“Did you find a lot of papers under the bed and put them on the night table?”
One of the women nodded. “Papers? You mean like a stack about this big?” She held her thumb and forefinger out in a space that would hold maybe one hundred sheets, in the ballpark of what I was asking about.
I attempted to keep the surprise out of my face. Maybe I was going to owe Sergeant French a mental apology. “You found them under the bed?”
And maybe not.
She shook her head. “I didn’t find them anywhere. I get it. This is a setup. You’re trying to get me to incriminate myself. I didn’t let that man in the room even though he said he just wanted to drop something off. I took the pile of papers from him. I’d already picked some off the floor and put them on the night table. I just added the ones he gave me to them.”
“Some guy brought the papers?”
“Okay, I know it’s against the rules. We’re not supposed to let anyone in without having them show us their key. And I didn’t let him in,” the housekeeper said. The rest of her group had started to move on, and she looked like she was planning to join them.
I had to come up with something to get more details. Think fast, I ordered myself, mentally running through the table of contents of the Average Joe book. What it said was that sometimes the basic truth worked best.
“Wait,” I said as she turned to join the rest of the crew. “The room I’m talking about. Well, that woman is dead. She died on the beach yesterday.”
The girl’s face fell and she seemed in more of a hurry to leave, so I started to talk faster. “Everybody thinks it was an accident, that she was allergic to the peanut butter in the gourmet s’mores.”
“Peanut butter in s’mores? I’ve never heard of that. There is a lot of s’more business up here. Every group seems to make them in the fire circle, but they just go the usual way. So, she got sick from the campfire treats and-” She shrugged.
“I think she might have had help eating them and I’m investigating. So finding out who the man with the papers is is important.”
The girl’s mouth quivered. “You mean like in that old TV show where that woman who lived in Vermont or somewhere always was smarter than the cops?”
“Sort of like that.” As I watched the quiver turn into a giggle, I got annoyed. “I’ll have you know I have successfully investigated a number of murders.”
“Okay, sure,” she said in a patronizing tone. “I got to go. I don’t know who the guy was. I don’t keep track of guests’ names.
I took her arm and eased her up the path toward the dining hall. “If you could just have a look inside and tell me if you see him.”
“No way,” she said, pulling away from me. It occurred to me that sometimes you had to pay for information, so I offered to give her the tip that Izabelle might have left. The girl snatched the ten-dollar bill.
“I’m not going in, but I’ll look through the window.” She leaned toward the windowed wall and I pointed toward our group and asked if she saw the man. She just kept shaking her head, and I suddenly had the feeling that was all she was going to do even if she saw him. There was nothing in it for her to give him up.
I was about to let her go when the door to the dining hall opened and some people walked out. The movement drew her eyes to the group. The Average Joe’s Guide to Criminal Investigation had a whole section on observing people’s responses. Some were involuntary, like your pupils got bigger when you liked something, whether you wanted to admit it or not. And some were under your control, but still automatic, like the way the housekeeper straightened suddenly as she looked at one of the exiters.
“That’s him, isn’t it?” I said softly.
What was Spenser Futterman doing with Izabelle’s manuscript?
CHAPTER 14
THE FIRST SESSIONS OF THE WORKSHOPS WERE scheduled to start right after lunch. No time to talk to Spenser Futterman and no chance to tell Dinah that he was the crow. Dinah walked out surrounded by people from her table who were taking her workshop. She appeared happy and excited, and I didn’t want to ruin it for her by interrupting. I was discovering it’s lonely at the top.
The workshops were all meeting simultaneously except for Mason’s. But then his wasn’t really a workshop and more of an activity, and we’d scheduled several time slots so the whole group could attend the tai chi sessions if they wanted to.
Mason caught up with me as I walked up the pathway past Lodge. I was clutching the rhinestone clipboard, ready to make my rounds. Mason had changed out of the tai chi clothes into well-fitting jeans and a blue oxford cloth shirt. The color of the shirt brought out the color in his face, and as usual a tousle of hair had fallen free and dangled over his forehead.
“Hey, Sunshine, where are you headed?”
I held up the rhinestone clipboard in response. “I’m going to stop in all the workshops and make sure everything’s going okay.”
I looked at his clothes. “What about you?”
His mouth eased into a grin. “No tai chi until late in the afternoon, so I thought I’d head over to Carmel for a while.” He glanced around the empty walkway. “You look tense around the eyes. How about joining me? Take an hour or so off. I noticed you didn’t eat breakfast, or lunch either.”
“Mason,” I said, rolling my eyes, “I can’t leave. After everything that’s happened, from the fog to Izabelle, well, I have to keep an eye on things.” I held up the clipboard.
“The buck stops with me.”
He nodded and let me know he understood. “I thought that’s what you’d say, but I figured I’d ask anyway. What’s on the schedule for tonight?”
I asked if he hadn’t gotten a schedule, and he admitted to having paid attention only to the times set for tai chi. I had a convenient copy and pulled it out, showing him that after dinner, Commander Blaine was setting up board games in the lobby area of a building called Scripps. “There’s going to be informal crocheting and knitting as well.”
“You ought to be off duty by nine. How about you and I slip out then? The Seventeen Mile Drive is just over there,” he said, referring to the private scenic roadway that wound through the Del Monte Forest and hugged the ocean as it ran past some famous golf courses and resorts. “There are some great restaurants.”
“Mason, I can’t go on a dinner date. I’m working,” I protested.
“It’s not a date, Molly, just two out-of-town Tarzanians discussing the weekend. Nobody will miss you for an hour or two.” He put his hand on my arm. “Everybody gets a break. Besides, if you don’t eat soon, you’re going to pass out.”
He had a point about needing to eat something and I certainly needed a break, though it was kind of funny to need a break from a supposedly fun weekend. Besides, now that I had accepted that Izabelle’s death was murder, we could talk about the case. Mason had helped me before by using his resources to find out information. So, I said yes. His smile broadened and he said he’d make a reservation.
“Nine o’clock, remember,” he said as he walked away and I left to make my rounds of the workshops.
I was curious to see Bennett in action, so his workshop was my first stop. It had been set up in a meeting room in one of the small newer buildings, and I stopped in the doorway. He was straddling a chair in the front of the room and wore a baseball cap backward. His group seemed to be mesmerized by whatever he was saying. Miss Lavender Pants and her crew were hanging on his every word, and I stepped closer to hear better. He said something about playing some acting games to loosen everyone up, and then he’d be passing each person their lines in a one-act play.