by Beth Orsoff
Jack filled his bag and went into the hatchery to grab Fred. When we reached the waterline, Jack set him down in the ocean and gave him a shove.
“You’re gonna make him swim to the boat?”
“He’s not going to the boat.”
“But he’ll die in the ocean alone. He can hardly swim.”
“Lizzie, we don’t have time for this. He’ll adapt to his new environment or he’ll become food for something else.”
I couldn’t believe how heartless he was. “Absolutely not,” I said, bending down and scooping Fred up in my hands. He was easy to catch since he was just swimming in circles. “He’s coming with us.”
“Lizzie, he’s a sea turtle. He can’t live in your bathtub.”
“He can for a little while. At least until we figure something out.”
Jack looked at his watch and said, “Fine. You can bring him if you hurry.”
The cottage was actually a three-thousand square foot house with its own dock, a patio that could hold twenty, and an amazing ocean view.
“Why’d you bring the turtle?” Jane asked as she walked me up the dock.
“I had to. Jack was just going to let him die.”
“I told you he was a murderer.”
I followed Jane through the back door and she led me to my bedroom. I was hoping she’d remembered to bring my stuff from the hotel, but the room was empty. “I don’t suppose my clothes are around anywhere?” Jack had lent me a clean t-shirt, but I’d been wearing the same shorts and underwear for two days.
Jane shook her head. “I gave them to the chambermaid at the hotel.”
“You did what? What am I supposed to wear?”
“Calm down. I bought you new ones.”
“But there was nothing wrong with the old ones.” Or nothing that a little soap and water couldn’t fix.
“I couldn’t be seen leaving the hotel with all your stuff. What if the police were watching? Besides, they weren’t right for the next stage of our investigation.”
I didn’t want to know, but I had to ask. “Which is?”
“You’re no longer Lizzie Mancini, fugitive from justice. You’re Gideon Marks, man about town,” she said, opening the closet door with a flourish that would’ve made Vanna White proud. Inside were several pairs of men’s pants, two belts, and a handful of button-down shirts.
“You can just wear your tennis shoes,” she said. “They’re androgynous. I bought extra-long shirts so you can keep the tails out to cover your hips.”
Where to begin? “And what am I supposed to do about my chest? Wrap my boobs in an ace bandage?”
“I don’t think that’s really necessary, but if it would make you feel better than go right ahead.”
“Nice Jane, really nice.”
“You should be glad you’re not busty, or no one would ever believe you’re a man.”
“No one’s going to believe it anyway. And where the hell did you come up with Gideon Marks?”
“I went to high school with a Gideon Marks. I always thought he was gay, but it turns out he wasn’t. He married Anna Quigley after B-school and now they have three kids. Here,” she said, pulling a pair of scissors out of the dresser drawer. “Do you want to cut your hair or should I?”
“You want me to cut my hair?”
“I haven’t noticed many men down here with long hair, have you?”
“Jane, I can’t cut my hair.” I’d been growing it long for over a year so I could have an up-do for the wedding.
“Which do you like better—your hair or your freedom?”
An hour later with short hair and a button-down shirt over safety pinned strips of t-shirt wrapped around my chest (we were out of ace bandages), Jane and I ventured out into Cape Town, the business district of Parrot Caye. Jane drove the rented golf cart to the edge of town, and we walked from there.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“Lower your voice or stop talking. You’re gonna give us away.” She pulled out her map and looked up at the street sign. “It should be on the next block.”
“What are we looking for?” I whispered.
“You don’t have to whisper, just lower your voice so you sound like a man.”
“Like this?” I still sounded like me, but hoarse.
“Forget it,” Jane said. “Just don’t talk. In fact, why don’t you wait outside.”
I grabbed her arm and stopped her in the middle of the dirt path that passed for a sidewalk. “Only if you tell me what we’re doing here. I’ve had enough of this cloak and dagger shit.”
“I have an appointment at an antiques store that specializes in Mayan jewelry.”
“Why?”
“Because if we want to find out who killed Michael, we’re going to have to meet the players.”
Before I could stop her, she pushed open the door to Cape Town Antiques. “There’s a park across the street,” she said, turning back to me. “I’ll meet you there.” Then she disappeared inside.
The woman couldn’t be in the same room with a spider, but she was seeking out murderers. I wondered what Dr. Tobler would have to say about that.
I had too much nervous energy to sit and wait, so I pulled my baseball cap lower on my forehead and wandered down the main street. I was walking past an open-air restaurant when I almost stopped in my tracks. Sitting at a table sipping fruit smoothies were Cheryl and her husband John, my former friends from Camus Caye.
Chapter 43
WHAT WERE CHERYL AND John doing on Parrot Caye? They were supposed to have flown back to Chicago last week. I wanted to stay and eavesdrop, but I was afraid they’d see through my flimsy disguise so I crossed to the other side of the street and hurried back to the park to wait for Jane.
“Mission accomplished,” she said with a triumphant smile.
“You found Michael’s killer?” I asked, sliding over to make room for her on the bench.
