by K C Ames
“Let me guess, his last name is Picado?”
“That’s him. He terrified me. Reminded me of my manager at the resort.”
Like most of the local youth that lived in the beach and mountain towns around the peninsula, she had worked at the Tranquil Bay Resort. She didn’t like the atmosphere of working there, since the owner, Gustavo Barca, believed in the heavy-handed management style. Since the fish rots from the head down, the managers and supervisors followed suit by kissing up and kicking down by bullying the staff. Amalfi hated working there, but she needed the job. Dana was looking for someone to work at the bookstore, so when she had heard about Amalfi’s poor treatment at the resort, she offered her a job that Amalfi happily accepted.
“Oh, he’s just a big bully. If he needs to talk to me that bad, he knows where I live.”
“He said that’s just where he was going next.”
“Now?”
“That’s what he said.”
“How long ago?”
“He just left.”
Crap, Dana thought. “Okay, thanks for the heads-up. I’ll be there as soon as I can. Don’t engage anyone sniffing around for gossip. Especially the ladies from the Gossip Brigade. Just say you know nothing.”
“Well, I don’t really know much,” Amalfi replied.
“That makes two of us. See you in a bit,” Dana said, hanging up the phone.
Oh, that jerk, Dana thought as she sent Benny a text, letting him know Picado was on his way.
He texted back right away: On my way!
The bookstore slash cafe was a five-minute drive away from Dana’s house. Benny’s beach house was on the outskirts of town, about a ten-minute drive away in the gravely, pot-holed, one-lane road that cut across town towards the turnoff to a dirt road that made its way up towards the mountains and to Dana’s home, Casa Verde.
Dana wasn’t looking forward to dealing with Picado without Benny, but there was no way she would let the detective see that he made her nervous, so she began to psych herself up like a boxer before a big fight. At least that’s what she had seen the boxers do in the movies.
Dana had been lost in thought for a couple minutes when suddenly the front gate trilled, snapping her back to reality.
After having dealt with a homicidal nutjob when she first moved to town, Dana invested in a state-of-the-art security system for Casa Verde.
The front gate intercom had an HD video camera, so she looked at the app on her laptop that showed the entire camera feeds from her security system. She saw a white sedan parked there and Detective Gabriela Rojas in the driver’s seat. She was leaning out the driver’s-side window, looking into the camera and smiling.
That meant, that as usual, Picado was in the passenger’s side. He always made the junior detective drive. It surprised Dana he didn’t insist on riding in the back like she was his chauffeur.
Detective Rojas was actually nice. Dana got along well with her. She wasn’t sure if it was a good cop, bad cop thing going between those two; she doubted it, but if they did that on purpose, they were doing a heck of a job at it, because as far as she was concerned, when it came to temperament and personality, Rojas was the good cop and Picado the bad cop.
Dana pressed the intercom button and told them to come on up. She then pressed the button to open the front gate to let the detective drive onto her property.
They drove the same car they had been tooling around town the last time she saw them. It was an unmarked white Toyota Yaris hatchback. The drive from the front gate to her front door took about a minute on a long and winding gravel road though her property.
The house sat on top of the hill. It had been built that way to take advantage of the breathtaking views of the Pacific Ocean to the south and the lush greenery of the forest to the north. The views were especially spectacular from Dana’s favorite spot in the upstairs veranda, where she could scan the entire property from up in her perch, which Benny jokingly called her sniper’s nest.
Dana was standing there watching as she heard the tires crunching gravel as the car made its way up to the house.
She sighed heavily and made her way downstairs to greet her unwanted visitors.
Twelve
Detective Picado didn’t pack an imposing physique—far from it. At five feet six inches tall, he wasn’t much taller than her, so she could have conversations with him eye to eye.
He was slim and lean, with little muscular definition from what she could tell, since he seemed to always wear the same gray suit.
He reminded Dana of one of those featherweight boxers. He had a bushy black Tom Selleck-like mustache. He kept his black hair short and combed to the side. He wore a suit even during the thick of the summer months, when wearing a suit and tie made it seem like a sadist choice, yet Dana never saw him sweat. Not even a bead. She thought he must be an alien or something, or he must change suits several times throughout the day.
But despite the less than impressive physical attributes, he gave off an aura that was intimidating to behold.
He also had an uncanny ability to go a long time without blinking, as if he was drilling into your eyes and boring into your soul. Dana figured it was a learned trait he used to spook suspects and witnesses during interviews and interrogations. It was weird and freaky, and Dana figured it must work darn well, because it unnerved her.
Like he was a robot rebooting.
Dana opened the door as the two detectives climbed out of the car.
“Hi, Dana,” Gabriela Rojas said in her usual friendly voice. Picado said nothing as the pair of detectives made their way up the front steps, where Dana stood waiting for them in the foyer.
“Please come in.” Dana managed a smile.
Detective Gabriela Rojas was the polar opposite of Picado. She was always friendly, with a quick smile, and she oozed empathy.
