RESORT TO MURDER (19 page)

The crowd had wandered away, and Maggie and
Dyna walked off toward the pool.

"It can’t be a coincidence that a rock was
used for both this vandalism and for killing Lori."

"Yeah, I was thinking about that," Dyna
said. "Another message?"

"Possibly. A convenient weapon, also. No
fingerprints on the rough surface, no need to dispose of it, easy
to find around here, I'm sure."

"Would it take a lot of strength, do you
think?"

"Not to heave it through my car window, I’d
guess. The right distance, right angle, and the weight of the rock
would do the rest. As for killing Lori, I don't know. I think you'd
need strength along with the element of surprise. But perhaps the
anger the killer felt towards Lori would generate enough
force."

Dyna shivered. "How could anyone feel enough
anger towards the kind of girl you described?"

"That's the question. And what caused that
anger."

They came up to the pool and saw the twins
dive in, pop up, then paddle to the side, all worries such as
Maggie and Dyna had, obviously absent from their thoughts. Maggie
envied them, remembering the hopes she had had for a peaceful
vacation not too long ago.

"Miss?"

Maggie turned and saw Burnelle hurrying
towards her from the hotel's patio doors.

"Miss Crawford asked me to tell you the
garage will be sending someone to get your car first thing in the
morning. They promise it can be fixed in a few hours."

Maggie looked toward the
glass doors and saw Kathryn Crawford behind them, standing stiffly
near the desk. Probably angry at another disruption in the smooth
operation of her hotel, Maggie thought. And possibly angry
at
me
, although I
sure didn't want this anymore than she did. She turned back to
Burnelle. "That'll be great. Thanks."

"Such a shame," Burnelle added, her
expression concerned, "but at least no one was hurt."

"Yes, but I'd like to know who did it."

Burnelle was silent, her lips pressed
together tightly as though trying to keep words from spilling out.
She wrung her hands. Finally, as though coming to a decision, she
blurted out, "That tennis fellow? I didn't actually see him do
anything, but I happened to see him leaving the parking lot just
about that time. I didn't know anything had happened to your car,
so I didn't think anything about it. I was just catching a breath
of air away from the hot kitchen.

"I know he didn't see me, and please don't
tell him I said anything. I, I'd hate to think of what he might do.
And I really didn't see him do anything. But he looked all flushed,
and he was walking fast, brushing his hands together as though they
had gotten dirty. I thought you should know.” Burnelle's own face
was flushed now, and she looked acutely uncomfortable. Before
Maggie could say anything she spun around and rushed back into the
hotel.

"Rob,” Dyna murmured, as they both stared
after her.

Maggie didn't say anything. Her eyes were on
the door through which Burnelle had disappeared.

"I knew it. I knew it.” Dyna's face lit up.
"Remember Lori's journal? You said she mentioned `R.' Who else? It
had to be him."

Something caught Maggie's eye and she looked
to the right across the lawn to the path leading to the tennis
courts. A tall, slim man - it could have been Rob, but she couldn't
tell from the distance and shadows - was walking away from them.
Suddenly he stopped, and turned around, and appeared to be looking
right at them.

That evening, Maggie sat waiting on a wooden
bench just beyond the pool, overlooking the large expanse of lawn.
She had chosen that bench because it had no shrubs or structures
nearby where anyone could lurk, overhearing. The precaution, in
light of recent events, was necessary. She sat waiting for Holly to
meet her, on her break.

Holly had stopped at their table to refill
the water glasses when Maggie and Dyna were having dinner and had
whispered that she wanted to talk to her later. Maggie agreed and,
after Holly had moved away, told Dyna she thought it might be about
Eric Semple.

"On our excursion today after the funeral, we
talked about a lot of things. But whenever I tried to probe more
deeply about Eric, Holly clammed up. After what's happened, I have
a feeling she may be ready to open up."

Dyna shook her head. "What could Eric's
connection be to all this?” She was obviously still focused on Rob
as the only possible murderer.

"That's what I need to find out. He's been
lurking around this whole business very suspiciously."

