Milkshakes, Mermaids, and Murder

by Sara Rosett

  “Only slightly.” I hedged. The woman in the yellow tank bumped into me as she paced in the crowded area. The skinny scarecrow guy in the Phineas and Ferb baseball cap made eye contact with her, gave her a warning shake of the head, then looked away.

  “Oh. Well, we’re here for him,” the hostess said. “We’re a family. That’s what he keeps telling us. We have to stick together.”

  “I’m sure he appreciates it. Do you think you could grab him for me? It will only take a second,” I said. “I really need to talk to him about his sister.”

  “Sure, I’ll check,” she said.

  While she was gone, one of the pagers went off with a loud buzz and a flash of red lights. It was the one for the woman in the yellow tank. She all but threw it at the second hostess, who led her away. The brunette hostess returned. “He stepped out, but he’ll be back in a minute.”

  “Do you know where he went?”

  “Next door,” she said, glancing out the windows in the bar to the strip mall beside the restaurant. “To see his old boss, I bet. They’re really close.” Sandy Beach Sports Medicine Clinic, which had been listed on his bio page online, was only a few doors away.

  “Do you want to wait in his office?”

  “That would be great,” I said and followed her to a hallway at the back of the bar, which had doors opening off of it to the restrooms, the manager’s office, and the parking lot. The woman in the yellow tank scurried around us and exited through the door to the parking lot, as the hostess waved me into the office and said, “Make yourself at home.”

  The office was a closetlike room and needed some serious organizational help. A mishmash of binders, advertising coupons, kids’ paper place mats, and other debris covered every surface in the room: the desk, two metal filing cabinets, even the worn brown carpet. I ignored the piles. I wasn’t here to organize.

  Besides the rolling chair behind the desk, there was only one other chair in the room and it was piled with binders and files. I stood in the center of the room, not wanting to sit in the rolling chair. I moseyed over to the doorway where I could see through the glass panel in the exit door to the parking lot. No sign of Chase returning from his visit to the clinic. The only person in the parking lot was the woman in the yellow tank. I frowned as I watched her walk along the back of the adjacent strip mall, which was set a little closer to the street than the restaurant, so I had a good view of the area behind the stores. The woman looked up, checking the numbers posted on the back doors. She paused at the third one, pulled it open, and went inside.

  That was weird, I thought. While I watched, a teenager in baggy athletic shorts and an oversized sleeveless top emerged from the same door. He ambled across the parking lot and pushed through the restaurant door with a clatter. He noticed me watching him from the office. His gaze narrowed and became challenging. Instinctively, I broke eye contact and moved back into the office. The teen paused, then continued down the hallway. I realized my breath was coming quickly and my heart was pounding. Why was I scared of that kid?

  Because he was intimidating.

  But why would he be worried about someone watching him walk across the parking lot?

  I went to the door again and peeked around it into the corridor in time to see the teenager make his way through the waiting crowds at the front of the restaurant and leave through the front door. Why would he do that? Come through the restaurant to go to the parking lot? There was space between the restaurant and the strip mall. He could have gone to the parking lot from the strip mall. He didn’t need to come through here. And he didn’t meet anyone or talk to anyone.

  The man in the Phineas and Ferb hat handed his buzzer to the hostess and moved in my direction. I ducked back into the office and watched as the guy made for the parking lot exit door and followed the same path as the woman in the yellow tank had, to the third door in the back of the strip mall. Another person emerged from the doorway as he opened it, a woman with frizzy gray hair. She hurried in the direction of the restaurant. I slipped out of her line of sight as she came inside, then I leaned out and watched her walk to the waiting area and then out the front door to the parking lot.

  A buzz sounded, and I reached for my phone, then realized it wasn’t my phone. It was coming from the desk. I shifted closer to the mounds of paper on the desk and lifted a file folder. The phone was vibrating, and the message Unknown number was on the screen. The phone went dark, and I knew the caller had hung up or left a message on voice mail.

