Away in a Murder (10 page)

Once in my office I turned on my computer. While it warmed up I grabbed a Dr. Pepper from my mini fridge. I sat down at my desk and tried to concentrate on the day’s business. I responded to emails and attended a meeting. But focusing was difficult. Al’s murder kept popping in to my head.

At lunch time I let my secretary, Della, know that I was going to take an extended lunch break. She said she would rearrange things if necessary. She was the most efficient person I knew. I was grateful to have her. In the beginning she had a hard time getting used to my weird schedule. She was used to bosses who worked the general nine to five, Monday through Friday. There was nothing about a theme park or me that was nine to five. I worked as early as seven a.m. and as late as midnight. I could work for ten days straight then take three days off. My hours depended on what I needed to do. And sometimes on my desire to be there.

At lunch time Frankie and I walked from the park, past the house, to the hotel. As we walked I told him what I’d learned during my conversation with Nigel.

“You’re not the only one who’s been busy. Pete learned that Melanie’s DNA was on a certain part of Al’s body,” Frankie said. He raised his eyebrows and smiled at me as if I didn’t understand.

“According to what you told me her DNA has been on lots of people’s bodies. How’d Pete learn about that, anyway?”

“Don’t ask. He has contacts. That’s all I’ll say.”

“Enough said. So, her DNA was on a private part of Al’s body.”

“So that means she had to have been with him close to the time of the murder. Otherwise he would have showered it off.”

“Well, that’s disgusting but interesting. Especially when you add the fact that they were an item once,” I said.

“Yea, but I just don’t see it. She doesn’t strike me as the killer type. But we’ll talk more later.”

The killer type? What was that? Someone who looked psycho all the time? We all had the potential in us to kill if necessary. Certainly if someone tried to harm any of my kids or grandkids I could kill them if I had to. Did that make me the killer type? I’d have to have that discussion with Frankie later.

We had arrived at the hotel’s steps. I looked up at the building and still could not believe that someone had once used this massive building as a house. We climbed the steps and entered the lobby. William was there to greet us.

“Misty, Frankie, how are ya’ll doing?” he said.

We each shook hands with him. He pressed something in to my hand. I slid it into my pocket without even looking at it.

“I was told you come to see what they’d done on the second floor. The front desk told me to make sure no one disturbs you. Oh, and security told me them cameras on that floor ain’t working right now. So be careful.” He winked as he said this.

“Thank you, William. I greatly appreciate your assistance,” I said.

“Ya’ll follow me. By the way them construction guys are on their lunch break. They just went now. Should be gone for maybe an hour.”

We walked up the steps to the third floor together. When we got to the top of the stairs William said, “I’ll let ya’ll know if anyone comes near.”

“Thank you,” Frankie said,” but isn’t this unchristian like behavior?”

“Ya’ll are tryin’ to find that man’s killer. Tryin’ to right a wrong. Besides, you saved Jerome once. We owe you.”

I smiled and winked at William. He assumed a guard like position at the top of the stairs. Frankie and I turned down the hall. We stopped at the room Al was using and I unlocked the door with the key that William had slipped to me.

We certainly had given Al a great room. There was a mural of clouds on the ceiling. It had a border around it that framed it very nicely. The portions of it that were painted in gold had real gold in it. It also had a wonderful view of the lake that sat behind the hotel. I could see using this as my bedroom. It would be so cool to wake up to that view every day.

We shut the door behind us. Then we closed the curtains just in case.

“I’ll take the bathroom. You take the bedroom,” Frankie said. He handed me a pair of rubber gloves. I raised my eyebrows at him. “I got them from the cleaning supply closet at work. We don’t want to leave any fingerprints.”

He was right. Smart boy. Marlowe’s men had already searched the room, but what if they came back and found our fingerprints here later? He’d be really mad at us. I’d rather keep Marlowe on my good side.

I took the gloves and began my search of the bedroom. First I tried to look under the bed. I forgot, it’s a hotel. Hotel beds are always on a platform. You couldn’t hide anything under there if you wanted to. So I moved on to the night stands. Nothing in them, under them, or around them. I mean no personal items at all. Did Marlowe take everything or did Al not bring anything?

