“Can’t blame her for that.”
“You certainly can’t. Especially given all that’s happened to her over the past couple of years.”
Mallory’s ears pricked up. “Sometimes life throws more at us than we think we can handle.”
“Isn’t that the truth. I mean, losing her husband was enough of a shock. I don’t know if she ever told you that poor Harry had a long bout with cancer. It was hard on everyone in the family. And not only emotionally. It was also a financial drain. After he died, poor Frieda faced a huge amount of debt. And so she was forced to come out of retirement and start working again.”
Mallory remained silent, afraid of saying something that might discourage this knowledgeable source from continuing.
“I felt so bad for her.” John sighed deeply. “In fact, I was almost as heartbroken as she was when her book deal fell apart. It would have been the one way she could make a lot of money without working her butt off, if you’ll excuse the expression.”
“She had a book deal?” Mallory asked. Quickly she added, “When we talked about this particular assignment, I don’t recall her mentioning anything about writing a book.”
“Not just one book,” John said. “An entire series. With a good publisher, too. Far and Wide Press in New York.”
“A travel series?”
“That’s right. She was going to do a book on every destination you can think of, customizing it for the senior traveler. The books were going to describe hotels and tourist sights all over the world—not only in terms of what they offered, but also how wheelchair-accessible they were, how convenient the bathrooms were, how much walking was involved, whether or not they offered foods that were compatible with quirky digestive systems…in short, everything travelers who were getting on in years would want to know.”
“That’s a great idea,” Mallory said sincerely.
“It is. And it was especially suited to someone like Frieda, because it wouldn’t require doing that much actual travel. She could have taken existing guidebooks, contacted the places that were listed, and gotten all the information she needed over the phone or by e-mail. Thanks to digital photography, she could even have the spots she was writing about send her photos of their ramps and bathtubs and anything else she needed. The woman has been to so many places already that doing the books would have been a simple matter of expanding on information she already had in her head.
“Frieda saw the series as her ticket to fame and fortune,” John went on. “And she deserved it. The lady has worked hard for decades, starting in a time when good jobs for women were few and far between. So were the paychecks. But she endured it all, and with a big smile on her face. I’m telling you, she’s one of a kind.”
“Mr. Crane,” Mallory asked, trying to keep her voice light, “what killed the book project?”
He let out a contemptuous snort. “That idiot of a co author Frieda had the bad luck to sign on with,” he said bitterly. “The jerk basically wrecked the whole deal.”
Mallory experienced a sinking feeling in her stomach. I’d bet a thousand dollars I could guess who that jerk was, she thought.
“Phil Diamond, right?” She held her breath as she waited for an answer.
“Who else?” John snapped. “The guy’s too much of a fool to have realized it would have been his ticket to fame and fortune, too. He wouldn’t have had to work any harder than Frieda. Making phone calls, customizing information that already existed, without even leaving his computer…but as usual, he just couldn’t follow through. Phil spent his half of the advance without writing a word. They missed their first deadline, and lost the deal.”
“That’s terrible!”
“It gets worse, too. Not only did Frieda have to give back her half of the advance. She also had to pay back Phil’s. Turns out there was some indecipherable legal mumbo jumbo in the contract that made it impossible for the responsibility to be placed where it really belonged.”
Mallory’s mind was racing. So Frieda had signed on to a fabulous book deal with Phil Diamond. Then, as a result of his incompetence, she had lost the opportunity to get on her feet financially, not to mention to let go of some of the more physically demanding aspects of her career.
“I had no idea,” she said. “Mr. Crane, when did all this happen?”
“Just a few months ago.” John let out another sigh, this one even deeper than the last. “The poor gal’s still reeling from it. Not that she’d ever let on, of course. Not our Frieda. She’s too much of a trouper for that. She’s very strong. A real lady.”
Undoubtedly strong, Mallory thought. As for being a real lady, that was less certain.
In fact, she could even imagine Frieda Stein’s anger leading the hard-drinking party girl to do something as unladylike as commit murder.
After Mallory hung up, she sat still for a long time, mulling over what she’d just learned.
So it turns out Frieda is one more person on this press trip who had good reason to hate Phil Diamond, she thought. The fact that they were both travel writers had thrown them together—with disastrous results.
Just like Wade.
But Desmond had also had business interactions with Phil in the past, she reminded herself, struggling to figure out which of the many different parts of Phil’s sketchy past might have led to his murder. Interactions that apparently hadn’t lasted, since by the time Crypt Castle closed, it seemed he was no longer an owner.
But why wasn’t he? she wondered. What had happened between Desmond and Phil all those years ago? Whatever it was, it seemed to be something Desmond didn’t talk about openly. Had the two of them had a disagreement? Or had Desmond simply been smart enough to get out in time, recognizing long before Phil did that Crypt Castle was destined to fail?
Mallory knew she also had to take Annabelle’s broken heart into consideration. The phrase Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned certainly hadn’t remained popular for centuries without good reason.
As far as she was concerned, any one of them could have murdered Phil Diamond. They all had motive, means, and opportunity.
