Bare-Naked Lola (A Lola Cruz Mystery)

by Melissa Bourbon Ramirez

  “Guess we’re a tiny bit conspicuous with our clothes on,” I said.

  Lucy stood slack-jawed. “Who knew they came in so many shapes and sizes?”

  “Breasts?” I asked.

  “Noooo,” she said, “but there is a lot of variety there, too.”

  “Oh!” My conscience was having a conflict with my eyes, fighting them about what to focus on. My gaze was on autopilot, though, and drifted down. I had to fight to drag it back up.

  I didn’t want to look.

  I didn’t know where to look.

  A man in his mid-thirties walked by. He was lean and muscular. My gaze drifted down again and Jack flashed into my mind. I’d seen him in his altogether—but it had been through a foggy windshield when we’d been teenagers and I’d been stalking him to hone my investigative skills. I could imagine being with him in the hot tub—

  No! I pushed him out of my mind. I caught Selma’s eye and notched my head toward the guy. “Is that him?” I mouthed.

  She shrugged, but then shook her head. “Don’t think so,” she mouthed back.

  In the pool, a few swimmers floated in the water, reveling in the Indian summer, and three more lounged in the adjoining hot tub. I clung to Lucy, as much to bolster myself as to keep her from dropping her dress. We walked through the gate onto the cobbled brick deck and headed straight for the hot tub. Selma dropped her T-shirt and towel on a lounge chair and stepped into the water.

  Lucy turned to me. “Well?”

  I shrugged helplessly. What to do? What would my mother tell me? Stupid question. I could hear her shrill voice damning me to hell unless I said a million rosaries and promised my life to God and the convent. I couldn’t lead Lucy down this path if I wasn’t willing to take it myself. “We should go.”

  “You have a job to do,” she reminded me.

  Okay, maybe she was the one leading me down the path.

  “Yes, but I’m sure I can find other ways to investigate the mysterious boyfriend.”

  Selma was already engaged in a subdued conversation with a balding man who was probably in his sixties. Jennifer’s civilian boyfriend?

  “Maybe,” Lucy said, “but are you willing to pass up this opportunity? Life is short, Lola. This is on my bucket list.”

  Before I could answer, she winked at me and said, “Here goes nothing.” Then, quick as a flash, she dropped her dress and passed in front of me, her golden skin nothing but a blur as she plunged into the bubbling water.

  ¡Híjole!

  “Lucy!” I hissed. But her eyelids had fluttered closed and she was moaning. Moaning! “This feels fabulous,” she said, a hint of heaven in her voice.

  My breath started to come quickly and panic rose inside me. My hand pressed against my chest, comforted by the edges of my swimsuit underneath. It was now or never. Lucy wasn’t getting out, so I had to get in. Peer pressure. No matter how old you were, it never quite went away.

  I sucked in the deepest breath I could manage and slipped out of my dress, slowly folding it and laying it on a nearby chair. I felt the heat of a hundred eyes on me. It could have been my imagination, but I doubted it, since I was overdressed, even in my bright floral bikini.

  I twisted one arm behind me to undo the strap but couldn’t bring myself to do it. Mami would be so proud.

  Something warm touched my shoulder. I jumped, whirling around, nearly knocking down the woman who stood before me. She was buck naked, except for the sympathetic expression she wore on her face. “They should have told you in the office, hon. Bathing suits are not allowed at the resort.”

  “Not allowed,” I repeated vacantly. “It’s my first visit. They said I could take my time.”

  “Not in the pool area,” she continued. “Everyone’s nude. No one will care once you’re undressed. Right now they care because you’re not.”

  In a completely warped way, that made absolute sense. I silently pleaded with her. “I’ve never done this and I’m nervous. Can I get in first and then take it off?”

  She shook her head. “Sorry, no. The first time is the hardest. It’s kind of like ripping off a bandage. Do it quickly, and it’ll be over.”

  Selma and Lucy both stared up at me. “Come on, Lola,” Lucy said. “Be a risk-taker. You only live once…” I didn’t budge, so she added, “It really is freeing. And the water feels great. Totally different without a swimsuit on.”

