Our Island Inn (Quirky Tales from the Caribbean) (15 page)

Then she
straightened her cowboy hat, adjusted the neck strap for her binoculars, and slapped her hands together eagerly.

“All right. Let’s get
down to business.”

Millicent had spent several hours contemplating
how best to further her investigation into the disappearances at the inn. A thorough exploration of the entertainment pavilion seemed the logical next step. With the breakfast eaters cleared out, the area should be empty.

If possible, she wanted to sneak
inside the kitchen for a look around. But first and foremost, she would check the stairs on the far side of the deck and the nefarious restrooms below.

Thorough and methodical, she told herself.
That’s the way to catch a killer. She hummed happily to herself.

She felt certain
Matlock would have approved of her strategy.

~
~ ~

MILLICENT STARTED
DOWN the steps from the parking lot, pleased to see that, indeed, the pavilion was clear. The only other person on the pool deck was the young woman who had been helping in the kitchen the night before.

What luck, she thought.
A potential secondary witness to interview.

Millicent
proceeded toward Elsie’s chair, unaware that her investigation had just been perilously derailed.

ELSIE
WAS SCHEDULED to clean rooms at the inn that morning, but she’d asked Oliver for a few hours off to study for her next police officer training test. Since only one unit was guest-occupied, it was an easy delay for him to allow.

In fact,
Elsie had already memorized the section of the manual that would be covered in the upcoming exam. She’d always had a sharp mind for details. If anything, she was over-prepared.

The free ti
me was for a different purpose.

Millicent wasn’t the only one
with investigative plans that day.

~
~ ~

ELSIE
OBSERVED THE Golden Girls’ departure from the rear kitchen window, watching the parking lot as they climbed into their jeep – and left one of their members behind.

Anticipating Millicent’s next move, Elsie hurried to
a chair by the pool and settled into a spot beneath the shade of a canvas umbrella. As the older woman’s sneakers tread down the steps to the pavilion, Elsie picked up her reading material and pointed the cover so that Millicent couldn’t help but see the “Officer Training” label printed on its front.

Over the
book’s top edge, she glimpsed the other woman approaching her seat. Feigning disinterest, Elsie turned a page and pretended to stare intently at a random paragraph.

She could not have
cast a more fascinating lure.

Millicent tipped her hat
in greeting. “Hey, there. What a nice morning. That looks like a good place to read.”

Elsie
glanced up from the text. She laid the book on her lap, positioning it so that the cover was still visible. “Just doing a little studying.”

Millicent
nodded at the manual. “Police training?”

“Yes,
” Elsie replied with a short smile.

“Reall
y.” Millicent pulled up a chair, intrigued.

Elsie
pulled in the hook. “I’m a part-time deputy. I work with Inspector Pickering, the officer who stopped by the restaurant last night.”

S
he had secured Millicent’s complete and undivided attention.

“
Oh, that’s fascinating. I’m Millicent, by the way.” The older woman scooted her seat closer and whispered conspiratorially. “Are you working with him on the disappearances here at the inn?”

“
I’m Elsie. Nice to meet you. Sorry, but I really shouldn’t say anything about the investigation. It’s against policy.”

“
Of course. I understand.” Millicent bobbed her head up and down. She was silent for a moment. “It’s just that I’ve been doing a little sleuthing around the place, and I might have stumbled onto a few clues.”

Elsie
set the police manual aside. The prop had served its purpose. Millicent was about to spill whatever information she’d gathered from her nosing around.

“
The innkeepers are involved. Well, Glenn is at least. I’m certain of that. The man’s got guilt written all over him, don’t you think? He lied about that Jesús fellow. The sous-chef didn’t take off to see a sick relative. He’s missing – just like the others.”

Millicent
tapped the binoculars hanging from her neck. “I watched Glenn yesterday afternoon from my balcony. I caught him standing over there against that railing, looking down over the edge. Isn’t that where the missing guests were last seen? In the dining area by the pool?”

Elsie pivoted in her chair
as Millicent pointed across the deck.

“
Maybe we should take a look.”

Bemused, Elsie followed
the amateur sleuth around the edge of the pool to the far northwest railing.

Millicent raised her binoculars and held them to her fac
e, scanning the clearing below. Elsie leaned against the railing beside her.

“
You know they say Parrot Ridge is cursed.”

“
Pshaw
.” Millicent sounded skeptical.

“
It’s because of the previous owners,” Elsie persisted. “The wife found out her husband was cheating on her. She confronted him in the kitchen and stabbed him with a knife. He never saw it coming.”

“No, they never do.”
Dropping the binoculars, Millicent shook her head. She had seen it happen on television hundreds of times. “What happened next? What’s supposed to have caused the curse?”

Elsie
gazed into the ravine, striking a solemn pose for maximum effect. “The husband staggered around, bleeding all over the place, before he died by the pool. The wife was so distraught that she jumped off this railing and fell down to the clearing. The police never found her body. They say she was dragged into the jungle by some feral beast that consumed her flesh and took on her troubled spirit. She’s the one who haunts Parrot Ridge.”

Millicent
laughed. “Surely you don’t believe in such superstitions.”

