by Kathy Brandt
“At first I just felt more effective, able to accomplish more, more outgoing. Then I became euphoric; my senses were enhanced. I felt a spiritual communion. Sunsets were unbelievably spectacular. Instead of a symphony, I heard each instrument, individual notes.
“I was brilliant, felt invincible. I could talk profoundly with anyone about anything. One of the hardest things for me to accept was that none of it was real. Or isn’t once I’m not manic anymore. With each episode, the symptoms became more problematic. I’d get anxious, short-tempered, critical of others. Then the depression would hit.”
Elyse stopped, took a sip of tea, and smiled at Mary. “Thank God for Mary.”
“Elyse is a strong woman. She’s done well, learned to cope with this disorder, not just cope—to succeed. She has amazing insight. So back to the original question, Elyse. How are you?”
Mary refilled each teacup and patiently waited for Elyse to formulate a reply.
“You see right through me, Mary. I did have another reason for visiting today. I’m kind of on edge. Having some trouble sleeping. I’ve been upset with some problems with the local fishermen. It’s the same old conflict—their livelihood versus the damage to the environment. I’m probably just reacting to the pressure of the job, but I do feel out of balance.”
“I want you to have your blood levels checked tomorrow.” Mary jotted the order on a prescription pad that she pulled out of her pocket. I had to laugh. Either she carried it with her at all times or she had anticipated the need when she saw Elyse.
Several cups of tea later, we finally got around to the car. We walked out to the garage, where a 1964 Rambler was parked beside a brand-new red Miata.
“Thought it would be fun to have something a little sportier,” Mary said. “Always wanted a red convertible.”
The Rambler was a black box with a white convertible top. I had never seen another like it and was sure that any of its ilk were now all buried in car cemeteries. These were not the kind of cars one savored, restoring to original beauty. But, it looked to be in perfect condition, the upholstery was like new, and it had only twenty thousand miles on it. I guess it’s hard to put a lot of miles on a car on an island that is only eight miles long. The car was ideal.
Mary insisted I drive it home. We would meet in Road Town later in the week, when my funds were transferred to the bank here.
I followed Elyse back. Good thing. Otherwise, I’d have been driving on the right, which in the islands was the wrong side of the road.
I loved the Rambler. It performed perfectly. I’d put the top down before we left and delighted in the warm breeze blowing through my hair. The quiet tune I’d been humming turned to all-out song. I sang only when I was sure no one could hear me—like in a convertible with the wind carrying the notes off into the empty road behind me.
God, I felt good. I had a wonderful place to live, had met two women who I was pretty sure would turn into close friends, and I was driving a 1964 Rambler convertible down a winding road in paradise. Damned if I could just let it be, though. Again, Mack’s warnings to the wise echoed in the back of my head: I’m telling you, Sampson… ain’t no such thing as paradise.
Chapter 4
The next morning, when I climbed into the Rambler, it was scented with blossoms that had blown in through open window during the night. The floor was littered with bougainvillea. I swept them off the driver’s seat and let the rest be.
Calvin waved from the roof. He had a nail between his teeth and was lifting his hammer toward the sky as I pulled out and turned west onto Blackburn Highway. Hardly a highway in my book. It was a narrow two-lane road littered with pot holes and bumps. Roadside snack shacks met the pavement, and goats ambled along the edge. But highway it was.
Sometimes the road took me along the shore, then curved through communities of homes, shops, and businesses mixed up in a jumble of wood, concrete, and stucco. Driving on this road was like maneuvering on a speedway where everyone drove on the wrong side. Cars darted past me, and others sped up on my tail, then shot around honking. I tried to keep up and still be ready to swerve around the inevitable car that would be stopped right around a bend in the road, its driver shooting the breeze with a friend. Finally I made it into Road Town, veered into the police department parking lot, and breathed, trying to regain my composure.
The department was located in a one-level concrete building, gray and ugly. The inside was even bleaker than out—a bunch of little cubicles divided by dusty moveable partitions. The place was deserted. So much for all officers on duty. Maybe they were all out already. Finally, I scared up Dunn’s secretary.
