by Duffy Brown
“Ever been a bride, me dear?”
“Not successfully.”
“Well, this one’s a mite attached to the dress and heading this way in a huff.”
I dropped the spoon in the bowl, splashing milk across the table; Bambino and Cleveland didn’t miss a lap. I slipped the gold chain with the shamrock over my head. “Is your buggy parked outside? I need to get to the Grand Hotel quick.” I grabbed the battered white box leaning against the wall and hustled for the door.
“That be Irma’s dress?” Donna asked.
“Not exactly. There was a little mix-up.”
Donna arched her brow, her coffee mug stopped halfway to her lips. “Mix-up? And ye being the maid of honor like you are? ’Tis the cloud for sure.”
I pulled myself up into Donna’s horse cart, which had a Saint Christopher medal where a cup holder should be and no place to plug in Sheldon to get recharged. I’d always miss having a car and how fast it got me from place to place, but Paddy had pretty brown eyes, got ten miles to the bag of oats, and didn’t have to get his oil changed.
The crisp air made my cheeks tingle and turned my nose pink. I had on an old jacket from Target and Donna had a terrific long green coat that set off her red hair, giving me an attack of coat envy. She spread a plaid blanket across our laps and picked up the reins, and we clip-clopped off down Main Street. I figured it was a safe bet that Donna could have said Grand Hotel and Paddy would take us there via horsey autopilot.
“Guess this is as fast as Paddy goes?” I started biting my fingernails as a few morning bikers and strollers passed us up.
“Ye can be getting out and pushing to help Paddy along if you got a mind to, me dear. Or ye can be telling me about the dress catastrophe in case I need to tell your ma why your poor dead body’s rotting at the bottom of the lake.”
By the time we pulled around back of the Grand where the nonguests parked, I had Irish Donna up to speed on wedding problems and my stomach was tied in knots. We headed for the door, stepping around two refrigerators and a stack of bundled cardboard waiting for the recycle dray. Getting rid of trash on an island was a constant battle and cost the earth to ship out.
“This way,” Irish Donna directed as I turned right instead of left. “The Grand might be all modern on the surface, but there still be old rooms and stairways so the staff can move about. There even be gambling rooms tucked away. The way I hear it, an old woman sat at the door looking all innocent like with embroidering hotel pillowcases and keeping an eye out so only the right folk got in. In Prohibition they went and smuggled hooch across the lake from Canada and brought it into the hotel in baby buggies, of all things. When things got slow the owners called the police in town to come raid the place. It made the papers from coast to coast, and then everyone knew gambling and booze was going on at the Grand and headed right for it. Mighty good for business, it was.”
“That is the best ad campaign ever, and it was free.”
Donna waved to one of the porters hauling boxes into a freight elevator; everyone at the hotel knew her from working at the Crier and making blueberry scones to die for.
“We should have brought along the latest edition of the Crier,” I said to Donna as we headed for the back stairs. “It would have saved Fiona a trip up here.”
“Fiona’s da is doing the deliveries these days. He’s visiting with his old friends for a bit, and Fiona’s ma is taking a hand with writing the news. If ye ask me, they both be missing the paper more than they be letting on. We can ask at the front desk about this Idle Summers person and where she might be this fine morning. Kind of a funny name if you’re asking me.”
“Uh, I think we found Idle,” I said, pointing across the hotel lobby.
4
“Well, blessed be Saint Patrick,” Irish Donna said to me as we stared at a show placard proclaiming Idle Summers as a famous singer and appearing nightly up in the Cupola Bar. “That explains the stage name she be givin’ herself.”
“And the yellow rhinestone dress from Brides and Bliss.” I tapped the box under my arm.
Donna and I crossed the lobby with its pink geranium carpet that stretched from one end to the other. Green couches and brocade chairs formed intimate conversation areas with sparkling chandeliers overhead and white French doors leading out to the massive porch. If there was a lobby in heaven where you waited your turn to talk to Saint Pete, this was what it looked like.
