Afoot on St. Croix (Mystery in the Islands) (11 page)

Distinctive Feet

STILL ON THE
hunt for his dinner, Adam Rock returned to the bar inside the rainbow diner. Swiveling on his stool, he rotated his round body to survey the guests seated at the diner’s rows of tables.

His beady vision quickly honed in on a single female, seated alone at a table near the boulders on the lagoon edge of the restaurant.

Rising from the stool, Rock strolled a few steps across the room to get a better look. He leaned over the railing on the restaurant’s open wall and pretended to gaze out across the water.

He estimated the woman was in her late thirties. She was American, he judged, but not a tourist—she wore eyeglasses instead of sunshades. Nor was she a local. Her skin was far too pale.

A half-eaten plate of fish tacos had been pushed to one side while the woman scribbled in a small notepad. A professional-grade 35mm camera sat on the table beside the plate. She was a journalist, perhaps, or maybe a freelance writer.

Either way, he thought with elation, he had stumbled upon a rare finding in Caribbean travel circles: a sheep separated from the herd.

•

HAVING SELECTED HIS
target, Rock set his beer on the railing and shifted his posture to turn his back to the seated woman. Wetting his fingers on the side of the bottle, he worked the gold wedding band over his swollen knuckle and slipped it off his finger. Surreptitiously, he tucked it into the flap of his wallet.

He held up his hand, spreading his fingers wide. The skin was evenly tanned. No whitening demarcated the ring’s earlier position. During his frequent trips to the Caribbean, the ring spent far more time in his wallet than on his finger.

Reaching for the beer, he took another steadying sip as he prepared to make his approach. It was important to come off as confident, but not overly so. Casual, but attentive. He was a pro, he told himself. After all, he’d done this maneuver countless times before.

Red Stripe in hand, he closed the gap on the remaining ten feet to his unsuspecting prey.

With his appetite now surging in voracity, he made his way, slowly but surely, toward the unsuspecting writer.

•

THE WOMAN FINISHED
taking her notes and set down her pen. She gazed thoughtfully at the sailboats in the harbor, before a movement at her feet captured her attention. Grabbing her camera, she aimed her lens at a crab that had cautiously emerged from the boulders near her chair.

“Hey there, little fellow,” the woman said as she zoomed in on the speckled brown creature. The beady eyes ogled up at her curiously.

At about four inches across, the crab was one of the larger specimens living in the diner’s rocks and, consequently, well accustomed to being photographed. As the woman clicked away, it skated across the concrete floor beneath the table, maneuvering in a sideways crawl via the eight gangly legs attached to either side of its flat body.

The crab had two shorter front legs, designed to facilitate eating. The modified legs were equipped with pincers, which scooped up potential nourishment from the ground and fed it into the crab’s mouth. Constantly in motion, the whirring mandibles filtered through the ingested items, spitting out anything that didn’t suit the crab’s taste.

The writer watched, fascinated, as the crab circled to within a foot and a half of the camera.

Then, suddenly, the creature darted back into the protection of the rocks.

The woman looked up to see a man in khakis and a mint-green golf shirt walking toward her table.

“Hello there, fellow traveler,” he said smoothly as he reached for an open chair. “You look like you could use some company. Do you mind if I join you?”

“No, not at all,” she replied, bemused. She flipped the notepad shut and slid her pen into her pocket. “Go right ahead.”

“I’m Adam. Adam Rock. Pleased to meet you.”

•

ROCK SLID INTO
the unoccupied seat, expertly making non-threatening eye contact.

You’re on a roll, he told himself as the woman looked over at him inquiringly. Just take it nice and easy.

“So, Mr. Rock, what brings you to St. Croix?” she asked conversationally.

“I’m an air-conditioning salesman.” He puffed out his chest, preening in spite of himself. Pausing, he coughed for effect. “Regional sales director for the Caribbean.”

She suppressed a laugh. “You don’t say.”

“There’s nothing funny about refrigeration and cooling, ma’am,” Rock replied with mock sternness. “Especially in this heat.” He took a sip from his beer and added offhandedly, “I have a meeting with the governor tomorrow morning.”

“Oh,” she replied, playing along. “That is impressive.”

Leaning back in his chair, Rock angled his head for a quick glance down at the woman’s feet. She wore thong-style sandals, exposing bare ankles and, he nearly drooled at the sight, all ten of her toes.

He cleared his throat, trying to regain his composure.

“Do you mind if I ask your name . . .”

But his voice suddenly broke off as he caught sight of a woman in a black cloak and headscarf scurrying down the boardwalk outside the restaurant.

