"Just that she died," Lucy said softly, still shooting as Isabel picked up her tank top and pulled it on.
"Well, the story he tells me, when he's had a few shots of Sauza Commemorativa and maybe a joint or two to top it off, is all about finding her. How he found her dead from an overdose." She put on her warm-up pants. Every move was camera-conscious.
"Jesus. Where was she?"
"He was eleven years old. She had taken like twenty reds, and he found her passed out naked on a bathroom floor. Margaret was away at college, and the old man away on business. Thing was, she wasn't dead when he found her. So he hauled her into the bedroom, and then he got to watch her die before the ambulance got there."
"My God. Pretty traumatic, I'd say," said Lucy.
"Well, we all have `em," said Isabel, "But his seems worse than most, doesn't it?"
"Yeah."
"He's still getting misery mileage out of it, I'll tell you that. Blaming Big Bad Dad. But don't get me wrong, me and Nathaniel have a good time, in spite of all that. So what about you and those two?" she said with a glance back at the house.
"We're just friends."
"You known Margaret a while?"
"No, just a few days."
"She's—"
"A rich woman."
Isabel smiled. "Right. That's what it is. That attitude, I mean. She's rich. So you just met and she decided to invite you down to the family estate that she hasn't visited in ten years."
"Something like that," Lucy said. "Actually, we're looking for Nathaniel."
"Why's that?"
"He sounds like an intriguing character."
"Oh, he's that all right, but that's not why you came here, I bet, is it?"
"I came for the waters," Lucy said. "What about you? I mean, how long have you and Nathaniel been hanging out?"
"Oh, I've known Nate for years," she said. "We go in and out of it—being fuck-buddies, I mean. Usually it's when one or the other of us is busted-up and broken-hearted over somebody or other. Right now we're in it." She smiled. "I know you think I sound cheap, but I'm just blunt, honey, just plain blunt." The look held a challenge.
"Whatever you say, Isabel. So what are you guys doing here, anyways?"
"Hey, it was cold in LA, raining in Texas, and Nathaniel had some business to do. So here I am."
"What kind of business?"
"None of yours," she grinned. "Or of mine, for that matter. I don't really know. He's got his hand in a lot of different deals, know what I mean?”
"Not really."
"Well, imagine if you were born rich, lived the high life, then got cut off without a nickel at the age of 25. What would you do?"
"I haven't a clue. Not having been born rich makes it hard to imagine."
"Well, try. Let's just say he's done what he's had to. He should be making a living playing horn, he plays the hell out of the tenor sax, but he's never gone after it professionally."
"Hey Luce," said Rosa, wandering across the patio sleepily. "How'd you sleep? Morning, uh, Starfish."
"Hi," Starfish said, back in baby talk mode. Isabel had gone away. "Me and Lucy were just talkin'. You wanna go swimmin' with me?"
"Badly, of course," said Lucy. "I always sleep badly. You know that."
After morning ablutions Lucy and Rosa drove off to town, leaving Maggie to reacquaint herself with the workings of the "staff," and the house, and to get to know the brother's girlfriend. They parked the bug and walked the streets for half an hour, while the compulsive shopper Rosa determined that there was nothing she needed to buy on Isla Mujeres except a cup of coffee and a piece of toast. Then Lucy led the way to Playa Norte, the palm-lined north beach, sheltered from the east wind by the graceless hulk of the overscale hotel some greedy idiot developer had stuck on top of the beautiful little salt water lagoon on the northeast tip of the island. From there the beach swung west in a lazy concave curve. The whitecaps indicated the wind was blasting at sea, but the sheltered shallows were tranquil; groups of long-haired tourists—more dazed Germans and their frauleins—-cavorted in the water near the jalapa hotel, where you could rent a hut and a hammock for a few bucks a day. The girls went topless there and all along the Playa Norte, and most of the locals stayed away.
"God this is so beautiful," said Rosa as they strolled—rather quickly through the scorching hot sand—down to the water's edge and headed east. Lucy had her eye on a sailboard a hundred yards ahead. Lying just above the water line, fully rigged, it looked like a log—a longboard—but she was dying to get out there into the breeze. The water was 82 degrees, the air five degrees warmer, and 20 knots of wind blew outside the shelter of the cove.
