Chapter 6. Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?
Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?
“What are you doing here?” I ask Guy in his small office near the staff quarters.
It’s got a wooden desk, shutters on the windows, a sleek laptop, and not much else. It’s also neat as a pin, nothing else on the desk other than an old-fashioned desk calendar.
I’m not sure what I expected. I’ve never been to the staff quarters in a resort before, and maybe they’re all different, but this one feels like a microcosm of the summer camp Harper and I went to when we were kids: a tight cluster of small white buildings built into the overgrown greenery with communal showers and rooms.
If there was somewhere I thought of finding Guy Charles, it wasn’t this.
We first met ten years ago when he was working with/for Connor. Since then, he’s been in and out of my life like a bad tide.
“I don’t have to tell you anything,” Guy says in his gruff voice.
And for the first time since I met him, I try to place his accent.
Will it surprise you to learn that I have no idea where Guy is from or what he did before he met Connor? Or even when he met Connor?
All I know about him is that he and Connor worked in Europe for a decade until Connor met me and I wrote about them and they got too famous to do their nefarious deeds out in the sunlight. Maybe I’d know more if I’d read Guy’s book—The Guy Behind the Man in Rome—but, alas, I don’t even own a copy.
Does this make me a bad person?
You don’t have to answer that one.
“There was a dead body in our room when we got here. We want to know what happened.”
Guy looks past me to Harper and Oliver. But we’re a united front on this one.
“You heard Officer Rolle,” Guy says. “It was a suicide.”
“You don’t believe that.”
He meets my eyes and I know he doesn’t. Guy and I have never been close, but we’ve spent enough time together to know some essentials about one another.
Like Guy is a very good liar. But he does have a tell.
Silence.
“Did you know him?” Oliver says. “The victim?”
“I’d met him a few times. And I was there when he was fired.”
“Why?” I ask.
“Standard operating procedure.”
“At a resort?”
Guy takes a moment to deliberate before he speaks. “There are a lot of big names that stay here. You’d be surprised. They want to make sure no one leaves with passwords or other confidential information.”
Given the current state of this resort, I highly doubt that, but I could be wrong.
Others could have been lured here by the brochure’s false promise of five-star luxury and been shocked to find that the mini fridge didn’t even have Diet Coke in it.42
“What did he do here?” I ask.
“He worked in customer relations.”
“What does that mean?”
“He dealt with high-profile clients. Getting them whatever they needed.”
“And why was he fired?”
Guy’s eyes shift around the room as he takes another beat. “There have been some thefts on property.”
“He was the thief?”
“He was seen on camera entering a guest room he had no business being in, and then something went missing. So yes, he was the thief.”
“Did you find the missing things on him?” Oliver asks.
“No, but that doesn’t mean anything. He could’ve fenced it or hidden it.”
I bite the end of my thumb. “So a thief gets fired, then he kills himself in our room? Why?”
“That was the room he stole from.”
I shudder. “He was sending a message.”
“Looks like.”
“How was he able to get into the room?” Oliver asks.
“It’s not that hard if you have access to the key card changer.”
“Which is kept where?”
“At the front desk,” Guy says. “You need a key to operate it, but it’s an easy enough access point, which I’ve told Mark more than once.”
“Who’s Mark?” Harper asks.
“Mark Knowles, the manager. You met him this morning.”
“So his name is Mark!” I say.
“Pardon?”
“It was just what I guessed, it doesn’t matter.” I think it over. “How long was Brian in the room? Do we know when he died?”
“That will have to wait for the path report.”
“When was the room cleaned? Did someone check out of it this morning?”
“No. You’d reserved an early check-in. The room was vacated and cleaned yesterday.”
“So he could’ve been there all night?”
“By the looks of the blood, yes.”
I flash back to the sight and scent of the body. Guy’s right. I don’t know as much about the drying times of blood as you might think I would, but it had to have been several hours at least.
“So he could’ve been killed yesterday?” I ask.
“Yes,” Guy says.
“Are there cameras on the doors?” Oliver asks. “Can we see who got in the room?”
“There’s only a camera on the front entrance.”
“There are two entrances?”
“There are French doors leading to the cuddle puddles in every room.”
“I’m sorry,” Oliver says, almost choking on his laughter. “Did you say ‘cuddle puddles’?”
Guy makes a growling sound in his throat. “It’s the little personal pool on the balcony. That’s what they call them.”
“So, if someone breaks into a room the back way, then there’s no way to tell how or who it is?”
“That’s right.”
“But those doors are kept locked from the inside, right?” I say. “They don’t have a key?”
“That’s right.”
“The victim could’ve left it unlocked.”
“Yes,” Guy says. “But why?”
“Maybe he opened it to get some air … have a think.” I click my teeth together. “Was there anyone on the front-door cameras?”
“Not after Brian went in.”
“Which was when?”
Guy sighs, then answers: “Last night. After dinner.”
