by Lee Hollis
She had to shake him awake when they arrived, and it took great effort to get him unstrapped and out of the car, but the wind and rain had finally seemed to arouse him and he started chattering again about life back in Córdoba and all his girlfriends and how American girls on television like the pretty young rich ones on Gossip Girl had inspired him to come to America and stake out his fortune.
By marrying one?
Hayley’s neck ached by the time they had reached the king-size bed, and she gave Nacho a shove forward.
He had flopped face down on the bed and within four seconds was snoring again.
She turned him over and unbuttoned his shirt. He had abs to die for.
Then she got him out of his shoes and wriggled his pants off. The muscled legs of a star athlete.
She couldn’t help but marvel at his flawless physique.
After placing his shoes by the bedside and folding his clothes and leaving them in a rocking chair by the window, she was about to snap off the light and close the door and call for a taxi home.
She stopped as Nacho started talking, his words slurred. He mumbled something about Red and Peggy telling him at dinner that they had checked in to a hotel in Bar Harbor because they refused to stay at the house as long as he was living there.
The servants had gone home for the night.
There was no one around to catch her if she did a little snooping. She started by searching the drawers of the night tables on each side of the bed.
Nothing of importance. Just some operating manuals for the television and stereo system. A compact hair dryer. Some receipts for a couple of meals in town.
She crossed to the closet and peered inside. There was a chain hanging from a light fixture on the ceiling of the closet. She yanked it and had to close her eyes, momentarily blinded by the high-wattage bulb. Once her vision readjusted she noticed all of the clothes belonged to Nacho.
A couple of suits. Lots of polo shirts in assorted bright colors. Some pressed shorts.
On the floor in the corner next to some very expensive-looking Gucci crocodile horse-bit loafers was a Nike gym bag. She knelt down, unzipped it, and rummaged through it.
She found a stack of used United Airlines tickets to exotic destinations around the world. An Argentine passport.
A birthday card from Olivia. She wrote lovingly about how her life had changed the day she met him. How his kindness gave her a new lease on life after years of a cold, distant father, an alcoholic, absent mother, and a long road littered with bad relationships with bad men ill-equipped to handle her immense wealth or too eager to exploit it. In Nacho, she had found her soul mate, her best friend, the man she knew in her heart would never betray her.
If only she could have seen him at the bar tonight hitting on Randy.
But then again, love wasn’t always entwined with sex.
Hayley knew plenty of marriages where one of the spouses was closeted, but still loved their husband or wife.
She was definitely not one to judge any marriage, given how her own had ended in tatters.
There was another birthday card tucked in a side pocket. This one was still stuffed in its envelope, although it had been opened and she presumed read. She pulled the card out. On the cover was a lean, blond, devilish-looking stud in a bulging jockstrap and nothing else. Written on the top was, “The Best Gifts Come in Big Packages.”
Hayley chuckled. Someone had a sense of humor.
She opened the card. Inside was printed “Happy Birthday.”
Scrawled underneath that was the following message.
My dearest Nacho,
You will always be my one and only Argentine side dish.
I can’t even count the ways you make me the happiest gringo on earth.
My deepest love,
Andy
Hayley flipped the envelope over to see the return address. It was a local residence, on Greeley Avenue. The name above the street number was Hawkins.
Andy.
Andy Hawkins.
Hayley knew exactly who that was. A young artist type in his midtwenties. He’d moved to the island as a child with his parents from out west. Arizona maybe.
He’d been an aspiring photographer. He had interned at the Island Times one summer when he was home from college, shooting pictures of the Fourth of July parade and the lobster festival and various band concerts in the village green. Now he was a freelancer working for both local papers whenever they needed an event photographed. If they both wanted him to cover the event, he’d go with the highest bidder.
Although they had never discussed it, Hayley always assumed he was gay.
Her instincts appeared to be right.
And apparently he was also the secret lover of Olivia Redmond’s grieving husband.
Chapter 19
The man leapt from the creaky aluminum stands, jostling the other parents, and charged over to the college-age coach, wagging a finger in his face and shouting, “You need to put my son in left field now, before you throw the whole game!”
The fresh-faced coach, with big Obama-sized ears, stood toe to toe with the angry dad and held his ground. “Mr. Weston, I don’t tell you how to run your bait shop. You don’t get to tell me how to coach my kids.”
The Little League game at the town ball field was already a nail biter. Tied score of four to four. Entering the ninth inning.
The other parents packed onto the shaky metal stands were all on edge, no matter which team they were there rooting for, because at this point it could go either way.
And one kid on the blue team was busy picking his nose and didn’t see the ball roll right through his legs, allowing the red team to get two players on first and second base.
Tension was mounting.
The coach ordered the overzealous dad back to his seat.
The loud, brash father didn’t budge.
It was basically a standoff.
The crowd exchanged disapproving looks.
His embarrassed wife scooted over to the dad and implored him to come with her and let the coach do his job.
Andy Hawkins recorded it all on his high-resolution camera.
“Aren’t you here to record the game?” Hayley asked him as he snapped away, a big grin on his face.
