Murder on Naked Beach: A Lucy Ripken Mystery (The Lucy Ripken Mysteries Book 1)

by J. J. Henderson

  MURDER ON NAKED BEACH

  ALSO BY J.J. HENDERSON

  The Lucy Ripken Series

  Mexican Booty

  The X-Dames

  Lucy’s Money

  Sex and Death: The Movie

  Utah

  Lost in New York

  MURDER ON NAKED BEACH

  J.J. Henderson

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2015 J.J. Henderson

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Sarah Caley LLC, Seattle

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER ONE

  OUT OF THE SNOW AND INTO THE SUN

  Probably the worst thing about travel photography was the carry-on baggage. Lucy Ripken had this revelation every time she went on assignment, and today was no different. She staggered along under the weight of her overloaded camera bag, strap slung over her right shoulder; from her left shoulder hung her purse containing forty assorted rolls of film, a potato chip novel to read on the plane and the beach, a notebook, her make-up bag, passport, four bottles of organic vitamins, three bottles of sunscreen numbered 8, 15, and 40, and the rest of her personal junk. She was upstairs in the East Wing of the International Terminal at seven-thirty in the morning, and she had just been informed by a friendly red-haired Irish woman—Air Jamaica shared counter space with Aer Lingus—that the Air Jamaica eight a.m. flight to Montego Bay would be leaving two hours late.

  Lucy wanted food. She remembered a restaurant somewhere along this desolate stretch of terminal, and that's where she was headed. She spotted it way down the endless arcade, adjusted her camera bag with a groan, and headed over. She trudged past a row of dark boarding lounges, one of which had posted her Air Jam flight number, and, ominously, no departure time. Several stoic-looking Jamaicans slumped in the molded plastic seats, surrounded by sleepy children, overstuffed suitcases, and shopping bags. Beyond the lounge, a sundries shop, and then, praise be!—decorated with an assortment of plastic plants posed against a backdrop of plastic trellis, was the restaurant.

  Half a cup of coffee cleared her head, and her sense of anticipation arose in spite of the bleak surroundings. Airports were hateful, but they got you there. And this was a freebie. Between Wills & Wilton, high-flying New York PR firm, and the Jamaica Tourist Agency, a couple of dozen Air Jamaica tickets had been conjured up to provide complimentary passage for select members of the press down to Ocho Negros and the gala opening week ceremonies for the Grand Strand Hotel, a new high end all-inclusive resort. According to the Wills &Wilton PR girl Susie Adams, the hotel's design was "simply fabulous," and so Lucy, sometime architectural as well as travel writer/photographer, had gotten on the list for the trip. She would have to work, interviewing architect and operator, and take at least a dozen architectural shots with her Hasselblad, but the rest of the week, aside from a few press events, would be hers, all expenses paid. What could be better than Jamaica mid-winter? Truth was, nearly broke and no work in sight, she had been just short of desperate to flee the black ice of Broadway when this trip had landed in her lap.

  "Hey Luce," someone said, and she looked up.

  "Mickey! What's happening?" Lucy grinned at her friend Mickey Wolf. This would surely be a good trip if Mickey was on it. "Grand Strand, eh?"

  "Can you believe this bullshit? I called that bimbo Adams at nine last night, and she assured me the plane was on time today. But Air Jamaica is never on time. Fucking clowns."

  "Hey, it's a freebie. I'm not complaining."

  "Well, I am," said Mickey, pulling up a chair. She had a Heineken in one hand and a cigarette in the other. "My kid's girlfriend is pregnant, he doesn't know whether he wants to marry her or get her an abortion, and I leave town in the middle of..."

  "You're going to be a grandmother?" Lucy said, unable to hide her shock. This woman was practically her contemporary, for god's sake. I'm still thinking about what it would mean to have a kid, and she's about to be a grandmother? Shee-it!

  "Damn, don't remind me," said Mickey. "Can you believe it? I mean, I was nineteen when Jesse was born, but..."

  "No wonder you're drinking beer at eight a.m."

  "Honey, I always drink beer at eight a.m. on these trips. I couldn't survive otherwise." She took a hit on the bottle.

