Murder at the Miramar (Augusta Burnette Series) (16 page)

Chapter Twenty-nine

Sal insisted on driving us over to Annie’s even though we could see it from the front yard.

‘We still have to haul all your things back, girls, and I’m not a pack mule.’ She didn’t take the rifle as I’d assumed she would, instead slipping a cute little .22 pistol into the ankle holster she’d retrieved from her store room. I grinned, wondering what my mother would say if she knew I was consorting with old ladies who preferred a good firearm to a man.

The house looked like a whirlwind had gone through it. Couch cushions and pillows lay strewn across the front-room floor, and Annie’s collection of old police manuals had been dumped from the bookshelf where she had lined them up in precise order. I bent to gather some of the books but Sal stopped me with a quick word.

‘I know they already got pictures in here, AJ, but Annie said to leave it all the way we found it. She’s funny that way about her things.’ Sal disappeared into the kitchen and I could hear the sound of water being run. I guess ‘don’t touch’ didn’t extend to relatives who raised you.

Ellie and I made quick work of getting our gear together and lugging it back out to the car. Ellie had tucked her cards into her pocket, placing all her other belongings in her overnight bag. As for my things, I had shoved them into the suitcase willy-nilly, wanting nothing more than to get out of the house and back to Sal’s. The atmosphere still held an aura of violence and I had the uncomfortable feeling that if we were to linger much longer, we might be run out again at the point of a gun. Silly, I know, but there it was: I was completely creeped out. And if Detective Annie Bronson’s bungalow made me feel this way, how in the world would I be able to function at the Miramar?

Sal definitely made the visit to Annie’s easier. I wished that she could go with us, but I figured that it would need to be someone younger and probably a member of the San Blanco PD.

Wait – Sal had been a police officer! And she still had a mean hand when it came to firearms and police procedures and the like. Why couldn’t
she
go with us? Maybe pose as our Grandma Tillie? I was pretty pleased with my own suggestion, and Ellie caught me in mid-grin.

‘What’s so funny, AJ?’ she demanded, folding her arms and giving me her famous ‘it had better not be me making you laugh’ stare.

‘Your face,’ I retorted childishly, then softened the comment with a jab at her arm.

When we were younger, Ellie and I had started fake-punching one another, something that drove our mothers crazy. They had done their best to turn us into proper young ladies, and they would say whenever they caught us exchanging blows, ‘A lady never resorts to violence.’ For some perverse reason, that would make us giggle. As we grew older, it ceased to be so amusing but we still hung onto the detestable – in our mothers’ eyes – habit of punching each other’s arms.

‘Now, now, girls,’ chided Sal as we pulled into the bumpy driveway. She pulled the behemoth of a vehicle back into its familiar spot and cut the engine. ‘Don’t you two ever get along for more than a few minutes?’ Shaking her head in mock exasperation, she opened the heavy car door and stepped out into the yard.

I waited until we were all seated at the kitchen table to bring up the idea of Sal going undercover with us to the Miramar. Ellie had her beloved cards spread out in front of her. She had started making the pattern that I had seen before, occasionally flipping a card over and setting it aside. I watched her face rather than her hands, looking for a clue as to what she was thinking. The cards I didn’t trust, but Ellie’s instincts I did.

Sal brought a pitcher of iced tea over along with three old-fashioned jelly-jar glasses. I hadn’t seen anything like that since the time Ellie and I had to stay with GreatAunt Augusta while our folks went to a funeral. I tell you – that woman made me feel nervous, even as a little girl. Sometimes I had a hard time believing she was my beloved Grandma Tillie’s sister.

‘Sal,’ I began, reaching over to help myself to a glass of tea. ‘I have a proposition for you.’ I took the first taste of the cool amber-colored liquid, letting it slide down my throat slowly. There’s just nothing better than iced tea – unsweetened, of course – on a warm day.

