Death In Paradise

by Carolyn G. Hart

  I carried that image with me to breakfast. I drank coffee. I wasn’t hungry. The fear curdled in my stomach, cold and hard and indigestible. I glanced around the beautiful, empty room. The buffet was in place. But the bright fruits, the silver serving pans with their quiet elegance and hospitality did nothing to lift the feeling of menace. I was frightened. I supposed I would move in fear every moment I spent at Ahiahi. No one else arrived. Last night Stan Dugan said everyone had scattered to their burrows. Apparently, they intended to stay there.

  I set out in search of company. The tennis courts were empty. I didn’t take the path to CeeCee’s grave. I planned to avoid canyon trails. No one splashed in the pool. But I saw a graceful hand trailing over a chaise longue. Not a vestige of sun reached the pale white limbs beneath the huge orange-and-purple-striped beach umbrella. The ever-present breeze ruffled the canvas, stirred Megan’s long blond hair as it would be rustling the leaves of the ohia tree by CeeCee’s grave.

  Such a thin body. The scarlet bikini—two strips of flame-colored cloth—revealed Megan’s malnutrition. Without the latest Paris creations to clothe her gauntness, she looked ill, as indeed she was, her body deprived of sustenance, all in the pursuit of chic. The too-thin face turned toward me, oversized sunglasses hiding her eyes.

  “Good morning, Megan. Have you been in the pool yet?” I dropped into a cane chair beside her.

  A faint—very faint—smile. “Chlorine’s verboten. Can’t hit the runway with green hair.”

  I scooted my chair into the circle of shade. “No sacrifice too great?” I said it lightly.

  A languid hand—the scarlet nails glossy and perfect—lifted the sunglasses. Huge cobalt blue eyes looked at me without pretense. I saw a flicker of anger overlain by pride and defiance and sorrow.

  “What price freedom, Henrie O?” She studied me, as if I were a column of sums to be added. “I suspect you’ve counted some costs. Haven’t you?”

  Honesty compels honesty. Sometimes. “Yes.” Oh, yes, I’d counted costs. More than I would admit, more than I wanted to recall, more than I was willing to tot up until the final accounting came.

  She slid the sunglasses down, pushed back a silver-blond curl with no taint of green. “I will not be dependent on Belle.” Her unaccented voice was as clear and unequivocal as the crack of a rifle shot.

  “Why you?” A jacaranda blossom drifted past me, touched my arm with feathery lightness. “Of all the children, why you?”

  Megan smiled at that, a cool, amused smile. “I’d like to say it’s because I have more character. It may just be that I’m luckier. What if I didn’t make pots of money? Would I be so damned independent then? Or would I be like Gretchen?”

  The breeze freshened and a flurry of blossoms swirled around us. Megan reached out and caught one, cradled it in her hand.

  “Gretchen strikes me as pretty independent.” Certainly she’d minced no words on our picnic yesterday.

  Megan’s lips curved into a sly smile. “Does she? Well, I can tell you that Gretchen’s dancing to Belle’s tune these days. She doesn’t have any choice. Why, she may even have to slink out here to live if she can’t get another job.” She tossed the lavender bloom away.

  “I thought she worked for a wire service. In D.C.”

  “Downsized.” She said it matter-of-factly. “A couple of weeks ago. Belle wants her to stay here.”

  “I doubt if Gretchen’s eager to do that.” This could account for Gretchen’s irritability. “Wouldn’t Belle like Joss to stay, too?”

  Megan nodded. “Oh, yes. Mom’s golden boy. Yes, she’d like that. She’s starting to come out of her shock and grief. And she misses us. But no one wants to move here. Especially not Joss. But he’s no dummy. Hollywood pays like crazy when you’re working. He lives carefully between gigs.”

  “And Gretchen hasn’t been so careful?” Gretchen was the one who skipped shopping in Hanapepe. She preferred glitz over funk. Glitz costs a good deal more.

  “Gretchen can spend money faster than the mint can print it. And even Belle’s largesse has limits. Generous, yes. Indulgent, no.” A dry smile. “And I don’t loan money to relatives. Sink or swim.”