  I stood there for a few seconds, biting my lip. There was something weird going on at the restaurant. Was it related to what had happened to Ben? Was it all linked somehow to the photos and to Angela’s death? I assumed this was Chase’s phone since it was on his desk. I glanced at the office door, then picked up the phone quickly. I had to look. If it helped Ben get out of the situation, I had to do it.

  The phone didn’t have a lock or passcode. I quickly scanned the calls and texts, then looked at the calls listed in his voice mail. If it was his phone, he hadn’t talked to Angela for several days. Most of his calls were to someone named Rowley at an 813 area code.

  He had a program set up to download his e-mail to his phone. I selected the mailbox icon, quickly shifting through e-mails. They confirmed it was Chase’s phone because all the sent mail had his name on it. There was nothing to or from Angela’s mailbox. No sent messages or received messages. Angela’s mailbox wasn’t even loaded on this phone. I double-checked, but there was nothing.

  The exit door clicked and I jumped. Footsteps continued by the office door, and I quickly replaced the phone under the file. I contemplated the desktop computer. Maybe that’s how he did it?

  My hands were trembling so badly that the cursor jumped around the screen when I grabbed the mouse. I blew out a deep breath and reminded myself I was doing this for Ben. To help him. I quickly selected the mail icon. The messages were the same ones that were on his phone. He had all his mail downloaded to his phone, and there were no other e-mail accounts. I opened a Web browser and clicked on the history, which showed a list of websites that involved restaurant supply sales and map searches for Tampa. It seemed Chase hadn’t sent those e-mails to me, asking to meet in the lobby.

  The exit door from the restaurant to the parking lot clanked open, and a murmur of voices mingled with footsteps in the hall. I stepped away from the computer.

  “Chase! I wanna talk to you.”

  I missed some words as I lunged to the middle of the office, away from the computer. In the hallway, I could see the guy in the Phineas and Ferb baseball cap leaning close to Chase, the bill of the cap nearly touching Chase’s forehead. “. . . and I didn’t come all this way to play your little game of hide-and-seek. If you can’t deliver, you should say so—”

  “We always deliver,” Chase said.

  I wished I wasn’t in the office, but there was no way to slip out without them seeing me. The atmosphere was so tense between them that they didn’t notice me.

  “You better.” The man shoved by Chase and strode to the front of the restaurant.

  There was a pause, then Chase entered the office, running his hands down his tie, smoothing it back into place. He stopped short when he saw me, then his gaze went to the desk. The computer monitor had gone dark while I had eavesdropped on him.

  I said, “Hi, Chase. The hostess told me to wait here for you. I’m so sorry about Angela.”

  “Thank you.”

  He looked puzzled, so I added, “I’m Ellie. I was with Ben this morning.”

  “Oh, right.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Sorry about that. Complaints,” he said with a half-hearted laugh. “They always want to talk to the manager.”

  “It’s fine. I should apologize to you. Barging in on you like this, but I need . . .” I faltered, taking in his haggard face and puffy eyes. He’d changed into a fresh edition of the slightly dressed down corporate look: white dress shirt, yellow tie, black pants, and dress shoes with tassels. His distress combi
ned with his conventional clothes gave him an air of respectability. Could this guy really be involved in the situation with Ben? He looked pitiful.

  I held out the fake Leah Marshall purse. “I need to give this to you,” I said, and left it at that, watching his reaction.

  He looked confused again, so I added, “Angela called me and asked me to bring it by your apartment this morning. That’s why I was there.”

  His face cleared. “Right. The purse mix-up.” He took the purse and tossed it on a tilting stack of binders. “I can get you the right one. Maybe later today or tomorrow.”

  “Sure. That would be fine. No rush. I wanted to get the purse to you because it was important to Angela. She was so worried about it—that I get it back to the apartment.”

  Chase nodded.

  “It seemed a little . . . odd, to be so concerned with a purse,” I said, fishing for a response.

