Murdered in Argentina: A Jack Trout Cozy Mystery

by Dianne Harman

  “I wish I could believe you, Senora, but all day today while I was out on the river I tried to think of some way I could get her to Buenos Aires and be seen by a specialist, but I couldn’t think of anything,” he said. He spoke in a defeated tone of voice, turning his hands up as if to surrender to things which were taking place in his life and over which he had no control.

  Carola walked over to him and lightly touched his arm. “Pablo, I believe in miracles, and I will be praying for a miracle for you and Catalina. Don’t give up hope.”

  “Senora, I can’t even afford a car to drive to San Martin. How can I ever afford to get Catalina to Buenos Aires? What kind of a man is it who can’t even take care of his wife?” he asked in a ragged voice that was about to break up with emotion.

  “You’re a very good man. Don’t ever doubt yourself. Pablo, Jack has several wealthy clients in Chile. One of them has a plane. Maybe I can help. Certainly I’ll see what I can do when we return to Chile. If we can get Catalina to one of the big cities in Chile, I’ll make sure you both have a place to stay, one way or another. I have relatives all over the country, and I know they would help. I’ll also keep hoping for a miracle.

  “Just don’t give up, and don’t let Catalina give up either. She needs you now more than ever and so do your children. Children are smart. Yours need to be reassured that everything will be all right. Even though adults try to keep things like this from children, their senses are heightened when something different is happening, and they’re usually aware of what’s going on. Please, Pablo, you and I have talked before about our strong belief in the church. This is no time to give up your faith.”

  “I know you’re right, Senora, but saying it and doing it are two different things. Thank you for coming here. Now, I really must get home. I need to make sure that Catalina rests as much as possible. She will need all of her strength to fight this.”

  Carola lightly kissed him on both cheeks. “Vaya con Dios, go with God,” she whispered as she turned away from him, tears filling her eyes. “Please,” she whispered to the gods, “send them a miracle.” With a heavy heart, she slowly walked back to the kitchen.

  *****

  “Ah, you’re back,” Pilar said. “How is Pablo this afternoon?”

  “He’s hurting, wondering what he can do for Catalina, and I think feeling like a bit of a failure for not being able to afford to get her to Buenos Aires for the medical treatment she needs.”

  “El pobre hombre,” she said. “Is there anything you or Senor Trout or one of your guests can do?”

  “I agree, Pilar, the poor man. Believe me, I’m trying to think of some way we can help him. I have a couple of ideas. I’ll keep working on it. I don’t want to take up any more of your time, but I would like to have the menu for tonight’s dinner.”

  “Here it is. I wrote it out for you. I think you’ve probably had most of these things before, but I usually change it a little, so I’m sure something will be new to you.”

  “Not only new, but let me tell you these vanilla and lemon cookies with caramel are definitely speaking to me. I’m already looking forward to dessert. I better go on up and get dressed. It’s almost time for the cocktail hour, and given the events of the last twenty-four hours, I’m sure there will be a lot to talk about.”

  “Yes,” Pilar said. “When death occurs, it always makes for conversation.”

  “That’s not all,” Carola said. “One of the guests, Mitch Graham, has just been named as the president of Moving Graphics, the company Senor Martin owned. His wife, Lisa Martin, is the new owner of the company.”

  Pilar stopped stirring the carbonara criolla, the beef stew that was to be the main dish for the evening and looked closely at Carola. “Senora Martin must be very rich. Her husband had those expensive antique fishing things and if he owned the company…”

  Actually Lisa doesn’t have any of those antique fishing things. We have no idea where they are, but whoever has them very well might be the murderer, Carola thought.

  “She probably is. What are you thinking?”

  “I wonder if she could help Pablo and Catalina,” Pilar said.

  “Pilar, I don’t think Senora Martin has even met Pablo. She may be rich, but I certainly wouldn’t feel comfortable asking her to help the family financially. I mean, she doesn’t even know them. It’s a nice thought, but I don’t think so.”

