“Of course. I was an idiot. In my defense, I was about fifteen years younger than Ben, but still, I should have seen it. He was on the rebound. I was ten years younger than Cyndi and he knew that would bother her.” She couldn’t admit to Neil that she had met Cyndi on a number of occasions and thought she seemed okay, not the demonic woman Ben had described her to be. But Ben had been so convincing, and she’d wanted to believe him so much that she figured Cyndi was just a phony. After all, Ben had captured her heart. He was the only person who had ever told her that he loved her. The only person. Ever.
She had never told anyone this. Not Justine Mercy, who had saved her from a murder conviction. Not Henry, the only person on the planet she now trusted. And she was not going to share this with Neil Perry.
“So he married you on the rebound?” Neil asked.
“Yes. My ratings were pretty high at the time and I was getting good press. He liked being with someone who drew him additional publicity. I worshipped him and doted on his kids,” Sabrina said, eyeing the huge platter Mitch was handing them under the office shade, the salty smell of grease wafting through the Caribbean breeze.
“I thought we were doing okay. We’d take his kids to the Red Sox, Patriots, and Bruins games and we were always being photographed by the press,” Sabrina said, taking an onion ring and salting it before she popped it in her mouth. She hadn’t minded the photographs, but she’d wondered, sometimes, how Ben’s kids felt about being thrust into photos with their stepmother. She knew nothing about raising children, but she knew they were smarter than people gave them credit for. She had grown up motherless and knew it had been smart not to have children of her own. She was not mother material.
“And then?” Neil asked as he dipped a conch fritter into green habanera hot sauce.
“And then he did it again. Only this time, it was with an attorney who specialized in sports law.”
“Sports law? What kind of woman specializes in jock wars?” Neil asked.
“An even younger than me, very confident, superbuff lawyer, that’s who. I got an anonymous e-mail from someone telling me that Ben was at the Oak Bar at the Copley Plaza with her holding hands one night when I was working late at the station. I decided it was from a crank, but hey, I had to drive to our Beacon Hill townhouse, so why not stop by the Copley, even though it’s not exactly on the way, and treat myself to a nightcap? I’d worked hard all night.”
Sabrina remembered the night more vividly than yesterday, probably because she visited it every night in her sleep. She had been so sure it was a mistake. She’d sauntered into the Copley as if she had the key to the penthouse in her purse, planning to feign surprise at finding Ben and whatever sports contact he was having a business drink with and joining them. There were so many women in sports broadcasting these days. She was certain her tipster had simply misunderstood the nature of the meeting.
But it was Sabrina who had misunderstood. Poised and confident, she’d entered the bar, pausing behind a massive ornate oak pillar to catch her breath, when she saw him. He’d caught the hand of the woman he was seated across from in the midst of what appeared to be a very feminine gesture. He took her fingertips and placed them on his lips, just as he did with Sabrina when he would stop her midsentence and capture her expressive hand and softly kiss her fingertips. Sabrina would forget what she was talking about and could only think about how Ben’s mouth might feel on other parts of her body. Neil didn’t need to know about this part. He seemed pretty attentive to Sabrina’s story, but lawyers, even retired beach bum lawyers, didn’t really care about the sad stuff. They just wanted enough facts to get you off.
“I could tell it was a romantic rendezvous. I knew in one split second he was done with me, had moved on, and that our marriage was over. I felt like someone had split my sternum down the middle with a meat cleaver,” Sabrina said, reaching for a lemon wedge and giving it a vicious squeeze over the conch fritter. Hot sauce, no matter what color, was highly overrated.
“So you ran away to Nantucket? Why not just boot the bastard when he tried to come home and pretend he was late at a meeting? Why did you have to run away?”
Sabrina could hear the television blaring from the bar and ice cubes tinkling over the laugher and chatter and wanted to end the conversation. She didn’t want to have to be talking to a lawyer again. She’d only found the body.
