“Eric was working for me on Rose’s case. The guy who broke into my room must have gone after him. It can’t be a coincidence.”
“You’ve been through a lot tonight, chérie.” Gigi ran a hand through Renée’s hair. “You’re not thinking straight.”
“The guy who attacked me had pictures. He’s been spying on me. I’m telling you, Eric’s murder and my attack are connected.”
“Pictures?” That word finally seemed to catch Gigi’s attention.
Renée nodded. “He took pictures of me but also of my file on Rose Fleurie.” She didn’t say anything about Rose’s potential involvement. The woman was still her client, and as such, she was entitled to attorney-client privilege.
“Renée, are you all right?” an anxious male voice called out.
She was surprised to find John bearing down on them. She wouldn’t have thought he’d be here after the fiasco with his wife—though at this point, the rehearsal seemed a lifetime ago.
He gently grasped her face, frowning at the blood on her lips. “Does it hurt?”
She swatted his hand away. “What are you doing here?”
“I got a report the MPs were down here. Wanted to make sure you were okay.” He peered at Gigi sitting quietly beside her and added, “You too, Ms. Bienaimé.”
“Gigi,” the other woman corrected, her smile as flirtatious as ever.
John blushed. “I was worried.”
“I’ve got to talk to the MPs,” Renée insisted. “I think I know who killed Eric.”
“Who’s Eric?” John asked.
Renée’s groan was a mixture of impatience and despair. “He was helping me, and now he’s dead. I think the guy who came after me tonight had something to do with it.”
“Some guy came after you?” John was beginning to sound like a half-trained parrot.
“She unleashed her Rambo on him,” Gigi said.
Renée stood. “Gigi will explain it to you. I’ve got to go.” She took a step forward, and a wave of pain descended on her. She nearly staggered under its weight.
John’s arms closed around her. “Sit down.”
There was nothing else to do. Once seated, she tried to take a deep breath, but her ribs throbbed in protest. “The guy is white with sunburned arms. He’s wearing a blue baseball cap.” She grabbed John’s shirt and pulled him closer. “We’ve got to go after him. He’s our murderer.”
“I don’t think so.” A young woman walked up to them, her low-heeled shoes beating a staccato rhythm on the cement.
“Who are you?” Renée glanced at the woman, unsure what to make of her. Petite and blonde, wearing a button-down black shirt and gray slacks, she was pretty in an understated way. She also had an air of command about her, as if she was used to taking control.
John’s gaze flickered over the new arrival before he replied. “This is Liz Albright. She works for the base commander.”
“I’m also a friend of John’s,” the woman added, thrusting a hand at Renée. Her handshake was firm, though her eyes never strayed from John.
“This is Renée François,” he said, “and the woman next to her is Ms. Gigi Bienaimé.”
Liz offered Gigi an outstretched hand, but she ignored it and murmured a frosty, “Nice to meet you.”
“I asked Liz to speak to the MPs. Find out what’s going on,” John said.
“I was happy to do it.” Liz stared adoringly at John, her eyes those of a lost puppy that had found a warm bed for the night. If she was only a friend, it wasn’t by choice.
“What did you find out?” Renée prompted.
Liz finally tore her gaze from John. “They have a suspect. She’s being brought into custody as we speak.”
“She?” Renée said.
The hotel’s front door swung open. Two MPs stepped out with a young woman between them. Her head was down, and her long thin braids hid her face, but Renée recognized her instantly.
It was the desk clerk, Monica.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
I Am Not Afraid of Death
I was not afraid of Death. In Haiti, the line between the living and the dead was always permeable, like a sheer curtain that only pretended to give you privacy. We buried our loved ones in the morning, and they came back to us at night with stories of the afterlife or fresh gossip on the feuding neighbors. They would find a son’s lost soccer ball and a daughter’s favorite ribbon for her hair. And if our prayers were strong and our libations plentiful, they would bring the winning numbers for borlette—the local lottery.
I was not afraid of Death. I longed for her.
