A Plain Vanilla Murder Read online

  A Plain Vanilla Murder

  Copyright ©2019 by Susan Wittig Albert

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. For information, write to Persevero Press, PO Box 1616, Bertram TX 78605. www.SusanAlbert.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or, in the case of historical persons, are used fictitiously.

  Distributed by Greenleaf Book Group

  For ordering information or special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Greenleaf Book Group at PO Box 91869, Austin, TX 78709, 512.891.6100.

  Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication data

  Names: Albert, Susan Wittig, author.

  Title: A Plain vanilla murder / Susan Wittig Albert.

  Description: Bertram, TX: Persevero Press, 2019

  Series: China Bayles mysteries

  Identifiers: ISBN 978-0-9982332-0-8 (hardcover) | 978-0-9982332-2-2 (eBook)

  Subjects: LCSH: Bayles, China (Fictitious character)—Fiction. | Herbalists—Fiction. Women detectives—Texas—Fiction. | Universities and colleges—Fiction. | GSAFD: Mystery fiction. | BISAC: FICTION / Mystery & Detective / General | FICTION / Mystery & Detective / Women Sleuths

  Classification: LCC PS3551. V36 2019 | DDC 813/.54—dc23

  Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

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  First Edition

  For vanilla lovers everywhere.

  You have extraordinarily good taste.

  Plain vanilla is an adjective describing the simplest version of something, without any optional extras, basic or ordinary. In analogy with the common ice cream flavor vanilla, which became widely and cheaply available with the development of artificial vanillin flavor.

  Wikipedia

  Prologue

  For the love of vanilla as a flavoring and as a perfume, and for its qualities as an aphrodisiac, medicinal herb, and healing aromatic, vanilla has been sought after and fought over ever since its discovery perhaps a millennium ago, in the rain forests of the Americas.

  Patricia Rain

  Vanilla: The Cultural History of the World’s Favorite Flavor and Fragrance

  The nightmare happens on a bright, warm December midday, in a lush tropical forest. The red Ford van carrying the guide, the professor, and six students is following a rickety old truck piled high with burlap bags of green vanilla pods, down a steep, zig-zagging mountain road.

  It is the third day of the field trip, and the group from Central Texas State University is on its way through the Sierra Madre Mountains. In the van: the professor, two male students (Logan Gardner and Archie Adcock), three female students (Beth Craig, Patty Harris, and Shelley Harmon), and their guide, Juan Aguado. The class has been studying the vanilla orchid (Vanilla planifolia), the most widely used and—after saffron—the second most expensive spice in the world. They have come to Mexico to see the mountain rainforest where the vanilla orchid was cultivated for centuries before Cortez arrived and took it back to Europe, along with chocolate and boatloads of gold and silver. Mexican vanilla farmers are aiming for a comeback into the market it had once completely dominated, and the students have come to learn about their new production methods.

  The group drove from Pecan Springs to San Antonio and caught an Aeromexico flight to Veracruz. From there, sardined into a rented van, they headed for the town of Papantla. Uneasily sandwiched between the modern tourist meccas of the Costa Esmeralda and the ancient Totonac ruins of El Tajin and deep in the heart of the Mexican vanilla-growing region, Papantla was for centuries the hub of vanilla’s lucrative international trade and is still remembered as the “city that perfumed the world.”

  The group reaches the bustling market town in early evening. After they check in at the Hotel Provincia, the six of them go to the much recommended Plaza Pardo restaurant. They find a table on the balcony where they can watch the ornately costumed voladores perform their ancient flying ritual on the tall pole across the zócalo. At the professor’s suggestion, they order pulpo en su tinta (octopus in its ink), camarones a la plancha (grilled shrimp), and enchilada con mole rojo con cecina (pan-fried tortillas with red mole sauce and thin-sliced spiced pork). The professor insists on banana cake with vanilla cream frosting for dessert. When it arrives, it is topped with twenty candles for Shelley’s birthday. The party is splendid, a celebration to remember always, and the margaritas flow freely.

