“Luckily, it happened after they were all back on their ships,” the officer told the press.
According to the initial publications, it appeared that the dead included six men and two women, though the remains were badly burned.
She wondered right away about the women, especially when she read that the bodies were too charred to be identified right away. It took a few days for their names to be published in the local papers. When they were, LaJuanda put aside her notion that Molly could have been among them, because all were confirmed as locals. One of the two female victims had stopped at the bar after work with her husband, who’d also been killed; the other was a bartender at the Big Iguana.
LaJuanda couldn’t help but think that there was something fishy about the timing of the explosion. What if there had been another body and the investigators had missed it? Or covered it up? The small island police force wasn’t entirely corrupt, but it had endured its share of well-publicized scandals in recent years. That would be good reason, LaJuanda decided as the plane landed, to keep a low profile for the time being, rather than approach the local authorities with her suspicion, which is . . .
What, exactly?
All she knows for certain is that Molly Temple got off the Carousel on that island, and she didn’t get back on. Someone else did—and shortly after it sailed, there was an explosion on shore.
It might have been a coincidence.
Something told her that it wasn’t.
By the time she had cleared customs and stepped into the bedlam outside the airport terminal—which resembled a Quonset hut—LaJuanda was itching to roll up her sleeves and get to work. But first, she had to check into her hotel, a moderately priced resort on the opposite end of the island. She waited in a long line to get a cab, and after a misleadingly breakneck start along the relatively new highway from the airport, the ride slowed to a creep and crawl when they reached a traffic rotary. The driver took a spur that led through the main harbor town, where several anchored cruise ships dwarfed the cluster of low buildings near the pier.
Armed with a map, LaJuanda looked longingly at the turnoff she knew led to the site of the Big Iguana. But it would have to wait. She couldn’t conduct an investigation while dragging luggage along with her.
The car bumped along through dusty streets crowded with cars, the occasional dog or chicken, and people who reflected the island’s African, British, and Spanish cultural melting pot. At last, they left the town behind and began the climb up a steep coastal road with hairpin curves that made LaJuanda regret having asked the driver to please hurry.
She needn’t have bothered. When they reached the hotel, a long line of waiting guests—many of them Americans LaJuanda recognized from her packed flight—snaked through the open-air lobby. Official check-in wasn’t until four, and when it got under way—well after that—the line moved at a torturous pace.
“Guess we’re on island time now,” the man in front of LaJuanda commented.
“Guess so.”
“Are you here for the pharmaceutical sales conference?”
“Yes,” she said, without missing a beat. “You too?”
He nodded. “Guess I’ll catch you at the mixer later. Can I buy you a drink? You look like a red wine kind of girl. Or maybe one of those frozen drinks. Do you like rum?”
“Can’t stand the stuff.” The lies were just falling off her tongue today, LaJuanda thought with amusement, pushing her hair back with her left hand, making sure he saw her wedding band.
She wasn’t above letting a stranger attempt to hit on her when it might lead to information, but she wouldn’t waste her time on an out-of-town pharmaceutical salesman who couldn’t shed any light on her case.
At last, she was able to get into her room, where she quickly changed her clothes, unpacked her camera, and made it back down here to the harbor before sunset.
Well—if there had been sun, it would be setting. This is the rainy season, and the sky above the turquoise water is a charcoal-tinged blue that borders on purple at the horizon, where thunder is beginning to rumble.
It’s quiet down here at this hour. The tourist trade in this waterfront district revolves around the cruise ships, and the ones that were docked here earlier are mere specks out on the water now. LaJuanda walks up and down the pier, snapping photos, retracing Molly’s likely steps when she disembarked.
A couple of lingering vendors approach her, selling everything from painted seashells to marijuana. She speaks to them in Spanish, showing them photos of Molly; also shows the pictures to a couple of fishermen. Predictably, no one has ever seen the missing woman before.
She’ll need to come back down here on Monday, when the ships come in and it’s busy again. Until then, she decides to focus on the Big Iguana.
The bar—rather, what’s left of it—is a three-minute walk along the sandy street that leads away from the dock. Chickens strut and cluck alongside LaJuanda as she makes her way past low, shuttered buildings painted in shades of yellow, aqua, and coral. Barefoot children dog her heels, clamoring for money. The moment she hands them some spare change, other waifs come out of the woodwork. She finds some coins for them, too.
There but for the grace of God, she thinks as she watches them scamper away.
Her mother’s entire family is still back in Cuba; LaJuanda has first cousins whose children are possibly, like these urchins, barefoot and hungry. LaJuanda frequently tells her own son and daughter what their lives might have been like had their grandmother not bravely migrated to the United States when she was just their age.
“If she hadn’t done that, we wouldn’t even be here, Mom,” is Raquel’s usual response, “because you wouldn’t have met Dad.”
True enough. Rene’s family, like LaJuanda’s father’s, had come to Florida long before Castro’s regime took hold. LaJuanda herself feels as all-American as her husband and children are.
But somehow, being here, she feels the same stirring in her blood that she experienced on her Caribbean honeymoon all those years ago: that same innate sense of connection with this place and these people.
