by Elaine Viets
“No fool like an old fool,” Margery said. “Except a young one.”
CHAPTER 14
“Finally,” Cheryl said. “The Do Not Disturb sign is off the door to room 323. It’s been hanging there for two days. I dread going in there.”
The brown wood door looked like all the others, but it seemed to pulse as they stared at it. Helen had seen too many horrors in that room. But this morning would be different. She knew they would not have to deal with the curse of 323.
“Don’t worry.” Helen’s voice was rich with smug certainty. “There’s nothing bad waiting inside today. That room was rented by a nice suburban mom. Sondra told me. She decided we needed a break, so she put the woman in 323. She was wearing a Ralph Lauren blazer.”
“The problem isn’t what she had on,” Cheryl said. “It’s what happened when she took it off.”
“No one complained about any noise,” Helen said.
“Those are the worst,” Cheryl said, as she unlocked the door.
The room was black as a coal mine, but a poisonous cloud of spilled booze, vomit and cigarette smoke boiled out. Helen’s heart sank. The blazer was no protection. Mrs. Lauren must have gone on a tear.
“Brace yourself,” Cheryl said. “I’m flipping on the light.”
The room was wrecked. A broken-backed chair leaned against a crippled dresser. The mirrors were smashed. Lamp shades were torn. The headboard was split in two. The king mattress had unspeakable stains, and the sheets were dragged across the floor. All the pillows were slashed.
“Ohmigod,” Helen said. “Call the police. The woman was attacked.”
“Here’s what was attacked,” Cheryl said, throwing open the bathroom door. “Watch your shoes. Someone barfed on the floor.”
The room was crammed waist-high with cases of Pabst Blue Ribbon and boxes of booze: Smirnoff Twisted Green Apple, Twisted Mandarin Orange, Twisted Cranberry.
Helen’s stomach twisted at the thought. “She drank all that?”
“No, those are kid drinks. She rented this as a party room for her high school kids,” Cheryl said.
“You’re joking,” Helen said.
“I’m dead serious. You’d be surprised how many dimwit parents want to be pals to their teens. Our hotel won’t rent a room to underage kids, so Mom or Dad gets it for them. The parents don’t want the little darlings wrecking their place. Instead they ruin ours.”
“The parents were here for this party?” Helen said.
“No, they dropped the kids off and made them promise not to drive. Usually the parents pick up the kids, too. They sneak in the partyers while the hotel is busy. As long as the kids keep the noise down, we don’t know until the damage is done and they’re gone. You could have had an army carousing in 323 and nobody would hear. It’s off by itself in the back of the hotel.”
“What happens now?” Helen said.
“I go downstairs and break the news to Sybil. If this mom is like the others, she’ll deny all knowledge of the damage. She’ll say someone else must have used the room after she checked out. We’ll have to sort through the wreckage and find proof.”
Helen looked at the shattered furniture and cigarette-burned carpet. “It’s hopeless,” she said.
“Nope, we’ll get her.” Cheryl’s brown curls bobbed confidently. “I’ll send Craig up, and he can start hauling out the booze boxes and empties. You clean up the broken glass before someone gets cut. If you find any papers or receipts, save them for me.”
Craig looked refreshingly clean-cut this morning, a poster boy for young-adult virtue. His blond hair had a golden glow. He whistled when he saw the room. “These dudes partied hearty.”
“I’ll give them references as wrecking balls,” Helen said.
“I’m supposed to carry out all the dead soldiers.”
“Take the beer and liquor bottles straight to the Dumpsters,” Helen said. “The crime-scene tape should be off them.”
Helen could hear the clank and rattle as Craig went to work. He soon left on the first of many trips with two huge bags.
Cheryl was back before Craig. “Sybil was fit to be tied,” she said. “She checked the security tapes. A blue minivan pulled up at the back entrance and let out six strapping young men, who hauled the booze up the back stairs. They arrived about the same time as that bus tour from Wisconsin.”
“Seventy oldsters sharing rooms on their AARP discounts,” Helen said. “No wonder we didn’t see the party arrive. Well, you’ve got the woman.”
