by Jana DeLeon
“That’s unfortunately true,” I said. “Opportunity is a wide-open field at the moment. If Otis was scamming employees, then they would have had opportunity to do something any time if they had room access.”
“Security footage would narrow things down, but if we had two weeks’ worth to go through, how many people would that be? With different housekeeping staff, maintenance, security, management, room service…and who knows who else, any number of people could have been in his room in the course of the two weeks he was here.”
“Yeah. I think working on the list of those with motive is going to be the most productive route for now. If this long shot at the sheriff’s department works, then maybe we can narrow things down more by the type of poison used.”
“I hope so, because it’s looking like Otis might have offended a long list of people,” Ida Belle said.
“What about you?” I asked Gertie. “Did you glean any nuggets of wisdom before you had to start sprinting?”
“Just one small thing,” Gertie said. “One of the women said when she went to the front desk a couple days ago to pick up a package, she heard our friend Fletcher complaining to someone in the office behind the desk. She couldn’t make out everything but got the impression that he was trying to figure out a way to boot Otis from the resort. She gathered he was hoping Otis had an outstanding bill he could call him on, but apparently, Otis prepaid a week at a time and never charged anything to his room. He was already paid through this weekend.”
“I can see why Fletcher wouldn’t want a predator wandering among his guests,” Ida Belle said. “It could be a big problem for the resort. These days, all it takes is one social media post to go viral and everything can go straight into the toilet. And it seems like the owner keeps his thumb on everything. Probably best for Fletcher to get rid of potential problems before they can even arise.”
“Assuming Fletcher was onto Otis’s game, I’m sure he didn’t like it,” I said. “But there’s a bit of a chasm between trying to boot him out of the resort and killing him.”
“Yes,” Ida Belle agreed. “But people aren’t always rational. Especially when it comes to money. I imagine he makes a decent living for a resort town, this being the most expensive resort on the island. If he lost his job here, his prospects probably don’t compare, assuming he could get another management job at all. And his boat privileges are definitely a perk that doesn’t come along often.”
I made some notes. “I agree he had plenty to lose, but surely he could have trumped up some reason to get Otis out of the resort if he thought things were getting too hot. One of the guys at the bar mentioned something about the resorts blacklisting scammers, so they must have ways of handling the situation. It might have taken a bit longer than Fletcher would have wanted, but I’m sure he had ways of getting Otis out off the premises aside from in a body bag.”
“Good point,” Ida Belle said. “And poison is traditionally a woman’s game.”
“Okay,” I said. “Anyone else for the list?”
Gertie shook her head. “Flamingo Lady was the only one of the vacationers I found that Otis had on the hook.”
“The only one who admitted it,” Ida Belle said.
I nodded. “The women he scammed wouldn’t have spoken out before because of embarrassment. Now that it’s a murder investigation, they definitely aren’t going to be offering themselves up. Gossip and rumor will be the only way to ferret them out.”
“Unless we could get a look at those check copies,” Gertie said. “Maybe they’ll be in the case file as well.”
“Maybe, but we can’t depend on,” I said. “We can’t even depend on seeing the case file. It’s a long shot, at best. And while I’m willing to give a long shot a whirl, I still think our best bet is working people based on the information we got tonight.”
Ida Belle nodded. “I agree. I think Gertie should start tomorrow morning with housekeeping. They usually start on this floor early. I imagine she can coax some information out of one of them at least, even if it takes a little cash to do it, but it’s probably better if she hits them up alone. Too many people and they won’t be as willing to talk. Plus, I think the fewer people who see us together, the better off we’ll be getting information down the line.”
I nodded. “The Otis and Gertie connection is going to come out sooner rather than later, especially with Benton pushing everyone around. If the rest of the staff connects the three of us, then none of us will be able to get information out of them. Fortunately, housekeeping wouldn’t have been around to see the Great Flamingo Chase, so Gertie is probably in the clear talking to them for now.”
Ida Belle nodded. “We should probably try to stay separated when we’re out and about in the resort, at least until we’ve gotten all we can out of the staff. We don’t have much time until everyone links us, though, so we should get everything we can tomorrow.”
“What about the front office person that Fortune got a line on?” Gertie asked.
“I think it’s better if I work that angle,” Ida Belle said. “If the woman bought into Otis’s bull, then she might feel the same way about you as Flamingo Lady does. Housekeeping is different as none of them were the victims, at least that we know of.”
“What about me?” I asked.
Chapter Thirteen
Ida Belle hesitated before answering and I stiffened, already worried about what might come.
“I know it’s a convoluted avenue, but I think you should talk to the security guys,” Ida Belle said. “See if you can get some information out of them about the camera footage or key cards used to enter Otis’s room.”
I sighed. “You want me to flirt with security so I can pump them for information.”
“You’re sorta the only one qualified for the job,” Ida Belle said.
“Hello,” Gertie said. “I could flirt with security.”
“I want them to flap their gums,” Ida Belle said. “Not take a sick day.”
“Fine,” Gertie said. “Security at resorts like this are a bunch of techies anyway. Geeks aren’t my thing.”
