“But he turned you down?” I prompted.
Cristobal shrugged. “Yes, but it is no matter. Casa Verde’s lobby is beautiful as it is, and I understand his reasons for not wishing to sell.”
“You do? What are they, if you don’t mind my asking?”
If he was surprised by my pushiness, he hid it pretty well. “I am from this area and understand matters of local pride and such,” he said. “So as I say, I understand why he decided against the sale, even if his change of heart was rather sudden.”
That didn’t really answer my question. But Cristobal’s gaze was wandering again, so I decided I’d better move on.
“I saw your brother here a moment ago,” I said, doing my best to keep my voice casual. “He must be terribly distraught over all that unpleasantness with Juliana.”
“I suppose so.” Cristobal blinked, suddenly taking a step away. “Alicia!” he called out to the biologist, who had just hurried into view nearby. “Is everything all right? I thought you would be in the lounge doing your presentation.”
Alicia looked up and saw us. “Sara is handling it for me,” she replied breathlessly. “I was called away because one of the guests thought she saw an injured coati near one of the trails.”
“Did you find anything?” Cristobal asked with concern.
Alicia shrugged. “I was just on my way out there to have a look.”
“If you will excuse me, Nancy, I’d better help look into this.” Cristobal shot me an apologetic smile, then turned to hurry after the biologist. They both disappeared into the darkening jungle beyond the pool lights.
I stood there for a moment feeling unsatisfied. I still had no idea what the Arrojo brothers had been arguing about just now. Did it have something to do with the old love triangle — or perhaps something more recent, like Juliana’s antics?
When I felt a mosquito chomp on my arm, I snapped out of my thoughts. Hurrying inside, I found my friends just emerging from the evening’s educational presentation.
“Wow, you missed it, Nancy,” Bess exclaimed. “Sara’s talk was great!”
George nodded. “She always seems so shy — I wasn’t sure she’d even be able to speak in front of a group. But once she got going, she totally got into it.”
“She’s really passionate about animals and all the environmental stuff,” Bess added. “No wonder she ended up working in a place like this!”
“That’s nice,” I said, barely hearing them. “But listen, I just talked to Cristobal....”
Pulling them aside to a private spot, I filled them in on what little I’d learned. George rolled her eyes when she heard about Poppy and Adam’s latest argument.
“I wonder why those two are even together?” she said. “They don’t seem to get along too well.”
Bess grinned. “Forget about them. I’m more interested in hearing that Cristobal and Enrique were arguing. I wonder if it has anything to do with those love letters.”
“I almost forgot about that,” I said. Juliana had told us that her father had writ- ten numerous love letters on his computer. She was convinced they were unsent letters to Virginia, though she’d also admitted she hadn’t gotten a good-enough look to tell for certain.
“What if Enrique’s been sending those letters after all, maybe as e-mails?” Bess went on. “Cristobal might have seen them on her computer, or maybe Virginia showed them to him.”
“Okay.” George shrugged. “But even if that’s true, what does it have to do with the turtle incident?”
“I’m not sure.” I sighed. “I just wish we had more time here to solve this! But with that film crew arriving tomorrow...”
“I know.” George grimaced. “I’m already having flashbacks to all that business with cousin Syd’s crazy reality-show wedding.”
“Never mind. Nancy managed to crack that case, cameras and all,” Bess reminded us. “She’ll solve this one too.”
It was nice to know that my friends had faith in me. But as I climbed into bed later that night, I wasn’t feeling nearly as confident. I lay awake long after both my friends were asleep, listening to George’s soft snoring and thinking about the case.
I’d just finally dropped off when the room phone rang. For one bleary, confused moment I thought it was morning already and wondered which of my friends had requested a wake-up call.
But then my head cleared and I realized it was still the middle of the night. I heard Bess groan and turn over as the phone rang again.
I reached out and grabbed it, still feeling a bit confused. “Hello?” I mumbled.
“Go to the white water,” a voice whispered.
That woke me up a little. I sat up in bed. “What?” I said, pressing the phone to my ear. “Who is this?”
“Go to the white water,” the whispering voice insisted again. “Go right now if you want to look deeper into what Casa Verde is all about!”
“Who are you?” I asked again.
But it was too late. With a click the line went dead.