  After dinner, they wander out onto the shadowy square. On this warm and muggy evening, the town is celebrating Día del Niño Perdido, the Day of the Lost Child. From the old stone church that dominates the plaza comes the sound of children’s voices, singing familiar carols in an unfamiliar tongue, while thousands of candles flicker in the dark streets. Stalls offer intriguing souvenir crafts made from vanilla: incense cones, soap and fragrance oils, lip balm and skin creams and perfumes, candles of all sizes and shapes, intricately woven baskets and toys, and raffia-tied bundles of vanilla pods. Shawled women in colorful dress call out to one another as they dart in and out of shops, vendedores sing out their wares, children laugh, donkeys’ bells clang. As the group separates into couples to wander slowly back to the hotel, the night air is rich with the fragrance of chocolate and sweet with the cinnamon-flavored scent of conchas and polvorones. Laced over and under and through it all is the romantic, seductive scent of vanilla, the scent of a city’s culture. If any of the couples disappear into the warm, fragrant dark, no one asks where they are going. Or why. It is, after all, a night for pleasure, and they are far from home.

  The next morning, the students gather in the hotel lobby under an enormous painting of a vanilla orchid blossom, five celadon petals gracefully encircling a daffodil-yellow ruffled flute. The professor introduces them to Juan Aguado, a small, slender man with a bushy black mustache, thin dark brows, and the practiced patter of a carnival barker. Señor Aguado is an official with the Consejo Veracruzano de la Vainilla, the Veracruz Vanilla Council. A passionate supporter of Mexican vanilla (“The suprema vainilla in all the world!”), he will be their guide for the next two days.

  Armed with cameras, everyone climbs into the van. With the professor at the wheel, they follow a winding road into the foothills of the Sierra Madre, passing barefoot farmers in traditional white cotton tunics and trousers, dark-haired boys bearing baskets of corn on their backs, and patient, plodding donkeys pulling carts heavy with sugar cane and bundled sticks. Large black vultures—zopilotes—circle in a dark cloud overhead, and on both sides of the road lie pastures of goats and fat cattle and plantations of papayas, bananas, and mangos. The warm, sunny morning gives way to a warmer afternoon, and the van’s air conditioning doesn’t work. But the students are dressed for the climate in shorts and T-shirts. If anybody is uncomfortable, nobody speaks of it. If anybody feels a sense of foreboding, perhaps heightened by the circling vultures, they keep it to themselves.

  They stop first at a ten-acre modern vanilla plantation experimenting with dense planting techniques—five to eight thousand vines per acre, planted in amended soil and carefully irrigated. In some plots, the vines clamber up the traditional pichoco trees, whose light foliage affords just the right amount of shade. In others, they are disciplined like grapevines on bamboo supports and sheltered by shade cloth. In still others, shade cloth is wrapped around the perimeter to turn plots into hothouses. In a few plots, the vines share the sunshine with coffee and orange trees.

  At this latitude, the vanilla orchid begins blooming in March. In the jungle, native Melipona bees and shiny green orchid bees pollinate the wild vanilla blossoms. But natural pollination is hit-and-miss—and mostly miss. In the plantation, bees are replaced by trained workers who can pollinate up to two thousand blossoms during the few hours the flowers are fertile. The fruit—long, green pods—ripens nine months later, in December.

  According to Aguado, these pampered vines are delivering their first harvest a year earlier than traditionally grown plants, and the pods are longer and heavier. “We aim to produce more and better vanilla in a shorter period and at a lower cost,” Señor Aguado tells the students. “Mexico is about to reclaim its rightful place in the world market.”

  The professor, who has done a great deal of research on this subject, clears his throat. “That might be difficult,” he remarks drily. “Last year, both Indonesia and Madagascar produced well over three thousand tons of vanilla pods each. Mexico produced—what? Four hundred tons? A small fraction of the global crop.”

  “Almost five hundred tons, Señor Profesor,” Aguado corrects him, but deferentially. With an expansive gesture, he declares, “This year, we expect to double that amount. We have the soil and the climate—and eager workers. Is it not better for them to earn pesos at home than to cross the border to earn American dollars?”

