The Corpse with the Emerald Thumb

by Cathy Ace

  I sighed. “You’d be surprised how many medicine cabinets I’ve been through on cases where I’ve been working for the local cops as a victim profiler. Checking out a person’s medications can tell you a great deal about them physically, their lifestyle and sometimes even their psychological makeup. Different sleeping pills are prescribed for different types of sleeping disorders, so I’ve researched which are which so that I can assess victims more accurately. The Z-drugs are used to treat people who cannot get off to sleep easily, rather than those who wake during the night. They are available under a variety of brand names that differ from country to country, or, sometimes, as a generic—that’s because the patents on some of the earlier formulations have expired. If Dorothea was getting her pills here, in Mexico, she might have been getting a generic. Whichever case it is, they are not the sort of pills that should ever be mixed with alcohol, and it’s possible to overdose on them quite easily. That said, we can’t even be sure that it was Dorothea’s pills that they were dosed with. So it really would be best if these guys were shipped off to a place where their vital signs can be monitored.”

  “The ambulance shouldn’t be long. It helps that it was me who called it in. Sometimes my position here helps in practical ways.” Al looked proud, but I was feeling totally useless.

  “Let’s go back into the main room,” I suggested. “We can still see and hear the Booths from there, but I won’t feel as though I’m intruding so much.”

  Al agreed. I was tempted to tidy their living room—odd for me—but I resisted. Instead, I stood in the middle of the mess and looked around, carefully noting what I saw. There was a tiny desk against one wall, and upon it sat the base unit for the handset telephone, but no handset, and a jotter. I picked my way across the room and peered through my glasses at the last notes made—by whom, I didn’t know. “M. mileage? S. wax? FOGTTs barrels vs. bottles?” The “M” and “S” notes had been crossed through. The “FOGTT” note hadn’t been. Not terribly helpful, as notes went, but they must have meant something, or at least enough, to whoever made them.

  I returned to study the only area of order in the room: the piles of accounts arranged relatively neatly on the breakfast bar. I spotted a yellow sticky note poking out of the pile that related to Serena Spa. The word “WAX” had been written in a green highlighting pen with a question mark next to it. I looked at the sheet it was stuck to: lists of expenditures, all for consumable supplies. Someone—presumably Callie Booth—had highlighted the line for wax in green pen, and I could see why. The amount spent on wax supplies at the spa had been pretty steady for five months, then had dipped down to about half the usual cost. Clearly Callie had needed to ask Serena about this fact. That explained one cryptic note on the telephone pad.

  I turned my attention to the other piles. Nothing jumped out at me. There were no yellow notes on the FOGTT papers, but there were a couple of sheets with calculations—not so unusual for financial paperwork. One was largely covered in multiplications and divisions—it looked as though Callie Booth preferred to use her brain rather than a calculator. I looked at the figures for a few moments but couldn’t fathom their significance. All I could see was that both the multiplication and division seemed to be using the same base figures. Odd—was she just checking her own work?

  As I replaced the FOGTT pile, I spotted something out of the corner of my eye, under a plate that still bore signs of a partially consumed fried egg! It was another relatively neat pile of papers. I very carefully moved the plate and found that this mound related to Margarita Flores. Again, I couldn’t see any sticky notes, yellow or otherwise. Undaunted I picked up the papers and started to flick through them, hoping to spot something that Callie had highlighted. If S was Serena Spa, then M could be Margarita Flores.

  Sure enough, Callie had run a green highlight through a list of gas costs. She’d scribbled a big question mark across the whole page. I read through the figures. I couldn’t understand why Callie had highlighted that particular page. It looked as though Margarita made fairly regular trips to one specific gas station with a Bucerias address, and an occasional visit to another in Puerto Vallarta. Her overall mileage figures were at the top of the page, and a quick calculation told me that she was getting great gas mileage. I wondered what she drove. Margarita’s van, whatever type it was, was getting her better mileage than I got. That is weird, unless she drove a hybrid.

  Al’s cell phone rang. He listened, scribbled something in his notebook, thanked whoever it was, and tucked his phone away. “Dorothea says Zaleplon is the name of her pills. She’s certain there were forty-seven capsules in the bottle. Now at least we can tell the paramedics.” He seemed relieved.

