Beach Bags and Burglaries (A Haley Randolph Mystery)

by Dorothy Howell

  Then it hit me that I’d be better off just answering their questions so I could get this so-called interview over with quickly. If I gave them too many problems they might decide to investigate me—which would lead them to L.A. homicide detective Madison, Shuman’s partner, who had tried, and failed, numerous times to find me guilty of something. Plus, I didn’t want to be stuck in this room so long that my BFFs started to wonder where I was and ask questions. I really didn’t want anyone to know I’d discovered a murder victim.

  It might spoil our vacation.

  I mean that in the nicest way.

  And, of course, I needed to get back to my search for the Sea Vixen—plus, a Snickers bar or two would go a long way toward boosting my day right now.

  “So, that’s it. I went for a walk, spotted the body, and reported it. That’s the sum total of my involvement,” I said, and rose from my chair. “If you have any more questions, you can contact my lawyer.”

  I gave them my pageant queen mom’s I’m-better-than-you glare—which wasn’t easy for me to pull off, especially since I didn’t actually have a lawyer—then whipped around and left the room.

  In the hallway I saw no sign of Luke—if it really was Luke—which annoyed me. And I was annoyed further that I’d thought about him and maybe it wasn’t even him, which made no sense either, but there it was.

  I drew a deep breath, forcing my thoughts onto my no-thinking-about-men policy for this vacation. It was proving harder than I imagined. Maybe I needed a distraction.

  The image of massive amounts of chocolate floated through my brain. Jeez, what was I waiting for?

  I headed down the corridor, sure that a gift shop or snack bar had to be here somewhere, and heard someone call my name.

  Immediately, my own personal interpretation of the Holt’s Department Store customer service training kicked in and I walked faster—too bad that outdistancing customers who might want help wasn’t an Olympic event; I’d have the gold for sure.

  “Haley?” Avery jogged up beside me.

  Wow, these Rowan employees must be really dedicated. She’d moved pretty fast.

  Maybe she’d worked retail.

  “Oh, hi, Avery,” I said, as if I hadn’t heard her call my name six times.

  “Could I speak with you for a moment?” she asked.

  I followed her to a little alcove.

  “Please allow me to apologize for the ... unpleasantness you’ve endured since your arrival,” Avery said.

  I guess unpleasantness was code for finding-a-dead-body here at the Rowan Resort.

  Avery seemed kind of nervous—and a heck of a lot more upset than I was.

  “Let me assure you that this sort of thing never happens here.” Avery drew a quick breath and straightened her shoulders. “It’s understandable if you and your friends want to leave, but I hope you’ll stay. Rowan Resort will do everything possible to ensure that the remainder of your stay exceeds your wildest expectations.”

  I figured that someone up the management chain had decided it would be Avery’s fault if four guests departed prematurely—a story bloggers and tabloids would pick up on and spin into something bigger than it actually was. If that happened, the resort’s reputation would take a major hit—not to mention the celebrity cancellations they might get.

  I didn’t like the way detectives Vance and Pearce had been giving me stink-eye. While I had no intention of leaving because of them, I figured the quicker the investigation was wrapped up, the better it would be—for me, of course—so I saw no reason not to take advantage of the situation.

  “Do the detectives think Jaslyn was murdered?” I asked, and managed to use my gee-I’m-worried-a-killer-is-on-the-loose voice.

  Avery glanced up and down the corridor, then leaned closer and lowered her voice. “I overheard the detectives say that it didn’t appear Jaslyn had been attacked. They think she’d been climbing on the rocks, then fell and struck her head.”

  The detectives thought it was an accident? An accident? How could that be?

  “What about her cell phone and driver’s license that was found on the opposite side of the island, up on the cliffs?” I asked.

  “They believe she accidentally left them,” Avery said. “The detectives don’t know how long they were lying there.”

  Okay, well, that made sense. Kind of.

  “So, you see,” Avery said, “the whole incident, while very upsetting, was probably just an accident.”

  A few seconds passed, then I asked, “Do you really think that?”

  I guess my words sounded sincere, because Avery’s shoulders slumped a little and she said, “I don’t know what to believe.”

