Murder on the Equator Box Set

by Becca Bloom

  She punched the Call button and I heard a dial tone over the line. Raising the phone to her ear, she said, “I’m calling the police.”

  As quick as a flash of lightning, Abuelita smacked the phone out of her hand. I looked on in horror as the black handheld sailed through the air and landed on the skeleton’s face, sliding down and nestling itself in the nest of gnarled hair at its base. Ew.

  Sylvia waved her arms heavenward. “Just great, Ma. Already you’re tampering with evidence. How do you suppose we get that out of there without touching anything?”

  “Is old crime. Jess and Adi no in danger. They no born when that person murder. They get phone.”

  My first reaction was to ask how she knew it was a murder, but common sense kept me from voicing the question. Why else would a body be buried under a house?

  “I right, Jessica? You get the phone?” Abuelita insisted.

  You would think I was used to Abuelita volunteering me to jump into the middle of situations I wouldn’t have touched with a ten-foot pole by now. But the contents in my stomach curdled at the thought of climbing into the grave with a skeleton. It felt sacrilegious. Who did she think I was? Lara Croft, Tomb Raider?

  I looked around the room, but there were no other volunteers. The construction workers continued to cross their chests and pray in mumbled voices. They wouldn’t be any help. Adi had conveniently disappeared (Why, oh why, hadn’t I thought to do that?), leaving me as the most obvious choice. Drat.

  “Can’t we just leave it there?” I asked. “We could explain that it was an accident.”

  Sylvia wrapped her arm around my shoulders. “I’m sorry, cariño, but with all the murders you’ve been involved in since you got here, I don’t know if we can convince the police that we just happened to stumble across another corpse. Even I can’t believe what’s right before me.”

  There was that. Since arriving at Baños the month before for a once-in-a-lifetime experience orchestrated by my loving family who was concerned that I was stuck in a boring existence, I’d been involved in almost as many murder investigations as Jessica Fletcher on Murder, She Wrote. (Well, not quite as many, but if things continued like this, I was well on my way.)

  I looked into the hole in the ground. It was deep. As deep as all five foot five inches of me. It was narrow, too. It would be difficult not to step on something. The thought of bones crunching under my Converse sneakers made my skin crawl.

  Taking a deep breath and lowering myself down the side of the grave by the skeleton’s decayed leather shoes before I lost my nerve, I was surprised at how soft the ground was under my feet. As if someone had poured powdery sand over the rock-hard dirt.

  “Tell us what you see!” said Abuelita.

  “We didn’t send her down there to investigate, Ma. Jess, don’t listen to her,” snarled Sylvia, crossing her arms.

  I hated to admit it, but I had already noticed a few things. The tomb wasn’t as scary up close. I was no forensics expert, but I could tell from the bare bones and decayed bits of fabric that the body had been there for a long time. Some things remained intact, though.

  “She has a ring on her finger,” I said.

  “How you know is a she?” asked Tia Rosa.

  “There’s no fabric below her knee. She wore a skirt. And the ring doesn’t look very big.” I leaned in closer.

  “Don’t touch anything,” Sylvia reminded me, earning an elbow-jab from Abuelita.

  “No listen her, Jessica. What you see?” she said.

  “I think it’s a class ring. It’s dull with dust, but the gem looks like a ruby. If only I could wipe some of the dust away, I might be able to see the year on the band.” It was on her ring finger. Had it been a promise ring from her high school sweetheart? A deep sadness washed over me. How long had this girl been here? Had anyone known she was missing? Had they searched for her? How long ago had they abandoned their search for her?

  Abuelita supplied a paintbrush freshly freed from its packing. “Use this.”

  “No, Jess, just get out of there. I have a bad feeling about this,” begged Sylvia, extending her hand to me.

  Instead of accepting her hand to pull me out of there, I leaned over as far as I dared over the bones and plucked the phone from the girl’s hair. A strand fell to the side, revealing a gold chain around her neck. It was easy to see against the dust.

  “Sophia,” I read, standing back up to place the receiver in Sylvia’s hand.