  I shook my head. “Zaleplon is traditionally blue. The residue I saw in the glasses was white.”

  I finally heard a siren in the distance.

  Al brightened. “Here they come! You stay here, I’ll go show them the way.” Great!

  He couldn’t get down the stairs quick enough. After he’d gone, I grappled with my conscience for about two seconds, before I ripped the page from the notepad beside the phone and took the sheet of gas expenses from the pile of accounts for Margarita Flores. I stuffed everything into my purse, put the papers and the plate back where I had found them, then practiced looking innocent. I wasn’t sure what it all meant, but I felt it was important. If Callie had been speaking to Margarita about her gas expenses and mileage figures, might Margarita have told her something that had put her in danger? How on earth could information about gas costs and mileage be life threatening?

  The next thirty minutes came as close to watching a real-life farce as anything I’ve ever seen in my life. The arrival of the ambulance brought all the FOGTTs running, panicked and worried. They all assumed that Callie had taken ill as a result of her accident the previous evening, and were then aghast when Al and I told them of the state in which we’d found both Tony and Callie. Dorothea was first to arrive, and she was in full flight. If she’d had something to flagellate herself with, she’d have done it. She kept reminding everyone, very loudly, that she’d told Callie to take just one pill, and not to drink. She wailed that she’d never forgive herself if they died because of this. Ada Taylor managed to calm her a little, and Al suggested that rather than hang around the ambulance, and possibly get in the way, it might be better if everyone stepped into the bar.

  The poor paramedics had a terrible time getting the stretchers down the steep narrow staircase. The shouting and gesticulating that accompanied the whole thing was priceless. I thought it best to join the FOGTTs in the bar, where their final member had arrived. Greg. It was my first chance to meet him.

  He was about Bud’s height, but slimmer, and had an air about him that reminded me of Peter O’Toole at his most lugubrious. He had a deep tan, wore leather flip-flops and a rumpled white linen shirt with matching pants, and held a panama hat in one hand, a stub of a fat cigar clenched between the fingers of his other hand. He must have been seventy years old if he was a day, or else he was in his sixties and had lived a hard life.

  “The illustrious Cait Morgan,” he said. His strong Australian accent was immediately recognizable, and a surprise. If, as Ada Taylor had told me, Greg hadn’t lived in his native country for many years, I’d have expected his accent to at least have toned down a little. There again, I’m always being told that my Welsh accent is still strong, despite more than a decade of living in Canada. However thick his accent, his voice crackled as he spoke, suggesting years of cigars and, I suspected, hard liquor. The twinkle in his eye was unmistakable. He looked at me in a knowing way, and his grip on my hand didn’t waver as he said, “I find it hard to believe that a woman as beautiful and, if I may say, curvaceous as yourself is still single.” His eyes wandered to my bust and dwelt there just a little too long for comfort. The curse of an ample bosom!

  “You’re single too, I hear,” I said. My reply was stunningly polite, given his leering.

  He released my hand, stood to a
ttention, and saluted. “At present, ma’am, but possibly not for long.” He winked.

  My internal slime-o-meter hit new heights. Suddenly he didn’t remind me of Peter O’Toole at all. Greg Hollins was an aging lothario, with skin like dried tobacco leaves and a scent to match. I told myself that he was a possible suspect, so I had to take my chance to find out all about him. It seemed he was keen to help me out on that score.

  “Let me pour you a drink,” he offered. I noticed that Dorothea, Ada, and Jean were each having a glass of Baileys over ice. I heard Dorothea utter the words “for the shock,” which seemed like a good enough excuse for everyone else to start helping themselves to Tony’s bar supplies.

  “Thanks, I’ll have a bottle of water,” I replied.

