“Now comes the fun part—the puddle-hopper to Dangriga! I never knew I had a fear of flying until now! On the other hand, for clients who are into extreme sports, this is just the ticket. It’s more like a ride at Six Flags than a mode of transportation, but trust me, it’s the only way to get around here if you’re in a hurry, as most vacationers are, to get to your destination.
“Dangriga is nothing to write home about, so I was glad the driver from the resort was there when I arrived. The people here seem nice enough, though god-awful poor. The ride to the hotel was another thirty minutes over very bumpy roads! Again, there’s a big part of our clientele who are not going to buy off on this kind of thing . . . it’s too much like work and not very comfortable. The driver was very pleasant and did his best to make me welcome. The staff did the same when we arrived. Everyone here speaks English—big plus!—it’s the national language (former British colony don’cha know), though several other languages are spoken as well, it seems. Note: The people in this district are mostly Garifuna, they tell me. They are descended from African slaves who escaped from St. Vincent Island in the 1700s, stole some ships from the Spanish, and sailed them here where they have lived ever since. Quite a story, isn’t it? They are very proud of their heritage and have their own colorful customs. Who knew? On Thursday they will have dancers and musicians perform in their native costume. Big plus. It may be kind of poor around here, and certainly remote, but it’s still authentic! They have me fooled, anyway.
“Now to the accommodations: The design is pretty much as their photos promised. It gives the appearance of an African village (now I understand why) nestled against the Caribbean Sea. Most of the cottages are spacious, with white-washed stucco walls and thatched roofs—a little bit like Ireland, oddly enough. Each has a lovely porch beneath the overhang furnished with wicker chairs. This is a great idea as it rains a lot here this time of year, so you might as well settle down with a book, or laptop in my case, and enjoy the sea view. Which brings me to another slight disappointment—the sea, while still that lovely green we turistas are so fond of, is rather flat and uninteresting. It seems the resort is built on a sheltered, very shallow, bay. The beach is a problem too, I’m afraid—very gritty; almost yellow; not very clean. In spite of their location, this is not a beach destination—sorry. And the bugs, OMG! You cannot be out at dusk or dawn! The no-see-ums will drive you to madness. You should see the welts on me!”
Brandon thought of Julia’s smooth whiteness against the dark blue of his sheets; her sleek, unblemished skin; her cheeks and throat flushed with passion. He shuddered with the immediacy, the force of the memory, then glanced shyly around the empty room. Their boss, Donna, would return tomorrow from her niece’s wedding in Fort Lauderdale, but until then he was alone. He noticed the voice-mail message light pulsing on her phone. It was her private line and she had not given him the code to retrieve her messages. In the dimness of the office, its persistent beacon seemed to flash a warning from across the room. He turned away and resumed Julia’s narrative.
“The resort’s lobby, gift shop, dining area, and bar are all beneath the same roof—a large building designed just like the cottages but on a grander scale. Kind of one-stop shopping, I guess. On the plus side, it’s all very charming and well kept up and clean, but on the down side there’s not much to choose from, be it gifts, food, or drink. The chef here does a great job, but it’s surprisingly English—lots of mayo on everything . . . I ask ya! Still, there are several excellent fish dishes to balance things out.”
Brandon leaned back in his chair remembering Julia eating hungrily from a can of fruit cocktail; dredging the diced fruit with a spoon. Once, she stopped to smile shyly at him from the other side of his bed, then returned to her task with childlike absorption. He smiled at the memory and at the thought of her slender, almost famished-looking frame. How well she hid that fragility beneath her business suits, her office armor, her ambition and drive.
Outside his window the cars plowed by, throwing up cascades of dirty water; a man on the opposite curb teetered uncertainly beneath a black umbrella that seemed close to collapse. He could not cross without getting drenched and Brandon briefly wondered why he didn’t just do it and get it over with; then returned to the pulsing words on his screen.
