“Okay,” I said, settling in next to Frank, anything but relaxed.
“And action,” he said.
With that, the boys came barreling over to where we contemplating both the beauty of our surroundings and the tragic situation, per the cue card that had suddenly appeared beside the camera.
“You’re not going to believe what we found out,” Trent said with the enthusiasm of a sixteen-year-old who believed he might become a legitimate investigative journalist.
“What’s that?” Frank asked.
“Alejandro didn’t drink,” FJ announced.
“Who told you that?” I asked, sitting up, startled the boys had stumbled upon actual information that hadn’t somehow been fed to them.
“A waiter at the poolside restaurant,” Trent said, puffing out his chest with satisfaction over his first official sleuthing mission accomplished.
“But I saw him drink,” I said. “We had margaritas together.”
“How many?” FJ asked. “Apparently he only drank when he was entertaining potential clients and kept to a strict one-drink maximum when he did.”
I thought back to our poolside lunch and realized that while the waiter had ensured my bottomless margarita remained that way, Alejandro had consumed only one glass before switching to water.
“Which leads to the second big bit of information,” FJ said.
Trent smiled. “Alejandro was supposedly a champion swimmer.”
“By champion, you mean …?”
“I mean Olympic hopeful, or something, back in the day.”
“First we have chapulines,” Chef Benito said, greeting us with the appetizer course. “Prepared with garlic, salt, lime juice, and a hint of red chili powder.”
“Chapulines?” Frank asked.
“Crickets,” Benito said with smug satisfaction.
Eloise’s eyes widened with horror.
“They’re quite the delicacy down here.”
“Seriously?” FJ asked.
“The small ones in particular,” Benito said. “They’re harder to catch.”
“Cool!” Trent said, stabbing a couple tiny crickets with his fork and doing the honors while we watched him chew.
“Delicious,” Benito said. “No?”
“Hmmm,” Trent said. “Interesting.”
“Cut,” Geo said. “Can you do another take please? This time with the rest of you looking just a little more horrified.”
“Fine by me,” Trent said.
“So they’re not as disgusting as they look?” FJ asked.
“They’re pretty crunchy.”
“I’ll guess I’ll try one,” FJ said.
“If the boys are man enough, so am I,” Frank said, giving FJ a meaningful pat on the back and holding his breath.
As the boys dug into the plate of chapulines, Eloise and I watched on in earnest revulsion.
“Now it’s your turn, ladies,” Geo said, satisfied with his shot of the boys gobbling down insects.
“No can do,” Eloise said, looking as green as I felt. “That’s not in my contract.”
“Be brave,” Benito said with a smile as he offered the platter to Eloise. “Señora Frugalicious certainly is.”
“I am?” I asked, dreading the thought of crunchy exoskeleton.
Benito nodded. “So much more brave than anyone else around here.”
I had to assume Benito had been coached to let me know he was a team player and that we could and should be open when talking to him.
“I understand Alejandro wasn’t much of a drinker,” I said, taking the bait.
“No,” Benito said, definitively. “And he swam in the ocean almost every day.”
“So you think his death was unusual?”
He looked around and lowered his voice to a whisper. “No more than his life.”
Without further elaboration, the camera was back on and I was being served a spicy cricket, which, for the record, tasted nothing like chicken.
Geo was apparently pleased with my ability to feign a swallow and sent Benito back to the kitchen. Within minutes we were working our way through an unusual but delicious multicourse feast that included everything from green tomato pozole to seafood cooked in a mixture of citrus, radish, roasted cherries, onion, and coriander. Our dinner conversation, however, felt like a smorgasbord of obvious questions:
What was the story surrounding Elena, Alejandro, and Enrique?
What was truth behind Alejandro’s drinking?
How did a champion swimmer simply drown?
Who was Sombrero Lady, and how did she know anything about Alejandro’s death?
Why didn’t almost anyone care to question what happened?
“I’m wondering,” FJ said as we were midway through a dessert of dark chocolate soup, “if Alejandro didn’t drink and was that comfortable in the water, how did the police explain off the alcohol in his body and the fact he drowned?”
“Yet another good question,” I said, wondering exactly what Benito meant when he said that Alejandro’s death was no more unusual than his life.
“Cut,” said Geo, rushing back beside the camera. He’d been on the phone just outside the doors to our private dining room.
“Did I do something wrong?” FJ asked.
“Not at all.”
“Do we get more chocolate soup for the next take?” Trent asked. “It’s super good.”
Eloise, who’d been sullen since saying her good-byes with Ivan after the funeral not four hours previously, simply sighed loudly.
“I don’t think we’ll need another take of dinner at all,” Geo said.
“Good call,” Eloise said.
“Speaking of calls, I’ve just gotten off the phone with the executive producers about looking further into what happened,” Geo said.
I swallowed back a rising sense of dread. “Further? What more can we realistically do?” I asked.
“Look into FJ’s question about police procedure, for one thing. Anastasia has already instructed a couple of Philip’s officer buddies to sniff around the local police department for us.”
“Great,” I said.
“While you do the rest,” Geo said.
“The rest?”