  “I don’t know,” Pilar said. “The Lord works in mysterious ways. Maybe he can work a miracle here.” She turned back to the gently simmering stew, looked at it for a moment, gave it a gentle stir, and then put the lid on it.

  “It’s a nice thought, Pilar. Keep thinking positive thoughts and hopefully, a miracle will take place. See you later.” So deep in thought was Pilar, that she never acknowledged Carola leaving her kitchen.

  CHAPTER 26

  When Carola got back to her room, Jack was just stepping out of the shower, a towel secured around his waist. He playfully grabbed her and pulled her to him, kissing her deeply. She gently pushed him away and said, “If you start something like that, we’ll never make it to the cocktail party and as interesting as it’s bound to be, I don’t want to miss it.”

  She walked over to the closet and took out a pair of white jeans and a flowing red silk blouse. She looked in the mirror and held them up to her. “What do you think, Jack?” she asked.

  “I think I’d rather stay here with you than go down to the cocktail party. That red blouse with your black hair is a dynamite combination and makes me think about things that have nothing to do with fishing.”

  “Thanks, but believe me, I think you’ll find the cocktail party far more interesting than staying here with me.”

  “Doubt that, but shoot. What happened today?”

  “Jack, I don’t have time to give you the full version, so here’s the short one.”

  She told him about Lisa’s personality change for the better, the conversations that had taken place with Colin Scott and Sid Benson. She concluded by telling him about Mitch being the new president of Moving Graphics, Andrew White, Janelle Byers, and lastly Bea’s upcoming search.

  “Good grief, Carola, you two have really been busy today. You probably accomplished more in one day than the police would have been able to accomplish in a week.”

  “That may be the understatement of the year, and you’re making a huge assumption that they would be able to accomplish anything.”

  “Yeah,” he said ruefully, “I’ve been thinking about that. In the U.S. we’re constantly finding fault with the police because sometimes they do their job a little too aggressively, but given what I’ve seen here I don’t think I’ll be quite so vocal about that topic in the future. Turning to another subject, do you really think Janelle could be involved in this? I know I sound like a dumb male when an attractive woman’s involved, but she seems so nice.”

  “I have no idea, but we should know more later tonight. One thing I haven’t had time to do is research Brad Dixon on the Internet. Colin and Bea both hinted that he was a little too interested in Ray’s antique fishing equipment. When we get back from dinner, I’m going to see what I can find out about him. I also need to call Kelly back in Oregon and tell her what’s happened today. I owe her a debt of gratitude because she was the one who suggested many of the things that Lisa and I did today.”

  “Carola, you never fail to amaze me. I assumed you would spend all your time on this trip taking Lisa to the most expensive shops in San Martin. Who would have ever thought the two of you would bond because of a murder and then spend most of your time trying to find out who did it?”

  “I know, Jack, I know. I can’t believe the woman I’ve been with today is the same woman we’ve been with the last few days. That woman I couldn’t stand. This one I really like. She has a lot of substance to her. I’m really curious to see what she does in the future.”

  With that said, she looked in the mirror, applied a red lipstick that matched her blouse, twirled around and said, �
��Cocktail party, ready or not, here we come.”

  The cocktail party was in full swing when they reached the bottom of the stairs. From the sound of the raised voices, the guests at the lodge were not averse to drinking the fine wines and spirits offered to them. Carola saw Mitch deep in conversation with Kevin and Dan. Janelle Byers was standing very close to Mitch. The first thought that came to Carola’s mind was that Janelle was trying to ingratiate herself with Mitch now that he was the new president of the company.

  Seeing how close Janelle was standing to Mitch she was reminded of a conversation she’d overheard between one of her yoga teachers in the United States and a fellow student. The person asked the teacher why the same people were always in the front row at every class. The teacher replied that they wanted to get whatever they could from the teacher by being close to her. The teacher had studied psychology in college and told the student it was referred to by psychologists as the “halo effect.”

