Circle of Bones: a Caribbean Thriller

by Christine Kling

  Diggory stepped out into the bright morning light and slid the door closed behind him. He introduced himself in his flawless French, then apologized to the ferry captain for creating such a problem. He assured him that as soon as they had taken on fuel, they would be moving the boat. From his wallet, he removed a crisp new hundred euro note and handed it to the man.

  “I understand that it is only fair that you should be compensated for your inconvenience,” he said in French.

  The captain snatched the note from Diggory’s hand and slid it into his pocket while mumbling about how he guessed he could wait a few more minutes before moving his boat.

  Diggory turned to the Freak. “Where is your brother?”

  “He took off at first light to go scout out the chick’s boat. Make sure she’s still there. He reckoned you’d want to know if the doc spent the night there.”

  Dig sent the man off to find the dock master so they could start fueling. Soon, a young efficient Frenchman came down the pier dragging the fuel hose. He jumped aboard and began the process himself when it became apparent the Freak had no clue what to do. The half-breed was worse than useless, Diggory thought. He was an abomination, a crime against nature. When would the human race wise up and realize that not every child should be saved? This piece of excrement was a waste of resources. Diggory removed his wallet again and took out another bill. Handing it to the Freak, he sent him to a village café for coffee and croissants. Perhaps he could be made to have some use.

  If the one called Spyder did not return in the next few minutes, Dig realized he would be forced to try to drive the boat out into the bay and anchor it himself. He climbed up the ladder to the bridge and sat in the helmsman’s seat as he had the night before. Before him was an array of buttons and switches, levers and screens. He understood none of it.

  The French boy manning the hoses called up to Dig asking if he should fuel the port tank also. Dig looked around again for Spyder. Though there were a few locals riding bicycles down the village main street, there was no sign of either brother.

  “Yes,” he called down. “Top it off.” If it turned out the tank was empty and the boy said something about his ignorance, Dig would just take it out of his tip.

  He leaned back in the comfortable helmsman’s seat, rubbed his fingers across his day’s growth of beard and contemplated the sailboats anchored out in the bay. What the devil was Riley doing mucking about on a sailboat in the Caribbean? For a moment, a picture of her nude body lying on his bed flashed through his mind. He thought about what she had said when they met in Pointe-à-Pitre. He’d often wondered what she remembered about Lima. She’d answered that question last night. There was no longer any doubt that she had become a dangerous liability. Now that he had taken care of Caliban, he had to move, he thought. With the girl right here within his grasp, the next step was his for the taking.

  “Monsieur,” the boy called from the lower deck. “The port tank, it is full. I will go make your receipt.”

  Dig stood and walked to the ladder. Just before he turned around to descend, he saw the two brothers up at the head of the pier. They appeared to be arguing. The Freak was cringing as Spyder flailed his arms, pointed at the powerboat and shouted words that Dig could not understand at this distance. Then Spyder turned to look in the direction he was pointing, and he saw Diggory staring at him.

  When the brothers returned, Spyder’s manner was so obsequious, it turned Dig’s stomach. Spyder said he had taken a long, hot hike over the hill, but he was pleased to report that her boat remained anchored in the other bay. “No sign of the doc, though,” he reported. Then, he asked if there was anything else he could do.

  Dig ignored him and, after settling the bill, gave orders to get off the dock and anchor out in the bay. Meanwhile, he went below to shower and enjoy his morning coffee away from the sight of that human rubbish. When he emerged from his stateroom forty-five minutes later, he had a plan.

  Dig could feel the Freak’s eyes on him as he crossed the salon. The man didn’t even bother to remove the bulky headphones that made him appear like a giant insect from one of those old Japanese horror films Dig’s mother used to watch when he was a child.

  It was Spyder, though, who spoke first.

  “Too bad that machine of yours don’t work.”

  “And what machine would that be?”

  “You know, that satellite tracker thing over there.” He flung his arm in the direction of Dig’s GPS tracking unit.

