Banana Split (25 page)

“There were men,” Sadie said, but other than the teenage boys playing volleyball, there had been maybe only one or two.

“They were likely there for the women too,” Jim said. He moved around the boat, collecting fishing gear from the walls and counters, and Sadie found herself following him so she could hear what he was saying. “Pastor Darryl has a
special
place in his heart for women of every kind: the single mother, the former
female
addict, the young widow. And women flock to him like hummingbirds to a feeder.”

“Has Pastor Darryl taken his relationship further than it should have been with these women?” Sadie felt bad even asking the question; it made her feel disloyal to Pastor Darryl and Bets before she realized that her loyalty was supposed to be toward Charlie. That loyalty had grown to include his mother, but no one else.

“Everybody knows he’s a womanizer,” Jim said almost flippantly.

“Gossip isn’t the same as knowledge.”

Jim looked at her with a bored expression. “Believe me, I’ve got insider knowledge on the way he works. As for Noelani, there were at least a dozen times I saw him coming or going from the motel during the time she worked here. I live here,” he said, pointing upward.

Sadie looked at the ceiling and noticed for the first time a stairway built into one side of the shop that ended at a single metal door. She deduced that there was an apartment above the shop. An apartment that would look out over the motel.

“Pastor Darryl came at night?” Sadie asked, trying to be sure she didn’t misinterpret him.

“During the day as well.” He threw a few more life jackets into the boat. “Here’s the thing about that guy, he hides behind his collar—figuratively speaking—and any time he’s questioned, he asserts his position as a man of the cloth and expects all of us to bow down and worship him.”

“Did you ever confront him?”

“Yeah, the last time I saw him at the motel was about a week or so before Noelani took off. She was doing housekeeping that day, and he was following her from room to room while she cleaned. I asked him to leave, and he explained that Noelani was going through a difficult time and he was counseling her. I told him to shove off, that he could find another motel to peddle his services.”

Sadie felt her cheeks heat up at the inference. “He didn’t come back?”

“No,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest and looking pleased with himself. “He didn’t. He knows better than to go head-to-head with me.”

Sadie hoped the allegations weren’t true, but there were only so many explanations for closeting yourself with a pretty young woman. Why wouldn’t he counsel with her at the church?

“I understand Noelani was looking for an apartment. Did that bother you?”

“Nope,” he said. “She was my employee, lady. I didn’t have any kind of emotional bond with her.”

Obviously,
Sadie thought. “Do you offer housing to all of your employees?”

He narrowed his eyes at her, but she held his gaze without wavering in the slightest. “I let her live here for Bets. She deserved to catch a break, for all the good it did.”

Chapter 26

Bets?” Sadie repeated. She hadn’t seen that coming.

Jim walked past her and lifted the fishing poles over the side of the boat and onto the seats. “Noelani had been staying in their spare room for a couple months when Bets begged me to give Noelani a job and a place to stay at the motel. She couldn’t take it anymore and”—he shrugged and climbed into the boat, organizing the gear he’d thrown in—“I couldn’t tell her no. I gave up a room—$350 a week potential, mind you—in hopes of giving Bets a break. Of course, within the month, another lonely heart had moved into the good pastor’s apartment, but I’d done what I could.”

“Did Noelani live at the motel for free?” Sadie had known Jim all of ten minutes, but he didn’t strike her as all that charitable . . . except toward Bets, perhaps.

“She worked an additional ten hours a week in trade—which was a heck of a deal.” He looked at her hard as if daring her to disagree. She didn’t dare.

“Pastor Darryl seems to really love his wife,” Sadie said, unable to discount the tenderness she’d seen between them even though she wondered at the soft spot Jim seemed to have for Bets as well. “I saw them together, and they seem very close.”

“Sure,” Jim said, a sardonic smile on his face. “No one trusts a single pastor.”

She didn’t know Pastor Darryl well, but was hesitant to take Jim’s view of him.

“Look,” he said before she could respond. “The fact that I can’t stand her husband isn’t something I want thrown in Bets’s face, okay?”

“I won’t say anything to her,” Sadie said. “But why does she put up with it, do you think? I mean, she’s beautiful and talented and . . . I guess I just can’t wrap my head around why she’d go to all the trouble to move Noelani out, but then let another woman move in.”

Jim looked away. “I gave up trying to figure out women a long time ago. Something keeps her there, but there’s always hope that one day she’ll look around and realize she can do better.”

Sadie wanted to ask if Jim thought he was the “better” he was alluding to, but he wouldn’t tell her that.

“Do you feel better now?” he asked, interrupting her thoughts. “Have you got your closure and all that?”

“Maybe, but I still have a few more questions,” Sadie said. “Is there anyone you can think of who might have wanted to get rid of Noelani?”

He looked up sharply. “Get rid of her?” he questioned. “She doped up and fell off a cliff.”

“You’re so sure?”

