Murder among the Palms Page 14

  “All right, I’ll be honest. I strung the poor thing along for a while. Why not? He’s cute, so I bought him lunch a few times. He poured out his money troubles to me—couldn’t afford his apartment, blew pretty much everything he made at the hotel on various addictions and unsavory habits. I mean, who am I to judge? It’s not like I haven’t done worse. Anyway, Gabrielle found out about it and just about had a cow. Thankfully, she didn’t know I was involved. Carl left my name out of it, though I doubt it was out of kindness. He knew if I got fired, too, I wouldn’t be able to help him again. Either that or he wanted to blackmail me later.”

  Darian recalled the scene on the beach. Carl alluded to holding something over Gabrielle’s head. Obviously, it hadn’t frightened her enough to spare his job, so maybe it was mostly bluff. Still, it was worth following up on.

  “Why don’t you let Carl crash at your place?”

  “My place? Darian, you’ve got to be kidding. The little creep would rob me blind. Besides, he considers himself straight. Exciting as the challenge might be, the price of success might literally be too high in this case.”

  “Sounds like you don’t trust him. How can you be so sure he didn’t fly into a rage and attack Gabrielle?”

  Kyle shrugged. “I suppose one can never be sure. But he was hardly the only employee who hated her. I mean, all I had to do to give the cops a list was hand them the staff directory. I’m sorry to say it, Darian, but the only one who enjoyed working with her at all was your mom, Rikki. And that story in itself is perfect example of how Gabi handled people. When the tales about them started circulating, I decided to have a little talk with her. One day I took her aside and told her Rikki was happily married, and you know what she said?”

  “No,” Darian said miserably. “I can’t even imagine.”

  “She said if Rikki was happy with Ange, all the flirting in the world wouldn’t dislodge them from each other, so she might as well try. You can’t really argue with her reasoning. I mean, think about it.” Kyle tilted his head toward the steam room door. “If you’re truly happy with Argo, anything I would do in here wouldn’t interest you.”

  Casually he reached for the belt of his robe, loosening the knot. Darian averted his eyes.

  “You’re right,” he said. “It wouldn’t.”

  “Anyway,” Kyle went on, visibly swallowing his disappointment, “the hotel wasn’t the only place Gabi racked up enemies. You’ve heard about the angry stepchildren, I assume?”

  “A little,” Darian coaxed.

  “Oh, that’s a tale and a half. The old coot Gabi married had two daughters…quite a pair of harpies, to hear her tell it. Gabi enjoyed rubbing it in, playing trophy wife. The best part was when the kids got wind of Gabi’s real tastes, shall we call we them, and went to the old man. They thought he would divorce her on the spot. Instead, he laughed. Said he didn’t mind at all. At his age, the thought of his younger bride cavorting with a beautiful woman—or even more than one—turned him on. Gabi even hinted at regular threesomes. Can you imagine? I would have loved to see those prudish wenches’ faces. Their sainted daddy with two women, holding onto his shriveled old…er…sense of humor.”

  “I can see why that would pique some tempers.”

  “I’ll say. Not only did Gabi snare the old man, she got most of his money…and this place. The daughters would have felt that blow most of all.” Kyle reached for the door of the steam room. “All right, enough detective work for one morning. My brain is starting to hurt along with the rest of my muscles. Let’s hit the benches.”

  When he opened it, a rush of white-hot vapor left them momentarily blinded and coughing. When the fog cleared away, Kyle shrieked. Darian looked down to find Carl, fully clothed and motionless, stretched out on the floor of the sauna.

  Chapter 11

  Either the sight of Carl’s body sent Kyle reeling into utter shock, or his acting skills rivaled anything Darian had seen on the set of the ill-fated horror film he’d worked on that fall.

  “Oh, Carl! Oh, no! How could this happen? The cops are going to blame me!”

  “Kyle, get a grip. I’m calling Argo first. Open your locker so I can take my phone out.”

  “Good idea!”

  Darian waited, not too patiently, while Kyle fumbled with his locker combination and grabbed their twin bundles of clothes. His hand shook so badly he had to start over three times. “When did you last see Carl?” he asked after Kyle finally retrieved his phone and he’d texted a plea for Argo to hurry, giving no details other than the location of the steam room. “What was he doing back at the hotel after Gabrielle kicked him out?”

