by Cate Holahan
“Stan’ up. Get up. Get up. Come ashore.”
People wobbled through the water onto land. We huddled on the beach, a flock of lost sheep surrounded by dogs, unsure what the men herding us did to stragglers. I moved to the center of the group for warmth. The night air was an ice bath compared to the hot tub ocean. I hadn’t noticed the cold when lying atop a live body, covered in bags. Now it clawed my exposed arms and legs.
I pulled my thighs together for warmth. My wet sundress clung to my body, showing the odd bulge of the inflated plastic bag in my bra. I lowered my head so that my sopping hair covered my front and adjusted the Ziploc, letting out the air so that my money lay flat against my chest.
With the people unloaded, the men tossed straw bags onto the shore. The smugglers shoved them into our hands. A woman and daughter each put one over their shoulder like pocketbooks. The men held them at their stomachs, unaccustomed to carrying purses, let alone ones filled with contraband.
I held a bag in my hand. Perhaps the captain had changed his mind and I didn’t have to bring in anything extra. The totes were well made. Unless someone knew to look for drugs inside them, I doubted anyone would suspect.
The captain’s white hat shone in the starlight. He talked with another man. A finger wagged in my direction. A tall man dropped a duffle at my feet. The whites of his eyes glowed with anger. He turned to the captain. “Why she wet?” I recognized the man’s heavy patois from reggae songs on the radio.
“I fell in the water,” I volunteered, wringing out the bottom of my dress.
“She’ll dry on the boat,” the captain said. He chuckled. “What do you think of the accent?”
I hadn’t thought to affect my mom’s speech patterns. The tall man smiled. His teeth glinted beneath the colored lights sparkling in the trees. He reclaimed the straw bag and gestured to the duffle. “Oh, yeah. That’s yours.”
*
My new ship stretched the length of one dock. It reminded me of a lifeguard buoy, red on the bottom with white lettering. A pool glittered on deck beneath colored lanterns. The sight renewed the energy I’d lost from the swim and tramping through a mile of overgrown shrubs back to the docks.
My dress had dried some during the walk. It no longer appeared as though I’d swum in it—more like I’d slipped it over a sopping bathing suit. I hoped it was dry enough not to stand out.
When our group got to the edge of the mooring, the men stopped. The Jamaican motioned for me to step out of the line and pointed to the duffle cradled in my arms. “Open it.”
I did as instructed. A pair of black flip-flops, the kind spas gave out for free, was inside. The man instructed me to put them on while he explained the next steps. I couldn’t help thinking how the shoes would have saved my feet during the painful walk across the uncombed, shell-crushed beach minutes before.
“A few shirts in dere and da novelties dem—for if dey search ya, which dey won’t. If dey ask questions, chat ’em up. Your accent’s as good as green card.”
He pulled a laminated slip of paper from his back pocket and a folded form, creased straight down the middle. “Dis here’s da pass. Customs officers will be on da boat. Just don’t go to dem. Avoid da dining halls and pools. That’s where dey make da rounds.”
He grabbed my right hand, licked the back of his own hand, flipped mine upside down, and then pressed them together. I retrieved my slimed extremity. A faint dolphin stamp lay beneath my middle finger. “Dat dere da stamp da ship give on da dolphin excursion. Tell dem how ya just love da dolphins. You pet da dolphins. Your best friend name Bluey. Got it?”
“Bluey?”
He chuckled. White teeth gleamed in the darkness. “Bluey da big jumper. Dolphin shoot straight out da water.”
“Bluey. Got it.”
“When you go ashore, a man will find ya and offer a taxi ride. He’ll have a Return Trips hat and a green shirt. Got dat? A green shirt.”
“Green shirt.”
“Give him da duffel, den tell ’im which bus ya want.”
The other smugglers appeared to give versions of the same talk in my cotravelers’ native languages. I didn’t wait for them to finish, having gotten permission to go from the man in charge of me. It wouldn’t be good to be seen with too many people. Cruise personnel might notice all the new faces.