  The woman tapped me on the shoulder again. The sympathy was gone and she put her hands on her hips. The pointier parts of her body stood at attention like they could shoot bullets at me if I didn’t obey. “Miss,” she said, “you need to remove the suit or leave the pool area.”

  “Okay, okay.” Think, think! I spied the towels on the chaise longue and grabbed the biggest one. Then, after wrapping it around my body, I carefully unhooked my bikini top and slipped it out from underneath.

  I leveled my gaze at her and, holding it out with my fingertips, I dropped it on the pool chair. She watched me like she was ready to call the SWAT team if I didn’t fully comply, muy pronto.

  “Just do it,” she said again.

  I took another bolstering breath, reached under the towel, and pulled down my bikini bottoms, laying them next to my lonely swimsuit top. Breathing in and out a few times, towel still a protective armor around my body, I dipped a toe into the water. Warm. Tingling. I could do this. I stepped in, the warm water gurgling around my calves.

  “You can do it, babe.” The man who’d been chatting up Selma was now directing his full attention to me. I wanted to kick myself for being so stupid. The woman, who was still staring me down, had been right. No one would have cared if I’d just done like Lucy. I’d already be safely simmering underwater. As it was, everyone’s eyes were on me.

  My mother’s voice echoed in my head again. “¿Qué pasa, Dolores Falcón Cruz? ¿Estás loca?! ¿Y con Lucy?”

  In my mind I saw my grandmother crossing herself and fingering her rosary with her gnarled fingers. “¿Ay, Dios mío, por qué tengo una nieta mala?”

  My whole family flashed before me, judging my actions with disapproving eyes.

  Last in line was Jack, and he just shook his head.

  I turned to the man who was still staring at me. The muscular guy I’d seen walking by earlier had somehow managed to sneak into the hot tub without my noticing. He watched me, too. Could he be Jennifer’s boyfriend?

  Selma had said people didn’t care about nudity here, but from the lust on the men’s faces, I had to disagree. They cared plenty.

  “I don’t suppose any of you knew Jennifer Wallace?” I demanded. My tone was un poquito accusatory, but it was either that or get naked. And I’d discovered something about myself this evening. More is more.

  They glanced at each other, then back at me. “Of course. But she just died,” the young guy said. “Come on in. I’ll help you take your mind off it.”

  I cringed. Getting in the hot tub with him wasn’t going to redirect my thoughts.

  “Do you know her boyfriend?” I asked, swirling my leg around in the water.

  They both shook their heads. “Didn’t know she had one.”

  Selma sunk down, her breasts floating at the water line, but her face was tense as she listened. Interestingly, neither of the men paid her any attention. Their eyes were riveted on me and my towel. I could practically see them salivating just to get a glimpse of what I was so carefully protecting.

  I wriggled my toes under the steaming water. It did feel good, but my moral compass was pointing away from the pool. “Selma. I think I’ll check out the restaurant and bar. There’s really no point sitting here in the hot tub.”

  She gawked at me. “What if he shows up?”

  I’d thought the murderer would stick to his routine, but now I was reconsidering. My instincts were telling me the guy wasn’t going to show, because he’d said the nudist lifestyle wasn’t his natural inclination. “He won’t.”

  The stalwart nude police woman from a few minutes ago brought
her hand down on my shoulder again. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave the pool area.” Any nicety in her voice was gone.

  “Fine, yep, no problem.” I stepped back onto the cement, tightened my towel around me, snatched my swimsuit and sundress from the deck, and walked out the pool gate. I waited at the fence. “Selma?”

  “Yes.”

  “Let’s go.”

  She sighed, a mixture of resignation and frustration. She stood up, the water cascading off her in angry torrents.

  Her feet slapped against the cement, her towel and T-shirt dragging behind her as she joined me behind the fence. I stared at Lucy, who was still relaxed in the water, eyes closed. “Lucy?”

  She peeped open one eye. “I’ll stay here. You know, in case you’re wrong and he does show up.”

