Читать книгу Lethal Affair - Jean Pichon Thomas - Страница 13

Chapter 3

The area was modest in size, but every foot of it was crammed from floor to ceiling with merchandise. Had there been time for it, Brenna would have treated herself to a tour of those shelves. Mixed in with a jumble of modern products were such old-fashioned wares as rolls of fly paper and dust-coated, metal electric fans.

A curtain of beads hung in a doorway at the rear. Suddenly it rattled, parting for a young black man who appeared from a back room wearing one of the island’s famous smiles and a head of dyed orange hair.

“Welcome to de store,” he greeted them. “What can I git for you?”

Brenna knew that St. Sebastian had been British owned before it was granted the independence it had requested. This explained the English that was spoken by the native population, although with a flavor of its own possessing a melodic cadence she loved to hear. This young man’s speech was a strong example of that.

“We’d like two bottles of water,” Casey said. “Cold, please, if you have them.”

“What you tink? We don’t have cold here?” Chuckling, he turned away, removed a pair of bottled waters from a cooler and placed them on the counter he stood behind.

Casey paid for them and handed one of the bottles to Brenna.

“De steel band, dey play tonight in Georgetown. Dey something when dey come togedder. Tickets don’t cost you much.”

“Maybe another time,” Casey said. “But there is something I’d like to ask.”

“Sure.”

“We passed this old plantation back down the road. The one with the high fence around it. What can you tell us about it?”

The exuberant smile on the clerk’s face vanished. He was no longer looking at them. His gaze had shifted to something behind them.

Mystified, Brenna turned. An equally puzzled Casey also twisted around. No one else had entered the store. She figured the clerk must be staring through the front window at what was outside.

And this, she convinced herself, was another car that hadn’t been there when she and Casey arrived. It was parked directly across the way at the side of the road, an old sedan as dark a green as the deeply shadowed stretch of jungle she’d been grateful to leave behind them.

The window on the driver’s side of the car had been lowered, revealing the figure at the wheel. He was looking in their direction, a man with a Nordic face, a buzz cut, and cold, blue eyes.

Brenna and Casey faced the clerk again, waiting for the answer to Casey’s question. His dark gaze turned reluctantly back to them.

“Mon, we don’t talk about dat place.”

“Why is that?” Casey persisted.

“You givin’ me too much worry,” he mumbled.

They were clearly being dismissed.

The green sedan was gone when they left the store.

“What was that all about?” Brenna wondered when they’d settled themselves in their own car. “The guy was spooked. You could see it in his face.”

Casey shook his head. “Dunno. Maybe our mystery plantation is haunted, and the guy in the green heap is its ghost.”

“With old legends in the West Indies so common, that’s not so funny.”

“But nothing to do with us.” Casey started the Toyota and backed out onto the road. “Come on, let’s go find your waterfall.”

His intention wasn’t so simply achieved. A mile or so farther up the road Brenna caught a movement in the angled outside mirror on her side of the car. Leaning to the right for a better view, she was able to identify the green sedan tailing them.

She’d had no reason before this to check the road behind them, but it did seem that the vehicle had suddenly appeared out of nowhere. Tempting as it was, she resisted the urge to call it a phantom. Casey would have loved teasing her about more ghosts.

“Casey—”

“Yeah, I see him. Spotted him in my rearview,” he said, indicating the driver’s mirror above his head.

“Um, you don’t think he’s deliberately following us? I mean, his car back at the store was headed in the direction we’re going. Now he’s somehow ended up behind us.”

“Could be he waited off on some side lane for us to pass and then pulled out.”

“But why? Why should he want to follow us?”

Casey had no explanation for her. His only response after a few seconds was a simple request. “Break out that map of yours again, will you?”

“You want me to see if that side lane behind us does exist?”

“Nope. I want you to see if there’s another road ahead of us branching off this one.”

That didn’t make sense to her. “For what reason?”

“I want to test something.”

Brenna waited for a further explanation, but again he gave her none. Grumbling to herself, she consulted the map as he’d asked.

“There is another road up ahead on the right, but it doesn’t make any more sense than your wanting to know it’s there.”

“Why is that?”

“Because after winding all over the place, it ends up looping back to join this one. And this one is a much shorter, more direct route to the falls.”

“The other road...lots of twists and turns, huh?”

“Yes.”

Casey nodded, looking satisfied. Why, she couldn’t imagine, and this time she didn’t bother asking him.

“I suppose,” she theorized, “since its being there at all doesn’t make sense when it doesn’t go anywhere but back to this road, it must have been constructed earlier. And then this one was built later, cutting off the old one to make a shorter route.”

