Clutches and Curses

by Dorothy Howell

  My first thought was to log onto Courtney’s Facebook page and see who her friends were, but since I was still concerned that the cops might be monitoring it, no way was I doing that. I could have asked Marcie to do it, but involving her in a murder investigation was definitely not a best-friends-forever kind of thing to do.

  Instead, I logged onto the Monroe High School Web site. A memorial to Courtney had already been posted. Not much info was given, just the bare facts—nothing about how another alumnus had found her dead, thank God—no further info on her life.

  A number of people had posted comments. I read through them, surprised to learn that so many former students remembered Courtney from back in the day and had nice things to say about her.

  A posting from somebody named Stephanie Holden caught my attention. She stated that she knew Courtney in Henderson, was stunned by her death, would miss her, blah, blah, blah.

  I checked out Stephanie and saw that she had a Facebook page—who doesn’t these days? I sent her a message. Nothing too deep, just that I was a friend of Courtney’s and would like to talk to her. Hopefully, she’d read it and get back to me soon.

  Working eight-hour shifts at Holt’s, lifting all those boxes and all that merchandise—not to mention pounding the pavement in search of a Delicious handbag and all the accompanying shopping—had worn me out. I changed into my pajamas and got into bed. I fell asleep right away.

  I awoke shortly after three. Voices came from the hallway. My neighbors, keeping late hours again. A door slammed and everything got quiet. I fell back to sleep.

  It was a Louis Vuitton day. Definitely a Louis Vuitton day.

  I dressed in jeans and T-shirt—the uniform of the day at Holt’s—and went down for the breakfast buffet.

  Yeah, okay, I knew a Louis Vuitton bag was a bit of overkill for jeans and a T-shirt, but I wanted Maya to see it. It was a fabulous purse and I knew she’d love it as much as I did.

  She spotted it right away—before she spotted me, I think—and rushed over.

  “This is positively the most awesome handbag I’ve ever seen,” Maya declared as I held it up.

  Around us, motel guests served themselves from the buffet, poured coffee, and read the morning newspaper at their tables.

  “I have a matching organizer,” I told her.

  I knew she wouldn’t think I’d said it just to be bitchy or anything. She’d be happy for me.

  And she was. Her eyes got big and a huge I-love-purses smile appeared.

  “My boyfriend gave it to me,” I said. “Ty.”

  “He must be one heck of a guy,” Maya said.

  I suppose he is. I didn’t know, since he hadn’t called me lately.

  But no need to get into that now and spoil our fabulous-purse-and-accessories moment.

  I gestured toward the registration desk across the lobby.

  “Amber isn’t here again this morning. Is she on vacation or something?” I asked. “I wanted to thank her for giving me a room.”

  Maya’s smile vanished. “Amber got fired.”

  “What?”

  She nodded. “That awful Bradley fired her because she—”

  Silence hung between us for a few seconds before I realized what she was about to say.

  “Because she gave me that room?” I asked.

  “I feel bad, too,” Maya said. “I was the one who pushed her into doing it.”

  “And he fired her for that?” I asked.

  “He’s a major pain,” Maya said. “It’s his way or the highway.”

  On rare occasions, I’m glad my mother was a founding member of the Beverly Hills I’m-better-than-you club. Immediately, I morphed into her outraged-indignant-mode, the one she used if a sales clerk showed her a dress from the clearance rack.

  “Where does he get off firing somebody for giving a room to a deserving guest?” I demanded. “Who is his supervisor?”

  “His family owns the Culver Inn chain. The Pennington family, remember? They own half of Nevada, I think,” Maya said. “There’s not much you can do.”

  That only made me madder.

  “It’s not right,” I said. “Mine isn’t the only room on that wing that’s being used.”

  That got Maya’s attention. She looked a little mad herself.

  “Let’s go talk to the new girl,” she said.

  The new girl—Whitley, according to her name tag—didn’t seem all that happy to see us when we approached the registration desk. She looked tense and rigid, like being a bitch was a lifestyle choice.

