by Bob Morris
“What’s that?” Aunt Trula says.
“Oh, Zack’s just trying to be clever,” Barbara says, shooting me daggers. “How many people have you invited anyway, Titi?”
“The guest list is right at five hundred,” Aunt Trula says. “And there have been very few regrets thus far, I’ll have you know. I am quite renowned for my parties.”
After we’re done eating, Barbara heads back to her room to get some work done. Boggy begs off, too.
I’m not quite ready to call it a night. So I enlist a tumbler of Gosling’s to keep me company on the terrace. It does a fine job. I’ve invited a second tumbler to sit down and join me when Aunt Trula steps out from the house.
“You look content,” she says.
“Like a baby with bourbon in his belly.”
“I’ve never heard that one before,” Aunt Trula says. “But I rather like it.”
“My grandfather use to say it. I think it referred to the old Southern tradition of giving crying babies a little toddy to help them relax for the night.”
“Your grandfather raised you, isn’t that right, Zachary?”
“Yes, he and my grandmother.”
“And did they give you toddies before bedtime?”
“Only until I was two,” I say. “After that, I poured my own.”
Aunt Trula laughs.
“What a delightful sense of humor you have,” she says. “I can see why Barbara thinks so highly of you.”
“It’s a mutual admiration society.”
She takes the chair beside me.
“I must say, I had my doubts about you at first, Zachary. You and Barbara just seem so … so …”
“So what?”
“So unsuited for each other,” she says. “I hope that doesn’t offend you.”
“Not at all. I’ve heard it from other people. Barbara has, too. Neither one of us would argue the point.”
“It’s just that Barbara is so … so …”
“Refined,” I say.
Aunt Trula nods.
“And you are so …”
“Not.”
Aunt Trula laughs.
“You have your own sort of refinement,” she says.
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“As it was intended,” Aunt Trula says. “Still, I must ask: What are your intentions with my niece?”
I somehow avoid spewing out rum.
“You mean, what are my intentions as far as …”
“You know very well what I mean, Zachary Chasteen. Do you intend to marry my Barbara?”
“I love her.”
“That does not answer my question. Do you intend to marry her?”
I drain the rum. I don’t say anything.
“Do not think me just a prying old woman who must control everything and everyone around her.”
“I don’t think that.”
“Oh yes, you do. Because everyone thinks that about me. And rightly so, because that is exactly the way I am. I cannot help it. I like having things my way,” says Aunt Trula. “Be certain of one thing: Barbara is quite dear to me. And it would grieve me to see her hurt.”
“I would never hurt her. My intentions are totally honorable.”
Aunt Trula considers me for a long moment.
“That still is not an answer, but it is good enough for the time being,” she says. “I just want you to know, Zachary, that whatever your intentions with Barbara, you have my blessing.”
“Thank you.”
Aunt Trula smiles.
“And now I must ask you a favor,” she says. “I would very much like it if you could help that poor dear Fiona settle this business with her brother.”
I don’t say anything.
“She needs to bring some closure to this ordeal. She is all alone here and I’m quite sure she’s at her wit’s end.”
I don’t say anything.
“Of course, I would step in to help her myself, but as you know I have my hands quite full with the party.”
I don’t say anything.
“You’re not saying anything,” Aunt Trula says.
“That’s because I really don’t know what I can do to help.”
“Oh, I’m sure a resourceful chap like you will rise to the occasion, Zachary.” She gets up from her chair, bends down and, wonder of wonders, plants a kiss on my cheek. “Nighty-night.”
After she’s gone, I sit on the terrace, stewing things over. I really could use some company to help me stew. Good thing there’s more Gosling’s.
29
I’m up early to see Barbara off. She has planned one of her typical pack-it-to-the-hilt days. A half-dozen meetings with hoteliers, hoping to snag some new ad contracts for Tropics. A dinner down in St. George’s with the new minister of tourism. She doesn’t expect to return until late tonight.
I hang out with Boggy and the hole-digging crew, pretending they require my help and expertise as they set the third Bismarck in place. Only five to go. And six days until Aunt Trula’s party. Piece of cake. They seem to have it under control.
It’s still too early to check in with the attorney, Daniel Denton, to see if he’s done what I asked him to do. Therefore, it’s still too early to drop by the hospital to visit Brewster Trimmingham and do what needs doing there.
I’m just a knight-errant at loose ends. So it’s appropriate that I chance upon Fiona McHugh, who is punching away on her laptop in a corner of the study.
Full of chivalrous intent, I offer my services.
Fiona McHugh scrutinizes me with her blue eyes. She has freckles on her nose. They’re fetching in an altogether wholesome kind of way.
“Exactly what sort of help do you think you can provide me, Mr. Chasteen?”
I open my mouth to say something, but discover I don’t really have anything to say. Fiona picks up the slack.
“Do you have any experience in police work?”
“I’ve created lots of it from time to time.”
Fiona allows herself the hint of a smile.
“Is that the sort of help you are offering? Comic relief?”
