by J. C. Eaton
Kimberlynn Warren confessed to her role. Are you near the wildfire? Call me.
My palms were sweating and my pulse was racing. There was a good chance Nate and Marshall were in a far more dangerous predicament than staving off an octogenarian with a walker.
Taylor was no longer at the reception desk when I got to the lobby. Instead, she was standing in front of the fountain staring at the parking lot. The KPHO van had just pulled away. I moved to the farthest corner of the room, plunked myself down on a cushy chair, and pushed the KPHO app. In seconds, I read the “Breaking News” that was scrolled across my screen in a bright red ribbon.
AREA SHERIFFS’ DEPARTMENTS EVACUATE RESIDENTS
IN THE HIGH COUNTRY. GILA AND MARICOPA
COUNTY DEPUTIES CALLED TO RESPOND.
Chapter 36
The story beneath the scrolling ribbon wasn’t good. A wildfire had started somewhere south of Gisela, near Payson, and was quickly heading south to Jake’s Corner. That wasn’t too far from Punkin Center, and it was where Nate and Marshall’s rendezvous with the deputy sheriffs was supposed to take place. To make matters worse, the winds kept shifting and that meant more evacuations. Many Phoenix residents had cabins and parked trailers in the area. Not to mention the number of campgrounds that quickly filled up this time of year. My best guess was that people would have to be evacuated northeast of Payson toward Holbrook or west near Camp Verde.
I kept telling myself to relax. Nate and Marshall weren’t about to be caught up in it. More than likely, their entire operation would be canceled if things really got out of hand. I wasn’t going to bother Augusta again when I heard Gertie’s voice.
“Miss Kimball. We were looking all over for you. Trudy and I were barely out of the dining room when that commotion began. You didn’t see us, but we went up to the third floor. Got wind of the action from Yolanda. Usually you can’t trust what that batty old fool has to say, but this time she was insistent. Said Mario Aquilino threw Kimberlynn Warren down the hatch. We had to see for ourselves.”
“Yes,” Trudy added. “We saw all right. Mario had her cornered like a cockroach, but she was still vertical when we got there. We tried to motion to you, but you didn’t see us. Then you left and we came downstairs, figuring you’d be here. So, do you think she did it? Kimberlynn, I mean? Killed Sharon?”
“I think she knows who did. Listen, I have to make a call. If I find out anything, I promise, I’ll let you know.”
Gertie grabbed her sister by the arm. “We’ll wait by the door. When Kimberlynn gets carted out of here, we’ll know. Meanwhile, I can see her over there by the counter. She’s not going anywhere with those posse volunteers breathing down her neck.”
I looked at the reception desk and, sure enough, Kimberlynn had two new lion tamers in front of her. Stretching my shoulders against the soft padding from the chair, I paused for a brief second. Then I took out my phone and called Augusta.
She answered before I spoke. “Still no word from them, Phee. Did you know there was a wildfire up near there? Just got an alert on my phone. What’s going on at your end?”
“Kimberlynn confessed to being involved in this mess but not in front of the camera. Darn it all.”
“She admitted to murder?”
“Not murder. Embezzlement and a key role in that diamond heist. But she knows who the killer is. Look, the second you hear anything from Nate or Marshall, call me.”
“Phee, that boyfriend of yours will call you first. I guarantee it. He’s probably questioning that Carolyn woman with those expensive nails. Bartender my patootie. She’s a fancy salon girl after all. And I’m not referring to one of those Old West salons either. I’m thinking high-class nail place. What a rip-off.”
“Um, most fancy salons don’t think of themselves that way. They—oh my gosh. I just thought of something. I’ve got to go.”
I hit the end icon and headed straight for Taylor. She was still standing where I last saw her, by the fountain.
“Taylor, this is important. Do you remember the name of that fancy nail salon where the blondes wanted you to go?”
“It was a spa in Fountain Hills. Like, I’m about to drive way over there for a manicure that costs more than my rent. The place was called La Tourelle and had a logo of a tower. Hold on. I left the card in my bag. You can have it. I certainly won’t be using it.”
