Scent of Murder, page 1
Carolina Dow
SCENT OF MURDER
An Issy Castillo Murder Mystery
First published by Level Best Books 2024
Copyright © 2024 by Carolina Dow
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
Carolina Dow asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
First edition
ISBN: 978-1-68512-725-1
Cover art by Level Best Designs
This book was professionally typeset on Reedsy
Find out more at reedsy.com
In memory of Barbara Steiner, the best writing teacher ever, whose perspicacious comments and unflagging encouragement and support have made me a better writer. Your influence shines on.
Praise for Scent of Murder
“Carolina Dow’s Scent of Murder is a carefully crafted puzzle, rich with witty dialogue and colorful characters…including Issy’s six-times-great-grandmother, who periodically makes an appearance from the spirit world to offer sage advice and clever clues… This engaging…debut murder mystery kept me turning the pages and guessing whodunnit right to the end.”—Skye Alexander, author of the Lizzie Crane mystery series
Chapter One
“Hay un remedio para todo menos la muerte.”
“There’s a remedy for everything except death.” — Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616), Spanish Author
I am Issy Castillo, a first-time Spanish professor at Gold Mountain University in Boulder, Colorado. On this lovely full moon evening in May, I have become a suspect in the murder of a colleague. A colleague with whom I was hoping to begin a romantic relationship tonight.
Instead, I found myself kneeling over Eddy Calderon’s body, clutching my own scarf with which the drama professor had been strangled. Forget my aspiration to return to my hometown to teach after earning my doctorate back East, reconnect with family and friends, and explore my Hispanic roots. Put aside my desire to build a career as a respected Latina academic. No! First and foremost on my agenda is finding the killer and clearing my name before the police arrest and charge me, and bring shame upon me, my school, and my entire family. Ay, Qué lío! What a mess!
I was in my campus office Saturday night, the picture of innocence. Which I was! I was writing a letter of recommendation for a student. But the words didn’t flow. Little noises—creaks, rustlings, clanking pipes, imagined or real footsteps above my head—disturbed my concentration.
When the phone rang, I almost jumped out of my skin.
“I’m back in my office finishing up some business,” said Eddy. “Come up soon, and we’ll go for that pizza. Eddy Calderón, Spanish theater professor and new friend, had invited me to go with him for a late snack after rehearsal for a medieval morality play he was putting on for a department fundraiser. I knew Eddy was interested in me personally. We’d even kissed once. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
“I’ll be there in a few minutes,” I said. “I want to finish writing this letter.”
“Listen. Suzanne, Dolores, Javier, and maybe Miguel want to join us.” He sounded apologetic about inviting the head of the teaching assistants, the Portuguese lecturer, and two graduate students, all of whom were involved in the play. “Suzanne’s been itching for us all to get together. And social interaction does help build cast solidarity. We won’t stay long with them, I promise.”
“No problem,” I said, but my heart sank.
“Also, I keep forgetting to mention that your scarf has been hanging on the back of my door since Baldo’s party.”
Baldo, or Baldomero Vigil, was department chairman. He’d held a kickoff summer barbecue last Sunday at his home to foster faculty solidarity. Which it didn’t.
“Gracias. I forgot I left it in your office after the party. I’ll get it when I come up.”
“Cruz!” I exclaimed aloud while attempting to tame my wild hair and apply fresh lip gloss in the bathroom. Somehow, I’d managed to let twenty minutes slip by writing that letter.
I sped through the basement, up the two flights of stairs, and down the corridor to Eddy’s office as fast as my sandal heels could take me. Not wanting to appear too eager, I slowed my pace as I got closer. His door was ajar, and the light was on.
“Sorry I’m late.” I announced, “but it took forever to finish that…” I stopped short as I collided with something solid. Eddy was stretched face-up on top of his Indian rug with my scarf wound tight around his neck. His red-rimmed eyes stared sightlessly at the ceiling, and his face and neck had turned dark red.
“Eddy!” I cried.
I knelt by him and, with one hand, ripped away the scarf that had left a deep horizontal contusion around his neck. I bent close to his face and registered a cloying, sweet scent. Putting my shaking hand to his nose and mouth, I checked for breathing, then felt for a pulse. Lifeless!
Shivering almost uncontrollably and blinking back tears, I scrambled in my purse for my cellphone. At the same instant I heard the voice at 911 come on the line, Suzanne, Dolores, and Javier appeared at the doorway. On seeing Eddy’s body and me, crouched over it with my scarf in one hand and phone in the other, their faces blanched.
“What have you done?” shrieked Suzanne.
“You’ve killed him!” shouted Javier.
Dolores screamed, “Murderer! Murderer! Murderer!”
* * *
In fewer than five minutes after I dialed 911, both campus and city police, sirens blaring, rushed to the scene of the crime. I must have been numb from shock because an officer had to pry the scarf from my hand and heave me to my feet from my kneeling position. With Dolores’, Suzanne’s, and Javier’s accusations keening in the background like a Greek chorus performing at an Irish wake, the police hauled me to the station. The other witnesses rode in a separate car to give their statements.
