Permanently Booked (10 page)

Maybe Dorothy had thought of something else they needed. “Hello?”

“Hey, Cali Girl,” Dash said. “This is a rescue call.”

Jeez, what now?

“I can’t stand another minute with Mother,” he said, dropping his voice. Summer envisioned him glancing over his shoulder. “She’s driving me to drink, right along with her. Do you want to hit the town with me and Esmé later? She asked us to meet her at Chameleon when she gets off work.”

A night out did sound good. She needed a break, with all the crazy stuff going on. It might help clear the stress and make her sharper for the book club sting tomorrow. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll get ready now and pick you up. I know it’s early, but I need to do a quick errand before the place closes, okay?”

“No problem,” Dash said. “I’m desperate. And by the way, thanks so much for that blooming turtle. So far it prefers the master bathtub to its aquarium.”

Gross. But Juliette-Margot sure had been thrilled when she presented her with the little guy in his clawed-through carton. “Sorry, you’re breaking up,” Summer told him. “See you in a few.”

It took her almost an hour to shower and get ready, because she couldn’t find the strappy gold Grecian sandals she needed to go with her sparkly gold top and black-and-gold miniskirt.

She felt almost like Trixie when she added swingy chocolate diamond earrings and checked herself out in the mirror. Ugh, too much. She slipped off the earrings and tossed them back on the dresser. No jewelry tonight.

Twenty minutes later, with Dash cramped up in the passenger seat, Summer pulled the MINI into the packed SuperMart parking lot.

“You’re kidding,” Dash said. “SuperMart? That’s your big errand?”

“Yep.” Summer jumped out of the car and leaned her head back in through the window. “Better than hanging out with your mom, right? Are you coming?”

“Thank you, but no,” Dash said. “I’ll just wait here and people watch.”

Summer tried to stay focused, ignoring a few stares as she grabbed giant tubs of lemonade, daiquiri, and piña colada mixes. People acted as if they’d never seen anyone dressed up before. Well, that was their problem.

She’d have to hit a liquor store later for the vodka and rum. They probably wouldn’t need much of the hard stuff, since most of the seniors didn’t drink much, but it would be good to have plenty of nonalcoholic options. Hopefully, Jennifer could round them up a bunch of blenders.

Summer was headed toward the checkout area, tossing a bottle of cool blue nail polish and a package of TP into her cart on her way, when she spotted a huge display of red plastic drink cups. Might be a good idea to pick up some of those, too. Less cleanup, and these were recyclable.

She grabbed for the nearest pack at the same time the burly guy next to her did, and his elbow knocked straight through the cardboard display. “Watch it,” he growled, snatching the cups and heading for the chips aisle.

Summer didn’t respond. She was too busy staring at the SuperMart customer on the other side of the display. White jeans, cowboy boots, curvy figure, obvious wig—strawberry blond this time. No rodeo buckle, but she was wearing massive Texas-shaped diamond earrings.

The woman saw her, too, and made a break for the exit doors, squeezing her way through the crowd. Some shoppers seemed confused, and others annoyed—but most were just plain oblivious.

“Trixie, wait!” Summer ditched her cart and took off after her. “I just need to talk to you. It’s me or the police!”

Well, it would be both, actually. No sense in mentioning that now, though.

Lorella’s ex-assistant ignored her and kept on running. Summer had almost caught up with her when Trixie pushed a cart full of screaming, unattended toddlers in her path and ducked past the SuperMart greeter out the sliding doors.

“Hey, get away from my kids!” A woman whirled around with her half-read checkout magazine and grabbed the cart. “What’s the matter with you?”

“Really sorry,” Summer mumbled, ducking into the next aisle and squeezing past the Next Lane Please sign. She had to catch Trixie.

Unfortunately, Ray’s sort-of girlfriend moved faster in those boots than Summer did in her slippery new sandals. By the time Summer reached the parking lot, Trixie was nowhere in sight.

She had to be here somewhere, Summer told herself. No way could she just disappear, with her crazy looks, even in a crowded parking lot.

