by L. T. Vargus
“The noose material was coir rope with a slip knot. Incomplete, oblique ligature mark with blackening of the skin. Distinct smell of alcohol on the body. Expecting a high blood alcohol level on the tox screen. Time of death between midnight and 1 A.M. last night.”
“Wait,” Darger said. Now something definitely wasn’t right. “Midnight?”
Spinks nodded, and Darger craned her neck over to look at her partner.
“If Sully was dead at midnight, then who was out in the yard burying Micaela at 3 A.M.?”
CHAPTER 11
“Sometimes the coroner’s time of death is off, especially at this stage,” Loshak said. “Three hours isn’t astronomical, depending on the circumstances. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here.”
Darger bit her lip.
“OK, but something else has been bothering me.”
“What’s that?”
“Why would Sully wait five days before burying her? I can buy him burying her on his property in a panic. I can’t accept that he waited almost a week and decided this was his best option.”
Loshak scratched his chin.
“I’m with you on that. We definitely need to take a closer look at all of this.” He glanced up at the darkening sky. “It’s getting late though. I’m thinking we should call it a night and reconvene in the morning.”
Darger noticed that even the media had begun packing it in. She supposed they had deadlines to meet if they wanted to get the juicy footage of Micaela’s mother and stepfather on air in time for the evening news.
They piled into the rental, and Darger watched the sun set from the backseat as they drove back to town. The shifting colors of the sky reflected onto the water. It looked like something off a postcard, but the movement of the water in the foreground turned it into something alive.
Spinks was in the driver’s seat, and he let out a gasp.
“Everyone hold on. We’re making a detour.”
“A what?” Loshak said.
Spinks slammed on the brakes and swerved left. Darger’s stomach lurched with the sudden change of direction.
“A detour,” he said, pointing up at the sign of a roadside stand that read JERK CENTER. “You can’t come all the way to the Caribbean and not sample the local cuisine. Oh! They have ackee and saltfish, too? We are in for a treat.”
The reporter rubbed his hands together.
“I’ll be right back.”
Darger watched Spinks saunter over to the food stand and strike up a conversation with the man in the window.
“How’d he get all that information from the medical examiner?” Darger asked.
“I told you, he has a way about him.” Loshak turned in his seat to look her in the eye. “He does it to everyone, or haven’t you noticed?”
“Notice what?”
“Does it feel like you’re hanging out with someone you just met this morning? Or does it feel like hanging out with someone you’ve known for years?”
Darger was poised to argue that Spinks felt like an old friend because she’d heard so much about him from Loshak already. But was that even true? Loshak had mentioned the reporter, sure, but it wasn’t like he was reminiscing about their time together. Spinks was more someone Loshak mentioned in passing. She’d known of him more than she’d known anything about him. And yet in the span of just a few hours, she’d let her guard down entirely. Thought of him instantly as part of the inner circle. She hadn’t once considered holding something back when discussing the case in front of him.
“Huh,” Darger said. “Do you think it’s intentional? Does he know he’s doing it, I mean?”
“Probably to some degree.” Loshak gazed out the windshield. “Not with any maliciousness, of course. But I’ve found that usually when someone is good at something, there was a concerted effort to get good at it in the first place.”
It was only a few minutes before Spinks returned with a plastic shopping bag piled high with styrofoam takeout containers.
“I got a bit of everything. Hope you two are hungry.”
Spinks handed the food to Darger, and instantly the car filled with the smell of the chicken. Smoky and peppery with a hint of some kind of spicy sweetness. Her mouth watered. She kept one hand on the tall stack of food containers to prevent them from tipping over on their journey.
Back at their rented condo, Spinks unpacked the containers and laid them out on the kitchen counter while Darger got out plates and silverware.
Darger helped herself to a little of everything. She was hungrier than she’d realized and was glad Spinks had insisted on stopping for food. The chicken tasted even better than it smelled, but the real star of the meal was the fried plantain that came with a bright yellow curry dipping sauce.
They finished eating and had just started cleaning up when Owen texted to let her know he’d finished his interview and was heading home.
Darger wrote back, explaining what they’d discovered after they left from the scene — that Micaela had been beaten to death several days ago, Sully’s estimated time of death, the neighbor who’d seen someone after that digging in the backyard.
“I think tomorrow we should start from the beginning,” she wrote. “Talk with everyone Micaela was with the night she disappeared. And I’d especially like to find the boyfriend.”
“Me too,” Owen said. “I’ll talk to you in the morning, then.”
Darger yawned and glanced at the clock. It wasn’t very late, but she was beat. It had been a long day.
After showering off the grimy feeling she always got from air travel, Darger put on a clean t-shirt and a pair of cotton shorts. She went to the window and pushed it open. The sound of distant music filtered across the bay. The metallic tinkle of a steel drum and the distinctive rhythm of a reggae bass line.
The moon was almost full and cast a silver ribbon of light on the surface of the ocean. She could see a corner of the marina from here and found herself trying to guess if one of the boats in sight might be Owen’s.
