Herman has been combing the island for the better part of two days, trying to hunt down the location of Ginnis and his wife. It may not be a huge island, but apparently it’s big enough that Herman is still searching, with no luck.
The island is arid, desertlike, a lot of rock and dry scrub, with patches of large cactus. Occasional glimpses of the ocean in the distance from the highway reveal azure waters, translucent to the white sand bottom. The sea is tinged green in places by shallow coral reefs. From what I can see, it is the image that might pop into your mind when you hear the words “tropical beach.” Unfortunately, Harry and I aren’t here to swim, though we may drown in Quinn’s courtroom if we don’t find Ginnis.
“Living history,” says Harry.
“What?”
Harry is looking at some literature he grabbed at the airport while I was getting the rental car.
“Says here ‘Living History, Museum Kura Hulanda.’ Apparently it’s by the hotel,” says Harry.
“Does it tell us how to get there?”
“No. But it does say, ‘See how the slave trade was done.’” Harry is reading again.
I glance over. Harry is holding a small printed flyer on card stock, what appears to be a pencil or ink drawing on one side. He flips it over. “‘We will take you back in time to the selling of newly arrived slaves from the west coast of Africa, around the 1700s.’” Harry looks up at me. “Interesting.”
The Hotel Kura Hulanda is situated on the main waterway, the channel that leads from the Caribbean to a generous harbor that spreads out in the center of the island. The harbor includes an oil refinery that was built in the early part of the last century. Today it provides revenue and good jobs for islanders. This, along with tourism and the export of Curaçao liqueur made from the peels of an orange native to the southern Antilles, keeps the island going.
The town of Willemstad itself is split by the channel, maybe three hundred yards wide, enough to admit oceangoing vessels, tankers, and midsize cruise liners.
On the north side, where our hotel is situated, are a number of restaurants, a few offices, taverns, and a small plaza with some shops.
Across the inlet on the other side are buildings three to four stories high, many of them with quaint Dutch façades, painted in bright colors, yellow and aqua, pink and maroon. These stretch for several blocks until they reach an old stone fortress that guards the mouth of the inlet at the sea.
The only way across the channel that divides the town is either to drive on the main highway over a high arch that spans the inlet at the point where it widens toward the refinery or to walk across a broad pontoon bridge. The floating footbridge, situated a few blocks to the west of our hotel, swings open for ships to pass and then closes again like a gate to connect with the other side.
The bridge is hinged on our side. At the far end, on the bridge at the other side, is a small hut. Every once in a while, you can see the belching exhaust from the roof of the hut and hear the diesel engine as the operator engages the prop that drives the gatelike bridge to open and close.
The hotel, the Hulanda, is actually a series of low-lying buildings situated around a large, meandering courtyard set into the hillside on the north edge of the inlet. It is separated from the waterway by a street with paved sidewalks on each side. A few shops and a restaurant-the Gouverneur de Rouville, a three-story red and white Dutch Colonial building with louver-shuttered windows and a veranda overlooking the water-complete the complex.
Harry and I dump our luggage in our rooms and join Herman at a table on the restaurant’s veranda to compare notes and find out what progress he has made. Given the lack of sleep, Harry has iced tea. I have soda water, and Herman hunches his broad shoulders over a beer.
“So far I’ve tried every real-estate office I can find that handles seasonal rentals,” says Herman. “None of ’em, at least the ones who would talk to me, recognize the name Ginnis.”
Herman has been telling the rental agents that there is an emergency back home and that friends and relatives have been unable to contact the vacationers with the news. So he is trying to locate them.
“I figure it’s a waste of time to check the hotels and resorts, since the neighbor in Chevy Chase told us Ginnis’s wife rented them a house,” says Herman.
“Is there any way to check passport control or immigration?” asks Harry. “They gave us a form on the plane coming in. One of the questions was where we were staying.”
“I thought about it,” says Herman. “The fort over there-” He points toward the old stone fortress at the ocean end of the inlet on the other side. “Inside is government square. The problem is, we go in there askin’ questions about passports and who’s landed on the island in the last year and they’re gonna wanna know why.”
“We could just cut to the chase and ask them where Ginnis is,” says Harry. “They have to know. Hell, with all the security, U.S. Marshals service, he probably came in on a government jet. You would think they’d know.”
“If they do, they’re not going to tell us,” I say. “And they’d probably call the marshals and warn them that somebody is nosing around. Once Ginnis finds out, he’ll be off the island in a heartbeat.”
“But there may be a way,” says Herman. “I gotta find the right person to do it.”
“I don’t know what you’re thinking, but I’d rather not do jail time down here,” says Harry.
“No,” says Herman. If he can do it, Herman will try to find a local PI, someone with connections, maybe former police. “They’d be more willing to let their guard down and tell somebody like that where he’d be-Ginnis, I mean.” So far Herman hasn’t been able to find anyone who fits the bill. “How much time have we got?”
It is now midday Thursday. “Three days. Come Monday morning Harry and I have to be on a plane headed back,” I tell him. “By Tuesday morning, if we haven’t found Ginnis and served him with a subpoena, my opening statement to the jury is going to be a very brief and sad story.”
