by David Manuel
Dan scrunched forward on the saddle, leaving barely enough room for his monk friend behind. As they leaned into corners and buzzed around slower moving vehicles, it was exhilarating—but hardly an experience Bartholomew looked forward to repeating.
Eventually they turned left into the well-landscaped, circular drive to Sandys House. In the cycle park, Ron was waiting and wondering what had happened to Dan. He knew Bartholomew from Eastport and was surprised to see him there.
The three men repaired to the bar, where a number of the guests had already gathered. Dan steered them to a corner table. “Peg thought I might run into you. Gather you’ve been on some kind of personal retreat.”
The monk nodded and smiled. “It’s pretty much over now.”
“Say,” said Ron, “we’re taking Nan Bennett—Ian’s wife—and her son Eric out to dinner tonight. The Chief bagged a four-hundred-fifty-pound blue marlin this afternoon, and we’re going out to celebrate! Want to come?”
Bartholomew hesitated. The retreat was over. Dan was a good friend. It would be nice to eat with company, for a change….
Seeing him on the fence, Dan seconded the motion. “Come on, we’re going to the Frog & Onion, which sounds a lot like Gordie’s back home.”
Ron nodded. “You’ll think you’re back in Eastport.”
“Well—”
“Eric will be here to get us any minute.”
But as badly as he wanted to go, it didn’t feel right. “Let me take a rain check,” Bartholomew said with a sigh. “And I mean that; I’d like to go any other night. Just not tonight.”
“A deal,” said Dan. “I’ll check with you tomorrow.”
Just then, Angela Atkins, the cheerful social director for Sandys house, came up to Ron and Dan. “I don’t suppose either of our Cape Cod fishermen would be interested in a bit of snorkling tomorrow morning? Roger Thomas, our local naturalist, is taking anyone who’d care to check out the reef at Sandys Cove, at ten o’clock.”
One look at their expressions made her laugh. “No, I suppose not.”
“Come on, Dan,” his monk friend teased, after she’d gone on to the next group, “how long has it been since you’ve used a snorkel and flippers?”
The Chief scowled at him. “Some things you don’t do at my age. And close to the top of that list is appearing in public in a bathing suit.”
The three men laughed. Ron looked out the window and nodded towards it. “Eric’s here.”
They got up—Ron and Dan to leave, Bartholomew to say good night.
As Eric entered, Bartholomew realized with a shock that he was the boy in the cathedral.
Suddenly the boy’s eyes widened, and he ran out, jumped in the car, and roared out of the driveway, leaving the three of them stunned.
“Well,” observed Dan, “Nan’s been really worried about him. Looks like she’s got good reason.”
“I’m going to call her,” said Ron, leaving to find a phone.
Dan was looking carefully at his monk friend. “You’ve seen the boy before, haven’t you?”
“He was in the cathedral today, at the eleven o’clock Mass.”
Dan’s eyebrows rose. “So that’s where he was. We had to wait an hour for him—but it was worth it.”
Bartholomew looked out the window. “I got the impression he was wrestling with something pretty heavy.”
“Yeah,” Dan agreed, “I talked to him a little on the boat yesterday. I haven’t told Nan yet, but I’ve got a feeling it’s drugs.”
Bartholomew nodded and told him about the flyer the boy had been studying, and how he’d almost gone back to the clergy offices.
Ron returned. “Nan doesn’t want to go out tonight. She wonders if we could come by and stay with her until Eric comes home.”
Wishing them good luck, Bartholomew walked back to the Quarry Cottage.
Twilight was gathering when he got there. But he could see that he had a visitor—in formal attire, black with a white blaze on her chest. In the center of the quarry was an old poinciana tree—possibly as old as the cottage itself. In front of the tree was an old stone bench, covered with lichen. His guest was sitting on it, exactly in the middle.
“Good evening, madam,” he greeted her, bowing slightly. “May I show you a table for one?”
She gazed at him impassively.
