A Sleuth Is Born

by Pepper Frost

  “Shame we had to leave the drapes shut,” said Frank. He was lifting the drapes of one door and quickly scanning beneath them. “We missed a beautiful night sky.” Bea noticed—and saw that Pat had, too—that he seemed to be trying a little too hard to look casual.

  “Take a walk outside. Still plenty of moonlight to enjoy,” Bea said. “Just don’t stay up too late. We wouldn’t want you to miss our last time together tomorrow morning.”

  “You can count on it,” Frank said. He dropped the drape and left the room with Harry. Foxy followed shortly after, pausing to say goodnight to Angela.

  Once the players and Lee had cleared out, Bea reminded Pat, Perry, and Angela to head over to Aseem’s casita, where they’d be unlikely to be overheard as they compared notes.

  “We’ll each head down separately, so no inquiring minds get any ideas. Angie, you head down now. Aseem should be back, but, in case he is still working on his little errand, you can use your master key to let yourself in.

  “Perry, you follow next. Pat and I have a little dodge planned to make sure our neighbors don’t suspect we’re up to something.”

  Bea left the ballroom after Perry and walked the short distance to her and Pat’s suites. Their rooms were right near four of the players’, plus Mrs. Glastonbury’s. Bea wanted to be sure all of them heard her arrive back at her suite.

  “Stupid contraption!” Bea complained in a loud voice, pretending the cardkey had failed. She gave the door a few good poundings with her cane, then used the key to open the door. “Finally!” she exclaimed. “I’m in!”

  Pat waited a few minutes, as they’d agreed, and locked up the ballroom’s hallway doors. Then she arrived at her door and contrived a similar fuss. When she finally opened her door, Bea was standing just inside. Bea slipped out the door, then Pat stuck her head into the suite, yawned as loudly as possible and yelled “can’t wait to get to bed,” and then crept back out before forcefully shutting the door from the outside. The two ladies gave each other a silent thumb’s up. Then they took off their shoes and tiptoed down the hall to the side exit.

  They snuck through the grounds to Aseem’s casita. When they arrived, they were relieved to find Perry and Angela had made it there unnoticed.

  “Where’s Aseem?” said Angela. “Shouldn’t he be back by now?”

  “Don’t worry, girlie. He’s only dealing with Cash. Aseem could outsmart him while in a coma. Cash probably just arrived later than we expected.”

  “Wait, what? Aseem is dealing with Cash? Crazy, criminal Cash? How could you not have mentioned that?!”

  Oops, thought Bea. I suppose all would soon be revealed, anyway. “I didn’t want to worry you prematurely.”

  “That guy’s unhinged on a good day. And now he hates you more than ever! I guess I see now why Aseem needed a gun! Honestly, how could you, Bea?”

  “Did you not remind me earlier that Aseem is a grown man? A man who, I might add, has his own reasons for wanting to deal with Cash himself.”

  “But how? How will he deal with Cash?”

  “Aseem will tell you all about it when he comes back. No reason to steal his thunder. In the meantime, why don’t you tell us what you’ve discovered?”

  Angela sighed. “OK. Why don’t I start with what I learned about the flour that Lee insisted we use for the dessert on night one.”

  §

  Faced with the prospect of returning to jail—or worse, getting shot—Cash decided to do the sensible thing for once.

  He followed Aseem to the business center, where they would download and remove all the pictures off his phone, erase his snarky reviews, take his spiteful little blog offline (assigning the web address to Aseem), and transfer ownership of his phone to Aseem. Aseem took pictures of everything with his own phone, for extra proof. And he got a few choice shots of Cash for good measure.

  “But I’m riding a crap scooter all the way from wine country to the Tenderloin in the middle of the night,” moaned Cash. “You can’t leave me without a phone.”

  “Stop crying, you big baby,” Aseem said. “There’s no way you’re getting this phone back. But you can take this fresh pay-as-you-go phone I’ve got right here.” He reached onto a shelf in the business center and pulled out a new phone, still sealed in its box. “You’ll have to alert all your friends that you’ve got a new number, but I can’t imagine that will take very long. It’s even got some minutes pre-loaded.