“And the back door, was it locked?”
“Yes.”
“That doesn’t mean it was locked originally…” Harper says. “The murderer could’ve locked it behind himself when he left.”
“Or it was always locked,” I say.
“A locked-room murder, El?” Harper says. “That seems unlikely.”
“You do have a point there.” I’ve always wanted to write a locked-room murder, but that shit is hard.43
“What about the other person that died a few months ago?” I ask.
“He died in his sleep from natural causes,” Guy says.
“Nothing suspicious?”
“No. I checked the file. It was cut-and-dried.”
“Which brings us back to our original question: How did you get here exactly?” Oliver asks.
“I applied for the job.”
“Obviously,” I say. “But why?”
“Needed a change of scene.”
“A resort in the Bahamas? Doesn’t seem like your thing.”
“I agree entirely,” Connor says, entering the room behind us.
My sigh is loud enough for Connor to hear, but I don’t care what Connor thinks of me.
Honestly, the less thinking he does about me, the better.
Was that convincing?
No, right?
“There’s no need for that,” Connor says in a hurt tone. “I’m sure we’re all here for the same reason.”
“What’s that?”
“To find out what Guy is up to.”
“He says he’s just working here.”
Connor scowls. “I don’t believe that for a minute.”
“Why not?”
“He just happens to be at the same resort as us?”
Good point. Damn it. I meant to make that point at the beginning of this conversation.
I might need to stop drinking. It’s dulling my senses.
My life is going to be so boring!
“He makes a good point,” Oliver says. “When exactly did you arrive here, Guy?”
“Six weeks ago.”
“And why did you apply to this resort?” I ask. “Did you know we’d be here?”
Guy shifts from foot to foot. “I may have seen an advertisement.”
“What kind of advertisement?”
“In a newsletter.”
I feel the start of dread. “Whose newsletter?”
“His.” He points to Connor.
“What?” Connor says when I scowl at him. “I was advertising the event like Vicki told me to.”
I turn back to Guy. “So you saw this, and what then?”
“I checked it out, didn’t I?”
“Yes, and?”
“I was on the website and I saw they were looking for a head of security.”
“And you applied for it because…?”
“Like I said, I needed a change of scene.”
“In the Bahamas. At a resort you knew Connor, Oliver, and I were coming to?”
“Hey, what about me?”
“And Harper. And Sandrine.”
He gives me a cold stare. “What about it?”
“Did you know Sandrine was going to be here?”
“She may have mentioned it, yes.”
“You’re in touch with Sandrine?” Oliver says as Harper starts to cough.
“What of it?”
Harper’s coughing increases.
“Are you all right, Harper?”
“Just peachy.” She makes a motion with her hand to tell me to move on.
I make a mental note to come back to this later.
Remind me if I forget, okay?
“Did you suggest that Sandrine come to the conference?” I ask Guy.
He doesn’t say anything, just looks at me with his sad, dark eyes.
Which is his way of saying yes.
Fantastic.
What was that under Harper’s plate? “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer”? I’ve always preferred “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”
But what is the friend of your enemy? An enemy, that’s who.
“Is that all?” I ask Guy. “Anything more to tell us?”
“I didn’t have anything to tell you in the first place.”
“What I want to know is,” Harper says, “are the police going to investigate the death? Or have they just washed their hands of it?”
“Harper. Don’t speak-ay on the death-kay in front of Onnor-Cay.”
“That’s not pig Latin.”
“Whatever.”
“And you’re the one who spilled the beans earlier. In the lounge?”
Shit, she’s right.
Goodbye, alcohol, my old friend. It’s been nice knowing you.
Mostly, I mean.
“Answer the question, Guy,” Oliver says with a hint of a threat.
Guy takes a moment to consider, then relents. “There will be a postmortem as I mentioned earlier. That’s standard operating procedure. We’ll likely have the results in a few days.”
“And in the meantime, are you doing anything to increase security?”
“I’m keeping an eye out.”
“From in here?” Connor scoffs. “Who did you put down as your references when you applied for this job? Because no one spoke to me.”
Guy goes silent again, and I don’t know whether to be worried or annoyed.
I don’t feel like he’s telling the whole truth, but I do feel a bit calmer.
I mean, I still have an unlikely suicide/potential murder to solve, but some of the panic has started to recede.
There’s an explanation for why everyone who’s surprised me is here.
And maybe the note wasn’t a threat. Maybe I’ve been worried because I’m self-involved and have had some bad experiences lately when I’ve left my house.
I expel a slow breath, feeling my shoulders come down to a reasonable level.
Sometimes the simple explanation is the right one. Not everyone is out to get me all the time. And just because someone dying is the way you start most murder mysteries doesn’t mean that I’m living in one rather than teaching it.
Wow.
I’m almost convincing myself.
As long as nothing else happens, maybe I’ll be okay.
“Eleanor! There you are. I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”
And then again, maybe not.