I stared at Gertie in dismay, then looked over at Ida Belle. “Geeks? I scare geeks. Every time I had to go down to the IT department at the CIA, it was like I’d brought a funeral procession with me. All the guys froze and no one would look me in the eye. Apparently my sneakers were far more interesting. Speaking was at an all-time premium and usually only happened if their boss yelled at them to answer a direct question.”
Ida Belle patted my arm. “Your looks will put most geeks off-kilter but the geeks at the CIA also knew what you did for a living.”
“Ah! So you’re saying I shouldn’t tell security that I’m retired CIA,” I said. “Got it. Guess I’ll just play the random vacationer like I did in the bar. It seemed to work for the old guys. Do the young ones go for that whole white-knight thing?”
“If they have a pulse, they’ll go for it,” Gertie said.
“It will help if you compliment them on how smart they are,” Ida Belle said. “Geeks value their intelligence higher than anything else.”
“Because they don’t have the muscle strength to open a jar of pickles,” Gertie said. “Give me a set of muscles any day.”
“Otis didn’t have muscles,” I pointed out.
“No guys our age have muscles,” Ida Belle said. “Lifting the TV remote doesn’t exactly keep the biceps bulging. Remember to make up a fake name when you talk to them.”
I nodded. I was sure they could locate me easily enough if they wanted, but there was no point spelling it out for them.
Gertie clapped her hands. “Oooohhh, I have a name! Candy.”
I shook my head. “No stripper names.”
“Sapphire is a stripper name,” Gertie said. “Candy is a high school cheerleader name.”
“I don’t even think I can say ‘Hi, I’m Candy’ without shooting myself,” I said.
“You managed ‘Hi, I’m Sandy-Sue,’” Ida Belle said.
&n
bsp; “Yeah, but my life was on the line, and I was getting paid.”
“Candy is perfect,” Gertie said. “Makes them think of young, hot cheerleaders who wear strawberry-flavored lip gloss. They taste sweet.”
“Gross,” I said. “I don’t care if you have to go to jail. No one is tasting me.”
“There will be no tasting during this investigation,” Ida Belle said. “Not of or by suspects, anyway. But I still want to hit that frozen drink tasting party Friday night.”
“I think we’re going to need it,” I said.
“So, do we have our assignments for tomorrow?” Ida Belle asked.
Gertie and I nodded, then Gertie rose from her chair. “I’m going to head to bed,” she said. “Running from that crazy woman wore me out.”
She shuffled back into the condo, closing the sliding glass door behind her. I looked over at Ida Belle, who was staring out at the ocean, frowning.
“You worried?” I asked.
“About Gertie? Not really. It might be more of a hassle than we’d like it to be and definitely money that no one wanted to spend, but Gertie has a way of always coming out on top.”
“Or without a top.”
“Ha! Yeah, well, clothes and Gertie don’t always agree on how long they should grace her body.”
“Clothes don’t always agree that they should grace her body.”
She laughed but I could tell her mind was somewhere else. If Gertie wasn’t her concern, what was? Ida Belle was never a chatterbox, but her silence felt ominous. I was new to this close friendship thing so I wasn’t sure what my role was here. Did I sit in silence with her or did I press her to see if there was something on her mind she wanted to share? Finally, nosiness won out.
“Anything else bothering you?” I asked.
She looked over at me. “Is it that obvious?”
“You were a different kind of quiet. My mom did it sometimes when my dad was away. I realized later on that he’d probably missed a check-in and she was wondering if it was ever going to come.”
Ida Belle nodded, her expression sympathetic. “But she didn’t want you to think something was wrong.”
“No. But I still knew. I just didn’t understand the severity of the possibilities. You’re okay, right? I mean, physically?”
“Oh yes. It’s nothing like that. Nothing at all, really. Just the musings of an old lady.”
I started to reply but decided to wait. If Ida Belle had something she wanted me to know, she’d offer it up to fill the silence. If not, then I’d head on to bed myself and leave her to her thoughts.
“Do you ever think about the road you didn’t travel?” Ida Belle asked.
“Are you kidding? All the time. Hell, since I arrived in Sinful, I’ve called into question every choice I’ve ever made. Not to mention everything I thought I knew about myself and everyone else.”
She gave me a small smile. “You’ve definitely had a lot to process. But you’re doing a fine job of it.”
“If I am, it’s because I’ve had some fine support.”
“You’re worth it. You’re a good woman, Fortune. A good friend.”
My chest tightened just a bit. I had finally gotten used to the idea that these two women were the family I’d always needed, but sometimes it still made me clench with gratitude. When I’d been forced to hide out in Sinful, I’d thought it was the end of the world. And in a way it was. The end of the world I used to know. A world that was full of professional accomplishment but little personal joy.
I was hell-bent on tipping the scales in the other direction in my second life stage.
“You thinking about the Walter road?” I asked, taking a stab at what I thought she might be dwelling on.
She gave me a single nod. “You think it’s silly, right? I mean, I made my choice long ago. You know my reasons, and they’re sound.”
