Alvarez Family Murder Mysteries Boxed Set: Books 1-3 (The Alvarez Family Murder Mysteries)

by Heather Haven

  “It worked so well on Nick, I thought I’d give it a try on you.”

  “Well, save it and get your arse back home.”

  Richard isn’t from Mom’s school of thought on the indelicacies of body parts, either. His tone of voice sobered after his declaration, less smirk, more sincerity.

  “Lee, listen to me. This is serious now. I found out some information late last night, and it changes things. That’s why I called.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like the man listed on the manifest as the girl’s father. He’s dead. Rio police found him floating in an estuary not three miles from the beach day before yesterday, shot in the back of the head, execution style. Probably an untraceable World War II gun, they’re thinking, like a German Mauser. There’s a ton of them for sale on the black market where you are. Sis, if this is Kelli, and she did this, you are out of your league. Did you at least call the two brothers yet?”

  “I just got off the plane. Give me a minute.”

  “Just remember, you can’t go it alone. If you can’t reach them, come home. Or wait for backup. We can send two men to help you. Ed and Pete are available.”

  “Not happening.”

  “Lee,” he whined, not liking my answer.

  “Richard,” I whined in return, doing a fair imitation of him. “Stop worrying. It’ll be fine. Changing the subject, how’d you do on nearby hostelries?” By now I was off the plane and walking through the terminal, heading for customs.

  There was silence for about ten seconds. Richard was the first to give in, with a loud expulsion of air causing me to pull the phone away from my ear.

  “Okay, for the moment, I’ll drop it.” I heard the clicking sounds of his mouse, probably as he was bringing up information on his computer.

  “There are seventeen of them scattered around. Six don’t have computer check-in, if you can believe it. You’ll have to check those out yourself. But of the eleven I could rule out, A—there is no single woman registered by herself, B—no younger woman with an older man, or C—no female child with a father. So Kelli’s not at one of those, as far as I can tell.”

  “Good going. Of the six left for me to do, are there any, shall we say, of the high-price spread?”

  “What?”

  “Elegant, expensive, have the niceties of life?”

  “Wait a minute.” More clicks.

  “That’s one noisy mouse you’ve got there,” I remarked.

  “I’ve got you on speaker phone. It picks up everything. Ah, here they are. There are three. La Posada del Mar, Casa de Linda, Hosteria de Bougainvillea. The del Mar and the Linda are both on the border, right over the canal, in Leblon, but most people still think of it as Ipanema.”

  “All three are on the beach, right?”

  “On Avenida Vieria Souto, which is across the street from the beach,” he corrected. “Nothing’s allowed on the beach. I thought you knew that.”

  Richard is a stickler for the facts. Whereas I find facts often get in the way of what I’m trying to do.

  “Right, right,” I said, brushing his words off. “Addresses, please.”

  Richard delivered, and I scribbled them on a notepad to put into the GPS on my phone. “I’ll get back to you soon,” I said, almost hanging up.

  “You’ll get back to me in an hour,” he shouted so loud, a passing woman with a baby stroller turned and stared at me. “Or I’m calling the local police and sending them out to find you. You check in every hour on the hour, or all bets are off. Maybe I’ll come down and drag you back, myself.”

  “Okay, Tuffy Toes. I get the message.”

  My reply was light and fluffy, but I knew Richard meant it. I’d have to remember to call him and punched an alert into my phone to beep me every hour. Brothers are such a pain.

  Speaking of pains, I’d had to pay an exorbitant amount of money to a San Francisco professional service to get a fast visa for me, allowing me into Brazil. Not sure why, but a passport is not enough. Life is filled with these sorts of things.

  While waiting in line at customs, I made a few phone calls. As promised, the first was to the Janardo Brothers. There was a long message in Portuguese on their answering machine, something about being out on their client’s yacht for the next few weeks. That was all I could make out. Maybe they were guarding him against jellyfish or sharks. Too bad, but it wasn’t going to stop me. I’d just keep this little tidbit of info from Richard until I got back home.

  The next call was to Gurn, and his voicemail picked up, praise be. I left a quick, cheery message about my change in plans and thanked him for the flowers. I didn’t mention I hoped he would be tied up in meetings for several more hours before he listened to it. Maybe everything would all be over by the time he got my message.