  No way would she out-bitch me. My mom was a pageant queen. It was in my DNA.

  Or maybe it was that hideous green-brown-orange uniform that made her so cranky. It made me out of sorts just looking at it.

  “I’m Haley Randolph, room three-thirty-four,” I told her. “I just found out that—”

  “Look,” Whitley said, her gaze darting from me to Maya, and back to me again. “I don’t want any trouble.”

  It was apparent that staying in room 334 was the equivalent of wearing a scarlet “A” on my chest.

  “Okay, fine,” I said. “Get Bradley on the phone. Let me talk to him.”

  “No.”

  I was so stunned, I couldn’t speak for a moment.

  Maybe I need to work on my I’m-better-than-you demeanor.

  “Bradley expects me to handle this desk,” Whitley said, pushing her chin up a little. “That’s what I intend to do.”

  “We’re not trying to go over your head,” Maya said, sounding considerably more reasonable than I felt. “We’re just saying that it’s not fair Amber got fired for booking Haley into a room in that wing, when other guests are being booked there.”

  “They most certainly are not,” Whitley told us.

  “Yes, they are,” I said.

  “No, they aren’t,” she insisted.

  “I heard them,” I said. “Voices in the hallway, in the middle of the night.”

  She dismissed my claim with a wave of her hand. “You’re mistaken. No guests are up there. Housekeeping and maintenance don’t work after nine. If you heard anything at all, it must have been a guest who’d gotten off on the wrong floor.”

  “I heard a door slam,” I told her. “Somebody went into a room.”

  “Impossible,” Whitley declared.

  She picked up the telephone and turned her back on us.

  I just stood there.

  Oh my God. If no guests were booked on that floor, in that wing, and housekeeping and maintenance weren’t on duty, who had been outside my room in the middle of the night?

  CHAPTER 10

  Housewares—my assigned square footage of purgatory today—was an okay department. Lifting the heavy boxes of tableware wasn’t easy, but I liked it better than children’s. When I’d checked the assignment easel at the front of the store this morning, I felt a little wave of satisfaction that Fay hadn’t put me there again. After yelling at her yesterday, I couldn’t be sure which way she’d go.

  I try to project an assertive demeanor without being perceived as a hard-ass. I shoot for something between I-won’t-be-pushed-around-like-a-shopping-cart and cross-me-and-I’ll-cut-you. Evidently, Fay got the message.

  As I sliced open what felt like my thousandth box of plates, Preston appeared next to me.

  “Good morning, Haley,” he said, sounding a little more chipper than yesterday. Guess he was getting used to managing the whole somebody-died-in-my-store situation.

  “How are you coming on that little project?” he asked.

  Project? There was a project?

  “The one we discussed in my office yesterday,” he said. “Remember?”

  I had no clue, so what could I say but, “Sure.”

  “Excellent.” Preston rubbed his palms together. “What have you found out?”

  I was supposed to find out something?

  “I’ll bet the employees are teeming with suggestions for their reward,” he said.

  A vague recollection s
urfaced in my brain. Something about Preston wanting to do something nice for the employees, asking me for my input.

  Jeez, had he really expected me to do that?

  “They are,” I said, hoping he wouldn’t ask me for an example.

  “Like what?”

  Crap.

  “Preliminary thoughts, at this point. Nothing I’m ready to go forward with,” I said and, thankfully, it sounded like I actually had some preliminary thoughts.

  “Good, then. Good,” Preston said. “Keep me advised.”

  As he walked away, a flash of brilliance struck me.

  “Preston?” I called. When he turned around, I said, “Some of the employees said they’d like to take a half-hour lunch, instead of an hour, so they can get off sooner.”

  “Really?”

  I nodded. “It’s a big deal to them.”

  He squinted, tilted his head right, then left, and said, “I don’t see any reason why we can’t do that. Thank you, Haley. Keep up the good work.”

