A Quarter for a Kiss

by Mindy Starns Clark

  “Maybe that’s him calling back,” I said. “We can ask.”

  Sure enough, the voice at the other end of the line was my father’s. Once I explained what had happened and where I was, he was understandably angry with me.

  “Come on, Callie,” he said. “You shoulda called me the minute you heard. Eli was my partner for almost ten years! Doesn’t that count for something?”

  “I’m sorry, Dad,” I said. “At first, I was just concerned about getting here. Then I hit the ground running. I haven’t stopped.”

  “Well, just remember you’re not the only detective in the family. Do the police there even know Eli is a former cop? I guarantee you, this situation would get a lot more attention if they did.”

  “I don’t know if Stella told them or not. I’ll be sure to mention it to them either way.”

  “What have they been doing? Are they keeping you apprised of their investigation?”

  “No,” I said, looking out at the beautiful beach and the blue sky beyond. “I’m working the case from a different angle, Dad. There’s a history here the police don’t know anything about. It’s hard to explain.”

  “Try me,” he said, and I knew from his tone of voice there was no use arguing. I moved from the table over to the couch and sat down, crossing my legs under me.

  “Eli used to work for the NSA,” I said bluntly. “Did you know that?”

  “The NSA?”

  “The National Security Agency.”

  He was quiet for a moment, and then he let out a low whistle.

  “No, I did not,” he said. “In the beginning, there was a rumor around the force that he was some kind of former agent—people said CIA or FBI. I asked him straight out and he said no. Never crossed my mind to ask if he worked for the NSA. How do you know?”

  “He had a case file going. I’ve got old interoffice documents with his name on them right here.”

  I tried my best to explain that apparently Eli had become involved with a female coworker while at the NSA, but that it was discovered that the woman was selling secrets to the Russians. She was shot and killed by a group of agents, including Eli.

  “But that would’ve been years ago,” he said. “Why is it relevant now?”

  “Because though the woman was shot and killed in 1962,” I replied, “a couple of months ago, Eli saw her.”

  “He saw her?”

  “Alive and well down in the Virgin Islands. He thought it was her, so he started investigating. I guess he just wanted to know how she could still be alive when he knew for a fact she was dead.”

  “And what did he find out?”

  “He worked the case for a few months,” I said. “Long enough to confirm that it was her and to raise suspicions that she was still involved in some kind of spy work. A few weeks ago, Eli brought all of the evidence to one of his buddies at the NSA, and while he was waiting to hear back from him, he was shot.”

  “Do you think she did it? She shot him?”

  “It’s a possibility, but I doubt it. She came here to see him before he was shot, to warn him that someone was coming. We just don’t know who the someone was.”

  “The NSA? Maybe he was targeted by the NSA.”

  I glanced toward the kitchen, where Tom had gone to pour himself a glass of water. I hadn’t mentioned it to him, but the possibility had also crossed my mind.

  “I don’t think they do that sort of thing,” I said. “But it’s possible, I suppose.”

  “Who else could it be? The Russians?”

  “In this day and age? The Cold War’s over, Dad.”

  “Maybe somebody had a vendetta,” he said. “Those Russians, they’ve got long memories, you know.”

  In my lifetime I had seen the Berlin Wall topple and the Russian’s Soviet empire splinter to pieces. The Russia I knew was a different animal from that of my father’s generation.

  “So what’s your next step?” he asked.

  “Darned if I know,” I replied. “I’m tempted to go down to St. John and knock on the woman’s door.”

  “Don’t do that, Callie. Promise me you won’t do that.”

  I smiled at his tone, knowing we could talk like fellow detectives for a little while, but in the end he was primarily my father.

  “Okay, Dad,” I said. “I might go down there, but I promise I won’t confront the woman directly.”

  “I just don’t know what I think about all of this. If Eli’s poking around ended up getting him shot, it seems like you’re putting yourself in the very same danger by following up on things.”

  “I’m very discreet, Dad,” I said, trying to sound reassuring while all the while I knew what he was saying was true. How did I know that Tom and I wouldn’t be next in the crosshairs of a sniper’s gun?

  “Anyway, in the meantime I think I’ll make a few calls myself,” he said. “Talk to the officer in charge. Make sure this is getting top priority.”

  “Just don’t share any details of what I’ve told you, okay? The last thing I need is to have this file confiscated by the local police force.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll keep my mouth shut. I just want to know what they’ve accomplished from their angle.”

  He promised to get back in touch with me once he knew something. I hung up the phone just as Tom was coming back into the room.

  “Well?” he asked.

  “Well,” I replied, exhaling slowly. “it looks like it might be time for you and me to take a little trip.”

  Sixteen

  That night we prepared to go to the Virgin Islands to pick up the investigation right where Eli had left off. Tom insisted on putting everything on his credit card, but he asked if I would please make the arrangements since he needed to spend the next few hours tying up some loose ends with his office. He went back to the neighbor’s apartment to do his work in the quiet there. I stayed at Stella’s, got out my laptop, and went online to find a flight for us.

  I had reserved our seats and was looking for hotel accomodations when Jodi came home, seeming exhausted. She grabbed a cold soda from the fridge before joining me at the dining table, sitting crossways on the seat so that her feet dangled off the side.

