by K C Ames
“So why doesn’t she just go?” Courtney asked.
“Money. The Casa Verde property is very valuable. I’ve heard about the big plans Mr. Barca has for this area once he takes over Casa Verde and a lot of the surrounding properties, too,” Claudio said, leaning back against the short wall and looking towards the resort.
“Is Skylar here now?” Dana asked.
“She had been staying at one of the luxury cabanas with her husband, but just yesterday, Mr. Barca himself told her she had to leave the resort. He was going to put her up in one of his smaller rental properties in the town of Nosara,” Claudio said.
That explained what Skylar was doing with Barca yesterday and why they seemed to be arguing.
“We ran into them in The Pueblo. They didn’t see us, but they seemed to be arguing and they went into one of the offices there.”
“That doesn’t surprise me. As much as she complained about the resort, once Barca told her he was moving her out, she went crazy. The front desk supervisor and one of the security guards told me all about the brouhaha. She blew a gasket. Saying a lot of weird stuff, like…that she didn’t care about the land and Casa Verde anymore and that if Mr. Barca kicked her out of the resort, she would just go back to California and he would lose the land,” Claudio explained.
“So she stayed put?” Dana asked.
“No. Last I heard, she was given a firm but polite nudge out of the resort.”
“When was that?” Dana asked.
“Yesterday.”
“Claudio!” It was a whispered shout coming from another side of the pool. It was loud enough for them to hear it, yet low-key enough that the guests meandering around wouldn’t notice it.
Claudio rolled his eyes.
“That’s my boss. I need to go. Can you meet me at my parents’ house tonight?”
“Yes, of course,” Dana said.
“CLAUDIO!” This time the General Manager was full-on shouting and stomping his foot.
Twenty-One
Later that evening, Benny joined Dana and Courtney at Casa Verde.
Dana told them about their jaunt up to the Tranquil Bay Resort.
Benny winced.
“Hey, even if Gustavo Barca wasn’t Skylar’s Daddy Moneybags, I still wanted to check out the resort in order to see if it lived up to the hype,” she said.
“And we were hungry, we figured a five-star resort would have something good to eat,” Courtney added in her two cents.
“So did it?” Benny asked incredulously.
“Unfortunately, yes. That no-good lout knows how to run a swanky resort,” Dana said.
“The food was very good, but it came with U.S.—not Costa Rican—prices,” Courtney said.
“Barca’s target guests do not fret about the price of a meal. He has it down to a science. His staff meets arriving guests at the Liberia airport and they are ferried over to the resort in posh, air-conditioned, Wi-Fi-enabled Mercedes Benz shuttle buses. The driver is under strict orders not to stop until they arrive at the resort. Barca has everything arranged to keep the guests at the resort during their whole stay in Costa Rica. Any off-site activity is coordinated by the resort’s concierge staff, some of the best in the business, who make sure any off-site location is either owned by Barca, his partners, or it’s a location that offers a nice kickback to Barca’s company for each busload of tourists sent their way. The businesses here in town do not see any of that money. The resort discourages guests from venturing down here by scaring them into believing this is a dangerous town full of shady expats, drug kingpins, and untrusting locals. The only resort tourists that make it down to town are the more adventure-seeking types that are suffering from resort fever and who don’t fall for the resort’s boogeyman tales about our little community,” Benny explained.
“That’s awful,” Dana said.
“Gustavo Barca has not been a good neighbor, which makes it such a gall that he comes down here to eat at Ike’s restaurant or to buy dozens of Mindy’s bagels and homemade cream cheese,” Benny said.
“It’s interesting that you mentioned the concierge staff,” Dana said, eyes wide.
“Did they arrange a surfing lesson for you?” Benny asked mockingly.
“Funny guy, no, we have Big Mike for that, but do you have any plans tonight at eight p.m.?”
Benny gave her a curious look.
Dana told him about meeting Claudio Villalobos, the concierge services assistant manager and son of Ramón and Carmen.
