Martin Billings Caribbean Crime Thrillers

by Ed Teja

  She was right, as far as that went.

  # # #

  I walked out into the bright sunlight struggling with mixed emotions. I couldn't shake the feeling that Evelyn was actually delighted that her husband had been killed and that it was the kind of delight that comes with being part of a successful plan.

  While I couldn't point to any redeeming qualities the man might have had, I didn't really enjoy seeing someone relish his death or create a new future as a result of it.

  On the other hand, I couldn't deny that his death resolved a number of issues, and not just for her. Whatever had happened, whoever orchestrated it, Walker's death cleared James of unhealthy business entanglements.

  As Bill had suggested, if I had been a detective looking for motives, I'd have to consider them both reasonable suspects.

  And then there was Simon. He had been overly interested in Walker and his whereabouts, to the point of tailing me just to find out who I was. It didn't seem that he had shown a great deal of interest in whether Walker was alive or dead. He only seemed to care about whether Walker had taken off with a pile of money that only Simon seemed to know about. Unless, of course, the mystery woman, our prime suspect, knew about it.

  In the strange way that the world has of materializing thoughts on occasion, I suddenly saw her. On a street in New York, I probably wouldn't have noticed her, and certainly not recognized her.

  But in Venezuela, she stood apart from the other women. Her cat-like way of walking, more stalking than strolling, was what caught my attention first. Venezuelan women walked to attract the attention of men. Still, I couldn't be positive.

  As I watched, she turned to look toward the door of Evelyn's building. The angle let me see her profile. When I saw it, I was certain. That was the angle I'd seen her from before, at the beach, when she'd been taking pictures of the boat.

  Now that I was positive it was her, I wanted to know why she was checking out Evelyn's building. Could Bill's theory about Evelyn hiring the woman to kill Walker for the insurance be right?

  It didn't seem likely that she would tell me if I walked up and asked her what she was doing, so I turned to follow her.

  In retrospect, the idea of following a person you suspect of being a professional killer is not the smartest tack you can take. Unfortunately, when you are chasing something, almost anything, you don't have the luxury of considering it in retrospect.

  The moment is there, and you seize it or it is gone. Sailors learn to trust their instincts. Unfortunately, not all sailors develop good instincts, or they mix up what they want to happen with what is actually happening.

  I see that sort of thing a lot. We all have blind spots that make other people cringe, whether it is the way you use tools, or cross the street, or something else. For me, I have few problems at sea.

  The ocean is not a particularly safe place, even though I love the life. But my instincts need a bit of work when I'm back on shore. The instincts that keep me safe on board my ship in a gale have little in common with the ones you need to investigate a murder—or track a murderer.

  Regardless of whether Bill was right about Simon not being a solid ally, at that moment I wished he was around. Simon had tradecraft. I was certain he could follow her easily and she'd never know it.

  But Simon wasn't around so I did my best to be discrete without appearing to hide. I grinned inside as it seemed to be working. I walked a distance behind her. She didn't pay me the least bit of attention as I trailed her through the streets. She looked in store windows, stopped for a coffee at a street-side vendor's cart, chatting with the proprietor amiably, and then, suddenly, vanished down an alley that separated a hardware store and a small clinic.

  I followed after her, cautiously peeking into the shadows to see if she was lurking, waiting for me to pass by. Halfway down the alley, a metal door stood partly open.

  I stuck my head around to look in through it and the world went black.

  # # #

  Real life is often such a huge letdown. In the movies, when a good guy gets whacked, and I mean whacked over the head, knocked out, not killed, there is almost always someone around when he wakes up.

  It might be a bad guy looming over him with a "gotcha!" look on his face, or the concerned look of a bystander, or even a paramedic. If he is a really good, good guy, the paramedic or bystander is a beautiful woman.

  Back in this world, where things are not as neat or cinematic, I woke up crumpled in a corner of the alley. My first bit of awareness was of an awful stink. I wasn't in the doorway where I'd been standing in my last memory of standing. Now I was tucked into a confined space.

  I moved my arms and legs experimentally, and when I was sure they worked, after a fashion, wiggled out into the alley. Someone had dumped me in the slot between a rack of garbage cans and the filthy brick wall.

  Empirical evidence suggested that the garbage in the cans had ever been emptied. I had been lucky that the smell didn't kill me.

  As I crawled out and used the wall to get myself vaguely upright on my shaky legs, I saw I was being watched. A mangy dog on the other side of the alley stared curiously, tilting her head.

  I am sure she wondered about the games the strange gringo was playing in what she probably considered her domain.

  "If you saw what happened, I'd love to hear about it," I said.

  She just stared, lifting a foot and putting it down again impatiently.

  "Look, I was just passing through," I told her. "I'll get out of your way now."

  She shook her head and walked away. I don't know if she believed me or not, but I was happy to resume my pretense of standing without an audience. As I reviewed recent events, to the degree that my head was functioning, I found I had much to wonder about. Had the woman clobbered me?

  If she didn't, who did? I had no reason to think she didn't have an accomplice covering her back. Would they have clobbered anyone who followed her, or was it something about me that upset them?

