Afoot on St. Croix (Mystery in the Islands)

by Hale, Rebecca M.

  ~ 48 ~

  Santa Cruz

  AS MIRA STOOD in the villa’s master bedroom, confidently assessing her middle-aged looks, her future prospects, and the regret-free end of her second marriage, she let her thoughts drift momentarily to concern.

  Despite her self-averred powers of persuasion over the male gender, things hadn’t always worked out the way she’d planned.

  She had miscalculated once before.

  •

  MIRA WAS STILL a young girl when she learned how to turn male brains to mush. With her sweet smile and bewitching green eyes, no toy or doll was beyond her reach. There was no treat or special privilege she couldn’t finagle. Even the most sensible, discerning men fell under her spell.

  As she grew older, she refined her skills, perfecting her techniques. Simple gestures, she discovered, could have a profound impact. A casual flirtation could yield hefty indulgences.

  With her maturing expertise, the bounty from her bevy of male suitors began to pile up: fine clothing, fancy dinners, expensive salon treatments, and—her most prized category of present—high-end shoes.

  By the time she met Charlie, Mira had thoroughly mastered the art of male manipulation. Having sampled a merry-go-round of boyfriends, she was on the hunt for a permanent mate. She picked him out of the (albeit limited) crowd of northern Minnesota’s available bachelors and set her sights on reeling him in.

  In the successful building contractor, Mira had found the perfect husband: a malleable man, pliant from head to toe, with plenty of resources to meet her fashion and accessory needs.

  At the outset, it seemed like a good match. Mira had Charlie pinned firmly under her thumb. He occasionally squirmed from the pressure, but he never really complained. For five years, he catered to her every whim, no matter how frivolous or expensive.

  Mira thought she had Charlie safely secured—until the day she ran up against a force more magnetically mesmerizing than herself.

  Santa Cruz.

  •

  FROM THE GET-GO, Mira and Charlie’s trip to St. Croix was an unsettling anomaly in their Mira-centric relationship. Charlie wasn’t one for spontaneity, and he rarely made substantive decisions without first consulting his wife.

  This behavior hadn’t come about by accident; it was the intentional result of years of Mira’s careful guidance and training.

  So the day Charlie came home from work and announced he’d booked a Caribbean vacation, her surprise was one of far more shock than pleasure.

  What had come over him? What could have inspired such an abrupt purchase?

  Mira tried to dismiss her unease as she packed her bags and ushered the children onto the plane. But the moment the family landed on the island, her intuition started ringing out alarm bells.

  Her control had begun to loosen. Her plodding puppet was starting to cut his strings.

  •

  THROUGHOUT THAT WEEK of family vacation, Mira’s anxiety only grew.

  It was as if the tropical climate had planted some rogue independent spirit inside her previously compliant husband. He was missing—or ignoring—all of the obedience cues that had once been so effective.

  Just after breakfast on the first full day of their stay, Mira paused by the concierge desk at a counter that displayed pamphlets detailing the resort’s onsite spa offerings. Contemplating a luxurious day of pampered massage while Charlie watched the kids, she gazed longingly at the display, draping her elegant arm across the counter as she sighed loudly to draw her husband’s attention.

  But Charlie merely walked past with their daughter riding piggyback on his shoulders, their young son toddling on the ground, gripping his father’s hand.

  Ten feet later, Charlie turned and nodded for his wife to follow.

  “Come on, Mira,” he called out enthusiastically. “We’ll be late for the Buck Island snorkel sail.”

  •

  CHARLIE’S SPUNKY STREAK was more than a one-day burst of initiative. Throughout that week on St. Croix, he continued to organize all sorts of island-themed adventures for the family. Almost every day, they were busy with one activity or another—and Mira’s extensive bag of tricks failed to have any influence on the decision-making process.

