Honeymoon for One

by Beth Orsoff

  When we reached the resort, Jack parked the golf cart and escorted us out to the bungalows. The path split at the beach, with John and Cheryl’s room to the right and mine to the left.

  Cheryl leaned in and gave me a hug. I thought she was going to ask me if I was okay. Instead she said, “Do you need a condom? I think John has one in his bag.”

  “No!”

  She shrugged, then she and John said “goodnight.”

  When I continued on the path to my room, Jack followed.

  “Do you want me to come in?” he asked, as I tried to fit the key into the lock. I leaned back against the door and closed my eyes. Did I want Jack to come in? Hmmm.

  “Lizzie, wake up.” He had me by the shoulder, but I couldn’t have been asleep. I just closed my eyes for a second.

  Jack took the key from my hand and unlocked the door just in time. I reached the bathroom seconds before I started puking. I don’t know what Jack did while I was giving back every cocktail I’d drank, but he was sitting on the couch when I returned to the bedroom. I remember smiling at him right before I fell on the bed.

  I woke up to the sound of a fist pounding on the door to the room. It was getting to be a habit, one I didn’t like.

  Before I could rouse myself a male voice said, “I’ll answer it.”

  “Jack?”

  The door cracked open and morning light flooded the front of the suite. I could see Jack in his boxers standing inside the room, and the outline of two men behind him in the doorway.

  “Is this Mrs. Lizzie Garcia’s room?” I heard one of the men ask in a thick Spanish accent.

  “Jack, who is it?”

  “Lizzie, I think you should get up.”

  I was still wearing last night’s clothes, so I slid out of bed and stumbled to the door with my hair uncombed and the taste of vomit still on my breath. “I’m Lizzie Mancini,” I said, trying not to breathe on anyone.

  “Are you the wife of Michael Garcia?” the man on the left asked. As my eyes I adjusted to the light, I could see they were wearing uniforms, but I still couldn’t make out the words on their badges.

  “No,” I said.

  The other man, the younger of the two, held up a Polaroid of Michael’s face looking pale and bloated. “This man is not your husband?”

  I glanced at Jack. “Ex-husband. Or soon to be ex-husband. We’re getting a divorce. Why?”

  They looked at each other then back at me. The one with the photo said, “We found your husband on the beach this morning.”

  “You found Michael on the beach? Is he okay?”

  “No,” the other man answered. “He’s dead.”

  Chapter 18

  I DROPPED MY HAND and stared at the two men, not caring that I was filling the air with my sour vomit breath. “But I just saw him yesterday.”

  “Yes,” the older man said, “We’d like to talk to you about that.”

  Jack stepped closer. “Lizzie was with me all night.”

  Well that answered the did he or didn’t he spend the night question. I sure wished I could remember it.

  “We’d like to ask you a few questions too, sir,” the younger man said.

  My eyes had finally adjusted to the light and I was able to read their badges. Camus Caye Police Department. And I thought this was a bad vacation yesterday. It was turning into a nightmare. My head was pounding and I was so dehydrated, I felt like I was going to faint. “I need to sit down.”

  “Of course,” the older officer said, and followed me inside my room.

  The couch was warm from Jack’s body. I didn’t know why he’d spent the night. I was pretty sure nothing had happened between us since I was still wearing yesterday’s clothes and he’d obviously slept on the sofa. But whatever his reason, I’d bet he was regretting it now.

  The older officer sat down on the chair across from me and handed me a bottle of water. “Officer Martinez,” he commanded, “why don’t you give us some privacy.”

  The younger man nodded and motioned for Jack to follow him outside. I watched as he grabbed his jeans and t-shirt off the floor, but he refused to make eye contact.

  “Is he your lover?” the older officer asked when the door had shut behind them.

  “No!” I said when I’d stopped choking. “Why would you think that?”

  He raised his bushy eyebrows and stared at me.

  Okay, dumb question. He found a man in my room at seven o’clock in the morning wearing nothing but boxer shorts. It was the obvious conclusion. “I swear, nothing happened.”

