“Meaning, you never discovered where she was killed,” Drue said.
“It’s a big property. Two hundred rooms, guests checking in and out, and hotel staff busy cleaning up what could have been evidence.”
Hernandez stood up, stretched and yawned. “Okay, party’s over. I’m out, and so are you.”
Drue hesitated. “I’d really like to watch that video again. All of it.”
“No way,” Hernandez retorted. “I’m not hanging around here for another minute. And you’re done poking your nose in police business.”
“You could just transfer it to a flash drive,” Drue suggested. “I’ll take it with me and watch it again. Who knows? Maybe a fresh set of eyes will catch something you missed.”
Hernandez shook her head again and muttered something under her breath. But ten minutes later Drue was back in the white Bronco, the flash drive tucked securely in her purse.
47
She let herself into the deserted office again, switching on lights as she went. “Next paycheck,” she muttered, seating herself at her desk, “I buy myself a laptop. Screw the roof.”
The grainy video played out again on her computer screen, and she yawned, wishing for coffee but too tired to trek to the break room to brew a pot. She fast-forwarded the video to the 11:05 mark and watched again as Jazmin Mayes removed her baseball cap, lifted her key card from around her neck and slid it into the door lock, then put the cap in place again before entering the room. She reversed, then froze the frame showing Jazmin’s face, tilted for only a moment toward the camera.
“Oh my God,” she whispered, reaching for her phone.
* * *
“Hello?” The childish voice on the other end was breathless.
“Uh, hi,” Drue said. “I’m trying to reach Rae Hernandez.”
“Who’s calling, please?”
“This is Drue Campbell.”
“I’m sorry, she can’t come to the phone right now.”
“Is this her son?” Drue asked. “Because it’s really important I speak to your mom.”
“I’m not allowed to say,” the child replied. “How do you spell Campbell?”
“It’s C-A-M-P-B-E-L-L. Like the soup.” At one point in her childhood, Drue’s skate rat pals had actually nicknamed her Soup.
She searched her mind, trying to remember the kid’s name. She could picture him, standing at bat, the legs of his baseball pants bagging over the tops of his high red socks. “This is Dez, right? Rae’s son?”
“I’m not allowed to say,” he repeated.
“Please tell your mom it’s really, really important that I speak to her tonight. As soon as possible. Will she be home later?”
“I’m not allowed to say.” The boy was definitely his mother’s son, as well as a cop’s kid.
“Ask her to call me, will you, Dez?”
Drue paced around the office, too keyed up to sit for another minute. Jazmin Mayes had been killed at the Gulf Vista nearly two years ago, and now she was so close to finding the truth about her murder, she had to do something.
She called Corey. The phone rang four times, but finally he answered.
“Hello?” His voice sounded groggy. She glanced up at the clock on the office wall. It was after ten.
“Oh no. Did I wake you up?” she asked.
“Uh, yeah. I’ve got my Iron Man thing tomorrow. What’s up?”
The words poured out in a torrent, tumbling over one another so fast she knew she was barely making sense.
“Corey, I got the unedited security tape from the Gulf Vista. I’ve been watching it, here at work, all night. And I think I’ve figured out what happened, but I need to go over to the hotel and get a look at the last room Jazmin cleaned that night.”
He yawned loudly. “Okay, but it’ll have to wait until Sunday. I’ve gotta be over in Tampa at six tomorrow morning, and I’ll be in no shape to do anything after that.”
“Sunday?” She didn’t bother trying to hide her disappointment. “I really want to go over there tonight. It won’t take that long, I swear. I just need—”
“Honey, I can’t,” Corey said. “I’m sorry, but I promise, I’ll go with you Sunday.” He yawned again. “Wish me luck for tomorrow.”
“Good luck,” she said reluctantly.
She hesitated for a moment, then tried calling Ben. He might disagree with her decision to keep poking around in the investigation, but she felt sure that if she laid out the facts for him, he’d listen to reason.
