by Junie Coffey
“Uh-huh,” said Nina.
Bridget hurried over breathlessly with one of her housemates in tow.
“Tell them what you told me, Dan,” she urged her friend.
“OK. Like I told the police, last night Janet and I were sitting on the rooftop terrace just talking, about eleven thirty, maybe. We were sitting at the table on the side nearest the inn. I heard Sylvia shouting, so I got up to look. I saw someone climb over the back wall of her bungalow and take off running across the lawn to the driveway. I ran downstairs to try to see where the burglar went, but by the time I reached the driveway, I’d lost sight. I went to the front desk and told the guy there what I saw, and he called the police right away.”
“Now we’re getting somewhere!” said Danish, rubbing his hands together. “Did you get a look at the person?” he asked urgently.
“No,” said Dan. “It was dark under the trees. I just saw a silhouette.”
“Short hair, long hair? Male, female? Help us out here, Dan,” said Danish.
Dan thought for a moment.
“It was a woman,” he said.
“How do you know?” asked Nina.
“She ran like a girl,” he replied. Dan lifted his arms and banged them against his sides.
Nina rolled her eyes but held her tongue. No use antagonizing a possibly useful witness.
“That could be any of them. Philip, Razor, Victor. Maybe not Victor. He’s too tall,” Danish said. “The only one it couldn’t be is Bridget, because she was at The Redoubt when it happened. I made a call—your alibi checks out.” He looked at Bridget.
“My alibi? Why would I want to kill Sylvia?” Bridget asked. She sounded genuinely curious. Danish ignored her question.
“Victor was also at The Redoubt last night, and on the night Philip was attacked. It took a while, but I got Veronica to confirm that much,” said Danish. “If Philip’s claim that he was hanging out at The Pirate’s Wake all night checks out, the only suspect who doesn’t have an alibi for either night is Razor. He says he was in his room, alone, at the time of both attacks.”
They all looked down to the far end of the long table, where Razor was going through the fruit basket. He selected a banana and wandered back to his seat. Bridget gasped and covered her mouth with her hand.
“OK, everyone! We’re going to get started again. Please find your seats!” said the nice Canadian culinary-tourism expert.
9
The next morning, Nina had a craving to see the sun rise, so she pulled on a sweater and took her coffee out on the veranda before even the birds were awake. The island’s beauty was more apparent in the quiet of the morning. A gentle breeze rustled the fronds of the coconut trees, and the waves gently lapped against the beach. Les’s bungalow was dark. Maybe I have Bridget to thank for that, Nina thought. She wandered down to the shore in the half-light before dawn with her coffee cup in her hand and strolled along in the surf toward the fishing lodge, her eyes searching the sand for pretty shells washed in on the tide. She picked up two perfect, pure-white scallop shells and a glossy white-and-yellow butterfly shell, as delicate as a piece of fine china.
In the shallows, several large orange sea stars were scattered across the sandy bottom. Nina reached down and touched the rough, textured back of one, then stood in the water up to her knees and watched the sky turn a delicate shade of pink. The pink changed to china blue, which became more and more saturated until the sky was an intense cobalt and lit with brilliant sunshine.
Pineapple Cay started to come alive for the day. Nina saw a couple of cars passing on the road behind her house, and somewhere down the beach toward town, someone started hammering and sawing wood. As she walked back toward home, Nina looked beyond the grove of palm trees beside her cottage and noticed a couple of joggers go by on the sidewalk. She recognized Veronica’s upright posture, and—Victor? She’d never have guessed he was a runner, but that was certainly his tall, thin frame trotting along beside Veronica. He was heading back into town from the direction of The Enclave.
Well, good for him, thought Nina. As she rinsed her feet in the basin of water on the veranda steps, Nina decided she’d give the morning session of the Delancy Symposium a pass. She’d done her part in organizing the venue and the on-site activities, and Bridget was handling the rest of it. She needed a break from Philip and PowerPoint presentations.
