Nightmares Can Be Murder (A Dream Club Mystery)

by Mary Kennedy

  “I wouldn’t think Chico was clever enough to set up a Ponzi scheme.” I took a big gulp of sweet tea. The restaurant suddenly seemed stifling to me even though a Casablanca fan was whirring slowly above us.

  “It’s not that hard to do,” Sara said. “You just have to pay off the early investors, the people at the top, and then you keep everything that comes in after that. If you buy in early, you come out okay, and if you’re at the bottom of the pyramid, you lose your shirt. Of course, you’ve got to find people gullible enough to agree to the idea.”

  Pretty clever, I thought, and completely illegal.

  “Chico might have been smarter than you think,” Noah offered. “He was the first one to recognize that buying up the buildings on your block was a smart move, remember. He spotted it as a golden opportunity, not just a bunch of run-down buildings.”

  “The guy could smell money a mile away,” Sara cut in.

  “And he managed to swindle Kevin out of his share of the dance studio,” Noah continued. “Plus he seemed to have a pretty significant income stream on the side.”

  “We still don’t know anything else about that angle, do we?” The more I learned about Chico, the more I disliked him.

  “He has a history of robbing business partners and scamming investors. Chico might have pocketed large sums of money and stashed them in secret accounts. It would take a team of forensic accountants to sift through all his records and make sense out of them.”

  “So maybe this is all about money?” I said thoughtfully. “If that’s true, why are the police looking at Ali as a suspect?” As soon as I asked the question, the answer lit up in my mind like a neon sign.

  “Because she was over there shortly before he was killed.” Sara looked sympathetic.

  And because they had a history, I added silently. Sara didn’t know that part of the story, and I wasn’t about to get into it with her.

  “Your turn,” Sara said to Noah.

  Noah opened a manila envelope and pulled out a grainy black-and-white photograph.

  “You didn’t get this from me,” he cautioned. “I’m going to show it to you, and then I have to take it back.”

  “What is it?” I said eagerly. I was hoping against hope that it was evidence that would clear Ali or at least point the finger of suspicion at someone else.

  “It’s a screen shot from a surveillance video of Chico’s dance studio,” he said, lowering his voice. “Tell me if you can identify the woman entering the studio.”

  The image was poor quality, the lighting was terrible, and the resolution was far from optimal. But the figure on the screen was immediately recognizable. My heart stopped in my throat.

  “That’s Dorien Myers,” I said softly. “She’s a member of the Dream Club.” I frowned, baffled, as my mind tried to make sense of the inexplicable. “She has no connection with Chico.”

  Noah shrugged. “Apparently she does. Look at the time stamp on the screen shot.”

  “Six o’clock,” I said, my voice wobbly with shock. “The night he died. There was no reason for her to be there that night.” Or any other night. First Lucinda and now Dorien? Chico was starting to resemble a giant spider, extending his web further and further, ensnaring more prey. And like Ali, Dorien hadn’t volunteered any information about visiting the studio. I wondered if Detective Sanderson would grill Dorien as he had my sister.

  “And she’s carrying something,” Sara said, leaning across the table to see the photo. She looked at Noah. “What is that? It looks like a picnic basket. Weird.” She glanced at me. “Unless she’s bringing him dinner.” She flicked me a glance. “Does that seem likely to you?”

  “It’s the last thing I would expect,” I said, shaking my head. I felt like one of those restaurant owners on a reality show, watching their employees on hidden camera. The employees usually behave in a way that was completely unexpected and the owners are predictably shocked.

  “This doesn’t make sense,” I said quickly. “Dorien despises Chico. She showed absolutely no reaction to his death. She couldn’t have been emotionally involved with him.”

  “Who said anything about her being emotionally involved?” Sara asked, her tone cynical.

  “Oh,” I said quietly. “You mean—”

  “I mean Chico was poisoned and this chick was bringing him dinner. Or delivering a gift basket with food in it. You do the math.”

  “Dorien wouldn’t have any reason to kill Chico,” I said. I was still having trouble believing Dorien even knew him or had visited the studio. She knew who he was, of course, because Gina is a member of the Dream Club.

