Powdered Grape & Murder: An Oceanside Cozy Mystery - Book 29

by Susan Gillard

  “How long have you known each other?”

  “We all met when we were freshmen in college. We’re all seniors now. Teresa and I have an off-campus apartment. We were hoping to stay there for another year together as we looked for jobs. I guess that’s not going to happen now.”

  “I’ve very sorry for your loss,” Heather said. “And we do want to do everything we can to figure out who did this. Do you know anyone who would want to hurt Teresa?”

  “No,” Jess said. “I mean sometimes we could be a bit loud and annoying, but we stopped once we were called out on it and realized what we were doing. We just liked to have a good time. I can’t think of anyone who would want to kill Teresa. She doesn’t have a crazy ex-boyfriend or anything like that.”

  “And her death is not only sad for you as a friend but will cause problems with your living arrangement?” Heather asked.

  “That’s right,” said Jess, nodding. “I don’t know if I can find another roommate at this time of year. And I don’t know who else I’d want to live with anyway. But I don’t think I could maintain the rent on my own.”

  “What about asking Marigold?” Amy suggested.

  Jess scoffed. “There’s no way Marigold could afford it. She’s so bad with money. And she keeps borrowing it from people. She still owes us both for this trip. And she probably owed Teresa a few thousand dollars at this point. Borrowing for this and that.”

  “That sounds like a lot of money to owe a friend in college,” said Amy.

  Jess shrugged. “Probably. But, anyway, that’s why Marigold can’t be my new roommate.”

  Heather switched topics. “Where were you at the time of Teresa’s fall?”

  “I was still in bed,” Jess said. “I feel pretty lousy about it, but I wasn’t feeling too well that day. I had too much to drink the night before. I know Marigold and Teresa got up and were doing things, but I just stayed in bed. I was in that room there.”

  Heather looked into the adjoining room. It looked the same as the room they were in but as a mirror image. There were two beds in each room.

  “Where did everyone sleep while you were here?” asked Heather.

  “Honestly, because a maid came in and cleaned every day, we kept switching beds. Whoever wanted to go to bed earliest took one room. If someone wanted to stay up really late, then the middle person would go into the first room. If we all wanted to go to sleep at the same time, then we’d each just flop on the nearest bed.”

  “Works for me,” said Amy.

  “I was in there most of that day. At least until I learned that she died. Then I felt even worse,” Jess said, biting her lip. “But Teresa slept in that room last, so we’ve been staying in here now. We’re not sure if we should change rooms or not. Is staying her saying that we can live with her memory? Are we being disrespectful? We can’t really leave town until we know what happened.”

  “I think there’s not a right answer for where you should stay,” said Heather. “Just do what you think is best. And we’ll keep working this case to figure out what happened to your friend.”

  She started looking around the rooms.

  “The detectives asked us to make sure that they took everything of Teresa Ray’s from here.”

  “I think they got everything,” said Jess. “Sometimes we shared toiletries, so I’m not really sure whose toothpaste it is. But all the major stuff is gone. It’s easy to sort the clothes because Teresa loved purple so much.”

  “How did you organize your items between the two rooms?” asked Heather.

  “We just sort of put things wherever it felt right. We used all the dresser drawers. Teresa kept most of her stuff in her suitcase though. She liked to pick through it. Does that matter?”

  Heather stood by the closet of the adjoining room, looking at a black jacket that was hanging amongst the beachwear. There was a tear in the sleeve.

  “Is this your jacket?” Heather asked.

  “No. It’s too big to be mine,” Jess said. “It must be Marigold’s. It’s not purple, and we thought we gathered all of Teresa’s things already. Why?”

  “Do you mind if we take this?” Heather asked. “Just in case it is Teresa’s?”

  “I guess that’s all right,” said Jess.

  “Thank you,” Heather said, wrapping up the interview. “You’ve been very helpful.”

  Amy moved closer to her and saw the hole in the jacket.

  “Very helpful, indeed,” said Amy.

  The Jacket

  Heather and Amy made sure that Ryan and Peters got the jacket they had found. The detectives were both impressed with their work. So far, their interviews with the various hotel guests had not borne fruit.

  As Peters went to bring the jacket in to be analyzed, Heather and Amy helped Ryan conduct some more interviews. Heather knew that it was good to dismiss guests who were staying at the hotel as being involved so they could go home if desired. However, she couldn’t help but be distracted. She didn’t want to hear about how someone on the first floor never encountered the victim before but was astonished by the death. Heather wanted to talk to Marigold again.

  Knowing about Marigold’s money troubles now and finding the jacket was making her look like the prime suspect in Heather’s eyes. Perhaps Marigold had been crying earlier because she felt guilty about what she did, and not because she missed her friend. Perhaps Marigold had decided there was a permanent way to get out of repaying her friend the money she borrowed. Perhaps Marigold had seen her on the balcony and couldn’t resist the opportunity.

  Heather wanted to talk to her again and see what merit these theories had. Last time they spoke, it sounded as if Marigold had gotten breakfast and then wandered around the beach. There were so many people here for spring break that it might be impossible to back up that alibi.

