A Wedding To Die For

11

Knowing the Plaza Hotel would shun a canine addition to my room, Jug drove us to his place. He lived in a shack on the mountainside that actually looked in far better shape than the other dilapidated houses in his neighborhood.

“My wife gonna kill me when she see this dog, miss. You gotta help me explain.” Jug had taken a piece of rope from his trunk and tied it around the dog’s neck to use as a leash.

Between the fleas she’d shared with me on the ride over and the mosquitoes that had attacked me at Donnelly’s house, I felt ready to crawl out of my skin.

“I owe you big-time,” I said, scratching my ankle, “so whatever I can do, I will.”

The three of us made our way up the dirt path to a front porch strung with brightly colored bulbs. Maybe it was always Christmas in Jamaica. Jug tied the dog to a rickety railing surrounding the porch and opened the front door.

“Where you been, mon?” called a feminine voice after the door opened.

The smell of curried something filled the small room we entered. Sitting on a rustic-looking bench were three smiling black-skinned children. The two boys and a toddler girl switched their attention from a thirteen-inch combination TV and VCR playing cartoons and grinned at Jug. They all shared his same wide smile.

“Hi,” I said. “I’m Abby.”

They just stared back at me, and the girl put four fingers in her mouth.

Then Jug’s wife appeared in the entry to what I assumed was the kitchen. She wore a red and yellow striped strapless dress and was beautiful in that unique Jamaican way—long necked, dark and tall, her hair in beaded dreadlocks. She was also very pregnant.

Wiping her hands on a thin white towel stretched like an apron over her firm round belly, she nodded at me, then turned questioning eyes on Jug.

“This be the lady I been working for,” he said. He gestured at me. “Miss Rose, this is my Martha.”

“Call me Abby,” I said.

Martha smiled tentatively, but the smile immediately disappeared when the dog barked.

“You didn’t bring no dog round here, Jug,” she said, sounding more than a little pissed off.

Jug elbowed me. “You tell her.”

“Actually, I brought the dog,” I said. “It’s kind of a long story, and—”

But before I could finish speaking, Jug’s two oldest—the boys wearing torn T-shirts and shorts—leaped off the bench and streaked past us through the screen door.

I looked out after them and saw the dog kissing both of them with an enthusiasm dogs only heap on children.

“How many times I tell you we can’t afford no dog, Jug? We got too many mouths to feed already,” Martha said.

“I plan to fix that,” I said quickly, hoping to curb her obvious anger. “I’m hiring your husband for an important job.”

Jug looked at me with surprise, an expression that clued Martha in at once.

“We don’t take no charity here, miss,” she said coldly.

Just then the girl, who had been watching us with wide dark eyes, began to whimper. Jug walked over, swooped her up in his arms, and kissed her. She buried her head in his neck.

“This won’t be charity,” I said. “I have to get back home but I haven’t finished my work here and I’m hoping Jug can help me.”

“What kind of work?” she said warily.

“Before I explain, do you have any cortisone cream?” I had been resisting the urge to rake my nails up and down my arms until they bled.

Martha came over, lifted one arm, and examined the red welts that had risen there. I looked like I had the chicken pox.

She made a tisking sound, shaking her head at what she saw. “I got no cortisone, but I got something else.” She pulled me toward the kitchen, saying, “Jug, go make sure that dog don’t send any fleas onto my boys.”

After my arms had been treated with pulverized aloe vera leaves mixed with some other plant Martha ground up with, and after we’d all eaten bowls of curried rice and jerk chicken, Martha gave each child a sugarcane stalk to suck on and sent them back to the little TV.

“You really got a job for Jug?” Martha asked.

We were sitting around a cotton blanket on the tile floor near a stone hearth in the kitchen. Martha had stacked our wooden bowls to one side and gave Jug and I small glasses of amber rum.

“I do have a job, if he’s willing. First, though, let me tell you why I’m here.” I sipped my drink, and though I always add Diet Coke to my rum, this needed no additions. It was delicious and warm, and if I drank enough, I figured my still stinging arms and legs wouldn’t be bothering me. I’d be passed out.

Jug had heard some of my story on the way over here, but Martha listened intently, and gently rubbed her belly when I mentioned the tiny pink bracelet and death certificate I’d found in Donnelly’s house.

“The death certificate is making me wonder if I’m on the wrong track,” I said. “I’m hoping Jug can do a little research on the island while I go back home and try to find out more about Blythe Donnelly. I have the name of the midwife who attended the birth and—”

“What’s her name?” Martha and Jug said almost in unison.

“Elizabeth Benson,” I replied.

They both nodded knowingly.

“You know her?” I said.

“Just the name,” said Jug. “Jamaica is not a big place, miss, and we got plenty experience with midwives.”

Martha rolled her eyes. “Too much experience, you ask me.” But she smiled at Jug, who reached over and took her hand.

“I’d like you to find this woman, see what she remembers about Donnelly and her baby.”

“What if he can’t find her?” Martha said.

“Then he can’t find her, but he still gets paid for looking. His time is valuable.”

She laughed. “That be news to me.”

Jug slapped her knee playfully. “I can find anyone. Cost you a hundred dollars U.S. Special deal for you.”

“Let me decide the price, okay? I guarantee you it will be more than a hundred.”

Martha grinned widely. “Oh, he can do it okay, now that you gonna give us enough for the dog. Gonna take lots of trouble to get rid of those fleas.”

Jug looked at her, eyes bright with what I could have sworn were tears. I think he wanted that dog as much as the kids did.

“We call her Bobo, like the cop called missy here,” he said with a smile.

He and Martha laughed loudly, so of course I had to ask. “And just what does bobo mean?”

Martha said, “Bobo means fool, mon.”