The Washington Lawyer (21 page)

“I'm very sorry, Miss. But our mechanics are still assessing the problem. We'll have a decision in thirty minutes.”

She shook her hand and stamped her foot. “We're already four hours late. A decision? I don't want a decision. I want to get to San Juan so I can make a connection to Anguilla.”

“Our agents in San Juan will assist you.”

“Yeah right.”

To pass the time, she reread the Anguilla portion of a Caribbean guidebook:

Then she heard the announcement. “Flight 891 to San Juan is now ready for boarding.”

* * *

As soon as she stepped off the plane in San Juan, there was more bad news. “The last nonstop to Anguilla has been cancelled,” an agent told her. “We've rerouted you through St. Martin. Your plane leaves in two hours.”

She wanted to scream. Is God sending me a message? Forget about Anguilla and go back to Israel?

No, she wouldn't surrender, she thought with determination. She loved her sister too much for that. Regardless of the obstacles, she'd overcome them.

* * *

Finally at ten after eight in the evening, Allison, riding alone with the pilot, took off in a six seater, World War II vintage prop for the ten minute flight from St. Martin to Anguilla. Flying always made her nervous, and small planes even more so.

Terrified, as they tossed around in the wind, she gripped the arm rests with white knuckles.

When the plane touched down at Wellblake Airport, it was night, with a full moon in a sky laced with clouds. Walking toward the terminal she felt the blast of balmy tropical air, still in the low eighties, making her clothing stick to her skin. She was processed quickly through emigration by a young woman with black skin and a bright smile. “Welcome to our island … I hope you'll enjoy your stay.”

From the back of the taxi, an old beat-up white Chevy, she got her first glimpse of what she recalled another guidebook describing as “the jewel of the Caribbean, with some of the best beaches, best food, and friendliest people of any of the islands.” As the cab drove on the left side, it bounced over a deserted and poorly lit road full of pot holes. She passed small houses built from cinder and wood and children playing on the road, illuminated by a light from time to time. She saw an occasional goat or dog in untamed vegetation along the side of the road. She felt very much alone and vulnerable.

The driver, a heavyset man, said, “It's good you didn't come last year on this date.”

“Why's that?”

“The big one hit. Hurricane Nellie. Mon, the water six-foot high on dis road. No power. That was the mother. It blew and blew three days. Lost me whole house. Just a pile of bricks and wood. And I got a feelin' another one's gunna hit us again this year. All that global warming stuff. And real soon. How long you plannin' to stay?”

“Just a couple of days.”

“Well, if she starts blowin, you take care.”

“Aren't there warnings for a big storm?”

“Sometime yes. Sometime no. De biggest ones always fool dem experts. Dey think de'll goin' one direction. Dey turn and go another.”

Great, Allison thought. She leaned back on the torn leather seat and closed her eyes, hoping the driver would stop talking. Mercifully, he did.

She didn't open them again until he jolted to a stop, “Corinthian Hotel.”

Allison was surprised. In the guidebooks she'd seen the white Moorish Cap Jaluca Hotel that exuded quiet luxury with sweeping lines surrounded by magnificent vegetation. Allison figured her sister would surely have stayed at a place like that. But there was nothing luxurious about the Corinthian. It looked just adequate with three stories, its pink stones freshly painted for the season. The front had sparse vegetation, lit by a row of lights, about half of which were out, running along the path from the driveway to the entrance. Vanessa would never have picked this place. But her lover may have.

As Allison stepped out of the cab, she noticed a man bounding toward her from the hotel almost as if he'd been shot from a gun, short and squat with tan skin, an open mouth, smiling, showing off large ivory teeth.

“I'm John Burt, the manager here.”

“How do you do, Mr. Burt. I'm Allison Boyd. My sister …”

“I know, Missy. A terrible accident. We spoke yesterday on the phone.”

“I need to talk to you some more.”

“Sure, sure, but first, I'll get you settled in your room.”

