Murder on Naked Beach: A Lucy Ripken Mystery (The Lucy Ripken Mysteries Book 1)

by J. J. Henderson

  She had not been in love since Jake Jones. Three years. With a lover, she imagined, like everyone without one, that her life would be complete.

  She let a quiet sigh escape. Jake Jones hadn't been the first, or the last, to tell her she missed out on things because she stood by, taking notes or pictures too much of the time, instead of being part of the action. But that was her job, taking notes and pictures.

  The Jamaican sky glowed, thick with equatorial stars. The lilt of reggae carried on the wind, and she felt a surge of excitement. Harold Ipswich had been in the water, forty yards offshore, when she sailed in for the last time. He swam like a dolphin, he loved the water, and he had even asked her to teach him how to windsurf.

  Les Poissons De L'Amour. The fishes of love? An odd name for a French restaurant, but perfectly Jamaican, and even more perfectly Grand Strand: groping for high style, they missed the mark, and verged on self-parody. Lucy paused outside the door, had a look at the display menu, and grinned. The calligrapher who'd done the gracefully lettered menu had made just one mistake: across the top he had written Poisons de L'Amour. She gathered herself, and prepared to enter. Mike Nack, another writer from the plane, abruptly appeared at her side, in a synthetic safari suit with multiple pockets and short sleeves and many important-looking buttons and straps. He also wore a red bow tie clipped on his white shirt. One look and she knew that he had agonized over his wardrobe. "Hi. I'm Nack. Mike Nack. New England Travel Digest. Outta Boston. And you're Lucy Ripken." He stuck out a large white hand, trying not very hard to keep his eyes off her breasts, semi-exposed by the low-cut sundress. She looked at his hand and then at his slack white face, caterpillar mustache crawling, hairline receding, and regretted, as she often did, that she'd opted for sexy dressing.

  "Nice to meet you, Mike," she said, and gave the clammy mitt a little shake. He held her hand a second too long, then let it go to open the restaurant's pale blue door and usher her in. She got a whiff of him as they walked in together. He smelled of mothballs, rum, and cheap cologne. He'd been sitting with Maria Verde on the plane. Mickey had described him as the kind of press trip guy who empties the guestroom mini-bar into his suitcase, daily if he can get away with it, and eats enough to feed an army, not because he's thirsty or hungry, but because it's free.

  Inside, the primary colors were pink and pale blue, and the decor gave the impression of a salon in a turn of the century French hotel. Or rather a bordello that specialized, perhaps, in underage courtesans. William Evans ran the architecture end of his business, but the interior design side was the domain of three lady decorators, and they had run amuck in this particular room. Ah well, thought Lucy. The Grand Strand clientele being what it is, most of them will indeed receive the intended impression—of upscale continental style, signified by pink plumpness and voluptuous draperies and pseudo-Empire furniture with elaborately scrolled legs and the usual royalist filigree. The only hint of the Caribbean came in the wooden chair backs, which had been carved into clamshells.

  However, it didn't look so bad in the low light. The restaurant had been closed to the few dozen other guests of the hotel to accommodate the press group, and several large tables had been pushed together in the center of the room to form a single long banquet table. About a dozen people sat on each side, and two at each end. The light, from an array of faux gas lanterns and candelabras, was subtle and rich, and not so low that Lucy couldn't view the people she'd been traveling with all day, transformed by romantic light and semi-formal tropical evening wear into sophisticated visions of themselves.

  In addition to most of the writer gang, she spotted Jackson Hababi at one end of the table and his son Jefferson Hababi at the other. The junior Hababi was deep in conversation with Joey Ruskin, who sat on his right. Ruskin, from the Jamaican Tourist Agency, was a gorgeous, golden-eyed black man, a charmer, Mickey had said, but a scheming motherfucker as well. Such harsh words had caused Lucy to ask why, and Mickey had said, "When he was green and I was younger, I fucked him, and he fucked me over." Joey was the first to see Lucy, and as he smiled at her, his very teeth seemed to radiate light. Maria Verde, in a bright green low-cut silk dress, sat on Joey's other side. She glanced at Lucy, and gave her a complicitous smile, as if they were in this together. Thus far, they had not spoken a word to each other. Perhaps she felt that because Lucy had seen her flabby ass naked, they were now friends.

  She spotted the seat that Mickey had saved for her. It was on Mickey's left. Harold Ipswich sat on Mickey's other side. Quickly heading over to beat Nack to the seat, she remembered Mickey's words of advice: "Grab the seat, and then grab Harold, because he's a great guy and you deserve it. I'll do what I can to get you guys going, but don't tread water, baby, take the plunge!"

