Beach Bags and Burglaries (A Haley Randolph Mystery)

by Dorothy Howell

  “He’s a consultant,” Sandy said.

  “What kind of consultant?” I asked.

  Her brows pulled together. “I don’t think he said. But he’s very successful. He owns his own firm.”

  Okay, now I wasn’t feeling so great about insisting that Sandy get involved with Sebastian.

  “He’s from Connecticut, and he’s rich,” Sandy said. “His whole family is rich.”

  Now I really wasn’t feeling great about sticking my nose in.

  “He told you that?” Marcie asked.

  “Well, kind of,” Sandy said. “He told me his whole name. It’s Sebastian Cannon Lane. Who would give their baby that kind of name if they weren’t rich?”

  She had a point.

  I’d guessed Sebastian’s age at early twenties, and that seemed young for him to own a consulting business. But Ty wasn’t even thirty when he’d taken over the reins of the Holt’s Department Store chain after his dad fell ill, so I guess it wasn’t a big stretch to think that Sebastian headed up a consulting firm. Maybe his family really was rich and he’d used his trust fund to get the business started.

  “I’m having an art lesson this morning. Sebastian called last night and got me scheduled,” Sandy announced. “I’ve never had an art lesson before. I can’t wait. I’m actually going to meet Colby Rowan.”

  “She’s Sidney Rowan’s daughter, right?” Marcie asked. “The one who got into legal trouble?”

  “She’s like a celebrity, almost,” Sandy said.

  “You think because she got involved with a bunch of lowlifes and turned criminal, that makes her a celebrity?” Bella asked.

  “She was in People magazine,” Sandy said.

  “Are you going to make a coffee cup or something to take back home for a souvenir?” Marcie asked.

  “Colby doesn’t do ceramics, even though she has a kiln at her studio. Today’s lesson is about painting with watercolors,” Sandy said.

  Avery walked up to our table.

  “Good morning,” she said, smiling her it’s-early-but-I-can-pull-this-off smile. “Do you girls have something planned for today?”

  “I’m having an art lesson,” Sandy said, “with Colby Rowan herself.”

  Avery pulled a small catalogue from the organizer she carried and passed it to Sandy.

  “Take a look at this,” she said. “It’s photos and descriptions of all the art in the resort’s collection. The pieces are on display throughout the hotel.”

  “Cool,” Sandy said, thumbing through the pages.

  “Let’s go horseback riding,” Marcie said. “Or maybe play tennis.”

  Avery already had her phone out and was pecking away. “I can book you for both this afternoon.”

  “Bouncing around on a dumb animal and chasing a ball around doesn’t sound like much of a vacay to me,” Bella said.

  “How about if we go to the beach this morning,” Marcie said.

  “That’s more my speed,” Bella said as we all rose from our chairs.

  “I’ll catch up with you later,” Sandy said. She gave us a little wave and headed off for her art lesson.

  “Haley, could I speak with you for a moment?” Avery asked. “Something’s come up.”

  The Sea Vixen tote bag flashed in my head. Oh my God, was Avery about to tell me that it had arrived and was, at this very moment, waiting for me in the hotel shop? If so, I didn’t want to keep Marcie and Bella standing around while I picked it up. Besides, I always needed some alone time with a new bag.

  “I’ll catch up with you at the beach,” I said to them. They nodded and left.

  “Our wedding planner would like to speak with you,” Avery said.

  My-handbag-dream-is-coming-true bubble burst.

  “Joy is our wedding planner,” she said, and gestured across the dining area.

  Standing near the hostess stand was a tiny woman who appeared less than five feet tall, maybe in her forties, with a blond helmet of hair, tiny glasses, dressed in a burgundy business suit and wearing, for no known reason, pumps.

  She waved and shot me an everything-is-terrific smile.

  What the heck was going on? Why was I talking to a wedding planner? Had I drifted off during a crucial conversation somewhere and missed something?

  That happens a lot.

  I followed Avery through the tables of diners. She made introductions and took off.

  “Now, don’t you worry about a thing,” Joy said to me, giving me a big smile and a fist pump. “The wedding is going to be super. Just super.”

  “What wedding?” I asked.

