Death in Paradise (26 page)

It wasn't fair for him to be mad at me just because I knew things. "I'm going snorkeling out at Molokini this afternoon. Maybe you'd like to send someone to watch my back."

"I'll see what I can do." He turned and strode away, the clippings swinging vigorously at the end of his arm.

As I watched him go, realization hit me like a ton of bricks. No wonder he was so mad at me. He thought I'd told Billy all the details of Martina's murder—details the police had held back—thus enabling Billy to do his search and come up with the lingerie killer stories. Stories that Billy said he'd spent hours on. The problem was, I hadn't. I'd told Jonetta a lot, and Jolene a little, and sworn them both to secrecy. I'd told Billy nothing. And as I sat there, staring with unseeing eyes at the restless ocean, I wondered. How had Billy known?

 

 

 

Chapter 18

 

I stopped in the lobby and called Billy's room. He wasn't in, so I left a message asking him to call me. I was tempted to tell him that the cops were looking for him but I didn't. I'm a slow learner, but I do learn. Messages are accessible. The cops can read them. And the cops were already mad at me. Unfairly, but what the heck. Who ever said life was going to be fair? Besides, I had a few questions of my own I wanted to ask Billy. Similar to the ones the cop would ask. Maybe none of us would get any answers. Maybe Billy had vanished into thin air.

That's something I've always wondered about—expressions like that. Why
thin
air? When I'm running on too little sleep and too much tension, my mind wanders to questions like this. I lose my balance and begin to feel like an alien, as though life goes on for everyone else on a normal plane, and I'm connected to it by a stretchy cord that lets me drift far away and then snap back. I get to all the same meetings and conduct the same business, but in the spaces between events, I find bodies and attempted suicides and spend the wee hours of the night being interrogated by cops who don't seem to like me. Wee hours—that's another of those expressions. Why are the hours late at night considered wee? Is it because of those little bitty numbers? Or maybe because we never get enough sleep and therefore have to lay the blame somewhere. It was those damned short hours!

Well, it was time to snap back and go to Rob Greene's seminar. I got to the seminar room just as the groups were finishing their cars. Judging from their expressions, everyone was having a wonderful time. It was precisely the kind of learning I liked best—the kind where you have so much fun you don't notice it's a learning experience. When we first approached the subject of girls and technology, many teachers hadn't noticed how much the girls hung back and let the boys do the hands-on work or how often the girls were reluctant to take on tasks that involved building and working with their hands. We had put together a one-day workshop designed to break down those barriers for teachers and give them techniques they could take back to the classroom. This seminar was a shortened version of that.

Rob was standing at the front of the room with a stopwatch, while his co-panelists circulated around the room, helping groups put on the finishing touches. "One minute," he called out. There was a chorus of protests. "All right," he said. "Two minutes."

I was glad to see that the session was being videotaped. Most of us were book-and-word people. We tended to forget how valuable preserving a good seminar session could be. A picture really can be worth a thousand words. Learning from our experience at prior events, Suzanne and I had insisted that part of the conference organizing include provision for recording some of the segments. Indeed, one of the concerns about moving rooms had been making sure that the video equipment got moved and was usable in the new locations. People always think they're going to be too nervous if cameras are present. Our experience has been that after the first few minutes, they forget the cameras are even there.

I helped lay out the race track, a long roll of green vinyl flooring with white lines painted on it. The corners had to be secured to keep it from rolling up again. Then we set up a strip of red tape attached to two sand-filled soda bottles, to mark a finish line, and Rob pulled out a starter's flag made from a dowel and a bandanna. Everything except the car kits, which were ordered, was made from readily available materials so that the group could replicate the exercise at home. We were ready to roll.

There were four races, followed by semifinals and then finals, after which the group returned to their seats for an analysis of the exercise and presentation of a trophy to the winning team. The workshop ended with a burst of applause and people filed out of the room with smiles, the conversation eager and lively. As he passed me, Rob muttered in a low voice, "Well, at least something's finally gone right. And now I'm going to go sit on the beach and no one had better disturb me."

