by K C Ames
“What are you reading?” Benny asked, looking at the book on the table.
“Rum Punch by Elmore Leonard. It’s from my uncle’s collection,” Dana replied.
The three of them ate bagels and drank coffee, which energized her some.
Dana could see on Benny’s face that he wanted to share something unpleasant with her, so once they were finished eating, she told him, “What’s up? I can see it on your face. More bad news?”
Benny smiled sheepishly. “You’re very intuitive.”
“You never really stop being a journalist.”
It was Benny’s turn to share what he had been up to the day before, and he told Dana how he bumped into Picado in town, so he asked him about the investigation.
“He’s cleared Skylar.”
“What?”
“He told me her alibi checks out and they cleared her.”
“What about the multiple divorce filings from Roy and the big life insurance policy she is set to cash in from? Did you tell him about that?”
“He knew all of that. He has been very thorough in his investigation and it just doesn’t seem to point to Skylar being the killer.”
“If not her, then who is he looking at now?”
“I asked him, but he basically told me to go fly a kite, since he would not share that information about an active investigation. Especially…” Benny stopped talking abruptly, and he looked out towards the Pacific Ocean.
“Especially what, Benny?”
He hemmed and hawed for a moment.
“Just tell me.”
“I asked him if he had also cleared you, and he said no. You’re still under suspicion.”
“Oh, that’s just peachy,” Dana said, lying down flat on the chaise lounge. She lay flat on her back, looking up at the ceiling fan.
Right on cue, as if the cat could sense that Dana was feeling sad, Wally sauntered onto the chair and jumped onto Dana’s chest and snuggled her.
He made Dana feel better, and she then told herself to stop feeling sorry for herself. She sat back up, Wally lying down on her lap.
“I don’t care much for Skylar, but I’m relieved she didn’t kill Roy,” Dana said, petting Wally like Don Corleone in The Godfather.
Courtney looked at Benny and shrugged.
“Picado was probably just playing mind games with me because I was sticking my nose in his case. He loves to rattle cages,” Benny said.
“Consider my cage rattled,” Dana said, scratching Wally behind his ears as he purred loudly.
Benny left shortly after. He had to make a few calls for work.
By midafternoon, Dana was crawling the walls, so she headed outside towards Big Red as Courtney came running out after her.
“Where are you going?” Courtney asked, out of breath.
“I’m going to Barca’s resort,” Dana said.
“Honey, that’s not a good idea. Benny said it was best to stay put until he looked at what Skylar and Barca were doing in Nosara. Remember, there is a killer out there, and it could very well be Skylar,” Courtney said.
“Not according to Picado,” Dana said in frustration.
“I don’t care what he thinks. And you’re in her way of getting even more money with this property,” Courtney replied.
“I’m done feeling sorry for myself and I’m not one to cower, so I’m going up there to see what is going on. If Skylar is there, and she wants to make a federal case about me being at the resort, so be it,” Dana said.
“Fine, but I’m coming with you.”
“Suit yourself,” Dana said, even though inside she was happy that Courtney was coming along. It’s good to have a friend in your corner. Just in case things escalate out of control.
Twenty
Dana drove on an unpaved road from Casa Verde to the resort. She looked around, thinking how that entire area was what Barca badly wanted to own for his real estate empire.
On the way, she saw a sign for the Pancha Sabhai Institute, the yogi retreat and ashram that Barca also wanted to bulldoze.
“I think we need to stop at the institute for some meditation,” Courtney said.
“Couldn’t hurt,” Dana said, not stopping.
Just beyond the institute was a small farm.
“What a cute little place. It looks like Ramón and Carmen’s place,” Courtney said.
“That’s because they’re also campesinos, local farmers. Benny told me that these small campesino farms were quickly disappearing in rural areas. And how at one time all this was all farmland. Once the campesinos were too old to work the land, or they had passed on and their kids moved to town, they began to parcel out the land and sell it. And who could blame them? Making a living farming is tough anywhere in the world. Selling land is easier and more lucrative,” Dana said.
