Trouble in Paradise Read online

  Going back outside, I wandered through the downtown area until I found a grocery store that was open. “Do you sell newspapers?” I asked the old lady sitting on a wooden crate at the entrance.

  “Why you don’t wait till mornin’?” she suggested. “Get a fresh one. These here from today.”

  “That’s okay—even better, in fact. Here you go.” I fished in my pocket and gave her a five-dollar bill.

  “I gotta get you change,” she said, starting to get up.

  “That’s okay, keep it,” I told her, grabbing three or four back editions of the local paper, The Island Gazette.

  Then I went over to the park that separated the restaurant area from the port. I found a bench with a streetlight overhead, took a seat, and settled down to do some research.

  Surprisingly, I didn’t find anything on the front page about the disappearance of Esteban. On the other hand, there were lots of references to the discovery of the wreck.

  Here’s what I managed to piece together: The Santa Inez was a Spanish galleon—a humongous ship for its day and age (the late 1500s). She’d been found in a deep-water trench between two coral reefs, about twelve miles north of St. John.

  There was a lot of arguing going on among the Spanish, British, and American governments about which country had the rights to any treasure found on board. In the meantime, the U.S. Coast Guard and the National Park Service had been keeping watch over the site, to make sure bounty hunters didn’t move in and steal it all before it could be counted.

  The articles hinted that some theft might already have taken place. A box of coins called doubloons, dating back to the exact year of the ship’s sinking, had been seized in New York. The police in Miami had recovered a silver wine flask with SANTA INEZ engraved on it and a sword inscribed with the name of the ship’s captain.

  According to the papers, diving in the area of the wreck was extremely dangerous, because of swift currents and schools of hungry sharks. The articles warned readers to stay away, under threat of arrest by the coast guard or park rangers.

  There were a few updates on the back pages about Esteban, too—mostly saying that police and the FBI were following up leads, but that as yet there had been no break in the case.

  I knew why the articles had been buried that way—no one on this beautiful island wanted tourists to be scared away. It was the same reason that rumors about a sunken treasure ship were plastered all over the front page—in order to lure more curious tourists down here.

  I wondered if Esteban Calderon had read about the Santa Inez. Could his trip down here, and his subsequent disappearance, have had anything to do with the ship’s discovery?

  “Joe!”

  I put my paper down. Frank was running toward me, looking worried.

  “Hey, bro—what’s up?” I asked.

  “Someone’s been in our room,” he said.

  “Anything missing?”

  “Not that I could see.”

  “Hmmm. They didn’t take our credit cards and cash, huh?”

  “Nope. Maybe they don’t care about our money.”

  That bothered me. It meant that my previous theory—that Esteban had taken off for his own reasons—didn’t hold up. It meant his disappearance might really be a kidnapping.

  It also meant that someone knew we were here to look into it.

  Not good news.

  I told Frank about the sunken treasure ship.

  “You think there’s a connection?” he asked.

  “I have no idea. I know one thing, though—money makes people do some pretty awful things.”

  “Like kidnapping?”

  “Oh, definitely.”

  “Even murder?”

  “You said it, I didn’t.” But I’d thought it.

  “That would be bad,” Frank said.

  “It sure would. But hey, look on the bright side—nobody’s found any bodies yet. This gig could work out just fine.”

  “Hmm. What are the odds?”

  I thought about it. “I’m not a betting man, mind you—but if I were, I wouldn’t play this hand.”

  Frank sat next to me on the bench, his elbows resting on his knees, his chin in his hands.

  “Hey, bro, cheer up,” I told him. “It’s a crime to be bummed out when you’re in paradise.”

  “I’m not bummed out,” he said. “I’m just thinking.”

  “About what?”

  “About that girl, Jenna.”

  “Frank’s got a cru-ush,” I sang softly.

  “Cut it out, Joe,” he said, his face serious and worried. “She told me something … something that affects the case.”

  “Oh, yeah? What?”

  “She saw Esteban with two other guys that night. Mean-looking guys. But she didn’t tell the police after the disappearance, because she got a threatening phone call warning her not to talk.”

