After I told Mike the details of what had happened on Bimini, he brought me up-to-date on what had happened in Florida since I’d left. “You disappeared Saturday night along with the kid. Jeannie told me nobody realized Solange was gone until you all were off at Tugboat Annie’s. Then, when Elliot called in, and when they told him the kid was missing, it really hit the fan. Seems there was some girl on the pay phone at the restaurant, so he had gone to use the phone on the boat of a friend of his. He got back to the table at the restaurant, and you were missing, and so was his boat. He was pretty damn pissed, I reckon. By the time they figured out you musta been on that island freighter, the ship had been gone over an hour. Rusty found his boat and took off straightaway. Your brother Pit was on the first morning seaplane over there. Far as I know, they’re both still over in Bimini looking for you.”
We were passing the Larsens’ estate, my cottage, and Gorda. All looked deserted. I turned to Mike, but he had guessed my question. “Jeannie’s been taking care of your dog. She might have taken her over to her place last night.”
After a few more minutes, he said, “So what makes you so sure the kid’s in terrible trouble?”
“I can’t explain it exactly. What I do know for sure is that Joe told me he needed her to prove something to his other daughter. He evidently told her that he had a child in Haiti, and she wigged out. She wants him to take care of this half- sister of hers. She’s refused to let him see his grandson until he can prove that Solange is safely in the U.S. and being cared for. Joe doesn’t seem to give a damn about either one of his daughters, but this grandson is the male heir he’s always wanted. In fact, he intends to sell Solange as a restavek, but as far as the daughter knows, she’ll be living with this American family. I’m just hoping he’s still got the kid with him and that he hasn’t already sold her off to some family we’ll never find.”
When we were still around the bend from Joe’s house, Mike pulled over to a dock, and he had Racine and me lie down on the fiberglass bottom of the dinghy. He covered us with a couple of dirty, musty-smelling beach towels that he pulled out of the bow locker.
As he put the outboard back in gear and began the approach to Joe’s, he filled us in on what he saw. “There’s no sign of anyone on the pool deck. With the sun shining on the windows, I can’t see too much inside. It’s just going on eight o’clock. They might not even be up yet. I’m going to tie the dinghy up here, out of the sight line of those pool-deck windows. You two stay down till I get back.”
We never heard voices or knocking, but Mike didn’t return, so we assumed he was in.
Now, I will be one of the first to admit that patience is not one of my stronger character traits. That wasn’t the only thing that made me want to get up out of that dinghy and do something, though. We hadn’t been there five minutes before the heat began to suck all the energy out of us. It was already in the upper eighties outside, but under those towels, with the sun beating down, it must have been over a hundred. I couldn’t even remember how many days ago it had been since I had either bathed or changed clothes, and my shorts and shirt, which had been stiff with salt, were now drenched with sweat. Breathing was becoming impossible. I don’t know how Racine stood it as long as she did. Droplets of sweat rolled across my forehead and into my eyes, across my belly, and out of the creases behind my knees. I had to move.
“Racine?” I said, looking at the back of her head in the filtered sunlight. “How long do you think Mike’s been gone?”
“Fifteen minutes?”
“What if something’s happened to him?”
She didn’t say a word.
“Racine, we could suffocate under here, or die of heat stroke. What do you say we go look around? Think we can do that without anybody seeing us?”
“Whatever you choose. The lwa will protect us,” she said.
When we peeked out from under our cover, we saw that our dinghy was tied up at the far end of Joe’s dock where the fence divided his property from his neighbor’s. The bow of the Donzi ocean racer was just off the dinghy’s stem, and it helped to screen us from the side windows on the house. The stainless-steel bow rail was still coated in salt from the trip across from Bimini, and judging from the condensation on the port light windows in the hull, whenever Joe had returned, he’d just tied up the boat, locked it, and left. He seemed to have a penchant for asking others to clean up after him.
I climbed out of the dinghy and turned around to give Racine a hand. I needn’t have. She hopped onto the dock without help, and we both slipped into the bushes that ran along the fence line.
