Fearing he had retreated out the front door, Jessie was about to return to the other side of the house when Charlie finally leaped through the rear doorway. Quickly separating himself from the rest of his tour group, he threw his arms in the air, as if he’d been liberated after a lengthy confinement.
She suppressed a giggle at his antics and took a tentative step forward. She was now at the edge of the greenery, cloaked by a layer of leaves, but within easy earshot of her father. She wanted to speak, to alert him of her presence, but she hesitated.
She watched as he adjusted his baseball cap and tugged on his ponytail to straighten its knot. Then he reached into his pants pocket and pulled out the note she had left for him in the attic room at the Comanche.
This was the moment for which she’d been waiting. All of her scheming from Thanksgiving to March had been aimed at creating just this type of scenario. Despite her mother’s continued foiling of her attempts, she had persevered.
At last, there he was, only a few feet away, searching for her as if he hadn’t spent the last ten years in complicit abandonment.
But still she held back, studying his face as he reread her pink-ink handwriting. He looked up and stared into the dense forest, almost as if he sensed her presence.
Then, scowling in frustration, he jammed the paper back into his pocket.
As Charlie crossed to the side of the garden, passing within inches of her hidden location, she couldn’t quite bring herself to call out to him.
Jessie stood silent in the trees as he exited through the gate and walked away.
•
A NARROW STRIP of greenery formed a permeable barrier between the estate’s manicured grounds and the wilds of the island’s northwest interior. The teenage girl lingered in the leafy border region, one foot planted on civilization’s outer rim, the other drifting dangerously close to the jungle’s hazardous realm.
Jessie rested her hands on her hips, pondering which path to take next.
She had left the villa that morning with no intention of returning. After everything she’d learned about her mother over the course of the last several months, she was determined to sever all ties with Mira. She had pinned her hopes on reuniting with her father and living with him on St. John.
But now, she wasn’t so sure.
As she considered her options, the surrounding vegetation curled forward, stealthily moving in on her. The edge of the storm swooped down toward the plantation, sending a gust of wind through the trees. Branches began to bend and sway, twisting toward the lonely teenage girl as if they were acting under their own volition.
It’s the Goat Foot Woman, Jessie thought with a nervous smile, recalling the fairy tale she’d passed on to her half sister.
“If you leesen, you can hear hur, creak-ing through duh trees . . . crackeling een duh branches . . . rust’ling through duh leaves . . .”
Another gust caused a tree carrying dried pods of seed to rattle and shake. The commotion masked a set of approaching footsteps, a human’s flat-soled tread matched with a goat’s rigid cloven hoof.
The sight of the errant girl hiding in the greenery had drawn a treacherous creature into the woods. The opportunity of an isolated prey presented a lure so tempting, he was powerless to resist. The plastic prosthetic had been discarded at the forest’s edge, allowing the beast to traverse the rough terrain with a goat’s nimble traction.
While unaware of the advancing peril, Jessie somehow felt a growing sense of unease. Anxiously, she drummed her fingers against the riveting sewn into the waist of her shorts. As the breeze swirled through the forest, she found herself murmuring the words she’d taught Elena.
“Hur spirit’s oldah dan dah jumbies . . . oldah dan dis island . . . oldah dan tyme eet-self.”
The creature moved with stealthy expertise, rapidly honing in on his target. Despite having eaten a large breakfast at the rainbow-decorated diner earlier that morning, he was ravenous for something more substantial, more fulfilling—like the chewy cartilage of human toes.
Jessie continued the mantra, her lilting voice rising with the wind.
“She wuz here ’fore dah Danes, ’fore dah French, ’fore dah first Spanish slave tradas. She wuz wit duh Car-ib at Salt Reev-ah when Christ’pher Columbus came a-shore.”
An involuntary shiver raked through her body.
“Dah Goat-foot Wo-man, she helped dem Car-ib carve up a man from dat Spanish crew. They strung ’eem up ova a fire an’ cooked ‘eem on a stek.”
The creature’s eyes seethed with intensity as he closed in on his meal.
“Tha’s where she first gut duh taste fer hoom-an flesh.”
A strong hand reached out for the girl’s shoulder, the muscular fingers curving in anticipation of the soft human form . . .
But a sigh of intense disappointment shook the forest.
The grip fell inches short as Jessie stepped from the bushes and followed her father out the garden’s side gate.
~ 67 ~
The Writer
RAINDROPS BEGAN TO spatter against the white tents stretched across the front lawn of the Danish estate house. Undeterred by the approaching weather, the Transfer Day attendees gathered beneath the tented cover and settled into the rows of metal foldout chairs. The crowd was ready for the ceremonies to begin, if for no other reason than to speed along the schedule to the lunch portion of the program.
The chairs had been arranged as close as possible to one another in order to get the maximum amount of protected seating. Eying the cramped area filling in near the podium, the writer took a seat at the back. She pulled a pad of paper from her backpack and began taking notes on the proceedings, occasionally snapping a discreet photo of the collected politicians and Danish dignitaries.
