by Ali Brandon
When Clyde tried the door again with the key Rita provided, the light turned green. Before he could open it more than a couple of inches, however, Darla stuck out an arm to block him.
“Just me and Jake,” she reminded him. “Once we have Hamlet safely bundled up, we’ll let you know.”
Clyde hesitated. “You know, technically, I shouldn’t be doing this,” he said with a look around at everyone. “I mean, this is Mr. Pope’s room.”
Rita clamped plump hands over her ears. “La-la-la-la, I hear nothing, I see nothing. Me, I’m going back to my supper. Bring me back my keycard when you’re done,” she proclaimed, and promptly trotted back toward the elevator.
Alicia, meanwhile, gave a disgusted tsk. “You can blame me. Let’s just get this over with.”
Clyde nodded and gestured for Darla and Jake to go on inside the dimly lit suite, which proved a larger and more luxurious version of Darla and Jake’s own. Darla set her tote bag down on the pale green carpet and gave the place a quick once-over. The main area was arranged into three areas: a work station with an oversized desk, a dining nook with a small bar, and an entertainment area with an immense flat screen television twice the size of the one in her room and a pair of cushy black leather love seats set into an L and flanked by glass-topped end tables. The former was piled with so many of the familiar pastel throw pillows that most of them had cascaded off into a heap on the floor.
Jake nodded in the direction of the overstuffed couch. Behind it, the sliding door to the balcony was wide open. It was too dark by now to make out anything on the balcony, but the open door let in the faint echo of traffic and a cool evening breeze lightly perfumed with night blossoms and the scent of the river.
“Hamlet,” Darla softly called in the direction of the balcony, praying he was still out there. “It’s me. Come on inside where it’s safe, and then we’ll go back to our room and order up shrimp cocktails.”
To her relief, Darla heard a soft but insistent meow in reply. She waited breathlessly, and then heard a faint thud and metallic scrape from the balcony, the sound of a large cat landing upon a metal table. Another meow drifted to them, followed this time by a familiar furry black face peering past the open balcony doorway.
“Hamlet,” Darla sighed in relief. “It’s really you!”
Displaying more confidence than she actually felt—what if Hamlet decided he liked it on the balcony?—Darla casually walked toward the open slider. She kept her gaze fixed on the cat as she circled around the couch and its accompanying glass table to softly talk to the skittish feline.
“Hey, Hammy. Everyone at the show loved your video. They thought you were brilliant. And I’ve given out tons of your ‘paw’-tographs already today. If you’re up to it, we’ll go back to the show tomorrow and you can meet some more of your fans. Oh, and we can visit Jake’s new friend, Trixie, again. What do you say?”
By that point, she’d reached the table where Hamlet perched, his black form barely visible in the artificial light coming from the suite. He still had on his black harness, though the leash was missing. Someone had to have removed it, she realized—most likely whoever had spirited him away from the stage. As clever as Hamlet was, no way could he have unhooked it by himself. Luckily, she’d thought to put a spare lead in with his kitty gear.
She put out a cautious hand and gave him a little scratch on the head. When he didn’t protest, she turned the little scritches into actual petting, letting her hand drift down to the harness. Weaving her fingers around one nylon strap, she moved in on him and gently hefted the cat into her arms.
To her immense relief, Hamlet didn’t protest. Gripping him more firmly, she finally let loose the afternoon’s tension in a whoosh of breath.
“Got him,” she said in triumph, turning back around. “Jake, get ready to open the door as soon as I—eeeek!”
Darla’s reflexive shriek made Hamlet squirm in her arms. Still, she managed to maintain her grip on the cat even as she almost stumbled into the glass table in the process. Jake abruptly released the door handle and gave her a questioning look.
“What? Did Hamlet scratch you or something?”
“It—it’s not Hamlet,” she choked out, sidestepping away from the couch. “Jake, you know how Alicia said she thought her father had gone out for supper? Well, I don’t think he ever left the room.”
