Reluctant Witness

by Barton, Sara M.

  I lay there for some time. My eyes were open and I could see people moving around me. I thought I saw flashes of light hovering just above me, tiny pops of blinding white that made me want to scream, but I was unable to move. I felt paralyzed, not with fear, but by design. There were loud bangs that sounded like firecrackers that seemed to go on for a minute or two. And then I recognized conversation between Pierre and Arno.

  “Come on! We’ve got to get out of here!” said Alain’s silent partner.

  “My head!” moaned the big man as he knelt beside me. “What happened?”

  “One of the CIA bastards clubbed you. Don’t worry, mon ami. I took care of him. He won’t be a problem any more. But hurry. We must get out of here before the cops show up.”

  “Alain wants proof that she’s dead this time.”

  “Don’t worry. I got photos of the bodies. And I took her wedding ring. Easy does it. Let me help you.”

  “But I need to see her! I promised the boss I would make sure she was dead this time!” Pierre argued groggily. Were they talking about me?

  “You’re a mess, man! We don’t have time for this. You’re in no condition to be calling the shots! If we’re caught here, we’ll be charged with all these murders! Now, let’s go!”

  I listened to them stumble away, down the path to the front yard. As the minutes ticked on, my head began to clear, even as a siren wailed in the distance. I could hear sounds of people moving about. I even thought I heard Davis issuing commands. It must be my imagination, I finally decided. Maybe I’m really dead, like Arno said, and I just haven’t left my body yet.

  “It’s okay, Nora. You’re going to be fine. Can you sit up?” That was Véronique. Her fingers were on my wrist, checking my pulse. Mifkin and Davis were leaning over her shoulder, their eyes grave with concern.

  “Maybe he gave her too much. You know how the incapacitating agent can drop the blood pressure,” Mifkin said.

  “Her eyes are still unfocused. I don’t know how much of this she comprehends.”

  People suddenly crowded onto the veranda. I was lifted up, as a black bag was placed under me. Panic welled up in me as I heard the zipper make its way up to my face. I longed to scream, to tell them I was still alive, but my limbs wouldn’t move. As darkness replaced light, I found myself entombed in a body bag, a casualty of Alain’s horrible scheme, save for a three-inch opening at the top of the zippered sack.

  “Don’t worry, Nora,” I thought I heard Mifkin say. “It will soon be over. Okay, Davis. Your turn to die.”

  I felt my anxiety level shooting up as I read those words. I understood the horror of being confined against my will. It brought back the memory of being in the trunk of that Corolla, alone in the dark. How could Nora ever survive, under the circumstances? Between Le Scorpion’s vast network of thugs and the CIA officers who seemed determined not to let anyone get in the way of their mission, not to mention the missing Interpol policeman with his duty to stop Guillaume Chartier from gaining a foothold in Guadeloupe, I was certain that Nora was a lost cause.

  When I came to, I was in a van, lying on a stretcher. A bright overhead fixture illuminated the interior with a stark, fluorescent glow that made the faces surrounding me seem that much more ghoulish.

  “How are you feeling?” Véronique asked. My throat hurt where Pierre’s massive hands had attempted to choke me to death. I opened my mouth, but no sound emerged. “You’re on your way home, Nora.”

  Terror filled me at the thought of returning to Guadeloupe, to Alain. They couldn’t be serious about returning me to my tormentor. I wriggled on the stretcher, unexpectedly finding my limbs restrained by thick, nylon webbing.

  “Don’t struggle, dear. You’ll only hurt yourself,” she told me kindly, her face compassionate. How could I make her understand? Did she not understand what Alain would do to me if he got his hands on me once more?

  “How long before we get there?” Mifkin sat back on the bench on the opposite wall on the van.

  “Ten minutes. Noiret is already in place, waiting for us. The plane is fueled up and ready for takeoff and we have a recovery team standing by.”

  “Beautiful.”

  “Is it time?” Véronique asked. I saw a hypodermic needle in her right hand and a tiny vial in her left.

