No Virgin Island

by C. Michele Dorsey

  Sabrina ignored his question about her last attorney’s identity. She never wanted to see that woman again or any of the other members of her so-called dream team. She just wanted to be left alone, renting and cleaning her ten little villas, not doing anything to warrant any attention. She wanted to be invisible.

  “Okay, now, as I remember, the last time I acted briefly as your lawyer, which I did pro bono, by the way, one of your villas had been burglarized, correct?” Neil pulled out a stack of paper place mats and began to make notes in pencil on the back of one.

  “You never sent me a bill. You only represented me for a couple of hours, when I had a second meeting with the cops, remember?” Sabrina had paid some astronomical legal fees over the years and was incensed Neil Perry was suggesting she had dodged his.

  “No, no, Salty, don’t go getting dramatic. I considered it a courtesy to a new resident on the island. Plus, I thought you were good looking. Besides, you bought me dinner that night, and didn’t we go swimming afterward?”

  Sabrina rolled her eyes. She remembered the swim well and how she’d almost let her guard down with Neil. He was an attractive man, but was any man worth what she’d been through in Nantucket? “Please, can we get on with this?”

  “Sure. I just know from that little incident about the burglary that the island cops aren’t particularly thrilled you chose St. John as your new home. Probably in part because Attorney Mercy made the Nantucket cops look dumber than Whitey Bulger made the FBI look in front of the entire world. So I want to be very careful here. I need your story. Actually, stories. I need to know all about the then and the now.”

  Neil accepted a tray with a decanter and two white porcelain mugs on it with a pitcher of milk and a bowl of sugar packets. He poured a mug and slid it over to Sabrina. She wanted to decline the coffee, show that she was tough and that she didn’t need any accommodations, but the smell was too divine to resist.

  “Cream? Sugar?” Neil asked.

  Sabrina shook her head and took a gulp. The strong hot black coffee warmed her body.

  “Okay, let’s start with the now. Tell me everything you did today, starting with waking up. Don’t spare me a single boring or titillating detail,” Neil said, taking a sip from his own mug.

  “I got up at five forty-five like I always do,” Sabrina said, hating having to share the details of her private life with anyone, even someone who couldn’t reveal them under the attorney–client privilege.

  “Five forty-five? A.M.? For real, Salty?” Neil asked, as if this was just the first thing she had to say that he would doubt.

  “Yeah, for real. Now, do you want me to go on?”

  “Yeah, yeah. It’s just so early,” Neil said.

  “I watched the sunrise, did a little yoga and meditation, then took Girlfriend out for a walk,” Sabrina said, pouring another cup of coffee out of the carafe into her mug.

  “Girlfriend? You have a girlfriend? Listen, you aren’t . . . haven’t switched teams because of that mess in Massachusetts, have you?” Neil asked, his voice crackling with the huskiness Sabrina had found sexy the last time he’d been her lawyer of the hour.

  “My dog, Neil. My dog’s name is Girlfriend, remember?”

  “The one we went swimming with after you bought me dinner that night? We were pretty drunk, so you can’t blame me for forgetting her name. At least I remembered yours, right? Go on, I won’t interrupt you anymore.” Neil picked up his pencil and began to jot down notes as Sabrina described making coffee and taking appetizers out of the freezer and putting them into the refrigerator so that Tanya could bake and deliver them later in the day to guests staying at Lime Cay. She continued to torture him with the details about which cleaning items she loaded in her bucket and which book she downloaded onto her iPod.

  “Okay, Salty, get to the part about when you found the body,” Neil said, looking her dead in the eyes. Sabrina wondered if he was trying to intimidate her.

  She told him exactly what she had told the police and added that she had called Henry to join her at Villa Mascarpone because she was leery of being with the cops alone after last time. She guessed Henry had the same concern, which is why he’d called Neil.

  “What do you know about this guy, the murder victim?” Neil asked.

  Sabrina took a breath before answering, reaching into the navy-blue-and-white-striped canvas bag she called her briefcase.

