by Cindy Bell
“Maybe he’s already out for the day?”
“Maybe.” Suzie frowned. She turned away from the door and looked straight at Priscilla’s room. “What about her things, Mary? I think we should get them together for her family.”
“Oh, how horrible this is going to be for them. To think one night of too much drinking took her life.”
“I don’t know,” Suzie said. “I still don’t think that’s what happened. Maybe I am just too paranoid, but it all seems rather strange to me.”
“Hopefully we’ll know the truth eventually.” Mary turned the knob on the door. “It’s locked.” She reached into her pocket for the keys that she always carried with her. She slid the key into the lock.
“Wait.” Suzie touched her arm. “Let’s just be careful when we go in. Maybe this was an accident, but something tells me that it might not have been. Jason may not need to search the room now, but if anything changes there might be evidence in here that they will need to recover.”
“Good thinking.” Mary opened the door. Right away the bird began to squawk. Mary walked over to the cage and lifted the cover. The bird hopped from ledge to ledge and bobbed its head anxiously. “It’s okay. It’s okay.” Mary clucked her tongue. “Poor birdie.”
“Look at this.” Suzie picked up a ream of paperwork that was on the top of the dresser. “Looks like she was working hard.” She started to open the folder.
“No don’t. Like you said, let’s leave everything just the way it is, just in case there’s a problem. Other than the bird of course, we’re going to have to keep her with us until someone claims her.”
“I’ll check for any dirty linen.” Suzie opened the hamper in the closet. She was surprised to find it empty. She checked the shelf in the closet for the stack of three towels they always made sure was in each room. There was nothing on the shelf. Suzie opened the door to the small bathroom in the room and looked around. There were no towels in there either. “Did you put towels in this room, Mary?” Suzie asked as she stepped out of the bathroom.
“Yes, of course.”
“Well, they’re not here now. They’re not in the hamper either.”
“Maybe she left them in the main bathroom?” Mary said referring to the large shared guest bathroom for the floor. It had a larger shower and a bathtub.
“Maybe. I’ll go check.”
Suzie left Mary in the room and walked down the hall to the shared bathroom for the floor. When she reached the linen closet beside it she realized that the carpet beneath her feet was soaked. She frowned as she tried to track down where the water came from. The rest of the hallway was dry. The patch of carpet between the linen closet and the bathroom was wet. She opened the door to the bathroom and found puddles of water on the tiled floor. The towel rack was empty. Mary met her outside the door.
“What went on here?”
“It looks like one of the guests took a shower and didn’t have a towel. They must have stood in front of the linen closet to find one,” Suzie said.
Mary opened the door to the linen closet. “Hm. It does look like a few towels are missing.”
“I’m sure they will turn up in a wet pile in someone’s room.” Suzie shook her head. She knew people had different standards of cleanliness, but she hated the idea of wet towels getting moldy somewhere.
“I’ll clean this up. Why don’t you take the bird to the front desk? That way she will be ready when someone wants to pick her up and we can keep an eye on her.”
“Sure.” Suzie walked back to Priscilla’s room. She picked up the birdcage and carried it to the front desk. “Here you go, don’t worry I won’t be long.” She whistled at the bird then walked to the utility closet. She pulled out a wet dry vac that could draw the water out of the carpet. As she carted it out of the closet and down the hall the bird began to flap her wings and shriek a word.
“What is that you’re saying? Pumpkin?” Suzie raised an eyebrow. The bird shrieked again. The closest word that she could think of was pumpkin. “Okay, well I don’t have any pumpkin.” She shook her head and continued down the hall to the bathroom. Mary finished hanging up some fresh towels in the bathroom and turned to look at Suzie. “Oh perfect, thank you,” Suzie said.
“No problem. I want to make sure this is all cleaned up before any guests return. This day is already upsetting enough I don’t want any slip and falls.”
Once the bathroom was cleaned up Suzie was restless. Her mind kept returning to Priscilla and what might have happened to her.
“You know what I think, Mary?”
Mary stuck her head out of the kitchen. “What?”
“I think it’s been far too long since we visited Dr. Rose. In fact we’ve been downright neglectful for not stopping by to check in on our friend.”
“I think you’re right.” Mary smiled. “We should remedy that with a visit right now.”
“I agree, Mary. We owe her a serious apology.”
Mary picked up her purse and followed Suzie out the door. They drove towards the medical examiner’s office. Suzie searched the sidewalks and the cars she passed for Neil but she didn’t see him or his vehicle. When they reached the medical examiner’s office Suzie parked as close to the door as possible. She knew Jason would not appreciate the fact that she was checking up on the case without his knowledge so she wanted to be able to make a quick exit if she needed to. She and Mary hurried inside and were greeted by an empty waiting room. There was no receptionist at the desk. This did not surprise Suzie as Dr. Summer Rose liked to work alone and would often give the office staff the day off if she didn’t think it would be a busy day.
“Maybe we should go.” Mary glanced around.
“No, I’m sure she’s in the back, let’s just take a peek.” Suzie walked towards the double doors that led out of the waiting room.
“Suzie wait, do you think we should go back there?”
