A Widow in Paradise & Suburban Secrets Read online

  “The name of the charter company was Alejandro’s Fishing Tours.”

  As they walked, Dannie got butterflies in her belly. Roger had taken this same path almost nine months ago. He’d talked to some of these people. Perhaps one of them was the last person he’d ever spoken to.

  She wished she had come to Cuatro Blanco when they’d called to tell her Roger had drowned.

  Ben Wiser had assured her the authorities on the island would handle everything—that when they found Roger’s body, they would inform her immediately.

  Frankly, she’d been so shocked and grief stricken that she couldn’t even have imagined making the trip. Now that she was here, though, it all hit her.

  These were the last sights Roger had seen before his life ended. The last people he’d spoken to.

  It hadn’t really sunk in last time, because everything had looked so jumbled after the hurricane. But now…Now it was a day like any other. A day like the day her husband had lost his life.

  “I think we should split up,” she said. “You go ask around about Lisa, and I’ll find Alejandro’s Fishing Tours. We can meet back at the moped in half an hour.”

  Guy gave her a puzzled look. “All right. If that’s what you want.”

  “It is.”

  “Then I’ll see you back at the bike.”

  Guy headed off to the left while Dannie stayed on the path, which ended at a small unpainted bait shack. A bait bucket filled with sand and cigarette butts held open a rickety screen door.

  Dannie stuck her head inside. “Hello?”

  A man popped up from behind a small counter, scaring the crap out of her.

  He had to be close to eighty, his skin leathery from the sun, his eyes still bright and alert.

  “Alejandro’s Fishing Tours?” she said. “This dock?”

  “No.”

  “Which dock?”

  The man shook his head, and ran a finger across his neck.

  Dannie felt the blood drain out of her. “Alejandro is dead?”

  The man shook his head again. “No, Alejandro no is dead. Just his tours.”

  “He quit taking tours?”

  “Jes.”

  “When?”

  The man puckered his face in thought. “February.”

  “Thank you.” Dannie’s voice shook. She stepped backward out of the bait shack, nearly tripping over the makeshift ashtray.

  Poor Alejandro. He must have so been distraught over Roger’s accident that he quit taking charters.

  She wandered onto the dock and watched a boat go out, loaded with men from the fishing club at El Pelícano. She imagined Roger in the back of the boat in his yellow polo shirt, sunglasses and that stupid wide-rimmed canvas fishing hat he liked to wear.

  What had he been thinking when he woke up that morning? When he’d stepped onto the boat, looking forward to a day of fishing on the beautiful blue ocean?

  She fought back a spate of tears before heading back toward the moped to wait for Guy.

  “What’d you find out?” Guy trudged up the path. The picture of Lisa that he usually kept in his wallet was in his hand.

  “Alejandro isn’t running fishing tours anymore.”

  “No?”

  Dannie shook her head. “He quit in February.”

  “Oh.”

  Guy stuck the picture of Lisa in the back pocket of his khaki shorts.

  “Did you have any luck?” Dannie said.

  “A little. A guy on one of the pleasure boats on the far dock says he saw her in a bar a couple months back. He described the tattoo on her shoulder.”

  “What bar?”

  “It’s called Carlito’s. It’s a couple of towns over.”

  Dannie climbed onto the back of the moped. “We should check it out after we go back to talk to Officer Palmas.”

  THE SOAP-OPERA-WATCHING desk cop seemed surprised to see them again.

  He motioned to an Erik Estrada type through a window that looked into a small office. The desk cop gave him a look as if to say, “What should I do?”

  The cop in the office shook his head, and came out to greet Dannie and Guy.

  “May I help you?”

  Dannie stepped forward. “I’m looking for Officer Palmas.”

  “You found him.” His accent wasn’t as thick as the other officer’s and had a slight Boston twang. Dannie remembered him telling her once on the phone that he’d spent a year in the States as an exchange student.

  “I’m Dannie Treat. I’ve been speaking on the phone to you about my husband, Roger. He drowned offshore while fishing in February.”