  It was also possible that Jess could also be involved. Maybe she had planted the coat on her friend. Heather didn’t know for what reason that could be, except to throw them off the trail.

  Heather was pleased when they saw Marigold return to the hotel. Ryan asked her to accompany them to a private area where she could answer some questions.

  “You weren’t kidding when you said you were friends with the detectives,” she said to Heather.

  “We’ve been pretty helpful on cases,” Amy said. “They like to keep us around.”

  “Did you find out more about what happened to Teresa?” Marigold asked. “It wasn’t an accident, was it?”

  “We’re currently looking at it as a murder case,” said Ryan,

  Marigold didn’t seem to need tissues for this meeting, though Heather had restocked her purse.

  “It makes more sense about the fall now,” Marigold said. “But I don’t know who would want to hurt her.”

  “You don’t have any idea?” asked Ryan.

  Marigold shook her head. “We were here on vacation. We don’t know people here.”

  “And you didn’t fight with anyone?” Ryan prompted.

  “I mean, the guy who had the room next to us was complaining about the noise. He was overly sensitive. And he was mad. But I didn’t think he would kill Teresa over that.”

  “Why don’t you take us through what you did that day again?” Heather suggested.

  “Okay,” Marigold said. “I got up and got ready for the day. I wanted to get some breakfast. Teresa woke up and said she was going to get ready too, but that I didn’t need to wait. I left and picked up a muffin at a local place. Then I went to the beach for a while.”

  “Did anyone see you there?” Ryan asked.

  “Someone must have. There were a ton of people there,” said Marigold. “But why are you asking this? You can’t think that I did something to hurt Teresa. She was my friend. How could you think that?”

  “She was a friend that you owed a lot of money too,” said Heather.

  “So? She was my friend. She said I could pay her back when I had the money. She wasn’t a loan shark. She was a friend who could borrow mon
ey from her parents that I could use. My parents don’t have that sort of money.”

  “But with Teresa gone, you don’t have to pay her back at all?” Ryan suggested.

  “I don’t know,” Marigold said, stubbornly. “But I wouldn’t have killed my friend.”

  “Did you bring a black jacket with you on vacation?” Heather asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Where did it get ripped?” Heather continued.

  “It got stuck in my suitcase and torn,” Marigold said. “But the weather has been so nice that I haven’t really needed it.”

  “That black jacket might make for a nice disguise if you were heading to the roof and didn’t want to be seen,” Amy suggested.

  “No,” Marigold said. “I was at the beach when Teresa fell. I found out what happened when I came back to the hotel. And I didn’t kill her. I wouldn’t do that to a friend. It must have been the guy in the room next to us. I didn’t realize it at the time. But he was furious. He said he called the front desk.”

  “And he did three times,” said Amy.

  “He said that we’d be sorry for disrupting his vacation,” Marigold said. “I thought that meant calling the desk, but it must have been worse. He must have decided to kill one of us, and Teresa was the one he found. I admit part of me wanted to get out of the hotel that morning because I didn’t run into him, but I didn’t expect him to kill anybody. I just thought he was a cranky guy.”

  Marigold seemed sincere to Heather, but she wasn’t completely sure that she bought this story. The beach alibi was still convenient. There was also still the jacket to consider.

  Then, Ryan received a call from Peters. He left the area to talk to his partner. Heather and Amy stayed with Marigold.

  “It wasn’t me,” she repeated. “And if I have to pick somebody that I think might have done this, then it has to be the guy in the room next door. He was so mad.”

  Ryan returned and told the two P.I.s his news. “The piece of cloth doesn’t match Marigold’s jacket. Peters is going to have forensics do some official tests, but he said that the color isn’t an exact match. If the color isn’t right, then it isn’t the right article of clothing.”

  Heather sighed. “I should have known it wouldn’t be that easy.”

  “It was a solid lead though,” said Ryan.

  “And Toni and Marigold might have given us another one,” said Heather.

  “That’s right,” said Amy. “We need to find this neighbor.”

  Searching for the Neighbor

  Heather and Amy learned that the man in the neighboring room that had a problem with the girls’ noise level was named Rick Connors. He wasn’t in his room, so Heather and Amy tried to learn as much as they could about him from Toni. She didn’t know much. Rick Connors had checked in on Friday alone. He was planning on staying for a week, and he had a room on the fifth floor.

  While Heather and Amy staked out the hotel, Ryan returned to the station to do some more digging. He discovered that Rick Connors was a middle-aged man from Wisconsin that worked in insurance.

  “I’m not sure that sounds like the description of a man who is also a killer at a tropical hotel,” said Amy. “Maybe it’s a front. Like it’s a fake identity.”

  Ryan had said it was interesting that she made that point. There was one reservation that didn’t match a known identity. Ryan was getting this name doublechecked in case it was an error in the system somehow.

  “That would be interesting,” Amy said, as she and Heather sat in the hotel hallway, waiting to see if Rick Connors would return. “What if someone in the hotel is a spy? What if his target was to kill Teresa Ray? What if she were a spy too?”

  “If she were a spy, I think we would have heard something by now,” said Heather.

  “It depends on who she was spying for,” Amy countered.

