The Corpse with the Emerald Thumb (9 page)

I nodded. “And you, Frank? Can I tempt you into having a beer with me?”
What are you thinking, Cait Morgan? You need a clear head!

Frank glanced at his wife. “No thanks, Cait. Juice will be fine for me too,” he half nodded toward Ada, “at least, I'm sure that's what the wife thinks.”

“True,” replied Ada as she poured a second glass. “And for you, Cait? Do I take it you fancy a beer?”

I looked at the bottles in the fridge and gave it some serious consideration. I knew I shouldn't. “Thanks, but I'll stick with juice too. I'll want a clear head for my conversations with Al about Margarita.”

I wanted to get to the subject of the murder as quickly as possible. Bud didn't have time for me to be engaging in chit-chat.

“Are you sure you don't mind giving up your spare time to do this for Margarita?” was Ada's opening gambit.

Frank obviously picked up on the same aspect of Ada's question as I had done. “Cait's not really investigating to help Margarita, dear,” he said. “We all know who killed her.”

“Yes, dear, but we don't know why,” was Ada's sensible reply.

“That's what I think I might be able to help with,” I said, maybe a little too quickly. “Were either of you ‘on the spot,' so to speak?” I asked, knowing the answer.

“Oh yes, both of us,” Frank said, smiling. Ada tapped him on the arm. Frank's face rearranged itself into a more serious expression.

“How about we sit on the patio and you can tell me about it?” I asked, waving in the general direction of the glazed wall that I'd folded back on itself to offer almost entirely open access to the garden.

“Can I smoke?” asked Frank hopefully.

“Only if I can too,” I replied.

Frank brightened. Ada tutted.

“He doesn't need any encouragement, Cait,” she admonished me. “Him and his cigars. They're all the same around here. In fact, I think it's why he wanted to come here to live: when Greg told us about the place, he kept going on about how wonderful it was to be able to sit outside and puff on a cigar anytime.”

“Greg?” I hadn't met Greg.

Ada smiled. “Of course, Greg's in
PV
today, you won't have a chance to meet him until this evening. Greg is Greg Hollins. He's the one who told us about this place. Lovely man. So tell me, are you single, Cait? Greg is. A bit older than you, of course, but he's single.”

Ada's change in topic, and her knowing look when she mentioned that Greg was unmarried, threw me for a moment. I saw Bud's face flash upon what Wordsworth would call “my inward eye.”

“Yes, I'm single. Totally single,” I replied, with as much conviction as possible.

“What, never married?” The look on Ada's face told me I might as well have been growing a second head. I decided to laugh it off.

“Yes, just turned forty-eight and never married, no children,
and
no boyfriend.” I smiled and waited for the inevitable look of pity that always creeps across the faces of married women with children after I make such a statement.

“Gay?” asked Ada brightly, and somewhat surprisingly.

It was Frank's turn to tut. “Just because she isn't married and doesn't have kids, it doesn't mean she's gay. From what Al said earlier on, she's made a very successful career for herself. Besides, kids—who'd have 'em? Ungrateful little—”

“That's enough, Frank,” said Ada quickly. “I hope I haven't insulted you?” she asked me. The genuine concern on her face deserved a thoughtful response.

“It happens that I'm not gay, Ada, but I certainly don't take your question as an insult. And Frank might have a point, my career
has
been the biggest part of my life. That said, not everything's for everybody.” I didn't add that the only person before Bud with whom I'd ever been in a long-term relationship had turned out to be a sociopathic alcoholic who'd beaten me and ended up dead on my bathroom floor.
Not the time, or the place, Cait
.

“And now you live in Vancouver?” asked Ada, still bright. I felt as though she was the one pumping
me
for information, when it should have been the other way around. I resolved to try to move ahead on a more quid pro quo basis.

“Do you know the Lower Mainland?” I thought I'd check. They both nodded. “I live in a little house on Burnaby Mountain, about half way up, on the way to the University of Vancouver's Burnaby campus. That's where I teach. I like it very much.”

“But your accent's from Britain, isn't it?” asked Ada.