  I couldn’t tell whether he believed me or not. He nodded and unbuttoned his shirt pocket, pulling out a small pad and pencil. “How long were you and Mr. Garcia married?”

  “Excuse me but, who are you?”

  He set his pad and pencil on the coffee table. “Forgive me. I’m Sergeant Alejo Ramos of the Camus Caye Police Department. I’m sorry for your loss Mrs. Garcia.”

  I thanked him and hoped I looked like a grieving widow, praying for the moment when I’d wake up and realize this had all been a bad dream.

  He picked up his pad again and flipped it open to a clean page. “How long did you say you were married?”

  “Um, not long.” Please understand, under normal circumstances, I would never lie to the police. But when they showed me Michael’s picture with Jack standing right next to me, I panicked. What was I supposed to say now? Just kidding, we were only pretending to be married. Then I’d really look like a liar, and that couldn’t be good. Better to stay the course until this whole mess was over with.

  “What exactly does that mean, Mrs. Garcia? A month? Six months? A year?”

  “Oh no, we were on our honeymoon.” Better to stick to the story Michael and I had concocted. Surely they’d be questioning the hotel’s other guests.

  Sergeant Ramos scrunched his forehead, causing his eyebrows to converge into a giant black unibrow. “Didn’t you tell me earlier you were getting a divorce?”

  “Yes, we are. Or were. We knew right away things weren’t working out.”

  “I see. And who wanted the divorce?”

  “I did. We both did.” Keeping the lies straight was harder than I thought it would be.

  He scribbled something on his pad and continued to question me about Michael and our relationship. Of course he asked me the last time I’d seen Michael and I had to tell him about our fight at the pool.

  “Why do you think he reacted that way?” the Sergeant asked.

  “I don’t know. I guess he was jealous.”

  “Did he have reason to be?”

  “Well Manuel was staring at my chest, but it’s not like I was looking back.”

  “Manuel?”

  “The scuba boat captain. He came back to the pool with me to open the safe.”

  “The safe?”

  “In the towel hut. I needed to fix my form.”

  “What form?”

  My head was throbbing, my stomach was gurgling, it was finally starting to sink in that Michael was actually dead, and he wants to know about a form? You question suspects, not grieving widows, when it occurred to me…“Officer, how did Michael die?”

  The Sergeant glanced down at his pad. “You were telling me about a form you needed to fix. What was it for?”

  “I’m not answering any more questions until you tell me how my husband died. I have a right to know.” I was pretty sure a wife would have a right to know. She should.

  “He was stabbed,” he said in a monotone. “The hotel’s groundskeeper found your husband’s body this morning washed up on the beach.”

  Poor Michael. “But why?”

  “That’s what we’re trying to find out. Do you know anyone who would want to harm your husband Mrs. Garcia? People he owed money to or who might’ve had a grudge against him?”

  “No,” I answered honestly.

  He nodded again. “You’ll need to go to the hospital to identify the body.”

  Hospital? “Why is Michael at the hospital
?”

  “Because that’s where the morgue is, Mrs. Garcia.”

  I shivered. I’d never seen a dead body. I’d never even been to a funeral. The only person I knew who’d ever died was my grandfather, when I was five, and my mother wouldn’t let me go to the service because she thought it would give me bad dreams.

  Sergeant Ramos closed his pad and stood up. “We can talk more later. I’ll pick you up at noon.”

  I nodded and walked him to the door. I was about to shut it behind him when he spun around. “Just one more thing, Mrs. Garcia.” He was amazingly agile for a man fifty pounds overweight. “May we see your husband’s things?”

  “His things?”

  “Yes, his clothes and his luggage. We need to search for something that might give us a clue as to who may have done this to him.”

  “He doesn’t have any things.”

  “Pardon?”

  How could I explain that we not only had separate rooms, but separate hotels? I couldn’t. “He took all his stuff with him yesterday.”

  “After the fight at the pool?”

