When Death Comes for You Read online

  Gigi shoved supplies into her first aid kit. “I didn’t,” she said softly.

  “But only two and a half percent of men are killed by their partners. Women don’t kill. They might get even, but they don’t kill.”

  “If I found out Adam was cheating on me, I’d snatch that woman bald headed.” Gigi’s hand flew to her mouth, as if she couldn’t believe those words had come from her.

  “Snatch her bald headed?” Renée’s lips twitched. “That doesn’t sound like the Upper West Side.”

  “I learned the vernacular from our housekeeper,” Gigi deadpanned.

  The room erupted in laughter, followed almost immediately by Renée’s groan. “Don’t make me laugh,” she said, pointing to her ribs. Gigi collapsed on the bed beside her. The look on her face sent Renée into another fit of laughter, bruised ribs be damned.

  It was a while before Renée caught her breath and said, “You just made my point. When a woman discovers her lover is unfaithful, she not only refuses to kill him—often, she takes her anger out on the ‘the other woman.’ John’s wife attacked me, and I attacked Paul’s mistress.”

  Gigi humphed. “Statistics and stories are not evidence. Monica is not like you or my mother or John’s wife. Why do you find it so hard to believe this woman killed her boyfriend?”

  “I spoke with her this afternoon. She seemed nice.” It sounded ridiculous when she said it out loud, and Gigi lost no time pointing that out.

  “Nice people do bad things.”

  “Yes, but . . .” She paused. How did you put a feeling into words? “There are too many coincidences. Someone broke into my room. He’s been following me since I got here. Meanwhile, Eric turns up dead just a few hours after his girlfriend suggests he has important information for me—the same girlfriend who now stands accused of his murder.”

  “Information about what?”

  She hesitated, this could cause a rift in their growing friendship. But what choice did she have? “Eric found a discrepancy in the autopsy report.” She took a deep breath. “Did Adam ever talk to you about it? Tell you anything that might help? I wouldn’t ask if I had other options.”

  “Renée—” Her voice held a warning, but before she could continue, the phone rang. She sprang from the bed and snatched the receiver off the desk. “Allô?” Her back was turned, and she spoke softly. “It was my fault, chéri, please forgive me.” A few more muffled words, then, “I’ll see you soon.”

  She hung up and turned to Renée. “Adam’s worried about me. He should be here in half an hour.”

  “I won’t keep you.” Renée stood. The floor rushed up to meet her.

  Gigi was at her side in an instant. “Careful.”

  “It’s the adrenalin.” She tried to laugh off her quaking limbs but was grateful for Gigi’s steadying hand.

  “Let me help you to your room.”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  Gigi wouldn’t let her go back alone. Renée would later add that to the list of debts she owed her friend, but this one she could never repay.

  #

  “Oh mon Dieu.” Gigi’s words tumbled into the silence. Renée was too stunned for more than a sharp inhalation.

  The room was destroyed. The armoire doors swung on broken hinges. Two of the desk drawers lay on the ground with jagged shards of wood poking out. Bits of paper littered the floor like confetti. The fan was broken beyond repair.

  “You can’t stay here. I’m calling the manager.” Gigi edged into the room, avoiding the pile of debris.

  Renée followed, her legs stiff, knees locked into place. There was so much rage here. It was in the shattered mirror teetering on the wall, and in the sheets ripped from the bed and torn to shreds for good measure. She hadn’t realized Mr. Baseball Cap was this angry. When she confronted him in the bathroom, he had taunted her—tipping his cap, almost daring her to follow him. That didn’t sound like the actions of a man consumed with rage. Even in the woods, he had pursued her but not with this utter lack of self-control. It looked like someone attacked the room with a pickax.

  The skin at the nape of her neck prickled. She stood with her back to the wall, attempting to make sense of her surroundings. What was he looking for? There wasn’t anything here except her clothes and toiletries.

