Lucy's Money: A Lucy Ripken Mystery (The Lucy Ripken Mysteries Book 4)

by J. J. Henderson

  Sitting on the dock at Tortuguero a couple of hours later, Lucy’s emotions rollercoasted between shock and fear. She could hear the distant buzz of what she hoped—prayed—would be Carnation James’ boat cruising upriver, come to get her the hell out of there. That she was anxious to be on the road again was an understatement. Soon Doris motored into view; Lucy and a pair of turtle-huggers from Connecticut grabbed their bags and jumped on board. The turtle-lovers, a twenty-two year old girl and her nineteen year old boyfriend, were heading home after two months on duty, guarding the turtles of Tortuguero from poachers and predators. Lucy had managed small talk for ten minutes on the dock and then drifted off, too much on her mind. She didn’t want to embitter their sweet Connecticut idealism with a dose of unsweet reality. Not here in idyllic, palm-fringed Caribbean Costa Rica.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THE WILD SOUTHEAST

  After lunch in Limón Lucy boarded a southbound bus and was soon rolling along the smooth, arrow-straight Caribbean coastal road towards Cahuita, Puerto Viejo, and Manzanillo. According to the latest guidebook editions a whole crop of cool little hotels, mostly run by Italians and Germans, had sprung up on the beach and in the jungle along this very road. Lucy’s job was to check them out. She hoped to cover the whole stretch in a day or two, then head farther south, to explore the islands around Bocas del Toro off the coast of Panama. And then get the hell off the Caribbean side.

  Lucy watched the ocean through a skein of swaying palms. Beyond the driftwood-littered beach, waves broke white against mud-colored water. Tidy little shacks and ramshackle homes buried in gardens dotted the roadside, with the occasional more grandiose wooden house on stilts signaling the presence of American or European ex-pat interlopers. Now and then small signs indicated hotels or lodges. Lucy was looking for one called Rio Verde; it had been written up in three different guidebooks, including her own, as exemplifying the best in eco-lodge design.

  Lucy spotted the Rio Verde’s tiny green sign, and requested a stop. She shouldered her bag and jumped out. The next bus would roll past in an hour. She hoped to get the Rio Verde listing updated in time to catch it.

  Crossing the road, the first thing she noticed was a sign tacked onto the gateway arch: Se Vende. For Sale. Not a good sign to see out front of what was supposedly the best little eco-hotel on this stretch of coast.

  Approaching the entrance, she called out, “Hello? Anyone here?” No one responded. She peered in: no one in sight, though the place appeared well-maintained. She circled to the sea-facing side, where wooden planter’s chairs were strewn along a wide verandah facing the ocean. “Anybody home?” Lucy called. Across a lawn dotted with flowering shrubs stood several tidy outbuildings. But where was everybody? She returned to the main building and went in, nervous now. The last empty place she’d seen was a researchers’ hut in a jungle up the road.

  She checked out the ground floor restaurant and bar. A staircase rose to the guestrooms. She peeked in the small kitchen. Immaculate and empty. Lucy called up the stairs. No one answered. On the reception desk she found a rate sheet, some brochures listing various tours, programs, and projects, and a plastic-encased sheet which listed the For Sale info: 10-room hotel with restaurant, ten hectares of land, 250 meters of beachfront, established rep as animal sanctuary, etc., etc.: asking price $250,000 U.S.

  Maybe if she hadn’t seen a dead body that very day, just up the road and the river, she’d have considered this place an affordable paradise. But not now.

  She went outside, walked about and banged on the doors of the outbuildings, got no response. She went back in to the reception area, ready to get her stuff and go. Then she heard a truck coming down the driveway.

  Suddenly she felt trapped, or at least, vulnerable. She was alone in a mysteriously abandoned hotel, two hundred yards off a little-traveled road in a region of Costa Rica with a bad reputation. She’d seen a shot-dead, alligator-chewed body that very day. A truck approaching. Men drove trucks, and were not always friendly. Or were too friendly. She picked up her bag and moved quickly to the other end of the building, where she waited, ready to run for the jungle, where a river full of alligators waited.

