Bar

“Jack,” I greeted the lone customer at the bar.

“It’s a little early for your arrival isn’t it? Colin is usually my daytime drinking partner. He’s kind of grim. Always talking about death.”

“What do you mean?”

“I guess when you get that old death is all that’s on your mind.” Jack took a long sip of his beer. “So what brings you here so early, Rookie?”

“Family,” I answered.

“Enough said. Get my friend here a drink, Advice.”

I sat down and Advice handed me a tall glass of bitter lemon, garnished with a lime. He held up the vodka bottle. I nodded and he poured some in. I took a gulp and sighed.

“Rookie! Relax. You’re on vacation,” Jack said from his side of the bar.

I spun my barstool and looked around the common area. My investigation was going poorly. I had yet to think of a way to get access to the surveillance camera recordings, without getting caught. I had no safe way to get into the area below our rooms to find a murder weapon or soiled clothing. I finished my drink with a second sip.

Sonny passed through the dining area and a plan hatched in my mind. “Sonny,” I called out.

He was probably on a break and I shouldn’t bother him. He was stuck with us hours every day, and I hounded with him questions often. We had our next drive in just a couple hours. This might be the only time he’d be free.

I ran up to him and asked, “What would happen if I lost something here?”

“You check with Leticia in lost and found.”

“Well, I mean, if you lost something into the area off the patio?”

“Where?” he asked.

“Off the patio, off the room.” He waited for me to explain. “My hat. A big gust of wind came and it blew off the patio. Into the grasses.”

“Oh,” he said. “You can get another hat in there.” He pointed to the boutique.

None of the hats in the gift shop appealed to me and none of them appealed to my budget either. I couldn’t admit that to Sonny. Plus, I reminded myself, my baseball hat wasn’t gone. It was sitting on my backpack, waiting to be worn during the next game drive. I struggled to find another way to get Sonny’s help to search the area below the rooms.

I could ask another employee to help me, but I doubted anyone would think searching the deep grasses sounded like a good idea.

“But you really like that hat?” he asked.

“Yes.” I nodded.

“Okay, let’s go.”

“Now?” I asked. I couldn’t believe he’d agreed, without me begging or pleading or bringing out the waterworks.

He checked his watch. “Sure. You’ll need it for tonight’s game drive so let’s go.”

“Great! Thank you!” I hesitated, knowing I’d somehow have to get my hat down into the area. I didn’t want to completely lie to him.

He looked down at my bare legs. “You need to put on pants, though.”

“Great!” I responded, glad I had changed into shorts after breakfast. “Meet you outside my room in five minutes?”

“Okay.”

I ran to the room, startling Charlotte from her book when I barreled in. I grabbed my hat off my backpack, ran onto the patio, and flung it like a Frisbee off the patio, to the left.

“What the—”

“Don’t worry about it,” I told her and ran back in the room to change into pants.

She looked from me to where I had flung the hat and back again, trying to make sense of it. She followed me back into the room. “Why did you do that?”

“Sonny is going to help me look for it.”

She peered at me and back out onto the patio. “I’m missing something here.”

“I told him I lost my hat.”

“Which you didn’t.” With her hands on her hips, she stared at me.

“Well, I have now. It was the only way I could think of to get a closer look down there.”

“And why would you want to?”

“Because if someone threw evidence down there, who would find it? It’d be gone forever. But they didn’t plan on me!”

“Did this sound like a good idea before you had a drink?”

“I didn’t have the idea until the drink so…no. But it would have been if I had it.”

“Why did you throw it that way?”

“Because if something was thrown out from one of the other guests’ rooms, it would be to our left. If I threw it straight down, we’d find it right away. And we know neither of us threw evidence off the patio. The only room to the right is Dr. Higgins and…” I suppose the killer could have thrown it off his patio. I looked that way. I shook my head. I would have seen a trail of blood to the patio door if the killer had thrown the murder weapon off of his patio. “Nope, if any evidence was tossed away, it would be from their room.” I pointed to the left, and rooms one through three.

“And they wouldn’t have just thrown it in the garbage?”

“No, Coral would have found it there. Plus, I went through the garbage. Didn’t find it.”

“You did what?”

