Murder on the Equator Box Set

by Becca Bloom

  Abuelita perked up at her suggestion, sitting ramrod straight. “You both go. Fernanda like you," she said to me.

  I wouldn't go so far as to say that, but it was worth a shot. At least we had a plan. It was a start.

  Chapter 16

  My skin was still puffy and red the following morning, but it didn’t hurt like it had yesterday. Sleeping had been nearly impossible. Between my sunburn and my brain, which would not turn off, I rolled from one side to the other in an attempt to get comfortable and relax enough to quiet my mind. When the neighbor’s rooster started crowing at six in the morning, I finally gave up the struggle and got out of bed. Didn’t the singing fowl know the danger of living so near a restaurant?

  I took Lady for a stroll around the neighborhood before loading her doggy dish with food. I put it down on the ground and she sniffed at it daintily before looking back up at me with one ear up and one ear down. She cocked her head to the side as if asking what I had put in her dish. Just then, Abuelita came out of the kitchen with a bowl of meaty bones.

  Looking down at the dog, I said, "I see how you are. Why eat dry dog food when Abuelita gives you the good stuff?"

  She raised her paw up for me to take and bowed her head with her ears back. It looked so much like an apology, I ruffled her ears and told her, "I can't fault you for having good taste. Enjoy your breakfast."

  "Why you talk to dog? She not person. You weird."

  Yes, we had established that yesterday. "Good morning to you too, Abuelita."

  I followed her into the kitchen and she poured me a large mug of freshly brewed coffee. Holding it just out of my reach, she asked, "What you make today?"

  I reached for the liquid ambition, but she pulled it away.

  “You’re holding my coffee hostage until I agree to bake something? That’s low.”

  She grinned. “I short.”

  Right behind her, a pile of ingredients were lined up on the center table. The cinnamon was next to the sugar. Mmm, I loved cinnamon and what goes best with coffee than coffee cake — the kind with a crumbly topping that crunches and melts in your mouth.

  Holding my hand out again, I said, “Do you have a square baking pan?”

  Abuelita handed over my morning caffeine and riffled through a cupboard. She pulled out two baking pans. “One to us. One to Martha,” she explained.

  “Good idea. Maybe she won’t get mad at us for prying if we offer her something sweet.” Going and talking to her had seemed like a better idea the day before than it did at that moment. What if my instincts were wrong and she or Fernanda really had killed Maria?

  I measured the ingredients for two coffeecakes, added an extra dash of cinnamon on top of the crumble mixture and popped them in the oven. My grumbling stomach informed me it would be a long thirty minutes until the cake was ready and I could have a square. Ten minutes and another cup of coffee later, Abuelita checked the timer and turned the oven light on to check its progress, then checked the timer again.

  Sylvia came into the kitchen from the reception area. "Mmm, it smells so good out in the dining area, the customers are asking what we are baking back here. Is it another one of your creations, Jess?"

  "She make coffeecake with no coffee," said Abuelita, once again looking at the timer.

  I’d never thought about that. Why was it called coffee cake? There were several desserts people ate with a cup of coffee. Why should this cake be named after its most common accessory rather than an ingredient like its peers? Was it some sort of rebellion? Reining in my deep thoughts, I told Sylvia, “Adi and I are going to take one of them to Martha’s with the lunch you send. Maybe she’ll know something.” I waited for Sylvia to tell me what a bad idea it was for us to go out there, but instead she smiled.

  "Agent Vasquez warned you not to interfere with his investigation, but he said nothing about being good neighbors. I think that's a lovely idea. Fernanda asked about you yesterday. I'm sure she could use a friend right now."

  For not having made new friends for so long, it sure was easy to do now. I found myself surrounded by real people with real faces instead of virtual friends with avatars in bookish forums and coder chat rooms. It was kind of nice.

  Fifteen minutes later, Adi joined us along with Tia Rosa. The coffee cake was a hit, and we cleaned up the pan before the other one could even cool.

  Gathered around the island with refilled coffee cups and the crumbs left on our plates, Adi said, "It's too bad you're leaving at the end of the month. I would convince Mom to put you on the payroll in a heartbeat. You could earn good money with your baked goods."