Pointing, she indicated the space between the couch and the sliding glass doors. Darla had been so focused on Hamlet when she’d entered the room, she hadn’t ever looked down. And so it wasn’t until she turned around that she had noticed a pair of legs wearing tan trousers and white wingtips sticking out from the spill of throw pillows at the other end of the couch. And she was pretty certain the man those legs belonged to wasn’t napping.
In fact, unless he had spilled most of a bottle of red wine onto the pale green carpet beneath him, Billy Pope was almost certainly dead.
TEN
“OKAY, DON’T TOUCH ANYTHING,” JAKE WARNED HER—NOT that Darla had any intention of doing any such thing. “Move back and let me take a look.”
Still clutching Hamlet, who had settled quite comfortably in her arms again, Darla promptly scooted toward the door. She waited while Jake bent and assessed the situation.
“Is he, uh, you know?” she finally choked out, not quite able to manage the actual words.
Jake straightened and nodded, and then winced a little at the gesture, absently putting a hand to the back of her head.
“I didn’t want to disturb anything, but I felt his leg and checked his skin reaction. If I had to guess, I’d say he’s been dead for an hour or so. Given all the blood and where he’s lying, it’s possible he hit his head on that glass table. Maybe tripped, maybe a heart attack. You can lose a lot of blood with an injury like that, and if he never regained consciousness . . .”
Jake trailed off with a meaningful shrug, and Darla swallowed hard. From her short acquaintance with Billy Pope, he’d seemed a decent enough man, and Nattie had true affection for him, which surely meant something. And while he appeared to have an occasionally contentious relationship with both his daughter and his granddaughter, Darla suspected that breaking this bad news to them would not be easy.
“All right, let’s get out of here,” Jake told her. “I’ll call 9-1-1 from the hallway.”
Barely had she said the words, however, when the hotel room door clicked open, and Clyde thrust his bald head inside.
“Hey, Jake, can you hurry? Mrs. Timpson is getting real impatient out here, and your mother just came down the hall to see what all the commotion was. Oh, hey,” he added with a glance and smile at Darla, “looks like you got your kitty—”
“Clyde.” Jake cut him short. “I need you to stop right there and go back out into the hall now. We’ve got a situation going on here.”
“Situation?”
The frosty word came from Alicia, who had shoved past the bellman and strode into the room in time to catch Jake’s comment.
She halted near the sofa, addressing Darla now as she continued. “I am quite relieved to see that Hamlet is safe and sound. I hope that means we can put all this unpleasantness behind us and continue on with his appearance at the show tomorrow.”
She paused and glanced at Jake. “And do not worry, Ms. Martelli. I promise we will continue to cooperate with the police while they investigate who attacked you.”
“Yer darn tootin’ you will.” Nattie rushed in on Alicia’s heels, her expression mutinous until she spied Hamlet safe in Darla’s arms. “You found him! Oh, that’s just grand. How did he get in here?”
“We don’t know, Ma. But right now, it’s important that we head back to the hall.”
“Yes, please, everyone exit the room now,” Alicia ordered.
“You, too, Mrs. Timpson,” said Jake.
“Ms. Martelli, what right do you have to tell me to leav
e my father’s room?” Alicia demanded, looking around and wrinkling her nose. “I don’t know what that smell is”—she paused and shot Hamlet a suspicious look—“but I really must air the place out. So if you don’t mind,” she finished, gesturing them toward the front door while she started for the balcony.
“No!” Darla and Jake shouted in unison, both moving to block the woman’s path.
Alicia shot her an indignant look, while even Nattie raised her penciled-on eyebrows in surprise. Hamlet chimed in with a warning growl from Darla’s arms. Jake, meanwhile, caught the woman by her arm.
“Look, Mrs. Timpson, like I said, we’ve got a situation here,” Jake clipped out. Then, turning to Clyde, she added, “Help me get her out of here so I can take care of that 9-1-1 call. We really need to wait out in the hall until the police arrive.”
“Police?” Alicia echoed in seeming confusion.
