Murder Packs a Suitcase

by Cynthia Baxter

  Even her son’s return only a few weeks after leaving for school hadn’t helped the aching in her heart. True, he was living in her house again. But he didn’t belong there. He was just stopping in while he decided where to go next, like someone who was idling in a No Parking zone.

  The result was a feeling of emptiness that never quite went away. At least until now. Before coming on this trip, Mallory had been afraid that being thrust into a new and unfamiliar situation would cause her to lose whatever sense of balance she still clung to. Instead, she abruptly found herself being forced to play a completely different role. And her personal life didn’t matter one bit. Whether or not her children were at home, whether or not she had a husband—in this context, none of it was the least bit relevant. All that mattered was what Wade and Annabelle and Courtney and the others could see: that she was a travel writer working for a well-respected publication, here to do a job.

  The question that kept nagging at her was whether or not she could rise to the occasion. Yet here she was, doing exactly that. She was holding her own in a situation that a lot of people would find downright intimidating. She wasn’t surprised that she was managing to handle herself just fine. What did surprise her was the ease with which the old Mallory was resurfacing, pushing aside the timid, uncertain Mallory who had appeared from nowhere when David died.

  Still marveling over the attractive, self-confident woman staring back at her in the mirror, she decided that tonight she would quietly celebrate her unexpected return to her old self. Surely a reception in a big, flashy hotel would include champagne or some other appropriately festive drink. She vowed to make a toast to the return of Mallory Marlowe, a woman who only hours before a virtual stranger had characterized as “spunky.”

  The Bali Ballroom, Mallory discovered as she teetered inside on her red high heels, had the same faux-Polynesian decor as the lobby. The walls were covered with coarse straw mats that she assumed were supposed to look as if they’d been woven in huts made of the same material. More artifacts from the South Seas dotted the walls—the usual assortment of tiki gods, masks, and weaponry. But the centerpiece was the ceiling-high waterfall, which splashed over fake rocks and then spilled into a dark pool that was surrounded by a low stone wall.

  There were also signs of the festivities to come. A long table against one wall was lined with empty chafing dishes, and a small bar was tucked into one corner. Clustered around it were small round tables covered in fabric that looked very much like the bedspread in her hotel room.

  As she headed in that direction, she stumbled. “Klutz,” she muttered, assuming her ineptness with impractical shoes was to blame. But when she glanced down, she saw that she’d tripped on a spear.

  She automatically leaned over and picked it up, figuring there was no reason for anyone else to trip on it. Besides, she’d spent half a lifetime cleaning up after other people, moving Jordan’s gargantuan sneakers out of the hallway and Amanda’s heavy textbooks off the dining room table.

  Once she was holding it in her hands, she saw that it was made of metal, unlike the wooden spears the natives of the South Sea Islands undoubtedly used to kill one another. She also noticed that it was discolored at the end. It looked as if it had been dipped in something red. Dark red.

  But before she had a chance to examine it any further, the sound of a human voice—a very perturbed human voice—prompted her to turn around.

  “Oh, my God. Will you look at those horrendous tablecloths? Whatever possessed them to use those ancient things?”

  Desmond Farnaby stood in the doorway, his hands on his hips. “If I told them once, I told them a thousand times: You can’t—oh, hello. It’s Mallory, isn’t it?”

  She nodded. “Hello, Desmond.” Holding out the spear, she added, “It looks like this fell off the wall. You might want to—”

  “Oh, my God!” he screeched, this time with considerably more vehemence. “Oh, my God!”

  Mallory just stared at him, puzzled over what indecent thing any tablecloth could possibly have done that would cause the hotel’s general manager’s hands to fly to his cheeks like the child star in Home Alone. But something about the look of shock on his face told her it was the result of something a lot worse than outdated fabric.

  She followed his gaze to the waterfall. It was only then that she noticed something unusual protruding out of the little pond surrounding it. Something large. Something oddly shaped. Something brightly colored.

