“No, I suppose that is unexplainable,” Pierre said. “Can you tell me why you so thoroughly bleached your room?”
Pierre waited.
“No?Can you explain why Mr. Crist’s blood was found in the drain of your sink?” Pierre waited. “No?You have no answers to any of this?”
“I’d like to speak to an attorney,” Grace said.
Pierre continued to hover. After his outburst, the only noise in the room came from the hum of the air conditioner. The silence was broken when the door swung open.
“Sir,” an officer said as he poked his head into the room. “We need you down on the beach. We’ve found something.”
CHAPTER 9
“FIFTEEN MINUTES,” THE GUARD SAID.
Sidney nodded and looked back to Grace. “If I can frame it correctly, and explain away the doubts and misinformation about Allison Harbor and Daniel Greaves, I can imagine your love story with Julian making up the early narrative of the documentary. I can see this pulling the audience onto your side. But eventually the guts of the film will delve into Julian’s murder. I’ll have to present the case against you, Grace. Before I can refute the claims or highlight any inconsistencies, I’ll need to show the audience everything that convicted you. All the evidence.”
“I understand,” Grace said.
“The problem is, there’s a helluva lot to show. The print that puts you on the bluff, the blood in your room, the cleanup.”
Grace exhaled and shook her head in defeat. “I just want the opportunity to tell my side. When viewed only through the lens the detectives offer, even I wonder how so much evidence could exist against me. But please remember that everything about this investigation was tainted, from the collection of evidence to the analysis. From the physicalevidence to the DNA evidence to the proposed motives and methods . . . Sidney, it’s all contrived. It was wrong then and it’s still wrong today, ten years later. The detectives did exactly what they’re trainednotto do. They picked a suspect first, and then looked for evidence that supported their theory. And the problem with investigating a crime in that manner is that any evidence they came across that didn’t support their theory was ignored or discarded.”
Sidney nodded. She paused before she spoke again.
“But the murder weapon, Grace. It’s a sticking point for me, and likely will be for the audience.”
The Girl of Sugar Beach
“Pilot” Episode
*Based on the interview with Claude Pierre
Pierre placed Grace Sebold under arrest. Two officers led her, hands cuffed behind her back, through the atrium and placed her in the back of a police car. Pierre headed with another officer in the opposite direction, through the lobby and toward Sugar Beach. He walked past the pool, where vacationers elbowed themselves up on deck chairs at the sight of Inspector Pierre and the officer hurrying by. Pierre stepped onto the soft sand of Sugar Beach and made his way past the open-dining restaurant, where breakfast was being enjoyed amid a cacophony of chiming plates and silverware. Those on holiday seemed oblivious to the fact that a guest had washed up on shore two days before.
“We roped it off as soon as we found it, sir,” the officer said as they walked.
Pierre followed the officer down the beach until they reached the water-sport hut. Yellow tape blocked the entrance of the freestanding structure, which consisted of a palm-thatched roof that sat atop four stucco walls. Beige tile surrounded the shack, offering a break from the sand. It was here that guests rented all sorts of water-sport equipment: snorkels and fins, boogie boards and volleyballs. Because of the calm waters off Sugar Beach, and the protected location of Pitons Bay, stand-up paddleboarding was a popular attraction. A long row of yellow paddleboards stood in the sand to the side of the hut.
“What did you find?” Pierre asked.
The young officer offered a pair of latex gloves, which Pierre slipped over his hands as he entered the hut. The beige tile led him inside, and the interior of the shack was as meticulously maintained as the rest of the resort. Snorkel masks and scuba gear hung neatly from the walls: fins and vests and wet suits and regulators. Scuba tanks stood in organized fashion along an adjacent wall.
“Here, sir,” the officer said as they walked to the back wall, which was covered with kayak and paddleboard oars. The officer pointed a flashlight into the back corner of the hut. A long, wooden oar stood haphazardly in the corner, resting sidelong with the handle on the tile floor and the blade wedged into the corner.
“It looked out of place because it was not hanging with the rest of the oars. When I took a closer look, I noticed this,” the officer said as he placed the beam of his flashlight close to the paddle.
Pierre leaned down. Without taking his eyes off the paddle, he waved his index finger at the officer and took the flashlight, placing it inches from the wooden blade. He ran the light down the shaft, then back up.
“Has anyone touched this oar?”
“No, sir. The activities hut has been vacant since Thursday morning when the beach was cordoned off. As soon as I noticed the paddle, I roped off the hut and put a call in for you.”
“Well done. Get the crime scene men back down here.”
As the officer hurried from the hut, Pierre continued to stare at the speckles of blood that covered the blade of the paddle.
A clear plastic tube preserved the wooden paddleboard oar as if it were on display at a museum. It rested next to Dr. Mundi as he stood at the autopsy table. He was finishing the postmortem of a St. Lucian man killed the night before during a drug deal gone awry.
