Braking for Bodies

by Duffy Brown

  “Because that has stopped you so many times before,” Sutter mumbled.

  “So while we were out there in Donna’s buggy, I told her that this was all for the best and I was tired of running into dead bodies because of this black cloud thing. And Donna said since we were all the way out here and the moon was aligned with Mars, she’d help me get rid of my cloud. She knows all about those Irish blessings and curses; wasn’t that nice of her? So we hiked into the woods looking for water sprung new from the rocks to complete the ritual, and we got lost.”

  Sutter exchanged looks with Mother, and together they applauded. “Not bad,” Sutter said. “I think the water sprung new needed some work, but with you and Donna as partners in crime there’s no chance at the truth. Besides, we got other problems. Fiona’s missing. She masterminded a jailbreak. Miraculously, as if the angels from heaven descended, the key to the cell materialized and Fiona walked out of her cell, then crawled out a back window.”

  “No!” I gasped, putting my hand to my heart. “Maybe she’s free because she’s not the killer and those angels knew it.”

  “I locked Fiona up to keep her safe. The real killer’s after her.”

  “Real killer?”

  “You were right, Fiona would never threaten the cats.” Sutter paced. “He’s pinning these murders on her, and he doesn’t care if she’s alive or dead. Fact is, dead is better because Fiona won’t be able to defend herself. He can make her demise look like an accident and she’s out of the picture.”

  “And it didn’t occur to you to tell me this when you hauled Fiona, my best friend, off to jail last night?” I could barely get the words out.

  “You running around like a lunatic to find her innocent had to make the killer believe all the more that his plan of framing Fiona was working.”

  “You used me!”

  “It happens.” Sutter headed for the door. “I’ve got to get back to British Landing and see if we can find that fridge and Zo and the blasted phone that started all this. I came here to get a piece of your clothing for the tracking dogs. Next round of drinks at the Stang is on you, Chicago. Everyone was out beating the bushes to find you; even those mystery groups from up at the Grand got in on the hunt. They’re like mosquitoes, they’re everywhere.”

  Sutter grabbed my last Hello Kitty Post-it off the counter. “This is the number out at the landing if you can’t get me on my cell. Call me if you see Fiona, but do not go after her on your own. Think about it; you’ll lead the killer right to her.”

  The door closed behind Sutter, and he walked past the back window with Bambino and Cleveland napping on the sill. Sutter’s footsteps faded across the wood deck and I gave Mother a wide-eyed look. “Holy crap, we have to get Fiona back in jail! Did I really just say that? She’s been passing herself off as a maid up at the Grand, and I can do the same thing so I don’t lead the killer to her. I know she’s there trying to find out what Penelope is up to because Fiona thinks she’s the killer. What if she is? Fiona could be in a world of trouble.”

  Mother gave me a kiss on the cheek. “I’ll head to the hotel for high tea. No one really knows me at the Grand, and I’ll see what I can find out. If I don’t hear from you, I’ll meet you behind the grand piano at three.” Mother took my hand. “A ritual in the woods? Really, dear? That’s the best you could come up with?”

  “It was either that or stuck on a work trawler, winding up in Mackinaw City, escaping down a gangplank in the middle of the night and catching a ferry back here.”

  Mother laughed. “You’re right. No one would believe that one.”

  Cal rolled in at ten thirty fresh from his morning ritual of cannon blasting the island into a new day. I fed him the lost-in-the-woods story that he didn’t buy for a minute, grabbed a bike that hadn’t been painted yet and looked really blah, then took off for the Grand. I needed to travel incognito. The employee parking lot was packed with delivery drays . . . UPS Mackinac style. Employees hurried about unloading and I parked my no-name bike in the employee rack. I picked up a box big enough to cover most of my face off a dray, then followed the line of other boxes into the hotel.

  “That one goes to Annex 2,” a thin lanky man in the official maroon Grand Hotel blazer said to me, checking something on a clipboard. He pointed up the steps behind him, then paused. His brows knit together as he took me in. “Where’s your uniform? You don’t work around here without being in uniform, you know that. What kind of people is HR hiring these days?”

