Sweetheart Deal

by Linda Joffe Hull

“I think that’s the big question,” I said.

  With Anastasia’s approving smile and signal to cut, I knew I was between a rock and a hard place. Given what we knew, it made little sense that Alejandro’s family had done him in. And while I could believe someone in the upper ranks of The Family Frugalicious might be willing to sacrifice a seemingly innocent bystander for the sake of TV verité, why would they double their own jeopardy by arranging to do in the show’s director while they were at it?

  As the next camera shot focused in on the boys eating and discussing the results of their informal survey as to who might have hated Alejandro (potentially every rank and file staff member) and why (he was demanding and difficult, for starters), I found myself zoning out of the “official” conversation and eavesdropping on the exhausted-looking couple who’d just settled into a nearby pair of partially submerged cement lounge chairs.

  “No strings attached?” the woman said. “I didn’t think we were ever going to get out of the timeshare offices.”

  “I’m sorry, honey, but I really wanted those free golf passes.”

  “The ninety-minute presentation was almost four hours long! You could have golfed and been back by now if you’d just paid for the tee time.”

  “I’ll admit it was kind of intense.”

  “Kind of? Three sales people, all that personal information they kept demanding from us, and that one guy who kept saying, What’s your price? What’s your price? What’s your—”

  “At least we got a week in paradise every year from now on,” the husband said.

  “Are you sure about that?” The wife turned to her tote at the side of the pool and pulled out some paperwork. “I mean, what exactly is this Sampler Package you agreed to? That manager guy was talking so fast, I have no idea what we even bought …”

  With the word manager, I glanced over at the vacation sales office. Two things seemed suddenly clear: First, I had experienced a very different version of the timeshare presentation than they had; and second, Frank had tracked down every single person on my persons of interest list, save Felipe, who was scheduled for a chat while he drove us to the ruins that afternoon.

  All except Antonio, the newest manager of the vacation sales department.

  “May I help you?” Beti the receptionist asked without looking up from her computer.

  “I’d like to speak to Antonio, please,” I said, glancing out the window behind her desk. While the boys were doing a retake, I’d excused myself to the bathrooms, veered off as soon as I was out of sight of the two officers assigned to keep an eye on us, and slipped into the vacation sales office for what I hoped would be an actual impromptu conversation with Antonio. “Quickly, if that’s possible.”

  “Write down your name and what you want to see him for,” she said, still not looking up, nor batting so much as a fake eyelash in my direction as she pointed to a clipboard labeled MANAGER REQUEST LIST.

  “Okay …” I said as I wrote down Maddie Michaels in the box for my name and Alejandro as my reason for meeting.

  I left the clipboard on the counter and took a seat on a couch that faced the sales floor. In the back corner of the room, I spotted Antonio in the glass-walled manager’s office. He seemed to be staring at his desk.

  “I see he’s in,” I said. And he certainly didn’t look otherwise occupied.

  “Yes,” Beti said, finally reaching for the clipboard.

  Her put-upon expression completely changed the moment she deigned to read my name.

  “Oh!” Beti looked up. “I’m so sorry! I didn’t realize … If I’d known it was you, I’d never have …” Her cheeks, which already sported a liberal swath of blush, burned crimson. “I’m supposed to discourage … I mean, they generally don’t like for people to come in and talk to the manager or any of our salespeople without an appointment. I’ll call Mr. Espinoza right away,” she said, picking up the phone.

  “Did you say Mr. Espinoza?”

  She nodded.

  “Hang on,” I said before she started dialing. “So Alejandro and Antonio were—”

  “Brothers.”

  “Brothers,” I repeated, wondering why I hadn’t made the connection before, given how similar they looked.

  “And Antonio’s taking it really hard,” she said. “Other than coming out to do paperwork with you, he’s pretty much been sitting in his office staring into space since it happened.”

  Hardly the reaction one would expect from a man who’d killed his own brother to get his job. “That’s awful.”

