by Junie Coffey
“Miss Spark. What a pleasant surprise!” Michel, the owner of the inn, approached Nina from the direction of the reception desk, where he had been in conversation with an employee. As usual, he was casually but elegantly dressed. Today he was wearing a dark-blue linen shirt, white linen trousers, and the type of leather sandals that only European men could really wear with flare. His silver hair was closely cropped, and his face was tanned. He smiled knowingly.
“Ah, mademoiselle. I hear you have been very adventurous! I nipped down to Martinique for a decent cup of coffee, and while I am away two or three days, you and young Mr. Jensen managed to rid our island of some nasty pests. I must remember to stay on your good side. How are you?” He took her hand, kissed it, and released it, making it seem the most natural gesture in the world. He was referring to the Tiffany Bassett affair, in which Nina and her friends Danish and Pansy had recovered a valuable emerald that had gone missing, among other things. Their interference hadn’t been appreciated by everyone, particularly not Blue Roker.
Nina smiled uncomfortably and jumped straight into Philip’s conundrum. “Hi, Michel. I’m fine, thank you. Well, actually, I have a problem. I’m looking for a place to hold a weeklong conference beginning two weeks from today. Meeting rooms, accommodations for fifty delegates, and a banquet . . .”
Michel stared at her for a couple of seconds. She didn’t know him well enough to know if he was going to laugh in her face or get angry at such an absurd request, and she braced herself for either response.
“This is unbelievable. You will not believe it. Josie has just now informed me that the romantic wedding on the beach that we had booked for the week in question has been canceled. It seems the bride and groom are no longer simpatico. So unfortunate. Alas, they must forfeit their deposit for arrangements already made that cannot be undone at this late date. The rooms that were to be the setting for a celebration will now be empty, and the ten cases of Châteauneuf-du-Pape in my wine cellar are in danger of going undrunk. The family had reserved the whole inn for this grand affair. It seems that you might once again cure a headache for me, Miss Spark!”
He flashed his widest charming-host smile.
“We can accommodate as many of your delegates as will fit in our thirty rooms. And Madame Gallagher can no doubt help you secure additional accommodation in the private rental villas adjacent to the inn. At this time of year, there are usually one or two vacancies. And should you or any of your guests feel moved to matrimony, we have already made arrangements with the local justice of the peace.” He chuckled at his joke. “Josie will be delighted to work out the details with you.”
He looked toward the reception desk and raised two fingers. Josie immediately stopped typing at the computer and walked briskly toward them. Michel turned to Nina again.
“It is a little early in the day for champagne, but won’t you please join me for cocktails in the bar some evening very soon? I should like to raise a glass in your honor.”
“That would be very nice, thank you,” said Nina.
“Magnifique. I shall look forward to hearing all about your escapades,” said Michel. “Maintenant, if you will please excuse me, I must get back to my duties.”
He smiled, bowed slightly, and turned away from Nina to greet a well-dressed couple who had been waiting patiently nearby to speak to him.
Nina could not believe her good fortune—or rather, Philip’s good fortune. The inn was an ideal setting for any event. Over the next hour, she worked out the major details with Josie, including deciding to serve the planned wedding-supper menu at the opening banquet. Nina reasoned that whatever dishes she could come up with were bound to be inferior to the menu the would-be bride had labored over for six months. So, a choice of lobster or jerk chicken it was, with the coconut wedding cake to be transformed into dainty cupcakes.
She made a mental note to talk to her friend Pansy, the local real estate agent, about villa rentals, feeling slightly uneasy at how smoothly everything was coming together. Surely, she wasn’t going to get off that easy. When did that ever happen in real life? But this is Pineapple Cay, she reminded herself. The rules that governed her former life in New York no longer applied.
She set off down the driveway toward the police station in the village to deal with the Les issue. Time to nip that situation in the bud.
The police station was a sky-blue stucco building on the waterfront in the very center of the village. It stood next to the colonial-era pink stucco government building. A narrow lane between them ended at the police dock and the municipal wharf, where the mail boat called every Friday, and the local fishermen came and went, cleaning their catch and gathering to shoot the breeze on lazy afternoons.