  “I was unloading”—think, Evie, think—“water bottles for the employee room; they keep a stack there, and one leaked all over me.”

  “Get a uniform from the front desk; you can’t go around looking like you just walked in off the street. Tell them Hank said it was okay. We need all the help we can get today, and no one goes home unless they’re bleeding from their eyes. Hurry it up!”

  I hurried up the steps, turned for Annex 2 and opened the door to Operation Gift Basket. The room was loaded with flowers, bottles of champagne, ribbons, gifts of every sort, rolls of cellophane, bows, tulle and long tables with workers stuffing everything together.

  “Put the box over there.” A lady with wild gray hair and scary eyes pointed to a table. She shoved a huge white basket with champagne, two crystal flutes, a dozen gorgeous roses and a box of delish chocolates at me. “This goes to the Jane Seymour room.”

  “But—”

  “No buts, this place is booked solid and we’re swamped here with gift baskets. This one’s a romance basket, so deliver it with a little pizzazz, will you, not like a sack of old potatoes tossed in a grocery cart.”

  She shrugged out of her white apron and flung it at me. “What happened to your uniform?” She held up her hand. “I don’t care what happened to it, just put this on.” She wound my hair on top of my head and stuck a purple lilac stem through it to hold it in place. She thrust another basket with a robe, bath salts, candles and wine at one of the bellhops and spouted more orders.

  I put on the white apron with a ruffled top that covered my front and more ruffles on the skirt. This wasn’t part of my great game plan to find Fiona or the killer, but it was a good cover. I asked one of the maids in the hallway for directions to the Seymour room and headed off to the service elevator; at least I knew where that was located.

  “First day?” asked a waiter propelling a room service cart into the cramped area.

  “First five minutes.”

  “Remember, no tips like they do in other places. You get caught taking a tip for any service and you are out the door. Good luck.”

  I got off on the third floor and stopped in front of the door with Jane Seymour scripted on a plaque. The Grand Hotel was big on scripted signage. I had no idea about the pizzazz thing. Throw petals, sing a song, balance a ball on my nose? The door opened. “Luka?”

  “Evie?” We stood there for a beat, staring at each other, till Molly came to the door draped in a pretty pink robe and yanked me inside.

  “What are you doing here?” Okay, I’d asked some pretty stupid questions in my life, but this was probably top of the list.

  Molly slapped her palm to her forehead. “We’re trying to be alone. Living on this island is like living in a goldfish bowl. Do you know what it’s like to get some privacy without every move being discussed at the VI the next day?”

  “Or bet on in a pool?”

  “And now you show up? What are you doing in a hotel uniform?” Molly scowled. “Did my mother send you to spy on me? My dad? Father Phillip at Saint Ann’s?”

  “I bet it was Angelo.” Luka shook his head. “He’ll think I seduced Molly; he loves Molly like a daughter. I’m dead meat. Sleeping with the fishes isn’t just a line from some movie, you know.”

  I held up my hands in surrender. “No one sent me. I’m looking for Fiona.” I sat the basket on the dresser. “I never saw you here and you never saw me here.
No seeing of any kind occurred in this hotel, okay?”

  I backed to the door, then stopped and turned to Luka. “So, how did you score this great room? The hotel is full, has been for months.”

  Luka raked back his black hair. “The family has their ways of doing things. We know how to get what they want.”

  “Threats?”

  “That’s old school and gets really messy. I talked to a manager and he made it happen. Trust me, for enough money anything can happen, even here at the Grand Hotel.”

  I stepped into the hall and Luka closed the door, as my brain scrambled to figure out what Luka meant and how the money angle played into this.

  “There you are.” I spun around to another maid stomping my way. “HR said they were sending a new girl to help me, and it’s about time. They didn’t tell me it was a new girl with a bad uniform.” She shoved a cart in my direction. “The Tiffany Room called for a spruce; their grandkids trashed the place last night, and then we got the whole second floor to do. Everyone’s behind. Don’t just stand there, get a move on and follow me unless you want security to usher you out the back door on your first day on the job.”