The blinds were drawn in the guest bedroom window. From inside the house came the sound of unintelligible shouting. Someone, it sounded like a man, was barking orders. I inched my way back toward the river side of the house to see into the den. Holding my breath, I took a quick peek past the edge of the sliding glass door. In that one second, the tableau inside told me the story. Mike was sitting on a dining room chair in the middle of the room. Joe had his back to the window, but I could see the small silver gun he was waving around—probably Mike’s—and Joe was hollering at Celeste to get something for him.
I jerked my head toward the street. “Come on, Mike’s in trouble. We need to get some help.”
The dinghy was too exposed, but I figured we could run to a neighbor’s house and ask to use the phone. A narrow concrete walkway led around the side of the house to the front circular driveway. I could see, before I reached the end of the house, that a black iron electric gate blocked our exit out the driveway. The fence closest to our side of the house was shielded by a tangled thicket of bougainvillea, but ahead, on the far side of the drive, was a stretch that was free of the prickly shrub.
I turned back to Racine. “Think you can climb over that iron fence?”
The look she gave me told me not to underestimate her. “Okay, then, let’s go,” I said, but when I reached the corner of the house and made my turn, I ran straight into Celeste.
“Bon dieu! ” she exclaimed, her hand rubbing the spot on her chin where our heads had collided. She was wearing a tiny, strapless, tropical-print minidress, a matching headwrap, and high wedge sandals. She looked like she should be posing for Vogue.
I held my finger to my lips. “Shhh, please,” I whispered.
“You must go. Get away from here.”
“Yeah, I know. But we need your help. Please.”
“He won’t be happy if he finds you here.”
Racine stepped forward and placed her hand on the young woman’s neck, just under the curve of her elegant jaw. She whispered something in Creole. Celeste closed her eyes for a moment and bowed her head.
“Celeste,” I said, “I know that Joe doesn’t want to see me here. But listen, we’re looking for a little girl. Did he bring her here? She’s Joe’s daughter. Her name’s Solange.” Celeste just stood there, frozen. She cocked her head as though she had just heard something from the house. Obviously, she didn’t want him to find her out there talking to us. “Celeste, when did he get back from Bimini?”
Celeste looked at me with vacant eyes, as if she were looking through me instead of at me. “Yesterday afternoon, four o’clock.”
“Shit,” I said, jerking my head down and turning aside in frustration. “It wouldn’t have taken him more than a couple of hours if he’d come straight back here. Means he went somewhere else. Probably to dump her off with someone.”
Abruptly, Celeste turned and walked toward the front door.
From inside the house, Joe hollered, “What’s going on out there, Celeste?”
She glanced back at us with a raised eyebrow. I shook my head at her and mouthed the word Please. Her gaze jumped from me to Racine, and suddenly Celeste stood up straighter and nodded her head curtly in the older woman’s direction.
“It is nothing, Joseph,” she called back into the house. “Just some kids.” She reached inside the door and touched something on the wall. The gate began to slide open.
/> She held out her hand, indicating the gate, and mouthed the word Go.
Racine took my hand in hers, and we started running across the drive toward the gate.
We’d taken no more than a half dozen steps when Joe called from the doorway, “Well, if it isn’t Sullivan. Back from the dead. Keep going, ladies, and you can say good-bye to Mike here.”
“Sey, go, keep running,” Mike yelled.
I slowed and glanced over my shoulder, just in time to see Mike’s head bounce in recoil from the blow Joe had delivered with the fist that gripped the small stainless gun. Blood trickled from a cut under Mike’s eye. Racine and I both stopped and turned. Celeste had twisted her face away from the violence.
“Smart decision, Sullivan. Come on inside and join us.” Joe stood by the door, dressed in white shorts and polo as if he were ready for a morning tennis match. He was holding Mike’s arm with one hand, pointing the gun at his ribs with the other. Racine and I approached them, and Joe said, “What’s with the old woman, Sullivan? You haven’t got enough people killed?”
“You’re the killer, Joe.”
“I don’t think so. Gil and that kid at the Swap Shop— they’d both be fine if you hadn’t stuck your nose where it didn’t belong.”
