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“It wasn’t there before or directly after the three o’clock service.” Joe maneuvered a sharp turn and barely avoided hitting a flower cart. He beeped the horn and waved and didn’t look back. Apparently everyone was used to Joe’s driving. “The courtyard is located between the clergy house and the church, and parishioners use the front entrance of the church for the five o’clock Mass, so the courtyard area in back is always clear. Father Fernando and Father DeCosta were coming from their quarters to hear confession when they noticed the body. Father Barthe heard the commotion and came out to join them soon after.”
“Is the victim a local or a tourist?”
“A local. Leon Stein.”
I felt Jack relax beside me, and I knew where his sigh of relief was coming from. It was going to be a lot easier to deal with a local than a foreign tourist getting murdered while on vacation. There’d be less hoops to jump through for us if we were going to help and less, if any, media attention.
“No offense, but Stein doesn’t exactly sound local,” I said.
Joe smiled, his teeth starkly white against his dark skin. “Leon has been here more than seventy years, shortly after the Second World War. He says he came to the island for vacation and decided to stay the minute he laid eyes on a girl named Maria. She was fifteen at the time and they were married within a few weeks. It’s hard to find someone on this island not related to Leon and Maria. He would’ve celebrated his hundredth birthday next week. We were planning a big celebration.”
“Are you related to them?” Jack asked Joe.
Joe smiled again. “Oh, somewhere down the line a few times removed. It’s the way of things here. Maria will have heard the news by now. I need to go by and see her.”
“We’ll need to talk to her,” Jack said.
Joe sighed and his smile disappeared. “I know you will. She’s frail and not in the best of health. Be easy on her.”
“We can step back at any time. This isn’t exactly how we planned to spend our honeymoon.”
“No, this is the right thing to do. Besides, you’ve got the look of someone who could use a break from their honeymoon, if you know what I mean.” Joe covered his smile with a cough and I shot Jack a narrow-eyed stare.
“Whimp,” I whispered.
He turned his head so his lips touched my ear. “Baby, all those SWAT ops in my past had nothing on you.”
“You’re a sweet talker, Jack Lawson. I’ll give you a reprieve so we can solve this case. But after that you’d best watch out.”
“I have excellent hearing, so no need to whisper,” Joe said. “And you are a lucky man, Sheriff. Maybe she has a sister she could send my way. It would be nice to have some fresh blood on the island. You’d think in a place where women outnumber men two to one it would be easy to find a wife.”
“Wow, you’d think,” I said, surprised by the ratio.
“Jaye is an only child, thank God,” Jack said. “I’m not sure she’s the kind of fresh blood this island could handle. She’s a little rebellious.”
Joe tipped his sunglasses down to the tip of his nose and looked at me. “I could’ve guessed that. She’s got that look about her. The church teaches that a wife should be obedient.”
Jack looked at me with his brows raised and his eyes full of the devil. “Yeah,” he said. “Obedient.”
“I can see why he’s having trouble finding a wife despite the ratio,” I whispered out the side of my mouth. “Besides, there are times I like being obedient.” I waggled my eyebrows and smirked. “Can we do that thing with the zip ties again?”
“Ssh, woman. Stop giving away all my secrets.”
I grinned, despite the circumstance that had put me in a Jeep bouncing along rutted roads instead of bouncing on a mattress. A few days of marriage to Jack had done more for my soul and sanity than the lifetime I’d spent praying for relief from the constant shit storm that plagued anyone with the last name Graves.
“You don’t happen to have a spare medical bag or gloves with you,” I asked Joe.
“Medical bag, no. Doctor Hizumi is the only physician on the island and he’s on a house call. An American tourist spent too much time in the sun this morning.
“But I brought gloves, and I’ve got a few supplies in a box in the back. I wasn’t sure what might be needed. I sent my nephews to go and clear space for you to work at the police station. It’s not a large building, so unfortunately our makeshift morgue will be in the jail cell. And of course, Jack can use my desk for whatever he needs.”
I pursed my lips together to keep from saying anything I’d regret. I was on my honeymoon and I’d get to spend the foreseeable future in a jail cell with a dead body and no air conditioning. Jack gave me a comforting squeeze on the shoulder and I exhaled, releasing the tension from my body.
St. Miguel’s was small, but beautiful, and sat on a higher elevation looking out over the water. The architecture was decidedly Spanish—pale yellow stucco and ornately carved wooden doors. It was obviously well tended to, the grounds neatly mowed and the wild growth of tropical flowers in the flowerbeds maintained. To the left was a small cemetery, the headstones and crosses lined up like soldiers.
The stained glass windows gleamed in the late afternoon sunlight and a small fountain with a statue of the Virgin Mary sat between two of the cathedral style windows. A crowd had gathered in front of the church and they gossiped in hushed whispers.
Joe parked the Jeep in front of the church, and I noticed most people made the sign of the cross as they saw who was arriving. Joe received looks of relief from the crowd. The looks they gave me and Jack ranged from confusion to hostility. From what I’d observed during my three days on the island, it was a close-knit, hard working community. There wasn’t wealth here. Just what the tourists brought in. But the raw, natural beauty of the island was its own wealth with white sand beaches and greenish-blue water that was so clear you could see straight to the bottom of the ocean before it got too deep.
