Murder in the Raw

by C. S. Challinor

  He started at the café by the dive store printed on Gaby’s receipt. “Did you see this young lady in here yesterday?” he asked the handsome bartender in his best French.

  “Yes,” the Frenchman answered in English. “She was sitting on the terrace with a man. They ordered Veuve Clicquot.” He rubbed his thumb and forefinger together. “Big spenders, big tippers.”

  “Do you happen to know where they’re staying?”

  The bartender turned suddenly cautious. “Why should I tell you, monsieur?”

  Calculating how big a tip the couple might have left him, Rex slid a twenty-dollar bill across the counter.

  The bartender slipped it into his jar labeled “Pourboires.”

  “I heard them mention l’Auberge Fleurie.” The man shrugged with a self-deprecating smile. “I always listen to what a beautiful woman says, in case I want to find her again.”

  “Where can I find this place?”

  “What is your business with this woman? Un moment, s’il vous plaît,” he called down the bar to a customer.

  “She left a grieving husband on St. Martin. I’m a private detective.”

  “Ah, how touching—but I am not sure I should give the lovers’ secret away.”

  Rex’s muscles flexed in irritation. He didn’t have enough twenty-dollar bills to spare and he wasn’t about to divest himself of his precious British currency. “The location of the hotel, please,” he insisted. “The lady’s husband is not a patient man.”

  “The hotel is up on a hill overlooking Grand Saline Beach.”

  “Merci buckets,” Rex said, pulling away from the bar.

  He returned to the moped rental store, made sure of the directions to the hotel, and took off up a rocky hillside, rejoicing in the view of an isolated sandy beach enlacing a turquoise sea. As the road steepened, the feeble motor whined and sputtered in protest. On several occasions it almost expired. Rex ended up abandoning it halfway up the slope among the cacti and wild bougainvillea. “Piece of rubbish!” he muttered, entering the gravel driveway to the hotel on foot.

  True to its name, the white façade of the inn nestled in a bower of exotic flowers and tropical trees in bloom, the green-painted shutters open to the beach sparkling far below the cliff. He mounted the steps and, upon entering the hall, came to the reception desk, where he gratefully paused for breath beneath the cooling breeze of the ceiling fan.

  “I’m looking for Mademoiselle Durand and her friend,” he told the smiling patronne, abandoning his French altogether.

  “Ecossais?”

  “Aye, Scottish. Well-spotted. Was it my red hair or pale skin? Or possibly my accent?”

  “Votre accent, monsieur. Sean Connery, c’est mon James Bond favori.” The comely middle-aged woman put a hand to her ample chest in a coquettish gesture of adoration.

  “He’s my favorite Bond too. You canna beat a Scotsman, eh?”

  The woman responded with a tinkle of laughter. “Ah, la chose est sûre, monsieur,” she agreed.

  “Oh, aye—I was asking aboot Mademoiselle Sabine Durand,” Rex said, exaggerating his Scots, which he only ever did when he was tired, drunk, or else seeking some advantage with women.

  “A charming couple. Tout à fait charmant. I put them in la Miel de Lune.”

  The honeymoon suite—very nice, Rex thought with some irony.

  “But you are too late, monsieur. They have already checked out.”

  “When?”

  “But, this morning.”

  “Do you know where they went?”

  “I only know they sailed away on their boat. It is no longer moored in the bay.

  “What sort of boat?”

  “A catamaran. The Moonsplash.”

  Sabine could be almost anywhere in the Caribbean by now. Rex made his disconsolate way down the hill and retrieved the moped. Putting it in neutral, he freewheeled down the road into town, relieved to have no further use for it. After dropping it off at the store, he found a vacant table under the awning of a café across from the sleepy harbor. He noticed many of the stores closing for lunch. Consulting the menu, he ordered a beer and steak-frites. Tae heck with my diet, he thought. He needed fuel, and fast.

  First, though, he should put Vernon out of his misery and let him know his wife was alive.

  He went inside to locate a phone, missing the convenience of his cell and regretting not having organized his overseas service better—but then, he hadn’t anticipated the island-hopping aspect. “Yes, hello?” he said into the pay phone, having first gotten the code for St. Martin from the waitress. “Is this the Plage d’Azur Resort?”

