Old Poison (20 page)

“Roberto, this is such a delightful place
but the exhaust from the cars on the boulevard is almost enough to
ruin it. It’s like sucking on a bus tail pipe almost everywhere we
go.”

“Yes, the air is very bad, too many diesels,
no emissions control.”

“How come? I thought Costa Rica was ahead of
the entire world in environmental protection, but you had the only
green machine at the airport.”

“Until now it was no good to have catalytic
converters because the leaded gas just ruined them and still
polluted.”

“But leaded gas has been illegal for
years.”

“In the U.S., not here, not in most of the
Third World countries. And besides, government taxes make it easy
to import used cars and very expensive to import new, unleaded gas
ones. I must be away from my family for two years in the U.S. to
make that much.”

My admiration for this industrious young
entrepreneur rose several notches. “I’ll bet that was hard. Seems
like a strange government policy. I wonder why.”

In about ten minutes he had me to my first
destination, a home in downtown San Jose that had been converted
into the offices of the
Tico Times
, an English-language
newspaper.

“I’ll be a couple hours here, Roberto, so
feel free to take some other fares. Just pick me up about eleven,
OK?”

He shrugged. “OK.”

I explained to the young woman at the door
that I wanted to do a bit or research. She issued me a visitor’s
badge and called a reporter to help me. Fifteen minutes later a
woman arrived, introducing herself as Helen. From her frazzled and
slightly resentful demeanor, I suspected that I had arrived in the
middle of a big story or at press deadline. However, it was her
reaction to my request for information on the fire at Evelyn’s
house that was the shocker.

She blanched, becoming so pale I was afraid
she was going to pass out on me. As she reached for the wall to
support herself, I took her hand. “Let’s sit down over here on the
couch. Are you all right?”

She nodded but sank onto the couch. “Why are
you asking about that story?”

I had a cover story about being Evelyn’s
aunt from Iowa, but she was so visibly shaken that I just said, “I
wanted to see if there had been any follow-up on the investigation,
any response to Evelyn’s claims that all three victims were already
dead when the fire started.”

“Who are you?”

“I’m an investigator from the States.”
Seeing her doubtful look, I hoped she would not ask for my license
as it was not made out to Tia Tillie.

She considered me a moment, then shrugged.
“It will be in the paper tomorrow, anyway. There was a reporter
from another paper,
Costa Rica Hoy
, who was following that
story. He disappeared three weeks ago and was just found this
morning in the morgue.”

“How did he die?”

“The police say he overdosed in Sabania Park
the night he disappeared, but they can’t explain where his body was
for the last three weeks. His friends had already checked the
morgue.”

The color returning to her face, she stood
up. “If you want to research our newspaper, all the volumes are up
there on those shelves. Help yourself, but it might not be a very
safe time to be too curious about that story.”

She turned and walked away leaving me
staring at the shelf of both loose leaf and bound volumes. The
young woman at the front desk confirmed my suspicion that there was
no index, so I picked up the volume that covered the right period
of time and searched it page by page.

By the time Roberto picked me up I had made
copies of all the stories I could find on Evelyn, her work, and
Lilac Environmental Institute. I had also copied the only story I
found regarding the disappearance of reporter Mark Rojas. Sitting
in the front passenger seat, I stared blankly at the material and
considered where to go next. In the States I would run every name
and address through an assortment of computer databases, develop a
number of leads, then follow them. None of my databases had data in
Costa Rica, however. Well, back to BC: Before Computer.

“Roberto, I need a phone book and I need to
visit the newspaper
Costa Rica Hoy.”

He reached under the front seat and
magically produced a region-wide phone book. I smiled and said,
“Could you be faster next time?”

He chuckled, put the car in gear, and pulled
out into traffic.

Costa Rica Hoy
was like an armed
camp. Plain-clothes security barred our entrance and we were
carefully screened outside the door. I was required to show my
passport, tell them where I was staying, and state my business.
When I said I was at the Selva Verde hotel and wanted to look
through their old papers for a story they had printed on my niece,
Roberto’s eyes widened slightly and he studied me thoughtfully.

