Pilot Episode
The Girl of Sugar Beach
“Pilot” Episode
*Based on the interview with Claude Pierre
Pierre placed Grace Sebold under arrest. Two officers led her, hands cuffed behind her back, through the atrium and placed her in the back of a police car.
Pierre headed with another officer in the opposite direction, through the lobby and toward Sugar Beach.
He walked past the pool, where vacationers elbowed themselves up on deck chairs at the sight of Inspector Pierre and the officer hurrying by.
Pierre stepped onto the soft sand of Sugar Beach and made his way past the open-dining restaurant, where breakfast was being enjoyed amid a cacophony of chiming plates and silverware.
Those on holiday seemed oblivious to the fact that a guest had washed up on shore two days before.
“We roped it off as soon as we found it, sir,” the officer said as they walked.
Pierre followed the officer down the beach until they reached the water-sport hut.
Yellow tape blocked the entrance of the freestanding structure, which consisted of a palm-thatched roof that sat atop four stucco walls.
Beige tile surrounded the shack, offering a break from the sand.
It was here that guests rented all sorts of water-sport equipment: snorkels and fins, boogie boards and volleyballs.
Because of the calm waters off Sugar Beach, and the protected location of Pitons Bay, stand-up paddleboarding was a popular attraction.
A long row of yellow paddleboards stood in the sand to the side of the hut.
“What did you find?” Pierre asked.
The young officer offered a pair of latex gloves, which Pierre slipped over his hands as he entered the hut.
The beige tile led him inside, and the interior of the shack was as meticulously maintained as the rest of the resort.
Snorkel masks and scuba gear hung neatly from the walls: fins and vests and wet suits and regulators.
Scuba tanks stood in organized fashion along an adjacent wall.
“Here, sir,” the officer said as they walked to the back wall, which was covered with kayak and paddleboard oars.
The officer pointed a flashlight into the back corner of the hut.
A long, wooden oar stood haphazardly in the corner, resting sidelong with the handle on the tile floor and the blade wedged into the corner.
“It looked out of place because it was not hanging with the rest of the oars. When I took a closer look, I noticed this,” the officer said as he placed the beam of his flashlight close to the paddle.
Pierre leaned down. Without taking his eyes off the paddle, he waved his index finger at the officer and took the flashlight, placing it inches from the wooden blade. He ran the light down the shaft, then back up.
“Has anyone touched this oar?”
“No, sir. The activities hut has been vacant since Thursday morning when the beach was cordoned off. As soon as I noticed the paddle, I roped off the hut and put a call in for you.”
“Well done. Get the crime scene men back down here.”
As the officer hurried from the hut, Pierre continued to stare at the speckles of blood that covered the blade of the paddle.
A clear plastic tube preserved the wooden paddleboard oar as if it were on display at a museum. It rested next to Dr. Mundi as he stood at the autopsy table. He was finishing the postmortem of a St. Lucian man killed the night before during a drug deal gone awry.
“Is it possible?” Pierre said.
“Possible?” Dr. Mundi said as he momentarily stopped his work to stare at the preserved oar.
“Yes. It matches the nature of the fracture. A blunt, heavy object that could be swung at low-to-medium velocity. But I’d need to take measurements to see if the blade matches the size and shape of the skull fracture.”
“Emmanuel,” Pierre said, getting the doctor’s attention by addressing him by his first name.
“I understand the methodology you must use to confirm my suspicion. I also know that will take some time, of which I’m very short.
What I’m asking you today is if you think this paddleboard oar could have been, not if it was for certain, but if it could have been used to strike Julian Crist and cause his head trauma. ”
“Perhaps,” Dr. Mundi said, still scrutinizing the plastic tube while his hands were frozen midsuture above the body in front of him. “But from here, the size of the blade doesn’t match what I remember about the fracture.”
“His blood is on the blade, Emmanuel. DNA will prove that it is a match,” Pierre said.
“You’ve made me aware of that fact, Claude.”
Pierre looked across the mortuary at the doorway, then back to Dr. Mundi. “I need this, Emmanuel,” he said in a controlled voice. “I have pressure on me to get this under control quickly. I need you to tell me this oar caused the skull fracture.”
“You’re asking me, while I have a different body on my table, to confirm that this oar caused the skull fracture in the Crist case. My initial instinct is only that it’s possible. I need to run the tests and perform my analysis. I’ll need to pull the body from the cooler and have a closer look.”
“When?”
“I’ll be done here in an hour.”
Pierre nodded, rested his hand on top of the plastic tube. “I’ll wait.”