Maybe it was the beautiful ride through lush green jungle-lined roads or the soft prettiness of Delana I could feel with my arms wrapped around her, but I found my cynicism waning and my sadness dulling as we neared San Miguel. It was as if an artist had taken every lovely color on his palette and splashed it into the center of a canvas of green, trimming the border in blue where the sea reached out to touch the other colors. San Miguel's beauty overcame its purpose, which was to cater to tourists. Purples, oranges, yellows and whites of buildings contrasted against the ocean and sky. Palm trees were generously sprinkled throughout the thoroughfare.
Delana leaned the Vespa over to one side and laughed. I squeezed her tighter as she navigated the scooter past colorful cafes, outdoor vegetable and fruit markets, old, beautiful churches, a gorgeous town square of oranges and greens, exquisite fountains, an old clock tower, and on one side, the sea.
She finally slowed and parked the Vespa in front of a small, Spanish-style building with little square tables surrounded by plain wooden chairs and covered in tablecloths with a black-and-tan plaid pattern. Three tables were unoccupied and the others were filled by locals rather than tourists. A good sign. Delana ordered for us and a fat, smiling Mexican woman who said her name was Margarita went away without having to write it down.
"The food's great here. It's quieter and you can hear the clippity-clop of horses pulling the buggies."
Colorful, horse-drawn wagons were taking tourists through the streets for a vacation memory. I wondered as I watched people leaning out to snap digital photographs if the ability to capture the technical reality of a place took away from the feeling of it, and muted the memory forever. A picture in the mind was a picture in the heart, but a picture on paper or on a computer was only relevant when it was taken out or clicked on to view. Another way in which society was distancing itself from living, perhaps. Life could no longer be enjoyed unless we could send it on a phone so friends we rarely thought of and who rarely thought of us could see how much fun we were having.
"Are you listening?"
I frowned. "I'm sorry."
"Nancy?"
"No, there'll be time enough to grieve later. A lifetime."
Delana stared at me a moment. "Later, after you've discovered who killed her, you mean?"
"Yes."
"And when you find out?"
The jolly woman with the good memory brought out our food before I had to respond. It was a question to which my only answer was that I would make sure Nancy's death did not pass without anyone caring that she had lived. She had meant something to Harry and me, even if there was no one else to mourn her. Whoever killed her would learn this in their final moments. I would make sure.
The food was wonderful, the company lovely. We laughed and joked and soaked in the atmosphere. It is almost surreal for all but the most self-centered of men to spend time with a girl so dream-like, so near-perfect. Delana's bright blonde hair, blue eyes and graceful figure caught the eye of many Mexican men, and most American travelers as well. The more they tried not to notice her the more obvious their quick, repetitive glances said they had, and were filled with wonderment at what they saw. I pondered over how anyone could let her get away.
We ordered dessert to extend the relaxing and enjoyable time we were sharing. The silent moments were not strained as is often the case with two people who are attracted to each other and trying to reach that magical familiarity which would make the intimacy they both wanted less jarring. Delana's body language -- brief smiles for no reason, leaning back to cross her white sexy legs so that I could see them, unconsciously brushing her long silky hair back in a most feminine gesture -- said she was walking down the path towards me, but her eyes indicated there would be a detour. She had been down this road before and crashed.
It had been my experience that women often made terrible choices in picking men, and even more often, once it all burned to ashes, made the on-deck guy pay for their own mistake. American women, Cuban women, Italian women, Mexican women, Puerto Rican women, all women. Hurt was universal and so was the deflection of blame. Few women readily admitted they'd seen all the signs beforehand yet ignored them, parried the council of friends and family brave enough and caring enough to voice concerns about the relationship, and had plunged blindly ahead on the transient pleasure of sex, the very thing which they so often accused men of basing relationships.
Time and perspective usually set in with the good ones. But for those women too stubborn to accept their part in the failure, it would always be "his fault" for being a jerk, not theirs for being attracted to jerks. Anger would eventually turn to bitterness and before too long all men were jerks.
Delana's wound was no doubt fresh, and she could go either way. For any man walking to the plate from the on-deck circle it was simply a question of whether the girl was worth putting in the time, fouling off pitches until she worked past her fear of falling on her face again and grooved one across the heart of the plate. Her heart.
The daily dessert special was homemade apple pie that could have come from somewhere in America's deep south, it was so flaky and delicious. It was an unexpected pleasure finding it at an out-of-the-way cafe in Cozumel, Mexico.
A light rain began to fall but only lasted a few moments. By the time our smiling host of ample girth and extraordinary pastry skills brought an umbrella out for us it had stopped. April is the tail end of Cozumel's dry season, but it still gets some showers.
"You know, there's a place next door where we can buy some swimwear and go down to the beach."
"I'm not really a big swimmer, but I'll come watch from the sand."
She took her last sip of cola and stood. Her legs really were to die for. "I'll see if I can find something that makes you want to jump in with me then. I'll be right back." I watched her walk over to the seaside clothing shop. Her back was to me as she sifted through some racks and it was hard not to want her. She was magnificent from every angle.
