by Laura Durham
She appraised me and then Alan. “I suppose this is as good as any, although why we aren’t riding in air-conditioned coaches is beyond me.”
I tried to hide my disappointment at the prospect of an hour trapped in a small car with the brassy planner. “Don’t you think these vintage Jeeps are fun?”
She flipped her bright-red hair behind her and a few strands caught me in the face. “I expected limousines, not buggies.”
“Have a go. It’s an adventure.” Alan gave her his sweetest smile before turning to face forward.
Our Balinese driver got in the car and the processional of Jeeps began to move in front of us. We pulled out of the portico behind a neon-green buggy and snaked our way up the curved drive, passing through the massive entrance walls covered in dark-brown rosettes. We turned out of the resort and drove through the area of Nusa Dua until we merged onto a highway that looked brand new and was virtually free from traffic.
The hum of the vintage motor made it hard for me to talk to Alan, so I turned to Sasha. “Are you enjoying the trip so far?” That seemed like an innocuous question.
She gave a derisive laugh. “I’d hardly call this a successful FAM trip. Haven’t you noticed all the wedding planners dropping dead?”
I fought the urge to give her a snarky response. “Yes, but I thought you wouldn’t mind at least one of them being dead.”
She narrowed her eyes at me. “What does that mean?”
I decided to go for broke since we were zipping along the highway, and there was no way she could escape my questioning. “Oh, nothing. I did hear that you and Veronica once fought over the same man.”
Alan swiveled his neck around, his blue eyes wide.
“The gossip mill’s still working well, I see.” Sasha dug in her oversized Louis Vuitton purse and produced her cigarette holder and electric cigarette. “It’s no secret she took my sloppy seconds, but it’s not something I’d kill over.”
“I heard that you were upset enough to stop attending Inspire.”
Sasha took a drag from the end of the long white holder. “I’ll admit that I may have wanted to get even with her when it happened, but that was years ago. I’m not the kind of woman who waits five years to take my revenge.”
Alan mouthed the word ‘wow’ to me when Sasha turned her head to the window to blow out imaginary smoke. I nodded at him and mouthed ‘I know.’
I turned my attention to the scenery as we exited the highway and began driving through villages. Houses sat close to the two-lane road and were interspersed with open-air shops, some with roll-down metal doors. I spotted a few homes with their own temples tucked behind wrought iron gates. The front of the homes and businesses were strewn with the remains of morning offerings: the vivid flower blossoms, bits of food, and bamboo baskets placed outside every doorway to appease the Hindu gods. I leaned my head out of the car window and could smell the lingering scent of incense that had burned in the offerings.
“It’s not like I’ve missed much at Inspire,” Sasha continued. “It’s the same people, the same cliques.”
“But you haven’t been in five years,” I said, turning my face to her and breathing in fruity vapor from the fake cigarette combined with the heavy perfume I assumed she bathed in. At least it was better than a lung full of smoke.
“Jeremy updated me on everything, and, according to him, I didn’t miss anything.” She tapped her holder on the open car window and I half expected ash to fall to the ground.
“Since Jeremy went, he must have known both of the victims pretty well,” I said. “Was he in their clique?”
“Not anymore.” Sasha leaned back against the seat. “He had a falling out with Veronica and Dina a couple of years ago. Cathy, too.”
It wasn’t hard for me to imagine other planners disliking Jeremy since I despised him so much. What was hard to believe was the fact that he’d been friends with any of them. Usually you had to be a likable person to make friends, and Jeremy was in no way likable.
“Do you know why they fell out?” I asked.
Sasha studied me for a second. “They dropped him. He never told me why, but I do know that they cut him out of their group text chain and got him blacklisted from FAM trips they were invited to.”
“Did it have to do with the scandal Veronica and Dina were involved with at Inspire a few years back?”
“If it did, he never told me. Then again, Jeremy isn’t one to trash people behind their backs.”
