Vacations Can Be Murder: The Second Charlie Parker Mystery Page 3

  "What's happening?" I mouthed.

  He reached forward to the center console, and flipped a toggle switch. I noticed that the top position was labeled "Passengers," while the bottom position said "Co-Pilot." He switched it down. Now the backseat group could not hear him.

  "I radioed what I saw. The office is rescheduling my next flight, and the airport people want me to bring the police out. Operating as we do here, on aloha time, I'll probably be tied up with this until late tonight." His face had taken on lines I hadn't seen earlier. He suddenly looked drained.

  He toggled up so all could hear and swung the helicopter around the end of the sharp rocky ridge. Beyond, the land opened up again into a wide valley where taro fields shone in emerald squares below. Drake mechanically recited the names of the towns below and the famous people who inhabited the large estates that bordered a golf course and lined the beaches.

  The music flowing into our headsets turned into a haunting Hawaiian song, whose words were unfamiliar but whose melody cried with pain.

  The helicopter entered the island’s main volcanic crater through a broken-out V in its side, a place where lava flowed into the valley below in ancient times. On three sides, narrow waterfalls cascaded down the shiny black rock. Above us, the top of the mountain was shrouded in dark gray clouds, heavy with moisture, that misted down onto our windshield. The aircraft seemed tiny and insignificant in the huge cavern-like space. The music drummed heavily. The whole effect was melancholy gray.

  Once outside the gloomy crater, again the sun shone and we finished making our circle tour of the island. Somehow, though, I had the impression Drake was rushing through it, his mind still back there in the Hanakapiai Valley. Truthfully, I didn't hear much of the tour myself. My mind began to mull over the possibilities.

  Drake brought the helicopter in over the heliport, cruised slowly down the flight line, and set it softly down on the pad. While the waiting shuttle driver unloaded the others from the back seat, I fished around in my purse.

  "Drake, if you can use help with this, give me a call," I said, handing him my business card. "I'm staying at the Westin."

  "RJP Investigations?"

  "I'm a partner in a PI firm back home," I explained. "And from the look of it, I'd say this is no simple hiking accident. Looks to me like a murder."

  I unbuckled my seatbelt, and stepped down to the tarmac. I glanced back once. Drake was sitting motionless, holding my card in his hand. I didn't know whether he'd call or not, but I did know that my natural curiosity wasn't going to let go of this. Now that I'd voiced it aloud—the M word—I'd have to find out what had happened.

  So much for my vacation.

  Chapter 3

  I got into private investigating, indirectly, because I took an accounting course in college. I was twenty years old when I realized that I was about to come into a fairly decent inheritance, and I had never even balanced a checkbook. It was my second year of college, my second year of foundering around with no clear goal in mind.

  My parents had died in a plane crash when I was sixteen, leaving money in a trust for me, to be collected when I turned twenty-one. With this momentous occasion near at hand, I decided I’d better become fiscally responsible. My brother, Ron, talked me into the accounting course.

  Whether I really had a natural talent for the subject, or whether it was pure luck that I got professor Rosa Alvarez for the class, I'm not sure. She definitely helped ease my way through it with her genuine affinity for both her subject and her students. It's one thing to know a subject, another to teach it. Professor Alvarez had that rare ability to assess a student's learning mode, and fit the subject to it.

  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 w
ith 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 show
er 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."

  She wagged her index finger in my face. "So, I don't. He no get clean towels at night, and no orchid for the lady."

  "What about the lady?" I asked.

  She clamped her wrinkled lips together in a straight line, her head nodding knowingly. "Miss Turner. Registered in ten-fifty-seven. But those two rooms connect. Like Mister Page and Miss Turner connect. You know what I mean?" She held two fingers up, pressed together tightly.

  I gave her a knowing look. I pretty well had the picture.

  "Last night, whee, they have a big fight."

  "Oh?"

  "That man gotta temper, ya know? He scream at her, then slam the door when he leave."

  "When was this?"

  "Last night. Oh, 'bout seven-thirty, eight. Me and Hazel up here makin' our rounds like now. Mos' guests out for dinner. I was in ten-fifty-four. Door open, but he no see me."

  "Any other visitors last night?"

  "Not that I seen."

  "Well, thank you, Geraldine. You've been most helpful."

  I took the elevator down to ground level, and located a place to have dinner. The most casual of the hotel's many restaurants was open-air, facing the pool. Apparently, they catered mostly to the lunch crowd.

  Aside from a couple of families with children, and a few singles like myself, the place was quiet. I chose a table for one under a little palm frond umbrella. Suddenly, I was ravenous. I placed my order, then sat back to watch the people walk by.