Cocktails and Murder (Barefoot Sleuth Mysteries ~ Book 3) by H.Y. Hanna

Author:H.Y. Hanna [Hanna, H.Y.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wisheart Press
Published: 2020-09-04T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 18

Ellie left Sol a short while later and took the elevator back down to the first floor. She walked slowly through the large spacious lobby, with its pretty beach-themed décor and potted palms scattered between the comfortable couches in the seating area. Normally, she would have been eagerly people-watching and speculating about the new guest arrivals, but today she was too preoccupied with her own thoughts to even notice the people she passed.

Her recent conversation with Sol had left her feeling even more frustrated about the case. Ellie was sure that Ava was somehow involved in Walter Saunders’s murder. When she had crashed into Ava that night, she had assumed that the girl was rushing out of Saunders’s suite in a panic to get help. But now she wondered if, in fact, the girl had actually been rushing out to get rid of evidence.

Ellie paused and closed her eyes briefly, straining her memory and trying to conjure up in her mind’s eye the scene that night. Had Ava been carrying a bundle when Ellie had crashed into her? It had been dark and everything had been in such a confusion… No matter how hard she tried, Ellie just couldn’t recall a clear picture. All she could remember was walking along and then suddenly being knocked to the ground by another body colliding into hers. By the time she had picked herself up and recognized the other person as Ava, she had been too distracted by the waitress’s breathless exclamations to pay any attention to what the girl was wearing or carrying.

But she could easily have been carrying the ceramic bowl, wrapped in the apron, thought Ellie. It might have been knocked to the ground after our collision. So Ava let me go into Saunders’s suite first while she used that time to retrieve the bundle and hide it in a nearby potted palm.

That would explain why it hadn’t been hidden farther away, Ellie realized. It had been something that puzzled her because it had seemed illogical for someone to go to the trouble of removing the evidence, only to stash it in a hiding place just outside the building! Surely the murderer would have made the effort to dispose of it farther away from the crime scene? If it had been Rob Saunders, he could have easily dropped it somewhere en route on the beach. Similarly, Tonya could have taken it to the Saunders Spirit and dropped it over the side into the water. And even if Roy Mack had been around to remove the ceramic bowl, wouldn’t he have taken it off site to get rid of it? None of those suspects would have just hidden the bowl in a potted palm right outside the building.

But if Ava had removed the empty cocktail bowl, then it all made sense. She had probably planned to get rid of it farther away, but when she happened to collide with Ellie, she was forced to change her plan. She pretended that

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