Sunset Beach(98)

Drue’s eyes were burning with fatigue as she reached the portion of the video at the 11:05 P.M. point.

Again, she saw the shadowy figure of the housekeeper slowly roll the laundry cart toward a door at the end of a long, narrow hallway. Jazmin’s face was obscured by the bill of her baseball cap as she hesitated in front of the door, but when she raised her head to slide her key lanyard from her neck, Drue spotted the girl’s distinctive pointed chin. She watched as Jazmin passed the key card over the door lock, then pushed the door open.

At 1:32 A.M. the door to the room opened. The laundry cart emerged from the room, followed by Jazmin, whose head was bowed as she walked rapidly away from the room.

Drue watched as the girl’s figure moved out of camera range. She paused the video, reversed and watched it again. Something was different, she thought. The most obvious thing was the housekeeper’s energy level. When the girl approached the room she was trudging, clearly exhausted at the end of a long night. But when she emerged, two and a half hours later, she moved at a near-run.

Drue paused the video again, staring down at the back of the housekeeper’s head. Something else was different too. She didn’t know what it meant, but she was sure it had to mean something. She reached for her phone and called Rae Hernandez. When the call went straight to voice mail, she left a message: “Rae, call me, please. I think I figured something out.”

She went back to work, glancing at her phone every fifteen minutes, until finally it rang, and she saw UNKNOWN CALLER flash across the caller ID screen.





46


She snatched the phone up. “Hey.”

“You’re starting to get on my nerves with all these phone calls,” Rae Hernandez said.

Drue said eagerly, “Look, I’ve got lots to tell you, which is why I’ve been trying to reach you.”

“So you said. What’s up?”

The words came tumbling out, and even to Drue it sounded like she was babbling.

“I went over to the Silver Sands motel the other night and talked to Jazmin’s boyfriend. He told me that when he worked at the Gulf Vista, Shelnutt, the head of security, and some of his cronies there used to get together in a vacant room to watch footage from the security cameras—of half-dressed or nearly naked women at the beach or pool, couples having sex in the elevators. Porn parties, Jorge called them. I also then managed to track down Neesa Vincent, the housekeeper who was Jazmin’s best friend. And she admitted to me—”

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Hernandez demanded. “Who told you to go around interviewing my witnesses?”

“I wasn’t really interviewing them, I was just talking, and I think they told me stuff they might not tell a cop…”

“Jesus Christ on a crutch.” Hernandez moaned. “I knew it was a mistake talking to you. Don’t you understand? This is an active investigation. You’re putting it and yourself in jeopardy. The last thing I need is some amateur mucking around in things.”

“I wasn’t mucking,” Drue said, refusing to be intimidated. “Do you want me to tell you what I found out? Like how both Jazmin and Neesa were trading sex for favors from Herman Byars, the head of housekeeping? Or do you want to keep bitching me out?”

“What I want to do is go home and have dinner with my family, which I promised my husband I would do tonight,” Hernandez groused.

“Okay, fine.” Drue disconnected.

Her phone rang again. She waited three beats and picked it up.

“Don’t hang up on me again,” Hernandez said with a growl. “This isn’t some game you’re playing.”

“I’m well aware of that,” Drue said, matching the detective’s tone. “Can we meet? Or not?”

“We don’t need a coffee klatch. Just tell me everything you learned,” Hernandez said.

“I was thinking I could tell you what I know and you could let me see the rest of the video from the hotel.”

The sheriff’s detective swore softly. “I don’t need this shit.”

“What kind of pizza do you like?” Drue asked, reaching for her purse and keys.

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

“I haven’t had dinner and I’m starving. I’ll pick us up a pizza on the way to your office.”

“Pepperoni. Cheese. No green peppers and no goddamn anchovies.”

“Goes without saying,” Drue agreed.



* * *



Rae Hernandez eyed the grease-spotted pizza box warily. “What took you so long? I’m starving and I almost gave up on you.”

“I was all the way in downtown St. Pete,” Drue said, as Hernandez led her back to her office, stopping in the break room to buy soft drinks from a vending machine.

Drue put the pizza box on top of a file cabinet, and Hernandez opened a file drawer and pulled out paper plates and napkins. The smell of warm tomato sauce and gooey melted cheese filled the small, cluttered office.

Hernandez rolled her desk chair over to the cabinet and put a slice of pizza on her plate. “Tell me more about these porn parties. It would have been nice if I’d heard about this two years ago.”

“Jorge said he only went once,” Drue said, putting aside her own slice of pizza. “But he said Shelnutt and his buddies had them all the time. The head of engineering, Larry Boone, would designate a room as ‘out of order,’ so that the front desk staff wouldn’t rent it out.”