But even then, I realized that the chances of finding him alive were slim.
Maya’s ominous words kept creeping through my thoughts.
Perhaps I hadn’t told Oliver about Jesús because, subconsciously, my mind had already worked out who was responsible for the recent disappearances at Parrot Ridge – the person who had fallen under the influence of the spirit from the ravine.
~ ~ ~
I SPENT THE next half-hour searching the grounds for any sign of Jesús. It didn’t take long to comb through the accessible area at the top of Parrot Ridge.
I climbed around the east side of the main residence, checking the less manicured bushes and shrubs near his suite in the building’s bottom corner.
Finding nothing there, I gradually made my way across the west landscaping, digging through the terraced planters and raised beds, until I circled back to the pavilion.
Standing at the entrance, I looked across the entertainment area to the deck by the pool, the last place I’d seen Jesús.
My memory of the after-dinner shenanigans was still fuzzy. I recalled a hazy image of the jolly sous-chef sitting in a nearby chair, a grin on his face as he recounted one of his jokes.
I’d laughed at the punch line, one I couldn’t now remember. Then Jesús stood unsteadily from his seat and wobbled toward the steps attached to the pavilion’s outer wall.
“I’m heading to the facilities.”
His parting phrase repeated in my head, the words broken up by his thick Spanish accent.
Then he disappeared down the stairs, following the same path that had taken two people before him.
~ ~ ~
I WALKED AROUND the pool’s perimeter to the dining area.
It was too early for Oliver to have set up for dinner. The chairs were arranged the same way they’d been the night before, but the tables were bare. Someone, likely Maya or Elsie, had cleaned up the mess of empty bottles and overturned glasses.
The evidence was gone, but the fallout continued.
Reluctantly, I turned toward the railing and stared down into the jungle’s green abyss.
I’d never been a superstitious man, but time in the Caribbean had altered my perspective. My beliefs had slowly bent toward those espoused by the people around me.
Perhaps Maya was right. We’d wakened the spurned wife’s vengeful spirit, and she was hungrily devouring the unfaithful among us.
But then – why hadn’t she come for me?
Gingerly, I crept down the steps to the restrooms, past the landing, to the edge of the clearing. The rough ground showed no visible sign of footprints from all those nights of reckless frolic, but I knew they were there.
Mine were hopelessly entangled with those of Jesús and, if the scenario I’d imagined from the previous evening bore any correlation to reality, his with Romeo’s.
A swirling breeze curled up from the sea, slithering through the jungle and across the clearing. It carried with it a dank smell, unlike the fresh saltwater scent that typically swept up the hill.
The stench surrounded me, a stale condemning aroma.
Please, just get it over with, I thought, daring the beast to drag me into the brush. Take me.
But the jungle was still and frustrating silent.
I could stand it no longer. I tossed my head away from the sight, as if the sudden motion might wipe the painful images from my mind – and in the upswing glimpsed a figure watching me from the deck above.
It was Elsie.
Watching.
She was always watching.
In that moment, I sensed she knew my secrets, that she’d witnessed my inappropriate conduct with Jesús.
And she disapproved.
~ ~ ~
ELSIE WAS GONE by the time I returned to the deck.
That was for the best, I reasoned. There was nothing I could say that would make her understand.
As for the vengeful spirit from the ravine, I needn’t have complained about being left out of her schemes.
The other victims had apparently gone quickly, each one suffering a demise of only brief discomfort.
She had a far worse fate in store for me.
Chapter 26
A Guilty Man
MILLICENT’S FELLOW TRAVELERS were unimpressed with the report from her eavesdropping adventure, especially after they were roused from their afternoon naps to hear it.
Kate groaned and rolled over in her bed. Mary lifted her black cotton eyeshades for all of two seconds and then resolutely snapped them back into place.
Not even Maude was willing to tease out a follow up to Millicent’s latest concocted crime. “A guy bails on his kitchen job to take care of a sick relative? That’s hardly grounds for a murder inquiry.”
The sleuth was stubbornly persistent. “The cook sure seemed to think something had happened to him. That Maya woman. She said he’d been taken.”
Loud snores were emitted by the women in the bedrooms.
Millicent stomped onto the balcony, muttering under her breath. “Matlock wouldn’t have turned his nose up at a case like this.” But after a moment’s reflection, even she had to concede, “Well, perhaps he might have been a little reluctant, right at first.”
Her confidence soon returned.
“Aha!” she exclaimed as she aimed her binoculars at the innkeeper standing on the pool deck. “Look at him. He’s a guilty man. Can’t you see it?”
Someone inside the suite closed the balcony’s sliding door.
Millicent hollered to be heard through the glass. “I’m telling you. There’s something amiss here. I just know it.”
For the rest of the Golden Girls, this was a clear indication that, in fact, all was right with the little corner of the world that held Our Island Inn.
Chapter 27
Unraveling
MAYA CALLED ME into the kitchen from the pool deck. Trying to shake off my worries about Jesús, I scurried across the pavilion and through the swinging doors to the cooking area.