WATERY WEIRDNESS
Now I was really awake. Go to the white water... I immediately thought back to a nature walk earlier in the week. Alicia had been guiding the walk, and she’d pointed out a certain spot in the river that ran through Casa Verde’s nature preserve, mentioning that it would soon be the launch point for white-water rafting. The rafts had already been there, but she had explained that the resort was still waiting for some permits before they could allow guests on the river. Could that be what the mysterious caller was talking about?
Carefully sliding out of bed, I reached for my clothes, planning to grab them and pull them on outside so I wouldn’t wake my friends. But just as my hand closed over my hiking boots, a light clicked on.
“Okay, what was that phone call all about?” Bess mumbled, yawning and rubbing her eyes. “And where do you think you’re going?”
“Hey!” George grumbled hoarsely without moving in her own bed. “Turn off the light.”
“Wake up,” Bess told her, sounding more alert with every passing moment. “Nancy’s trying to sneak out without us again.”
I smiled sheepishly. “Guess I’m busted,” I admitted. A few days earlier, I’d tiptoed out of the room to snoop around Cristobal’s office in the middle of the night. My friends hadn’t known a thing about it until I’d told them the next day.
George rolled over and groaned again. “What time is it?” she complained. “Did I hear the phone ring?”
“As a matter of fact, you did....” I told them about the mysterious caller.
George didn’t respond, and I wasn’t completely sure she hadn’t fallen asleep again. But Bess was sitting straight up in bed, looking wide-awake.
“Who was it, Nancy?” she asked. “Did you recognize the voice?”
I shook my head. “I’m pretty sure it was female; that’s all I can tell you,” I said. “She kept it to a whisper.”
“‘Go to the white water,’” Bess quoted thoughtfully.
“Do you think she meant the rapids along that one nature trail?”
“That’s where I was going to check,” I said.
Bess’s eyes widened in alarm. “On your own?” she demanded. “Are you crazy? Mysterious whispering criminals aside, it’s really not safe to go tromping out into the rain forest on your own in the middle of the night! What if you got bitten by a coral snake? Or squeezed by a boa constrictor?”
“Let me guess,” I joked weakly. “Were snakes a big part of that environmental lecture you went to tonight?”
Bess didn’t look amused. “This is no time for jokes,” she said sternly. “If you’re going out there, George and I are coming with you. Right, George?”
“Mmmph, wha?” George mumbled from beneath the covers.
Bess jumped out of bed and hurried over to give her cousin a sharp poke on the shoulder. “Get up,” she commanded. “We’ve got some investigating to do.”
Soon all three of us were tiptoeing away from the building. Well, Bess and I were tiptoeing. George was dragging along behind us, complaining and yawning all the way.
We hurried across the manicured grounds toward the edge of the jungle. I’d grabbed a flashlight on my way out of the room, and I clicked it on as soon as we entered the tree line. Even so, it was pretty dark and spooky out there. The nighttime noises were deafening once we left the serene openness of the resort proper, and I kept catching glimpses of gleaming eyes peering out at us as we passed. It takes a lot to spook me. I’d faced down hardened criminals and dangerous situations with nary a shiver of fear. But the deeper we hiked into the wilds of the rain forest, the farther we got from civilization, the more vulnerable I felt. We’d been assured that it was highly unlikely we’d ever spy a jaguar outside of a zoo, but right then I had to wonder. Every time a frog croaked or a monkey howled, my heart jumped into my throat.
“This is crazy,” George said after we’d been walking for a few minutes. She sounded a little more awake by then. “What are we supposed to be doing out here, anyway?”
“Looking deeper, I guess.” I played the flashlight beam over the path ahead. Bess’s mention of snakes had reminded me that we really did need to be careful out here. Just ahead, the trail we were following split in two.
“I think it’s that way,” Bess said, pointing to the right.
She was right. After another ten minutes we could hear the river up ahead, even over the cacophony of jungle sounds all around us.
Soon we were standing on the bank overlooking the rushing water. “Well?” George said, smothering a yawn. “Now what?”
“I’m not sure.” I cast the flashlight beam here and there, looking for any clues. But all I could see were the beached rafts and a half-built supply hut nearby.