  She heard a car door slam, and then, thank God, a woman’s voice, talking softly, seemingly to a child. Lucy tentatively moved towards the hotel entrance, and paused by the reception desk. A moment later the front door swung open, and a lean, Hispanic-looking, fiftysomething woman walked in, wearing jeans and a red t-shirt, hair pulled back, holding in her arms—a sloth! “Oh my God,” she screamed in accented English. “Don’t—who are you—what are you doing in my place?” The sloth visibly tensed up, grabbing with both arms for her neck. “It’s OK, Butterball, don’t worry, baby.” She scratched him under the chin, and he calmed down. She glowered at Lucy, and then the glower softened. It was just the two of them in the room. Watched by a fuzzy gray-brown sloth with a silly grin on its face. “I’m sorry. I’m just—Can I help you?”

  “No, I’m sorry, really,” Lucy spoke quickly. “I got dropped off by a bus and came down the driveway and no one was here so I came in.” She slowed down. “I’m a guidebook writer. I came to update information on the—I mean it is a hotel, right?”

  “Yes, it is. But—” She stopped and walked past Lucy. “Let me put Butterball in her hammock.” She put the sloth down into a woven sling chair dangling from the ceiling. “She’s had a long day in the truck.”

  “She’s really cute.”

  “She’s lived with us for six years now. Her mother was killed when she fell out of a tree into the road and got run over.”

  “How sad.”

  “She’s doing well with us. And our guests love her.”

  “I was wondering about that. Where are the guests? Can business be that bad?”

  “So you don’t—you didn’t hear?”

  “Hear what?”

  “What happened here?”

  “No. I just read in all the guidebooks that you had about the nicest hotel on this side of the country. So here I am.”

  “We got robbed a few months ago. For the third time in the past two years. During the rainy season, when there was no one around. This time Romy—Romeo, my husband and partner—was so fed up he tried to fight the two guys that were robbing us. One of them stabbed him five times. They got away with a camera and fifty-six dollars U.S. And a bottle of rum.”

  “Jesus. Is he—”

  “He survived. Six weeks in the hospital in San Jose. Then he went home—to Spain, where we came from 23 years ago to make this hotel—and says he will not come back. So I am selling the hotel and will also go home to Spain.”

  “What a shame,” Lucy said. “It’s a beautiful place.”

  “It has been our life for 23 years,” she said. “We made it from nothing. Built it ourselves, and planted all the flowers and bushes, and set up the animal sanctuary. Five years ago we started actually to make money. And now—well, everything changes. Oh, by the way, I’m Lucia Montoya. Romeo Montoya is my husband. And Butterball is our three-toed baby.” She smiled, and then sighed. “We just can’t take the, you know, uncertainty, wondering if someone will come back and rob us again. The police are, well, what can they do, the nearest town is 25 kilometers away. Romy refuses to have a gun here. And so we are simply not safe. Not any more. There was a time nothing bad ever happened around here, but now—” she shrugged. “I can not recommend this place to you. Unless you’re willing to have your own police. I came here to get away from violence. Now it is all around us.”

  “I know,” Lucy said, debating whether to tell what she’d seen that very day. The woman deserved to know. Needed to know. She told her story.

  At the end, after a moment Lucia shook her head. “God, where in the world will it all end? Costa Rica is—was?—supposed to be one of the last of the best places.”

  “I don’t know,” Lucy said sadly. “But this place is too beautiful. Someone will want to buy it.”

  “Yes, of course they will. Someone
willing to, you know, have armed security, that sort of thing. This is a good place, and somebody will have the energy to deal with these troubles. Who knows, maybe the violence will pass. Maybe people will stop taking crack cocaine and going crazy. Maybe. But Romy—since he got hurt, he needs a safer life. And so do I.” She shrugged. “We made a good place. Now we move on.”

  “Should I leave the hotel in the guidebook? Are you closed until you sell?”

  “We have a local family living nearby who’ve been with us for nearly ten years. We’re going to re-open next week and let them run the place until we find a buyer, who will hopefully keep them on. They’re good people, and have worked well with us. She’s the cook, he’s the manager and groundskeeper, their two daughters keep the rooms. They should do fine, although without Romy I can’t imagine this place functioning. He’s a miracle worker. And the animals come to him like he’s St. Francis.” She looked at Lucy. “Give them a break. Write it up like all is well.”

