The Deadly Ackee Page 2

  “I suppose so, in a cold-blooded way. Perhaps she didn’t take the engagement seriously.”

  “She spent thirty-seven hundred on the dress, Uncle Theo. It sounded pretty darn serious to me.”

  Before Theo could respond, the conveyor belt rumbled to life and luggage appeared through the rubber curtain. Within a few minutes, all the bags had been loaded on carts, wheeled through customs for a perfunctory search, and piled on the sidewalk by obliging porters with broad grins and convenient palms.

  Trey was the last to amble through the door. He gazed at a long, lumpy bag. “I say, that looks like a body bag. Did someone sneak a corpse through customs? Are we to have the pleasure of someone’s dear, departed great-auntie every afternoon for pickle juice cocktails?”

  “Golf clubs,” Sandy said. “There are some excellent courses.”

  “I would have thought golf was too, shall we say, plebeian for you military chaps,” Trey said, flicking cigarette ashes on the bag. “I thought you spent your idle moments spitting on your shoes or assembling weapons while blindfolded.”

  “Leave him alone,” Biff said. “I brought my clubs, too.”

  Mary Margaret put her hand on Biff’s arm and gave him a lazy smile. “Trey’s just being vile because he’s a wretched golfer. His handicap qualifies him for protection under the Equal Employment Act. I’m not bad myself. In fact, the pro at the club said I was very good.”

  “He was simply mad about her grip,” Trey added. “He told everyone in the locker room that it was outstanding.”

  Mary Margaret kept her eyes on Biff. “But I could always use a lesson or two. I hope you’ll help me with my back-swing.”

  Theo heard Dorrie’s well-bred growl, but could only close his eyes to avoid viewing what he feared was about to transpire. He opened them as an alarmingly pink station wagon stopped in front of them. A woman with daffodil-yellow hair leaned across the seat to roll down the window. Her lipstick matched the flamingo hue of her wagon, as did the several undulations of eyeshadow.

  “Caldicott party for Harmony Hills villa?” she asked. When Theo nodded, she climbed out of the station wagon and came around to the sidewalk. She was nearly as tall as he, and moved with a professional briskness that sent him back a few inches in an instinctive retreat. Her dark brown eyes and broad smile did much to soften her squarish, blunt features. She was, Theo concluded, not unattractive.

  “You look tired from your flight,” she announced. “I’m Geraldine Greeley, the leasing agent with whom you’ve corresponded. The villa’s ready, so why don’t you pop all your luggage in the back and pile in the station wagon.”

  The group gaped at her as if she’d suggested selecting a wardrobe on the basis of sixty-second blue-light specials. Theo sighed, introduced the stunned group, then said, “I’m Theo Bloomer, Ms. Greeley. For reasons that now seem obscure if not insane, I’m the chaperone. Might it be possible to persuade a porter to load the luggage?”

  “Call me Gerry, honey.” She turned shrewd eyes on his charges. “It’ll be a tight squeeze, but the villa’s only a couple of miles away. You can survive, can’t you?”

  “Certainly,” Mary Margaret said, her fingers still wrapped around Biff’s arm. “We’ll just snuggle in like little old peas in a pod. You don’t mind if I sit on Biff’s lap, do you, Dorrie?”

  Dorrie shot Biff a bright smile as she moved toward the front door of the station wagon. “Why on earth would I mind? You two little sweet peas can snuggle your little pods out.”

  “I am not sitting on his lap,” Bitsy said, indicating Trey with a flip of her chin. “I’d rather walk.”

  Trey flipped his cigarette over his shoulder as he gave her a facetiously sympathetic look. “It might not be a bad idea, Bitsy. It might even take a few ounces of cellulite off those buttocks.”

  “My cellulite is none of your concern! I, for one, fit very nicely in my pantyhose.”

  Sandy took Bitsy’s elbow and pulled her aside for a whispered conversation. By the time they returned to the car, the luggage had been arranged in the back. Dorrie sat between Gerry and Theo in the front seat, her jaw extended to its utmost and her lips clamped. The others had managed to find adequate space in the backseat. Gerry turned around as the final door slammed.

