“Times are changing. Young people are intermingling more. It's not just about race or class. Plus, he said they were in love.” Holden smiled ruefully at Eileen. “‘Every piece of cloth in town got an owner’ as the old people say.”
“I don’t know if I believe that,” Eileen said. “Michelle seems so serious and he looks so easy going. How could two people who are so different be in love with each other?”
Holden was silent for a moment as though contemplating how best to answer her question. Finally, he stared out the window and sighed, “It’s one of life’s most vexing mysteries.”
Chapter 12
The Genesis of the Truth
On Tuesday morning, dressed for work with her thermos in hand, Eileen knocked on her neighbour’s door.
“Shh!” said the woman as she stepped outside. Eileen had only met the young woman named Ingrid once before when she had first moved in, but their paths hadn’t crossed since. She looked Eileen up and down, touching her matted hair and brushing her hand self-consciously over the wet yellow stain that glistened on her T-shirt. “What’s the matter?”
“Morning, Ingrid. I’m not sure if you remember me. I’m Eileen from upstairs.”
The woman stared back at her with eyes that had known no peace since giving birth. “The baby’s asleep now. Sorry if he woke you,” Ingrid said as she turned to go inside the house.
“No, that’s not why I’m here,” said Eileen. “I wanted to ask you about the tenant who used to live upstairs before, Anna.”
Ingrid scratched her head. “What about her?”
“Did you see her the day she disappeared?”
“Why?” Ingrid asked, eyeing Eileen suspiciously.
“It’s important. I think I found something that may help the police figure out who killed her.”
Ingrid's eyebrows shot up as she stepped back. “Look, I ain’t talking. I’ve got my son to raise and I’m minding my — let go of my door!”
Eileen took a deep breath and slowly lowered her hand from the knob. “I promise that I won’t tell anyone that you said anything, but I need to know if you saw Anna that day.”
Ingrid glanced around and lowered her head before saying, “I went into labour the day Anna disappeared and spent six days in the hospital. I didn’t find out she was gone until the police came here asking questions.”
“Did you know much about her personal life?”
Ingrid shrugged. “Not really. Mostly she talked about her family from up north and money being tight. I helped out at first, but after I got pregnant, I didn’t have the energy anymore.”
“Helped with what?”
“Smocking. Anna’s fingers got sore from doing it at the garment factory all day. What made it worse was that she had so much work, she had to bring it home sometimes and sew until midnight.” Ingrid shook her head in disgust. “Anna hated it. The irony is that the last time I saw Anna, she said she had good news to share when she got back. Next time I saw her was at her funeral.” Ingrid quirked an eyebrow at the irony.
“Did she hint at what the news could be?” asked Eileen.
“I don’t know. She was rushing to catch a bus, so we didn’t have the chance to talk,” Ingrid said. She glanced pointedly at her watch.
“Someone told me a man waited hours for Anna that day,” said Eileen, hurriedly. “Did you see anything?”
In the other room, Ingrid’s phone rang and woke the baby.
Ingrid squinted at Eileen and her voice was tight as she said, “I was rolled up in bed with labour pains. When they put me in the ambulance on a gurney, I wasn’t studying my surroundings.” The baby’s wails crescendoed and Ingrid rolled her eyes in frustration. “Look, unless you’re going to nurse him, I have to go,” she said irritably. With that, she slammed the door.
Eileen frowned as she walked across the gravel lot and got in her vehicle. She might have to give Ingrid a bit of time before she darkened her doorstep again.
Holden was waiting in the car park behind the funeral home when she arrived, eager to leave for a grief visit in the country. Ten minutes later they were on their way to the east, following Clifford in the white van to collect an old lady who had keeled over in the middle of choir rehearsal. The rest of the choir reported that when Miss Smith hadn’t moved after getting into the spirit that the pastor became so anxious that he started to pray with a fervour that easily outpaced his Sunday sermons. Sadly, the woman’s nephew was also a mortician. He sneered at Holden before explaining in no uncertain terms that he would be handling his aunt’s arrangements, thank you very much. Eileen snickered at the nephew’s tone and to her surprise, Holden grinned back at her as they made their way out of the church. It was a stark contrast to the other times they had missed out on business.