It took all my restraint not to laugh out loud. Trashing people behind their backs seemed to be one of Jeremy’s specialties. If he had been involved and had incriminating evidence on the two women, I wondered why he hadn’t told Sasha or used it against Veronica and Dina. Of course I knew the answer to that question.
He’d been biding his time so he could kill them instead. Knowing Jeremy the way I did, I did not put murder past him.
Chapter 14
“Did you hear all that?” I asked Alan as we got out of our Jeep in front of the Ubud monkey forest. Sasha had walked away to find Jeremy, leaving behind a trail of Shalimar and sickly sweet vapor from her fake cigarette.
“Only bits and pieces,” Alan admitted, raising his tan muscular arms over his head to stretch. “I was distracted when our driver chucked a U-ey in the middle of the road.”
I nodded, assuming he meant the U-turn our procession of cars had made. “Well, she all but admitted to me that her buddy Jeremy knew both victims well and had a good reason to want them dead.” I scanned the row of orange, green, and red vintage buggies behind ours as other guests disembarked and began walking toward the park entrance. “I need to tell my crew.”
Alan came around to my side of the car. “I’m getting the sense that you and your mates have a history with this guy Jeremy.”
“We had the misfortune of working with him on a wedding once,” I admitted, waving my arms wildly as I spotted Kate and Fern standing next to the stone sign at the entrance to the overgrown jungle. I pulled Alan with me as I hurried to join them.
“I hope you had a better ride up than I did,” Kate said once we’d reached her.
“Don’t bet on it,” I said. “We were with Sasha. Who were you with?”
Kate put a finger to her ear and shook it. “Let me just say that Chatty Cathy comes by her nickname honestly.”
“Well, I had a lovely ride up with Cliff and Ted,” Fern said, straightening his Balinese hat. “They really are Renaissance men, you know.”
“The owners of Insider Weddings?” I said, jealous that I’d missed a chance to get to know the two men better. I scanned the people walking past us into the forest. “Where’s Richard?”
“I think I saw him walk ahead with Carol Ann and her assistants,” Kate said.
Alan glanced down at his bare arm as if he wore a watch. “Should we get going? We only have thirty minutes inside before we’re supposed to be back at the cars.”
I zipped my black bag closed and tucked my long ponytail into the back of my pink T-shirt as we walked past the ornately carved stone sign announcing the entrance to the Sacred Monkey Forest Sanctuary and warning guests not to play with the wild monkeys. We followed the paved walkway shaded by a high canopy of leafy trees as gray long-tailed monkeys scampered across the path and perched on the stone ledge lining the walk. The air was cool and smelled loamy the further we walked into the overgrown jungle. Spongy moss covered rock walls, making the man-made structures seem to glow green as the slanting sun reached them through the treetops.
“It’s beautiful,” I whispered, feeling the sacredness of the space.
Alan pulled me closer to him and pointed to a large monkey following us. “If you don’t mind being stalked.”
“I’m going to buy some bananas.” Kate motioned to a nearby stall with a peaked roof.
Fern strode ahead to an opening with a stone fountain where monkeys sat grooming themselves and eyeing people as they passed. “We should be getting close to one of the temples.”
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br /> I sidestepped a pair of monkeys running past me and approached a wooden post with directional arrows and a baby monkey perched on top. Luckily, the signs were in both Indonesian and English. “The holy spring temple is this way.”
Kate ran up to us, holding a small bunch of slightly bruised bananas in each hand. “Want to feed them with me?”
Alan’s eyes widened. “They just spotted your bananas, mate.”
Before Kate could pass us a banana, two monkeys climbed up her legs and snatched the bunches from her hands. One of the monkeys continued on to her shoulders where he sat and peeled his bananas while the other monkey leapt down to the ground and ran away, dragging the yellow bunch of fruit with him.
Kate’s mouth was a perfect O as she hunched her neck forward. “He’s heavier than I would have guessed.”
Alan and I both took a few steps back as the monkey settled himself on Kate and calmly devoured his snack.