After an opening performance by a group of high school musicians, the first speaker was introduced. The Danish Ambassador stepped up to the podium and gazed out across the seating area, gaining reassurance from the number of familiar European faces interspersed with those of the skeptical West Indians.
“Ahem,” he said, adjusting the mike. “I’d like to begin with a familiar saying. ‘A stranger is just a friend you haven’t yet met’ . . .”
•
FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER, the Ambassador concluded his speech, receiving enthusiastic applause from the Danes and polite but moderate clapping from the Islanders. A second introduction brought the Governor to the podium for his remarks.
The large man strode confidently to the front of the crowd. As he pulled a typed outline from his suit pocket, he looked across the audience, smiling at several of the attendees.
This was perfectly normal behavior, particularly for a politician, but the writer had the distinct impression that the Governor was also scanning the audience for an unwelcome guest.
After a long moment’s scrutiny, the Governor lowered his vision to the lectern. Seemingly satisfied with the assembled participants, he launched into his talking points.
He began with a warm acceptance of the Danish offers of friendship and cultural exchange, lauding the opportunity to promote the islands’ tourism industry. Listing several notable Danish landmarks, he recalled his own recent visit to the European country. Left unsaid, but nonetheless conveyed by the Governor’s occasional involuntary facial expressions, was the sentiment that Denmark was the most frigid piece of land he’d ever set foot on.
Mindful of the West Indian members of the audience, the Governor then tempered his remarks with a gentle but firm reminder that, as a result of the transfer they were all there to commemorate, the Islanders were now U.S. citizens—entitled to the full array of American privileges and freedoms.
It was one of the few instances in modern times where the benefits of that citizenship had been so assertively championed.
•
AS THE GOVERNOR continued to navigate his verbal tightrop
e, the writer felt her mind begin to drift. Her notebook scribblings grew fewer and farther between. The smell of the food from the cooking area had whetted her appetite, and the repetitive tapping of the raindrops on the white-tent fabric above her head began to nullify even the Governor’s strong voice.
The writer gazed across the wet lawn, through the increasing drizzle, to the estate house. She watched as the rivulets of rain followed their well-worn path down the grooves in the building’s sturdy rock walls.
Midway into a yawn, she suddenly sat upright, startled by the sight of a suited man staggering out of the nearby forest. She recognized him as the air-conditioner salesman who had abruptly ended their conversation at the boardwalk restaurant the night before. Looking somewhat bedraggled, he stepped into the cover of the estate house’s front entrance and bent to tie his left shoe.
The smell from the lunch area must have gotten to him, too, the writer thought as the salesman glanced up toward the covered tent area.
His boyish face bore the distinct expression of hunger.
~ 68 ~
Modern-Day Maroons
MIC AND CURRIE crashed out of the woods and onto a short spit of rocky beach. They had reached one of the colonial-era access points along St. Croix’s northwest shoreline, where fleeing Maroons had once met runner boats for transport north to emancipated islands.
There was, however, no boat waiting for the coconut vendors on that particular rainy morning.
Soaked to the skin, Currie collapsed on a rock. In his hand, he held a plastic sack given to them by the grocery store owner. The exterior was covered with water droplets, but the bag’s contents had remained mostly dry.
As a reward for alerting him to the far more dangerous threat of Nova’s pending armed assault, Kareem had given the men a small donation of cash and a day’s provision of food. The thank-you gift, however, was of little consolation to the two fugitives.
“Nova’s going to flip his lid when he finds out we ratted on him,” Currie panted, still flushed from the hike. “He’ll send all his friends after us. We’ll have to enter our own witness protection program.”
Mic reached for the bag and began digging around inside as Currie continued to fret over their future.
“I’ve got a cousin over on St. Thomas,” he said, slowly regaining his breath. “If we could get over to the Rock, he could hide us up there for a while until things die down.”
“We’re done for if we ever show our faces on Santa Cruz again,” Mic replied glibly. “We’d better just start swimming.”
From the sack, he removed a wrapped roast beef sandwich, a bag of chips, and a bottle of water. It wasn’t pork chops or French fries, but at this point, he wasn’t complaining. He tossed the bag back to Currie.
“But we’re not going anywhere until I eat this sandwich.” Hungrily, he dug into the wrapper. “This could be my last meal. I’m going to enjoy it!”
•
TWENTY MINUTES LATER, Mic and Currie entered the water, pushing a large piece of driftwood they’d found on the shore. The abandoned door looked as if it had already traveled a substantial distance on the waves. The paint had long since peeled off, and the corners were rounded from the wear of the elements.
“Are you sure about this?” Currie asked nervously. He was extremely uncomfortable about Mic’s plan.
There was a reason Currie generally made the decisions for the pair. Mic’s wild ideas trended toward the ridiculous, if not downright foolish. Unfortunately, Currie had been unable to come up with any other options, so he had, at last, relented to Mic’s proposal.
“How hard could it be?” Mic replied with a casual shrug. “I’m telling you, this is how they did it in the old days. My granny used to talk about it all the time.”
Currie muttered an un-interpretable response.
