No Virgin Island (7 page)

Henry hopped on his scooter and tore up the roads to Sabrina’s house after dropping her off with Neil. He was worried about what might have gone on there during the search, what might be missing or, at best, tossed around. He had passed the police station on his way and confirmed what he suspected. The reporter he had seen last night at Sabrina’s was standing out front, microphone in hand.

He climbed the hill leading to Sabrina’s cottage, wondering if someone had been posted there from INN to observe any inane detail that might be used to titillate an audience, but the road was mercifully empty and quiet. All the action must be at the police station.

The house was locked with no external signs that the police had conducted a search. Inside, things looked a little sloppy, but no worse than he’d seen Sabrina leave it on occasion. The file cabinet drawers weren’t closed fully and the desk looked a little disorganized, but otherwise
everything was fairly normal. He began tidying up, and in a half hour, the house looked like it did most days.

Sabrina lived a little like a refugee, Henry thought. He knew she had grown up poor with only the essentials, but she had learned to live in luxury once she had become a weather anchor in Boston. He’d seen her on a number of flights, dressed casually but still managing to look elegant, tall, and graceful, although a bit skittish, like a bird being watched. Since they’d arrived on St. John, Sabrina shunned anything that would draw attention to her, dressing and decorating so generically that Henry found it painful to watch.

He picked up the landline, which was far more reliable than his mobile. First, he started down the list of people who had rented villas from them.

“Hello, it’s Henry from Ten Villas. How are you? I’m sure you’ve heard the dreadful news about the murder here in St. John. What you may not know is that it took place in one of our houses. Totally unrelated to Ten Villas, of course, and probably drug related, but it’s having the most unexpected effect. With all of the media attention, we are getting inquiries for reservations at a rate we can barely handle. So Sabrina and I have decided that it’s only fair we call our loyal customers and give them a chance to confirm their reservations for next year with a credit card number and a deposit.”

One after another, people thanked him and expressed sympathy that something so nefarious had happened
on St. John. Some wanted details about the murder, but no one, absolutely not a one, wanted to cancel their reservation.

Henry chose to save the people who stayed at Villa Mascarpone for last. Here, he thought he might run into some opposition. But again, somewhat to his surprise, people clucked about how awful it was to have a murder at the villa where they stayed and then went on to ask if there were any physical signs a murder had taken place. Henry thought they were hoping for bullet holes in the wall. He didn’t understand it, but people just gobbled up crime these days. He enjoyed a good true crime story himself, but much more when he was watching it on television.

He decided he would call the Kimballs, the couple who had originally cancelled their reservation at Villa Mascarpone, to see if they would be interested in reserving for next year. They had simply sent an e-mail when they cancelled, saying they understood they wouldn’t lose their deposit because someone else would be renting the villa. Although Carter Johnson never said he was referred by the Kimballs, he called the same day for a last-minute booking, so Henry and Sabrina assumed he’d come through them.

The Kimballs, along with many of their clients, had previously rented directly from owners or from other agencies. Upon starting Ten Villas, Henry and Sabrina had worked very hard at convincing the owners of each villa that the services they performed not only would be worth
the cut they took from the rental fee but also would please renters and persuade them to return season after season.

Henry dialed the number and was pleased when he was not sent to voicemail.

“Elaine,” Henry said, as if he had reached an old college classmate he’d been trying to locate. “It’s Henry from Ten Villas. How are you?”

Elaine answered politely that she was fine and thanked him again for returning the deposit.

“We hope your cancellation wasn’t because you haven’t been happy with Villa Mascarpone or Ten Villas.”

“Why would you ever think that, Henry? John and I love Villa Mascarpone. We wish we had enough money to buy it. But you know why we didn’t come. How could we resist?” Elaine asked.

“Resist what?” Henry asked, wondering what she was talking about. Had he missed an e-mail or something?

“The prize, Henry, that fabulous prize. I must say you and Sabrina are doing an amazing job marketing your business. We had such a good time.”

“Well that’s great, Elaine. Where did you go?” Henry asked, his brain starting to hurt from a puzzle he had no interest in. He just wanted to get Villa Mascarpone rented so he could call Angela Martino and get her off Sabrina’s back—and his.

“Hawaii, Henry. The prize we won in the Ten Villas drawing. I mean, when Mr. Taylor called and told me, I just couldn’t believe it. I thought it must be a scam. But
sure enough, the tickets and reservations at those fabulous hotels arrived. I think John liked Kauai the best, but I really think Maui is nicer. Three weeks was unbelievably perfect. We just got back last night. I haven’t even unpacked.” Elaine spoke with a postvacation high in her voice, the one that lasts about twelve hours after you arrive home.

