The minister tried again. “You did not speak to each other on the plane?”
“We did, but we did not discuss each other’s reasons for traveling to Guyana. We are not exactly on friendly terms, Mr. Minister.” Try as she could, she couldn’t keep the edge out of her voice. She could feel Dalrymple’s eyes on her grow cold.
The minister suddenly sighed. He seemed relieved. Anguish overcame him again and he slumped in his chair once more. “So you have no idea what Mr. St. Cyr is doing in Guyana? Why he was met by Mr. Goodings?” His voice was tired.
Dru’s voice remained crisp. “No, Mr. Minister. I do not.”
The minister closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair. Dru kept her eyes on him. Her mind zigzagged. If she played her cards right, she could turn this scene to her own advantage. She spoke again, the edge gone from her voice.
“But I suppose it would be reasonable to surmise that his visit has something to do with the very reason for my own visit to Guyana, the very matter I came to discuss with you today. I do know that Mr. St. Cyr heads a consulting firm that specializes in the rather unpopular field of proposal investigations, doing the due diligence, if you will, on proposed project participants and processes. Your government has delayed its decision on our client’s proposal. Perhaps you have doubts about the motives behind that offer. Perhaps Mr. St. Cyr was called in to assist in clearing up those doubts.”
She had spoken off the top her head, the words coming together with a will of their own and making it seem as if she had given prior thought to Theron St. Cyr’s visit to Guyana. But now that she had spoken them, she realized that they conveyed a perfectly plausible answer to her own questions. Maybe they were what she wanted to believe. Maybe she needed to believe them because that other explanation was too terrifying to contemplate.
Or…
No. She wouldn’t go there. She went anyway.
Could it be that she had it all wrong about what had happened in Paris, that St. Cyr was telling the truth on the plane? Could it be that she really wanted him to be a good guy, to still be the sensitive, at times taciturn, man who had walked her around Marseille?
A part of her refused to give up the belief she had clung to for the last twelve years. Stop it! Stop it right now! You can’t afford to drop your guard. Not now.
Before MacPherson could speak she blurted out, “And what if Mr. St. Cyr had a conflict of interest?” There! She’d done it. She’d planted a nugget of doubt that would undermine whatever trust MacPherson and Goodings had put in Theron St. Cyr. She hoped she sounded as if she knew more than she was going to say.
Dalrymple’s eyebrows arched. He pursed his lips and stared at Dru with admiration. She was one smooth operator. How the hell could he have thought she was on drugs! Which druggie could put two and two together so fast? Whatever this St. Cyr did to her—and he must have done something to her, the way she had looked at him at the airport—she was paying him back for it now. Not only that, she’s cornered Macky. But grief or no grief, Macky could deliver a bite like red ants. If St. Cyr is his boy, like Dru said, he’d protect him all the way.
MacPherson studied Dru’s face for a long moment. In the end he decided that she was telling the truth. She did not know why St. Cyr was in Georgetown. Her conjecture was just that. Conjecture. And this business about a conflict of interest? He shrugged it away. Besmirching the integrity of your opponent was an old tactic in business. He had no reason to doubt Andrew’s account of the man.
“Do you know a man named Alejandro Bernat, Ms. Durane?” Dalrymple could barely suppress his smile. There it was. The Mack attack. Throw her off balance. He saw the surprise in Dru’s eyes, saw it disappear almost instantly, saw her eyes go flat as she steeled herself. This time he couldn’t suppress the smile. Yes. Dru Durane was one smooth operator. He had to give her that.
Dru repeated the name, pronouncing it carefully. “Alejandro Bernat?” It was not familiar to her. “I’m afraid I do not, sir. Should I?”
“No. Never mind.”
Dru’s turn. She leaned forward and spoke earnestly.
“Do you have doubts about the motives behind Savoy Aerospace’s offer, Mr. Minister? Because if you do, I will do anything in my power to erase those doubts. Pilgrim Boone is known for its integrity. Its clients are of high moral repute. We do business with no other kind. Without such integrity, our company could not have survived all these decades, especially in the position it occupies.”
