“You know what you need?” Finn was giving me the look.
I had just tried to call Carmen’s number but it went immediately to voicemail.
“Hate to burst your bubble, but I don’t think I’m in the mood.”
“Really? Because I was going to suggest we get some chocolate.”
“Chocolate?” My eyes lit up. Yes, I was that easy.
Finn nodded. “How about we grab some grub before tracking down the grounds guy? And you can start with dessert.”
“That’s not a bad idea. But let’s drop the car off to my aunt first and see if there’s any word on Mrs. Hayden. We can walk Old San Juan on foot.”
Unfortunately, my aunt had yet to see Mrs. Hayden.
“It’s like she disappeared,” Aunt Lupe said.
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” I replied.
“Hang on, I have an idea. Let me check in with housekeeping. Maybe they saw her in the room this morning.”
“That’s a good idea,” Finn said.
We waited a moment for my aunt to ring housekeeping’s main line. I stared out the window. Finn drummed his fingers on the counter.
“Julie? Hi, it’s Lupe. Did you clean the Haydens’ suite this morning? You did? Was Mrs. Hayden present? I have a guest who hasn’t been able to locate her and she’s worried. Okay, well, if you see her, please call me and let me know. Thank you. You too.”
“No luck, huh?” I said.
“No, but we know where she’s not,” my aunt said.
“I guess.” Only there were a million other places where she could be. Like the bottom of the ocean.
“Has anyone seen Mr. Hayden?” Finn asked.
“He’s still in meetings.” Aunt Lupe pulled out the conference’s schedule. “They go until 4 PM.”
“Okay, we’re going to grab a bite and keep an eye out for her. Do you want us to bring you back anything?” I asked.
“No, I’m good. Thanks though,” she replied.
“You know the drill.” I made the universal call me sign. “Your car’s back in the employee lot too, in case you get a chance to jet.”
“Ha!” My aunt laughed. “You guys go, have fun. I’ll let you know what I see.”
Puerto Rican food is my comfort food. And with Christmas two weeks away, the dishes of my childhood were offered everywhere. I know Finn suggested ordering dessert, but when I saw the restaurant had coquito and pasteles on the menu, I couldn’t resist. The traditional Christmas drink made with rum eggnog and coconut milk was just what the doctor ordered. The pasteles, or Puerto Rican tamales, were an added bonus. Of course, they weren’t as good as my nana’s, but they were tasty nonetheless. By the time we finished lunch, I had almost forgotten what I had been stressed about. Let’s just say that if Mrs. Hayden had made an appearance during our meal, I wouldn’t have noticed her.
“You want to hunt down Angel?” Finn asked me after our plates had been cleared.
I sighed. My temporarily mental reprieve had been nice. But we had a case to solve. “Yeah, let’s do that. Maybe we’ll finally get somewhere.” Third suspects were always the charm, right?
6
Angel lived in a concrete high-rise not far from the hotel. We took the elevator up to the fifteenth floor and made our way down the hall.
“What are you going to say?” Finn asked me.
“Same as I did with Miguel. Ask him if he heard about the attack or witnessed anything suspicious and then gauge his expression,” I replied.
Finn shrugged his shoulder. “Okay, I’ll leave you to take the lead then.”
Except it wasn’t necessary. Either Angel wasn’t home or he wasn’t answering the door.
“I have his number,” I said. I didn’t really want to make a cold call. I found people were way more receptive to face-to-face interviews, but I could always call and try to set something up.
We were about to leave when the neighbor’s door swung inward and out walked two gorgeous girls. Toned legs, curled locks, and flawless makeup. They were out of my league and that was saying something. A hurricane was the furthest thing from their minds. I had to admit, looking at their concrete high-rise, I’d feel pretty safe here, too. The women’s eyes focused on Finn, and I let him take the lead. I had no problem pimping out my husband.
“Hey, I’m looking for Angel. Have you seen him?” he asked.
“Are you sure you’re not looking for me?” the red head joked.
“Friday night? He’ll be slinging cervezas on Tetuan,” the blonde said, ignoring her friend.