  “Yes, Greg Hastings speaking.”

  “Rex Graves here. I need to speak with Vernon Powell. Can someone bring him to the phone? I’m calling from St. Barts on an important matter.”

  “One minute, Mr. Graves.” The manager spoke to someone at the desk. “Danielle is going across right now with the message. You best give me the number you’re calling from … Okay. Get back to you in a tick.”

  Rex watched as his beer passed by on a tray and went after it. “Hold the steak-frites,” he told the waitress. “I’m waiting for a call.”

  As it turned out, he could have eaten his steak and fries plus dessert in the time it took for the call to come through. Fortunately, no one else seemed interested in using the phone. Sensibly, they all had cells.

  “There is a problem, sir,” Hastings informed him as soon as he answered.

  What now? Rex asked himself.

  “Dr. von Mueller is attending to Mr. Powell as we speak.” The manager paused. “He appears to be dead.”

  “Dead? How?”

  “Looks like an overdose. Mr. Brooklyn Chalmers is here and would like to speak to you. I’ll pass you on.”

  “Brook?” Rex asked in surprise. “You’re already back from New York!”

  “I met with the shareholders Monday morning and got them under control, and flew back out. Rough news about Vernon. Anything I can do?”

  “Well, for a start, I need to get off this island.”

  “You got it. See you at the airfield in one hour.”

  Rex was sure the von Muellers, who were so correct, would not tell anybody about the sighting of the actress until he returned to the resort. Now that Vernon was dead, he thought it prudent to withhold news of Sabine for now. However, as the Piper bowled down the mountainside runway, he decided he ought to tell Brooklyn that the woman he had clearly been in love with was not dead after all. He waited until they had cleared the airfield and were on their flight path to St. Martin, but Brooklyn spoke first.

  “The tower warned me we might run into weather.” He checked the altimeter reading. “You could have been stranded on St. Barts.”

  Even as he spoke, the wind whipped up the waves below them, crumpling the blue tapestry of the sea until it became barely possible to make out the few boats bobbing about like corks on the surface. Rex wondered if Sabine’s catamaran was among them. The first few drops of rain had fallen when Brooklyn fueled the plane. Now the wipers worked at a furious pace to repel the deluge.

  Rex wasn’t too concerned. It was a short distance to Grand Case, and the air-conditioned six-seater aircraft looked solid and new to his untrained eye. All the same, he decided not to distract Brooklyn with the news of Sabine until they landed. “What was going on at La Plage when you left?” he asked instead, anxious to hear details of Vernon’s death.

  “Pandemonium. Hastings was doing a good job of keeping a stiff upper lip and going about the proper procedure. The ambulance arrived as I left. And there was a tall gendarme with a mustache waving his arms in the air, like he was directing traffic.”

  “Lieutenant Latour.”

  “Hopefully the situation will have calmed down by the time we get back.”

  “D’ye think it was suicide?”

  “Accidental maybe. Vernon just wasn’t the type to kill himself.”

  Brooklyn went on to describe the scene at Vernon’s caban
a as Danielle had recounted it to him. The last track on the CD was playing the Bee Gees, “Nights on Broadway,” as she walked in. No sign of a struggle. Everything in its place, down to the re-corked bottle of rum and the pair of tumblers rinsed clean on the counter. Vernon lying on the bed with his arms folded across his chest, naked as a jaybird, a whiff of rum discernible on his pale lips.

  A peaceful scene, Rex acknowledged. Except that, if he’d overdosed on purpose, where was the medication and why go to the trouble of doing the washing up?

  Approaching the coast, Brooklyn spoke in a series of code into the radio, seeking clearance to land. As he guided the plane through the driving rain over misty hills and depthless valleys, Rex’s throat lodged in his mouth. Blurry lights marking the runway rushed up to meet them. Here we go, he thought, his body tensing in preparation. The strip looked terrifyingly short.

  The plane swooped down, the landing gear bumped on the tarmac, and they hurtled toward a controlled stop, within a comfortable distance of the barrier. Rex took in a deep breath and exhaled slowly.

