Coral Reef Views

by Vicki Delany

  “No luck?” Mom said.

  “He hasn’t been into the bar he likes for a couple of days. I asked Darlene for his contact info back in Canada.”

  “Why would you do that?” Mom asked.

  “I want to check with his family. He’s a widower, but he has two kids. Maybe he told them where he’s gone.”

  “I trust Darlene didn’t give it to you,” I said.

  “No. She said it’s private.” He looked at me. “Could you—”

  “No,” I said. If I’d gone off for a couple of days with a new boyfriend, I sure wouldn’t want some nosy neighbor calling my mother.

  Dad dropped into a lounge chair. He looked like a total tourist. Bermuda shorts. Blue-and-orange shirt. White socks in sandals. Bright-pink nose.

  “Come on, Dad,” I said. “You’re in one of the most beautiful places in the world, and you’re making yourself sad. You said he’s a widower. If Paul met a nice woman and went away for a few days, that’s a good thing. Maybe he turned his phone off. Some people do that when they want to get away.”

  “Maybe,” he said. “I know it’s not really my business. It’s just…it’s because he’s a recent widower that I’m worried, honeybunch. His wife died a couple of months ago, and he says he’s lost without her. He came here to get justice for her, he said. I don’t know what that means. I’m afraid he’s done something foolish. Or is going to. If I can’t find him.”

  THREE

  “HOW’S THE VISIT with the folks going?” Simon, the man who drives my ambulance, asked me on Friday.

  I groaned.

  “That bad, eh?” he said. “Wouldn’t want my mama moving in with me, I can tell you that. ‘Pick up your socks, Simon.’ ‘Where you goin’, Simon?’ All the day long.”

  We were in the ambulance, which we call The Beast, heading back to the station after dropping a patient at the hospital. A motorcycle had come out the worse for wear after a collision with a van. Fortunately, the cyclist had been wearing his helmet, and all he had to show for it was a broken arm.

  “It’s not my mom,” I said. “I get on great with my mom. She’s really enjoying herself. Last night she made spaghetti the way I remember it from when I was a kid.”

  “Yeah,” Simon said. “I can put up with a lot of naggin’ once my mama starts cookin’.”

  “My dad’s not having a good time. He likes to be kept busy, and there’s not much for him to do here.”

  “Maybe he needs to meet some people,” Simon said.

  “But I don’t know many people.” I’d made a few friends here, but they were mostly women of my age. Not people my dad would have a lot in common with.

  “I’m going out with my brothers tonight. Why don’t your dad come along?”

  “With you?”

  “Why not? See some real island nightlife.”

  “He might like that,” I said. “If you promise not to go anywhere too shady or get him home too late.”

  “You the mama or the daughter, Ashley?”

  I was saved from answering by the radio. Body on the beach. Police on their way. I told dispatch we’d get it, and Simon slapped on the lights and sirens. The dispatcher had said Code 5, meaning the person was obviously dead, but dispatch had been wrong before. Besides, Simon liked to pretend every call was an emergency. Maybe he hoped one of his girlfriends would see him speeding to the scene.

  Our destination was Smugglers’ Point, a small bay about ten kilometers from the main beaches. The ground was rocky, and cliffs on either side of the narrow bay made a dangerous ripcurrent. Too dangerous for swimming. The few people who came here would be hiking along the shore or looking for shells and sea creatures in the tidal pools. Two cars lined the dirt road, as well as police vehicles. Simon pulled in behind a marked SUV.

  I jumped out of the ambulance and grabbed my equipment bag. A narrow path, sandy and covered with beach grasses, wound between the high stone bluffs. I recognized the young policewoman guarding the path, keeping the curious away. She nodded politely to me, blushed at the sight of Simon and let us through.

  Sergeant Alan Westbrook crouched at the sea’s edge. Water soaked his boots and the hems of his pants. The tide was coming in, and most of the narrow gap between the cliffs was underwater. A man and a woman dressed in bike shorts and hiking boots sat on a rocky ledge. Their arms were wrapped around each other. The woman looked at me, and I could see that her eyes were red and wet.