“Don’t worry. I wore gloves.” I ran to the wardrobe and grabbed the pair of pants I had ready for the afternoon game drive. I changed into them while trying to explain myself to Charlotte. “So after killing Higgins, they would have panicked, fled the room with the weapon, and then have to decide how to get rid of it.”

Charlotte looked again in the direction I’d thrown the hat. “I cannot imagine you will ever find that hat again.” She returned to the couch and her textbook. “Not a bad thing, if you ask me,” she mumbled. “Who wears a baseball hat on safari? You should be wearing a safari hat.”

There was a knock on my door. “Ready?” Sonny asked, when I opened it.

“Ready,” I answered.

Charlotte called out from the couch. “Better take my flashlight, Naomi.”

“Good idea.” She got up, took it out of her backpack, and tossed it to me. “Thanks.” I was shocked she provided any help. Part of me had feared she’d tell Sonny the truth and spare the man the trek into the land below.

“Just follow me,” Sonny instructed and headed around the perimeter of the suite. “I can’t guarantee we’ll find it but we’ll take a look. Couldn’t have gone far, right?”

“You’d think,” I answered.

“Tuck your pants into your socks.”

I did as instructed, but asked, “Why?”

“Snakes,” he answered as he walked down the slight incline along the outside wall of our room.

With his back to me, he missed my look of fear and horror. “Snakes?” I croaked.

“Yes, snakes.” This plan was sounding like a bad one. “There are some insects too. Don’t want them crawling up your pants either. But that’s really not my area of expertise.”

This plan was sounding like the worst plan I had ever come up with. “Ray knows about the insects and snakes better than I do. You can ask him.”

“I’d rather not,” I mumbled. I cleared my mind of all things creepy crawly. I assured myself that the itching sensation on my legs was my imagination. The imagination, which Charlotte would tell you, had gotten me into this situation. Why couldn’t I just sit by the pool and relax? Nope, trudging through high grasses, infested with snakes and insects I’d never heard of, sounded more vacation-like to me.

“So, Ray told me you drive him to the other lodge every night so he can stay with his wife and child.”

“Yes,” he answered.

“That’s nice of you. You do that every night?”

“Yes,” he answered with a shrug, unknowingly confirming Ray’s alibi.

“That’s some gash on his arm.”

“Oh, not too bad. His son Amiri broke something and Ray cut his arm cleaning it up.”

Now I felt completely comfortable marking Ray off my list. Another suspect off the list but yet not any closer to finding the killer.

In silence, I followed Sonny as he looked for my blue baseball cap. I looked for any evidence of Dr. Higgins’ murder—a knife, bloody clothing, anything out of the ordinary. After ten minutes, Sonny announced, “I found it!”

He smiled broadly, pleased with himself. “I’m still a good tracker.”

“Thank you,” I told him, as I took the hat.

“That was some gust of wind.” He looked up. “We’re all the way in front of room two.”

We’d passed the trio’s room and the Wallaces’ room and I’d found nothing. Room one was the Vankeys. My gut told me it wasn’t them. But I had no proof. The pair often stopped talking when I approached and with Jack’s report of Colin’s frequent talk of death, I wondered.

“Ready to go back?” he asked.

I looked in room one’s direction, wishing I’d thrown the hat farther.

I made one more look around. I’d have one more pass, on our return trip. But this seemed like a bust.

“We’ll go back the way we came. Easiest way, I think. Just follow me.”

I continued my scan for anything out of the ordinary while Sonny escorted me back to my room. I was going to have to significantly increase his tip for this. It may have been a wasted effort for me but a success for him.

“You’re quiet back there. Everything okay?”

“Yep, everything’s fine.” Except I wasted an hour of our lives searching for signs of a murder. I hoped I had time to shower before our next game drive. I looked down at myself and I was covered in dirt and dust. “Oh, wait. My shoelace is untied. Give me a sec.”

I squatted down to tie it and heard Sonny stop a few feet ahead. He stepped closer and his shadow blocked the blazing sun.

“Naomi,” he said softly.

“Yes, Sonny.”

“I need you to listen to me.” I didn’t like his tone. He was usually cheery but his voice had no evidence of cheer in it now. I looked up at him and didn’t like his expression either. More alarming was he wasn’t looking at me, but to my left.

“Sonny?” I said again.

“I need you to listen to me,” he repeated, still looking to my left.