The hotel was just starting to come alive with early-morning guests, and was that yelling coming from the small game room at the back? A waiter and two hotel clerks in maroon uniforms stood by the closed doors looking anxious and wringing their hands, as guests gathered around.
“I get it,” came Sutter’s voice from inside the room. “I get that you both loved the Tweep.”
“Like, his name was Peep,” Zo bellowed with a sob. I recognized her voice. “He was my Peep. Like, how could he be dead? How could this happen? We came here to be alone together!”
“He was not your Peep, you skanky floozy,” came the wife’s voice; the crowd by the closed doors was growing. “I was married to him for twenty loving years. Mrs. Madonna Perry. He was my Peep.”
“Like, ya think there was any love in being married to the ice princess, and like what kind of a nut job changes her name to Madonna?”
“Someone who can sing just like her, that’s who.”
Irish Donna turned to me. “’Tis a pity we didn’t bring popcorn. A mighty fine show they’re putting on for us, it is.”
A woman in khaki shorts and pink sweater standing behind Donna tapped her on the shoulder. “This is all part of the mystery weekend the Grand is putting on for us. It started last night with the body in the bushes. You should have seen it, it was terrific. The body bag got carted off in a horse carriage, and that to-die-for handsome police officer put up the crime scene tape. Let me tell you, that guy can tape my scene anytime he’s got a mind to.”
The women in the crowd nodded at the to-die-for part; a few of them were fanning themselves and looked a little faint. Another woman in capris and a yellow straw hat said, “And now the fun starts with us trying to find the killer.” She nodded to the closed doors. “I mean to tell you they are amazing actors. I’ve been to mystery weekends down in Atlanta, but this takes the cake.”
A man in jeans and brown Docksiders scribbled in a notebook. “Right now the two women in that room are tops on my suspect list. One’s the mistress/secretary who had to be ticked off that this Peep guy didn’t marry her, and then we’ve got the wife who wanted Peep dead for cheating on her. They both have motive and they both were here at the Grand, so they have opportunity. But how does this olive oil thing fit in? Why olive oil?”
“Well, I’m headed down to that market in town to see who bought a green bottle of the stuff.” The pink sweater lady hiked her purse onto her shoulder. “That bottle was the murder weapon. It was right next to the body and oil all over the place.”
The capris lady let out a dreamy sigh. “Well, I’m waiting right here to talk with that hot policeman in the room and see what he thinks. There had to be fingerprints on the bottle.” She giggled. “Actually I don’t much care what he thinks or if there were prints or not, I just want a little eye candy to start off my day.”
I handed the mangled Brides and Bliss box to Donna and lowered my voice. “Find Idle and see if she has Irma’s wedding dress. I’ll catch up with you later.”
I started off and Donna grabbed my arm, her lips in a pout. “A fine thing it is when ye be leaving a friend in the dark like ye are and not be on the level with what you have going on.”
I hated to get Donna involved in a murder; if someone had killed once, they’d have no problem killing again. But Donna was Fiona’s friend, and she also had a knack for zeroing in on good gossip. She’d be a big help and besides, she’d bug the crap out of me till I gave in and took her alon
g. “Fiona’s connected to the Peep Show, and I think the little creep had something on her. I want to look around in his room.”
“You think there was some hoochy-coochy going on between the two of ’em?”
“No way would Fiona hoochy Peep. Ugh. I’m thinking more like blackmail and I can’t imagine what it’s about.” I pulled desk clerk Penelope off to the side; at least that was what her name tag said. “You realize this is no game and so do I. Do you know the women in there for real?” I nodded to the game room, where the crowd was getting bigger.
Penelope was late twenties, pretty, petite with blue eyes and dark hair. “Know them? Are you kidding, there’s been nothing but trouble since that d-e-a-d man and the red-haired woman who says like every other word got here. And then the wife, Madonna, shows up. Madonna? Seriously? And now everyone thinks this is a freaking mystery game and things have just gone downhill from there. Cook burned the morning popovers, we ran out of towels on the second floor, the Town Crier promised us Lilac Festival flyers with all the activities that never showed up and now everyone is asking me what’s going on.”
