Wayward Sons

by Wayne Stinnett

  A young man’s voice cracked over the VHF, instructing him on which slip to take, and what the fees would be.

  When we pulled into the dock, a couple of college kids took our lines and helped DJ fit his boat into its spot.

  On land, DJ led us up a gravel path cut through the oceanside brush, which branched to the left about a hundred meters in. We passed a large in-ground pool with a swim-up bar. A sun-beaten woman lay across it, her bikini top barely holding on as an older man fondled her.

  “They’re enjoying retirement,” I noted.

  DJ said nothing, following the wrought-iron fence around the pool, hooking a corner, and taking us through a gap in adjacent buildings, where a half dozen air-conditioning units coughed and rattled. On the other side, we crossed over a roundabout positioned between seven or eight buildings like the central hub on a wheel. The roundabout encircled a small hill covered in flowering Puerto Rican hibiscus trees, and as we ducked under the branches, I got the impression that DJ knew this place better than he was letting on.

  We exited the far side of the grove, slipped through another gap between the buildings, and walked a paved roadway, going up a hill.

  A trio of twenty-something girls in a golf cart zipped down the hill, going the opposite way. They wore the same uniforms as the guys on the dock, except their shirts were much tighter, and each had a crown of hibiscus flowers.

  “You think we should stop and ask somebody where Garner is?” I asked. “Like those girls that just went by?”

  “Nah. This time of day, I know where he’s at.”

  “You seem pretty familiar with this place, DJ.”

  “Not by choice.”

  I wasn’t sure what he meant, but I knew I wouldn’t get more than that out of him. I left it alone for now.

  At the top of the hill, we came upon a small crowd of people. I’d guess about twenty or so, sitting on concrete bleachers dug out of the far side of the hill. Each person had their attention set on a stage with an arched covering about thirty meters ahead.

  A woman in the same form-fitting T-shirt as the girls in the golf cart stood at center stage. She wore a pair of shorts that wouldn’t have passed school dress code. A mic headset tamped down her blond hair like a headband.

  She cradled a chimpanzee in a diaper.

  I didn’t hear what she said, but everyone clapped as DJ walked along the left side of the concrete stands, toward the stage. Behind it, I spotted a trailer sporting a graphic of an elephant bathing in the crystal blue Caribbean waters. The same animal I’d seen at Zoni Beach on the way in.

  DJ and I came around the trailer and had a full view of the back of the stage. A wild energy seemed to bounce between the people back here. Some attended to exotic animals parked in cages, presumably getting them ready for their turn in the show. I spotted a lemur, some kind of large snake and something that looked like a guinea pig but was as big as a pit bull.

  At the center of it all stood a middle-aged guy with a beer belly, buzzed hair and a gray, braided beard dripping down to his chest. He wore a top hat and matching jacket over a tropical print shirt and a pair of black shorts. He was a mix of P.T. Barnum, Tommy Bahama, and Steven Seagal.

  A blond lady in tight black motorcycle leathers and matching helmet gripped the handlebars of a dirt bike. The visor of her helmet up, she planted a long kiss on the ringmaster.

  While they smooched, DJ crept up behind him. I stayed back a few paces.

  DJ tapped the ringmaster on the shoulder.

  “DJ?” He tilted his head, then looked at me. “I didn’t know you were coming by today. Where’s Blunt? Or are you cutting this guy in?” He held an upturned palm in my direction, then seemed to balk at me. “Christ, DJ, you gotta check your eyes. Aside from the surfer-dude hair, this guy looks like an undercover cop.”

  “He’s not a cop.” DJ was clearly annoyed—whether it was Garner’s assumption or that I was there, I couldn’t tell.

  “You sure about that? He’s got that vaguely cop-ish way of standing, ya know?”

  I crossed my arms. I’d never heard I stood like a cop—however one did that.

  “Don’t worry about him. He’s working with me.”

  “Working with you? Are you striking out on your own?” Garner’s brow folded. “I thought you didn’t need money.”

