Haitian Graves (5 page)

“Nicholas drives for them? No one told me that. That’s not part of the home security.”

“Nicholas works for the security company. But he also does jobs for Mr. Hammond. He spent much time with Mrs. Hammond.”

Nicholas had told me he had nothing to do with her. “What are you saying?”

“I am only telling you what I saw.”

“Do you know Alphonse well?” I asked.

“The gardener? No.”

“What’d you think of him?”

She shrugged. “He was slow. Lazy. He did not do a good job.”

“Did he pay a lot of attention to Mrs. Hammond?”

Paulette laughed without humor. “What a strange question. Of course not. He tidied the garden. He cleaned the pool.”

A small door opened at the front of the church. The priest stuck his head out. He saw us and withdrew.

“Have you seen Jeanne-Marie and François?” Paulette asked me.

“They’re fine,” I said. Although I knew they weren’t. “They have a new housekeeper. They’re going to the States soon.”

“I did not like them, Ray,” she said at last. “That is a horrible thing to say, but I did not like those two young children.”

“Why?”

“Jeanne-Marie is very young. But she sometimes acts as if she is older. She tried, how can I say, to manipulate people. She is not a kind child. François is learning to be mean. He was rude to his mother many
times. He would hit his sister. Steal her things. Pull her hair.”

I thought of the boy. The bruises, the black eye.
He was learning to be mean
.

Paulette got to her feet. “I have nothing more to say. Please do not ask for me again.” She left. I sat in the hard pew. The windows were open. Swirls of dust drifted through the air.

Nicholas acted as a driver for Marie. Marie had no friends of her own.

All children, I have found, are nice. Unless someone has taught them not to be. I was pretty sure now that I knew what was going on in this family and why Marie Hammond had died.

I could go to Agent LeBlanc. I could tell him what I’d learned. I’d probably be told to mind my own business. I’d have to tell him I’d been talking to Paulette. I’d promised her I wouldn’t do that. But a cop’s promises sometimes don’t mean much. Not if it’s necessary to tell someone one thing so they’ll talk. And then turn around and do another.

I got to my feet. I left without thanking the priest.

I
took a guess as to what time the guards had shift change. I figured I’d find Nicholas heading off home around seven.

At five to seven, I parked on the side of the road around the bend. A one-man stakeout isn’t worth much. If he went in the other direction, I’d miss him. But this was the way to the main street and the moto-taxi and tap-tap routes. It was busy, people heading home from work, coming back from shopping. The people who lived in the big houses drove past in sleek
SUVS
and expensive sedans. The ones who worked here walked.

I didn’t have long to wait before Nicholas came swaggering down the street. He didn’t have his shotgun. That would have been handed over to the guard taking his place. But Nicholas wore his uniform as if it made him a big man around town.

Maybe it did. A pretty young woman gave him a sideways glance as he passed. He said something I didn’t catch. She blushed and turned away. But she peeked at him from beneath her long lashes.

The sun had dipped behind the hills, but he wore wraparound sunglasses. Good ones too. That was unusual. Sunglasses are a luxury here.

I rolled down my window. “Want a ride?”

He was surprised to see me. Surprise quickly turned to mistrust. “What do you want?”

“Just offering a lift.”

“No.” He kept walking. I stayed in the car. I was in my uniform, and I was armed. But I didn’t want to get into a street brawl. I drove slowly, matching his pace.

“Why did Marie die?” I said.

Nicholas stopped walking. He pushed the cuffs of his shirt back. Checked his expensive watch. “You speak good French,” he said. “But perhaps not good enough. You know how she died. She drowned in the swimming pool.”

“I know what I’m saying. And I think you know the answer. You’re more than just a guard, aren’t you, Nicholas? You work for the family. Or rather, you work for Mr. Hammond.”

“Mr. Hammond is a good boss.”

“So I see.” I gestured to the watch. “Who pays you? Hammond or the American embassy?”

“What do I care?” he said. “As long as I get paid.”

He began to walk again. His pace was slow, confident. I drove along beside him.

“Were you in the house when Hammond belted his son?”

“The boy was crying like a baby. Hammond told him to stop. He wouldn’t.” Nicholas shrugged.

“Did he beat Marie often?”

Nicholas stopped walking. “He did not hit Marie.”

“That’s good to hear. Friends, were you? You and Marie?”

He laughed. “You think I was Marie’s lover? You’re crazy, man. She was married to a rich American. She had good things. Her children were well fed. They went to a good school. She was not interested in me, a security guard.” He spat onto the road.

