Flamenco, Flan, and Fatalities (A Happy Hoofers Mystery) Read online

  Hawkeye gave my leg a nudge.

  “Oh, Rafaela, is it all right if my friend Hawkeye and his friend Jonathan join us? They’re not on the train, but I would really love to have them come with us.”

  “Of course,” Rafaela said. She patted Hawkeye. “Come on, Hawkeye, and bring your friend along.”

  We followed her to a restaurant overlooking the ocean.

  The owner welcomed us and conferred with Rafaela about the day’s menu.

  “You’re in luck,” Rafaela said. “The specialty today is one of their most famous dishes—oricio. That’s sea urchin, stuffed with asparagus and caviar. It’s unbelievably good. And there’s pitu de caleya—chickens and fish. Or you can have suckling pig, rockfish, or any kind of shellfish. Everything is delicious, but I do recommend the oricio.”

  I joined Tina, who was sitting with Mark and Sam. “Where’s the rest of us?” I asked her.

  “Mike and Mary Louise weren’t hungry. They’re walking up to that little chapel on the hill,” Tina said. “I don’t know where Janice is. Pat just disappeared. The last time I saw her, she was in the dining car having a cup of coffee with Denise.”

  Tina and I can read each other’s minds after all these years. We knew exactly where our friends were and whom they were with. I missed Alex a lot at that point. I knew Tina was thinking about Peter.

  Seeing Mark reminded me that I had noticed him down by the rocks burying something. Should I ask him about it? What if it was oleander leaves? I had to know.

  “Mark,” I said. “I was taking some photos down by the water and I thought I saw you down there too.”

  “Yeah, that was me,” he said. “I like to take a walk in the morning when everything is new and fresh.”

  “What were you burying in the sand?” I asked. “Should we look for another body?” I pretended to look around. “Let’s see, who’s missing?”

  Mark looked embarrassed. “Somebody’s dog had done his business right where everybody walks. I thought I’d bury it so no one would step in it.”

  “What a good guy you are,” I said, relieved. “I never look where I’m walking when I’m taking pictures, so you probably saved me from stinky shoes. Thanks, Mark!”

  “Any time, Gini. Can’t have dancers with poop on their shoes.”

  “What are you guys eating?” I asked Mark. “As restaurateurs, what do you think of the food on this trip?”

  “Next to France, this is the best,” he said. “Especially the seafood. It’s the freshest. They cook it simply and perfectly. We’re collecting recipes as we go, but it’s hard to get seafood this fresh in New York.”

  “This oricio tastes like they pulled it out of the ocean and ran into the kitchen to cook it before we could sit down,” Sam said.

  “Were you always interested in food and cooking and owning restaurants?” I asked.

  “I was,” Sam said. “From the time I was little, I loved reading magazines about food and restaurants. My mother was French and a fantastic cook. She could make the simplest foods taste like she had spent all day making them. They were delicate, multilayered flavors, melt-in-your mouth terrines and bourguignons. What I loved most about those pictures in magazines was the décor of the restaurants. I didn’t call it décor then. I just loved the look of dining rooms that were quietly elegant with rugs on the floor, vaulted ceilings, hushed voices, white table cloths, flowers everywhere.”

  “It’s hard to find a restaurant in New York like that anymore,” I said. “Now it’s all hardwood floors, bare ceilings, lots of noise and clattering, paper cloths on the tables. No sense of elegance. Why is that?”

  “People want a place that’s lively, with noise and bare floors, ceilings and tables,” Sam said. “Our place is different, though.”

  “What’s it like?” I asked.

  “Well, for one thing, we have flowers everywhere. Small, elegant arrangements on the tables, huge vases full of flowers on every other surface. We’ve soundproofed the ceiling and put thick rugs on the floor. We don’t crowd the tables against each other. There’s room to breathe and talk without hearing every word at the next table.”

  “I’m bringing Alex there as soon as we get back home,” I told him.

