Death in the Baja by Marnie J Ross

Author:Marnie J Ross [Ross, Marnie J]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery, crime, murder, travel, Mexico
Publisher: Meerschaum Press
Published: 2022-06-01T06:00:00+00:00

Chapter 7—December 31, 2016, San Amaro

The Crown and Anchor provided a roast beef dinner for New Year’s Eve. They even made Yorkshire pudding. After dinner, a band whose members were all retired expats in their seventies got most people up dancing with music from the 1960s through to the ’80s. Stella, Molly, and Jaime already had their tickets in hand by mid-December, but Stella invited Simon to join them, and he was able to get one of the last tickets. He was delighted that Stella asked him to join her in the New Year’s Eve fun.

Their breakfast with Jaime and Molly had been a success, the rapport among them becoming more comfortable and Stella opening up more to Simon. In the nine days since breakfast, Simon and Stella had also met for a walk on the beach, where they hunted for unicorn horn shells for Stella’s craft project. They managed to find enough to finish her project two times over, she’d said. Then, they walked the beach, hand in hand, getting to know each other.

To his delight, Simon found Stella pleasant company, and she seemed to be glowing with his attention. He found it was pretty easy to keep to the truth when describing his life to her. He was grateful for that, as every lie required remembering and opened the way to difficulties in the future if misremembered or worse, forgotten. For her part, Stella shared her life’s story freely. She spoke openly about her happy marriage and her heartbreak when her husband, Don’s, terminal-cancer diagnosis put a full stop in the middle of the chapter that was to have been their golden years. She became animated again as she spoke of moving to San Amaro and her love affair with Mexico and its wonderful people.

As she told him about her teaching career, Simon imagined her as one of those teachers students remembered fondly. She obviously had loved teaching science, and “her kids,” as she referred to them. They laughed together as she recounted stories of a couple of failed experiments, one including an exploding, rather than erupting, volcano that left her with covered with cola. The kids loved it. A great teaching moment. From then on, however, she eschewed Coke and Mentos for plain old baking soda and vinegar volcanoes. She showed no embarrassment in telling of her teaching foibles, and Simon admired her passion for opening the minds of the young to science.

At the end of their afternoon on the beach, Simon had simply leaned down and kissed her lightly on the lips. It was his intention to leave it at that, but Stella embraced him and held the kiss for several moments. “Well, that was lovely!” he said, smiling, as they resumed their walk back to his car.

“Yes, it was!” was all Stella said in reply.

She had asked him to come in when he pulled up outside her house, but he had declined, saying, “I don’t want you to get tired of me quite yet. Can I please get a rain check?” They kissed again before she left him.

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