“All of you, as a family,” Geo said with that cloying smile. “After all, our show is about the Family Frugalicious, not a police drama. Right?”
“But—”
“You’ve got to admit, we have developed a few skills,” FJ said.
Trent nodded in agreement.
“Good,” Geo said. “The new plan is to spend most of tomorrow at the water park.”
“Awesome!” both boys exclaimed in unison.
“Wait,” I said. “Tomorrow’s Monday. We’re leaving for the airport at noon.”
“Not anymore.”
“Really?” Eloise said with the first real enthusiasm I’d heard in her voice all evening.
“The shoot’s been extended,” he said.
“When are we leaving, then?”
“When we figure out what’s going on around here,” Geo said. “And whoever is responsible.”
“But what about the hotel?” I asked, noting that Frank was not only silent, but nodding in agreement. “The resort probably won’t want us here. A murder investigation can’t be good for publicity and public relations.”
“We’ll handle the hotel,” Geo said.
“Does this mean we’ll get to see the Mayan ruins, and jet ski, and do some of the other stuff we were going to miss?” FJ asked.
“Already being arranged,” Geo said.
“Yay!” Eloise said, looking longingly in the direction of the activities office.
“This isn’t going to work,” I said, silently beseeching Frank to speak up in some fashion.
“It’s going to work great,” Geo said. “The Family Frugalicious—frolicking and fighting crime for a few extra days in paradise.”
“But school—”
“Doesn’t start again until next Monday,” Trent sai
d.
“And I don’t have classes on Mondays or Tuesdays,” Eloise said. “If I need to miss a few classes later in the week, I’ll just email my profs and tell them what’s up.”
At the note of excitement in the kids’ eyes, I tried to swallow away the lump in my throat.
“You don’t have to worry,” Geo said. “Everyone will be as safe as can be.”
As in, they wouldn’t kill off the talent—at least not yet, anyway?
“And if things go as well as I expect,” he added. “We’ll have enough footage for killer two-part episode.”
fourteen
“If things go as well as he expects?” I whisper-screamed at Frank as we headed back to our suite, where the alternate camera crew was setting up for our Family Sleuthing Strategy Conversation. “Do you know Alejandro said the very same thing to me the day before he—”
“Maddie,” Frank said, “it just doesn’t make sense that they hurt Alejandro for the sake of the show, okay?”
“Or it makes perfect twisted sense,” I said, peering around a clump of nearby bushes to make sure there were no hidden cameras or people lurking nearby. “Why didn’t you object to this?”
“Because Geo is right,” he said. “Mrs. Frugalicious investigating another murder—the ratings are going to be killer.”
“I can’t believe you actually said that,” I said. But then I wondered how surprised I could really be given that Frank lived for ratings and fame. “Besides, we won’t really be investigating. You know we’ll be spoonfed who to talk to and what to say to them just like they’ve already done with Felipe, Antonio, Benito, the waiter the kids coincidentally ran into, and whoever else they’ve paid off.”
“This is reality TV. There’s no budget for that kind of elaborate subterfuge.”
“You’re saying they could afford to fly a cast and crew down to Mexico for what is now an indefinite period of time, but they couldn’t pay off a few people for the sake of a story line?”
“Not for a murder.”
“Whatever’s going on here, Frank, we have no business getting in the middle of it.”
“It’s absolutely our business if making a show of our search leads to The Family Frugalicious becoming a huge hit.”
I shook my head. We walked the rest of the way in silence until we reached the door to our building and stepped onto the elevator. “Frank, I’m not comfortable with whatever it is that’s going on.”
“Everything will work out,” Frank said. “Trust me.”
I sighed as the door slid open and we headed down the hall toward our suite. “What other option do I have?”
In truth, I figured I actually had two options:
1. Go to the local policía, beg them to reopen their investigation, and hope they’d protect us based on what I’d already heard.
2. Go along with the setup of all setups by pretending to look into things, come up with a conclusion similar to that of the local authorities, and keep out of any further trouble.
Neither option was too palatable, but seeing as our return ticket home appeared to be contingent on a TV-worthy investigation of some sort, Frank was right that we had to make a show, as it were,
of narrowing down whodunit to a few likely suspects.
The kids were waiting for us and the camera was rolling as we walked back into the suite.
“Since I can’t use my cell phone, I’m going to go down to the activities office to see if they’ll let Ivan know I’m staying,” Eloise said. “Okay?”
“Speaking of activities,” FJ said, “Liam said they’re having a piñata-making demonstration in the lobby.”
Frank raised an eyebrow. “A piñata demonstration?”
“Why don’t you go with them, Frank?”
“Cut,” Geo said. “The whole point of this scene is to have you two strategizing about what you think is going down and how you’re going to work together to solve the murder.”
“Assuming there is a murder,” I said.
“Assuming,” he said with that smarmy smile. “Of course.”
“We will strategize together,” I said. “But before we do, I want to organize everything we’ve learned so far into some—”
“Spreadsheets,” the kids, all of whom had grown accustomed to my methods as Mrs. Frugalicious, said in unison.
