Murder Undercover

by Claire McNab

“How come you know her name?” I said.

  “I don’t know, it just caught my eye.”

  Now, I would have thought of a much better explanation for remembering. I mused on it for a moment. Maybe I’d say that my best friend at school was an Aileen, or perhaps that Fountain had stayed in my mind because the word reminded me of the way blood must have spurted when the pellets shattered the victim’s skull. Of course, this was the very thing my trainer had warned me about. “Keep it simple,” he would snarl. “The more complicated you make it, the easier it is to trip you up, and the more it sounds like a fake story.”

  I said to Biddy, “And now there’s been another awful accident.” I shook my head in a where-will-it-end sort of way. “Did you run into Mr. Snead at the hotel?”

  “I knew him by sight. Talked with his wife a couple of times.”

  In my gossipy persona, I said blithely, “I hear the widow isn’t exactly shattered by grief.”

  Biddy’s face hardened. “You’d know, would you?”

  “That’s what everyone says,” I said, on the defense.

  She grunted, clearly dismissing me as unfeeling. Watching her stalk off along the path to the hotel, I had a ridiculous impulse to run after her and explain, “Look, that was Denise Hunter speaking, not me.”

  When I got back to the staff buildings, George Aylmer was making one of his surprise inspections. He’d done one the very first day I’d been there, and I’d been warned to expect them at odd times in the future. “Everything satisfactory? Everyone happy?” he was asking Pete and a couple of others as I came in the front entrance.

  The senior Aylmer was tall, but slightly stooped, holding his head as though he was expecting to walk through a low doorway at any moment. His thinning hair was streaked with gray, he had a hook nose, a firm mouth over a jutting chin, but his manner didn’t quite match his commanding looks, being an odd combination of bossiness and hesitation.

  Turning to me, he frowned as his glance swept across my breast. For a moment I thought it was the message on my T-shirt, but then I realized it was, horrors, my lack of a hibiscus badge reading Denise.

  “Your tag!” he said.

  “Left it in my room,” I said, trusting that he would assume this dereliction of duty had just occurred.

  “You know the rules.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Aylmer. I’ll do better next time.” I kept a straight face with difficulty, as Pete was making faces at me from behind George Aylmer’s back.

  My employer nodded, apparently pleased that I had immediately acknowledged my error. “At all times,” he said, “our valued guests must know that they are surrounded by friendly Aylmer staff.”

  I could think of quite a few times the valued guests wouldn’t be happy to have friendly staff breathing down their necks, but I contented myself with slanting my eyebrows the wrong way to indicate that I was regretful for my transgression.

  George Aylmer waffled on for a few more minutes, then went off to annoy people in the rec room. I thanked Pete for trying to make me laugh inappropriately, and headed for my room. I was waylaid by Jen before I could reach its sanctuary. “Den, you’re going tonight, aren’t you?” When I didn’t immediately respond, she added with asperity, “To the party at the Big House. The Aylmers’ place.”

  “I’m on the bar with Pete.”

  Jen wriggled her shoulders importantly. “I’d have been there, helping out too, but Quint asked me not to.”

  “Oh?”

  “Quint says he couldn’t stand to see me, like, serving people and all that. Not when I’m so important to him.” She drew me aside, looking around as if she was about to impart a state secret. “The fact is,” she said, “I wonder if you’d keep an eye out.”

  “For what?”

  Jen’s white skin flushed an unbecoming blotchy pink. “It’s a bit embarrassing, but I know I can rely on you, Den.”

  “You can,” I said.

  “It’s silly, I suppose, but Quint’s mentioned this Cindy someone. She’s one of the guests. I know he wouldn’t be interested in her, but I get the feeling she’s got ideas about him.”

  “Has he got ideas about her? I’d say that was the vital thing.”

  A heavy frown descended on Jen’s face. “He says he hasn’t, but men. You know what they’re like.”

  “They just can’t help themselves,” I said helpfully.

  She took my arm, a sister in suffering. “Exactly,” she said. “So I want you to keep an eye out for me.”

