Chaos in Cuba (A Starling and Swift Cozy Mystery Book 4)

by M. J. Mandrake

  “Sabrina?” Kitty asked. Her voice sounded high and breathless.

  The woman turned to her and her mouth opened in shock.

  “No!” Stepping off the sidewalk, she woman hurried down an alleyway between two buildings. Chica barked loudly and Kitty rushed after her.

  “Wait,” she called out, but seconds later, the woman had disappeared.

  Kitty broke into a run, checking doors and peering into windows. She had to be there somewhere. She couldn’t simply vanish. But Kitty didn’t know the area like a native. She didn’t know which doors would open to hide someone in need of protection, or which shades would be pulled against prying eyes. As she ran, the alley narrowed. There were strings of laundry drying between windows far above and the sunlight struggled to reach the ground.

  Chica pulled back, leaning against Kitty’s legs in a way that nearly brought her tumbling over onto the cobblestone streets.

  “Wrong way,” Kitty grunted, and tried to move Chica out of her path.

  Chica didn’t move, her body firmly against Kitty’s.

  She froze, looking into the end of the dim alleyway, trying to see what― or who― was ahead of her. The fine hairs on the back of her neck stood up. She’d run into a deserted alley and nobody knew where she was. The busy sidewalk seemed very far away and the people didn’t glance in her direction as they streamed past.

  Reversing direction, Kitty tried to breathe calmly. If she could just make it back to the open area, she would be okay. She thought of Chica and how she would defend Kitty to the death if need be. The idea filled her with fear and she forced herself to push the images away.

  Footsteps sounded behind her and Kitty started to run. “Chica, come!” For a moment she was afraid Chica would turn and fight for her, but instead she loped alongside Kitty.

  Only a few yards to go. She thought of Leander and his offer to meet his family. She’d never answered him. At the time, she’d been shocked at what seemed like a huge step forward and barely considered it. But now, as her life flashed before her eyes, she thought of how she had allowed an old betrayal to cripple her life. She’d permitted one man to keep her from true happiness, basing so many of her decision on what he had done to her long ago.

  Her breath was ragged as she sprinted the last few feet to the sidewalk, nearly knocking over an old man with a rickety cart. He let loose a torrent of angry words and she held up a hand in apology, gasping for breath.

  She stumbled on toward the hotel, her mind whirling with questions. If Sabrina was alive, who had fallen from the bell tower?

  Chapter Nine

  “I carry death in my left pocket. Sometimes I take it out and talk to it: "Hello, baby, how you doing? When you coming for me? I'll be ready.”

  ― Charles Bukowski

  Walking into the main lobby of La Casa Rosa felt like entering enemy territory. Kitty couldn’t help glancing at each face, wondering if they were really a tourist, or if they were undercover smugglers looking for revenge.

  She made her way to the desk, brushing back the damp curls from her forehead. She probably looked like she’d run all the way back from the police station. Running wasn’t a natural state for her and she avoided it at all costs. Life and death situations only, obviously.

  An older man stood behind the desk and he didn’t look up as Kitty approached. He wore the front desk uniform of a simple white shirt and a red tie, but Kitty thought she had seen him going in and out of the kitchen before. After a few seconds of waiting, he lifted his head.

  “Welcome to La Casa Rosa,” he said in Spanish, his tone flat.

  Kitty introduced herself and asked if there were any messages for her.

  “Room number?”

  “Thirty-four,” Kitty answered and then watched him gaze at the cubby holes behind him, slowly making his way to the right number and looking inside. He ran a finger inside the square just to be sure.

  “No,” he said and went back to reading the newspaper spread out on the desk.

  Kitty looked around the lobby. La Casa Rosa wasn’t a five star hotel but it was classic Havana architecture. The employees wore uniforms, the welcome staff knew some rudimentary English, and the beds were adequate. It wasn’t luxury by any stretch of the word. Like most historic hotels, tourists were drawn to it more for the ambience than the pampering. But even with the bright colors, cast iron decorations around the windows and doors, and the history of the place, Kitty knew the hotel wouldn’t last long without trained staff. Putting a surly dish washer on the front desk was an act of utter desperation.

