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  RUM LUCK

  A BAR ON A BEACH MYSTERY

  RUM LUCK

  RYAN ALDRED

  FIVE STAR

  A part of Gale, Cengage Learning

  Copyright © 2016 by Ryan Aldred

  Five Star™ Publishing, a part of Cengage Learning, Inc.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously.

  No part of this work covered by the copyright herein may be reproduced, transmitted, stored, or used in any form or by any means graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including but not limited to photocopying, recording, scanning, digitizing, taping, Web distribution, information networks, or information storage and retrieval systems, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  The publisher bears no responsibility for the quality of information provided through author or third-party Web sites and does not have any control over, nor assume any responsibility for, information contained in these sites. Providing these sites should not be construed as an endorsement or approval by the publisher of these organizations or of the positions they may take on various issues.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Names: Aldred, Ryan, author.

  Title: Rum luck / Ryan Aldred.

  Description: First edition. | Waterville, Maine : Five Star Publishing, 2016. | Series: A bar on a beach mystery ; 1

  Identifiers: LCCN 2016001556 (print) | LCCN 2016013045 (ebook) | ISBN 9781432831899 (hardback) | ISBN 1432831895 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781432831875 (ebook) | ISBN 1432831879 (ebook)

  eISBN-13: 978-1-4328-3187-5 eISBN-10: 1-43283187-9

  Subjects: LCSH: Mystery fiction. | BISAC: FICTION / Mystery & Detective / General. | FICTION / Humorous.

  Classification: LCC PR9199.4.A397 R86 2016 (print) | LCC PR9199.4.A397 (ebook) | DDC 813/.6—dc23

  LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2016001556

  First Edition. First Printing: June 2016

  This title is available as an e-book.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4328-3187-5 ISBN-10: 1-43283187-9

  Find us on Facebook– https://www.facebook.com/FiveStarCengage

  Visit our website– http://www.gale.cengage.com/fivestar/

  Contact Five Star™ Publishing at [email protected]

  Printed in the United States of America

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 20 19 18 17 16

  For Andrea. Now and always.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  The people of Tamarindo, for creating the kind of place that gets inside of you and refuses to let go. Any errors and inaccuracies are entirely mine.

  My beta readers—Seb, Sheri, Omar, Janet, Graham, and Robyn—for your honest feedback and your words of encouragement. And the balance between the two.

  My mentors—Garry Ryan, Vicki Delany, Dinah Forbes, and Morty Mint—for your introductions, endorsements, and the benefit of your hard-earned experience.

  Deni Dietz and the team at Five Star Mysteries, for helping this novel reach its full potential.

  My family—Andrea and Eric, and my mother and father—for your unending patience and unconditional support.

  And, of course, the readers. I hope you’ll drop in—www.ryanaldred.com—and tell me what you thought of the book. May this be our first adventure of many.

  CHAPTER ONE

  The hot, humid air wrapped around Victoria Holmes the moment the driver opened her door. She stretched her legs, rose from the chauffeured car, and absently plucked one of her long auburn hairs from her skirt. She wished, not for the first time, that she’d had time to unearth a summer-weight suit before catching the flight late last night. Her driver returned to his seat and cut the engine, spilling silence onto the sleepy side street.

  She glanced down the road toward the center of Tamarindo, where the rolling verdant hillside gave way to beach houses and brightly colored hotels, their yards punctuated by massive trees. Across the street, rusted corrugated roofs gave way to towering resorts and half-finished condominiums, framed by the glittering Pacific. Dense foliage hummed, chirped, and chittered. Life atop of life, atop of life.

  Victoria allowed herself a small smile. This was the Costa Rica she’d hoped to find, if only . . . She took a deep breath of air scented by salt, earth, and diesel exhaust, covered her dark eyes with a pair of designer sunglasses, and headed up the drab concrete walkway.

