by Karen Singer
“How would you know?”
“Um…how about the vacations you took the last two years? How about the new car you bought? How about…”
“Okay, okay!” Greg stopped her. The look of anger on his face couldn’t be missed.
“I think you’re just greedy Uncle Greg. Greedy, like everyone else here. That’s why everyone complained so much about Grandma not giving them any money. Simple…greed!” She didn’t care in the least about the angry look her uncle was giving her.
Her eyes moved on toward Ashley sitting with them. Ashley looked upset. “Hi Ash,” Jenni said to her. “Sorry we didn’t get to hang out on this trip. I really would have liked that.”
“Me too,” Ashley agreed.
Jenni’s eyes turned toward Chris. “Chris. You and Emily were on my watch list too. But I never really believed it was you. And Kaitlyn…” She waved a few fingers toward the four-year-old girl. “Kaitlyn is absolutely beautiful. I do hope all her medical problems are in the past.”
“So do we,” Emily replied.
“Stop telling us who didn’t do it, and tell us who did…if you know!” Jimmy called out.
Jenni turned to him and smiled. “No, you didn’t do it either Uncle Jimmy. You and Madison didn’t do it.” She started moving from table to table. “Ryan and Jillian didn’t do it…”
“Wait a minute,” Brian yelled as he stood up. “You said yesterday that the police were looking into the hotel employees.”
“That’s right…big brother,” Jenni replied.
“So one of the hotel employees murdered him?” Ryan asked.
“No,” Jenni replied. “Unfortunately, he was murdered by someone right here in the family. But one of the hotel workers was a part of the reason why he was murdered.”
“For God’s sake!” Greg yelled. “Just tell us who did it. Stop with all the dramatics.”
“Oh, but Uncle Greg, I’m having so much fun. And you’ve all been nothing but a pain in my ass all week, so just sit there and listen!”
She turned around in a circle, taking them all in quickly. Then she stopped. “You want to know what happened? I’ll tell you. Did you know that this was Grandma and Grandpa’s third trip to this hotel?”
“So?” Greg asked.
“So on each of their trips, it seems that Grandpa was having a little affair with the girl who runs the gift shop. He even paid her each time to have sex with him.”
“How dare you bring that up!” Grandma yelled angrily.
“Oh Grandma. Stuff it! It’s what happened. But it’s not the real reason he was killed.” She looked at her grandmother for a moment. “I saw the picture of you on the beach here a few months ago. Your favorite beach.”
“Yes it is. So what?”
“So…” Jenni turned to everyone else. “Did you know that Grandma’s birthday wasn’t the real reason for this trip?” She saw the looks of surprise on everyone’s faces.
“You mean her talking to everyone about her will?” one of them asked.
Jenni laughed. “And you believed that? No. I’m pretty sure that was way down on the list of why we’re all here. No! The real reason Grandma booked this trip, was to celebrate!”
“Yes, her birthday!” Chris yelled out.
“No! Her freedom! The real reason for this trip, was for Grandma to celebrate her freedom from Grandpa.”
“Are you accusing me of murdering my own husband?” Judith Finch yelled as she stood up.
Jenni turned to face her. “Why did you want me here so badly?” she asked angrily. “You went out of your way to make sure I came on this stupid trip, and then you went so far as to put me, all by myself, the only one in the family, out in the furthest building from everyone else. Why did you want me here so badly, if it was only to make sure I wasn’t near anyone else? I actually said it last night. I think you were half hoping that I would get blamed for Grandpa’s murder. And then the moment you saw his body, you were the one who started accusing me, and you made darn sure that everyone else heard you.”
She turned to the rest of the room. “Did you all know that Grandma wanted me here so badly, that she even offered Aunt Sally and me an extra thousand dollars each, over and above our travel expenses, just to make sure we came?” She looked around again and saw nothing but shocked looks on everyone’s faces. “She went to all that trouble, just to make sure I would be here, and then she went out of her way to make it look like I wasn’t wanted.” She turned back toward her grandmother. “But that was all part of your plan too, wasn’t it?” The angry look her grandmother was giving her told her that Grandma was considering murder once again.
Jenni turned back to everyone else. “Let me tell you how I’m pretty sure it all happened. The morning that Grandpa was killed, they ordered room service. But when the empty trays were picked up later, one of those heavy sharp knives that the hotel has wasn’t with the rest of the dishes. Grandma kept it. She knew that Grandpa had been having an affair with one of the hotel girls. She might have even known exactly which one, I don’t know, and it doesn’t matter. The very first night I was here, I heard her arguing with Grandpa and she pretty much threw him out of the room. But what she was really doing, was giving him a chance to meet with his girlfriend. The police found out that Grandpa had been paying her to have sex with him on each of their trips. Grandma needed him to do it again. Grandpa, I’m sure, was probably glad for the opportunity.”
