Don't Believe It

by Charlie Donlea

  When he came up beside her, his stomach turned. The body floated on its stomach, arms and legs outstretched like a skydiver in midflight. A cloudy swirl of blood muddied the crystal-clear waters.

  CHAPTER 3

  “WHAT’S THE INTEREST, MS. RYAN?” INSPECTOR CLAUDE PIERRE asked.

  A tall, thin man with hair so short his scalp was visible, Pierre had run the investigation division of the St. Lucian police force for the past two decades. A native St. Lucian, born and raised, he was a product of the island and the school system, and was an example of how hard work and determination could bring you to the top of your occupation. It was the same here on a small island as in any large city in the United States. Sidney had done her research on Inspector Pierre, and knew him to be a terribly proud man of his homeland and his role within it.

  “I’m filming a documentary about Julian Crist, and looking for anyone who had knowledge about the case. Anyone who might be able to offer details.”

  “What is the nature of the documentary?”

  “To tell the truth about what happened to Julian Crist. It will air in the States. I’m in St. Lucia on a fact-finding mission to gather details about the case and take some footage. My studio floated me a slim budget to get my crew down here to see if there’s enough to run with.”

  “Enough what, Ms. Ryan? The Julian Crist case was closed many years ago. The truth has already been told.”

  “Enough intrigue,” Sidney said.

  Inspector Pierre smiled. “I’m not sure I’d call a young man’s tragic death ‘intriguing.’ I’ll presume you’re looking for disturbing more than anything else.”

  Sidney was looking for much more than a disturbing story. She was looking for holes in the case. For things that might have been missed by Inspector Pierre and his associates. She was looking for clues that would confirm the story she’d read in the hundreds of letters Grace Sebold had sent her over the past two years in which the woman clung to her innocence and offered many examples of how the case had been mishandled. So, was she looking for disturbing? Sidney would never argue that unsettling stories didn’t sell, but what she was really after was anything she could take back to her bosses at the network that might convince them a grave injustice had taken place.

  Sidney was tasked with putting together the pilot episode of her proposed documentary about Grace Sebold. The network would then decide if they’d give the project a summer run after they viewed the first few cuts. The documentary—assuming she could get it off the ground—would be Sidney’s fourth. Her first two films had been online-only events streamed through a subscription service, and her third was an add-on to the prime-time news program Events, Sidney’s first foray into television. She had done all the work—filming, writing, producing the hour-long special—only to play a secondary role to Luke Barrington, the face of the network’s prime-time lineup, who insisted on narrating the special edition and ultimately received most of the credit for the documentary’s success. Still, the network liked Sidney’s work, and contracted her for another film. Her pitch was a biopic that broadly covered Grace Sebold’s life, including the girl’s love story with Julian Crist, her conviction for his murder, and the ten years she’s spent in a St. Lucian prison, claiming innocence of the grisly crime. But to get such a project green-lit, Sidney needed proof that Grace Sebold’s case had been mishandled. Proof that the St. Lucian government had pinned on her a crime she did not commit. That they’d made assumptions and mistakes ten years ago that had cost an innocent woman her freedom.

  Sidney would share none of this with the man who was responsible for putting Grace Sebold behind bars. In order to keep her true motives hidden from Claude Pierre, she would focus her questions today on Julian Crist.

  “Disturbing or otherwise, Inspector Pierre, I’m looking for facts,” Sidney finally said. “It’s been ten years since this boy was killed. Sadly, America has forgotten about him.”

  This statement was mostly true. America had forgotten about Julian Crist, but not about his death. American popular culture remembered only that a young medical student had been killed in St. Lucia, and that his girlfriend was convicted of his murder. Julian Crist was a footnote in Grace Sebold’s story. She had stolen the headlines over the last decade. Her appeals and cries of injustice had been loud. America knew her as the girl stuck in a foreign land, accused of a murder she claimed not to commit.

  A convict claiming innocence was nothing new. Many convicted felons ran the gamut of the appeals process. But only a select few found a voice. Those who follow news about the wrongfully convicted knew Grace Sebold well. Indeed, entire websites had been created to prove her innocence. Donations had been collected to help mount a fight in her defense. Grace had been fortunate enough to fall under the eye of the Innocence Project, a watchdog group that worked to overturn convictions of those they feel were wrongfully accused and unfairly sentenced. This group had taken Grace Sebold under their wings years ago and had staged more than one assault on the St. Lucian judiciary system, which the group claimed used illegal interrogation techniques and false testimony from expert witnesses to gain a conviction. The St. Lucian government was motivated, the group argued, by the desire to solve Julian Crist’s death quickly so that the island did not endure a drop in tourism. But despite spirited assaults, all previous attempts to free Grace had failed.

  “Well,” the inspector said, “I have not forgotten about Mr. Crist, nor has St. Lucia. I am aware, however, of America’s true-crime documentary obsession. I’ve watched many of them myself. The police and the prosecution are not typically presented in a brilliant light, but rather cast as irresponsible in our search for justice.”