  Okay, I didn't say they were good questions, or ones that could lead to some basic enlightenment, but they were the questions rattling around in the still-functional portions of my mind. Besides, I didn't need to come up with intelligent questions.

  As soon as Bill heard what had happened, he would ask all the hard ones, the sensible ones. At the top of his list would be something along the lines of, "are you nuts, Junior?" or a more literary variation of the same.

  It pissed me off that I wouldn't have a good answer for him.

  The light was bright on the street as I stumbled out of the alley and headed for the office. I needed a place to sit down. Maybe Consuela could be convinced to be solicitous and kind.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Bill's take on Simon

  After the inevitable unpleasant discussion with Bill about my recent sleuthing effort, Bill decided to go with me to see Simon. He hadn't met him yet and it seemed like a good idea for the two to get to know each other.

  Bill was cautiously curious. He didn't care for what he knew of him, the Simon Riche that came across on the reports James had faxed us. I didn't care for some aspects of what I'd read either, even though I thought he'd been pretty open with me, considering his rather odiferous résumé.

  The typically warm and sunny day made it a pleasant walk from the office to Simon's hangout. About halfway there we stopped to get a fruit shake from a street vendor. The lady tossed papaya, melon, and pineapple into a blender, added milk and sugar, and let her rip. Then she poured the resulting drink, called a merengada, into two glasses and handed them to us.

  As we drank the rich liquid, we saw a young boy, maybe nine, throwing stones ineffectually at a dog that lay panting in the shade. This was a healthier-looking animal than the one I'd met earlier.

  Sprawled on its belly on the dirt, the dog seemed unconcerned about the stones falling around her, and looked at the boy, possibly amused by his incredibly serious manner.

  I don't like
seeing people of any age torment animals. I started to walk over, intending to tell the boy to quit throwing stones and to leave the dog alone. The instant I moved, Bill put out a hand to stop me. His instincts and reactions are unbelievable at times.

  I turned and gave him my best quizzical look.

  "If the dog doesn't mind what the kid is doing, your right to object seems a bit suspect, Junior. It would seem you are interfering to please yourself, instead of to do something good for either of them."

  "The kid should learn to respect animals," I said.

  "And you giving him a hard time is going to do that?" He shook his head. "You stop him now, and he might be more determined next time. How does your disapproval of something teach the kid anything at all?"

  I had no response. After a time, the dog got up and, tongue hanging down, slowly walked away. The boy watched him leave. He looked disappointed.

  With the show over, we resumed our walk.

  When I introduced Simon and Bill inside the dark and smoky room I could see that Bill didn't take to Simon any better in person. That troubled me. It didn't matter whether or not they got along as a general matter, but I trust his judgment about people. He tends to give rather marginal people the benefit of the doubt.

  For the moment we had business to take care of that involved Simon.

  "I saw that woman again," I told Simon.

  Simon looked surprised. "Woman? Which woman?"

  "The one from Santa Fe. I saw her outside the apartment Mrs. Walker lives in."

  I braced myself for the obvious question: "Did you follow her?"

  Despite the loss of face it would incur, I opted to tell the truth. "I tried. She obviously spotted me."

  He grinned. "Did she hurt you badly?"

  "She just knocked me out."

  "She must like you."

  "My thoughts exactly. She likes me, although I don't know why she would, or even how she would know much about me, or possibly she wants me around for some reason."

  "Well, the fact that you saw her there certainly fits with my theory, doesn't it?" he asked, looking satisfied.

  "How's that?" Bill asked.

  "I would imagine that the only logical interpretation is that the wife hired this mystery woman to kill her husband for the insurance money."

  Bill watched Simon's face closely. "The Walker's didn't have much money. So how would Evelyn even get the upfront money without her husband knowing?"

  Simon didn't seem bothered by Bill's doubts. "I would imagine she got half the money upfront and now she wants the rest. Maybe Evelyn borrowed the money. I don't really know."

  Bill was having none of it. "If this woman was hired to kill Walker, and then found a ton of money on the boat, why is she still hanging around? She wouldn't need to hang around."

  "She would still want the rest of her pay. You two have had the wife under surveillance."

  "Wouldn't that be stupid greedy for a professional assassin?" Bill asked. "She has to know, or at least guess, that the money wasn't Walker's, or the wife would have asked her to bonk Walker on the head and grab it for her. If she is smart, this killer could even figure out that whoever owns that money will suspect that she has it. Someone who can leave a lot of money lying around probably has worker bees who will be following its trail."

  Simon gave him a patronizing look. I think he intended it to be a disarming smile and went wide. "I don't have all the answers; it is just a theory. Maybe she promised the killer part of the insurance money in return for her services."

  "That doesn't sound like a deal a professional would make," I put in.

  "I have no idea what sort of deal a professional killer would make," Simon said. "I am surprised you think you do."

  "Not to be argumentative, but I think you do know exactly what sort of deal a killer would make," Bill said. "Your rap sheet says that you've worked in those circles. Given the class of your clientele, undoubtedly you still do."

