Room At The Inn (The Jeff Resnick Mysteries) (17 page)

After the Andolinas went upstairs, Sgt. Beach made his way down. I intercepted him at the bottom of the steps. "What brings you here?"

"I just wanted to speak with several of the guests. If you'll excuse me." He turned for the game room and headed for the DuBois.

Susan picked up an empty tray and returned to the kitchen.

Richard turned to me. "Looks like things are breaking up. Did you get what you need upstairs?"

"We'll talk later." I nodded toward Beach. "What do you think he wants?"

We glanced across the room. Michele smiled at her husband and hugged him, looking relieved.

"I'd say they just got the okay to go home. Scratch two suspects," Richard said.

"Narrowing the field doesn't bother me a bit." I turned back to the bar, topping off my cola. My head felt like it was about to split. "I have to give up shaking hands."

"Why?"

"I learn too much crap."

"Who're you talking about?"

I nodded toward the reporter. "Ashley. She's a barfer. She stays skinny by throwing up. Did you see the way she looked at the shrimp?"

He frowned, studying her.

"How much longer do we need to stay?" I asked.

"I'm ready to go now. You?"

I looked back to the sergeant. "In a minute. I want to talk to Beach first."

"Okay. This'll give me a chance to call Brenda."

"I'll meet you in your room in ten or fifteen minutes."

He nodded, looked down at his ice-filled empty glass, and then poured himself another scotch, taking it and the bottle with him.

Beach crossed to the loveseat in the corner where Doug and Alyssa sat. He spoke with them for a moment, and then they, too, looked relieved. After he'd finished, he noticed me waiting for him and started toward me.

"Can I go home, too?"

"Not just yet."

"I thought you said I wasn't a suspect."

"You're not. But you may still be a material witness. Can you stay another day or so?"

"We'll be here as long as Maggie's in the hospital." I glanced at my watch. "Do you work a twenty-four hour day?"

"It only seems like it."

"You said you'd have this solved in thirty-six hours. Does that still hold?"

"We're getting closer."

"Who're your most likely suspects?"

"I'll bet they're the same as yours."

They. That meant he had no better idea than me. There had to be a way to eliminate more of them from the running.

"Is there a chance I can get my memory card back?"

"Yeah. You were right—there was nothing worth looking at.”

Was that a judgment of my photography or had they erased the thing?

Before I could ask, Beach said, "I'll see you get it back."

"Thanks. Oh, and my insurance company will want a copy of the accident report. Can you help me out?"

"No problem. I've still got paperwork to attend to. I'll be in touch."

I watched him go upstairs. I had nothing more to say to the other guests, so I downed the rest of my Coke and grabbed the last shrimp from the tray.

My work wasn't finished yet, either.

Richard had finished his call and was gone by the time I looked out the kitchen door to the patio beyond. I headed upstairs and knocked on his door, glad he opened it only seconds later. Brushing past him, I headed straight for the bathroom.

"How's the headache?"

"How'd you know?"

"A, you look like shit. B, you always have a headache when you invoke this psychic stuff."

When the water ran cold, I wrung out a washcloth, then headed for the comfort of the loveseat. I already had my prescription bottle open, doled out a pill and slipped it under my tongue, and then leaned back to settle the cool cloth on my forehead.

Richard shrugged and took the other chair. "What's with the washcloth?"

"I was our mom's favorite hangover remedy. It makes your head feel better."

"If you say so. Are you keeping track of the medication you've taken?"

"Yes," I said irritably.

"You've been known to get confused when the pain's bad."

"Thanks for the reminder.”

He shrugged again. "Did Beach leave?"

I nodded, kicked off my shoes and put my feet on the cocktail table, trying to ignore Richard's look of disapproval. "He said he had paperwork to finish. The town sure gets its money's worth out of him."

"It's called dedication. The same can be said of you—and you're not even getting paid for your detective work."

"It's not detective work. It’s more like plain nosiness since whoever killed Eileen also hurt Maggie and wrecked my car."

He nodded, conceding the point. "I've been meaning to ask you about the victim. You said she looked ill.”

"Yeah."

"Any idea from what? Cancer? Were there any outward sign of her being terminally ill?"

I shook my head.

"From what you've described, it sounds like her condition was stable. What made you think she was dying?"

"I got the impression
she
felt her time was short."

Richard thought about it for a moment. "Is it possible she wanted to die?"

"What do you mean?"

"Could she have set herself up as a target?"

