Laina Turner - Presley Thurman 06 - Tiaras & Texans

by Laina Turner

  “At least we know someone was shopping around for them. And according to the each greenhouse, they aren’t a commonly asked for flower, so it’s probably not a coincidence. The other two places I stopped said no one had bought any or asked about them. Do you think there are any other places the flowers could have been purchased?”

  “Sure. The killer could have driven it in or flown it or mailed it, for that matter. There are any number of ways.”

  “Then what good did it do for me to check locally? It seems so daunting.” I sighed.

  “It’s not the instant gratification you like, but it’s important. Chances are the flowers were bought locally from someone here since the pageant is local. I found that people generally like to choose the easy way. Now we know someone was inquiring about the flowers. If no one was it would be even more frustrating because we would have nothing to go on. You know most of my work is boring and tedious and requires a lot of patience.”

  “Tell me about it,” I joked. “It’s a good thing you’re cute or you would bore me to death.”

  “Oh, really? Maybe I should find a way to entertain you?” Cooper said, moving toward me until we were face-to-face. “At least for an hour or so.”

  “Are you sure you don’t have some important work to attend to?” I teased.

  “Not any I can think of right this minute,” he replied, lifting his finger to my face and trailing it down my cheekbone to my neck, sending shivers down my spine. He definitely wasn’t boring me now. “Is this boring?” he asked, kissing my other cheek. “Or this?” His kisses trailed underneath my chin to my collarbone.

  “No. Not boring at all.” I breathed out my words, lifting my hands to the back of his head to pull his lips down on mine. “In fact, very much the opposite of boring.” I was just starting to kiss him when there was a loud rap at the door. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said through clenched teeth.

  “Cooper, you in there? It’s me, Bob.”

  Cooper groaned. “I’m sorry, Presley. I can’t ignore him.”

  I sighed. “I know. It’s just bad timing. We are on the clock after all. What would the boss say?” I teased to show him I understood, even though I was really disappointed.

  “We just won’t tell him.” Cooper smiled back, gave me one last quick kiss, and then walked the few short steps to open the door and let Bob in.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt. I didn’t know you had company. I can come back.”

  “No problem, Bob. This is Presley. Presley, meet Bob.”

  “Hi, Presley. Good to meet you. Cooper has told me a lot about you.”

  I looked at Cooper and raised my eyebrows.

  “It was all good. I swear.”

  “It was. I promise,” Bob said.

  Bob was a skinny guy and extremely tall, had to be close to six four. He had a shaved head and wire rim glasses, which still allowed me to see he had pretty blue eyes. He looked more like a professor or scientist than someone who worked in security. Then again, he might be either of those things. Cooper had a knack for finding people with the most unusual backgrounds to work for him. He said that was what set him apart from other security firms. He was able to find people with unique talents and special skills and then utilize them for the work he needed done. It was a win-win situation. The employees got to do what they loved, and Cooper had more than hired thugs on his payroll. I shook Bob’s hand and then turned back to Cooper.

  “I think I’ll excuse myself if you don’t need me any longer. I want to check out the practice room and see if I can get those three girls together to ask them about the shoplifting. I will call you when I have something.”

  “Okay. Sounds good.”

  I grabbed my purse off the bed and headed back down to the practice room, this time making my way to my destination on the first try. I was proud of myself for navigating the hotel halls.

  I did not see how Linda—or even Elaine, as over the top obnoxious as she could be—was able to put up with some of these girls in the pageant. I had been walking around the practice room looking for Allie, Marissa, and Janine, and every time I stopped one of the girls to ask if she had seen one of them you would have thought I was asking her to clean up dog poop. All because I interrupted them for a measly few seconds during a fitting or getting their nails polished. More often than not the girl I was talking to didn’t even stop what she was doing. Don’t get me wrong; it wasn’t every single girl. There were a couple sweet ones I came across, but the majority of them were downright rude. These girls may have been beautiful, but what they had in beauty they lacked in manners. My mom would have a field day with them. She abhorred rudeness. Unless of course it was her own, which usually was only directed toward me and she wouldn’t call herself rude, just direct. I had learned many years ago that didn’t count.

  I finally found the three of them sitting in the lounge just off the fitting room, where some girls were waiting for adjustments to be made to their gowns. I hadn’t expected to find them together talking so intently as they had claimed not to be much more than acquaintances. I walked over to the table where they were chatting and drinking water with mint—refreshing, I’m sure, but not like a Diet Coke with its chemicals and fizz — and stood there for a second until they noticed me. Allie finally looked up, startled, clearly surprised to see me standing there.

  “Presley. What brings you here?” she asked with a little more sweetness to her tone than was real.

  “May I?” I asked, motioning to the empty seat between Marissa and Janine.

  “Sure,” Allie replied, and the other girls nodded their agreement.

  “I was actually looking for the three of you, so I’m glad I found you together. Saves me the trouble of tracking you all down,” I said, matching Allie’s sweet tone, as it was one I was very good at.

  “You were looking for us? Why?” asked Marissa. They might be gorgeous, but they couldn’t even come close to me in the fake tone department. I had that down cold and could spot a fake a mile away. They just needed more practice but they were young, give them time.

