Murder's Last Resort

by Marta Chausée

  The phone rang again. This time it was Rick Wells, Orlando PD. He thought it best to keep to the scheduled Manager’s Conference events and activities. Tonight the gala dinner dance would happen, as planned.

  “I’ll be honest with you, Maya,” Rick said, “I’m in an odd position here. You’re a person of interest but you’re also familiar with all the players who will be at this gala.”

  “Thanks for calling me interesting.”

  “You know what I mean,” he snapped. “Tom and I talked it over and we’d like you to keep your eyes and ears open at the party. You know these people. Try to figure out if any of them are acting out of character and then report back to us what you observed.”

  “Will do,” I said. “I’m happy to help,” thinking this was a step in the right direction.

  “The wait staff from the banquet department will be peppered with plainclothes officers,” he continued, “and the hotel security team will be beefed up with OPD guys.”

  Rick believed that Torrey’s murder was an inside job and I agreed. The killer was probably someone within the upper circles of Sapphire Resorts, someone who would stand to benefit from the death of the president of the company.

  Then again, it could have been some woman spurned by Torrey when someone younger and cuter tugged at his babe rader. Torrey had such a short attention span.

  The ball would proceed tonight as planned and look like any other hotel gala. It would be in lock down mode but only a few of us would know it.

  Chapter 11

  In my dressing area, I pulled together my outfit for the dance. Something nagged at me while I laid out my clothes. I called Detective Sergeant Tom Koenig.

  “Tom, I’d like to invite two guests to tonight’s activities. One is my dear friend, Jake, who works right here on the property as the chief accountant, as you may know. The other is Lily Abbott, the wife of William Abbott, who represents the Norwegian owners. You’ve met both Lily and Jake on several occasions.”

  “With all due respect to you, Mrs. French, I’m gonna have to say no. We’ll have enough people to watch tonight without two extra heads bobbin’ around the room.”

  “Oh, Tom,” I fairly simpered, doing my best Blanche DuBois. My experience with Southern men in authority was that they did not like to be challenged by women. But they were so chivalrous—it was either inborn or fed them in their baby formula—that they would do almost anything for you if you knew how to fake that feminine helplessness with enough sincerity.

  “I ask because I need their moral support and help. You and your men will be so busy catching the murderer, that you won’t have any time to look in on little old me,” I said, feeling just a little cheesy. But hey, I needed his okay.

  “You’re right about that,” he answered, sounding proud. He was, no doubt, picturing himself in action later tonight, hunting down his prey like a country bloodhound.

  I continued, “French won’t be there to be my partner and keep me company, so Jake and Lily will take his place, more or less. He’d be pleased to know it takes two people to make up for his absence, wouldn’t he?”

  “Won’t that be one too many people at your table, ma’am?”

  “Tom, you know what?” It was important I sound innocent and not contradictory here. It was all in the tone of voice.

  I pretended I was Melanie Wilkes from Twelve Oaks and continued, “They’ll replace not only French, but Torrey, too. We’re going to invent a reason those two scamps have disappeared, aren’t we? What story have you made up, by the way?”

  “Well, ma’am, I’m right glad you called when you did. You must have that ESP or somethin’. I was just fixin’ to call you.” He paused for a moment.

  “What are we gonna tell ‘em?” he continued. I imagined him scratching the back of his head, deep in a perplexing tangle of non-thoughts.

  I considered. “Let’s say that they’ve been called away on some sort of official Sapphire Resorts business. Let’s borrow another property here in Florida.”

  “Good,” he said.

  “Now, what would require they both leave, yet nothing so big that it would have been on the news?” I asked, more of myself than of him.

  “You mean like the collapsin’ of the atrium bridge that crushed all those poor folks in your Dallas hotel a while back?”

  “Right, right. It can’t be that big, but something serious—something that might jeopardize the reputation of the hotel—something that Red and French need to handle—” I paused. There was only silence on the other end of the line. I had not expected more.