  A dead silence descended on us. “You’re sure this is Dorien?” Noah pulled out a pad and scribbled down her name. “And she lives here in Savannah?”

  I rattled off her address and phone number, and he grinned. “You’ve just saved the police a lot of work. She was in and out of the studio in five minutes. I didn’t bother bringing the second screen shot because it was even grainier than this one.”

  “I still can’t believe it,” I said slowly. “There has to be some other explanation.” I licked my lips. I felt vaguely guilty that I had somehow betrayed Dorien by identifying her.

  “Pictures don’t lie,” Noah said, stuffing it back in the envelope. “And don’t worry, your name won’t come into this. The cops can interview Dorien and see how she explains her presence at the studio. The timing fits in with the estimated time of death.” He must have seen the shocked expression on my face. “Look, Taylor, you may be right. Maybe there’s some perfectly innocent explanation. But you have to ask yourself, why didn’t she tell the police that she was there that night?” Why indeed?

  “Could she have been delivering the basket for someone else?” Sara asked. “Does she do deliveries for a local shop? Maybe it was a gift basket, filled with wine and cheese. Or maybe she works for a restaurant, delivering dinners.” She chewed on the end of her straw, squinting in thought.

  I shook my head. “No, that’s not possible. I’d know if she did. We talk about everything in the Dream Club.” A stray thought pinged in my brain. Ali had said that it looked as though Chico was expecting someone to visit him that evening. Why did she say that? Maybe he’d lit some candles? Or had put out wine and cheese? I struggled to remember exactly what she’d told me, but my mind stalled and I drew a blank. Why wouldn’t Dorien admit to being there? What could she possibly be hiding?

  I tried to recall exactly what the studio looked like when we’d hurried over there that day. All I could remember seeing was the crumpled body of Chico lying on the floor, and my mind recoiled at the image.

  “Tell me more about Dorien,” Sara said, interrupting my morbid thoughts and drawing me back to the present. “Is she single or married? What does she do for a living?”

  “She’s single. She has a little shop in the district and does tarot readings.”

  “Hardly a lucrative enterprise,” Sara sniffed. “Chico doesn’t sound like the type who’d ask for a reading, does he? And that still doesn’t explain why she was carrying a basket.”

  “Not at all,” I admitted. An idea wriggled in the corner of my mind. Had someone mentioned that Dorien wanted to expand her business? I struggled to remember the conversation and gave up. My thoughts were whirling like colors in a kaleidoscope, and I needed time to reflect quietly on everything I’d heard. Dorien as Chico’s killer? It seemed impossible. But the notion that my sister had anything to do with his death was equally impossible. Everywhere I turned, I met a solid brick wall of resistance. I remembered Dorien’s dream about a “woman and child” in Chico’s life. Had she invented that dream, to draw suspicion away from herself?

  “What do you do when all your leads dry up?” I asked Noah. I tried to keep a note of defeat out of my voice, but my neck was throbbing and I felt like a boulder was settling on my shoulder blades.

  �
��That’s easy, you look for new ones!” Sara said brightly. Like Ali, Sara has always been a “glass is half full” sort of person, and nothing can dim her sunny personality.

  “Not a bad idea but there’s another possibility,” Noah said, picking up the dessert menu and giving it a quick scan. “You go back and look at your leads again very closely. Go over everything with a fine-tooth comb. See what you missed. Look at the witness statements very carefully. Go over every word in the interviews. Try to read between the lines. If you have video, look at the body language. And watch for pauses or hesitations. Sometimes what isn’t said is just as important as what is said. I learned that as a rookie agent at the FBI.”

  He reached across the table and rested his hand on mine, just for a moment. It wasn’t a romantic gesture, more of a friendly one, but I felt a little buzz go through me. “I know you’re worried about your sister, Taylor, but this is no time to give up. We’re just getting started. I promise you, this is all going to work out okay.” He smiled, a familiar grin that reached his eyes and shook me down to my toes. “Now,” he said, gently withdrawing his hand from mine. “Who wants dessert?”

