Murder With Reservations (12 page)

Helen had winced the first time she’d seen herself in a hotel mirror wearing the ugly yellow smock. Rhonda had stood behind her, pouring vitriol in her ear. “You look like hell in that,” Rhonda’d said. “We all do. It’s designed that way, to keep us in our place. Men will still hit on you, but it’s no compliment. They grabbed poor Naomi’s ass, and she looked like your granny. They think we’re one of the hotel freebies. Wash your hair with the free shampoo, plug your computer in the free port and stick your dick in the maid.”

Helen had laughed then. Now she heard the bitterness in those words.

Oh, Rhonda, she wondered. What did you do to escape the life you hated? Did it kill you?

Helen couldn’t ask the homicide detective those questions. He’d interviewed the weeping Cheryl and the cell phone-wielding Sondra first. Denise stayed out by the front desk to handle surly guests, with a police officer standing nearby. Helen and Craig were sent to separate rooms, and Sybil sat in her smoky office. Helen thought the Full Moon’s owner must be cured like a ham, she spent so much time sitting in smoke.

Helen was glad she had to wait for her interview in the laundry room. She washed her face and hands and cleaned the Dumpster stink off her shoes with a powerful disinfectant. She couldn’t do anything about her stained jeans, but she changed her dirty smock for a fresh one.

Then she paced for nearly forty-five minutes, thinking about battered Rhonda, the bastard Rob and about herself. Her ex-husband was closing in, and Rhonda’s death made it easier for him to find her. She had to stay away from the reporters. She couldn’t risk having her face in a TV shot or a newspaper photo. She couldn’t attract the attention of the police, either. She had to make herself so bland and uninteresting the police would be convinced she didn’t know anything about Rhonda’s murder.

I don’t know anything, she told herself. I have no idea how she died.

But you have your suspicions, a voice whispered inside her head. It was almost as if Rhonda were standing behind her again, pouring out her poison.

“Detective Mulruney will see you now.”

Helen jumped when she heard the stern woman police officer. She felt like she was being called into the principal’s office. As she followed the officer, Helen told herself, I’m not guilty, but I am timid and self-effacing. I am a humble maid.

The police officer marched her to the breakfast room. The homicide detective sat at a square table by the bulk bins of raisin bran, oatmeal and cornflakes. Helen looked longingly at the coffee machine, but the pots had been washed and put away.

“Sit down,” he said. “I’m Detective Bill Mulruney, Seafield Village homicide.”

Helen took a chair and folded her hands in her lap. She kept her eyes lowered, but she sneaked some peeks at Mulruney. The homicide detective had a face like an old leather pouch. The sun had burned his skin reddish brown. The color and texture would horrify a dermatologist, but Helen thought weather-beaten skin was attractive. He had bags under his eyes, sags in his cheeks and crevices from his nose to his mouth. Deep lines were hacked across his forehead and cut around his eyes. He didn’t look old so much as well used.

The brown eyes that shone out of his sagging face were frighteningly alert. They also seemed bored. Mul-runey asked Helen her name, date of birth and address, like a clerk at an insurance office.

She gave the name she used now, shaved two years off her age and said her right address.

She watched his eyes for the predator’s flicker of interest that meant she’d set off the cop radar. There was nothing.

Helen was a good liar. She knew exactly how much to say to sound innocent. The hardest part was trying not to fidget or look around for her ex-husband. She was terrified Rob would blunder in on them. She knew two uniformed police officers guarded the hotel’s front door, and others were stationed at the side entrance. The Dumpster area was swarming with police and evidence technicians. Right now no one was coming into the Full Moon. She tried to relax.

“When did you last see Rhonda Dournell?” Detective Mulruney asked. He seemed barely awake.

“I waved good-bye when she left work three nights ago,” Helen said. “She went toward Federal Highway. I went home in the other direction.”

“What time was this?” Mulruney asked.

“About six o’clock,” she said. “We had to clean a flooded room and it took longer than usual.”

“Was she acting suspicious in any way?”

“No,” Helen said.

“Did you see anyone hanging around the parking lot?”

Do they suspect Rhonda was raped? Helen wondered, and suppressed a shiver. Was that how she died, fighting off her attacker? She flashed again on Rhonda’s blood-streaked body.

“Any unusual cars or activity? Could she have surprised someone breaking into a vehicle?”

