Murder in the Raw (16 page)

“I met with the shareholders Monday morning and got them under control, and flew back out. Rough news about Vernon. Anything I can do?”

“Well, for a start, I need to get off this island.”

“You got it. See you at the airfield in one hour.”

Rex was sure the von Muellers, who were so correct, would not tell anybody about the sighting of the actress until he returned to the resort. Now that Vernon was dead, he thought it prudent to withhold news of Sabine for now. However, as the Piper bowled down the mountainside runway, he decided he ought to tell Brooklyn that the woman he had clearly been in love with was not dead after all. He waited until they had cleared the airfield and were on their flight path to St. Martin, but Brooklyn spoke first.

“The tower warned me we might run into weather.” He checked the altimeter reading. “You could have been stranded on St. Barts.”

Even as he spoke, the wind whipped up the waves below them, crumpling the blue tapestry of the sea until it became barely possible to make out the few boats bobbing about like corks on the surface. Rex wondered if Sabine’s catamaran was among them. The first few drops of rain had fallen when Brooklyn fueled the plane. Now the wipers worked at a furious pace to repel the deluge.

Rex wasn’t too concerned. It was a short distance to Grand Case, and the air-conditioned six-seater aircraft looked solid and new to his untrained eye. All the same, he decided not to distract Brooklyn with the news of Sabine until they landed. “What was going on at La Plage when you left?” he asked instead, anxious to hear details of Vernon’s death.

“Pandemonium. Hastings was doing a good job of keeping a stiff upper lip and going about the proper procedure. The ambulance arrived as I left. And there was a tall gendarme with a mustache waving his arms in the air, like he was directing traffic.”

“Lieutenant Latour.”

“Hopefully the situation will have calmed down by the time we get back.”

“D’ye think it was suicide?”

“Accidental maybe. Vernon just wasn’t the type to kill himself.”

Brooklyn went on to describe the scene at Vernon’s cabana as Danielle had recounted it to him. The last track on the CD was playing the Bee Gees, “Nights on Broadway,” as she walked in. No sign of a struggle. Everything in its place, down to the re-corked bottle of rum and the pair of tumblers rinsed clean on the counter. Vernon lying on the bed with his arms folded across his chest, naked as a jaybird, a whiff of rum discernible on his pale lips.

A peaceful scene, Rex acknowledged. Except that, if he’d overdosed on purpose, where was the medication and why go to the trouble of doing the washing up?

Approaching the coast, Brooklyn spoke in a series of code into the radio, seeking clearance to land. As he guided the plane through the driving rain over misty hills and depthless valleys, Rex’s throat lodged in his mouth. Blurry lights marking the runway rushed up to meet them. Here we go, he thought, his body tensing in preparation. The strip looked terrifyingly short.

The plane swooped down, the landing gear bumped on the tarmac, and they hurtled toward a controlled stop, within a comfortable distance of the barrier. Rex took in a deep breath and exhaled slowly.

“I’m gonna taxi into that hangar,” Brooklyn said. “Pascal will be waiting for us in the parking lot. I think we made it just in time. The rain’s getting worse if that’s possible.”

The gale blew so strongly that Rex could barely open the cockpit door. By the time he got to the limo he was drenched through. Pascal slid open the driver partition and pointed to a decanter of brandy in the drinks compartment. He had even brought towels. A gust hurled Brooklyn inside ten minutes later.

Rex poured a tumbler of brandy for his roommate as the car splashed through the rain. “Is all this flying a lot of wear and tear on your plane?”

“The PA-46 is built for long haul. It has a range of 1,345 nautical miles. It’s one thousand NMs northwest by west to Lauderdale where I refuel, then almost another thousand to New York, but she can handle it. Depending on when you leave, I could fly you to Miami to get your connection back to Edinburgh.”

“Aye, maybe,” Rex fudged, thinking the short flight from St. Barts was sufficient experience of a private plane. “Listen, I have news about Sabine I’ve been waiting to tell you.”

“You found her body?”

“No—I have every reason to believe she’s alive. Gaby von Mueller spotted her on St. Barts yesterday. That’s what I was doing over there. I tracked her down to a hotel where she was staying with a young man, who may be the one she was with when she visited the Butterfly Farm.”