  “Why wasn’t Jaslyn found sooner?” I asked.

  “I don’t understand it. The entire island had been thoroughly searched immediately upon realizing she was missing.” Avery shook her head. “I can’t imagine why she was out there in the first place.”

  A great reason zapped me immediately.

  “Maybe she was hooking up with someone,” I said.

  I didn’t think that end of the island was a good spot for a hookup. The hills behind the hotel offered much more seclusion and privacy.

  Not that I’d ever do that, of course.

  “Many of our employees are college students who work here during their school breaks. Dating is frowned upon,” Avery said.

  Just because a fling was against the rules didn’t mean it never happened.

  Not that I’d know anything about that.

  “In fact, it’s cause for termination,” Avery said.

  Ignore a corporate directive? Who would do such a thing?

  “Jaslyn wasn’t the type to get romantically involved,” Avery said.

  But if the guy was really hot?

  No comment.

  “She was more interested in finishing college and starting her career,” Avery said. “I saw her studying to get a jump on her upcoming classes.”

  Okay, that was weird.

  It was weird too that Avery seemed to know so much about one of the hotel maids.

  “Were you two friends?” I asked.

  “We work in teams here at the resort, to maximize guest satisfaction,” Avery said. “Housekeeping and room service report any special needs to me so I’m aware of guest preferences. Jaslyn was one of my team members.”

  “You monitor what every guest orders and how they use their rooms?” I asked.

  “That’s the level of service we provide our clientele,” Avery said. “It’s one of the reasons they return to our resort.”

  So, as a maid, Jaslyn knew the intimate details of the lives of the rich and famous. And so did Avery.

  Huh. Something to think about.

  “Please, Haley, let me know if there’s anything you need,” Avery said, switching back to I-really-want-to-keep-my-job mode. “Anything at all, any time of the day or night.”

  Avery left, and I headed down the corridor again in a desperate search for something chocolate. As I passed the room the detectives had used for my interview, I saw the door was open and inside a half-dozen men wearing off-the-rack suits were standing in a circle, talking. Detective Pearce cut his gaze to me. I shot him serious stink-eye and kept walking.

  At the end of the corridor I found a snack shop, a small place with refrigerated cases of sodas and water, a coffee bar, baked goods, and all sorts of treats. French doors led outside to tables and chairs.

  The place smelled great, and immediately I was hit with a major craving for my all-time favorite drink, a mocha Frappuccino, from my all-time favorite spot, Starbucks. I didn’t know how I’d get through this entire week without one—or more.

  But thanks to the Rowan Resort’s all-inclusive policy I could have anything I wanted—including mass quantities of chocolate—so I figured I could manage. I grabbed a Snickers bar and two bags of M&M’s, swiped my resort pass, and I headed outside.

  I had the maze of walkways between the hotel and bungalows mostly to myself, s
o I wandered through the fountains, trees, flowers, and shrubs enjoying the fantastic California weather and, of course, the candy. By the time I’d finished off the Snickers and one bag of the M&M’s, the chocolate had given my brain a huge boost and Jaslyn Gordon loomed large in my head.

  If Jaslyn wasn’t the type of girl to hook up for the romantic fling, as Avery had claimed, and if she really was interested in studying to get a jump on her upcoming classes—which still seemed really weird to me, since I wasn’t exactly thrilled by my own slow plod toward a college degree—then maybe she was on that secluded end of the island thinking that the view from atop the rocks might jazz up whatever totally boring subject she was reading about. But when I’d discovered her body I hadn’t seen a backpack, notebook, laptop, iPad, or even a textbook.

  According to the info I’d read on the Internet about Jaslyn’s disappearance, she’d gone missing yesterday. Security personnel from the resort had searched the island and, finding nothing, had called for backup. Still nothing.

  I couldn’t understand how the search parties had missed her. I mean, jeez, I hadn’t even been looking and I’d stumbled over her body. And why had her cell phone and driver’s license been found just today? Surely they’d looked on the cliffs yesterday. How could they have missed them?

