The Nassau Secret (The Lang Reilly Series Book 8) (4 page)

7.

Nassau Public Library

Bank Lane & Shirley Street

(Parliament Square)

Fifteen Minutes Later

              According to the plaque outside, the pink and white four story building dated to the mid-eighteenth century when it had served as a prison. Now it was a combination library and museum. The coolness of the stone construction washed over Phil as he followed Celeste inside. It was the first place in downtown Nassau Phil had seen that wasn’t crowded.

              Except for books. Books were piled on tables, on the floor and every available space. Had a patron wished a place to read, he would have had to sit on a stack of books. The place had a musty smell, the odor of old paper mixed with what? Maybe lime and mortar?

              Celeste lead him up a rather elegant oak staircase, Phil wondering as to its origins. As far as he knew, there were not and had never been oaks growing in these islands. Perhaps wood from a wrecked ship?

              He forgot the stairs at the top. The room he was viewing had shelves of skulls behind fly-specked glass, along with a few crude tools Phil speculated had come from the indigenous Indians, Lucayan, Caribe, Arawak or whatever. There was no sign of any exhibit featuring a murder.

              Celeste echoed his thoughts. “Where. . .? This isn’t like it was when Livia and I. . .” she turned to Phil and misread his expression. “I didn’t make this up!”

              “Didn’t say you did. Don’t suppose you saw the librarian, did you?”

              They found the woman downstairs, a bespeckled grandmother type doing just what they might expect: Stacking books.

              She looked up from the task with a face that seemed to say she was startled to see people in the building. “Hep ya?”

              Phil smiled, an effort to assure her they weren’t there to steal one of the aborigine skulls upstairs. “Yesterday you had an exhibit upstairs, photos and material relating to a famous murder. . .”

              She shook her head so violently he fully expected her glasses to fly off. “Don’ know whot you talkin’ ‘bout, mon. You hove th’ wrong plese, meybbe.”

              Celeste spoke up. “No, I’m quite sure it was here. I came here, remember, looking for the girl whose picture I showed you?”

              More violent head shaking. “No, Miss. I never seed you befo’. Now, meybbe you be on your way, ‘fore I call the policeman.”

              She brandished a cell phone.

              “But. . .?”

              Phillip took Celeste’s arm. “C’mon, we’re wasting our time.”

              “What’s going on?” she spluttered as they descended the front steps in the afternoon sunshine. “I’m not nuts! I know damn well Livia and I were in there yesterday. And I’m equally clear the so-called museum upstairs had old photographs and stuff that weren’t there today.”

              Phil was scouting the passing tourists for the two men who had followed them earlier. “I believe you. I also believe that woman was terrified.”

              “Of what?” Celeste wanted to know as she reached the sidewalk. “The two of us aren’t exactly threatening.”

              Phil started back toward the British Colonial. “We answer that question, we’ll have a better idea of what happened to Livia.” He saw the expression on her face. “I mean, where she might be.”

              “What’s your guess?”

              The two men had vanished. But that didn’t mean they weren’t watching from any number of vantages: windows, a ship in the harbor across from the ubiquitous pink and white of public buildings in Parliament Square, anywhere.

              “We only know a couple of things. First, we know Livia has disappeared, most likely not of her own will but after showing interest in that exhibit. Second, someone is willing to intimidate that old lady at the library rather than have a seventy year old murder revisited. Third, and I’m speculating here, that somebody has the means to hire a couple of most likely military or ex military types to see what we are up to.”

              “You didn’t mention. . .”

              “I wasn’t sure until right before we got to the library.”

              “But why. . . who?”

              “I’m betting, one way or another, we’ll hear from that somebody soon.”

              He was right.

8.

Bimini Road Restaurant

Atlantis

Paradise Island

7:40 That Evening.

              Phil nodded for the waiter to remove the scant remains of the tamarind spiced pork that had followed an appetizer of aggressively seasoned conch fritters. He was seated with a view of evening creeping over the ocean toward the beach where a Rake and Scrape band was playing Calypso tunes, its instruments consisting of a large carpenter’s saw, an accordion and a Goombay drum.

              He had declined Celeste’s offer of dinner at the more upscale Nobu just off the hotel’s casino floor for two reasons: Foremost, he wanted to carefully think over the events of the afternoon, making sure had not missed something that might help solve the riddles surrounding a young American woman’s disappearance. Second, he had a deep suspicion of Japanese cuisine. How could you trust people who considered what was, after all, fish bait a delicacy?

              He toyed with the idea of taking his chances with a few spins of the roulette wheel in the hotel’s casino and opted for an early evening. He scratched his name on the credit card receipt, annoyed again at the mandatory “gratuity” for what had been at best indifferent service and headed outside, all but oblivious to the multicolor decor.

              He never saw them coming. He was turning a corner defined by a hedge of shoulder high hibiscus when a fist smashed into his stomach and sent him to his knees. The blow was hard enough to spurt bile from his recent dinner into his mouth. Training at the FBI academy years ago made him instinctively roll away from his attacker to get to his feet. The assailant anticipated the move and sent a toe cap crashing against his rib cage.

              “You’re smart, mate, you’ll stay right where you are.”

              Definitely a British accent.

              Phil did as suggested. Level with his eyes were a pair of ankles.

