Murder on the Equator Box Set

by Becca Bloom

  Walking around the park to check out the competing booths in the opposite direction from the teens, I had finally managed to convince myself that they weren't laughing at me when it happened again. A group of traffic police with their bright yellow vests on, looked up from their cell phones and laughed when they saw me.

  "What is going on?" I asked Fernanda.

  "No clue. I'm just relieved that they seem to be laughing at you, not me."

  "Thanks," I said dryly.

  "What are friends for?" Fernanda scanned the crowds as I did. Now that I was convinced a couple groups of people had laughed at me, it seemed that everyone with a cell phone snickered as I walked by.

  “This is ridiculous. I’m going to Tia Rosa’s booth. You coming?” I asked, turning around to return to the entrance of the park where I could hide in a dignified fashion by sitting for a portrait behind the big stage.

  “I’m going to find out what’s going on. This is weird.” Her eyes scanned over the crowd until she settled on someone. Then, her face lit up. “There’s Christian. I’ll ask him.”

  I grimaced at her. Of all the guys she could have a crush on, I didn’t get why she liked him.

  “Don’t give me that look. You don’t know him like I do,” she said.

  Holding up my hands, I said, “Nor am I tempted to. Just keep him away from Abuelita’s booth or she’ll whack him with the broom again.”

  “I wish I could’ve seen that!” she laughed.

  “I’m sure you’ll have the opportunity. Abuelita doesn’t like him and, if there’s a broom handy, I wouldn’t put it past her to do it again.”

  With a smile, Fernanda disappeared in a group of cargo-short wearing tourists. And I did my best to go unnoticed to Tia Rosa’s booth.

  Chapter 23

  I ducked into Tia Rosa's spot, relieved that the platform had blocked anyone's attempt to form a line in front of her table. Only one lady with long hair worn loose over a flowing tunic sat for her. Her smile lines were visible even though she kept her face neutral. Her toe rings peeked through her Birkenstocks. I instantly liked her, if nothing else, because she reminded me of my dad.

  "Jessica, I so happy you here. This my art teacher, Miss Patty," said Tia Rosa, lifting her pencil up from her paper as she spoke.

  Miss Patty extended her hand. "I'm pleased to meet another distinguished artist and friend of Tia Rosa."

  "Oh, I'm not an artist," I said.

  "I beg to differ. Tia Rosa showed me your comedic sketches. They're very good. You have talent. I would love to have you in my advanced class."

  "I would love to take some art classes. Most of what I do nowadays is digital and graphic, but I love to sketch."

  "Come with Tia Rosa and I'll show you what I think would best suit you. We'll make a plan. I look forward to creating with you."

  Tia Rosa smiled widely, securing her pencil in her curly hair. "Is finish," she clapped, pulling the paper from her sketching pad and turning it to face Miss Patty.

  To her credit, the portrait looked like the woman sitting in front of us. Though the proportions could improve, Tia Rosa had managed to capture the calmness and wonder of the free-spirited art teacher.

  Standing, Miss Patty gave Tia Rosa a full hug and then pulled back to arm's length to better admire the portrait. "I am amazed how much you've improved in one day. You've managed to accomplish what few are able to do. I see emotion in this portrait. It's beautiful, Rosa."

  Tia Rosa blushed and flashed her dimples. "You good teacher. I bring Jessica with me next class."

  Collecting her portrait and insisting on paying the dollar Tia Rosa charged for a piece of candy, Miss Patty caressed my cheek like I was her family, and departed, leaving me homesick for my dad. I wondered where they were. If they'd seen the largest ball of twine, the smallest working tractor … or whatever else Mammy would make them stop to pose beside to add to her photo album.

  "You want me draw you?" Tia Rosa asked.

  I sat down on the stool, leaning forward to spare my bum and positioning myself between the lights she'd strung up around her customers so that she could see. "It's what I came for." I pulled a dollar out of my pocket and selected a mint.

  "I happy. You beautiful face for draw. Good symmetry. Is what I need for to improve. I make ears crooked and nose too down."