"That doesn't make sense."

"Why not? Have you ever heard of suicide?"

I sat up straighter. "You mean she was too chicken to off herself, so she set herself up for someone else to do it?"

"Every terminal patient handles the news differently. Why do you think physician-assisted suicide keeps making headlines? Some patients would rather choose the time of their death. They don't want to be an emotional or financial burden to their families. They don't want to suffer for months in agony. Perhaps she lacked the courage to do it herself and decided being killed might be a way out."

"Are you serious?"

He sank back in his chair. "I'm drained. I don't know how you do it."

"Do what?"

"Soak up other people's feelings. Like what happened with Maggie at the hospital today. It's got to drag you down."

"It does," I admitted. "And I wish everything came with total understanding. Instead it comes like a jigsaw puzzle—one piece at a time. Like searching Zack's and Susan's apartment and Laura's and Ted's room."

"What did you learn?"

"Not as much as I'd hoped. I pawed through their things, but got the most information from their beds."

"Their beds?"

I explained what I'd experienced. Then a thought occurred to me. "Which bed did you sleep in the first night you were here?"

He pointed. "That one."

"I didn't get anything from that other bed last night, and I never get anything off you. I wonder if there's leftover vibes from Eileen in your bed."

"You make it sound like cooties."

"I always feel like a voyeur when I get these funny feelings." I sobered, looking at the bed. "Do you mind?"

"Be my guest."

Tossing the washcloth into the bathroom, I moved to the bed. Perching on the edge, I laid back, closed my eyes, letting my hands rest at my sides and opened myself up to ... whatever ... willing myself to relax.

Nothing happened.

The sound of my own breathing unnerved me.

Richard shifted in his chair.

I concentrated on my memories of Eileen on her last night, but trying to force these funny feelings was a sure way not to get anything.

I needed patience.

My fingers curled into the bedspread.

A gray, hazy image seeped into my mind. "She was drinking the scotch...." My left hand moved, groping for some unseen object.

"What was she looking for?" Richard asked.

I struggled to sharpen the image, which made my head thump even more.

"Uh ... a ... writing pad. She'd been writing something."

The image grew clearer. Eileen, dressed in her white robe, sat propped up on pillows, with the scotch bottle within reach on the bedside table. She held the half-filled tumbler in her right hand. Reading glasses were perched on her nose. She held an expensive ballpoint pen in her left hand and settled the tablet on her lap and began to write.

"Everything had been going just the way she'd planned ... but then it started to sour."

"What had she planned?"

Pain flared behind my eyes, extinguishing the image. I exhaled loudly, frustrated. "It's gone." I thought about it for a moment. "It's like ... being on the verge of remembering, but I can't quite focus on it." I folded my arms across my chest and stared at the white textured ceiling.

"Let your subconscious work at it for a while. Maybe it'll come to you."

"It’s too bad you can’t just hypnotize me."

"Who says I can't?"

I propped myself up on my elbows and stared at him. "You can do that?"

He shrugged. "Hypnotism is just another state of consciousness achieved through relaxation. I'll bet I haven't lost my touch. Are you game?"

"Sure." I leaned back on the bed, then raised my head to look up at him. "Where'd you learn this?"

"UCLA."

I raised an eyebrow, waiting for the rest of the explanation.

"Okay, so I took the course to meet the instructor."

"A woman?"

"Yes."

"And?"

He squirmed. "After that, I ... lived with her for three years."

"Before Brenda, right?"

"Of course." He cleared his throat. "Anything specific you want me to ask?"

I'd have to grill him on his past some other time. "Just whatever comes to mind. If it works, ask me about Adam pushing me down the stairs. It seems like there's something there, too, but I don't know how to capture it."

Richard sat across from me on the other bed. "Okay. Close your eyes. Leave your arms at your sides and take a deep breath."

I did as I was told.

"Breathe deeply and evenly, and with every breath you'll feel all tension within you begin to dissipate. That's it. Deep breaths."

I listened to Richard speak; his voice dropped into a gentle croon. I concentrated on the calm, soothing sound of his words and on my own breathing.

Slowly in.

Slowly out.

The intense pounding in my head began to fade as a sense of peace descended upon me.

Slow.

Deep.

Breaths.

I felt at ease. Safe. Floating—no longer one with my body, my mind open to the universe.

"Jeff?"

"Yes?" My voice sounded oddly flat. Slower. Deeper.

