Murder Packs a Suitcase (23 page)

18

“A traveler without observation is a bird without wings.”

—Moslih Eddin Saadi

M
allory stared at the photograph, sickened by the sight but unable to take her eyes off it. All the heads in the photograph—hers, David's, Amanda's, and Jordan's—had been carefully cut out with a sharp object, leaving four gaping white circles.

Who did this? she thought, rage and disgust rising inside her with the force of a tidal wave. What twisted, horrible, desperate person would stoop to an act that's so—

It could only have been one person, she realized abruptly. Phil's murderer. Someone who was more than likely a member of their little group.

The fact that she still couldn't put a name to that individual only fueled her fury.

“Damn!” she cried, her voice catching. “What is going
on
?”

It was only after she'd slammed the photo facedown on the night table that she fully understood the implications of this freakish act of vandalism.

Oh, my God, she thought, her knees growing so weak that she sank onto the bed. This is a warning. The killer is sending me a message.

A message to mind my own business.

But the murder
is
my business! she thought, her head spinning. I
can't
stop trying to find out who killed Phil Diamond! Not as long as Detective Martinez thinks I'm connected to his death—and not as long as I'm haunted by the inexplicable appearance of those newspaper articles about David and me that the police found stashed in Phil's hotel room.

And then another thought crept into her brain, pushing its way inside and settling there like an unwanted visitor.
What if the real killer is scheming to implicate me even further?

Mallory pressed her fingertips against her temples, as if by doing so she could force herself to think more clearly. She was scheduled to fly home on Friday morning, now just a day and a half away. That meant she had only thirty-six hours to figure out who had killed Phil before testing Martinez's mandate that she stay in Florida. She could practically hear a clock ticking in her head.

If there's any way I'm getting on that plane, she thought frantically, I have to keep going. I
must
find a way to figure out who killed Phil. Maybe I'll stumble upon some clue that will solve the puzzle. Maybe Patrice will fill in some of the missing pieces when I meet with her tomorrow.

Maybe the killer will slip up somehow, do or say something that will reveal his or her identity.

She forced herself to stand up again, refusing to succumb to the overwhelming urge to climb into bed, pull the covers over her head, and simply give up. She thought back to Sunday, when she'd arrived in Florida. Had it only been a few days earlier? It seemed like a lifetime ago. As she'd driven from the airport to the hotel, it had occurred to her that she'd been thinking of this press trip as a test. Back then, she'd rejected the idea.

But that was then. A lot had happened since.

She considered the possibility that this could be some sort of test, after all. Cosmic or religious or…or who knew what. And proving that she hadn't killed Phil could be part of it, a way of convincing herself that she could handle anything without David, no matter how horrific it might be.

What that's old saying? Mallory thought grimly. Something about how whatever doesn't kill you will make you stronger?

It definitely applied to her situation, she decided. Especially since, for all she knew, killing again could be precisely what Phil's murderer had in mind. Only this time, the plan would be to make
her
the victim.

Early the next morning, as Mallory climbed into her cheerful red PT Cruiser, she was wracked with ambivalence about having to spend the morning checking out another tourist attraction. She felt she should be spending every waking moment trying to find Phil's murderer.

But with no brilliant ideas about what to do next, she figured she might as well put some more time into trying to write a publishable article for
The Good Life.
That way, once this nightmare was over—and she kept telling herself it would be
soon—
she'd have the satisfaction of completing the job that had brought her to Florida in the first place.

She had to admit that she was also a little relieved to have the distraction. Of all the places in Florida she'd chosen to visit, Cypress Gardens interested her the most. From her childhood vacations, she remembered it as a cool, green oasis with endless flower beds and statuesque trees dripping with Spanish moss. She wondered if the park still featured the pretty young women in pastel-colored antebellum gowns who sat on the lawn waving, their skirts fanned out to form large circles around them.

What she remembered best about Cypress Gardens, however, was its spectacular water-ski show. She could still picture the daredevils who formed human pyramids while skimming the water at breathtaking speeds and the attractive young women doing kicks and splits midair.

As she trekked across the immense parking lot toward the ticket booth, Mallory could hardly believe this was the same place that had lodged itself in her memory so firmly. Everything was on such a large scale compared to what she could recall. Even the name had become grander. These days, the attraction was called Cypress Gardens Adventure Park.

At the entrance, a huge brick walkway led to a visitors' center housed in a building-size white dome—something she didn't remember at all from her childhood. After exchanging her voucher for a ticket, she wandered inside and found herself trapped in a fake-looking village that was vaguely reminiscent of a small town in New England. Its touristy stores included a candle emporium and a Christmas shop, while its restaurants had overly cute names like Backwater Bill's BBQ and Aunt Julie's Country Kitchen. Mallory was relieved that at least its creators had resisted the temptation to spell
country
with a
K.
Even so, the precious architecture, with buildings that looked like quaint country cottages, gave Jubilee Junction the look of a poor man's version of Disney World's Main Street.

Farther along the walkway, a country singer with very red lips and very big hair sang her heart out inside a gazebo, backed by three men who looked as if they'd raided Johnny Cash's closet. Yet there were very few people to listen.

In fact, what struck Mallory most was how empty the park was. Only a few elderly couples ambled around the shops, and a pair of young mothers pushing toddlers in strollers drifted toward an area that according to her map contained the rides. True, today was a weekday, and a few ominous-looking clouds had been gathering in the sky since early that morning. Still, she hoped this simply happened to be an unusually quiet day for what to her was an important Florida landmark.