"Maybe Rob is trying to make it look like
Eric's guilty, you know, to cover his own tracks. Or, maybe they're
somehow working together."

Maggie had considered that, but remained
unsure. Was she letting her own feelings get in the way of her
objectivity? She hoped not. On the bench now, she looked at her
watch: eight. That's when Holly said she could take her break. The
sky was still light, but a soft, sleepy light, with some dark
clouds gathering off to the west, and Maggie heard an owl hooting
somewhere in the trees.

She heard distant voices and the clanking of
pots as the kitchen door opened. Soon she saw Holly's small, slim
form hurrying over the grass in her uniform and white sneakers, her
dark hair a bouncing cloud around her head. She plopped down on the
bench next to Maggie, immediately pulled out a cigarette, lit up,
and drew on it.

"Sorry if I'm late. That new guy, Chuck -
they hired him to replace Lori, you know? He said he's waited
tables before, but he's been mixing up orders all night, and I've
had to bail him out. Well, never mind. Burnelle saw me take off,
and she's probably set her stopwatch, so I better get down to
business."

Maggie waited quietly while Holly drew once
more on her cigarette. Finally she glanced over at Maggie and
began. "Well, I was thinking, ever since I got back today. About
what you said, that this person who killed Lori's got to be
stopped, and how you almost got killed yourself yesterday. And then
seeing what somebody did to your car. It all really got to me.

"I've been holding back. I don't know why.
Just being stupid, as usual. But I'm thinking it's about time I
used my head a little, you know? Anyway, you were asking about
Eric, and I wasn't giving you straight answers. He's not such an
okay guy. He's a real low-life."

Maggie wasn't surprised, but she waited for
Holly to go on.

"He's been stealing from the hotel, big time.
I guess I felt guilty 'cause a lot of us knew about it but didn't
say anything."

"What sort of things has he been
stealing?"

"Oh, it started out with little things. I
guess that's why nobody said anything, 'cause it just didn't seem
worth it, you know? Like, this is a big hotel, and who's going to
care if some garden clippers are missing, or there's only nineteen
instead of twenty holly bushes to plant. But then he moved up to
bigger things. Electronic stuff he could sell, some things from the
guests. He'd brag about how smart he was about it, only picking
guests who seemed distracted or vague about how much cash they
still had in their wallets, or where they might have left their
jewelry."

"Did many of you know about this?" Maggie
asked.

"Not a lot. There were a few of us were
friends with him at the beginning, when he first started working
here. You know, going out for a beer once in a while. But then we
began keeping our distance when he started bragging a lot about
what he did. He knew we couldn't say anything by then without
getting ourselves into trouble, but it was getting too weird."

Maggie controlled her growing excitement as
she asked the next question. "Holly, did Lori know what Eric was
doing?"

Holly frowned, thinking hard. She puffed at
her cigarette one last time, then threw it down and ground it under
her foot. She looked at Maggie. "I remember once he came in the
kitchen when things were slow and showed me a watch he had just
grabbed from someone's bag while they were soaking in the jacuzzi.
Lori was there, in the kitchen. She didn't say anything, but I
remember the look on her face. Rick thought she was impressed,
that's how dumb he was. But she wasn't impressed. She was
upset."

Maggie grabbed Holly's arm. "What did you
just call him? Rick?"

Holly looked at her, puzzled. "Yeah. That's
what most of us call him, I guess. Why?"

"Most of you? Did that include Lori? Did she
call him Rick?"

"Lori? Yeah, she met him through us, so I
guess she did. Yeah, she called him Rick."

Maggie hurried up to her room, feeling both
elated and frightened. She had found a motive. Eric Semple, who had
means and opportunity, also had a motive. He could have killed Lori
for his own protection. If Eric was the "R" Lori referred to in her
journal, perhaps she had tried to talk him into giving up his life
of thievery. And when she realized that wasn't going to happen, he
could have feared she would turn him in and killed her. He also
could have overheard her, Maggie, talking about Lori's diary, and
tried to stop Maggie from getting to the sheriff with it.

