She nodded. “I know two of the cops who were here. Dated one of them a while back. I’ll make a call once they get back to the station and see what they plan on doing, okay?”
I nodded. I forgot we had a local on our side.
“Look, I’m still here to help you with your search.”
And it suddenly occurred to me that whoever interviewed Maria didn’t bring up the gold. And the officer who talked to me didn’t mention gold. So everyone didn’t know about the gold.
But there was one thing she did know. We weren’t plumbers. That had become pretty evident.
I grabbed her elbow and steered her toward the bar. I didn’t care what Bobbie thought of me, I needed a drink.
“So what did they ask you?”
She gave me a little-girl smirk. “They asked if I was intimate with James.”
“Really?” Probably trying to establish relationships. Still, it was a rather leading question.
She cocked her pretty head. “I thought it was a strange question, but, well, he is kind of cute.”
“What else?” Cute. They all thought he was cute. Every girl he met thought James was cute. It somehow pissed me off. I never had a girl tell me I was cute. But, then again, I’m interested in someone. James is interested in everyone. “They didn’t ask if you and I-”
“That didn’t come up, Skip.”
“Anything else?”
“He wanted to know how long James was alone in the room upstairs.”
Mary Trueblood walked up. “Damned police. Why can’t they just accept that a couple of guys probably broke into your room and one of them killed the other one? Why couldn’t they just accept that?”
“Mrs. Trueblood. What did they ask you?”
“Why I was here.”
I studied her carefully. “And you told them what?”
“The truth. Of course.” She gave a sideways glance to Maria. “I told them I’d hired you two to help me with the history of my great-grandfather who had been apparently killed in the nineteen thirty-five hurricane.”
I saw Maria’s eyes get even wider, and she looked at me with a sly grin.
“Glad I didn’t hire you guys to fix my leaking pipe.”
Mary Trueblood looked at both of us, shook her head as if confused, and walked away.
So no one knew about the gold. No one except James, Mary, me, and Ted Markim, now that Jim Weezle was dead.
CHAPTER TWELVE
They carried the body down on a stretcher, a blood-stained sheet covering him. Two guys from the rescue unit brought him down the stairs. They’d already figured that out. Not the elevator. The stairs.
Some new guy in a short-sleeved shirt and tie told me it would be at least a half hour before they would have our personal items packed. No one could go back into the room.
“This really sucks, doesn’t it?” Maria frowned.
“You think so?” I didn’t even have a room. Maria probably had a home somewhere. A fancy condo with a swimming pool. And James was in a cell somewhere behind a pizza joint.
“Actually,” she pursed her lips and looked up at me, “this is the most excitement I’ve had since my divorce over a year ago. I may even make the news tonight.”
“Well, I’m glad we could brighten your day.” I’m not sure James would be so happy about it.
We strolled down to the beach where couples lounged on chairs and watched the ocean lap at the shore.
“You guys have been friends a while.” She glanced at me, a look more as a friend than an inquisitor.
“We have. Since we were kids. And what I said before about getting into trouble-just hang around long enough and we do manage to attract our share of problems.”
She laughed. “There’s more to this expedition than just a search for history, isn’t there?”
I didn’t say anything.
“You know, Skip, people come down here to get away. They just want to get lost. I’ve watched it happen. For a week, a month, some people for their whole life. It’s like in the middle Keys you can just disappear. But you’re not down here to disappear, are you?”
“No.”
“People come down to dive, to go deep-sea fishing,” she pointed toward the ocean. “The deep-sea fishing here is the best in the country.”
I nodded.
“They show up to tie one on for a couple of days. People come down here to have an affair, but no one comes down here to research dead relatives.”
“And your point is?”
“I think you two are treasure hunters.”
“What?” She couldn’t possibly know. I’d just decided she knew nothing and she hit me with that.
“You want locations. You’re trying to find the remnants of an old building, the Coral Belle Hotel. I don’t think this has anything to do with somebody’s great-grandfather. I think you’re looking for gold.”
I just kept walking.
“But, I could be wrong.”
“You are.”
“Listen, people come down here looking for wrecker camps. Is that it? You’re trying to find a wrecker camp?”
“I don’t even know what that is.” I lied.
“Really? When ships would crash out on the reef or the rocks, wrecking crews would go out and salvage the boats. They’d take whatever was valuable and usually bury it at their campsite. There weren’t any safes or banks around so they would bury it using landmarks as locators.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. She really didn’t have the right answer.
“Today, when a construction crew breaks ground, they’ll sometimes stumble on an old wrecker camp. Lots of times they’ll find silver and gold. I thought maybe you had a lead on one of the old camps.”
She was just a little too close to the truth for comfort.
“Maria, do you know anyone down here who has a Harley-Davidson motorcycle with a gold fender?”
“Boy, you sure know how to change the subject.”
“Do you?”
“No. Not off the top of my head.”
And all of a sudden it hit me. I’d heard the distinct sound of a Harley in the parking lot just before James called us up to the room. Somebody had pulled out, leaving a cloud of dust.
“My ex-husband Drew had a Harley.”
“He did?”
“Yeah.” She smiled. “Had one.”
“What happened to it?”
“I got it in the divorce.”
It was my turn to smile. “Really? Did you sell it?”
“Sell it?” Her eyes got big. They were dark brown and very expressive. “How do you think I got here today?”
A biker babe. James and I had landed a biker babe with pretty brown eyes. I was impressed.
“Hey, do you think you could call your former boyfriend down at the sheriff’s office? I’d really like to know what’s happening with James.”
She pulled an iPhone from her purse and punched in a couple of numbers. Here was a biker babe with the police department on speed dial. Cool. I need to know more about this girl.