No Virgin Island (5 page)

Sabrina rushed away from Neil’s office at Bar None, knowing Faith Chase had found out that she had discovered a murder victim. Somehow Chase had also determined that Neil Perry was representing her. While Sabrina was fully aware that the only thing that moved more quickly on an island than a thunderstorm was gossip, she was still stunned to find the media already involved. Neil had refused Chase’s call but dodged when Sabrina had asked how Chase knew to call him.

Glad to be out of the tiny booth and out from under the microscope, Sabrina was surprised to feel fairly sober. She noticed Mara Bennett coming down the steep slope of the St. John Car Rental parking lot in her work boots, still wearing a tool belt.

Sabrina called over to Mara, who was probably on her way to meet the twins, Liam and Kelly, at the ferry. Although the kids were at least sixteen, Mara still insisted on meeting them at the dock every day when they arrived
from St. Thomas, where they attended a private academy. Sabrina admired Mara’s lioness style of mothering, perpetually poised to protect her cubs, though they were not hers biologically.

She looked at her friend and smiled. Mara Bennett wasn’t a pretty woman. Petite with a plain face and unruly curly brown hair, her enormous brown eyes made her look interesting. Mara was solid and curvy, not hot and blonde like the women with whom her husband, Rory, cavorted. It was a funny thing, Sabrina thought. The more she grew to know and admire Mara, the prettier Mara became. Yet the more she knew the lecherous Rory, tanned with a full head of sun-kissed hair and embarrassingly blue eyes, the less attractive he grew.

“Hey, Mara,” Sabrina called.

Mara converged with Sabrina on the sidewalk, falling into place with her.

“Sabrina, are you okay? I heard what happened out at Villa Mascarpone today. Awful, just unthinkable,” Mara said.

Sabrina was grateful to hear Mara express concern about her.

“I’m okay. It was pretty grim, and I feel terrible about our guest.”

“I can imagine. It’s just too close to home, literally, and it’s got Rory in a dither,” Mara said.

Sabrina stopped and looked at Mara.

“The police are interviewing me again tomorrow. Faith Chase has already begun ‘investigating’ the case. Mara, I don’t know if I can go through this again.”

“Wait a minute, Sabrina. Who says you’ll have to? You didn’t shoot this guy, right?”

“Of course not.”

“So that’s the big difference, sweetie. Last time, you did shoot the guy. Oh, I know, there were good reasons. I’m just saying you’re not going to be charged like you were in Nantucket. There will be nothing for the media to ‘chase.’” Mara made little quotation marks with each hand. “What we all really should be concerned about is finding out who did do it.”

“I know,” Sabrina said, realizing she hadn’t really considered this question. She had been too preoccupied by the thought she might be considered a “person of interest” to the police.

“Exactly. Even though the kids were safe at school over in St. Thomas all day, I can’t wait to see them get off that ferry in a few minutes and give them big, fat hugs. I don’t like that it was in our neighborhood,” Mara said.

Of course Mara would be terrified to bring the kids home next to where a murder had occurred just hours before.

“Mara, you practically live in a fortress. You don’t have to worry. You know that; you built it, for God’s sake.” Sabrina pictured the sprawling stone house Mara had built on the slope opposite Villa Mascarpone at the farthest
point in Fish Bay when she and Rory had decided to get married. When Sabrina had first seen the house, Mara seemed almost embarrassed by its opulence. She explained Rory insisted it be luxurious and secure. He had told her you could never be too careful with children, particularly when you lived on the remote side of a tiny island. Mara confessed she had willingly agreed. She was so delighted to have children come with the deal that she said she would have carved a moat into the mountainside if he had asked. Sabrina remembered asking Mara about the name of the house. In Gaelic, Cairn Suantrai literally meant a “lullaby atop a mountain.” They crossed the street where Henry was leaning against Sabrina’s jeep.

“Hey, Henry,” Mara called.

Henry jumped a little and looked at them as though he’d been caught ready to steal the car.

“What’s with parking in a priest’s parking space, Sabrina? Are you looking for more trouble?” he asked, hands on hips, facing his business partner and friend.

