Drowning Lessons Read online

  Walter held back with me for a moment, turning to look at me fondly.

  There was no arguing that he was a good-looking man, one of the few people I knew who were naturally light blond. I’d always thought he resembled someone in one those old photos of the football team at Yale in the 20’s. Very classic.

  We always got along in groups, but never had much to say one-on-one. We both stared at Olivia, talking to one of the snorkeling crew, going over some list in her binder. She then looked up and smiled at the man before giving him a little hug.

  Through all her Bridezilla tendencies, she had a glow about her. She exuded the kind of charisma that made you feel like you were the only person in the room. Her laugh could cheer up any gloomy space. Over thirty years of friendship, her laugh and smile had saved me on more than one occasion.

  She waved to us from the boat, sending kisses our way.

  Walter stared at her adoringly before he said, “Lexie, you’re being a real champ about all this. I know how hard what you are going through is. I also know that she’s got a little over enthusiastic about this wedding. She might not show it right now, but she is so grateful for you. You’re her biggest cheerleader. Maybe she’ll calm down a little now that everyone’s here and all is in motion,” he said hopefully.

  We could both wish.

  “You know Olivia.” I blew a kiss back to her. “You have to cut her a break sometimes. I love her. It’s her week.”

  My focus slowly turned to what in my opinion were rather large waves. Like an overprotective mother, I was already concerned with the swimmers, the riptide, and bubbly champagne brains.

  Together we walked down to the water in silence, wading in ankle deep, and I felt the riptide even there. From what seemed like miles off, my new friends were body surfing, and it certainly looked really fun and carefree.

  I stopped as Walter confidently walked further into the ocean towards his group of his romping friends. Finally, he turned to me and asked, “Aren’t you coming?”

  “Nah, thanks. I’m going to play with the poison frogs.”

  He didn’t understand if my comment was humor or just strangeness. He turned his back on me to join his friends in the big bad ocean.

  As Walter ran towards his friends in the sea, I was able to stop smiling for the first time since I’d picked up my group from the airport. As determined as I was to be strong and to be the best hostess ever to grace the waters of Bocas Del Toro, I realized I was going to be in for one hell of a week.

  Fake it ‘til you make it.

  Chapter 2: Safety First

  Never having snorkeled, I had still done extensive research to make myself the resident expert. Before we embarked at precisely 2:10 on our marine adventure, I tried to give my safety talk as everyone boarded.

  Olivia graciously greeted all her guests before they reached with double kisses on the cheek. I wasn’t too far behind her. Different bridesmaids were responsible for different events, and though I wasn’t in charge of this event per se, I was very serious about safety and wanted to do the best for the folks who were putting their lives on the line by participating in water activities.

  “Now I want you all to have fun, but there are a few things to keep in mind. People die every week from snorkeling, so be careful. Yes, every week. And note that it is most definitely overcast. If it starts to rain, I want everyone out of the water. Salt water conducts energy like nobody’s business. When I say “out,” everyone is out. I won’t be in the water, so if you have a problem, make eye contact with me. I see that some of you have chosen not to put on your life vest….”

  Amanda, the bridesmaid in charge of the event, took over, placing herself between me and Olivia. “This Debbie Downer is not being serious. It’s just for insurance! So everyone put your red vests on and get ready to party!”

  Amanda was Olivia’s business partner in their boutique gym industry, and a model turned personal trainer. They met when the bride was an obsessed client, crazy to diminish from a soft size 10 to a tight 2. They were both excellent spokesmen for the gym.

  Rounding out the bridesmaid quartet were Marianna, who had competed with me for the title of Olivia’s BFF since kindergarten, and “Phil the Gay Bridesmaid.”

  Phil took little offense to the moniker. He was a literary agent who had represented Olivia when she was a struggling but super talented novelist. He gave her his blessing when she decided to become a boutique gym mogul. She wasn’t making him any money anyway. I’d asked him if the nickname bothered him, to which he replied, “I’m gay. I’m a bridesmaid. What’s to be offended by?”

