Notes On A Trip, a free story by M. K. Dreysen

Lanie Carter has her reasons for running down to Mexico for a vacation.

Working while she's there didn't make the list. When the body shows up, and the hotel turns into an ant mound of questions and trouble and authority figures looking for a way to pass the buck... Lanie figures it's easier to just go ahead and turn the mess into a working vacation.

With a little luck, maybe Lanie will get a few days extra comped to her. In the meantime, dear reader, Lanie Carter has to compile her...

Notes on a Trip by M. K. Dreysen

She wasn't all that impressed with the views. No matter the commenters on the internet. Half those people must have been paid shills, she believed; the other half must never have been farther away than grandma's house. Here she was with twenty people between her window and the view, half a pool full of tourists, plus the trees that looked like they had been left over when they built the place and forgotten since then.

Sure, she could see the ocean, but what was the point of looking at miles and miles of clear blue nothing? The waves crashing on the beach, that's what she was after, and the occasional hot young surfer. Or volleyball player. Not something she could get at home by putting her tv into painting mode.

Ok, fine, she'd booked the trip because the nightly fees were cheap compared to the places down the beach.

It was her fault, she sighed to herself. Getting her hopes up based on a picture on the internet. She was old enough to know better than that.

'Young enough to still dream,' a stray thought wandered out.

She ignored it. That was easy to do now, easier than it had been. Before.

Lanie decided that, even if she could guess where the picture on the hotel's website had been taken from, she might as well walk out there and find out for sure. "I paid for it, I'm gonna enjoy the view." It was right there in front of her window, she had to credit them for that. Walk out past the pool, to the edge of the concrete, stand still and ignore the chatter behind her, and there it was. Beach down below. It greeted the sprawl of cactus and rock that rolled down below her toes, and it greeted the surf, low rollers chasing in from somewhere. Maybe Hawaii, maybe Asia.

No surfers. Just a few tourists walking the beach, hand in hand like they'd saved up for this little bit of heaven. Some of them, honeymooners maybe, but the majority were older, Lanie's age. Retirees or soon to be, toes in the sand and enjoying the good life, before the grandkids hit college. Or they themselves hit the retirement home, whichever came first.

'Don't let that bother you. We're here, one way or another, might as well enjoy it.' That voice, it sounded like she had, once upon a time.

But it was right. The money was spent, the time booked. Worrying about the rest of it was pointless, Lanie could admit that. To herself, for the first time in a good long while. She'd mouthed some of the phrases, to friends, to the kids. Here, staring out at the sun creeping down to the ocean... she found it, well, not quite easy, but at least doable, to say good things to herself.

The good feeling lasted, when she turned around and walked back to the lobby. When she stopped by the front desk to ask for a recommendation for dinner. Even the look on the clerk's face, the lost one that said something had gone wrong, the staff all knew about it and the manager's response to whatever it was had been something like "Whatever you do, just pretend everything's fine", all it did was make Lanie put her good feeling in her pocket. A good memory for later.

"Um, ma'am." The kid started to try and remember a good place to send the tourista. But whatever was behind his eyes loomed too large for him to get the canned spiel out.

Lanie put her hands behind her back. Might as well ask. Professional curiosity, at least it wasn't her circus. "What happened?"

She made a habit out of the fact that she looked like a fifth grade teacher. Spectacles, middle-aged spread, short, memories from just about everyone of the first teacher that made things make sense. It made parts of the job a whole lot easier. Like now, when the kid across the desk didn't want to admit that anything could possibly have gone wrong. But here was this kindly little woman with her salt and pepper hair, peering out from behind her glasses like she'd just asked him where his homework was. "Mr. Jean-Piett, one of our guests, Margeritte found him just an hour or so ago. On, on the floor of his room."

Margeritte, Lanie assumed, must have been one of their room staff. The timing was right, just after noon when all of the morning checkouts had made their way to the airport.

And Mr. Jean-Piett, from the clerk's expression, hadn't just been passed out on the floor from one too many tequilas and a few too many hours of sun.

"Was he here by himself? It'd be a shame if..."

"No ma'am. Oh, he was in a room by himself, but he was here, overnight, with a group from a cruise ship."

She nodded. "Which means he was supposed to check out and return to his ship this morning?"

The clerk returned her nod. "Mr. Garcia is beside himself, trying to find someone with the cruise ship to come and accept responsibility."

Lanie could sympathize. How many people were going to dodge the issue, until the hotel and the local police department found someone to claim the dead man? "What about the consulate?"

"The nearest South African consulate is in Guadalajara. It'll be some hours before they can get a representative here."

