by O. L. Casper
MARK: Done yet?
I put the phone back in my pocket without replying to the message. I held the vials out in my hand and looked at them. I knew three were probably enough to dispatch her straight. In my sixteenth summer I had looked after a paraplegic who had required a daily dose of injected morphine. She took five milliliters when her pain was at its worst. At the end of the summer she actually gave me a pair of ten milliliter vials and unused syringes. I injected one and Julie injected one before we went to a high school party. We soon left, preferring to enjoy the peace of her family farm, just the two of us. Needless to say it was one of the greatest drug experiences of my life. I felt I had received enlightenment; achieved a golden intellect. Julie began to dose, and, upon waking, reported the most vivid, beautiful dreams. The inclination to take it again was so overpowering we vowed never to do it again. Via internet research we had discovered that the maximum dose either of us could take for our body weight was ten milliliters. Twenty was possibly deadly, thirty definitely was. I knew, therefore, that three would probably do the trick on Emma. Six left no room for mishaps. Looking at those vials I suddenly felt weak in the knees and the hand that held them felt warm. I was overcome by an overwhelming desire to inject a vial myself. Ten years and the natural inclination to take it again had not subsided one bit. But I resisted the temptation. I would get all six of them into Emma, one way or another, before the day was up—before even the hour was up. But how? I looked around the room again, thinking some more.
As I searched for an avenue to take I heard the sound of footsteps entering the room behind me. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end with fear. I turned to see a smiling nurse.
“You friend?” asked the short, black woman.
“Family.”
“I see. You come very fast to see her.”
“Well, I was worried.”
“Have you seen doctor?”
“Not yet.”
“You will see him soon maybe. I think he is visiting after lunch if you stay that long.”
“You’re just checking on her?”
“Giving medicine.”
“I see.”
And I watched her take a syringe from her pocket. My God, there it was. The glorious instrument in all its seductive splendor. I half-considered mugging her for it right there and risking the consequent inquiries. I wasn’t brave enough for that. What if she fought back and somehow overpowered me. She was quite a bit shorter and I doubted that she would, but of course, one can never judge another’s fighting ability based on size alone.
“Ah—” her voice cracked in astonishment, “I have wrong syringe.”
She pocketed the syringe and went to one of the drawers below the counter opposite the bed. In the drawer she found a clear plastic box.
I moved a step closer that I might glimpse inside. The plastic box was full of syringes. How could I have been so stupid as not to look in any of the drawers in the room? I had just assumed there wouldn’t be any syringes in them. I told myself I needed to understand that I was no longer in the U.S. and that people did things much differently here. I recalled the incompetence of the local police as well as that of the local journalists. The nurse unplugged the tube running to the needle in Emma’s arm and plugged in one of the syringes after transferring the contents of the syringe she had brought into it. She pumped the medicine in, put back the plastic tube as it was before, and, with a smile and a nod, left the room.
I walked to the door and peered out into the corridor in both directions. The coast was clear. The nurse who had just been in the room was no longer in sight. I closed the door and locked it. I went like a shot to the drawer where the plastic box containing syringes was. I opened it and opened the plastic box. I took out a syringe and, in my haste, dropped it on the floor. I set down the box, picked up the syringe off the floor, snapped off the end of one of the morphine vials and drew the contents therefrom into the syringe.
Unplugging the tube feeding into the needle in Emma’s arm, I plugged in the morphine-filled syringe and pumped. It went in smoothly with little resistance. I refilled the syringe with another vial and pumped it into her arm. I repeated the process till all the morphine coursed through the poor girl’s veins. The whole process took under a minute.
I plugged the tube back into the needle in Julie’s arm, and pocketed the used syringe and all the pieces of the broken vials. I put the plastic container of syringes back in the drawer, closed it, unlocked the door to the room and escaped into the corridor. I paused for a moment in the corridor, briefly considering hanging around to watch her die, but on deciding that it was an incredibly stupid idea, I headed away from the scene of the crime. I took the stairs to the first floor and seeing the bustle of nurses, doctors and others passing, everything around me turned to slow motion as my pulse quickened. I took a deep breath of air as I walked out into a sunlight that oddly felt cold. I walked deliberately slow for about a block where I came upon a taxi and summoned a ride.
Listening to myself say, “British Colonial Hilton Nassau,” I felt as though it was spoken by someone else. The most terrifying and simultaneously exhilarated feeling overcame me as the slow motion effect continued. I saw the beautiful, crisp Hilton come into view and felt like I might have accidentally ingested some of the morphine myself. I half-wished I had, to help overcome some of these nerves. Outside the Hilton I found a gutter into which I hastily deposited the used syringe and broken vials.
Stafford stood out on the balcony of our suite watching the turbulent storm sweeping in from the west. A powerful wind blew the rain sideways and lighting struck in the distance. His mobile rang and he came inside to talk. I sat on the bed reading news on the MacBook Pro.
