Who Glares Wins (Lexi Graves Mysteries) (9 page)

Solomon was
spot on
. If the hotel got a reputation for poor staffing, menus that couldn't be served, and suitcases that left
noticeably
lighter, I wouldn't book and neither would anyone else.

I flicked through the background checks until I got to Edward Killjoy. His photo showed he was in his late forties with a shaved head and a lightly tanned face. The picture only showed him from mid-chest upwards and I took in a sober
,
navy suit with a striped tie and a white shirt. Killjoy lived on the premises i
n a suite in the staff quarters. He
wasn't married and didn't have kids. He had spent his whole life working in hotels and
was
promoted from assistant manager
,
to manager when the hotel was bought by the chain. I wondered if he had anything to do with paving the way for the sale,
possibly being
rewarded with promotion
,
instead of being fired in a reshuffle. In a couple of days, I
planned
to be his favorite employee.

Glancing at my watch, I had an hour before I was due to drop in at my parents. That left thirty minutes to look through Marissa Widmore's files.
Despite being told to send Elisabeth back to the police,
I was still concerned about her missing status, especially
with her car
impounded
. She couldn't go far without
it
, unless she took public transport
and I couldn’t see why she would
. I picked up the office phone on my desk and called Jord.

"Hey," he said. "I'm on duty in a half hour."

"You caught night shift?"

"Working a double. Taking a break at the station. There's a flu bug going around."

"Sorry to hear that," I said
, tapping my pen against my notes
.
If cops were heading off sick, how would that help Elisabeth or her friend?
"Have you got a buddy in the impound lot?"

"Not a buddy
,
but I know someone. Why?"

"There's a car that was impounded
, in which
I have an interest. I want to know if I can look it over." I gave him the p
late and description of the car, not bothering to lowe
r my voice. Lucas had his headphones on and Fletcher was out.
I doubted
my remaining colleagues were
paying
any
attention to me.

"Let me call you back."

Ten minutes later
,
my cell phone rang. It was Jord. "Scotty Sibowitz is working at the lot tomorrow morning. Go over and he'll let you take a look around. You might want to slip him a few bucks."

"Thanks for the tip. Sorry you
had
to work tonight."

"Gotta keep Montgomery safe," said Jord a
s he
hung up.

I called Elisabeth Fong next and left a message
,
saying I was
sorry to keep her waiting and I'd call her again soon. I didn't say we weren't taking the case,
but I also
didn't say we were. I figured a few extra checks couldn't hurt before I gave her the bad news. I took the hotel file and Marissa's to keep at home,
just in case
I might not make it back into the office before I started my undercover temping sentence
. I
drove to my parents' house, unsure whether to feel elated or scared to death that I was now a fully
-
fledged PI
with my very own pending case
.

I
couldn’t wait to see
what Fletcher’s face would look like when I solved it.

Chapter Four

My parents live in a neat
,
white-painted house with yellow trim that
is meant
to
evoke
,
at least
in my mother's mind, a daisy.
To me, i
t looks more like an egg
,
but no one likes to say. This is the house I was born into and
also
where five rambunctious children were raised. Well, four, and my sister, Serena
,
who was born a swot and stayed that way. Frankly, it's amazing
the house is
still standing
,
given
everything it endured.

"Alexandra!" My mother swung the door open and held up
some kind of
fabric
that was
hideous, a brilliant smile on her face. My mother is Irish to the bone, born shortly after her parents made the hop over. Even
now,
in her sixties
,
she has
dark brown hair, gra
ying slightly, and the prettiest blue eyes. I'm a lot like her, but taller
by an inch
. "I'm sewing a mural with my beginn
ing
sewing class."

"Wow," I said
, fingering the fabric
. "Tell me about it."

My mother frowned at me. "That's what I always used to say to you kids when I couldn't work out what you made."

I took a leaf out of Solomon's book and just smiled. Her assessment was accurate
,
but I wouldn't insult her by confirming it. Instead, I glossed
it
over by asking, "Am I the first here?"

"You're the only one I invited," said Mom, ushering me into the kitchen. I noticed the sewn mural went flying into a large
,
floral basket, a new addition to their neat home. My father was noticeably absent from his leather chair in the living room, a retirement gift to him from
my mother
,
and now his favorite spot in the whole house. "I thought dinner with just the two of us would be nice."

"Lovely. Where's Dad?"

"He's taken up tennis."

I gave her my skeptical face. "Are you serious?
"

"Deadly. He bought white shorts." We both pulled a face. My father is well known for having incredibly hairy legs
,
and I doubted either of us wanted to think about him flying about a tennis court, baring them to the world.

"Aren't you going to go with him?"

"My Friday afternoon aerobics class is enough."

"I
wonder
where you get the energy to do all this stuff." I was fairly certain my mother had taken just about every adult education class going, and constantly had several on the go. Since
retiring
, she'd gained two belts in karate, slimmer hips from aerobics, basic French
,
and certificates in IT skills. I think she's
just
bored.

"I'm still wired from raising five children," she told me as I sat at the breakfast bar in the kitchen. I
t was i
nstalled once my brothers grew up
,
moved out,
and
finally
stopped breaking stuff with their gangly limbs
. T
he kitchen still looked new and smart. "All that nervous energy has to go somewhere."

"You haven't raised children for twelve years, Mom!" I was the last of the five. I should know.

"That gives me at least twenty more years to work off. I might be dead by then."

"Cheery."

My mother had already assembled a platter of freshly baked bread, olives, cold meats, cheese
,
and a fresh pitcher of juice at the ready. She spread them between
us, and passed me a plate and glass
.

