by Marie Celine
At the very least, the groomer should be made aware of his clandestine activities.
TWENTY-ONE
Kitty rapped on Lina Dolofino’s door. She had been told by the spa director that she might find the groomer in her room. She lived in one of the outbuildings, like Howie, the security guard. ‘Lina?’
‘Hello, Miss Karlyle.’ The groomer stood in the doorway, barefoot, looking comfy in a baggy pink sweatsuit. Kitty had seen the exact set of sweats in the gift shop. ‘What brings you here?’ Her hair was pulled up in a loose knot atop her head.
‘Call me Kitty. Everybody does.’ Maybe she’d pick up the navy-blue men’s set of sweats for Jack as a souvenir of her stay. What better than a Little Switzerland Resort and Spa-branded pair of sweat pants and matching sweatshirt?
‘Are Fred and Barney all right? They didn’t have a reaction to any of my grooming products, did they? We use only the finest organic and hypoallergenic shampoos and conditioners.’
The woman had gone on the defensive. ‘No, it’s nothing like that,’ promised Kitty, waving her hands. ‘Fred and Barney are doing great.’ She took a breath and plunged ahead. ‘Do you have a minute? Can we talk?’
The groomer seemed to hesitate for a moment then pushed the door open for Kitty. ‘Sure, I suppose so. I’m not busy. It’s just me and Olivier.’
Kitty craned her neck, trying to see over Lina’s shoulder. ‘I’m sorry. You have company? I could come back later.’ Not that she wanted to.
Lina lightly laughed. ‘He’s out on the patio. Would you care to meet him?’
Kitty followed Lina out onto the small first-floor patio facing the hotel tennis courts. A couple of mismatched wrought-iron outdoor chairs and a banged-up table, all of which looked like they had seen better days, took center stage. Hotel management had probably retired the castoffs from the paying rooms and recycled them by giving them to their staff.
A pint-sized kiddie pool stood against the far wall with an artificial grass-covered plank leading up and into it. The top half of a cat litter box occupied the corner of the concrete pad.
Lina scratched her head a moment then bent under the table. ‘There you are.’ When she popped up again she had a beautiful turtle between her hands.
‘A turtle.’
Lina grinned. ‘Yes, this is Olivier. You thought I was talking about a gentleman, weren’t you?’
Kitty nodded.
‘Sorry, Olivier here is more my speed these days.’ She held his face up to her nose. Olivier didn’t seem to mind a bit.
Kitty reached out and stroked its carapace. ‘A cooter, isn’t it?’ The creature was nearly a foot long with a dark mahogany shell, alternately patterned scutes – like turtle-sized plates of armor – and pale pink plastron.
Lina nodded. ‘A Northern red-bellied cooter, to be precise.’
‘What’s wrong with his eye?’ The turtle’s right eye was misshapen and appeared permanently shut.
‘I found Olivier by the side of the road. He’d been struck by a car.’
Kitty’s heart went out to the little guy and she said so.
‘I took him to a vet who had to stitch up the eye socket. I bartered with him. In exchange for giving Olivier here some medical attention I provided some dog grooming services to his patients’ pets for a time.’ Lina ran her pinkie gently along the underside of Olivier’s neck. ‘I’m not sure he could survive on his own in the wild again.’ She set Olivier on the ground. ‘So I’ve been taking care of him ever since.’
‘That’s very sweet of you. He’s lucky you rescued him.’ Kitty watched the turtle scoot along the ground and head up the ramp. He got around pretty quickly for a one-eyed turtle. Olivier landed in the pool with a splash, swam over to a squat water-soaked log and clawed his way up to sun himself. ‘How can you be certain it is a he?’
Kitty didn’t know much about turtle anatomy and there wasn’t much to see.
‘They say that the female’s plastron – that’s the underside of the shell – is more of a true red.’ Lina shrugged. ‘Honestly, I simply have no idea. But he hasn’t complained about his name yet.’ Lina went inside and Kitty followed. ‘You wanted to talk to me?’ She sat on the edge of her bed and motioned for Kitty to take the chair in the corner.
Kitty admired how well kept Lina’s room was. Howie’s room was a pigsty in comparison. She folded her hands on her lap. ‘How well do you know John Jameson?’
