Murder With Reservations (3 page)

There was a ripping sound, as if a giant had torn the bedspread in two. The reek in the room grew worse.

“You’ll probably want to call from downstairs,” De-nise said. “Hurry, before I kill this gasbag myself.”

Helen left. She would have laughed if she hadn’t been so scared. She would have danced down the hall if her knees weren’t so wobbly. The body on the bed wasn’t dead. The cops wouldn’t find her. Her ex wouldn’t know where she was. She was safe and snug in South Florida, where everyone was from somewhere else.

She’d still ask Sondra to call 911 from the front desk, in case the police showed up anyway. The Full Moon was in Seafield Village, a little community that fit into Fort Lauderdale like a puzzle piece. Helen figured the Seafield police must talk to the Lauderdale cops. She didn’t want them comparing notes about her.

The paramedics turned up twelve minutes later in a shiny red ambulance. No police cars were in its wake. Helen felt her heart flutter when three tanned hunks rolled a stretcher into the lobby.

“Where is he?” the hunk with the broadest shoulders said.

“Up on three,” Helen said, leading the hotties to the elevator. It was a tight fit with the strapping men and the stretcher. That was fine with Helen.

“Naturally,” the hunk with the wavy blond hair said. “They’re always on the top floor. I bet he’s overweight, too.”

“And naked,” Helen said.

“How come the good-looking guys are never naked?” the third hunk with the sapphire eyes said. The other two paramedics nodded. Helen’s fantasies were DOA before the elevator doors opened.

By the time the corpulent, crepitant occupant of room 323 was loaded up and wheeled out, Rhonda had recovered from the shock of seeing his undead body. She was back in the room, pale as old paper and bristling with resentment.

Denise bustled in with two portable fans. “Run these to dry the carpet around the bathroom door,” she said. “Wipe down all the surfaces, strip the bed to the mattress, send the spread to the laundry, and mop up as much water as you can in the bathroom. At least you won’t have to clean the tub.”

Denise grinned. Rhonda didn’t laugh. She waited till Denise left, then wielded the mop with vicious swings, slopping more water on the already wet carpet. “This is the last straw,” she said. “If she thinks I’m going to clean that nasty Jacuzzi tomorrow, she’s got another thought coming. She can go ahead and fire me. I don’t care. Where’s she going to find another hotel maid in South Florida who speaks English?”

Helen threw the room towels on the bathroom floor, hoping to absorb the water before Rhonda flung it on the carpet. “The Full Moon has to be the only hotel around here where the staff speaks English.” Helen was eager to change the subject.

“That’s Sybil’s doing,” Rhonda said. “You met the owner yet?”

“Just when I was hired.” Helen picked up the dripping towels and carried them to the dirty laundry sack. The water wasn’t sloshing around on the floor quite so much.

“They don’t make ‘em like Sybil anymore,” Rhonda said. “She and her husband, Carl, built this hotel in 1953. They found all those seashells in the lobby on the Lauderdale beach. Carl died years ago and she runs the place by herself. Sybil doesn’t want a lot of scared illegals working for slave wages. She only hires people who speak English well enough to answer her guests’ questions. That costs her more. You have to admire that.”

“I do,” Helen said. She knew the three little words whispered most often in South Florida hotel rooms were, “No speak English.” Cowed and confused maids scuttled out, avoiding guests’ desperate pleas for towels and lightbulbs.

Helen had to admit Sybil had a knack for hiring people. Her employees stayed, another unusual phenomenon in rootless Florida. Denise had worked at the Full Moon eight years. Cheryl had been there six. Sondra had run the front desk for three years, and Rhonda had cleaned rooms for two. Helen got her job only because Naomi, a sixty-six-year-old maid, tore her rotator cuff making beds. They met on Helen’s first day, which was Naomi’s retirement party. “I’m just like that baseball player, Ozzie Smith,” Naomi had declared. “We got the same work-related injury.”

“Sybil seems like a good person,” Helen said. “I’m lucky to be working for her. But I have to say, room 323 outdid itself today.”