“You killed Margot?”
He shrugged. “Couldn’t let her talk and get away with it. There were plenty of places there to buy blades, and I figured I’d make it look like another of Malheur’s temper tantrums. See, that was the beauty of his whole bokor bit. I was pissed the first time he killed one of the cargo, but then I realized it worked for us. Kept the Haitians too scared to talk.” He jerked his head toward the front door. “Inside now. Head left,” Joe said, “into the den.”
We entered the same room Joe and I had been in a couple of days earlier, with a bar along one side and windows that overlooked his pool deck. Joe pushed Mike into the room after us, and then he turned to Celeste and spoke in a voice I had not heard from the man, all soft and almost like baby talk. “You go stay in your room, sugar. This is business.” Racine then said something softly in Creole, and Joe swung around and yelled at her, “Shut up, old woman. Think I don’t understand Creole?” He pointed the gun at her head. “You say another word of that Voodoo shit to my woman, and you’re dead.”
I put my hand on Racine’s arm, trying to tell her not to upset him any more. When Joe crossed to the bar, she turned to me, her eyes sparkling with humor, and whispered, “He doesn’t know it, but he is dead already. Here.” With her fist tight she pounded her chest just over her heart.
Joe slid behind the bar and took a bottle of water out of the fridge back there. “So how’d you do it, Sullivan? Back from the dead, eh?”
My mind was spinning, looking for any excuse, any way out of this. Mike had a defeated look about him that made me think he wasn’t going to be much help. Whatever had transpired between him and Joe had taken away something more than his gun. “I guess I just got lucky, Joe. Who’da thought I’d get picked up out there? By a Haitian boat, no less.”
Joe laughed at that and pointed his finger at me. “That’s a good one.” Then he looked at his watch. “Well, I’d say you’ve about used up all your luck. No Haitians to rescue you this time. I do have an appointment later this morning, but it can wait. Mike tells me you all came in his dinghy, so we’ll just tow her along behind my Donzi and take a little trip up the river, over into Pond Apple Slough. Won’t be the first time folks went missing in that swamp. Let’s go.” He pointed Mike’s little gun toward the sliding glass doors.
We were walking ahead of Joe across the den, and I had almost made it to the glass doors when a voice called out in a commanding tone, “Monsieur Blan, where is my child?”
Mike and I turned around to see Celeste standing in the hallway, both hands holding the wood-handled gray gun Joe had taken from Gil. She had it aimed at Joe’s midsection.
“Listen, sugar, put that gun down. That’s a Sig. That’s got quite a kick. You know how you hate loud noises.” There was something sickening about the babyish voice he was using.
“Where is she, Joseph?”
“You don’t know what you’re doing, sweetie. This is your Big Poppy here. Now I told you, your baby girl is gone. She’s been dead, honey, a long time.” Joe was moving toward her slowly, his right hand reaching out to her.
Mike stepped between me and Racine and put his arms around the two of us. He began to steer us toward the side of the room. He’d faced a gun once before and knew enough to keep us clear of her line of fire.
“Don’t you lie to me, Joseph. That woman told me you just brought her here. She did not die in Haiti like you told me. Where is my child?”
“Celeste, baby, who you gonna believe? After all I’ve done for you?” He continued to take small steps, closing the gap between them. He was measuring her determination, judging whether or not she really could fire the gun. “Honey, I love you. I wouldn’t lie to you.”
“You stay back, Joseph. You think I won’t shoot? You taught me to use a gun to protect myself, and I will use it. Where is Solange?”
“Babydoll, you don’t need to protect yourself from me. I’m not going to hurt you.”
Only five feet separated them when Joe made his move. Unlike Gil, Celeste didn’t hesitate. She fired the instant he began to lunge, three quick shots, and his legs buckled under him. Instinctively, I dropped to the floor in a squat and put my arms on top of my head. In the aftermath of the shots, the only noise was the high-pitched buzz inside my head. I didn’t want to stand up and look, but I couldn’t play ostrich forever.
