The Lacey confession l-2 Read online

  The Lacey confession

  ( Locator - 2 )

  Richard Greener

  The Lacey confession

  Richard Greener

  THE BEGINNING

  Only wise men-and some newborn fools- say they know what’s going on.

  - Harry Chapin-

  Cruz Bay was Walter’s kind of town. The capital city of St. John in the American Virgin Islands is more accurately a village, much too small to ever be called a city. It’s centered on and around the island’s largest port, hugging the shore, clinging to the mountainside. The Rock, as St. John’s permanent residents call their much larger neighbor, St. Thomas, is only a short twenty-minute boat ride, but for many who live on St. John, that distance is measured in months or years, not minutes or nautical miles.

  Billy’s Bar is directly across the small square that fronts the slip where the St. Thomas ferry docks. For many years Walter Sherman had spent about half his waking hours there. Breakfast nearly every morning-a little later in the day now than when he was younger-a late afternoon lunch and, from time to time, dinner too if the occasion was special enough. He could always be found sitting in the second to last seat at the far end of the bar, near the kitchen, next to the large standing fan. Time didn’t change Billy’s much. Walter liked that. The same might be said for the whole island and he liked that too. Unless someone reminded him, it was easy for Walter Sherman to forget St. John was part of the United States.

  The island can only be reached by small boat, including the ferry. The big cruise ships have to make port at St. Thomas. Tourists from those floating hotel vessels, and the Rock’s other visitors, staying at the bustling resorts on St. Thomas, often take the short trip to St. John for a few hours of shopping. Some come for the national park, many more for the beaches. Some come over just for dinner and catch the last ferry back to St. Thomas. For the more serious tourists, or bushwhackers as the locals called them, those with a special liking for St. John’s calm tranquility and truly magnificent beaches, and with no interest at all in doing things like playing golf, there were the island’s two large resort hotels. Walter and his fellow permanent St. John residents frequently thanked God, and the federal government too, for the absence of a golf course anywhere on the island. It had been the Almighty, of course, who in his inspired creation of the Caribbean made the island less than nine miles long and too mountainous to accommodate a golf course, a race track, or anything resembling the cursed Disneyland or any of its growing number of cheaper imitations. Theme parks they called them. What theme was there, Walter wondered, other than spending money? As an added stroke of luck, the federal government of the United States had accepted a gift of land, comprising nearly two-thirds of the entire island, and designated it a national park. John D. Rockefeller’s middle son, Laurence, the smartest and richest of his bunch, was the generous donor. No fool, the only thing Rockefeller kept for himself was the area called Caneel Bay-surely the loveliest part of the loveliest island-thought of by more than a few as the most beautiful spot in the world. It was here Rockefeller built the first of his famous resorts. The riffraff from the mainland, the back-slapping, heavy-drinking, cigar-smoking golfing quartets looking for an early tee time and a blackjack table, were forced to seek other venues.

  In addition to the newer Westin, originally a Hyatt property, and the older Caneel Bay resorts, there are a handful of smaller hotels and guesthouses and about 400 hillside and hilltop homes, most of them for rent, all of them carrying expensive weekly rates. At high season, the island’s population of 4,000 doubles. St. John is not for the casual visitor looking for just anyplace to go on a package holiday in the Caribbean. Those seeking a taste of Europe usually go farther south to the Dutch-flavored Curacao. If excitement and adventure among the young, the rich, and the French is what they want, and if they have enough money, they go to trendy and chic St. Barts. And if they are looking for nothing more than to stay in America but get away from winter, they’ll head straight to Puerto Rico and be quite content with the hotels and casinos on Dorado Beach. St. John, on the other hand, is a place people come to, to be alone. That’s why Walter Sherman was determined to buy a home there the first time he set foot on its shore. That’s why his ex-wife, Gloria, called it St. Garbo.

