Murder's Last Resort (10 page)

Chapter 31

“Maya, so good to see you and don’t you look lovely,” Ted said, as he rose from his desk and came around to give me a big, friendly hug.

“Thank you, Ted,” I answered. “How’s Lisa?”

“Prettier than ever,” he said. “She’s been asking about you. You two should go water skiing sometime on our lake.”

“Sure thing,” I answered, thinking that would never happen. Lisa had known me for three years and never invited me to anything.

I was not good at small talk. “Ted, I need some help,” I blurted.

“Have a seat, darlin’, What can I do?” he answered, grinning at me in that gentle, Southern way of his.

“First off, have you seen French today?”

“Why, yes, I have,” he answered, smiling into my eyes.

“Oh, thank goodness!” I exhaled and leaned back in the leather chair. “That is such music to my ears, you have no idea,” I continued. “Is he all right?”

“He’s fine, Maya.”

“Is he still here, somewhere on your property?” Church Lane Depot was big—a block of historic buildings, all turned into saloons, restaurants, game arcades, antique shops and even a boutique hotel.

“No, he left about an hour ago,” he said.

“Can’t you tell me everything? I feel like we’re playing twenty questions.” Ted was a nice guy, a good friend, and I didn’t want my impatience to show. But my mask of calm was beginning to melt and slip down the edges of my cheeks.

“I can’t tell you everything,” Ted said. “I promised. But I can tell you,” he continued, “that he’s fine. He asked me to buy him some new clothes, which I did. He took a shower and borrowed a car. I don’t know where he went, but he did leave a note for you, just in case you came around. Seems he knows you pretty well.” He handed me a sterling silver letter opener and an envelope. I ripped it open on the spot.

“Don’t look for me, Maya, and don’t worry about me,” it read. “Go home. Relax. I’m following a lead. I’m not in any danger. Love you ever, French”

Go home. Relax. Was he kidding? Did he think I would head home now, sashay over to the pool and grab a Tequila Sunrise?

My meeting with Ted was over. Was I relieved, deflated or confused? A little of each.

Ted invited me to walk over to the main room of the Church Lane Saloon with him, to listen to his new fiddler, Chet Watkins. I agreed, in order to be polite. Ted and I ordered sparkling water and toasted to French’s health.

We sat on wooden benches near the rafters of the great brick warehouse turned concert venue and dance hall, looking down at Chet. Chet was burning up the strings of his fiddle, playing “The Devil Went Down to Georgia”.

After the last resounding chord, we stood up to leave. Ted walked me to the limo, where Marty was waiting. I thanked Ted and waved goodbye, as we pulled away from the curb.

I leaned back and thought about the devil in Georgia. With dead bodies strewn around and abductions on the rise, I was fairly convinced he had made a detour to Florida and was cruising around Orlando just about now.

Chapter 32

Safely deposited back at the main entrance of the hotel by Marty, I walked through the glass entry doors. I was hit by a blast of air conditioning as cold as a Klondike bar. I ran into Lauren White, running, as usual, from point A to point B in high heels and a short skirt.

“Where are you off to now?” I asked.

“You know how it is, Maya. Usually, it’s French who keeps me running. Now that he’s not here, it’s Dave. He’s got me watching everyone at the conference. It’s my job to keep them occupied and happy. I’m busier than a one-armed paperhanger.”

I chuckled. “It must agree with you,” I said, “You look great!” And she did. Lauren was one of the beautiful people. She was single and looking for “the” man. I could have seen her as a threat but, being a good Southern girl from a fine Southern family, a married man would never have been the man for her.

Lauren and I said goodbye and then I wondered, why go back to my home on the lake? I knew what awaited—an empty house full of shadows. The palmetto bugs and wood spiders might miss me if I stayed away a while longer, but they were the only ones.

I thought about French’s note to me. I should go home and relax. But I couldn’t do that yet. Instead, I walked over to the lobby bar with its raised, white, concert grand piano on a revolving stage, and sat down in one of the basket-style loveseats. They were meant for two but it was just Maya French, alone, as usual. I sat toward the back, unnoticed, and took in my surroundings.

