Murder in the Raw

by C. S. Challinor

  “So I read.”

  In his statement, Duke had gone into detail about an argument between the couple over a young stable hand at his Silver Springs Ranch in Texas. The upshot was Vernon had slapped Sabine across the face, leaving an ugly welt that prevented her from making public appearances for two weeks.

  Rex almost smiled when he thought about the effort the police must have gone to in order to have the pages of Duke Farley’s statement translated, written as they were in Texan vernacular—if in fact they had been translated. Judging by Rex’s earlier meeting with Lieutenant Latour, it was highly doubtful the Gendarmerie had gone to the trouble of making certified translations.

  “Ah, here comes my lovely wife,” Duke exclaimed.

  Pam, her chest visibly preceding her, sashayed over to the bar in a gold pareo spangled with silver hibiscus flowers.

  “What you drinking, honey? I was just talking to Rex about the time Vernon and Sabine came to stay at the ranch.”

  “Highly embarrassing for everybody,” Pam told Rex. “Sabine had her face on ice for two days. Fortunately, the paparazzi didn’t know she was at Silver Springs, so news of the fight never got out. Our staff is very discrete and our nearest neighbors live five miles away. We had to turn down invitations and tell people Sabine had come down with an ear infection.”

  “What happened about the stable boy?” Rex asked.

  “Jason? Why, nothing,” Pam replied. “He wasn’t to blame. He just happens to be real cute, and caught Sabine’s eye. He was saddling her horse one morning, and they were laughing and maybe flirting just a little, but it got on Vernon’s last nerve. He dragged her inside the house and backhanded her. I could hear the blow clear across the hall. When I got to her, she was clinging to the newel post. Not crying—I guess the shock was too great at that point. Vernon, well, he just stared, like he couldn’t believe what he’d done. As soon as he saw me, he marched off out the door, muttering, ‘She darn well asked for it.’”

  “Then Pam called me,” Duke growled, “thinking he might go after Jason. I told the boy to lay low for the rest of their visit.”

  “I felt bad for Sabine, but she really brought it upon herself. You don’t wave a red flag at a bull.”

  “That gal had spirit alright!” Duke drawled in admiration. “She was more woman than most guys could handle.”

  Pam’s baby blue eyes blazed her husband with a contemptuous look. Rex thought she was probably more woman than most husbands could wish for, but then some men never were satisfied. The night had lost its glamour, the guests looked jaded, tensions ran high. Even the band sounded flat. Rex decided to call it a night and make a fresh start on the case in the morning.

  Bright and early the next morning, Rex made his way to the main building, hoping for news from home. It was too soon for a letter from Iraq to have been forwarded to the Caribbean, but his mother would call him at the resort if any word came from Moira or from the British Embassy. He experienced a twinge of guilt when he thought about Helen arriving in a few days.

  Och, she’s just a friend, he told himself; and Paul Winslow had told him to enjoy himself while he was here.

  “Nothing for you today, monsieur,” said the front desk clerk who had been on duty the previous day and whose name, he had discovered, was Danielle.

  “Do you have the times of ferries to St. Barts departing from Oyster Pond?”

  She handed him a schedule. The ferry left for St. Barts, twenty kilometers away, at nine in the morning, returning from Gustavia Harbor at 5:00 p.m. and docking back at St. Martin approximately forty-five minutes later.

  “How long is the drive to Oyster Pond?”

  “No more than thirty minutes.”

  That would get the Irvings back to the resort at around 6:20, factoring in disembarkation, and yet, they had not joined the other guests at The Cockatoo at seven o’clock. “May I use your phone?” he asked the desk clerk.

  She showed him into a small office at the back of reception where he had made the call to the dive boat company the day before. He now phoned the ferry company at Oyster Pond to check that Dick and Penny Irving had been on the passenger list the previous Tuesday, and was told the catamaran had returned on time and the couple had been on it.

  “Monsieur Graves,” the clerk addressed him as he exited the office. “Lieutenant Latour from the Gendarmerie in Grand Case is on the phone for you.” She passed him the receiver.

  “Bonjour. Ici Rex Graves.”

