Sweetheart Deal

by Linda Joffe Hull

  I opened the SUSPICIOUS BEHAVIOR spreadsheet that I’d hidden under the heading SHOPPING TIPS 101 and glanced through all the entries, starting with Alejandro’s sudden and prominent appearance at the beginning of the shoot on down to the shooting schedule extension and budget increase with a single phone call to execs about an “accidental” death. Seeing as almost every entry pointed to someone associated with The Family Frugalicious, I added an entirely new subsection below it entitled FAMILY CONNECTION. I managed to type in only one word (Why) before there was a knock on the bedroom door.

  “Maddie,” Frank said, popping his head in, “there’s a police officer out here to talk to us.”

  “I see,” I said, quickly closing the spreadsheet file.

  I put the computer back in the safe, reset the combination, and ventured out in the living room to see the same police officer who’d first responded to the scene of the crime on Friday night. The very same officer who’d also been at Alejandro’s funeral on Sunday.

  While he questioned us about the incident at the water park, detailed the extra attention that would be given to the resort and all of its guests while they were getting to the bottom of what was going on, and gave us his assurance we could rest easy knowing that no stones would remain unturned where the incident with Geo was concerned, all I could see was his nametag, which I’d paid absolutely no attention to during either of our last meetings.

  Garcia Lopez.

  nineteen

  Despite starting the day thinking I had everything figured out and ending the day full of questions about everything but the fact that something was rotten in the state of Dinamarca, I was out cold the moment my head hit the pillow Monday night. I woke Tuesday morning from a dreamless, saturation-point sleep to the smell of coffee and stumbled out toward the kitchenette. Frank was standing in the living room.

  “Good morning, Sleeping Beauty,” he said, without any trace of a fairy tale lilt, and certainly not for my benefit given that Anastasia Chastain-Stone stood beside him.

  “What are you doing here?” I blurted, not yet awake enough for proper decorum.

  She pointed at plate filled with assorted baked goods. “Brought you breakfast.”

  “Aren’t you’re supposed to be honeymooning?”

  She glanced at her sparkling engagement ring/wedding band combo for the briefest of seconds. “It looks like it’s gonna be a bit more of a working honeymoon than I’d anticipated.”

  My blood pressure went into instant hyperdrive. “You’re here because Geo—”

  “Is going to be okay,” she said quickly. “And sooner rather than later. At least I hope.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “They’re moving him out of intensive care as soon as possible.”

  “He’s in intensive care?”

  “They put him on a respirator last night, but they’ve got him stabilized now.”

  “Dear God,” I said, beelining for the coffee, where I filled a mug and helped myself to a big gulp without bothering with cream or sugar. “Please tell me you’ve been called in to expedite the process of getting us the hell out of here.”

  “In a manner of speaking,” she said.

  “Which means?”

  “Well, we can’t just pack up and leave without Geo.”

  “Not all of us, of course,” I said, over the flush of a toilet in the kids’ bathroom. “But, seeing as he’s on the road to recovery, and my children’s safety is of a certain amount of concern to me …”

  “Maddie, we’re absolutely safe,” Frank said. “You heard the police officer last night.”

  “By police officer, don’t you mean Alejandro’s cousin?” I said.

  Anastasia nodded.

  “Wait. So you already know they’re all related?”

  “The Hacienda de la Fortuna is a family-run corporation,” she said. “And this is apparently a small town, particularly where the more prominent families are concerned.”

  “Then you don’t find it suspicious and more than a little scary how quickly Alejandro’s death was swept under the rug?” I asked, borrowing heavily from Ivan. “Particularly by his relative or relatives in the police department?”

  “We seem to have a real mystery on our hands,” she said. “And seeing as the first flight we could get anyone on isn’t until Thursday morning—”

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” I said.

  Anastasia flashed a smile fraught with possibility and that telltale reporter-on-the-trail-of-a-hot-story glow I knew only too well.

  Frank’s smile was no less luminous. “Great TV is not about shying away from danger.”

  “By pretending to investigate like we did all day yesterday?” I asked, almost as annoyed by Frank’s devotion to the party line as I was worried about being in the thick of yet another murder.

  “The setups and shots were planned in advance,” Anastasia said, “not your investigation into what happened to Alejandro.”

  “Not according to what I heard,” I said. “Geo planned to have things wrapped up, with a suspect in tow, by tonight.”

  “Wouldn’t that be great,” she said wistfully. “An episode in the can and back on my honeymoon by tomorrow …”

  “Assuming no one else gets—”

  “They won’t,” Anastasia said, cutting me off.

  I looked into her calculating cobalt blue eyes. “And how can you make a promise like that?”

  “Philip has agreed to head up our security detail,” she said.

  “And we’ll have an officer and the camera crew watching the kids at all times,” Frank added.

  I looked from Stasia to Frank and back again. “Level with me,” I said.

  “Maddie!” said Frank, giving me the don’t say-anything-that-might-compromise-our-career-come-hell-or-high-water glare.

  “Shoot,” she said.

  “What did Geo know that he wasn’t telling us?” I asked.