  “We’ll give you one of the best meals you’ve ever had,” Mark said, taking a mouthful of the oricio. “Except possibly for this one. Wait until you try this, Gini. It’s perfection.”

  It was perfection. I was enjoying every bit of this superb lunch when I noticed Dora a few tables over with the young boy in the wheelchair and his mother. She looked up and studied me for a minute. I waved at her.

  “Are you best friends with Shambless’s biggest fan now, Gini?” Mark asked, looking over at Dora.

  “Not exactly, but we talked at the café this morning,” I said. “She told me about her little girl who died of cystic fibrosis.” I looked over at Dora again. “I feel so sorry for her.”

  “That’s a terrible illness,” Mark said.

  Dora watched us briefly and then left the restaurant.

  Javier and Janice joined us at our table.

  “So what’s happening, you two?” Tina asked.

  “Haven’t seen you around much,” I said.

  “Javier’s been working,” Janice said. “He just came back to the train to bring me to this restaurant.”

  “I see you’re having the oricio,” he said to us. “Great choice. How do you like it?”

  We made happy sounds about our main course. Javier ordered the same thing from the owner. He poured a glass of wine for Janice and raised it to her before drinking. His phone vibrated and he excused himself from the table. After a short conversation he returned.

  “I am so sorry to have to leave you, but there was news from headquarters in Ribadeo. They have released Juan and he will be rejoining the train. There was not enough evidence to hold him.”

  “What about the poison in his room?” I asked.

  “It looks like somebody planted it there to make it look like he was the murderer. It was the same oleander poison that killed both Shambless and Steve. Anyway, I have to go back to the train and make sure he’s all right. I’ll see you tonight at the performance.”

  “Wait, Javier,” I said. “I have something to give you.” I handed him the bag of oleander leaves.

  “Where did you get this?” he asked.

  “See that golden Lab over there with my friend Jonathan? He dug this up by one of the trees down by the water. They’re oleander leaves, aren’t they?”

  “This is very important, Gini. The lab will do tests on this bag and it should tell us who it belonged too. Good work.”

  “You should thank Hawkeye,” I said. “He wouldn’t leave that tree until he dug this up.”

  Javier walked over to Jonathan, introduced himself, and leaned down to pat Hawkeye. “Give him anything he wants to eat—it’s on me,” Javier said.

  As he started to leave, Janice said to him, “Can I come back with you?”

  “It’s something I have to do alone, Janice,” Javier said. “I’ll see you soon.”

  When he was gone, I looked at Janice. “Are you okay, hon?”

  “I guess so, Gini. I’m not sure. He shuts me out of the important parts of his life.”

  “After all, Janice,” Mark said, “he’s a police inspector. Some things have to remain confidential.”

  “I know that, Mark, but I want to be with him all the time.”

  “Are you in love with him, Jan?” Tina asked.

  “Not really,” she said. “I love being with him, but I don’t see much future for us. I’m not going to live in Spain, and he’s not going to live in America.” She looked resigned. “I’m just taking it one day at a time and enjoying every minute with him. He’s so confident, so sure of himself, so in charge. It’s hard to meet a man like that in America.”

  “I agree,” Mark said. “Most people at home seem isolated, depending more and more on their iPads and smartphones. They don’t seem to be aware of
other people or the world anymore.”

  “Sometimes I think the art of conversation is dying out altogether,” Tina said.

  “Let’s bring it back,” I said.

  I was too full for dessert. I waved good-bye to my friends and started back to the train. As I was climbing the steps leading to the platform, I heard voices calling to me.

  “Gini. Wait up.”

  I turned around and saw Mary Louise and Mike running to catch up to me.

  “You missed a great lunch,” I told them. “Something called oricio. You should have been there. Where were you anyway?”

  “We went to that little chapel up on the hill,” Mary Louise said. “It was so lovely. So quiet. We decided to stay there instead of going to the restaurant. We talked . . . And in that holy place we decided . . .”

  “What?” I was worried. “What did you decide?”

  “That we want to be together,” Mike said.