Wrong. Trixie was gone.

Summer wanted to kick herself for not alerting Security on her way out the door. But the SuperMart employee had been busy checking each and every shopper’s receipts and she’d figured she was better off on her own.

Drat. Maybe, if she drove her car up every aisle in the parking lot, she’d spot Trixie. Or maybe she should zoom to the nearest exit—unfortunately, there were two, she noticed—and wait for the woman to leave.

Trixie had run away as soon as she saw her. That meant she had to be guilty, right? She obviously knew Summer and Dorothy were onto her—about lying to them about her big trip to Montana, anyway. And Trixie had to be aware by now that Lorella was dead. Did she know she was a suspect in her boss’s murder? Probably, if Detective Donovan had shown up looking for her and Ray at that nasty exotic pet store.

Dash was taking a preclub nap in the MINI, oblivious of the pounding techno music on the radio, as Summer jumped in behind the wheel and pushed the ignition.

“Whoa, what’s the deal?” he said, sounding a little dazed as she roared carefully up each section of the parking lot. “Watch out for those two old folks,” he added. “Over there, on the left, And the curved screen TV carton, behind that red pickup.”

“No worries, I’ve got this,” Summer told him. Except she didn’t. She was right back where she’d started. Trixie was gone.

“Call Detective Donovan,” she instructed her cell phone assistant.

This time, he answered, for once. “Trixie didn’t leave town, for sure,” Summer said, skipping the hellos. “I’m at the SuperMart on Blue Heron Boulevard and I just saw her. And...she got away again. I lost her. But this means both she and Ray are definitely hiding out in town. And Trixie’s somewhere around here right now.”

“Thanks for the tip,” the detective said. “But we have a team already on it.” He paused. “Summer, please. Go home, okay? I’ve asked you more than once not to get involved, for your own safety.”

Go home? What was she, a little kid? She clicked off, without bothering to say goodbye. She’d just seen him, and he hadn’t mentioned anything about Trixie, except to say the cops had put out an APB on her. Now they were on alert for two snakes. Or three, if you counted Ray.

Did Donovan’s “team” really know Trixie was
here
, right this very second? Or was the detective just pretending he even knew for sure Trixie was still in Milano? Well, it didn’t matter. Either way he was a jerk.

Why didn’t he ever take her seriously?

“Hey, are you okay?” Dash asked, wide-awake now. “You look a little...thundery.”

“I’m fine. We’re out of here.” Summer revved the MINI to take them far, far away from SuperMart.

How could she have ever thought Shane Donovan Jr. was remotely attractive? Now she was totally glad he and his grandma were more interested in Jennifer than her. In fact, she was going to scout out another, much better guy for Jennifer. Starting tonight, maybe. The girl deserved a decent boyfriend.

And it was game on for the case, Detective.

Chapter Ten

Dorothy woke from a fitful sleep to the insistent ring of the phone she’d recently had installed next to her bed.

She already regretted that decision, but the woman from the Resident Wellness and Safety staff had recommended a multihandset system, in the highly unlikely case of some unspecified emergency.

“Hi, Dorothy?” a perky voice chirped. “Good morning! It’s Carrie Dunbar. I didn’t wake you, did I?”

“Not quite,” Dorothy said politely. “What can I do for you, Carrie?”

“Well, thank goodness it’s Friday, right? Book club day! Just wanted to see if there’s anything else you think we’ll need, or anything more Parker and I can do to get the word out.”

Definitely not an emergency. Dorothy wearily rubbed her already throbbing temples. Perhaps a Tylenol or two would be in order for breakfast. “I don’t believe so, Carrie.”

This young woman was going to be very disappointed in today’s resident turnout. If the equally enthusiastic Lorella Caldwell hadn’t succeeded in raising the literary engagement level at Hibiscus Pointe, then really, who could?

It might even—somehow—have cost the librarian her life.

“So Parker’s had a zillion bookmarks printed and we’re bringing a few cartons of books and a bunch of promotional tchotchkes. Do you think that will be enough? I’ve got some cute little chocolates with my website printed on them, but we’ll take those out at the very last minute so they don’t melt in the heat or anything.”

