Murder's Last Resort

by Marta Chausée

  “Really, why?” I asked.

  “He was a good guy, always attentive, ever the gentleman. He made me feel like a woman, yet he never went too far. Besides, we both loved classic cars. And, he was one hell of a golfer. He taught me a lot about swinging a club.”

  I bet—if that’s what you call it these days.

  “Yup,” I said, “old Vaccar was almost a pro, all right.”

  She picked at her now cold food, dabbed at her mustache with her napkin and claimed she was full. She got up to leave and I stood, as well. Unexpectedly, she reached out, gave me a hearty hug and whispered in my ear, “You be careful, Maya French. Who knew you could be such a sweet friend? You mean a lot to me.”

  What was I supposed to do with that? I sat back down, my feathers simultaneously ruffled and smoothed. As I watched her shuffle out, I got the check, added a tip and signed it to French’s account.

  Chapter 53

  My meeting with Alana drained me, and I almost broke my neck on a turtle sculpture on my way out of Papa’s. I sat in the lobby, examining the scuff on my sandal and rubbing my toes again. I needed a moment to relax before I attempted a visit with Frankie Messina.

  Relax. How did a person do that with the weight of three murders and a missing husband on her shoulders? It wasn’t all on me, of course, but itfelt like it was. Whatever top-notch police work Rick Wells and Tom Koenig were doing, it was artfully hidden from my view. They could have clued me in, but they were not that kind. I got the feeling they didn’t much care about Maya French and might even be happy to see her land in the Silver Pines corpse pile.

  I had to call on Frankie Messina to give him my condolences and to hear what he had to say about Linda’s death. He had a motive to kill his wife, I now knew. Macho guys like him didn’t take well to being cuckolded. Heck, he might have killed Torrey, too. His high up friends in bad places might have helped him on both counts. They knew how to get jobs like this done.

  I was near the lobby bar, once again. The jazz riffs from the trio and the scent of tropical flowers and sun tan oil filled the air. It would have been a swell place to relax, had I not felt so jumpy. My waist was itching. I tried to maintain a lady-like demeanor and not scratch.

  Instead, I focused on my navel with an old meditation technique. Breathe in, breathe out. On the exhale, let go. On the inhale, let God. It worked for a while, then it became: on the inhale, where’s French? on the exhale, what now?

  I got up and called Messina from a house phone to announce my arrival. No answer. It went straight into voice mail. He probably had the phone off the hook.

  I called little Pam, French’s secretary, and asked her if she had the info I had requested? She swore she was on it, working as hard as she could. I told her to dig deep, call whomever was necessary, and tell them it was a rush job. This couldn’t wait much longer.

  I had the hotel operator give me an outside line. I called the Walgreen’s where the pantyhose on French’s desk had been purchased. I asked for the manager, an older woman who had been pleasant to me on the first go-round. Instead, I got a manager on duty, some guy with a local drawl, who seemed to resent not only working the evening shift, but also me, for asking him to actually do something. His league was probably bowling tonight at Kissimmee Lanes and he was stuck at work. He put me on hold long enough to hang up on me.

  Hah! He couldn’t get rid of me that easy. I called back. He told me to hold on again—his boss’s papers were in a messy mound on her desk and he couldn’t find what I needed. I requested that he, this time, not put the phone on hold and lay it on the desk, until he could get back to me. It worked.

  A few minutes later, with a martyred sigh, he told me he had the register tape. The pantyhose had been purchased eight days ago, three pairs, in the middle of the day. Even though he was a pill, he had come through for me. I was thanking him for his trouble, when he hung up on me, mid-sentence. Some people had lousy attitudes. Bad attitudes in Central Florida were no worse than bad attitudes in Southern California, they only sounded different—slower and more drawn out.

  I tried to reach Messina one more time. No dice. I wished I had a pair of dice. I was almost ready to toss them. The dots on each die were starting to add up.

  I gave up on seeing Messina just now and headed to Jake’s office. “Hi, you!” I said, as I stuck my head in his door. “Is this a good time?”

