Death in Paradise (24 page)

Mrs. Sato, with whom we were supposed to be much pleased, inclined her supremely stiff and upright body in a mockery of a bow and swept an arm toward the corridor behind her. "If you'll step into my office." I wondered, as I followed her erect back, whether the Japanese had a term equivalent to "steel magnolia."

Since we clearly did not share a mutual admiration, I was glad she didn't waste any time on chitchat, but got right to the heart of things. She held out her hands for the papers. "May I see?"

She studied them and nodded. Compared them to a file of her own. Nodded again. "May I take copies?" she asked.

I inclined my head in a vestigial bow of my own. The conversation reminded me of Antioch dating rules. May I hold your hand? May I kiss you? May I unbutton your shirt? "Do our records agree this time?"

At least she was honest. "Sadly, no," she said. "Despite our written confirmations, we seem to have consistently undercounted. I shall have to change the room, which is a problem because..." She didn't finish the sentence. "It is of no matter. Things will be rectified. All will be well."

"Except that nearly everything in our printed program is wrong. People are constantly being sent to the wrong room, through your error...."

"The hotel's error," she murmured. "I shall have all of the changes reprinted and delivered to your rooms, shall I?" She rose to her feet, signaling my dismissal.

I didn't rise. "The predinner cocktails? Is that room large enough? And you will check with food service as well? This isn't merely a matter of space, after all."

"You may confidently leave all of those details to me." Clearly she wasn't used to having her authority questioned, her dismissals not dismissive.

I stood. "Mrs. Sato, perhaps by your standards I am being overly cautious. On the other hand, by my standards, if I were to leave without your verbal assurances on each of these subjects, I would be overly careless. You run many conferences, I am sure. I am running only this one, but this particular one has had more than its share of disasters, both on your end and ours. I need to do everything I can to ensure that nothing more goes wrong. Nothing. I'm sure that we understand one another." I bowed most politely this time, giving her no choice but to reciprocate, and left, eager to go build my toy car.

I was rushing along the corridor, ticking over in my mind all of the things I might have forgotten, when someone called, "Thea, you going biking down the mountain today?" An acquaintance from Baltimore who had been standing beside me at the activity board when I was choosing my outing. "That's Sunday. Today I'm snorkeling," I said, "out at Molokini." I was looking for room numbers instead of where I was going and I ran full tilt into Jeff Pullman, who was folding up his phone.

"Thea," he said, steadying me. "I didn't know you were here. I thought your partner was coming." He shoved the phone in his pocket. His appearance shocked me. He was neatly dressed and freshly shaved, but he looked like he'd aged twenty years. There was even some gray in the thick, dark hair.

"Pneumonia," I said. "She's home in bed. I'm awfully sorry about Martina."

"Why?" he said bluntly. "She didn't like you. She didn't trust you. She knew you were out to get her."

It was a very un-Jeff-like remark but his were trying circumstances. I shrugged it off. "I long ago got over the need to be liked by everyone, Jeff. I admired Martina. She was doing very important work."

"Yes, she was. I don't know if any of you realize how important. Nor am I sure that you can carry on Martina's level of achievement without her. She was a brilliant spokeswoman."

He's bitter and grieving,
I reminded myself.
Don't take this personally.
I lowered my eyes and nodded. "None of us will be able to handle the press like Martina. That's true."

He continued as though I hadn't spoken, not so much talking to me as talking at me. It seemed to be a speech he had to give. "She knew what you were planning to do. She was aware that you were planning to vote her out of her directorship. She was terribly hurt by that. Terribly hurt. The association was her baby, her brainchild, she'd put you all on the board, and there you were, scheming to take it away from her. She wouldn't have let it go without a fight... but I guess that problem is solved for you now very neatly, isn't it? I wonder how you're going to live with that."