  And maybe the result of my going ‘wiggy,’ as Richard said, was I would be spending some solitary time down here, licking my wounds because I had been cut loose again by a fab guy who couldn’t stand what I did for a living and how I did it.

  Determined not to stay any longer in the mental Valley of Death, I looked up the three remaining hostelries on Richard’s list on my phone, plus captured a picture of Kelli I’d managed to find, blurry but better than nothing.

  Customs went fast enough. By nine thirty, I was standing in the sun at the rental car lot. Waiting for my car, I felt a brain–piercing hit of direct sun on the top of my head. Stupid me, I forgot my sunhat. Way to go, Lee.

  The seasons are reversed south of the equator, and weather-wise, it was late spring, pushing into a hot and humid tropical summer. I pulled off my jacket and using its scarf, tied my hair back into a ponytail. Beads of perspiration on my forehead and upper lip had already begun to form. It was going to be a hot one.

  Deliberately renting a yucky, non-descript beige car, I tossed my small carryon bag into the massive trunk. Throw in

  a shower, and I could have rented the trunk out as a hotel room. Once inside the car and with the air conditioning blasting, I set the smart phone on GPS, loaded in the addresses, slapped it on the dashboard, and started the sixteen-mile drive to my destination.

  Heading into their summer vacation season, Rio’s roads were packed. I looked around and understood why. True, it was warm and humid, but the locale gorgeous, laid-back, and fun, especially where I was going.

  I had only been to Ipanema once as a kid, but I remembered it vividly. The main drag, Avenida Vieria Souto, attracted the hot, beautiful, and half-naked, swarming the street and sidewalks in their thongs and tans. As a non-Portuguese speaker, Spanish proved very useful during our visit, as it would now. If you speak slowly enough, the Cariocas, or locals, understand well enough for everyone to get by.

  All three of the hostelries Richard gave me were facing the beach, tucked away at the end of charming, cobblestone streets. I looked forward to browsing the cafes, shops, and boutiques jammed alongside each other, colorful and unique. All in all, if you have to be somewhere, Ipanema is not a bad place to be. I found myself enjoying the ride, even singing that stupid tune I couldn’t get out of my head.

  Speaking of heads, after I parked the car on a side street, I dashed into a small store and bought a wide-brim, floppy hat for traipsing around town. My plan was to walk to all three small hotels, starting in alphabetical order, the Casa de Linda.

  The Casa de Linda proved to be a bust, although it cost me two hundred reals, or the equivalent of about eighty U.S.

  dollars. The greedy hotel clerk, an old bag named Alonzia, decided to bilk me for as much as she could before admitting the only female guests they had were three middle-aged women from New Jersey. My new hat and I stood out on the

  sidewalk in disgust, while I formed a better plan. My direct and honest approached had not worked. Not only was it money for nothing, Alonzia wasted about twenty five-minutes of my time.

  At the end of one the cobblestone streets, and behind thick stone walls, the Hosteria de Bougainvillea sat in regal repose. Once through its massive Flamingo pink w
ooden gate, I found myself inside a garden of lush, bird-filled palm trees. Covering the ground was a profusion of coleus plants, luxuriating in the perfect combination of soil, sun, and shade. Large, glossy leaves, bobbed in the light breeze in patterns and shades of red, maroon, yellow, gold, green, dark brown, and black. Clinging to the outside walls of the hotel, purple bougainvilleas cascaded from roof to ground, exquisite in color and abundance. A narrow pathway of earth tone tinted tiles cut through all this glory, leading me under an intricately carved limestone arch and into an indoor/outdoor lobby. Distinguishable from the rest of the garden only by its slate floor and forty-foot high, domed ceiling, it was open to the world on two of its four sides.

  Off to the right, one of the two walls was of chiseled stone. Burbling water tumbled down from its crest, passing over fern-dotted rocks, and trickled into a small pool filled with golden Koi fish, each roughly the size of a small child. On the opposing wall, orchids of every variety imaginable clung to chunks of moss-covered rocks. In hues of purples, pinks, yellows, and white, these flowers looked happier than a plant has a right to be dangling from such a precarious position.

