Princess Charming

by Jane Heller

  “The Ardastra Gardens, of course,” he said, as if I were hopelessly uninformed. “Where the tropical birds are.” He checked his watch. “We’ve missed the eleven o’clock show, but we can certainly make the show at two o’clock.”

  “What sort of show, Albert?” Pat inquired.

  “The pink flamingos,” he said. “The sweet, spindly-legged creatures march together in a line. They perform three shows daily.”

  “Like lap dancers in Vegas,” I mumbled.

  “Actually, the flamingo is the national bird of the Bahamas,” Simon told us.

  “Right you are,” said Albert. “And such beautiful birds they are. If we go to see them at two, that gives us a couple of hours to kill.”

  I wondered if Albert’s use of the word “kill” had any significance.

  “Ginger Smith Baldwin’s art safari group is spending the afternoon on Paradise Island,” Pat offered. “We could join them.”

  “I don’t think so,” said Simon. “Paradise Island’s too far, if you want to make that two o’clock show at the Ardastra Gardens. We should probably stay in this general area. How about taking a look in the shops on Bay Street? They have incredible buys on watches.”

  “Do they,” Pat mused. “I wouldn’t mind buying the children new wristwatches as souvenirs, especially if the prices are that good.”

  “And then we could stop at the Shoal Restaurant on Nassau Street for their specialty of the house: the boiled fish and johnnycake,” said Simon.

  “My, you talk about this island as if you’ve been here before, Sam,” Pat observed. “Have you?”

  “No. I’m just a voracious reader of travel magazines,” Simon said, winking at me.

  “Away from It All, in particular,” I teased, then linked my arm through his, still aglow from our morning intimacy. “Okay, Pat. What’ll it be? A browse through the shops, fish and johnnycake for lunch, and then on to the dancing flamingos?”

  She didn’t answer immediately and I didn’t push, given her well-documented slowness in making decisions. I turned to Albert. “What about you?” I asked him. “Any thoughts?”

  “Whatever Pat wants to do is splendid with me,” he said, combing his mustache with his fingers.

  “Fine. Back to you, Pat,” I said, trying not to let my impatience show. I mean, it wasn’t as if we were deciding whether or not to go whale harpooning. “Pat?” I said again when she didn’t respond.

  I peered at her and realized that she probably hadn’t even heard me. She was staring, trancelike, across the street, back at the wharf, in the direction of the Princess Charming. Her lower lip was quivering and her face was very flushed.

  “Pat,” I said, waving my arms in front of her eyes. “Are you with us? What on earth is the matter?”

  “It’s…it’s Bill,” she sputtered, clutching her right hand to her heart.

  “What’s Bill?” I said anxiously.

  “Over there. I saw him. In the crowd.” She pointed to the wharf.

  “You saw him? Here in Nassau?” I said, taking her seriously. Pat didn’t have the vision problems I had; she could read the newspaper without holding it three feet away from her face.

  “Your ex-husband is here in Nassau?” Albert echoed, looking stricken.

  “Yes, I…swear I saw him across the street, standing…among all those people.” She pointed again.

  I squinted in the hazy sun to see if I could spot Bill Kovecky. I’d never met him, but I’d skimmed through enough of Pat’s photo albums and seen him pontificating on enough morning talk shows to pick the guy out of a lineup.

  “Maybe you saw someone who only resembles Bill,” I suggested, unsure of what to do. “They say we all have a double somewhere. Maybe Bill’s is Bahamian.” Bill Kovecky was so fair he was practically albino.

  “I saw him,” Pat said resolutely.

  I believed her but didn’t want to. Even after all my suspicions, I had trouble facing the fact that the father of my friend’s five children was lurking in the crowd; that he had actually flown down to the last stop on our cruise in order to check up on his jittery hit man and oversee the job himself; that he and Albert had, indeed, conspired to murder Pat.

  “I know it was Bill,” she went on. “He was wearing his Alpaca sweater. His powder blue Alpaca sweater.”

  “He has more than one?” I asked. Alpaca sweaters went out with Perry Como.

  Pat nodded. “I gave him the blue one for our second anniversary. He’s kept it all these years.”