I nodded, understanding what she meant.
“Where’s that, exactly?” Finn said, not following.
“I know where,” I answered for them.
“We can show you if you’d like,” the second girl offered, batting her eyelashes.
“It’s an alley bar. Trust me, I know. I’ll show you what I mean,” I said, ignoring the girls.
“Okay, well thanks for the info,” Finn said to them and we headed back down the hall.
“Maybe we’ll see you there,” the other girl called out. Both of them giggled, and I laughed too, shaking my head.
“Can’t take you anywhere,” I said. “Guess we better head back to the hotel and get ready for a night out, now that I see what I’m up against.” At that moment, I was feeling way too underdressed.
We were walking hand in hand down the hallway when Finn stopped and pulled me into him, spinning me until my back was against the wall. With a hand on my waist and his body pressed to mine, he kissed me like he hadn’t before. And that was saying something. The girls behind us stopped laughing instantly. In fact, they could have magically disappeared for all I knew. Finn had turned all my senses onto him.
“Never mind about getting ready. I think we should just go back to the hotel,” I said breathlessly.
“Don’t ever think you’re competing with anyone else,” Finn replied.
“Well, damn. Duly noted. Although, feel free to remind me whenever I forget.” I kissed him one more time.
“Do you really want to go back to the hotel? Do you need to?” Finn asked.
I looked down at what I was wearing. It wasn’t going-out attire, but this was Puerto Rico, which meant anything goes.
“I guess not, if you think I look hot. Oh, plus Weed Man totally hit on me today, so I guess I don’t look too bad.” Looked like Finn and I both had admirers today.
“Weed Man? Do I know him?” Finn asked, looking around as if the stoner wanna-be gangster would appear.
“Ha, no. And trust me, you have nothing to worry about. Let’s go track down Angel.”
The cab dropped us off in front of the intersection of Sol and De La Cruz. Finn and I got out and I led the way.
“You see, locals aren’t about to pay six dollars for a bottle of beer. They know what’s up.” I said, nodding at the alleyway straight ahead.
“You sure this is safe?” Finn asked. Granted, back home you didn’t party in alleys without meeting a few shady characters. But this wasn’t back home, and I was confident we would be able to hold our own. Well, as long as the nosey neighbor from earlier today didn’t show up and start something.
The bar wasn’t much to speak of—just two opened doors pushed flat against the red brick wall. Inside was a small bar top with two barstools in front of it and a slot machine in the corner. It was smaller than the length of a food truck, but it worked. Nothing was offered but cold beer and sweet rum mixed up with lime.
The alley knew how to party, with patrons sitting on the brick wall edge that ran the length between the shops or standing around high-top tables that showed up every night. In fact, you could see another pop-up bar a couple of hundred feet down the alley. The local watering holes would only get busier as the locals clocked out for the night and the servers were cut from their shifts.
“Let me grab us some drinks and I’ll see if that’s Angel working,” I said, motioning to the tall guy with the buzz haircut working the bar.
&n
bsp; “I’ll be right over here,” Finn said.
The line was short and moved fast. I ordered two Medallas and paid the man. “You’re not Angel by chance, are you?”
“I’d like to be cheeky and say that it depends on who’s asking, but I’m never good with those lines. What can I do for you?”
“I’m staying at the hotel and saw something kind of freaky today. Then I heard a bunch of you guys quit. I’m just trying to find out if the two incidents are somehow related.”
“What, you see Mariah’s ghost?”
“Say what?”
“The ghost of Mariah the Maid. Let me tell you, the first time she pops out at you, she’ll stop your heart. Trust me, I’ve had it happen to me more than once.”
I stared speechless for a second, giving my brain a chance to switch gears and remember the conversation with my aunt from earlier in the day.
“No, that’s not it,” I said. I closed my eyes and shook my head. At least I was pretty sure that wasn’t it. I hadn’t seen a ghost, had I? No. But just in case, I asked, “How did this Mariah die?” Maybe if she had been stabbed…
Angel shrugged his shoulders while opening two Coronas. He passed the beers off to the guy next to me. “Don’t know. Her body was never found, but I can tell you, her spirit’s awfully fond of The Casa.”
