Murder in Bermuda: Book 1 in the Murder in Paradise Series



  Murder in Bermuda

  Penelope Sotheby

  ~~~

  Copyright © 2015 Penelope Sotheby

  First published in 2015 by Jonmac Limited. All rights reserved.

  This book is a work of fiction. All names, characters and places, incidents are used entirely fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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  Other Books By The Author

  Murder in the Bahamas (Book 2 in the "Murder in Paradise" series) Murder in Jamaica (Book 3 in the "Murder in Paradise" series) Murder in Barbados (Book 4 in the "Murder in Paradise" series) Murder in Aruba (Book 5 in the "Murder in Paradise" series) Murder at the Inn

  Table of Contents

  1 - Murder in Bermuda

  1 - Chapter 1

  1 - Chapter 2

  1 - Chapter 3

  1 - Chapter 4

  1 - Chapter 5

  1 - Chapter 6

  1 - Chapter 7

  1 - Chapter 8

  1 - Chapter 9

  1 - Chapter 10

  Murder in Bermuda

  Penelope Sotheby

  Chapter 1

  “It was such a lovely wedding.” Anna Winters sighed. “The bride’s dress is one of the most breathtaking dresses I’ve ever seen.”

  “It better be, for what she paid for it.” Pauline Baker snarled in her Manchester accent. “Some people have no business with money. Tossing around $250,000 for a wedding, we don't even see anything quite as extravagant back in London.”

  “You should be thankful.” Anna replied as she turned her head away from the other woman to avoid showing her smile. “If people were sensible, the wedding venue would never be rented out, which means we’d be homeless and living on the streets.”

  “Love doesn’t care how much you spend, Anna.” The other woman scowled. “I’m going to see where the mushroom stuffed shrimp are. Sometimes I think the staff doesn’t care.”

  “Get 'em, girl.” Anna laughed.

  As Pauline walked away, Anna couldn’t help but smile at her assistant. At 46, Pauline was exactly 10 years older than herself. The older woman was harmless, but could be rough around the edges. It came from being raised by a stern military father who encouraged her to enlist in the British Army. It all went well until a shattered femur from an explosion sidelined her. Now she walked with a limp. In the black and whites the hotel required the staff to wear, she looked like a wobbling penguin.

  For a moment, she wondered if it was one of the reasons Pauline grew up to have a strong dislike for love and romance of any kind. She had the potential to be very pretty, despite her short-cropped blonde hair and the permanent scowl on her face. Her cheekbones were lovely and her smoky green eyes could draw you in and capture your attention for hours.

  “When are we doing cake, Anna?” a booming voice asked.

  Turning around, she grasped at her chest lightly, then shook her red hair and regained her composure. “Oh, Pierre.” she managed to muster with a sheepish smile.

  “Why do you always cower when I sneak up on you?” Pierre Bellerose asked with a slight laugh in his voice and a toothy grin. “I’d never hurt you. Worst thing I could do is take you out for dinner and a movie.” Pierre continued in his lovely French accent.

  His brown eyes melted into her blue eyes and she could feel her heart racing for a moment. Anna opened her mouth, closed it in thought, then tried to speak again.

  “Are you asking me out?” she managed to muster as she scanned his face. He had a square jaw, and a light five o’clock shadow with red undertones that didn’t appear in his thick head of brown hair. She thought he was certainly the best looking food supervisor that had ever worked for her.

  “I was asking you about cake.” He laughed for a moment. “Unless, you’d like to go on a date. Then we can just blow this reception and let the bride and groom fend for themselves.”

  Anna laughed heartily. “Fine, but you’ll have to take the blame for it. As for the cake, I’ll ask the bride and the groom what they’d like to do. Hopefully, they will want to do it soon.”

  “Sounds good, Captain!”

  Pierre gave her another toothy smile along with a salute and a wink.

  In an attempt to gain her composure, Anna turned and hurried off, her cheeks a deep crimson red. Anna was still quite shy around men which she put down to going to an all girls school in her native London. At only 25, Pierre had a lot of confidence around woman, certainly a lot more confidence than she had around men when she was that age. When she realized that was 11 years ago now she started to feel old.

  Looking around, she walked up to millionaire, Tony Giovani, who was watching his wife laughing with her friends and talking.

  “Mr. Giovani?” Anna asked as she walked up to the man.

  “Anna, is there a reason you don’t want to call me Tony?” the man asked as he turned, a look of disappointment on his face. “I’m no better than you. I come from humble beginnings and was fortunate to open up a business that ended up becoming insanely popular. We’re on the same level, so please call me Tony. Besides, with your lovely British accent, I feel like I should be looking up to you.”

  “Tony, yes. Sorry, Mr. Gio—Tony.” Anna smiled. “Now, we were wondering about the cake. We need to get that taken care of soon. Do you know when you and your glamorous bride will want to take the first bite?”

  “That’s a good question.” he replied thoughtfully. “We can do it in the next few minutes. Now, I need you to do me a favor. Meadow has had her eyes on the section of cake with the three pink hearts on it. Can you make sure she gets that? I, for one, don’t care what slice you give me, but I want to be sure that she gets that piece.”

  “Of course, Tony!” Anna responded. “I’ll have Cassandra start to plate it up.

  “Thank you, Anna.” Tony replied. “You’ve made this experience incredible. I couldn’t be happier than I am right now. Meadow is the most important thing in my world. I would give anything for her. When we met, it was true love. I didn’t even make her get a prenuptial. It just seemed silly to worry about money when love is there. Not just puppy love, but true core value love.” “I get what you mean, Tony.” Anna nodded and smiled.

