by K C Ames
“I don’t understand what went down here.”
“It has the cops stumped, so don’t beat yourself up over it. Who knows what possesses a human being to kill another human being.”
Dana was impressed at Courtney waxing all philosophical.
“What?” she asked defensively as Dana smiled.
“Nothing.”
Word traveled fast in Mariposa Beach. Within an hour of arriving at the bookstore, Dana had already chatted with Big Mike, who seemed to double as the National Warning System, because Mindy came bearing coffee and pineapple empanadas.
“Big Mike stopped by for his coffee fix and he said you were here, why didn’t you tell me you were coming?” Mindy glanced over at Courtney. Mindy had become close to Dana since Dana moved to Mariposa Beach, and she seemed to feel a tinge of jealousy the few times she had met Courtney, and it appeared to Dana that the feeling was mutual, as Courtney referred to Mindy as her stand-in covering the friendship gap when she was back home in San Francisco. My Costa Rica-Me she would say jokingly, but not to Mindy.
“Detective Rojas called me out of the blue, and we just came straight over. I didn’t really put much thought into it. When I was given the all-clear by the police, I jumped into Big Red and sped on over here.”
There was a knock on the door. Dana hesitantly went to the door to see who was there. It seemed like the whole town was in snooping mode, which was not that unusual.
“Maybe it’s him,” Courtney whispered.
“Who?”
“Chris Longo,” she whispered even lower.
“Who’s Chris Longo?” Mindy asked.
“My loudmouth stalker,” Dana said walking towards the door.
“I thought his name was Chris Smith,” Mindy said sounding confused.
“He was using a fake name,” Courtney chimed in.
“I’ll fill you in on the latest,” Dana said opening the door.
To Dana’s surprise, it was Doña Chilla of the Gossip Brigade with a bag of groceries from the market across the street.
“I saw that pretty red Jeep of yours parked out front. I thought I would stop by to say hello,” she said, peering inside, stealing a look inside of the shuttered store. “The police finally gave you permission to open?” she asked, still looking around.
“Yes, finally. Have you heard anything about the police’s investigation?”
Dana tried to figure out the latest rumblings and musings in town about her bookstore, but Doña Chilla seemed offended that she would be asked such a question.
“How would I know?” the old lady said, sounding vexed. If she had been wearing a pearl necklace, she would have probably clutched the pearls.
“I didn’t mean to offend you, it just seems that when something happens in town, your canasta-playing crew finds out about it,” Dana said with a smile.
The old lady smiled, feeling important. “Well,” she finally said. “My grandson’s wife’s brother’s girlfriend is Officer Freddy Sanchez’s cousin, and they’re very close. They grew up together in Filadelfia,” Doña Chilla said then stopped, having noticed Dana’s confused face. “Filadelfia in the Guanacaste province, not Philadelphia in America,” she explained.
Dana felt embarrassed, and she smiled and shrugged her shoulders. Courtney laughed. “That’s what I thought you meant.”
“I had no idea there was a Philadelphia in Costa Rica.”
“Filadelfia,” Doña Chilla corrected her.
“Anyway. Freddy’s mother, Doña Flor, is such a wonderful lady, she raised him and his three brothers and two cousins all by herself. Her husband, Don Hector, was a drunk. He was trying to stumble home one night from the bar and he was hit by a truck and died. He was a bum anyway. Poor Doña Flor had to support everyone. He was a drunk.”
You mentioned that, Dana thought. The old lady had a habit of repeating herself often. But she instead said, “She sounds like a wonderful, strong woman, but what did you hear about the dead man in my bookstore?”
The old lady looked around just in case Detective Picado or Officer Freddy were hiding behind a bookshelf. “Freddy told his cousins, who then told—”
Dana interrupted her, “What did he tell his cousin?”
The old lady straightened herself out and she wrinkled her nose at Dana’s directness.
