Death in Paradise (35 page)

"Lucky," she said. "I wish my mom would do that. She makes me go with her and try things on." She stirred restlessly, as if the sunburn was painful.

"You got a sunburn," I said.

"My own dumb fault. I hate those icky sticky sunscreens that make you smell like toasted coconuts so I didn't wear any."

"I've got one you would like a lot," I said. "And something for that sunburn, too." I went in the bathroom and brought out both. I showed her my favorite sunscreen, which she duly admired, and then I gave her what I called the "blue goo," with aloe and painkillers, the world's greatest stuff for sunburn. "Smear this on and I guarantee you'll feel better in no time."

She poured a little into the palm of her hand and looked at it dubiously. "It's blue," she said.

"And you're hot pink. Try it."

She rubbed it on her sore-looking skin. "Ooh! It's cold." She made some faces but went on applying it. When she was done, she sat up straighten "The person who attacked you came off one of the other boats," she said.

"How do you know?"

"When we saw you there on the bottom, Robin went down to help. I saw the guy swimming away, so I tried to follow. I couldn't get close. I'm not a great swimmer so I couldn't keep up, but I kind of followed the shape through the water and saw him haul himself onto the boat. I was going to swim over and get a better look but then my mother turned up, yelling at me for being off by myself, and by the time I got her calmed down, three or four more scuba divers had climbed back on the boat, so going out there wouldn't have done any good. I wouldn't have known which one he was."

"But you're sure it was a man?"

"Pretty sure. Aren't you going to open your present?"

"In a minute. What you just told me, is that what you wanted to tell the police?" She nodded. "Since you're our resident spy, is there anything else I should know about what's going on around here?"

Laura pondered. "Do you suppose room service delivers ice cream sundaes?"

"That sounds a bit like extortion," I said. "And you've only got two minutes."

"They'll never notice," she said. "They're watching a movie."

"What about honor?" I asked.

"Honor?"

"Doing what you're told because it's the right thing to do."

She considered. "If they meant it," she said, finally. "But they're always making rules and then forgetting they've made them. Where's the honor in that?"

I would have bet money this kid would grow up to be a lawyer. I passed her the menu.

She looked up, her eyes glowing. "They have a four-scoop banana split extravaganza." Then her face fell as the impact of my words sank in. "But you don't have to get it for me. I know I've been bad."

She looked so pitiful I was sorry for my remark about extortion. It's hard to remember, with precocious, outspoken kids, how young they are and how literal-minded they can be. Besides, ice cream sounded good to me, too. I must be recovering. I picked up the phone and ordered two of them. Laura looked like a little kid at Christmas. "I love room service," she said. "It's like magic!"

"Okay, kid. Your bribe is on the way. Now spit it out. All the dirt on everyone. Now!"

She started to giggle. "You are so funny," she said. "I'm really glad you didn't drown."

"Me, too."

"And I'm sorry that I distracted Robin so that she couldn't look after you. She was very upset."

"She should have been. Even though hanging around with you might be a whole lot more fun than swimming after me, she was out there because the police thought that someone might try and hurt me."

"Why?"

I shook my head. "I'm not sure, Laura. Maybe because of that picture in the paper. It might have made some people think I was here to try and solve a crime. If the people who did the crime thought that, then they might have gotten worried and wanted me stopped. Kind of like something you'd see on TV."

"Are you here to solve a crime?"

"Far from it. I'm here doing my best to stay out of it, but things keep coming to me. Like you and that little red ribbon."

She nodded solemnly. "The man I was watching at the elevator last night, that one who tore the lady's dress, was in the bar with a guy called Billy tonight. We were at a table pretty near them, getting those funny drinks like you bought me. They were laughing and having a very good time."

So Lewis Broder hadn't left the hotel after all. Interesting. "Could you hear anything they were saying?"

"Not much. It was noisy. I did hear your name, though. It sounded like the elevator man had said something nasty and the other guy, Billy, said you weren't so bad. Your problem was that you were good at whatever you did, whether other people wanted you to be or not. What did he mean by that?"

I shrugged. "I don't know, Laura. Sometimes people get angry if I can do my job and they can't do theirs, because they think it makes them look bad. Maybe that's what he meant." I didn't try to explain about the times when I've been hired because someone wanted me to fail, and I didn't. That was pretty complicated stuff even for a smart kid.

"There's something else," she said, "but I'm not going to tell you until you open your present."

"All right." I picked up the big box, tugged off the ribbons, and pulled off the gaudy paper. The slick white box inside was embossed with a pastel woman on tiptoe, twirling in an ephemeral dress that swirled around her attenuated limbs. She reminded me of a New Age Barbie doll. The shop was called The Blue Wave. There probably already was a Crystal Barbie. Maybe this could be Angel Barbie. Damned hard fitting those dresses around the wings, though. I lifted the cover, and found swaths of purple tissue paper. I rolled my eyes and looked at Laura. She giggled. I burrowed through the paper and pulled out a lovely shrimp-colored gauze sundress. I stood up, held it against me, and twirled, like the lady on the box.

"Cool," Laura said. "Look again. There's more...."

"My birthday was yesterday," I said.

"I'll take a present anytime," she said. "Though I'd rather have a book."

The phone rang and someone knocked on the door. "You get the door," I said, "I'll get the phone. No. Wait." I couldn't risk sending Laura to the door. "You get the phone and tell them to hold on. I'll get the door."

As I went to the door and peered through the spy-hole, I heard Laura say, "Oh, you must be Andre. I've heard a lot about you. I'm Laura Mitchell, her sidekick. She's gone to answer the door. Can you hold on for a minute?"