Mr. Taylor. Hawaii. Ten Villas drawing. What was Elaine Kimball on?

Henry took a deep breath and made a strategic decision. Whatever was going on, it was way too complicated to unravel on the phone with Elaine. He was over his head here.

“Well I’m glad you folks had a good time, Elaine. We’ve had a little incident down here at Villa Mascarpone. You probably missed it on the news, but a man was murdered there yesterday.” Henry went on to explain that the result had been surprising. Ten Villas was swamped with rental requests. If the Kimballs were troubled by what happened, he had a list of others wanting the villa, especially for next year, on the anniversary of the murder. Did the Kimballs want to return next year during their normal month?

Of course they did. And they would have no trouble appearing in advertisements for Ten Villas and St. John claiming, “Better than Hawaii.” They’d taken tons of photos, just like Mr. Taylor had instructed them to.

Henry hung up, confused and limp with exhaustion. He had one more call to make.

“Angela, Henry here. How are you?”

“How do you think I am? You and Sabrina have made my beautiful villa a haven for the underworld. What kind of people are you renting to anyway? And why weren’t the Kimballs there? I’ve rented to them for years and no one got murdered. Who will ever want to stay at Villa Mascarpone ever again?” Angela wailed into the phone.

“Everyone who has rented in the past year, Angela. They’re all coming back and have authorized deposits on their credit cards. I told them all that the notoriety of what’s happened has everyone clamoring to come here and that Villa Mascarpone has become the place to be.” Henry felt like he was back in the first-class cabin of Allied Air, sucking up to people he would never choose to be with.

“Oh, Henry, that was so clever. I’ll feel so much more confident tonight during my interview. Thank you,” Angela said.

“What interview?” Henry asked.

“I’m going to be on
Chasing Justice
with Faith Chase. I hope you’ll watch.”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world, Angela. Break a leg,” Henry said and meant it.

Sabrina looked at her cell phone to see what time it was as the car peeled out of the parking lot. It was 10:00 a.m., not even twenty-four hours since she had found Carter Johnson on the hammock. How could her life have been changed so much in one day by a person she barely knew?

“Where are we going?” she asked, as Neil drove up the hills on Centerline Road, the main roadway that bisected the island from one end to another. Lush, green trees on each side of her, the sweet smell of the rain forest so thick she wanted to dive out of the car and hide in it.

“Somewhere we can talk without a cop or a reporter,” Neil said in a tone too serious for her. Didn’t he feel the relief she had when Detective Janquar released her after minimal questioning?

“Are you worried about Seth being at the police station?” Sabrina asked, realizing that she was. What worried her was the cocky expression Seth wore when she saw him in the hallway. She had always liked Seth, although after
hiring him as their pool guy, she saw him very little. He went on his rounds cleaning pools for them and for other people without much fuss. Sabrina had no complaints from clients and only knew a little about him being fired by Rory Eagan, allegedly for trying to date his daughter.

“I’m worried about everything, Salty. That’s what lawyers do and why I got out. Well, at least one of the reasons,” Neil said as his cell phone began bleating “Ants Go Marching.”

“Hey. Yeah, I know about it. I ordered it. Does it fully cover the front of her house?” Neil asked the caller. Sabrina wondered if he was talking about her house or maybe he had a girlfriend he was having work done for. She didn’t like that idea.

“Well, then, great, it’s working. She can park in it. It’s big enough. Sure,” Neil grunted into the phone, handing it to her. “It’s Henry.”

“Hi, how’re things going?” Sabrina asked, knowing everything do to with Ten Villas was on Henry’s overly full plate. He quickly let her know that he had soothed all their clients, that her house now had a forty-foot-long empty cargo container sitting in front of it, and that Villa Mascarpone was no longer being held captive by the police as a crime scene. It was more than she could absorb.

“A container? How did that happen?” Sabrina asked, remembering how much she and Henry had each longed for the one containing all their worldly goods to arrive in St. Thomas when they’d first moved to St. John. There
was no choice about how to get your stuff to St. John. You either chucked it all or shipped it in a container. She and Henry had made a compromise. They’d each tossed about 75 percent of what they owned and thrown what they couldn’t bear to leave behind in a container they shared. Now it seemed Sabrina had one all to herself.

“Ask your boyfriend,” Henry said.

“He’s not my—” She stopped midsentence, not wanting Neil to hear Henry tease her. “I guess I better go up to Villa Mascarpone and clean it up.”

“That’s where I’m headed. I told the Leonards they could get in by two o’clock,” Henry said before hanging up.

Sabrina told Neil she needed to get to Villa Mascarpone. Although normally Henry could clean any villa by himself, as could she, leaving him with that puddle of dry blood and the vapors of death wasn’t something she could do to him.