  This particular morning, Walter was eating his usual scrambled eggs and toast and drinking a bottle of Diet Coke. Billy stocked the beverage in glass bottles just for him. Anyone else who ordered it got some from the intricate tap system at the bar or from a can. Walter liked the feel of the small glass bottle in his hand, the fizz tickling his nose when the metal cap was popped off, and he was sure it tasted better in glass than any other way. Billy Smith liked and respected Walter as much-no more-than any man he’d ever known. It was no trouble for him to tell the Coke man to always include a couple of cases of the bottles he saved for Walter.

  The standing fan, not far from Walter, turned at medium speed. A welcome cool breeze blew off the water, across the square, and into Billy’s wide-open front. The small morning crowd mostly sat at the tables shielded from the bright sunshine. Many wore their sunglasses even inside, particularly those sporting the most expensive shades. If you were going to spend three or four hundred dollars for a pair of sunglasses, Walter figured, you’d be loath to ever take them off. Little did he know, some cost twice that. He was reading the op-ed page of The New York Times and taking another bite of his lightly buttered toast when he heard her enter the bar.

  Fingerprints are not the only things that give people away, stamping them with a marker those able to interpret such things could recognize. Footsteps told Walter a lot. Man or woman? Big or small? Heavy or lean? Sometimes, as well, they offered clues even to character and health. What he heard now were not the heavy footsteps of a man still wearing his mainland shoes, although he’d heard that noise before and still remembered. This time his ears picked up a sound certain to be the steps of a woman. She was headed his way. Without looking up, he instinctively guessed-decades of experience acting out in his mind involuntarily. He didn’t want to do this anymore. He no longer had any interest in things of this sort. But he couldn’t help himself. He figured her to be tall, slim, perhaps a hundred and twenty pounds soaking wet. He pictured long dark hair. Painted nails. “Christ!” he caught himself, “I must be losing my fucking mind.” He didn’t have time to think about age, color, or any of a dozen other aspects he always listened for in a woman. She was upon him too quickly. The sound of her heels-he was sure they were very high heels-said she walked in a manner common to many beautiful women. The length of her stride, the time between the sound of each heel clicking as it struck the floor, told Walter Sherman this woman was long legged and before she put one foot down in front of the other, her forward leg almost crossed over the line of the one behind. He could tell that and he reminded himself, a woman who would walk that way was a woman who knew she looked good. He was sure she wore pants with her high heels. How did he know that? He could hear her inner thighs rub against each other. “The sound of corduroy?” he asked himself, pleased to note he wasn’t losing his hearing along with everything else.

  He expected a confident, sexy woman. He was seldom wrong. He missed only one small detail. She did not wear corduroy. She wore jeans, skin tight and stonewashed. How she put them on was a mystery. She could have been poured in. She was a bit shorter than he guessed. With the advantage of her heels she might have made it to five-six. If she weighed one-twenty, he thought, it was only after a big meal. Her long, black, expensively straightened hair had begun to curl in the Caribbean humidity. Still it fell, across her shoulders halfway down her back and in front, almost to the tips of her breasts in front. She wore a dark blue, silk blouse; two buttons o
pen at the top. Her bra, the edges of which he could see quite easily, was dark brown with a shiny satin finish. Her outfit was a perfect complement to her olive skin. He saw all that in spite of her feeble attempt at disguise. She had on a wide-brimmed hat pulled down low on her forehead. Big sunglasses were meant to obscure her face. She did her best, he supposed, to hide in plain sight. Still, he recognized her immediately. For a woman he knew was closer to fifty than forty she looked more like thirty. She took a man’s breath away and she was keenly aware of it. Walter was but a man.

  “Hello, Walter Sherman,” she said.

  “Do we know each other?” he asked, in a warm and friendly, neighborly tone. For a moment, an instant disconnected to any other, she struck him as a brown-skinned, dark-haired, tropical incarnation of Mae West. A playful yet confident woman. A woman on top. He looked up from his food and smiled, as much at himself as to her. She smiled back. Walter’s ears actually tingled. She smelled great.

  “Only by reputation,” she said. “May I?” She pointed at the empty seat next to him.

  “Of course.”

  “You have a nice island here.”

  “It’s not all mine.”