“Hello, you must be Detective Sampson. I be Jean,” she said.
She was young, maybe twenty, skin the shade of moist brown earth, dark eyes set in an open, friendly face. She was heavy around the hips, and her ample breasts were hardly contained under a flowered island blouse that puckered at the buttons. Her hair was pulled back and bound in intricate braids that reached to her waist, strands of copper, brown, and black spun in a beautifully complex weave.
“Please call me Hannah,” I said. “You must have just started.” I knew this because Dunn and I had arrested his previous secretary in January. One nasty lady, but that’s another story.
“Been here just one month,” she said. “Chief said that Deputy Snyder should showin’ you around. Jimmy!” she called into the back room.
Jimmy appeared from around the corner. He couldn’t have been much over eighteen, with a disarming Jim Carrey smile. Good thing, because I’d guess that was the only way Snyder would ever disarm anyone. He was skinny, all legs and arms. Maybe the rest of his body would grow into his limbs someday. I had the feeling he was low man on the totem pole around here. That he was called a deputy at all was a tribute to Dunn’s knack for finesse.
“Deputy Snyder,” he said importantly, emphasizing the Deputy part. “You can be callin’ me Jimmy.”
“Hannah Sampson,” I said, taking his outstretched hand.
Snyder showed me to my cubicle: metal desk, an ergonomically incorrect chair, a phone, file cabinet. Not even a computer. But wasn’t that just what I had been running from? Besides, I’d try to spend as little time as possible here.
“Let me know if you be needin’ anything,” he said as he left, that smile filling his face.
I sat down and tried to figure out what the heck I should be doing. I supposed I could have brought some personal stuff to enliven the space. A photo of Sadie, my parents, maybe. The picture of Jake. Back in my apartment in Denver I’d kept Jake buried at the bottom of a drawer, to be retrieved only when I was feeling sorry for myself—that usually occurred on a dark night alone when I’d decided to inhale several strong scotches. When I packed, I’d left most of my stuff behind, stored in my parents’ basement. I considered it progress.
The plaques and awards I’d won over the years—marksmanship, arrest records, scuba recovery recognition—had never meant much. The only one I’d ever hung was a plaque from a couple of the other detectives that said, “To Dead End Sam. We told her it couldn’t be done, and it couldn’t.” It had been a joke. I’d followed one lead after another in a case that went nowhere. Then one day a guy turned up dead in an abandoned warehouse and that was it. Not one of the hundred-some hours that I’d put in had made an iota of difference, but I’d been too damned stubborn to give up.
On my desk, an ID with my name on it and a badge held down a neat stack of papers. Forms, clearly meant for me. I hate forms, and damned if these didn’t actually have carbon paper between them. I hadn’t seen carbon paper since I’d been in grade school. Maybe I’d get to them later.
I opened the desk drawer. Someone had stocked it with a few pens and pencils, a legal pad. I pulled a pencil and the paper out and started to doodle. Maybe Mack had been right. What the hell was I doing here anyway? I’d fallen in love with the islands when I’d been down in January. Nothing like the tropics when it’s twenty degrees and snowing at home. But c
ould I really find a place here among these people? I could see Snyder over by the coffee machine shooting the breeze with Jean. I headed over.
“Like some coffee?” Jean asked.
“Yeah, I’ll get it,” I said. My small effort to redefine the role of the secretary. I always got my own coffee, but then, I was a woman. Christ. I poured a cup and added cream.
“Good brew.” The stuff at the Denver PD tasted like dirt and was thick enough to chew most of the time.
Out one of the only windows in the entire office I could see boats, sails flapping in the wind, and a big cruise ship tied up at the dock. A bunch of tourists were going ashore and being accosted by local vendors who set up booths right on the dock.
“I can’t believe those big cruise ships would come in here,” I said.
“They won’t stay,” Jean said. “Dem tourists spend a couple of hours in Road Town or on one of da beaches on the other side of the island and then they go back to da luxury of those staterooms. The BVI ain’t the kind of place for the kinda tourists on dose cruise ships. Too small. One ship practically doubles the entire population. Road Town ain’t no ‘in’ spot. Ship will take them to another port.”