  I love this project.

  “Hey, Dana.” Cliff ambled over.

  “It’s Haley,” I said.

  “Yeah, okay, so how’s it going?” he asked.

  Cliff didn’t seem like a bad guy, really. Maybe a little weird, but aren’t we all, in our own way?

  Everyone except for me, of course.

  “The Sci-Fi Channel’s running an X-Files marathon,” Cliff said. “Did you catch it last night?”

  “Missed it,” I said as I heaved another box of plates off the U-boat.

  “Oh, man, I saw the episode where Fox and Dana get drugged or something, and they think they’re somewhere else, like, someplace different or something,” he said. “It’s my all-time favorite.”

  “Sounds like a dream come true to me, too,” I said.

  “So, like, I’m working over in men’s wear,” he said, nodding toward the other side of the store. “It’s almost lunch time.”

  No need to look at my watch. Since I’d been checking it every two minutes, I knew my lunch hour was eight minutes away.

  “You want to go get something to eat?” he asked. “I know this really great place.”

  I didn’t figure Cliff as the kind of guy who’d know a really great place to do anything—except maybe score some dope—but maybe I was wrong.

  I decided not to chance it.

  “Some other time,” I told him.

  “Yeah, okay, sure, Dana,” he said.

  “It’s Haley.”

  He waved and strolled away.

  I knelt down to get another box from the bottom shelf of the U-boat when I heard Preston’s voice. Since I’d already spoken with him a few minutes ago, I didn’t see why I should subject myself to another conversation with him. He might want me to take on another project or something.

  I eased backward, keeping low, and slipped around the back of the display table. I heard another voice, and realized he was talking to someone. Another man who sounded familiar.

  In big-time stealth mode, I crouched lower and leaned forward ever so slightly.

  Oh my God. Detective Dailey.

  I jumped back.

  What was he doing here again? Why was Preston bringing him to this end of the store? Nothing here had anything to do with the murder—except maybe for me.

  I spun around and duck-walked at high speed—a technique I taught myself to enhance my own personal brand of customer service—and slipped through the double doors into the stock room.

  No way—no possible way—was I going to talk to Detective Dailey again. He and his dog-breath partner had nearly ruined my day yesterday, and I wasn’t going through that again.

  Of course, I could lawyer up. I could flat-out refuse to talk to him. But that would only make me look guilty and possibly cause him to pursue me as a suspect more intensely. Better to dodge him—at least until he showed up with an arrest warrant.

  I dashed through the stock room to the doors that opened near the customer service booth on the other side of the store, then slipped into the employee breakroom, grabbed my purse, and clocked out.

  Cliff walked in.

  “Hey, Dana,” he said. “How’s it going?”

  “I’ve got to go,” I said, stepping around him.

  “You want to go get something to eat?” he asked.

  Hadn’t I already covered this with him?

  “I know this really great place,” he said.

  Yeah, we’d covered this. And he was wasting my time. Preston and Detective Dailey could walk through the door any second—or worse, Detective Webster.

  Cliff pointed. “It’s kind of a long way from here, but the food is, well, you know, it’s pretty good.”

  He had me at a long way from here.

  “Okay, fine, let’s go,” I said.

  I hooked his arm and pulled him through the stock room, out the back, and around the building to the front parking lot.

  “You drive,” I said, thinking it better to leave my car here so the detectives would think I was in the store or somewhere nearby.

  “Sure, Dana,” Cliff said. “I’ve got a sweet ride.”

  Cliff walked slow, really slow. Annoyingly slow. But I was afraid being seen dragging him through the parking lot like a dog on a leash might attract undue attention.

  His sweet ride turned out to be a dinged-up, white Ford Taurus that had probably been new back before I got a driver’s license.

  “Get in,” Cliff called from the driver’s side. “It’s not locked.”

  Probably just as well.