The ocean waves lapped at my breasts as I burrowed in the water, shivering. Though my homeland laid just two hundred miles from Guantanamo, it was as foreign to me as America. It was only when I entered the sea that I was home. It was this water that gave me life—and refused my offer to give it back.
The last time I made such an offering was at the Cote des Arcadins in western Haiti. We were at the beach house, though it was October and the season of storms had already begun. I hated the coast with all its memories of Philip. Eight years had passed since I had lost my beloved, and each tantalizing remembrance cut like the sharpened blade of a knife.
I hated that beach house even then—even before the happening. It was full of dark furniture drenched in gold trim à la française. Madame returned with shipping containers full of those things on her many trips to Paris. She lived for those trips. In those moments, walking down the Champs-Elysées, she could forget that her family had the terrible judgment generations ago to leave the metropole in favor of Haiti. She envied her husband because his family had never made such an inexcusable error. She couldn’t understand why he’d moved to this godforsaken island, and why he refused to leave.
When Madame told me we were to spend a few months at the coast, I used my strongest argument to discourage her. “The medicine may not work there.”
She brushed off my warning. “We must go. I am choking on the air in Pétionville.”
I knew what she meant, for I had been a witness. It was at one of the lavish dinner parties Madame and Monsieur hosted. While the men took their cognac out on the balcony, the women sat in the living room sharing stories of their trips to Paris. Madame was in her element, the star among Haiti’s elite. All was as it should be until her most hated rival uttered three little words: “Je suis enceinte.” I am pregnant.
The women tittered, unsure whether to bask in her joy or rush to console their hostess who sat with a plastic smile on her lips. In the end, they sided with the victor. After that, Madame found herself choking on the air in Pétionville.
Now here we were. In my least favorite place on earth.
“What do you want, ti fi?”
I was standing in the kitchen watching the cook, Berta, rip through a stack of plantains. She sliced down the middle with a long thin knife, then pulled back the tough skin to reveal peach-pale flesh.
“Madame wants her breakfast,” I said.
Berta wiped her brow with the back of her hand. A plume of steam drifted in the air as a pot gurgled on the stove behind her. “You get it. I am busy.”
Everyone was busy. There was to be a party that night in honor of Monsieur and Madame’s arrival, and all the servants were running to make things perfect. But Berta was the kind of woman who believed she had it worse than everyone else.
I did not protest. “Where is it?”
Berta grunted and pointed with her knife. I followed the tip of her blade to an arrangement neatly laid out on a small bench. I put everything on a silver tray and hoisted it with both hands. “You should put those in salt water,” I said, pointing with my chin to the pile of stripped plantains. “If you don’t, they will taste like the starch I put in Madame’s dresses.”
“What do you know about it? I have been in this kitchen fifteen years. You think some young girl will tell me my job?”
“I meant no offense.”
“I know what you are. You think I don’t know?”
>
“What am I?” I asked, genuinely curious.
“You come to Port-au-Prince with nothing, another nobody girl like the thousands before you. Now you are Madame’s personal maid. What do you know of personal maids? There is only one way you got that job.” She snatched at the chain around her neck and thrust a small gold cross at me. “I won’t have that kind of thing near me. I serve only the good Lord, Papa Bondye.”
“We serve the same God.”
Berta shook her head. “My God is the God of all good Catholics, you serve vye zidòl. You are an abomination.”
I moved in so close I could feel a faint tremble of air escape Berta’s nostrils. “Well, this abomination likes her food cooked properly. Put the bannann in salt water or tonight, I will come for you.”
I stalked out of the kitchen and headed up the stairs. When I reached Madame’s bedroom, I did not knock but pushed the door open with my foot. She was standing in front of a long mirror, a hand on her belly. I said nothing as I carried the heavy tray to the table by the window. The smell of freshly baked bread filled the room. I laid out the still-warm croissants, then poured a splash of coffee in a porcelain cup and drowned it in a sea of rum.