“Sounds right. Our green sedan is still behind us,” he added, casting a fast glance into his rearview mirror. “Keep checking on it for me, will you? I’m going to be too busy before long to do it myself.”

He does love keeping me guessing, doesn’t he? Brenna thought wryly. But she obeyed his newest request, turning in her seat as much as the restraint of the belt would permit. Her view through the back window was considerably more accurate than what her outside mirror provided.

She waited a minute to report, “He’s sticking with us.”

“Coming up just ahead. Hang on.”

She did and learned why when, without slowing, Casey sharply and abruptly swung the Toyota into the side road he must have been watching for and found.

She was watching, as well. “The green demon turned, too,” she announced.

“Good.”

She understood now just what Casey was testing. He wanted to learn whether the green sedan only seemed to be following them or if this was a deliberate pursuit. Well, he’d evidently determined which was correct, but Brenna wasn’t certain it had been worth the risk.

She was even less certain of that when the Toyota bounced over a deep pothole, jolting her harshly. The road had obviously not been kept in repair. There’d been no reason to when the newer road was built. Worse than being in a rough condition with its broken pavement, it was narrow and without any guardrails. And now that they were fully in the forested highlands, with long drops over the side... Unnerving.

“Casey, this isn’t smart. The road is bad, and there’s nothing along it. If that guy tailing us is dangerous and should catch up with us out here in the middle of nowhere...”

“He won’t. I’ll lose him before that happens.”

“You’re awfully sure of yourself.”

He turned his head just long enough to favor her with one of his smug grins. “Hey, I’m an experienced FBI agent, remember? I know how to chase the bad guys and I know how to outrun them. Besides, that heap back there is in no shape to keep up with us. You’ll see.”

Maddening. He was maddening.

Moreover, Casey failed to ease his foot on the accelerator, and with the tortuous road growing more treacherous with every mile, she thought he might have realized that was imperative. He didn’t.

Brenna felt dizzy with all the rapid twists and turns. And when she found herself looking over the side into a deep gorge, and had a vision of the Toyota plunging into it, her giddiness morphed into absolute terror.

Casey’s only reaction to their perilous situation was a placid “Nice scenery up here, huh? I’d say they’re more mountains than highlands.”

“And I say I’m going to lose my breakfast if you don’t slow down.”

Much to her relief, he braked the car to, if not a crawl, at least a cautious speed. “Look,” he said.

“At what?”

“At what you were supposed to be on the lookout for. Your green demon is no longer behind us. He must have decided we weren’t worth it and headed back. Told you he’d give up.”

“Aren’t you the clever one? So, why are we stopping then?” she wondered when he pulled the Toyota over to the side and put the shift gear into Park. “The direct road can’t be much farther.”

He turned to face her. “Because I have some questions for you.”

“Such as?”

“Kind of funny, isn’t it, that some guy should turn up out of nowhere and decide to follow us?”

“Why should you imagine I would have an answer for that any more than you do?”

“I don’t know, Brenna. We had a pretty good view of him back at the store. It’s got me wondering whether you might have realized who he is.”

“What kind of question is that? Of course I don’t know who he is. Why on earth would I?”

“Maybe you saw him hanging around at the villa and recognized him from there. Could be Bradley is using thugs like him to keep tabs on you.”

“To an extent like this? That’s nuts, even if he did have a reason to have me watched, and I can’t imagine what that could possibly be. Why is it that you insist on connecting anything at all negative with Marcus?”

“Just trying to cover the possibilities.”

“Well, don’t. Can we please forget this and go on?”

“All right,” he said, shifting back into Drive, “let’s find your falls.”

She was ready to put the whole episode behind her. Wanted to do just that. Except Casey left her reluctantly remembering Julio last night outside the guesthouse.

* * *

A graveled parking area had been provided for visitors to the falls.

“Looks like we’ve got the place to ourselves,” Casey observed, pulling into the small, empty lot.

Brenna left her tote and purse in the car, taking only her camera with her. By the time Casey locked the Toyota and joined her, she had located a sign posted at the mouth of a trail, the arrow on it indicating the direction of the attraction.

“It can’t be far,” she said. “I can hear the sound of the water from here.”

The trail was wide enough to permit them to walk side by side. Although the ever-protective Casey offered no comment on this feature, Brenna knew it satisfied him to be able to keep her close. There was no point in objecting. He wouldn’t have listened.

A few hundred yards brought them through the forest to their destination. They suddenly found themselves in the open, standing on the lip of a ravine.

Casey spoke his approval in her ear. “It doesn’t disappoint, does it?”

