Model Suspect 3 (12 page)

Vic and Sydney chuckled and headed arm in arm down the walkway toward their bungalow. Butch
followed, filming the whole time, and Donald trailed along behind him.

That left me alone with my friends at the top of the steps. “Did you guys see Vic’s shoes?” I asked as soon as I was sure the others were out of earshot.

“His shoes? No, why?” George asked.

I quickly explained about the mud. Bess’s eyes widened. She glanced down at the planked walkway and nodded grimly as she spotted one of the muddy prints he’d left.

“I can tell you one thing,” she said. “He didn’t get them muddy in Jamal’s bungalow! So where was he, and what was he really doing all this time?”

“Good question.” I shrugged. “At least Akinyi doesn’t seem to be involved this time. Syd said they spent the whole morning together, remember?”

“Unless she and Vic are working together,” George pointed out darkly. “Don’t forget it was her cabin we caught Vic leaving last night.”

“That’s true,” I said reluctantly. “I still just hate to think there could be anything—”

I cut myself off as a piercing scream rang out over the entire area, echoing off the lagoon. “That sounded like Syd!” Bess cried, already running down the walkway.

“Hey,” someone called from the direction of the beach. “What’s going on?”

Glancing that way, I saw that Jamal and Bo had just appeared at the edge of the sand carrying tennis rackets. But I didn’t bother stopping to explain anything to them as I took off after my friends.

When we reached the honeymoon hut we found Donald dancing around helplessly on the porch. “Oh, it’s terrible!” he exclaimed. “Why do these things keep happening? It’s like this wedding is cursed….”

Ignoring him, I pushed past and burst into the bungalow. Sydney and Vic were seated at a small table covered in a white linen cloth. A pretty, young waitress stood nearby, her eyes wide and a napkin pressed against her mouth. Butch was there too, his mouth ajar and his camera pointing at the floor. All four of them were staring in horror at the gourmet lunch spread out on the table. Or, to be specific, at Vic’s plate. Vic was holding a knife and fork over a juicy piece of steak, watching in horror as dozens of wriggling maggots came squirming out of the cut in the meat!

UNPLEASANT SURPRISES

“Oh, gross!” George exclaimed, backing away. Bess gulped audibly. Despite her super-feminine appearance, she isn’t easily grossed out. But even she looked a little green around the gills as she stared down at the squirming mass on Vic’s plate. “Wh-what happened?” she asked.

“Oh, my gosh,” Sydney was in tears. She’d pushed her chair back as far as it would go without crashing into the wall behind her, and had both hands over her mouth. “Oh, my gosh!”

Vic seemed kind of stunned too. “I just cut into my steak, and those things started pouring out!” he exclaimed.

I averted my eyes from the maggots, not wanting to get distracted by my own churning stomach. There was no doubt about it. MrSilhouette had struck again.

“Where did this steak come from?” I asked the waitress, who was cowering back against the wall.

She blinked at me so blankly that for a moment I feared she might not speak English. But finally she answered.

“Um, the kitchen?” she said. “At least I guess it did—I didn’t bring it. I was here setting up the dishes and stuff. One of the glasses had some dust in it, and when I came out of the bathroom from rinsing it off, the tray with the rest of the food was here. So I just went ahead and set it up.”

“Come on.” I glanced at my friends. “Let’s go talk to the cook.”

Jamal and Bo had arrived by then. Leaving them to comfort Sydney and Vic, we hurried back out the door.

“Is she okay?” Donald asked as soon as we emerged onto the porch. “Sydney, I mean.”

“She’ll survive,” George said, pushing past him.

The three of us hurried down the walkways and back into the resort’s central area. By asking a passing employee, we found our way to the main kitchen,
which was located in a separate building just across from the dining room. When we got there, we tracked down the head chef, a stout man with a strong Jamaican accent. He seemed genuinely shocked when he heard about what had happened.

“No!” he cried in dismay. “But I cooked that steak myself—medium rare, just as Mr. Valdez requested!”

“He did?” I said. “You mean Vic ordered that lunch from you personally?”