“Voici le petit dejeuner, Madame.” My French was now perfect. Madame forbade me to speak Kreyòl around her.
She glided across the room, a ghost of a woman with blonde hair and birdlike movements. She grabbed the delicate cup and took a long swallow before she had even slipped into her seat.
“More,” she said, holding the cup with an unsteady hand.
I poured more. And more. Finally, she nipped at her croissant. “How are the preparations for tonight?”
I thought of Berta and her starchy plantains. “It is good.”
“It must be perfect. Monsieur’s business colleagues will be here.” Her eyes clouded. “So will their wives.”
I tiptoed around a difficult topic. “Perhaps we should save the party for another night? The storm will be a bad one.”
“There are always bad storms. It is the season.”
“But this one . . .” Dream images flashed in my mind, though I could never share those with her. Much was shrouded in darkness, but what I saw made my bones ache. “Some say it will be the end of us.”
Madame only shrugged. “Such predictions are ignorance and superstition.”
“Oui, Madame.” Was it not ignorant to have a party during a hurricane? I dared not ask.
The bedroom door opened. Madame’s cup rattled in its saucer as she folded her hands in her lap. “You are back, mon cher.”
Monsieur strode to the table. I moved back several feet and forced myself to stare at the ground.
“You are better, chérie?” he asked, bending to graze Madame’s cheek.
She nodded, her smile glittering white. “How was your meeting with Papa Doc?”
Monsieur took a seat across from his wife and helped himself to a croissant. “The man is paranoid, and his Tonton Macoute are thugs. They have turned the National Palace into a fortress.”
My ears pricked at his words, though I tried not to look interested. The National Palace was where I had met Philip. It would always belong to us. President “Iron Pants” was forced to vacate after six years; he fled the nation under threat of a coup. Those who ruled by the butt of a gun could expect nothing less.
It was then François Duvalier became our president. He was once a country doctor, so he became our “Papa Doc.” He liked to ride through Port-au-Prince in his bulletproof Mercedes 600 limousine. When a crowd gathered, Papa Doc would roll down his window and his son, Baby Doc, would throw out bright, shiny coins and stacks of newly minted bills.
Papa Doc ruled with the help of his secret police. We called them Tonton Macoute—from the old stories of “Uncle Knapsack,” a giant who roamed the streets kidnapping lost children and stuffing them in his sack.
In this way, we were ruled by family.
“What did he want?” Madame asked.
“The Americans found a boat full of Haitians on the water in West Palm Beach. They have seen nothing like it before.”
Madame raised her cup.
“Is that rum?” Monsieur asked, sniffing the air.
She nodded guiltily. The cup hovered a few centimeters from her lips.
“I would like some.”
She heaved a sigh of relief. “Rose, serve Monsieur.”
I trudged to the other side of the table as if my legs had suddenly grown roots buried deep in the soil.
“What happened to the boat people?” Madame asked.
“The Americans sent them back. Papa Doc swears they are here to overthrow him. He banished them to the dungeons of Fort Dimanche, as though it was the eighteenth century and not 1963.”
“How odd. Why risk your life on a small boat in such a big ocean?”
Monsieur held out his cup, and I started to pour. His other hand snaked out, under cover of the heavy linen tablecloth, and a finger caressed my lower thigh.
The rum bottle slipped from my hand and crashed to the floor.
“Get a towel before it seeps into my rug,” Madame said sharply. “You must be more careful, Rose.”
I scurried from the room, feeling the weight of his stare at my back.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
This May Sting a Little
“Ouch,” Renée said as Gigi tightened the compression wrap around her chest.
“It has to be tight enough to bind your ribs. They could be broken; they’re definitely bruised. You should see a doctor.”
“I’m fine. Just don’t make it so tight I can’t breathe.”
Gigi grumbled but continued with her work. She was surprisingly good at this, her fingers deft and practiced, but the pain was still enough to make Renée inhale sharply.