  “For him, yes.” Beti glanced over her shoulder to make sure no one was coming. “But, between us, this whole situation has made things a bit easier for the rest of us.”

  “Because Antonio hasn’t left his office?”

  “Because Alejandro is gone,” she said.

  The fact that Beti was admitting she was glad he was gone told me she probably wasn’t a relative, but another member of his ever-growing legion of haters. “I’ve heard he was a bit difficult.”

  “Well …” She lowered her voice. “We haven’t had a single guest demanding to see the manager since Antonio took over, if you know what I mean.”

  “I think I might,” I said. “It certainly explains why you were instructed to discourage unscheduled meetings.”

  “In part, anyway.”

  Before I had a chance to ask her another question, the front door banged open and the woman who had been sitting near me at the pool came barreling in.

  “I need to see the manager,” she said, waving her contract.

  “Please sign in,” Beti said with a there went that sigh.

  “Immediately,” the woman insisted. “We purchased a vacation package that our salesman assured us had a forty-eight-hour cancelation policy,28 but I was just reading the fine print and it seems to say that The Sampler, which is what we bought, is nonrefundable and I—”

  “Sign in and take a seat,” Beti repeated, giving me a see what I mean look. “There’s a guest ahead of you.”

  “I don’t know how they do it, but I swear they somehow hypnotize you into signing on the dotted line,” the woman said to me. “Did you sign up for this Sampler, whatever it is, too?”

  “No,” I said looking out the window toward the pool and noticing that Philip had joined Anastasia and they were conferring with my family and the crew. “I’m dealing with an entirely different situation.”

  The situation became more complicated when one of Philip’s officer buddies headed in the direction of the bathrooms looking, I could only presume, for me.

  “In fact, I’m afraid I’m going to need to reschedule my meeting with the manager for later,” I said. “Hopefully, that will shorten your wait a bit.”

  “Here’s what we now know,” Philip said, looking at us but clearly aware he was on camera. “Murder is bad for the resort.”

  Duh, I wanted to say, but kept my mouth shut.

  Luckily so did the kids, who I feared, judging by both FJ’s and Eloise’s expressions, might blurt the same thing.

  “And seeing as tourism makes this whole area tick, it makes a certain amount of sense, financially and psychologically, that everyone needed Alejandro’s death to be an accident.”

  “So you agree there was a cover-up?”

  “I think it’s fair to say there’s been a widespread don’t ask, don’t tell policy in effect,” Philip said. “But, now, the facts can no longer be ignored.”

  “And what are the facts?” I asked.

  “We have confirmed that Alejandro died sometime between 8:05 p.m. when he was last seen and 8:45 p.m. when he was discovered floating in the pool. We’ve also confirmed that while he did have alcohol in his body, the police detected the presence of something else as well.”

  “Which was?”

  “Rohypnol.”

  “He was roofied?” Trent blurted.

  “Seriously?” FJ asked.

  I was simultaneously bothered and glad my kids were so well aware of what was commonly
known as the date rape drug.

  Philip nodded. “The new theory is that someone slipped a roofie into his cocktail of the day.”

  “Wouldn’t he have immediately passed out or something, though?” Trent asked.

  “Not right away. Rohypnol commonly causes disinhibition and slurred speech, followed by respiratory distress and paralyzing effects,” Philip said. “And, unfortunately, it’s odorless, tasteless, and dissolves quickly—Alejandro wouldn’t have noticed until he was feeling the effects.

  “Not good,” Trent added.

  “As soon as his memory got fuzzy and his inhibitions left him, the killer likely encouraged him to drink more alcohol and somehow coaxed him into the pool.”

  “And no one saw any of this going on?” I asked.

  “The video surveillance in that pool area was not working that evening.”

  “What a coincidence,” I said.