  Alan pushed himself to his feet and turned to face us.

  The body was half on land. The legs and feet moved with the incoming current. I took a deep breath and braced myself. Bodies that have been in the water for a while are not pleasant.

  Alan stepped aside.

  This one wasn’t too bad. He hadn’t been in the water long. He was a white man. His eyes were closed, and seaweed was tangled in his curly gray hair. His arms and bare legs were covered in scratches, but the ocean had washed the blood away. He wore khaki pants and a white T-shirt, gray socks and one running shoe. The clothes showed signs of being torn on the rocks.

  I sucked in a breath. “I know him. His name’s Paul Saunders, and he’s staying at the Ocean Breeze Hotel.”

  FOUR

  THE CORONER’S VAN arrived not long after us. I’d quickly checked Paul’s body, searching for signs of life, but I’d known I was wasting my time. At a guess, and it was just a guess, he’d been dead for about a day.

  Alan walked over to the young couple who’d found the body. They talked in low voices, but I got most of it. They were here for a week’s vacation. They’d been climbing on the rocks and seen something in the water, taking it for a shark at first. When they realized it was a person, they’d waded in and pulled him to shore. Then they’d called 9-1-1. They’d never seen the man before. Alan took down their contact information and told them they could go. Simon wandered back to the road, probably hoping to flirt with the pretty young policewoman.

  The coroner’s van arrived to take the body to the morgue. We stood in respectful silence as they loaded it onto their stretcher. Two seagulls settled on the top of the cliff to watch.

  “I’m going to the Ocean Breeze, Ashley,” Alan said once we were alone. “Darlene should have his contact information. I hate making this sort of call, but it has to be done. You said you knew him?”

  “I only met him once for about a minute.”

  “Can you tell anything about cause of death? Other than drowning, I mean.”

  “No obvious signs of foul play, if that’s what you mean. He hasn’t been in the water long, but long enough for the fish and the rocks to start to do some damage.”

  “They’ll do an autopsy to see if there’s more to it,” Alan said. “On first look I’d say it’s an accident. He might have been alone on the rocks, tripped and fell in. Here or farther up the beach. It happens.”

  “I know it does.” We’d had a drowning not far from here the previous month. The rocks are wet, slippery and dangerous. The water rushes between the cliffs, and the undertow is strong. People on vacation aren’t always paying attention. “It might not have been an accident though.”

  “What do you mean?” Alan asked.

  “My dad said Paul was a recent widower and was having a hard time dealing with his loss.” I thought about how concerned Dad had been about his new friend.

  “You think he might have killed himself?”

  “I think it’s a possibility.”

  “I’ll have a talk with your dad. As you don’t have to do the transport, want to come with me?”

  “Sure.”

  I headed for the ambulance. Simon and I would follow Alan to the Ocean Breeze. As I reached the path to the road, I glanced back at the rocky beach. A huge cruise ship passed in the far distance. A small plane flew low overhead, and a sailboat skimmed over the waves. The sea rushed toward land, throwing up a white spray as it hit the rocks. Alan stood in the surf, gazing out to sea.

  We found Darlene making a fresh pot of coffee. Alan told her what
had happened but gave no details. She shook her head sadly and turned to her computer to look up Paul Saunders’s contact information.

  “Thanks,” Alan said. “I’ll call this number when I’m back at the office.”

  “I don’t suppose you saw my parents today?” I asked her. “I called but got no answer.”

  “As it happens I did. They took the path to the beach about an hour ago.”

  “Thanks. I’ll be back in a couple of minutes, Simon.”

  He shrugged and turned to Darlene. “So, Darlene,” he said as Alan and I left the office. “How’s your cousin Mira these days? Back from New York?”

  “If she was, Simon, you’d be the last person I’d tell,” Darlene said. Simon is in his late fifties, married with five grown children. He’s never let that interfere with his pursuit of an attractive woman.