  “He wasn’t meeting me!” Kyle wailed, none too convincingly.

  When Argo arrived, his reaction was close to what Darian predicted. Much as he hated seeing Argo’s fury at Darian walking right into another dead body—not to mention a potential sauna session with Kyle—he didn’t mind seeing every muscle in Argo’s body tense up with worry over Darian’s well-being.

  “I’m fine,” Darian insisted while Argo fished Lanislaw’s card out of his wallet and tapped the number into his own cell phone. “We both are. We just opened the door and saw him there. We didn’t touch anything. Well, okay, Kyle turned the steam off. Otherwise no one could go into the room to…uh…assess the situation.”

  “You shouldn’t have done even that much. Better not to disturb anything. Too late now, though.” Argo swung around to where Kyle was slumped on a bench between the two nearest rows of lockers, his face in his palms. He’d been too distracted to change back into his street clothes, though Darian had made sure to do that while they waited for Argo. Kyle’s state of relative undress had prompted a raised brow, but Argo hadn’t mentioned it directly. The time to explain would come later.

  “Maybe it was all just a tragic accident,” he said without removing his hands from his eyes. “Maybe Carl had a weak heart that gave out because of the temperature.”

  “Why would we wander into a steam room fully clothed?” Argo demanded, darting a suspicious glance at the terry robe Darian had draped over the bench. Again, thankfully, he didn’t ask. “Kyle, we don’t have much time. The cops will be here soon and they’re going to question you. Darian and I will try to help, but you need to tell us everything you know about Gabi and Carl and what was really going on.”

  “There isn’t anything to tell,” Kyle started, but he sneaked a peek at Argo’s stern expression and relented. “Okay, okay. Now that I’m calmer, maybe I do recall a couple of tidbits. First, Carl said he was onto what he called Gabi’s shady business dealings. Gabi was determined to prevent him from publicizing what he’d uncovered. That’s why she fired him—so it would look like sour grapes on his part and no one would believe him. At least, Carl said so.”

  “What had he uncovered?” Argo pressed. “Or what was she afraid he’d find out?”

  “I honestly don’t know. I’m guessing credit card fraud, overbilling, or cooking the books—something financial. Gabi had a lot of wealthy clients, the type who probably don’t check their bills too carefully. Goes on all the time in hotels, right?”

  “Argo, this might explain everything,” Darian said. “What if Gabrielle ripped off the wrong person—someone rich but unbalanced, say—and he decided to take revenge on her? If Carl knew about the scam, he must have been involved at some level. The same person might well have come after him, too.”

  “Possible,” Argo allowed.

  “Don’t you get it? If the same person killed both Gabrielle and Carl, my mom is off the hook. Obviously she wasn’t swindling the hotel’s customers.”

  Too late, he realized the precarious direction that particular train of thought might lead. To judge from their expressions, Kyle and Argo were already there.

  “It could mean Ange is off the hook.” Outside the locker room door, they heard approaching footsteps and shouts as the police identified themselves and announced that they were coming in. “It could also mean that Rikki’s now a suspect
, too.”

  For the next hour, Darian waited in the corner of the locker room as Lanislaw and his forensics team examined Carl’s body and took photos from various angles. Once again, uniformed officers took their statements separately. The terry robe he’d briefly worn was taken in for processing, while Kyle was escorted to a private area where he could change out of his. During his absence, Lanislaw came over to talk to him and Argo.

  “You were right that this was no accident,” Lanislaw told Argo. “Strangled with a ligature, just like before.” Once again he mimed pulling a cord taut around an imaginary neck. “This time, though, we have an idea what the weapon might be. We suspect it was a belt from a white terrycloth bathrobe, just like the ones you and your friend Mr. Kirk were wearing.”

  “Wait just a minute.” Darian felt his cheeks flame. “You’re not suggesting…”

  “I’m not suggesting anything.” Lanislaw made a cutting motion with his hand. “At this point I’m just gathering impressions. Establishing facts.”

  “Was he killed here?” Argo asked. “It occurs to me that he was stashed here so the heat would help disguise the time of death.”

