Margaritas & Murder

by Jessica Fletcher

  My hands were shaking. A hundred questions flashed through my mind. How would we get to San Miguel now? I couldn’t see the lights of the city anymore. Did that mean we were closer to level ground? Perhaps we could walk the rest of the way. Were we near a home on the outskirts of the city? Could we call for help? I had a cell phone. Would it work in the mountains of central Mexico? Did Juanito have a cell phone, too? Did the police patrol the highways around San Miguel? Were we stuck here till someone found us? How long would that be?

  I took inventory of my body. I felt no pain, but my heart was pounding. I knew I might possibly be in shock but doubted I had any serious injury. We hadn’t struck anything, even though the car had taken positions more appropriate to stunt driving than to cross-country travel. I guessed I would be sore the next day, however. When I’d banged into the door, the window crank had given me a good poke in the hip.

  “Juanito?” I said again. “Are you all right?”

  He was silent. But he seemed to be straining to hear.

  He doesn’t speak English, Jessica, I reminded myself. “Cómo está usted?” I asked. How are you? Not exactly the correct question, but perhaps he would understand my meaning.

  He didn’t answer, but he whipped around, his eyes wide, as the back door flew open and I was yanked into the night.

  Chapter Four

  The man who pulled me from the car was, unfortunately, not a policeman. Medium height and stocky, he was dressed in dark clothing—I’d say black if I had to guess. It was a moonlit night, but even so, colors were hard to distinguish. I could see that he wore a plaid bandanna over his nose and mouth and a hat that was more cowboy than sombrero. The bandanna must have limited his access to air, or else he’d had to run to catch up with the car; he breathed heavily, wheezing as he flung me aside to open the driver’s door and train the muzzle of a revolver on Juanito. Despite the thief’s breathlessness, his intent was clear to the young man, who got out slowly, his hands raised in the air. I was relieved to see he’d left his baseball bat on the seat. It was no match for a gun.

  Juanito looked at me apologetically. In response to the outlaw’s command, he dug into the pockets of his jeans and pulled out a handful of coins. The man snarled at him, gave a slight cough, and aimed his gun at me.

  I turned out the pockets of my suit jacket, but the only item in them was the card from Manuel Dias, my cabdriver in Mexico City, which I held up to show the bandit. He stepped forward to see what it was, knocked it out of my hand, and backed away, hoarsely barking an order.

  “Habla inglés?” I said, doubting that he could speak English and, truthfully, hoping that he didn’t. If he was limited in his ability to communicate with me, I could pretend ignorance of what he wanted. On the other hand, it also made it more difficult for me to gauge what he intended to do, although it was evident that robbery, at a minimum, was on his mind.

  The bandit raised his voice but was seized with a coughing fit. Afraid his gun might go off accidentally, I tried to sidestep out of range.

  He waved the weapon at me, indicating he wanted me to move closer to Juanito, cleared his throat, and tried again.

  “No hablo español,” I said slowly, trying to give it my worst American accent. “I don’t speak Spanish.”

  “Dinero,” he managed to grind out. “Dólares, moneda, pesos.”

  I understood that he wanted money and I pointed to the car. “My purse is in there,” I said.

  He said something to Juanito, who took my elbow and pulled me farther away from the car. The bandit glanced inside and looked back quickly, keeping his weapon on us. He saw my shoulder bag but was leery of reaching for it himself; he directed Juanito to get it for him.

  The man was clearly sick. He was having difficulty breathing, particularly since the bandanna restricted his oxygen. He shuddered as another cough wracked his body, and he lifted the triangular bottom of the cloth so he could inhale through his mouth, a mistake that sent him into another paroxysm of coughing. I watched him carefully but couldn’t make out the shape of his chin. Still, as my eyes became accustomed to the available light, I tried to observe whatever I could that might help me identify him, should I have the opportunity. I could see that he was soft around the middle, as if he were dressed in multiple layers of clothing. The night was cool, but not so cool that it required a heavy jacket. Was it part of his disguise, an attempt to hide his physique? Or maybe he was homeless and wearing his entire wardrobe to keep it from being stolen. That’s not unusual. In some of our largest cities, where homeless shelters are no haven from thieves, poor people can’t take a chance on leaving any item of clothing where someone else might find it.