“What about all this rain?” he demanded as the downpour intensified. “Wouldn’t it be better to wait until this storm passes?”
Mic smacked the water dismissively.
“Can you imagine how hot it will be once the sun comes out? I’m telling you, it’ll be fine. Let’s just get it over with.”
Confidently, Mic shoved the door out into the waves. The water kicked up to his narrow waist as he navigated around a large boulder that jutted out from the shore.
With a pleading look at the heavens, Currie splashed in after his tall friend and the floating door.
•
TWENTY MINUTES LATER, the two men had managed to swim about a half mile from the shore. With the storm dumping torrential rain onto an increasingly heavy surf, the situation had quickly turned dire.
Already at the point of drowning, Mic and Currie struggled to keep their heads above water. The wooden door was long gone, swamped by a crashing wave that had taken them both under. Their arms and legs flailed about as they frantically worked to tread water.
A return to their departure point was out of the question. The rocky beach where they had started was now an impossible distance away.
In between gasps for air, they managed to exchange looks, their well-practiced communication system transmitting a mutual message without the need for words: this was the end.
At least we’re going out on our own terms, Currie thought as yet another wave rolled over them. If it had to happen, he would rather die this way than at the hand of Nova or one of his cronies.
With effort, he pushed himself back to the surface, relieved to see that Mic had done the same. They had another couple of minutes left in them, but not much more.
Just when Currie was about to give up, lift his arms, and let his body drop to the watery depths—he heard a man’s singing. The words to the song were in a foreign language he didn’t understand, but the voice was strangely familiar.
“Is it an angel?” Mic gasped, his dark face paled and waterlogged. He spun himself in a circle, trying to find the source of the sound.
Suddenly, a small motorboat pulled up beside them, and an olive-skinned man in a cutoff T-shirt leaned over the side. The pointed faces of two dachshunds popped up on the railing next to him.
Cupping his hands around his mouth, Umberto called down to Mic and Currie.
“Do you two need a ride?”
~ 69 ~
Luck Runs Out
MASK ONCE MORE pulled down over his face and gun at the ready, Nova turned away from the boarded-up house and strode bullishly across the street toward Kareem’s grocery store. It was a brazen move, one improvised on the spot, but he wasn’t worried.
He was Casanova.
He didn’t need the Coconut Boys. They had been an unnecessary complication that his client had insisted upon. Next time, he thought to himself, there will be no such nonsense. He would see to that.
Finger on the trigger and a slight jaunt to his step, he mounted the curb outside the store’s entrance. The dark clouds above began to release their moisture as he surveyed the protective metal gate that had been propped against the building’s exterior wall. A sign hanging from the inner glass door read OPEN.
With a last glance at the dampening street, Nova dusted a few raindrops from his shirt and entered the shop.
A bell rang, signaling his presence, but no one stirred inside. The clerk’s station behind the cashier counter was empty.
Nova stared briefly at the unmanned register, tempted by its contents, but he didn’t stop to check the drawer. He wasn’t there for the store’s cash. He had other business to attend to.
Nostrils flaring with the adrenaline of an approaching kill, Nova circled the open area at the front of the store, looking down the aisles for the owner. A quick scan failed to reveal the man’s location, so he began a more thorough search.
Pacing like a panther, Nova moved meticulously through each row, gliding past shelves of boxed cereal, canned soup, potato chips, and bottled water. As he reached the end of th
e last aisle, he still hadn’t seen the shopkeeper.
There was no reason to panic, Nova thought with confidence. He would find him. It was only a matter of time.
The Arabic businessman who owned the store was well known to St. Croix’s criminal element. With his flashy cars, sharp suits, and gold watches, Kareem had long been a target. After years of jealous envy, Nova was looking forward to taking the man down.
The sound of shuffling papers caught Nova’s attention, and he spun back toward the front of the store, his eyes narrowing on a private area behind the cashier counter.
The office door stood slightly ajar.
Beneath the mask, an evil smile spread across Nova’s face. He crept stealthily around the counter and slunk toward the narrow opening.
•
KAREEM SAT AT his desk, reviewing notes on a clipboard. He was turned toward the wall, facing the billboard filled with pictures of his family. He appeared not to notice as Nova stepped forward, silently entering the room.
Carefully taking aim, Nova raised the pistol toward the back of Kareem’s head. But before he could pull the trigger, a voice spoke from behind his left shoulder.
“Come on in, Nova. We’ve been waiting for you.”
Cursing, he spun around to see a number of policemen and private security guards standing against the wall by the door. Each one bore a firearm leveled at Nova’s chest.
After counting the number of weapons trained on his body, Nova lowered his gun in defeat.
•
KAREEM JUMPED UP from his chair, visibly relieved that the charade was over.
The mask was quickly jerked from Nova’s head as he was disarmed, handcuffed, and pushed down onto the empty seat. The chair was then scooted to the center of the room and ringed with guards.
One of the policemen assumed the role of interrogator. With a beefy hand, he clamped down on Nova’s shoulder.
Afoot on St. Croix (Mystery in the Islands) Page 23
