The second floor should be off-limits to everybody except employees, but the clerk had been so preoccupied he hadn’t seen her come upstairs.
Kayla wasn’t ready to rule him out as the culprit, but the fact remained that anybody could have sneaked up and tampered with the camera.
* * *
THE THEME SONG FROM THE old Pink Panther cartoon played as Maria was getting out of the shower. Her cell phone ring tone. She swore, grabbing for a towel and wrapping herself in it before heading out of the bathroom.
Her phone kept ringing at the most inopportune moments. At about eight this morning, when Logan was in the process of awakening her in the most pleasurable way imaginable, Annalise had called.
Of course, Maria hadn’t known who was phoning until later. She hadn’t asked Logan to stop. That would have been insanity. For his part, Logan hadn’t given any indication he’d heard the phone until much later. He’d told her about an off-Broadway play that was a takeoff of the old cartoon, which featured a bumbling French police detective. He could get them tickets to see it, he’d said. As though they were already in that long-distance relationship she’d refused to enter into.
She would set him straight soon, maybe even when she met him downstairs in the lobby in ten minutes. After their morning lovemaking, she’d come back to her hotel to shower and dress. The conversation she needed to have now, however, was with whoever was on the phone.
She picked it up from her bedside table and checked the display. Not Annalise calling back to ask why Maria hadn’t returned the earlier summons. Kayla.
Maria dialed her friend. “Kayla. What’s up?”
“Are you busy this morning?” she asked.
Maria had intended to suggest to Logan that they revisit some of the local hangouts, hoping somebody might recognize Mike if she mentioned he had a tattoo of a serpent on his arm.
“Nothing that can’t wait,” she said. “Why?”
“Somebody tampered with the security camera,” Kayla announced. “If you could come down to the gift shop, I’d love a second opinion.”
“I can be there in twenty minutes,” Maria promised.
She and Logan made it to the gift shop in fifteen, with Maria telling him what little she knew about the events of that morning along the way. The first person she saw upon entering the shop was the disagreeable clerk who’d been there the other day.
“Well, well, well.” The man propped his hands on his narrow hips. “If it isn’t Mammary P.I.”
“Excuse me.” Logan stepped forward. “What did you say?”
The clerk seemed to grow smaller in front of their eyes. “I said here’s the other half of Magnum P.I. It’s an old television show. With Tom Selleck.”
“That better be what you’d said or you owe the lady an apology.”
“Oh, it is,” the clerk lied. To Maria, he said, “Your friend is upstairs.”
Maria waited until they were halfway up the steps before she turned to Logan. “This chivalry thing you’re doing isn’t necessary. I told you last night I can take care of myself.”
“And I told you I can’t seem to help myself from defending your honor,” he said. “It doesn’t matter that you’re tougher than me.”
“Says the man who got a shiner in a bar fight,” she quipped. The yellow-and-green blur under his eye was already fading.
“We make quite the pair,” he said, as though they actually were a couple. It reminded her that she’d have to clarify her position on that very soon. Not now, though. Kayla had already spotted them through the open door of the storage room.
“Maria! Logan!” she called, leaping to her feet from the chair where she’d been sitting. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
“Did you find out anything?” Maria asked.
“Nothing helpful,” she said. “At first I thought whoever put the cloth over the camera had to work here. But the shop was so busy when I arrived that I walked right upstairs. Nobody saw me.”
“Did you question the salesclerk?”
“He claims he had no reason to do it,” Kayla said. “He got so indignant I actually believed him.”
“Let’s think about this,” Maria said. “You went to sleep at about eight this morning and woke up to check the website at ten-thirty or so, right?”
“Right,” Kayla said.
“The gift shop doesn’t open until ten, so the incident had to have happened between ten and ten-thirty,” Maria added.
“Unless the clerk is lying,” Logan pointed out. “He could have tampered with the camera when he arrived to open the shop.”
“How can we be sure he’s telling the truth?” Kayla asked.
“Let me go downstairs and talk to him,” Logan offered. “I think we’ve established a rapport.” He winked.
“Good idea,” Maria said. “While you’re down there, ask him who came in the shop when it opened.”
“Will do.” Logan headed down the stairs.
“This is a disaster.” Kayla hugged herself and rocked back and forth. “Even if we find out who the culprit is, my P.I. career is doomed. I messed up big-time.”
“We’re in the tropics, Kayla,” Maria pointed out. “Santa probably should have been wearing a Hawaiian shirt and sunglasses in the first place.”
“But not devil horns,” Kayla wailed. “It made him look demonic and cheerful all at once. You’ll see when the photo’s in the newspaper tomorrow.”
“I feel your pain,” Maria said. “But if you find out who’s doing this, the photo might not be as damaging as you think.”
“You’re right.” Kayla’s chest expanded and she seemed to grow a few inches. “If I want to make private investigation a career, I need to act like a detective. There are a couple of things I can check out. It’s a busy intersection. It seems likely that somebody saw something.”