A few minutes later, Dana saw the sign for the Tranquil Bay Resort. While the sign for the institute was small, blink and you’ll miss it, Barca’s sign jutted out of the countryside, towering over Big Red and casting a long, ominous shade onto the road.
“Well, you can’t miss that sign. I’ll give him that,” Courtney said.
Dana turned right and suddenly the bumpy, rough-and-tumble unpaved road turned into a nicely paved road.
“I miss nice roads like this one,” Courtney said, looking around.
“That’s because we’re on Barca’s private property now. Unlike the Nosara Districts and all the other districts in the Nicoya Municipality, he has the money to put in a nice, smooth road up to the resort for his guests,” Dana said.
They drove on the well-maintained palm tree–lined road for about a minute until they reached a front gate manned by security guards. The guard stepped out of the security shack and looked at the Willys Jeep. He seemed unimpressed.
“He’s probably only used to new, nicer cars and won’t let us in,” Courtney said.
“Don’t you listen to her, Big Red,” Dana said, caressing the steering wheel.
Dana stopped. The guard leaned in, peering inside, and seeing the two obvious foreigners, one brunette and one blonde, he cracked a smile.
“Are you guests at the resort?” the guard asked in decent English.
“No. We heard there is a great restaurant here, so we wanted to eat there and to check out the resort for our next trip,” Dana lied.
“Okay, drive forward to the valet station,” the guard said, stepping out of the way. He leaned into the guard station and pressed a button that lifted the barrier arm, granting them access to the posh resort.
“Thank you,” Dana and Courtney said in unison as Dana drove up towards the front entrance of the resort.
“That was easy,” Courtney said.
“They’re not going to turn away a couple of gringas,” Dana said with a snort.
“What a dump,” Courtney said facetiously as they drove up to the beautiful and swanky resort.
Dana pulled into a wide porte cochère area off the front entrance of the lobby. A couple of valets and a bellhop greeted them warmly.
“Beautiful jeep, miss. A classic,” the young valet said, smiling.
“Thank you,” she said as she handed him the keys. “We’re just here for lunch, so won’t be staying long.”
“I’ll keep your vehicle nearby,” the valet replied. All his attention was on the classic Jeep rather than Dana or Courtney.
Courtney shrugged and said, “It seems like boys really love your jalopy.”
“You’ll come around to Big Red yet,” Dana replied.
They made their way up the steps and walked inside, and as much as she disliked Gustavo Barca bankrolling Roy, and now Skylar’s efforts to take Casa Verde away from her, she was the first to admit that Tranquil Bay was an exquisitely done hotel, and that was just from the lobby area.
“Okay, this is amazing,” Dana said, looking around.
“I wasn’t going to say anything, but wow, it’s breathtaking,” Courtney added.
From the porte cochère there were the grand s
teps, taking visitors up into a wide lobby with a high ceiling.
The lobby extended all the way to the back, and since the entire area was an open design, that allowed for breathtaking ocean views no matter where a person was standing in the lobby.
The check-in area and concierge desks were made from exotic cocobolo wood that Costa Rica was known for. The woods were polished bright and shiny in a kaleidoscope of hardwood colors that included shades of yellow, red, and brown.
“Welcome to the Tranquil Bay Resort, are you checking in?” An overeager front-desk person greeted Dana and Courtney with a wide smile.
“No. We’re just here for lunch,” Dana explained.
Dana was told how to make her way to the Tranquilo Restaurant.
They had to crisscross through the jungle-themed pool. It was one of those infinity pools that gave the optical illusion of dropping off the mountainside down into the Pacific Ocean. There were two swim-up bars and several Jacuzzis at its corners.
“I’m staying here tonight,” Courtney said with a grin.
Dana shot her a dirty look.
“Too far?” Courtney said, laughing.
“Mmm-hmm,” Dana said slowly.
