I have been in Florida the last month re-reading old journals I have kept over the years, about 20 in total, and am astonished at the stories I have from previous travels and decided to include these in my blog until my next trip.
I leave March 5 to an undisclosed location for 5 weeks and will invite everyone to make a guess as to where I will go. If you guess correctly, I promise to send a gift on my return from my travels.
As always let me know if you enjoy the story. My writing seems to be a little off and I hope to get back in the swing when I travel abroad.
MURDER IN ANTIGUA??
About 38 years ago, when I was only about 12, ( just kidding that would only make me 50, it is just one of those days where I don’t feel old enough to say 38 years ago!!)
So, 38 years ago I was offered a horrific job that I accepted in a nano second. I was asked to fly to the Caribbean Island of St. Lucia, you know the one with the “Sandals” commercial with the heart shape pool. Of course, Sandals did not exist 38 years ago, but the white sand beach and turquoise water did.
My assignment was to live there for 4 months and teach the Eye Care program I was involved with to nurses from 6 different English-speaking Caribbean islands. These nurses were awarded scholarship based on their interest in eye care.
Now for the worse part of the program. A year after I finished the program, I was asked to travel to each of the Caribbean islands and stay for 2-3 weeks and work with those nurses I had trained and assist in helping them to train other nurses on their respective islands. For the next two years I traveled every 4 months to a different island which included St. Kitts, Monserrat, Grenada, St Vincent, Dominica and Antigua.
Of course, I jest at this being the worst job or assignment ever because it was obviously the best. In addition to traveling to all these islands at no cost to me, they actually paid me to go.
Each island was different and boast its own attraction. Antigua the flattest of all the islands boast 365 beaches, one for each day of the year.
In Antigua I did not stay in a fancy tourist hotel, but rather a nice local hotel used by visitors working in Antigua. On my first evening my neighbors, an older Canadian couple, Mr. And Mrs. So and So, invited me for tea. Mr. So and So was retired and they had come to Antigua on behalf of their church in Canada to help with some charity work. They were a pleasant couple and the next evening, we dined together in the hotel restaurant and chatted about our work, this was their first trip abroad and I got the impression they were a little taken back at the level of poverty not seen at the fancy resorts tourist visit.
A week passed and one early Sunday morning Mrs. So and So came to my room and said she was experiencing a strange pain in her chest. She let me know she had a complete physical before leaving Canada and all the test came back normal. But still I encouraged her to go to the local hospital and be checked out, I even offered to go with her. But she refused, saying all the “good” doctors would be out golfing on a Sunday morning and that she did not want anyone of color touching her, which frankly stunned me.
She said she would go lay down and I promised to check on her before lunch. About 10:30 I went to their room and she seemed fine and was resting reading a book. I let them both know I would be taking a walk on the beach and would come back at lunch to dine with them.
Her husband decided to walk down to the beach with me for exercise and we left their room together. We walked a while and then parted ways as I wished to take a longer walk and swim and he wanted to get back to his wife.
When he returned to the room, he found his wife face down at the door way to the bathroom, dead.
When I arrived about 45 minutes later the ambulance and police were already there. The word got around quickly that a tourist had died “suspiciously” on the island and soon the area was swamped with officials.
Two detectives appeared and were yelling at the director of the morgue to not touch the body. The director of the morgue was a heavy-set man with a crumbled T shirt. He looked as if he had just been called out of bed after a wild Saturday night, which perhaps he was. The T shirt barely covered the large protruding belly. He wore khaki pants with the legs rolled up to his calf, one pant leg rolled higher than the other and he had on two different colored socks with sandals.
It was hard to miss that his pants barely covered his back side and he would reached back now and then to pull the pants up which promptly fell back down just below the crack. He was sporting bright red underwear. He had a cigarette in his mouth, and he was leaning over Mrs. So and So’s body talking to his team and ashes would occasionally fall on the body.
There was a lot confusion and loud shouting from all directions by all the officials that were there. I don’t think anyone liked being called out on a Sunday. A Canadian tourist dying with no apparent cause was big news. The entire crew seemed to be playing in a three-ring circus, so much going on and the right hand not knowing that the left hand was doing.
Her husband was of course beside himself. I spent the rest of the day and most of the night comforting him the best I could. Eventually after the “circus” died down a bit, the body was taken to the morgue and it was reported to her husband that an autopsy would be conducted the following day. Mr. So and So was beside himself thinking of strangers in a different country handling the body and asked if I would consider going to the morgue to oversee the autopsy.