  “You can have both of them,” I said. “I’ll report back tomorrow, okay?”

  “Can this be our secret? I wouldn’t like anyone to think I didn’t trust him.”

  I made a zipping motion across my mouth. “Silent as the grave,” I said.

  It seemed there was a conspiracy to stop me from getting out of my sweaty clothes. Seb’s bulky form stopped me in the corridor to my room. “Got a mo, Den?”

  I sighed. “What?”

  “I hear Roanna Aylmer has her eye on you.”

  Jeez, it was eyes everywhere. Not bothering to hide my exasperation, I said, “I’ve had two conversations with her, both of them short.”

  He patted my arm. “Just a word of warning,” he said. “Her brother, Harry, is a bit protective.”

  This was getting past a joke. “Just what are you telling me?”

  “None of Ro’s friendships last very long. I wouldn’t like you to get hurt.”

  “Oh, spare me! What are you, my big brother?”

  Seb grinned and put one massive arm around my shoulders and gave me a substantial squeeze. “I’d love to be more than that, but you turned me down, remember?”

  “So what’s with Harry?”

  “He’ll know you and his sister have been talking.”

  “Creepy!”

  Seb sucked his lips in and nodded sagely. “It is, a bit. What you should know is that she won’t stay interested for long, and then you’ll find your job’s gone, and you’ll be asked to move on.”

  “I’ll be fired?” After all the trouble taken to establish me at the resort, this was not what I wanted to hear.

  He spread his hands. “All I’m saying is that Ro Aylmer’s romantic interests don’t hang around when the party’s over. They either quit or they get the old heave-ho.”

  A bubble of anger filled my chest. “Thanks for the warning,” I said, hearing the sudden coldness in my voice.

  “You’re not going to pay any attention, are you?”

  “Look,” I snapped. “I’ve hardly spoken to the bloody woman, so I’ve no idea why you’ve got it into your head that there’s anything going on.”

  Seb’s blunt-featured face was hurt. “Hey, I was only trying to help.”

  “Thanks, but that’s help I can do without.”

  I could feel my cheeks burning with barely controlled rage. I took a deep breath, aware that this was quite an overreaction. I wondered why, until I abruptly realized that Seb reminded me of my sanctimonious elder brother, Martin, who had spent a great deal of my youth laying down the law for me, telling me what to do and whom to see.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I know you mean it for the best.”

  Seb bobbed his heavy head and left, still wounded. I dropped my pack in my bedroom and went to look for Pete, finding him slumped in front of the television in the rec room, a can of beer in one hand and a fat ham sandwich in the other. “You still haven’t got your tag on, you naughty girl,” he observed.

  I flung myself into the chair next to him. “Seb’s just taken upon himself to lecture me about friendship with Roanna Aylmer,” I said. “He says her brother Harry is a problem.”

  Pete took a long swallow of beer. “Seb’s obsessive about Harry. He’s got a crush on him.”

  “Seb’s got a crush on Harry Aylmer?”

  The incredulity in my voice amused Pete mightily. “No accounting for taste, is there? Don’t ask me why, but Seb’s always gone for the brooding, risky sort, male or female.”

  �
�And what does Harry think of this? Is he gay?”

  “Oh yes, he’s gay, but I don’t reckon Seb has a chance.” Pete made a face at me. “Runs in the family. Wouldn’t be surprised if Moreen turned out to be a closest lesbian.”

  The matriarch of the Aylmer clan a lesbian? He had to be pulling my leg. “You’re kidding me, aren’t you?”

  “Maybe,” he said with an aggravating smile. “But you should know that she’s the power in the outfit. George Aylmer is the nominal head of the company, but basically his wife runs the whole show. She says jump, they ask how high.”

  “For God’s sake, Roanna’s an adult, and so, more or less, are her brothers.”

  “Sure. But the money and the authority are with Mum, and she doesn’t let them forget it. That’s half the trouble with Ro. She bucks, but she can’t break away.”

  Reminding myself that I wasn’t there to have a personal interest in Roanna, but a professional interest in the whole family, I said, “Who’ll take over the running of the company eventually?”

