The Dark and Deadly Pool (15 page)

Mrs. Bandini and Mrs. Larabee were initially impressed. I could tell from the quality of their silence as they waited to hear what she would say.

“My name is Mrs. Kasha Vendra,” she said. “I’m Mr. Asmir Kamara’s sister.”

“Oh!” I said. “I’m terribly sorry about what happened to Mr. Kamara.”

“Yes,” she said. Her eyelids slowly lowered like smudged blue window shades before she once again raised her glance to meet mine. “A terrible accident.”

Mrs. Bandini struggled out of her chair. “I’m Sylvia Bandini,” she said, “and this is my friend, Olga Larabee. You have our condolences.”

Mrs. Vendra barely nodded in Mrs. Bandini’s direction. She didn’t even look at her. “Will you please allow me to take the contents of my brother’s locker?” she asked me.

“I’ll have to get permission,” I said.

“That’s ridiculous!”

I tried to ease the situation and smiled. “It won’t take long. I’ll call the security chief right away.”

“No!” She took a deep breath. By the time she had exhaled it, she was once more under control. “I’m sorry,” she said. “This whole situation is very upsetting.”

“Of course,” Mrs. Bandini said. She moved nearer. “You and your brother were probably very close friends, as a brother and sister should be, even though he must have been much older than you.”

Mrs. Vendra ignored Mrs. Bandini. “I am his only relative,” she told me. “Naturally, I will inherit everything. The money—well, there’s a lot of it, but it doesn’t matter.
What matters are Asmir’s personal things, the items of sentimental value. Do you understand?”

“Of course,” I said.

“So if I could just see what was in his locker?”

“Come with me,” Mrs. Bandini said to her. “We’ll find a nice place to sit and chat while Mary Elizabeth calls security.” Without giving Mrs. Vendra a chance to answer, Mrs. Bandini practically barged into her, grabbing her arm and causing her handbag to fall. Since it was already open the contents spilled across the tiles.

“Oh, my! How clumsy of me!” Mrs. Bandini dropped to her knees and began scooping sunglasses and lipstick and wallet and keys back into Mrs. Vendra’s handbag, while Mrs. Vendra fumed.

I had to help Mrs. Bandini to her feet by tugging on the arm she waved in my direction. She gave Mrs. Vendra her handbag, still babbling apologies.

“Later,” Mrs. Vendra said to me as she snatched her bag from Mrs. Bandini and tucked it under her arm. “I am totally unnerved. This is all too much for me.”

She turned and swept from the club.

“Call security,” Mrs. Bandini said to me.

“But she’s left.”

“Call them anyway Right away. Tell them a blond hussy type woman was here posing as Mr. Kamara’s sister.”

“I can’t do that. How do you know she isn’t his sister?”

“Intuition, for one thing,” she said, “and for another the name in her wallet. It wasn’t Mrs. Kasha Vendra.”

I ran to the telephone in the health-club office, Mrs. Bandini and Mrs. Larabee scurrying after me. I called the security office, and told the guard who answered what Mrs. Bandini had said.

Lamar came into the club a short time later and told me they had found no sign of the woman in the hotel.

“Nate was monitoring the cameras in the office, but he wasn’t concerned about what was going on in the health club, so he didn’t pay attention to the woman. Can you describe her?” he asked as he pulled out a notebook and pen.

“Sure,” I said. “Expensive.”

Lamar sighed. “Meaning?”

“Great clothes. Silk jacket and skirt, and chunked up with lots of gold jewelry. Her face was kind of middle aged, but her hair was younger.”

I paused, and he said, “Hair was younger?”

“Light blond. I can’t think of anything else.”

Mrs. Bandini subtly slid in front of me. “The woman was wearing a Liz Claiborne outfit, cream-colored silk. Costly, but not too costly. I have a Liz Claiborne blouse
myself. She was about five feet six, but she was wearing three-inch heels. Beige lizard shoes and matching handbag. I didn’t catch the label on the handbag. She was in her forties, but I recognize a good face-lift when I see it. She wasn’t a natural blonde by any means. I know the shade. It’s called ‘golden ash,’ and her hair was pulled back into a French knot. Not many women wear a French knot any longer, so I think she did her hair that way just for this occasion.”