              “You’d be even smarter to be on the Delta flight for Atlanta tomorrow.”

              Phil took a deep breath and had to bite his lip not to cry out in pain. The bastard had cracked, if not broken, at least one rib. “I was just getting to like it here.”

              This time it was Phil who anticipated his enemy’s next move.

              As a foot drew back for another kick, he snatched the ankle of the other with both hands. The natural imbalance of one foot off the ground and the other being pulled in the same direction had the desired effect: The man stumbled. Before he could catch his balance, Phil delivered his own kick. From a prone position, the effort was not all he could wish but it was well aimed.

              There was an expulsion of breath as the man doubled over to grasp his crotch.

              Phil was on his feet. He lunged forward and there was a sound like metal hitting wood and he felt as if his skull had spilt. His knees would no longer hold him and he almost dispassionately watched the grounds rise to meet him.

9.

472 Lafayette Drive

Atlanta, Georgia

4:27 am the Next Morning

              A ringing phone in the wee hours rarely heralds good news. It was, then, with some trepidation Lang Reilly reached for the opening chords of Glen Miller’s
Chattanooga Choo Cho
o, the ring tone of his iPhone.

              “Umph?”

              Gurt rolled over, covering her head with the pillow.

              “Lang, is that you?”

              “That part of me that’s awake at this hour. Who’s this?”

              “It’s Phil, Phil McGrath.”

              Lang sat up. “Doesn’t sound like Phil McGrath.”

              “That’s because my lips area little swollen where I had a tooth knocked out.”

              “Tooth knocked out?”

              “Yeah. Goes right along with a couple of broken ribs, twenty four stitches in my scalp, a concussion and the meanest fucker of a headache you can imagine.”

              “Phil, I wanted you to find a girl, not take on whoever beat the shit out of you.”

              “Wasn’t my idea, believe me.”

              “So, where are you now?”

              “Doctors Hospital, Nassau. They say they’ll let me go if I’m non symptomatic in twenty-four hours. Don’t intend to wait that long.”

              By now Lang was fully awake. His feet searched the floor for his slippers, found them and he padded out of the room in case Gurt was able to go back to sleep. “Tell me what happened.”

              Phil did, finishing with, “. . .And that’s why I have no intent of hanging around here in the hospital, waiting for the bastards to finish the job.”

              “Sounds like they were trying to scare you off, not kill you.”

              A hollow laugh. “Swell! You can bet your ass on that, not mine.”

              “I suppose the police are involved?”

              “’Involved?’ That would be a stretch. They’ve been trying to convince me the couple of Martinis I had with dinner made me so drunk I fell. Hell, I could’ve fallen off a two-story house and not gotten banged up this bad. But, you know, attacks on Americans are bad for the tourist trade.”

              “The guys took your wallet?”

              “Nah. They wanted to be sure I got the message.”

              “And that is?”

              “Be on the next stage outta Dodge.”

              Lang thought for a minute. “Any idea why?”

              “Theory, not fact.”

              “And that is?”

              “The woman, Livia, disappeared after seeing that exhibit at the library. We visited the place ths afternoon. The old biddy, the librarian, was terrified when the subject came up. I’d say Livia did or said something related to that exhibit that set somebody off.”

              “But the thing was open to the public. God only knows how many people saw it. I haven’t read about masses vanishing from Nassau.”

              “That’s one of the things I don’t get, either.”

              “The exhibit, what did Celeste say about it?”

              “Old photos and stuff about a murder that happened here in the 1940’s. Doesn’t sound like something to get worked up about.”

              “OK, Phil, get on the next flight out. See if you can get Celeste to join you. You’re being paid to dig up facts, not risk your life.”

              “Lang, I know you too well to believe you are just going to walk away from this.”

              “Never said I was. Get on back here before they kill you next time.”  

              Lang ended the call and stood in the hallway. He turned to go back into the bedroom, changed his mind and went downstairs. In the kitchen, he loaded up the Mr. Coffee before moving to the tiny former broom closet under the stairs where he booted up the computer that occupied a small table. A chair was the only other furniture the space could accommodate.

              He called up Google.

10.

Nassau Guardian

The Bahamas Oldest Newspaper

WOMAN’S BODY FOUND NEAR ADELAID

                          The body of an American  woman  identified as Livia Haynesworth, 32, was                                    found on the rocks of South West Bay near Adeliade yesterday.

              Ms. Haynesworth was vacationing at Atlantis and reported missing two days ago. What took her so far from the Paradise Island resort is unknown.

              “I have no idea why she was there,” said her distraught traveling companion,   Celeste   Harper, 40, of Atlanta , Georgia. “She was just going out shopping and I never heard from her again. The police were less than helpful.”

              South West Bay has no beach and is not a place regularly visited by tourists.

              The body was found by 14 year old Rihinna Newsome who was attempting to salvage a fishing net that had washed ashore. Ms. Haynesworth was not wearing swimming attire but was identified by the wallet she had in the pocket of her shorts.

              BP Lieutenant Lemual Goodlow said, “There were no obvious signs of foul play but the medical examiner’s office will determine the cause of death in the next few days.”

              He was also quoted as saying the body did not appear to have been in the water more than 24 hours.

            
 
Should it be determined Ms. Haynesworth perished from other than  naturalcauses, it would be the island’s two hundred twentieth homicid
e
since 2009.