Next I turned my attention to the dresser/entertainment center. It seemed to be empty of clothes, except for a few items that I assumed Marlowe didn’t think were important. I looked in the drawers. Under the drawers. Behind the drawers. Then when I flipped the bottom drawer over I saw an envelope taped to it. I opened the envelope and slid the contents out. I didn’t want to remove the envelope so Marlowe’s team could stumble on it later. I wasn’t sure how they’d stumble on it, but I’d try to make sure they did.

I looked through the sheets of paper. It was a list of some kind. The names and descriptions were typed but the rest was hand written. It looked like this:

Former female rock star, incest with her adult son MS
–
won’t budge - $50,000

Financial genius, well known and established, having an affair with his mother FS - N
o
contact yet, trying mother first - $10,000?

Son of a child molester NMC
–
denies, but coming - $10,000

Former prostitute trying to go straight MS
–
hooked – no real money, but favors

Gay lawyer PW
–
lover of rock star’s son – in denial, but got video – $10,000

It went on like this for three pages. I didn’t know what most of it meant. But I was pretty sure I was the first entry. Maybe he was going to blackmail me? Did he think I’d pay him to hide what he thought was my big secret? I had no big secret. And if I did I certainly wouldn’t tell him. I would bet he’d betray the people who were paying him if he felt like it.

I called Frankie in to the room. I showed him the papers. As he read his face became panic stricken.

“Mom, you can’t let Marlowe see this first sheet. I mean, it’s us!”

“Frankie, did you kill Al?” I asked him.

“Of course not.” He looked offended, but I was making a point.

“Then we have nothing to hide from Marlowe.”

“It’s Pete, Mom. He does his best to hide the fact that he is gay from the general public. With you he doesn’t care because he likes you. If this gets made public knowledge, he’ll be devastated.”

“The part about me isn’t true. The part about you isn’t true. Why would anyone believe that anything else on the list is true? I mean the guy was so full of crap. He just wanted to make money and he loved ruining people’s lives. Everything he ever said about anybody is suspect.” I was trying to calm Frankie, but I also hoped to calm myself a bit.

Frankie looked at me and sighed. He took a picture of each of the sheets with his phone and I put them back. We went back to our search, but didn’t find anything else. Not even Al’s personal bottle of shampoo or a razor. Did Marlowe take everything? Maybe the new forensics guy was over zealous.

We spent a total of about a half hour examining the room before we left. When we were done we opened the curtains again and closed the room up tight. I slipped the key back to William.

“How’d it go?” he asked quietly.

I just shook my head and sighed. Then I had a brain storm. I told William about the envelope. He understood that neither Frankie nor I could be the one to tell Marlowe about it.

“Ya’ll don’t worry. I’ll take care of it. I’ve made more than one anonymous phone call in my day,” he said smiling.

I got the impression that William was enjoying this. That he liked playing detective. Well he had gotten rid of the bad guys once. Maybe by helping us he felt like he was doing it again. Frankie and I shook hands with William and said goodbye to him. He left to return the key to the place he borrowed it from.

Frankie and I went to check with security. I asked them to show me the footage of the night that Al was killed. The police already had a copy of it, but it was digital so they didn’t have the only copy.

The footage showed Nigel going in to Al’s room. About a half hour later Nigel came back out again looking very upset. Something didn’t go well. But it enforced the note on the list that Nigel wasn’t paying Al, but maybe he was beginning to get scared.

Later Melanie knocked on Al’s door. She was almost dressed and even I was wondering how she walked in those heals. It took her over an hour to come out again. Her hair was a mess and she was buttoning her blouse when she left. Must have been when her DNA got on his private parts.

About an hour later Al left his room. This time he was dressed for a date. He went down the stairs and out the door to a waiting car. It was Melanie’s car. I was pretty sure. I could see the Adventure Universe employee parking sticker on the windshield. Were they going at it again?

I had security zoom in on the parking sticker. I wrote the number down just so I could have someone at the park verify who it belonged to.

Frankie and I both looked at each other. Where did they go? Does that mean she killed him? Or was someone else in the car. She had tinted windows, so you couldn’t really tell.

After we’d viewed the footage Frankie and I thanked the security officer and left his office. We went down to the restaurant for lunch. Frankie sent a text to his Dad about the parking sticker. Hopefully Frank could find out who it belonged to.

As we were eating our lunch Minerva came over to our table. She looked upset.

