by K C Ames
It was a strange concept for Dana that it would take so long for homicide detectives to arrive, but that’s how it was for the small beach communities in the coast
In Costa Rica, only agents from the elite Judicial Investigative Police—known by its Spanish initials for Organismo de Investigación Judicial, OIJ—could investigate crimes.
An OIJ agent was the equivalent of an FBI Special Agent and a city police detective all rolled into one.
They were the crème de la crème of the country’s law enforcement system, highly professional and trained. Most OIJ investigators trained at the FBI National Academy, which was an elite program for active US and international law enforcement personnel to enhance their credentials in their field and to raise law enforcement standards and knowledge.
The National Police officers, like Freddy Sanchez, could not investigate crimes, nor could they charge a citizen with a crime. Their duty was to enforce the law and secure the scene, then wait for the OIJ to send down agents to do the actual investigating and assessing of who should be charged with a crime.
“Do you know which OIJ detectives are coming, Freddy?” Benny asked.
“Picado,” he replied sheepishly, knowing that wouldn’t ease Dana’s nerves over the situation of finding Barry Shy dead in her bookstore.
Both Dana and Benny sighed equally loudly.
Unfortunately for Dana, this wasn’t the first time she had to deal with OIJ Homicide Detective Juan Mora Picado since moving to Mariposa Beach from San Francisco. When her cousin, with whom she was involved in a legal battle over Casa Verde, had been murdered, Picado was sent down to investigate, and he had zeroed in on her as his prime suspect.
His surly personality made matters worse, and the two of them got along as well as Seinfeld and Newman.
After that case had been resolved and the real murderer was found out, Dana thought she would never have to see Picado again, yet just a few months later, the ornery detective was on his way back down to Mariposa Beach to investigate another homicide where she was in the mix.
She assumed he would be just as thrilled to see her as she would be about seeing him.
“My bookstore is scheduled to open in a couple days,” Dana informed Officer Freddy.
Freddy shrugged. “Your bookstore is an active crime scene, so it will be up to the OIJ to clear it, but I’m afraid it will probably be longer than two days,” he said.
Dana’s heart sunk.
Mindy put her arm around Dana.
“Come on, Dana, you should go home, there is nothing to gain by staying here.”
“Can we leave?” Benny asked Freddy.
He looked at his watch. “Um, yes, sure, go home, but don’t leave town. When the detectives arrive, they will want to talk with you two,” Freddy said, pointing at Dana and Benny.
Dana’s heart sunk even lower.
Thirteen
Mindy headed back to her coffee shop while Dana and Benny drove back to Casa Verde in their vehicles. It was six a.m., and the sun was breaking through. It already felt muggy, so it was going to be a hot day as usual in the tropics.
Dana felt terrible. She was still shaken up over finding Barry Shy dead on the bookstore’s floor. She felt bad that he was dead. And then Officer Freddy took the keys to her bookstore, so she couldn’t have access to her own store until it was cleared by the OIJ.
And if all that weren’t bad enough, soon the gossip grape vines in town would be buzzing with the juicy news that Barry Shy was murdered. Inside Dana’s bookstore. And that the bookstore’s grand opening probably wouldn’t happen as planned while the OIJ processed the crime scene… her bookstore. She wanted to cry, but she swallowed hard instead. No point in feeling sorry for herself. Barry Shy was dead, after all, and the police needed to find his killer.
Luckily, it was a fast drive from Ark Row to Casa Verde, so she didn’t have to dwell on those thoughts for too long.
She drove up to her front gate with Benny pulling in behind her in his SUV.
As the front gates slowly revealed the lush green landscaping and the jungle-like setting of Casa Verde, she felt better. Those were the images she wanted in her head, not that of Barry Shy’s feet sticking out from behind her counter.
She figured the old hippy would haunt her dreams that night, and she actually chuckled. The old pain in the rear would probably get a big kick out of causing an expat merchant to lose sleep from beyond.