  Sylvia said, "You wouldn't have any convincing to do, Adi. If Jess decides to stay, she has a job."

  They both looked at me expectantly. I almost choked on my last mouthful of coffeecake. Washing it down with a gulp of coffee, I wiped my chin with the napkin Abuelita handed to me. "I can’t stay."

  "Why not? You’re young and can live anywhere you choose," said Sylvia.

  I didn’t know what to say, so I laughed. “Then you’d have to put up with me every day, not just for a month.”

  “They put up with Bertha. You very nicer,” said Tia Rosa, garnering approving nods from Sylvia, Adi, and even Abuelita.

  My heartbeat pounded in my ears. They were serious. It was ridiculous to make a life-changing decision like that when I’d only been in the country for three days. Goodness gracious, I’d only known them for three days.

  What would my family do without me? Dad would fall into a depression, Jessenia would have to hire a sitter to help her with Jayden, Jessamyn would go crazy with her budget, and Mammy would miss me.

  Tia Rosa stacked my empty plate on hers. “Change is good. Is okay if you want to stay. You welcome here.”

  Though the knowledge that I wouldn’t have to board a plane to get home was appealing, it was too crazy. Me? Live in Ecuador? Bake for a living? No, it was crazy.

  Rain slapped against the windows and poured down the glass in streams.

  Sylvia rushed to plate the influx of orders brought by the tourists seeking refuge from the rain in her restaurant. She handed the plates to Adi, who left a pile of orders on the counter. The sink was full of dishes again. Abuelita occupied herself over the stove. Being the official taster and seasoner, she had delegated her sister to the role of the dishwasher. Not once had I seen Tia Rosa near the stove. She probably wasn’t allowed.

  So I put on the green rubber gloves, moved Tia Rosa’s footstool out of the way, and set to work. It was the least I could do when they insisted on feeding me lunch every day.

  “Jess,” Tia Rosa said. “I wash. You dry and put away.”

  I was about to refuse when she raised a plate. Without the added height of her footstool, she could open the cupboards, but she fell a few inches short of being able to put a dish on top of the stacked plates. It made her climb over Martha’s property wall all the more impressive. How had those two managed it?

  The breakfast crowd stayed longer than normal, encouraged to remain indoors by the deluge outside. I thought it rained hard in Oregon, but I’d never seen anything like the torrential downpour outside the restaurant. I hoped it would stop before Adi and I had to leave for Martha’s.

  Sylvia pulled out her plastic containers, loading them with green rice (a delicious combination of rice cooked in blended spinach and garlic) and a dish of pork stew with fried, ripe plantains. She covered the cooled coffee cake with plastic and set it on the top of the food she’d put in a bag for Adi and I to carry. “You’ll have to take a taxi. It’s still pouring outside. Maybe it’ll clear by the time you get there.”

  From the view out of the window, that didn’t seem possible.

  We jumped across the river of water streaming down the street, flagging the first taxi we saw. In the few steps it took to get from the sidewalk to the car, my hair dripped and my shirt was soggy. That's Amazon rain for you.

  Placing the bag of food between us in the backseat, I finally took in some of the de
tails of the taxicab we had just gotten into. Lo and behold, it was Martin the driver with the duct taped bumper. I had given the cab the benefit of the doubt by thinking that the outside of his car was a poor representation of the inside, but I had been wrong. There was a gash in the seat which he had attempted to cover with a bathroom mat, but the sticky rubber on the bottom of the mat had rubbed off and slid on the seat, leaving little balls of yellow rubber everywhere. I tried to scoot as close to the door as I could, but promptly jumped back into place when my door swung open.

  "No problem," said Martin, breaking with no regard to the cars following us to reach over me and pull my door shut. That done, he pounded his fist against the door lock, waving his hand up in the air as if he had just performed a magic trick.

  The cars behind us on the narrow one-way street began honking impatiently and Martin put his car in first, grinding gears as he did so and giving Adi and I a major case of whiplash as we bunny hopped into second.