  “Possible.” Lanislaw’s expression betrayed nothing. “Darian, where is your mother right now? Ange, I mean.”

  “Home, of course, with Rikki. Where else would she be? We were with her all morning, in fact. She has the perfect alibi.”

  “For this morning, maybe.” Lanislaw tilted his head so that a lock of his frosted hair tumbled over his brow. It was a practiced move, no doubt meant to be cute and disarming. Darian bit back his distaste. “We can’t say for certain when Carl met his end. And I know both your mothers were here last night. Some fabricated tale about me releasing Angela’s car, which I’m not inclined to do just yet.”

  “Fabricated? What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Only that the whole situation is peculiar, to say the least. Your mother claims she got a call that her car was waiting for her here. I don’t suppose you were actually present when she received that supposed summons to the hotel? Or that you heard any such message?”

  “We suspect it was a prank,” Argo said. “But no, neither of us actually heard the message.”

  When Lanislaw pursed his lips and offered them a skeptical half-nod, Darian’s patience came to an end. “You’re not implying she had anything to do with this, I hope. She didn’t even know Carl! And why would my mother be in a men’s steam room?”

  “I can’t comment on my reasons for thinking what I do. I’m sorry. But I’m going to have to bring her in for questioning again.”

  “You can’t do that! You have no evidence.”

  “She was on the site of two murders. I don’t know exactly what’s going on here, but there’s some kind of connection I’m not seeing. However, that can wait. The first person I want to talk to is this Kyle fellow. He was on the scene both times, too. And I agree that he was more likely to lurking near the men’s lockers than your mother. Whose idea was it for the two of you to…meet here?”

  “It was Kyle’s.” Darian felt guilty, as though he were ratting his childhood friend out, though he doubted Kyle had any such compunction. In fact, he was probably assuring the uniformed cops that Darian had lured him here for some nefarious purpose. “I mentioned I was stressed about…well, just in general, and he suggested some time in the sauna would help clear my mind. And unclog my pores at the same time,” he added lamely. He was careful not to look at Argo, who pretended not to hear him.

  “Darian and I have both given our statements, and we’d like to go now. You know where to reach us after you finish talking to Mr. Kirk.”

  The authority in his voice achieved the desired effect. Lanislaw didn’t argue. Darian had to force himself not to run from the room. Somehow he managed to match Argo’s casual confident stride.

  “Lanislaw’s nuts,” he grumbled as they walked back to the parking garage. “What reason would Ange have to kill Carl? She didn’t even know him.”

  “Two reasons, as far as Lanislaw is concerned. One, Carl threatened Rikki in public. Ange might want to protect her. And two, he might have seen her kill Gabrielle on the beach. Ange would need to shut him up.”

  Darian thought things over on their way to the car. “The whole thing might be a set-up,” he decided. “Someone called Ange, pretending to be Zara and telling her to come and claim the car. That way she’d be at the hotel when the murder was committed.”

  “Maybe. Who made the call?”

  “Kyle? He could do a passible impression of Zara. Use a falsetto and whisper into the phone. He’d speak fast, claiming he didn’t want anyone to overhear.”

  “Not a bad theory. Kyle and Carl were meeting each other in the locker room, maybe,” Argo said as they buckled themselves into the rental car. “For...well, who knows what reason.”

  “A lover’s quarrel?”

  “Why not? It tracks. Say they meet down here for a rendezvous. Carl tries to break things off. Refuses to...you know...undress and get into the spirit of things. They fight. Kyle takes things hard. Boom.”

  “Okay. Maybe.”

  “On the other hand, as Lanislaw implied, the whole thing could be staged. He’ll have forensics check everything out. Fibers, DNA.”

  “In such high heat, there would be sweat running off the murderer, right?” At least, the various cop shows Darian watched led him to believe as much.

  Argo nodded, steering the car out of the hotel garage and into the street. “People get nervous when they kill. They tend to sweat even more than usual. If Lanislaw finds that belt, he might be able to connect the dots.”

  “So the tests could clear my mom.” Darian brightened.

  “In theory. Unfortunately, crime labs take time. Sometimes a lot. It’s not like TV.”

  “Meaning we can’t wait for results.”

  “Meaning we continue with more traditional methods of inquiry and wait for the science to match up in the end.”