“No,” she said, brushing it off with the tail end of my shirt before she sat down. “But we have an appointment tomorrow morning with a local antiquities dealer.”
“And you think he’s going to lead you to Michael’s killer?”
“Possibly,” she said, pulling a bottle of water out of her purse. “Or maybe he is Michael’s killer.”
“Well you could always ask him and find out.”
“Ha, ha,” she said and made a face at me. “What’s got your panties in a twist?”
“Remember that couple I told you about from the Blue Bay—John and Cheryl?”
“The ones that befriended you and then dropped you the minute they found out you lied about Michael?”
She offered me her water, but I declined. “I just saw them.”
“Here?”
“Across the street,” I said, pointing to Café Lola.
“That’s one long honeymoon.”
“I know. And it doesn’t make any sense. They never mentioned they were coming to Parrot Caye. They told me they were flying home the day after me.”
“And this is significant because?”
“I don’t know, but it’s weird. Don’t you think?”
“I’m calling my dad,” Jane announced as soon as we walked in the front door of our rented “cottage.”
“Why?” I didn’t object, but Jane rarely spoke to her father more than once a week. “I was thinking with all the illegal drugs down here, maybe the DEA has agents here too.”
“And how is that going to help us? I thought the point of me chopping off all my hair was to keep away from the police.”
“The local police, yes. But when we find Michael’s killer we have to turn him into someone, and I’d rather it be the U.S. authorities.”
“Why?”
She rolled her eyes at me. “Duh. They’re less likely to be on the drug dealers’ payroll.”
Jane went into the living room to place her call and I went in search of food. Our rental house came with a stocked fridge, but the grocery list must’ve been provided by Jane. Th
e kitchen was filled with fresh fruits and vegetables, without a bag of chips or a candy bar in sight. By the time I finished cutting up a melon, Jane was off the phone.
“All he could tell me was that Customs and the DEA both have agents down here,” she said, joining me in the kitchen.
“He didn’t give you any names?” I asked, offering her the bowl of cantaloupe.
She shook her head. “He couldn’t. They’re undercover. Everything’s classified.”
“Then I guess we’ll have to hope the local police are honest.”
“That’s not very comforting,” she said, peeling herself a banana.
“C’mon, do you really think Sergeant Ramos is on the take? Lazy I’ll give you, but corrupt?”
Jane shrugged. “He’s got an awfully nice boat for a civil servant.”
Jane and I spent the afternoon driving around the island picking up supplies. Batteries for the tasers, rope and duct tape so we could tie up the bad guy when we eventually found him, and a camera with an extra long lens. One more stop at the fish market to buy food for Fred and dinner for us, and we were on our way home.
We were sitting on the patio sipping Pellegrino and waiting for Jack to arrive when Jane suggested we go through the timeline of Michael’s murder yet again. I didn’t see the point, I’d told her so many times even she had it memorized, but I didn’t want to argue with her either.
“That morning I went diving with Jack and the rest of the Discover Scuba class. We got back to the hotel around noon, and I went to the pool so Michael and I could have our big fight.”
“The one you planned out the night before?”
“Yes.”
“And you tried to get Jack to come with you, so he could watch as you and Michael broke up?”
“Correct,” I said. “But he sent Manuel instead.”
“And that’s who Michael had the fight with?”
“Yes, but that wasn’t part of the plan. He was only supposed to have an argument with me and storm off in a huff.”
She rolled over on her lounge chair so she was facing me. “And tell me again why you think he fought with Manuel.”
“I smelled alcohol on his breath, so at the time I thought he was just drunk and maybe a little jealous.” Jane was twirling her hair again. “But you have another idea.”
“What if they knew each other, or at least knew of each other, and the fight wasn’t about you but about them?” she said.
“You mean like a business dispute? Someone stealing money or encroaching on someone’s territory?”
“Maybe. Or it could have been over another woman. Whatever someone would be willing to kill over.”
“I’m going with money.”
“You would.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing,” she said. “I just don’t want to rule anything out. Didn’t Sergeant Ramos tell you that Michael had another woman in his hotel room the night before he died? Someone who didn’t fit your description?”
“You think Michael was killed over a one-night stand?”
“You don’t know she was a one-night stand. Maybe she was his wife, or his girlfriend, or someone else’s wife or girlfriend.”
I sat up to face her. “Let’s forget for the moment that he was pretending to be my husband. Now you think this whole thing was just an unfortunate chain of events?”
“Not completely,” she said. “Don’t forget it was Jack who sent Manuel to the pool with you.”
“You think Jack set Manuel up?” I didn’t want to believe it, but I couldn’t completely rule it out either.
She leaned back in her chair. “At this point, I think we have to consider all the alternatives.”
Jane missed her calling. She should’ve been a CIA operative, or a trial attorney, or a mafia boss. She effortlessly elicited information from Jack over dinner that evening without revealing any of her own theories, including that she considered him a suspect. The fact that Jane drank only water and he’d drank most of the bottle of wine Jane insisted we open probably helped.