“You have been busy.” Brooklyn studied his glass, a frown forming between his gray-green eyes. “Alive, you say. Who’s the man?”

“I don’t know. The woman at the souvenir shop thinks he might have been French.”

Brooklyn sat back in the white leather seat. “I can’t think of any Frenchmen she hung out with here on the island. I know one who sometimes moors his yacht in the bay at La Plage, but I’m not sure they’re acquainted, and he’s not her type.”

“What is her type?”

“Young. Pretty boy types, judging by the servers she flirted with. I didn’t think she was serious about anybody.”

“Except you?”

“I thought so. Alive, huh?” Brooklyn looked like a dazed boxer rising in the ring at the last count.

“Did you ever meet her chiropractor?”

“I knew she was seeing one in Philipsburg on a regular basis.”

“Aye, well I think she was doing more than getting a spinal manipulation.”

“You mean she was sleeping with a quack?”

“I don’t think he’s a chiropractor at all.”

The limo pulled through the gate to the resort and deposited them in front of their cabana. No sooner had Rex scrambled into dry clothes than a knock came at the door and Greg Hastings, the manager, stepped inside, propping his dripping golf umbrella against the wall by the mat.

“Thought I’d come over and fill you in,” he said. “Some rather interesting developments. I haven’t had a chance to speak to the gendarmes regarding the latest.”

“Please …” Rex ushered him into the living room.

“When you called from St. Barts, I sent Danielle to fetch Mr. Powell for you, as you know. The door to his cabana being slightly ajar, she went in and saw him lying on the bed. Sensing something wasn’t right, she drew closer and realized his eyes were open and he wasn’t moving or breathing. She ran back to reception and I escorted Dr. von Mueller to the cabana, where the doctor pronounced Durand dead. A CD was still playing when Danielle found him, so he couldn’t have been dead long.”

Unless someone else reset the CD player just to confuse the police, Rex hypothesized to himself. “Brook told me what Danielle found. It seems odd that a man who was about to take his life would rinse out the glass of rum he presumably used to wash down the pills.”

“Well, I don’t think he was the one who did that. When I returned to the main building after taking Dr. von Mueller to number 2, one of the staff told me she had seen Sabine there shortly before Danielle found the body.”

The manager’s account confirmed Rex’s suspicions.

“The gendarme is here,” Brooklyn informed them.

Lieutenant Latour strutted into the living room. “
Quel sale temps!
” he exclaimed, brushing water off his slicker.

“Foul weather indeed. Mr. Hastings was just telling me we might have a suspect in Vernon Powell’s murder.”

“
Encore?
Why must he be murdered? Why must everybody be murdered?” Red blotches appeared on the gendarme’s face and neck. “Why not an accidental little overdose? Ah, you Sherlock Holmes types! Can you not enjoy our beautiful island without seeing murder everywhere? Well, we will know from ze autopsy what happened.”

“We dinna have time. Mr. Powell’s wife was here.”

“Mademoiselle Durand?
Sans blague!
”

“No, it’s no joke. Mr. Hastings just found out from a member of staff. Is it not a wee bit suspicious that Ms. Durand stages her death, mysteriously reappears two weeks later, and within one hour her husband is found O.D.’d in his bed, during which time she mysteriously vanishes again?”

“The lady from maid service came forward and confessed,” the manager explained to Latour. “Ms. Durand swore Clementine Guillaume to secrecy with a bribe of one thousand euros.”

“Ze maid will testify?”

“She wants to keep her job.”

“And do we know where Mademoiselle Durand is now?” Lieutenant Latour looked around the room as though she might be hiding in a corner.

“According to Clementine, she slipped away in the rain dressed in a plastic poncho,” Hastings replied.

Brooklyn handed Rex a pair of binoculars. “I just spoke to the security guard. He saw someone fitting that description get into a dingy. My guess is she’s on one of the cats out there waiting for the storm to abate so she can get off the island.” He turned to the manager. “I borrowed your umbrella. I hope you don’t mind.”