It turned out she needed a few items for the dinner menu. She politely asked if I could make a run into town.
I was amazed at how calmly she was handling all this.
She must have a deep inner strength, I thought, to keep it together in the midst of such uncertainty, particularly given her fearful superstitions of what had happened to Jesús.
And then it occurred to me: this might not be the first time her husband had dropped out of sight.
Despite all those late night talks, I knew very little about Jesús and, I realized, even less about his wife.
I had assumed that she was aware of the affair. Her husband never made any attempt to hide our interactions from her. They appeared to have some sort of understanding about the matter.
Unlike me, he’d walked around with a clear conscience.
Maya always seemed content to busy herself with her culinary pursuits. In her free time, she could usually be found in the kitchen, sharpening her knives, or in the pantry, canning preserves. She was quiet in the extreme, rarely speaking other than when necessary. She preferred gestures to words, fragments to complete sentences.
“It’s just a few items,” she said softly, handing me a list.
“I…uh…yes, of course,” I stammered, reviewing the items she’d written down.
I wanted to ask her about Jesús, but I didn’t want to risk upsetting her. Even if he had disappeared before – and subsequently returned – I sensed this time was different.
Whatever coping mechanism she’d devised had worked well so far, and we still had to make it through the evening’s meal service.
Instead, I opted for small talk. I gestured to a set of glass jars drying in a rack by the sink, ready to receive the next basket of decaying food.
“Another canning project? Boy, stuff sure spoils fast in this climate.”
She simply smiled demurely.
~ ~ ~
PONDERING THE MYSTERIES of Maya, I strode up to the parking lot.
; There was a certain solace in being able to focus on a designated task. The trip into town would be a welcome distraction from our missing sous-chef.
As I pulled my keys from my pocket, I did a quick double take. I could have sworn I’d parked the jeep in a different location in the lot.
Then I reconsidered. There were a lot of things I didn’t remember about the previous evening. We were always shuffling vehicles around to make room for the restaurant’s traffic. I kept a spare set of keys in the kitchen for just that purpose. I must have moved the jeep to accommodate a safari truck and forgotten about it.
The anomalies continued as I drove down the hill. At the bottom, near the turn onto the main road, I spied a depression in the lower row of bushes. Someone must have veered off track on the descent.
With a frown, I recalled the sound of Romeo’s wild departure earlier that morning. Likely, he was the one who’d lost control and clipped the hedge.
I continued toward town, but a few curves later, I spotted a much larger indentation in the shrubbery alongside the pavement. Slowing to a stop, I stared at the mangled branches, trying to estimate the size of the object that had done the damage.
A vehicle must have run off the road.
The vegetation would grow back quickly. Within a day or two, new growth would make the ingress almost impossible to discern.
Pulling over to the curb, I stepped out of the jeep. I waded a few feet into the overgrowth, which was as far as I could venture without being scratched. Through the greenery, I spied the frame of a rusted red jeep.
It was Romeo’s ride – or rather, the one he had stolen from the chump he met before me. It was in far worse condition than the last time I’d seen it. The wreck had finished off the vehicle.
The driver’s seat was empty.
Romeo was nowhere to be seen.
~ ~ ~
IT WASN’T UNTIL I climbed back up to the pavement that I noticed the dent in my own jeep’s front bumper.
A few dings had been added since we bought the vehicle over a year ago, most of them incurred during Oliver’s futile driving lessons. This was a new wound. The fast moving rust had yet to infect it.
Given the size and location, the dent looked to have been left by someone who was unskilled at driving on the left hand side of the road.
My head began to ache anew. This time the pain was unrelated to the previous night’s consumptions.
The unthinkable thought that I’d been suppressing pushed its way forward.
Oliver.
What if the sound I’d heard that morning had been not one but two jeeps careening down the drive? What if Oliver had run Romeo off the road?
I rubbed my fist against my forehead.
Was Oliver capable of such a thing? Had his temper finally flared and broken free of his tightly wound persona? Was he susceptible to a jealous rage?
I couldn’t definitively say no – not if he’d thought I’d been involved with Romeo the night before.
And so my disturbing questions persisted.
What if Oliver had found out about Jesús?
It was all unraveling.
My life had started to fall apart.
Chapter 28
Seek and Ye Shall Find
I MANAGED TO obtain most of the items on Maya’s list or, at least, I think I did. My thoughts were so scattered, I couldn’t say for sure what I actually procured from the shops in town.
On the return trip, I passed the portion of the road where Romeo’s jeep had run off into the bushes. I kept my gaze fixed forward, determined not to revisit the images – and implications – from my earlier foray into the woods.
But when I reached the driveway entrance, there was no way to avert my eyes from the aftermath of the crime. I sat there with my foot on the brake, the jeep’s turn signal blinking in mind-numbing monotony, as I stared at the crumpled hedge.
And then, with great hesitation, I shifted my vision toward the hill.
It was as if I was looking up at a different property, an utterly horrifying one to which I had no choice but to return.
