A View To Die For: Butterfly Island Mysteries, #1

By Cheri Baker

"Welcome to Butterfly Island! Enjoy our sandy beaches, sapphire blue waters, and achingly beautiful sunsets. We can't wait to welcome you to the safest and most relaxing destination in the Caribbean…"

 

Paul Gumbs can't wait for his next chapter to begin. After years serving as security chief aboard the Adventurous Spirit cruise ship, he's been offered his dream job working in a small town police department. For Paul, there's never been a better time to put down roots. With his beloved Kameron Achebe at his side, and with their first child on the way, he's eager to make a good first impression and become a part of the community. Even if his neighbors seem rather... quirky.

 

Horror and fascination ripple through the island when a famous painter is brutally murdered at the luxurious Londonian hotel. Commissioner Yarbury is quick to insist that Butterfly Island has very little crime. But as Paul is about to discover, his new home is not the mellow paradise pictured on the tourist brochures…

• Language: English
• Publisher: Adventurous Ink LLC
• Release date: Mar 18, 2022
• ISBN: 9781952200175

Cheri Baker

Cheri spent her formative years hiding under the blankets with a flashlight, reading everything she could get her hands on, but especially books by Stephen King, Judy Blume, Agatha Christie, and Mercedes Lackey. Her experiences in management inspired her first novel, Involuntary Turnover, about an HR manager turned private investigator. Cheri lives in Seattle with her husband of 18 years. She's working on her fourth novel.

Book preview

Chapter One

ON THE FIRST DAY OF Paul Gumbs’s new life, the wind blew wild and warm off the Caribbean Sea. The gust zoomed through a thicket of palm trees, blasted past the orange, yellow, and pink-painted bungalows on Surf Street, and circled Paul and Kameron’s new home twice before evaporating into the humidity of the morning.

As Paul’s neighbors prepared for another day in paradise, he went from room to room, gathering up his belongings and getting ready for his first day of work. He glimpsed his neighbors through the windows. In the backyard behind theirs, a Polynesian woman in a glorious floral print muumuu hung undergarments on a clothesline. As Paul grabbed his shoes off the porch, a teenage girl flew out the front door of the small yellow house across the street. She held her sibling’s lunch out at arm’s length and screeched for them to come and get it.

Having spent years working aboard a cruise ship, Paul had embraced the comfortable rhythm of living and working as part of a crew. Every morning before shift change, doors slammed and showers sprayed. Footsteps tumbled in a rush up and down the hallway outside his small stateroom. As Paul dressed, he wondered: what would be the rhythm of life on Butterfly Island? For now, so much of his new home remained a mystery. Despite this, he could imagine his and Kameron’s future with such sweet clarity that it brought a smile to his face.

In time, those neighbors would become friends. Who knew? Maybe, after the baby was born, that ponytailed teen with the big voice would become their babysitter, so he and Kameron could walk along the beach at sunset. The future he’d been dreaming of for so long had arrived! He and Kameron would thrive here.

Assuming he didn’t screw things up.

His stomach rumbled with butterflies, but it didn’t bother him one bit. Today, he was a police officer, the job he’d been dreaming of since he was a gangly boy of fourteen, walking the streets of Kingston, Jamaica, in the country he still thought of as home. Of course he was nervous! Who wouldn’t be anxious on their first day?

Paul stood in front of Kameron’s long mirror and ran his hand around his waist to tuck down his pale blue uniform shirt until it was as tight and smooth as a drum. He passed the black webbed belt around his body, through the trouser loops, and buckled it in front. Next came his portable radio made of impact-resistant plastic. And a thick metal flashlight that could serve, if necessary, as a baton. Lastly, he donned the black leather holster that would hold his service revolver.

Butterfly Island, his new home, floated like a tiny jewel among the flashier and better known islands of the Caribbean Sea. Now as police officer Paul Gumbs, he would keep his neighbors from harm, every day. With his fellow officers — and Inspector Yarbury said they were among the finest he’d ever seen — he would make the island a safe place to live, to love, to work, and to raise a family.

Paul Gumbs was in his early thirties, tall and broad-shouldered, with deep brown skin and a pleasantly serious face. Years of working among American and British tourists had softened his Jamaican accent, but hints of it remained. Butterfly Island was said to be a melting pot, full of people who had come from all over the globe to live in splendiferous paradise. It wasn’t the same as Jamaica, but the bright sun, intense greenery, and sea air were enough to take the edge off his homesickness. He’d loved working aboard the Adventurous Spirit, but a cruise ship couldn’t be home. This place, though? It might be.

Paul felt his empty holster with his thumb, not quite approving of it. If he’d taken a job in a city like London, the burden of carrying a firearm could have gone to a tactical team. They had no such luxury on a small island with a single police department. He understood why Commissioner Yarbury had asked him to carry a weapon, but that didn’t mean he liked it. In his view, a person in peril, young or old, should want to run toward a police officer in times of crisis. Didn’t a deadly weapon work against that kind of trust?