“Yeah, that’s what Sal’s paying me for. But human drama like this is priceless. Besides, that’s Ernie Weston. I ran into his wife at the Shop ’n Save last week and asked how she was doing and she hinted she might be leaving her husband, but needed proof of his boorish, unsportsmanlike behavior in case of a custody hearing.”
“So you’re going to sell her photos of him verbally abusing his son’s Little League coach?”
“A guy’s got to eat,” Andy said, lowering his camera once Mrs. Weston finally managed to drag her still jeering husband back to the stands.
The game resumed.
One early developed, beefy kid who towered over his teammates furiously swung the bat, nearly cracking it, whacking the ball. It sailed high above the field and over the poor little guy in left field who desperately wanted to be left alone in peace to just pick his nose. By the time he managed to chase after it, scoop the ball up in his mitt, and throw it back to the third-base man, two boys in red had crossed home plate to the enthusiastic cheers of their parents.
The game was now six to four.
Angry dad blew his stack and stormed off to his car, much to the relief of his beleaguered wife, who glanced over at Andy to see how much of the tirade he’d gotten on camera.
Andy gave her an enthusiastic thumbs-up.
She waved happily and then chased after her husband, knowing she didn’t have to scold him for his abhorrent behavior because it was definitely going to bite him in the ass eventually, during their divorce proceedings.
Andy aimed his camera at the kids in red still jumping up and down around their own coach, a heavyset, ponytailed woman in a cap and gray shirt and jeans.
“So, are you here to ask me about Nacho?” he as
ked, snapping more photos.
“How did you know?”
“I know you, Hayley. And the moment I got word that Olivia Redmond had been murdered, I expected you to turn up and pepper me with questions about my sordid affair with her bisexual husband.”
“Am I that predictable?”
Andy lowered his camera again and smiled. “I would just say your reputation precedes you.”
“Have you told the police?”
“They never asked me. I don’t think they know about it yet. Nobody’s come around to question me. But believe me, if that hot police chief shows up on my doorstep, I don’t plan on hiding anything. And I do mean anything.”
“So you don’t consider your relationship with Nacho a secret?”
“I have no reason to keep it a secret,” Andy said.
A thwack interrupted their conversation. The kid on the red team had hit another home run and their parents were going wild with lots of slaps on the back and big bear hugs.
The parents of the blue team remained seated with miserable, resigned looks on their faces.
Andy snapped what he could of the moment but still managed to miss most of it. He didn’t seem too upset about it. He just shrugged and turned back to Hayley again. “Olivia knew about the two of us.”
“Was she devastated when she found out?”
“Hell, no. She didn’t care. Just as long as Nacho put on a good show for her high society friends and associates. She didn’t like anyone knowing her business. But the truth was, Olivia and Nacho were more friends than lovers. They rarely had sex but they shared a much deeper bond. He really did adore her.”
“But if he was scamming her for a green card and rich lifestyle, couldn’t his adoration have just been an act?”
“Not a chance. The way I caught him looking at her, just the way he talked about her, there was no faking it. I was the one who was jealous because I knew I was always going to just be the boy on the side. I begged him to run away with me, but he refused. It wasn’t about the money. He genuinely loved her and was never going to risk doing anything to hurt her.”
Hayley was floored. But she had heard of such arrangements. Some of the most loving and long-lasting marriages she knew about never involved sex.
A roar from the crowd.
The red team had struck out and the blue team now had a chance to make up some runs to at least tie the game.
The nose picker in left field had miraculously caught the ball in his glove.
The rest of his team swarmed out to left field to raise him onto their shoulders and carry him back to the dugout.
The boy beamed with pride. So did his dad, nearly crying from relief that his son had managed to finally get some skin in the game.
And Andy had totally missed recording the kid’s heroic catch for posterity.
“Listen, I’m going to leave you alone so you don’t miss any more critical plays.”
Andy smiled. “Let’s hope the blue team doesn’t score any hits, because I have to get over to the Harborside Hotel and cover a press conference.”
“Press conference?”
“Yeah, your friend just flew into town.”
“My friend?”
“Rhonda Franklin, host of The Chat, which I never miss, by the way. Shopping tips, arts, cooking, crafts, and celebrity interviews. What more could a self-respecting gay ask for?”
“She’s here?”
“Yeah, she’s making some kind of statement about Olivia Redmond’s murder.”
Chapter 20
Rhonda Franklin adjusted her dark sunglasses as she spoke, even though the sky was gray with a patchy cloud cover. Still, the flashes from the cameras belonging to the smattering of local and national press outside the Harborside Hotel were somewhat blinding, so hiding her eyes behind those oversized Christian Dior shades wasn’t all for dramatic effect.
She straightened the dark blue jacket of her smart pantsuit that Hillary Clinton would be proud to wear and then clasped her hands together in front of her as she continued addressing the crowd of reporters. “Olivia Redmond was not just a celebrity friend. I have plenty of those. Actors or politicians with whom I’ve been photographed or served on a charity board so people assume we’re best buddies who gab on the phone every day, but in reality we hardly know each other. No, Olivia was a real friend. A true friend. And we did talk on the phone every day. We gossiped, we laughed, we offered support to each other, a helping hand when needed. And now . . .”
