by Jaden Skye
“That’s a long, long time between hugs,” Mattheus said, looking at her hand. “Holding hands doesn’t really do it for me. I did that in high school.”
Cindy felt put on the spot.
“My guess is that you’re still mad at me when I spoiled our vacation in the middle and decided to take on the next case,” said Mattheus.
“I’m not mad at you, Mattheus,” Cindy replied, “I’m uncertain about what’s possible. We needed that time together. We promised each other -.”
“You put our personal pleasure before helping someone who was in trouble? I’d say that’s pretty selfish,” Mattheus replied.
“There’s always going to be someone who’s in trouble,” Cindy shot back. “What about us? Now we’re in trouble. Our relationship is --.”
Mattheus wasn’t really listening. “I miss being held,” he went on. “It’s not the same working together with this weird tension between us. It’s not even healthy.”
“No, it isn’t,” Cindy agreed.
Mattheus shook his head glumly. “A guy has his needs,” he muttered under his breath.
“Is that why you spent so much time with Vivien?” Cindy retorted.
“Jesus, we’re back to that again?” said Mattheus. “You think I’m stepping out on you when I focus in on a suspect and spend extra time with them?” He pulled his hand away from hers.
“I never said that,” Cindy bristled.
“I’m on a case and so are you. Vivien has a lot of good information. I want to hear every word she has to say.” Mattheus looked fed up.
“I’m sure you do,” said Cindy. “But why didn’t say a thing to me about it? That’s irregular, Mattheus.”
Mattheus ran his hands over his face slowly.
“I don’t have the energy for this nonsense right now,” he said, “especially the way things are between us. Who says we’re even back together? We’re sleeping in separate beds, aren’t we? Why shouldn’t we both have the freedom to do anything we like at this moment in time?”
Cindy felt as though she’d been punched in the gut. “A relationship is more than a moment in time. It takes lots of moments, Mattheus. It takes patience, devotion.” She felt heartsick. Once again they’d said they’d go slow, see how things developed. And once again they’d landed on a rocky shore. “If you want to see other people, just tell me.”
“There’s just one obstacle after another between us,” Mattheus grumbled. “I don’t want to upset you – I don’t know what I want. I guess we both need time.”
Cindy realized that Mattheus was still just fresh from all the shocks he’d had in Key West. How could he really trust anyone at this point? How could he let himself get really close?
“Time is good,” Cindy said quietly. “We learn everything in time.”
Thankfully, Cindy’s cell phone rang and she picked it up quickly.
“We’re ready to see you now,” a soft, male voice said. “Room 1033.” That had to be Allie’s father.
“Allie’s parents are ready for us to come up to their room now,” Cindy said.
She and Mattheus got up abruptly then and walked to the elevator without saying another word.
*
Mattheus knocked on the door of room 1033, and an older man, slightly bent over, opened it. He had grey hair, bleary eyes and an unbearably sad expression.
“I’m Allie’s father,” he said dimly.
“I’m so sorry for your loss,” Cindy said immediately.
“Thank you,” he acknowledged her for a moment, and then ushered them into the
hotel suite.
The room, painted pale lavender, was large and open, with a bed, chairs, tables and large, swirling couch in it. A woman draped in a long grey shawl sat on the couch, without moving, staring ahead of her. She had dark hair, pulled back into a knot at the bottom of her neck.
“This is Allie’s mother Peg,” the old man said.
Peg did not look over as Cindy and Mattheus walked towards her.
“Sit down,” the old man said, pointing to some chairs. “Peg doesn’t really want to talk to anyone. We realize that we have to now.”
“I can understand how she feels,” said Cindy as she and Mattheus took their seats.
“You can’t understand anything,” Peg said bitterly, looking over at Cindy with burning eyes. “Nobody can understand how a mother feels who loses a daughter like this.”
“I’m so sorry,” said Cindy.
Peg did not take that in, just continued talking, rabidly. “But I knew it would happen. I even told Henry. Didn’t I, Henry? Didn’t I?”
