Slay it with Flowers (18 page)

“Deathly quiet.”

“Poor choice of words, Jill.” Stifling a sudden urge to yawn, I took a slice of crusty bread, passed the basket to my mother, then turned back to Jillian. “Has Onora said anything about the murder?”

“Nothing.”

“Why is she here, exactly?”

“Because I can’t get rid of her,” Jill whispered back. “She’s sticking to me like glue. It’s driving me absolutely crazy. I took an hour-long bath today just to have time to myself.”

“You hate baths.”

“Do you see my desperation? After dinner I’m meeting up with the girls at my house, tomorrow we’re all going to the outlet mall, and Sunday is my bridal shower. It’s become like a twenty-four-hour, seven-days-a-week TV station. All Onora all the time.”

I poured olive oil on my bread dish and passed the cruet along. “What’s her problem?”

“Depression, I suppose. She was crazy-in-love with Punch.”

Crazy enough to kill him? I shot a glance in Onora’s direction. She was picking at the crust of her bread, appearing to be oblivious to what was going on around her. I wondered how much of that was an act.

“How’s Flip doing?” I asked Jill, dipping a hunk of bread in the oil.

“He’s miserable. Clay got in to the jail to see him today. He said he’s never seen him so overwrought. It’s a good thing they took away his shoelaces or—” She made a gesture that was supposed to look like someone tightening a noose around her neck. I saw Onora’s eyes flick over to us briefly, then shift away. She wasn’t oblivious.

“Has Flip said anything about Wednesday night?” I whispered.

“I’ll ask.” Jillian elbowed her fiancé, interrupting his conversation with Pryce to ask my question. You just couldn’t hide good breeding.

Claymore took the interruption calmly, then leaned behind Jillian to say to me, “Flip is so upset that I didn’t have the heart to mention it, and he didn’t volunteer anything. He might have said something to Pryce, but, naturally, that’s confidential.”

“Have funeral arrangements been made?”

“As soon as the autopsy is completed Punch’s body will be flown back east. The sad thing is that none of us can leave to attend the funeral. I think that’s bothering Flip more than anything else.”

I let it go at that and contented myself with observing Onora, who had given up the knife in favor of the wineglass stem. Her hand shook as she lifted the glass to her mouth, and then she met my gaze over the rim of her glass and practically shot daggers at me.

What had I done?

I decided to abandon that pursuit in favor of a new one: trying to stay awake. My drowsiness was easy to explain, given the ridiculously dull conversation going on around me, possibly because everyone was being careful not to speak of the murder in front of the bride-and-groom-to-be. I was so overcome with the urge to put my head down and take a snooze that at one point during dinner I got a discreet poke from my mother, who claimed I had begun to snore.

“You’re not on drugs, are you?” she whispered loud enough for my father to hear.

“Who’s on drugs?” he said, leaning toward us.

“No one is on drugs,” I whispered back, although at that point there wasn’t much use in whispering since word was quickly spreading to the other end of the table. I could just imagine Pryce’s mother muttering to her husband, “I knew there was something wrong with her. Thank goodness Pryce dumped her when he did.”

“I am not on drugs,” I said loud enough to clear it up in everyone’s mind, even the busboy cleaning up the table behind us. “I took an antihistamine. One lousy antihistamine.”

“Antihistamines cause drowsiness,” my brother Jordan felt compelled to point out. And that prompted Jonathan to remind me that I should always read the side effects printed on the package.

My mother rose to my defense. “If I read about all the things that could go wrong, I’d never take so much as an aspirin.”

Her remark caused all sorts of debate about the pharmaceutical industry—a much better subject for discussion than my potential drug habit—but it did little to keep me awake. That was until my sister-in-law Portia, known around town as the albino babe in the burgundy Bentley, leaned across the table toward Jillian and said bluntly, “That’s a shame about your groomsman being murdered. Have you found a replacement for him yet?”

Apparently, it hadn’t occurred to Portia that finding a stand-in for a body not yet buried wasn’t Jillian’s top priority at the moment. And by the horrified expression on Jillian’s face, it was only now occurring to her that she needed one.

