A Quarter for a Kiss

by Mindy Starns Clark

  “Soon as we get to a landline,” I said. “I don’t want to risk using a cell phone.”

  “Good thinking.”

  At his request I brought him a bottle of water and more aspirin and then sat across from him and leaned forward, my elbows on my knees.

  “The question here,” I said, looking him in the eyes, “is if you can take this information to the NSA and find out who it was she betrayed in return for her freedom. If you can learn that, we’ll probably have the identity of the person who shot Eli.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “I was thinking that.”

  “Do you have the kind of connections that would afford you that information?” I asked. In the past Tom’s connections had nearly moved mountains.

  He looked away.

  “I think I can find out what we need to know,” he said finally. “But I have to do it in person. The more info I can bring along about Nadine, the better.”

  I took the transcript from him and scanned through it.

  “She’s planning something big,” I said. “Soon.”

  “I know.”

  I read out loud from the transcript.

  “‘We have to finish this…We’ve got the passports, we’ve got the code. It’s time to make our move.’”

  “I think she’s running scared,” he said. “She knows Eli spotted her and started asking questions, possibly alerting the wrong people to the fact she’s still alive. I think she wants to disappear again, this time for good.”

  “My guess is that she’s making an art sale to this Merveaux guy—a sale lucrative enough to risk sticking around for a few more days. Then they’re out of here.”

  “What do you think she means when she says ‘I already put it in on Sunday, for Friday’?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “What about here, ‘I told him to watch for midnight.’ Maybe that’s when they plan to make their move. At midnight Friday? Midnight Sunday?”

  Wanting to pace, I stood and washed the few dishes that were in the little sink instead.

  “‘I told him to watch for midnight,’” I repeated. “Midnight. What is it about that word that sounds familiar?”

  We were silent for a moment.

  “Her code,” Tom said finally.

  We both looked at each other, our eyes wide.

  “Her code!” I repeated back to him. “I’ll get the file.”

  I dashed over to my bags and pulled out the file Eli had put together about Nadine. In the documents he had obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, there was a mention of Nadine having sent coded messages that included the word “midnight.”

  “Here it is,” I said, flipping through the papers and then reading the classified ad Nadine had placed in the Washington Post several decades ago. “‘Midnight blue couch for sale. Call 721-0800. Ask for Piper Firve.’”

  “The word ‘midnight’ is what’s called a flag,” Tom explained. “Her cohorts could scan the classifieds every Sunday, looking for ads that started with the word ‘midnight.’ If they found one, they just decoded that same format of phone number and name, and then they had the details they needed for a face-to-face meeting.”

  I grabbed the transcript from last night and read it again.

  “She says, ‘I told him to watch for midnight.’ Meaning, ‘I told him to watch for an ad to appear in the paper that started with the word ‘midnight’?”

  “Yes,” Tom replied. “Exactly. That would explain ‘I already put it in on Sunday, for Friday.’ She put the ad in last Sunday’s paper, arranging a meeting with this Merveaux guy for Friday. Tomorrow. She put it in Sunday, for Friday.”

  We looked at each other.

  “If we can find that ad,” I said, “we can find that meeting.”

  “Let’s go,” he replied.

  We had a lot to do, I realized, as he reeled in the anchor and I secured the dinghy. Once we were underway, I went into the cabin, where it was quieter, to call Jodi. I dialed the house and there was no answer, so I tried her cell phone and she picked up right away. She was working at the dig site.

  “We missed you at the restaurant last night,” she said. “If you want to go out with us tonight, we’ll be at the Full Moon Buffet at Miss Lucy’s.”

  “The Full Moon Buffet?”

  “Yeah. They only do it when the moon is full. Real Caribbean food and a band and dancing and everything. It’s so fun.”

  “I wish we had time. Listen, I need to know where to find two things,” I said to her. “A good doctor and a good newsstand.”