I rose slowly from where I had crouched behind a white leather chair. Joe’s body lay sprawled on the floor, one leg bent awkwardly under him, his eyes open but dull as unpolished pebbles. His arms were flung wide on the floor, his right still loosely wrapped around Mike’s gun. A growing red stain colored his white shirt just above his left breast. Racine, still standing, had not flinched at the piercing noise or from the horror of what now lay on the floor. When our eyes met, she nodded, and with her clenched fist she hit her chest again, just over her heart. Celeste knelt and laid the gun on the floor next to the body. Without so much as a slight quaver in her voice, she said, “Let’s go find my child.”
XXXI
Mike made us sit in the living room, away from the body, to wait for the police, and from the moment the first patrol car arrived, things seemed to shift into slow motion. The head count on law enforcement personnel multiplied exponentially within the first hour, as photographers and crime scene techs wandered throughout the house, but no one appeared to be accomplishing anything, other than gawking at Celeste’s legs as she offered them Styrofoam cups of coffee from the kitchen.
I wanted to yell at them, Get on with it. We have to get out and start looking for Solange. She needs help.
When Collazo arrived, he, too, seemed to be moving as though he were underwater. He questioned us in the living room while several patrol officers searched the house, the pool cabana, the garden shed, and he had each of us slow down and repeat our stories over and over. Agent D’Ugard arrived and she dove right in, asking us to start again, from the beginning. Judging from the angle of the sun, I figured it was nearly eleven o’clock, and I was exhausted, but every time I closed my eyes, I saw that image from my dream. Long black hair floated around the periphery of my vision, and Solange called to me, Help me.
Collazo believed me this time when I told him about his police interpreter, and they sent a car over to Martine’s house. Later, an officer reported to Collazo that Martine Gohin had given the police permission to search her house, not thinking that they would search her whole property as well. In her backyard gardening shed, sleeping on the floor on pallets, the officers found thirteen Haitian girls, aged eight to eighteen. Martine claimed they all were nieces before she asked for a lawyer and stopped answering any more questions. Solange was not among the girls.
On hearing the word lawyer, I excused myself and went to a
phone to call Jeannie. After the expected tirade about how I better not scare her like that again, she informed me that B.J. had taken off the day before in Jimmie St. Claire’s partially remodeled Chris Craft, headed for Bimini to join the search.
When I returned to the living room, Celeste was telling Collazo and Agent D’Ugard for the third time that Joe had not returned to the house until four o’clock the day before. He had not said anything to her about a child, and they spent the afternoon and the evening together at home. He had been in a very bad mood, throwing things around and cursing at her for nothing. He became furious when he asked her to pour him a drink and she told him they were out of rum. She offered to go out to the boat and get a bottle out there, but he exploded, screaming at her about her incompetence, and he hit her. She pulled back her headscarf to show the bruise at her hairline.
One minute it seemed as though I could not breathe, as though I were underwater and drowning, and the next thing I knew, I was in my element. I saw her, and I saw where she was. The condensation on the windows, the appointment this morning, Joe not wanting Celeste to go for the rum. I jumped to my feet and said,“Come on,” and ran to the sliding glass doors.
The Donzi’s cabin door was secured with a stainless hasp and a padlock. Rather than look for the key, Mike kicked at the doors with his good leg. On the third kick, the wood splintered, and I had to turn my head aside as the blast of superheated air poured out the companion way.
Every year, I see the stories in the newspapers about some child who got left or locked in a vehicle in the Florida sun, and the result is usually death or permanent brain damage. We found Solange bound and gagged, locked in the forward cabin, behind another door that Mike kicked in. I could not detect any respiration when I tore off the gag. I sat down on the bunk next to her and felt her neck for a pulse. Faint, but it was there. “Solange,” I said as I picked her up and carried her limp body off the boat, “I’m here. Like I promised.” When we entered the living room, Celeste was sitting alone on the couch, her head bowed, her hands covering her face. It had not occurred to me until then that the men had not told her what we had been doing outside. Solange and I were both dripping wet—I’d taken her into the pool to bring down her body temperature. She was now weak but conscious.
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