“Did you hear? Frank is a suspect in that reporter guy’s murder,” she said.

“We all are. He trashed us on national TV,” I said. “Don’t let it bother you.”

“No, you don’t understand. The cops took some of his clothes and shoes away.”

Frankie and I looked at each other. Ok, so maybe Marlowe was a nice guy who rescued deaf cats, but he still seemed bad at his job. I mean, Frank? Then again, it’s that whole trying to protect my family thing.

Frankie got on the phone to his Dad. He spoke to Frank for a moment or two and hung up.

“Dad’s home. Let’s go,” he said.

“I’ll wrap this up for you.” Minerva took our plates and came back shortly with them nicely wrapped for us to eat on the road. She also gave us our drinks to go. We thanked her, paid for our food and left.

We ran back to our home to get my car. Well Frankie ran, I kind of walked fast. I never could run in heels. Before we left Frankie ran upstairs and got the notebook we’d been using to help solve the murder. We drove over to Frank’s place. On the way over I called Della and told her that Frankie and I had an emergency and would not be in this afternoon. I also gave her the parking sticker number and had her find out who it belonged to.

“That’s going around,” she said. “Frank and Jerome both left saying they wouldn’t be back. Nigel cannot concentrate today, so he might as well not be here. And Melanie called to say she would not be working her over night shift tonight. I know there’s been a murder, but we have a business to run.”

Della was very businesslike. I loved that about her. She kept me on the right path if I started to wander, which I often did. However, sometimes I wondered if she had any emotions. Unless you counted efficiency as an emotion, that is.

Frank a murder? If his family was in danger I could see it. And he had a pretty good temper. But he was an officer of the law. Even if he was now the head of security and not a cop, he was still an officer of the law. He always would be. Damn, please don’t let it be Frank.

Frankie and I pulled up outside of the tiny house that Frank had bought. It reminded me of the log cabin he’d bought back in Pennsylvania when we decided to end our marriage. Right down to the wooden porch and the rockers that looked like they were made out of tree limbs. You could take the man out of Pennsylvania, but…

Frank’s car wasn’t there, but Jerome’s was. This should be interesting. Why Jerome was even there I could not fathom. Frankie and I knocked on the door. Jerome answered.

“I’m glad to see ya’ll. I brought Frank home because I wasn’t sure he was in any condition to drive after he got done talking to the chief,” Jerome said. He stepped back so Frankie and I could enter.

Frank’s house was completely out of place in Florida. Everything about it screamed log cabin. There was one small bedroom off to the side and a very small kitchen. There was even a deer head above the mantel. Yep, you could drop this place in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, or Ohio and it would have been completely at home. Here it just seemed out of place.

Frank was nowhere to be seen.

“Where is he?” I asked.

“He’s sitting out on the screened in porch,” Jerome said.

“I don’t remember the porch being screened in,” Frankie said.

He’d been here before? I didn’t know that.

“It wasn’t,” Jerome said. “Frank screened it in himself. He got tired of the bugs, lizards, and frogs getting in to his house when he left the door open. Can’t say as I blame him.”

“I’ll go out and talk to him,” I said. “Jerome can you stay for a little while?”

“Yes, ma’am. I took the afternoon off. I want to help clear your family’s good name. And save the park in the process.”

Jerome had been working at the park since he was a teenager. It was his passion. He had even restored the carousel single handedly when the former owner stopped spending money on repairs and renovations. He had also become a good friend of ours.

“Thank you, Jerome. Frankie why don’t you update Jerome on what we’ve been doing. Maybe he’ll have an idea that hasn’t occurred to us yet.”

“Good idea, Mom.”

The two of them sat at Frank’s small table. Frankie had brought the notebook in with him. He handed it to Jerome and let him read through it. Frankie finished his lunch while he updated Jerome on everything we had learned so far. I bravely stepped outside to see Frank.

He was sitting in a rocker that looked like it was made out of tree branches. Just like the ones on the front porch. I half wondered if Frank made them himself. There wasn’t one feminine touch anywhere to be seen, so I assumed that Minerva didn’t live here as well. Not that she’d put up with that kitchen. I sat down in the only chair that had a pad on it and waited. He just stared straight ahead. Frank could not be pushed to talk. I could talk him in to being willing to share what was bothering him, but he would not do so until he was ready.