  “Where is Leya?” Kitty asked.

  He shrugged without looking up. “Didn’t come back from lunch,” he said. “Boss says she’s fired. Sabrina’s gone, too. Said she was leaving with her boyfriend.”

  “When did she say that?” Kitty asked, trying to remain calm. Clearly, the police had not notified the staff of Sabrina’s death yet.

  He shrugged. “Early this morning.”

  “Have you seen her since?”

  Shaking his head, he turned the page of his paper.

  Kitty slowly turned toward the stairs, thinking hard. All the way back from the monastery, she’d been trying to convince herself she hadn’t seen Sabrina, that it had been a trick of her imagination. But if Sabrina had told the staff she wouldn’t be back, maybe she was preparing to run away.

  As Kitty trudged up the stairs, she thought of all the reasons Sabrina would have had to leave. Maybe she really was running away with a boyfriend. The man in the light blue suit could be the one, and maybe they’d decided to leave Havana together. Or perhaps she knew her life was in danger and she’d been preparing to leave.

  Reaching her door, Kitty put her key in the lock and turned the handle, thinking of one explanation that made more sense than all the others. Sabrina’s role in the human trafficking had been discovered by someone, and decided to silence them before fleeing the city. She pushed another woman from the tower and, having faked her own death, was preparing to escape.

  Chica growled deep in her throat and Kitty froze. There was someone in her room. They must have heard her turn the key. They could be standing there ready to make sure she didn’t look any closer into Sabrina’s disappearance. She pulled her phone from her pocket, and then forced away the thought. She couldn’t call Leander without knowing for sure. He had enough to do without running over to check under her bed.

  Standing back from the door, she turned the handle and let it swing inward. Señora Delores stood there, her hands deep in Kitty’s bags. The battered aluminum bucket and her grimy mop stood a few feet inside the doorway. She clearly hadn’t heard the key in the lock or even seen the door move.

  “Excuse me?” Kitty said, sighing. She didn’t take kindly to thieves, but after witnessing a murder just that morning, she had trouble mustering the outrage needed.

  Señora Delores looked as shocked as Kitty was for a moment, and then she tugged her shawl closer around her shoulders and her face crumpled into tears. “My Sabrina is gone,” she cried. Her Spanish was a little slurred and at first Kitty thought she’d been drinking, but realized it was because the old woman lacked most of her teeth.

  So the police had notified them after all. Or maybe just a few of the staff. “Yes, I’m so sorry.”

  “My beautiful girl,” she wailed, burying her face in Kitty’s shirt. The woman smelled like unwashed clothes and eucalyptus.

  “She was your granddaughter?”

  “No, but like a granddaughter,” Señora Delores said.

  Kitty gently disentangled herself. Chica hadn’t relaxed. She stood still, the old woman fixed in her gaze, her body tense.

  “What were you doing in my bag?”

  The woman was such a bad liar it was comical. “I dropped something in it,” she said, moving toward her mop.

  “But it wasn’t open when I left,” Kitty said.

  Señora Delores darted behind Kitty and headed out the door. “It was open,” she insisted. “I just pas
sed by, and ooops!” She threw up her hands and smiled a toothless grin.

  Kitty would have insisted she return and explain herself more fully, but there was nothing in her bag to steal. Some clothes, a flashlight, sunscreen. She packed light and carried her valuables with her.

  Unless she hadn’t been stealing. Kitty rushed forward and peeked inside, pulling the edges to get a better view, afraid to touch anything. Gingerly picking up the sleeve of a shirt, Kitty removed it from her carryon. A sharp edge of a small, clear bag poked out from under her slacks. Kitty pinched it between two fingers and brought it slowly to eye level. It was clearly holding something that wasn’t her kind of souvenir.

  Chica took one sniff and barked, loudly.

  “I know,” Kitty muttered. “And now it’s been in my carry on.”