  “Oooh. Lead number one,” I said. Obviously, it had to be the same two guys MaryAnn saw at Rasta Pete’s. “Well, that seals it. We’re definitely dealing with some kind of major crime here.”

  “I would not disagree with that,” he said. “So now what do we do?”

  “Well, I don’t know about you, but I still haven’t had my dinner. Let’s go have some food for thought.”

  We picked out a place called Vi’s Snack Shack. It was tiny, funky, and open to the park. Vi, a middle-aged lady with a permanent smile on her face, was both the owner and our waitress.

  “How y’all doin’?” she asked.

  “Fine, fine,” we said.

  “What a beautiful night, huh?”

  “Oh. Yeah,” we said.

  “We got johnnycake, curried goat, and meat pies.”

  “What kind of meat?” I asked.

  “Goat.”

  “Anything else?” Frank asked.

  “Smoothies. Sodas. Lemonade.”

  “I’ll have the johnnycake,” I said. “And a lemonade.”

  “Me too,” Frank said.

  “The meat is good,” she assured us. “Johnny-cake ain’t enough for two growin’ boys!”

  “We’re not that hungry,” Frank explained.

  “Um, Vi—do you know anything about that sunken ship?” I asked her. “You know, the one everybody’s talking about?”

  “I know ain’t nobody s’posed to go divin’ out there,” she said. “Park rangers tellin’ everyone to stay away.” Then she laughed. “But some people goin’ anyhow.”

  “Yeah?” I asked. “Who in particular?”

  “Oh, I ain’t sayin’,” she said, still laughing. “You boys gonna get me in trouble. Ha!”

  She went to get our johnnycakes and lemonade. When she came back with them, she said, “You boys eatin’ dessert for dinner. ’Tain’t healthy. Sure you don’t want some nice curried goat?”

  “Not this time,” I said.

  Just the thought of it totally killed my appetite. It made me think of the live goats I’d seen all over Cruz Bay. People around here kept them as pets, but they doubled as garbage disposal units—and apparently, as dinner, too!

  After we’d eaten our dinners—which really were desserts—I went up to the counter to pay the check.

  “Um, listen, Vi, my brother and I want to go diving out there—you know, check out the wreck. You think you could hook us up with a dive boat?”

  “Oh, I don’ know,” she said. Her smile was still there, but it was looking mighty shaky.

  “We can pay,” I assured her.

  “How much?”

  “Plenty.” I took out our wad of cash and waved it in the air. Then I peeled off a twenty and handed it to her. “That’s an advance on your share. You can find us at the Buccaneer’s Lair. Joe and Frank Hardy.”

  After we’d left the restaurant, Frank asked me what in the world I thought I was doing.

  “If you want to draw flies, you’ve got to spread around some honey,” I told him. “We need to see if there’s a connection between the sunken treasure and our missing person.”
/>   “And?”

  “And, any boat captain who takes people diving out there is risking arrest. People who are willing to do that—well, they tend to know about all kinds of things. If there’s a criminal underworld on this island, they might be connected to it.”

  “Joe, did it ever occur to you that this could be dangerous?”

  That Frank—he’s such a worrier.

  “I already thought of that,” I said. “We give them an advance payment, but we don’t pay them the rest of the money until we’re safely back in Cruz Bay.”

  “And where do we stash all our valuables, since our room doesn’t seem to be safe?”

  “I thought of that one, too. We bury them under a tree.”

  “You really are out of your mind, Joe.”

  “Hey, watch it. You’re not the only brother with ideas, you know. Trust me on this one—if it doesn’t go well, next time we’ll do it your way.”

  “If there is a next time.”

  We went back to our room, retrieved our cash, credit cards, wallets, and everything else of value that we’d brought along. Then we walked down the road to the edge of town.

  “See that tree over there?” I pointed to a royal palm at the edge of the road. In the moonlight, it almost seemed to glow. “Time to bury a little of our own treasure.”

  “You think we’ll be able to find it later?”