  “No, before. It was gone when I got back here.”

  “Then he must’ve been planning on leaving, even before the fight?”

  “I guess so.” As soon as the words left my mouth I realized it was the wrong thing to say.

  Sergeant Ramos stared at me for a few seconds, then reminded me again that he’d return for me later and left.

  “Sweet Jesus, what have I done.”

  Chapter 19

  I LOOKED AT THE clock. It was almost nine a.m. Belize time, which meant it was almost seven a.m. in Los Angeles. I grabbed my wallet, ran to the hotel’s lobby, punched my credit card number into the pay phone, and dialed.

  “Hello?” Jane answered sleepily.

  “Wake up, I need your help.”

  “Who is this?”

  “It’s Lizzie!” I’m gone five days and she’d already forgotten my voice?

  “Lizzie, what’s wrong?”

  “I think I’m in trouble,” I whimpered. I wasn’t sure if the tears were for Michael or for me. Probably both. “Michael’s dead.”

  “Who’s Michael?”

  “The guy from the bar. Didn’t you get my e-mail?”

  “Oh my God, Lizzie. What did you do?”

  “What do you mean, what did I do? I didn’t kill him.”

  “I know you’d never hurt someone intentionally, but I’ve seen you when you’re angry.”

  “Yeah, I scream and yell and throw things, but I don’t kill people!”

  “Okay, calm down, I’m only asking.”

  And this was from my best friend! God only knew what the police were thinking. Of course, they’ve never seen me throw a vase at someone’s head. But Steven really deserved it.

  “Start at the beginning,” she said. “And don’t leave anything out.”

  Fifteen minutes later, Jane knew the whole story, including a physical description of all the major players. Jane always liked me to describe people in terms of what actor they most resembled so she could picture them in her head. Michael she’d met, Jack was a cuter, unbroken nosed version of Owen Wilson, and Sergeant Ramos could’ve passed for a slightly older and overweight version of Miguel Sandoval, the D. A. on Medium.

  “What do I do?” I asked.

  “Are you a suspect?”

  “I don’t know. They didn’t arrest me. But Sergeant Ramos is coming back at noon to take me to I.D. Michael’s body.” Just thinking about it made me shiver.

  “That’s routine,” she said dismissively.

  “How do you know?” As far as I was aware, she’d never had to I.D. a dead body.

  “Law & Order. It’s on every night.”

  “You know I only watch SVU.”

  “They have dead bodies on SVU too.”

  “Occasionally. Most of the time the victims are still alive and they’ve only been raped.”

  “Oh please, they kill people off on SVU all the time, and they always get I.D.ed by the next of kin.”

  “Well excuse me for not being up on my police procedure. Would you like to pass along any other useful tips from your extensive television watching?”

  “Yes,” she said. “The spouse is always a suspect.”

  That much I knew. “But we’re not married.”

  “But the police don’t know that, so you need to come clean with them immediately.”

  “I wanted to, but after I lied when they showed me Michael’s picture I had to follow it through to the end. But you’re right. I’m going to tell Sergeant Ramos the whole story as soon as he gets back.”

  “No! You can’t talk to him without a lawyer.”

  “Why not? I’m innocent.”

  “Innocent people get convicted all the time Lizzie. Do you want to spend the rest of your life in a Belizean jail getting raped every day, or worse.”

  “What’s worse than that?”

  “A lethal injection.”

  My knees started to buckle and I grabbed the side of the phone booth for support. “But Jane, I didn’t do it. I swear!”

  “I know you didn’t, Lizzie, and I didn’t mean to scare you. Who knows if they even have the death penalty in Belize. And the rape thing only happens in men’s prison. Right now you need to calm down and focus on finding yourself a good lawyer.”

  “How do I do that? Half the country doesn’t even speak English. Or not our English anyway.”

  “I don’t know,” she said, “but I’ll figure something out. Have you eaten breakfast yet?”