  If Janelle knew that Bea was going to be searching her Finance Department in a few hours, I wonder if she’d be quite so quick to make such a blatant attempt to curry favor with Mitch.

  Brad and Allen stood on the far side of the long table that doubled as a bar discussing the day’s fishing. Jack walked over to them and joined their conversation.

  Mitch noticed Carola pouring herself a glass of wine, stepped away from the group, and walked over to her. “Carola, we’ve been making plans on how to proceed when we return to San Francisco. I’ve been able to speak to everyone, and I think everything is under control. Since there’s a four-hour time difference between here and San Francisco, we decided after dinner we would all call our key personnel and inform them what’s happened. We figure there’s a pretty good chance they already know, but they need to hear it from us.”

  In a low voice Carola asked, “Did you sense anything when you talked to Janelle or Brad?”

  “Not a thing. Both of them were completely professional. I’ll be curious to see what Bea finds out.”

  “You’re not the only one. I also want to do some research on Brad. I haven’t had a chance to follow up on him. After dinner I plan on doing that while I wait for Lisa to tell me what Bea found out. Why don’t you get some sleep and forget about the Bea thing for tonight? There’s nothing you can do from here, anyway.”

  “I was thinking about staying up, but given that I was awake most of last night, I think I’ll take you up on that suggestion,” Mitch said. “If Lisa finds out something you think I should know about you can tell me in the morning. Sorry to be a wimp, but I can see where the next few weeks are going to be even busier than usual.”

  “No problem, Mitch. Your plate is overflowing at the moment.” She looked down at her watch. “It’s almost time for dinner, and I promised Lisa and Pilar I’d take Lisa’s dinner up to her. I’ll be back shortly.”

  CHAPTER 27

  Carola took the plate of food that Pilar had prepared up to Lisa’s room. In answer to her knock, Lisa opened the door and said, “Come in. Thank you so much. I don’t know where my appetite is coming from, but I’m definitely hungry.” She unwrapped the aluminum foil from the large plate Pilar had covered to keep the food warm. “This looks delicious. What am I going to be eating?”

  “Pilar gave me the menu earlier, so I could translate it for the guests. There’s a hearts of palm salad, a potato and meat empanada, an Argentinian stew which I’m quite fond of, as well as cornbread. For dessert you’ll be having something that looks fantastic, a vanilla and lemon cookie with caramel inside.”

  Lisa looked at the heaping plate and smiled. “I can tell I’m going to thoroughly enjoy everything just from the smell of it. Again, thanks for being so understanding. I’m really exhausted. After I eat, I think I’ll lie down for a while before Bea calls. I’ll let you know what she has to say when I hear from her, but if for some reason she gets tied up and can’t back to me at a decent hour, feel free to go to bed. I’m sure whatever she finds out can wait until tomorrow morning.”

  “That’s a good idea. It might take her several hours to figure things out. When dinner is over I plan to do some research on Brad Dixon. I feel it’s something that’s been left undone, although I’m not real sure where to start. I also need to call Kelly and tell her what we’ve found out. Maybe she’ll have some more ideas about what we might want to do next. If I don’t see you later this evening, sleep well. You deserve it. We’ll talk in the morning.”

  “Thanks, and I’ll even get my own coffee in the morning,” Lisa said, smiling wryly. “I also thought I might make some notes on what I’m going to do with the rest of my life. Seems like a pretty large abyss out there, and I have no idea how I’m going to cross it.”

  “Lisa, yesterday I would have agreed with you, but not after what I’ve seen you do today. I would be willing to bet everything I have that you’re going to find a real purpose for the rest of your life. The one thing I would ask of you is that after we leave here, you stay in touch with me. I really am curious to see what lies ahead for you.”

  “Well, whatever it is, I have to get through the next few weeks first, and that I’m definitely not looking forward to. I guess the plus side of all of this is that Ray doesn’t have a grieving family. That really might put me over the edge.”

  “Eat while your food’s still warm. I really need to get back downstairs and tell the guests what they’re having for dinner tonight. From the sound of them during the cocktail hour, seems like they might be imbibing a bit more than usual, given the events of the last twenty-four hours. See you when I see you.”