“I’ll be with you in a moment,” he said, ducking into the cottage. He returned with two saucers, one with milk, one with a slice of deli turkey, torn into small pieces. He set them on the grass, half way between her and him.
“Please do begin; don’t wait for me.” He went back in, put together a sandwich, and bringing the desk chair, came back out.
The light from the open door behind him fell on the two saucers. She had not touched them. But neither had she gone away.
“You waited? What lovely manners!”
He returned thanks—for this meal, for the whole day, and for Noire.
23 man with no name
At 10:30 Monday morning, like a mother duck leading ducklings into a pond, Somerset’s resident naturalist, accoutered in face mask, snorkel, and swim fins, led eight intrepid adventurers, similarly equipped, into the clear, calm waters of Sandys Cove.
As there were only four takers from Sandys House—Maud and Margaret, plus the honeymooners, Jane and Buff—their number was augmented by four guests from the Red Lion Inn down the road toward Ely’s Harbour, just before Willowbank.
Their guide had briefed them on the coral reef they were about to explore—“Go near it, but don’t brush against it; it’s sharper than it looks.” And he’d alerted them to the fish they were likely to encounter—red snapper, bright blue and yellow parrotfish, and myriad jacks, groupers, and eels. Now he was leading them out a hundred meters or so, to the optimum diving location.
But before he could give them the signal to commence, one of the Red Lion guests—a blonde, strong of chin, body, and opinion—demonstrated that she was also more independent-minded than the other ducklings. Having informed them that, thanks to spinning, she could hold her breath for at least a minute, she simply up-tailed, up-finned, and disappeared.
She wanted to be the first on the reef, she reported later, to see something special, before the others arrived and maybe drove it away.
She got her wish.
It was a priceless minute. She saw yellowtailed damsel fish, whitebonded butterfly fish, parrotfish and red snapper. But she was intrigued by a little green fish, following it down into a wide cleft in the reef. It was on its way to join another, which was feeding on something under an outcropping of pink coral. Curious, she swam closer. But her shadow startled the little green fish, and they darted away.
What had drawn them? It appeared to be something shiny and round, like a brown marble in the fine, white sand. A marble? Curiouser and curiouser, she reached down to retrieve it. But it was lodged in something under the sand.
Running out of breath—and patience—she brushed the sand away. The air in her lungs exploded into her facemask, as she screamed. The “marble” was an eye, in the face of a man.
Bursting to the surface, she tore off her face mask, screaming hysterically. The naturalist went to her immediately, trying to ascertain what had happened. Had she encountered a Portuguese man-of-war? A moray eel?
She just kept screaming and screaming. He tried to assist her to shore, but she pulled away from him and made it to the beach on her own. Once she was out of the water, her hysteria began to subside. Enough to tell him and the others, “There’s a man down there! A dead man! The fish were eating his eye! I thought it was a marble and—” suddenly she doubled over and retched over the swim-fin clad feet of Buff MacLean, who was doing his best to calm and comfort her.
Inspector Harry Cochrane came out from the downtown headquarters of the Bermuda Police to head up the investigation. He was a medium man—medium build, medium brown hair and eyes, medium disposition.
But that was all that was medium about Tidy Harry, as h
is fellow officers dubbed him with grudging respect. For unlike the cinematic inspector of the same name, made famous by Clint Eastwood, this one went by the book. Always. He had, in fact, written the book, at least the part on procedures that was taught at the academy.
Accompanied by Sergeant Tuttle, he quickly set up a situation room at the Somerset Police Station. By the time police divers had retrieved the body and sent it on to the hospital pathologist, clerks, phones, and computers were in place. All information having to do with the crime would be processed through this room.
But so far, there was little to process. All clothing had been removed from the body (Caucasian male, early fifties, no distinguishing marks or features other than a twice-broken nose and four old puncture scars, probably knife wounds). Fingerprints had been taken and wired to Scotland Yard and the FBI, which by the end of the day had sent word back: Neither organization had any record of him.