Henry, the old man, nodded quietly. Obviously he’d been listening to his wife speak like this for a long while.
“I told Henry that no good can come of unbridled money spent in crazy ways. I knew something bad was coming into our lives when Allie met Peter. Why did they keep running down here to the Island all the time? What was wrong with his working at home in the U.S.?”
“Peter’s company is located down in both places,” Mattheus said, trying to calm her down. “Many people work offshore.”
“There’s something strange about that,” Peg’s eyes squinted. “There’s no need to work so far from home.”
“Cindy and I work all over the Caribbean.” He was trying to get through to her. It was impossible though.
“Why did Allie have to get with someone who didn’t want to work at home?” Peg continued. “Allie was greedy, that’s why. She was born greedy and I saw trouble coming her whole life long.”
“My daughter and wife never saw eye to eye,” Henry tried to get a word in.
“That’s putting it mildly,” said Peg, dismissing him in a flash. “You didn’t help me either, Henry. You didn’t step in and teach Allie that enough’s enough.”
“Allie had a good life, Peg,” he said quietly. “Allie was a good girl. She found a good husband. She had an accident.”
“This was not an accident,” Peg was emphatic.
“What was it?” Cindy was quick on the uptake.
“Someone definitely murdered my daughter. If you do your job and scratch the surface, it will be easy to find out who. There are plenty people down here who would have been thrilled to see Allie taken down from the perch she sat up on.”
“Like who?” Cindy asked.
Peg had a powerful, electrifying energy. She spoke as if she had access to information no one else did, as if she were the ultimate authority. It was disconcerting.
“Look carefully at Peter’s parents for starters,” Peg whispered harshly. “They never accepted Allie for a minute, just acted like they did. Everything about them screams phoniness! Basically they wanted someone better, a rich girl for their precious son.”
“What leads you to think that?” Cindy wanted grounding in facts. Peg wasn’t interested in facts though, just needed to make her case.
“And what about Peter?” Peg’s eyes were flashing. “A perfect suspect, if I ever saw one. Allie was becoming more and more clinging, like she always did since she was a child. What better way to get rid of her? Peter could have had cold feet when the wedding got too close.”
Cindy felt waves of nausea as she listened to this woman speak. There was a heartlessness about her. How awful it must have been for Allie to have her as a mother.
“What do you know about Peter’s company?” Mattheus broke in. “I’m interested in his financial dealings.”
“She knows nothing,” Henry piped up. “She thinks she knows everything, but she doesn’t. I know Peter’s a good boy and he loved Allie. So do his parents. I wouldn’t want you getting the wrong idea.”
“Henry lives in a dream world all of his own,” Peg lashed out at him. “Peter’s company did big international deals with huge sums of money changing hands. He wouldn’t speak about them. I asked him a lot and he wouldn’t say a word. Everything was super confidential. But I did see the jewels he gave Allie. Obscene if you asked me. Huge rubies, emeralds, sapphires. What was he doing? Buying he
r love? Showing off to the world? It turned my stomach. A man like this never makes a decent husband. A decent husband doesn’t have to put on such a show.”
“I never gave Peg anything like that at all, Henry said softly. “I gave her what mattered. I gave her love. I stayed close to her no matter what happened. I never, ever left her side. But I couldn’t do the same for my daughter, could I?” Tears welled up in his eyes.
Henry was a beautiful man and he touched Cindy deeply. She thought of how she had run away from Mattheus back on the island. She thought how hard it was for her to stay at Mattheus’s side now. She certainly didn’t love Mattheus the way Henry loved Peg. Maybe Cindy never really loved him at all? Maybe she couldn’t love anyone?
Mattheus and Cindy looked at each other for a quick moment as Henry spoke. Cindy wondered if Mattheus was having the same thoughts as she was.
Mattheus just tossed his head for a moment and turned his attention back to Peg.