  “I’ve got it!” I said. “We’ll say the Sultan of Barwani was visiting the Coral Gables property, when some jewels belonging to one of his wives went missing from the room safe. Hotel security found the culprit on the engineering staff and returned the jewels. Because the sultan is such a heavy hitter, and he and his entourage mean so much to Sapphire Resorts here and internationally, both Torrey and French were dispatched to smooth things over. They took a chopper from our helipad earlier this evening and are expected back some time later tonight.”

  “I was just thinkin’ somethin’ like that myself,” Tom said.

  Good thing he could not see me rolling my eyes. I still needed his approval before I could invite my friends.

  “Tom, what a great idea that was!” I gushed. How did Southern women do this all day? I was nearly dead from the effort. Yet, I continued, “Now, back to my friends... you’ll see that they not only keep me company, but also they’ll be additional eyes and ears. It’s always good to have a likable extra man at a party. Jake’s a good dancer; he makes the ladies feel beautiful and that may help him gather some interesting information.

  “Lily knows a lot of the Sapphire execs and their spouses already,” I added. “She can pump a person for information faster than a sump pump removes sludge from the back of a mobile home.” I felt sure he would understand the rustic comparison.

  “Well, ma’am. Seein’ as how we wouldn’t want you to be all alone this evenin’, I guess it might be all right,” he said.

  Whew! Mission accomplished. My facial muscles required a splint, after all the phony smiling into the line, but victory was mine.

  Chapter 12

  My usual worries about my looks and my wardrobe were pre-empted by the number of thoughts and questions swirling in my head. I couldn’t get French off my mind. We had to find that killer tonight at the party. We just had to. So many important people were here for the conference, a strangler was on the prowl, and I was all alone and feeling vulnerable. Inside, I was mewling and insecure. Outside, I had ugly, red, itchy splotches all over my midriff; my usual response to stress.

  Normally, French and I thought through big problems together. Often, his was the voice of measured logic, whereas my thoughts and feelings collided with one another.

  My "aha" moments arrived by special delivery. There was an intuitive alchemy in my brain that threw facts and possibilities together into the hopper. Over time, they came out as a cohesive whole. That didn’t mean I wanted to do all the thinking alone. I liked to bounce my abstracts against French’s more traditional canvas for a new combo of shapes, colors and forms.

  My tea sat next to me, getting cold, as I fiddled with my hair and makeup at the dressing table. First things first. Alana Torrey was due back from Atlanta, where her mom had been in surgery.

  Good old Tom from the PD had just called me. He was becoming my new best friend. Pretty amazing, considering he didn’t like high teas, line dancing or chick flicks. Or even me, really. Outside of one little murder, we had nothing in common.

  He told me something that seemed impossible. “Uh, ya know, Mrs. French, Alana doesn’t even know she’s a widow yet.”

  “How could that be?” I couldn't believe it.

  “We couldn’t find a number for her mom or dad. We don’t know what hospital the mom is in.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” I said, as undiplomatic as ever.

  “It may be,�
�� he said, sounding defensive, “but that’s the truth. We know her return flight number because your in-house limo was supposed to pick her up from the airport this afternoon.”

  “I see.” I made an effort to be pleasant. “Is there something I can do to help?” I added, as sweet as Florida orange juice.

  “As a matter of fact, yes. We’re meetin’ her at her gate at the airport and givin’ her the bad news. Would you come with us? It might be useful, havin’ a female there when we tell her.”

  I got his meaning. He and Rick weren’t up to having an hysterical woman on their hands alone. “Sure, Tom,” I replied. “I’ll be happy to come along.”

  Alana and I were not close but we had known one another a long time. I guess you could call us corporate acquaintances. She would most likely go into shock, Tom told me.

  Unless she’s the murderer.

  “Really? How could she be the murderer, when she left for Atlanta during the cocktail reception?” A voice piped up in my head.

  Then another voice argued, “But she could have arranged the murder, couldn’t she? She didn’t have to be there personally to make it happen. She just needed an accomplice. What would motivate an accomplice?”

