cars owned by Donnie Vanterpool’s Car Rentals. Cat Wells’s shapely backside jutted enticingly from its open hatch as I wheeled into the drive.

  Hearing the sound of my tires, Cat turned and set a box of groceries on the ground.

  “The cops on this island don’t miss a thing,” she complained playfully, pursing her lips in their best seductive pout.

  “Just doing my job, ma’am,” I said, playing along. “After all, I am the customs officer for Anegada and a special constable for the Royal Virgin Islands Police Force.”

  The reprise of my officious greeting from the first day we met drew a repeat of Cat’s formal snap to attention and salute. This time, though, I managed to not crack a smile.

 
; “You are required to clear customs at the airport, ma’am.” I kept a facetious edge to my voice but maybe I was a little serious. Why had she not checked in?

  “Oh, I am so sorry, officer.” She leaned in against me, looking up through long lashes, a hand on my chest. “I didn’t mean to cause a problem.”

  “Well, don’t let it happen again,” I kept on. “Are you a visitor or a belonger?”

  “A visitor to your fair island.”

  “How long do you intend to stay, ma’am?”

  “I have rented Frangipani House for a week.”

  “And what is the purpose of your visit, business or pleasure?”

  “I came over to surprise my boyfriend. He’s a handsome stud, so I guess you could say … pleasure. My pleasure and his. Do you think he’ll enjoy the surprise?”

  I never had a chance to answer. She dropped her hand to unbutton my uniform pants and took me there in the driveway. And again, in the massive mahogany four-poster bed upstairs. And again, on the kitchen counter in the late afternoon when we went downstairs for a drink of water.

  Suddenly it was four o’clock. I hurried out to meet a sailboat arriving from Antigua scheduled to be at the government dock at three. I would have to stamp Cat’s passport later.

  * * *

  After mumbling about “island time” to the irate sailors and seeing that they had left Antigua on the day after Paul Kelliher had been found dead, I passed them through customs with a perfunctory glance at their passports and luggage.

  The sun was half gone on the horizon by the time I pointed the RVIPF Land Rover toward The Settlement. I was exhausted from the afternoon with Cat. My nether regions ached. Cat had the sexual appetite of a debauched nun trying to make up for lost time. I worried that I was going to be called on to perform this way every day for the next week. A quiet evening at home was what I needed.

  My daily patrol always ended with a slow tour along the one paved street of The Settlement. After a few minutes chatting with the tough boys wearing out the pool table at Cardi’s, it was full dark. Here and there light escaped from a curtained window, but my headlights were the only lights on the street. I decided to swing by the Methodist church to see if Anthony Wedderburn had made any progress.

  Even before driving into the parking area in front of the church, I could tell Anthony was not there. There was no light showing through any of the shutters on the building. I leaned from my window and listened for a moment; there was only silence. I decided I would catch up with De Rasta in the morning. I would be fresher then, anyway.

  When I arrived home, the house was dark save for a light in the kitchen, where Tamia sat at the table with a worksheet paper, a pencil, an open math book, and a forlorn look on her face.

  “Hi, Dada,” she said.

  “Hello, sweet dawta, where’s your madda?”

  “She got called to work the dinner shift at the hotel. Lorraine Penn has the flu. She said she’ll be home by eleven.”

  “And little man Kevin?”

  “He’s sleeping over at Mullet Soares’s house.”

  “An’ why do you have that horse look on your face, sweet dawta?” Tamia softened at being called by her baby name for the second time.

  “This old algebra is not gonna do me any good. Why do I have to learn it?”

  “That’s so when you are a full-grown lady like your madda and old and hairy like your dada you can work with your mind instead of waiting tables and catching smelly fish for a living. Now, show me what has you stuck.”

  Tamia sighed the signature sigh of all teenagers and explained. We pored over the worksheet together, smiling at each other when our heads bumped. My thoughts flashed back to when I first held her in my hands, so small and fragile, and swore to myself that I would protect her from the world. She is a smart child and it only took a bit of prompting and an encouraging word for her to grasp the necessary concept and complete the worksheet.

  “Thanks, Dada. You’re the best,” she said, and planted a little-girl peck on my cheek. Then she asked, “Dada, are you all right?”

  “Fine, sweet dawta, just a little tired.” Thank the Lord she did not ask why. “Off to bed for both of us now.” Three minutes later I slipped between the cool sheets, finally falling into a fitful sleep after an hour. I didn’t awaken until Icilda shook my shoulder at midnight and wordlessly slid into bed as I got out the other side to go to my late shift at the power plant.

