Murder With Reservations (32 page)

Her landlady materialized by the pool like a purple-clad genie.

“Because a man died—or because Rob didn’t?” Helen’s voice sounded harsher than she intended. Things had been cool between her and Margery since Helen’s frantic dash to the port on the night of Rob’s wedding.

“Rob is the right name for that man,” Margery said. “He stole your common sense. When are you going to quit checking for news of his death? Has it ever occurred to you that it might not make the papers? Maybe Marcella will push him overboard some night and sail on.”

“The crew would talk,” Helen said.

“Marcella can buy a lot of silence,” Margery said. “Of course, the couple could live happily ever after. You couldn’t stand that, could you? What are you really looking for in that newspaper? Which would upset you more: knowing Rob was dead—or alive?”

Helen slammed down the paper and glared at her landlady. Margery had a smug smile and a lit cigarette. Helen wanted to slap that smile off her face. She was tired of Margery’s know-it-all attitude. She wished her landlady would wear some other color besides purple. The woman looked like a walking bruise.

“Margery the fixer,” Helen said. “You wrap up lives in neat little packages and hand them back as gifts. You even fixed my guilt, in case Rob got himself murdered.

Did it ever occur to you that I didn’t want your present? I can take care of my own life, thank you.”

“Must be scary now that your ex-husband is gone.” Margery took a long draw on her cigarette. “Twice gone. He’s remarried and out of the country. Changes everything, doesn’t it? Now you’ll have to think about what to do with that silver-haired hunk next door. Are you going to marry him, or let some smarter woman run off with him? He won’t stay on the shelf forever, you know.”

Margery sat down on the edge of Helen’s chaise. Helen flapped her hands and waved away the cigarette smoke. She was in no mood for a lecture with carcinogenic side effects.

Margery ignored her. “What about the rest of your life, Helen? Are you going to get yourself a decent job? Buy a phone and quit borrowing mine? Get a bank account and run up credit card debt like a normal American? You can even get a driver’s license and own a car. This is your chance to join the grown-up world, Helen. Rob’s gone for good. It’s over.”

“No, it’s not,” Helen said. “Rob is harder to kill than a sewer rat. He’ll be back.”

“A rat and a black widow spider. I’ll put my money on the spider,” Margery said. “And, yes, I arranged the whole thing. So sue me. I saw a chance for you to quit wasting your life. Don’t bother thanking me.”

“For what?” Helen said defiantly. But deep inside, Helen was glad Rob was gone. Her life had been blighted by her fear of discovery and his relentless greed. Before she went on the run in South Florida, she’d had to live in self-inflicted blindness. She’d worked so hard not to see Rob’s infidelities. Now Helen was tired. But she was also angry. The anger won.

“I’m supposed to thank you for making me run across town like a half-wit? I should thank you for letting me shriek my lungs out on that bridge? Sure, I’ll thank you—when we can ice-skate on Las Olas in August.”

“Have you finished screaming like a fishwife?” Margery said. “You never answered my question. When you read that paper, are you hoping Rob is dead or alive?”

Helen remembered her heart-pounding fear when she saw the news story. “I want him alive. So I can kill him myself.”

“You had your chance and blew it,” Margery said.

“I did, didn’t I?” Helen said. The absurdity finally hit her. A giggle escaped her. Then she started laughing. Margery joined her. They laughed so hard they woke up Phil. He stepped out of his apartment wearing only his jeans, a sight that struck Helen silent. A bare-chested Phil was no laughing matter. He looked like a sun god with his silver hair and bronze skin, only not so frightening. The friendly sun god next door.

“Tell me again you’re sorry Rob is gone,” Margery said under her breath.

“What’s so funny, you two?” Phil said.

“We were celebrating,” Helen said. “Rob is married.”

“To the Black Widow? Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy,” Phil said.

“You aren’t worried he’ll die?” Helen said.

“We’re all going to die,” Phil said. “I can’t think of a pair that deserves to live together more.”

“But you were upset when you saw him with Mar-cella,” Helen said.

“I was surprised. Now that I’ve had time to think it over, I’ve decided it’s better she marry Rob than some innocent.”

“Awwwk!” Pete said, and Peggy floated over to the pool area with her green sidekick. The loss of Glenn and her money had given her a remote, ethereal air. She looked like a princess in a tower.

“What did I miss?” Peggy said.