In front of the pink-and-blue official buildings was a small grassy park with a bandstand, and on the opposite side of this village green was the main commercial district of Coconut Cove. It consisted of a couple of blocks of tidy, gaily painted storefronts catering to locals, tourists, and a steady flow of yacht cruisers sailing through the cays.
Nina entered the police station through the open arched entryway. She shivered at the immediate change in temperature, from the intense heat of the midday sun to the cool, cement-walled interior of the building. From the street, the police station was a grand colonial edifice. Inside, however, the decor was modern institutional, with baby-blue cement block walls in need of a fresh coat of paint, and a row of plastic stacking chairs set against a wall facing a laminate-topped counter.
Nina approached the counter. The open office area on the other side was empty of any sign of life other than a large buzzing insect lazily whacking itself against the windowpane over and over again, trying to escape. It was lunchtime, and all three of the metal desks visible were vacant. She heard a filing cabinet slam shut in the enclosed office at the back, and a couple of seconds later, Deputy Superintendent Blue Roker emerged from his office gripping a folder in one hand. He saw her and strode toward the counter with the smooth, relaxed lope that homegrown Pineapple Cayers seemed to have perfected by the time they were three or four years old.
“Good afternoon, Nina. How is it? What can I do for you?” he asked.
“Hello, Blue. Deputy Superintendent Roker. Yes. I would like to register a complaint about noise pollution and public nudity, please. Maybe those are two separate complaints.”
Blue looked at her for a moment without speaking, his mouth a straight line. Then he opened the heavy metal door in the wall beside the counter and gestured for her to come inside. She followed him to his private office at the back of the building. Although she’d only been a resident of Pineapple Cay for about a month, she’d already been in this office twice—twice more than she’d ever been in a police station up to that point in her life.
It looked pretty much the same as the last time. A big window overlooked the police dock, with a view of the harbor and the low, shimmering white-sand hump of Star Cay on the horizon about a mile offshore. The top of the sagging bookcase under the window was covered with stacks of files and reports, their pages curling and faded from the sun and humidity. Blue’s desk was bare except for a computer, an overflowing in-and-out tray, and a framed photograph facing the desk chair. That was new, noted Nina. On the wall behind Blue’s desk were his diplomas from the University of the West Indies and the police academy, plus a nautical map of Pineapple Cay showing the string of small cays trailing off its southern tip that composed Diamond Cays National Park.
Blue gestured for her to take a seat in the chair in front of his desk and dropped into another chair on the opposite side. He sat back, his hands gripping the armrests.
“All right. What happened?” he asked.
Nina squirmed a little in her seat and took a deep breath.
“You must know my neighbor Les. The professional gambler.” She watched him closely and waited for him to react, to show some interest in this possible vector for the spread of vice on Pineapple Cay that lived next door to her. Blue sat stone-faced and
silent, with his startling blue eyes fixed on her, waiting for her to continue.
“Well, he’s playing his music too loud and frolicking in the nude on the beach in front of his house—which is more or less in front of my house—and on his deck, where I can still see him, roaming all around, cooking steaks on his barbecue, climbing in and out of his hot tub, dancing. I want him to stop. I’ve asked him politely, but he is . . . noncompliant.”
“You’d have to turn your head about seventy degrees to the left to see him on his deck from your veranda, wouldn’t you?” asked Blue with a hint of skepticism in his blue eyes.
It threw Nina off for a second, but she forged ahead.
“Does it matter?” she asked. “What if some impressionable young girls walked by on the beach when he was out there doing alfresco yoga? They’d be scarred for life. And his stereo. It’s like a tinny little bee buzzing in my ear all the time. And let’s just say his taste in music leaves a lot to be desired.”
Blue took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Nina, I’m sure it’s irritating. I understand. I also like peace and quiet. And solitude. But unfortunately, from what you’ve described, no law has been broken. The village council set the noise threshold at one hundred ten decibels. That’s as loud as a Jet Ski or a table saw, because those boys like their toys.”
