Getaway Girlz (21 page)

“Oh, you’re
those
ladies,” the head cheese said and took a step back. “Margaritas are on their way. Have a good night.”

Their reputation preceded them. Came in handy this time!

Vivian turned to Al. “Thanks for that. Those guys were dorks.” She wanted to ask if he was talking to Shorty but she clearly couldn’t just throw that out there.

Suddenly they were interrupted by the female reporter who had been out front when they returned from the police station earlier. Guess they’d been spotted on their return from Club Caliente despite efforts to lay low.

“Are you Vivian Taylor?” the woman asked, holding a steno notebook and pen.

Vivian didn’t answer.

“My name is Lupe Mendoza with
Escándalos
. I’d like to ask you a few questions about your involvement in Jon Tournay’s death.”

“Absolutely not!” Wendy yelled and jumped between them.

Vivian peeked around Wendy’s shoulder. “No comment.” She gave a little smile.

“She has nothing to say. Are you even allowed in here?” Wendy said to Lupe, then turned to the bartender. He gave a shrug.

Al stepped up. “Get the hell outta here. She’s got nothing to say.”

The reporter looked around, for what, who knows.

“Beat it, bitch,” Adrienne yelled.

The woman turned and walked out.

“Thanks y’all, for running her off,” Kate said.

Al shook his head. “She’s gone for now, but you can bet she’ll be back, and there will be ten more just like her.”

Vivian sucked down her ’rita. She was pooped, not to mention buzzed.

“I’ve had all I can take tonight,” Vivian said and stood up. “Al, thanks so much for the help and the margarita. I’m going to bed.”

“You sure? We’re going out,” Adrienne said.

The girls all agreed that bed sounded best, so they finished up their drinks and headed to the room.

On their way up the stairs Kate said, “Viv, I think we ought to talk to Pierre about what we saw at the marina today. Let him know there’s something going on between Detective Vega and Ponytail.”

“Good idea,” Wendy and Lucy said in unison.

Vivian thought about it for a minute. “Yeah, you’re right. We should keep him informed.”

“And let’s check his room for bugs,” Wendy added.

Always thinking, that one.

“We should invite him to Shorty’s party,” Kate said.

“He can rescue us when Shorty tries to either seduce us or kill us,” Lucy smirked.

Vivian knocked several times on Pierre’s door but no answer. She dug in her purse and pulled out a scrap of paper and a pen. She wrote a short note asking him to call or come by their room in the morning.

It was officially time to end the very long day, so they went to their room, did a quick bug sweep, their usual bedtime rituals and slipped into bed.

Day 4

VIVIAN WOKE with a start the next morning. She had a bad dream about being on vacation and suspected of murder. Then her memory clicked. That was no dream, it was a nightmare. Unfortunately it was also reality.

She got out of bed quietly and tiptoed to the balcony. The sun was just coming up on a beautiful morning. She melted into a chair, closed her eyes and took a deep breath, letting the sun shine on her face. She stayed like that for a few minutes, listening to the waves crash on the beach, then opened her eyes and looked at the sparking water.

The scene reminded her of a cruise she and Rick had taken a few years ago. They went to the Caribbean and hit all the great islands, St. Lucia, St. Croix, St. Maarten, Barbados.

They woke early one morning, made love and went to the upper deck to watch the sun come up. Rick kept his arm around Vivian’s shoulders because she was cool. The air was a little damp and it was breezy as they sailed along. They sat there for a long time, not talking, just watching the way the sun slowly lifted up off the water and hid itself behind the clouds. One big, bright ray poured out of the bottom of the clouds and seemed to reflect off the water straight to them and only them. She thought it was magical.

Vivian heard the sliding glass door open and Lucy stuck her head out.

“Hey lady,” she said emerging from the door. “You’re up awfully early. You okay?”

“No, not really, but I’m trying to distract myself with this beautiful sunrise. It brings back a wonderful memory of a cruise Rick and I went on.”

“Oh, you mean the cruise where you wanted to throw him overboard because he was such a dud?”

Lucy brought Vivian back to reality. She had ended up hating that cruise.

“God, how could I forget? I wanted to maim him before it was all over! He wouldn’t dance with me, had to be practically dragged from the cabin for dinner, and we couldn’t agree on any of the excursions.”