  “What did you say?” she whispered.

  “She’s wearing a gold necklace with ‘Sophia’ written on it,” I repeated louder.

  Sylvia’s jaw dropped. Pointing down, she shook her finger. “The ring. What year does the ring say?”

  I brushed gently, then a touch more vigorously when the crud over the engraving wouldn’t budge. Fortunately, the bristles on the new brush were stiff.

  “1986,” I said aloud.

  Sylvia slumped to the floor, her free hand covering her mouth. “Ay, Dios mío,” she repeated over and over through her fingers.

  “Do you know who this is?” I asked, my heartbeat thrumming in my ears.

  She nodded her head, her eyes wide. “We need to call the police. We have to contact her family.”

  Abuelita poked Sylvia in the shoulder. “Who she is? Is the same Sophia from you high school?”

  Sylvia raised a finger in the air and tried to calm her breath. Tia Rosa rushed to her side, plunking down on the ground beside her and petting her hair.

  “You no see she sad?” Tia Rosa barked at Abuelita.

  “I help her with sad. She need talk, so I ask question. You treat her like the baby and she no feel better, she cry.”

  “Why is wrong to cry? To cry is for to clean the soul. You just curious. You want to know who is she. You no patient,” accused Tia Rosa.

  While Sylvia allayed her shock to appease her mother and aunt, I tried to figure out how to get back out of the hole in the floor. The sides were smooth with dirt, with no grooves I could wedge a foot in. After jumping up a couple times, one of the construction workers pulled me out. It would have been great had we not been about the same height. When my torso was above the ground, his arms could pull me no higher and before I could brace myself, my ribs whacked into the top of the flooring. I rolled on top of the concrete rubbing my side and trying to breathe.

  The man apologized profusely, but I couldn’t be upset with him for helping me. After several reassurances, I got to my feet and he retreated to his spot against the far wall with his superstitious buddies still making cross signs.

  Sylvia was on the phone, flanked on either side by Abuelita and Tia Rosa. Abuelita told Sylvia what to say to the police while Tia Rosa attempted to convince Abuelita to let Sylvia do the talking.

  She hung up just as I rounded the hole in the ground to join them. I gave the open grave a wide berth. I had spent enough time in there already. Lara Croft would have rolled her eyes at me and called me a wimp.

  Waving the workers over, Tia Rosa said, “Come. We wait at front of store. Police want us stay for the questions.”

  “Who was Sophia?” I asked Sylvia softly.

  “We went to school together. She was two years ahead of me, but everyone knew Sophia. Everyone liked her.” She paused, shaking her head. “All these years, I had assumed she had run away. I had imagined she lived in an exotic country with a beautiful family, living the life of her dreams. That’s what I’d hoped.”

  Abuelita patted Sylvia’s shoulder. “Is what all we hope.”

  “You knew her too?” I asked.

  “Of course. Baños small town and Sophia Cuesta from rich family. Problem family. The parents, they did the divorce after she graduate. The father die the next year. The mother leave for big city and marry other rich man.” Abuelita dismissed the mother with shrug. I could tell she didn’t think much of her.

  “Did she have any brothers or sisters?” I asked. How would they feel to know their sister was dead these many years? My two sist
ers drove me crazy most of the time, but I would be devastated if they were gone.

  Sylvia answered, “She was an only child. The apple of her father’s eye. They say he died of a broken heart, and I believe it. Especially now.”

  “What happened? Didn’t they look for her?”

  “Oh, they did. They offered a large reward if anyone could locate her. But the years passed and not one person had seen her. They searched the rivers and the area around Baños, but you can imagine what an impossible task it is to find one person when we’re surrounded by jungle.”

  I could imagine. The jungle had swallowed my uncle and his plane.

  Sylvia continued, “Like Ma said, her parents were having some trouble. I don’t know much, having been an underclassman and running in different circles, but I remember how Sophia seemed to withdraw from her friends the last couple weeks of school. She wasn’t her normal, happy self.”