The owner of the sailboard turned out to be a slender Mexican boy-man in his late 20s, wearing a tiny leopardskin swimsuit and a sharktooth on a silver chain. His easy grin showed off a silver canine fang, left of center, planted to glitter among two healthy rows of white ones. He introduced himself as Jose, and his young friend as Rodrigo. Jose was thin but muscular, with reddish sunbleached hair and the inimitable style of a beachboy gigolo tourist-fucker. He cased them both thoroughly while Lucy negotiated the rental of the sailboard. Jose took Lucy's ten dollars American in advance and had Rodrigo, gigolo-in-training, drag it down to the water.
Lucy climbed on, uphauled the sail, and took off, slowly at first and then with a burst of speed as she cleared the cove and hit open water, where the white chop had indicated a good strong blow, enough to get the waterlogged board moving at a fair clip. She tacked downwind a while, did a slow motion jibe maybe half a mile offshore, and dropped the sail once she was facing back towards the beach. She sat down on the board, legs dangling in the warm water, and had a look shorewards. She rocked with the rolling swells, and picked out the ants that were Rosa, Jose, and Rodrigo, standing at the water's edge. Even from half a mile offshore, she could read the insistent body English of Jose making his moves on resistant Rosa. Maybe she shouldn't oughta leave Rosa to fend off the bad boy on her own for too long. Rosa could be a sucker for the wrong guy sometimes. But Darren was supposed to have cured her of that.
Lucy did a few more tacks up and down the bay; while the soggy log of a board got moving in this restless wind, it didn't have enough spark to really jam, and so she got sidetracked. There was much to think about, from Rosa and Darren to Margaret, and brother Nathaniel, off in Tiki or Taco, said Starfish. It had to be Ticul she meant. Ticul, where Gutierrez cooked up his fakes.
Lucy sailed in, suddenly conscious of sunburn on her shoulders. She'd greased up with #40 waterproof, but it did wear off after while. Cancer lurked offshore, or rather overhead, waiting to pounce with ultraviolet death rays. How odd to fear the sun. It was a feeling she would never get used to.
She kicked the daggerboard up a few yards off shore, and stepped down into ankle deep water. Rodrigo splashed out to fetch the board. Up on dry sand, Rosa stood with her arms crossed stiffly, listening to Jose's line.
"So how was it, baby?" Jose barked at Lucy, flashing his silver tooth smile. "Pretty good wind out there yes?"
"Not bad," Lucy said. "But that's a slug you're sailing, man. You oughta at least get a new sail. I mean, if you can't afford a new board too."
"Hey, she works OK," he said. "You just have to get used to her. Leave it there, baby," he called out to Rodrigo. "I'll show you, eh?" he said, with a glance at Rosa. "Show Miss Rosa here how it is done." He trotted down to the water, where Rodrigo handed him the mast. He turned the board around and walked it into the sea.
"Take it away, Jose," Lucy said. He grinned and waved at them as he sailed off, holding the boom with one hand. "So was he hot to trot, or what?"
"Yeah. He's definitely a horny dog," Rosa said. "And gets to the point pretty damned fast, too."
"Well, that's what dogs do," said Lucy. "Cut to the butt, sniff and try to hump."
"Well, I'll tell you who he has humped," Rosa said. "Our friend Starfuck."
"Starfish? He knows Starfish?" Lucy said.
"Biblically, as they say," Rosa said. "And knows Nathaniel—the party gringo, he called him—as well."
"Jesus. Those two are loose, eh?."
"Well, I don't know about Nathaniel, but according to Jose there," Rosa said, nodding seawards, where they watched as the beach boy flipped his sailboard up on one rail and cruised along, crouching on the other, "She showed up a couple of days before Nathaniel got here, in the company of two "very sleek gringo dudes." Then as soon as Nathaniel showed up, she started hanging with him. And then when they connected, it turned out that Nathaniel knew these guys, and had planned to meet them, and she pretended she'd never seen them before."
"Jose saw all this?"
"It happened right here."
"Sounds like they had a plan."
"But why would she pretend not to know them when Nathaniel showed up?"
"Good question, Rosita Conchita," Lucy said. "To which you and I shall find the answer. But when did Tarzan there get his licks—pardon the phrasing—in on Starfish, anyway?"
"Last couple of days, since Nathaniel took off with the two so-called sleek dudes."
"Nice work, Rosita, finding all that out. How'd you do it?"