  He must be desperate, I thought, to stake out a lonely road in the middle of the night on the remote chance that a car would come by and its occupants would have anything he considered worthwhile. I hadn’t seen another car since we left León. How had he gotten here? Did he have a car or truck stashed somewhere out of sight? Or had he walked up from town to set his trap? The boulder Juanito had swerved to avoid had not gotten in our way by itself. No ledge of rocks loomed over the road—only brush and scrub trees and dry dirt.

  Unless an accomplice waited in a getaway car nearby, the bandit appeared to be alone. Had there been more than one, and had I not been so weary after a day of traveling and suffering one delay after another—this one being intolerable—I might not have reacted so boldly.

  Juanito backed out of the car, dragging my shoulder bag by the strap. The bandit instructed him to dump the contents on the road, and the boy obeyed.

  “That’s really not necessary,” I said, as out tumbled my wallet, guidebook, notebook, two pens, flashlight, hair spray, tissue packet, a roll of Life Savers, house keys, a tube of sunscreen, the extra toothbrush I’d just purchased, pocket comb, glasses case, luggage lock, foldable sun hat, a packet of cookies from the morning flight, combination mirror/magnifier, and my favorite lipstick, which rolled under the car.

  My wallet was easily visible, but the bandit ignored it. Instead, he poked his boot through my possessions, kicking aside my sun hat, crushing the cookies, and putting his foot down on the mirror.

  “I hope you’re not superstitious,” I said tartly. “Some people think that’s seven years’ bad luck.”

  He squinted at me and stomped down till all that was left was splinters.

  “Stop it!” I said. “This is not a game.” I hadn’t been a schoolteacher for nothing. The tone of my voice caught the thief by surprise. I leaned down and picked up my wallet, opened it, took out the remainder of the pesos I had gotten in New York before I left, and thrust the money at him. It was all I was carrying. I had traveler’s checks in my luggage, but they would do him no good, and I wasn’t about to volunteer the one credit card I carried.

  “You wanted the money. Now take it.”

  He grabbed the bills from my hand and jumped back, as if I were about to attack.

  “It isn’t necessary to destroy other people’s property,” I said. “You should be ashamed, holding up a woman who could be your mother and a boy less than half your age. Some macho man you are. You’ve gotten what you came for. Now leave us alone and go.”

  I took my bag from Juanito, put the wallet inside, and glared at the thief. He may have had a limited understanding of English, but he was perceptive enough to recognize sarcasm when he heard it and the word macho was not lost on him. Not about to lose face in front of a boy, he growled something at Juanito, who pointed to the watch on my wrist.

  I unhooked the clasp, regretting that I hadn’t listened to Vaughan and hidden my jewelry where it wouldn’t be seen.

  He waved the gun at my earrings. I removed them and gave them and the watch to Juanito, who handed them to the bandit.

  He grunted, looked over my person, noticed a ring I was wearing, and gestured toward it with his gun.

  “Absolutely not!” I said.

  “Señora,” Juanito said, looking from me to the man worriedly.

 
; “No,” I said, shaking my head. The ring had been a gift to me from my late husband, Frank. It was not particularly valuable, but it had great sentimental meaning. Perhaps I was being foolish. Certainly I was—after all, the man had a gun—but I was not about to part with it.

  The bandido shouted and held up the gun, aiming at Juanito’s head. That he might kill the boy if I didn’t turn over the ring horrified me. Quickly I slipped it from my finger and held it out to him. “Take it. Take it,” I said, fury in my voice. He grabbed the ring and took a step back, but was hampered by another fit of coughing. He waved the gun around in the air even while he was gasping for breath, but was unable to control the air coming into or leaving his lungs, his shoulders and back jerking with the spasms.