Lina’s high forehead furrowed up like a freshly turned fallow field. ‘Who?’
‘John Jameson – tall, athletic, brown hair. He looks very much like Victor Cornwall, in fact.’
Lina’s eyes danced. ‘The dead man?’
‘That’s the one.’ Kitty explained how Vic and John had arranged to meet here as friends, how she and Fran had literally bumped into them and then just as unfortunately had literally stumbled on Vic’s dead body.
‘That’s terrible,’ said Lina, shaking her head the whole time. She pulled her feet up under her in some yoga pose that Kitty didn’t think she could have managed even if her legs had been composed of raw pretzel dough. ‘What does this have to do with me? Why do you ask about this Mr Jameson?’
‘I saw him in your salon earlier.’ Kitty told Lina how she’d been trying to catch up with Jameson to ask him some questions about his relationship with Victor Cornwall. ‘Before I could catch him he opened the door to the salon. It didn’t appear to have been locked—’
‘It never is.’
‘—and disappeared inside.’
Lina’s back stiffened. ‘My salon?’
Kitty nodded. ‘I wasn’t sure what to do. And for all I knew, you might have been in there.’
‘When was this?’
‘Right before coming here to see you.’
Lina shook her head. ‘I’ve been here for a couple of hours. I don’t have any appointments until mid-afternoon.’ Her face looked troubled. ‘Is he there now?’
It was Kitty’s turn to shake her head. ‘No. I waited a few moments then crept inside to see what he was up to. Believe me, if I’d seen that he was there meeting you I would have left immediately.’
‘Of course,’ Lina said, dismissing Kitty’s apology. ‘What was he doing?’
‘He told me he was checking the appointment book for his pit bull’s session with you,’ Kitty replied.
‘I don’t believe I have a Jameson on the schedule for today, nor a pit bull.’
Kitty didn’t add that Lina didn’t have a Jameson on the schedule for at least the next week. If she’d told the groomer that she’d know she’d been snooping as well.
‘That makes sense. When I was secretly watching him he was riffling through the papers on your desk. It looked like he’d been poking around your office, nosing around in your drawers.’
‘Why?’ Lina unlocked her legs and her feet hit the ground.
Kitty had no answer.
‘We must go.’ Lina jumped off the bed. She hurried to the front, where she slipped on a pair of sandals, pulled open the door and beckoned for Kitty to follow.
Arriving at the salon, Lina flipped on the lights. All was quiet and there was no sign of John Jameson. Kitty wondered if he might have come back after Kitty left. She may have caught him before he was finished doing whatever it was that he was meaning to do.
‘Everything looks in place out here,’ Lina said, walking slowly around the grooming station.
‘Do you have any idea what he might have been looking for? Is there anything here worth stealing?’
Lina laughed. ‘See for yourself. Nothing but hotel towels and supplies. We don’t even have a lock on the door.’ She showed Kitty, running her hand over the smooth doorknob. ‘I can’t imagine any of our guests being so hard up as to need to steal the shampoos and soaps.’
Kitty had to agree. It just didn’t make sense.
Lina’s hand strolled down the pages of her appointment book. ‘As I said, there is no appointment for a John Jameson or a pit bull.’
Kitty snapped her fingers. ‘The dogs!’
Lina’s eyes shot up.
‘Don’t you see?’ said Kitty. ‘It’s the dogs.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Lina answered, straightening her desk and firmly shutting all the drawers. ‘What dogs?’
‘Victor’s dogs,’ Kitty said. ‘The two poodles that you were keeping an eye on until his wife, Eliza Cornwall, showed up to claim them.’
Lina pursed her lips. ‘I still don’t quite understand.’
Kitty took Lina’s hands. ‘Not only did you have the dogs, you had their things. Their beds, their toys …’ Kitty’s eyes lit up. ‘The dog collars.’ She’d remembered seeing a fat diamond-studded collar on each poodle. ‘Do you have them?’ Kitty’s heart sank. ‘No, wait. Mrs Cornwall has the dogs now. And the collars.’
‘No.’ Lina hurried out to the front room. There was a granite counter with cabinets above, doors below and a deep sink in the middle. To the left and right of the cabinets were shelves stocked with hotel-branded products – shampoos, conditioners, ointments, nail polish, mouthwash, powders, potions and lotions. All of it for pets.