Then, seeing Darla’s reflexive glance toward the sofa, the woman’s perfectly made-up eyes widened while the beginning of realization dawned. “Wait—does this have to do with my father? I—I assumed he was out at supper. Did something happen to him?”
Not waiting for a reply, Alicia elbowed her way past Jake for a look behind the couch. She gave an ear-piercing shriek, which sent Nattie rushing over, too. Catching sight of Billy’s prone form behind the couch, Nattie gave an echoing scream and promptly slid down in a faint. For her part, Alicia had managed to stay upright, but she was hyperventilating to the point that Darla expected her to come crashing down at any moment as well.
Jake shot Darla an authoritative look. “Take Hamlet back to our room,” she said, “then get back here quick as you can.”
Darla didn’t wait for further instruction. Gripping Hamlet tightly, she snatched up her tote bag and rushed out the door. Two rooms down, a portly Asian man stuck his head out his own door and stared at her in concern.
“I thought I heard a scream. Is everything all right?”
“Just a cat emergency,” she lied, hurrying past him. The burden of a twenty-pound cat in her arms made her sprint down the hallway more a labored race, however, so that she was panting by the time she reached her room. Juggling cat, tote bag, and keycard, she managed to get the door open.
“Here you go, Hammy,” she exclaimed and set him down on the sofa to unbuckle him from his harness. Giving him a swift hug, which he promptly wiggled free of, she went on, “I hate to leave you like this after we just got you back from wherever you were, but Jake really needs my help. We’ll be back as soon as we can get this situation sorted out, and then we’ll figure out what actually happened to you.”
Hamlet shot her a slanted green look that said, Don’t worry, I’ll make you feel guilty about it later, and then sauntered off to the bathroom. A moment later, Darla heard the sound of loud kibble crunching as he made up for his missed supper.
At least he didn’t seem overly traumatized by what had happened, Darla thought in relief. She double-checked that the balcony door was securely locked with the desk chair still in front of it. Then, grabbing up her tote once more, she rushed back to Billy’s suite.
By the time she got there, Nattie and Alicia were both huddling on the benches in the hallway outside the hotel room. The former sat with her head between her scrawny knees and her red crest bobbing like a drunken rooster, while Alicia sat stonelike, staring at the art deco wallpaper opposite her. Jake and a pale Clyde flanked the suite door.
Darla sank onto the cushion beside Nattie, who raised her face and sighed. “I can’t believe this is happening. It’s too much for an old woman to take.”
“I know,” Darla replied, putting a supporting arm around her shoulders, “but try to hang in there. The police will be here soon, and they’ll figure out for sure what happened to Mr. Pope.”
As if on cue, the elevator down the hall dinged, that bell followed by the sound of purposeful footsteps headed in their direction. A big, middle-aged man wearing a burgundy sports coat with the hotel’s requisite fancy gold “W” embroidered on the breast pocket rounded the corner and marched toward them. Hotel security, Darla decided. He was followed by a pair of officers whom she promptly recognized as the same two, Garcia and Johnston, who had responded to Jake’s attack and Hamlet’s kidnapping.
“Here come the uniforms,” Jake said unnecessarily while Clyde hurried to join the newcomers. Stepping from her post at the door, she leaned toward her mother. “Ma, you holding up okay?”
“I’m fine, Jacqueline . . . fine as I can be after losing a friend,” she said with another sigh, making a swift sign of the cross.
While Jake and Nattie were speaking, the police had exchanged a few words with Clyde and the hotel security man. Now they headed toward where Darla and the others were waiting.
“Looks like the cat show is getting a bit exciting this year,” Officer Johnston observed as he halted before them; then, glancing Jake’s way, he went on, “Ms. Martelli, you want to show us to the scene? The rest of you please wait right out here.”
Taking the keycard from Clyde, Jake ignored the annoyed look the head of security shot her and did the honors on the door, holding it open and explaining to the officers where they would find the body. The pair went inside, then quickly came back out into the hall. Garcia moved to one side and muttered a few quick words into her shoulder microphone, a couple of which Darla caught: “homicide” and “coroner.”