It occurred to Nina that she hadn’t really done much exploring of Pineapple Cay on her own since she’d arrived. She’d always had Ted or Pansy or Danish in tow. She got out the guidebook she’d bought at the gift shop in town and decided to hike up the highest peak on the island, where there were some ruins of an old loyalist plantation house. But first she’d stroll into the village center, pick up a few postcards to send home, and have breakfast at the sidewalk tables in front of the bakery. She grabbed her bag and headed down the sidewalk toward town.
A short while later, Nina was sitting at a café table in front of the bakery with a cup of coffee and a warm banana muffin, a copy of the Pineapple Cay weekly newspaper, and a view of the sea. The smell of baking pineapple turnovers wafted out the screen door of the shop. A slow but steady stream of shoppers strolled up and down the main drag of Coconut Cove, bringing life into the little town. Nina was reading an article on preparations for the upcoming homecoming parade when the noise of a loud V-8 engine made her look up. A shiny red truck zoomed past.
That guy again, she thought, wondering again what his story was. She drained her coffee cup, gathered her things, and wandered down to Joe’s Boat and Golf Cart Rentals. The trail to the top of Lime Tree Hill was a couple of miles south of the village, so she thought it’d be best to cruise down there in a golf cart. She picked out a nice banana-yellow cart and hit the road. There were no other vehicles in the small parking area at the side of the road that marked the trailhead. A small wooden sign with LIME TREE HILL and an arrow carved into it had been pounded into the ground at knee level; the arrow pointed up a sandy path into the bush. Nina shouldered her backpack containing a bottle of water, sunscreen, and her guidebook and headed up the path through a grove of stalky palmetto palms and shiny-leafed cocoplum bushes.
The heat was intense, and as the path started to climb, the footing changed from sand to uneven coral bedrock. Nina was glad she’d worn her sun hat—a purchase from the straw market—and her hiking boots. She stopped to apply a fresh layer of sunscreen to her nose and shoulders. Cicadas sang loudly in the bush. The path ran alongside the remnants of a thick wall, about three feet high and at least two feet thick, made of coral stone. According to her guidebook, it had been built by loyalist plantation owners who’d fled the American Revolution to make a new life on Pineapple Cay more than two hundred years before. They’d built the wall to pen in the sheep and cows they’d brought with them. The animals didn’t thrive in the tropical island climate, and those few settlers who hung on eventually switched to growing pineapples, oranges, and mangoes. They sent tons of exotic fruit to England, first as ballast on the ships that brought stores to the islands, and then, when the aristocracy developed a taste for it, as coveted delicacies for the banquet table. But farming was hard on this coral island, and many settlers gave up after a few years. The stone shell of the manor house, visible through a stand of hardwood trees at the base of Lime Tree Hill, as well as the thick stone wall that surrounded it, was now grown over by scrubby hardwoods and vines.
The hike to the peak of Lime Tree Hill took Nina less than an hour. Pineapple Cay had a few low, rolling hills, but no mountains. Standing on the top of Lime Tree Hill at just 250 feet above sea level (according to her guidebook), Nina had a panoramic view down the length of Pineapple Cay in both directions. She took a drink from her water bottle and looked north. Just south of town she could see the roof of the Plantation Inn, the beach in front of it dotted with sunbathers. Bubba and Nancy’s big white yacht was anchored out in the cove, and several dozen sailboats with tall masts were tied up at the marina. And there was Coconut Cove,
with its neat grid of streets lined with prettily painted cottages, built alongside the cove. The peppermint-pink government building stood next to the blue police station on the waterfront, and the lemon-yellow primary school was next to the gleaming white church on the edge of the village. North of the village, past her own little yellow cottage, she could make out some of the large, gated villas in The Enclave. She could see the dark, heaving ocean and the white froth of the waves crashing against the rocky cliffs on the Atlantic side, while a few hundred yards away on the Caribbean side of the island, the water was calm, and a cheerful shade of turquoise.
Nina swiveled her head to look south down the island. There were just a few small, scattered fishing settlements south of Coconut Cove. A creek wound its way to the sea through a vast tract of bush and mangrove. Farther south, Nina could see a patchwork of white-rimmed salt ponds. Near the ponds were several huge, gleaming white hills. At first, her northerner brain registered them as piles of snow, but of course they were giant heaps of sea salt. Ted had told her there was a saltworks on the island. Trailing off the end of Pineapple Cay was the long chain of small, mainly uninhabited islands that were preserved as Diamond Cays National Park. It was serenely beautiful. Nina smiled and took a deep breath of sweet sea air.
