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Norma Rose turned left onto the center hallway that would pass the dining room and end at the ballroom, where Reggie, their longtime bartender, would be glad to see her. He liked things shut down by one, and considering he was back on duty by ten in the morning, she couldn’t blame him.
Sometimes she wished she didn’t have to report to duty until ten. But, for the most part, she didn’t mind. Nightingale’s was her life. She had witnessed its rise from a run-down homestead with a dancehall and few rented cabins to a glamorous showcase that rivaled hotels nationwide. Listening to her heels echoing against the wood floors, she glanced at the naturally stained wood wainscoting and grinned. If not for her, the entire resort would be painted red. That was her father’s favorite color. He owned over a dozen maroon suits. His office was splattered with burgundy; she’d even specially ordered his desk to be built out of natural red mahogany.
There were plenty of red hues in all the other rooms, too, but she’d insisted on some things being left natural wood—the floors and wainscoting—and had added shades of gold and black. Black. Now that was a color. Maybe that’s why she was so intrigued by the lawyer. Ty’s black outfit was spectacular. Norma Rose paused before entering the ballroom to shake her head, feeling flustered that she couldn’t control her thoughts when it came to the newcomer.
Most of the lights had been turned off, and she moved straight to the bar, where three locals sat. At least they were three that she liked. Smiling, she stepped up between two of their barstools. “Scooter, Dac,” she greeted the men on her left before turning to her right. “Jimmy.”
“Evening, Norma Rose,” Scooter Wilson greeted in return. “You here to give us the bum’s rush?”
Frowning, for she’d expected townies and didn’t think of Bald Eagle people as such, she asked, “What are you boys still doing here?”
“Placing bets,” Jimmy answered, picking his tweed driving hat off the bar beside him and placing it over his corn-colored hair. “On if we ever see Brock Ness again.”
A shiver rippled her spine.
Scooter slapped a coin he’d set to spinning on the counter. “He told your father no.”
Her insides slumped, confirming what she’d feared.
Neither of the three said anything else, and she knew why. Her father wasn’t a gangster. He was a businessman who, at times, associated with mobsters. There was nothing illegal about that. Gangsters were very good customers. They never squabbled about the price, always paid with cash, in full, and usually in advance.
However, plenty of folks feared her father, and what might happen if they got on his bad side. He wasn’t an easy man to say no to. Maybe she should have told Ty Bradshaw that.
Norma Rose hid her frustration, and nodded toward the bartender. “Reggie’s ready to call it a night. You boys should drift on home.”
The men gathered their hats and downed the dregs from their earthen mugs before they stood and pushed in their stools. Far more difficult to come by, yet sought after more highly than whiskey or rum, beer was readily available at the resort, for those trusted enough to remain silent.
Norma Rose walked with the men across the large ballroom, their footsteps echoing loudly. At the front door, she bid them goodbye and waited until the double doors closed behind them. Turning, she glanced at the mantel clock on the fieldstone fireplace centered between the ballroom doors. One thirty in the morning.
She should go to her office and start researching musicians. A week from now would be Al and Emma Imhoff’s twenty-fifth wedding anniversary and the week after that, Palooka George’s birthday bash. Both parties expected top-notch music, and it was her job to provide it.
But it was late, and though she hated to admit it, she was tired. But above all, she wanted to know Ty Bradshaw was good and gone.
She’d taken no more than a single step forward when the front door opened. Walking in, her father gestured toward the registration desk. “Norma Rose, get the key to the Northlander.”
All of the cabins were named, a throwback from her grandparents’ Scandinavian ancestry. About to move, she froze when a second man walked through the door. The rapid increase of her heart rate had to be from anger, for she certainly wasn’t happy to see him again.
Ignoring Ty and the grin on his face, she turned to her father. “How’s Uncle Dave?”
“He was poisoned.”
Norma Rose took two steps, mainly to catch her balance by grabbing hold of the wide front desk. “Poisoned?”