Rex adjusted the binoculars and focused on a catamaran at anchor in the middle of the bay. The chop obscured the name of the craft, but he watched long enough to decipher some of the letters. A couple of figures scurried about on deck, as though preparing the catamaran for sail.

“She’s on that boat,” he told Brooklyn, holding the glasses steady so he could see. “The
Moonsplash
. That’s how she got here from St. Barts. That’s how she left in the first place. The tide was out that night and she swam the short distance to the catamaran, first planting a torn-off piece of her pareo and her ankle bracelet on the beach.”

Sabine would have known from her morning rides down Galion Beach where the tide would be at any given point in the day. She had no doubt picked the evening of Paul Winslow’s birthday to disappear, knowing the guests would be busy getting ready for dinner.

“They’re on the move,” Brooklyn said, following the boat with his glasses.

“Lieutenant Latour, can you send a police boat?” Rex asked.

“There’s not enough time,” Brooklyn interrupted. “The cat could hide out on any number of islands. We need to pick them up before they have a chance to escape.”

“What if the police sent a chopper?”

“Not in this weather. C’mon, let’s go after her.”

“How?”

His roommate laughed as though he had just dreamed up a good game to play. “I have a key to one of the yachts in the bay. It belongs to that Frenchman I told you about. Get something waterproof on. I’ll find Pascal. Meet you on the beach in five minutes.”

“
Tenez.
” Latour shrugged out of his slicker and handed it to Rex. Clearly, he had no intention of going with them. After a brief hesitation, he offered his cap.

“Thanks.”

Rex could not believe he was actually going out on a boat in this weather, but he could not let Sabine get away.

Rex ran to the beach. Peering through the rain, he saw the
Moonsplash
had not made much progress and seemed to be in difficulty. Pascal and Brooklyn appeared farther down the sand.

“Hop into this old bucket,” Brooklyn called to Rex, pointing to a small boat with an outboard motor. “We’ll go after them in the
Belle Dame
. Even if Sabine sees people get on the yacht, she’ll think it’s the owner and his crew.”

Wading into the water, Rex climbed aboard and sat huddled on a wooden bench seat while the rain pelted his slicker. Pascal pulled up anchor, and the boat ploughed forward as fast as the little coffee mill of an engine could transport the three of them against the roll of the waves.

Pascal, hand on the tiller, wore a fisherman’s knit sweater and hood, which Rex assumed he kept in the trunk of his car when he came to work. The hum of the motor was barely audible above the deafening roar of the sea. The rocking motion unsettled Rex’s stomach and he thought he might lose his
steak-frites
after surviving the plane ride. With any luck, the yacht would be steadier.

“They’d be crazy to take that twenty-four footer into open water in a storm like this,” Brooklyn remarked, his eyes trained on the catamaran which, after some initial floundering, was making progress toward the mouth of the bay.

“Do you know much about boats?” Rex asked apprehensively.

“I used to race cigarette boats.”

“Is there anything you canna do?”

Brooklyn seemed to give the question due consideration. “No,” he answered, and grinned as rain poured down his face.

Pascal nosed the dingy behind the
Belle Dame
. Concentrating on maintaining his balance, Rex followed Brooklyn up the fiberglass steps at the stern, across a teak sundeck, and up a steep stairway to the pilothouse. Even at this high vantage point, spray lashed against the wrap-around tempered glass windows. The yacht dipped and reared like a horse on a carousel. Brooklyn hollered down to Pascal and turned the ignition key. The twin engines leaped to life with a tremendous roar. Added to the swaying motion, the smell of diesel made Rex nauseous.

As they left the relative shelter of the bay, pushing out past the island to starboard, the heaving of the sea sucked at the hull, the waves around them roiling masses of foam. Rex felt uncomfortable just watching this stuff on TV from the comfort of his recliner. Would he were there now!

Pascal, who had taken over at the helm, fought with the wheel in pursuit of the
Moonsplash
, which was outstripping them at forty-five knots on a course toward Pinel Island. From time to time, she disappeared from view amid twelve-foot cliffs of gray water. Distantly visible on shore, the palm trees bent sideways in the wind.

“Is this a hurricane?” Rex yelled out to Brooklyn.