“What I heard is that the police doesn’t believe Barry had anything to do with breaking into your store. They believe that someone else broke into it and he just happened to be riding by on that bicycle contraption of his, so he stopped to check it out. Cost that poor man’s life.”
Doña Chilla left soon after sharing that tidbit of gossip and with a couple of Mindy’s pineapple empanadas.
Once she was gone, Dana gave Courtney a quizzical look. “Now tell me this shady PI isn’t involved in all this somehow.”
“It seems like it would be a heck of a coincidence. You think he’s after those first-edition books?”
“The only way he would know is if Greyson Bay told him, but I can’t imagine he’d be wrapped up in something like this. A thief. A murderer? No way.”
“I doubt they planned to kill Barry. Especially after what Doña Chilla said. He might have just stumbled upon malfeasance.”
“It sounds like he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. That poor fool.”
Benny arrived at the bookstore about twenty minutes after Doña Chilla left. Dana had texted him the good news about her bookstore opening and how she and Courtney were rushing over there.
“I got your text,” Benny said, walking into the store. “It’s so great to see you in your store.”
Dana and Courtney were quieter than usual.
“What’s up?” he asked. He must have sensed something had happened.
Dana filled him in with the latest news from Doña Chilla.
Benny mulled it over, and she could see him thinking about the words he was about to speak, something lawyers usually did.
“Well,” he finally said, “it does seem like Chris Longo was looking to rip you off. But I wouldn’t jump to conclusions or start thinking that there is this big conspiracy to steal your first editions. I’ve dealt with many shady characters that come to Costa Rica, and these types of people have a nose for opportunities to make a quick buck, and the only calculation to go through their head on whether or not to pounce is the probability of getting caught. So Longo is here on vacation or for some other reason on his own, and he comes upon your soon-to-open bookstore. He meets you. Finds out that you’re a new expat and that you’re opening a brand new bookstore with inventory from your uncle’s book collection you inherited, and the criminal wheels start turning. We’ve all heard of the person that buys a thirty-million-dollar Picasso at a garage sale for five bucks. So Longo thinks, maybe that’s the case here. Maybe he does know about books, and he looks around at little old sleepy Mariposa Beach. He finds out the closest cop is a dirt bike-riding tourist cop and he’s fifteen miles away. It’s easy pickings and worth breaking into to see if there is anything of value he could steal.”
Dana thought about it. It seemed possible.
“And then poor old crazy Barry Shy stumbles into a burglary in progress,” Dana adds.
Benny nods his head. “Like I said, I know these types, it’s like cornering a wild animal. They will lash out to break free. Barry has no idea what he’s up against. This man pulls his knife and…” Benny trails off, not wanting to describe the old hippy’s untimely manner of death.
“We need to find Chris Longo.”
“Um, no, Detectives Picado and Rojas need to find Chris Longo, not us. Please, Dana, let the police do their job. Call Detective Rojas and let her know about the first-edition angle,” Benny pleaded.
“Yes, please, Dana. Benny just said that people like Chris Longo are like wild animals willing to strike back if they feel cornered. And us finding him and asking questions about all this is doing just that. He might react the same way and lash out like he did with Barry. It’s t
oo risky,” Courtney added.
“We don’t even know if that’s what happened,” Dana said dismissively.
“I would imagine the reason you haven’t been able to find him is because he’s long gone. You don’t kill someone and hang around the scene of the crime for too long. I would imagine he’s back in Detroit by now,” Benny said.
Dana agreed. It made sense.
“Okay, okay, you guys are right. I’ll call Detective Rojas.”
Dana saw Benny look at Courtney and smile in relief.
“What?” Dana asked.
“He can’t believe you’re listening to him for once,” Courtney said with a big grin.
“Oh, shush,” Dana said, smiling.
“I didn’t say a word,” Benny said, holding up his hands in the air. Dana reached for her telephone.
“By the way, when I talked to Rojas this morning, she told me you were calling Picado as my lawyer, putting a fire under his feet to release my bookstore as a crime scene. Thank you.”
Benny smiled and blushed a little. “My pleasure.”
