Chapter Twenty-Four
Friday morning appeared and only Paulo woke before me. We shared a quiet cup of coffee while Paulina and Isabella slept, and then I called Colin. Time to check in. I told him about the poker game, the truck, and about finding someone who’d seen Zaul—and about the blood on the hammock. I thought about not, but it’s not my place to withhold from Colin. Zaul’s not my son.
Colin listened quietly and then agreed that if Zaul was out of money, and possibly hurt but unwilling to go to the hospital, chances were good he’d return to the house in Costa Rica to rest, heal up, get whatever money he’d left there, and put together plan B since plan A had failed. I told him I was heading out in a few hours and that I’d be there tonight. We talked about Maria, her improvement, and he told me they were scheduling a follow-up surgery with Shelly to reduce some of the scar tissue. They had yet to tell Maria.
Before he hung up, I said, “Wonder if you’d do me a favor.”
“Sure.”
“You have any attorney friends in this part of the world?”
“You need one?”
“Maybe, but not for anything criminal. Least not yet.” I told Colin what I needed, or wanted, and when I finished, he was quiet a minute. Finally, he said, “Give me a few days.”
* * *
Sometime after 11:00 a.m., Isabella woke, shuffled out her door, climbed up into Paulo’s lap, and fell back asleep. A few minutes later, Paulina appeared. She didn’t look much better. Coffee only raised her eyelids to half-mast.
“I have an idea I’d like to run by you.”
She and Paulo looked at me agreeably. Isabella cracked open her eyes and stared at me with little interest. “I think Zaul may be returning to his parents’ house in Costa Rica. I need to check it out. If you’re not opposed, I’d like to show it to you. There’s a pool where maybe we could teach Isabella to swim, and there’s a beach with miles of sand in either direction.”
Uncharacteristically, Paulina rubbed her face and consulted no one. “I think I’d really like that.”
Paulo and Isabella nodded. We left at noon. The problem I had with this excursion is that while I could pass myself off as a vagabond in flip-flops and cutoffs who had a little cash to flash around, Colin’s house would not let me get away with that. It was one of the nicer homes in Costa Rica. By taking them there, the disparity between my life and theirs was about to become apparent and that would give rise to questions that might be tough to answer.
We drove the shoreline. Paulo played the role of tour guide and showed me the facets of his country that never make the travel books. He was right. It was beautiful—and nothing more so than the smiles of the people. For nearly seven hours, we stirred up dust on dirty back roads and drove on the asphalt only long enough to cross over it en route to another dirt road. Never once did he consult a map. Paulo knew this country like the back of his hand.
We arrived at the house a few hours before sundown. If passing through the security gate itself wasn’t an eye-opener, then driving through the gate and down the long drive was. When we pulled up before the front door, Paulina spoke through an open mouth. “What business did you say your partner was in?”
Isabella’s eyes were large as silver dollars. Paulo sat speechless with both hands on the wheel.
I laughed. “Come on.”
* * *
The house was clean, dry, and mostly put back together. Some finish work remained but it was livable. Looked like a contractor had yet to clear out the punch list. I gave them a tour, during which they were mostly silent and afraid to touch anything. The house was much as I’d left it, only cleaner, and unless he was hiding, Zaul had yet to show. I showed them their rooms and then told them I’d meet them at the pool. Paulina spoke up. “I don’t own a bathing suit.”
I hadn’t considered that, so I took her to Marguerite’s closet. “Probably find something in here. I’m not an expert judge of size, but you and Marguerite look to be similar.”
“Marguerite is your partner’s wife?”
“Yes.”
“She won’t mind?”
I shook my head. “No.”
Paulina pointed to a picture on the wall hanging in the closet that depicted Marguerite in her bathing suit, wearing a tiara, after having just won one of many pageants. “That’s her?”
“Yes.”
“Great.”
* * *
It didn’t take them long to change.
Isabella, wearing a suit that was two sizes too big and sagged in the butt, walked up to the edge of the pool, where I was standing in the shallow end. I held out a hand. “Come on.”
She shook her head.
“I’ll catch you.”
She leaned, her feet weighted to the pool deck, and fell forward into my arms. As I held her afloat and talked to her about kicking her feet and pulling with her hands, Paulina walked out wearing a rather modest one-piece and a chiffon wrap tied around her waist. In my defense, I was holding it together pretty well until she untied that chiffon, folded it, walked to the steps, and stepped into the pool, where I guess my jaw was hanging open. She reached up and closed it with a smirk. “Haven’t you ever seen a girl in a bathing suit?”
“Not like that I haven’t.”
I don’t know if she was flirting with me or if I was flirting with her, but somewhere in those few seconds, we passed from woman helping man find kid to woman allowing herself to look appealing and wondering if man was interested.
And he was.
* * *
Paulo joined us a few minutes later, we swam, I tried my best to teach Isabella to swim, and at sundown we all walked down the steps to the dock, where I gave them a tour of the boathouse and Colin’s Bertram. Paulo ran his fingers along her clean lines and loved every minute of it. From the boathouse, Isabella led us out onto the beach, where the tide was low and the breeze was welcome and cooling. We walked until the sun disappeared behind the edge of the sea. Living on Bimini, I’ve seen some beautiful sunsets, but I’ve never seen one more beautiful.
* * *
I cooked dinner—spaghetti—and the conversation while we ate was relatively muted. After dinner, Paulina pointed at a door we’d not entered and said, “What’s in there?”
“That’s the theater.”
“Theater?”
I led them into Colin’s twelve-seat theater. I don’t know the dimensions of the screen, but it was the size of the wall, which was huge. The chairs were plush leather, stadium seating with motorized recline, massage, and footrests. Paulina pointed at the wall of DVDs. “Will you pick us your favorite?” I made my selection, started the video, and left as the nuns began lamenting the problem that was Maria. The three of them were glued to the screen.
* * *
I checked in with Colin, reported on the condition of the house, and told him there was no sign of Zaul but that we’d stay through the weekend. Talking about Zaul was painful for Colin as it was a constant reminder of his failure as a father, so to deflect and change the conversation, he told me I should take my three guests on the ATVs tomorrow. The trails leading out the back of the house go for miles along the ocean. “It’s one of the more beautiful vistas in Costa Rica.”
When I first went to work for Colin, Zaul was just a ten-year-old kid. He always saw me as the guy coming and going in his dad’s boat, so it was only natural, when he was about eleven, for him to meet me on the dock of their house in Miami one morning and ask, “Can I drive?”
I loaded him into one of Colin’s smaller boats, a twenty-four-foot Pathfinder, because it’s more maneuverable, and we eased off into the canals that led out into Stiltsville. Zaul stood at the console, up on his toes, staring through the windshield, craning his neck, one hand on the throttle, the other on the wheel. I stood beside him, watching. He was a natural, and unlike his father, he was good with boats. Coordinated. He was good with his hands, and when you could get him to, he would work hard and wasn’t afraid of hard work. He drove us out of the canals and between the homes that make up what’s left of Stiltsville. Off to the northwest of us, several kite surfers rode the famous break that existed about a mile offshore. It was breezy, not a cloud in the sky.