by K C Ames
Dana thanked Freddy, and she climbed into Benny’s white Land Cruiser and they drove away.
Dana turned back, and she saw Officer Freddy heading back to the rocks.
She was intrigued with what he had said about not thinking the person’s death was an accident. Then she started to replay what she had seen back in her head. This time it was if she was hitting the slow-motion button in her brain so she could get a closer look at what she had seen.
She shuddered at what she was seeing. The body seemed to be that of a young person, and she was seeing nails painted in a bright orange color.
The rain began to come down hard, snapping her out of those dark thoughts.
She shivered.
“Are you holding up?” Benny asked.
“Glad we’re not out there standing under this downpour with Freddy,” she replied.
Benny nodded in agreement.
Dana imagined Freddy standing out there by the rocks in the heavy rain. He would be out in that rain for a while, and he didn’t have the shelter of a car, just his motorcycle. Poor Freddy, Dana thought.
Another thought crept into her head. She was sure they would send Detective Jorge Picado to investigate.
He was surly and bad-tempered, and he would hit the roof when he found out she was mixed up in yet another murder in Mariposa Beach.
Nine
“How you doing?” Benny asked Dana as he drove from the beach towards Casa Verde.
“Feeling freaked out,” Dana replied nervously.
“Anyone would feel that way after finding a body,” Benny said. He was trying to sound calm and reassuring for her, but she knew he too was freaking out. She was getting to know him better, and she could see it in his eyes and his body demeanor when he worried.
She also felt guilty that she didn’t want Detective Picado to be assigned to the investigation. His reputation as a top-notch detective was undisputed, but so was his reputation for having all the charm of a honey badger, a porcupine, and a skunk rolled into one, but surely she could put up with him to ensure the victim gets the justice she deserved.
It was hard for her not to feel that dread, though. She always seemed to be at loggerheads with Picado, and the thought of seeing him again made her feel queasy.
“I’m thinking the odds are slim that Detective Picado isn’t on his way down to investigate as we speak,” she said, sounding nervous.
“Unless he’s been reassigned or transferred elsewhere, I think you’re correct.”
Dana sighed loudly.
“Hey, forget him, you’ve done nothing wrong. All you need to do is tell him how you found the body and that’s it with your involvement. He gets nasty and I can step in.”
Dana smiled. “As my lawyer?” she asked sheepishly.
“Well, yes, because if I step in as your boyfriend, I might be under arrest for punching a detective.” He had a goofy grin on his face that made him look so cute, but she knew that Benny really wasn’t one to let his fists do the talking.
“Been in a lot of fights, have you?” she said teasingly.
“Not really. Come to think about it, my last physical fight was in fifth grade.”
“What was her name?” Dana was grinning widely.
“Rosa Maria. But she was big and tough. About a foot taller than me. I swear,” Benny said as they both broke out laughing.
Dana took pride in being a strong-willed, independent woman. She had worked as a journalist for the largest newspaper in San Francisco. Then she worked in public relations, where she had worked for some scuzzy clients and where fending off inappropriate male behavior was a necessary skill to have as a professional woman.
She had moved down to a new country on her own and started her own business. So she liked not having to rely on anyone but herself. It was a trait she had picked up after a bad marriage, nasty divorce, and even from her childhood, where she had a well-meaning but overbearing and judgmental mother. So she had learned to do things her way and didn’t like to count on anyone. She knew that wasn’t a positive trait to have, and she had been working on herself the last few years because no woman can be an island to herself.
In the past, she would have balked at Benny helping her out as much as he had since she came to town, but now she welcomed his help. And when he became protective of her, talking tough about punching a police detective on her behalf—even though she knew he would never do that and she didn’t want him to do that—she had to admit that she liked it when Benny tried to be her knight in shining armor and found it adorable.
Without his legal expertize to navigate the complicated Costa Rican real estate laws when she inherited Casa Verde, the volumes paperwork involved with legal residency and the even more complicated legal matters that came with opening a business as an expat, she would have been lost without him.
She had been attracted to Benny from the start. He was handsome, with his wavy brown hair and olive skin, so it wasn’t too shocking to fathom that she developed a crush on her lawyer pretty quickly.
They had great chemistry from the start, but they kept their relationship professional, much to the chagrin of Dana’s best friend, Courtney Lowe. And she didn’t even want to think about her mom, who never liked her former husband and then had made it her mission to find her a new one that she would approve of, a thought that made Dana shiver whenever it popped into her head.
Her seventy-nine-year-old mom lived in Petaluma, a small town in Sonoma County in California’s Wine Country, about forty miles north of San Francisco. She felt hurt that her mom hadn’t come down to visit her; she even offered to pay for her ticket. But their relationship had never been a close one. She had been close to her dad, who died ten years ago.
Her friend Courtney lived in Dana’s hometown of San Francisco, but she had come down to Mariposa Beach when Dana first moved down to help her with the transition and had come down when she had opened her store, so she knew Benny well and wanted nothing more than for those two to take their relationship to the next level. She had been ecstatic when a few months ago they did just that.