  “Not much. It’s all here,” she said, pulling out the Villa Mascarpone file. “His name is Carter Johnson. He was a last-minute booking, so he got a discount but had to pay the entire rental upfront. He sent an American Express check. We communicated only by e-mail. Since I got the check via overnight delivery, I wasn’t worried. Besides, I had his cell phone number. I was just relieved to be booking the house. Someone had canceled for the two weeks he took them and the following two. I wasn’t looking forward to explaining a four-week vacancy to the owner. She’s not exactly sweetness and light. I was lucky to fill all four weeks.”

  Neil took the file and glanced at the printed e-mails, the executed rental agreement, and the copy of the check. He flipped each piece of paper so he could examine the backside.

  “This is it?” he asked.

  “Yes. What more should there be? He was just renting a vacation house, not applying for a passport,” Sabrina said, crossing her legs so that Neil couldn’t see the left one was shaking.

  “And you met him only once? When you picked him up at the ferry?”

  Did he know somehow that she had brought the propane tank to the house? No, how could he? She kept with her little lie. Consistency was the key to lying, she figured. Telling the truth about going to the house would only complicate matters. It would give the cops a reason to think that somehow she was involved with this guy. And it wasn’t true, so what was the harm in a small fib? She could always say she’d forgotten, if need be. She filled people’s propane tanks all the time.

  “Yes, just the once,” she said, squeezing her right calf against her left leg, begging it silently to stay still.

  “Okay, now tell me about Nantucket,” Neil said, pushing his coffee mug to the side and pulling out a fresh placemat to write on.

  “Not until you switch the coffee for vodka,” Sabrina said, sliding her mug over next to his.

  Chapter Eight

  Henry looked around Bar None to see if Sabrina was there. He’d spotted her jeep in the parish priest’s parking spot outside the church across the street, even though there was a sign posted, “Thou shalt not park here.” Sometimes he worried that Sabrina was a little self-destructive. Then again, she seemed to think she was predestined for disaster.

  Henry wasn’t much of a drinker, but tonight was an exception. The sight of Carter Johnson flopped on the sagging hammock, bloody and lifeless, made him sick and weary. Life was not supposed to be so complicated here.

  Henry sidled up to the bar, which was nearly full, and ordered a mojito and a plate of coconut shrimp as an afterthought. He hadn’t eaten since dinner at Asolare.

  He looked around him and knew why Sabrina liked Bar None. The music was too loud to have any kind of a real conversation. She could sip her drink here, look out at Cruz Bay, and be left alone. How someone who had gone to such extremes to be left alone managed to keep walking into other people’s disasters, he didn’t know.

  The bartender slid a drink in front of him, telling him his shrimp order would be right up. He heard the loud voice of a man he could not see about eight stools down from him. It could only be one guy.

  “Someone turn down that blasted music and turn on the six o’clock news so we can find out what the hell is going on here, will you?”

  Henry leaned forward and looked down the bar, past the platter of shrimp the bartender had just slid in front of him, at Rory Eagan, who nodded at him. Henry noticed that Rory, dressed in Madras Bermuda shorts and a blue button-down collar shirt with the sleeves rolled up far enough to show tanned arms donning a Rolex, looked more like a gay man t
han most gay men did.

  “Hey, Villa Mascarpone is one of your villas, isn’t it?” Rory asked. “What happened there? The cops won’t tell me even though I practically live next door.”

  Rory Eagan typified the kind of jerk Henry no longer had to cater to as he had when he’d worked as a flight attendant for twelve years in first class.

  Now he only had to meet them at the dock and take them to their villas. Short and sweet.

  “No clue,” Henry said, stuffing a hot coconut shrimp into his mouth so he wouldn’t have to talk to Rory. He looked up at the oversized flat screen and feigned interest in the weather forecast. It was always eighty-six degrees with a 30 percent chance of an occasional shower in St. John this time of year. Channel 8 was interviewing some politician about an upcoming festival in St. Thomas. Nothing about a murder.