  I got in. The car’s interior was worn and battered. Fast-food bags and wrappers littered the back seat, and the distinctive scent that had permeated the cloth seats made me think that Cliff smoked his way to and from work—and not the kind of smokes you can buy in a grocery or convenience store.

  “I got a great deal on it,” he said, patting the steering wheel. “It was, like, wrecked or something, near L.A.”

  Cliff started the car and we headed out. I bounced in my seat, anxious to put a great distance between me and the homicide detectives.

  Just what would happen when my lunch break ended and I had to go back to the store, I didn’t know. I’d worry about that in an hour.

  We crossed the parking lot. Cliff steered into a slot outside a Pizza Hut and killed the engine.

  “This is it?” I’m pretty sure I screamed that. “This is the restaurant that’s a long way from the store?”

  “Well, sometimes I walk,” Cliff said. “It’s farther if you walk.”

  There was probably a good argument against that statement, but I was too flustered to think of it.

  I needed a Plan B.

  I couldn’t count on Cliff to formulate a Plan B—we’d probably end up back in the Holt’s breakroom—so I came up with one myself.

  “Look,” I said. “I need to get my tire fixed. Do you know a tire store that’s a long way from here?”

  “Sure.”

  “Listen carefully, Cliff. Focus. When I say a long way from here, I mean it’s not in this shopping center. Got it?”

  He nodded. “Yeah, sure. I’ve got it.”

  “Okay, where is it?”

  “Well, I’m not sure.”

  “Crap . . .”

  I pulled out my phone and found a tire store on Warm Springs Road.

  “Look, Cliff,” I said. “I want you to drive me to my car, then follow me to the tire store. Okay?”

  “Sure,” he said.

  He made no move to start the car. I was tempted to reach across him, open his door, and push him out. I restrained myself.

  “We need to go now,” I said.

  “You want to go get something to eat?” he asked. “I know this really great place.”

  I hate my life.

  “We need to go now, Cliff. You know, as in, right this very minute,” I said, and managed not to scream. “As in, start the car now.”

  “Okay, Dana, sure, whatever you say.”

  Cliff drove t
o the other side of the parking lot and, under my direction, pulled up near my car. I looked around and, thankfully, didn’t see Detectives Dailey or Webster.

  I reminded Cliff—twice—to follow me, then backed out of the space and headed for the tire store.

  I liked Plan B better, anyway, I had decided as I’d entered the address into my GPS. If the detectives didn’t see my car in the parking lot—I was sure they’d accessed my DMV file in California and knew the make, model, and plate number for my Honda—maybe they’d think I’d left for the day.

  Of course, that only postponed my problem rather than solving it, but I’d take it.

  The guy at the tire store said my tire would be repaired and mounted on my car by the end of the day. I reported this to Cliff as I climbed into his Taurus again.

  “Cool,” he said. “So, listen, do you want to get some lunch? I know this great place.”

  Sure I’d end up at the Pizza Hut again, I said no.

  “There’s bound to be a restaurant around here somewhere,” I said.

  Warm Springs Road was crowded with businesses of all sorts. We found a sandwich shop within a couple of blocks and went inside. Since I was dining with Cliff—rather than with a girl who was skinnier than me and would make me feel like a recovered anorexic at a Thanksgiving buffet if I ordered what I really wanted—I got chili cheese fries, a hot dog, and a banana split.

  Cliff got a salad.

  I didn’t care.

  “You know, Dana, working at Holt’s is just something I’m doing for right now,” Cliff said as we sat down at a table with our food. “I’m trying to get on the highway patrol.”

  “Good luck with that.”

  It came out sounding kind of sarcastic.

  Cliff didn’t notice.

  “But, what I’m really doing is ufology,” he said.

  I paused, a chili-drenched French fry halfway to my lips. “U—what?”

  “Ufology. You know, the study of UFOs.”

  Why didn’t that surprise me?

  “I’m training to be an investigator. I’ve got a field kit and everything. You know, for investigating,” he said.