“Well, I’m good at heavy lifting, too.”
She closes the laptop, rests her chin in a hand, and considers me.
“Do you have any insight regarding my brother’s death?”
I flash briefly on my conversation two nights earlier with Janeen Hill. This doesn’t seem the appropriate time for trotting out the reporter’s wild speculations about some misbegotten quest for a chunk of biblical lore. And despite the grisly similarities between Ned McHugh’s death and the murders of Martin Boyd and Richard Peach, I’m not on firm ground when it comes to discussing them. So …
“No,” I say.
“Are you well acquainted with Bermuda, know your way around, have any particular connections that might prove valuable?”
“No, no, and no. I only arrived here four days ago.”
“Then I have to ask again: What possible help can you provide me?”
“I’ve got a cool car. A Morris Minor convertible. It’s blue.”
“So you’re offering to be my chauffeur? Is that it?”
“Sure, why not? The comic relief I’ll toss in for free. Mainly because the radio in the car doesn’t work.”
“That’s very kind of you, really. But I intend to rent a car for myself.”
“I don’t think so,” I say.
I tell her about Bermuda’s law prohibiting tourists from driving cars. And when I’m done, she asks: “How is it then that you are driving a car?”
So I give her the abridged version of how I came to liberate Trimmingham’s Morris Minor from the parking garage the night before.
“Still,” she says, “you don’t have a license to drive it.”
“A mere technicality. Besides, you’re a cop. I’m thinking if we get pulled over you can flash your badge,” I say. “You do have a badge, don’t you?”
“Of course.”
“Can I see it?”
&
nbsp; She gives me a look.
“What, you don’t believe I’m with the police?”
“Sure, I believe it. I just want to see what a police badge from Down Under looks like, that’s all.”
Fiona reaches into her purse, pulls out a billfold, and flips it open.
“It’s really not terribly exciting,” she says.
She’s right. It’s shiny and it looks like any other police badge. The emblem reads: Western Australian Water Police.
“Water police?”
Fiona nods and puts the billfold away.
“Rather like your coast guard, only we’re civil service not military,” she says.
“You get a lot of experience with murders in the water police?”
“Mr. Chasteen, if you are challenging my credentials, then …”
“Not challenging, just asking.”
She gives me a glare, a surprisingly harsh one for such a pretty face.
“For the record, I graduated from the Western Australian Police Academy with a specialty in investigative procedure and administration. I worked four years in Perth proper, first fraud, then felony, then homicide. Australians don’t murder each other with nearly the frequency as you Americans, Mr. Chasteen. Our homicide rate is barely a tenth of yours, about one murder per day spread out over the entire country. Still, we do get the odd stiff in Perth and, yes, I’ve had a hand in several such investigations.
“As for the water police part of the equation, I saw my career evolving into a series of desk jobs. Promotions, yes, and better pay. But not for me. I asked for my transfer to the water police and have been there about a year. We’ve got fast boats and thirteen thousand clicks of coastline to watch over, from Scorpion Bight north to Doubtful Bay. Every day’s a corker now, all grouse for me.”
“That means you like what you do, right?”
“Yeah, I like it. I like it a lot.” She smiles. “Any other questions?”
“Uh-huh,” I say. “Do I get the job or not?”
“What job?”
“The job of helping you do whatever it is you need to do.”
“You don’t give up, do you?”
“You know the old saying: ‘Obstinancy is the better part of valor.’”
“I thought discretion was.”
“Obstinancy gets you what you want,” I say. “You can be discreet about it later.”
Fiona takes a moment to consider that, then rightly decides that it’s really not worth considering.
“Why do you want to help me, anyway?”
“Aunt Trula asked me to.”
“So you’re just offering to be nice?”
“That’s the way it started, but after you spurned me, it became a personal cause.”
“Men,” she says. “The whole conquest thing. They can be really screwed up like that.”
“Yeah,” I say. “They can. Meanwhile, my offer is still on the table.”
Fiona cocks her head, looks me up and down. I don’t feel the least bit objectified.
“So let me get this straight,” she says. “You don’t have a background in police work. You don’t know your way around. And yet, despite that, you are offering to drive me. In a car that you stole. In a country where you do not hold a driver’s license.”
“That pretty much sums it up.”
Fiona smiles. Her teeth are very white, her lips plump and pink.
“Works for me,” she says. “So where’s this cool car of yours, anyway?”
30
I futz around with the Morris Minor, trying to get the top down. But it’s no go. And just as well, since a rain shower descends upon us the moment we pull onto Middle Road, heading south to Hamilton. Fiona has an appointment at the coroner’s office to review the official findings.
“Barbara told me you met with the police after you arrived yesterday. Said you weren’t too pleased with the way things are going.”
“To put it mildly,” Fiona says. “Granted, it was a very brief meeting and I was jet lagged out of my skull. Still, the detective in charge of things … Worley, I think his name was …”
“Same guy who showed up here the day your brother’s body was found. Seemed decent enough.”