  “Do it,” Mifkin told her. He watched as she inserted the needle into the bottle and extracted a small amount of a clear liquid. “Don’t worry, Nora. This won’t hurt a bit.”

  That was the last thing I heard before the world collapsed on me and I became a corpse.

  A corpse. How much longer could the author torment poor Nora? It seemed a cruel game to play on a woman who had only ever tried to do right by the people of Guadeloupe. She and her parents had worked hard to create their organic coffee cooperative, to encourage ethical agricultural practices and bring jobs that paid a decent enough wage to the island. With only tourism to feed and clothe many of the residents, there was little economic diversity. Those jobs at Le Papillon brought opportunity to a population often marginalized by exploitation. I found myself feeling angry that Nora would soon be yet another victim of a world gone mad. Didn’t anyone care any more about what was right, decent, and good? Why did Le Scorpion have to go and spoil everything by using the company as a front for his drug smuggling? Life just wasn’t fair, I decided. She deserved so much better. Turning the page, I continued on, despite my disappointment in the terrible turn Nora’s wild trajectory had taken yet again.

  When I came to, I was in a bright, cheerful room. Outside, I could hear birds singing. I also heard the roar of the ocean waves as they rushed into shore. Gazing around at the calm blue walls and the tropical print drapes that graced the floor-to-ceiling windows, I felt peaceful, serene, almost content. If I had to be dead, this was not a bad way to go. I was comfortable. My pain was gone. Nothing remained of my physical distress. The only thing that might have made me happier was to lie beside Jean-Claude as I passed into the next world. That was my one regret, that he and I never had a future together. Our hearts had come together in fleeting moments of hope-laden excitement that rose and fell like the graceful fluttering of a silver-spotted flambeau in flight, but what we shared were just butterfly dreams. We were bound by Le Papillon in so many ways, but it was a relationship that turned out to be as fragile as those insect wings, unable to bear the weight of our burden.

  “You are awake at last,” I heard a voice say to me. It was my nurse, my bodyguard. I felt my anger rise, choking my reply to her. How dare she act as if all was well? It wasn’t. “Jean-Claude! Vite!”

  A moment later, a figure filled the doorway. There he was, handsome as ever. His hair fell over his brow in a couple of curls that made him seem incredibly boyish. His eyes lit on me as I lay in bed and I watched the relief transform his face like sunshine on a shadow.

  “Oh, chérie! I have been so worried. You slept so long!”

  He started toward the bed and I suddenly recalled that evening when he appeared in my bedroom, so determined to take me away from Le Scorpion. It seemed like an eternity since then. Lost in my delight at being reunited with my love, I didn’t notice the trouble he was having until I saw the crutches.

  “What has happened to you?” I cried, trying to sit up, desperate to examine his injury.

  “It is not important. What matters is we are together again, Nora, just as I promised you we would be.”

  “But....”

  “Don’t fret, ma belle. I will heal. I am just glad you survived your ordeal.”

  “Where are we?” I asked, all too aware of the heat of his hands on my skin as he held me close and brushed his lips against my cheek. I wanted to lose myself in his embrace. I hungered for the taste of his lips on mine.

  “Paradise,” he whispered.

  “But they said I was going home,” I told him. “This is not the farm.”

  “Not the farm, not Guadeloupe. You are back in the United States, Nora.”

  I gazed over his shoulder at
the scene beyond the open window. Palm trees swayed in the shore breeze. I saw azure water beyond the black volcanic beach. I knew it wasn’t St. Croix.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Welcome to your new farm.” He grinned at me, those eyes twinkling. “Twelve prime acre of land on the Big Island.”

  “I’m in Hawaii?”

  “Indeed.”

  I took heart from Nora’s journey to the South Pacific and her romantic reunion with the handsome hero. A part of me knew it was all fiction, but I still wanted to believe in happy endings. And yet, what kind of life could Nora expect to have, always looking over her shoulder? What if the Scorpion did find her? A man like that would have a need to punish her, to make her pay for humiliating him. His revenge would be cruel.

