When Death Comes for You

by Marjorie Florestal

  The sound of guitars and conga drums filled the room. Kem Pa Sote Woy! The musicians sang with a raucous cheer so infectious, her hips began to sway. Kem Pa Sote Woy! She moved to the beat, ignoring the twinge of pain in her ribs. The music coursed through her veins, everything else fell away.

  “Kem Pa Sote Woy!” She sang at the top of her lungs, circling the room, her hands rising and falling in time to the music. The rhythm of the drums built to a crescendo, then crashed with a thunderous roar. She collapsed on the bed in a puddle of sweat and spent energy. “I’m not afraid, damn it!” she shouted, panting and laughing.

  What was it about this music? It was so invigorating. She sat up and examined the CD cover still clasped in her hand. There was a liner note, so she pulled it out and began to read. The band was Boukman Eksperyans, named for the Vodou priest who presided over the most famous Vodou ceremony in all of history.

  On a moonless night in August 1791, by the flickering light of a bonfire deep in the woods of Bwa Kayiman—Alligator Forest—the slaves of Haiti prayed to Erzulie Dantor and slaughtered a pig in her honor. Erzulie heard their pleas. The Haitian Revolution was born that night, and the slaves fought with such ferocity not even Napoleon’s army could keep them in chains. Thirteen years after the ceremony of Bwa Kayiman, the French declared defeat and fled Haiti for New Orleans and Cuba.

  There was so much she didn’t know about this land her family had once called home, and these people who were once her people. She had always been curious, but her curiosity felt like a betrayal. Whenever she asked her parents about Haiti, their eyes clouded. Sometimes her father sobbed. She learned to stop asking questions.

  Her parents fought to make her an American. Her mother baked apple pies on the Fourth of July, and her father read her fairy tales of little girls lost in the woods.

  She was an American, but that didn’t mean she had to ignore the blood that ran in her veins.

  Tears welled in her eyes, and she blinked them away. She lifted herself off the floor and took a seat at her desk, reaching for the book on Vodou Gigi had given her.

  It was time she learned something about the land that had nurtured her family for generations.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Seven Stabs of the Knife

  An hour later, Renée stretched her arms toward the ceiling and yawned. John had called to say he would pick her up in forty-five minutes. She should get ready, but the book was so engrossing she couldn’t put it down.

  So far, the most intriguing passage was on the origin of Vodou and its orthography. The word Vodun—meaning sacred energies or natural forces, such as the land, the ocean, and death—came from the Fon Kingdom in Benin. It traveled from West Africa to Columbus’s New World on the tongues of those forcibly enchained.

  The slaves planted the word and many of its traditions on Haitian soil. Vodun practitioners worked to communicate with the sacred energies in this new land. They called these energies Lwa or Spirits. Interestingly, Haitians themselves seldom referred to their religion by name—they preferred to say they “served the Spirits.”

  The various spellings of the word held slightly different connotations. Vodun harkened back to an African past, while Vodou became the spelling of choice among Haitian intellectuals. Voodoo, the most popular spelling in Western circles, carried the heaviest baggage. It was an epithet to be hurled at anything deemed strange, dark, or sinister.

  Renée flipped through the book and thought back to the 1980 presidential campaign when candidate George H. W. Bush labeled Ronald Reagan’s market policies Voodoo Economics. It was a derisive attack on a strategy to reduce income tax and capital gains for the richest Americans. As a sound bite, it proved effective, but what must it feel like to have your religion flung around as an insult?

  Then again, once Bush became Reagan’s vice president, he learned to love Voodoo Economics.

  She flipped through several more pages. The material was fascinating, but none of it resolved the mystery of eighteen dead bodies. It was time to prepare for a day of meetings. She went to close the book when a line of text caught her attention:

  Who am I? You dare ask that question? I am Erzulie, a Spirit of many faces.

  Erzulie. There was that name again. Even now, the haunting lyrics of Rose’s song made her shiver.