“Where do they go?” I asked her.
“That one be goin’ over to Charlotte Amalie on Saint Thomas. Dem cruise ships dump thousands of visitors over there every week. They flood da streets and duty-free stores. Go back to da ship loaded down with jewelry, cameras, perfume, liquor. Here, all day be findin’ is T-shirts, handmade dolls, a postcard or two.”
“Sounds like you’re happy they don’t stay.”
“Mos’ folks around here, we be likin’ our island da way it is. Don’t need no crowds in the streets all da time. By the way, Chief jus’ got in. He wants you to go ahead in to see him,” she said.
Good. I hoped he’d get me out with the others, running down information about the robberies.
His door was open, but he was on the phone when I knocked. He waved me in with an angry, frustrated look and pointed to the red vinyl chair on the other side of his desk. Dunn had the only real office. Same metal desk, but a huge window that looked out toward the harbor.
I waited for him to get off the phone. His conversation seemed pretty one-sided. He was mostly listening. From the look on Dunn’s face I’d bet it was the police commissioner. He was probably giving Dunn all kinds of shit about the robberies. Some things are the same no matter where you are. I’d guess that the commissioner was being pressured by the governor, who was worried about reelection and the effects an increase in crime could have on tourism. The commissioner in turn was pressuring Dunn.
“Commissioner,” he said by way of explanation when he hung up the phone.
“Yeah,” I said, “I figured.”
“Can’t just let me do my job. I been at it for twenty years. Think he’d give me some credit for knowing how to handle this,” he said, shaking his head. “You settled in?”
“Yeah, not much to settle. I’m ready to get to work.”
“Good, got a call this morning from one of the sailors anchored over in Cane Garden Bay. Says her husband is missing. Didn’t come back to the boat last night. Told her we’d send someone over. That would be you.”
“Christ, Chief. He’s probably nursing a hangover with one of the ladies from the Doubloon. Be back before I even get over there. Let me help on these burglaries.”
“Detective Sampson, I make the assignments in the office,” Dunn said, turning on his official in-charge demeanor.
He was good at it. Dunn was a huge black man, six-four, about 225, a paunch developing above his belt, his close-cropped hair flecked in gray. He was a proud and stately islander, impeccable and clearly in charge. I’d never seen him in anything but a suit.
People didn’t mess with Dunn. Our initial animosity when I’d come down to investigate a murder had developed into respect, and then a friendship of sorts. He knew when he asked me to stay on that he’d have to put up with my stubborn nature. Obviously he could. Right now he was poised for a skirmish, back straight, arms crossed over his chest. Splotches of perspiration spread across his shirt. His coat was hung neatly in the corner.
“The couple are Americans. You should be able to relate to them, and I don’t want the tourists thinking that we take their troubles lightly. Especially with all the heat from the commissioner about these robberies. Can’t afford any complaints. So go over there and see what she has to say. Name is Patricia Robsen; boat is Wind Runner, a thirty-two-foot SeaSail. Take Snyder with you.”
“Snyder?”
“Don’t argue with me, Detective Sampson,” he said. “Just go.”
Chapter 5
Cane Garden Bay is one of those places right off a postcard. Horseshoe shaped, white sandy beach, palms swaying in the breeze. Something that smelled a lot like lobster mingled with the scent of fresh-baked bread. A couple of kids were arguing over the tire swing hanging from a palm tree on the beach in front of Stanley’s Restaurant.
Five or six other restaurants dotted the shore. Kayaks and wind surfers were pulled up on the beach. A couple of tiny stores were nestled along the street among local homes. Callwoods rum distillery was down the road, still producing white and gold rum from the cane grown in the hills. I’d read about the place. Slaves brought in from Africa had worked the plantations harvesting the cane.
In fact, the histories of the Caribbean tell a sordid and bloody tale. When Columbus landed in the islands in 1492, the Caribbean was home to as many as six million Carib and Arawak. Twenty years later almost all were dead, killed by diseases from which they had no resistance, and by colonists who wanted their land. Today, only a couple of small villages of Carib can be found in the islands, on Dominica and Saint Vincent. The Arawak people no longer exist anywhere on earth.