  A holiday in Costa Rica had been on Victoria’s list for years, but had never quite reached the top. Her friends had always dragged her someplace more exotic or luxurious. But she could already feel there was something here that went beyond infinity pools and corporate cruises.

  Not that this trip would be much of a vacation. Even a lawyer of her caliber was unlikely to find time for piña coladas between bail hearings.

  Victoria kept a bag packed for such calls, but never thought she would haul it out of the closet on account of dear, sweet, predictable Ben. There may have been a time when his antics seemed certain to land him in prison—or a morgue—but ever since he’d left university, his idea of going off the rails was watching two movies in a single night.

  Had it really been more than a decade since them? Ahem . . . since then?

  Tamarindo’s police station was a small, squat building, with walls of white painted concrete and the ubiquitous metal roof. The police crest was hand-painted over the door—a shield that featured a hulking police officer with one arm around a pair of expressionless children, set before a lush mountain at sunrise. The station itself looked clean and in good repair, as did the handful of parked white pickup trucks and squad cars with Policia emblazoned on their sides. All good signs.

  She swung open the door. The inside looked like any other police station, with a handful of tired-looking officers pecking away at reports on antiquated computers beneath the fizzing glow of fluorescent lights, sipping coffee from Styrofoam cups. But there was a hum to the atmosphere, a speed at which papers were shuffled, a gleam in the eyes of the constables. This was not just another day at the office.

  Victoria stepped up to the desk sergeant and handed him a formal request to see her client.

  Miguel Valares made his way down the stone path to the beach-side café. The raucous shouts from the hotel pool washed over him unnoticed as his eyes flicked from one face to the next. Searching. His hands hung by his sides, palms open. Ready. Years of experience kept that readiness from showing on his face. Better if he didn’t scare away the other diners.

  He seated himself away from his fellow patrons, in a chair that gave him a decent view of the beach without forcing him to turn his back to the restaurant. Waiting was the worst part. Particularly for matters that were out of his control. Even the crashing waves and the endless parade of Tamarindo’s most eccentric visitors failed to provide distraction.

  He eyed a pack of Camels a few tables over, next to a discarded plate of scrambled eggs. Empty, but for one lone cigarette poking out from the crumpled aluminum wrapper. He hadn’t had one since . . . Well, not for a long time. Not long enough, apparently. Miguel pulled his phone from his pocket and set it on the table, willing it to buzz with an update. No such luck.

  He thought back to last night. The beachside bar bathed in revolving blue lights. The crackle of police radios. Ben, slumped in the back of a squad car. And the choice Miguel had made. It had gone against every instinct to leave Ben there and call Victoria instead, but he’d had few options. Even unarmed, Miguel had no doubts about his ability to break open the squad car and disable the handful of Policía Turística on-site. But what then? And at what price?

  The waiter cleared the tabl
e, scooping up the pack of cigarettes in the process. Miguel breathed a small sigh. He glanced down at his phone once more. Nothing. What was taking so long? The pounding of his heart overtook the rhythmic drumming of the hotel’s samba music. He could feel the darkness creeping up the back of his neck, whispering in his ear. Searching. Ready.

  Waiting was the worst part.

  Ben Cooper had had his share of hangovers over the years, but this one deserved to be immortalized in poetry. Where lesser ones faded with time, this one was still returning on a winged tequila worm to take him to Hangover Valhalla. Unfortunately, his other senses were now coming into focus, including his sense of smell. His cell reeked of hot sweat, stale beer, and bitter disappointment.

  He tried to remember what happened the previous night. His hands were bruised and scraped, and his shirt was speckled with blood. He ran his fingers through his hair and found it caked with sand. The flesh around his right eye was sore to the touch and his nose felt broken. If he was lucky, that meant the blood on his shirt was his own.

  So, not wrongfully arrested. He didn’t know whether public intoxication was a crime in Costa Rica, but he must have disturbed the peace. Running his hands through his hair and down his face was disturbing enough.