  “It’s killing my hair,” she said, seated comfortably atop the wooden stool between Walter and the kitchen door. She ran her hands through the ends of her tumbling locks, gently tugging at the stray ends, lightly touching, practically caressing her pointed nipples with the tips of her long, elegant fingers. Her nails were sparkling red. She looked straight into Walter’s eyes as she did this. It stirred him. My God! he thought, for what man would it be otherwise? As if she knew what he was thinking, she let the thought register then said, firmly but in a low voice, “I need your help.” She opened a small silver case, removed a very strange looking cigarette and lit it. “Do you mind?” she asked.

  Walter shook his head, still smiling all the while. He answered her first question- I need your help is always a question-in a clear and straightforward tone. “I’m sorry. I don’t work anymore.”

  “Me too. At least sometimes it seems that way.”

  “You’re too hard on yourself, Miss Crystal. The last I heard, you were still a big star.” She was alone. He didn’t ask, but he was tempted to ask her where her people were. She was well known to travel with an entourage fit for a head of state. Wherever she went, she attracted a crowd, a good portion of it in her employ. Walter was careful to pronounce Conchita Crystal’s name the way she liked it, Kree-STAL, rolling the r as if he too was Puerto Rican, with the emphasis solidly on the second syllable.

  “?Habla espanol?” she asked.

  “Tengo espanol en mi corazon, pero ingles en mi boca.”

  “Now it’s you who’s too hard on yourself, Mr. Sherman. But, if you prefer, ingles it is. Can we speak here?”

  “About?”

  “As I said, I need your help.” Walter started to say something-something Conchita Crystal was sure she would not want to hear. “I’m desperate, Mr. Sherman,” she said, interrupting him before he got a word out. “I’ve nowhere else to turn. You’re the only one.”

  He felt the tremble in her voice, saw that look in her eyes, a tremble and a stare he’d felt and seen so many times before in the hectic pace of nearly four decades. There came a moment, even for the richest, the most powerful and most famous, when they were undone by whatever loss they were about to spill at Walter’s feet. The fear, the dread, the surrender to melancholy-he could hear every bit of it in their voices, sense it in their demeanor. Conchita Crystal was no different from the rest.

  “Please listen to me,” she pleaded. “Let me tell you why I’ve come to you. Then, if you still feel you can’t do anything, I’ll go away. I’ll understand. But, please, just hear me out.” She reached over and put her hand lightly on his wrist. “It’s matter of life and death-mine.” She paused, never breaking eye contact with him. Walter said nothing-not right away. His knees weakened. He took a long, deep breath then said, “Not here. Take a walk. Go across the square to the ferry dock. I’ll be out in a minute. Okay?”

  Conchita Crystal instantly regained her composure. Walter couldn’t be sure if it was her relief at knowing he would listen to her story or if that was just what she did for a living. He certainly wasn’t about to come to any conclusion at this point. She nodded and smiled. She smiled-a smile he’d seen a thousand times, in TV commercials, on billboards, magazine covers, CDs, and in the movies. This smile, however, this one right now, was special. It was all his. She slid off her barstool, stood facing him, dropped her cigarette to the floor and stepped on it, then turned and left, the sound of her footsteps already filed away in his memory. It was all Walter could do not to watch her every step as she walked away. Conchita Crystal once and maybe still had the best-looking, most famous ass in the Western world.

  He took a last forkful of eggs, a final bite of toast and finished his Diet Coke. He folded his newspaper, put it down on the bar, then got up to leave, following her as he said he would.

  “That who I think it is?” asked Billy Smith from behind his bar.

  “Who’s that?” deadpanned Walter. Billy threw his arms up in mock frustration. “Hey, go for it, Walter,” he shrugged.

  On his way out, Walter passed a very old, stick-thin black man with a fuzzy white beard cut short and close. The old man, whose name was Ike, had a crooked, homemade cigarette dangling from his lips. Smoke completely surrounded his head, floating away in a line of blue haze, swirling out in the direction of the sea. A warm smile, one some said was always there, dominated his aged, wrinkled face. He sat alone at the table closest to the sidewalk, the one right up against the white picket fence that separated Billy’s from the street. He was protected from the sun only by the Florida Marlins baseball cap on his bald head.