Mrs. Bandini ran out of breath, so Mrs. Larabee picked up the string of words and ran with it. “Her jewelry wasn’t all real gold. The bracelet was. It had inscriptions on it—sort of like Egyptian hieroglyphics—and the chain could have been.”

“Maybe yes, maybe no,” Mrs. Bandini said. “Although I prefer no.”

“I’m telling this now,” Mrs. Larabee said to her friend.

Mrs. Bandini shrugged and let Mrs. Larabee continue.

“The earrings were definitely not,” Mrs. Larabee said. “They were costume jewelry and a little too large for her face.”

“Decidedly,” Mrs. Bandini said.

Lamar’s pen had been wildly dashing across his notepad. Now he looked up at the three of us.

“Anything else?”

“Blue eyes,” Mrs. Bandini said. “There is no way she could have been Mr. Kamara’s sister. And there was no way she was Mrs. Kasha Vendra, as she said she was, when the name on her driver’s license was Lily Payne.”

Lamar made a final notation, then tucked his pad and pen back into his inside coat pocket. I got a quick glimpse of his shoulder holster and gun. “Thank you for an excellent job of description,” he said.

Mrs. Larabee playfully poked Mrs. Bandini in the ribs
with her elbow. They giggled. “The detective also thinks we’re pretty good at describing people,” she said. “Maybe we should go to work for the Houston police.”

“If this woman comes back—” Lamar said to me.

I finished his sentence. “I’ll call you immediately.”

As he turned to leave the office I said, “Mr. Boudry, have you been in touch with Detective Jarvis? Has he told you yet what the medical examiner said about Mr. Kamara?”

Lamar’s shoulders squared professionally. “I was right,” he said. “Death was caused by a strong blow to the head. Mr. Kamara didn’t drown. He was dead before he hit the water.”

“Could he …” I didn’t want to face it. “Could he have slipped and fallen?”

“Mr. Kamara was murdered,” Lamar said. He strode out of the office.

Mrs. Bandini and Mrs. Larabee wanted to talk, but I didn’t want to listen. Somehow I managed to herd them back to their chairs by the pool, and returned to the office. I had assumed that, with the pool closed for the day, everything at the club would be pretty quiet, but people kept wandering in to ask questions and stare at the pool as though an outline of the body would be marking the surface of the water. Fortunately for me, Mrs. Bandini and Mrs. Larabee were delighted to answer everyone’s questions. They had lunch by the pool and held court even through their chicken almond salad on egg twist rolls.

Eventually they had to go home and make dinner. I made a sign and taped it to the door to the club, so the usual evening crowd would know in advance that the pool was closed, and that helped. Only an occasional guest wandered in to use the exercise equipment or
Jacuzzi. The photo-ID cards were brought and filed, and Art Mart showed up briefly around seven-thirty.

“Your sign looks tacky,” he said.

“I didn’t have time to go to a printer’s. Besides, it’s doing the job.”

“Anything new around here?”

“Like what?”

“How do I know like what? That’s what I asked you.”

“Well, Mr. Boudry said it was definite that Mr. Kamara was murdered. He was hit on the head. He didn’t drown.”

“Maybe he fell and hit his head.”

“That’s what I suggested, but Mr. Boudry said no.”

“They don’t know everything.”

I told Art about the woman who said she was Mr. Kamara’s sister. He frowned the entire time I told him and muttered something under his breath. “Nobody tells me anything!” he grumbled. “And I’m in charge of this club!” He moved closer to me and scowled right into my face. I could smell the sweet-sour pungency of his exotic and cheap shaving lotion. It was all I could do to keep from holding my nose.

I said, “If you were here more, you’d
see
what was going on.”

“I don’t get paid for overtime!” he snapped. He walked toward the office door.

“Where are you going?” I asked him.

“Home,” he said. “This place is dead.”

“Don’t you want to stick around for a while?”

But he had already disappeared. In a minute I heard the big door to the hotel slam closed.

