Sunbaked

by Junie Coffey

  “Hello, Nina. How are you on this fine day?”

  “Great, thanks. Danish, could I ask you for a favor? I have to go to the Savages’ today, ideally pretty soon. Do you think you could give me a ride?”

  “No problem. I have a package to deliver in The Enclave anyway. I was just going home for a short health break, then back at it. If you don’t mind, I can snooze at your place while you get ready. I’m assuming you want to change clothes. What are you doing out here, anyway?”

  “Thanks a lot,” she said, hopping into the cart. “I took a tennis lesson from Lance on a whim.”

  He made a U-turn, and they headed back through town to Nina’s place.

  “Don’t tell me you find that smarmy guy appealing, too,” Danish said, glancing at her.

  “I was just curious about his reaction—or lack of reaction—to Tiffany’s disappearance. He just doesn’t seem fazed by it at all,” said Nina. She told Danish about Lance’s Russian-mob theory. He snorted.

  “I suppose it’s possible, but why would Blue Roker tell Lance Redmond’s father about it? Maybe Lance was trying to throw you off the scent. He must think you’re a serious threat, capable of exposing his treachery.”

  “I guess that’s the most logical explanation for his actions,” said Nina sarcastically. “Still, it is a valuable piece of jewelry. Who’s to say the Russian mob wouldn’t want it?”

  She showered and dressed while Danish collapsed on the sofa and immediately fell asleep. She could hear him snoring from the bedroom, where she brushed and braided her hair. Then she went into the living room and tapped him on the top of the head.

  “Let’s go, Danish. I’d like to be there and gone well before lunchtime. I don’t want any awkwardness about whether or not we expect lunch,” she said.

  “Boy, you worry about a lot of stuff that doesn’t seem like a problem. If Kiki wants you to stay for lunch, she’ll ask you. Otherwise, she’ll say, ‘Well, thanks for coming,’ and show us out. No great mystery,” he said, walking toward the door.

  They arrived at the Savages’ door at eleven o’clock. Kiki opened the door and greeted them in a friendly manner. Nina felt obliged to explain Danish’s presence but didn’t want to make him feel unwelcome. It was a minefield.

  “Danish kindly gave me a lift to your place. I don’t have a vehicle yet,” she said by way of explanation.

  “Come on into the kitchen, both of you. You’re in for a taste sensation. I’m going to make you my signature mango lassi,” said Kiki.

  They followed her into a bright, airy kitchen, which was at the opposite end of the house from the guest room where the evidence suggested Tiffany might have been violently abducted on Saturday night. There was a big gas range and a serious-looking collection of copper-bottomed pots and pans hanging from a rack above a large island in the middle of the room. Kiki opened the stainless-steel fridge and took out the ingredients, pouring some of everything into the blender sitting on the island. When the loud noise of the blender subsided, she poured three glasses of a creamy orange beverage, handed one to each of them, and beckoned them to follow her out onto the terrace.

  The view was just as spectacular by daylight. The water glittered all around. Kiki led them to a seating arrangement near the pool, where the view was widest, and they sank into the comfortable cushioned furniture. A potted palm behind them provided just the right amount of shade.

  “What do you think?” she asked, smiling as they sipped their drinks.

  “It’s delicious,” said Nina. Danish nodded.

  “Hibiscus honey, coconut water, mango, and my homemade yogurt. I keep two goats to keep the grass down,” said Kiki. She set her glass down on the table beside her and breathed in and out sharply.

  “Well. That was quite a night we had on Saturday,” she said.

  “Yes,” said Nina. “You must have had a late night with the police looking around.”

  “I stayed up until they let poor Alice go home, and then I went to bed, but I do believe they were here all night and most of the next day. Blue Roker was still here when I got up in the morning. They gathered a lot of pieces of evidence in plastic bags. Cloth from her dress, blood, and fingerprints. They took a lot of pictures down in the garden and along the beach. We have stone staircases and paths running all over the place, and the tide probably washed away any footprints in the sand, so I’m not sure they found anything on the grounds. Maybe they did. I don’t know if they could make any sense of it. I certainly can’t. Who would kidnap Tiffany Bassett, of all people, and why here? It makes a person feel vulnerable, though. We thought we were pretty well fortified here, with Charlie at the gate and the water all around. Jules is talking about getting a dog. I’ve never thought of myself as a dog person. I always pitied those people following along after their dogs with blue plastic poop bags in their hands. What a way to live.”

