Sex in a Sidecar (21 page)

The cocktail shaker stopped. “Tell me more.”

“Isaak and Bunny were friends,” Ethan said and added straws to the napkins on the tray. “He was there a few times that's all. I think they had some kind of business planned.” He pointed at the shaker. “Hurry, the Tompsons hate to wait.”

You eat when you can in this business so at about four I slipped into the kitchen where Isaak welcomed me with a huge smile. “The girl of my dreams, what can I do for you?”

The devil's smile said there were lots of things on offer. “For a start, no more flowers,” I told him.

He raised his shoulders. “One lovely red rose on a tray, how can you object?”

“It's about the orchid and hibiscus.”

“What?” He looked confused and then said, “I promise I will never bring you either.”

“You already have.” More confused looks. “Haven't you?”

“No.” He looked as baffled as I felt.

It was too nice to be inside so I carried my dinner out to the picnic table. November is the best month of all in Florida, except maybe April, or even May or any of the others really.

Out there in the glorious sunshine, with the sound of waves crashing and gulls screaming overhead, Tanya Jones and Ethan Eames sat across a picnic table from each other holding hands and staring deep into each other's eyes. Ethan looked up at me and his smile faltered.

“Hi, Sherri,” he said. He let go of Tanya's hands. I could tell I was a skunk at a picnic but my mind was on the offering I carried, not their problems. I set the tray down carefully, reverently even, and returned their greetings.

Tanya's eyes were red and puffy. Effing-Bliss had already called down and talked to me about Tanya. Deanna had made a complaint to Julian about Tanya's attitude. Seems somehow service staff like Tanya came under bar services and I was expected to tell her to shape up.

“Sherri,” Ethan said, “Don't tell Mrs. Weston that you saw me with Tanya, please.”

“Not my business,” I said without looking at them. The food made working at the B&T barely tolerable; I thought of it as a job perk and I wanted to be left alone to enjoy my feast. It had only been two hours since I sampled the red pepper soup Isaak had created for the luncheon menu but I was ravenous. Who cared about their sex lives? All I cared about was the banquet spread out before me, an open-faced steak sandwich on crusty Italian with a Greek salad on the side. I tasted the sauce on the steak. It definitely contained horseradish and Worchester, but what else was in it? This was something I might be capable of making.

“Mrs. Weston hit Tanya,” Ethan told me.

“I know,” I replied and barely refrained from saying, “now bugger off.” Dessert was puffed pastry stuffed with raspberries and cream, with a swirl of dark chocolate on the plate. I'd never be able to concoct puff pastry. I explored an edge with my fork, tasting the filling, some exotic fruit with a hint of lemon.

“The thing is, Mr. Fotheringham-Bliss spoke to Tanya about it,” Ethan said.

“It isn't fair,” Tanya howled.

Ethan reached out and touched her arm to silence her and said, “He told her you would be dealing with it.”

“Why don't we talk about this later today when everyone's had a chance to calm down.” After I'd enjoyed my food without frivolous interruptions.

“Are you going to fire me?” Tanya demanded. I set the fork down. “What happened?”

Instead of answering my question, she said, “I need this job. I came down here to be with Ethan and now it is all going wrong.” She began sobbing.

“Don't cry,” Ethan begged, taking her hands again. “Don't upset yourself,” he soothed.

I started to get up and take my meal out on to the beach where only the gulls would bug me.

He reached up to stroke her hair. Tanya jerked away from Ethan. “Fine!” She yelled. “I won't be upset if you stop seeing her.”

Ethan recoiled from her. Tanya's fury seemed to take the substance out of him, making him shrink into himself, becoming smaller. “I've told you how it is,” he whispered. “She can help us.”

“I don't want her help. What do you see in her?” Tanya's voice was loud and incredulous. “She's old.”

“Tanya,” he pleaded, turning his hands up in supplication. He got no further.

“You want her more than me, don't you?” She accused, leaning towards him. He shrank a way from her.

She jumped up. “The only reason I came to Florida is because you asked me to. Or maybe you don't remember calling me and telling me there was a job here and begging me to come down, pleading with me to come.” She lunged towards him, towering over him. “Who do you run to every time you get in trouble? Tell me that.”

Ethan hunched his shoulders, not fighting back, not even trying to defend himself.

“I gave up everything for you!” She hissed. “More than once, did things for you that you couldn't do for yourself.” She paused and pulled away from him, studying him for a moment before she said softly, “Or have you forgotten your mother?” The words froze them both. They stared at each other, locked in horror. And then Tanya pushed away and rushed inside.

Ethan raised his shocked eyes to mine. “ Sorry,” he apologized in a hushed voice, “sorry.” He rose, catching his foot on the bench and stumbling. Righting himself, he followed Tanya into the kitchen.

What had I just heard? What had Tanya done to his mother?

