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

by M. J. Mandrake

  “That’s very good,” Elaine said.

  “Good?” Kitty asked. Maybe she’d misunderstood Elaine’s sign, or maybe she was as tired as Kitty was.

  “Sure. It means you’re on the right track. Getting you bumped off would silence you forever.” Elaine looked positively cheerful.

  She grimaced. “I’d rather not be bumped off or end up with a drug charge. We need to get out of here. The Captain said he’d do his best to delay leaving the port until we’re cleared to travel, but no guarantees, of course.” She knew that they would be transported back to Miami somehow and missing embarkation was really the least of her worries, but she couldn’t help the slightly panicky feeling at the idea of being left behind.

  “I need to take this over but I’ll be back. Please be careful,” Leander said. “All of you.”

  “Of course,” Kitty answered. Moments later, he was gone and she instinctively moved closer to Penny and Elaine. Toto shuffled closer to Chica, as if the older black lab was looking for comfort. They were all on edge. It was hard to know who to trust.

  “What should we do now?” Elaine asked.

  “Maybe talk to the others,” Penny offered.

  Kitty took a deep breath. As hard as it was to remember, there were good people in the world and she needed to ask for help. There was something bothering her, something that was sticking in her memory, and she couldn’t pick it out of the confusion of that terrible hour. She’d tried her best to be logical and take mental notes, but the shock of it all had fogged her mind.

  “Are you two up for a trip back to the bell tower?”

  They exchanged glances.

  “Of course,” they signed together.

  “We’ve got to solve this murder before anybody else gets hurt.” Elaine straightened her hat. “Whatever you need us to do, we’re ready.”

  Kitty smiled. “Good. But first I have to tell you that I think Sabrina isn’t dead.”

  The both looked confused.

  Elaine said, “Are you sure you’re not one of those people who can see dead people? I saw a movie about that. In the end, you find out pretty much everybody is dead and―”

  Penny interrupted. “Oh, that would make a lot of sense. Sometimes I wonder if I’m really dead and just haven’t realized it. I get ignored all over the place. It’s like nobody can see me.”

  “I think that’s a working theory,” Elaine said. “That would explain why we keep bumping into Kitty. But if we’re dead, and we’re trying to tell you something, what is it? If you don’t figure out what it is, you’ll never get rid of us and we’ll never be at peace.” She looked down at Toto. “Oh, I sure hope she’s dead, too.”

  Kitty waved her hands in the air. Honestly. Sometimes these two…

  “No, no. You two are alive. And I really do mean that Sabrina is not the woman who was pushed from the bell tower.”

  “But then… who was?” Elaine asked. “And why?”

  “Exactly,” Kitty said.

  Chapter Ten

  “Dead men don't bite.”

  ― Robert Louis Stevenson

  The sun was setting and the air was much cooler than during their earlier visit to the monastery. The police tape was still blocking pedestrian traffic from the area of the square where the woman had fallen to her death but there were no guards and the main entrance was still open.

  Looking around, Kitty waved Penny and Elaine through the archway. Chica lifted her nose and the hair on her back stood up. Toto sniffed the ground and looked around.

  “I want to go up to the bell tower, if I can,” Kitty said. “You two can stay down here and watch for trouble.”

  Penny frowned. “I feel like we’re sending you into the lion’s den.”

  “There’s no reason for the murderer to come back. Of all the places he’d be, this is the last. Same with Sabrina.” Kitty looked around at the dimly light church. The walls had grown shadows from earlier in the day and the windows were dark. If she’d been the kind of woman who thought about ghosts and haunted houses, Kitty would be trembling in fear.

  “I guess we’ll just keep our eyes peeled,” Elaine said. She found a bench and settled into it.

  “I’ll be back in five minutes, no more.”

  “Setting my alarm,” Penny said, getting out her phone.

  “Come on, Chica,” Kitty said and started for the stairs. It took her a moment to realize Chica wasn’t following her. “It’s okay. All the bad people are gone.”