  “A doctor?” she asked. “Are you sick?”

  “Tom cut his hand,” I replied. “We just don’t want it to get infected.”

  She said there were probably doctors on St. John, but the only doctor in the islands she had ever used was over in St. Thomas.

  “I got food poisoning once,” she said. “He was really nice.”

  “Isn’t there a doctor on this island?”

  She told me to hold on, and I could hear her asking someone else.

  “Sandy says there’s a clinic right in Cruz Bay,” she said after a moment. “It might take a few hours to work him in, but they’ll see him eventually.”

  “How about a newsstand?”

  She had no answer for that one except, again, to go to St. Thomas.

  “That’s the only problem with St. John,” she said. “Sometimes it’s hard to find the things you need. I suppose you could try some of the resorts here. They have gift shops, and I bet they sell newspapers. The campgrounds too.”

  She listed a few of the places she could think of off the top of her head, describing their locations.

  “You won’t have much to choose from at any of them, though,” she said. “Besides a few local papers, there’s maybe the New York Times or the Miami Herald.”

  I thanked her for her help and then I pulled out one of the charts of the island and found each of the places she had mentioned. Showing the chart to Tom, he said we were nearing the campground at Maho Bay.

  “We’ll pull in there and run to the gift shop,” he said.

  While he turned in toward the bay, I called Abraham at the St. John Police Department. The woman who answered the phone said it was his day off, so I dug out the card he had given me and tried the cell phone number he had scribbled on the back.

  “Hallo?” Abraham said in his Caribbean accent.

  “Hi, Abraham. It’s Callie Webber.”

  “Callie! How are you today?”

  “I’m on a cell phone,” I said, hoping he was savvy enough to understand that that meant I couldn’t really talk, “but I have something for you. Could you be free in about an hour?”

  “For you, you bet,” he replied, giving me instructions to a small cove near Cruz Bay. I told him we could be there at 1:30.

  Once we had hung up, I told Tom the plan and then went into the cabin to make a copy of the digital surveillance files for Abraham. I always kept a flash drive or two in the front pouch of my laptop case, so I started by grabbing the one I knew held nothing of importance and erasing it clean. Then I copied onto it the digital sound files we had made, as well as the text file of the transcription. All combined, the files took up a lot of room, but fortunately the flash drive was big enough to hold everything.

  When I was finished, I put my stuff away and came out of the cabin, emerging just as we were pulling into a beautiful cove filled from one end to the other with boats of all shapes and sizes.

  “Looks like a popular place,” Tom said, easing the boat to a stop in the shallow water.

  “I can wade in,” I told him, digging in my wallet for a few dollars. “No biggy.”

  “Grab us something to eat while you’re there, would you? I’m starving.”

  “Sure. There are some chips in Jodi’s tote bag, if you want.”

  I gave him a peck on the cheek, unhooked the ladder, and quickly climbed down. The water was cold but felt good, and I easily made my way to the beach, which was clustered wit
h noisy children.

  “Excuse me, can you tell me where I might find the gift shop?” I asked a woman on a nearby towel.

  “Take those steps,” she said, pointing. “Aaaaallll the way to the top.”

  I did as she said, quickly understanding what she meant. The Maho Bay Campground was perched on the side of a huge hill, and from what I could tell the climb to the top was going to be the equivalent of about five or six flights of stairs.

  As I ran up, I took in the sight of this amazing place, a heavily wooded series of screened-in cabins, all strung together by wooden steps that zigzagged up the hill. There seemed to be a lot of families here, and I had to dodge clusters of kids running down the stairs every few minutes.

  I was slightly winded by the time I arrived at the top, and I caught my breath as I followed the wooden arrows to the gift shop. My heart quickened as I stepped inside to see a pile of newspapers near the front of the store.