“I’m sorry,” he said brusquely, jumping up from his seat. “Please excuse me.”

The woman watched, baffled, as the salesman trotted to the bar, paid his tab, and then rushed for the exit.

•

OUTSIDE THE DINER,
Rock glanced back and forth along the boardwalk, searching for the female figure who had disrupted his promising conversation with the writer.

Late afternoon had begun the transition to early evening. Dusky shadows spread across the downtown shoreline. Dinner crowds gathered in groups, choking the walkway, inhibiting his line of sight.

He quickly grew desperate, dodging around a pair of tall Danish tourists. A pack of screeching kids ran in front of him, further hindering his progress.

But then, he saw her, a hundred yards in the distance, walking across the green space outside the old Danish fort.

It had been ten years since their last meeting, but he’d recognized her in an instant.

Even with most of her body hidden by the dark cloak, he couldn’t mistake the delicate step, the emerald green shoes, and . . . those dainty feet.

His fleshy face pillowed into a triumphant grin as he mouthed her name.

“Mira.”

Just an Appetizer

THE TARPON MADE
quick work of the chum and other leftovers from the diner’s kitchen, and the fish soon retreated to the cooler water beneath the boardwalk, which had been shaded throughout the day.

As the lagoon returned to its previously calm mirror, the crowds moved away, leaving only a haggard West Indian woman standing next to her rusted shopping cart. She had arrived late to the feeding, having stopped at the brewpub’s crab races a few doors down.

Gedda hobbled to the side of her cart and reached inside for a heavy plastic bag. While not quite as slushy as the bucket that had been brought out from the diner’s kitchen, it had a similarly rank odor. The contents were a mishmash of skin and bones, likely the remains of something she’d culled from the Dumpster—or trapped and hunted down herself.

Whistling through the gaps in her teeth, Gedda carried the bag onto the footbridge. The tarpon instantly reappeared, as if the fish recognized her bent, rag-covered silhouette. Holding the bag out at arm’s length, she leaned over the water and spilled the contents into the lagoon.

Gedda watched the tarpon engulf the meaty offering, a loving expression on her wrinkled face. She felt a primal connection with the beasts; she understood their ruthless, cannibalistic nature.

They shared a fearful symmetry.

•

WADDING UP THE
plastic bag, Gedda limped over to a public trash can. With a last glance back at the tarpon, which were once more receding beneath the boardwalk, she dropped the empty bag through the bin’s opening and wiped her hands on the lower folds of her skirt.

Gripping an ache in her hip, she straightened her crippled back and returned to her cart. As she wrapped her stiff hands around the cart’s rusted handle, she glanced down the shoreline toward the old Danish fort.

Eyes narrowing, she focused on the solid figure of the air-conditioner salesman striding quickly along the boardwalk. There was a brisk purpose to his pace—as if he were hot on the trail of something . . . or someone.

Leaning toward the lagoon, Gedda whispered hoarsely to the tarpon.

“Done’ go far, my friends. Tha wuddn’t nuttin but an appetizah.”

The Scale House

ELENA SPRINTED DOWN
the boardwalk, chasing after her fleeing brother.

Night was falling quickly now. In the tropics, the setting sun dropped like an anvil, rapidly picking up speed as it neared the horizon. A mere wink could separate the sky’s transition from flaming gold to charcoal gray.

“Hassan!” she called out, but it was difficult to make her voice heard over the noise from the evening crowds.

Despite the waning light, Elena could still make out Hassan’s little shadow, chugging away in the dusky distance toward the Danish fort, running as if his life depended on it. If he heard her cry, he showed no signs of slowing.

“Serves me right,” she panted as Hassan turned in to the national park’s green space and disappeared from her line of sight. “I should have never told him about the Goat Foot Woman.”

She stopped to grab a stitch in her side.

“Should have just let her eat him.”

•

AFTER CATCHING HER
breath, Elena set off again, this time at a more reasonable trot. A few minutes later, she reached the boardwalk’s eastern terminus. She paused at the edge of the park, scanning the grounds for signs of her brother.

About fifty yards away, the gazebo stood in the center of the green space, the area empty save for a scattering of chickens pecking in the surrounding grass.

Just beyond, the fort’s massive yellow walls glowed in the darkness, lit by a network of rectangular accent lights mounted at varying levels across the sprawling complex.

The fort was connected to the main road by a long concrete walkway. A pair of streetlamps had been positioned on either side of the path, but the spreading branches of the mahogany trees lining the pavement smothered most of that illumination.