  “What do you mean, ‘you want to be together’?” I asked. “You don’t mean . . .”

  “Yes, we do, Gini,” Mary Louise said. “I’m going to divorce George. Mike and I are going to get married.”

  I gathered up every bit of strength I had to stay calm, to talk quietly, not to yell, “Are you crazy?”

  Instead, I managed to say, “You’ve only known each other three days. Oh, honey, just wait until we get back home before you decide this. At least give George a chance.”

  “I have given George a chance,” Mary Louise said. “For twenty years. That’s long enough. I know I love Mike and I want to be with him.”

  I didn’t trust myself to say anything else. We walked back to the train in silence.

  Gini’s photography tip: Always have your

  camera or your phone with you so you’ll be

  ready to take that once-in-a-lifetime photo.

  Chapter 12

  What Delicious Tea!

  As I passed Dora’s room, her door opened and there she stood wearing yet another gray outfit—this time, a T-shirt and sweatpants. With a stiff smile, she said, “Could you come in for a cup of tea, Gini? I want to show you some pictures of Darlene.”

  I couldn’t think of any reason not to, so I said, “Sure, I have a few minutes.”

  She had put several pictures on the table in her suite. There was a tray with a teapot and cookies on the dresser top.

  She poured a cup of tea and handed it to me. I took a sip. There was something odd about it. A strong, flowery fragrance and very sweet taste. It was the same strong smell that came from the bag that Hawkeye found down by the shore. Oleander leaves. I put the cup back in its saucer so quickly some of it spilled on the table. I looked at Dora. She was watching me intently.

  “What an interesting flavor, Dora,” I said. “Don’t think I’ve ever had it before. What kind is it?”

  “It’s my own blend,” she said, pushing my cup closer to me and mopping up the tea that had spilled with her napkin. “I make it at home and always carry it with me. I like it better than the kind they give you in restaurants. Here, have a cookie.”

  I shook my head. “No, thanks,” I said. “I don’t like to eat too much before we dance. Aren’t you having any tea?”

  “Oh, yes, I’ll have some in a minute,” she said, putting the pictures in front of me.

  “This is Darlene when she was born.” Her face contorted in pain, she showed me a picture of a man holding a baby.

  “Here she is with her father. It’s the only one I have of him with her. I only keep it because she’s in the picture with him.”

  The photo showed a balding, lean-faced man holding his baby daughter as if he wanted to get rid of her as soon as possible. He was scowling and not looking into the camera.

  “How did you meet him?” I asked.

  “I was a secretary in a firm of accountants where he worked. We used to go out for drinks. He seemed nice enough. Anyway, I married him. He was never a lot of laughs, but he worked hard. I stayed home after I got pregnant with Darlene.”

  She started to pour a cup of tea, but stopped, her face grim. “He wasn’t exactly thrilled that I was going to have a baby. He said it would be all right if I had a boy. I tried to tell him that it might be a girl, but he said he wanted a son.”

  “What happened when you had a girl and she was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis?” I asked.

  “He couldn’t handle it at all. He kept saying it had to come from my side because all his relatives were healthy. I tried to tell him that the doctor said it was caused by a gene on both sides—from the mother and the father. He would curse and yell at me when I told him that. Finally he got so abusive and cruel that I told him to leave. He just disappeared. I’ve never heard from him again to this day. He never sent a penny to care for her or for me.”

  “What did you live on?”

  “Food stamps. Disability money. I don’t need a lot of money where I live. That’s how I could save enough for this trip. The benefits would all have stopped when she was eighteen. I don’t know what I would have done then. She died before I had to deal with that. I didn’t want her to die. I loved her. I miss her.” She wiped away a tear.

  “Watching Shambless must have been a comfort to you through all of this,” I said. I don’t know what made me say that.

  She was very still. Her head was down. When she raised it, there was a look of such fierce hatred on her face that I felt like I’d been slapped.