Lina pulled open the door under the sink, slid out a yellow bin, reached in and lifted up a plastic bag.
‘The collars.’ Kitty’s fingers touched the stones through the plastic.
Lina nodded. ‘The police had confiscated the collars. I guess they were looking for fingerprints or bloodstains, or DNA or something. Like you see on TV.’ She handed the bag to Kitty for inspection. ‘When they were finished, they brought them to me. The police thought I still had Mr Cornwall’s dogs but his wife had already come to get them. There was no answer when I phoned her but I left a message for her that she could come and fetch the collars anytime.’
Kitty fondled the collars. ‘Do you suppose they’re real?’ She looked up at Lina. ‘The stones, I mean?’ Rows of small, glittering diamonds were held together on a band of white gold. If the gold and diamonds were all real – and knowing Victor Cornwall as well as she suspected she did, she figured they would be – then these dog collars would be worth big bucks. Enough money to kill somebody over.
‘I’m afraid I have no idea,’ Lina answered. ‘I think it’s time these went to Mrs Cornwall. I don’t want to keep them here any longer. Not that I relish having to see that woman again.’
Kitty agreed with both statements. ‘She’s not a very pleasant woman, is she?’
Lina laughed. ‘Not very.’
‘What about her husband, Mr Cornwall?’
Lina shut the cabinet door and dropped the bag with the collars onto the grooming table. ‘He brought Mercedes and Benz in every day. He was meticulous in taking care of those poodles. They were very much prized possessions.’
Kitty didn’t doubt that for a minute. Men like Victor Cornwall were notoriously into their prized possessions, whether it was dogs, horses, yachts, cars or even women.
Like the former Mrs Cornwall. Had she been nothing more than a prized possession that Victor had stolen from John? A man doesn’t like it when another man steals his possessions. John might not have come to Little Switzerland intending to murder Victor Cornwall but something inside the man might have snapped. Had John found himself unable to endure seeing Victor Cornwall with his ex-wife?
‘Did you ever invest in one of Mr Cornwall’s financial schemes?’
Lina’s exotic laugh filled the room. ‘I’ve never made enough money to risk losing in a late-night TV scam.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Kitty blushed. ‘I didn’t mean to offend you.’
‘No offense taken. I didn’t become a pet groomer for the money.’
Kitty understood completely. When she’d started her gourmet pet chef business she had known that the odds of getting rich were astronomically against her. The odds of merely keeping food on her own table were almost as astronomical. She had to thank her lucky stars that the cooking show had come along when it did. ‘I could take those collars to Eliza for you.’ It would give Kitty the perfect excuse to speak with the former Mrs Cornwall again.
Lina handed Kitty the baggy. ‘Sure, why not?’
Kitty stuffed it in her purse before the groomer could change her mind. She had a million questions running around in her head. And every time she asked one of her suspects a question, another million questions sprung up like nasty leaks.
It was time to track down Eliza Cornwall and see if she could finally come up with some answers for a change. As she stepped out into the hall she realized the one thing she had not seen in the salon: John Jameson’s gym bag.
It had gone.
TWENTY-TWO
‘Miss Karlyle.’ Eliza Cornwall stood in the entry to her suite, holding the door open with one icy hand. The slinky black knee-length number holding her hourglass figure together looked more like man-eating than mourning wear. ‘We were all expecting to hear from you after the movie.’
‘Sorry about that. My room had been burgled.’
‘How dreadful. Was anything taken?’
‘Not that I could tell,’ Kitty replied. Steve and Greg had both threatened to scalp her over missing the Q&A but so far she still had all her hair. ‘May I speak with you a moment, Eliza?’
Eliza’s lower lip turned upward. ‘I’m rather busy. I was getting ready to go out.’ Nonetheless, she beckoned Kitty inside. ‘What is this about?’ She went to the bathroom and Kitty reluctantly followed. Eliza was gazing at her reflection in the wall-to-wall mirror. Mrs Cornwall’s reflection looked at Kitty and said, ‘You wouldn’t be interested in purchasing Mercedes and Benz, would you?’