The chef shook his head. “No, not personally. I got the order from the front office.”

“Okay,” I said. “Then who took it out to the bungalow? The waitress who was there said she didn’t know who brought it over.”

“I don’t know either.” The chef looked sheepish. “I was about to call in Kara from the dining room to deliver it. But that infernally annoying director woman came in and started complaining about her coffee being cold just as I finished loading the tray.” He frowned. “By the time I turned around again, the tray was gone. I suppose I assumed either Kara had come along and grabbed it, or Louisa had returned from the honeymoon hut to pick it up.”

“Thanks,” I said thoughtfully. “You’ve been very helpful.”

My friends followed as I left the kitchen. “Is that all you’re going to ask him?” George demanded,
hurrying to catch up. “Don’t you think that guy could be a suspect?”

“Not really.” I shrugged. “Why would he plant maggots in his own food? It would only get him fired, plus there’s no way someone like that could’ve been responsible for the stuff that happened back in River Heights. But it
is
kind of suspicious that Madge turned up right at that moment. Just because Lainie didn’t turn out to be MrSilhouette, it doesn’t necessarily mean we were wrong about it being a woman.”

Bess looked intrigued. “So should we go find Madge?” She shuddered. “I have to admit, I’m not looking forward to questioning her.”

“I know what you mean.” I squared my shoulders. “But somebody has to do the dirty work.”

We set out in search of the assistant director. But we’d barely made it ten steps away from the kitchen when I heard a commotion behind us. Turning, I saw Bo, Jamal, and Akinyi hurrying along the path toward the dining room.

Bo spotted us first. “Hey! Come on to lunch, you guys.” He grabbed me by the arm. “We want everyone there to cheer up Vic and Syd.”

Jamal nodded and shuddered. “You know, because of what just happened.”

“Yes, please come,” Akinyi added. “We can’t let this ruin their honeymoon!”

I wanted to protest, but they didn’t give me the chance. Bess, George, and I were swept along as they rushed on toward the dining room.

“Oh, well,” Bess murmured as we all took our seats around one of the big tables. “Maybe they’re right. Syd can probably use all the moral support she can get right now.”

“She could use an answer to this case a lot more,” I muttered back. Still, I supposed Bess had a point. Besides, maybe I could use this opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. “Hey, Jamal,” I said, putting on a jovial, joking tone as I turned to Vic’s friend, who was sitting directly across from me. “I’m surprised you even want to cheer up Vic at this point. He said he totally killed you at poker.”

“He did?” Jamal sounded confused. “When was that? Because Vic and I haven’t—”

“Go on, Jamal,” Akinyi broke in, giving Jamal an elbow to the ribs and a pointed look. “Just man up and admit it, all right? Vic took you to school in poker today.”

Jamal blinked. “Oh!” he said. “Um, that’s right. Sorry, guess I’m just a little sensitive about losing all that money, you know? Why can’t a dude with a big-shot TV career ahead of him cut me a break and let me win?” He chuckled, though I couldn’t help noticing it sounded a little forced.

“Yeah!” Bo put in loudly. “I know what you mean. Vic took all my dough too. Let’s make him throw us a big beach party tonight to make up for it. What do you say?”

“So if you guys were playing poker all morning, what was with the tennis rackets?” I asked, still trying to sound casual. “I saw you two with them when you came running after Sydney screamed.”

Jamal and Bo traded a look. “Oh, that,” Bo said with a shrug. “Yeah, we were going to try to get a few sets in before lunch. We were just heading for the courts when we heard Syd, so we turned around and came back.”

He sounded pretty sincere. But I wasn’t sure I believed him. Vic had been rushing and out of breath when he’d arrived to apologize to Sydney. Would Jamal and Bo really have had time to get their rackets and head over to the tennis courts in the same amount of time it had taken him to race to find her? My hunch-o-meter was telling me they were lying—that there hadn’t been any poker game that morning at all. But if so, why were they covering for Vic? Was it just a loyalty thing, an automatic benefit of male friendship? Or was something else going on that they were all in on together?

“Vic, my man!” Bo shouted at that moment, breaking me out of my thoughts. “There’s the happy couple. Come on over.”