  Joy threw back her head and laughed. “I love a maid of honor with a sense of humor.”

  “Maid of—what?”

  She whipped open her iPad. “Now, first of all, there’s the bachelorette party.”

  “Hang on a minute,” I said. “What are you talking about?”

  “Yasmin and Tate’s wedding,” Joy said.

  Okay, I was totally lost.

  Joy must have picked up on my what-the-heck expression, because she said, “Yasmin told me you’re taking over for Gretchen, her maid of honor.”

  “Gretchen was her maid of honor?” I asked.

  I knew Gretchen, one of the girls who rotated through our circles of friends. She was really smart, competent, and levelheaded. How had she gotten involved with somebody like Yasmin to the extent of agreeing to be her maid of honor?

  “Gretchen cancelled,” Joy said. “She’s afraid to come here because of that poor girl getting killed.”

  It flashed in my mind that maybe Gretchen had second thoughts about being Yasmin’s attendant and had murdered Jaslyn herself just to get out of the wedding—not that I blamed her, of course.

  “I’m not Yasmin’s maid of honor,” I said. “I’m only a guest.”

  Joy frowned, then typed something into her iPad.

  “I’ll have to get back to you on that,” she said. “What about the bachelorette party?”

  My spirits lifted. A bachelorette party would be cool—some male strippers, a couple of kegs, and a cheese tray would be just the thing to perk up this vacation.

  The entire party bloomed in my head, because I’d recently taken a job as an event planner at L.A. Affairs, a company that catered to celebrities, Hollywood insiders, and the rich and famous of Los Angeles. I could definitely use these elements if I was called upon to plan a bachelorette party, which I expected to happen since L.A. Affairs loved my work.

  My first big assignment for them had been to organize a huge Beatles-themed bash for Hollywood’s top movie director, and the whole thing had come off flawlessly—except for that girl getting murdered.

  Anyway, L.A. Affairs had been so pleased with my work that they’d graciously given me time off for this vacation. I’d used the my-uncle-Bob-died-excuse, a personal favorite of mine, but I’m sure—pretty sure—they would have given me the time, regardless of the reason.

  “Definitely count me in for the bachelorette party,” I said.

  “Super,” Joy said. “Let’s keep in touch.”

  We exchanged cell phone numbers, and she clacked away in her pumps.

  My morning definitely needed a boost. I decided to check with the resort shop and find out if my Sea Vixen tote had come in yet.

  I went inside the hotel and wound my way through the corridors on the first floor until I came to the shop I’d been in yesterday. The same clerk was there. When she spotted me, she ducked behind the counter.

  I mean, really, was that any way to act when you saw a customer coming?

  “Hello?” I said as I approached the counter.

  A few seconds passed before she popped up.

  “Oh, hello, Miss Randolph,” she cooed. “I’m so sorry, but we haven’t received a shipment yet today.”

  This didn’t suit me, but I channeled my mom’s I-can-be-nice-if-I-absolutely-have-to expression and said, “I’ll check back with you later.”

  “Oh, no, don’t come into the shop,” she tol
d me, then forced a fake I-didn’t-mean-it-like-it-sounded smile. “As soon as your bag arrives, I’ll let you know. I’ll call you immediately.”

  There was nothing more I could do but thank her—which I didn’t really mean—and leave.

  My Sea Vixen search hadn’t boosted my day at all. In fact, it had made me cranky. So what could I do but take it out on somebody else? Like, maybe, a murderer.

  Last night at the bar, Shane had told me about Jaslyn Gordon’s boyfriend, a maintenance worker named Gabe Braxton. I decided I should take my I-don’t-have-a-Sea-Vixen wrath out on him.

  I didn’t really know where to find this guy, but I knew where to locate the person who could tell me. I left the hotel and headed through the gardens and across the resort grounds in the direction of the docks and the employees’ dorm.

  The sun was warm in the cloudless sky; the trees, flowers, and shrubs swayed in the gentle breeze; and in the distance I could hear the pounding surf. And what better to do while in paradise than to review my mental list of murder suspects?