Dana looked at Courtney, who stood there with a big, wide, goofy grin on her face. Dana rolled her eyes at her as she dug out the detective’s business card from her purse.
On the blank side of the card she had jotted down her mobile phone number. Dana decided to call her on her cell phone to avoid any chance that Picado might answer the phone if she called the station.
She picked up after a few rings.
“Rojas,” her voice barked, sounding monotone and serious, not her usual tone. It caused Dana to tense up a bit and think What now?
Twenty-Nine
Dana recovered from the brisk tone in Rojas’s voice that very much sounded like she was bothering her. She cleared her throat.
“Detective Rojas, it’s Dana.”
“Yes, hello, Dana, what is it?” Rojas said. She wasn’t being friendly as usual, but was sounding curt, like Dana was interrupting her. Dana went ahead and laid it out all on the table. She told Rojas what she had found out about Chris Longo and the interest he had in getting into her store to look through her books.
“It was creepy and unnerving. Not like a normal book fan. He’s like stalking me, and he scares me.”
“Yes, we know all about Mr. Longo. He was our prime suspect.”
“Was? Did you clear him?”
“We’re actually heading down your way. There has been a development in the case and we needed to talk to you anyway. Where are you going to be between three thirty and four p.m.?”
Dana looked at her watch. It was one o’clock. “I’ll be at home in Casa Verde.”
“Okay, we’ll see you there.” The phone call disconnected.
Odd. “They’re coming down from Nicoya to talk to me about a development in the case. She said Chris Longo was their prime suspect,” Dana said, sounding ominous.
“Maybe they already arrested the guy,” Courtney said.
“No, she would have told me that. Looks like they cleared him. They must have checked his alibi or whatever and it checked out. So it wasn’t him,” Dana said, sounding disappointed.
“Well, we’ll find out soon enough. Let’s grab some lunch and head back to Casa Verde,” Benny said, checking the time on his iPhone.
The mood was a bit dour as they ate at the Qué Vista Restaurant. Jorge, the affable head waiter and manager, must have picked up on the somber vibe in comparison to the usual vibrant and happy group.
He brought them three ice-cold Imperial beers and he told him they were on the house.
And that did cheer them up. Funny how the little things, like a five-dollar beer for free, could be so uplifting.
Their food arrived, and they mostly ate in silence. Benny ate a steak casado. Dana had the chicken casado, and Courtney the arroz con pollo.
“Come on, guys, maybe it’s good news,” Courtney said after a long stretch of silent eating.
“Even if it’s great news, when I have to face Picado, I get depressed.”
Benny smiled. “He has that effect on people.”
“Well, at least we’re not too depressed to eat. The food is always so good here,” Courtney said as she put a spoonful of the delicious dish into her mouth.
After lunch, Dana drove back to Casa Verde with Courtney in Big Red. Benny followed. His big Land Cruiser SUV looked like it could easily run over the small Willys Jeep like one of those big monster trucks at one of those car-crunching derby shows on television. Sunday… Sunday… Sunday… the voice of the eager and overexcited announcer screaming over the television set filled her head.
At four thirty, Dana received a text from Detective Rojas: be there in ten minutes.
“That’s her, they’ll be here soon,” Dana said to Courtney and Benny as she looked out her large bay window which overlooked the front garden and down the gravel driveway that led down to the front gate. Ramón was outside, watering. He smiled and waved at Dana. She returned the wave.
The front-gate ringer buzzed. Dana ran over to the monitor installed by the front door. Even though Ramón and Carmen lived on the property, their house sat back over sixty yards away. In a small town like Mariposa Beach, it wouldn’t take long for word to get out that a single expat female lived there alone, so she replaced her uncle’s old front-gate ringer with a state-of-the-art, wall-mounted color monitor that offered a crisp high-definition video image of the person or persons ringing the bell outside. It was also audio-enabled, so she could also hear and speak to whoever was outside her gate.