  Miguel would know. Assuming his friend wasn’t lying in the cell next to his.

  “Miguel?” Ben asked through the bars.

  The dull hum of the fluorescent lights overhead was the only reply.

  Ben slumped back on the concrete floor, struggling to remember more of last night. They’d been at the bar, having drinks with . . . what was that guy’s name, Alberto? Antonio? And then . . . and then . . .

  Ben remembered the flash of police lights and the overwhelming smell of salt and copper. Oh God, what had he done?

  The clack of the lock echoed in his head like a cannon shot. A guard pushed open the door and ushered in a young woman wearing a business suit. If Ben didn’t know better, he would say she looked like—

  “Victoria?”

  “Hi, Ben.” She gave him a wan smile. “You look like hell.” Victoria, as ever, was class personified . . . a fashionista’s dream. An errant fleck of seaweed tickled Ben’s nostril.

  “Please, make yourself at . . . home.” He gestured to the thin mattress that he had abandoned at some point during the night for the blessed coolness of the concrete floor.

  Victoria glanced at the mattress, but remained standing. “Thanks, I’ll pass.”

  “What are you doing here?” Was she some sort of withdrawal-induced hallucination?

  “Miguel called me,” she explained with a shrug.

  Her arrival cleared the fog from a dozen missed engagements. When they graduated—him to IT consulting and her to her father’s law firm—Ben had known his best friend from university would be busy trotting the globe and building her career. It took a few years to realize that meant she’d only be available to meet up between 3:08 and 3:11 p.m. when the moon was waxing gibbous.

  Yet here she was. Ben would have to get Miguel a trophy that read “World’s Best Best Man” to thank his Colombian friend for his quick thinking. Except there was no best man, not after what had happened between Ben and Tara Whitmore, his former fiancée. “World’s Best Ex-Best Man” didn’t have quite the same ring to it, somehow.

  “He said you needed me to take your case,” Victoria finished.

  Case? It couldn’t be as bad as that, could it? “It’s great to see you. It’s been ages. But I’m sure they’ll let me out of here once I sober up and pay the fine.” He fought back against the fear creeping into his voice. “I don’t think Miguel meant for you to fly down from Toronto in the middle of the night . . .”

  Victoria took a deep breath. “Ben, you’ve been arrested for murder.”

  Ben moved his mouth to speak, but it seemed to have malfunctioned.

  “Listen carefully,” she said. “I don’t know if you remember what happened last night and, right now, I don’t care. For now, you don’t say a word. When we leave—and we will leave today—let me do the talking. Do you understand?”

  He stared through Victoria into a lifetime of sweltering inside a concrete box. I can’t go to prison here, he thought. I don’t know nearly enough Spanish.

  Victoria nodded at the guard standing by the open cell door. He readied his keys as she strode past him into the hallway, her high heels snapping on the concrete floor. By the time he slammed the lock back into position, Victoria had already passed the desk sergeant and swung left toward the captain’s office.

  “Señora!” the desk sergeant called, while the guard fumbled with his heavy key ring.

  Victoria rapped twice on the captain’s office door, then pushed inside to reveal an older, overweight officer sitting at a heavy wooden desk with a coffee in hand, reviewing the morning paperwork. He glanced up at the intruder, his eyes narrowing. The lines on his face spoke of too many late nights and early mornings spent reading print that grew smaller by the year.

  With a flick of his hand, the captain dismissed the desk sergeant and the guard, who had finally caught up with Victoria. He shot them a glare that made it clear they should not make any plans for their next days off.

  “Buenos dias, Captain Reyes. I am here to arrange the release of Mr. Benjamin Cooper,” Victoria said in flawless Spanish. She took a seat in one of the chairs before the heavy wooden desk and extracted a thick manila envelope from her leather attaché case.

  Captain Reyes slowly set aside his barely touched coffee. “I am afraid you have the advantage of me, Miss . . . ?”

