The Dark and Deadly Pool (12 page)

But the door to the hotel opened, and Lamar came into the room. “Caught it on camera,” he said. With his sharply creased authority he stood near the edge of the pool, pointed toward the dressing rooms, and snapped out something in a language that the people in the Jacuzzi understood.

One of the women stood up and said something to him. Lamar nodded as though she’d been speaking in English.

“Towels!” Mrs. Bandini gasped. “Quick! Mary Elizabeth, get these people towels!”

The Jacuzzi people had brought the stack of towels I’d given them. I began handing them out as they stepped up, one by one, out of the Jacuzzi. In a few minutes they had disappeared into the dressing rooms. Mrs. Bandini rushed over to repeat the entire scene to Mrs. Larabee, who hadn’t missed a thing.

I turned to Lamar. “I’m impressed! You were able to talk to them!”

Lamar’s chin tilted modestly. “All I can say in their language is, ‘In this country we have laws against public nudity. You must wear bathing suits in the pool and Jacuzzi.’ ”

“That’s all you can say?”

“This happens every once in a while, so it seemed a good thing to learn.”

“But you seemed to understand what that woman said to you.”

“Yeah. Someone always says the same thing. I memorized it and got it translated. She said, ‘In your country you have some strange laws.’ ”

“Mr. Boudry,” I said, “has Tina talked to you about Mr. Smith?”

“Which Mr. Smith? The hotel always has a lot of Mr. Smiths.”

Obviously she hadn’t yet. “Mr. Samuel Smith. She said you had written something like
watch him
on his photo-ID card.”

“Ah-ha,” Lamar said. His eyes became slits, and his mouth pulled into a thin line. “I did. He checked out at noon today.”

“Because you watched him?”

He brushed a tiny piece of lint from the front of his suit jacket. “Quite possibly.”

“He suspected you knew something about him. Right?”

“I did.”

“Look, Mr. Boudry,” I said. “This is driving me crazy. What did he suspect that you knew?”

“That the man is syndicate,” he said. “Out of Miami.”

“How did you know that?”

“1 keep in touch,” Lamar said. “Besides my network of information, Mr. Smith’s picture was in last month’s issue of
Crime Facts.
”

“By any chance did Mr. Smith report that his wallet was stolen?”

Lamar’s clipped laugh sounded more like a bark. “No. I’m sure that Mr. Smith’s wallet was as safe as if it had been in a bank box. No pickpocket would be stupid enough to risk what would happen to him if he stole the wallet of someone high up in a crime syndicate.”

I suddenly remembered something and nearly jumped in the air. “Mr. Boudry! Yesterday there were two men in the health club asking about Mr. Jones. When I was downtown at the police station I recognized a picture of one of them. The sergeant told me he was suspected of a tie-in with the Miami syndicate.”

Immediately Lamar snapped into a businesslike efficiency, and began to question me. I was glad I had reported the men to Tina. That part seemed to satisfy Lamar.

“If you want a really good description,” I said, “ask Mrs. Bandini and Mrs. Larabee.” I steered Lamar over to the two women, who puffed up like a pair of pigeons and tried to outtalk each other as Lamar took notes.

The list would soon come in with cards to file and
cards to toss. For some reason I didn’t really understand, I took Mr. Samuel Smith’s card from the file. Instead of tossing it, because he’d checked out of the hotel, I stuck it under some papers in the back of the bottom drawer of the desk and locked the drawer again.

Groups of people had begun to come to the health club. I checked out the faces in the pool and hurried through the exercise room and women’s dressing room, making sure everything was all right. The women and children from the Jacuzzi families had settled into the women’s sauna room, still without a stitch of clothing. They laughed and waved at me. I just waved right back and shut the door. At the moment they were the least of my problems.

The evening was busier than the one before. I wished that Art Mart had stuck around. I could have used the help. It wasn’t until ten-thirty that the crowd began thinning out.

