Murder at Hotel 1911 by Audrey Keown

Author:Audrey Keown [Keown, Audrey]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781643854977
Publisher: Crooked Lane Books
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

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This Little Piggy Cried Wee

The redheaded woman Hemal had assigned to get me out of his way met me at the entrance to the development in a dusty, doorless Jeep.

She hopped out and came toward me with a stiff-legged stride, as if her sawdust-caked jeans slowed her down. “I don’t know if I can fit the bike in.”

I took one last sorry glance at the Schwinn, prostrate in the ditch like a slain war-horse. “I can come back for it.” I stuck out my hand. “I’m Ivy.”

“Annie.” She gripped my hand a second before pulling a pack of cigarettes from her back pocket. “Mind if I smoke before we get on the road?”

“Not a bit.” I’d felt like something was off about Hemal Sandeep since he’d checked in, and now I had the opportunity to squeeze information out of this woman who knew him better than I did. “Sorry to take you away from the job.”

“Don’t be. I’m basically a volunteer these days.”

“What?”

“I haven’t been paid in three weeks.”

“Wow.” Was Hemal in a financial pickle?

Looking back, the pocket square, expensive but well-worn, and the cracked screen of his new iPhone supported that theory. He’d been doing well, but sometime in the last six months, judging by when that phone had come out, his honeypot had dried up.

“So why do you keep working for him?”

“I don’t know. Feel sorry for the guy, I guess.” She lit the cigarette in her mouth and took a long draw.

I thought of the tan line on Hemal’s finger at check-in and wondered if a divorce had helped thin his wallet, maybe alimony too. “I heard his wife left him.”

“Nah, she’s in Atlanta with the kids. He only comes up here every other week.”

If he wasn’t divorced, that left one obvious reason for not wearing his wedding band. Was Hemal in the market for a development of a more carnal nature? “Does he bring many women out here?”

“Potential buyers, sometimes.”

Hmm. I was getting nowhere with this line of questioning. Maybe I could find out what kind of boss he was, which would give me a good idea of his character.

“So, Annie, is Hemal good to work for?”

“Sure, if you forget about the money.” She pulled up one sleeve and scratched under it. “Somehow I never can.”

“I don’t blame you. So he’s never—”

“Been bankrupt before? I don’t know.”

“Hmm.”

Some kind of bird shrieked as it cut the sky over one of Hemal’s houses. We both turned to look.

“He says he just has to sell a few more lots.” She shrugged and tapped the ash off the end of her cigarette. “How do you know Sandeep anyway? You’re obviously not a buyer.”

Obviously? Huh. “I work at the hotel where’s he staying. Hotel 1911.”

“Ah, the Mustard Mansion.”

I smiled. The local moniker was about as old as the hotel itself. People used it more in a proprietary sense than a derogatory one.

She cut her eyes at me. “Expensive, right?”

“Yeah. But maybe not if you’re used to Atlanta prices.”

A rusty pickup crested the hill I’d ridden over moments ago toward the grassy patch where we stood.

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