  "Right," said Lucy. It made sense. Mickey Wolf, thirty-eight, with whiter than white skin, lovely pale grey eyes, long stringy brown hair, and a spreading rear end, was the Editor of Best Travel Bets, a weekly newsletter for the trade, and she did the junket shuffle probably half her time. She knew every hotel on every island in the Caribbean, the Mediterranean, and probably the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea as well. The glamor of tropical travel had long ago faded for her. "So how's life on Roosevelt Island?" Lucy asked.

  "Same as it ever was," Mickey said. "Like the 'burbs only right in town. Hey, I'm gonna get something to eat. You want anything else?"

  "Nah, I'm fine, Mick. Thanks."

  Lucy scanned the weather at top right on the TIMES, and felt grateful again. High today 27, tonight 14, tomorrow 23. And 86 degrees in Ocho Negros.

  "So who are you shooting for?" Mickey asked on her return. She'd replaced the beer with a Haagen-daz ice cream bar, and had a fresh cigarette in the other hand.

  "Jesus, is that your breakfast?" Lucy said.

  "No, the beer was breakfast, you silly girl. This is brunch," Mickey said, and bit into the ice cream.

  "I don't know," said Lucy. "Susie Adams said there was definitely a design story in it, so I'm hoping for ARCHITECTURAL DIGEST, or at least one of the trades. I'm meeting with the architect for a solo tour, so I should be able to get some interesting info. He said they used a lot of native building techniques and materials, so..." She shrugged. "Somebody'll go for it."

  "No doubt," said Mickey. "Maybe I'll be able to buy a pic or two, Luce. Be sure and send me a set of color xeroxes."

  "No prob." Lucy finished her coffee. "So who's on the boat this time around? You got any idea?"

  Mickey dropped her half-eaten ice cream bar onto a napkin, then put her cigarette out right in the middle of it. "Nah, but I'm sure it'll be the usual suspects."

  Three hours later, pina coladas hoisted, Mickey and Lucy took turns peering over the backs of their seats, slyly casing the traveling troops behind them. Scattered among the homeward-bound Jamaicans and the vacationing New Yorkers were two dozen members of the media—travel writers, editors, radio reporters, and video producers. Most of the journalists were half-crocked at 11 a.m., having indulged in Wills & Wilton complimentary beers and pina coladas in the airport from 9:15 on—anything to keep the restless editors happy—and on the plane since the seat belt light went off. Lucy, halfway through a pina colada, felt semi-wrecked herself. She had supposedly given up hard liquor, and never drank before five p.m. That was what she told herself, anyways, on the days when she had some perspective on the alcohol situation. Here it was not yet noon and instead of perspective she had a mixed
drink in hand. But what the hell, the camera bag and purse were securely stashed overhead and she didn't have any real responsibility until tomorrow morning.

  "So tell me, Susie," Mickey said, leaning across the aisle towards Susie Adams, Wills & Wilton PR girl. Mickey frequently danced on the drunken brink of obnoxious behavior, but she never went over the edge, no matter how much she put away. Lucy admired that quality in her. "Did Angus pay for his upgrade, or did you manage to talk Joey Ruskin into abasing himself before the Air Jam boys?"

  "Oh, that's not for you to worry about, Mickey," said Susie, and smiled. "Angus is..."

  "A double major pain in the butt," said Mickey. "But he only travels first class, of course."

  "You know how it is, Mickey. We need him down there," said Susie. She smiled at Lucy. "How's it going, Lucy?"

  "Oh, not bad. Now that we're on our way, everything's fine. How are you?"

  "Well, we got off the ground just in time," she said. "Another fifteen minutes and I woulda had a writers' riot on my hands."

  "No shit," said Mickey. "I was ready to burn down the terminal myself. Who likes to get up in the dark and rush out and sit at JFK for half a day? Nobody I know."

  Lucy lowered her voice. "So tell me about Angus, Mick."