“Lastly, for now anyway, the two owners (and our potential partners) leave something to be desired. It’s not that they aren’t nice; they both have excellent manners as everyone here seems to, and are intelligent; that’s obvious enough when you talk to them, but there’s something I can’t put my finger on. One is Hispanic and comes from San Pedro. That’s way inland where most of the people are of Guatemalan or Mayan descent. This one is Hernando Fuentes. He’s very sweet but drinks a bit, I think. I can smell it on him when he sits too darn close! He seems harmless enough, though; he’s always talking about his wife and children.
“The other one is Claudell Paige, and he is Garifuna. He is a large, heavy man and seems to be the driving force behind the lodge. I think Señor Fuentes is the money. Mr. Paige laughs and jokes with all the employees and they appear to like him very much. He grew up in the nearby village of Hopkins just as they all did. Señor Fuentes, on the other hand, keeps a low profile. He is very small and thin and spends most of his time with the bartender—get the picture? Most of the staff here hardly acknowledge him. Curious, isn’t it?”
Brandon already did not like Fuentes. Happy family man, my ass, he thought jealously.
“Anyway, they’re an odd couple, and an uneasy one too, if you ask me. Still, I’m not exactly sure what troubles me here—it’s a little bit of a lot of things, I think. The location, while beautiful, is just . . . off, if you follow me. While the facilities are charming and unique, an air of . . . something . . . desperation, maybe, hangs over the place. Of course, when you see some of the poverty here, the desperation becomes understandable—they have to succeed!
“Then again, it might just be me, as I haven’t been sleeping well at all here. The rooms and beds are comfortable enough, but I keep getting awakened by someone knocking at my door in the wee hours! Naturally, I don’t answer it, but no one ever answers me back when I call out either. I’ve tried looking out the window to catch them at it, but I can never see anyone. I’m a little worried it might be bandits, but the management says they have a security man on duty all night. It’s very peculiar and a little unsettling, and the staff denies all knowledge of anything. One of them suggested a lizard might be in my room and the rest laughed. I guess that was a sample of the local humor at the expense of the turista. Ha! Ha!
“Tomorrow I take an excursion inland to visit some Mayan temple ruins. I’m really looking forward to getting away from here for a while. I’ll send more then.
“The no-see-ums are beginning to find me so I’ve got to take shelter. The sun is setting, and I must say, in spite of my misgivings, that it is truly beautiful here. The entire horizon is blood-red and a lone fisherman is out on the water in his dugout—that’s right, the locals actually use hollowed-out logs carved into little canoe-like boats. Amazing, isn’t it, in this day and age? He’s just standing out there like a stork—I don’t know how he doesn’t fall in. For some reason it makes me feel very lonely and out of place here. Ta, all. I’m looking forward to coming home. Julia.”
Brandon read the last few sentences once more—were those words really meant for him? They could almost be read that way. Was it him that she was really lonely for? This thought gave him hope, and for the first time in over a week he felt a tingle of excitement, a renewed interest in life. They were young, after all, he reasoned, so it was only natural they have their fights. And when Julia returned, they could make up, as young couples the world over and for time immemorial have—they would kiss madly and confess their remorse. The forgiveness that followed would be joyous and cathartic and he could hardly wait! He jumped up and rushed over to her desk to search for her return date. He felt quite certain she was due back any day now. Maybe he co
uld pick her up at the airport.
He felt the damp breeze before he heard the man cough and looked up guiltily in the midst of rifling through Julia’s desk. It was the man with the umbrella and he was, as predicted, soaked. The damaged umbrella hung from his hand like something he had tried, and failed, to save from drowning.
“Yes,” Brandon said, startled. “How may I help you?”
The visitor wore glasses and had to prop the umbrella in a corner in order to wipe them dry with his handkerchief. His tired-looking grey suit was made several shades darker by the rain; his thin hair was plastered to his narrow skull. “This is Resorts Investments, isn’t it?” he asked politely.
Brandon nodded his head even as he gauged the man. Without understanding why, he knew that he was neither a potential client nor a salesman. “How may I help you?” he repeated. The hangover crawled, dark and ugly, across his vision and back into his brain.
“Does Julia . . . that is, is this the office where Ms. Julia Catesby was employed?”