“You didn’t hear anything specific about Peter’s financial dealings from Allie, did you?” Mattheus was back hunting for new facts.
“Of course not,” said Peg. “Allie became a stranger to me the longer she was with Peter.
My own daughter a stranger - and look what happened to her now! She’s not even a stranger anymore, now she’s completely gone.”
An odd silence filled the room as they all looked down at the rug, took in the reality and sunk into their own reveries. Allie’s absence suddenly became a strong presence in the room. Cindy could almost feel her among them, moving the investigation along.
“What else can you tell us about Allie?” Cindy asked after a while.
“Investigate the others, “Peg answered. “Why focus on the victim?”
“Did you know that your daughter was a drug addict?” Mattheus broke in, clearly not caring about the mother’s reaction to that tough question.
“What are you talking about, a drug addict?” Henry jumped up. “Allie smoked a little pot like everyone else.”
“More than a little,” Mattheus exclaimed. “She was addicted to it, went to a dealer down here to get a big stash.”
Henry turned white.
Peg looked straight at Mattheus and smiled an odd smile.
“I knew all about it,” Peg said stridently, “and I tried my best to get her to stop. I even threatened to call the cops on her. Wish I had done that, now. I blame Peter for that. I blame their lousy, greedy relationship. He’s a self-centered guy who drove her to it.”
“Peter’s a lovely young man and he’s devastated,” Henry cut his wife off. “He comes in here and cries every night. He feels closer to Allie when he’s with her family. But Peg won’t give him the time of day.”
“I never liked him,” said Peg, “and I don’t like now. He can cry all he wants, it doesn’t matter to me.”
Henry shook his head and looked at Cindy and Mattheus apologetically. “Peg’s in terrible pain. I’ll hope you’ll forgive the way she’s talking to you.”
“She can talk anyway she wants,” said Cindy. “We need to hear whatever she says. It’s not up to us to forgive anything.”
Cindy and Mattheus spent a little while longer with Henry and Peg and then left, exhausted and even more shaken than when they’d arrived. It was time to go back to their room, order dinner in, unwind. They would pick up the investigation where they left off, in the morning.
“Nothing is leading anywhere solid,” said Cindy agitated, as they left Allie’s parent’s room. “Everyone is distraught and spilling their guts, but we have nothing to pin a case on.”
Mattheus suddenly put his arm around Cindy’s shoulder, trying to soothe her.
“It’s okay,” he said, “we’re doing fine. We’re building the puzzle one piece at a time.”
It felt wonderful to have his arm around her and Cindy moved closer to him. She longed to put her down head on his shoulder for a moment, but didn’t dare.
“Remember, I taught you that the pieces keep falling into places even when you don’t know they are,” Mattheus went on softly, pulling her closer still. “Suddenly, it all comes together and everything makes perfect sense.”
Cindy remembered the early days of their working together, when he’d taught her that. Mattheus had taught her everything she knew about being a detective. She’d looked up to him tremendously then, loved his warmth and tenderness mixed with rugged strength. What had happened to them?
“Remember?” Mattheus was suddenly caring.
“I do remember,” said Cindy in a hushed tone.
“It’s gonna be the same with our relationship,” Mattheus suddenly pivoted towards her. “We both need patience, lots of it. Then, all of a sudden it will all fall into place again.”
Then he pulled her closer to him in a long, long hug.
CHAPTER 13
The autopsy report came in first thing the next morning. Allie had drowned underwater. There was no sign of struggle, either. The bruises and scratches came after she’d died, probably as the tide pulled her out to see and life in the ocean had its way with her. The contents of her body showed the effects of insufficient oxygen along with marijuana usage. It was clear that she’d gone diving under the influence, had impaired judgment and panicked when she saw the air gauge so low. She’d ripped off her vest and struggled to get to the top of the water. There was no way of explaining the incorrect air gauge, but the rest of it pointed to an accident.
