Vacations Can Be Murder: The Second Charlie Parker Mystery (4 page)

Under her guidance, the basic stuff about
debits and credits came easily to me, and I could soon balance my
checkbook with one hand tied behind my back. In fact, I found that
I really liked working with numbers. You could add them, multiply
them, play with them, and in the end, you balanced them. I liked
that. It pleased my tidy side.

I finished all the courses, and took the CPA
exam. I joined one of Albuquerque's largest and most prestigious
accounting firms, and was soon on my way up the corporate
ladder.

The problem was, I hated it—the corporate
part. I hated putting on the pin-striped suit every day, and
playing the little business games. I detested the office politics,
including the whispered gatherings around the coffee maker, and the
larger-than-life dramatic battles for new clients. It just wasn't
me
.

What on earth does this have to with becoming
an investigator? Well, I
said
it was indirect. With a couple
of years accounting experience under my belt, the Fortune 500 might
not have been ready for me yet, but I was pretty sharp with an
average balance sheet.

It was about this time I sensed a certain
amount of edginess in our old trusted family lawyer whenever I got
too specific about my inheritance money. Well, I don't have to
spell it out.

It took some digging on my part, including
one (probably illegal) foray into his file cabinets before I could
prove what I suspected, but in the end I managed to extricate
myself and what was left of my money from the dirty rat.

The education had not come cheap. He had
siphoned off over fifty thousand dollars, but I learned a lot from
that caper. One, a lawyer operating just within the fringes of the
law usually knows what he's doing, and is therefore difficult to
catch. And two, it's not that hard to pick the lock on a filing
cabinet.

The lawyer was never prosecuted for his
deeds, but somehow word got around about a secret foreign bank
account he had, and almost overnight a lot of his rich,
conservative clients dropped him. Funny how those things sometimes
happen.

Several months later my neighbor, Elsa
Higgins, became concerned that her insurance agent was acting a bit
secretive toward her. I offered to check it out. She was pleased to
learn that her quarterly annuity checks were suddenly going to be
twice as large, while her agent went to have a little chat with the
state insurance commission. Elsa Higgins sent her good friend, Edna
Walsh to see me, and...

Two years later, my brother, Ron, was down
and out after his divorce. Bernadette had taken the kids, and had
really soaked him financially. Even though New Mexico is a
community property state, if one party is greedy enough and the
other is easy-going enough, the law ain't worth diddly.

Ron came out of it with his clothes, his car,
and the oldest castoffs of their furniture. He needed a break, so I
helped him set up a little agency. I quit the accounting firm, and
Ron and I became partners.

We started out with him as the investigator,
me as the financial person, but gradually I've become more and more
involved. Ron handled people's dirty little personal secrets, and I
took the financial ones. Well, the cases started to get more
serious as time went by, but I still enjoy sniffing out fraud the
best. I suppose murder, like greatness, is sometimes thrust upon
us.

I left the heliport feeling rather stirred
up, like someone had taken a wire whisk to my insides. The
exhilaration of the ride, combined with the sight of the body, and
the inevitable hundreds of unanswered questions whirred around in
my head. The memory of Drake Langston's smile flickered through my
mental banks like a subliminal message, too.

The heavy clouds threatening the north shore
had not moved to this side yet. The afternoon still felt early, so
I went back to my hotel, deciding to grab a little sun time.

The beach wasn't crowded at all, as I tossed
my towel out on the sand. The humid air gave my bikini-clad skin a
soft caress. The sun felt good on my winter-pale limbs, and I had
the latest Tom Clancy novel to keep me company. I read the words,
but my mind wouldn't let go of the afternoon.

The unanswered questions about the body on
the rocks wouldn't leave me alone. I pictured Drake flying back out
to the spot with the police.

Who was the dead man? I wondered if he had
identification on him.

And, how on earth did he end up in such a
remote spot?