I nodded my head, filing that information away for later, and tried to pretend that this was all just par for the course.
“That’s not why you quit today though, is it,” I said. The way Angel talked about Mariah told me that he had grown accustomed to, or maybe rather he had accepted her spooky visits.
“Mariah? Ha no! I’d rather deal with a depressed ghost than Mr. Roberto. Now if someone would just kill him.”
“What?” I replayed the bloody hand sliding down the glass window and shivered.
“I’m joking. I swear!” Angel laughed off the comment and served up a rum and Coke to the next woman in line. Maybe I was being too sensitive, but Angel’s remark rubbed me the wrong way.
“Listen, Mr. Roberto’s a nightmare. I’ve heard stories that his father was even worse, but I don’t know, the man’s a total jerk.”
“I hear you there. But wait, I thought Mr. Roberto was just the GM?” I said
“GM and owner. You can’t escape his scrutiny if you work there.”
“That sucks,” I said.
“The man’s impossible and cheap as, well you know.”
“Do tell,” I said, taking a drink off of my beer. I hoped Finn didn’t mind I was holding his drink hostage, but I had a feeling Angel would be full of all sorts of information. “I bet he’s a stickler for the time clock,” I said, encouraging Angel to continue.
“The time clock is only the beginning. We used to get one free meal a shift, but he cut that. Then it was the Christmas bonus, gone, even though the resort’s been booked year-round. Then he started docking my pay.”
“For what?”
“More like what didn’t he dock me for? Some punk kids broke into the shed and stole a bunch of crap. Mostly junk, like shovels and spray paint, but he inventoried it all and charged me for it.”
“Can he do that?” I asked.
“No, but he did. The man’s insane.” Angel took a drink from his own beer that was behind the counter. “He pulled the same crap last night. I knew I had to work the bar, so I wanted to start taking in the umbrellas and beach chairs, get everything off the sand before it got too late. Mr. Roberto blew a gasket. Mind you, everyone is all freaked out about the storm and could give a flying fig about chilling at the beach right now.”
“Right?” I said. I had noticed that even when Finn and I were on the beach yesterday, it was way less crowded than earlier in the week. People were definitely keeping one eye tuned to the weather.
“So, he’s all lecturing me on the property’s posted beach hours when he noticed the lime was missing.”
“Lime?” I said looking down at the freshly cut limes in a bowl on the bar, not following.
“Wrong kind of lime. We use powdered lime like fertilizer around the grounds to treat the grass. It helps it keep its color and protects it from the heat and all the foot traffic we get. Anyway, a couple of bags have come up missing, and he insisted on taking that out of my pay. I was like, dude, why would I take the lime? I live in a high-rise. It’s not like I have a lawn to take care of. He didn’t care. Kept saying it was my responsibility to keep track of the inventory. That was pretty much my breaking point. I was tired of getting nickeled and dimed, and being treated like slave labor day in and day out. I walked off the beach and I’m not going back.”
“You and a few other people.”
“Good. Maybe he’ll learn a lesson. La revolución has begun!” Angel raised a fist in the air with the same laugh as before. This time I laughed along and left him to his bar.
“What did he say?” Finn asked when I finally joined him.
“That he was sick of Mr. Roberto’s crap. Basically, whenever something came up missing, he got blamed for it. Mr. Roberto even docked the item’s value from Angel’s pay. This week it was a couple of bags of lime. Before that it was shovels and spray paint.”
“Go back—did you say lime?” Finn asked much more enthusiastically than I’d expect.
“Yeah, he said they use it to maintain the grounds.”
“Right, right, right. But lime is also a preservative.”
“What do you mean?”
“Thanks to pop culture, people think that if you cover a body with lime, it’ll speed decay, but it doesn’t work that way. It’s actually the opposite. It preserves it.”
