Lucy's Money: A Lucy Ripken Mystery (The Lucy Ripken Mysteries Book 4)

by J. J. Henderson

  “And screwing their so-called enemies. I bet he gave you some bullshit about the Marcello, right? Like they didn’t know how it was going to look until it was too late?”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact.”

  “Trust me, Machado and his daddy were all over that project. They’re the ones that forced the design changes to add more rooms. And their contractor pals supplied the wrong-sized windows. I heard they were left over from some other project and they didn’t want to waste them. Hey, we all saw that brochure too.”

  “Classic bait and switch, eh? Somehow I’m not surprised.”

  “Their whole deal is figuring that people investing with them just won’t pay attention to what they do with the money, as long as the margins are fat. And I hear they mix a lot—and I mean a whole lot—of Colombian cocaine money and Mexican heroin money in with their so-called clean investor dollars, and it all ends up in the same pot. ”

  “Doesn’t surprise me. Hey listen, I’ve got some information about a couple of other projects they’re into. You heard anything about a new hotel going up around a place called Playa Rajada?”

  “They’re involved in that too? Yeah, I’ve heard of it. Rajada is only like the single most beautiful beach in Costa Rica, a fucking landscape to die for—too bad there’s no waves—but listen, you gotta go up there and talk to this guy name of Lester Martinez. He owns a little beachfront bed and breakfast by where that hotel’s supposed to go. He’s told me some really weird shit about that project.”

  “What kind of weird shit?”

  He hesitated. “Look, I don’t want to traffic in rumor. You should talk to Lester.”

  “How about the Rancho de la Luna?”

  “Place outside of PV de Sarapiqui? An orphanage, right? What’s that got to do with The Four Señors?”

  “I was wondering that myself. They’ve got some money in it I think. Plus they own most of a fishing camp on the beach near Barra del Colorado.”

  “Probably dope-related. Sounds like you have some serious shit to look in to, if that’s what you’re doing.” He paused. She wondered, is that what I’m doing? He went on. “After you’re done come down and buy my hotel. Sell it to you for a mil, throw in my brother’s boat since he’s given up fishing for golf. Worth a hundred grand.”

  “Sorry, Larry, I don’t fish and I don’t have that much money.”

  “That’s OK. I don’t really want to go back to West Palm Beach anyway.”

  “Palm Beach? Man, I would have figured you for a California boy.”

  “Hey, Florida’s all right. My mother still lives there. Plays tennis every day and gets a facelift and a new husband every year.”

  “Sounds interesting.”

  “Not at all, actually. She’s a fucking harpy.”

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

  “What, bring up an uncomfortable subject? It’s not uncomfortable to me. I know exactly where I stand, and also where all of my attitudes towards women come from. Which is more than most men can say.”

  “Hmmm. Right, well—”

  “OK, see you later Lucy. And be careful—it isn’t that hard to step into some weird shit around here, and it sounds like you’re ready to do that dance.”

  “Thanks, Larry. See ya.” She put down the phone and paused, contemplating the odd bird that was Larry Walker. He did have a line on the truth. And had a righteous streak she admired, in spite of the attendant sleaze.

  She tracked down a photo store with digital capacity, had them make prints of the images she’d shot, then headed to the Grand Hotel verandah to have a look over lunch.

  Eight-by-ten inch photographs of documents generally do not make very interesting viewing, but these Lucy found riveting. The pages she’d photographed included, for each project, a series of government permits, for construction, electricity, sewage, and more specifically, a casino permit for the beach resort, orphanage and adoption operation permits for the rancho, and a fishing camp license for the Barra del Colorado project. Peering through a loop and working slowly through the jumble of Spanish with occasional English asides, translations, or footnotes, by comparing assorted names, initials, numbers, and signatures, Lucy was able to ascertain that certain government officials who appeared to have signed off on several aspects of all three projects were also, just possibly, investors in those same projects. There was a list of phone numbers with U.S. and other national and area codes, with initials next to each number, in the beach resort pages, and similar lists for the other two projects. Other lists had dollar amounts with initials next to them, and some but not all of the initials matched up from list to list. There were also pages with drawings of each project, signed by the architects—an American, a Brazilian, and a Costa Rican with an office in San Jose. The American had done the orphanage—a renovation of an existing riverbank farm and outbuildings—while the Brazilian was on board for the beach hotel and the Costa Rican architect had designed the fishing camp. All three projects appeared to be neatly integrated into their settings, incorporating local design elements, exhibiting all the right architectural gestures.