“Just a squall. Don’t worry, just don’t go overboard.”

“No chance,” Rex said, holding onto the console with white knuckles. “Are you sure we can catch up with them?”

“This is a more powerful boat and Pascal knows these waters. Why don’t you go down to the cabin? I’ll call when we get near.”

“That’s okay,” Rex said valiantly. How could he ever relate this adventure to Campbell if he had to tell him he’d been throwing up in the head?

Water swept over the bow, splashing the glass. A sailboat out on the ocean was struggling to get its sails down. Pascal called the national police and alerted them to a possible emergency. “Gale force winds up to ninety kilometers an hour off La Plage d’Azur,” he reported, reading their GPS location.

The police boat was already on another call, Pascal relayed afterward. All search and rescue boats were busy scooping up fishing vessels and yachts caught in the storm. He tuned in to the local VHF frequency, and they heard the crackling SOS from the sailboat. “Mayday … Mayday,” called an American voice. “We’re having problems.”

Pascal turned to Rex. “Do we go pick dem up?”

“Their mast’s gonna snap if we don’t,” Brooklyn said. “They could end up on the rocks.”

Rex thought quickly. He couldn’t leave the sailboat and crew to their fate, but he couldn’t let a murderer get away either. “Aye, we’d better save that boat,” he agreed.

Brooklyn nodded. “If we can get them on course headed into the bay, we can still go after the catamaran.”

Suddenly, Pascal pointed. Rex stood on his toes to see over an intervening ridge of waves. The
Moonsplash
had capsized. Two figures bobbed about in the water in life preservers.

“Them first,” he told Pascal.

Within minutes, Rex and Brooklyn had hoisted the shivering couple out of the water onto the deck. Not a word was spoken between Brooklyn and Sabine. Rex explained who he was and why he was chasing them. The bedraggled young man with her looked about him like a caged animal.

“I’ll take them below,” Rex told Brooklyn. “D’you think you can help those people get their sailboat ashore?”

“Aye, aye, skipper.”

“Here, take these life preservers in case Ms. Durand and her partner get any ideas about making a swim for it.”

Sabine cast Rex a look of disdain. She had the beguiling eyes of a cat, though he couldn’t tell if they were more green or more blue. Duke Farley had been right: the girl did look good wet. Her delicate face, nude of makeup, appeared appealingly young. Beneath her life vest, a silk dress molded her small pointed breasts and slight hips. Both she and her partner were barefoot, dripping water as Rex ushered them into a Berber-carpeted cabin with fully equipped galley.

He located a pile of beach towels in a closet and opened the door to one of the staterooms so Sabine could get out of her wet clothes. The man peeled off his T-shirt and waterlogged jeans. He was narrow in the shoulders, his dark hair a dramatic contrast to his face, which was still pinched and pale from shock. Why Sabine had chosen him over Brooklyn, Rex couldn’t imagine—but there was no accounting for taste where women were concerned, as he had recently discovered from personal experience.

“I didn’t catch your name,” he prompted, since it had not been volunteered.

“Jean-Luc Valquez. Thank you for saving us.”

It speaks!
Rex said to himself.

Sabine stepped into the room, wrapped in a bright towel. “I will never get the tangles out of my hair,” she said, tugging a comb through a damp strand. She spoke with a slight London accent. Rex remembered she had worked and been schooled there.

“Perhaps you could rustle up a pot of coffee,” he said. “It might take your mind off your hair.” He, for one, could use a cup of something hot.

“This is a nice yacht,” she said, wandering into the galley. “It’s like a mini-condo. Yours?”

“No. It belongs to a friend of Brook’s.”

“A Frenchman.” Sabine waved a packet of French roast at him. “I remember now. An old salt by the name of Fabien.”

“How did you get that cut on your wrist?” Rex asked.

“I scraped it on some coral a few weeks ago while I was diving.”

“Are you sure it wasna self-inflicted?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“The strip torn from your white pareo has your blood on it.”

“Strange.”

“Not so strange when one realizes you staged your own death. I suppose you cast the rest of the pareo out to sea once you reached the catamaran.”

“Don’t be silly.”