  "I don't feel very beautiful right now." My self-confidence had taken a beating since leaving the sanctuary of the kitchen. I tried to tell myself that looks aren't a fair measure of a person, but I couldn't help but feel judged when someone pointed at me and giggled. I hoped Fernanda had found out what was going on and that it miraculously had nothing to do with me.

  Tia Rosa cupped my face between her pudgy hands. “You beautiful. You need do things make you feel strong. Is why I help Adi. Is why I wash the dishes for Sylvia. Adi love to make the dresses and Sylvia love to cook. Bertha love to pretend she the boss. I help her, too. But I no forget me. I do art every day. It make me happy. What you love, Jessica? You do that.”

  I wished that the things I loved were easier. I took pride in my baking skills, and I knew my doughnuts were good enough to compete against the best, but they took so much time and I’d been too scared to commit to opening a bakery in Portland. It was too risky and the competition was too stiff. Not like here.

  And then, there was my family. I would give anything for us to be at peace. It was the uncertainty that hurt the most. Mammy and Dad couldn’t accept that my Uncle Eddy was gone, and the more time I spent in Ecuador, the more I wanted to believe he might, by some miracle, still be alive. Or maybe I could find real evidence of his death. If Dad had that, maybe he could finally move on. He had planned this whole adventure for me and was on a trip of his own across the US in search of inspiration, but I knew it was only another attempt to run faster than his tormenting thoughts. Every night, I waited for Mom’s call asking me to come home to help her pick up the pieces. I just hoped he made it another month. I’d feel awful if they extended my trip only to need me. He’d seemed fine. He’d looked happy. And Mammy was with him. Mammy and Mom would take care of him.

  “No sad face, Jessica. Think happy thing. I almost finish,” said Tia Rosa, pushing her glasses up her nose and squinting her eyes over her sketchpad.

  “Sorry. I’ll think of Abuelita’s face when she learns that you raised more for the pools than she did.” I doubted it, but it would be poetically just.

  Tia Rosa chuckled. “I no think so, but I happy to help. Is enough for me.” With one final stroke of her pencil, she showed me her work of art. Clearly Tia Rosa looked at me through rose-colored glasses, for the girl she’d drawn was much prettier than I knew myself to be. And I loved her all the more for it.

  “It’s perfect,” I said, adding, “I’m going to show it to Abuelita and Sylvia, then check on my booth.”

  She pinched my cheek and gave me another mint.

  I got to the table just as Fernanda did. They all seemed rather eager to admire Tia Rosa’s portrait, but I was more interested in knowing what Fernanda had found out.

  “So?” I asked her.

  She looked down. “It’s nothing.”

  Sylvia exchanged a glance with Abuelita, who turned her back to us when she burst into laughter. Whatever it was, they knew it too. I was the only one in the dark. Their reactions gave me a flashback to my family’s “intervention” leading to this Ecuadorian adventure. Everyone had known the secret except for me. I didn’t much like it then, and I didn’t care for it now.

  “Okay, now I’m convinced you all know what’s going on and you just won’t tell me. It isn’t that bad, is it?”

  Abuelita kept her back to me, and Fernanda and Sylvia did their best not to make eye contact. Getting no answers, I was about to leave for my booth when Abuelita whipped around.

  “I tell you something. If you win, I go on television with you. I speak Spanish for you.”

  I hadn’t even thought about that. Not that I held high hopes of winning — to the
contrary — but I could think of few things worse than being on television and not understanding a word said to me. (Nothing worse except for tonight’s pointing and laughing, that is. Seriously, it was getting to me no matter how hard I tried not to care.)

  Abuelita continued, "I help." She took my hand and patted it as if she was completely disinterested in appearing on television for her own purposes.

  "I hope you win, Abuelita," I said. And I meant it with my entire heart.

  Leaving for my booth, which Edgar and Martha had running like a well-oiled machine, I saw Mayor Guerra's teeth shining through the darkness like a beacon in the dark night. Did they make glow-in-the-dark caps?

  His secretary followed him closely with a clipboard in one hand and a pen in the other.

