Who Glares Wins (Lexi Graves Mysteries)

by Camilla Chafer

  "You want me working your case?" I said incredulously, given yesterday’s conversation. I still had Marissa Widmore's case file in my purse and I hadn't made the call to Elisabeth Fong yet to tell her no.

  "Yes. You'll be working exclusively on it."

  "Alone?" I frowned, not sure if he was being facetious.

  "Not strictly speaking, but not with anyone in the office."

  "What do you mean?"

  "You're going undercover."

  Solomon's words took me by surprise. "Seriously?" I asked, staring him in the face. Yesterday, he told me the guys thought I was useless, now he was giving me a case to work on. Undercover and alone. I was confused. I was also bizarrely grateful that my lingering hangover meant I didn't storm into Solomon's office this morning, demanding to be taken seriously, while announcing to anyone who cared to hear that he was just my boss.

  He nodded. "Yes, seriously."

  "Who's the client?"

  "The Montgomery Hotel and Conference Center." The hotel was Montgomery's best. To be fair, it was also our only hotel, the small smattering of motels and inns excepted. The Montgomery had been remodeled in recent years by its new owners, a nationwide conglomerate. Now, it catered more to the business crowd than casual sightseers, although there wasn't much to see here. The Conference Center was a recent addition, providing a venue for weddings, conferences, dinners, exhibitions and anything else people might need a large room for. They also had associated space that comprised breakout rooms, a dining hall, which could seat three hundred, two bars, a smaller sit-in restaurant, and a fully equipped business center, as well as rooms in the adjoining hotel for overnight guests. I heard it did a fairly good business.

  "Snazzy. What have they hired us for?"

  "They have some problems at the hotel and the manager wants us to investigate and keep things quiet. We could go in heavy-handedly and interview everyone, but chances are we'd just frighten the staff and tip our hand towards the problem. Instead, I've arranged for you to go undercover as a new employee."

  "What will I be doing?" I asked, relaxing slightly.

  "You are going to be the manager's new assistant. That should get you access to everywhere in the building and everybody." Solomon pushed a file across his desk and I reached for it. Leaning back in the chair, I opened it. Solomon had clearly already been working on it, as it ran a half-inch thick.

  "What makes you think they'll talk to me?" I asked, glancing up at him.

  "You're going to be sweet and not very bright. Charm everyone."

  I had a bad feeling about this. The first and last time I had to snoop in an office, I ended up with a gun to my head. The sweet and not very bright bit, I could do fine. I temped for years. It went with the territory.

  Solomon continued, "They have a conference this week and it's big money, not just for this event, but for repeat customers. A couple of months ago, they were booked up a year in advance, but that's slipping. If they keep having problems, those bookings will go elsewhere. There's a lot of money at stake for the hotel."

  "What kind of conference?"

  Solomon checked his notes. "A Bronie conference," he said.

  "A what?" I asked, wondering if I misheard.

  "Bronie."

  I frowned, not any more clued in. "And that is?"

  Solomon closed his eyes for a moment and rested back in his chair. "It's men and Super Ponies. The small, plastic ones with colored, brushable tails and manes that little girls play with."

  "Excuse me?" My jaw shook a little in surprise as I suppressed a giggle.

  "Bronie is one of those weird collaborations between 'brothers' or 'bros' and 'ponies'."

  "Is this a joke?"

  "No."

  "You blew off my missing person case for this?"

  "Lexi..." The warning tone entered his voice.

  "Men and Super Ponies?" I said again, just in case I suddenly got some kind of inner ear infection that impeded my hearing. "Men who play with little girls’ toys?"

  "Men who collect and discuss the toys. It's no weirder than Trekkies."

  "It so is." I bit the insides of my cheeks so I wouldn’t laugh.

  "If you need to laugh, get it out now. You can't rip the shit out of these people. They're paying guests of the hotel and the hotel is paying us."

  I didn't need to laugh. Not yet, anyway. I was still struggling to come to terms with it. I had heard of all kinds of weird shit, but this took the biscuit. Or, should I say, the sugar cube?

