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

by J. J. Henderson

  They arrived at the bus just in time to witness Angus Wilson pitch yet another fit. "I am not going to ride in a bloody Greyhound for three hours," he snapped at Susie Adams. He and Susie glared at each other, head to head in the hot sun outside the bus.

  "We can't give you a car and make all the others ride in a bus, Angus. Don't you see what problems that would cause?" said Susie patiently.

  "I don't care about your so-called problems. You don't seem to understand. I do not...I am not going to ride on that bus, and that is that," fumed Angus.

  "Fine," said Susie. "I'll get you a car and driver, but you'll have to pay for it, Angus. That's all we can do. I'm sorry."

  "Oh, no," he said. "You can't seriously expect me to pay for a car. That—is utterly ludicrous."

  Lucy watched the sweat bead up on Angus' red forehead, beneath the thin black slicked-back hair. "Get on the fucking bus, Angus," said Henrietta sharply. "We have a couple of hours on the road, and everybody's waiting."

  Angus glowered at her, struck speechless. She glowered right back. He took out a handkerchief and wiped his brow. He looked at his watch, and then at the bus, and said, "You people are nothing without me. Don't you understand that?" Having scored his point, he climbed aboard and sat down huffily in the front row, left empty just for him.

  "Nice work, Henrietta," Lucy said, impressed. "How did he ever get away with firing you?"

  "That was a long time ago," she said. "I let him push me around because I didn't know any better. Wouldn't happen today, you can bet on that." Lucy followed her onto the bus.

  In front, Angus seethed behind the driver, with an empty seat on his right. Lucy left that seat for Susie, and took a closer look at the man as she trailed Kerry towards the back. What sprang to mind as she took in his reddened, permanently irritated visage was Angus as the human incarnation of a hemmorhoid.

  Lucy often took notes on long bus or train trips. On the way from Montego Bay to Ocho Negros, after a sporadic chat she wrote the following.

  "Slipping into prose here to slip out of talk with American-born Haitian white lady journalist called Sandy Rollins. She's almost glamorous but late 40s on the verge of terminal skin/sun OD, gonna be dried fruit another year or two. Moved from H. after Baby Doc chased out, now living in Sanibel. Yearns for the good old days of Papa Doc, when people like her `lived extremely well,' as she put it. Sick bitch."

  "Driving on the Brit side. The sea on the left, beaches, rocky low bluffs, blue green aquamarine dreamwater, coral reef lines. High chop outside. Hope we get there in time for a sail today. Jerk chicken fish and pork stands, little grubby houses in exquisite beachfront locations—I hate thinking about real estate in places like this, but that's what life in Manhattan does to you. People here moving very slowly. What's the rush, mon?"

  "Passed through a town called Yarmouth. Dead donkey at the side of the road, all four legs extended, two handsome kids standing there in white shirts, ties and shorts—school uniforms—poking the swollen body with a stick. Market day in town, we honked through, lots of beautiful fruit and cheap colorful stuff for sale. Faded pastel colonial architecture gone tropical. Driver's name is Big Wilbert, drives crazy, horn honking, passing on blind curves, laughing and talking all the while."

  " Lots of new development since last time here. The ocean on one side, dark green mist-wreathed hills rising beyond cane fields on the other. Coffee and ganja and Rastamen grow up there. Saw a Rasta walking along the side of the road, dreads to his waist matted and bleached to a golden blonde shade. Looked mellow, but you never know these days who's a real rasta, and who's a gun-toting dope-dealing posse dude with dreadlocks—thanks to all the American drug money."

  Lucy watched as they drove through Ocho Negros. As the driver proudly pointed out, dodging construction sites, cement trucks, dogs, pushcarts, and cars driving on the wrong side of the road, Ocho Negros had a MacDonalds, a Burger King, and a Taco Bell. It was a little boomtown, Jamaica style. Dust swirled in the air, horns honked, and you could practically smell the odor of the hustle, of money conjured out of concrete and gasoline. Lucy didn't like it much, but what could she do? Jamaicans want their Big Macs just like everybody else. "Yo, driver," somebody bellowed. "We're outta beer back here."

  Big Wilbert pulled over and looked in his rear view. "What's that mon?"