  “As part of our routine investigation into all that’s been happening, we ran a background check on everyone. You know, just as a security precaution.” That got their attention. I caught them glancing at one another, looking a little bit nervous. I hadn’t mentioned that fact to Janine and Marissa when I had talked to them yesterday. No doubt they realized they couldn’t deny the shoplifting charge now. “One of the things we came across was that you three girls seem to be closer friends than what you originally told me. It seems you were caught shoplifting together?”

  “So what if we were?” asked Allie defiantly, not trying to be sweet anymore and thankfully not denying it either. I just wanted to cut to the chase.

  “Yeah! What does that have to do with Hollie being poisoned? Or the other stuff that’s happened, for that matter,” Janine asked.

  “Probably nothing. As I told both Janine and Marissa already, this is not a big deal. Everyone makes mistakes. We just need to make sure we have all the correct information because you never know when something might pop up that will help with the investigation. So can you please just tell me what happened?”

  The girls looked at one another. “Okay, fine,” Allie snapped. “It happened last year during the Rodeo Girl pageant. There was an issue with the lighting, and so while it was being fixed we had some free time, which almost never happens.”

  I knew that to be true just from the couple days I had been here. These girls were busy from morning ‘til night. They had stamina, I would give them that much.

  “The three of us went to the local mall to shop and blow off some steam,” Allie continued. “We were being silly and started daring each other to do things like slide down the railing of the escalator and run through the halls. Things just went too far, and I dared Janine to steal a necklace, which she did, and then dared me to steal some earrings. It kept going that way for a couple hours until we got caught.”


  “We were going to return all the stuff, I swear. We were just having fun,” Marissa interjected.

  “We really were,” added Janine.

  I actually believed them. They seemed to be telling the truth and their story was plausible. “Why try and deny it, then?”

  “Because it makes us look bad,” Marissa said. “We owned up to our mistake. We each did some community service and then put it behind us. Our reputation is important. You sometimes can’t even compete if you’ve been in trouble. Linda and Harvey don’t know and we don’t want them to. Please don’t tell them,” Allie said and all three girls looked worried.

  I believed that as well. I knew that was how I would feel in the same situation. “I appreciate you guys telling me the truth.”

  “Please don’t tell anyone else,” Allie said.

  “I don’t have a reason to, so I won’t. I promise. I do have one more question to ask you, Allie.”

  “Me?”

  I nodded, “I heard you were friends with Hollie and that you had a falling out. Can you tell me about that?”

  Allie looked really uncomfortable. Much more so that when I asked about the shoplifting incident.

  “I know you probably don’t want to talk about it, but the more we know about Hollie the better chance we have of figuring out what happened.”

  “I don’t see how this is relevant, but if you must know, it was about her boyfriend.”

  “Woody?”

  “Yes,” Allie replied, somewhat defiantly. “It wasn’t what you’re thinking. I didn’t want her boyfriend.”

  She must have read the expression on my face because that was exactly what I had been thinking. Had the two girls been fighting over this guy who was so much older?

  “Then what was it about?”

  “I thought something must be wrong with her to date someone our parents’ age. I may have made fun and been a little mean about it.”

  “So that’s why you stopped being friends. Because you teased her?”

  Allie nodded.

  “But we all did. It wasn’t just Allie,” Marissa said, jumping in to defend her friend.

  “I was kind of mean and had been planning on apologizing, but I never got the chance.”

  That last comment left us all silent.

  Marissa changed the subject and none of us objected. I for one had found out what I needed to know.

  I chatted with the girls a few more minutes about handbags and then they had to leave to their next scheduled practice. It was just as well because I had work to do that was more important than talking about accessories, even though it might not be as much fun. I had decided to talk to Elaine some more and try to get to know her, to see if I could pinpoint the reason for her snarkiness.

  She was much easier to track down than the girls had been. Within minutes, I found her getting some coffee at the cart that was set up with coffee, water, and soda—diet of course—for the contestants.

  “Hi, Presley,” she said as I walked up to her. “Coffee? It’s a little weak for my taste, but it’s hot.”

  “No, but I will take a Diet Coke. It’s that time of day when I like to make the switch in my caffeine choices,” I said, snagging a Diet Coke from the ice bucket and smiling at Elaine. I thought the friendly approach might be the best to gain her confidence.

  “What are you up to today?” she asked.

  “Just keeping an eye on things. This job can sometimes be very boring.”

  “It must be nice to work with your boyfriend, though.”

  I tried to hide my surprise that she knew that, but I must have done a poor job because she continued on.

  “Linda told me. I hope it wasn’t a secret. I don’t want to get her in trouble.”

  “No secret. We just don’t advertise it when we’re working. It is sometimes nice to work together, but we also often butt heads, which isn’t so much fun. It beats working retail, which is what I used to do,” I said, thinking this would be the most natural way to ask her what her last job was. “What did you do before this?”

  Elaine paused. “Nothing too interesting. I worked at a small business as an admin/bookkeeper type. They weren’t doing too well, so they had to let me go. That’s when I got the job here. What can I say? It’s a job and it pays the bills.”