Rhonda Franklin fished a white handkerchief out of her pocket and wiped her nose as she valiantly fought back the inevitable onslaught of tears. “Now . . . she’s gone.... No longer with us . . . And I have yet to face the fact that we’ll never chat on the phone ever again.”
“Chat” on the phone. She made sure to hit the word “chat.” Emphasizing it above all the others.
The word seemed planted in her speech. It was an obvious yet subtle nod to Rhonda Franklin’s TV show.
Which suggested she wasn’t speaking 100 percent from the heart.
There was a little public relations cleanup happening at Rhonda Franklin’s somber press conference.
“I knew you had a reason for changing our walking route,” Mona said, rolling up the sleeves of her lobster red Bar Harbor sweatshirt and wiping the sweat off her brow. “You just wanted to see the circus.”
Mona was right. Hayley had purposely veered left toward the town pier instead of right, which would have taken them in the direction of the park for their twice weekly power walk, because she didn’t want to miss Rhonda’s grief-stricken public appearance. She was curious to know what the TV star would say about her dearly departed friend.
Rhonda was putting on quite a performance.
She very slowly, very deliberately removed her glasses to reveal puffy eyes and very little makeup so her face looked even more drawn and dismayed. “It is my vow, my promise, to get to the bottom of this vicious, unspeakable crime. I will use every resource available to me to find out who is responsible for taking Rhonda away from us. I will not rest until the killer is brought to justice.”
That would have been a powerful end to Rhonda’s first public appearance since Olivia’s death. Leave the reporters and go make good on her promise.
As if Rhonda was personally off to hunt down her best friend’s murderer.
But Rhonda passed over the perfect exit.
She kept rambling.
“This has been the most difficult time of my life. Losing someone so dear to me. Who understands me. Whom I depended on. I will go on. I must go on. But my life’s journey will be a bit lonelier now. . . .”
She did it.
Like most show biz personalities, with no publicity wrangler on the scene to stop her from talking, Rhonda had managed to make someone else’s tragedy all about her.
Hayley had pushed her way far enough through the throng of reporters where she was able to slide in next to Andy Hawkins, who was snapping dozens of shots of the grieving superstar.
Rhonda was about to mercifully make her exit when she spotted Hayley in the crowd and waved at her. “Hayley! Hayley!”
The reporters all stared at Hayley, slack jawed that she had just commanded the attention of a major TV personality.
She gave Rhonda a quick wave back.
“Come inside and have a drink with me at the bar! Don’t worry! Those jackals aren’t allowed past the front door. We can have some privacy!”
Rhonda spun around on her heel and disappeared inside the hotel lobby.
Hayley turned to Mona. “You want to come?”
“No frigging way,” Mona scoffed. “You go on without me. I’m underdressed and a sweaty mess.”
“And I’m not? Come on. There’s safety in numbers,” Hayley said, grabbing a fistful of Mona’s sweatshirt and dragging her through the group of reporters who parted and allowed them through where a bellhop had the door open for them.
“Welcome to the Harborside,” he said with a tip of the hat.
Hayley and Mona found Rhonda already seated at the bar and downing a vodka martini with extra olives.
Hayley hugged Rhonda before sitting on the high back chair next to her. “I’m so sorry about Olivia.”
“I’m still in a state of shock. I can’t believe she’s gone,” Rhonda said, finishing her martini and pushing the glass toward the bartender, signaling him to bring her another round.
She swiveled her chair around to face Hayley and finally noticed Mona.
Her puffy red eyes instantly began to dance and flicker at the sight of the brawny woman in the stained red sweatshirt. “Who’s your friend?”
“This is Mona. We were out power walking when we just by coincidence happened upon your press conference,” Hayley fibbed.
“Such a pleasure to meet you,” Rhonda said flirtatiously, reaching out to shake Mona’s hand.
Mona grunted an incoherent reply before noticing Rhonda was waiting to take her hand. She grabbed it and pumped it a couple of times before letting it go.
Rhonda practically had to catch herself from falling off her bar chair because she was swooning.
“Your hands are so rough,” Rhonda said, which was followed by a short giggle.
“That’s because I haul lobster traps for a living,” Mona said.
“Mona’s being overly modest,” Hayley said. “She owns her own business and supplies seafood to most of the restaurants on the island. She’s very successful.”
“I’m impressed,” Rhonda said, eyeing Mona as if she were a rich, chocolatey dessert. “Can I buy you girls something to drink?”
“Beer’s fine,” Mona said with a shrug. “Nothing light or fussy. I want a dark ale.”
The bartender nodded and turned to Hayley.
“I’ll have what Ms. Franklin’s having,” Hayley said.
“It’s Rhonda, please. We’re friends now. There’s no need to be formal.”
“Okay, Rhonda.”
“I’m only in town for a couple of days. I want to help Nacho with anything I can. How about I take you both out to dinner tonight? Are you free?”
“Sorry, I have a column due and I haven’t even started writing it yet. I’m going to stay at home and be a hermit until I get it done,” Hayley said.