  My neck was already sore and we weren't even halfway there yet. His car smelled nice though. It must have been the red air freshener shaped like a tree dangling from the rearview mirror.

  “Is mechanical problem. My car get fixed at shop,” he said.

  “Hey, you speak English! Fantastic!” I said, seeing an opportunity to ask Martin some questions. I had seen him have quite the fiery exchange with Maria the day I got here.

  He smiled. “Is good for business, you know,” he said.

  “Well, that’s smart of you to learn. I imagine the tourists feel better when they can communicate with their driver.” I hoped the compliment had the same effect on him as it always did with my sisters. Not that I was a great manipulator or anything, but it usually made them more agreeable to what I was about to propose. In this case, I needed information.

  “I remember seeing you at the mechanic the day Maria was murdered. That was an awful day, wasn’t it?”

  He waved at a man sitting outside in his garden. “It was a terrible day. My car refuse to start and I spent all afternoon at the mechanic.” He dropped his voice. “But my day nothing compare to Maria’s. Is awful what happen to her.”

  “Were you friends?” I asked.

  “No,” he answered immediately. “Definitely not friends. You saw us fight when you arrive, yes? I was angry because she did crooked business with a bar and my friend lost his work. It was not fair.”

  Adi asked, “Maria took Christian’s job? Doesn’t he supply liquor to the bars?”

  “Yes. He lose big customer two months ago. He about to get the job again, but Maria make promises and Christian, he have no chance.” His eyes met mine in the rearview mirror. “I tell Agent Vasquez everything. I was at mechanic all the time and I see who come and who go. I hope he find the killer.”

  “Me too,” I said, looking out the foggy window and processing what Martin had revealed. He had made no accusations, nor had he revealed any suspicions he might have had. In my mind, however, his good friend Christian moved up in my list of suspects. Could he have killed Maria to get his income back? And what about Dario? Martin hadn’t said as much, but I suspected Dario was at the center of the conflict between Christian and Maria.

  The rain stopped and the sun came out from behind the clouds just as the car in front of us moved. A layer of vapor rose off the wet surface, giving a mystic vibe to the beautiful town. The air felt sticky and heavy.

  Adi grumbled, "It's going to be humid this afternoon."

  Finally, we made it to Martha's house in one piece. Really, it was more impressive that the car made it in one piece. Adi and I would no doubt have sore necks for a day or so, but that poor car was on its last leg.

  Martha was at her gate when we arrived. She left her keys hanging in the door to walk over to us, greeting us with hugs and a kiss on the cheek and insisting on carrying the heavy bag.

  We paid Martin and, with a departing wave, he ground into gear. The muffler of his car grated against the gravel as he left. He must’ve run out of duct tape.

  “Come, come,” Martha motioned for us to follow her inside. She said something else to Adi, which Adi translated.

  “She said she’s glad we came. Something has happened.”

  Martha looked like she was on the verge of tears and she gripped the bag of food to her as if her life depended on it.

  Chapter 17

  It was noisy inside the house, but no one was in the front room. The chair in front of the gaming center was empty.

  “José must not be here,” Adi said, voicing my thoughts aloud.

  Martha led us into the kitchen and set the bag on the outdated ceramic tiles. Her eyes lit up when she saw my cake.

  Adi pointed to me and chattered a mile a minute while I smiled and nodded like a bobble head. Abuelita would have poked me in the arm and told me to stop acting stupid. I really needed to learn some Spanish. I was in the perfect place to do it.

  Their conversation culminated with Martha taking my hands and saying slowly, “Gracias.” It was thoughtful of her, but it made me feel like a toddler. Yep, I was definitely signing up for a Spanish class.

  Martha put the food in the fridge, filled a saucepan with water from the tap, and put it on to boil. She pointed to the water and asked me something.

  Adi shook her head slightly. “Whatever you do, don’t accept,” she said with a smile at Martha.

  “Is she offering me tea?” I liked tea. It went perfectly with some of my favorite literature.

  “She is, but you can’t drink tap water. You’ll get very sick.”

  Of course! I had gotten too comfortable at the restaurant. They boiled all their water.