“Relax, Henry. Father Posada is in San Juan for a couple of days,” Mara said. “Oh, here’s the ferry.” She waved good-bye as she hurried down the road toward the dock.

“Hop in. I’ll drive you home,” Henry said to Sabrina, opening the door to the driver’s seat.

“No need. All of the vodka on the island couldn’t get me drunk tonight. I’m fine to drive.”

“Well, your head may be sober, but your blood is probably pretty pickled and you don’t need any more trouble
right now. Can you imagine how easy you would make it for the cops if they got you for a DUI right now?” Henry asked.

She didn’t bother answering. She got into the passenger seat, and he asked how it went with the guests she had picked up.

“You do not want to know. Seriously. You would have thought they were booked at the White House and that I told them they were being switched to a Motel 6.”

Henry pulled out of the parking space and started to slink through the narrow streets of Cruz Bay, past happy vacationers who were wandering from bar to bar after a full day in the sun.

“I finally had to tell them the villa was a crime scene,” Sabrina said.

“They were that difficult? Even with all the perks we threw in?”

“It really didn’t make sense to me, but nothing today has made sense from the moment I pulled into the driveway at Villa Mascarpone,” Sabrina said.

“No, it hasn’t. Has it occurred to you that the only one who seems to have been out by Villa Mascarpone today was Rory Eagan? I’m just saying.”

“Oh, that wouldn’t be good for Mara and the kids, would it? Speaking of not good, Faith Chase has found me.” Henry understood better than anyone on St. John—well, except Neil Perry now—why she’d taken refuge on the island.

“I know. I saw her on television while I was at Bar None,” he said. They began climbing up the road named Jacob’s Ladder, although real islanders knew it as Genn Hill. Whatever you called it, it was as close to being vertical as a road could get. Sabrina had been terrified driving up or down it when she first moved to St. John. Now she loved it, like she loved the old wooden roller coaster in the amusement park back in Allerton.

“I’m in trouble, Henry. I know it,” she said.

“Wait and see what Neil can do. You’re just freaking out because of what happened in Nantucket, Sabrina. But this is different. You didn’t have anything to do with Carter Johnson’s death. There is a real killer out there. Once they find out who it is, then the focus will be off you. I get why you’re panicking, but I think it will be okay.”

They were winding through the curves on the road to Fish Bay. In the far distance on the last hill, Sabrina could see the glow of light, the kind she remembered hovered above shopping malls from when she lived in Boston. She had a sinking feeling in her chest, because she knew this halo hanging above the villa must be from lights being used by the police as they investigated the scene of the crime.

She couldn’t see her own tiny house, which was tucked into a hillside, but she couldn’t wait to get there. She’d missed her evening swim with Girlfriend at Hawksnest Beach, but she could take her for a little walk and then take a long shower and wash away the muck of the day.

“Can you pick me up in the morning around eight thirty?” Sabrina asked, remembering that she had to accompany Neil the next morning to meet with the police. Henry would need her jeep to get home. “I can drop you off to pick up the van when I meet Neil at Bar None.”

“Quick, get down,” Henry said, pushing her head forward and down with his right hand. Sabrina heard the panic in his voice and followed his instruction without question.

“Farther, duck down as far as you can go,” he said, as he reached behind into the backseat and pulled the plastic trash bag filled with rags for cleaning into the front seat and threw it on top of Sabrina. Her head was jammed against the glove compartment and her knees were thrust between her breasts. She was not pleased.

“Henry,” Sabrina said, in a plaintive tone.

“The INN TV van is parked about two hundred feet from your house. That wannabe reporter from Faith Chase is reporting on camera. She’s pointing to your house. There are about six cops coming in and out of the house, some with bags. Girlfriend does not look happy.”

“Get Girlfriend and let’s get out of here. Please, Henry,” she said.

Sabrina heard Henry get out of the jeep and the sound of the whistle she and Girlfriend knew so well. She heard him push the driver’s seat forward and then the galloping sound of her beloved chocolate lab bounding down the dirt road.

“Good girl,” he said, shutting the door and turning on the ignition simultaneously. Sabrina felt him hit reverse, backing the jeep to the side of the road and then moving forward with a tear.

“Hang on,” he said, as the jeep accelerated even more.