Taylor took a few steps to the reception desk, reached over the counter, grabbed her bag, and pulled out the card.
“Thanks,” I said.
“No problem. I’d better get back to work.”
I glanced at the card and tucked it in my pocket. Two elderly residents walked past me, each one louder than the other.
“Hell of a wildfire, huh? Surprised they haven’t named it yet.”
“Maybe they ran out of names. They have to name hurricanes and winter storms. Next thing you know they’ll be naming dust storms.”
The TV in the lounge area adjacent to the lobby must have been showing the breaking news, so I walked into the room. Sure enough, a scene of burning brush and smoke took up the entire screen. The announcer, who was most probably piloting the helicopter, was trying to explain to the viewers what was going on. I seemed to have arrived just as the video was ending.
I sauntered back to the lobby in time to see Kimberlynn being escorted out of the building by a sheriff’s deputy. Behind her, a small red-haired man carrying a briefcase shouted out, “We can do this at another time, Ms. Warren. I’ll inform my client.”
“Don’t you dare.” Her voice all but bounced off the walls. “I’ll inform him. Don’t do anything.”
Just then, a text message came through on my phone. Finally. It was from Marshall.
Carlington scared off by dirt bikes. Wildfire evac trumped sting. Headed back.
I read the text twice and tried to return the call, but it went to voice mail. If I understood the message correctly, it meant Dean Carlington never secured his “diamond.” For all I knew, he was on his way back to California, and probably angry as hell.
The off-roaders. It can’t be a coincidence.
La Tourelle’s card was in my pocket, and I couldn’t get my hands on it fast enough. It was one of those ostentatious cards with frilly gold lettering that surrounded a lovely rendering of a medieval tower. The name on the bottom of the card read “Alonso Melhorn, owner.” I froze. It was something Augusta had said. Something I dismissed at the time. “You’ll never guess who used to be on the board of Wolters Stork. Alonso M . . .”
My God! Lon is short for Alonso. The diamond heists and the secret deal at the Lillian were being orchestrated by one hell of a family. So much for the darling Melhorns. All five of them. No wonder those blondes can afford pricy mani-pedis and herbal cures and oh what the hell! They’re probably soaking in a mud bath right now.
“Taylor! Do you know their last names?” I was shouting, even though I was only a few feet from her.
“Whose last names? Which residents?”
“No. Not residents. Tina and Tanya.”
“Sure,” she said. “It’s Olsen.”
My mouth felt as if someone had stuffed it with cotton. Nothing came out. I nodded and hurried to my car. Again, I tried Marshall on the phone, but no luck. Same with Nate. I sent them both the same text.
Drive to La Tourelle in Fountain Hills. Got ’em.
Then I called Augusta and explained. Or so I thought.
“Phee, I don’t understand a word you’re saying. You’re on your way to a spa in Fountain Hills? Now?”
“I know who the killers are.”
I didn’t give Augusta a chance to say anything else. I typed La Tourelle’s address into my GPS and drove out of the Lillian faster than any resident had driven in years. I wasn’t exactly sure what I was going to do once I confronted the blondes at that spa, but I’d think of something during the hour-long drive.
It was all starting to make sense. Everything had been right in front of me all along, and I never p
ut it together. Tina and Tanya were Carolyn’s daughters. And Mary’s granddaughters. And Lon’s step-granddaughters. Was that what you called it? And they were more than that. They were murderers.
By the time I got off the 101 and onto Frank Lloyd Wright Boulevard, I had either unraveled the entire scheme or created one that would’ve made Gillian Flynn proud. I followed the voice on my GPS and took the long topiary-lined driveway to La Tourelle, a breathtaking French manor house that looked as if it was magically transported to the Southwest.
Wasting no time, I parked in front, took the white stone stairs two at a time, and entered the grand reception room as if I had crossed a finish line.
