Our Island Inn (Quirky Tales from the Caribbean) (11 page)

Her cowboy hat, she considered a sun-shielding necessity
, despite the difficulties she’d encountered stowing it on the plane. The cow horns affixed to her suitcase she defended as a means of efficiently identifying her luggage.

Millicent
would admit to indulgence in only one area of whimsy, and even this, she maintained, furthered an underlying practical purpose.

S
he fancied herself an amateur detective.

She was well versed in the art.
She had watched every police procedural and mystery show on television and had read voraciously in the corresponding literary genres. Her favorite series was Matlock, a 1980s legal drama starring Andy Griffith as a criminal defense attorney. She had seen all the episodes, most of them multiple times, and she considered the lead character to be her sleuthing role model. In Millicent’s view, Ben Matlock was the gold standard for ferreting out and interpreting suspicious behavior.

As a result of
her diligent study, Millicent had acquired a vast knowledge of the bizarre ways in which a person might be murdered and the body subsequently disposed of – information she often shared with her friends.

A recent example
had occurred that morning on the ferry ride to the island. At a lull in the conversation, Millicent had offered up her latest gory anecdote.

“
I read about this case in the Caribbean where a woman cut up her victims and pickled them in jars.”

A
s usual, this topic drew a chorus of mutters and groans.

Maude
impishly ignored the others’ pleading looks and encouraged Millicent to tell more. “Interesting. What did this culinary killer do with all those jars of human flesh?”

“
Stored them in the pantry,” Millicent replied, eager to elaborate. “She stuck labels on the jars. The paper hid most of the recognizable body parts. To the casual observer, it looked like a shelf of preserves.” She tipped her cowboy hat in a nod. “That’s one way to hide a body. I bet that’s what Matlock would say.”

Millicent
peered inquisitively at her listeners. “What do you think about that, eh?”

Of the three
, Mary found these spontaneous tidbits the most disturbing. Covering her ears, she squealed her frequent response.

“
Ugh! I wish I wasn’t!”

~
~ ~

AN INSATIABLE CURIOSITY
and a willingness to snoop made for a potent combination. It wasn’t unusual for Millicent to extrapolate her gruesome visions onto the people and places she encountered in everyday life.

A milkman pausing too long after dropping off a delivery
soon became a potential criminal casing out a house for later theft; a cheerful smile from a grocery store cashier was quickly twisted into the menacing leer of a serial killer. And in her opinion, the owner of their local gas station had likely stashed numerous dead bodies in the storage tanks at the rear of his lot.

If
even a tiny percentage of Millicent’s speculations were to be believed, the crime rate in their rural Midwest town surpassed that of the official verified reports by a factor of at least ten.

For the most part, the Golden Girls h
umored their friend, but her vivid – and often disturbing – imagination had led the group to conclude that Millicent frequently saw mischief where there was none.

~
~ ~

THE
SKEPTICISM ONLY intensified Millicent’s obsession. Despite urgings from her fellow travelers to give the sleuthing a rest while they were on vacation, she wasn’t about to let her investigative skills go stale in the Caribbean.

So w
hen she spied the innkeepers in the midst of a frosty exchange and heard Oliver’s harried question about the missing sous-chef, there was no stopping her from scampering down to the pavilion to investigate.

It took
Millicent less than thirty seconds to reach a row of bushes above the swimming pool. After surveying the available options, she squatted behind a recently transplanted bougainvillea with delicate peach flowers, whipped up her binoculars, and homed in on the pair.

The
visual enhancement wasn’t necessary, since she could see and hear across the ten-foot distance without difficulty. If anything, the binocular frames hampered her wider perspective. She almost fell into the bougainvillea when a heavy-set woman stepped into her magnified zone and joined the innkeepers.

It was the
inn’s chef, Millicent surmised after regaining her balance. She resumed her hunkered position behind the bush and tilted her left ear, which had slightly better hearing, toward the trio in the pavilion.

“Where is
Jesús?” Glenn said, slowly repeating Oliver’s question. He tapped his finger against his chin, struggling to formulate an answer. “Well, ahh…”

Millicent edged
forward as she listened to the long pause, receiving several sharp pokes from the bougainvillea. Clearly, this was a man in the midst of desperate invention.

But why
was Glenn so reluctant to talk about the missing Jesús? What was he hiding?

Millicent’s
morbid creativity kicked into overdrive. Something nefarious must have happened here at the inn.

Oliver
sighed impatiently, still waiting for an answer.

The
chef opened her mouth, but Glenn jumped in before she could speak. “He went to visit a relative.”

Millicent
didn’t need Matlock’s help to discern the meaning behind that comment. With nearly seventy years under her belt, she knew a lie when she heard one.

She sensed
Oliver recognized the fib as well, but he had apparently been turning a deaf ear to Glenn’s deceptions for so long, one more made no difference.

The c
hef seemed startled by Glenn’s statement, but she reluctantly nodded as Glenn embellished the story. “I believe he’s gone to see a cousin…an older gentleman who fell ill and had to be driven to the hospital.”

Oliver crossed his arms over his chest. “So how long ar
e we going to be without a sous-chef?”

Glenn
stammered incoherently. “Uh, well, he didn’t say.”