Meanwhile, I opened the door to admit Ed and Marie. Marie was carrying a foil-wrapped container. They were both dressed as if they'd been to dinner. "Come in," I said. "Please. Sit down. I've got a phone call and then I'll be right with you."

Laura held out the phone. "It's Andre," she said.

"Hi, handsome," I said.

"You having a party without me?"

"Hardly. Without you, it's not a party."

"I miss you," he said. He hesitated. "I can't believe how much I miss you. If you were alone, I'd tell you in great detail, but I wouldn't want you blushing in front of other people."

"I wish I were alone."

He laughed, that rich laugh I like to hear with my head on his chest. "You catch your bad guy yet? I caught mine."

"I thought I was supposed to be a good doobie and stay out of trouble."

"Supposed to. But when did my girl ever do what she was supposed to do?"

"I've been trying." Which was true. Until moments ago, when I fell from grace at the keyboard, I really had been trying. Behind me, I could hear Laura telling Ed and Marie about the ice cream that was supposed to be arriving. I figured I might as well tell him about my accident that was no accident. "This time it seems like the bad guy is trying to catch me."

There was a longer silence. "What's that supposed to mean? I told that guy, Bernstein, to keep an eye on you."

"I went snorkeling. There was someone there... a scuba diver, who grabbed and held me underwater and I—" It turned out I couldn't say it. You can't tell someone you love about something so awful in a phone call. Especially when you've got a room full of people listening. "I could have drowned."

"What happened? What's going on? Are you all right? Do I need to come out there?" Before I could answer, he said, "You've got to come home. Right now. This is crazy! Those guys said something about using your reputation as a detective to try and flush out their killer, but they promised they'd be watching every minute. And now you tell me this? Pack your things and go to the airport. It's not safe for you to stay there." Then, before I could say anything, and I was almost too flabbergasted to speak, he said, "What does the doctor say? Are you sure you're all right?"

"You want to talk to him?"

"The doctor is there?"

I looked over at Ed and pointed to the phone. "Sort of."

"Does that mean you only have part of a doctor there, or does that mean whoever is there is only sort of a doctor?"

"I mean one of the guests at the hotel is a doctor and he's sort of adopted me...."

"Oh, so you mean, this guy isn't one of the doctors who treated you at the hospital?"

"Right. All he did was rescue me from the hospital. But he's a very nice guy."

"How old? How nice?" Andre's voice had dropped to a growl. Jealousy and passion did that to him. Too much testosterone, poor fellow. I could almost hear his beard grow.

"Middle-aged. Very nice. He's here to speak at the Maui Police Department annual dinner. His name is—"

"I don't want to know."

"Yes, you do. His name is Ed Pryzinski." I waited for the light to go on. It did.

"You don't mean Dr. Pryzinski, author of
Don't Touch That Body unless You Use Your Head?"

"I do."

"But he's a pathologist."

"I'm still breathing."

"Put him on," Andre said.

I held the phone out to Dr. Pryzinski. "It's Andre," I said. "He wants a full report on my medical condition."

Ed took the phone and I watched as they went through the phone equivalent of a hand-slapping ritual. Then Ed settled into a chair by the phone and began to reassure Andre about my physical condition. He was just as calm and patient and comforting with Andre as he had been with me. As I watched, I imagined Ed as a father, guiding his big, gangly son and his tiny clever daughter through the perils of their youth. Lucky kids. Beside me, Marie chatted with Laura about snorkeling. Despite my dramatic interruption to everyone's day, they'd still managed to go on and have fun. My life, full of high drama as it was, was just a little blip on other people's screens. It helps to put things in perspective, most of the time. But not now. Life and death, especially my own life and death, is too immediate to disregard.

I drifted back to the conversation as Ed was saying, "No. If she's doing this well this many hours after the incident, I think we can relax about the possibility of secondary effects. She looks fine. She's walking and talking and I understand she's just ordered herself a four-scoop ice cream sundae, so ability to take nourishment isn't an issue."

He listened to something Andre said and laughed. "Me, too. I always admire a girl with a healthy appetite. She's going to be just fine and there shouldn't be any problems with the baby."

 

 

 

Chapter 24

 

Evidently Andre hadn't completely lost his powers of speech, as I had, because then Ed said, "'What baby?' Thea's baby. Your baby, I presume." He listened for a while and then said, "Well, hard as it is for me to believe, from the look on her face, she's just as surprised as you are. I thought young people these days got sex education courses. Some of this stuff is pretty basic, son." He listened again and then held the phone out to me. "He wants to talk to you."

I took it cautiously. I was so stunned by what I'd just heard I wasn't sure I could speak. I tried "Hello?"

"Why didn't you tell me?" Andre demanded. "Didn't you think I'd need to know?"

"Andre... I... I didn't... I don't..."
Spit it out, Kozak, the man is waiting.
I could picture the anger and confusion on his face. With something so intimate, something so stunningly earthshaking, life altering and life affirming, I would never have delivered the news in public. "I don't know what he's talking about. I've been awfully tired and I get sick sometimes, but I just thought I had some low-level illness... food poisoning, parasite, mono. Something I was going to check out with my doctor when I got home. I wasn't trying to keep something from you...." Was a woman ever placed in a more awkward situation? "I don't even know why he thinks I might be pregnant. He's only listened to my heart and lungs... look, hold on. I'll ask him."

I turned away from the phone. Ed Pryzinski looked like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar and Marie was giving him her best quelling stare. I held the phone out, helplessly. Marie said, "He's always had an instinct for pregnancy, Thea. He reads it in women's faces. He's never been wrong, either."

"There's another phone in the bedroom. You'd better get in on this, Ed. My beloved thinks I've been keeping something from him that I didn't even know myself."