by Jana DeLeon
She spun around, eyes locked on Benton, then slapped him as hard as she could across the face. Benton’s eyes widened and he stared at her as if she’d lost her mind. The valet rushed up beside Benton as an argument ensued. Gertie crawled away, and I dropped the float, yanked her up from the ground, and we practically ran out of the lobby.
Gertie and Ida Belle ducked into the car and lay low until I was pulling away from the resort. Then they both moved into an upright position and Ida Belle, who had taken the passenger seat, blew out a breath.
“That was a close one,” Ida Belle said. “And not a good sign that Benton was back so quickly.”
I nodded. “I think we have to assume that the lovely deputy was there to officially collect Gertie for questioning.”
“That must mean they have cause of death,” Ida Belle said. “And if they got it this quickly, then it was obvious.”
“And not natural causes or Benton would have made a phone call and not stopped in first thing on a personal visit. He didn’t strike me as motivated enough to inform in person out of the goodness of his soul.”
“No,” Ida Belle agreed. “He was definitely there for Gertie.”
“Maybe there’s someone else at the resort on his radar,” Gertie said. “After all, we know I didn’t kill him but apparently someone did.”
“It’s certainly a possibility,” I said. “But not a lot of time has passed and I don’t make Benton for one looking beyond the easy answer.”
“I’m not sitting in some rinky-dink, hick sheriff’s department for my vacation,” Gertie said. “Fortune paid good money for this.”
“Yes, she did,” Ida Belle said drily. “And once again, your shenanigans have landed us in the hot seat. Next time, Fortune and I are sneaking off to vacation on our own.”
“Without me along,” Gertie said, “this entire vacation would have been lying like slabs of meat in the sun.”
I glanced over at Ida Belle and nodded. “Sounds good.”
Gertie flopped back in her seat. “Might as well move to a convent in a sunny area. The only change we’d have to make for you two is Fortune would have to wear something that covered her knees. Ida Belle already has the wardrobe.”
“Convents probably frown on weapons,” I said. “I don’t think I’d like it there. And I wouldn’t feel safe without my side piece.”
“You don’t have one now,” Gertie said.
“Says who?” I asked and pulled my nine from my beach bag. “My CIA identification is still valid. The government is horrible at processing paperwork.”
“So I couldn’t bring one little gun in my luggage,” Gertie said, “but you got to stroll on the plane with that?”
“Hey, I slogged through the desert for years, taking out the worst of humanity,” I said. “I think I’ve earned a few perks.”
“Fair enough,” Gertie said. “And honestly, I feel better that one of us is armed. Especially if there’s a killer on the loose.”
Ida Belle nodded. “I’m afraid if Benton is an example of local law enforcement, I don’t have much confidence that this will go in Gertie’s favor. Or go anywhere, to be honest. So if we don’t want to get stuck here on an extended non-vacation, I think we better find this killer quickly.”
“Maybe we can have it wrapped up before Margarita Night,” Gertie said. “I was really looking forward to all the margaritas I could drink for free.”
I rolled my eyes. “We’ll do our best not to let a murder interfere with your party.”
Ida Belle shook her head. “I’m a little surprised at you, Gertie. You were so hot for this guy and he was murdered. I figured you’d be a bit more upset.”
“I’m just being pragmatic,” Gertie said. “If someone followed him here and killed him, he probably wasn’t a nice guy.”
“Could have been a jilted woman,” Ida Belle said. “Maybe you’re not the first topless damsel he rescued. Maybe Otis made a habit of this sort of thing.”
Gertie frowned. “You think some jealous woman might have snuffed Otis over me? That would suck. I mean, I’m a catch but I’m not worth dying over. Especially for a vacation fling.”
“No one is worth dying over for a vacation fling,” Ida Belle said.
“What about Jason Momoa?” Gertie asked.
I looked over at Ida Belle. “Maybe Jason Momoa.”