“That’s not much time,” says Herman.
“Tuchio did a number on us,” says Harry.
“And that’s if we can serve him,” I tell Herman. “What I’m hoping is that maybe Ginnis will sit down and talk to us. Tell us about the letter and what was going on with Scarborough. So if you tag him, try to be as friendly as possible. See if you can stay with him until we can get there.”
“With thoughts like that, you must still believe in the Easter bunny,” says Harry. “What if Ginnis killed him? You saw the look on his face when Scarborough laid the letter on the table in the video. For a second I thought he was gonna reach out and cut his throat with the butter knife. In which case,” says Harry, “I don’t think Ginnis is going to wanna talk to us or anybody else. And if he appears in court, which I doubt, he’ll spin some yarn and say he doesn’t know anything about the letter.”
“In which case we can treat him as a hostile witness and impeach him with the video,” I tell him. “Because then we have a legal basis to bring it in, along with a witness who can tell us when and where it was taken, since his face is all over it.”
“True,” says Harry. “But what if he doesn’t appear, subpoena or no subpoena? What do you tell the jury in your opening then?”
“I’ve thought about that. If we can serve him, I’m prepared to wing it on opening. I’ll tell the jury what we know, based on the conversations with Scott and Bonguard and what’s in the video. We’ll have to do the best we can to fill in the blanks.”
“Like who gave the letter to Scarborough,” says Harry, “and what’s in it.”
“I’m prepared to tell the jury that Ginnis gave Scarborough the copy and that Ginnis has the original. I think that’s pretty clear from the video and the transcript. The contents of the letter are another matter.”
“And what if Ginnis doesn’t show and you have no witness?” says Harry.
“Then at least we have an argument for more time,” I tell him. “Our entire defense in a
death-penalty case hinges on one witness, a justice of the United States Supreme Court who has been duly served with process and who refuses or has failed to appear.”
Harry mulls this in silence for a moment.
“You would have to think that every judge up the chain,” I tell him, “from Quinn to the top, would have to ponder that and pause at least for a second or two, before they vote to slip the needle into Carl’s arm.”
Harry thinks about this for only a second or so. Then he slaps the surface of the table. “Let’s go find the bastard and serve him,” he says.
The only real downside to any of this is if we can’t find Ginnis.
Herman gives us his notes including the real-estate and rental offices he hasn’t had time to check yet, along with a few private parties who have listed homes on the island for rent on the Internet. A few of these we can check by phone; the rest we’re going to have to visit. We all have cell phones, and they work. We all agree that the minute any one of us finds Ginnis, before we even move on him, the call goes out. The three of us will try to gather and get in close before one of us tries to pounce and we lose him.
Harry and I split up. He takes Herman’s rental car along with a map and heads north.
Herman gets on the phone. His task is local. If he needs wheels, he’ll use a cab. His task is to find an investigator or somebody else who can get to passport control or riffle the forms for inbound visitors.
I take the rest of the rental list, get into the car from the airport with the map from the rental company, and head south. The problem is that some of the real-estate and rental agencies that Herman called didn’t answer their phones. They were probably closed or out showing houses or property. We may have to rattle a few doors or ask around to find the agents.
I drive the island, getting lost three times on winding back roads and find four rental agents, two of them with distinct British accents, Dutch who learned their English in the U.K. I use the same story that Herman used: an emergency in the States, and I’m trying to notify the vacationers. They are all friendly and helpful, but none of them have ever heard the name Ginnis, except as an ale in a pub, and then it was spelled differently.
I drive until after dusk, checking with Harry and Herman every few hours. They are having the same success I am-none.
By nine that night, we are back in the hotel. Harry and I are dead on our feet, jet-lagged and suffering from lack of sleep. We each grab a light meal in our rooms and collapse.
We do it again the next day, Friday, early morning until dark, and come up with nothing. We are beginning to wonder if Ginnis’s wife may have rented the house under a different name, either because she knew he was in trouble or to keep the press away while he was recovering from surgery.
Saturday morning we pick up again where we left off. The morning passes with nothing. And then about one o’clock, the cell phone on my belt vibrates. It’s Herman.
“Where are you?” He’s excited.
I look at my map. “A wide spot on the road called Salina.”
“The south end of the island?” he asks. “Good. Look at your map.”
“I am.”
“See a place called Jan Thiel? It’s on the ocean, southwest edge of the island. I found Salina on my map. It’s just south of where you are.”
I search the map with my finger and find it. “I see it.”
“Head there,” he says. “What time have you got?”
I look at my watch. “A few minutes past one. What’s happening?”
“All hell’s breaking loose here,” he says. “Government square inside the fort. Media, American news crews with cameras. They’re all over the place, asking questions about Ginnis. Why the local government on the island doesn’t know there’s a justice of the U.S. Supreme Court vacationing here.”
“They didn’t know?”
“No,” says Herman. “According to what they told the press, not a clue.”
I knew the cameras would all show up, but I was hoping they would give us one more day.
“How do you know he’s at this place, Jan Thiel?”