At the moment, however, all she wanted was to lie down for a few minutes and find a way to force all the thoughts that were racing around in her head to take a rest. While she felt she had no choice but to spend every possible moment investigating Phil’s murder, she was suddenly overcome with exhaustion. She kicked off her shoes and went over to the inviting king-size bed, already anticipating how good it would feel to sink into the soft, comfortable mattress.
All I need is twenty minutes to recharge my batteries, she thought. Just like Frieda.
She glanced at the night table, wanting to check the time. Instead, her eyes were drawn to the framed photograph next to the clock.
“Oh, my God,” she breathed, suddenly feeling as if all the wind had been knocked out of her.
Something was wrong with the picture of her family vacationing in Jamaica. Very wrong.
Someone had cut off everyone’s head.
18
“A traveler without observation is a bird without wings.”
—Moslih Eddin Saadi
Mallory stared at the photograph, sickened by the sight but unable to take her eyes off it. All the heads in the photograph—hers, David’s, Amanda’s, and Jordan’s—had been carefully cut out with a sharp object, leaving four gaping white circles.
Who did this? she thought, rage and disgust rising inside her with the force of a tidal wave. What twisted, horrible, desperate person would stoop to an act that’s so—
It could only have been one person, she realized abruptly. Phil’s murderer. Someone who was more than likely a member of their little group.
The fact that she still couldn’t put a name to that individual only fueled her fury.
“Damn!” she cried, her voice catching. “What is going on?”
It was only after she’d slammed the photo facedown on the night table that she fully understood the implications of this freakish act
of vandalism.
Oh, my God, she thought, her knees growing so weak that she sank onto the bed. This is a warning. The killer is sending me a message.
A message to mind my own business.
But the murder is my business! she thought, her head spinning. I can’t stop trying to find out who killed Phil Diamond! Not as long as Detective Martinez thinks I’m connected to his death—and not as long as I’m haunted by the inexplicable appearance of those newspaper articles about David and me that the police found stashed in Phil’s hotel room.
And then another thought crept into her brain, pushing its way inside and settling there like an unwanted visitor. What if the real killer is scheming to implicate me even further?
Mallory pressed her fingertips against her temples, as if by doing so she could force herself to think more clearly. She was scheduled to fly home on Friday morning, now just a day and a half away. That meant she had only thirty-six hours to figure out who had killed Phil before testing Martinez’s mandate that she stay in Florida. She could practically hear a clock ticking in her head.
If there’s any way I’m getting on that plane, she thought frantically, I have to keep going. I must find a way to figure out who killed Phil. Maybe I’ll stumble upon some clue that will solve the puzzle. Maybe Patrice will fill in some of the missing pieces when I meet with her tomorrow.
Maybe the killer will slip up somehow, do or say something that will reveal his or her identity.
She forced herself to stand up again, refusing to succumb to the overwhelming urge to climb into bed, pull the covers over her head, and simply give up. She thought back to Sunday, when she’d arrived in Florida. Had it only been a few days earlier? It seemed like a lifetime ago. As she’d driven from the airport to the hotel, it had occurred to her that she’d been thinking of this press trip as a test. Back then, she’d rejected the idea.
But that was then. A lot had happened since.
She considered the possibility that this could be some sort of test, after all. Cosmic or religious or…or who knew what. And proving that she hadn’t killed Phil could be part of it, a way of convincing herself that she could handle anything without David, no matter how horrific it might be.
What that’s old saying? Mallory thought grimly. Something about how whatever doesn’t kill you will make you stronger?
It definitely applied to her situation, she decided. Especially since, for all she knew, killing again could be precisely what Phil’s murderer had in mind. Only this time, the plan would be to make her the victim.
Early the next morning, as Mallory climbed into her cheerful red PT Cruiser, she was wracked with ambivalence about having to spend the morning checking out another tourist attraction. She felt she should be spending every waking moment trying to find Phil’s murderer.
But with no brilliant ideas about what to do next, she figured she might as well put some more time into trying to write a publishable article for The Good Life. That way, once this nightmare was over—and she kept telling herself it would be soon—she’d have the satisfaction of completing the job that had brought her to Florida in the first place.
She had to admit that she was also a little relieved to have the distraction. Of all the places in Florida she’d chosen to visit, Cypress Gardens interested her the most. From her childhood vacations, she remembered it as a cool, green oasis with endless flower beds and statuesque trees dripping with Spanish moss. She wondered if the park still featured the pretty young women in pastel-colored antebellum gowns who sat on the lawn waving, their skirts fanned out to form large circles around them.
What she remembered best about Cypress Gardens, however, was its spectacular water-ski show. She could still picture the daredevils who formed human pyramids while skimming the water at breathtaking speeds and the attractive young women doing kicks and splits midair.
As she trekked across the immense parking lot toward the ticket booth, Mallory could hardly believe this was the same place that had lodged itself in her memory so firmly. Everything was on such a large scale compared to what she could recall. Even the name had become grander. These days, the attraction was called Cypress Gardens Adventure Park.