“Oh, that sounds just wonderful, dear,” Dorothy said. And definitely overkill. Goodness, she hoped Georgiana wasn’t going to be miffed that this eager young author was offering so many of her own, extra promotional materials. Would the great GH Hamel feel she was being overshadowed?

No, she assured herself. Discriminating readers would not be swayed by colorful bookmarks and fancy chocolate. They’d make their own book choices, based on literary merit. And Georgiana would understand that, of course.

“Hey, Dorothy!” Summer stepped into the condo, balancing a cardboard tray with two cups of coffee and a bag of pastries, and pulled the key Dorothy had had made for her out of the door lock.

“So sorry, Carrie, I’m afraid I have to go,” Dorothy said as Summer expertly avoided Mr. Bitey’s claws extended from somewhere behind the antique hutch in the living room. “I have a guest. But I’ll see you this afternoon.”

“Oh, okay.” Carrie sounded disappointed. “Parker and I will be there early to help set up. Just let me know if you think of anything else for us to do. You have my number, right?”

“I do.” Dorothy tried not to glance at her nightstand, where she’d left the business card she’d used as a bookmark last night. It showed a rather unflattering photo of Carrie—wearing a tiara, no less—beside her contact info. A blurb along the bottom edge of the card read
Soon to be the international
,
bestselling queen of romantic suspense!

That was certainly an attention-getting marketing approach. And perhaps a tad optimistic, at this early stage in her career as an author.

“Don’t you think, Dorothy?”

Oh. Carrie was still talking, and Dorothy hadn’t heard a word she’d said. “Bye now, dear,” she said as she dropped the phone back on its cradle. The young woman probably hadn’t even noticed.

“Carrie again?” Summer wrinkled her nose and set one of the coffee cups down on the nightstand. “It’s way too early to deal with her.”

Dorothy sighed. “I have to agree with you there. I was considering Tylenol for breakfast.”

“Well, I brought you a half-caff latte and a snack, but we have to hurry,” Summer said. “We have some investigating to do.”

“Right now?” Dorothy said, gratefully taking the coffee.

“Yep. As soon as you can get ready, okay?” She handed Dorothy her silky blue dressing gown from the end of the bed. “On my way here, I went up to get the free pastries in my building and I saw a bunch of Hibiscus Pointe staff people cleaning out Trixie’s condo.”

“Are you sure it was hers?” Dorothy headed toward her closet.

Summer took a swig of her triple-shot mocha. “Oh yeah. I’ve been by her place a couple of times, scoping it out in case she came back. But I would have known it was hers anyway. There was a whole bunch of Texas stuff—a big lamp with antlers—and road maps and tons of cans outside the door. Plus Lone Star beer and superhold hair spray.”

“Maybe we could check some of those maps and see if Trixie and Ray marked their route as they were planning their trip,” Dorothy said. “It’s worth a try, anyway.”

“Good idea,” Summer said. “Oh, and do you think I could have a couple of those Tylenol? Dash and I had kind of a crazy night.”

By the time she and Summer made it over to Tower A, the cleaning staff members were nowhere in sight, but Trixie’s door was still open. A rolling cart just outside it in the hall held a supply of trash bags, towels, mops, and cleaning supplies.

“We’ll have to work fast,” Summer said. “They’ll be back. They’re probably just dumping the trash.”

“There’s still quite a bit of it left,” Dorothy observed, nudging a crumpled pack of Marlboros with the toe of one Aerolite Racer. An odiferous cloud of cheap perfume wafted from a broken, horsehead-shaped bottle on the carpet and a sad trail of rhinestones led into the condo.

“Hey, Dorothy, check this out,” Summer called, from beyond the door.

Dorothy hurried inside to where her sleuthing partner stood over a messy lineup of shopping bags, overflowing with papers.

“Bills, mostly,” Summer said, holding up a handful of pages. “Unpaid ones. They’re all marked ‘Past Due’ and there are a bunch of disconnection notices, too.”