  “Shut up a minute, man,” DJ said. “A little bird told me a body washed up on Zoni a couple days back. You know—that piece of water out yonder that you own? What do you know about that?”

  He licked his lips, his eye slow dancing between DJ and me. He shrugged.

  “The police took care of it. Who knows how a body got there, anyway? My guess is some guy drank more than he could handle, fell off his boat and drowned.” He shrugged, then nudged his head toward the stage. “I’ve got more important things to think about.”

  DJ didn’t appear convinced by Garner’s answer.

  Neither was I. Any businessman would be losing his mind about a body appearing on his property, whether he ran a coffee shop, a garage, or a strip club. I’d have to think a luxury resort like this one, which depended so much on putting people in a relaxed mood to get at their wallets, would be averse to anything that might pierce the veil of paradise.

  “That’s your story?” DJ asked.

  “Please, DJ. Don’t put on a front for your buddy,” Garner said, nodding my direction. “Or are you going to tell me that you suddenly care about a body being dropped?”

  Quickly, DJ looked left, then right, before his hand harpooned out and hooked the front of Garner’s shirt. DJ reeled him over, marched him to the big trailer with the elephant picture, and slammed him against it.

  The rattle of Garner’s body smacking it was lost against the sound of a dirt bike’s engine revving up to applause.

  “Don’t put this on me, man. I’m not like you—don’t ever compare us,” DJ said between his teeth, as I grabbed him by the shoulders and wrenched him off Garner.

  “You’re full of it!” DJ yelled as I walked him back.

  “No more than you, my friend,” Garner answered. I turned to get between them again, but Garner stayed with his back to the trailer, re-buttoning his shirt.

  “You don’t know anything about Luc Baptiste?” DJ asked, as I let him go.

  Garner’s fingers stopped buttoning.

  “Luc Baptiste?” He took off his hat, then ran his hand over the top of his head. “That’s who the cops found on the beach? The same Luc Baptiste?”

  “The same guy who took out a restraining order against you last month?” DJ asked.

  Garner’s face darkened. “You heard about that?”

  “We found the court documents on Luc’s boat,” I said.

  “That was blown out of proportion.”

  “The judge who issued the order seemed to think you made a credible threat of bodily harm against him,” I said. “Restraining orders don’t happen without probable cause.”

  Garner put his hat back on and broke into a smile. “Man, DJ, he really is a cop, isn’t he?”

  “Don’t change the subject,” I said.

  He sighed and turned to look toward the stage, then set his eyes back on us.

  “I swear I didn’t know it was Luc’s body.” He put his hat back on. “I get why you’re talking to me. The restraining order looks bad. But I was on some… things. Did I shoot my mouth off at Luc? Yes. Was it wrong? Of course. In the heat of the moment, I made a mistake. I was out of my mind—you can’t really believe anything I say when I’m… having my perceptions expanded.”

  In my experience, drugs had an outsized influence on murder. Generally, it was the acquisition of them that led to one person killing another. People will do just about anything to snuff out the embers of withdrawal.

  That didn’t fit every case, however. Once or twice, I had seen the aftermath of psychosis after a powder or a liquid tripped a primal switch deep inside the human mind. Rare, but not unheard of.

  “I’ve never known anybody
to flip out when they’re on LSD,” DJ said.

  Garner sighed and scratched his chin. His jaw squeezed as if he had to keep himself from talking.

  “You’re getting into harder stuff, aren’t you?” DJ asked. “I thought you were strictly a psychedelics and weed guy.”

  “Believe me, I am, especially after what I said to Luc.”

  “Which was what?” DJ asked.

  “Something… regrettable.”

  DJ and I exchanged a glance. A powerful white guy like Nick Garner threatened by a black man with a platform like Luc Baptiste’s. We both had an inkling of what was said.

  “Tell us.” DJ wasn’t going to let him get off so easily.

  “It doesn’t matter now,” Garner said.

  “You think you’re in a position to refuse us?” DJ asked, bunching his fists.

  Garner slumped his shoulders and looked at the ground. “You heard about the article he wrote about me?”

  I looked at DJ. “I’ll tell you about it later,” he said.