Kalapaki Bay gleamed silver in the afternoon
sun, winking at me, mocking my questions. In the distance, a barge
piled high with containers chugged slowly toward an unseen pier.
Two catamarans, whose rainbow-colored sails puffed outward,
criss-crossed the bay, steering clear of the dozen or so boogie
boarders paddling near shore. A young couple strolled slowly, their
arms wound around each other’s waists. Three boys, eightish, tossed
a plastic saucer among themselves. I watched without really
absorbing.

Was the dead man a tourist? A local? Could
his death possibly have been an accident? The questions continued
to buzz around inside me.

Twenty minutes was about all I could manage
on the beach before I had to start moving. The sun and troublesome
thoughts pounding at my head were getting to me. It really was none
of my business, I told myself several times. I hadn't been asked to
get involved.

On the other hand, it's not in my nature to
just sit. I slipped a cotton cover-up on over my bikini, stepped
into sandals, and gathered my junk into a canvas tote. So far I’d
seen but a fraction of the Westin’s sprawling complex. I could
amuse myself by wandering through the shops before going upstairs
to change for dinner.

I followed the mosaic-patterned walkway that
I’d observed from my lanai this morning, skirted the huge freeform
swimming pool, and sought out the shady shopping arcade.

I wasn't sure I'd ever seen a more glittering
hundred yards of shopping anywhere in my life. Certainly not in
Albuquerque.

Here, under one long colonnade resided the
Who's Who of fashion and fripperies. I helped myself to a generous
spritz of Giorgio at one perfume counter before I realized that I
would soon be showering it off anyway.

A white sweater caught my eye at another shop
across the way, and I drifted toward it. It was an unsubstantial
bit of fluff, like a dandelion going to seed, with a spill of gold
sequins falling over the left shoulder.

Normally, I'm a jeans and t-shirt kind of
person around the house, but I have been known to dress up on
occasion. Decked out in sequins and satin shoes, I can manage quite
nicely at a country club soirée or a night at the opera.

I reached out to give the sweater a stroke,
when something else in the shop caught my eye. A red silk shirt
with a pattern of blue and gold.

A shirt I would never forget.

"Beautiful sweater, isn't it?" The shop girl
startled me. Standing right beside her the whole time, I had
mistaken her for a mannequin.

She did have a mannequin sort of body,
straight and slim. And her makeup was magazine perfect. Either she
was oriental, or her dark hair cut blunt at chin length and
straight across the bangs made her look like she was. My eyes
registered all this in less than a second, then riveted back to the
red shirt.

My feet carried me toward the shirt without
my brain even telling them to. I reached out toward it.

Silk.

Expensive.

"These are very nice." The mannequin was
right at my side. "We've only had them a couple of days. An
exclusive from a New York manufacturer. We're the only shop on the
island carrying them."

"Really." I felt my interest quickening.
"Have you sold many yet?"

"I sold two yesterday," she answered. Her
long tapered fingers flipped through the hangers on the rack,
counting. "I guess that's all. The evening girl must not have sold
any."

"Do you remember selling one to a slim, dark
haired man?"

She began to look uncomfortable with the
questions. Discretion is a job requirement in major hotels, and she
looked worried that she might have already said too much.

"I'm with an investigation firm." I pulled my
wallet from my tote bag, and handed her my business card. I hoped
she wasn't going to question that I was from out of state.

Apparently not, because she loosened up
considerably.

"Yes," she said, "there was such a man here
yesterday morning. He and his lady friend bought several items. He
chose the red shirt for himself, and she took a new bathing suit, a
skimpy bikini with a matching cover-up jacket. Neon green."

"You have quite a memory."

I could almost see a faint blush under the
pale matte makeup.

"Well, it's been slow recently. We don't get
that much traffic through the shops. And they were such a striking
pair."

"How so?"

She chewed at the inside of her cheek for a
second, deciding just how indiscrete she should be. "Well, he was
well-groomed, but somehow it had a false ring to it. You know, the
hair fluffed and sprayed, the teeth capped, the nails manicured."
She glanced around to confirm that we were still alone. "Like a
game show host."