She thinks of Molly, wondering, once again, if her disappearance was intentional. Particularly now that she knows that Molly vanished here, and not in Miami.
Plenty of people come to the Caribbean to start a new life—often under a new identity. This balmy paradise would be appealing to anyone looking for a reprieve from harsh Great Lakes winters, and the laid-back, transient nature of the island would make it fairly easy for an outsider to fly under the radar.
Her mother had said that Molly was burned out on her job, had no social life, and had no romantic prospects. Really, she had nothing but her parents to tie her to Cleveland—and her father had just died. Maybe she had decided to make a fresh start here on the island . . .
And sent a doppelganger back to the States to throw everyone off her trail? But how would she even have arranged such a thing? There had been nothing in her phone records or computer files to indicate unusual correspondence in the months after she’d bought the cruise ticket.
And what about Nancy Temple? Would the daughter she’d described really have gone to such lengths to break her newly widowed mother’s heart?
It just doesn’t make sense.
Reaching the old-fashioned wooden crossroads signpost she’d seen earlier from the cab, LaJuanda reaches into her bag for the small flashlight she always carries. The arrow bearing the name “Big Iguana” points to a well-worn path through a grove of lush fronds.
It’s dusk now, and the air is heavy with the imminent threat of rain. Insects buzz noisily and she can hear creatures rustling, slithering, and scampering in the undergrowth just off the path.
I’ll take a quick look, LaJuanda decides, slapping at a mosquito that buzzes around the sweat-dampened hair at her forehead, and then I’ll head back to the hotel.
A hot shower and room service are sounding awfully good right about now. First, of course, she’ll have to call Nancy. S
he’s gone back to Ohio to attend her granddaughter’s high school graduation tomorrow, but will be waiting by the phone to hear from LaJuanda.
She gingerly picks her way along the uneven ground, glad she changed into long pants when she got off the plane, but wishing she’d thought to swap her sandals for closed-toed shoes. She’s never been a delicate girly-girl, but living in Florida has made her all too aware of what’s lurking in the dark along the overgrown path.
Rene wouldn’t like this one bit. After two decades of marriage, he’s accustomed to the danger that goes along with her career as a private investigator, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t worry about her—especially when she ventures this far from home.
“You’re too fearless for your own good,” he likes to say.
“And you’re too old-fashioned for yours.”
LaJuanda can smell the Big Iguana before she sees the remains looming in the flashlight’s murky beam; a faint hint of smoke and burnt rubber mingling with the scent of jungle blooms and sea air.
Back in the States, the site would have been taped off, fenced in, or tarped to discourage trespassers—human and otherwise. Here, there’s nothing but a hand-scrawled “Keep Out” sign to deter looters and scavengers from wandering right up to the site.
People—and animals—have clearly done just that. Amid scattered piles of charred boards, tangled wires, and melted plastic, rotting kitchen garbage is strewn about. Bouquets of flowers lie at a makeshift memorial to the victims, and a flickering votive candle indicates that there has been at least one other recent visitor.
Thanks to photographs she studied on the Big Iguana’s Web site, LaJuanda can picture the place as it used to be. The thatched roof and walls are long gone, but she spots the concrete slab that marked the main entrance, the remains of several stools and paddle fans poking from the rubble beyond it, and, around back, dented appliances and part of a metal stairway. The building, she recalls, was two stories tall, with an apartment on the second floor. Its tenant was the female bartender identified among the dead.
Hearing movement behind her, LaJuanda whirls around to see a man standing there.
For all the times she assured her husband that she’s just fine without a big, strong man around to protect her, she desperately wishes Rene himself—and not this stranger—had popped up behind her.
His dark skin and dreadlocks tell her he’s a local even before she hears his lilting patois. “What are you looking for, mon?”
“Not what—whom.” She notes that his eyes, while wary, are not menacing. “My friend was here, I think, right before this place burned down.”
“It did not burn down.” He imitates the sound of something detonating and throws his hands to indicate an explosion.
“Yes. I know. Who did it?”
He shrugs.
She transfers her flashlight to her left hand and holds out her right. “I’m LaJuanda Estrada. From Miami. And you are . . . ?”
“Crispin.”
“Do you have a last name?”
“Just Crispin.”
“Got it.” She nods to show him that she’s not going to probe. “Can I show you my friend’s picture, Crispin?”
He doesn’t say yes or no, just stands there as if waiting for her to do it. She takes a step closer and holds up a photo, shining the flashlight’s beam on it.
He starts to say something, then stops himself.
“What? What is it?”
He doesn’t reply. LaJuanda holds her breath as he leans in to look closer.
Thunder rumbles in the distance, not as far away as before.
“No,” he says after a long moment. “I do not know her.”
“Are you sure about that?”
He nods.
She’s tempted to shine the light directly on his face, not certain she believes him.
“But you were going to say something,” she points out, “when you first looked.”
“I thought I recognized someone I know.”
“Who?”
“It is not her.” He shrugs as if to say that it doesn’t matter.
But it does. It matters a lot, to LaJuanda, who can’t help but wonder if she just found her doppelganger.
A warm raindrop falls on her bare arm; another on her nose.