“You can talk to employees who work at the other businesses within view of the statue,” she suggested.
“Exactly what I was thinking. I’ll get right on it.” Kayla started to pick up a wildly colored print shirt from the back of a chair, then let it drop. “I guess I can leave this here.”
“Is that the shirt Santa was wearing?” Maria asked, reaching for it to get a better look.
“Yeah. Why?”
“I think I saw this same shirt in a shop yesterday. If you want, I’ll check it out for you.”
“Oh, thank you.” Kayla pressed her hands together and gave a little bow on her way past. “I’ll call you later and we can compare notes.”
That was exactly what Maria and Logan did after they left the gift shop. He reported that the clerk insisted he hadn’t tampered with the camera. Minutes after the shop opened, about a dozen people from a cruise ship had come in to buy souvenirs, the man had claimed. They’d kept him so busy that any one of them could have sneaked upstairs. So, too, could a stray customer who hadn’t been part of the group.
“In other words,” Maria said as they walked, “the clerk was no help at all.”
“Bingo,” Logan said. Although he didn’t put his arm around her or enfold her hand in his, he was so close their shoulders almost touched. So close passersby would think they were a couple. “Are you going to tell me where you saw the shirt for sale?”
“I’ll show you,” Maria said.
She took the same route she had the day before, passing by the table at the Daybreak Café where she and Logan had eaten lunch and going straight to the small gift shop adjacent to the restaurant. It sold all t
hings Cuban. Maria went directly to a stack of shirts. Sure enough, the one on display featured gold flowers, green palm trees and colorful parrots on an aqua background.
“I knew I’d seen this shirt before,” Maria said. “At first glance, it seems like Hawaiian, but it’s actually a guayabera.”
“What’s the difference?” Logan asked.
“Mostly the large front pockets and the stitching pattern.” She showed him the two vertical rows of tiny pleats running along the front and back. “Somebody I talked to about Mike a few days ago was wearing one, although the pattern wasn’t nearly as tropical as this one. I think most guayabera shirts are pretty plain.”
“Do you think the prankster bought the shirt here?” Logan asked.
“Not necessarily,” Maria said slowly, as her thoughts formulated. “I don’t think he needed to pay for it.”
“Alex Suarez?” Logan’s eyebrows drew together. “Why would he be doing this? He’s the one who hired Kayla.”
“That could have been misdirection,” Maria said. “Haven’t you noticed how all roads seem to lead back to Suarez? Remember the owner of The Flying Monkey telling us Suarez was opposed to the statue? What better way to throw suspicion off yourself than by offering to hire someone to catch the culprit? When he found out about the camera, he could have sent that mass email to cover his tracks.”
Logan grinned at her. “You really are a good private investigator, aren’t you?”
“I have my moments,” she said, wishing those moments translated to her brother’s case. She felt glad that she could help Kayla, but not for a second had she forgotten why she was in Key West.
“What now?” he asked. “Will you confront Suarez?”
“I’m going to run my theory by Kayla,” Maria said. “It’s her case. I just hope she’ll consider it. She has a pretty big crush on him.”
“Too bad for her,” Logan said.
“What do you mean?” Maria asked, although she’d had the same thought.
“I saw him last night at the concert, getting cozy with a tall, busty brunette,” he said.
The physical opposite of Kayla. “Ouch,” Maria said. “But if Suarez is behind the shenanigans with Santa, Kayla is better off without him.”
A harried-looking waitress stuck her head into the small shop. “If you want to buy something, you can take it up to the cash register in the restaurant.”
That was their cue to leave. Maria didn’t see Alex Suarez anywhere in the place, which was just as well.
“Didn’t you get the impression yesterday that Suarez was a pretty smart guy?” Logan asked when they were outside again.
“Yeah, I did,” Maria agreed. “Why do you ask?”
“Why would a smart guy pull a dumb move like using a shirt from his own shop?”
While Maria was mulling over the answer, she caught sight of something aqua in her peripheral vision. She stopped dead, grabbing Logan’s hand so he had to stop, too.
“Oh, rats,” she said.
“Rats?”
She pointed to a store window display that included the same guayabera shirt they’d seen at the shop attached to Alex Suarez’s restaurant.
“I have a feeling,” Logan said slowly, “that you can buy that shirt all over Key West.”
* * *
THE INSTRUMENTAL VERSION of “White Christmas” drifted through the sliding screen door to the patio where Logan stood with Maria and Kayla on Saturday night.
All told, there were thirty or forty people in the fenced backyard of Kayla’s mother’s pale blue, one-story house. Almost all of them were related to Kayla.
“Thanks again for inviting us to crash your mom’s party,” Logan said. He’d been surprised when Maria accepted the invitation until he’d realized she could ask the guests about Mike. She had already flashed the age progression around the party.
Kayla waved a hand. “Think nothing of it. The more, the merrier. That’s the Fryburger motto.”