  Mallory’s forehead creased as she tried to make sense of what she was looking at. And then, in a flash, she realized that Phil Diamond was floating facedown in the pool of water.

  And from where she stood, he looked very, very dead.

  5

  “Embrace the detours.”

  —Kevin Charbonneau

  Oh, my God!” Mallory cried, dashing toward the waterfall. “Is he breathing? Is he still alive?”

  Even though the sight of a man floating facedown in the water was horrific, she forced herself to look more closely. It was difficult to tell if he was dead, although the fact that he wasn’t moving certainly made him look as if he was. Unless, of course, he was simply playing some perverse joke.

  But there was another bad sign: a large bloodstain on the back of his garish Hawaiian shirt. The brightly colored, flowered fabric was soaking wet, which oddly enough caused it to puff up like a life preserver. Visions of that afternoon’s excursion to the Titanic exhibit pushed their way into her head.

  “What should we do?” Mallory asked frantically, trying to push any association with over-the-top tourist attractions right back out again. “Should we pull him out and try to resuscitate him? I haven’t taken a CPR course since my kids were practically babies. And I certainly don’t want to tamper with a crime scene if he was mur—”

  “We can’t have this!” Desmond shrieked, his eyes wild. “This is a family resort!”

  “We have to do something!” Mallory insisted. “I’m going to call the police. Or do you want to do it, since you’re the—?”

  “No!” he screeched. “No police! Not yet! Not until I have a chance to get this place in order…Goodness gracious. Will you look at this? There’s water splashed all over the place! And—oh, my God, is that blood? All over the carpet?”

  Mallory decided not to wait another second. She stepped into the corridor outside the ballroom, afraid that if Desmond saw what she was doing, he’d rip the cell phone away from her. Her hands trembled as she dialed 911.

  “I’d like to report an accident,” she said in a voice that was as shaky as her hands. “At least, I think it was an accident. It could have been murder. I’m at the Polynesian Princess Hotel….”

  After explaining the situation in as few words as possible, she headed back into the ballroom. She expected to find Desmond frantically calling hotel security or cordoning off the waterfall to make sure no valuable evidence was destroyed.

  Instead, he was on his hands and knees, energetically scrubbing the carpet with a white rag. Beside him was a large plastic jug that Mallory concluded contained an industrial-strength cleaner.

  “What are you doing?” she demanded.

  “I’m positive this is blood!” he cried in a panicked voice, holding up the rag. It was indeed tinged with red. “The Polynesian Princess can’t host an elegant reception with blood on the carpets!”

  “Desmond, I don’t think the reception is going to take place,” Mallory pointed out. “Even more important, you shouldn’t be touching anything! The police will be here any minute, and it’s crucial that they find everything exactly the way it was when Phil was—when this horrible thing happened!”

  “You don’t understand,” Desmond insisted. “This hotel has standards! You have no idea how hard we’ve worked for our four-star rating!”

  “But—but you’re tampering with a crime scene!”

  He cast her a scathing look. “What I’m doing is trying to restore some semblance of normalcy to my hotel.” He looked around fran
tically, his eyes lighting on the spear lying on the floor a few feet away from him. “Will you look at that? There’s more nasty blood on the spear!” He grabbed it and frantically began rubbing it with the rag.

  “Desmond, stop!” Mallory cried. “That spear could have been used to kill Phil! For heaven’s sake, get control of yourself! Someone was murdered!”

  “Exactly!” he screeched. And then, as if he’d suddenly remembered that he was trying to make the situation better, not worse, he lowered his voice to something more along the lines of a hiss. “How do you think something like this will affect the future of the Polynesian Princess Hotel? You obviously don’t know this town. Here in Orlando, a serious crime is somebody making off with Minnie Mouse’s bow or…or smashing bulbs on the Snow White float right before the Light Parade.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “When word gets out that someone’s been murdered, all hell will break loose!” he continued. “This place will be crawling with reporters and photographers and news teams from all the television stations. And they’ll be reporting live. Live! How will it look if they walk into the fabulous Polynesian Princess and instead of the South Seas fantasy our guests expect, they find a badly dressed travel writer lying in the crowning glory of the Bali Ballroom, the Gitgit Waterfall? What do you think that will do to bookings? What do you think it will do to my annual evaluation? Something like this could destroy a property like this—not to mention an entire career!”