The call went directly to voice mail. If he and Jonah were still at Taco Truck, he probably couldn’t even hear his phone over the noise of the Friday night crowd. Should she leave a message?
“Hey, Ben. It’s Drue. Listen, I know you told me to leave it alone, but I think I might have uncovered something really big on the Jazmin Mayes case. I want to go out to the Gulf Vista and check out a hunch, and I could really use a wingman if you’re available. Call me as soon as you get this, okay?”
Drue considered calling Jonah, but discarded the idea almost immediately. Things were still at the awkward stage between them. That might change after their date Saturday night, but for now, she decided against roping him into her scheme.
* * *
She pulled the white Bronco up to the security gate at the Gulf Vista resort. Two cars were in front of her, and she inched forward, slowly, until she reached the security gate. The guard, a wiry, twenty-something white woman with a clipboard clamped under her arm, greeted her with a businesslike nod. “Welcome to the Gulf Vista. Name and room number?”
“Oh, I’m not a guest,” Drue said, offering her a sweet smile. “Just joining friends.”
“Did your friends call the gate to get a pass left for you?”
“Well, um, I’m not sure,” Drue said.
The guard consulted her clipboard. “Name?”
“Drue. Campbell, like the soup.”
“Nope.”
“They probably forgot,” Drue confided. “It’s a bachelorette party, and the maid of honor is a total space cadet.”
“Not my problem,” the guard said. She looked past Drue at a car that had just pulled in behind the Bronco. “Gonna ask you to move along, ma’am.”
* * *
She drove home to Coquina Cottage and paced around the compact living room. Still no callbacks, either from Rae Hernandez or Ben. Drue could hear Sherri’s voice in her head, repeating one of her favorite sayings: “If you want something done, do it yourself.”
“I will, by God,” Drue muttered. “And if I can’t get in the front door, Mom, I’ll go in the back.”
She changed out of her work clothes and into her best beach cover-up, a loud pink and lime green floral Lily Pulitzer number she’d picked up at her favorite thrift store back in Fort Lauderdale. She’d never cared for the pom-pom trim, but the top did have deep in-seam pockets, perfect to stash her cell phone, house keys and some folded-up cash money.
Her stomach rumbled as she passed through the kitchen and she realized that she hadn’t eaten anything since that slice of pizza earlier. She grabbed a protein bar from her grandmother’s cookie jar on the counter and slipped out the sliding-glass doors and onto the deck. The locking mechanism on the doors had rusted in the salt air, and when she was inside, she simply jammed a sawed-off broomstick into the track. Every time she walked out onto the deck she vowed that her next paycheck would go toward installing a new lock. Right after a laptop, but before the new roof.
She was halfway down the beach when she remembered the key card she’d lifted on her last visit to the hotel. She turned around, found the key on top of her dresser and doubled back, headed for the bright lights of the Gulf Vista. Walking on the uneven sand, her knee twinged, but she kept going until she reached the gate that separated the back of the resort from the public beach.
She looked around, swiped the card and tugged at the gate. It didn’t budge. She tried again, then gave up. Maybe the hotel locks had been re-programmed. She didn’t have
time to wonder. Drue glanced up at the deep blue sky. There was a new moon tonight, mostly obscured by heavy cloud cover. The beach was deserted and cast in darkness, but music wafted from the resort’s pool area.
Now or never, she told herself. She placed her left foot on the bottom rail of the gate and swung her right leg up and over in the most awkward vault attempt ever, catching the hem of her top on a gate finial. As she tumbled forward onto the sand on the resort side of the fence, she felt a searing jolt of pain in her bad knee and heard the fabric of her top rip.
Drue sat up, moaning quietly, her leg extended straight out as she kneaded the knee with her fingertips. After a moment, the pain subsided. Maybe, she thought, maybe she hadn’t ruptured the joint again.
