Voices in the Wardrobe (14 page)

“Oh, let's just put big ol' Kenny in danger. He won't mind. Need I explain that I'm a big ol' wimp?”

Charlie and Maggie ended up sleeping in the same bed again, but in Kenny's and he in theirs.

Charlie slept hard again and woke to Maggie in the shower again, Kenny's shower this time. They'd moved most of their things with them, as women will. Kenny, Charlie happened to know, slept in the buff. When she stepped out of his shower in his terrycloth hotel robe, he sat on the balcony with Maggie, in a hotel robe from their room, hair still wet from a shower, but face in need of a shave. He'd left his utensils here.

“I've ordered you the seafood omelet special,” he said with that smug look guys get when they think they know you. “And hold the cheese.”

He'd brought the caffeinated coffee packet from their room and all three had a cup before room service arrived with a splendid roll-in table and a huge breakfast for all. More than enough to share with Luella when she knocked timidly and slipped in when Charlie opened it, relieved to see Kenny across the room through the sliding glass door.

“Thank God, how did he get away?”

“From what?”

“Your room. It's swarming with official type people—no one allowed near.”

Charlie's hair was still dripping. Kenny hadn't been gone long from that room.

“So what all did you leave in our room?” Charlie yelled over the hair dryer.

He stood behind her putting on his shorts. “My dirty panties on the bathroom floor. Socks, shirt, shoes, and slacks is all.”

“Oh, that ought to make a fun investigation.”

“I have replacements here. We ought to get through breakfast anyway and I did bring out my wallet. Nothing in that room to identify me but fingerprints. Want a massage?”

“No.” She avoided the glances under raised eyebrows as she took a change of clothes from his closet, threw it in the bathroom, shut the door on his smirk.

They soon sat at the table inside with extra plates to share everything. When Charlie took the metal lid off the seafood omelet and smelled the big pink shrimp and hunks of crab sticking out of it she couldn't repress an, “Oh my.”

“I love the way she says that, don't you?” Kenny removed the plastic wrap from the rims of the large wine goblets filled with orange juice, emptied a water goblet to divi it four ways and raised the latter in a toast, “Here's to good food, good drink, good living, and resolutions.”

All three females automatically raised their orange juice to honor his toast whether they understood it or not and Charlie met the stares of the other two, responding with a, “Will you knock it off?”

Charlie ate a half of a very full omelet, one piece of bacon from someone else's plate, half a slice of toast and all her orange juice before she sat back with her second cup of coffee. “Can you hear that?”

Kenny had sliced what was left of her omelet in three pieces, put one on his empty pancake platter. Luella and Maggie finished it off along with muffins and sausage. But there was still toast no one could eat. “Hear what?”

“The quiet.” Charlie blinked back at blank stares. “We're what—two, three doors away from my room? The door to this balcony is open. Luella, you said the hall, and I assume my room, was crawling with police. Why isn't there more commotion?”

Eighteen

Charlie took the last of the morning's coffee out onto the balcony to look or listen for any sign of commotion outside. Maggie dressed in the bathroom and Luella had turned on the TV in the wardrobe to morning news. No sounds from the other invisible balconies, no excitement on the walkway below either, where two groundsmen discussed something in Spanish while poking around the base of a bush with waxy leaves.

Luella called Charlie in for the local news. It began with the death of another burn victim from the explosion and fire at the Celebrity Pit. Then a quick clip from an interview with Mitch Hilsten about his plans for filming at a marina up the coast in North County and taking some clever camel shots out at the Wild Animal Park.

“Serious action, romance, great script, special effects—this story has it all,” Mitch said with a penetrating squint leveled at the camera that brought a sigh from Maggie and a snort from Kenny Cowper.

Luella peered around into Charlie's face to check her reaction and then sat back. “He's learning to talk the talk.”

“Has to if he's going to survive.” Even Charlie heard the regret in her voice. She'd liked the old Mitch better.
She
must be getting old. An update on murder at the Sea Spa at the Marina del Sol, with the addition of Raoul Segundo. “Sounds like a stage name.”