He wasn’t entirely sure, but it worried him.

As the newest officer on the team, it would be important to remain humble. As Security Chief, he’d been in charge of the team in his previous job. But today he was at the bottom of the heap. He was starting from scratch! It was time to listen and learn.

He ducked down to check his teeth. Kameron’s mirror might be full length by the standards of his five-foot-eight girlfriend, but Paul’s reflection stopped at his neck.

Paul rarely fit into the world around him. Doorframes skimmed the top of his head or, worse, whanged him on the forehead when he wasn’t paying attention. Clothes never fit him off the shelf. When he’d left Jamaica, his mother gave him a tiny sewing kit and a stern reminder to always look his best. No one will trust a security officer in short pants, Tianna Gumbs had insisted with that impish smile of hers, planting a kiss on his forehead after pulling him down to her level.

Paul’s heart held a special tenderness for short, bossy women of a certain age. Perhaps that’s why his pulse was running at a trot. Until now, Paul had investigated crimes ably assisted by his good friend Ellie Tappet. Now, he was on his own.

He chuckled and shook his head. He was too old to be missing his mama! This was first day jitters, and that was all.

In the tiny, cluttered kitchen, he reached into the highest cabinet and found his portable gun safe. The door opened with a code, and the pitch-black velvet enclosure held two very dangerous items: a semiautomatic handgun and a bag of decaf coffee.

He holstered the gun carefully before leaning into the hallway to make sure the bedroom door was still closed. After filling his thermos with precious dark roast coffee, he pushed a fresh filter into the pot. With a surreptitious glance toward the hall, he tapped a measure of his secret stash into the basket for Kameron. Then he put his secret stash back in the safe. He grabbed a pen off a stack of unpacked boxes near the oven and wrote a quick note for Kameron.

Coffee’s ready. Just turn it on. Love you! - P

Kameron had taken to his pregnancy advice in the same way a feral cat takes to being shoved inside a carrier. She needed to understand that her circumstances had changed! Caffeine wasn’t good for the baby, and the articles he’d pulled off the internet proved that, but his beloved insisted on sucking down enormous cups of coffee like a bridge navigator on three a.m. watch.

Paul opened the filter drawer one more time and gave the grounds a skeptical sniff. There was no discernible difference. Good! What Kameron didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her, but she might hurt him if she ever found out.

In the living room, he quickly laced up his shoes. The last tenant had left very little behind. There were enough gauzy white curtains to break up the stiff ocean breeze. And a worn-out toilet plunger with a splintered handle. Plus a strange, skinny metal pole with a wicked-looking hook. Its purpose remained a mystery, but Kameron had admired it, saying it would make a fine fighting staff.

Paul stood, and his brain treated him to a memory of Kameron casually knocking a belligerent man to the ground with a carefully placed palm strike.

The decaf smelled the same as regular. He was almost sure of it.

Outside, the air smelled like saltwater and clean garden soil. Paul slipped his sunglasses over his nose to block out the worst of the morning glare and opened the Jeep’s door. It was olive green with rusty patches on the sides, but it was built like a tank. The hinges squeaked horribly when he shut the door. Paul glimpsed himself in the rearview mirror. Police uniform? Kick-ass sunglasses? Ready to protect and serve?

Oh yeah.

Paul Gumbs turned the key in the ignition and headed into work.

* * *

THE BUTTERFLY ISLAND POLICE DEPARTMENT looked like a dusty yellow shoebox. Surrounded by weedy pea gravel on three sides, the precinct looked sad and rather lonely. A long wheelchair ramp ran along the building’s right side, although some of the wooden planks were rotting away.

Paul grimaced at the long striped awning that ran across the front of the building. It reminded him of a hotdog stand. Only the scent of fried onions was missing.

Fluttering birdsong rang out as the Jeep’s old engine rattled to a stop. As he got out of the Jeep, the pleasant melody was drowned out by a chorus of angry chirps that seemed to come from everywhere at once. As he headed for the door, two tiny birds dive-bombed his head in quick succession before zipping around the corner of the building like tiny fighter jets.

He smiled at the sight of them. Not bad for a welcoming committee!

Next to the entrance, a corkboard held a sun-bleached sheet of paper. The paper was askew. It read: Welcome to Your Community Police Department. Open to the Public 8:00am-4:00pm. For Emergencies, dial 9-1-1.

Irritated by the cockeyed sign, Paul unpinned the page, leveled it, and pushed the pins back in firmly with his thumbs.