Damn. She could kick herself. She’d brought Rhonda back to the topic Helen wanted to avoid. She braced herself for another tirade. But cleaning seemed to drain the anger out of Rhonda. Her skinny body was electric with energy as she mopped the floor, then ripped the linens from the bed. She pulled and pounded the new sheets and pillows into place.

Helen was dusting when Rhonda went back to finish the now-dry bathroom. In the dresser mirror, she saw Rhonda wipe the toilet seat, then use the same rag to clean the in-room coffeepot. Helen’s stomach lurched. She’d be drinking tea for a while.

Finally the room smelled fresh and looked clean, though the carpet still squished. The maids closed the door to the quiet whir of the drying fans and carried the dirty linens downstairs to the laundry room.

“I’ll be back in a minute,” Rhonda said.

It was more like fifteen. Rhonda returned with dust bunnies in her hair and a black, oily smudge on her right cheek.

“What happened to you?” Helen said. “I thought this hotel was too new for a coal chute.”

Rhonda laughed, but didn’t answer. She stood in front of the mirror by the time clock and scrubbed at the smudge on her cheek with a wet paper towel. Then she combed out the dust that grayed her fiery hair and started changing into her street clothes behind the rack of clean smocks.

Helen threw her soiled smock in the wash pile. She’d walk home in her jeans and T-shirt.

“Glad this day is done,” she said.

“Do you want to go out for something to eat?” Rhonda called from behind the rack. Helen saw a flash of bright red hair, like an exotic bird darting by.

“Sorry, I’m broke,” Helen said. “I had a root canal and it took a big bite out of my savings, excuse the pun.” Twenty-five hundred dollars was a nasty hit, more than a third of her stash.

Rhonda didn’t ask if Helen had dental insurance. No one did at the Full Moon.

“My treat.” Rhonda held up a crisp fifty. Helen blinked. This was major money where maids hoped for two-dollar tips.

“Wow. Some big spender really tipped you,” Helen said.

“Are you kidding—at this place? It’s from my boyfriend.” Rhonda’s shrill voice softened. “He gives me walking-around money. He’s so considerate. He’s going to take me away from all this.”

Helen was glad Rhonda couldn’t see her face. Pale, skinny Rhonda did not seem like the kind of woman men took away from anything. She was born to wield a mop, a surly Cinderella without a fairy godmother.

“He sounds wonderful. I’d like to meet him,” Helen said.

Rhonda’s face appeared over the top of the rack. She looked foxy-sly. “He’s very shy,” she said. “But he’s so handsome. He listens to me. What man does that? He’s working on this plan. I can’t say anything yet. But when he makes his big score, I can tell everyone about us. I’ll have a diamond ring and everything.”

Rhonda held up her empty left hand, the nails dry and chipped from cleaning solvents. She saw the doubt on Helen’s face.

“He doesn’t have a wife,” she said quickly, though Helen had never mentioned one. “He’s single for sure. He’ll be real rich, real soon. He’s going to take me away, and we’ll live on the water and have a big house with a boat, like all the rich people in Florida.”

Her plain face lit up and turned a lovely pink. Her strange red hair glowed. For a moment Rhonda was almost beautiful.

She’s in love, Helen thought. She’s so far gone, she’s afraid to say his name, as if that ordinary act would destroy her dreams.

“Thanks,” Helen said. “I appreciate the offer. But I have to meet Phil.”

Rhonda shrugged. “It’s OK. I’ll eat alone. I’m meeting my boyfriend in an hour. Until he shows, it will be nice to sit in a booth and have someone wait on me for a change.”

“Amen, sister,” Helen said.

“Here, let me show you what else he’s done for me.” Rhonda dug into her shapeless black leather purse and brought out a plane ticket. “It’s to Mexico City. My mama’s wanted to go to Mexico all her life. She’s never been out of the country. My boyfriend said I could buy anything I wanted with his money. I saw these cheap fares in the paper and I thought, I can send my mama on her dream trip. All because of my boyfriend.”

“Sounds like you’ve got a good man,” Helen said. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and winced. “I’d better get home and clean up before I scare my guy.”

She poked her head around the corner to say good night to Sondra at the front desk. Sondra was on her hands and knees, using a screwdriver to remove the cover on a large air vent. It was a dirty job, and Helen wondered why the elegant African-American clerk was doing it herself.

