Our Island Inn (Quirky Tales from the Caribbean)

by Rebecca M. Hale

  Whug.

  My legs crumpled beneath me, and I fell to the ground. There was nothing I could do. The hag was freakishly strong. She grabbed me by the ankles and dragged me off into the brush.

  I had one last thought before I blacked out.

  I’ve always had bad luck with women.

  Chapter 57

  Elsie

  ELSIE SCAMPERED DOWN a side street, quickly distancing herself from the police station. A few blocks away, she reached the ferry dock. The passengers from the midday boat were dispersing, and she managed to hop onto the last safari truck headed for the big resort on the island’s west end.

  It was an inefficient and roundabout journey to her intended destination, but it was the best she could come up with on short notice. She hadn’t planned to spend the entire morning at the police station, much less trapped inside a holding cell.

  The truck made several obligatory photo-taking stops en route to the resort. Once there, Elsie sat through a lengthy delay while the tourists and their multiple pieces of luggage were unloaded.

  When at last the main delivery had been completed, the driver agreed to transport Elsie along the north shore road to Parrot Ridge – but he balked at her request to be driven up to the inn.

  “I’ll drop you off at the turn,” he said with a shudder. “I like to keep all of my pieces and parts attached to my body.”

  ~ ~ ~

  ELSIE HOPPED OUT at the foot of the drive next to the hedge Romeo had clipped during his desperate attempt to escape his pursuer.

  She climbed the steep hill up to the inn, pausing at the summit to survey the parking lot.

  The police officers tasked with inspecting the restaurant’s kitchen pantry had left for the day, taking several hundred jars filled with dubious contents back to the station for processing.

  Only two jeeps remained in the lot: the one that belonged to the innkeepers and a rental model.

  She knew who had leased the second vehicle.

  Crossing the asphalt, Elsie tread quietly down the steps into the pavilion. She circled the empty pool area, threading through the tables and chairs to the far northwest corner.

  Peering down at the clearing below, she found the person her father had telephoned the night before.

  A woman in a flowery skirt and a pink short-sleeved sweater stood on the rough ground at the edge of the jungle. She shifted her stance to look up at the pool deck.

  The gaps in her sandals revealed delicate pink toenails.

  ~ ~ ~

  OLIVIA FROWNED AS she watched Elsie descend the pavilion’s exterior stairs.

  “I was expecting the reverend.”

  “He must have been delayed.” Elsie reached the bottom step but ventured no farther. “They’ve arrested Oliver.” She shook her head. “It was supposed to be Glenn.”

  Olivia folded her arms over her chest. “Things don’t always turn out the way we’ve planned.” Her lips pursed together. “What can you tell me about this Romeo fellow? The one you left rotting on the beach.”

  Elsie didn’t trust the tiny woman from Texas. She decided to keep her response vague. “He had an accident. Someone ran him off the road.”

  Olivia rolled her eyes. She’d heard the story from the reverend. She knew exactly what had happened to the unlucky vagrant. “Maya’s never been a very good driver.”

  Elsie shrugged. She felt no sympathy for the dead man. “She can’t abide a thief.”

  Olivia’s voice sharpened. “Look, I’ve got a lot at stake here. Everything was all wrapped up, fair and square. Now this other guest is missing.” She put her hands on her hips. “Did Millicent have an accident too?”

  At Elsie’s silence, Olivia stomped across the clearing to the foot of the stairs.

  “Where’s your aunt now?”

  “Maya left the inn last night after they found Romeo’s body. She’ll be off the island soon.” Gripping the railing, Elsie began to ease herself up the steps. “She just has a few loose ends to tie up.”

  Olivia moved to within arm’s reach.

  “As have I.”

  Elsie looked down at Olivia’s fierce expression – and then glanced over the woman’s shoulder to a movement at the edge of the forest.

  “You’ve had a long trip,” she said politely. “Can I make you a cup of coffee?”

  The overture caught Olivia off guard, but she quickly recovered. “Some tea would be nice, thank you.”

