Afoot on St. Croix (Mystery in the Islands)

by Hale, Rebecca M.

  Charlie glared sternly up at her, his eyes watering from the concentrated scent of her perfume. The stringent smell burned his nasal passages, searing his lungs. His sinuses began to clog, and he choked into the mask.

  He staggered sideways, overcome by dizziness. He veered toward the door, a desperate attempt at escape, but his wobbly legs crumpled beneath him, and he slumped to the floor.

  Helpless, he watched as Mira’s fuzzy form bent over him.

  She lifted the brim of Charlie’s baseball cap and slipped her hand around the base of his neck to tilt his head upward.

  “Where are the kids?” he demanded weakly as she gently lifted the mask from his face.

  In the far reaches of his numbing mind, he picked out the scents of breath mints mingling with cigarette smoke as Mira leaned toward him and planted a perfect lipstick imprint on the center of his forehead.

  •

  FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER, Mira knelt on the floor next to Charlie’s unconscious body. Reaching for his wrist, she held her index finger against his skin and quietly checked his pulse.

  Seemingly satisfied with his vitals—or lack thereof—she rose to her feet. Returning to the wardrobe, she removed the cloak from its hanger and wrapped it around her body, covering the green dress. She wound her long locks into a tight bun at the nape of her neck and fastened the clip around it. Then she turned to the scarf, floating the fabric in the air to shake out the folds before spreading it carefully over her head.

  The heavy mascara and lipstick she’d applied earlier were already gone, removed with several damp tissues from the bathroom. With her pale face once more framed by the black cloth, she appeared slightly tired and drawn. The only external sign of her previous glamour was the pair of open-toed shoes, which peeked out from beneath the cloak’s bottom hem.

  After a last glance around the room to check that she’d gathered all of her belongings, Mira slid the strap of her purse over her shoulder and gingerly stepped over the motionless body heaped on the floor by the door.

  Glancing at her watch, she walked into the hallway and locked the door behind her.

  As she started down the narrow ladder-style stairs, she gathered the folds of the cloak, holding the hem off the ground to avoid tripping on the steps.

  On the descent, she gazed down at the strappy green heels—the shoes that had led to the dissolution of her first marriage and the initiation of her second.

  Funny how an inanimate object could cause such a dramatic change in lifestyle, she thought as she reached the third-floor landing. Before the cloak swished to the ground, she stretched out her leg to take one last look, angling her foot to admire the stylish detailing sewn into the leather.

  Every so often, Mira reflected, it pays to be impulsive.

  •

  THIS SAME MANTRA had been enthusiastically adopted by her youngest daughter.

  ~ 18 ~

  An Impulsive Offspring

  THE HOUSEMAID WHO had been commandeered for babysitting duty sat at a desk in the Comanche’s second-floor office suite, reading a gossip magazine from the States that a guest had left in her room when she checked out a few days earlier.

  The maid’s two charges were sprawled on the floor a few feet away. Hassan worked to assemble a set of LEGOs into a small dump truck, while Elena accessorized a collection of Barbie dolls, switching dresses, purses, hats, and shoes from one plastic figure to the next.

  The hotel manager stopped in the hallway outside the office and leaned in through the open doorway. His face bore the harried expression of a man who had already juggled one too many crises that day.

  “The people in number eight are asking for a fresh set of towels. Can you run them down there for me?”

  “Of course,” the woman replied, guiltily blushing as she dropped the magazine on the desk. She reached into a drawer for a set of keys.

  Standing from her chair, she turned to look at the children. Both appeared to be thoroughly engrossed in their play.

  “You two stay right here,” the maid said softly as she tiptoed to the door. “I’ll be right back.”

  •

  THE SECOND THE maid left her post, Elena looked up from her dolls. Raising herself onto her knees, she watched as the woman hurried down the hallway toward the linen closet. The girl’s green eyes slanted mischievously.

  “Come on, Hassan,” she whispered, jumping up from the floor.

  “But I’m not done,” he replied, holding out his half-finished dump truck.

