by HJ Golakai
“Interesting day?”
“To say the least.” Vee shook her head. “I know I threw a lot of conjecture at you, but thanks for listening. It helped to run it by a professional. Who could shoot me down properly.”
“No problem. Look, I was saying since you got my interest piqued, I’ll go through Greenwood’s report again. Feel Marais out if he had a notion of anything being off. Just to ease both our minds.”
Gratefully, Vee handed her a business card.
“Good luck with your investigation. Which isn’t an investigation,” Coetzee smiled wryly. “You know, if you’re really a travel writer at your paper, you ought to be transferred to the crime desk. Do more investigative stuff. You’d be great.”
Halfway out of the door, Vee cackled. “I’ll look into it. By the way, you know where I can find a pharmacy around here? One that sells lice shampoo.”
Chapter Eleven
“You!”
Vee backed into the door, away from Chlöe’s blast of wrath.
“I have lice and bruises and no clean clothes because you dragged me to Hotel California to die. All of this is your fault!”
“That’s not fair. We’re working.”
“Fair?” Chlöe parted the curtain of wet hair over her face, blue eyes lit to a high, slightly mad gleam peeping through. “I’m condemned to suffer with you and you wanna talk fair?” She crumbled onto the bed with a dramatic moan. “I haaaaate this plaaaaace.”
“Alright baby bird. Take a deep breath and relax …”
“I don’t want a deep breath. I–WANT–TO–GO–HOME.”
“And we will. Soon. But for now, let’s tie this bathrobe right up; there are things about you I’d rather not know. Dah whetin dis you drinkin’?” Vee sniffed into a jug-full of cold, opaque liquid with floating gobs and wrinkled her nose. “Seriously Bishop, it’s barely midday. You look like a white trash episode of Dynasty.”
“It’s actually almost one-thirty, which you’d know if you hadn’t gone gallivanting without me.” Chlöe drained the wineglass in her hand and smacked her lips. “It’s called a Cloud. Chenin Blanc, litchi juice, crushed litchis. Grenadine. Vile shit, but it grows on you. The barman’s concoction; he gave me a whole litre.”
“Among other things.” Vee frowned at the table laden with a tray of fruit, tiny sandwiches and other savoury morsels. “How’d you get this? And this room? You better not tell me you stole another guest’s room because the trauma of lice drove you to it.”
“Don’t use that four-letter word, I beg of you! This never happened and we shall never mention it again.” Chlöe glared until Vee acquiesced with a meek nod, then her shoulders relaxed. “After you left, I went back to our old room to shower; yes, I said old room ’cause this is our new one. I started checking my hair to see if the itching was dandruff and discovered the unthinkably unspeakable instead. I marched right back here and raised all kinds of hell. As expected, they didn’t want word of it spreading amongst the guests and ruining their reputation. Ms Motaung happily and very hastily gave us use of this room while the other one is supposedly being fumigated. I’ve been taking boiling showers ever since.” Chlöe started to refill the glass. “I also may have insinuated that our review carries quite a bit of weight to edging them towards a third star, sooo …”
“So nothing, because it doesn’t. And we’ve filed it already, in case you forgot.”
“They don’t know that.”
“And they don’t have to. So bravo on hooking us up. But,” Vee prised Chlöe’s fingers off the glass’s stem, “you’ve been on cloud nine for long enough. Let’s get some lice shampoo in this hair before you spread it. I had that nonsense twice in boarding school and swore to behead the next person who gave it to me.”
“Again, I wouldn’t be here catching vermin and sipping clouds and being harassed by Joshua’s nosy sister if not for you, so it would serve you right,” Chlöe yelled from the bathroom over the gush of running water.
Vee swept in after her. “Harassed by Joshua’s sister? Here? As in, my Joshua?”
Foamy locks dripping into the sink, Chlöe gingerly lifted her head. “Yeah, your sloe-eyed slut. Why didn’t you tell me he was half Indian Indian?”
“I did.”
“No you didn’t. All this time I’ve been thinking American Indian, like riding on the plains hunting buffalo.”