  Sara beamed. “I thought you’d never ask.”

  23

  “We’re here today to remember Chico,” Gina Santiago said later that week. Lisa Ortez, Chico’s ex-wife, had finally come forward and posted a small notice in the Savannah Herald about a memorial service for Chico. She’d asked Gina to organize the event and to contact as many friends and clients as she could. Gina had told us that the actual funeral would take place in Colombia and Chico would be buried in his family’s plot. This was just a small gathering with coffee and cookies to share memories of the flamboyant dance instructor.

  It was late afternoon and the studio was lit with dozens of candles. The crime scene tape was gone and no trace of the earlier tragedy remained. A soft, rose-colored light bathed the room, bouncing off the gleaming wood floors and silver candlesticks.

  Rose and Minerva had brought a large wicker basket of artfully arranged lilies and hydrangeas, even though Lisa had stipulated “no flowers.” She’d requested that mourners make a donation to a Latin-American children’s charity instead.

  Lisa had told Gina that she and Chico had a ten-year-old son but she had never seen a penny of child support. Would that make her angry enough to kill him? I wondered how long she’d been in town. It seemed odd that Lisa and Chico had been out of touch for years, and then she suddenly turned up during the week he was murdered.

  I remembered Minerva and Rose claiming they’d overheard Chico shouting at someone in Spanish on the night he was murdered. Could his argument have been with Lisa?

  “This ex-wife, she’s not at all what I expected,” I heard Minerva whisper to Rose as Ali and I slipped into folding chairs behind them. I glanced at the wooden podium that had been set up at the far end of the studio.

  Gina introduced Lisa Ortez, who took her spot at the podium, looking composed. A drop-dead gorgeous Latina with glossy back hair that reached to her waist, she began speaking in a soft, heavily accented voice. “I’m going to play some of Chico’s favorite music,” she said after a short speech. The room filled with a familiar Latin beat while Gina and Lisa looked thoughtful.

  “She’s glamorous, that’s for sure,” Rose sniffed. “Pretty enough to be a model, I’d say.”

  “And she doesn’t look like she’s grieving,” Minerva said archly. “Or if she is, she’s certainly hiding it well.”

  “Look, here’s Persia,” Rose said. “I didn’t know if she’d show up.”

  “Hush, Rose, the ceremony is about to start.”

  Sybil Powers and Lucinda Macavy were already seated in the front row, and Dorien and Persia were just arriving. A dozen rows of folding chairs had been arranged, and they were quickly filling up with mourners. My mind was still reeling with the knowledge that Dorien had appeared at Chico’s studio the night of the murder. She hadn’t said a word about it, and I was hoping to get an update soon from Noah and Sara. Surely the Savannah PD would interview her, wouldn’t they? I felt a tiny bit guilty over my part in naming her but told myself the police would have quickly discovered her identity anyway.

  And what in the world had she been doing at Chico’s that night? Ali, ever the optimist, insisted there was some perfectly innocent explanation for Dorien’s visit, although she couldn’t come up with one when I pressed her for an answer.

  I idly speculated if Jennifer Walton would appear. I wondered about her relationship with Chico and if there was any way to discover if she was having an affair with him. It seemed unlikely, but at this point, I didn’t want to rule anything out. I scanned the rows of guests and didn’t spot her. Maybe she wanted to disavow any relationship with Chico.

  Ali sat next to me, and appeared calm, her gaze focused on Lisa Ortez. “Are you okay?” I asked, ever the big sister.

  She turned to me, her eyes clouded. “I think so,” she said. “Seeing Lisa standing up there”—her voice faltered a little—“makes me wonder if I ever knew Chico at all.”

  “Maybe none of us did,” Hildy Carter said, squeezing past me to take an empty seat. I remembered Hildy from the dinner at the Waltons’. “This was a guy with plenty of secrets.” The plump little decorator was dressed in black from head to toe. She caught me staring at her outfit and winked. “I’ve been waiting for an occasion to wear this. It’s Armani and it was a fantastic buy, but the only place you can wear it is to a funeral,” she said wryly.