  “What are you talking about, darling?” Jules Savage wandered out of the house and sat down in a chair next to his wife.

  “Tiffany Bassett, Jules.”

  “Good God. That stupid cow. No manners. No manners at all. Appalling. Why exactly was she here, Kiki, darling? Last time they were ’round was for that bonfire party on the beach”—he turned to look at Danish—“of which I have a vague recollection of your bare arse in my swimming pool. Why is that?” he asked.

  “Well,” Jules continued without waiting for an answer, “on that occasion, I found her in my study fondling my first editions. Wearing nothing but her bikini bottoms and smelling like a coconut cream pie. Suntan lotion, you know. All over her fingers. Extremely damaging to antique paper. She may have made it to my knicker drawer this time. She has the look of a knicker pincher, if I ever saw one, and I’ve met a few.” He leaned back in the wicker club chair and took a sip of his mineral water, warming to his subject.

  “I mean, not to put too fine a point on it, but is that not why we moved camp to this rock?” he asked his wife. She obviously thought it was a rhetorical question and kept silent, sipping her drink.

  He continued. “To get away from tossers like that lot. I mean, I got fed up with stepping out to the chemist’s to pick up my hemorrhoid medication or whatever and being accosted by the bloody paparazzi, you know? I mean, please do not misunderstand me. I have all the time in the world for the people who bothered to buy my records and turn up at a concert thirty years ago. And for my friends and neighbors. But there is such a thing as common decency and respect for other people, and privacy. In fact, I’m not having it. I’m going to call Charlie at the gate with strict instructions to bar them indefinitely.” He fumbled for the walkie-talkie on the table beside him.

  “No point, Jules, darling,” said Kiki. “She’s gone missing. Saturday night at our supper party.”

  “Oh, right,” he said. “Hasn’t turned up yet, then? Well, I hope the sharks haven’t got her or anything grisly like that, but if she’s just buggered off with that necklace, back to Beverly Hills or wherever she was assembled, good riddance. I’m sure she’ll turn up.” He stood. “I’m in the bog, and then I’m going to look at the hives, if you need me. I think we’re getting close to harvest time. Cheerio, Nina. Behave, young man. Ha ha.” He strolled into the house.

  “Yes, I heard the police have made a breakthrough in the case,” said Kiki. “They’ve narrowed it down to her family, her friends, and everyone who has ever met her.” She laughed, and then she covered her mouth with her hand.

  “Oh, dear. I’m sorry. That is too bad. Obviously, it’s terrible what happened. Unfortunately, she is a difficult person to like. It’s sort of sad, really. She tries so hard to succeed, doing the things she thinks successful people do, like buying things and hanging around rich people, but she has never learned basic social graces like courtesy, let alone found any purpose in her life.” She paused for another sip of her lassi. Nina took a mouthful of hers.

  Kiki continued. “When they first moved here, Tiffany dropped by a few times, looking for a bit of a chin-wag. One of
her favorite topics of conversation was her prenuptial agreement, how unfair it was and how it meant Barry didn’t love her.” She paused again, seeming to weigh whether or not she wanted to say more before she forged on.

  “It has crossed my mind, since she disappeared, whether it might be possible she’s just done a runner with the necklace. She and Barry weren’t happy together, that was obvious. And she told me that if they divorced, under the terms of their prenuptial agreement, she would get nothing. She was a cocktail waitress earning minimum wage when they met, working at an all-night lounge on the low-rent end of the Las Vegas Strip. He’d already amassed his fortune, so it was only fair that he kept what he had before they met if they split up. At least that’s how he explained it to her in the first bloom of love, apparently. She complained that the only asset Barry had put in her name were shares in his imaginary condo complex on Pineapple Cay, and she couldn’t wait until he tired of it and they could move back to Miami.”