  Setting tiny bag on the table, she pulled out her cell phone. Leander was probably busy wrangling with the Havana police, but she couldn’t go another minute without telling him what she’d found. At the rate the pennies were dropping, she was going to come face to face with the murderer any second.

  ***

  Leander snapped several photos of her carry on and the bag before using tweezers to open the it. Peering inside, they both made noises of disgust. Kitty wasn’t completely sure, but she would put good money on the fact Señora Delores had just planted a baggie of cocaine in her carry on.

  Setting it back on the table, Leander closed his eyes for a moment. “This is bad.”

  “I agree,” Kitty said quietly. “Do you know what this means?”

  “You’re in real danger. Obviously. Someone is trying to frame you so your testimony won’t count against them.”

  “Well, yes. But more than that. If Señora Delores is in league with Mr. Martinez, that casts suspicion on him as well.”

  Leander frowned. “Do you think he knows Sabrina’s alive and is part of this? He seemed on the up-and-up.”

  “If Señora Delores isn’t really working for him, or working for both sides, then he’s either bad and in league with Artemio Flores, or he’s being duped. Which do you think is more likely?” Kitty asked.

  “He didn’t strike me as someone who would be easy to dupe. He’s certainly not stupid.”

  “And Señora Delores is quite possibly the worst liar I’ve ever met,” she said. It wasn’t just the lie about losing something in Kitty’s bag. The old woman’s insistence that Sabrina was like a beloved granddaughter had sounded completely false.

  “When you called, Martinez wanted to know what was going on, if you’d found anything. Luckily, I could truthfully say you needed me to come back to the hotel and I didn’t know more than that.”

  Something occurred to Kitty. “If you’d had to lie, would he have known?”

  “I don’t think so. I haven’t spent years training like some professional spies, but I know enough about psychology and I can keep a straight face.”

  Kitty nodded. Her past had made her a little sensitive to liars and she hated the thought of working with someone who perpetually bent the truth, but she also had to acknowledge that on some days her tour guide diplomacy mostly consisted of little white lies to keep everyone happy. She’d never had to before, but she was confident she could lie to someone’s face under pressure, and they’d never be the wiser.

  “At any other time, I’d say finding out who really was at the bottom of the tower was our biggest priority. But right now, we need to know who’s on our side. The Herefords’ legal troubles make this a lot more serious,” Leander said. “If two tour members have been caught with the intention to resell luxury items, then what’s to say other members aren’t involved in other illegal activities?”

  Kitty sat on the bed and wrapped her arms around herself. The daisies on her pink sundress looked absurdly cheerful under the circumstances. She should have known she’d be running for her life, not standing around looking pretty in the Caribbean sunshine.

  “Maybe I should have stayed on the ship. Jorge was trying to convince me to stay, but I thought I was needed here. I’m just making a mess of things.” Now she was probably going to be flagged by a drug sniffing dog and end up in a Cuban prison until she was too old to see the Bingo cards.

  “Hey,” Leander said, sitting beside her and putting an arm around her shoulder. “I admit this is a really bad situation, and we’re probably in extreme danger, but that doesn’t mean we can’t still enjoy our vacation.”

  Kitty snorted. If he had said anything more comforting, she probably would have fallen to pieces. “You sound like you’ve done this before. Had many girlfriends accused of smuggling crack out of Communist countries?”

  He smiled. “Girlfriend, eh?”

  She took his hand. It was awkward timing, as they sat beside a baggy of drugs and tried to figure out why a murdered woman was still alive, but she didn’t want to wait. She might not get another chance with the way the day was going. “I wanted to talk to you about that.”

  “Uh oh. You sound serious.”

  The irony made her smile again. “I’m sorry I didn’t answer you, but I’d love to visit your family. Or meet them.”

  He grinned. “That’s not the rejection I thought was coming.”

  “It wasn’t you, really. I know it’s a cliché but it’s all me. Someday, I should probably tell you…” She tried to think of words that adequately described her previous romantic history and was simply too weary to some up with anything.

  “It doesn’t matter if it’s you or me or Chica. You don’t ever have to explain yourself to me.”