They drove on winding roads bordered by big banana patches and across small concrete bridges that overlooked lush gullies, the wind whipping through the windows with such force that Eileen had to ask him to repeat when Holden asked out of the blue, “Are you hungry?"
"To hear Clifford tell it, I'm always hungry."
"I thought a luncheon would help us to get better acquainted. Since you're still new to the business.”
“Oh really?” Eileen asked. “A lot of business owners aren’t so nice.”
Holden cleared his throat. “Well… yes, I try.” He gestured to a weathered stone sign ahead engraved with the words ‘Highland Club, 5 KM ahead’.
“Have you ever been?”
“No.”
“Well…if you have time we can have that luncheon now so I could properly welcome you to Davis and Sons.”
Eileen turned to look at him. “Oh… I thought everyone attended.”
“I’d invite Clifford, but today is his day for polishing the walls, so it will be just us.”
Eileen laughed. “I really like him, you know.”
“Yes, Clifford’s free-wheeling nature tends to have that effect on the ladies,” Holden said wryly as Eileen swung the car onto the narrow road.
It was the kind of day that photographers rushed out to capture for the postcards that filled souvenir shops at the airport. The sky was a storybook blue that stretched as far as the eye could see. Green coconut fronds stretched high above fields where yellow butterflies flitted from flower to flower. Eileen inhaled the country air; it was much lighter and sweeter than the bus fumes that crept under the glass door at the funeral home.
Her deep breaths didn’t escape Holden’s notice and he asked, “You like the country?”
“I was raised in Ten Men’s so maybe I gravitate to something different just to be contrary,” she said with a cheeky smile.
Surprise registered on his face. “The fishing village up north? I wouldn’t figure you for a girl who grew up smelling melts all day.”
Laughter erupted from Eileen’s throat. “Well, I did and I loved it. Every evening after school, I used to run across the road to play on the beach. Vendors like Miss Fray and Miss Lucy would make sure I didn’t go into the sea and drown.”
“I’ve always been envious of people whose upbringings were full of fun and frolic,” Holden sighed. “I spent my childhood handing tissues to widows and holding condolence books.”
In spite of herself, Eileen couldn’t shake the image of a tightly wound boy dressed in a tiny suit as a wizened old woman cried on his shoulder. She folded her lips to hold in a smile.
“When I was young, children used to play in Southbury Cemetery after school. One evening, some boys were upping a kite just outside the chapel door. My father had left me to mind the coffin of an old man, telling me to stand between it and the church door and above all else, don’t move.” He shook his head in amusement. “I don’t need to tell you that a little boy would rather fly a kite than babysit a coffin.”
“The funeral started and my father turned away, so I figured I’d just nip out to get a little fly off the kite.” A smile played on Holden's lips. “There I am, jacket off, running with the kite when I heard shout
ing and noticed something moving along next to me. I figured the kite’s owner had changed his mind and didn’t want me to fly it anymore so I ran faster. The thing picks up pace and passes me before I realized it was the coffin speeding down the incline with my father running behind it. It turns out that the wheel-lock on the coffin trolley was slack.”
Eileen's chest heaved and tears streamed down her face. Holden joined in and both of them were in fits of giggles when they pulled up to the Highland Club.
The modest country road had opened up and split in two, curving to meet under the high porté cochère of a wide coral stone building. Two stewards dressed in black coat-tails appeared from behind round columns as soon as the car screeched to a noisy halt under the covered arch. Eileen liked them immediately; neither batted an eyelid at her car even when she showed them how to jiggle the gear stick to put it in park.