She eased in Big Red into the carport as Benny parked in the driveway.
“How are you doing?” he asked, a worried look across his face.
“I’ve had better days, but I’m doing better than poor Barry,” Dana said.
Benny offered a thin smile. “That is true,” he said as they walked inside.
Wally came sauntering over to her, giving Benny a quick glare, then he began to rub up and down Dana’s leg, purring. He made her smile as she bent down to scratch his ear then pick him up. He was limp like a rag doll as she held him in her arms, petting him.
She looked at Benny, who was smiling. “What?”
“That’s one happy, spoiled cat,” he said.
“You’re just jealous,” she said, blushing right away.
He smiled wide but didn’t say anything.
That was awkward, Dana thought as she put Wally down and made her way towards the kitchen.
Casa Verde offered breathtaking views of the Pacific Ocean. It sat up on a hillside at the foot of a mountain. Every window in the house offered a view of either the ocean or the jungle.
There was a green, lush footpath that led from her home to the beach—a leisurely ten-minute walk and she could be swimming in the warm, turquoise waters of the Pacific Ocean.
In the other direction, the pathway led up the mountain, deeper into the jungle where there was a yoga retreat called the Pancha Sabhai Institute. About fifty feet from that was a small bed and breakfast run by Doña Ledia, and beyond that, at the end of the public access footpath, was the private property of a five-star resort, the Tranquil Bay Resort, owned and operated by Gustavo Barca, who was one of Costa Rica’s richest people and had a reputation for being a shady developer and landlord. Dana didn’t care much for Gustavo Barca, who was the puppet master and financial benefactor of Dana’s cousin’s legal battles against her.
Barca tried to wrestle ownership of Casa Verde away from her so he could buy it from her cousin in order to expand his ritzy resort. It was common knowledge that he wanted to buy not just Dana’s property, but the yoga retreat and the bed and breakfast—that way, he could make the public footpath private and he could extend his snooty resort all the way down to the white-sand Mariposa Beach.
Dana figured if he could, he would buy out the whole town and turn it into a private paradise for his bon vivant guests, but Costa Rica had strict rules that stated that beachfront property could not be privately owned. It was to be open to the public so everyone could enjoy it, not just the rich.
Dana went to her kitchen and poured some water into her red teakettle, which she put on the stove’s burner while she opened her tea drawer. She thought about it for a moment and pulled out a couple of mint tea bags.
“Would you like some tea?”
Benny looked at the mint tea. “Not a fan of mint tea. Do you have some Earl Grey or something from the black tea family?”
“I do,” she said with a smile as she grabbed a bag of Earl Grey tea for him. “What now?” Dana asked as they waited for the water to boil.
“Not much we can do. We wait for the OIJ to do their thing,” Benny replied.
“Did you notice anything odd when you went inside the bookstore?” Dana asked.
“Aside from Barry Shy lying there, no, I didn’t. How about you? Did you see anything out of sorts before you found the body?”
“No. I didn’t see anything out of place. The front security gate was down and locked. The front door was also locked. But I didn’t check the back door. Once I saw those feet sticking out from the counter,
I ran back outside.”
“Smart thing to do. For all you know, the killer could have still been inside.”
It was something that Dana hadn’t thought about, and it made her skin crawl and her stomach queasy. She could have been in her store, oblivious that the killer could have still been there. Hiding. Waiting to pounce. She felt relieved that she went with her instinct to get out of there as fast as possible.
The teakettle screamed that the water was boiling, startling her. Benny took over, putting the tea bags in the cups and pouring the hot water while Dana sat there. She felt like she was floating high above, but slowly she felt like she was floating back down to Earth.
“Thank you,” she said to Benny as he poured the hot water into her cup.
“You’re very welcome. You need to relax if at all possible.”
Dana heard him, but the sentiment didn’t really register. She was way too shaken up to relax.