  Megan pulled herself erect, reached for a towel and began to pat her cheeks. I didn’t see even a faint erosion of her makeup, but I suspected her sense of beauty was too well-honed ever to let perspiration go unchecked.

  “So you don’t accept any money. But you come when Belle calls?”

  Megan patted the back of her neck with the towel. “I almost didn’t come this year.” Her face turned toward me. “After last night I’m not sure I’m glad I did. Is Stan crazy?”

  “He seems very rational to me.”

  “Because”—her tone was puzzled—“if you think about it, why should it matter what we all said to CeeCee that last day? What matters…”

  I worked a loose piece of rattan back into the arm of the chair. “Yes? What matters?”

  But she didn’t continue. Her face looked wan and pinched. Megan was nobody’s fool.

  “Henrie O…”

  I wished I could see past the opaque lenses of her sunglasses. I felt that her gaze was intent upon me. But why? What did she need of me? Or want of me? I waited, alert and hopeful. I had a feeling that this moment mattered, that Megan was balancing options.

  “…is it true that you and Belle had never met before?”

  Her question surprised me. And disappointed me. Was I grasping at meaning in every encounter simply because I knew there was so much that was hidden beneath the glamorous surface of Ahiahi?

  Megan’s face was as still as a deep lake on a windless day. The sunglasses hid her eyes, but once again I felt certain she was watching me, trying to read my face, divine my thoughts.

  I picked my words carefully, the way a cat delicately tiptoes through dew-damp grass. “Belle and my husband were great friends.” And more? “But she and I hadn’t met until now.”

  “Then why did Belle ask you to come here? Why now?” Her voice was sharp.

  A dozen answers slid through my mind, like goldfish glimmering in a murky pool. I sorted through them in a flash, hoping this wasn’t—from Megan’s point of view—the wrong answer. “I don’t know,” I said bluntly. “Do you?”

  Megan took off the opaque glasses and looked at me with anxious, somber eyes. “I wondered if it had to do with her accident last year.”

  Belle’s accident last year.

  Belle walking with a cane.

  Belle’s accident!

  And the message that brought me here, ensured my presence here.

  “What happened to Belle? When?” I’ve asked questions in a shout at news conferences, run alongside moving trains and called out, flung words at the backs of striding politicians. I’ve cajoled and pled and demanded. But I don’t think ever in my life I’d asked in a voice that absolutely brooked no evasion, no refusal, no denial.

  Megan shook back that shining hair. Something moved in that mournful gaze, an acceptance, a realization. Megan, the sensitive, who felt emotions, calibrated them, absorbed them. She gave one small, reluctant sigh. “Last year when we were here, the brakes went out in her car. Going down the mountain.”

  Going down the mountain, down that twisting road with no guardrails and a drop to eternity.

  Megan folded her sunglasses, slipped them into her woven carry-on. “You didn’t know about it?” Her voice was thoughtful.

  “No. How in God’s name did Belle survive that drop?”

  “She slid across the seat, opened the passenger door and flung herself out. Her right hip shattered when she landed on the road. She’s had three operations. But to think that quickly…” Amazement and admiration lifted Megan’s voice.

  “The car?”

  “It bounced down the mountain and exploded. All that’s left is a burned-out hulk. You can still see some of the scars it left on the way down. But now ferns have covered it. Like it never happened.” Megan pulled on a cerise cover-up without disturb
ing a single strand of hair. “But it made me wonder about Ahiahi. Your husband fell off the cliff. Belle’s brakes went out. That’s why I came. I wanted to see if anything was going to happen this year.” Her eyes locked with mine. “Then you arrive. I thought Belle asked you to come. I know who you are. You’ve been involved in big stories. Crime. I thought maybe she asked you to come and find out about the brakes.” She looked at me levelly. “Oh, I know the car’s rusted out. There’s nothing to be found there. But I can tell you one thing. Those brakes were all right the day before Belle’s accident. I drove her car down the mountain. The brakes were fine. But the very next day, Belle steps on the brake pedal and nothing’s there.”

  Megan’s face was somber. She clasped her hands tightly together. “The car exploded. We heard it and hurried down the road and found her. We got an ambulance. They rushed her right into surgery. We didn’t get home from the hospital until real late. But the next morning I went out early, before anyone was up. Belle always parked in the same place. There was a spot or two of oil, but no pool of brake fluid. Full of fluid one day, gone the next without a trace? I don’t think so.”