“Because I was devastated, that’s why. I really didn’t believe he would do to me what he’d done to his first wife, especially after Cyndi had done it to him. I truly thought we had something different, that I was so special to him that he wouldn’t consider straying.” I thought that he really loved me, she didn’t say.
Sabrina grabbed a napkin and dabbed at her mouth, not wanting to meet Neil’s eyes and see what Sabrina expected might be pity or disdain at the sight of a smart woman who had been just as dumb as the legions before her. Just another dumped broad. A first-class chump.
“And so, what happened on Nantucket?” Neil asked, making her wonder if he was uncomfortable with the tiny speck of emotion she had shown.
“I grabbed a late flight out of Boston to Nantucket, took a cab to the house. It was freezing inside, so I put up the heat. I made myself a double martini, threw on Ben’s sweatshirt and sweatpants, and drank alone in the kitchen. We’d done a spread in the Globe the summer before about cooking in our Nantucket cottage kitchen for a local charity. The kids helped us serve, and I was beginning to enjoy being a stepmom,” Sabrina said.
“Did you shoot him coming into the kitchen from outside?” Neil asked, looking at the bottom of his empty glass before splashing a touch of vodka into it. He raised the bottle to her. She nodded and let him get her just a little more drunk, just enough so she could finish telling the story but not enough to get her maudlin and blathering.
“No, no, I made a second drink and found some extra blankets, went upstairs, and crawled into bed. I just couldn’t get warm, and I couldn’t seem to get drunk, try as I did. I was semicomatose finally when I heard someone coming up the old rickety staircase to the second floor. The house belonged to one of the original whaling captains. Everything in the house creaks. I thought I heard voices, but I couldn’t really tell if it was the wind howling outside the window. I sat up and reached into the drawer of the nightstand where Ben always kept a gun. ‘Just in case,’ he always would say. I was terrified. I heard the sound of the bedroom doorknob being turned, and I raised and pointed the gun toward it. When it opened, I just pulled the trigger. It never occurred to me that Ben would bring a woman to our vacation home, although I learned differently later at the trial,” Sabrina said, suddenly so tired she could have put her head on the table and slept the remainder of the night.
“When did you figure out it was your husband?” Neil asked. He had started to jot down notes on the place mats, making her wonder what he found relevant to the dead man in the hammock.
When had she figured out it was her husband? Sabrina would take the answer with her to her grave. On her better days, she was certain it had only been after she had turned on the light and realized the intruder was her husband and his jock lawyer. But in the thinnest hours of the night when she tossed and turned, Sabrina wondered if she had seen Ben’s face and then fired or pulled the trigger in a moment of rage. She would never know. All she knew was that a jury had decided to believe her and not the jock lawyer, who had testified for the prosecution.
“When I heard shrieking from a woman and turned on the lamp to find Ben bleeding from the gut, still holding the hand of the screaming blonde as he slipped to the floor.” Sabrina still marveled at how the sight of Ben entering the bedroom he’d shared with her with another woman stood out in her mind more than the bloody scene that ensued. This was a memory she was very clear about. She really didn’t want to talk about Ben anymore.
“Hey, Boss, you got a phone call,” Mitch said as he approached Neil with a cordless phone.
“Tell them I’m busy,” Neil said in a tone tha
t told Sabrina she was going to have to finish her story.
“Even if it’s Faith Chase?” Mitch asked, eyebrows raised.
Neil placed his hands together as if in prayer. “Especially if it’s Faith Chase.”
Chapter Ten
Sabrina rushed away from Neil’s office at Bar None, knowing Faith Chase had found out that she had discovered a murder victim. Somehow Chase had also determined that Neil Perry was representing her. While Sabrina was fully aware that the only thing that moved more quickly on an island than a thunderstorm was gossip, she was still stunned to find the media already involved. Neil had refused Chase’s call but dodged when Sabrina had asked how Chase knew to call him.
Glad to be out of the tiny booth and out from under the microscope, Sabrina was surprised to feel fairly sober. She noticed Mara Bennett coming down the steep slope of the St. John Car Rental parking lot in her work boots, still wearing a tool belt.