“Hell no. Indian tandoori, not teepee. Cherishers of all things bovine, as is their custom. And who hunts buffalo in the twenty-first century? Native Americans runnin’ casinos now and eating all the white pipo dem money.”
“Whatever, shhh. Back to my jaw on the floor at breakfast. That Indian chick –”
“Stop it, man! The one that kept giving us juju eyeball last night?”
“None other. And she made sure to keep referring to him as her ‘so-called brother’ to make sure I knew she’s not chuffed they’re related. Did you know he had a sister other than the one States-side?”
“Finegeh, that boy’s made of sisters. Four, besides Bianca. His father was trying to compensate for the son he ran out on and all he got for his ejaculations was girls. Hilarious.” Vee caught Chlöe’s one-eyed glare through the suds and laughed. “Stop it. I’ve been messing with this man for a year, not to mention we been friends long before that. What wouldn’t I know. We got family skeletons out the way long back.”
“But you didn’t tell me.”
“’Cause I don’t tell you everything. You got a big mouth sometimes.”
“Only sometimes. Never when it comes to your business, so gimme credit for that. You don’t tell me anything unless you have to or I stumble on it.”
“Whaaat?”
“Okay, you don’t tell me the important stuff. Case in point your tête-à-tête with Lovett this morning. Why bother asking; I already know you’ll stonewall.”
Vee left the doorway and went back into the bedroom. She sampled the nibbles and sank onto the bed. She listened to Chlöe rinse for what sounded like hours, before she emerged with a shower cap and a sheepish smile.
“Egg-killing treatment phase,” Chlöe patted her head.
“I didn’t say anything about earlier with Lovett because I’m not ready to talk about it yet.” Vee kept her eyes trained on the floor. “But I will be. Eventually.” She smiled and squeezed Chlöe’s arm. “Meantime, let me tell you what I found out in town.”
Minutes into the regaling, Chlöe interjected over a mouthful of strawberries. “This sounds more like what you didn’t find out. Let me remind you, as I have repeatedly, Berman’s was the only murder committed here. Why’re you stuck on bringing this woman in the mix? Do not give me that rubbish about gut feelings.”
“It’s the gut feeling, sorry. In this dump, it’s probably dysentery, but hey, work with what you got. And those,” she gave a nod to the pictures as Chlöe perused them, “they mean something, I know it. Two murders at the same venue in the same twenty-four hours does not fall under meaningless. No way.”
“They can if one was murder and one wasn’t. It can mean absolutely nothing if you look at it that way, the way everyone else is.”
“But if there was a connection …” Vee clipped Chlöe at the back of the head during her eye-roll. “If the very same whoever that did them both got away with making one death look innocent, then it starts to make sense.”
“No, it doesn’t. For what conceivable reason is someone at a random place in the bundus killing hotel managers and obnoxious businessmen? I’ll bet you anything Greenwood and Berman didn’t even know each other.”
“Probably true. But that doesn’t mean the perp –”
“The perp? We’re saying ‘the perp’ now?”
“– that the perpetrator didn’t know both or either of them. The fact that Rhonda opened the door for this person is crucial. Her room wasn’t broken into, so she had to have opened the door. That means she knew who it was. You with me?”
“Um-hmm. She opened the door for a mass murderer. The one
still roaming around the lodge. Out for more blood. After offing both her and Berman. Yep, I’m with you.”
Vee shoved her. “Fine, make your jokes. But I’m right.”
“Please. What you are is a consummate leaper, bosslady, and you’re leaping right now. I’m looking at your incriminating evidence and all I see is a sad, lonely, drunk woman who wound up dead on a floor because she was a sad, lonely, drunk woman. Death by babelas. You’re worked up over a smudged fingernail and that’s …” Chlöe held the screen close to her face and shrugged, “like, jack. I appreciate that your superpowers of observation could pick up on a cockroach singing the national anthem, but let’s not go crazy. This is not a defence wound, or the pathologist would’ve said so.”
