Hammond came home from work early. He found his wife floating face down in the pool. He jumped in and tried CPR. No one else had been in the house. The housekeeper was fetching the children from school. Hammond didn’t know where the gardener was.
The guard heard Hammond yelling for help. Together the two men pulled the body out of the pool. The guard then called the American embassy. The embassy phoned the police station. When Paulette and the children got home, Hammond told them to wait in the family room. The gardener finally showed up, and Hammond ordered him to meet the police when they arrived.
Pierre had taken out his notebook. He wrote down Hammond’s statement. The three cops who’d come with us stood at the top of the stairs, watching and waiting. I wandered around the yard. Something niggled at the back of my mind. I peeled the towel away from the woman’s head. Her long hair was wet. I crouched down and gently turned her to one side. Traces of blood were still visible above her left ear. I touched the spot. Soft and squishy.
I heard a sharp intake of breath above me. “Oh god,” Hammond said.
“Looks like a blow to the head. A fresh one.”
Pierre joined us. “Do you know anything about this, Mr. Hammond?”
“No. And I don’t like your tone, officer. Marie is…was a good swimmer. I thought she might have had a heart attack or something. Not been able to get out of the pool.”
“Perhaps she slipped,” Pierre said. “Hit her head as she fell in.”
I glanced around the rim of the pool. No blood. Not that I could see.
The garden was well looked after. The trees trimmed, the flowers deadheaded, the patio swept.
I heard the sound of a car pulling up outside. Doors slamming. Men calling. Footsteps on the stairs. I threw the towel back over the dead woman’s face. The gardener had been standing above us, watching silently. Now he opened the gate for a man and a woman, both white. They wore dark glasses and expensive business suits. I had no doubt where they were from. They hurried down the stairs.
“Gail Warkness. American embassy,” the woman said. We all shook hands. Warkness barely glanced at the towel-covered body on the ground. “You’re an American citizen?”
“Yes,” Hammond said. “And this is my wife.”
“We’ll send the body to Miami for autopsy. Do you have any problem with that, agent?” She spoke excellent French.
“No,” Pierre replied.
Electricity in Haiti is unreliable at the best of times. Evidence, shall we say, doesn’t last long in the heat. It’s routine for autopsies to be performed in Miami or Montreal. Miami because it’s close, Montreal because of the language.
“We’ll make the arrangements.” She jerked her head at the man who’d come with her. He pulled out his phone.
I gave Pierre a small nod. He said, “I would like to talk to your staff, Mr. Hammond.”
Hammond spoke to me. “That would be a waste of time. They can’t tell you anything. They weren’t here. Except for Nicholas, the guard. And he only came when I called.”
“I’ll decide,” Pierre said, “if they have anything worthwhile to say.” His face didn’t change color, but his back straightened, and his tone was clipped. Steve Hammond was not making a good impression on Pierre.
I was in Haiti as a mentor and advisor. Not to run an investigation. Pierre would decide if he should call an officer from the judicial branch. A detective.
That might not be necessary. This looked to be what Hammond had told us. An accident. No visible traces of blood were on the edge of the pool, where Marie might have struck her head. But Hammond had jumped in after her. Two men had hauled her out. Easy for water to splash up and wash a small amount of blood away. There might not even have been much of it. An internal injury to the head’s enough to kill someone.
“I don’t want my children interrogated,” Hammond said to Warkness.
“That shouldn’t be necessary, should it, sergeant?” she asked me.
“How old are your children?” Pierre asked.
“Six and eight. A girl and a boy.”
I was getting tired of this four-way conversation. “I doubt the children will have anything to add. If we do have to talk to them, you’ll be allowed to be present.”
“I don’t…”
“Thank you, sergeant. Agent,” Warkness said. “Now, why don’t we all go inside? Get out of this heat. My colleague will wait here for the coroner’s van.”
We started with the gardener. Warkness wanted to sit in on the questioning. I told her, politely, to butt out. Her card had said she was with the Economic and Commercial section of the embassy. Not Consular Services, as I would have expected.
We could hear the sound of a TV coming from inside the house. A children’s show, high-pitched voices and bouncy music. I told Hammond we’d use the living room. He didn’t look pleased, but showed us the way. I shut the door in his face.
The gardener’s name was Alphonse. He told us to call him Al. His hair was gray. Fine lines radiated out from the corners of his eyes and his mouth. The skin on his neck hung in loose folds. I put his age at fifty-five, sixty maybe. He didn’t speak English, and his French was poor. I struggled to keep up with the Creole. Which wasn’t too difficult, as he didn’t have much to say. He had little contact with Mr. or Mrs. Hammond. He took his instructions from the housekeeper. He’d been late for work today. Something about an accident with the tap-tap. To his surprise, the guard had not been at his post. Yes, that was very unusual. Then he heard men’s voices, coming from the pool. He went onto the verandah. He saw Mrs. Hammond on the ground by the pool. Mr. Hammond was pushing at her chest while the guard watched. They told him Mrs. Hammond was dead and he was to wait for the police.
That was all.
“Tell me about Mrs. Hammond,” I asked. “What was she like?”
He blinked in confusion. Pierre repeated the question.
Al’s eyes shifted around the room. Cream walls, red-and-cream-striped sofa and chairs. Solid wood tables. Good art. Ceiling fans moved lazily overhead. The wide French doors to the verandah were closed. The air-conditioning had not been turned on. I thought I might melt. I hoped it didn’t show.
The old man stirred in his seat. He was very uncomfortable. I didn’t know whether because of the unaccustomed luxury of the upholstered chair or our questions.
Maybe just because he didn’t like cops. Plenty of Haitians didn’t like cops. They had good reason not to. That’s why I was here.
I tried to ask him if he liked working for the Hammonds. If they were good employers. What did he and Mrs. Hammond talk about when she was in the garden and he was trimming the bushes?
All I got were nervous nods and shrugs.
Finally, Pierre told him he could go. Al gave us his address as Jalousie. The slum with brightly painted houses but no running water. The man almost bolted from the room.
The housekeeper was next. Paulette smiled at us shyly and took a seat. She folded her hands in her lap and sat very still. Her French was good enough that we could speak in that language. She had worked here for two months. In that time she had only seen Mr. Hammond twice. He left for work early in the morning, and he got home late. She did not come here on the weekends.
“Tell me about Mrs. Hammond,” I asked. “Nice lady?”
A shrug.
“Did she have a job?”
“No. She liked to sit by the pool. She swam a great deal. She read magazines. When the children got home from school, she would help them with their homework or watch TV with them.” Another shrug.
“That’s all?”
“Yes.”
“Did she have many friends? Bridge parties or lunches?”
A shake of the head.
“Never?”
“Never. They often entertained in the evenings. I found dirty dishes, glasses, empty bottles in the mornings.”
“What about the children’s school friends?” I asked. “Did their mothers bring them around to play sometimes?”
Another shake of the head.
“What about her family? Did they ever come to visit?”
“No.”
“Did she visit them? Go to America?” I asked.
The black eyes opened wide. She looked directly at me for the first time. “She was not American, sir. She was Haitian. No family ever visited her here.”
I bit my tongue. I’d assumed Mrs. Hammond was from the States. Never assume. Wasn’t that something I told my trainees? Over and over.
It probably didn’t matter. But I should have asked more about her.