Page 24 of Winter in Paradise
The phone rings three times and Irene’s stomach clenches. She will demand to talk to Todd Croft. She deserves answers. She deserves answers! What kind of business was Russ involved in? What was going on down here? She fears Todd won’t tell her.
The phone clicks over to a recording, telling her that the number she has dialed is no longer in service.
No longer in service.
Somehow, Irene isn’t surprised.
She tries Paulette’s cell phone next but is shuttled right to voicemail. There’s a magnet on the refrigerator from the real estate company that provides a phone number.
A woman answers on the first ring. “Afternoon, this is Welcome to Paradise Real Estate, Octavia speaking. How can I help you?”
“Yes, hello,” Irene says. “May I please speak to Paulette Vickers?”
“Paulette is out of the office today, I’m afraid,” Octavia says. “Would you like her voicemail?”
“It’s urgent,” Irene says. “Is there any way I might speak to her in person?”
“I’m afraid not,” Octavia says. “She’s at a funeral. I don’t expect her back in the office until tomorrow morning.”
Funeral, Irene thinks.
“Okay, Octavia, thank you very much,” Irene says, and she hangs up.
Funeral for the local woman, Irene thinks. The local woman who was in the helicopter with Russ and the British pilot, Stephen Thompson, flying at seven o’clock in the morning from St. John to an island in the British Virgin Islands called Anegada. Who was this local woman?
Irene isn’t naive. There is no possibility that Russ lived in this house by himself, without a companion, without a woman. Irene thinks back to the day before, when Cash was searching the master bedroom. He told Irene he’d found nothing, but Irene knew he was lying.
Winnie comes banging into the study, panting and wagging her tail, sniffing at Irene’s knees. Irene rubs Winnie’s soft butterscotch head and says, “Come with me.”
She and Winnie enter the master bedroom, and Irene says, “What are we looking for, Winnie? What are we looking for?” She stands in the middle of the room and inhales, trying to divine something, anything, using her intuition. Someone came through the house and cleared it out, sweeping away all of Russ’s dirt.
But something—Cash had found something. He had that expression on his face, feigned innocence, like when he used to hide his one-hitter in his varsity soccer jacket, and years before that when he finished an entire box of Girl Scout cookies—Caramel deLites—by himself and then stuffed the box deep in the trash.
Stuffed the box deep in the trash.
Irene looks around the room for hidden nooks and crannies. She checks the drawer of the nightstand: empty.
She sees Winnie nosing the bed. Is she picking up a scent? Winnie seems pretty interested, nearly insistent, her nose working into the gap between the mattress and the box spring.
“What are you doing?” Irene asks. She lifts the white matelassé coverlet—she has to admit there is a freshness to the decor of this house that is a nice alternative to the heavy, dark furnishings of home—and slips her hand under the mattress. Bingo. She feels the edge of something.
She pulls out a frame. A photograph.
Oh.
Oh no. God, no.
Irene sits on the bed, her hands shaking.
The photograph is of Russ with a beautiful young West Indian woman. They’re lying in a hammock, their limbs intertwined. The woman’s skin is the color of coffee with cream, and next to her Russ is golden, glowing. He looks healthy.
He looks happy.
Irene lets out a moan. She can’t believe the agony she feels. Russ had another woman, a lover. More than a lover: Irene can tell from the ease and familiarity of their pose, from Russ’s smile, from the woman’s eyes shining. They were together, a pair, a couple. They were in love.
Irene wants to smash the glass. She wants to go onto the balcony and throw the offending photograph as far as she can into the tropical bushes below.
But she needs it. It’s evidence.