  "The Bronies aren't the issue,” Solomon explained. “The problem is within the hotel itself. You'll be dealing with the employees, but your cover story means you might have to be around the conference."

  I really thought “conference” was pushing it as I envisaged groups of drooling geeks clapping their hands in lurid delight at brightly colored ponies that were meant for little kids. I couldn't imagine any other kind of men who would want to play with girls' toys. I also couldn’t imagine how Solomon knew what Super Ponies were. Perhaps he had a secret sparkly, colorful side that he kept concealed.

  "There's a bonus on successful case completion. You'll get twenty percent," said Solomon as I pondered the bizarre nature of the case.

  I didn't have a clue how Solomon funded the start-up costs or the running expenses of the agency, but I did know he paid everyone a basic salary. Well, the last bit was somewhat of an assumption, since he paid me a basic salary. However, the real money was in the successful completion of a job. The longer a case went on, and the more complex it was, the higher the fee climbed.

  The salary meant I could make enough to cover my basic rent and bills, but I would have to work harder to make the extra. Theoretically, it should pan out that I could complete a bunch of smaller cases and earn a consolidation fee that was nice; or work a single, but longer, case and get a similar fee. That way, there wasn't strong internal competition over each others’ caseloads or jealousy over pay. I'd yet to work a single case, never mind close one, so right now, I had to assume I was the lowest income earner in the office. No wonder they thought I sucked. Solomon's twenty percent sounded mighty appealing.

  On the other hand, I hated temping and the Bronie thing creeped me out. Going undercover sounded like it was going to seriously eat into my free time and there wouldn't be any more lie-ins. I wouldn't even be able to tell anyone I was undercover. Everyone would think I was temping again. The case had the potential to be a massive embarrassment. "Fifty," I countered.

  Solomon smiled. "Twenty five."

  "Thirty."

  "Done."

  Color me surprised. "Tell me more."

  Solomon opened his copy of the file. "My initial conversation with the hotel manager concluded that someone is sabotaging the hotel. It looks like an inside job."

  "What kind of sabotage?"

  "Food getting spoiled because the refrigerator was opened in the night."

  "Easy mistake to make. Careless staff?"

  "Three times, once after they had the locks and handles changed."

  "Okay. What else?

  "A booking that never made it into the system. Three hundred guests turned up and nothing was ready."

  "Computer glitch? Manual error?"

  "I had Lucas check. The booking made it in. Someone manually wiped it. Before you ask, there's no trace of who did it either. Someone has access to the system without an assigned log-in and password. Fortunately, it was a day conference and the manager got everything ready with only an hour’s delay, but they had to refund twenty-five percent and lost the client for the future. That’s a six-figure client gone. Staff rotas are being messed up too." Solomon paused.

  I held my hands up. "I'm not saying anything. It sounds like sabotage."

  "None of these are isolated incidents. Stuff has gone missing from guests' rooms too. Electronics, jewelry, those sorts of things."

  "So we've got a light-fingered employee who is sabotaging the hotel?"

  Solomon nodded. "Looks that way."


  "And you want me to figure out who it is." It wasn't even a question. I was going to be spending the foreseeable future trying to work out who was an asshat and why.

  "Correct." Solomon nodded to the folder and proceeded to fill in the background. The hotel had fifty permanent staff, but also hired in from a temp agency for cover staff at larger events. Each permanent and part-time staff member had a background check at the time of their employment, so some of the files were old. Even so, Solomon explained, none of them stood out, and there were no criminal records. "You'll need to interview the manager too. We'll get updates of all these files," Solomon told me. "And the manager is pulling records of anyone they fired in the last two years. We'll cross reference them against anyone still at the hotel, in case of disgruntled ex-employees who might hold grudges."

  "You think that's what this is?"

  Solomon shrugged, his shoulders barely moving. "It's one helluva grudge. This person doesn’t want to see The Montgomery succeed."

  "Why haven't they gone to the police? The theft is criminal, at least."

