by Maria Geraci
“I’m for anything that keeps us from having to eat again. But how are we supposed to get access to the notebook? After the reception Gilly gave us this morning, I don’t see her handing it over. Maybe if we tell Travis—”
“Absolutely not. Travis isn’t going to be happy that we’re investigating this on our own. Plus, he would definitely not approve of the method we’re going to use to get that notebook.”
“I’m almost afraid to ask, but what method is that?”
“We’re going to have to break into the beach house and find it.”
14
“Tell me again why we need to break in?” Will asks. I’ve parked my car far enough down the street from the beach house that hopefully we shouldn’t be noticed.
“We don’t have to break in,” I say. “We can always just walk up to the door and ask Gilly for the notebook. I’m sure she’ll be thrilled to just hand it over to us.”
“Point taken.”
“Gilly is leaving town tomorrow, so we’re on a deadline here. Besides, it’s not really breaking in.”
“How do you figure that?”
“It’s a rental, right? People come and go all the time. And it’s not like we’re going to steal anything. All we’re going to do is take a look at that notebook, which could help us solve a crime. If we don’t find some evidence ASAP, a murderer could be slipping right out from under our noses. In a way, we’re really helping the community.”
“It’s scary how your mind works.”
Paco barks like he agrees.
“Traitor,” I say to my dog, who looks at me like he finds our current situation amusing.
“I promise. If we find anything, we’re going to take it straight to the cops.” I reach over to the glove compartment to pull out some binoculars. I adjust them to get a good look at the front door to the house. Gilly’s car sits parked in the driveway.
“She could be here all day, Lucy.” Will slumps down into his seat and closes his eyes. “Wake me up when there’s some action.”
An hour later, the front door to the beach house opens and Gilly gets in her car. I punch Will in the shoulder. He sits straight up. “What?”
“There she goes,” I say triumphantly as we watch the car take off down the street, heading toward town.
“What if she comes right back?”
“Wherever she’s going, she’ll probably be gone at least thirty minutes. No worries. I won’t let her catch us.”
“You don’t know that, Lucy. Look, I have a better idea. Let’s call Travis and see if he can get a search warrant.”
“Are you kidding? Do you know how long that will take? Plus, to get a search warrant, we need to have some kind of proof.”
“Just tell him what you told me about this notebook.”
“I thought you didn’t trust Travis.”
“I don’t, but”—he blows out a breath—“I don’t want us to get in trouble. I’m a city employee. I could lose my job over this. Not to mention we could get arrested.”
It’s hard to argue with that kind of logic.
“Okay, so I’ll break in. You stay in the car doing lookout.”
“That’s not such a good idea, either.”
I’m trying to figure out a way to convince Will when a car pulls up in front of the beach house. Two women laden down with buckets and mops get out. One of them uses the keypad to unlock the front door, and the two of them go inside the house.
“Looks like the cleaning crew got here a day early,” he says.
“What a lucky break.” I turn to face Paco. “You stay here with Uncle Will. I’ll be right back.”
“Lucy—”
“It’s not breaking and entering if someone with permission to be in the house lets me in. Is it?”
Will opens his mouth to say something, but I’m already out the car door.
The cleaning women make a couple of trips to their car to bring in more supplies. I hang back and wait a good fifteen minutes before I ring the doorbell, hoping to catch them in the middle of a task when they’ll be less inclined to ask too many questions.
A middle-aged woman with bright red hair answers, pulling the door far back enough that I can see into the living room and down the hallway leading to the bedrooms. “Yeah?”
“Hi! Is Gilly here?”
“Sorry, I don’t know anyone named Gilly.”
“That’s weird. I could have sworn my friend told me she wasn’t leaving until tomorrow.”
Red turns and yells into the house. “Daisy! The place is empty, right?”
The other woman pokes her head out a bedroom door. “Looks empty to me, but I’ve only been in the one bedroom. From the looks of it, a cyclone hit this place. We’re gonna be here all day and night.”
“Great, just what I need,” Red grumbles. “This person here says that her friend isn’t leaving till tomorrow.”
“Can you check with the rental company, please?” I ask in my sweetest voice. “I was here the other night, and I left my purse. Gilly—that’s my friend, Gilly Franklin, you can check for her name on the contract—told me I could come by today and look for it.”
Red looks uncertain.
“Do you mind if I come inside while you call?” I ask.
She studies me a minute. I must seem harmless because she shrugs and says, “Sure, why not?” She pulls out her cell phone and makes the call. After a couple of minutes of conversation, she puts her phone away. “Daisy!” she calls out. “Cal got it wrong again. This place isn’t on the terminal clean list till tomorrow afternoon.” She begins putting away her equipment in disgust. “How hard is it to check these things?” she mutters.
“It’s frustrating when people don’t do their job right,” I say.
“Tell me about it.” She looks up at me. “You say you left your purse here?”
“Yeah, and now I’m driving around town without my license.”
“You could get in big trouble for that.”
“Don’t I know it. Would it be okay if I take a quick look for my purse? Please?”
“Whatever, but make it quick. We need to get going.”
“Thanks! You’re a lifesaver.”