  “Your wish is my command,” said Greg greasily, as he slunk off to the bar and returned a moment later with a bottle and a glass. As he poured he said, “You were the talk of the place last night, my dear. Dorothea googled you before she arrived for the evening, so she was able, as usual, to be the font of all wisdom for our little group.” I took the glass from him, barely managing to avoid his hand touching mine as I did so. Yuk! “You’re quite the woman, I hear. Bright—a Mensan, no less—and famous for changing the way the criminology community thinks about victims. No mean feat, I’m sure. Though I’ve never been a victim of anything in my life—except wounds to my heart, suffered at the hands of many, many beautiful women.” Double yuk!

  I braced myself and set off on my journey of discovery. “I’m sure you’re just as fascinating,” I said, as coquettishly as I could.

  “I’m nuts!” he said, smiling. He waited for me to bite. I didn’t. He pressed on, undaunted. “Well, I used to be but I’ve retired from it now. Nuts. Macadamia nuts, to be exact. Started on my own land in Australia, ended up with holdings in Guatemala, South Africa, Kenya, and Hawaii. Got fed up with nuts, so I sold up, and here I am. Now I get to smoke my cigars wherever I want and drink my own tequila. What could be better?”

  Greg’s strong Australian accent was matched by a full-on Australian attitude. I was just waiting for him to say “Strewth!” But he didn’t.

  “You’re Welsh, I hear. Loads of Welsh in my family, way back. Quite a number of your lot got shipped over to Oz to ‘serve at Her Majesty’s pleasure,’ right? Stealing sheep, I wouldn’t be surprised.” He laughed and nudged me. Too hard. “No need to go chasing sheep when the women look like you, though, right?” He winked again. I smiled, as graciously as possible.

  “You were in PV yesterday, when Margarita was killed?” I asked. Go for it, Cait.

  He nodded. “Terrible. Very sad. Not that I knew the woman myself, you know. But it’s always sad.”

  “Where were you?” I asked. Blunt might be the only thing that works with this guy.

  “Here and there, you know. Dropping in on friends, checking out the beaches, taking in the views.” Bikinis and binoculars, I bet. “But Al’s got the guy. I don’t need an alibi, right?” He grinned and held up his hands in mock surrender, but his micro-expressions told a different story. He is worried about something and trying to hide it. He would stay on my list of possibles for now.

  “Breakfast, Cait?” Once again Al had managed to get within feet of me without my noticing him. How does he do that?

  I was delighted. “Yes, please. I’m absolutely starving,” I said, possibly with too much enthusiasm. Unbelievably, it was still only 10:00 AM. “Where shall we go?” It was clear that no food would be served at Amigos del Tequila that day.

  Dorothea piped up. “You should go into Bucerias. Don’t go down to Rutilio’s, he’ll rip you off. They shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it. And he’s the worst of the lot!”

  I stood, pulled my purse onto my shoulder, and was ready to leave with Al, when a short, withered old man in filthy clothes entered the room from the kitchen. He held a large battered straw hat rolled up in his hands, which looked as though they were made from coarse leather. His face was a mask of dark, folded, weathered skin. His sunken jet eyes glittered, his head was covered with a slick of black hair, and, as he spoke, I noticed he had almost no teeth at all.

  “Margarita,” he said gravely.

  No one moved. I noticed that the general emotion displayed was embarrassment.

  “Oh, Juan, you poor thing! Let me hug you!” called Dorothea, throwing her arms in the air and rushing toward the tiny man.

  Juan? Juan the intendente, the jimador, the dead woman’s father? Not what I’d expected at all!

  Seconds In

  AS I STARED AT JUAN, I wondered about him. Could this man be a murderer? Even Al had said Juan was capable of such a deed. His clothes hung off his tiny frame. They’d seen many hours in the fields that day already. Unless he never washed them. My online research had told me what a jimador did—his job was to cut the leaves from the agave plant at exactly the right time, so that the sugars in the remaining heart of the agave, the piña, were at their best for making tequila. It seemed to be extremely skilled, yet physically exhausting, work, the piñas often weighing up to seventy pounds each and needing to be cut from their roots and pulled out of the narrow rows of plants by hand. A jimador might cut and move eighty to one hundred piñas each day. I’d seen acres and acres of the spiky blue-gray plants growing in neat rows up the hillsides and on the high, flat plains, as Bud and I had driven from the airport just a day earlier. We’d laughed about visiting a tequila tasting room together. Now, here I was, sitting in just such a place, with a group of murder suspects and a clock ticking in my head. A lot can happen in a day!

