It had only been a couple of days since the Morrises had seen Mike in Saint Lucia. Unless he was in a hurry for some reason, he could still be there. One of Phillip's former business associates in Saint Lucia had a brother who worked in customs at Rodney Bay, but it was too late to call. He would do that first thing in the morning. Even if Mike Reilly had moved on, he would have had to list his next port of call on the clearance documents. There was nothing to stop him from deviating from his plan once he was at sea, but there was no reason to think that he would. Tired from two days of puddle-jumper flights around the islands, Phillip decided to get some sleep, but first he called J.-P. Berger to bring him up to date.
Chapter 10
Phillip was sitting at a shaded table just off the sidewalk on the main street of Saint Anne, having a mid-morning espresso with a pain au chocolat at his favorite patisserie. His conversation last night with J.-P. was on his mind; both of them were frustrated with the lack of information. His thoughts were racing through possible scenarios, fruitlessly seeking a benign explanation for Dani's disappearance, when his cell phone interrupted him. Glancing at the display, he saw that it was his friend in Saint Lucia.
"Good morning again, Cedric," he said, settling the espresso cup carefully in its saucer with his left hand.
"Good morning, Phillip. I have news." Cedric's gravelly voice greeted him. "My brother is working today, and he tells me that this yacht you asked me about earlier this morning cleared out a couple of days ago, for Saint Anne, with only the captain aboard."
"I'll be damned," Phillip said. "Thanks, Cedric. That was quick. I owe you."
"You already owe me a fishing trip. You're too busy for me to collect, these days. Call me when you are retired again."
"Yeah, okay. Thanks again, Cedric," Phillip said, pressing the disconnect button. He thumbed the keys to bring up his phonebook.
Five minutes later, he left a handful of coins on the table and ambled back to his house. As he walked, he pondered what he had just learned from his girlfriend, Sandrine, who worked in the Douane at the marina in Marin. Sea Serpent had cleared into Marin a couple of days ago, just as he would have expected. Yesterday, Sea Serpent had left, bound for Prince Rupert Bay, Dominica, but this time, there were two people aboard -- Mike Reilly, and Michelle Devereaux, who had a French passport. That was a stroke of luck. Since Martinique was department of France, Sandrine had access to the database of French passports. For the price of an expensive, late afternoon lunch with Sandrine, he would have the particulars on this Michelle. Sandrine had already tried to pull up the details of her passport, but had been frustrated, supposedly by computer problems, and she had suggested that they get together later. "Maybe she just misses me." Phillip smiled to himself as he opened his front door.
Sandrine was the first woman he had dated seriously since before he had joined the Army years ago. It seemed to have been a while since he had seen her, but, as he thought about it, he realized it had only been a few days. He felt as if he were looking at time through the wrong end of a telescope; things that happened before he started looking for Dani seemed prehistoric. He recognized the phenomenon of time passing at warp speed when he was absorbed in a problem. It was a carryover from his working days. When he had been on a mission, survival depended on living in the present, with all his senses focused on immediate stimuli. The intensity of his focus had seemed to accelerate his experiences. Memory from before the mission was relegated to the category of ancient history, and the future didn't exist beyond the next breath. He assumed there was a physical explanation for this compression of time, because most of his associates from those days had reported having the same sensation. Maybe it was just the effect of adrenaline -- some natural reaction of the human body to being constantly attuned to trouble. He didn't quite have that sense of danger now, but he did feel in many ways as if he were back in the field. He tried to convince himself that it was just because he was renewing so many acquaintances from the era when he lived life on the edge of violence, but he still felt a bit uneasy.
He settled into the hammock on his shaded veranda, thinking that a nap would be just the thing before meeting Sandrine. A late lunch with her could turn into a late evening, after all, and he might need his strength. Just as he was about to drop off, he realized that he had forgotten to call his old crony in Portsmouth, Dominica, to find out if Sea Serpent was in the anchorage at Prince Rupert Bay. Reluctantly, he went back inside and sat down at his desk to make the call. Phillip was about to give up when his call finally connected. He smiled as he listened to the singsong greeting, "Hey, this Sharktooth water taxi. I ready if you ready. Whatchew need, mon?" He heard the roar of a speedboat in the background, and he pictured the dreadlocks flying in the breeze as Sharktooth drove his boat across the waves.