Helen pictured the parking lot that night. She saw a cluster of cars near the lobby entrance, but the rest of the lot was a blacktop wasteland.

“No,” Helen said.

“Did she have a boyfriend?”

“Not that I know of.” The detective didn’t seem to notice her weasel words. Helen hadn’t actually seen the rich boyfriend or the fat biker Sam.

Mulruney needed a shave, unless he was cultivating a
Miami Vice
stubble. Judging by his beige polyester jacket with the pills on the lapels, he thought Armani was a town in Italy.

“Did the victim ever mention any family trouble, money problems, gambling issues or drugs?” The detective sounded like he was reading from a checklist. Helen sneaked a peek at his notes. They were unreadable scribbles.

“No,” she said. Having a fifty-dollar bill wasn’t a money problem.

“Any idea why anyone would want her dead?” Detective Mulruney said.

“No,” Helen said.

“Any trouble here at work?”

“No.” Helen didn’t mention that Rhonda’s cowork-ers had called her a whiner and a slacker. She didn’t say they were glad when she didn’t show up. Helen was sure the guilt-ridden staff would paint Rhonda as Mother Teresa with a mop.

Helen didn’t tell him about the hotel’s permanent floating treasure hunt, either. Maybe Denise really was checking that palm tree for root rot and the elegant Son-dra enjoyed rummaging in dirty air-conditioning vents. Helen couldn’t prove otherwise. Besides, if she had the police looking too hard at her coworkers, they might mention Rob.

“What about the hotel deliverypeople? Did she fight with any of the suppliers? Did any of them seem interested in her?”

“No,” Helen said. “I never saw her talking to any deliveryperson.”

“Any reason why a hotel guest would want to cause her harm?” Detective Mulruney asked.

“No.”

“Did you ever have any problems with the victim?”

“No.”

“Ever hear her talking on the phone and maybe she sounded concerned or worried or like she was having an argument with someone?” Mulruney asked.

“No. She never used the phone around me,” Helen said.

The detective seemed to lose interest in Helen completely. “That will be all, Miss”—he looked down at his notes, and various pouches and bags wobbled— “Hawthorne. You’re free to go.”

Helen had to use all her strength to keep from running out of the room. She’d lost her craving for coffee. Now she wanted a stiff drink. Once out of Mulruney’s sight she sprinted down the hall to the laundry room, on the lookout for Rob. Sybil was still in her office, cigarette smoke seeping out from under the door.

Helen wondered how this murder would affect the hotel’s business. Would it bring in the morbid types or make the guests start packing? Would it send Rob running back to St. Louis? Helen hoped so. She couldn’t afford an encounter with her ex in a hotel crawling with cops.

Back in the laundry room she dialed Rob’s room, then let the phone ring until the hotel voice mail picked it up. He wasn’t in his room. She hoped that meant he wasn’t in the hotel.

Helen threw off her smock, grabbed her purse and headed for the front desk. Sondra was back on duty. For once her impeccable clothes were wrinkled and her hair stuck out in odd clumps.

“Any reporters hanging around outside?” Helen asked.

Sondra checked the hotel’s security cameras. “No reporters. No ex-husbands, either. You’re safe.”

“How is everyone?”

“Denise is being interviewed now,” Sondra said. “Craig is still waiting, pacing like a caged panther. The police finished with Cheryl and she hurried home, worried sick about Angel. She had to get her mean old mother to watch her child, and that witch will take it out on Cheryl.”

There are people with worse problems than me, Helen thought. But her stomach still felt like it was being squeezed by icy fingers.

Helen thanked Sondra and left by the same side door that Rhonda had slipped out of three days ago, when she’d disappeared into the shadows.

The dead hotel maid didn’t rate a single TV truck. Even the homicide detective had seemed bored with her murder. That maid’s smock made Rhonda invisible in life and death.

The hotel parking lot did have a zillion police vehicles, all parked at crazy angles. Most of the hotel lot and lawn were roped off with crime-scene tape, and the Dumpsters were screened by the stockade fence. That didn’t stop a crowd from gathering, strange misshapen people with wild hair, watching with avid, feral eyes. They looked like they’d been breeding in the mangrove swamps.

They didn’t care about Rhonda, either. They were there to feed on her death. Helen slipped past them, unable to suppress a shudder. She hoped none of the swamp creatures noticed her. A block later she looked over her shoulder, but no one was following her. It was nearly seven o’clock by the time a dazed Helen found a pay phone. She called Margery and told her about Rhonda’s death.