  Simon didn't look upset in the least. "Well, that's true. I suppose I have a much better idea that either of you about such matters, but there are as many kinds of killers as there are of anything else."

  "'The mind could stretch much further, but it seems that is not what our minds are trained for,'" Bill said.

  Simon looked at him. "What do you mean?"

  Bill grinned. "It's from a poem, Simon. It was written by an unknown, but not forgotten, poet. Put simply, it means that we can't get our brains around this situation."

  Simon looked smug. "And that is why I developed a theory, so we can test it. So we can get our brains around what is going on. Lacking any better idea, it seems that we need to locate this woman. Everything we know suggests she killed Walker and therefore she can tell us what happened to the money."

  Bill shook his head. "Why do we care about the money?"

  Simon looked at him. "Because it speaks to her motive."

  "Not if your theory is even close," Bill said. "Her motive was that she was paid to kill him. The money is incidental as far as our boy Walker is concerned."

  "It is still a factor."

  Bill gave him a disapproving stare. "I should have brought along a roll of duct tape so you could stick the pieces of that theory of yours together. It's a bunch of suppositions that don't amount to much of anything. I hate to think how it will sound once we have some actual facts."

  "And you have a better idea?" Simon asked. I noticed he was slightly flushed.

  "I'm beginning to form one," Bill said. "You've given me some ideas."

  "Well, at least that is something. Please share your insights with us."

  Bill stood up. "No. Not yet." He looked Simon over closely. "I need a little think time before my own theory is ready for prime time. When it is, I'll be sure to give you a chance to show me how wrong I am."

  "I can hardly wait," Simon said, sounding curt.

  "I need another merengada," Bill muttered as we went out into the bright light of another beautiful, nearly cloudless Venezuelan day. "Your treat."

  # # #

  "That woman didn't kill your ass because she is still watching and waiting," Bill said as we slurped the dregs of the fruity drinks. He said it the way you say things when you've finally worked it all out and it is true.

  "Watching? What is she watching? Me?"

  "Among others. She saw you on the beach, and figured you for a player, but can't be sure how you fit in."

  "That makes two of us," I said. "I have no idea how I fit into this either."

  "Not as a detective, for certain," Bill said. "We can take that off your résumé."

  "I'm hurt," I told him. "I thought I'd done a pretty good job with the resources I have."

  Bill ignored my lament. "If she had the money that Simon claims to be looking for, then she would at least lay low, if not skip town. There is something wrong in this, Why would she be letting us see her face?"

  "Maybe she doesn't care," I suggested.

  Bill stared at me. "The way she acts tells me that she is trying to figure something out, and it isn't just how to spend the money. We are assuming she killed Walker and burned the boat, but she could have done one or the other. She didn't necessarily do both."

  "She might have though."

  "Absolutely, she might have. Though I doubt she burned it to confuse the Guardia. Your idea of leaving the boat stripped and the bodies in place makes more sense for a hit. And I can't see her going for a sail and burning the boat after someone else killed Walker and the girl. So that means she had a reason for burning the boat."

  "What if Simon is right and she found the money?"

  "Then she would be very happy. But why burn the boat?"

  "To hide the fact that she found the money."

  "Junior, everyone has come to the conclusion that burning the boat was for that reason, which means it would have been more like making an announcement that she found the money. I don't buy it. Her other skills make me think
the woman is not stupid. Why not let the world think bandidos took the money too?"

  I was tired of the game. "So what is your guess?"

  "I think whoever hired her told her to burn the boat."

  "Why?"

  "Because it obscures whether the money was actually on the boat. I mean, what if the money was never there? My bet is that it was never there. Burning the boat might keep people from looking for the money somewhere else."

  "This is confusing," I told him.

  He patted my shoulder. "Junior, this isn't your milieu. You and Rudy did a decent search job to find the boat, which is something you know about. Of course, it wasn't all that hard to find, given the big plume of smoke. But you would have found it. You aren't a detective, except for boat stuff. Everything else you know about this case, or think you know, someone told you."

  "You are just being cruel," I said.

  He nodded. "I am. Truth is often cruel."

  "So, what do I do?"

  "You need to let go of solving this thing. You have started seeing it as the crime of the century. Not only is it far less, it ain't your business."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Do you really want to get messed up in mob business when it doesn't affect you or me or anyone we care about?"

  His question caught me totally unprepared. "But we are the good guys. You are the one who always talks about how we ride to the rescue."

  "When it makes sense to mount up, sure thing. When it actually helps people. In this case, all you'd be doing is rescuing money that belongs to the bad guys and finding out who killed someone that no one liked." He paused. His eyebrows lifted as he waited for his words to sink in.

  "I'm not sure I get what you mean."

  "Okay. I'll spell it out so even you can understand. You got sent down here to help Jimmy and stumbled across a murder. Someone killed Walker. No doubt about that part. We don't know whether it was because he took money from the bad guys, or he was killed for some other reason, say his insurance. We don't know that it wasn't over a debt he owed. We don't know if someone had a grudge against him. We just don't. But from what we see, unless the Guardia is right and we are way off base, we are pretty sure it was a professional kill. Agree so far?"