  Smiling to herself, Elsie turned and trotted up the stairs to the kitchen.

  Chapter 58

  The Sickness

  THE REVEREND PLOPPED his weight onto the far side of the couch inside the parsonage and stared up at the ceiling.

  Inspector Pickering resisted the urge to pull his notepad from his pocket. “Tell me about your wife.” He glanced across the couch at the reverend. “And the cursed in-laws.”

  “I met Simmee over on the big island. That’s where I attended seminary.” The reverend stroked his chin, cherishing the memory. “She was a parishioner in my first church. We got married a few months after we met. Those were happy times for us.

  “When Elsie came along, I decided to move the family back here and start a new branch. My father donated this land and the parcel around the corner for the chapel. Nothing made him prouder than seeing me standing behind the pulpit. He was in my chapel every Sunday until the day he died.”

  Pickering nodded. He remembered the elderly gentleman from the weekly services.

  The reverend’s shoulders hunched forward, and his face grew somber. The happy memories had clouded over.

  “When I was young, in my early teens, I told my father about my sickness…for other men. I’ll never forget the way he looked at me, like I was a foul, disgusting creature. Then he grabbed his cane and beat me. Nearly broke my jaw. When I came to, he leaned over me and said, ‘This is what people will do to you if you become one of those. If you give in to your sin.’ That’s the only time we ever discussed the matter.”

  The reverend was silent for a moment.

  “My whole life, I’ve tried to eradicate it from my being – with only limited success.”

  ~ ~ ~

  PICKERING GRIPPED HIS kneecaps and then released them.

  Even though his mentor had revealed the reverend’s sexual struggles in his packet of private notes, it was a different experience to hear the confession directly. With a grunt, the inspector steered the conversation back toward the reverend’s wife and in-laws.

  “Maya and Jesús. Your family connection to them isn’t widely known.”

  “They’re not the kind of relatives you brag about.”

  The reverend drew in his breath and then slowly released it, fortifying himself for the next narrative.

  “I met Maya and Jesús when they came to work at Parrot Ridge – fifteen years ago. Simmee liked seeing her sister, and we started going up there a couple of times a week for dinner. It was a glamorous place. They had live music to go with the view. And Maya’s always been a fantastic cook.”

  The reverend glanced over at his listener. “I didn’t know about the jars back then.”

  Pickering grunted queasily. “That stuff has killed my appetite.”

  The reverend strummed his thick stomach. “Nothing puts a dent in mine.”

  He paused for several seconds as if struggling with the next sentence. “That’s when I fell into temptation. At the restaurant.”

  “With Jesús?” This too had been in his mentor’s notes, but Pickering wanted the reverend to confirm it.

  “Yes. With Jesús.”

  ~ ~ ~

  “HE KNEW WHAT I was. Somehow, he saw through my defenses. For a month, I resisted, but he had this way about him. He was charming, and he sensed I was weak. One day, I succumbed. I fell into the abyss.”

  The seat cushions creaked as Pickering shifted his weight, crossing one leg over the other.

  “It happened in the pantry.”

  Pickering nearly fell off the couch. “The p
antry?”

  “The devil’s pantry. I told you, I had no idea what they were storing in those jars.” The reverend scowled. “Jesús always had a strange sense of humor.”

  Pickering rubbed his head. He was beginning to understand why his predecessor had retired after the original Parrot Ridge case.

  The man sitting next to him still had much to share.

  “It usually occurred late in the evening after most of the dinner crowd had gone home. I would step away from the table, saying I was headed for the restrooms, but Simmee knew that was a lie.

  “Maya never seemed to mind about her husband. She and Jesús had some sort of understanding.”

  The reverend pressed his thick lips together.

  “My wife, she minded.”

  Chapter 59

  A Mind of Its Own

  ORLANDO PICKERING WISHED he could obliterate from his memory all references to Parrot Ridge and its many sordid secrets. He had no choice now but to press through to the end.