“I know Claudio well. He’s a wonderful young man.”
Courtney took a nap while Dana finished reading her book. Benny was on his laptop until it was time to meet with Claudio.
Dana, Courtney, and Benny made the quick walk from Casa Verde down to Ramón and Carmen’s house. It was a lovely home. Dana could see their house from her wraparound porch and from her second-floor deck. She tried not to gawk down at their house, wanting to give them their privacy. So she was excited to finally visit the house.
She noticed, for the first time, a nicely built chicken coop off to one side. Dana had noticed the chickens running around the property. Ramón had asked if it was okay, and Dana was more than thrilled, hoping for some free-range chicken eggs from time to time.
The hen house was fenced in with a nice long run and a heavy-duty galvanized wire to protect the chickens from their long list of predators: feral cats, dogs, raccoons, skunks, coyotes, foxes, humans. Seemed just about every creature preyed on the poor, hapless chickens.
She had yet to knock on the door when it opened and Ramón stood there, smiling,
“Please come in,” he said.
Carmen came out of the kitchen, also smiling. Claudio was sitting on the couch, watching television. He shut it off and stood up to greet the guests.
They sat around the dining room table. Carmen brought out coffee, milk, and galletas de mantequilla, butter cookies from Costa Rican Pozuelo Cookie Company.
The cookies looked delicious, but eating them and drinking strong coffee after eight o’clock at night wasn’t something Dana’s body was accustomed to, but when in Rome, she thought as she poured herself half a cup of coffee, filled the rest of the cup with the warm milk, and grabbed one of the cookies.
“That Skylar is a big pain in the rear,” Claudio said, quickly adding, “Sorry, no offense.”
“Believe me, none taken. We were never close, and she’s been a big pain in my behind for months now,” Dana said, taking a bite of the butter cookie. Her eyes narrowed in approval.
“You had asked about Roy and Skylar. They stayed at the resort for months. They arrived during the rainy season, or as we call it in the resort business, the slow season. At first, Mr. Barca put them up in one of the exquisite suites by the pool, not that it impressed Skylar, who complained about the pool noise, the AC not cooling down the place enough to her liking, and that it was too noisy, and on and on. Mr. Barca got tired of her complaints, so he had them moved down to one of the less desirable jungle bungalows, the one furthest from the main resort area. It was still beautiful, but not as nice as the suites. Not surprisingly, she complained even worse about the new lodging. She demanded to be back in the main area of the resort. She was rude and nasty to staff, guests, everyone, including Mr. Barca. The lion’s share of the abuse was reserved for her husband. He was no picnic, but next to her, he was a saint,” Claudio said.
“Those are the bungalows by the footpath going from the resort to Mariposa Beach?” Benny asked.
“Yes. They’re very nice. Mr. Barca doesn’t build anything for his resort that isn’t top-notch and luxurious. No dumps. Well, except for the staff quarters. Those are a dump. Mr. Barca is the face of five-star luxury for his hotels and his upscale gated communities, and at the same time, he’s a slumlord for the housing projects he puts up for his staff,” Claudio said.
“I’ve heard about that. He does a good job of keeping that side of his business quiet,” Benny said.
“Well, he couldn’t ke
ep Doña Skylar quiet. She was always complaining about this and that and berating people. It wasn’t surprising to the staff that Don Roy began to spend more and more time away from the resort. I would get all the gossip from my staff. Supposedly, Roy had become enlightened by a yogi lady in Nosara, if you catch my drift,” Claudio said, blushing.
“You don’t say,” Dana said, leaning forward.
“Well, it was just gossip, until I personally heard them fight about it. My boss stuck me with trying to appease those two, since they demanded to deal with management, not staff. It has been the most challenging assignment of my career so far,” Claudio said, shaking his head.