  “Victoria Holmes of Holmes, Holmes and Wright. I am Mr. Cooper’s attorney.”

  “Are you aware that Mr. Cooper has been detained in connection with the violent murder of Mr. Antonio Guiterrez?”

  “I am.”

  Captain Reyes paused.

  Like many veteran officers, he believed he could gain the advantage by trading time for silence. Victoria had studied at the same school of thought. They stared at each other for several moments, the office silent but for the slow thrum of the ceiling fan as it struggled to move the leaden air.

  The captain finally asked, “Do you intend to present your request?”

  “In a moment.” She gave the wall clock the slightest of glances. “I believe you are expecting a phone call.”

  “Is that so?”

  Again, silence. Then the phone rang. Captain Reyes’s eyes flashed as he brought the heavy black receiver to his ear.

  “Reyes.”

  Victoria couldn’t decipher the other side of the conversation, but she had a good idea of what was being said.

  “I see, Minister.” He paused. “You understand of course, Minister, that I will require a written order to that effect.” His grip on the receiver tightened. “Oh, she does? That is most convenient. Good day, Minister.” He slammed the receiver down.

  Victoria slid the manila envelope across the captain’s desk. “You will find everything in order.”

  Reyes opened the envelope and wordlessly flipped through the documents until he reached the release authorization at the bottom. Seeing the rage flare in his pale green eyes, Victoria wondered if she had perhaps been too prepared.

  “Oh, look. There is even a little sticker to tell me where to sign. How thoughtful of you and your . . . friends.” Reyes spat out the last word, but reached for a pen and signed the document.

  “We realize you are a very busy man, Captain.” Victoria smiled, taking back the release form. “This is all I require. The remainder is for you to retain, for the time being.”

  Reyes grunted. He picked up the envelope and seemed mollified by the weight of Ben’s passport, though he’d know well enough how little a passport mattered in a town like Tamarindo.

  Victoria rose from her chair triumphant. “Thank you for your cooperation, Captain. I will not take any more of your valuable time.”

  “Good day, Miss Holmes.” To her surprise, he rose with her and inclined his head in farewell.r />
  A gallant police captain—how quaint. She closed her attaché with a click and reached for the door. There might be time for that piña colada after all . . .

  “Oh, and Miss Holmes?” Captain Reyes sat back down and took a sip of coffee. To her surprise, he switched to fluent English. “So you are aware, I am releasing Mr. Cooper into your care solely due to evidence that he left the scene prior to the murder. Despite what you may have heard about the police in Costa Rica, I would not simply turn a homicide suspect loose in Tamarindo, not even into the custody of the Minister of the Interior himself.”

  His tone sharpened. “Should our opinion of Mr. Cooper’s involvement change, he will be arrested. Should Mr. Cooper attempt to leave Tamarindo, he will be arrested. Should Mr. Cooper fail to deposit a chewing gum wrapper in the proper receptacle, he will be arrested. And should either of you interfere with the investigation, you will both be arrested. And that release will not come with a convenient signature sticker.” He took another sip. “Please close the door behind you.”

  Victoria met his gaze and returned his nod, inclining her head a moment longer than etiquette demanded. The heavy wooden door swung closed behind her.

  The guard yanked open the door to Ben’s cell, shouted something at him in Spanish, and motioned for him to get out. He assumed they were moving him to another prison. Perhaps, if he asked nicely, the guard would teach him how to say, “I wish to join your gang in exchange for protection” in Spanish.

  He was surprised to find Victoria waiting for him at the sergeant’s desk, next to an evidence bag containing his personal effects. He gave her a bruised but grateful grin, and she flashed him a quick smile. She seemed on the verge of setting the world record for securing the release of a suspected murderer from a Central American prison, assuming he still had the dexterity needed to put his belt back on.

  Apart from the belt, there wasn’t much: a broken watch, a cashless wallet, and the key to his hotel room.