They arrived at Casa Verde a few minutes later, and Benny opened the large green front gate with the remote control device Dana had given him to keep in his SUV. He drove up the long, gravel driveway from the front gate to her house, which was flanked by a beautifully tended garden on both sides.
The garden was lush and green from all the rain. Colorful tropical flowers were soaking in the rain. The garden flanked the driveway on both sides, along with flowering trees of mango, avocado, yuca, and banana.
At the front of the house, protected from the rains, were large concrete flower planters with beautiful roses and orchids. Her caretaker, Ramón, had the greenest thumb she had ever seen. She couldn’t keep a cactus alive, and Ramón had those beautiful roses and orchids looking beautiful year-round.
Ramón, the man responsible for the beautiful garden, and his wife Carmen stood under a large golf umbrella on the side of the driveway, looking worried.
“We were so worried. You went for your run and you were gone a long time, and when we saw Don Benny’s car, we thought, Madre de Dios, something happened to Doña Dana,” Carmen said in Spanish as Ramón nodded in agreement.
Dana’s uncle had hired them, and when he died and left the property to Dana, she had to decide on what to do about Ramón and Carmen.
For someone from the United States, it seemed like an odd arrangement. She had never had a live-in gardener. And although she had a house-cleaning service that came in once a month, the thought of a housekeeper living on the property was just as strange and made her feel awkward.
It was Benny that had explained to her that these types of arrangements were common in Costa Rica, especially for a large property like Casa Verde.
Her uncle cared deeply for Ramón and Carmen, and he made it clear in his will that they should be allowed to remain on the property after his death.
Dana honored her uncle’s wishes. Benny had also vouched
for the couple as being hardworking and honest, and it would be great to have them keep an eye on the home, since word would get out that she lived alone, making it a too tempting of a target for burglars to pass up.
She quickly became used to the arrangement and had grown to really care for Ramón and Carmen. She liked that they lived nearby on the property, so she didn’t have to worry about going out of town and leaving her house empty.
Ramón’s talents exceeded his amazing green thumb gardening skills. He was also a fantastic handyman who repaired the little things that usually went wrong in a house. And if the job was above his skill level—like the time she needed an electrician—he knew whom to call and he ensured she was charged the local tico rate, not the gringo rate.
She would be lost without them, and she was so glad they were in her life.
“I’m so sorry, Ramón, I should have called. I had an unbelievable morning.”
Dana filled Ramón and Carmen in with what happened.
“Madre de Dios,” Carmen said again, doing the sign of the cross.
Dana asked Ramón to keep his eyes peeled for the arrival of the OIJ within the next few hours.
“The OIJ?” Ramón said, sounding worried all over again.
“Well, Officer Freddy seems to think there might have been foul play involved in the death of that poor woman. He’s just guessing. A feeling he has from what he could see of the body. We won’t be sure until the medical examiner makes the cause of death official, and they’re also on the way down from San José.”
“Okay, I’ll keep my eyes peeled.”
Dana thanked Ramón and Carmen, and she and Benny went inside to the house. They toweled off from the rain and then went to the kitchen. The nervousness of what was going on made her parched so she drank what she felt was about a gallon of water. Then she poured herself and Benny mango juice made from scratch by Carmen from fruits picked right from her own mango trees. She still got a kick out of that every time she took a sip. She would look out her window and could see where those mangos came from. Talk about farm to table, she would giggle. In San Francisco, you could order farmer boxes delivered to your home for a princely sum. It cost an arm and a leg to eat and drink healthy in San Francisco.
“Coffee?” he asked.
“I’d love some, but what I would love even more right now is a nice hot bath,” Dana said. She was soaked in sweat from her mad dash and from the rain. And although she wasn’t about to share this with Benny, she had sand everywhere... everywhere.
Benny smiled. “Okay. You go take your bath. Relax a bit. I’ll go out to Mindy’s to pick up some coffee and bagels for us.”
“That would be amazing. Oh, shoot, Mindy. Can you let her know what’s going on and let her know I’ll be in as soon as I can?” Dana hated not showing up to help at the bookstore slash coffee shop, but she knew Mindy would understand. Finding a dead body tended to create havoc on a person’s regular day.
Ten
Benny returned almost thirty minutes later with the coffee and bagels.
After taking a smoothing warm bath, Dana slipped on her plush terry-cotton bathrobe and slippers. She brushed her wet hair then went outside to hang out in her favorite spot of the house, the second-floor wraparound veranda, which overlooked the Pacific Ocean off in the distance and the lush green foliage of the forest off to the side. The veranda was only accessible from her master bedroom, and it was where she spent a lot of her free time.
The rain had let off a bit but it was still coming down steadily but she stayed dry under the the roof that covered the veranda.
“Sorry, it took me longer than I expected,” Benny said as he walked out to the veranda. “Word is out that you found a dead body, and the town is buzzing with the news. I guess a crowd has already gathered around the spot where you found the body, so Officer Freddy has his hands full trying to keep the gawkers away from the crime scene.”