  “It’s a plausible explanation,” said Nina. “She probably could have gotten her hands on what most people would consider a healthy nest egg by just making a withdrawal from their joint account and drawing against her credit card before he could shut off the tap. But to not have to get a job at some point in the near future, she would need more money. Selling the necklace would solve that problem.”

  “She’s as lazy as they come,” said Kiki. “But he must be a misery to live with. It must have been a hard awakening for her after the novelty of having money wore off. He’s one cruel and vicious bastard. Not physically—there’s never been any hint of that. He just ignores her, like she doesn’t count.”

  “Maybe he did her in,” said Danish.

  “I’m sure he’s at the top of Blue Roker’s list of suspects. He made a big show of it here Saturday night, shouting at Blue about how incompetent the police were and blaming Jules for not providing adequate security for our guests. I guess we can just hope it all ends well—and soon,” said Kiki. “In the meantime, how can I help you with your piece on the Morning Glory?”

  “Well,” said Nina, “since the party you hosted was meant to be the hook for the story, it would be interesting to include a few lines about how you got involved with the Pineapple Cay Museum.”

  “Ah, now that is going back a way. We arrived here fifteen years ago. The kids were both in school and busy with their own activities. Jules was heavy into producing records for other people, and there was a steady stream of musicians through the house. There’s a studio down below near the beach on what is now Delmont Samuels’s property. It was wonderful, invigorating. But I needed something of my own, too. I was pretty typical of women with half-grown children, I guess. It’s a little-known fact that, way back when, I took a first in history at Oxford, so the museum was a natural place to gravitate to,” she said with a self-deprecating smile.

  “I’m sorry. That’s probably far more information than what you were looking for. I met Jules the summer after I graduated, and all that happened. I guess you could say I am finally working in my field. It’s very satisfying. These islands have a fascinating history.”

  Kiki described her role with the museum—a combination of head fund-raiser, associate curator, and office assistant—and provided Nina with much of the same information Alice had given her about the Morning Glory.

  “The recovery of the artifacts from the wreck sounds like it’s been a real boon to the museum,” said Nina.

  “Yes, it’s been fantastic. So exciting,” said Kiki. “Not that there haven’t been a few bumps on the way. A salvager operating out of Florida has been running around to the news media claiming that everything recovered from the Morning Glory—including the emerald—is legally his because he filed a permit to search the waters off Wreath Cay twenty-five years ago, and that Barry was poaching his claim when he brought up the Morning Glory.”

  “If the other salvager is awarded the artifacts, that would be bad news for the Pineapple Cay Museum,” said Nina.

  “Yes, it would,” Kiki said with a nod. “But, record keeping here left something to be desired twenty-five years ago, so things are rather at a standstill on that front. Barry maintains that he was unaware of any prior claim, and the ministry can’t find the paperwork.” She took a sip of her drink, then continued.

  “On another front, the director of the National Museum on the main island has been making noises about how the proper home for the artifacts from the wreck is there in the capital, not here. He’s lobbying members of Parliament to have the collection moved.”

  “Oh,” said Nina.

  Yes,” said Kiki. “The National Museum would also be a good home for the exhibit, but it is very important that the children of the less-developed islands get a chance to learn something about the history of their home. To be proud that they come from an interesting place, and to know that it’s not the middle of nowhere. I feel very strongly about that. That’s not what he’s thinking about. He’s attracted by the enhanced profile staging the exhibit would give his museum. He’s one of those puffed-up bureaucrats who only think about feathering their own nests and making themselves look good. I call him The Bowerbird. He rather looks like one. All bulging eyes and nervous movements.” She snickered wickedly.

  “This national guy sounds like a jerk,” said Danish. “I didn’t know that people who worked in museums were so cutthroat. I always assumed they liked things nice and boring.”

  Kiki glanced at him and gave him a vague smile, then focused on Nina again.