The minister hesitated for a fraction of a second before replying. “I am touched by your enthusiasm and your sincerity, Ms. Durane,” he said gravely. Troubled was more like it, he thought. Surely such a smart woman could not be so naïve? He had already concluded that either Pilgrim Boone or Savoy itself was involved in some way with Andrew’s death, directly or indirectly. It might not be Pilgrim himself, but someone in one of those two companies was a killer. Instinctively, he ruled out Dru Durane. Not her. Something of this magnitude would be dealt with at a much higher level. The Dru Duranes of this world were the decent face others put on their machinations. And, unfortunately, they often ended up being the fall guy. But surely she should at least question the timing of Andrew’s death, given the pressure on her company to deliver for its client. He continued, “However, I must ask you to be patient a little longer. Try not to worry. The deal may well turn out in your favor.”
He stood up and extended his hand. The meeting was over.
Dru rose from the chair. In spite of MacPherson’s encouraging words, she felt hollow inside. She needed more than encouraging words. She needed a decision in her client’s favor. But at this point, Pilgrim Boone and Savoy Aerospace were no closer to any decision than when she had entered the minister’s office. Lawton Pilgrim wouldn’t blame her, but Grant Featherhorn would. And it would not be pretty when he did.
She held her head high and shook the minister’s hand firmly, her face grim. She told him again, in a crisp voice that belied the sinking in the pit of her stomach, how sorry she was about Mr. Goodings’s sudden passing and expressed hope that he would be able to meet with her again soon so that she could allay any fears he may have about Savoy’s intentions.
MacPherson saw through her stoic façade and felt guilty. Even in small talk during their previous meetings, he had never mentioned that they were related by marriage. He was sure she didn’t know the relative that had married into his family, but he knew. And in countries as small as his, those relationships carried obligations that everyone expected you to honor. He should be taking care of Dru. He should be seeing to it that she got what she wanted. The fact that she was “from away,” that she had not grown up in Guyana at all, was all the more reason he should be looking out for her. But his hands were tied. At least for the moment. She’ll get what she wants in the end, he mused. The president will decide in favor of Savoy. Bernat, that crapaud-face, had pretty much sealed that outcome.
Everyone would just have to wait. He could not let Andrew’s death pass like one of those you read about so often in the newspapers: Retired Guyanese-American dies of—stroke/heart attack/cancer/pick-any-one—after returning to Guyana fewer than five years ago. No, Andrew deserved a more honorable mention. There had to be an inquiry.
17
Andrew Goodings had been murdered.
The fact that Andrew’s own doctor was baffled by the suddenness of his death only reinforced Theron’s belief that his friend had been killed. It wouldn’t surprise him either if the autopsy showed nothing out of the ordinary, he told himself, nothing but massive heart failure, which is what all the signs were pointing to. There were ways to engineer a killing so that the autopsy gave no clue as to the real cause of death.
Someone wanted Andrew out of the way and that meant only one thing: There was more to Savoy Aerospace’s proposed project in Guyana than met the eye, just as he had suspected.
Once again, Theron reviewed everything he had learned from Andrew as they drove into the city from the airport. Andrew owed no one an
y money, cheated no one, coveted no one’s possessions, no one’s power. He lived the private life of a retiree—he was involved in his church, fundraising and curriculum guidance for his old high school, the Lion’s Club, the Georgetown Cricket Club, and his small circle of friends.
The one subject he spoke out publicly on was the country’s transportation infrastructure. His insistence that rail, not air, was what Guyana needed most at this time had earned him a few detractors, particularly among tour operators and the owners of the small eco-resorts, inns, and bed-and-breakfast lodges that were cropping up in the interior. They countered Andrew’s arguments just as passionately and publicly as he made his. But nothing Andrew had said suggested that this was anything more than a difference of opinion, or that he had reason to fear for his life. In fact, he seemed to enjoy meeting and debating his detractors, which he said he often did at the cricket club.