  Tia Rosa shook her head. “Is sad story. Is sad we find her here.”

  “Is bad for you, Rosa,” said Abuelita, pursing her lips and nodding across the street at the police station.

  Even though we were watermelon seed-spitting distance, they drove over with their lights flashing and sirens blaring.

  They left them on, too, blocking the one-way street in front of Tia Rosa’s building with a pickup and two motorcycles. One of the officers lifted his crime scene tape bearing hand up in salute when he saw me, as if I were somehow responsible for the body under Tia Rosa’s shop.

  Chapter 4

  I didn’t hear Adi rejoin us when the police arrived. I couldn’t hear anything over the wailing of the sirens. Even after Abuelita bullied the largest officer present to turn them off, their shrill cry echoed in my ears.

  “What happened?” Adi asked, her eyes darting around and her shoulders relaxing when she accounted for her mom, aunt, and grandma.

  “Where have you been?” I asked in turn.

  “I had to arrange a few things upstairs. I can hardly wait to get the walls painted so I can cover them with my designs!” Excitement and promise flashed over her face.

  “You missed the whole thing?”

  Adi’s contented glow faded. “What thing?”

  I filled her in on the details, and she stared at me like I was some kind of bad omen from a far-off land. (Truth be told, that’s kind of how I felt at this point. I mean, seriously! Maybe it had been a mistake to prolong my vacation another month. At this point, the town of Baños would throw a celebration in honor of my departure!)

  “You’re a dead body magnet,” Adi said in awe.

  “I don’t want to be one,” I grumbled. Why couldn’t someone else be a murder magnet? Like a detective or someone on the police force. Someone who didn’t get squeamish at the sight of blood or bones … although, I hadn’t been scared with Sophia’s bones, had I? I’d poked around for clues like Indiana Jones. Even now, I was more curious than grossed out. Weird. Still, I was no Sherlock Holmes!

  Sylvia stood by the policeman who appeared to be in charge while Abuelita followed the muscle of the group around, asking him questions and ordering him about in her snappy tone. Poor guy. He looked to be fresh out of the Police Academy with his perfectly pressed uniform, crew cut, and flushed cheeks. His impressive bicep circumference couldn’t help him act politely and authoritatively with the pint-sized grandma. Normally, I’d lend a hand, but today, he’d have to figure her out on his own without any interference from me. The look on Sylvia’s face as she listened to the conversation the policeman had on his cell phone did not inspire hope.

  Tia Rosa stood behind them, chewing on her fingernails, her eyes as large as the frames of her glasses.

  Whomever the policeman spoke to did not bear glad tidings.

  Adi attempted to return upstairs, but the cop on the phone snapped his fingers and with nothing more than a point of a finger summoned two of his goons to block her path.

  She argued with them, and I caught a few words here and there. The important ones like: estúpido (Abuelita’s favorite adjective), caramba (Sylvia’s preferred euphemism), and tonto (another word for estúpido). My Spanish lessons weren’t completely useless.

  Finally, Big Boss Man got off the phone. Turning to Sylvia, he asked, “Are you the owner of this building?”

  Tia Rosa stepped forward, reluctantly leaving Sylvia’s shadow.

  She looked so nervous, I stood beside her and she wrapped her arm around mine. Abuelita stopped harassing the young officer to support her sister on her other side.

  Adi stopped pacing long enough to join us. Crossing her arms and planting her feet widely, she glared at the officer. If he so much as flinched wrong, she’d pounce on him.

  “I the owner,” said Tia Rosa.

  The policeman looked apologetic — not a good sign — as he said, “First, ma'am, please allow me to look at the scene, then we will know what to do next.” He tucked his phone into the leather holder on his belt and only joined his officers surrounding Sophia after Tia Rosa expressed her approval, breezing past Adi who clearly didn’t know how to react to his calm, good manners.

  The policemen took pictures, pointed and whispered amongst themselves, and generally tried to avoid Abuelita (who followed them back inside, naturally). She tapped the toe of her black leather pump against the concrete, her hands balled up on her hips.