  “Dude,” I said “Don’t insult my sense of direction.”

  We buried the big zipper-lock plastic bag containing our valuables and headed back to the hotel. We were just climbing the stairs to our room, when a rumbling voice called out to us from the bottom landing.

  “Ahoy, there!”

  We turned around to look at the face attached to that booming sound. He was about thirty and so tanned that his skin was like leather, and his blond hair, bleached by the sun, was tied back in a long, scraggly ponytail. His barrel of a body was stuffed into a Hawaiian shirt and a huge pair of shorts, and he wore a pair of old rope sandals on his feet.

  “Heard you were lookin’ for a captain to take you out for a sail,” he said. “Name’s Corbin. Corbin St. Clare. But you can call me Cap’n.” He tipped his grimy sailor cap in salute.

  I wondered whether he’d followed us, and whether he’d seen where we’d buried our cash, credit cards, and IDs.

  “I can take you out first thing in the morning,” he went on. “For the right price, of course.”

  “What about diving equipment?” Frank asked.

  “All included,” said Cap’n, giving us a gap-toothed grin. “I’ll meet you down at the far dock, five a.m. Fair enough?”

  SUSPECT PROFILE

  Name: Corbin St. Clare (alias “Cap’n”)

  Hometown: Unknown

  Physical description: Age 30, 6’ 2”, 260 165.; leathery suntanned skin; piercing, squinty blue eyes; long, scraggly blond hair tied in a ponytail; the voice and way of speaking of an old-time pirate.

  Occupation: Dive boat captaion

  Background: a lifelong sailor, he grew up on boats around the port of New Orleans. Raised in a local orphanage, he ran away to sea at age thirteen.

  Suspicious behavior: Willing to lead the boys on an illegal dive for the right price.

  Suspected of: Being part of the island’s criminal underworld.

  Motives: That’s an easy one-the money.

  A young couple appeared—on their way upstairs. They gazed into each other’s eyes, barely noticing the three of us.

  We waited till they were gone and the stairway was deserted again. “How much?” Frank asked.

  “Ah, well,” said the captain, “we can sort that out in the mornin’. But it’s gonna cost you—these dive trips don’t come cheap, y’know.”

  Especially when they’re illegal.

  “See yez there,” he said, tipping his cap. Then he left, making his way out through the hotel lobby.

  “Well,” Frank said, “he doesn’t exactly inspire confidence, does he?”

  “Aw, relax, bro,” I said, clapping him on the shoulder. “You’ve got to stop worrying so much. It’s not good for your health.”

  The next morning Frank’s portable alarm clock jarred us awake at four thirty. The sky outside the window was still pitch-black. I slammed my fist down on the alarm until it stopped, then fought off the strong urge to go right back to sleep.

  Frank was already up and pulling on his bathing suit. “I’ve never gone treasure diving before,” he said, sounding disgustingly cheerful for that hour of the morning. “Can’t wait.”

  “Wait a minute—just last night, weren’t you trying to talk me out of going?”

  He just shrugged, and I was too tired to argue with him. We’d already buried our valuables, so it didn’t take us long to get going. We made our way through the deserted town to the dock, getting there just as the first colors of dawn hit the eastern sky.

  Cap’n was waiting for us, just as promised. His boat, the Leaky Sieve, looked to be perfectly named.

  Suddenly, I was the one who felt like bagging the whole idea. But I couldn’t back down now—how would that look? Frank would think I was nuts, not to mention a wimp!

  “Good to go?” our host asked us.

  “Ready,” Frank said.

  “Me too,” I lied. “Let’s do this thing.”

  We shoved off, and the Leaky Sieve puttered out into the harbor. We rounded the cape and hung a right, heading out toward the reef that protects St. John’s northern shoreline.

  Ahead of us, the morning sun broke over the horizon. To our left was a series of small islets that looked uninhabited. To our right was St. John.

  “That’s Caneel Bay Resort,” Cap’n said, pointing to the famous luxury resort, the island’s only major hotel. “If you can afford to stay there, you don’t need to go diving for sunken treasure.”