Realizing all that, putting it all together,
brought on much of the elation. But she was aware too, that part of
her excitement came from the hope that this eliminated Rob from
suspicion. She could admit that fully now, to herself. She had a
strong attraction to Rob, and was almost sure he felt the same
about her. They had much more to learn about each other, the
relationship had a lot of growing to do, but now, perhaps, a major
obstacle had been dissolved.

The fear she also felt, though, came from
the fact of Lori's murderer taking on flesh and blood. He was no
longer just a shadowy figure in her mind. He was real. And he was
here.

Maggie shivered and fit the key card into
her door. She intended to call Dyna to come over, to talk it over
with her. As she stepped into the room, however, her foot crunched
a piece of paper on the floor. A note had been slipped under the
door. Maggie picked it up and read the message which had been
scrawled on hotel stationery:

MAGGIE - I HAVE SOMETHING
IMPORTANT TO SHOW YOU! AT THE TENNIS COURTS. COME MEET ME THERE
RIGHT AWAY
. -
DYNA

"Dyna! No!” Maggie gasped in horror. Would
Dyna really be so foolish as to go to the tennis courts alone at
this time of day? She looked at the window, at the rapidly
darkening sky, and wanted to believe she wouldn't. But she knew
Dyna was an impulsive, emotions-over-thought person, and feared the
worst. Maggie ran to the phone and punched in Dyna’s room number,
hoping against hope that Dyna would pick up. When all she heard was
endless rings, Maggie slammed the phone down and whirled around.
Shoving the note into her pocket, she rushed out the door. Maggie
had to get to her friend before anything terrible happened.

She punched the elevator button and bounced
impatiently, waiting for only a second, then turned and pushed
through the stairway door, running down the stairs as rapidly as
she could. She was still dressed in her funeral clothes, which
included dress-flat shoes, not running shoes, and she had to hold
onto the rail to keep from slipping on the smooth, uncarpeted
surface.

She reached the ground floor and hurried out
an exit door, then stopped a moment to get her bearings. The door
let her out at the left side of the hotel farthest from the
restaurant and kitchen. The pool was also to her right, and the
woods and tennis courts straight ahead. She looked around quickly
for any sign of Dyna, hoping that perhaps she hadn't gotten that
much of a head start, but her hopes sank when she didn't see that
familiar, tousled blond head among the few, stray guests. Maggie
took off for the path to the courts.

Why did she go off alone? she cried to
herself. What could have been so important that she couldn't wait?
She felt a drop or two of the rain that had threatened earlier, and
slowed to catch her breath as she finally stepped into the woods on
the mulched path.

Her eyes strained to see in the dimmer
light, still hoping to catch up with her friend, but the path took
so many turns that she couldn't see any great distance ahead. She
thought of calling out, but an inner caution warned her not to
advertise her presence too much. She hurried along, dodging
branches hidden by shadows as best she could, slowly becoming
enveloped in the deep silence of the woods.

She had just taken a turn that showed more
light up ahead, indicating she was close to the open space of the
tennis area, when she heard a rustle in the trees next to her.
Snapping her head to the left she saw a form step out of the
darkness, and her breath caught in her chest. It was Eric
Semple.

"Teacher," he said, as he stepped close to
her. No toothpick dangled from his lips now. Maggie looked back at
him, frozen. "What's your hurry, hmm?” He grinned and stood only
inches from her now. Maggie wondered wildly if calling for help
would do any good. Was Dyna within hearing distance? Was
anyone?

"Cat got your tongue?"

Maggie backed away from him, slowly. "What
do you want?"

“
Gosh, I’m just out for a
nice evening stroll, like you,” he answered, smirking. "Thought
maybe we could take it together, you know, arm in arm."

"I... I'm meeting someone. I'm late."

"Teacher! I'm shocked. Now what would your
principal say if he knew you were meeting someone in the
woods."

"It'd be none of his business, just as it's
none of yours.” Some of Maggie's fear subsided as her anger rose.
She began to think Eric was simply up to his same stupid teasing.
After all, he couldn't know what she had just found out about him.
She started to walk away.