  Henry was relieved to see Rory Eagan was now preoccupied with two young female tourists not much older than his twins. He felt sorry for the kids, having such a jerk for a father. He thought about his own father, an airline pilot ’til he retired. Hank Whitman wasn’t an easy man to be the son of, particularly the gay son, but he had been a decent man and would never have been found pawing young women in a bar, knowing his kids could easily wander by and see him in all his glory.

  Why Mara Bennett, the island’s most successful (and only female) builder, had married such a miscreant had escaped Henry until he became close friends with her.

  They’d had coffee a dozen or more times before Mara admitted to Henry just how aware she was of Rory’s “whoring,” as she called it. It turned out she didn’t care. Rory had turned up on St. John as a down-on-his-luck widower with a young set of boy-girl twins. Their drunken mother had driven straight into a tree, handing Rory a sad story that Mara knew played well with the single women on St. John. She never believed that Rory loved her. She knew he’d married her for her money, and she’d married him for his beautiful young children, with whom she had immediately fallen in love. Mara told Henry she got the better end of the deal.

  The bartender reached up to grab a bottle of Stoli Citros, a couple of glasses, and a bowl filled with sliced lemons and carried them over to Neil’s office. The bamboo shades were pulled down so Henry couldn’t see who was inside, but he guessed it must be Sabrina. She needed more than a bottle of Stoli to get through this one. Neil must have been interviewing her for hours.

  The other bartender had turned up the volume of the television, which hushed most of the people at the bar. A woman with a snarl on her face and a stiff blonde hairstyle that resembled a helmet began to speak in a blistering tirade.

  “Breaking news tonight. Reports that Sabrina Salter has yet another body at her feet. Unconfirmed reports tonight are that on a remote Caribbean Island where she fled, another murder victim has been discovered. Not just discovered, ladies and gentlemen, but discovered by her. We also understand that even though Sabrina Salter has not been charged as of this moment, that even though she has not been named as a party of interest, she has lawyered up, folks. We’re working on talking to her lawyer and getting more information for you. How history does repeat itself. I wonder how that Nantucket jury will feel hearing this news.”

  The bar crowd went silent as former prosecutor now investigative journalist Faith Chase showed video clips of a different Sabrina, a more professionally dressed woman, first on air, reporting snowfall amounts in various Massachusetts communities after a blizzard. “Worcester takes the prize with over twenty-eight inches,” Sabrina told the camera. Next, a Sabrina coming out of a courthouse, head ducked down, flanked by several lawyers after her arraignment for first-degree murder, followed by some tender shots of Sabrina’s dead husband’s children at his funeral. Finally, a clip of Sabrina emerging once again from the same courthouse after her acquittal, repeating the mantra, “No comment, no comment, no comment.”

  “Will she get away with it again, folks? Will Sabrina Salter just wander from island to island, killing off the men in her life? Stay tuned. We are on this story and will provide you, our wonderful fans, with the same determined, dogged reporting you have come to trust.”

  Henry watched the jaw-jutting, hissing Faith Chase sign off with, “Good night and God bless each and every one of you for caring about the victims of crime.”

  The bartender flipped off the television and answered a phone before turning the familiar sound of Bob Marley back on. Henry felt sick, the coconut shrimp and mojito definitely not liking what they’d just heard. Sabrina had shared with him the horrors of being demonized by the goddess of trash TV, confiding that her most frightening dreams were not about the shooting or the trial but about Faith Chase vilifying her every act each night before a national audience. If she wore a plain navy-blue skirt with a white blouse and a pair of pearls to court, she was trying to look like a parochial school sophomore. If she wore a black suit, she was shooting for the “don’t blame me, I’m the widow” appeal.

  Henry had come to St. John because of Sabrina. She had convinced him the island was a perfect place to start over, leave behind the heartbreak and sorrow, the disappointment and damage. But her demons wouldn’t be banished; they just kept following her wherever she went. Henry couldn’t help but wonder if his demons would be any kinder. He doubted it and ordered another drink. This time, his father’s favorite, a double Scotch on the rocks, while he tried not to think about what David, his ex, was doing at this moment.