I jogged to the ship, slowed by the duffle jostling against my thigh. It weighed as much as a dozen straw bags. How many years in prison for twenty kilos of coke? Ten years? Twenty? A year per kilogram?
Adrenaline kept me from breaking down about Tom. He’d tried to kill me. My husband. But that didn’t matter now. I needed to get home.
I tried to put my faith in the criminals. If I were caught, the smugglers wouldn’t get their goods and my man in New Jersey wouldn’t get the other half of my ticket. This was their business. They knew what they were doing. I needed to act natural. I filed into a line of vacationers, identifiable by the garish color combinations on their sundresses and Bermuda shorts. Canvas beach bags hung from some shoulders. Other passengers carried small purses. I was the only one with a stuffed duffle.
Sailors in white shirts and red pants stood at the entrance to a metal ramp leading to the ship’s second story. They each held two devices. One scanned tickets. The other shined a black light on the back of passengers’ hands.
A sailor shouted to have our tickets out. He didn’t say anything about ID. A white couple in front of me held slips of paper that matched mine. They chatted in British accents about diving in a sunken ship. The woman appeared to have a green stamp of what once was a boat on her hand, though I could only make out the sail.
Waves of nausea washed over me with each step I took toward the gangplank. What if my ticket was fake? Would I be arrested for trying to board the ship, or would I just be sent away? What if they searched my bag? Should I tell these people what had happened to me? My husband had thrown me overboard. He’d wanted me dead. He thought I was dead. He’d hated me . . . maybe for years.
I pushed the thoughts out of my mind, trying to focus on the task at hand. I couldn’t confess. The smugglers were right behind me. They said they knew people on the boats.
The British couple extended their hands to the man with the scanner, royalty allowing a peasant to kiss the rings. Stamps glowed beneath the black light. The ship employee asked the woman to open her purse.
“I didn’t shop,” she protested.
“I must check, ma’am.”
Run. Run. Run. My thighs tensed. At least ten people stood behind me, between the gangplank’s rails. I’d have to push around them. I could hide in the forest surrounding the beach. But if I ran, how would I get to Sophia? What would Tom do to his daughter without me there?
A flashlight investigated the passenger’s bag. The cruise employee reached two fingers inside. A starfish emerged from the satchel, snared by the diligent inspector. “I’m afraid this must go. You can’t bring back living things.”
The woman didn’t put up much of a fight. Her husband extended a willing palm for the starfish and then threw it in the water. It created a small splash when it entered the ocean before disappearing into nothing. Was that what I had done?
The scanner beeped as it passed over the couple’s tickets. The inspector nodded them through. I took their place and extended the hand with the stamp.
The black light flashed. A bright blue dolphin, blurred by the transfer, blazed on my skin. Before the man could say anything, I handed him the ticket. If it didn’t work, there would be no reason to risk him searching the duffle. I would run. Dump the bag. Try to talk to the Bahamian police. I could tell them how Tom had pushed me over and explain that I needed to get back to my daughter. We’d be penniless, but she’d be safe—unless Tom convinced the cops I had tried to disappear. He was such a good liar. I’d believed he’d loved me.
The scanner beeped. The duffle dangled from my shoulder, bumping between my left arm and my side. “How was the dolphin tour?” he asked.
“Bluey was amazing.” The words came out in a high-pitched, rehearsed manner. “He shot straight out of the water.”
The man didn’t seem to notice my distress. He waved me through. “Enjoy your return trip.” His eyes smiled as he said the name of the human trafficking organization, but he didn’t wink. Did he work with the smugglers? He hadn’t checked my bag.
The cruise ship employee moved on to the next man. Invisible eyes stalked me as I ascended carpeted stairs. The coyotes were everywhere. I didn’t know whom to trust.
A lit sign pointed to a bathroom down the hall. I changed course and burst through the entrance. Beige stone, freckled with specks of gold and brown, covered the walls and floor. Four sinks lined a black granite counter. A stall door opened. The girl from the smuggler’s boat entered into the sink area, mom following close behind. The mother gave me a knowing smile and then moved to the faucet. I joined them. I removed the duffle from around my shoulder and placed it between my feet.