“No wonder Britney Spears and the Kardashians stay here. It’s so tony,” Dana said, remembering the photographs she had seen of the celebrities staying at the resort.
The resort oozed swankiness with a modern construction that was open, and everywhere signs touted how green and environmentally friendly the resort was.
“This must be what they call eco-luxury,” Dana said, scoffing about the new in-thing in luxury travel where the rich are pampered under the auspice that they were at the same time saving the planet in their thousand-dollar-a-night room.
“The more a company toots their horn about that, the less I believe it,” Courtney said.
Dana nodded in agreement. “A multi-million dollar, two-hundred-room resort with luxury cabanas built in the middle of the jungle, yeah, that sounds very eco-friendly,” she said, laughing.
Dana and Courtney had lunch at the causal poolside restaurant instead of the more fancy-looking restaurant inside the resort. The restaurant was called The Hamburger Shack. The only shack to it was its name.
A pretty young hostess with glowing olive skin, raven-black hair, and piercing brown eyes escorted Dana and Courtney to a table with a view of the pool.
A handsome waiter dressed in a short-sleeved white polo shirt and white shorts brought them glasses of cucumber water and menus.
Dana looked around the restaurant, and the whole staff was young and pretty.
“Only the young and the beautiful need apply,” Dana whispered.
The two of them giggled. Dana picked up the menu and opened it.
“Farm-to-table, they’re hitting all the popular buzzwords from back home,” she said, studying the menu that was mostly geared towards American and European palates, definitely not the locals.
Dana ordered the California Burger, which was a burger with bacon and avocado that came with garlic fries, Courtney ordered fish and chips, and both ordered banana daiquiris to wash it all down.
The food was delicious. Dana had been expecting Barca to be a bottom-feeding cost-cutter serving barely edible food, but she had to give the devil his due. He knew how to build and run a world-class resort. But she wasn’t about to let him bulldoze her out of Casa Verde.
After lunch, they meandered down to a beautiful courtyard that led to a rock wall that overlooked Mariposa Beach. Beyond the wall was a well-maintained footpath that led down towards Dana’s property and onto the town and its white sand beach.
The entrance to the footpath had two signs; one pointed towards the Private Beach, the other towards Town.
“I didn’t think you could have private beaches in Costa Rica. Wasn’t it all supposed to be open for public access?” Courtney asked.
“If anyone can figure out how to skirt the law so he can have a private beach at his resort, it would be Gustavo Barca,” Dana said.
Dana figured once he had the land from his resort down into town, he would then try to buy out the town itself so he could annex it as part of his resort and then could tout to his wealthy guests that the resort down to Mariposa Beach was all their own private playground.
The plebs would be kept out. She got angry just thinking about it when someone came from behind.
“Excuse me, are you Miss Dana Kirkpatrick?”
Dana turned to see a young man in his twenties standing there, smiling.
He wore a resort uniform with a name tag that read Claudio, Assistant Manager, and like every other staff person she had seen so far, he was very good looking, with dark skin and brown eyes and hair. She figured he was one of Barca’s goons there to kick her out.
“Yes, what’s going on, Claudio?” Dana said, throwing him for a loop.
He giggled nervously and glanced down at his name tag.
“I was friends with your uncle,” he said.
Her entire demeanor changed from fight mode to friendly acknowledgment.
“Oh, well, it’s nice to meet you. I thought you were here to say that Gustavo Barca was kicking us out of the resort. How did you know it was me?”
“I saw the red Willys Jeep parked outside, and I asked the valet, who pointed you out from the lobby. Sorry for being so forward,” Claudio said.
“It’s okay. So, how did you know my uncle?”
“My parents worked for him,” Claudio said, smiling.
“Oh, that’s nice,” Dana said, not catching on.
“They now work for you, I guess,” he added.
Dana’s eyebrows arched, and she gave him a puzzled look.
“My mom and dad work in Casa Verde. Ramón and Carmen Villalobos, perhaps you’ve met them already?” Claudio Villalobos said, smiling wide.