“There’s a story on page 4A you ought to see,” Margery said.

“It’s on 7A,” Helen corrected.

“Not that one. The turnpike story. Read it out loud,

Helen. Top left-hand corner. I’ll clean up that spilled coffee before it stains the concrete.”

“The headline says, ‘Fort Lauderdale Residents Arrested in Turnpike Phone Scam.’ ” Helen’s voice trailed off as she looked at the lumpy woman frowning in the mug shot. “Holy cow, it’s Arlene. I didn’t recognize her without her big earrings and fake smile.”

Phil and Peggy crowded in closer for a look at the paper.

“The cops probably confiscated the earrings as lethal weapons,” Phil said.

“Of course she’s frowning. She’s got nothing to smile about,” Margery said, as she threw a bucket of water over Helen’s spilled coffee. “You’re supposed to keep reading.”

“It says here that Arlene the shoulder surfer and her accomplice—”

“That’s Glenn,” Peggy said. “That’s him in the other photo. I never realized his eyes were so small. You were right, Helen. Those two were in it together.”

“Looks like they’re facing federal charges together, too,” Helen said.

“I wonder if I can get my twenty thousand dollars back,” Peggy said.

“Don’t bet on it,” Margery said.

Peggy would never see Glenn or his money again. But the pair would get ten years in a federal prison.

“That was your doing, wasn’t it?” Helen said to Margery one morning, when the headlines announced Ar-lene and Glenn’s prison sentence.

Margery shrugged so hard she nearly sent her grape off-the-shoulder blouse tobogganing down her chest. “Maybe. I did give the authorities Arlene’s car make and license plate number, plus a little information about her lobby hobby.”

“Any chance Peggy will get her money back?” Helen said.

“No. Glenn’s attorney claims that his client has no money, but I don’t think that lawyer does charity cases. I suspect Peggy’s money went for Glenn’s defense. Not that it did him any good.”

“Poor Peggy,” Helen said.

“Oh, she’ll have another man soon enough,” Margery said. “But she deserves a better one. Maybe this time she’ll spend her money on lottery tickets.”

“But she always loses,” Helen said.

“Only thirty dollars a week,” Margery said. “That’s a lot less than twenty thousand.”

The Full Moon survived Craig’s death. Once the killer was dead, tourists seemed to think the hotel was safe. Sybil’s two-for-one deal killed any lingering doubts.

Even when Sybil stopped the two-for-one coupons, the hotel stayed filled. The cranky hotel owner was really sorry when Cheryl gave two weeks’ notice. She needed the hardworking maid.

Helen cleaned rooms with Cheryl for four days before she got up the nerve to discuss the question she could ask no one else: “Why was the money stashed in room 322? I thought the robber stayed in 323.”

“He did,” Cheryl said. “I think I know what happened. When we clean, we put the rooms of the people who have checked out ‘on the latch.’ We leave the door open with the safety latch out so we can run in and out without unlocking the door every time. There are no guests’ belongings to steal in an empty room.

“I think the robber saw the cops pull into the lot and knew he had to run for it. He couldn’t run fast with that heavy bag. He had to stash the hundred thousand dollars someplace quick, and his room would be searched for sure. I’m guessing room 322 was on the latch, and he hid the money under the box spring. Nobody thought to search there, because the mattress pedestal looks solid. I’m sure he planned to send his accomplice back for the cash, except he got killed.”

It made sense. And it set off a strange chain reaction. Craig courted Rhonda to get information about the hotel. After that, Helen couldn’t count all the ifs … If Rhonda hadn’t been murdered. If Cheryl hadn’t worked the third floor that day. If Helen hadn’t noticed the Phi Beta Kappa key on Dean’s robe, would Cheryl have recognized her old lover?

Helen tried not to think about that. At least some good came out of Dean’s death. He’d abandoned his pregnant lover long ago. Now his death provided the money she needed for a better life.

Helen was relieved when Cheryl’s good-bye party finally rolled around. She helped decorate the hotel’s breakfast room with balloons and streamers. Angel came to the party in a blue dress with a lace collar. Her dark hair was like silk. Angel solemnly shook hands with her mother’s coworkers and carefully ate a piece of Denise’s double-chocolate cake. She didn’t want icing on her party dress.

She watched her mother open the presents—sets of luggage for Cheryl and Angel, including a Barbie suitcase on pink wheels. Angel’s eyes shone when she saw that. She gripped the handle and never let go of it for the rest of the party.