  “Tell me about the night of the stabbing.”

  The reverend resumed his tale.

  “Simmee was no fool. She suffered through it for weeks, but finally, she’d had enough. That night, when I slipped off to be with Jesús – she followed me to the pantry. She took one look at the two of us and grabbed a knife from the kitchen counter.”

  Pickering’s brow furrowed. “So Simmee attacked you with the knife?”

  The reverend shook his head. “Not me. She was aiming for Jesús.” He paused for a short chuckle. “I don’t think that was the first time Jesús had been chased by an angry spouse. He ran around those kitchen counters faster than a rabbit…”

  The laughter died in his voice.

  “But Simmee cornered him. She stood there, holding that knife, while Jesús cowered on the floor in front of her. She didn’t intend to cut him. She just wanted to put a scare in him – to make him stop. Make me stop.”

  He sighed.

  “If it had ended there, we could have just gone home.”

  ~ ~ ~

  PICKERING WAITED THROUGH a lengthy silence before prompting the reverend to continue. “But it didn’t end there.”

  “No,” the reverend finally replied. “Olivia’s husband walked into the kitchen from the parking lot, and he jumped forward to protect Jesús. You know that he and Jesús were…”

  Pickering grunted his acknowledgement. He was beginning to wonder how such a small handful of people could be engaged in so many tangled relationships.

  “The husband charged up to Simmee and hollered at her to put down the knife.” The reverend raised his hand, demonstrating her lax grip. “She began to drop her arm.”

  Suddenly, he clenched his fist and thrust it forward. “But that knife took on a mind of its own. The blade caught the husband in the chest and sliced right through him.”

  The reverend’s hand fell to his lap. “Simmee stood there with her mouth hanging open. I don’t think she realized what had happened, but I had a side angle view. Olivia had moved in behind Simmee. She grabbed hold of the handle and thrust the blade into her husband’s stomach.”

  The reverend paused before adding a last observation.

  “The man staggered out onto the pool deck, gasping and spewing blood everywhere. He knocked this ceramic parrot off the counter by the cash register. The thing cracked when it hit the ground. Olivia was far more upset about that broken parrot than she was about killing her husband.”

  ~ ~ ~

  PICKERING RUBBED HIS chin, envisioning the revised scene.

  “Olivia didn’t jump off the deck railing…”

  “No,” the reverend said sadly. “That was Simmee. She twisted an ankle in the fall, but her main injury wasn’t physical.” He tapped the side of his head. “She was never the same after that night. She didn’t kill the man, but it was impossible for her mind to reconcile reality with what she’d seen – the knife lunging forward in her hand like that. Her personality split apart. It broke her.”

  He swallowed. “I broke her.”

  Pickering glanced out the home’s front window. During her mental illness, Simmee had been known to wander off into the woods for days at a time. He found it difficult to imagine anyone could have survived in the jungle all these years, but he had to ask. “Is she still out there?”

  The reverend was similarly skeptical. “Elsie thinks so,” he said dubiously. “She leaves food out for her mother. She wants to bring her back home. I keep telling the girl, Simmee left us long ago.”

  Pickering stood from the couch. He’d heard all he could stomach in one session, but he still had a few unanswered questions.

  “What happened to the body on the beach? The man who called himself Romeo? Why was he killed?”

  The reverend looked at the floor, evading both the inspector’s gaze and the question.

  “The night her husband died, Olivia told your predecessor that the stabbing was an accident. The story was a mutually beneficial arrangement. It protected everyone involved, including me. I never thought I’d hear from her again – until she sold the property to those two men and they built the new inn. The next thing I knew, Maya and Jesús had applied for the cooking position. That’s when this recent trouble began.”

  Tired from the long confession, the reverend’s shoulders sagged with exhaustion.

  “Olivia knew about Maya and her jars. She thought that was the perfect way to get rid of husband number two. I couldn’t very well complain. She made it clear she would ruin me if I caused any problems. I sent Elsie to work at the inn to keep an eye on them.”