  Ali and I exchanged a look. Hildy appeared downright cheerful and her tone was flippant. I wanted to ask her if she was going to try to buy up the block of buildings, as Chico had intended, but couldn’t think of a diplomatic way to do it. He had snatched the deal away from her, and his death might have given her a financial windfall. I remembered that Hildy had plenty of money to invest in real estate, and now that her chief competitor had just died, there was nothing holding her back. I also recalled that Hildy “didn’t like to lose.” Chico’s death was nothing less than a win-win for her.

  “Did you take dance lessons from Chico?” I finally asked. Hildy was busily scrolling through her messages, chuckling to herself. She clearly wasn’t grief-stricken, but then, who was?

  “Do I look like the rumba type?” She grinned. “Not with these hips, honey.” She snapped her cell phone shut. “Chico and I were in a bidding war for some property, and he beat me to it.” I nodded, trying to look surprised. “That was our only connection.” I was amazed she was willing to admit it. Money is always a good motive for murder.

  “That must have been disappointing to you,” Ali said.

  “Not really. It all worked out for the best,” Hildy said, beaming. “That was my business partner texting me,” she said, tapping her cell phone. “It seems I’ve got an even bigger fish to fry, and now I can make an all-cash offer. I would have tied up too much equity in that deal that Chico and I were competing for. This is a much better prospect and the payoff could be huge. So it all works out well in the end, doesn’t it?”

  Except for Chico.

  * * *

  “Taylor, I need to talk to you, it’s urgent.” Dorien, her voice tight, grabbed my arm as I unlocked the door to the shop. We’d just returned from the service for Chico, and both Ali and I felt surprisingly tired. I think there’s always an emotional strain connected with memorial events even if you’re not close to the deceased. “Want to come up for a cup of tea? Or would you prefer lemonade?”

  “Lemonade would be perfect,” she said gratefully. The shop was closed but I always kept a pitcher of fresh lemonade or iced tea in the fridge behind the counter. Ali quickly excused herself, saying she hadn’t slept well and headed upstairs for a short nap. She shot me a curious look over her shoulder as she scooped up Barney for a quick hug. If she wondered what was up with Dorien, she was too tired to pursue it and probably knew that I’d give her all the details la
ter that afternoon.

  “So what’s up?” I said carefully. We were sitting at a small table in the middle of the shop, and I put out a plate of shortbread cookies. I wondered if she could possibly have discovered that I’d recognized her on the surveillance tape and had given the police her name. It seemed unlikely, but she was clearly in a state over something. She was tapping her foot impatiently and practically wringing her hands in her lap.

  “I need to talk to you,” she said, her voice tight with tension. “I think I’ve done something really stupid and I need your advice.” She glanced at the stairway leading up to our private quarters. “I’m glad Ali decided to take a nap, because I’d hoped to catch you alone. What I tell you has to be kept in strict confidence. Do you agree to that?”

  “I’ll certainly try,” I said, nodding vigorously. Strict confidence? That horse was already out of the barn, as my granny would say. I braced myself for what came next.

  “Chico,” she said in a strangled voice. “I saw him.”

  For one crazy moment, I thought she meant in a vision, or a dream. She must have read my mind because she quickly added, “I mean I saw him when he was alive. On the night he died.” She paused dramatically to let the words sink in, and I did my best to look astounded.

  “You saw Chico?” I said, stalling for time. “Do you mean in his studio?”

  She swallowed hard. “Yes. I was bringing him dinner for two.” Her mouth twisted in a sneer. “It looked like he was planning quite a romantic evening. He had the candles lit, and there was a bottle of wine already opened.”

  I kept up the pretense and put on my most innocent expression. “Why were you bringing him dinner for two?” I said, shaking my head in mock puzzlement. I was probably overdoing the surprised act, but I didn’t want Dorien to realize I was the one who’d spotted her on the surveillance tape. “I didn’t know you were close friends. I didn’t even realize you knew him.”