  “We’re just about done here, finally, so let’s recap our deal. You will never, ever post another thing about Betty. And you’re never going to come near the Inn or anyone associated with it ever again. In return for this—which you were supposed to be doing anyway as part of your bail, idiot—we’ll forget about this little incident. Oh, and you can even keep that tacky belt buckle if you want.”

  “Fine. Can I go now?”

  “You’re not very grateful. You’ve just received a gift. A very generous gift. Let’s hear a proper thank you.”

  “Thank you,” Cash grunted. “Happy now?”

  “Pretty happy. But let’s do one more thing.” Aseem called up Betty’s book sales page on the computer and told Cash to log in.

  “First, click on the five stars. Yes, that’s it. Now write something heartfelt about how Betty’s books have changed your life.”

  “Come on!”

  “Do it.”

  Aseem ignored the multiple errors in Cash’s two-sentence review of Treacle Town ♥︎ Christmas. He was already tired of the project after listening to Cash whine about it for 15 straight minutes. He instructed Cash to change the email address associated with the account to one of his own.

  “What if I want to buy something?”

  “Your trial’s coming up fast. Something tells me you won’t be doing a lot of shopping over the next few years.”

  Cash stood up from behind the computer, and Aseem grabbed his upper arm, making sure Cash got a good look at the gun in his other hand. “Let’s go. I’m going to walk you back to your scooter and make sure you get the hell out of here.”

  They shut the business center door and headed across the Inn’s grounds to the street where Cash had left the scooter. As they walked, Aseem maintained his cast-iron grip on Cash’s arm.

  “Go straight home, Cash. While you ride, think about better ways to spend your remaining free time. Your obsession with Betty Snickerdoodle is not exactly healthy.”

  Cash started the scooter and repeatedly revved its modest engine to a high-pitched whine, sneering at Aseem, who couldn’t stop snickering. Cash sputtered away on the dark country road as fast as the scooter could go, one middle finger aloft over his head.

  Now that is what I call a good time, thought Aseem as he headed back towards his casita. Happily imagining telling Bea and Angela how he’d foiled Cash, he practically strutted down the driveway, no longer worried about the noise of gravel crunching beneath his feet.

  As he passed the main entrance to the Inn, he noticed the transom windows of the ballroom were no longer brightly lit. Tournament must have ended a while ago now, he thought. Everyone will be waiting for me at the casita. He picked up his pace and became focused on meeting up with the others, he didn’t notice that two men who’d been lurking behind a car were now rushing towards him.

  “Oof,” he cried in pain as something hard struck the back of his head. He fell forward to the ground and then: lights out.

  Crap! thought Foxy, watching the attack on Aseem from the shadows. He’d been tailing the two men as they prowled about the grounds. He was determined to figure out what kind of mischief they were up to—and he had to do it before breakfast, or else miss his chance.

  Now, for some baffling reason, they’d paused their sneaking around to attack Aseem. What on earth was that about? Foxy had to decide whether to blow his own plan up in order to help Aseem or wait to see what these two did next.

  He craned his neck for a better view, being cautious to avoid being seen. Were they attempting to move him? No—it see
med they were rolling him over. And were they taking something from his pocket?

  Aseem lay still and the two sleazeballs slunk away. Argh. I can’t leave the kid there, thought Foxy. He might be seriously hurt.

  Foxy waited until he was sure he wouldn’t be observed, then ran to Aseem’s side. “Aseem, wake up. Can you hear me?”

  Foxy shook Aseem’s arm gently. Aseem groaned and opened his eyes, then touched the back of his head. A big lump was forming. His cheek was scraped up, too, from his hard fall onto the gravel. “Ouch.”

  “You OK?”

  “I think so.” With Foxy’s help, he got back on his feet. His hoodie was unzipped, and when he patted his sides, he knew instantly what they’d taken.

  “Did you see who attacked you?” Foxy said.

  “No. I barely heard them. It all happened so fast.”

  “Let’s get you back to your casita.”

  “I can get there on my own,” Aseem protested. “I don’t need you holding my arm.”

  “Just being cautious. You might have a concussion,” Foxy said, loosening his grip. “I’ll feel better if I make sure you get to your destination, at least.”

