Murder With Reservations (29 page)

“I want to go home,” Helen said. “I can sign myself out. Margery can drive me.”

“No, I can’t. I’m not waking you up every two hours and checking on you,” Margery said. “You’ve kept me awake enough already. Let the pros watch you. Stay here and stay out of trouble. I’ll see you in the morning.”

At eleven thirty the next morning, a hospital aide wheeled Helen out into the too-bright sunlight. Phil helped her into his Jeep, gave her a kiss and a careful hug that hurt her shoulder, and handed her a rose. A thorn stuck her in the thumb.

She sucked the salty blood while Phil negotiated the traffic in the hospital driveway.

“You nearly got that old woman with the cane,” Helen said.

“No points for that,” Phil said. “You have to aim for the healthy young ones.” He steered the Jeep around a wary mother with a stroller and was out on the street. “I got some inside information from my friends on the force.”

“The cops actually told you something?” Helen said.

“You forgot, I’m connected,” he said. “Also, the guy is dead and they’re going to close two murders.”

The Jeep hit a pothole, and Helen winced. The jolt went right up into her aching head.

“Turns out the late Craig was a small-time hustler and drug dealer,” Phil said. “He had a long sheet, including assault and battery. He beat up a prostitute when she objected to him not paying.”

I never guessed boy-band Craig was violent, Helen thought. Not till he tried to attack me. None of us did. I escaped with cuts and bruises for my mistake. Rhonda paid for it with her life.

“The police found a couple of fake fifties in his apartment,” Phil said. “They figure he may have gotten stung in a drug deal and tried to hand off some of the bad money to Rhonda.”

“He told me straight out he gave the bad money to Rhonda,” Helen said. “He didn’t care if she got caught passing it.”

“He wasn’t your caring kind of guy,” Phil said. “But he and Rhonda were definitely an item. The police found his fingerprints all over her apartment, along with a few other jailbird prints.”

“She had lousy taste in men,” Helen said.

“Looks like it. Unless they were on a Wanted poster, she didn’t want them,” Phil said. “There were bloodstains at Craig’s place, too. He tried to clean away the blood, but it showed up loud and clear with Luminol.”

“Was it Rhonda’s?” Helen said.

“It’s definitely her blood type. They won’t get the DNA results back right away, but they think he killed her at his apartment and took her in his car to the hotel Dumpster. I don’t know why he didn’t dump the body somewhere else.”

“I do,” Helen said. “I bet he thought he knew everything about that hotel, including the Dumpster schedule. Rhonda’s body would have been picked up early the next morning, except Sybil got that trash perfume and changed the pickup schedule. That’s how Craig got caught. I found the body. If the trash had been picked up by the old schedule, Rhonda’s body would have been carted away early that morning. She would have disappeared and no one would have known she was dead.”

“The revenge of the Full Moon,” Phil said. “Sounds like a movie.”

Helen didn’t laugh. Nothing seemed funny. She felt like someone had drained the blood out of her.

At the Coronado, Margery treated her like an invalid. She helped Phil settle her into bed and plumped Helen’s pillows. Margery gritted her teeth when Thumbs rubbed up against her legs begging for food (the landlady hated cats) but she fed the big-pawed fellow.

She brought Helen soup, scrambled eggs and toast. Thumbs snoozed on the bed most of the day, while Helen stared at the ceiling and thought about how wrong she’d been about Craig. She saw Dean Stamples’ photo of his smiling children and pretty blond widow. If she’d figured things out sooner, would his family still have a father?

At sunset, Phil knocked on her door. “Come sit out by the pool with everyone,” he said. “Margery, Peggy and Pete are waiting to hear your story.”

“I don’t feel like it,” Helen said, and gave a dramatic sigh. She wanted to brood.

Two minutes later her door was flung open, and Margery flipped on the light in her darkened bedroom. “We’ve been patient enough while you’ve moped around,” her landlady said. “Get your ass out here. I’ve heard bits and pieces of this story from Sybil and Sondra and I saw some confused reports on TV. I want to know what happened.”