  “Of course. I remember.”

  “I wondered if I could talk to you, or the coroner, or whoever is responsible for issuing a death certificate.”

  Officer Palmas looked at Guy, and then at Dannie, and said to her, “We should speak privately in my office.”

  Guy nodded. “Go ahead. I’ll wait out here.”

  Dannie followed Palmas into the little office. It smelled like lemon Pledge and microwave popcorn. He motioned to a chair, and she sat. Instead of sitting behind the desk, he sat in the chair beside her.

  “Mrs. Treat, how much do you know about your husband’s death?”

  “Just what you and the people at Wiser-Crenshaw told me. That Roger went out on a fishing charter with a few other Wiser-Crenshaw executives, that the boat hit a buoy and Roger fell out, that there was a forty-eight-hour search, and that you never recovered his body.”

  Officer Palmas nodded. “We thought it was a routine accident investigation at first. But now…”

  Dannie’s heart picked up speed. “Now what?”

  The cop gave a little frown. “Things came up.”

  “What things?” Dannie demanded.

  “For one, the charter boat captain—”

  “Alejandro.”

  “Yes, Alejandro. Alejandro hasn’t run a charter since that day.”

  “I know. I heard. He must feel just terrible about the accident.”

  Officer Palmas suppressed a smile. “I don’t think so. You see, around here we can’t afford to let our feelings keep us from making a living. Our families depend on us to support them. Alejandro’s family depends on him.”

  “So he’s not distraught?”

  “I highly doubt it. In fact, he’s never seemed so…undistraught.”

  Dannie stood up, pacing around the tiny office. “I don’t understand what you’re trying to tell me. Just tell me.”

  “It would seem Alejandro is having no problem supporting his family these days.”

  Dannie gave him a blank stare.

  “He’s got a new BMW. And a new fishing boat, too, just for himself. No charters.”

  “And you think all of this has something to do with Roger’s death?”

  Officer Palmas shrugged. “It’s quite a coincidence, no? Your husband drowns, and suddenly Alejandro’s financial situation is vastly improved.”

  Dannie sank back into her chair. “What are you saying? That someone paid Alejandro to hit that buoy? That he killed Roger?”

  “Perhaps. Or maybe…”

  The rest of his sentence faded to a buzz in her ears. Dannie’s stomach rolled. She buried her face in her hands and took deep breaths. She felt dizzy.

  No, she felt faint. Oh, hell. She was going to faint.

  She slumped sideways, and the floor hurtled toward her face.

  Chapter Sixteen

  WHEN SHE WOKE UP, Dannie was lying on her side on a small cot in the police shack. Guy hovered over her like a mother hen, touching her hair, her arm, her hip, pressing a washcloth to her bloodied nose.

  “What happened?” he said when he noticed her eyes were open.

  “I don’t know. I guess I passed out.”

  “Do you feel sick?”

  Dannie shook her head. “It must be the heat.”

  Officer Palmas, who leaned against the wall behind Guy, nodded. “You need to rest. You should go back to your hotel for a while. Have som
ething to eat. I assure you, Mrs. Treat, as soon as there are any further developments in your husband’s case, we will contact you.” He gave her a pointed look.

  “I will take you back to the ferry,” the other cop said. “You shouldn’t ride a moped in your condition.”

  “Thanks,” Guy said. He helped Dannie to her feet. “Can you walk?”

  She nodded.

  Guy escorted her outside. Soap Opera Cop pointed to a small pickup. Dannie got in, while Guy and the cop loaded the moped into the bed of the truck. The men squeezed in on either side of her.

  Guy and the cop chatted as they drove to the ferry dock, but Dannie hardly heard a word they said. All she could think about was Roger and Jimmy Duke and the missing money. And whether the two other Wiser-Crenshaw people on the boat had been in on all of this.

  It seemed likely.

  Guy returned the moped and bought tickets for them back to the dock that was within walking distance of El Pelícano.

  She and Guy spoke little on the ferry. It was nearly dark by the time they arrived at the hotel. The band played under a thatched gazebo on the edge of the beach.