Brandon tried to digest this. “Was?” he came to at last.
“Are you a coworker?”
“Yes,” he answered like a man in a dream. “I am a . . . coworker. Why?”
The man appeared to consider this, then withdrew something from his inner jacket pocket. He held it out for Brandon to see. “I’m from the State Department, our office in Philadelphia.” Brandon could see that the older man’s ID confirmed this. “Are you her employer? We’ve called here several times and left messages,” he said.
“No, no, I’m not,” Brandon answered, the message light flickering redly at the edge of his vision. “She’s out of town and won’t be back until tomorrow. What’s this all about?”
“We’re trying to locate her next of kin. Would you know how to do that?”
Brandon felt as if the room was growing darker yet, as if the rain outside was only the prelude to a greater storm. He shook his head and whispered, “No, I don’t.” His ignorance made him feel sick and selfish. “She’s from upstate New York . . . I think.”
The State Department official appeared to give this some consideration, then said, “We have her out at the airport, I’m afraid. We’d like to take her home, if we could.”
“The airport,” Brandon repeated. They had her at the airport, he thought, struggling to regain the surface he was sinking beneath. Did they think she was a drug runner—a smuggler of some kind? “Why do you have her at the airport? What’s she done?”
“Done?” the official repeated. “She hasn’t done anything, Mr. . . . ?”
“Highsmith,” Brandon answered with some attempt at bravado. “Brandon Highsmith.”
“We have her because she’s . . . she’s dead, Mr. Highsmith. She died in Belize, and it’s one of our jobs to return Americans to their homes in circumstances like these. We were hoping you could help.”
Brandon seized the edge of Julia’s desk to keep from sinking to his knees, and stared up at the older man through bloodshot, brimming eyes. He was unsure whether he would be sick or pass out, but he was certain that he could be of no help.
The resort appeared exactly as Julia had written and as was depicted on the postcard Brandon had received several days after her funeral. It was the only personal item he had been given by her in their brief, secret relationship and he carried it in the pocket over his heart like a talisman. The words scribbled on it gave no recognizable clue as to why she would hang herself no matter how many times he read it. Even so, as the porter left him to get unpacked, he retrieved it once more in the hope that the setting it was written in might aid him in deciphering its meaning. The cottages in the foreground were as charming as depicted, but the mountains looming in the near distance, undoubtedly meant to be alluring and mysterious, appeared brooding and shadowed to Brandon’s eyes.
He sat wearily on the edge of the bed and read the cramped, tiny words: “Don’t know when this will get to you—weeks, probably. Went into the mountains you see on the front. On the way we hit a traffic jam! You’ll never guess why—the driver tells me that there’s a haunted spot on the road and when the ghost (a mysterious woman, he says) is seen, no one will travel through for a while. She’s a warning, he said. It’s a bad curve and a far fall. Can you believe it? Ghost crossing! We stop for the dead! The driver laughed like it was superstition, but we didn’t go around the other cars, either. Soon, Julia.”
Soon . . . the word stood out from the soiled white of the card, scribbled and sweat-stained, and Brandon’s eyes kept returning to it. Soon. Had she meant simply that she would see him again before too long, or was its real meaning concealed within her own intentions? Her death, he knew, had occurred mere hours after her return from the mountains.
He had not seen the police photos taken of Julia, but they had been described to him by the man from the State Department. He had not known of Brandon’s connection to Julia and Brandon had chosen to remain silent on the subject. The agent knew only that they were friends and coworkers and appeared to accept that this explained Brandon’s reactions sufficiently. Fortunately, his secret remained just that. Otherwise, it would have been unlikely that his boss, Donna, and the Philadelphia head office, would have agreed to his completing Julia’s assignment. He had five days, and no more, to follow up on her impressions and recommend a decision to advance or withdraw from the tentative deal.
