Afoot on St. Croix (Mystery in the Islands) (12 page)

The Ambush

THE LIGHT CRUNCH
of footsteps sounded near the Scale House entrance. Elena spun away from the Hamilton display. Dropping to her knees, she crouched on the yellow-brick floor and listened intently.

She was surprised she hadn’t found Hassan inside the Scale House—she had been so certain that this was where he would hide. The person shuffling outside the building had to be him.

Eyes narrowing, she tapped the tip end of the pistol against her chin. She was finally closing in on him. She was about to give him the scare of his life.

Bent over at the waist, Elena tiptoed around the scale’s aluminum-piping barrier and headed toward the building’s front entrance. A faint glimmer of light still glowed across the park outside. She could barely make out the unsuspecting shadow of a person standing beside the exterior wall.

She treaded silently toward the arched doorway, grinning as she imagined Hassan’s shocked reaction. He might just pass out from the fright. Another couple of inches, she estimated, and she would whip around the corner for the big surprise.

As she closed the remaining gap, she aimed the pistol at the opening and puckered her lips, preparing to make a series of ammunition-mimicking
pops
.

Chuckling to herself, she eased forward, taking one last step—and screamed as a blast of water hit her square across the middle.

Hassan stepped through the Scale House entrance, proudly holding his super-soaker, which he had filled from the water tap in the men’s restroom across the street.

•

“LOOK WHAT YOU’VE
done, Hassan,” Elena scolded, wringing out the front of her sundress. “I’m drenched. You’ve
soaked
me.”

Hassan was unapologetic.

“The Goat Foot Woman is out to get me,” he replied, waving his super-soaker in the air. “I couldn’t wait for that Comanche guy.” He leveled his weapon at his sister’s torso and pulled back the plunger. “I had to defend myself.”

Rolling her eyes, Elena deflected the soaker’s nozzle away from her body.

“We should be getting back to the hotel,” she said with a reluctant sigh. “They’re going to be looking for us.” She shuddered with apprehension. “You’re going to wish you’d been eaten by the Goat Foot Woman after Mamma gets done with us.”

•

THE TWO CHILDREN
hurried out of the Scale House. Hassan stepped toward the open green space and the boardwalk’s terminus on the park’s north end, but Elena tugged him back, grabbing his sleeve.

She gestured toward the King Street curve on the opposite side of the building. “It’ll be quicker if we cut through the alley. The hotel’s right around the corner.”

Just as the pair was about to turn for the street, however, a woman in a black cloak and headscarf bustled across the field toward the gazebo.

“Mamma,” Hassan tried to cry out, but Elena reached across his chest and clamped a hand over his mouth, muffling the sound.

“Wait,” she whispered. “There’s someone else.”

“Is it the Comanche?” Hassan asked, pulling himself free.

“No,” his sister replied softly. She stared at the second figure, perplexed. “No, it’s definitely not the Comanche.”

An Unexpected Reunion

MIRA RACED INTO
the green space outside the old Danish fort, her panic for her missing children now far exceeding her concern about whether her current husband might find out about her clandestine trip to Christiansted. Pushing back her headscarf, she frantically scanned the park.

“Elena! Hassan!” she called out hoarsely, but only a few chickens in the grass near the gazebo looked up at the muted sound. She’d spent the last twenty minutes searching the boardwalk, most of that time hollering the children’s names, and her voice was almost gone.

She’d picked up a lead at the brewpub. A waitress had remembered seeing the children at that afternoon’s crab race—Hassan had championed the winning crab. Unfortunately, the pair had left the pub as soon as they selected their prizes from the toy bucket.

The race announcer thought he’d seen the kids running toward the park, so Mira had rushed down the shoreline to the east end of the boardwalk, desperately hoping to catch sight of her wayward offspring.

Now, standing in the middle of the wide lawn beside the fort, she tried once more to shout their names.

A dry
croak
was all that came out.

She was going to have to rely on a visual search.

•

MIRA SLIPPED OFF
her shoes and tucked them into the folds of her black cloak, the blisters on her toes, heels, and ankles the price for having worn them while navigating the boardwalk’s rough splinters. The grass was more amenable to bare feet—the chicken-pecked dirt surrounding the gazebo’s exterior far less so, she thought as she limped up to its front entrance.

