Hans Grover was getting hot, and it was only in small part due to the weather.
“Leticia Fontaine is a bokor, make no mistake about it, and her claims about finding the manuscript of the monk who followed Columbus is pure bunkum. Besides, even it was true—which I sincerely doubt, a Fifteenth-Century manuscript is not admissible in a court of law.”
Grover paused in his fulmination. Then he continued in a more rational vein. “Haitian law is straightforward on the matter. If a human is in a coma because someone attempted to kill him, we have attempted murder until that human has died. If, on the other hand, a human is buried, regardless what happens afterward, we have plain-vanilla murder. So the real question is whether Cyril Blacker was buried. If we can prove that definitively, we can prosecute Leticia Fontaine for murder. Can I prove it yet? I’m not sure, but I have a method. Witnesses to the burial keep disappearing, and we don’t know what is happening either.”
“Look, I’m just a policeman doing his job. My police work continues, and we’ll get to the bottom of this matter. It’ll take a little time.” Officer Oboku shook his enormous bald head as he leaned back on his six-foot-seven frame and considered the enormity of his task. He rubbed two fingers together indicating perhaps money could speed up the investigation process, but Hans wasn’t having any part of bribery, and he ignored the gesture.
Grover’s eyes narrowed and locked onto the officer’s eyes menacingly. He knew how hard it was to budge the Haitian authorities. In order to compromise, he ventured, “We’ve got precious little time. Would you object if I continue my work in parallel with yours and share whatever I find with you as I go? I’ll take your silence as a YES. So thank you. If you need to be in touch with me, here is my card. Call me on my cellphone number at any time. Cheerio, then. I’ll check back tomorrow to see what progress you’ve made.”
Insurance investigator Grover then drove down to the old cemetery on the cliff above the wide, blue Caribbean. Diggers were working on many of the existing graves. Here and there, backhoes were craning their necks as they drew scoopfuls of rich, black earth. They were forming graves for the newly dead. Port-au-Prince gravediggers were having a difficult time keeping supply in balance with demand. Things were bad enough without their having to deal with zombies always climbing in and out of graves and leaving a mess behind them.
By day, Grover saw what lay before him now—a green paradise-like complex overlooking the sea. By night, it was the inverse—a zombie’s paradise. Even with the sea breeze, the noxious, pungent stench of decaying human carrion and excrement was unmistakable. No wonder the zombies were drawn here for their feasting. No matter how many times Grover came to this particular graveyard, he shuddered at the thought of the unholy feasting that happened here.
As he walked the immaculately mowed grounds, Grover took out his cellphone and worked his thumbs rapidly to make some notes. From the headstones, he took down names from desecrated graves. He’d check those against his database when he got back to his hotel, but one name was an unmistakable correlation—one who was murdered, or rather buried and presumed to have been murdered.
Was that a distinction without a difference? Haitians thought so, but Grover was not so sure. When he finished his survey, Grover returned to his air-conditioned hotel, waved at Rene, the maître’ d` as he went up the stairs to his room. When he reached his room, he fired up his laptop computer and checked his email. Finding nothing new from his company, he updated his database. Yes, he was right, Abel Arnette was a witness who had been murdered and buried, but his grave had been desecrated overnight.
The cause of the man’s death did not matter, given the nature of the insurance policy on his life. The company only required verification of death to pay the face amount of the policy to his beneficiary. So, he would have to authorize the payment of $500,000 to the company that had insured Arnette. The problem, by Grover’s lights, was the fact that this was the twentieth such policy paid in a similar fashion in the last six months. That made the current total paid a cool $10 million.
In each case, the policy had been in force for over two years so presumptive suicide would pay if suicide were the cause of death. In the case of murder, the policy would also be honored. Grover thought that the same company insuring twenty murdered men was beyond all expectations and belief.
He could, of course, just forget about the coincidence, but he was an ethical man, and he felt personally affronted that a scam was being perpetrated on his company. He wanted to get to the bottom of the business, and he had only another three days to do so because he had a vast caseload, and this was only one case in many needing resolutions.
The insurance investigator’s work routine included conducting research and interviews by day, and prowling the country by night as much as he dared. Grover had interviewed Leticia Fontaine early during his visit since she was eagerly awaiting payment of the proceeds of the policy. She had provided the evidence Grover needed, and she demanded immediate payment. She said she appreciated the fact that the insurance company had rules, but the case of this policy was cut and dry.