Ten minutes later one of the kitchen staff came out to tell me I was wanted on the phone. Cursing under my breath I went inside. Karl-Heinz out at the gate told me I had a visitor. “His name is Eric Schievner.”

“Who is he?” I waited while Karl-Heinz went to ask.

“He says he wants to talk to you about your friend, Gina Ross.”

The black cherry convertible pulling up in front of the clubhouse had a North Carolina vanity license plate that read SAM.

The man getting out of the car was in his early fifties and immaculately turned out. Well-trimmed silver-gray hair and a toned body in a lightweight suit of gray silk, with perfectly matched powder-blue shirt and pinstripe tie, gave him the look of a model in a glossy ad for single malt scotch. He smiled, exposing great dental work, and then climbed the stairs to join me at a leisurely pace.

“I'm Eric Schievner,” he said as he held out his nicely manicured hand with a small gold pinky ring, “Gina's cousin.”

“Let's talk in the dining room.” I wasn't taking this refined man to the disgusting office downstairs. I led the way through the open double doors. It was a Florida day where temperature and humidity were just about perfect. The doors were open onto the gallery overlooking the beach as well as at the front of the building, letting a balmy breeze float in one side and out the other.

The tables in the formal dining room were draped with immaculate white tablecloths to the floor, waiting for place settings for a retirement party later that night. I pulled out a gilt chair from a table and asked, “How did you know my name?”

He held the chair for me as he replied, “Gina told me about Sherri, the bartender at the Sunset.”

“That must have been a short conversation,” I said. “I didn't know Gina all that well.”

“Gina felt you two had a lot in common, told me you'd both lost someone to violent death.” He smiled. “She also told me you were beautiful.”

Charming, but charm doesn't work on me. Jimmy vaccinated me against it. “How did you find me at the B&T?”

“I went to the Sunset.” He pulled out the chair facing me and sat down, relaxed and at ease. “There were workers all over the place. One of them knew you, knew you were working here.”

“The joys of a small town. You can't have secrets in Jacaranda.” Not unless you were very clever and very discreet. “When did you last talk to Gina?” I asked.

“Sunday. The Sunday before the hurricane hit. I called to tell Gina to leave before the storm got any closer and then Tuesday night when I saw it headed up the gulf, I called again. Thought she would be on her way north but she was still on Cypress Island.” He looked directly into my eyes and I became the center of the universe and for one crazy moment I felt his only reason for being in Florida was to see me. It was disarming.

“Why didn't she go; why did she stay? I didn't understand it then and I don't now. She was planning to leave on Tuesday morning, promised me she would, but she had read about some woman being murdered and was all upset.”

“Yeah,” I nodded. “Gina came into the Sunset just after it opened on Wednesday. All she talked a bout was Bunny Lehre's murder. I'm guessing she thought it might be connected to Sam's.”

His hand on the table curled into a fist. “She was obsessed with Sam's death,” he said. “I couldn't convince her to leave it to the police and go on with her life. She loved teaching, but when September came she was still here in Florida.”

“Really? I thought she just arrived here in late September.”

“No. She's been traveling since July.”

“Traveling?”

“Moving about, traveling south.”

“Following Sam's killer?”

He lifted his shoulders. “Maybe, I don't know how real it was — how much Gina really knew or how much she was guessing.”

“But she thought Sam's killer was somewhere on Cypress Island, didn't she?”

“More than that.” He crossed one leg over the other, smoothing down his trouser leg as he formed a reply. “Not only was she convinced she knew who murdered Sam, she had it firmly in her head that the police were never going to stop him.” He drew his thumb and forefinger along the crease in his slacks. “She believed there was another murder in Georgia in August that he was responsible for. She thought because he moved around, the police were helpless and this guy was going to just go on doing it over and over. She was desperate to stop him and felt responsible to see it was done.”

“How?”

He looked up at me. His eyes neither wavered nor blinked. “She never said so, but I think it was possible she was considering killing him.”

I let out the breath I'd been holding and nodded. “It seems likely. But I still don't get what Gina wanted from me.”

“Gina said your husband had been murdered.”

“When did Gina tell you about Jimmy?”

Eric shrugged. “Soon after she came down. Maybe a month ago.”

That would make it just before she started coming into the Sunset. She'd come into the Sunset because I was there, because of the way Jimmy died. Making friends with me was something she planned.

“Gina told me the woman murdered on the beach came down here every year and that she had a friend working here,” he said. “Was that friend you?”

“No.” That would be Julian, but that wasn't any of this guy's business. “Did Gina think I knew Bunny Lehre?”

“Yes.” Eric leaned forward. Our faces were only a foot apart. “Tell me about Gina and the day she died.”

“I have no idea why she went back out to the beach house, do you?”

He sat back on the chair. “No.” His voice was full of hesitation, as though he really felt he should be saying yes.

“Give a guess.”

Instead of answering he asked a question of his own, “Do you know if she had a gun?” He read my surprise. “Sam's gun was missing. I looked for it but it wasn't in her house.”