They were in Gigi’s room. Renée sat on the edge of the freshly made bed with a glass of Cabernet and a ball of tears lodged in her throat. She was beginning to rack up a serious debt to Gigi. After Monica’s arrest, the military police swept the hotel for over an hour while the guests remained outside. John would have questioned her then, but Gigi stopped him.
“Can’t you see she’s in shock?” Gigi said, her tone unexpectedly brusque. “Ask your questions tomorrow.”
Something flashed in John’s eyes. He managed to stammer a reply and left soon after with Liz Albright trotting at his heels. Renée was grateful for Gigi’s intervention. She couldn’t have answered his questions or even thought about her attack. It hardly compared to Eric’s murder.
Eric was dead. His girlfriend had killed him. It was hard to take it all in.
“Drink your wine,” Gigi said, pulling her out of her thoughts. “It’s medicinal.”
She obediently took a sip, then placed the glass on the nightstand. Why was Eric’s death hitting her so hard? She barely knew him, but her heart ached for the young man who loved science and dreamed of becoming a doctor. There was something about his murder that wasn’t coming together for her.
Gigi gave the compression wrap a final tug. “That should do for now. Let’s clean your face.”
Renée carefully pushed her shirt down while her self-appointed nurse rifled through a gigantic first aid kit. It had everything—ointments, syringes, cotton balls, bandages, even suture needles and thread. Who traveled with such a well-stocked kit? Her eyes strayed to Gigi’s shoulder, which was covered by her high-neck, long-sleeved blouse.
Gigi seemed to feel the weight of her stare. “Are you okay?”
Renée nodded. “How about you?”
“I’m fine.”
“How’s your shoulder?”
“It’s fine.” She squirted hydrogen peroxide onto a cotton ball and pressed it to Renée’s lips, warning, “This may sting a little.”
It stung a lot, but the pain was a welcome distraction.
“I can’t believe a man attacked you like this,” Gigi said as she swabbed Renée’s upper lip. “What a coward.”
“This wasn’t from my att
acker. It’s courtesy of John’s wife.”
“What?” Gigi paused to stare at her. “Why would she do such a thing?”
“She thought I was fooling around with her husband.” Renée gave a soft laugh, which still managed to hurt her ribs.
“You?” Gigi threw the used cotton ball to the ground and pulled out a fresh one. “Liz Albright stuck to him like a leech. If John is fooling around, you’re not the one his wife should worry about.” She moistened the cotton ball with salve and applied it to Renée’s lips. It was instantly soothing.
“She was fighting for her husband,” Renée said. “I can understand that. I went a little crazy myself when I found out about Paul.”
Gigi’s hand faltered. “I’m sorry about this afternoon. I should never have said what I did.”
“My husband was an ‘oversexed alley cat.’” She could almost laugh now at the description. “I pretended not to notice, then I became obsessed. I wasted hours of my life checking his pockets for stray phone numbers, sniffing his clothes for a hint of perfume, and tracking him down when he was supposed to be working late. I made a fool of myself.”
Gigi traced the outline of Renée’s lips with her finger. “I watched my mother fall apart because of my father’s behavior. She spent most of her days sobbing. I dried more of her tears than she ever did mine.”
Renée turned aside and took another sip of wine, her gaze thoughtful. “Your mother fell into a depression, and I became a bloodhound. What we didn’t do is murder our partners.”
Gigi hooked a finger under Renée’s chin to study her handiwork. “Maybe the desk clerk doesn’t have your self-control?”
“Maybe.” She wasn’t buying the idea. What had Monica said earlier? Eric’s a mon, and we have our problems. When he start hiding in his office, whispering on the phone, I have to check. How do you go from “checking” on someone to murdering them in the span of a few hours?
Gigi stepped back to survey her patient with a critical eye. “I think we’re done.”
Renée gently touched a finger to her wound. The stinging had stopped, but it remained tender and raw. “I did some pro bono work a few years ago for a woman who was stalked by her ex-husband. Did you know thirty-four percent of all murdered women in the United States are killed by a husband, a lover, or an ex-boyfriend?”
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