“When you first met Kara, you asked her about her job.”
“Well, that was before I knew she wasn’t a lawyer.”
“What I mean is, how did you learn that she was a lawyer, before the arrest?”
“Oh. Well, gosh, let’s see. I saw them on the beach when I arrived last week. I may have said hello or something—but then a couple days later we were in the locker room at the gym, and I commented about how hard she was working out. I like yoga, keeps me limber as I creep toward sixty-five. And she said yoga annoyed her and she didn’t like how painstakingly slow some of the stretches were. I liked her bluntness! So we talked. She said her husband was a lawyer. I said my husband, God rest his soul, had been a county prosecutor for thirty years. She said they were both in private practice—it’s how they met, on the job. And I asked what kind of law, and she said her husband did tax law and she handled contract law. I told her that sounded more boring than yoga and she laughed. Later, the three of us had drinks in the bar by the pool—I really thought they were married. They were so cute together.” She leaned forward, added almost conspiratorially, “You know, I think they really have feelings for each other. I can tell. The way he looked at her when she wasn’t looking?” Mrs. Thomas sighed. “But that’s probably discouraged if they work together.”
Michael didn’t share Matt and Kara’s relationship status, butasked, “I’d like you to think back to the gym and the pool bar—not what you talked about, but who you saw.”
“Is this about the guests, the honeymooners, who were killed?”
“You heard about the murders?”
“Of course—several guests have talked about it, but staff hasn’t said anything. The Delmonicos checked out yesterday because Mrs. Delmonico freaked out, was talking about three couples who went missing and were killed, and that an employee had been arrested while trying to abduct two more people. It’s a shock, but you all caught him, so I thought she was overreacting—I read the newspapers, all the women were pretty blondes, and Mrs. Delmonico is not only not blonde, but not very attractive, though she tries, bless her heart. That wasn’t very nice of me to say, was it?”
“I can’t fault an honest opinion, Mrs. Thomas.”
She smiled. “They weren’t very nice people, but that’s no excuse for me being rude.”
Her face paled. “Why are you asking all these questions about Matt and Kara if they arrested the kidnapper? Are they missing?”
“Yes, they were taken late Sunday morning. That’s why I want to find out if you saw anyone who acted overinterested in them when you were having drinks. Staff or guests, male or female.”
She was thinking, but her expression suggested that she was thinking too hard, and Michael didn’t want her to make something up just to please him—it had happened before, especially in friendly interviews.
So he said, “Maybe not while you were talking, but you are observant—maybe you saw someone watching them, or paying too close attention to what Matt or Kara were doing. Anything odd or unusual or that gave you pause.”
“There was one thing, but maybe I’m making a mountain out of a molehill.”
“Let me be the judge,” Michael said and smiled politely, even though he was getting antsy because he had a lot of people to talk to this morning. He spared a quick glance at his watch and hoped she didn’t notice.
“It was on Wednesday, maybe, when I had a drink with them at the pool. I was walking back to my suite to call my daughter—she’s pregnant with her fifth child, said she’s done but we’ll see!” She laughed lightly. “Anyway, there was a woman lying in the sun with a book, but she was looking at Matt and Kara.”
“How do you know she was looking at them?”
“Well, I said something like, ‘I just finished that book, it’s wonderful.’ It was a historical novel about nurses in Vietnam. She said, ‘I haven’t gotten far.’ Yet it appeared she was more than halfway through the book, so I glanced back and saw her staring at Matt and Kara. I said, ‘Aren’t they cute?’ And she said, ‘It won’t last.’ Then she went back to the book.”
“Would you recognize her?”
“No—I really don’t think so. She looked familiar, but I assumed because she was a guest and I had seen her in passing. She wore dark sunglasses and a floppy hat.”
“Hair? Skin? Age?”
“She was a little tan, though lathered in sunscreen. I didn’t see her hair, because of the hat. I remember she wore a red bikini. I wouldn’t know her age, I couldn’t really see her face. Thirty to forty, maybe older? Nice figure, the bikini suited her.”
“This was Wednesday?”
She nodded. “Mid-afternoon. Just before four. That I know because of the call to my daughter. But certainly that woman has nothing to do with anything!”
Michael thanked Bridget for her time, though he wasn’t sure that it was time well spent. Still, he called Brian. “Are there security cameras on the pool area?”
“No,” he said. “Did you find something?”
“A woman, possibly a guest, watching Matt and Kara on Wednesday. Are staff allowed to use resort facilities?”
“Off duty, yes. It’s a perk.”
That got Michael thinking, but he didn’t know if following this thread would get them any closer to finding Matt and Kara.
