“My mother’s dead.”
“Yeah, well, I’m sure you lied to her once or twice while she was alive.”
Al didn’t say anything, just continued reading his newspaper.
“What’s so interesting in that goddamned newspaper?”
He pointed at it. “Merck shares are up.”
“So?”
He made a face and lifted a shoulder. “Eh, they hit a rough patch the last half of the year. I’m glad to see they’re finally hitting their stride again.”
I groaned and let my head fall back against my headrest. I heard Al turn the page in the newspaper.
“Ooh, looky looky,” he sang.
I opened one eye.
“There’s an article in here about the shooting at the Seacoast Majestic.”
My head popped up. “What’s it say?”
“Says a man with no identification was found in an American tourist’s motel room at the Seacoast Majestic. Authorities are searching for witnesses and have yet to notify the family. As of now there are no leads.”
“Fucking great,” I grunted, letting my head fall back against the seat again. “Just fucking great.”
24
Standing outside the car in front of the Paradise Isle Royal Police Force, I passed Akoni, the driver, a twenty. “We won’t be long. Can you wait here for us?” I looked up at the large white building that looked more like a seedy Florida hotel than an island police station. The arched doorways and clay roof tiles were vaguely reminiscent of the apartment building that Jack Tripper lived in on Three’s Company. Only the cruisers parked out front gave away the fact that it was actually a police station.
“Yes, sir,” he agreed. He pointed to the parking lot across the street. “I’ll be over there.”
I nodded and Al and I entered the building. I glanced up at the man working the front desk. He was young, likely in his early twenties with a round, dimpled face and onyx eyes that didn’t quite look in the same direction. His name tag read Jefferson.
“Excuse me, I have an appointment with Sergeant Gibson.”
“Are you Officer Drunk?”
I looked at Al and grimaced. “Just Drunk is fine.”
“He’s waiting for you. I can take you back there.” The man looked at Al and pointed towards three rows of chairs in a small room off to the side. It was half-full of scantily clad women, scruffy-looking men, and other nefarious characters. “Sir, you can have a seat there.”
I pointed at him. “He’s with me.”
“Yes, sir, I see that, but Sergeant Gibson didn’t ask to speak with anyone else. Just you. If we need your friend, we’ll know right where to find him.”
Al hobbled towards the shoddy waiting area. “It’s alright, Drunk. I’ll be fine. You just go do your thing.”
“You’re sure?”
“We don’t really have a choice, now do we?”
I sighed. “Alright. I’ll try and make it fast.”
He nodded and shooed me away.
I followed Officer Jefferson through the busy office full of cubicles and uniformed men and women to a windowed room. He knocked on the door and then poked his head in. “Sergeant Gibson? Officer Drunk is here to see you.”
“Send him in.”
I rolled my eyes.
“You can go in now.”
“Thanks.”
“Officer Drunk,” said Sergeant Gibson, giving me the stiffest of head nods. The man’s expression hadn’t changed since the last time I’d seen him. He was still stone-cold somber, and even though I was taller than him and outweighed him by at least fifty pounds, he was more than slightly intimidating. “Thank you for coming in today.”
“Sergeant Gibson.” I nodded back, reflexively deepening my voice. “Not a problem.”
“Have a seat.” He gestured to the chair in front of his desk. “So, Officer Drunk. How is your vacation to the island thus far?”
Crossing my leg over a knee, I quirked a smile. “Eh, I’ve had better.”
“Yes. Not quite the vacation you had intended,” he said in his stilted accent and only a hint of a smile.
“No. Not quite.”
“So tell me a little bit about your reason for visiting Paradise Isle, if you don’t mind? You said something about it being your honeymoon?”
I pursed my lips and uncrossed my legs, pushing myself up higher in my seat. “Yes. It was supposed to be.”
“Do you care to expand on that?”
“Not much else to say. I was engaged, and the night before my wedding, I found my fiancée in bed with her ex-boyfriend. And instead of staying at home to wallow in self-pity, I went on the honeymoon without her.”
