Elisabeth Crabtree - Pink Flamingo Hotel 01 - Death by Pink Flamingo (17 page)

She took a moment to drop Luke’s hand to rush up and give me a hug. “I’
ve been going crazy ever since Luke told me what happened here last night.” She scowled. “Why didn’t you call me?”

“
I’m sorry, Victoria. If it’s any consolation, I’ve only been awake a few hours and I didn’t want to wake you up in the middle of the night with all this.”

“
I don’t care how late it was, you should have called me.” She reached back and took Luke’s hand. “Or better yet, showed up at my place. You shouldn’t have been alone.”

“I wasn’t alone.
The police were here all night.” I looked over at Luke. “If you have any idea who killed Sylvia and Danielle, please tell me.”

His
dark blue eyes soften in sympathy. “Not yet, but we’re still working on it. How are you holding up?”

I pressed a hand to my forehead.
“As well as can be expected, I guess.”

“Have you eaten yet?”
Victoria asked.

I
immediately said, “Yes.” Despite my last meal being with Jesse in my room hours before, there was no way I was going to be a third wheel on her date with Luke.

I was just about to
excuse myself, when I decided to broach the subject of Barney Hudson with Luke. I had intended to call Ryan, but figured Luke would do just as well.

Luke pursed his lips as he looked down at the
floor. “Barney Hudson?” He looked up suddenly. “Wait, I know where I’ve heard that name. He used to be a private investigator.”

“A private investigator?” I asked in surprise.

He frowned slightly. “Hang on a second,” he said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out his smartphone. He tapped at the screen a few times before finally putting it back into his pocket. “Why are you looking for him?”

“Is he missing?”

He raised one black eyebrow and looked at me appraisingly. “A missing person’s report has been filed.”

My heart began to beat faster. “Do you know what he was doing when he disappeared?”

He didn’t answer at first. He just stood there, giving me the same appraising look. After a few uncomfortable seconds, he finally said, “He was retired. I don’t think he was working on any cases.”

“Oh,” I said in disappointment. “When did he go missing?”

“Not quite sure. He kept to himself after he retired. Didn’t have any friends. No family in town and all of his bills were paid through auto draft. He wasn’t reported missing until a month ago, but he could have disappeared anytime in the last five months.”

“Who reported him missing?”

Seemingly amused by my question, he said, “A cousin from California. They got worried when he didn’t show for some event the family had planned.” He smiled. “Now if you’re done questioning me, I’ve got a few for you. Why are you asking about a missing ex-PI?”

I told him what little I knew about Barney Hudson and speculated that h
is might have been the body my uncle found upstairs in room 403.

He reached into his pocket and wrote down what I told him. “We’ll look into it. Is Olivia here? I’d like to ask her some more questions. Maybe see if she can identify Barney Hudson’s picture.”

I glanced at the grandfather clock standing next to the dining room. “She’s probably at home now.”

Victoria wrapped her hand around Luke’s bicep. “Do you think this Barney Hudson might have something to do with Sylvia and Danielle’s murder?”

“I don’t know yet, but I’m going to find out.” He reached into his pocket and brought out his phone which was vibrating slightly. He sighed as he looked at the screen. He glanced back at Victoria regretfully. “I’m so sorry.”

Victoria groaned. “Don’t tell me.”

“Sorry,” he said with a rueful smile, “duty calls. I’ve got to go back in to work.” He pulled her hand from his arm and reached into his pocket, pulling out a business card. “Anna, if you think of anything else, just give me a call,” he said, pressing the card into my hand. He ran a finger down Victoria’s cheek before starting for the door. Once there, he turned around. “Oh, and by the way, Anna, your uncle didn’t see the body in 403. He said he saw the body in 405.”

“Oh.”

Victoria sighed wistfully as he walked out the door. “Well, there goes my evening.” She glanced over at me. “What are you doing tonight?”

“Remodeling 405. Want to help?”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“You know, as I was getting dressed and envisioning all the things I would be doing to
night, this was not one of them.” Victoria pinned her long black hair back into a bun. She twisted her head side to side, as she looked at herself in my vanity mirror. Pleased with the results, she pushed herself away from my vanity and stood up.

I handed her a tank top and pair of shorts. “You love redecorating.”

“Destroying a room in the hopes of finding a dead body is not redecorating,” she said, as she slipped out of her dress. “You do remember what happened the last time you talked me into searching for a dead body?”

I frowned.
“I thought we agreed to never mention that again?”

“Well, you seem to have forgotten. How you let Simon convince you that Jesse’s parents had buried him in their
backyard, I’ll never understand.”

“S
imon made some excellent points. Jesse and his parents weren’t close and he just up and disappears one summer without telling me or his friends goodbye. Clearly, something happened.”

“
Yeah, he moved away,” she said, pulling on the clothes I had handed her. “He wasn’t lying dead under the Maddox’s rose garden. It’s been so many years, but at least now, I can finally say, I told you so. My mother was furious with me for months because of that stunt.”

