The Truth May Not Always Set You Free
By: Melinda Crow
Tags: Scuba Diving, Outdoors, Ninjabyob, Fiction, Suspense

FICTION

The Truth May Not Always Set You Free

And freedom could be everything

Bonaire scuba diving. Photo by Gary Crow

Silence, once established, grows palpable before becoming impenetrable. The front door to the condo closed behind them. Drew walked straight through and out the sliding glass backdoors into the shaded courtyard. Jordan, still lost in her thoughts of Anika, felt weak and overheated. She kicked off her sandals, hoping the cool tile on bare feet would slow the spread of heat washing over her.

She wanted to curl up on the floor and put her cheek to the tile. But the damn shoulder in its awkward sling was a physical restraint to almost everything. She settled for slumping onto the couch beneath the ceiling fan.

Why hadn’t she told the police that she’d met Anika? She and Drew were innocent. She had to assume that the husband had killed her. What didn’t make sense was the scuba gear. Anika had said neither she nor her husband were divers. How could she have been found wearing gear? Did she try to dive alone to put her mother’s ashes on the reef?

Nausea churned up inside her. She struggled to get a breath. She bolted back upright, jarring her shoulder in the process.

“Oww.” Clutching her arm, she repositioned and tried to focus on taking deep breaths and not throwing up on the floor. If she had attempted to dive without knowing how, then it’s my fault for planting the idea, she thought. Oh, Anika. I’m so sorry. I might have stopped whatever happened to you. Tears threatened. The lump in her throat was tight. Don’t cry, dammit. You know Drew won’t talk to you if you’re crying. Pull yourself together.

She went to the tiny condo kitchen and fixed two plastic tumblers of ice water. She struggled with the logistics of carrying them both to the back door with her left hand essentially strapped to her waist in the sling. Opening the door was yet another challenge, but she managed.

Drew saw her through the glass door but made no move to help. He ignored the tumbler of water she placed on the table next to him before she awkwardly landed on the lounger beside his.

The silence remained until she broke it. “I’m scared.”

“Of what?” Drew swiveled to look at her, finally. “Oh, wait, of the police you just lied to? I almost forgot. What the actual fuck, Jordan?”

“Why did you go along? I would have changed my story and said we saw her if you had.”

“Wow. So, you missed the part where I was backing you up? The fact that since you lied to the police, I had no choice but to cover for you?”

The silence returned. When Drew spoke again it was with a calmer voice. “Can you tell me why? The woman was nothing to us. Who cares if we talked to her a few days ago? We’ve talked to dozens of people since then. You might even have provided clues to the police by describing her bruises and telling them what she said about her husband.”

“I know. I didn’t want to be involved.”

“We are involved. But not like normal people would be. Normal people would have told the police what they knew and been done with it. Wanna know what I think? I think you somehow feel guilty for your mother’s crimes and go around putting yourself in the path of trouble. You never should have even talked to that woman, but the fact that you did was something you should have shared with the police.”

“I think it was my fault.” Her words got his attention.

“How could it possibly be your fault?” He instinctively looked around. There was a patio adjoining theirs on one side and a breezeway between other condos on the other side. There was no one in sight.

“We should have done something to get her out of there. It was obvious that her husband was abusing her. We should have at least called the police and reported it.” She hesitated, fearing his reaction to what she said next. “Plus, I may have given her the idea to go scuba diving to put her mother’s ashes on the reef. I knew she wasn’t a diver, I never thought she would attempt it herself.”

His reaction surprised her. Instead of more anger, his level of alertness of their surroundings increased ten-fold.

Jordan kept talking. “The whole thing at the hospital felt off. Like why did the officers even talk to us? My accident was a long way from where they found her.”

“Off in what way? The police overheard the doctor dictating his notes. Nothing ‘off’ about that.”

“I gave her my name. What if they found the piece of paper at her villa? It also had our condo number.”

Drew was up in a flash. “Inside. Now.”

Once the sliding glass door was secured behind him, Drew turned on her. “Do you have any idea how bad an idea that was? Even if the woman hadn’t floated up at the salt pier, it was stupid. We don’t tell anybody where we’re staying except the dive shop. What were you thinking? And yes, the police probably found your name in her condo. That’s gonna look really good when they put that together with your lies this morning.”

Jordan was speechless. And angry. “Then we should just go. You heard the doctor. I need to go home to have surgery. Justice is iffy on these islands. They’ll try to blame us. They’ll blame me. I’m not following in my mother’s footsteps. I am not going to jail for something I didn’t do. The sooner we get off the island, the better.”

Drew turned away from the front door after checking the front walkway. “First of all, your mother was guilty. Secondly, for someone so smart, you don’t read between the lines very well. What they meant when they said, ‘perhaps you will enjoy our hospitality a bit longer,’ was that they have flagged our passports. Even without a pandemic, baby, we aren’t going anywhere until they say we can. The woman is dead, and they want answers.”

“Anika,” Jordan said. “Her name was Anika.”

Drew sighed. “You don’t know her. Stop superimposing your own mother onto her. She was a stranger on the beach. Nothing else.”

“I’m not ‘superimposing’ anybody onto anybody.”

“Really? Then why didn’t you tell the police what you knew? Who were you protecting?”

“Us, dammit. It felt like the police knew something they weren’t telling us.”

“Yes. They weren’t telling us that they knew we had talked to her. It’s what police do. They try to trap guilty people in their lies.”

Jordan was overwhelmed with the idea that she might really be accused of killing Anika. She fell back onto the couch.

“Listen. We’ll figure this out. We should probably go to the police station and tell them we forgot we met a stranger on the beach when we dove at Andrea. In the meantime, I’m gonna walk over to the dive shop and talk to that guy Luis. He’s talkative. Maybe he’s heard something. Maybe they’ve already figured out it was an accident. Besides, I need to find out what Pieter’s schedule is so we can get your lights.”

She looked at him as if he were a crazy person, worrying about dive lights when she might be facing a Dutch murder trial.

“You know, in case we have to make a quick getaway in the dark. We’ll need all the flashlights we can carry.” He smiled at her, trying to make light of the situation. “Come lock the door behind me. I’ll be back shortly.”

Jordan plopped down at the dining table. Several minutes passed before she looked over at her laptop. She opened it and used her one good hand to type into the search box “Bonaire news,” but there was nothing about the incident at the salt pier. It was too soon for a small island press. She typed “Anika Bonaire.” The search results included an assortment of local stories featuring girls and women named Anika. There was a new real estate agent in town by that name, but she was blonde and twenty-something. There were several schoolgirls named Anika, some on winning sports teams, others with top grades in their class. It was apparently a popular name.

There was nothing more she could do to research the Anika she met on the beach without a last name. She kept scrolling until she heard the front door handle jiggle.

She was relieved that it was Drew and rushed to greet him. “I’m sorry I got us into this mess.”

“It’s okay,” he said. “Luis doesn’t know Pieter, so no lights for our escape, but he said never trust the island police. He said you can never be certain whose pockets they’re in. He reminds me of that French dude in Casablanca. The one Rick makes friends with at the end.”

“Louis.”

“What? No, it’s Luis; with an s.”

“Louis, like Vuitton. The French guy in Casablanca.”

“Ah. Funny their names are so similar and they kind of look alike.”

“Even funnier that Louis in Casablanca was as dirty as cops come.”