  Opening his arms widely when he got to my booth, he congratulated us loudly. "Well done, Miss James! We have just come from the midway and the artisan sections of the fair, and it would appear that your booth is one of our top sellers!"

  Top seller was good. I liked to do well with everything I put my mind to … so long as I didn't win the prize. So long as I wasn't "the" top seller.

  Edgar pulled out the cash tray from behind the table, pushing it in front of the mayor and his secretary with pride. I had no idea how much was there, but it looked like a lot.

  "Hold on a second," said a deep voice I hadn't seen since that afternoon.

  The mayor spun around and extended his hand. "Agent Vasquez. It's an honor to have one of the top detectives in the Ecuadorian special departments grace us with his presence! What do you think about our event today?" Mayor Guerra waved behind him and, soon, a microphone appeared in front of Agent Vasquez's mouth. I hadn't seen the camera crew behind the mayor.

  Swatting the mic off to the side, Agent Vasquez said in a blend of irritation and political correctness, "Sorry, there was a mosquito on the mic. Unfortunately, I'm here on official business. It's been a long day and I hoped to buy a dozen doughnuts to share with my men."

  Martha hopped to work, pulling out a box with a plastic window and loading it up.

  Picking out the flavors he wanted from the few left, he paid with exact change and left before the microphone could reappear or the mayor could ask any more questions he didn't want to answer.

  I wanted to follow him and ask if he was any closer to finding out who had killed Victor. My only consolation was that he headed in the direction of Sylvia's booth. Maybe Abuelita would press him for information.

  Edgar added the money to the pile of cash for the mayor's secretary to count, which she did in short time. Adding the figure to the list on her clipboard, the mayor nodded in approval when she showed it to him.

  "It's going to be a close one," he said. "I only have a few more booths to visit and I'll announce the winner after the firework show. Best of luck to you, Miss James. And don't worry. There's no such thing as bad publicity. It could very well be that your appearance with me tomorrow, should you win, will help people forget about today."

  He continued down the row to Abuelita's booth, leaving me stumped as to what he meant. Bad publicity? Forget about today? Weird stares aside, I'd say today had been a huge success. I couldn't wait to tell my family about it. Four thousand doughnuts was nothing to sniff at.

  Edgar said, "I'll start packing things up. Agent Vasquez pretty much cleaned us out."

  "Hey, do you know what Mayor Guerra meant?" I asked.

  Martha shook her shoulders. Of course, she'd been in the kitchen with me most of the day and was too busy at the booth to notice anything untoward. Edgar, too, shook his head. "I'm sorry. I'm as confused as you are. Things went well here."

  I helped wipe the table and put the extra napkins and boxes in bags to take back to the restaurant. I'd almost forgotten the strange looks, whispered comments, and outright laughter of earlier, but I was promptly reminded of it when a group of high school age teens asked between giggles to have their picture taken with me.

  Abuelita chased them away, her broom in her hand. "You go or I make you go."

  "Abuelita," I hissed at her. Her reaction was too violent. Granted, I didn't want my picture taken with a bunch of strangers, but it hardly merited her threats.

  Fernanda stood beside her, her purple and black hair half-covering her pale face. With the way she crossed her arms and glared at the group, she was as fierce as Abuelita.

  The teens skedaddled out of there, tripping over each other to get away from the scary duo staring them down.

  "What was that about?" I asked.

  "Is nothing," Abuelita said. "Sylvia invite you to restaurant. You come too, Edgar and Martha, yes?"

  Martha smiled and looked questioningly at Fernanda, who shook her head subtly, her eyes flickering between her mom and me.

  Edgar gladly accepted. "I'll be right there. I have a brief stop to make before everything closes for the day." He glanced at his watch.

  There being nothing else to do at the booth, we loaded our arms with empty trays and plastic bags and went back to Sylvia's restaurant.

  Chapter 24

  Tia Rosa was already at the restaurant when we arrived. She had the television remote in her hand and was flipping through the channels on the flat screen TV mounted high in one corner.

  "I see if I on the television," she explained.

  I continued into the kitchen with my armload. After cleaning and drying the trays, I went back out to the dining room and froze in my tracks at the game of tug-of-war over the television remote going on between Tia Rosa and Abuelita.