  “Everybody comfy?” When she received no answer, she started the engine and pulled into the line of traffic inching out of the airport parking lot. “I hope you find the villa pleasant. Your cook’s name is Amelia. You may find her attitude a bit difficult, but she’s worked with my firm for over ten years and does an excellent job, especially with island specialties. The maid is—”

  Dorrie interrupted with a shriek. “You’re on the wrong side of the road, you madwoman! We’re about to have a head-on collision!”

  “It’s the British influence, dearie. You won’t get used to it in a week, but you’ll be able to open your eyes in a few days.”

  Theo opened his eyes to a squint. “Aren’t we driving too fast for this … ah, road?”

  “It’s an island tradition to drive like a bat out of hell. The Jamaicans put a dozen bodies in a little car and take off as if it were the opening of the Indy 500. Your car is at the villa, but I suggest you take great care until you’ve had a chance to observe the road conditions and customs. Eli will be available to drive you wherever you wish, or run errands for you. He’s the lawn and pool boy, and has separate quarters in a room under the pool.”

  “A veritable troll,” murmured Trey.

  “If you say so.” Gerry glanced at him in the rearview mirror with a vague smile.

  “Trey’s an authority on trolls,” Bitsy contributed. “It was his major until he was tossed out of school for the fifth time. Or was it the sixth?”

  “Darling, I didn’t know you cared enough to count.”

  “At least I can count.”

  Theo gazed out the window at the lush green foliage of the landscape, wondering not for the first time why he had consented to accompany the house party, which held little promise of being the least bit “delightful.” Two hundred species of wild orchids would not compensate for seven days of sniping, bickering, snarling, and whatever else arose. It was, however, too late to do much about it.

  The road curved up into a sloping mountainside of villas, each protected with a high fence and gate. The yards were manicured stretches of green, shaded by towering poinsettias and royal poincianas, palms and tamarind trees, shrubs thick with bright orange flowers and explosions of scarlet. A few cars with tourists crept along the broad streets, while dark-skinned women walked purposefully, baskets balanced on their heads.

  They arrived at the gate of the villa with only a few more muffled gasps. A black man who appeared to be in his early twenties unlocked the padlock and pulled back the gate, then gave Gerry a deferential nod as she drove through and up the steep driveway.

  “That was Eli,” she said, parking beside a short flight of steps that led to a terrace. “This is your home for the next week, and I do hope you have a lovely time. Amelia has purchased enough supplies for a day or two, then you can make a list and have Eli take her to the market. The fruit and vegetable truck will come by daily, and the fish truck every few days. You can purchase live lobsters from them if they have any after the hotel and restaurant rounds.”

  “And the brewski truck?” Sandy asked as he helped Bitsy out of the backseat. “Every hour, I hope.”

  “You’ll find a complete selection of liquor in a cabinet in the kitchen and several cases of chilled beer in the refrigerator,” Gerry said. “I’ve been at this job for twenty years, and I know what our visitors want in their first five minutes.”

  Dorrie snorted as she joined Theo in the driveway. “Some of our visitors seem to prefer physical contact, particularly with men who have forgotten preexisting relationships.”

  Gerry introduced Eli, who had followed the station wagon up the driveway, and instructed him to unload the luggage. Theo picked up his suitcase and followed the group into the vill
a, which seemed to consist of at least three levels. The door from the driveway led to the main floor, with a kitchen in back and a dining room with wide French doors that opened onto a terrace. A few steps down from the terrace was a crystal blue pool surrounded by a deck. The bedrooms were presumably upstairs; the living room was on a lower level beyond the dining room. By the time Theo assimilated all the steps, the group had assembled in the living room.

  “Can you believe this?” Dorrie whispered in a thoroughly awed voice. “This is a movie set, right? Early bordello—right down to the red velvet, the fringe on the drapery swags, and that absurd loveseat just begging for a hooker to sprawl across it. Mary Margaret, you are going to be in your element.”

  “Dorrie,” Biff began reproachfully, “you shouldn’t speak to—”

  “Let’s get the bedroom situation arranged,” she continued. “I really must wash my face. Some of you may have less hygienic goals, but I can already tell this humidity is going to cause all sorts of problems with my complexion, not to mention my hair. I can almost hear my ends splitting. Come along, everyone; let’s get this over with.”