The camera that was still tied to her hand showed nothing during the dive. It did have a few photos on it that she’d taken before she went down, pictures of Allie and Peter happy together, arms around each other laughing. One of the photos showed her dressed for evening, in a black, silky dress, wearing a beautiful emerald necklace and bracelet. Allie looked young, happy, healthy and on top of the world. She reminded Cindy of how she’d felt at the beginning of her honeymoon. Everything had been ahead of her. There was no way of knowing that the ocean would swallow Clint up, take everything away.
Dana called Cindy and Mattheus a few minutes after they received the autopsy news, while they were downstairs at breakfast.
“They’re not focusing on Peter any longer,” Dana said breathless. “There’s absolutely no evidence that he was involved.”
“That’s a relief,” said Cindy.
“The police want us all to stay a few days more until the investigation is formally completed, then we’re going home,” Dana said.
Cindy wondered if Dana was telling her that the case was over, they no longer needed her and Mattheus here.
“Peter said he doesn’t want to come back to the States with us,” Dana went on. “He can’t bear to tear himself away.”
“He’s grieving,” said Cindy.
“He can grieve at home as well,” said Dana. “I imagine this will take some time for him to make sense of.”
Something like this can never be made sense of, thought Cindy.
“He must feel like Allie’s still down here,” said Cindy, remembering how hard it was to go back up to the States after Clint died. She’d had to come right back down to the Caribbean soon after, longing to be with him again.
“The police will tie it up soon,” Dana continued, “I’m sure they’ll declare it an accident.”
“Looks like it,” said Cindy slowly, “except for the question of the air gauge.”
“There’s always going to be a question of something,” Dana’s voice grew brittle. “This has been an exhausting ordeal. I want it to be over with. No one can ever know if the gauge was tampered with or if they just had a faulty product. Edward wants us to leave as soon as possible. What are you and Mattheus’s plans now?”
“We have to speak to the guy who sold drugs to Allie today, and also go over the company’s records one more time.”
Dana grew stiff and silent. “Our company records? I don’t understand.”
“There’s always an outside possibility that someone in the company could have been disgruntled,” Cindy replied.
“If it’s true, your troubles may not be over. You all could still be in danger.”
“That’s ridiculous,” said Dana. “Are you trying to frighten me? Did Mattheus put you up to this?”
Cindy was surprised at her bitterness. “It was Mattheus’s idea,” she answered plainly.
“I don’t like Mattheus,” Dana replied. “He seems like a loose cannon.”
Cindy felt hurt by that. She wanted to defend him, but decided to stay on point.
“Allie didn’t drown because she and Peter were separated, or because she was high on pot,” Cindy went on. “That might have contributed to it, but she drowned because the air gauge said full when it was empty.”
“Are you suggesting that someone in our company had a motive to harm her?”
“No, I’m not suggesting it. We just want to make sure it didn’t happen that way. We came all the way down here to help out. Let us finish what we started before we go.”
Dana was unsettled. “Do what you have to,” she said crisply, and hung up the phone.
Mattheus sat listening to the conversation, enrapt.
“Fabulous,” he said, “you handled that beautifully. Once Dana agrees to our going over the company records again, there’s no way Mac can say no.”
“Call him and ask him right now,” said Cindy.
Mattheus quickly took out his phone and called Mac. Their conversation was succinct and dour. At first they fought a little, but as soon as Mattheus said Dana had agreed to it, things seemed to calm down. There was a long pause, and finally Mattheus looked victorious.
“That’s great,” Mattheus said. I’ll meet you in the office in half an hour.” Then he hung up.
“Mac agreed to give me access to the company’s accounts providing that I clue him in on everything I find.”
“Seems fair to me,” said Cindy.
“It’s fine. Take the morning off, relax a little,” Mattheus suggested. “I’m going to stay at the office and work on their computers for as long as I can. When I get back we can drive down to the drug dealer and see what else crops up.”
Cindy liked the idea of taking the morning off. A walk at the beach and swim in the ocean would absolutely hit the spot. She knew how badly she needed time to unwind.