  “I just told you the police think I murdered a man and you want to know if I’ve eaten breakfast?” I shouted, then realized the handful of other people in the lobby were staring at me and lowered my voice. “Are you kidding me?”

  “I’ll take that as a no. Go eat breakfast and call me back.”

  “But I’m not hungry,” I quietly spat out word by word.

  “I don’t care. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day and you need to keep your strength up. Order something with lots of protein and go light on the carbs. Carbs make you sleepy.”

  “And then what?”

  “By the time you finish I’ll have figured something out.”

  “What exactly?”

  “I don’t know yet. Something.”

  Somehow that didn’t bring me much comfort.

  I went to the dining room, but just the smell of food made me nauseas, so I ordered dry toast and a can of Coke to go. I ate alone in my room before I finally brushed my teeth, ripped off last night’s sweaty clothes, and took a long hot shower. When I emerged from the steam I knew exactly what to do. I would find Cheryl and ask her to introduce me to the criminal lawyer couple from Boston. Even if they weren’t the world’s best lawyers, at least they spoke American English.

  I didn’t start to panic again until I knocked on Cheryl’s door and she didn’t answer. I pounded for another five minutes until I remembered that she and John had signed up for Jack’s Discover Scuba class this morning. Suddenly last night seemed like another lifetime.

  When I arrived at the pool, Jack was passing out masks, snorkels, and fins to his students, which didn’t include John or Cheryl. But Jack spotted me. “Lizzie, hold up,” he called and left his students in the shallow end while he hurried to my side. “We need to talk,” he said quietly.

  “I know. Can you come by later this afternoon?” I didn’t know how long it would take to I.D. a body. Luckily I’d never had to before.

  “I can come by after work. Around five?”

  We agreed to meet at my room. I sure hoped Sergeant Ramos and his men wouldn’t be around for that conversation too.

  Chapter 20

  I FOUND CHERYL SUNNING herself on a lounge chair at the beach.

  “I thought you were taking the scuba diving class?”

  “I can’t,” she said. “I’m pregnant. It never occurred to me to ask until I checked the box on the medical form. But Jack said I could still come for
the snorkeling tomorrow if I wanted. He’s such a sweetheart.”

  I agreed.

  “So what happened last night?” Cheryl asked, lowering her voice.

  “You don’t want to know.”

  She closed her paperback and tossed it in her bag. “Of course I do. Tell me everything.”

  I sat down on the foot of her lounger with my head in my hands.

  She nudged my leg with her toe. “C’mon, it can’t be that bad.”

  “Wanna bet?” I practically spat. “He came back to my room where I promptly puked my guts up then passed out in bed. But that’s not even the bad part.”

  “That sounds pretty bad to me.”

  I didn’t know how to say it, so I blurted it out. “Michael’s dead.” And the tears started rolling down my cheeks. I don’t know if they were for him or for me, probably both.

  “What!”

  The couple on the next set of loungers turned and stared before quickly turning their attention back to their books and ipods.

  Cheryl slid down to the bottom of the chair and put her arm around me, shading us both under her extra-wide brimmed hat. “How did it happen?”

  “I don’t know. The police told me he was stabbed. That’s why I came to find you. Can you introduce me to those two criminal lawyers you mentioned the other night?”

  “The police think you had something to do with it?” She was incredulous, which I took as the first good sign. Cheryl had only known me for three days and even she realized I wasn’t capable of murder. Surely the police would too.

  “I’m not sure, but they were asking a lot of questions this morning.”

  “But you were with us last night. We’ll vouch for you. And I’m sure Jack will too.”

  “Thanks, but that’s why I need to talk to a lawyer. I have to find out my rights.”

  She stood up and slipped her feet into flowered flip flops and tied a matching sarong around her waist. I followed her to the row of bungalows behind the beach along the tree-line. “They’re two down from us,” she said, “in the Banana Suite.”

  Cheryl knocked on the door of a pale yellow bungalow, which was promptly opened by a petite dark-haired woman with a killer tan. “Cheryl, what’s up?”