  “After the fines his little exposé brought on me, I sued him in civil court to recoup some of the damage,” he said. “The day before I called Baptiste, I got a message from my lawyer saying the judge had dismissed our case before we even had a chance to go to court. I was pissed, okay? A day later, when I decided to call him, I was still pissed. I took some stuff to mellow out, I called Baptiste with every intent to be civil, and he laid into me. Said he was going to come back for me, and that he had more on me, and all kinds of stuff that just made me madder.”

  He paused, holding his breath for a moment, then released it and chewed his lip.

  “I lost it. I screamed at him, ‘If you dig in my business again, nigger, I’ll string you up.’ He got it on tape. I screwed myself. I shouldn’t have ever called him that, and I shouldn’t have called him when I was high.”

  “You know, Nick, for a guy who’s got a lot of people convinced about how smart he is, that was pretty dumb.” DJ put it better than I could have.

  “What about the drugs?” I asked. “What did you take?”

  He peered around the corner of the trailer once more, then turned back to us.

  “Are you worried about somebody showing up?” I asked.

  “My wife, Betty,” he said. “She’d be pissed at me if she heard me talk to you guys about this, but the whole thing was Tara’s idea. She wanted to experiment with a combination one of the volunteers invented.”

  “You mean the college kids working for you,” I said. “You aren’t paying them?”

  “They get a stipend,” he said, annoyed. I took his reaction to mean this was a frequent topic of criticism. “I don’t know what the kid put in the stuff he gave me, but he called it a wild ball. Named it after our resort.”

  DJ laughed. “Man, you gotta be kidding me. Nick Garner messing with something, and he don’t know what’s in it? What happened to all that self-possession, self-reliance trash you used to pedal?”

  “It was a lapse in judgment,” he said. “The kid named it after our place, so I felt obligated. And I didn’t want Tara to think I was too scared to participate. You don’t head up the group that’s around here by being a pussy.”

  “Who’s Tara? The woman on the bike?” I asked. “She doesn’t strike me as the hard drug type.”

  “That’s Songflower,” Garner said.

  “Is your wife aware you’re kissing your girlfriend backstage?”

  “Songflower’s my wife.”

  I looked at DJ, who didn’t appear the least bit fazed. “I thought you said your wife’s name was Betty?”

  “It is. We’re also married to Songflower and Madeline.”

  My instincts about this resort were turning out to be more accurate than I’d imagined. “This is still U.S. soil, is it not?”

  “We’re married in spirit. And the government doesn’t get to dictate how I live my life,” Garner answered. “I moved out here years ago to get away from the tyranny that has become shockingly commonplace on the mainland. I’m not going to fall in line with government overreach.”

  Sure, the USVI wasn’t a full-fledged state, but the U.S. federal government still had control over the island.

  “Don’t think too hard about it, Jerry,” DJ said. “Nick Garner is a libertarian-type when it suits him. But, as you heard a minute ago, this jackass is happy to use the courts to sue people. And the wives come and go. Last time I was here, Nick had four.”

  “Samaya left me after Luc’s article broke in The Times.”

  “As in The New York Times?” I asked.

  “The same.”

  “Heard that article cost you a cool two million in fines from the EPA.” A hint of a grin rolled across DJ’s eyes. “I imagine that figure doesn’t include all the fine folks you had to employ to clean up all that construction trash you dumped into the water.”

  “I didn’t do that. That was a contractor. No one ever heard me tell anyone else to dump their trash into the ocean.” Garner’s face reddened. “Wild Life has done a lot to protect the waters around here and around Culebrita and Cayo Norte, okay? We’ve constructed protective barriers, put out buoys to warn private craft, and hosted fundraisers to keep the islands’ natural splendor intact. I don’t remember hearing about concerned citizens like DJ Martin putting up a cent from their considerable fortunes.”

  “DJ Martin didn’t do anything to hurt no animals in the first place,” DJ answered.

  “I didn’t hurt anything or anyone.”

  Having not read Luc Baptiste’s article in The New York Times, I wasn’t seeing the whole picture of how this went down.

