Mary Ellen Hughes - Maggie Olenski 01 - Resort to Murder

by Mary Ellen Hughes

  Her gaze turned away from Rob when she heard a voice call the sheriff. “Mayor wants to talk to you,” the deputy said. The sheriff flipped open a small phone and spoke into it. He smiled and nodded, apparently agreeable to everything being said to him, obviously nothing that had to do with Lori.

  He closed the phone and looked around. “Jim, take over here, finish things up. I gotta go back to town, see hizzoner.” He straightened his hat and tramped out of the cordoned area, passing near Maggie but barely glancing at her. He had questioned her already. She held no interest to him anymore.

  Maggie looked back at the area where Lori still lay. She knew now why she didn’t want to leave. Someone had to be here for Lori. Someone who cared. Maggie wasn’t family, but at least she thought of Lori as a person, not an inanimate victim of a crime whose sole remaining purpose was to provide clues leading to the perpetrator.

  She shoved her hands in her pockets and looked around at the ever-changing, milling crowd of people. It was a mixed group of hotel guests mingled with employees, some talking in low voices, some silent, all with expressions of awed curiosity. Then she saw a young girl standing alone, wearing a hotel waitress uniform. She was staring in the same direction Maggie had just been, and her eyes were wet, the tip of her nose red. Maggie almost smiled. Lori wasn’t so alone after all.

  Someone touched her arm and she turned. It was Dyna.

  “How’re you doing?”

  “OK.”

  Looking over at the crime scene area Maggie saw that they seemed to be finished and were preparing to take Lori away. She glanced up at Dyna’s face and realized she was fairly shaken up, maybe more so than Maggie.

  “What do you think about going back to the hotel?” Maggie asked.

  A faint look of tired relief passed over Dyna’s face, and Maggie knew she must have been staying around for her sake. Maggie was surprised. And grateful. She suggested getting some dinner.

  “Great!” Dyna said, some of the liveliness returning to her eyes. “But I’d say not in the dining room here. We don’t need more crowds. How about room service?”

  “Sounds good to me,” Maggie said.

  They quietly pushed through the crowd of onlookers and officials. As they walked back down the path to the hotel, Maggie became aware of an almost overwhelming fatigue. Relaxing in her quiet room with dinner was just what she needed. And she was glad she wouldn’t be alone. She glanced over at Dyna’s healthy-looking face and at the crystal earrings bouncing at each side of it and felt better, at least a little.

  “How about some wine with the soup and sandwiches?” Dyna asked, holding the phone. They were in Maggie’s room, and Dyna thumbed through the menu as she waited to be put through to room service.

  “Sounds good to me,” Maggie said. She pulled off her shoes and stretched out on the dark blue bedspread, feeling an exhaustion she had never known before. She knew it was more mental than physical. She propped up the pillows against the headboard and leaned her head against them, closing her eyes.

  Dyna put the order through and hung up the phone. She sat on one of the two chairs at the round table near the window, dragging the other chair with her foot to use as a hassock.

  “So, I heard you telling the sheriff you’re a school teacher.” She stretched out her tanned legs comfortably. “What do you teach.”

  “High school math. Geometry, algebra, and trig.”

  “Yuk!” Dyna made a face.

  “No, not yuk. I enjoy it.” Maggie looked at Dyna, aware from the expression on it that her statement might just as well have been, “Root canals? I love them.”

  “What about you?” she asked Dyna. “What do you do when you’re not playing tennis?”

  Dyna crossed her feet at the ankles and stretched out her arms. “At the moment,” she grinned, “I guess you could say I’m at liberty. I just left my last job, in a pet store, at the manager’s suggestion. He wasn’t crazy about the way I lectured one of his customers for wearing a fur coat. Imagine, though, coming into a pet store with dead animal skins on your back! Also, I tended to send potential customers to the SPCA for puppies or kittens instead of selling his purebreds.

  “Before that I worked in a paranormal book shop, which was kind of fun. My folks weren’t too crazy about it, but they thought at least it was an improvement from when I studied witchcraft - good witchcraft you understand. The only really true witchcraft.” Dyna’s expression was reverent for a moment, then turned rueful. “But I decided I didn’t have it in me to be a successful witch.