"Did you hear about Rory?" I whispered.

"What now? More public hysterics when she learned that she'd been fired? She dropped her precious laptop in the pool? What?"

"She slit her wrists. Jonetta and I found her. They've taken her to the hospital."

All his merriment fell away. "Is it bad?"

"It wasn't pretty, but Jonetta thinks she's going to be fine. Have you seen Jeff?"

He shook his head. "Not yet. You?"

"I'm afraid so."

"Afraid so? He's taking this badly?"

"Badly? He thinks we killed her. He literally tackled me and pummeled me when we met in the hall."

He looked down at my dirty dress. "You mean physically attacked you? That doesn't sound like Jeff." His face was twisted with distress. "I wish I understood what was happening here. Did you tell him about the lingerie killer?"

"I didn't get to tell him anything, Rob. He was... well... it's hard to describe. He wasn't anything like the Jeff we know. He was wild and... and violent. And so angry at all of us. If I were you, I'd stay out of his way."

But Rob was shaking his head, still struggling to understand. "I can't believe he attacked you, Thea. You mean—"

"I mean he jumped me from behind, knocked me to the floor, and we both smashed into one of those big plants out in the hallway. He was trying to carve me up with a piece of the broken pot when the police hauled him off."

Now he was really paying attention. "That's awful!" he said. "Really terrible. Are you all right?" He peered into my face. "You don't look like you're all right."

Never tell someone who is trying to keep her spirits up that she doesn't look well. It's an instant downer. "To be honest, Rob, I'm not very well. I'm battered and bruised and feeling terribly sorry for myself. I think I'll go upstairs and wash the rest of the dirt off and then go lie in the sun, just like you." He looked so distressed that I was sorry I'd told him. It was mean to have spoiled things for him when he was on such a high.

I changed the subject. "Your seminar went so well. Everyone came out of there with huge smiles and talking a mile a minute. I'm glad it's one of the ones we got on tape."

"Me, too," he said. "I had a great team and we really pulled it off. We've already been asked to do it again at three different schools."

"Uh-oh. Success is going to your head. Next thing I know, you'll be resigning and going on the lecture circuit."

"No way, Jose," he said. "I'm finally beginning to get things at my school running the way I want them. This is no time to bail out." He smiled wryly. "I'll do it in all my spare time."

"I didn't know there was any."

"There isn't. Well, gotta get me some of that sun. No one is going to believe I was in Hawaii the way things are going." He swung his tote bag onto his shoulder and picked up the roll of vinyl. "Catch you later."

"I'm going on the snorkel trip," I said. "See you at dinner."

"So long. Have fun. Forget all about this, if you can."

I went upstairs, threw my briefcase on the bed, and took off my dirty clothes. Then I took a warm, soothing bath, slathered myself with sun screen, and went outside to lie in the sun. I didn't have much time to get those tan lines. In the end, I'd probably have to resort to artificial tanning stuff. I didn't want my sweetie to be disappointed, not after he'd gone to all the trouble of calling up the Maui police and reading them the riot act on my behalf. Not that it had made Bernstein and Nihilani much more protective. Other than a clean handkerchief, a cup of tea, and a warning to get out of town, they didn't seem to have taken the assault very seriously, though Bernstein had been awfully adamant about the get-out-of-town part.

My body, on the other hand, had taken it very seriously. I had three very ugly bruises and a collection of smaller ones, so maybe it wasn't such a bad thing that I rarely got to lie around in my bikini. People by the pool were bound to notice. At least on the snorkel boat, I could wear my T-shirt and no one would see. I was not feeling especially sociable, so I decided on a room-service lunch. My room-service bill was going to be horrendous. Luckily, I only had to justify it to myself—I was a partner. No one except the accountant looked over my shoulder.

