We entered the same room Joe and I had been in a couple of days earlier, with a bar along one side and windows that overlooked his pool deck. Joe pushed Mike into the room after us, and then he turned to Celeste and spoke in a voice I had not heard from the man, all soft and almost like baby talk. “You go stay in your room, sugar. This is business.” Racine then said something softly in Creole, and Joe swung around and yelled at her, “Shut up, old woman. Think I don’t understand Creole?” He pointed the gun at her head. “You say another word of that Voodoo shit to my woman, and you’re dead.”
I put my hand on Racine’s arm, trying to tell her not to upset him any more. When Joe crossed to the bar, she turned to me, her eyes sparkling with humor, and whispered, “He doesn’t know it, but he is dead already. Here.” With her fist tight she pounded her chest just over her heart.
Joe slid behind the bar and took a bottle of water out of the fridge back there. “So how’d you do it, Sullivan? Back from the dead, eh?”
My mind was spinning, looking for any excuse, any way out of this. Mike had a defeated look about him that made me think he wasn’t going to be much help. Whatever had transpired between him and Joe had taken away something more than his gun. “I guess I just got lucky, Joe. Who’da thought I’d get picked up out there? By a Haitian boat, no less.”
Joe laughed at that and pointed his finger at me. “That’s a good one.” Then he looked at his watch. “Well, I’d say you’ve about used up all your luck. No Haitians to rescue you this time. I do have an appointment later this morning, but it can wait. Mike tells me you all came in his dinghy, so we’ll just tow her along behind my Donzi and take a little trip up the river, over into Pond Apple Slough. Won’t be the first time folks went missing in that swamp. Let’s go.” He pointed Mike’s little gun toward the sliding glass doors.
We were walking ahead of Joe across the den, and I had almost made it to the glass doors when a voice called out in a commanding tone, “Monsieur Blan, where is my child?”
Mike and I turned around to see Celeste standing in the hallway, both hands holding the wood-handled gray gun Joe had taken from Gil. She had it aimed at Joe’s midsection.
“Listen, sugar, put that gun down. That’s a Sig. That’s got quite a kick. You know how you hate loud noises.” There was something sickening about the babyish voice he was using.
“Where is she, Joseph?”
“You don’t know what you’re doing, sweetie. This is your Big Poppy here. Now I told you, your baby girl is gone. She’s been dead, honey, a long time.” Joe was moving toward her slowly, his right hand reaching out to her.
Mike stepped between me and Racine and put his arms around the two of us. He began to steer us toward the side of the room. He’d faced a gun once before and knew enough to keep us clear of her line of fire.
“Don’t you lie to me, Joseph. That woman told me you just brought her here. She did not die in Haiti like you told me. Where is my child?”
“Celeste, baby, who you gonna believe? After all I’ve done for you?” He continued to take small steps, closing the gap between them. He was measuring her determination, judging whether or not she really could fire the gun. “Honey, I love you. I wouldn’t lie to you.”
“You stay back, Joseph. You think I won’t shoot? You taught me to use a gun to protect myself, and I will use it. Where is Solange?”
“Babydoll, you don’t need to protect yourself from me. I’m not going to hurt you.”
Only five feet separated them when Joe made his move. Unlike Gil, Celeste didn’t hesitate. She fired the instant he began to lunge, three quick shots, and his legs buckled under him. Instinctively, I dropped to the floor in a squat and put my arms on top of my head. In the aftermath of the shots, the only noise was the high-pitched buzz inside my head. I didn’t want to stand up and look, but I couldn’t play ostrich forever.
I rose slowly from where I had crouched behind a white leather chair. Joe’s body lay sprawled on the floor, one leg bent awkwardly under him, his eyes open but dull as unpolished pebbles. His arms were flung wide on the floor, his right still loosely wrapped around Mike’s gun. A growing red stain colored his white shirt just above his left breast. Racine, still standing, had not flinched at the piercing noise or from the horror of what now lay on the floor. When our eyes met, she nodded, and with her clenched fist she hit her chest again, just over her heart. Celeste knelt and laid the gun on the floor next to the body. Without so much as a slight quaver in her voice, she said, “Let’s go find my child.”
XXXI
Mike made us sit in the living room, away from the body, to wait for the police, and from the moment the first patrol car arrived, things seemed to shift into slow motion. The head count on law enforcement personnel multiplied exponentially within the first hour, as photographers and crime scene techs wandered throughout the house, but no one appeared to be accomplishing anything, other than gawking at Celeste’s legs as she offered them Styrofoam cups of coffee from the kitchen.
I wanted to yell at them, Get on with it. We have to get out and start looking for Solange. She needs help.
When Collazo arrived, he, too, seemed to be moving as though he were underwater. He questioned us in the living room while several patrol officers searched the house, the pool cabana, the garden shed, and he had each of us slow down and repeat our stories over and over. Agent D’Ugard arrived and she dove right in, asking us to start again, from the beginning. Judging from the angle of the sun, I figured it was nearly eleven o’clock, and I was exhausted, but every time I closed my eyes, I saw that image from my dream. Long black hair floated around the periphery of my vision, and Solange called to me, Help me.
Collazo believed me this time when I told him about his police interpreter, and they sent a car over to Martine’s house. Later, an officer reported to Collazo that Martine Gohin had given the police permission to search her house, not thinking that they would search her whole property as well. In her backyard gardening shed, sleeping on the floor on pallets, the officers found thirteen Haitian girls, aged eight to eighteen. Martine claimed they all were nieces before she asked for a lawyer and stopped answering any more questions. Solange was not among the girls.
On hearing the word lawyer, I excused myself and went to a phone to call Jeannie. After the expected tirade about how I better not scare her like that again, she informed me that B.J. had taken off the day before in Jimmie St. Claire’s partially remodeled Chris Craft, headed for Bimini to join the search.
When I returned to the living room, Celeste was telling Collazo and Agent D’Ugard for the third time that Joe had not returned to the house until four o’clock the day before. He had not said anything to her about a child, and they spent the afternoon and the evening together at home. He had been in a very bad mood, throwing things around and cursing at her for nothing. He became furious when he asked her to pour him a drink and she told him they were out of rum. She offered to go out to the boat and get a bottle out there, but he exploded, screaming at her about her incompetence, and he hit her. She pulled back her headscarf to show the bruise at her hairline.
One minute it seemed as though I could not breathe, as though I were underwater and drowning, and the next thing I knew, I was in my element. I saw her, and I saw where she was. The condensation on the windows, the appointment this morning, Joe not wanting Celeste to go for the rum. I jumped to my feet and said,“Come on,” and ran to the sliding glass doors.
The Donzi’s cabin door was secured with a stainless hasp and a padlock. Rather than look for the key, Mike kicked at the doors with his good leg. On the third kick, the wood splintered, and I had to turn my head aside as the blast of superheated air poured out the companion way.