  “Problem is, I guess, I don’t really have to do anything. Grandma Hall left me a trust fund, you see, and I only take jobs to try to please my parents. They’re very busy, productive people. Dad’s an engineer and Mom designs jewelry. Maybe someday I’ll find something that seems worth the effort.” Dyna grinned, but didn’t look convinced that that day would ever come. Maggie wondered what life would be like without a central, motivating passion. She had always delighted in the challenge of math, and though teaching it was occasionally frustrating, she loved that too. She felt sorry for her well-to-do friend.

  Dyna’s grin faded and she said, “So you knew that girl out there?”

  Maggie let out a long sigh. “Yes. She was in one of my geometry classes. A good kid.” She shifted the pillows and sat up on the bed, leaning against them.

  “Was she?”

  “Yeah. Quiet, but not in a shy way. She just wasn’t a bouncy cheerleader type. She was more thoughtful, introspective. And idealistic.”

  “Yeah?”

  Maggie nodded. “I tutored her for a while, after school. She was bright in other subjects, but had some trouble with math. She wanted good grades to get into college. I remember she talked about wanting to join the Peace Corps someday. The only problem she had with it was that she hated the thought of leaving her folks. I think they weren’t too well off, and she felt maybe she should get a good job and help them out. They moved from Baltimore to this area just before her junior year.

  “I met them a few times before that, when one or the other of them would pick her up after the tutoring session. Nice, decent people. I think life was a struggle for them, but they did their best, and they were proud of her.” Maggie looked out the window at a distant mountain peak. “Who knows what she would have done with her life, if she’d been given the chance.”

  “Yeah,” Dyna said, following Maggie’s gaze then turning back. “She sounds like a good kid. God, seventeen, eighteen, is that what she was? How can someone die, like that, so young? How do their parents handle something so awful?”

  Maggie thought of her own parents. They had wanted her to be with them this week at the beach. Had she been selfish to say no, to do her own thing? Look how it had turned out. They would be horrified to find out what she had run into, but what had happened to her was nothing compared to Lori. What if they had to receive the kind of news Lori’s folks would be getting?

  Guilt tweaked at her when she thought of the worry that would come when they found out. She would have to call and tell them. They would want her to leave, pack up, join everyone at Bethany. And she could do that.

  But then she thought of Lori’s parents. Their lives had been shattered. Their daughter had been murdered. And by whom? Nobody seemed to know yet. And Maggie wondered just how much would be done to find out. The sheriff had seemed more concerned with other things. Maybe she could do more by staying?

  She looked back at Dyna. Dyna’s expression was angry, which seemed strangely out of place on her, as though the muscles had to rearrange in ways they had never tried before.

  “Whoever killed her really deserves the worst,” Dyna said. “The chair. Hanging. Whatever we have here in Maryland. I just hope that sheriff catches the creep soon. They will, don’t you think?”

  Maggie wished she could agree and let it go at that. But she never was one who could just go along with the easy answer. It had caused her problems in the past, and she had a feeling it was going to cause her
more in the future. She shook her head in disagreement.

  “I’m not so sure about that.”

  ***

  CHAPTER 6

  “How soon did they say they’d send up our dinner?” Maggie asked, moving off the bed, stretching restlessly.

  As if in answer to her question she heard the doors to the elevator down the hall open, and footsteps clicked towards their room, accompanied by the muffled clatter of dishes and cutlery. Dyna was up and across the room at the sound of the first knock and a voice calling, “Room service!”

  She opened the door to a heavy-set woman with salt and pepper hair which echoed her black and white uniform. The woman picked up a large silver-domed tray from a cart and stepped into the room, walking slowly, but when Maggie moved forward with an offer of help she shook her head with a laugh.

  “Oh! No need. It’s not all that heavy. I’m just being careful so as not to spill the soup.” She set the tray onto the table, and, with a practiced smoothness, pulled off the silver dome, releasing enticing aromas.