  All the beaches on the island are public, but each hotel puts out its own umbrellas and chairs for its guests to use. It was January, the height of the tourist season. But the beaches here are miles and miles of pure white sand and shallow turquoise water, so no section is ever crowded. We found my parents relaxing on lounge chairs. Mom was sitting in the sun, a big hat on her head, sunglasses on her face, her nose in a book. Dad snoozed under an umbrella.

  My mother looked up when I blocked the sun. “Good heavens, Ashley. What are you doing here in the middle of the day? And wearing your uniform. Aren’t you hot? Alan? Is something the matter?”

  My father grunted and started awake. He blinked at me. “What’s happening?”

  “I’m sorry, Dad,” I said. “But we found your friend Paul.”

  “That’s good, isn’t it? Oh. No, it’s not good.”

  “No,” Alan said. “He drowned. I’m sorry.”

  “Drowned?” Dad looked out to sea. The ocean was calm and the surf gentle. Children splashed in the shallows. A young couple walked past, holding hands. “How is that possible?”

  “Ashley tells me Paul was recently widowed,” Alan said. “Would you say he was depressed?”

  “Depressed? No. He talked about his wife. Told me how much he missed her.” He glanced at my mother. The look he gave her was so tender, so loving, that I forgave him for all the times he annoyed me. She took his hand in hers.

  “You were worried about him, Dad,” I said.

  “Yeah, I suppose I was,” my father said. “But not that he’d kill himself. He wasn’t like that. Yeah, I only met the man once. We had a couple of beers. Talked about the Blue Jays’ prospects for this year. He was sad, but not like that.”

  “Hard to know what someone’s thinking,” I said. “He must have been very lonely, here by himself.”

  Dad shook his head. “He wasn’t on the island for a vacation.”

  “Then why was he here?” Alan asked.

  “He was looking for justice,” Dad said. “That’s what he told me.”

  “Do you know what he meant by that?” Alan asked.

  “I asked him. ‘Justice’ is all he would say. He might have been about to tell me more, but one of the gardeners arrived to sweep the path. No, Paul didn’t kill himself. I’m sure of it.”

  FIVE

  I HAD SATURDAY off. I’d planned to take my parents to visit another island for the day. We’d catch a ferry, and I’d arranged a car rental for when we got there. Lesser Victoria is small and largely uninhabited. It is the Caribbean the way it might have been thirty years ago, before the big hotels and resorts arrived. It won’t stay that way much longer. Small hotels are popping up. The big developments will soon follow.

  We never made it to Lesser Victoria.

  My dad had been sad the night before, after hearing the news about Paul. He hadn’t slept well. My apartment has only one bedroom. I’d given it to my parents and taken the pull-out couch. I could hear Dad pacing in the hallway, trying not to wake me. He ran the tap to fill the kettle, bumped mugs together and dropped a spoon. I got out of bed.

  “You okay, Dad?”

  “Go back to sleep, honeybunch.”

  I yawned and hopped onto a stool at the breakfast bar. “You’re thinking about Paul.”

  “He didn’t kill himself.”

  “Maybe not. The ocean can be dangerous. People don’t always realize that.”

  “He wasn’t here on vacation. He wouldn’t have been out exploring.”

  “Dad, you don’t know—”

  “Is Darlene working today?”

  “She should be.”

  “What time does she get in?”

  “Eight. Why do you want to know? I’ve arranged for a taxi at eight fifteen to take us to the ferry.”

  “Cancel it.”

  “I don’t want to cancel it.”

  “Paul didn’t have a car. We’re miles from town. Wherever he went Wednesday, he went by cab. I intend to find out where that was.”

  “Please, Dad. Let it go.”

  “Can’t, honeybunch. Paul wanted justice. He didn’t get it. It might be up to me to get it for him.”

  “The police here are good. If there’s something to find, they’ll find it.”

  I might as well have saved my breath. I recognized that set of his shoulders and the tightness of his lips. My dad had made up his mind.

  “How about a couple of rounds of gin rummy before your mother gets up?” he asked.

  “Might as well,” I said.

  We were standing outside the hotel office at one minute to eight when Darlene’s car pulled up. I was hoping she’d have nothing to tell Dad and we could catch the ferry.