'At least they're in the same country,' Lanie said to herself. The last time she'd been involved with something like this, they'd had to wait for someone to fly all the way from Nigeria. "Don't worry, I'm sure your managers will get it all straightened out. And I won't tell anyone you mentioned it."

The kid relaxed, and a true smile, not the professional one he'd had to struggle to get on, showed through for the first time since she'd come up to the desk. "Thank you, Mrs. Carter. And," he leaned over, she copied him to hear his whisper, "Don't spend the money here. The Rio, down the street, gets their seafood just as fresh as we do, and they don't charge the premium for it. Just ask for Henriqua."

"Your cousin?"

"Sister-in-law. She'll set you up."

"Thank you, Pirro."

The redhead was right. The Rio served up swordfish, grilled and dressed with a little olive oil. No fancy fruit salsas or anything, just some grilled potatoes, peppers and onions to go with it. A beer and some time to enjoy the meal, without wondering if she could really afford the excess. Waistline or pocketbook.

Lanie had just settled into the part of the evening where she was definitely not thinking about who should have, would have been there with her six months ago, when she recognized one of the hotel managers sitting a few tables over. By herself, what was her name again? Not local, either, she was from the States. Maybe the chain had brought her in, like managing a grocery store, they'd want to keep the minor league system working, keep the good team rolling and learning and getting their cuts in. Did Lanie want to stick her nose into this any more than she already had?

She did. Lanie waved down a waiter, asked for another beer and whatever the other lady was drinking, waited for it to be delivered, then wandered over to invite herself along with the drink. "I hope I'm not intruding," she said. "You tell this old nosy lady to go away if you don't feel like talking about it."

The other woman shook her head. "I needed to get away from the noise for a bit. Rodrigo is taking care of that, so I'll need to be fresh enough when I get back to take over the rest of the hotel for the night."

'What's her name?' Lanie asked herself. "Julia, right?"

"That's right, Julia Shelty. And you're Mrs. Carter."

"Lanie, please." She let the conversation settle. Julia hadn't finished her dinner yet, so Lanie wasn't going to push her.

Besides, they had the walk back to the hotel. That's when Lanie stuck her oar in further. "So was it just a heart attack, do you think?"

What Julia admitted to was enough to send Lanie deeper into the thing. The case, now. Jean-Piett might have had a few too many drinks, and too much sun to go along with it, but it wasn't heat stroke on top of a hangover that did for him.

It was the lamp base to the back of the head. "Which means they're asking a lot of questions. If he came here by himself, who'd he piss off?"

Which was the other thing Julia told her about. Whatever he'd done to earn the conk on the head, it had been before he'd disembarked from the boat. No one at the hotel, none of the guests besides the others from the cruise ship, had seen Jean-Piett do anything to deserve it. "No chasing women that didn't belong to him?"

"Men either. He spent all of his time at the beach, soaking up the sun and the booze."

"Not really time to build up that kind of hate, is what you're saying?"

Julia nodded, then held the door open for Lanie to proceed her into the hotel lobby. "I think trouble followed him off the boat. And so did the police."

Which would have been fine, except for the part where the cruise ship company wasn't going to keep a few thousand of their customers stranded on the beach while they straightened out what happened. Julia and Lanie walked into the next part of the drama. The South African consulate's representative had arrived, with the cruise ship's representative not far behind.

Those two had gone through the preliminaries before Lanie arrived ringside; they were fully into the match now, and the worried policeman standing beside them couldn't get a word in.

"Gentlemen, please, can we please move this to my office?" Mr. Garcia, the hotel's general manager, was trying his best to move the show to private viewing only. But no matter how much he wrung his hands, he wasn't having any luck with the proposed change of venue.

Lanie should have kept walking. The instincts built up over a lifetime kicked in, though, and so she walked into the middle of it. "Ok, guys, it's time to take this somewhere else."

The shock of the little old lady stepping between them was enough to shut the two suits up and get them moving.

Lanie tagging along behind them, well. She was just as surprised as the other members of the play. Mostly, she was shocked that none of them thought to ask what she was doing there.

For now, she closed her mouth and let them get on with it. Money, money, money, that was the cruise's task, get the boat moving.

Murder most foul, that was the consulate's position, and they weren't going to back off of it without a damned good reason.

The hotel and the police just wanted the thing cleaned up and off their desk. The detective, a Mr. Jasso, was too quiet for Lanie's tastes. He was in danger of losing control of the case entirely. As best she could tell, the cruise ship captain was angling to write a check, if that's what was needed to move things along.