She pushed back her curly bangs. “Do I have Google written across my forehead? How should I know what’s going with that blasted festival? There are flowers, they bloom, get over it.”
Penelope closed her eyes and pulled in a deep breath. “The place is a zoo, I tell you. We’re all going to lose our jobs. I’ll be back in Dallas this summer asking Do you want fries with that? Do you know what summer is like in Dallas? Heat and dust and cowboy hats as far as the eye can see. I hate cowboy hats.”
“What if we find the killer?” I cooed. “Then it’ll look like part of the game and everyone wins. The police get their guy, we keep our jobs, and the fudgies have fun. Even when it hits the papers, the fudgies will think it’s part of the game.” I hooked my finger, drawing Penelope closer, with the three of us in a huddle. “I need to take a look in the dead guy’s room to figure out who did him in. He was shacked up with that Zo gal in the game room.”
“You’re a cop?” Penelope whispered back. “You two sure don’t look like cops.”
“We be knowing a cop,” Donna tossed in. “Fact is I used to babysit him. Rambunctious little tyke.”
“I can’t let just anyone in a guest’s room,” Penelope grumbled, still keeping her voice low. “What kind of a hotel do you think this is? My boss will skin me alive.”
From the game room came Zo’s screeching. “Like, you really think I’m riding to any police station with you? Like, you must be nuts?”
“I’m not riding with you either, you tramp.”
“Like, you want a black eye?”
“You’d look great with a fat lip.”
The clerk grabbed my arm. “Follow me.”
Peep’s room was on the second floor toward the back of the hotel. “Remember,” Penelope said as we stepped around a housekeeping cart piled with towels, soaps, shampoos and bed linens, then slid in her key card. “I had nothing to do with any of this.”
Donna did the cross-her-heart thing and we stepped inside. “Great day in the morning,” Donna said as we took in the unmade bed, the pink-and-green-flowered bedspread in a heap on the floor. Zo’s clothes were scattered like a tornado had torn through the place, pink towels were flung across a chair and a half-finished bottle of Gray Goose vodka was parked next to an ice bucket. “Top-shelf booze and a cheap room, like something out of a dime novel it is.”
“If you consider three fifty a night for a room as being cheap.”
Donna pushed aside the curtains and filtered sunlight crept into the room. “We’re pretty high up here, and look off into the trees, but it’s still a view of the back road way down there below. Far cry it is from the Jacqueline Kennedy suite or the Victorian suite way up there on the top floor where you can see clear across the lake.” Donna peered out the window. “It overlooks the service road, but it’s pretty high up here so you don’t see it all that much.” She dropped the mangled white box on the bed and opened a dresser drawer. “So what it be that we’re looking for, love?”
I opened another drawer. “Fiona knew Peep and Zo back in L.A., and best I can tell is that Peep had something on her and he keeps the info on his cell phone.”
Donna gasped. “Ye not be thinking our Fiona did the big lout in?”
“Of course not,” I answered in a rush.
“Course not,” Donna echoed, pulling on another drawer. “Was a slip of the tongue is all . . . still . . . sometimes a body can be pushed just far and they snap like an old twig and . . .”
I gave Donna a hard look.
“Right, Fiona would never be doing such a thing. But ’tis a good bet that if the Peep had Fiona in a desperate way, he was doing it to others. Who else was he knowing on this here island?”
“You think maybe he came here just to see Fiona,” I added, rifling through drawers—shirts, pants, lingerie. “But if he was blackmailing her, she doesn’t have enough money to make it worth the trip, and why come all the way out here? He could blackmail her from L.A.”
I held up a skimpy white uniform with a red cross on the front. “I sure wouldn’t have taken Zo as a nurse.”
“With a see-through top and panties, and is that a pith helmet and a rope right there in the drawer? Are those fur-lined . . .” Donna picked up handcuffs, a glint in her eyes. “Been a while since I had . . . Well, never you mind.”
I dropped the nurse’s outfit back in the drawer as if it were on fire, tossed in the handcuffs and kicked the drawer shut with my foot. “Ick!”