  He looked over at Rory Eagan, a horrible excuse for a father, husband, and man, and realized David had been no better. His promises to leave his wife, acknowledge his love for Henry, and start a family were all lies. And even on the perfect island in paradise, there was no escape from betrayal.

  Then Henry wondered for the first time where Rory Eagan had been that morning.

  Chapter Nine

  Neil poked his head around the bamboo shade that separated his office from the other booths at Bar None.

  “Hey, Mitch,” he hollered, “bring me a bottle of Stoli Citros, a couple of glasses, and some ice.” He had such a sexy voice, a little on the hoarse side, Sabrina noticed again—not that she wanted to.

  “And lemons,” Sabrina said. She loved lemons. Lemons with butter, lemon frosting, lemon poppy seed muffins, and most of all, lemons with her booze.

  “Oh, yeah, and some lemons, a lot of lemons,” Neil said, sitting back on the bench. “Okay, Salty, you’ll have your Stoli and your lemons. I think I even see Henry sitting out there at the bar, ready to drive you home when we’re done. So, the Nantucket story. Shoot.”

  Neil winced before the double entendre even occurred to Sabrina and apologized, grabbing the bottle, ice bucket, and glasses from the bartender.

  “I’ll be right back with the lemons,” Mitch said, looking at her with that funny expression she remembered seeing on faces ever since Nantucket. People never looked at you the same once they knew you’d been connected with a murder. You were forever distinguished from the rest of the population, who got their murder thrills on television and from novels. You became a story, a legend of sorts, and you could never shake it.

  Neil poured a tumbler full of vodka and slipped three ice cubes on the top.

  “Here, Salty, you look like you could use this,” he said, sliding the drink over to her. Then he poured an identical drink for himself.

  “I could have used it a couple of hours ago,” Sabrina said, taking the bowl of lemon wedges directly from Mitch, squeezing three over her drink, and gulping about a third of it in one sip.

  Neil watched her with those smoky blue eyes of his, blue like the Atlantic Ocean in New England. Sabrina didn’t want to look into his blues while she told him her very old, very sad story. She hated talking about Nantucket, almost as much as she detested talking about Allerton, the lonely long peninsula south of Boston where she’d grown up.

  “We owned a house on Nantucket. We used it mostly in the summer together, always inviting lots of people over. But I liked it better in the off season, after the
throngs of beautiful people were gone.” She added more ice to her drink so she didn’t pass out before she was done talking. She hadn’t eaten recently, since she’d skipped breakfast before heading up to clean Villa Mascarpone.

  Sabrina took a deep breath and decided to just spit it out. Better to rip a bandage off quickly. Then the pain would be fast and short.

  “Okay, here’s what happened. I met my husband while I was working at Channel Three as a meteorologist. Ben was the sports anchor for Channel Three. He was funny, handsome, a local celebrity. Boston Magazine always named him as the best sports anchor in Boston. We were at work one evening when Ben was served with divorce papers. He was married to Cyndi Cashman, a consumer reporter over at Channel Eight. They were in the news all of the time and when they had kids, the media were all over them. He thought they were the perfect family. Until that night,” Sabrina said, finishing her drink and handing Neil the empty glass.

  Neil put up his right index finger, signaling her to hit the pause button for a moment.

  “Hey, Mitch, bring another bucket of ice. And a couple of orders of onion rings and conch fritters, will you?” Neil turned back to her. Had he heard her stomach growling? Or did Neil Perry have a sense about her, one Sabrina remembered vaguely from the night on the beach when they’d flopped on the still warm sand and had almost gotten a little too familiar?

  “This was his second marriage. He’d left wife number one for Cyndi, and when Cyndi left him, Ben was devastated. I don’t think he’d ever been rejected before. He turned to me for consolation and I was flattered. He told me I had more depth, was more of a woman than anyone he’d ever met before. When he came on to me, I wasn’t smart enough to say no. I mean, at the time, I bought the story. I had been so much more supportive and caring than Cyndi ever had been. He told me he loved me as he had never loved before,” Sabrina said, embarrassed at how cliché her story was.

  “And you believed you understood him the way no other woman had ever been able to in the past,” Neil said, handing her another drink.