“Like I said, Sassy,” Harley Grace said. “He was tired. He just wanted to get back down the mountain.”
“For what?” Sassy asked
“I don’t know,” she shrugged.
“Well, if he hadn’t been on that motorized bike maybe he could have been saved,” Sassy said. “And he couldn’t have hurt anyone else. You know another guest at the resort was killed, too.”
“I heard,” Harley Grace said.
“Well, it doesn’t matter now,” Sassy said and waved her hand around the room. “We have to take care of all of this. Take care of things properly.” She swiped the palms of her hands together. “I want to get his things home.” Sassy pointed to the shelves. “I’ll just use the boxes all this stuff came in.” She went over and held Harley Grace’s hands. “And don’t you worry none, I’ll take care of anything he owes you.”
“Sassy-”
“No. It’s fine. And don’t be a stranger, you hear?” Sassy didn’t let Harley Grace finish what she wanted to say. Pushing forward, she steered to ending the conversation. Sassy folded Harley Grace into a big hug. It seemed that she was comforting Harley Grace instead of the other way around. “I’ve brought help.” Sassy smiled brightly and pointed to the three of us.
But before Sassy could explain any further, Inspector Tomasi Walota walked in.
“Oh mercy,” Sassy said. “Nothing else has gone wrong, has it?”
“No.” He shook his head. He was all business. “It’s just that we’re going to have to close down this camp for a day or two,” he announced. He looked around the room. “What are you doing here Mrs. Whitson?”
He remembered her name, that couldn’t be a good thing.
“Just helping my friend. We wanted to pack up her husband’s things and see to them getting back to the states.”
I had my fingers crossed that she wouldn’t mention anything about murder.
He zeroed in on Harley Grace. “Are you Harley Manicore?” the Inspector asked.
“Harley Grace Manicore,” she said and stepped forward extending her hand. “What is this all about?”
He took it and gave her the same limp handshake he’d given Miss Vivee.
“Routine,” Inspector Walota said. “We understand that one of the victims of this morning’s unfortunate accident,” he looked at Miss Vivee with narrowed eyes, “may have pulled a prank on the other.”
“I . . . I couldn’t tell you anything about that,” Harley Grace said. “Not even sure what you mean.”
“Do you know anything about a broken chain on one of Campbell Gruger’s bikes?” Tomasi Walota asked
“Oh yes,” Sassy spoke up. “It was his Yamaha. Did Miss Crawford do something to it?”
How did Sassy plan on answering questions about it? She’d just found out about it herself.
“Can’t say,” he said. “We really don’t have any information on it.”
“What does that have to do with your investigation of the accident,” Miss Vivee asked, her tone was haughty, almost mocking when she said the word “accident.”
He smiled at her, seeing through her comment. “We are not prepared to share any information on our investigation at this time, Mrs. Whitson,” he said. “We are just attempting to follow through on the information that we have.”
“Well we’ll be happy to help in any way we can,” Miss Southern Belle said. Sassy dug in on her accent and gushed out a heap of her sweet persona.
“Well, we’ll be leaving,” Miss Vivee said staring down Inspector Walota. “Sassy, are you coming?”
“No,” she said and sighed. “I think it’s best to stay for a little bit longer, in case the Inspector has any questions. But why don’t you two take the jeep back down. I couldn’t ask you to walk.”
“That’s very kind,” Mac said.
“If you need us for anything,” Miss Vivee said. “Don’t you hesitate to ask, you got it?”
“I won’t,” she said and smiled. “And it should be me thanking you. I’ll keep you updated.” She gave Miss Vivee a wink.
Chapter Ten
I don’t know what Sassy was thinking when she told Miss Vivee that the “two” of them could take the jeep back. I wasn’t walking down that mountain, while they rode. Plus, who did she think was going to drive? Certainly not Miss Vivee, I’d almost died the last time she tried that. I headed right to it once we left the tent, happy that I didn’t have to ride backwards anymore.