  Mallory stood frozen to the spot, wondering what to do about the fact that even as he spoke, Desmond was destroying something himself: evidence. She wondered if she should call hotel security or make a citizen’s arrest or perhaps try to wrest the spear away from him.

  But before she could decide what to do, Annabelle Gatch’s grating voice interrupted her thoughts.

  “It would have been nice if Courtney had told us in advance that we’d be going to a fancy reception,” she complained loudly. From the sound of her voice, it sounded as if she was right outside the Bali Ballroom. “My readers travel on a budget, so they stick to bargain entertainment. I never bring dress clothes, since fancy receptions like this one aren’t the kind of thing they go to when they’re on vacation.”

  “You look absolutely lovely,” Frieda assured her. “Not everyone can wear brown, you know. Especially such a dark shade. But your coloring is perfect for earth tones. In fact—oh, my! What’s going on?”

  Frieda froze as soon as she entered the ballroom, causing Annabelle to bump into her.

  “Umph!” she cried. “Frieda, what do you think you’re—agh! What is that?”

  “Get them out of here!” Desmond snarled, even though there was no one around to perform that particular task.

  “Desmond,” Mallory exclaimed, her tone reflecting her frustration, “you can’t hide the fact that Phil is lying in a waterfall, dead!”

  “Phil is dead?” Annabelle cried.

  “Are you sure?” Frieda rushed over to the waterfall. “Let me have a look. Believe me, I’ve seen my share of dead bodies. When you get to be my age, you suddenly find yourself a member of the Frequent Funeral Club.” She peered at Phil’s floating body for only a second or two before her eyes grew wide and her hands flew to her mouth. “Oh, my. You’re absolutely right. Deader than the proverbial doornail. Poor Phil!”

  At that moment, two uniformed cops burst through the double doors, their walkie-talkies squawking. Two EMTs hauling life-saving equipment tromped in right behind them.

  “Somebody reported a murder,” one of the police officers barked. “Is this the correct location?”

  Without a word, Frieda and Desmond moved aside, revealing Phil Diamond’s floating corpse.

  “Aw, jeez,” the other police officer said. “Better get Martinez over here.”

  The person he was referring to had apparently already gotten wind of the incident at the Polynesian Princess Hotel, since only minutes later a tall man with the muscular build of someone who worked out regularly strode in.

  “Detective Martinez,” the first cop greeted him with a nod. “Looks like we got a DOA.”

  “Rope off the crime scene,” Martinez ordered, running his hand over his jet-black crew cut. Surprisingly, it didn’t appear to contain a single gray hair, even though he looked as if he was in his mid-forties. “I’ll get Forensics over here.”

  Mallory realized that under normal circumstances, she would have thought he was attractive. But circumstances had stopped being normal the moment she saw Phil Diamond’s dead body floating under the fake waterfall.

  Desmond rushed over to Detective Martinez, the blood-covered rag still clutched in his hand. “Detective, I hope you can get this body out of here ASAP. This situation is completely unacceptable. I simply cannot have something like this floating around in the Gitgit Waterfall. Not only is it bad for business—”

  “Who are you?” Detective Martinez demanded.

  “Why, I’m Desmond Farnaby,” he replied indignantly. “The general manager of this hotel. As I was saying, I’m sure having something dead in the Gitgit Waterfall violates some health code, so it’s critical that you—”

  “Whoa,” Detective Martinez interrupted again. “What’s that word you keep saying? The one right before waterfall?”