  "I said we're outta beer, Wilbert." The guy stood up. He was a large, round man with a round head, crew-cut hair, and incongruously fashionable aviator-style glasses. His name was Dave Mullins and he worked the travel beat for the Daily News. Mickey liked him, she'd said, because he drank like a real old-fashioned, two-fisted reporter. In other words, like her. "How about another couple sixpacks, Susie?" he said.

  "The hotel is five minutes away, Dave," she said. "Can't you..."

  "Why should I believe that?" he grinned. "You told us it was two and a half hours from the airport and its already been..." he looked at his watch. "just shy of three."

  "And we're five minutes away," Susie said. "C'mon, Wilbert, let's go."

  "Hey, hey," Dave said, his tone heavier. "I want a beer. You think I like riding on a bus all day? We need some relief from this stress. Now Susie, why don't you direct Wilbert to drive by the nearest store and pick up a case of cold Stripers."

  "Jesus, Mullins, do you have to waste everybody's time with your alcoholic bullshit?" Mickey snapped at him. She was sitting a couple rows back of Lucy, right across from Mullins. "The hotel is five minutes away!"

  "Alcoholic bullshit?" he said, still grinning as he addressed the crowd. "This from a woman who drank an entire bottle of 151 rum in less than half an hour to win a bet!?"

  "Hey, shutup, you simpleton," Mickey said. "That was about a hundred years ago, and I'll thank you to stop with the story right now."

  He paused, then sat down. "Ah, fuckit. Let's go. On to the hotel, Big Willie!" He caught Lucy's eye, three rows away. "You wanna know what she won?!"

  "Mullins, don't," Mickey said, and Lucy heard a plea in her voice. So did Dave. He winked at Lucy, but didn't say another word. Big Wilbert started up and they took off.

  About a mile past town they hit the luxury hotel strip. The Grand Strand was the last one, and as was true with the four other hotels they passed en route, the grounds, the building, the beach, the whole landscaped and tastefully designed package was hidden behind a ten foot high, barbed wire-topped white plaster wall. The only ingress came via a weight-balanced lift gate manned by a pair of stone-faced, steely-eyed guards wearing dress uniforms, plumed hats, and pistols on their hips. One lifted the gate and waved the bus through. After a cruise through an orchestrated tropical landscape dominated by a half dozen trees studded with bright red fruits, the bus pulled up under a porte cochere. Pink neon scrawled artfully on a white plaster wall spelled it out: The Grand Strand.

  CHAPTER TWO

  WIND, DINNER, AND DEATH

  As soon as she got off the bus, Lucy breathed a sigh of relief: one look and she knew she had a design story to tell. The architect, William Evans, had some moves.

  Thirty yards of flagstone pathway led to the arched lobby entry. On the left of the path a white tile pool was enclosed by white plaster walls. At its far end a waterfall splashed by a tiled verandah. The use of water and the clean, elemental planes reminded her of the work of the Mexican architect Luis Barragan. On the verandah, trellises planted with bright pink and orange hibiscus defined seating areas with low-slung Honduran planters' chairs encircling mosaic-topped tables.

  The crowd of road-weary writers straggled to the verandah. A buffet table heaped with pastries awaited them, along with a silver tea service, champagne, and another cooler of Red Stripes. Smiling hosts and hostesses—young, black, handsome all—in white shirts and black bow ties welcomed them. A string quartet played Mozart.

  The adjacent lobby had a natural stone floor echoing the pattern in the ceiling soaring overhead. Supported by marble columns, the octagonal roof rose to a peaked skylight above a brass chandelier. A series o
f arched portals opened off the lobby. On the right was the reception counter, with long-legged birds carved into its mahogany base. Lucy checked in and took a key.

  She declined the tea and Mozart and headed for her room. She strolled through the lobby lounge, with a life-size waterwheel on one side; leaving the lounge, on her left she passed an enormous open dining area, with buffet counters at one end and a stage at the other; on her right were three restaurants in a row, Italian, French, and Jamaican. She went on, to the main bar, a horseshoe-shaped affair which separated the dining area from the pool and hot tubs, built into decks above the beach; beyond the deck was the beach itself and the two story guestroom buildings strung along the shoreline. She walked the path behind the guestrooms, putting off her first contact with the beach and the sea for one last tantalizing moment.