I checked my watch. A little past noon. I had almost an hour. And back home it was five o'clock. I might find Andre at one of the numbers he'd left. I was reaching for the phone when it rang and because he was on my mind, I almost said, "Hello, Andre," but I didn't. I just said hello and waited, listening to some breathing on the other end. But Lewis Broder had left the hotel. Was it Jeff? Was it someone else, one of the unknowns about whom I'd been admonished to watch my back. I have no patience with silly phone games. "Speak now or forever hold your peace," I said.

There was a choking sound and a little giggle. "It's the spy," she said. "Where were you?"

"Oh, Laura, I'm sorry. I had such a busy morning I forgot all about our rendezvous. Will you forgive me?"

"If you meet me later."

"Later when? I'm going snorkeling this afternoon."

"You are?" It was a squeal of delight. "Me, too. I mean, all of us. Are you going to Molokini?"

"Mm-hmm."

"So I'll see you on the boat," she said. "I can't wait to tell you all about breakfast with the cops. Geoffrey and Charlotte are barely speaking to me, they are so jealous. Oops, there's something I have to check out. Catch you later." And my little hit-and-run friend was gone.

I tried Andre, didn't find him, and left messages at both numbers. I picked up my book and went outside onto the terrace. I hadn't even gotten it open when the phone rang. Let it ring, I thought. But I am a slave of duty. I hoisted myself out of the chair and stumped inside. It was Jolene.

"Thea, I heard what happened this morning. I think perhaps you ought to go home." She was at her most prim and head-mistressy.

"Why?"

"So many bad things are happening, and you always seems to be at the center of—"

"Are you suggesting I'm making them happen?" Whoee! I was edgy, wasn't I?

"I'm just worried for you, Thea. There's no ulterior motive here...."

I could expect her to understand what Bernstein hadn't. "Jolene, if I run when things get tough, if I head for home when the whole board is dealing with a crisis, what do you think that will do to my reputation?"

There was a long silence. Finally she said, "I don't think it will have any effect. After what you've been through, no one would blame you for—"

"Maybe they won't blame me, but will they still respect me in the morning?"

Another silence. "Just think about it, okay? If we have to, we can muddle along without you." She hung up without waiting for my response.

I couldn't worry about this now. Start pondering on what she'd meant, on what her motives might be, and all my free time would be gone. Deliberately I shut my mind and went back out to the balcony.

It was positively illicit, sitting out there in the sun, eating my salad and drinking lemonade and reading an actual novel. I have to do so much reading for work that I rarely get the chance to sit down and read for pleasure. Suzanne had given me the book when I stopped by her house to drop off some tea and pick up last-minute instructions. Dumped it into my bag, gaily wrapped in silver paper, saying, "You're going to love it. You have to love it. It reminds me of you."

So now I was lying in the sun reading Barbara Kingsolver's
Animal Dreams
and loving it, but every time I came to Lloyd Peregrina I got distracted thinking about Andre, who, like Lloyd, had so many attributes of the perfect man, and who could be so romantic and yet so independent, and then I'd get to a sad part and start to cry. The truth was that I needed to cry. I didn't do it much and so I had lots and lots of stuff bottled up inside. There were only two acceptable ways to let it out. Sad books and sad movies. Catharsis. Despite the past two days, when I'd been reduced to tears so often it felt like chronic PMS, I was usually too busy to cry. Also, until I'd come here and fallen into this wallow of anger and emotion, I'd been fairly happy. In the short-term, anyway.

I sat in the sun and munched on lettuce and was brilliantly entertained and enchanted by my book and cried my eyes out. By the time that Ed and Marie knocked on the door to collect me for our expedition, I had scarlet eyes and a much calmer soul. I had also, in a bit of perversity I couldn't explain, stuffed Rory's laptop into the stack of towels under the sink in my bathroom. In a hotel potentially full of murderers and inscrutable constabulary, I couldn't help feeling a little bit paranoid. I hadn't downloaded the rest of the materials we needed and my plan, assuming I could find the right equipment, was to simply link the laptops and copy her files onto mine. In all my spare time. Maybe I could get Billy to do it. He was good with computers.