As she exhaled slowly, she looked directly in front of her. Lime Tree Hill overlooked a long swath of undeveloped white-sand beach. From what she had learned about island history and the ins and outs of island real estate from Pansy, Nina figured that it was probably generational land—land collectively owned by the inhabitants of the island who had descended from the slaves of the original plantation owners. Generational land could not be easily sold. Otherwise, the beach would have been lined with vacation homes by now.
There was a boat a short distance offshore. Not the typical pleasure craft loaded with holidaymakers in bathing suits doing some snorkeling. It was an industrial vessel. A barge or a dredger. Nina could hear the drone of a large diesel engine from where she stood at the top of the hill. There were two men in blue jeans, work gloves, and ball caps moving back and forth on the deck. They seemed to be positioning some piece of heavy equipment at the stern of the boat. And there was the shiny red truck parked on the beach! A man wearing a ball cap and sunglasses leaned against the front grill of the truck with his arms crossed, watching the men at work on the barge in front of him.
Nina guessed they were building something in the water. Maybe a wharf. Nina didn’t know anything about construction. Maybe it was a commercial fishing boat, but it seemed too close to shore. There was no one else on the beach and no houses visible in either direction. Just several acres of bush and the potholed dirt road Red Truck Man must have driven in on.
Something moved in the bushes directly below Nina, about a hundred feet down the hill. It was Les. Nina recognized his scrawny backside and pudding-bowl haircut. He was crouched behind a clump of palmetto palms. As she watched him, he scurried a short distance away to take cover behind a boulder. He raised a camera to his eye and took several pictures of the boat and the guy leaning against his truck on the beach.
Suddenly, Nina felt exposed. If Les was hiding from those guys, maybe she should be, too. As quietly as she could, she moved back from the edge so Les wouldn’t see her if he looked up, and she crouched behind her own clump of palmetto palms. Almost as if Red Truck Man had sensed he was being watched, he turned his head and looked up at the summit of Lime Tree Hill, scanning the peak with his sunglass-shaded eyes. Nina stayed very still, suddenly glad that she’d worn her olive-green T-shirt this afternoon. It seemed like he was staring right at her for a long moment, but then he looked away, back out to the barge offshore. He walked to the edge of the water and yelled something to the men onboard. Nina couldn’t hear it. She didn’t know what they were doing, or why it was so interesting to Les that he was taking pictures of it, but she had a strong sense they shouldn’t know she was there. When she was sure Red Truck Man and the guys on the boat were fully occupied again with whatever it was they were doing, she crept back away from the summit and walked quickly back down the path to her rented golf cart, glancing frequently over her shoulder to see if Les or Red Truck Man was following her. There was no sign of either.
So much for a relaxing afternoon hike, she thought as she motored back to the village. As she drove past the school yard full of children running and laughing in their neat navy-blue-and-white uniforms, she decided it must just be her overactive imagination that had made her think anything sinister was going on. The attacks at the inn had her seeing suspicious behavior everywhere. But it was strange that Les just happened to be at the inn the night Philip was attacked, and now here he was skulking around in the dunes. It seemed like all this started when he arrived back on the island. Pansy said he was from Connecticut. Philip went to Yale, which is in Connecticut. Maybe they’d met there somehow, sometime. Bridget said she’d run into Les at The Redoubt the night Sylvia was attacked. Being spotted in a crowded bar on the night in question would provide a good alibi, and also enough cover to slip out for a few minutes and commit a crime. But how did Red Truck Man fit in?
Not everyone’s a criminal, Nina, she reminded herself. Some are just jerks.
She decided to stop in at The Redoubt to say hi to Veronica and maybe have a quiet, cool drink on the back deck before heading home. She returned the golf cart, then headed down the sidewalk to The Redoubt. It was quiet. Just a few scattered tables of vacationers. Bob Dylan was warbling away on the jukebox. Veronica stood behind the bar, drying glasses with a white towel. Frank Carson sat at the bar talking to her. Nina made her way over.