  I took what they had—the Sunday edition of the Virgin Islands Daily News and several smaller free papers. We weren’t sure what newspaper Dianne was using to plant her coded message, but I thought I ought to cover all of the bases. While I was there, I also looked for food, but there weren’t many healthful choices. I finally grabbed a pack of peanuts, some ripe bananas, and two bottles of Gatorade. I asked the man behind the counter if they had any other newspapers, and he said they got the New York Times on Sundays, but it was usually sold out by Wednesday.

  Going down the hill was easier than coming up, though I kept my hand on the rail to keep from getting dizzy as I went. Once I reached the beach, I held the bag over my head and made my way to the boat. Tom took it from me as I climbed aboard.

  “I was looking at the chart,” he said, starting up the engine. “Caneel Bay Resort isn’t too far from here.”

  “Go for it,” I said, drying off with a towel and then pulling on Jodi’s batik cover-up over my suit. It fit fine, though it was a bit more colorful than I would have picked for myself.

  Tom pulled out of the bay and, true to his word, we reached the resort in just a short while. This time he was allowed to pull right up to the dock to drop me off. I left him there and ran inside to find the gift shop.

  There was a definite difference in the clientele here, as everything was quiet and tasteful and simply screamed “old money.” The newspaper selection was different as well. I grabbed the Sunday New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the St. John Times. I was disappointed not to find the Washington Post, which was the paper Nadine had used to send messages back in the ’60s, but the clerk said that I wasn’t likely to find it anywhere on the island, that most people were happy with just the local papers and the ones from New York. On my way back to the boat, I had to concentrate on the job at hand and not waste any time lingering on the gracious and stately grounds.

  Back on the boat, I took the entire stack and stashed them in the underseat storage. Then I took one of the bananas and a handful of peanuts and sat down to eat.

  We pulled into the cove where we were to meet Abraham about five minutes late. We looked for a dock but didn’t see one. Instead, a man waved to us from the water. To my surprise, I realized it was Abraham, out swimming.

  Tom stopped the boat and I grabbed the mooring line like an expert. Abraham called something to a group of kids on the beach, and then he waded out to meet us.

  “Greetings, friends!” he cried as I lowered the ladder for him. “How are you on this sunny day?”

  He came aboard and shook my hand, but Tom simply gave him a smile and a wave. I handed Abraham a towel, which he took from me gratefully.

  “We’re great,” I said. “Are we interrupting you from your family?”

  “That’s okay. It’s my day off. We’re just limin’.”

  “Limin’?”

  “Relaxing. Hanging around.” He cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, “Samuel, don’t put sand in your sister’s hair!”

  “Are those your kids?” I asked, smiling at the sight of three small children who were playing at the waterline.

  “Yes, and that is my beautiful wife,” he said proudly, pointing at a great big woman in a blue flowered wrap. She was perched on a stool in the shade, braiding the hair of a teenager who sat on a lower chair in front of her. “She charge three dollars a braid if you want to get your hair done.”

  “That’s okay,” I replied. “Thanks anyway.”

  “So what you got for me?”

  “A surveillance recording,” I said, leading him into the cabin. “A good one.”

  “Really?”

  I glanced at Tom, but he was busy with the navigation charts. I knew he was respecting Abraham’s preference to deal only with me.

  “This is probably all we’ll be able to do,” I said to Abraham as we stepped inside. “But then again, this might be all you need.”

  We sat at the table and I pressed “Play.”

  “William!” Dianne’s voice said on the recording. “Who was it? Did you catch them?”

  “Earl’s still out on the skiff,” the man replied. “But so far he hasn’t found anyone.”

  Abraham listened intently as I let the recording play, hearing everything including Dianne and Earl’s conversation about Merveaux and Rushkin. I didn’t press “Stop” until the voice of Earl said, “We’ll be gone from here by Sunday.”

  “There’s a little more from the next morning,” I said. “But nothing as important as that.”

  “Wow,” Abraham said, leaning back against the seat. “This changes everything.”

  “It does,” I agreed.