Sabrina felt the bag of rags before she felt the impact of Girlfriend on top of them.

“Backseat, backseat,” she heard Henry say as he pulled the dog off her.

He took a left onto the main road because there was nowhere to go if he went right, other than back to the scene of the crime where she had started this never-ending day.

Sabrina felt the plastic bag lifted off her and began to rise up from the floor.

“Are we being followed?” she asked, not wanting to look around and see for herself. She knew from experience that if she was caught by a camera, even in a moving automobile, that photo would be plastered on the Internet, newspapers, and, worst of all, the
Chasing Justice
show.

“No, but I wanted to make sure we got enough distance in case they tried. How the hell did they get someone down here from INN so fast?”

“They’re like dust mites, Henry. They’re everywhere. You just can’t see them. Now I wish I hadn’t talked you into putting ‘Ten Villas’ on every vehicle we own.”

Sabrina had been reluctant to bring attention to herself when she’d moved to St. John. Henry had pointed out

that, while that might work for Sabrina’s personal life, it wouldn’t for the business they hoped to build. Now in their gecko-green jeeps, they were like moving targets for INN, the “In” News Network.

“Should I take you to my place?” Henry asked.

“How about the Westin and you keep Girlfriend for the night?” Sabrina asked, doubting the hotel was pet friendly and not wanting to bother him any more than she already had. Their friendship originated in a common interest, which was to get away from horribly painful experiences they’d had in Boston and start over completely with what money they’d each been able to extract from their respective situations. Would her circumstances topple Henry’s second chance for happiness? She hoped not. He might not have been tried for first-degree murder, but Allied Air had betrayed him as badly as Ben had her.

“Um, Sabrina, where do you think those reporters will be staying?”

Of course they would have to stay at the Westin, the only hotel on island other than the fabulous and famous Caneel Bay Resort, originally developed by one of the Rockefellers, which was always booked and probably wouldn’t let some low-level INN reporter in its front door. It bothered Sabrina that she wasn’t thinking clearly, and she was scared to realize how limited her choices could be on an island.

“Call Neil and tell him what’s going on. I’m taking you to my condo,” Henry said.

Sabrina turned her cell phone back on, having shut it off while talking to Neil at Bar None. She could see she had missed two calls. One from Angela Martino, the other from Sam Leonard. She didn’t want to talk to either but figured she should at least listen to their messages. She put her phone on speaker so Henry could hear.

“Sabrina, how could you let this happen? I cannot believe blood has been spilled at my precious Villa Mascarpone. Do you think anyone is ever going to want to rent my villa ever again? You’d better call me and tell me how you are going to fix this situation. I consider you and Henry responsible. You should not be renting my villa to the kind of people who go and get themselves murdered.” Click.

“Let me handle her. Don’t give Miss Hissy a second thought,” Henry said, and Sabrina decided to let him.

“Sabrina, it’s Sam Leonard. I think we may have been a little hard on you today. You know, the messenger instead of the message. But Deirdre had her heart set on Villa Mascarpone. So I just want you to know that whenever it’s released or whatever the police do when they finish up, we’d like to move right over there.”

“Wow. That ought to help you with Angela,” Sabrina said.

“Yes, and it gives me an idea,” Henry said as he pulled into the drive for Trade Wind Estates, where his condo was located high atop Gifft Hill. He stopped at the imposing wrought-iron gate and hit a few keys. It swept open,
letting them slip through. They’d be safe from INN, at least for tonight. Sabrina’s relief was palpable.

“Call Neil,” Henry reminded her.

She called Neil’s cell phone. He’d given her the number before she left Bar None. He picked right up.

“What’s up, Salty? You haven’t gotten yourself in more trouble, have you?”

Sabrina knew he was trying to keep it light. Hearing his voice made her want to cry for some reason. Not just weep but bawl, preferably while he held her. She was close to the edge.

“Neil, I just thought you would want to know that you were apparently right. Judging from the number of cops at my house, it looks like they’re conducting a search. They must have gotten the warrant.”

“That’s okay. They’ll make a mess of your house, but that’s the worst of it. You’ve got nothing to hide. Nantucket has nothing to do with this,” he said. Sabrina felt encouraged by how positive he sounded.