Jack confirmed that Manuel wasn’t married, but that at any given time he had several girlfriends, all of whom he cheated on regularly. He also told us that Manuel had once flown into a jealous rage when he found out that one of those girlfriends had cheated on him.
“Did he do anything besides get jealous?” Jane asked.
“He didn’t kill the guy, if that’s what you mean,” Jack replied, pushing his plate away. “But I’m sure he took a swing at him.”
“That makes no sense,” I said. “If he cheated on her first, then he had no right to get mad when she cheated on him. Turnaround’s fair play.”
“Not in Belize,” Jack said.
We all went to bed early that night, but as usual, I couldn’t sleep. After two hours of counting sheep, bottles of beer on the wall, and everything else I could think of, I went out to the living room to watch TV. I tried to get Fred to watch with me, but he wasn’t interested in channel surfing, so I returned him to his makeshift pool in the kitchen sink.
I was half watching a tennis match and half asleep, when I thought I heard the floor creak behind me. I didn’t panic until I felt the hand on the back of my head. Then I screamed.
“What the hell are you screaming for?” Jack said.
“Why did you sneak up on me?” I yelled.
Jane ran into the living room wearing her pink silk camisole with matching shorts and her eye shade pushed up on her head. “What’s going on in here?”
“Nothing, I just got spooked.”
“Is that what you kids are calling it these days?”
“Jane, we weren’t doing anything.”
“I don’t want to know,” she said, heading down the hallway back to her bedroom. “Just use protection,” she yelled before she slammed the door shut.
Jack laid down next to me on the couch and placed his hand on my waist, the only crack of skin showing between my pajama top and bottoms.
“Excuse me, but what are you doing?” I said, pushing his hand away. He must’ve showered right before he went to sleep because he smelled like Ivory soap.
“We’ve already been busted. We might as well take advantage of it.”
“Nice try.”
He smiled, but moved to the other end of the couch. “Tell me again why you cut your hair?”
I instinctively reached for the back of my head. Instead of grabbing handfuls of thick curls, all I felt was stubby uneven ends. My freedom is more important than my hair I reminded myself. “So when I go out in public, people will think I’m a man.”
“It’s going to take more than a haircut,” he said and started massaging my feet.
I closed my eyes and concentrated on his skillful hands as they moved from my heels to my ankles, to my calves, and then…CRASH.
Jane came flying into the room again. “What was that?”
“I don’t know,” I said, kicking Jack’s hands away and accidentally nailing him in the crotch. Ouch.
“Oh God,” was all he said before he doubled over.
“Jack, I’m so sorry. Are you okay?”
“I will be,” he croaked, looking up at me from where his head was buried between his knees, his hands shielding himself from another blow.
Jane looked from Jack to me. “I guess that means it’s up to us to investigate.”
“I’ll be okay,” he said. “Just give me a minute.”
“Are you sure?” I asked, although it’s not like we could call the police.
He nodded. “It’s probably just an iguana. They’re everywhere down here.”
“Isn’t that a giant lizard?” Jane asked.
“They’re more afraid of you then you are of them.”
He didn’t know Jane.
“Do you think we should get the taser?” she asked.
“We don’t want to fry him,” I said. “We just want him out of the house.”
“Here,” Jack said, tossing me the blanket rol
led up in the corner of the couch. “Catch him, then release him outside.”
Jane looked horrified. “That’s a chenille throw.”
“C’mon,” I said to Jane, handing the blanket back to Jack. “I saw a broom in the pantry. I’ll open the back door and sweep him out.”
I flipped on the lights in the kitchen and immediately found the culprit. There was no iguana, only Fred, who had climbed out of the sink and had knocked over the wine glass Jack had left on the counter.
We both let out our breath in relief.
“It’s your turtle,” Jane said. “I’m going back to bed.”
She’d already slammed her bedroom door shut again when I found the real culprit—a coconut with a note tied around it with a rubberband. ‘Gringos Go Home,’ it said in a barely legible black scrawl.
Chapter 44
THE THREE OF US stared at the note as if looking for a hidden message. Jane was the first to lose interest.
“How do you think it got in here?” she said, moving to the open window above the sink. “It’s not even broken.”
I joined her at the window. “Someone with good aim could’ve gotten it through. It probably hit the wine glass on its way down then fell to the floor.” Poor Fred. I’d falsely accused him. I knew how that felt.
“That would have to be someone with amazingly good aim,” Jack said. “The opening’s not that wide.”
“Then how do you think it got in here?” The ‘smart guy’ was implied. “I don’t see any other broken glass.”
He walked to the end of the kitchen and opened the French door to the patio. “How about the back door?”
“That was locked when we went to bed.” I’d checked it myself.
Jack and I stared each other down until Jane said, “It doesn’t really matter how it got here. What I want to know is who sent it.”
“It could’ve been kids playing a prank,” Jack said. “Or some disgruntled locals. They’re not as fond of wealthy Americans on Parrot Caye as they are on Camus.”
“You don’t think it has anything to do with us looking into Michael’s murder, do you?” I asked.
Jack shrugged. “It could be that too.”