The Girl of Sugar Beach Pilot Episode
The Girl of Sugar Beach
“Pilot” Episode
*Based on the interview with Claude Pierre
Grace Sebold sat in a small meeting room behind the lobby’s reception desk where the St. Lucian police had set up an impromptu interview area.
A small rectangular table sat with three chairs: two on one side for Pierre and his assistant, and a lone chair across from them, where the subject of their interview would sit.
Grace was first up, with a long list of others to follow as the day wore on.
“How did you know Mr. Crist?” Pierre started in a flat affect, all business. He sat with his hands folded on the table, his long, thin fingers interlaced. His assistant scribbled furious notes onto a legal pad. A recorder sat in the middle of the table to capture the interview.
“He was my boyfriend.”
“And what was the nature of your visit to the island of St. Lucia?”
The thick Caribbean accent, along with her nerves, made it difficult for Grace to understand the detective.
“The nature of what?” Grace asked in a strained voice that was on the verge of tears again.
She’d been crying all morning, and had become hysterical when the tuk-tuk that transported the gurney pulled past her group.
Word had spread by then that Julian was missing and a body had been discovered in the water.
“Why are you here, Ms. Sebold?” Inspector Pierre asked in a stronger tone. “Vacationing?”
“No. Yes, my friend was married a couple of days ago. We are here for the wedding.”
“Who is we?”
“Uh . . . Julian and I came together. But we met my parents and brother here as well. And all my friends.”
“What is the name of the friend who was married?”
“Charlotte.”
“Surname?”
Grace shook her head. “I’m sorry, I didn’t understand what you asked.”
“Surname?” Pierre said in a booming voice.
The charming Caribbean accent that Grace had so enjoyed from the resort staff had now turned into an ugly obstacle she had trouble hurdling.
“Your friend’s last name,” the assistant said in a calm voice less deluged by impatience.
“Oh, Brooks. Charlotte Brooks.”
“How did you know each other? You and the bride?”
“Charlotte and I have been friends since high school. I guess, what? Ten years or so? I was her maid of honor.”
“As the maid of honor,” Pierre said, “I can assume you and Ms. Brooks are best of friends?”
“She’s a friend,” Grace said. “Yes, of course. A dear friend.”
“Your closest friend?”
Grace hesitated. “She is a close friend, yes.”
“Why are your parents and brother traveling with you?”
“Our parents are friends,” Grace said. “Mine and Charlotte’s. My parents were invited to the wedding.”
“Where were you last night, Ms. Sebold?”
“Here at the resort.”
“Where, exactly? Tell me your day.”
Grace wetted her lips and ran a finger under her right eye to capture the last of her tears. “We were at the pool in the afternoon.”
“Again, Ms. Sebold. Who is we?”
“All of us. Julian and me, and all our friends. Then I had a late lunch with my parents and brother. Maybe three o’clock. After that, I went to my cottage to shower.”
“Did Mr. Crist join you for lunch?”
“No. He had something planned for last night. So he asked to skip lunch with my parents to get ready for it.”
“What was he planning, Ms. Sebold?”
“I’m not sure. Dinner, I think. He asked me to meet him up on the Piton.”
Inspector Pierre straightened in his chair.
“On Gros Piton?”
“Yes.”
“Did you meet him?”
Grace shook her head. “No.”
“Mr. Crist asked you to meet him, and you said no?”
Grace shook her head again. “No, I planned to meet him, but . . . Marshall became ill and I had to stay with him.”
“Who is Marshall?”
“My younger brother.”
“How much younger?”
“Just a year. He’s twenty-five.”
“Your brother, who is an adult, became ill and you were required to tend to him? What was the nature of his illness?”
“He had a seizure. I had to stay with him until it passed.”
Pierre wrinkled his forehead. “A seizure?”
“Yes,” Grace said. “He has a . . .” Grace tapped her fingers on the table to help her thoughts. “He has a medical condition. Seizures are common for him, but when they come, he needs help. So I stayed with him.”
“Surely, there will be a record of you calling for medical assistance? An ambulance or the resort nurse?”
“No. I know how to manage Marshall’s seizures,” Grace said. “He’s had them for many years, ever since . . . the accident.”
“Where did this seizure take place?”
“In my cottage.”
“What time?”