A few minutes later, she and Holden were seated on the oceanfront terrace at a table laid with polished silver that glinted in the afternoon sunlight. The view was breathtaking, and it was instantly clear to Eileen why the club was one of the most exclusive spots on the island. A sandy knoll beyond the low balcony was covered with tangled green vines struggling under the weight of ripe fat pork. Sea breeze whistled through the vines that thinned out as they crept closer to the sand only to be replaced with stubborn tufts of salt-bleached grass and small crab holes. Rough waves raked foamy fingers across the white sand beach, dragging seashells and pebbles back into the Atlantic.
“Is this the kind of scenery you’re more accustomed to in Ten Men’s?” Holden asked, jutting his chin at the view.
“Well,” Eileen said as she draped her napkin over her lap, “it’s missing an old woman who shouts at strangers while she plays with stray cats, but I guess it will do.”
She’d had no idea he could smile so broadly; for the first time, she realized he had a dimple in his left cheek. That tiny detail transformed him, making him boyish and handsome instead of brusque and stoic. His black jacket was tossed over the back of his chair with his tie neatly folded inside the pocket. He had unfastened the top two buttons of his white shirt and folded back the sleeves. Eileen fidgeted in her chair. How could the absence of a tie and jacket make her feel like she was on a date instead of a business lunch? She hid behind the menu to conceal the blush that crept up her face. Since the stormy night when her car had broken down, she’d replayed their conversation in their mind, wondering if Holden could possibly have any interest in her. It wasn’t lost on her that she happily rushing out of the house whenever he called her to go on grief visits or enjoyed embalming bodies with him in the intimacy of the chilly prep room. She wondered if he’d noticed her furtive glimpses at him, had noticed how her fingers lingered when she him handed pens and syringes.
“How do you like the job so far?” he asked.
“I feel bad for saying this, but it’s fun in an odd way,” she said, wrinkling her forehead in bemusement.
“Why is that bad?” Holden replied, his eyes worried.
Eileen quirked an eyebrow. “It’s a funeral home, not a circus. It isn’t the kind of place people hang out when they’re looking for a good time.”
He chuckled. “You’re not wrong. For me, it’s all I’ve ever known so I don’t associate it with any particular feeling. But I understand why people see it as a place of despair.”
Holden sipped his champagne and pursed his lips, pleased with how the tiny bubbles tickled his palate. “As a boy, I wondered if that’s why other children avoided me. They acted like I was the Heart Man, coming to eat their organs at lunchtime.”
“That doesn’t sound too nice.”
“When Paul started school I realized it had nothing to do with my father being an undertaker. Paul had friends by the bushel. I know now that being so tall and not skylarking at break-time was the reason.” He tilted his head to one side as though amused by his own revelation. “What was your life like growing up in a fishing village?”
“Fishy.”
Holden cocked his head to the side as a smile tugged at his lips, as though he would have been disappointed if she had answered any other way. “And?”
“It was kind of dull, to be honest, and I didn’t have many friends.” She bit into her rosemary bread and chewed. “I’m a barrel baby, so you know how the rumour mill goes crazy when that kind of thing happens.”
“Barrel baby?” His face betrayed confusion as he said the words. “What do you mean?”
“I wasn’t born in a barrel if that’s what you’re thinking. At least I don’t think I was,” she said, pondering her words for a second. “I was raised with things that came out of a barrel from overseas. Those big cardboard-looking barrels that Bajans in the States send back with rice, games, flour, school shoes and anything else they can squeeze into them.”
“Oh, I get you now. So your grandmother raised you?”
Eileen pursed her lips. “I don’t know my mother or grandmother. All I know is the lady who raised me and her cousin."
"Don't you have any relatives?"
Eileen tapped the butter knife against the table and avoided his eyes. "Yes, but we never met. I spoke to the person on the phone once. That conversation didn't go very well...so I haven't heard them since."
"May I ask why?"
Her eyes met his. "They lied to me. But...a part of me regrets how I acted back then. I’d still like to get to know my family someday."
"I can understand that."
"When you called the other night..." She hesitated and rubbed her thumbnail against her lip. "I thought that if the victim looked like me that maybe she was a relative."