"A twitch of the hips gets you a lot of mileage with a dickhead like that," she said, looking out to sea, where Jose capered on his sailboard. "He is definitely eager to please."
"Yeah, right," Lucy said. "But you're practically a married woman. You're not supposed to play those games anymore."
"Not yet I'm not," Rosa said. "Besides, this is kind of fun. So what's next, Sherlock?"
Given that the island's only luxury hotel, the hulking El Presidente on the lagoon, was bankrupt and roofless thanks to Hugo, ‘next’ meant figuring out which other island hotels ranked highest on the luxe scale, and visiting them. After all, where else would "two sleek gringo dudes" stay on Isla Mujeres? They hit pay dirt on the third one, a two story sky blue building on the ocean side of the island called the Boca Caribe. Not exactly luxe, but respectable. Lucy approached the desk clerk and explained that she'd arrived three days later than she was supposed to, and had her friend Starfish or Isabel Chapin checked in or out recently? Blonde woman, strong, grande—Lucy held her hands out in front of her chest, grinning. The man smirked, reddening, oh yes, she was here. And two gentlemen with her? I can not give out this information, sorry. Lucy slipped a ten dollar bill onto the counter, the man glanced around, took the bill, then turned the registration book so she could read it, and she quickly found Chapin's name—Starfish was apparently for stage and screen use only—written in a week back. Directly above her name, two guys, named Jack Partridge and Lewis Mon, who listed Ft. Worth, Texas, as their home town, were checked in and checked out the same days as Chapin.
Lucy and Rosa headed out in search of a telephone. They found one on the wall in the Kentucky Fried Bar, downtown Isla. The Eagles played Hotel California on the sound system, and three besotted American dudes sat at a table in the dark and otherwise empty room with a fifth of tequila, bottles of beer, shot glasses, salt shakers, and sliced lemons spread out on the tabletop, staring at Lucy and Rosa, in their bathing suits, sandals, and shorts, with the eyes of men who had been at sea too long. Her cell phone failing to find coverage, Lucy got a house phone and did the international operator shuffle, and finally got connected with New York City. Harold was not at home. She left a message: "Harry, need some help. Can you see if there's anything I should know about Jack Partridge, like the bird, or Lewis Mon, L e w i s M o n, anywhere in the wonderful world of files you can access? Wire me a reply to AmEx, Cancun. All's well, talk to you soon."
Then she stood close by and pretended not to listen as Rosa called Darren, and pretended not to notice the three drunk gringo sailors leering at her legs. "Hi, Darren," Rosa said, and paused. "Yes," Rosa said. "No," Rosa said. "A couple of days," Rosa said. "No, he wasn't. Yeah. His girlfriend. Yes. Weird woman named Starfish. Spacey. Off to find Nathaniel. Tiki? Ticul. Yeah. Ticul." A longer pause. "Really? Jesus, that's creepy."
"Let's go Rosa," Lucy whispered, tapping the face of her watch and catching Rosa's eye. "Margaret's expecting us back for lunch." Throwing a glance at the brain-damaged drunks, she raised her voice: "And these bozos are beginning to get on my nerves. Where're your manners, boys?" she asked them as Rosa hung up the phone with a fast gottagogoodbye to Darren. "Lost at sea?"
"Hey, baby," one of them slurred as Lucy and Rosa beat it out the door. "Wanna party?"
Lucy ignored him. "So how's the affianced one?" She said to Rosa.
"Oh, he's all right," Rosa said, but she didn't look happy. "He just wants me home."
"Can he wait a few days I hope?" Lucy said. She didn’t want to lose Rosa. Not now, with things just getting interesting.
"I guess." She looked tense. "Hey, you know what? That cop Rodriguez called. He told Darren those guys both committed suicide."
"Suicide?" Lucy did a doubletake. "What?"
"Yeah. Both of 'em OD'ed on phenobarbitol. Injected intravenously. The needle marks were there, and insanely high levels of dope in their blood."
"He's got to be kidding. So how'd they get in the pool?"
"Shot up and jumped in, I guess. Darren didn't say if Rodriguez told him." She looked solemn. "But he did say they were HIV positive."
"AIDS? Both of them? Christ, those poor..."
"No, not AIDS. Just HIV positive. They weren't sick. There's a difference, you know?"
"Yeah, I know. Some of my best friends are HIV positive, and they're still alive. That's the difference."