She took the time to turn back toward her grandmother and level a sarcastic smile in her direction before she turned back to everyone else. “And where better for Grandpa to meet someone than that area where the birdcage is. It’s not on any of the main paths, and there’s enough vegetation around the area for someone to easily hide behind in case anyone did come along. I know, because I was doing the same thing when I happened to see Grandpa meet there with the girl from the gift shop…and kiss her. So that’s what Grandpa was doing when he was stabbed. He was waiting for the girl from the gift shop to show up. But he was waiting back on one of the small paths leading to the bird cage where he could watch but not be seen if anyone from the family did pass by there.”
“Damn it!” Judith Finch yelled. “I didn’t kill him!”
Jenni’s voice was almost sad. “No Grandma. You didn’t kill him. You only planned it. Which I’m pretty sure makes you almost just as responsible for his death as the person who did kill him.”
“It was someone else?” Jimmy asked.
Jenni nodded. “I’m not sure that Grandma would even have the strength to shove a knife into Grandpa’s back that far, let alone be able to move silent enough to sneak up on him to do it.”
“Then who?” Jimmy asked.
Jenni turned toward Ashley, and stared silently at her.
“No!” Ashley screamed as she stood up.
“Ash,” Jenni said. “You were at the bar with everyone else…for a while. But when you left, instead of going back to your room, you went to Grandma’s room instead. In case nobody noticed, Grandma’s room was the closest one to the beach…and the bar.”
“Why would I kill Grandpa?” Ashley yelled.
“Why indeed?” Jenni replied. She took a big breath and sighed. “I found a picture on Grandma’s Facebook page that pretty much told me a lot of what I needed to know.”
“My Facebook page?” Judith asked.
“Yeah Grandma. I’m afraid so. And do you want to know what it was a picture of? It was you and Ashley, with your faces pressed closely together, and just smiling away at the camera.”
“What’s that got to do with anything?” Judith asked.
“It wasn’t just what was in the picture, but it was more about when the picture was taken – which was right after your surgery. And it was taken in your own backyard. Which means that you asked Ashley down to visit, and I’m guessing, to help play nurse for you while you were recovering.”
“What if I did?”
“What if you did, is right. You’re still having trouble with t
he scar on your back from that surgery, Grandma. If the police searched your room right now, is there any chance that they’re going to find a box of those latex gloves they use for medical stuff? There were no fingerprints at all on the knife, and I’ll just bet that you gave Ashley not only the knife, but a pair of those gloves to wear to make sure there would be no prints on it.”
Judith said nothing. She just stared angrily at Jenni.
“But it wasn’t just that,” Jenni continued. “There was one more thing that cemented it all into place for me.” She turned back toward Ashley again. “You told me yourself.”
“Me? I didn’t!”
“Not you directly, but close enough.” She turned to everyone in the room. “Ashley is the only person in the room with a SnapChat account. Nobody else here uses it. The problem with SnapChat is that once the message has been read, the system deletes it immediately. But not always. There’s one case where the messages stay until someone takes them down. Mostly it’s used if you want to let a lot of people know about something. But there’s one other time when I know from past experience that it gets used a lot. And that’s when someone is so emotionally upset about something that they post it and don’t send it to anyone at all…so that anyone who stumbles across her site can see it.” She noticed that Ashley was sitting down now. Her face looked almost white. “Let me read you what I found.”
Jenni went to her purse and pulled out her cellphone. It took her only a moment to pull up the message. In front of everyone, she read it. “S-H-I, asterisk, exclamation,” Jenni read. “F-u asterisk, asterisk, exclamation. He raped me, exclamation, exclamation, exclamation. I’ll kill him, exclamation, exclamation, exclamation, exclamation, exclamation. I hate him, exclamation.”
“You didn’t!” Judith yelled as she stood up again, looking directly at Ashley.
Ashley broke down in tears
“You stupid, stupid girl!” Judith yelled. “We were home free! Nobody suspected us at all!”
“It’s not the first time that Grandpa tried to rape someone,” Jenni told the room. “But it wasn’t until it happened this time that Grandma finally decided to do something about it. But divorcing him was out.” She laughed a small chuckle. “Because Grandpa would have probably wound up with half of the money that Grandma is so determined to not let go of. And so when Ashley told her what happened, the two of them cooked up this scheme together. And that’s what happened to Grandpa,” Jenni finished. She walked over to her purse and put her phone away. Without another word, she started walking out.
Pierce hurried onto the room. “Jenni! Go back to your room. I’ll need to talk to you.”
“No!” Sally said. “She’ll be in my room. And Ashley wasn’t the only person here that Daddy tried to rape.”
“I’ll need to talk to both of you then,” Pierce said. He watched as Jenni and Sally walked out. He motioned to one of the two policemen who had finally arrived. He walked over to Ashley. “I need you to go back to your room and stay there,” he told her. “This officer will escort you.”
“No!” Greg interrupted. “She’s my daughter. “She’ll be in my room with us.”
Pierce nodded. “I think that would be best.”
He led the other policeman over to Judith Finch. “Mrs. Finch, I need you to go back to your room with this officer please.”
“That stupid girl?” Judith muttered angrily.
“Ashley?” Pierce asked.
“No! Kyle!”
