by Willow Rose
I chuckled hearing her say that word since it was so old-fashioned. "I thought you young people said player," I said.
She shrugged, not really caring that I was mocking her. She was so deeply into solving this case; I felt proud of her. It had been years since I had seen her care this much about anything, to be honest.
"But is he a killer?" she asked, pointing at me with her fork.
"That's the question, Miss Marple," I said.
She wrinkled her nose. "Who?"
"Never mind," I said, shaking my head with a grin.
"But we do agree it's the same killer in both cases, right?" Emily asked.
I nodded. "It has to be. At least I think so. The Royal Bahamian Police don’t, but I think we could prove them wrong. I mean cutting their tongues out sure sounds like a signature from a serial killer. I just wished I knew what else was similar in the two cases. I mean, they were both found in water as well, but what else?"
"Can't we get to the autopsy report?" Emily asked.
I shrugged. "I don't think the police here will be very cooperative, especially not since they see me as a main suspect."
"They do what?" Emily asked.
I shook my head. "It's nothing but a misunderstanding. I found the body, so they apparently think I might have placed it there too. I have a feeling it's a thing here. That the commissioner, that Maycock guy, he believes a lot in whoever finds the body must be a suspect. I mean he did it to Sofia and now me."
Emily chuckled. "He probably read it in some book."
"Or saw it on some American crime show, is more likely. I don't think he reads many books, to be honest."
That made Emily laugh. I smiled when hearing her light laughter. It felt good to be with her like this again. This was the Emily I knew and loved. And us bonding like this over the case seemed to be the thing that brought her back out. It was like she completely forgot to be anorexic.
"But isn't there some other way to get ahold of an autopsy report?" Emily asked. "Will they write about it in the papers?"
"They'll only write whatever the commissioner tells them, and I have a feeling he might leave out everything that will make it look like this is the same killer since it will only create chaos and panic, and that's bad for tourism."
"Not to mention the fact that he'll come out as looking pretty silly for having arrested Sofia for the first murder," Emily said and finished her salad. She put her silverware down on the plate, and I tried hard to hide my joy over the fact that she had finished it all. It wasn't much, but it was a small victory.
"So, these autopsy reports," she said pensively. "Are they electronic?"
"Sure," I said. "The copy they gave me was printed by his secretary from her old stationary computer. Why?"
Emily nodded.
"I might have an idea."
Chapter 36
Nassau, Bahamas, October 2018
I went to bed while Emily was still on her laptop. She wouldn't let me in on what she was up to, so I watched TV until I dozed off and finally decided to go to bed. A few hours later, I woke up as the light from her screen lit up the room. I rubbed my eyes and sat up.
"Emily?"
She didn't answer. She was staring at the screen, her fingers dancing across the keyboard, her eyes fixated on what was on the screen, looking like she was almost hypnotized by it.
"What time is it?" I asked and looked at the clock underneath the TV. "It's three a.m.! Why are you still up, Em? Em?"
She paid no attention to me but continued whatever she was doing. I got out of bed and walked to her.
"Emily, baby. You really should get some sleep. It's not health…"
She stopped me, holding a finger in the air. "I'm almost done."
I sat down next to her on the bed. "What are you doing?"
She turned her head to face me. "I just gained us access to Nancy Elkington’s police report."
Emily turned the laptop so that I could see. My eyes grew wide in the darkness, and I was suddenly very much awake. My eyes stared at the screen and the report in front of me, then at Emily.
"Em, I am…I am in…when did you learn how to do something like this?" I asked.
She shrugged. "I’ve had a lot of time on my hands lately."
"So, this is what you've been up to in that room of yours? Hacking? That's what you're doing now?"
"Please, don't be mad," she said.
"It's illegal, Emily. Have you been…hacking from your room, from our house at home?"
"Just a little bit."
"You can't break the law just a little bit, Em," I said with a deep exhale. "You either do it, or you don't."
"But I am always careful," she said. "I know how to reroute the IP address, so no one can trace me. I am still a newbie, but I’m actually getting pretty good at it."
"Well, of course you are," I replied. "You're good at anything you set your mind to. That doesn’t make it less illegal."
"Please, don't be mad."
I stared at her, my eyes softening slowly. "I can never be mad at you. At least not for very long. You know that."
She smiled and pushed the computer closer to me so that we could both see the screen.
"Besides, this might end up helping someone. It's not all bad," she said. "We'll just take a quick look, then get out."
I chuckled and leaned closer. "Just one look, then."
"It looks like they're not done with the medical examiner's report yet," she said, "but there are some preliminary examinations in the file. You were right; the tongue had been cut out. They don't know the cause of death yet or the time."
"There are photos," I said. "Can you open them, please?"
"Sure," she said and clicked on one of them. It showed Nancy Elkington right after she had been dragged out of the water, where I had found her. The sight of Nancy Elkington’s naked bruised body made Emily wince, but her reaction wasn't as brutal as I had feared. She seemed to look at it with the eyes of someone looking for clues, as opposed to someone she could have known. Emily’s response had a very nice distance to it, a professionalism that surprised me in such a young girl.