Sabrina called over to Mara, who was probably on her way to meet the twins, Liam and Kelly, at the ferry. Although the kids were at least sixteen, Mara still insisted on meeting them at the dock every day when they arrived from St. Thomas, where they attended a private academy. Sabrina admired Mara’s lioness style of mothering, perpetually poised to protect her cubs, though they were not hers biologically.
She looked at her friend and smiled. Mara Bennett wasn’t a pretty woman. Petite with a plain face and unruly curly brown hair, her enormous brown eyes made her look interesting. Mara was solid and curvy, not hot and blonde like the women with whom her husband, Rory, cavorted. It was a funny thing, Sabrina thought. The more she grew to know and admire Mara, the prettier Mara became. Yet the more she knew the lecherous Rory, tanned with a full head of sun-kissed hair and embarrassingly blue eyes, the less attractive he grew.
“Hey, Mara,” Sabrina called.
Mara converged with Sabrina on the sidewalk, falling into place with her.
“Sabrina, are you okay? I heard what happened out at Villa Mascarpone today. Awful, just unthinkable,” Mara said.
Sabrina was grateful to hear Mara express concern about her.
“I’m okay. It was pretty grim, and I feel terrible about our guest.”
“I can imagine. It’s just too close to home, literally, and it’s got Rory in a dither,” Mara said.
Sabrina stopped and looked at Mara.
“The police are interviewing me again tomorrow. Faith Chase has already begun ‘investigating’ the case. Mara, I don’t know if I can go through this again.”
“Wait a minute, Sabrina. Who says you’ll have to? You didn’t shoot this guy, right?”
“Of course not.”
“So that’s the big difference, sweetie. Last time, you did shoot the guy. Oh, I know, there were good reasons. I’m just saying you’re not going to be charged like you were in Nantucket. There will be nothing for the media to ‘chase.’” Mara made little quotation marks with each hand. “What we all really should be concerned about is finding out who did do it.”
“I know,” Sabrina said, realizing she hadn’t really considered this question. She had been too preoccupied by the thought she might be considered a “person of interest” to the police.
“Exactly. Even though the kids were safe at school over in St. Thomas all day, I can’t wait to see them get off that ferry in a few minutes and give them big, fat hugs. I don’t like that it was in our neighborhood,” Mara said.
Of course Mara would be terrified to bring the kids home next to where a murder had occurred just hours before.
“Mara, you practically live in a fortress. You don’t have to worry. You know that; you built it, for God’s sake.” Sabrina pictured the sprawling stone house Mara had built on the slope opposite Villa Mascarpone at the farthest point in Fish Bay when she and Rory had decided to get married. When Sabrina had first seen the house, Mara seemed almost embarrassed by its opulence. She explained Rory insisted it be luxurious and secure. He had told her you could never be too careful with children, particularly when you lived on the remote side of a tiny island. Mara confessed she had willingly agreed. She was so delighted to have children come with the deal that she said she would have carved a moat into the mountainside if he had asked. Sabrina remembered asking Mara about the name of the house. In Gaelic, Cairn Suantrai literally meant a “lullaby atop a mountain.” They crossed the street where Henry was leaning against Sabrina’s jeep.
“Hey, Henry,” Mara called.
Henry jumped a little and looked at them as though he’d been caught ready to steal the car.
“What’s with parking in a priest’s parking space, Sabrina? Are you looking for more trouble?” he asked, hands on hips, facing his business partner and friend.
“Relax, Henry. Father Posada is in San Juan for a couple of days,” Mara said. “Oh, here’s the ferry.” She waved good-bye as she hurried down the road toward the dock.
“Hop in. I’ll drive you home,” Henry said to Sabrina, opening the door to the driver’s seat.
“No need. All of the vodka on the island couldn’t get me drunk tonight. I’m fine to drive.”
“Well, your head may be sober, but your blood is probably pretty pickled and you don’t need any more trouble right now. Can you imagine how easy you would make it for the cops if they got you for a DUI right now?” Henry asked.