  "Awful Angus. Angus Wilson. God, he's been Mr. All-Powerful in the travel mag biz since before they invented airplanes. My first job he was the boss, and he was a real nazi in the office, let me tell you. How he got so powerful I don't know, but I can't remember a time when the guy didn't practically control the fate of half the hotels in the Caribbean. And half the travel editors, for that matter. He's...fucked up the careers of more than one person on this plane." She dropped her voice another level. "But confidentially, people are starting to not give a shit about him anymore. He's missed the boat the last couple years, people aren't taking him very seriously, and he hardly knows it. He gets all pissy about windsurfing and other watersports, likes to hark back to the good old days when a Caribbean trip meant you sat on your ass in a plantation chair under an umbrella on the beachfront verandah and drank gin till the sun went down, being waited on hand and foot by humble natives and complaining about the deteriorating level of service the whole time. He doesn't get the new travel scene, and it's just made him crankier than usual is all. You heard him back there at the terminal pitching a fit about sitting economy with the rest of us hacks? Well, that was just a warm-up, Luce. Wait'll he breaks out his color-coordinated resort wear and starts patrolling the hotel grounds and power-walking the beach. He is an awesome sight, let me tell you."

  "So why's he still get the upgrade to First Class?"

  "Anything to shut him up is my guess. Right, Susie?"

  "You might say that," Susie said, and grinned. Lucy had another look at her. Having talked to Susie Adams on the phone at least twelve times in the last month, angling for a seat on this trip, Lucy felt like she knew her. She looked about 23 years old, which made her eight years Lucy's junior. Her age, actually, had surprised Lucy when they'd met at the airport. Lucy had assumed that she would be her contemporary but no, Susie was just a kid. A cute one at that, but judging by her seven a.m. performance at the airport, Susie smoked way too much, and her voice had a premature crack in it.

  “Hey, did you guys get press kits?" she said, offering a pair of telephone book-sized silver-embossed folders, stuffed with photos, releases, and everything else anyone could ever need to know about the fabu new Grand Strand Hotel.

  "Not for me, Susie," said Mickey. Lucy took one, and flipped it open. In the right pocket, printed matter; in the left, a stack of black and white 8 by 10 photos. The first one was a smug-looking fiftyish dark haired man in a business suit. Lucy pulled it out and had a look.

  "Who's this?" She asked Mickey.

  Mickey glanced at the pic. "Jackson Hababi. He's the big guy at Funclubs. They're the owners. He runs half the hotels down there."

  "Jackson Hababi? Sounds like a part-time Arab."

  "Actually, he's Lebanese. Or rather, his grandfather was. There's a lot of them in Jamaica, and they seem to be better at business than anyone else. So they run the show. At least the tourist end of it. But bag the press kit, Luce. Don't you want to know who you're traveling with?"

  "Yeah, right." She shut the press kit and put it on the floor, then smiled over at Susie. "I promise I'll read it later, Susie," she said.

  "Whenever," Susie said. "There's plenty of time. But you might want to read the piece about the hotel design before you talk to the..."

  “You can’t seriously expect me to eat this rubbish,” someone barked loudly in first class.

  “Oh shit, there goes Angus again,” said Mickey. “Right on time. Critiquing the eats in first class is one of his favorite pastimes.”

  “Um…excuse me, ladies,” said Susie. “I’ve got to…”

  "Yeah, yeah," said Mickey. "Tend to Mr. Wilson. Trust me, honey, it won’t be the first time on this trip.” She laughed. “But you already know that.” Turning to Lucy, she went on, “Angus is such a prima donna, Lucy, you won’t believe the shit he gets away with. Then again, he’s not the only loser in this crew. Our fellow road-scribes are a bunch of half-wits in general. You see that bozo up there on the aisle second row on the left?”

  Mickey killed the next hour with her row-by-row, blow-by-blow take on the travel reporters. With the passage of the lunch cart down the aisle, the gossip tour ended. That was all right with Lucy—she'd have plenty of time to get familiar with the gang in a week of jollying it up at the hotel. Picking at her chicken a la airplane, she re-opened the press kit. Halfway through page one, she fell asleep.