  “Interpol better get on the stick. I think they are about to lose their primary suspect.”

  I jumped ahead through the recording, listening for the conversation Earl and Dianne had over breakfast.

  “Abraham, what’s an ‘igma’?” I asked as I scanned the file.

  “A what?”

  “An igma,” I said. “You’ll see.”

  I found the correct spot and pushed “Play.”

  “I’ll start packing today,” Dianne’s voice said. “I suppose we take with us only what we can fit on an igma.”

  I pushed “Stop” and looked at Abraham’s surprised face.

  He burst out laughing.

  “What’s so funny?” I asked.

  Abraham laughed so hard that even Tom came to the doorway to see what was going on. Finally the sergeant got himself under control, wiping the tears of laughter from his eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t mean to laugh.”

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “It’s not an igma,” he said, laughing again. “It’s Enigma. Her boat. They will take with them only what they can fit on Enigma.”

  Thirty-Three

  Poor Abraham’s family day at the beach was cut short. After a quick phone call to the station and then a brief conversation with his wife, he came back on our boat and asked us to give him a lift into Cruz Bay. He was glad to have the flash drive with the recording and the transcription, but I offered to let him take the listening station with him as well.

  “As far as we know,” I said, thinking of the dog bone, “there’s still one bug left there, outside, but I don’t think you’ll pick anything up from it.”

  “I should ask you if this surveillance ended up helping with your investigation too,” Abraham said as he tossed the bumper over the side.

  “More than you could imagine,” I replied. “I’ll keep you posted if we turn up anything else.”

  “You do that,” he said, climbing out of the boat. There was a uniformed officer at the other end of the dock, waiting to drive him home for a change of clothes and then straight to the station.

  “Thanks again,” he called to us as he hurried away. I felt a surge of satisfaction that Tom and I had done a good job with our assignment for him—even if we were only paid one dollar.

  We backed away from the dock and then kept our speed down as we worked our way along the shore
to the harbor, where we could dock the boat while Tom went to the doctor’s office.

  He thought it would be easier to walk than drive, so I kissed him goodbye then watched as he headed off toward town with his hands gingerly in his pockets. I would stay put on the boat and go through the newspapers, and maybe by the time he was back I would have discovered the when and where of the next day’s clandestine meeting.

  I wasn’t sure how far and wide Dianne’s coded message had to travel, but I had a feeling her new medium for that was probably not the Washington Post, as it had been in the ’60s, but was instead now either the Miami Herald or—more likely—the New York Times. That was the only newspaper offered for sale in all the shops I had gone to, and my conversation with the sales clerk told me that it was probably the easiest paper to find throughout the islands.

  I flipped to the classifieds, which were extensive. My best bet was merchandise because that’s how the messages had been coded before. I scanned down listings for dinette sets and purebred puppies, looking for the word “midnight.”

  My eyes skipped over it at first.

  Suddenly, I blinked and scanned back up.

  There it was!

  Midnight Cowboy DVD for sale. Call 417-0800. Ask for Thae Barthos.

  Heart pounding, I crossed out every third letter in the person’s name. The meeting would be tomorrow at 8:00 A.M. at a place called “The Baths.”

  The Baths.

  Something about that sounded familiar. I grabbed the Virgin Islands guidebooks I had collected and flipped through them until I found a photo of a man and a woman floating in a giant stone cave. The caption of the photo said, “Visit the Baths of Virgin Gorda, a Once-in-a-Lifetime Experience.”

  According to the map, Virgin Gorda was in the British Virgin Islands, which weren’t too far away. The Baths seemed to be some sort of natural landmark there. I decided to call Tom. The sooner he was finished at the doctor’s office, the sooner we could pursue this lead—though whether we should take the info to the NSA or go straight to Abraham, I wasn’t sure. I also needed to call my father, to see what he had learned from the police in Cocoa Beach, and Stella, to see how Eli was faring.