  Amanda was an enviable hostess, welcoming everyone in her elegant manner, as if she was hosting a luxury dinner party and not a water sport excursion. She remembered everyone names, while handing them glasses of watered-down rum punch as if it was Dom Perignon. When I voiced my concerns about drunk snorkeling to her, she replied, “Don’t worry Lexie. One watered down rum drink never killed anyone.”

  I hadn’t googled that particular statistic.

  Nico commented in passing me, “Walter is spending an awful lot of my money on a wedding that feels like spring break in Cancun.”

  Motoring to our first dive spot, Bridesmaid Phil put his arm around me, handing me a plastic cup of the Hawaiian punch/cheap rum mixture, toasting, “It’s 5 p.m. somewhere.”

  “Yes,” I replied, “that would be the Ukraine, where I’m sure they aren’t snorkeling.”

  “Though,” he smirked, “they are drinking down on the beach on the French Riviera. I’m sure of it.”

  He liked to go tit-for-tat on any subject at any time, and he was very good at baiting me.

  “They aren’t really. It’s February and it’s about fifty degrees there. And it’s three o’clock, so no one in France is going to dinner.”

  So I’d heard. I’d never been to France.

  A half hour later we arrived at our snorkeling destination - a pristine coral reef teeming with sea turtles, parrot fish, and perhaps a nurse shark. Carlos from the snorkeling company gave his own safety talk before everyone jumped in, finishing with the confidence building statement, “There has never been a human death by nurse shark attack unless they are provoked, so stay away from them. If they see you, they will generally run off.”

  Generally?

  As Carlos dismissed everyone to have fun, he turned to me and said, “You don’t have to know how to swim to snorkel, tall girl. We have a Styrofoam surfboard with ropes for you to hold onto. Big Al, over there, will be with you. It’s really quite amazing in there. You kind of can’t help but to fall in love a little.”

  “That’s okay. Thanks.” I stood at the rear of the boat, as the wedding party waited for their chance to go fins first, single file, into the warm tropical water.

  Olivia, fins already on, ready to topple at any moment, put her arm around me before she made her way in. “Are you okay? How are you holding up? I just want to make sure that you are okay.”

  “Yes…?”

  “Really?” She turned my head to look at her eye to eye. “I know you too well. You never need to lie to me. I’ll ask you again, are you okay?”

  “Of course I am,” I lied. “Now go avoid a jellyfish.”

  I wasn’t the only person not partaking in the fun; Walter’s mother took her book out and sat in the shade, as Marianna rhetorically questioned, “Do you know what salt water does to your hair and skin?” Both were happy sticking to the rum punch.

  Olivia had really scored with the wedding photographer, Migs, who was getting ready with his underwater camera and wet-suit. He had grown up in Panama City and went to New York to study photography at Cooper Union. No small feat in itself, for sure.

  His name was Miguel, but he adopted his New York nickname permanently. Lack of opportunity and aversion to the winters had sent him back towards the equator, where he could make piles of money photographing beach weddings and snapping for travel publications.

  The fact that he had been publi
shed in National Geographic allowed his rates to skyrocket. The fact that he was incredibly easy on the eyes did not hurt. Green eyes, I noted, which were a nice surprise.

  Did I mention he was easy on the eyes?

  I knew how much he was getting paid for this job and he was worth every penny, dealing with the ever more demanding Olivia.

  Everyone looked dead as they floated above whatever beautiful sea creature had transfixed them. Before Migs jumped in, he commented, “They look ridiculous, right?”

  “Like a school of dead red snappers, currently in season.”

  With a healthy guffaw, Migs turned and said, “You’ve got a great, dark sense of humor when you aren’t being blue.”

  “You go after that nurse shark, Migs,” I said with a smile. “Get a nice picture for me.”

  Forty-five minutes later, Carlos had his crew start signaling the snorkelers to come back to the ship. A few people had grown bored enough that they had already rejoined the vessel, but most were still out there. Slowly people returned.

  “I saw a stingray!” exclaimed Amanda, as she grabbed the ladder and took her fins off.