  “Thank you,” she said softly. Kitty thought he really meant what he said. But it was strange that he lacked any curiosity about her sometimes erratic behavior. She had to admit, even to herself, she was clearly avoiding any kind of attachment while encouraging their relationship. Then again, maybe he had been hurt the same way, and she didn’t seem strange to him after all.

  She rubbed her head, feeling the headache return with full force. She was almost out of Advil and should have picked some up while on the ship. Their lunch on the waterfront had been ages ago. Leander probably hadn’t eaten since that morning.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “Just feeling like Long John Silver here. ‘There’s never a man looked me between the eyes and seen a good day afterward.’ I’m sorry you’ve gotten mixed up in all of this. I’m bad luck.”

  “Ridiculous,” Leander said. “Do you know what my job was like before I met you?”

  “You were involved in a lot of murder investigations before you ever met me?”

  “Actually, no. Mostly stolen passports and a few small thefts, but―” he said quickly, “It was really boring. I don’t mind murder, really.”

  Kitty couldn’t decide whether that was comforting or alarming. She decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. “I’ll try to stop feeling guilty about it, then. I just wish we’d have been able to have a little time to ourselves.”

  He kissed her softly and said, “Remember that nice dinner we had in Mérida? Then we stopped on our way back through the plaza and watched the sunset light up the cathedral in pink. Remember the man who sold us the bag of roasted peanuts and then got mad when we shared it with the squirrels? They followed us all the way back to your house.”

  She smiled. “You’re forgetting how the electricity went out and you got a tour of the bookstore by flashlight.”

  “But then we sat by the fire and your black cats trapped me in their favorite chair. Remember how you laughed because I couldn’t tell them apart and you insisted they looked completely different?”

  “And Chica got jealous because you weren’t paying enough attention to her and went to sulk in the corner.” Kitty had thought of that evening for days afterward. They’d talked for hours, sharing funny stories of their time in Mexico as expats.

  “You’re not bad luck. You’re the opposite. I loved seeing your bookstore, your home. It’s one of the nicest places I’ve ever been, and I’ve traveled all over t
he world.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. It’s a very impressive collection, nicely organized, and obviously curated by someone who appreciates literature.”

  Kitty laughed. “Now you’re just flattering me.”

  “All true, I swear,” he said.

  There was a knock on the door and Chica barked loudly as they both jumped. They’d forgotten about the world outside. Kitty’s gaze flew to the packet of cocaine. Maybe Señora Delores had done more than drop one small envelope. Maybe she’d sprinkled a little here and there for good measure. If Kitty stepped outside, she’d probably set off every drug sniffing dog from La Casa Rosa to La Plaza Vieja.

  Leander stood up and dropped a handkerchief on the packet. Wrapping it carefully, he tucked it into his suit coat pocket and signed quickly, “I’ll take this as evidence, but until we know who to trust, I won’t take it in to the police. I’ll bring it to the embassy.”

  Kitty nodded and went to open the door. It was Penny and Elaine.

  “Is it true?” Penny asked, her expression have excited and half disbelieving. Elaine stood next to her, white hair in disarray. She’d either been napping or had walked through a wind tunnel. “Did that retired couple from Iowa really get arrested for smuggling cigars?”

  “It’s a little more complicated than that, but I suppose you could―”

  “I knew it,” said Elaine. “I knew they looked shifty. All that ‘everybody loves Christmas’ stuff made me suspicious. Nobody loves Christmas that much. Plus, those names are faker than fake. I mean, Herefords from Iowa? Do they think we’re stupid?”

  “Their names are real, I believe” Leander said.

  “And what are you doing in here with the door closed? You’re going to ruin her reputation if you keep this up,” Penny said.

  He had the good sense not to argue. “I want to warn you both to keep your luggage locked or with you at all times.”

  “Any particular reason why?” Penny asked.

  “Let’s just say Kitty found an unexpected ‘donation’ in her luggage. Señora Delores has a key to every room and she’ll use it if given the chance. I’ve taken the packet with me, but if the local authorities had found it first, we’d be visiting her in a Havana prison for many years to come.”