  There was a brief knock on the door just before I heard Terry call my name. “Marigold?”

  “Out here, on the balcony!”

  “I just wanted to give you a heads up. Rocky is flying in to give us a briefing on your situation. He’ll be here tomorrow.”

  “Is this a good thing or a bad?” I wanted to know, nervous about the answer.

  “Well, I’m guessing it’s good, because if it was bad, we’d be closing up shop and moving out of here.”

  A few hours later, Nancy, Terry and I went to the Sunset Grille for clam chowder, jerk shrimp, and mai tais, sitting on the upper deck as the sun dipped below the horizon, and then we went for a walk on the beach. On the way back to World Golf Village, we stopped at Tedi’s Old Tyme Ice Cream for cones. By the time we returned to the hotel, it was just after ten.

  I got ready for bed, knowing I had just a few pages left of Vanilla Orchid Magic. I turned on the TV, watched an old movie for a while, and then, when I was ready to say goodbye to Nora and Jean-Claude, I read the last few pages.

  The moonlight kissed the waves as they rolled into shore. I stood under its glow, surveying the ocean before me from my cliff-top perch. After a long day of walking through the spice groves with my bodyguard, Paulie, and taking note of progress, I was beginning to feel more like my old self.

  Jean-Claude was still in France, meeting with his bosses. They had to make a decision as to whether or not he would continue to be a policeman. Given the fact that he had appeared to die twice in the Caribbean, I hoped they would not send him back there. I knew that Le Scorpion was still actively pursuing his illegal business interests in Guadeloupe. Should he discover that Jean-Claude was alive, the man I knew as Alain would never stop trying to murder him until he found success. In my heart, I knew the risks were foolish. Let someone else, someone without a past history with him, chase the illusive criminal.

  It had been nearly a month since my arrival here, and I was still getting to know the island that would become my home. In choosing the Big Island, with its fertile soil and tropical climate, Jean-Claude had made a wise decision. Never again would I live a public life, involved in my community. The chance of discovery was too great. But in this beautiful place, surrounded by mountains and ocean, I knew I could find my bliss.

  Before he left, Jean-Claude asked me what I wanted to name my new farm. I had no ready answer for him. I needed time to get to know this new land, to find the inspiration in its rich soil and sunny days.

  My plan was to do what had been done in Guadeloupe, but on a much smaller scale. I thought we would grow Blue Mountain and Guadeloupe Bonifieur, those Bourbon Pointu coffee bean varieties, for the export market, rather than Kona. I knew the product would sell well in places like Japan. But then I changed my mind. Why shouldn’t we grow estate coffee, unblended and pricey? Cacao would be another gourmet offering, balanced by the ever-loved vanilla beans, but we would also diversify with cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, and even eventually, nutmeg. I decided that we would process and package all of the products on the Big Island and ship them ourselves, rather than rely on a cooperative. That would just attract the attention of a man like Guillaume Chartier. I reminded myself over and over again to “keep it small and simple”. It wasn’t a matter of supporting agricultural workers or building an international corporation. Even if we only sold our products to local restaurants and tourists, that would be okay with me.

  In order to succeed, I threw myself into an intensive study of the agricultural prospects, covering everything from product packaging to pest control. I learned as much as I could about the issues surrounding organic farming on the Big Island and set about getting to know my prospective workers.

  Many Japanese-American families had worked the land for several generations in Hawaii. I was lucky enough to find a passionate farm manager in Haruto Narushima, better known as Harry. Armed with a B.A. in organic farming and Masters in agricultural economics, eager to have the chance to develop a new company from the ground up, he agreed to work with me. I was determined to do what my father had accomplished in Guadeloupe, to create a company where the employees were motivated to work hard because they were shareholders of the company. Harry was enthusiastic about our prospects, but also realistic about the effort it would take to launch the company. Perhaps if I had only set out to create a coffee company, he would not have gone the distance with me. But the chance to also grow organic spices and cacao made the challenges all the sweeter to him. Better still, Harry was willing to be the public face of the company, to be our spokesman, our navigator, and even our ambassador, lessening the chances I might inadvertently be discovered by Le Scorpion or one of his associates, or even any of the coffee producers I had met over the years.