“This complicates things,” Margery said. “At least there’s no sign of your ex here at the Coronado. Come home and keep your mouth shut. I’ll be out by the pool with Arlene. As soon as she goes in for the night, we’ll talk.”

Rob hadn’t found her home. Helen leaned against the pay phone, weak with relief. It was too late to call Millicent at the bridal salon, but at least she was safe tonight.

At the Coronado, Margery was waiting by the pool with a stiff glass of white wine and a ham sandwich. “You need to eat,” she said.

“Nobody ever tells me that,” Arlene said, and gave a braying laugh. Margery stretched her lips into a smile. Anyone who didn’t know Margery would think she was relaxed in her chaise longue, but Helen saw her rigid back and neck. Instead of savoring her cigarettes, Margery chain-smoked Marlboros, lighting one from the end of the other. Helen could almost hear her landlady mentally wishing Arlene to go inside 2C.

Arlene had brought chips and a jar of Paul Newman salsa. She wore a muumuu the size of a pup tent printed with giant red poppies. Matching poppy earrings bled from her ears. She made Roseanne Barr look like a preppie princess.

Arlene was knitting a fluffy yellow sweater “for my niece’s new baby.” Helen watched, half-hypnotized, as the red earrings swayed with Arlene’s every move.

“Ladies my age are invisible, no matter how loud we dress,” Arlene said. “That means I can have more fun than the young ones. I went to the Montero Dunes Hotel in Lauderdale. I’ve always wanted to stay at that exclusive beach hotel, but I’m no millionaire. I sat in the lobby for a while. Security chased off the young folks, but they didn’t notice me. After they got used to seeing—or not seeing—me I went out and sat on their private beach in a big teak chaise. The cutest pool boy brought me a mai-tai. I spent the afternoon lounging like a rich lady. I had all the advantages of a guest and none of the bills.”

I’m hidden by a menial job, Helen thought. Age is Arlene’s cloak of invisibility.

There was nothing invisible about Peggy. She fluttered out of her apartment in a brilliant emerald dress and glided across the green grass like a runway model. Her shoulder looked oddly bare, and Helen realized she was without the faithful Pete.

“Don’t you look dramatic,” Margery said. “I gather the coffee date worked out.”

“Glenn’s taking me to Mark’s.” Peggy did a graceful little twirl, an achievement in her skyscraper ankle-strap spikes.

Margery and Helen whistled. Arlene looked puzzled.

“Mark’s is one of the most expensive restaurants in Lauderdale,” Margery said. “The chef is Mark Militello. The
New York Times
says he’s a hot new chef.”

“What kind of food does he serve?” Arlene said.

“American cuisine with local ingredients,” Margery said. “The menu changes all the time. If you get a chance, try the cracked conch with black-bean-mango salsa and vanilla-rum butter. For a main dish, the prosciutto-wrapped veal with wild mushroom polenta and porcini mushrooms is spectacular.”

“I don’t eat veal,” Arlene said, her voice heavy with disapproval.

“He does wonderful things with yellowtail snapper,” Margery said. “I’ve had it with black-bean-and-ginger sauce, and also with clams, fennel and chorizo.”

Helen looked at her limp ham slapped on dry white bread. She would have sworn Margery knew more about yellow mustard than yellowtail snapper.

“When did you dine there?” she asked.

“I get around,” Margery said.

Helen never doubted that.

“There’s Glenn’s limo now,” Peggy said, and her runway model walk turned into an excited little skip.

“Only way to go to Mark’s,” Helen said.

The black limo glided into the Coronado parking lot. A uniformed chauffeur opened the door. Helen couldn’t see the man in the backseat, just his cigarette glowing in the dark interior.

“Wow,” Helen said. “A limo. I’m impressed. This one is rich.”

Margery gave a sinus-busting snort. “He spends money,” she said. “That’s not the same thing. If I were Peggy, I’d stick to lottery tickets.”

Arlene folded her knitting into a straw bag. “Well, you ladies always keep me entertained. But I think I’ll go watch my television.” She gathered up her salsa jar and chip basket, her earrings seesawing wildly. Helen admired the woman’s astonishing grace. She couldn’t have stood with such ease.

After Arlene closed her door, Margery said, “Okay, tell me what happened. The whole story.”