Grover had temporized, and he used the time he had bought to snoop around the island and ask questions. In the process, he discovered Fontaine was a bokor who controlled many zombies on the island. Many of her zombies’ names were among the list of her company’s current and former employees.
This female CEO had taken out policies on her employees as a condition of their employment because they were key persons without whom, her company could not operate. So her employees’ deaths, she claimed, had a financial impact on her operations, and the insurance proceeds from them helped her adjust after their untimely deaths.
The insurance agent who sold Fontaine’s firm the policies through Grover’s company was richly rewarded with high premiums for writing the work, but Grover thought the man might as well be one of Fontaine’s zombies the way he looked and acted. A stench about him physically repulsed Grover, and he had a ghastly grin with those hideous, carious and decaying gums that pulled back from his sharpened teeth.
At the right time, Grover would give this man the check, made out to Fontaine’s company, and authorize him to deliver the check to the CEO. The agent, having his own interests in delivering the check as soon as possible, told Grover the woman was a bokor. What Grover wanted to know was how that mattered with respect to the sequence of twenty murders.
Grover’s investigations into the finances of Fontaine’s company brought out the fact that her gross revenues corresponded precisely to the amount of proceeds she had received from Grover’s insurance company. So, in a real sense, her business was collecting insurance money.
A student of the insurance business for as long as he had been a top investigator, Grover knew a tontine when he saw one, and this was clearly a tontine. The fact that he could not find a policy written on Fontaine’s own life didn’t matter, because her corporation was the entity that would be the last to survive if all her employees died. If he could somehow prove she was running a tontine, he could have her prosecuted and have his company terminate all the insurance policies that were written on her employees. He hoped Arnette might be the key to unlocking the tontine.
While Grover contemplated his next move, he heard a noise at his hotel room door and saw that a ghastly purple envelope had been thrust under it and now lay on the floor like a poisonous snake. Grover opened the envelope and discovered a formal invitation to a corporate party at the graveyard he had just visited. The time for the party was midnight that night.
A handwritten note appeared under the formal notice, and it was signed with Ms. Fontaine’s initials: “Bring the check with you, and check out of your hotel before you come. Tonight all your questions will be answered. I promise. L.F.”
This sent a chill down Grover’s spine. Immediately after this, the insurance agent knocked on the hotel room door asking Grover to accept his invitation of a ride to the cemetery because he also had been invited and he wanted to be sure the check arrived safely. Grover accepted the agent’s offer of a ride and told him to pick him up at eleven-thirty p.m.
During the long afternoon, Grover wrote up all his findings and recommendations, and then he e-signed the documents and emailed them as encrypted attachments to his life insurance company’s home office. He then took a short nap. At 10:00 p.m., he awakened, dressed in business casual and packed his computer and other things. He called down to the front desk to have his bill tallied and told Rene he would be checking out at 11:30.
The agent picked him up as planned, and Grover checked out of the hotel. He and the agent put his belongings in the trunk of the agent’s Mercedes. By midnight, they had arrived at the graveyard, but no one else seemed to be there.
The agent was not at all surprised to have to wait for the party to begin, and he suggested that Grover consider with him his own insurance needs. Grover had experienced on many occasions, the solicitation of business from his own company’s agents, but this agent was importunate in the extreme. As his rhetoric rose, the stench from his mouth and body became oppressive, so Grover suggested they get out of the car with a flashlight and walk around. It seemed to the agent to be a good suggestion.
The two strolled among the open and closed graves by the light of the flashlight, and as they walked, the agent drew very close to Grover. He seemed to be trying to breathe on Grover’s neck, and Grover either slipped, or the agent accidently jostled him into an open grave. The agent offered a hand to help Grover out of the grave when drumbeats sounded, and the area around Grover and the agent was lighted by torches held by tall figures that swayed from side to side.
The stench was now overpowering because all wind had stopped. Through the crowd of figures, walked a man who looked a lot like Officer Oboku, only instead of a police uniform, he was dressed in formal wear and sported a top hat on his head and a long cane or staff in his left hand. Behind him came a woman dressed in formal wear the color of Oshun blue. It was Leticia Fontaine, and she gestured for the tall man, her escort, to lift Grover out of his grave. The drums continued in a frenzied rhythm, and the assemblage moaned and waved their torches. Then the CEO’s escort waved his staff, and the drums stopped beating.