My reflection reminded me of an old rag pulled from the wash cycle. The salt water had pasted together the strands of my hair. My skin appeared ashen. I rinsed my face over and over. Each pass with my hands restored some color to my cheeks. I dipped my head into the basin, rinsing and finger-combing my matted mop until I resembled an unkempt tourist rather than a shipwreck victim.
As I tried to look normal, a sharp pain stabbed my stomach. I panted to keep from fainting or vomiting. It didn’t help. I grabbed the bag and threw myself into a stall just as the contents of my breakfast reached my throat. Kneeling on the duffle, I heaved over the toilet. Intense cramps threatened to tear my body in two. I feared losing control of my bowels. I pulled myself onto the toilet seat.
Thick clots stained my panties. I tore a piece of toilet paper off the roll and wiped at them. The tissue absorbed the blood, as cramps continued to reverberate through my body. When they subsided, I flushed, pulled my underwear back up, and waited. I expected tears, to bawl over my miscarriage, my marriage, my murderous husband, my misplaced love. None came. Fury burned in my belly, lighting up every nerve ending, forcing me to cup my hand over my mouth to muffle my enraged scream.
I would return to my baby. And once Sophia was safe, I would make Tom suffer.
39
December 4
Eve was the key. Ryan needed to turn her against Tom.
He was thinking of how to do it as he sifted through one of three file boxes in an empty cubicle at ISI’s Manhattan headquarters. The computer system showed that Tom had received a two-million-dollar benefit, but the details of the early 1992 judgment hadn’t been digitized. Ryan was just about done searching through B cases from April of that year. He’d search May next.
Whatever he found could strengthen the argument that Tom had planned for Ana to die. Still, what he really needed was Eve. She was young, jealous. He would play into her insecurities, recounting his conversation with Lena, minus her denials, making Eve believe that Tom had played her all along, used her for babysitting. Better yet, he would have Vivienne do it. Eve already knew Tom might have slept with Lena. But hearing how Tom had brought his other lover on vacation while sticking her—the second choice—with the kid would be excruciating coming from an intimidatingly attractive woman. Eve would have to give Tom up, if only not to be shamed by her peer.
He dialed Eve for the fourth or fifth time as he continued flipping through files. As before, his call went straight to a curt recording. This time, he couldn’t leave a message. The mailbox was full.
Ryan told himself that it didn’t matter. He’d already left Eve several enticing messages, hinting about knowledge of Tom’s many affairs. He’d give her a day. If she still didn’t get back to him, he and Vivienne could show up at her door. Maybe Vivienne could even bring her into the precinct. ISI was based in Manhattan, and murder for insurance fraud was a financial crime if there ever was one.
He pushed aside the current file box and took the lid off the neighboring one. The scent of stale paper filled his nostrils. He pulled out the first manila file. “BA-Judgment, May 5, 1992.”
Ryan opened the folder. The front page had Tom’s last name in the right-hand corner. He scanned through the parents’ information. What he wanted were the death certificates and the all-important investigator’s report.
The coroner’s forms were attached. Garrick and Margrit Bacon had both died on the same day, but not from the same circumstances. Garrick’s cause of death was listed as “gunshot, self-inflicted.” His wife’s was carbon monoxide poisoning. In the section for contributory causes, the coroner had elaborated. Margrit had been found dead in a running car, in a locked garage, beside her shot husband. There were scratches on her heels, indicative of being dragged, and a large hematoma on the back of her head that had caused a concussion and, likely, blackout, prior to her death. The coroner had put in parentheses “homicide.”
Ryan reread the notes. Tom’s folks had died in a murder-suicide, executed three years after the purchase of their respective life insurance policies and one year past the contestability period. Tom had received one million in coverage from each parent.
Camilla had said that Tom’s parents died in a car accident. Had Ana lied to her friend to hide Tom’s sordid past, or had Tom lied to Ana? Had the police lied to Tom?