  “You can play with it later,” she hissed, grabbing his arm.

  “But . . .” Hassan’s brown eyes widened as he remembered his mother’s parting words. They were under strict orders to stay in this office until she finished with her meeting and came back to get them.

  “Hurry,” Elena said, urgently yanking on his elbow.

  Hassan didn’t like to get into trouble. By nature, he was an obedient child. And with a hungry Goat Foot Woman out there looking for children to eat, it seemed like a particularly bad time to be wandering off without adult supervision.

  “But what about the Goat Foot Wo . . .” Hassan protested, to no avail.

  The truck fell to the ground as Elena tugged him out the door.

  ~ 19 ~

  Counting Chickens

  AROUND THE CORNER from the Comanche Hotel, the taxi drivers gathered in their regular afternoon spot, a shaded alley across from the green space surrounding the Danish fort. The drivers’ marked vans were stationed nearby, parked along a straight portion of King Street, Christiansted’s main vehicular roadway.

  From the comfort of their foldout chairs, the drivers had views of the east end of the harbor as well as Government House, the St. Croix annex to the administration facilities on St. Thomas.

  The alley’s strategic position allowed the drivers to monitor all of the area’s important comings and goings. News of any significance was generally brought to the taxi stand alley for rapid conveyance.

  From this collection point, information was then relayed around the island via text message or cell-phone call, quickly spreading through a network of family and friends. Often, the reporting carried in St. Croix’s printed newspapers was merely a confirmation of the taxi driver rumors that had circulated the day before.

  •

  IT HAD BEEN a slow day—on both the passenger and news fronts—leaving the men plenty of time for gossip and debate.

  That afternoon’s heated topic involved the cruise ship that was scheduled to arrive the following morning and whether it would be worth the drivers’ while to cross to the other side of the island to try to pick up fares.

  St. Croix saw a fair number of cruise ship layovers, but the coral reef that surrounded much of the island, including the Christiansted harbor, precluded the most advantageous landing points. There were only two places where the mammoth ships could dock: a deepwater port next to the south shore refinery, and a recently renovated pier at the small west-end town of Frederiksted. Given the refinery’s industrial vista of barbed-wire fencing and smoke-spewing metal pipes, the Frederisksted pier was the easy winner.

  The downside to Frederisksted was its remote location. Christiansted’s boutique shops and boardwalk entertainment were a thirty- to forty-minute taxi ride away. Given the numerous amenities available onboard a ship, many potential day-trippers opted to spend their port day on the boat or simply snorkeling off the Frederiksted pier.

  As a result, while each arriving cruise ship was met with a great deal of anticipation by St. Croix’s tourist-catering community, the occurrences rarely resulted in much tourist traffic or additional revenue.

  The taxi drivers were evenly split on the next day’s plans.

  A tall Crucian man crossed his arms over his thin chest and sighed belligerently.

  “Last time, I waited all day over there, and I didn’t get a singl
e fare. It’s supposed to rain tomorrow afternoon. I’m stayin’ put right here.”

  The driver seated to his right, a man from the island of Nevis, blew out a triumphant snort.

  “Hey, Emmitt. That’s fine with me. I’ll take them all in my van. You can sit around in this alley and count chickens.”

  •

  SECOND ONLY TO the pros and cons of the cruise ship schedule, the most frequent discussion point at the taxi stand related to the daily assessment of Christiansted’s feral chicken population.

  The building that housed the national park’s public restrooms lay across the street, on the south side of the King Street curve, kitty-corner to the drivers’ alley. Leaky pipes attached to the outside of the building provided a water source for a number of free-roaming chickens, many of whom built their nests in the row of bushes lining the structure’s concrete exterior.

  For several hours each morning, the hens paraded their hatchlings back and forth across King Street’s busy thoroughfare, a lesson in survival skills as well as an unfortunate but necessary process of winnowing down the flock. The average batch of hatchlings resulted in more chicks than one hen could possibly hope to keep track of or feed.