With the development of sugar cane and cotton plantations in the mid-1600’s came slavery. Some estimate that more than 220,000 slaves were brought to the Virgin Islands to work in the fields. By 1848 it had ended and the slaves were freed. Today most of the inhabitants of the Virgin Islands are of African heritage, descendants of those slaves. They are the political and professional leaders in the islands. Places like the plantation that once produced cane above Cane Garden Bay are one of the few reminders of the past.
It had taken us less than a half hour to motor over to the bay in the police cruiser, the Wahoo, a twenty-foot Boston Whaler with two 150-horsepower Yamaha engines. Snyder took advantage of every one of the horses. I’d need a chiropractor to adjust the vertebrae I was sure had been jarred out of alignment when he’d hit a couple of swells hard, head-on. No finessing or reading the water for this guy. It was gung ho all the way. Next time I’d make sure to take the wheel.
Fifteen or twenty boats were anchored in the harbor. We spotted the Wind Runner easily. She was flying an American flag and was the only thirty-two-footer with the yellow-and-blue SeaSail logo on its bow. One of Peter O’Brien’s boats.
I got the bumpers out of the locker and tied them to the side cleats just in time to keep Snyder from banging up the side of the boat. He came roaring in, oblivious to the boats he left pitching in his wake. He turned and throttled back at the last minute, sliding up to the Wind Runner and sending a spray of water over her rail. The guy was just a maniac.
“Jesus, Snyder, maybe you should slow down a bit.”
“I can be doin’ dat,” he said, shrugging his shoulders, hanging his head.
I’d actually hurt his feelings. I had a sensitive eighteen-year-old speed demon on my hands. Apparently he considered his boating technique one to be admired. This must be the island equivalent of the kid laying rubber down the middle of Main Street, girlfriend looking on.
Snyder cut the engines and we tied our lines to the Wind Runner’s cleats.
“Ahoy, on Wind Runner,” Snyder called.
“Hello,” a woman called as she stepped up from below deck.
“Police,” I said. “Responding to a call from Patricia Robsen?”<
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“Yes, I’m Trish Robsen. I’m so glad you’re here. Please, come aboard.”
Snyder was already over the rail and standing in the cockpit while I was still trying to figure out how to keep from looking like a complete klutz getting from the motorboat up into the sailboat. He picked up on my dilemma and offered me a hand.
“I can handle it,” I said.
I was really getting kind of crabby. Pissed, actually, at Dunn, for hooking me up with this kid. I stepped on the side of the motorboat, grabbed the metal railing, and pulled myself up and in.
Trish Robsen was attractive, maybe forty-five, and about ten pounds overweight. She reminded me of my sister—always on a diet, trying to recover the pre-kids figure—pregnancy, child birth, and the subsequent temptations of cupboards full of Twinkies. It made me mad. She cooked, drove kids to piano lessons and soccer, worked at a law office, never had a minute of her own, and was still supposed to look like Christy Brinkley.
Trish wore shorts over her swimming suit and sported one of those transparent visors that said Wet and Wild across the bill. Somehow I didn’t think it was an accurate description of Trish Robsen.
She insisted on bringing us lemonade and cookies. I went below to help her. It was a compact little boat, one cabin, one head, and the salon with galley. Everything was neatly stowed and immaculate. No dirty dishes in the sink, no wet towels piled on the seats.
“Nice boat,” I said, trying to fill the silence.
“All I’ve been doing since dawn is cleaning,” she said. “Trying to keep my mind off of Allen.”
We brought glasses, a pitcher of lemonade, and cookies up top. Snyder, who looked like he’d dozed off in the cockpit, immediately perked up. He had finished his first cookie before Trish had even poured the lemonade. Cookies and lemonade didn’t do it for me. A lot like drinking beer and eating chocolate cake. Yuck.
I have to admit, though, it was nice—more than nice—sitting on a boat in this glassy harbor, sun shimmering off the water, gulls circling, sipping lemonade. I’d have to rub it in when I talked to Mack. The last time I’d interviewed a victim, it had been in a run-down 7-Eleven near Coors Field in Denver.