‘Fire away.’ Sal looked evenly at me across the table, sipping at her own glass. I didn’t know her well enough to read her face, but she probably could keep her reactions under wraps from her days behind the badge.

‘I think it would be awesome if you’d come with me and Ellie back to the Miramar, Sal. Now hang on a sec,’ I said firmly, holding up one hand as Sal started to speak. ‘You’re an officer, you know how to handle a gun, and you could be our Grandma Tillie, come down for a bit of sun.’

Ellie looked up from her cards, a troubled look on her face. ‘AJ, I don’t think that’s such a good idea. I just saw something that worries me about this whole going-back thing.’

Sal and I both turned to face Ellie. She really did sound concerned, and like I said before, I do trust her instincts. Still …

‘What do you think is going to happen, Ellie?’ Sal beat me to the punch. I’d seen her eying the cards as Ellie had laid them out, a look of curiosity on her face.

Ellie sat silently, looking down at the two cards she had turned over. When she looked up, I swore I could see real fear in her eyes.

‘I can only tell you what the cards are saying,’ she answered slowly. She picked up one of the cards, fingers trembling. ‘This is The High Priestess. This means that we need to follow woman’s intuition. But it’s upside down, so it means we can’t rely on our instincts.’

‘OK, no prob,’ I replied, trying to lighten the moment. ‘I guess we’ll just have to solve this little issue with our smarts.’

‘What does this one mean?’ Sal pointed to a card with a man hanging from a tree.

‘That is The Hanging Man, and it means that we are almost guaranteed to fail in whatever we try to do.’ Ellie sounded depressed, and I impulsively reached over and squeezed her arm. She can be a real worry-wart at times.

Sal was beginning to look serious. I could almost see the smoke coming out of her ears as she thought things over, weighing the options against Ellie’s words. To tell the truth, that surprised me. For some reason I assumed that officers used deductive reasoning and not tarot cards to figure out the next move. This whole business of card reading was getting on my nerves, though, and being the diplomatic woman that I am, I let Ellie know just how I felt.

‘Look, Ellie,’ I spoke up firmly. ‘There is no way in the world I’m going to let a two by three piece of cardstock tell me what to think and feel and believe. We will either be successful or not at the Miramar, and that has nothing to do with fate or karma or whatever you want to call it.’

I was getting up a good head of steam, and from the looks of things, Ellie was as well. I’d already stepped in it almost up to my hips, so a few more words wouldn’t make a difference.

‘Sal, you know how to handle a situation, so you’d be perfect for going to the resort with us. Ellie, you can keep your eyes and ears open for any problems. I can make sure that none of us is left alone for any reason.’ I paused to smile at Sal and Ellie.

‘Look, we can do this, cards or no cards. Annie needs a break and Fischer deserves one, that’s for sure. What the man must be going through right now!’ I stopped talking to catch my breath, giving Ellie the perfect opportunity to barge in.

‘AJ, you are an absolute dork. Don’t you think that everyone will recognize Sal? I mean, she’s been around here for ever, and they would already know that Annie is related to her.’

Ellie had jumped into the fray with both feet; it’s too bad that one of them was needed for her ‘open mouth, insert foot’ problem.

‘I will have you know, young lady, that I have
not
been around here “for ever”, as you so succinctly put it.’ Sal’s hands were on her hips, her mouth folded as rigidly as one of Grandma Tillie’s precious lace-trimmed linen tablecloths. She looked like a pint-sized version of those nutty wrestlers on local television. Ellie, her own mouth set in annoyance, looked ready to fire the next verbal salvo.

‘Er … Ellie, Sal, let’s focus, OK?’ I attempted to defuse the tense sparring match before it got much life, not wanting to alienate either woman. We needed to be a team if anything successful was going to come of this insane return to the Miramar. ‘Sal, I think that you could use a little help in the disguise department. Ellie, could you help me think of something that could change her appearance? I mean, think Grandma Tillie here.’

