A theory took shape in my mind. I imagined Wanderer bobbing peacefully at anchor in Poinciana Cove. Frank and Sally, after dark, motoring their dinghy ashore. Dragging it up on the sand and hiding it in the mangroves. Creeping up the beach, into the woods, looking around and checking for… what? Something that was polluting the reef?
‘What’s Jaime’s motive, Hannah? Surely not possession of the sailboat. He could buy ten sailboats like Wanderer easy, cold cash in a suitcase.’
I discarded my first theory and went with the obvious. ‘I think Frank and Sally anchored in the cove, and Frank went down for a night dive, like he told the captain of Northern Lights he was going to. Then he saw something that Jaime or somebody else didn’t want him to see.’
‘Like what?’
I picked a crescent of celery out of my salad, popped it into my mouth and chewed it thoughtfully. ‘Something illegal, of course.’
‘Like what?’
‘Smuggling leaps to mind,’ I said, thinking about the little cottage in Kelchner’s Cove all locked up nice and tight. ‘Maybe he brought in stuff for his resort that he didn’t want to pay thirty percent duty on. Computers, for example. Or air conditioners. Booze?’
‘Interesting theory, Hannah, but El Mirador Land Corporation has deep pockets. Hard to imagine any of those fat cats risking life in prison to save a couple of thousand bucks on air conditioners.’
‘Hard to say what rich folks will do to save a few bucks,’ I mused aloud. ‘Think about Martha Stewart.’ Another thought occurred to me. ‘Could be drugs.’
‘Yikes! That would be dangerous.’
‘I can tell you one thing, Molly. If the Bahamian cops don’t nail Jaime’s ass to the wall, I swear to God, I will.’
For the first time that evening, Molly looked at me and smiled. ‘And I kin help,’ she drawled.
SIXTEEN
DRUGS ARE AN ABSOLUTE NO-NO IN THE BAHAMAS. THE PENALTIES FOR POSSESSION AND USE OF ILLEGAL DRUGS ARE SEVERE. IT WILL MAKE NO DIFFERENCE THAT YOU ARE A FOREIGN CITIZEN, AND PRISON SENTENCES CAN BE LONG.Dold, Vaitilingam and Folster, Bahamas: IncludesTurks and Caicos, Rough Guides, 2003, p. 41
‘Do I have to go home?’ I lay in Molly’s hammock, swaying gently. The evening breeze had freshened, but I found it a welcome relief from the heat of the day.
Molly sat nearby, leaning back in her chair with her feet propped against the porch rail. ‘Stay as long as you want, sugar.’
We watched in companionable silence as the lights of Hawksbill settlement twinkled out one by one. Nine o’clock was bedtime across the channel, and it usually was at our house, too, unless a good DVD was on the agenda. ‘I’m not very sleepy,’ I confessed.
‘Probably the chocolate,’ Molly said. I heard paper rustling, then a snap. ‘Here, have another one.’
There are no finer comfort foods than Vosges exotic candy bars. I accepted the square of Oaxaca that Molly handed me and popped it into my mouth, savoring the intoxicating blend of dark chocolate and chilies that set my tongue a-tingling. ‘What do we do when these are gone?’
‘I’ve got a Goji and a Bacon Bar,’ she mumbled around a mouth full of chocolate. ‘After that, it’s Cadbury.’
‘How we suffer.’
‘Pitiful.’
After the chocolate was gone, I got up to go. ‘Thanks for everything, Molly. I don’t know why these things always happen to me when Paul is away.’
‘Finding bodies?’
‘Uh huh.’
‘It’s happened before?’
‘I’m the Jessica Fletcher of Annapolis. It’s a curse.’
Molly snorted. ‘You’ll have to tell me about it sometime.’ She handed me my flashlight. ‘But it’s late. Have you reached Paul?’
‘No. He’s still in transit, but I left a message.’ I gave her a hug. ‘Honestly, I don’t know what I would have done without you today.’
‘Walk me to the generator, then. The noise is driving me crazy.’
Illuminating the path with my flashlight, I accompanied Molly to the generator shed where she shut off the engine for the evening. ‘Well, goodnight.’
‘Goodnight, Hannah. I hope you sleep well. And if you feel like it, come over for coffee during the Cruisers’ Net in the morning. I’ll crank up the generator at eight if the power doesn’t come back on its own.’
I smiled into the dark, thinking about my coffee pot, no better than a doorstop without electricity. ‘Count on it.’
My flashlight barely penetrated the darkness beyond the path as I stumbled along the rocks going home. I hadn’t left a candle burning, so Windswept was dark as pitch against an even darker sky strewn with bright, cold stars. There was no moon.
Once in my bedroom, I found a candle and lit it, filling the room with a shimmering, golden light. I put on my nightshirt, brushed the taste of chocolate out of my mouth, and lay down in bed. But I couldn’t sleep. I tried to read, but the light from the guttering candle made my eyes ache.
‘Screw it!’ I said out loud. I hauled the blanket off the bed, wrapped it around my shoulders, and stomped outside to sit on the porch.
Night sounds surrounded me. The clack-clack-clack of hermit crabs scrabbling through the bushes, the wheep-wheep of a nighthawk, the ooh-wah-hoo-o-o of a mourning dove who apparently couldn’t sleep either.
Something startled a bird, and he flapped his way out of the trees. I squinted into the dark trying to see where it’d gone, when a moving light caught my eye. Hawksbill settlement was unusually dark, its generators, like ours, silenced for the night. Yet someone was moving around over there.
As I stared at the light, it divided, became two. Two became three, flittering like fireflies in the vicinity of the pier at the Tamarind Tree Resort. I wondered if the boys were skinny dipping and I shuddered. Don’t go swimming at night. That’s when the big fish come in to feed. A grizzled live-aboard had given me that advice one languid afternoon at Pete’s Pub in Little Harbour. But the big fish come by day, too, especially if you chum the water.
Still wearing the blanket, I went in search of the binoculars. Where had I put the damn things? Clutching the doorframe with one hand, I bumbled into the kitchen, ran my hands along the counter, the refrigerator, the table, another counter. I found the binoculars where I’d left them, next to the radio.
Thinking I should have laid a trail of breadcrumbs, it took me a minute or two to retrace my steps. When I got back to the porch, I put the binoculars to my eyes and stared across the harbor. There were more lights now. With magnification I could see three distinct lights that I figured were flashlights, and two other bright beams that could have been the headlights on a golf cart.
A light flashed, went out, flashed again. This time, it was near the end of the pier. Somebody was going swimming tonight. I squinted and diddled with the focus dial on the binoculars. No, two somebodies. An individual standing on the pier shone a light on the ladder as two swimmers, first one and then the other, climbed into the water. Meanwhile, lights wavered and jiggled as people moved up and down the beach.
Some sort of party? If so, where was the music?
With the binoculars trained on one line of lights, I ended up looking at the runway again. More lights on, then off, as the golf cart turned and drove away.
A chilling thought: Was I witnessing what Frank and Sally had observed on another moonless night?
I wondered if the view would be better from Molly’s porch, and whether she was still awake.
I fumbled my way into the bedroom, picked my shorts up off the floor, and pulled them on under my nightshirt. I slipped into my Crocs and collected my flashlight. I crashed around the bedroom until I found my iPhone where I’d left it on the bedside table, hoping for a call from Paul, and stuck it in my pocket.