“Goodness,” Dorothy said, rummaging through the bags. From the looks of things, Trixie was indeed in dire financial straits. “How do you suppose she managed to afford this condo?” No doubt she was a renter, but Dorothy didn’t want to mention that, in case Summer’s feelings might be hurt.

Not to mention that financial matters in general were usually something of a sore point for her young friend.

“She didn’t,” Summer said. “There are tons of past due alerts from Hibiscus Pointe here, too. Oh, and yep, here we go. An eviction notice, from two months ago.”

“I wonder whether that’s why Trixie was in such a hurry to leave,” Dorothy said. “It could have had nothing to do with Lorella’s murder.”

“She could have stayed awhile longer, I bet,” Summer said. “It takes months for landlords to actually get rid of you. Unless it’s Joy. Then you’re out in two seconds.”

Dorothy sighed. Her friend was still smarting from her sister’s strong encouragement to move out of their shared home in New Jersey. “Look at the bright side, dear. If you hadn’t come down here to Florida, we wouldn’t have met.”

“True.” Summer bounced over to give her a quick hug. She smelled like coconut, as always, and strawberry lip gloss. Then she broke away and frowned. “But Trixie was getting paid to work at the library, right? She must have started getting a few paychecks, at least. Maybe she promised Hibiscus Pointe she’d pay them back soon.”

“Or they offered to give her a break on her rent,” Dorothy said.

“Well, they’re not doing anything like that for anyone else.” Summer tossed the eviction notice back into the bag over her shoulder. “I work at the pool for free and you know what the deal I got was? They said they wouldn’t kick me out because I was ‘underage.’ Not yet, anyway.”

“Remember, positivity,” Dorothy said lightly. “Perhaps Jennifer can tell us whether Trixie had some kind of special financial arrangement.” She doubted that, though. As recent events in particular had shown, the Resident Services director took the confidential aspects of her job very seriously.

Which was a good thing, really. Except when one needed to establish motive for murder.

“I heard Roger telling Jennifer there was some kind of major delinquency problem with someone’s account,” Summer said. “Maybe it was Trixie, then, and not me. Phew. I still need to double-check with Joy that we’re okay, though.”

“Mmm.” Dorothy riffled through another stack of Trixie’s old mail. “These go back quite a ways,” she said. “I wonder why she even bothered to keep them. Unless she planned to pay them off eventually, of course.”

“Nah,” Summer said, with a wave. “She’s a hoarder, probably. Did you see all that crazy stuff she got into the RV?”

“You looking for something, ladies? No one lives here anymore.”

Dorothy turned toward the voice from the doorway. A tired-looking, dark-haired woman dressed in the navy-and-tan uniform of Housekeeping Services set down a bucket filled with bottles of bleach and Faux-Breeze.

“Oh, hello. We were looking for Trixie Quattrochi,” Dorothy said. “To wish her well on her trip. But it looks as if we’re too late.”

The housekeeper wiped her arm across her perspiring face. “Yeah, you are. And she’s not coming back. Good riddance, I say. That one never let me in here to clean, and now look at the place.”

“Pretty bad,” Summer agreed. “Hey, did you find anything interesting in here when you were clearing things out?”

“Depends on what you call interesting.” The housekeeper shuddered slightly. “I didn’t look too close, after that stuffed dead raccoon. A coupla antler lamps. And, oh yeah, a box of big plastic owls. The guys took everything straight to the incinerator. They’re on their way back for these last few bags.”

“We could get rid of them for you,” Summer offered, just as two men in Hibiscus Pointe uniforms arrived with a rolling Dumpster and threw the bags in.

“I guess we’d best be going.” Dorothy took one more glance around the now-empty condo. Trixie must have managed to take all her flashy jewelry, at least. Except, apparently, for the overly large turquoise and amber necklace peeking out from the side pocket of the housekeeper’s dress. “We’ll be out of your way.”

