Laina Turner - Presley Thurman 06 - Tiaras & Texans (8 page)

“Hello?”

“Presley? It’s Woody.”

I frowned. I didn’t remember giving him this number. “Woody, how did you get my phone number?”

“Don’t be mad, but I got it from Elaine.”

I was mad, but more than that I wanted to know how he knew Elaine and why she would give it to him. “So you know Elaine?”

“Yes. I met her through Hollie. Don’t be mad at her. I may have kind of told her you had given me your number and I lost it. I just had to know if you’ve found anything out.”

“Woody, I said I would call if I had something to tell you and I don’t.”

“Is there anything I can do to help? I’m going crazy here.”

“I just need you to be patient.” We chatted a few more minutes and then hung up. I hadn’t seen any point in telling him what had upset Hollie, so I didn’t bring it up since he didn’t ask.

Chapter 11

I
finished my Diet Coke, tossed the bottle in the recycle bin, and started to leave, when out of the corner of my eye I again saw the maintenance man. It was the same one I had now seen twice, and neither time was he actually maintaining anything. It was about time I found out why he was lurking around. With the extra security I couldn’t imagine how he had made it here, but using a hotel uniform could explain a lot.

I walked over to where he was standing and, like the last time, as soon as he saw me he turned to exit through the employee doors.  
Not this time buddy
, I thought. You aren’t getting away this easy. I sped up, almost to a jog, and reached the door as he slipped out. I followed him through the doors just in time to see him look over his shoulder and then slip out another side door. By the time I reached the side door, he was nowhere to be found.

Damn it! Now I was convinced he wasn’t a real maintenance person. Why else would he run? Unless he was a maintenance person who was doing something he wasn’t supposed to be doing, which wasn’t good either and needed to be checked out. I found my way back to the practice room and grabbed my purse where I had dropped it before running through the employee doors. I headed out of the room and took the elevator to the second floor, where I knew the administration offices were. The hotel had been very cooperative with us thus far, so maybe they could confirm for me that this guy wasn’t an employee. Or maybe he was and then I could quit wondering. I pushed open the door to the office and someone I assumed was an administrative assistant looked up.

“Can I help you?”

“I’m Presley Thurman with Sands Security. We are working with Pageants Unlimited, and I was hoping to speak with whoever is in charge of human resources.”

“That would be Bill Sparks. Let me see if he’s at his desk.” She then turned and picked up the phone, dialing what I figured was an internal extension. “Bill, a Presley Thurman is here to see you. She is one of the people working with Pageants Unlimited. Okay. I will.”

She looked up at me. “He said to come on back. His office is the third on the left,” she said, pointing behind her.

“Thanks.” I easily found it and knocked on the open door, as the person in the office had his back to me and was staring intently at his computer screen. The man who got up to greet me looked vaguely familiar, but I just couldn’t place him.

“Good to see you again, Presley,” he said, shaking my hand.

Again? Did I know this guy?

He noticed the look of confusion on my face. “You don’t remember me, do you?”

I shook my head. “No, I’m sorry, I don’t.”

“San Diego SHRM conference. We both attended Sheila Cruz’s breakout session on Textual Harassment in the workplace.”

I smacked my forehead with my hand. “You were the one sitting to the left of the podium who asked what the average age range was for sexting.”

He laughed. “I thought it was a legitimate question.”

“Me, too. I think she was being overly sensitive, since your question followed the stupid questions those guys from Positive Payroll asked.”

“Emily said you’re with a company called Sands Security. I take it you’re no longer in the HR field?”

“No. I gave up that glamorous life a couple years ago. It just wasn’t doing it for me anymore.”

“So what brings you here?”

“As you probably know, Sands Security was hired by Pageants Unlimited to find out who is behind some pranks that were being pulled on some of the contestants. Now of course, that’s become even a bigger issue with what occurred yesterday.”

“That was horrible. I’ve worked at this hotel for almost ten years and nothing like this has ever happened. A fight or two when people have had a little too much to drink during a wedding reception, but never a murder. Tell me how I can help.”