She stood up slowly, panting from the effort, and brushed the sand from her butt. She gingerly put her right foot down. There was soreness, yes, but nothing like what she’d experienced with her original injury. There was also a jagged rip along the hem of her top, but there was no blood and she could walk, which she did, as quickly as possible, toward the pool and tiki bar area, congratulating herself on her first solo breaking-and-entering effort.
She heard the high-pitched cacophony of women’s laughter as she approached the tiki bar. Sure enough, at least two dozen young women, all dressed in matching pink T-shirts and tiaras, were clustered around the periphery of the bar, drunkenly twerking and bellowing along to the version of “Bootylicious” blaring from a cell phone speaker balanced on a nearby chaise lounge.
Drue edged as close as she could get to the bar, finally managing to edge in between two middle-aged men who were watching the revelry with undisguised appreciation. There had been a time, Drue reflected, when one or both of those men would have struck up a conversation and offered to buy her a drink, but tonight, she was just another face in a crowd of younger talent. It took another ten minutes for the bartender, dressed in a Hawaiian shirt, to work down the bar to her.
“Do you happen to have any bar munchies?” she asked him. He turned, wordlessly, and handed her a bowl of popcorn.
“Great. I’ll have a Tito’s and tonic, double lime,” she said, sliding a ten-dollar bill onto the bar.
He fixed the drink and when he delivered it, added a bowl of mixed nuts to her dinner.
“Thanks!” He nodded and moved away.
She sipped her drink and emptied the popcorn bowl and half the bowl of nuts as conversation swirled around her. After another ten minutes, the balding guy on her left signaled for the bartender to close out his tab, the move she’d been waiting for.
“Put it on my room, please,” he told the bartender, signing the bill. “It’s Gazaway, Room 325.”
“Got it,” the bartender replied.
Got it, Drue thought, gulping down the rest of her drink. She skirted the pool area and moved off to the right, looking for the entrance to the north building. She found the door easily, but once again, her key card failed. She tossed it into the nearest trash bin, then hung around for five minutes, planning to slip inside in the wake of a legit guest, but nobody approached the building.
Drue drifted into the hotel lobby and planted herself in front of the reception desk.
The clerk, dressed in the official Gulf Vista Royal Bahamian uniform, looked up as she approached.
“How can I help?” He looked to be around twenty, with a sunburn and a peeling nose.
She patted the pockets of her cover-up. “You’re not gonna believe this. I think I misplaced my key.”
“No problem,” he said gallantly. “What’s the name and room number?”
“Gazaway, Room 325.”
He turned to his computer monitor, tapped some keys and nodded. “Okay, Ms. Gazaway. Now, do you have some ID?”
She laughed. “That’s the problem. I’ve been down at the tiki bar, and I didn’t take my billfold with me, because we were charging our drinks to the room.”
“Shouldn’t be a problem,” he said, nodding. “I just need the address listed on the credit card on your account.”
“Oh.” She made a pouting face. “The thing is, my cousin booked the room. And I don’t actually know her new address, since she got married.”
Drue was shocked how easily the lies rolled off her lips.
But the desk clerk was not impressed. “Can you call her?” he asked. “If she comes down to the desk, I can easily get another key made for you.”
“Ugh!” Drue exclaimed. “She wandered away with her husband, and she left her phone in the room. Can’t you just make me another key without all that rigamarole?”
“Can’t,” he said, shrugging. “Against hotel policy. Wish I could help.”
Drue tried to look helpless. It wasn’t working. “Okay,” she said, sighing deeply. “Do you have a map of the property?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Yes.”
Since helpless wasn’t working she held out her hand and tried haughty. “May I have one, please?”
* * *
She could sense the clerk watching as she strolled out of the lobby in the direction of the pool. Once outside, she studied the map, trying to get her bearings again.
According to what Hernandez told her, the last room Jazmin cleaned on the night she was murdered was Room 133. Which probably meant the room was on the first floor of the north building.