  Security ushering was not an option. I’d never find Fiona or the killer or figure out this room thing if I got booted. “Well?” the maid barked. “This isn’t a vacation, at least for you it’s not. Here’s the card to get in the rooms. Remember to knock and call out housekeeping. You better do a good job. Now move it.”

  By four I was tired in places I didn’t know could get tired. I told the maid drill sergeant I needed a bathroom break before I drowned, then snuck down to the first floor.

  “You’re over an hour late,” Mother whispered as I pulled up beside her at the grand piano. “Where have you been? Nate’s here looking for Fiona; he’s asked me twice where you were, and they still haven’t located Zo in the refrigerator.”

  “The maid uniform thing kind of backfired. So far I’ve made beds, cleaned bathrooms, vacuumed, dusted and polished fixtures and hauled linens to the laundry and not gotten paid one cent for it.”

  We scooted behind a fern and I sagged against the wall. The flower in my hair was long gone, my once-crisp white apron wilted. “Did you find anything?” I asked Mother.

  “Madonna is giving the managers all kinds of grief over not finding Zo, the mystery weekend people are eating it up with a spoon, and Idle Summers bought enough Hello Kitty merchandise at the gift shop to start her own gift shop. She has a Hello Kitty obsession worse than you do. I think it started when you were about—”

  “On my eighth birthday,” I said, trying to make sense of things. “Best party ever. My friends talked about it in reverent tones for years. Idle has a child. That’s why she turned her life around and why Fiona is helping her. Best I can tell the little girl is staying with someone while Idle works, and she’s probably trying to protect her daughter if things go south.”

  “Do you think Fiona would help Idle enough that they’d do in Peep? Idle pushes him off the porch and Fiona clobbers him?”

  “Maybe . . . I hope not.” I did the I don’t know shrug. “Why are things so complicated? But right now we’ve got something else to think about. How would you like to get a room here at the Grand Hotel?”

  A grin tripped across Mother’s lips. “You and Sutter have plans? Finally something good is happening today. My daughter the little sexpot. I knew I should have gotten the day after the wedding in that pool.”

  I held out my arms. “Mother, seriously, do I look like a sexpot? More like stew pot, chicken pot, soup pot that’s been cooking all day.” I hitched my chin toward the desk. “Talk to Penelope or her manager playmate. Say you want a room and you’re willing to pay whatever to get it. See what happens.”

  “They’ll laugh, that’s what’ll happen. I don’t think you can get a room at the Grand during the Lilac Festival no matter what. Look at this place.” Mother waved her hand over the crowded lobby. “I heard people making reservations now for next year.”

  “Say that price is no object. Somehow Penelope and lover-boy are making a lot of money on rooms, I think. I just can’t figure out how they’re doing it.”

  Mother smoothed her blue linen skirt and hiked her expensive taupe purse up onto her shoulder. “American Express, here I come. Time to start chalking up sky miles.”

  Staying hidden, I watched Mother cross the lobby and approach the desk. She smiled, she laughed, she waved her black AmEx card in the air. Penelope got her manager honey and he clicked away on the computer. Then he smiled and he laughed and he took Mother’s card. He swiped the card through at the desk, then left for a minute. When he came back he handed Mother the credit card, the room card and some papers.

  Mother strolled back my way and ducked around the piano. “Room three fourteen. I could have gotten one of those signature rooms but I would have had to sell our home in Chicago to afford it. The room I got was expensive enough. There was some kind of surcharge that cost as much as the room because it’s the Lilac Festival.”

  I studied the two papers Mother had in her hand. “There are two separate charges.” I looked at one paper. “This receipt is from the Grand Hotel.” I flipped over to the second sheet. “This receipt is from the Grand Hotel Michigan and it has the last four digits of your credit card written by hand.”