“Not quite,” Cheryl said. “She gave us a fake license tag number when she registered, and we can’t see the driver of the minivan on the tape. We’ll track her down, but we need more proof. Let’s see what we can find. Be careful where you step.”
The room was booby-trapped with dozens of red plastic cups, most half-filled with booze and floating cigarettes. “I can’t believe this,” Helen said. “They used the headboard to open the beer bottles.”
Craig popped in the doorway, back from his beer-hauling expedition. “You won’t believe what I found out by the death Dumpster,” he said.
Cheryl winced. Rhonda’s murder wasn’t a joke. Craig’s eyes glittered with something. Malice? Excitement?
“Two used condoms,” he said. “Some sickos screwed by the Dumpster where they found the dead woman. Is that disgusting or what?”
“I don’t want to talk about it, Craig,” Cheryl said. “It’s too horrible.”
A subdued Craig went back to filling trash bags with bottles. Helen and Cheryl sifted through the room rubble.
“Aha!” Helen said, as she lifted an abandoned twelve-pack. “A credit-card slip is stuck to the bottom.” It was from a liquor store.
“Jeez,” Helen said. “It’s for three hundred dollars.”
The slip was damp with beer and some print was smudged, but Cheryl looked at the signature. “That’s her—the idiot who rented this room. I’ll run this down to Sybil. Thank goodness for slobs,” Cheryl said. “That woman will pay for this damage. If she refuses, I’ll report her to the police for serving liquor to minors. She’s lucky one of those kids didn’t OD. Then she’d have that on her conscience.”
“Why would a grown woman buy liquor for young boys?” Helen said.
Cheryl shrugged and her pretty brown curls bobbed. “She’s forty going on twenty, an older woman trying to prove she can make the young guys twitch.”
“It’s enough to drive you to drink,” Helen said.
But Helen was grateful to Mrs. Lauren. The room was such a wreck, she spent the whole morning without worrying about Rob. Now the words were back in her mind like a drumbeat: He found me. He found me.
The only thing standing between Rob and ruin was Margery’s skill at lying. Her landlady was a good liar, but so was Rob. This was a grudge match between titans, with her life as the prize.
Helen was almost sad when Cheryl closed the door on room 323. She felt her last bit of peace was shut out.
“We’ve done all we can,” Cheryl said. “This room will be out of service for a day or two, while Sybil brings in new furniture and puts down new carpet.”
“Maybe it will break the curse of 323,” Helen said.
“That room feeds on disaster,” Cheryl said, rolling their cart to 322. “It will be worse than ever after this.”
Helen saw a pale figure at the end of the hall with long limbs and red hair. It was Rhonda, the old-fashioned girl with the crisp new fifties. Helen stopped dead for minute, then realized it was only a trick of the light. No one was down there.
“Are the construction workers still staying here?” Helen asked, to cover her odd hesitation.
“They checked out yesterday. We have a bunch of businessmen now.”
“Right. I saw them down in the lobby this morning,” Helen said. “Looks like they took over most of the hotel for a meeting. I hope the businessmen are an improvement. The construction workers drank loads of beer and were pretty messy.”
“Hah,” Cheryl s
aid, unlocking the door to 322. “The construction workers will seem like a ladies’ sewing circle. Individual businessmen are all right. In a group they are demanding, difficult and dirty. Look at this room.”
The guest’s suitcase must have exploded. Dirty socks and soiled shirts were tossed everywhere. Papers, folders and brochures were dumped on chairs. A pair of muddy running shoes were flung on the dresser. Ashtrays were heaped with butts.
“At least the furniture is still intact,” Helen said. “But this guy is a slob. He’s got cigarette ash all over everything.”
“Have you seen the conference rooms where they’re holding their meetings?” Cheryl said, hauling in her bucket of cleaning supplies. “It looks like a pack of wolves is having a seminar. At least the construction workers left us the beer they didn’t drink. All we’ll get from these guys are their dirty butts.”
“Uh, you mean cigarette butts, right?” Helen said. She wasn’t sure anymore.
