King Tide

by A. J. Stewart

  “One is on the pool deck, at the far end of the pool. Go to the right. The other is in the spa hut, around to the left. You’ll need a key card to get in.”

  Ronzoni shook his head. “All right. You take the right, I’ll take the left.”

  “Why do you get the indoor one?”

  “You think I’m gonna stay nice and dry?”

  I shrugged.

  We opened the ponchos. Mine was green, Ronzoni’s was pink. He took off his jacket and slipped the poncho on over the top of his shirt. I wasn’t so confident in the qualities of thin plastic, so I handed my jacket to Emery, and then slipped off my trousers and shirt.

  Ronzoni frowned. “Do you mind, Jones?”

  “I mind a lot, but you’re making me do it anyway.” I shot Emery a wink and pulled the thin poncho over my head. It wasn’t see-through, but it wasn’t far off it, and I was glad I had worn sensible underwear.

  “Sirs,” said Emery, offering us each a rubber-encased flashlight.

  We took the flashlights and put our shoulders into the door. Ronzoni nodded and we drove forward. The door was one of those heavy items that took rhinoceros strength to open on a fine day. With a hurricane-force wind pushing it closed it took considerably more doing.

  Unfortunately we got there. The door opened and we were hit by rain that stung the skin. Ronzoni broke left. He looked like a vertical puddle as his pink poncho expanded like a sail. I turned and ran the other way. The pool deck was well lit so the flashlight was superfluous, and I dashed around the thrashing water. There were practically white caps in the pool. The area was surrounded by landscaped palms that did close to zero in stopping the wind. What I really needed was those mangroves. But I pushed on around to the far end of the pool.

  Beyond the deep end I could see what I assumed was a palapa-style pool bar, locked up tight. Palm fronds had been blown from it, leaving an unromantic but practical cinderblock skeleton. Between the bar and the pool was a darkened circle of water. It wasn’t large, enough for maybe twenty people if they knew each other very well. I bent over against the wind and stepped to the hot tub. There was nothing hot about it. It was dark and angry. And it was empty. If we were on Daytona Beach I would have taken good odds on there being a kid or two in the hot tub, riding out the hurricane with a bottle of Captain Morgan. But this was Palm Beach, and The Mornington. These folks reconsidered a visit to the pool if a cloud drifted across the sky. But I was out in the driving rain, and I was drenched to the bone again, so I figured I might as well double-check. So I did. I stepped into the hot tub, which as expected was anything but, and I did a circuit. I couldn’t see the bottom but I did a full lap to confirm there was nothing and nobody in the water.

  I stepped out and looked toward the beach. Beyond the bank of light washing across the pool deck I made out the silhouette of a small hut-like building. I suspected like the bar it would have been designed to look like a palapa. Beyond the hut there was nothing. Just swirling, heaving darkness. And from the darkness I saw the light.

  It was a point of light. The doorway to the hot tub hut was my guess. I took off toward it. The wind tried to dunk me in the pool but a bank of palmettos enabled me to run relatively unaffected. I ran around the pool and toward the hut. Like the pool bar, the hut had been stripped naked, its gruesome cinderblock underbelly exposed. I kept going until I got to the door, which had been blown open against the wall.

  Then I stopped.

  The hut wasn’t anywhere near as romantic as a palapa hut on the inside. It was painted cinderblock. The hot tub bubbled away, white foam forming across the surface and the scent of chlorine heavy in the air. Posters detailing the maximum number of occupants and how to perform CPR covered the walls. Ronzoni didn’t need the posters. He was trained in CPR. I knew this because he looked like he knew what he was doing as he pumped on Carly Pastinak’s chest. He had clearly pulled her from the water. She was in a black one-piece bathing suit, her hair splayed across the concrete floor like spilled milk. Ronzoni was pumping with two hands on her chest. He was doing it hard, hard enough to do some damage. He was counting in shallow breaths, pumping fast like he was inflating a mattress, and then stopped and put his ear to Carly’s mouth. He tilted her head back and raised her chin, and then pinched her nose and put his mouth to hers, and he blew.