  “Did you dump chemicals?” I asked.

  “I’m not getting into it,” Nick said quickly.

  “I will,” DJ said. “This fine gentleman owns about four hundred acres on this side of Culebra. You seen those condos we walked past, right?”

  “With the roundabout in the middle?”

  DJ nodded. “He built those about a decade ago. Since then, he got wind that there was more money in renting out private villas. Only thing, there ain’t too many private villas this way, on account of this land being a park until recently, so he’s building them. Rather than dispose of his trash properly, he’s let all his guys throw it wherever to save a few pennies. Most of it just followed the currents northwest and ended up along the beach. Luc Baptiste caught him.”

  “That was the contractors’ choice, not mine,” Garner said, in a way that suggested even he didn’t believe his crappy argument.

  “Two million is a lot of cash to lose,” I said.

  Garner’s lips pinched together.

  “I wasn’t a fan of Luc Baptiste, and I’m not sad to see him gone, but if you think I killed him, let me ask you this: why would I dump his body near the beach I own? I’ve obviously learned which way the currents flow around here.”

  “Maybe you didn’t do it,” DJ said. “Maybe one of your volunteers is trying to impress you. Sounds to me like that kid who made the drug cocktail also wanted to impress one of your girls. Maybe that hundred bucks a week you pay him ain’t enough to satisfy, so he’s trying to get something on the side.”

  “If you have a problem with our volunteer stipend, take it up with the government. Everything we do at Wild Life on Botany Bay is legal.”

  “Except the weed growing,” DJ said with a laugh.

  Garner’s face went a shade redder. He didn’t seem amused.

  “If you want to have a chat with the authorities about that, DJ, be my guest. But I think you, of all people, won’t want to take that up with anyone.”

  Behind him, the crowd roared again. Garner adjusted his hat and smiled at DJ. “If you’ll excuse me, gentlemen, I have a business to run.”

  We watched him walk away, taking hold of a leash with a tiger on the end.

  “He’s not going to talk unless we have something more concrete,” I said. “I want to give Luc’s boat another once over.”

  “That’s your call, Dep. Yo
u wanna go back there, we’ll go back there.” DJ took the first step away. I expected he wouldn’t want to stay. There was a lot of baggage lying around this place, and he didn’t want me picking through any of it.

  We came back to the Gazette around sundown, after tying Reel Fun to the same spot on the marina as earlier.

  “You feeling one way or the other about Garner?” DJ asked me, as I put the keys into the salon door and unlocked it.

  “What I feel doesn’t matter. What matters is what we can prove or disprove,” I said, as I slipped them back into my pocket.

  “All right, man. Tell me what doesn’t matter.”

  I glanced in DJ’s direction as I opened the door. The big lights over the marina cast shadows across his face, and for a moment I felt as if I were gazing into deep ocean, an Atlantean soothsayer reading the ripples, trying to guess at fate.

  “What’s Garner like, emotionally?” I asked.

  DJ tilted his head. “I dunno, man. He’s like any other prick-in-charge.”

  “I ask because the damage Luc did to Garner’s reputation and business were already done. Garner is a creep and an asshole, but he struck me as self-serving, and mostly in control of his temper. Excusing one extreme lapse in judgment, he doesn’t seem like the type to make trouble for himself. But you know him better than I do.”

  “Sure wish I didn’t. But you read him right: he’s always played cleanly, and he’s almost always got his head on the way he wants it.” DJ followed me inside the Gazette, the mess exactly as we’d left it. “What do you think about one of the kids smoking Luc to get on Garner’s good side?”

  I paused in the salon, giving it another visual check for anything we may have missed.

  “That seems more likely to me, but that theory is the weakest kind of circumstantial. What I want to know is what Luc was working on. Did he dig up more misdeeds on Garner? If he did, we’ve got a compelling argument about how Garner would benefit from Luc’s death, and maybe a stronger circumstance for one of our theories.”

  DJ nodded in agreement. “We never checked the cockpit holds. I’ll get to it. After that, I’ll poke around in the engine room.”