by K C Ames
Epilogue
The next few days were a whirlwind of activity. Dana was able to make it back to town safely and in record time.
She ran into Books, Bagels, and Lattes, where Mindy and Leo were getting ready to open up for the day.
She hadn’t realized what a mess she was until she saw the shock and fear in Mindy and Leo’s eyes.
“What happened to you?” Mindy had asked with tears welling in her eyes.
Dana looked in the mirror, realizing she looked like a walking horror show. She was drenched in sweat and water from the waves. The back of her hair was a matted clump of wet sand. Her clothing was disheveled, and she had bruises on her wrists and arm. She would later find out she had an even bigger bruise on her chest from Henry Robertson kneeling into her to pin her into the ground.
They called the police. Detectives Picado and Rojas were staying at a hotel in Playa Guiones, but they made the fifteen-minute trip in about ten minutes flat. They even beat officer Freddy Sanchez into town as he came roaring on his motorcycle.
Dana told them what happened. Officer Freddy radioed for police backup as Picado and Rojas jumped in their car and sped down to where Dana had told him Henry Robertson had attacked her.
Dana would later find out that the detectives got there too late. Russ Donnelly and Henry Robertson were long gone.
Picado put out an APB on a black Range Rover and on Russ Donnelly and Henry Robertson.
Eventually Picado and Rojas tracked them down to a small private airport near the Tranquil Bay Resort that was owned by Gustavo Barca and used by the richest of his guests to fly into the peninsula on their own private jets and helicopters.
Donnelly’s private jet had been parked there since he arrived to town. An airport employee told the police that they had missed Donnelly and Robertson by just a few minutes. They had arrived in a rush and were in the air in mere minutes.
Picado was beside himself with anger. He would later drag Barca through the mud for allowing a murder suspect to escape, but Barca claimed neither he nor his private airport employees had any idea the police wanted them.
Dana didn’t care much for Barca, but she believed him. How would he have known that Donnelly and his son were trying to escape arrest? She figured they were in the air in less than thirty minutes after Henry Robertson had attacked her.
Donnelly always flew in his own Gulfstream G650 private jet that he always had on standby. The two of them must have driven straight from the spot where Henry tried to kill Dana to the airport in mere minutes, and from there they were up in the air right away.
But Picado wouldn’t let them slip away. He immediately issued a Red Notice with Interpol on Russ Donnelly and Henry Robertson that meant they were wanted persons for prosecution and should be immediately arrested if found. He also alerted the FBI, which put alerts on all the municipal airports in Southern California.
By the time Donnelly’s jet landed at the Van Nuys Airport near Los Angeles, the LAPD and the FBI were there to greet them.
Dana was amazed at the hoopla that followed. To say that the case made international headlines was like saying there was a little fire on the Hindenburg.
You had the celebrity factor. Even though these were D-list reality TV celebrities, still it had the Hollywood allure to it, so the public’s hunger for any information on the case was insatiable, and the media was more than happy to give its hungry audiences fodder to gorge themselves on.
As hectic as things had gotten at Mariposa Beach when the production company arrived in town, it was nothing compared to the second wave of the media invasion.
ABC. NBC. CBS. FOX. CNN. TMZ. It seemed like every three-lettered news network was in town, covering the story. The local news outlets and bloggers were all over the story.
Dana had to hide out at Casa Verde, grateful for her home’s big front gates and high-definition video security cameras that kept reporters and their ambitious cameramen from misbehaving too much.
A few months later, once she became yesterday’s news, they finally left her alone.
Soon after that, all the true crime programs did their own program on the case, including Dateline, 20/20, and two shows on Investigation Discovery. Dana felt the actress portraying her on Investigation Discovery did the best job, and was excited that Keith Morrison handled her story on Dateline, even though she thought the actress portraying her was about a hundred times prettier than she was, to which Benny said, “Pish.” He was so sweet.
As if things weren’t whacky enough during that time, Costa Rica and the United States got into a little jurisdiction back-and-forth over which country could prosecute Henry Robertson.
In the end, the Costa Rican government decided they didn’t want to spend the money and time to extradite Henry Robertson back to Costa Rica, so they washed their hands of the killer.
They denied Henry bail, so he remained in the LAPD lockup. It took months, but they finally charged Henry Robertson for the murder of Denise Budd. That’s when Dana found out Rose Budd had been her stage name. Denise Budd came from a small Ohio town and moved to LA to make it in the show business as Rose Budd, only to lose her life at the hands of Henry Robertson. And for what? It angered Dana to think about it.
A lot more came out about Henry Robertson and Russ Donnelly’s relationship after he was arrested and charged.
Henry was the illegitimate son of Russ Donnelly. His mother had been one of Russ Donnelly’s many mistresses. Donnelly kept his identity a secret because he didn’t want to go through a fourth very expensive divorce.
