Death's Excellent Vacation

by Charlaine Harris

  “I can’t explain it.”

  “And how did the Sint Pieter police respond?”

  “They did come out to the house. But I don’t think they believed me, at least not at first.”

  “Thank you, Annie.” Nora switched to act two now: Inspector Abraham Peert. He was the third head of the Kirk investigation in three months; Nora’s reports had made it clear that his predecessors either were incompetent or actively wished the Kirk family—and by implication all tourists—ill. Peert had a lean, angular face that looked like he was always biting hard into a lemon. This would be only his second appearance on the show. He’d been her guest right after his assignment to the case but had refused Nora’s demands (requests was entirely too soft a word) for further interviews.

  Nora gave Peert a quick introduction and said, “Is it possible that this young woman’s story is true?”

  “I suppose that it is, but we can find no supporting evidence.” He kept his tone carefully neutral.

  Oh, Nora thought, I shall enjoy this. He’s done nothing to follow this lead. Get me my cross and nails, boys, it’s hammering time.

  “Is it possible that Jason Kirk is alive? Perhaps ill, perhaps wandering in the wilderness on the north side of Sint Pieter?” Nora said.

  “Again, we can only postulate,” Inspector Peert said. “Ill and wandering freely for three months seems most unlikely. Surely there would have been other reports of him; our search crews would have found him if he were rambling insensate. If he is alive and roaming the hills, then that suggests that he does not want to be found.”

  Nora had to decide whether to play that comment as a hurtful blow to the Kirk family or as an exciting, intriguing new twist in the story’s worn fabric. She tilted her head again—she was known for the beauty and forcefulness of the head tilt—and decided the audience was hungry for a bit of the inspector’s flesh. “Why would Jason Kirk be in hiding? Nothing in this boy’s past suggests a desire to be away from his family. They are an absolutely wonderful, upstanding family, Inspector.” She said this with a convincing thunder, as if Peert held the opposite view.

  “No one knows what goes on in the human heart,” Peert said quietly. “But I will say that I believe Annie Van Dorn believes she is telling the truth. We administered a lie detector test; she passed it.”

  That was a news bomb. Nora was speechless for a minute; Molly should have known that tidbit and warned her about it.

  Peert pressed on: “If she saw him, then Jason Kirk is not in trouble; he is hiding from us.”

  It was not fair. It was not what Nora was expecting. It was not a dodge. And if Jason Kirk was simply hiding out on the island—well, then, he was simply a spoiled brat who’d driven his parents nearly mad with grief. And made Nora look like a fool in front of millions.

  This could not be. All of this emotional calculus played out in Nora’s mind in less than five seconds. “If he is hiding, then why?”

  “I do not know. We cannot know his reasons. If he has been kidnapped, there is no reason for his abductors to wait three months and not ask for a ransom.”

  Nora went back on the attack. “How soon will you expand the search in that area?”

  Now she heard the steel in Peert’s voice—even through the distance of the satellite hookup—and it infuriated her. “What choice do we have? You have turned American opinion against our entire nation. We have searched for this young man as if he were one of our own. We have followed every slim lead, and we have allowed your federal agents to comb our sovereign territory. We have endured your abuse and your innuendo as to our competence”—here Nora tightened her lips and straightened her papers, which was Nora’s signal to Molly to cut to commercial now—“and in short, we have done everything possible. You cannot hurt us more, Ms. Dare, but if we do not pursue a lead, we will have to live with ourselves. So every lead will be pursued.”

  “I would hope so, and I think it’s a shame that you have not already expanded the search.”

  Peert made his tone as sharp as hers. “We did search the area around Miss Van Dorn’s house; there was no sign of an intruder. None. No footprints, no broken grass, nothing.” Now his voice was rising. “So. She believes what she saw, but we can find no evidence.”

  Nora thought Peert didn’t know his place; he was ruining the story’s next phase of life. “Or you simply can’t find what might be right in front of your eyes. What police academy did you attend again, sir?” One useful weapon in her arsenal was to make people justify themselves. It never failed.

  “What journalism school did you attend, madame?”

