I parked, and Caroline helped me arrange the sun shields in both sides of the front windshield before we headed for the entrance. We were halfway across the parking lot when a voice rang out.
“Stop!”
Caroline and I both started guiltily, froze, and whirled to see a young man in the muted green uniform of the Inn’s landscaping staff running after us, waving his arms.
“Come back!” he shouted. “You can’t park there.”
“Get rid of him,” Caroline hissed. She strode on toward the front door, leaving me to deal with the groundskeeper who was so intent on spoiling our unobtrusive arrival.
“You can’t—” the groundskeeper began.
“Shh!” I said. And then I grabbed my head as if suffering from a hideous headache. “No yelling, please,” I whispered. “Do you know what it’s like when you have a migraine and someone keeps yelling?”
I was very proud of myself. I hadn’t actually lied and said I had a migraine.
“Sorry,” he whispered. “It’s just that you can’t park there right now. We’re about to regravel.”
Of course. The Caerphilly Inn prided itself on the perfection of its housekeeping and landscaping, and the pristine white gravel of the parking lot was marred here and there with spots of oil—no doubt from plebian vehicles like mine.
“Oh, right,” I whispered back. “I always wondered whether they regraveled or power washed the stones.”
“Power washing!” He snorted, and forgot to whisper. “Yeah, management thought that would be such a great idea, because labor’s so cheap. You know what happens when you power wash a gravel parking lot?”
I shook my head—gently, with one hand to my temple, to maintain the appearance of someone who shouldn’t be interrogated while bravely coping with a migraine.
“Neither did management,” he said, dropping back into a stage whisper. “You turn a power hose on this sucker and it’s going to send all that gravel flying. Could have graveled the parking lot a dozen times with what they paid out in paint jobs and new windows for all the Mercedes and Jaguars they didn’t move far enough away. And they fired the poor guys they ordered to do the power washing. Like it was their fault. No, we’re back to regraveling. And we make sure all the vehicles are well clear of the part we’re working on. Even the ones that look like that.”
I winced, and then realized he wasn’t pointing at my van but at an old and somewhat battered Chevy sedan at the far end of the lot.
“You don’t happen to know where he is, do you?” he asked.
“He?”
“Belongs to that PI fellow,” the groundskeeper said. “Didn’t I hear that you know him?”
My, how rumors got around in Caerphilly. I shook my head.
“Not well,” I said. “Though as it happens, I’ve been looking for him myself. I take it you’ve checked his room?”
“Called three times this morning, and knocked once. But apparently he never came back to his room last night.” From his tone, I gathered that this was unacceptable behavior for a guest. Or was it Denton’s profession that put him beyond the pale? “His car hasn’t been moved since last night. And we sent out notices yesterday afternoon and again this morning about moving all vehicles to the south lot. So if you find him, you might tell him to come and move it. The tow truck’s on its way. If he hurries up and moves it in the next half hour or so, he can save himself the cost of the tow.”
“If I see him I’ll tell him. You do realize that he works for some of your more distinguished guests.”
“Yeah, but they don’t know where he is either,” he said. “And from the sound of it, they’re not too pleased with him at the moment. You could tell him that, too.”
I nodded and returned to my van. Now that I was looking for it, I spotted the small tasteful sign, printed in the sort of frilly, elegant cursive typeface normally reserved for wedding invitations. Once you got close enough to decipher it, you could see that it read
Please park in the south parking lot today due to construction.
Management apologizes for the inconvenience.
Probably more of an inconvenience for the valet parking staff than anyone else. Odds were at least half the guests couldn’t care less where their cars were parked as long as someone fetched them quickly enough when they wanted them. I found a space at the far end of the south parking lot, and trudged back to the Inn.
I cringed inwardly when I reached the front door and the uniformed attendant scrambled to hold it open for me, bowing deeply.
“Good afternoon, Ms. Langslow,” he said. So much for anonymity.