  She entered her room, threw down her bags, and pulled open the drapes. A pair of glass doors opened onto a small patio surrounded by lawn. She went out. Beyond the lawn, clean, powdery white sand stretched twenty yards to the turquoise water of Blackwater Bay. She would have to find out where that name came from. This luminous liquid had not a hint of black in it.

  Her bags arrived immediately, as she'd requested. Lucy quickly unpacked enough to find her one piece blue suit, stripped and slipped into it, then ran out onto the porch. She stopped short, dashed back into the room, found her number 40 sunscreen, and quickly covered all exposed surfaces before heading out again.

  She ran across the sand, splashed into the sea, and dove. Gliding along, she felt the water caressing her bones, washing away the winter chill of New York. She touched her hands on the sandy bottom, then surfaced and took a few strokes before standing up in the warm, waist deep water to have another look at the terrain.

  Lucy faced the eastern perimeter of the hotel grounds, on the west end of Blackwater Bay. To her left, the bay stretched eastwards in a lazy curve for about a mile, lined with palm-edged white beach most of the way, then gently rising beyond a mangrove swamp to a rocky cliff at the end of the bay. A three-story lime green 19th-century mansion occupied the prime spot overlooking the bay’s east end.

  Directly in front of her, the white security wall enclosed the hotel grounds. To the left, where the public beach began, a cluster of Jamaicans lurked, not daring to cross the line into Grand Strand territory. Possibly because of the security man sitting at the edge of the property in full dress uniform. A couple of the locals called out to Lucy. "Braid your hair? Boat ride? Glass-bottom? Ganja?" The last word an undertone hiss. She smiled and waved, calling out, "Not today, thanks."

  The hotel sprawled along the beach for several hundred yards, with a second guestroom wing at the other end, where an open air restaurant under a multi-peaked roof rested on pilings over the water. Offshore of that west point a skinny little island stretched back into the bay. A stone tower about forty feet high rose up from the middle of the island, flanked by wind-bent palm trees and a pair of thatch roof huts. The water was calm inside Blackwater Bay, but out past the point and the island the wind blew hard. A small dock jutted out of the island. Another extended out from the beach by the poolside terrace, and a couple of motorboats, including a sleek cigarette, bobbed alongside it. A catamaran and a large yacht lay anchored offshore.

  Lucy went in and ran down the beach to where two perfectly built, handsome Jamaican men lounged by the sailing gear. Half a dozen brand new sailboards, ranging from lumbering boat-sized trainers to short wave-jumping racers, were stacked in a rack. Nearby lay sunfishes, plastic molded kayaks, and a little hut packed with snorkeling and diving gear. "Too late to go windsurfing?"

  "You know how to sail?" one of them replied.

  "Yeah mon," she said, unable to resist a hint of patois. "Six years now."

  The guy looked at his watch. "You stay here?"

  "At the hotel? Yeah. Just got in. How's the wind?"

  "You get out past de island and it blowin’, mon. Take a wide tack if you go dat way, sister," he said, waving off to the east side of the little island. "There's some nasty corals out dere. Easier to slip tru deah," he added, pointing towards the narrow passage between the little island and the point.

  "Yeah but then I have to sail upwind the whole time, right?"

  "Yeah, or we come get you in de boat." He grinned.

  "No way," said Lucy. "So whattayou got?"

  "You know how to waterstart?"

  "Sometimes. There enough wind out there?"

  "Past de island. Tell you what, sister, I rig you a floater with a 5.0 sail, then you water start if you can, uphaul de sail if you need to."

  "Sounds good. But you got a 4.4 sail maybe? I'm a little out of practice..."

  "No problem. You wanta hip harness?"

  "Definitely. By the way, I'm Lucy. Lucy Ripken. Just got here from New York."

  "My name's Desmond," the guy said. "I'm de windsurf instructor and manager of the watersports department. And this is Leroy. Leroy," he addressed him, then slipped so far into patois Lucy lost track of it. While she adjusted the harness, then stepped into it and coupled the leg straps, Leroy rigged up a medium length sailboard—short enough to fly over waves yet long enough to float. After rigging it with the 4.4 square meter sail he dragged it down to the water's edge.