  There were so many possibilities—the promise of position, the promise of power, the promise of prestige, the promise of Alana. My mind darted from Alana and the promises to what would likely happen next.

  Alana would probably break down only a little, if at all, at the airport, being the disciplined lady that she was. She would ask to be excused from the evening’s festivities. We would have to make a plausible excuse for her. That would be odd. Now there would be three key people missing from the formal affair. Would the other guests buy our stories? Probably. We could easily say Alana had decided to stay on with her mother for another day.

  My mind skipped back to French. Why did he have that pesky receipt and the pantyhose box on his desk? Could French have thrown a rod somewhere in that sleek Maserati brain of his? As soon as he got out of jail, would he turn on me like a rabid squirrel? Would he kill me, too? Who really knows another person?

  * * *

  Rick and Tom need not have worried about Alana making a scene or being hard to comfort. She almost walked past us as she deplaned but I called out to her. She looked surprised to see me and smiled at first. Then, alarm registered on her face. Rick delivered the bad news and she froze for a brief moment, then reached for his right forearm in the most delicate and proper manner. Looking down at his badge and then into his face with her china blue eyes, she blinked hard a few times and in her soft, Georgia peach drawl, said, “Thank you, Chief Wells, for your sensitivity. I feel like I’m in a bad dream.” I felt like I might have fainted, had I been given that news about my husband. She was taking this well.

  She paused, staring into space, her voice small. “Thank you for bringing Maya along.”

  With that, she turned to me and slipped her arm under mine. We walked to the baggage carousel in silence, her high heels clicking in a lonely sort of way down the highly polished, linoleum floors.

  * * *

  Once back on the hotel property, our sad little group pulled up to the private VIP underground entrance of the building. To protect her from prying eyes and to keep her safe, we walked Alana through the back corridors and service elevator to her new, two-story suite, different than the one she had shared with Red.

  Rick and Tom did a quick sweep of the rooms before they left us there. Alana said she needed to go upstairs to think and to rest, but would I please stay in the living room downstairs so she didn’t feel quite so alone?

  I agreed. No need to point out she was not really alone. Plain clothes guards were already in place outside the locked double doors of her suite.

  Chapter 13

  In Alana’s suite, I waited until the crying stopped, then tip-toed upstairs to look in on her. She was resting in the arms of Morpheus, so I left her a note in the kitchen: I’ve gone home to change for tonight. Rick’s men are posted right outside your front doors. You are safe. Call me if you need something. Extension 3101. Love, Maya.

  * * *

  I had so looked forward to tonight. But now, as I walked through this great hotel in all its architectural magnificence, I felt sad. Sad for Alana. Sad for Redmund, even. Sad that evil had to exist in the world. Sad for French, to be a suspect and to be locked up in a jail cell. I felt a big dose of sad for Maya French, too, but that was called self-pity and there was no time for that. Not now.

  I walked through the hotel lobby, stepped onto the down escalator and found myself surrounded by tourists. God bless them. They made our lives possible. Other catty hotel managers and their wives might refer to them as “tourons,” but not French and me. We called them manna from heaven.

  True, they were often not pretty, especially after a day at the pool. Fried by the sun, with white racing stripes decorating the sides of their arms, torsos and legs where the sun had not hit, they often wandered stiffly around the lobby, looking pink, puffy and pitiful.

  Still, they were precious to us. French tried to protect them from themselves. He had initiated the “Sun Squad” at our resort. Attractive young gals and guys, in sun visors, crisp white tennis shorts and matching tank tops, strolled poolside with old-fashioned cigarette trays in front of them. Unlike the hotchacha girls of the 1940s, these youngsters hawked sunscreen, Bullfrog and aloe vera lotion instead of cigars, cigarettes or Tiparillos.