“Yoo-hoo!”
I knew that little call. And I knew just what it meant.
Miss Vivee was trying to talk to somebody. I turned around and saw her, her pocketbook over one arm, the other one waving in the air, making a beeline to the biker Sassy had spoken to when we first arrived.
“I came up here with Sassy,” Miss Vivee said making her way over to him. “But I really wanted to talk to you. I was hoping to get the chance.”
On, here she goes . . .
She made it over to the biker, a sorrowful look on her face. I could tell she was starting with her tall tales, because there was no way she could have wanted to speak with that man, she didn’t even know who he was.
But, she was ready to get this murder investigation started, and it seemed, for whatever reason, he was first on her list.
“Gregory?”
“Yes?” he said. He was stooped down next to his bike.
“It seemed like you and Sassy Gruger aren’t on the best of terms. And I didn’t want to upset her any further. That’s why I waited to come and talk to you.”
“Talk to me? What for?” He said and chuckled.
“I was worried about you,” Miss Vivee said.
Gregory Can raised his eyebrows, wrinkling his forehead. “Why would you worry about me?”
“Because you just lost a friend. A fellow biker,” she said. “We’re on the grief committee for the resort.” She nodded her head toward Mac, then touched her hand on Gregory arm. “What’s your last name?”
I knew she needed that for her “Suspect” notebook. Even though I hadn’t seen one surface yet, I figured it wouldn’t be long. She’d told Inspector Walota she’d brought one on the trip.
“Can,” he said. “C-A-N. Gregory Can.” He stood up and faced Miss Vivee.
Gregory was blonde with steel blue eyes. He had a “bikers” physique – tight buns, defined calf muscle. He wore black bike shorts, with a wide orange, and narrower white, stripe on the side. He had on a white cycling jersey. A pair of sunglasses hung around his neck, and his helmet and gloves were propped up on the seat of his black Santa Cruz bike. He’d been wiping it down when we walked up.
“Well Mr. Can, we’re just here to offer a little solace to the people at the camp.”
“He wasn’t a friend of mine.”
“No?” Mac asked.
“No. Campbell Gruger was jealous of me,” Gregory Can said matter-of-factly. “We were never friends.”
“Jealous of you?” Miss Vivee snickered. “That’s not what I heard.”
“Really?” I saw his jaw tighten up, and a vein in his temple pop.
It seemed to me that he didn’t want to be bothered with Miss Vivee, but he couldn’t turn down the opportunity to hear what was being said about him. I knew she hadn’t heard anything and wondered what she was going to make up to say now that she’d piqued his interest.
“What have you heard?” he said. He stopped what he was doing and looked directly at Miss Vivee.
“That he was a better cycler than you. Much better.”
This time, he scoffed at her remark. “He was better at shooting off his mouth. But not this.” He pointed to his bike. “I’ve been riding for a long time. He started riding and right off the rip thought he could surpass everyone else. He rode a bike, nothing like what cyclists do, probably just to the neighborhood grocery store.”
“Not a cyclist? Going to the grocery store?” I asked. What a put-down. “So, is that different from what you do?”
“Sure it is. There’s no nois
e from the city, no cars in your way, you hit the terrain and it’s dirt instead of asphalt. Hills instead of sidewalks. You have to be a different kind of rider.”
“Why did he switch?”
“I don’t know. He acted like he had such a point to prove. He just like to think he was better than everyone else.”
“What was the reason?”
“Other than to irritate me?”
“Yes,” Miss Vivee said. “Other than that.”
“To find a way to get back to Fiji.”
“I thought it was training for a biking competition?” Mac said. “He told me he’d entered one. His first one. Was pretty proud of it.”
“You can’t call what he was doing training,” Gregory Can said. “Just because you can afford the best bikes, and buy a whole lot of equipment and biking gear doesn’t mean anything. And I’m telling you, that’s not why he came back here.”
“He’d been here before?”