He looked at her with narrowed eyes. “What are you suggesting?”

Sadie shrugged. “I don’t know. Someone suggested suicide.”

“I didn’t say she walked off a cliff by accident,” he said, still looking at her closely. “But
you
don’t think it was suicide, do you?”

Sadie shifted her feet. “I have no idea. That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”

“You think someone did something to her.”

Sadie opened her mouth to deny it, but why? “It’s possible,” she said. She wanted to ask him about the gag order he’d given his employees, but she couldn’t figure out how to say it without getting Kiki in trouble for having told her about it in the first place. Jim had been surprisingly open about Noelani, which seemed contradictory to the threats he’d made to Kiki. “Sometimes things aren’t as they seem. I’m not convinced she overdosed. Could I talk to your other employees—”

“Everyone else thinks she shot up too much and keeled over,” he said, sounding almost frustrated with Sadie’s point of view.

Not everyone,
Sadie thought, picturing Charlie in her mind. “I just feel like there are a lot of details no one knows, which is why I wondered if I could have your blessing to talk to your employees—especially Kiki since she’s the one who covered for Noelani that night.”

“Kiki told everything to the police last week.”

“I’m not the police.”

His eyes narrowed. “Which makes me wonder what you’re doing here. This isn’t about closure.”

“Have you ever discovered a dead body?” Sadie asked, squaring her shoulders and not giving into the quivering she felt as the interview began to wear on her. “I’d just like to talk to as many people as possible in hopes of getting a better picture of Noelani, that’s all.”

He continued to stare at her, and she shifted her weight from one foot to another. After a few seconds, he started cleaning up his tools. “I’ve got a business to run, and Noelani’s cost me enough time and trouble as it is.”

“I just want to talk to them and see—”

“No,” he said, closing a hatch where he’d thrown the life jackets. “You talk to them and they’re fired. Understand? How’s that for closure?”

Chapter 27

Sadie still needed to talk to Pastor Darryl and Bets, but suddenly Jim seemed a more interesting candidate. He’d given her walking papers and refused her access to his employees. Why? And he was so mean. Mean toward Noelani, mean to Sadie. Was he hiding something? Trying to intimidate her? It was working—she was totally intimidated—but that wouldn’t stop her.

Once she got back to her motel room, she closed her eyes to try to ebb the growing frustration she felt. She wished Gayle were there already. It wasn’t even nine in the morning.

With a deep exhale, she raised a hand to her eyes and tried to come up with a new plan. Should she try to talk to Kiki despite Jim telling her it would put Kiki’s job at risk? Would he really fire her? Probably. He had written her up for taking Noelani’s shift that night.

Sadie crossed the room to her laptop that she’d set up on the small desk and flipped it open before sitting down and taking a breath she hoped would help dispel the tightness in her chest. Writing things down always helped her sort through her thoughts.

The floor lamp next to the desk wasn’t very bright, and the overhead light from the sink at the back of the unit was too far away to be effective, so Sadie opened up the drapes over the window by the front door to let in some natural light in hopes of avoiding eye strain. The window gave a nice view of the pool and the surrounding gardens, which were somewhat overgrown, but pretty nonetheless.

She’d been typing out her thoughts and observations, her anxiety calming in the process, when someone passed her window, casting a shadow over her computer screen. Sadie looked into the mirror over the desk just in time to catch a glimpse of long dark hair and the flip of a pink skirt. She paused, then jumped up and hurried to the window. It had only been a flash, but the woman had looked like Bets.

The window only gave her a limited view, so Sadie opened the door and peered out in time to see another flash of hair and pink as the woman entered the motel office. Sadie doubted Bets had come for the continental breakfast and didn’t hesitate to follow her, quickstepping to the office, where she peeked through the floor-length window beside the door. She squinted through the glass in time to see Bets disappear into Jim’s office, where the door immediately closed behind her. What was she doing here? Then again, Jim and Bets were close enough for him to help her with her marital problems. Was Jim in the office too?

Sadie was pondering this when she caught Kiki watching her from inside the office. She smiled, embarrassed to be caught. Kiki looked worried. Sadie gave a little wave and then walked past the office door, picturing in her mind where Jim’s office was in relation to the rest of the motel. Though the building was horseshoe-shaped, there were a few open walkways that led to the back, and one was located near the office. It wasn’t hard to cut through the corridor and backtrack enough to find the single window, complete with teal curtains similar to those in the front office, on the back side of the building right where Jim’s office should be. The window was open, typical for the cool mornings.

Sadie looked around quickly to ensure she was alone before ducking down and walking, half crouched, to the window where she could hear the murmur of voices. She slid right up underneath the window before raising up as far as she could without her head peeking over the sill. Whoever was talking was female; she could only assume it was Bets. A hedge blocked Sadie from being seen from the street but it wouldn’t protect her from anyone who came from the other direction.