  For the taxi drivers, whiling away long hot days with an ever-diminishing pool of riders, the road-crossing exercise had become a gruesome game of chance. They had organized an informal gambling ring, betting on the number of chicks that would survive the day’s carnage.

  Since joining the group, the driver from Nevis had crushed his fellow chicken-counting competitors, racking up a sizeable stash of prize money. He wasn’t about to let the others forget his successful run—particularly Emmitt, who had ended up on the bottom end of the wager pool for the past five days.

  “Hey, Emmitt. What’d you do to them chickens to make them hate you so?”

  He pulled out a wad of cash from his pocket, the last week’s winnings, and waved it in front of the Crucian’s nose.

  “All right, Nevis. You just wait,” Emmitt said, waving him off. “Your luck’s bound to run out soon.”

  •

  GRUMBLING BITTERLY, EMMITT shifted his weight in his chair and turned a cold shoulder toward the driver from Nevis. He’d had more than enough of the fellow’s bragging. He certainly hoped the man opted to make the Frederiksted run the next day. His absence would dramatically even the odds in the chicken competition.

  A movement on the fort’s wide lawn caught Emmitt’s attention. Leaning forward in his chair, he craned his neck around the corner of the alley to get a better look. He watched as a man in a cutoff T-shirt, running shorts, and sneakers jogged away from the gazebo.

  Emmitt heaved out a relieved sigh as he noted the stack of sheet music the man carried in his arms.

  “Thank the Lord, ’Berto’s finished with that blasted singing. It’s bad enough I have to listen to you lot all day. That opera nonsense gives me a headache.”

  Nevis stretched and yawned, seemingly oblivious to Emmitt’s turned back.

  “Oh, I don’t know, Emmitt. Today wasn’t too terrible.” He straightened the collar of his stained shirt and leaned toward Emmitt’s chair. “’Course, Bach is more to my taste.”

  The Crucian rotated in his chair, returning his gaze to the alley. He stared at the Nevisian driver for a long moment, his stony face expressionless.

  Then he swatted the air, as if shooing a fly.

  “Oh, git on wit’ you.”

  ~ 20 ~

  A Pleasing Existence

  AFTER A VIGOROUS two-hour vocal performance, Umberto reached the last stanza of the afternoon’s practice session. He cleared his lungs, letting the final note hang in the salty sea air. Then, with a nodding bow to the taxi drivers across the green space, he scooped up his cutoff T-shirt and slid it over his head, once more hiding the tattoos spread across his chest and shoulders. Neatly restacking the sheet music, he carried the pile down the gazebo’s wooden steps and jogged off toward the boardwalk.

  A few sleepy hens cooed in the narrow shade of grass by the gazebo, groggily lifting their feathered heads. The chicks that had survived the morning traffic lesson cuddled beneath their mothers’ plump bodies, safe for at least one more day.

  •

  SETTING OFF DOWN the boardwalk, Umberto waved to an approaching dinghy filled with passengers coming ashore from the cay. The skipper saluted back as he hopped out and secured the vessel to the boardwalk’s harbor edge. He then began unloading his guests, firmly gripping each one as they transferred from the bobbing boat to the wooden walkway.

  The skipper’s night shift was just beginning. It was a job that would grow increasingly difficult as the night wore on. His human cargo was far easier to wrangle at the beginning of the evening than on the return trip at the shift’s end.

  Several hours’ worth of Confusion cocktails tended to make for unsteady footing.

  •

  UMBERTO CONTINUED DOWN the walkway, popping in at a sandwich shop for a liter-sized bottle of water and a collection of local newspapers. Loaded up with his purchases, he trotted through a security gate and onto the pier, where his small boat was docked.

  As Umberto stepped up to the rigging, two miniature dachshunds bounded out of the ship’s galley, eager to greet him. Their tails wagging, they raced wild circles around his feet, nearly knocking him off balance. The vessel had been moored in the Christiansted harbor for several months now, and the dogs were well accustomed to their master’s daily routine.

  “Senesino, Farinelli—hup, hup,” the opera singer called out, a firmly issued command that was utterly ignored. If anything, the dogs were more rambunctious, not less.