  “That’s Chita whatshername, ain’t it Walter?” Ike asked.

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Walter!” Ike called after him. “I thought you was retired.”

  Walter Sherman kept walking, but he turned his head back toward the old man. “You’re right, Ike. I was retired.”

  The frail black man looked at Billy, who had moved up the bar and was now as near to the front as he could get. This time they both shrugged their shoulders.

  Walter Sherman had never officially retired. He hadn’t made any announcement, sent out any notices or thrown a party and invited his friends to celebrate the event. And, of course, there was no one to give him a gold watch. It just sort of happened. The last job he took was almost four years ago. After that one, he just stopped. He started saying no. People continued to come to him, continued to call. But, after the second year, they must have gotten the message. They stopped. It became known he no longer took clients. Nobody had approached him this way in more than two years.

  When he quit, he told himself it wasn’t because he couldn’t do the work anymore. But he knew it really was. He was getting tired and his was not the kind of work to do if you weren’t up to it. In his busiest times as a younger man, he never did more than a dozen jobs a year. While occasionally he caught one he couldn’t wrap up in less than a month, two at the most, most of his assignments had been completed in a few weeks. Some took only days. He’d always had a lot of downtime. So, retirement didn’t call for a major personal adjustment.

  About the same time Walter stopped working, he stopped eating meat, red meat and pork altogether, and he limited his intake of chicken to once monthly-a special day that was. He allowed himself to eat fresh fish two or three times a week, sometimes more often. He’d been told people who ate fish regularly lived longer, healthier lives than those who forsook it for meat, especially beef and pork. That sounded right. He reworked his diet to include a lot of fruits and vegetables, rice, beans and pasta. He cut out the French fries and most other greasy, fried foods. Out with the burgers-in with the grouper. It wasn’t difficult for him. Walter ate most of his meals at Billy’s and those he didn’t were cooked by the old woman, Clara, or since her death, by his new h
ousekeeper. All concerned were happy to oblige his new, healthier habits.

  Like most men his age, Walter had been at least twenty pounds heavier than he wanted for far longer than he cared to admit. In his first year of exclusive leisure and new eating tastes he shed them all, all twenty and then some. And he didn’t stop there. He was an inch or so under six feet, and by this time in his life, sensed he’d shrunk perhaps a half-inch or more. Racing headlong to sixty, he wanted to be fit again. He was scared it might be his last chance. He started his new diet the morning his scale read 215 pounds. “Holy shit!” he thought. “Old, fat and shrinking.” He never regretted the panic he felt that morning. He kept going when he hit 195 pounds and didn’t even try to level off until he reached 180. Finally, deep into middle age, he weighed only five pounds more than he did when he left the Army in 1977. With that he was satisfied.

  He still wore his hair long in the back. It had thinned on top, but not remarkably. It had, however, grayed considerably in the last two or three years. Still, some people continued to mistake Walter Sherman for a man younger than he was. His pale blue eyes and rugged, tan, leathery face highlighted the effects of a long stay in the Caribbean. Sure, fewer women found him attractive than had been his experience ten or twenty years ago, but he still got a look now and then. It never bothered him that the women doing the looking were getting older too. One thing he certainly didn’t grow tired of was the sight of his recently reacquired flat stomach staring back at him in the mirror. He wore the same kind of clothes since he came to St. John-loose-fitting jeans, a bit baggier as the years went by, and an oversized, pastel-colored T-shirt with no pocket. He was always clean-shaven and although some mistook his casual approach toward dress for messiness, they could not have been further from the truth. A man completely comfortable in his own skin, Walter Sherman carried nothing with him. No wallet. No personal ID of any kind. No money. No habitual paraphernalia, cigarette lighters and the like-he neither smoked nor chewed gum. The key to his car was all he had on him, in his right back pocket with nothing attached. He didn’t like shorts-he thought they looked silly on him-and was never seen in them. His only shoes seemed to be the old-fashioned, low-cut, white tennis sneakers. Unless he left the island, Walter never wore socks.