The not particularly cordial officers deigned to let me call Papi, my father, before tossing me into a windowless room with a mirror covering one wall. The furniture consisted of a metal table and four uncomfortable-looking plastic chairs. And a reeking ashtray full of stubbed-out cigarettes. Inconsequentially, I puzzled over the ashtray because smoking is prohibited in most of eco-friendly Boulder’s institutional spaces. But this was not the moment to voice an objection, even if I’d had the heart to complain.
I paced the small space and waited together with my dark thoughts. Like a film noir DVD stuck on replay, the nightmarish scene repeated in my mind: Eddy, lifeless, his dusky face turned cherry-red, stretched belly-up on his exquisite Indian rug like a piece of rejected cat kill. The same rug with the animal figures I’d seen in one of my intuitive dreams I sometimes have. Why hadn’t I intuited something like this would happen and put a stop to it?
Too late, I understood the significance of the blood-red background color. The many murder mysteries I’ve devoured over the years didn’t prepare me for the horror and helplessness of seeing, feeling, and touching the still-warm dead body of a friend in real life. I shivered so hard my teeth chattered.
Get a grip, girl, I admonished myself. Blot out that horrible vision and focus on something else. Like asking questions.
Who would want to kill Eddy? As far as I knew, he was everybody’s friend, kind and thoughtful, always helping people with advice about their lives and careers. At least, that had been my experience in the short couple of weeks I’d been at my job. And what was the motive?
The question thing wasn’t working. Somehow, I couldn’t shake the memory of the scent that surrounded the body when I leaned over to check for a pulse. Even in my distraught state, I remembered something my other new friend and aromatherapy instructor, Elsbeth MacLeod, said in class about how saints’ bodies in medieval times and even the corpse of the Mexican Colonial literary genius Sor Juana de la Cruz were said to exude such a fragrance. Back then, people called it the “odor of sanctity.” Poor Eddy! Such a good person.
Exhausted, I slumped onto one of the chairs, still shaking, and awaited my fate. All my years of study and hard work flushed down the tube in an instant because I stumbled on the corpse of a friend. One who might have become more than that and now never would. I kept asking myself, how did I get into this colossal lío—a pickle of all pickles? I had only myself to blame.
I started thinking back to how it all began and if I could have done something to prevent this disaster. Then, sitting under the bright LED ceiling light, I lay my head on the table, and things got a little hazy.
Chapter Two
“Nadie es adivino del mal que está vecino.”
“Nobody can know what evil lurks around the corner.” —Spanish Proverb
It began with me not paying attention to my intuition or my spirit ancestor Doña Isabella’s warnings. For now, though, I’ll put aside the topic of my ancestor and concentrate on the intuition angle.
On a clear, high altitude early May morning, I was about to step across the stone footbridge to my first job as a college Spanish professor, when I paused. I’ll never know whether I did it to admire the view of Colorado’s Front Range
I’ve always wanted to possess a psychic’s gift. Even as a kid I dressed up like a fortuneteller every Halloween, much to Mami’s and Papi’s chagrin, who preferred I costume myself as a princess. Over time, my yen to peer into the future buried itself under a clay olla as I went about my business growing up and getting an education. Until recently, when I started getting plagued by these sudden flashes of things to come, along with a vision of an ancient Indian woman.
Anyway, a minute before, the sun shone bright in a cerulean sky with a transparency that only occurs in medieval paintings or in Colorado on sunny mornings. While pausing, I admired a dozen hummingbirds, their wings flashing silver in the sunlight, buzzing the richly fragranced lilacs overhanging College Pond. Then a small but vicious-looking black cloud materialized like an evil genie from a bottle and blotted out the golden sunshine. And I got the flash again. Annoyed, I squinted up at the cloud and stumbled. The two-inch heel of one of my dress sandals buried itself between two wooden planks on the bridge and snapped off.
“Demonios!” I cursed softly and bent to pull the broken heel loose. I ended up limping my way across the bridge. Just when I wanted to put my best foot forward, I was going to have to clump around all day like Quasimodo.
Preoccupied with grumbling, I didn’t notice the scene unfolding outside the main entrance to the Spanish and Portuguese Department until I was almost on top of it. Under the red-tiled roof of the two-story sandstone building, two guys, who, from their youthful appearances, I took to be students, were arguing. I hobbled over to join the gaggle of onlookers who, undoubtedly glad for any diversion from their studies, had gathered at a safe distance to view the entertainment.
“You have no right to say such cruel things,” one adversary, a fireplug of a youth with a muddy red face, snarled through full, thick lips.
“You pay too much attention to gossip.” His opponent, a smooth-looking guy with large, dreamy green eyes, gave a scornful sniff with his patrician nose.
The first student backed against the heavy oak door flared the nostrils of his flat nose like a cornered bull and flexed his muscles so they rippled beneath his blood-red top. “You are the one who spreads the chismes! I demand you take back every word.” He took two steps forward and pawed the ground with his Asics running shoe.
The other student, who in the insouciant manner of a toreador sizing up his quarry, had what looked like a red J Crew windbreaker slung carelessly over his shoulder. He said nothing but transferred the outer garment to lay over his arm. An amused smile spread across his male model-handsome face. I negotiated my short frame between the backpacks of two spectators to better watch the show.