  Overhead the glass-domed ceiling, inset with swirlings of small, cobalt-colored mosaic tiles, sparkled dark against the lighter blue of the sky. Dappled rays of sun played through

  the transparent sections of the dome and onto the terracotta and cream hues of the airy and sumptuous lobby. Weaving throughout this marvelous room were several sitting areas,

  with comfortable-looking cushioned teak and bamboo chairs and sofas. Matching tables proudly displayed sculptures, works of art, and the occasional exotic plant, obviously visiting from the garden.

  But before me was the pièce de résistance. I beheld an open, massive passageway leading to the beach, from which long, gossamer thin, white sheers danced in the day’s breeze. The azure waters of the Atlantic seductively beckoned from behind, soft waves caressing a white linen beach.

  The whole effect seemed to invite you in to park yourself, and never leave. I, personally, could have spent my life in it. This amazing room was pretty much deserted, though, with only two older, prim-looking women sitting and reading books.

  Discretely tucked away in one corner of the stone wall was the registration desk. A young man of about twenty, dressed in white from head to toe, gave me a warm, beckoning smile. I sashayed over, glad I’d broken down and bought the pricy, floppy-brimmed hat. I maneuvered a flop over one side of my face and giggled as I approached him.

  “Hi,” I said, in my best valley girl voice, trying to sound younger than my thirty-four years. “What a cool place! This is sooooo me.” His face wore a quizzical look, but he nodded, encouraging me to go on. “Do you speak English, dude?” I took a chance the younger generation was still using the word ‘dude,’ or he would think I was stuck in a time warp.

  “Of, course, miss.” His answer was smooth and polished, with only a hint of a Portuguese accent, the smile never slipping. “How may I help you?”

  “Well, I see some, like, older ladies sitting in your lobby, not that there’s anything wrong with being old, right?

  But not for me for a long, long time, if my plastic surgeon has anything to say about it.” I draped myself on the counter and batted my eyes at him, although upon reflection, how he

  could have seen them under my low, floppy brim, I’ll never know.

  “Yes?” He grew pensive, not sure if he was talking to a potential hotel guest, a nutcase, or maybe both.

  “So I was wondering—dude—before I check in and all, are there any younger girls here I can hang with and have some laughs, you know, in their mid-twenties or so? I don’t want to be in a place that’s not happening, you know?”

  “Ah!” his smile returned in full force. We both had glossed over the mid-twenties bit, him probably thinking I’d either had a very tough life or forgotten about ten years somewhere along the line.

  “We have two younger women here,” he replied, smoothly. “One who is what they call a snowbird from Canada and is with us four months out of the year.”

  “And the other?”

  “She is from Florida, I believe.” He smiled at me, spreading his upturned hands out and shrugging his shoulders. “Naturally, I cannot say anything more. We respect our guests’ privacy.”

  “Naturally. She’s been here four months, too?”

  “No, about a week.” He smiled. “But she is the quiet type and does not go out much, only to take the tan in the garden next to the beach.” I could see him struggle with the loss of a potential sale. “I am sorry, but we are not too happening at the Bougainvillea. It is more like the bed and breakfast, not the hotel of full service. We are quiet here. Possibly it is not—”

  “Would it be all right if I looked around? Just to see if it’s what I want.”

  His manner became starched and withdrawn. “I would be delighted to send one of the staff with you to show you a

  room. There are twelve of them, all facing the ocean, six upstairs, six down. The only rooms available are on the

  second floor—there are two—and the price is eight-hundred and fifty U.S. dollars a night. His voice had a slight challenge in it when he recited the price.

  “Well, I just love it,” I said sweeping the lobby with my eyes. For the moment, I was telling the truth. And I love a challenge.

  “Oh, what the hey, I’ll take a room for the night.” I reached inside my handbag, removing my wallet. “Cash is all right, isn’t it? I left my credit cards in my luggage outside.”

  “I will still need to see your passport, Señorita.”

  “Oh, right.” I hauled out the fake passport I carried for such emergencies, in the name Mildred Pierce. It’s the title of one of my favorite black and white movies from the ‘40s starring Joan Crawford before her wire hanger days.