"Can you zoom in on the picture right there?" I said and pointed to a photo that was taken of the girl's back. I pointed at a mark on the lower part of her back. "Right there."
"Sure," she said and zoomed in. "What is that? A tattoo?"
I nodded. "Yes, but look at how swollen it is."
"Is that because it's been in the water?" she asked.
"Maybe," I said. "Or it could be because it is very fresh."
"What does it say?" she asked and zoomed even closer. The picture became pixelated, but I could still read it just fine.
"Can you take a screenshot of that for me please?"
Emily gave me a look.
"What do you think it means?"
I shook my head and wrote the word down on my notepad. "I don't know…yet."
Part III
Chapter 37
Bahamas, October 2018
The itch was back. The person didn't really understand how it could be back so fast. It should have stayed away for at least a couple of weeks or at least days. But there it was, and it wouldn't stop. The person knew there was no way out of it.
There needed to be another one.
The person had about an hour to kill, so there was time to check her out. The person knew exactly which girl should be next and where to find her. The person had kept an eye on her for quite some time and knew she would be perfect. The person had held back, kept her as a treat for one special day, waited for the perfect timing.
And that was now.
The person walked up to the clubhouse and entered from the poolside, smiling at a woman walking out with her small dog in her purse. The young girl was waiting tables, smiling at a couple to whom she had just served cocktails. Smiling for those great tips she would soon get, and she got a lot of them. The person had been observing her for quite some time and had seen how she almost shoveled them in.
Especially the men liked her, which was no surprise. She was a gorgeous girl, small and blonde with a slim waist. She looked very much like the girl the person had just gotten rid of.
The figure watched the girl as she worked the floor and while listening in on her casual conversations with the customers or with the other waiters. The eavesdropping over the past several months had given the person lots of important information on the girl. Now, the person didn't like to know their names, since their names were of no importance, but couldn't avoid seeing the name tag reading Coraline. The person also knew that Coraline was nineteen and that she was in the Bahamas taking a year off before starting college back in Boston next year. She had no boyfriend since she wanted to make the most of this year and not let some guy hold her back, as she explained to the receptionist one day. Her parents were divorced, an ugly one, and she had lived with her father all her life, going through several stepmoms who all wanted him for his money and all wanted her out of their way. Coraline was wealthy, and her father had gotten her the job at the clubhouse in one of the most lucrative neighborhoods in the world. She knew he had gotten her that because he thought it was a safe place to send her now that she absolutely wanted to go into the world and meet people like most young people did. And probably also because he assumed she would meet some nice guy there, some rich guy or someone who was a son of just that, someone who could provide for her for the rest of her life, or at least till they got divorced and she ran with half of what he had. Coraline's dad was rich, but not overwhelmingly wealthy the way most people living in Lyford Cay were. The person guessed he saw an opportunity to make sure his daughter was taken care of by getting her this job. It wasn't a wrong assumption.
Looking at it from the outside, Lyford Cay would seem like a very safe place to send your precious daughter.
Chapter 38
Nassau, Bahamas, October 2018
Mrs. Elkington looked like she had aged ten years since I last saw her. She was pale, almost ash-grey and her eyes completely void of any life. Her husband was standing by the window, looking out, his arms crossed behind his back. He hadn't uttered a word since I entered.
"Have you been sleeping at all?" I asked them.
I was visiting them at the hotel where they were staying. Emily was with me and had sat down on a couch in the back.
Mrs. Elkington shook her head. Her eyes were swollen from crying. "I…I don't know how to…there are all the arrangements, we need to get her a proper burial, you know? And…they won't…they don't know when they'll be able to release the body to us."
"They need it for the investigation," I said and placed a hand on top of Mrs. Elkingtons. "They haven't done the autopsy yet, and it might take a few days, maybe even a week or more. I don't know how fast they work around here, but back home…"
I didn't get to finish the sentence before Mrs. Elkington burst into tears. Emily sprang to her feet and handed her a tissue box from the bathroom. She pulled one out and wiped her eyes. There were no traces of make-up on the tissue when she was done. Even if she had put any on this morning, she had been crying so much it was already gone.
"I am so sorry," she said. "It overwhelms me from time to time."
"It's only natural," I said and glanced at Mr. Elkington. It wasn't the ones who cried I usually worried about the most. It was the ones who bottled it all up.
"He's been staring out that window ever since we received the news," she said, leaning forward and talking in a low voice like he wasn't able to hear her. "I can't get him to eat anything, and he doesn’t say a word. Just stares and stares out that stupid window."
I smiled, realizing all Mrs. Elkington needed was for him to be with her in this, her hour of need. For him to hold her hand and talk to her. But that wasn't always the way people reacted.
"He'll come along. We all grieve differently."
She exhaled. "She was our only daughter, you know? We had her late. Thought I couldn't conceive since it didn't happen for years and then suddenly, puff, there she was. She was such a sweetheart, so loving and so…did you know she won an essay contest when she was only in fifth grade? She wanted to be a writer." She glared at her husband. "He was so proud of her. Prouder than any father could possibly be."