  Sighing, he bent to untie his running shoes. After kicking them off on the deck, he relented and playfully rubbed the dogs’ silky heads. Unscrewing the lid from the bottled water, he topped off the liquid in the aluminum bowl of their feeding station.

  Humming to himself, Umberto stepped into the boat’s kitchen area and removed a kettle from one of the cabinets built into the sidewall. He emptied the rest of the bottled water into the pot and lit the fuse on the stove’s mini-burner.

  No matter the day’s humid heat. It was time for his afternoon tea.

  •

  THE DOGS LAPPED at their bowls while Umberto opened a sealed canister and scooped out a serving of dried tea leaves. Using a cutting board built into the counter, he sliced a small lime into wedges—an acceptable substitute for lemon, at least when one lived on a boat.

  Across from the kitchen, the boat’s center living area featured a foldout table anchored to a long bench, which doubled as a narrow bed. Between the cabinetry and the rows of circular windows that lined the cabin’s upper sides, there was little unoccupied wall space, but Umberto had managed to find a spot to hang a few plastic frames.

  The plaques featured faded clippings commemorating some of the more acclaimed performances of his singing career. The figure standing on stage at the Boston Opera House in a full-length tuxedo, gloves, and top hat was almost unrecognizable as the sweaty singer from the gazebo.

  Off to the boat’s starboard side, a slim doorway led to a tiny cubicle-shaped bathroom. After the sun went down, Umberto would use the handheld shower nozzle to take a quick, refreshing rinse. He glanced at the shower door and shrugged. In this humidity, it was pointless to try to clean up until the island had settled into its evening cool.

  •

  A BLAST OF steam pulsed through the slatted hole in the kettle’s lid, peeping out a perfectly tuned high C note. Umberto slipped an oven mitt over one hand and removed the kettle from the stove, immediately pouring the boiling water into a carafe designed for steeping. He set the carafe, his cup, and a saucer full of lime wedges on a tray and carried the tea service onto the boat’s back deck.

  The dogs were already settled on the floor beside Umberto’s frayed lawn chair. Positioned beneath an awning that
stretched out from the cabin’s eaves, the spot had plenty of shade.

  A three-legged stool had been anchored to the deck, within arm’s reach of the chair. Gripping the edges of the tray to keep it level, Umberto set the tea service on the stool and then eased into the comfort of the lawn chair’s loose-hanging seat. With a sigh, he stretched his arms out over his head and waited for the tea leaves to brew.

  When the liquid had reached a suitable darkness, Umberto poured a few ounces into his cup, drizzled in some lime juice, and took a small sip.

  “Ah,” he said with contentment. “Perfetto.”

  After thumbing through the stack of local newspapers he’d picked up on his way home from the gazebo, Umberto selected the one with the most colorful headline and unfolded it on his lap. Taking a full drink of the tea, he crossed one tanned leg over the other, and wiggled his toes.

  What a civilized life, he thought as he gazed out at the water’s shimmering afternoon shadows.

  He couldn’t have dreamed up a more pleasing existence.

  •

  UMBERTO SETTLED INTO the newspaper, yawning as he skimmed through the first couple of articles.

  The Italian opera star was well known to almost everyone in and around the Christiansted boardwalk—but as an eccentric, not a confidant. He occasionally exchanged pleasantries with the sugar mill bartender and the crazy old hag with the rusted-out shopping cart. Otherwise, he spent most of his days in peaceful solitude, insulated from the island’s rabid gossip chain.

  Even if Umberto had been connected to the local social scene, its news source wouldn’t have reached him; he steadfastly refused to carry a cell phone during the months he spent in the Caribbean.

  So as he scanned the newspaper’s front page, he was one of the few readers receiving its information for the first time.

  Umberto briefly perused the daily weather update, noting that a storm would be passing through the following afternoon, before moving on to an enthusiastic description of the pending cruise ship’s arrival. He continued skimming through the crime blog, the sports listings, and the beach report.