  There were three bedrooms upstairs. Dorrie, Bitsy, and Mary Margaret took the master, which had three beds and a small balcony overlooking the terrace. Biff and Sandy took the bedroom beside the girls’, and Theo found himself relegated to the smallest. Trey agreed to the room off the living room, murmuring that he did not believe in roommates unless they were also sprightly, imaginative bedmates. No one volunteered.

  Theo unpacked his suitcase, hung his shirts in the closet, aligned his shoes in an esthetically pleasing formation, arranged his toiletries to his satisfaction in the minute bathroom, and then went downstairs. Dorrie joined him as he crossed the dining room, her face ominously composed. Gerry was waiting on the terrace beside the pool. A dark, thin woman with a dour expression stood beside her, a notebook in her hand.

  “This is Amelia,” Gerry said. “She has a list of the provisions already purchased, and will sit down to do menus whenever you wish. However, she has prepared a Jamaican chicken recipe for tonight, if that’s acceptable to you.”

  Dorrie had spent more time with the help than she had with her parents. “Let me check the invoices against the provisions and get it done with,” she said, holding out her hand for the notebook. “I’ll do menus tomorrow morning after breakfast, Amelia. I dread things dangling over me.”

  The cook slapped the notebook in Dorrie’s palm. “You find everything will match, miss. I don’ cheat like some of the trash I know.”

  “Well, of course not,” Dorrie said, shrinking back for a second as Connecticut protocol deserted her. Connecticut help did not challenge their betters—if they wanted steady employment. “I wasn’t suggesting any such thing. It’s simply basic procedure, like counting the silver after a dinner party.”

  “You can count forks if you want, miss. I got better flatware at home than they keep here.” Amelia strode toward the kitchen.

  Dorrie’s eyelashes fluttered as she stared at the departing back. “My goodness, she’s rather temperamental, isn’t she?”

  “But she’s a marvelous cook,” Gerry said. “I’ll go to the kitchen with you and help you get started, then perhaps we might have a pitcher of rum punch by the pool while we discuss your plans for the week. I have brochures, maps, information about the train, names and telephone numbers for charter boats, and all that sort of thing. We’ll meet your uncle out by the pool in a few minutes.”

  Theo agreed to the plan and went down the steps to the patio surrounding the pool. He pulled a chair under the shade of a slightly tattered umbrella, took off his bifocals and polished them, then put them on the nearby table and leaned back, his eyes closed.

  When he opened them, he found himself looking at two large, white, unfettered breasts. The nipples, he noted in confused alarm, were precisely the purplish shade of the Cattleya vio-lacea, a rather common orchid that he had, before his retirement from the florist industry, used in many a corsage.

  Mary Margaret smiled smugly as she picked up a towel and covered herself. “My deepest apologies, Mr. Bloomer. I presumed you were asleep. I never dreamed I might embarrass you.”

  “I was indeed asleep,” Theo managed to say, suddenly realizing the necessity of again polishing his bifocals. “Although it was more of a catnap. At my age, I find a few moments will often refresh me, and I must admit the hours on the airplane were tiring. I had no idea that you—ah, you were preparing to sunbathe in a … a natural state. Please don’t think for a second that I was perpetrating a vulgar ruse in order to … to behave in an ungentlemanly fashion.”

  “Never in my wildest fantasies, Mr. Bloomer.” She picked up a straw basket and strolled toward the far side of the pool. She spread out a second towel, then lay down to expose her bare back to the sun. Her rounded rump was covered, albeit unsuccessfully, by a very small black triangle. Theo assumed it was intentional. He was not especially surprised when her hand did something mysterious and the black triangle was discarded. He admired the clarity of the water in the pool, then challenged himself to name the plants in the yard. All of them, one by one.

  He had identified a cestrum, a malpighia, and a climbing vine he suspected was a cissus when Dorrie and Gerry came across the terrace and pulled up deck chairs on either side of him.

  Behind them, a short black woman carried a tray with a pitcher, an ice bucket, several glasses, and a plate of crackers. Gerry introduced her as Emelda, the maid.