Margery handed Helen her bathrobe. “You don’t have to dress for us.”

Helen went outside on wobbly legs. She felt better in the fresh air, but she wasn’t ready to admit that. Phil grinned at her and held out a chaise longue. Pete sat on Peggy’s shoulder and watched her with beady eyes.

Helen sat down gingerly, favoring her bruised shoulder. Phil put a soft pillow at her back. She looked at the expectant faces of the people who’d helped her through so much. Margery was right. She owed them an explanation.

Helen took a deep breath and started to talk. She didn’t cry once. Not even when she said, “Craig was shot dead in front of me. His blood was all over the floor. I think he wanted the police to kill him.”

“Maybe it was suicide by cop,” Phil said. “Maybe it wasn’t. Sometimes the suspects are just doing what human nature designed them to do—look at the sound of the commanding voice.”

“Is the police officer in trouble for shooting an unarmed man?” Helen asked.

“Word is he’ll be OK. Whoever called 911 made it sound like Craig was killing you.”

“He was,” Helen said.

“Three cops swore they thought the chair leg was a loaded weapon and Craig was going to fire. The officer identified himself and told the suspect to drop the weapon. He was considered armed and dangerous. He’d already killed two people.”

“Rhonda and Dean Stamples, the man in room 322,” Helen said.

“How did Dean die?” Margery said. “Scotch bottle,” Helen said.

“Someone forced him to drink too much?” Peggy said.

“No, they hit him in the face with it,” Phil said. “When the killer hit Dean, he shoved that cartilage in Dean’s nose right through—”

“Awwk!” Pete said.

“I think I know enough,” Peggy said quickly.

“Dean’s death was probably a spur-of-the-moment thing,” Helen said. It was her story, and she wanted it back. “The cops think he caught Craig in his room and accused him of stealing. Craig wasn’t stealing. He was looking for the robbery stash, but he would have been fired for unauthorized entry into a guest’s room. That would have cut off his access to the hotel and his search for the money. Craig had to find that cash. So he killed Dean.”

“That’s so sad,” Peggy said. “Dean died for nothing.”

“So did Craig,” Helen said. “He never found the money. It’s still missing. And poor Rhonda—her dream lover turned into a nightmare. All that pointless death.”

The setting sun had turned the Coronado pool into a blood-tinged lake. Helen tried not to look. She concentrated on the whispering palms.

“I don’t understand why Rhonda died,” Margery said. “Did Craig really kill her to get her job at the hotel?”

“He killed her because he thought she was going to split with the cash,” Helen said. “He found a plane ticket Rhonda had bought for her mother and went ballistic. Craig thought she was running out on him with the money and he beat her to death. She loved that man and he killed her for no reason. You know what Craig told me? ‘It worked out.’ Because he got her job at the hotel.”

“He really said that?” Peggy said.

“His exact words. He was cold. Then Craig joined the Full Moon’s permanent floating treasure hunt. The whole staff goes home at night and thinks of new hiding places, then spends all day nosing around the hotel. I found Denise pulling up the potted plants by the roots, Sondra taking apart the air-conditioning vents, and Cheryl tearing up the rugs.”

“Do you think Rhonda knew her boyfriend was the dead robber’s accomplice?” Margery said.

“No,” Phil and Helen said at the same time.

“The police found some cards with a fake name and architect’s address in Craig’s apartment,” Phil said.

“Good,” Helen said. “Then he told me the truth.” For some reason, Rhonda’s innocence was important to her. “Craig said he posed as the son of the architect who designed the hotel. He fed Rhonda some story about needing to find the money because he had gambling debts. He gave her fake fifties and false promises of love. But Rhonda couldn’t find the money fast enough. Craig was paranoid that she was going to run. He killed her.”

“Why didn’t Craig just rent room 323 after his partner got shot?” Peggy said. “That would have been the easiest way to search the hotel.”

“He needed to get into the work areas and the other guest rooms,” Helen said. “A guest couldn’t do that. A maid’s job was the ideal way to search. He was obsessed with that money. Everyone at the hotel is.”