The pathologist’s report indicated that the body had been in the water not more than two days, three at most. From the salt water in the lungs, it was clear the man had died by drowning. But he had obviously not wedged himself under the corner of the reef and covered himself with sand before expiring. This was murder, of the premeditated kind.
And there was nothing to go on. In the past two days Inspector Cochrane had interviewed everyone who had been on the snorkeling party, then everyone who had been in the vicinity of Sandys Cove in the last three days. No one had seen or heard anything out of the ordinary.
So, late Tuesday afternoon, Harry Cochrane went for a walk. Nowhere in particular, just out and about. It’s what he did at the beginning of a case. Just took what he had and went for a walk with it. No point to the walk, really, except it kept his mind relaxed. And he wanted it that way, not leaping to conclusions that would later be like Rorschach inkblots. Once you saw them as two butterflies kissing, you could never see them any other way.
He walked the Railway Trail behind the police station, hands in his pockets, listening to the distant buzz of noise-making kites, enjoying the shifting pattern of the late afternoon sunlight through the trees. Letting logic and intuition lightly arrange and rearrange the pieces, until one or two began to fit.
The utter absence of clues was in itself a clue, of sorts. This was no amateur’s doing. An amateur would have left something behind or overlooked something. There would be a contusion, a scratch, a sign of struggle—something.
He paused to admire the boughs of Queen Anne’s Lace that formed a canopy of green stained glass above him.
This was not just a murder, he mused. It was an execution—improvised, perhaps, but carefully thought out, nonetheless. The discovery of the body had been a fluke. The perpetrator had every reason to believe that it would not be discovered for months. Years.
Which meant that he—or she—or they—were, in all likelihood, still on the island. They would have no reason to leave.
The pathologist’s report had mentioned a couple of things, intriguing enough for Cochrane to give him a call. On the wrists and ankles were found traces of adhesive. Presumably the victim had been bound with—what? Duct tape, probably. Had he been drowned while trussed up? Possibly. Except, why bother to unwrap him?
Because, Cochrane glanced up at the yellow kiskadee scolding him, whoever did it assumed that the body would remain underwater for so long that when (if ever) it was found, the remains would be skeletal. And might even be regarded as having arrived there by natural causes.
Of one thing they could be reasonably certain: The drowned man was not your average Bermuda tourist. The old knife wounds, and the nose that had been broken twice a long time ago, indicated that the victim had been no stranger to trouble. Quite possibly he had received the knife wounds in prison.
Yet if that were true, the Yard or the FBI would have him in their database. He seemed to be a crook without a country…. Unless—he was a Euro. Cochrane smiled and made a mental note to have Tuttle wire the prints to Interpol first thing in the morning.
Was the murder drug related? Probably. There wasn’t much else on Bermuda that would attract a hard-case who’d done hard time.
How long had he been on the island? No way of knowing. Nor had anyone missed him. The only recent missing person report involved a cruise ship passenger who’d been left behind by the Norwegian Majesty. (She’d tried to get the cruise line to pay for her flight home, but the long-suffering captain pointed out that he had delayed the ship’s departure nearly an hour and sounded the whistle four times. Turned out she’d been in Trimingham’s—in Hamilton, because the branch store didn’t have her size.)
As for the whereabouts of the murderer, it was safe to assume that whoever did it was still on the island. Only six flights had left since the victim was presumed drowned, and no cruise ships. The names on the manifests of the departing flights had all been checked and matched with ticket-holders’ arrival cards and photo IDs. Since September 11, at least this part of their work was easier. All were accounted for, and all appeared to be legitimate tourists or business persons.
Cochrane smiled. Murder was no more difficult to commit on Bermuda than anywhere else. The tricky part was getting off their tight little island. There were only two ways. If they had an idea whom they were looking for, and he was not a local whose cousins might hide him, all they had to do was put people at the airport and the cruise ship terminals and wait.
If they had an idea whom they were looking for.