Lucy sat down next to Vivian and put her feet up on the railing. She stretched her toes, inspecting her Bogota Berry painted toenails for chips.

“Yeah, he sucked as a cruise companion,” she said.

“But we had some good times too.”

“I know ya did, Viv. Otherwise you wouldn’t have married the guy.”

“But I did vow after that experience to never go on a cruise without a large group. That’s the one good thing that came out of our cruise!” She paused for a moment. “Well, that and the twins!”

Lucy nodded her head.

“So what’s up with Steve?” Vivian asked. “Do you miss him?”

“Not really. I mean, I guess I do sometimes, and I still see him pretty often. We go to dinner a few times a week, and I talk to him almost every day. I just don’t live with him right now.”

“Do you think this will be permanent?”

“I don’t know yet. He’s so unemotional. It drives me crazy. The man never gets excited about anything. I tell him I want a separation and I’m moving out, and you think he’d react in some kind of way. I got nothing. Even when we’re in counseling he’s so freakin’ rational about everything. I just want to shake him to get him angry or something.”

“Lucy, he’s always been that way,” Vivian said. “He’s a rational guy. He takes time to make his decisions and doesn’t jump feet first into anything without knowing the consequences. If you remember, that’s one of the things that drew you to him. You, like me, are a non-planner. He kinda balances you that way.”

“I know, but I’m just not sure it’s something I can be around for the rest of my life. We’re going to counseling and haven’t given up yet. At this point, though, I don’t know how things are going to end up.”

Vivian looked her in the eyes. “You know we support any decision you make. We just want you to be okay.”

“I know. Thanks, Viv.”

They both leaned back in their chairs, enjoying the morning sun.

Lucy reached out and put her hand on Vivian’s arm. “You’re going to be okay, you know. We’re going to help the police find out who killed Jon so you can go home.”

Tears welled up in Vivian’s eyes, she was trying really hard not to ruin the sunrise with thoughts of Jon’s death.

“I just can’t believe that he’s gone,” she said, trying to hold back the sobs that were threatening to let loose.

“I know, Viv. None of us can.”

“He was so sweet and caring,” Vivian said, as her voice broke. She doubled over, her head in her hands, and sobbed.

Lucy started crying too, emotions overwhelming her. She wrapped her arms around Vivian’s shoulders. They stayed like that for a few minutes, letting the torrent of tears out.

Vivian felt drained and let out a ragged breath. “I guess I needed to get that out.”

“Yeah, me too.”

“Morning, ladies,” Kate said, sounding chipper, and joined them on the balcony. She had made herself a cup of coffee from the one-cup coffee maker. She could not get going without a cup of joe.

She slid the door closed and looked at the two girls. It was obvious they had been crying. She gave them a half-hearted smile and tried to sound upbeat. “The sunrise is bringing tears to your eyes, I see.”

They give her half-hearted smiles in return.

Kate gave Vivian a comforting shoulder squeeze, then sat down and balanced her cup on the railing. “Wow, it’s beautiful out here.”

“Umm hmm,” Vivian said, sucking in the salty air.

Kate got serious. “Okay, this may sound weird, but I was thinking we should try to find out more about Al.” She blew on her coffee, took a sip and continued, “Who is he and what’s he into?”

Lucy turned toward her. “You think so?”

“I do. I had one of my dreams.”

Lucy and Vivian looked at one another and grinned.

Kate continued. “I was standing on the steps of a courthouse. Al was there and he introduced me to Slinky Sal. It freaked me out,” she said with a shiver. “As I was standing there my dad walked up the steps. He asked me who Al was, and I told him I didn’t know. Then he looked me in the eyes and said ‘you should’.”

Kate was occasionally visited by dead relatives in her sleep. Didn’t happen very often, so when it did she took it very seriously.

“So where do we start with that?” Lucy asked.

“Where else? The internet,” Vivian said.

“But we need to make sure no one knows about it but us,” Lucy said.

“Let’s go down and get breakfast, then we can come back up to the room and Google Al on Wendy’s laptop,” Kate said.

Wendy shuffled out to the balcony and grunted her greeting. “The smell of coffee and ocean air woke me up, but at least the police aren’t banging down our door.”