  Her chest rose and I waited for the coughing up of water, but it didn’t happen. It was Ronzoni’s air. He blew again and her wet chest rose and fell. Ronzoni pushed up onto his knees and he glanced at me in the doorway. He yelled as he began pumping on her chest again.

  “911,” he said.

  I patted my thighs unhelpfully. My phone was in my trouser pocket and my trousers were inside the hotel.

  “You got a phone?”

  “No bars. Inside,” he panted.

  I ran. I sprinted across the pool deck like a crab, two steps forward, one step sideways. I got to the emergency door and pulled hard. At first it didn’t come, and then it came fast. Emery Taylor was on the other side pushing with her back. I fell inside, a mess of water and cheap plastic.

  “911,” I said, gulping deep breaths.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  “911!” I yelled.

  She got it the second time and took off along the corridor. I gathered myself some and followed. I ran down the corridor and out into the lobby. The marble floors were like an ice rink and I skidded right past the desk.

  Emery held the phone in her hand and was hitting the return in frustration.

  “What?” I gasped.

  “No phone.”

  “What?”

  “The phones are down.” She ran into Neville’s office and then reappeared. “Router’s down. The Internet’s down.”

  “I don’t want to watch cat videos. We need paramedics.”

  “That’s what I’m saying. The phone system is IP-based. It comes through our Internet provider. The whole system’s down.”

  “How? ”

  She held her hands and out. “Er, hurricane?” It was more sarcasm than I was used to seeing at The Mornington, but I let it slide.

  “You got a defib kit?”

  “An AED? Yes, in the gym.”

  We ran back down the corridor and reached the frosted glass of the gym. Emery dropped to her knees and fished out a key to unlock the door. She looked up at me with a face that said she had already seen the dead man in the gym and she didn’t want to go through that again.

  “Where is it?”

  “On the wall, just along from the water cooler.”

  I stepped inside. It was dark and moist. Paul Zidane lay on the bench under the sheet. I turned away from him and found the cabinet on the wall. I grabbed it and took off, leaping over Emery, who was still kneeling on the floor.

  The wind buffeted me the other way as I ran back, two steps sideways and one forward. I reached the doorway and stumbled through. It was quieter. The hot tub had given up bubbling, and above the sound of the wind Ronzoni was puffing heavily, still pressing up and down on Carly’s chest.

  “No paramedics,” I said.

  Ronzoni didn’t respond. I assumed he had figured there might not be any help coming in the middle of a hurricane. He kept pumping.

  “But I found a defib kit.”

  Ronzoni looked up at that but he kept pumping steadily.

  “Get it over here.” He pointed to the side of the room. “Come around that way. Stay away from the hot tub.”

  I came around the wall and dropped down and opened the kit. It looked like a portable air compressor. I knew it packed a lot more punch than that. Ronzoni finished his round of CPR and then heaved two more deep breaths into Carly.

  He took the kit from me. He turned it on and then took out two thin pads attached by wires to the unit. The unit spoke to us in a calm female voice.

  “Apply pads to patient’s bare chest. Apply pads to patient’s bare chest .”

  Ronzoni put his hands on Carly’s shoulders and hesitated for a moment. He looked
almost apologetic. Then he grabbed the straps and pulled her swimsuit down. It peeled off her like a banana skin.

  “Is there a towel?”

  It was a 5-star hotel. There was a towel service. I grabbed a rolled towel from the rack and tossed it to Ronzoni. He pulled Carly’s swimsuit down to her navel, and then he dried her chest and left side with the towel. He took one of the pads and removed the backing and stuck it on Carly’s chest above her right breast. Then he took the second pad and stuck in on her left side below her armpit.

  Then he pushed back on his knees and waited. The woman in the machine said she was analyzing and we should not touch the patient. It seemed to take forever but was only about ten seconds. Then the voice told us that she advised that shock was required, and that she was charging, and we should stand clear.

  “Get back,” said Ronzoni. “Out of the water.”

