She shook her head. “Well, be that as it may. We’re near full capacity right now, so we were hopping. I didn’t notice that Darlene hadn’t beeped in from Suite 4602. Forty minutes, give or take. That’s long, but it’s a large suite and Darlene was slow. Not that she wasn’t a good worker, she was, but she tended to take her time.”

Hilo began to wring her hands. “I shouldn’t have said she was slow. I shouldn’t have said that. I meant to say thorough. She was such a good girl. Such a sweet little thing. We all loved her. It’s just that she took a bit more time than most to finish her units. She liked being in the bigger rooms, she liked tending to beautiful things.”

“It’s all right, Hilo. I understand. She was proud of her work, and she made sure she did it well.”

“Yes.” Hilo pressed a hand to her lips, nodded. “Yes, that’s exactly so.”

“What did you do when you noticed she hadn’t checked in?”

“Oh.” Hilo shook herself back. “I beeped her. The procedure is for the housekeeper to signal back or to contact base over a house ’link. Occasionally one of the other guests will detain or delay a housekeep

er, asking for more towels or whatever. It’s Palace policy to serve the guests, even if they just want to chat for a moment because they’re away from home and lonely. This throws off the pace, but we’re a service-first facility.”

She set her cup down again. “I gave Darlene another five minutes, beeped her a second time. When she didn’t respond to that, I was irritated. Lieutenant, I was annoyed with her, and now—”

“Hilo.” Eve couldn’t have counted the times she’d seen and heard this guilty misery in a survivor. “It was a natural reaction. Darlene would never have blamed you for it. You couldn’t help her then, but you can help her now. Tell me what you can.”

“Yes, all right. Yes.” Hilo drew in a breath, let it out slowly. “Yes. As I said, we were very busy. I went to the suite myself to move her along. I’d hoped her beeper was acting up. They don’t very often, but it’s been known to happen. Then I saw her cart outside the door, and was very annoyed.”

She had to stop a moment, remembering how she’d planned to give Darlene a good piece of her mind. “I buzzed, used my passcode. I could see the parlor was fine. I marched straight to the bedroom, opened the door.”

“The door was closed?”

“Yes, yes, I’m sure because I remember calling out as I pushed it open. And I saw her, poor little thing, I saw her on the bed. Her face was all swollen and battered, and there was blood around her neck and on the collar of her uniform, and drops of it on the spread she’d turned down. She’d been doing her job, you see.”

“She’d turn down the bed,” Eve interrupted. “Would that have been the first chore she’d have dealt with on entering the suite?”

“It depends. Everyone has their own routine, more or less. I believe Darlene liked to check the bath first, remove the used towels, and replace them. Then she’d check the bed. Some guests will demand a complete linen change at turndown if they’d had a nap or . . . made use of the bed in any way. If that was the case, she’d strip off the linens and take them and the towels to her cart, retrieve fresh linens, and so on. She would make a note of the use of inventory on her cart log. Efficiency, again. And it discourages staff pilfering. You see?”

“Yeah. From what you observed, she’d just gotten around to turning down the bed. There was music on. Would she have turned on the entertainment system?”

“Yes, perhaps. But never at that volume. If the guest isn’t in the unit during evening turndown, the housekeeper programs the entertainment unit to the guest’s requirements, or to a classical station if no requirements have been set. But always at a discreet volume.”

“Maybe she intended to turn it down before she left.”

“Darlene liked modern music.” Hilo managed a smile. “Most of the young staff members do. She’d never have turned on—it was opera, wasn’t it—that program for her own entertainment.”

“Okay.” So he’d killed to opera, Eve thought. For his own entertainment. “What then?”

“Then I froze, just froze. And I remember running out again, slamming that door behind me. I heard the crack of it through the screaming. I ran out the front, slammed that door, too. And I couldn’t get my legs to move anymore, so I stood there, my back against the door, still screaming when I called Security.”

She broke a bit, pressed her hands to her face. “People came out of rooms, ran down the hall. Everything was so confused. Mr. Brigham came, and he went inside. Everything got all muddled in my head, and he brought me down here and told me to lie down. But I couldn’t. So I just sat right here and cried until Roarke came and got me tea. Who could have hurt that sweet little girl? Why?”

Eve waited, saying nothing to a question that could never be fully answered, while Hilo rocked herself steady again. “Did Darlene always do turndown on that particular suite?”

“No, but most usually. And traditionally each housekeeper is assigned two floors that remain theirs unless we have an unusual turnover. Darlene’s had forty-five and forty-six since she finished her training.”

“Do you know if she was involved with anyone? A boyfriend?”

“Yes, I think . . . Oh, there are so many young people on staff and they’re forever having romances. I’m not sure I remember . . . Barry!” Blowing out a breath of relief, Hilo nearly smiled. “Yes, I’m sure she had a young man named Barry. He’s on the bellstaff here. I remember because she was over the moon when he was able to switch to night shift. That way they had more time to spend with each other.”

“Do you know his last name?”

“No, I’m sorry. She always lit up when she chattered about him.”

“Any spats recently?”

“No, and believe me, I’d have heard about it. When one of them has a fight with a boyfriend or a girlfriend, we all hear about it. I’m sure . . . Oh. Oh!” The color that had crept into her face drained again. “You don’t think he . . . Lieutenant, the way Darlene spoke of him, he seemed like such a nice young man.”

Tags: J.D. Robb In Death Mystery
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