Her map listed a dozen different sections, each with a different theme. A good third of the park was devoted to rides, a water park, and a so-called Adventure Arcade. But the others, thankfully, still conformed to the botanical garden theme.

Mallory began with the bird aviary, where streetwise birds with riotously colored plumage worked the small cluster of visitors with impressive professionalism. A glass butterfly house, aptly named Wings of Wonder, proved to be a warm, damp haven for butterflies, waterfalls, flowers, and lawn furniture. Next she wandered through the meticulously maintained Plantation Gardens, where nary a weed was permitted to linger. She was pleased that the trees near Lake Eloise were decorated with Spanish moss, just as she remembered, with huge clumps hanging from their boughs like tinsel.

At the center of the park was the Topiary Trail, which took her past gigantic bushes that had been pruned to form animals like a big green duck and a green seal balancing a ball on its nose. Some of them were studded with flowers, making the tremendous cardinal bright red and giving the peacock a brilliant blue body and splashing its tail with turquoise spots. As she strolled through each section, she jotted down every adjective she could think of, once again agonizing over the lack of a synonym for
lush foliage.

But it was the water-ski show—listed in the schedule as the Ski Show Spectacular—that she looked forward to the most. She followed the other stragglers who made their way toward the impressive amphitheater that had clearly been built in the decades since she'd last been here. The massive building consisted of two dozen tiered rows of seats and a huge blue overhang designed to shield the audience from the sun. Today, she realized woefully, it might end up keeping the rain off them.

Nevertheless, Mallory sat toward the front, not wanting to miss a single moment. She remained braced for the possibility that despite its name, the “spectacular” would fail to live up to her memories.

Not only did the show live up to them, it was practically an exact duplicate, replicating every element that was stored in her memory bank. A sleek motorboat towed three young men with Olympic-caliber muscles up a sloping platform at high speed. Then they flew into the air and did amazing flips and twists before landing squarely back onto the water's surface. A man and a woman did a waterskiing version of ice dancing, complete with hot pink and turquoise costumes and graceful arm movements. The Aquamaids, three pretty blond women who looked as if they'd been kidnapped from a high school cheerleading team, danced in unison. The grand finale was the human pyramid, with three men on the bottom, two women forming the second tier, and a third woman on top waving an American flag.

Cypress Gardens may have gotten a lot glitzier, Mallory thought as she snapped one picture after another, but thank goodness the water-ski show has stayed the same. This really is a piece of old Florida, preserved exactly as it was half a century ago.

Even though the show served as a welcome distraction, as soon as it was over she was forced to confront the disturbing reality of her situation once again. She drifted toward the Botanical Gardens that covered the back end of the park, lost in thought.

I'm supposed to leave tomorrow, she reminded herself, her mood darkening so much that she was only vaguely aware that the brick path she was following was now meandering through dense plantings with a distinctly tropical feel. If I want to get on that plane, I now have less than twenty-four hours to figure out who killed Phil.

At this point, she saw Phil's ex-wife as her last hope for finding out who could have wanted the man dead badly enough to actually carry out the dirty deed. If Patrice didn't come up with any helpful information, Mallory didn't know where she would turn.

She suddenly stopped, realizing that she wasn't taking notes or even paying attention to her surroundings. The fact that she had an article to write—on top of everything else she had to worry about—bordered on the ridiculous. Yet she couldn't neglect her responsibility to Trevor.

She noticed for the first time that there was no one else around in this section of the park. She also realized it was getting dark. Glancing upward, she saw that the gray clouds that had been hovering in the sky all day were quickly growing thicker, darker, and considerably more threatening. In fact, she realized she'd be wise to speed up her tour if she wanted to reach her car or at least the safety of a building by the time torrential rains began to fall.

She walked on at a brisk pace, pausing only momentarily to take notes. She jotted down a few lines describing the contrast between the manicured gardens that abruptly emerged just beyond wild, junglelike areas. Then she scribbled a sentence about the jarring juxtaposition of the natural-looking swamplands and the carefully crafted wooden bridges that crossed over the stream gently meandering alongside the path.

She paused when she reached a giant banyan tree, with hundreds of woody roots hanging down from branches that gave it an eerie look. She snapped some pictures and was about to move on when she heard what sounded like three or four footsteps in quick succession, as if someone was running.

So I'm not alone, after all, she thought.

Instinctively, she turned. She expected to see someone approaching behind her—one of the young mothers pushing a stroller, perhaps, or a park employee scurrying to shelter before the skies exploded.

But she saw no one. And the only sound was the rustling of leaves as the storm continued to move in.

As she continued on, a feeling of uneasiness weighed her down.

Someone is following me, she thought, her mouth growing uncomfortably dry. And I'm stuck out here in this isolated woodsy area, with no one else around…

Nonsense, she immediately scolded herself. It's just the wind.

Yet she knew perfectly well that while the wind was capable of setting the leaves on bushes and trees whispering among themselves, it rarely mimicked the sound of footsteps.

She quickened her pace, aware that her heart was now pounding thunderously in her chest. When real thunder rumbled above and lightning flashed in the sky, she jumped. A single fat raindrop fell on her shoulder, almost as if it was warning her of what was to come.