Peggy Dulle - Liza Wilcox 03 - Secrets at Sea Read Online Free PDF Page B

gun in his back waistband and used his hand to signal to me. “Get back.”
    I stepped aside.
    He opened the door and started laughing.
    “What?” I asked.
    “Your three tourists are getting arrested.”
    “For what?” I pushed him aside and peered out. The three women we’d seen earlier were being cuffed and put into the back of a patrol car.
    “My guess, prostitution.” He chuckled, turned, and walked back toward the bedroom. “Wake me when you get hungry. I’ll buy you dinner.”
    I heard the bed squeak again, more cussing, and then silence.
    The door was already open, so I grabbed my pictures and walked toward the lobby.
    Brenda stood by the front door watching the cops. I slid in next to her. “Some excitement, huh?”
    “Not really, just Sherece, Deidre, and Charlene. They are hassled by the cops all the time.”
    “Oh.”
    She got behind the counter again and picked up her book.
    I stepped up. “Can I ask you some questions?”
    “Sure.” She set down the book. “What?”
    “My mom and dad used to stay here every year.”
    “They did?”
    “Yes.” I held up the most recent picture of my parents.
    Brenda shook her head. “I’ve only been working here a few months. You need to talk to Ramon. He’s been here for years.”
    “The last time they were here was four years ago.”
    “That’s okay, Ramon’s been here for ten years.”
    “Great.” I put the picture back into the envelope. “Where is he?”
    “Out by the pool.”
    “Thanks. How will I recognize him?”
    “He’s the only one out there.”
    “Okay, thanks again.”
    “How’s the room?” she asked.
    “It will do.”
    “How mad was your boyfriend?”
    “He’ll live.”
    “I like a woman who is in charge of her man.” She picked up her book.
    I wouldn’t say I have any power over Tom, at all. Although he had agreed to stay at this dump, so maybe I had a little control.
    A Latino man reclined on a lounge chair by the pool. The clerk was right, he was the only one there. The gate around the pool squeaked, but he didn’t even look up. He was asleep.
    When I sat in the chair next to him, he opened his dark brown eyes and looked apprehensively at me, “Yes?”
    “Brenda, from the front lobby, said I’d find you here.”
    “Your toilet needs fixing?”
    “No.”
    He sat up. “Then it’s your shower.”
    “No, the room’s fine.”
    He chuckled, “None of these rooms are fine, lady. They’re just cheap.”
    I took out the picture and handed it to him. “Do you recognize these people?”
    He studied the picture for a moment. “Sure, isn’t this Joyce and William?”
    I smiled. “Yes, they were my parents.”
    He looked at me and then back to the picture. “I guess you look a little like your dad, maybe.”
    “That’s what people say.”
    “How are they doing? I haven’t seen them in several years. I guess they finally got tired of this dump.”
    “No, they’re dead.”
    He frowned, “Oh, I’m sorry. They were nice people.”
    “Thanks,” I nodded, then continued, “they used to come here with a group of people.”
    “Yes. Usually around ten of them, right?”
    “Yes.”
    “Sure, they’d get five rooms next to each other and run back and forth. They always looked like they were having a blast.”
    I smiled, “It sounds like my mom and dad. Do their friends still come here?”
    “Not for awhile. I think they were all here several years ago.”
    “It was four years ago and the last cruise my parents took.”
    “Yeah, that’s a summer I won’t easily forget.”
    “Why?
    “That’s the summer I walked in a room and found a dead body.”
    “What?”
    “Yeah, your parents were here then, too. Maybe that’s why none come anymore.”
    “Who died?”
    “I don’t know. She wasn’t a guest; she was a visitor. I never got her name.” He pointed to the lobby. “The people who own this place paid big bucks to keep it out of the papers. Dead bodies aren’t good for business.”
    “I’m sure,” I