  “You believe someone sabotaged the brakes?”

  “What do you think?” Her tone was sharp.

  The Socratic method. Work it out yourself. Add up the numbers. Tally the column.

  Megan gathered up her bag, slipped into her thongs, stood gracefully.

  I rose and faced her.

  She hesitated, then said, “I don’t know why you’re here. But if you can help us, I hope you will. Before something else happens.”

  I watched her walk away, graceful, lovely, and worried. What else could happen? I knew the answer to that question.

  Belle could die.

  I’d traveled halfway across the world to try and discover what had happened to my husband. I’d come resenting the claim Belle Ericcson had on Richard’s life.

  I’d met Belle, a fascinating, vulnerable, grieving woman. I liked her. I admired her. And why should that surprise me? Richard had cared for her. I knew she’d cared deeply for Richard, the Richard I had loved so long and so unreservedly.

  Now it was clear to me that my task was twofold. I would avenge Richard. And protect Belle. And I felt, despite fear and stress and daunting challenge, a curious sense of peace.

  I’d left the rental car unlocked. I glanced over it. When the motor was running, I eased around and went a few feet, then jammed on the brakes. Call me spooked, if you will. Certainly call me careful.

  I slowed at the first curve. Now that I was looking for it, it was easy to see where Belle’s car had crashed over the side. Last year, when everyone gathered to remember CeeCee.

  The timing mattered, of course. So many things mattered.

  CeeCee’s character. Johnnie Rodriguez’s call to Richard. Richard’s arrival at Ahiahi. Belle’s accident. The challenge bringing me here.

  Megan urged me to figure it out. That’s just what I intended to do. I had some sums in mind as I drove cautiously down the twisting, curving road. But the equation still needed to be proved. Was someone trying to kill Belle? Was I decoyed here to protect her? To serve as a scapegoat? Was I right that someone in the family circle had arranged for CeeCee to be kidnapped?

  I wondered if Lester Mackey would show up at Spouting Horn. No matter. I would find him there or at Ahiahi. I did not intend to be deflected. Not now. Because the strands were coming together.

  Tourists wandered about, sunburned and cheerful, pausing to look over the stalls of the flea market. Coral and shell necklaces, koa and monkeypod bowls, silk leis and ukuleles, something for every taste. I hurried past the booths, up the sloping sidewalk.

  Lester Mackey leaned on the bright green chain-link fence, looking out at the huge spume of water as it exploded forcefully from the lava tube, making an unearthly sound like an asthmatic giant’s wheeze. From a distance he looked boy

  ish, once again in a checkered shirt and faded jeans. But when I came closer I saw the flecks of gray in his faded-blond hair. The bright, midday sun showed the deep lines on his face as clear and distinct as the crevices in the lava shelf that harbored Spouting Horn. He continued to stare out over the slippery, wet black lava, taking no notice as I gripped the fence beside him.

  “You love the children,” I said softly.

  A lacy column of seawater rose, white as Grecian marble. He waited until the moan of the expelled air subsided. “They’re my kids,” he said simply in his light, whispery voice. “I helped raise CeeCee and Anders and Joss. I helped them with their schoolwork. I took them to their lessons—swimming, dancing, horseback riding. I packed up their stuff for camp. And I did my best for Wheeler and his sisters when Belle married Quentin. Wheeler went off to college the next year, but he was still a kid, he still needed somebody to care about him, especially after his dad died.”

  “Wheeler says you’ve always been there for them.”

  He squinted against the bright sun. “I covered for them when they came in drunk. I loaned them money. I cheered when they won.”

  “And encouraged them when they lost.” I understood. I’ve been there.

  He reached back, pulled out his wallet. Pictures of each of the Burkes when they were little: CeeCee playing jacks, Anders cradling a puppy, Joss kicking a soccer ball; and of the Gallaghers as teenagers: Wheeler playing drums, Megan pouring tea, Gretchen climbing a tree.

  He smoothed a finger gently over the picture of CeeCee. “I went to work for Belle when CeeCee was five years old. She had a lisp. She couldn’t say Lester. She called me Wethter. The last time—” He broke off, bent his head forward, squeezed his eyes shut.