He turned on his heel and stalked away, but maybe ten feet down the hall he stopped and wheeled around. "Have you seen Rory? I've looked all over for her. I've left messages. I've called her room and gone up and knocked, and she's not answering. I know she has to be taking this very hard. I thought I'd"—he paused for a long time, then said—"comfort her. I thought she might need someone to talk to about... what hap—about Martina."

Talk about emotional seesaw! First he's laying the entire guilt trip for Martina's demise on my head and then in the next breath he's asking me if I know where Rory is. I didn't know what to say, given his emotional state. He seemed so volatile I wasn't sure he could handle another psychological blow, but Rory spent so much time at their house, I thought they might be close, so I supposed he deserved the truth. "Jeff... she's... she's not here... in the hotel...."

"Oh, so she's left?" He sounded so eager, as if leaving was the perfect solution for Rory.

"Not exactly."

My hesitation made him belligerent again. "Well, spit it out, Thea. What's going on? Has something happened to her?" His phone rang. He pulled it out, barked hello, listened, then said, "I'm in Maui, Joe. It'll have to wait." He shoved it back in his pocket and glared at me. "Well?"

We were standing in one of the main corridors of the hotel, leading from the lobby to one of the connecting buildings, and lots of people were going past. I wasn't going to deliver the news about Rory in a loud voice to someone ten feet away. I pointed toward a bench, off in a corner out of the flow. "Let's sit down there and I'll tell you."

"No!" he said, in such an explosive voice that at least ten people stopped and stared at him. "No. I'm not going to sit down and have a nice little chat with you after the way you treated my wife. Forget it. Just tell me where to find Rory."

Okay. He wanted to play hardball? I was sorry, but I'd done my best. I will cut people a lot of slack when they've been wounded by life. In private, between the two of us, he could say anything he wanted. In a busy hotel corridor, it was different. I had other people besides Jeff Pullman to think of. Rory's suicide attempt was not something I wanted broadcast all over the place and I was sure Rory didn't, either. Besides, I had always treated his wife fairly and decently. She'd been the bad actor.

"If you will lower your voice, stop the abuse, and come close enough so we can speak in civilized tones, I will tell you where to find Rory."

"Abuse? Abuse! You're one of a pack of witches who have just conspired to murder my wife and you're complaining about being abused? Just give me the goddamned information and I'll get the hell out of here."

I was beginning to wonder if Jeff, as well as Martina, had a substance abuse problem. He certainly had a self-control problem. "Maui Memorial Hospital," I said. I turned and walked away.

That was a tactical mistake. Every warrior knows that you never turn your back on the enemy. Unfortunately, I was no warrior and despite his strange behavior, I hadn't realized how unbalanced Jeff Pullman really was. I heard running footsteps behind me, but by the time I could turn to see what was happening, he had launched himself at me in a flying tackle that slammed me to the floor, carried me along the slick stone and smashed both of us into the pot of a large plant. Plant, dirt, and pot came crashing down on top of us.

"Witch!" he yelled. "Traitor! Murderess!"

I slapped him hard, hoping to knock him out of his hysteria, but it only made him madder.

He was attempting to disembowel me with a chunk of broken pot when a large man seized him, set him on feet, and said, "Enough!" in a voice that brooked no opposition.

I had never expected to look upon Detective Nihilani with favorable eyes, but at that moment, he was elevated to hero status. I had never been disemboweled but it seemed like something I would be particularly averse to. As it was, prior to Nihilani's arrival, Jeff had managed to get in a few good whacks. I wrapped my arms around my battered middle, curled up in a ball, and groaned. I had dirt in my mouth, dirt in my eyes, dirt in my nose, and dirt in my ears. By the time I got changed and cleaned up, I would have missed my chance to make a toy car.

Andre thought I was here for sea and sand and fun. He thought I was going to be coming home with tan lines. It looked like I would be coming home with bruises instead. Someone was talking to me. Of course. The other midnight twin. He was being nice and calm and reassuring and trying to get me up off the floor and onto my feet. An anxious security guard stood right behind him, moving fretfully from foot to foot. It was bad for business to have guests brawling in the hallways and knocking over the plants. Single-handedly, I was turning the resort hotel into a vacation nightmare.

