The Girl of Sugar Beach Pilot Episode
The Girl of Sugar Beach
“Pilot” Episode
*Based on the interview with Claude Pierre
“Sir,” the manager said when Pierre had asked to speak with him. “When do you suppose the beach will be back up and running?”
Pierre looked at him with dark eyes slightly squinted with disbelief. “A dead body was just discovered floating off its shores. It will be some time. Now I’ll need a list of everyone at the resort. And I’ll need to know if any guests are missing or unaccounted for.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll pull a register off the computer. It is still early, so many of our guests are not awake.”
“Start knocking on doors, man! You are the only resort on this beach and it is quite likely one of your guests is dead. Do it now, please.”
“Sir,” another officer said. “Dr. Mundi has arrived.”
“Show him down,” Inspector Pierre said.
Moments later, Emmanuel Mundi stood on Sugar Beach and peered out into the water. He waved at the officer in the water who was holding the dead man’s heel. “Bring it here.”
“I hope not to disturb anything,” the officer said as he floated the body over toward shore.
Dr. Mundi looked around the beach. “The scene has already been terribly disturbed.” He turned and waved again, this time to his crew who waited farther up the beach toward the resort. “We’ll need photographs,” he said as his crew made their way down to the shore.
The crime scene unit snapped photos of the dead man who floated facedown in the ocean.
A combination of death and salt water bleached the skin on the dead man’s arms and legs as they poked through his shirtsleeves and shorts.
Distended and waterlogged, the pallid wedge of skin between his shirt collar and hairline looked like soft bread dough ready to go in the oven.
Dr. Mundi’s crew carefully rotated the body onto its back, exposing the face and chest. More photos followed until they secured the body in a black vinyl bag.
The technicians carried it across the beach and up to the pool area, where a gurney waited on solid ground.
They loaded the gurney onto the back of a tuk-tuk and transported the dead man up the steep hills of the resort and into the parking lot, where Dr. Mundi’s van waited.
By now, a few guests had caught wind of the police activity and noticed the crime scene tape near the beach.
They gathered in small groups and whispered to one another about what might have happened.
“Inspector.”
Pierre looked up from the beach and saw a young officer standing on a bluff high up on Gros Piton. His hands were around his mouth to act as a megaphone.
“Better come up and check this out.”
Inspector Pierre stood atop the bluff on Gros Piton and looked down at the Caribbean Sea, where two divers floated on the surface and stared into the shallow waters looking for anything that seemed out of the ordinary.
The crime scene unit was combing the sand of Sugar Beach searching for evidence.
On the bluff, Pierre ordered his deputies to bag the blanket that covered the granite, along with the champagne bottle and two flutes, which were standing eerily alone.
He had already placed twelve inverted V-shaped placards around the bluff, labeled by number.
The first stood by a blood splatter on the granite; another by a larger collection of blood that had pooled farther down the bluff from the original splatter.
A shoeprint in the dirt just off the bluff was also labeled.
Pierre stood by while an officer took photos of each of the areas marked by yellow placards.
Another officer meticulously videotaped the entire scene, sweeping the bluff from one side to the other, capturing the blanket and the champagne and the blood.
The video was for the detectives, so they could later revisit the crime scene to unearth clues they had missed initially.
They had no idea that a decade later this footage would play across American televisions during a true-crime documentary.
Dr. Mundi came to the bluff and took a spot next to Pierre, also peering down into the water where the body had been discovered.
“You don’t suppose it was a simple accident? Perhaps too much alcohol and poor balance?” Mundi asked.
“Not unless he spat blood before he fell.” Pierre pointed to the blood splattered across the granite.
Dr. Mundi surveyed the dozen yellow markers, which suggested signs of foul play. He nodded. “Very well. I will have a look at the body back at my mortuary.”
“Maybe suicide,” Pierre said. “But that doesn’t account for the blood.”
“I’ll know soon enough,” Dr. Mundi said.
“Keep me on top of things.”
“Same.” Dr. Mundi left the bluff and headed down to the beach.
“Inspector,” the young officer said again as he approached. “It appears one of the guests at the resort is missing.”
“Name?”
“Julian Crist. An American.”