  “No, gracias,” I said, then had to repeat it when she offered me a piece of the cake we’d brought her.

  Adi accepted a tea when Martha insisted.

  “Won’t that make you sick?” I asked when Martha turned to pull out a box of tea.

  “I was born here. I have a strong stomach.”

  Martha pointed to the large, rectangular table against the wall. She sat facing the kitchen door, which she looked through nervously.

  Adi translated as she spoke. Even had I possessed a better vocabulary, I couldn’t have understood her low mumble.

  “She says: I don’t know what to do. I think Fernanda has done something horrible and she won’t talk to me. Normally, I wouldn’t confide this to a stranger, but I’m a desperate mother. When you came here two days ago, I heard her actually talk to you. And she laughed. I haven’t heard her laugh in so long, I’d almost forgotten what it sounded like.”

  A tear trailed down Martha’s cheek and she grabbed a paper napkin from a stack on the table to wipe away the evidence of her troubles, her eyes darting between Adi, me, and the open kitchen door.

  “Does she want me to talk to Fernanda?” I asked.

  “She says: Yes, please. Fernanda won’t say anything to me, but if you could be a friend to her, maybe you can help her where I cannot. I’m so afraid.”

  “What is she afraid of?” I dreaded that I knew the answer, but I couldn’t help anybody if I didn’t know what was going on.

  Martha wrapped her hands around her steaming cup of tea sitting on the table, rotating it in circles. After a large sigh, she began.

  “She says: The day before José returned from Miami, Maria asked if Fernanda would help her prune the trees in their front lawn. She wanted the garden to look nice for him when he got home. Of course, Maria offered to pay Fernanda for her help. So, she took our machete and went to work.”

  “A machete for yard work?” I asked.

  Adi explained, “Most people don’t have lawn mowers. She would use a machete to cut branches.”

  Martha nodded her head and continued.

  “She says: Fernanda was a little careless and she left the machete at Maria’s. She told me she remembered setting it on the table by the back door in the garage. It’s easy to identify because Ana Paola painted bright yellow smiley faces all over it. You can imagine how when I f
irst heard that my sister had been … Well, the first thing I looked for was my machete. Only, I cannot find it. It’s gone. And the police assured me they didn’t find it in the garage where Fernanda said she had left it. I fear it was my machete that killed Maria and….” Martha wadded the napkin at her eyes, struggling to keep her composure.

  An angry voice from the doorway said, “She thinks I did it.” Fernanda crossed her arms and glared at her mom.

  Speaking before thinking, I asked, “Well, did you?”

  “Of course not. But she’s overreacting and is threatening to turn herself in just to keep me out of trouble. Can you imagine what would happen to us if she did that? I’d have to quit school and work to feed my brothers and sisters.” Fernanda’s eyes clouded up with tears, and she furiously wiped them away.

  Martha rose, her arms opened wide to embrace her daughter.

  Fernanda stepped out of her way. “Can you believe her? Here she accuses me of murdering my aunt and she wants to hug?” She jabbed at her eyes again, her harsh eyeliner softening around the edges. At that moment, she looked like a scared girl.

  It was just a hunch, but I was going with it. “Is that what’s really going on? You’re upset because your mom thinks you could have done it?”

  Fernanda’s eyes snapped to me. “Duh!” she eloquently said.

  Keeping my voice calm, I said, “I can’t even imagine how horrible that must feel and I’m sorry for you.”

  She looked at me askance and sniffed. “It’s the worst.”

  “What reasons has she given you for her suspicion?”

  Her face hardened. “I wasn’t sad enough when my aunt died.”

  I had noticed that too. It’s what had made me add Fernanda to my list of suspects.

  Martha went over to the counter, bringing a generous portion of cake and a glass of milk. Setting it on the other end of the table, she motioned for Fernanda to sit.

  Fernanda, rebellious teen that she was, looked at the cake longingly, but turned her back away to stew some more. It was the same posture Jessamyn had tried to use many times to get what she wanted. I wondered if the tactics I used with my younger sister would be effective with Fernanda. It couldn’t hurt.