  “You take building?” she asked the officer in charge.

  I moved with the rest of the Jiménez family close enough to hear his answer, holding my breath as if our fates rested on his words.

  He sighed. “It is a possibility. First, let me see what we have.”

  “Is no new. Is like the television program, the cold case. Is no for you to investigate, or yes?” she insisted.

  One look down into the hole in the ground was all he needed. The bare skeleton with shreds of rotten fabric were obviously not put there recently.

  He gave a few orders and soon, more bright yellow tape surrounded the grave.

  Abuelita, unwilling to allow herself to be ignored, asked, “Who in charge? Is for you the investigation or different police? Agent Washington Vasquez is friend. You call him? He investigate?”

  Agent Vasquez, a detective in the division specializing in violent crimes and homicides, had been in our company often of late — thanks, mostly, to my propensity to stumble upon dead bodies. He had to be counting the days until I left Ecuador for Oregon.

  The officer shook his head. “Like you said, ma’am, this is a cold case. Agent Vasquez does not handle these kinds of crimes. We have an excellent team of detectives to investigate older cases.”

  He had bad news. I just knew it. I always preferred hearing bad news quickly, like ripping off a Band-Aid.

  “But?” I asked, prompting him on.

  “I have been ordered to seize the property until the team can investigate,” he said.

  “Who give order?” demanded Abuelita.

  “General Bolivar,” he answered bluntly, adding before I could ask, “He’s the top of command.”

  “When that be?” asked Abuelita, looking for a better angle.

  Tia Rosa squeezed my arm so tightly, she pinched my skin. I winced, but I didn’t try to free myself from her vice-like grip.

  The boss cop sighed again, and I kind of felt bad for him. Nobody liked to be the bearer of bad news.

  I placed my free hand on top of Tia Rosa’s, hoping she would loosen her hold on my arm. It didn’t work.

  “They recently found thirty corpses in a rural town on the coast—”

  “So?” interrupted Abuelita.

  “—by the Colombian border,” he finished, to which Sylvia, Abuelita, and Tia Rosa visibly deflated.

  “Drug cartel?” Sylvia asked.

  He nodded. “Some of those families are still in business after the drug wars of the 90’s. If they can tie these crimes to them, we might be able to put their leaders behind bars,” the officer said hopefully.

  Abuelita scoffed. “They bribe the judge li
ke they always do. Is waste of time. Investigators come here and my sister keep building. Is win-win.”

  “How long?” Tia Rosa’s voice trembled. “How long they keep my building?”

  With the ferocity with which she clasped onto me, I could measure the importance of his answer to her. I wondered how much she had at stake with the property.

  “It could be only a few months or it could take several years. An unidentified missing person is not a priority when drug lords can be taken down.”

  I brightened, “But we do know who she is. She’s from a wealthy family, too, wasn’t she, Sylvia? If you put us into contact with the investigators, they can wrap this case up in no time.”

  Was that pity in his eyes? “Even with the body identified, the detectives have to find a murderer on a crime that was committed many years ago. It’s much more difficult to solve than a recent offense.”

  “So all we can do is wait?” I asked, my frustration growing. “What about the floors above? You can see for yourself that the stairs are on the side of the building. There’s no access to this floor other than the rolling, metal doors in the front. No crime has been committed in the upper floors, so Tia Rosa should be able to use them, right?”

  “I am sorry, but my orders were to seize the entire building. We cannot risk clues being tampered with until the investigative team can arrive.”

  “But there’s no access to this floor from the stairs or the other apartments. They’re separate,” I emphasized.

  “It is not my decision,” he said. At least he had the decency to look bad, but I wasn’t done yet.

  “Can you explain the building’s layout to the general? You could send him pictures,” I suggested.

  In answer, he pulled his phone out of his pocket, jabbed at the screen and held it up for us me see. He swiped his finger a few times, revealing several pictures of the entrance to the shop off the sidewalk and the stairs to the side leading up to the other apartments.

  “General Bolivar knows,” he said, returning his phone to its case.