"I bet," I said and glanced at Emily. I hoped she knew just how proud I was of her. It tormented me that she couldn't love herself, that she couldn't see how amazing she really was. I guess Mrs. Elkington now wondered if their daughter ever knew how proud they were of her. They would never get the chance to tell her again.
"How are they doing on the investigation?" Mrs. Elkington said. "Are they any closer to finding out who did this…awful thing to my daughter?"
I exhaled. Getting closure was so important for the relatives at this point, but it was rarely something I could provide this early. I knew they expected me to take part in the investigation, which I was in a way, but not in the way they assumed I was. I had tried to reach out to Commissioner Maycock, but he had told me they had it all under control and that they would let the Americans know once they had news. I didn't know if by Americans he meant me or Nancy's parents or maybe the Embassy, but I assumed he didn't want me snooping around and finding fault in his investigation. He wanted to do this his way and, by acting like he believed I had something to do with it, he could keep me as far away as he wanted to.
"I know that they are working very hard," I said. "It is their top priority right now and…"
Mr. Elkington made a sound that was more like a snort, and I stopped talking.
"Don't mind him," his wife said. "He's just angry at them for not taking it serious enough when she went missing. That's not your fault, Detective Ryder. You did the best you could. I know you did."
"And rest assured I will keep a close eye on this case and let you know if anything new happens. But right now, I have a question I need to ask you both."
I pulled out my phone and found the screenshot that Emily had taken for me and sent me. I showed it to Mrs. Elkington.
"Did Nancy have a tattoo?" I asked.
Mrs. Elkington looked at the photo, then back up at me. She glanced briefly at her husband.
"John, come see this."
He grunted something, then decided to come anyway and looked at it over her shoulder.
"I have never seen this before," he said.
"So, you have never seen this tattoo before?" I said, feeling a small pinch of hope grow inside of me.
"No," Mrs. Elkington said sounding appalled. "We would certainly know if our daughter had something like that on her body, destroying it in that way that the young do today."
"And she couldn't have been hiding it from you?"
"We would have seen it," Mrs. Elkington said. "On the cruise ship at the pool. We saw her in her bikini every day. Plus, she would never do that to us. She knew we were very much against tattoos."
"So, it is new," I concluded. "Could she have gotten it before she was kidnapped?"
Mrs. Elkington shrugged. "I don't think she would ever do that to us, but it is, of course, a possibility. I could try and ask Maria, the friend she was with when they left the ship. Wait a sec," she said and got up.
Mrs. Elkington walked to her purse and pulled out a phone, then left us with it against her ear.
I could hear her talking in the hallway for a few minutes before she returned, shaking her head.
"No, they didn't get any tattoos. Maria said it wasn't something Nancy would ever do. She didn't like tattoos and was too afraid of needles even to consider it."
"And what about what it says?" I asked. "Does that mean anything to you?"
Mrs. Elkington looked at the picture closely again, then shook her head. "Joy? What is that even supposed to mean?"
Chapter 39
Lyford Cay, Bahamas, October 2018
Coraline Stuart was just finishing work. She went to the lockers in the back and found her clothes, then started to get undressed, then changed back into her own clothes.
Working at Lyford Cay was fun and a great work environment. Not that Coraline had anything to compare it with since it was her first and only job ever. But she liked it; she liked getting by on her own for once and making money. Coraline wasn't used to being on her feet this much all day, so she sat down and massaged them, just as another waiter, Meghan, came in.
"So, what are you up to tonight?'' she asked. "You have the day off tomorrow, don't you?"
Coraline smiled and nodded.
"Don't tell me you're seeing him again?" Meghan said, giving her a look of concern.
"Why not?" Coraline chuckled.
"Oh, you are in deep waters there, missy. He is trouble; you know that, right?" she asked.
Coraline groaned. "I’m just having fun. That's all."
"Promise me you're not putting more into it than that. And even so, having fun can be dangerous."
Coraline rolled her eyes at her friend while putting on her sandals, the ones that went so well with her yellow summer dress. "You're starting to sound a lot like my dad."
Meghan shrugged. "So, where is he taking you?"
"He said he'd pick me up in his car when I got off."
Meghan slammed her locker shut, then gave Coraline a look. "Well, have fun, but be careful, promise?"
"Of course."
Meghan left, and Coraline looked at her face in the mirror. She found her make-up bag and started to apply some mascara and eyeliner. She went a little too heavy on the eyeliner and had to remove some of it using a Q-Tip. She bent her head down to wet it under the faucet, then looked up into the mirror again. When her eyes were raised, she spotted someone standing behind her, a face staring at her over her shoulder.
"Oh, dear Lord, you scared me," she said, holding a hand to her chest. She reapplied the eyeliner while the person stared at her, head slightly tilted, eyes scrutinizing her. Coraline looked at her reflection again, then smacked her lips.