Ok, maybe she was being cynical. But he was definitely focused on getting the consulate's rep on his side. Then they'd gang up on the police. That part was clear. How many times had he handled it that way? Get the boat down the beach to the next stop, let the company's lawyers handle it, if anyone ever caught up with the perpetrator, they could do it after they were off his boat.

Not that she could blame him. There were a few million rustling reasons idling along every few hours here, and his bosses weren't going to care that one of his passengers was responsible for it. The bottom line beckoned.

The arguments did get settled. When Lanie volunteered to, for a suitable fee, join the play and see if she could get anywhere with the handful of passengers stacked up in the hotel bar.

"And who are you, to think you'll be able to solve this?" The cruiseship rep just managed to conceal a smile.

"Detective Lanie Carter, at your service. Though I'm supposed to be on vacation."

It hung there; from what Lanie could tell, Jasso was alternating between relief that he had some help and consternation that it looked like someone was looking over his shoulder. She couldn't help him with that. "I'd rather be on the beach myself," she whispered to him.

The consul's rep was the first to take the bait. "Well, if Mrs. Carter is willing to offer her services, then of course our office will be happy to engage her, if that's the best way to find out what happened to Mr. Jean-Piett."

Lanie tried not to let the disappointment show on her face. She wasn't fishing for work, she already had a stack of cases waiting on her desk. Moonlighting on the first vacation she'd had in, well, ever, wasn't her idea of a good way to recover from the past couple years.

Fortunately, the cruise ship rep knew when he'd been cornered. "I'm sure that won't be necessary. We've a bit of flexibility in our schedule. I'm sure our passengers won't mind an extra day in port here. If you can guarantee the investigation won't take so very long?"

Detective Jasso stepped up, Lanie was happy to note. "I'm sure we can get the most important part of our investigation finished in that timeframe, Captain," he replied. "My officers are busy interviewing Mr. Jean-Piett's fellows here at the hotel. If I can walk you back to the ship, we can continue the few interviews necessary there?"

And that was that, Lanie thought. The local cops get to do their work, as much of it as they could get under the circumstances. And she would get to go back to the life with a new story or three. 'Who knows,' she told herself as she walked out to the lobby. 'Maybe they'll get lucky and solve the thing.' She was rather proud of herself, all things considered.

Right up to the point when the hotel manager asked her if she'd be willing to step into things a little further. "Mrs. Carter, the hotel would be happy to extend another night, perhaps two, of your stay, if you'll take a further interest in this unfortunate event."

'Now there's an interesting thing,' she told herself. 'What's he so wound up about?'

"Mr. Garcia, I'm sure that Detective Jasso's team has this covered as well as it can be?"

The manager's face was a study. Long-suffering, that was the main part of it, and it told her a little more of Garcia's concern. What he said next gave her the rest. "I have some confidence in Detective Jasso's zeal, madam."

'But not necessarily his, or his team's, abilities,' she added in her head. "I understand, Mr. Garcia."

"And I'm sure we can trust you to handle this as discreetly as possible?"

"Of course." Two extra days in paradise, that was worth it to keep her mouth shut. Assuming there was anything to learn, she reminded herself.

Because of course there were only the fingerprints of the staff on the lamp. And Mr. Jean-Piett's, on the rest of the room furniture. Smudges, here and there, Lanie got the scene investigator to admit to. Assuming her thrice-broke Spanish wasn't letting her down; but nothing identifiable, that much she was certain of. Was there a door between rooms? Of course not, a brand new hotel with suites like the one Jean-Piett had stayed in had no such easy access to the room next door.

There were security cameras. Which should have meant something. Except for the stream of people who'd gone in and out of Jean-Piett's room. "The man must have been popular on the boat," Lanie said. "Just about everyone in the shore group walked through that room that night."

And the last ones in and out of the room? A pair of somebodies, two or three in the morning, Jean-Piett and a couple of friends. All three of them with sombreros and beads marking the fact that they'd been out playing tourist. Jean-Piett had his hat on his back, the string holding it in place while he let himself in. The other two kept their hats on, cheap maracas in one hand and to-go cups in the others.

"Well, someone wanted to make sure they did it up in style," Lanie said to the computer screen.

Garcia sighed. "The tour groups can't resist playing. Half the residents go to bed with the sunset. And the other half come in just before dawn, almost always dressed in the same way." He played footage from the other floors and rooms, proving his point. The hallways had been close to jammed with the revelers, most of them in similar condition and dress to the inebriated trio who'd taken two or three passes with their magnetic keys to get into Jean-Piett's room. Just after two in the morning.

"Maybe when they left the room?"