  “What a day,” she said, taking a sip from the can. “Milton’s in town.”

  “Milton?”

  “My oldest brother. Ugh! To him, I might as well be twelve years old. Did you ever know someone who doesn’t even really look at you? Like they look right through you? That’s Milton. I’m just a blip on his screen. I’m just white noise in the background.”

  I smiled at her description. From what I recalled of Eli’s wedding, Milton didn’t seem to notice much besides himself. I felt a surge of gratefulness for my own brother, who was a real sweetheart and one of my best friends.

  “How’s Eli?” I asked, and Jodi gave a report of the events of the afternoon. His lung had collapsed and they had to do some sort of procedure to get him breathing again. She said Stella had rallied fairly well. Once Milton showed up and sort of commandeered the waiting room, Jodi had felt a little superfluous.

  “Maybe I should go back to Europe,” she said, playing with the metal tab on the top of her soda can. “At least Franco was fun when he wasn’t being a greedy idiot.”

  I started to reply, but she held up one hand.

  “Kidding,” she said. “Sort of.”

  “Speaking of going somewhere, Tom and I are going down to St. John,” I said. “We leave in the morning.”

  Her eyes opened wide.

  “You’re going off on vacation now?”

  “It’s not a vacation. We’re investigating Eli’s shooting. The investigation has led us down there.”

  She spun her legs around and sat up.

  “Oh, let me go with you!” she said. “I haven’t been down to the house in almost a year.”

  “I don’t think—”

  “Come on!” she urged. “I can help. I can follow people. I can collect evidence. I watch enough detective shows to know how it’
s done.”

  “What about your mother?”

  “She doesn’t need me now that Milton’s here. C’mon. Please?”

  My first reaction was to object, but as I thought about it, I realized it might not hurt to have a third person along. I had absolutely no contacts down there, and Jodi was familiar with the island. On the other hand, Stella would have my head if I let anything happen to her daughter.

  “The house is gorgeous,” Jodi said. “I don’t know if Mom showed you the pictures, but you’ll love it. We’ve got two cars there too. Oh, and maybe some of the girls are in town. This is perfect! One of the charities I’m considering is located down there, so I can even investigate it. You can help me.”

  “The girls?”

  “Friends of mine. Like me, their parents have houses there. We used to coordinate so we’d all be down at the same time. Gosh, I haven’t talked to any of them in ages, except Sandy and I e-mail a lot. She’s the one who works with the charity.”

  Suddenly, it felt as if Jodi’s accompanying us was a done deal.

  “If you go,” I said, “you absolutely cannot tell a soul why we’re there or what we’re doing. This isn’t a group activity, Jodi, it’s an investigation. For me and Tom.”

  “Can’t I help?”

  “You can show us around and get us oriented,” I said. “Beyond that, I doubt it. Though if I have any spare time, I’ll be happy to give you some guidance with the nonprofit there.”

  She thought about that for a few moments.

  “Okay,” she said finally. “I can do that. We’ll fly down tomorrow, I’ll give you the whole island tour, and then I’ll stay out of your way. But I’ll be there if you need me.”

  “And you won’t tell your friends what’s going on?”

  She held up three fingers, like the Girl Scout pledge.

  “On my honor, I will keep my mouth shut,” she said. “Now what time’s our flight?”

  “Eight o’clock in the morning. That means we need to leave for the airport at five.”

  “I’ll be ready.”

  I guess it would be three to the islands, then. I hoped Tom wouldn’t mind that I had told Jodi yes without consulting him first.

  Because we wouldn’t be needing a hotel, I clicked off the hotel’s website and went back to the airline’s, adding a reservation for Jodi. I reserved a car too, knowing Tom and I would be more comfortable driving a rental. If something came up where we needed another car, then we might borrow one of Stella’s.

  Jodi happily went off down the hall to do laundry, and I used the time to go through my e-mail. I had a note from Lindsey, asking me if she could register Sal for the Osprey Cove Mayday Parade. There was a pet costume contest and she wanted to dress Sal as William Shakespup. (Lindsey was dating a guy who was active in community theatre, and everything she did lately seemed to relate somehow to the stage.) I wrote back and said it was okay with me, as long as the costume wasn’t personally humiliating for Sal and I didn’t have to have any part of it—including leading my dog around on a leash while she sported a pleated ruff and a doublet.

  I took some time to send a long message to Harriet, telling her about my vacation in North Carolina. She and I still hadn’t had a chance to chat, and I felt guilty about that. Maybe one day soon I would give her a call. In the meantime, I needed to go through all of my stuff, get organized, and figure out what I would be bringing with me.

  Stella checked in with us around seven, sounding tired but hopeful. Eli had had an EEG, and it showed definite brainwave activity.

  “The coma is because his body is still in shock,” she said. “But the doctor said his vital signs are better. He’s starting to feel confident that Eli might pull through after all.”

  “Oh, Stella, thank the Lord.”

  “Thank the Lord indeed.”

  I told her Tom and I were still working on the investigation, but that it had become necessary for us to go down to the Virgin Islands. Our flight to St. Thomas was in the morning.