At Vee’s sigh, Chlöe patted her shoulder. “Aww, look at you. You’re struggling not to break your own Razor thingy. You know, your beloved Occam’s philosophy. Pick the explanation that makes the fewest assumptions and it’s likely to be the one that fits the facts. Right now, you can’t stitch together any of your baseless assumptions without cutting yourself.”
“But let’s say –”
“Let’s nothing. What’s your theory, a crazed maniac is gonna keep bumping people off till the butler’s caught with a bloody dagger? Come on. And,” she wagged a stern finger when Vee opened her mouth, “even if this was such a situation, which I’m not agreeing it is, I’ll be damned if I’m sticking around to play detective and hoping I’m spared.” Chlöe folded an entire samosa into her mouth and crunched passionately. “If anything, you should be more worried here. You’re the black person in this equation. Don’t you watch horror movies? Killers always start with the black people.”
“This one looks like an exception.”
“Then I’m worried!” Chlöe flapped her hands, then parked them on her hips. “Honestly, the police have this under control. How much can we really find out right now? We can’t go near the actual crime scene and the cops have closed off Berman’s room. And we can’t sit around until someone ‘acts suspicious’ so we can pounce. If anyone’s thinking of being an idiot right now, they’ve done it already and gone unnoticed or they’ve talked sense into themselves. Either way, we’re fresh out of luck, and therefore out of the picture.” She executed a sweeping, exaggerated bow, clapped for herself and tottered towards the bathroom. “How much sense am I making?”
“Plenty. Which I hate.”
Vee plopped onto her back, spreading her arms across the bed. The sheets were crisp and smelled of peach fabric softener, reminding her of her own bed. Tambudzai, her maid who came in twice a week, would’ve worked her magic by now. She imagined Tristan rubbing his miserly little mitts in glee at the thought of how much he was racking up taking care of Monro for the weekend. “You’re probably right. We should go home.” She stretched her hand up, playing her fingers in the air as if running them over the intricate swirls of the ceiling’s design.
The water shut off in the bathroom and Chlöe emerged, energetically rubbing a swathe of russet curls between the folds of a towel. “Although …”
Vee sprang up on her elbows. “I like although.”
Chapter Twelve
“I don’t like ‘although’ when it comes with strings.”
“Those are my terms,” Chlöe insisted. They stepped out of the elevator. “I can’t take another minute here. If we do this and I’m right for once, we check out immediately. Hell, if we start driving now we should be home …” she counted hours off fingers, “before nine o’clock. More than enough time to get our beauty sleep on familiar, lice-free mattresses and put our war faces on to face Nico tomorrow.”
“We still …” Vee huffed and shrugged. “Fine. You want out, let’s bounce. But after your secret mission, I need to talk to Zintle one more time. Now tell me why we’re skulking around reception.”
Chlöe poked her head around the corner of the long corridor, scanned the foyer and turtled her head back in. “Our conversation upstairs got me thinking laterally. Hardly anyone’s checked out since this morning because everyone wants to see the action. Human curiosity is gruesome, but it could be useful. It might sound counterintuitive, but the culprit is least likely to leave right away, and if they’re still around they’re probably panicking. And if they’re panicking, they’re trying not to look panicky.”
“Okaaaay. I’m kind of with you.”
“If you lose your shit right now, the police will pounce before you can say boo. They interviewed everyone important from the party, searched the rooms, stirred up gossip among the lodge staff. Everybody’s on edge. Whoever has the most reason to be on edge is likely to do something stupid. What’s the dumbest move the guilty party could make right about now?”
Vee frowned. “Hhmmm. They’re likely to have something incriminating in their possession, in which case they’d definitely want to get rid of it.” She blinked. “Bishop, we’re not breaking into rooms to launch our own search. Not only do we not have the time or know what to look for, it’s criminal and I bet you we’ll get caught.”
“I see I’ve lost you again, my pretty. I doubt anyone would keep anything incriminating on their person or in their room at this point. Not that they still couldn’t smuggle it out if they tried. The police wouldn’t find it.” Chlöe smirked. “Not the South African police anyway.”