I carefully levered myself to a sitting position, blinking the dirt out of my eyes. "You got a handkerchief?" Some time ago, I'd vowed to reform and start carrying one myself. One of the nice big sturdy cotton ones guys carry, not some dainty little lace number. Like most of my proposed reforms, it was languishing at the bottom of my "In" box. I'd get around to it just as soon as I got all the other stuff done. Unfortunately, new stuff never stopped coming.

He pulled it out of his pocket and handed it to me. "Are you okay?" he asked.

"Don't be a boob," I said. "The last time some maniac jumped on you, knocked you to the floor, and hacked at you with a piece of crockery, how did you feel?"

He shook his head. "Never happened."

"Some people have all the luck." I took his outstretched hand and let him pull me to my feet. "How do I file assault charges?"

"Cut the guy some slack, can't you? He's just lost his wife."

I wanted to play hardball. I was mad as hell. A second outfit had just bitten the dust, or at least the dirt. I ached from head to toe and I didn't give a damn about poor Jeff Pullman's feelings anymore. But Jeff believed that I was somehow responsible for Martina's death. I remembered my husband David's friend coming to see me after he'd taken David for a ride his new Camaro and wrapped David around a tree. He'd come to apologize, but there's no way you can apologize for killing someone's beloved. I'd given him a broken nose and two black eyes. So, mad as I was, I did understand the impulse.

"There's a ladies' room just down here," Bernstein said. "Why don't you wash your face and then I'll get you a cup of tea."

I didn't want to leave the wall, which was all that was holding me up. The morning had been one shock after another. I felt drained and unsteady. He put an arm around my shoulders. "Come on. Lean on me. Let's go."

Cops are trained to take over for us when our own systems shut down, so Bernstein was doing the right thing. I just wasn't a very good victim. Except for my few dearest friends, Andre, Suzanne, and my second-favorite cop, Dom Florio, I don't let people take care of me. I don't like the fuss. I don't like the attention, and I can't stand feeling helpless or out of control. I don't panic when I'm hurt; I panic when someone tries to help me
after
I'm hurt.

"Careful," I warned in a shaky voice. "I'm very bad at being a victim."

"So I've heard," he said. "Here's the ladies' room. Clean up. I'll be waiting right here."

Suspicion of the brotherhood arose in my mind. "Have you been talking with Andre?"

"Clean up," he repeated.

Damn them all. I limped into the bathroom and went to work removing all traces of the potted plant and trying to restore some sort of order to my appearance. It felt like a bruised rib. The rest was just the kind of thing I used to get playing basketball, when someone "accidentally" jabbed an elbow into my stomach. It would hurt. I'd be bruised. I'd live to play another day. Still, I was battered enough so that I walked with the cautious, bent-forward shuffle of an old lady.

I grimaced at the woman in the mirror, straightened up, and tried to walk easily. The effort brought a wave of pain and curses to my lips. Maui. Fun spot. Vacation paradise. I couldn't wait to see the last of it disappearing through an airplane window. I went out, hoping that Bernstein had been called away to more important business. There he stood, holding a Styrofoam cup with the telltale tag and string of a cup of tea.

He crooked his free arm like a prom date and gestured toward the exit. "Shall we?"

 

 

 

Chapter 17

 

I sat on a bench, staring out at the water, and sipped my tea. I could feel each warm sip hitting my empty stomach. I felt like a displaced person. Hotels do that to me anyway. It was intensified by the aura of violence and death and everyone around me going crazy. I may rush around and work all the time and appear to live in my car, but at heart, I'm a homebody. I need a base to return to. A place to recharge. Being here where I had none of that jarred me and put me off my stride. Normally, I'm so tough a little thing like being tackled and battered in a public place wouldn't faze me at all.