“I don’t,” says Herman. “But his clerk, Alberto Aranda, swims there every day about noon.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because his girlfriend back in the States told one of the reporters. I heard the newsies talking about it. He calls her every day about noon from the beach. She says he swims somewhere near a sunken tug. Get your ass down there. You don’t have much time.”
“Harry is at the north end of the island,” I tell him. “He’ll never make it in time.”
“I know that.” I can hear him breathing heavily, running. “I’m catching a cab. Be there as fast as I can,” he says.
Even though I’m only a short distance away, it takes me more than twenty minutes to find the brackish backwater of the inlet and the dirt road that leads to the beach at the place on the map called Jan Thiel. The road forks at a steep hill. I take the left fork and go up and around. On my right as I skirt the hill, I can see a circular, fortresslike tower, old stone, probably planted on the top of the hill three or four centuries ago and now abandoned.
As the wheels of my car hit pavement again and I get past the brush blocking my view, I see the small harbor. There is a cargo ship of some kind tied up at one dock and a large four-masted schooner-more than a hundred feet in length, I would guess-tied off at another. There are several other, smaller sailing vessels moored in the harbor, one of them a party boat. Passengers in swimsuits are swinging from ropes out over the bow, doing dives and belly flops into the water.
I keep driving maybe a quarter of a mile, until the road I’m on dead-ends in a parking lot. Directly in front of me, tied up at the dock, broadside, is the large schooner. I turn right, into one of the open parking spaces. That’s when I see the beach, a broad shelf running down to the water maybe two hundred yards long. There is a line of shacks and huts behind it, bamboo and palm leaves for shelter, what looks like a take-out counter for food, and an outdoor tavern for drinks.
Midday Saturday, and there must be more than two hundred chairs and lounges spread out along the arc of the beach, and every one of them is occupied. Kids playing in the water, couples holding hands, bodies slick with tanning oil. Finding Aranda here is not going to be easy.
I turn off the engine and step out of the car. I see a couple of divers with tanks and wet suits heading the other way, out toward the dock and the schooner.
“Excuse me.”
One of them turns to look at me.
“Either of you know anything about a sunken tugboat around here?”
They keep walking, hauling their heavy gear, but the guy looking at me waves his left arm as if to point, in the general direction they’re going. So I follow.
We walk through the lot, past parked cars toward the schooner. Just off to the left, toward the bow of the vessel, is a small building with a white metal roof and a sign over the door that says DIVE SHOP. I follow the two guys toward it, and just before I get there, I see a large boulder, a jagged piece of gray basalt the size and shape of a headstone. It is painted red with a white diagonal strip running across it from top left to bottom right, the international symbol for a dive site. Across the stone at the top right is the word TUGBOAT painted in black letters.
As I look off to the left past the stone, I see a small cove, no sand beach but a shelf against the cliff, covered by broken pieces of gray coral. There are maybe eight or ten plastic chaise lounges set out on top of the coral, a few with towels on them. Two at this end, closest to me, are occupied by a couple readying their masks and fins for a snorkel adventure. Farther back in the cove, perhaps forty yards away, is a solitary figure, a guy sitting sideways on the lounge, facing me. He is talking on a cell phone.
I’ve never seen a picture of Aranda, but the man’s appearance fits the bill. He looks to be in his early thirties, short-cropped dark hair, well built, broad shoulders and narrow waist. With him seated, I can’t tel
l how tall he is, but he is lean and appears very fit.
I keep checking my watch every few minutes, hoping that Herman will get here.
If the man sitting on the chaise lounge is Aranda, I know that he is not going to talk on the phone for long, not with roaming charges just off the coast of Venezuela. And when he hangs up, he’s going to either hit the water or head back to wherever it is he came from. I could approach him and try to talk to him, but I’m afraid he would simply get up and run, in which case I would have to track him in the car on winding dirt roads through clouds of dust. And you could be sure that he would not go anywhere near Ginnis until he was certain he’d lost me.
Once Herman gets here, we can take our chances. Herman can block him with his girth while I talk. Herman always packs a folding knife. If we have to, he can punch one of the tires on Aranda’s car and we can trap him in the lot until we talk his ear off. Give him a ride and let him show us where Ginnis is.
I check my watch again. Herman should be here any second. Then I see it, a cloud of dust, a fast-moving vehicle coming this way from the land side of the hill with the towered fortress. Herman to the rescue. When the large, dark SUV comes out of a line of brush and turns this way, it’s moving so fast that the rear end fishtails on the sand and loose gravel.
As soon as they stop and two of them get out, one of them with a good-size camera, I know I’m in trouble. Part of the media mob has found its way to Jan Thiel, and they’re ahead of Herman.
Now there’s no time to waste. I head directly toward the man on the phone, long strides, my shoes digging into the broken pieces of coral. As I walk right up to him his head is down, he’s smiling, talking on the phone. When he sees my feet stop a yard or so in front of him, he finally looks up.
“Are you Alberto Aranda?”
The expression in his eyes is one I have seen before, whenever I am forced to surrender a client to be taken into custody by police in my office.
“Sweetie, I gotta go. I’ll call you later.” He snaps the clamshell phone closed. “Who are you?”
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