Cheryl giggled. “Mostly.”
Helen picked up a liquor bottle about one-fourth empty from the nightstand. “This guy treats himself well,” she said. “Johnnie Walker Black. Looks like he had a couple of ounces last night. Maybe he’s lonely. He keeps a family photo on the desk.”
Cheryl examined the photo. “How do fat guys get such pretty wives?” she said. “She’s blond and skinny and he’s forty pounds overweight.”
“He has the money,” Helen said. “Does this company stay here often?”
“We get lots of businessmen. Sybil offers a special seminar deal in some business magazine. But I think it’s the first time for this particular corporation,” Cheryl said. “Although some of the guys look familiar.”
“You mean they all look alike,” Helen said. “I never saw so many bald heads, white faces and power ties.”
She picked up a blue bathrobe on the unmade bed. “Hey, this guy puts his Phi Beta Kappa key on his robe. Can you believe that? What an ego.”
There was a crash and a soft curse.
“What’s wrong?” Helen said.
“I’ve got the dropsy. Knocked over the spray cleaner bottle and the lid wasn’t on tight,” Cheryl said. “It’s going to ruin this desktop.”
Helen rushed over.The two maids patted, sprayed and rubbed the desk. “No damage,” Cheryl finally declared. “I’m tightening every bottle top. I can’t believe—”
Her walkie-talkie went off with a squawk, and she answered it.
“What’s up, Sondra?” Cheryl said.
Helen could hear the front desk clerk’s voice through the static. “It’s the police,” Sondra said. “They want to see Helen downstairs. Now.”
CHAPTER 15
Helen felt herself split into three pieces. The small, feral part wanted to scurry for the nearest hole. Another was sick and shriveled with fear. It wanted to whine and beg and slink like a whipped dog.
But one small piece of her still had courage. Helen held on to that, and tried to banish the slinking, scurrying parts. I will get through this, she told herself. I’ve done nothing wrong.
Except lie, the whipped dog said.
“Helen,” Cheryl said. “Do you want me to go with you?”
“No, no,” Helen said. “I’m fine.”
Double-dog liar, the whipped cur said.
“Then you’d better go. You don’t want the police to get mad.” Cheryl gave her a slight push toward the door.
Helen looked carefully up and down the hall, like a preschooler crossing the street alone for the first time. Even her hotel smock, the cloak of invisibility, wouldn’t protect her if she ran into Rob head-on.
The small, feral part urged her to scuttle down the back stairs and out of the hotel for good. Helen stepped on it, squared her shoulders, and headed for the elevator.
Don’t look nervous, she told herself. The police will see you as guilty.
Detective Bill Mulruney was leaning against the front desk, flirting with Sondra. Another old white guy plaguing pretty Sondra, Helen thought. But it was a good sign. At least the man was human.
Then Mulruney turned that baggy face toward hers and Helen changed her mind. She might as well be looking at a tree trunk for all the feeling he showed. His face was hard as oak.
“Let’s go into the breakfast room, where we can talk, Miss Hayworth.”
Hawthorne, Helen nearly corrected him, and then stopped herself. If he wanted to make life tough for Helen Hayworth, that was fine with Helen Hawthorne.
He took the same seat as before, and Helen found herself staring once again at the bin of breakfast cereal. She wondered how many Cheerios were in there.
Detective Mulruney said nothing, just turned that solid oak stare on her. Helen started counting Cheerios. One, two, three . . . There were twenty-seven in the first row, though it slid down a little on one side. Did those go into row two? She gave up guessing how many Cheerios were in the bin. Maybe she should try counting the fissures and wrinkles in Mulruney’s face. The man looked like a topographical map of New Mexico.
Mulruney pulled out a plastic evidence bag with a crisp fifty-dollar bill inside. Now he didn’t look bored. He was way too interested in Helen.
“We found this in the victim’s purse,” the detective said.
“Yes?” Helen said. She wondered if it was the same fifty Rhonda had flashed.
“Did you ever see Miss Dournell with a fifty-dollar bill?”
