Death by Desire (Caribbean Murder Series, Book 4) (8 page)

“I think this is quite enough,”
Mrs. Crane drew a deep breath. “None of us have any idea what draws one person
to another. And, obviously Cissy is completely on edge, fantasizing and talking
uncontrollably.”

“She’s been very helpful to
us,” Cindy said kindly.

“Really, how?” said Mr. Crane.
“By suggesting you interview Shane? I know who he is. He might have been
jealous of Tiffany’s engagement, but it’s hard to believe he’s a homicidal
maniac. And that’s what we’re dealing with here, is it not?”

“Yes, it is,” said Mattheus,
plainly.

“A homicidal maniac?” Cissy
echoed, breathlessly.

“I think that’s about it for
now,” Mr. Crane turned, as if to leave.

“Is there a maniac loose on
the island?” Cissy asked quickly. “Is anyone else in danger?”

“That’s what we’re trying to
find out,” said Cindy.

“Thank you so much for doing
this,” Cissy repeated.

“Okay, this is more than
enough,” Mr. Crane repeated, motioning to the door.

Cindy and Mattheus got up. “Thanks
so much for your time,” Cindy said to all of them.

“Just go and check out Shane,”
Cissy hissed loudly as they walked to the door.

 Cindy and Mattheus drove back
to the hotel quietly, going over the interview.

“That sister’s a piece of
work,” Mattheus said.

Cindy liked her. “She doesn’t
hold anything back.”

“She’s a nervous wreck,” said
Mattheus.

“Cut her some slack, her
brother’s fiancée just died.”

Mattheus nodded. “Sure, I’ll
cut her all the slack in the world, but she’s a time bomb living in a
mausoleum. Her mother hates her. So does her father.”

Cindy had noticed before that
Mattheus could jump to quick conclusions about people. He summed things up too
quickly.

“You can’t say that,” said
Cindy. “She’s different from them, very different. They were scared to have her
talk too much.”

“What are they scared about?”
asked Mattheus. “What do they think she’ll spill?”

Cindy sighed. She hadn’t felt
that the interview yielded much and didn’t want to get lost focusing on Tad’s
family.

“People like are always scared
of revealing anything about their lives. They live in hiding, that’s their mode,”
said Cindy. “Even their place is bare and empty.”

Mattheus turned his head and
smiled at Cindy.  “I love the way you put things,” he said.

Cindy was pleased. “As far as
I’m concerned,” she said, “the most important piece of information we got from
the interview was to go and interview Shane. That’s the second person who said
so.”

Mattheus shrugged as he drove.
“Who else?”

“Tiffany’s mother also
suspects him.”

“So, you go interview him,” Mattheus said. “I
want to focus on Petrovich. There’s a gold mine waiting for us there.”

Mattheus wanted to go back to the hotel to do
more research on the Russian Mogul before he went to the party that night. It wouldn’t
be hard to find Shane, and Cindy planned to go and talk to him alone. Mattheus told
her he wasn’t sure how important the interview would be. He felt Tad’s sister
might be enjoying the drama, blowing it all up inordinately. He wasn’t convinced
that Cindy would come up with anything special at all.

When Cindy got back to the hotel she called
Tiffany’s mother to get Shane’s address and let her know what they’d found so
far.

As soon as the phone rang Meryl picked it up,
as if she’d been sitting nearby, waiting.

“What do you have? Tell me?” she uttered
breathlessly.

“We’re just getting going,” Cindy tried to calm
her down. “We’ve met with the police –”.

“They’re useless,” Meryl interrupted. “It’s all
for show.”

“We’ve spoken with Tad and just now had an
interview with his parents.”

“You’re wasting precious, valuable time,” Meryl’s
voice had urgency. “Tad has nothing to do with this, I told you before. And his
parents are holed up in their own private world. They never really knew
anything about Tiffany’s life, and they didn’t care. They’ve only called our
family once since this happened. They’re cold as ice.”

“We have to take it one person at a time,”
Cindy said slowly.

“What else?” Meryl demanded.

“I was calling to get Shane’s number and
address,” Cindy replied.

“Better,” said Meryl. “I told you to do this in
the beginning. What made you decide now?”

“Mrs. O’Connell,” Cindy said calmly, “we hear
different things from different people and then plan our course of action.”

“Don’t double talk me,” said Meryl, “and don’t
call me Mrs. O’Connell. My daughter’s been murdered and I deserve to have you
talk to me straight.”

Cindy didn’t want to give her every detail of
the investigation. Some of it would come to nothing, some had to be kept quiet.
She had no intention of telling her that Mattheus was going to the party at the
Russian Mogul’s home that night. Meryl seemed unstable. For all Cindy knew Meryl
would turn up there herself.