  Despite his easy Caribbean vibe, Sidney sensed that Inspector Pierre was not only proud, but fierce in his convictions. He was responsible for putting Grace Sebold behind bars, and much scrutiny had fallen on his shoulders over the last decade. He’d managed so far to keep the weight from crushing him.

  “Of course, you haven’t,” Sidney said. “That’s why I’ve come to speak with you. American citizens only know the story of Grace Sebold. They only know her claims.”

  “That’s a travesty. But that is not how it is here. In St. Lucia, people know the boy who was killed. And people know the one who killed him has been brought to justice.”

  “So help me, will you?” Sidney said. “Tell me about your investigation. About what you discovered and your path to find justice.”

  Inspector Pierre thought on this a moment. “I’ve gotten a lot of pressure from the group in America that thinks this girl is innocent.”

  “The Innocence Project. Yes, I know.”

  “Will your documentary show the truth, or what they believe the truth to be? Because the truth about Ms. Sebold, I assure you, is overwhelming.”

  “That’s what I’m after,” Sidney said. “The truth. Will you help me find it?”

  A void of silence stretched between them. Sidney could see that Inspector Pierre not only wanted to talk, but after so many years needed to tell his story. He needed to defend his decisions and his actions. The thought of doing so in a documentary that could potentially reach a large audience outside of his tiny island was appealing.

  Pierre nodded slowly. “I’ll help you.”

  The Girl of Sugar Beach

  “Pilot” Episode

  *Based on the interview with Claude Pierre

  St. Lucian police from the Southern Division station were first on the scene and quickly roped off the area, which included not only Sugar Beach but also the base of Gros Piton. Instructed by the medical examiner in Castries not to disturb the body, one officer was tasked with the dismal job of standing in waist-high water clouded by blood and holding with gloved hands the heel of the dead man’s shoe to prevent the tide from carrying him out to sea. Eventually, around 9:00 a.m., Claude Pierre arrived and took control of the scene.

  “Sir,” the manager said when Pierre had asked to speak with him. “When do you suppose the beach wi
ll be back up and running?”

  Pierre looked at him with dark eyes slightly squinted with disbelief. “A dead body was just discovered floating off its shores. It will be some time. Now I’ll need a list of everyone at the resort. And I’ll need to know if any guests are missing or unaccounted for.”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll pull a register off the computer. It is still early, so many of our guests are not awake.”

  “Start knocking on doors, man! You are the only resort on this beach and it is quite likely one of your guests is dead. Do it now, please.”

  “Sir,” another officer said. “Dr. Mundi has arrived.”

  “Show him down,” Inspector Pierre said.

  Moments later, Emmanuel Mundi stood on Sugar Beach and peered out into the water. He waved at the officer in the water who was holding the dead man’s heel. “Bring it here.”

  “I hope not to disturb anything,” the officer said as he floated the body over toward shore.

  Dr. Mundi looked around the beach. “The scene has already been terribly disturbed.” He turned and waved again, this time to his crew who waited farther up the beach toward the resort. “We’ll need photographs,” he said as his crew made their way down to the shore.

  The crime scene unit snapped photos of the dead man who floated facedown in the ocean. A combination of death and salt water bleached the skin on the dead man’s arms and legs as they poked through his shirtsleeves and shorts. Distended and waterlogged, the pallid wedge of skin between his shirt collar and hairline looked like soft bread dough ready to go in the oven. Dr. Mundi’s crew carefully rotated the body onto its back, exposing the face and chest. More photos followed until they secured the body in a black vinyl bag. The technicians carried it across the beach and up to the pool area, where a gurney waited on solid ground. They loaded the gurney onto the back of a tuk-tuk and transported the dead man up the steep hills of the resort and into the parking lot, where Dr. Mundi’s van waited. By now, a few guests had caught wind of the police activity and noticed the crime scene tape near the beach. They gathered in small groups and whispered to one another about what might have happened.

  “Inspector.”

  Pierre looked up from the beach and saw a young officer standing on a bluff high up on Gros Piton. His hands were around his mouth to act as a megaphone.

  “Better come up and check this out.”

  Inspector Pierre stood atop the bluff on Gros Piton and looked down at the Caribbean Sea, where two divers floated on the surface and stared into the shallow waters looking for anything that seemed out of the ordinary. The crime scene unit was combing the sand of Sugar Beach searching for evidence. On the bluff, Pierre ordered his deputies to bag the blanket that covered the granite, along with the champagne bottle and two flutes, which were standing eerily alone.

  He had already placed twelve inverted V-shaped placards around the bluff, labeled by number. The first stood by a blood splatter on the granite; another by a larger collection of blood that had pooled farther down the bluff from the original splatter. A shoeprint in the dirt just off the bluff was also labeled. Pierre stood by while an officer took photos of each of the areas marked by yellow placards. Another officer meticulously videotaped the entire scene, sweeping the bluff from one side to the other, capturing the blanket and the champagne and the blood. The video was for the detectives, so they could later revisit the crime scene to unearth clues they had missed initially. They had no idea that a decade later this footage would play across American televisions during a true-crime documentary.

  Dr. Mundi came to the bluff and took a spot next to Pierre, also peering down into the water where the body had been discovered.