  The edge of her briefcase protruded from beneath the broken drawers. She bent to pick it up, wincing as pain stabbed through her ribs. She laid the briefcase on the battered desk and snapped open the twin locks. She was grateful he hadn’t destroyed this at least. It was a graduation present from her parents, the last thing they’d given her before they died within a week of each other. She flipped the top of the case open and pulled out a stack of folders. They were all there, including the file on Rose Fleurie.

  What did Mr. Baseball Cap want? And why the overkill?

  Gigi walked up behind her. “This man is dangerous. I can’t believe you confronted him alone. Promise me you won’t do anything that stupid again.”

  Renée turned to find her friend holding a fistful of shredded blouses. “I won’t,” she said, hoping she didn’t have to break that promise. Six years of self-defense training meant she knew how to protect herself, but she wasn’t invincible. The man who destroyed this room was filled with rage, which made him an unpredictable opponent—and a dangerous one. She suddenly felt queasy at the thought of what could have happened to her.

  “Let’s pack your things. There’s a room for you upstairs.”

  They collected what could be salvaged. Gigi found her suitcase wedged beneath the armoire and managed to pull it free. She heaved it onto the bed, her eyes thoughtful. “This might sound strange . . .” she began, but her voice trailed off.

  “What?” Renée asked as she folded her Armani suit.

  “Is this what the room looked like when you confronted that man?”

  Renée let the images play in her mind. “I can’t be sure. I heard him moving around while I was outside. When I got the door open, he bolted. I followed him to the bathroom, but I didn’t switch on the light in here.”

  “I didn’t either,” Gigi said. “When the police came, I ran down here looking for you. I knocked, but there was no answer. I tried the doorknob and was terrified when I found it unlocked. You don’t strike me as someone who leaves her door open.”

  “I’m not. I just didn’t think about it when I went chasing after him.”

  “I suppose that makes sense.” Gigi’s dubious tone did not match her words.

  “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

  She turned to Renée, her eyes yellow-gold and flecked with worry. “When I saw the smashed bathroom door and the open window, it was enough to send me racing downstairs to find you. If the room had looked like this, I would have demanded the MPs mount a search.”

  Renée tried to take in the implication of her words. If Gigi was right, it meant Mr. Baseball Cap couldn’t have done this. But if he didn’t do it, who did?

  “You said you didn’t turn on the light.” She was grasping at straws.

  “I didn’t, but there was plenty of light streaming in from the hallway and the bathroom.” Gigi saw the look on Renée’s face and quickly retreated. “I might be wrong. I was hysterical, maybe I didn’t notice.”

  They both knew she was lying to make Renée feel better. It wasn’t working. “Let’s get out of here,” Renée said.

  Gigi nodded. “I’ll clear out the bathroom.”

  Renée packed the last of her clothes and zipped the suitcase. She hurried to the desk to gather her files. A flash of something caught her eye. It was sticking out of the top flap of the briefcase. She reached for it and gasped.

  “What is it?” Gigi spoke behind her.

  She turned and silently held out her hand. It was a Voodoo doll.

  Snarled black yarn poked out of her head like hissing snakes. Her eyes were two broken white buttons, her lips took up the bottom half of her face. A frayed burlap sack made up her dress, and a dozen red-tipped sewing pins pier
ced her body.

  Gigi snatched the doll from her and threw it to the ground. “Where the hell did that come from?”

  Renée pointed. Her hands were shaking again.

  Gigi peered into the briefcase. “It wasn’t locked?”

  “I keep the tumblers set to the code. It’s never been a problem before,” she said with a broken laugh.

  “Look at me.” Gigi took hold of her arms.

  Renée tried to focus, but all she could see was that hideous doll.

  “This has nothing to do with Vodou. It’s a grotesque stereotype from someone’s sick mind.” She hugged Renée, careful not to hurt her ribs. “Whoever did this was only trying to scare you.”

