Late Arrival: A Park Hotel Mystery (The Park Hotel Mysteries Book 4)

by Diane Capri

  “Really? How does that work?”

  I grabbed my cell phone from the table and powered it off. I looked along the side for the card slot. The slot itself was tiny and hard to find.

  Once I’d located it, I plucked a paperclip from the pile of junk I’d dumped onto the coffee table. I bent the paperclip to get one end pointed out and pushed the point into the tiny hole in the slot. This caused a small plastic tray to pop out from the side of the phone.

  Gently, I popped the tiny SIM card from the tray. Most of my world was embedded on that card, and I definitely didn’t want to lose it. I set it carefully on the table. Then I inserted Jeremy’s card into the tray and slid it into my phone. I powered the phone on.

  We waited a few moments until the “enter password” screen popped up. Of course, the card was password protected. After going to so much trouble to conceal the drive, Jeremy wouldn’t leave the data easily available for everyone to access.

  “Bummer,” Ginny said.

  “Yeah.” I entered a couple of number combinations. Jeremy’s birthday, his daughter’s birthday, his wife’s birthday. Nothing worked.

  “Now what do we do?” Ginny asked.

  I shrugged. “Guess I have to find someone who can hack this card.” I eyed my friend. “Know anyone?”

  She shook her head. “Nope. I don’t mingle with a techy crowd. As far as I know, I’ve never met an actual hacker.”

  I popped the tray out, removed the drive, and returned it to the baggie. Then I put my own SIM card back in my phone and checked to be sure I had everything working again.

  “Where are you going to put that drive for safekeeping until you can find out what’s stored on it that Jeremy thought was so damned important?”

  “I’ll keep it with me all the time.” I retrieved my purse, took out my wallet, and slid the baggie into the place where I kept my insurance card and a variety of loyalty cards.

  Ginny plopped down onto the sofa, and I started to put all the stuff on the table back into my junk box. She started helping when suddenly she put a hand on my arm to get my attention. Her eyes narrowed as she said, “Hey, do you think the break-in had something to do with this?”

  “It had crossed my mind.”

  “You think Jeremy did it?”

  “I don’t know. I’m going to call a friend of mine in California who works for the courts. He’ll be able to find out what Jeremy’s bail conditions were. The sheriff said he wasn’t allowed to leave the state. But if he flew round trip within a couple of days, no one would have known. I mean, he wasn’t wearing a tracking device or anything.”

  “We could go to our little airport and flash his picture around, see if anyone remembers him from before,” Ginny suggested.

  I smiled. “That’s a great idea. It’s so nice to have someone to do recon with.”

  “We can be like Thelma and Louise.” Ginny had loved that movie. She still watched it every now and then.

  “Well, Thelma and Louise were running from the law and died driving off a cliff in the end,” I said. “So maybe not.”

  “True.” Ginny’s enthusiasm for life was endless and perpetual. “So we can be Holmes and Watson. Or Batman and Robin.”

  “I’m Batman!” we both said at the exact same time, then laughed. It felt good to laugh with Ginny. It seemed like we hadn’t done that often enough lately.

  “Oh yeah, the reason I came…” She stood. “You’re still playing in the golf tournament tomorrow, right? We need you on the team.”

  “Yeah, of course. I wouldn’t let you down.” I knocked her on the shoulder.

  She grimaced. “Okay, but there’s been a slight team-member change.”

  I sighed. “I don’t like the way you’re looking at me.”

  “Lane’s going to be golfing on the team. I know you don’t like him, but—”

  “No, it’s fine. I don’t dislike him. I just think he’s gunning for my job, and I’m not thrilled about that at all.”

  She laughed. “Yeah, he is. He even told me that one time. You’ll need to be on your toes.”

  I shook my head but smiled. “As long as I don’t have to golf with Casey, it’ll be fine.”

  Chapter 9

  Instead of taking one of the hotel’s golf carts to the tiny public airport on the other side of the island, Ginny managed to commandeer a couple of seats on one of the horse-drawn taxis heading in that direction. She bribed the taxi driver, Rick, with her phone number. It helped that Rick was a cutie. A bit young for her, but definitely dateable.

