A Quarter for a Kiss (30 page)

I felt a whoosh under my feet and looked down to see a huge, gorgeous stingray swimming past. It was the color of the sand, graceful and wide.

I thought of what I knew about stingrays. They were harmless, mostly, content to camouflage themselves against the sea floor and dart quickly away when disturbed.

The only time they were a danger and would sting was when they felt trapped. That’s why, for a swimmer, stepping on a stingray was a big mistake. The pressure of the swimmer’s foot would trap the ray against the sand, and then the creature’s only recourse was to flip up its tail and sting the one who had trapped it.

Dianne was feeling trapped now.

The question was, who would she sting in order to get free?

Thirty-Two

Tom awoke about an hour later, so overheated from being up in the forward cabin that he wanted to go for a quick swim.

“I won’t put my hands in,” he said. “I just need to cool off.”

It sounded like a good idea to me, because the people we’d had under surveillance had now likely turned the tables and were watching us. I thought two people kicking around in the water and having fun made us look fairly innocent. To that end I dug around in the storage compartment and found a few floats.

“Put on your gloves,” I said, helping to pull them on each finger. “You don’t want the bandages to show.”

It only took me a few minutes to bring him up to date on all that had happened.

“That’s too bad,” he said, wincing at the pain. “At least we got some good stuff on tape before they figured it out.”

“I made a transcript,” I said. “Soon as you dry off, you can take a look.”

With my help, he used one of the floats to lower himself down into the water.

“Ahhh!” he said, leaning his head back to get as much of his body in the water as possible. “That’s enough to make a person feel almost human again.”

Unable to resist, I changed into my bathing suit and joined him, the cool water a wonderful relief from the hot sun. While Tom rested his arms on the float and kicked around that way, I put on my face mask and did a little underwater swimming. There were all sorts of fish down there, small but colorful, and it almost felt as though I were splashing around in an aquarium. Someday Tom and I would have to come back here when we weren’t working an investigation and just take in the beauty of the place.

After a short 15-minute swim, we climbed back aboard the boat—no easy feat for poor Tom, whose hands were hurting pretty badly. We needed to relocate ourselves, but the timing was tricky. On the one hand, we didn’t want to race out of there right away at the risk of looking suspicious. On the other hand, we didn’t need to hang around any longer now that our bugs had been detected and disarmed. In the end we decided to give it another 15 minutes and then pull up anchor and leave.

In the meantime we sat in the cabin together and Tom read through the transcript. I told him my theory about Nadine being in witness protection, and he said the thought had already crossed his mind.

“I don’t believe there was an official ‘witness protection program’ back in the early sixties,” he said, “but I’m sure there were ways that they did that sort of thing even then. A new identity, a little money to get started, and then they probably just expunged her record and let her be.”

“You think the whole shoot-out was staged?”

“Almost. We know for a fact that Eli shot her in the leg. But if the NSA staged Nadine’s death, then the shot she got from Eli was probably the only real bullet she took that day. Otherwise, I’d bet it was blanks and blood packets. No doubt she wore a bulletproof vest too, just in case.”

“What about the autopsy photos?”

“They could’ve been faked easily enough.”

“I wish we could talk to Eli and hear his version of what really happened.”

“We’ll have to call Stella and see how he’s doing. You should call your dad too, and find out where the cops in Cocoa Beach stand on things.”

“Soon as we get to a landline,” I said. “I don’t want to risk using a cell phone.”

“Good thinking.”

At his request I brought him a bottle of water and more aspirin and then sat across from him and leaned forward, my elbows on my knees.

“The question here,” I said, looking him in the eyes, “is if you can take this information to the NSA and find out who it was she betrayed in return for her freedom. If you can learn that, we’ll probably have the identity of the person who shot Eli.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I was thinking that.”

“Do you have the kind of connections that would afford you that information?” I asked. In the past Tom’s connections had nearly moved mountains.

He looked away.

“I think I can find out what we need to know,” he said finally. “But I have to do it in person. The more info I can bring along about Nadine, the better.”

I took the transcript from him and scanned through it.

“She’s planning something big,” I said. “Soon.”

“I know.”

I read out loud from the transcript.

“‘We have to finish this…We’ve got the passports, we’ve got the code. It’s time to make our move.’”

“I think she’s running scared,” he said. “She knows Eli spotted her and started asking questions, possibly alerting the wrong people to the fact she’s still alive. I think she wants to disappear again, this time for good.”

“My guess is that she’s making an art sale to this Merveaux guy—a sale lucrative enough to risk sticking around for a few more days. Then they’re out of here.”

“What do you think she means when she says ‘
I already put it in on Sunday, for Friday
’?”

“I have no idea.”

“What about here, ‘
I told him to watch for midnight
.’ Maybe that’s when they plan to make their move. At midnight Friday? Midnight Sunday?”

Wanting to pace, I stood and washed the few dishes that were in the little sink instead.

“‘
I told him to watch for midnight
,’” I repeated. “Midnight. What is it about that word that sounds familiar?”

We were silent for a moment.

“Her code,” Tom said finally.

We both looked at each other, our eyes wide.

“Her code!” I repeated back to him. “I’ll get the file.”

I dashed over to my bags and pulled out the file Eli had put together about Nadine. In the documents he had obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, there was a mention of Nadine having sent coded messages that included the word “midnight.”

“Here it is,” I said, flipping through the papers and then reading the classified ad Nadine had placed in the
Washington Post
several decades ago. “‘Midnight blue couch for sale. Call 721-0800. Ask for Piper Firve.’”