  “They’ve interviewed all the bartenders, servers, and staff who were working when it happened—most of them immediately after the incident. We know he was in the bar, possibly waiting for someone. Then he got a call, headed toward the other side of the property, and never returned.”

  I felt my cheeks flush. Seeing as we were on camera and surrounded by Anastasia and the crew, I couldn’t quite get myself to admit that Alejandro might well have been in the bar waiting for me.

  Or that if I had met him, he might still be alive.

  “Are they checking his cell phone records?” I asked.

  “The call came from one of the courtesy phones at the resort, so there’s no way to know which one,” Philip said. “A cabana boy says he saw Alejandro heading for the pool around eight thirty, and wondered if he was a little tipsy but didn’t think much of it because he swam regularly for exercise.”

  “Alone?”

  “Apparently.”

  “Or is that just another cover-up?” I asked.

  “Maddie believes there was a conspiracy to get rid of him,” Frank said, somewhat dismissively.

  “Given how many people disliked the man for one reason or another, it’s a definite possibility,” Philip said. “And the local authorities agree.”

  “Do you believe them?” I asked.

  “They are competent, and we’ve been assured that the various relatives within the department have been reassigned to other cases, so yes.”

  “They’ve certainly changed their tune down at the station,” I said.

  “They claim it was the blood work,” Philip said.

  “What about the incident at the water park?”

  “That too.”

  “Did they find the camera yet?” Frank interrupted.

  “Not yet. There are weird tides, and lot of surface area to cover,” Philip said. “As for the Geo incident …”

  “Let me guess,” Eloise said. “Another accident?”

  “No,” Philip said. “The new working theory is that whoever came after Geo wasn’t actually after Geo at all.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “They don’t believe Geo was the intended target.”

  “What?” the rest of my family exclaimed.

  “Who do they think the killer was after?”

  Philip looked directly into the camera. “Ivan.”

  “Ivan?” Eloise repeated, reaching for her phone.

  Philip saw her move. “You won’t be able to get a hold of him, he’s down at the station now.”

  “OMG!” Eloise said. “Why would someone go after Ivan?”

  “That’s what we still need to find out,” he said, looking meaningfully at me. “All of us.”

  “Cut,” Anastasia said, looking as gleeful as Eloise did stricken. “Perfect.”

  28. Most timeshare contracts contain a clause for cancellation within a specified period of time. Other than that, the only legal ways to end timeshare contracts involve transferring ownership by selling, donating, or giving it away. Ending the contract any other way can be considered a breach that comes with legal ramifications.

  twenty-one

  “Makes no sense at all,” Felipe said, shaking his head as he chauffeured us to our afternoon shoot/tour of the local Mayan ruins in a black SUV without so much as a license plate rim or a parking sticker to mark it as belonging to the Hacienda de la Fortuna fleet.

  For added safety, we were told, after being reassured that no one from the cast or crew was in danger because the killer wasn’t after Geo or any of the rest of us. Seeing as everyone around from The Family Frugalicious let out a collective sigh of relief, I decided not to point out that Geo, who was still hospitalized, had been in someone’s crosshairs, accidentally or not.

  “You said, ‘What’s done is done,’ after Alejandro died,” I said to Felipe. “What exactly did you mean by that?”

  “Alejandro had his enemies,” Felipe said as the cameraman assigned to capture our various reactions to the latest news zoomed in on him. “But everyone loves Ivan. Who would come after him?”

  “Great,” said the assistant director, who rode in the back row of the SUV. “Since we’re almost at Tulum, we need to move onto Felipe filling everyone in on the history of the place.”

  With that, any additional insight we might have gleaned from Felipe was immediately preempted by his informative, if much less illuminating, monologue on the Mayans:

  Cancun as we know it didn’t exist prior to the 1970s, but Tulum, the Mayan word for fence or wall, was built in the thirteenth century during the Mayan Postclassic period …

  Everyone had finally admitted they knew that Alejandro hadn’t simply drowned. While I could understand why the Powers That Be around the hotel wanted to keep the word murder out of the conversation, something still felt orchestrated.