  The hotel’s porters loaded up four departing guests and their luggage, and we piled into the last seat. The ride was a scenic twenty minutes through the center of the island at a leisurely pace. Nothing happened in a hurry on Frontenac Island. We joked that we lived in a constant state of “island time.”

  Rick pulled the horses up under one of the porches near the front entrance, which looked more like a private home than a terminal. The terminal was a white clapboard building with a covered wrap-around porch and a copper arch over the front entry. Back in 1934, the runway was only a strip of grass, and the airport was used by a couple of hobbyists. Now the airport was owned by the State Park Commission and sported an actual paved runway. During the busy seasons, the airport serviced about thirty flights a day. Two pilots took turns flying a quick hop round trip from Pellston, and the rest were private planes.

  We assisted the guests off the wagon and helped to carry the luggage. Rick told Ginny he’d been called back to the village.

  “Don’t worry. We’ll call a ride or walk back,” Ginny said, waving his concerns aside.

  Pellston was the closest commercial airport on the mainland. Jeremy would have changed planes twice to fly to the island, starting in California and connecting in Detroit or Chicago. Armed with a two-year-old picture of Jeremy on my phone, I followed Ginny to talk to the woman who was manning the departure gate. She beamed when she saw Ginny approach.

  “Hey, Ginny! Long time no see.” She hugged Ginny tight, nearly squeezing her to death, judging by the disconcerted look on Ginny’s face.

  “Hey, Bernadette. You’re looking good.”

  Bernadette patted her very round backside. “I’ve lost twenty pounds. The Jimmy Buffet diet. Drinking lots of carrot juice and eating sunflower seeds.”

  “What?” I said, bewildered.

  She laughed. “Just kidding. Working out, gave up beer, and watching the cheeseburgers.”

  “Good for you.” Ginny gestured to me. “This is Andi, my friend from California. She works at the hotel now.”

  “Nice to meet you. Oh,” her eyes lit up, “you’re the one who’s been running around like Nancy Drew all summer.”

  I balked. “Well, not exactly. I—”

  She waved her hand at me. “Just kidding. I should actually thank you.” She leaned in close, putting her hand close to her mouth as if to hide her words, and whispered. “I got a steal on a great house, thanks to you.”

  “Uh, well, you’re welcome. My commission is only ten percent.” I smiled.

  She laughed and smacked me on the shoulder. “You’re funny.”

  Ginny broke into the awkward conversation. “I was hoping you could help us with something.”

  “Sure. Anything for you.”

  I held up the photo of Jeremy on my phone. “Have you seen this man?”

  Her eyes lit up again. “Oh yeah, I remember that tall drink of water. He was on my flight in from Pellston a few days ago.”

  I nodded. I had expected she’d remember his recent visit. “How about before that?”

  Bernadette frowned. “Hmm, I would definitely remember him if he’d come through here before. I’m a hot-guy radar, and he only flashed on it a few days ago. Sorry.”

  “Anyone else who could’ve been working here at the time?” I asked.

  “Yeah, maybe.” Narrowing her eyes, her gaze swept the open terminal until she froze on a woman coming out of the restroom. She waved her hand. “Hey, Ja
ckie!”

  An older black woman waved back and smiled.

  “C’mere!” Bernadette said.

  Jackie hustled our way. “What’s up, Bernie?” She glanced at Ginny and me with her infectious smile. She was old-fashioned and smelled like vanilla extract, which reminded me of my former nanny, Miss Charlotte. I could feel my lips twitching upward in response.

  Bernadette pointed to the photo of Jeremy on my phone. “Have you seen that guy before?”

  Jackie took the phone from me and really looked. She pursed her lips. “Hmm, I don’t think so. He’s a good-looking man, so I’d remember.”

  “That’s what I said,” Bernadette replied, hands flapping.

  “Probably in and out the same day, or at most, overnight. Does that help at all?” I asked.