Sometimes I just crack myself up, and I nearly got the giggles visualizing Sal as our grandmother. Our Grandma Tillie is a mountain of a woman, and I do mean that in the nicest way. She is nearly as wide as she is tall, and she has the ability to move her heft as quickly as if she was half the size. It wasn’t wise to tangle with Grandma Tillie; sassy little girls were never able to outrun the fly swatter of justice at her house.

I could see that Ellie was reading my mind as she smiled at me. Turning back to look at Sal, she said, ‘Yes, I can see we’d need to add a few things, maybe some padding around the middle. Hey, AJ, you know that show we like to watch, the one where they explain how they do makeup for movies? They always stuff something in the person’s mouth to, you know, to plump up their face.’

Ellie can use her words sometimes to get a point across in an oh-so-innocent way. I hastily added, ‘Yes, they use something in the
cheeks
to make someone look heavier.’

I shot Ellie a warning glance. It wouldn’t do to get Sal all riled up again.

Sal still looked doubtful. ‘I’m not sure, girls. I need to talk to Annie first, run the whole scheme by her.’

‘Great idea, Sal!’ I said enthusiastically. ‘Why don’t you ring her right now?’ No time like the present, I thought wryly, to tackle a bad idea.

In record time, the three of us were packed and ready to hit the trail for the Miramar. I called ahead to let Stan know that our ‘grandma’ would be joining us so he wouldn’t pop a blood vessel when he saw an extra face at the table.

Whether I liked it or not, I was back in the saddle, heading right back into the mess I’d managed to escape. Who says dumb isn’t contagious?

Chapter Thirty

From the outside, the Miramar Resort looked as placid as ever. The grounds were well-tended, the bougainvillea abounded with riotous fuchsia-colored blossoms, and the large windows of the main lobby gleamed in the sunlight. To the casual observer, this was a place of rest and relaxation, not the terrifying location I knew it to be. Just one more reason I was glad to have the comforting figure of Sal beside me.

The front desk clerk was happy to see me and Ellie again and only gave Sal a fleeting glance. So far, so good, on the covert end of things, although with the way Sal was conspicuously checking out the exits, I had the feeling that the undercover part might not last all that long.

I got the keycard to the Palo Verde suite again, though what possessed me to agree to that particular set of rooms is beyond me. It was probably more habit than anything else, but I could tell it didn’t sit well with Ellie. Sal, on the other hand, was pleased, especially when she found out that this was the place we’d experienced some horrifying moments.

‘I’m not a ghoul, girls,’ she told us, ‘just an old cop taking advantage of a crime scene.’

Whatever the reason, the Palo Verde it was. I was relieved to see that the place had been restored to pristine condition, no evidence of our run-in with the Ellie’s assailant or the San Blanco PD’s forensic team. All traces of black fingerprint powder were gone and the place looked fabulous.

I toted our luggage into the bedroom, then paused: I hadn’t considered the sleeping arrangements and with just one bed and couch, one of the three of us might found our self on the floor. I shouldn’t have bothered worrying, though. When I returned to the front room, Sal was already plumping and fluffing the couch cushions. She looked up as I walked in.

‘Should be just fine out here. You two take the bedroom. I’ve got ol’ Bessie here for company,’ she added, lovingly patting her rifle.

I just shook my head. Ol’ Bessie, and a couple of her smaller relatives, had made the trip in a battered golf bag that had definitely seen better
decades
, never mind days.

Well, if Sal felt safe, then I felt safe.

Ellie was sitting at the kitchen table, a brooding look on her face. I knew something was wrong, could probably even guess what it was, but I knew she’d tell me sooner or later. The ever-present deck of cards lay at her elbow, and I was pretty sure that before long, she’d have them spread out, poring over them and giving herself another ulcer.

‘I guess I need to find what’s-his-name, let him know we’re here. Ellie,’ I asked, looking at my cousin, ‘do you want to go with me, or stay here with Sal?’

Ellie’s hands moved over the cards, automatically picking them up and shuffling them as she thought.