“Did that bother you?”

“No. I am going to be a rich man one day too. Then I will have a woman like Marie. Better than Marie. She was beautiful. But she was weak. She had no passion in her. No fight.”

“No fight,” I said, more to myself than to Nicholas. “What about the girl? Jeanne-Marie?”

“I have nothing more to say to you. The Haitian police told you to go away. This is not your business. None of it is. What happens in a man’s home is not the business of others.” He broke into a run.

I didn’t try to follow.

A pit had opened in the depths of my stomach.

I
drove home. I changed out of my uniform and locked my Smith & Wesson in the gun safe.

Tonight, I would be acting on my own. No pretense of it being part of the job.

I’d bought some expensive asparagus flown in from the States. I cooked it with shrimp and made a light sauce with a cup of white wine and a tablespoon of butter. I served it over pasta, with grated fresh parmesan cheese on top. I booted up my laptop and took it and the food down to the pool. I ate while checking some details
on the Internet. I learned what I needed to know.

I finished my dinner and leaned back in my chair. Despite all that had been happening, I found myself thinking about the Andersons. The old couple I’d helped out the other day. The way she fussed about him. The gentle looks he gave her when he let her fuss.

Love had its up and its downs. But it wasn’t something to throw away when things got tough. I Skyped home.

Jenny answered. It was three hours earlier in BC, and she was just getting in.

“Ray. Nice to hear from you. How are things?” Her tone was a bit cold. Frosty even. Things had not been good between us lately.

“I love you, Jenny,” I said.

She had amazing eyes. The color of olives in an extra-dry martini. Right now, they looked surprised. “What brought that up?”

“I haven’t said it recently. I figured you needed to hear it.”

The edges of her mouth turned up. “Let me get myself a chair,” she said. “And we can talk.”

I turned off the computer about a half hour later. I felt better than I had in a long time. A big white moon was high in the sky. It was after ten. Time to go.

I drove to Hammond’s street. Only the security lights were on in most of the houses. A few people were out and about, but not many.

I parked in front of Hammond’s house. I honked my horn and got out of my car. The garage door opened. Tonight’s guard was a young guy. He had a twitch in one eye and a scar across his left cheek. He held the shotgun loosely. Wary, but not hostile.

“Yes?”

“My name’s Ray Robertson. I’m here to see Steve Hammond.”

“It’s late.”

“I know.”

The guard nodded. “You will wait here.” He picked up the phone on the desk and spoke briefly. He nodded toward the stairs. I ran up. Hammond was waiting at the gate. He held a cigarette in one hand and a glass in the other. About an inch of smoky liquid. No ice.

“What the hell do you want, Robertson?”

“To talk.”

He studied my face for a long time. Then he said, “What the hell?” He unlocked the gate.

I walked into the house. I glanced around. A pile of cardboard boxes was stacked in the living room. Pictures had been taken down and piled against the walls. Shelves were open and empty.

“Moving?” I said.

“Yes. Back to the States.”

“LeBlanc said you could leave?”

He took a long drag on the cigarette. “They’ve got the guy who killed my wife. No need for me to stay in his godforsaken place any longer.”

“What about your job?”

“I’ve been reassigned.”

“Convenient.”

“Say what you have to say and then get out, Robertson.”

I could think of nothing to say. I had no reason to be here. I guess I just wanted the son of a bitch to know I was watching him.

Something caught my eye. An open packing box. A pair of small pink running shoes on top. A teddy bear leaned up against the box.

“Jeanne-Marie and François are going with you?”

“She’s my daughter.”

He dropped the cigarette onto the terra-cotta floor and crushed it underfoot. He sipped his drink. “The boy will be staying here until the school year’s finished.”

“Is that so?” I said. “Here? With whom? Everyone tells me Marie had no family. François wasn’t at school today. Josephine said the children had been taken out of school.”

A muscle under his eye twitched. “I’m done talking to you. Get the hell out, Robertson.”

“You don’t want to take François. Is it because he’s older? Or because he’s a boy?”

“I don’t know what games you’re playing, but I’m calling the guard. I’ll have your job for this.”

“Papa?” A small, frightened voice. Jeanne-Marie peeped around the corner. Her eyes were full of sleep, her hair tousled. She clutched her doll. I sucked in a breath. Her lips and cheeks were painted red. The lipstick was smeared across her small mouth. She wore a transparent nightgown of peach satin and white lace. Not pajamas with cartoon characters and bright colors. I could see her sharp collarbones, flat chest, bony legs.