Hearing those words didn’t rattle her; she knew that the police considered any death that occurred outside a doctor’s care suspicious until proven otherwise. Even so, it likely meant they were going to be stuck in the hallway awhile.
Johnston, meanwhile, had flipped open his notebook again.
“All right, can anyone tell me the identity of the gentleman inside?”
“He’s my father, Billy Pope—prominent Fort Lauderdale real estate mogul and head judge for the Feline Society of America,” Alicia mechanically spoke up from her seat on the bench. “You interviewed him at the cat show this afternoon after Ms. Martelli was attacked, and the cat was stolen.”
The officer gave a meaningful nod. “Of course. I remember speaking to him earlier. My condolences, ma’am.”
Alicia accepted the sentiment with a stony nod and lapsed back into silence. Looking uncomfortable, Johnston glanced at the rest of them and went on, “So, who actually found Mr. Pope’s body?”
“That would be me and Ms. Pettistone,” Jake replied.
Garcia took Jake aside, while Johnston motioned Darla to join him a bit farther down the hall. “All right, Ms. Pettistone,” he began, flipping open his notebook, “can you tell me how you came to find the deceased?”
Darla gave the cop a quick rundown of the situation, from when she and Jake had spied Hamlet out on the balcony to the cat’s recovery and the subsequent discovery of the body. Just as she finished her account and rejoined the others, Darla heard the elevator arrive on the floor again.
A tall, dark-haired woman who Darla judged to be in her late forties, wearing a black pantsuit and with a gold shield glinting at her waist, was striding toward them. She was trailed by two men in plain clothes wearing police windbreakers and carrying equipment cases. The homicide detective and crime scene investigators, Darla thought, a bit dismayed that she was familiar enough with the process to know this and hoping that they’d be able to quickly determine it had all been just a tragic accident after all.
As the female detective drew closer, Darla noticed that she looked vaguely familiar—then, with a glance over at Jake, she realized why. Both women were close to six feet tall with similar strong features made more prominent by the way they wore their curly black hair pulled back into tight buns. And, apparently, they’d both found the identical black pantsuit at their respective outlets of the Intimidating Tall Gal’s Shop. The only difference in wardrobe was their footwear. Jake wore her standard high-laced Doc Martens, while the newcomer st
rutted in a pair of impractical high-heeled black pumps.
Darla wondered if the woman carried a pair of sensible running shoes in the black leather tote she had slung over her shoulder, just in case a foot chase ever ensued.
The detective halted with her crew and gave a crisp nod to Darla and the others before focusing her attention on the two uniformed officers.
“The body in there?” she asked, jerking a thumb toward the suite.
Johnston nodded. “Good to see you again, too, Detective Martinez,” was his bland reply. Indicating Alicia, he went on, “The deceased gentleman inside the room is Ms. Timpson’s father.”
Martinez flicked a gaze in Alicia’s direction.
“Sorry for your loss, ma’am,” she said, sounding not a bit sorry at all, in Darla’s estimation.
More like annoyed that her evening was disturbed.
Turning to the CSI guys with her, the detective went on, “Let’s do a quick walk-through, and then I’ll let you boys get down to work while I talk to our witnesses. Officer Johnston, you and Officer Garcia keep these people entertained.”
Entertained? Darla silently fumed. She was already picking up bad vibes from the detective. Surely the fact that a person lay newly dead just a few feet away from them should rate a bit more respect.
With Clyde obliging again with the keycard—this time, he flipped the security latch to keep the door from automatically locking again as it closed—the newly arrived trio went into the hotel room. Garcia and Johnston, who had exchanged silent if telling looks while the detective gave out commands, remained in the hall with the rest of them.
Jake moved over to the bench where Nattie was sitting and leaned against the wall. Nattie looked up and then patted the spot beside her. “Here, bambolina mia, come sit by your mother.”
“I’m fine,” Jake protested, though she accepted the seat anyhow.
Immediately feeling guilty, Darla softly exclaimed, “Why didn’t you say something? I forgot you were supposed to be taking it easy after what happened this afternoon.”
