“A spot of tennis. Now I’m looking for some cucumber sandwiches.”
Emery smiled. She had one of those Florida smiles, the ones that tell you that even in a hurricane there’s no place else they would rather be.
“I guess I’ll just have to ask Chef Dean to rustle some up for you.”
I hoped she realized I was joking. I wasn’t sure what cucumber sandwiches actually tasted like, but the flavor that came to mind was water .
“I wanted to tell you that Detective Ronzoni was looking for you.”
“Okay, thanks. ”
She smiled again. “Can I walk you down?”
“Just give me a minute. I’ll see you down there.”
“As you wish.”
She turned and strode away. Shania Dawson stepped out from behind a column.
“You’re pretty flirty for a guy who is getting married.”
“You see flirty, I see friendly.”
“She was flirting with you big-time.”
“She’s in hospitality. Friendly’s what they do.”
“Danielle must trust you.”
“She does.”
“How do you know? Maybe you haven’t given her a reason not to yet.”
“I’ve given her plenty of reason not to. But you’ve got it backward. You don’t get trust and then try not to lose it. You start without it, and you earn it. There are always pros and cons, ups and downs. But the ledger either says you earned it, or you didn’t.”
Shania nodded like she was thinking about that. “Maybe you’re not such a phony after all.”
“Oh, I’m a big-time phony. And so is everyone else. It’s how people are phony that you’ve got to watch out for. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m wanted by the police.”
Chapter Fourteen
Ronzoni was sitting in a high-backed chair in the general manager’s office, just off the check-in desk. There were three monitors on the desk in front of him but his attention was on one of them. Emery Taylor was next to him at the controls of the computer, operating the security video system.
Emery shot me the smile again and Ronzoni spun around as if he were surprised I had bothered to turn up.
“Check this out, Jones.”
I stood behind Ronzoni and looked over his head. Emery clicked an onscreen button and I saw the picture come to life. It was a shot of the southern end of the lobby, looking down the corridor that led to the gym. The picture was decent without being high-definition, and the camera had some difficulty with the difference in light from the bright lobby to the dimly lit corridor. I could see down the corridor I guessed about half of the way.
Andrew Neville was behind the check-in desk. Emery fast-forwarded the video but it was hard to tell because there wasn’t much movement. The few guests were in the lounge, and we were away trying not to drown on Bingham Island.
When the video reached a timestamp that Emery and Ronzoni had obviously looked at before, she clicked again and the picture resumed normal service. The athletic-looking black guy came out of the fire stairs near the elevator.
“What’s that guy’s name?” I asked.
“Mr. Maxwell. Deshawn Maxwell,” said Emery.
“He’s the guy you saw in the gym, right?” asked Ronzoni.
“Yep.”
“Doesn’t use the elevator,” he said.
“He’s a fit guy. Perhaps that’s the reason.”
Deshawn wandered away from the camera. He was in athletic wear, which seemed to be a thing with him, and he wandered down the corridor and disappeared from view. A quick scoot forward with the video and the elevator opened and Paul Zidane got out and followed Deshawn down the corridor.
“So the deceased and Mr. Maxwell in the gym,” said Ronzoni.
Emery forwarded the video again. Neville race-walked across the lobby in fast motion toward the lounge. Emery did the same from the north end of the lobby, across to the check-in desk. Then the picture slowed and we all charged in from the rain. I was practically carrying the maid. Ronzoni was with me, and then Ron and Cassandra. Sam Venturi brought up the rear.
We spoke to Emery although there was no audio. Cassandra took the maid from under my wing and led her away into the elevator. Sam Venturi waited for the elevator car to return and then got in. Then Neville came back from the lounge. We had our chat about the storm shutters and then Neville and Ronzoni headed down and out of picture—to the north wing—and Ron and I headed up the corridor toward the gym .