Ida Belle waved a hand in dismissal. “Forget Aquaman. Here’s the reality—either Otis was a real bad guy and someone followed up on business, or he was a playboy and crossed the wrong crazy woman.”
“Cause of death might help us determine that,” I said. “But short of sending Gertie in for questioning, I don’t see how we’re going to find out anything. And even then, I don’t anticipate that Benton will be forthcoming with information.”
“We definitely don’t want Gertie to be questioned before we have an attorney lined up,” Ida Belle said. “So I guess we need to pursue both angles until we have cause of death. Then we can see if that helps us narrow down one avenue over the other.”
I nodded and pulled into a café on the mainland located in a shopping center on the edge of town. “So we start with Otis. With any luck, we can get some dirt on him for the attorney to use. Anything that can point the cops in another direction.”
“If Benton is any indication of the department mentality,” Ida Belle said, “they’re not going to be easy to redirect. Unfortunately, most departments don’t have someone with Carter’s brains and ethics running the show.”
“So we’re agreed,” I said. “We totally ignore Carter’s directive and get right in the middle of a police investigation.”
“Isn’t that what we always do?” Ida Belle asked.
Gertie nodded. “I’m surprised we’re even saying this out loud.”
“Hey, I’m all for it,” I said, “but we have to remember, this isn’t Sinful. You don’t know the place and these people like you do the ones back home. And the cops here are looking to make one of us guilty, not innocent.”
“We’re guilty a lot back in Sinful,” Gertie said.
“Not on things that matter,” I said. “A few purse explosions aside, we don’t commit crimes. Not the kind that count, anyway.”
Ida Belle frowned. “She’s right. We don’t have home field advantage here, and the cops are on the opposite side of what we usually deal with. This is a completely different situation and we need to be very careful. We can’t afford a screwup here. There’s no one to cover it up.”
Even Gertie looked a bit sober as we made our way into the café. We found a table in the back that had unoccupied chairs around it and took our seats. We all ordered coffee and breakfast when the waitress appeared and I pulled out my laptop, ready to take notes as soon as the coffee arrived and the waitress had cleared the area.
“Okay,” I said as I created a new Word document. “Give me all the particulars you have on Otis.”
Gertie nodded. “His name is Otis Baker. He’s from Oklahoma City and was in real estate development. Those strip malls, I believe.”
“They have entire malls for stripping?” Ida Belle asked.
“That’s what I thought too,” Gertie said. “But it’s those long buildings in a straight line with multiple stores in them.”
“Oh, like where we are now with a Laundromat, pizza place, check-cashing store, and café all in one place?” Ida Belle asked.
“Exactly,” Gertie said.
“Wife? Kids?”
“He was widowed two years ago, no kids,” Gertie said. “He said after his wife passed, he didn’t feel like keeping up with the business anymore, so he sold it. Said everything in Oklahoma City reminded him of his wife. She’d been his business partner and he said everywhere he looked, there was something they’d built. So he sold everything and moved to Florida.”
“So he lived here?” I asked. “Then why was he staying at the resort?”
“He said he tried Miami first,” Gertie said. “But it was too crowded and not relaxing e
nough. So he traveled around the state, stopping in different places for a while to see if it seemed like a good fit. He’s been here for a month but only at the resort the past couple weeks. He said he got a good off-season rate.”
“Probably true,” I said. “Summer rates are almost double what I paid.”
Ida Belle nodded. “And any developer worth his salt is rolling in cash anyway. Plus, if he sold everything off…my guess is money isn’t something he spent a lot of time worrying about.”
“Then let’s see how that checks out,” I said and did a search on Otis’s name along with Oklahoma City. I got a couple good hits immediately. One was an article about a new development that Otis’s company was building on the outskirts of town. It was going to contain a low-income medical center, and part of the parking lot had been allocated to build basketball courts for the local kids to play in. There was a blurry image of Otis in the background, cutting a big ribbon strung between two posts in the dirt. I couldn’t make out the facial features, but the receding hairline was the same.