  Frank looked immensely relieved that I’d refrained (for the moment, anyway) from voicing any of my more sinister suspicions where cast and crew were concerned.

  Stasia shook her head. “I tried to find that out myself, but until he’s off the ventilator, back in a regular room, and fully lucid, we’re not going to know.”

  “Then what exactly is it you plan to have us do in the meantime?”

  “Keep looking into everything and everyone who could possibly be involved.”

  “Which could be anyone, given that Alejandro wasn’t exactly Mr. Popularity.”

  “Yes, that is a problem. So is the fact that the suspects Geo had originally listed all had alibis during the time of the water park incident.”

  “So those people are no longer suspects?”

  She looked unsure for the first time. “They’re worth requestioning before we spread out from there.”

  “Just like we did yesterday with Geo?”

  “No cue cards this time,” she said. “You ask whatever you need

  to ask.”

  “So the Espinoza/Lopez/Garcia clan has agreed to ad lib as necessary?”

  “They want to find whoever is behind this as badly as we do,” she said. “Which is why Philip himself is headed back to the police station to try and find out whatever else there is to know.”

  “His buddies didn’t get much response the first time they tried to get involved,” I said, doubtfully.

  “Things have changed,” she said.

  “How so?”

  “I’m back on set again,” Anastasia said, reaching into her purse and handing us copies of the day’s call sheet.

  I looked over the schedule, which was admittedly much less regimented than Geo’s, but still had us locating and interviewing the same people. After which, our investigation was to continue on as part of a Mayan ruins trip. Frank simply read the sheet, folded it, and tucked it into his pocket. Apparently he was a-okay with Stasia’s plans.

  “You really think we’re going to come up with anything?” I said.

  “Who kn
ows? I’ll settle for an Emmy,” she said.

  At least I knew she was being honest about one thing.

  twenty

  “Murder is deadly for business,” Enrique admitted, looking nervous to even utter the words. “First it scares the guests away, then it gets around, and the next thing you know, we’re running a loss-leader sale and praying we’ll fill rooms.”

  “So you’re admitting there was a cover-up?” I asked, uncued, just as Anastasia promised, but hardly impromptu. In fact, instead of seeking out various persons of interest and interviewing them on the fly, Frank had been sent to round everyone up and bring them to me where I was to ask them anything in the safety of a closed conference room.

  “You must understand that nothing like this has ever happened here,” Enrique said. “Given the circumstances and the fact there are TV cameras everywhere, we simply decided it was best for all concerned not to question the findings of the authorities.”

  “By authorities, don’t you mean your cousin, Officer Garcia Lopez?”

  “Third cousin.”

  “Close enough to suggest to me that he’d lie about a cause of death for the sake of the family enterprise.”

  “He didn’t have to.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “The coroner made the final determination.”

  “Another cousin?”

  Enrique looked down at his shoes. “Even more distant,” he finally said. “The truth is, we really wanted to believe they were right. That was, until the incident at the water park.”

  “And now?”

  He sighed. “Now, we can’t ignore the facts.”

  “It certainly looks like someone finally had as much as they could take of Alejandro,” Benito said, picking a dried piece of something off his otherwise immaculate chef’s jacket.

  “Which doesn’t surprise you.”

  “No,” he said.

  “I understand a lot of people disliked the man.”

  Benito nodded. “Including me.”

  I was surprised to hear someone finally admit what I suspected just about all of them felt. “Because?”

  “He was always up to something he shouldn’t have been,” Benito said. “You have no idea what he put my sister through.”

  Unfortunately, I had a bad feeling I just might. A piece clicked into place. “Elena is your sister.”

  “Ah, Benito,” Elena said, looking somehow pale despite her beautiful, naturally bronze skin. “Such a good brother.”

  I nodded. “He seems to love you very much.”

  “And Alejandro was …” She paused. “Alejandro was many things.”

  “That’s what I hear,” I said, hoping to draw her out.

  “He was just trying to fulfill expectations, make his family proud …” She put her head in her hands. “That’s all either of us were ever trying to do.”

  “The truth about Alejandro?” Jorge said, as a sobbing Elena was escorted away by the ever-patient and understanding Enrique so she could collect herself enough for further conversation.

  “Please,” I said. “And I think we can all agree that tragic accident doesn’t hold water at this point.”

  “Forgive me,” he said. “I was simply doing my job as concierge to make sure your stay was as worry-free as possible.”

  “Of course,” I said. “But you do think he was murdered?”

  “I think he had some serious vices that made him susceptible to that sort of thing.”

  “Like?”

  “He loved gambling and beautiful women,” Jorge said with the hint of a knowing smile.

  “And tequila,” I said, fighting a flush in my cheeks.

  “That’s the thing,” Jorge said. “He always kept his wits about him when he drank.”

  “But you implied …”

  “Once again, I was trying not to alarm anyone—especially the esteemed Mrs. Frugalicious and her family.”

  “I’m more alarmed that so many people disliked him and no one would tell me.”

  Jorge’s posture stiffened.