  “Unfortunately, the theft of the emerald will bolster the director’s argument. Fortunately, he’s due to step down in six months, so we are playing beat the clock. I’m doing my part. I can lobby politicians with the best of them.”

  Nina had no doubt she could. She imagined Kiki’s people skills were pretty finely honed from the life she’d led thus far, and that her name would open doors. And she was obviously very smart.

  “But no need to dwell on that,” said Kiki. “We have every expectation of success. In the meantime, we are proceeding full steam ahead with the exhibit and the educational programs. It is fantastic!” She sat back in her seat with a serene smile.

  “Well, thanks so much, that’s very interesting, really,” said Nina as she closed her notebook and stuffed it in her bag.

  “My pleasure,” said Kiki. “So, how are you settling in thus far, Nina?” she asked. “I hope you’re not regretting your decision to move to Pineapple Cay in light of recent events. It really is a wonderful place to live. Are you doing anything interesting besides witnessing kidnappings?”

  Nina laughed. “Oh, no, no regrets. I’m fixing up the house, I tried bonefishing, and I actually took a tennis lesson this morning at the Plantation Inn.”

  “Good for you. Tennis was never really my game, but I heard they hired a new instructor. Bonefishing with Ted? Sounds delightful,” said Kiki. “I was very fond of Miss Rose. She was very kind to me when we arrived. I spent many hours drinking tea with her on that veranda, talking about life. She had a flair for it. One of the most content people I have ever met, and the kindest. A life well lived. She had no idea what Jules did for a living. She reminded me a lot of my gran. Always telling him to quit smoking and to get a haircut. I miss her and those afternoons on her porch. It’s nice to see her place come back to life and not be mowed down to make way for Barry Bassett’s WaveRunner concession.”

  “Well, it would be my pleasure to give you tea on her veranda anytime you’re passing by,” said Nina.

  Kiki smiled. “Thank you, I’ll do that.”

  They all stood, and Kiki walked them to the door. As Nina and Danish walked down the hill to the golf cart, Danish said, “Just curious. Is that woman-speak for ‘Yes, I’ll definitely visit’ or ‘No, thank you, I’ve got better things to do’?”

  “You’re hurting my head, Danish. I want to go home and have a swim.”

  They waved good-bye to Charlie in the gatehouse and headed off. The ocean sparkled in the midday
sunlight. Nina smiled to herself and plunked the wide-brimmed sun hat she’d bought at the straw market on her head.

  “Well, that was very productive, from an investigative point of view,” said Danish. “We’ve identified several viable suspects. Number one, Kiki gave us the motive for Tiffany Bassett to steal the necklace herself: the prenup combined with a toxic marriage and chronic laziness. All the signs of a struggle in the guest room could easily have been staged by her in the minutes between the time she went into the house alone and when Alice gave up waiting outside the bathroom door and went looking for her. The question is, did she do it alone, or did she have an accomplice? Maybe lover-boy Lance was in on it.”

  “I’m not sure who you think is investigating this,” Nina said, but she couldn’t help but be intrigued by the mystery. “I guess it could have happened that way. But I don’t think you can dismiss the possibility that she was abducted. Based on what I’ve seen of them in the short time I’ve been here, I think it is probably safe to say neither she nor her husband would have any shortage of enemies between here and Las Vegas. Maybe someone they crossed paths with in Miami wanted revenge and zipped down by boat and took her. It wouldn’t be impossible. It really could be any one of a thousand people we don’t even know.”

  “Yeah,” said Danish. “It could also be someone with an obvious motive and reasonable opportunity. Like the salvager from Florida Kiki mentioned. Some guys might find it hard to turn their backs on a jewel worth several million dollars, and dealing with government bureaucracy could send a sane man right over the edge.”

  He was right, thought Nina.

  “I’ve got to deliver a package to the Davises,” said Danish. He turned in at a large white villa, hopped out, and pushed the buzzer on the gate. A moment later it swung open slowly. Danish drove down the long gravel drive, parked, and reached into the backseat for a bundle of mail, which he started to shuffle, looking at the addresses on the envelopes and apparently putting them in some kind of order.

  “What are you doing?” asked Nina.