“Dr. Rose?” Suzie stuck her head beyond the double doors. A medicinal scent stung her nose as she took a breath.
“I’m back here, Suzie.” Her soft voice drifted from behind a second set of double doors. Suzie and Mary walked through both sets of doors to find Summer bent over a clipboard on her desk.
“Sorry to interrupt.” Suzie paused a good distance from a curtain that she knew was drawn around Priscilla’s body.
“It’s fine,” Summer said.
“I got your message.” Jason’s voice drew all of their attention as he walked into the room. His eyes met Summer’s for a long moment as they both smiled at each other. “Suzie, Mary!”
“We just wanted to say hello to Summer, since we were passing by,” Suzie said quickly before Jason could question why they were there. She didn’t want him to think they were trying to find out information about the death behind his back, even though they were.
“Really?” Jason said in disbelief. “Well, it’s good that you’re here. I think you might need to hear this.” He looked at Summer.
“I have to say this is one of my most surprising and frustrating cases.” Summer sighed.
“An accidental drowning?” Mary raised an eyebrow.
“I wish,” Summer said. “That’s what it was supposed to be, but there’s a few problems with that assessment.”
“Was she dead before she went into the water? No water in her lungs?” Suzie asked.
“Oh, there’s plenty of water in her lungs, but she was definitely dead before she went into the water, for the second time.”
“What?” Jason narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean?”
“As I expected she drowned, however, when I tested the water in her lungs it was not salt water.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.” Mary frowned.
“No, it doesn’t. It appears that she drowned elsewhere and ended up in the ocean. Which means that unless she drowned, got up and walked to the ocean, someone moved her body. So, we are at the very least looking at someone moving the body, but judging by some of the bruises that have begun to ar
ise on her skin, it was a homicide.”
“So, someone drowned her somewhere else and then dumped her in the ocean?” Mary cleared her throat. “That is horrible.”
“Yes, it is. Unfortunately, because of her being in two different kinds of water for a long time there is little to no DNA evidence remaining on her body, or her clothes.” She gestured to the plastic bag of Priscilla’s clothing. Suzie looked at them through the plastic. She noticed that one of the shoes had a broken heel.
“Did you notice this, Summer? Her heel is broken.”
“I did.”
“Maybe that was why she stumbled out of the restaurant.” Mary snapped her fingers. “She wasn’t drunk, she stumbled because she broke her heel.”
“Yes that’s possible. Although there was alcohol in her system it was nowhere near the level that would cause severe intoxication. I think we can safely say that she was maybe a little tipsy, but nothing more than that. Also, we are waiting for more results, but preliminary tests show there were no drugs in her system. In fact Priscilla was quite healthy for her age.” Summer sighed as she looked up at Jason. “I’m afraid I’m not going to be much help on this case. That’s why it’s frustrating. Now that we know that it’s likely a murder I’d love to find some evidence, but even her fingernails have been washed clean from being under the water. I have no idea if she attacked the person who killed her. I wish I had more to go on.”
“Are you able to tell where the water came from?” Jason asked thoughtfully. “Maybe that would give us a clue.”
“I am getting some tests run on it, which will take time. The best way to tell is to have a sample to compare it to. Pinpointing the exact location is going to be difficult because most of the evidence has been washed away by the extended period of time in the water.”
“Extended?” Suzie looked over at her. “How long do you think she was in the water?”
“Oh, at least eight hours. I’m placing the time of death around nine or ten. Maybe a little later, maybe a little earlier.”
“So, a while after she left the restaurant,” Jason said. “We are going to need to ramp up our investigation. It’s officially a homicide, which means we’re going to need to search her room, speak to everyone she had contact with, including you Suzie, and Mary.” He patted the curve of Summer’s shoulder. “Thanks for the quick catch on this. We’ve already lost a lot of time.”
“I wish I could tell you more, Jason,” Summer said.
“I might have something of interest.” Suzie frowned. “There was someone snooping around Dune House the day that Priscilla checked in.”
“Who?” Jason turned to face her. “Why am I just hearing about this now?” His voice tightened.
“Wait a minute, this morning this was an accidental death, nothing more, why would I mention it?” Suzie said defensively.
“Maybe because I stopped by to specifically check on you?” Jason raised an eyebrow.
“Look, Maurice is a businessman, I understand why he was upset. I didn’t think too much of it, but now, I don’t want to hold anything back about it.”
“Maurice Lungdley, the same man that I had to escort out of the community meeting?”
“Yes. I can’t see him doing this, but I thought you should know.”
“Thank you, Suzie. I appreciate that.” He sighed. “If you think of anything else, please don’t hesitate to tell me. This entire case is going to turn into a big mess once word gets out that it’s murder. At least I have somewhere to start. Maurice Lungdley.” Jason spun on his heel. “I’d better get over there and find out where he was last night.”
“Be careful, Jason, he can be temperamental,” Suzie called out.
“Don’t I know it. Have you seen Neil Runkin? We’ve been trying to get hold of him all morning.” Jason shook his head.
“He wasn’t at Dune House this morning.”
“Well, let me know when you do see him. I want to speak to him.”
