Sunset Beach(26)

“Hey,” she said, smiling. “Looks like you finished your book. Do you like to draw?”

The girl’s face lit up. “Yeah, I like to draw.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Yvonne Howington corrected, not looking up from her book. “We say ‘yes, ma’am’ when we are talking to grown-ups.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Aliyah said.

Drue handed her a few sheets of paper and put the stickies and markers on the carpet beside her. “I’m sorry we don’t have any crayons, but I think markers are way cooler, don’t you?”

“Yes, ma’am,” she agreed.

“What do you say to the lady?” Yvonne asked, nodding her head at Drue in a reluctant show of gratitude.

“Thank you!” Aliyah said. She seized a marker and began drawing.



* * *



Jazmin Mayes, according to the intake sheet, had been twenty-six years old at the time of what the form called “the incident” on September 15, 2016, which had occurred at the Gulf Vista Hotel and Resort on Gulf Boulevard on Sunset Beach.

Drue shivered involuntarily. The Gulf Vista was a gated oceanfront resort development maybe half a mile from her own cottage. She passed the beach side of the property every day during her early morning beach walk, skirting the rows of turquoise-cushioned beach chaises and canvas-topped cabanas. She’d even tried once, but only once, to get a better look at the sprawling property by ignoring all the private property signs and walking up to the fence separating the beach from the pool deck, only to be turned away by a security guard who’d asked to see her resort key.

She skimmed through all the mundane questions Justice Line clerks asked of prospective clients—time of day, weather, exact location, including address and nearest intersection, and details of what the injured party was doing at the location of the incident—until she got to the meat of the form, known as the narrative.

“My daughter, Jazmin Mayes, worked at the hotel as a housekeeper,” Yvonne Howington had written. She’d skipped many of the questions on the form, typing in question marks, or “don’t know.”

Finally, she got down to brass tacks.

IN YOUR OWN WORDS, PLEASE DESCRIBE WHAT HAPPENED.

Yvonne’s response was succinct, bone-chilling and heartbreaking.

Jazmin gets off work at 11 o’clock on Sunday nights, but that night she didn’t come home, like she told me she was going to. The police say she was killed sometime after midnight. Another housekeeper called hotel security after she went to the laundry and found Jazmin’s body wrapped up in sheets in a laundry cart. The guard was the one that called the police. The police told me she’d been strangled. The police came to my door at eight o’clock that morning. There were two of them, a man and a lady, who said they were detectives. That’s when they told me my daughter was dead. They didn’t say nothing about how it happened, not at first. They just asked me a whole lot of questions about Jazmin, and who her friends were at work, and how long she’d been working at the hotel, and whether or not anybody had been bothering her.





* * *



Yvonne Howington slapped the crossword book shut. “Look here. Did that assistant say when Mr. Campbell will be back?”

It was nearly two o’clock. Brice’s office hours could best be described as erratic. Although she hadn’t seen it yet, Drue knew he had an office at home. If he was working on a big case and didn’t want the distractions of the office, he often decided to work alone, at home.

“Mr. Campbell’s assistant told me he probably won’t be back in the office today,” Drue said. “I really think it would be better if you made an appointment to see him. I can have his assistant call you to set up a time.”

“That assistant is just stalling me. I been trying to get to see Brice Campbell ever since she called to tell me about the check I was going to be getting. He promised me four, maybe five million dollars. And I get nothing? That ain’t right. He knows it and I know it, and you’d know it too, if you knew what I know.”

Drue swallowed hard. The desktop phone buzzed. She picked up her headset.

“Tell me she’s gone.” It was Wendy.

“Afraid not.”

“I’m coming out there and we’ll get this taken care of right now.” Wendy disconnected.

A moment later, the door from the back office swung open and Wendy marched right up to their visitor.

“Ms. Howington?” Wendy’s voice was pitched. “I’m Mr. Campbell’s office manager, Wendy. I know we’ve met before. And we’ve talked on the phone. The thing is, Ms. Howington, Brice won’t be back to the office this afternoon. If you’d called to ask about an appointment I could have saved you all the trouble of coming down here today.”

“I been calling about an appointment and getting nothing but the runaround,” Yvonne said, her own voice rising. “So I come down here today, and I brought Jazmin’s girl with me.”

She touched the child’s shoulder “Stand up, Aliyah.”

The child scrambled to her feet and ducked her head, self-conscious and shy under Wendy’s none-too-friendly gaze.

“I want you to look at this girl, Miss Wendy. You look at her and tell me her mama’s life was only worth one hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”