Murder Mystery Party in Sint Maarten

This year I promised my travel bestie Britney, that I would celebrate her birthday with her in Sint Maarten along with all her other friends that I didn't know. I didn't realize at the time that it would be happening immediately after my dive trip in Mexico. So after I left the emotional turmoil of the shit disaster in Playa Del Carmen, I flew to a second vacation.

The girl chat I was added to prior to the trip was a full sorority roll call. Every single girl had the most aggressively basic white girl names known to mankind. I’m not even exaggerating, if I tried to make up fake names you’d just assume I was listing their real names.

When I met them in our enormous party mansion, they were all really cool. And way above my class level. Like, they were making margaritas in a blender. And measuring stuff?

These bitches were baking.

Meanwhile, I want the tequila inside me right now! We needed to take the classy level way down and lower the bar hard. Like no glassware, chips-for-dinner, no dignity. Just low rent Coyote Ugly energy... in Crocs.

But we were still missing one person. A mystery guest known only to the birthday girl. She had not yet arrived, but she was about to single handedly lower the bar to a level that none of us were emotionally, spiritually or legally prepared for.

If Florida Were a Person

Tara (pronounced tar-uh) arrived at nightfall. She stumbled out of her taxi, hugged the driver, slipped her $200 in cash and told her "I'll call you tomorrow." Then she dropped a live crab on the ground and asked someone to help roll her luggage in.

She drifted into the party mansion, still wearing oversized sunglasses and a hat despite the fact that it was night and we were indoors. She was a walking bottle-blonde catastrophe. Imagine Stiffler's mom after a three day bender. She was drinking from an open wine bottle that was half empty and room temperature.

Three of the girls clocked that Tara was wasted, possibly jet lagged and definitely feral. They made an excuse and left the house immediately.

The rest of us remained, chatting and putting up birthday decorations. Tara demonstrated a remarkable inability to stand on a char, focus on any topic or form full sentences.

I wanted to lower the bar, but damn.

My friend is an attorney so we frequently discuss murder. Or maybe we just like murder, most well adjusted women are big fans... right? During our homicide banter, Tara floats into the kitchen (passing two pairs of scissors on her way) and returns with a butcher knife. To cut ribbon, she says.

Tara, now wielding a knife over her head (in a stabby way) leans over Britney and says, "you just met me, what if I am a murderer?"

That Escalated Quickly into a Dateline Reenactment.

Britney shuts this down with the calm authority of someone who's been near a stabbing before, saying, "don't you ever hold a knife over me like that."

Now everything is... tense. If there is anything I hate more than our new friend Tara, it's awkward silence. This is absolutely fucked.

Sensing that the social vibe was off for some unknown reason, Tara changes the subject with "So, what kind of drugs do you guys do?"

We blink and tell her. Tequila. An occasional edible. Maybe a Motrin if our back hurts. She nods and says, "oh, I like different drugs than you guys."

We ask what kind of drugs she does and with the energy of someone describing the weather she says:

You know, crystal meth, crack, sometimes heroin....

We laugh nervously. She says she is joking. We laugh again, but it's the laugh you do when you know you're going to die and want your last emotion to be ironic.

Trashy Tara is now the biggest safety threat abroad that I've ever been aware of. We're in a party mansion in Sint Maarten, with many rooms and marble floors and this has rapidly devolved into a game of Clue. Only it's not a mystery. We know it was Tara. The only question is which room and if she'll use her bare hands, a knife or that crab.

It's a Birthday Murder!

Now I'm suspish. Britney loves murder, so maybe this is an elaborate birthday prank and Tara is a paid actress? It would be fitting for a murder to occur on Britney's birthday and then she gets to investigate it. If this is a prank, then whomever is responsible is a fucking legend.

So we show Tara to her room. Moments later, she yells “He bit me!” and now I am having flashbacks from Colombia, thinking some exotic jungle bug has just stung her.

No. It’s the crab. The literal, living crab she kidnapped from the beach at the Hilton and brought into the house. It pinched her.

So she yeets it off the balcony. Just throws it toward the beach and mumbles "I hope he lived." This bitch committed a crab murder in front of the entire group. Who is this maniac?! And what were we supposed to say?

Hey, could you not throw living creatures to their death while we're decorating with streamers?

Eventually she goes to bed and we're just like, maybe she'll be less fucking weird in the morning. But we all locked our bedroom doors. No group discussion, just a telepathic understanding that Tara might be an actual criminal.

After we were all in bed, I got up for some water and Tara's bedroom door was wide open. Lights on. Empty.

Oh no, she's escaped.

Tara is Missing

Morning comes and the sliding glass door is open. The front door is locked, the shutters are closed and Tara (and all of her luggage) is gone. The only way she could have gotten out is over the pool. This is same woman who could not roll her luggage down the driveway unassisted and now she's pulled a Mission Impossible midnight luggage escape over water?

There was already a investigation in progress, complete with Britney inspecting the entire property in case Tara fell down the embankment. She is collecting evidence and taking photos, because now we are somehow the main suspects in a missing person case.

Two days later, Tara sends a casual message in the group chat saying she went back to the Hilton to sleep. For two days.

What Does it Mean to Know Someone?

This prompted a group discussion about what it means to know a person. It turns out Britney never met Tara in person before the trip. She met Tara on the internet and invited her to this murder mansion birthday celebration in a foreign country!

We've implemented a new rule: Britney is not allowed to say she "knows" someone unless she's seen their full name on a government ID and been in the same room with them at least once, but preferably more than once. All future friends must be pre-screened by a committee.

Crazy how your whole life is just one bad after school special after another, just teaching you life lessons that you should already know by now. This is the after school special that Britney tried to turn into a murder documentary which is actually crazy because she's already been in a real murder documentary.