Yarbury had hinted that the department was underfunded. At the time, it sounded like a salary negotiation technique, but perhaps it was simple truth. Certainly City Hall was a fine building, well-built and luxuriously appointed. That’s where they’d held all his interviews.

The commissioner had wanted him at work at eight sharp, and it was ten till. There were no other cars in the gravel lot, just a dingy looking motorbike that looked like it had been left there to rot. He wiggled the knob, but the door was locked tight.

He knocked. No answer.

A trickle of sweat ran down his back and into his waistband. There was a skinny porch beneath the awning. He walked it, feeling the wooden floorboards flex beneath his feet. A dog barked excitedly in the distance. At one minute till eight, he checked his phone for messages. There were none. Curious, he went to one of the windows and squinted through the blinds, ducking to get an angle where he could see.

There was a man on the floor! Facedown on his belly, his thick arms were splayed out like wings. Bare, dirty feet showed beneath his dark trousers. He wasn’t moving!

Paul pulled out his phone to dial 9-1-1. He stared dumbly at the screen. You ARE 9-1-1, you dope!

He backed up, turned, aimed his shoulder at the door. With one breathless, explosive motion, he smashed through, breaking the lock, sending splinters flying.

Chapter Two

THE PRECINCT WAS DARK AND cool. The stranger was facedown on the dirty floor between two large metal desks. Someone had tossed a pair of scuffed black leather shoes against the wall. Paul knelt and put two fingers against the man’s neck. His skin was hot and sweaty. A pulse flared to life beneath Paul’s fingers.

He wanted to cheer!

Paul gripped the man’s shoulder and shook it. From a distance, he’d looked overweight, but up close Paul could see that his shoulders and back were dense with muscle. Paul grabbed his meaty shoulder with both hands and tried to turn him over. Sir? Do you need medical attention? I—

He flopped onto his back and yawned, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. Bleary-eyed, he turned his head, eyeing Paul warily. "How’d you get in here?"

Was he drunk? Broken blood vessels snaked across the man’s bulbous nose. When he spoke again, Paul heard a trace of a London accent.

You can’t be in here, mate. We’re closed. Blinking sleepily, the big man yawned and rolled onto his back again, stretching his arms overhead and wincing like the motion hurt him.

Paul looked down at him. No doubt this confused fellow had wandered in the precinct during the night, possibly mistaking it for his house. His pants were filthy (as was the floor) and his blue shirt was half-buttoned, splayed open over his white undershirt. A gap opened at the waist as he stretched, revealing a dark tangle of body hair thick enough to comb.

Sir, if you’ll get up, I’ll give you a ride home. Let’s get you a cup of coffee. You can clear your head. Paul went over and flicked a switch near the open door. Overhead, the lights stuttered before illuminating the room. The man on the floor levered himself to a standing position and hitched up his pants. He headed toward the back of the precinct, possibly in search of a toilet.

Sir, if you’ll hold on a—

Paul’s mouth snapped shut. That shirt looked awfully familiar. He glanced at the discarded shoes, identical to his own, only in far worse condition.

Right as the realization struck him, Yarbury’s voice boomed in his ear.

What is the meaning of this?

Paul jumped straight up in the air! When his feet hit the floor, he spun, his body as stiff as a tree branch. He slapped his heels together. Sir. Paul Gumbs reporting for duty! His hands went automatically to his sides, and his pinkie slammed against the butt of his gun. Pain blossomed, and he yelped! His eyes watered. He blinked rapidly to clear them. Despite his efforts, moisture ran down his cheek. Yarbury’s well-shaped eyebrows lowered a trifle. He stared, perhaps wondering if his new officer usually wept on the first day of the job.

I’m not crying, Paul insisted. I just whacked my hand on my gun.

Who destroyed our front door?

It was him, the big man said, jerking his thumb at Paul.

Sir, I can explain, Paul said at the same time.

Yarbury shot Paul a frustrated look. At ease, Gumbs! If you were any stiffer, I’d dial the coroner myself.

Don’t look at me, Yarbury, the big man said with a lazy grin. I was right knackered; was having myself a bit of shut-eye when James Bond here came busting through the wall like someone had stolen the crown jewels.

He looked Paul up and down. You must be the new kid. He bowed with a flourish, twirling his hands as he went. Sergeant Cornelius Dubois, at your service. But you can call me Kicker. He grimaced down at Paul’s swollen pinkie. You should get that looked at. Would be a pity if you had to chop it off, eh?

* * *

INSIDE YARBURY’S OFFICE, PAUL RESTED his hands in his lap and tried not to look nervous. Kicker had found him an ice pack, somewhere, and he’d wrapped it in a T-shirt that smelled like day-old cheese. Paul held the ice in place. The finger was only sprained, not broken. He’d been at work for all of thirty minutes and he’d already made a fool of himself. His gun was resting on Yarbury’s desk between two stacks of paper, a visible reminder of his failure.