  “Pierre Latour. Nous venons de recevoir des nouvelles.”

  “News? Regarding Sabine Durand?” Rex asked hopefully.

  “Exactement. Ze rest of her pareo was picked up early zis morning by a fishing boat, near Ilet Pinel.”

  “Where is that?”

  “It is an island about ten miles north of you. Zey heard on ze news last week how ze actress disappeared from ze beach leaving a piece of her white pareo behind and zey called ze Gendarmerie. Monsieur Bijou, he offered a reward for information. So, you can imagine, we get a lot of crazy calls, but zis one, it is as zey say.”

  Bless Monsieur Bijou, Rex thought. “Is it a match?”

  “Match? Allumette?”

  “No, not a matchstick. One moment, please.” Rex turned to the clerk. “What is the word for when something matches something else?”

  “La même, pareille.”

  “Thank you.” Speaking into the phone again, he asked Latour, “Is the fragment from the pareo pareille to the one that was found?”

  “It appears so. We sent it to ze laboratoire. Ze pareo has a part missing which is almost identique in shape to ze torn item found on ze beach. It also has a label saying it was fabricated in Tahiti. One of ze guests at ze resort mentioned zis fact.”

  “It was in Pamela Farley’s statement. She remembered that detail because she asked Ms. Durand where she had acquired the pareo. Anything else?”

  “No other remains were found around Ilet Pinel. But with ze sharks, zis is to be expected.”

  “The police searched the area?”

  “Ah, oui, monsieur. We sent out our Sea Rescue Services at dawn. Mais rien—nothing.”

  “I appreciate you taking the time to inform me of this latest development,” Rex told Latour. “Bonne journée.”

  Why were the gendarmes sticking to the shark theory? It could hardly do the tourist industry much good. But perhaps a shark attack was more acceptable than a murder. At least sharks were confined to the sea.

  He decided to waste no time in going to see the influential Monsieur Bijou. Of all the people he could think of, the developer had the most clout to reopen the investigation. Rex was all the more intrigued to meet him after what Sean O’Sullivan had said the night before, even though he doubted any of it was true. Fabulously wealthy men invariably had stories made up about them.

  Rex was finally able to track him down at his latest creation, the Marina del Mar, and arrange a meeting that same afternoon. The desk clerk provided him with a map and pointed to Anse Marcel where the exclusive marina was located. The bay, which was just around the coast from Ilet Pinel, looked like a bite taken out of the northernmost part of the island. It wasn’t far away and he would ask Paul to lend him the Jeep.

  Before setting out, he left a message for Thaddeus in London asking him to research Monsieur Bijou, alias Coenraad van Bij-hooven’s background, suggesting he look into possible past activities in Amsterdam. Thaddeus, whose services Rex had utilized in his last case, had roomed at Oxford with an undergraduate who now worked for Interpol. If there was any dirt to dig up, Thad would find it. In the meantime, he would meet with Bijou in person and see what could have inspired the Irishman to spin such an improbable tale.

  “In case I can’t borrow a car, is the hotel limo available for two o’clock?” Rex asked the desk clerk, feeling this might be appropriate transport for his appointment.

  “It is booked for the afternoon to take the von Muellers to Philipsburg. I can see if the van is free.”

  “T
hat’s okay.” Rex thanked the clerk and made his way to the Winslows’ cabana.

  Paul unabashedly opened the door in the altogether, holding a mug of coffee.

  “Sorry to bother you again, but the limo’s taken and I have a meeting with Monsieur Bijou.”

  “No problem, dear man. Shan’t be needing the Jeep today.”

  “In that case I’ll take it now, if I may, and do some sightseeing.”

  Paul reached back to a table in the hall and pressed the car keys into Rex’s hand. “Send dear Mr. Bijou our regards.”

  Half an hour later, Rex was well on his way. What he appreciated most about St. Martin so far, he reflected as he drove up the coast, was that the island had not broken out in a rash of concrete like so many vacation hotspots around the world—Florida and the Costa del Sol in Spain, to name but a few. He hoped that wouldn’t change, but with developers like Bijou putting up luxury high-rises along the coast, who knew?