  Erzulie si’w wè mouin

  Tombe nan dlo

  Pranm non

  Sove lavi an mouin

  Noye mape noye

  Who the hell was Erzulie? Renée scanned a few more passages in search of an answer. It was complicated. Erzulie was not just one Spirit but the name given to a pantheon of Spirits. There were at least three families of Vodou Spirits—Rada, Petro, and Ghede. Each of the families had their own personalities and mythologies. This meant that Erzulie in her Rada aspect was different from Erzulie in her Petro or Ghede aspects.

  Adding to the complexity, Vodou was a syncretic religion. In the New World, as Catholic missionaries did their best to stamp out all other forms of worship, the slaves learned to merge and synthesize even hostile aspects of Catholicism with their African beliefs.

  It was an ingenious response to the threat of cultural annihilation. What emerged was an amalgam, one that identified Vodou Spirits with Catholic saints. Thus, Erzulie was sometimes depicted as the Black Madonna of Częstochowa, a venerated Polish icon, or the Mater Dolorosa, Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows.

  Renée ran a finger along the contours of the Mater Dolorosa illustration in the book. Seven long knives pierced the Virgin Mary’s heart, leaving her wounded and bloody. It was a familiar painting from her Catholic Sunday school days, but she had never guessed that embedded in the image were aspects of her own cultural heritage.

  It was a lot to take in, and her head was spinning. She made a mental note to ask Gigi for help.

  Before she could close the book, several more passages leaped off the page and grabbed her.

  Who am I? I am La Sirène, the serpent of the sea, mistress of the deep and all its treasures. I am the great temptress who lures you to the ocean, there shall you know my magic if you are ready.

  I am Erzulie Fréda, the goddess of love. But when devotion turns to hatred, desire to darkness, I am Erzulie Dantor, She-Who-Rights-the-Wrongs. I am the protector of women. When a man strikes a woman, abuses her, rapes her, I unsheathe my dagger cloaked in red and I gut him.

  An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, you say? Ha! If you harm a woman under my protection, you will know the full measure of my wrath. I will cut off your balls and feed them to the creatures of the deep.

  Vengeance is mine.

  Set koud kouto, set koud pwenyad

  Prete’m dedin a pou m’al vomi sang mwen!

  Sang ape koule.

  Sweat slicked her palms and her heart thudded, though she couldn’t pin down why she was suddenly so agitated. She read the last paragraph again. The author was a tease—it was the only section written in Creole. Kreyòl, she silently corrected.

  The words stared at her, their meaning just beyond reach. She pushed the book aside in frustration. Now what? Gigi could translate the text, but Renée couldn’t risk going to her room. Adam would be there. Gigi had said he was taking the day off.

  She grabbed the book and stared at those lines again, her brows knitted in concentration. She could ask John—he spoke Kreyòl. But he wouldn’t be there for another half hour at least. It felt like a lifetime. She needed answers now.

  She rummaged through her desk until she found the Kreyòl /English dictionary Gigi had given her. A few minutes later, she stared down at her rough translation:

  Seven stabs of the knife, seven stabs of the sword

  Hand me that basin so I can vomit blood!

  Blood will flow.

  Was that right? She double-checked her work, but nothing changed. “Blood will flow.” What the hell did that mean?

  A knock sounded at her door. She froze.

  Who was that? It couldn’t be Gigi, and John never came to her d
oor—he probably didn’t even know she had changed rooms.

  Another knock.

  She stood, uncertain what to do next. Last night had frayed her nerves.

  Another knock, more insistent this time.

  She couldn’t just stand there doing nothing. With a soft exhalation, she moved, treading soundlessly on the wooden floor. At the door, she held her breath as she peered out through the peephole.

  It was Monica.

  Renée pulled back, startled. What was the desk clerk doing here? She reached for the lock, then hesitated. Should she open the door? Would she be aiding and abetting a killer?

  “Ms. François, please, can I come in? I need your help.”

  There was nothing else to do. She opened the door.