Everybody seemed to be having a good time. The fence and the palm trees in the backyard were decorated with the same tiny white lights that rimmed the house. The guests munched on Christmas cookies and hors d’oeuvres while sipping on eggnog and a spiked red punch.
“You don’t seem particularly merry, Kayla,” Maria observed. In her black hair, she was wearing one of the poinsettia blooms that Helene Fryburger had handed out when they’d arrived. Maria’s dress, the same color as the flower, hugged her curvy figure. Logan’s heart beat faster just looking at her.
“It’s hard to get in the Christmas spirit when you couldn’t stop somebody from putting devil horns on Santa,” Kayla said. “I just can’t believe I couldn’t find anybody who saw it happen.”
Earlier in the day, Maria had run her suspicions of Alex by Kayla. The apprentice P.I. had made the same observation as Logan, that an intelligent man wouldn’t dress the statue in a shirt from his store. Then Kayla had given Maria and Logan a bare-bones rundown of her attempt to locate an eyewitness. She’d been so exhausted from staying up all night, however, that this was the first time they’d had a chance to go over details.
“Did you talk to anybody who was on the Conch Tour?” Maria asked.
“A bunch of people,” Kayla said. “But the place where the tour makes a stop is actually about a half block from the intersection. Most of the shops in Truval Village don’t face the statue.”
“Too bad the person in the information booth didn’t see anything,” Maria mentioned.
“She said business is pretty steady all day long. She can’t actually see the statue from where she sits, either.” Kayla frowned. “After an hour or so of stopping people at random, I resigned myself to striking out.”
“You handed out business cards, right?” Maria asked. Even in the midst of her personal crises, she was genuinely interested in helping Kayla. One more thing to admire about her, Logan thought.
“Sure did,” Kayla said.
“Then don’t give up,” Maria advised. “Something still might happen.”
“Yeah, Alex might fire me,” Kayla said. “He was pretty steamed when I told him what went down. That’s why I think it’s crazy you suspected him of being the prankster.”
“Well, I try not to rule out anybody or anything,” Maria stated.
Smart words. Too bad Maria was having trouble following her own advice when it came to her brother.
“Did I tell you I was thinking about inviting Alex to the party, too?” Kayla asked. “I probably would have if the you-know-what hadn’t hit the fan.”
Logan exchanged a look with Maria. Without speaking, he knew she was also thinking about the brunette he’d seen Suarez with at the concert.
“You’re so cute, Kayla,” Maria said. “There must be other guys who are interested in you.”
“James Smith asked me out,” she admitted.
“The Key West Sun photographer?” When she nodded, Maria continued, “He seems like a nice guy, and he has that killer smile. You should have asked him to the party.”
“You’re forgetting James is the guy whose photo of Devil Santa is running in the newspaper tomorrow.” Kayla shook her head. “I don’t think so.... Hey, speaking of tomorrow, you two are going to be here, right? You’re not leaving or anything?”
“I’m not leaving.” Maria turned to look at Logan. “I’m not sure about you.”
They’d had all day to talk about what would happen next, both in the investigation and the
ir relationship. Yet after Maria had reiterated that there wasn’t much they could do until a ransom demand was made, they hadn’t discussed either subject.
Logan had seized the moment, persuading Maria to take a sightseeing tour of the island and to visit the Hemingway House. The day had been so pleasant that he hadn’t even told her about the heated voice mail his boss had left in response to the news that Logan would be staying in Key West for a few more days.
“You’d better be back on Christmas Eve for that party at the Waldorf if career advancement is important to you,” Logan’s boss had warned.
Christmas Eve was two days away.
“I’ll be here tomorrow.” Logan imagined that Maria’s body sagged with relief. But his observation, of course, could have been wishful thinking.
“Then could you two do me a favor?” Kayla rolled her eyes. “I mean another favor. I looked at the video to see if I’d notice anything out of the ordinary before somebody took the security camera out of commission. I didn’t. It sure would help to have another couple pairs of eyes review it.”
“We’d be happy to,” Maria said. Logan thought it had to mean something that she’d included him in the response.
“Yeah,” he said. “No problem.”
He noticed that Maria’s glass was empty and put out his hand. “If you like, I’ll get you more punch.”
“Thanks,” she said, handing it to him.
“Kayla, how about you?”
“I’m good.” She held up a bottle of water that was half-full. “Boring, but good.”
He indicated her outfit with a sweep of his hand. She was wearing a short, patterned dress with sky-high heels. “No way is a woman who dresses like you boring.”
Kayla twirled around, lifting her hands over her head so her skirt fluttered. “Thanks.”
He laughed, then went in search of the punch bowl. Refreshments were set up on the kitchen table just inside the door. Kayla’s uncle Frank was already there, watching another man, who had his back to Logan, scoop the red liquid into his cup.
Wish Upon a Christmas Star Page 19