I mentally reviewed the events of the previous three days and nights: someone had wrung Redmund Torrey’s neck on Friday night, just after the Sapphire Hotels and Resorts national management shindig had begun—changing the tone of the conference just a teensy bit for those of us in the know. An incriminating receipt had been planted in French’s office and he had been trotted off to jail. It had been a plant, hadn’t it? Between the receipt, the pantyhose box on his desk and his disappearing act, I was confused and uneasy in so many ways.

Sometime the next afternoon, Vacaar Luzi was swept off his wife’s sexy Charles Jourdan's and iced. French had been released from jail but was still MIA.

On my way to see Ted Rains at Church Lane Depot, someone had slipped a chloroformed hankie over my nose and mouth and taken me for a little spin. When I came to on Disney property, I called Lily to come get me, we ran into James, the hotel director there, and he made us stay in a suite at his hotel overnight. The next morning, Lily and I went to Tammy’s for an omelet. Then, I was escorted home by Rick and a belching Koenig, his burps almost making me rolf.

Next, I changed clothes and made it to Ted’s place and back. At least I knew French was alive and well. Now, I was sitting in the lobby piano bar with a stiff upper lip and a Gold Cadillac, which looked like it was going to be my dinner.

Pretty much, I knew nothing and I was getting no smarter sitting here. I thought about all the people I knew at Sapphire and wondered which of them had been closest to Torrey. Would there be any sense in trying to question them? How long could the OPD and our staff keep this whole mess quiet?

My mind doubled back to French, as it always did. Where the hell was he? Always traipsing off when I needed him most. Someday, when this was all a distant memory, I would have to pull a disappearing act on him, just one time, just to get even. Would he even notice?

Chapter 33

“Hi there, may I sit with you?” A woman’s soft voice broke my train of thought.

I looked up and into the lake blue eyes of Alana Torrey, grieving widow number one. I nodded, smiled and scooted to one side of the loveseat. She sat her slender self into the other side and there was still room to spare between us. If the rich were indeed different, then so were the beautiful. On my brightest and best day, I would never be an Alana Torrey.

Alana embodied my ideal of feminine everything. A cross between a Barbie doll and an expert on international business, she was also a style queen, who must have catalogued her clothes and kept detailed records of what she wore when, where and with whom, as she never wore the same ensemble twice.

Along with her now-dead husband, Alana had always been the public face of Sapphire Resorts, frequenting the society pages of magazines such as
Town and Country
,
Vogue
and
Vanity Fair
. I wondered if designers comped her ball gowns for high profile events. She was seated right next to me, probably looking for companionship and compassion, or maybe she even had a confession to make—and I was busy envying her.

“Alana, I’ve been worried sick about you,” I lied, remembering how my thoughts had been consumed with French, the murders and Alana not at all.

“I’ve stayed in my suite this whole time. It’s strange. It feels like time has stopped. I feel empty. Everything feels unreal, like I’m observing from a distance.”

“Oh, Alana—” I said. There were no words. Looking into her sad, tired eyes, my self-absorbed little heart
did
go out to her and I teared up a little with her.

The cocktail server arrived, breaking the mood, and took Alana’s order, a champagne cocktail. Interesting choice. Something ticked in my brain. Champagne? Wasn’t that usually reserved for celebrations?

We sat together, listening to Harry Parker on the piano. That man could play anything from Rachmaninov to Luther Vandross. No matter what state anyone’s state was in, music could transport people to better times and better places.

Her drink arrived and Alana raised her glass to me before she took her first sip. “Here’s to us,” she said, her eyes fixed on some point in the distance. “One of us, the usual Sapphire widow, whose absentee husband is farting around this property somewhere; the other, a
real
Sapphire widow, whose husband won’t be farting at all any more. Campai!”