  As soon as she saw the woman without the distorting lens of the peephole, she knew it wasn’t Monica. This woman had the same dark skin and long thin braids, but she was older—midthirties, perhaps?—with deep frown lines etched on her forehead, as if she carried the weight of the world in those ridges.

  “I’m Sheila, Monica’s sister,” the woman said, confirming the likeness.

  Renée stepped back and allowed her inside. “What can I do for you?”

  Sheila stumbled into the room. “Mon . . . Monic—”

  Renée gently eased her into the nearest chair, then snatched a box of tissue off her nightstand. “Take your time,” she said, urging a handful of tissues on her unexpected guest.

  Sheila burst into tears, her ragged sobs filling the room. Renée said nothing, allowing her the comfort of a good cry.

  Finally, Sheila wiped her eyes and said, “They got my sister. She in jail.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “They saying she killed Eric, but ain’t no way that happened. She loved that boy even when he didn’t deserve it.”

  Renée leaned against her desk and faced Sheila. She wasn’t sure how to respond. “Your sister needs a good criminal lawyer. I can get you some names.”

  But Sheila shook her head. “We already got a lawyer.”

  “How can I help?”

  “Monica’s saying you her alibi,” Sheila blurted.

  “Me?” Renée eyed her in shock. “What time was the murder?”

  “They guessing between one and three o’clock.”

  She frowned, thinking back to the last twenty-four hours. It was a day filled with too many surprises. “I was with her from about one forty-five until a quarter after two.”

  Sheila brightened. “Well, that’s something.”

  She shook her head, gently pointing out the obvious. “It still leaves ninety minutes unaccounted.”

  “It’s something,” Sheila insisted. “Please, will you talk to the naval investigators? They in charge of the case.”

  She knew her account wouldn’t be of much use, but she couldn’t dash the hope in this woman’s eyes. Monica’s sister was holding on by the barest thread. “Yes, I will.”

  Sheila allowed herself a sigh of relief. “Thank you.”

  She seemed to have calmed down, so Renée gently asked, “What happened?”

  Sheila shredded her used tissues. She spied the wastebasket on the side of the desk and deposited her trash before responding. “Monica said after she talked to you, she called Eric. She wanted to tell him you were mad about something.”

  “I wasn’t upset—” Renée interrupted, then broke off her words. It was hardly relevant, and the truth was she had been upset. “I’m sorry, please continue.”

  Sheila nodded, her eyes blank, unfocused. She was still in shock. “Eric wouldn’t pick up the phone. Monica thought she needed to go to the apartment. Talk to him face-to-face, you know? She waited awhile and tried to find somebody to cover for her, but wasn’t nobody there.” Sheila paused before adding, “She had a break coming, so she left.”

  The last sentence rang with defensiveness, but Renée understood why Monica had left her post. There was a time when she might have done the same. “Go on,” she murmured.

  “When Monica got home, she found him dead.” Sheila dissolved into tears.

  Renée didn’t interrupt or offer platitudes. The woman’s sister was in serious trouble, tears were appropriate. A few minutes later, Sheila wiped her eyes and took a deep, ragged breath. Only then did Renée ask, “Why do the MPs think she killed him?”

  “Something bad happen around here, contractors get the blame,” Sheila said, her voice hardening in a bitter note that covered her melodic Jamaican accent.

  “But what’s their evidence?” Renée probed.

  “I don’t know. They saying she killed him ’cause she was jealous.”

  “Was he cheating on her?”

  “I told you they had their problems,” Sheila snapped. Immediately, her eyes widened. “Sorry, I didn’t mean . . .”

  Renée waved aside the apology. “I know this is difficult, but I’m trying to help. If Eric was cheating on her, and she walked in on them, she could argue diminished capacity.”

  Sheila stared at her, Renée didn’t look away. Finally, the older woman nodded as if she had made a decision. “Eric hurt her, but that’s all in the past. They was working things out. Monica wouldn’t kill nobody. She a college girl, smart. She wants to be a professor and make enough money to take care of our parents.”