  “I’ll say it’s open under new management. But I really have to mention what happened. Like I have to mention the dead boy in the canal. It isn’t fair to the readers not to. Did they ever catch the guys that did it?”

  “Yes.” She sighed. “Two seventeen-year old boys from Limón. They wanted money for drugs.” She headed towards the swinging kitchen doors. “You want a soda or mineral water?”

  “Sure. Water sounds good.”

  She disappeared for a moment, then came back with a tray holding a sweaty-cold bottle of mineral water and two glasses. “Let’s sit.” They did. “The boys got sent to juvenile detention. For six months. If Romy had been in court instead of the hospital they probably would have thrown him in jail for assaulting minors.”

  “God, what a nightmare.”

  “I thought we had this place pretty well figured out,” she said. “Costa Rica, I mean. After 20 years, I thought we’d get some consideration. But when it came time for justice we were just a pair of exploitative foreigners who’d taken advantage of the local people for years, and it wasn’t surprising that a couple of them turned on us. They implied that we deserved it. That’s the story that got told in court.” She stopped. “God, I should shut up. I can’t complain, we’ve had a wonderful life here.” She stood. “And now it’s over. So you want to stay the night? I can offer you a room, no charge, but you’ll have to make the bed yourself. My crew’s gone this week.”

  “No, that’s OK. I’m headed down to Cahuita. I need to do the entire rest of this coast by tomorrow night.”

  “Be careful down there. There are some bad people around there as well. Only a few, but that’s all it takes.”

  “Sad but true. You have any hotel recommendations in Cahuita or Puerto Viejo?”

  “The place right at the entrance to the park is nice. A couple from Germany took it over last year. And in Viejo make sure you have a meal at Maria’s Garden Café. She’s an Indian from Trinidad and a fabulous cook, and one of my best friends.” She looked at her watch. “I think the next bus will be passing by in about ten minutes. You should probably head up to the road.”

  “Yeah.” Lucy got up. “I’ll just take a few of these.” She grabbed a rate sheet and several brochures off the counter. “Well, thanks for the info. I’m really sorry about what happened. Sounds like you’re in for some big changes.”

  “I think I’ll enjoy life in Europe again. The food and wine anyway. It’s been a long time.”

  They walked outside together. The truck was a mud-crusted four-wheel drive monster, at least ten years old. Lucy stepped around it and headed up the drive. She waved. “Good luck, Lucia,” she said, then reached the road just in time to flag down the bus. She ran over and clambered aboard. Settling into a seat on the ocean side of the bus, she fell into a sad reverie. The dark side of human nature—inescapable, it seemed, in this world—made living in an isolated place like this impossible. How sad it was, she thought, gazing out at the sea: those beautiful green waves crashing onto the sands of yet another paradise lost.

  Less than an hour later the bus cranked an abrupt left off the pavement, bumped half a mile down a dirt road, and stopped in the middle of the intersection that formed the center of Cahuita village. Lucy and a few others got off; the rest were headed to Puerto Viejo. The bus rumbled away and she had a look around. Rastaricans slo-mo hustling, tri-color pot flags flying in light wind, hippies lounging, air hot as Hades. The sea looked good, the town shabby, colorful, an outpost of nowhereland. A good place to get loaded and then what? Nothing. She did the town in two hours, had dinner and a beer in a Chinarican cafe, and went to bed.

  By six a.m. she was up, dressed in hiking sandals, shorts, t-shirt, and a light jacket, packed and ready to go. She left two dollars for the chambermaid and walked to the hotel office. There she found the snorkel, mask, and fins they’d left for her.

  As the sun rose behind billowing cotton clouds out over the Caribbean, she began her walk. The wide, flat trail into the national park led along under a canopy of palm, cacao, and almond trees, with the beach a few dozen yards to her left. Shortly after she got onto the trail a troop of howler monkeys, howling not at all at six a.m., appeared in the trees overhead, and followed along above her as she quietly walked the trail.

  After an hour, she reached Cahuita Point; here the trail swung south. Large waves broke over coral reefs offshore. Inside the reef, the water looked smooth and clear. Soon she found a small, south-facing beach, smoothed by a recent high tide. She took her pack off, fished out a one-piece suit, quickly stripped and changed. She stashed her pack up in a tree and slipped down to the water. She donned fins, mask, and snorkel, dove in, and swam towards the reef.