  I took advantage of his momentary incapacity to kneel and gather my belongings. On my knees in the dust of the mountains of central Mexico, I picked up the scattered items, brushed them off, and tucked them back into my shoulder bag. The mirror was a complete loss, but I didn’t want to leave the shards where they were, so I made a neat pile of the pieces and wrapped them in a tissue. Juanito knelt beside me. He apologized in a low voice and reached under the car to retrieve my lipstick.

  I picked up the hair spray and shook the can. I hesitated only a moment. A man with a gun was dangerous. He hadn’t squeezed the trigger yet, but there were no assurances that he wouldn’t. What was he planning to do with us? Had my pique so angered him that I’d increased the odds of his harming us, perhaps even killing us? I couldn’t take that chance. If anything happened to Juanito, I would be responsible. He had behaved appropriately. I had not. Any law enforcement expert will tell you that it’s always prudent to cooperate with the person holding a weapon, to obey his orders and not to antagonize him further. I was the one who’d broken the rules, who’d challenged our captor. If we got out of this in one piece, I swore to myself, I would make more of an effort to stop plunging headlong into trouble.

  It was too late for prudence now. I flipped off the cap with my thumb and rose, fully intending to aim a stream of lacquer at the robber’s face. My hope was that the spray would take him by surprise, set off another round of coughing, or sting his eyes enough that Juanito and I could wrest the gun from his fingers.

  In one smooth movement I raised the can, depressed the button, and turned to where the bandido had been curled over, trying to catch his breath. The hiss of the spray was loud in the silent night. But it didn’t find its mark. The man was gone. He had crept away while we were the most vulnerable, on our knees in the dirt. We heard the sounds of his retreat as he escaped down the mountain, crashing through the brush, boots skidding over rocks, his cough echoing back to us.

  Chapter Five

  “Oh, Jessica, I’m so sorry. I can’t believe Carlos never showed up and we weren’t home to take your call. He’s never done that before. He’s usually reliable.”

  Vaughan shot his wife a look that clearly questioned her statement.

  “He did leave us a message saying that his car had broken down and that he couldn’t find anyone willing to take his place,” Olga said. “I can’t believe the airport closed and there were no taxis. If only I’d known. We never should have gone to that party.”

  “There was nothing you could have done from so far away, Olga. Besides, Juanito’s father solved the problem of transportation by sending him to pick me up. It would have worked out perfectly if we hadn’t been waylaid.”

  We were in the Buckleys’ elegant dining room, having a very late meal. There were dark beams overhead, the rich wood matched by the tall chairs surrounding the long farmhouse table. The walls had been washed with a soft ocher, and the color gathered in the crevices of the hand-plastered surface, emphasizing its intentionally uneven texture. As I had imagined, there were paintings hanging everywhere, but they were not the ponderous dark oils I had pictured. These were light, cheerful canvases of flowers and houses and scenes from what was probably the artist’s life in San Miguel.

  I leaned against the striped silk upholstery of the chair and rested my elbows on its arms. Olga and her housekeeper, Maria Elena, had set the table with a colorful serape on which they’d placed plates of food, bottles of wine, and tall iron candlesticks with fat red candles. While they were preparing their impromptu banquet, I took a much-desired bath to wash the dust out of my hair and the tension out of my shoulders. I was tired but at the same time extraordinarily alert. I needed sleep—it was close to four in the morning—but knew that it was unlikely to come, since my mind was racing, replaying the scenes with the bandit as if they were part of a movie I couldn’t turn off.

  “When we came home late and realized you still weren’t here, I was so worried. I wanted Vaughan to call Carlos at his house, but of course what good would that have done? We assumed you’d hired a car, and were terrified that you might have gotten into an accident. But to think you’d been the victim of bandidos ! I don’t know which is worse.”

  “One bandido, and no real harm done, except maybe to Juanito’s car.” I took a sip of the tea that Maria Elena had kindly made for me.

  “But he took your money.”

  “Actually, I gave it to him. If we had to testify in a court of law, he would have a good case claiming I donated the money.”

  “But your watch and your earrings and your ring.”