I smiled. “Yes, it's a Welsh accent. I'm from Wales, originally.”

Ada looked delighted. “Frank's granddad was Welsh, isn't that right, Frank?” Frank nodded patiently. “But he wasn't a Taylor. Where exactly are you from, dear? Might we have heard of it?”

“I'm from Swansea . . .”

“That's where that Zeta-Jones girl is from, isn't that right, Frank? And Tom Jones was from near there too, I know. Fabulous voice. Jones was Frank's grandfather's name and he was from . . . I think it was Aber-somewhere. Was that it, Frank, dear?”

Frank didn't seem to be very engaged. “Yes, dear, that's right,” he replied. I had no doubt that he'd hardly heard what his wife had said, and that mentally he was somewhere else. He rolled the end of his fat cigar in his mouth, then rested it in the large ashtray on the patio table.

“That murderer was in there killing Margarita when I was right next door, you know.” Frank made the statement with grim determination. “Imagine. I was that close to him that I could have stopped him, if only I'd known.”

Ada shook her head. “Don't start that again, Frank.”

I took my chance. “How close were you, exactly, Frank? Were you literally next door to the flower store?”

Ada opened her mouth as if to answer on his behalf, but Frank gave her a firm look, picked up his cigar again, and manipulated it in his fingers as he replied. “I'd gone down to the Rocas Hermosas Resort on the seafront, right opposite Margarita's flower shop. I wanted to see a guy who works in the bar there. He's great at getting these things for me at a reasonable price.” He looked almost lovingly at his cigar. “Anyway, I'd just left him, and I was wandering through the gardens, waiting for this one to finish at the spa. What was it today, dear? Mani, or pedi, or both? I lose track.”

“Both.” Ada nodded and wriggled her neat French manicure by way of evidence.

“We'd agreed I'd pick her up when she called me. You never know how long Serena's going to be, do you, dear?”

“No, not really. She's very much a mañana person, Cait, so you're never quite sure when she'll start on you, or finish. Once you've got your feet in that basin, well, there's not a lot you can do about it really, eh?” Ada shrugged. For two retired people, I couldn't imagine that a small delay when you were getting a pedicure would be a big issue, but Frank struck me as the sort of man who liked a schedule for his days.

“So there I am, hanging around waiting for Ada, when Serena comes out of the spa and calls over to me.”

So far, Frank's account agreed with my own observations, and augmented them. Serena was the name of the woman in the capri pants who'd come out of the spa. The spa she obviously owned. And it
had
been Frank that Serena had crossed the road to greet.

“She came toward me, and she had this big cake box with her. Then she told me it was Bob and Maria's wedding anniversary, and would I join the celebration—”

Ada interrupted her husband. “Bob and Maria are the couple who own the bodega next door to Margarita's flower shop. Bob's Bodega. Lovely couple. Married forty years. Wonderful.”

“I was getting to that,” responded Frank. “They own Bob's Bodega, as Ada said, and they
are
very nice. Of course I said I'd join her, though I have to admit that I was a bit puzzled about Ada. I mean, if Serena was in the street, what was Ada doing?”

“I told you I couldn't leave, Frank. Serena had finished me, but I had to wait another ten minutes for my toes to dry properly. There's no point getting them done if you're going to ruin them, right, Cait?”

I nodded and smiled, though my personal experience of pedicures is non-existent. Just the thought of someone touching my feet makes me squirm. I suspect I'd knock out someone's teeth if they tried to grind down my hard skin and paint my toenails.

“While Ada was sitting around waiting for her toes to be ready for the world, I went into the bodega with Serena. That man—the murderer—even held the door open for us. Can you imagine? I was
that
close to him. There he was. All smiles. And he was just about to kill that poor woman.” Frank and Ada both shook their heads, disbelief and anger on their faces. “Al and Miguel were already in the bodega. They'd known about Serena's plans for a while, and they'd agreed to get all kitted up in their dress uniforms to make it something special. Of course Bob and Maria were delighted, and they wanted to cut the cake there and then, but Serena said she knew that Margarita wanted to be there for the cake-cutting and had agreed to take photos, so she said she'd go next door to get her since Margarita was late. A minute later we all heard the screams. I'm pretty sure anyone within a mile could have heard her. She's got one heck of a pair of lungs on her that Serena. Luckily, Al and Miguel were right on the spot, though they were a bit hamstrung by their silly outfits. And that's when all hell broke loose.”