  “There! Haven’t carried one of those in a while. I’ve been moved up to supervisor the last few years. But they’re in such a mess down in the kitchen, what with that awful thing happening to one of their girls….” She paused, taking a breath. “I decided to bring this up myself, otherwise you young ladies would be waiting a good long time, and you don’t need that after all you’ve already gone through.” She smiled, and looked at them with a maternal eye.

  “Thank you,” Maggie said, signing the bill and handing it to her, along with the tip. “That was very kind of you.” Maggie was grateful, but not altogether pleased to find out she and Dyna had acquired a kind of celebrity.

  “Not at all.” The woman nodded her own thanks and pushed the tip into a pocket pulled tight over wide hips. “And if you need anything while you’re with us you can ask for me: Burnelle. I’ll try to take special care of you while you’re here. That is, if you are staying on, I mean, after what’s happened?”

  Maggie knew how she felt, but didn’t know about Dyna. She looked over at her, eyebrows raised questioningly.

  Dyna shrugged. “If you’re staying, I will too. I’ve got nothing to hurry back to, and I’ve got a feeling hotel security will be super-tight now. We’ll probably be safer here than back in the streets of Baltimore.”

  Maggie wasn’t so sure about that, but she thought she would stay for at least a couple days, maybe more. She didn’t know if it was just stubbornness to stick with her original plan of vacationing on her own, or something else. She turned back to Burnelle.

  “I guess we won’t go rushing off just yet.”

  “Well, I’m glad. We hate to see you going away with only bad memories of our Highview. But it surely was a terrible thing. That poor, sweet girl. I wondered, what did the sheriff have to say about who done it?”

  Dyna was already digging hungrily into her dinner and answered between chews and swallows.

  “Not much. But… I gathered they didn’t have a lot to go on. I think… it was probably some psycho lurking in the woods there.”

  “Oh! My!” Burnelle shook her head. “And to think it could have been any one, or more than one of our girls. They seem to be always wandering around back there, smoking their cigarettes. And of course, flirtin’ with that tennis fellow, the good-looking one. Though some said there was something going on between him and that poor girl who was killed, and I wondered…. Well, never mind that. That’s just idle gossip, and I don’t believe in gossip. Did they find footprints, or some kind of evidence?” She pronounced it ev ee-dence.

  “No,” Maggie said. I don’t think they really have much so far. Umm, is there a corkscrew or something for this?” She held up the wine bottle whose cork was deeply imbedded.

  Burnelle took the bottle from her and pulled a corkscrew from her apron pocket. She deftly worked in the screw and pulled out the cork. Then she reached over for the two stemmed glasses on the tray, and poured out wine for each of them.

  “I don’t usually approve of young ladies and alcohol,” she said, her lips pursed primly as she poured, “but I appreciate the strains you have been under. We’ll consider this something of a tonic, to help you sleep better tonight.” Burnelle nodded with a tolerant smile as she said this, and Maggie reached for her glass with mixed feelings.

  She knew she had agreed to the wine when Dyna suggested it exactly for the “tonic” reason. Her nerves were jangled and a few sips of wine would help. She certainly didn’t want it for celebrating. But now she felt she had just received a disapproving, motherly raised eyebrow and felt annoyance rising. This was the kind of thing she had come here to get away from. She caught Dyna looking at her, laughter dancing in her eyes above the chicken sandwich she held to her mouth, and her irritation changed to an overwhelming urge to laugh. She looked away from Dyna and sucked at her cheeks for control.

  “Well, thank you, uh, Burnelle. And we’ll, ah, certainly remember to call you if we need anything.”

  Burnelle smiled and nodded, and, wiping her hands on the sides of her uniform dress, moved towards the door.

  “Yes, you do that. Be sure you do. Now, I’d better get back downstairs and see what needs doing. Lord knows, most of the people around here have just gone to pieces. Someone has to see that the things that need doing get done. Enjoy your dinner.”

  Maggie called, “Thanks,” as Burnelle edged out the door, and Dyna raised her wine glass as a farewell salute, laughter shaking her by now. Maggie shushed her, and tried to pull her arm down, but broke down herself once Burnelle was out of sight and earshot.