  “It is indeed,” agrees the professor. “But there are other things to worry about, especially in intensive plantings. Disease, for instance. Are the vanilla cultivars here resistant to Fusarium oxysporum?” He turns to the class. “Which is what, guys?”

  Shelley Harmon, a pixie-like girl with boy-cut brown hair and large brown eyes, puts up her hand. “It’s a pathogenic fungus, isn’t it?” she offers tentatively. “It produces root rot.”

  “And don’t forget Fusarium wilt,” Logan Gardner adds. A tall, muscular graduate student in his thirties, he is working with t
he professor on a plant breeding project—something rather secret, it seems, for it is never discussed in class. He also helps by making the arrangements for the field trips. “In fact, Fusarium poses a grave threat to the world vanilla crop. Which is why we are attempting to develop—”

  “Which is why,” the professor interrupts abruptly, “disease-resistant cultivars are sorely needed.” He gives Logan a sharp, cautioning glance.

  Puzzled by the exchange but attempting to ignore it, Aguado smiles at Shelley. “The señorita is indeed correct. Farmers must be on continuous guard against the threat of Fusarium oxysporum, especially in dense plantings.”

  Another of the girls, Beth Craig, points to a uniformed guard. “Is that why you’ve got him?” They all turn to look. The guard wears a holstered gun on his hip and cradles an assault rifle in his arms. “To protect against Fusarium wilt?”

  The students laugh, but Aguado has lost his smile. “Disease is not the only threat our vanilla farmers face, señorita. Sadly, there are many thieves. Last week, on the mountain, two workers were shot and wounded by robbers. The week before, a farmer was murdered.”

  “Murdered?” squeaks Archie, a short, round-faced young man who never takes his hands out of his pockets. “You’re saying that people actually kill for vanilla?”

  “Sí,” Aguado answers gravely. “Vanilla farming can be a dangerous occupation.” His smile flickers, then returns full strength. “But enough. Come with me, and I will show you how we cure these precious pods.”

  The group follows Aguado to a metal-roofed, open-walled structure, where the just-harvested pods are blanched in tubs of hot water, then drained, wrapped in burlap, and placed in large wooden boxes to “sweat” for a day or two. They will then be rack-dried in alternating sun and shade, all the while darkening to a rich brown-black, becoming supple and oily, and smelling ever more richly of vanilla. It will be five or six months before the pods can be sold to the big international companies that will process it. And all the while, the curing crop must be guarded against thieves.

  “Vanilla is an obsession,” Aguado adds, almost mournfully. “To raise it, you must love it. To profit from it, you must protect it, or it may be taken from you.” The students exchange raised-eyebrow glances, but they are beginning to understand that this is not an exaggeration. Sadly, they will understand it even more clearly on the very next day.

  The group spends the night—their second—at a nearby hotel, old and ramshackle. There are no showers or bathtubs, but they have individual rooms, the beds are made up with fresh linens, and the veranda offers a stunning view of the lush green valley below. Gathered at a large round table, all enjoy a simple but satisfying meal of tostados and chalupas topped with chorizo, sliced avocados, tomatillo salsa, and queso fresco, with mugs of a fragrant locally brewed vanilla-pod beer. For dessert, there is vanilla flan with caramel sauce. Around them echo the calls of jungle birds and the occasional squeals of monkeys, against the haunting strains of Ravel’s “Rhapsodie Espagnole.” At this higher altitude, the night is cooler and more comfortable, and there is time after dinner to wander through the romantic, torch-lit gardens.

  The next morning, early, they are back in the van and headed higher into the mountains, where they will meet a traditional farmer and then go on to the mountain village of Coxquihui. Mist is draped like a gauzy shawl over the emerald forest canopy, and the morning is cool and gray. The road corkscrews as it climbs the steep mountain, until Aguado tells the professor to stop. They get out of the van to meet a gnarled, bent-over old man, Hector Hernandez, who is dressed in the traditional white peasant garb.

