“I hope not to disturb anything,” the officer said as he floated the body over toward shore.
Dr. Mundi looked around the beach. “The scene has already been terribly disturbed.” He turned and waved again, this time to his crew who waited farther up the beach toward the resort. “We’ll need photographs,” he said as his crew made their way down to the shore.
The crime scene unit snapped photos of the dead man who floated facedown in the ocean. A combination of death and salt water bleached the skin on the dead man’s arms and legs as they poked through his shirtsleeves and shorts. Distended and waterlogged, the pallid wedge of skin between his shirt collar and hairline looked like soft bread dough ready to go in the oven. Dr. Mundi’s crew carefully rotated the body onto its back, exposing the face and chest. More photos followed until they secured the body in a black vinyl bag. The technicians carried it across the beach and up to the pool area, where a gurney waited on solid ground. They loaded the gurney onto the back of a tuk-tuk and transported the dead man up the steep hills of the resort and into the parking lot, where Dr. Mundi’s van waited. By now, a few guests had caught wind of the police activity and noticed the crime scene tape near the beach. They gathered in small groups and whispered to one another about what might have happened.
“Inspector.”
Pierre looked up from the beach and saw a young officer standing on a bluff high up on Gros Piton. His hands were around his mouth to act as a megaphone.
“Better come up and check this out.”
Inspector Pierre stood atop the bluff on Gros Piton and looked down at the Caribbean Sea, where two divers floated on the surface and stared into the shallow waters looking for anything that seemed out of the ordinary. The crime scene unit was combing the sand of Sugar Beach searching for evidence. On the bluff, Pierre ordered his deputies to bag the blanket that covered the granite, along with the champagne bottle and two flutes, which were standing eerily alone.
He had already placed twelve inverted V-shaped placards around the bluff, labeled by number. The first stood by a blood splatter on the granite; another by a larger collection of blood that had pooled farther down the bluff from the original splatter. A shoeprint in the dirt just off the bluff was also labeled. Pierre stood by while an officer took photos of each of the areas marked by yellow placards. Another officer meticulously videotaped the entire scene, sweeping the bluff from one side to the other, capturing the blanket and the champagne and the blood. The video was for the detectives, so they could later revisit the crime scene to unearth clues they had missed initially. They had no idea that a decade later this footage would play across American televisions during a true-crime documentary.
Dr. Mundi came to the bluff and took a spot next to Pierre, also peering down into the water where the body had been discovered.
“You don’t suppose it was a simple accident? Perhaps too much alcohol and poor balance?” Mundi asked.
“Not unless he spat blood before he fell.” Pierre pointed to the blood splattered across the granite.
Dr. Mundi surveyed the dozen yellow markers, which suggested signs of foul play. He nodded. “Very well. I will have a look at the body back at my mortuary.”
“Maybe suicide,” Pierre said. “But that doesn’t account for the blood.”
“I’ll know soon enough,” Dr. Mundi said.
“Keep me on top of things.”
“Same.” Dr. Mundi left the bluff and headed down to the beach.
“Inspector,” the young officer said again as he approached. “It appears one of the guests at the resort is missing.”
“Name?”
“Julian Crist. An American.”
CHAPTER 4
“YES,” INSPECTOR PIERRE SAID AFTER THEY HAD SETTLED AT THEconference table, cups of coffee in front of them.
For a country with an average daily temperature in the mid-eighties, coffee was an oddly popular drink in St. Lucia. Sidney had the interview recorded from multiple angles. The first was a shot over Sidney’s shoulder that captured the inspector’s responses straight on, with an occasional glance of the back of Sidney’s head. Other viewpoints came from a second cameraman, who moved from side to side, recording for a few minutes before moving to a new location, which occasionally framed Sidney’s face as she asked her questions, but which mostly concentrated on Claude Pierre.
“After Julian’s body was discovered, we were called onto the scene,” Pierre said. “The beach was cleared and taped off, and the medical examiner was brought in to handle the body. Our forensic team as well.”
Sidney had notes on her lap that the cameraman was careful to leave out of the shot. The goal, when Sidney was in the scene, was to give the appearance of a neutral journalist curiously asking questions about the case.
“What do you remember about Julian Crist’s body from that morning?”
“When I arrived, the body was floating in shallow waters off the beach. I remember the way he was inverted, even to this day. His feet came in first and his torso and head were still underwater, like the sea was trying to take him, but the beach wouldn’t allow it.”
“Do you remember anything specific about Julian’s body?”
“I remember most vividly the head trauma. It was nearly all I could notice when the medical examiner’s crew pulled him onto land.”
“It was determined Julian had died from a blow to the back of the head. Is that correct?”
“Ultimately, yes. But at the scene that morning, it was assumed he had fallen from Gros Piton.”