“Can’t you get an officer to go talk to him? If you could just stare at him for a few seconds, it might do the trick.”
“Nina, if I went personally to investigate every single complaint about a bothersome neighbor in this village, I wouldn’t have time for anything else. This island is full of little old ladies who think it’s their duty to keep their fellow residents on the straight and narrow. Example: ‘I saw so-and-so’s boy litter a candy wrapper on Water Street just now. What’re you going to do about it?’ or ‘My neighbor has painted his house a bilious shade of green that offends my eyes and clashes with my much more tastefully painted house. That must be against the law.’” He stood and walked around his desk, putting his hands in his pockets, then sat on the edge of the desk in front of her.
“In fact, one of our most dedicated members of the unofficial neighborhood watch was in here a couple of weeks ago, complaining about the dead plants in your window boxes, citing the unsightly premises bylaw. Should I have gone to see you about it?”
Nina huffed and stood, drawing herself up to her full height in front of him. “I’ve tried everything with those plants. Water, compost, flower food. And still they die. Also, I’m sorry, but did you call me an old lady? Just for future reference, I’m thirty-six years old. You’ve got at least five years on me, Blue. And I’m not a busybody with my nose in everyone else’s business.”
Blue raised his eyebrows slightly, reminding Nina that he, unlike Michel, did not find her amateur sleuthing all that amusing.
“I’m not,” said Nina. “That was a one-off. I’m not a killjoy. I like music. I enjoy the odd skinny-dip under the cover of darkness.”
Blue raised his eyebrows again.
“But Les’s taste in music is appalling, and his naturalist lifestyle is infringing on my rights as a member of the clothes-wearing community.” She paused, then put her hands on her hips. “Which one of those print dress–wearing gossips ratted me out, may I ask?” she asked.
Blue sighed. “All right, look. I’ll send an officer over to ask Les to keep the volume down. I can’t do much more than that.” He stood and walked to the door, holding it open for her. “Try spraying your hibiscus with a solution of iron chelate. The soil might be lacking in iron.”
Nina had forgotten that Blue was a flower gardener. It was his chosen form of stress relief, according to Danish. Blue was waiting for Nina to pass through the door in front of him. She could feel his eyes on her back as they crossed the outer office to the front counter. The room was still empty. He unlocked the metal door to the waiting room and held it open for her. She turned to face him again.
“OK. Thanks, Blue. I appreciate it.”
“Pleasure. Have a good day.” He forced a half smile and strolled leisurely back to his office, disappearing inside. Nina wondered what he did in there when he wasn’t out cruising around in the police boat looking for smugglers and poachers in the cays. And whose photograph had recently appeared on the corner of his desk? Maybe she was becoming a busybody. She slipped on her sunglasses and stepped out into the brilliant sunshine.
Across the sunburned grass of the village square, the shops along Water Street, Coconut Cove’s main drag, were now bustling with customers. The weekly mail boat had just arrived and tied up at the municipal wharf. A steady stream of beat-up pickup trucks and men straining under wheelbarrow-loads full of goods passed up and down the lane. Residents from around the island were arriving in town for their weekly shopping expeditions. The sidewalk tables under the awning in front of the bakery were fully occupied with tourists—maybe yachties in for some R & R and to resupply, or people renting the vacation villas scattered along the island’s beaches.
Nina glanced down at her watch. It was past noon. Time to meet Pansy at The Redoubt and then head down-island to their friend Veronica’s farm for lunch. Veronica also owned The Redoubt, and since Nina’s arrival on Pineapple Cay, the three had regularly lunched together.