“Very upsetting, I am sure.”
“I’m alright.”
“So, when did you say you flew to the island?”
“The day before yesterday. I’d literally only been on the island maybe a handful of hours before the man was discovered dead in my room.”
“Interesting, isn’t it, Officer Drunk? You fly to my island, and a man is killed less than a few hours later.”
I winced. I didn’t care for his tone. “I flew in with a plane full of other people too, Sergeant Gibson. What does that have to do with anything?”
“That plane full of people didn’t just happen to find a dead man in their room hours later, did they, Officer Drunk?”
“Listen, I don’t know what you want me to say. If you’ve checked with any of the witnesses, they’ll tell you. I was at the bar while the guy was killed. Have you talked to Cami Vergado yet? She’ll tell you it wasn’t me she saw coming out of the room.”
“Cami Vergado?”
I nodded. “Yeah, Camila Vergado. The maid who heard the shots and saw the guys fleeing my room. She’ll tell you it wasn’t me.”
“How do you know the witness’s name?”
I made a face. “Because I asked.” I felt like adding, duh.
“Now I know that I’ve asked you this before, Officer Drunk, but can you tell me exactly how you knew the man in your room?”
My breath caught in my throat. I’d mentally prepared myself for this answer. I’d already told Sergeant Gibson that I didn’t know the man. And if I retracted that answer, I was going to look even more guilty. But the truth of the matter was I didn’t know the man in my room. I’d sat next to him on the plane—period. He’d told me his name and where he was from, but I had no way of knowing if that was all the truth. He could have easily been lying to me. “Like I told you that night, Sergeant. I didn’t know that man.”
Sergeant Gibson scratched his chin and leaned back in his chair. “His name was Jimmie Wallace. He was an Australian man.”
My stomach immediately did a flip-flop. So he’d been telling the truth. “Okay?”
“And he happened to have an airline ticket in his pocket.”
In that moment, I wanted to close my eyes and put my head between my knees. “Did he?”
Sergeant Gibson lifted his almost invisible eyebrows. “He did. As a matter of fact, we did a little bit of digging, and you’ll never guess what we discovered.”
I swallowed hard. “That he was a famous rugby player?”
Sergeant Gibson’s brows lowered as he leaned forward. “No. That he was your seatmate from the United States to Paradise Isle. Can you believe that?”
I put on my best confused look. “My seatmate? Sergeant, I didn’t get a chance to get to know my seatmate. He was sleeping for the first half of the trip, and I slept for the second half of the trip. I couldn’t even tell you what the man looked like.”
“You didn’t get to know him, and yet somehow he showed up in your hotel room just a few hours later? You expect me to believe that?”
I lifted my hands up on either side of myself. “Maybe he followed me! Maybe he was planning to rob me. I don’t know!”
Sergeant Gibson leaned back in his seat again. “I find it very interesting that he had your business card and personal cell phone number in his pocket. Don’t you
?”
“Again—I carried a few business cards in my ditty bag. He had to have pocketed one when he was in my room, trying to rob me.”
“Uh-huh. Officer Drunk, would you please relay the exact events that happened once your plane landed on my island?”
I sighed and retraced my every move for him. I knew he was just waiting for me to change my story in some way or add a new detail or mess up in some way, but when you’re telling the truth, there’s no chance of that happening. The only thing I wasn’t being forthcoming about was that I had spoken a few words to Jimmie on the plane. That was it, but that didn’t mean I’d killed the man.
When I was done giving him the play-by-play, I leaned forward in my seat a little. “Now, listen. I came here to talk to you as well. Artie Balladares got me a new room over at the Seacoast Majestic, and right before I left to come here, two big guys in a black Chevy Silverado with a roll bar broke into my new place.”
He cocked his head to the side. “Is that right?” His tone spoke to his disbelief.
“Yes, that’s right.” I felt my face heating up. I pointed at his notepad. “Don’t you think you should maybe jot this down? It’s gotta be related.”