Once more I walked through the tables on the landing above the inner pool, close to the door to the hotel. I filled a tray with paper cups and napkins, and cola cans, and other rubbish. As I straightened I happened to glance toward the door. A man dressed in a dark business suit was turning away, going back to the hotel. Was he one of the men who had questioned me about Mr. Jones? Two tall, broad baldies in sweatsuits filled the gap in the doorway, and I couldn’t see.

I wasn’t sure, but I called Lamar anyway.

“I’ll check on it,” he snapped. The line went dead, and I knew he was halfway down the stairs already. There was nothing to worry about.

It took a few minutes to convince everyone that the health club really did close at eleven
P.M.
, just as the sign
on the door said. When the last guests had finally gone it was eleven-ten.

There was still a lot of pickup to do. I managed to collect the towels, which had been draped on chairs, tables, and the tiles near the pool, and dumped them into the overflowing wet towel bin in the women’s dressing room. I checked out the sauna, half expecting to see the Jacuzzi people still visiting in there; but the room, of course, was empty. One by one I tidied the shower stalls and the area around the big mirror. I found four more pairs of sunglasses, two cans of hair spray, and a tiny bathing-suit bottom that seemed to match the top I’d found the day before. Finally, I was satisfied by the condition of the women’s dressing room, so I went to the door of the men’s dressing room and called, “Anybody still here? I’m coming in.”

I was pretty sure that no one would be there at this hour. I took a step inside, then stopped. Had I just heard something? I couldn’t be sure. For a few seconds I listened intently, not breathing. What was it?

Nothing but my imagination. With a
whoosh
I drew in a deep breath of air and entered the men’s dressing room.

I would swear in any court of law that men are a hundred times messier than women at their worst. It took me at least ten minutes just to tidy the room and men’s sauna. While I worked I kept muttering, “Who are your maids at the office?” and “Who are your maids at home?” Unfortunately, it wasn’t hard to guess the answers. There wasn’t anything I could do about it, and right now the maid was
me.
I worked hard and got things ready so that the very-early-morning cleaning crew could step in and make everything shine.

I walked through the exercise room back to the office, grabbed the door frame, and gave a little yelp. Someone
had turned off the outside and indoor pool lights. Beyond the office was a well of darkness.

“Who’s there?” I whispered. I cleared my throat and tried again. My hands were clammy, and my knees were having trouble holding me up. “Is anybody out there?”

No one answered. There was only silence.

I edged toward the desk, reached down, and dialed the number of the security office. It rang and rang. Finally a voice answered. I didn’t recognize it.

“Is Lamar Boudry there?” I asked.

“Nope,” he said. “Who is this?”

“Mary Elizabeth Rafferty in the health club. Is Tina there?”

“Nope,” he repeated. “What’s your problem?”

“The lights are off in the pool area.”

“Don’t call us. Call maintenance.”

“I mean someone turned them off.”

“Aren’t you supposed to close up anyway by this time?”

I tried not to yell at him. “Where is Lamar?”

“Bar,” he said. “Couple of drunks got into a fight.”

“Where’s Tina?”

“Making rounds. Look, things are extra busy tonight. You got any real problems, call back, but otherwise, don’t keep the line busy. Okay?”

“Okay,” I mumbled, and hung up.

I stared out the office-window wall into the pool area, but with the light on in the office it was like staring into a black cave. If anyone was out there, I couldn’t see him.

So I did what I should have done in the first place, and would have if I hadn’t been so scared.

I flipped up every switch on the plate, so that inside and outside the health club was brightly lit.

Carefully I poked my head through the open office
doorway and looked in every direction. Outside the glass wall the trees and shrubbery around the pool shuddered and trembled in a light breeze. A tiny scrap of paper I’d missed skittered across the cement and disappeared under the bushes. But inside the club nothing moved. The plants and trees with their outstretched branches looked like a group of frozen giant-children caught playing statue.