  "No. We no see news. News is bored," exclaimed Abuelita, pulling the remote and Tia Rosa along with it into her chest.

  "You jealous. You no want nobody on television. Only you. You selfish woman, Bertha," Tia Rosa retorted, finding her footing enough to step away from Abuelita with a mighty tug.

  By then, Martha and Fernanda stood off to the side with the little ones and their babysitting cousin. Martha clamped her hands over their mouths when her kids broke out into belly laughs.

  Jake walked into the door with Sylvia. They both stopped abruptly at the sight before them.

  The tugging continued, even when Jake tried to intervene. In a move performed by hundreds of thousands of children throughout the centuries, Abuelita put an end to their fight when she bit Tia Rosa. Abuelita always played dirty.

  "Why you bite me?" exclaimed Tia Rosa, wiping her hand dry. "You do it again, I grab you fake teeth. Then we see who win." She grabbed for the remote, but Abuelita held it up and stood on her tip toes so it was out of reach.

  "No news!" Abuelita insisted, shaking the remote and tossing it at Jake.

  "It's like a kindergarten playground in here. First, you start with tug-of-war and now, you've moved on to keep-away. What's so bad with the news?" I asked, marching to the television and putting my hand over the sensor before Jake could turn it off. "If Tia Rosa wants to watch the news, what's the big deal?"

  "She have nose in draw book all day and she no see. If she see, she understand and she help." The pleading look Abuelita gave Tia Rosa made me all the more determined to see what she hid. What everyone was hiding.

  I didn't have to wait long. I could tell the moment it crossed the screen because everyone looked down at the floor, avoiding the television like its image carried a plague.

  I, on the other hand, craned my head back to see. An image of Abuelita taking after Christian with her broom covered the screen. When I saw Diego and Jake run up to her and the camera zoom in, my hand dropped. My face burned so hot, I wished I'd burst into flames and disappear. Or that the floor would open up and swallow me.

  "Is this the local news or national?" I asked softly, not having it in me to speak any louder.

  Jake shuffled his feet. "It started local, but it went national."

  "Lovely." I pinched my lips together to keep from screaming as I watched myself dig around in my bra for the money I'd hid there in front of hundreds of thousands of viewers. Oh, but that wasn't the worse of it. I aske
d, knowing the answers would only add to my embarrassment. "What time is the evening news? Is this it?"

  Sylvia stepped forward, wrapping an arm around my shoulders and petting my hair. "This is the second of several airings."

  "I'm on reruns. Great. Anything else I should know?"

  Jake pulled out his cell phone, punched and swiped, and handed it to me while avoiding eye contact. It was opened to YouTube. The video already had half a million hits.

  "And I'm viral." I closed my eyes and hid my face in Sylvia's shoulder. Never in my life could I imagine being more mortified than I was at that moment.

  "I've told my friends they'll have to answer to Abuelita's broom if they watch it. I threatened to feed them to an anaconda if they share it," Jake said.

  I couldn't hide against Sylvia all night. It was done and it remained with me to choose my reaction. I was surrounded by friends who had done everything they could to protect me from seeing my own stupidity caught on camera. Friends who looked at me with eyes full of pity when everyone else had laughed.

  Taking a deep breath, I separated myself from Sylvia and turned to face Abuelita. "Well then, I'd like to see you top that," I said with the largest grin I could summon.

  Abuelita cackled. "You not just television star. You Internet sensation!"

  I laughed so hard, tears poured down my face and I couldn't breathe. It beat crying. What else could I do? When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade, right?

  Agent Vasquez joined us in the dining room, his face growing gravely suspicious as he looked around at all of laughing like our lives depended on it. Shaking his head, he took a seat and quietly perused through his notes.

  Sylvia laughed all the way to the kitchen, returning with plates brimming over with something that reminded me of how hungry I was. I'd lived off doughnuts and empanadas all day and my stomach demanded something more substantial.

  The fireworks boomed outside, sending splashes of colorful lights through the dining room. Lady barked along with several of the neighbor dogs.