The roar of the tumbling white water drowned out much of the jungle noise. But we could still hear the occasional cry of a monkey or bird.
“Did you hear that?” Bess said after a particularly forlorn cry.
When I shone the flashlight on her, she looked puzzled. “Hear what?” I asked.
“That bird call. I think...” She trailed off, tilting her head thoughtfully to one side as the cry came again. “That’s weird.”
“Everything out here is weird.” George wrinkled her nose. “It’s probably just some bizarre new breed of monkeys talking about whether they should try to eat us.”
“No, I’m serious,” Bess said. “That was no monkey. I’m pretty sure that was the call of a common loon.”
I shrugged, not too interested in playing Name That Bird Call at the moment. “So what?”
“So there are no loons around here,” Bess insisted. “At least I’m pretty sure there aren’t. They live much farther north in colder climates. So it seems pretty un- likely we’re actually hearing one here in Costa Rica.”
“What are you saying?” George asked. “Are we hallucinating? Or do you think Kat brought her beloved pet loon along as well as that flea-bitten little rat of hers?”
But I was staring at Bess by now, catching on. “Are you sure that was a loon call?” I asked, though I knew the answer before she nodded. If Bess said something like that, you could be pretty sure it was true. And she knew a lot of weird and unexpected stuff.
Just then the distinctive call rang out again. “I think it came from over there,” Bess said, pointing downriver.
George had caught on by now too. “Do you think it’s our mysterious caller?” she hissed as we turned to hurry in the direction of the call.
“It must be,” I whispered back, catching myself just in time to keep from tripping over an exposed root. “Hurry! We don’t want to lose her.”
None of us could spare any attention or energy on talking for the next few minutes. It was all we could do to follow the loon calls, which continued at sporadic intervals. Before long we’d left the trail far behind, instead pushing through virgin jungle. Vines and rough leaves scratched my bare arms, and various insects landed on me, bit me, or got tangled in my hair. Once I had to duck as a bat, presumably confused by my flashlight, almost bombed right into us.
“I’m starting to remember why I never liked camping,” George grumbled breathlessly, slapping at a mosquito — or something — as we burst out of the trees into another open area.
Once again, we found ourselves overlooking the river. Or at least a river.
“Wait, I thought we were moving away from the river for that last bit?” Bess commented as we stepped forward.
“I’m guessing this is a tributary of the main river,” I said, peering down at the water rushing past below the bank where we were standing. “At least I hope so! It’s definitely not appropriate for rafting in this spot.”
By now the moon was rising, making it a little easier to see. The tributary was moving even faster than the main river. It had eaten out a narrow, twisting ravine studded with sharp-looking rocks.
“It’s not really appropriate for crossing on foot, either,” Bess said. “I hope whoever we’re following realizes that.”
“What if this person is just trying to get us lost out here?” George flapped her hands at some random bugs buzzing around her head. “It could take weeks to find us.”
I had to admit the thought had occurred to me. But I wasn’t willing to give up yet. Tilting my head, I listened for another signal from our mysterious caller.
I didn’t hear any more loon calls. But I did hear something else. A sort of hollow gurgling sound.
“Listen,” I said. “Do you guys hear that?” I started walking along the riverbank toward the source of the sound.
“Sounds like water to me,” George said with a shrug. “Probably just another stream breaking off or something.”
But Bess let out a gasp. “Look over there!” she cried, pointing.
I followed her finger to a huge metal pipe jutting out of the cut-out bank on the far side of the tributary. Vines hung down over there, mostly obscuring it. But it looked as if someone had recently hacked away some of the foliage to make the pipe more visible.
George peered across at it. “What’s that all about?” she asked, staring at the liquid pouring out of it.
“I don’t know,” I began. “I wonder if...”
My voice trailed off as a breeze wafted through the jungle. It carried a smell with it from the direction of that pipe. And not a pleasant one.
“Ugh!” Bess cried, covering her nose. “Gross. Is that?...”
“Human waste,” I said grimly, suddenly guessing what this little midnight trek was all about. “Unless I miss my guess, that’s got to be unfiltered human waste.”
“Did you tell Cristobal about what we saw last night?” Bess whispered to me as I sat down to breakfast the next morning.