It was an odd pairing, but Dana figured the top brass knew it was best to pair the ornery and rude Picado with a partner that possessed the people skills he so sorely lacked. Dana assumed a big part of her job was smoothing over any feathers Picado would ruffle up during an investigation. The man had no filter. And to his credit, she had seen him treat everyone, regardless of class, economic standing, sex, or race in the same awful, curt, rude way.
“Ms. Kirkpatrick,” Picado hissed as they made their way inside.
Dana gave him a quick nod. It’s about all he deserved from her as far as she was concerned.
She invited them to sit in the living room. She offered something to drink, but both detectives declined.
“Well,” Picado said, sitting down on an armchair, “it appears whenever there is a dead body in Mariposa Azul Beach, you’re involved in it.”
Ding, ding, ding, there he goes. In less than a minute.
He was also the only person who always referred to Mariposa Beach by its full official name of Mariposa Azul Beach — named after the famed blue morpho butterfly found in Costa Rica.
Dana frowned. “Gee, you really know how to butter up a witness.”
Picado shrugged. “The only thing I ever butter up is my bread.”
Lame burn. Dana’s eyes rolled. Off to a great start.
“Well, it’s a horrifying experience that’s hard to shake. But I’m doing okay, psychologically. Not that you asked or care about that.”
“I’m glad you’re doing okay. I can imagine how traumatic it has been for you,” Rojas said.
Picado didn’t acknowledge the topic. He cleared his throat. “Now,” he said, removing a notebook and pen from an inside coat pocket, “I’d like to ask you some questions about the latest body you’ve found.” His voice sounded even more contentious towards her than usual.
He’s on a roll, Dana thought. She let his bad attitude slide right off her. She sat down on the sofa across the chairs that Picado and Gabriela sat on. Dana crossed her legs and said, “Okay, ask away.”
He flipped through a few pages in his notebook and he jotted into it with a fancy-looking silver pe
n. Dana glanced down, and he was writing down the date and her name. “Testigo” was written in parentheses next to her name. That was the Spanish word for witness. Thank goodness, Dana thought, he’s treating me like a witness and not a suspect for a change.
Once he was done jotting on the page in his notebook, he looked up at Dana and said, “All right, start from the beginning. Don’t leave out any details. Even if you think something isn’t important, I want to know about it. I’ll make the determination if something is of importance or not.”
“From when I found the body?”
“No. I want to know about every single step you took that morning that led to you discovering the body. What time you woke up, if you saw a crab crawling near the crime scene. Any detail, I want to know about it.”
No pressure Dana, she thought as she sighed loudly.
For the next few minutes, Dana did just that. She told them about getting up and going for a morning run from her house down to the beach. How she would then run on the beach up to the rocks before turning back and running back home.
How she had stopped by the rocks to catch her breath and enjoy the ocean views when something caught her eye peripherally.
How she thought it was garbage, debris that’s commonly found on the coast. How she picked up a piece of driftwood so she could remove the garbage from the water so it wouldn’t get washed out back into the ocean. How she got close enough to determine she was looking at a dead body that had washed up on the rocks from somewhere out in the water.
”How do you know that the body drifted in from the ocean and washed up on those rocks?” Picado asked.
“I don’t. I just assume.”
“Don’t.”
“What?”
“Don’t assume. Just give me the facts.”
Did he just go Joe Friday on me?
She couldn’t help but smile. It was like she was in an episode of Dragnet.
“Okay...” Dana described with just the facts how the body was facedown in the shallow water between two large boulders. And how the body swayed gently with each incoming wave. Strands of long blonde hair and silk pink pajamas swayed gently in the water as if it were a blanket.
“Did you touch the body?”
“Oh, heck no. Gross.”
“You didn’t check to see if the person was alive?”
“I stood over the body for a few seconds. It was facedown in the water. Unless she was the Queen of Atlantis, that person was dead. I wasn’t about to go poking at a dead body to confirm the obvious.”
Dana saw Gabriela bite her lip, trying to prevent a smile from creeping up.
“So what did you do next?” Picado asked.
“I got the heck out of there. Ran as fast as I could back to the Qué Vista Restaurant because I had seen Julio with a truck delivery guy when I ran past the restaurant on my way to the beach. I asked Julio to call the police, and he did. Then Freddy got down here on his motorcycle pretty quickly.”
“And you waited for Officer Freddy at the restaurant?”
Dana knew Picado already knew these details from Officer Freddy’s own account and reports, but she was aware part of the detective’s job was to go over every little detail in ad nauseam even if he had heard the same thing from fifty different people already. It was to see if they could pick up nuances that might lead to better information or to outright lies or mistakes on the timing of things. Dana had nothing to hide, so she continued answering his questions. She was feeling relaxed.
“Yes, I waited for the police at the restaurant.”
They were ten minutes into the interview when Benny arrived. He had a remote control to the front gate, so he drove on up and walked inside without knocking or ringing the bell.
“Good morning, detectives,” he said, walking towards the gathering in the living room.
Picado glared at him, annoyed at the interruption.
Benny sat next to Dana on the couch. “How are you doing?” he asked her quietly.
“She’s fine. Can we continue with the interview you interrupted?” Picado said before Dana could answer him.