  It worked, Renée thought.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Dawn

  The next morning, Renée stood on the balcony of her room as the sun made its way over the horizon. The last hint of night-gray faded from the sky in a riot of color—pink and gold with splashes of blue. She lifted her face to the sun. Dawn was her favorite time of day, night her least favorite. She was afraid of the dark. It was rare for her to get more than a few hours of uninterrupted sleep, and last night was no exception.

  A shudder ran through her. The only good to come of last night was her new balcony with its spectacular view of the Caribbean Sea. She leaned against the balcony’s edge and stared at the water. It was a flow of turquoise from where she stood, visible but silent. She strained to hear the roar of the waves. The ocean spoke to her, an incessant message she couldn’t understand. She suddenly felt an intense longing to plunge into its depths.

  The sun heated her flesh, beads of sweat pooled on her forehead. It was going to be another hot day. She slipped back inside.

  The new room was a considerable improvement over the old. It was bigger—and although the king-size bed, desk, and heavy oak armoire were all courtesy of the 1950s, they weren’t dusty or battered. And the most important piece of equipment actually worked.

  She moved to the enormous fan that stood on the side of her bed. A cool breeze greeted her as she lifted her shirt and let the air settle in the space between the compression wrap and her damp skin. The ache in her ribs was now a dull groan. It was constant enough to have mostly faded from her awareness.

  She should be arguing Rose’s hearing today. It was supposed to be the first leg in an arduous trek to justice for the Haitian refugees. If anyone had a winnable case—at least on paper—it was Rose Fleurie. She’d worked for the deposed president. The military was happily stretching the necks of anyone associated with Aristide. If Rose didn’t fit the definition of someone fleeing persecution, who did?

  But she wasn’t arguing Rose’s case, let alone winning it. She was holed up in her room, attempting to understand how it had all gone so wrong. The refugees were wasting away in their tents, Rose’s hearing was suspended, and Eric was dead.

  With a heavy sigh, she let her shirt drop to cover her ribs. It was time to get back to work. Her desk was already covered in stacks of paper. She had been up for hours combing through her files, reading, and rereading. There was something she was missing.

  She took her seat, pulled out Eric’s drawing, and studied it. Drowning is a fight to the death, he’d told her. Yet eighteen people showed no signs of having engaged in that fight—as if they’d welcomed death. Why?

  There were telltale signs of drowning. Eric had rattled some of them off while she dutifully took notes: muscle rupture; the presence of white froth in the nose or mouth; and white froth anywhere in the network of air passageways, from the larynx to the bronchi and beyond. Those were all scars of a battle lost.

  There were an equal number of factors that could hide those scars: delay in recovering the body from its watery grave; decomposition; and vagal inhibition—sudden death brought on by stimulating the vagus nerve, which stopped the heart.

  What was she to make of the autopsy report? Did the victims drown and the evidence obscured? Or were they murdered?

  Her head felt like it was splitting open. She massaged her temples and tried to soothe the woodpecker knocking against her skull.

  Vagal inhibition.

  She paused, squinting. What had Eric said? Vagal inhibition can also occur from the body’s sudden immersion in cold water.

  She pushed back from her seat and rushed to a stack of flyers on a small, round table by the door. She had read them last night when she’d needed a break from the reality of eighteen deaths. She picked up the stack now and flipped through it.

  The flyers highlighted what passed for tourist attractions on the naval base. There was one on Fisherman’s Point, located at the mouth of the bay on the windward side of the island. The main attraction was a stone cairn commemorating the arrival of Columbus. At any other time, she would be itching to visit the monument—she was obsessed with Columbus. But today, she hardly spared the flyer a glance.

  She swiped even faster past the second flyer, which advertised tours of the fence line, before landing on the third. It must have been prepared for fishing enthusiasts, there were little fish icons at the right margin—anywhere from half a fish to three. Good and bad fishing days? The front side of the flyer gave sunrise and sunset, wind speed, and visibility information for December and January. The back side contained three columns—one for weather, the second for humidity levels, and a third for water temperature.