  Mother arched her left brow. “I got a feeling the Grand Hotel Michigan is Penelope and lover-boy’s little nest egg. You got to give the devil his due; this is brilliant. One charge for the Grand Hotel and one for them. They run the second charge through on one of those mobile credit card readers and credit their own personal account. That’s what the manager did when he walked off for a few seconds. He has preprinted receipts; that’s why the credit card number is handwritten.”

  “But what about the room? How do they get the extra rooms available? Like you said, the place is packed, probably has been for months.”

  Mother studied her credit card for a second. “They double-book the people who make early reservations. When you reserve a room it’s by name and credit card. Our two entrepreneurs book two rooms knowing they can sell the second one with that surcharge scheme later on when rooms are hard to get. They cancel the original credit card and the fake name that held the reservation and run through the new card and name and add their surcharge, explaining it’s for the special weekend.”

  “Or they peddle a room upgrade for an extra charge. Peep realized what they were doing when they suggested an upgrade to him for a lot more money.”

  “It takes devious to catch devious.”

  “There she is.” The maid drill sergeant pointed a bony finger at me and did her storm trooper march across the lobby. The gal from gift basket central marched beside her along with the guy off the loading dock, and there were two big guys in navy Polos looking more security guard than hotel guest.

  “HR never hired her, I knew it right away,” the sergeant continued as she drew up next to me. “She’s horrible at cleaning; she left a ring around the tub and ate the pillow mints. She’s a fake.”

  Penelope came over. She looked from me to Mother to the papers in our hands. She didn’t recognize Mother but she knew me, that Fiona and I were friends and that I was involved with Peep. And there was the dropped bagel incident in the employee room where she and the manager were talking. She knew that I knew the two of them were in cahoots over something. I could almost hear the little gears churning in her brain, her eyes slowly widening as she put it all together.

  “And they’re both dangerous,” Penelope said, pointing to Mother and me. “In fact, Officer Sutter was around here in the hotel looking for them. He asked at the desk if I’d seen either one, and here they are right in front of us. Evie was pretending to be a maid, so that proves she was up to something. You know, I think she’s the one who killed that Peep guy; she’s been involved in all this since the beginning. She was out in the gardens whe
n they found his body.”

  “Why would Evie kill Peep?” Mother asked. “She didn’t even know him.”

  “Says you.” Penelope folded her arms, looking smug. “I bet she knew him really well; she and that Fiona girl were in it together in knocking off Peep and maybe knocking off Zo too.”

  The Corpse Crusaders hurried over; Gabi was shaking her head and pulling out her notebook. “Evie’s not on my suspect list anywhere. This makes no sense. If Evie were the killer, I’d have notes, some evidence.”

  She turned to Penelope. “In fact, you’re the one who is on our who-done-it list. You’re one of the top two murder suspects.”

  Manager lover-boy came out and said to the security guard, “You can take these two in the back room until we find Officer Sutter.” He faced the crowd, held up his hands winner style and smiled. “Isn’t this murder mystery weekend fantastic, folks?”

  Everyone applauded.

  “This is ridiculous!” I waved the receipts at the security guards. “Penelope and this manager are the guilty ones, and they are guilty for real. They’ve been scamming the customers and the Grand. They’re adding a surcharge that’s bogus, and it goes to them and not the hotel.”

  One security guard held my arm, and one grabbed Mother. Red flashed before my eyes, it really did. No one touched Mother. “You leave her alone!” I tried to wrench free, and out of the corner of my eye I noticed Penelope and the manager making a beeline for the front door.

  “They’re getting away! Do something,” I screamed at the guards.

  “You’re not getting anywhere,” the taller guard growled. “You’re going to jail.”

  “I had no idea,” one of the Murder Marauders said to me. “You’re a much better actor than I thought. You might just get an SH after all. That’s a Sherlock Holmes,” she explained to the growing crowd. “It’s an award for the best actors in this murder mystery weekend.” She pointed to a board across the lobby. “You can cast your votes right over there. We’re having trophies and everything.”