“Oh, that’s dreadful. Bunch of ghouls,” Dana said.
Benny nodded in agreement.
“I would give anything to unsee the dead body of that poor woman, and there are people heading out to the rocks, hoping to catch a glimpse of the body.”
She felt her body trembling again.
Dana was curled up on a chaise lounge chair with Wally, who had curled up next to her. Benny sat down on the chair next to her. Wally turned his head, giving him a side-eyed glare as if warning him he wasn’t moving.
“Sorry, no room for you,” Dana said, smiling.
“I don’t think your cat likes me much.”
“Oh, Wally is just a little jealous, that’s all.” Dana scratched the top of his head and his chin, causing him to melt like butter in her hand. His eyes were tightly shut, and he was purring loudly.
“See, he’s so sweet,” Dana cooed.
“Yeah, with you. I’ve seen his claws. I’m not messing with him.” Benny laughed.
He placed the coffee cups and the bagels on the table.
“Mindy made pineapple empanadas, my weakness, so I bought a few of them for later.”
“Mmm, smells wonderful, thank you.”
Wally perked up at the sight and smell of the goodies. He got up, stretched, and meandered over towards the food.
“Don’t you dare, mister,” Dana said to Wally, who gave her a what, me look. “Yeah, you.”
It wasn’t working, so he shook her off and tried his luck with Benny.
“Oh, now he’s my friend,” Benny said, smiling. He tore off a chunk of bagel and fed it to the eager cat.
“Benny, you’re spoiling him.”
“Hey, I need to curry all the favor I can with him. And who knew cats liked bagels?”
They both laughed, and they ate their food and drank the rich dark coffee.
“Did you go out to the rocks?” Dana asked nonchalantly.
“No way. I don’t want to go back there knowing there’s still a body there. I just talked to Mindy and a couple of the regulars who were heading out there to go snoop.”
“I wonder how long before the detectives get to town. I’m not too keen to sitting around all day waiting for them.”
“No need. Carry on with your regular routine. Mariposa Beach is small enough that they’ll find you easily if they need to.”
“That’s true. Besides, if I’m not home, odds are good that I’m at the store. I’m way too predictable.”
Benny had planned to head back to San José the following morning, but with the hubbub enveloping Mariposa Beach and Dana herself in the thick of things, he decided to stick around for a few days, so he told her that.
“You don’t have to do that,” Dana said.
“I don’t have to... but I want to.”
“What about work?”
“A nice perk of having my solo law practice is that I’m the boss, and I’m a pretty flexible boss, if I don’t mind saying so myself. Besides, I don’t have any closings until next week, so I can work from down here. Thank you, Wi-Fi and mobile phones. If I leave, I would go crazy wondering what’s happening, so I’ll be more focused working from here for the next few days, anyway.”
Dana thanked him. She couldn’t hide the fact that she was happy that Benny was sticking around longer, especially since she was sure that Detective Picado was heading to town.
She shuddered to think about having to be face-to-face with that surly man again.
She had first met the homicide detective her first week in town. She had just moved into Casa Verde, and her cousin, who had been contesting her uncle’s will which left the house and property to her and not his estranged son, was murdered.
Since they were involved in a legal dispute over a lucrative property, she became a prime suspect, and Detective Picado zeroed in on her, making her life quite terrible until finally the real killer was discovered.
Picado wasn’t too happy that she had been the one to find out who had murdered her cousin, not the detective, and that he had focused his attention on the wrong person: Dana.
/> Even after he had warned her many times to butt out of his investigation, she wasn’t going to sit around as he built a case around her because he had blinders on when it came to finding the killer. Once that had all been resolved and she got a lot of the credit, he had become even meaner towards her.
Luckily, he was stationed and lived in Nicoya, which was about an hour away, so she only had to deal with him when something happened in town that required the OIJ to investigate.
Unluckily for her, she seemed to be in the thick of things the last time he was in town investigating a murder that had taken place in her bookstore, and now there was another body. And she found it. Picado would be on her like white on rice. She just knew it.
Eleven
Dana and Benny enjoyed the bagels and the coffee. They also split one of Mindy’s pineapple empanadas that were becoming quite famous up and down the coast, even though they were meant for a later snack.
She decided to stay at home not wanting to face the townsfolk asking her questions at the bookstore slash cafe.
After a couple hours, Benny left to pick up his laptop at his house. He had left in such a rush when Dana had called about the dead body that he had run out of the house with just his wallet and his phone.
Dana was up on her veranda, reading a Sue Grafton novel on her Kindle, but she couldn’t really focus on it. Her mind kept drifting back to the morning and finding that body floating in the shallow water. Her phone rang, making her jump. She picked it up, and it was Amalfi Soto calling from the bookstore, so she took the call.
Amalfi sounded flustered over the phone.
“What is it, Amalfi?”
“The OIJ detectives was just here looking for you,” she said, getting even more agitated.
“It’s okay, Amalfi. They just need to talk to me about the body I found this morning.”
“Well, he was nasty and was very upset you weren’t here.”