“Don’t be getting your bloomers in a bind, me dear. It is L.A. they be coming from, and they do things a mite different out there on the coast than we be doing here in the heartland. Why, I do remember a trip me Shamus and I took to Hollywood. There was this heart-shaped bed and—”
“And let’s try the closet,” I added in a hurry. “But if there’s a Superman outfit or something involving whips, we’re out of here, and no more L.A. stories, okay?”
“Suit yourself, but they be some mighty fine stories if I do say so myself. I’ll be looking in the bathroom behind the toilet. In the movies they always be hiding stuff behind the toilet.”
Donna started off as the brass knob on the main door turned, grabbing our attention. The lock clicked open; Donna’s eyes were the size of golf balls. There was no dust ruffle, so we couldn’t hide under the bed. Since when did dust ruffles go out of style?
Donna snagged the wedding dress box and yanked me toward the bathroom as the door swung open. We tiptoed into the tub and Donna gently pulled the pink-and-white-striped shower curtain across. The door in the bedroom closed; the plush carpeting muffled the footsteps. My heart hammered in my ears as Donna squeezed my hand tight enough to cut off circulation. If it were the maid, she’d be bustling around cleaning and calling Zo a slob. It could be Zo, but from the conversation we overheard in the game room, she was on her way to the police station to give a statement and have one last look at old Peep belly-up on a slab.
It could be the killer looking for that cell phone, and since he’d knocked off Peep, two more dead like Donna and me wouldn’t make any difference. I held my breath. Sweat slithered down my back; our only weapons were a loofah and two mini bottles of the Grand Hotel’s geranium-scented shampoo. We could spa the killer to death.
Footsteps came into the bathroom. A cabinet opened, then closed, and Donna squeezed my hand tighter. A man’s silhouette moved around the room, then retreated. Donna let go of my hand and we exchanged smug we got away with it smiles until the shower curtain flew open. We both jumped, I screamed, “Help!” and swung the loofah and Donna flung shampoo bottles.
“Bloomfield!”
“Sutter!” He rubbed a spot over his eye where Irish Donna had nailed him, and I hit him again with the loofah. “You scared us to death! What are you doing here?”
He
held up a room key card. “I have a search warrant. What’s your excuse? And I’m betting it has something to do with Fiona, a bottle of olive oil and the dead guy.”
“Sounds like the beginning to a bad joke.”
“This is no joke.” He looked at us in the tub armed with bathing equipment, a half smile at the corner of his mouth. “Well, maybe a little.” He held out his hand to Irish Donna. She took it and stepped out of the tub, and our little parade headed into the bedroom.
“Well, it’s been really nice catching up like this,” I offered in a cheery aren’t I cute for hiding in a tub voice. “I guess Donna and I should go. You know how it is, places to be, things to do—”
“Sit,” Sutter ordered in his Detroit cop voice that was not cheery at all. He pointed a stiff finger at the bed.
Donna and I sat with the white box sandwiched between us, and Sutter pulled out a desk chair. I’d never been in a room at the Grand Hotel, and this was not exactly how I’d planned the event of enjoying a lovely feather bed, pink lilac drapes that matched the bedspread, fringed shades on the glass lamps and a purple sequined hat wedged between the side of the bed and the nightstand. What the heck?
“Talk,” Sutter grumbled; the spot over his eye was red and forming a big knot.
“Well, now, me darling boy, there be nothing much to talk about this fine lovely morning,” Donna volunteered with a charming Irish lilt in her voice that could disarm the devil himself. “We’re here trying to find the killer, is all, just like you are.”
“So we can all keep our jobs,” I added, taking a discreet look back at the hat to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating. No hallucinating; it was Fiona’s hat all right. Now I needed a distraction so I could get the darn thing. Sutter would find it for sure, and if Peep’s cell phone was in this room too with incriminating stuff on Fiona, her goose was cooked.
“Let me get you some ice for your eye,” I offered.
“My eye’s fine. Tell me about Fiona and this Peep guy, and you know plenty because you were on the dock when he and Zo landed.”