  “If that person who checked in really did it under a false identity, it might be because he is having an affair or something like that,” said Heather.

  “And there just happened to be a murder at the hotel he chose?” asked Amy.

  Heather shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s hard to figure this case out because Teresa Ray doesn’t have many connections here. It’s hard to see why she would have been killed. Unless her volume level was so offensive to Rick Connors that he had to kill her.”

  “I think he chose a very loud way to kill her if he did it,” Amy said. “There are plenty of quiet ways, but I’m sure there was a scream with this one. And a terrible thump.”

  Heather didn’t want to imagine it and turned her attention to the two people emerging from the elevator. Neither appeared to be Rick Connors, based on the description that Toni had given them.

  This was a couple heading back to the room. The man was burly and in a rush. The woman was dressed all in purple and had curly hair. There was something about this that seemed familiar, but she couldn’t place it.

  “Excuse me,” Heather said. “Have you been staying on the fifth floor?”

  “Looks pretty obvious to me,” the man said.

  “Don’t mind him,” the woman said. “He’s not feeling too well.”

  “Were you here the other night when there was an argument about noise here in this hall?” Heather asked.

  “Boy, were we,” the man said gruffly. “And trying to quiet those girls now was just making it louder. The man with the glasses was just making it worse by shouting.”

  “Did he seem threatening?” asked Heather.

  “Well, I didn’t want to go out in the hall because of it,” the woman responded.

  “Were you here the day of that woman’s death too?” Heather asked.

  “You’re awful nosy, aren’t you?” he asked.

  “It’s our job to be,” said Heather. “We’re private investigators.”

  “Did the hotel hire you to figure out what happened?” asked the woman.

  “Well, I hope you do figure it out, but I’m done talking for now. I want to go in my room and lie down,” said the man.

  “Could we just ask a few more questions?” asked Heather.

  “Not now,” the man barked. He took out his key card and opened the door to his room. He left them without saying goodbye.

  “Don’t mind him. My husband is always grumpy after eating clams. It never sits well with him, but he can’t resist. And we are on an island, I suppose. Once he feels better, we’ll see if we can help you. I’m Bette Broom, by the way.”

  Heather and Amy introduced themselves. Heather was just starting to think that they might still get some information from Bette when her husband began calling for her from inside the hotel room.

  “I better go. We’ll talk soon,” Bette said, before heading into her room herself.

  Heather and Amy watched them go.

  “Do you think they actually saw anything helpful?” asked Amy. “And do you think he’ll actually tell us if he did?”

  “I think he was acting suspiciously,” said Heather.

  She headed over to Rick Connors’s room door and looked at it.

  “But this guy is acting more suspiciously?” said Amy.

  Heather nodded. She didn’t know where Rick Connors was. Maybe it was somewhere perfectly innocent. However, his fight with the victim the day before she died did make him a prime suspect. His not being around to be questioned made her suspect him even more.

  She was started to wonder where on the island he could have gone to and if it was possible that he could have left town when a male voice yelled at them. “Just what are you doing by my room?”

  Complaints

  “Did you hear me?” he asked. “What are you doing by my room?”

  “You’re Rick Connors?” Heather asked.

  “Who wants to know?”

  “I’m Heather Shepherd. This is my partner Amy Givens. We’re private investigators assisting the Key West Police in a murder investigation.”

  “I still don’t see what you’re doing by my door,” he said, stubbornl
y.

  “Do you mind if we talk to you?” asked Heather.

  “Fine,” he said. “But don’t expect me to be happy about it.”

  “I won’t,” said Amy. “I have really low expectations for you.”

  He didn’t like being talked back to, but he opened his hotel room door and allowed the investigators to enter. They all took a seat and looked at one another.

  “So, what do you want to talk to me about?” he asked.

  “The murder, obviously,” said Amy.

  “I didn’t notice anything unusual that day,” Rick Connors said. He paused to clean his glasses.

  “Were you here all that day?” Heather asked. “In order to see anything unusual?”

  “No. I left around breakfast time. I decided to see a museum.”

  “Which one?”

  “The Key West Shipwreck Museum. It seemed fitting at the time.”

  “How so?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  Heather frowned. This was going to be one of those interviews were it felt like pulling teeth to get an answer.

  “Did anyone see you there?” she asked.

  “Many people must have seen me. Did I make an impression on them? Probably not. But I do have my ticket for admission.”

  He took his wallet out of his pocket and removed the ticket, showing it to them. Heather nodded. He had definitely gone to the museum that day, but it didn’t mean that he couldn’t have committed murder before or after his visit.

  “We heard about a fight you the noise the night before she died,” said Heather.

  “If by fight, you mean that those girls were blasting music in the middle of the night and I complained to the front desk, then you’re right.”

  “We mean a little more than that,” said Amy. “We heard you were yelling and threatening them and a staff member had to interview.”

  “I was just yelling at them to be quiet,” he said. “It’s hard enough to sleep as it is. And I called the front desk, and they weren’t doing anything, so I tried to take action. I was just them to quiet down. Then, that girl yelled at me to mind my own business. Then a staff member finally did come and tried to calm things down.”