“This may be nothing, but I keep seeing the same guy every time I go into the rooms the pageant is using for practice. He has a shirt on that says maintenance, and it looks like a couple others I have seen, but I just don’t think he is actually a maintenance person. For one thing, each time he’s noticed me looking at him he has taken off. Today I tried to follow him and he disappeared. If he works here, I don’t see why he would do that.”

“You’re in luck, I can help you with that. Follow me,” he said walking out of his office and down the hall. We walked out of the administration offices and went down the hall, made a left, and went through a door that said employees only. It was the staff break room. Bill pointed to a wall filled with photos with names below.

“This is our employee wall. We have all the maintenance and housekeeping staff’s pictures up here. Because we operate on three shifts, and not everyone has a chance to meet each other, we started putting pictures up so when shifts get rotated there is a little bit of recognition among the staff.”

“That’s a good idea.” I nodded, scanning the rows of pictures for a familiar face. On the first pass I didn’t see the man I was looking for but went through them again. Just as I thought. Nothing. “He’s not here.”

“That’s a problem. Having someone posing as an employee could cause all sorts of issues on a normal day, much less with what is going on now. I’m going to have to alert security and the police.”

“You should, Bill. Chances are this is nothing and he’s just a guy sneaking in to spy on the beautiful women, but you don’t want to take a chance. Let me know if you find him, will ya?”

“Sure thing, and if you have time, feel free to stop in. We can catch up over coffee.”

“Thanks, Bill.” I needed to tell Cooper someone may have made their way through his security setup. I rang his cell and got his voicemail.  I left a message and then took the elevator down to the lobby, thinking a Starbucks fix might just help my inability to figure out how all these singular instances were related. I had barely stepped out of the elevator when I heard someone calling my name. I turned to find it was Elaine. And Linda. They were both waving me over to them. I quickly walked over to find them hunched over a box of flowers.

“What’s going on?” I asked, looking over their shoulders curiously.

“Look what just came for us! Well, technically for Pageants Unlimited,” Elaine said.

“Flowers?” I asked. Then it dawned on me. “These aren’t tassel flowers, are they?”

“Yes! The flowers that killed Hollie!” said Elaine.

“Do you think the killer sent these?” Linda asked. “Should we call the police?”

“Yes. Linda, call the police, and I’ll call Cooper.” As I was once again waiting for him to pick up, I turned to Elaine. “Who brought these?”

“Some delivery company. The front desk called up to Linda to sign for them when I was in the office. I wanted a Starbucks, so I came down with her.”

Cooper’s voicemail kicked in and I held up my finger to silence Elaine while I left a message. Pressing END, I tossed the phone back into my purse and hoped he would soon get my message and call back. “Is the delivery person still here?”

“No, the box was waiting at the desk.”

“Police are on their way. They said not to touch the box.” Linda shuddered. “As if I want to.”

“I don’t think they’re poisonous to touch,” Elaine said.

Wait a minute, I thought. How did Elaine know that it was a tassel flower that killed Hollie? As far as I knew, Cooper hadn’t even told Harvey.

“How do you know?” I asked.

“I guess I don’t for sure. I’m just assuming. You know, since Hollie drank the stuff. I guess I thought if it was poisonous to touch, the killer would have just touched her with it.”

“How did you know it was a tassel flower that killed her, though?”

Elaine looked at me and shrugged. “I guess I heard it from someone?”

Hmmm. Just then the police arrived with Cooper right on their heels, preventing me from asking any more questions, but she had definitely raised my suspicions.

“I was with the police when you called, so I followed them over. What happened?”

I explained what had just transpired and he made a quick call to the guy he had stationed to watch the lobby. Linda, Elaine, and I stood over to the side and watched the police do their thing, sealing up the box to take it with them. They had a few questions for us, and then Detective Miller started talking to Cooper.

Linda and Elaine started to walk back to the elevator when I remembered I needed to ask her about Woody.

“Hey, Elaine!”

They stopped and Elaine turned. “Did you need something?”

