Who Glares Wins (Lexi Graves Mysteries) (8 page)

Solomon continued, "They have a conference this week and it's big money
, not just for this event
,
but for repeat custom
ers
. A couple
of
months ago
,
they were booked up a year in advance
,
but that's slipping. If they keep having problems, those bookings will go elsewhere. There's a lot of money at stake for the hotel."

"What kind of conference?"

Solomon checked his notes. "A Bronie conference," he said.

"A what?"
I asked, wondering if I misheard.

"Bronie."

I frowned, not any more clued in. "And that is?"

Solomon closed his eyes for a moment and rested back in his chair. "It's men and
Super
Ponies.
The
small,
plastic ones with colored
, brushable
tails
and manes that
little girls play with.
"

"Excuse me?" My jaw shook a little
in surprise as I suppressed a giggle
.

"Bronie is one of those weird collaborations between 'brothers' or 'bros' and 'ponies'."

"Is this a joke?"

"No."

"You blew off my missing person case for this?"

"Lexi..." The warning tone entered his voice.

"Men and
Super Ponies
?" I said again, just in case I suddenly got some kind of inner ear infection that
impeded
my hearing. "Men who play with little girls
’
toys?"

"Men who collect and discuss the toys. It's no weirder than Trekkies."

"It so is." I bit the insides of my cheeks
so I wouldn’t laugh
.

"If you need to laugh, get it out now. You can't rip the shit out of these people. They're paying guests of the hotel
and the hotel is paying us
."

I didn't need to laugh. Not yet, anyway. I was still struggling to come to terms with it. I had heard of all kinds of weird shit, but this took the biscuit. Or
, should I say,
the sugar cube
?

"The Bronies aren't the issue
,” Solomon explained
.
“
The problem is within the hotel itself. You'll be dealing with the employees
,
but your cover
story means
you might have to
be
around the conference."

I really thought
“
conference
”
was pushing it as I envisaged groups of drooling geeks clapping their hands in
lurid
delight at
brightly
colored ponies that were meant for little kids. I couldn't imagine
any
other kind of m
e
n
who would
want to play with girls' toys.
I also couldn’t imagine how Solomon knew what Super Ponies were. Perhaps he had a secret sparkly, colorful side that he kept
concealed
.

"There's a bonus on successful case completion. You'll get twenty percent," said Solomon as I pondered the bizarre nature of the case.

I didn't have a clue how Solomon funded the start
-
up costs or the running expenses of the agency
,
but I did know he paid everyone a basic salary. Well, the last bit was somewhat of an assumption
,
since he paid me a basic salary. However, the real money was in
the
successful completion of a job. The longer a case went on, and the more complex
it was
, the higher the fee
climbed
.

The salary meant I could make enough to cover my basic rent and bills, but I would have to work harder to make the extra. Theoretically, it should pan out that I could complete a bunch of smaller cases and earn a consolidation fee that was nice
;
or work a single, but longer, case and get a similar fee. That way
,
there wasn't strong internal competition
over each others
’
caseloads
or jealousy over pay. I'd yet to work a single case, never mind close one
,
so right now, I had to assume I was the lowest
income
earner in the office. No wonder they thought I sucked. Solomon's twenty percent sounded mighty appealing.

On the other hand, I hated temping and the Bronie thing creeped me out. Going undercover sounded like it was going to seriously eat into my free time and there wouldn't be any
more lie-
ins. I wouldn't even be able to tell anyone I was undercover. Everyone would think I was temping again. The case had the potential to be a massive embarrassment. "Fifty," I countered.

Solomon smiled.
"Twenty five."

"Thirty."

"Done."

Color me surprised. "Tell me more."

Solomon opened his
copy of the
file. "My initial conversation with the hotel manager conclude
d
that someone is sabotaging the hotel. It looks like an inside job."

"What kind of sabotage?"

"Food getting spoiled because the refrigerator
wa
s opened in the night."

"Easy mistake to make. Careless staff?"

"Three times, once after they had the locks and handles changed."

"Okay. What else?

"A booking that never made it into the system. Three hundred guests turn
ed
up and nothing
was
ready."

"Computer glitch? Manual error?"

"I had
Lucas
check. The booking made it in. Someone manually wiped it. Before you ask, there's no trace of who did it either.
Someone has access to the system without an assigned log-in and password.
Fortunately
,
it was a day conference and the
manager
got everything ready with only an hour
’
s delay
,
but they had to refund twenty
-
five percent and lost the client
for the future
.
That’s a six-figure client gone. S
taff rotas are being messed up
too
." Solomon
paused
.