“The word ‘midnight’ is what’s called a flag,” Tom explained. “Her cohorts could scan the classifieds every Sunday, looking for ads that started with the word ‘midnight.’ If they found one, they just decoded that same format of phone number and name, and then they had the details they needed for a face-to-face meeting.”

I grabbed the transcript from last night and read it again.

“She says, ‘
I told him to watch for midnight.’
Meaning, ‘I told him to watch for an ad to appear in the paper that started with the word ‘midnight’?”

“Yes,” Tom replied. “Exactly. That would explain
‘I already put it in on Sunday, for Friday.’
She put the ad in last Sunday’s paper, arranging a meeting with this Merveaux guy for Friday. Tomorrow. She put it in Sunday, for Friday.”

We looked at each other.

“If we can find that ad,” I said, “we can find that meeting.”

“Let’s go,” he replied.

We had a lot to do, I realized, as he reeled in the anchor and I secured the dinghy. Once we were underway, I went into the cabin, where it was quieter, to call Jodi. I dialed the house and there was no answer, so I tried her cell phone and she picked up right away. She was working at the dig site.

“We missed you at the restaurant last night,” she said. “If you want to go out with us tonight, we’ll be at the Full Moon Buffet at Miss Lucy’s.”

“The Full Moon Buffet?”

“Yeah. They only do it when the moon is full. Real Caribbean food and a band and dancing and everything. It’s so fun.”

“I wish we had time. Listen, I need to know where to find two things,” I said to her. “A good doctor and a good newsstand.”

“A doctor?” she asked. “Are you sick?”

“Tom cut his hand,” I replied. “We just don’t want it to get infected.”

She said there were probably doctors on St. John, but the only doctor in the islands she had ever used was over in St. Thomas.

“I got food poisoning once,” she said. “He was really nice.”

“Isn’t there a doctor on this island?”

She told me to hold on, and I could hear her asking someone else.

“Sandy says there’s a clinic right in Cruz Bay,” she said after a moment. “It might take a few hours to work him in, but they’ll see him eventually.”

“How about a newsstand?”

She had no answer for that one except, again, to go to St. Thomas.

“That’s the only problem with St. John,” she said. “Sometimes it’s hard to find the things you need. I suppose you could try some of the resorts here. They have gift shops, and I bet they sell newspapers. The campgrounds too.”

She listed a few of the places she could think of off the top of her head, describing their locations.

“You won’t have much to choose from at any of them, though,” she said. “Besides a few local papers, there’s maybe the
New York Times
or the
Miami Herald.”

I thanked her for her help and then I pulled out one of the charts of the island and found each of the places she had mentioned. Showing the chart to Tom, he said we were nearing the campground at Maho Bay.

“We’ll pull in there and run to the gift shop,” he said.

While he turned in toward the bay, I called Abraham at the St. John Police Department. The woman who answered the phone said it was his day off, so I dug out the card he had given me and tried the cell phone number he had scribbled on the back.

“Hallo?” Abraham said in his Caribbean accent.

“Hi, Abraham. It’s Callie Webber.”

“Callie! How are you today?”

“I’m on a cell phone,” I said, hoping he was savvy enough to understand that that meant I couldn’t really talk, “but I have something for you. Could you be free in about an hour?”

“For you, you bet,” he replied, giving me instructions to a small cove near Cruz Bay. I told him we could be there at 1:30.

Once we had hung up, I told Tom the plan and then went into the cabin to make a copy of the digital surveillance files for Abraham. I always kept a flash drive or two in the front pouch of my laptop case, so I started by grabbing the one I knew held nothing of importance and erasing it clean. Then I copied onto it the digital sound files we had made, as well as the text file of the transcription. All combined, the files took up a lot of room, but fortunately the flash drive was big enough to hold everything.

When I was finished, I put my stuff away and came out of the cabin, emerging just as we were pulling into a beautiful cove filled from one end to the other with boats of all shapes and sizes.

“Looks like a popular place,” Tom said, easing the boat to a stop in the shallow water.

“I can wade in,” I told him, digging in my wallet for a few dollars. “No biggy.”

“Grab us something to eat while you’re there, would you? I’m starving.”

“Sure. There are some chips in Jodi’s tote bag, if you want.”

I gave him a peck on the cheek, unhooked the ladder, and quickly climbed down. The water was cold but felt good, and I easily made my way to the beach, which was clustered with noisy children.

“Excuse me, can you tell me where I might find the gift shop?” I asked a woman on a nearby towel.

“Take those steps,” she said, pointing. “Aaaaallll the way to the top.”

I did as she said, quickly understanding what she meant. The Maho Bay Campground was perched on the side of a huge hill, and from what I could tell the climb to the top was going to be the equivalent of about five or six flights of stairs.

As I ran up, I took in the sight of this amazing place, a heavily wooded series of screened-in cabins, all strung together by wooden steps that zigzagged up the hill. There seemed to be a lot of families here, and I had to dodge clusters of kids running down the stairs every few minutes.

I was slightly winded by the time I arrived at the top, and I caught my breath as I followed the wooden arrows to the gift shop. My heart quickened as I stepped inside to see a pile of newspapers near the front of the store.

I took what they had—the Sunday edition of the
Virgin Islands Daily News
and several smaller free papers. We weren’t sure what newspaper Dianne was using to plant her coded message, but I thought I ought to cover all of the bases. While I was there, I also looked for food, but there weren’t many healthful choices. I finally grabbed a pack of peanuts, some ripe bananas, and two bottles of Gatorade. I asked the man behind the counter if they had any other newspapers, and he said they got the
New York Times
on Sundays, but it was usually sold out by Wednesday.