“Does he look like he wants to get down?” Kate asked, her eyes swiveling to the side as she tried to look at her passenger.
“Maybe.” I didn’t want to tell Kate that her monkey friend looked like he was perfectly happy to spend the rest of the day sitting on her shoulders. Before I had to figure out how to create a distraction worthy of a monkey, the creature bounded down to the ground and ran off in pursuit of another person holding a banana.
Kate smoothed her dress, wiping off the marks from the dirty feet that had climbed over her. “Check that off my list of things never to do again.”
I led the way down a series of winding wooden steps that twisted through the forest then rose again in front of a stone bridge flanked by a pair of moss-covered dragon statues. I let my hand rest on the wet moss as I walked up the slippery steps and across the bridge, avoiding the dangling tendrils of jungle roots hanging from the tall trees above us. I looked up and saw a curtain of roots blocking the sun as it attempted to peek through the thick foliage.
Fern leaned over a stone barrier to peer into a square pool below filled with dark, still water and floating leaves. “Well, that’s not pretty.”
“Where did Richard run off to?” I asked once we’d walked around the holy spring temple and were headed back up the wooden staircase.
“Forget Richard,” Kate said. “Where’s the rest of the group? I do not want to be left to live out the rest of my days with these banana-stealing monkeys.”
Alan laughed and nudged Kate. “You spoil me.”
“Is that Australian?” I asked, hoping to get a handle on Aussie slang by the end of the trip..
He shook his head. “Just Alan speak.”
Kate grinned at him. “I like it. I may have to steal it.”
I paused when we reached the open paved area with the stone fountain. “Does that sound like Richard?”
We turned and watched openmouthed as Richard ran past us waving his arms as he swatted a baby monkey sitting on his head and clinging to his hair. A larger monkey, whom I assumed was the baby’s mother, chased after Richard, howling with her teeth bared.
“You must be out of your mind!” Richard screamed as he ran, splashing through the fountain and down the path toward the exit.
“I think we found him,” Alan said.
“Now that’s something you don’t see everyday.” Fern turned to us. “Did anyone get that on video?”
“Come on.” I broke into a jog. “We’d better help him before he runs all the way back to the resort with that baby monkey on his head.”
“That,” Kate said, trying to catch up to me, “would be amazing.”
We reached the entrance to the forest and found Richard bent over with his hands on his knees next to a small Balinese man dressed in a traditional black-and-white checked shirt. Thankfully, there was no sign of the baby monkey or its mother.
Richard looked up as we approached, his face flushed red. “Where were you all while I was being terrorized by a rabid ape?”
“You ran past us,” Kate said, “but you were going too fast for us to do anything.”
Richard jerked a thumb in the direction of the man next to him as he gasped for breath. “If this gentleman hadn’t waved his slingshot, I would have been monkey food.”
The man smiled at us and nodded, holding up his wooden slingshot. “Scares them off.”
Fern sidled up next to the man in his identical black-and white-checked shirt and red sash. The only difference was Fern’s white sweater tied jauntily over his shoulders and his pristine Bermuda shorts. The man did a bit of a double take, then smiled widely at Fern’s outfit.
“You know what?” Fern untied his sweater. “I think this would look fabulous on you. May I?”
The man nodded and continued smiling as Fern knotted the white sweater around his shoulders.
Fern took a step back to admire his handiwork. “Just as I thought. The sweater really does make the outfit.”
“Can we please go?” Richard asked, straightening up. “I think I’ve had my fill of nature for the year.” He thanked the slingshot man again as we left. The man waved and bowed at Fern.
“So where did you go inside the monkey forest?” I asked Richard as we walked toward the row of vintage buggies, the bundles of balloons tied to their front bumpers moving in the breeze. Kate, Fern, and Alan had walked ahead of us, and I knew Richard was walking deliberately slow to put more distance between them and us. “We looked for you everywhere.”