"Sharktooth, this is Phillip, from Martinique. How you been, mon?"
"Irie, Phillip, ev'yt'ing good, mon. You good?"
Irie was patois for all right, but the word had a somewhat broader meaning than its English counterpart had. Phillip liked its connotation that everything was not just all right, but was exactly as the Higher Power deemed it should be.
"Yeah, pretty good. You see a yacht called Sea Serpent there in the last day or two?" Phillip asked.
"Yeah, mon. They heah. Dive trip today, wit' Simon. Then tomorrow, they got islan' tour wit' Robert. Prob'ly stay for some days yet, I t'ink. Why you axe?"
"I need to talk to the captain. I'll fly up there in the morning and catch a taxi to Portsmouth. Should be there about 11. You busy?"
"Yeah, mon. I busy meet yo' taxi at 11. You wan' talk talk to the captain, or serious talk? He got a lady wit' he on the boat, if you t'inkin' to get serious wit' he," Sharktooth said.
"Nothing serious. Just need to ask him a few questions."
"Okay, mon. Later, then. Blessing to you, Phillip." Sharktooth ended the call.
Phillip chuckled at the abrupt termination of the call, thinking how little Sharktooth had changed over the years. When he was finished with something, he moved right on with no hesitation. He still seemed to be on top of everything happening in the harbor at Portsmouth. He smiled at the notion of "serious talk." If you had a "serious talk" with Sharktooth, you were lucky if you could walk away under your own power. Almost seven feet tall and weighing just under 300 pounds, dreadlocks to his waist, and a bald crown, the man was scary, although he had a gentle disposition -- except when he didn't. Phillip called his travel agent in Marin and booked an early morning flight to Dominica for the next day, with a return on the last flight that evening. More relaxed now, he went back to the hammock and found the nap that had eluded him earlier.
****
"Phillip, when I see the picture of this Michelle on my computer, I understand that I know this woman," Sandrine said, as she wiped her fingers. She was well into the moules frites appetizer, and was reaching for a sip of wine.
"You know her?" Phillip asked. "Is she a friend of yours?"
"No, no. Not precisely a friend. How do you say it in American English? Someone you know, but just a little bit, maybe to say, good morning?" Sandrine was forever working on improving her grasp of colloquial English, to be better able to deal with the Americans checking in with her at the Douane. They all spoke such slang-riddled English that even the Brits weren't sure what they were saying half the time. Phillip was sympathetic, having been on the other side of the problem early in his traveling days, when he discovered that American English was not universally understood by other English speakers.
"You mean, 'a casual acquaintance,' perhaps?" he asked.
"Yes, I think so. I think I am having a casual acquaintance with Michelle Devereaux. Is that how I say it, Phillip?" she asked, pursing her lips as she reached into the steamer for another mussel.
"Yes, Sandrine, or you might say, 'She's not really a friend; more of a casual acquaintance.' That would be a common way to express the relationship," Phillip said.
"Thank you, Phillip. She's not reall
y a friend; more of a casual acquaintance. I will see her in the mornings, when I go to the restaurant on the quay across from my work at the Customs to get my espresso and pastry. She is working there for some months before she leaves in this yacht, the Sea Serpent. After I know her from the picture, I go there to be talking with the manager to learn about Michelle Devereaux. Will this be helping, Phillip?" Another mussel plucked from the shell, Sandrine paused.
"Yes, Sandrine, thank you very much. And what did you learn from the manager?" Phillip asked, helping himself to a mussel and some fries.