I hesitated before replying. I knew Ida Belle felt that even though he had carried a torch for her his entire life, Walter would have been miserable being in a relationship with her. I understood her logic. Walter was the kind of man who loved with all his heart and wanted to protect the people he cared about. Ida Belle was the kind of woman who did what she pleased, even if it meant putting herself at risk. She thought Walter would have grown resentful that she put her desires ahead of his feelings. I knew her reasons, and they sounded good on paper. But I still wondered.
Apparently, so did she.
“Your reasons are sound,” I said. “I was so young when my mother died that I didn’t see things then like I do looking back. I think being married to my father was hard on her. Not just because he was a hard man but because there was so much uncertainty.”
“The uncertainty is definitely the culprit.”
I nodded. “Even Carter had a problem with me because of it—probably still does but he’s smart enough not to say it. And he’s the last person who should be worrying about someone taking risks.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. Carter knows better than most exactly what those risks are. He’s been on that line between life and death. Most haven’t. They can only imagine what it’s like, but I guarantee you their imagination comes up way short.”
Having straddled that line more than a few times, I agreed with her.
“But still…” I said.
“Yes. Still…”
“It’s not too late, you know,” I said. “If you wanted to retrace your steps…take a walk down that road now.”
“I’m still the same woman now that I was back then. That hasn’t changed.”
“You’re not jumping out of planes into a war zone. You’re not a US military spy pretending to be an average enlisted.”
Ida Belle smiled. “I don’t know. I jumped out of a plane last month. Gertie ensured it was a war zone before I landed.”
I laughed. Gertie’s insistence that we go skydiving with her had ended with a landing that had spawned a call for the police, the paramedics, two attorneys, and a priest.
“So you’re saying as long as Gertie’s alive, you’re still at risk,” I said. “I don’t suppose being friends with me is doing much to improve your odds.”
“Are you kidding? Being friends with you has probably already saved my life a time or two. It wasn’t like Gertie and I were sitting around knitting before you showed up. We were still smack in the middle of everything we could be smack in the middle of. Stuff just wasn’t as critical as the things that’ve cropped up since you arrived.”
“Which is exactly why some of the citizens of Sinful think I brought it with me.”
“They’re wrong. Sinful is a pot of slow-boiling water, but once that first bubble surfaced, the rest followed. Things don’t stay hidden forever, but you didn’t set that pot to boil. You just happened to appear when it was showtime.”
“Lucky me.”
“Lucky Sinful. Some very bad people might have gotten away if you hadn’t been involved.”
“Hmm. Maybe.” I took in a deep breath of the salt air, listening to the crash of the waves on the beach. “So…back to Walter. You don’t think after all this time, he’s learned anything?”
“I don’t know that you can learn enough to change your nature.”
“Seems like Carter did in order to be with me.”
“I think the hardest thing for Carter was to learn to live in the moment. His training and natural inclination are to assess risk and mitigate it, not to sit back while people he cares about rush headlong into danger. If you spend too much time thinking about what might happen, you lose the joy of what’s happening right now.”
“And you don’t think Walter can do that? Learn to be in the moment and not count on the next day or the next?”
Ida Belle sighed. “Walter is an old-fashioned man. Mind you, he loves to see women get an education and have a profession and all. But at his roots, he still believes a man should protect and take care of his lady, even if she’s capable of taking care of herself. He’s an honorable man. And an honest one. The last t
hing I want to do is put him in the position of having to lie to himself in order to be in a relationship with me.”
“You think asking Walter to live in the moment is the same as asking him to lie to himself?”
“Yes.”
Maybe she was right. Maybe it was too late for Walter to change. I frowned.
What if Carter hadn’t really changed? What if he was still waiting for me to become a different person? One he didn’t have to stress over every day? Could he pretend so well that he’d fooled me into believing he’d come to terms with who I was? Had he fooled himself?
“You’re worried that maybe Carter hasn’t changed,” Ida Belle said quietly. “That one day he’ll simply walk out, claiming he can’t do it anymore.”
Her ability to home in on my thoughts was somewhat eerie. Also annoying.
“It might have crossed my mind,” I said.
She nodded. “I can see why it would. But I don’t think you have anything to worry about. Carter never was able to hide the way he felt. I’m not going to say he’s thrilled that he fell in love with a woman who won’t back down from a gunfight. But I’ll also say that he would have never been happy with one who baked cookies and knitted. And don’t think he doesn’t know that. There’s no shortage of cookie-baking, knitting single women in Sinful—all of whom have had an unsuccessful run at Carter.”
I knew she was right. Carter had admitted as much to me. He wouldn’t have been able to settle down with the baking and knitting type any more than I could have been happy with an accountant. We were simply made different. We craved the excitement, the energy that came from the unknown. Ida Belle was made the same way. But Walter. Walter wasn’t like that at all.
“What about Gertie?” I asked. “You think she ever has any doubts?”
“That woman hasn’t had a second guess in her life. No matter how poor the choice might turn out to be, she just barrels right through it, making notes for the next time. Her optimism about life could empower entire nations of people.”
“If the contents of her purse didn’t blow them up first.”
“There is that.”