“Why did you give Hollie’s boyfriend my cell number?”

She paused. “He said he had talked to you and you had given it him but he lost it. I didn’t think it was a big deal.”

“He lied. He gave me his number, but I never gave him mine. Please don’t give it out.”

She shrugged. “Okay.”

I turned back to Cooper who walked up to me, having finished with the police.

“Did the guy see anything?”

“He remembers a couple different delivery vans pulling up in the service bay and bringing things in. One was from Gordon’s food service and one was a seafood delivery. He said there was a floral delivery van from 1-800 GET FLORAL, but he didn’t see any reason to doubt it was legit.  It was the third floral delivery today. I’m assuming that was the van of the person who brought the tassel flowers. I’m going to call them right now.”

In about a minute he was back off the phone. “The dispatcher is gone for the day, and the person working now said she would call him on his cell and ask him to call back. I gave them your number because I’m getting ready to step into another meeting.

“Okay. Before you leave, I need to tell you about this fake maintenance man I keep seeing.” I filled him in on what I had seen and my conversation with Bill.

“You’re right, it may not have anything to do with what’s been happening, but it’s good you followed up anyway. Anything else?”

“As a matter of fact, yes. Elaine knew the flowers Hollie had ingested were tassel flowers. I didn’t think anyone knew what they were besides the police and us?”

“I didn’t think so either. I mean, she could have overheard something. She’s already proven she’s good as eavesdropping. Why? Do you think something more sinister is going on?”

“I don’t really trust her, but it’s more of a feeling than anything else. I guess I was just surprised that she knew, that’s all.”

“Do you want to fill me in on why she gave out your number to Hollie’s boyfriend?”

“She claims he said I had given it to him. He just wants information. I can’t blame him.”

“No, but you can’t give him any either.”

“I know, I know.”

“I will call you when I’m done, okay?” he said, leaning over to give me a quick kiss.

“Sure. Have fun. Maybe tonight we can find time to finish what we started earlier?”

“If that’s an offer, I’ll try my best to finish early.”

I winked at him. “Get to work!” I went to Starbucks to get the vanilla latte I had originally come down here for. Then I sat at one of the small tables to write down all the things that had happened or that I had found out. I was much better at thinking through a problem when I was able to get it down on paper. Somehow the act of writing it down helped my brain work.

My phone vibrated. Again a local number I didn’t recognize. It was probably the dispatcher from 1-800 GET FLORAL.

“Hello,” I answered.

“Is this Presley?” a man asked.

“Yes, it is.”

“Hi, this is Dan. From 1-800 GET FLORAL. I got a message that I needed to call you about a delivery this afternoon?”

“Oh, yes. Thanks so much for calling back. Did you send a delivery truck to Rosewood Mansion today?”

“ I had two deliveries this morning and then this afternoon. All my runs were on the other side of town. I didn’t have anything to Rosewood Mansion. Did we miss something? If so, I’m sorry and would be more than happy to refund your delivery charge.”

Pretty impressive customer service, which these days seemed hard to come by. “No, you didn’t miss anything. Thanks again for calling back.”

“No problem. Make sure to call 1-800 GET FLORAL anytime you have a delivery need,” he said before he hung up.

Well, now we knew someone faked a flower delivery. I didn’t bother calling Cooper to tell him since I knew he was in a meeting. I would catch him up later.

I turned to a clean sheet of paper and began to list all the events in chronological order, looking for anything that jumped out at me that might be a connection or something that didn’t fit. Besides the pseudo maintenance guy and Elaine knowing about the flowers that no one was supposed to know about, nothing else jumped out. Something with the pranks played on the girls had to relate. I sat there tapping my pen on the table, hoping that action might spark something, but it was a waste of time. I was getting nowhere besides doodly.

I put my notebook back into my purse and gathered my things to leave when I felt my phone vibrate again. I pulled it out and looked at the display. It was Katy, my friend from back home. We had been friends since second grade, and while we didn’t get a chance to talk all that often these days, she was one of those friends with whom you could go months without contact and then have a three hour conversation as if no time had passed.