  “Oh sure, Maya. I was just thinking about you. I ordered something from room service. You can share it with me before I walk you back home.”

  “Thanks,” I said, sitting in a club chair in front of his desk, “but I’m not hungry. Just had a bite with Alana and my stomach is unsettled.”

  “Here,” he said, reaching in his pocket and handing me a roll of something. “Have a Rolaid. Let it roll around in your stomach and aid you.”

  “Why can’t it roll around the resort and aid me in finding the murderers?” I asked.

  “You can give it a try, Maya,” he said, “but I doubt it will roll too far.” He leaned back in his chair, and admonished me. “Why can’t you leave this to the police, Maya? Just let it go.”

  “No, Jake. It’s not that simple. I must figure this out. I have to,” I said. Just then, a young man wearing a tuxedo rolled in a serving cart, and on it were a burger, chips and a cherry Coke.

  “Will there be anything else, sir,” he asked, batting his big, brown, velvety eyes at Jake.

  I looked away, taking an interest in my manicure. Jake signed for the food and the server left. Jake looked at me and grinned, while he patted the left side of his chest with his right hand and whispered, “Be still, my heart.”

  “Oh gee,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Is that all you ever think about?”

  “No,” Jake said, “sometimes I think about what people look like naked.” He paused. “I also think about you, Maya, and how you’re making yourself crazy over this. Do you mind?” he asked and turned toward his meal.

  “No, go right ahead,” I said. “Bon appetit.”

  “Thanks,” he replied, biting into his big, juicy burger with all the fixings, “Are you sure you don’t want to join me?”

  “Really, Jake, no. It smells delicious but I couldn’t.” I twirled my chair left and right. Between bites, Jake spoke of a thousand things, just not the murders. I knew he was trying to keep my mind off French. It worked. I didn’t think of him for the eight minutes I watched Jake scarf his burger, fries and Coke like a famished teenager on weed.

  After he finished his meal, Jake slid open one of his desk drawers and pulled out a flat box that looked like it housed foreign chocolates.

  “Here,” he said, “take one. I know you’re not going to turn down chocolates filled with cognac, no matter what shape your stomach is in. Besides, these things cure upset stomachs.”

  “I’ve heard that,” I answered, as I reached for one and popped it in my mouth.

  “Here, take another,” he said. “One for the road.”

  I didn’t resist. There wasn’t one situation in life that couldn’t be improved by good chocolate. If it was good enough for the ancient Mayans, it was good enough for the present day Maya.

  Finally, Jake locked his office and, arm in arm, we walked through the sculpture garden, to my little house on the lake. I wasn’t going toe to toe with that armadillo, turtle or mama goose again alone, not when I had a big, hunky guy to steer me out of danger.

  Chapter 54

  Jake deposited me back in my house, secured the perimeter and then went back to work. I knew I should get back to work, too, on solving the murders. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t face them right now. I needed a break from all that crap before the remaining circuitry in my brain fried completely.

  I had to occupy myself with something else for a little while. But what? The murders, French’s disappearance, reappearance and re-disappearance consumed every ounce of my gray matter. I could feel one of my tension headaches coming on, starting as blurred vision in my right eye. I took two Tylenol and
stretched out on the living room sofa for a few minutes.

  I never did fall asleep or stop thinking about the murders. I was restless, I was agitated, I was spinning my wheels and burning rubber. I picked up the phone and dialed Lily.

  “Lily, help!” I cried into the phone. “I’m going nuts. N-u-t-s, nuts.”

  “Oh dear!” she said, her voice warm and sympathetic. “What can I do to help?”

  “Come visit me, Lily,” I requested, “I know I should be working on all the clues I’ve gathered but I can’t seem to face one more moment of any of it right now. It’s all running together in my head and it looks like a Jackson Pollock painting in there.”

  “Speaking of painting, I was just finishing up an oil. Let me clean up and I’ll be right over.”

  “Thank you, sweetie. I can’t wait,” I said. “Don’t be surprised if I fall all over you in gratitude when you arrive.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief. Lily would distract me. She was a dear and, without her, my life in Orlando would have been one-sided and dull. She was my buddy and always up for an adventure when she wasn’t tending to her cutting garden or working on ceramics, oils or mosaics in her studio.