  The diesels at the plant were cooperative, their even hum providing a lullaby sweet and soothing as any mother’s melody. I woke from my cot in the generator room just as Jimmy Lloyd arrived for the day shift.

  Since I had missed Anthony Wedderburn on yesterday’s patrol, I took the chance that he would be getting an early start at the church. I was anxious about his progress in deciphering Paul Kelliher’s notebook. He had promised to finish in a couple of days, and it had to be the break I needed on the case.

  Otherwise, I had nowhere to turn.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The little Methodist church is as picturesque as any building on Anegada. Set off by itself on the northeast edge of The Settlement, it shares a shaded yard with a cemetery filled with past parishioners. Its cream stucco walls are punctuated by glassless shuttered windows that are opened to the trade winds during services. A single stained glass window depicting Christ on the Cross graces the wall behind the simple torchwood altar.

  Several of the shutters were open, indicating someone was inside. As I mounted the two front steps in the warm morning air, the quiet of the churchyard was broken only by the chatter of a bananaquit. Pushing open the heavy wooden door revealed an interior bathed in golden light filtering through the stained glass window. It was impressive and welcoming at the same time, the Sistine Chapel of rustic Anegada.

  The seated figure of De White Rasta was hunched over the hymnal table to the left of the altar, in much the same position as when I had left him two days before.

  “Good morning, Anthony,” I called as I approached between the two rows of pews.

  There was no response to my greeting, which I attributed to deep concentration by De Rasta on his work. Then I saw the blood, spread thick on the table and in a pool at his feet. The blood was dry, a cold black smear across the sunlit floor, a cold black hand that reached into my chest and seized my heart.

  “Oh, no, Anthony,” I heard myself say. I ran to his side and felt his neck for a pulse. There was a faint throb, a murmur of life force in a body with the appearance of death. His skin was gray-pale beneath its tan, dry and almost cool. He leaned forward against the edge of the table, his right arm outstretched. A pen lay in the coagulated gore close to his curled fingers. His head hung a few inches above the table surface, a wide trail of dry blood running from his chin up to the ugly wound on the top of his skull.

  A shattered branch of staghorn coral, bleached white as bone, lay scattered about the table and floor. The fragments of coral were thick as the handle of a cricket bat, matching the size of the concave groove in Anthony’s cranium. Flakes of coral embedded in his blond dreadlocks confirmed that the branch had been the weapon. His assailant had probably picked it up from the flower beds outside the church, where the coral limbs were used as a border.

  The heavy end of the staghorn branch, which would bear fingerprints, was missing. Tossing it out on any beach on the island, where it would blend with thousands of similar fragments littering the shore, would guarantee that it would never be discovered.

  Judging from his position at the table and the pen fallen from his grasp, Anthony had been struck from behind as he worked on the coded notebook. The notebook and his work papers were nowhere to be seen.

  Anthony was breathing on his own, and the bleeding from his wound had obviously stopped long ago. Still, it was apparent that he needed medical help as soon as possible. I scooped him up in my arms, intending to transport him somewhere to obtain that help. Where was not certain. The clinic at the administration building was closed; the
rotating nurse who staffed it one day a week was in Virgin Gorda.

  Pastor Lloyd chose that moment to enter the church. He had made his way down most of the center aisle before he stopped short, seeing his church turned into an abattoir. His audible gasp, followed by “Dear Lord, Teddy, what has happened here?” alerted me to his presence.

  “Someone tried to kill Anthony. I have to get him to a hospital. Don’t touch anything,” I cautioned as I carried De Rasta past him.

  “Tried to kill him … here, in the house of God?” the pastor whimpered, as if the location made the bludgeoning more heinous.

  “I’m afraid the house of God is now a crime scene, Pastor. Come outside and don’t close the door or touch it on your way out,” I called as I stumbled down the front steps.

  Anthony was limp, nearly lifeless in my arms. He seemed to weigh no more than a bird. I had brought this upon him. I was momentarily taken back to my last meeting with De Rasta, remembering his joy and enthusiasm in helping with the coded notebook.

  After gently lowering Anthony across the rear passenger seats of the Land Rover, I radioed for Pamela Pickering. For once she was at work, and didn’t quibble or question when I ordered her to call VI Birds to get a plane, any plane, to Anegada to transport Anthony to the hospital in Tortola.

  Anthony was still unconscious on the floor of the airport terminal when the VI Birds Piper Aztec taxied to a halt outside an hour later. Pamela had outdone herself; a nurse from Peebles Hospital sat in the copilot’s seat and the two rear seats had been removed and replaced with a stretcher. An ambulance would be waiting to meet the plane on the runway when it returned to Tortola.