  “Hey, hon,” he announced one morning while Mira was lying in bed, dreaming of a quiet day at the pool. “I’ve booked us on a rain-forest tour. Get this, they’ll take us in jeeps over to the other side of the island, and then in the forest, we’ll stop at a farm with beer-drinking pigs.”

  “You did what?” she exclaimed, immediately pulling herself into a sitting position.

  Charlie grinned, misconstruing her mortified stare. “I know. Where else are we going to see a bunch of pigs drinking beer?” He grabbed her hand and pulled her up from the bed.

  “They drink it right out of the can!”

  •

  THE MOST STUNNING turn was yet to come.

  They were headed for the airport, the long week—to Mira’s view—finally over, when Charlie voiced the fateful proposal.

  “Mira, hon, what do you say—why don’t we move to St. Croix?”

  Her throat clenched as her jaw fell open. She gripped the handle to her suitcase, wordlessly apoplectic in her refusal.

  No. Absolutely not. Had he gone completely mad? The protesting thoughts flooded her head.

  Then Mira saw the look on his face, and she swallowed her objection.

  She had never met a muse more dazzling or beautiful than herself, but she recognized the symptoms.

  She had been bested.

  By an island.

  ~ 49 ~

  The Lean-To

  THE MOVE TO St. Croix powered forward under its own steam, sweeping Mira along with it. She had no time to regroup, no workable strategy to defeat it.

  Charlie put the Minnesota house on the market as soon as they returned home from the vacation. Mira tried to sabotage the first showing, leaving the children’s toys and other random articles scattered about the place—to no avail. The property fell almost immediately under contract, as if even the real estate gods were conspiring against her.

  With the closing date rapidly approaching, the family began a mad dash to prepare for their permanent transfer to the Caribbean. They could only afford to ship a fraction of their furniture, so Charlie sold the heaviest pieces through adds in the local paper. Mira watched, tears silently streaming down her face, as some of her most treasured possessions marched out the door under the care of new owners, never to be seen again.

  The contents of the kitchen cabinets were similarly pared down. Only a small collection of essential dishes and appliances would make the trip. The rest, they auctioned off at a yard sale or donated to charity.

  Each day, more pieces of Mira’s life were broken away, scattered to the wind.

  The voluminous walk-in closets emptied as cardboard boxes swallowed up what remained of her belongings. Everything she knew, the home she had carefully assembled, the material fixtures that had framed her existence, were quickly dismantled.

  At the end of the month, Mira climbed into Charlie’s pickup truck for the bumpy ride from Minnesota to Miami. For more than seventeen hundred miles, the family drove south, their two screaming kids crammed into the cab’s rear seating area. Hot and harried, they finally arrived at the tip end of Florida’s peninsula.

  Holding her daughter’s hand, Mira watched the truck roll onto a shipping vessel for the last leg of its voyage.

  It was too late to turn back now.

  She would have to begin again.

  •

  AS SOON AS they arrived on St. Croix, Charlie rented a car to drive them out to their new island home. Eager to get the transition under way, Charlie had insisted they move forward with the real estate transaction while still in Minnesota, so they had purchased the property based on the realtor’s de
scriptions, sight unseen.

  About fifteen minutes east of Christiansted, Charlie steered the car off the main road and parked it in a gutted gravel driveway next to a rusted mailbox that was only halfway attached to its mounting post.

  Mira sat stiffly in the front passenger seat, hoping against hope that this wasn’t the right address and that he had simply gotten lost. But alas, Charlie bounded out of the driver’s-side door, providing the dreaded confirmation.

  “Can you believe it?” he’d asked jubilantly. “Look at this place. What a steal!”

  Mira could still remember the sight of Charlie in his combat boots, tromping across the cactus-strewn lot, pacing off an area for an in-ground swimming pool.

  Distant waves crashed in the background as her husband climbed up onto the roof of the lean-to and excitedly described all of the building’s wonderful renovation possibilities.

  Mira had looked out across the bleak acreage, numb with shock.