  I took a step back from the puddle surrounding Carly. So did Ronzoni. Then the woman in the machine told us she was going to shock. And she did. Carly’s body jolted like she was having a bad dream. Not a huge movement, but enough to give hope. The voice told us it was analyzing and then it said that no pulse was detected and we should administer CPR. Ronzoni got back over Carly and pumped her chest again, counting to himself.

  The machine recharged and we did it all over again. Nothing. Ronzoni kept going. Then a face appeared. It was Emery.

  “Oh, no,” she gasped. I stood and ran around the edge of the room and she grabbed me and buried her face into my chest. She had already discovered one dead body today. Another guest on the verge of death was too much. Her arms gripped me like she was hanging from a cliff, but her legs did the opposite. They simply gave way. I picked her up and held her between myself and the wall. She was wet to the bone.

  “I need you to go back inside and keep trying the phones. See if anyone has cell coverage.”

  I might as well have been asking the cinderblock for help. Emery had checked out for the evening. She stopped sobbing but I didn’t take that as a good sign.

  Another body appeared in the doorway. Deshawn Maxwell stood before me. The rainwater was pouring off his bald head. He was in training gear, as usual. I wondered if that was what he used for pajamas. He took me in, and then Emery. It didn’t make sense to him until he saw Ronzoni on the floor over Carly.

  “Oh, man,” he said, stepping into the room.

  “Don’t come in,” I said.

  “I can help. I’m trained.”

  “Then use your training to help her,” I said, nodding toward the catatonic woman in my arms.

  Deshawn hesitated, and then he swept Emery up in his arms. He was a strong guy, and Emery no kind of burden. He backed out into the rain and took off steadily across the pool deck. I watched him stride toward the hotel and was about to turn back to Ronzoni when I saw the south door open. A crowd was gathering. We didn’t need more people wandering around in a hurricane, so I took off across the pool deck.

  I ran into Sam Venturi. I didn’t see him coming and I was bigger than he was. When I had played football at college I had been the backup quarterback. That made me one of the smallest guys on the team. But compared to regular people even quarterbacks are big. Sam and I collided like trains in the night. Only one was a freight train and the other was Thomas the Tank Engine. Sam hit me and rebounded into the pool.

  He flapped around for a bit and then started yelling at me.

  “Get out of the damned pool,” I yelled back, and I bent down to help him. He wasn’t keen on the help. He dragged himself out of the water. It didn’t make much difference. The volume of water outside the pool wasn’t much less. I grabbed him by the t-shirt and dragged him across the pool deck toward the emergency exit. He was wearing shorts that I assumed were now considered tennis shorts but looked like something you might wear to the beach. When I was a kid tennis gear was white. That’s how you knew it was tennis gear.

  I pushed Sam in through the door and he turned on me.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” he said.

  “Shut it, Sam. I don’t have time.” I turned to the group. Shania had appeared. Leon was there. Ron stood at the back with Cassandra, helping Deshawn revive the spent Emery.

  “It’s Carly. She was in the hot tub.”

  “Is she all right?” asked Shania.

  “Detective Ronzoni is performing CPR. What I need from you is to stay in here. We don’t need people out in a hurricane getting hurt.”

  “We can help,” she said.

  “Help by staying put. Seriously. You’re only putting others in danger if you go out there. ”

  Shania didn’t look convinced but she didn’t say any more.

  “Okay?” I said to Sam. He had redeveloped the pallor he had exhibited on Bingham Island. He nodded his bowed head but said nothing more.

  “I’ll be back shortly. Seriously. Stay put.”

  Leon said, “You aren’t the cops, man. You can’t tell us what to do.”

  “Well, let me put it this way. Anyone who’s a tennis player comes through this door, I will break your damned fingers. Both hands. Man or woman, I care not. And you,” I turned on Leon. “You’re a sommelier? I’ll just break your damned nose.”

  I didn’t wait for further discussion. I pushed back out the door and heard it slam home as I dashed across the pool deck. I knew I had probably been a bit harsh but I was soaked to my core for the umpteenth time today and I had a bad feeling that I had suggested the very thing that had led to Carly Pastinak’s death. Which put me two for two as far as people dying on my word since lunch. I pushed the thought away as I reached the hut.