He recalled Andrew’s words: “I would give it to them good and proper, Theron. Mind you, they all admitted, and without shame, that they had their own business interests to consider, but then they would argue that even if they weren’t involved in it, tourism was a big help to the economy. And I would agree with them on that point. But it’s the timing, man. The timing. Tourism can wait. The masses of people can’t.”
Theron paced back and forth in his room. Despite Minister MacPherson’s best efforts, word about Andrew’s death had leaked out and family and friends were beginning to gather at the Goodings home where he was staying. The commotion drifted upstairs to his room: an anguished wail every now and then; an exclamation—Jesus of Nazareth passeth by!—as some skeptic finally accepted the truth; Andrew’s wife, distraught, calling to her husband; a voice raised in prayer; and strains of a hymn.
Theron stopped pacing. He sat on the bed and buried his face in his hands, recalling those final moments with Andrew. Andrew had fought death like an enraged animal, gripping at and twisting in Theron’s arms until his strength finally waned, the shock in his face turning to fear when he knew he had lost his fight, the rasping sounds in his throat ebbing until there was no sound at all.
It had been an agonizing death that came in the wee hours of the morning. The pain first struck just before they reached Andrew’s home. Andrew had talked all the way from the airport, about Savoy Aerospace and what it was proposing to do in Guyana, about the pressure from Pilgrim Boone, the minister’s misgivings and his own, about how Guyana had been tricked into doing away with its rail system and how the promised highways and bridges across the Demerara River to accommodate the thousands of vehicles that choked the city and outlying towns had never been built.
Theron had listened intently, saying little. He had been intrigued, as usual, by Andrew’s passion. He had made up his mind long before Andrew had finished his story that he would put Savoy Aerospace under a microscope the moment he got back to New York. He would pick apart every contract the company had ever signed; scrutinize its leadership and every bank account it had established; and peel away its decision making, its contacts and relationships in and out of America. And he would do the same with Pilgrim Boone. If that’s what it took to put Andrew Goodings’s mind at ease he would do it gladly. He owed the man that much.
Then, in the middle of a sentence, Andrew had doubled over the steering wheel, groaning in pain, one hand gripping his stomach. The car had almost run off the road, but Theron had grabbed the steering wheel and righted it just in time. Andrew had managed to slow the car to a stop and they had remained there for several minutes, Andrew writhing in pain, and he not knowing what to do.
He was about to get out of the car to get help from a nearby house when Andrew suddenly straightened up. The pain had passed. He was fine, he said, though he felt weak. They weren’t far from home, he told Theron, just a couple of more streets.
By the time they reached the house, it was as if nothing had happened. Andrew insisted he was fine, that the pain had gone completely. He attributed it to something he must have eaten, joking that his stomach was still very much American and that it sometimes rebelled against all the spicy Guyanese food he loved. He didn’t want to talk about it once they entered the house, he’d said. It would upset his wife and he didn’t want to do that.
When they resumed their conversation after dinner that night, after Mrs. Goodings had gone to bed, Andrew raised the notion of Guyana being used as a drug transshipment point. “Think of it, Theron. Jamaica is under the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s blanket now. So are all the Andean countries. We’re the only one that’s free and clear. We have no history of drug trafficking so the DEA isn’t watching us. The small-scale stuff carried out by those deportee criminals the United States keeps dumping on us—you’d think they were already criminals when they left Guyana as babies or little kids—DEA doesn’t have time to bother with that. On the other hand, we can be reached from Colombia by land or by water, both of which are treacherous and slow, but certainly doable if the cartels have no choice. But they do have a choice: Air. Not a damned soul is keeping tabs on their airspace.”
“So you think drug interests could be manipulating the Savoy deal? With or without Savoy’s complicity?”
Andrew’s shoulders sagged. “I don’t know what to think, Theron. But I’m not ruling out anything. It’s just too much damn pressure, man!”
Then the pain hit him again. His last clear words were something about a woman who said she knew him, but who would not show him her face, and a cigarette she had given him to smoke even though he’d told her that he had quit. The words made no sense to Theron, who by then was cradling Andrew in his arms and shouting for Mrs. Goodings.