  Jackie shook her head. “No, I’m sorry.”

  “Thank you anyway.” Disappointment filled me. I was hoping to confirm that Jeremy had been here during the time of my break-in, because if he hadn’t been the perpetrator, who was?

  “You two should come by the hotel soon. It’s been way too long. We’ll have a few laughs, and Jackie can sing karaoke for us,” Ginny said, then turned to look at me. “Jackie’s got an amazing voice. Sounds like Aretha Franklin.”

  “I don’t know about Aretha…” Jackie ducked her head modestly, but she was pleased with the praise.

  “Absolutely, we’ll do that,” Bernadette tittered. She waved at us when we left. “Nice to have met you, Andi.”

  We walked out of the terminal, and I stopped and looked around. There was one hangar nearby. Maybe someone there would remember Jeremy. It was a longshot, but I didn’t want to leave here without turning over every rock. This was my life fraying at the seams.

  “Let’s ask those guys.” I pointed to a couple of workers hanging around near a couple of small private planes.

  She looked at me like she knew it was a crapshoot but said, “Okay.”

  We asked everyone we ran into, but as I suspected, no one had seen or recognized Jeremy. Why would they? He’d have been just another tourist to them. As we left the hangar, we passed by an open door to a small office, and I caught a whiff of something familiar. I stopped and inhaled.

  “What are you doing?” Ginny asked.

  “Do you smell that?”

  “Yeah, smells like cigarette smoke.”

  I nodded. “It does, but it’s sweeter than American tobacco. And I’ve smelled it before.”

  Without waiting for Ginny, I walked through the open door into the small office. A large man with tattoos on his bald head was leaning back in a chair, smoking. He straightened when he saw us.

  “I’m sorry, but you’re not allowed in here,” he said as he got to his feet and butted the cigarette into the ashtray near him.

  “What are you smoking?” I asked.

  He frowned. “Cigarette. I don’t smoke anything else.”

  I put my hand up. “No, I’m sorry. I wasn’t making accusations.” I stepped closer to the table and the ashtray. “What kind of cigarettes are those?”

  “Why?” His suspicion was raised now, and his gaze swept from me to Ginny, then back.

  His evasion made me wary of him, too. So I improvised. “I remember that smell from my childhood. I’m pretty sure my grandpa smoked those. I wondered what they were.”

  For a moment, he eyed me defensively, and then his hand went into his overalls and pulled out a white rectangular box of cigarettes. He held them out to me. I took the box. The words on the packaging were in Cyrillic alphabet.

  “Russian?”

  He nodded.

  “Where did you get Russian cigarettes?” I asked.

  “From some guy who was around here asking questions about the planes.”

  “When?” My heart sped up a bit.

  “He gave me a couple packs for my trouble. Honestly, I’ve been trying to quit.”

  I took out my phone and flashed a picture of Jeremy. “Is this the guy?”

  He looked and then shook his head. “Nah. That wasn’t him.”

  “What did the guy look like?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. Almost my size. Brown hair.”

  “Tattoos?”

  He shook his head.

  “Anything different about him?”

  “He spoke Russian—that’s all I really remember.”

  I nodded and snapped a quick photo of the package before I tucked my phone into my purse. “Thanks.” I held up the box of cigarettes. “Can I have one?”

  “Knock yourself out.”

  I slid one cigarette out, noticing it had a gray filter, just like the one the sheriff had recovered from the bushes near my patio. And I had smelled that sweet smoke more than once.

  When we left and went back to wait for another shuttle, Ginny asked, “What was that about?”

  I held up the cigarette. “I’m pretty sure whoever gave that guy these smokes is the same person who broke into my suite.”

  Ginny looked toward the terminal. Another horse-drawn taxi had moved in to drop off a passenger. “Come on, let’s catch that taxi while we can.”

  We hoofed it over to the entrance and hopped up into the empty carriage.

  Chapter 10

  “Oh my God, Andi, are you sure?” Ginny asked as the horses pulled the taxi toward the village.