  It had been so much worse than anything she could have ever imagined.

  •

  THE LEAN-TO WAS located on a large plot of land not far from Point Udall, a pillar-stone marker on the easternmost rim of the island and, consequently, the United States. The house’s cracked front porch looked out across a blustery landscape, the most inhospitable place Mira had ever seen.

  While St. Croix’s northwest quadrant featured lush rain forests, here, the arid environment supported only low lying brush, dotted with a variety of cacti and yucca plants. A nonstop wind further blunted the rugged terrain.

  In those early days, Mira had spent hours on that porch, staring at their dry, parched acres and, beyond, the Caribbean Sea, which stretched out, flat and forbidding, for as far as the eye could see.

  She had hated that sea—hated its lapping shorelines, its white-capped waves, and its deep alluring blue. The mere sight of it caused her to seethe with anger.

  But even worse than the water was the island it surrounded.

  Santa Cruz.

  She blamed that rotten spit of land for everything that had been taken from her: her well-ordered life in the States, her perfect two-plus-two family, and her precious walk-in closets.

  Most of all, she hated it for seducing her husband and turning him against her.

  •

  FOR WEEKS AFTER they moved into the lean-to, Charlie came home tired and frayed, his every nerve pinched with stress. He had always been a quiet, serious man, but never had he turned so completely inward.

  It was disconcerting for Mira, becoming so secondary in importance, subject to his struggling business—and worse, this wretched island. She was used to performing against a blank landscape, not being overshadowed by it.

  She had once been in love with Charlie, or at least in love with the thought of him. But with each passing day, her resentment grew, and her feelings toward him became increasingly muddled.

  During the long hours while her husband was at work, Mira started gathering up the kids and slipping into town. The three of them spent hours walking along the Christiansted boardwalk, playing in the buildings outside the old Danish fort—anything to escape the ghastly crumble of the lean-to.

  It was on one of those outings that she encountered Adam Rock, then a junior sales rep for his air-conditioning company.

  Rock had suggested a way for her to gain some financial independence. It had been his idea for her to set up the clothes shopping service for the Muslim community’s women. And it was his connections within the community that had led her to the villa the night she first met Kareem.

  •

  MIRA LIFTED HER suitcase onto the bed and began filling its compartment with clothing. Her face, which had darkened while remembering all this sad life history, regained its optimistic smile. She tamped down the niggling questions at the back of her mind.

  She had made the right decision, she thought with assurance.

  She could trust Adam Rock.

  Ten years ago, he had helped her find a solution to her problems—he was doing the same now.

  ~ 50 ~

  The Breakfast Meeting

  THE GOVERNOR PAUSED in the middle of the boardwalk, waiting for his aide to brief him on their first meeting of the day.

  “So, Ced. Who’s our lucky breakfast date?”

  Cedric riffled through a clipboard stacked high with handwritten notes and computer printouts relating to the day’s itinerary, his demeanor unusually flustered. His brown skin took on an anxious pallor as he looked up at his boss.

  “Ahem, sir,” he replied with a gulp. “You’re meeting with a high-level executive from an air-conditioning company. He’s one of their top salesmen.” He glanced down at his notes for clarification. “In the Caribbean region.”

  “Cedric,” the Governor asked, exasperated. “Why in the name of all that is good and holy am I meeting with an air-conditioner salesman?”

  The aide blanched further. “His name is Adam Rock, sir.” He tilted his head suggestively, as if insinuating a hidden meaning.

  The Governor’s brow furrowed.

  “Adam Rock?” He shrugged his broad shoulders. “Never heard of him.”

  “It’s about that . . . that other matter, sir,” Cedric replied uncomfortably.

  The Governor immediately snapped out of his complacent stance.

  “I thought we had that resolved,” he said sharply, leaning toward the aide to shield his voice.

  One glance at Cedric’s worried face told him differently. Clearly, the matter had become un-resolved.

  “Oh.”