“She didn’t sound so stupid to me. She figured out what nobody else could.”
“Stupid girl!”
Pierce shook his head.
--- §§§§§§§§§§ ---
“There’s a bit of a complication.”
“What?” the voice on the phone replied.
“I take it you know that Bijan is dead?”
“Yes! It is most regrettable. Worse, we may not be able to get his body back for a proper burial. He may have to be remembered as a martyr instead.”
“Well, so far, they haven’t been able to identify him. I only know because they called me back into work after Phillips shot him.”
“So it was the policeman, Phillips, who killed Bijan?”
“Yes.”
“I will tell his brother. I’m sure he will want to take it out on more than just the private eye.”
“Hey! I don’t need to know about it!”
“Of course. What else? Anything?”
“The reason I called you in the first place. It seems the private eye has some girl working for him that nobody knew about. A researcher. And she’s the one who figured everything out.”
“I already know about her. Someone named Jennifer. Pasha told me already. I’ve asked some of our brothers in Miami to look into her.”
“Well, she must be pretty damn good, because I heard through the grapevine that she just solved a major murder case down there all by herself, that had the police completely baffled.”
“Hmm. Maybe I better ask my friends to look into her sooner rather than later.”
“Might be a good idea.”
Chapter 12
The shuttle boat approached the dock, ending its final run for the night. Since the police had stopped all the guests from leaving the island, the boat was making far less trips across every day. The captain of the boat had just taken the skeleton night crew out to the island, and now he was bringing back the few last people they had replaced. He was done for the night, or would be, as soon as he got the boat tied down and buttoned up.
By the time he got both lines from the boat tied securely to the dock, the passengers he had just carried back to shore were already getting into their cars and leaving. He went back aboard the boat to make sure everything was secure for the night. When he returned, he found two large men standing on the dock.
“Is this the boat that will take us out to the island?” one of them asked.
The captain was surprised, both by the men, and the strange accent of the man who had spoken.
“Are you with the police?” he asked.
“No,” the man replied. “We are not the police.”
“I’m sorry then,” the captain replied. “But I’ve already made my last trip for the night. Besides, going out to the island won’t do you any good anyway. Between the murder that took place and some rich lady booking the entire hotel for the whole week, there’s no way you can get a room until Saturday.” A strange clicking noise made him turn toward the second man. He was shocked to see a gun now pointed right at him, and he saw the man removing his thumb from where he had just cocked it.
“We are going out to the island…now!” the second man said in a similar accent.
The captain had no choice but to untie the boat and take them out to the hotel. Through the entire trip, his eyes rarely strayed from the two men, especially the one who kept the gun aimed at him. The only thing he really wanted to do, was to get home to safety – and to call the police. He was scared!
The moment the boat touched the dock at the island, one of the men jumped off, the one with the gun, stayed. “Tie the boat,” he said. “We will be leaving soon.”
The captain got off the boat and started fastening the lines. Once both lines had been tied, the captain stood up and turned to see that the man who had jumped off first was now holding a knife. The man rushed him. He tried to resist, but he was no contest for the training of the man. Before he knew it, the man was behind him and he felt a quick stinging that seemed to go across his entire neck – as his throat was slit. He fell forward into the bottom of the boat where he laid dying as the two men headed for the hotel.
One of the men pointed toward the lobby and they headed directly there.
The night manager was surprised to see two men walking in. “Police?” he asked, knowing that only the police would be out at a time like that. Besides, only the police would have made the boat turn around to bring them to the island.
While one of the men looked around for a security camera
, the other one talked to the night manager. “You have a guest staying here named Jennifer. What room is she in?”
“Oh. That one,” the manager replied, recognizing the name from the night she had run to him reporting the murder. “She was the one who first found him. But I heard all that was cleared up earlier this evening.”
“What room is she in?” the second stranger asked, his eyes still searching for any sign of a camera.
The manager was surprised that both men would have such a strange accent. “Uh…D-1.”
“And how do we get there the other man asked.”
“Easy. Take the main path that starts just outside and follow it straight back to the other side of the island. You can’t miss it.”
“Thank you,” the first man replied. Before the manager could react, he reached across the reception desk and grabbed the man’s shirt, pulling him toward him. At the same time, his knife went toward the man’s chest, burying itself close to his heart. The man was lying dead behind the tall counter only moments later as the two strangers followed the path all the way back to building D.
Forty-five minutes later, they were back in the boat, driving it back across the span of water. When they got there, they didn’t tie it up, instead, one of them shoved the boat back out toward the ocean with his foot where the receding tide kept it moving. Their car left the parking lot two minutes later.
--- §§§§§§§§§§ ---
“We couldn’t find her.”
“What? Did you go to the right hotel?”
“Yes. The night manager knew immediately who she was. He didn’t even have to look up what room she was in.”
“What happened?”
“We looked, but we couldn’t find her. We figure she was probably sleeping with her boyfriend instead of staying in her own room.”
“Did you ask someone if they knew where she could be?”
“Unfortunately, the manager wasn’t in any position to answer anything by the time we went to her room.”