A Tale of Two Biddies (13 page)

“But I don’t know your name.”

“Rosalee.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Rosalee. I hear you work at the hotel.”

I think she nodded. Since we were already past the house with the soft lighting, it was a little hard to tell.

“Have you worked there long?”

“Last summer,” she said. “And the summer before.”

“And is that when you met Richie?”

Another nod, and don’t think I failed to notice that her chin quivered.

“It’s hard.” I didn’t need to tell her, but she did need to know that I understood a little of what she was going through. “You must miss him.”

“We wasn’t serious or nothing. I mean, every year after the summer, I went back to Sandusky where I’m from and then me and Richie, we’d hardly ever even talked to each other or anything. But then when I came back up here the next summer . . .”

I let her gather her thoughts while we walked along in silence past rows of well-tended summer cottages.

“We’d hang out. You know?” Rosalee finally said. “Not like all the time or anything. I mean, it’s not like we were living together. Richie was just . . .” I gave her a sidelong look just in time to see her raise her scrawny shoulders. “Sometimes it was hard to talk to him.”

“Still, you kept up a relationship all this time.”

Rosalee shook her head. “He’d get real quiet sometimes. And sometimes he’d complain, you know, about how life didn’t treat him so fair. But most of the time, Richie, he was okay. I mean, like when we stopped at a bar, he paid for my beers.”

“Do you have a theory about why someone killed him?” I asked.

Rosalee stopped walking and shoved her hands into the pockets of her black shorts. “Richie sometimes pissed people off. I guess you probably know that. But he wasn’t a bad guy. He never wanted to hurt anybody, it was just that sometimes, well . . . sometimes Richie had some real bad luck.”

So did Mike Lawrence and Dan Peebles and Gordon Hunter. All because of Richie. This wasn’t the time to mention it. “Who do you think killed him?” I asked her.

“I dunno.” Rosalee turned away as if that would keep me from seeing her brush her hands across her cheeks. “But who killed him, that’s what I come to talk to you about. That’s why I was waiting for you and why I followed you. The girls over at the hotel, they talk, you know. And they was saying that you and your friends, they told me you solved a murder a couple months ago, and I thought if you could do it then, maybe you could do it again and, you know, figure out what happened to Richie.”

“That’s what the police are for.”

“The police, they don’t care. I mean, not really. Richie was just Richie and everybody thought he was a loser. But he wasn’t. He was just . . .” Thinking, she pressed her lips together. “Richie was kind of depressed sometimes. He used to say he could have been somebody but that didn’t work out because some guy, he stole what should have been Richie’s. I never told him, but I always thought that sounded a little crazy.”

“Maybe not.” I wasn’t prepared to tell Rosalee everything I’d learned from Tiffany about the court case that had once pitted Richie against Dino, not until I had a chance to fact check. “Is there anything else you can tell me that might help?”

She hung her head.

“How about explaining that fight you and Richie had outside the hotel the other day.”

Rosalee’s head shot up. “Who says?”

“Does it matter?”

She propped her fists on her hips. “Hell, yes, it matters ’cause it ain’t true, and anyone who says it is, that person is lying. So what, you listened to that lie and now you think I was mad at Richie? That I had something to do with killing him?”

“Did you?”

Instead of answering, Rosalee kicked a stone and sent it skittering to the side of the road. “I came to talk to you to ask for your help,” she said. “But you’re just like all the rest of them. You figure people like Richie and me, we’re not worth helping, that we don’t matter.”

Before I could tell her she was wrong, Rosalee stalked back the way we came and disappeared into the darkness.

“So much for that line of the investigation,” I grumbled to myself.

But don’t think I was about to give up. Either Rosalee was lying about the fight she had with Richie, or Margaret was mistaken about what she and Alice saw. Guess which I was betting on?

I added Rosalee to the list of people I’d need to pay more attention to and hung a right to walk down the street that would take me behind the B and B.