  Sometimes, she let me come play in the studio with her. She had formal training, talent and buckets of patience for my playing at art. I had a kid’s curiosity about creating stuff. She let me feel safe while I set about botching portraits, or firing misshapen blobs of clay that I thought were vases. When I laughed at the hopeless junk I produced, she laughed with me but neverat me.

  She and William lived in a rambling, brick, Grand Floridian home, leased for them by the Norwegian owners of Silver Pines. Its two story, screened-in patio faced the eighteenth hole of the Bay Hill golf course. Each year, for the Bay Hill Classic, their home was the place to be.

  Part of what I so liked about Lily was that she lived large, yet she didn’t care one whit about the outer trappings of success. William was a former executive for American Cola. They had socialized with everyone on Atlanta’s social register for years, before being transferred to Bangkok, then London and, eventually, Rome. When William retired early from Amco, he carved out a nice deal for himself and Lily with the Norwegian Pension Fund and was enjoying a second successful career.

  The doorbell rang. I peeked and saw Lily standing at the front door, a baseball cap on her head and a large canvas leaning against her hip.

  I opened the door. “Hi, Lily, thanks for coming.” We hugged.

  “Hi, Duckie. I could hear the desperation in your voice. Wild murderers couldn’t keep me away.” She placed the canvas against a wall, its blank side facing out.

  “Please, don’t mention the M word, okay?” I asked her. “I’m murdered out at the moment.”

  “I bet. Any luck discovering the identity of the mystery—?” she asked, smiling, and made a choking motion with her hands.

  “No! Not saying the word ‘murderer’ and making a choking sign instead is still alluding to murder. Let’s talk about something else, okay?”

  “Okay,” she agreed and added, “Here, I made a painting for you. Be careful, it’s still wet.” She turned the canvas to face me.

  Against a velvety, plum colored background, there hung an empty noose made of tan pantyhose, the reinforced toes dangling from one side. It looked a little like used condoms.

  “Lovely,” I said, after I inspected it closely. “Just lovely. Doesn’t remind me of murder at all. I’m going to hang it over the fireplace.”

  I propped it against the mantel, stood back and looked at it. I snickered. My reaction made her laugh. That’s what she’d been going for anyway, with her gallows humor. It didn’t take much to amuse us, really. We were easy.

  I brewed us a strong pot of English Teatime and we played cribbage in the den. Sitting there, nibbling madeleines and drinking tea while we poked pegs into a board, made life feel almost normal.

  “So, Maya, you seem a little better now,” Lily said, after a while.

  “Better than when you got here, yes,” I said.

  “So, what accounts for the change, dearie?”

  “You came right over. You made me laugh. I don’t feel alone anymore. Plus, sitting here relaxing with you, a few puzzle pieces fell into place. I have an idea who the killer is but I need a bit more time to get the details straight,” I answered.

  She left me to my thoughts while she dunked a madeleine, then ate it. My thoughts were flitting around like fireflies in a large, glass jar. They kept alighting on the notion of someone wanting prestige and social stature with a big helping of jealousy, lust and greed on the side. The more I tried to concentrate on who did what, the more the fireflies zigged and zagged. No pattern yet, no neon light flashing the answer in my brain, but I was getting close, I could feel it.

  I’d have to mentally discuss this with French. Shortly after he had first been taken away in handcuffs, I started an ongoing inner dialogue with him. Some might have called it guided visualization. Some might have called it wishful thinking. Some might have described it as water on the brain. To me, it was a lifesaver. If I couldn’t talk with French in person, talking with him in my head was the next best thing.

  Lily and I watched part of “Dial M for Murder” on VHS. It was easy to buy evil deeds on celluloid. How had real life become so murderous?

  A while later, Lily, affecting a Southern accent, said, “It’s been fun but I gotta run. I have to rustle up some grub for my man.”

  “Sure,” I said. “You better go.”

  “Jake will be here soon, won’t he?” she asked.