The CEO stepped forward, being careful not to fall into an open grave, and she bade everyone welcome to her annual corporate party where the living and the undead could celebrate the company’s having another successful year. She uttered a special welcome to Mr. Hans Grover, who had come all the way from Cleveland, Ohio, in the United States, to attend the ceremony. She paused here for effect. Then she called the roll, and each name evoked a response from one of the figures surrounding her. Among the names read were all of the twenty that Grover knew had died and triggered the payment of the insurance policies on their lives.
“You see, Mr. Grover, all your questions have been answered. Every one of your customers can attest that he or she has died. Each one, therefore, contributed greatly to the success of our company both by living and by dying. By Haitian law, those who are buried are dead, so no laws were broken by collecting the policy benefits. How good it is that Baron Samedi here, Officer Oboku to you, is present to witness what I’m saying.” She smiled as she said this, making the investigator bristle indignantly with rage.
Grover, wanting to cut through her façade, bluntly asked, “Ms. Fontaine, did you murder the twenty employees whose undead forms surround us now?”
“Mr. Grover, don’t be impertinent. Why should I murder employees who love me and give me their all? I didn’t murder any of them. They gave their lives for the good of our firm, willingly. In a very literal sense, the body of the corporation is the sum of the bodies of its employees. When anyone dies, he dies for the good of everyone. Sometimes, of course, the undead help with our processes. Not everything can be entrusted to Human Resources these days. And your agent, here, is one such helpmeet.” She spoke with authority, but her eyes were mocking him, and her lips were pursed in annoyance.
At this, my agent smiled and let his pointed teeth shine in the torchlight. Grover made out Rene coming up beside Ms. Fontaine, dressed in a flaming red suit, which seemed to be more fire than fabric.
Interpreting what she said as an admission, he asked in a measured tone, “So you’re saying this man, my agent, murdered his own clients on your behalf?”
“No. He’s no murderer, just look at him. As a man, your agent has been your faithful employee, doing everything his company asked him. Let me put a simple question to you, Mr. Grover. If one of the undead kills, is that murder? I find no such injunction in any law in any land.” The figures around her gazed at the man with eyes full of animated hatred.
Grover’s eyes never left hers. He pursued his logic relentlessly. “But if, Ms. Fontaine, the agency by which the murder is committed is not in the undead but in the bokor who directs it, then what?”
She shrugged and sighed. Exasperated with his questions, she said, “I see we’re splitting hairs and spoiling our corporate gala.” Then she turned to her associate and asked, “Rene, what have you devised for our entertainment this night?”
“Mr. Hans Grover is the evening’s entertainment. He has filed all his reports and checked out of the hotel. His belongings are in the trunk of this agent’s car. He has two choices, but he may choose only one of them, and he must do so right now.”
“So, Rene, tell him his choices.” She said this looking Grover directly in the eyes in defiance, as if she were totally in charge of the situation.
“Mr. Grover, you may join us in our feast, or you must become our feast. In one other matter, you have no choice. If you choose to join our feast, you must take out an insurance policy on your own life, with Ms. Fontaine’s company as the sole beneficiary. Choose wisely. So he has the proper ambiance, let the drums begin! And when the drums cease, you will give your answer. Any hesitation will signify that you have chosen to be our feast.”
So the drumbeat began, and as the tempo increased, the assemblage pressed into a smaller and smaller circle around Grover. Finally, when Baron Samedi raised his staff and began to laugh, the drums stopped.
“I choose to live and sign,” Grover said calmly, as his eyes passed over the crowd of hostile retainers, some of whom licked their lips in anticipation of a feast. He was afraid, but he was not going to show his fear.
“Mr. Grover,” Rene rejoined, “let’s rather say you choose to live, feast and sign because feasting with us is part of your bargain.”
Grover had run out of choices, so he nodded his acquiescence.