I go room to room, starting with the den, hoping that I’ll find Gilly’s notebook, but there’s nothing there. Two of the bedrooms have unmade beds and look like something out of Animal House. No way is the production company getting its full deposit back. If this is what they leave the beach house looking like, I’d hate to see what those two guys did at the pool bar. No wonder they needed to make restitution.
I check out the other two bedrooms. One is neat but definitely empty. This must have been Tara’s room. The last room down the hallway has to belong to Gilly. I do a fast sweep of the dresser and the nightstands, but all I find is clothes and regular travel stuff. There’s a tote on the floor next to an armchair. I recognize it immediately. It’s the same tote Gilly always had with her while working.
I rifle through it and bingo! A three-ring binder with the title BATTLE OF THE BEACH EATS practically leaps into my hands.
“Did you find it?” yells Red.
“Still looking!” I call back, stalling for time.
I lift the binder out of the bag, but it’s so heavy I almost drop it. Good grief, Gilly sure took a lot of notes. The binder is neatly divided by categories. I find a tab titled NOTES FOR SHOW and quickly skim through it. This is exactly what I’m looking for, but there’s no way I can read all this in a under a couple of minutes.
I told Will I wasn’t going to steal anything, but steal is such a disagreeable word. Borrow is much better. Yes, I’ll borrow Gilly’s notebook and find a way to return it before she even knows it’s missing, only I can’t very well walk out of here with this monster binder in plain sight.
I stuff the notebook under my T-shirt, but it’s so heavy, the only way to keep it from falling out while I’m walking is to hold on to it. Plus, my stomach looks completely misshapen, like I’m pregnant with an alien baby. The cleaning ladies are
going to notice for sure.
There’s only one other way I can think of to get what I need out of here. I click open the binder and take out all the pages that look promising. Then before I chicken out, I crumble up the pages and stuff them into my bra.
Ouch.
Who knew paper could be so scratchy?
I glance at my reflection in the dresser mirror. I look like a thirteen year-old-girl going to her first school dance. I readjust the stuffing in my bra, trying to flatten it down as much as possible.
“We gotta go, so you’ll have to come back later when your friend is here.” The cleaning woman’s voice sounds close, like she’s about to enter the bedroom.
I readjust my bra again, hoping I don’t look too ridiculous, when I notice Gilly’s laptop lying open on the bed. I shouldn’t snoop, but then I shouldn’t have lied my way into the house or stolen—I mean, borrowed—the pages from her notebook either, so I’m not going to quibble with my own ethics at this point.
I touch the screen, and it opens up to Gilly’s email. There’s a series of correspondence between her and someone back at the network. I mentally scold Gilly for not properly closing down her computer, but it’s a good thing she didn’t because it gives me a chance to scope out what’s going on with the show. If I’m going to lie my way into a house, I might as well get my money’s worth.
I scroll down to the latest email and … Holy wow. Gilly’s officially been given Tara’s job! The email was just sent in the past hour, so she probably just had time to get the good news before leaving the house. Talk about a motive for getting rid of someone.
I turn to leave at the same time that Red walks into the room. “We have to lock up. Did you find your purse?”
“No, but I’ll, um, come back later when my friend is here.”
She looks at me funny. For an instant I think I’m busted, but she doesn’t say anything. Instead, she follows me down the hallway and out the door, then locks up the house.
Since I don’t want to call attention to the fact that my car is parked down the street, I lollygag around the front of the house and wait for them to leave. “Thanks again for letting me look!” I call out as their car drives off.
I get back inside my own car just in the nick of time because out of nowhere, Gilly’s car pulls into the driveway. “That was close,” says Will.
“She was probably at the Piggly Wiggly buying some celebratory champagne.”
“Why would she—” Will stares at my chest. “Lucy … did you stuff your bra?”
I can’t help but giggle. “Yep.” I gingerly pull all the crumpled paper out and hand it over to Will. “I found the notebook, but I couldn’t walk out the door in front of the cleaning ladies with it, so I tore out all the sheets that might help us.”
“So we’re taking this straight to the cops, right?”
“Well—”
“Lucy, you promised.”
“Yeah, but we don’t know what’s in these papers yet. It could be nothing or it could be everything. We need to check it out first.”
Will starts to iron out the wrinkled sheets of paper with the palm of his hand.
“Not here. We’ll take all this back to my place and go through it later. I have a good feeling that somewhere in those papers we’re going to find a clue to who killed Tara. But first,” I say gleefully as I start up the engine, “it’s time to hit my first pool joint.”
15
By the time we get to Panama City, it’s after five, and the parking lot for The Draft House is already full. I circle around the building hoping to catch a spot. “Popular place, huh?” I say to Will.
“Just drop me off in front,” he says. “It’ll only take a minute to hand off this envelope.”
“But I want to go inside.” I know I sound whiny, but I really want to see the inside of a pool bar. Especially one that Will considers sketchy.
