Murder's Last Resort (18 page)

Chapter 56

I was antsy as hell and a call from nature came that would not be ignored. Nerves! I turned on my heel, and walked to Frankie’s suite. This time, I didn’t bother to knock or shout. I let myself in with my master key, turned right and entered the powder room. I held my breath as I switched on the light.

No surprises. This was good. I took care of business, then left the bathroom to look around the suite. It was bathed in dim light. I took some tentative steps into the living room. I looked in the dining room, and saw turn-down treats; a bottle of milk on ice in a silver bowl and a big plate of snickerdoodles.

Further left, I poked my head into the kitchen. Nothing. Everything was in order and jazzy elevator music played softly over the sound system. A dirge from Albinoni would have been more suitable.

Something about the scene was weird, staged. I was used to the artificiality of hotel life, but this was a different kind of fake that made the palms of my hands clammy. Even the two Myers’s were doing nothing to calm me.

I called out, “Frankie?” No answer. I tried again.

Did I hear something upstairs, a mumbled gurgling? Maybe he was ill. Maybe he was prostate with grief. Maybe he was drunk. Maybe he needed help.

As a little girl, I hadn’t aspired to be a nurse or even a wife or mom. The thought of finding Frankie upstairs, drowning in his tears or his own vomit did not appeal. Still, if I was the only one here, it looked like the job fell on me. Damn that David! Why wasn’t he up here yet?

I walked up the stairs, groped for the light switch on the bedroom wall and, as I did, I tripped over something. It wasn’t a marble turtle or a cast iron armadillo. It felt heavy and human.

Dread blanketed me as I flipped the switch. It was, as I had expected, Frankie Messina, face up on the floor. I had never seen him wear an ascot. Maybe he hadn’t, either. This one didn’t match his outfit and it was tied too high and tight around his neck.

* * *

“—and that’s the way I found him,” I said to Wells. He, Tom and I were together again, this time in Messina’s suite. It was happening so often, I should probably start planning what songs we’d play on our reunion tour.

“Well, I’ll be headed back to the lobby,” I said, edging my way toward the stairs, since the guys seemed preoccupied with Frankie’s corpse.

“Like hell you will, Mrs. French,” said Rick and motioned to Tom to block my path. “Pardon my language, ma’am,” he added, still a Southern gentleman to the core.

“You’ll be staying right here, close to us,” Tom, the refrigerator with the wide-legged stance, added. “Matter of fact, when I sneeze, you’re gonna wipe your nose—that’s how close we’ll be.”

“Charming image,” I said, more to myself than anyone else in the room, dead or alive, and sat down on an occasional chair in the corner.

“You know what, Mrs. French? I may have been lookin’ for love in all the wrong places,” Rick said. “French has been AWOL all along but you’ve made lots of cameo appearances. I almost don’t care anymore if or when he shows up. You’re turning into a much greater person of interest to me. What do you say, Tom?” Rick said.

“I say we keep our eyes on her,” Tom said.

The usual group of people arrived, ready to do the usual stuff—take photographs, dust for prints, scoop up hair samples and, in general, turn the place inside out. Rick and Tom flanked me as we rode the elevator down together. They had paged David and told him to wait in his office for us.

* * *

David sat behind his desk, looking pale. Margie sat in one corner with Jake next to her and I stood next to Rick.

This was the glummest gathering of living people, ever. Glum and awkward. Rick was, at first, conversational, trying to make this seem more like a casual meeting than an inquiry. It didn’t work. David, Margie and Jake gave him clipped answers.

“Don’t all shout out at once,” Rick finally said. He turned to Tom and asked him to take Margie and Jake out of the room. He wanted to interview David with me present.

“Now, David,” Rick said, “tell me again what you did earlier this evening?”

“I made the rounds of the hotel, like I always do. I was in constant radio contact with some of our staff, making sure everything was right at Orange 43 for the grande finale party of the conference.” Dave looked edgy. Little beads of sweat were beginning to show near his hairline.

“Why are you so uncomfortable, David? What haven’t you told us yet?”

Dave shifted in his chair. He cleared his throat.

“I saw Mr. French earlier tonight.”