  “Why don’t we grab something to eat before we head back up to the room?” Guy said. “You’ve hardly eaten all day.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  He grabbed her hand. “Come on. Some nice, greasy, salty food?”

  She had to admit that did sound good.

  Dannie allowed Guy to lead her to the dining area on the terrace near where the band played.

  The moon was rising over the ocean, and if she hadn’t been preoccupied by everything that was going on, it would have been a beautiful night. A romantic night.

  Guy ordered her a drink with an umbrella in it, and a sparkling water for himself. She sipped the drink, feeling the tension in her shoulders ease just a little.

  What had she really found out today? She’d already suspected that Roger’s death might have been foul play.

  Why hadn’t he told her he’d gotten Jimmy Duke’s account? There had been a time they’d talked about everything. But that time had long passed. Since she’d caught him having an affair with a colleague five years ago, just after she’d had Richard, things had changed.

  Roger said he’d just been freaked out by Richard’s birth, by his new responsibilities as a father. He wasn’t thinking straight. He swore it would never happen again.

  Maybe she’d turned a blind eye, or at least hadn’t looked very hard for proof that he’d gone back on his word, but she’d always believed him to be a basically honest man.

  For him to have embezzled money from Jimmy Duke? It seemed so unreal.

  “Are you okay?” Guy’s voice pulled her back to the present, to the music of the band. To the moonlight riding the waves onto the beach.

  “I was just thinking how little I actually knew Roger. I used to think I knew him inside out. But in the end…I mean, who was he?”

  Guy gave her a sympathetic smile. “I used to think of Lisa as the other half of me. People joke about their spouse being their better half, but that’s honestly how I thought of her. I trusted her completely.”

  “So this all came out of the blue? You had no idea?”

  Guy leaned back in his chair. “I guess in retrospect there were signs. Late nights out with the girls. Her staying overnight at her mother’s. A dwindling sex life.”

  Dannie nodded. “With Roger it was business trips, client dinners, long hours. And a dwindling sex life.”

  They sat without talking for a while, each lost in thought about life B.C.B.—Before Cuatro Blanco.

  The band struck up a slow song, the lead singer crooning in Spanish.

  “Want to dance?” Guy said.

  “Sure, why not?”

  He held her gently, as if she might break.

  As if he knew how difficult it had been for her to stay strong all these months.

  How could she feel so safe in his arms when she knew she was treading on dangerous emotional ground?

  As they swayed to the music under the moonlight, she rested her head on Guy’s shoulder and closed her eyes, wishing they were there just to enjoy themselves like everyone else around them.

  Everyone except…

  Behind a palm tree growing at the edge of the terrace, Dannie spotted a familiar figure. A dark-haired woman in a wide-brimmed hat. The woman from the Air Caribbean line at the airport. And the lounge, and the hotel hallway, and the airplane…

  And the blue car outside her house?

  The woman caught Dannie looking at her and quickly turned away, hurrying off into the darkness of the beach.

  “I’ll be right back.” Dannie kicked off her sandals and took off across the terrace, hitting her stride when she reached the sand.

  For a moment Dannie lost the woman in the dark, and then she reappeared, silhouetted against the moonlight reflecting off the water.

  “Hey!” Dannie yelled. “Come back here!”

  The woman kept walking.

  “You, near the water. I want to talk to you!”

  The woman hesitated, then stopped.

  Dannie was out of breath by the time she reached her. “Do I know you?”

  “I really don’t think so.”

  “I think I do. I saw you last time I was here, a couple of weeks ago. And again in the airplane.”

  “Oh, that’s unlikely,” the woman said, with a definite Philadelphia accent.

  “Exactly. Which is what makes it so weird.”

  The woman removed the floppy-brimmed hat. Dannie could see her face clearly now, illuminated by the moonlight.

  “Are you following me?”

  “I think it’s the other way around. You’re following me. You chased me out onto the beach.”

  “You were running away from me!”

  “You’re crazy.” The woman tried to get around her, but Dannie grabbed the sleeve of her blouse.