Seeing Crispin hold his hand out, palm upward, and glance at the sky, she asks hurriedly, “What’s her name? Your friend?”
“Not a friend. No.”
Trying to keep the urgency out of her voice, she rephrases the question: “What is the name of the person you thought you recognized?”
“Jane. But . . .” Crispin shrugs. “That is not her. She just looks like her, you know . . . at first glance.”
LaJuanda’s heart is racing.
“Who is Jane? Where is she? Can I talk to her?”
“You can talk to her, mon,” Crispin says, “but she cannot answer. She was killed when the bomb went off.”
When she got home from the airport earlier, Imogene Peters found her apartment sweltering. It’s on the second floor of a duplex, right beneath the flat roof, and the old wiring in this place makes her too nervous to seriously consider getting a window air-conditioning unit.
For the most part, the cool Minnesota summer evenings and a nice cross breeze keep her comfortable. Not tonight, though. The temperature outdoors is still in the high eighties, and it’s taking a long time to cool the place down since the windows have been closed and locked for a week. She wouldn’t dare leave them open even a crack while she was gone; anyone could climb up onto the side porch roof and crawl right into her bedroom, which overlooks it.
The neighborhood isn’t what it used to be, and Imogene lives alone now that her late husband, Ned, is gone and their only son has moved away. She’s used to it, but you can’t be too careful.
She wipes the sweat from her forehead as she walks across the living room in her summer bathrobe, a fancy white waffle-patterned one her son Paul gave her for Mother’s Day. It’s stamped with the Ritz Carlton emblem, which made her ask him if he’d stolen it.
“No, I didn’t steal it! Mother! I bought it from the gift shop when I went to the Ritz spa on Easter.”
“Well, I don’t know how you can afford to give me expensive gifts and stay at the Ritz.” Paul is a struggling actor living in Manhattan, supplementing his income with a telemarketing job.
“My friend Bartholomew paid.”
“That’s some friend,” Imogene said—but of course, it turned out Bartholomew isn’t just a friend. He’s Paul’s roommate, and a very nice young man. Handsome, too. The girls must go crazy for him—but, like Paul, he doesn’t have a girlfriend right now. He says he’s too busy with auditions—acting being something else he and Paul have in common.
Imogene settles her aching hips heavily into the easy chair in front of the television set.
“Ouch,” she says aloud, and once again curses that horrid woman from the airplane. If she hadn’t so rudely refused to give up her seat, Imogene wouldn’t be hurting like this.
It’s just shocking what people’s manners have come to in this day and age.
Or is it just people in New York, as she suspected long before she flew there to spend this week with her son?
How could Paul possibly choose to live in that city?
Her husband must be rolling over in his grave. Years ago, back in ’93 when the terrorists first bombed the World Trade Center, Ned had said, “They’ll be back. Anyone with a brain in his head would get the hell out of New York. Who in his right mind would want to live there in the first place?”
Our own son. That’s who. Where did we go wrong, Ned?
When Paul first broke the news to Imogene that he was moving to Manhattan last summer, right after he graduated from Minnesota State, it didn’t even occur to her that he meant New York. She was thinking Manhattan, Kansas—which was bad enough, being five hundred miles away from Mankato.
“Why would I move to Kansas with a degree in musical theater?�
� Paul had rolled his big blue eyes just like Ned, God rest his soul, used to do.
“Why would anyone move to Manhattan after September 11? The terrorists are going to attack again. It’s only a matter of time. Your father always said they’d keep on coming back until they destroyed the whole city.”
Paul dismissed her with a wave of his wrist. So she went ahead and listed all the reasons he shouldn’t live there, beginning with the fact that it was dangerous . . .
“Bad things can happen anywhere, Mother. Even Mankato. You could be struck by lightning sitting in your own house.”
. . . and ending with the fact that New Yorkers are unfriendly.
“How do you know that, Mother?”
“Everyone knows that.”
“Have you ever been there? No. So why don’t you wait until you can see for yourself?”
Well, now Imogene had seen for herself.
She’d spent a whole week sleeping on the lumpy pullout couch in Paul’s tiny apartment, which didn’t help her spinal, neck, and hip issues—all the more reason that woman should have switched seats with her. She could stand a lesson in manners from Bartholomew, who hadn’t even complained about giving up the couch, where he normally slept.
To thank him, Imogene invited him to come along with her and Paul to dinner last night, and let the two of them choose the restaurant—Ellen’s Stardust Diner, where the waiters took turns singing show tunes.
“I hope you didn’t mind squeezing into Paul’s room for an entire week,” she told Bartholomew. “There couldn’t have been much room for a big guy like you in half of a double bed.”
“Queen,” he said, and Paul, who was in the midst of sipping his soda, started choking on it.
“He . . . means . . . the . . . bed,” he sputtered, as Imogene patted him on the back. “It’s a queen. The bed in my room.”
“She knows that, Paul,” Bartholomew said so pointedly that Imogene wondered if they were sharing some kind of inside joke.
They were quite a silly pair, her son and his friend.
But Imogene liked Bartholomew. She liked the restaurant, too. It reminded her of the diner where she and Ned used to go to when they were dating.
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