  An hour later her eyes popped open as they landed at Sangster International Airport, Montego Bay, on the North Coast. After a short taxi the flight attendants threw open the door and the sun-hungry troops quickly bunched up in the doorway, took in that first liberating lungful and eyeful of Caribbean air and light, then descended the rollaway stairs. The flags snapped in a warm salt wind: at least 18 knots, Lucy decided during the short stroll to the terminal. Windsurfing fever possessed her, like it always did when she walked off a plane into a hot tropical breeze.

  She'd picked it up on Cape Cod six years back, taught by a summer romance, a year round North Cape carpenter who almost convinced her that his love was enough to keep her happy in Truro through the bleak, alcohol-fueled months of winter. Almost but not quite. She'd left him after Labor Day, scurried back to Manhattan—but he'd taught her how to sail a board, and she had quickly grown to love it. She went every chance she got, at least a week or two every summer at the Cape or the Hamptons and a week or two every winter down here in the tropics. One of the reasons she'd turned her professional photo focus towards travel was to get into the tropical wind as often as possible. And it had worked. Here she was, in Jamaica, and the wind was blowing, mon.

  She and Mickey, nursing a noon hangover, walked together up the stairs to the terminal, and down the long echoey hallway to immigration. There they were greeted by six Jamaican girls swaying in a row, singing a syrup-flavored reggae welcoming song.

  And then, before their very eyes, the ugly American made a cameo appearance, in the person of 23-year old Allie Margolis. Fresh out of Bennington College, Allie was on her first press trip on her first job as an assistant travel editor at Fiance Magazine, "that influential journal of pre-nuptial opinion," as Mickey had described it on the plane. A born-too-late-to-be-a-hippie Emily Dickinson type, all poetry and sensitivity, Allie proceeded now to demonstrate her multi-cultural awareness by joining the chorus line of Jamaican women, adding hers to the harmony of voices sweetly crooning "Stir it Up."

  Ouch! Lucy found it hard to watch the girl, acne-riddled, white-skinned, and clueless under a big straw hat, her long black hair and long red skirt swaying as she missed the beat, humiliating herself before the few travelers brazenly sadistic enough to stop and watch. Fortunately it ended quickly, as the singing petered out and the Jamaican girls turned as one to gaze at t
he tourist woman and wait for her to go away. Allie got the message, scurried off, and life went on.

  Stamped in and checked off, the writers milled around while Susie Adams expedited the baggage handling. Killing time, Mickey introduced her to Harold Ipswich, a guy Lucy thought she had seen before. Five minutes of chat revealed that she had: he'd hung out at the same bar she did, back when she slept in a third floor walk-up on Avenue A and Ninth Street and lived in Dan's Tavern on East Seventh. He claimed to be writing a novel and, like her, freelanced travel stuff. He was her age plus a decade she guessed, and tall with thick, go-every-which-way greying black hair and black-framed glasses. He had a droll way about him, seemingly amused by just about everything going on in this here tropical airport, and Lucy decided she liked him.

  Eventually they got it sorted out, and the writers dutifully followed the PR girl out of the terminal, pausing to pick up a couple ice chests full of beer and soda for the road. On a quick rum-driven pit stop Lucy made the acquaintance of Henrietta Storey, a petite thirtyish black woman who wrote a travel column for African American Week out of DC. The two women together waded out into the heavy heat of the parking lot.

  Nine other buses were lined up along with the pink and white striped Grand Strand cruiser, and their engines were running. The air shimmered with heat and exhaust. Fast-talking dudes milled around selling Cokes, Red Stripes, and, with sly sidelong glances and suggestively raised eyebrows, also offered ganja, dope, marijuana, Jamaica's prime cash crop. Lucy turned them all down. She had given up pot five years back, the same time she gave up cocaine and quaaludes, when the hangovers started lasting longer than the highs. "No tanks, Mon, no tanks," she repeated, her frozen grin meant to signal that yeah, she be cool, but later, mon.

  The hustlers didn't even try Henrietta, who displayed the innocent aura of a drug virgin. According to Mickey, Angus Wilson had hired and fired Henrietta, the first African American travel writer in modern American times, in the six months following the six months in which he'd hired and fired Mickey herself.