  “Why exactly did people hate Alejandro?”

  “I’ll admit I’ve overheard a choice comment or three,” he finally said. “Mostly it was because he was so ambitious—in all things.”

  “Perhaps you’d be so kind as to make a list for us of everyone you’ve heard complain about him and the various complaints you’ve heard?”

  “Of course,” he said, with practiced concierge agreement. “I’ll get it to you ASAP.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “And while you’re at it, how about narrowing down a few key sharks that might also have been to the water park yesterday.”

  “I’ve already been thinking about that,” Jorge said.

  “And?”

  “I always figured the most likely culprit would end up being a disgruntled guest. Like your husband, for example,” he said, confirming that he was aware of the contents of the note he’d passed along.

  And Frank would have been a good bet—were he were actually still my husband and as concerned about the sanctity of his marriage and the safety of his family as he was about his precious relationship with the TV network.

  “That was, until whoever it was went after Geo,” Jorge said before I could.

  “And now?”

  “Now I can only think there was an entirely different motive.”

  “Which is?”

  “I know it’s my job to have all the answers,” he said, “but this time, we’re all looking to you to solve this mystery.”

  “I said to be careful,” Zelda, head of housekeeping, said through a translator. She shook her head. “No one listens to me.”

  “We’re listening now,” I said, waiting for the translator to repeat my words for her in Spanish. “Why did you think we needed to be careful?”

  Fear filled the woman’s face. “I can’t say.”

  “Because?”

  “Because it’s bad luck to speak ill of the dead.”

  “Not if it keeps more people from ending up that way.”

  Zelda listened to the translator and seemed to consider my words for a moment.

  “He no good,” she finally said in English, crossing her arms across her chest. “He bad seed.”

  “How so?”

  The translator took over once more. “Things always happened around him that shouldn’t.”

  “Like?”

  Zelda looked at me like I was exceptionally slow on the uptake. “One dead person. One almost dead person. Isn’t that enough?”

  “More than enough,” I said. “But—”

  She fired off something in rapid Spanish. “But bad news comes in threes,” the translator provided. Zelda crossed herself. “Two down, one to go.”

  I wasn’t superstitious. I also liked to think I wasn’t stupid, but after the off-the-cuff soundbites I’d just gotten from the staff of Hacienda de la Fortuna, I had to wonder just how gullible everyone else thought I was.

  Specifically, Anastasia.

  While it was true that I’d been free to ask whatever I was compelled to ask, the answers all followed a similar theme. Everyone that was related, admitted they were related. Everyone knew Alejandro had enemies. They all finally agreed that despite the findings of their cousins in law enforcement, he’d been murdered. Most important, no one seemed to have any idea how or why Geo had been dragged, nearly fatally, into the fray.

  Maybe I was a newbie in reality TV, but I’d been around long enough to know Geo would do almost anything for a shot—short of offing himself, that was. Which left me looking for the murderer of a less-than-wonderful man for a variety of vague reasons. Not to mention the attack on Geo for seemingly no reason at all. My suspect and ally list had suddenly merged into a conglomeration of relatives who seemed to have the means and motive, if not the opportunity, to want to kill Alejandro and have his death put to rest as quickly as possible:

  Enrique wanted and now had Elena to himself.

  Benito freely admitted that he hate
d Alejandro.

  Elena could have wanted to be free of an unhappy and possibly arranged marriage.

  And Jorge did what he was told; did his job description include killing the bad seed, Alejandro?

  Or maybe it was all of them working together.

  “That would explain why everyone was so eager to rule the death an accident,” Frank added with the smirk that had been plastered on his face since it became clear that his theory about whatever was happening was more accurate than mine.

  A conspiracy was consistent with the death being immediately classified an accident. What it didn’t answer was something that had been bugging me since I first began questioning members of the Hacienda de la Fortuna staff:

  Why would a bunch of people be so willing to be interviewed like potential suspects from the get-go if they were actually guilty?

  As Frank and I approached the kids, who were chilling by the pool with one of Philip’s officer buddies for safety and the camera crew that was setting up for an unscripted update during our poolside lunch, I realized that not one of the staff members I’d just interviewed was anywhere near the water park during Geo’s attack.

  Meaning there were even more family members involved?

  “I mean, it’s certainly possible,” Trent said as we were placed in the most favorable ocean view positions, the food was arranged around us, and Anastasia gave us the go-ahead to eat and confer.

  “Maybe someone in the family works at the water park,” FJ said. “Or was there for the day.”

  “It doesn’t explain why they all claim to be happy that we’re down here helping them figure out who did it though,” I said, eyeing the various wood-fired pizzas set out for our lunch, but not terribly interested in eating much of anything.

  “True,” Eloise added from a nearby deck chair where she’d been camped all morning sunning herself, and, I presumed, hoping Ivan might turn up even though he’d been given the day off. “And why would they send someone to go after Geo if they wanted to keep the murder looking like an accident?”

  “Especially if the resort is all worried about bad press,” FJ said.

  “I mean, why would anyone go after Geo at all?” Trent added, grabbing a slice of pizza.