“You didn’t have a fight, huh?” I asked myself, thinking about what Rosalee had told me. “That was a whole lot of anger for somebody who claims she and Richie were tight when he died.”

That will teach me to talk to myself.

If I would have shut up, maybe I would have heard the noise behind me sooner.

Footsteps against the pavement.

I stopped and blew out a breath of exasperation. “Rosalee,” I called out without bothering to turn around, “if you’re not going to be level with me, don’t even bother following me.”

“How about if I’m not Rosalee?”

A man’s voice brought me spinning around. If my heart wasn’t pounding hard enough to deafen me, I would have realized who it was right away.

“Levi!” I pressed a hand to my chest and relief washed over me. At least until I took a second to assess the situation. “Why are you following me?”

In the waxy light of the crescent moon, his hair gleamed like silver. “I came over to the B and B to see you just as you were walking away from the place. And then I saw that woman follow you. I thought—”

“That I can’t protect myself from skinny hotel maids?”

I didn’t say it to make him smile, and when he did, I realized my teeth were clenched. “I’m sure you can protect yourself.”

“But you followed me anyway.”

Rather than explain, he started walking, and since I wouldn’t be happy until he explained himself, I did, too.

“You’ve been poking your nose into Richie’s murder,” Levi said, as casual as can be.

“Not exactly poking. More like—”

“Poking.”

Honestly, I thought about cutting him off at the knees right then and there, turning on my heels and heading back the way I’d come, but I knew I was closer to home in this direction than I would be if I headed back. “This sounds like a conversation we’ve already had,” I reminded him.

“You apparently weren’t listening last time.”

I drew in a lungful of air big enough to supply all the wind I needed to level him, but Levi never gave me a chance.

“What you’re doing is dangerous,” he said.

“I’m being careful.”

“Not careful enough to realize Rosalee was following you.”

“Or that you were following both of us.”

My sarcasm was lost on him. We made the right turn at the street that would take us alongside Chandra’s house. “It’s not smart,” he said, and added quickly, “which isn’t to say you’re not smart.”

“Just that I’m not acting smart.”

“You said it, not me.”

We walked a little more, and rather than debate what I figured wasn’t worth debating anyway, I decided to catch him off guard. “Why aren’t you at the bar?” I asked him.

We were nearing Chandra’s and the colored Christmas lights that criss-crossed over her patio threw a rainbow against Levi’s face. “If I tell you we weren’t busy you’re just going to tell me I’m wrong.”

“Then tell me the truth instead.”

“The truth . . .” We made the last of our right-hand turns and we were back on my street now. There was no music coming from the garage, and since apparently the Boyz had called it a day, no fan club panting with every note, and for this I was grateful. “The truth is that the bar is open again, but Mike had things under control. The rest of the truth is that I’d hate to see something happen to you,” Levi said.

“And you think that’s a possibility because . . .”

“Because somebody killed Richie, and whoever that somebody is, he’s not going to like you—”

“Poking my nose where it doesn’t belong. Yeah, you said that already.” We got to the B and B and I was surprised when Levi headed up the front walk with me. “The cops are looking into Richie’s murder. Do you follow them around, too, and tell them what they’re doing is dangerous?”

It wasn’t much of an argument, but that didn’t mean he had to grin. “That’s their job.”

“And mine is—”

“It’s supposed to be running this place. Which sounds nice and normal and safe, and if you’d just do what you’re supposed to be doing and not—”

“Poke my nose where it doesn’t belong.”

“Yeah.”

When had we stopped and faced off across the slate sidewalk like two SmackDown opponents? And when had I propped my fists on my hips?

I didn’t know, and right about then, I didn’t much care. My blood pounded in my temples when I demanded, “You want to explain why it’s any of your business?”

Levi stopped himself from replying, but just barely. That didn’t keep a noise that sounded like a bear’s grumble from rising in his throat.

He didn’t say a thing. In fact, all he did was grab me by the shoulders and kiss me so long and hard, my toes curled.

