Murder at the Miramar (Augusta Burnette Series)

by Dane McCaslin

  ‘Who is it?’ I queried, my words conveying my best no-nonsense, do-not-mess-with-me manner.

  ‘It’s me, miss.’ I heard the soft voice of the young girl who’d called Security for me. ‘I was just checking on you, to see how you are.’

  I hesitated, still a bit wary. Did I dare open the door? Oh, what the heck. She’d practically been the hero of the moment, and I still needed to thank her for noticing my distress and getting hold of Security as quickly as she had. I flipped the deadbolt lock and unhooked the safety chain, stepping back to allow her entrance into the suite. With a timid smile, she came in.

  Ellie, propped up on cushions to ease the pain in her neck and back, struggled to rise to a sitting position, but I quickly and gently pushed her back down. All I needed was another trip to the ER and an extra day or two here in San Blanco. The place was rapidly losing its charm, and even my family’s reunion sounded tame compared to the chaos I’d experienced in just a few short days. That thought alone should have been evidence of my frame of mind. I was a nervous wreck and wanted out of here as fast as I could pack and hit the freeway.

  The girl stood near the door, eyes looking uncertainly from me to Ellie and back to me again. I managed a smile, and stuck out my hand.

  ‘I’m AJ, and I wanted to let you know how grateful I am for your help today.’

  Her hand was as small and fragile as a child’s, and I could see my words had embarrassed her. Still, she had a kind of dignity that made her seem surprisingly older than her years.

  ‘I was happy to help, miss. I only wished that I could have done more for you. And her.’ She looked over at Ellie again, and I read the concern in her eyes. Concern – and something else. And I had a feeling that this ‘something else’ was the real reason behind her visit.

  My hackles were rising, and a swift glance at Ellie told me that we were on the same wavelength. If this girl – a look at her name badge told me her name was Dulce – knew something, or had heard anything, we needed to know. I still had Emmy’s letter tucked away safely, but there had to be more to this whole mess than a bunch of men making fake identity cards.

  ‘Please, sit down and visit for a few minutes. If you can, that is,’ I added, noting the quick look Dulce gave to her wristwatch. The last thing I needed was to get her in hot water with the boss. He was plenty mad at me as it was.

  ‘Yes, I can. I am on my break,’ she answered. She settled herself on the edge of one of the armchairs, smiling shyly at me.

  Ellie had somehow managed to raise herself up on her elbows. She gave a little groan and I all but flew to her side. That girl could be so stubborn, and it reminded me of the time we were riding our bikes and daring each other to jump across the tiny creek that ran behind my house. I had given up almost right away, not wanting to risk a fall or my mother’s wrath for ruining my school clothes.

  Not Ellie. It took her at least five tries, not to mention getting her clothes soaking wet and a few fresh cuts on her knees, before she mastered the jump. She was not about to give in, and that was how she approached life. This mishap was not going to keep her down. In fact, I’d be willing to bet that it fueled her desire to tackle the problem, to figure this whole thing out. I almost groaned along with her: call me intuitive, but I had a gut feeling that we were going to be here for longer than a day or two, if Ellie had anything to do with it.

  One look at Dulce’s face told me that she clearly had something on her mind. A sideways glance at Ellie confirmed she’d not only seen the look and recognized it for what it was, but also had her own motives for talking with the young girl. Knowing my cousin as well as I did, I assumed the conversation would end with a peek at the cards.

  ‘I have heard, miss,’ Dulce said, looking at Ellie, ‘that you can tell what will happen in the future.’ She stopped, her eyes dropping to the floor as though the rest of her words were written there on invisible cue cards.

  Ellie, bless her heart, gave Dulce the time she needed to compose her thoughts. I would have been tempted to jump in and coax the words out, but the silence seemed to work. Dulce raised her head and looked at Ellie with determination. She had made up her mind, it seemed, and was ready to talk.

  ‘I am afraid, miss. Some of us here at the Miramar, we don’t have papers, so we get the necessary things from some men who help us get jobs.’ Dulce paused, waiting to see if we were comprehending what she was saying. I nodded at her encouragingly, having only a vague understanding of what she meant. Ellie, on the other hand, was staring back at Dulce. Either she knew exactly what the girl meant or she had zoned out on her pain medication.