  “When we got up this morning,” the Freak said, “the fix was all wrong. That’s why Spyder went to check on her boat. Just to make sure.”

  In spite of the air conditioning and his recent shower, Dig felt a flush of heat. He strode across the cabin and tilted up the screen of the small black unit. With one finger, he tapped the key to wake the machine, and he realized at once that his plans would have to change.

  “How long has this machine been malfunctioning?”

  “I dunno,” Spyder said. “It was like that when I first got up this morning.”

  “And it didn’t occur to you to tell me about this?”

  “I thought it’d be better to go check on her boat right away. I done that.”

  “You’re a moron.” He turned to the Freak. “You both are.”

  Spyder swung around from the galley counter where he had been slathering jam on a croissant. “Mister,” he said, his voice tight. He clutched the wood-handled knife in his right fist, his knuckles white from the strain. “That ain’t right. There’s no need to call us stupid.”

  “When you went to check on her boat this morning, did you happen to notice if her dinghy was there?”

  “No, I ain’t seen it. I wasn’t particularly lookin’ for it, neither.”

  “And if her dinghy’s not there, the oars aren’t there either.”

  “Shit,” the Freak said. He had pulled one of the earphones off his ear and it now dangled around his neck. “Last night when I walked over there, I seen another anchor light way out in the bay. What’s this about oars?”

  “Your brother helped me place the GPS transmitter inside her oars. That’s why I had you return them to her boat. Which means there is nothing wrong with this GPS tracker, you moron. The other boat was likely Dr. Thatcher’s boat. Because of your stupidity, they are now,” he said, pointing to the screen, “somewhere down off the island of Dominica. If you two don’t get this boat moving in the next five minutes, I’ll be forced to shoot one of you, and I’d be hard-pressed to choose which one.”

  Spyder glanced at his brother, and Dig saw the question pass between them. The Freak moved his head in a sideways twitch, but the tendons in the bigger man’s forearms relaxed. Spyder set down the knife, picked up the croissant and stuffed the entire thing into his mouth. He walked past Dig without acknowledging him and stepped out onto the deck.

  Interesting, Dig thought. He now knew which of the brothers was really in charge.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  Portsmouth, Dominica

  March 27, 2008

  9:35 a.m.

  Theo pointed to the rungs of a rusty ladder clinging to the side of a crumbling stone pier, and he shouted to be heard over the noise of the outboard engine. “The dinghy will be safe over there.”

  “Yeah,” Cole said. “But will we?”

  “Long as your tetanus shot is up to date,” Theo said as he lowered a small stern anchor to keep the inflatable dinghy from rubbing against the sharp, rusty steel.

  The Portsmouth customs and immigration offices were located in a waterfront warehouse just beyond the stone pier. The facility serviced the small cargo freighters that transported Dominica’s banana crop and the few remaining sailing cargo boats that traded between the islands. Open on one side and littered with the old lumber from abandoned cargo pallets, the place reeked with the sickly sweet smell of rotted fruit. Riley tried hard not to wrinkle her nose in disgust as they stepped into the shade.

  Sitting on a couple of wooden cable spool
s that looked like the kind found in her mother’s sewing box — but on steroids — two bulky men in green, military issue uniforms stared at the game of dominoes on the table between them. One man wore a side arm at his waist, while the other had some sort of semi-automatic rifle resting in the shadows across his knees.

  “Do you know these guys?” Cole asked Theo under his breath.

  The men had not yet noticed the three newcomers. Theo lifted his arm to stop his companions. “Afraid not. Wait here a bit.”

  When he was within about thirty feet of the two officials, Theo spoke in his proper, clipped baritone. “Good morning, gentlemen.”

  The two men jumped to their feet. Riley hadn’t been aware just how tall the man wearing the pistol was until he stood up. She guessed his height at somewhere close to six foot eight, and with the bulk on his frame, he would have felt at home in any NFL locker room. The “smaller” of the two at a mere six feet tall, now held his rifle at an angle aimed at Theo’s feet.