“I was with Carol Ann, Kelly, and Dahlia. They’re all quite lovely, you know, and poor Carol Ann is just sick over these murders.” Richard put a hand on my arm. “Dahlia is trying to hold everything together for Carol Ann, but I’m not sure if she’s up to it. She’s a little blonde, if you know what I mean.”
“Do you mean ditzy?”
“Maybe,” Richard scratched his chin “Sometimes I think she’s a little spacey, but other times she seems very focused. I do know that the stress of the murders and having to manage her boss is giving her an eye twitch.”
“That’s not a good sign.” I could only imagine how much pressure the girl must be under since this was her first job out of college.
“I’ll tell you one thing. It may be the retro glasses influencing me, but that Kelly seems very mature for an intern.”
“The glasses do make me think she’s older,” I agreed. “Is there anything we can do to help them?”
“I know one thing we shouldn’t do.” Richard leaned against the top of the nearest red Jeep. “Muddle up the investigation.”
“That reminds me, has Carol Ann heard anything from the police about Dina’s cause of death?”
Richard sighed. “Did you not hear the words that just left my mouth, Annabelle?”
I waved away his concerns. “I have no intention of meddling. I was merely curious. Can’t a person be curious?”
Richard rapped his fingers along the black convertible top of the car. “Fine. Apparently, the cause of the death was the same for Dina as for Veronica.”
“So just like we thought,” I said, dropping my voice as other planners began emerging from the monkey forest and heading for the buggies. “They were both poisoned. Does Carol Ann know that the drink that probably poisoned Dina was supposedly a gift from her?”
Richard opened the car door on his side. “Since I didn’t want her to have a nervous breakdown in the monkey forest, I thought it best not to bring that up. But traces of antifreeze were found around her water bottle as well as the martini glass.”
“The water bottle?” I thought back to the pink Sigg bottle I’d noticed in her beach bag. “So she’d been drinking poison the whole time she worked out without knowing it? How is that possible?”
“Carol Ann told me it was common knowledge Dina put flavor drops in her water. Never went anywhere without them. Couldn’t stand the taste of plain water.”
“Common knowledge to anyone who knew her from Inspire,” I said. “We didn’t know.”
“I guess you can cross us off your suspect list then,” Ric
hard said.
“Ha ha.” I tapped my chin while I thought. “If the poison was in the water, then the poisoned drink was either backup or used to frame Carol Ann or both. If Carol Ann had wanted to kill Dina, she wouldn’t have implicated herself like that.”
“Unless that was part of the ruse,” Richard said.
I stared at Richard. “Do you really think Carol Ann could have pulled that off?”
“Of course not. I was just playing devil’s advocate.”
I stepped up onto the running board and leaned over the top of the car. “Did you know that Jeremy Johns was part of the same Inspire clique as Veronica and Dina, but they dropped him after they were all involved in some sort of scandal?”
“What kind of a scandal?”
I looked around me to see if anyone was within earshot. I spotted Alan waving at me from further down the row as he got into a green Jeep with Kate and Fern, so I waved back then turned my attention back to Richard. “Some kind of sex scandal, I think.”
Richard wrinkled his nose. “With Jeremy?”
“I know it’s not pretty to think about,” I said. “But from what Sasha said, they dropped him from the group and he was furious. And we’ve all seen what Jeremy’s like when he loses his temper.”
“You think he killed them?” Richard asked, then stamped one foot on the ground. “Wait, why am I even debating this with you? I’m supposed to be keeping you from poking around in the case. I promised to keep you out of this.”
I held up a hand. “You promised? Who did you promise?” I narrowed my eyes at him as his cheeks flushed red and his eyes darted away from mine. “Have you been talking to Reese behind my back?”
Chapter 15
“I take the fifth,” Richard said, opening the car door and popping out the second it came to a stop alongside the road.
I followed him out of the Jeep. “And that’s the fifth time you’ve said that since I asked you if you’ve been talking to Detective Reese behind my back.”