She could see the white Nissan Versa and Detective Gabriela Rojas sitting behind the wheel, resting her left arm on the doorframe of the car as she waved at the camera. Picado sat on the passenger side looking straight ahead, looking annoyed as usual.
Dana pushed the intercom button and said, “Come on in.” Then she pressed the button that opened the front gate.
The three of them greeted the detectives at the front door. Dana offered them something to drink, which they declined. As usual, Detective Rojas was pleasant and charming. Detective Picado was stoic and was only able to grunt out a dismissive hello when she said hi. He made it almost impossible to even attempt to be cordial with him.
She remembered saying to Benny months ago during the investigation of her cousin Roy’s murder that Picado seemed to not like her very much. “Not even just dislike, he seems to loathe me,” she had said back then.
“Don’t take it personally, he treats everyone equally bad, but deep down that nastiness, he’s a good detective,” Benny had said.
That might be true, Dana thought as Picado sat on her living room chair and scowled at her, but he made it very hard for her not to take it personally.
“So what’s going on?” Dana finally asked after everyone settled into their chairs in the living room.
Detective Rojas looked at Picado. He gave her a go ahead nod.
“As you’re aware, the name of Mr. Chris Longo of Detroit, Michigan, has come up a few times during the course of our investigation into the murder of Mr. Barry Shy.”
I know all that. Get there. Faster, Dana said to herself, hoping she had telepathic powers that Rojas would pick up on. She didn’t, so she just nodded impatiently.
“We heard that he was pestering you and was very insistent at getting into your bookstore to look at your books. Obviously that got our attention. So we interviewed him and found he was being evasive, which of course made us look closer into his background, and we found some unsavory dealings with the Detroit police in his background, so we decided to bring him in for further questioning.”
“That’s great, I couldn’t find him in town,” Dana said, immediately regretting it.
“Why were you looking for him?” Picado snapped.
“He was so adamant about wanting to see my book inventory that I wanted to let him know that hopefully I would be opening my bookstore soon, so he could come in and have a look,” Dana lied. It was a good save, but she doubted Picado believed her. Then again,
she didn’t care.
Courtney and Benny shifted in their chairs at the same time.
Picado’s eyes darted towards them. Dana noticed he was always very observant. She imagined that to a trained and experienced homicide investigator like Picado, every little move, shift, placement of the hands, feet, or lick of the lips was a treasure trove of information for him. He turned his attention back to Dana.
“Okay, so you say.”
“Whatever, Detective, I know you don’t like me, I don’t really care. Did you bring Chris Longo in for more questioning? Have you arrested him? What do you want with me?” she snapped angrily. She could feel Benny looking at her, and she could imagine him shouting Nooo! like Darth Vader.
Picado seemed taken aback, and it seemed to Dana that he might have been impressed with her standing up to him, but maybe that’s how she had replayed their little exchange.
“The reason you haven’t been able to find him to give him the good news about your bookstore opening,” Picado said, so facetiously that Dana wanted to punch him in the nose, but she needed to assault a police officer like she needed a hole in her head, “is because Mr. Longo is in our morgue up in San José.”
“He’s d-dead?” Dana stammered.
“I don’t know how they do things in the United States, but in Costa Rica the morgue is where we keep our dead bodies.”
“I don’t think such sarcasm is appropriate, Detective,” Benny snapped.
“Do you think meddling in my investigations, despite multiple warnings to butt out, is appropriate?”
“Look—”
Picado waved him off.
“It does appear that Mr. Longo and Mr. Shy broke into your store. For reasons we’ll never know, since both men are now deceased. For whatever reason, Mr. Longo turned on Mr. Shy and killed him. The day after we talked to him about the murder, he took a bus to San José. He was staying in the red light district, partaking in the entertainment provided there before his flight back to Detroit the next day. He was walking down a bad part of town alone at two in the morning when he was shot during a mugging gone bad. Why people insist on fighting back versus just giving up their wallet is beyond me, but in this case, karma caught up with Mr. Longo.”