I glanced quickly around the dining room. Nearby, Kat was regaling the others with her usual Hollywood tales as she fed Pretty Boy pieces of bacon. I’d already noted that the little dog was even more dressed up than usual today. He was wrapped in a tiny grass skirt and a bikini top that appeared to be made of walnuts. A jaunty straw sun hat finished off the outfit.
“I tried,” I replied to my friends. “He promised he’d look into it. But he seemed to think I must have dreamed the whole thing.” I rolled my eyes as I recalled the resort owner’s reaction, which had pretty much amounted to a “there, there” and a pat on the head.
George shook her head. “I just wish I’d been able to trace where that call came from,” she muttered. “For such a state-of-the-art place, the phone technology here is awfully backward....”
We had to stop talking about the case when Hildy and Robin arrived and came over to sit with us. After that, we spent the meal discussing what the resort might have planned for our last two full days there.
Just as breakfast ended, the Green Solutions camera crew arrived. It consisted of a director, an assistant director, and half a dozen camera operators and other techs.
Kat and Deirdre immediately rushed over to introduce themselves. The next few minutes were pretty chaotic as the two of them talked the director’s ear off, the crew started setting up equipment, and Cristobal did his best to oversee the whole scene. Despite looking a bit overwhelmed by all the action, Pretty Boy managed not to bite anyone, at least while I was watching. I couldn’t help wondering if Cristobal had called ahead to warn the crew about him.
I also noticed that Poppy was hovering around Kat and Deirdre. Wandering a bit closer, I heard her chattering at them about clothes, accessories, makeup, that sort of thing. That explained it. The cousins must have commandeered her to advise them on fashion, given her position with a world-famous fashion magazine. Fortunately, Poppy seemed happy to help out. In fact, she looked happier than I’d seen her in days.
Bess noticed too. “Think Poppy’s in such a good mood because she’s doing her thing, or is it because Adam isn’t around?” she murmured with a raised eyebrow.
“Could be either one,” I whispered back. “Maybe both.”
As I glanced around the lobby, I noted that Adam was just about the only one missing. Enrique and the rest of the hospitality staff were peeking out from the kitchen. Alicia was bustling around rearranging the flower arrangements while keeping one eye on the action. The other guests were hanging out in the lobby watching openly. Among them were Robin and her mother.
“Ah, and who do we have here?” exclaimed the director, a tall man who had introduced himself as Harvey. He rushed over to Robin. “What’s your name, sweetheart?”
“Robin,” she replied shyly.
He chucked her under the chin. “You’re adorable!” he cried. “We have to get you into some of the shots. Should work splendidly with our ‘green for the future’ theme. What do you say, darling?”
After a consult with Hildy it was agreed that Robin would be featured in the very first bit they shot.
Kat and Deirdre didn’t seem too pleased with that. I guess Pretty Boy wasn’t either, because when Kat set him down for a second, he made a break for it, racing toward the nearest exit.
“I know, I know, baby,” Kat muttered as she hurried after him. “This isn’t how it’s supposed to go. Everyone always says not to work with kids or animals.”
She grabbed the little dog. He yapped excitedly and chomped down on her finger.
“Ow!” Kat yelped. Yanking her finger out of Pretty Boy’s tiny jaws, she tucked him under one arm and rushed back to the others.
George was grinning as she watched the whole scene. “Now, that’s entertainment,” she commented.
“So’s the circus,” Bess said wryly. “But I’ve never been much of a fan of that, either. Should we get out of here?”
I nodded. “Maybe while everyone’s distracted, we can snoop around the rest of the place a little.”
The three of us headed for the door. I was pretty sure nobody even noticed our departure. Soon we were emerging into the garden area behind the dining room.
Thunk! I heard a strange sound from somewhere nearby.
Looking in the direction of the sound, I let out a gasp. There was someone digging around in one of the trash Dumpsters right outside the kitchen door a few yards away. And when that someone straightened up and glanced around, I recognized her immediately.
It was the crazy-eyed, wild-haired blond woman we’d seen in town the evening before!
AT FACE VALUE
“Hey!” I blurted out, hurrying toward her. “What are you doing?”
The woman jumped and spun around, looking startled. She was dressed in Bermuda shorts and an ANIMALS ARE PEOPLE TOO T-shirt, both studded with environmentally themed pins.