"You're now totally relaxed. You feel no sense of uneasiness or anxiety. You feel calm, relaxed and totally self-assured."

"Yes."

"I want you to think of Eileen. Can you see her sitting on the bed? Writing on a tablet?"

What had been a hazy image was suddenly superimposed on my consciousness in vivid detail—as though I was actually witnessing it.

There's nothing quite like a good scotch buzz, but Eileen had gone way beyond that, the liquor intensifying all her emotions. Sorrow, shame, and anger spewed from her in an uncontrolled torrent, buffeting my senses like a typhoon. I struggled to catch my breath.

"You're totally relaxed," Richard reminded me, "and any emotions you sense cannot overwhelm you. You understand them, but they do not control you. You're safe from them."

Like turning down the volume on a stereo, Eileen's emotions backed down to a tolerable level.

"That's it," Richard encouraged, "relax. Now, look at the tablet in her hands. See the pen moving across the paper. Can you tell me what she's writing?"

My point of view abruptly shifted. Suddenly I was a sponge, absorbing Eileen's essence—knowing what it was to
be
Eileen, taking in my surroundings through her eyes.

My gaze drifted to the tablet. Doodles decorated the page.

"Laura ... two hundred and fifty thousand dollars."

"What's the money's for?"

In a flash, Eileen's lifetime of memories flooded through me. I knew so many things I shouldn't have known: her school years, working in London and then New York, the places she'd been to, the lovers she'd known.

"Ted ... Teddy," I said, surprised. "Teddy Bear."

"What does that mean?"

My tongue seemed too big for my mouth, and my stomach tightened. "He reminds her of … the first one."

"Her first lover?" Richard repeated.

"Yes ... no. The first … young one."

“Young one? Who was that? When was that?”

“When isn’t important … his age was. Just a boy. Maybe ten or eleven.”

“And how old was Laura?”

“Twenty-two?”

“What?” Richard said, sounding incredulous. “And Eileen knew about this?”

I nodded. “Laura worked for Eileen … was arrested. She lost her job.”

“So what was Eileen’s plan? To blackmail her?”

“I nodded.”

"They both ended up here over Fourth of July ... that’s when Eileen started plotting?"

“Why?”

"She wanted money—a business loan she called it. But she knew she would never repay it."

"What else is written on the paper?"

"Zack ... two hundred and fifty thousand dollars."

"Was Eileen blackmailing Zack, too?"

"No."

"Was she going to give Zack the money she got from Laura?"

"Yes.”

"What for?"

"To buy out Susan." The answer had come so easily, yet I really wasn't sure of its validity.

"Is that all that was on the paper?"

"No. Susan ... her name ... crossed out. Heavy ink." Dark lines, done in anger, almost obliterated her name on the phantom tablet.

"Eileen and Zack were lovers, weren't they?" Richard continued.

"Yes." Was balling Eileen a mercy fuck? She had to be fifteen, maybe twenty years older than Zack.

"Had they been lovers for a long time?" Richard went on.

"No." A warm, bittersweet memory came to me. "Eileen first came to the inn last summer. She came back three times since. Once when Susan was gone." The memory fragment I'd picked up in the Dawson's bathroom returned, enhanced to include Zack and Eileen together in the hot tub on a cool, spring day.

"Was there anything else on the paper?"

"Says ... 'Call David. September 10th.'"

"Who's David?"

"Eileen's attorney. Ashley said Eileen saw him the day she died."

"What for?"

Whatever transpired between the attorney and Eileen had not been emotionally charged. It eluded me. "I don't know."

"Did Eileen
want
to die?"

A ripple of sorrow shattered the calm. A shudder ran through me. "She ... thought she was going to die."

"By murder?"

Something tightened in my chest. Fear—but I wasn't sure of the source. "I don't know."

"Was she sick?"

A bitter memory of illness surfaced, what Eileen feared would be her future. "Last winter. Pneumonia." But that hadn’t been her underlying problem.

"What else can you tell me about Eileen?"

Tension coiled through me, Eileen's wants and desires conflicting with my own sense of self. "She ... liked me. Wanted me the same way she wanted Zack."

"How do you feel about that?"

Eileen had been lonely. And she'd felt used. "I love Maggie. I don’t cheat."

"I’m with you on that," Richard said, sounding subdued.

"She told Zack," I volunteered.

"To make him jealous?"

"Yes."

"What did Zack say?"

"'Go for it.' He wanted her money. He'd say
anything
to get the money."