Emery zoomed it forward and then stopped, and we saw Deshawn Maxwell wandering out of the corridor. He stopped for a moment in the lobby and looked back down the corridor like he had forgotten something, and then he banked around the check-in desk and spoke to Emery.
“What did he say?” I asked.
“Hello,” said Emery.
Deshawn bypassed the elevator and wandered down the lobby and out of shot to the north end. Then there was a long stretch and we saw Ron and me returning to the lobby, wet as sewer rats. Ronzoni and Neville appeared from the other end of the hotel, and Emery came out from behind the desk. Then Ron got in the elevator. Emery returned behind the desk and worked at the computer, and Neville disappeared in the direction of the lounge and reappeared, and Emery handed Neville something. New key cards. Emery came out from behind the desk and led Ronzoni and me down off screen.
“Getting you some clothes,” she said, glancing at my wardrobe and giving it a considered nod.
“This is the best bit,” said Ronzoni.
It was a procession. First Shania and then Leon came from the direction of the lounge and took the elevator. A minute later the young blond woman did the same thing.
“Who’s the blond?” I asked.
“Her name is Carly Pastinak,” Emery said with a hint of disapproval in her voice.
“She with the rest of them?”
“Yes.”
“How does she fit in? Is she a tennis player?”
“No idea, Jones,” said Ronzoni. “Just watch the corridor.”
I watched the corridor. People came and went through the lobby, mostly in a direct beeline from the elevator to the lounge or vice versa. Eventually I saw everyone make their way back toward the lounge. Everyone except Anton Ribaud and Rosaria, the maid. Neville, Emery, Ronzoni and I joined up in the lobby. Three of us wandered away to the lounge. Emery headed for the elevator.
“Mr. Neville asked me to find Mr. Ribaud and Mr. Zidane.”
As the elevator doors opened Emery stepped back to allow Anton to step out and wander limply across the picture to the lounge.
No one came or went from the corridor to the gym.
Then Emery appeared back from the elevator. She stopped for a moment next to the check-in desk, and then she wandered up the corridor toward the gym.
We didn’t hear the scream, but we saw me running across the lobby, followed by Shania, and Ronzoni. Then Ron and Cassandra and Leon, and Carly and Deshawn at a gentle jog. Sam and Anton never appeared.
“So there you have it, Jones. No one went anywhere near the gym. Like I said, death by dumb.”
It was a new sensation for me, but I had to admit Ronzoni was right. The idiot had gone all macho and dropped a big heavy weight on his own throat. It really was monumentally stupid.
We thanked Emery for her help and she locked the office and we wandered back into the lounge. Everyone except the maid was there. Shania had taken a shower and was sitting at the bar with Deshawn. Her fiancé was in a club chair nursing a tall glass of red. Ron was sitting with Cassandra. She was watching the room. He held up a glass of beer in salute.
Not for the first time it seemed like an excellent way to see through a hurricane.
Chapter Fifteen
Neville poured me a beer. I had to hand it to him, he was a real pro. We were in the middle of a tropical storm that had become a hurricane, and he was massively understaffed—to the point of playing bartender—but he didn’t seem fazed by it. He gave me a fancy paper beer mat and a gracious
nod as he delivered the beer, and I gave him the same back, without the beer mat.
“So was it foul play?” asked Shania. She had her elbows on the bar and her fingers steepled, and she was watching me across Deshawn, who sat between us.
“Nope. Looks like a silly mistake.”
“I guess it doesn’t matter either way,” said Deshawn. “He’s still dead.”
“You’re right about that. It sure doesn’t matter to him. I’m Miami, by the way.”
“Deshawn Maxwell,” he said, shaking hands.
“So Deshawn, how do you fit into this crazy circus?”
He glanced across his shoulder at Shania. “Friend of the bride, I suppose. ”
“That right? You a tennis player?”
He chuckled. “No. Shania’s dad and my dad were best friends. We grew up together.”
“So you’re a sort of local as well.”
“Sort of. I’m in Miami now.”