“Quick,” I said to a petite, dark-haired woman at the front desk. “I must locate Tina and Tanya Olsen. Family emergency.”
The woman didn’t blink an eye. “I’m sorry. Our guests cannot be interrupted. Who did you say you were?”
“I’m a family friend and this is urgent.”
The woman lifted the receiver of her phone and made a call. Her voice was so low I had trouble understanding what she was saying.
When she hung up, she looked directly at me. “I’m afraid the ladies are in the tranquility room. Cucumber soaking baths. You’ll have to wait.”
She motioned to an area on the left that was reserved for visitors, not guests.
“But this can’t wait.”
“As soon as the ladies have exited the tranquility area, I will let them know they have a visitor.”
She walked away without bothering to ask my name. At least something was in my favor. I plunked myself down on one of the leather couches and picked up a brochure. If nothing else, La Tourelle was certainly spectacular. As I thumbed through the photos of treatment and meditation rooms, a double-folded paper appeared. It was a map of the entire building. A full four-page, pull-out map.
I bit my lower lip and looked closely. The tranquility corridor was past the aroma-enhancing atrium, only a few yards from where I was seated. I waited quietly until I was certain no one would see me, especially that miserable petite woman. Then I made my way to the soaking baths.
The tranquility area was a circular courtyard that boasted its own rainforest. Small corridors branched out with signs indicating the treatment. Mud baths, eucalyptus baths, rose petal immersion baths. And all those years, I suffered with a bar of ivory soap and a shared family bathroom.
I located the sign for cucumber soaks and walked in. A tall woman in her late fifties or early sixties pointed to a locker area and handed me a white terry cloth robe. “May I have your name please, so I can note it on the schedule?”
“I, um, er . . .”
“Marisela! I need some more towels. Now!”
The woman stepped back and apologized. “I’ll be right back.”
The second she went into the room off to the right, I entered the only other doorway and prayed the blondes would still be there.
The old adage “Be careful what you wish for” should have come to mind, but unfortunately it didn’t.
Tina and Tanya had toweled off and were wrapped in the same luxurious terry cloth robes as the one Marisela offered me.
I put my robe on a chair and took a breath. “It’s over. I know who you are and what you’ve done.”
One of the blondes, I wasn’t sure which, replied, “Aren’t you that Kimball woman from the Lillian? What are you talking about?”
“Diamond theft and murder. Or should I say, diamond thefts and murders?”
The blondes looked at each other and, in that brief second, I knew I was in trouble. What the hell was I doing in a room with two cold-blooded killers? I glanced around to make sure there were no plastic bags in sight. Then I took a step and prayed.
Chapter 37
“It would be a shame for someone to have an accident in here,” one of the blondes said. “Imagine slipping on the floor and hitting your head on the top of the French soaker tub.”
I didn’t like where this was going.
Then the other sister spoke. “So you figured it out, huh? I’ll give you credit for that much. Those moronic sheriff deputies were clueless.”
“Almost as bad as the police back in Belgium,” the other one added.
I slowly backed away from the tubs. “I can understand killing Sharon. She must have figured out the entire scheme, too, once she read that letter Kimberlynn left on the counter. She confronted Kimberlynn, didn’t she?”
“Meddlesome old woman. Right, Tanya?”
“Yeah. She should’ve stuck to knitting or watching soap operas. When Kimberlynn told us what Sharon was going to do, we had no choice.”
“Going to do?”
“Yeah,” Tanya said. “That blabbermouth was going to call the TV stations.”
I swallowed a lump in my throat. “So you made sure she didn’t.”
“Damn straight,” Tina replied.
I kept backing up, inch by inch, hoping my back would eventually touch the door and I could get the heck out of there. “Okay. Fine. But what I really don’t understand is why you killed Quentin. He was the one who figured out how and where to hide the diamonds so the buyers wouldn’t be seen with the seller.”
The sisters looked at each other. “Quentin drew up the schematics for the heist but got a little too greedy for our mother’s liking. And our grandmother’s. He demanded a bigger cut of the profits and that meant there wouldn’t be enough money for my family’s business to merge with Wolters Stork.”