The gazebo was the easiest place to check and quickly eliminate, she reasoned. The white gabled structure appeared to be empty, but she proceeded inside just to be sure. Her eyes swept over the floorboards, looking for any sign her children had been there, but she found nothing, no clue to their whereabouts.

Exiting the gazebo, she turned toward the Danish fort. With darkness falling, the spotlights were beginning to glow against the building’s ochre walls. The fort was closed for the night; the iron bars on the front gate had been securely fastened shut.

Surely, Mira thought with despair, the children hadn’t managed to get themselves locked inside.

She set off across the short span of connecting grass, intending to peek through the bars into the interior courtyard, but halfway to the gate, she stopped in her tracks.

She sensed a heavy presence moving in behind her. Her fists clenched tightly around the soles of the shoes, preparing to use them as a weapon.

A man’s deep-throated whisper sounded in her left ear.

“Mira,” he said softly. “What a pleasure to see you again.”

On the Boardwalk

A BANK OF
clouds slid over the moon as downtown Christiansted drifted through its typical evening routine. The dinner crowds swept in and then slowly retreated, leaving behind a residue of casual drinkers at the brewpub and on the stools surrounding the sugar mill bar.

Sweaty sailors mingled with tall Danes, while broody refinery workers swilled shots and kept to themselves. The crew from the dive shop guzzled down their day’s tips, merrily recounting tales of hapless tourists and their escapades on the water. Off to one side, a mystery writer researching her next book quizzed a gathering of local Crucians about a local legend involving an old woman with a cleft foot who stole children off the street and ate them for dinner.

As the night wore on, bottled beer and Confusion cocktails were consumed in voluminous quantities. A competitive game of darts started in a cordoned-off section of the pub’s open-walled second floor. The lines dividing the various groups began to blur as strangers became acquaintances and then fast friends.

The mood on the boardwalk cycled back and forth from quiet relaxation to boisterous energy. Occasional bouts of impassioned opinion-making punctuated the air. Discussions of docking cruise ships, abandoned dance clubs, and the ethics of the sitting governor could be heard, along with occasional random references to the infamous Goat Foot Woman.

“They had a picture of her hanging in the principal’s office when I was in school,” one man told the writer. “If you got into trouble, they’d haul you in there and make you sit on a chair in front of her. She had these buggy yellow eyes that stared out of the wall, straight through to your soul. Totally creeped me out.” With a shudder, he took a long gulp from his beer. “I’m not kidding. That woman scarred my childhood.”

Despite all this activity in and around the boardwalk, none of the night’s revelers appeared to have noticed the earlier interaction between the woman in the black cloak and the man who approached her outside the gazebo—nor did anyone see what became of the cloaked woman afterward.

The Reception Desk

MIDNIGHT EVENTUALLY AGED
to half past, and the bartenders announced their weary last calls. The dinghy captain made his final run from the boardwalk to the cay, and a lone taxi driver packed up the stragglers for the last shuttle to the resorts outside town. The few remaining inebriated stalwarts retreated without protest, disappearing into hotel rooms, apartments, or floating homes in the harbor.

As the hours slipped by, the streets of Christiansted gradually fell silent and still, save for a few chickens roaming the alleys and a haggard old woman rummaging through the garbage bins behind the boardwalk restaurants.

But inside the Comanche Hotel’s dimly lit reception area, a dormant wooden figure began a slow awakening.

Dry bulging eyelids blinked. Thick knuckles cracked, causing the stiff joints to send out a series of creaking
pops
. Two boot-covered feet broke free from their rigid post and dropped to the ground.

Thunk.
Thunk.

Reaching sleepily for a tray of breath mints that had been left out on the mahogany desk, the man’s shadowed figure plodded heavily across the concrete floor to a small closet on the side of the room.

Thunk.
Thunk.
Thunk
.

The closet door swung open, revealing a five-foot-long, tarp-covered package that had been crammed inside. The man bent to his knees and, with effort, lifted the load up onto his wide shoulders. Turning, he carried it toward the front entrance.

Thunk.
Pause.
Thunk.
Pause.
Thunk.

After navigating through the doorway, the man stepped into the alley outside the hotel. The moonlight glanced across his chiseled features, casting a
menacing reflection in the door’s glass panes. Apparently concerned that he might be recognized, he shifted the bundle’s weight so that he could tug a hood over his head, masking his identity.