Finally, she gave up and climbed into bed, still thinking about Owen’s boat. He’d told her once that sleeping on a boat was like being rocked to sleep in a giant cradle by the water. As much as she was still wary about the water, that sounded nice. She tried to imagine it now, lying in the stillness of her on-land bed. The faint swishing of the water against the hull. The gentle side-to-side movement.
And before she knew it, she was asleep.
CHAPTER 12
Darger woke to the ear-piercing song of some kind of bird right outside her window. She’d left it open overnight to let in some of the breeze coming off the water. But now the air was humid and muggy, and some of that morning moisture had seeped inside. Already she could feel the hair clinging to the back of her neck.
She closed the window and checked the weather app on her phone. The forecast was ten degrees hotter today compared to yesterday. She understood now why a lot of the tourists here, like Lesley Milano, dressed in gauzy, breezy things.
In the bathroom, she brushed her teeth and got dressed. She plucked at the back of her cotton button-up shirt, peeling it away from the light sheen of sweat on her lower back. She hated being sweaty. Hated the sticky feeling in her armpits and along the band of her bra. Hated feeling wetness beading along her top lip. She bent over to roll up her pantlegs a few inches, regretting for once that she didn’t own a pair of shorts.
To make matters worse, her hair was a rat’s nest of frizz from the humidity. She tugged it back into a ponytail, thinking bitterly that she was only ever this self-conscious around Owen.
She skulked out to the open kitchen/dining/living room area. Spinks was at the small dining table with a cup of coffee. Darger spotted the half-full carafe on the counter and felt a momentary jolt of positivity. Coffee. That would make her feel less pissy this morning.
But as soon as she lifted the pot and saw the steam coiling out of the lid, it occurred to her how unappetizing a hot beverage sounded just now.
She repla
ced the carafe.
Someone knocked at the door, and Darger went to see who it was.
Owen stood on the threshold with a paper bag and a beverage carrier with four iced coffees.
Darger wanted to weep with joy.
“Figured it was one of those days where it’s too hot for anything but iced coffee,” he said, handing the bag to Darger. “I brought bagels, too.”
Loshak came out, hair still wet from his shower. Darger studied his cargo shorts, annoyed again that she’d only brought pants and would now suffer the consequences.
Darger sliced two bagels and filled the four slots of the toaster, handing them out when they were golden brown, and starting two more.
“I’m gladder than ever that y’all came down here, because after my interview with Beethoven last night, I don’t have a lot of confidence in the locals,” Owen said with his mouth half full of bagel.
“What happened?” Darger asked.
“Well he spent most of the two hours I was down there trying to get me to say that Sully admitted to killing Micaela.” He pitched his voice to sound like the Deputy Chief and added a lilting Dutch accent to the words. “‘Now, Mr. Baxter, this man was carrying a tremendous weight on his shoulders. I think he would have wanted to unburden himself on someone. A trusted friend, perhaps. Don’t you think?’”
Owen scoffed, took a swig of coffee, and continued.
“He was all hung up on how people at the bar that night saw Sully crying and heard him talking about what a mistake he’d made and how he didn’t know what he was going to do.”
Loshak raised an eyebrow.
“Did that happen?”
Owen shrugged.
“Sure, but he was talking about having the argument with Micaela. Forbidding her to see Christiaan. Now Beethoven is convinced that Sully was more or less admitting to the murder.” He sighed. “It’s a lucky thing that you found that neighbor that saw someone skulking around Micaela’s gravesite after Sully’s supposed to have been dead, but I think we’re going to need more than that to convince Beethoven of another explanation.”
“Let’s talk alternate suspects, then,” Spinks said, rubbing his palms together. “I figure the most obvious choices are the stepfather, the elusive boyfriend—”
Loshak held up a finger, interrupting.
“Let’s let the evidence lead us to alternate suspects,” he said. “We need more information first. So far we have very little, and if the scene was staged, we have almost nothing in terms of physical evidence.”
“OK, so then let’s go over the facts,” Spinks said and began ticking them off on his long, slender fingers. “Micaela Tolliver leaves the house six days ago after an argument with her father. She spends several hours with her friends at a club on Sint Anna Bay. She leaves alone around 1 A.M. and is never seen again alive. Six days later, her father is found dead by apparent suicide, and shortly after, her body is discovered in a shallow grave in his backyard. But a neighbor sees someone after Sully’s estimated time of death digging in the very area Micaela is buried. What does that tell us?”
“That whoever did kill her had time to come up with a fairly elaborate plan to frame Sully,” Owen said.
Spinks blinked.
“It also tells us that Micaela probably never made it back to her father’s house,” Spinks said. “I think we need to figure out what happened with her friends that night.”
Owen nodded.
“Violet and I will go take another run at Micaela’s friends. They weren’t so helpful before, but that was when she was only missing. Now that she’s dead, maybe that’ll scare them into talking,” he said, sucking at his iced coffee. “If you two want to go canvas the area where they were hanging out, maybe you can hunt down some eye witnesses that saw Micaela leave that night. Maybe she had an altercation with someone after she left the bar.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Loshak said. “Just tell us where to go.”