After a brief conference with someone
inside, the guard declined to admit me, saying he was sorry but the
office was closed due to the death of an employee. He invited me to
come back next week if I was still in town.

Back in the car, I studied the phone book
and Roberto studied me. “You speak pretty good Spanish. Funny
accent. Not like most from the U.S.”

“I learned my Spanish in Mexico and
Venezuela. It’s been a lot of years, though, and I’ve forgotten
much.”

“What were you doing in those places?”

“I was being a kid. My dad was opening an
iron mine in Venezuela and an opal mine in Mexico.”

The phone book had a long list of Rojas, but
none with the first name of Mark. Most listings had no address or
had only a postal box. “Roberto, is there an office supply
someplace close?”

“Si, you want to go there next?”

I nodded, noticing that he was dying to ask
more but too polite to do so. While he waited in the car, I got a
medium-sized box, brown wrapping paper, some mailing labels, an ink
pen with washable blue ink, and some scotch tape.

On the way back to the car, I passed a small
working man’s sidewalk café. I had seen them everywhere we drove
that morning, and Roberto had told me that here such lunch spots
are called “sodas.” The delicious aromas emitting from it reminded
me it was past lunchtime. I flashed Roberto a hand
signaled-question, pointing to my mouth and then to the Gallo Pinto
Soda. He nodded, turned off the engine, and joined me. As we
lunched on rice, beans, and fried banana, I asked for a third order
to go. Roberto was explaining the tradition of the term
Gallo
Pinto
.

“It means ‘spotted rooster’ because its
colors looks like one with the white rice, and black beans, green
cilantro, and red chile. It’s sort of a . . .”

As I put the Styrofoam container with the
third helping into the box, he paused to stare at what I was
doing.

“. . . It’s sort of a joke, the man who has
no chicken eats spotted rooster, but it is a dish we . . . ”

I then wrapped the box of
Gallo Pinto
in the brown paper and applied the address label.

“ . . . it’s a dish we take great pride in.
But not so much that we make presents of it.”

On the return address I wrote “TIA TILLIE’S
KITCHEN, Avenida 6, Calles 5/7.” For the mailing address, I wrote
MARK ROJAS on the first line, then made up another address in San
Jose. I dipped the corner of my paper napkin in my water and
smudged the address until it was totally illegible.

“What are you doing?”

I met his eyes but avoided his question.
“Finished with lunch, Roberto?”

He gave me what I was now recognizing as a
characteristic shrug. “Sure.”

Back in the car, I pointed to the first
Rojas in the phone book and handed Roberto the local cell phone I
had bought. “I need someone with a local accent to call these
people and ask if this is the home of Mark Rojas. Could you do that
for me? If they ask why, you can tell them we have a delivery for
him.”

He looked at the cell phone and looked up at
me. “Tia Tillie, are you a cop?”

“No”

“Mark Rojas was a good reporter, but
dangerous. I must know what you are doing. I think it could be
dangerous too.”

I had been studying Roberto for two days and
made my decision quickly. “Do you know who Professor Evelyn Lilac
was?”

Again the shrug. “I do not know her but I
have of course heard of the Lilac Foundation. Everybody has and
they . . . Was?”

I nodded. “She was found murdered in
Arizona. I am trying to find out a little about her life here, her
friends and her enemies, to try to help find her murderer.”

“You are a cop.”

“No, a private investigator. My little
investigation is not official, and I need it to be very quiet.”

He smiled, almost laughed. “San Jose is not
so big a city, and Mark Rojas has disappeared. You go to deliver
Gallo Pinto
to Mark Rojas all over town and your
investigation won’t be very quiet. Gossip here is faster than
email.”

“Maybe, but I don’t have the resources to
find people here that I do in the States.”

He shrugged. “But you have me.”

“You know where Mark Rojas lived?”

“No, but I know where his girlfriend work .
. .wait . . .You did it again. You said lived. Is he . . .?”

I nodded. “It will be in tomorrow’s
papers.”

Roberto shook his head, shoved the car in
gear, and drove a short way across the inner city, navigating
expertly along the narrow, congested, mostly one-way streets.