“What?” Rick and I said at the same time.

“I feel bad mentioning it, but I know I have to.” He looked at me, his eyes apologetic, then continued, “After making my rounds, I saw him standing near the lake where Linda was found.”

Unbelievable. I was stunned. It couldn’t be true. If French had been back, why had he not come to see me? Didn’t he love me? Had the situation been reversed, I would have never come so close and not somehow snuck in to see him. It would have been my top priority.

I didn’t hear the rest of what David said, I was so hurt and insulted. Me, me, me. I could only think of me. I felt kicked in the gut and it was only a tiny kernel of pride that kept me from letting the tears fall as they wished. Instead, I choked them back and tried to concentrate on matters at hand.

I tuned back in, just in time to hear David say that French had seemed out of it, and said a few things that didn’t make sense, like “I see you there,” and “I have to finish this thing.”

“What did you make of that?” Rick asked him.

“I didn’t know what to make of it. I asked him what I should do about running this place. I asked him when he would be back for good—was he back for good?”

“And?” Wells interrupted. “What did he say?”

“He waved me away, turned and walked through the foliage and the pines toward the gravel road the fire department uses.”

“Why didn’t you tell Mrs. French that you saw her husband?” Wells kept at him, then looked at me, “Did you know any of this, Mrs. French?”

I shook my head. I felt disgusted by the lot of them. They were all morons. My mouth was dry as a wad of cotton and I thought I might be sick.

Why are you standing here, talking to David, when the powers of OPD might be better used searching the grounds for one or more murderers that I’m sure as hell aren’t French?
I shot a few death rays from my eyes at Wells and Koenig.

“I was in a state of shock,” said David, leaning forward. “I wanted to tell Maya when I saw her later at the party, but there was too much noise, and there were too many people. Then, she disappeared,” he said, leaning back in his chair, looking relieved that he had told his story.

Chapter 57

It was Sunday after lunch. Jake had the day off and we were playing gin together in the den, while he, every few minutes, cast an eye at the TV. The water skiing championships at Cypress Gardens were being broadcast on one of our local stations. Water skiing was big business in Florida, hence the frequent, splashy coverage. The producers of the show switched things up by showing old black-and-white footage of human pyramids on skis, something people had been doing at Cypress Gardens since God Himself was a boy on skis.

I had a hard time getting Jake to play gin with me. He taught me the game during the summer we Eurailed through eleven countries in six weeks. By the time we hit Zurich, I was beating him with monotonous regularity at his own game and, by Vienna, he was done. It took me years to get him back into play mode.

We were half way through our third game when the phone rang. It was Wells. “Guess what I’ve got?” he asked, sounding vicious.

“I don’t know. Let me think—a persistent rash that proves embarrassing at intimate moments?”

“Woah! Aren’t we feeling sassy today?” he answered. “Well, that’s about to change.”

I didn’t like his tone.

“Okay, sorry. You set yourself up for that one. I couldn’t resist,” I said. “I’m serious now, what have you got?”

“I’ve got someone very near and dear right here next to me,” he gloated. “Actually, he’s near to me now, but I don’t find him very dear.”

“Stop fooling around. Who do you mean?” I asked, feeling the hair rise on the back of my neck.

“I mean your better half, your beloved husband, French. He turned himself in about an hour ago.”

“What?” I said, nonplussed. “You’ve got to be pulling my leg. You are, aren’t you?”

“I most certainly am not,” he answered. He called to his partner in the background, “Tom, am I pulling Mrs. French’s leg?” There was a far-off, “No, you’re not.”

“My husband’s confused. There’s been some misunderstanding,” I said, not wanting to believe French would do such a thing. It made no sense and it made him look guilty.

Rick didn’t have much more to say.
Just spreading good cheer, huh?
We hung up after he reminded me that French would need a good lawyer, not some hack like Doug Reed, if he hoped to get away with less than four counts of first degree murder.

That was the end of Jake’s and my game. I gathered the cards in a pile, as my spirits dropped below the posts supporting my house. I didn’t do this much, and I never did it in public, but Jake wasn’t public. I crumpled into the corner of the brown leather sofa and fell apart. I put my hands to my face and cried. Jake sat next to me for the first few minutes, handing me tissues, until I blew through all of them. He went to the linen closet, brought out a new box and set it next to me.

