Even with the poor picture quality, his brown and glossy eyes held me in a trance, trying to pierce through me. No doubt about it—a dark spot in the white of his left eye.
I paged back through all the search data. The link was there, and like an ember igniting a roaring fire, the pieces fell into place. My heart skipped a beat. My mouth went dry. Compared to this, discovering Bigfoot or finding life on Mars seemed insignificant.
“Aha!” I said, and to make sure I was right, said “Aha!” again. Erika glanced over her shoulder and stared at me. I smiled and gave a thumbs-up gesture in her direction. It wasn’t yet noon, but I reached into the fridge and grabbed a beer.
However, before too much celebrating, I had a little more sleuthing to do. Erika maintained the reservations and payment methods in a spreadsheet stored on our office server. When I clicked the file open, I was prompted for a password.
“Erika, what’s the password for the spreadsheet with the payment info?”
“Don’t you know it?”
“I wouldn’t be asking if I did.”
She folded her arms across her chest and swiveled her chair in my direction. “Why do I have to tell you each time?”
“Erika!” She flinched. I softened my tone and asked again. “What’s the password?”
She recited the password and I opened the file. Among other things, the spreadsheet listed the current guests, arrival and departure dates, and payment methods. As was typical, everyone checked in had paid in advance with a credit card. Every guest, that is, except one. That person had paid with a direct money transfer. To accurately determine who had initiated the wire transfer, I used the transaction ID listed in the spreadsheet and, with Erika’s begrudging assistance, logged into the bank website.
After a few clicks and a couple of page loads, there it was. The name. No Senior or Junior listed. Just Wayne Dow. Reinforcement of my earlier “Aha!” moment.
I pulled out a piece of paper and wrote Mandel Wagon Driver.
Then crossed it out and wrote Mandy W. Driver.
CHAPTER 48
BEFORE I COULD grab my phone and call Arabella to tell her what I had discovered, she called me. Much sooner than I had anticipated.
“Bella, you won’t believe what I figured out.”
“Conklin, listen to me. I was right. They were not watching you.” Her voice went soft. “Something is up. I heard Schleper is on his way to talk to you.”
“Over here?”
“Uh-huh.”
I drummed my fingers on the desktop. “Any idea when?”
Before she could answer, the office door opened and in marched Schleper. He greeted Erika and walked in my direction. I abruptly ended the call without another word to Arabella and placed the phone on a small stack of papers near the corner of my desk.
I leaned back and put my feet up. “Hello, Inspector.”
He grabbed the spare chair against the wall, set it in front of my desk, and sat. “Are you not surprised to see me?” He looked at my cellphone, then back at me.
I put my hands behind my head and interlaced my fingers, pointing my elbows straight out.
“I think we need to talk,” he said.
“Here?”
He smiled. “Mr. Conklin, this is not an official visit. I would call it … a friendly chat.”
“Okay.” I straightened and rested my arms in front of me on the desk. “Why do you have men watching me?”
He glanced over his shoulder at Erika. Turning back to me, he whispered, “Do not be a fool, they were not watching you. They were watching for one of your guests.” He reached into his pants pocket, took out an evidence bag, and held it out for me to see before dropping it on the desk.
I picked up the bag and removed the sunglasses from the inside. The right-side hinge screw was still scratched and still a slightly different color than the left-side one. I nodded and set the glasses and bag off to the side.
“How’s Officer Pasik?” I asked.
“Yes, well, his nose is bruised, but not broken.”
“I’m not proud of what happened. Do you think he’d accept my apologies?”
“He is young and tough. He will recover.” Schleper pointed at my open beer. “He drinks regular Amstel.”
I glanced at the beer, and back at Schleper. “Understood.”
“I think you know who we are watching.”
“Tell me anyway.”
He motioned a thumb toward Erika.
I took a deep breath. “Erika, could you step outside for a few minutes?”