"Okay, so the manager, he is telling me Michelle works there for some months. Maybe more than six months, but not as much as a year. She is with a boyfriend who is doing the drugs, and is always not being nice to her, but in the last days, the boyfriend, he is gone. Nobody know where, but she is alone now, and the manager, he is saying that she is happier. She has decide that she will be living in Saint Martin, because she always want to go there, and now, there is nothing for her to stay in Martinique. She is the only daughter of two dead people. How is that called?" Sandrine paused for a sip of wine.
"An orphan," Phillip said. "So she had no other family in Martinique?"
"Yes, that is correct, no more family, anywhere. She is alone in the world, and then, in the restaurant, she is meeting this man from the yacht, the Sea Serpent, and she will sail with him to Saint Martin. So, she is quit her work there, and the manager, he is need her because the busy season comes, and he has no waitress now, unless he finds someone else soon. Look, Phillip, the lapin!" She finished her story as the waiter brought their main course, the grilled rabbit steaming on a bed of rice.
As they enjoyed the rest of their meal, Sandrine quizzed Phillip about his interest in Sea Serpent. He told her the story of Dani's disappearance, and that led to a bit of the story about her family, which intrigued Sandrine. She professed not to understand why a girl from such a wealthy family would choose to live the life of a vagabond sailor. Phillip tried to explain to her that some people were just drawn to the sea, willing to live as they must to spend as much time as possible in the embrace of bluewater, far from the distractions of life ashore.
"I can certainly understand the appeal," he said, "but it's not a life that I would choose. There's nothing more beautiful than the open ocean on a nice day in the tropics, with a good boat under you and a steady breeze in the sails. It's like being the only person in the world, I think, and some people like that."
"Not me," Sandrine said, shaking her head. "I think the ocean is beautiful, but I will see it from the beach, or perhaps from your veranda, Phillip, high up on the mountain there," she pointed in the direction of his villa. "Perhaps we will go there to watch the sunset, for maybe the flash of green," she said, a mischievous look coming over her face.
Phillip excused himself to settle the bill for their meal while she went to the ladies' room.
Chapter 11
As Sea Serpent rocked gently at anchor, Mike gazed out over the lush, green hillside of Dominica, watching sugar cane swaying in the breeze. He was pleasantly fatigued from a day of reef-diving. At a distance, the aggregate motion of the cane mirrored the ebb and flow of the ocean swells outside the harbor. Sipping his rum punch while Michelle, or Michie, as she called herself, bustled about the galley making a Creole gumbo for their dinner, he reflected that life just didn't get much better than this. He couldn't remember feeling so content since before Andrea, his ex-wife, had left him, years ago. Her departure had ushered in a long period of solitary existence. Until he met Michie, he had felt no interest in company, female or otherwise. Ten years was a long time for a man to spend completely by himself, he reflected, although he had been content to be a loner. He certainly had a lifetime of practice.
He vividly remembered his loneliness as an only child, with a mother who discouraged any association with other children, just as she, herself, avoided other adults. He learned at her elbow to trust no one, and to shun all contact except with her and his father. When he had strayed from the backyard during the few times while she wasn't watching him, she had chased him down and dragged him home, cursing under her breath. Safely home, she would switch him vigorously with green bamboo, freshly cut from the backyard hedge for the occasion. By the time he was three, he had learned not to stray from the safety of his backyard, but switching had remained his mother's preferred method of discipline for his many other transgressions. He could still feel the sensation of the tiny, hair-like fibers that covered the surface of the green cane cutting into the skin of his legs.
After he had gotten a little older, he had discovered that the bamboo hedges offered a refuge, of sorts. In the corners of the hedge that bordered the backyard, there were caverns that opened within the growth, between the clumps of cane and the overgrown fence along the outer edge. Those caverns, just large enough for a small boy to creep into and shut himself off from the rest of the world, were the site of many adventures. He had populated them with other children, adults, cowboys and Indians, pets, and various monsters; all products of an imagination forced into hyperactivity by the deprivation of external stimuli. He would sit, hidden within the bamboo, for hours, imagining all sorts of experiences that ultimately became real to him. Sometimes, when he tired of his imaginary pursuits, he studied the bamboo itself. It looked so graceful and inflicted such pain. In some ways, it was just like his mother, he thought. Like all little children, he thought his mother was beautiful. She was also a source of pain, and she certainly kept the rest of the world at bay, just like the bamboo.