Of all the insane things French had put me through over the last ten years, this one was the top prize winner. I tried to be a good wife, I really did. I believed in him, I supported him emotionally, I performed like a trained poodle at corporate events and business soirées. I was tireless and he was wussing out—without discussing it with me first? It was exactly what I had told him not to do. It reminded me that he had been here on Friday night and not even tried to contact me, which upset me all over again.

Jake asked if I was okay.

“Not really.”

“I’m getting you some Tylenol and a big bottle of Perrier,” he said. “You’re going to need both.”

“Thanks,” I managed to squeeze out, between sobs. “I can’t believe this. I can’t take much more of this.”

“I know, sweetie,” Jake said, full of sympathy, “You’ve been such a tough cookie. This was the drop of water that made the bucket overflow.”

“I was so glad all the Sapphire people were gone,” I cried. “I thought things would return to normal now, while Rick and Tom sifted through their findings and put their case together.”

“That’s how it seemed,” Jake said, empathizing with me. He would have made a great therapist.

“I feel whipped. I’ve been blindsided. Put a fork in me, I’m done,” I said. I felt flattened by a steamroller.

I looked up and took Jake’s hand. “Sweets, I need to be alone for a little while. I need to cry myself out over this. You understand, don’t you?”

“Not really, Maya. I’d think you’d want me to stay here to give you moral support,” he said, protesting.

“I’m sorry, Jake. It’s a girl thing, I guess. Come back in an hour or two. I’ll be better then.”

Grumbling, he said he’d go over to the hotel, hang out at the sports bar for a while and then come back, if I could handle that. I nodded and sent him on his way.

I had been reining in my emotions for a long time. We were back at square one and worse. Make it square zero. If French had turned himself in, a new nightmare was about to begin.

I gave in to my feelings and continued to cry until I couldn’t cry any more. After almost an hour, I was exhausted and drained of all fluids. My sinuses above my brows and under my eye sockets felt like they might implode. I drank the bottled water Jake had brought me and I took the two Tylenol. I grabbed some ice for my forehead and lay down on the sofa, whimpering softly to myself and whichever palmetto bugs and wood spiders might be listening from what I hoped was afar.

I must have dozed off. For one tiny moment, I thought it had all been a bad dream. But no, it was real. My forehead was throbbing and I was parched. When they had worries, some people liked the noise and the hurries of downtown, but not me. I got up, my head pulsing, and wobbled into the kitchen for my universal cure. I knew I needed a big pot of freshly brewed, hot tea. If nothing else, I could hang my head over it and breathe in the steamy vapor.

Now that I was cried out, I felt lonely. I wished Jake would hurry back.
Women are impossible. No wonder you prefer men.

With the tea kettle gurgling and showing signs of life, I splashed myself with cold water and brushed my teeth. My eyes felt like little puffer fish on my face. I refused to look at myself in the mirror. It would be too depressing.

Once the tea was steeping, I reached in the freezer and pulled out a frozen torte. There was always a stash of desserts in our freezer, created by our pastry chef, for VIPs, industry execs or the stray hotel wife or personal friend, who might stop by unannounced.

My mother often wondered how I could live in Grand Central station, as she called my life, with people popping in and out of my home at all hours.
This is how I do it, Mama. I’m always prepared. I’m a good Girl Scout.

It wasn’t just the goodies in the freezer. Open up the doors of the larder and you would find hotel sized containers of fancy mixed nuts, pretzels, trail mix and Red Vines. One shelf housed industrial-sized boxes of instant coffee, assorted tea bags and crates of bottled mineral waters. The wines, ports, sherries, cognacs, aperitifs and after-dinner drinks took up another entire shelf. Myself, I didn’t care too much about alcohol but plenty of hotel types had their snouts in the bottle.

Our house was like a self-contained mini-hotel. If there were ever a collapse of the fabric of American society or a natural disaster, I’d be up to my widow’s peak in food, tea, coffee, drinks and plastic water bottles. I had enough supplies to feed every person in the state of Florida for one entire year.