  “Mementos aside, what would Bill be doing here?” I asked, knowing the answer. God, maybe he’d even brought the girlfriend along.

  “I couldn’t begin to imagine,” Pat said. “I suppose Nassau could be the site of one of those medical conferences he attends.”

  “That would be quite a coincidence,” said Simon, who shot me a worried look. “Especially since he had your itinerary and didn’t tell your kids that he was going to the same island their mother was visiting. On the same day.”

  Pat furrowed her brow, as if a horrible idea had just occurred to her. “Do you think he came because of some trouble with the children?” she asked us collectively.

  “I haven’t a clue,” Albert sniffed, as if all this talk of Bill was getting on his nerves. “Frankly, my dear, your ex-husband is the last person I’d like to run into today.”

  “Oh, yeah? Why is that, Albert?” I pounced, hoping to intimidate the little shit into a confession. There was no doubt in my mind that if Bill was the mastermind of the murder plot, Albert was the hit man. Who else had been hanging around Pat for the entire cruise?

  “Because…because…” He was blushing intensely now. “Because, if you must know, I was eager to spend the day with Pat—free of reminders of her former husband, a man whom she clearly reveres. You see, I’m interested in continuing my friendship with her when we return home—without interference from the good doctor!”

  “Albert,” Pat said, taken aback by his declaration. “Of course we’ll continue our—”

  “Don’t listen to him, Pat,” I interrupted. “He doesn’t really want to continue your friendship when you get home. He’s not even going home after the cruise. He’s disconnected both his phones.”

  My outburst caused Albert’s jaw to drop.

  “Elaine,” Pat sighed. “You don’t trust anybody.” She looked at Simon for confirmation, but he was on my side. “Perhaps I didn’t see him after all,” she said, tears welling, disappointment written all over her face. She retrieved a tissue from her purse, dabbed at her eyes with it, then stuffed it inside the sleeve of her blouse. “Perhaps it was only that he and I used to talk of taking a vacation in Nassau, when we were first married, and never did. I’m probably just being a nostalgic fool.”

  “I don’t want to hear another word about Bill!” Albert insisted, reaching for her hand. I grabbed her other hand. Neither Albert nor I would let go, and poor Pat became the object of our tug of war.

  “Keep away from her, Albert!” I shouted at him. “We’re on to you. On to the whole sick plan.”

  “Elaine! Albert! Stop this!” Pat cried as we continued to fight over her while Simon began to frisk Albert, who wasn’t amused.

  “What, may I ask, are you doing?” he said indignantly, trying to keep Simon away with little kicks of his feet.

  “I’m looking for a weapon, buddy,” said Simon. “Now hold still.”

  “Weapon?” Albert said, seeming revolted by the very notion. “I’m an ardent supporter of gun control!”

  Simon stepped away from Albert after finding something in his pants pocket. “He’s clean, except for the Swiss Army Knife,” he told me in TV CopSpeak.

  And speaking of cops, one was walking by at that very moment, although I couldn’t exactly tell at first. Cops in Nassau dress very differently from cops in the States. As a reminder of the island’s British heritage, they wear white jackets, navy pants with red stripes down the legs, and authentic pith helmets. Very colonial.

 
Simon waved him over.

  “Is there a problem, ladies and gentlemen?” the officer asked, tipping the pith helmet. Cops in Nassau behave differently from cops in the States too.

  “You could say that,” I said, still hanging on to Pat, as was Albert. “This man”—I nodded at Albert—“has been hired by…” I stopped again, this time because Pat shouted, “Elaine, look! It is Bill!”

  We all followed Pat’s gaze across the square.

  Sure enough, Dr. William Kovecky emerged from the crowd and was moving slowly and deliberately in our direction.

  24

  Bill Kovecky was shorter than he appeared on TV. When he stood next to Pat, both of them so pudgy and low to the ground, they looked like a matched set. Simon and I towered over them, and even wimpy little Albert seemed skyscraper-like in their presence.

  Bill was also so fair-haired and fair-skinned that there was a translucent, otherworldly quality to him. Or maybe the Healer of Heartburn just needed some sun.