  When the Squad noticed guests snoozing while slowly roasting to a dusky concord grape color, they awakened them and suggested a move to the shade with, perhaps, a soothing refreshment, such as an orange creamsicle smoothie and a foot reflexology massage. Or, how about a strawberry banana rum smoothie and a Balinese body rub under a thatched roof hut, lakeside?

  Life hardly got more decadent than this. Our guests deserved it. They worked hard all year, and this was their one treat to themselves and their families. They wanted to be near Disney, but not drowning in all the typical Disney hoopla.

  Silver Pines was several cuts above anything Disney had to offer—fun and relaxed, yet elegant and grand. Our job was to make our guests feel as special as they were.

  My thoughts of the tourists stopped as my feet touched the bottom of the escalator. I was not far from the OPD’s makeshift office, Meeting Room C. Might as well stop by and say hey, see if they’d come up with anything.

  Things looked less makeshift than the last time I visited. Detectives were hunkered in front of computers, printers and fax machines that the hotel IT Department had brought down for them. Electrical cords ran this way and that, in front of several desks in the room, creating a wavy, criss-cross pattern that looked like a roller-coaster thrill ride for a little Orlando mouse.

  “Mrs. French, so good of you to stop by!” My mouse fantasy was interrupted by Sergeant Tom Koenig. He rose, as best he could, to greet me. “To what do we owe this great honor?” He hiked up his pants by the belt as he spoke.

  “Hi there! I thought I’d just drop by to see if you have anything new.” Old leather belly was none too pleased to see me. I almost felt sorry for him. Almost. He wanted to be rude. But he was on my turf. My husband was his chief suspect but also, technically, his host. Quite a conundrum. Koenig wanted to make me feel small. I could sense a smugness about him, but Southern manners did not allow biting the hand that feeds you. Indirectly, through French, I was his hostess, too.

  Koenig looked uncomfortable. At the same time I entered the room, a well groomed young waiter in formal attire rolled in a large room-service cart, with a white linen tablecloth and one long-stemmed red rose, through the side door of Meeting Room C. He began setting up various sandwiches, a silver punch bowl filled with iced soft drinks and plates of oatmeal raisin and chocolate chip cookies on the banquet table in the back of the room, next to the urns of coffee.

  “Here’s your Monte Cristo sandwich, Sergeant Koenig!” he said, setting a placemat, a napkin and silverware on Koenig’s desk. The waite
r returned to the cart, bent at the waist and opened the door of the heating section beneath the tray. He removed a covered plate and, with a flourish, whisked off the silver warming cover. He placed the sandwich with its elaborate garnish and double order of fries on Sergeant Koenig’s desk.

  “Mmm! That smells good,” I said, smiling at Tom.

  The Sarge turned, so his mountain of girth was between his plate and me. My timing could not have been better for me or worse for him.

  “Enjoy your sandwiches, guys—especially, you, sir!” the waiter said as he wheeled his cart out of the room. “Compliments of Mr. French’s staff and Silver Pines.”

  Nice guy. He nodded and smiled at me before he hurried out.

  Ignoring the waiter, Koenig reached past his plate and took a white sheet of paper from his deck, “We got the goods on the pantyhose. It was manufactured by L’eggs, just as you said. Suntan. Total support.”

  “Just as I predicted,” I answered.

  “Not entirely,” he drawled at me, with that smugness I had sensed when I entered the room. “They were size B.”

  “I don’t believe it,” I said, feigning shocked surprise, though I had already guessed it, after finding the empty pantyhose box on French’s desk.

  “Yup, that’s right. The crime lab in Sanford knows what they’re doin’. If they say Size B, then it’s Size B. No question.”

  “Well, I’ll be darned,” I said, acting impressed.

  I wanted to leave now and I wanted to shift the focus from pantyhose to something else. I said my goodbyes and surveyed the banquet table, nabbing an oatmeal cookie on my way out.

  “Everything looks delicious, guys. Enjoy!” I said as I left, rubbing it in that they were French’s guests. Even in absentia, he was treating them royally, something that could probably not be said of the way they were treating him back in his cell on Orange Avenue.