I crossed my arms in
front of my chest. “You didn’t have to come that night. Simon and I could have handled it on our own.”

“And miss the fun? Absolutely not. Besides, you’re lucky I came. Who
helped you out of the hole Simon dug after he accidently pushed you into it?

“You did.”

“And who called the ambulance when he knocked himself unconscious with his shovel trying to help me get you out?”

“You did,” I said with a
long-suffering sigh.

“That’s right.
Do you know how much my parents had to pay Jessie’s folks for all the damage we caused? It wouldn’t have been so bad if Simon hadn’t accidently caught their house on fire. I still remember that holding room the cops threw us in. It was so filthy and everything was painted that dull drab grey color.” She shuddered as she laced up her sneakers. “Hideous.”

“Well, you don’t have to worry. No one’s going to arrest us tonight. One, Simon’s not here and two, I own this place.
We can destroy as many rooms as we want.”

Victoria
smiled. “Why don’t we call Luke and ask him to help us? This is more his territory than ours.”

“And end up in the news like Beatrix. Did you read the
Herald
today? It was brutal. They didn’t even care that Beatrix was right about Sylvia being dead.”

“Couldn’t happen to a nicer person.”

I shook my head. “I can’t afford any more bad publicity. Can you image what people would say if I called the police and told them that I thought there was a dead body in one of the walls? I might as well hand your father the deed to the hotel.”

“So, what are you going to do if we find the body?
” She picked up the safety glasses, gloves and hammers I had collected and stuffed them into a plastic bag. “If you’re right and that Barney Hudson is up there, people will find out anyway.”

“Yeah, but only if he’s up there. I’m not sure
he’s actually still here. The police searched the hotel for the body the night Uncle Max called and didn’t find anything. It’s probably just a bad water leak.” I opened the door and stepped into the hallway. “I pray that it’s just a leak, but I’m not going to be able to sleep until I know for certain.”

Victoria
made a sweeping gesture with her hand. “Then lead the way. At least this will give me a story to tell mine and Luke’s future grandchildren.”

“Yes, G
ranny helping her nutty friend search for a corpse will be such a heartwarming tale to tell the little ones at night.”

Victoria
laughed as we took the stairs up to the fourth floor. Her laughter halted almost immediately as I unlocked the door and swung it open. She gave a disgusted sound in her throat. “Dear God, look at the wallpaper. Why would anyone choose this pattern?”

I grabbed her hand and dragged her across the threshold. “Come on. We’re not here to admire
the décor. We have a job to do.”

Determined to get this over with as soon as possible, I strode to room 403 and poked my head in. I hadn’t seen Jesse or Blake since I had left them only an hour before and it appeared they hadn’t stayed in place waiting for my return.
Finding the room empty, I shut the door and moved on to room 405.

I opened the door and recoiled at the
smell. Holding my breath, I rushed across the room and quickly opened the door to the balcony, desperate to let fresh air into the room.
Was it my imagination or was the smell just a bit worse in this room?

Victoria wrinkled her nose.
“Ah, lovely,” she groused as soon as she entered the room.

I stepped away from the balcony and looked around the room. “The décor’s
actually starting to grow on me. Sort of like a fungus.”

Victoria
didn’t even bother acknowledging my statement. She dropped the bag she was carrying on the bed and reached in for the safety glasses. She was just putting them on when my cell phone rang. I reached into my pocket and brought out my phone.

“It’s Ryan,” I
told her before answering the call. “Hey, what’s up?”

There was a second of uncomfortable silence before
Ryan finally spoke. “Anna, do you know where Jesse is?”

I stepped out onto the balcony while
Victoria went to work on the closet wall. “I saw him about an hour ago, but haven’t seen him since. Is there something wrong?” I asked as I shut the door.

“
You remember yesterday when you asked me to find out what Jesse’s been up to since he left?”

“Yeah,” I said hesitantly.

“Well, I just found out and I think I know who took Victoria’s necklace.”

I glanced at
Victoria who was kneeling next to the closet holding a box in her hand. “Who?”

“Jesse. He’s a thief.”

I turned away from the window and looked up as a few drops of rain hit my head. “Oh, don’t be ridiculous.”

“It’s true. You may not know this, I sure didn’t, but there were a string of burglary’s that summer
before our senior year. A lot of the wealthy homes got hit. He stole a half a million in jewels from several of our most prominent citizens, including his own family.”

I laughed. “There’s no way
that Jesse was a jewel thief. He was seventeen.”

“They caught him red handed,
Anna. The only reason he didn’t go to juvie was because his father was a prosecutor and his mother was running for the Senate—that’s the real reason why she backed out of the race that year—Plus his parents paid everyone off. Every house hit belonged either to his parent’s friends or his mother’s clients. After his parents paid off the victims, they got the police department to bury the file. You don’t know how long it took me to dig up this information. You’d think I was looking into the Kennedy assassination or something. Once they got everything resolved, his folks shipped him off to a military school out west.”