The next hit was an obituary for Otis’s wife, Marion. She’d died a little over two years earlier from cancer. No kids per the obit. Just a sister-in-law living in a nursing home in Connecticut. The last hit was an article in the business section of the local paper talking about the sale of Otis’s company and his plans to retire “where there’s sand at my feet and sun in my face.”
“So far, he looks legit,” I said. “At least, everything he told Gertie checks out.”
“But no indication of why someone might want to kill him,” Gertie said.
“Ha!” Ida Belle said. “Oldest reason in the book—money. Who gets all that money he cashed out?”
I sighed. “You know, I’m really tired of the money motive. Can’t anyone be more original?”
“You mean, like kill people because they got orders from their demon dog?” Gertie asked.
“Okay, maybe not a Berkowitz, but a different motive would be nice,” I said.
“I’m afraid money is at the root of most crime,” Ida Belle said. “This time is probably going to prove no different. Did the obituary list any other family?”
I scanned it again. “No. Just the wife’s sister.”
“I don’t think I’m going to bet on a woman in a nursing home in Connecticut popping down to Florida to kill for some cash,” Ida Belle said.
“It doesn’t seem right,” I said. “But some of you seniors can be wily.”
Gertie laughed and even Ida Belle smiled.
“Still, I agree she’s an unlikely candidate,” I said.
“Which means we need to find some likely ones,” Ida Belle said. “Unfortunately, the only place to start collecting information is around the resort. If Otis has been there a while, surely he’s developed some friendships with staff or regulars at the bar.”
I nodded. “But we can’t exactly stroll around the resort asking questions about Otis without giving up Gertie to the local cops.”
“I wonder if Carter talked to his lawyer friend yet,” Gertie said.
My cell phone rang and I picked it up. “Speak of the devil.”
“Please tell me you’re sitting at the beach and drinking a cocktail,” Carter said.
“Can’t do that exactly. Benton showed up at the resort again and we had to jet.”
Carter cursed and there was several seconds of silence. “The sheriff’s department is moving fast.”
“I imagine they want this cleared and off their desk. I don’t think they really care as much about who did it as they do being able to say someone is under arrest.”
“Yeah, I did some asking around about Benton and that sounds about right. Did he see you leave the property?”
“No. He was too busy trying to avoid a sexual assault rap.”
“I’m not even going to ask.”
“It was one of Gertie’s better ideas.”
“I’m sure. Well, I talked to my buddy. He’s tied up in court today and can’t get there until this evening.”
“So we lie low until he shows. I can manage that.”
“Since when?”
He had a point. My entire summer in Sinful was supposed to have been about lying low. God knows, I’d completely screwed the pooch on that one.
“I’m a work in progress,” I said. “But the day I can’t dodge one idiot is the day I give up everything and sit down to knit.”
He sighed. “Fine, then. Stay away from the resort until Byron can get there. I gave him a rundown of the situation and your contact info. He’s supposed to call you when he arrives. I’ll text you his info.”
“Thanks.”
“And Fortune? Please be careful. I can’t help you there.”
Actually, he could help a lot if he was willing to run a background check on Otis. And I’d bet my eyeteeth that he would, to pass on to Byron. He just wasn’t going to share that information with me. It was really exhausting, sometimes, how much time I lost because Carter insisted on following the rules.
“I am aware of my limitations,” I said.
“Could have fooled me. Anyway, I’m going to make a few calls and see if I can get some information on the case from my buddies in Florida. Maybe one of them has an inside line with the sheriff’s department there and Byron can get this handled through channels.”
“Great. In the meantime, we’ll spend the day playing the invisible tourists. Talk to you later.”
I hung up and filled Ida Belle and Gertie in on the lawyer.