While he carried her duffel, Allison followed him inside. Except for the two of them, the hotel seemed empty. She thought of a Stephen King novel about a deserted hotel. Her knees wobbled.

“You still want your sister's room, Missy?” Burt was smiling showing those teeth.

“Please.”

“Room six it is. You come with me.”

They climbed a wide wooden staircase with a polished railing. Room six, Allison noted, had been freshly painted and had a musty smell. Burt put down her bag on a luggage rack.

“Is there air conditioning?”

“Here it is.” He flung open the French doors leading to a wrought iron patio, a breeze blowing in from the Caribbean. Looking out, under the moon, Allison saw lapping waves splashing against the sand.

“You come down when you're ready, Missy.”

She surveyed the room. Thinking that Vanessa spent her last days here, she felt a surge of sadness and began crying. Then, seeing the king-sized bed strengthened her resolve. Vanessa hadn't been alone. Sadness gave way to anger.

Who's the bastard who killed her? Or watched her die? Then took off like a thief in the night?

Burt was waiting for her in the dining room, facing the sea, a wall of French doors open to a wooden deck over the sand. He was alone except for a tall thin islander in a white jacket standing behind the bar wiping glasses.

“How about a rum punch, Missy? The specialty of the house.”

“That sounds good. Please don't call me Missy.”

“Lon, two rum punches.”

When seated at a table with the drinks, Allison asked, “Where are the other guests?”

“Our season doesn't begin until the middle of December. Also hurricanes hit now.”

“So it's just me in the hotel?”

“For tonight. But I ordered a lobster for you. Cook will grill it in a little while. There's nothing so good as our lobsters.”

“Listen to me, Mr. Burt…”

“Please, you call me John.”

“John, then.” Her mouth was dry. She paused to sip the drink. Wow, potent stuff. “Listen, John, I'm not here for a vacation. I want to know what happened to my sister.”

“Okay, sure.”

“Good, then tell me.”

“You know, I really liked your sister. Very classy lady. She called a couple weeks ago. She wanted a quiet place for a long weekend. To relax. Too much tension in Washington. So she came. Arrived Saturday afternoon.”

“Who was with her?”

“Nobody, missy. Uh, Miss Boyd.”

“You're sure?”

“I met her taxi. Like I did with yours tonight.”

“So tell me, what did she do during those two days?”

He waved his arm toward the sea. “Mostly she laid on the beach. ‘Working on my suntan,' she said.”

That did sound like Vanessa “Did she meet anybody?”

“She ate alone right here. All her meals.”

“Did she do anything unusual?”

“Well …”

Was he hesitating? “Tell me.”

“Both nights she went down to the beach. She said she likes to swim at night. I told her be careful.” He paused, then dropped his voice. “She was so beautiful. I watched her from a window upstairs.”

“And?”

He looked down.

“Go on.”

“The first night she took off her bathing suit. Lovely, lovely body. Truly gorgeous. When she came out of the water, she dried off, put on her suit, and came back in.”

“And you were staring at her the whole time?”

He looked at his hands.

Thinking of this creepy man leering at Vanessa infuriated her. But then, wouldn't most men do exactly the same thing?

“You want me to continue?”

She nodded.

“Sunday night, she did the same thing. While she was out on the beach, the phone rang. I was gone maybe twenty minutes.” He sounded apologetic. “When I got back to my window, she was stretched out on the sand. Not moving.”

“What did you do then?”

“I ran out. She looked like she was dead.”

“Why did you think that?”

“I touched her. I mean her pulse. Just her pulse.”

“And then?”

“I called the police. They told me not to move her body. Just watch it. They will send people. Then two young policemen came. They took her away in their ambulance.”

She slowly sipped up her drink. The story was ludicrous. Vanessa wouldn't swim naked at night by herself. With men, true, she could be reckless and uninhibited. But alone, or even with Allison, she was careful. If she was with a man and high on booze or pot, she might well have gone skinny dipping, as she'd done as a teenager in Hueston Woods Lake. But her being found in the nude, stretched out on the beach, just didn't add up.