  “I’m gonna taxi into that hangar,” Brooklyn said. “Pascal will be waiting for us in the parking lot. I think we made it just in time. The rain’s getting worse if that’s possible.”

  The gale blew so strongly that Rex could barely open the cockpit door. By the time he got to the limo he was drenched through. Pascal slid open the driver partition and pointed to a decanter of brandy in the drinks compartment. He had even brought towels. A gust hurled Brooklyn inside ten minutes later.

  Rex poured a tumbler of brandy for his roommate as the car splashed through the rain. “Is all this flying a lot of wear and tear on your plane?”

  “The PA-46 is built for long haul. It has a range of 1,345 nautical miles. It’s one thousand NMs northwest by west to Lauderdale where I refuel, then almost another thousand to New York, but she can handle it. Depending on when you leave, I could fly you to Miami to get your connection back to Edinburgh.”

  “Aye, maybe,” Rex fudged, thinking the short flight from St. Barts was sufficient experience of a private plane. “Listen, I have news about Sabine I’ve been waiting to tell you.”

  “You found her body?”

  “No—I have every reason to believe she’s alive. Gaby von Mueller spotted her on St. Barts yesterday. That’s what I was doing over there. I tracked her down to a hotel where she was staying with a young man, who may be the one she was with when she visited the Butterfly Farm.”

  “You have been busy.” Brooklyn studied his glass, a frown forming between his gray-green eyes. “Alive, you say. Who’s the man?”

  “I don’t know. The woman at the souvenir shop thinks he might have been French.”

  Brooklyn sat back in the white leather seat. “I can’t think of any Frenchmen she hung out with here on the island. I know one who sometimes moors his yacht in the bay at La Plage, but I’m not sure they’re acquainted, and he’s not her type.”

  “What is her type?”

  “Young. Pretty boy types, judging by the servers she flirted with. I didn’t think she was serious about anybody.”

  “Except you?”

  “I thought so. Alive, huh?” Brooklyn looked like a dazed boxer rising in the ring at the last count.

  “Did you ever meet her chiropractor?”

  “I knew she was seeing one in Philipsburg on a regular basis.”

  “Aye, well I think she was doing more than getting a spinal manipulation.”

  “You mean she was sleeping with a quack?”

  “I don’t think he’s a chiropractor at all.”

  The limo pulled through the gate to the resort and deposited them in front of their cabana. No sooner had Rex scrambled into dry clothes than a knock came at the door and Greg Hastings, the manager, stepped inside, propping his dripping golf umbrella against the wall by the mat.

  “Thought I’d come over and fill you in,” he said. “Some rather interesting developments. I haven’t had a chance to speak to the gendarmes regarding the latest.”

  “Please …” Rex ushered him into the living room.

  “When you called from St. Barts, I sent Danielle to fetch Mr. Powell for you, as you know. The door to his cabana being slightly ajar, she went in and saw him lying on the bed. Sensing something wasn’t right, she drew closer and realized his eyes were open and he wasn’t moving or breathing. She ran back to reception and I escorted Dr. von Mueller to the cabana, where the doctor pronounced Durand dead. A CD was still playing when Danielle found him, so he couldn’t have been dead long.”

  Unless someone else reset the CD player just to confuse the police, Rex hypothesized to himself. “Brook told me what Danielle found. It seems odd that a man who was about to take his life would rinse out the glass of rum he presumably used to wash down the pills.”

  “Well, I don’t think he was the one who did that. When I returned to the main building after taking Dr. von Mueller to number 2, one of the staff told me she had seen Sabine there shortly before Danielle found the body.”

  The manager’s account confirmed Rex’s suspicions.

  “The gendarme is here,” Brooklyn informed them.

  Lieutenant Latour strutted into the living room. “Quel sale temps!” he exclaimed, brushing water off his slicker.

  “Foul weather indeed. Mr. Hastings was just telling me we might have a suspect in Vernon Powell’s murder.”

  “Encore? Why must he be murdered? Why must everybody be murdered?” Red blotches appeared on the gendarme’s face and neck. “Why not an accidental little overdose? Ah, you Sherlock Holmes types! Can you not enjoy our beautiful island without seeing murder everywhere? Well, we will know from ze autopsy what happened.”