24 a froggy would a-wooing go
Late Tuesday afternoon a fire crackled in the hearth of the dark, rough-timbered pub known as The Frog & Onion. When Bartholomew asked how the pub got its name, Ron explained that the original owner had been a Frenchman who’d fallen in love with a Bermudian. Or maybe it was the other way around.
A favorite hangout of West End locals, much as East Enders favored the White Horse, it had lighting so dim that the fire was the best illumination for reading the menu. But as Dan and Brother Bartholomew squinted at it, Ron assured them everything was good.
Anything would be good, as far as Bartholomew was concerned. He could not believe how much he was looking forward to this. Dan had remembered his promise of a rain check, and now they were here. He could already taste the rack of lamb.
“Did you hear about the murder?” Ron asked him.
“Hard not to,” he replied with a smile, “what with the police cars and the ambulance over at Sandys Cove. Father Francis filled me in when he told me about Dan’s call. He said that one of the guests at Sandys House had found the body.”
“Actually it was someone from the Red Lion,” Dan said. “A young woman, down for a quickie vacation.”
Ron smiled. “Some vacation.”
Bartholomew looked at Dan. “What do you think?”
Dan smiled. “I’m glad it’s someone else’s problem.”
They both laughed, recalling the wild ride they’d had two years before. And the year before that.
Momentarily puzzled, Ron smiled. “Oh, yeah, you guys were involved in that diamond thing over on East Bluffs.” His eyebrows rose. “And the thing at Teal Pond!” He looked at the two of them with new respect. “Holmes and Watson! Which of you is Holmes?”
Dan and Bartholomew each pointed at the other, and they all laughed.
“Not even a little curious?” Bartholomew teased his friend.
“Nope. Just glad to be down here fishing.” Dan raised his pint of Bass Ale to Ron.
“Well, I am,” admitted Bartholomew.
“Am what?” asked Ron.
“Curious.”
“Thought you were on a personal retreat.”
“I was,” the monk admitted. “It ended yesterday.”
“So you’re open for business?”
“You mean, back to normal?”
Dan nodded.
“Well, I’m sitting here, aren’t I?”
His friend thought for a moment. “When are you going home?”
“I’m not sure,” Bartholomew
answered honestly. “Soon, I think.”
“You want to come out with us tomorrow?” asked Ron.
Bartholomew hesitated.
“He likes fishing,” Dan explained. “He just doesn’t like small boats.”
Ron frowned. “How can he like fishing, and not—”
At that moment the waitress arrived with their dinner. Short and slight, she nonetheless handled the tray with well-practiced ease. “Careful of the plates,” she warned them, “they’re hot.”
Bartholomew looked at his entree and started to laugh.
“What is it?” asked Dan.
“You’ve no idea how much better this is than what I’ve been eating!”
“You haven’t tasted it.”
“Don’t have to.” He took a bite, chewed, and sighed.
Dan chuckled. “I was going to ask you if you wanted to ask the blessing, Friar Tuck, but since you seem to have your mouth full—” he glanced up at the dark ceiling. “Thank you, for this, for us, for everything.”
“Amen,” agreed Ron.
“Mmm,” concurred Bartholomew.
Later, as they were finishing dessert, Bartholomew asked Dan, “I really am curious; what’s your take on it?”
“Are we back on the murder?”
Bartholomew nodded.
Eastport’s Chief of Police reflected. “Well, they’re doing it by the book. Just what I’d do, interviewing anyone who might have seen anything.”
“Did they interview you two?”
“You bet,” offered Ron. “Soon as we got back. An Inspector Cochrane.”
“What did he ask?”
Dan turned to Bartholomew, mildly surprised. “I thought you were the reluctant dragon when it came to crime-solving.”
Bartholomew smiled. “That was only when I was afraid it would interfere with my call.”
“Your call?” asked Ron.
“Being a brother.”
“And now?”
“Nothing can interfere with that now.”
Dan smiled. “Sounds like a good retreat.”