It was only nine fifty-five when the last guest left. The club was bright with light but echoed with a hollow emptiness. Occasionally there was a creak or snap or pop, as
though someone were in the club. I’d jump to my feet and edge toward the sound, but nothing would be there. I strolled through the women’s dressing room, almost hoping there would be towels to pick up, but—aside from an open tube of suntan lotion that soured the air—the room was tidy. The hands of the wall clock moved so slowly that I wished I could climb up and help them along.

Finally it was ten forty-five, and I sighed with relief. I’d take care of the men’s dressing room now and be ready to leave the moment that Fran showed up.

Automatically, I went to the door of the dressing room and called out, “Anyone here? I’m coming in.”

There was no answer, so I made my check. The few men who had been in here had done what they could to make up for their missing brothers. There was soap on the floor, wrappers tossed on the bench, dirty towels lying where they had been dropped, and a spilled bottle of shampoo that spread out of one of the showers all over the tiled floor.

I took care of some of the mess. The custodians could finish the job when they arrived.

Last on my list was the sauna. I opened the door wide and was met by a blast of steam in my face. Someone must have walked away and left this thing on. But there was a timer that regulated the steam and that had to have been set less than forty minutes ago. I turned on the light in the sauna, wondering why it had been turned off.

A body rose up from the wooden benches.

I screamed.

It leapt upward, shouting, and threw a towel at me.

As fast as I could I slammed the sauna door and raced to the telephone to call security, colliding with Fran as I
skidded around the doorway into the office. Together we fell across the desk.

He grunted a bit as I reached over him and dialed the number for the security office.

“Somebody get here fast! I need help!” I yelled, and dropped the receiver.

“I’ll help if you let me get up,” Fran said.

I rolled off him, landing on the floor. He managed to climb off the desk and pick me up.

“Watch out!” I said, so scared I was stuttering. “There’s a naked crazy person in the men’s sauna!”

“Take it easy,” Fran said. “If he comes this way I’ll protect you.” He dashed into the exercise room, grabbed a five-pound dumbbell, and cautiously edged toward the door to the men’s dressing room. “Nobody’s in here,” he called out.

The door leading to the hotel burst open. I could hear heavy footsteps thunder across the tiles. By the time I had moved out from behind the desk, Lamar and Pete skidded into the office.

“What is it?” Lamar asked.

“There’s a crazy man in there.” I pointed toward the men’s dressing room.

In a minute I heard Fran yelp. “It’s not me!”

I ran toward the dressing room, where Pete had Fran in a hammerlock, and Lamar was holding the dumbbell. “No!” I shouted. “That’s Fran. He works in room service. The crazy man is in the sauna.”

Pete dropped Fran as he and Lamar loped to the sauna and tore open the door.

“You could have been more explicit,” Fran complained as he rubbed his neck and tucked his shirt back into his jeans.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “This place has me unnerved.”

“Put this towel around him,” I heard Lamar say.

He and Pete emerged from the sauna supporting a skinny, woebegone, sagging guy whose legs looked as though the bones had dissolved and run out of his toes. A towel was tied around his hips.

“What kind of hotel is this?” the man said. His thin hair hung over his eyes.

“Why were you hiding in there?” Lamar asked him.

“I wasn’t hiding,” the man said. “I was trying to sweat out a cold.” He gave a loud sniffle.

“The club was closed.”

“How would I know that? I fell asleep.” He gave a huge sniffle, tilting back his head. “I need to blow my nose.”

Lamar and Pete let go of his arms. He snatched off the towel he was wearing and loudly blew his nose on it, as I turned and raced out of the room.

Fran joined me in the office. “There are hazards in your job,” he said. “Let me take you away from all this.”

“As soon as the others leave. I have to lock up.”

“They’ll be out in a minute. Are you ready?”

“I’ll get my handbag.”

I unlocked my locker and took out my plastic purse, leaving my jeans and shirt hanging there. The way things had been going it wouldn’t hurt to have an extra outfit on hand. I went back to the office through the health club just as Lamar, Pete, and the wretched-looking guy came through the door on the men’s side. He was dressed now, his room key dangling in one hand, one of the club’s tissue boxes in the other.