“Exactly.” I certainly didn’t need nor want Frank looking over my shoulder and inserting his we’re gonna be big stars agenda into what was already likely to be a wild goose chase. Besides, a little arts and crafts with FJ couldn’t hurt him in the sensitivity department. “And it really is a one-person job.”
“Not a very camera-friendly one though,” Frank said.
“Perhaps not,” I said, hoping for a few minutes to organize my thoughts and my mental state in some sort of peace. “But it’s still necessary.”
“Might not be an entirely bad idea,” Geo finally said.
“Really?”
“Just make it interesting, somehow.”
“I’ll certainly try,” I said.
“Get some footage of Maddie,” Geo said, pointing to the cameraman and an assistant. “Everyone else, follow me.”
With assurance that I’d call everyone back to the room as soon as I had everything organized and ready to discuss, Geo, Frank, Eloise, and the boys set off toward the lobby.
Not sure how I was going to be interesting, I powered on my computer and gave it a go by typing out a few basic questions in a big, easy-to-film font: WHAT REALLY HAPPENED TO ALEJANDRO?
Tragic accident?
Murdered?
Assuming Alejandro was, in fact, murdered …
Why?
By whom?
How?
I couldn’t very well start listing my real suspects (Geo, Anastasia, a hit man posing as a crewman, the network execs, all of the above), so that particular spreadsheet would have to wait until I was alone for long enough to come up with a password-protected secret file. In the meantime, I created POTENTIAL SUSPECTS and dutifully listed everyone Geo had paraded by us that fit the bill and could possibly have had a motive for the murder:
Antonio—assistant manager of resort property sales.
Motive: No hope of upward mobility?
Enrique—Elena’s back-up.
Motive: Alejandro’s principal rival for her affections?
Elena—Alejandro’s wife.
Motive: According to every police procedural on TV, the wife is the first and most logical person of interest.
Benito—chef.
Motive: Unknown.
I had to assume dinner was prearranged precisely so I would see fit to add Benito to my burgeoning nonsuspect list. Closing that file, I opened another spreadsheet and titled it EVIDENCE FOR MURDER. I keyed in the supposed facts:
1. Alejandro limited his alcohol content to one drink per day.
2. He was a strong swimmer: one-time Olympic hopeful and daily ocean swimmer.
3. Sombrero Lady’s statement: fue asesinado—it was murder.
4. Lack of questions about “accidental” death.
I gave the camera my best pensive (or was it petrified?) look and continued to peck away at my keyboard by starting yet another spreadsheet entitled PEOPLE TO QUESTION. I figured there were four potential categories:
Resort Employees
Townspeople
Relatives
Other
The only category where I could actually begin to list anyone was Resort Employees, a heading broad enough to include everyone from the lowliest groundskeeper to the president of Hacienda de la Fortuna, LLC. I decided to start with the employees we’d been introduced to when we arrived at the resort and/or who had managed to play into my scenario with Alejandro in one way or another:
Jorge—concierge and deliverer of Alejandro’s notes to me.
I moved Felipe—who, in retrospect, had likely been instructed to give us the head’s up that Alejandro’s demise was indeed suspicious—into my suspect spreadsheet, just beca
use. I wrote Unknown for his motive.
I’d shifted back to my PEOPLE TO QUESTION list and had just typed in Ivan—activities director and deliverer of yet another note when the door to the suite clicked open and Eloise came bounding into the room.
Of course.
“Ivan completely switched his schedule around so he can be at the water park tomorrow,” she said, trying (but unable) to contain a huge grin.
“So sweet,” I said.
“Right?” she said dreamily.
“Convenient too,” I said. “You’ll have all day to ask him a few questions.”
Her already big eyes grew huge. “You seriously want me to, like, interrogate Ivan?”
“That’s why we’re still here, isn’t it?” I said.
“I guess,” Eloise said with a sigh.
“Honey, there’s a big difference between interrogating someone and asking them a few questions.”
“Still awkward,” she said, sounding far less enthusiastic.
“If you ask me, it gives you two something to talk about.”
“Like, ‘Look at that cool seagull and, by the way, do you think Alejandro was murdered?’”
“Not like that at all. Just say how weird everything seems, and mention that your parents are really upset for Alejandro’s family.” I grabbed a paper and pen, and listed off some conversation starters, writing them down as I went.
What was Alejandro really like?
Did he really follow his “one drink and only with clients” policy?
How was his relationship with Elena?
How is everyone taking his death around the resort?
“You want me to ask of all these?” she said, scanning the list.
I turned so the camera couldn’t quite make out what I was writing and jotted down one more question I couldn’t say aloud:
What do you know about the note Alejandro had you deliver to my mom?
“And whatever else you think of,” I said, handing her the list. “Just don’t imply or use the word murder.”
“Whatever,” she said definitively as she headed down the hall and disappeared into her room.
I entered the list into my computer, along with some additional conversation starters and questions of varying specificity and suspiciousness for Frank and the boys to use, depending on who they were speaking with. I planned to look into anything of significance using whatever means I could to keep the camera focused on everyone else before, during, and after our day at the water park.
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