“… another mysterious murder, this time at the Hyatt Islandia. Dr. Grant Howard, founder and president of the well-known San Diego Film Institute, was found this morning by housekeeping in his room—”

A rattling at the door startled them all and the impossible coincidence of a voice, “Housekeeping!”

Kenny grabbed the
Do Not Disturb
sign off the doorknob inside and explained, “I'm not ready yet.”

“Hokay, I cumb back.”

He slipped the sign over the outside handle, bolted the bolt, and put on the chain.

“… shock from all who knew him. Details are sketchy at this time but Dr. Howard and his film institute,” the voice on the TV in the wardrobe said, “was hosting screenwriter Keegan Monroe who penned the smash hit at Cannes,
Open and Shut
, starring Treat Devoe and Bella Burgoine, as well as the sleeper,
Phantom of the Alpine Tunnel
, several years ago. We'll keep you posted on this late breaking news. Now back to NBC and the current war—”

Luella clicked the war away. Charlie left them all looking at each other and took her clothes into the bathroom to dress and take time to think. When she came out the others had hardly moved. Maggie thumbed through a glossy magazine. Her cheeks were wet. Kenny wrote in a spiral notebook, looking up to stare inward.

Luella, out on the balcony, held up the inside of an index finger, extended outward, in a “just a minute” motion, and ended a conversation on her cell. “Charlie, shouldn't you try to get a hold of Maggie's lawyer? She's probably on her way.”

All four of them glanced occasionally at the door to the hall, expecting the law to arrive any second. Charlie replaced Luella Ridgeway on the balcony to make the call and caught Nancy Trujillo at rush hour crawl, stop, crawl, stop on the 8, not far and indeed on her way. She'd just heard of the murder at the Islandia on her car radio. “Tell me Margaret Stutzman spent no time there alone last night, Ms. Greene.”

“I've been with her since we got here, but we slept in a friend's room instead of mine and another friend told me my room, two doors down, is crawling with police this morning. I don't know if they'll even let you up to this hallway.”

“I'll want a lot more questions answered but there may not be time now if the police are two doors away. I'm going to park in a lot down the bay a ways and walk along the marina boardwalk. How many cells do you have in that room right now besides the one you're using? That aren't Margaret's either?”

“Two.”

“I've got yours, give me the other two numbers, quick.”

When Charlie had, the lawyer cautioned, “If any of you are being questioned and your cell rings don't answer it. If you are ordered to, say ‘Yes?' instead of ‘Hello' or ‘This is Charlie' or whatever and I'll hang up and try someone else. Give my number to your friends and when anyone can get info out, call me.”

“Can't you do anything now?”

“Not much until she's charged. Hang in, I'll be close.”

“How did you know?” Charlie asked Luella. “How did you know Maggie and I shouldn't stay in our room last night?”

“How'd you know I'd get out in time?” Kenny had to add.

“I didn't, I swear. It's just my over-organized brain trying to cover all the bases. And everyone at the Sea Spa knows Charlie's sort of looking after Maggie. Somebody there who knew Charlie was here might figure Maggie would be in the same room like they were at the Spa. And there does appear to be an attempt to link her to the murders at the Spa—I don't know. It just seemed like a good idea.”

Charlie sat on the bed next to Maggie, “How you doing, kid?”

Tears still welled in those beautiful eyes but her cheeks were dry. “I'm making it. Just missing my Nasonex. It was in the drug bag I never got back.”

“Oh, I snort that,” Luella said. “For my allergies.”

“Was there any one doctor monitoring all the stuff you were on, Maggie?”

“Obviously not. Have you seen this, Charlie? The Sea Spa's in here. Sounds very legit in this write-up.” Those eyes spit defiance again.

Luella took a nasal spray bottle from her purse, shook it hard, and handed it to Maggie. Charlie took the magazine,
San Diego County Tourist Guide
, from Maggie's lap. It was a slick production touting all the things tourists and conventioneers might like to do to leave money in the area. The lead story was “
The Day Spa Phenom, Wave of the Future?
” The VanZants posed in front of the fancy wrought iron gate, Warren towering behind Caroline, Raoul off to one side, Sue Rippon the other—the latter two with arms crossed in front of them—and behind the four a good hint of the luxury accommodations and gardens. A professional head shot of Dr. Judy alone farther down on the page.