Latinos tend to create nicknames for everybody, and I’m no exception. Not sure why we do it—there’s no malice intended. Maybe it’s simply to distinguish one person from another. And if truth be told, we enjoy interjecting a bit of humor into situations, especially trying ones. So, the guy with the windbreaker became “Toreador” in my mind. He tossed his jacket on a nearby juniper bush and shifted to face his accuser head-on. “De veras, Javier? Make me!”
Though I stood sheltered behind the crowd, I moved my shoulder purse across my chest for protection. Onlookers held their collective breath. Somewhere, a cellphone tinkled the Lone Ranger theme song, but nobody answered it.
The door to the Spanish Department swung open, and a man with his hair drawn back in a ponytail strode out. Before the door shut, I glimpsed a reedy woman with stringy black hair and a pale, pinched face lurking in the shadowy hallway.
Toreador shifted his attention to the older man, but Bull didn’t realize anybody was behind him. In an instant, Bull saw his advantage. He charged his opponent, smacking him on the nose with a neatly executed right jab.
Toreador leaned forward and cupped a hand to his face. Blood oozed between his fingers and ran down his crisp blue Oxford cloth shirt, dripping at his feet on the sidewalk. A gasp rose from the crowd, and I covered my open mouth with my hand.
Ponytail stepped between the opponents with an agile movement. He held back Bull, gripping his shoulder.
“Guys, enough!” Although he hadn’t raised his voice, it vibrated through my body like a tuning fork, and I’m embarrassed to admit I tingled as if I were the one being reprimanded. “If you two have a grievance, take it off campus. Michael,” he addressed Toreador, “you’d better have a doctor at the clinic take a look at that nose.”
The professor released his grip on Javier the Bull’s shoulder. Now, I recognized the teacher as one of my interviewers at the Modern Language Association job fest. He took a tissue from his pocket and gave it to Michael to help staunch the bleeding. “Want me to report this to university police?”
Michael spoke through cupped hands as if into a muffled bullhorn. “It’s not worth reporting.” He clicked his tongue in disgust at Javier, whose coal-black eyes sparked danger from under shaggy eyebrows. Then he took off across campus.
With the histrionics over, bystanders lost interest, turned, and shuffled away.
The professor focused on Javier. “I would have expected better behavior from you.”
“But Profesor Calderón, it is a matter of pundonor. Honor and integrity. Miguel was besmirching the reputation of—”
Have I wandered into an eighteenth-century play of manners? Nobody uses the term “besmirch” anymore. There’s something weird about this guy.
“I don’t care whose reputation is at stake,” the teacher broke in with a curt wave of his hand. “There are better ways to settle differences than resorting to violence.”
Then he noticed me for the first time, listing to one side on my good shoe like a sapling bending in the wind. “Ah, Professor Isabel Castillo,” he said. “Our new medievalist has arrived.” He dismissed the student with, “If you want, we can discuss this later in my office.”
Javier glanced at me, gave the teacher a nod, and rumbled off.
The professor stepped over the blood and flashed a dimpled smile at me, which did nothing to assuage the butterflies that were competing with the breakfast huevos rancheros Mami had brought me because “you must fortify yourself for your first day at work.” Those eggs were now threatening mutiny in my stomach. “Welcome to Boulder and Gold Mountain U.” He extended a well-padded hand. “I assure you things aren’t always so exciting around here.”
The handshake, though warm, felt overpowering. A subtle scent of musky aftershave clung to my fingers after he released his grip.
“I imagine you prefer to keep the drama in your classroom,” I joked to cover up the unsettling feeling the incident had produced.
Eduardo Calderón, Assistant Professor of Spanish and Latin American Theater, eyed the once again cloudless sky that framed the landscape in robin’s egg blue. He shook his head. “Springtime in the Rockies is unpredictable in so many ways.” The rich olive color of his smooth skin deepened but lightened again as he looked back at me. “If only my students were as passionate about the plays of Lope de Vega, we might get some lively discussions going.” Then he focused on my foot. “Dios mío, what happened to your shoe?”
I felt my cheeks turn pink. I shrugged. “It’s nothing. I broke a heel.”
The dimples widened, and Calderón looked ready to break into a belly laugh. “Why, that won’t do at all, Professor Castillo. Not on your first day.” He offered me his arm in a grand gesture. “Fair lady, allow me to escort you into the ivory tower to my official abode, where a lowly, but useful bottle of epoxy awaits your command.”
I took in his deep-set mocha eyes that twinkled as if he’d told a joke to which only he and I were privy and was disarmed. “I look forward to making said bottle’s acquaintance, Professor Calderón,” I replied in kind as I took his supportive arm.
“Please call me Eddy.”
* * *
So, what was my famous intuition doing at that moment? To be fair, it wasn’t totally lolling in a river of forgetfulness. I had an inkling that something was up. After all, two students coming to blows over the concept of honor and integrity wasn’t what most people of that age would consider actionable. And the drama prof? Let’s say I wasn’t used to such open-hearted friendliness on first meetings with the opposite sex. But my orderly, logical left brain hushed me into believing I was overreacting.