“
These are the Islands, Ma’am.”

Swinging
the binoculars back to her face, Millicent aimed the lenses at the rough ground beneath the deck.

“
Take it from me, Elsie. You can’t let your imagination get the best of you…”

Millicent’s voice trailed off as h
er magnified field skimmed over an object sparkling in the weeds at the edge of the jungle. She adjusted the focus to zoom in.

It was a plastic glass
with a decorative palm tree affixed to the side. A few inches away, she spied a matching pink straw.

“What was it Pickering said about a flamingo straw?” Millicent murmured. “Didn’t
that thief run off with a set of Oliver’s glassware?”

“I really
shouldn’t say,” Elsie replied with a discreet nod that confirmed Millicent’s assumption.

Unable to contain her exci
tement, Millicent hurried to the stairwell attached to the pavilion’s outer wall – and disappeared down the same steps that had swallowed up three before her.

~
~ ~

A FEW MINUTES later, Elsie returned to
the chair beneath the umbrella shade and retrieved the training manual. She carried the book to the reception building and stored it in a closet behind the front desk. Grabbing her cleaning supplies, she headed toward the main building to begin her housekeeping duties. As she walked along the upper terrace, she glanced down at the pavilion and grinned with satisfaction.

Millicent’s
snooping would no longer be a concern.

MILLICENT WASN’T REPORTED missing until
early evening.

The other Golden Girls didn’t return from their morning jeep ride
until late afternoon. The outing lasted far longer than anticipated due to the women taking several wrong turns on the island’s winding inland roads. More than once, while fruitlessly trying to identify their location on the map, the ladies regretted Millicent’s navigational absence.

Their friend’s
sleuthing abilities may have been in doubt, but her sense of direction was always spot on.

Just when they thought they
had joined the ranks of the permanently lost, they reached the outskirts of the main town.

After a
nice lunch at a restaurant by the ferry dock, the women drove back to the inn and retired to their suite for a much-needed siesta. Millicent wasn’t waiting for them up in the room, but that was hardly surprising. They reasoned she was off on a snooping mission somewhere around the inn grounds.

It wasn’t until they
emerged from their snooze and headed down to the pool for pre-sunset cocktails that they began to worry.

Full-on p
anic ensued when Mary peered over the deck railing and spied Millicent’s cowboy hat upended in the bushes at the clearing’s edge.

Once signaled, the alarm went
out immediately.

Inspector Pickering was hastily summoned.

~ ~ ~

DESPITE THE SHORT notice, Pickering arrived with a sizeable posse. The potential loss of an elderly tourist c
onstituted an all-hands-on-deck emergency. The situation required immediate resolution, particularly with dusk falling across the island.

The convoy of police-related vehicles converged on the inn
at the same time as the dinner crowd, creating a traffic jam on the main road next to the turn-in.

Pickering
deftly maneuvered around the safari trucks struggling to deliver their passengers up the clogged driveway. He parked his pickup and strode briskly into the pavilion, accompanied by his search team, a mostly male mix of officers and volunteers.

The inspector listened to the fretful report of the missing woman’s traveling companions, furrowing his brow at the many references to a fictional
defense attorney named Matlock. He had never heard of the American television show or its lead character, but he gathered that Millicent liked to play detective. The ladies feared that she had fallen during her sleuth-related wanderings and was lying injured somewhere in the woods.

Given the inn’s recent – and past – history,
Pickering wasn’t so sure of those assumptions.

He
scribbled in his notepad while the search team swept the ridge’s upper perimeter. It didn’t take long for the group to report back empty-handed. Pickering had expected as much. The innkeepers had already searched the area surrounding the inn.

Standing on the
deck’s northwest corner, the inspector cupped his hand over his brow and squinted at the gulls circling above the narrow beach on the far side of the jungle.

The
pointed avian shadows had adopted an aberrant flight pattern. The birds were after something more than fish.

“We need to get down to the water.”

The innkeepers had been hovering nearby, anxiously awaiting instructions.

Glenn shook his head.
“It’s not possible, Inspector. Not without a helicopter.”

“
I left mine at the station,” Pickering replied wryly.

He gazed down at the clearing,
stroked his chin, and then motioned for a man from the search team to join him at the railing. “What do you think, Reverend?”

The reverend was a well-fed man
in his late fifties with the plump build of a medieval friar. He stepped forward to consult with the inspector.

“There’s a trail,
” the reverend said, nodding at the clearing. “I remember it from before.”

AT THE REVEREND’S reference to a trail, I shook my head in disbelief.

“There’s no way,” I said, interjecting. “
I’ve never heard anything about a trail down there.”

I
nspector Pickering ignored me. He turned from the railing and strode out to the parking lot.

I watched in horror
as he returned with a machete in one hand and, panting at his side, an enormous slobbering mutt. The four-legged companion was at least as menacing as the weapon.

It
looked just like the dog I’d seen chained in the inland driveway a few months earlier.

The animal
glared up at me, as unfriendly as before. A low growl rumbled in the back of its throat.

Pickering tapped his thigh, and the dog immediately
moved into position at his heel. “Good girl, Clarice.”