  “You’re not going anywhere until you tell me what’s going on.” Dannie’s voice had reached a fevered pitch. “What do you want from me? Did you kill my husband?”

  “You’re out of your mind.”

  “What’s going on here?” Guy appeared out of the shadows. “Dannie, are you okay?”

  “No, she’s not okay,” the dark-haired woman said. “She’s harassing me.”

  “Dannie, come on. Let’s get you something to eat,” Guy said.

  “No! I’m telling you, she’s been following us. Spying on me.”

  “Dannie, please—”

  “I can’t believe you don’t believe me,” Dannie said to Guy.

  “She hasn’t eaten all day,” Guy explained to the woman. “She’s a little off balance.”

  “I’m not off balance. Listen to me. I saw her at the airport in Philly when I was with Lyle. I saw her at the hotel when we won the dance contest. I saw her on the plane on the way back home. And now she’s here.”

  Guy looked at the woman, who looked away.

  “There’s a security guard on the terrace,” he said. “Maybe we should go speak to him.”

  The woman exhaled. “Don’t do that. Damn.” She pulled a wallet out of her big straw bag and handed a business card to Dannie. “My name is Judy Finch. I’m an insurance investigator.”

  “An insurance investigator,” Dannie repeated.

  “With World Fidelity.”

  “Why in the hell are you following me? What are you investigating?”

  “Fraud.”

  Dannie laughed, without humor. “How can I possibly have committed fraud? You people haven’t given me a dime yet.”

  “Actually, it’s not you we’re investigating. It’s your husband. We believe he faked his death.”

  “Oh. Oh, God.” Dannie bent over, trying to breathe. “Why? Why are you doing this to me? I talked to you people three times and no one ever said anything about fraud.”

  “We couldn’t tell you, because we suspected you might be in on it.”

  “In on it—? This is insane.”
Dannie squatted down, putting her hands over her mouth, trying hard not to hyperventilate.

  “Dannie, are you okay?” Guy moved toward her, but she held up a hand to ward him off.

  “I’m sorry,” Judy said. “I understand this might be something of a shock for you.”

  “You think?” Dannie’s head began to spin.

  “Let’s go back to your room,” Judy said. “We can talk about this in more detail.”

  “Right,” Dannie said. But when she tried to stand up, for the second time that day everything went black.

  WHEN SHE WOKE UP this time, she was in the elevator with Guy and Judy, and a bellhop in a red polyester uniform.

  Dannie’s arms were flung over the shoulders of Guy and the bellhop. Guy held her up by the waist.

  “She’ll be okay as soon as we get her into the air-conditioning,” Guy said.

  The bellhop nodded and smiled. Dannie was guessing he didn’t speak English.

  The men helped Dannie down the hall to room 403, where Guy handed Judy the key. She unlocked the door, then they all filed inside.

  “You two have a room together?” Judy asked.

  “There was a mix-up at the reservations desk,” Dannie said.

  Judy looked at the rumpled sheets on the floor. “Uh-huh.”

  Guy gave the bellhop a ten and the man nodded his way out of the room, closing the door behind him.

  Guy retrieved a bottle of water from the minifridge. He opened it and handed it to Dannie. “You okay?”

  “I feel woozy.”

  “You’ve hardly eaten all day,” Guy said. “We’ve been running around all over the island in the heat. You probably have sunstroke.”

  “Sunstroke? At night?” Dannie plopped down on the edge of the bed. Guy sat beside her.

  “Maybe it’s heat exhaustion.” Judy dragged a chair over and pulled a spiral-bound notebook out of her oversize straw handbag. “You mind if I ask you a couple of questions?”

  “What if I say yes?”

  Judy shrugged. “The investigation will continue anyway.”

  Dannie gave a tired sigh. “You may as well ask away, then.”

  “Who is Lyle Faraday to you?”

  Guy glanced sideways at Dannie, as if he might be interested in the answer, too.

  “Lyle is a friend. Just a friend. He was my husband’s best friend, as a matter of fact.”