  After several seconds of cajoling, Kitty managed to get Chica onto the stairs. Kitty looked up and realized the light that had poured in the windows during the day was gone. Perfect. She didn’t know what she was looking for and it was probably too dark to see what it was even if she walked right past it. Sighing, she turned on her phone’s flashlight function and started up into the darkness.

  Every so often she stopped and listened intently. She could hear salsa music filtering up from the bands near the square and the laughter of pedestrians walking by. It was a Saturday night in Havana and everyone was having a good time. Everyone except the woman who had been pushed from the tower and Kitty was determined to bring her killer to justice.

  As Kitty walked up the last flight of stairs, she felt a cold breath of air travel over her, raising the fine hairs on her arms. Chica stopped at the threshold and whined softly in her throat.

  “I know. Bad memories. Me, too.” Kitty stepped into the room and looked around. It was difficult to see in the cold beam of the flashlight, but the room looked the same as it had earlier in the day, minus the single red flat which had been taken as evidence.

  She walked over near the window, crouched down and tried to remember how everything had looked. Even if she hadn’t seen Sabrina on the street, Kitty thought the red flat would have stuck out in her mind eventually. Sabrina never wore anything lower than three inches. The flat clearly belonged to someone who dressed more conservatively, like a desk worker.

  Kitty closed her eyes for a moment, wishing that she was wrong but knowing she was right. Leya had worn red flats and was now missing. It was almost certain that she was the woman pushed from the bell tower. But by whom?

  Standing up, she went to the small door on the opposite side of the tower room. Chica followed closely behind, eyes darting everywhere.

  She tugged the handle and for a moment she was afraid it had been locked, but it yielded to her, opening onto the long, dark hallway.

  “Well, isn’t this cheery,” Kitty whispered. The noises from the square had faded away. Kitty felt as if she were stepping back in time, and not in a good way like in one of those romantic time travel television shows where all the men were handsome and wore kilts.

  She walked slowly, trying to remember what she had seen earlier that morning. There had been the mouse darting from one side of the hallway to the next, now probably safely tucked into his little nest. There was the bundle of cleaning supplies, the apron and the keys on a hook. As she passed the open doors, Kitty tried hard not to focus on the dark shadows inside. Chica slunk along beside her, eyes glinting in the half-light, ears up.

  Kitty made it to the far end and stood there by the brooms leaning against the wall. Crouching down, she poked at the pile of rags. A glint of gold in the dark made her lean forward, squinting. A zipper, some buttons. The rags were clothes, and they weren’t as dirty as Kitty had thought at first. Unrolling them, they looked almost new. At the center of the pile was a plastic bag. Kitty’s hands shook slightly as she opened it, scattering the contents onto the pile of clothing. Chica stuck her large head into the beam of light and Kitty nudged her away. There were two American passports, plane tickets, hotel room keycards, and several large stacks of hundred dollar bills rubber banded together. The smugglers were using the monastery as a stopping point, obviously.

  She thought of the young man in the light blue suit and all the packages the tour group sent off to the ship. She’d worried about drugs being tucked into their shopping, but perhaps it had been
bigger than that.

  She stood up, and directed her phone’s light at the nails on the wall. There were now two sets of keys, but nothing else. No apron. It was unlikely that the police had taken it for evidence since everything else in the hallway was still there. She’d only seen one person in Havana wearing a faded red apron.

  Kitty reached out and touched the nails, her mind turning over and over. She needed more than a hunch. She turned to return to the bell tower. Chica seemed more than happy to leave the dark, stone hallway. As they walked back through the small door, her light caught a figure just a feet ahead. Chica let out a vicious bark, and Kitty stumbled backward.

  Señora Delores stood there, her toothless grin lit up in the beam of Kitty’s phone.

  “Buenas noches, Señorita,” she lisped.

  Chica pushed herself between them and growled menacingly. Kitty flipped the phone over in her hand, fumbling to turn off the bright light so she could reach the keypad.

  “Put your phone on the ground,” she said, pointing a small gun at Kitty.