Gertie frowned. “We can’t really find out anything about Otis if we have to stay away. We don’t know for sure that Benton was coming for me. What if he was there to see Otis’s room, or talk to the staff, or question some other suspect?”
“It’s certainly possible,” Ida Belle said, “but is it a risk we’re willing to take?”
I was about to answer when my phone started ringing. I checked the display and frowned.
“It’s local,” I said.
“Who would have your phone number here?” Gertie asked.
“The resort,” I said. “I had to give them a number when I made the reservation. I’ll let it go to voice mail.”
I watched the phone, waiting for the ringing to stop, then waited some more to see if whoever was calling left a message. I was about to decide that they hadn’t when the signal came through that a message was waiting. I accessed the message and hit Play.
“Ms. Redding, this is Fletcher Sampson, the manager at the Quiet Key Resort. I’m so sorry to bother you, but Deputy Benton is here and he’d like to talk to one of your party members, a Gertie Hebert. Of course, Quiet Key Resort frowns on any disruption to our guests’ stay, but Deputy Benton has left me no choice in the matter. When you receive this, can you please contact the sheriff’s department and make arrangements for Ms. Hebert to talk to the deputy? Thank you so much and again, I apologize profusely for this disruption to your vacation.”
I sat the phone down and relayed the message to Ida Belle and Gertie. “Sampson sounds mad enough to spit,” I said.
“Probably afraid we’ll blast them on TripAdvisor,” Gertie said.
Ida Belle nodded. “Or ask for a bigger discount. So what now?”
“Nothing,” I said. “I never got the message. I left my phone in the car while we were off doing whatever the entire day and didn’t see it until this evening.”
“Works for me,” Ida Belle said. “So what are we going to do the rest of the day?”
Before I could answer, the bell above the door jangled and two local cops walked in.
Chapter Five
Gertie slumped in her chair and reached for the napkin. Before she could do something suspicious, like drape it over her head, I put my hand on her arm.
“They’re not with the sheriff’s department,” I said. “Just act normal.”
“What if they put out an all-points bulletin for my capture?” Gertie asked.
“Oh, good God,” Ida Belle said. “You’re not the Unabom
ber. Sit up straight before your spine fuses in that position.”
Gertie dragged herself upright. “Maybe we should leave.”
She’d barely finished her comment when our waitress appeared with breakfast. As she shuttled food in front of us, I watched out of the corner of my eye as the cops took a seat at a nearby table. The last thing we wanted to do was draw attention to ourselves, and running out the door without taking a bite would rank high on the attention scale.
“This looks great,” I said to the waitress and smiled.
“Can I get you anything else?” she asked.
We all shook our heads and she strolled over to the cops’ table.
“Just eat,” I said, my voice low. “And act normal. Talk about vacation stuff.”
“I saw some young people surfing yesterday,” Ida Belle said. “Not much waves compared to other places but they looked like they were having fun.”
“I tried surfing in Hawaii once,” I said.
Ida Belle and Gertie both stared, clearly unsure whether I was offering up real information or just contributing to the vacation conversation.
“Really,” I said. “I met a surf instructor on the beach and he offered to give me free lessons.”
Gertie giggled. “I bet he did. What was the after-lesson cooldown like?”
“Well, mine was driving back to the hotel in my rental car,” I said. “I have no idea what his was.”
“Tease,” Gertie said. “So what was it like?”
“Hard,” I said. “I have really good balance and I’ve snow-skied a good bit, but this was different. And scary. The waves there are huge.”
I had been sneaking sideways glances at the cops. When they’d finished ordering, they’d been silent for a bit, and both of them had looked our way. I was certain they could hear what we were saying, but apparently it wasn’t interesting, so they’d started their own conversation. I gave Gertie and Ida Belle a thumbs-up where the cops couldn’t see it and they both nodded. I continued to regale them with tales of my big surfing day in Hawaii while we ate, and Gertie and Ida Belle told stories about learning to water ski. In between nodding, I listened to the cops.