“It’s only a hundred thousand dollars,” Peggy said. “That’s not a lot of money these days.”

Peggy had been taking too many stolen limo rides, Helen thought. “It is if you work for a living,” she said. “It would take a Full Moon employee seven years to make that much money. Seven years of picking up dirty towels and used condoms, cleaning toilets and hauling soiled sheets. No wonder the staff went crazy looking for it.”

“Well, it’s over. You caught the killer. Congratulations,” Margery said. She raised her wineglass in a salute. Peggy joined her. Phil hoisted his beer. But Helen didn’t lift her glass.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“For what?” Margery said.

“I don’t know,” Helen said.

G
et your rear in gear, Helen. I need you back at work.” Sybil’s voice swirled out of the phone like cigarette smoke. Helen squinted at the clock in her darkened bedroom. What time was it? Eight o’clock. In the morning or at night? She wasn’t sure anymore. “Work?” she said stupidly.

“Yeah. You’ve heard of it,” Sybil said. “At the Full Moon, remember? You’ve been off three days on my dime. Vacation’s over.”

Helen heard Sybil sucking on a cigarette and nearly choked on the imaginary smoke. “I thought everybody canceled their reservations.”

“I ran a couple of ads in the papers up north advertising two nights for the price of one—plus an AARP discount,” Sybil said. “Those AARPsters aren’t afraid of a bargain. They’re the kind of trade we want. Nice and quiet. No drugs except Lipitor and Viagra. The hotel is filling up again. I need you to work today.”

“Now?” Could she face that lake of blood?

“The blood’s gone,” Sybil said, as if she read Helen’s thoughts. “I hired a crime scene service to clean it up. I couldn’t ask any of you to do that. I had them remove the blood in the bathroom in 322 while they were at it.

But you’ll have to clean up the fingerprint powder. I couldn’t afford the whole room.”

Helen almost choked with laughter. Trust Sybil to pinch pennies any way she could. Then she remembered Craig asking who would clean that room, and her laughter died.

“Will there be a memorial service for Craig?” Helen asked.

“Who wants to remember a double killer?” Sybil said. “His body will be shipped home to his mother in Minnesota when they finish the autopsy. Good riddance. After what he did to poor little Rhonda, I’d like to bury him in a Dumpster.”

Helen’s shoulder hurt, her head ached, and she’d been popping aspirins like after-dinner mints.

“I know you’re probably still hurting after the way that jackass beat you up, but we need you,” Sybil said. “We’re shorthanded. I’ve got a line on a nice widow who wants to clean, but she can’t start till next week. You can work with Cheryl. She’ll do the heavy stuff. All you’ll have to do is dust and vacuum. She’ll even lift your vacuum off the cart.”

Thumbs sat on the bed, watching Helen with calculating eyes. The cat woke her up at six this morning, demanding breakfast. At least he’d let her fall back asleep after she staggered out to the kitchen and fed him. Any minute now he’d start the lunchtime campaign. She was tired of hanging around the house looking at the cat. He was probably tired of her.

“I’ll do it,” Helen said.

“Good, see you in half an hour.”

Helen threw on some clothes, happy to be out of the apartment. The morning was fresh and clean. Flowers were blooming and the sun was shining. It was good to be alive. She walked into the side door at the Full Moon, the way she did every morning. She threw it open without thinking, then stopped dead. Her feet froze on the threshold.

Craig had died running for this door in his desperate rush to freedom. He’d been shot down five feet away. At least, she thought it was five feet. Maybe it was four. She studied the carpet, but couldn’t see any sign of his death. The lake of blood had vanished.

Helen took one tentative step into the hotel, then another. Then she walked boldly down the hall. Somewhere she crossed the spot where he died. She heard applause and saw Denise and Cheryl cheering her on.

“You did it,” Denise said.

“Took me a full five minutes to step into that hall,” Cheryl said. “But I didn’t cry—not after what Craig did to Rhonda.”

“OK, ladies, we’ve spent enough time chatting,” Denise said. “We have work to do. I need you both to start in 322.”

Helen and Cheryl groaned.