  Following her was a man named Lloyd, muttering, “It wasn’t a stingray, it was a bat fish. Never speak without certainty.”

  Lloyd was the man of my recent nightmares. Back at the Midwestern College he’d gone to with Walter and the gang, there had been a small plague of murders, the victims being pretty blonde coeds. The investigation at one point had been focused on Lloyd. The police never made an arrest, let alone a conviction on the murders.

  Granted I wasn’t blonde, but I remembered what had been written about him in our binders, in bold, underlined, and all caps: BEWARE. HE IS DANGEROUS AND SMARTER THAN ANY OF US.

  The last stragglers came, while the rest were already toweled off and enjoying more rum punch at the front of the boat. One more guest still floated in the ocean. At first glance, he might’ve been transfixed by a turtle, but I knew that something was very wrong.

  I blew my personal whistle in a panic. Who wasn’t there? I spotted the photographer, three bridesmaids and Lloyd the serial killer. The father of the bride. I couldn’t remember the faces of half the people on the trip. I counted off my campers. Dave and Georgie. Quiet Josh. Nico hadn’t come back.

  Oh my god. More importantly, where was Walter?

  No one had taken notice of what was happening, so I grabbed Migs and yelled at the top of my voice, “Everyone to the front of the ship for more rum punch and group photographs!”

  Olivia turned her back to me before she noticed anything wrong. She danced off with the rest of the party. “Yes! I love it. Maybe we can get everyone to put their masks back on for the photo. It will be adorable.”

  Only Lloyd remained with us, joining us to watch in detached curiosity.

  “Mierda,” Carlos said and dove off the boat. I watched him move through the water as if in slow motion. He moved quickly to the seemingly unconscious snorkeler.

  I prayed it was just someone who drank one too many glasses of rum punch and was transfixed on a school of gorgeous strawberry groupers. Carlos turned them over in the water and it was clear that it was a man. My mind raced, trying to remember who I’d seen return.

  Please, not Walter. Please, not Walter.

  Lloyd helped get the body out of the water, while Carlos pulled off the snorkel mask, revealing the face of Nico.

  I’d seen this scene a thousand times in movies - the lifeguard pulled a lifeless swimmer back to shore for mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, bringing them back from the brink of death. Surely, he’d be fine.

  Carlos repeated the process time and again.

  “Is he okay?” I asked, to no response.

  “No, he’s dead,” Lloyd said to me. “Know what I mean?”

  Lloyd looked me directly in the eye and a chill ran down my spine, which was half to do with Nico and half to do with Lloyd’s preternaturally blue eyes. Match those peepers with his black hair and 6’4” sinewy body, and he was every bit of a vampire who just happened to have a tan.

  Carlos and Lloyd brought Nico down to a cabin, while one of the deck crew called ahead to Bocas Town Marina to say that we’d need an ambulance to drive us less than half a mile to the hospital.

  “I suppose we should tell Walter,” Lloyd dryly said, clinically looking over the body. “I’m not this kind of doctor, I suppose, but I’d say massive coronary. Drowning?” He tenderly touched Nico’s face. “Good night, dear friend.”

  We abstained from speech, as drunken revelers stomped around above us. Carlos paced and let us know that we’d need to give the ambulance driver cash when we arrived, as soon as someone could find him. The driver also had a cab that went to Bluff Beach and back, where sometimes he’d spend the day if business was slow. It was unclear whether the vehicle was technically an ambulance at all.

  “Of course it is,” Carlos said with a bad poker face.

  “Lexie,” I heard Olivia sing from the top of the stairs. “We need you! Migs has a very particular concept for this photo—”

  “Can you come down here, Olivia,” I meekly asked.

  “Migs has a concept for disembarking very artfully, taking photos while…” she continued, walking into the room and laying eyes upon the corpse. “This is not happening. God damn, this is not happening. What happened? Is he okay?”

  Lloyd lit a cigarette.

  Of course he did.

  “I’m not that kind of doctor,” he said for the second time, stopping when Walter walked into the room.