Garcia fast-forwarded through the footage; an hour later, and a pair of partiers left Jean-Piett's room, wide-brimmed hats poised just so to block their faces for the cameras. The manager gestured at the screen. "There are many who know they've been recorded."

"Working girls, or boys?" Lanie asked. The serapes, of course there were wool serapes because if they were going to play tourist they had to go fully into the bit, concealed body shapes just as well as the sombreros did the faces.

Garcia didn't blush or try and hide it. He was a pro, working with another pro. "It's a fact of life here. The staff downstairs do a good job of keeping the street workers from preying on our guests, but they can't stop the more upscale traffic."

"You don't want them mistaking a high-roller for a high-end call girl," Lanie finished.

"Many of our guests enjoy adventures they otherwise do not get at home. We can make sure the street-walkers don't roll them, but there's no way to tell the difference between, say, picking up someone in a bar, or on the internet, and paying someone for a night's comfort."

Which, Lanie admitted, meant they had no casual outs here. The chain of events was tenuous enough; maybe they were murderers, the two safely anonymous party goers who'd left Jean-Piett's room at Oh-God Thirty. Or maybe someone had discovered an undetectable means of entry. Like through the balcony and an open window. Which, ok so that was the Hollywood movie approach. But it was possible. So even if they got lucky and could find a way to connect the two sombreros to faces in the shore group, there was no way to firm it up and pin the murder on them.

"Was the door to the balcony open? When he was discovered, I mean?"

Garcia didn't know. And Jasso's team, of course, didn't record it one way or the other. Locked, unlocked, open, shut, didn't matter what state it was in because nobody had bothered to keep up with the details.

Lanie didn't ding them for it. She'd had to learn that writing things down was sometimes the hardest part of the job. Most never learned it, never having had a defense attorney rub their noses in it good and hard in front of a jury.

So, no case then. 'In terms of evidence,' Lanie told herself. The only real hope was the old fashioned one. A killer willing, able, and begging to tell someone their story.

Jasso's people would have to work the streets. She didn't have the language or the local knowledge for that. The evidence was almost nonexistent, so her only chance to get anywhere was to go talk to people.

The older couples, Minnesota, Alberta, Germany. The newlyweds, New Jersey, Ohio, and Seattle.

The singles. Men and women, gay and straight, no college kids but there were a couple of retirees here. Otherwise established enough to afford the trip, often curious or jaded enough to be looking for a little bit of flavor, a little different world to explore. Most of them had never been on a cruise; Lanie could almost smell the cabin fever. 'It wasn't quite the paradise at sea they expected,' she thought. 'Maybe a little too crowded.'

What'd they do, in between leaving L.A. and here? A couple days travel, an overnight, how did they kill the time?

Poolside and soak up the sun? Run the track for the health set, sample the booze and the bites for the foodie set. That was about two-thirds of them, what'd the rest do?

Cards, slots. The gambling room. And what'd Jean-Piett do, to kill the time?

Cards. Poker. From the way the others on the shore group described it, he'd hit the tables as soon as they'd opened, and he'd stayed there 'til they got off the boat.

Was he any good? Ah, now there was a question.

The German couple, they thought he was pretty good. He'd cleaned them out, Lina and Frederick, separately. "We set ourselves a nightly limit. Two hundred dollars, split. The old man took it from me, I think maybe twenty minutes or so? Lina, she lost hers later that night, the same story. I liked him, though. He didn't make us feel like poor players, as we are. I felt like I learned a little, so it was good, yes."

The newlyweds from New Jersey weren't quite as happy about it. Or, at least the female part of the pair wasn't. Anthony, her husband, he was good with it. "What do you expect? You sit down at a table, you'd better be ready to lose."

Hallie, she wasn't so enthused. "That old bastard was a shark." And that's all she had to talk about.

There were a handful of the others who'd played a hand or two. Of the singles, Robbie, she was from Atlanta originally. L.A. was home now, she was supposed to meet a handful of her girlfriends in Cabo. "I figured it'd be a fun way to make the party, I come down on the boat, four days of easy living, and then we party for a week. The poker table just called my name." Was Jean-Piett a pain in the ass? Or was he just good at the cards?

"Pain in the ass. He wanted to play like a pro, not like we were all just hanging out having fun."

Were there any other pros? Or wanna-be's?

Robbie wagged her hand, a little of yes and no. "Most people, they just wanted to have a good time. Jean-Piett, Ally, maybe Roger, I think they were regular players. I used to go to New Orleans with the girls a lot, Biloxi too. That type's easy to spot. The ones parked at the table ready to take your money, when all you really want to do is sit down and have some fun. Harmless, as long as you don't mind losing."

Who'd minded losing?