  Of course a murderer wouldn’t walk around without a weapon, but Kitty was shocked to see the gun. She slowly placed the phone on the ground, its bright light pointing up. Just as she stood up, it vibrated, signaling a text message.

  “What did you do to my friends?” Kitty asked, fear making her voice sound strangled and tight.

  Señora Delores shrugged. “Nothing. They are still sitting there, like stupid rocks. They hear nothing. They will be very surprised when they find your body.”

  Kitty felt a rush of relief despite the threat. It was sheer luck that Toto hadn’t seen Señora Delores and alerted her owners.

  “Do you have something else to stick in my bag, or are you just here to chat?” Kitty sounded much calmer than she felt. She pressed her legs together, hoping Señora Delores wouldn’t see her knees shaking.

  Señora Delores waved Kitty away toward the wall. “It is too bad that did not work. You could be sitting safely in jail right now.”

  Kitty quelled a shiver at the ‘safely’ part. “I’m fine, thanks. Just as I am.”

  “Of course you are. Nosy Americans. You think everything is a TV show. Guns everywhere and everyone survives. I can promise you that is not reality.” Señora Delores walked away from her, stopping by the window. “You do not understand that our life here is hard. Very hard. We must do terrible things to survive.”

  She was silhouetted in the window and Kitty had the terrible urge to rush forward, giving her a very hard push. But she didn’t and that was why Señora Delores felt confident enough to stand there. She knew Kitty was no murderer. Also, it was very unlikely that Kitty could get there before Señora Delores shot her.

  “No, you do terrible things to get rich. Your greed rules your life.”

  “Don’t lecture me!” The old woman’s voice was surprisingly loud. “You were born rich and will die rich. Do not deny it. I have seen pictures of that luxury cruise ship. It’s disgusting. Fountains of chocolate, playing games with more money than we make in a month, swimming pools the size of a square. And yet all you do is complain.” Her voice changed to a high-pitched whine. “My bed is too hard. My sheets are too rough. Where is the ice? My shower was too cold.”

  “Believe me, I hear all those complaints. I don’t go around stealing and killing people.” Kitty knew it might be better if she tried to sound a little more understanding but she was too angry to consider it. How dare the woman lecture her on wealth and privilege as if all her bad deeds were Kitty’s fault?

  Señora Delores sighed deeply. “You lack compassion. Typical. You have no idea what we suffer.”

  “So you killed her because you want to eat from a chocolate fountain? Leya didn’t deserve to die for your greed.”

  “I liked Leya. She did her job and was always on time. It’s so hard to find good help, you know.”

  Especially if you keep killing them. Kitty searched for something to say, hoping that five minutes had passed, then desperately hoping it had not. She wouldn’t be able to warn Penny and Elaine if they decided to come all the way up to the bell tower. She could only hope their bad knees and hips would keep them safely down below.

  “Artemio Flores must be a vicious boss if you felt you had to murder an innocent young girl to keep him happy.”

  To her surprise, Señora Delores laughed long and loudly. “Oh, yes. Artemio is a very bad man,” she said, her tone heavy with sarcasm.

  “You’re not afraid of him,” Kitty said. “So Mr. Martinez is the leader?”

  “That fool? He will be arrested by the end of the week. We’ve hidden some very nice packages around his house.”

  Chica shifted against Kitty’s leg and she tried not to show that she had stopped speaking to listen for footsteps.

  Señora Delores cocked her head, listening at the stairs. “Your friends are sitting downstairs waiting for you,” she said. “Or maybe they will come to see where you have gone?” She smiled as if she wanted to make Kitty suffer at the thought.

  “I don’t understand why you’re here,” Kitty said. “Did you follow me?”

  “No, it is a happy coincidence that we are here together.” Señora Delores nodded at the hallway. “I need something from in there. I’m sure you saw it.”

  Kitty thought of denying it but there was no reason to pretend. “The passports and cash for the people being smuggled out.”

  “Not just people. For Sabrina.” For the first time, Señora Delores’s voice went soft. “She’s a good girl. She deserves a new start.”