  “Good morning. Is something the matter?” She looked back and forth between the two of us. Her long earrings swung against her neck.

  “Paul Saunders,” Dad said, “didn’t meet me for lunch on Wednesday as arranged. Did you see him that morning?”

  “The police asked me this yesterday.”

  “I only want to know,” Dad said. “I’m not interfering in the police investigation.”

  Darlene’s eyes flicked toward me. I shrugged.

  “He took a taxi,” she said. “At ten o’clock. I know the time because I had just dialed in to a conference call with head office.”

  “You didn’t see him return?” Dad asked.

  “No. But that doesn’t mean he didn’t, Frank.”

  “Do you know which taxi service?”

  She turned to me. “It was Henry.”

  “Isn’t that the guy you always use, Ashley?” Dad said.

  “Yes.” And that reminded me that I hadn’t called him to cancel our trip to the ferry.

  “Great,” Dad said. “He’ll be here in a few minutes. We can ask him where he took Paul.”

  I caught Darlene’s eye and gave her another shrug. Once my dad had an idea in his head, he had to see it to its end.

  She went into her office, and Dad and I took seats on a low stone wall to wait for Henry. The rising sun shone hot in a blue sky. I watched a small lizard dash across the road and up a tree.

  “Your mother will be disappointed at missing the outing you’d planned,” Dad said. “But I’ll make it up to her.”

  “How are you going to do that?”

  “I’ll think of something. Here he comes now. He’s early. That’s good.” Dad leaped to his feet.

  “Change of plans,” he said when Henry had pulled the taxi to a stop. “You picked a man up here on Wednesday at ten o’clock. Do you remember where you took him? Did he say anything on the way?”

  “What?” Henry asked. Islanders usually approach the point in a more indirect way.

  “My dad’s friend had an…accident,” I said. “We’re curious as to what happened. That’s all.”

  “The guy who drowned off Smugglers’ Point? Yeah, I already spoke to the police about him. I told them I dropped him in town and didn’t see him again. He had my card but didn’t call for a return trip. Was he a friend of yours? Sorry.”

  “Where did you go in town?” I asked.

  “Stone Mills Center.”

  “Wha
t’s that?” Dad asked.

  “The tourist shopping district,” I said. “We were there on Monday.”

  Dad opened the front passenger door and jumped into the taxi. “Take me there. Ashley, tell your mother we’ll go out later.”

  “What about the ferry?” Henry asked.

  “Not today. Let’s go.” Dad slammed the door shut.

  Oh for heaven’s sake! I wrenched open the back door and got in.

  “You don’t have to come,” Dad said.

  “Yes, I do. Someone has to keep you out of trouble. I’ll call Mom on the way.”

  SIX

  HENRY DROPPED US off outside Island Jewelers, the place he said he’d taken Paul to.

  “Did you tell the police you let him off here?” I asked.

  “Nope. I said Stone Mills. They didn’t ask about a particular place.”

  Dad told him not to wait. He left me to pay.

  It was eight thirty on a Saturday morning. No one was around. The shops were all closed. The tourists were still in bed or enjoying a leisurely breakfast.

  “Looks like we’re too early,” Dad said.

  “I could have told you that, if you’d stopped to listen to me.”

  He read the small sign on the shop door. “They open at ten. We’ll come back then.”

  I peered through the empty store windows. The goods sold here were valuable enough that they needed to be locked up overnight.

  Two rows of shops lined the road. They were all painted a blinding white with navy-blue trim. The sidewalks were lined with palm trees, and each shop front had a giant urn overflowing with purple and white flowers. The shops were all upscale, catering to the tourist trade—art galleries, shops selling summer attire and beachwear, a real estate agent advertising vacation properties.

  “Might as well have breakfast while we’re waiting. That place on the corner looks open.” Dad set off at a brisk trot.

  “We already had breakfast,” I said as I hurried to catch up.

  “Another breakfast then.” He pushed open the door.

  The coffee shop was mostly empty. Dad ordered a bagel with egg and cheese. “Don’t nag,” he said, although I hadn’t said a word. “I’m on vacation.”