  All things considered the pile of photographed paperwork was a whole lot of nothing, really, but on the other hand, with a bit of paranoid conjecture she could easily weave a web of conspiracy that reached from the back drawers of the Four Señors high up into the bureaucracy, and into the U.S. and across the seas. But what were these mysterious initialed characters conspiring to do?

  Lucy returned to her hotel, packed her bag, and then, after a brief siesta, taxi’d out to Bolanos, the small plane airport, for the quick flight up to Daniel Oduber Airport in Liberia. It was time to take matters into her own hands.

  Between the flight, car renting, and driving from Liberia up to La Cruz, just south of the Nicaraguan border, the day ran down to sunset. Fortunately at that golden hour Lucy found herself perched in a restaurant on the bluff in La Cruz gazing southwest over Salinas Bay to the Gulf of Santa Elena and the Pacific, darkening beneath a stack of backlit cumulus clouds heaped from the horizon up to the general vicinity of heaven. A slice of Nicaraguan coast stretched away to the west. Lucy ate another great ceviche, drank fresh orange juice with a tiny splash of vodka, and while watching the utterly spectacular sunset play itself out before her she considered her next move. Below her, on the shores of the gulf, she could make out the tell-tale signs of construction activity behind the beaches. Hotels going up.

  She slept in a dingy little hotel run by an American, a failed Abstract Expressionist painter from Lansing, Michigan who’d decorated his six small guestrooms with way too many overscale, harshly-toned, bold brush stroke paintings, all his, all done in the expressionist mode but clearly lacking the instinctive finesse or gestural power that can save abstraction from its self-indulgent self. Lucy kept her eyes on the pages of the book she’d been stuck in since day one of the trip—The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Haruki Marukami’s unsettling epic—and studiously ignored the six by eight foot monsters slashed across the wall.

  In the morning she drank coffee and ate a stale roll and sliced papaya in the company of the artist, Stanley Marchand, bad painter supreme but not a bad old guy—twenty years in a small Costa Rican town will take the sharp edges off most anyone, Lucy figured. Lean and leathery, Marchand lived with one of the world’s great views, yet persisted in painting in a windowless basement studio. He had never sold a painting, not one, but remained convinced of his own genius and worked hours every day, cranking out an interminable series of big bad works. His Tica wife had died two years back, leaving six grown children on his hands; four of them still lived with him. Two of the girls had served Lucy breakfast. Marchand knew Lester Martinez, and had been swimming in the waters of Playa Rajada and the other Santa Elena beaches for twenty years. He’d watched with horror as stretches of the Gulf’s most beautiful coastline got snatched up by hotel conglomerates, mostly Mexicans, Italians and Germans, but worst of all, that local crew the Four Señors and their partners. “Those bastard
s are up to no damn good,” he said, his lackadaisical manner turning intense. “I don’t care what they say about eco-this and enviro-that, they’re capitalist cutthroats and out for nothing but money, mark my words.”

  Lucy did so, then climbed into her little green rental car and headed off on the dusty road that led down the bluff from Santa Cruz and across the flats to the shores of Salinas Bay.

  She passed a single large, hacienda-style ranch house surrounded by outbuildings, corrals with horses, fenced pastures inhabited by placid cows. Closer to the sea, the road laced through a series of shallow, rectangular earthen beds, divided by low walls, where sea-salt from salty Salinas Bay was collected. And then she hit the beach. Just across the border a mile or so to the north, what looked like a fairly major hotel was under construction. To the south, the dirt road ran through a scattering of small houses paralleling the edge of a wide, featureless, windblown beach, then rose to disappear over a small headland. Offshore a few hundred yards she could see crowds of pelicans, frigates, and cormorants wheeling around a small, rocky island that served as a bird sanctuary. She headed south and a moment later stopped and got out of the car to gaze down from the headland at what she was certain was Playa Rajada, a perfect half-moon of sheltered white sand backed by palms, emerald and turquoise water, and a stream with a waterfall pouring into a freshwater pool a few yards off the sand at the south end, below a lush, green hillside. One small, white two-story building nestled in behind the palms about halfway down the beach. That would be Lester Martinez’ B&B, she thought.