“Why do you think these people are so interested in the rooms that you are staying in Officer Drunk?”
“Please. It’s just Drunk. I’m not an officer on your island, so I’d just prefer to be called Drunk.”
Sergeant Gibson leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers. “I’m glad to hear you say that you realize you are not an officer on my island, Mr. Drunk. I would not want you to take the law into your own hands. My men and I will handle this investigation.”
“Yes, I understand that, but I’m going to do whatever I have to do to ensure that I don’t killed before returning to the States.”
“If you’re allowed to return to the States, Mr. Drunk.”
25
My eyes widened. “What’s that supposed to mean? I didn’t kill anyone. Why wouldn’t I be allowed to return home?”
“Because I may need to ask you more questions.”
“I’m here, aren’t I? Ask away. What else do you want to know?” I pointed at his notepad again. “How about taking down descriptions of the guys that broke the window in my cottage? I saw them, you know. They tore the place apart looking for something. I also had a woman pull a gun on me last night.”
“Is that right?”
“Yes, that’s right!”
“Why are you getting so anxious, Mr. Drunk?”
“Because it seems like you aren’t taking me seriously.”
Sergeant Gibson’s tone remained steady. “Of course I am taking you seriously.”
“And yet you’re not even remotely curious about any of these other people?”
Sergeant Gibson looked down at his desk. “Mr. Drunk, did anyone else see this woman pull a gun on you?”
I frowned. “No, it was in my room. We were alone. But the bartender saw us together at the bar.”
“Oh, I see. So you were drinking with a woman at the bar and then you returned to your room with her, and she pulled a gun on you?”
I cradled my head in my hands. Fuck. Why did it feel like he was twisting my words? I sat up straighter again. “No. You don’t understand. She wanted something from me.”
“I’ll bet she did. And did you give it to her, Mr. Drunk?”
“No! I didn’t! I didn’t have what she wanted.”
“And that’s why she pulled the gun on you?”
“Ugh!”
“Why so testy, Mr. Drunk?”
I needed to reset the score and take a minute. I looked up at him. “Can I have a glass of water or something? I’m feeling kind of parched.”
He stared at me but then pushed a button on his desk. “Officer Cruz, can you make yourself useful and bring in a bottle of water for Mr. Drunk?”
A crackly voice clipped through the speaker. “Yes, sir.”
We stared at each other then, in a silent challenge of sorts. Finally, the door opened and in walked a young female officer. She had her long, straight black hair pulled into a sleek ponytail. She was average height and had an athletic build, with high cheekbones and a long, narrow nose. Her dark chocolate eyes glanced down at me as she dropped the bottle of water on Sergeant Gibson’s desk. “Here you go, sir.”
The second I saw her, I instinctively rose to my feet. My head tipped sideways as I drank in her beauty.
He nodded at her stiffly. “That will be all, Officer Cruz.”
I smiled at her as I took the water off the desk and unscrewed the cap. She was an uplifting vision. “Thank you, Officer Cruz. I really appreciate it.”
Sergeant Gibson frowned. “No thanks necessary. She wasn’t busy. Were you, Officer Cruz?”
Her small smile disappeared almost immediately. She didn’t say anything else before walking out and shutting the door behind her.
Taking a swig, I cast a half glance over my shoulder. Something about seeing her had done something for me. Centered my gravity or restored the wind to my sails. Oddly, I no longer felt alone on an island, so to speak.
I looked at Sergeant Gibson, this time with a straightened spine. “Look, Sergeant Gibson. I didn’t kill that guy Jimmie. I know you’d like to pin it on the American cop tourist and wrap the whole case up with a nice red, white, and blue bow, but that’s not what happened. So, you’re actually going to have to do some detective work and find Cami Vergado and the woman that pulled a gun on me last night, and the two guys in the Chevy Silverado that broke into my room today. I’m willing to bet they’re the same guys that killed your victim. Alright? Now, I don’t know anything else that would help you. But I’m sure if you poked around, you’d quickly discover that I’m telling the truth and you’d find your guys. Now. If you don’t have any other questions for me, I’m going to go. This is supposed to be my vacation, but I’ve had a lousy week. I’d like to go bury my ass in the sand somewhere and take advantage of the all-inclusive resort I spent a lot of money on. So, if you’ll excuse me…” I stood up then.