“Oh yeah.” He chuckled and went back to wiping his bike down. “Just ask Elenoa about it. She’ll tell you.”
“He took up riding for Elenoa?” Miss Vivee asked seemingly confused. “He’s got a wife.”
“That’s why he needed an excuse. But he picked the wrong thing to use as his cover story. He wasn’t physically able to handle biking.”
“And what does that mean?” Miss Vivee asked.
“Stamina. He wouldn’t have ever been able to keep up with people who had been doing for years, and the first competition he entered he would’ve found that out in the first five minutes. He didn’t have the bulk. He didn’t have the training. He didn’t have the right attitude. And all those protein shakes and steroids he was taking wasn’t going to cut it either.”
Chapter Eleven
“So what was that about, Miss Vivee?” I asked. We were heading back down the hill. Mac sat in the back, and Miss Vivee up front with me.
“What?”
“Why would you question that man? He was just some random biker we saw when we got up the hill.”
“He was the only one, except for Harley Grace that Sassy spoke to. And it seemed to me, with the tone she used with him, that there was some kind of animosity between the two of them. I wanted to find out what it was.”
“Did you?” I asked, unable to remember any question she asked relevant to him and Sassy’s relationship.
“No, because he lied the entire conversation I had with him,” Miss Vivee said. “Such an arrogant little cuss. He acted as if Campbell Gruger’s every move was based on him personally.”
“Lied about what? He answered your questions and didn’t even know who you were.”
“That’s how I know he was lying. He talked too much. Telling strangers Campbell Gruger’s business.”
“It just sounded to me like he didn’t like him.”
“Well that’s what I wanted to find out – if he didn’t like him well enough to kill him.”
“So what about Elenoa and Campbell Gruger? There’s that love triangle possibility that you’re always thinking is the motive for murder,” I said and looked at her out the corner of my eye.
“Sort of like the heart attacks you’re always thinking caused the deaths?” She said sarcastically.
Hadn’t I even thought Campbell’s death might be a myocardial infarction?
She got me on that one.
“Okay. I just don’t want to always jump to murder as the cause of death. I would like for once, someone around me to die from natural causes.” Miss Vivee raised her eyebrow at me. “It’s wouldn’t be a bad thing, you know.”
“Not your destiny,” she said and shook her head.
I blew out an “Ugh.” I let my neck and my eyes roll back. “If I believed that my destiny was preordained by you and your Voodoo mambo, which I don’t,” I said and pursed my lips. “Then I also believe that destiny can change.”
“Think what you want,” she said matter-of-factly.
I didn’t want to put any bad affirmations out into the universe and accept such a fate. But I also knew that I wouldn’t be able to move on and get to my dig if I didn’t placate Miss Vivee in her need to solve this “murder.”
“I don’t know if I believe Campbell Gruger was messing around with Elenoa,” Miss Vivee said. “That he would cheat on Sassy.”
“Elenoa was pretty distraught when she found out about his death,” I said. “She was the one that let out that blood curdling scream that woke me up out of my sleep.”
“Harley Grace was pretty upset,” Miss Vivee said. “You think maybe she was having an affair with Campbell Gruger, too?”
I hunched my shoulders. “I don’t know,” I said. “It’s possible.” I looked at her. “What do you think?” I asked.
Miss Vivee was the one that was always thinking that everyone was cheating on everybody else.
“If that Campbell Gruger was having an affair with Elenoa,” Miss Vivee said collecting her thoughts, “and I haven’t made up my mind yet that that’s true, I can’t see why he’d travel halfway around the world to be with a hussy when he’s got a perfectly wonderful wife at home.”
Hussy?
I’d only heard Miss Vivee use that word one other time, and that was when she told me about the woman she thought Mac had cheated on her with.
Elenoa didn’t resemble anything like what one would think a “hussy” looked like.