  Desmond looked puzzled. “Oh,” he finally said. “You mean Gitgit.” With a haughty toss of his head, he said, “I thought everyone knew the Gitgit Waterfall. It’s the largest waterfall in Bali.”

  “I’ll be sure to jot that down in my travel journal,” Detective Martinez replied dryly. “But for now, I want everybody out of here. This is a crime scene. We need to let Forensics do their thing before the EMTs remove the body.

  “In the meantime,” he added, briefly making eye contact with Desmond and all three journalists, “no one is to leave. Mr. Farnaby, is there a room nearby where all of you can wait? I’ll also need a second room where I can question each of you, one at a time.”

  His last words sent a shock wave through the small group. Mallory glanced at Frieda, then Annabelle. They both wore the same horrified look she suspected was on her own face.

  “Detective Martinez,” she said in a soft voice, “surely you don’t think any of us—”

  “Standard procedure,” he replied curtly. “I need to find out everything I can about the victim, as well as what took place this evening. I’ll start by taking statements from the four of you. Officer Langley, I’d like you to accompany me.”

  “What about the other writer who came on the press trip?” Desmond piped up. “I would think you’d want to talk to him, too.”

  Detective Martinez cast him an odd look, as if he wasn’t used to his murder suspects being so helpful. “Of course. And I’d like the names of any other guests or hotel staff who knew the deceased.”

  “Don’t forget Courtney,” Frieda said. “She might know something useful.”

  “She works for the Florida Tourism Board,” Annabelle explained. “She’s in charge of our group.”

  “Mr. Farnaby,” the detective asked, “can you get in touch with her as well?”

  “Of course,” Desmond replied. “She’s probably somewhere in the hotel. I’ll try her cell phone. Detective Martinez, I want you to know that I’m prepared to cooperate fully. Now, if you’ll all just follow me.”

  He led the group into a modest-size room furnished with a gleaming oval-shaped conference table, gray padded chairs, and enough electrical equipment to stage Cirque du Soleil.

  “I’ll see if I can get Courtney and the other journalist, Wade, down here pronto,” Desmond offered. “If you want to get your interrogation under way, Detective, you can use the room right next door, the Pago-Pago Party Room. The Feinbergs had booked it for a party celebrating their son’s bar mitzvah, which was yesterday, but they called a couple of hours ago to cancel. Apparently poor Stuart fractured his tibia on his skateboard this morning.”

  Drawing his lips together in a straight line, he added, “I suppose it’s just as w
ell, with a dead body right down the hall and all. That doesn’t exactly scream ‘Happy Birthday,’ does it? Still, if they expect to get their deposit back, they’d better be prepared to provide me with a letter from his doctor. On letterhead.”

  Detective Martinez didn’t seem interested in the details. “Who’s the woman who called 911?” he asked as soon as Desmond left. He glanced around the conference room, where Mallory, Frieda, and Annabelle were perched on the edge of gray upholstered chairs as if they were waiting for a business meeting to begin.

  Mallory gulped. “That’s me,” she said meekly, raising one hand.

  “Then I’ll start with you.” Nodding at the uniformed cop, he added, “Officer Langley?”

  Mallory followed Detective Martinez and the other officer into the room next door. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, STUART! MAZEL TOV! A huge banner festooning the back wall shouted its greeting as they walked into the Pago-Pago Party Room. The Feinbergs had embraced a black-and-silver color scheme for their son’s bar mitzvah, one that seemed oddly suited to the somber occasion the space was now being used for.

  Mallory followed the others through an archway made of black and silver balloons. More balloons in the same colors had also been used in the centerpieces. The half-dozen floating above each of the twenty or so round tables gave the room a dreamy look. The tables themselves were draped with black tablecloths topped by large squares of a shiny silver fabric. A black cardboard gift box decorated with a silver embossed Star of David sat at each place.

  The three of them were silent as they settled into chairs that were supposed to have been occupied by Stuart Feinberg’s friends. Mallory half expected a waiter to come by and offer them all virgin piña coladas.