  Pete laughed. “Harry thinks it’s going to be him, but it’ll never happen. I’d reckon Moreen will hang on to the bitter end, and she looks to me like she’s got a few decades in her yet.” He took a huge bite of his ham sandwich.

  “You know a lot about them.”

  He chewed, swallowed, and washed the food down with another long draft from the can. “It’s being a bartender,” he said. “People tell you everything.” He gave me a sly smile. “But you’d know that, being a bartender yourself.”

  “I lied.”

  “Did you, indeed?” His smile was speculative.

  I nodded. “Yes,” I said. “I’m not what I appear.”

  He sat up, all attention. “And what are you about to reveal to Uncle Pete?”

  “That I’m a total fake,” I said.

  Chapter Six

  Pete and I walked up the rise to the Aylmers’ sumptuous residence through scented air and the lazy rustle of coconut palm fronds. We both wore our working clothes of white shorts, canvas sneakers without socks, and the obligatory hibiscus shirt, mine red, Pete’s a toxic yellow. And, of course, we each had our name tags displayed upon our respective chests.

  At the security gate we were eyeballed by Bruce, who was on guard duty. With a rare flash of humor, he announced that we looked suspicious, but he’d let us through anyway. His usual sneer had been replaced by a thin-lipped smile, which was surprising enough for me to look back at him after we passed through the gate. Bruce raised a hand in a sort of awkward wave.

  “I think Bruce likes you,” said Pete.

  “Oh, please, God, no!”

  “It’s the lure of the unattainable,” said Pete. “It makes you irresistible.”

  I wasn’t in a charitable mood. “Bruce is a thug and a drunk.”

  “He’s got feelings, like everybody else.” Pete chuckled at my expression. “Shall I tell him you’re flying under false colors?”

  Mock-indignant, I glared at him. “I might have been a little creative when I claimed on my job application to have had bartending experience, but I told you that personal detail in strict confidence.”

  He snorted. “You said, as I recall, that you were a total fake.”

  “I exaggerated. It’s not a crime.”

  “If you lie about one thing,” Pete pontificated, “you might well lie about another.”

  If you only knew. “I’m learning the bar stuff fast,” I declared, “so my job application is getting truer all the time.”

  It wasn’t dark yet, but tall flaming torches lined the pathway, creating an exotic, mysterious atmosphere, as though we’d been transported to the South Pacific of the sailing ships. My mind skittered away to think of cannibals, and, with my usual talent for irrelevancies, I remembered that human flesh was called long pig by the natives because it tasted rather like pork.

  I was about to share this fascinating fact with Pete when he said, “You haven’t been to the Big House before, have you? It’s quite something.”

  It was. Surrounded by beautiful gardens, the main building was bounded on three sides by wide verandas of polished wood. The house itself was built around a large central courtyard, in the middle of which a striking fountain played, the water flowing over polished metal dolphins to splash into a pond crowded with fat koi fish. I knew that koi were impossibly expensive, but they still looked like overgrown goldfish to me. A light breeze of warm, fragrant air flickered the flames of the torches in the courtyard, giving an odd, wavering life to luxuriant ferns that were also illuminated by concealed lighting.

  “George and Moreen live here in the main house,” said Pete. “Their personal staff live in an adjoining building, but Roanna and her brothers each have an entirely separate little bungalow. Roanna’s is the farthest away, and closest to the water.”

  A picture formed in my mind of a small house, hidden by lush tropical vegetation. It would have a veranda where one could sit, cool drink in hand, watching the light fade and the stars come out. “You’ve been there, Pete?”

  He laughed. “No such luck. She’s very picky who she takes home.”

  We were directed to a large woman with a pensive expression, who turned out to be the head of security for the Aylmers’ private compound. She asked who we were, looked us over narrowly, and ticked our names off on a clipboard. “Please don’t try to enter any of the private areas not opened for the function,” she said. “If you do, an alarm will sound.”

  “She’s new,” said Pete as we walked away. “Otherwise she would have known me by name.”

  “Oh sure,” I mocked. “You’re practically a household word.”