There was still another repercussion to Portia’s thoughtless comment. Onora threw down her napkin, stood abruptly, nearly tipping over her chair, and sailed full speed from the room.

I shot my brother Jonathan a look that said,
What the hell was Portia thinking?
Then he leaned in to whisper something in his wife’s ear, after which they had a private—and none too friendly—moment of conversation. To cover the awkward silence that followed, my father immediately began a discussion about the White Sox.

“Abby,” Jillian said, pulling at my arm just as I was about to take my last bite of mashed sweet potato.

“I know, Jill,” I said quietly. “That was a horrible thing for Portia to say, and I apologize for her.”

“Never mind about that,” she said in a rising panic. “Who can I get on short notice? The tuxes have already been ordered.”

I chewed my food and swallowed. “Aren’t the groomsmen part of Claymore’s responsibilities? Let him pick someone.”

“Are you serious? It was hard enough getting him to pick the first time.”

“How does Claymore function, Jill? How does he decide what socks to put on in the morning?”

“Are you helping the situation?” she countered tersely.

“Point taken. What about Claymore’s childhood friends?”

“Moved away.”

“All of them?”

“You say that like he had more than one.”

Jillian was right. I’d forgotten about the lengthy screening process the Osbornes used to weed out undesirable playmates. Most kids either flunked the initial genealogy requirement or grew up before completing the battery of tests. “How about a good client?”

Jillian conferred with Claymore, then turned back, happy once again. “Clay knows just the guy. He’s two years older than us, but Clay plays tennis with him every Saturday. You might know him. He’s a deputy prosecutor.”

“Don’t tell me you’re talking about Greg Morgan.”

“You do know him!” Jillian squeezed my arm. “Great, because that’s who you’re partnered with.”

Check, please.

 

As soon as the dessert tray was brought out I muttered a hasty good-bye and made my escape. The conversation had been so dull that if I’d stayed any longer I’d have fallen asleep in the sorbet. Since it was only eight thirty, and since I didn’t want to sit at home trying not to think about what being partnered with Morgan while wearing a clown outfit would do to my psyche, I decided to pay a visit to the New Chapel Inn to talk to the night clerk.

The clerk was once again sitting on a stool behind the reception counter reading a paperback, oblivious to my presence even though I had been boring a two-inch hole in his forehead with my eyes for at least three minutes. He was the same clerk I had seen Wednesday evening—a few years older than me, with short brown hair and ultralong side-burns. Looking at him up close, I also noticed a bristly growth under his lower lip that he must have thought made him fashionable. The brass name tag on his shirt said TODD.

“Excuse me,” I said pleasantly.

“Are you checking in?”

He didn’t look up, he didn’t even bat an eye. If there’s one thing I hate it’s a clerk who treats me as if I’m invisible. Trying to maintain a pleasant tone I asked, “Would you stop reading that book if I said yes?”

He glanced up and blinked rapidly, possibly trying to fire up his brain cells. “Huh?”

I knew right then I’d have to keep it simple. “Would you mind if I asked you a few questions, Todd, such as whether you were on duty Wednesday night?”

“Why? Are you a cop?”

“Actually, I have this really annoying cousin who has to get married in less than three weeks and I’m trying to help that process along by finding a killer. So, were you on duty Wednesday night?”

He glanced at his computer screen, hit the Tab button a few times, then said, “Yeah, I was here.”

“Good. Next question. There are three girls staying in room four twelve. Tall, gorgeous, long-haired . . . Do you know who I’m talking about?”

He perked up suddenly. “Yeah. They’re babes.”

“On Wednesday night, around eight o’clock, one of these—um—babes came back here alone—the dark-haired one. Do you remember that?”

He scratched the little strip of fuzz below his lip. “No.”

Which meant either that Todd hadn’t been paying attention (no surprise there), or that Onora hadn’t gone directly to the hotel after her fitting at the bridal salon. “Okay, now think hard, Todd. This is important. At any time after eight o’clock that evening, did you see this black-haired babe enter or leave the hotel?”

He shook his head.

It had been worth a try.

“But I
did
see her in the parking lot.”

It was my turn to perk up. “What time?”

He thought for a moment. “Nine o’clock.”