  When he arrived at the Marina del Mar, he found a gated community of six towers soaring from lusciously landscaped islands linked by navigable waterways with individual boat slips and Venetian-style bridges. Rex parked the Jeep in the underground garage of the first tower, as Bijou’s personal assistant had instructed on the phone, and entered a lobby tiled in Italian marble. Classical music floated from yucca plants festooning the far corners, while a tubular aquarium in the center disappeared into the cathedral ceiling, soothing the visitor in mind and spirit with its gentle burble and lazy shoals of angelfish.

  Impossible to enter the calm and tasteful elegance of the Marina del Mar tower without feeling a sense of entitlement, Rex remarked to himself. He walked over to the V-shaped reception desk where a young woman with Spock eyebrows and subtly applied mauve eye shadow supervised a chrome laptop of ultramodern design. “Rex Graves to see Monsieur Bijou,” he informed her.

  “I’ll let him know you are here,” she said in a neutral accent, and spoke into an intercom. “He will see you now, Mr. Graves. Please go up to the penthouse suite.”

  After summoning one of the transparent elevators, Rex pressed the button for the nineteenth floor. The car rose noiselessly and deposited him at a plush-carpeted antechamber leading to a solid-looking door with a brass knocker. Before he had time to reach for it, a young Adonis of indeterminate race in a white dress suit and black bowtie admitted him into the suite.

  “This way, sir,” he murmured deferentially, leading Rex onto a wide balcony with panoramic vistas of the private marina and open sea.

  A stylish man in his fifties approached, clean-shaven, and with not a silver hair out of place. His eyes were so pale as to be colorless. Even Rex, who had little sartorial savoir-faire, could tell that the custom-made suit came from the most expensive cloth, the fabric of the shirt was of the finest linen, and the tie of the rarest silk—platinum gold in color. Rex felt unhappily frumpy in the man’s presence. As they shook hands, he was aware of an expensively subtle aftershave emanating from his person.

  “Would you care to join me in a gin and tonic?” Monsieur Bijou asked in exquisite English that was yet not quite English.

  “Thank you.”

  “Oscar, please bring the drinks upstairs.”

  Upstairs? Rex looked about him, certain there could not be another story to the building. Monsieur Bijou gestured to a flight of steps off the balcony, which brought them to a rooftop pool, and indicated a padded patio chair beneath a square umbrella.

  “The Marina del Mar is truly an achievement,” Rex said, deeming a compliment was in order.

  “It was a long time in the making, but, yes, I am pleased with the result,” Monsieur Bijou concurred. “We pre-sold 90 percent of the condominiums before we even broke ground. It is a relatively simple matter to buy real estate on the island. There are no special licenses or permits required. You could buy one yourself.”

  In keeping with his name, Monsieur Bijou wore an ostentatious array of jewels on his manicured fingers: an opal, a sapphire, an emerald—but none on his ring finger. This was probably just as well, since Rex could not begin to imagine what a Madame Bijou would look like. The valet dispensed tumblers garnished with twists of lime.

  “Perhaps I’ll consider a little pied-à-terre on St. Martin when I retire.”

  “Why wait?” his host asked. “Property values will go up and the sooner you buy, the more time you will have to enjoy it.”

  “It seems you do very well at practicing what you preach,” Rex said, glancing in appreciation about him.

  “Indeed, there are so many opportunities. My newest project is a night club in Marigot, which will have a floor show styled after Les Folies-Bergères.”

  “With the Can-Can?”

  “But of course. You approve?”

  “I’m more familiar with the Highland Fling myself.”

  Monsieur Bijou smiled urbanely. “There is no comparison. Imagine beautiful semi-naked girls in bright costumes dancing above the footlights, kicking up their legs to the sound of a live Parisian band.” He waved a glittering hand as if to conjure up the vision.

  “I can see it now.” The Tangaray gin helped, adding a nice dry kick to the Schweppes.

  “And so to business. Mr. Winslow said he was flying you from Edinburgh to look into the matter of the missing actress. How can I help?”

  “It seems you have been of tremendous assistance already.”

  “A favour for a friend. The least I could do.”