  “You don’t suppose it was a simple accident? Perhaps too much alcohol and poor balance?” Mundi asked.

  “Not unless he spat blood before he fell.” Pierre pointed to the blood splattered across the granite.

  Dr. Mundi surveyed the dozen yellow markers, which suggested signs of foul play. He nodded. “Very well. I will have a look at the body back at my mortuary.”

  “Maybe suicide,” Pierre said. “But that doesn’t account for the blood.”

  “I’ll know soon enough,” Dr. Mundi said.

  “Keep me on top of things.”

  “Same.” Dr. Mundi left the bluff and headed down to the beach.

  “Inspector,” the young officer said again as he approached. “It appears one of the guests at the resort is missing.”

  “Name?”

  “Julian Crist. An American.”

  CHAPTER 4

  “YES,” INSPECTOR PIERRE SAID AFTER THEY HAD SETTLED AT THE conference table, cups of coffee in front of them.

  For a country with an average daily temperature in the mid-eighties, coffee was an oddly popular drink in St. Lucia. Sidney had the interview recorded from multiple angles. The first was a shot over Sidney’s shoulder that captured the inspector’s responses straight on, with an occasional glance of the back of Sidney’s head. Other viewpoints came from a second cameraman, who moved from side to side, recording for a few minutes before moving to a new location, which occasionally framed Sidney’s face as she asked her questions, but which mostly concentrated on Claude Pierre.

  “After Julian’s body was discovered, we were called onto the scene,” Pierre said. “The beach was cleared and taped off, and the medical examiner was brought in to handle the body. Our forensic team as well.”

  Sidney had notes on her lap that the cameraman was careful to leave out of the shot. The goal, when Sidney was in the scene, was to give the appearance of a neutral journalist curiously asking questions about the case.

  “What do you remember about Julian Crist’s body from that morning?”

  “When I arrived, the body was floating in shallow waters off the beach. I remember the way he was inverted, even to this day. His feet came in first and his torso and head were still underwater, like the sea was trying to take him, but the beach wouldn’t allow it.”

  “Do you remember anything specific about Julian’s body?”

  “I remember most vividly the head trauma. It was nearly all I could notice when the medical examiner’s crew pulled him onto land.”

  “It was determined Julian had died from a blow to the back of the head. Is that correct?”

  “Ultimately, yes. But at the scene that morning, it was assumed he had fallen from Gros Piton.”

  “And why was that assumption made?”

  “He was a guest at the resort, and Gros Piton is a popular attraction. It was a reasonable assumption to begin with, assuming the tranquil and isolated nature of the resort.”

  “And when did your assumptions change from an accident to homicide?”

  “My first clue was a blood splatter that we discovered on the bluff.”

  “The blood you found,” Sidney said, imagining the crime scene photos that would run over the audio of her interview, “made you suspect foul play?”

  “Of course. If the original assumption was that Julian had fallen accidentally, then there was no way to explain the blood splatter.”

  “With the discovery of blood, you figured someone had struck him.”

  “That’s correct.”

  Sidney paused for a moment before asking her next question.

  “More than one hundred guests stayed at the resort on the night Julian Crist was killed. How did you so quickly settle on Grace Sebold as the one who killed him?”

  The Girl of Sugar Beach

  “Pilot” Episode

  *Based on the interview with Claude Pierre

  Grace Sebold sat in a small meeting room behind the lobby’s reception desk where the St. Lucian police had set up an impromptu interview area. A small rectangular table sat with three chairs: two on one side for Pierre and his assistant, and a lone chair across from them, where the subject of their interview would sit. Grace was first up, with a long list of others to follow as the day wore on.

  “How did you know Mr. Crist?” Pierre started in a
flat affect, all business. He sat with his hands folded on the table, his long, thin fingers interlaced. His assistant scribbled furious notes onto a legal pad. A recorder sat in the middle of the table to capture the interview.

  “He was my boyfriend.”

  “And what was the nature of your visit to the island of St. Lucia?”

  The thick Caribbean accent, along with her nerves, made it difficult for Grace to understand the detective.

  “The nature of what?” Grace asked in a strained voice that was on the verge of tears again. She’d been crying all morning, and had become hysterical when the tuk-tuk that transported the gurney pulled past her group. Word had spread by then that Julian was missing and a body had been discovered in the water.

  “Why are you here, Ms. Sebold?” Inspector Pierre asked in a stronger tone. “Vacationing?”

  “No. Yes, my friend was married a couple of days ago. We are here for the wedding.”

  “Who is we?”

  “Uh . . . Julian and I came together. But we met my parents and brother here as well. And all my friends.”

  “What is the name of the friend who was married?”

  “Charlotte.”

  “Surname?”

  Grace shook her head. “I’m sorry, I didn’t understand what you asked.”

  “Surname?” Pierre said in a booming voice.

  The charming Caribbean accent that Grace had so enjoyed from the resort staff had now turned into an ugly obstacle she had trouble hurdling.

  “Your friend’s last name,” the assistant said in a calm voice less deluged by impatience.

  “Oh, Brooks. Charlotte Brooks.”

  “How did you know each other? You and the bride?”