The next day while teaching my class a police car drove up, two police officers got out of the car and came into the room and asked me to step outside. They informed I would be required to come to the police station to answer some questions.
When I arrived at the rather stark, cold police station I was asked to sit on a hard wooden chair opposite the police officer. The questions were intense and intimidating.
“How long have you known Mr. and Mrs. So and So?” the officer asked.
“I just met them.” I replied
“You were seen having tea with them several times, what was the nature of having tea?”
I smirked as if it was a joke and said in a rather sarcastic tone “Umm to drink tea I suppose”. The officer glared at me.
“You were also seen escorting them to dinner on the night of such and such. Why did you dine with them?”
And again, I answered with a bit of a sarcastic note “To eat dinner and talk about our work and travels”. The police officer raised his eye brow and looked at the other officer standing by the door as if to say “ Oh, we have a smart a** here”.
I then realized this was not a joke and I had better straighten my attitude a bit.
“Did Mr. and Mrs. So and So seem in distress, did any arguments occur when you dined with them?”
“No, it was a nice friendly dinner.” I answered with a bit of annoyance.
“It has been reported that Mrs.So and So came to your room on the day of her death. Was there an argument?”
No, I said and I explained the nature of her call. I began to wonder about all the hotel workers who must have been watching everyone every move at all times.
“You were also seen leaving with Mr. So and So on the morning of Mrs. So and So’s death. And returned later alone after Mr So and So discovered the body of his wife.” This was not a question but rather a fact with a hint of an accusation.
The questions were illuding to a possible affair and the planning of her death. Did they actually think I had anything going on with this elderly man. I was 12, as mentioned earlier and he was at least 65.
The officer advised me not to leave the country until an autopsy was completed to determine the cause of death and asked me for my passport.
All I could think about was how I was going to explain the situation to the CEO of the Eye Foundation. ”Oh Hi Joe, Look I might be on the island a little longer than expected, I have been detained on suspension of murder!!”
I was granted permission at the police station to witness the autopsy and reported to the morgue later that day. It was behind the hospital in a separate building. A cold cement room with openings on each end and no windows or doors.
I sat in outside on an old car seat that had been ripped out of a car, next to a dirty red stained mop. When the doctor arrived, a female, I followed her into the morgue. There was a large metal table in the middle of the room with three covered bodies and a few hundred flies. It was not air conditioned!! A nice tabby cat was sitting on one of the shelves intensely watching over the bodies as if guarding them. He was wearing a tiny police badge on his collar letting me know he was the official chief of the morgue responsible for catching any mouse or rat bold enough to try and mess with warm dead bodies.
The doctor assigned to the autopsy immediately looked at the body and picked up the phone hanging on the wall. She began arguing in a loud voice with the person on the other end of the line that this was her third autopsy this month and she had not yet been paid for the previous two. She said she refused to do the “cutting” and they should send someone immediately to complete this task.
I later learned that the hardest part of the autopsy was to cut open the sternum and open the chest to look at the heart. Sorry if this made your stomach do a flip flop thinking about it, but it is an interesting fact. They asked me to wait back out in the waiting area and again I took my seat on the old beat-up car seat and thought about this fact myself.
About a half an hour later an elderly man who looked like a local meat butcher, donning a white coat with blood stains walked in with a meat cleaver and proceeded to open the chest, all along the doctor yelling at him that he was not being careful enough. The process was so bizarre that all I could do was focus on the cat on the shelf and wonder how much he was paid to guard those bodies. I was not sure how to process any of this and I was definitely not going to report any of it to her husband.
Later it was determined that she died from a massive heart attack, so much for the physical stating she was in good health when she left Canada.
My passport was returned, there was a tongue in cheek apology for the interrogation letting me know they were just doing their job, which I accepted. Mr. So and So promptly left the island and headed back to Canada.
He later reported that his wife arrived in Canada in a different casket that he had picked out, a cheaper one, in only her underwear. Evidently the dress, shoes and accessories we took to the morgue for her to be dressed in where confiscated and someone in Antigua was walking around town with them on.
We did continue to keep in touch over the years, you cannot share an experience like this and not have a lifetime bond. I had other adventures on the remaining 5 islands, but never as wild as this one.
Instructions for living: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.
Mary Oliver
I love reading the obituaries, it always reminds me I am still here to read them!
My Timshel by Tamara Gonzalez Oberbeck 
Leave a comment