“So, if I wanted to say, preserve a body for a couple days...” I trailed off, seeing why Finn was so excited.
“Exactly. Mr. Hayden could very well be using lime to preserve his wife’s body while waiting for the storm to come in.”
“Sweet sugar! We have to find her body before the storm hits.” I thought of something else. “What if Mr. Hayden paid Mr. Roberto off and that’s why he’s standing in our way? Angel confirmed how much Mr. Roberto loves his money.”
“I’d believe it. It probably wouldn’t take much.”
“I knew I should’ve called the cops, but now what? We don’t have any evidence or a victim.”
“And you don’t want to get your aunt fired,” Finn added.
“Okay, back up. If you were Mr. Hayden, where would you hide the body?”
“I would think in his room somewhere unless Mr. Roberto is helping.”
I took a drink of my beer while I thought about it. I know I already glanced around his room once, but I hadn’t checked out Piper’s room yet. I really wanted to take a closer look at both of them, and not just with the naked eye. “What if the room really wasn’t clean,” I said.
“What do you mean?” Finn asked.
“Have you ever seen those shows where they take black lights into hotel rooms?” I asked.
“Oh gross. I’d really rather not know.”
“I know, but black light can pick up traces of blood that I might have missed. We need to get one and check out a couple rooms.” I finished my beer and felt even more confident in our plan.
We had a cab drop us off at Walmart because one, it has everything, and two, it was open twenty-four hours. The place was packed as families scrambled to stock their homes with bottled water, batteries and food. While many shelves were picked over, I was confident that the store’s black light supply would be untouched. The purple-colored bulbs and hand-held strip-lights were easy to find thanks to the light bulbs and flashlights being cleared off the shelves on either side of them. Thankfully the batteries we needed came with the pack or we might have been out of luck.
While we waited to use the self-checkout, Finn and I hashed out a plan.
“Hopefully Mr. Hayden and Piper aren’t in their rooms and my aunt can just give us a key.” I was pretty sure she’d be okay with that. If we got busted, I would say that I broke into their rooms on my own.
“And if not?” Finn asked.
“I haven’t gotten that far. You have any ideas?”
“Not off the top of my head. You’re the clever one.” Finn motioned to the lighting in my hand.
“I’m just trying to think what we’re going to do once we have the evidence. If we’re lucky, maybe they’ll be a blood trail.” If you could consider that lucky. An older woman with a shopping cart full of essentials gave me the side-eye and scooched her cart forward as far as she could. Finn smirked and I shut my mouth. This was not a conversation to have in public.
7
My aunt wasn’t behind the front desk when we got back to the hotel. Maybe she was on break? I doubted Mr. Roberto had let her go home. The new front desk woman smiled at us and looked vaguely familiar, but I wasn’t about to ask her for a key to the rooms. Finn and I walked through the lobby toward the lounge to regroup.
We barely made it around the corner when I heard, “Welcome back Mr. Hayden.” I did a double take. Mr. Hayden and Piper had walked through the front door, holding hands. I was betting anything they were headed back to his room or maybe even hers. We watched them get into the elevator and disappear out of sight.
“Let’s go,” I said, walking over and hitting the elevator’s up arrow. We saw the elevator hit the 11th floor and make its way back down. If we were quick, we might be able to overhear them incriminate themselves before they got in their room. But when the elevator doors reopened, Mr. Hayden and Piper met us face-to-face.
“Oh,” I said, taking a step back. I pretended that my surprise was from seeing someone in the elevator and not from unexpectedly seeing them again. Instinctively, I hid the shopping bag behind my back.
“Do you want me to wait right here?” Piper said to Mr. Hayden.
“Sure, I’ll be right back.” Mr. Hayden gave me a dirty look when he passed by. He wasn’t forgetting me anytime soon. That was fine. The feelings were mutual.
We side-stepped Piper and got into the elevator. I hit the button for the 11th floor. We knew they would be back in a minute; now was our chance to sit and wait for them. On the way up, I drafted a quick plan and filled Finn in on it.
Beauty & Bloodshed Page 5