  Walter appeared not to believe what he saw; his dear friend laying still on the bed.

  Olivia looked wildly around the room.

  The boat docked at the key side and I heard footsteps as our partygoers disembarked above us. Carlos had his crew tempting people away from the ship, making the masses forget that they hadn’t moved on to a second snorkeling spot.

  Walter sat silent, head in his hands, elbows on his knees. Olivia, Carlos, and Lloyd heatedly discussed what would happen next. The room went silent when the next thing that Olivia said was, “Let’s keep this quiet until we know what happened. I want to have all the information before we tell the guests.”

  Oh no. She’s up to something.

  When the group started talking again, Lloyd nodded and motioned towards Carlos and said, “Just let the captain there tell them there was an unfortunate snorkeling incident. I get it, Olivia. Ducks in a row and all that.”

  “I’m not saying snorkeling incident,” Carlos chided. “I’ve got insurance to worry about. Unfortunate snorkeling incident? What’s wrong with you?”

  “You want a list?” Lloyd calmly asked.

  How could you fault a man for being crazy when he so casually owned it?

  Did they have a point? I suppose that it might have been wise to wait until it was clear what had happened. Lloyd looked at her, in what I can only describe as clinical bemusement, and gifted her with enough rope to hang herself. He abruptly offered to remove himself from the boat and treat the remaining guests to a late afternoon cocktail at the Pickled Parrot, five minutes across the bay on Isla Carenero.

  Walter made a b-line for the bathroom, hand clasped over his mouth.

  Lloyd ran his hand through his thick dark hair as he put his sunglasses on, lighting another cigarette, smirking at everyone remaining through his dark lenses.

  He handed me a wad of cash for whatever corrupt local might need it and left, turning back to cynically say to Olivia, “I’m so very sorry for your loss.”

  Chapter 3: Dr. Nolan At Your Service

  The hospital was in a state of general disrepair, but as there were just about 10,000 people living on the island, I guess it was workable. Besides the carnage of a serial killer named Jackson Landis back in 2016, who had gone on a homicidal real estate inspired spree, there wasn’t a lot of death that went on in the hospital.

  There was hardly any violent crime to speak of, except the predictable drunken American tourist brawls. It
was really more of an out-patient clinic, and if the problem was any bigger than an infected ear or an epic hangover, the patient would be flown to Panama City.

  Nico’s body was brought into the rarely used morgue. I say morgue, but they had never autopsied anyone there, and it was filled with outdated machinery and tools. The victims of the Landis crime had been flown to Panama City, which I assume would be Nico’s next port of call. It was really more of a dead person’s way station.

  Dr. Nolan was ridiculously cute and could have been mistaken for a surfer. He was easily under thirty and told me he had gone to medical school in Panama, as he couldn’t get into a decent American one.

  He added the fact that this was not for academic reasons and that was he was fine with that because it allowed him to work on alternative cancer treatments that the US wouldn’t approve due to the “cancer economy.”

  Dr. Nolan stated, “If the head of the American Cancer Society won’t put his wife through chemo, you have to wonder if something is very wrong.”

  He continued fantasizing about the clinic he yearned for until it dawned on him that he was talking to three people flanking their dead friend on an autopsy table. He scrunched up his nose, never having needed much of a bedside manner, and said, “Oh, I’m sorry for your loss.”

  Walter put his hand on his dead friend’s arm. “I have to go,” he whispered, his eyes filling with tears as he quickly left the room. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

  Dr. Nolan whipped the blanket off of Nico’s body and went through the routine of checking his pulse and listening to his non-existent heartbeat. He said to his nurse, “Note: time of death is 4:46 p.m.”

  “It wasn’t actually,” I noted.

  “Well, what do you want me to do? This is what goes on the death certificate. We’ll ship him to Panama City and then you can arrange to transport him back to America. We can start the paperwork, but we don’t have the capabilities on the island to keep him on ice. Who’s in charge of this guy?” Again, as his bedside manner left something to be desired, he added, “Anyway, sorry for your loss.”