Cheryl opened her gag gift, a huge can of whipped cream, to snickers and jokes that bored Angel. The little girl started counting the Cheerios in the Plexiglas cereal bin.

“How many did you count?” Helen asked her.

Angel pointed to the sloping top row. “Do you think that counts as one row? Or does it turn into two when it goes downhill? Where would you stop?”

“Here,” Helen said, pointing to a spot halfway down the cereal hill.

“Me, too. But it’s confusing. I’m not good at math.”

“Lots of people aren’t,” Helen said.

“I try. It’s important to try. I try to have friends, too. But I didn’t get invited to Sarah’s party last Saturday.

Everyone else went, and I had a new dress. My mom says I’ll have friends at my new school.”

Helen swallowed the lump in her throat. “Yes, you will,” she said, “and you won’t even have to try.”

Cheryl came over then, looking almost as pretty as her daughter. When she wasn’t wearing the shapeless hotel smock, she had a trim figure.

“You’ve lost weight,” Helen said.

“Twenty-five pounds,” Cheryl said. “Though you’d never guess it the way I’m shoving cake in my mouth.” She hugged Helen good-bye. “Thank you,” she whispered.

“Keep in touch,” Helen said. She always said that at good-bye parties, but she never expected to hear from Cheryl again.

Helen was wrong. Two weeks later, she got a postcard from Ohio. It said,
Having a wonderful time. Saw our first snowfall. Our Angel made snow angels.
It was unsigned, but Helen knew who’d sent it.

The postcard should have left Helen happy. Instead, she felt oddly restless. She prowled the Coronado grounds late at night, trying to figure out what was wrong. The moon cast silver shadows on the lawn and the palms whispered sweet promises. Helen had every reason to be content, but she wasn’t.

On the third night, Phil slipped out of his room and joined her aimless wandering. “Where are you going?” he said in a low voice. Sound carried at night around the Coronado pool.

“In circles,” Helen said.

“Literally or figuratively?”

“Yes,” Helen said. “I don’t know what I want to be when I grow up.”

“Why grow up?” Phil said. “You don’t have to. Let’s run away.”

“Where?” Helen said.

“Anywhere you want. I don’t start another job for four days. Where would you like to go: New York, Las Vegas, San Francisco, the Caribbean?”

“Not the Caribbean,” Helen said.

“Oh, right. How about the Keys? I know a secluded little hotel. I could get us a room. Throw your swimsuit in a bag and we’ll go.”

“Sybil is shorthanded. I’d be fired.”

“And that job would be a big loss?” Phil asked.

“No,” Helen said. “I’m sick of working in a hotel. I want to throw my towels on someone else’s floor. I want another person to make my bed. I want room service and an ocean view.”

“It’s three in the morning. If we leave now, we can have breakfast on the hotel patio. It overlooks the water. Leave Margery a note so she’ll feed the cat.”

“She hates cats,” Helen said.

“She’ll make an exception for Thumbs. Come on, Helen.” Phil held out his hand.

Should she stay or should she go? Helen knew if she refused, she’d be accepting a new life of drudgery.

Man or mop? It was no contest. “To hell with the job,” she said. “Let Sybil fire me.”

It was eight o’clock when they pulled into the little hotel on the Gulf side of the Keys. The sun was bright in a china blue sky. Purple hammocks with deep pillows swayed between the palm trees. The water was a stunning turquoise.

Phil unlocked the door to a suite overlooking the water. “It’s all ours. Nothing to do for four days.”

“Nothing?” she said.

“Nothing we can say on a postcard to Mom.” He grinned wickedly. “What do you think of the room?”

Helen looked at the white wicker four-poster bed draped with mosquito netting, the charming rocker with the looping arms, and the seashell mirror. The walls were the same turquoise as the water.

“It’s very clean,” Helen said.

Phil wrapped his arms around her and began kissing her neck. “Is that all you can say about this room—it’s clean?”

“I love four-poster beds. The rocker is very cool. The wicker chaise looks big enough for two.”

“We can test that,” Phil said.

“The view is stunning,” Helen said.

“That’s more like it. Now you sound like a hotel guest, not a hotel maid. Shall we see if the bed is as good as it looks?” Phil said.

“Love to,” Helen said. “But first, let me remove that spread.”