  Lucy took a few deep breaths, then picked up the board and sail. She walked a few yards offshore and pointed the board into the wind. Holding the mast with one hand, she stepped up quickly out of the knee-deep water onto the board and grabbed the boom with her free hand. She pushed the mast forward. The board turned downwind a few degrees, the sail caught wind, and she took off.

  She pointed directly for the middle of the island, a hundred yards offshore, and relaxed into it. For all the gear and rigging, once you got the basics boardsailing was a simple sport. Stand on the board, put the wind in the sail, and let it take you. As she approached the island, she decided to come about with a jibe. Why not? The water was warm if she fell.

  She moved back and brought the mast and sail across in front of her. The board swerved downwind. At just the right instant, hanging onto the mast with one hand, she flipped the sail; the board swung the rest of the way around, and she switched her feet.

  She heard clapping, and glanced towards the island, only twenty yards away. She had come about just in time to miss a bed of coral lurking beneath the surface. A trio of people—two men and a woman—stood at the foot of the tower applauding her smooth jibe. Lucy did a doubletake: they were all naked except for sunglasses and an LA Dodgers cap on the shorter of the two men. The flabby-looking woman in the middle had red hair, above and below. Could it be? Lucy grabbed another glance—Yes, the redhead was Maria Verde, a travel writer from the plane.

  Not one of Mickey's favorite people. What was it she had said? Lucy had taken mental notes, and now they came back, in a word-for-word flash: "An aging hippie type. Used to be Sophie Potts but changed her name to Maria Verde. So New Age, don't you think? Not a bad writer but all over the place, and never stops grinning and acting like she's your best friend. You being whoever she's talking to at the moment. I think she's a pothead." And apparently a nudist as well.

  If so the Grand Strand was the right place for Sophie "Maria Verde" Potts. The FunClubs chain had started in the Swinging Seventies, back in the pre-Aids days when everybody thought they could fuck everybody else and it was just good if not quite clean fun; between that hard core crew and latecomers to the nudist movement from the same era, inevitably a small contingent showed up at these hotels ready, willing, and able to strip whenever they got the chance. Here at the Grand Strand the nudists had seemingly been given their very own island.

  Lucy turned across the wind. Near the beach she cranked another jibe and headed north towards Cuba. Time to let fly.

  Three hours later, in a state of exhaustion bordering on stupor, Lucy had a last glance in a mirror before leaving for the dreaded, welcome-the-press dinner. She had a red patch on the left side of her forehead, where she'd missed with her suns
creen. The make-up hadn't quite covered the ragged line between burn and slight, #40 sunscreened tan. And since she'd had two skin cancers—left side of neck, right temple—taken off in the past three years, sunburn was more than worrisome, it was threatening. Her arms, legs, and back ached from sailing. She stood back and had a last head-to-toe look—the white strapless sundress looked better now that she had a little color—then stuck her room key and a lipstick in a small bag and headed out.

  Lucy considered the image she had just seen, of herself in the mirror, as she walked to dinner. She was not strikingly beauty, but she had an interesting face—the face of a tomboy aging gracefully. Cursed with cuteness, now she was maturing out of it, into something more substantial. She did not love wrinkles, but her faint laugh lines actually enhanced the blue of her eyes. Her nose had gained a little weight with time, and its button effect had diminished. She looked older, but also rather more serious than she had, which didn't bother her too much. After all, there had been an entire decade—15 to 25 years old—when she appeared fated to spend her whole life looking like a cheerleader. At 31 she still had a youthful body, thanks to fairly obsessive exercise, but her face had taken on some gravity with the years. A few years in Manhattan will put gravity in anybody's face. She was a serious person and it had been difficult for a time, getting people to take her seriously. Not long after moving to New York from Portland, Oregon, she had dyed her hair black and chopped it into angry spikes; she had worn sunglasses day and night; she had worn black clothes 365 days a year; she had learned to curse like a drunken poet; she had been a drunken poet, and lived with one, Jake Jones, their coke and vodka-powered love raging among the East Village walk-ups until he took a part-time job on Wall Street, discovered a talent for management, and never looked back on the East Village or her.