“I am talking to you straight,” Cindy said. “Please
give me Shane’s contact information.”

Meryl relented and gave it to her. “Will you
call me after you see him?” she pleaded.

“I will,” said Cindy.

“Thank you, thank you,” she practically broke
into tears then. “I just need to hear something.”

“I understand,” said Cindy. “I’m doing my best.”

“I know you are, dear,” Meryl replied softly, “And
I know you’ll find the killer.”

*

When Cindy called Shane, she found him at his
favorite surfing beach.  It was about three miles from where she was now, and
he said he’d be happy to see her if she came.

 The beach Cindy headed to was known for
surfing, located up behind a cliff where the waves were strong. There were many
different beaches on the island, some calm and peaceful, others rocky, this one
filled with waves that drew surfers from all over the world. Cindy had noticed
on Facebook that Shane was an avid surfer, lived following the tides.

As Cindy drove to the beach, she wound her way
through the mist that was growing deeper. It would probably start to rain soon.
The weather was unpredictable today and it was hard to believe that Christmas
was only a few days away, with the mist, warm breezes and salty air.  

When she reached the beach, she parked the car
and stepped out onto the moist sand. The surf was rough and for a terrible
moment, it brought back memories of Clint. Pictures flashed through her mind of
the many times he’d gone surfing as she’d waited for him back at the hotel, or
came to get him at the beach. He’d always looked thrilled and refreshed after
his time in the ocean. Then Cindy remembered the awful day he went surfing and
never returned. She grew dizzy for a moment as the flood of memories engulfed
her and then slowly faded.

She had to ground herself. Cindy was here on
this island with Mattheus now. They both were detectives who’d come to
investigate another crime. For a moment she had no idea how her life had taken
such a different turn. Clint and Mattheus were opposites in many ways, but at
the core, the same. Both were filled with integrity and committed to being of
service. She loved and respected that about both of them. Cindy had to trust
and admire the man she was with, whatever they were doing together.

As she walked down towards the beach and looked
over at the ocean she saw a young, blonde, man with a surfboard, roll out of
the ocean onto the sand. It had to be Shane. He saw her walking towards him and
waved.

“Over here, over here,” he called to her.

Cindy walked quickly to where he was standing,
the wind rustling her skirt. As she got closer she saw that he was about Tad’s
age, tall, muscular and suntanned. To Cindy’s surprise, he looked happy to see
her.

“Shane?” she said as she got closer.

“Ho, there,” he said, running up to where she
was. “Good to see you,” he seemed excited. “Thanks for coming. I appreciate it.”

“Let’s sit on the sand and talk,” said Cindy.

“Great,” he said.

Cindy was taken aback. There was nothing at all
about him that seemed uncomfortable or suspicious. He couldn’t wait to get
going with the interview.

“How the hell did this happen?” he started, as
if Cindy had some answers.

“That’s what I’m here to find out,” Cindy said.

“Jesus Christ,” is all I can say. “If something
like this could happen to Tiffany, then no one is safe.”

Cindy could see that under his bravado, he felt
badly.

“You knew her very well?” Cindy said.

“For years and years,” said Shane. “She’s the
last person in the world you’d expect something like this would happen to.”

“Why?” asked Cindy.

Shane shrugged. “She was just so nice,” he
said.

“I heard the two of you were an item for a long
time,” Cindy said.

Shane made a face. “I wouldn’t exactly call it
an item,” he said. “We dated, stopped and then dated again.”

“I heard you were very important to her,” said
Cindy.

“Who told you that, her mother?” asked Shane.

A cooler breeze began to blow up along the
shore.
“Yes,” said Cindy.

Shane nodded. “Tiffany always had to put up a
front for her mother. She told her mother what she wanted to hear. Tiffany was
cool, she knew how to play it.”

“Play what?” asked Cindy, surprised.

“She knew how to get along, not ruffle
feathers.”

“Weren’t the two of you an item?” asked Cindy.

Shane put his surfing board down and leaned
closer. He seemed very comfortable talking to her.

“Not really,” he said. “I wouldn’t call it an
item. We dated on and off. It was casual. She never meant much to me
romantically.”

Cindy felt upset. “She didn’t mean much to you?”

“We just had fun together, if you know what I
mean?”

“Sex buddies?”

“Something like that. I never meant much to
her, either.”

Cindy couldn’t quite believe what she was
hearing and wondered how Tiffany would feel if she heard it.

“We both took it for what it was worth,” said
Shane, filling her in.

“What was it worth?” Cindy asked him.

“We had a good time together. It calmed our
nerves,” Shane looked at Cindy then as if she’d come from a different world. “What
a crazy day this is,” he went on. “I never saw mist like this around Christmas.
What a terrible time to die. I heard her mother wants to have a mass said for
her at church and her father refuses.”