  She got into the car and went on, dropping down to snake through the palm grove behind the beach. A moment later she spotted a small sign for the Playa Rajada B&B next to a dirt track. A banner that read cerrado, closed, had been slapped diagonally over the sign. She drove past, headed in the direction of the construction site over the next rise.

  From the top of that little hill she gazed down on a couple of acres of hubbub—cranes, bulldozers, dumptrucks, heaps of brick, lumber, stone, steel, and other goods. Several dozen workers busied themselves, mostly unloading stuff. They appeared to be on the verge of laying foundations, or something preliminary along those lines. Nothing had been built, although it looked as if enough material had been stockpiled to get a running start on throwing up a small town. East of the site, a scrubby landscape dotted with cactus and brush stretched to a low range of hills. Much of this relatively barren landscape had been bulldozed, leveled and rearranged for some human activity. To the west, a long, flat beach faced a choppy, windblown sea. The whole scene was dusty, desolate, and forlorn.

  She got back in her car and moseyed down the hill to the site entrance, where a young man in a shabby blue security guard outfit waved her to a halt. She pulled off to the side of the dirt road and got out of the car to have a look at the big sign next to the entrance. HOTEL PLAYA RAJADA, it said, with a lovely color image of a hotel planted on exquisite Playa Rajada, half a mile away. The B&B was nowhere in the picture.

  Lucy smiled at the security guard and said, “This is a pretty picture, si? But the beach is over there, no?” She pointed back over the hill. “Playa Rajada?”

  The guard grinned. “Si, Señora.” He waved at the windblown beach. “Esta Playa Camarones. Esta una playa con mucho viento.” He switched to English. “Here,” he said, waving at the site, “Here will be the golf club, with the course all around. But the hotel will be over there.” He gestured towards the hill and Playa Rajada beyond it. “The bosses have simply to wait for some matters to be clarified before building.”

  “I see, I see. Such as the matter of Señor Martinez’ B&B?”

  “He is out of business as you perhaps could see, Señora,” he said.

  “Yes, I saw the sign. Your English is excellent, Señor.”

  “Yes, thank you, please. They say they will train me in the public relations department when the hotel is complete.” He grinned. “Because I am so much liking Norteamericanos.”

  “Bueno. I mean, that’s fine,” Lucy said. “Excellent, amigo. I’m sure you will be very good at it,” she added, backing away. She’d heard enough. “Muchas gracias, señor. Adios, adios.” She waved as she got back in her car, turned around, and drove back over the hill. She dropped down into the palms and turned left onto the dirt track that led out to the Playa Rajada B&B. The road was little-used, and just barely passable.

  As she approached the back of the two-story white building, embellished with a red-tile roof and a verandah encircling the upper level, a pack of puppies trailed by a friendly-looking mongrel mama dog came around the building, followed by two small, dark brown girls in shorts and tank tops. Lucy pulled up next to an old truck—the only vehicle on the premises—and got out. A warm, salty breeze rippled by, the puppies barked and jumped at her feet, the two little girls grinned at her shyly. They looked about seven and nine. Lucy smiled at them. “Buenas Dias, señoritas,” she said. “Donde esta su mama y papa?”

  They didn’t say a word, but waved at her to come this way as they scampered back around the side of the building, lushly draped in hibiscus and bougainvillea. Out front she paused to take in the sights: encircled by half a dozen lounge chairs, a small swimming pool sparkled in the sun. Bright shrubs dotted the landscape. A trail led through flowery trellises that framed the sea fifty yards away.