I held my hands up. "I'm not saying anything.
It sounds like sabotage.
"

"None of these are isolated incidents.
S
tuff
has gone
missing from guests' rooms
too
.
Electronics, jewelry, th
ose
sort
s
of thing
s
.
"

"So we've got a light-
fingered employee who
is
sabotag
ing
the hotel?"

Solomon nodded.
"Looks that way."

"And you want me to figure out who it is." It wasn't even a question. I was going to be spending the foreseeable future trying to work out who was an asshat and why.

"Correct." Solomon
nodded to the folder and proceeded to fill in the background
. The hotel had fifty permanent staff
,
but
also hired in from a temp agency
for cover staff a
t
larger events. Each permanent and part-
time staff member had a background check at the time of their employment
,
so some of the files were old. Even so,
Solomon explained,
none of them stood out
,
and there were no criminal records. "You'll need to interview the manager too. We'll get updates of all these files," Solomon told me. "And the manager is pulling records of anyone they fired in the last two years. We'll cross reference them against anyone still at the hotel
,
in case of
disgruntled ex-employees who might hold
grudges."

"You think that's what this is?"

Solomon shrugged, his shoulders barely moving. "It's one helluva grudge.
This person doesn’t want to see The Montgomery succeed.
"

"Why haven't they gone to the police? The theft is criminal, at least."

"The manager doesn't want it getting out. He's had to inform the board and they want it dealt with quickly and quietly. It's not just The Montgomery that will have a problem if this goes public
. T
he whole
hotel chain
could suffer
from the bad publicity
."

"Understood. When do I start?"

"Monday. Nine a
.
m. You'
ll
report to Edward Killjoy."

"Killjoy?" Great. This job was going to be amazing.

"You can laugh at that."

I thought about Killjoy, the Bronies
,
the sabotage and the lack of a social life for the foreseeable future.
"I can't. The whole thing is too depressing. Now, if you ever get an undercover op at a spa, I'm in. I want that noted in my
personal
file."

Solomon smiled. "You got it."

"Anything else I need to know?"

"That's it until the employee updates come in."

"I'm going to take off after I finish the background checks sitting on my desk."

Solomon nodded. I
closed the
file
, the elation of having my own case lifting my spirits
,
and went to the door.

"Lexi?"

I paused.
"Mmm?"

"Keep quiet about the case, please."

Immediately, I
went on the defensive. "Just because I'm a woman doesn't
mean I can't keep my mouth shut,
"
I protested.

"I actually meant Maddox and your enormous cop family.
Being a woman doesn’t come into it.
"
I noticed him check
ing
out my
clothes
, a frown briefly
creasing
his forehead.

"This is work," I said
, snippily
. "We have better things to talk about." I left without a backwards glance, feeling miffed again, despite the progress. Funnily enough, neither Maddox nor I really talked about work. I knew Maddox was back on homicide after his stint with the fraud squad
,
but he
never
discuss
ed
his cases with me
, except in the most general terms
. T
he only time I talked about what I
did
was if I needed some information, like Marissa Widmore's plates
. But it’s
not
like
I explained the case in detail
either
. I didn't know if work was an uncrossed line between us
,
but it sure felt like there was a neat divide there. Plus, I couldn't really imagine Maddox asking my opinion on how to go about solving a murder. He'd just get on with it and if I w
ere
lucky, take me out afterwards.

I finished my stack of background checks
before returning
to the hotel file,
my
curiosity
gnawing at
me. I read
it over twice until I was sure I had it in my head.
I turned the page of the
suspected sabotage
, raising my eyebrows at the long list. S
ome of the incidents could have been petty little
events
tha
t a paranoid mind took too far
,
b
ut some of it was serious. Money, jewelry and electronics had all gone missing from guests' rooms
,
and though the spoiled food incident seemed trivial, the report listed that it cost the hotel thousands of dollars
. They had to throw it all
away and replac
e
meat and
produce, not to mention the problems it caused with guests.

Some of the reported sabotage w
ere
just plain nuisance
s:
messing about with staff rotas so none of the waiters turned up
.
Or having
one chambermaid turn up
rather than a whole
crew, and not being
able to prepare
all the rooms in time for check
-
in.
Tempers were becoming frayed. The staff were
annoyed about their
canceled
and reinstated shifts
,
and
also
complaining as a result
. I suspected they probably had
at least
a
n inkling things weren't right.