  Ronzoni was still going. I didn’t think he had it in him. I’ve heard about people getting superhuman strength under intense pressure, like a mother lifting a car off her crushed son. Maybe that was just urban legend. But Ronzoni was the real deal. He was going hard, and he wasn’t giving up.

  I made him give up. Another forty minutes, after I had subbed in for him on the CPR, and the voice in the AED machine had become fatalistic, I called it. To his credit Ronzoni didn’t want to. It took three more rounds before he sat back from Carly’s body and for him to collapse to the floor. I let him lie there for a while. In his wet poncho he looked like discarded fruit from the grocery. We both stared at the hot tub for the longest time. Neither of us wanted to look at Carly, and for reasons I couldn’t fathom we didn’t want to look at each other either.

  Eventually we did. I got onto my hands and knees and moved to Carly. I didn’t remove the electrode pads from her chest, but I felt she deserved some modesty, so I leaned over and glanced at Ronzoni. He nodded, and I pulled her bathing suit up to her shoulders.

  “Two accidental deaths in one day,” I said. “This group is cursed.”

  Ronzoni shook his head with his last ounce of energy. “No.”

  “No? If this isn’t cursed I’d hate to see what is.”

  “Not an accident.”

  I gave him my full frontal frown. “Explain?”

  He nodded to the other side of the hot tub. A champagne bottle sat on the edge, with a single glass.

  “She liked a drink,” I said. “Some folks do drink alone.”

  Ronzoni shook his head again.

  “Wet footprints,” he mumbled. “Too large to be the victim. And they can’t be hers anyway.”

  “Why?”

  “Because they’re leaving.”

  Chapter Twenty

  I went back to tell everyone the news. I struggled across the pool deck with no sense of urgency. Something that resembled the remains of a deck chair flew past my head and barely earned a glance.

  To say the mood was somber was to do the mood a disservice. Everyone had gathered in the lounge. Most were wrapped in blankets, but not the kind you get on airlines. Chef Dean stood with Neville behind the bar. There was a lot of brandy flowing.

  I shook my head. “She didn’t make it.”

  There were some gasps and howls. But no one cried. Shania looked
like stone. Sam looked like porcelain. Emery had left crying behind and had ventured into previously uncharted emotional territory. She stared into an alternate dimension. Cassandra came close to tears but she was one of those stoic people they don’t seem to make many of anymore. The kind that live through wars without complaint. She was more focused on Emery than anything I had to say.

  “What happened?” asked Neville. “What on earth was she doing out there?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Having a soak. But why out there, in this weather? I can’t say. ”

  “You told her to do it,” said Sam. “You told her to go out there.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “You’re a liar. You told me you told her to have a hot tub.”

  “I did suggest a hot tub. I certainly didn’t suggest going outside in a hurricane. I had no idea where the hot tub was.”

  “You say that now,” said Sam.

  “No, I said that then. To you. And her. I suggested she ask Deshawn where it was.”

  “Me?” Deshawn frowned but he wasn’t that wrinkly. “She didn’t ask me anything.”

  “Then she asked someone.”

  “What happens now?” asked Shania.

  “Now you all stay here. Detective Ronzoni has asked that everyone remain in this room for your own safety until he says otherwise.”

  “We paid for rooms,” said Anton. He was finally sitting next to his fiancé.

  I wanted to tell him he wouldn’t know where his room was, since he’d barely left the bar, but I didn’t.

  “I’m sure the hotel will fix you up. But we’ve lost two people today. Let’s not lose any more. Stay put. We’ll be back shortly. Ron”—I looked to my right hand man—“anyone moves, shoot them.”

  Ron nodded like he would, despite not even owning, let alone carrying, a gun.

  I asked the chef for some plastic baggies. Then I suggested to Neville that some food be brought out, and the chef recommended sandwich rounds for such an occasion. I’m not sure how he classified the occasion exactly, but I didn’t think anyone looked up for a slab of porterhouse steak .