  “We dinna have time. Mr. Powell’s wife was here.”

  “Mademoiselle Durand? Sans blague!”

  “No, it’s no joke. Mr. Hastings just found out from a member of staff. Is it not a wee bit suspicious that Ms. Durand stages her death, mysteriously reappears two weeks later, and within one hour her husband is found O.D.’d in his bed, during which time she mysteriously vanishes again?”

  “The lady from maid service came forward and confessed,” the manager explained to Latour. “Ms. Durand swore Clementine Guillaume to secrecy with a bribe of one thousand euros.”

  “Ze maid will testify?”

  “She wants to keep her job.”

  “And do we know where Mademoiselle Durand is now?” Lieutenant Latour looked around the room as though she might be hiding in a corner.

  “According to Clementine, she slipped away in the rain dressed in a plastic poncho,” Hastings replied.

  Brooklyn handed Rex a pair of binoculars. “I just spoke to the security guard. He saw someone fitting that description get into a dingy. My guess is she’s on one of the cats out there waiting for the storm to abate so she can get off the island.” He turned to the manager. “I borrowed your umbrella. I hope you don’t mind.”

  Rex adjusted the binoculars and focused on a catamaran at anchor in the middle of the bay. The chop obscured the name of the craft, but he watched long enough to decipher some of the letters. A couple of figures scurried about on deck, as though preparing the catamaran for sail.

  “She’s on that boat,” he told Brooklyn, holding the glasses steady so he could see. “The Moonsplash. That’s how she got here from St. Barts. That’s how she left in the first place. The tide was out that night and she swam the short distance to the catamaran, first planting a torn-off piece of her pareo and her ankle bracelet on the beach.”

  Sabine would have known from her morning rides down Galion Beach where the tide would be at any given point in the day. She had no doubt picked the evening of Paul Winslow’s birthday to disappear, knowing the guests would be busy getting ready for dinner.

  “They’re on the move,” Brooklyn said, following the boat with his glasses.

  “Lieutenant Latour, can you send a police boat?” Rex asked.

  “There’s not enough time,” Bro
oklyn interrupted. “The cat could hide out on any number of islands. We need to pick them up before they have a chance to escape.”

  “What if the police sent a chopper?”

  “Not in this weather. C’mon, let’s go after her.”

  “How?”

  His roommate laughed as though he had just dreamed up a good game to play. “I have a key to one of the yachts in the bay. It belongs to that Frenchman I told you about. Get something waterproof on. I’ll find Pascal. Meet you on the beach in five minutes.”

  “Tenez.” Latour shrugged out of his slicker and handed it to Rex. Clearly, he had no intention of going with them. After a brief hesitation, he offered his cap.

  “Thanks.”

  Rex could not believe he was actually going out on a boat in this weather, but he could not let Sabine get away.

  Rex ran to the beach. Peering through the rain, he saw the Moonsplash had not made much progress and seemed to be in difficulty. Pascal and Brooklyn appeared farther down the sand.

  “Hop into this old bucket,” Brooklyn called to Rex, pointing to a small boat with an outboard motor. “We’ll go after them in the Belle Dame. Even if Sabine sees people get on the yacht, she’ll think it’s the owner and his crew.”

  Wading into the water, Rex climbed aboard and sat huddled on a wooden bench seat while the rain pelted his slicker. Pascal pulled up anchor, and the boat ploughed forward as fast as the little coffee mill of an engine could transport the three of them against the roll of the waves.

  Pascal, hand on the tiller, wore a fisherman’s knit sweater and hood, which Rex assumed he kept in the trunk of his car when he came to work. The hum of the motor was barely audible above the deafening roar of the sea. The rocking motion unsettled Rex’s stomach and he thought he might lose his steak-frites after surviving the plane ride. With any luck, the yacht would be steadier.

  “They’d be crazy to take that twenty-four footer into open water in a storm like this,” Brooklyn remarked, his eyes trained on the catamaran which, after some initial floundering, was making progress toward the mouth of the bay.