She stopped what she was doing and sat motionless for a moment. Standing, she laid her glasses on her keyboard and gathered some envelopes lying on the desk. “I need to take these to the post office.” She grabbed her car keys but then placed them back in her purse. “I will walk to give you men more time.”
After Erika had closed the door behind her, Schleper pulled a picture from his shirt pocket and handed it to me. It didn’t require a detailed look. Long blond hair, pointed nose, and a dark spot in the white of his left eye. I handed the picture back to Schleper.
“I’m betting he’s the same guy who tampered with my Wrangler, put Arabella in the hospital,” I said.
“I agree but cannot prove it. We have no physical evidence.”
My mouth went dry. You mean like a cordless drill or a turkey baster? Or a set of brake hoses? “Have you found him?” My voice cracked on the first two words, the realization of my evidence tampering hitting me harder than a rogue wave against a rowboat.
“No, not yet.” He put the picture back in his shirt pocket. “We think he killed Miss Wilcox and Mrs. Cado.”
I felt my chest muscles tighten. “So, you agree with me after all. Those were both murders.”
“Yes. The autopsy showed seawater in Miss Wilcox’s lungs and nasal passages.”
My stomach churned, bile raising in my throat, at the thought of Tiffany trying to breathe underwater.
“Remember those marks on her neck?” Schleper asked.
My voice cracked as I responded. “You mean the ones I pointed out to your people?”
He leaned back and smiled. “Mr. Conklin, we did not miss those marks. They were part of our investigation. The medical examiner determined that fingertips and thumbs most probably made the bruises.” He put his hands around his neck.
“Someone held her under.”
“Yes.” He raised a finger. “She was not strangled. There were no blood vessel bursts behind her eyes or inside her mouth or nose. None on her face or any pressure marks. No indication of petechial hemorrhaging whatsoever. We believe someone dragged her out of the water after drowning her. We found some DNA under a fingernail.”
“The water didn’t wash it away?”
“All but one of her thumbs. We faxed a DNA report to your friend Mr. Traverso.”
As much as I tried to show no reaction, my expression must’ve given me away.
“Officer De Groot told us about him and the murder of your friend Mr. Ryberg.” The office was quiet for a few moments then Schleper continued. “Mrs. Cado’s death was not a suicide.”
In faked surprise, I raised my eyes to meet his.
“We could not tell the truth,” he said. “Two murders in one week. This island could not handle that kind of news. We had to buy ourselves some time.”
“What happened?”
He let out a breath. “A bullet wound to the skull. There was no ash or soot in her air passages.”
“She was dead before the fire.”
“Yes, but we cannot connect our suspect to her death. We believe it was him, maybe tying up loose ends, but we have no proof. Maybe he was afraid of what she saw.”
“The sad part is, she didn’t see anything.”
“All of it is sad.”
He was right. I leaned back in my chair, ran my fingers across my forehead. “Do you know where he is?”
“My team saw him come to your hotel last night. But he got away before they could a
pprehend him. They lost him through town.”
My jaw dropped. “You lost him? On Bonaire? This isn’t New York or …” I waved my hand. “Amsterdam.”
“Mr. Conklin, as you have been so gracious to point out, it is a small island. We will find him.”
“I think there is another person with him.”
“According to my officers, he was alone last night. But if someone else is with him, they could be in danger.”
“Okay, so where do we go from here?”
He stood. “We do not go anywhere. You will need to let my department do its job.”
I stood. “I have some skin in this, too. Three of my friends are dead, and he tried to kill me once already. Who knows when he’ll try again.”
“Oh, yes, Mr. Conklin, we are very anxious about your safety.” He raised his eyebrows. “If you like, we can place an officer to guard you.” A thin smile crept across his face. “Maybe Officer Pasik will volunteer.”
“Keep it. I haven’t needed your help so far.”
“No, you have not, and things have worked out so well for everyone around you, including Mr. and Mrs. Larsen.”
My neck hairs bristled. “What about them?”