“Great, I need to see the place,” Neil said. He pulled over at Tony’s Kitchen, a roadside beverage and snack van, and got out. He came back with two opened cold bottles of Guinness and a bag of salt-and-vinegar potato chips. Sabrina took a gulp from her bottle and felt an explosion of flavor on her tongue.

“This is the best sip of beer I’ve ever had,” she said, grabbing a chip out of the bag.

“That’s the problem with beer, Salty. Nothing can ever taste as good as the first frosty sip. After that, it’s all downhill.”

“That’s kind of a downer, Neil, especially considering you own a bar.”

“It’s reality. Speaking of which, it’s time you get real with me. What’s with that kid, Seth? Do you have any idea why he’d be at the police station? Does he know something about the guy at Villa Mascarpone you aren’t sharing with me?”

Neil emptied his Guinness and then started the jeep and drove up Gifft Hill. They passed the fork in the road, which was a wooden fork painted fluorescent green decades before by some ex-patriot with a sense of humor, she’d been told. Sabrina’s take on it was that if you lived in St. John, you’d already reached the fork in the road.

She told Neil what she knew about Seth. He was probably just a little over twenty-one and had come to St. John after dropping out of college. Seth told her he lived on a boat for a while, but he was too antsy to be confined in small quarters. The tiny apartment he now rented in Cruz Bay was no bigger, but it was on terra firma. He started the pool cleaning business, something he had learned while as a kid working in Florida. He had a thriving business within six months. If something went wrong, you could call him and he’d be out on the job within a half hour. Sabrina liked Seth. She just didn’t like the way he’d looked at the police station.

Sabrina dodged the question about Carter Johnson.

“Tell me why I have a container sitting in front of my house, Neil,” she said. Nothing made any sense to her, and
she couldn’t imagine how the placement of a container in front of her modest Caribbean cottage would unscramble her life.

Neil explained that the container he ordered be placed in front of her house was to protect her from the reporters.

“Think of it as a barricade, Salty. A reporter embargo has been declared. No one will be able to see you once you park your car. Of course, you might have to run over one of them getting there, but no big loss.”

They rounded the curve on the cliff leading to Villa Mascarpone. Sabrina wanted to jump out of the jeep, dreading the sight of the house, which previously had been her favorite on the entire island.

She felt better when she saw Henry’s scooter parked in the circular driveway. He was already spilling bleach on the stone where the bloodstain sat like an ugly shadow. Neil pushed his sunglasses onto the top of his head without saying a word and did a 360-degree turn taking in the pool area.

“I’m going to have a good look around here while you two do whatever you do to clean a house. The cops have been here for twenty-four hours and probably taken anything of interest to them, but I want you both to be on the lookout for anything that seems different to you. Don’t worry about how small it is, just let me know,” Neil said.

Henry agreed to continue cleaning the stone pool deck and other outdoor areas, although Sabrina offered to help with the bloodstain. She was relieved when he declined
and headed inside to do the interior. She started with the smaller bedrooms, which looked as though they had been unoccupied, and worked her way through the living room and dining rooms. She saw nothing different from the other times she had cleaned the house after guests.

Sabrina headed into the master bedroom, where she knew Carter Johnson had brought his luggage the day she picked him up at the ferry. Dirty sheets, to be expected, on the bed. Slightly damp towels lay on the bathroom floor and the smell of soap lingered in the air. But nothing unusual.

She picked up the linens, throwing them into a laundry bag, and made the bed with fresh sheets before moving into the kitchen. No messy pots and pans in the sink, telling her Carter had used the outdoor grill or eaten out, which she already knew. A few dirty glasses on the counter and a dishwasher filled with clean dishes. She opened the fridge and saw a few remnant bottles of beer and a nearly empty tray of a Ten Villas appetizer assortment, the kind they charged twenty-five bucks for, delivered. But Sabrina had never delivered any to him and knew Tanya hadn’t either. Where had they come from?

Sabrina took the tray out of the refrigerator and walked through the kitchen into the dining area toward the sliding glass doors in the living room, where Neil was standing.

She called out to Henry across the pool, still slaving over the stain.

“Hey, Henry, you know anything about Carter Johnson getting a tray of assorted appetizers from us?”

“Maybe. What about the new bottle of propane next to the empty one I found on the deck? Do you know anything about that?” Henry asked, strutting toward her around the edge of the pool.

Sabrina stared at Henry but didn’t answer. He met her eyes with equal obstinacy and silence.

“Well, whatever the hell the two of you know, you better clue me in right now,” Neil said, “because you’re playing a deadly game here. One or both of you could be charged with being an accessory to a murder if you are obstructing a police investigation by lying or even omitting information. And just to be clear here, I don’t represent people who lie to me.”