  He had a wife, Kiki, who agreed to work part-time as my assistant, and two children, a six-year-old and a three-year-old. Some days, after putting her older son, Kenji, on the bus, Kiki would arrive at the house with the toddler in tow, put her in the corner of the dining room with a box of toys, and get to work. Akari loved to walk the fields with her father on his inspections, chattering to him non-stop as only a three-year-old can. The little girl became a favorite of Véronique, often accompanying her on errands. We had a good supply of picture books and I often spent my coffee break reading to her while she sipped her milk and nibbled her cookie. When the story was over, it was nap time in one of the guest rooms. By three, Kiki would depart with Akari in time to meet Kenji’s bus when the boy got home from school. It was a good working relationship. Kiki was smart and funny, but most of all, ambitious. She had studied business at the University of California Los Angeles and craved the opportunity to use those skills. I was more than happy to put her to work.

  By the second month, at Harry’s behest, the company bought three acres of established Blue Mountain coffee trees from an organic farmer, Bob Johnstone, who was looking to downsize as he moved toward retirement, and we agreed to acquire the rest of the land over the next five years. In the meantime, we would purchase Bob’s entire coffee harvest to sell under our estate label. Harry was ready to move forward with package design and marketing. All that was missing was a name for our company.

  And then one day I was in Honolulu for a meeting. With two hours to kill before my flight back to Kona, I decided to visit the Foster Botanical Garden, where I learned about the Butterfly Society of Hawaii, dedicated to encouraging the creation of butterfly habitats on the islands. I suddenly had an inspiration. Our organic farming could work toward fostering a more nurturing environment for these beautiful creatures. It would be my way of honoring my parents, whose lives were cut short by Le Scorpion. We would landscape the grounds at the entrance to the farm to nurture our winged visitors, planting lantana, pickleweed, rattlepod, and other host plants. We would become the Hawaiian Butterfly Coffee and Spice Company. Every package of our coffee, cocoa, and spices would feature a local artist’s rendering of one of Hawaii’s butterflies. There would be American Ladies and Painted Ladies on our coffees, Banana Skippers and Fiery Skippers on our cocoa and gourmet chocolate bars, and a variety of sulphurs, hairstreaks, and other fritillaries on our spice packages.

  I wasn’t sure how Harry or Kiki would view the concept, but muc
h to my delight, they were thrilled. The butterfly is a very popular symbol in Japanese culture, and they felt it was a lovely way to honor their own ancestors. We found an artist to create the labels and were soon ready to take the next step in building our company.

  As I waited for Jean-Claude to return, I found the weeks passed quickly. My heart was no longer heavy. There was new reason to believe that life could and would go on, that I would be safe on this island. I was making connections here. I was meeting my neighbors and fellow organic farmers. At night, I slept soundly, listening to the waves crashing on the rocky shore. I ached to see him again, barely content with the occasional note or phone call, but as the weeks passed I began to feel a growing excitement. He was coming home to me. He would be here soon. It was just a matter of weeks, of days, before I would find him walking up the garden path.

  On the last day of the third month, it happened. After not hearing from him for nearly three weeks, he just appeared, like a mirage. I was sitting on the lanai, sipping a cool drink in the afternoon shade. Blinking hard, I thought I had imagined him.

  “Bonjour!” he cheerfully called out. “Guess who is home!”

  I couldn’t wait to wrap my arms about him, to feel the sinewy strength of his muscular body against mine. Our lips met in a passionate kiss that took my breath away. Jean-Claude had made his way home to me, safe and sound.

  Some time later, as we lingered over dinner, our hands entwined, he gave me the news. I knew he was excited by the way his eyes gleamed.

  “Three days ago, Guillaume Chartier was arrested in Basse-Terre and flown to Paris to stand trial.”

  “Really?” I felt my heart flutter.