  Giving a little shake of her head, Dulce continued. ‘This man they found, the one when the little girl was missing? He was one of the men who helped me and José get our papers. I think that someone wanted his business so they killed him.’

  That pronouncement certainly got my attention. From a quick glance at Ellie, I could see she was following Dulce word for word. Thank goodness. I was afraid I’d have to confiscate her meds.

  ‘Did that have anything to do with Miguel?’ I asked the question without even thinking, but to my surprise, Dulce nodded soberly at me, her eyes troubled and sad.

  ‘Yes, miss. Miguel, he used to work here. And I think that maybe he found out who was selling the papers.’

  OK. I wasn’t too sure where this was going, considering that Miguel obviously hadn’t tattled to the authorities. I mean, Dulce was still here, wasn’t she? If someone knew about the illegal papers and all that, wouldn’t there have been a raid or whatever it was they did? I was a bit confused about the direction this conversation was taking.

  Judging by the sudden light in Ellie’s eyes, she’d made a connection that my brain hadn’t. Swinging her legs very slowly over the edge of the sofa, she began to sit up. In a flash, Dulce had reached Ellie’s side, gently slipping an arm under her shoulders and guiding her upright.

  ‘Thanks, Dulce,’ Ellie managed to get out. My crazy cousin apparently thought she could walk as well, because she tried to stand up, instead dropping heavily back onto the couch.

  ‘OK, Iron Woman. You just stay right there,’ I ordered, getting to my feet and walking over to where Ellie sat hunched over. ‘If you need something, tell me. I can get it for you.’ I was not about to let her hurt herself any further, even if it meant physically restraining her.

  ‘I just need my cards,’ Ellie retorted with a little of the old fire in her voice.

  A good sign, I thought approvingly. Judging by the glare she gave me, she had read that thought. I stuck out my tongue and walked to the kitchen table to retrieve her precious cards.

  Slowly, methodically, Ellie shuffled the deck of oversized cards and held them, looking over at Dulce. ‘Tell me about the man who got the papers for you and your brother,’ she said.

  ‘He was a friend of my father’s and lived not too far from us. When I was little, too small to remember, he came here and found work. It was much easier then,’ added Dulce in a wistful voice.

  Ellie laid out a row of cards on the coffee table. She nodded to Dulce. ‘Go on. Tell me about working here at the Miramar. Did you know Miguel very well?’

  I’d seen Ellie do her card thing before. I am not a believer in getting messages from inanimate objects, but Ellie can make people think that whatever she tells them is exactly what they wanted – and needed – to hear, just by asking a few questions. I was curious how she’d handle the information Dulce was feeding her.

  Dulce’s face lit up. ‘Oh, I love it here! It’s not too far from my parents and I can see them whenever I can get some time off. And there are lots of nice-looking men, too,’ she added shyly, her thin cheeks coloring with a becoming blush.

  What is it with women who can make a blush look easy and elegant?

  A small smile played around Ellie’s mouth. Another good sign, I thought. She still had her sense of humor intact.

  ‘And Miguel? How well did you know him?’ Ellie prompted, continuing to lay the
cards on top of one another in different patterns which looked completely random to me.

  Dulce gave a little grimace. ‘He was nice, and was a brother to my friend Maria, but …’ She stopped, hesitating with her words.

  ‘But what, Dulce?’ I asked, a trifle impatiently. Between Ellie’s pseudo-science and Dulce’s reticence, this conversation was moving at a snail’s pace.

  Ellie shot me a look that told me, in very clear terms, to back off. This was her show, the look said, and she was going to run it the way she saw fit. I managed to keep myself from giving her one of my screwy faces from our childhood squabbles, the kind where I crossed my eyes and let my tongue hang out of my mouth. Poor Dulce was probably already spooked enough without me adding to it.

  ‘His wife, she knew about Miguel and Emmy.’ Dulce looked embarrassed to be repeating stories like this, but this was the good stuff, in my book.

  Ellie flipped over a card, looked at it intently for a moment, then set it aside. I saw the minute shake of her head, and a tiny shiver tripped down my spine. Whatever she had seen on that card had made her uneasy. Looking up from the cards, Ellie nodded at Dulce, waiting for her to continue.