  “I can’t be one hundred percent sure, but I’d put a hefty wager on it.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Talk to the sheriff about it.”

  “Where can we drop you two?” the taxi driver asked.

  “The sheriff’s station, please,” I replied. We plodded along into the village and stopped in front of the station just as Ginny’s cell phone buzzed with a text. She checked it, then texted back with speedy thumbs.

  “Lois needs me at the hotel. There’s some urgent matter.”

  “I’ll walk back,” I said.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yup.” I opened the door and jumped out. “I’ll see you later.”

  Once the taxi carried Ginny away, I went into the station hoping to find the pleasant Deputy Marshall behind the counter. I was sorely disappointed when Deputy Shawn gave me a wide saccharine smile.

  “Well, hello there, Nancy Drew. How may I help you?”

  “Hey, Barney Fife,” I replied with annoyance, and he scowled at me. I hadn’t seen him in a while and had hoped the sheriff had made good on his promise to transfer Shawn out. No such luck. “Is Sheriff Jackson in his office?”

  “Nope. The sheriff is out and about.”

  “Do you know where he is?”

  “Nope.”

  I shook my head. Of course he didn’t. And even if he’d known, he wouldn’t have told me. Deputy Shawn liked me about as much as I liked him. Which was to say, not much.

  “Have a nice day,” he called after me in a singsong voice when I left.

  Since I had to pass the shop on my way up Market Street to the hotel, I decided to pop into June’s Blooms to check on her. She would probably think I was there to see when she was leaving the island so I could move into her house. That wasn’t the only reason I was popping in. I truly wanted to see if she was okay. She’d gone through hell recently.

  I pushed the door to the flower shop open, the little bell overhead dinging, and the two birds in the cage by the door announced my arrival as they usually did.

  “Customer!” they both screamed.

  I turned to the counter as someone came out from the back, but it wasn’t June like I’d expected.

  “Sasha?”

  She smiled at me as she swept at the dark curls that dropped onto her forehead. “Hey.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  June stepped out from the back room. “I’m training her as a customer service rep for when I go on my vacation.”

  “I didn’t know you knew anything about flowers,” I said to the girl. The last time I’d seen her was when I’d saved her from a ranting maniac. Before th
at, I’d unexpectedly helped deliver her baby boy.

  “I took some online courses, and when I moved back to the island, I ran into June, and she mentioned needing some help at the shop.”

  “Wow. That’s…that’s great. How’s…I’m sorry, but I don’t think you ever told me your son’s name.”

  “Liam.”

  “That’s a great name. How is he?”

  “Growing up. You’d probably not even recognize him.”

  I probably wouldn’t. I figured babies all looked the same until they were toddlers.

  “Can I talk to you?” I motioned for June to come outside with me. “It was great to see you again, Sasha. I’m glad you’re doing so well.”

  Once outside, I whirled on June. “Are you sure she’s a good choice to work the shop while you’re gone?”

  “She’s qualified and personable.”

  “She was involved with a murder case.”

  June pressed her lips into a tight line. “So was I.”

  “That was different.”

  “How? She got involved with the wrong man. So did I, apparently.” She shrugged. “I have a soft spot for wayward women.”

  She dropped her gaze.

  “Okay, but she’s not taking care of the business, right?”

  She gave me a look. “Of course not. Actually, Nicole Park is going to take over running the business for me.”

  “Nicole?”

  She nodded. “I guess you didn’t know that she’s leaving the Park Hotel.”

  I didn’t know, and I was guessing neither did most of the Park family. Ginny hadn’t said a word about it. I hoped the hotel was all she was leaving. I knew she and Eric had been having marital problems. At one point, Nicole would’ve accused me of being one of those problems. I wondered if this was the urgent matter Ginny needed to address when she’d received that text from Lois.

  “Okay, well, I’ll check in with you later,” I said.

  “Just so you know, I’m planning on leaving soon. So you’ll have some time to get your things moved into the house before the snow falls.”

  I smiled and gave her a hug. Then I hurried up to the hotel.

  Chapter 11