  “Amen to that,” I said, taking a drink. “What do you want to do?”

  “I have no idea. That’s kind of the problem. Listen, I have to get these timing sheets over to the music people so they know what to play when. It was great talking to you.”

  “You, too, Elaine. We still need to meet for that coffee.”

  “Yeah. Maybe later tonight?”

  I waved as she walked away. That wasn’t very insightful, I thought, and took another sip of my Coke. I was starting to feel like a failure at this. Nothing I’d learned so far really had any relevant meaning to finding out who was behind the pranks or who killed Hollie. I was pondering this when my phone rang. It wasn’t a number I recognized though it was a local number. Maybe it was one of the greenhouses I’d talked to.

  “Hello?”

  “Presley? It’s Woody.”

  I frowned. I didn’t remember giving him this number. “Woody, how did you get my phone number?”

  “Don’t be mad, but I got it from Elaine.”

  I was mad, but more than that I wanted to know how he knew Elaine and why she would give it to him. “So you know Elaine?”

  “Yes. I met her through Hollie. Don’t be mad at her. I may have kind of told her you had given me your number and I lost it. I just had to know if you’ve found anything out.”

  “Woody, I said I would call if I had something to tell you and I don’t.”

  “Is there anything I can do to help? I’m going crazy here.”

  “I just need you to be patient.” We chatted a few more minutes and then hung up. I hadn’t seen any point in telling him what had upset Hollie, so I didn’t bring it up since he didn’t ask.

  Chapter 11

  I finished my Diet Coke, tossed the bottle in the recycle bin, and started to leave, when out of the corner of my eye I again saw the maintenance man. It was the same one I had now seen twice, and neither time was he actually maintaining anything. It was about time I found out why he was lurking around. With the extra security I couldn’t imagine how he had made it here, but using a hotel uniform could explain a lot.

  I walked over to where he was standing and, like the last time, as soon as he saw me he turned to exit through the employee doors. Not this time buddy, I thought. You aren’t getting away this easy. I sped up, almost to a jog, and reached the door as he slipped out. I followed him through the doors just in time to see him look over his shoulder and then slip out another side door. By the time I reached the side door, he was nowhere to be found.

  Damn it! Now I was convinced he wasn’t a real maintenance person. Why else would he run? Unless he was a maintenance person who was doing something he wasn’t supposed to be doing, which wasn’t good either and needed to be checked out. I found my way back to the practice room and grabbed my purse where I had dropped it before running through the employee doors. I headed out of the room and took the elevator to the second floor, where I knew the administration offices were. The hotel had been very cooperative with us thus far, so maybe they could confirm for me that this guy wasn’t an employee. Or maybe he was and then I could quit wondering. I pushed open the door to the office and someone I assumed was an administrative assistant looked up.

  “Can I help you?”

  “I’m Presley Thurman with Sands Security. We are working with Pageants Unlimited, and I was hoping to speak with whoever is in charge of human resources.”

  “That would be Bill Sparks. Let me see if he’s at his desk.” She then turned and picked up the phone, dialing what I figured was an internal extension. “Bill, a Presley Thurman is here to see you. She is one of the people working with Pageants Unlimited. Okay. I will.”

  She looked up at me. “
He said to come on back. His office is the third on the left,” she said, pointing behind her.

  “Thanks.” I easily found it and knocked on the open door, as the person in the office had his back to me and was staring intently at his computer screen. The man who got up to greet me looked vaguely familiar, but I just couldn’t place him.

  “Good to see you again, Presley,” he said, shaking my hand.

  Again? Did I know this guy?

  He noticed the look of confusion on my face. “You don’t remember me, do you?”

  I shook my head. “No, I’m sorry, I don’t.”

  “San Diego SHRM conference. We both attended Sheila Cruz’s breakout session on Textual Harassment in the workplace.”

  I smacked my forehead with my hand. “You were the one sitting to the left of the podium who asked what the average age range was for sexting.”

  He laughed. “I thought it was a legitimate question.”

  “Me, too. I think she was being overly sensitive, since your question followed the stupid questions those guys from Positive Payroll asked.”

  “Emily said you’re with a company called Sands Security. I take it you’re no longer in the HR field?”

  “No. I gave up that glamorous life a couple years ago. It just wasn’t doing it for me anymore.”

  “So what brings you here?”

  “As you probably know, Sands Security was hired by Pageants Unlimited to find out who is behind some pranks that were being pulled on some of the contestants. Now of course, that’s become even a bigger issue with what occurred yesterday.”

  “That was horrible. I’ve worked at this hotel for almost ten years and nothing like this has ever happened. A fight or two when people have had a little too much to drink during a wedding reception, but never a murder. Tell me how I can help.”

  “This may be nothing, but I keep seeing the same guy every time I go into the rooms the pageant is using for practice. He has a shirt on that says maintenance, and it looks like a couple others I have seen, but I just don’t think he is actually a maintenance person. For one thing, each time he’s noticed me looking at him he has taken off. Today I tried to follow him and he disappeared. If he works here, I don’t see why he would do that.”