Ryan flipped through pages of legal documents for the investigator’s notes. The file contained five typed pages from an R. J. Sopko, Police Sgt. Retired. Ryan read as though making sense of a difficult book, getting to the period at the end of the sentence only to start from the beginning again to make certain of its meaning.
The investigator had started with a description of the garage. It could fit two cars and had held enough gas to kill a family of five. The door from the garage to the inside of the house had been locked. The garage bay had been closed. The car key, sans accompanying house keys, had been in the ignition of the Bacons’ Mercedes. It was clear to cops that the car had been left running for hours.
Mr. Bacon’s gun, a Smith & Wesson .38 Model 12, had been found under the gas pedal, where it had probably fallen after Garrick had shot himself. Bacon’s face had been splattered on the interior of the windshield and dash. He’d had gunshot residue on his hands.
Margrit had a large bruise on the back of her skull, consistent with being punched or thrown against a wall. The investigator speculated that Mr. Bacon, a respected surgeon, had struck his wife. Upon realizing that he’d done potential brain damage, he’d likely decided to kill her and himself.
Where the investigator’s report got confusing was the part about Tom. He’d been found on the other side of the house, playing Nintendo games in his bedroom, volume on the TV blasting. The police presence had seemed to surprise the boy. He’d said that he hadn’t heard the house phone ringing, the gunshot, or his parents fighting. He hadn’t known that he and his mother had been expected at his aunt’s home that morning, nor could he understand why his Aunt had called the cops.
Sopko said the boy didn’t cry when informed of his parents’ deaths. He’d blinked. Nodded. Said he understood “he would be taken care of.”
The investigator had speculated that Tom was in shock. He’d also written that the volume of the game indicated that Tom had, in fact, heard his parents arguing and retreated to his room to avoid becoming involved. Tom’s maternal aunt had said that Garrick often hit both his wife and his son. Margrit had been planning to leave and live with her sister, potentially for good. They’d been due to arrive that morning.
Sopko ended his commentary with a note of concern for Tom. When he’d been found in his room, he’d had bloody scratches on his neck and forearms. Though Tom had explained the marks as the result of wrestling with neighborhood kids, there’d been skin under his mother’s nails.
“Although the boy’s aunt is adamant that her sister was a saint,” Sopko wrote, “it seems clear that the boy suffered at his mother’s hands as well, which could complicate attachment issues with his new guardian and policy custo
dian.”
Why would a mother scratch her son on the neck? Attempted strangulation? Or to stop him from banging her head against a wall after she threatened to leave his father and blow up his violent but financially comfortable existence?
It was just a hunch. Ryan would never be able to prove Tom had been involved in his parents’ deaths. But the theory felt good in his gut. It sat right with the statistics that showed men who killed their wives before committing suicide often took out their kids as well. It fit with the murderer Tom had become.
Ryan thought of Eve. She was young. Jealous. And she couldn’t know whom she was dealing with.
He needed to get her to turn on Tom, before Tom turned on her.
40
August 30
Streetlamps pierced the grime covering the bus windows as we idled in turnpike traffic. The passengers sat up and shifted in their chairs, antsy to stand now that we were in our destination state. My rowmate’s cell flashed fifteen minutes till midnight. Almost home . . . though it would never be home again.
I’d made it out of the cruise terminal without incident. A drug-sniffing dog hadn’t checked my luggage. No officer had unzipped my bags. I’d just walked straight outside and met a Lincoln Town Car driver in the promised Return Trips cap who had collected our group, inspected our bags, and then dropped us at the bus station. Before the man drove away, he’d handed us each an envelope with names of houses in Newark that rented rooms and instructions on how to report for work on Monday.
Fatigue weighed on my body. All told, I’d been on the bus for nearly twenty-three and a half hours, awake for almost all of it. Somewhere between Florida and North Carolina, I’d managed to drift off for a while, only to wake, gasping, as our hulking driver stood over me to say that I had to get off if I wanted a chance to grab anything off of McDonald’s Dollar Menu. In my half-asleep state, I’d mistaken him for Tom.