It was while I was contemplating whether Delana would go one-piece or two-piece, blue or red, or perhaps multi-color, that I spotted the girl. She was sitting beneath one of the fountains eating a sandwich. I almost laughed when she tapped the bread on the edge of the ceramic base, testing to see if it had any give left in it, which it didn't. She had long, unwashed hair the color of straw, and wore a little pink flower in it on one side. She wore acutely faded jeans that used to be called bell-bottoms, but probably had a trendier name now. They were too long for her short stature, and the bottom edges were frayed from dragging the ground. Secondhand, I guessed, as were the old Converse high-tops which hardly had any rubber left on the bottoms.
She was slight, with only the gentlest of curves indicating any sex, and yet, there was something endearingly girlish and feminine about her. I had the urge to walk over and hug her, the way you do a cute puppy. She took a somewhat doubtful apple from a canvas backpack that might have been purple long ago, but had faded to almost white, and had a noticeable hole on the side. Her hands were tiny and exquisite. She turned my way as she took a bite from the apple and smiled. Her eyes were a wan blue, as if someone had washed the color from them until only a hint of the original tint remained. Her nose was a bit too long, her face oviform, her lips soft and pinkish and graceful in contrast to the overall angularity of her carriage. Separately, her features were imperfections but together they gave her a certain loveliness. A diamond in the rough.
Delana was waving to get my attention. She was heading inside to try on an outfit. I smiled and nodded. I waved to the rotund Mexican woman. She quickly came to see what I needed.
"I'd like to pay, and I'd like you to fix a plate for the young girl sitting over there by the fountain." To her credit, she didn't turn around to look. "With dessert."
"Si. I will bring it right out. She sits there every day for lunch."
I heard the kindness in her voice. "I bet you've taken her food before, without being paid for it."
She averted my gaze and w
iped her hands on her dirty brown apron. Her skin was dark but seemed darker when she looked up again.
"Sometimes," she said. "Fernando says I shouldn't but when he isn't here, I sometimes take her a small meal." She smiled wide. "Fernando cannot complain since you are paying for it."
"Do you know her name?"
"Si. Caroline. She is one of the lost, I think, with nowhere to go."
"What do you mean?"
"She has been living at the backpacker place up the street for…two years now. The others, they come and go, but she stays. The others, they make fun of her, because she forgets things. I have heard them call her retard. It is shameful."
I looked up at her with respect for more than her culinary skills, which were considerable. "How much do I owe you?" She told me and I handed it to her, with an added twenty for the days she'd fed a girl out of kindness. I walked toward the shop next door before she could protest.
Caroline was staying at the same hostel Nancy had stayed. It would be a place to start, and someone to talk to. And it gave me an excuse to talk to her. I realized I was looking forward to it and was thinking about that when Delana came walking toward me wearing a deep green bikini. It either looked spectacular because of her white skin sculpted in soft curves or her white skin looked spectacular because of the contrast of the deep emerald color. Maybe both. Her bright blonde hair was lovely as it followed the straps down into the V showcasing breasts made to be loved and played with.
As we hopped on the Vespa, Margarita was handing Caroline her meal in a styrofoam container. Caroline's face was blocked from my view and we were blocked from hers. I wondered how well she had known Nancy. And I wondered why Margarita had not been surprised that Delana had been having a romantic lunch with someone not her husband.
We only had a short distance until we were on the beach. I sat on the sandy shore with my back to the colorful streets of San Miguel. I could hear and feel the living going on behind me as I stared at the sea's serene liquid beauty reaching toward the horizon line where the world ended, or at least appeared to. The late morning sun shone bright against a pale blue sky. Scant gray clouds occasionally dropped warm sprinkles onto the sea and sand as I watched blonde hair, pretty white legs, and soft, rounded shoulders move in and out of the water with a grace and loveliness only women possess. A flash of emerald was captured in the sun's rays as Delana's body made the dolphin curve upward, only to disappear once more. The velvety but meager dark green fabric only intensified the need for the softer white flesh which it covered.
A few tourists and some Cozumel natives were also enjoying the water. A girl of about seven or eight kicked a beach ball towards me and after three running steps to retrieve it, stopped and stared at me, unsure how I would react. I leaned over and gave it a good swat with my hand and it rolled back to her. She smiled, picked it up and ran back to her mother, who was stretched out on a big blue beach towel. If genetics ran true to form, the little girl was going to be a real beauty one day.
Delana swam ashore. She stood with her feet in the swirling tide, twisting her hair into a braid to squeeze the saltwater out. Once satisfied that she'd gotten as much out as she was going to, she jogged over to where I sat. She fell to the sand beside me, the minuscule grains sticking to her wet skin like flour to damp hands. She laughed and I reached over to brush the beach from her legs. She grabbed me and covered my dry lips with her wet ones, sliding them sensually over my mouth as her tongue explored mine. It lasted maybe thirty seconds. Though my body responded, I was surprised to discover my heart more reticent. Vengeance and romance were a dangerous cocktail that never mixed well. First dig two graves, the old proverb admonished. I had dug two graves once, one for myself and one for Escobar. I had managed to crawl out of my self-made coffin after several months, but now I was digging two more graves; one for me and one for Nancy's killer, the person who had given her such a lonely death.