“I was not finished with the interview, Mr. Drunk,” he said authoritatively, yet without moving.
“You have no evidence to tie me to your victim, except that he broke into my room and lifted one of my business cards and sat next to me on an airplane. Otherwise, you’d have me incarcerated by now. So I’d say this interview is over, Sergeant Gibson. Call me when you’ve done your job and have some real evidence to go on.”
I stormed out of his office then and down the hallway to the front door. I’d had enough of Paradise Isle. It certainly didn’t seem like Paradise to me. I was ready to get the hell outta Dodge, and I was thankful that Sergeant Gibson hadn’t confiscated my passport.
“Let’s go, Al,” I grunted from the vestibule.
With his head rolled back on his shoulders, Al snored softly.
I walked over to him and gave him a squeeze on the shoulder. “Let’s go.”
He jolted awake, his eyes wide. “What?”
“Time to go. These cops here are jerks. I’m over it.” Whether I said it loudly for Al’s benefit or so that the cop at the counter overheard my complaint, I didn’t know. All I knew was that I was frustrated.
Al put a hand on either side of his armchair and pushed himself up slowly. “What happened?”
I pointed to the door. “I’ll tell you in the car.”
Outside, the sun hit my eyes, causing me to wince. I put my hat and sunglasses back on and scanned the parking lot across the street. I was thankful to see that our ride had actually stuck around as promised. No sooner had I taken a step off the curb than I heard the door open behind me and a female voice call out to me. “Officer Drunk, wait.”
I turned around to see Officer Cruz staring back at me.
“Do you have a second?”
I looked at Al. Whether he had heard her or not, he knew a beautiful woman when he saw one. He lifted his brows in surprise. Then he pointed at the car. “I
’ll, uh, just go wait for you in the car.”
“Thanks, Al.” I looked at the woman. Her brows were knitted together pensively. “Officer Cruz, right?”
“Yes,” she said before casting a backwards glance over her shoulder. “I only have a moment. I just wanted to let you know that you need to be really careful. Okay?”
“Be careful?”
“Law enforcement on the island doesn’t take very kindly to Americans. I don’t understand it, but it’s the way it is.”
“I’ve noticed.” I’d also noticed how perfectly imperfect the band of freckles across the bridge of her nose was, and how sincere her big brown eyes were when they looked at me.
She nodded. “The word around the office is that you’re a police officer back in the States?”
“Yeah, well, unfortunately that doesn’t help me down here.”
“I know. If anything, it’s made things worse,” she admitted. “Sergeant Gibson’s not going to be very helpful in getting you out of the predicament you’re in.”
“I didn’t expect him to be.” I lifted a brow and ran a hand across the back of my neck. “Maybe you’ll be helpful?”
Her head dipped sideways, and a stray piece of hair slid out of her ponytail. “I’m at the bottom of the totem pole here, Officer Drunk.”
“Please, just Drunk. Being a cop down here just makes things worse.”
“Drunk,” she agreed with a half-smile. “I wish I could do something to help you out, I just don’t know what I can do. I only thought I should warn you. The cops here aren’t going to have your back.”
I shook my head. “I don’t understand. Why would you wanna help me?”
“I’m from the States. I was born there, in Florida. And then my family moved to the island when I was in grade school. Those guys in there know where I’m from, and they hold it against me. The fact that I’m a female doesn’t do me any favors either. That’s why I’m on the bottom of the totem pole, even though I’ve been working here longer than some of them. It’ll never change. And I just don’t like the way tourists get treated by the police here. Especially American tourists. I just thought you’d like to know you’ve got an advocate on your side.”
Drunk on a Plane Page 11
