The Corpse with the Emerald Thumb

by Cathy Ace

  Wake-up Call

  WHEN I WOKE THE NEXT morning I was immediately aware of a couple of things: a bus must have run over me as I slept because my entire body was aching, and someone had entered my room since I’d gone to bed. The first realization told me I needed to head for the painkillers. The second, that I should take stock of my surroundings before I stirred at all. Stay very still, Cait. From where I lay, I could see that my hairbrush was now very close to the taps on the basin surround, and not on the outside edge of the bathroom sink where I’d left it. My shoes were still next to the bed, but they were the right way around, different from how I’d left them.

  Why would someone come into my room and rearrange my shoes?

  Lie very still, Cait. There might still be someone here.

  I strained my ears. Beyond the heavily glazed windows I could hear birdsong. I also identified the faint hum of the refrigerator in the open-plan kitchen, beyond the bedroom. I’d left the bedroom door ajar the night before. Now it was half open. My heart thumped. I could sense a slight wheezing in my breath. Minutes passed. I lay there listening. Eventually it all seemed too ridiculous. I pushed back the bedclothes and sprinted to the washroom. When I emerged, I was wrapped in my robe and carrying a can of hairspray as a potential weapon—it was the only thing with heft that wasn’t attached to a wall.

  I crept toward the bedroom door. If there was someone there, they would already know I was up and about. I slipped the hairspray into the pocket of my robe and strode out of the room, ready for anything. But there was nothing. No one lurking about to bash me on the head. I checked the front door. It wasn’t locked, and the alarm was not set. Recalling the previous night, I was certain I’d locked the door when I came in, but I knew I’d turned off the alarm to be able to go out onto the patio. I must have been more tired than I’d thought, because I’d clearly forgotten to reset it. How convenient for the person wanting to break in. I opened the front door and checked the lock. There were no scratch marks, no scuff marks. It didn’t look as though the lock had been picked. Maybe someone had a key? I remembered that Tony had said that the pool boy had a key for the place. Who among the FOGTTs might also have access to one?

  I shut the door, turned the lock, and paid attention to the inside of the house. Yes, someone had moved a few bits and pieces—but only things that belonged to me. I hadn’t left my cigarettes and lighter in that exact spot, and when I went back into the bedroom, I could see that Bud’s suitcase had been moved inside the closet. It was obvious to me that someone had searched the place while I was asleep. It was also clear that they had done it so quietly, and professionally, that I had slept through it all. My watch told me it was almost half past seven, so I decided to make myself some coffee. The Taylors had kindly brought me a small jar of instant. As I watched the kettle boil, I gave some thought to what it was my “visitor” might have been looking for, and what they might have found. The notes I’d made about my suspicions were my main concern, along with my purse and its contents. I’d left them all dumped on the patio table the night before. I pulled open the concertina glass doors and saw that everything was exactly where I’d left it. Of course, the garden is completely enclosed by walls, and the intruder didn’t dare open these heavy, noisy doors. Thank goodness—no one had read my notes, nor had they found Bud’s bits and pieces, which could identify him, in my purse.

  I took my coffee to the patio, lit a cigarette, coughed a fair bit, told myself I’d be fine, and reread my notes. I picked up the pen I’d also left out all night and added a comment: “Why does everyone seem so keen to help Al with his career?” I wasn’t sure of the significance of that question, but I knew it needed to be answered at some point.

  I decided to get myself showered and ready for the day before the water boy arrived at eight o’clock. But he didn’t show up. Luckily I still had enough bottled water to make another coffee, and I decided to check my email once more, hoping against hope that there might be something there that could help Bud. There wasn’t. Damn and blast!