Donnelly supported Henry and his mother while he grew up, but he wasn’t involved in his life. Henry’s mother would tell him all about his famous father, and they enjoyed watching The Island on TV. When Henry graduated from college, he came looking for his father, and the two reconnected. Russ Donnelly had three daughters, but Henry was his only son, so he took him under his wing and gave him a job as an assistant producer for his company, but their true relationship was hidden from everyone and didn’t come out until their arrest.
Henry Robertson had some anger-management problems in his past—that did not surprise Dana. He went from cold to hot in a nanosecond and didn’t think of the consequences of losing his temper and lashing out.
He claimed he didn’t mean to kill Rose Budd. He tried to talk her out of embarrassing his father, and when she refused, he just snapped and struck her with the fire extinguisher. When he realized what he had done, he panicked, and tossed her body into the water, hoping it would never be found, but the tides didn’t want to be complicit in his murder, so instead of taking her out to sea, they brought Rose’s body to the shore and onto those rocks where Dana found her early the next morning.
When Russ Donnelly found out what his son had done, he framed the murder on TJ and used his money and power to cover it all up.
He too was charged with a litany of crimes.
Donnelly had enough money that it might be years before the case went to court, and could easily pay the $1,000,000 bond to get out of jail so he could wait for the trial in his Beverly Hills mansion.
Donnelly made the media rounds to apologize for what his son had done, but he said his son was insane, therefore he didn’t know what he was doing when he killed Rose Budd. He was angling for a not guilty because of mental illness.
That sounded like a bunch of hogwash to Dana. Henry seemed like he knew what he was doing when he tried to kill her, so it seemed it was just legal mumbo jumbo to get his son out of prison.
One thing that Donnelly could no longer avoid was divorce number four in the communal property land that is California. His wife would get half the marital assets. Good for her, Dana thought.
The Island reality television show also didn’t make it. The bad behavior of Donnelly off and on the set came to light.
Stories surfaced that he was a bully, running the set like a dictator. His employees and former castaways began to come forward with their own horror stories.
Also coming to light was the sexual harassment inflicted on just about every woman by not only Russ Donnelly but also the show’s popular host, Chris Day.
In the era of #metoo, his fall from show business grace was swift and fast. He was finished. The network fired Chris Day and Russ Donnelly and they canceled the hit reality show.
The cast members went back to their normal lives without being able to finish recording the show. Dana figured most would be very upset about that, but not TJ Summers, Robbie Gibbons, and Arianna Layton. They were free of Russ Donnelly. Good for them, Dana thought.
Speaking of TJ, they freed him from jail in Nicoya right after the truth came out about Henry killing Rose.
He called Dana to thank her on his way to the airport. He told her that Picado even shook his hand and apologized.
TJ told her he would love to give her a hug for her help, but he was too scared to stick around the country in case they changed their mind and arrested him again, so he took an Uber from the police station straight to the airport in Liberia and took the first flight back to the States, almost maxing out his credit card.
He would later send Dana a handwritten note and a beautiful flower arrangement, thanking her. It surprised her he was so insightful and proper. It was a side she hadn’t seen before, since he was mostly unwashed, uncouth, and drunk around town. But the despair he was dealing with after Rose’s murder was probably to blame for that side to him. The thoughtful, caring man that sent Dana the letter and flowers must have been the real TJ and the man Rose had fallen for.
He told her he was still planning to work for the industry, but he was moving to Atlanta, where the entertainment business was booming. He told her he liked that the Atlanta entertainment industry was a little removed from the plasticity of Hollywood and LA.
Last Dana heard from TJ was when he sent her an email to let her know he was doing well and that he was in TV heaven, having been hired as a prop guy for the Walking Dead TV series.
Dana recovered from the wounds Henry Robertson inflicted on her physically and emotionally. She wouldn’t let him take an iota of her joy of life from her.
She was glad that Rose’s killer was caught and would probably spend the rest of his life in prison, and that TJ was vindicated and doing well.
Russ Donnelly’s fall from grace in the entertainment world and his own legal woes seemed a fair comeuppance as far as Dana was concerned.
The media frenzy came and went, and once again the small beach town began to go back to normal.
Books, Bagels, and Lattes continued going strong. Dana and Benny enjoyed the peace and quiet before the wet season bit the dustbin allowing the dry season to come out of its hibernation, bringing with it a horde of money-spending tourists to her small and sleepy slice of tropical paradise known as Mariposa Beach.
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What’s Next?
A rare orchid is discovered growing in a private reserve near Mariposa Beach. Murder and Mayhem ensues and Dana Kirkpatrick is sucked into the middle of a murder mystery, again!
An Orchid To Die For is the fourth box in the series and it’s available now!
About K.C.
I was born and raised in Costa Rica, but now live in San Francisco, California. I’ve always loved cozy mysteries, so when I decided to write one, I just knew I had to base it in my home country of Costa Rica!
That’s how this beach cozy mystery series came about. I’m excited to bring you more cozy mysteries set in the beautiful tropical Pacific Coast of Costa Rica.
You can learn more about me and my books over at my website: www.KCAmes.com.
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