  “I am Theophilus Spencer,” he said. Then with a little half turn, he pointed at Cole and Riley and said, “And this is Captain Thatcher and his girlfriend. We came in on that trawler out there from Guadaloupe.”

  Riley turned to Cole and raised her eyebrows at the term “girlfriend.”

  Cole lifted his shoulders and cocked his head to one side as if to say, “whatever works.”

  The giant walked up to Theo and motioned for him to remove his backpack. Theo extracted his passport and handed it over to the man who examined it for several minutes as they conversed in the local patois.

  “Which do you think is worse,” Riley whispered, “the jails in Guadeloupe or in Dominica?”

  “Definitely Dominica,” Cole said.

  “Thanks a lot,” she said.

  The big man extracted a cell phone from his pocket and dialed a number. He stepped away and turned his back to Theo as he spoke into the phone. When he finished his conversation, he pointed to a crude bench nailed together out of old palette wood. “Wait over there,” he said. Then he and the other official returned to their game. Soon the warehouse was echoing with the sound of dominoes slapping against the table.

  The three of them settled on the bench.

  “Theo —” she started, but he cut her off.

  He shook his head. “Trust me.”

  She’d never been good at sitting and doing nothing. Riley saw the mosquitos hovering around her ankles, and she hoped the repellent Theo had offered her was working. It was beastly hot with no breeze whatsoever, and she was beginning to wonder what had made her decide to join this motley expedition.

  She slapped at a mosquito on her calf. “I thought we were supposed to be looking for a submarine.”

  “We are,” Cole said.

  “Well, if we’re right about this, and your dad did put something up the Indian River, obviously, it’s not going to be a submarine.”

  “No,” Cole said. “It’s not.” He reached up and pulled the gold piece out of his T-shirt. “The old man was here in these islands, Guadeloupe and Dominica, about three years ago. He found something. Maybe it wasn’t the sub. Maybe it’s something that will lead us to the sub.”

  “So I’m risking life in a Dominican jail for a treasure map?”

  Theo started laughing. “You think —” he began, but he didn’t have a chance to finish because at that moment the door at the back of the warehouse flew open, and a short, thickset man wearing a loud tropical print shirt, cotton pants frayed at the cuffs, and flip-flops burst in and bellowed “Theo!” loud enough that Riley reckoned all the boats in the anchorage heard him. The domino players glanced up, then went back to their game.

  Theo stood up smiling, shaking his head, and walked over to meet the other man saying, “Uncle Reggie, thank you for coming so quickly.”

  When they met in the middle of the warehouse, the two men embraced. Theo was as much taller as his uncle was wider. After they exchanged a few quiet words, they strolled over to Cole and Riley.

  “I’d like to introduce you to my uncle, the Honorable Reginald Blackmore, Minister of Public Utilities, Energy, Ports, and Public Service in the Government of Dominica. Uncle Reggie, this is Captain Cole Thatcher and our friend, Maggie Riley.”

  Riley caught the look Cole gave Theo.

  Theo shrugged. “Like we say in the islands. No problem, mon.”

  Less than ten minutes later, the three of them had “cleared immigration” and packed themselves into a miniature van which took off careening through the streets of Portsmouth. Theo’s cousin, Ezekiel Blackmore, his dreadlocks streaming in the breeze, sang along with the reggae music that blasted from the van’s tinny speakers. “Gonna mek yuh feel more steam dan rice wa jus cook.”

  One minute they’d be flying down the narrow paved road, then Zeke would brake, swerve, and stick his head out the window to converse with pedestrians. Half the time, he nearly clipped them on the roadside swale, but they always just smiled and waved. Riley tried hard not to think about Cole’s thigh pressing against hers and not to lean too hard against him as the van swerved. But she was disoriented by the right-hand drive and the fact they were passing other vehicles on the wrong side of the road. She found herself twitching with body English in the back seat as Zeke, swerving around people, chickens, and goats, kept up a non-stop, one-sided conversation.