CHAPTER 13
The two teams parted ways outside the Airbnb, with Loshak and Spinks taking the rental car. Owen led Darger back over to the marina. She assumed they’d go straight to Raul to borrow his car again, but Owen detoured toward the docks.
“I need to grab something from my boat before we head out,” he said. “It’ll just take a second.”
She followed him down to his slip. He hopped over the gunwale, and when he noticed she was waiting dockside, he waved her on board.
“Come on in,” he said before disappearing into the cabin.
Darger followed him down the narrow steps.
“So tell me about Micaela’s friends,” she said. “How—”
Darger stopped talking when Owen spun around and thrust a folded pile of clothes at her.
“What’s this?”
“You should change.”
“What? Why?”
“You know the drill. We don’t want to spook these kids by seeming like scary feds. Also, it’s going to be over ninety degrees today. You’ll get heat stroke in what you’re wearing.”
Darger unfolded the top item of clothing: a pair of denim cut-offs.
“I forgot about your penchant for playing dress-up all the time.”
“It’s the real reason I became a P.I.”
Darger rolled her eyes but took the clothes from Owen. As annoying as it was to be ordered to change her clothes, she was already starting to wilt from the heat.
She went into the tiny bedroom and changed into the cut-offs — which bordered on obscenely short — and a loose tank top. She wondered who the ridiculous hoochie shorts belonged to but held her tongue as they went back up on deck and headed for the marina.
There was a different kid behind the desk today, but apparently he also rented out his vehicle by the hour. Owen again traded him cash for keys.
They walked around to the street, and Darger tugged at the back of the cut-off shorts, convinced a partial cheek was hanging out. The shorts were completely insane, and she was starting to wonder if she should have insisted on wearing her own clothes no matter what Owen said.
“So do you just keep a spare pair of booty shorts around for any random beach bunny skank that comes around or do these belong to a particular beach bunny skank?” Darger regretted the words as soon as they came out of her mouth. Why had she said that? “Sorry. I don’t know why that came out so hostile.”
Owen blinked at her.
“Those belong to my mother. And I do not appreciate you calling her a skank.”
Darger snorted.
“These are not your mom’s shorts.”
“They are so.”
Darger glanced down at the outrageous amount of leg showing. Owen’s mother was shorter than she was, but still…
“See, you Yankee gals like to walk around like you’re so free and enlightened and woke or whatever, but the reality is that Southern ladies have always been more comfortable with their bodies. So I ask you who the real independent women are?”
“I’m from Colorado,” Darger said, pursing her lips.
“So?”
“So Colorado is out West. I’m not a Yankee.”
Owen chuckled as he slid into the driver’s seat of a Honda Accord that Darger estimated had to be at least fifteen years old.
“You’re a Fed. It doesn’t get more Yankee than that.”
“Whatever you say,” Darger said, buckling her seatbelt.
The interior of the Honda was stifling and reeked of piña colada courtesy of a pineapple-shaped air freshener dangling from the rearview mirror.
“The floor isn’t rusted out in this one, but the AC is broken,” Owen said, rolling down all the windows.
Darger was suddenly glad Owen had convinced her to change. Even with the window fully down, she probably would have gotten heat stroke if she was wearing sleeves and pants that went below the knee.
They drove into the city center. Owen parked on the street, and they walked past shops packed with woven hats and bags, brightly colored dresses, and bead
ed jewelry.
The juice bar where two of Micaela’s friends worked was on a corner, and like many shops and restaurants on the island had an open-air design without windows or doors.
“That’s one of Micaela’s friends there, wiping down the tables. Suzanne. She’s our best bet. The guy behind the counter is Hugo. He’s buddies with Micaela’s boyfriend, and he was pretty hostile when I talked with them last time. I got the impression he was trying to protect Christiaan.”
“So we approach her while he’s busy dealing with that line of customers.”
Owen nodded.
The girl had her back to them and was refilling a napkin dispenser when they reached the table.
“Suzanne?” Owen said.
She spun around to face them, eyes wide and curious. One brow twitched.
“You’re that guy… the one who was asking about Micaela.”
As soon as the name was out of her mouth, the girl bursts into tears.
“Is it true? Is she really dead?”
“I’m afraid so.” Owen gestured to one of the seats. “Why don’t you sit down?”
The girl fell into the chair and put her face in her hands.
“I don’t understand how this could happen. How can Micaela be gone? And they’re saying her dad did it? It doesn’t make any sense. The stepdad… I could maybe see him doing something like that, but not her dad.”
“What makes you say that?” Darger asked.
The girl eyed her suspiciously, as if noticing her for the first time.
“This is my friend, Violet. She’s here to find out exactly what happened to Micaela,” Owen said. “Would you mind answering a few questions for her?”
Suzanne swiped at the tears streaking her cheeks and sniffled.
“I guess that would be OK.”
“What you said about Micaela’s stepdad before… was there a reason for that?”
“I shouldn’t have said that. It’s just… I’ve never liked him is all. And Micaela didn’t either. He was very controlling, and she said that he would flirt with her friends.” Suzanne’s mouth pulled down into a disgusted sneer.
