The Corpse with the Emerald Thumb (18 page)

SUSPECTS WITH OPPORTUNITY

Unknown persons: killer MUST have been on scene in the three/five minutes around time Bud entered flower shop, so MUST have been visible to me, or hidden from sight in roaring blue truck. Stick with the people I know were there.

Ada and Dorothea: both were at the spa, but not in sight of each other. Spa has back door onto lane. Time and opportunity to change blood-spattered clothes inside the spa before they entered the street. (Note: Door from the refrigerated unit to the lane would be a very tight squeeze for Dorothea. Possible?)

Dean and Jean: both appeared after the crime scene was discovered. Where had they been? Arrived from opposite ends of the building at different times. Had they been together, or not? Where would they have changed their clothes? FIND OUT!

Rutilio: was in the lane behind the crime scene around the time of the crime. (Note: Did he see anyone in the lane at the time? Did Al even ask this? CHECK!) He could have changed his clothes inside the restaurant kitchen.

“Truck driver”: the driver of the blue pickup truck that sped away just as Bud was discovered could have been Tony, Callie, Juan, or Greg. (Ada said Greg was in
PV
, might not have been.) Any one of these would have had the chance to clean themselves up before they were in public view. Also could have been total stranger in truck.

OTHERS

Bob and Maria: in the bodega at the time of the murder.

I paused. I questioned my assumption. All I knew for sure was that both Bob and Maria had been in the bodega when Al and Miguel had entered. I didn't
know
that they had both been there when Bud was buying our supplies. Either one of them could be providing an alibi for the other. I put a question mark beside their names.
They
had told me that Margarita was not the good person Al had thought her to be. Did their dislike of her run so deep that they might have wanted her dead? Had she “said something she was not saying” to them? Did
they
, or
one
of them, have something to hide that Margarita had found out about? Was there somewhere inside the bodega where they'd have had the opportunity to change out of blood-stained clothing before Al and Miguel saw them?

Serena (the Screamer) and Frank Taylor: with each other in the street at the time.

Al and Miguel: with each other at the time.

Okay, that was opportunity sorted, and the field was narrowed a little. Now, what about motives for those
with
the opportunity?

MOTIVES

Bob and Maria: disliked Margarita's lack of religious devotion, lack of a family life. They might have had secrets she knew about.

Juan: probably inherits his daughter's land. He and his daughter were already estranged. At loggerheads over his roles and responsibilities. LAND. WATER.

Greg: what did Margarita mean when she said to him that he knew the value of a “reliable, good-quality supply?”

Dorothea: what did Margarita mean when she mentioned “local milk from local cows” to her? Why did Dorothea lie about the time the crime took place?

Ada, Dean, Jean, Tony, Callie, Rutilio: any one of them might have a secret that Margarita had found out about, maybe because of her photography, and she might have obliquely mentioned her knowledge to them. This applies to possible outsiders, too.

Clearly I had more work to do in this area. Finally I addressed the question of the way in which Margarita had been killed. She was a small woman, but probably strong. That accepted, any one of my possible suspects could have slit her throat from behind, when she wasn't expecting it.

But who
would
?

It was such a violent way to kill someone that it suggested the hand of a man, rather than that of a woman. That didn't rule out a woman as her killer—the right woman, with the right motivation,
could
do it. Easily. It is a method that requires surprisingly little force, just accuracy and determination. So it didn't eliminate anyone. The knife was found at the scene, but, because of the presumption of Bud's guilt, Al wasn't going to follow that as a line of inquiry. Even if it was plastered with the killer's fingerprints, that wouldn't be discovered until long after Bud had been transferred to a jail in Guadalajara full of vengeful drug dealers. Too late to save him, in other words. Without having seen it, I had to assume there was nothing particularly unusual about the knife itself or Al would have mentioned it. Anyone can get hold of a knife, and it's easy enough to conceal one in a pocket or a purse. I paused again and remembered I had two chefs in the frame. Chefs work at knife skills and are possibly less squeamish than others when it comes to slicing into flesh. Maybe the weapon pointed to Tony or Rutilio. Or Callie, who helped her husband in Amigos del Tequila's kitchen, as well as doing people's accounts. Ada was the daughter of a butcher. Juan worked with blades in the fields all day. And maybe Jean's liking for tae kwon do suggested a violent streak. Dean might have retired from a boring government job, but in his spare time, he might be an avid hunter or fisherman, or he might pursue any number of hobbies that would allow him to sublimate anger, while developing good knife skills.