Wendy was not a morning person and could be a little grouchy when she first got up.

Sensing an undercurrent of tension, Wendy asked, “What’s going on out here? Is everyone all right?”

“We are now,” Vivian said. “We had a good cry and now we’re ready to kick butt and take names. Since we’re all up we might as well get to it.”

“Need coffee first,” Wendy muttered. “Smell it, don’t see it.”

Kate took a long sip of her cuppa joe. “Mmmmm.”

Wendy watched her longingly.

Vivian stood up. “Let’s grab breakfast and then Google Al and see what we come up with.”

“Google Al?” Wendy asked.

“Yep. Kate had a dream,” Lucy said.

“Well, by all means then, if Kate had a dream,” Wendy said sarcastically, but then smiled.

Kate smiled, handed Wendy her half cup of coffee and they went in to get ready for a new day.

VIVIAN AND the girls stepped into the hotel restaurant for breakfast and the few early morning diners stopped all action - forks piled with eggs, frozen in delivery, lips poised on coffee cups, interrupting a caffeine fix, page of the morning paper mid-turn, flipping to the rest of the riveting front page story - and stared at them, but primarily at her.

Vivian caught a glimpse of the headline “American Woman Questioned in Murder Case” along with a picture of their hotel’s sign beneath it, prominently displayed above the fold on the front page.

Just what I need
.

The diners refocused on their breakfast as the girls followed the hostess to a table on the far side of the dining room.

Vivian purposefully took a seat facing away from the restaurant and shook her head. She wanted to turn around and yell, “I didn’t do it!”

Service was quick so they were out of there in no time, much to Vivian’s delight. “My migas were fan-tab,” she said of her Mexican-style eggs as she got up from the table.

Lucy had a traditional breakfast with scrambled eggs, bacon and even pancakes, which she boasted were also fantastic. Wendy and Kate both had
huevos rancheros
and cleaned their plates.

“Quick and delicious,” Wendy said. “My kind of breakfast.”

Vivian swiped a discarded newspaper on the way out. She threw it onto the bed as soon as they entered their room. “Look at this shit! I’m the headline of today’s paper.” She flopped down beside it.

Lucy, after completing a room sweep for bugs, just in case, sat down next to Vivian and read the article.

Kate wanted to prevent Vivian from having another meltdown. “Viv, like I said earlier, you are going to be okay. The true murderer will be caught and you’ll be cleared of this nonsense.”

“I don’t know,” Vivian moaned. “I’m not sure how much confidence I have in Detective Vega.”

“That’s where we come in,” Wendy piped up, also trying to keep Vivian’s spirits up. “We’re going to look at all the angles and find out what we can about our suspects, just like we talked about.”

Lucy, who had been quiet for most of breakfast, said, “Actually, Vivian, this article doesn’t mention your name. Evidently the cops haven’t released it to the press yet.”

She thumped the paper. “All it says is an American woman is suspected of being involved in Jon’s death. That she is staying in the same hotel. It doesn’t go into a lot of detail on the murder. The article talks mainly about Jon’s fame in Canada.”

“See, that’s not so bad,” Kate sat down on the other side of Vivian and slapped her knee. “No one at home will have heard anything about this.”

Vivian took the time to read the full article and felt a little better, but only a little. Jon was dead, after all.

“You’re right, the article isn’t as bad as I thought,” she said and tossed the paper into the trash.

Needing to refocus, she walked to the desk and turned the computer on. Once online, she went to Google and typed in “Al Russo, Chicago.” Several hits came up.

The first was a review of his restaurant, CinCin. Voted Chicago’s best cannoli three years in a row.
Adrienne wasn’t kidding
. The article referred to Al Russo III and showed his picture holding the award.
Yep, that’s Al
.

Next was an article from the
Chicago Tribune
. Al and Adrienne donated $10,000 to the area food bank and served an Italian-style Thanksgiving dinner to the homeless last year. The article included a picture of them dishing out the food.

The next few articles detailed good deeds Al and Adrienne had done in the Chicago area.

“Looks like they’re very philanthropic,” Vivian said and gave the girls a summary. “Animal shelters, firefighters, kid’s charities like the Ronald McDonald House.”