He knew from his earliest recollections that he was an evil child. His first conscious decisions centered on trading off the expected satisfaction of forbidden activities against the screaming agony of the green bamboo flailing his legs. He knew that his mother preferred the green bamboo for switching him, but it was only when he got older that he understood why. Those fine, silvery fibers on the green cane that looked so soft cut his tender, little boy's skin like razors, but the cuts were shallow and superficial. The fibers were flexible enough not to break through the inner layers of the skin, only cutting deeply enough to cause excruciating pain without inflicting real, physical damage. Dry, dead bamboo was sturdier, but it caused bruises, which stayed for a long time. Then "those other people" would see, and know what a bad boy he was; an embarrassment to his mother. The green bamboo, though, caused pain far out of proportion to the damage inflicted. A few hours after a switching, the red marks faded, and no one would know that he had forced his mother to discipline him. He had learned from the nuns at school that seven years old was the age of reason, the age at which you could begin to know right from wrong, but he had learned to tell the difference before that. Right was keeping to yourself and not getting punished. Wrong was mixing with other people who might find out that you had to be switched regularly because you were bad.
Some childhood memories were more pleasant. The sound of his father's car pulling into the driveway evoked good feelings. If he had been especially good, he would run to greet his father on the back porch, bragging, "Papa, I was a good boy today. I didn't even get a switching!" His father would scoop him up in his arms and hug him, his whiskers scraping Mike's cheek, the smell of pipe tobacco lingering in his clothes.
"Mike, the gumbo, it is ready now," Michelle announced, ending his dark recollections and bringing him back to the present.
"Let's eat in the cockpit. Sunset's in just a few minutes," Mike offered, as she came up the companionway ladder, balancing a tray with two bowls of gumbo and a bottle of white wine sweating in the humid air. She set the tray on the bridge deck next to Mike and went back below, returning quickly with two wine glasses.
Mike poured them each a glass of the dry white French table wine. "To another rotten day in paradise," he said, handing Michelle a glass as he raised his in a toast.
"Yes, thanks to God," she responded, clicking her glass against his before raising it to her lips. "This is so wonderful, this life. I was never i
magining that people on the yachts, they could live like this."
"It's better with you here, Michie," he said. "Much better than all those years I was alone. I hope you will stay with me after we get to Saint Martin. I don't know what I'll do if you decide to stay there."
"Clearly, you will find another lady, Mike," she said, a pensive look on her lovely face. "I am not believe that you have had no one with you since this foolish Andrea, she leaves you for ten years."
"I haven't wanted anyone, Michie. It was too painful to think of becoming attached to someone who might leave me like she did."
"But surely you have other people on this yacht, some ladies, while ten years," she continued to probe. "Someone, maybe, just for a little while? Why you keep that cabinet clear, if no one is use it?"
"The guest locker? I kept it empty just for you," he said, teasing her.
"I am not believe you, Mike, but is okay. I am happy to be with you, my love."
"So, will you stay with me, please, Michie?" Mike pressed for commitment.
"But of course! I am with you now. I will be with you tomorrow. Let us enjoy, and each day we will maybe enjoy more. I am learn not to demand more from life than is offer. You must do, too. It is a long time before we are in Saint Martin. Do not worry so, my love. Look! It is almost to be the flash green." Michelle pointed at the horizon, where the sun appeared to bounce as its lower limb touched the surface of the glassy Caribbean. As it settled beneath the cloud-free horizon, they saw the brief green glow that came and went so quickly that if you blinked, you missed it. "Is beautiful," she said.
Bluewater Killer: A Serial Murder Mystery Set In Florida and the Caribbean (Bluewater Thrillers Book 1) Page 6