  "Hi Mickey, what's up?" she said, taking her seat. Mickey shrugged, looking bored and cynical. "Harold, you look dapper," Lucy added. Indeed he did, in a muted green and gold striped linen suit cut 1940s style.

  "Thanks, Sailoretta." He grinned, and glanced around the table. "Welcome to the Marie Antoinette Room."

  "Yes, it is rather frou-frou in here, isn't it?" said Lucy.

  "I can't believe they'd stick a room like this in a contemporary Caribbean hotel," said Mickey. "It's totally..."

  "Buatta," said Lucy.

  "Buatta? What's Buatta?" said Harold.

  "You don't know the Prince of Chintz?" asked Lucy, feigning shock. "Why, Mario Buatta veritably rules the Upper East Side School of Interior Decorators."

  "Not my part of town, Lucy," said Harold drily.

  "Nor mine," said Lucy. "But I get around, and this joint"—she waved at the room—"would look quite correct on Park Avenue, in the 47-room apartment of some arriviste stock merchant's wife intent upon declaring herself a queen even though she was a flight attendant last year.”

  "Lucy, you reverse snob, wise up and drink some wine," said Mickey, emptying a glass of red and waving at a tuxedo-clad waiter for a refill. He bustled over and poured for Mickey and then filled Lucy's glass as well. Lucy didn't even try to stop him. After all, she had to get through the evening. "You don't know from Park Avenue," Mickey continued, "And anyway, let's face it, this place missed the boat. They built it for yuppies and yuppies are extinct."

  "Did you sail close enough to get a load of the island, Lucy?" asked Harold with a grin. "That was quite a..."

  "You mean Naked Island?" Lucy said. "Yeah, I checked it out. It's..."

  "Naked Island?" said Mickey. "What's the..."

  "That's what the employees call it," said Lucy. "I asked Desmond—the windsurf guy. He's never been out there during daylight hours except to drop people off, but..."

  "You have to take your clothes off to go," said Harold. "I swam out, and they wouldn't even let me land unless I stripped off my suit as soon as I hit the beach. No clothes or cameras allowed."

  "So naturally you peeled it right off and..."

  "No way. I'm not gonna barbecue my buns in the tropical sun, and not be able to sit for a week. I swam back to the beach." He lowered his voice, glancing down the table. "But I did see Maria Verde out there, in all her naked glory."

  "I'll be sure and miss it," said Mickey. "These days, being seen in public in a bathing suit is crisis enough for me."

  "Oh, come on, Mickey," said Lucy. "You're not so..."

  "Easy for you to say, Miss Muscle Butt," said Mickey with a grin. "Hey..." she lowered her voice, eyes darting glances down the table. "Did you see Margolis? A braider got to her."

  Lucy checked her out. Sure enough, the singing and dancing Allie Margolis, three seats down from her, had fallen victim to a braider. Lots of white girls got braided, their first time in the Caribbean. Ever since Bo Derek did it in 10, the movie, it had been semi-popular, and every Caribbean beach had a legion of local women wandering around hustling tourist girls to get their hair corn-rowed. What these tourist girls didn't realize is that nobody was looking at Bo Derek's hair when she bounded along that Mexican beach. "What a disaster," Lucy whispe
red to Mickey.

  "She'll figure it out," said Mickey the Merciless.

  Lucy glanced across the table. Louise Rousseau, whom Lucy knew to be the editor of FastForward, a hip downtown fashion mag, gazed at her with an odd, neutral expression on her face. Lucy raised her wine glass, and smiled at her. "Hi. I'm Lucy Ripken. Your magazine is really cool. I showed my book there last year but your photo editor seemed distracted, to say the least. So how'd you get on this trip, anyway? You don't do travel in your..."

  "We're gonna do a resort wear shoot here in a couple of weeks. I'm scouting locations." She laughed. "It's a tough job, but someone's got to do it."

  Ting ting ting tapped a spoon on crystal, and while the salad was served their attention diverted to the head of the table, where Jackson Hababi tapped and grinned. At his side slouched a red-nosed, white-haired Brit in a red tie and a blue suit. His name was Ames Cavendish, Lucy recalled from the press kit, and his title Vice President for something or other of FunClubs. Clutching a gin and tonic, he looked a trifle pickled. On Hababi's other side, facing him at a 90 degree angle around the corner of the table, Mike Nack had managed to squirm close to the center of power.