  Nora blinked, and for a moment the head tilt wavered. She’d never experienced anyone successfully biting back. Her lips narrowed into a slash. “I attended law school, which makes me uniquely qualified to report on cases regarding justice.” The cameras were still live; that idiot Molly hadn’t cut off Peert. “I will hold you to that promise to expand the search, Inspector. Let’s go to Jason’s parents . . .”

  In her earpiece she heard Molly hiss: “They backed out. They’re too upset. They want you to quit hammering Peert.”

  “I’m told we’ve got satellite difficulties in Los Angeles, where the Kirks live, so we’ll wrap it up for this evening.” And then she ended the Jason Kirk segments as she always did: “Jason, I will never stop searching for the truth, and I hope we can bring you home, safe and sound.” And she held her noble, dignified stance—she was justice without the blindfold—letting the viewers drink her in as they cut to her theme song and logo.

  THE post-broadcast tantrum was a thing of beauty: Nora raged at the ingratitude of the Kirks, at the unwelcome (and unprofessional) steeliness of Peert, at the stupid hotel maid who probably hadn’t seen anything at all and now had thrown Nora’s show into a tailspin, at the fates. When she was done, Molly got her a glass of water and a sedative. Nora gulped both.

  “Peert wasn’t supposed to be all uppity,” Nora said.

  “He got tired of being your whipping boy,” Molly crossed her arms. “Did you think he’d dance to your tune forever? He’s fighting back. He’s tired of the abuse.”

  “Abuse? I think you meant to say my investigation.”

  “Nora, maybe it’s time to find a new case for you to . . . investigate. Maybe Jason didn’t vanish on vacation.” That phrase had been Nora’s lead for the first two months of Jason’s disappearance. “He could be in hiding. He could be shacked up with a woman. He could have been smoking weed in the mountains of Sint Pieter for the past three months, watching his face on the news. This one is getting ugly.”

  “No. This one is getting good. Maybe this is all, like, you know, The Bourne Identity,” Nora said.

  “What?” Molly said.

  “Maybe he got hurt and he doesn’t know who he is,” Nora said. She sounded like a woman awakening from a dream. “Oh, yes. Wouldn’t that be great? That would be a story. Then I could bring him home. Get me a doctor who knows a lot about amnesia.”

  “Amnesia. Please be kidding.”

  “I don’t kid. Humor and justice are not friends, Molly.” She crossed her arms. She was going to get control of this story back; November sweeps were imminent. “We’re going to Sint Pieter. Make the arrangements.”

  “Sint Pieter?” Molly stared at her.

  Honestly, Nora thought, she did see two ears on the sides of Molly’s head. If only a brain nestled between them. “Yes, hon. Peert’s dragging his feet; we have a legitimate witness, it seems. And the day after tomorrow is the three-month anniversary of the night Jason vanished. I feel the story demands my presence. Go get the travel booked. Me, the film crew, makeup, and”—feeling magnanimous, and realizing someone would have to deal with the front desk and the security escorts and the autograph seekers—“you for director.”

  “Should we let Jason’s family know you’re doing this broadcast?”

  Nora’s eyes glittered. “I want them there. Get them in the same room they stayed in when Jason vanished. And me the penthou
se.”

  “Um, I know the Kirks are having money problems. They’ve been away from work, you know, spending so much time in Sint Pieter looking for their son . . . I don’t know if they can afford another trip back.”

  “They told you this?” It had not occurred to Nora that anyone on her staff might have developed a friendship with the Kirks. Nora thought Molly simply told them when and where to be for their satellite interviews with Nora.

  “Yes.”

  “Hmmm. All right. Given that it’s the anniversary, we can pay for them to go. Book coach for all but you and me. We’ll have work to do on the way down. I want every bit of dirt we can find on the good Inspector Peert and on this Annie Van Dorn.”

  “All right, Nora. But if you can spare me during the flight, I think I’ll sit in coach with the Kirks.”

  “No. It’s not appropriate for you to get too close, too emotionally involved with the story.”

  Molly stared at her. “I just feel so sorry for them.”

  “And I don’t?”

  Molly’s face paled. “Of course not. I never meant to suggest . . .”