  ‘When Miguel was hurt the other night – when he died – we all thought that maybe his wife had done something. Not to kill him,’ she hastily added, ‘Just to make him hurt enough to leave the Miramar and come home to her.’

  Well, I suppose that did make sense, in a twisted way. Of course, a suspicious wife might have followed him and been here when the sound system was set up, but surely she would have been noticed by someone. I mean, even Emmy … I let that thought go as another one filled my mind. Could it have been that Emmy was the target? I looked over at Ellie, my excitement building. Maybe I had stumbled onto part of the mystery.

  ‘What, AJ?’ Ellie sounded cross, as though I’d jumped up on stage in the middle of performance and grabbed the mike from her hand.

  ‘Look,’ I said, glancing from Ellie to Dulce. ‘Let’s say that Miguel’s wife didn’t want him back here, especially since he and Emmy … well, since he and Emmy were close.’ I checked to make sure that they were following me. ‘Maybe his wife knew Emmy would be the one to make sure everything was in working order, you know, the sound system was OK and the instruments in place. Could she have rigged it up so that Emmy would have been the one to get the shock, only it misfired a bit and Miguel was the one who got it instead?’ I stopped, out of words and out of breath.

  Ellie just stared at me, eyes narrowing a bit as the wheels turned. Dulce, on the other hand, had opened her eyes as wide as they would go, looking like a little deer in the headlights of a fast-moving big rig.

  ‘So how would you explain Emmy?’ demanded Ellie. She, poor thing, was still traumatized at the sight on the beach and needed a better story than a vengeful wife.

  ‘This way,’ I said eagerly, plopping down on the floor beside the couch. ‘Miguel’s death was an accident, so she needed to finish up the job because she knew that, eventually, Emmy would guess what had happened and would spill the beans.’

  Ellie’s look was one of disgust. She was not finding my train of thought easy to board, it seemed.

  ‘And what about the letter? And the first dead man? And the illegal identity business or ring or conspiracy or whatever you call it? How do you make sense of all that?’ I waited for – and got – the famous Ellie hair toss; the one that said that I was a goofball and had no idea what I was saying. One quick peek at Dulce told me that she agreed with Ellie, although she softened her judgment with a little smile.

  Well, if I didn’t know what I was talking about, I knew someone who did. And I sure could use a dimple just about now. Fishing Detective Baird’s card from my pocket, I got to my feet and headed for the phone. It was time to call in the big guns, no pun intended.

  Chapter Fifteen

  ‘What are you doing?’ exclaimed Ellie, one hand arrested in mid-flip of another card. ‘We’ve almost got this whole thing figured out, AJ!’

  What she really meant was that she was almost done with her card trick – which is how I thought of it – and the police could just wait a dang minute until she’d solved the crime for them. I almost rolled my eyes but thought better of it in the nick of time; I needed Ellie as an ally, not an enemy.

  ‘Well, hurry it up then, O Great Seer.’ This earned me a glare, which I blithely ignored. Ellie took herself way too seriously sometimes. ‘We still need to tell the detectives about the letter. I don’t know about you, but I have no desire to be arrested or put in thumbscrews or whatever it is they do when you withhold vital evidence.’

  ‘Whatever,’ Ellie muttered, bending back over the table and passing a hand over the cards.

  I ignored that quip as well. I figured the faster she got done, the faster I could make that call. I was beginning to feel twitchy for some reason, but Ellie wasn’t on the same wavelength. I was probably being paranoid, but I couldn’t shake the idea that the answer was closer than we thought.

  A sharp rap on the door made us all jump sky high. Dulce was on her feet in one second flat, a hand pressed to her heart and the other held to her mouth. Her eyes stared at me over her hand, and she looked scared. Actually, she looked petrified, and I didn’t think it had anything to do with taking too long on her break. Dulce was frightened of whoever stood on the other side.

  Edging quietly to the door, I waited a moment before I called out, ‘Who is it?’

  I thought I could hear a slight shuffling noise, but I couldn’t identify it. No name, no open door, I thought grimly. I wasn’t about to invite the killer into my suite.