“Come on, what do you say, Veronica?” Frank was saying. “You know we were made for each other. We’re both strong, independent thinkers with a low tolerance for bull crap. How about a moonlight sail on my boat? You can sit back and relax while I cook up my famous seafood paella for you. We’ll drink champagne, dance under the stars. I might surprise you.”
Veronica smiled and shook her head slowly, still drying glasses.
“Frank, as I’ve told you at least a hundred times, thanks for the invitation, but no. My bull-crap detector starts beeping every time you walk in here. You and I both like things just the way they are, so don’t pretend you don’t.”
Veronica smiled at Nina as she slid onto a stool beside Frank. “Hi, Nina, how is it? What can I get you?”
“Hi, Veronica,” Nina said. “How are things? I’ll have an iced tea, thanks.”
Veronica moved down the bar to pour her iced tea and serve a couple of customers who had just sat down.
“Hi, Frank,” said Nina.
“Hello, Nina Spark. Start any neighborhood wars lately?” He grinned at her as he slowly spun his bottle of beer on the bar top.
Veronica set Nina’s iced tea in front of her with a smile and moved away again.
“Actually, I’m giving some serious thought to taking things to the next level and suing Les for polluting my visual environment and stressing me out with his music. Would you be interested in the case?”
He took a long pull on his beer, then turned to face her. “Although it’s against my professional interests to do so—and I have no love for that Jet Ski–joyriding fish-terrorist Jones—I’m going to give you a piece of advice on the house: Live and let live. Life is short, sunshine. Be happy.”
“That’s really deep, Frank,” said Nina. “The problem is, I can’t hear myself think when I’m sitting on my back porch.” She took a sip of her iced tea. “Ah, I get it. You’re a genuine hippie. ‘Everybody get together, try to love one another’ and all that. I thought that didn’t work out.”
“Ain’t nothing wrong with that sentiment, sunshine, but that was just a little before my time. I made my poke as a tax attorney up north. More libertarian than liberal, politically speaking. All I’m saying is you’ll get more out of life if when Les plays his music, you just take off your clothes and dance on the sand, instead of wasting your time arguing in court or shooting
spitballs at him over the hedge.”
“Well, thank you for your advice, I guess. I’ll think about it,” Nina said.
“Hello, Ted. I was hoping I’d run into you today,” said Frank, looking over Nina’s shoulder. Ted slid into the vacant seat beside Nina. Her stomach did a little flip.
“Hi, Frank. How’re you doing?” he said. He removed the ball cap he was wearing in place of his khaki hat and set it on the bar. “Hi, Nina,” he said more softly, with a smile.
“I’ve been fishing the flats off Sandy Point all week, and I’ve been seeing fish, but I haven’t caught a goddamn thing,” said Frank. “Where’re you boys looking these days? Are you having any luck?”
“We got a beauty yesterday morning. Ricky’s hooked a few off Wreath Cay and in Turtle Creek. The fishing will improve once the full moon passes. They’re feeding at night and not too interested in what we’re throwing at them during the day,” said Ted. He looked at Nina.
“I thought we might try dinner again next weekend after your conference is over. Somewhere down-island where there’s less chance of being ambushed by well-wishers. There’s a nice little place on the water in Lank’s Cove.” He thought for a second. “Problem is, it’s mainly a seafood place, and you’re vegetarian, as I recall. I’ll call ahead. Linda, the cook, is very accommodating.”
“That sounds really nice,” said Nina. “I’ll look forward to it.” She smiled at him.
“Great, I’ll give you a call. I’ve got to get back to the lodge right now. See you soon. Frank. Good luck,” he said, and was gone.
Nina sat there for a moment after Ted left, staring at the rows of bottles on the wall behind the bar and wondering if maybe she should have offered to cook for him at her place instead. He’d already gone through a lot of trouble to arrange several outings for her since she’d moved to Pineapple Cay.
On the stool next to her, Frank chuckled into his beer.
“Oh boy,” he said under his breath.