  “Speaking of which,” I said, “we never did settle on a price.”

  “Oh. Right.”

  He sounded as if he’d forgotten all about it—as if money didn’t even matter to him. Weird …

  “Guess we’d better agree on a price, eh? How does five hundred sound?”

  “Five hundred!” Frank shouted. “Are you nuts?”

  “Oh, but think of how much you can bring up from the bottom!” Cap’n said, giving us a leering smile. “Just one gold doubloon and you come out ahead, maties!”

  Maties? What was this guy, a pirate?

  He sure looked the part. If I didn’t know it was the twenty-first century, he’d have had me convinced.

  “Make it three hundred,” I said, all business.

  “Four.”

  “Done.”

  “Joe!” Frank complained, but I held up a hand to silence him.

  “Hey—this is my show, remember?”

  “Whatever,” he grumbled, shaking his head.

  “Up front,” Cap’n said.

  “No way,” I countered. “Fifty now, the rest when we’re back in Cruz Bay.”

  He squinted his eyes at me. “I said up front, or we turn back to port.”

  “Fifty’s all I’ve got on me,” I said. It was true, too.

  I pulled the crisp new bill out of my pocket. Then I turned my pockets inside out to show him I wasn’t lying. “See?”

  Cap’n turned to Frank, and Frank did the same. There was nothing in our pockets, of course—just the way I’d planned it.

  “Ah, all right,” Cap’n said, sitting back down and taking the wheel again. “It doesn’t matter anyway, long as I gets paid.”

  “That’s the spirit,” I told him.

  We passed beaches so gorgeous they could have been in movies. Then I realized—they were in movies. If you’ve ever seen a film that takes place on a perfect beach, it was probably filmed on St. John.

  “That’s Trunk Bay,” Cap’n yelled over the noise of the motor, pointing to the shore. “There’s an underwater snorkeling trail there—but where I’m taking you, it’s much more interesting.”

  He winked knowin
gly.

  We turned left, passing over the reef and out between two small islets. We kept going, until there was no land on the horizon in any direction. A little farther out and another reef appeared, a dark patch in the middle of all that beautiful turquoise water.

  “Here we are,” Cap’n said, tossing the anchor overboard and cutting the motor. “Your gear’s back there by the stern—time to suit up.”

  We put our wet suits on, complete with flippers, air tanks, equalizers, and masks.

  “You’re good for an hour down there, but don’t get trapped inside the wreck—I assume you’re certified for wreck diving?”

  “Uh, sure!” I said quickly.

  We weren’t—but we were both fairly experienced divers. I figured we could handle it.

  “The current’s pretty fierce, so don’t let yourselves drift,” he warned. “Oh, and if the coast guard or the Park Service come around, I’ll have to take off.”

  “WHAT?” we both shouted at once.

  “Just for a little while, maties. Till they leave. Then I’ll come back again to get you. I’ll be just the other side of that little island we passed before, lying low. They don’t hang around for too long—soon as they go, I’ll be back.”

  Frank gave me a look, to see if I was okay with that plan. I wasn’t, really, but what choice did we have? If we wanted to get to the bottom of Esteban’s disappearance, we had to see if there was a link to the sunken wreck.

  “We’re good to go,” I said. “Frank?”

  “Ready.”

  We dropped off the side of the boat and let ourselves down along the wall of the reef. Suddenly, we were surrounded by bursts of color—a rainbow of coral and sea life so dazzling that for a minute, I forgot all about the wreck.

  But there it was, resting on the bottom, just beyond the reef and about thirty feet deeper. It was partly buried in sand, but there were openings in the rotting wooden hull through which we could fit.

  I waved to Frank, then led him down and inside the wreck. Using the lights on our masks, we were able to survey the inside of the massive ship.

  Everywhere we looked, there were wooden treasure chests. Most of them were smashed open, and many were empty. There were gold coins scattered everywhere along the sandy bottom.

  Someone had been here before us, and had made away with a whole lot of plunder!