I ate my cold lunch as I waited.

“Marlowe thinks I killed that man,” he finally said. He still wasn’t looking at me. He just stared straight ahead.

“I know. He suspects all of us. Even Frankie and I. We all had a very good reason for wanting Al dead. But none of us did it, Frank.”

He turned and looked at me. “No, Misty, you don’t understand. He took my shirt and my shoes in for testing.”

Ok, this was a surprise. What could Frank possibly have on his clothes that would need to be tested?

“Testing for what?” I asked.

“Well, the shoes I think he took because they were muddy and that reporter guy was found in a field that was sort of muddy.”

“Yes, I was with Marlowe the night they found Al’s body.” Was that last night? No way. It seems like decades ago.

“Why were your shoes muddy?” I asked him.

“During my rounds at the park I saw that one of the space alien angels was falling down. So, I climbed over the fence and I fixed it.”

“Yea, that sounds like you. But you could have called visual or engineering to do it. I mean that’s why they’re there.”

“I tried calling Melanie’s phone but she didn’t answer.”

That was interesting. Was it because she was with Al? Better not have taken place in my park. I will kill, I mean, fire her for that. Then again, that could coincide with when she was at the hotel with Al.

“Ok, so that makes sense. There was mud on your shoes because you walked in the mud to fix the angel,” I said. “But why the shirt?”

“When I climbed over the fence my shirt got caught on a tree branch and it ripped it. Scratched the crap out of my arm, too.”

He was right, he had scratches. On both arms. Something occurred to me.

“Frank, did you bleed on your shirt?” I asked.

“Yes, it’s got blood stains too.”

He was sounding like he wanted to give up. Frank doesn’t give up. Frank gets angry. Frank fights and solves the problem. What was happening to the man I had known most all of my life? I wanted to grab him by his shirt, pull him out of his chair, and shake him until his true self returned. But I knew better. Besides, I probably couldn’t pull him out of his chair. He was bigger than me.

“And what are you going to do about it?” I asked instead.

He made a deep sigh. “Go back to Pennsylvania. Nobody ever accused me of murder up there.”

He turned back and looked out toward the lake that was behind his house. In Florida there are little lakes everywhere.

This was not the Frank I knew. Did he just say he was going to run away and hide? I was getting so pissed at him. What was going on? Why was he acting like this?

“Ok, you go,” I said. “You run away like a scared little girl. Me, I’m going to stay here and fight. Nobody in our family killed Al. I know it. You know it but you’re giving up. I can’t let one of us get falsely accused of anything. I refuse to give up.”

I got up and walked back inside taking my empty leftover container with me.

“Let’s go Frankie. Dad’s behaving like a five year old. He’s giving up and he wants to hide as if that will make everything go away. I refuse to do so. Let’s go find the killer.” I was saying this as loud as I could so Frank would hear me. Maybe something would sink in.

Frankie and Jerome both looked up at me. Neither of them looked very happy. I guess they weren’t able to come up with anything new during their discussion.

“We’ll talk later,” Frankie said to Jerome. “I’ll call you tonight.”

I said goodbye to Jerome and thanked him again for taking care of Frank. Jerome handed the notebook to Frankie.

Frankie and I left and headed to my car. I handed him the keys. I wanted to look at our notebook again to see what we had so far. I had to be missing something. Not to mention I hated driving.

Once we were in the car I told Frankie what Frank had said.

“Dad can’t give up that easily,” he said.

“No, he can’t. I certainly won’t. Let’s go talk to Marlowe then we’re going to dinner at the buffet restaurant.”

“Oh, Mom, why?” Frankie almost sounded panicked.

“Why Marlowe or why the restaurant?”

“Why the buffet, Mom, why?”

“It’s the heart of the city. Everyone hangs out there. Everyone talks there.”

When Frankie and I first took root in Neuspech, Florida we lived out of a privately owned hotel for almost two months. The only restaurant we really knew about was a privately owned buffet that shared the same strip mall parking area as the hotel. By the time we were moved in to our home, we were so sick of that place we said we were never going back again. We were wrong. Besides, I missed the people.

But first we needed to see Marlowe. We pulled up in front of the old office building that housed the police department. It also housed several other city offices and at least one dentist. We took the familiar walk to room 118 and went inside.