  Not that she’d know it was him. Selma probably wouldn’t, either, for that matter. I eyed the two men in the hot tub. Either one of them could have been Jennifer’s boyfriend and we’d never know.

  I was torn between wanting Lucy to get out of the water—and be gawked at by the two men in the hot tub—or leaving her here with all three of them naked. Neither was a good option. Then the tattletale woman got into the hot tub and sank down next to Lucy. Having another woman in the mix didn’t make me feel better.

  I decided then and there that I wasn’t letting her out of my sight, not after the jeopardy I’d put her in last time she helped me on a case. “Lucy. Go soak in your own bathtub. ¿Entiendes?” Lucy had been married to my cousin long enough to understand rudimentary Spanish. “Ven aquí. Ahorita.”

  With a deep sigh, she managed to get out of the hot tub and wrap her towel around her full hips fairly discreetly. She slung her sundress over her shoulders. I definitely didn’t belong in this place, but she wasn’t having any trouble with the moral aspect of baring her breasts. She’d had a taste of exhibitionism and seemed to be digging it. She would have been a great hippie.

  “Are you sure neither one of those guys is him?” I asked Selma the second we had our flip-flops back on our feet and had started the trek across the grass to the restaurant.

  “Not really.”

  Great.

  We passed a wooded area near the parking lot, a cluster of numbered buildings, and a sand volleyball court on the way to the restaurant. Our destination was a square structure across from a grassy area. I rewound my towel around me and clutched my useless bikini and sundress in my hand. Selma started to push the door open but I caught her arm. “Don’t we put clothes on in the restaurant?”

  She gaped at me. “It’s. A. Naturist. Resort.”

  “Dios mío, even in the restaurant? Aren’t there sanitary issues? Are the cooks dressed?”

  Selma put her hands on her hips, her being naked-as-a-jay-bird preventing her from achieving the indignant effect she was going for. “You can have your clothes on in the restaurant,” she finally admitted.

  That’s all I needed to hear. I slipped my sundress back over my head and released my towel. “Thank God.”

  I threaded my legs into my bikini bottoms and felt an immediate sense of comfort, then maneuvered my bikini top back on, a Houdini trick I somehow managed to pull off without revealing anything I didn’t want to.

  “I was hoping you’d see the beauty of being free,” Selma said.

  “I might. Eventually.” Not. More is more. Which in my mind meant the degree of clothes I wore, not whether or not I wore them. I repeated my mantra, trying to cleanse my guilt at even having set foot on the grounds of Cuerpo y Alma.

  Lucy was at a totally different place than I was. She smiled thoughtfully. “I’m feeling the beauty.”

  I gaped at her. Who was this woman and what had she done with Lucy? “Do you think you might want to put your dress back on in the restaurant?”

  Lucy’s grin widened. “Are you uncomfortable, Lola? ’Cause I’m kind of digging this.”

  “Great,” I muttered. “I’ve created a monster.”

  She laughed, more at me than with me. “You have a fabulous wax job and an even more fabulous body. You shouldn’t be modest about showing it off.”

  “She’s right, you know,” Selma said. “Nothing compares to being free like this. Once you try it you may never go back.”

  I wouldn’t bet on that.

  Selma held the door open for us and we traipsed into the restaurant like Charlie’s Angels on a dare. Selma skirted in front of us and headed to the bar while I followed slowly behind her, absorbing the environment.

  It was a full-service restaurant, complete with a waitress scurrying around in the buff, the view overlooking the lake. A few of the patrons wore clothes, but most of them were stark naked. Thankfully, the tablecloths gave cover to the lower halves of the diners’ bodies.

  “Unless you’re in bed, you know, after, there’s something very wrong about eating naked,” I whispered in Lucy’s ear.

  Her head bobbed up and down. “I have to agree with you there.” Her eyes were darting from one table to the next, one side of her lip rising with each new pound of flesh she registered. “I’d totally lose my appetite if I had to sit next to that.” She flicked her chin toward a table in the back.

  The furry man there didn’t really need clothes to cover up, but a body brush seemed in order.

  I nudged Lucy and we sidled up next to Selma at the bar. “This is so, uh, bizarre.”