“Yes.” I watched him, instinctually knowing that I didn’t want to see whatever caused that look of fear on Sonny’s face.

“I need you to get up very slowly.”

I raised myself as slowly as I possibly could, keeping my gaze fixated on Sonny. It took all my will not to look to my left.

“You can move a little faster than that, Naomi,” Sonny said, through clenched teeth. I popped up the rest of the way. My hand hit the bug repellant fan clipped to my waist and it dropped. Reflexively, I reached for it. “Naomi, no!”

I reached down and my hand froze on the fan as I heard a hiss. My eyes bulged.

A slender, long snake lay a foot away. It’s pale greenish upper head was heavily speckled with brown and black.

“I think it’s a twig snake,” Sonny told me.

“That…that doesn’t sound so bad.”

“Well, it’s not for me. I’m far enough away.”

“And for me?”

“It is. Bad. Very bad. A twig snake is highly venomous. And there is no—”

“Now is not the time for a nature lesson, Sonny.”

“Agreed. I need you to get up very slowly.” He was very nice and did not mention that I had failed, badly, at my first attempt at this. “These types of snakes usually don’t attack unless provoked.”

I slowly stood, with my insect repellant fan in my hand, and its eyes followed me. And then its head as well. Its neck inflated, displaying its bright skin between its scales.

“Uh-oh,” Sonny said. Even I knew its movement was not a good sign. “It feels threatened.”

“Threatened? I’m the one who feels threatened!” I said through clenched teeth.

Its bright tongue flickered in a wavy motion and it lunged. And so did I.

“RUN!” Sonny and I yelled in unison.

We took off and, I’m not proud of this—even though I would have thought the field guide would be in better shape than the customer service representative who sat all day—I overtook Sonny and beat him back to my suite and to the front door.

“Did it get me?” I yelled. I whipped off my shoes and my socks. I didn’t feel anything but adrenaline. All I felt was my heart thumping in my chest. Was that the first sign of the venom working its death on me?

I stripped off my pants and shirt. Standing in a sports bra and boy shorts, I yelled at Sonny. “Check me! Did it get me!”

“Stop moving! Let me look.”

“Or should you go get whatever you have to? Anti…anti—something!” I struggled to find the word. Was that the first sign that the venom was working?

“Anti-venom,” Sonny said, while bent over trying to inspect my lower half, which I could not keep still. “There is no anti-venom.”

“There’s no anti-venom here?” I asked. “Or anywhere?”

“Nowhere. It doesn’t exist. Now stop moving! Movement only gets the venom through your system faster.”

“Oh no,” I mumbled. It had bit me. This was it. I was going to die on vacation. Like Dr. Higgins. I was going to die, and my obituary would read that I died searching for my baseball hat. I didn’t even know what team the hat represented!

“How long will it take?” I asked, resigned to my fate.

“Symptoms appear in twenty-four to forty-eight hours.” He paused and looked up. “I think. Again, Ray really knows this best.” He started to get up. “Maybe I should go get him.”

“No! Just show me where it got me,” I ordered him and he squatted back down. My breathing and heart rate were slowing. I willed myself to stop moving and my body obeyed.

“I haven’t found any sign of a bite…yet. Bites are very rare, Naomi.”

I plotted out what I’d tell Charlotte to do with my belongings and what to do about funeral arrangements. I wondered if my travel insurance covered the cost of shipping my body home. How would they ship home my body? A cargo plane? Does UPS do that kind of shipping? Or just a regular airline? Did it cost more than first class? Who cares? I wasn’t going to have to pay.

Sonny got up, after completing a third scan of my body, and smiled. “Nope, you’re good. No bites.”

“Really? Are you sure?” I looked down at both legs and saw no red marks. I ran my hands up and down my legs. All smooth. I was glad I had borrowed Charlotte’s razor. No evidence of fangs infecting me with its toxic venom.

“I looked real close. Nothing. I’ll see you for the game drive.” He checked his watch. “See you in thirty.” He walked away as if we’d had a normal trek through the woods. My heart still raced, the remnants of our adventure not gone yet.

Charlotte swung open the door. “Geri just called. Some kind of commotion outside her room.” She appraised me, standing outside our room in my underwear. “I’m thinking that was you.”

“Fair to say it was.”