‘Don’t get involved,’ Mimi warned when I started to call the police on my radio. She plucked the radio from my fingers. ‘Let me handle it.’
So I did. Gladly.
It’s like a TV show, I told myself. Think about that. How many seasons of CSI have gone by? How many episodes of Law and Order – regular, SVU and CI? Hundreds of bodies? Thousands? Shot, stabbed, beaten, burned, dismembered – in a home, on the street, on a slab in the medical examiner’s office. Tamara Tunie looking up from a Y-cut – this girl was six weeks pregnant when he shot her.
It’s a prop. It’s a rental body from Dapper Cadaver. It’s CSI, Law and Order, Dexter, Bones.
It was also no good. Better to think about the horses.
‘Are the horses safe, really safe?’ I asked my husband as he headed for the shower.
‘They are for now.’
‘I’m wondering why they can’t put the horses in trailers and drive them to safety. There’s only eight of them.’
We’d reached the shower enclosure by then, and Paul began stripping off his shirt. ‘They’re wild horses, Hannah. You’ve seen what it’s like out there. First you’d have to find them. Then you’d have to use a tranquilizer gun to get them into a trailer.’ He returned my sheepish grin with a grin of his own, then unzipped and stepped out of his filthy trousers, hooked them on his toes and tossed them into the bushes. ‘But I’m betting Mimi’s a dab hand with a tranquilizer gun, too.’
Paul began soaping up in the shower, so I nipped inside to fetch us both some clean underwear. When I got back, he was singing an off-key version of ‘I got the horse right here, the name is Paul Revere,’ from the musical Guys and Dolls.
I waited outside the enclosure, leaning against the siding. ‘Don’t try to cheer me up. It won’t work.’
‘Can do, can do, this guy says the horse can do,’ Paul sang, ignoring me. Sudsy water from his vigorous shampooing began running out of the shower stall and along the concrete apron at my feet.
‘Even the curly tails are running for cover,’ I added.
The water stopped running. My husband emerged from the shower, squeaky clean and smelling of Suave Cucumber Melon Splash. ‘I can tell you one thing, Hannah, you’re not going to cook tonight.’ He relieved me of the clean underwear and hung it on the hook outside the shower. Then he began to unbutton my shirt.
‘You know what they say?’ I asked as the first two buttons came undone.
‘No, what?’
‘“Save water, shower with a friend?”’
And he drew me under the healing stream where we stood, locked together, until the hot water ran out.
NINE
THERE ARE STORIES ABOUT CORRUPT COPS WHO ACCEPT BRIBES, PURPOSELY FAIL TO SHOW UP FOR COMPLAINTS OR CRIME SCENES, OR FILE REPORTS ON CASES INVOLVING FRIENDS, FAMILY OR SOMEONE WILLING TO PAY FOR THEIR SILENCE, INTENTIONALLY CHOOSING TO PREVENT JUSTICE RATHER THAN ADHERING TO THEIR SWORN OATH.The Nassau Tribune, July 25 2008
After my baptism, quite literally by fire, moderating the Cruisers’ Net the rest of the week seemed like a tropical breeze.
There were the usual weather reports, arrivals and departures, a lost wallet, a found passport – ‘Don’t panic, Terri Ryburn, your passport has been found at Café Florance. Call me on seven-three after the Net and we’ll get you reunited.’
Paul had followed through on his ‘no cooking’ promise, and then some. We’d lunched at Wally’s, the Golden Grouper and Cracker P’s – but the one invitation I didn’t want to pass up was the Sunday pig roast at Nippers Beach Bar and Grill on Great Guana Cay.
Paul took my advice.
Perched high on a forty-foot dune overlooking the Atlantic, Nippers has to be experienced to be appreciated. Imagine: raffia umbrellas stirring in a gentle island breeze; picnic tables painted every color of the tropical rainbow; a double-decker pool connected by a waterfall where you can swim right up to the bar; a hat rack labeled Hang Bikini Tops Here; and sipping frozen Nippers in plastic cups while grooving to the music of a two-piece reggae band.
Self-medication never felt so good.
I remember stopping at Milo’s stand to purchase some tomatoes, and the long walk up the hill past the cemetery where a sign reminds all visitors that ‘the wages of sin is death’ – thanks for sharing! – but after enjoying my first frozen Nippers, a pink fruit juice and rum Slushee, smooth and sneaky, everything gets a bit hazy.
One drink was so yummy that I had to have two, and I may even have split a third one with Paul… hard to say. Weaving down the dunes, wading in the surf, lying down in the sand for a nice long nap, face up, no matter what Paul tells you.
Everyone says I had a good time.
All week I had been hoping for news about the body I’d found in the Wild Horses of Abaco preserve. If that had happened in Annapolis, WBAL would have been all over it. CNN, too. But, we were in the i’lans, mon. Nobody was sayin’ nuffin.
The Marsh Harbour authorities had claimed the body, and everyone assumed it would be shipped down to Nassau for an autopsy, but other than that, there was no news, no ID.
Molly Weston said that Winnie Albury told her that Forbes Albury had mentioned that one of his boatyard workers hadn’t showed up for a week. Everyone assumed he’d gone back to Haiti, to visit an ill mother someone said, but nobody knew for sure.
I’d wondered if my status as Net anchor would give me a leg up in the information department, but I was wrong. I made a few phone calls, but ended up none the wiser. Maybe it was because I didn’t have Pattie’s connections.
When the next edition of The Abaconian hit the stands, I snagged a copy, but the article didn’t tell me much I didn’t already know:Police retrieved the body, which had been severely burned, and had it transported to the Marsh Harbour Community Clinic, where it was officially pronounced dead.While police do not suspect foul play at this time, the body will be flown to New Providence, where an autopsy will be performed in order to determine the exact cause of death.Central Detective Unit officers from Grand Bahama are presently on the island assisting officers there with the investigation.
‘Officially pronounced dead.’ I shuddered. As if there ever had been any question of that.
After the Net, I puttered over to Hawksbill in Pro Bono and went looking for Gator Crockett, dive shopowner, unofficial constable, island point man for reckless teens, Mr Knock-a-Few-Heads-Together. I found him in the shack he laughingly called his office, patching a wetsuit with DAP contact cement. Justice, the potcake, lay snoozing at his feet.
I watched Gator work for a while before he noticed me.
‘Morning.’ He waved a glue brush. ‘Sit.’
I parked my buns in a plastic lawn chair that see-sawed alarmingly on the uneven dirt floor. ‘Can you talk for a minute?’
He nodded, pressing the edges of the patch together with his fingers.
‘I was the one who tripped over the body after the wildfire.’
‘Uh huh.’
‘I’ve been waiting to hear that the body’s been identified, but nothing’s been reported so far. I was wondering if you’d heard anything.’
Gator tossed the glue brush into a tin can, considered me with pale-blue eyes, saying nothing.
I tried again. ‘Who can I call?’
The corner of his mouth twitched in what might have been the beginning of a smile. ‘You don’t call. You don’t want to get involved. If the police find out you’re the one who stumbled over the body, and it turns out that there was foul play…’ The smile vanished. ‘Best case, you’re tied up in the court system for years. Worst case, they’ll turn you into a suspect.’