  Directly across from her, through a tangle of candles and orchids, on Louise Rousseau's right Lucy noted Sandy Rollins, and next to her, a grim-looking Angus Wilson, who glared at his salad. White people, partying, thought Lucy, and had a look at a couple of the waiters. They were all young, black, handsome, stuffed into tuxedos, trying their hardest to uphold Jackson's idea of continental elegance in the middle of this vulgar display. When she'd come in from sailing today Desmond had told her he made $25 a week U.S. It would take him over a year to earn enough to spend a week here. And the guests weren't supposed to tip.

  She wondered how an African American like Henrietta Storey felt about situations like this, and suddenly realized that Henrietta wasn't at the table.

  "Good evening, ladies and gentlemen of the press," said Jackson Hababi with a grin, candlelight reflecting off his gold-rimmed spectacles, his solid gold FunClubs tie clip. "And welcome to FunClubs' newest, most posh, resort: The Grand Strand. Let me say first how thrilled we are to have you here. I know you've all had a chance to look around a bit today, and I think you'll have to agree with me that the Strand is absolutely and without a doubt the finest all-inclusive resort in all of Jamaica if not the entire Caribbean Sea..." at that point, Lucy's attention wandered, and she missed the rest of the speech. She came back into focus ten minutes later, as he closed. "Now," he grinned, "I'll shut up and let you all get on with dinner. But first, I want to acknowledge a couple of people with introductions, and thanks." First, he introduced Ames Cavendish. Then Joey Ruskin. Then PR girl Susie Adams. Then he acknowledged Michelle Stedman, a beautiful honey-colored Jamaican woman who did in-house PR for the hotel. She was sitting next to Lucy, who'd been admiring her elegant bearing ever since she'd sat down. As soon as Michelle took her seat after standing for recognition, Lucy introduced herself. Before they had a chance to talk, Jackson Hababi closed: "Oh, I almost forgot," he said with a faint smirk. "Jeff. Jefferson Hababi, my son. Stand up, son," he said. Jefferson Hababi colored, half-stood, sat down again. "Jefferson is the Employee Manager here at the Grand Strand," said his father. "Don't ask me how he got the job," he added, and laughed. "Well, let's get on with dinner," he said, when no one echoed his malice-tinged giggle. Jefferson, facing him down the table, could scarcely contain the look of suppressed rage on his face as he raised his glass.

  "To Jackson Hababi," he said. "My stepfather, who made the Grand Strand dream come true."

  Running through a couple of conversational tacks over the mediocre vichysoisse, Lucy discovered that Michelle Stedman came from the school of PR which held that honesty was the best approach to all publicity. And so, the two women bonded. "So tell me, Lucy," said Michelle softly in her elegant Anglo-patois, "Is that Michael Nack person," she glanced down the table. "Is that what you Americans call a yuppie?"

  Lucy laughed. "He wishes," she said. "But I'm afraid he's too...nerdy...if you know what I mean."

  "Nerdy? No, I do not, but I can imagine by the sound what this word signifies." She grinned. "And what about Mickey, is she a Yuppie?"

  "No, Mickey's too...real. Press people don't usually qualify for yuppie status, Michelle. We're too poor. Now, if Jefferson Hababi lived in New York, he'd probably be a yuppie."

  "Because he's..."

  "Young, well-off, and..."

  "But I thought all Yuppies were sophisticated."

  "Only in what they buy, hon. Not in what they think. They're masters of consuming and little else."

  "Sounds distressing."

  "It is...or was. They ran New York for a few years, but now...things have changed."

  "Yes, too bad for us, eh?"

  "Yeah. This place woulda done better a few years ago. Power vacations. Hah."

  Michelle laughed. "Oh, my God...you saw the brochure. What an embarrassment. Well, so it goes. Or went, at least, with that particular advertising agency. Jefferson Hababi's choice. A school chum, apparently, set up by Mum and Dad to look like a professional but lacking, shall we say, finesse. Anyway, five years ago a couple of rastas and their American hippie friends lived in huts here," she said. "Now, French restaurants, hotel rooms, and...yuppies on power vacations."

  "Hey Lucy," said Harold from the other direction. "What time's my windsurfing lesson tomorrow?"

  "Whenever you want, Harold. Just be ready to get tired. The first couple days are brutal. By the way, Michelle," she dropped her voice, "whose idea was Naked Island, anyway?"