The officer at the front desk greeted us by name. He picked up the phone and called back to Marlowe to let him know that we were there to see him.

When he hung up I said, “I see the increased tourist dollars have not hit the police department yet, Officer Taylor.”

“Oh, no they have. Not only do we have the forensics guy whose name nobody can pronounce, but we’ve taken over the office next door and we’re using it as a lab for him.” It didn’t seem like much to me, but he smiled so proudly that I couldn’t help but be happy too.

“That is fantastic,” I said.

Marlowe came through the door and escorted Frankie and I back to his office. When we got there I noticed that he had some new office furniture. And he had some art on the walls. Last time I was there the furniture was cheap and the walls were bare. He gestured to the chairs and Frankie and I sat down. He sat behind his desk.

“Wow, you went shopping,” I said.

“The furniture is used and the paintings are mine. The city is being cautious with the new tourist tax dollars. No big investments yet. I don’t blame them considering the park’s history,” he said.

“I guess I see that. I am a bit insulted though,” I said.

“I bet you are, but that’s not why you came here,” Marlowe said. “What information do you want?”

“Can’t we just stop by and say hi?” I asked. I tried to look innocent, I knew it didn’t work but I tried anyway.

“Just get on with it,” Marlowe said. He was smiling and shaking his head, so I knew I wasn’t really annoying him yet. Yet.

“Ok, fine,” I said. “Have you tested the mud on Frank’s shoes? Or the blood on his shirt?”

“We have. The blood isn’t the victim’s. The mud we’re not so certain about it. Matt is still running tests.”

“Matt?”

“Yea, the new forensics guy. I still can’t pronounce his last name.”

“Ok, did you find Frank’s footprints at the scene?” Frankie asked.

“We found so many footprints that it was almost impossible to get a complete one. What size shoe do you two wear?”

“Ten.” I said.

“Twelve,” Frankie said. “And so does Dad.”

“Too big. The only complete footprints at the scene were smaller than that. Of course we don’t know if they were the killer’s.”

“But you think they were,” I said.

“Maybe,” Marlowe said.

“But why? Because they were found where?” I thought out loud.

Marlowe closed his mouth tight and just looked at me.

“Under the body,” Frankie said. “That’s the one place other people were not likely to have trampled. Under the body.” He really was a genius.

“By the way,” Marlowe said, “I don’t suppose you know anything about an anonymous tip that was phoned in today saying that there was a hidden envelope in the vic’s hotel room? Do you?”

“Oh, hell no. Why would I want the police back at my hotel?” I wasn’t lying. I didn’t make the call, I just asked someone else to do it. And the less police presence at my hotel the better.

“Ok, so maybe it wasn’t you. But those papers we found listed you, Misty. And some other people. Was Al Learner blackmailing you?”

Marlowe’s arms were folded at this chest. I knew he meant business. This was no longer a friendly chat.

“No,” said honestly. “If I was on that list, he never contacted me. Wouldn’t have worked anyway. I have no big secrets.”

He leaned back in his chair. “Everybody has secrets. I have a new suspect by the way. I’ll be stopping by to see him later this evening.”

Frankie and I looked at each other.

“Who?” I asked.

Marlowe pointed to Frankie. “Your friend Pete.”

“No, Pete would never hurt anyone,” Frankie almost yelled. For a moment I thought he was going to get up out of his chair. I put my hand on his to calm him. And to warn him.

“That may be,” Marlowe continued, “but Mr. Learner had video footage of your friend kissing a man on his computer. He had your friend’s business card on him. And everyone knew he was outspoken against gays. He hated them.”

I took the opportunity to look at my watch. It was almost four.

“Frankie we’ve got to go. Speaking of Pete, he’s making dinner for us and we told him we’d be home by four thirty,” I lied.

“Yea, I forgot,” Frankie also lied. He was obviously still angry and in shock.

We all stood up.

“Good bye, Marlowe. Feel free to stop by any time after six,” I said. “Pete will be there.”

Frankie and I left and went out to the car.

“Mom, don’t date him anymore he is an idiot. You were right in the first place,” Frankie said.

“Frankie, he’s not an idiot. He’s smart and he’s generous,” I corrected him.

He looked at me, “Huh?”

“Honey, he’s giving us time to go home and talk to Pete. He told us all of that so we could warn Pete and help prepare him for when Marlowe gets there.”