  ‘Ms Burnette? It’s Detective Fischer. I just need to speak with you for a moment and your cousin, if she’s still here.’ The officer’s gruff voice came through the door, and my heart completed a gymnastic flip that would have been scored a ten as it settled back inside my chest. Not quite the detective I had in mind, but he’d do.

  I undid the safety chain and unlocked the door. Detective Fischer was standing in the corridor, a battered notebook in one hand. He was flipping through the pages, stopping every now and then to read what was there. I only hoped it didn’t say anything about a certain letter. I was sure that ‘guilty’ was written all over my face.

  ‘Come in, Detective,’ I invited, standing aside to allow him entrance into the suite.

  Dulce had retreated to one of the armchairs, hands clasped together and feet pulled back under the chair as though she was trying to hide them. Ellie merely glanced up briefly, nodding while keeping her focus on the three cards she now had laying face up.

  Without a word, Detective Fischer walked over to the table, hands behind his back, head moving back and forth as he gazed at the colorful display. I held my breath, waiting for him to do the forbidden and reach out to take a card. To my relief, he did not, seemingly content to wait until Ellie was ready to speak. Maybe he wasn’t as dense as I’d thought. Of course, I suspected I was a tad preferential of a certain someone’s smile, but hey! I could focus when I needed to.

  ‘What can we do for you, Detective?’ Ellie looked up calmly, hands held loosely in her lap and the three cards left ignored on the table. She’d share when she was ready.

  ‘I have a few more questions for the two of you,’ Detective Fischer replied, his gaze sweeping the rest of the room and settling on Dulce. ‘If I could have a minute?’

  Dulce got his semi-subtle hint, leaping to her feet and scuttling toward the door. ‘I will see you in a few days, if that is OK? It is my scheduled time off work but I would love to visit with you again.’ With a shy smile, she was out the door and gone.

  I settled onto the couch next to Ellie, tucking my feet up and relaxing back against the cushions. I was certain this would take more than a mere minute and I wanted to be comfortable while I tried to decide whether or not to confess to the letter from Emmy.

  My cousin, I noticed, had also settled back against the pillows, moving slowly to give her sore body time to adjust.
The fact that she was moving at all was a great improvement, though, and I mentally moved our escape from the Miramar from two days to one. We could just make the drive back up the coast a bit more leisurely than the trip down.

  ‘Do you mind?’ Detective Fischer indicated the chair that Dulce had just vacated, settling his bulk into it before either one of us could reply. Not that we’d ever tell an officer ‘No’, but really! “The manners of some folks,” as my mother would point out with a dainty sniff.

  Neither Ellie nor I spoke, putting the onus of the interview back on the detective’s shoulders. I’d read somewhere that silence, like Nature, abhors a vacuum, and was waiting to see what Detective Fischer would fill it with. Finally, with a dramatic sigh that indicated being very put upon by two recalcitrant women, he spoke.

  ‘I understand,’ he said, looking straight at me, ‘that you might have something I need to take a look at.’

  I was startled, no doubt about it. Was he psychic as well? Or had I just looked so guilty when I opened the door that he could read my face, no need for cards. My mouth opened and shut a few times as though on a trial run as I tried to gather my scattered wits back into one area.

  ‘Well,’ I said, stammering slightly. ‘I have, er … a letter that, er … may have something to do with this.’ My right hand indicated Ellie, who now sat looking like a martyr of the purest ilk. My cousin, I may have mentioned before, loves not only the limelight, she also knows how to play to an audience. Hence the slightly drooping eyes, the listless hands, the down-turned mouth. I couldn’t look at her for fear I’d burst into hysterical laughter, thus ensuring that we’d both be hauled off to the nearest loony-bin, if not the San Blanco jail.

  Detective Fischer, to his credit, did not say a word. He merely held out a hand in silent appeal, and I acquiesced, uncurling my legs and walking over to the kitchen. I had hidden the missive in the freezer beneath a bag of ice, and the envelope felt a bit stiff. I was sure it was still readable, though. Thankfully, whoever had been in my suite had not thought to look there; I was still certain that the entire chaotic mess hinged on Emmy’s last words to me.