  "Naked Island? Oh, you mean Tower Cay?" She grinned, and admonished Lucy with a wagging finger. "You've been talking with the staff too much, Lucy. But there's a big demand for nude beaches here. Americans arrive in the sunshine and seemingly feel compelled to strip. The cay is perfectly situated, eh? A nudist ghetto. Boat access only, except at low tide, when you can almost walk all the..."

  "You ever go out there?"

  "Me?! No. Never." She laughed, reddening. "We Jamaicans are modest people."

  "The British legacy, eh?"

  "Something like that. What about you, Lucy? Will you be patronizing Naked Island?"

  "No way. I, too, am a modest person."

  The next course was a white fish mixed with some weird egg-like stuff in a sauce so salty it was nearly inedible. "What's this eggy junk?" She said softly to Michelle. "It doesn't taste like anything."

  "Ackee, Honey," said Michelle. "It's our national dish. It's...subtle."

  "And it can kill you," said Mickey from down the table.

  "That's right," said Michelle. "You saw those trees with the red fruits out in the garden? Those are Ackee trees. This"—she poked at the goop on her plate—"is the edible part, and you can only get it from inside those red fruits after they have opened and released the poison gas inside. If you eat them before that, you die."

  "Really? Jesus," said Lucy. "What happens?"

  "The stuff eats away the lining of your insides," said Michelle. "Like ptomaine poisoning, only much worse, and very painful." Lucy picked a piece of it up on her fork, looked at it speculatively, and then put it in her mouth.

  "It still doesn't taste like anything to me. Kind of tofuish," she said. "But I like the idea of the national dish being poisonous," she added. "It has a certain charm."

  "This is absolutely....inedible," barked Angus loudly enough for all to hear. "Please remove it." A waiter, his face a mask, did so. Angus turned to Sandy Rollins. "And they claim the chef is Cordon Bleu," he said sniffily. "Miss Stedman," he went on, with a glance across the table, "Would you mind being a good girl and seeing if they might broil me a piece of plain fish, please."

  Michelle stood. "Certainly, Mr. Wilson," she said pleasantly, and smiled, as if there was nothing in the world she would rather do than take condescending shit from Angus Wilson. She rose up and pushed her chair out. "I'm sure we can accommodate you." Angus sat back, crossed his arms,
and looked satisfied as Michelle moved away from the table, called over a waiter, and conferred with him briefly, glancing just once at Angus. The waiter headed for the kitchen, and Michelle reclaimed her seat. "Coming right up, Mr. Wilson," she said.

  "You going to serve him some raw Ackee fruit?" Lucy said quietly.

  "Don't tempt me, honey," Michelle laughed.

  By the end of the fish and Ackee course, exhaustion and wine had taken their toll. She made her brief goodbyes, fingers lingering on Harold's for an extra second, and left for her room before the roast beef arrived.

  Strolling out of the restaurant and back towards her room, she watched the theater lights being tested on the stage. A band was setting up, and the lead singer wore a James Brown pompadour and a gold lame jumpsuit. Apparently, at the Grand Strand they took their reggae Las Vegas style. Wandering past the bar, she noted two fortysomething women in transparent blouses perched on bar stools. Displaying their gauzily-draped unbound breasts, they clutched cigarettes and drinks and chatted noisily with the handsome young bartender. Lucy wasn't sure if she admired their free-spirited nerve, or found them pitiful. She only knew that she would never, ever do what they did.

  Above it all, a three-quarter moon cast a ribbon of shimmering white light on the sea. Lucy, asleep on her feet, didn't even see it.

  In the room, she turned off the air conditioner and opened the window, then took off her dress, brushed her teeth, and laid down on the top sheet. The bedspread had been folded down, and the chambermaid had left a gold-wrapped chocolate coin embossed with a grinning pirate's head, and a tiny pink and white orchid, on her pillow. She threw them aside and fell asleep.

  She woke up aching, burning, and praying it was six a.m. She checked the bedside clock: 1:37. "Damn," she muttered aloud, and glanced over at the window. The moon had sunk low: silvery horizontal beams shot between the curtains.

  Lucy knew she wouldn't get back to sleep for hours. She decided not to bother trying. She got up and went over and drew the curtains open. The gibbous moon had dropped close to the smooth, still sea. She closed the curtain, turned on a desk lamp, and fished around in her suitcase until she found shorts and a t-shirt. She slipped them on and headed for the door. Just short of it, on an impulse she stopped and went back. She pulled her camera bag out of the closet and dug out her snapshot camera. She checked to make sure it was loaded with a roll of high speed color film, tested the built-in flash, then slung it around her neck and headed out.