‘I think I’ll stay, AJ. Sal and I can meet you for dinner, if you want to eat with everyone else. I mean, if we don’t want room service.’ She spoke almost absently as she began to lay the cards out on the table, moving them into precise rows that fanned out from a center card.

I shrugged. ‘Sounds good. Talking to more than two people at one time might be too much for Stan anyway.’ I’d never been overly impressed by his mental prowess; I’d seen him in action and he had been found wanting, in my opinion. Sigh. Never send a man to do a woman’s work …

With the promise to call if I was held up for any reason, i.e. if Stan managed to dump his work on me, I left the suite and headed for the front lobby. The corridors were quiet, with none of the everyday sounds one might expect to hear at a hotel. Either it was an across-the-board siesta, or Stan had everyone cowed into silence.

As I passed the office where I’d been nearly frightened to death, I paused. There was no light shining under the door that I could see, but my ears had caught a sound, something almost metallic softly clicking inside.

Common sense would usually tell someone to get a living, breathing person to back you up, before opening that door. Unfortunately, I’ve never been accused of having too much in the common-sense department.

It occurred to me, just as I pushed the door open, that it wasn’t locked. Emmy had stressed that this was off-limits to all but those in management, so it was to remain locked up tight whenever no one was in there.

‘We’ve got payroll information in here, personnel files – lots of things that shouldn’t be public knowledge. If you ever need to be in here, AJ, be sure to lock it behind you,’ she had told me as we toured the Miramar. I had nodded solemnly, noting it as
muy importante.

The memory gave me pause, wondering if Stan West was so lax that he’d not bothered to follow what I’d thought to be Miramar protocol.

The clicking sound was coming from one of the computers standing on a pair of desks. I moved around so that I could see the screen, but it was dark. The noise emanated from the computer tower, and as I bent closer to get a better idea of the source, the room went black. I felt myself falling across the desk, my legs buckling under me.

Someone had turned out my lights.

I can remember being knocked out one time before, the day that Ellie and I decided to try out for the Jackson Elementary boys’ baseball team. I’d managed to make contact with the ball, but as I ran to first base, Barney McKenzie, terror of the Fourth Grade, had beaned me on the back of the head with a perfectly aimed throw. That had effectively ended my plan to take over the team with my awesome baseball skills.

The light, when I started to stir, seemed watery, as if it was being filtered through the glass of an aquarium. When I managed to get my eyes opened all the way, I knew right away I wasn’t in the office. The air smelled different, almost like overbrewed coffee. Another thing was wrong, too: I couldn’t feel my hands, and my feet seemed to be welded together. A few more seconds and it was apparent that whoever had hit me also wanted to make sure that I wouldn’t be able to go for help. My feet were tied tightly together and my hands had been trussed as well, so firmly that my fingers had lost all circulation. In short, I was in a world of hurt.

‘So. You’ve decided to join us, I see,’ said a voice that was oddly familiar.

I attempted to turn my head in the direction of whoever it was, but the room began to spin and I had to put my head back down. Once the ceiling had stopped in its orbit and I could focus again, I slid my eyes sideways, hoping to catch a glimpse of my captor.

From the corner of eye, I could see a pair of feet clad in soft-soled shoes. The ankles were slim, as were the legs. When they begin to move directly into my line of sight, I was so shocked that I couldn’t think of a response.

Maria, shy employee of the Miramar and concerned friend, stood there, one eyebrow raised in contempt. Behind her stood Fernando, his large frame almost entirely blocking out the dim light coming in from a small window. How did … I didn’t understand … my mind was not computing what my eyes were seeing. The Miramar Murderer was not just one person: it was a two-headed monster.

‘Why, Maria? I mean, killing three people? And sending your thugs to beat up Ellie? What did you have to gain?’ I tried to make sense of everything, trying to see Maria, kind, gentle Maria, as a killer. Fernando maybe, since the guy already seemed a bit off-kilter, but Maria? Ellie would never believe it.