  So the story about leaving with her boyfriend had been true. Kitty thought of how Sabrina had checked her watch, waiting for her friend to arrive. She’d been waiting for the man in the light blue suit. “Leya found out, didn’t she? You killed her because she knew Sabrina was leaving and tried to stop them.”

  “Of course not,” Señora Delores said. “Nobody would interfere with someone’s plan to leave this place. Happens all the time. No, Leya was angry about her brother. Things didn’t work out for him. He was cheap, didn’t pay for a good boat. She knew Sabrina was meeting the smuggler here and she wanted to confront him.” Señora Delores shrugged. “She was very surprised to see me.”

  Kitty thought of the relatives of Lola and Victor, Brooke and Katie, and now Leya. So many loved ones dead. Her stomach twisted thinking of how they must have suffered, drifting in the open sea, desperate for water and shelter. “Artemio Flores will answer for his crimes,” she managed. “Detective Solis and Detective Larindo will catch him. They said he’s been in power for seventy years but he’s getting careless. He’s old and weak. You’ll be needing a new boss soon.”

  Señora Delores walked toward her, smiling. Chica growled and forced her way between them once more.

  “I am Artemio Flores,” she said softly. “They are chasing shadows while I walk around invisible.” She held out her arms. “Nobody looks twice at the mean old woman. I rattle my bucket and slop mop water on the floor, and everyone runs like a scared rabbit.”

  Kitty felt horror slide through her. It was the perfect cover, really. Like Elaine and Penny had said, old women were ignored. Nobody looked at them twice. They could go where they wanted and do what they pleased, and people just shrugged and smiled.

  Kitty’s phone buzzed again and her eyes flicked toward it. Elaine and Penny must know something was wrong.

  “Now, I must be going.” Señora Delores had tired of their conversation, She looked at Chica. “I think I must take care of the dog first.”

  Kitty bent down and wrapped her arms around Chica. “She didn’t do anything to you.”

  To her relief, she lowered the gun. “No, she didn’t. And she could be very useful. I bet we could train her to work for us. She is very smart.”

  Of all the horrible things Kitty had heard that night, Señora Delores’s plan for Chica was the worst. For the first time, she felt panic. “She won’t work for you. She’s got a mind of her own.”

  “
Oh, there are ways to train animals to do what we want,” Señora Delores said.

  A small sound near the doorway almost made Kitty turn her head but she resisted. She held tight to Chica’s body but raised one hand to make a sign. Stay. STAY.

  “What are you doing?” Señora Delores demanded. “What does that mean?” She raised the gun, pointed it at Chica and steadied her arm. A moment later, she crumpled to the ground and the gun clattered across the stone floor. Kitty grabbed at it and stood up, her heart pounding. Chica jumped forward and stood over the unconscious Señora Delores, growling deep in her throat.

  “I knew that woman was evil,” Penny said, dropping the small statue the ground.

  “Do you think that was a priceless artifact?” Elaine peered down at it. The force of the blow had knocked the head clean off it and the poor saint looked much less impressive. “That’s all we could find that was small enough to lift.”

  Kitty’s knees went weak and she slumped to the floor. “You guys did great.”

  “We would have been here earlier but this old body wasn’t meant for hiking up so many stairs. I almost sent Toto with instructions.” Elaine followed Kitty’s lead and sat down, wiping sweat from her face.

  “We should call Leander,” Penny said, reaching for Kitty’s phone.

  “Wait.” She held out her hand for it. Carefully turning it over, she swiped at the screen and tapped a button. “It was recording. I didn’t want my own death to be a mystery for someone else to solve.”

  Elaine and Penny grabbed her in a group hug, and the three of them sat huddled in the darkened bell tower, the laughter of the tourists ringing up from below.

  When Kitty had gathered herself again, she tapped Leander’s number and told him they needed someone to carry Señora Delores down the bell tower stairs. Artemio Flores would never again rule over Old Havana, casting human beings out onto the waves in leaky boats with bad engines, as if they were nothing more than flotsam to be swallowed up by the sea.