  Selma rolled her eyes. “Not really. We were all born this way. We all have the same parts. Different sizes and shapes, but it’s there on every one of us. What’s unusual is that we insist on covering ourselves up as if there’s something wrong with our bodies.”

  “I’m down with that.” Lucy grinned, but she didn’t remove the towel from around her hips.

  I folded my arms across my chest like a barrier. “I’m not down with it. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with our bodies, but I do believe there’s a time and a place for getting naked.”

  And for me, the time and place would always include Jack Callaghan.

  Selma eyed me. “Let me guess, in the bedroom, right? On the bed with the lights out? I bet your boyfriend would be turned on seeing you here, nude.”

  Would Jack be turned on?

  Three nude people stared up at the television set, watching an NBA game. Apparently being at a naturist resort was like living in Seattle. You did the normal things, simply without clothes—just like you carried on normally in the constant rain of the Pacific Northwest.

  I knew I’d never move to Washington.

  Laying my towel on the red naugahyde stool, I sat down.

  “What can I get for you?” The bartender was a young college-age kid with blond hair and stubble on his face. He wasn’t wearing clothes. I concentrated hard not to give in to my morbid curiosity, keeping my eyes on his face.

  “I’ll have a margarita,” I said. Selma and Lucy sat and ordered their drinks. When the bartender returned with them, I wrapped a napkin around the stem of my glass before taking it. No telling where his hands had been.

  I smiled at him, fetchingly I hoped. “Can I ask you something?”

  He leaned his elbows against the bar, moving his face closer to mine. “Sure thing, peach.”

  Peach?

  “Only I have to ask you something first,” he said.

  “Okay.” No way was I going on a date with a twenty-year-old naked guy. I’d just have to break his heart. I took a long drink and braced myself.

  “You know you’re in a nudist resort?” he asked.

  I sighed. “So people keep telling me.”

  “Excuse me for stating the obvious, but you don’t appear to be nude. You have to be”—he paused—“nude at the bar.”

  I gestured at the diners over the railing. “Some of them have their clothes on.”

  The bartender’s eyes twinkled. “They’re in the dining room. This is the bar.”

  Huh. A good Spanish curse word hovered on my tongue, but I resisted spewing it out at him and narrowed my eyes.

&n
bsp; He shrugged. “Those are the rules, peach.”

  I sighed again, more heavily this time. I had a job to do. I stood and slipped the straps of my sundress down over my shoulders, holding the bodice of my dress with my other hand. “Will you answer my question now?”

  He was all googly-eyed like I had a sign across my body that said, “Sale item, discounted 70 percent” and I was the last one on the shelf. I got the feeling this guy was not here because of freedom of expression. There was no way in hell I was undressing in front of him.

  “Drop the dress first,” he said with a wink.

  I did, holding it at my waist. Then I reached around my neck to grab hold of my bikini tie. “I’m a friend of Jennifer Wallace. She died yesterday, and—”

  “Yeah, that was sad,” he said, his face tightening. “You couldn’t be part of Cuerpo y Alma without knowing her. What a blow—”

  Selma interrupted. “Do you know her boyfriend?”

  The guy frowned. He ran his hand though his hair, doing something that made his pecs flex. “Didn’t know she had one.”

  Damn it, why’d Jennifer keep her boyfriend so secret?

  “She usually met him in the hot tub,” I prompted.

  He flicked his gaze down, waiting for my disrobing to continue. I pulled the tie a fraction of an inch, a hint of cleavage bouncing at the neckline, but my heart started racing. “Medium build. Dark hair,” I said, spouting off what Selma had told me.

  The bartender laughed, notching his chin toward the dining room, before settling on me again. “Have you looked around? Male and dark are two things I see a lot of in here.”

  I batted my lashes, staying focused on his face, trying not to be distracted by the hunger in his eyes. “You sure?”

  He winked at me, and an uncomfortable chill ran up my spine. “Actually—”

  “Actually, what?” I asked, praying he had a clue.

  “She was in here the other night and said something weird.”

  Lucy and Selma leaned in. “What?” Selma asked, her big brown eyes open wide.