“Oh, that is right, you don’t know,” he said. “Mr. and Mrs. Larsen. Seems they had a truck with a seahorse on the tailgate. You were looking for such a truck?” He had a look of confusion—obviously faked. “Well, this morning, we found their bodies at the bottom of a cliff at Washington-Slagbaai Park. We are not sure what happened.”
I didn’t have a response. My stomach knotted. Ben and Sophie. From Dakota. All I could do was stare at the wall. Mandy was killing everyone I came in contact with.
He started out the door but hesitated. Maybe he felt bad about dropping that bombshell on me. Wasn’t sure Schleper could feel bad about anything.
“Although I do not need to tell you this,” he said. “Your hunch was correct. Mr. Wayne Dow Junior is on the island. An immigration lieutenant called me this morning. Without my knowledge, it seems Officer De Groot requested a search of incoming passports. Mr. Dow arrived last Saturday.” Before leaving, he pointed a finger at me. “Even so, I warn you again, Mr. Conklin, stay out of this.”
He left and didn’t bother to shut the door on his way out.
CHAPTER 49
IF SCHLEPER AND his force couldn’t locate Mandy, maybe I could. Someone had to find him before anyone else got hurt. Including me. I headed for the door but got a text message before making it out of the office.
Arabella had configured my cellphone with unique ringtones for people in my address book—her, Jan, Erika, Chuck. This ringtone was the generic one, signaling the message was from an unknown caller. I considered ignoring it but decided to take a quick glance.
It read, Conklin, come to my room ASAP. Lester.
A message from Lester was the last thing I expected. Especially one asking me to come to his room. I froze for a moment, peered down the path toward unit five, then at the text message again. Something didn’t feel right. Was I expected to just waltz into Lester’s room?
I turned and bounded up the stairs to my apartment, into my bedroom, and opened my dresser drawer. The snub-nose .38 lay where I had left it. I opened the cylinder, verified it was still fully loaded with six cartridges, and shut it—gently again, not with a wrist flip—hearing a click as it locked into position. Old habits are hard to break, and I extended my arms, holding the pistol out straight, lining up the sights. I hadn’t fired a weapon in many years, so I took a few moments to acquaint myself with the grip and its balance characteristics before sliding it inside the belt on my left hip.
I ran down the path to unit five and knocked. No answer.
“Lester!” I shouted, knocking again.
Still no answer. I grabbed the door handle, and, to my surprise, it turned. Standing on the threshold, I nudged open the door.
Drapes closed, lights off, darkness engulfed the room, the only noise being that of the ceiling fan, clicking with every rotation. I pushed the door open further, casting a ray of sunlight across part of the room, and waited for my eyes to adjust. I made out a person lying on the bed. My heart sank as an all too familiar odor took hold of me.
Death has a particular smell.
I switched on the light and walked to the bed. Lester Jeffrey lay naked on his back in a muddle of blood-soaked covers, sheets, and pillows. His face was pale white, his lifeless eyes staring at the ceiling. A gash stretched from ear to ear across his throat, and the blade of his scuba knife stuck halfway out of his sternum. Blood stained his skin and ran down the bedsheets.
Held to his chest by the knife was a map of Bonaire, pierced at the exact location of Spelonk Lighthouse. The same map I had given Lester several nights ago in my apartment. Below it, pinched up close to the map, was a bloodstained picture.
To see the picture, I’d need to remove the knife from Lester’s chest or tear the map off the blade. Doing either would be altering evidence at a murder scene. Not a trivial offense. Over the last few days, I had tampered with evidence, but the baster, brake hoses, and drill were related to the Wrangler’s sabotage. A murder scene was more serious and, given a chance, Schleper would gladly “throw the book” at me.
But I had to do one or the other. The elaborate staging of this crime scene was a message. The piercing of the map at Spelonk was the first part, and the picture was the second. I needed to see it.