  The level of protection was interesting. “Why do they need so much security for the Big House?” I asked.

  “There are a lot of original artworks. At least, that’s what I’ve been told.”

  “You’re a friend of the family, and you haven’t seen these artworks?”

  “I’m Ro’s friend. It’s not the same thing.”

  All around us the activity was increasing as everything was set up. The Aylmers had their own house-staff working, of course, but functions of this size needed extra help, so apart from us there were several people I recognized from the resort.

  Clusters of teak chairs around central tables formed islands where later guests could gather to eat and drink. Long trestles already held mouth-watering displays of food—mountains of prawns, whole lobsters, oysters nestling in pearly shells, salads galore. I’d skipped dinner, so I looked longingly in that direction. “Come on,” said Pete, “you can eat later. Right now we’ve got to get everything ready.”

  Plates of appetizers were being distributed to the tables. To keep me going I snaffled asparagus rolls, miniature shish kebabs, and several chicken puffs.

  The bar wasn’t some temporary arrangement, but a fixture situated on the far side of the courtyard. It had sinks, running water, racks full of clean glasses, and a refrigerator and glass-washer under the counter.

  “Won’t be too hard,” said Pete, handing me a snowy apron mercifully free of hibiscus decorations. “Mostly it’ll be wine, beer and standard stuff like rum and Coke, whiskey and soda, vodka and tonic. A few people might ask for Bloody Marys. Nothing complicated at all.”

  “Tell that to Eddie Trebonus,” I muttered. Naturally I hadn’t brought my trusty bar book, so if Eddie turned up, and I was sure he would, he’d just have to settle for something straightforward for a change.

  “Watch out,” said Pete, “the Dark Brothers are coming over.”

  The designation dark was fitting for Harry and Quint Aylmer. It was not only that they both had thick, black hair, deep brown eyes and heavily tanned skin. There was also a threatening atmosphere about them, enhanced by their broad-shouldered swagger and their identical, arrogant expressions. There was, however, a spark of intelligence on Harry’s face: Quint merely looked sulky and rather dumb. I tried to visualize him from Jen’s point of view. She was obviously enamored, but, t
ry though I might, I couldn’t see why. And what in hell would they talk about? Maybe they didn’t talk. Maybe it was a strictly physical relationship. I repressed a gurgle of disgust at the vision that presented, busying myself with polishing a glass, another trick movie bartenders had taught me.

  Harry leaned over the bar to inspect things. “You all set up?” he said to Pete.

  Pete responded with a professional smile. “Ready to go.”

  Quint came behind to help himself to a Scotch. He looked at me with disfavor. “You were on the beach when they dragged Snead out of the water.” His tone made it sound as if I had deliberately flouted some you-must-not-be-on-the-beach rule. There didn’t seem any sensible response, so I said nothing.

  Quint turned to his brother. “Staff have to be told to keep out of the guests’ areas at all times, unless they’re there to work.”

  “You’ll have to ask Dad about that.”

  Quint scowled. “Why? We’re in charge of the day-to-day running of the resort, aren’t we?”

  Harry shrugged. “We can talk about it later.”

  Quint glowered at his elder brother’s retreating back, then swung around to bark at us, “You keep everyone happy. Right? And no slacking. I want to see you hard at it, all the time.”

  As he stalked off, Pete said to me, “Don’t let him get to you. He’s kept on a short leash, and Quint doesn’t like it. The trouble is that our Quint’s not the brightest boy on the block, so no one’s about to give him much responsibility, even his doting mother.”

  Stacking glasses neatly, I said, “How come you know so much about the Aylmers? And don’t tell me it’s because you’re behind a bar.”

  “Me and Seb, we’ve been at the resort for the best part of three years. If you work in a place long enough, you find things out. And, of course, there’s Roanna. We’re good mates, and she often lets things slip about the family.”

  “Good mates?”

  Pete chuckled. “Friends only. She gets lonely at times, and she comes down to the lounge for a chat, or meets me when I’m free and we go sailing or whatever.”

  “I thought there was a rule about staff socializing with management.”