Elenoa was young and beautiful. She had creamy, smooth skin that looked softer than a baby’s bottom, and she always had it on display, rarely wearing much when it came to clothes. Which, I admit, I thought was unusual because Fijian customs dictated that a woman should always cover her legs with a sarong or sulu. She had large eyes with pupils that looked like dark liquid pools. Her hair was straight and went down to her butt, which was different from most Fijians I’d encountered. Her bangs hung so long down her forehead that they touched her eyelashes. And she had a smile so white and perfect, she could do a Crest 3DWhite commercial.
“I’m taking it that you don’t like Elenoa?” I said.
“How in the world could I like or dislike her.” She shook her head. “I don’t even know her.”
“So why you call her a hussy?”
“Because, I’ve seen her in action.”
“Action?” I hesitated to ask. I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear what she meant.
“That grass-skirt wearing little floosie batting them fake eyelashes at Gregory Can. That’s one of the reasons why I couldn’t believe he said she was having an affair with Campbell Gruger.”
“She was dating the other cyclist, too,” Mac asked.
“Isn’t that what I just said?” Miss Vivee said. “Please Mac, trying to keep up.”
I shook my head. “You did not see anything,” I said. I mean was Elenoa really running around with two men on such a small island? “And her eyelashes are not fake,” I added.
“Don’t tell me what I saw, Missy,” Miss Vivee said. “She’s foolin’ around with that Can Man, and that would make it at the same time she was with Campbell Gruger.”
She’d read my thoughts.
“Not anymore,” Mac said, evidently showing he could keep up. “Campbell Gruger is dead.”
Chapter Twelve
We went back down to the resort, and after returning the jeep to Temo, Miss Vivee decided we should have lunch.
We had an à la carte lunch at the Terrace Restaurant, and for the most part ate quietly. I was surprised that Miss Vivee didn’t have a notebook out making notes on all we’d seen and heard.
I guess that was a good thing.
Mac suggested that we all go for a walk afterward. And Miss Vivee seemed eager for it. There were several walking trails on the island, all varying in length and difficulty. I was happy that they picked a shorter one that included lots of benches. I was tired from all of the day’s happenings.
Mac had seemed pensive at lunch, but I took it to mean he was just following in Miss Vivee’s lead. She hadn’t said anything, so neither had
he. And I knew what was wrong with her, she couldn’t figure out the murder.
Mac and Miss Vivee had spent more time together since we’d been on the island than I’d seen them spend together since they were married, more than a month before.
After Mac and Miss Vivee were married, much didn’t change as far as living arrangements. Mac stayed at his house, and Miss Vivee stayed at the Maypop, her family’s bed and breakfast.
I became the designated taxi. Every morning Miss Vivee would get up, tend to her flowers and have me drop her and Cat, her dog, at Mac’s house. She stay there all day, calling me throughout the day to go to the grocers, to Jellybean’s Café, or some other trivial errand.
What had she done before I came?
I don’t know what kind of marriage they had, but they seemed happy – always grinning at each other, finishing each other’s sentences, it was like they had one brain.
It had been her absence from the Maypop that was just one more thing that got me thinking I should get back to work. Except for now, instead of getting work done, I was hanging out with the two of them. And now it looked as if she was trying to drag me into a murder investigation.
If someone had actually been murdered.
But I was on Malolo for vacation, and in Fiji for work, and I just wasn’t going to get involved. Even if I had already been present for the interrogation of Gregory Can. But in my defense, we just happened upon him. I wasn’t aware that Miss Vivee had him in her crosshairs. To be honest, I don’t think she knew he was in her sights either, not until she actually saw him.
I just needed to bide my time until Bay got there then Miss Vivee could follow her murder scent anywhere she pleased.
I glanced over at her and Mac walking. He’d left his cane in the room most of the time we’d been there, and it seemed that neither one of them seemed to have any trouble walking. They seemed happy. Content.
Why interrupt all of that with murder?
Plus, she had yet to come up with a cause of death.
Maybe she’ll forget all about it . . .
I think that I may have an idea about how Mr. Gruger died,” Mac said.
South Seas Shenanigans Page 5