  Business out of the way, I strutted down the understated but magnificent corridor, with plants on either side dripping from hanging pots, and surrounded by enough artwork to fill a gallery.

  A young man, even younger than the desk clerk—so now we’re talking twelve-years old—marched before me wearing a bellboy’s uniform of burgundy and tan trimmed with gold and topped off with a matching, gold braided hat. I felt like I was in an old Phillip Morris commercial from the 1950s’ Your Show of Shows.

  He opened the door for me, with a preposterously big smile on his face and stepped aside. The cross ventilation from the opened door caused a breeze to rustle my own set of gossamer curtains which led out to a stone and cobalt-blue tiled terrace. On one side of the terrace sat my own hot tub and bar. Ahead was a phenomenal view of the ocean. A wall

  of glass doors, now open, could otherwise slide into pockets at either side during a hurricane or inclement weather. I crossed

  over and stroked the teak framing and glanced at the unobstructed view of the Atlantic. All rightie, I could live here.

  I turned back and concentrated on the interior. The suite was opulently furnished in a tropical, teak, stone, and bamboo sort of way, calming but cheerful at the same time. Different sizes and shapes of mirrors lined walls that didn’t have Brazilian art clinging to it. Cushioned furniture in rust, wine, and black, with matching throw pillows and lamps, had been coordinated to live together as only an interior designer can coordinate.

  In one corner, near the dining area, a live Macaw sat in a large cage, silent, non-moving, and staring. It wasn’t until he flapped his wings that I knew he was real. A hanging sign, written in several languages, said do not feed or tease. Environmentalists would have a field day about an establishment putting a bird into a room with strangers. I planned on saying something about it myself upon my departure.

  I dismissed the costumed kid with a ten-dollar tip, hoping it would spread like wildfire about the big tipper, who had just come to town. It might prove useful later on.

  The adjacent bedroom had a king-size bed festooned with feather pillows and comforter. I threw myself down on the soft bed, sending carefully
arranged pillows flying.

  I felt a wave of depression come on. Richard was probably right. I had gone wiggy. And then there was Lila. Man, the thought of my mother’s reaction to what I’d done sent me down so low, I had to take a mental elevator to get there.

  Mom was going to have a cow—six, probably—when she saw all the time and money I was throwing around in my search for the elusive Kelli. Everybody else, including the police, thought Kelli was dead, a victim of Spaulding’s vendetta.

  But not me, no matter what anyone said. I shook my head in disbelief at my own behavior. I suspected what I was doing was almost certifiable. Or was it? The feeling, the

  intuition about her being here was so strong, I couldn’t help myself. Scenes had played over and over again in my mind of the short time I’d spent with Kelli, every nuance, every gesture, every possible hidden meaning. And there was the “Girl From Ipanema” song I couldn’t get out of my head.

  From what little I’d learned about her, she sent out partial truths mixed with lies, especially if she wanted something. Reviewing it all, I came to believe I knew her better than most other people. And what she wanted, in my opinion, was a change of identity, fifty million dollars, and Ipanema.

  Somewhere along the line, I might have to stake my reputation on this belief. Oh, wait a minute. I’d just done that.

  Realizing the pickle I’d gotten myself into, I let out a deep, soul shuddering sigh. Maybe, once again, she’d duped me and didn’t even have to be around to do it.

  Despairing, I rolled over on my back, spread eagle, and stared up at the twenty-foot high, teak ceiling. Tears roll down the sides of my face and into my ears. I’d alarmed my brother, disappointed my mother—again—worried my uncle, and probably made my boyfriend mad as hell. In short, I was going to get it from all sides. And for what? Even if she was alive, she could go anywhere fifty million dollars could take her. I had to face it. Kelli, at the tender age of twenty-two, was way too wily for me.

  After about fifteen minutes of feeling sorry for myself, boredom took over. I was lying on a soggy pillow, my eyes burned, my ears were wet, and I was starving. Expelling a whumph sound, I fought off the surrounding feather-stuffed bedding, got up, and checked my watch. Eleven-thirty a.m. Nearly lunchtime. But first, a barre. That’s what was the matter with me. I was no longer centered, spiritually, mentally, or physically.