“Have you caught the bad guy yet?”
“This is only my third day.”
“Didn’t you solve that case at Swanmere in three days? You must be slipping, Dad.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence. This investigation is trickier as there’s no body and very few clues to go on. Actually, I wanted to ask you, since you’re studying marine science: Are shark attacks common in the Caribbean?”
“Not as common as in North America or South Africa, where a combination of cold and warm waters brings a large variety of sharks. The Bahamas has recorded more attacks than any other Caribbean destination, but still less than Florida.”
“I hope you’re being careful.” Rex didn’t like to think of his son surfing in Florida, yet that had been part of the attraction for Campbell in attending university there.
“It’s no more dangerous than mountaineering in the Cairngorms or some other risk-taking adventures I could mention.”
“You have a logical argument for everything. You really should’ve gone into law.”
“Dad, don’t start on that again.”
“Okay, what else can you tell me about sharks?”
“The more surf, the greater the risk of a shark mistaking a human for a fish, especially if the swimmer is wearing shiny jewelry. No, I don’t wear jewelry, before you ask.”
“I should hope not! Now, Jacques Cousteau, what can you tell me about tides?”
“Look, Dad, I’ve got a date in a few minutes.”
“Just remember who’s paying for your education. Please tell me I’m not wasting my money.”
He heard his son give a put-upon sigh before launching into his explanation.
“There are usually two high tides and two low tides every day, right? With a little over six hours between high and low tide. Okay so far? The entire tidal cycle repeats itself approximately fifty minutes later each day.”
Campbell relayed this information in a bored and superior tone. Rex privately forgave him because the boy was still a teenager and therefore programmed to be obnoxious.
“When the tide has reached it highest and lowest points,” his son continued, “there’s a brief period when there is no current ebbing or flooding, referred to as slack water. Dad, if you ever went out on boats, you’d know all this.”
“I’m no sailor—I get seasick. Glad you’re learning something, lad.”
“Any chance you can send me some money?”
“I gave you some in Miami.”
“I know, but Consuela is high and constant maintenance.”
“Find a lass who’s lower maintenance.”
“You saw her, Dad. She’s hot.”
“Get a job then.”
“Yeah, thanks.
Campbell was losing his Scots accent and all respect. He would never talk to his grandmother like this and risk getting walloped with her bible. Just a year ago, he had been addressing his father as “sir,” a habit ingrained by his privileged education at Fettes College in Edinburgh. Ah, well, times were changing, and perhaps just as well, Rex conceded, determined not to be a stick-in-the-mud.
“Take care, son,” he said at the end of the call.
Standing at the desk in the small office, he whipped out his pad and pencil and made a brief calculation. The shore had been submerged at seven o’clock the previous evening when he reached the promontory. Working backwards by approximately six and a half hours—eight days times fifty minutes—he calculated that the tide would have been out when Sabine disappeared.
He flipped back through his notes on the guests, beside whose names he had made annotations—further questions he needed to ask, or more information to be gathered on them from other sources. The data on Vernon Powell was spare, to say the least. He was the one guest Rex had not spoken to one-on-one. The general consensus among the guests he’d questioned was that Vernon was jealous and controlling, and prone to fits of violence. Moreover, Rex had promised Winslow that he would try to pry him out of his shell.
Making this his next priority, he walked up to the second cabana but got no answer to his knock at the front door. He banged louder.
“Vernon, it’s Rex! I’ve brought your mail.”
Eventually, he heard the sound of bare feet approaching on the tile hallway, and the door opened a foot wide. Vernon stuck his head out. He was shaved and clear-eyed, but gave off the unmistakable scent of rum. Strains of “If I Were a Rich Man” from Fiddler on the Roof tumbled through the doorway.
Musicals and opera were not Rex’s cup of tea. He found both to be overly dramatic, not to mention unrealistic, in that people were not in the habit of bursting into spontaneous song in everyday life. If he did that in court, he would be summarily disbarred and committed to a mental institution.
“Thanks,” Vernon said, taking the day’s mail.
“I thought we could have dinner tonight.”
Sabine’s husband paused for a second, and Rex thought he would find an excuse to refuse. “As long as it’s not at The Cockatoo,” he said drily.
“Can you recommend anywhere?”
“The California in Grand Case. Good food, great view, and big enough to where we’re not likely to run into any of this crowd.”
“Right you are. I’ll arrange for the hotel to limo us over at seven, if that suits you.”
That gave Rex enough time to swim, shower, and read the paper, though the news from home was a day old by the time it reached St. Martin. Returning to his cabana, he changed into his Bermudas and applied a liberal amount of sunscreen. The beach attendants were collapsing the giant yellow umbrellas for the day by the time he arrived. He met the Irvings jogging back from the village side of the beach. Neither had so much as broken into a sweat. They slowed down to a stop.
“Hey, Rex. Haven’t seen you all day.” Dick, only slightly out of breath, had not a stitch on except for the red and white bandanna. A Yin-Yang symbol, which put Rex in mind of two embracing tadpoles, was tattooed on his smooth chest.
“I’ve been busy. I went to Anse Marcel to meet with Monsieur Bijou.”