It took Kitty a second to realize the woman was talking about the poodles and not the luxury cars, not that she was sure which would have set her back more money. ‘No. I’m afraid I couldn’t. I have my own pets and not a lot of extra space.’
Eliza shrugged, reached into her black satin makeup bag and pulled out a small vial of perfume.
Kitty unclasped her purse and pulled out the Ziploc bag. ‘I brought the dogs’ collars for them. Where are they?’ She’d spotted their beds but not the poodles.
‘Dog-sitter,’ Eliza replied. ‘Like I said, I’m meeting someone. Why do you have their collars?’
‘The police returned them to the hotel staff after checking them for fingerprints or something, I guess.’ Kitty held out the bag. ‘The groomer had them and I offered to bring them over. I thought you’d be anxious to have them back.’
Eliza’s eyes went briefly to the bag. ‘Toss them on the bed on your way out, would you, dear?’
Toss them on the bed? Diamond-encrusted gold collars? Just like that? Maybe they weren’t so valuable after all. Mrs Cornwall certainly didn’t seem relieved or particularly happy to have gotten the collars back. Kitty held onto the plastic bag. ‘They are beautiful.’ Even in the bathroom light the diamonds flashed brilliantly.
Eliza shrugged and twisted the tiny silver cap off the crystal perfume bottle. ‘I suppose.’ She laid her pinkie over the open top and tipped the bottle briefly, just enough to wet her fingertip. ‘If there’s nothing else’ – she turned to Kitty, seemingly forcing herself to take her eyes off her own reflection – ‘I am running late.’
Who was Eliza meeting? Could it be her former husband, John? Were they accomplices in Victor Cornwall’s murder? ‘Eliza, do you have any idea who might have wanted to harm your husband?’
She laughed. ‘You’re joking, right?’
Kitty wasn’t and said so.
‘Vic had a list of enemies the proverbial mile long. If you don’t believe me, ask the police – or Vic’s former office assistant. She kept a record of every anger-driven wacko that sent him a threatening letter or email.’ She paused for a beat. ‘Like your friend, Fran Earhart. The police asked me about her.’ She shook her head. ‘Like it was Vic’s fault her family and the rest of them lost all their money.’
‘Wasn’t it?’
‘They were all grown men and women. Vic sold them something to believe in.’ She turned b
ack to her reflection. ‘If they couldn’t make it work that was their problem. Not Vic’s, not mine.’ OK, so Eliza Cornwall was not the most sympathetic creature walking the face of the earth.
Eliza looked at her finger. Most of the perfume seemed to have evaporated. She picked up the bottle and repeated the process, ending up with a drop on her pinkie once again. ‘Vic paid for it with a stint in prison and millions of dollars in forced restitution. If anyone had a right to be angry it was Vic and me. We lost nearly everything. Those people cost us millions.’
Kitty tried to show some sympathy but it wasn’t easy and she wasn’t sure if she was succeeding or even wanted to.
‘We have to live in a gated community with twenty-four-hour armed security to keep some distance between ourselves and those people. Do you know how expensive that is?’
Wow, thought Kitty, talk about a rough life. Not.
Eliza lifted her right pinkie and rubbed it behind her right ear. She then quickly repeated the process for the left.
‘What about Mr Jameson?’
‘John?’ She looked doubly amused now. ‘Do you think John might have murdered Vic?’
‘He did have reason to hate him.’
Eliza laughed. ‘Because of me, you mean.’ She’d said it as a statement of fact, not a question. ‘John had his chance.’ She fastened a pair of platinum earrings then suddenly paled and braced her hands against the bathroom counter.
‘What’s wrong?’ Kitty was suddenly alarmed. Eliza did not look well at all. ‘Are you all right?’
Eliza began wheezing and her eyes looked imploringly toward Kitty before rolling up inside her eyelids and disappearing from view.
Mrs Cornwall collapsed in a heap to the floor. Kitty knelt down beside her and felt her wrist. There was a pulse but it was weak. ‘Eliza!’
Kitty cradled Mrs Cornwall’s head in her lap and dialed 911.
TWENTY-THREE
‘Let me get this straight, Karlyle,’ Chief Mulisch began. He paced side to side in the small visitors’ lounge, occasionally pausing to stop and hitch up his belt. ‘You went to Mrs Cornwall’s hotel suite?’