I got the picture. "And the girl?"

"She hung on him like they were honeymooners,
and yet that didn't seem quite right, either. I see lots of
honeymooners in here. These two weren't madly in love."

Madly in lust was more like it, I
guessed.

"One other question. Did you happen to get
his name?"

"She called him 'baby' the whole time they
were in the shop. He called her Susan." She chewed at her cheek a
little more. "Let me think—he used a credit card. I believe
yesterday's slips are still here. The manager from the main store
hasn't come by to get them yet."

I followed her to the cash register, mentally
crossing my fingers that I’d get something informative.

She reached below the counter, and pulled out
a large brown envelope. Carefully bending up the metal brads, she
extracted a smaller white envelope. She pulled out a small stack of
credit card slips, and flipped through them.

"Here it is. Gilbert Page." She held the slip
out to me. He'd spent over six hundred dollars.

"Do you know if he's registered here at the
hotel?"

"I assume so. Most of our customers are.
Although we aren't required to get a room number or anything, so I
couldn't swear to it."

I thanked her, and left. When I glanced back,
she was standing near the sweater rack again, posed and unmoving.
Maybe I just imagined a hint of loneliness in her posture.

I figured I'd get more information from the
hotel operator by using an inside line than I would by walking up
to a desk clerk. Besides that, I could feel grains of sand working
their way into unmentionable places inside my suit. I needed to get
out of it.

The door to my room had no sooner clicked
shut behind me than I began to strip out of the cover-up and
bikini. Brushing grains of sand away from the tender spot, I picked
up the phone.

"What room is Gilbert Page in, please?" I
asked the operator when she answered after three rings.

"Ten-fifty-nine—I'll ring." Her singsong
voice was cut off by the immediate connection.

I let it ring twice, then hung up. After all,
I
knew Gilbert Page wasn't in. Apparently, the hotel didn't
know it yet, though.

I wondered about Susan, the companion. Was
she traveling with him, or had she made his acquaintance here? I
pondered the possibilities as I stepped into the shower.

Ten minutes later, wrapped in a thick hotel
terry robe, with one of their equally thick towels around my
dripping hair, I picked up the phone book. It was only six. I
thought if I could reach Drake Langston I might invite him for a
drink as an excuse for giving him the information I had learned so
far.

He was listed in the book, but there was no
answer when I tried the number. He had said he might be tied up
with the police until late.

Deciding to do a little more snooping on my
own, I put on a floral print cotton dress and my dressy sandals. I
locked my room, leaving one lamp on, and took the elevator to the
tenth floor.

As luck would have it, there were two maid's
carts in the hall. I love staying at a hotel classy enough to give
turn-down service. If most of the guests hadn't gone out for dinner
yet, they soon would. I spotted the door to ten-fifty-nine, and
wondered whether Page’s companion, Susan, was in there.

I had backtracked five or six rooms down the
hall, when a maid stepped out directly across from me. I don't know
which of us was more startled. She lowered her eyes, and began
making apologetic noises. I assured her I was fine.

She was a tiny older woman, mid-fifties at
least, with dark brown skin deeply creased with wrinkles. Her short
black hair sat like a puffy shower cap on top of her head. The name
badge pinned to her pink uniform told me she was Geraldine.

"Have you done ten-fifty-nine yet?" I
asked.

"Mista Page?" Her English might be heavily
accented, but there was no mistaking the look that crossed her
face.

I dropped my voice, implying confidentiality.
"Is he in the room now?"

She shook her head, no, but seemed reluctant
to say more. I scrounged in my purse, and came up with a ten dollar
bill. It worked like the key to a floodgate.

"I don't clean Mister Page room 'less he
leave the sign out."

I had to almost read her lips to follow the
quick pidgin.

"The other day? I tap on the door an' use my
key to go in?" She drew herself up to her full four foot ten, hands
planted firmly on her hips. "Mister Page, he
scream
at me.
Yell never come in that room unless he say."