Grunting, the man centered the package across his left shoulder, balancing it lengthwise. Then he proceeded down the alley toward the harbor, a soldier setting off on a nighttime mission.

Thunk.
Pause.
Thunk.
Pause.
Thunk.
Deep breath.

With each labored step,
the weight of the package moved farther down the man’s back. Half a block later, a hole emerged at the bottom end of the tarp. The opening grew wider until a portion of the package’s interior contents began to slide out and drag along the ground.

Thunk.
Slide
.
Thunk
.

It was a foot encased in a woman’s green high-heeled shoe.

The Monster in the Room

HASSAN HUDDLED IN
a pile of blankets, pushing himself against a wall in a dark shadowed room, desperately trying to see into its blackened corners.

He gripped his plastic super-soaker as his brown eyes blinked, fighting back tears. Never in his short life had he been so horribly afraid.

“Comanche?” his voice squeaked into the night. “Mr. Comanche? Are you out there?”

He cupped his hands around his ears, bat-like, in an effort to amplify his hearing. Straining his senses, he listened for the slightest indication of movement. Every sound, no matter how soft or minute, required his intense analysis.

An easing sigh of wood floated down the hallway outside the room. Was that a routine shift in the floor’s foundation—or the footstep of the Goat Foot Woman?

A cracking
snap
echoed down from the ceiling. Was that the regular nighttime contraction of a piece of wood—or the old hag hanging from the rafters, preparing to drop down on him from above?

Hassan cringed as a more familiar sound emanated from a few feet away. With a crunching of bedsprings and a fluttering of sheets, a belligerent beast grumbled groggily into the night.

The little boy trembled, his heart pounding in his chest as Elena lifted her head from her pillow and propped herself up on her elbows. Her curly hair, released from its pigtail ties, poked wildly into the air—giving her the look of a miniature medusa.

She scrunched her face into a tortured pout and whispered an exasperated plea.

“Hassan, go back to sleep already.”

•

HASSAN HUNCHED DOWN
in his sheets and covered his head with his pillow. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to block out the terrifying images that instantly flooded his brain.

Where, he thought desperately, was the Comanche when he needed him?

Suddenly a shadow appeared against the blank wall on the far side of the room.

On the center stage the Comanche now occupied in Hassan’s imagination, the wooden carving had grown in size and stature. The red-skinned warrior had morphed into a comic book–style action figure, equipped with overwhelming strength and an impressive athletic physique.

As Hassan now envisioned him, the statue possessed a far kinder, much more benevolent expression. The bulging eyeballs had shrunk to a less intimidating size, and his thick lips had bent into an iron smile.

One of the muscular hands waved out from the wall as the Comanche gave a steady nod of reassurance, as if guaranteeing his protection.

With this comforting image firmly fixed in his head, the little boy finally drifted off to sleep.

• • •

IN TIMES OF
great distress, the human mind often distorts reality, seeking solace in the realm of fantasy. The creation of a fictional world containing everything needed to secure a person’s safety is a natural coping mechanism, more pronounced in those with vivid imaginations.

But sometimes, a statue is just a statue, an old woman is nothing more than a crippled hag with a creepy stare, and a man with a prosthetic leg is just a salesman . . .

Wait a minute. Strike that last item.

Adam Rock was always more than just a salesman.

The Gazebo

THE WEE HOURS
of Thursday morning were just taking hold when a tiny alarm clock with a pitch-perfect ringer sang out its wake-up call into the Christiansted harbor. The jarring noise reached a few annoyed chickens roosting on the pier, a steely-eyed tarpon floating in the depths beneath, and its intended recipient, an Italian opera singer snoring on a foldout bunk inside his tiny boat.

With darkness still blanketing the island, Umberto crawled sleepily out of bed. Stretching his arms over his head, he slipped on his cropped T-shirt and then quickly added running shorts and sneakers. Traversing the few feet to the kitchen, he poured himself a tall glass of bottled water and guzzled it down.

From a cushion on the floor, Senesino raised his head and yawned, releasing a soft trilling yowl suggestive of his operatic namesake. His canine partner, Farinelli, snuggled his snout deeper into the pillow, refusing to budge.

Petting both dogs on the head, Umberto stumbled groggily onto the back deck. Straddling the short gap from the boat to the pier, he proceeded down the wooden path to the boardwalk.