  As she approached the coral, she saw no color: this particular reef had gone dead gray, killed by silt and whatever they sprayed on those bananas upstream. She swam along the edge of the reef. She found an opening and turned towards open sea. Soon things improved as she floated over several large clusters of live coral mingled with sea fans and other plant life. She drifted along in a dreamy undersea state deepened by the rhythm of her own smooth, steady breathing. Then she heard the high-pitched underwater hum of a motor: a boat, somewhere not too far off. She popped up, took off her mask, and got her bearings. She’d drifted southwest and offshore. The waves broke just a few dozen yards away. She began to swim back towards the beach. The motor sound grew louder.

  Offshore in a bathing suit. Bad guys in the area. She had been in this position before. Swimming steadily, fighting down the visceral panic brought on by memories of an incident by a reef off Isla Mujeres in Mexico, she worked her way back.

  She reached the beach, intent on grabbing her pack and making herself scarce.

  Then she heard a growl, and another, and…Oh my God! Back to the sea, she faced the jungle, and out front of it, snarling at her as they laid claim to the beach, a pack of dogs! Skinny-looking ingrown mongrel mutts, the kind you saw skulking down alleys all over the world—but every one of these nine dogs wore on its mug a slavering, grinning snarl. A pack of would-be hyenas, right here in Cahuita National Park. Holy Shit! “Get the hell away from me, you ugly beasts,” she shouted. Their ears went down and their eyes went slitty, but the dogs stepped not back in fear but forward, determined…hungry. Damn. She back slowly towards the water. One of them dragged her pack out onto the beach, another joined it in ripping at the pack, hunting food. The others inched towards her, slowly creeping, snarling. Fins in hand, Lucy backed to the water’s edge, hoping the little killers did not like to swim.

  At that moment the boat came into view: a small wooden motorcraft with three men aboard, skimming along on the smooth seas inside the reef. Lucy stood still, stuck between a boat full of strange men and a pack of wild dogs. She froze.

  The man at the stern piloted the boat straight at the beach, at the last second pulling up the motor as he ran the boat up on the sand. The three jumped out, shouting at the pack of dogs, scattering them into the bush. The men wore ragged shorts, tank tops, fl
ip flops. Two had dreads and beards. “Wow, missy,” one said, grinning at her, “Close call, eh?”

  “You’re not kidding,” Lucy said.

  Another said, “So glad we find you, miss. We got here just in time. Come to stop you going on further down dis trail.”

  “I can see why,” she said. “What’s with those…”

  “Them wild dogs sometimes been runnin’ in de south part of de park here. People say dey nasty early in de morning, lookin’ for food an’ such,” he said. “So we not like to see anyone walk alone through here. Heard you was out here alone so come lookin’.”

  “Wild dogs? What kind of wild dogs are native to Costa Rica?”

  “Dogs that be puppies from the dog of dis crazy American surfer live in Puerto Viejo las’ ten years,” he said.

  One of the others chimed in. “Man name Joseph Kelman. He from Long Island New York. He come here to surf, never leave. Got no money, got dis bitch keep havin’ puppies, but he not take care of ‘em, nobody else want ‘em, he stop feedin’ ‘em, at first they come up here to beg food from people campin’ on the edge of the park but eventual they end up in the jungle out here. Some other dogs join ‘em, now we got like a pack.”

  “Jesus,” Lucy said. “Nobody mentions that in the guidebooks.”

  “Jus’ been two years they gone bad. Attack a little boy last year, he almost lost his arm. Kill a’ buncha chickens, a goat, dis year. Been chasin’ people an’ such. Oh, by the way, my name Samuel, this is William, him there called Sing Song.”

  “Nice to meet you. Sing Song? That’s an interesting name.”

  He smiled. “Well, my mama say I come out singin’, and I still singin’ thirty years later, so even though I named Jacob, everybody call me Sing Song.”

  “I’m Lucy. Lucy Ripken. I wonder why they didn’t say anything at the hotel? Guess they wanted my five dollars for the snorkeling gear.” She took the pack and fished for her sandals and a shirt. “But I don’t get it. Don’t people come through here everyday? I mean this is a national park, right? How come these dogs haven’t been chased off or captured or something?”