Julia’s choice of death had been simple and effective, in fact, a method quite popular in jails and holding cells, he had learned. Utilizing the terrycloth belt that had been provided by the lodge with her complimentary bathrobe, she had secured one end to the clothes hook on the bathroom door. The other end she had fastened around her neck in a simple slip knot. The length of the belt allowed her to kneel on the cool tiles of the bathroom (she had used the bath mat to cushion her knees) and simply lean forward. After a few moments, Brandon was assured, the lack of oxygen would have rendered her unconscious, allowing gravity to accomplish the rest. There would not have been much discomfort, the kindly official had assured Brandon. She had left no note of explanation or goodbye. Presumably, her last words were those scribbled on the resort postcard.
The local police had summoned the U.S. Embassy shortly after they had determined the nationality of their victim, but her body had been removed from the scene prior to their arrival. The autopsy, however, had been witnessed by one of their investigators, the official had told Brandon in his kindly, factual manner, and no evidence contrary to the police investigation was obtained. The results of a rape kit had been negative. There was no apparent reason to disbelieve the in situ photographs the Belizean police had taken. “Suicide,” the older man had assured him, “often happens in situations like these . . . when people who are disturbed and vulnerable find themselves in strange places, uprooted, if you will. I can’t tell you how many situations like your coworker’s I’ve had to look into over the years. It’s not good to travel alone, in my opinion, and believe me, I’ve done enough of it to know—you have to be strong.”
Repeated knocking drew Brandon from his reverie, and he hurried from the bathroom to answer the door. The man who had driven him from the Dangriga airport and who had carried his suitcase to his room smiled up at him. He was slightly pudgy, and yellowish in color, with carefully combed and lacquered grey hair. His smile was large, the teeth as yellowish as the man himself. Brandon could not readily assign him a race or ethnic group. “Hello, again,” he chortled. “I hope I have not awakened you, Mr. Highsmith?”
Brandon shook his head, even as the man thrust a bottle into his hands. “Compliments of management, sah,” he continued, the vestiges of a British accent buried deep within his own patois. “Our very own national rum. It is very good, if I must say so . . . but, please, you are the judge.”
Brandon turned the brown bottle in his hands and studied its cheap paper label and foil cap. “Thank you . . . and thank the management. It really wasn’t necessary. I’m sure that I’ll enjoy it.”
The yellow m
an bowed slightly and turned to go. “I was wondering,” Brandon blurted out, “if you knew which room Ms. Catesby stayed in? Was it this one, by any chance?”
The driver stopped and turned, his smile dimmed by a slight creasing of his round face. “I was not her driver, I’m afraid. Management will best answer such a question, Mr. Highsmith; they will surely know.” With a wave he resumed his short journey along the boarded path to the main lobby building, where, presumably, management dwelled.
The sun was settling into the molten bay as Brandon made to retreat into his room, but as he closed the door against the heat and the glare of the sea, he noticed a lone silhouette floating on the reddening horizon. Just as Julia had described, a fisherman, as still as a heron hunting the shallows, stood poised within his pirogue some fifty yards from shore. Brandon could not guess his intended quarry, and did not really care, because for a brief moment the sight afforded him an image as sharp as the image of the man on the water itself—a picture of Julia sitting with her laptop, perhaps on this very veranda, seeing exactly what he was seeing and sending that image to him across the ether.
He did not answer the knocking on his door—the combination of several tots of the sweetish local rum and his own physical and emotional exhaustion had rendered him almost senseless. In the event, though the knocking was insistent and loud enough to rouse him, he was unable to answer its brief summons and fell back into a deep slumber before its echoes faded into the inky darkness where jungle met sea.
Management revealed itself the following morning at breakfast. Brandon had just seated himself near one of the wall-length open windows in the dining room when he was joined by Paige and Fuentes.
“Well, you don’t look much the worse for wear,” Paige declared happily while completely blocking Brandon’s view of the gently undulating sea mere yards away. “That is the great beauty of being young—so much stamina!” He seized one of Brandon’s hands in his great paw. “So glad you have joined us, Mr. Highsmith. I am Claudell Paige and this,” he stepped aside slightly to reveal his much smaller partner, “is Hernando Fuentes. I hope your journey was pleasant. How is the breakfast . . . hmmm?”
Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine 03/01/11 Page 15