Unable to believe what he was
telling me, I shook my head in amusement. “No possible way is that true.”

“No, it is,” Ryan said earnestly. “I always thought it was just something parents said when they threatened to send children to military school. I didn’t think anyone actually did
that, but apparently, you can and they did.”

“Not that. I kno
w Jesse. He wasn’t running around stealing anything more valuable than his father’s car on the weekends. He was a normal kid. He was not Simon Templar.”

“
I just spoke to the detective who arrested him. He was caught red-handed. I’m not making this up. I’ll let you talk to Detective Barrymore if you want.” He chuckled. “He remembers you, by the way.”

“What
did he say?” I asked as I felt my face begin to burn.

“You filed
fifteen
missing person reports?”

“I had no idea where
Jesse was,” I protested. “He just up and disappeared and his parents weren’t being too terribly helpful. What kid goes away without his parents?” I could hear him laughing over the phone. “What’s so funny?”

“
You were arrested,” he said between guffaws.

“
Hey, that record was supposed to be confidential. None of it would have happened if they had just told me where he was.”

“
Oh, his parents didn’t want that getting out. They probably didn’t want anyone contacting him, just in case he decided to explain why he had to go away. I mean, think of the scandal if it got out,” he said with mock horror. “Their precious baby boy. A jewel thief? The way Detective Flynn talks, they paid through the nose to cover up Jesse’s misdeeds. So, when did you finally give up on him and stop searching for his body?”

“Right before graduation. His parents finally showed me a picture of him in California with his aunt and uncle celebrating his eighteenth birthday. They said he was very happy and moved on and wished I would to. I still don’t know why he couldn’t have told me that himself,” I grumbled softly to myself.

“Probably, because he was in trouble and on lock down. His uncle ran the military academy where they sent him. I don’t think Jesse had much contact with the outside world for a while.”

“Well, I doubt they kept him locked away until a few months ago. He
’s had plenty of time to get in touch with me and he hasn’t until now,” I said sadly. “So, what has he been up to since then?”

“We’re still checking. All I can tell you is that he hasn’t been arrested since then.”

I looked down as I felt another raindrop fall on my head. I leaned forward, surprised to find a dozen cigarette butts lying on the ground. “Have you checked Danielle’s cell phone records, yet?”

“Yeah,” he said reluctantly.

“And?” I asked, feeling a sudden surge of hope. After all, if the police have the number of the person she was talking to last night, they must know who the killer is.

“It’s inconclusive.”

“What does that mean? Couldn’t the phone company give you the number?”

“Yes, but … Anna,
it came from one of those old pay phones on the boardwalk that no one uses anymore. The one right outside the Pink Flamingo. Anyone could have made that phone call.” He sighed. “I wish I had more to tell you.”

“Me too.”

“Listen, I’ve got to go. Luke needs me. Be careful Anna and just to be on the safe side, call me as soon as Jesse shows up.”

“Will do.” Using the toe of my tennis shoe, I pushed the cigarette butts around. I shut off the phone and stuck it in my shorts. Just
then, a knock on the sliding glass door caught my attention. Victoria stood at the glass grinning from ear to ear as she held up her missing necklace.

I slid open the door. “Where did you find it?”

She pointed to the box on the bed. “In the box. It was on top of the closet shelf. I had to pry the box open, but once I did, it was right there.”

She ran to the closet mirror and
clasped the necklace behind her neck. She smiled as she admired the pink diamond. “Oh, I’m so happy to finally have my necklace back, but how in the world did it get up here?”

“I’m betting Danielle
brought it up here.”

Victoria turned to me in surprise. “What makes you think she took it?”

I pointed to the cigarettes on the balcony. “I don’t think it was just a coincidence that she and the necklace were both in this room. I overheard her tell Beatrix that she had been hiding up on the fourth floor yesterday. This must have been where she was hiding.”

Victoria made a face. “Why would anyone hide in here?”

“She probably thought the necklace was the safest up here. No one should be up here and who in their right mind would willingly stay in this room for more than a few minutes.”

Victoria gave me a look.

“Well, without some type of purpose or goal in mind. It’s a great hiding place. She probably just sat out on the balcony all day.” I pulled my phone out of my pocket.

“Who are you calling?” she asked.

“Ryan,” I said, dialing his number. When it went to his voice mail, I left a quick message about finding the necklace.

A clap of thunder sounded outside.
Victoria walked over to the window. “I can’t even see the moon.” She gave me a regretful look. “Do you mind if I take a rain check on the whole corpse hunting? It’s getting late and I don’t want to get stuck here during the storm. Plus, it’s kind of creepy. I’d feel a lot better doing this in the morning.”