The Crimes of Jordan Wise

I moved out of the Quartz Gade villa the first week in December. If the cleaning crew noted the gouge in the floor tile or the blood spots on the chair fabric, they didn't report it; I heard nothing from the real estate agent or the absentee owners. A short time later, I received a check for the full amount of the cleaning deposit.

By then I knew I was going to get away with the Cotler crime, too.

ST. THOMAS

1983-1984

ITHOUGHT YOU'D ASK about my emotional state in the aftermath of the Cotler crime. Did I have nightmares about what I'd done? Daymares? Did I suffer remorse, guilt, any of the other so-called murderer's torments?

The answers are all no.

My emotional state, once the initial dose of blackmailer's poison had been flushed out, was no different than it had been before Cotler showed up on the island.

I told you I'm not religious; I don't believe in mortal sin or any of the other biblical covenants, or in divine punishment. I do believe that morality, like love, is a private thing defined by and suited to each individual. I've freely admitted to my dark side, but like Bone, I also have my own code of ethics. I've always adhered to that code, and within its boundaries I was and still am a moral man.

No, I don't consider myself a murderer. How many of those who have taken a human life, for any reason, ever look at themselves in the mirror and think that they've committed a mortal sin? Damn few. No man, unless he's a homicidal psychotic, ever thinks of himself as an evildoer. If you called him one to his face, chances are he'd be shocked. So would I.

I killed Fred Cotler in a fit of blind rage, for a perfectly justifiable reason. It was an act of self-preservation, not one of murder. How can anyone be expected to feel sorry for having killed to save his own life?

Yes, of course I know the law, the churches, many individuals would consider that a rationalization. Everyone who has killed in hot or cold blood has a reason or an excuse. The human mind is capable of bending and shaping any act to fit any preconceived set of beliefs, of justifying even the most heinous crime. But in most cases, that bending and shaping is the result of the mind's inability to cope with the magnitude of the act; it can continue to function only through a process of denial and self-delusion. I knew exactly what I'd done, and why. I was not self- deluded. I have a very clear understanding of the differences between right and wrong.

I'm not a sociopath. Maybe you think so, but you're wrong. Sociopaths care about no one but themselves, have no empathy for others or capacity for love or belief in the sanctity of human life. I cared about others, good people like Bone; I'd loved Annalise with all my heart; I would never willingly harm anyone who was not a direct threat to my safety and well-being, and then only as a last resort.

Murderer? Evildoer? Sociopath? No. Just a man with a dark side, nothing more and nothing less.

I had to forget Annalise all over again. There was no other reasonable course of action.

Oh, I gave some thought to flying up to New York, tracking her down, confronting her. I could have done that without too much difficulty, I think. But to what purpose? Threats were useless unless I told her what I'd done to Cotler, and that was out of the question. If she believed that I'd killed him, it would only give her a greater hold over me.

Yes, I could have destroyed her as I'd destroyed her lover, but I told you, I couldn't harm anyone except as a last resort. Not even Annalise, as much as I hated her—from love to indifference to hate, full turn. It was a cold hate, locked away and shackled. I could no more have gone hunting her than I could have gone hunting an animal, even a loathsome animal. I'm not made that way.

As I settled back into my day-to-day life, I was able to keep from dwelling on Annalise and her duplicity. With some difficulty at first, then more easily behind a wall of passing days. Only one thing continued to bother me, a nagging worry like a splinter that had worked itself in too deep for extraction.

What if she hooked up with somebody else like Fred Cotler?

What if another blue-eyed bastard showed up someday to bleed me dry?

A complex man with simple tastes.

If I had to describe myself in a single sentence, that would be it.

I didn't realize it until I came to St. Thomas. The simple tastes, I mean. I thought the quiet life I'd led in San Francisco was a result of my job, of lack of funds and resources, of circumstances. What I wanted, I believed then, was what Annalise wanted: all the luxuries and material possessions money could buy. Not so. I didn't miss the Quartz Gade villa or the Royal Bay Club or the company of the elite white community or the parties and nightclubs and expensive restaurants or the dress-up clothes or the trips to far-flung places. The only material possession that really meant anything to me was Windrunner. If it hadn't been for Annalise and the misunderstanding of my needs, I wouldn't have had to steal $600,000 from Amthor Associates to finance a new life in the Virgin Islands; I could have done it on not much more than $100,000, and to hell with the stock portfolio and the Cayman Islands bank accounts.

As it was, except for an occasional small draw, what was left of the initial bankroll, plus all the dividends, just sat over there accumulating interest. There was nothing I cared to spend money on other than the yawl, no place I cared to go that the yawl couldn't take me.

I liked living on Windrunner. The major reason was that she was Annalise-free. The villa had had her taint in it, a faint residue of our life together trapped within its walls. I hadn't felt it so much while I was occupying the place, but once I moved out I realized how subtly oppressive it had been the past year. I was glad I hadn't given it up sooner, because of the nature of the Cotler crime, but to be rid of it finally was like the removal of a weight.

The yawl's main cabin had never seemed cramped when I was out to sea, nor did it seem cramped in port. There was room enough for everything I owned, and it was easy to keep clean and tidy. I kept the galley well stocked and I didn't mind cooking, learned to enjoy it enough so that I ate most of my evening meals on board. Simple meals. West Indian dishes like chowders and bouillabaisses, fried fish, crab sandwiches, an occasional chicken or meat course. I slept better on her, too, than I ever had in the villa. You couldn't ask for a more soothing soporific than the movement of the harbor water, the creak of rigging and old timbers, the farniliar odors of salt and creosote.

Once a week or so I took Windrunner out for a sail, sometimes on a day trip over by St. John or another nearby island, sometimes on longer cruises. Days when I was in port, I followed the same routine and enjoyed the same small pleasures as I had before the blackmailer's arrival. Evenings were the same, too—the best part of any day for me. Quiet time. Sunsets, Arundel, Calypso and Fungi rhythms, harbor sounds, the boom and cabin lights on the berthed boats like a bright jeweled chain around the marina's dark throat.

I'd gotten to know some of the other residents and now and then one of them would drop by to socialize, or invite me over for a drink or a meal. Other evenings, Bone would show up and we'd drink rum and talk some while he perfumed the darkness with his molasses-sweet pipe tobacco. Or we'd just sit quiet together, absorbing the night. They were all the company I needed or wanted.

Fred Cotler gradually faded out of my consciousness, until it was as if he'd never come to the island in the first place, never dirtied my hands with his blood. I couldn't entirely forget Annalise, but sometimes a full week would go by without a single thought of her entering my head. I felt I couldn't ask for any more than that.

In May '83, shortly after Carnival, I had my fortieth birthday. Bone and I went out to celebrate. We nibbled a few drinks in the Bar, had dinner in a Creole restaurant on the Rue de St. Barthelemy, then set off on a Frenchtown and native-quarter pub crawl.

Somewhere along the way we picked up a couple of women, or the women picked us up—I'm not sure which. They were both native West Indians. One—big, bawdy, skin the color of melted licorice—knew Bone and latched on to him. I can't remember her name. The other one, Pearl, was younger, slimmer, lighter skinned, shy until she took in enough rum to loosen her inhibitions. She was a singer, or wanted to be a singer, and in one of the clubs she joined a loud steel band and sang an old Calypso song called 'Don't Stop the Carnival' in a husky Antilles