“Where to now?” Summer asked as she and Dorothy stepped out into the hall. “Trixie didn’t have any neighbors. This part of the Towers is being renovated or something, because no one else lives here. I checked it out on Wednesday night after we got back from Dash’s party.”

Dorothy sighed. This entire section of condos did appear uninhabited. No floral wreaths on the doors. No welcome mats. No fancy gold nameplates. “Why don’t we go back to the Gardens and see if we can talk to any of Lorella’s neighbors?”

Earlier, the entire end of the hall in proximity to the deceased librarian’s condo had been crime-taped by the Milano PD—and then blocked by a folding metal grate. Overkill, perhaps, Dorothy thought. But effective in keeping out rubberneckers.

Not to mention—very inconveniently, she might add—amateur detectives.

They had just made their way over to Hibiscus Gardens and turned the corner toward Lorella’s former residence when Summer muttered something under her breath. “Look who beat us here,” she said. “Ol’ Mr. Bill.”

Dorothy sighed. Sure enough, the security chief was headed their way from the other entrance, lugging a medium-sized plastic animal carrier. She waved, and he gave a small, pained smile as he continued toward them down the hall.

Bill stopped and knocked on a door just two condos down from Lorella’s. The person who answered unlatched a thick gold security chain and poked out her white, pink-curlered head. “Oh, good, you’re here just in time,” she said. “My show is about to start.”

Dorothy rushed over behind Bill, who set down the animal carrier and wiped his brow. “Oh, hello,” she said to the woman. “I’m Dorothy Westin, and this is my friend Summer. Could we talk to you for a moment?”

“Sorry, I really can’t,” the woman said as the theme song for
Afternoons with Eleanor
drifted out from a TV inside, along with the faint odor of cigarette smoke. “And don’t let the...”

Something fast and furry brushed Dorothy’s ankle, and Bill jumped aside. Behind them, Summer reached down just in time to nab a small, skinny gray cat.

“Got him!” Summer said triumphantly.

“Her,” the woman in curlers corrected.

Dorothy reached out to give the animal a pet, but it shrank back against Summer and ducked its head. Poor thing.

The woman opened the door a bit wider and Summer tried to hand the frightened kitty, paws frantically flailing, over to its owner. “Here you go.”

“You can keep her if you want, young lady,” she said. “Because I can’t.”

“What? You mean, for good?” Summer threw Dorothy a panicked look that mirrored the cat’s.

“That’s why I’m here.” Bill picked up the carrier again. “She was Lorella Caldwell’s cat and I’m taking it to the Milano Animal Shelter.”

Oh dear
, Dorothy thought. No lost or unwanted pets lasted long there. “You’ll do no such thing,” she said, extracting the shivering cat from the crook of Summer’s elbow. “I’ll keep her until we can find her a good home.”

“Fine. Her name’s Guinevere, by the way.” Margaret pulled her floral housecoat closer around her tiny frame. “The cops must have let her out the sliding doors onto Lorella’s porch and she got over on mine and broke all the vines in my upside-down tomato planter. I just ordered it off the TV, too. She’s a nuisance, if you ask me.”

Bill was already halfway back down the hall. “Thanks, Mrs. Westin,” he called. “You’re a generous woman.”

“Wait, ma’am?” Summer said, sticking her sneaker inside the woman’s door just as it began to close. “We really need to talk to you for a sec. About your neighbor, Lorella?”

“Didn’t know her.” The woman nudged Summer’s foot back with her own matted lavender slipper. “Just her cat.”

Dorothy’s mouth dropped open as the door closed firmly and the clatter of metal chain was drowned out by wild applause from the studio audience of
Afternoons with Eleanor.

Well, that, it seemed, was that.

* * *

“Easy-sleazy,” Summer announced as she slid open Lorella’s glass door and stepped into the dead woman’s condo. “What did I tell you? The cops messed up. Everyone always forgets to lock the porch entrance.”

At least Lorella’s place was on the ground floor of a two-floor complex. Any higher, and she wouldn’t have even tried.

“Good job,” Dorothy murmured. “Be careful of Guinevere, now. She must be even more frightened now.”