  “Hope you like my rum punch, Mr. Bloomer,” she said, her round face wrinkling as she smiled at him. “I make the best punch on the island, or so they tell me.”

  “I’m sure it will prove excellent,” Theo said. Once she had gone, he looked at Dorrie. “Everything under control in the kitchen, my dear?”

  “I suppose so, although we’re having peculiar things for dinner, and I’m not sure what the others will think. Callaloo, cho-cho, peas and rice, and a chicken dish that actually may have potential.” She gazed at Mary Margaret’s inert form, then turned to Gerry. “It is vital, however, that I do menus immediately. I do think we’ll be safer with lobster, shrimp, steaks, and that sort of thing.”

  “But you ought to sample the Jamaican food while you’re here,” Gerry said. “I’m sure Amelia will prepare ackee and salt fish for breakfast, along with fried plantains, bammies, and boiled green bananas if she can get them.”

  Dorrie gave Theo a look reminiscent of a lab bunny facing a twelve-inch hypodermic needle. “I’d better speak to her at once,” she said as she scrambled out of her chair and hurried toward the house.

  Theo took the proffered glass of rum punch from Gerry. “In one sense, Dorrie is terribly sophisticated, but in another she’s as provincial as a native who’s never left the island. Her parents have taken her to Europe several times, but they always stay in American hotel chains where they can count on English-speaking waiters to serve bacon and eggs for breakfast. Her father almost had a stroke when first confronted with a continental breakfast.”

  “Tell me about this group, Theo. They are somewhat younger than most of my clients, and they seem awfully uptight for a bunch of college kids on spring break.”

  He took a moment to recall what he could of Dorrie’s commentary on the airplane. “Well, Sandy, the blond-haired boy, attends naval academy. His mother is solid Baltimore money, his father a stern, harrumphing sort who stresses discipline and personal sacrifice. Sandy and Biff are old prep school chums, with lots of holiday visiting and yachting in the summer.”

  “And Biff belongs to the red-haired girl?”

  “That seems to be an issue at the moment,” Theo confessed. “Biff is reputedly engaged to my niece, Dorrie, although I don’t believe it’s official yet and no dates have been discussed that I’m aware of.”

  Gerry stared at the figure across the pool. “Oh, dear, I could see the fireworks going off, but I wasn’t sure why. The redhead has the moves of a hungry tigress; I can understand why your
niece is storming around the kitchen.”

  “It’s actually her normal behavior.” He then explained the volatile situation between Trey and Bitsy, which earned a few ill-disguised snickers of laughter from Gerry, who was clearly amused by the complexities of the house party. “I merely intend to survive the week,” he concluded stiffly.

  “Marie Antoinette said the same during the French Revolution, Theo. But for now, let me show you the brochures concerning the boat and train rides, the beach parties at the hotels, the great houses and gardens, and all the touristy things in the area.”

  They were discussing botanical gardens when Biff, Sandy, and Bitsy, now dressed in bathing suits and carrying towels, suntan lotion, magazines, and other necessary paraphernalia to battle the sun, came out of the house and down the steps to the pool deck. Sandy and Bitsy continued around to the table with the pitcher and glasses, but Biff, after a furtive peek at the terrace, turned the opposite way and sat down next to Mary Margaret.

  When Dorrie returned to the terrace, she stopped to stare at the two whispering together, their faces no more than a foot apart. For a moment, Theo thought she might stomp her foot or even snatch up an ashtray to hurl at the treacherous duo, but she gained control of herself and glided down the stairs with a serene smile. Caldicotts avoided public displays, relying on more subtle forms of vengeance. Nadine had produced more than one nervous breakdown through strategic manipulation of seating arrangements at dinner parties.

  Once Dorrie had a glass of rum punch in her hand, she crossed her legs and looked at Gerry. “I had a discussion with Amelia about the breakfast menu. Are you aware that this ackee thing is poisonous if not handled properly?”

  “That’s what we’re having for breakfast?” Sandy said from his chaise in the sun. He grasped his neck and produced a gurgling noise. “I’d rather croak with a decent tan so Mummy can have an open casket. Can’t we wait until the last morning for the fateful dish?”