“Yes,” her father answered, “but he’s going to be fine.”
Norma Rose didn’t doubt that. It had been her idea to move Gloria into the resort permanently when her home in White Bear Lake had mysteriously burned to the ground last year. Someone had been upset about Gloria’s belief in birth control, that’s what Norma Rose had deduced. Having a physician on-site had been a good business move and Dave couldn’t be in better hands.
The seriousness of her uncle being poisoned—and the threat to the entire family and community—made Norma Rose’s spine quiver. “How?”
“You don’t worry about that,” her father said. “Get the key. Ty will be staying with us for a while.”
Norma Rose bit her tongue to keep from saying several things, and kept her gaze from wandering to the lawyer. “The Northlander isn’t ready for occupancy. The workmen just finished painting it today.”
* * *
“I don’t mind the smell of paint,” Ty said, biting back a grin. Norma Rose was a classy-looking dame, that was for sure, but she was also a sassy one. As full of herself as a cat with a diamond collar.
Anger, lots of it, snapped in the blue eyes she settled upon him with more frost than a subzero night. “I haven’t had a chance to have the bed made up yet.”
“I know how to make a bed,” Ty answered. He really hadn’t made an impression on her, or he had, just a bad one. He’d have to rectify that. Becoming a welcomed guest at the resort was a necessity, and from what he’d learned, being accepted by Norma Rose was just as important as being accepted by Roger Nightingale.
She stomped around the desk, her hips swaying with each snapping clip of her heels. If an artist ever needed a model in order to draw the perfect hourglass figure, they should look up Norma Rose. The image of her backside was enough to stir the blood of a dead man.
“If he,” she said pointedly to her father, “needs a place to stay for the night, there are a few rooms available on the third floor.”
“He’s staying with us for a while, not a night.” Rounding the desk, Roger said, “I’ll get the key, you go get some bedding.”
The glare she cast at her father’s back would have dropped most folks to their knees. She erased the expression before her father turned around, key in hand, and then she hooked the little chain of her purse on her elbow and marched the opposite way around the desk, so she wouldn’t have to come any closer to him. Ty didn’t even attempt to hide his smile. Getting on Norma Rose’s good side was going to be a challenge. He liked a good challenge. He was up for it, too. Bodine had turned into a mole of late, and following his trail had grown lackluster.
“She can be a slight short now and again,” Roger said while Norma Rose turned the corner. “But I couldn’t run this place without her. Matter of fact, I don’t run this place. She does. Has for a few years now. She does a fine job of it, too. I mostly stay out of her way.”
The man handed over a single key attached to a diamond-shaped piece of leather, tooled with the resort’s name. “Thank you,” Ty said. “I’ll remember what you said about your daughter, and try to stay out of her way while investigating what happened to your brother-in-law.”
“Hell of a thing,” Roger said, “Dave getting poisoned. Can’t think who might have done that.”
“Start writing down names,” Ty said. “I’ll look into every one of them.”
“I will, but, it’s our secret,” Roger said. “Other than Norma Rose, I don’t want anyone hearing about this.”
“Silence is my specialty,” Ty said. “I’d be out of a job if not.”
“Good thing you came along when you did,” Roger said.
“As I said, my last job led me here.” Ty wasn’t counting his eggs yet, although his instincts said Nightingale was nibbling hard on the bait.
“Those feds,” Roger growled, as he nodded in the general direction his daughter had gone. “Take that hallway to the end and turn left. Norma Rose will be at the end of that hall, in the storage room. She can show you where the Northlander is located. You and I will talk in more depth in the morning.”
Ty agreed, and shook the man’s hand. Roger Nightingale was no fool. He hadn’t got to this point in life without being thorough...very thorough. By the time they talked again tomorrow, the man would have had Ty’s background checked out right up to the minute his mother had given birth to him. Ty expected as much, and would have been disappointed if things had been different.
“Good night, sir,” he said, stepping back.
“’Night,” Nightingale said, clearly already preoccupied by who he should call first.