Lester’s chest was a crimson-colored mess. Dried blood had acted as a glue of sorts, sticking the picture and map together. I didn’t have time to devise a way to separate the two and maintain the evidence, so I decided to disturb as little as possible.
I retrieved a debit card from my wallet, knelt by the side of the bed, and slipped it between the picture and the map, gently separating them. Using the flashlight feature on my phone—a feature I thought I’d never use—I shone a small bead of light in the gap.
My heart pounded. The picture—one of Arabella and me having lunch at the Coral Reef Café, taken without my knowledge—was sliced through Arabella’s face. In the dark, hands and eyes soaked with sweat, I fumbled with my phone and called her. It went straight to voicemail. I put the phone in my pocket and took a few deep breaths.
Only one option.
I ran out of the room, back up the stairs to my apartment, and grabbed my running shoes sitting on the floor in the bedroom corner. The rough terrain at Spelonk made sandals a poor choice for footwear. Time was critical, and I strapped on my Nikes, sockless.
I went to the office and told Erika to call the police and send them to unit five.
“But don’t go in yourself,” I said.
I ran out the door, but before getting to the back parking lot and Arabella’s car, a man on the front sidewalk called my name.
“Sorry,” I said, rushing past him, “I’m in a hurry.”
“Please,” he said from behind me. “It’s about my wife, Malfena.”
I stopped in my tracks and stood for a moment. He walked up behind me, his feet striking the sidewalk in an uneven, lopsided manner. I turned and saw a skinny, short man in tattered blue jeans and a gray T-shirt. A simple black baseball cap covered his head, wisps of gray hair poking out under the edges. Eyes swollen and sagging, jaw quivering, he languished in front of me for several long moments. Neither of us moved. He held a cane in his right hand and used it to support his diminutive body weight.
Three young men and a woman, none of whom I recognized, leaned against a car parked on the far side of the street. They watched us intently but didn’t approach.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” I said.
Ludson’s eyes watered. “Sorry? That is all you can say?”
His voice was low, and I looked away, shame preventing me from maintaining eye contact with him.
“She did not deserve this,” he said.
“No, sir, she didn’t.”
He shifted his body weight to his other leg and pointed the cane at me. “It is y
our fault. She would still be alive if it were not for you.”
Hard for me to argue and I didn’t know what to say. “I’m truly sorry.”
He limped forward and poked me in the chest with his cane. The three men leaning against the car stood and began crossing the street. “Why did you come to this island? You should not be here. You had no right.”
I took the poke and half-stepped backward. Ludson moved forward and poked me a second time, and, again, I did nothing except move back. The three men arrived, two of them each taking one of Ludson’s arms and the third stepping between Ludson and me. I raised my hands in a surrender fashion and shook my head. The guy nodded and turned to face Ludson.
“I am a Christian man, Mr. Roscoe,” Ludson said, the ends of his mouth curved down, his eyes sunken. “I … I should forgive you, but I cannot. I will never forgive you.”
“Let’s go, Papa,” the guy said to Ludson. “Nothing more to do here.” The guy turned to me. “Mr. Roscoe doesn’t care.” He spoke in English, as opposed to Papiamento, I assumed, so I’d know what he said.
Message delivered, loud and clear.
The other two men helped turn Ludson around and began moving him toward the car. After two slow strides, Ludson turned back to me. With tears streaming down his cheeks, he said, “What am I supposed to do now?”
Nothing I could say. I watched the five of them squeeze into their car and drive away. Ludson was right—although someone else pulled the trigger, Malfena’s death was on me. Whether I lived on Bonaire or back in Rockford, Mandy may have still killed Bill, Marybeth, Tiffany, and possibly even Lester. But if I hadn’t come to Bonaire, Malfena wouldn’t have been involved. She’d still be alive.
As would the Larsens.
None of this was fair, but I couldn’t dwell on it now. I had to compartmentalize, get my mind straight. Arabella was in trouble, and she needed my help.
Diver's Paradise Page 24