“I’m not sure. I was getting ready. So, about six, I guess.”
“Guessing does not help me, Ms. Sebold.”
Grace took a deep breath and looked up to the ceiling. “I would say it was just before six o’clock. I was just out of the shower, putting on makeup and drying my hair, when I heard him start to seizure in the other room.”
“Does your twenty-five-year-old brother often spend time with you while you’re dressing to meet your boyfriend? Your room seems like an odd place for your brother to be while you were showering.”
“Marshall has a condition that makes him . . . He spends a lot of time with me, yes. It makes him comfortable.”
The scribbler took furious notes. When he was finished, he nodded at Pierre, who then continued his questions.
“Your brother had a seizure. What happened next?”
“His seizures last only a few minutes, but it takes a while for him to recover afterward. Maybe thirty or forty minutes. It took some time to clean him up and get him back to his room and into bed.”
“Clean him up?”
“He had vomited,” Grace said, the first strain of annoyance coming to her voice. “And urinated on himself. I got him new clothes and waited while he took a shower.”
“How long did the process take?”
“An hour, maybe. It was probably seven o’clock by the time I got him back to my parents’ cottage.”
“Your vagueness is not at all useful, Ms. Sebold.”
“I’m not trying to be vague. I didn’t record the time, sir. I’m telling you what I remember, the best that I remember it.”
“You had plans to meet Mr. Crist, though. You must have had a sense of the time since you were now running late.”
“Yes, a sense. I just can’t tell you the exact time.”
“Your brother is now in bed and with your parents. According to you, it is seven in the evening. Did you stay with him?”
“No. I mean, for a while, yes. To make sure he was okay. My parents took over from there. Then I went to meet Julian, but by the time I got out to the beach, it was getting dark. I knew the hike up to the bluff would take too long, and I was scared to try it in the dark. So I waited on the beach.”
“For Mr. Crist?”
“Yes.”
“And when Mr. Crist did not appear on the beach, as I’m sure he did not, you surely attempted to contact him, no? Call him or text-message him?”
“Our phones don’t work here. There’s no service down in this valley.”
“Fair enough. But you must have mentioned his absence to someone of authority, no? Your parents? Or perhaps resort security?”
Grace curled her bottom lip inward and shook her head. “No. Not to anyone at the resort. I told my friend Ellie Reiser. Ellie came to my cottage and stayed all night.”
“Your boyfriend is missing, and this is of no concern to you?”
“No. I mean, it was. I was concerned, but not that he was missing. Not that anything bad had happened to him.”
“If you weren’t worried that he was missing, what exactly was the source of your concern?”
“We had gotten into an argument that day. When I couldn’t make it to the bluff on time, I figured Julian assumed I blew him off. I waited on the beach until it was dark, then I checked his room. When I couldn’t find him, I figured he was angry and avoiding me.”
“You and Mr. Crist had gotten into an argument? About what? Why was he angry with you?”
Grace took a deep breath. She held open her palms. “He was my boyfriend. Occasionally we got into fights.”
“But this particular argument, which occurred on the day that he was killed. What, exactly, were you fighting about, Ms. Sebold?”
Grace took a deep breath. “Do we really have to get into all this?”
“I’m afraid we do.”
Grace looked to the ceiling and wiped her tears again. “Julian was mad about . . . another guy. He was jealous, I guess.”
“Jealous about what?”
“I don’t know. Julian thought Daniel and I were . . . He thought we had feelings for each other.”
“Daniel?”
Grace shook her head, moved her gaze to the side, and stared helplessly at the notepad, where the scribbler was slashing away.
“Daniel Greaves,” she said. “Daniel and I dated a long time ago, just briefly in college. Julian found out about it that afternoon and thought something was going on between us.”
“Between you and Daniel Greaves?” Inspector Pierre asked.
“Yes. There wasn’t, by the way. It was just a stupid misunderstanding.” Grace shook her head, tears starting to well again on her lower lids.
“Who, exactly, is Daniel Greaves, and why was he at Sugar Beach Resort?”
Grace looked once again at the recorder, which sat on the table, and at the messy shorthand, which Inspector Pierre’s assistant was jotting onto the legal pad. Grace eventually closed her eyes.
“He was the groom. Charlotte’s boy—” Grace stopped herself. “I guess, at that point, he was Charlotte’s husband.”