“Does he flaunt as many jewels as they say?” Penny asked, cool as a cucumber but for a slight sheen on her nose and between her taut, tanned breasts.
“Aye, every gemstone you can imagine.”
“He’s quite a legend. I’d love to meet him. Apparently, he’s very well groomed.”
“Immaculate.”
“I heard he had his own masseur.”
“Is he gay?” Rex asked.
Dick grinned. “I don’t think so. He’s popular with the ladies.”
“Sabine told me he was bi,” Penny contradicted.
“Is that common knowledge?” Rex wanted to know.
“Probably not, but Sabine knew him quite well.”
“Really?” Bijou had distinctly said he’d only met her the one time.
“Well, perhaps not that well,” Penny specified.
“I thought he was a cold fish,” Rex concluded, remembering the unusually pale eyes. “Incidentally, I wanted to ask you both what time you got back from your trip to St. Barts last Tuesday.”
Dick questioned his wife with a glance. “I wrote down the time in my statement. Let’s see, must’ve been around six-thirty. Can’t really remember.”
“It was closer to seven,” Penny corrected him. “We had to wait for a cab.”
“You don’t have your own transport?”
“No, we mainly hang out here and take advantage of the beach. St. Barts turned out to be a waste of time, really.”
“Did you take a cab to Oyster Pond that morning?”
“Pascal from the hotel took us, but he had the rest of the day off, and the manager was attending Paul’s birthday dinner. In any case, what we have to tip him is almost as much as a cab fare.”
“You didn’t get back in time for the party?”
“We might have managed it but we were pooped,” Dick explained. “In any case, we’d already told the others not to expect us before
coffee, knowing it would be tight since we had to change first. At around ten, Dave and Toni knocked at our door to see if Sabine was with us.”
“We hadn’t seen her all day,” Penny added. “We went out and looked for her.”
“Were you worried?” Rex asked.
Penny pulled the band from her ponytail and redid it. “Not really. I thought she’d forgotten about Paul’s dinner and had just gone off somewhere. I remember being annoyed. She was the sort of person who always had to be center stage and create drama around her.”
“Yeah, I felt bad for Paul,” Dick elaborated. “None of the guests were exactly sober, so the search effort probably wasn’t very efficient. Penny and me kinda took over and got the guards from the resort to check out the rocks.”
“I’ll need to speak with them.”
“They’re nice local boys,” Penny said. “Quite harmless. They mainly just keep out the riff-raff.”
As she spoke, a guard in a khaki uniform paced along the sand, a club secured in his belt
“You get the odd voyeur and dope peddler on the beach,” Dick explained. “Security only patrols the beach once the umbrella attendants have left. During the day, one guard stays up by the cabanas, out of sight.”
“Aye, well, thanks for the information.”
“Catch you later,” Dick said.
Rex waded into the shallows. Few people remained on the beach, and still less in the sea. Most would be preparing for dinner. Standing waist deep in the water, he gazed at the tiny fish swirling about the sandy bottom. Then, launching himself headlong, he free-styled to the raft anchored in the bay and hoisted himself up the ladder.
The waning sun bathed his face as, from the platform, he surveyed the eight cabanas peeping through the coconut palms and clumps of sea grape, which divided them from the beach. Someone at the resort must know more about Sabine Durand than they were willing to tell.
It was just a matter of probing, applying pressure until the case cracked open along the airtight seam, exposing the dusky secret contained within.
The waterfront restaurant resembled a warehouse in size and structure, which lent a nice airy feel. The entrance displayed shelves of island souvenirs and offered a grouping of sofas where couples sat with drinks from the bar.
“My usual table,” Vernon requested of the maître d’, who led them to one of the large twilit windows open to the sound of waves lapping on the beach. The lights of Anguilla twinkled in the distance.
“Aye, very nice,” Rex said, complimenting Vernon on his choice of restaurant. He scanned the menu and decided on the hot artichoke in gratinated goat cheese sauce and the coquilles St. Jacques on curried pasta. In accompaniment, he ordered a bottle of Sancerre. “As you were saying in the limo …,” he prompted Vernon, when the waiter left.
“Greg Hastings was at Paul’s birthday party at The Cockatoo all evening. He personally organized the whole thing. Then he sat down with us for dinner.”
“Unlikely he could have slipped away then.”
“There’s no way,” Vernon said emphatically. “Anyway, I don’t suspect him for a minute. For one thing, he isn’t Sabine’s type. He’s managed the resort ever since most of us have been going to the Plage I kept coming after my first wife died. It was less lonely than going on a singles’ cruise or to Club Med.”
“And the driver?”
“Pascal has worked there for quite a few years as well.”
While driving them over to Grand Case, Pascal had told Rex that before his chauffeuring job at the resort, he had worked for a charter boat company, sailing all types of luxury boats for weeks on end. Now he got to sleep most nights at home. He had confirmed he’d had the afternoon and evening off the Tuesday Sabine Durand disappeared. He lived in town with his wife and four children, and had been fishing on his boat until past sunset with his two eldest.