“What on earth was Barry up to?” Dana asked.
Fourteen
Dana and Benny spent a couple hours talking about what had happened, what could have happened, and what was going to happen to Dana’s bookstore.
They tried to change the subject and talk about something else, but that didn’t last.
“Well, I’m not leaving tonight as planned, that’s for sure,” Benny said.
Dana felt bad that he was changing his plans because of what happened in her bookstore, but she felt relieved and happy inside. She didn’t want to deal with Detective Picado on her own.
Benny had been such a wonderful friend and attorney since she moved to Mariposa Beach. And it was a bonus that Benny was not only a member of the Costa Rican Bar but also the California Bar, having gone to law school at UC Hastings in Dana’s hometown of San Francisco, which she felt was pure serendipity.
Dana had called Ramón Villalobos, Casa Verde’s caretaker, and his wife Carmen—both lived in a house on Dana’s property—so she could give him a warning about what was going on, figuring the gossip and the eventual visit by the police would have left him very confused.
To her surprise, about an hour later, Ramón and Carmen stopped by with a pitcher of freshly squeezed mango juice made from the fruits of her own mango trees and a bowl of gallo pinto and corn tortillas.
“Thank you so much, you guys,” Dana said, feeling her eyes getting watery.
She invited them inside to join Benny and her, but as usual, they refused.
Benny had explained it was a cultural thing and that it would be difficult for them to do that even though she offered often.
“Don’t take it personally,” Benny had told her on numerous occasions. “They care for you a lot, but it’s just the way they were raised, so it’s hard for them to sit down with you to eat.”
It was a strange concept for Dana, but she was a guest in their country, so she respected their culture and wishes.
She was just happy they were in her life, taking care of Casa Verde and helping her out so much with everything.
Ramón and Carmen left, and Dana looked at the delicious food and smiled. She wasn’t feeling particularly hungry but she appreciated Ramón and Carmen’s kind gesture. She grabbed a plate and served herself a spoonful of gallo pinto and a tortilla. Benny did the same then they sat at the kitchen’s center island.
Benny was on his second gallo pinto-stuffed tortilla, while Dana was still tearing small pieces of her tortilla and moving gallo pinto around her plate with it. Her mind was on Barry Shy, and it made her lose her appetite.
“I keep going over what Barry could have been doing inside my store. Why he broke in. He didn’t have the reputation of a thief, and used books wouldn’t really fetch him a fortune, living out in the middle of the jungle as he did. So the only thing that pops in my head is that he was planning some sort of protest or that he was trying to sabotage my grand opening somehow. Why else would he even be in there?
“Maybe he was in cahoots with someone else. They break in. Before they can do their dastardly deed, they argue. It gets physical. Barry winds up dead. His partner in crime panics and hightails it out of there,” Dana presented her theory.
Benny filled his glass with more mango juice. “That would explain why Barry’s trike was left there. The other person just took off in his own mode of transportation. By car or by foot. It’s plausible, I guess,” Benny said.
After their meal, Benny took his laptop to the living room to catch up on some work he had to do and to make arrangements with his assistant back in the city, since he wasn’t going back as planned.
Dana tidied up the kitchen, and she figured she might as well work on entering more books into the database, since it wasn’t like the police would prevent her from opening the bookstore eventually.
She made her way to her den but she found herself googling Barry Shy instead. No matter how deep she thought she was searching, nothing came up. She figured it was a waste of time, with Barry Shy being an old hippy who had lived off the grid in the jungle for more than twenty years, so it was very doubtful he had much of a digital footprint.
She then went farther down the rabbit hole as she googled Benny, coming up with a lot of information about his law practice and several articles about Costa Rican real estate and immigration law. She even found several video interviews on the popular website CrazyAboutCostaRica.com. Then she googled herself and found a Facebook post from her ex-husband, Phil Miller and his new fiancée. Ugh. She closed her laptop and pushed it away like it was radioactive. She looked at the time on her phone. It was already five thirty p.m.