She didn’t bother answering. She got into the passenger seat, and he asked how it went with the guests she had picked up.
“You do not want to know. Seriously. You would have thought they were booked at the White House and that I told them they were being switched to a Motel 6.”
Henry pulled out of the parking space and started to slink through the narrow streets of Cruz Bay, past happy vacationers who were wandering from bar to bar after a full day in the sun.
“I finally had to tell them the villa was a crime scene,” Sabrina said.
“They were that difficult? Even with all the perks we threw in?”
“It really didn’t make sense to me, but nothing today has made sense from the moment I pulled into the driveway at Villa Mascarpone,” Sabrina said.
“No, it hasn’t. Has it occurred to you that the only one who seems to have been out by Villa Mascarpone today was Rory Eagan? I’m just saying.”
“Oh, that wouldn’t be good for Mara and the kids, would it? Speaking of not good, Faith Chase has found me.” Henry understood better than anyone on St. John—well, except Neil Perry now—why she’d taken refuge on the island.
“I know. I saw her on television while I was at Bar None,” he said. They began climbing up the road named Jacob’s Ladder, although real islanders knew it as Genn Hill. Whatever you called it, it was as close to being vertical as a road could get. Sabrina had been terrified driving up or down it when she first moved to St. John. Now she loved it, like she loved the old wooden roller coaster in the amusement park back in Allerton.
“I’m in trouble, Henry. I know it,” she said.
“Wait and see what Neil can do. You’re just freaking out because of what happened in Nantucket, Sabrina. But this is different. You didn’t have anything to do with Carter Johnson’s death. There is a real killer out there. Once they find out who it is, then the focus will be off you. I get why you’re panicking, but I think it will be okay.”
They were winding through the curves on the road to Fish Bay. In the far distance on the last hill, Sabrina could see the glow of light, the kind she remembered hovered above shopping malls from when she lived in Boston. She had a sinking feeling in her chest, because she knew this halo hanging above the villa must be from lights being used by the police as they investigated the scene of the crime.
She couldn’t see her own tiny house, which was tucked into a hillside, but she couldn’t wait to get there. She’d missed her evening swim with Girlfriend at Hawksnest Beach, but she could take her for a little walk and then take a long shower and wash away the muck of the day.
“Can you pick me up in the morning around
eight thirty?” Sabrina asked, remembering that she had to accompany Neil the next morning to meet with the police. Henry would need her jeep to get home. “I can drop you off to pick up the van when I meet Neil at Bar None.”
“Quick, get down,” Henry said, pushing her head forward and down with his right hand. Sabrina heard the panic in his voice and followed his instruction without question.
“Farther, duck down as far as you can go,” he said, as he reached behind into the backseat and pulled the plastic trash bag filled with rags for cleaning into the front seat and threw it on top of Sabrina. Her head was jammed against the glove compartment and her knees were thrust between her breasts. She was not pleased.
“Henry,” Sabrina said, in a plaintive tone.
“The INN TV van is parked about two hundred feet from your house. That wannabe reporter from Faith Chase is reporting on camera. She’s pointing to your house. There are about six cops coming in and out of the house, some with bags. Girlfriend does not look happy.”
“Get Girlfriend and let’s get out of here. Please, Henry,” she said.
Sabrina heard Henry get out of the jeep and the sound of the whistle she and Girlfriend knew so well. She heard him push the driver’s seat forward and then the galloping sound of her beloved chocolate lab bounding down the dirt road.
“Good girl,” he said, shutting the door and turning on the ignition simultaneously. Sabrina felt him hit reverse, backing the jeep to the side of the road and then moving forward with a tear.
“Hang on,” he said, as the jeep accelerated even more.
Sabrina felt the bag of rags before she felt the impact of Girlfriend on top of them.
“Backseat, backseat,” she heard Henry say as he pulled the dog off her.
He took a left onto the main road because there was nowhere to go if he went right, other than back to the scene of the crime where she had started this never-ending day.
Sabrina felt the plastic bag lifted off her and began to rise up from the floor.
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