  Angela opened the door to the casita. Perry, Pat, and Bea were huddled around Aseem’s desk on the other side of the room.

  “Foxy, what are you doing? Why are you gripping him like that? Oh… oh my goodness, Aseem, what happened? What have you done, Foxy?!”

  “It’s not like that,” Foxy said. “Someone attacked Aseem. I found him on the ground.”

  “Get out, Foxy!” Angela shrieked.

  “It’s OK Angel,” Aseem said. “He’s telling the truth.” Foxy released his arm, and Angela rushed to his side. She led him to his bed and sat next to him, examining the blood caked on the back of his head and on his cheek.

  “So how is it you all are gathered here, anyway?” Foxy said. He was leaning on his right leg, trying to get a gander at the computer screen Perry, Pat, and Bea had been looking at.

  “That’s not really any of your business, is it?” Pat said adopting an arms-akimbo superhero pose to more effectively block the screen. Like almost everyone else in the room, Pat had become irritated with Foxy’s presumptuous prying.

  Bea laughed at Foxy and cocked her head toward the clock on the nightstand. “You need your beauty rest, don’t you, hot stuff? Wouldn’t want you to miss the big reveal tomorrow!”

  “Big reveal?”

  “Oh, you know, the awards ceremony,” said Bea. “I’m pretty sure you’ll still want to see it, even though you didn’t win anything.”

  Foxy scrutinized Bea’s face until Angela interrupted him.

  “Will you just go, Foxy! Why do you never leave when asked?”

  Foxy sighed. If only she hadn’t spotted my gun, he thought. He had to admire the tough side of Angela now on display, but he still liked her sweetness even more. He still held out a faint hope that once all this was over, he’d have a shot with her.

  “Aseem, if it wasn’t Foxy who attacked you,” Angela said once Foxy was gone, “then was it Cash?”

  “It does seem like quite a coincidence that Foxy just happened to be wandering the grounds in the wee hours and ready to help you, just in time,” snorted Bea. She didn’t believe for a second that Foxy had anything to do with the attack on Aseem, but she was happy to help tarnish his image with Angela.

  “It wasn’t Foxy or Cash,” said Aseem. “I had already watched Cash ride away. It was two guys who attacked me from behind, I’m almost sure.”

  “Do you remember anything else?” Angela said, still looking at him with concern, scanning for signs of further injury.

  “A few things. Weird things,” Aseem replied. “I’m sure I fell face-forward when I was hit on the head. I think that’s how I scraped my cheek. But when Foxy woke me up, I was on my back. My hands were above my head, palms up. It was an awkward position. I’m certain I didn’t fall that way. Plus, someone unzipped my hoodie—and they took something.”

  “Not Cash’s phone!” exclaimed Bea. “Tell me you still have it.”

  “No, I’ve still got the phone,” Aseem said, grinning as he took the phone out of his pocket to show Bea. “And I took care of everything we talked about. The plan went perfectly, Bea. But Perry, I’m sorry—your gun is gone.”

  “It’s OK,” said Perry. “That thing was a relic, anyway.”

  “I guess that rules Foxy out,” Bea said. “Why would he need your gun? He’s already got his own. I bet it’s some kind of high-tech, money’s-no-object automatic.”

  “So many guns! I’m the detective and it seems like I’m the only one who’s not armed around here,” said Pat. “I thought this was a classy event.”

  “Ask Angela,” said Bea. “She invited these refined individuals into our home.”

  “I guess people aren’t always what they seem,” Angela said.

  “At least you’re finally learning, girlie.”

  Chapter 26

  “You’re amazing,” Angela said, watching Aseem from across the room.

  He’d just finished explaining the whole story of how he’d captured Cash and forced him to relinquish his troll blog, reviews, and phone. The monitor on his desk displayed the treasure trove of photos he’d downloaded from Cash’s phone—including one showing a single guest sneaking out in the wee hours on the morning Eddie died. In the course of his obnoxious trespassing, Cash had inadvertently photographed a murder suspect.

  “This is amazing, Aseem,” said Angela. “It might help explain what happened to Eddie—and maybe even bring whoever harmed him to justice.”