“Anyway. One night, they sent me down to check on them, since there were noise complaints. I got outside of their bungalow when I heard them fighting. I know I shouldn’t have, but I eavesdropped. She was going on about how humiliated she was that he was spending so much time away. It made her look like a fool. And that they needed to focus on the case so they could sell Casa Verde so she could go back to civilization. But it seemed he was wavering on that. He finally had enough of her abuse, so he stormed off and she yelled, ‘Go ahead, run to your little yoga tramp,’ and he just left, cursing. I heard glassware breaking. It wasn’t the first time she threw a glass or plate against the wall in anger,” Claudio said.
“What did you do?” Dana asked.
“Roy didn’t see me when he left, and after she broke a few dishes, she quieted down, so I just quietly left. I don’t like dealing with her when she’s not angry, but under those circumstances, I just wanted to run away.”
“So she never saw you that night?” Dana asked.
“No. Well, I don’t think so. I’m sure I would have heard her scream at me had she seen me,” Claudio replied.
“When did this all happen?”
“The same night of Roy’s murder.”
Dana, Courtney, and Benny exchanged Joe Friday-Bill Gannon nods with each other.
“Correct me if I’m wrong, Claudio, but aren’t those bungalows near where Roy’s body was found?” Benny asked.
“Yes, that is why I assume she killed him. The entire resort staff thinks Skylar killed Roy. There is a pool going on, I believe it’s up to five thousand colones,” Claudio said, matter-of-factly.
“I don’t know,” Courtney said. “She’s crazy and all, but to kill her own husband? Does she really have that inside of her?”
“We all have that inside of us,” Benny said.
Dana furrowed her brow at Benny. “Remind me not to tick you off,” she said.
Claudio smiled.
“So maybe the killing doesn’t have anything to do with the land, but a jealous wife. That should be enough of a motive for the police to take another good look at Skylar,” Dana said.
“According to Picado, Skylar has an ironclad alibi,” Benny said.
“The alibi is from Mr. Barca,” Claudio said.
That stunned Dana and Benny. “I know because I was told to corroborate it if the detectives asked me. I was supposed to say that she was at the resort the whole time and that she had been seen the night of the murder at the bar. But that’s not true. I don’t know if she left her bungalow or not, but she wasn’t at the bar when Roy was killed and no one saw her there, that I do know,” Claudio said.
“Have you told Detective Picado about all this?” Dana asked.
Claudio looked away in shame. “No. Mr. Barca said that if any of us talks to anyone about the goings-on inside the resort, including the police, that they would be fired, and he would blacklist us so we could never get another job at a resort. That we would be lucky to find a job managing a Burger King,” Claudio said.
“So why are you telling us?” Dana asked.
“Like I told you at the resort. My parents like you, and I owe a lot to your uncle Blake. Mr. Barca wants to expand his resort and add a posh gated community for the rich by buying up all the land near it. This includes your land, Doña Dana. He’ll bulldoze Casa Verde and my parents’ home, and that yoga retreat, and that farm near the resort, that’s where my ninety-nine-year-old great-grandmother and my grandparents live. Barca will relocate them into a state-run old people’s home. Those plans were bad enough, but now covering up a murder? I can’t go along with any of that,” Claudio said, his voice inflecting upward.
Dana and Courtney looked at each other, dumbfounded.
“Jeez, Dana, what have you gotten yourself into?” Courtney asked.
“I get that Gustavo Barca is a greedy developer, that seems to be par for the course in that business, but can he really be that nasty and downright evil?” Dana asked.
“He has a one-track mind to expand his empire. And there have always been rumors about the things he did in Venezuela to make his fortune before falling out of favor with the Chavista government in Caracas, so it wouldn’t surprise me that he would be that ruthless and that he would protect a murderer so he could get his hands on Casa Verde,” Benny said.
“We need to tell Detective Picado about all this,” Courtney said.
“Picado will have a conniption if he finds out we’re meddling. He is convinced that Skylar wasn’t involved in killing Roy. If you go challenging him on that, he’ll go loco on you,” Benny warned.
“He might not know about this yoga teacher, and he doesn’t know the alibi is a fake,” Dana said.