~ ~ ~
MOMENTS LATER, I parked in the lot at the top of the drive. Glancing through the reception building’s front window, I could see Oliver manning his regular afternoon post on a chair behind the counter.
His head was bent toward the computer screen, so he hadn’t noticed my arrival. Likely, he was reviewing our online interface for upcoming reservations and guest feedback.
Leaving Maya’s produce and dry goods in the jeep, I slid from the driver’s seat and quietly shut the metal door. A quick trot took me around the back of the reception building, where I could access the stairs built into the retaining wall. Sprinting up the steps, I reached the landing outside our apartment entrance.
As my hand wrapped around the door handle, I braced myself for what I might find inside – unsure of what I would do if I discovered evidence to confirm my suspicions.
~ ~ ~
TWO SLEEPY POODLES glanced up from their cushioned dog beds, only marginally interested in my presence. They preferred to sleep through the island’s afternoon heat. Sprawled beneath the ceiling fan, they occupied the coolest spot in the apartment and were unwilling – absent the enticement of treats – to move an inch from their coveted location.
Oliver hadn’t mentioned which dog had accidentally scratched his face, but neither one looked to be fraught with pent up energy.
With a troubled sigh, I began my search.
At first glance, I saw nothing out of order. My partner was scrupulously neat. The maid service that cleaned the guest rooms stopped at our apartment each day to change the bed sheets and empty the trash bins, but the light dusting they performed on the other units was rarely needed here. Even with the poodles occupying the space, there were few occasions when the rugs needed to be vacuumed or the counters wiped down.
I left the dogs to their lounging and crossed to the master suite. Unlike the apartment’s open living area, it was a cramped, claustrophobic space. The spare bedroom was even worse.
I had abandoned most of my extraneous possessions to a yard sale and a storage unit up in the States, but Oliver had been unable to part with many of his belongings. He was just too sentimentally attached.
The shipping had cost a fortune. Once the stuff arrived, there had been no place to put it.
I turned a tight pivot in the two feet of open space next to the bed and shook my head. Several decorative storage units had been crammed into the room. Bookcases and bureaus lined the walls.
Oliver had spent hours trying to organize the layout so that the room would look less cluttered, but not even his designer skills could achieve that impossible feat.
As I scanned the packed space, I noticed a single spot of sloppiness in the otherwise tidy arrangement.
One of the drawers in the jewelry box sitting on the main dresser had been left slightly ajar.
Frowning, I stepped around the foot of the bed.
It was the only drawer in the unit set aside for my valuables. It held my nice watch (a gold piece inscribed with my name that Oli had given me), a tie clip, a handful of cufflinks, and my college football ring.
Afraid that something had been stolen, I popped open the drawer and peered inside.
Nothing was missing.
But what had been added to the drawer nearly caused my heart to stop beating.
Tucked inside the small cache was a flashy gold chain, the kind sold at the shops down by the pier where the cruise ships docked.
Resting next to the chain lay a red hoop earring – its round metal loop being of far sturdier construction than the string bikini with which it had last been paired.
Chapter 29
On the Case
MILLICENT’S FIXATION WITH both the missing sous-chef and Glenn’s possible involvement in the man’s disappearance continued into dinner.
The Golden Girls entered the pavilion and were ushered to their reserved table, the coveted spot on the d
eck’s northwest corner.
“The best sunset view,” Oliver promised. He’d lowered his voice to a whisper so that the other guests wouldn’t feel slighted.
The comment was met by appreciative sighs – from three of the women.
As far as Millicent was concerned, this was the least optimal table in the joint. She was far more interested in the goings on inside the restaurant’s kitchen than the natural light display about to begin out over the sea.
She lifted her cowboy hat from her head and hooked its chinstrap onto her chair’s back facing. Smoothing her ruffled gray hair, she glanced across the deck toward the bar. She would give anything for a chance to sneak past those swinging doors and into the cooking area.
The other women had gussied up for the occasion, putting on dresses and flowery blouses. Maude had adorned herself with a necklace of coral pink stones and matching hair combs.
Millicent couldn’t be bothered with such nonsense. Instead, she had devoted her efforts to devising a series of back-stories. She had concocted multiple narratives to explain the sous-chef’s sudden disappearance, each variation concluding with “and then he was murdered.”
Her friends had soon tired of this game.
Mary had imposed a moratorium on any more grisly tales until she had finished eating, preferably for the rest of the evening. Kate had seconded the initiative. Maude had nodded her support, although when her appetizer plate arrived and she dug into the conch fritters, she felt certain that no description of blood and gore could distract her from the deliciousness of her meal.
Millicent ate her grilled shrimp salad in silence, carefully separating each component with her fork even as she kept a sharp eye on the various characters milling about the restaurant.
The rest of the tables were filled with an assortment of tourists, people who had been driven up to the inn from neighboring hotels. The crowd seemed generally happy with their meals, but there was a sense that the kitchen was having difficulty keeping up with the orders. Oliver’s repeated apologies for the time lag as he scampered about the dining area didn’t help matters.
Our Island Inn (Quirky Tales from the Caribbean) Page 8