If Todd was correct, that was an hour not accounted for. “You’re sure of the time?”

“It was my break.” He hitched a thumb toward the brass chiming clock on the wall behind his right shoulder, next to a doorway. “I always duck out the back for a smoke at nine. I was standing out there when she drove in.”

“And you’re absolutely positive it was the dark-haired girl?”

“Hey, you don’t forget a body like that.” He looked at
my
body and turned beet red. “Sorry.”

“So am I, Todd.”

“It’s just that she had on these long, shiny black gloves and this really hot red outfit with a slit up to her—”

I didn’t want to know which body part he was about to name, so I cut him off with, “Could that red outfit have been a negligee?”

“A what, now?”

“Nightgown.”

He scratched the fuzz, looking perplexed. “I guess. But why would she wear her nightgown to go out?”

Good question. And why the black gloves? Was she worried about fingerprints? “You’re absolutely sure you saw her Wednesday night?”

“Yeah, because it was Maria’s last night here—she was the housekeeper on the late shift.” He snickered. “Maria walked in on some naked chick and got reamed out so bad she gave notice. Nice lady, but she’s got a short fuse.”

I pondered the nightgown problem. Onora had been wearing it when we came to check on her, so at some point after she left the bridal salon, before Todd saw her in the parking lot, she had put it on.

Todd shook his head ruefully, still musing about the housekeeper incident. “
Man,
I wish I’d seen that. A naked Chinese chick. Can you believe my luck?”

My brain snapped to attention at the word
Chinese.
“Back up a minute, Todd. Is this Chinese woman staying here?”

“If she is, I sure haven’t seen her.”

I knew I ought to stick to one subject at a time, but now my curiosity was aroused. If this Chinese woman wasn’t a registered guest, then she must have been visiting someone. That brought two questions to mind: 1) Could she be an employee of the Emperor’s Spa; and 2) were hotel visits part of their services?

“Did you see this woman leave the hotel after her encounter with Maria?”

“No. But she could have left while I was outside.”

“You were outside only that one time?”

“Right. Oh, wait. Make that twice. Some weird old dude was hanging around the parking lot. I saw him through the window and went outside to chase him off.”

“In what room did this reaming-out take place?”

He shrugged. “You’d have to ask Maria.”

“I’d like to do that. How do I find her?”

Todd punched in something on his keyboard, wrote down an address, and handed it to me.

Maria Mendoza,
I read. I’d have to add a visit to Maria’s house to my Saturday to-do list. “Just out of curiosity, what does a housekeeper do on the late shift?”

He hunched a shoulder. “It’s more of an emergency thing, like someone runs out of tissues or clean towels, or pukes all over the bathroom floor and needs a cleanup.”

I made a mental note to never take a job as a night housekeeper. “One more question, Todd. What time did this reaming-out happen?”

“Like an hour before my break. Maria usually covers the desk for me, but since she had just quit,” he looked over his shoulder, then leaned toward me to whisper, “I had to leave it unattended.”

I found myself glancing around, too, as I leaned toward him. “Why are we whispering?”

“I don’t want anyone to know.”

“Is your manager around?”

“No. He leaves at six.”

I looked around at the empty lobby. “There’s no one here but us, Todd, so we don’t really need to whisper.” But I did need to take a look at the guest register to see if an Asian woman was registered. I pulled out a five-dollar bill and placed it on the counter. “It’s about time for your break, isn’t it?”

He eyed the money. “Yeah.”

I shoved the bill toward him. “Tell you what. I’ll watch the counter for you while you run outside for a quick smoke.” I shuddered on the last word, sure I’d be struck by lightning for encouraging him to light up.

Todd reached for the money, then drew his hand back. “I don’t know. If my manager finds out, he’ll fire me in a second.”

I took out another five and laid it on top of the first. “I promise I won’t tell.”

“Sweet.” He snatched the bills and ducked through the doorway behind him.

I darted around to the other side of the counter, perched on the vacated stool, and stared at his computer screen, wondering how to get to the guest list. I found an icon in the shape of an open book, double clicked, and a register popped up. I typed in Wednesday’s date, checked the list, and worked backward from there, searching for an obviously Asian first or last name.