  A heavy-set fortyish man emerged from the open French doors by the pool. Black-haired and mustached like most Ticos, he wore shorts and a t-shirt from Disney World. “Buenas Dias,” he said, then switched to lightly accented English. “I am sorry but the hotel is now closed. Can I help you with something?”

  “Buenas Dias,” Lucy said. “Señor Martinez? Are you Lester Martinez?”

  “Yes, and these are my daughters Estela and Margarita.” He waved at the two girls.

  “Yes, I met them by the driveway. They showed me the way. Your place is beautiful.”

  “I have lived here all my life. My father and grandfather made this place.” His face darkened. “But that is—I’m sorry, what did you say your name was?”

  “Excuse me. Lucy Ripken. I’m from New York. I heard your name from a friend of mine, Larry Walker.”

  Martinez smiled faintly. “Larry Walker. Well, if you’ve met him I don’t need to say anything. He’s—”

  “A good man with some—I don’t know—”

  “You norteamericanos would say he needs an attitude adjustment, yes?”

  “That’s one way of putting it. But he told me to look you up.”

  “And why is that?”

  “I’m—I was interested in—oh, I’ll spare you the details. I’m just curious about this company called the Four Señors, and I think they may be involved in the hotel project over the hill there.”

  “The Four Señors?” He shook his head. “I don’t know. Do you want a cool drink? My wife is in San Jose taking care of her sick mama so I’m not too well-organized in the kitchen.”

  “No, I’m fine.”

  “Well then, let’s take a walk down to the beach. I’ll tell you a story, OK?”

  “OK.” With the girls leading the way they headed down the trail, and a moment later emerged onto the powdery white sands of Playa Rajada. It looked even better up close than it did from up on the hill. “What an absolutely beautiful beach this is, Señor Martinez,” Lucy exclaimed, dazzled.

  “Yes, it is. And please, call me Les, OK? Some Californians told me years ago that was the way Lester was called in the States.”

  “OK. Les.”

  “You saw the hacienda—the big house on the way down to the beach?”

  “Yes, yes of course. How could I miss it?”

  “My grandfather helped build that house. Hacienda Margarita. Named for Señora Margarita Consuela Diniz, whose husband Rafael Diniz once owned this entire peninsula. In any case to make a big story small in the 1940s the Diniz family willed this little beach to my grandfather, who lived in a small house back there, where is now my hotel, for many years. In the 1960s my f
ather built the bed and breakfast with the blessing of the Diniz family. I took it over when he died in 1987.” His tone turned bitter. “And so here I was, with a fine little business on the prettiest beach in the world.” He shook his head. “Then last year these men came and offered to buy my hotel and all my family’s land. They offered a ridiculously low price, as if they thought I was some idiot who could be tricked into—anyway, naturally I turned them down.” They were down by the water now. “There are sea-snakes out here—not too many, but a few,” he said. “If you bother them they bite, and if they bite, you probably die. So if you decide to swim please be careful not to step on any snakes.”

  “OK,” said Lucy. “I’m not sure I’ll have time, but what happened? Why did you close?”

  “They came back with a higher price—a reasonable price, I suppose, but I was not interested in selling. I am not interested in selling at all. I don’t really want to go anywhere else and my wife and daughters love this place even more than I do. And so the next thing I knew, I was visited by a person who worked for the national tourism authority, and after flushing a couple of toilets this person informed me that my hotel’s septic system did not meet the required standards and that the hotel was closed until further notice. Until I upgraded the entire plumbing system for the property. I had several people come up from Liberia and even San Jose to look at the job. The best price I have gotten was eighty-five thousand U.S. dollars. I don’t have that kind of money and so here I am.”

  “That seems unfair but can’t you just go to a bank and borrow the money, use the hotel or land as collateral?”

  “I thought so but every bank I tried turned me down without explanation. I am not a suspicious man but I can’t help but think they are all in it together, trying to drive me off my place.” They strolled down the beach. “The water from this stream was drinkably clean until last year when they set up their construction site over there. Now it must be filtered. But it is a beautiful waterfall still, don’t you think?”

  “Gorgeous,” said Lucy. “The whole beach is amazing.”