  “He wasn’t a comfort, he was the devil. I hated him. He was always disparaging people with a disability. He would say things like, ‘They should all be put out of their misery. They have terrible lives. They ruin the families they were born into. Every doctor should be allowed to get rid of them in the delivery room.’ He went on and on about people like me who live on government money. He said we were all freeloaders and should work for our money or get it from our families.”

  She stopped, her face a mask. “I was taking care of my little girl, running back and forth to the hospital trying to keep her alive, living on practically no money, and this monster was telling me my daughter and I should be eliminated.”

  “You seemed to admire him so much in the restaurant and on the bus,” I said, with a great deal of effort not to show my shock. “We all thought you were a real fan.”

  She smiled. It was a smile of such vindictiveness and hatred that I knew she had killed him.

  “That’s what I wanted everyone to think.” She stopped and picked up my teacup. “You’re not drinking your tea. Let me warm it up for you.” She picked up the teapot and poured another few drops into my cup and handed it to me.

  “Oh, Dora,” I said, standing up. “I wish I could stay, but I’ve got to get ready to dance. There’s so little room in the suites, we have to change in shifts.” I edged my way toward the door, talking fast, desperate to get out of there. “Hope you’re coming to see us tonight.”

  She grabbed my arm. “Stay a little longer,” she said, her eyes manic. “You haven’t finished your tea. I want to tell you more about Darlene.”

  “I’d love to hear about her, Dora,” I said, tugging at the door, which was locked. “We’ll get together soon and talk some more, I promise.”

  I wrenched my arm away from her, unlocked the door, and swung it open.

  She reached out for me again, but I managed to get through the door and out into the hall. I looked back. I could see her face, a mask of anger and venom glaring at me from her suite.

  My knees were wobbly as I opened the door to our room.

  Tina took one look at me and guided me to the bed.

  “Gini, what is it?” she said. “You look terrible. What’s the matter?”

  I told her what had happened.

  “What makes you think she killed Shambless?” she asked. “Was it just the tea?”

  “The tea and her face as she talked about her daughter and her husband and how much she hated Shambless. Tina, she just sounded crazier and crazier. Of course, I have no proof that she killed him, bu
t I wasn’t going to stick around and drink any more of that tea. It really tasted weird.”

  “You have to tell the inspector,” Tina said. “I mean it, Gini. Go and find him and tell him now.”

  “What am I going to tell him?” I said. “She didn’t actually do anything to me. I can’t accuse her of murder because her tea tasted funny. She didn’t confess to killing Shambless. She just said he was a terrible man. That doesn’t prove anything.”

  “I know, Gini,” Tina said. “But she seems to think you know she killed him. She might try to kill you again. Next time she might succeed. Please, please, tell the inspector. Let him decide if she’s guilty or not.”

  “You’re right,” I said. “I don’t even know where he is.”

  “In the restaurant he said he was coming back to the train to see if Juan is all right. Try the bar.”

  I don’t know why I ever argue with Tina. She’s always right. I left our suite and headed toward the bar.

  By the time I got there, I was still arguing with myself as to whether to tell Javier what had happened. What proof did I have, after all?

  No, Tina was right. I had to tell someone. Dora might come after me again. I couldn’t figure out why she thought I was a threat to her. I hadn’t done anything to make her think that. Best to let the inspector sort it out.

  Javier and Juan were talking when I walked into the lounge. They didn’t notice me until I was right next to Javier.

  “Señora Miller,” he said. “How nice to see you. To what do I owe this pleasure?”

  “Inspector,” I said. I didn’t know how to start. How could I tell him that I thought Dora was trying to kill me because her tea smelled funny?

  “Sit down, Gini,” he said. “You look as if you have something to tell me. What is it?”

  His face was concerned, kind. Maybe I had misjudged him all this time. Maybe he wouldn’t think I was some kind of nutcase.

  “Inspector. Javier. Something just happened that I think I should tell you about. I know it sounds really weird, but I think Dora Lindquist just tried to poison me.”

  His face was instantly serious, attentive. “What happened?” he asked.