  Pickering cut in testily. “And to the police station – to keep an eye on me.”

  “It wasn’t enough to prevent this tragedy…to stop the curse.” The reverend’s voice dropped to a shamed whisper. “I called Olivia last night to tell her about that boy. The moment I saw his body, I knew this was all coming to an end. She flew down this morning. She should be at the inn now. You can go arrest her if you like.”

  He put his head in his hands.

  “Orlando, the hounds are coming for me. I’ve suffered enough for my sins. Leave me be.”

  The inspector stared at the broken man slumped on the couch.

  Without another word, Pickering turned and strode out the door.

  ~ ~ ~

  THE REVEREND WALKED to the window to watch Pickering’s truck roll off down the drive.

  A voice with a thick Spanish accent called out from the rear bedrooms.

  “The coast is clear?”

  Fresh from a shower, Jesús strolled into the living room wearing only a towel wrapped around his waist.

  Chapter 60

  Like a Bird

  OLIVIA TOOK A seat on the pool deck’s far northwest table while Elsie disappeared into the restaurant’s kitchen to prepare the tea.

  Clouds sank heavy in the sky. From the elevated perch on Parrot Ridge, the feathery white blobs looked close enough to touch.

  Moments later, Elsie brought out the tea service and placed it in front of her guest. The tray held a dainty cup and saucer, an assortment of packaged teas, a pile of sugar packets, a plate of lemon wedges, and a pitcher of hot water – the last item having been tainted by a colorless hallucinogenic.

  Olivia selected a tea bag, opened its wrapper, and placed it in the cup. Tilting the pitcher, she poured hot water over the bag. Then she dropped her hands to her lap and waited for the tea to steep.

  She sat upright in the chair, her ankles crossed on the ground beneath her. While she remained wary of her server, her thoughts drifted back to her earlier life on the island.

  “I was so miserable when I lived here, I never really appreciated the view.”

  Olivia glanced down at the cup. Using the string attached to the tea bag, she dunked the leaves up and down in the hot water. When she determined that the brew had reached the right consistency, she set the bag on the side of the saucer. Then she selected a lemon wedge and squeezed its juice into the mix.

  �
��All I could think about was how to get away.”

  Elsie drew in her breath as Olivia wrapped her hand around the cup’s handle. Pinky finger extended, she lifted the cup to her lips. She held it there for several seconds before deciding that the tea was too hot to drink.

  Elsie concealed her disappointment as Olivia returned the cup to the saucer.

  Trying to be patient, she took a seat on the other side of the table. “I remember that night, all those years ago,” she said, hoping to keep Olivia talking. “The night your first husband died.”

  Olivia smiled at the memory. “I was so desperate to get rid of that man. I would have done anything to escape my marriage.”

  She raised the cup again, gently blowing on the liquid’s surface. Pressing her lips to the cup’s rim, she completed her first swallow.

  “I never thought I had it in me to kill a man, but when the opportunity presented itself, I took it.”

  Elsie pictured the scene. As a young girl, she’d watched the event unfold from the far corner of the kitchen – and witnessed the destruction that the act had inflicted upon her mother. The memory had haunted her since childhood.

  Olivia sipped more of the tainted tea. “Sometimes, Elsie, you have to take a chance.”

  Elsie eyed the amount of liquid remaining in the cup, estimating how much of the hallucinogen Olivia had ingested. Then she decided to follow the other woman’s advice. “My aunt said you collect birds.”

  “Yes, pretty little ceramic ones.” Olivia leaned back in her chair, noticeably more relaxed. “I started my collection after I married my first husband. I used to stare at my birds and dream about flying away from my troubles.”

  Elsie recognized her opening. She homed in on the key phrase and said softly, “Fly away.”

  Olivia looked out at the sea, her eyes glazing over as they tracked a pair of gulls crossing the clouded sky. “How nice it would be to fly away…”

  She took a long unladylike gulp from her cup.

  “Just fly away,” Elsie repeated, a little louder this time.