“So, um, Quentin was never a part of the plan to skim money from the resort retirement residents and own a part of the new business?”
“Nope. All he wanted was the money. And he threatened to go public with all of this if we didn’t ante up.”
Oldest story in the book. Greed. “I think your double little twist tops them all. You were the ones on the dirt bikes scaring away the buyers who followed the coordinates to that spot in the desert. Once they were gone, you took the diamonds for yourselves. And one of you was stalking me that day near the outcrop. Clever and diabolical.”
“And unable to prove,” Tina said.
“I’m not so sure. My guess is one of those diamonds is in this very room.”
Although, if you knew it was a very clever fake meant for the latest buyer you scared off, you’d need another hour in a soaking bath to recover from the shock.
The second I said the word “room,” I regretted it. Tina and Tanya lunged at me. But not before I screamed at the top of my lungs, “MARISELA! WE NEED TOWELS NOW! NOW! HURRY UP!”
If the blondes were motivated to silence me once and for all, Marisela was even more motivated to keep her job at La Tourelle. The door burst open, sending all of us toward the large soaker tubs.
“I was on my way,” Marisela said, towels in hand. Then she gasped as she saw Tina and Tanya dragging me closer to the tub.
“Call the police!” I yelled. “Call nine-one-one!”
Instead, Marisela shouted something in Spanish and two other spa attendants came running. At their heels was the petite, dark-haired receptionist.
“These women are murderers,” I shouted. “Don’t just stand there. Get them off me and dial nine-one-one.”
I’m not sure exactly what happened because I was now on the ground with my head leaning against the tub. One good thrust and I’d have a concussion that would last a century. All I remembered was the sound of a gun going off and everyone screaming.
My God! A gunshot. Is that blood running down my cheeks?
It wasn’t blood. It was water. Water from the soaker tub. And the only thing the gun hit was the decorative chandelier that fell to the ground.
“No one move. Except you, Phee. You can move.”
For an instant, I thought I was seeing things. It was Augusta. Augusta stood in the middle of the tranquility spa pointing her Glock or Wesson, or whatever the heck it was, at the blondes. “Think you can towel off your hair and call the police?”
“I, um, er, oh my God, Augusta!
You saved my life.”
“Just dial, will you?”
The Fountain Hills Police arrived at the same time Nate and Marshall made it to La Tourelle. At the sight of me, with dripping wet hair and disheveled clothes, Marshall raced over and hugged me so tight I couldn’t catch my breath. Everyone in the spa was questioned, a process that seemed to last forever. The blondes were taken into custody but no diamond, real or fake, was found in the cucumber spa. The police searched their bags and every possible niche. In addition, they notified the two sheriffs’ departments who were working the case.
“Maybe the diamond is in their car,” one of the officers said.
Then I remembered a myth I’d heard about diamonds. Maybe the blondes had heard it, too.
“Hold on! Check their water bottles and be careful.”
Sure enough, the blue Dasani bottle housed more than purified water. Given the blue bottle, it was hard to see the stone at first, but it was there, all right. Unlike a real diamond, it was easily discernable. The girls never stopped to look.
* * *
By day’s end, two murders were solved and the management merger with Wolters Stork had been thwarted. It would take months, however, before the financial situation could be addressed and the monies belonging to the residents of the Lillian could be restored.
Nate and Marshall didn’t know whether to be upset with me because I had taken such an incredibly stupid risk or be ecstatic because I had rooted out the real killers. But it was Augusta whom I thanked for dropping everything and racing to save me.
“I figured something was going on,” she said, “when I looked up those tax reports for Mr. Williams. That bar in Punkin Center is owned by Mary Olsen. She bought it shortly after the diamond heist. It was the perfect spot for her daughter to run her operation. Too bad the granddaughters doubled-crossed all of them.”
“Wow, when you figure out how many people were involved in this operation, it’s mind boggling.”