  His pain pulsed between us.

  “CeeCee called you Wethter, didn’t she? That Friday. At the lake.” I spoke gently. No matter how many wrong choices this man had made, he’d made them because of love.

  Slowly his eyes opened. He looked at me and I saw emptiness and torment and terrible sorrow.

  “Oh, Jesus God, I thought it was a joke! The next day, when the ransom demand came, I couldn’t believe it! I didn’t know what to do. I went to the cabin. It was empty. No CeeCee. Not a trace of her. I got sick in the woods. But it didn’t help. I was shaking and my insides felt like I’d eaten acid. I ran back to the house, but Belle wouldn’t see anybody. She sent for your husband. I tried once to talk to her, but she sent me away, said not then, later. And what did I have to tell? I was ashamed, I didn’t want to tell her what I’d done. And I didn’t understand what had happened, how anything like this could have happened. I thought it would all come out and Belle would know it wasn’t my fault. When they found CeeCee in the lake, it was too late. And then I was scared. I decided it was some clever crooks. They could have found out about the jokes the kids played from the newspapers.” He looked at me in plaintive appeal. “They could have, couldn’t they?”

  “It was all in the newspapers,” I agreed. And it had been, the pink flamingos and the computer tricks and the scavenger hunts. “You got a letter or a note—”

  “I found the note in my car Friday afternoon. Down at the lake.”

  “Telling you to ‘kidnap’ CeeCee as part of a joke to celebrate her birthday?”

  He’d lived with the memory of that cloudy spring afternoon for a long time. He nodded wearily. “Just a joke. Toy guns. But CeeCee was always a sport. She laughed when Johnnie and I held her up, told her she had to come with us. She let us blindfold her. All part of the joke. The letter had a map in it, to a shabby little rental cabin about a mile away, up a narrow dirt road. We took CeeCee inside—the front door was unlocked and there was a chair with handcuffs fastened to one arm. We were supposed to handcuff her to the chair, but she said no. She promised she’d stay there and then she grinned and pointed to a picnic basket. She said, ‘Must have been planned by Joss. He never misses a meal. And a bottle of Dom Perignon. Okay, Wethter, I’ll play the game. But the picnic better be damn good.’”

  “Why did you involve Johnnie?”
>
  “To make it more fun. We wore handkerchief masks like bad guys in the old cowboy movies. CeeCee got a kick out of that.”

  “Later, did you and Johnnie ever talk about what happened?”

  “Just once. I told him it must have been planned by some crooks who knew all about the kids. We decided we couldn’t go to the police. We didn’t think anybody would believe us. And we hadn’t done anything wrong. We didn’t know anything that would have made a difference to the police.”

  And Belle would have been furious.

  “You had the letter, setting it up,” I said sharply. “That could have helped—”

  He was shaking his head. “The last part told me to put the letter and the toy guns in the rowboat by the boathouse.” He kneaded his temple with his fist. “Somebody stole the rowboat that night. The police found it drifting near a public boat ramp.”

  As Dugan said, somebody had been clever, very, very clever.

  Lester Mackey’s faded blue eyes pled with me. “It could have been anybody, anybody at all.”

  But he and I knew that wasn’t true. Maybe he couldn’t have known it then, but he knew it now.

  “Richard.”

  Mackey’s eyes slid away from me. “I thought he fell.”

  “Richard talked to you when he came to Ahiahi.” I tried to keep a dangerous edge out of my voice. I needed this man’s help.

  Slowly, Lester nodded. “Just for a minute. Late that afternoon. He said he’d seen Johnnie and Johnnie’d told him how we staged the kidnapping. He asked me if Johnnie’d ever talked to me about later that night, the night CeeCee disappeared.”

  The night that Johnnie went for a walk in the woods. Back to the cabin where CeeCee waited for the joke to continue.

  I waited for Lester’s answer as Richard must have waited. Richard was looking for confirmation. I was looking for a name.

  I knew the answer before it came, knew and raged within.

  Lester massaged one temple. “But I told him I’d only talked to Johnnie once and he hadn’t said a word about that night. Not a word.”