Wow! I had not expected such a pithy toast from her. It only went to show that you couldn’t judge a lady by her persona, her footwear or her designer togs. There might be a lot more to Alana than I had ever guessed. I clinked glasses and wondered if a petite dolly like her had the muscle to toss a two-hundred pounder down a laundry chute.

We sipped together in silence for a moment, then she turned to me with a sigh and said, so very softly that at first I thought I had heard wrong, “I knew about all of Red’s other women, of course.”

“That must have been difficult for you,” I said, hoping my shock didn’t show.

“Oh, it was. It sure was. Redmund was not easy.”

What could I say? I nodded dumbly and took another sip of my drink.

“He was hard to live with,” she said, almost to herself. I turned my gaze toward her and looked into her eyes, so near, so transparent, so blue.

“Hard to live with, all right, but I never would have guessed this.” She paused. “Turns out, he’s much harder to live without.”

I nodded solemnly. What was I to make of this? She loved him and missed him, in spite of his character defects? Or, was it regret? Did she wish she had not strangled him now that he was gone? I took another sip of Gold and maintained my silence.

My mind wandered off to pantyhose. What would be Alana’s preferred brand? Just then, she crossed her long, blonde legs and I looked down. She was wearing no hose at all.

Chapter 34

Alana finished her champagne and left. My Gold Cadillac came to its inevitable end. I sat for a moment, wondering what to do. I still didn’t feel like going back home. I dreaded it, the uncomfortable solitude, the not knowing where French was nor why he refused to come home. Heck, if he didn’t want to be there, why would I? No, I sat there in my little loveseat, all alone, unloved and unlovable, feeling like Little Bo Peep, who had not just lost her sheep but had lost her way.

I know—I’ll pop into the accounting department to see if Jake might still be in the office. We can have a chat.

I heard Jake before I saw him. He was on the phone and laughing about something. What did accounting execs have to laugh about on their office phones? Bookings were up at the hotel. Maybe that alone would be enough to make a bean counter laugh.

He looked up and waved me in, still cradling the phone to his ear with his left shoulder and pushing the buttons of an electric adding machine perched in the middle of his desk.

“Maya, my love, what’s up?” he asked, as he hung up the phone.

“I’m all mixed up, Jakey dear. I can’t find French. No one can find French. I don’t know what to do.”

“Hmm,” he said. “What else?”

“Well, someone tried to kidnap me.”

“
What?
” Jake said, pinpointing me with his slate blue eyes.

“Yeah. That was strange,” I answered.

“That was
strange
? That’s all you can say?” he barked.

“Gee, you don’t have to sound so mean,” I said. “Remember, it happened to me once before, back at the Sapphire on Sunset, in a previous life.”

“Oh yeah, I forgot about that,” he answered, looking up at the air, and paused. “Were you bound and gagged this time, too?”

“No. This time I was dumped outside the Sword and Chalice. Weird, huh?”

“Do you suppose that slimeball, James, did it?” he asked.

“What, and possibly get a wrinkle in his pressed gabardines? I think not,” I said and we both had a laugh at James’s expense.

Jake’s voice turned serious. “Maya, I don’t want you wandering around alone any more. It’s too dangerous. Sure, Rick has his men everywhere but where were they when you were abducted? How could that even happen?”

“I don’t know,” I answered quietly. That had been bothering me, as well.

“I’m leaving my office in a few minutes,” Jake said. “I want you to wait here while I finish up. Then, I'm personally walking you to your house and making sure it's safe. I won’t leave until I know you’re locked inside.”

“Thanks, Jake,” I said. “I’ll meet you at the gift shop. I need to buy a new pair of pantyhose for tonight. I promise I’ll stay right there.”

He looked at me, weighing the possibilities. “I don’t know whether I can trust you to stay put,” he said, cocking his head to one side. “You understand this is serous, right?”

“Yes,” I said, putting my right hand up in the air. “Scout’s honor. I’ll stay put. No worries. See you there!” With that, I turned and left, heading to the lobby gift shop.