  After Dorothea had finished hugging Juan, a process during which I thought he was going to suffocate, she released him into Al’s care. The men spoke quietly in Spanish, and I realized that we were about to leave.

  Al came to my side and almost whispered, “Our trip to Margarita’s hacienda will have to wait, Cait. I’m going to take Juan to the mortuary, where he can see his daughter’s body. On our way, I’ll drop you at Rutilio’s Restaurant, and I’ll call Miguel and get him to meet you there. I prefer that you are with him or me all the time. You need to eat, and you can talk to Miguel and Rutilio about Margarita. I’m . . . I’m not sure how long I’ll be gone, but I’ll meet you there. You’ll be okay, yes?”

  I nodded my agreement, though I was annoyed that Al seemed to think I needed to be accompanied at all times. We exited through the main door, leaving behind the FOGTTs, who were buzzing about the latest emergency to strike their little community and trying to work out a plan of action for opening the tasting room that afternoon and the restaurant that evening.

  Given that it was still relatively early in the day, the heat outside was a shock, and I hunted for my sunglasses in my purse. The police car was no more than two minutes away, but even in that short time I started to sweat, and the humidity made it hard for me to breathe. I sat in the back of the car, as did Juan, and Al took off, with us looking like two people he’d arrested. This is where poor Bud sat yesterday, covered in blood, I thought.

  “I am sorry that we are meeting under such sad circumstances,” I said to Juan, as gently and plainly as I could.

  The man’s expression didn’t alter, and he paid me no heed at all. Maybe he speaks no English?

  “If we could have met at a different time, I’d have been eager to ask you about your work as a jimador. I understand it takes many years of practice to gain the skills you need?” I hoped that a question would draw some response.

  “I am the most excellent jimador in this State,” said Juan harshly, and with pride. Not too grief-stricken to be boastful. Good.

  “It must bring you great satisfaction to know that your plants are making such well-spoken-of tequila. I understand that the Extra Añejo Tequila Soleado is doing very well indeed, and this is just its first year on sale.”

  Juan turned himself in his seat to look at me with his raisin eyes. The folds in his face made it difficult to read him: few micro-expressions were visible, except around h
is eyes, and even there it was difficult to tell if he was smiling, squinting, or sneering. It took him a long time to speak, or so it seemed to me. I wasn’t feeling very patient, and my tummy was rumbling.

  Eventually, he spoke. His voice was graveled with age. “It is good if they make money. It is better if they make a lot of money. Then they can pay me more. I am very good. I work very hard. I deserve more than I get.”

  I tried to not be too judgmental. Bud’s always accusing me of it, and I’ve been working on it. Being a criminal psychologist rather presupposes making judgments. As I looked at Juan, I saw a selfish, greedy, but clearly hard-working man, who’d probably had to scrape by his whole life without much of anything at all, eventually learning not to expect much of anything at all. He struck me as a very angry man, and I didn’t get the impression that was because of his daughter’s death. It might have been a mantle he’d assumed when he’d lost his wife and sons.

  Although I was pretty sure of the answer, I wanted to study his reaction to my next question very closely. “Did you see your daughter the day she died?”

  Juan licked his thin, dry lips. Then he smiled. It was a difficult smile for me to read because the contours of his face were impacted by his lack of teeth. One thing I was certain of, it was not a kind smile. In fact, it gave me quite a chill. He wiped his rheumy eyes with the back of a desiccated hand. “No. Not yesterday,” he replied.

  I reacted as naturally as I could. “I expect you were at church; it was Sunday, after all.”

  Juan seemed to chew over his answer, quite literally: his jaw moved up and down, and he finally said, “I said Mass early. I walked home. Then I went to be with my plants. Margarita, she was not the only one who loved plants. I love them just as much. But my agave are not pretty like her roses.” He gave that creepy smile again, then added, “My plants make more money than hers ever could.” Smug. Self-centered. Dismissive of his dead daughter. What a delight!