  Gabe Braxton, the boyfriend, was at the top of my list because all the detectives on those TV crime shows said that if a woman was murdered, her killer was probably the husband or boyfriend. Who was I to differ? It had worked for twenty seasons, or something, for Law & Order.

  Of course, I didn’t have any motive or evidence to support that assumption. But I’d been told that Gabe tried to get Jaslyn to go up to the high cliffs on the back side of the island when he knew she was afraid of heights. Plus, her driver’s license and cell phone had been found up there. At the bar last night Shane had also mentioned that Jaslyn was more interested in getting her degree than anything else. Maybe Gabe hadn’t liked that he was in second place in her life?

  Tabitha had seemed like a really nice person, but she’d been a little too anxious for details about Jaslyn’s death when I’d talked to her in the hall outside my room yesterday. It made me wonder if she’d simply been concerned for her own safety, or if something else was going on, like maybe she’d murdered Jaslyn. If she had a motive, I hadn’t discovered it yet.

  I wasn’t feeling all that great about Avery. She’d maneuvered me into talking to Walt Pemberton, the head of resort security, but I had a feeling there was something more behind her actions. Detective Shuman had thought Avery had gotten me in there for Pemberton to have a look at me as a murder suspect. Like Shuman, I could think of only one reason she’d want to throw suspicion on me, which was to keep suspicion off of herself.

  As much as I didn’t want to, I had a weird feeling about Sebastian. He seemed like a nice guy, and I wanted Sandy to meet somebody nice who would treat her decently. But all those things Sandy had reported to us at breakfast this morning that she’d learned about Sebastian during their walk on the beach didn’t sit right with me. Plus, I couldn’t ignore what Shane had told me at the bar last night. He’d said that Sebastian was golden. I wasn’t sure exactly what that meant, but it probably wasn’t something good. There was, of course, the possibility that Shane had said those things about Sebastian out of jealousy or envy, rather than something concrete.

  My brain was crowded with suspects who weren’t really suspects, who had no real motive or means of murdering Jaslyn that I’d discovered yet. There was only one thing to do—somehow today, I was going to have to find a Starbucks mocha Frappuccino if I was going to have any hope of solving this murder.

  I followed the narrow, paved road past the dock and the helipad where we’d landed. No ship was tied up there; few people were out. I gazed toward the mainland but didn’t see any ships headed this way so I figured my Sea Vixen wouldn’t be here anytime soon.

  The road curved sharply inland and disappeared behind a wall of swaying palms and thick, towering shrubbery that had been planted, I’m sure, so the sight of the resort’s inner workings wouldn’t offend the delicate sensibilities of its rich and famous guests. Up ahead was a dull yellow two-story building that looked kind of like the military barracks I’d seen in old movies, plain but functional. I spotted a tram waiting out front while employees climbed aboard; I figured they were on their way to the resort for their shifts.

  I followed the road past the dorm and spotted a big metal building. Two men wearing gray Dickies work clothes stood near the rolled-up door. Inside, I saw workbenches, shelves full of all kinds of maintenance equipment, and a dozen or so lawn mowers.

  One of the men did a double take when he saw me approach the building. He nudged the other guy, who turned to stare. I figured they’d pegged me for a guest—and why wouldn’t they, thanks to the fabulous resort wear I’d maxed out several credit cards to buy—and were suspicious about why I was there.

  “Hi,” I said, using my there’s-nothing-to-be-alarmed-about voice.

  They just stared.

  I tried again with my I’m-really-a-nice-person voice and said, “Can you tell me where to find Gabe Braxton?”

  Neither of them said anything, making me think that they were either too stunned by the sight of a resort guest on their portion of the island to speak or that they were afraid something major had gone down and they were in some sort of trouble.

  I knew the feeling.

  “I need to talk to Gabe,” I said. “I know he and Jaslyn Gordon were seeing each other. I’m the one who found her body, so I figured Gabe would want to hear about what happened.”

  They both continued to stare, and finally one of them said, “That was bad. Really bad.”

  “She was a nice girl,” the other one said. He pulled a radio from his belt and said, “I’ll tell Gabe to meet you near the docks.”

  “Thanks,” I said, and left.