I think when he was done he turned and walked back toward town. Then again, it was a little tough to tell, what with my glasses all steamed up.

I
have an excellent imagination.

This can be a real asset. Especially when I’m trying to figure out motive and opportunity and who’s who when it comes to murder investigations.

And when that same imagination keeps me up all night reliving that kiss from Levi over and over again . . .

Well, let’s just say that when Chandra showed up at my back door bright and early the next morning, I was not the happiest—or the most well-rested—of campers.

“Pokeberry,” was the first word that came out of her mouth, and as strange as it seems, this was actually something of a relief. Had Chandra been witness to what happened between me and Levi the night before, no doubt she would have led with that, as well as a billion questions about how it felt and what I thought and what the heck I was going to do now that he’d taken the first step.

Believe me, I didn’t need someone asking me the same questions I’d been asking myself all night.

“Pokeberry,” she said again when all I did was attempt to shake the cobwebs from my brain and ignore the thrilling, tingling, tantalizing sensations that zipped through my bloodstream when I thought about Levi. Fortunately, while I was trying to get my act together, I happened to look over her shoulder and see Hank’s SUV pull away from her house. Thus, her single-word greeting made a whole lot more sense.

“Pokeberry,” I repeated. “They finally determined that’s the poison the killer used.”

Her mouth fell open. “You must be psychic. How did you know—”

I pointed out the window, and when Chandra turned and saw Hank’s patrol car, she barked out a laugh. “So I guess you know what we were talking about,” she said.

What Chandra and Hank had been talking about was a much safer and potentially less-embarrassing topic than what they’d been doing. I knew it, and I stuck to it. “Pokeberry grows wild just about everywhere, including all over the island. It would have been a cinch for the killer to dig up a root.”

“The root . . .” Thinking, Chandra narrowed her eyes and scrunched up her nose. “Hank says it’s the most poisonous part of the pokeberry plant. How did you know that?”

I pulled out my all-purpose answer to so many questions. “I must have read it somewhere.”

“Yeah! That’s it!” Like what I’d said was some great revelation, she pointed a finger at me. “It was in that FX O’Grady book, the one about the Victorian undertaker who poisons people with pokeberry, then takes the corpses and—”

“That’s enough!” I held up one hand to stop her in her tracks. “Wherever I read it, all I know is that all the parts of the pokeberry plant are poisonous, but the root is the most lethal part.”

She nodded. “Exactly what Hank said.”

“Of course, the killer could have used the berries, too,” I said, doing some quick mental calculations. “It would take a lot of them to actually kill an adult, but if the killer gave Richie a drink and used the berries for red coloring, then spiked it further with pokeberry root . . .” It made perfect, if perverted, sense. “Some of the symptoms of pokeberry poisoning aren’t all that different from what Richie would have been feeling if he had too much to drink. He probably never knew what hit him until it was already too late.”

Chandra shuffled past me and went right for the pot of coffee I’d just brewed. “It’s hard to believe anyone could be evil enough to do that, put poison in a drink, then stand back and watch somebody gulp it down.”

“That’s the whole point. I mean, about poisoners. A poisoner is a hands-off kind of killer. He wants the victim to die, but he doesn’t have the guts to just step right up and make it happen. You know, like with a gun or a knife. So he takes the chicken’s way out. He administers the poison, then, just like you said, he lets the poison do the work and never gets his hands dirty.”

Over her coffee mug, I saw the horror in Chandra’s eyes. “You know an awful lot about poisoners.”

I waved away the information as insignificant. “Like I said, I read it all somewhere. They say poisoners are highly intelligent. You know, because they have to plan the murder and get the poison ready and somehow slip it to the victim when no one’s looking. They’re also supposed to be creative and detailed and good at pretending to be someone they’re not.”

Chandra’s lips puckered. “You mean like somebody in disguise?”