In my college days, I went to a few off-campus joints, but those were always full of rowdy frat boys who got on my nerves. And in culinary school, I was so busy studying and working, I barely had time to breathe. Now that I own a café, my life consists of work, baking, Sunday morning Mass, family dinners and Friday night TV with Will. With the exception of the recent murders I’ve solved, it’s not the most exciting life for a twenty-six-year-old. A seedy pool bar sounds deliciously interesting.
“I thought you wanted to get back home and read through Gilly’s notes,” says Will.
“I do, but I just want to take a peek inside.” I drive around the parking lot one more time, but now there are more cars trying to find a spot, so I begrudgingly pull around and let him out.
“I’ll be right back.” He puts the envelope in the back pocket of his jeans.
A middle-aged couple who look as if they’ve just gotten off work follow Will inside the building. From the outside, the place looks like every other building on the block.
A car horn gets my attention, urging me to move along and stop blocking the entrance.
“Sorry!” I wave to them in the rearview mirror and begin circling the building, waiting for Will to come out. I thought he said it would only take a minute to deliver the envelope. What’s taking him so long?
Paco begins to whine. I turn around in my seat. “What is it, boy?”
He gives me his I-have-to-pee-now look.
I turn my car into a side alley where a large NO PARKING sign makes me think twice. But this is a Paco emergency. Besides, Will should be coming out any second, so I’ll only be here a couple of minutes at the most.
I clip on Paco’s leash and take him to a grassy area in front of the building, where he does his doggie duty. A man wearing a suit walks past me. He smiles at Paco and me, then waves to a woman walking toward him. They exchange pleasantries and go inside the bar.
Huh.
I linger near the entrance. Paco looks at the door, then at me, then back at the door again like he’s daring me to do it. Since I’ve never been one to back down from a challenge, I open the door and walk inside.
The Draft House is one big open space with a dining area in front. Rows of pool tables line the back of the room, and a jumbo-size TV hangs above the wall-to-wall bar. The clientele, ranging in age from early twenties all the way up to retirees, are involved in a range of activities, from sipping on their drinks, eating and playing pool to watching what’s on the screen.
In other words, it’s a typical Florida beach bar.
The way Will described it, I was expecting some rat-infested shanty full of bikers sporting swastika tattoos with knives between their teeth.
A server holding a tray of dirty glasses asks me if I need a table. She looks down at Paco and frowns. “Is that a service dog?”
“No, but he’s really well trained,” I say hopefully.
Paco wags his tail and looks up at her with those big brown eyes of his, causing her to do a complete one-eighty. “Isn’t he the cutest!” I swear, it’s like he’s hypnotized her or something. “He’s probably okay. But if Dave asks you to take him out, then he’ll have to go.”
“Dave?”
She points to the bar. “That’s the owner over there.”
I follow her line of vision to see Will talking to a middle-aged bald guy standing behind the bar.
“That’s my friend Will. I was just coming inside to get him. We won’t be long.”
“You’re a friend of Will’s?” She gives me a long look. “Are you his girlfriend?”
“No, we’re just—wait, you know Will?”
“Sure. He’s a regular. When he first started coming here, he could barely hold a stick without smacking someone in the head. Now he can run a rack better than most guys who’ve played all their lives.”
Run a rack?
“I’m sorry, are we talking about the same person? The dark-haired guy with the glasses standing at the bar?”
“Yeah, he’s been coming here every Wednesday night for the past … oh, I don’t know, six months or so.” Her face screws up. “U
h-oh, you’re not his wife, are you? Did I just get Will in big trouble?”
“No trouble. Um, thanks … ”
“Colleen,” she supplies.
Will still hasn’t noticed me, he’s so engrossed in his conversation with this Dave guy. I take the opportunity to ask a few more questions. “Will’s pretty good at pool, huh?”
“He won a tournament last month. Real nice guy, too. Great tipper.”
This is all so bizarre, I don’t know what to make of it.
“So the two of you don’t need a table?” she asks.
“No,” I say, still in a bit of a daze. “We just came by to bring Dave an envelope from a couple of guys who apparently did some damage the other night.”
Her mouth puckers in distaste. “Alan and Pete.”
“You were here when it happened?”
“Unfortunately. They friends of yours?”
“Not exactly. They were camera guys working on a TV cooking show that I was involved with.”
“Battle of the Beach Eats. Yeah, Alan bragged on that hard. What a creep. He not only got drunk and broke a mirror, but he couldn’t keep his hands to himself either, if you know what I mean.”
“Yuck.”
“Tell me about it. He kept hitting on me even though I told him to cut it out. After he and the other guy, Pete, broke the mirror, Dave called them a cab and told them never to come back again. And good riddance. The Florida State football game was just starting on the big screen, and the customers couldn’t hear it because they were making too much of a racket.”
Will spots me talking to Colleen. From the look on his face, he doesn’t seem happy. He immediately makes his way to us. “I thought you were going to stay in the car,” he says. He shoots Colleen a nervous glance. “Hey, Colleen.”
“Good to see you on a Tuesday, Will.”
“Uh, yeah.” He takes me by the elbow. “See you later,” he calls to her.
Before I can say boo, he has me out the door.
“How come I didn’t know you were some kind of pool shark?”
“Is that what Colleen told you?”