Wow, the whole day had gone by and not a peep from Detective Picado. She wasn’t sure if that was a no news is good news type of deal or not.
She emerged from the den. It was already dark outside. For Dana, it was one of the hardest adjustments to living in the tropics. There wasn’t a large variation of sunset times like in the United States, where in Northern California the sun would set as early as five p.m. during the winter and as late as eight thirty p.m., even pushing towards nine p.m. during summer.
In Costa Rica, the sun went down between five and five thirty p.m. year-round like clockwork. It didn’t matter the month of the year, by six p.m. it was pitch-dark outside, which took some getting used to for a sun-loving California girl like Dana.
Benny was wrapping up a call. He hung up as she walked over to his impromptu office space in her living room. Client folders and loose papers were everywhere.
“Sorry about the mess,” he said as he began to tidy up and put the folders into his briefcase.
“No need to apologize. I’m really happy you could work from here. I don’t want to deal with Picado on my own.”
“I don’t blame you. I’m actually surprised we haven’t heard from the police at all since this morning.”
“Maybe Picado won’t show up today, which would be fine with me. I want to know what’s going on, but I’m not keen on dealing with him at all,” Dana said.
“It’s almost six, so you just might get your wish.” As soon as Benny said that, Dana’s phone rang. It was Officer Freddy.
“Are you at home?”
“Yes.”
“Is Mr. Campos there?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Detectives Picado and Rojas are on their way to Casa Verde to talk to you both.”
Dang it.
She hung up.
“He’s on his way, isn’t he?”
“We jinxed it.”
A few minutes later, she opened the front gate for the detectives.
“They’re here,” Dana said like the girl in the Poltergeist movie. Benny laughed.
She found it appropriate that it was dark and ominous outside when he arrived.
Picado walked in with his partner, Detective Gabriela Rojas, who had also worked on the murder case of Dana’s cousin.
Dana felt a bit of relief at seeing Detective Rojas. She didn’t know if it was part of the bad cop, good cop routine, but Rojas had treated her kindly, w
hereas Picado was rude and accusatory, and it didn’t seem like that had changed as Picado glared at Dana with a peeved expression on his face that made her angry.
But she tried to put her best foot forward, so she offered the detectives something to drink anyway. Picado waved her off dismissively without speaking a word or making eye contact. Rojas smiled and shook her head. “No, thank you.”
Dana, Benny, and the two detectives sat in the living room. Dana had bought a beautiful living room set: a couch, loveseat, and oversized chair, all matching in her favorite color for home decor, red.
Dana and Benny sat on the couch. Picado sat in the middle of the love chair, and Rojas sat on the single chair.
Picado pulled out a pocket notebook that reminded Dana of the reporter notebooks she used to carry back in her days as a print journalist in the states.
Detective Rojas placed her iPhone on the table. “If you don’t mind, I’m going to record the interview.”
Dana looked at Benny, as her attorney, not friend in that moment. “That’s fine,” he said.
Picado sighed heavily and sat forward at the edge of the chair. “It occurred to me on the way over here that I can’t recall of a murder being committed in Mariposa Beach during my fifteen years on the job, and now, in the span of a few months, right after you moved into town, there are two murders and you figure prominently in both of them,” Picado said as he pulled out a pen. He smirked and sat back on the chair, crossing his legs as he flipped open his notepad. He looked like a smug psychiatrist ready to get personal.
Dana didn’t say anything, trying hard not to let him get under her skin, but to her surprise, Benny spoke up.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked, sounding annoyed.
“It means that the last time I was in Mariposa Beach was due to the murder of Ms. Kirkpatrick’s cousin, and now I’m back to investigate a murder of Mr. Barry Shy, who happened to be killed inside of Ms. Kirkpatrick’s bookstore. I find that curious. Don’t you find that curious?”