“I mean like somebody pretended to be Richie’s friend and probably offered to buy him a few drinks. With all the commotion in the bar the other night, it would have been easy for the killer to slip the pokeberry into Richie’s drink on the way back from the bar and no one ever would have noticed. Then . . .”

“Yeah, then . . .” Chandra washed away the thought with a long drink of French roast, and since I had a loaf of brioche out for any early risers who might show up before the designated nine o’clock breakfast, she cut off a slice and took a bite. “So what are we going to do?” she asked.

I told her I was going to wait around until nine so I could serve breakfast, then I was going downtown.

Since Chandra’s mouth was full, what she said next came out sounding like, “Thwhe wavi?” She took a drink of coffee to wash down the brioche and said, “To see Levi?” Then before I could tell her she was nuts, she added, “Don’t deny it! I saw him here last night. After you dropped me off. Obviously, he was waiting for you to get home.”

Though she tried to make it look oh so casual, Chandra’s eyes were wide and her cheeks were pink when she glanced toward the closed door to my private rooms. Her voice was singsong when she said, “To tell the truth, I was kind of thinking that maybe Levi would still be here.”

“You thought wrong. As a matter of fact, he never came inside the house.”

She plunked her coffee mug down on the black granite counter top. “Bea, why don’t you two just admit—”

“Are you busy this morning?”

Chandra didn’t expect the abrupt change of subject, which was the only reason she blurted out that she wasn’t.

“Great. Good.” I spun around and went right to the back door. “You’ll find everything you need in the fridge. You’re officially in charge of getting breakfast for my guests.”

“But Bea . . .” She followed me as far as the back porch. “What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to go find out if the maids at the hotel take breaks during their shifts,” I told her, and hurried down the steps before either she or my memories of what happened the night before could stop me. “And if they do take breaks, I’m going to find out if those breaks are long enough to give a person time to go over to Levi’s and put pokeberries in a drink.”

• • •

The most logical place to start, of course, was with Rosalee’s supervisor, and as it turned out, the name tag on her blue scrubs said she was Hilda. Good thing, since she never introduced herself.

“Of course she worked on Wednesday night.” Hilda’s eyes were as gray as the hair she had scooped into a ponytail that hung halfway down her back. Her arms were beefy and her movements were as clipped as her words. Obviously nothing—and nobody—messed with Hilda’s cleaning schedule. Especially when the nobody in question was a nobody who wanted to know about Rosalee’s whereabouts on the night of the murder.

Hilda grabbed a pile of clean towels off the cart she’d been pushing down the third-floor hallway of the hotel right across from DeRivera Park and clutched them like there was no tomorrow. “It’s summer.” She didn’t add
didn’t you realize that, you idiot?
but then, she didn’t have to. If a picture’s worth a thousand words, a scathing looking is worth a million. “All my girls work seven days in the summer.”

There was no use throwing logic into the mix and telling her I couldn’t have known this. “So Rosalee
was
working last Wednesday night?”

Hilda leaned toward me, the effect not unlike a glacier slowly sliding forward and flattening everything in its path. She tapped her forehead with one finger. “Seven days. Get it? They work seven days.”

“But not twenty-four seven. I don’t care how good a cleaning person is, she couldn’t possibly be here every day and work twelve hours or more.”

One of Hilda’s grizzled eyebrows shot up. The other sank low over her other eye.

“Of course you probably keep that kind of schedule,” I said, because I’d obviously insulted her cleaning-lady honor. “But Rosalee—”

“Three to eleven.” Hilda rapped her knuckles against the nearest door, called out, “Housekeeping,” and stuck her key in the lock to open the door long before anyone had a chance to answer.

When she marched into the room, I took a step to follow her.

She stopped me in my tracks with one laser look.

I managed a smile that I’m pretty sure didn’t fool her for a moment. It didn’t fool me, either. Hilda made me shake in my shoes. “Rosalee worked three to eleven that night. That’s very helpful. I just wondered . . . did she take a break anytime during her shift?”