  "The manager doesn't want it getting out. He's had to inform the board and they want it dealt with quickly and quietly. It's not just The Montgomery that will have a problem if this goes public. The whole hotel chain could suffer from the bad publicity."

  "Understood. When do I start?"

  "Monday. Nine a.m. You'll report to Edward Killjoy."

  "Killjoy?" Great. This job was going to be amazing.

  "You can laugh at that."

  I thought about Killjoy, the Bronies, the sabotage and the lack of a social life for the foreseeable future. "I can't. The whole thing is too depressing. Now, if you ever get an undercover op at a spa, I'm in. I want that noted in my personal file."

  Solomon smiled. "You got it."

  "Anything else I need to know?"

  "That's it until the employee updates come in."

  "I'm going to take off after I finish the background checks sitting on my desk."

  Solomon nodded. I closed the file, the elation of having my own case lifting my spirits, and went to the door.

  "Lexi?"

  I paused. "Mmm?"

  "Keep quiet about the case, please."

  Immediately, I went on the defensive. "Just because I'm a woman doesn't mean I can't keep my mouth shut," I protested.

  "I actually meant Maddox and your enormous cop family. Being a woman doesn’t come into it." I noticed him checking out my clothes, a frown briefly creasing his forehead.

  "This is work," I said, snippily. "We have better things to talk about." I left without a backwards glance, feeling miffed again, despite the progress. Funnily enough, neither Maddox nor I really talked about work. I knew Maddox was back on homicide after his stint with the fraud squad, but he never discussed his cases with me, except in the most general terms. The only time I talked about what I did was if I needed some information, like Marissa Widmore's plates. But it’s not like I explained the case in detail either. I didn't know if work was an uncrossed line between us, but it sure felt like there was a neat divide there. Plus, I couldn't really imagine Maddox asking my opinion on how to go about solving a murder. He'd just get on with it and if I were lucky, take me out afterwards.

  I finished my stack of background checks before returning to the hotel file, my curiosity gnawing at me. I read it over twice until I was sure I had it in my head. I turned the page of the suspected sabotage, raising my eyebrows at the long list. Some of the incidents could have been petty little events that a paranoid mind took too far, but some of it was serious. Money, jewelry and electronics had all gone missing from guests' rooms, and though the spoiled food incident seemed trivial, the report listed that it cost the hotel thousands of dollars. They had to throw it all away and replace meat and produce, not to mention the problems it caused with guests.

  Some of the reported sabotage were just plain nuisances: messing about with staff rotas so none of the waiters turned up. Or having one chambermaid turn up rather than a whole crew, and not being able to prepare all the rooms in time for check-in. Tempers were becoming frayed. The staff were annoyed about their canceled and reinstated shifts, and also complaining as a result. I suspected they probably had at least an inkling things weren't right.

  Solomon was spot on. If the hotel got a reputation for poor staffing, menus that couldn't be served, and suitcases that left noticeably lighter, I wouldn't book and neither would anyone else.

  I flicked through the background checks until I got to Edward Killjoy. His photo showed he was in his late forties with a shaved head and a lightly tanned face. The picture only showed him from mid-chest upwards and I took in a sober, navy suit with a striped tie and a white shirt. Killjoy lived on the premises in a suite in the staff quarters. He wasn't married and didn't have kids. He had spent his whole life working in hotels and was promoted from assistant manager, to manager when the hotel was bought by the chain. I wondered if he had anything to do with paving the way for the sale, possibly being rewarded with promotion, instead of being fired in a reshuffle. In a couple of days, I planned to be his favorite employee.

  Glancing at my watch, I had an hour before I was due to drop in at my parents. That left thirty minutes to look through Marissa Widmore's files. Despite being told to send Elisabeth back to the police, I was still concerned about her missing status, especially with her car impounded. She couldn't go far without it, unless she took public transport and I couldn’t see why she would. I picked up the office phone on my desk and called Jord.

  "Hey," he said. "I'm on duty in a half hour."

  "You caught night shift?"

  "Working a double. Taking a break at the station. There's a flu bug going around."