“Go back to bed!” Hammond shouted. The girl disappeared.

“You bastard,” I said.

Hammond put his glass on a side table. He walked to the stairs. He held the gate open. “Out,” he said.

“Is that why Marie had to die?” I said. “Because she found out you’d married her to get to her daughter? Was she planning to leave you? And take little Jeanne-Marie with her? You’re being protected by your embassy. I have to wonder about that too.”

“Jacques!” Hammond yelled. “Help! I’m being assaulted.”

The young guard was quick. He ran up the stairs, holding the shotgun in position, ready to fire. He looked from me to Hammond and back again.

“He’s after my daughter!” Hammond yelled. “Shoot.”

Jacques’s eyes were as round and white as a horse smelling smoke. The shotgun swung toward me.

“No!” I yelled.

He fired. I read his intention in time and dove to one side. I hit the floor hard. A piece of the wall burst apart. I rolled as bits of terra-cotta tile flew into my face.

Hammond was out the door. Down the stairs. The recoil had caught Jacques off guard. The business end of the shotgun waved wildly while he struggled to control it. To get it back into firing position. To take aim. I was on my feet, moving. I zigzagged across the wide hallway. As I passed a table, I grabbed something. The iron statue I’d admired on my first visit.

Jacques got the shotgun under control. I raised the statue and struck him on the side of the head. His eyes rolled, and he staggered. The weapon fell to the floor. I kicked it, hard. It skittered down the hallway.

Then I was past him, down the stairs. The garage door was open. The Lexus was backing out. Hammond looked at me. He lifted his hand. He tucked his fingers into a fist and extended the index finger. Made the shape of a gun. He grinned and pretended to fire.

My own car was across the road. I ran for it as Hammond disappeared around the bend.

I couldn’t have handled that much worse, I thought. My engine caught and I took off after him.

The streets were very quiet. Not many other cars were out tonight. I could see Hammond’s lights in the distance. The Lexus was faster than my RAV4, but he couldn’t go all out on the steep, twisting roads. He roared through an intersection without slowing, barely missing a tap-tap. The bus screeched to a halt. I flew past. Hammond reached the turn onto Delmas
40. He went left. I took a guess as to where he was going.

And why he thought he’d be safe there.

There might be talk about rebuilding the presidential place. But no one was seriously bidding. Competition for the contract wasn’t intense. No shovels were waiting to go into the ground any day now.

My Internet search had told me that the company Hammond worked for was a big international. It had offices all over the world. Many in third-world countries. Construction and mining mostly. It was also a defense contractor. What some people might call an arms dealer. Haiti has no army. That doesn’t mean people, inside government or out, don’t have a need for arms.

And people willing to supply them.

I wondered how many underdeveloped countries Hammond had worked in. Countries where laws were few and unprotected children many. Countries where what a man did in his own house was his business.

Had Marie married him in all innocence? Thinking he loved her? Not knowing it was her young daughter the man was interested in? Or did she know what was going on? And pretend to herself that she didn’t?

Didn’t matter now. She’d had enough. Told him she was leaving him. Taking the kids.

And so she died.

We went right onto Route de Delmas. I was falling back, losing ground on the straight stretches.

He turned right at Delmas 33. He was heading for the United States embassy, all right. They’d let him in. They’d turn me away.

I caught up to a rusty old pickup as the road twisted and turned. A wall of rock was on one side, a sharp drop-off on the other. I couldn’t pass.

I wiped at my face. My fingers came away wet and red. I’d been cut by flying floor tiles.

Can’t be too bad, I thought. I hadn’t even noticed.

What the hell was I doing? No one else cared—why did I? I’d call Warkness in the morning. Tell her what I suspected.

I had no proof. None at all.

Did Warkness know Hammond was dealing in arms? Did her bosses know? It didn’t really matter. He’d spin a story about some crazy Canadian cop being after him. They’d make a call to his company. He had money and influence. He’d be whisked out of Haiti. Probably be gone by morning. And his kids with him. He wouldn’t stay in the States for long. Not where someone might start asking his daughter questions. He’d get a transfer. Plenty of places his company could send him. Saudi Arabia, maybe, or Colombia. At first he’d have to take the boy, or there’d be questions. François was learning from Hammond how to be a man. To be tough, to be mean. How to treat women. But he was just a kid. He didn’t deserve to be dumped in some third-world country and left to survive on his own.