  While I was online, I did a little surfing: I trawled through some lists of South Carolina families—who knew there were so many French family and place names there?—and found Al’s. It was easy to discover that his mother’s father had inherited a fortune from his forebears and had gone on to make a pile more for himself. Her mother, the Gram Beselleu to whom Al had referred, had come from another French line, being a Dubois, and had brought her own money to the match. Why on earth would a scion of such a wealthy family be working at all? I checked out Frank Taylor’s old brewery and found that it had a significant online footprint and was, as he had said, doing very nicely indeed. I found nothing about Dean or Jean George, or Dorothea Simmonds or Greg Hollins. Tony Booth’s Facebook page was interesting, and he obviously kept in touch with folks who’d known him at his previous restaurants. A very social group, by the looks of it. There was a wedding photograph of him and Callie. They made the perfect beach-wedding couple—he was casual in a white linen shirt and pants; she looked delightful in her flowing white dress, with flowers in her hair. Fit, bronzed, healthy, and muscular, they certainly looked happy, but then, who wouldn’t on their wedding day? I took a few minutes to check out the place where I was staying, and the tequila it produced. I wandered around a few general websites that allowed me to find out more than I’d ever thought I’d want to know about making tequila. It was clear from their own website that the FOGTTs had invested in the most modern equipment, including autoclaves that shortened the cooking time for the piñas, the hearts of the agave plants used to make tequila. They produced the four most popular types of tequila: blanco, the youngest, and therefore the quickest to produce, which is clear; reposado, which the Mexican government decrees must rest in the barrel for at least two months; añejo, or aged, which must be in a barrel for at least a year; and, finally, extra añejo, which must be in the barrel for at least two years. This last categorization had only been introduced half a dozen years earlier. The FOGTTs didn’t make oro tequila, which is the type that’s young and colored with caramel to make it smoother. The Tequila Soleado brand for all four types of tequila seemed to be well reviewed by aficionados. Triple-distilled and naturally fermented, its smooth, complex flavors and reliable quality, as well as the excellence of the extra añejo, aged in French white oak barrels, were often commented upon, especially in the US, which is, apparently, the fastest growing market for tequila. It seemed that the FOGTTs had invested in the right plants, the right equipment, and the right people to make good tequila.

  A few more clicks took me to the website for Jalisco’s newspaper, El Informador, where I checked on news about the Rose Killer. It seemed that most of the information about the Rose Killer’s deeds centered on the first and second victims, which was not unusual in terms of a serial killer. The police often use the media when they are hunting the killer of one person, but when they realize they might have a serial killer on their hands, they become more circumspect. Often, by the time there’s a third victim, the official number of known kills to designate a killer serial, the details dry up. Miguel’s daughter had been killed immediately after she went missing. Her time of death had been estimated by analyzing her stomach contents, due to the length of time that had passed between her death and her discovery. The second victim, however, had been found much more quickly, and there seemed to be a question of when she had died, exactly. The autopsy seemed to suggest she’d been dead before she even disappeared. Odd! I read on.

  The second victim, a nineteen-year-old girl from a good home, with no boyfriend, attending her local college to study as a beautician, had disappeared at 3:00 PM. At least, she’d been seen by friends about ten minutes before that, when she’d set off to walk home from a friend’s house. When she was found, very early the next morning about forty miles away, her estimated time of death was put at 2:00 PM on the day of her disappearance. It was a puzzle that consumed the Federales for quite a while, and one that put her friends in the frame as ce
rtain liars, if not murderers. The cops had then further ascertained that her body must have been dumped sometime after 6:00 PM that day, because a police car had driven along the road where she was found at that time and the body hadn’t been there yet. The article went so far as to mention that it was this fact that had led the Federales to no longer believe that Miguel Juan-Carlos García Perez, the father of the first victim, Angélica Rosa, was responsible for killing his daughter. If Miguel hadn’t been seen by dozens of people saying a Requiem Mass for his daughter at 7:00 PM in Puerto Vallarta, he might not have been so lucky.