  “I told you that’s when Eli started acting funny,” she said. “When we went to St. John.”

  I was afraid she was going to ask me about the particulars of the investigation, but instead she simply started talking about the house down there, where she kept the key, how to turn the hot water on, and all of that. Finally, I told her that Jodi was “thinking” about coming with us.

  “Oh, that would be good,” Stella said, surprising me with her reaction. “She’ll be a big help to you.”

  Before we hung up, I told her that I needed to ask her one more question, and that she could think about it and call me back if she needed to.

  “Eli had some…equipment,” I said. “I think you called them his ‘little tools.’ I need to know where he might have kept them.”

  If he had things like tape recorders and binoculars and stuff, and if we could get our hands on them, it would save us a lot of time, money, and trouble.

  “Oh, sure,” she said, not even hesitating. “They’re in the hidden compartment.”

  “The hidden compartment?”

  I thought of Eli’s notes, where he said he organized the “h.c.” with his new tools. It didn’t get much more straightforward than that.

  Stella described the hidden compartment in her house in St. John. It was at the back of the pantry in the kitchen, a false wall that slid open when you twisted the cup hook that was mounted next to it.

  “I think it was originally built for drying spices,” she said. “I never needed it. When Eli asked me if he could use it, I said sure. I didn’t care.”

  “And you’re positive he left all of that stuff down there?”

  “Oh, yeah. He said it was the best hiding place he’d ever had.”

  “Wonderful. Thank you, Stella. That’ll be a big help.”

  I was all packed by nine and feeling tired enough to go on to bed. I brought some supper over to Tom at the neighbor’s apartment, where he was still on the computer trying to take care of business before we left the country.

  “Are you sure you can do this?” I asked as I handed him his plate. “You can miss even more time from the office?”

  He shrugged as he smiled up at me.

  “It’s my company,” he said. “What am I going to do? Fire myself?”

  Seventeen

  Tom had more work to do on his laptop in the morning, so on the plane he switched seats with Jodi, and she and I sat together all the way to Miami. The arrangement worked out well because she had an opportunity to pick my brain about how to choose a good charity. She had made up a list of the three places where she was considering donating her money, and at first she was wondering if I would do the investigations for her. With my time at a minimum and my attentions focused elsewhere, however, I was able to convince her that she could do the investigations herself and merely use me as a reference.

  I wrote down the list of criteria I always used for evaluating nonprofits and then explained the first two steps—“a good charity serves a worthwhile cause” and “a good charity adequately fulfills its mission statement, showing fruits for its labors”—in detail.

  “But how do I know if they’re doing all of that?” she asked.

  “First, get a copy of their mission statement,” I said. “Then take a look at what they do. Talk to people. Read the literature. Visit their facilities. You can get a good idea of how a place is run by connecting with volunteers, employees, and the population they serve. You know, you have an extra consideration here I don’t usually have to worry about.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The number one rule when donating to a charity.”

  She perked up, giving me her full attention.

  “Jodi, it has to be a cause that’s important to you. You personally. It’s your money. Most good fundraising consultants know that when all is said and done, the person who gave the money should be just as happy and excited about their donation as the people at the place who got the money. It’s all about supporting
a cause you feel is important. Which one of these three causes lights the biggest fire inside of you?”

  She took a sip of her juice.

  “This one,” she said, pointing to the third entry on the list, something called SPICE. “I mean, the other two are great causes. My dad died of cancer, you know, so that’s why I was thinking of that one. And I have a friend who was helped a lot by this other one—it’s a halfway house for substance abusers. But this third listing is the one that interests me the most personally.”

  “SPICE? What is that?”

  “It’s a group of people working to preserve the rich history of the entire Caribbean. SPICE stands for the Society for the Preservation of Indigenous Caribbean Ethnicities. Their primary goal is to collect, compile, and present a true picture of the Caribbean and its people up until the time that Christopher Columbus first came there. My friend Sandy is overseeing a dig in St. John, studying the ancient Taino culture. Eventually, SPICE hopes to raise enough money to build a giant museum of the Caribbean, either in St. Thomas or San Juan.”

  I sat back in my seat, fingering the list in front of me.

  “Now that’s an interesting choice for you,” I said. “What is it about the project you find so exciting?”

  She thought about it.

  “Probably that no one has ever done this, at least not on a grand scale. Entire cultures, entire ethnic groups, have disappeared from the world’s radar because nothing was done to preserve or promote their heritage. The Tainos are extinct, for example, but by understanding their culture, their traditions—even their diet—we can learn so much about the islands, the history, and the heritage of the people who live there now.”

  “I didn’t realize you were such a history buff,” I said.

  She shrugged.

  “I’m not. I just…as a kid, you know, going down to St. John was the highlight of my year. And it wasn’t just the scenery or the swimming that I loved. It was the people, the music. The food. The smells. The stories. I had a babysitter there who loved to tell me the ancient legends and fables of the island. In almost every story, there was such sadness, such loss. It was almost as though I could see their heritage disappearing before my eyes. SPICE is going to keep that from happening. They will preserve the past.”