She followed the stone-paved walkway through the lush junglelike landscaping, flinching once when a tiny green tree frog dropped off an overhanging basket, brushing her arm. The east end of the north building loomed ahead of her. Consulting the map, she was surprised to note that there was a second pool on the property, and that the back of the north building faced it. There was a door here into what looked like the building’s elevator tower, but it too was locked. She kept following the path until she could see the shimmering reflection of the pool water bouncing on the back of the building. The sidewalk ended abruptly at a gate in a six-foot-high wooden stockade fence.
Drue held her breath as she hip-checked the gate, which swung open easily. Finally!
A smallish, kidney-shaped pool lay before her. The landscaping here was not nearly as lush or well-maintained as the rest of the property, and indeed, the whole area had the feeling of steerage class on a luxury liner. She gazed up at the building and realized that the architectural style here was also markedly different from the rest of the resort facility. It was a boxy concrete block tower, four floors, with each room outfitted with an abbreviated wrought-iron balcony just large enough for a pair of inexpensive plastic armchairs. This, she thought, was probably the earliest phase of the resort, featuring the most inexpensive rooms, without a beach view.
Lights shone in only a handful of the rooms looking out on the pool. To her disappointment, the first level of balconies was actually elevated about six feet above the pool decking. She stood under the shadow of the balconies and gazed upward, wondering if the theory she’d formed after watching hours of security camera video would hold water.
Would it be possible for someone to access a balcony, and from there, a room, from here? She looked wildly around the deck, searching for something to use as a ladder. Most of the pool furniture looked too flimsy to support her weight.
The most substantial item she spotted was a concrete-encased trash barrel that stood beside an ice maker and a Coke machine. Drue leaned against the barrel and sighed. No way could she move this thing by herself. She was shocked, though, when the barrel seemed to roll out from under her.
She ducked down and saw that the barrel was actually mounted on rollers. Hallelujah!
Drue walked to the far side of the pool area and counted sets of sliding- glass doors. If the rooms on this side of the building were odd-numbered, she calculated that 133 could be the third room from the far end. The room was dark. With any luck, it was also vacant tonight.
Her knee was throbbing badly, but she pushed the trash barrel toward the far end of the building, stopping once or twice to check her progress. Finally, when she had the barrel
in position, she ducked down again, and using the flashlight on her cell phone, checked to see if the casters were equipped with some kind of brakes.
Nope. But she spotted a forgotten beach towel slung over the back of a chaise lounge near the pool. She fetched the towel and wrapped it around the casters to immobilize them, then dragged a chair over to the trash barrel. She kicked off her flip flops. Gritting her teeth, she climbed from the seat of the chair onto the top of the barrel placing her feet on opposite sides of the barrel edges, praying the whole thing wouldn’t topple over beneath her weight.
She held her breath, and slowly stood, her calves and thigh muscles screaming in tandem at the unexpected workout.
Drue found herself at eye level with the top of the wrought-iron balcony railing. She swallowed hard and hooked her left leg over the railing, with her right leg in midair. Suddenly a beam of light flashed in her eyes and a man’s voice sliced through the darkness.
“Stay right there, ma’am.”
Drue froze momentarily, but she didn’t dare obey the order, because she simply didn’t have the strength to climb down. Instead she propelled herself upward and onto the balcony. The flashlight beam was blinding.
“Ma’am? The police have been called. Now I need you to come right back down here, the way you went up.”
“I wish I could,” she said with a sigh, shielding her eyes with her arm. Her knees and calves were shaking so badly it was all she could do to sink onto the floor of the balcony.
48
August 19, 1976
Colleen sat in the perfect living room of her perfect house. It was just a cracker box, really, the smallest house on the block, and it was only a rental, but it was on Snell Isle, the ritziest neighborhood in St. Pete, and only a few blocks from Allen’s parents’ waterfront mansion on Brightwaters Boulevard, which was all that mattered to her husband.
A car honked outside, causing her to startle, just a little. Allen emerged from the hallway, loaded down with a suitcase, tackle box and his deep-sea fishing rod. “That’s Dad,” he announced, looking out the front picture window.
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