  “She probably wanted to get the right one to you. She was a fanatic about bad feedback. She wanted to keep her ninety-nine percent positive rating. She was proud of that,” Chase said. He closed his eyes and rubbed his fingers over his eyelids. “Sorry,” he said, blinking. “It’s . . . I can’t believe it. I got busy here for a little bit and actually almost forgot what happened, but then, wham it hit me that she’s gone.” He sucked in an unsteady breath.

  “I’m sorry,” I repeated, but he didn’t seem to hear me. He plopped onto the rolling chair. “I can’t believe that they think she was on drugs. She’d never do that,” he said, rubbing his hand across his forehead.

  “So you think that Angela’s death wasn’t an accident?” I asked.

  Surprised, he looked at me as if he’d forgotten I was in the room with him. His phone buzzed, and he pushed the folders around to uncover it. “Sorry, I’ve got to take this,” he said.

  “Right.” I moved to the door, frustrated that I hadn’t figured out how to ask the questions I wanted to ask about the photos. I hesitated in the hallway. If it was a short phone conversation, maybe I could duck back into his office.

  There was a framed black and white photograph of a boat moored at a dock on the wall opposite his office. I could see a vague outline of Chase reflected in the glass. “What?” I could hear his sharp question from the hall. He stiffened, his head moving quickly as he scanned the room. He said something else that I didn’t catch, then ended the call. He moved quickly back and forth across the room, stuffing files into a leather briefcase. He jerked open a filing cabinet drawer, shoved something small into his pocket, and hurried out of the office without even closing the file drawer or noticing me. He hit the door to the parking lot, it snapped back, and he jogged to his car, then peeled out.

  I edged to the office door and looked at the purse sitting forgotten on the stack of binders. I guess he wasn’t too concerned about it, after all. I left the restaurant through the front door. On my way to my van, the woman in the yellow tank nearly knocked me over as she hurried to climb into a car. The guy in the Phineas and Ferb hat was at the wheel. Their black Camry with Tennessee plates followed me out of The Hideaway’s parking lot, and they tailgated me for a few blocks, then turned off.

  I tapped the steering wheel, trying to figure out what to do next. I didn’t know what to make of Chase. His grief seemed legitimate and deep. And his reaction to the purse had been . . . nothing. No reaction at all. He hadn’t shown surprise or eagerness. He hadn’t even looked like he was trying to hide some emotion. It seemed he didn’t care about the purse at all.

  If Chase hadn’t been involved in the effort to get the memory card, who else would be interested in it? It could be anyone from Angela’s life, I thought miserably, and I didn’t really know her that well.

  Maybe Honey had seen something. She apparently kept an eye on her neighbors’ comings and goings. She’d been the one who told Ben that Angela hadn’t made it home last night. I could go back to the apartment complex . . . but Ben was my primary concern. I had to focus on getting that memory card back.

  I doubted Honey knew anything about the memory card, but someone who was actually in the pictures, someone like Cara, might know something, I thought suddenly. She had been in the club and a friend of Angela’s. She must know the other woman in the picture, the one who was pushed off the balcony. What had happened to her? I hadn’t had a spare moment to think about her. Cara would probably know.

  I inched along in the creeping traffic, wishing I knew the roads well enough to find a shortcut, but I didn’t want to get lost and waste time cruising through the residential areas of condos that interspersed the hotels. I was sure there were plenty of switchbacks and dead-end cul-de-sacs that would eat up more of my time. Finally, I spun the wheel and pulled into the hotel parking lot. The Sea Cottage wasn’t far down the street and finding a parking slot on the beach road was about as likely as finding a genie in a bottle on one of the beaches.

  I strode down the sidewalk to The Sea Cottage, where I was told that Cara had the afternoon off, but that she might be at her other part-time job as a lifeguard at the Park Palms Hotel. I retraced my steps toward our hotel, then went a few yards farther and crossed the street to the luxuriousness of the Park Palms Hotel. Because Sandy Beach and Costa Bella were small beach towns, I was able to get there in a few minutes. The Park Palms was another beachfront hotel and, even though it was located less than a block from our hotel, it was obviously a world away from our accommodations. This place had grounds.

