“The other one is Claudell Paige, and he is Garifuna. He is a large, heavy man and seems to be the driving force behind the lodge. I think Señor Fuentes is the money. Mr. Paige laughs and jokes with all the employees and they appear to like him very much. He grew up in the nearby village of Hopkins just as they all did. Señor Fuentes, on the other hand, keeps a low profile. He is very small and thin and spends most of his time with the bartender — get the picture? Most of the staff here hardly acknowledge him. Curious, isn’t it?”
Brandon already did not like Fuentes. Happy family man, my ass, he thought jealously.
“Anyway, they’re an odd couple, and an uneasy one too, if you ask me. Still, I’m not exactly sure what troubles me here — it’s a little bit of a lot of things, I think. The location, while beautiful, is just... off, if you follow me. While the facilities are charming and unique, an air of... something... desperation, maybe, hangs over the place. Of course, when you see some of the poverty here, the desperation becomes understandable — they have to succeed!
“Then again, it might just be me, as I haven’t been sleeping well at all here. The rooms and beds are comfortable enough, but I keep getting awakened by someone knocking at my door in the wee hours! Naturally, I don’t answer it, but no one ever answers me back when I call out either. I’ve tried looking out the window to catch them at it, but I can never see anyone. I’m a little worried it might be bandits, but the management says they have a security man on duty all night. It’s very peculiar and a little unsettling, and the staff denies all knowledge of anything. One of them suggested a lizard might be in my room and the rest laughed. I guess that was a sample of the local humor at the expense of the turista. Ha! Ha!
“Tomorrow I take an excursion inland to visit some Mayan temple ruins. I’m really looking forward to getting away from here for a while. I’ll send more then.
“The no-see-ums are beginning to find me so I’ve got to take shelter. The sun is setting, and I must say, in spite of my misgivings, that it is truly beautiful here. The entire horizon is blood-red and a lone fisherman is out on the water in his dugout — that’s right, the locals actually use hollowed-out logs carved into little canoe-like boats. Amazing, isn’t it, in this day and age? He’s just standing out there like a stork — I don’t know how he doesn’t fall in. For some reason it makes me feel very lonely and out of place here. Ta, all. I’m looking forward to coming home. Julia.”
Brandon read the last few sentences once more — were those words really meant for him? They could almost be read that way. Was it him that she was really lonely for? This thought gave him hope, and for the first time in over a week he felt a tingle of excitement, a renewed interest in life. They were young, after all, he reasoned, so it was only natural they have their fights. And when Julia returned, they could make up, as young couples the world over and for time immemorial have — they would kiss madly and confess their remorse. The forgiveness that followed would be joyous and cathartic and he could hardly wait! He jumped up and rushed over to her desk to search for her return date. He felt quite certain she was due back any day now. Maybe he could pick her up at the airport.
He felt the damp breeze before he heard the man cough and looked up guiltily in the midst of rifling through Julia’s desk. It was the man with the umbrella and he was, as predicted, soaked. The damaged umbrella hung from his hand like something he had tried, and failed, to save from drowning.
“Yes,” Brandon said, startled. “How may I help you?”
The visitor wore glasses and had to prop the umbrella in a corner in order to wipe them dry with his handkerchief. His tired-looking grey suit was made several shades darker by the rain; his thin hair was plastered to his narrow skull. “This is Resorts Investments, isn’t it?” he asked politely.
Brandon nodded his head even as he gauged the man. Without understanding why, he knew that he was neither a potential client nor a salesman. “How may I help you?” he repeated. The hangover crawled, dark and ugly, across his vision and back into his brain.
“Does Julia... that is, is this the office where Ms. Julia Catesby was employed?”
Brandon tried to digest this. “Was?” he came to at last.
“Are you a coworker?”
“Yes,” he answered like a man in a dream. “I am a... coworker. Why?”
The man appeared to consider this, then withdrew something from his inner jacket pocket. He held it out for Brandon to see. “I’m from the State Department, our office in Philadelphia.” Brandon could see that the older man’s ID confirmed this. “Are you her employer? We’ve called here several times and left messages,” he said.
“No, no, I’m not,” Brandon answered, the message light flickering redly at the edge of his vision. “She’s out of town and won’t be back until tomorrow. What’s this all about?”
“We’re trying to locate her next of kin. Would you know how to do that?”
Brandon felt as if the room was growing darker yet, as if the rain outside was only the prelude to a greater storm. He shook his head and whispered, “No, I don’t.” His ignorance made him feel sick and selfish. “She’s from upstate New York... I think.”
The State Department official appeared to give this some consideration, then said, “We have her out at the airport, I’m afraid. We’d like to take her home, if we could.”
“The airport,” Brandon repeated. They had her at the airport, he thought, struggling to regain the surface he was sinking beneath. Did they think she was a drug runner — a smuggler of some kind? “Why do you have her at the airport? What’s she done?”
“Done?” the official repeated. “She hasn’t done anything, Mr...?”
“Highsmith,” Brandon answered with some attempt at bravado. “Brandon Highsmith.”
“We have her because she’s... she’s dead, Mr. Highsmith. She died in Belize, and it’s one of our jobs to return Americans to their homes in circumstances like these. We were hoping you could help.”
Brandon seized the edge of Julia’s desk to keep from sinking to his knees, and stared up at the older man through bloodshot, brimming eyes. He was unsure whether he would be sick or pass out, but he was certain that he could be of no help.
The resort appeared exactly as Julia had written and as was depicted on the postcard Brandon had received several days after her funeral. It was the only personal item he had been given by her in their brief, secret relationship and he carried it in the pocket over his heart like a talisman. The words scribbled on it gave no recognizable clue as to why she would hang herself no matter how many times he read it. Even so, as the porter left him to get unpacked, he retrieved it once more in the hope that the setting it was written in might aid him in deciphering its meaning. The cottages in the foreground were as charming as depicted, but the mountains looming in the near distance, undoubtedly meant to be alluring and mysterious, appeared brooding and shadowed to Brandon’s eyes.
He sat wearily on the edge of the bed and read the cramped, tiny words: “Don’t know when this will get to you — weeks, probably. Went into the mountains you see on the front. On the way we hit a traffic jam! You’ll never guess why — the driver tells me that there’s a haunted spot on the road and when the ghost (a mysterious woman, he says) is seen, no one will travel through for a while. She’s a warning, he said. It’s a bad curve and a far fall. Can you believe it? Ghost crossing! We stop for the dead! The driver laughed like it was superstition, but we didn’t go around the other cars, either. Soon, Julia.”