  “Have some tonic, Miss Maggie,” Dyna said. “It’ll help those heart palpitations and keep away the vapors.”

  “Oh, hush,” Maggie said, laughing, and took a long, delicious swallow from her glass. She then launched into her food with a healthier appetite than she would have expected.

  Maggie was just finishing the last of her wine, enjoying the soothing warmth it gave her as it trickled down, when she was startled by a brisk knock on the door.

  “Yes?” she called.

  “Miss Olenski? It’s Kathryn Crawford, the hotel manager. May I come in?”

  Maggie jumped up and opened the door to see another large woman, this one wearing a beige linen suit and chunky heels, her dark brown hair pulled up into a business-like bun. She walked into the room with an air of authority and smiled a tight, cool smile, her arms moving stiffly at her side. She stopped and clasped her hands together, facing Maggie.

  “I just want to say how sorry we all are at Highview that you had to be involved in this extremely sad incident.” She looked over to Dyna, including her.

  “Thank you,” Maggie answered. The woman had been courteous, but her cool manner inspired a cool response. “It was more than an incident, though,” she said. “It was a murder.”

  Ms. Crawford’s eyelids flickered. “Yes, of course. Very unfortunate. And unnecessary. I don’t know how many times I’ve warned our young girls not to go off alone into the woods. But some of them are foolishly headstrong, I’m afraid.”

  Maggie wouldn’t have described Lori as either foolish or headstrong, but she said nothing.

  “I see you’ve had your dinner. I was going to suggest you dine downstairs, on us, after what you’ve gone through, but since you’ve had room service, I’ll just see that there’s no charge.”

  “Thank you. That’s very kind.”

  Ms. Crawford nodded and walked to the door. “I hope you’ll continue your stay with us?”

  “Yes, I think we both plan to stay.”

  The woman smiled. “Good. We’ll do our best to make the rest of your holiday pleasant. Good day.” She nodded, and swept out the door.

  Maggie looked over at Dyna. “Well, I guess we just had a complimentary dinner,” she said.

  “Mmm. Seems to me, she could have easily made it a free vacation, what with all you just went through, and her not wanting you to bad-mouth the place back home and all.”


  Maggie nodded. “She probably is pretty stressed out herself right now.” She shrugged and looked back at the closed door. “But then again, maybe she didn’t really want us to stay.

  Dyna soon left to go to her own room for a shower, and Maggie decided to take a warm, oil-scented bath. It was a luxury she seldom had time for, but when she did, she often found that as well as unwinding tense muscles, it helped to untangle jumbled thoughts. She filled the tub and slipped in with a sigh, leaning her head back against a thick towel propped on the edge.

  Another thing that helped her relax, besides passing the time on long car rides, was number games. Maggie stared at the beige, square tiles that covered the walls above her as she lay back in the tub. She lazily counted the rows up and the rows across, multiplied, and got the total number. As the steam floated above her head she estimated the size of the squares and calculated the area of wall that was covered. Still soaking comfortably, she next began to figure the amount of adhesive that would be needed to cover that area if it were spread at a thickness of 1/8 inch. When the tiles began to steam up and her eyes to droop, she knew she had had enough.

  Well soaked, mildly puckered, and definitely relaxed, Maggie toweled off, wrapped herself in a robe, and looked at the time. She knew she had to call her folks at Bethany sometime, to answer her mother’s message, and supposed this was as good a time as any. With a sigh she sat down at the phone, stared at it for a few moments, then picked up the receiver and punched in the numbers. She listened to the rings with a tightness in her body which relaxed when she heard the voice of her younger brother.

  “Joe! It’s me, Maggie.”

  “Hey, Maggie. How’s it going?”

  Maggie heard the usual laid-back tone to her brother’s voice, and hated to spoil his mood with her news. As an older sister she had always felt somewhat protective of him, even though he had fought that attitude tooth and nail all their lives, preferring, she felt, to think he was the protector. She had often wondered if that was the reason they always got along as well as they did because the only thing they fought over was who was looking after whom.