Tell the truth, Helen decided. There’s less to remember. “Rhonda offered to take me out to dinner. I said I was broke and she said she had money. She showed me a fifty.”
“When?” Mulruney said.
“The night she—the last time I saw her.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this before?” the detective said.
“I didn’t think it was important,” Helen said.
Mulruney slammed his hand down on the table so hard the sugar container jumped. So did Helen. “I told you everything was important,” he said. “Everything. Especially if it happened the night she died. Do you know where she got this money?”
“No.” Helen looked him in the eye, or rather the eye pouch. It was sort of the truth. She hadn’t seen Rhonda’s dream lover, much less watched him hand her money. Helen had encountered Sam the biker only once, and he had been more interested in borrowing money than giving it away.
If Helen mentioned Rhonda’s new lover, the police would be all over her like ants on a chocolate bar. She had to stay dull. She was just a poor, dumb hotel maid who didn’t know nothing about nothing.
“What’s wrong with having a fifty-dollar bill?” Helen said. “I’d like a few myself.”
Good move, smart mouth, the whipped dog whined. Helen kicked it away.
“It’s counterfeit,” the detective said.
Helen felt like she’d been punched. This was trouble. She wouldn’t have to worry about one small-time police detective. If Rhonda had stacks of counterfeit cash, she’d bring the feds down on the Full Moon.
Suddenly Helen saw a lot more reasons why someone would want Rhonda dead. Was she passing bad money, or did she find out someone else was? Did Rhonda think that fake fifty was the key to easy money? Was that how her man was going to get rich quick?
Or did Rhonda find out her precious fifty was funny when she went to dinner that night? Many Florida shops and restaurants routinely tested fifties before they accepted them. Did she confront the man who gave her the bad money? That would be a good reason to kill her. Helen could see Rhonda doing it, too. She was a seething volcano of rage, and this would send it pouring out.
“Anything you want to add?” the detective said.
He noticed my reaction, Helen thought. Did I fidget, turn red, look away? For all I know, my eyes popped out like a cartoon character’s. I don’t have a poker face.
Don’t sit there squirming like a schoolgirl who has to use the restroom. Answer him.
“Counterfeit fifties are a problem in South Florida,” Helen said. “We’ve had so many bad fifties at this
hotel our front desk won’t take one without testing it first. Have you seen how many Florida businesses have signs saying they won’t change fifties?”
The hotel was the perfect place to pass fake fifties, Helen thought. You couldn’t put the funny money in the till. Sybil made the desk clerks use a counterfeit pen. Mark a suspect bill with the pen, and if the mark turned dark brown or black, the bill was a fraud. But the pen didn’t always work. The banks used more sophisticated methods and confiscated any bogus bills. The Full Moon’s chain-smoking owner would give off real fire if she lost a fifty because it was bad. Sybil had drummed it into poor Sondra’s head to test every fifty-dollar bill.
But there was a way around Sybil’s precautions. Sondra could give the bogus bills as change. People who paid for their rooms in cash were often at the hotel for a fling. They wouldn’t complain if they got bad money. They couldn’t. They’d been sleeping in the wrong bed.
Passing fake fifties would be the perfect setup for Sondra, providing quick cash for college. It would save her years of labor behind the front desk, placating old white guys. What if Rhonda had figured out the scam and said something?
“You know, we’re aware there’s a counterfeit problem in this area,” the detective said. “But we’re interested in this particular bill belonging to this particular victim.”
“Do you think Rhonda was passing bad money?” Helen said. “Is there just the one?”
“We thought you could tell us,” the detective said.
That probably meant the police had found only one counterfeit bill. “Rhonda wouldn’t be involved in anything illegal,” Helen said.
As soon as she said it, she wondered if that were true. Rhonda was sick of cleaning muck out of the honeymoon Jacuzzi. When a young woman made minimum wage, free fifties looked tempting. Especially when the handsome tempter promised love and riches.
Helen waited for Mulruney to mention the plane ticket to Mexico, but he didn’t. The cops never found it, she decided. Otherwise Mulruney would have asked if Rhonda planned to leave the country.
“How did Rhonda die?” Helen said.