  Instead of a having only a few palms and segos lining the edges of the hotel like many of the moderately priced hotels, the Park Palms had a curving drive that separated it from the beach road. I walked up the sidewalk that mirrored the drive. It twisted through bursts of flowering plants and alongside a stream that trickled down to the front of the property, where it fed into a fountain that sent spray as high as the coconut palms. Space was at a premium on the beach side of the road and the sheer amount of space the Park Palms covered—almost a block—stated that this was a resort.

  I slipped under the portico supported with Doric columns and into the colonial plantation–style interior of the hotel. Ceiling fans whispered and dark paneling covered the lower third of the walls. Above the paneling, the walls were painted a crisp white and lined with botanical prints and antique maps. Curved, dark wood armchairs with wicker insets were grouped around huge pots of elephant ears and ficus. I turned away from the imposing front desk in rich dark wood and moved in what I hoped was the direction of the beach. A set of French doors opened onto a colonnaded veranda with white wicker chairs scattered over its dark wood. Beyond the wide set of steps leading down to a pool and garden area was the expanse of the gulf, the water a glittering turquoise.

  I followed the brick path to the hotel’s pool area and saw Cara swinging a string bag onto her shoulder. She wore a one-piece red swimsuit with the word Lifeguard across her chest. She waved to another lifeguard perched in a chair at poolside, then headed in my direction. “Cara,” I said, moving toward her. “I don’t know if you remember me. I came to The Sea Cottage—”

  “Asking about Angela. Yeah, I remember you,” she said, moving by me.

  I fell into step with her. “Have you heard about Angela?”

  She nodded. “I got a text from a friend.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “Yeah, thanks.” She shrugged a shoulder. She kept her head down, her gaze focused on her feet as she moved swiftly along the brick path.

  Oh boy, this wasn’t going to be easy. “Cara, do you have a few minutes? Could I ask you something?”

  She shook her head and picked up her pace.

  “I’m sorry to bother you, but I think Angela was mixed up in something dangerous—”

  “You think?” She spun to me, her thick bangs falling over one eye.

  “Yes, I do. And now my brother is caught up in it, too.” She was already shaking her head and hurrying forward again, moving down another path that curved around the hotel. “Sorry. Can’t help you,” she said, pu
lling a set of car keys from her string bag.

  “It’s something to do with Club Fifty-two, isn’t it? And what you saw there.” We came to a side entrance to the hotel’s parking garage. Cara pushed through the heavy door. I followed her into the dim interior. “You and Angela and the poor girl who was pushed off the balcony. You were all there.”

  She jerked to a stop again. “How do you know about that?”

  “I saw the pictures.”

  Her free hand shot out and gripped my wrist. “You have the pictures?”

  “No.” I stepped back, twisting my wrist free. “But I saw them. You were in them, along with Angela and the girl who fell.”

  “Ruby. Her name is Ruby.”

  “What happened that night with you and Angela and Ruby? I need to know so I can help my brother. Please? I don’t want anything bad to happen to him.”

  She looked at me for a long moment before she sighed and said, “Okay, but I don’t know what’s going on. All I know is that Angela’s dead, and Ruby’s in the hospital. The doctors say it’s amazing she’s alive.”

  “Will she recover?” I asked gently. I wanted to hear the details of what had happened, but she was obviously scared and skittish and more worried about her friend than helping me. Her tone was completely different from the defiant, angry vibe she’d radiated this morning when she was irritated with Angela for not showing up at work. Now, her worried expression scored her forehead with wrinkles, and she had dark half circles under her eyes.

  “Yeah. She has a concussion. They were worried about head trauma, but it sounds like she’s going to be okay. She’s got to have two surgeries on her leg, though. They’re doing the first one today, which is terrible, but in a way I’m glad, because it means she’s in the hospital. She’s safe there, you know?” She glanced along the dim aisles of cars. “No one can get to her.”

  “So you’ve talked to her?”

  “Only a few minutes on the phone. She’s mostly loopy and out of it, which is probably a good thing.”

  “Surely the police have asked Ruby what happened.”