I stood up, stretched my neck, and looked at my watch. It was one in the morning. I was exhausted and I was aware that I wasn't thinking as clearly as I might. I pushed the glass doors closed, locked them, and headed for the bed. I could do a better job for Bud if I slept. I just hoped he was managing to get some rest himself.

Thinking of Bud made me think of Jack. I sat up with a start: who was Jack's contact? I hadn't given that any thought. Who could be the “operative” with “good cover” that Jack had referred to? Someone I'd met already, or someone completely unknown to me? Was it important that I worked that out as well? Another thought occurred to me. Why on earth would there be an operative of any sort in the area? My mind was racing—in circles, as it turned out.
Cait—rest!

As I lay there on my back, looking at the inside of my eyelids, I felt hot tears start to trickle toward my ears. For the first time since I'd dragged myself out of my own bed in my little house on Burnaby Mountain back in beautiful British Columbia at 4:00
AM
that morning, I felt as though I was living in the real world. It had taken that many hours of seeming unreality for me to get here:
the worst possible place.

WHEN I WOKE THE NEXT
morning I was immediately aware of a couple of things: a bus must have run over me as I slept because my entire body was aching, and someone had entered my room since I'd gone to bed. The first realization told me I needed to head for the painkillers. The second, that I should take stock of my surroundings before I stirred at all.
Stay very still, Cait.
From where I lay, I could see that my hairbrush was now very close to the taps on the basin surround, and not on the outside edge of the bathroom sink where I'd left it. My shoes were still next to the bed, but they were the right way around, different from how I'd left them.

Why would someone come into my room and rearrange my shoes?

Lie very still, Cait. There might still be someone here.

I strained my ears. Beyond the heavily glazed windows I could hear birdsong. I also identified the faint hum of the refrigerator in the open-plan kitchen, beyond the bedroom. I'd left the bedroom door ajar the night before. Now it was half open. My heart thumped. I could sense a slight wheezing in my breath. Minutes passed. I lay there listening. Eventually it all seemed too ridiculous. I pushed back the bedclothes and sprinted to the washroom. When I emerged, I was wrapped in my robe and carrying a can of hairspray as a potential weapon—it was the only thing with heft that wasn't attached to a wall.

I crept toward the bedroom door. If there was someone there, they would already know I was up and about. I slipped the hairspray into the pocket of my robe and strode out of the room, ready for anything. But there was nothing. No one lurking about to bash me on the head. I checked the front door. It wasn't locked, and the alarm was not set. Recalling the previous night, I was certain I'd locked the door when I came in, but I knew I'd turned off the alarm to be able to go out onto the patio. I must have been more tired than I'd thought, because I'd clearly forgotten to reset it.
How convenient for the person wanting to break in.
I opened the front door and checked the lock. There were no scratch marks, no scuff marks. It didn't look as though the lock had been picked. Maybe someone had a key? I remembered that Tony had said that the pool boy had a key for the place. Who among the
FOGTT
s might also have access to one?

I shut the door, turned the lock, and paid attention to the inside of the house. Yes, someone had moved a few bits and pieces—but only things that belonged to me. I hadn't left my cigarettes and lighter in that exact spot, and when I went back into the bedroom, I could see that Bud's suitcase had been moved inside the closet. It was obvious to me that someone had searched the place while I was asleep. It was also clear that they had done it so quietly, and professionally, that I had slept through it all. My watch told me it was almost half past seven, so I decided to make myself some coffee. The Taylors had kindly brought me a small jar of instant. As I watched the kettle boil, I gave some thought to what it was my “visitor” might have been looking for, and what they might have found. The notes I'd made about my suspicions were my main concern, along with my purse and its contents. I'd left them all dumped on the patio table the night before. I pulled open the concertina glass doors and saw that everything was exactly where I'd left it.
Of course, the garden is completely enclosed by walls, and the intruder didn't dare open these heavy, noisy doors.
Thank goodness—no one had read my notes, nor had they found Bud's bits and pieces, which could identify him, in my purse.