  Nora’s voice was a drip of acid. “On second thought, put the Kirks in first class with me. We can talk. You can ride in coach with the film crew.” Nora waved fingers at Molly. “Go. Book tickets; find an amnesia expert who wants a little attention. Maybe one with a book to promote?”

  SINT Pieter was, to Nora’s mind, a strip of lousy dirt that South America had hawked up from its throat and spat out its mouth. A hundred miles off the continent’s northeast coast, Sint Pieter was narrow and twenty miles long. It had achieved independence from the Netherlands in 1970 and, in Nora’s view, had done little since then except misplace Jason Kirk. It was warm and wooded with stubby trees and studded with stunted little towns. The main town, called Willemstadt, boasted a half dozen luxury hotels, sparkling beaches, and fine restaurants. Tourism had made Sint Pieter rich until it lost Jason Kirk. Now that the island had been branded by Nora as dangerous, business was down fifty percent.

  They were staying at the same Willemstadt hotel that Jason and his parents had been staying in when he vanished. Molly had pulled strings to get the Kirks the same room they’d had before, and they’d reluctantly agreed.

  “Welcome, Ms. Dare,” the Hotel Sint Pieter’s manager said through a tight smile.

  “Thank you. I sincerely hope you have beefed up your security since Jason Kirk vanished,” she said. The first two weeks of the disappearance she’d regularly suggested the hotel had inadequate security, before it became a boring drumbeat and she could blame the Sint Pieter police.

  “We have,” the manager said. “We certainly want to keep you safe.”

  “Naturally,” Nora said. She grew conscious of the simmering stares from the staff. The nerve of these people, she thought. She begrudgingly waited for Molly to finish the check- in and then bolted halfway across the lobby, heading for the elevators. Molly followed, rushing, tossing multicolored Sint Pieter currency at the bellhop.

  “I have a real vision for tonight’s show, Molly,” Nora said. “We start with the family in the suite where they stayed . . . Are they here yet?” The Kirks had decided not to fly with Nora and the news crew, much to Nora’s annoyance.

  “Yes. They arrived yesterday. They went and scoured the countryside near Annie Van Dorn’s house,” Molly said quietly.

  “Hmmmm,” Nora said. “Without me? How odd. Did they find anything?”

  “No.”

  “I wish you’d sent a local camera crew with them.”

  “Nora, they want their privacy sometimes.”

  “Privacy doesn’t find the missing.” Honestly, she thought, she was doing everything to find Jason; couldn’t his parents just cooperate? “Okay, for tonight’s show, we retrace the steps Jason made on that fateful night.”

  “I would suggest you not call it by that term in front of his parents.”

  “Someone went shopping at the unsolicited opinion store.”

  “I’ve expressed only one opinion,” Molly said mildly. “I guess my second one is that you seem on edge.”

  “Do I? What an odd thing to say. I’m not nervous. I’m motivated.”

  “Nora,” Molly said. “It will be fine. Do the story, remember this boy. But I think it would be best if we moved on to a new case for you to focus on. I think you’ve done all the good you can do for Jason Kirk.”

  “If I’d found him, I would have done all the good. I need to find him, Molly.” Nora’s voice went low, and Molly looked surprised at the grit in her boss’s voice. “That girl who vanished hiking in Vancouver, well, we never found her. That couple from Illinois who went missing in Hungary. Never found them. This is a small island; I should be able to find out what happened to Jason Kirk.”

  Molly opened her mouth to point out that the small island was surrounded by a vast ocean, and that the police were actually in charge of searches, not Nora Dare, but instead she simply closed her mouth and nodded.

  THE suite. Then the nightclub where the mysterious and beautiful woman no one on Sint Pieter seemed to know had spirited Jason away, and then the beach where his torn shirt, the buttons ripped free as though in a fit of passion, had been found in the sand. The shirt was the only physical evidence of his disappearance.

  Gary and Hope Kirk—Nora loved the appropriateness of the mother’s name—sat in the suite where they had been staying when their only child vanished. Nora’s eyebrow arched when the Kirks gave Molly a hug. She didn’t believe in getting close to the subjects. Both were pale and wan, as though grief were a disease slowly claiming them. They did not spend much time looking at each other.