Her surprise passed quickly, her watery blue eyes narrowing. “I know you,” she said, pointing a pudgy finger at each of us in turn. “You were in town last night with the Casa Verde crew. Are you staying here?”
“That’s right,” Bess said. “But who are you, and what are you doing here?”
The woman ignored her question. “So what are you three, student journalists or something? Bloggers? Campus newspaper? What?”
“Try none of the above,” George said with a frown. “But listen —”
Once again, the woman plowed ahead. “It doesn’t matter,” she said, wiping some limp lettuce off one hand onto her shorts. “Listen, whoever you are, you look like nice girls. I’m sure you’re in favor of green causes. You’ve got to help me expose this place to the outside world!”
“You mean Casa Verde?” I spoke up. “Expose it as what?”
“As an environmental disaster!” The woman threw her hands up over her head, her round cheeks practically quivering with distress. “It claims to be green, but some of us know better. This press week thing is the perfect chance to expose that before the general public is fooled.”
My mind immediately jumped to that sewer pipe, then to the whispery female voice on the phone, and finally to all the notes that had appeared around Casa Verde during our stay. We’d thought Juliana had left the notes. Could we have been wrong about that?
“What are you saying?” I asked the woman, taking a step closer. “Have you seen problems here at Casa Verde? You know — by looking deeper?”
The woman looked confused. “What do you mean? All I know is that the truth is all over the Internet. The greenie blogs are on fire with it! That’s why I had to come right away. I just arrived in San Isidro yesterday afternoon from my home over on the Caribbean coast.”
George furrowed her brow. “You mean, you live in Costa Rica?” she said. “But you read about Casa Verde on the Net? Who are you, anyway?”
“Oh!” The woman let out a giggle. “Sorry, where are my manners? I just get so impassioned over this stuff.... Anyway, my name’s Phyllis. Phyllis Pitt. I’m a warrior for planet Earth.”
“I see,” Bess said politely as she shook the woman’s hand, though it was clear that she didn’t.
“That’s why I moved to Costa Rica,” Phyllis went on as she shook my hand as well. “I wanted to support the country’s environmental policies and do whatever I can to help.”
George looked dismayed as Phyllis stuck out her hand to her next. I guessed George was thinking about that gooey lettuce Phyllis had just wiped off it. But she shook her hand anyway. “So what’s all this about Casa Verde not being green?” George asked.
Phyllis’s face darkened as she glanced at the trash Dumpsters. “I told you, everyone’s chatting about it. I came up here to protest as soon as I arrived in the area yesterday.”
Aha! That explained at least one thing — why the resort employees had recognized her and called her a troublemaker. I figured Phyllis’s protest must have taken place while most of us had been off snorkeling the day before.
“The earth-hating scoundrels here chased me off,” Phyllis went on with another grim look around. “But my cause is righteous, so I won’t be frightened away by their strong-arm tactics. I’m determined to expose the wrongdoings here.”
“By digging through the trash?” George said dubiously.
“Actually, that sort of makes sense,” Bess put in before Phyllis could respond. “If this place isn’t recycling their waste properly, it might mean there are other problems.” She shot me a look, and I guessed she was thinking about that pipe, too.
“You see?” Phyllis sang out, clasping her hands and looking delighted. “I knew you were nice girls! I’m a very good judge of character. So will you help me?”
I shrugged. “Might as well take a look,” I said. “If only to put those Internet rumors to rest.”
“But I don’t get why there are rumors to start with,” George said. “I did some online research myself before we came here, remember? Casa Verde isn’t just a local project. Its whole design and creation were supervised by Green Solutions. And I didn’t find anything negative about them.”
Phyllis clucked sympathetically. “It’s lovely that you’re so innocent, dear,” she told George. “But you need to figure out how to use the Web to get more reliable information. You might not know enough about where to look for the truth.”
“What?” George exclaimed, sounding outraged.
I hid a smile as I shot Bess a look. If there was one thing that got George riled up, it was someone questioning her tech skills.
Phyllis didn’t seem to notice. “Besides,” she went on, “it’s only in the past week or so that brave souls have started spreading the truth.”
“There you go, George,” Bess said. “I’m sure you wouldn’t be so, you know, innocent if you hadn’t been without your laptop all week.”