  We. Darian liked the sound of that. The use of one simple pronoun said so much.

  “Thanks for all your help,” he said as Argo eased the rental car into traffic. “I appreciate it, and so do my moms.”

  “I figure getting one or both of them cleared of murder will encourage them to like me more. Gotta start somewhere, right? Besides, don’t think I’ve forgotten what you did for my uncle. You saved his reputation and probably my sanity. He’d want me to return the favor.”

  Darian nodded. Argo knew all too well what it was like to have a loved one accused of unspeakable acts. Sadly, Argo’s uncle would never know that they had cleared his name long after his death. Argo’s words—and acts—of gratitude would have to be enough.

  Right now, they were.

  When they got back to the house, Rikki was walking around in a daze, clutching her cell phone. “I just got a call from Zara,” she announced before they even had time to greet her. “Is it true that Carl is dead? Someone found his body in the employee locker room?”

  “It’s true, all right,” Argo said. “Darian’s the one who found him. Again.”

  “Oh, Darian,” Rikki said, smacking her forehead.

  Darian chose not to hear her remark. “Where’s Ange? We need to talk to her, and fast.”

  “Before Lanislaw gets here, you mean.” Rikki grasped the situation at once. “I take it that with Carl dead, Ange is back at the top of the suspects list.”

  “It’s too soon to predict Lanislaw’s next move.” Argo spoke as if each word caused him pain. “But he’ll need to question her again. He knows she was at the hotel last night, chasing down that phantom car.”

  “But I was there, too,” Rikki objected. Then she caught her breath. “Ah. I’m beginning to see the whole picture. He’ll want to talk to both of us this time.”

  “It’s possible.”

  “Just when I thought this whole nightmare couldn’t get any worse. What a disaster. I take one day off and this is how we end up. I can’t tell if it’s the hotel or
me that’s cursed.” Rikki gestured toward the hall. “Ange is in the study, on the computer. Can you handle this on your own? I need to get down to the hotel.”

  Darian gaped. “You’re going to the hotel? Mom, no way! That’s the last place you should be right now!”

  “What choice do I have? With Gabrielle…gone, I’m in charge. The staff is depending on me to keep things under control, not that I’ve done such a great job so far. Zara wanted me to come right away, but I didn’t want to leave Ange alone.”

  “It’s okay,” Argo said. “Go. We’ll talk to Ange. And if Lanislaw does show up, we’ll be ready for that too.”

  “If you see him at the hotel, don’t answer any of his questions,” Darian said as Rikki took her car keys from the rack by the door. “Tell him you want to wait for a lawyer.”

  “No problem. We have some on retainer for the hotel. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  “We shouldn’t have let her go,” Darian said after Rikki’s car screeched out of the driveway. “Argo, what if those people in the restaurant were right? Maybe there really is a serial killer lurking around Mermaid Towers. What if he’s staked out her office?”

  “I think Lanislaw’s the only one waiting to pounce at the moment,” Argo said. “The cops will meet her the minute she pulls into her spot. She’ll be safe enough.”

  “Maybe I should go after her while you talk to Ange. Give me the keys to the rental.”

  “Darian, you need to back off. I realize how frightening this must be for you, but there are some things you can’t control. Right now, we need to focus on Ange. I don’t want you upsetting her or you’ll only make this worse. Sit down for a minute. Take a few breaths. Meanwhile, I’ll call Lanislaw and inform him Rikki’s on her way. I’ll secure her a police escort inside the building.”

  “Thanks.”

  As Argo stepped through the sliding glass doors to make the call, Darian sank to the couch and tried to calm his jumbled thoughts. When he weighed the clues, he saw no way around Kyle taking the spotlight as Lanislaw’s prime suspect. True, he had seemed horrified by the sight of Carl’s body, but in reality he was as capable of faking his reaction as he was of mimicking Zara’s voice. For all Darian knew, Kyle was confessing to Lanislaw right now. A lover’s quarrel wasn’t too farfetched, knowing Kyle, nor was the possibility that Carl had gone too far and stolen from him after all. Even if Darian had trouble seeing his longtime friend as a killer, people did change over time. The Kyle he’d once known and even shared silly teenaged kisses with might no longer exist.