“Sondra, you’re going to ruin your pretty outfit,” Helen said. “Why don’t you call maintenance?”

Sondra looked strangely guilty. Helen could see the flush under her milk-chocolate skin. Her neck and shoulders were suddenly rigid. “Uh, they’re busy,” she said. “They’re checking for water damage in 223. This vent isn’t working right. Sometimes paper scraps get sucked into it. Thought I’d take a look.”

Helen stared at her. “You’re wearing a white blouse. Why mess it up?”

“Think I don’t know how to fix things because I’m a girl?” Sondra said. There was an edge to her voice.

“Of course not.” Helen backed off. It wasn’t her business. “You don’t have school tonight, do you?”

Sondra was getting her degree in business administration. Her job at the Full Moon paid for her tuition.

“Nope. I’m here till midnight.” She smiled, her temporary snappishness gone. “What was Rhonda carrying on about?”

“She got upset over the guy passed out in 323. She was already unhappy about the whipped-cream Jacuzzi in the honeymoon suite.”

“Work here long enough and you’ll learn that girl is always moaning about something.” Sondra quit poking in the vent with the screwdriver, stood up, and wiped her long, slender hands on a paper towel. “She was born unhappy. You can’t please her. Cheryl’s got real problems with her child, but you’ll never hear her complain. She loves that little Angel to death. Thinks God gave her a gift instead of a burden. Rhonda’s not happy unless she’s miserable. That’s just the way she is. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to work. If Sybil sees me talking to the help, we’re both in trouble.”

Long purple shadows were falling when Helen walked out the front door of the Full Moon. She saw Rhonda slip out the side entrance. Helen waved, but didn’t stop. She was headed in the other direction, toward home. Cold wine and a hot man, that’s what she needed. The other maid glided toward the harsh lights of the highway.

Rhonda had combed out her long red hair and changed. Helen thought she wore an odd outfit to meet a lover. Rhonda was twenty-eight, but her clothes were suitable for a woman of seventy. Her shapeless navy skirt hung below her knees. Her pale blue blouse had long sleeves and a high lace collar. In Florida, young and old shamelessly—even mercilessly—bared their skin.

Helen shrugged. Maybe Rhonda’s mystery man liked old-fashioned women. As the night closed in, Rhonda looked like someone from another time. Helen watched as she disappeared into the shadows.

Later, Helen would regret that she didn’t call out to Rhonda and say she’d changed her mind. Her refusal set off a chain reaction that ended in three deaths. Helen would always wonder if she’d let Rhonda buy her that dinner, would at least one victim have survived?

But Helen said no and started the events that would create a new widow and a world of sorrow.

H
elen grew up in St. Louis, where houses were redbrick boxes with forest green shutters. To her, the Coronado Tropic Apartments were wrapped in romance. The Art Deco building was painted a wildly impractical white and trimmed an exotic turquoise. The Coronado had sensuous curves. Palm trees whispered to purple waterfalls of bougainvillea. The pool was a misty oasis.

In the hard daylight, Helen knew the building showed its fifty-eight years. The hot sun beat down on cracked sidewalks and cruelly revealed the rusty air conditioners sticking out of the windows like rude tongues. But on this November night they were concealed by the softening darkness, and their rattling brought soothing memories of long-ago vacations.

Margery, Peggy and a freshly showered Helen sat around the pool, sipping wine and swatting slow-moving mosquitoes. Margery presided over the box of white wine like a society matron at her teapot, pouring until everyone was mildly looped.

The Coronado’s landlady was seventy-six. Margery’s face was brown and wrinkled as a cured tobacco leaf, but her long tanned legs belonged to someone thirty years younger. She liked to show them off with sexy shoes. To-

night she wore a pair of geometric ankle-wrap sandals. Helen wondered how Margery walked in them without strangling her feet. And where did she get those cool clam diggers? When Helen wore that style, she looked like her pants were too short. Of course, the pants and shoes were purple. Margery loved purple. She also liked Marlboros. She was surrounded by a perpetual cloud of smoke, like an ancient soothsayer.