  Not to mention secretive.

  We have just enough information about the Tulum ruins for the history to become a giant puzzle for us to piece together …

  The potential suspects were too numerous to count and included practically everyone—family, friends, coworkers, and hotel guests.

  Soon after Tulum was constructed, the Spanish arrived. The Europeans attempted to conquer the Mayans, as well as the Inca and Aztec peoples. The Mayans, however, proved difficult to overpower …

  What was the connection between the widely disliked Alejandro and affable hippie Ivan? And how had Geo gotten caught in the middle?

  The Mayans and Spanish lived alongside each other for two hundred years before Spain finally took control of Mayan lands. Still, the people, culture, and language thrived. Many people living in the Yucatan today are of Mayan and Spanish descent …

  How did the not-entirely-forthright members of Alejandro’s extended family fit into the picture?

  Tulum was a very advanced society. The Mayans had their own system of writing, were advanced in math and architecture, and invented the zero …

  All of my working theories had been and continued to be blown out of the water. If whoever had gone after Geo actually meant to attack Ivan, then it was once again somewhat believable that the crew could be behind it for some extremely farfetched ratings ploy—except not really, and particularly not on camera. Maybe there was a conspiracy to kill Alejandro but, if so, why try and kill Geo/Ivan afterward, for no particular reason, and risk being caught as a result?

  In order to figure out who could actually be a suspect, I needed to find out:

  1. What happened in the hour before Alejandro’s death—what he was drinking, with whom, and why he left the bar area.

  2. Why Ivan was also targeted and how the killer had confused him with Geo.

  3. Who hated both men enough to try and kill them, particularly with so many cameras around.

  We pulled up to the entrance to Tulum and I allowed everyone to pile out of the SUV ahead of me.

  “Thank you for the ride,” I said to Felipe as soon as I was the last one in the car.

  “De nada,” he said.

  “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Anything for Señor
a Frugalicious,” he said, looking into the rearview mirror, but somehow not at me.

  “You’re one of the few people who didn’t deny that Alejandro could have been murdered from the very start.”

  “I’m not surprised no one wanted to say so,” he said. “The family—they are all very protective of each other.”

  “Then you aren’t part of the family?”

  “Only by marriage,” he said, as though that made him an outsider.

  “They definitely seem to hire from within at Hacienda de la Fortuna,” I said.

  “That’s just how it’s done.”

  “Is there anyone who isn’t related?”

  “Ivan,” Felipe said. “Which is what worries me most.”

  “Why?”

  “Because if he is in danger …” Felipe glanced out the passenger side windows and then over his left shoulder. “Then every single person who works at the hotel could be in danger too.”

  “That’s all he said?” Frank asked.

  “He saw someone walk behind the car, got all nervous, and completely clammed up after that except to add that he would see us at pick-up time.”

  “That certainly doesn’t give us much to go on,” Frank said, sounding dismissive of my sleuthing abilities, “now does it?”

  “Something’s still being covered up. I’m sure of it.”

  “That, or maybe the man is skittish,” Frank said. “I mean, how would you feel if someone tried to kill two people in your life in as many days?”

  “Seriously, Frank?” I said, looking at the kids, who were just ahead of us on the path that led to the ancient walls surrounding the ruins. “I swear, if anything happens to—”

  “Nothing will happen to us or the kids.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  Two of Phil’s officer buddies joined the kids, flanking them on either side.

  Frank flashed a self-righteous smile that made me want to clock him.

  As promised, we toured the ruins trailed by a camera crew, taking in the cliffside temple of El Castillo where we learned about the Secret of Tulum—small windows in the shrine that were lined up perfectly with a gap in the offshore barrier reef and reflected during daylight hours to help incoming canoes navigate safely into shore.

  “Smart,” FJ said, as prompted.