“Yeah, maybe. But not exactly forthcoming, not even after I played the just-between-us-cops card. What little information I got, I felt like I had to pry it out of him. Plus, he kept asking all these rather irksome questions about Ned. I got the feeling that my brother was under more suspicion than his murderer.”
“What kind of questions was he asking?”
“Mostly regarding Ned’s reasons for coming to Bermuda. Worley seemed to think he had a motive or something. It wasn’t like that.”
“So why did your brother come here?”
“It was just a lark, that’s all. Ned had been going to university for six solid years. Got his master’s degree. Decided to do some traveling before he settled down. Financed it by working at dive shops along the way. A few months in Thailand, then in the Maldives and Seychelles. Arrived here in Bermuda last fall. Next stop was supposed to be home. He was finally hankering to get on with his life, I think.”
“What did he study in college?”
“Marine archaeology,” she says.
I let that rattle around in my head. She keeps talking.
“A couple of months ago, Ned got word that he had won a position with the Australian National Maritime Museum. He was going to be charting some seventeenth-century shipwrecks along the north coast. Living on a research vessel, diving every day, putting together pieces of the past—it was his dream job. He was on top of the world.
“We were ecstatic that he’d finally be coming home, even if he’d be way up in the north territory. My mom and dad had even started planning a party to welcome him back. And then—poof!—he pulled the plug on everything.”
“What do you mean he pulled the plug?”
“I mean, two weeks before he was set to fly home, he called to tell us he had turned down the job and was staying here.”
“What reason did he give?”
Fiona shrugs.
“In typical Ned fashion, he was vague. Just said it was important that he remain in Bermuda because he could make a name for himself.”
“Make a name for himself?”
“That’s what he said.”
“Nothing more than that?”
“No, not really. Why?”
Best not to let laundry lie around in the hamper. Time to air it out …
“Listen, Fiona. When you spoke with Inspector Worley yesterday, did he mention anything about two other murders? They happened several years ago. Both scuba divers. Both apparently killed in a fashion much like that which happened to your brother.”
The look on Fiona’s face tells me it’s news to her.
I spend the next few minutes telling her what little I know about the deaths of Martin Boyd and Richard Peach, courtesy of my conversation with Janeen Hill. Skimpy stuff, but it’s all I’ve got.
When I’m done, Fiona doesn’t say anything for a while. Then …
“Bastard,” she says.
“Who?”
“Worley, that’s who. I went to see him. I talked to him cop-to-cop. He should have told me.”
“Maybe he was just waiting until he got all the details from the coroner’s report.”
Fiona shakes her head.
“Bullshit. He should have told me. The bastard should have told me.” She looks at me. “Do you know how to get in touch with that newspaper reporter?”
I fish around in my wallet, find Janeen Hill’s business card, and give it to Fiona. She punches numbers on a cell phone. I listen as she works her way through several layers at the Royal Gazette office, asking for Hill.
“Oh, really? As of when?” I hear her say. “Well thanks, then. I appreciate it.”
She turns off the phone.
“That was Janeen Hill’s editor.”
“Is he going to put her in touch with you?”
“I don’t think so.”
I look at her.
“Janeen Hill no longer works at the Royal Gazette” Fiona says. “She turned in her resignation yesterday.”
31
The coroner’s office is a small, stuffy room at the rear of the main police complex on Parliament Street. The chief coroner—a stout, darkhaired woman named Dr. Patterson—points us to chairs beside her desk.
“First, my condolences,” Dr. Patterson says. “My heart is with you.”
“Thank you,” Fiona says.
Dr. Patterson pats a stack of papers on her desk.
“You will be pleased to know that I have been authorized to release your brother’s remains. But there is some necessary paperwork that I must trouble you with,” she says. “To begin with, do you intend to ship the body back to Australia, Miss McHugh?”
“No,” Fiona says. “I discussed it with my family. We’ve decided to have a simple memorial service for him in Perth. As for here, I’m hoping to arrange a burial at sea. I know that’s what Ned would have wanted. Will that be a problem?”
“Not at all,” says Dr. Patterson. “Sea burials are quite common here in Bermuda. I’ll be glad to recommend someone who can assist you with the arrangements.”
The next few minutes are taken up with paperwork. When the formalities are over, Dr. Patterson pulls a manila folder from a desk drawer.
“This is the official autopsy report. I performed it myself,” she says. “If you like, I can summarize.”
“Please,” says Fiona.
Dr. Patterson opens the folder, scans its contents. Then she puts it back down on the desk. She steels herself for what she is about to say.
“In brief, your brother’s death was caused by a disruption of the inner ear ossicles and the petrous ridge, which severed the internal carotid artery and, ultimately, punctured the brain stem.”
“A disruption?”
“Via the forcible insertion of a sharp instrument,” says Dr. Patterson. “Judging by the relatively confined size of the puncture, roughly threepoint-five millimeters, it would rule out anything much larger, say, than a long needlelike object of some kind. We are still assessing the exact nature of the weapon involved.”