  The Governor paused, wondering which of his scheming cabinet members had outmaneuvered him—and which one he would pass the blame to if the underlying imbroglio came to light.

  “How unfortunate.”

  • • •

  THE CRAB LIVING in the boulders at the edge of the rainbow-decorated diner looked up as the hostess led a group of five men, four of them imposing plus one smaller by comparison, toward the back of the seating area.

  The Governor’s bodyguards peeled off for the counter by the bar, where they could both eat and monitor the perimeter, while the three remaining men greeted each other, formally shook hands, and then moved toward the crab’s table.

  From the safety of his boulder, the crab ogled up with interest at the Governor, his assistant, and the air-conditioner salesman.

  The waitress took the men’s orders and returned minutes later with orange juice and coffee. An uneasy chitchat floated back and forth across the table as the men sipped their drinks. In the crab’s assessment, the purpose of the conversation was more for the men to size up one another as opponents than to convey any substantive meaning.

  Before long, plates arrived, piled high with food, and the trio began to eat.

  Generous expense accounts and nonstop business meals had given the Governor and the salesman sizeable girths. The pair dug into their food, edgily eying one another like a pair of torpedo-shaped fish angling for the next piece of raw meat. The nervous pecking of the aide explained his trim physique.

  Midway through the meal, the salesman paused, wiped his mouth with a napkin, and took a long slurp of coffee. Then he put forth his proposed quid pro quo, tossing it across the table as if it were a lure on a line, tethered to a barbed hook. The Governor glanced over at his aide, seeking the smaller man’s counsel, before grudgingly agreeing to the salesman’s pitch.

  The breakfast ended shortly thereafter. As the party disbanded, the crab crept cautiously out from behind his boulder.

  He couldn’t help thinking that the two large men who had been sitting at his table were far more fearful predators than the tarpon lurking in the nearby lagoon.

  ~ 51 ~

  A Change in Plans

  IN ROOM SEVENTEEN of the Comanche Hotel, Charlie Baker laced up his boots, gathered his backpack, and prepa
red to leave. Still pondering the note that had been hidden beneath his cap, he tossed the green dress and shoes into a trash bin and started down the maze of stairs to the hotel’s first floor.

  The woman at the front desk raised a skeptical eyebrow as he approached her station.

  “Ready to check out?” she asked stiffly.

  He shook his head, still marveling at Mira’s cheek, once more leaving him with the bill after dumping him unconscious at the fort.

  “No, I’m going to need to stay another night,” he replied. Then he paused, reflecting on the handwritten note. “Is it possible for me to keep the same room?”

  •

  A FEW MINUTES later, Charlie tromped down the boardwalk toward the seaplane hangar, giving the warped boards an extra thump with each stride. It was a relief to have his feet back inside his heavy-duty combat boots. His arches still hurt from being crammed into the high-heeled shoes while he was unconscious.

  Outside the rainbow-decorated diner, he passed a pair of heavily armed men surrounding a suited gentleman he recognized as the territory’s governor. He gave the armed men an extra four feet of cushion space as he circled around them; then he continued down the boardwalk and turned in to the seaplane hangar.

  Beyond the security gate, he could see the plane floating at its dock. Passengers were already dumping their luggage into the bins for undercarriage storage and climbing up the gangplank into the plane’s narrow cabin.

  “You’re just in time,” the attendant monitoring the gate said as Charlie approached the service counter. “I didn’t think you were going to make it.”

  Charlie shifted his backpack to his left shoulder and leaned over the counter. He recognized the attendant as the man he had seen pushing the luggage cart on his arrival the previous afternoon.

  “I’ve got to reschedule. Can you book me on a flight out tomorrow?”

  The attendant looked down at his computer screen. After scrolling through a few pages and punching several buttons, he replied, “Yes, it looks like I can seat you on the flight leaving at the same time in the morning.” He cleared his throat. “For a small fee.”