  “Not to mention slamming the brakes on an evil reviews troll!” exclaimed Bea. “He’s our hero, wouldn’t you say, Angie? Best of all, I don’t think he’s done impressing us yet.”

  Angela didn’t respond to Bea. She just walked across the room to Aseem and gave him heartfelt hug. “Thank you.”

  “Sheesh,” said Pat. “I came here to do detective training, but it’s starting to feel like graduation day. Between Aseem’s fantastic work with the phone, Angela’s kitchen evidence, and your solving of the poker scam, Bea, maybe my work here is done.”

  “We couldn’t have done it without you. And don’t you get any ideas about closing down class early. I still need to learn all your computer tricks. Besides, when are you going to show me how to pick locks? I already told you how much I need that class.”

  “Wait, Bea’s solved the poker scam? There’s a poker scam?” said Angela.

  “Shall we explain, Bea?” Perry said.

  “We don’t need to talk about it now, Angie,” said Bea. “I’m going to spring my theory on everybody after the money’s awarded tomorrow. It’ll be a good show! But I want to get my 100 grand in my pocket before springing it on the perps that the jig is up!”

  “Nice use of ‘perps,’” said Pat, holding her hand up for a high five.

  “So far we’ve got a suspicious-looking charity, a poker scam, poisonous doughnut ingredients, and possible murder. Bea, are you saying these things are all related somehow?”

  “I think so—especially now that I’ve seen that photo of our potential murderer. But you’ve got to wait for my big ballroom scene, and I need another detail or two to confirm my theory.”

  Angela sighed. “OK. Tomorrow, then. But before we all turn in, Aseem and I should let McGregor know about our new evidence.”

  “If he asks, we’ll tell him we found the phone after he left with Billy Ray’s corpse, right, Bea?” said Pat, winking in Bea’s direction.

  “Do you think it was OK to let Cash have that belt buckle? It didn’t occur to me it would be evidence,” said Aseem, flipping through the photos on his computer.

  “An act of mercy,” said Bea. “Maybe he can trade it for ramen when things get rough in prison.”

  Finally, they hit send and their message was off to McGregor. Everyone said their goodnights and confirmed their plan for reconvening in the morning.

  “I don’t think y
ou should stay here tonight, Aseem,” Angela said. “You should stay with me. You might have a concussion. I don’t think you should be alone.”

  Bea got a mischievous look in her eye and opened her mouth to speak. But she spotted Perry mouthing “be nice” towards her. She pouted, but stayed quiet. Perry chuckled silently and winked at her.

  “I mean, what if those guys come after you again? They won’t think to look for you in my suite. Besides, I’ve got a pull-out sofa,” Angela added, looking straight at Bea with a glare that said get your mind out of the gutter.

  “What’s with that look?” said Bea. “I think it’s a good idea you and Aseem stick together. Just make sure you’re not seen.” Perry nodded at her approvingly. “Don’t you two be late in the morning. I want everyone in position for my first big ballroom scene as wine country’s new amateur detective.”

  Angela rolled her eyes, and Pat laughed. “Bea, you are aware that detectives don’t typically assemble suspects in the ballroom, right?”

  “Works for Hercule Poirot.”

  Pat bit her lip and gave up. “Angela, do you two want me to walk back with you two?”

  “No, it’s best if we split up. Less chance of being spotted.”

  “Fair enough. Shall we, Bea? Perry, you coming, too?”

  Pat, Bea, and Perry left. Angela and Aseem got ready to head back to her suite. “Maybe we should shut the drapes but leave a light on? To make it look like you might be here, in case your attackers try to find you?”

  “Angel, I really appreciate it, but I don’t think they’re coming back. It’s fine for me to stay here—”

  “No arguments, please. You’re coming with me. And don’t worry, I’ll sleep on the sofa. End of discussion.”

  In her suite, Angela told Aseem again that he should take the bed. “I’ll be fine on the sofa. It’s smaller and so am I. And I want to be able to keep an eye on you,” she said with a smile. “Take off your hoodie and your shoes and get under the covers. You need rest. It’s not long before we have to be back in the ballroom.”