I took a few cautious steps from the office and paused, glancing down into the swimming pool. There, staining the brilliant blue water like a dark spreading ink spot, floated a body.

Even though the body was facedown, I knew who it was. Mr. Kamara.

As though my mind were a shark with an open mouth, I gulped in everything at once. Mr. Kamara was dressed in swimming trunks. His robe was neatly draped over the back of a chair near the pool, and his thongs were side by side under the chair, tucked there according to Mr. Kamara’s usual tidy habit.

But Mr. Kamara was floating near the surface of the pool, and somebody had to pull him out. At first I had assumed he was dead. How did I know? Maybe he wasn’t, and I could save him.

I pulled off my shoes and jumped into the water, so frightened I flailed and thrashed like a novice swimmer. His arms were out, fingers spread and elbows bent. His legs hung lower in the water, so that he looked almost ready to stand—if he could. I swam up behind him, and it took every bit of courage I had to reach out and touch him.

His chin was cold, and I knew as I cupped it in my left hand, pulling it up and out of the water, that I was too late. But I towed him to the shallow water and managed to drag him onto the steps. He lay on his back with water
dribbling from one corner of his mouth. His eyes were dark blanks that stared into mine.

Stumbling, crying, I ran to the telephone and screamed at the guard, who answered, “Weren’t you watching? Can’t you see? He’s dead!”

I don’t remember what else I yelled, and I have no idea what the man said. But almost by the time I had slammed down the receiver, the door to the hotel flew open and Lamar ran through.

Without a word to me he dashed straight to Mr, Kamara’s body and carefully examined it, kneeling on the steps in the water. He shook his head, stood, and looked at me.

“Get a towel for yourself,” he said. “And get a handful of Kleenex. Blow your nose.”

His voice was so authoritative that I immediately stopped crying and did what he said.

“Now, come here,” Lamar called.

I slowly left the office, then stopped. I couldn’t go back to the body.

“How did he drown?” Lamar asked.

“I don’t know. I didn’t even know he was in the pool.”

“Do you know how long he was in the water?”

“No!”

“Can you guess?”

I thought hard. “About ten minutes ago I heard a small noise.”

“What kind of a noise? Describe it.”

“I can’t. It was just a … noise.”

“A splash? Like someone diving?”

“No. I would have recognized a splashing noise.”

“Did the noise come from the pool area?”

“I don’t even know that, Mr. Boudry. I couldn’t place
the sound I’d heard. I was just going into the men’s dressing room to put it in order. I waited and listened, but I didn’t hear anything else, so I thought it was my imagination.”

“How did you get wet?”

“I didn’t know Mr. Kamara was dead. I jumped in to try to save him.”

“So you didn’t find him on the steps like this?”

“No. He was floating in the water.” I gave a huge shudder all the way down to my toes, and clutched the towel tightly around me. I took a step sideways and reached out for one of the poolside chairs.

“Don’t touch that!” Lamar’s words were like a slap.

“But I want to sit down.”

“Not there. We want to preserve the scene.”

“What are you talking about?” I yelped.

He ignored my question, saying, “Tell me exactly what happened tonight, as far as you know.”

I told him quickly, briefly, trying to remember every detail that might be important, as I trembled with the cold and with the fear of what had taken place.

Then, with the pool water still dripping from his trousers and squishing in his shoes, Lamar calmly walked to the office and picked up the telephone. As he waited for someone to answer he looked over his shoulder at me and said—a little more kindly now—“Do you have some dry clothes to change into?”

I nodded, and he snapped, “Then do it. Right now. The police will be here shortly.”

“Police?”

But his attention had switched from me to whoever was on the other end of the line.

I put on the dress I had worn to the police station,
towel-dried and brushed my hair, and went back to the pool area to find Lamar, Tina, and two other guards observing a pair of white-shirted paramedics who were bending over Mr. Kamara’s body. As I came into the room, everyone but the paramedics turned and stared at me.