  I finished off the last bag of M&M’s as I wandered past the line of vine-covered bungalows, and the Sea Vixen beach bag flashed in my head. Where the heck was that woman I’d seen earlier with the bag? I’d trailed her through the courtyard, then lost her. I wondered again if she was staying in one of the bungalows.

  I could stake them out and wait for the woman to appear with the bag—a sacrifice I was willing to make, of course, though under normal circumstances I didn’t really have the patience for long-term waiting—or I could start knocking on doors.

  My choice was easy.

  Just as I approached the first bungalow, movement off to my right caught my eye. I turned and spotted Marcie barreling toward me, her jaw set, her brow furrowed, her gaze transmitting an urgent run-for-it message.

  Oh my God, what now?

  CHAPTER 4

  Marcie blasted past me. I fell in behind her. Wow, she was really moving, so I knew something major had happened. I could barely keep up with her and I’ve got pageant legs, the only beauty queen gene my mom passed on to me.

  We whipped through the palms, shrubs, flowers, and fountains, and finally Marcie ducked behind a huge fern plant and stopped.

  “It’s that girl,” she blurted out in a hushed voice. “Yasmin.”

  I gasped. “Yasmin? The one who’s dating Tate-Tate-Tate?”

  “Yes.”

  “I hate her.”

  Marcie peeked through the greenery. “I just saw her.”

  “Here?” I demanded.

  “Yes.”

  “Now?”

  “Yes.”

  “I hate her.”

  “I think she’s getting married here,” Marcie said.

  “Crap.”

  Between Marcie and me, we knew a lot of people. We’d see friends and acquaintances at bars, clubs, out shopping, and at the purse parties Marcie and I gave, which is how we’d met Yasmin. She’d somehow rotated into our circle of friends.

  Marcie got along with Yasmin okay—Marcie can get along with most anyone—but I absolutely couldn’t stand her. All she ever talked about was her boyfriend, Tate. No matter what kind of conversation we were having, she always turned it around to focus on him. She was so obsessed with the guy we’d started referring to him as Tate-Tate-Tate—behind her back, of course.

  I pulled back a fern branch and peeked out. “She didn’t see you, did she?”

  “No,” Marcie said. “I took off as soon as I spotted her.”

  “No way am I dealing with her on this vacation,” I said. “I don’t want to see her, or talk to her, or even be in the same room with her.”

  “I know,” Marcie said.

  “I hate her.”

  “She had on one of those T-shirts that had the word ‘bride’ spelled out in rhinestones,” Marcie said.

  “Hang on a minute,” I said, now irritated in a whole new way. “Yasmin is getting married? And she didn’t invite us?”

  “That’s what it looks like,” Marcie said.

  “We’re supposed to be her friends,” I said, totally outraged now.

  “I know,” Marcie agreed.

  “And she didn’t even invite us to her wedding?” I demanded.

  “Nope.”

  Yeah, okay, I couldn’t stand her—which I’m sure she didn’t realize because she was always so focused on Tate-Tate-Tate—but I was majorly miffed because she hadn’t invited me to her wedding, which made no sense but there it was.

  “We’ll avoid her. It’ll be easy, really,” Marcie said. “She’ll be so caught up in her wedding, she probably wouldn’t notice us even if we walked right past her.”

  Marcie was almost always right. I hoped she was this time, too. Not only was this supposed to be my no-men vacation, but I’d recently broken up with my fabulous boyfriend Ty, so the last thing—the very last thing—I wanted to be around was a couple who were blissfully happy, totally in love, and actually getting married.

  “Bella and Sandy are at the beach,” Marcie said. “Let’s go, too. It’ll be fun.”

  My mood instantly improved. Surely I would spot a Sea Vixen if I was at the beach.

  We made our way through the courtyard, took a couple of wrong turns, and finally found the rear hotel entrance.

  Thanks to my extraordinary peripheral vision—enhanced significantly by months of avoiding eye contact with Holt’s customers desperate for help—I saw that lots of men were still in the room where Detectives Vance and Pearce had interviewed me.

  Luke Warner popped into my mind again.

  I pushed him out.