“Or else Jean-Luc here was onboard all along. You left a piece of your pareo on the beach along with your ankle bracelet.”

Jean-Luc collapsed on a stool at the granite breakfast bar and sank his head in his hands. “I had nothing to do with any of this.”

Sabine turned on him in a fury. “You bloody idiot.
Idiot!
” she repeated in French.

“She told me to try and escape,” he told Rex. “We almost drowned.”

“Are you Sganarelle?”

Jean-Luc shrugged in submission. “It was her idea.”

“
Veux-tu bien te taire, espèce de grenouille?
”

“Did she just call you a frog?” Rex asked.

Sabine smacked her forehead. “It’s the first thing I thought of. I don’t mean because he is French. I just meant a slimy little green reptile with bony legs.
Cro-ak, cro-ack, cro-ack!
” she said in her boyfriend’s face.

“
Ben, alors? Tu m’emmerdes avec tes histoires!
”

His French moved too fast for Rex to follow, but it didn’t sound polite. “How is the coffee coming along?” he asked brightly in an attempt to interrupt the domestic dispute.

The noise and motion of the yacht had subsided. Rex looked out of a porthole near the ceiling and saw they were at anchor in the lee of the island. Pascal must be helping Brooklyn with the sailboat.

“Sganarelle was a sort of code name, I take it?” he asked Sabine. “You could have used Clitandre, but that sounds even more literary, so you transposed the name of the miserly and possessive old man—your husband Vernon—onto the pretend doctor, your lover.”

Sabine nodded, a faint smile on her shapely lips. “I’m impressed. How did you figure that one out?” She plunked a mug of coffee and a container of sugar in front of him on the counter.

“I canna take credit. A friend made the connection.”

“Surely not the boring Windbag Winslow?”

“That’s no way to speak about the man who took you in when you were a struggling young actress.”

“Oh, please. I paid rent and, anyway, it was Elizabeth’s idea. I don’t suppose you have any idea who she is, do you?” She raised her delicate eyebrow at him in defiance.

Rex must have looked blank.

“So, she didn’t tell you.”

“Tell me what?”

“She’s my mother. My natural mother, that is. She gave me up at birth. She was an art student in Paris from a good British family when it was still not respectable to have a child out of wedlock. I was adopted by a wealthy French couple and didn’t find out I wasn’t their biological daughter until Elizabeth breezed back in my life when I was eighteen and told me. I have never forgiven my adoptive mother for not telling me herself.”

“What about your father?”

“The one who adopted me? I was angry at him too, but not as much. As for my natural father, all I know is that he was a French actor and the love of Elizabeth’s life. But he is still a
salaud
for running out on her.”

“But why Vernon? Why did you marry him?”

“I thought he could take care of me.”

“What happened when you went back there today?”

Sabine leaned against the counter with her mug of coffee. “He looked like he’d seen a ghost when I walked through the sliding glass door.” She laughed. “The expression on his face was priceless. He was in a maudlin mood, sitting in an armchair listening to Broadway hits and knocking back the rum. I poured one for myself and launched into the role of Abjectly Sorry Wife.”

“And you spiked his drink.”

“He was pitiful when he realized what I’d done. We were in bed by then. ‘What in hell did you put in my rum?’” she slurred in perfect imitation of Vernon’s dry American accent.

“‘Barbiturates,’ I told him. ‘Everyone will think you topped yourself.’

“‘Bitch. You planned this all along.’ Then with his last gasp, he asked, ‘Why?’

“‘Because you asked for it.’”

Sabine paced the galley. “That’s what he said that time he slapped me at the Farley ranch: ‘She asked for it.’” Hate transformed her exquisite face.

“There were other ways to get your husband out of your life, you know,” Rex told her.

“Not Vernon. Believe me, I tried. He didn’t want to be twice divorced. Wouldn’t look good on him. And he’d have killed my career stone dead. He was a very vindictive person.”

Rex chose to overlook the hypocrisy of that last statement. “And you really thought you’d get away with this elaborate plan?”

The actress gave an elegant shrug of her shoulders. “I might have, had you not interfered.”

“People would have figured it out eventually.”