Looking up, I saw that Vic had just entered with Sydney clinging to his arm. The two of them headed toward us, and after that I threw myself into cheering them up along with everyone else.

Even so, a little part of my mind kept worrying at this newest question like a dog with a bone. Why had Jamal, Bo, and Akinyi lied to me just now? What were they—and Vic—trying to hide?

I was just licking the last bit of pineapple ice cream off my spoon when Madge stomped into the dining room. “Uh-oh,” Jamal murmured, rolling his eyes. “Here comes trouble.”

“You two,” Madge spat out disagreeably when she reached the table, stabbing a red-tipped finger at Vic and Sydney. “And you and you.” She turned to include Akinyi and Bo. “Go get changed. We’re filming those pool scenes in half an hour, remember?”

“Oh, right.” Akinyi sat back in her chair and yawned. “You know, when I agreed to come here, I didn’t know it was going to be a
working
vacation.”

I couldn’t tell whether she was joking or not. Sydney seemed to think so, since she chuckled and nudged her friend on the shoulder. “Come on, Kinnie,” she said, standing up. “Let’s go get beautiful for the cameras.”

That made Akinyi crack a smile. “Don’t be silly,”
she said, standing up herself. “We are
always
beautiful, remember?”

They giggled like schoolgirls at that. I suspected it was some kind of private joke—with all that had happened lately, it was easy to forget that they were best friends.

Soon the celebrities had left to get ready for the filming and Jamal had wandered off. That left me and my friends alone at the table.

“So,” George said, picking at the remains of her dessert. “What now?”

“Hang on.” I’d just noticed that Madge hadn’t left the room yet. She was standing by the hostess stand talking on her cell phone. “This could be my chance to question you-know-who.” I stood and winked at my friends. “If I’m not back in fifteen minutes, tell my dad I loved him, okay?”

“Good luck,” Bess said with a shudder.

“If she kills you and eats you, can I have your car?” George added.

I stuck out my tongue at her. Then I hurried toward Madge, reaching her just as she hung up her phone.

“Excuse me,” I said before she could hurry off. “I have something to ask you.”

“Well, go ahead and ask already—no need to make an announcement about it. I have things to
do.” Madge sounded impatient, barely bothering to glance at me as she scrolled through the menu on her phone.

I took a deep breath. “I’m sure you’ve heard about what happened with Vic’s lunch earlier,” I said. “I talked to the chef who made that steak, and he said you came in just as he was setting out the tray with that steak on it. I was just wondering if you saw anything suspicious while you were in the kitchen.”

Okay, that wasn’t exactly what I was wondering. But I figured seeing how she answered might give me some hints.

Madge finally looked straight at me, scowling. But her anger didn’t seem to be directed at me.

“That idiot Donald!” she burst out. “I should just fire that pathetic twerp already. Not only is he completely incapable of fetching me a cup of coffee that’s actually hot, but he’s too big a wimp even to go complain to the kitchen about it! Like I don’t have anything better to do!” She rolled her eyes. “That’s why I made him play waitress so the actual waitress could make me some fresh coffee. And it sounds like he couldn’t even do
that
right, if he let someone at that food….” She trailed off in a few muttered swear words, then stomped off.

I couldn’t help being a little surprised. Sure, Donald was pretty mild-mannered. But he’d always seemed
very efficient and capable to me. Why would he suddenly be too timid to confront the kitchen staff? Was this just Madge trying to create some kind of alibi?

I returned and told my friends what little I’d learned. “So Donald was the one who delivered that tray?” Bess said.

“That’s what Madge says.” I shrugged. “Do you guys think it’s possible he could be the one who tampered with the steak?”

“But why?” George asked. “What’s the motive? Think he’s working with Butch or something?”

“I suppose it’s possible.” I tapped the edge of the table with my fingers. “Donald certainly had the access to pull off all the pranks so far, though it’s hard to imagine him having the gumption.” I let out a sigh of frustration. “I can’t believe we were worried about not having any suspects when we first got here. Now it seems like everyone’s a suspect except the three of us—”