  After she left the room Carola walked down the hall and opened the door to her room to check on Cayo. At the sound of the door opening he raised his head and looked at her with his big blue eyes. “Cayo, you are the most wonderful cat in the world, and I love you. I won’t be too much longer, and when I get back I’ll give you a special treat.” From the purring she heard, Carola was certain he understood every word she’d said.

  When she got to the bottom of the stairs, she heard the bell signifying that dinner was being served. As she walked into the dining room, the guests were just sitting down.

  “Excuse me for a moment,” Carola said, standing at the head of the table. “I spoke with Pilar earlier, and I want to tell you about the fabulous dinner you’ll be having tonight. First is an ensalada de palmitos, or a hearts of palm salad. Following that we’ll be eating a potato and beef empanada, a very traditional Argentinian dish. Next is the main course called carbonada criolla, or a hearty beef stew, along with cornbread. The dessert is a specialty cookie called alfajores medocinos. It’s a lemon and vanilla cookie filled with caramel. I guess it’s the Argentinian version of an oreo,” she said laughing as the staff began to serve the guests. “Let me be the first to wish you buen provecho, or happy eating!”

  The conversation died down as the guests began eating. Soon the only sounds were those of pleasure and words like “That’s way too gourmet of a dish to be called a stew” and finally “I’ll never look at an oreo again without thinking of these cookies.”

  When they were finished, as he had the night before, Kevin requested that Carola bring Pilar into the dining room. As soon as Pilar walked in Kevin started clapping and hooting and was immediately joined by everyone else. “Carola, would you please tell Pilar I didn’t think she could top last night’s meal, but this was every bit as wonderful. Please, thank her on behalf of all of us.” Carola translated and a very happy Pilar went back to the kitchen, wondering what she could possibly come up with for their dinner tomorrow evening that would compare to the last two nights’ dinners.

  Jack stood up from his place at the table and lightly tapped his knife on the water glass in front of him to get everyone’s attention. When it was relatively quiet he said, “You probably saw Matteo, one of our guides, come in a few minutes ago and whisper something to me. What he told me is that a storm is expected to hit in the early hours tomorrow morning, and there’s a good chance it may
be raining when we leave the lodge to go fishing. Most of the people who come on these trips don’t let rain stop them from fishing and there’s rain gear on the boats, but if you’re really uncomfortable fishing in the rain, please let your guide know, and he’ll take you to one of the SUVs which will bring you back to the lodge.

  “Your fishing partner for tomorrow as well as your guide and boat are written on the dry board at the bottom of the stairs. I’m going up to bed, and I assume that all of you will too. I know several of you need to make some phone calls relating to business. Quite frankly,” he said laughing, “I’m glad I don’t have to. It’s been a long day for all of us. See you in the morning.” He pushed his chair into the table and motioned for Carola to follow him as he started to make his way towards the stairs.

  He opened the door of their room and said, “I’m sorry Carola, but I’m whipped. I’d like to stay up and talk, but I’ve got to get some sleep.”

  “Jack, I totally understand. I need to call Kelly, and I also want to see if I can find out anything about Brad Dixon. Go to sleep. I’ll probably be up for a while, so if I don’t get up with you when you leave in the morning, happy fishing.”

  CHAPTER 28

  Carola took her laptop into the bathroom and sat on the floor, her back against the wall. It wasn’t the perfect office setup, but at least she wouldn’t keep Jack awake, and as tired as he was, she didn’t want to be the one to cause him to lose sleep. She typed the words “Brad Dixon” into her laptop and began her search. An hour later, although she’d read a number of articles about him, she still didn’t feel she had a sense of what he was all about. The articles mainly dealt with his business endeavors, and there wasn’t much personal information in them. She did find out he was single and had never been married. One of the articles quoted him as saying he’d developed his work ethic from his father, Lewis Dixon, who had also taught him how to fish.