  “Now, there he’d be in trouble. Those I surrendered at the point of a gun,” I said, thinking about the ring Frank had given me. “My husband gave me that ring when we were courting,” I said, touching the finger where until recently I’d worn the gold band with three tiny rubies. “I would have fought hard to keep it, but I couldn’t jeopardize Juanito’s life.”

  “Of course not,” Olga said. “We’ll absolutely replace the other jewelry. I’ll take you shopping first thing in the morning.”

  “Second thing will be time enough,” Vaughan said, putting his hand on my arm and giving me a gentle squeeze. “We’re just grateful you’re all right and are finally here.”

  “I am, too,” I said. “Can you believe my driver and I both had cellular phones but neither one of them worked? I guess we were too far out of range for service.”

  “To be robbed at gunpoint and abandoned on the road—” Olga shuddered at the thought. “I just can’t take it in. We’ve heard the rumors, but we never knew anyone it actually happened to before.” She turned to her husband. “Let that be a lesson to you, Vaughan.”

  “Not now, Olga.”

  “I don’t know what we would have done if the police hadn’t found you, Jessica.”

  “We were certainly happy to see those flashing lights,” I said, smiling. “Thank you for calling them.”

  Juanito’s efforts to restart his car had been futile. We’d both leaned under the hood, I aiming my flashlight at the engine while he jiggled wires, checked the oil, and opened and closed several caps, the uses for which I hadn’t the faintest idea. He tried to coax the motor to life for the better part of an hour, even putting me in the driver’s seat and gesturing to indicate when I should try turning the key or pressing on the accelerator. For two people who didn’t speak the same language and one who had never driven a car—me—we communicated very well.

  I had resigned myself to spending the rest of the night sleeping in the backseat when I saw the reflection of lights bouncing off trees as the patrol car made its way up the mountain. I shook Juanito’s shoulder and he raced to the middle of the road, frantically waving his arms to flag them down.

  The officers had delivered me to the Buckleys’—Juanito had led them there—and used the services of Maria Elena to translate instructions that I was to go to the delegación, the police station, the following afternoon to make a formal report to the chief of police. They gave me a card with his name and office address.

  The Buckleys had offered to put Juanito up for the night, but he had declined, saying he had an uncle in town who would take him in and help him repair his car, according to Maria Elena’s translation.
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br />   She was a small, compact woman with large brown eyes in a round face. Her long gray hair was pulled into a braid that hung down her back against the robe she had thrown over her nightclothes. After the police had left, she had fussed over me, running the water for my bath, unpacking my suitcase, making me tea, and bringing out platters of meat and vegetable turnovers, fresh salads, and warm bread, which the Buckleys nibbled at as well.

  “This is wonderful, Maria Elena,” I said. “With all the delays, I never managed to eat dinner.”

  “I must apologize,” she said. “I am very distressed at what happened to you in my country.”

  “Mexico has no monopoly on crime,” I replied. “This could have occurred anywhere in the world. As luck would have it, most of what was lost can be replaced, and thankfully no one was injured.”

  “Even so, there is too much crime in my country. Father Alfredo says the government is not doing enough to protect our citizens, much less our visitors.”

  “I wasn’t aware of problems here,” Olga said. “I’ve heard of things being stolen when people are away, but no violent crime.”

  “In San Miguel it is safe, but outside, maybe not,” Maria Elena said. “The police, they blame the poor people, but it is not the poor who kidnap or kill. These are professional criminals. They make money by holding tourists for ransom, but sometimes they don’t keep their part of the bargain. It is very bad.”

  “Well, thank goodness that wasn’t the case tonight,” Vaughan said. “I think this discussion is better left for the morning, Jessica. You must be exhausted, and we can all use some sleep.”

  “I can’t argue with that,” I said, rising. “Let me help you clear away the dishes.”

  “No, no, Señora. That is my job.”

  “I’ll help Maria Elena,” Olga said. “Vaughan, why don’t you show Jessica to her room?” She gave me a peck on the cheek and pushed me toward the hall. “I’ll see you in the morning. Better yet, sleep late and I’ll see you in the afternoon.”