  She ran a finger down that last column. The average water temperature in December was eighty-one degrees. In January, it was seventy-nine. According to the small bar graph at the bottom of the flyer, water temperature in the Caribbean shifted plus or minus only a few degrees over the course of the year—from a low of seventy-nine to a high of eighty-five.

  She walked back to her desk with flyer in hand. Shuffling papers aside, she unearthed the autopsy report and flipped it open, thumbing through the pages. There. She stopped on the next-to-last page, her index finger homing in on its target.

  On December 24, 1991, the night the coast guard stumbled on Rose’s boat, the water temperature was sixty degrees.

  How was that possible? It was almost twenty degrees below normal. In fact, it was lower than any recorded temperature in the entire year.

  Was it a clerical error? Did someone type sixty rather than seventy? It was possible. Eric said the report’s author was not a careful scientist—maybe he or she wasn’t a careful typist either. But even seventy degrees would be abnormal considering the differential in water temperature from the coldest month to the hottest was only six degrees.

  She leaned back in her seat, her gaze thoughtful. What if this wasn’t a mistake? By Boston standards, a sixty-degree day was balmy, but that was air temperature not water. A friend recently competed in a triathlon, and he’d told her that water temperature below seventy degrees was cold and should be treated with caution. Water temperature in the sixties required a wet suit. She hadn’t given it much thought at the time, but when she factored in Eric’s description of vagal inhibition, it began to make sense. The shock of cold water hitting the body was like a punch to the throat. It made breathing difficult. The victim would panic and gasp for air, but all he’d get was water.

  If the victims on Rose’s boat had fallen into frigid water, vagal inhibition could explain why their bodies showed no signs of drowning.

  But why was the Caribbean Sea so abnormally cold? And how had Rose managed to survive?

  So many questions, and not a single damn answer. She shoved the autopsy report away. It fell to the ground only to land on top of her briefcase. She grasped the leather-covered handle and pulled the briefcase onto the desk. Her fingers hovered over the locks, she had to force herself to open them.

  The Voodoo doll lay where she had left it. What had she expected?

  She pulled the doll out, repelled by its hideous, grinning face. It was a caricature, the kind of thing you would expect from a Hollywood movie. She could picture a young production assistant running to pull this thing out when the script called for Voodoo
doll.

  She twirled one of the red pins before shoving it deep in the doll’s belly.

  Gigi had been aghast when Renée’d insisted on taking the doll with her. But she couldn’t leave it in a pile of garbage in the middle of her room. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to get her attention. Why disappoint them?

  It wasn’t the only reason she’d taken the doll. The thing held a morbid fascination.

  Growing up, Vodou had never been acknowledged in her house. In fact, no one uttered the word—except once. She’d come home from school one day with tears in her eyes. “Mama, what’s Voodoo?” Mark Washington, the school bully, had chased her down Flatbush Avenue hurling a new accusation. He claimed she had turned him into a zombie with her “Voodoo magic.”

  Her mother looked up from her ironing and said, “We’re American now; we don’t talk about those things.”

  And they never did.

  A similar thing happened at Sunday school. She asked one of the nuns how it was possible for the bread and wine of the Eucharist to magically transform every Sunday into Jesus’s real body and blood. Her logical young mind couldn’t make sense of the doctrine of transubstantiation.

  “You’re a child,” the nun said. “You can’t understand such things.”

  “If I can’t understand, Sister Katherine, why are you teaching it to me?”

  Sister Katherine called her impertinent and rapped her on the knuckles.

  She shook her head at the memory. It was one of the many reasons she’d gone to law school. In law, the questions were difficult, but answers were required. You couldn’t shrug your shoulders and admit defeat. There were methods for seeking clarity. There were rules for constructing an argument, using precedent, supporting your thesis. Law was tangible and logical. Law made sense in a way religion never would.

  She threw the doll back in her briefcase. For the first time, she noticed the gifts Gigi had given her. She grabbed them and popped open the CD player/clock radio on her desk. She needed the music to drown out the questions in her head.