“I heard the screams too,” chipped in Ada. “It frightened the life out of me. I popped my sandals on, carefully, and rushed out into the street.”

“Were you on your own in the spa?” I asked, quite innocently I thought.

“Dorothea was in the back having a massage,” replied Ada. “Well, I guess by then she'd have been getting dressed after her massage. Serena runs the place alone, and she'd just given me the final coat on my fingers, then gone outside with the cake that she'd brought through from out back.”

“Is there more than one way in and out of the spa?” I asked.

Ada looked puzzled. “There's a door that goes to the lane behind, but that and the front door, that's it. Why?”

“No reason,” I lied.

So Ada and Dorothea had been close to each other, but not together, during the critical few minutes between Serena leaving the spa and Bud going into the flower shop.
Interesting.
Could I picture Ada slashing a florist's throat? It seemed unlikely. There again, my years in the business of criminal psychology have taught me that you really
cannot
judge a book by its cover. Some of the most warped, evil minds have been possessed by perfectly
average-looking
people. I wondered how big a woman Margarita had been. If she was a plantswoman, and used to working the land, the chances were that she'd been physically capable. There was Ada, sipping her juice, about five feet five, around a hundred and ten pounds, looking like your typical well-groomed sixty year old, a happy wife, mother, and grandmother. Not an obvious suspect. Of course, there was still Dorothea to consider . . .

“What brought you two to Hacienda Soleado?” I asked, thinking I'd take my chance to gather a bit of background now that I'd established that at least one of my guests had, indeed, had the opportunity to murder Margarita.

“That was Frank,” replied Ada. “And not just because he could sit about and smoke his cigars all day. In fact, we came here because he was bored, didn't we, dear?”

“Bored?” I asked.

“I'd sold my brewery in Prince George, and we'd been on a few cruises, taken a couple of trips to be with the grandkids, redone the bathroom
and
the kitchen. You know the sort of thing. But I missed the work.” He smiled wryly. “Before I sold up, I couldn't wait to pack it in. The business changed so much in the last few years I was running it, with all the big players squeezing out our type of small operation. The day I walked out of there, I thought I'd be happy to never work another day in my life. Of course, then the wind changed and everyone started looking for the small brewery products, so if I'd only hung on . . .”

“Come on, Frank. You know the time was right,” said Ada.

“Yeah, it seemed right at the time, and I got a good price. We met Greg on one of our cruises. We palled up and kept in touch afterwards. He mentioned this place he was investing in. It seemed like a good fit. I get to dabble in the tequila business and use all those years of knowledge about bottling, distribution, and all that, and we live in a home we got to design as we wanted, right here, at the hacienda. We moved in four years ago, and, I have to be honest, it's worked out great. Greg's quite a driving force for the business. He and Juan, poor Margarita's father, organized all of the distillation and bottling construction before we got here. Dorothea was the next investor. She met Greg on a safari in Africa. Then we came along. I get involved in just enough of the business stuff to keep my mind sharp, and we get wonderful weather pretty much all year. We don't miss the weather in Prince George, do we? Ada's never bored, are you?”

Ada shook her head. “So long as I've got my books, I'm happy.” She smiled.

“Any books in particular?” I asked politely.

“Murder mysteries,” she replied.

I STOOD TO COLLECT THE
glasses we'd used. I didn't want to hear what either of them was going to say next, because I knew what it would be.

“Ada always solves the crimes in her books before they tell you whodunit,” said Frank.

There you go!

“I bet she could help you work out who this guy really is,” he added eagerly.

Oh dear.

I smiled. “Why thank you, Frank; I'm sure Ada would be a very useful ally in the case, but, of course, if Al is going to be giving me any sort of confidential information—you know, autopsy results and that sort of thing—then I probably shouldn't share it.” I hoped that would stall them.