When we were still around the bend from Joe’s house, Mike pulled over to a dock, and he had Racine and me lie down on the fiberglass bottom of the dinghy. He covered us with a couple of dirty, musty-smelling beach towels that he pulled out of the bow locker.
As he put the outboard back in gear and began the approach to Joe’s, he filled us in on what he saw. “There’s no sign of anyone on the pool deck. With the sun shining on the windows, I can’t see too much inside. It’s just going on eight o’clock. They might not even be up yet. I’m going to tie the dinghy up here, out of the sight line of those pool-deck windows. You two stay down till I get back.”
We never heard voices or knocking, but Mike didn’t return, so we assumed he was in.
Now, I will be one of the first to admit that patience is not one of my stronger character traits. That wasn’t the only thing that made me want to get up out of that dinghy and do something, though. We hadn’t been there five minutes before the heat began to suck all the energy out of us. It was already in the upper eighties outside, but under those towels, with the sun beating down, it must have been over a hundred. I couldn’t even remember how many days ago it had been since I had either bathed or changed clothes, and my shorts and shirt, which had been stiff with salt, were now drenched with sweat. Breathing was becoming impossible. I don’t know how Racine stood it as long as she did. Droplets of sweat rolled across my forehead and into my eyes, across my belly, and out of the creases behind my knees. I had to move.
“Racine?” I said, looking at the back of her head in the filtered sunlight. “How long do you think Mike’s been gone?”
“Fifteen minutes?”
“What if something’s happened to him?”
She didn’t say a word.
“Racine, we could suffocate under here, or die of heat stroke. What do you say we go look around? Think we can do that without anybody seeing us?”
“Whatever you choose. The lwa will protect us,” she said.
When we peeked out from under our cover, we saw that our dinghy was tied up at the far end of Joe’s dock where the fence divided his property from his neighbor’s. The bow of the Donzi ocean racer was just off the dinghy’s stem, and it helped to screen us from the side windows on the house. The stainless-steel bow rail was still coated in salt from the trip across from Bimini, and judging from the condensation on the port light windows in the hull, whenever Joe had returned, he’d just tied up the boat, locked it, and left. He seemed to have a penchant for asking others to clean up after him.
I climbed out of the dinghy and turned around to give Racine a hand. I needn’t have. She hopped onto the dock without help, and we both slipped into the bushes that ran along the fence line.
The blinds were drawn in the guest bedroom window. From inside the house came the sound of unintelligible shouting. Someone, it sounded like a man, was barking orders. I inched my way back toward the river side of the house to see into the den. Holding my breath, I took a quick peek past the edge of the sliding glass door. In that one second, the tableau inside told me the story. Mike was sitting on a dining room chair in the middle of the room. Joe had his back to the window, but I could see the small silver gun he was waving around—probably Mike’s—and Joe was hollering at Celeste to get something for him.
I jerked my head toward the street. “Come on, Mike’s in trouble. We need to get some help.”
The dinghy was too exposed, but I figured we could run to a neighbor’s house and ask to use the phone. A narrow concrete walkway led around the side of the house to the front circular driveway. I could see, before I reached the end of the house, that a black iron electric gate blocked our exit out the driveway. The fence closest to our side of the house was shielded by a tangled thicket of bougainvillea, but ahead, on the far side of the drive, was a stretch that was free of the prickly shrub.
I turned back to Racine. “Think you can climb over that iron fence?”
The look she gave me told me not to underestimate her. “Okay, then, let’s go,” I said, but when I reached the corner of the house and made my turn, I ran straight into Celeste.
“Bon dieu! ” she exclaimed, her hand rubbing the spot on her chin where our heads had collided. She was wearing a tiny, strapless, tropical-print minidress, a matching headwrap, and high wedge sandals. She looked like she should be posing for Vogue.
I held my finger to my lips. “Shhh, please,” I whispered.
“You must go. Get away from here.”
“Yeah, I know. But we need your help. Please.”
“He won’t be happy if he finds you here.”
Racine stepped forward and placed her hand on the young woman’s neck, just under the curve of her elegant jaw. She whispered something in Creole. Celeste closed her eyes for a moment and bowed her head.
“Celeste,” I said, “I know that Joe doesn’t want to see me here. But listen, we’re looking for a little girl. Did he bring her here? She’s Joe’s daughter. Her name’s Solange.” Celeste just stood there, frozen. She cocked her head as though she had just heard something from the house. Obviously, she didn’t want him to find her out there talking to us. “Celeste, when did he get back from Bimini?”
Celeste looked at me with vacant eyes, as if she were looking through me instead of at me. “Yesterday afternoon, four o’clock.”
“Shit,” I said, jerking my head down and turning aside in frustration. “It wouldn’t have taken him more than a couple of hours if he’d come straight back here. Means he went somewhere else. Probably to dump her off with someone.”
Abruptly, Celeste turned and walked toward the front door.
From inside the house, Joe hollered, “What’s going on out there, Celeste?”
She glanced back at us with a raised eyebrow. I shook my head at her and mouthed the word Please. Her gaze jumped from me to Racine, and suddenly Celeste stood up straighter and nodded her head curtly in the older woman’s direction.
“It is nothing, Joseph,” she called back into the house. “Just some kids.” She reached inside the door and touched something on the wall. The gate began to slide open.
She held out her hand, indicating the gate, and mouthed the word Go.
Racine took my hand in hers, and we started running across the drive toward the gate.
We’d taken no more than a half dozen steps when Joe called from the doorway, “Well, if it isn’t Sullivan. Back from the dead. Keep going, ladies, and you can say good-bye to Mike here.”
“Sey, go, keep running,” Mike yelled.
I slowed and glanced over my shoulder, just in time to see Mike’s head bounce in recoil from the blow Joe had delivered with the fist that gripped the small stainless gun. Blood trickled from a cut under Mike’s eye. Racine and I both stopped and turned. Celeste had twisted her face away from the violence.
“Smart decision, Sullivan. Come on inside and join us.” Joe stood by the door, dressed in white shorts and polo as if he were ready for a morning tennis match. He was holding Mike’s arm with one hand, pointing the gun at his ribs with the other. Racine and I approached them, and Joe said, “What’s with the old woman, Sullivan? You haven’t got enough people killed?”
“You’re the killer, Joe.”
“I don’t think so. Gil and that kid at the Swap Shop— they’d both be fine if you hadn’t stuck your nose where it didn’t belong.”
“You killed Margot?”
He shrugged. “Couldn’t let her talk and get away with it. There were plenty of places there to buy blades, and I figured I’d make it look like another of Malheur’s temper tantrums. See, that was the beauty of his whole bokor bit. I was pissed the first time he killed one of the cargo, but then I realized it worked for us. Kept the Haitians too scared to talk.” He jerked his head toward the front door. “Inside now. Head left,” Joe said, “into the den.”