“I want to talk to Har Stevens, the police chief. Will you call him for me?”

“Now?”

“Yes, at home if necessary.”

He shook his head. “Har went to St. Martin for the evening. You'll have to wait until tomorrow morning.”

Now she felt a cold edge in his voice. “What about the two young policemen?”

“They won't talk to you until Har tells them to.”

“So I can't do anything else this evening?”

He raised his hand and pointed toward the kitchen. A woman in a black uniform carried out a tray with a grilled lobster, salad, and French fries. She brought another rum punch and a bottle of water.

Burt stood up. “I'll leave you to eat.”

She looked at the lobster. “What happened to the claws?”

“Our lobsters don't have claws. Up north, they need them to defend themselves. Ours is a kinder place.”

“It wasn't for my sister.”

He walked away. She hadn't eaten all day, she realized, and she needed her strength. The lobster was sweet and tasty. But after three bites, the potent rum drink hit her. She couldn't keep her eyes open.

Stumbling up the stairs, she thought about Paul. How terrific her dinner with him had been. And how helpful he wanted to be. Was she crazy coming down here when she could be back with him?

Washington

X
iang liked Italian food. He had never eaten it until he came to the United States to attend Carnegie Mellon, but from the first time that Kelly Cameron took him to Giovanni's in Oakland, he couldn't get enough of it. He was particularly fond of the pastas with shrimp and other seafood, but just about any dish worked for him.

He and Kelly had a plan for one day after his graduation to travel throughout Italy, but the plan for that trip died when Liu squashed Xiang's romance with Kelly.

What didn't die, though, was Xiang's fondness for Italian food. In Washington, he particularly liked Posto on 14th Street near Logan Circle where Massimo, the chef from the high-end, glamorous Tosca, ran a stylish Italian
cucina
with colorful art on the walls.

Xiang had left the Embassy late and at ten o'clock that evening he sat in a corner table in the still crowded Posto with a glass of Chianti munching a pizza while waiting for his seafood pasta.

As he ate, Xiang thought about the call he had gotten late that afternoon from Jasper, setting a meeting for tomorrow at 5:00 a.m. in Rock Creek Park. Xiang wondered what prompted the meeting. Jasper had sounded tense and distraught, but since Vanessa's drowning in Anguilla, that was how Jasper always sounded.

Deep in thought, Xiang, not paying attention to his surroundings, suddenly felt a tug on his arm.

He looked up and saw … No it couldn't be. It was an apparition, a trick of his mind, an illusion …

He rubbed his eyes. She was still there.

“Xiang, it's Kelly Cameron.”

He was too stunned to speak. She was even more exquisite then he remembered. The long blonde hair. The perfectly sculpted face. The sparkling blue eyes.

“Don't you remember me?” she said. “From Carnegie Mellon.”

“Of course I remember you. What are you doing in Washington?”

“I'm with the FBI. At headquarters. And you?” She was giving him that gorgeous smile.

“I'm the Assistant Economic Attaché at the Chinese Embassy.”

“We're both serving our governments. Are you married?”

“No. You?”

“Married and divorced. I have a little girl. I see you still like Italian food,” she said, deftly changing the subject.

“You don't look any different.”

“You too.”

He held out his hand toward the empty chair at the table. “Would you like to join me?”

She pointed across the room toward the door where a man, tall and muscular who looked to Xiang as if he was an FBI agent, was standing impatiently, holding a woman's coat.

“Thanks, but I just had dinner with a friend. We were sitting over there.” She motioned across the crowded room. “I didn't see you until we were on the way out. I had to come by and say hello.”

“I'm so glad you did.”

“It was nice seeing you.”

She turned and gracefully walked away.

I should have asked for her card, Xiang thought. But he didn't need that. He could easily locate her phone number at the FBI.