  "Sorry to hear that," I said, tapping my pen against my notes. If cops were heading off sick, how would that help Elisabeth or her friend? "Have you got a buddy in the impound lot?"

  "Not a buddy, but I know someone. Why?"

  "There's a car that was impounded, in which I have an interest. I want to know if I can look it over." I gave him the plate and description of the car, not bothering to lower my voice. Lucas had his headphones on and Fletcher was out. I doubted my remaining colleagues were paying any attention to me.

  "Let me call you back."

  Ten minutes later, my cell phone rang. It was Jord. "Scotty Sibowitz is working at the lot tomorrow morning. Go over and he'll let you take a look around. You might want to slip him a few bucks."

  "Thanks for the tip. Sorry you had to work tonight."

  "Gotta keep Montgomery safe," said Jord as he hung up.

  I called Elisabeth Fong next and left a message, saying I was sorry to keep her waiting and I'd call her again soon. I didn't say we weren't taking the case, but I also didn't say we were. I figured a few extra checks couldn't hurt before I gave her the bad news. I took the hotel file and Marissa's to keep at home, just in case I might not make it back into the office before I started my undercover temping sentence. I drove to my parents' house, unsure whether to feel elated or scared to death that I was now a fully-fledged PI with my very own pending case.

  I couldn’t wait to see what Fletcher’s face would look like when I solved it.

  Chapter Four

  My parents live in a neat, white-painted house with yellow trim that is meant to evoke, at least in my mother's mind, a daisy. To me, it looks more like an egg, but no one likes to say. This is the house I was born into and also where five rambunctious children were raised. Well, four, and my sister, Serena, who was born a swot and stayed that way. Frankly, it's amazing the house is still standing, given everything it endured.

  "Alexandra!" My mother swung the door open and held up some kind of fabric that was hideous, a brilliant smile on her face. My mother is Irish to the bone, born shortly after her parents made the hop over. Even now, in her sixties, she has dark brown hair, graying slightly, and the prettiest blue eyes. I'm a lot like her, but taller by an inch. "I'm sewing a mural with my beginning sewin
g class."

  "Wow," I said, fingering the fabric. "Tell me about it."

  My mother frowned at me. "That's what I always used to say to you kids when I couldn't work out what you made."

  I took a leaf out of Solomon's book and just smiled. Her assessment was accurate, but I wouldn't insult her by confirming it. Instead, I glossed it over by asking, "Am I the first here?"

  "You're the only one I invited," said Mom, ushering me into the kitchen. I noticed the sewn mural went flying into a large, floral basket, a new addition to their neat home. My father was noticeably absent from his leather chair in the living room, a retirement gift to him from my mother, and now his favorite spot in the whole house. "I thought dinner with just the two of us would be nice."

  "Lovely. Where's Dad?"

  "He's taken up tennis."

  I gave her my skeptical face. "Are you serious?"

  "Deadly. He bought white shorts." We both pulled a face. My father is well known for having incredibly hairy legs, and I doubted either of us wanted to think about him flying about a tennis court, baring them to the world.

  "Aren't you going to go with him?"

  "My Friday afternoon aerobics class is enough."

  "I wonder where you get the energy to do all this stuff." I was fairly certain my mother had taken just about every adult education class going, and constantly had several on the go. Since retiring, she'd gained two belts in karate, slimmer hips from aerobics, basic French, and certificates in IT skills. I think she's just bored.

  "I'm still wired from raising five children," she told me as I sat at the breakfast bar in the kitchen. It was installed once my brothers grew up, moved out, and finally stopped breaking stuff with their gangly limbs. The kitchen still looked new and smart. "All that nervous energy has to go somewhere."

  "You haven't raised children for twelve years, Mom!" I was the last of the five. I should know.

  "That gives me at least twenty more years to work off. I might be dead by then."

  "Cheery."

  My mother had already assembled a platter of freshly baked bread, olives, cold meats, cheese, and a fresh pitcher of juice at the ready. She spread them between us, and passed me a plate and glass.