I sipped my beer. I was conscious it could be a long night, so I sipped slow.
“What do you do?”
“Sports medicine. Physical therapy.”
“You’re one of those masochists.”
He didn’t smile. “Yeah, I guess. Recovery can be painful.”
“Yes, indeed.”
Shania said, “Miami played professional baseball.”
“Is that so?” said Deshawn.
I nodded. “You work with any teams?”
“Fort Lauderdale Strikers. They’re a soccer team. But I’ve been thinking about approaching the Marlins.”
“Tough gig to get, I would think. You tried minor league?”
He shook his head.
I asked, “Where’d you go to school?”
“Miami, as it happens.”
“All right. Me too.”
“I figured. Miami’d be quite a name to give a kid.”
“I played little league with a kid who had the family name Head. His folks went and called him Richard.”
“That’s harsh.”
“I’ll say. So I know a few people up at the St. Lucie Mets. Maybe I could make an introduction?”
“Really? That’d be kind of you.”
I nodded like it was a done deal and put my lip to my beer glass. Networking was really Ron’s thing, but with my fancy linen suit I was feeling like a new man. Maybe I’d start selling Amway.
“That’s nice of you, Miami,” Shania said, with narrowed eyes. Either she was near-sighted and hadn’t been diagnosed, or she still thought I was a phony and wondered what I was up to.
I offered her a what are you gonna do? shrug.
“How’s your fiancé doing?” I asked her.
That earned me a frown, just when I thought I was winning her over. She turned on her stool and looked at Anton and Leon. They weren’t talking in French. They weren’t talking at all.
“Perhaps I’ll go see,” she said, slipping off her stool. “Excuse me, guys.”
Deshawn got off his stool as she left and I thought he was leaving as well, but once she walked away he sat down again.
“So you guys have been friends a long time, huh?” I asked.
He nodded to himself. “Long time.”
“And you know her dad?”
“Mr. D? Sure. He’s like an uncle. Do anything for the man.”
“He’s Shania’s coach, is that right?”
“Yeah. Coach, manager, agent, all that.”
“Sounds like one of those tennis dads.”
“Not at all. Mr. D’s a good father. He doesn’t control her. She’s got her life. But he’d do anything for her.”
“What about you?”
He looked at me. Right in the eye. “Sure. I’d do anything for her. That’s what old friends do, don’t they?”
“They do if they’re worth a damn.”
We both sipped our drinks. I noted he wasn’t drinking any faster than me, and I was going at a snail’s pace. He had a level head on him, and he was a good-looking kid. I liked him.
“Did you know Paul at all? ”
He shook his head softly. “Not really. Met once or twice.”
“What did you think of him?”
“I thought he was an arrogant freeloader.”
I nodded. “That seems to be the prevailing wisdom.”
Deshawn pushed his drink away as if he’d had enough, and he turned to me.
“I think I’m going to take a shower. If you’ll excuse me?”
“Sure. Say, do you always wear athletic gear?”
He smiled a half smile. “Occupational hazard.”
He slipped off his stool and wandered out of the room. I watched him go and then my eye caught Ron’s. He and Cassandra were watching me, so I walked over.
They were sitting comfortably with a couple glasses of red wine, and Ron offered me the open chair in their little cluster.
“Interesting times,” said Ron as we clinked glasses.
“Could say that.”
“What’s that kid’s story?”
“Deshawn? Family friend of Shania—the bride-to-be. They grew up together. Like brother and sister I guess.”
“They might be close,” said Cassandra, “but not like brother and sister.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying she might see him as a brother but the feeling isn’t mutual. That young man’s in love with her.”
“How on earth do you know that?”
“Call it women’s intuition.”
I had something to say about that but I decided the best course of action was to keep it to myself. That was men’s intuition.
“I’ve been watching him, the way he looks at her,” she said. “It may be unrequited but it’s there.”
