William Deverell

~ blog post ~

FOOL’S GOLD

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Good news!

From: SierraAgency@gmail.com (mailto:SierraAgency@gmail.com)  January 15, 2024

To: Arthur Beauchamp, ArthurRamsgateBeauchamp@outlook.com (mailto:ArthurRamsgateBeauchamp@outlook.com), MargaretBlake2@yahoo.ca.

Hello, my dear friends,

As you see, I have yet to update my email address despite having shuttered my office a year ago. Retirement has made me lazy — the brain goes soft because it lacks the challenges I faced in my Vancouver years. If truth be told, I miss the fun of solving the puzzles, miss the thrill of the chase, even miss the snooping, the digging through dirty laundry to help Arthur Beauchamp, KC, OC, maintain his unbroken streak of wins.

Your latest triumph, I daresay, was a squeaker, given that the Deputy Prime Minister’s semen-soaked DNA was sprayed across the tablecloth into champagne flutes, soup bowls, and apéritifs. The raunchy trial and your spirited defence were plastered all over the international news, even here in Costa Rica. I had to explain to a few puzzled neighbours that a hung jury doesn’t mean the jurors were hanged. A great win, my friend, though pyrrhic — given that your client was immediately laughed out of office. You have rightfully earned your year-long sabbatical.

As for you, Margaret, may I add to the vigorous applause you earned upon resigning from Parliament. (That reads awkwardly —- the applause was for your distinguished career in politics, of course, though I expect the loudest cheerleaders were the buffoons on the government side nursing wounds inflicted by you during debates.)

Fool's Gold

Good News! says the subject line. I will build up to that. But first let me get this off my chest:

I have forgiven Costa Rica for its sins. I seek revenge no more. Life is short, and this quirky little country of my birth is now my forever home. I have a small finca in the hills above Ciudad Colon, and here I seek peace and contentment. I host my ex-wife occasionally and our grandchildren frequently, and I live with a dog named Holmes. And I write.

I hear you chuckling. “I knew it,” you say, “it had to happen.” Yes, I am embarking upon a literary career as a mystery writer. I am well beyond the dark and stormy phase, almost fifty-thousand words, nearing my last chapter. It’s set in the past and present, and God willing it will be published in English and Spanish. The theme has my protagonist cop confronting betrayal and corruption. Enough said.

It is balmy here in Colon, compared with the dark and stormy winters I endured in my twenty years in Canada. How sad is the picture I envisage of you two huddling like shorn lambs against January’s rainy blasts. Here the rains fall gently, warm and kind.

So the point of this note is to urge you, Arthur, to bow to Margaret’s wishes, to escape, flee, catch the next flight to San José. You have earned that sabbatical, and Margaret is wise to have set her heart on spending a year in this humble little republic.

And here is the good news! I have found the perfect tropical hideaway. I scoured everywhere, and was finally forwarded to a year-long rental in the Osa Peninsula, newly listed by Puerto Próspero Realty. Costly but bearable.

The realtor, Kyrie Blume, was high on something as she rattled away, singing the praises of La Hacienda: “five forested acres, an awesome river-fed pool, ultra-private yet close to touristy Puerto Pròspero and its awesome sandy beaches.” The owner is also awesome: Jacques Sawchuk, an athletic fifty-year-old who runs river rafting tours and jungle jaunts. Allegedly, he’s also a published poet. Also Canadian.

I thanked Kyrie and checked with a couple of sources in Puerto Pròspero. (I still have connections there, going back to the 1990s when I was a detective-sergeant for the Golfito canton.) Local contacts view this Sawchuk fellow as a notorious oddball, a jokester and fabulist with a reputation for indulging in excesses, but otherwise harmless. Never mind, La Hacienda is yours — I’ve put a hold on it with Kyrie and she will forward the specs and the lease contract to you muy pronto.

I await your arrival in paradise.

Affectionately, Francisco.

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