As we passed an attractive older hotel, he
pointed and said, “That is the Selva Verde hotel you give to the
paper. You pick a nice one. It have big rooms, restaurant, casino.
Many fisherman stay there. Some fish for marlin, some fish for
pretty young Ticas in the Golden Macaw Bar.” He gave me a
self-satisfied grin, then socked it to me with a final pointed
observation. “But, not so many older aunts stay there.”

We drove past an attractive city park, and
as Roberto paused in traffic, I noticed an older mansion with the
delightfully romantic name of Key Largo. In his constant tour guide
mode, Roberto pointed it out and said it was a very lively night
spot. Then with a mischievous grin, he added, “So if Tia Tillie
doesn’t find what she want at the Golden Macaw, she could check out
the action at the Key Largo.” It occurred to me that this kid could
turn into a real smart ass.

Circling the park, he rounded the corner and
stopped in front of a huge two-story building that from the outside
resembled a concrete bunker. It was surrounded by a tall chain-link
fence that was topped by the ubiquitous strands of barbed wire. The
windows on the upper floor were all covered with dark drapes. The
entrance, a huge set of heavy wooded doors, was blocked by two
armed guards. Even before I noticed the name over the entrance, I
was speculating as to its probable uses, and most of the ones I
considered were salacious. As we pulled around to the entrance and
I saw the name, I had to laugh. It was aptly named The Shady Lady.
Where was Roberto leading me?

* * * * *

Hollywood could not create a better den of
iniquity than this real-life one, but in the shuttered, under-lit
gloom of the afternoon, it was just a big, empty, decrepit, bar
that stank of stale beer and aged floors and walls. I suspected
that the dark lighting was in lieu of cleaning and painting. Not
even the life-sized posters of can-can dancers that hung in the
shadows at the back of the stage could add any glamour to this
dive.

The bar lined three of the walls so that one
need never be too far from a drink, but only one small section was
lighted and in use in the afternoon. The only two people in the
place were the bartender, a hard-looking woman who was probably in
her forties, and a pretty young woman seated on a bar stool. They
sat gossiping quietly while a muted television flickered silently
on the wall behind them. I had no doubt that there would be women
in the upstairs rooms, but at this hour they would be resting up
for their night’s work. At night, when the place was gyrating with
human bodies and afloat with booze, it was probably exciting enough
to satisfy at least the prurient interests, but at this hour it was
just distasteful. I wondered what Mark Rojas’s girlfriend did
here.

Either Roberto was very good at people
reading, or I was becoming entirely too transparent for this
business. He turned to me and said, “At the day Patricia is the
assistant bookkeeper here and at night she sell flowers and
earrings to the customers. Don’t worry, Tia Tillie, I wouldn’t
bring you to such a place at night.”

Roberto greeted the woman behind the bar as
Elina and gave a polite nod to the one seated. Elina returned his
greeting and looked suspiciously at me as I limped in, leaning
heavily on my cane. She asked what we would have, and Roberto
ordered us each a beer. As she drew the beers, he introduced me as
a visitor from the United States and said I was interested in some
of the hand-carved wooden earrings that Patricia made. He asked
when she would be in or if we might go to her home to see the
earrings.

When Elina set the beers in front of us, her
face was a mask, and she mumbled a quiet, “
Un momento
.” She
picked up the phone, dialed just two digits, turned her back to us
and spoke softly. She hung up and walked over to Roberto. Speaking
in a very quiet voice she told him that Patricia was staying at the
Shady Lady for a day or two and would be down in a few moments with
her earring box. She would meet us in the outside garden. Roberto
thanked her, picked up our beers, and led me to the garden.

The “garden” was a rather bleak cement patio
which nested in the center of the U shaped building and was not
visible from the front entrance. It’s only redeeming virtue was
that it had a nice view of the city park beyond. Once seated on a
concrete bench, Roberto leaned over and reported confidentially,
“The employees here think the owner has the whole place bugged with
tape recorders and video. I don’t know if it is so, but they won’t
talk much inside.”