She shook her head, marveling at the sight. She understood why it was called Braided Falls. There was no single stream of water tumbling over the ledge high above them on their right, but three distinctly separate ones. Several feet along their descent, the projecting rocks of the cliff face squeezed them together into one cascade. A little lower, and they separated again, then still lower joined once more, like strands of hair twined into a fat braid.

A pool at the bottom rimmed with moss and banks of ferns finally received the waters. From here they rushed through the ravine they had carved, their course taking them beneath a sturdy, hanging bridge that faced the falls.

“I’m going out on the bridge,” Brenna announced. “I should get some great shots from there.”

“I guess it wouldn’t be there if it wasn’t safe,” Casey agreed.

By the time he’d followed her to the center of the bridge, she was busy with her Nikon compact, adjusting it for color, sharpness and clarity. She was ready to record a series of photographs when she heard it.

“Listen!”

“What?” Casey questioned. “All I can hear is the roar of the falls.”

“Not that. It’s the sound of drums coming from somewhere off the other side of the bridge.”

“You’re imagining it.”

She shook her head in denial. “I don’t think so. There’s a path there. I’m going to follow it and see what I can learn about those drums. I don’t think they can be the usual steel ones. Could be really interesting.”

Before he could stop her, she was off the bridge and hurrying along the path.

“Brenna, come back here!” he yelled after her. “Damn it, now who’s being reckless?”

She ignored him, knowing he would catch up with her. He did, muttering, “You’re going to get into trouble with this appetite of yours for local color.”

“You should talk. You weren’t worried about trouble when you took us over that rotten road.”

“So we’re even.”

They left it there, the drums growing louder as they proceeded on through the forest. Sunlight ahead of them poured down into what promised to be a large clearing. When the path widened, Brenna could see a collection of small houses. More like shacks really, their peeling wooden walls painted in the rainbow hues favored by the natives everywhere on the island. Vibrant colors that had faded but which she still admired.

“It’s a village.”

“A poor one, from the looks of it,” Casey said.

Brenna could make out garden plots devoted to vegetables, banana plants at the sides of the houses and scrawny chickens scratching in the dust, but nowhere was there a sign of human life that would explain the drums. It was odd.

The path divided here, the branch on the right curving around a blind corner. Casey nodded in that direction. “It’s coming from around there.”

They followed the sound, turning with the path that brought them to the edge of another clearing, the origin of the drums and probably the strangest sight Brenna had ever seen.

Kneeling on the ground in a wide circle was a collection of women, none of them old and none of them probably younger than their upper teens. There were only three men present. Two of them were seated back to back in the center of the clearing, slapping out an alternating rhythm on a pair of hip drums.

Added to the beat was a shaking rattle in the hand of the third, older man wearing a fantastic headdress, his dark face streaked with white paint. In his other hand was a pot. Progressing slowly, regally around the circle from woman to woman, his forefinger dipping into the pot, he smeared a careful symbol on the forehead of each, his lips moving in what Brenna convinced herself was an incantation.

“If I didn’t know any better,” Casey mumbled, “I’d say what we’re seeing here is an episode from Survivor.”

“It isn’t funny, Casey. I think we’ve wandered into a private, and probably very sacred, ceremony of some kind, and maybe we’d better—”

She got no further. There was a sudden, somber silence. The two men had abruptly stopped smacking their drums and were staring at the pair of intruders. The entire gathering had discovered them, including their leader, who was plainly unhappy with their presence.

Glaring at them across the clearing, he stretched out his hand that gripped the rattle and shook it at them menacingly. Shouting out some dire threat Brenna didn’t understand, he started toward them.

Casey didn’t wait. His hand closing on her wrist, he started to thrust Brenna protectively behind him. Another shout from a different source stopped him in midaction. The witch doctor, or whatever he was, never reached them. That second shout effectively halted him, too, in the middle of the clearing.

Brenna was as startled as the rest of them when an attractive young woman, with skin the color of smooth milk chocolate, charged into the clearing from the direction of the village.

“I’m guessing that’s our shouter,” Casey said.

Whoever she was, she was fearless, Brenna thought. Without the least hesitation and no evidence of intimidation, she approached the glowering witch doctor.

She had to stop thinking of him as that. Other than the apparent leader of this group, she didn’t know what he was exactly.

As she and Casey watched, their savior began to lecture the fellow. Or so it seemed from the tone of her voice, because from their position they couldn’t make out her words. But whatever they were, her target was actually listening to them.

“I knew it,” Casey insisted. “I just knew it. It’s a reality TV series. Has to be.”