  I walked back down the narrow road, past the dorm, the helipad, and dock. When I entered the resort grounds, I saw a maintenance worker dressed in gray work clothes headed in my direction. He stopped in front of me, and I saw the name GABE stitched on a label above his shirt pocket.

  He was huge, easily six five, with wide shoulders, a solid chest, and bulging arm muscles. I figured him for late twenties. The sun had given his skin a golden glow and streaked his dark hair with yellow highlights.

  I thought he looked great.

  I also thought he looked like he could have killed Jaslyn Gordon with little effort.

  CHAPTER 10

  “I’m Haley Randolph,” I said.

  Gabe Braxton stared down at me. Obviously, the maintenance team wasn’t required to memorize photos of resort guests, as the hotel workers were, because he looked at me as if I were a bug he wanted to squash—which, from the size of him, I thought he could easily have done.

  “I’m the one who found Jaslyn,” I said.

  Now he looked as if I’d squashed him like a bug. His big shoulders slumped and he turned away, shaking his head.

  “I heard that you two were seeing each other,” I said, “so I thought you’d want to know.”

  He whipped around, glaring at me. “Who told you that? Who told you about Jas and me?” he demanded.

  I jumped, startled by his sudden anger.

  No way was I throwing Shane out in front of this bus, so I just gave him an it’s-no-big-deal shrug and said, “A lot of people mentioned it. I guess you two were a great couple.”

  Okay, that was a total lie but—thank goodness—it seemed to calm him down.

  The hum of a tram’s electric engine sounded behind me.

  “Let’s go back here,” Gabe said, and led the way off of the road and behind a couple of big bushes.

  “Jas was special. She was awesome. So smart,” Gabe said. “And driven. I’ve never seen anybody as dedicated to something as Jas was.”

  He paused while the sound of the tram grew louder as it passed us. I glanced toward the road but couldn’t see much through the bushes, just a broken glimpse of the tram and the uniformed employees onboard, heading for the resort. When the noise faded, Gabe spoke again.

  “All Jas talked about was getting her degree. She was an art major. She wanted to go to
Europe to visit the museums. She had a long list of places she wanted to go, lots of different cities where she could look at those paintings and statues,” Gabe said. “She was crazy about that artsy stuff.”

  It sounded like a yawner to me, but who was I to shoot down someone’s dream?

  “Were you going with her?” I asked, to bring the conversation back around to the two of them.

  “Sure. I’d have gone,” Gabe said. He shook his head. “But she was so focused on that stuff I don’t think she’d have wanted anybody with her, not even me. She was kind of in the zone when she talked about it, you know? Completely wired in.”

  “At least you two had your time here at the resort together,” I said. “Did she like working here?”

  “Yeah, I guess. She liked that she could work here on her breaks from school. I guess a lot of students do that. Jas thought the work was easy and the pay was good—better than the last place she worked.” Gabe said.

  “Did something happen there?” I asked.

  “Somebody was giving her a hard time. She didn’t want to talk about it.” He frowned. “But in the last week or so she seemed upset. You know, troubled about something.”

  My senses jumped to high alert, sure I was about to discover a major clue.

  “What was wrong?” I asked, and managed to sound concerned and not merely anxious to dig up something that would help me. “Did she tell you?”

  “No.”

  So much for a case-breaking clue. Still, I pushed on.

  “Was she having a problem with a coworker?” I asked. “Her supervisor, maybe?”

  Avery was Jaslyn’s supervisor, and I’d wondered about her possible involvement in Jaslyn’s death.

  “She wanted to change teams,” Gabe said.

  Thank goodness—a clue I could actually use.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “She didn’t say,” Gabe told me. “But she and that supervisor of hers didn’t get along.”

  “You mean Avery?” I asked, just to be sure.

  “Jas said she was always riding her about something,” Gabe said. “Claiming she wasn’t following resort policies, crap like that.”

  If that were true and Jaslyn wasn’t keeping up with the housekeeping schedule, it would reflect poorly on Avery, maybe even get her in trouble with the resort’s upper management. I mean, jeez, the standards at the Rowan Resort were incredibly high, and they probably paid key employees very well to maintain those standards. No way would Avery want somebody on her team dragging her down.