Recognition lit his eyes. “That’s why you’ve been trying to find out who killed the girls. Because you thought Michelle might be related?”
“It started that way, I guess,” she relented. “But there are other reasons. Speaking of the victims, did you hear from your contact about the twitchy guy in the brown uniform?”
“No. But if you want to change the subject, you could say that directly.”
Eileen sighed. Darned Holden and his sharp insight. “I didn’t grow up rough, despite what you might think. I went to private school, did art and ballet on weekends. The lady who raised me was one of the sweetest people you’d ever meet, but it’s not the same as having a mother, is it?”
Eileen saw the way Holden’s face changed. She hated having to sing for her supper. She made a mental note not to go to any more of these office luncheons.
She raised an eyebrow at him. “The truth doesn’t need pity.”
Straightening his cutlery, Holden thought for a moment before he said, “You’re very unusual in some ways. There’s no pretence about you. It’s refreshing.”
She smiled and said, “That’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said in response to that particular statement. Thank you.”
Their meal arrived, and for a few minutes, there was only the roar of the ocean and the tinkle of cutlery around them to fill the silence. Eileen looked out to the water while Holden chewed, his expression thoughtful before he said, “Your life seems very interesting despite what you say. You're smart and you've had a solid upbringing. So the bigger question is..." he looked her in the eye. "What's keeping you at the funeral home?”
“The economy for one reason.”
"I see." Holden sipped his champagne and when she didn't add anything else, he picked up his fork and went back to eating his fish. “Very well.”
Eileen didn’t know if he’d resigned himself to minding his business or decided she was no longer worth the trouble. Either way, the outcome was the same. She wasn’t sure if she liked that very much.
* * *
WHEN THEY RETURNED TO THE OFFICE, the phone rang non-stop. Four funeral requests came in, and Eileen became engrossed in her work. She feared she would have to work late, but Holden picked up the slack and helped her complete her tasks well before closing time. She breathed a sigh of relief when she finally leaned back in her c
hair. “Thanks. I know you’re paying me to get all of this done, and I appreciate that you took the time to help.”
Holden averted his eyes. “It’s nothing, but I admit that I had an ulterior motive for wanting you to finish early. Do you have plans this evening?”
Eileen’s heart skipped a beat. Holden’s face was eager, his tone earnest when he spoke. Would he ask her out for dinner? The luncheon had been a professional one, but there would be no mistaking his intentions if he asked her out for dinner. The thought made her cheeks warm.
She shook her head. Her mind whirled over the possibilities of how the night would end. She imagined telling her grandchildren about this day, clutching his wrinkled hand in hers as they reminisced about the spark that ignited their love.
He tapped his desk in triumph. “Excellent! I found the guy in the brown uniform. My contact said he’ll be at a rum shop in Lord Town now.”
Eileen’s face fell. She turned away so Holden wouldn’t see how red her cheeks were. She was the one who had dragged him into tracking down the Slasher so why was she disappointed that he had come up with a new lead? As Eileen gathered her belongings she wondered what on earth had compelled her to jump to the conclusion that her boss was asking her out on a date.
Chapter 13
Lord Town
Lord Town was the epicentre of every immoral behaviour known to man. It was a seedy enclave surrounded by a bus station, bank and outdoor produce market that thrummed with illicit activity all year round. Drugs, prostitution, drinking and gambling were always in heavy rotation, making it so that a man could easily hop from vice to vice without ever having to pick a struggle. The area’s ability to thrive among reputable businesses might cause a cynic to question if such disparate lifestyles could only cohabitate because one supported the other.
Eileen never had a reason to frequent Lord Town before, and her first impression was that it smelled of baby powder, fried chicken and gutter water. More of a small district than a town, it was split into four quadrants by two narrow roads. Most of the structures were so tightly packed that you could spit through your window and be certain it would land in the neighbour’s bathroom sink. Shops were constructed in the traditional merchant style: tall and narrow with wide verandahs propped up by long wooden braces, while residences were modest chattel houses topped with gable rooves.
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