She wished he’d be serious. This was a serious situation. On the other hand, she had no right to complain about his attitude when he’d tried to prevent her from coming here. Although it seemed the bold young woman must have won them their exoneration since the leader, with the sulky look of a child, turned his back on them and retreated to the other side of the circle.

Brenna watched the woman as she approached Casey and her, thinking, she’s different from the others. It’s something in her attitude.

It wasn’t just her friendly smile either. It was her language when she reached them, an apology she expressed without any hint of the native dialect. “Sorry about that, folks.”

“It looks like we owe you a vote of thanks,” Casey told her. “You know, the cavalry riding to the rescue at the last minute.”

She received his gratitude with a laugh. “Oh, you weren’t in any danger. He was just upset because of that.” She nodded at the camera in Brenna’s hand.

“I wouldn’t have photographed any of this,” Brenna hastened to assure her. “Certainly not without permission.”

“I appreciate that. My people don’t mind having their pictures taken by the tourists, but they do like to be asked first. I’m guessing you came to see the falls and heard the drums.”

“We did, yes.”

Their deliverer glanced back over her shoulder. “Um, if you don’t mind, why don’t we leave the ceremony here to continue, and I’ll walk you back and try to explain.”

Casey waited until they were out of sight of the clearing, where the drums had resumed beating, and on the path to the falls before asking, “What was that we were seeing? Voodoo?”

“Not voodoo, no, though it is similar but with different rituals. Both of them originated from Africa, but this one is called obeah.”

“And the guy in charge?”

“Well, whatever you do, don’t call him a witch doctor. He hates that. He considers himself an obeah priest, and when he’s conducting a ceremony his name is Lubomba. And when he’s not,” she confided, following another melodic laugh, “he’s plain Frankie Wilson. Works on a melon farm outside a village below ours. Like most of our men do whenever the work is available.”

Brenna stopped on the path, Casey and the young woman stopping with her. “Speaking of names, I’m thinking introductions are in order here. I’m Brenna Coleman, and this is Casey McBride.”

She shook their offered hands. “And I’m Zena King.”

“You, uh, live in the village then, Zena?”

“I’m from the village, but just visiting family there right now. Why do you— Oh, I understand. It’s my English being so different from my people’s. There’s a reason for that.”

They strolled on toward the falls, the sound of the drums fading behind them while Zena offered a second explanation.

“My village is a poor one. Most of the villages are on the island. The only schooling here is not regular or very good. I was lucky. Because I was considered exceptionally bright, my parents had the opportunity to send me at a young age to a Catholic boarding school in Georgetown.”

“And that’s where you learned to speak without an accent,” Brenna assumed.

“The nuns were excellent teachers. Also very strict. I’ll always be grateful to them for preparing me for a higher education.”

“In Georgetown?” Casey asked.

Zena shook her head. “In Florida. I was able to earn a scholarship at a medical school in Miami. Like I said, I’m home for a couple of weeks to visit family.”

“Ah, you’re studying to be a doctor maybe,” Casey said.

“Nothing that grand. I’m training to be a nurse-practitioner. When I qualify, I’ll come back here to offer my people the kind of medical help they badly need. Right now, with the nearest doctor in Georgetown, they think it’s the obeah priest who can help them.”

They were nearing the falls. Brenna could hear the waters pouring over the ledge. “Am I right in supposing that’s what the ceremony in the clearing was about?” she asked. “Some kind of medical crisis?”

“In a way,” Zena said, leaving Brenna to wonder what this mystery was about.

They had reached the falls. The three of them stopped in the middle of the bridge where they gazed for a silent moment at the flowing waters. Zena, who seemed to have reached a decision, spoke to them again.

“It’s complicated. I don’t want you thinking my people are worshipping some primitive African god. Most of them, including Frankie Wilson when he’s in the mood, are actually devout Christians. But they’re also superstitious, and sometimes when the situation is desperate enough and their prayers aren’t answered, they’ll turn to the old religion, hoping for a solution.”

“Desperate how?” Brenna questioned.

Zena hesitated, as if searching for the right words to enlighten them. “Did you notice the sad faces in the circle?”

“I did. I also noticed that, except for the two drummers and the priest, all of them were women.”

“There’s a reason for that. You have to understand that children aren’t just important to the islanders, they’re everything. The arrival of new babies is always celebrated. But—and I know this is hard to believe, because I can hardly believe it myself—there hasn’t been a single baby conceived in my village over the past eight months.”

“You’re telling us,” Casey said in wonder, “that this is what the ceremony back there was all about? This obeah priest doing his thing to lift what the women are convinced is a curse?”