Chapter 82
GARY SONEJI/MURPHY undoubtedly still had his master plan. Now, I had mine. The question was: How well could I finish mine off? How powerful was my resolve to succeed, no matter what the human cost? How far was I willing to go? How close to the edge?
The trip to Virgin Gorda began in Washington, D.C., on a bleak, rainy Friday morning. It was about fifty degrees. Under normal circumstances, I couldn’t have gotten out of there fast enough.
We had to change to a three-engine Trislander in sundrenched Puerto Rico. By three-thirty in the afternoon, Jezzie and I were gliding down toward a white sandy beach, a narrow landing strip bordered by tall palms swaying in the sea breeze.
“There it is,” she said from the seat beside me. “There’s our place in the sun, Alex. I could stay here for about a month.”
“It does look like what the doctor ordered,” I had to agree. We’d soon see about that. We’d see how long the two of us wanted to be alone together.
“This weary traveler wants to be in that water. Not looking down at it,” Jezzie said. “Exist on fish and fruit. Swim till we drop.”
“That’s what we came here for, isn’t it? Fun in the sun? Make all the bad guys go away?”
“Everything is good, Alex. It can be. Just go with it a little.” Jezzie always sounded so sincere. I almost wanted to believe her.
As the door of the Trislander opened, the fragrant smells of the Caribbean breezed in. Warm air rushed over the nine of us inside the small plane.
Everybody was decked out in sunglasses and brightly colored T-shirts. Smiles broke out on nearly every face. I forced a smile, too.
Jezzie took my hand. Jezzie was right there—and yet she wasn’t. Everything seemed dreamlike to me. What was happening now… couldn’t be happening.
Black men and women with British accents took us through a sort of relaxed minicustoms. Neither Jezzie’s nor my bags were searched. This had actually been prearranged with the help of the U.S. State Department. Inside my bag was a small-caliber revolver—loaded and ready.
“Alex, I still love it here,” Jezzie said as we approached the tiny queue for taxis. Along with the cabs were a number of scooters, bicycles, dirty minivans. I wondered if we’d ever take another motorcycle ride together again.
“Let’s stay here forever,” she said. “Pretend we never have to leave. No more clocks, no radios, no news.”
“I like the sound of that,” I told her. “We’ll play ‘let’s pretend’ for a while.”
“You’re on. Let’s do it.” She clapped her hands like a small child.
The island scene seemed unchanged since our last visit. This had probably been the case since the Rockefeller family began to buy up the island back in the 1950s.
Cruise ships and sailboats were collecting out on the sparkling sea. We passed small restaurants and shops for snorkeling gear. The brightly painted one-story homes all had TV antennas sticking from their rooftops. Our place in the sun. Paradise.
Jezzie and I had time to catch a swim at the hotel. We showed off a little. We stretched our bodies, racing out and back to a distant reef. I remembered our first swim together. The hotel pool in Miami Beach. The beginning of her act.
Afterward, we sprawled on the beach. We watched the sun drop down onto the horizon, bleed into it, then disappear from sight.
“Déjà vu, Alex.” Jezzie smiled. “Just like before. Or did I dream that?”
“It’s different now,” I said, then quickly added, “We didn’t know each other so well before.”
What was Jezzie really thinking? I knew that she must have a plan now, too. I figured she knew I was on to Devine and Chakely. She needed to know what I planned to do about them.
A young black stud, muscular and trim in his white bathing suit and crisp hotel T-shirt, carried pi?a coladas down to our beach chairs.
Let’s play “pretend” didn’t get any better than this.
“Is this your honeymoon?” He was loose and carefree enough to joke with us.
“It’s our second honeymoon,” Jezzie told him.
“Well, enjoy it doubly,” said the smiling beach waiter.
The slowdown pace of the island took over eventually. We had dinner at the hotel’s pavilion restaurant. More eerie déjà vu for the two of us. Sitting there in the perfect Caribbean surroundings, I believe that I felt more duplicitous, and completely unreal, than I had in my entire life.
I watched the grilled pompano and grouper and turtle come and go. I listened to the reggae band get ready. And all the while, I was thinking that this beautiful woman beside me had let Michael Goldberg die. I was also certain she had murdered Maggie Rose Dunne, or at least been an accomplice. She’d never shown a hint of remorse.
Somewhere back in the States was her share of the ten-million-dollar ransom. But Jezzie was smart enough to let me “split” the trip expenses with her. “Right down the middle, Alex. No free rides here, okay?”
She ate island lobster and an appetizer plate of shark bites. She drank two ales at dinner. Jezzie was so smooth and smart. In a way, she was even scarier than Gary Soneji/Murphy.
What do you talk about to a murderer, and someone you loved, over a perfect dinner and cocktails? I wanted to know so many things, but I couldn’t ask any of the real questions pounding in my head. Instead, we talked of the coming vacation days, a “plan” for the here and now in the islands.
I stared across the dining table at Jezzie and I thought that she had never looked more physically striking. She kept tucking her blond hair behind one ear. It was such a familiar and intimate gesture, that nervous tic. What was Jezzie nervous and concerned about? How much did she know?
“All right, Alex,” she finally said. “Do you want to tell me what we’re really doing on Virgin Gorda? Is there another agenda working here?”
I had prepared myself for the question, but it still took me by surprise. She had fired it in beautifully. I was ready to lie. I could rationalize what I had to do. I just couldn’t make myself feel particularly good about it.
“I wanted us to be able to talk, to really talk to each other. Maybe for the first time, Jezzie.”
Tears started in the corners of Jezzie’s eyes. They slowly ran down her cheeks. Shiny streams in the candlelight.
“I love you, Alex,” Jezzie whispered. “It’s just that—it will always be so hard for the two of us. It’s been hard so far.”
“Are you saying the world isn’t ready for us?” I asked her. “Or aren’t we ready for the world?”
“I don’t know which of those is right. Does it matter that it’s just so hard?”
We walked along the beach after dinner, down toward a ship-wrecked galleon. The picturesque wreck was stranded about a quarter of a mile from the main pavilion and restaurant. The beach appeared to be deserted.
There was some moonlight, but it got darker as we approached the fallen ship. Shredded pieces of clouds streamed across the sky. Finally, Jezzie was little more than a dark shape beside me. Everything about the moment made me extremely uncomfortable. I had left my gun in the room.
“Alex.” Jezzie had stopped walking. At first, I thought she’d heard something, and I looked over my shoulder. I knew Soneji/ Murphy couldn’t be down here. Was it possible I could be wrong?
“I was wondering,” Jezzie said, “thinking about something from the investigation, and I don’t want to. Not down here.”
“What’s bothering you?” I asked her.
“You stopped talking to me about the investigation. How did you wind up with Chakely and Devine?”
“Well, since you brought the subject up,” I said to her, “I’ll tell you. You were right all the time about the two of them. Another stone-cold dead end. Now. Let’s have a real vacation. We’ve both earned it.”