“Whatever,” George muttered, still looking annoyed.
“Come on,” I said. I wasn’t sure if there was anything to Phyllis’s rants, but if it was a dead end, I didn’t want to waste too much time. We didn’t have long to solve this thing as it was. “Let’s go ahead and check out these trash containers.”
Soon all four of us were climbing up and peering into the line of metal containers behind the kitchen. It turned out that the one Phyllis had been digging through contained only organic kitchen waste — Bess spotted a stenciled sign on the side indicating it was destined for composting elsewhere on the property. Various other bins held plastics, papers, and so on. The smallest bin of all was labeled NONRECYCLABLES and was nearly empty.
“There.” Bess stepped back from the final container, brushing off her hands. “Looks like everything’s in order. Actually, I’m impressed by how thoroughly they separate the trash here.”
Phyllis frowned. “Separating garbage is the easy part,” she said, sounding sort of disappointed. “It doesn’t mean they aren’t ravaging the earth in tons of other ways.”
My friends and I exchanged looks. Phyllis seemed to mean well. But she also came across as pretty fanatical — verging on loony, actually.
She glanced at us and narrowed her eyes, seeming to note our skeptical expressions. “I thought journalists were supposed to be interested in digging for stories,” she snapped. “Not just accepting stuff at face value!”
With that, she turned and stomped off, disappearing around the corner of the building. I don’t think any of us were sorry to see her go.
“What a nut,” George declared, kicking aside a tin can that had fallen out of one of the bins during our search.
I bit my lip. “Yeah,” I agreed. “But did you hear what she said? About digging for stories? Remind you of anything?”
Bess’s eyes widened. “Digging,” she echoed. “Like, digging deeper?”
“Wait, are you two saying you think our new pal Phyllis could’ve written all those notes?” George said. “I thought we already decided that was Juliana.”
“We did, at least until another note turned up on that turtle,” Bess reminded her. “What if Phyllis has been doing it all along?”
“But she said she only arrived in this area yesterday,” I said. “If she’s been off halfway across the country until then, there’s really no way she could have left those notes, or dognapped Pretty Boy, or the rest of it.”
George shrugged. “That’s what she claims, anyway. If I can get to a computer, I’ll try to check out her story about when she got here.”
“Good idea,” Bess said. “Because aside from the timing, she’s kind of looking like a good suspect.” She grinned. “Though it’s hard to imagine her dragging that stuffed turtle around....”
We were all still chuckling at that image when we heard voices nearby. A moment later, the film crew came hurrying around the corner. Deirdre, Kat, and Pretty Boy were with them, along with Cristobal.
“Here you go, gentlemen,” Cristobal announced, sweeping a hand in the direction of the trash bins. “Our state-of-the-art recycling station.”
He went on to describe how the resort’s recycling program worked, but I wasn’t focused on that. I couldn’t help wondering — if Cristobal knew the crew was planning to shoot some footage of this area, could he have cleaned it up just for show? What if Phyllis was right, and Casa Verde wasn’t this “green” when the cameras weren’t around?
She might come across as a little nutty, but maybe she has a point, I mused, feeling troubled. Like journalists, detectives shouldn’t take things at face value....
“So what do you think we should do next?” George asked as we wandered along an orchid-lined path a few minutes later.
I sighed. “I’m not sure,” I admitted. “I guess we should get in touch with Juliana again. Even with her alibi for the turtle thing, she’s still our strongest suspect.”
We rounded a curve in the trail. That brought us within sight of a little cluster of bamboo huts. From earlier explorations I knew this was the groundskeeping and animal care complex. Alicia and Sara shared an office in the largest building, which also contained a greenhouse, a small laboratory, and a well-stocked medical facility for treating injured animals from the reserve. A second building was a combination office and tool room for the grounds staff. There was also a small library of books and videos in one of the smaller huts. The others were supply and equipment sheds. A larger machine shed for the trucks, tractors, and other heavy equipment stood off to one side.
At the moment, Sara was raking the dirt-and-gravel yard in front of the vet building. She spun around when we stepped into view.
“Oh!” she exclaimed. “You guys scared me.”
“Sorry.” I smiled at her. “We’re just taking a walk. What are you up to?”