“Let the feasting begin,” said Leticia Fontaine, “while I discuss private matters with Mr. Grover.” The zombies began to dig in the graveyard and exhume bodies for their feast. As the bodies emerged, the zombies ripped and tore into them and devoured their flesh noisily. The exhumations having ceased, the feasting became general. Sometimes arguments would break out, and zombies tore into each other’s flesh, but largely the feast was civilized and subdued.
“Mr. Grover, I think we now have the basis for a close, working relationship. Your agent has your insurance papers ready for your signature, so please sign them now.”
Grover did not bother to read what he was signing, but he signed using the pen that his company’s agent offered him. The agent was very pleased with the thought of the commission he would receive for writing this work for his company.
“Mr. Grover, I’m sure you’re familiar with the insurance laws about suicide. So you’ll know why we want to make every effort to keep you alive and hale for the next twenty-four months, at least. But, now let’s drink to our higher purpose. Rene, bring the goblet. You see, Mr. Grover, what I was telling you about Rene, the monk who accompanied Columbus when he first came to this island was the truth and not a fairy tale. Behold, this is the same Rene whom you waved at every time you entered your hotel. He checked you out. He will now administer your first real communion. When he hands you the goblet, don’t drink it all, since all of us must have a sip after you have taken yours.”
Rene, like a good living priest, raised the goblet and muttered some Latin about what the goblet contained. He took a sip himself and looked positively seraphic, and then he passed the goblet to Grover, who ignored the noxious, pungent smell of the contents and took a draught and swallowed it.
A cheer went up among the assemblage, and the goblet made the rounds, first to Ms. Fontaine, then the agent and Baron Samedi, and then all the others. When the goblet had been emptied, Rene retrieved it and wiped it with a cloth that hung from his belt. He looked very pleased and might have raised his hand in a blessing, except he was no longer a priest of the Catholic Church, but an undead minister to the dark forces of voodoo.
The drums began to beat again, and the zombies continued to feast. Some dropped by to hail their CEO and offer her a gobbet of flesh or a putrefying eyeball. One offered her a handful of human brain that had turned dark gray, but what did that matter since its owner had lain for over a decade in the fetid Haitian ground?
The revelry went on all night, and the zombies danced and jostled each other as the principals retired into the darkness one by one. The first to go was Ms. Fontaine, who vanished in the night as if she had been an apparition. The second to go was Baron Samedi, who before he departed, grasped Grover’s shoulder in his large hand and congratulated him for having made the right choice.
Rene was next, and he confided to Grover that he greatly appreciated Grover’s being pleasant about his stay. He said he hoped to see Grover again soon. That left the agent and Grover, and the zombies and what was left of their feast. Grover concluded that with the bokor gone, anything might happen, so he urged the agent to make haste in getting him to the airport before the sunrise.
In the agent’s Mercedes, Grover rode to the airport with all the windows of the automobile down, because Grover was uncomfortable breathing air that contained the smell of rotting teeth and gums of his company’s agent.
On the way, the agent confessed he was comfortable with what the zombies did, only he preferred living flesh to dead flesh. Smiling with his sharpened teeth showing along his lips, the man told Grover his people had all been cannibals. He was the only person at the party who genuinely regretted Grover’s decision. He said he had looked forward to feasting on Grover’s cheeks particularly, but now perhaps he’d have the opportunity another time when Grover returned to Haiti. Grover’s frisson at this parting thought was a break in the intense heat of the island at sunrise.
The agent gave Grover his copy of the signed binder for his new insurance policy. Only when he looked closely, did the insurance investigator see that the agent’s signature was in blood. He thought he heard the stewardess welcome him aboard with the greeting, “Have a nice fright.”
As he settled into his business-class seat, Hans Grover detected a distinctly evil smell. He looked around and finally concluded the pungent smell was coming from his own clothing, and when he raced to the bath compartment to wash his hands to mitigate the smell, he looked into the mirror, and when he bared his teeth, he thought he saw that his gums had started rotting already. He looked again but saw nothing unusual, so he settled down and rinsed his mouth out thoroughly with water.
As his plane took off, Grover vowed he would never again set foot on Haitian soil. His consolation was short-lived, because when the steward came by to ask him what he’d like for breakfast, Grover looked into the steward’s eyes and saw Rene, who winked at Grover, recommended that he try the red wine, and told him that he could continue feasting throughout the flight home. Rene said he would bring Grover anything he liked—anything at all.