Brent Yarbury watched him through hooded eyes. The commissioner was a white man, about fifty years of age, with a round cherubic face. He wore a linen suit the same shade of brown as his hair, almost as if he’d been stamped out of a single color of ink. His gaudy diamond-studded cuff links were monogrammed with two big letters: LR.

I misunderstood the situation, Paul blurted, when he couldn’t stand the silence any longer. And I’ll repair the door. At my expense.

Yarbury’s mouth unpuckered. His polite smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. That won’t be necessary. I’ll ask my brother-in-law to send his handywoman over. Heaven knows he owes me a favor or two. Yarbury leaned forward and spoke in a confidential whisper. "I sat through my niece’s recital last week. That child may have talents, but singing is not one of them. He smirked, interlacing his pale fingers atop his desk. So, what shall we do by way of an orientation?"

Was that a rhetorical question? The commissioner seemed to be waiting for an answer. Paul looked around the office for a clue. Was there an orientation manual? A procedures list? There had to be something!

Yarbury had decorated his office with framed news clippings. One was blown up larger than the rest. In it, a younger Yarbury shook hands with another man in front of a bank. Bank Robber Stood No Chance, the headline read.

I learn best on the job, Paul said, grasping at straws. Perhaps I can shadow one of the senior officers?

Yarbury wasn’t listening. He seemed to be lost in thought. After a moment, he said, Paul, let me give you some advice. You need to relax. Butterfly Island has very little crime. This isn’t New York, or Chicago, or Gotham City. He smirked at his own joke. I have no need of macho displays like I saw this morning. He opened a desk drawer, rummaged inside, and pulled out a cylindrical pack of breath mints. After popping one in his mouth, he asked, How old are you, anyway?

I’ll be thirty-one next month. As soon as the words left Paul’s mouth, he felt his face heating up. Next month? What was he, nine years old?

Good! I’ve had my fill of young pups. You’re starting a family, I hear? That’s good too. Our officers should be members of the community. Not people just passing through who want to pad out their CV. He pointed at Paul. I expect you to set an example.

Setting an example was fine and good. But if Yarbury meant it, why was Kicker Dubois passed out on the floor of the precinct? And where were the rest of the officers? There were only six desks on the precinct floor, and two were piled with boxes.

Get to know the people, Yarbury continued. Let them see you as a man first and as an officer second. That way, when everything goes pear-shaped, you’ll be—

Yarbury’s desk phone buzzed like an angry doorbell. He snatched it up with a frown. Yes? Are you sure? When? And where was he last seen? Understood. I’m sending you Paul Gumbs. Yes. That’s right. He’s the best we’ve got. He’ll be there in ten minutes.

Paul’s heart shifted from a steady lo-fi beat to a techno gallop. What happened?

A young boy is missing. Timothy Barnes, four years old. I need you to head up to Bliss Farms and coordinate the search. Don’t worry. As soon as Officer Kim arrives, I’ll send him to back you up.

Paul stood. You can count on me, sir.

I’m sure I can. And Gumbs?

Yes?

There are these things called door knobs. Try them, will you?

Chapter Three

THE COMMISSIONER’S DIRECTIONS WERE EASY to follow. Paul pulled into a small grass lot between a white house with flaking paint and a big red barn that looked brand-new. A heavily varnished wooden sign at the end of the driveway read Welcome to Bliss Farms.

A tall black woman in loose denim overalls came jogging up to the Jeep, breathing hard. Her trousers were muddy to the knee, and there was a smudge of pale dirt beneath her left eye. Her long braids dangled down on either side of her shoulders, completing the farmer look. You must be Detective Gumbs. Thanks for coming so quickly.

You’re Timothy’s mother? She looked calmer than he’d expected. Worried, but not panicked.

Adoptive mother, she said. "I’m Marnie. I run the farm here with my partner Susan. We’re so sorry about this. Timothy’s run off before, and I hate to bother the police, but I can’t find him anywhere. He was out in the lettuce field earlier. I ran inside to check the stove, and the next thing I knew he’d scampered off. I checked all the hoop houses." She gestured vaguely in the direction of a large field in the distance. Three rounded, tunnel-like greenhouses formed a rough barrier between the farmland and a bushy hill that sloped down toward the town center. A golden dome peeped over a tree canopy in the far distance.

I know he probably hasn’t gone far, but—

He held up a hand. It’s no problem. And don’t worry. We’ll find your son.

Marnie shot him a fond smile. There was a tiny gap between her front teeth, and she had flecks of mud in her braids. But beneath all that dirt and denim, she was quite a beauty. I believe you will, Detective Gumbs. Thank you.

He almost corrected her. The Butterfly Island Police Department had no such title. But the clock was ticking, and the sooner they found the boy, the better. "Do you have