  Renée nodded, but she knew with the right evidence, none of those things would save Monica from prison.

  Sheila stood. “I gotta go. They said I could talk to her this morning.”

  Renée walked her to the door. “I’ll give my statement to the investigators today. Please let me know if there’s more I can do.” Sheila turned to leave, but Renée stopped her with a question, “How did Eric die?”

  Sheila’s eyes filled with tears. “He was stabbed seven times with a chef’s knife.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  We Bleed Red, White, and Blue

  The reception area in the base commander’s office had an honest-to-goodness air conditioner, the first Renée had seen on Guantanamo. It was only a window unit, but it hummed along, making a valiant effort to cool the sweltering heat.

  “Captain Mason is in a meeting, but he should be with you shortly,” Liz Albright said. The secretary was as attractive in the morning as she was running around a murder scene late at night. With black slacks, a black shirt, and her blonde hair pulled in a bun, she should have looked out of place on a tropical island. Instead, she looked elegant and cool.

  Renée shifted in her seat, trying to get comfortable on the worn leather couch. “Thank you for your help last night.”

  Liz gave her a reserved smile. “It’s my job to keep the Captain up to date on these things.”

  On a murder investigation? Renée doubted that. Whatever Liz Albright was doing at the Pearl of the Antilles last night, it didn’t have anything to do with her boss. “Still, your help was invaluable. I know John appreciated it.”

  Liz perked up instantly. “Did he tell you that?”

  Renée tried to look guileless. It was hard to pull off. “He might have mentioned something.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said you know everything there is to know around here.”

  Liz’s eyes sparkled in delight. “I try to help as much as I can. John’s such a great guy.”

  “He is.” Renée waited a moment then added, “I understand the desk clerk stabbed her boyfriend?”

  “Seven times,” Liz said with a slight shudder. “Barbaric, isn’t it?”

  “Did she cut off his . . . uh, a certain part of his anatomy?”

  “What?” Liz was clearly confused.

  “His balls.”

  The other woman flashed her a look of disgust. “Of course not. What would make you ask that question?”

  “I thought I heard something.” Renée wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or not. Did this mean Eric’s murder had nothing to do with the Erzulie myth?

  “Don’t believe everything you hear,” Liz said. “Some folks around
here have nothing to do but drink beer and tell lies.”

  “People are trying to make sense of what happened. It’s hard to believe that young woman murdered her boyfriend.”

  “It’s not so hard,” Liz insisted. “The boyfriend had a roving eye, and she got fed up.”

  “And killed him?” The woman seemed to know far more than Renée would have expected. Where was she getting her information?

  “Island fever,” Liz said with a shrug. “What do you think happens when you put an oversexed guy and a jealous girl on a tiny strip of land? Just look at what poor John has to put up with. That wife of his—” She cut herself off midsentence.

  Renée allowed the silence to linger. “I met John’s wife last night,” she finally said. “You must know her?”

  “We’re friendly,” Liz said, but her mouth curled in a smirk that was anything but friendly.

  “She seemed to think John and I are more than friends.”

  Something flashed in Liz’s eyes but was quickly squelched. “That woman doesn’t know how lucky she is. I’ve tried to tell her, but she won’t listen.”

  “Tell her what?” She was beginning to understand Liz Albright’s game.

  “How helpful and kind her husband is, of course.” Liz’s cornflower-blue eyes widened in a pretense of innocence. “You must know that? He’s been spending so much time with you. I told his wife there’s no reason to be jealous; it’s all part of his job. But she can be so paranoid.”

  Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean some psychotic bitch isn’t out to get you, Renée thought.

  A door opened behind Liz, and a group of uniformed men filed past her desk, some exchanging smiles or teasing remarks with the secretary.

  “Captain Mason’s ready for you,” Liz said.

  Renée was grateful to make her escape. The woman was a viper, and she needed to get as far from her as possible.