“Yes, what is it?”
I had just finished reading an email from Julie and was about to respond when my attention was drawn back to Stafford.
“I can’t believe that…Well, I’m out of town till tomorrow. I can see you then…Alright. Good bye.”
He set down the phone and looked at me.
“Emma’s dead. This time it looks like it’s for real.”
His eyes betrayed nothing.
“Have they determined the cause?”
It had been several hours since I’d left the hospital.
“They said it was complications from her boating injury.”
“I see. Who was that on the phone?”
“The Keystone cops.”
“Eleuthera’s finest, eh?”
“Yeah.”
“How do you feel?”
“I didn’t have much faith in the hospital in the first place. I can’t say I felt it was inevitable, but I felt…I felt—”
He struggled for the right words.
“You weren’t hopeful.”
“Exactly…Damn—I should’ve done something. I could have had her moved somewhere else. I thought her family was going to do it. That’s what I was told. She was going to be moved to Florida and treated in Miami, I think.”
“Horrible. I feel terrible for her family.”
I didn’t know what else to say.
“Yes, that’s too bad. What a fucked up situation. I don’t know…I just don’t know,” he said, shaking his head and tilting it down.
“I’ve got an interview with Eleuthera’s finest tomorrow afternoon. They’re treating me like a suspect, but I really have no connection to her death. I have very little connection to her whatsoever.”
He looked at me.
“What do you think I should do?”
“Do the interview. Answer their questions. You’ll be fine.”
“I’ll have an attorney present. I’ll have you there too. But you’re not to talk to them any more than ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye.’ Understand?”
“Sure.”
“Nothing about you seeing her that day. I’d almost forgotten you were there.”
“If they ask about it?”
“If they’ve found out.”
“Of course they hav
en’t.”
“But if they do ask, just tell them what you know. If they ask me, I’ll tell them I didn’t know you were meeting her that day. That’ll explain why I didn’t say anything before. But they’re not going to ask.”
The Eleutheran
October 10, Nassau, Bahamas
WOMAN HOSPITALIZED FOR BOATING ACCIDENT DIED IN A COMA
The woman discovered on a beach two miles south of Greencastle who was initially reported dead, but later turned out to be hospitalized in a coma, has died. She died in Princess Margaret Hospital on Nassau yesterday afternoon. Apparently her death was due to complications resulting from the boating accident. As she is an American citizen, her body will be moved to Florida where her immediate family resides. Police continue in their investigation of her death.
Sophia Durant’s Diary
October 10, Eleuthera, Bahamas
The police interview just ended and I want to get it all down while it’s still fresh. Present were two detectives of the Royal Bahamas Police, Stafford, his attorney, and I. The five of us sat in his office around the glass table. Stafford sat close to the window with light coming in behind him causing him to appear as a silhouette. His lawyer sat close to the detectives. I sat between Stafford and the lawyer. The two detectives took notes on Steno pads.
“You say, Mr. Stafford, that you had no contact with the woman the day she…had the accident?”
“That’s right. None.”
“Do you mind turning over your phone records to us for inspection?”
The attorney took this one: “He will turn over everything relevant to the case as we have already discussed.”
“Yes,” the bigger one said impatiently.
They were both small but the one was slightly rounder than the other.
“You have said that. I am sorry. Let me get back to the point.”
And on it went like this. No apparent direction. No real focus on details. I’d never witnessed any kind of police interrogation, but this had to rank among the most absurd there ever were.
“What I am saying,” the bigger one continued, “is that you had established a connection with her about two weeks prior to her…accident.”
“About a week and a half,” corrected Stafford.
He did not share the detectives’ impatience. He seemed mildly amused at the course of the interview. The attorney seemed on the verge of sleep for most of it.
“Right. Week and a half.”
I thought perhaps they were repeating things to look for variance in his story. But there was none. Stafford had his facts straight and that was that.
“Let’s go back to the day in question. You had intended to go back for another viewing? Is that not so, sir?”
“Yes, I had.”
“Can you tell us why?” chimed the less round detective.
“It’s something one does when one acquires real estate, I find. Don’t you?”
The detectives looked at one another. For some reason I recalled the detectives Thompson and Thompson of the Tintin adventure comics. They bore nothing in common appearance-wise. It was the oddness of their expressions, the denseness of their approach.
“You know, Mr. Stafford, you’re not a suspect. We’re just looking for any sort of clue. Anything to point us in the direction of someone or something that might be able to help the investigation.”
“I don’t understand,” said Stafford, playing with them. “You think this is a murder or don’t you?”
The two looked at one another with dumbfounded expressions.
“That’s what we’re trying to establish, Mr. Stafford,” intoned the rounder one.
“I see,” Stafford said standing up. “If you have nothing further.”
“There are some other issues, but perhaps we can go over them another time.”
“Yes, let’s.”
Stafford finally shared their impatience.
“We just want to let you in on a few key issues in the investigation.”