  The third thing I noticed about him was that he was wearing a powder blue Alpaca sweater.

  “Bill! What are you doing here?” Pat asked, wresting herself away from Albert and me.

  “Whatever he says is a lie,” I cautioned, inserting myself between Pat and her ex-husband.

  “Ah, so this must be Elaine,” Bill said dryly. “The one who thinks every man is the Antichrist.”

  “Now listen here, buddy,” said Simon, sandwiching himself between Bill and me. “You’re the one who’s got some explaining to do.”

  “Yes indeed,” Albert chimed in. “I was in the middle of a rather heated discussion with Pat’s friends and now you’ve shown up—unannounced—and disrupted our afternoon. It’s boorish behavior, if you ask me.”

  “I didn’t ask you,” said Bill. “I don’t even know you.”

  I glanced at Simon. Either Bill and Albert really didn’t know each other or they were brilliant bullshitters.

  “Now if you’ll all excuse me,” Bill went on, trying to wedge his way around Simon, “I came down here to see Patricia.”

  “Yeah, you came down here to see her all right,” I snapped, putting myself in his face. “To see her pushing up daisies.”

  “What is this woman talking about?” Bill asked Pat, who shrugged.

  “You know exactly what she’s talking about,” Simon challenged, then turned to the police officer, who had been observing each of us without comment. I had a hunch the expression “ugly American” had occurred to him. “This man”—Simon pointed to Bill—“has conspired with this man”—he pointed to Albert—“to murder this woman”—he pointed to Pat.

  “What?” shouted Pat, Albert, and Bill simultaneously.

  “She looks very much alive to me,” the policeman said nonchalantly, referring to Pat. “Are you all with one of the cruise ships?” As if that explained everything.

  “All but one of us,” I said. “We arrived this morning on the Princess Charming, never dreaming that Dr. Kovecky would actually appear at the scene of the crime!”

  “What crime might that be?” asked the officer, removing the pith helmet long enough to scratch his head.

  “Murder,” Simon said. “I just told you.”

  The policeman smiled. “I think I understand the situation now,” he said, nodding at us. “Many of the cruise ships offer Murder Mystery Shore Excursions. People say they’re quite enjoyable. Some of you are actors, some are passengers, and you pretend a murder has been committed. The one who solves the puzzle wins a prize, isn’t that how it works?”

  Simon and I shook our heads and sighed.

  The police officer chuckled. “I’ll leave you to your fun,” he said and took off.

  We were back to square one.

  “Would you mind explaining why you two told that cop I intended to murder Patricia?” Bill demanded of Simon and me. “And while you’re on the subject, maybe you could throw in a line or two about my supposed connection to this man?” He meant Albert.

  “You go first,” I insisted. “Tell us what you’re doing in Nassau.”

  Bill was about to tell us to go shove it, when Pat intervened. “Yes, Bill. What are you doing in Nassau? You left our daughter on her birthday. She was in tears when I spoke to her.”

  Bill suddenly looked chastened, sheepish. “I hate making Lucy cry,” he said. “That’s one of the reasons I’m here.”

  “Your logic escapes us,” I said impatiently.

  “Patricia,” he said, glaring at me. “Must we talk in front of these people?”

  “Yes,” she said. “The sooner the better.”

  Bill inhaled deeply. “All right. If that’s what you want.”

  “That’s what she wants,” Albert seconded Pat’s request. His devotion was touching.

  “The only flight I could get a seat on happened to be yesterday, Lucy’s birthday,” Bill maintained. “If I could have flown down here first thing this morning, I would have, but as I said, the flights were booked. And of course, if I’d tried to get on a flight later today, your ship would already have left Nassau. I told Lucy all this and she said she understood. She encouraged me to go.”

  “Lucy knew you were coming to Nassau?” Pat asked. “She said you didn’t tell anybody where you were flying off to. The boys said the same thing.”

  “That’s because it was supposed to be a secret,” Bill said. “A surprise. All the kids were in on it.”

  “The kids were in on it?” I said, horrified that a man would involve his own children in their mother’s murder.

  “Sure. I explained everything to them,” said Bill.