Surveying the scene, Elena shook her head. It was impossible to be certain, but she didn’t think Hassan had chosen any of these areas to hide. They were all far too exposed. She and her brother had played hide-and-seek in the park on numerous occasions, and she knew his tendencies.

A flash of movement to her right confirmed her hunch.

Raising the water pistol she’d picked out of the crab race toy bucket, Elena pointed the plastic barrel toward the arched entrance of the colonial-era Scale House, a box-shaped building located a short distance away on the park’s southwest corner.

“I’ve got you now, little brother.”

•

STEALTHILY, ELENA CREPT
toward the squatty two-story Scale House.

The lower level’s concrete walls were coated with the same yellow ochre as the Danish fort, but the paint on this smaller structure was stained with rot and wear. The Scale House was third in line among the park’s colonial-era buildings for the recent wave of refurbishments, but its much-needed makeover would be months, if not years, away.

An exterior flight of brick stairs led to the Scale House’s second floor, a wood-siding addition that had once served as an army barracks. Elena disregarded the building’s upper half. She knew from her previous explorations that that portion was locked up tight. If Hassan was hiding inside the building, he had to be on the first level.

Elena glanced back toward the harbor. The sunset was starting to fade. Within minutes, the Scale House interior would be pitch-black. By now, she imagined, Hassan had likely scared himself silly.

Her little brother was notoriously afraid of the dark. In the bedroom the two of them shared, he kept three separate night-lights plugged into the wall by his bed, just in case one burned out while he was asleep. She had been woken on numerous occasions by his panicked screams.

Raising the water pistol to her chest, Elena smiled triumphantly, the signature expression of one sibling about to spring an unpleasant surprise on another. As she eased her head around the corner of the stone-rimmed entranceway, her eyes scanned the first floor’s dimly lit room, searching for her brother’s huddled form.

After the long run down the boardwalk, she was ready to give him a much-deserved fright.

•

INCHING HER WAY
through the doorway, Elena blinked her eyes, trying to adjust her vision.

Despite the darkness, it was a familiar scene. During her mother’s frequent trips to Christiansted, she and her brother had spent countless hours inside this room.

A massive scale had been built into the recessed center of the yellow brick floor. The apparatus had seen heavy use back in the colonial days, when all official shipments in or out of St. Croix, including the barrels of sugar, rum, and molasses that were produced on the island, passed through this building to be weighed. Officials in the Customs House next door had used those measurements to assess taxes and duties.

The weighing portion of the scale was a flat, tongue-shaped platform forged out of two-inch iron. The platform was hinged to a narrower counterweight fashioned into a shelf to which discrete numerical weights could be added until the seesaw swung into balance.

The scale was now cordoned off with an aluminum-pipe barrier, but it was easy to observe the mechanics of the device, either by leaning over the railing, or, in Elena’s case, slipping beneath it.

After a momentary stop on the scale, Elena crawled back under the railing and slowly circled the room. Waving her water pistol in the air, she stopped at a display case mounted on the west wall.

This item was dedicated to another important feature of St. Croix’s colonial past, one less tangible than the bulky scale. The display commemorated the island’s connection to Alexander Hamilton, who spent much of his boyhood in downtown Christiansted. Most of the display space was taken up by a chart detailing Hamilton’s complicated family tree—or rather, the complicated love life of his mother, Rachel.

According to the official story, Rachel wed her first husband at a young age, perhaps as part of an arranged marriage or under orders from her family. The couple did not get along very well, and their ongoing marital strife culminated in the husband having Rachel confined for several months inside the Danish fort. When she was finally released, she fled to Nevis, a couple hundred miles to the east.

It was there that Rachel met Hamilton’s father, James. After a few years, Rachel returned to St. Croix with James and their two young sons. Details on the next aspect of the tale were fuzzy, but not long after their arrival, the second husband disappeared. Rachel remained in Christiansted with her children until she died of yellow fever three years later, leaving Alexander Hamilton and his older brother effectively orphaned. They were eventually taken in by a kindly shopkeeper. In 1773, Alexander departed St. Croix for the British colonies in New England and never returned.

•

ELENA STARED AT
the shadowed display case, tapping the tip of the water pistol against the palm of her hand.

The Hamilton history was taught in all the local schools; it was a staple of the curriculum, meant to help cement the island’s ties to one of America’s esteemed founding fathers.

It had been an easy lesson for the young girl. Her mother had repeated the story to her countless times, and she knew the narrative by heart.

Her mother, however, told a slightly different account than the version she’d learned in school, Elena remembered, her brow furrowing.

In Mira’s rendition, instead of the Danish fort, Rachel’s first husband had confined her to a rustic lean-to with a leaky roof and an inoperable toilet.