  “Your mama, she gonna kill you, Teo, you don’t go see her after you been gone almost two years. I know you say you in big hurry take your American friends up the Indian River, but mon . . . Yoo-hoo, hello Mrs. Robinson. How’s de leg? Auntie gonna skin you, Teo. Hey, Mr. Joseph. Look who here in my van. Yeah, mon. It’s Teo. De prodigal son.”

  At last, they pulled over into a dirt lot before crossing a bridge. Several dusty taxis were already parked there. The drivers squatted in the shade of a big banyan tree on the riverbank above a rickety-looking wood dock.

  Zeke shut off the van and they climbed out. “My boat dat one over dere,” Zeke said, pointing to a fifteen-foot dory with a yellow hull and bright red and blue interior seats. “She call de Providence.”

  “She turned out nice, Zeke,” Theo said. Then to Riley, he added, “He had just started building her when I left the island.”

  The boat had four athwart-ships seats, and enough room to carry a group of six to eight tourists. Once they were aboard, Zeke untied the docklines and pushed off. He perched his backside on the high transom and took his place at the oars facing forward, looking over the heads of his passengers in the fashion of all the Indian River boatmen.

  At the beginning of their journey, the river was nearly a hundred feet wide, and they could still see the peaks of the Diablotin Mountains. Theo explained that they were headed for the dock upriver where the boat boys took all the tourists, but they’d have to leave the boat there and go on by foot as there were rapids just beyond.

  At Theo’s instructions, Zeke was rowing hard. Soon the river narrowed, and they entered the shadows as the rain forest canopy closed over them. The sunlight filtered through the trees only in rare, narrow shafts that appeared like the beams from tiny spotlights. But this wasn’t any man-made Disney jungle boat ride, Riley thought. Flowering vines and prehistoric ferns made the scene even more fantastic than anything Hollywood could dream up. From both sides, they heard the calls and cries of far more birds than they were able to see. And the only real wildlife in evidence was the moving mass of land crabs that crawled in the crevices between the giant buttressed roots of the trees at the river’s edge.

  “These trees are amazing,” Cole said, looking at the swirling designs formed by the sharp-edged roots. “What kind are they?”

  “We call them bloodwood trees.” Theo had removed his backpack. From inside, he withdrew a handheld GPS and the folded chart. He handed the chart to Riley, then pointed at the trees. “If you cut them, the sap flows red. The Caribe Indians used to have a camp here on the river before they moved to the other side of the island. They still say it’s bad luck to make the
trees bleed. That’s why these trees are so old. No one dares to cut them.”

  “There are still living Caribe Indians here?” Cole asked. “I thought they were all dead.”

  Zeke laughed. “Dat’s Dominica, mon. De land of de living dead.”

  No other boats were tied to the dock when they arrived at the river terminus, but in the clearing, perched on a stool in the shade of a palm frond lean-to, Riley saw an older man weaving a green palm frond hat similar to the one resting on his head. His back was bent and his clothes hung loose on his thin frame. When he looked up, all Riley could see under the brim of his hat was a yellow-toothed smile.

  “Is that who I think it is?” Theo asked.

  Zeke’s dreads danced when he nodded. “Yeah, mon. Talk about living dead.”

  “I can’t believe Galen’s still alive,” Theo said as he stepped out of the boat.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  Indian River, Dominica

  March 27, 2008

  10:30 a.m.

  Cole heard Riley suck in a deep breath. “I was here twenty years ago,” she said. “There was a boat boy named Galen who rowed us up the river.” She pointed to the lean-to. “Is that his dad?”

  Theo and Zeke exchanged looks. “That’s him,” Theo said. “Same fellow. About ten years ago, he left the island for the States. Found work in a boatyard in Miami. Once he got his residency, a US Marine recruiter talked to him and the next thing he was in Iraq. Something happened over there. He came home like that,” he said, tilting his head in the direction of the clearing, “with a belly full of shrapnel, and looking more like he’d aged thirty years than ten.”