“What if the managers have kids? Do they live here too?”
Some of his earlier stiff ness returned. “You’d have to ask them. I don’t know about their private lives.”
I was impressed. He was willing to give me some insider stuff, but he drew the line at revealing personal information about other employees.
He said, “Let me show you the private rooms for dogs.”
I dutifully went along with him, but all the time my eyes were searching for Jaz. The more I saw, the less I expected to find her. The place sprawled all over the bayfront, with tennis courts and swimming pools and little alfresco dining spots under the trees. The bay itself had speedboats, sailboats, fishing boats, canoes, water skis, and paddleboats for more outgoing guests. But set back from the bay were cottages and villas completely separate from the active areas, and winding all over the place were meandering brick paths that led between buildings. An occasional ground-level sign politely pointed the way to landmarks in case guests became confused by all the options.
Don took me to the special building where dogs and cats could vacation in air-conditioned splendor, with top-of-the-line beds, climbing posts, scratching posts, private TVs, music, and room service. I was positive the imaginary Shih Tzu named Sally would absolutely love one of those rooms, but I still had an eye out for Jaz.
On the way back toward the main building, a small sign announced HONEYMOON COTTAGES, with a female hand sporting a big sparkly wedding ring pointing down a shady path edged with sweet alyssum. The cottages backed up to the nature preserve and their fronts were screened from view by palms and sea grape. Through the foliage, I saw a flight of stairs going up to a narrow porch.
I said, “Ooh! Is this where the honeymoon cottages are? Oh, that would be so terrific, to come to a place like this on a honeymoon!”
I sounded so wistful, I nearly moved myself. For sure I moved Don.
He looked over his shoulder to make sure nobody was watching. “You want to look at them? From the outside, I mean, I can’t take you inside.”
“Ooh, yes!”
I moved forward so fast Don had to double-step to keep up. The honeymoon cottages were brilliantly situated at angles so no cottage faced another, and no window looked out at another. Each was built in old Florida beach style, tall on wooden stilts, with a flight of steps leading up to a narrow porch. Each had a private single-lane drive. Each was a miniature version of Reba’s house.
I said, “Do those cottages have numbers? Like addresses?”
For the first time, Don looked uneasy. He said, “They have names, not numbers.”
Of course they did. I should have known. They would be called the Flamingo or the Hibiscus. If Jaz actually lived in one of those honeymoon cottages, she wouldn’t know her house number because she wouldn’t have one. But what was she doing in a cottage that cost twenty thousand dollars a weekend?
Don said, “We’d better get back to the front desk. They’ll be wondering why I’m taking so long.”
I said, “Oh, I’m sorry! I shouldn’t have asked you to show me those cottages. It’s just that women dream, you know?”
He said, “Are you married?”
“I’m a widow.”
He colored in embarrassment, and I hated myself. I had never used my widowhood before to get sympathy, and it made me feel cheap. But Don felt so sorry for me now that he’d quit wondering why I’d asked if the managers had children or if the honeymoon cottages had numbers. He probably thought grief had made me weird. He wasn’t far off, but in that particular case I’d been more calculating than nuts.
I walked with him back to the front lobby, thanked Gary profusely for providing an escort, promised to highly recommend the Key Royale to my mythical clients in Switzerland, and got back in the Bronco. At the gate, I waved a jaunty goodbye to the guard and mouthed, Thank you! He waved back like we were old friends. I should have been contrite to have fooled a nice man, but I actually felt quite proud.
I was positive that Jaz and her stepfather were somehow connected to the Key Royale resort hotel, and that she had described one of the honeymoon cottages to somebody in L.A. as her home.
I still didn’t understand why she would do that.
16
At the diner, I picked up a copy of the Herald-Tribune from a stack by the cashier’s stand and dropped it on my table to mark my spot while I washed up. My energy boost was draining by then, and it pretty much completely evaporated when I saw Bambi Dirk standing at a sink in the ladies’ room. The fact that her name was Bambi was just another example of how some people’s names don’t fit them. Bambi Dirk was more like a moose than a fawn, and for a second I wondered if there was some kind of karmic high school reunion going on, a cosmic force that had first drawn Maureen to me and now Bambi.
But where Maureen and I had once shared a special closeness, Bambi and I had shared a special dislike. Actually, she’d hated me like poison and the feeling had been mutual. Bambi had never gotten over the fact that her boyfriend had dumped her for me, and I’d never gotten over the fact that she’d branded Maureen the school slut. All that high school stuff should have been put behind us, but Bambi and I eyed each other like two cats ready to hiss and pounce. She wore a toad-colored blouse and white shorts so tight in the crotch they were giving her a wedgie. She had put on weight since we’d last seen each other, and I hadn’t. That gave me great pleasure.
She said, “Why Dixie, I didn’t know you still lived on the key. I heard you got fired from the sheriff’s department and left town.”
I held my hands under a spray of water and resisted flinging some on her.
I said, “Wrong on both counts, Bambi. I wasn’t fired and I’m still here.”
Her eyebrows drew together to make a deep vertical groove on her forehead. In a few years, that groove would be permanent and she’d look like an elk. Couldn’t happen to a more deserving woman.
She said, “But you’re not a deputy anymore.”
“I’m a pet sitter.”
In the mirror, her face registered disdain. She ran long manicured fingers through her hair. “I guess you’ve heard what happened to your old skanky friend.”
“I have a lot of old skanky friends, Bambi. Which one do you mean?”
“If you don’t know, then you live on another planet. It’s all over the news.”
I jerked a paper towel from its slot, dried my hands, and wadded the towel into a ball. My hand wanted to throw it at Bambi, but instead I tossed it in the wastebasket and turned on my heel, ready to flounce out. But it’s hard to turn on your heel when you wear Keds, harder still to flounce in cargo shorts. A proper flounce needs ruffles or at least a billowing full skirt. As flounce impaired as I was, though, I managed to get in the last word.
“Nice to see you’re still spreading gossip, Bambi.”
The door sighed closed behind me and I stomped down the hall past the men’s room, the manager’s office, and a public phone. At the counter where people sit if they want TV with their meals, everybody was staring up at the huge screen on the wall. I zipped past them toward the main dining area, and then stopped cold when I heard Maureen’s voice. Weak-kneed, I turned to look up at her magnified image on the TV.
She looked good. She looked like what she was, a not-too-bright woman with great hair and a terrific body who had married money. A lot of money. She wore a hot pink short skirt and close-fitting jacket that had a fluff of something feathery around the edge. The camera was too close to tell what shoes she wore, but only very high heels would have given such a forward thrust to her boobs. Her glossy brown hair was made big as China by curly extensions, her trembling lips were sweetly pink, her eyelashes were thick and dark, and her big brown eyes looking into the camera were moist and pleading. Her voice was so soft it would have made a pit viper weep.