Nina crossed the park to Water Street and headed down the sidewalk to The Redoubt. Pansy’s shiny turquoise golf cart with its Pineapple Cay Real Estate logo on the door was parked out front, under the shade of a mango tree. Nina smiled and pushed open the restaurant’s heavy wooden door. Pansy was a cold-weather refugee from Winnipeg, and one of the sweetest, kindest people Nina had ever met. She and her husband, Andrew, lived in Coconut Cove with their two children, both still in elementary school. Veronica was a local Pineapple Cayer and one of the island’s leading entrepreneurs, proprietor of the hot spot on the waterfront and of Smooth Harbour Farm, an operation that supplied not only her own restaurant with fresh produce but the Plantation Inn as well. She was easygoing and straight-talking, and she laughed a lot. She had twenty years on Nina and Pansy, but she was fitter than either of them. Veronica ran six miles at dawn, five days a week, and had the muscles to prove it.
The Redoubt was busy with the regular lunch crowd of holidaymakers and locals. Reggae seeped from the sound system, its beat steady under the buzz of conversation. The wood-paneled walls were festooned with fishing nets and buoys and old black-and-white photographs of Pineapple Cay from the days when tall-masted wooden schooners filled the harbor. Glass doors opened onto the deck, which extended out over the water on heavy wooden pilings. The picnic tables on the deck were filled with laughing, sunburned vacationers and locals Nina recognized from around town. Veronica had a good thing going here, night and day.
“Hi, Nina!” Pansy waved at her from a stool at the bar. A little shorter and rounder than Nina, Pansy had long red hair with bangs and a smile that lit up the room. She loved shiny things, and today she was wearing silver sandals bejeweled with blue cut-glass stones. Nina slipped into the seat beside her.
“Hi, Pansy. All set?” asked Nina.
“Yes. Maybe I’ll just run to the loo first,” she said, jumping down from her stool.
“Nina. Just the person I wanted to see.” It was Danish, popping up from behind the bar with a white dish towel over his shoulder. He ran a hand through his thick dark hair, causing it to stick straight up in stiff hanks, one longish piece flopping down over his left eye. He leaned forward on the bar. His arms were deeply tanned, and both wrists were wrapped in faded cotton friendship bracelets and leather laces strung with silver beads.
“I’ve got a win-win, limited-time-offer business proposition for you,” he said to Nina. “I’ll stop by later to give you the details.”
“What kind of business proposition?” Nina asked warily. Danish was a hardworking guy, but based on past experience, she wasn’t sure how far he bought into reality.
Danish glanced around.
“I can’t talk about it now. Just
keep an open mind,” he said.
“I don’t think I’m interested, Danish. I’m not exactly a big-time investor, you know,” said Nina. “Right now, I’m just looking for a bit of peace and quiet.” Danish dropped down onto his elbows and looked deeply into her eyes, giving her a serious look. She figured he must have practiced in front of the mirror at home.
“Nina, everybody dies. Not everybody lives. I’m offering you a chance to live a little. I’m not looking for a cash buy-in. I have another role in mind for you.”
“That sounds ominous. We’ll see. Probably not, but I am curious to know what you would consider a sound business venture.”
Pansy was back, so Nina waved goodbye to Danish, and the two of them went outside to the golf cart. They motored out of the village heading south, past clapboard cottages behind white picket fences, past the lemon-yellow primary school and the pristine whitewashed church next door, its steeple piercing the cloudless cobalt-blue sky. Nina craned her neck for glimpses of turquoise water between the buildings and palm trees on their right. Having grown up in a cold climate, it still gave her a thrill to see it. As they left the village behind, they entered a stretch of the road where the crowns of tall mango, banyan, and coconut palm trees arched over the road, creating a green, sun-dappled tunnel. There was no other traffic.
After a while, Nina turned to Pansy. “Pansy, what do you know about Les, the professional gambler who lives next door to me?”
Pansy grinned and glanced over at Nina, her eyes twinkling. “Oh, is old Les back on the island? He’s pretty harmless, I think. Not a gangster or anything. Just a full-time playboy. More of a trustafarian than a Rastafarian or a wage-earning professional gambler, I’d say. As I recall, his mother is a rather well-off pillar of the community somewhere in Connecticut, and he gets a regular allowance. In a small town, you hear these intimate details about people you hardly know. I don’t even recall where I heard that.”