  “Yup,” I answered. “He’s due back any minute. I’ll be okay. Give my love to William.”

  I set a new kettle of water on to boil and, like clockwork, a few minutes later, Jake walked in the front door. We had our tea. He snarfed up the leftover madeleines. We talked a little and then it was time to get ready for the farewell Sapphire event of the conference at Orange 43. We cleared the dishes and split up to change into our party duds.

  The party had a 70s theme and French and I had bought vintage costumes weeks ago. It was easy for me; all I needed was a clingy, spaghetti-strapped, knee-length polyester dress with a slit up one side, dancing shoes, pouffy hair and heavy eye makeup. Jake came out of his wing of the house in French’s costume: a three-piece, white polyester, bell bottomed suit, black shirt, gold chain, platform boots and a blond afro wig. French couldn’t have worn it better himself.

  Going to a disco was the last thing I would have chosen to do, but this event had been planned for over a year. The Sapphire Manager of 1985 would be announced tonight. The prize was a $50,000 bonus plus a trip around the world, all expenses paid.

  It made sense to have the final Sapphire event at the disco. Dancing was fun, upbeat, exhilarating. It was a vacation sport enjoyed by most people at hotels and resorts. People who wouldn’t lift an ankle to scratch a mosquito bite at home, found the will to get up and boogie at a hopping hotel nightclub. Nothing said good times like laser lights, a fog machine and a sparkling disco ball hanging from the center of a mirrored ceiling.

  Jake and I walked to the hotel along the lake in the moist night air, past where Linda Messina’s body had been dumped. The entrance to the disco was fifty feet away. As we approached the unmarked, industrial, steel door to Orange 43, we could feel the bass thumping and throbbing from inside.

  “Man, you know how I hate noisy nightclubs,” Jake said. “The things I do for you, Maya.”

  “Yes, my love,” I answered, “and I’m grateful. You know that.”

  He pulled two bright yellow, squishy earplugs out of his vest pocket and stuffed one into each ear.

  “If you need my attention, Maya, you’re going to have to tap me on the shoulder.”

  I nodded and gave him the thumbs up. Might as well start the sign language now. The host greeted us and took us to a table in the back. The place wasn’t full yet but people were trickling in.

  I saw a lot of familiar Sapphire faces. Some wer
e missing but would arrive later. Some were missing for good. I didn’t want to sit around when the music was so inviting. The toga-clad waitress took our drink order. I took Jake’s hand and led him to the dance floor. My thoughts were always more fluid while I was in motion.

  As I danced, I thought about women and what motivates them. It’s said that men seek admiration while women seek love. It’s said that women love money, therefore, they love men with money. I knew there was plenty of moola swirling around the world of Sapphire Resorts.

  Most people seemed happy enough to climb the corporate ladder the usual way—slow, steady progress to the top, where the elusive brass ring dangled from the highest atrium ceiling.

  Some people didn’t want to trudge up the rungs one at a time. Some people wanted to float to the top like Peter Pan, rigged to a hidden belt by monofilament, and snatch that ring on a fly-by. You could never tell who was a Peter Pan, who was a Wendy, who was as innocent as Little Red Riding Hood and who was a wolf dressed in a hotel manager’s clothing.

  As I grooved and twirled, my thoughts became clearer. I felt like I was on the cusp of cracking this case, as corny as it sounded, when someone bumped my left hip.

  “Hey!” I said, annoyed, but it was only little Pam laughing and pointing at me, so I broke into a smile.

  “Gotcha!” she said.

  “Did you bring a purse?” she asked me.

  I had no idea what she was saying. She had to repeat it a few times over the pulsing beat. I finally understood and nodded my head. She pulled out some papers she had tucked in one of her pockets and handed them to me.

  I didn’t want to risk leaving them in my purse at our table, so I folded and tucked them between the cups of my bra. Thank heavens for assorted underthings, where you could always hide a lipstick, a few bucks, or, as it turned out, some papers. Before pantyhose, I used to put all my necessities in the top of my nylons. Ah, pantyhose! I loved them but at least one Sapphire guy I knew didn’t look good in them.