Cindy hadn’t heard that, but she didn’t want to
get distracted.

“How do you know your relationship never meant
much to Tiffany?” Cindy persisted. Cindy had the impression that Tiffany had cared
a great deal about Shane.

“Tiffany and I talked about it,” Shane said
plainly. “We didn’t hold anything back. I told her things between us would
never go anywhere and she said she felt the same way. It was nice. It freed us.”

Cindy wasn’t sure what to make of this. She
wanted to pin Shane down, make him uncomfortable, get to a deeper truth.

“People said you couldn’t take your eyes off
her at the engagement party. That you seemed obsessed.”

Shane threw his head back and laughed out loud.

“Me, obsessed with Tiffany? Let me tell you,
there were a bunch of creepy people at that party. And whoever told you that is
nuts. I was fascinated to see her looking so happy, and curious to see if it
were true. I always knew when Tiffany was pretending, which she never did with
me.”

“Who were the creepy people at the party?”
Cindy pursued it.

“Whoah, that would take all day to tell.”

“I have all the time in the world,” said Cindy.

“Well, maybe you do, but I don’t. I have to be
back in a little while. There’s someone waiting for me at home. Guess what? I
have a fiancée too.”

 “You’re engaged?”

“Sure, to somebody I’ve loved for a long time.
It was no big deal to Tiffany either. She knew about her. She wished us well.”

Cindy was silenced. “Do others know that you’re
engaged?”

“Of course they do,” Shane said. “Whoever said
I was obsessed with Tiffany is nuts. Let me tell you, that crowd loves to
gossip and spread rumors. They dream up all kinds of things, don’t have much
else on their minds. Me, I love to surf.”

Shane was frank and engaging and Cindy couldn’t
help but believe what he said. She was surprised at the picture he painted of
Tiffany. This was another person unfolding in front of Cindy’s eyes. It opened
the range of possibilities for what could have happened to Tiffany though, and
the people who could have been in her life.

“Tell me more about her, Shane,” Cindy said.

“She was caught in the grip of her family” he
said. “They expected her to be perfect and she got caught in the trap.”

“And her twin sister, Rori?” Cindy asked
suddenly.

“She’s as different from Tiffany as night from
day. Rori’s wild, rough, can be pretty nasty. I never spent much time with her.”

“Where were you the time Tiffany was murdered,
Shane?”

“I was at a party,” he said. “There were lots
of people there who saw me. The police have talked to plenty of them. I had
absolutely nothing to do with this at all.”

“Do you have any ideas who did?” Cindy asked.

“I wish I did, believe me. I’d go with you
myself and wring the guy’s neck. If I hear anything, I’ll call you. I didn’t love
Tiffany, but she was my good friend.”

“I realize,” said Cindy, as it started to rain.

“Jesus, it’s raining,” said Shane, grabbing his
surfboard. “I’m taking off. See you later. Call me anytime.”

Shane grabbed his surfboard and took off as
Cindy sat there a moment in the warm rain. It felt good, cleansing. She thought
about the things Shane had said about Tiffany. Were they true or was he just
covering himself, trying to wiggle out of a bad situation? No matter what,
Cindy couldn’t help wondering how Tiffany would react if she’d heard what he
said. It was futile for Cindy to feel badly though, there was no way Tiffany
could know what Shane said about her. She was gone forever from this world,
couldn’t be hurt by anything anymore. That was a huge relief to Cindy, who felt
that Tiffany, unknowingly, had been caught in a terrible snare.

As she sat musing in the rain, to Cindy’s
surprise, her phone rang.  

“Cindy?” the voice on the other phone was soothing.

“Yes?”

“It’s Wynn, Tiffany’s sister. Where are you?”

“At the surfer’s beach,” said Cindy.

“Okay, that’s good.  I just wanted to ask you
if you’d like to join me and Rori and one of Tiffany’s friends in town tomorrow
morning?  We’re going stir crazy here on the boat and are planning to go in for
a few hours.”

“That would be perfect,” said Cindy. “Where can
we meet?”

“Meet us in the middle of town, at Robes café
at eleven. We’ll take it from there. We all want to meet you and hear what you’ve
found.”

“I want to meet you too,” said Cindy.

Wynn sighed a deep sigh of relief.

“Is there something else?” asked Cindy
suspicious.

“My mother is melting down,” said Wynn. “She’s
saying all kinds of crazy things, having dreams about Tiffany. She insists she
sees her on the boat walking around. It’s terrifying.”

“You need to call a doctor,” said Cindy.

“We can’t,” said Wynn. “She’s done this kind of
thing before. We have to keep it quiet. My dad’s reputation is at stake.”