  “Good. Now explain it to us,” said Simon. “What are you doing in Nassau?”

  “Well,” said Bill, “since I’m apparently not permitted a minute of privacy with Patricia…”

  “That’s right. You’re not,” I said.

  “…I came down here to talk to my ex-wife about our marriage,” he said, “about the mistakes I made, about how I want another chance, about how I…miss my Patsy.”

  Patsy. And I’d thought the “Patricia” was a bit precious.

  “Is that true, Bill?” said Pat, fanning herself with her hand, as if his statements had overheated her.

  “Every word,” he said. “I love my work. But I love my family too. I just didn’t realize how much until these past few months. Call it waking up. Call it coming to my senses. Call it whatever you like. The point is, I want balance in my life. I want you in my life, Patsy.”

  Pat grew silent. I think she’d gone into shock.

  “She would have been home by tomorrow night,” Albert said huffily. “You couldn’t have waited until then to present your case?”

  “Not that it’s any of your business, Mr.—”

  “Mullins. Albert Mullins. I met your former wife on the very first day of the cruise.”

  “Not that it’s any of your business, Mr. Mullins, but I had a copy of Patsy’s itinerary and I knew Nassau was the last stop on the cruise. I wasn’t the best husband in the world when she and I were together, obviously. I figured that if I had a prayer of winning Patsy back, I had to show her I’m not the cold, detached doctor she divorced. The question was: How to show her? What sort of dramatic gesture could I make that would not only prove my sincerity but allow her to see a side of me she hasn’t seen in years—the attentive, romantic side?”

  Pat let a sigh escape, but that was about it.

  He regarded her tenderly. “You and I had always talked about going to Nassau, remember, Patsy?” he said.

  She nodded.

  He continued. “I thought, what if I were to surprise you here, on the very island we’d planned to visit in the early days of our marriage? What if I were to whisk you away and convince you to take me back?”

  “Whisk her away?” I said, still nervous on Pat’s behalf.

  He ignored me, having eyes only for her. “I booked us a room at Graycliff, Patsy. For the next four days. You can tell the ship you’re flying back from here
. It will be idyllic, just the two of us getting reacquainted.”

  Pat sighed again, this time wiping her now heavily perspiring brow with the tissue.

  “What’s Graycliff?” I whispered to Simon.

  “It’s an eighteenth-century inn and restaurant, just a short walk from here,” he whispered back. “It’s famous for its antique-filled rooms and 175,000-bottle wine list.”

  “You know, it really is handy to have a travel writer around,” I said. “What you’re saying is that Graycliff is charming and romantic—the perfect spot for a reconciliation.”

  He nodded. “If Bill is telling the truth, he has anything but murder on his mind.”

  “Dr. Kovecky, you still haven’t said why you’ve suddenly experienced a change of heart toward your ex-wife,” Albert piped up.

  “I thought I’d made myself pretty clear,” said Bill, directing his remarks to Pat, not to Albert. “I was wrong. I was a fool. I would give anything if you would forgive me.”

  God, even I was ready to run off with Bill. Weren’t those the words every woman who had ever been hurt by a man longed to hear? They were certainly the words Pat had longed to hear, and yet she didn’t hurl herself into Bill’s arms and say all was forgiven. Instead, she hung back, cocked her head, studied her former husband, still taking in everything he’d said.

  “Won’t you come with me, Patsy?” he said, extending a hand to her. “Let me take you to Graycliff. Give us time to talk, to work things out. Four days together. Think of it.”

  “I don’t have to,” she said finally, choking back tears. “I’ve thought of our being back together every day for the last six years.”

  Now it was Bill’s turn to get choked up. “Have you?” he asked, his arms outstretched.

  Pat responded by stepping into his embrace. They kissed unselfconsciously, never mind our prying eyes. And then Bill rested his head on Pat’s soft, cushiony bosom.

  She stroked his pale blond hair, what was left of it, tears streaming down her cheeks now. “I certainly have thought of our reconciling,” she said. “But I’ve also thought of the things I could have done differently in our marriage, of the ways I could have been more involved in your career, for example. I allowed a lot of what happened between us to happen, Bill.”