A hesitant knock on his door brought him back to the present. He rose from the bed, crossed the room, and opened the door. A young man in his late twenties introduced himself as Andrew’s last son, Paul. He had just arrived from New York, he said, and had been told that Theron was the last person to see his father alive. He wanted to know what had happened, true, but it was a good excuse to get away from the wailing and confusion downstairs.
Theron decided not tell him about Savoy Aerospace or Pilgrim Boone. Instead, he told him that his father, knowing Theron’s interest in investing in the Caribbean, had urged him to come to Guyana to check out a potential opportunity and had invited him to stay with him. He described the ride from the airport, Andrew’s garrulousness—”he talked almost nonstop about Guyana and its potential for industrial development”—his brief bout of pain and, later, the final struggle.
“I know your mother is inconsolable. He was gone before she got to the room. They never got a chance to say good-bye to each other, it was that sudden.”
Paul wept softly as he listened to Theron.
“I plan to leave within the hour,” Theron said after a brief silence.
Paul tried to control his tears. Sniffling, he gave Theron a baffled look. “Leave?”
“Yes. I’ve already reserved a room at the Pegasus. You will need all the space here for your relatives.”
Paul drew a deep, ragged breath and steadied himself. “That’s not necessary, Mr. St. Cyr. You’re our guest. This is a big house. We have plenty of room. Besides, there are other homes where family members will be just as happy to stay.”
“That’s very generous of you, but I insist. And, please, say nothing to your mother about my leaving. She has enough on her mind. By the time she misses me it will be too late for her to do anything about it.”
Paul didn’t argue. He thanked Theron for being with his father in his final moments, said he would drive him to the Pegasus when he was ready and left the room.
Theron hurriedly repacked the few items he had taken out of his garment bag. He was anxious to get going. He had to get to Drucilla Durane before anyone else did.
§
She was striding across the lobby of the Pegasus, toward the elevators, when she saw Theron St. Cyr checking in.
Heads turned appreciatively as she walked by but she ignored them. She knew she
was an attractive woman, dressed in an exquisitely tailored, kneelength linen dress, straight and sleeveless, the color of lilacs, but she was lost in her thoughts and so intent on reaching the elevator that she did not see St. Cyr approaching her. He caught up with her, reached out, and touched her lightly.
“Dru.”
She jumped, startled, and turned sharply toward his voice, refusing to believe he would dare to accost her in a place as public as the lobby of her hotel, but there he was.
She gasped. Her hands flew to her mouth and she began to back away from him. Her face filled with horror. She thought for a mad moment that St. Cyr was either the killer or had had something to do with Goodings’ death. She had seen him with Andrew at the airport.
“I had nothing to do with it, Dru. I was his friend,” St. Cyr said harshly, as anger welled in him.
She didn’t answer. She kept backing away from him as he came closer. Heads began to turn in their direction.
“Is this gentleman bothering you, Miss?”The security officer in plainclothes seemed to materialize like magic beside Theron. His voice was low and menacing.
Theron stood his ground, his eyes locked on Dru’s. Dru looked at the officer, unsure what to do or to say.
“Is he bothering you, Miss?” The officer’s voice had dropped to a growl. The weightlifter biceps under his rolled-up sleeves rippled. He had spoken to Dru, but he hadn’t looked at her once. He was sizing up St. Cyr, taking him in slowly from head to toe. He knew the type, apparently. Pretty boy. Sharp dresser. Show off. The type who spen’ two mawnin’ in America, get kick out, den come buzzin’ roun’ de Pegasus with a put-on Yankee accent an’ t’inkin’ he could pick up every Yankee woman who walk t’rough de door.
“Tell him, Dru. Tell him I’m bothering you. Tell him I want to do you harm. That I want to kidnap you, rape you, kill you, or whatever unholy acts you believe I want to commit against you. Go on.” Theron’s voice was as low and threatening as the security officer’s.
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