At the entrance, a huge brick walkway led to a visitors’ center housed in a building-size white dome—something she didn’t remember at all from her childhood. After exchanging her voucher for a ticket, she wandered inside and found herself trapped in a fake-looking village that was vaguely reminiscent of a small town in New England. Its touristy stores included a candle emporium and a Christmas shop, while its restaurants had overly cute names like Backwater Bill’s BBQ and Aunt Julie’s Country Kitchen. Mallory was relieved that at least its creators had resisted the temptation to spell country with a K. Even so, the precious architecture, with buildings that looked like quaint country cottages, gave Jubilee Junction the look of a poor man’s version of Disney World’s Main Street.
Farther along the walkway, a country singer with very red lips and very big hair sang her heart out inside a gazebo, backed by three men who looked as if they’d raided Johnny Cash’s closet. Yet there were very few people to listen.
In fact, what struck Mallory most was how empty the park was. Only a few elderly couples ambled around the shops, and a pair of young mothers pushing toddlers in strollers drifted toward an area that according to her map contained the rides. True, today was a weekday, and a few ominous-looking clouds had been gathering in the sky since early that morning. Still, she hoped this simply happened to be an unusually quiet day for what to her was an important Florida landmark.
Her map listed a dozen different sections, each with a different theme. A good third of the park was devoted to rides, a water park, and a so-called Adventure Arcade. But the others, thankfully, still conformed to the botanical garden theme.
Mallory began with the bird aviary, where streetwise birds with riotously colored plumage worked the small cluster of visitors with impressive professionalism. A glass butterfly house, aptly named Wings of Wonder, proved to be a warm, damp haven for butterflies, waterfalls, flowers, and lawn furniture. Next she wandered through the meticulously maintained Plantation Gardens, where nary a weed was permitted to linger. She was pleased that the trees near Lake Eloise were decorated with Spanish moss, just as she remembered, with huge clumps hanging from their boughs like tinsel.
At the center of the park was the Topiary Trail, which took her past gigantic bushes that had been pruned to form animals like a big green duck and a green seal balancing a ball on its nose. Some of them were studded with flowers, making the tremendous cardinal bright red and giving the peacock a brilliant blue body and splashing its tail with turquoise spots. As she strolled through each section, she jotted down every adjective she could think of, once again agonizing over the lack of a synonym for lush foliage.
But it was the water-ski show—listed in the schedule as the Ski Show Spectacular—that she looked forward to the most. She followed the other stragglers who made their way toward the impressive amphitheater that had clearly been built in the decades since she’d last been here. The massive building consisted of two dozen tiered rows of seats and a huge blue overhang designed to shield the audience from the sun. Today, she realized woefully, it might end up keeping the rain off them.
Nevertheless, Mallory sat toward the front, not wanting to miss a single moment. She remained braced for the possibility that despite its name, the “spectacular” would fail to live up to her memories.
Not only did the show live up to them, it was practically an exact duplicate, replicating every element that was stored in her memory bank. A sleek motorboat towed three young men with Olympic-caliber muscles up a sloping platform at high speed. Then they flew into the air and did amazing flips and twists before landing squarely back onto the water’s surface. A man and a woman did a waterskiing version of ice dancing, complete with hot pink and turquoise costumes and graceful arm movements. The Aquamaids, three pretty blond women who looked as if they’d been ki
dnapped from a high school cheerleading team, danced in unison. The grand finale was the human pyramid, with three men on the bottom, two women forming the second tier, and a third woman on top waving an American flag.
Cypress Gardens may have gotten a lot glitzier, Mallory thought as she snapped one picture after another, but thank goodness the water-ski show has stayed the same. This really is a piece of old Florida, preserved exactly as it was half a century ago.
Even though the show served as a welcome distraction, as soon as it was over she was forced to confront the disturbing reality of her situation once again. She drifted toward the Botanical Gardens that covered the back end of the park, lost in thought.
I’m supposed to leave tomorrow, she reminded herself, her mood darkening so much that she was only vaguely aware that the brick path she was following was now meandering through dense plantings with a distinctly tropical feel. If I want to get on that plane, I now have less than twenty-four hours to figure out who killed Phil.
At this point, she saw Phil’s ex-wife as her last hope for finding out who could have wanted the man dead badly enough to actually carry out the dirty deed. If Patrice didn’t come up with any helpful information, Mallory didn’t know where she would turn.
She suddenly stopped, realizing that she wasn’t taking notes or even paying attention to her surroundings. The fact that she had an article to write—on top of everything else she had to worry about—bordered on the ridiculous. Yet she couldn’t neglect her responsibility to Trevor.
She noticed for the first time that there was no one else around in this section of the park. She also realized it was getting dark. Glancing upward, she saw that the gray clouds that had been hovering in the sky all day were quickly growing thicker, darker, and considerably more threatening. In fact, she realized she’d be wise to speed up her tour if she wanted to reach her car or at least the safety of a building by the time torrential rains began to fall.
Murder Packs a Suitcase Page 21