“Yes, sir. I’m all ears.”
“We know there was something more than just the—how do you say?—realtor-client relationship between yourself and the dead woman.”
I cringed as he said this. I felt for Stafford.
“We have her phone messages and it seems that there was a romantic involvement.”
“There was.”
Stafford didn’t hesitate.
“This is precisely why we don’t suspect you,” said the rounder one as he leaned in, tipping his glasses down for dramatic effect.
“We believe perhaps this sparked some jealousy in someone else who knew of the affair and this person reacted in trying to knock off Ms. Green.”
“I must say, gentlemen, that comes as a bit of a surprise,” said the attorney.
“It does indeed,” said Stafford as he paced.
“What we need to know is: was there anyone else who might have known about the affair who could have been jealous enough to want to try to enact some form of…revenge?”
“That’s—” Stafford began but his attorney cut him off.
“Let me answer this, Mark. Gentlemen, we will give the matter serious thought and get back to you on the subject if we are able to come up with anything. This sort of speculation is entirely unnecessary for my client to engage upon. It is police business.”
“Indeed,” said the smaller one. “We are merely asking your help in the matter. That is all, Mr. Stafford. We consider your presence on this island a huge asset to the local community and we would not wish to make your stay unpleasant in any way. We merely wish to receive any assistance you might be able to provide us. If you cannot we understand. That is completely okay too.”
There was a round of handshakes and goodbyes and they left. Stafford shook hands with the attorney and he left as well. Stafford flew into a rage after he closed the door. But he didn’t say anything at first as he tried to suppress it, putting his head in his hands.
“I can’t believe the fucking fucked up detectives here. It’s like some kind of sick joke. And that poor girl Emma Green. She’s going to get no kind of justice whatsoever in the matter.”
“You think she was murdered.”
“That much is clear. Who did it or why they did—I have no idea. But she didn’t get her head bashed in like that in any accident. What do you think?”
“I agree with you. I feel sorry for her, but naturally I don’t have the wildest idea who might have done it.”
“On the one hand I’d like to have the matter looked into with some private help. Conduct our own investigation. In honor of Emma. Give her a chance for the justice she deserves. On the other hand—fuck it. I don’t want anything more to do with these cocksuckers. These fucking detectives so-called. Anyway, nothing’s going to bring her back so we might as well just say screw it.”
“I agree. I know this is hard for you, but what’s to be gained by another investigation?”
“It was probably some fucking native islander, some jealous little prick, who found something out. Some affair she’d had or something. And he killed her. Tried to make it look like an accident.”
“It must’ve been something like that.”
Talking like this with him felt surreal and I longed for the conversation to be over. But I had one question.
“Why did you have me sit through the…interview?”
“That’s right. I almost forgot. I wanted your take on what was said. I also thought you might be able to get into their phones, retrieve some of their conversations. I wanted you to know who they were. And I want you to go to the local police station and get what you need to tap their phones. Doesn’t have to be right away. Sometime in the next couple days would be fine.”
“I don’t have to do that.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve already got all the information I need to listen to their calls and retrieve their texts.”
“How?”
“Bluetooth.”
He smiled.
“Once you start listening in let me know what’s being said in regards to the investigation. Also bring back any dirt on them that might be useful in the future.”
“Will do.”
“I like working with you, Sophia. You’re the perfect partner.”
“Why’s that?”
“So many reasons.”
“Like?”
“You always know what I want before I ask. Maybe even before I know.”
“What else?”
“Come up to my room tonight and I’ll explain the rest.”
Later—I find Stafford in his room, sipping a glass of brandy and playing checkers on a laptop. He pours a glass for me as soon as he sees me. I remove all my clothes and stand stark naked before him. He unbuttons his shirt and takes off his pants as we both climb onto the bed. His cock is fully erect. I stroke it with one hand, cupping his balls with the other. I kiss him and he fondles my breasts. I go down on him, rubbing the head around inside my cheeks, before thrusting it in deep. He sighs with pleasure. Some pre-ejaculation fluid erupts in my throat and I swallow it. He lies back and I mount him sliding it all the way in my slippery box. I ride him slow at first. Then I gradually increase my speed, almost imperceptibly. This is all we do, engrossed in rising pleasure, as minutes slip away into hours. A graceful fuck.
Sophia Durant’s Diary
October 13, Eleuthera, Bahamas
I rode with Stafford south on Queen’s Highway en route to a hotel in Governor’s Harbour. He had given me no prior warning when he just whisked me off one morning.. In the car he clued me in on a little of what was about to happen.
“I need you to get all the information on the guys I’m about to meet with. If you can, I’d like to get into their phones and retrieve their private conversations following the meeting. Can you do that?”
“I can try. I’ll need to be in close enough proximity.”
“I can arrange that. I also want you to get into all their computers, their emails, hard drives, et cetera. I want everything.”
“This must be serious business.”