Rol
ling his eyes, Oliver turned and trudged up the steps to the parking lot. Glenn stood on his tiptoes, watching until he saw his partner enter the reception building. Then he bent toward the chef, who was shaking her head in dismay.

“
Mr. Glenn, Jesús doesn’t have a sick cousin. I told you…” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “He’s been
taken
.”

“I know
, Maya.” He patted her on the shoulder. “We just need to find him.”

His face paled as he added, “a
nd fast.”

~
~ ~

MILLICENT REMAINED IN her covert position,
waiting until the coast was clear before she scurried back up the hill, eager to wake her sleeping comrades and regale them with the mystery she’d stumbled upon after just a few hours at Parrot Ridge.

She congratulated herself
on keeping her cover throughout the entire surveillance. She’d picked the perfect hiding spot.

It had
completely shielded her from view, that is – as much as an elderly woman in an enormous cowboy hat can be concealed behind a mid-sized bougainvillea bush.

I DON’T KNOW why I lied
to Oliver about Jesús.

It was an impulsive
response. I regretted the words the moment they left my mouth.

I should have
let him know straightaway that Jesús was missing, but I held back. When Maya told me he hadn’t returned to their suite, my first instinct was to hide the information from my partner, not to share it.

I didn’t want to open up a line of questions about the previous night’s debauchery. I feared
where that inquiry might lead.

Nothing good could come from a discussion about our
sous-chef’s rather unconventional arrangement with his wife – much less, what had gone on between him and me all those other late evenings on the pool deck and in the clearing below.

I still
foolishly hoped I could conceal my infidelities.

So w
hen Jesús’ absence became obvious and addressing the topic unavoidable, I created the ridiculous story about his sick uncle, a lie I couldn’t possibly sustain.

I told myself that once
Jesús returned, he would go along with whatever I asked him to say.

But even then,
I realized that the chances of finding him alive were slim.

Maya’s ominous
words kept creeping through my thoughts.

Perhaps I
hadn’t told Oliver about Jesús because, subconsciously, my mind had already worked out who was responsible for the recent disappearances at Parrot Ridge – the person who had fallen under the influence of the spirit from the ravine.

~
~ ~

I SPENT THE next half-hour searching
the grounds for any sign of Jesús. It didn’t take long to comb through the accessible area at the top of Parrot Ridge.

I climbed
around the east side of the main residence, checking the less manicured bushes and shrubs near his suite in the building’s bottom corner.

Finding nothing there, I gradually made my way
across the west landscaping, digging through the terraced planters and raised beds, until I circled back to the pavilion.

Standing at the entrance,
I looked across the entertainment area to the deck by the pool, the last place I’d seen Jesús.

My memory of the after-
dinner shenanigans was still fuzzy. I recalled a hazy image of the jolly sous-chef sitting in a nearby chair, a grin on his face as he recounted one of his jokes.

I
’d laughed at the punch line, one I couldn’t now remember. Then Jesús stood unsteadily from his seat and wobbled toward the steps attached to the pavilion’s outer wall.

“I’m heading to the facilities.”

His parting phrase repeated in my head, the words broken up by his thick Spanish accent.

Then he
disappeared down the stairs, following the same path that had taken two people before him.

~
~ ~

I WALKED
AROUND the pool’s perimeter to the dining area.

It was too early
for Oliver to have set up for dinner. The chairs were arranged the same way they’d been the night before, but the tables were bare. Someone, likely Maya or Elsie, had cleaned up the mess of empty bottles and overturned glasses.

The evidence was gone,
but the fallout continued.

Reluctantly
, I turned toward the railing and stared down into the jungle’s green abyss.

I’d never been a superstitious
man, but time in the Caribbean had altered my perspective. My beliefs had slowly bent toward those espoused by the people around me.

Perhaps Maya was right.
We’d wakened the spurned wife’s vengeful spirit, and she was hungrily devouring the unfaithful among us.

But then
– why hadn’t she come for me?

Gingerly, I crept down the steps
to the restrooms, past the landing, to the edge of the clearing. The rough ground showed no visible sign of footprints from all those nights of reckless frolic, but I knew they were there.

Mine
were hopelessly entangled with those of Jesús and, if the scenario I’d imagined from the previous evening bore any correlation to reality, his with Romeo’s.

A swirling breeze curled up from the sea, slithering through the jungle
and across the clearing. It carried with it a dank smell, unlike the fresh saltwater scent that typically swept up the hill.

The
stench surrounded me, a stale condemning aroma.

Please, just g
et it over with, I thought, daring the beast to drag me into the brush. Take
me
.

But the jungle was still and frustrating silent.

I could stand it no longer. I tossed my head away from the sight, as if the sudden motion might wipe the painful images from my mind – and in the upswing glimpsed a figure watching me from the deck above.

It was Elsie.

Watching.

She was always watching.

In that moment, I sensed she knew my secrets, that she’d witnessed my inappropriate conduct with Jesús.

And she disapproved.

~ ~ ~

ELSIE WAS GONE
by the time I returned to the deck.

That was
for the best, I reasoned. There was nothing I could say that would make her understand.

As for the
vengeful spirit from the ravine, I needn’t have complained about being left out of her schemes.