I took my coffee to the patio, lit a cigarette, coughed a fair bit, told myself I'd be fine, and reread my notes. I picked up the pen I'd also left out all night and added a comment: “Why does everyone seem so keen to help Al with his career?” I wasn't sure of the significance of that question, but I knew it needed to be answered at some point.

I decided to get myself showered and ready for the day before the water boy arrived at eight o'clock. But he didn't show up. Luckily I still had enough bottled water to make another coffee, and I decided to check my email once more, hoping against hope that there might be something there that could help Bud. There wasn't.
Damn and blast!

While I was online, I did a little surfing: I trawled through some lists of South Carolina families—
who knew there were so many French family and place names there?
—and found Al's. It was easy to discover that his mother's father had inherited a fortune from his forebears and had gone on to make a pile more for himself. Her mother, the Gram Beselleu to whom Al had referred, had come from another French line, being a Dubois, and had brought her own money to the match.
Why on earth would a scion of such a wealthy family be working at all?
I checked out Frank Taylor's old brewery and found that it had a significant online footprint and was, as he had said, doing very nicely indeed. I found nothing about Dean or Jean George, or Dorothea Simmonds or Greg Hollins. Tony Booth's Facebook page was interesting, and he obviously kept in touch with folks who'd known him at his previous restaurants.
A very social group, by the looks of it.
There was a wedding photograph of him and Callie. They made the perfect beach-wedding couple—he was casual in a white linen shirt and pants; she looked delightful in her flowing white dress, with flowers in her hair. Fit, bronzed, healthy, and muscular, they certainly looked happy, but then, who wouldn't on their wedding day? I took a few minutes to check out the place where I was staying, and the tequila it produced. I wandered around a few general websites that allowed me to find out more than I'd ever thought I'd want to know about making tequila. It was clear from their own website that the
FOGTT
s had invested in the most modern equipment, including autoclaves that shortened the cooking time for the
piñas
, the hearts of the agave plants used to make tequila. They produced the four most popular types of tequila:
blanco
, the youngest, and therefore the quickest to produce, which is clear;
reposado
, which the Mexican government decrees must rest in the barrel for at least two months;
añejo
, or aged, which must be in a barrel for at least a year; and, finally,
extra añejo
, which must be in the barrel for at least two years. This last categorization had only been introduced half a dozen years earlier. The
FOGTT
s didn't make
oro
tequila, which is the type that's young and colored with caramel to make it smoother. The Tequila Soleado brand for all four types of tequila seemed to be well reviewed by aficionados. Triple-distilled and naturally fermented, its smooth, complex flavors and reliable quality, as well as the excellence of the extra añejo, aged in French white oak barrels, were often commented upon, especially in the
US
, which is, apparently, the fastest growing market for tequila. It seemed that the
FOGTT
s had invested in the right plants, the right equipment, and the right people to make good tequila.

A few more clicks took me to the website for Jalisco's newspaper,
El Informador,
where I checked on news about the Rose Killer. It seemed that most of the information about the Rose Killer's deeds centered on the first and second victims, which was not unusual in terms of a serial killer. The police often use the media when they are hunting the killer of one person, but when they realize they might have a serial killer on their hands, they become more circumspect. Often, by the time there's a third victim, the official number of known kills to designate a killer
serial
, the details dry up. Miguel's daughter had been killed immediately after she went missing. Her time of death had been estimated by analyzing her stomach contents, due to the length of time that had passed between her death and her discovery. The second victim, however, had been found much more quickly, and there seemed to be a question of when she had died, exactly. The autopsy seemed to suggest she'd been dead before she even disappeared.
Odd!
I read on.