Dana smiled at Picado’s rudeness, and she turned to Benny and said, “I’m fine. The detective is just asking questions about this morning and I’m answering them.” She then turned to Picado and said, “Aren’t I, Detective?”
He grunted, and she smiled. It was petty, but it felt good making him even more annoyed than he usually was in his normal state.
The interview lasted for another thirty minutes, which to Dana seemed about twenty-eight minutes more than necessary. She went on a run. Found a body. Called the police. That’s all she knew. But he kept asking questions.
“Did you know the victim?”
“She was facedown in shallow water. I didn’t see her face. She was blonde. Most blondes around here are tourists, so I’m assuming she was a tourist.”
“Have you identified her?” Benny asked.
Picado mulled over the question. Gabriela looked over at him and he gave her a quick go-ahead nod, so she answered Benny’s question.
“She was an American. She was here for that reality television show that’s being filmed on Isla Santa Rita. Her name was Rose Budd. Do you know her by name?”
Picado was quiet. He was watching Dana intently so he could gauge her reaction.
Dana put her hand over her mouth. Benny sat back in disbelief.
“Holy crap! That’s her, Benny,” she said, digging her nails into Benny’s arm.
“So you knew the victim?” Picado asked, eyes wide.
“Well, no, we just met her one time, briefly.”
“When?”
“A few days ago. We were waiting for a table at Qué Vista and she was there with a boyfriend and they got into an awful and loud fight, in front of everyone. It was quite the scene, with glassware being thrown at people and to the floor.”
“How do you know that person was Rose Budd?”
Dana explained how Rose’s date had told her who she was before he stormed off, leaving her alone. And how she was so drunk and belligerent that Benny, Maria Rivera—the restaurant’s owner—and Julio, her head waiter had taken her outside because Maria wanted her out of her restaurant over her unacceptable drunken and belligerent behavior.
Then Dana told them about Russ Donnelly, the creator and executive producer of the show who showed up in a black Range Rover. He also told them she was Rose Budd. And how he had whisked her away, tossing a few hundred dollars to Maria for her inconvenience and damages.
Picado and Rojas took notes continuously. Picado was scribbling notes into his little notebook while Rojas—who was about twenty years younger than Picado—tapped notes into her mobile phone.
“And that’s the last you saw of her?” Picado asked.
“Yes. That was the one and only time,” Dana replied.
“According to Russ Donnelly, they were all heading out to the island for the show and they wouldn’t be around town for a while,” Benny added.
“The next day, I saw the whole crew down at the pier; they were boarding equipment into two boats as they prepared to leave. It got nice and quiet after they all left.”
“Did you see Ms. Budd on a boat?” Rojas asked.
“No. There were a bunch of people, but I guess they were all crew. The cast must have been taken to the island on a separate boat.”
“How do you know this?”
“I don’t know, I’m just assumi... guessing.”
“Stop guessing and assuming,” Picado snorted.
“You told me to tell you anything, so that’s what I’m doing, sharing stuff just in case it might matter.”
Picado shot her a look but said nothing, since she was doing just what he asked. She savored the moment.
“Guessing and speculation is not helpful,” Picado said, scribbling into his notebook.
She was getting ready to give him a piece of her mind, but Benny must have sensed that coming, so he gently put his hand on her arm as if to
say let it go, he’s not worth it.
So Dana regained her composure and ignored the snide remarks.
“So you never saw Ms. Rose Budd or her boyfriend, Robbie Gibbons, since that night?”
“No. I hadn’t really even thought about either of them until now that you said she’s the one I found. It makes this even creepier,” Dana said, rubbing the hairs on her arm that had stood up from the chills triggered by the knowledge that the body she found was Rose Budd.
“Have you determined if she died accidentally?” Benny asked.
Picado once again appeared to be thinking about how much information he would share with them.
“The body was taken to San José by the medical examiner this afternoon. We don’t have an official ruling yet, but from my vast experience as a homicide investigator and from talking to the forensic specialists that processed the body at the crime scene, I believe the death was not accidental; Ms. Rose Budd was murdered.”
The hairs on Dana’s arms now stood at full attention, and she felt a tremble from head to toe.
Thirteen
Dana loved being part of the Calbears Swimming and Diving team at the University of California, Berkeley.
She stood at the top of a very high diving board. It was the longest distance to the pool that she had even seen, well beyond the collegiate standards she had been used to. The distance frightened her.
She wore a one-piece Berkeley blue swimsuit with the logo for the California Golden Bears emblazoned on the suit right in the middle of her chest. A California gold-colored swim cap covered her head.
She looked down below. She felt her hands getting sweaty. She looked down below one more time and shook her head. It seemed dangerous and unreal, but she went for it. No fear. She bounced on the edge of the board and dived into the pool down below. She seemed to be in the air for hours until finally she hit the water.
She executed a beautifully clean dive into the pool. She knew it was a good dive as she swam up to the surface, eager to see the judges’ scores.
She popped her head out of the water with a wide smile but then was surprised that she was all alone in a very large pool. After a moment of confusion, she tried to get out of the pool. She looked around, trying to figure out how to get out, but she couldn’t find one. There weren’t any ladders or a way out, and the edge of the pool seemed miles and miles away.