She decided on salmon wrapped in crêpes with a lemon dill sauce. They would add a little pizzazz to the meal, and Pierre’s crêpes were the best she’d ever tasted. Pierre wasn’t like the chefs seen on television—he had no ego. So when she explained about the change in the menu, he was on board with her selection.
After checking the pantry and huge refrigerator to make sure Pierre had all the supplies he needed for the upgraded entrée, Liz walked over to Betty, leaned down, and scratched behind Caro’s ears, winning a few affectionate head butts. She asked, “Did Iris show up this morning?”
“She was up before me and left a note that she was going to the supermarket,” Pierre said, pointing to the kitchen counter. “But she forgot to take the list.” He stuffed the last bite of his toast into his mouth, got up, and put his dishes in the dishwasher. Then he said, “Au revoir,” and went outside to tend to his kitchen garden.
Liz sat next to Betty and Caro. The cat transferred laps, and Liz and Caro commenced a short discussion—Liz rolling her tongue in imitation of Caro’s distinctive gravelly meows, while Betty laughed and joined in the conversation. She realized, after years of living with Aunt Amelia and her Animalia, that if she talked to an animal, it would no doubt talk back to her.
“I see that Percival Harrington II’s daughter is staying in the Oceana Suite,” Betty said, interrupting Liz’s discussion with Caro. “You do know there are rumors she killed her father so she could inherit Castlemara and the treasure from the San Carlos?”
“That’s not like you to believe rumors. Are you just bored and need a good mystery to solve? Although, I must admit, after meeting her, I wouldn’t be surprised.”
“He officially died of a heart attack. Captain Netherton told me the Coast Guard had him airlifted from his yacht, but he died before reaching the hospital. His daughter was the only one on board besides the crew.”
“Well, if anyone can bring on a heart attack, that woman can. I’d better go. Auntie’s probably wondering where I am.” Caro jumped off Liz’s lap, probably to find her buddy, Killer. Liz got up, kissed Betty on top of the head, and moved toward the door leading into the dining room, passing the cappuccino/espresso machine. She was jonesin’ for a cup of French roast topped with a layer of frothy milk and one of Pierre’s better-than-donuts beignets that called to her from under a glass-domed cake plate, but she resisted and went on into the dining room.
Only one table had been used for breakfast, and it was piled with a stack of dirty dishes. Liz guessed the Worths had breakfasted there, because she knew Captain Netherton and Betty usually ate in the hotel’s kitchen for breakfast and lunch. She cleared the table, knowing Iris was out. As she folded up the tablecloth, she glanced at Regina’s lipstick-stained napkin. The woman had actually used her white linen napkin as a makeup blotter. What a piece of work, Liz thought as she headed back to the kitchen. She balanced the stack of dishes, then used her shoulder to push open the swinging doors and walked inside.
Betty was gone, and the kitchen was now neat and spotless. Liz rinsed the dishes, put them into one of three industrial-sized dishwashers, and left the room. On her way back through the dining room, she spied a business card on the floor under the chair where she’d found Regina’s lipstick-stained napkin. The card belonged to Captain Clyde B. Netherton; all that was printed on it was his name and a cell phone number. She put it in her pocket. Liz had to give him credit, the captain was a player and not afraid of going after the happily married—if, indeed, Regina Harrington-Worth was happily married.
Chapter 7
The dining room had three exits: one leading to the kitchen, another to the interior courtyard with the Indialantic’s famous sixty-foot coconut palm in the center, and the third, which Liz took, had her entering a short hallway. She passed the closed door to the library, and continued through a twenty-foot archway that opened into the lobby. Everything in the lobby seemed copacetic—almost too quiet without Aunt Amelia’s presence. She felt like she’d time-traveled and was back in 1926, the year the Indialantic by the Sea Hotel had opened to much fanfare and had been booked from September to June for almost fifty years.
Next to the antique elevator, she saw that the brass stand to Barnacle Bob’s cage stood cageless. The Indialantic had a working service elevator off the kitchen, which Aunt Amelia kept up to code for any guests who couldn’t use the stairs in the lobby. The old lobby elevator hadn’t worked for as long as Liz remembered. Aunt Amelia held out hope that one day they would have enough money to repair the charming 1920s Otis elevator cab with its brass accordion gate and ornate art deco floor indicator. Family folklore had it that on its last voyage, the cab had stopped between floors with gangster Al Capone inside—angry as a bull in a zoot suit. And there were rumors that the elevator operator went missing and was never seen again.
The décor in the lobby was the same as when Liz had left ten years ago, when she’d moved to Manhattan. And it had changed little from when she and her father had arrived twenty-three years before. Aunt Amelia always said, “If it ain’t broken, why fix it?” Liz glanced down at the Persian carpet that covered the lobby’s terra cotta–tiled floor. She was sure Regina would notice the carpet’s worn spots and frayed edges.
The lobby had a vaulted ceiling and stucco walls, and it was filled with six-foot potted palms, bamboo tables, and bamboo chairs with comfy upholstered cushions