“Sure,” Suzie said. Jason paused at the door and looked back at Suzie.
“Don’t forget to let me know when Paul gets in. Okay?”
“I won’t forget.” Suzie smiled.
After Jason left, Mary looked over at Suzie. “What’s that about?”
“Who knows? Maybe they’re trying to bond?” Suzie shrugged.
Summer laughed. “I’d like to be a fly on the wall for that.”
“Me too.” Mary stifled a laugh. She glanced at her watch. “Oh dear, we’d better go check on Benita, maybe her food has run out and she’s hungry.”
“I also want to see if Neil is back yet. It seems odd that he hasn’t heard of Priscilla’s death yet and come to Dune House to sort things out.”
“Maybe he did and he doesn’t know how to handle it. He doesn’t seem like a man who is too in touch with his emotions.”
“I can agree with you on that.” Suzie rolled her eyes. “Let’s check up on Stewart, too. He’s been awfully quiet.”
“Good idea. When he gets wind of all of this it might spook him.”
Chapter Six
As Suzie and Mary drove back to Dune House, Garber appeared more somber. Suzie wondered if word had already gotten around about the true cause of Priscilla’s death. She knew that in a small town like Garber bad news spread fast and scandalous news spread like wildfire. When they pulled into the parking lot at Dune House Suzie noticed that Neil’s car was still not in the parking lot. She and Mary walked up to the door and stepped inside. It was uncomfortable for Suzie to think about the woman who would never collect her luggage or her beloved bird.
“I guess he’s still not here.”
“I’m going to make us some lunch. We didn’t even have breakfast.”
Suzie nodded. “I’m not sure if I can eat.”
“You’re going to have to. It’s important.”
“I know, I know.” Suzie frowned. She walked over to the front desk as Mary disappeared into the kitchen. Suzie picked up the phone and dialed the number for Stewart’s room. After the third ring he answered.
“What is it?”
“I’m just checking in to see if you are doing okay today.”
“Ah, because of Priscilla?”
“You’ve heard.”
“Who hasn’t?”
“I want to assure you that everything is being done to find the person responsible.”
“I’m sure it is. But I have to say that this doesn’t feel much like a vacation anymore. I’m going to check out tomorrow morning.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. I wish your departure was under better circumstances.”
“It’s quite all right. I’ve enjoyed my visit here, but I don’t want to be caught up in the middle of a murder investigation. It’s a shame, a real shame.”
“Yes, it is. Please let me know if there’s anything I can do, or anything you might need.”
“Thank you. I won’t be attending dinner tonight. I have plans to meet someone for dinner.”
“Okay, thank you, Stewart.”
“Thank you, Suzie. Don’t worry, I intend to visit again.”
“Great.” Suzie sighed with relief as she hung up the phone. The last thing she needed was a bad review spread throughout the community because of something that she had no control over.
“Pumpkin! Pumpkin!”
“Ugh.” Suzie rolled her eyes. “All right, all right. I’ll feed you.” Suzie walked over to the birdcage and opened the door to refill the food dish. As she filled it she heard footsteps approach from behind her.
“What’s Benita doing down here?”
Suzie turned around to find Neil dressed in the same clothes that he wore the day before. “Neil, have the police contacted you?”
“The police? No. Why would they?”
Suzie frowned. “Neil, I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, but Priscilla Kane has passed away.”
“Has what?” Neil’s eyes widened. “She’s dead?”
“Yes, I’m sorry for your loss.”
/> “Are you sure?” His brows knitted together and Suzie thought for just a moment that he might begin to cry. Instead he shook his head. “I didn’t think anything could kill that woman.” Suzie raised an eyebrow. That wasn’t exactly the reaction she expected.
“We’re taking care of her bird until we’re able to contact family. Unless of course you would like to have Benita with you.”
“No, absolutely not. That feathery beast never quietens down.” He scowled at the bird. The bird flapped its wings at him. “So, what was it? A heart attack or something?”
“No, I’m afraid she drowned.”
“Drowned? She didn’t even like to swim, that I knew about. Well, I guess I didn’t really know if she liked to swim or not.”
“No, she didn’t drown while swimming. She was intentionally drowned. Neil, she was murdered.”
“Murdered?” Neil took a step back. His face grew pale. “Are you sure about that?”
“Yes, Sir.” Suzie reached for a box of tissues. “If there’s anything that Mary and I can do to help, please don’t be afraid to ask.”
His face grew red as he glared at the box of tissues. Instead of grabbing a tissue his eyes fluttered as he looked away. He grabbed the edge of the front desk to steady himself. “Am I in any danger?”
“I don’t believe so. Why would you think that?” Suzie grabbed his elbow to steady him.
“Well, if someone killed Priscilla I’m guessing it was someone from around here, someone who wanted to stop the resort from being built. They might be after me, too. Don’t you think?”
“I’ll tell you what, I’ll call my cousin, he’s a police officer. He can give you a better idea of whether you might be a target.”
“Oh sure, local police. No, I think I’ll be hiring a bodyguard until I can get out of this town.” He narrowed his eyes. “I’ll be checking out first thing in the morning.”