  A self-interested favor, Rex surmised. Paul Winslow had rich friends who sometimes ended up deciding to purchase property on St. Martin, and he steered them Bijou’s way.

  “Did you hear that the rest of Ms. Durand’s pareo was recovered at sea?” Rex asked.

  “I did.”

  “We must pursue the investigation—”

  Monsieur Bijou deposited his glass on the wrought-iron table with a resolute thud. “What does it prove?”

  “Only that she ended up in the water. My concern is how she got there.”

  “Without more evidence, where do we go? The most obvious possibility is that Mademoiselle Durand slipped on the rocks and cut herself, and then foolishly went bathing in the sea at dusk when sharks come inshore to feed.” Bijou displayed his rings in another flourish of the hand. “My dear sir, please be at liberty to continue your inquiries, but further insistence on my part with the police would prove fruitless.”

  “The Gendarmerie report states that she ‘in all probability’ drowned—if she was not first attacked by sharks.”

  “There have been other drownings in the area, notably at Galion Beach. Visitors go in the water to cool off and, in some cases, non-swimmers have been overwhelmed by the tide or else have drifted out with the current.”

  “Ms. Durand was a good swimmer and a certified scuba diver.”

  “But what proof do you have that it was other than the police suggest?”

  “I would like to ascertain the exact cause of death. It would be of comfort to her nearest and dearest.”

  “Without a body, we may never know for sure.” Monsieur Bijou drummed the armrest of his chair with his resplendent fingers. Clearly, he wanted the case dropped. He had been seen to do the right thing by his wealthy friends, and now he wished for the investigation to go away.

  “Bodies dead by suspicious means are bad for business?” Rex hazarded.

  “Truly, Monsieur Graves, why should this be a suspicious death?” He glanced pointedly at his Rolex.

  “Just one more thing. Did you know Sabine Durand?”

  “I met her once at a soirée in Marigot. She made an indelible impression. Such beauty, such poise—and wit!”

  “When was this?”

  “Last year, I believe.”

  Rex knocked back the rest of his gin and tonic. “I know your time is precious. Let me not take up any more of it.”

  His host showed him into the condo where Oscar escorted him to the front door.

  “How long have you worked for Monsieur Bijou?” Rex asked
before he walked through it.

  Oscar’s quick, dark eyes opened wide in a challenge. No point in trying to bribe him for information, Rex realized. The young man had obviously been hired for his strength and his silence. Nothing Rex could pay him would likely compensate the valet for what he stood to gain—or lose—in Bijou’s employment.

  “Well, good day to you,” he said.

  “And you, sir.”

  Rex made his way down the elevator and through the sepulchral splendor of the lobby, feeling only one hundred percent himself once he was back in the Jeep. So much monetary display made him feel nervous.

  “What did you think of the Marina del Mar?” Paul inquired when Rex dropped off the car keys half an hour later.

  “Impressive.”

  “I’ll say. A bit out of my price league, unfortunately, what with all the renovations we’re having done at Swanmere Manor. And how did you find our Monsieur Bijou?”

  “Glittery. And as transparent as the diamonds on his cufflinks. I got nothing out of him of any value, though. What’s your take on him?”

  “Hard to say. I’ve only ever met him in a formally social context. He’s always been very courteous.”

  “He was less than courteous with me. Almost had his flunky throw me off the premises.”

  “I suppose he’s trying to protect his business interests.”

  Maybe that was not all he was trying to protect. Rex had the sneaking suspicion the police were in Bijou’s pocket and that he was only paying lip service to the rich guests at the resort. Having now met the developer, Rex found himself hoping that Sean O’Sullivan’s gossip had substance. He would truly love to knock Midas off his ivory tower.

  Rex wandered back to the office to see if any calls had come in during his trip to Anse Marcel, and was disappointed to find that no news had yet arrived from home. Nor could he wait to receive the information from London, which he had asked to be faxed to the resort at the first opportunity. He decided to call Campbell while he was there.

  “How’s it going?” his son asked in American fashion.

  Rex winced. One year in the States, and his son was already losing his Scottish diction. “Good,” he responded in like manner, eschewing the adverb grammatically required by the question.