Alfred Fouquereaux de Marigny and wife Nancy were divorced in 1949. The native of Mauritius remarried and moved around between Canada, the U.S., Caribbean and Central America. He wrote a book “Conspiracy of Crowns” advancing his own theories on the death of Harry Oakes. He died in 1998. He had become friends with Hemingway while crossing the Atlantic on an ocean liner in the 1930s.
2 September 1943: Dajabon, Dominican Republic
The village lay at the border with Haiti, one of just a few places where the road networks of Haiti and the Dominican Republic come together. The economy of Dajabon relied on trade between the two nations, but some of that intercourse had nothing to do with second-hand shoes and garlic.
The trader, now of “German descent” (since the Dominican Republic had declared war on the Axis), drank beer in a ramshackle parador on the road from Monte Cristi, where he waited for his Haitian subcontractor. Today was payday.
When Albert Pierre arrived, the Trader welcomed “the finest sailor on Hispaniola” with a hearty embrace and an invitation to share his cold Presidente Grande, the national beer.
“But where is the man Odelin, who has performed such a brave service for our masters?”
“Odelin is lost.”
“By lost you mean…
“Dead. Odelin Duvalier was lost overboard in a squall off Mayaguana. He was a good man. He became a friend to me and my crew, but he is dead.”
“I need proof of his death. This is important, very much. Right from the top.”
“All right my friend. I killed Odelin. I was the captain of the boat. He was lost on my boat. I am responsible for everyone on board, so you may tell Berlin that I killed Monsieur Duvalier.
The Trader seemed to consider Pierre’s argument.
Pierre spoke again: “Look, I know you. How long have we worked together? Five years? It is obvious that you need Odelin to be dead. So if I didn’t kill Odelin, you would have to hire someone to do it. I know you, and I know that you would never do such a thing personally. It is not what you do.
“I also know—because he told me before he died—that he was to be paid two thousand on his return. Obviously that money would have been redirected by you to hire his executioners. Now that I have killed Odelin, that money has no place to go. How sad…unless you and I divide it between us.”
The Trader laughed his Teutonic ass off. “Albert, are you sure you are not part Dominican?”
“Possibly so. My people say I enjoy myself too much to be 100 percent Haitian…So what do you say, my friend? I certify for you that I am the killer of Odelin. You give me my pay, plus a thousand from Odelin’s share, and you keep the other thousand.”
“You have a deal,” said the Trader of German descent.
Pierre and his two cousins, who had waited outside the parador, crossed back into Haiti and marched the three miles to the corral where the horses were resting. Sitting in the shade of the thatch-roof hut were Duvalier and his woman. When their friends approached, they stood to greet them.
Pierre and his men stopped ten feet short, each looking grim, saying nothing. The couple dreaded the words to follow.
Then Pierre laughed, and his cousins laughed. “Ha! Such long faces. We have tricked you. The German went for it. It worked, Odelin. Odelin, the wealthy ghost.” Pierre raised a canvass bag and shook it. “Hear that jingling? That’s your thousand in gold.”
“Albert, are you certain you do not have some Arab blood in you? Many, many thanks, my friend. Laurete and I will name our first son Albert and our second, Pierre.” The two men embraced.
“The gold is not free. You must become my apprentice, and learn the ancient art of sailing a Haitian sloop. Someday we shall undertake a voyage to the great city of Miami. I have heard they have a zoo there, and it is filled with lions, tigers and elephants. What a marvelous age, Odelin.”
7 December 1943: Finca Vigia, Havana
Alfred Fouquereaux de Marigny and his wife Nancy, daughter of Harry Oakes, had the cab driver drop them off at Finca Vigia the day they arrived in Havana. The Hemingway home was where they would stay until the found an apartment in the city. With Martha Gelhorn covering the war in Italy, Hemingway’s estate was wanting for occupants.
After their welcome, De Marigny fished through his luggage and took out a coil of rope. “Ernie, a present for you. Put it on your boat,” he said. “This was the rope to hang me. They gave it to me after my acquittal to cheer me up.”
“Please take it, Mr. Hemingway, I can’t bear having it near me,” Nancy said. “It brings back all the bad.”
“Please call me Ernie or Papa if you’d like. That one is starting to catch on.”
“Nancy’s testimony and her tears for me at the end of the trial ensured my freedom. That and the fact that my lawyer convinced the jury that the American police detectives tampered with the evidence. What a nightmare it’s been for us.”
“Freddy, I don’t understand the reasoning for your deportation,” Hemingway said. “You’re innocent of committing a crime, now get out?”
“Edward, that pimple on the ass of the Empire—he has an agenda that includes a tremendous dislike for me. I had to go. I would have served as a reminder of the botched investigation that his highness had personally directed.”
Hemingway knew that his reunion with de Marigny and the presence of Oakes’ daughter might bring moments that tested his composure, and now would be the first.
“You know, Ernie, there was a point after my arrest when I was reminded of you. We heard a rumor that a black boat left Nassau the morning after Harry’s murder.”
Hemingway maintained what he hoped was his best poker face.
De Marigny, finishing his thought: “I remember thinking at the time, ‘There is actually someone out there other than Ernest Hemingway who is crazy enough to have a black boat in the tropics.’ I could hardly believe it.”
12 January 2007: Finca Vigia Foundation, Boston, Massachusetts
Every group or organization, given enough time, develops its own rituals. Two of the researchers working on the artifacts and letters from Hemingway’s Cuba estate had developed a friendly rivalry that was played out every Monday over morning coffee. “Mystery Mondays,” they used to say. Pretty soon office staff looked forward to eavesdropping.
“Show me yours, and I’ll show you mine,” he said.
“No way, I was first last week,” she said. “Yes, I was.”
Defeated, he removed a photocopy from his shirt pocket and unfolded it.
“It’s a medal with swastikas,” she said. “Hemingway had a Nazi medal. What’s up with that?”
“We don’t know. Hello, that’s what makes it a mystery. We found it in a desk drawer. It’s called the Grand Cross of the Order of the German Eagle.”
“He must have picked it up when he was in Europe after D-Day.”
“There’s a problem with that,” he said. “I spoke with the military guy at the auction house, the one you always see on Antiques Roadshow. He says only 13 were ever awarded, all to non-German bigshots like Mussilini. He says they’re all accounted for. This would be the 14th German Eagle, and it shouldn’t exist. So top that.”
“Okay, take a look,” she handed him her photocopy. He recognized it immediately. It was a page from Pilar’s log. Normally logbooks recorded navigationally significant information, fuel data, position coordinates and the like. Uniquely, Pilar’s log also recorded each crew member’s poker debts and winnings as they played.
“So what? Poker on Pilar,” he said.
“This is a log entry from the last U-Boat patrol in ’43. There’s one player in the game that we don’t recognize, and he’s cleaning up. He doesn’t appear in any Pilar log before or since.”
“Mine is still better.”
“Wait, wait,” she said. “You know how they abbreviated all the names. Look here. First reference, ‘Jm. Bond. After that just ‘Bond.’ Papa and his boys were playing poker with James Bond. No wonder they were losing.”
He laughed. “That would have been a complete waste of a good secret agent. You know as well as I do that absolutely nothing of any interest happened on that patrol.”