•

WAKING WITH EACH
step, Umberto jogged along the quiet shoreline toward the national park’s green space. By the time he reached the gazebo and trotted up its front steps, his heart was pumping, and he was fully alert.

He stood in the entranceway, gazing appreciatively at the fort’s glowing ochre walls, the placid harbor, and the gentle water lapping at its edge.

It was a quiet, serene—secret—time of the day, one perfectly suited for centering thought and self-reflection. Not a soul was stirring; he was all alone.

He kicked off his tennis shoes and took a seat, cross-legged, in the middle of the gazebo floor. Unfolding his arms so that his palms faced upward, he pressed the tips of his fingers together, sucked in a deep, cleansing breath, and let the oxygen permeate his brain. He lifted his chin and sent a buzzing hum through his lips.

What a perfect way to start the day, he thought, thoroughly satisfied with life, the cosmos, and his own existence.

•

AS UMBERTO SETTLED
into his moonlight meditation, a small rumbling began to gurgle in the pit of his stomach, the aftereffects of the meal he’d eaten the night before.

The Rastafarian deli around the corner from the Comanche Hotel was one of his favorite dining spots. All of the deli’s dishes were prepared from raw, uncooked vegetables that were artfully sliced, diced, and shaved into tiny slivers.

While Umberto wasn’t a strict adherent to the Rasta culture’s
Ital
principles, he admired the movement’s dedication to food purity, and he ate at the deli a couple of times a week. Last night’s special had been a red-beet salad, with the round roots cut into thin slices and configured with a nut paste into tiny vegetable sandwiches.

There was one small drawback to his Rasta dinners, Umberto thought as a hiccup disrupted his fond remembrance of the meal.

They were often followed by a series of aggressive burps, particularly when beets were at the center of the plate.

Just another part of the purifying process, he concluded with an extra-long belch.

•

A HALF HOUR
later, his meditations complete and the gazebo’s interior fogged with a distinct gaseous odor, Umberto began limbering up for his regular predawn yoga session.

Tossing his cropped T-shirt onto the floor, he assumed an upright stance in the center of the gazebo. Swooping his arms up over his head, he reached toward the rafters and breathed in a chest-swelling volume of early morning mist. He held the breath for as long as he could, before whooshing it out, dropping his hands to the floor as he expelled.

Crumpling into a crouched position, Umberto allowed his body a short minute of recuperation. Then he began again, his bony rear end slowly rising into the air. Arching his back, he lifted his chin upward and assumed a standard downward-facing dog position.

Focused on his straining muscles and the contortions of his spine, he transitioned into a state of extreme awareness. His senses were tuned in to every facet of his surroundings: the air, the sky, the sea, and . . .

Wait a minute. What was that?

•

UMBERTO COCKED HIS
head to one side, the rest of his body remaining frozen in the awkward yoga pose. He stared up at the gazebo’s ceiling, trying to confirm the source of the odd shuffling sound that had disrupted his concentration.

Releasing his downward dog, he crawled across the floor to the gazebo’s south side and poked his nose over the railing. The sound continued as he peered through the darkness toward the wide sidewalk leading from the street to the fort’s main gate.

The mahogany trees growing along the cement walkway blocked his view, but Umberto was able to identify three distinct noises: a human’s labored breathing, the
thump
of plodding feet, and a long sliding
grate
.

He leaned farther out over the railing, trying to see into a clearing at the near end of the sidewalk where the streetlamp’s beam was unimpeded.

Suddenly, a hooded figure emerged from beneath the trees—a dark-skinned man carrying a log-shaped bundle over his shoulders.

Umberto ducked behind the gazebo wall. Heart racing, he listened as the man drew nearer. After a few steadying seconds, he summoned his courage and once more peeked over the railing.

Whatever was in the bundle, it must have been heavy. It seemed to take all of the man’s strength to move it forward.

Near the fort’s front gate, the path curved, and the man turned his back to the gazebo, giving Umberto a better look at his load.

The package was wrapped in a black tarp, obscuring the bulky contents trapped inside, but a hole had opened up near the bottom end. Something had fallen out and was dragging along the ground.

This was the source of the grating sound.

Umberto gasped as he identified the object.

It was a pale foot encased in a woman’s emerald-green high-heeled shoe.