  Several years before, Señor Hernandez and his son Ignacio cleared and planted a few steep forest acres, retaining coral trees to shade the young vanilla vines and laurel and cojón de gato as support. When the vanilla plants bloomed, the old man and his son and his son’s wife and their four children pollinated the blossoms by hand. This week, they have just finished gathering their small forest-grown crop. The burlap bags of ripe pods are piled by the side of the road under the wary eye of Ignacio, who carries his shotgun. Ignacio is waiting for the coleccionista, the collector who will pick up the bags and take them to the local beneficio. The owner of this beneficio pays the farmer for his crop, then cures the collected pods before selling them to a buyer from one of the international vanilla companies.

  The old man speaks in a swift, high-pitched Spanish, and Aguado translates. “Señor Hernandez will be especially glad for the coleccionista to take his pods today, for thieves have been active in the area. It is an escándalo, a scandal, how many robbers there are this year!” The old man’s voice grows sour and bitter. “And the bandit at the beneficio pays us poor farmers only a few pesos for our crop, no matter how much the gringos pay him. Ay-ay-ay! How are we to feed our families? We cannot eat vainilla!”

  “What about Fair Trade vanilla? Doesn’t that help?” Shelley asks, and the other students nod. They have been studying the Fair Trade movement, a cooperative arrangement that guarantees farmers a competitive price for their products, whether vanilla, coffee, or chocolate.

  Aguado purses his lips. He does not want to criticize Fair Trade, but he does not want to praise it, either. He understands its limitations. “There are many barriers to such practices,” he replies judiciously, without naming all the local politicians who stand in the way, each with a greedy hand out for his soborno. “It may be a while before Fair Trade comes to these mountains.”

  The group is nearly ready to leave when the coleccionista appears, driving a rusty old truck with wood-slat sides. The Hernandez family’s bags are tossed on top of the load, documents change hands, and Ignacio prepares to climb into the front seat beside the driver. He will accompany the load of pods to the beneficio and collect the pesos due to his father. The Hernandez family hopes there will be many pesos, for they have worked hard and their vanilla crop provides their only cash income.

  “We will follow you to Coxquihui,” the professor says.

  Ignacio hesitates. “Are you sure that is wise? My father is right when he says that there have been many robberies on this road.” He frowns. “We have no choice but to take this route. You would be better advised to go back down the mountain and take the southern route to Coxquihui.”

  Later, some would wonder if Ignacio spoke out of a certain foreknowledge and say that his warning should have been heeded. But the professor was a stubborn man who liked to make his own decisions. “The southern route would take hours longer,” he says. “I intend to stick to our schedule.”

  Señor Aguado frowns, agreeing with Ignacio. “In the circumstance, I recommend taking the other road, especially since we will be following a truck that is loaded with vanilla—an easy target, exactly what the thieves are looking for. The lower road is somewhat longer but more heavily traveled and hence safer.”

  “Forget it, Aguado,” the professor says roughly. “I have already told you. We can’t spare the time.”

  The old man looks perplexed. Señor Aguado sighs. Ignacio shrugs his shoulders as if to say, “It’s on your head.”

  “Get in,” the professor says to the students, and obediently, they climb into the van. They will follow the coleccionista to the village, where the pods will be unloaded and they can interview the manager at the beneficio. Then they will drive on to a larger town where they are to spend the night in a hacienda belonging to a colleague of the professor, who has arranged a warm welcome for them.

  But they don’t make it that far. The old truck leads the van down the narrow, twisting road, no wider than a track. The tropical jungle looms darkly on either side and eerie tendrils of mist drift like pale ghosts through the trees. From somewhere in the forest comes the raucous shriek of a parrot.

  “I will be glad to get to that hacienda,” Beth is saying to Shelley, at the back of the van. “Do you suppose there’ll be showers?”

  “Oh, I hope so,” Shelley replies, running her hands through her pixie cut. “A cool shower would be wonderful, wouldn’t it? And I can wash my hair. This humidity makes it feel so sticky.”

  “What is that?” the professor says, slowing the van. “Looks like a road block.”