“Maggie, before or sometime during the time I passed out from drugged fruit and cheese in our room at the Sea Spa, I imagined I heard you screaming. Was that me hallucinating or what?”

“I went into the bathroom and the shower door was open and there was this hole in the tile. It had an eye in it. I yelled and the hole disappeared.”

“Sounds like dear Dashiell, the handyman.” Charlie's cell tweedled and she fully expected a cop to be on the other end, but it was Keegan.

“Is there any way you could sneak down here and help teach a course this morning? Natives are restless. I assume you've heard about Howard.”

“Yes, and the hallway's full of investigators near my room at last report. I'm not in it, but close enough to be seen sneaking out of the one I'm in.”

“My room was thoroughly gone over as well, but I'm told I have leave to carry on for the Institute. We'll be in the same room we used yesterday to hear the pitches and where your panel was, if you can make it.”

“You know what would be cool,” Kenny said when she'd explained Keegan's request, “is if you and I could go down to the conference where we belong, Luella could sneak Maggie out to meet her lawyer, and housekeeping could get into this room without drawing attention to it by banging on the door again.”

It sounded good but too easy, still they took a chance. Kenny went first while the rest stowed all signs of woman's wear behind closet doors where Luella assured them housekeeping never looked. The only giveaway was the size of the breakfast and the number of towels used by one occupant. Maybe he had a lady up last night. And she stayed for breakfast and showered twice.

Kenny went first and called to say it looked clear if they turned the other way from Charlie's room and took the stairs instead of the elevator, while Luella set up a place to meet Nancy Trujillo. Luella left next, sent for Maggie, and Charlie escaped last. The housekeeping cart was just across the hall, the door to her room down the hall open, and she could hear voices in there, but hurried the other way to the stairs, head down. Had to be a trap. It was too easy.

Listen dufus, you know what's going on. The cops don't know the whole story yet—probably haven't connected people from both the Spa and the workshop yet. Probably other murders in town, you know.

Charlie had to admit her inner self made sense but still—the only thing she was totally convinced of was the expedience of having everyone armed with a cellular.

She stepped off the elevator to see two things at once, Detective Solomon talking to Keegan Monroe in the hall outside the conference room and a woman arranging a book display on a cleverly built expandable and foldable table with three levels. The woman and her display were way too close to the elevator and Charlie put a finger to her lips before she ducked behind a potted fern.

This put her in a dark corner facing the elevator's shiny doors that mirrored a good section of the hall. In fact she could see herself peering from behind the fern, more like a fern tree. She met the gaze of the startled woman she'd hoped to hush, and behind her, saw Solomon turn and walk into the bar which was directly across from the conference room.

At the end of the wide hallway the outside glass doors opened to the center courtyard containing a lovely garden and the pool, with curving walkways to the lobby building, business conference centers, a seafood restaurant, and yet more marina.

Mitch Hilsten had given Charlie CDs of the old Monty Python films and clips from the
Flying Circus
TV shows when she was recovering from her accident on the 405 and she was reminded of them now as the display woman kept staring back in the mirrored elevator doors, nodding and smiling at Charlie like an idiot. Her hair a shoulder-length brown shag with suspicious red highlights, her shape like facing parentheses between neck and knees, she wore small glasses and a big smile, a red checked sleeveless, waistless dress to midcalf and black rubber sandals. Charlie guessed her to be somewhere in her late forties, early fifties and probably fifty pounds overweight.

The woman looked around and then suddenly slipped over to hand Charlie a book. “Something to read while you hide. But you have to give it back. Or pay for it. But you can have it for author's discount.”

She returned to her display table and unlike before looked everywhere but at Charlie and her fern tree. Mostly she smiled with a resigned hopefulness as the attendees filed past her to the conference room, avoiding her eyes and her display. Charlie would have pranced right on by her too if she hadn't seen Solomon in the hall first. She'd early on avoided her book authors' signings for this very reason. Charlie might be a tough Hollywood agent but watching hopeful authors embarrass themselves was more than she could stomach.