Trouble in Paradise - страница 9

“My mama didn’t believe in wasting food,” Toni said.

“Your mama wouldn’t have let you say the word ‘french fry,’ ” I said.

Toni gave me an icy glare, then turned to Erica. “Can we walk there? Or do we need a cab?”

“We can walk,” Erica said. “It’s just a few minutes.”

Erica led the way. The Harbor Outdoor Market was a series of connected stalls on the waterfront where lots of brightly colored gewgaws stamped ARUBA were sold-nearly all of which were manufactured in the United States. It reminded me of an upscale version of the boardwalk in Venice, California.

Just feet away, the afternoon sunlight danced across the gently undulating water in the harbor. I deliberately turned my head to block out the sight. We moved from one stall to the next, showing Tammy Susie’s photo and, as before, getting nowhere. Suddenly, Erica stopped, her cell phone held out in front of her with both hands. “Shit, shit, shit!” she cried.

“What?” I asked.

“They keep texting me, asking me about Tammy Susie. ‘Did she find her skirt? Where are you now? Have you given her lunch?’ Damn it!”

“Who keeps texting you?” Toni asked.

“The producers! All day long. And now they’re telling me to bring her back to the hotel!”

“What’ve you told them so far?” I asked.

“That she was fine, still hasn’t found the skirt she wants. Stuff to buy some time.”

I considered our depressing lack of progress and looked down the row of stalls. We didn’t have many more to go. “Let’s get through this market and then you can text them that you’re coming back. Better to tell them about Tammy Susie in person.”

Erica nodded, tight-lipped, more nervous than ever. We resumed our hunt but to no avail, and within ten minutes we’d reached the end of the row. We were waiting for Bailey to wrap up her conversation with the last vendor when I noticed something shiny under the canvas partition of his stall. I nudged it with my toe, and it slid out. It was a cell phone with a Hello Kitty cover.

“Oh my God!” Erica lunged for it. “That’s Tammy Susie’s phone!”

I held her back. “It might have prints. Let me do it.” I gingerly picked it up without touching the front or back. Now we knew why she hadn’t called. But the discovery was almost as puzzling as it was alarming. “Why would the kidnapper let her keep the phone this long? Why not take it from her right away?”

“Maybe the kidnapper was the one who dropped it,” Bailey said. She carefully took it from me and used a pen to scroll through the recent calls. “Nothing in or out since this morning.”

Toni voiced my thought. “Regardless of who dropped the thing, it’s pretty amateurish.”

I was about to say that, given the low crime rates, most criminals around here probably were amateurs, but at that moment, I noticed a sign across the street advertising MADAM JUNAIDA, PREMIER FORTUNE-TELLER.

“Didn’t you say Tammy Susie was about to do a show where the whole family visits a fortune-teller?” I pointed to the sign.

Erica shook her head. “That’s not the one they were going to use for the show.” But she was more than happy to grasp at any straw, no matter how slim, if it meant delaying our return to the hotel without Tammy Susie.

And so off we went to see the fortune-teller. Madam Junaida, a tiny, dark woman with a mass of fuzzy black hair piled high on her head and long dangling earrings, answered the door with a flourish. In spite of her small stature, she had a supremely imperial air about her. I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing.

I’d expected a fortune-teller on a Caribbean island to be more exotic and mysterious than what we had in the States, but Madam Junaida’s setup would’ve been right at home in any suburb in Southern California-or any late-night infomercial. She swept through a glass-beaded curtain, and we followed her into a darkened room. At the center was a table surrounded by several red velvet-covered chairs. The only thing missing was a crystal ball.

I pulled out my cell and showed her the photo of Tammy Susie. I started to ask if she recognized the picture, but she abruptly held up a hand that clanked loudly with the movement of at least a dozen bangles. “Please! Respect my process. All of you, sit down.”