When Hilda turned to face me, her shoulders filled the doorway. “Of course I let my girls take a break. What do you think I am, some kind of monster?”

By the time I was able to give voice to the lie that I did not, she’d already slammed the door in my face.

“Okay. Good. Fine.” I drew in a breath and squared my shoulders, but it took a few moments for me to get myself moving. By the time I made it down to the end of the hallway, one of the room doors popped open and a woman wearing the same blue cleaning-lady scrubs poked her nose out the door.

“Is it safe to come out?” she asked me.

I glanced down the hallway at the towel cart and the closed door. “If you’re talking about Hilda—”

“Hilda!” The woman raised her gaze to the ceiling in a silent prayer. “She sees me talking to you, she’ll bite my head off and use it for a soccer ball.”

I had an easy solution to that problem. I stepped inside the room and closed the door behind me.

This woman wore a name tag that told me she was Lucy. “I heard what you was sayin’ to Hilda,” she said, and even though we were alone in the room, she kept her voice down. “You asked about Rosalee and what she was doin’ the other night.”

“Rosalee told me she worked on Wednesday night. I just needed confirmation, and I wondered if she took a break, maybe between eight and ten o’clock.”

Lucy didn’t ask why I cared; she simply nodded. She had a head of glossy dark curls and they bounced along to the beat. “We took two breaks that night. You know, so we could go out back and have a smoke.”

“We . . .” I considered what this might mean. “You and Rosalee took your breaks together?”

Another nod. “So now you know, and you don’t have to worry about it.”

I almost asked what she was talking about, but Lucy didn’t give me a chance. She grinned. “People talk,” she said, “and Hilda . . .” She rolled her eyes. “That woman’s so busy being mean, she don’t pay attention to nothin’ and nobody. But I knew who you were as soon as I saw you. You’re that lady from the B and B, and you want to know about Rosalee’s breaks because you’re investigating. It’s just like on TV. You’re checking to see if she had time to go over to that bar and kill Richie.”

There was no use denying it, so I didn’t even bother.

Lucy shook her head, and her curls danced in the other direction. “No way,” she said. “No way Rosalee would ever kill Richie.”

“She was in love with him?”

Lucy laughed, and when she realized she might have been too loud, she clapped a hand over her mouth. “Richie was hard to love,” she mumbled from behind her hand, then slowly moved it away. “But him and Rosalee, they got along good enough. He was someone for her to talk to, you know?”

“Except I heard they’d been fighting lately. Could it have been about another woman?”

Lucy screwed up her face and waved a hand. “You’re messin’ with me, right? There isn’t another woman on this island who would give Richie the time of day.”

“So Rosalee wasn’t mad at him?”

“When we got to work on Wednesday, Rosalee was talkin’ about makin’ him dinner on Saturday night. I don’t know about you, girlfriend, but I wouldn’t cook for no man who was cheatin’ on me.”

I wouldn’t, either.

But that didn’t prove a thing.

“So you and Rosalee . . .”

“We was together the whole time we was on our breaks on Wednesday night, and when we finished, Hilda had us foldin’ towels down in the laundry room all frickin’ night. Me and Rosalee, we were never out of each other’s sight. Not all night long. So even if she wanted to kill Richie—and I’m telling you she didn’t—there’s no way she could have gone over to that bar and done it.”

• • •

Believe it or not, when I left the hotel, I was actually encouraged. I’d eliminated Rosalee as a suspect and maybe now with one less person to worry about, I could start to line up what I knew about the rest of the people on the long, long list of Richie Monroe haters.

Apparently, the Universe was all about helping me out.

No sooner had I walked out of the hotel than I saw Mike sitting on a bench in the park across the street. I ducked to my right and made a wide arc down the sidewalk and across the street so I could close in on him before he could see me and decamp, but big surprise—when I got over to the park bench and caught his eye, Mike stood up.