The pickup ahead of me made a left-hand turn. The red taillights of Hammond’s Lexus were fading into the distance. I tapped my brakes. Time to turn around. I’d go home, get drunk and fall into bed. I could solve the problems of the world another day.

White lights came out of nowhere. Screaming brakes broke the still night. I heard the unmistakable sound of metal on metal. The lights of the Lexus swerved
sharply right. They headed downward. And then they were no longer moving.

Hammond had been hit. His car was off the road.

I gunned it. A battered old Chevy had come off a side road. It had hit the speeding Lexus side on. Pushed it into a weed-choked ditch. I screeched to a halt. I grabbed my Maglite from the glove compartment and leaped out. Two men were climbing out of the Chevy. They were shaking their heads and yelling a blue streak. They looked okay. Angry, but not hurt. I ran to the ditch. The Lexus’s engine was still running. The driver’s door was open. The interior light was on, but no one was inside. Bright red drops were sprinkled across the dash. They might be from a nosebleed. Might be from something more serious.

There were no houses around here. No streetlights. But the full moon threw enough light for me to see by. The ground sloped upward into a small hill. A cemetery stood on the heights. Not the big cemetery in the center of Port-au-Prince, but similar.

“He come outta nowhere,” one of the men from the Chevy told me. “Damned fool. Where he gone?”

“Call the police,” I said.

They eyed me. They weren’t inclined to do anything I told them. Not a white guy in civilian clothes with blood all over his face.

There was no wind. The branch of a small tree swayed. I headed toward it. I didn’t think Hammond was armed. I hoped he wasn’t.

I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket. I pushed a button. “I need backup,” I said. “Now.” I told Pierre where I was. ”You’ll see my car. Side of the road.”

“On my way,” he said. If he was at home, it would take a good fifteen minutes at least for him to get here.

I switched on the flashlight. Something glistened at my feet. I turned my light onto it. Red liquid splashed on the grass. Only a few drops. But enough.

I followed a trail of blood, broken grasses and gently moving branches up the slope. I walked into the cemetery. Into the narrow streets of the dead. Behind me the two men argued about calling the police. If their car was still mobile, they’d probably just drive away. In the distance, a dog barked. Otherwise, all was quiet. Deadly quiet.

The tombs closed around me. The crumbling statues loomed over me. Heavy crosses stood out against the night sky. The moonlight hid the bright colors. Everything was turned into a watery gray. Broken stone and hunks of concrete crunched under my feet. I heard a sound to my left. Swung my flashlight. Drops of blood led me around a three-story tomb. There wasn’t much blood. Hammond wasn’t badly hurt. An angel, terrifying in the moonlight, glared at me, wings outstretched. She looked ready to pounce.

Something scurried away. Taking itself out of the light. More than men and ghosts were here tonight.

“The police are on their way,” I yelled into the night.

Silence.

“Your car’s not going anywhere,” I said. “By the time you walk to the embassy, my men and I’ll be outside. Waiting.”

Nothing. I swung the light across the ground. The trail of blood drops was lessening. The corner of my left eye caught a small red glow. A rat, huge and fat, burst from the cracks at the bottom of a turquoise tomb. Its long naked tail ran across my foot. I leaped back and smothered a yell.

I hate rats.

My foot caught a broken piece of concrete, and I tripped.

Then he was on me. Steve Hammond’s face was streaked with blood. Fresh blood streamed from his nose. His eyes were wild. He held a chunk of broken concrete about the size of a baseball. He swung it toward my head. I swiveled out of the way. He missed my head, but pain shot through my right shoulder.

I stumbled backward. I felt a wall of old stone against my back. The stone was still warm from the heat of the day. I dropped the flashlight. It rolled a few feet but didn’t go out. It threw a beam of white light upward. A face loomed above me. Paper-white skin, red blood, black shadows, sharp bones.

Baron Samedi, master of the dead, brought to life. Despite myself, knowing it was only Hammond, I swallowed a moment of pure terror.

He threw the rock at my head. I rolled to one side, shoulder screaming. Hammond dropped to the ground on top of me. His hands closed around my throat. I’m not as young as I once was, and my right arm was just about useless. But I run about eighteen miles a week and swim and work out in the gym. Hammond was a smoker. He was fat and out of shape. An abuser of little children. I got my left arm free. I jabbed the cup of my hand up, into his chin. His head jerked back. His grip softened and I was able to push him off me. I jumped to my feet.