  Upstairs in our room, Marcie and I changed into bikinis—mine was blue, Marcie’s black—gathered our things, and went downstairs. A tram pulled up just as we walked outside, so we climbed onboard. I immediately turned my attention out the window, hoping to spot a Sea Vixen.

  “You’ll find one,” Marcie said, reading my mind as only a BFF could.

  “Darn right I will,” I said.

  The tram glided silently and effortlessly along the paved road, and stopped a few minutes later beneath tall, swaying palms. The sandy beach stretched to the edge of the blue, rolling surf. A thatched roofed bar had attracted a crowd. Servers in white shorts and burgundy shirts brought drinks to the guests relaxing on lounge chairs. People splashed in the water and floated on the waves.

  Immediately I scanned the area for the most sought-after bag of the season. Not a single one in sight.

  “There they are,” Marcie said, and pointed to Bella and Sandy as we left the tram.

  They were lying on chaises near the bar, sipping drinks from tall, umbrella-topped glasses. Sandy had on a red one-piece and a floppy hat. Bella wore a bright yellow bikini and huge sunglasses; no way would she put on a hat and ruin her carefully sculpted hair.

  An attendant brought us towels and spread them over our chairs, and we settled in. The waiter came over, and Marcie and I ordered frothy, beach-vacation-worthy drinks.

  “Oh my God,” Sandy said. “You’ll never guess what just happened.”

  “Did you see Brad Pitt?” Marcie asked.

  “No, something even better,” Sandy declared. “Two little girls came up to us and asked for Bella’s autograph. They thought she was Beyoncé.”

  “No kidding,” Marcie said.

  “So what did you do?” I asked.

  Bella shrugged. “I gave them an autograph.”

  “And then,” Sandy said, “they took her picture.”

  “I smiled and waved,” Bella said.

  I figured that photo would make one heck of a vacation memory for someone—Bella in her bright yellow bikini and a hair-sculptured dolphin atop her head.

  I sat back ready to enjoy the ocean view, the br
eeze, and the late-afternoon sun. This was great. Just what I needed. Nothing—except maybe spotting another murder victim—could spoil the moment.

  Then it was spoiled.

  “Haley! Marcie! I can’t believe you’re here!”

  Oh my God. Yasmin.

  She walked toward us through the sand smiling and waving—just as if she actually thought we were glad to see her. She had on a pink bathing suit, pink sandals, pink hat, pink-framed sunglasses—really—and a pink cover-up that had BRIDE written across the front in dark pink hearts.

  Where was that waiter with my drink?

  “It’s really you!” Yasmin declared as she sat down totally uninvited on the foot of Marcie’s lounge chair.

  Yasmin was about my age with dark hair and a great figure that her dad had paid one of L.A.’s highest profile personal trainers serious bucks for to keep his little girl happy—or at least quiet.

  Her dad was a hotshot lawyer. He brought down seven figures a year representing celebrities who ran afoul of the law. Honestly, I didn’t know how he put up with some of those people. I wouldn’t have the patience to deal with them. I pictured finding myself in his position captured in a YouTube clip with a celebrity who’d just been sentenced to jail for violating the terms of her probation again, as she sobbed and threw herself on the defendant’s table, and me in her face screaming, “What did you think was going to happen, you crazy bitch?”

  Anyway, Yasmin’s parents had money, which she seemed to think was her money, so she got pretty much everything she wanted.

  “I’m Yasmin,” she said to Sandy and Bella, and they introduced themselves. “Haley and Marcie have been my friends for—well, forever. Since I started dating Tate. Oh my God, I can’t wait for you to meet Tate. We’re getting married!”

  Nobody said anything.

  “So, let me tell you all about the wedding,” Yasmin announced. “Oh my God, Tate insisted I pick pink for my color. He’s so sweet about giving me absolutely everything I want. Somehow, he just knows!”

  Nobody said anything.

  “When Tate first asked me out, I wasn’t sure if I should go out with him,” Yasmin said, and made a little frowny face I’m sure she’d perfected early in her teen years. “He was nice, but he didn’t compliment me much—not as much as I thought he should.”