  I moved on to the most recent article, which dealt with all the killings to date. By the time the piece had been written, the coverage simply stated the facts and warned young women that they should not walk alone. Approximately every four weeks a young woman had been found on a remote roadside, swathed in a white sheet, her hands closed as if in prayer, with two red roses clasped between them. It was also clear that each victim, except the second one, had been abducted at night, and that they were all small young women, most no more than five feet and around ninety pounds. Every serial killer has their type, and the Rose Killer was no exception it seemed. Angélica Rosa was the only one who had died of simple alcohol poisoning. All the others had been found to have ingested large amounts of diphenhydramine, a strong antihistamine that is a common ingredient in many sleeping pills, which is widely available and, the report helpfully stated, found in about sixty percent of all homes. Maybe the killer wasn’t as patient with his later victims? There were photographs of families dazed with grief, and snaps of the victims, all of whom smiled from the webpage on the TV screen in wide-eyed innocence. All dead. Terrible. I haven’t done a lot of work on serial killers, but I have studied many of the so-called “classic cases” as a part of my master’s program, the deviant psychological factors being of interest to any criminal psychologist.

  I closed everything down and once again settled into my little corner of the garden. It seemed odd that this place already felt so familiar. I felt strangely peaceful, given my circumstances, and those of poor Bud. I was acutely aware that all I could do while waiting for Al to call was think. I’ve spent decades studying people, and, although it would be generally accepted that I have accumulated a great deal of knowledge about why humans do what they do and how they signal their true thoughts rather than their intended ones, I am more than ready to face the fact that I know only a fraction of what I wish I did. Bud? He’s a different matter. Until yesterday morning I had thought I knew him well. Stop it, Cait! I’d made a decision to not dwell on the things he had chosen to keep secret from me, but the hurt was creeping up on me again.

  “You’re looking thoughtful.” It was Al. A few feet away. I jumped. “I knocked, but you didn’t answer. I hope it was okay for me to come in?” He spotted the alarm on my face and looked concerned. I locked that door, I know I did!

  I’d already decided to not mention the break-in to him. What was the point? Nothing had been taken. I hadn’t been murdered in my sleep. And, although we were working together, I didn’t want him to focus on me.

  “You just startled me. I didn’t sleep too well. Nor nearly long enough. It was quite a day yesterday.” I waved toward a chair as an invitation for him to sit, but Al preferred to stand.

  “If you’d rather not pursue this any further, Cait, we’d all understand . . .” His words hung on the morning air. I sensed something different in his attitude. He seemed to be on edge. Cross? What had I done?

  I stood. “We’re on a mission, Al. You and me—we’re going to find out who this guy is, and why he killed Margarita. Right?” Al nodded. “Tell me, has he said anything this morning?” I was desperate for an update on Bud’s condition.

  “He ate his breakfast, drank his water, but not a word. When I got back there last night, he was fast asleep. Like a baby. Not a care in the world. How can that be? How can a man kill and not feel remorse?” Al was angry. All I could think about was the fact that, thank goodness, Bud seemed fine—for now.

  I wanted to get going. “Well, we’re not achieving anything by hanging around here. I’m not going to wait for the water boy. Can we go to see Callie now?”

  “That’s why I came. I thought we could go over together. I haven’t been able to get an answer on the phone at the apartment, so she might still be asleep. I don’t like the idea that she took pills prescribed for Dorothea—she’s a much bigger woman than Callie.”

  “I’ll just pop to the—you know . . .” I said and did just that. A glance in the bathroom mirror told me that I didn’t look too bad. In fact, since I’d packed the clothes I thought I’d be wearing to wander Mexican beaches, holding hands with the man I love, I looked very relaxed, which was not at all how I felt. At least the pale crushed-tomato hue of my lightweight tunic gave me the illusion of having some color, and the bit of sunburn I’d managed to get on my nose while sitting at the airport the day before had, thankfully, turned from red to brown. My white capris were roomy, and summery, and the long white scarf I’d tied in a bow around my ponytail topped off the look—literally. Bud would be proud to be seen with me.

  Finally ready to leave, I shoved my notes, pad, and pen into my purse and shut up the house, then Al and I walked down the little hill to Amigos del Tequila.

  I wasn’t at all surprised to find that the door to the kitchen was wide open, and there was no one about. It seemed to be the normal state of affairs for the place!

  Al sighed. “I’m supposed to get it through to people that crime often happens because of an opportunity presenting itself. Why do people not lock their doors?” He shook his head as we entered.