  But when the cameras started, Mr. and Mrs. Kirk joined hands, presenting their united face to the world.

  “So let’s recall the night that Jason vanished. You’d spent a wonderful family day on the beach, yes?” Nora said.

  It was the prologue to tragedy, and the Kirks did not disappoint. “Yes,” Hope Kirk said. “I didn’t feel well—I’d gotten sunburned and we decided to take it easy. We ate here at the hotel and then came back up to the room.”

  “But Jason got restless, as young men will,” Nora prodded.

  “Yes,” Hope said. “He wanted to go out to a bar and have a beer. I mean, you understand, he was on vacation with his parents. How rare is that? A college kid, and he was happy to be with us. We’d had a great time. We enjoyed each other’s company. He invited my husband to go with him . . . but Gary said no.”

  Four little words, each an explosion of accusation. Gary glanced at his wife, and even though they were holding hands, Nora sensed a foggy coldness rising between them. An unmet blame, Nora thought, liking the phrase, wondering how she could work it into a question or her summary at the end of the show. “I wanted to stay here and take care of you,” Gary said.

  “A sunburn’s not fatal,” Hope said. “I would have been fine.”

  Gary stopped looking at Hope. “So. I didn’t want to cramp Jason’s style. Maybe he wanted to meet a girl. He can’t do that with his old man in tow.”

  And Hope opened her mouth, as if to say, And he can’t vanish with his old man in tow. Instead she just said: “So Jason kissed me on the forehead and told me to feel better, and he left. Gary and I stayed in and watched movies.”

  “And . . .” Nora began, but Hope wasn’t done.

  “So, while our son vanished off the face of the earth, Nora, we watched movies. A movie we’d seen in the theater and parts of on cable. I mean, when he needed us, we were watching this stupid, stupid movie.” Her voice cracked like glass. “He was being kidnapped, or killed, or drugged, and we were sitting in this room, watching a movie.” Her voice, usually calm, rose toward a scream.

  “I think . . . I think being back in the suite is a bad idea, Nora,” Gary said. “This isn’t helping anyone . . .”

  Hope pulled her hand free of his and pounded her chest with the flat of her hand. “He comes to me in my dreams. He says, ‘Mom, I’m
trapped. I can’t get where I’m supposed to be. I’m trapped here and no one can help me.’ He begs me to help him escape.”

  This was new, Nora thought. Interesting. Because if Hope was cracking up, it was a whole new twist and angle to the story.

  “Cut,” Molly said to the cameraman.

  “Don’t you dare,” Nora hissed.

  “I can’t help him, I don’t know how.” Hope Kirk’s words broke into a howl, face in hands, ruined in grief.

  THREE bars stood down the street from the Hotel Sint Pieter, and Jason Kirk had visited them all. Nora and a quiet Molly and an utterly silent cameraman had followed his tracks.

  The bartender at the Beer Pig crossed his thick arms. “Well, I only remember him because of the woman. Gorgeous she was, like a Halle Berry type. Very elegant, well dressed, sexy. I was surprised she was talking to an American college boy.”

  “Did you see them meet?” Nora asked.

  The bartender squirmed slightly under the hard, bright lights set up by the crew. “Well, yes. I saw her come in. She came to the bar, ordered a glass of pinot noir. Every guy in the room noticed her. Two other guys tried to buy her a drink. She said no, she was waiting for someone.”

  “Waiting for someone,” Nora said, with portent.

  “Yes, ma’am, waiting for someone. I heard her clearly, and I thought, well, who’s the lucky guy. But so this blond American kid comes in, and he comes to the bar, and the hottie, she locks her gaze on him. She wasn’t much older than he was, but she had a maturity. A woman of the world, but I mean in a classy way. But . . . he came over to her. He bought her another glass of wine. He must have felt confident in himself.”

  Nora tilted her head. “And they talked.”

  The bartender nodded. “Yes . . . but for her to have said she was waiting on someone, it implies she knew him. I don’t think she knew that boy before he arrived.”