“Oh my gosh, it’s so nice to meet you,” Dana said, hugging Claudio. Courtney smiled wide.
Claudio explained how he grew up in Casa Verde and how Blake Kirkpatrick took a liking to the shy but hardworking go-getter who kept busy with his studies while helping his mom and dad with chores around Casa Verde.
Blake began to teach him English, and when young Claudio expressed an interest in working in hotel management, it was Blake who paid for his deep immersion English classes in Liberia and then encouraged and supported Claudio while he was a hotel management and tourism student at the University of Costa Rica’s Liberia campus.
After graduation, he worked his way up from the front desk to concierge to supervisor at the Cariari Hotel in San José. Eager to get back to the Guanacaste Province, he jumped at the chance to go back home when the Tranquil Bay Resort opened.
After five years working there, he was now the Assistant Manager for the Concierge Services.
Dana was touched by what she heard that day. Her father always referred to her uncle Blake as Peter Pan. A hippie that never grew up. A naive do-gooder with a strong belief in Eastern philosophy, which for Dana’s straight-laced father, his brother might as well have been dabbling in the occult.
But in front of her stood a young man that had benefited from her uncle’s good deeds.
In supporting, encouraging, and mentoring Claudio, Uncle Blake ensured that the young man grew up and went to college, becoming the first member of his family to ever go to college and earn a degree.
It was too bad he was working for Barca’s resort, but she understood why. It was a five-star luxury resort with a lot of excellent opportunities for a local boy done well.
“So, what are your goals, to become the General Manager someday?” Dana asked.
“For the last ten years, that’s all I’ve ever wanted. Work my way up to General Manager for an international hotel like the Marriott or the Four Seasons so I could see the world. But the last two years, my ambition has changed. I see what this job and working for a man like Mr. Barca has done for the General Manager here and the way he treats his people. I can’t be that way and I don’t want to be li
ke them. So I would like to open my own small hotel someday. Right down there in Mariposa Beach,” Claudio said, pointing towards the sign marking the way to the beach town.
“I think that’s a wonderful goal.”
“My parents told me all about you. They really like you. My father says you remind him of Don Blake.”
Before arriving at Mariposa Beach and moving into Casa Verde, Dana wouldn’t have been sure how to take that statement, since all she heard from her parents was that her uncle was a no-good beach bum, but she was seeing there was a lot of good and kindness in Uncle Blake, and she took Claudio’s comment as a compliment.
“I don’t like to speak ill of the dead,” Claudio said, making the sign of the cross, “but Mr. Roy Kirkpatrick was very different from his father. He had come to Casa Verde before Don Blake died and he treated it like a party zone. And his wife, she was even worse. They both made it very clear to my parents that once he inherited, he planned to sell the property or that he would keep it, tearing everything down, including their house, so he could build a bunch of condos that he could sell. She would tease my parents, making ‘tic-toc’ sounds and pointing at her wrist when Don Blake wasn’t around. She warned them that their days of freeloading off of Don Blake would soon come to an end.”
“Did they visit him often?”
“Not for a long time. It’s my understanding that they had a falling-out and Don Blake was estranged from his son. Something that hurt him deep, but he didn’t like the kind of man he had become since marrying Skylar,” Claudio said.
“My uncle was adamant that your parents be taken care of under the same arrangements he had with them, and I’m planning to honor that.”
Claudio smiled. “It’s been very stressful these past few years with Don Blake sick and not knowing when Roy and Skylar would inherit the land and kick them out of their home. They were happily shocked when Mr. Campos explained to them that you had inherited the land, not Roy.”
“You have had to deal with them staying here at the resort?”
“Unfortunately, yes. I don’t think they remember me or know who I am, so I keep my mouth shut. But they’ve been staying here and driving the entire staff crazy. She’s always complaining and telling everyone how much she hates Costa Rica. Going on and on about the heat, the mosquitoes, the food, and how she can’t wait to get back to civilization.”