"Well, apparently the authorities in Santa Fe consider it reason enough to commit suicide."
"That's a crock of bullshit," said Lucy, shaking her head angrily as they approached the red rentabug. "I'd bet a million bucks somebody put that dope in them—somebody with a stake in this art scam." They climbed in, and Lucy drove as they headed back to South of Carolina. "You saw their house, their life. Those guys had too much going for them, HIV or not."
Rosa folded her arms across her chest, and sank in her seat. She looked weary, and it was not yet noon. "Yeah, well, who would you suggest as the culprit, Lucy?" Rosa asked. "Where are the bad guys?"
"I don't know, Rosita. I don’t fucking know. But just hearing that line about suicide pissed me off is all. Those lame cops. Gays. AIDS. Death. They just line them up and knock them over like dominoes. The stupid fools with their ignorant assumptions!"
They found Maggie in the kitchen with two Mexican women. She watched over them as they cleaned up, chatting in fluent Spanish. "Hey girls," she said. "Just catching up on ten years of local gossip. How's town? Starfish find you?"
"No. Was she looking?" Lucy asked.
"Said she was going riding. Took the Harley, headed that way, said she was gonna look for you on the beach."
"We were there, and she wasn't." Lucy shrugged. "What's up?"
"Well, I thought we could eat lunch and maybe catch a ferry, head up towards Ticul and see if we can track down Nate. You ever been to Chichen Itza? It's worth seeing. We can spend the night there, catch the ruins at dawn, and then go on to Ticul." She lapsed back into Spanish with the help, and Lucy turned to Rosa.
"OK with you?"
"Sure." They followed Maggie into the dining room, where the table had been set up for three with heavy, elegant old flatware and silver. "So yeah, let's hit the ruins, Maggie," Lucy said. "I just gotta make a quick trip to the AmEx office in Cancun if its not too far out of the way."
"What about Starfish?" Rosa said.
"What about her?" said Maggie. "She was here when we got here, no doubt she'll be here when we get back. Like the critter she's named herself for, we'll probably have to pry her loose to move her. Nate has an occasional penchant for airhead bimbos, so she's no surprise. It'll be interesting to see what he has to say about her."
They ate a great lunch of fresh local cod cooked Veracruzana style, with black beans and tortillas on the side, drank coffee instead of beer, and threw their bags
into the bug for another ferry ride. Maggie had imposed some discipline on the premises; by the time they left half a dozen men and women were cleaning up the house and yard, and someone had re-connected the electricity. There was no sign of Starfish as they drove off.
The trip into Cancun yielded an email from Harry at a local net cafe. BE CAREFUL THE BIRD IS A VERY BAD ONE FILE A MILE DEEP SAME FOR LM BE CAREFUL LUCY I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU DONT DO ANYTHING FOOLISH THESE ARE CAREER BAD GUYS LOVE HARRY PS CALL ME AGAIN SOON IM HERE FOR YOU LOVE YOU HARRY. Lucy read it twice, thought, what am I getting into here?, then quickly looked at her other incoming mail list. She saw nothing worth reading, a spam cocktail supreme, so deleted all and exited stage left. She jumped back into the backseat of the car, and said, "Let's roll, cuties."
"What's the word?" Rosa asked over her shoulder.
"Oh, nothing," Lucy said. "Just some business with my editor." Actually there had been nothing from her editor which had generated some anxiety. She was getting into this story way deep and needed all possible backup. Where was Heidi Landesmann on this? Good to go, Lucy had to assume in the face of that vast void, email silence.
The two-lane paved road running inland from the coast lay flat and straight for miles. The terrain, too, was flat, and the dense forest obscured everything beyond the immediate edges of the road. In Lucy, at least, this created an oddly claustrophobic feeling, being closed in beneath, and in spite of, the immensity of the sky. Every now and then a small sign indicated a dirt road or a trail to a settlement, but they couldn't see beyond the trees to get a sense of where the trails led. Occasionally they passed small groups of short, mysterious-looking men carrying long rifles, walking along the roadside. Maggie said they were Mayan deer hunters. To Lucy's eyes, their dark-eyed, high-cheekboned faces, their pitch black hair and dark skin, and their short, compact forms appeared to have emerged from ancient history.
Mexican Booty: A Lucy Ripken Mystery (The Lucy Ripken Mysteries Book 2) Page 10