"I'll have to take you swimming more often," I said, trying to shake off the morbid thoughts.
"It's invigorating."
"Swimming, or the kiss?"
"Both!" she laughed. Then she kissed me again, lighter this time, minus the tension and uncertainty that always surrounds the first one between potential lovers. She stared at me with those blue eyes. "Let's go. It's such a wonderful ride I think I'll just keep this on and not change back."
"Are you sure that's safe?"
"Bugs, you mean? I didn't really notice…"
She noticed my grin. "If either one of us was ready for that it wouldn't matter what I was wearing. But we aren't, are we, Seth?"
I sighed appropriately, and meant it. "No, I guess not. Not yet anyway."
"But soon," she whispered. She let her arm and hand slide caressingly across my waist as she headed for the Vespa parked behind us. I turned and joined her, wrapping my arms around the cool flesh of her stomach this time as we rolled through the streets of San Miguel. Soon there was only verdure on both sides of the road and the town became a half-remembered dream, a Shangri-La where young, troubled girls weren't staked-out to drown in terror, and ex-cops didn't stain their souls seeking justice that would never bring them back.
Five
Delana had just turned onto the small pathway leading down to the mooring when the force of the explosion threw us from the Vespa. It skidded out from underneath us and slid down the narrow lane to the beach. It all happened so quickly it seemed as though we felt the shockwave before we heard the sound of the blast, which was tremendous, sending hundreds of thousands of pieces of wood and fiberglass and aluminum high into the air to rain down like sharp, deadly confetti in a ticker tape parade of destruction. Even as I hit the ground I was cursing myself for leaving Harry by himself on the boat. Feeling the heat from the fuel tanks burning I called out twice for Delana before I heard her catch her breath and murmur, "I'm okay."
I scrambled from the vegetation lining the pathway and broke out in a dead run. I knew Harry had to be dead, blown to a million bits, but I needed to see it firsthand before I let the pain take over. As I got close, dread turned to confusion, and then relief as I saw the tiny white speck far out on the water and realized the boat which had exploded was Delana's. Harry must have taken Stella out to fish, to take his mind off of Nancy.
I was watching Harry turn Stella toward shore when I heard Delana coming up behind me quickly. I turned and she ran into my arms. I kept her there and we watched in silence as the last of her boat sank slowly into the water.
Harry had Stella on full throttle until he got close, then cut the engines and let her drift toward the dock. Some of the walking area had been damaged in the blast and I had to hop over some missing sections to grab the rope and tie her up. Harry stood staring at the empty spot where Delana's boat had been. He turned and looked at me in shock and confusion. He wasn't alone.
"I seen your note and decided I'd get some fishing in. Nearly peed my pants when she blew. Felt it all the way out there."
"Try bein' up close, Harry!" But I was smiling, relieved Harry was going to be around a while longer.
"I don't care about the boat, but all my things were on board," Delana murmured.
"What about…"
She cut me off.
"He's out of town by now on business. He'll hear about it later. Insurance will cover it, I'm sure."
"You're welcome to stay with us," offered Harry before I could. "There's plenty of room and it looks like we're here to stay a spell now."
Delana looked at me, wondering perhaps if proximity would turn a dance that should be a waltz into a tango.
"Harry's right, Delana. There's plenty of room for all of us to bunk down. You can go into town and pick up some clothes later."
She nodded. "Thanks. It would solve all my immediate problems."
"Maybe."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, your boat, his boat, just got blown all to hell and who's to say whoever blew it up didn't know you weren't aboard her?"
She bega
n to laugh and then stopped abruptly, her expression changing to a frown so incredulous and deep that wrinkles and crinkles appeared everywhere. Even then she was beautiful.
"You mean, if he can't have me no one can?" I nodded and after a full five seconds she began to laugh in earnest and didn't cut it short this time. She shook her head emphatically in a negative.
"He has many women, which is the issue, at least one of them anyway. And he knows I don't want his money. So, no, I don't think so. It isn't his style anyway."
She looked at Stella and then back at me.
"Seth, what if someone meant it for you and got the wrong boat? I mean it was your friend Nancy who was murdered last night."
She was right, but I hadn't even begun to look into Nancy's death yet. Was there something going on here beyond Nancy about which I wasn't yet aware? It wouldn't be the first time. People think cops always know what they're doing, but a lot of times it's just poking around in the dark till you get a reaction and figure it out from there. But who had I poked? Sanchez and Carillo? Or had Nancy inadvertently done something, or perhaps seen something that she wasn't supposed to see? I didn't think so. Nancy's murder had been twisted and personal, very personal.
Harry interrupted my musings.
"You sure you want to stay here then?" he asked Delana. "Might not be too safe for you if somebody's after Seth."
In the distance I could hear sirens approaching. It had been one hell of a blast.
"Might not be too safe for Seth, either."
"Oh, don't worry about him. He's got me to take care of him." Harry pulled a snub-nose 38 from his pant pocket and held it up for her to see.
The Turquoise Shroud: A Seth Halliday Novel Page 4