"Most folks, they didn't care that much."

Uh-huh. Except?

Robbie didn't want to admit it. Until it looked like Lanie was getting ready to leave. Then she leaned over, conspiring whisper, girl to girl. "Sammy. Girl from Seattle, she works for someone, not Amazon or Microsoft, maybe Starbucks or Boeing? Manager of something, that much I got. Looks like the girl didn't have the money to lose, whatever job she's got."

Samantha Cxiu. She didn't work for any of the name companies; she was a lower level comptroller, "Glorified bookkeeper", for the University of Washington.

And no. "I couldn't afford it."

Why'd she stay in the game then? "The only way he could take your money..."

"Was if I gave it to him. I know, I know. But I'd talked myself into it. I've been playing games online. I got really good, you should see how many chips I've got built up in my game." Her eyes gleamed, her hands reached for the phone. Sammy needed to show Lanie just how good she was.

Lanie stopped her before Sammy could get the app open. "You never played for real money, did you?"

Sammy looked down at the phone, turning it back and forth in her hands. "No."

"Even with a credit card? Put a little into an offshore account, buy some chips, run a few hands?"

"No." Sammy didn't meet her eyes. "I like games, this was the first app I played that didn't constantly try and get money from me. And I play against real people, not a computer." She looked up then, and the smile was back. She was in the grip of her addiction, and she had someone listening to her.

"How long did you save up for this trip?" And, Lanie added, "Why didn't you just go to Vegas and get it out of your system?"

"I..", Sammy started out keeping eye contact, but she couldn't hold it. "I knew better. I couldn't afford to play, that's why I stuck to the free games."

Lanie nodded. "How long had you quit playing?"

"About six months. Then I found out the boat ran poker tables." And the app had come back onto the phone, about six weeks before the start of the trip.

The rest of Sammy's story, and its intersection with Jean-Piett just about twenty hours ago, didn't take long.

Garcia, and Jasso, the one who was going to have do the rest of the work, listened to Lanie's description of it. The bad beats and the spending money down the tubes, lost to the old man with a heart of steel. The old man who didn't much care that Sammy wasn't going to be able to afford the rest of her trip. Then the 'accidental' meeting, at the bar for dinner... and the rest of the night out.

Jasso took notes, and so did Garcia. Which kind of surprised Lanie.

"Our hotel partners with several of the cruise ship operations. If we can head this off before it gets here next time, maybe we can stop it from happening again. Plus, my boss is going to need to know what to watch out for, when Jasso sends the case to the prosecutors."

There was only really one other thing. Jasso was the one to bring it up, once he'd finished his notes, set down the pen, and stared at the ceiling for a while. "Why did Frederick get involved?"

If that dude hit five-eight, like it said on his driver's license, it was with an elevator and a step-stool. Skinny, he and Sammy, in serapes and sombreros, had been hard to tell apart. Lanie had to agree with Jasso. "He claimed they'd only lost a couple hundred dollars to the guy. And it was money they'd already set aside to lose, right? Go in, spend the same amount, maybe a little more, than you'd do on a good night out. Just don't go and get any more out of the bank account to chase what you'd already lost and you're golden."

Jasso noted that on his list. "I'll need to check their bank accounts, then."

Lanie nodded. She'd been right, Jasso knew his business. He was just working with his hands tied behind his back, tourist trade and a team just really getting the experience and tools to use it. "He still won't admit it, but I noticed something odd, for an old married couple."

"What's that?" Garcia asked.

"No wedding rings, for either of them. Something else you might add to your list, Mr. Jasso, is a trip to the pawn shops. Before any other cruise ships hit the town."

Jasso chuckled. "We'll be lucky if any of the pawn shops admit to it. But sunburnt Europeans are unusual enough, we might get lucky." He extended his hand, and Lanie shook it. "Mrs. Carter, we thank you. I hate to have to ask you, but you know you'll need to come down as a witness, if we get this all the way to a judge."

Lanie smiled. "Oh, bother. I'll just have to come down for another week on the beach. However will I survive?"

Garcia laughed. "I'm sure I can find you a place to rest your burden, Mrs. Carter."

She echoed the laughter as she made her way out of the office. Even when she opened the calendar on the phone. The one with all the case notes and reminders, the little notes reminding her of what waited back home. The big note, the one six months out that said simply, "Retired", that one stuck out.

She'd take good odds that, worse came to worst, she wouldn't have to worry about being back down here until after she hit the big empty space on the other side of that word. "There are worse places to have to spend the first days of retirement."

Now, if she could just get Jasso and Garcia to buy a couple of extra nights of hotel stay to sweeten the deal...