“Anything else your women’s intuition telling you? The marriage in trouble before it even begins? ”
“I wouldn’t say that, necessarily.”
“He seems a bit of an ass, the groom to be.”
“Don’t mistake cultural differences for arrogance, Miami.” Now Cassandra was sounding like my mother, and it made me squirm in my seat. “She doesn’t see him the same way you do.”
We each see the world through our own spectacles . I needed to listen to myself more often.
I said, “So what do you see, a long and fruitful union?”
“I’m not saying that either. Personally I like my man by my side.” She shot Ron a smile and made the old guy blush. I swear his silver mane tinted pink. “They seem to be in each other’s orbit, rather than on the same planet. But you never know.”
I glanced over at the couple in question. Shania was sitting across Anton’s lap, and he was talking while running his finger up and down her arm. Leon had left them alone and had turned his chair to face the blond woman, Carly.
“I wonder what her story is,” I mused.
“Carly? She’s Anton’s agent,” Ron said.
“You know that how?”
“We sat with her earlier. Nice girl. Wouldn’t you say?” he asked Cassandra.
“A touch calculating for my tastes, but that’s young women today. Always an angle to play.”
“That’s very cynical of you, Miss Cassandra,” I said.
“Yes, you are probably right, Miami. There’s nothing wrong with a bit of ambition.”
Ron said, “Thing I don’t get is why you would invite your agent to such an intimate event. A wedding reception I understand, but a bachelor weekend? ”
“Agents can get pretty close to their charges,” I said. “I’ve seen it. Some of them are like confidante, psychiatrist, bank manager and best friend, all rolled into one.”
“How close would you let Carly get to him if you were his fiancée?” asked Ron.
“Office meetings and daylight hours only,” said Cassandra, smiling.
We sipped our drinks in relative silence, the turbine swoosh of wind in the background a reminder of the weather. The room got quiet, and I had the sense that everyone was listening to the storm outside.
The building was a hardy old thing, as solid as the day is long. Not built for hurricanes specifically—they just built them like that back in the day, when homes were constructed to pass on to future generations, not for easy knockdown to accommodate the latest fashion in kitchen countertops. I felt confident that we would get through the hurricane okay, but the foreboding sound of the wind gave the mood an edge that everyone seemed to feel.
I was restless so I stood and took a walk around the perimeter of the room. I wound up at the bar, where Andrew Neville was polishing glassware.
“What can I get you, sir?”
I shook my head. “I’m good. You been through a hurricane before?”
“The hotel has seen many, and come through relatively unscathed.”
“I don’t doubt it, but I meant you, personally.”
“I am from Britain, Mr. Jones. We don’t do hurricanes.”
I took a stool, like a lonely businessman in a downtown bar. “How did you end up in Palm Beach?”
“It’s a long story.”
“It’s a long night. ”
He smiled his tight smile. “I was looking for a change of scenery.”
“Where were you before here?”
“Paris. George V. Before that I worked at the Savoy in London.”
I gave him my impressed lip curl. I didn’t stay in that caliber of hotel—hell, I rarely ventured through the front doors of that caliber of hotel—but I certainly knew the names.
“Classy joints.”
“Yes, sir.”
“How does The Mornington compare?”
“Well, the clientele is the same. However, I believe a smaller establishment like The Mornington can provide a more intimate service.”
“Still, Palm Beach isn’t quite Paris or London.”
“No, sir. Quite different.”
Neville glanced over my shoulder. It was the first time I had noticed him do it. He either gave you his full attention or he gave you none of it. There was no in-between with him. Not like regular people, who were always glancing around, checking their phones, worried that something better might be happening somewhere else. But I understood the glance when I saw Neville scoop some ice into a cocktail shaker and pour some vodka in it. Then he put in a splash of triple sec and a squeeze of lime and finished it with a pour of cranberry juice. He gave it a shake and then poured it into a martini glass and garnished it with a slice of lime. It was dark red like cough syrup.
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