“You think Gina had it?”

He nodded. “She must have taken it with her when she left Sam's house in North Carolina.”

“And she was going to use it to shoot the guy who murdered Sam?”

He nodded. “Yes. She wanted to avenge Sam. She had herself convinced that she had to do something, not as a violent act of rage but as a civic duty to prevent more deaths.” He read my reaction. “Extreme, I know, but that's what Sam's death did to her.”

“So she was going to be his executioner?”

“I tried to talk her out of it.”

“But you didn't call the police and get them to stop her?”

“What could I tell them? What did I really know?” Still I felt he'd been negligent, leaving her on her own and showing up way too late.

“Don't think too harshly of Gina.”

“Who am I to judge her? Only, she drew me into it. Why? If she was going out to kill someone, why did she want me along? To witness it? That doesn't make sense. And then she left me in the car and ran.”

Two women entered the dining room pushing trolleys loaded with plates, goblets and silverware. They hung back when they saw us and then went quietly about their business of laying the tables around us.

I lowered my voice, “Who did Gina think murdered her sister? What's his name?”

His eyes did a shift. “She wouldn't tell me.” His forefinger rubbed a circle on the table, around and around. “At first she was afraid of accusing the wrong person. Later I think she was trying to protect me. Didn't want the police to think I had anything to do with his death if she decided to act. She said what I didn't know couldn't hurt me.”

“Did she choose that particular house on the beach or just rent what was available?”

“She really wanted that house. I think in some way she thought it was connected to Sam's killer.”

My nightmares about the little beach house got a whole lot more real. “Is there anyone else Gina might have talked to up north? A friend? Anyone that might have another piece of the puzzle?”

With a shake of his head he denied it. “There's just us…was just us.” His mouth worked silently and then he said, “I loved Gina…Sam too, but with Gina…well there was always something extra.” He looked into the past while I waited.

“Our mothers were sisters. As kids the three of us spent every Christmas together and every summer at a cottage up on Lake Michigan. None of us had any children. I suppose we would have drifted apart if we had been parents and made other connections but it never happened. We still went on the occasional holiday together and spent every Christmas in Aspen.”

His face slumped into sadness. “Her proper name was Regina.” He lifted his eyes to me. “Did you know that? But she liked to be called just Gina.” He smiled. “Regina was too…” he lifted his shoulders then let them fall. “I don't know, just too something for her, royal maybe.” His arms dropped down between his splayed knees. “I'm alone now.” It was a bald statement of fact, not a bid for sympathy, as if he was saying he was at an end.

I looked away, out towards the gulf and the sun.

One of the servers said, “Excuse me,” and sat down a plate on a gold charger in front of me. Its surface was covered with painted monkeys and palm trees. Matched with the bright orange bird of paradise flower arrangements in the center of the table, the party would have a real tropical theme. But paradise had something dark and evil festering in it.

“You must go to the police,” I said when the woman moved off. “Detective Styles is in charge. Gina didn't have much faith in him but I know he never gives up and he's smart. He'll know the right questions to ask. If Gina could find this guy, he can too.”

“Yes,” he said. “Yes, I'll do that.” He got abruptly to his feet. “But first I needed to find you and hear about Gina.” I rose with him. “I'm sorry I couldn't tell you more.” “It's good to talk about her.” He straightened the chair to the table, neat and tidy and final.

“Why are you driving Sam's car?” I asked.

“I flew from Illinois to North Carolina. I picked up Sam's car and drove the rest of the way.” He moved towards the door and I followed.

He had a key to Samantha's house. He could have let him self in and killed her. But of course he didn't need a key. Sam would have let him in, fulfilling the profile of her murderer. On the front steps he held out his hand. “Why did you look for Sam's gun?” I asked.

Eric Schievner lowered his hand. “Thank you for seeing me, Ms. Travis.” The charm had been replaced by steel.

Even before the car slipped around the first bend and was hidden by the dense vegetation, questions were piling up in my head. Why had he come to see me before he had gone to the police? Surely the first thing he would want to do would be to claim Gina's body. Gina and Eric Schievner had been in close touch so she must have given him some clues about the murderer, which would help the police find him. I stopped dead at the entrance. I hadn't asked the name of the private detective. I also hadn't asked Eric Schievner where I could get in touch with him.

“Shit.” It must be the foreign food slowing down my brain. It worked better on burgers and fries.

Then the big question jumped up and bit my behind. Was he going to finish what Gina started? He was looking for Sam's gun. Maybe he knew as much as Gina did about the murder; he hadn't asked about anyone in particular but he'd definitely been pumping me for information. My bet was he knew everything there was about the murderer except where to find him and where to find Gina's gun. I had to talk to Styles.

He wasn't in. I left a message. I wonder if we'd connected sooner if things would have worked out differently, if three fewer people would have died.