“You should be looking at Brook,” Vernon said, wielding his crab cracker, which he then clamped on the crustacean’s claw. With one snap, the delicate pink meat was laid bare. “There’s an edge to Brook that’s not immediately obvious. He has incredible drive. Fact is, he couldn’t have made it to where he is without being a son-of-a-bitch when he needed to be.”
I’m sure the same could be said of you, Rex thought.
“He was crazy about Sabine.” Vernon wiped his fingers off on his napkin. “Well, everybody was. Do you think you’ll ever get to the bottom of this case?”
“I certainly intend to try,” Rex said, piqued by Vernon’s tone. “I’m still at the fact-finding stage. It might help if I could take a look at your wife’s personal belongings. Not that I want to impose on your grief …”
“Feel free. I’ve left everything the way it was. I suppose at the back of my mind I keep thinking she’ll come back.”
“I don’t suppose she took anything with her on her walk?”
“Just what she was wearing, I imagine. How are your scallops?”
Rex was not so easily thrown off the scent. “How was the marriage?” he queried his dinner companion. “Sorry to have to ask.”
“I’m just not accustomed to being at the receiving end of the questions.” Vernon took a deep breath. “Look, I want to find out what happened to my wife, however painful it might be, but with regard to your question, I didn’t feel married to Sabine. She did more or less what she pleased.”
“Extramarital affairs?”
“She said not.”
“Did the question of divorce ever come up?”
“Of course. I’m sure it does in most marriages.”
“Where did you spend most of your time?”
“At our apartment on Park Avenue. Of course, Sabine traveled a lot for her work.”
“That can put a strain on a marriage. I expect, as an entertainment attorney, you put a prenuptial agreement in place?”
Something resembling a smile cracked Vernon’s wooden face. “Of course.”
“And, under the terms of the agreement, how would Sabine have fared?”
“Badly.”
Rex was left with no doubt that being on the wrong side of this lawyer would be an extremely uncomfortable place to be. During the main course, they concentrated on the food.
The young waiter cleared away their dinner plates. “Would you care for dessert?” he asked, and listed the selection.
“Why does it always sound so much better in French?” Rex asked in appreciation. “I’m supposed to be on a diet, but I’ll make an exception, just tonight.”
The waiter smiled. “Very wise.”
“The Crêpes Suzette flambées au Grand-Marnier.”
“Profiteroles for me,” Vernon said.
The waiter nodded and glided away.
“I don’t get to eat like this back home,” Rex said. “We’re rather fond of our haggis and pulverized turnip.”
“What is haggis?”
“Sheep’s innards.”
“Good God.” Vernon pulled a sour face.
“The Scots are a thrifty lot. None of the sheep goes to waste.”
The waiter drew up a tripod table with a hibachi and set fire to the pancakes in the brass skillet. A deliciously decadent fragrance of torched orange brandy and caramelized sugar wafted into the air. Rex wished he could bottle it and spray it onto his pillow.
Vernon sliced into his chocolate-topped pastry puff filled with French custard. “You can spend a month at the resort and eat out at a different gourmet restaurant every day without ever going into Marigot or Philipsburg.”
“Add to that the fantastic weather and the Caribbean Sea. It’s paradise all right.” Or was, until Sabine Durand went missing, which did lend a sinister pall to the attractions. “Did Sabine take medication of any kind?”
“Only Luminal to help combat jetlag and stagefright.”
“What was she seeing the chiropractor about?”
“She got thrown by a horse when she was fourteen and was laid up for a while. Her back plays up from time to time. She says the quack
in Philipsburg works wonders.”
“Did you ever go there with her?”
“Never. It would’ve meant a wait at the office and then a shopping expedition afterward. She was always gone at least three hours.”
“Did she suffer from depression?”
“You’re on the wrong track. She didn’t kill herself, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
Rex did not press the point, even though he knew that people closest to the suicide victim often went into denial over the subject. Still, by all accounts, Sabine did not appear to be a likely candidate for suicide, unless there was some mental illness she kept quiet about. The police had made only a perfunctory search of the cabana.
“How did you come to lose your phone on the beach that night?”
“I didn’t. It was in our cabana. I remember checking my messages before I went on the dive excursion. Later, when I wanted to see if Sabine had called, I couldn’t find it.”
“This was before the party?”
“Yes, while I was waiting for my wife to make an appearance. In the end, I left without her.”
The waiter poured them the rest of the wine from the ice bucket. Vernon thawed slightly when they moved away from the topic of Sabine to discuss the differences between American and Scottish law, intrigued to learn that courts in Scotland have fifteen jurors, as opposed to twelve in the States.
“Another important aspect of Scots law,” Rex told him, “is that every essential fact has to be corroborated by two independent witnesses.”
“Interesting,” Vernon said. “Harder to prove guilt.”
“Aye, but our law allows three verdicts: guilty, not-guilty, and not-proven. Not-proven means that though the prosecution failed to meet the criterion of ‘beyond reasonable doubt,’ there is still a suspicion of guilt in the jury’s mind and in the mind of the public.”
“That’s how I feel—as though my friends were the jury and, in default of being proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt, I’m walking around in a cloud of suspicion.”
“We’ll see if we can’t clear that up,” Rex told him. You canny old lawyer.
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