  “Hello?” he called. There was no answer. He turned to me. “Let’s check upstairs.” I nodded, and we climbed the steep, narrow staircase with me following Al. At the top we emerged into what was obviously the scene of a disturbance: clothes and decorative items were scattered about the furniture and the floor. The room was in total disarray. I gasped. Al turned and said sharply, “What’s the matter?”

  “It looks like the place has been ransacked,” I said.

  Al grinned. “I’ve been here before. This is how they live.”

  As we stood surrounded by discarded clothes, books, papers, files, soda cans, drink bottles, dirty mugs, and plates, I wondered how anyone could find anything in such a mess. I know that my home’s not pristine, but even I am tidier than these two. I spotted a laptop and a tablet, so I believed Al’s assertion that this was normal, because any thief would have made off with such items. That know­ledge didn’t make the mess any prettier to look at.

  In front of the tiny kitchen was a breakfast bar, which was completely covered in piles of paperwork. I noticed that at least this seemed to be in an orderly arrangement, and I spotted accounts, receipts, and records for Amigos del Tequila, Serena Spa, and the FOGTT. Tony had mentioned that Callie did accountancy work for people—at least it looked as though her work had some order about it.

  “Would you check in the bedroom?” asked Al. “The bathroom is silent. Callie might still be asleep.”

  I nodded and knocked on what was obviously the bedroom door. There was no response, so I opened it a crack and peered in. There were two mounds in the bed.

  “I think they’re both still in bed,” I whispered to Al over my shoulder. “What do you want me to do?”

  Al shrugged.

  I knocked again and said, “Hello.” Nothing. I went in, saying loudly, “Come on then, rise and shine. Time to get going.” But neither lump stirred. At all. Panic gripped my sadly empty tummy as I approached. My instincts kicked in and I reached for the pulse point on Callie’s neck. I couldn’t feel anything, but she wasn’t cold. Good sign!

  “Al, come here and check for Tony’s pulse,” I called.

  There were no obvious signs of a struggle in the surprisingly tidy bedroom, and there were no signs of blood. I pulled Callie’s arm free of the bedclothes and held her wrist. Finding a pulse is a lot harder than
you might think. It’s especially difficult when your own heart is pounding. Luckily, I noticed Callie’s eyelids flutter.

  “She’s alive!” I said triumphantly. “I’m worried that she is so deeply asleep, though. How’s Tony?”

  “The same,” said a very grim Al. “I know that Callie took Dorothea’s pills, but what about Tony? He and I had a few more drinks after you left, but this is no hangover.”

  I scanned the room. No sign of pills or a pill bottle. “We don’t know if Dorothea brought Callie one or two pills, or a whole bottle.”

  Al pulled out his cellphone. “I’m calling an ambulance first. These guys need to be checked out. Then I’ll call Dorothea and find out exactly what she gave Callie.”

  Al left the room to make his calls. Once again, I turned my attention to the Booths’ bedroom. There was a glass on Callie’s nightstand. I peered at it. I scrabbled in my purse for my reading-cheats, shoved them onto my nose, and took another look. White crystals.

  Tony’s side of the bed didn’t have a nightstand. Without touching anything I bent down and peered under the bed. A beer glass lay on its side on the floor. I pulled a pen out of my purse, stuck it into the glass, and rolled it out from under the bed. White crystals.

  Maybe neither of them liked to swallow pills and both had chosen to grind them into a drink? Unlikely.

  Al stuck his head through the doorway, and I told him about finding white crystals in the two glasses. “An ambulance is on its way, and Dorothea says she gave Callie a container of her sleeping pills, which have a Z in their name. She can’t remember what they are called. She buys them at a pharmacy in PV, where they know what she takes. She thinks there were about forty pills in the bottle.”

  “Sleeping pills are all benzodiazepine receptor agonists, often referred to as Z-drugs, so we can at least tell them that.”

  As he walked into the bedroom, Al looked puzzled. “You seem to know a lot about sleeping pills. Why’s that?”