“But he knows about the divorce filings in the States, so he knows that Roy and Skylar didn’t exactly have a happy marriage,” Benny said.
“Most marriages aren’t happy,” Dana said, sounding bitter as she thought about the demise of her own marriage.
Embarrassed, she turned to face Claudio and asked, “Do you know who this yoga teacher is?”
Claudio nodded that he did.
“Great, I want to meet her.”
Twenty-Two
Against Benny’s objections, Dana made plans to go up to Nosara in the morning to talk to Roy’s yoga teacher. If she could confirm that Roy had been romantically involved with her, then that information, along with Claudio agreeing to share what he had overheard go down between Skylar and Roy, might be enough for the detective to take another look at Skylar.
According to Claudio, the yoga teacher’s name was Marisol Arias; she taught classes at Yoga Trópico, a popular yoga studio in Nosara Beach.
Claudio had reiterated that he didn't know if the rumors were true, but Dana decided it was something she had to find out for herself, so she could present Picado with facts, not rumors. It was looking more to Dana that Roy’s murder was not about Casa Verde but because of a love triangle, and that Skylar was the killer.
“If that’s true, Skylar is pretty brazen to stay in the country once they cleared her. Especially since she has a nice life insurance payout coming her way now that the police have cleared her as a suspect. I would hightail it out of here,” Benny said.
“Skylar has always been greedy. She’s not going to walk away from a potential windfall from selling Casa Verde to Barca,” Dana said.
Benny had tagged along with Dana and Courtney up to Nosara. She felt excited that he was coming along.
“For legal advice,” Dana said to Courtney after she grinned a bit too wide for Dana’s comfort.
“Uh-huh, his legal advice is to not go find this yoga teacher, so it’s not like you follow his legal advice anyway,” Courtney said, grinning.
Dana smiled. Busted. “But I appreciate it, no matter if I don’t accept it.”
“Whatever, I know why you’re excited.”
Dana rolled her eyes and ignored her.
On their way to Benny’s beach house, they stopped at Mindy’s for coffee and bagels.
“I’ll watch Big Red,” Courtney said, yawning.
Dana smiled. She needed coffee to get going in the morning, but Courtney needed it to function.
Mindy greeted Dana warmly. It was the third straight morning she was there.
“You’re becoming one of my regulars. I love it,” Mindy said.
“Coming right up,” Mindy said, her face turning dark. “Ugh, Mr. Sunshine is here,” Mindy said, nodding towards the window. Dana turned to see Detective Picado getting out of his unmarked car. “I get it. He sees a lot of bad stuff in his line of work, but he’s so ornery, that one,” Mindy said, disappearing to the back.
Dana tensed up. She wanted to follow Mindy to the back of the coffee shop and hide. But she breathed in deeply. Stay calm, she said to herself.
Picado walked in and beelined towards Dana.
“I thought that was your Jeep out there,” he said without saying hello.
“Yes, it is.” She was able to muster half a smile.
“It’s very distinctive, that vehicle, which is why when it was brought to my attention that that there was an American woman in a red Willys Jeep bothering people at the Tranquil Bay Resort, I knew they were talking about you,” Picado said, shooting Dana an icy stare.
Dana was aghast, and she couldn’t hide it from her face.
Then she got angry. She was sick and tired of being needled by the detective. She was sick and tired of being afraid of him. She didn’t care that she was in a foreign country and that he considered her a suspect. She was in Costa Rica to make her home, and she didn’t care about preventive detention anymore. The threat he lorded over her like a dirty gym sock. Detective or not, he was a bully, and she hated bullies. To heck with him, she thought.
“Excuse me? I bothered no one. I can go to the resort if I want and talk to whoever I want. Besides, I wanted to have lunch there and check out that fancy hotel everyone talks about. Is there a law against that?” Don’t get too angry, Dana, calm your nerves so you don’t just sound like a crazy person, she reminded herself before continuing to speak without letting him reply.