Vee shook her head in amazement. “No national pride. The local police aren’t bad, they do a good job, compared to some places I could name. If you consider –”
“Blah blah blah, spare me your defence of the public defenders speech. I know you really believe it, but on the whole the SAPS sucks. Governmental law and order sucks because the government sucks at doing its job, so shock-horror if the police service is a reflection of that.” Chlöe snorted. “Don’t give me that look. In this country, a post-apartheid carryover of suspicion is warranted, believe me. Taxpayers have a civil right to nit-pick everything the ANC is, does, and doesn’t do.”
“When have you ever clicked your Gucci boots down to SARS and filed a single tax return? In fact, leave it lone. Just explain this your theory.”
A couple of guests strolled by, throwing them strange looks as they rounded the corner. Chlöe waited till they were out of earshot, before replying: “If the guilty party has reason to worry about the contents of someone else’s room …”
Vee turned it over in her mind, eyes starting to gleam. “The room taking the most heat right now belongs to the victim. If Gavin Berman had a scrap of evidence on him that would put his killer in the limelight, that person would be looking to find it to either get rid of it, or smuggle it out. So if we’re assuming, hopefully, that it hasn’t been trashed …” The gleam died. “I’m still not with you.”
“If you wanna get something out of hostile territory, you’d smuggle it out. But that’s too obvious. What if the cops were actually doing their job, and you got busted? You wouldn’t take the chance. On the other hand, no-one would expect you to blatantly clear it through customs, right. And around here customs is …”
“Front desk,” Vee exhaled. “If the killer managed to find what they were looking for in Berman’s room, they would want to stash it somewhere safe until they could retrieve it when the heat died down. Or, on the off-chance someone saw them taking an item out of that room, they wouldn’t think much of it if they saw it being handed over at the front desk. It diffuses a lot of suspicion.”
“The heavens opened and the angels chorused.”
“Chlöe Jasmine Bishop, I could eat you up right now,” Vee beamed.
“Blech, you’re not my type.” Chlöe poked her head around the wall again. “Okay, stay here.”
“For what? I can’t just linger in the hallway.”
“Because Trevor hates you. Remember last night? Vanilla trumps chocolate. Now stand back and watch the master work.”
Chlöe strolled the expanse of wooden floor and carpeting that constituted the foyer, coming to a casual halt before the front desk. Trevor looked up from his pape
rwork and barely refrained from rolling his eyes. Unperturbed, Chlöe plastered on a rictus of sugariness, one that went completely missed as the concierge dropped his head and casually returned to his duties. She cleared her throat, softly, then again with more force. Finally he looked up, straightening to his full, average height and bringing his hands together into one interlaced fist of fingers. The closed-for-business posture. Chlöe beamed a silent prayer to the gods.
“Hi, Trevor. I was wondering …” she began.
“I imagine you were. Must be quite a lot of that in your profession.”
“Yes. Yes, there is. Curiosity is our business.” Damn you, Johnson. This would be so much easier if you hadn’t pissed this guy off. She flicked a furtive dirty look over to where Vee peeped around the wall. “Pursuant to that, I imagine there’s been a lot of foot traffic since the madness earlier. Has anything been left here by any chance, by one of the guests attending the LEAD convention?”
Trevor squared his shoulders. “Something like what?”
“Like, uhh, a thing …” Chlöe fashioned meaningless motions in the air. “Um, an item. Or a package. Maybe Mr Berman left one, meaning to pick it up later. Or someone left something for him to pick up later. Which obviously won’t be happening now.” She tittered nervously. Trevor’s visage of deadpan folded along more severe planes. “I mean, considering this tragedy. Which we’re all deeply saddened by.”
“That’s private information, which I’m sure you know. Information only the police can enquire after. Which they have asked, and we’ve answered.”
“I understand. But could you tell me at all, if anything …”
The corners of Trevor’s shoulders sharpened to dangerous angles. “I can’t answer that.”
Chlöe opened her mouth, closed it, thought for a second and then raised a ‘one moment’ finger. She scurried back to Vee and grabbed her by the wrist. “Okay, this is where you come in.”