Maria gave a short laugh that did not sound amused. ‘Gain, AJ? What did I have to gain?’ Her tone was mocking.

‘Are you referring to the money I get from my little ID card business? The office is the perfect place to stash the blank cards, isn’t it, Fernando? Not to mention telling us which engagements Emmy would be attending and who is on duty.
And
we can check which rooms are empty, so we can move the portable card reader and gear around. You’ll have guessed,’ she added, ‘that locked doors are not a problem for me.’

Fernando had the grace to look uncomfortable. She continued in the same tone, ‘Or is it freedom, the freedom to move around without fear of being caught by the police and sent back? If that’s what you’re talking about, then yes, I’m glad I did it.’ She looked at me defiantly, her eyes glittering slits of anger in her face.

I was thinking frantically, trying to come up with something that would persuade Maria to let me go. What did she think I knew, anyway? All I wanted to do was to get back home to my boring little town in one piece, Ellie by my side. In movies, the victim – which would be me – usually promised not to reveal the crime or the perpetrators – that would be the twosome standing in front of me – to the authorities. Of course, I couldn’t think of a single time it worked, but what the heck? At that moment, I had no other recourse. I swallowed, my throat feeling curiously dry.

‘Maria, Fernando. I know you really don’t know much about me, but I can promise you that I am a woman of my word. And I give you my word that, if you let me go, I will never, ever tell a single soul what’s happened here. And I’ll leave today.

Promise.’ My voice sounded pleading in my ears, and I hoped that Maria would believe me.

She gave that unpleasant laugh again, turning to jab Fernando in the ribs. ‘See? Didn’t I tell you that she’d say that? Maybe I should start telling fortunes like her so-very-bright cousin.’

Fernando smiled grimly but still remained silent. I aimed my next words at him. ‘Fernando, if she was OK with killing her own brother, think what she might do to you.’

 I didn’t get any further.

Maria’s slap across my face made my brains feel like they were sloshing around inside my already woozy head. It made me mad, though, madder than I’d been in a long time. Well, if you didn’t count how mad I’d been at David, that is. I had been pretty ticked off at him.

I peered around Maria, locking my eyes on Fernando’s expressionless face. ‘I mean it! You can get out of this now.’ She sent another blow my way, this one stinging my cheeks and wrenching my neck sideways. The woman was definitely strong, probably from lifting all those trays she’d carried to my room.

‘C’mon, Fernando, untie me.’ This time I was ready for Maria, rolling onto my side and catching her hand on my shoulder. I’d had enough of the cuffs to my head.

Fernando, to my amazement, stepped forward one tiny, tentative step. It was obvious now who was the leader in this relationship; size was definitely no factor here. Maria, sensing Fernando’s movement, swung around, hand raised as if to hit him as well. He shrank back, but didn’t take his eyes off of her.

I gave it one more try. ‘Fernando. She’s going to let you take the fall for all of this, she’s going …’ I broke off to concentrate on avoiding another blow.

Fernando moved around Maria so that he was in my line of sight. The look on his face was one of confusion; maybe my words had hit a target.

‘Maria,’ he began, speaking softly. ‘Does she speak the truth?’ He had directed the words at her but kept looking at me.

Now Maria’s anger was directed at him. Hands on hips, the small woman appeared to grow right before my eyes. She’d make an efficient mom one of these days, I thought with grudging admiration. She had the technique down already.

‘Fernando, with all we have been through together, you and I, how can you even believe something this
gringa
says?’ She spat the words out as though they had a foul taste, turning her head to shoot a venomous look at me. I stared back, my heart and hope sinking. There was no getting through to her.

I felt, rather than heard, the explosive movement. The door behind Fernando flew open, two uniformed officers on either side of a battering ram and a short figure behind them.

‘Did someone call for room service?’ Sal Bacon, cavalry and all, had come to the rescue.