"This is nice," I told her again
as I
placed
cheese and ham
on
a slice of bread
.
I bit into it and felt the last of my hangover ebb
ing
away.
"I like family dinners
,
but it's nice to actually see you
without taking a ticket
."

"That's what I thought." Mom chewed on some bread, her face thoughtful.

"Spill it," I said. I wasn't a PI
now
for nothing. I saw the quest
ion forming in my mother's head, the ulterior motive
overshadowing
the food.
"I know you want to ask me something."

"Actually, I want to talk to you about Serena."
Mom poured juice in my glass, then for her
self
.

"What's up?"

"She's not herself."

"She just had a baby. She's tired."

"That's not it. She's sad, I can tell."

"What about?"

"She won't tell me."

"And you want me to ask her?"

My mother nodded and her hair bobbed with her.
"Yes."

I knew it. I'd seen it coming and I kind of agreed with her. Serena had skipped the last couple of family dinners
,
and when she did come,
she was alone
except for
her brand new
baby
,
Victoria. Normally
,
she had a sharp wit, and an even sharper ability to name drop
,
or at least throw in a sly insult or two. She hadn't
been
lately. I had two theories and both of them
were plausible
: it was either work or her husband, Ted
,
getting her down. I knew Serena's work situation wasn't good. Before she had the baby, she told me that she thought her company was going to get rid of her
. T
hey had
historically
let pregnant employees and new mothers go. As for Ted...
he was a dick
. He barely made it to the baby's birth
, staying only an hour afterwards before heading to a business dinner
.
I doubted he paid
much
attention to either of them at home.

"Okay," I said. "I'll catch up with her on Sunday at dinner."

"You can't do it sooner?"

"No can do. I have a bunch of stuff to do tomorrow." Including a date with Maddox which I wouldn't miss
;
and a date with Scotty Sibowitz at the impound lot
,
that I shouldn't miss.

"I'll make sure she's there," said Mom, but she didn't look relieved. If anything, she seemed more worried
since
I agreed with her.

I hung around until Dad got home, help
ing
my mother clea
n
up,
and
watched a little television with them
.
T
hen
I
motored home to my apartment for an early night. When I got
there
,
the building was quiet, all the lights
were
off
,
and Lily's turquoise Mini Cooper
was
missing
,
so I figured she
must be
working.

I let myself into my apartment, kicked off my heels and reached for a wine glass
. Then I
thought better of it and poured a large glass of orange juice. In the living room, I spread my two files across the coffee table and put the juice glass on the floor
,
because I just knew I'd soak everything otherwise.

Feeling like a dog with a bone, I started with Marissa's file
.
I
made a list of e
verything I wanted to know, thinking
,
so what if it w
ere
n’t an agency case? This was my free time and if I wanted to look at it, I could.

My list was fairly simple.
One
:
where was Marissa working when she
vanished
?
A
nd if she wasn't, how
did she support
herself?
Despite living
in a cheaper part of town, she still had to e
a
t
and pay rent
. Two
:
what did her friends know? Three
:
was her relationship with Elisabeth as good as Elisabeth
believed
? Four
:
had she pissed anyone off? Five
:
did she have any ties with any other area
or people
that she might want to go to?
Six
:
why hadn’t she claimed her car?

After I finished my list, I doodled on the notepad, wondering what would have to happen
for
me
to
go missing
?
O
r appear to be
?
I flipped the page and started a new list.
One:
Accident (possible amnesia or coma?)
Two:
New job.
Three:
Vacation.
Four:
Stress/ depression
Five:
Murder.

Pondering the first option,
I picked up my phone and called my sister-in-law
,
Alice
,
catching
her
right
in the middle of bath time.
The kids
’
, not her
s
.
She was a nurse at Montgomery General and a better person to ask about accident
victims
than
either
Maddox or my brothers.

“Daniel isn’t home yet,” she told me.

"
That’s okay. I wanted to talk to you anyway.
Odd question," I said. "Has a woman been brought into the hospital
who remains
un
identified? Like, maybe she has amnesia?"

"Not that I know of," said Alice, pausing to yell at
Ben
for splashing bath
water all over the floor. "It's pretty rare to
get
anyone with amnesia. We'd talk about it."

"This would be in the last two weeks," I said.

"Then definitely
,
no."

"What about
a
com
a?
O
r a Jane Doe in the morgue?"

"Definitely
,
no to a coma. Well, we have people in comas
,
but they're all identified. And no to Jane Doe. That's gossip
-
worthy too."

I grimaced. Very maudlin. "What do you do if you get someone you can't identify?"

"Is this weird PI stuff?" Alice wanted to know.

"Yeah. I just wanted to know how it work
s
."

"Okay. Well, we'd get their photograph and pass it
on
to the police
;
and maybe their fingerprints and DNA
. We’d
get th
e police to run that for us too, in case it’s someone in a database, even if it’s a parking ticket.
It's really important to get people identified for medical allergies as well as informing their relatives. But it's pretty rare, Lexi. Just about everyone has some kind of ID on them, even if it's just their cell phone or a credit card."

"Okay, thanks."

"No problem. See you Sunday?"

"Yes, you will."

"
Are y
ou bringing
that
cute cop?" Alice sounded hopeful. It wasn't every day I brought a man home. Actually, it wasn't every year either.

"No, I don't want to frighten him."

"Good call."

After I hung up, I added
“
phone records
”
to my list and circled it
before checking
in the file. Elisabeth had added a cell phone number for Marissa
,
but not a home phone. I could get
Lucas
to hack her records for me, if I told him it
had
to do with a case. He might even assume it was Solomon's case, if I
failed to
give any other information. Sneaky, but effective.