  Making her way through tables that were covered with white linen table cloths and peach napkins, she made it back to the cake. It was six tiers tall and glistened in impressive pink and white. Her team went to painstaking lengths to make certain the cake looked incredible. This included the use of edible pink glitter and fondant hearts in a rainbow of colors. The cake underneath was a Bermuda rum cake batter. The baker was a little heavy in the rum and you could get intoxicated off the fumes coming from the cake.

  Looking at the cake, sh
e found the three pink hearts the new bride wanted. Then cut it off and cut an additional piece for the groom. Then set them down.

  She heard a loud cheer coming from the function room next door. The police were having their annual ball and they were a rowdy lot.

  She turned her attention to the crowd and saw Cassandra Wilson, her other assistant, talking to Nancy Henderson, an odd woman who grabbed Cassandra’s hands before she took off. Cassandra saw Anna watching and began making her way toward her and Anna raised her hand to motion for Cassandra to hurry.

  “I am so sorry, I have been looking all over for you.” Cassandra said sheepishly. “Nancy was asking me if we would be interested in doing a wedding for her. I told her I’d have you talk to her about it later. She has a firm grip, too. Got me by the hands and wouldn’t let me go.”

  “She comes from money, she’s probably just eccentric.” Anna smiled.

  Anna looked at Cassandra. Her long black hair was pulled back in a frizzy ponytail. Looking into the other woman’s eyes, she always noticed how cold and empty they felt. But Cassandra had been a friend and assistant to her for years and watched as she propelled herself to the top. Cassandra was

  25, the same age as Pierre, and she had a promising career in front of her.

  A crystal champagne flute was tapped with a golden spoon at the head table as the bride and groom sat down.

  “It’s cake time.” Tony replied with a smile on his face. He then motioned to Anna to hurry. “Take the pieces of cake I cut to him.” Anna said to Cassandra.

  “Sounds good.” Cassandra replied, rushing to the cake.

  As Anna nodded to Tony and admired the bride, Cassandra got the pieces of cake and brought them up to the front.

  “Woops. This piece is for you.” Tony laughed as he moved the piece of cake to his wife and took the other piece. “You wanted the one with the hearts.”

  Tony and Meadow both stood up and each took their slice of cake in their hands. They looked into each other’s eyes with a smile on their faces. Anna couldn’t help but smile until she noticed that Meadow was eyeing another man in the room and gave him a subtle wink. She recognized him as Roger Fox, an ex-con and bad news as far as Anna was concerned. Part of her hoped that Tony hadn’t made a mistake in avoiding a prenuptial.

  “Now, normally, the bride and groom cut a slice of the cake and serve it to each other.” Tony smiled. “But I didn’t want her to ruin her $5,000 manicure using a knife.”

  The room laughed. Anna caught herself smiling at the joke.

  “So, we let Anna and her team cut the cake and choose our slices for us. Now, on the count of three, we’ll smash cake in each other’s faces.”

  “Can you eat your piece first?” Meadow asked. “It smells very strong and I really am not sure I’ll actually like the rum in it.”

  “Of course, Pookie.” He laughed. “Okay, first we count to three for me. One! Two! Three! Let’s do this, baby!”

  With that, Tony opened his mouth wide and Meadow shoved as much cake as she could into it. Tony turned bright red with tears dripping down his face. He looked like he was struggling to not laugh at what was happening.

  Meadow let out a snorted laugh and the room embraced the laughter even more. But after a few seconds, the sound of laughter began to die down. Tony had started to foam at the mouth and some cake fell from his mouth. His eyes rolled up in his head and he started to convulse. People began to scream and the man fell down on the table in front of him, shattering glasses, spilling champagne as he flopped around a bit more before becoming still. His mouth frozen open as the life left his eyes.

  A pudgy woman gasped from behind Anna and she turned for a moment to see cake on the woman’s face.

  “I have low blood sugar.” the woman said. “Was he just poisoned? Am I going to die?”

  “No, you are fine. There is no reason for the cake to be poisoned. This is something else.” Anna tried to calm the woman.

  “I ate the poison cake, too.” the woman screamed at the top of her lungs and the guests turned their attention to the woman. “Someone poisoned me, too! Oh, God! Someone please call 9-1-1! I feel like I am going to die.”

  The woman collapsed to the ground and worried guests rushed over to her. Anna could see she was still breathing. Cautiously hopeful, Anna made her way over to Tony, who was lying dead on the reception table, his dead eyes burning into her accusingly. She reached down, praying for a pulse, but there was none.

  “No one move! This room is an active crime scene and no one is leaving until I say so.” shouted an older man with short-cropped hair and a bushy brown moustache as he raised a badge. “My name is Detective Michael Maese. I am in charge and I need your cooperation to keep this from getting out of hand. Everyone turn in your cell phones. I don’t need a media circus here either.” Detective Maese was annoyed that the good time he was having at the ball was interrupted. This was despite the fact he didn't have far to go to attend this crime scene.

  As people brought their phones up to the detective, Anna couldn’t help but wonder who would want to kill Tony. Did he have enemies in his hometown in New Jersey? Or was Tony just a pawn in a greater scheme to give the Grand Palatial some negative publicity? Other newer hotels have always hated it for its prestige and being a classic celebrity attraction. This is despite the Grand Palatial having a big downturn in revenues over the past few years as people have started to look at less expensive hotels.

  In the back of the room, she caught the three video recorders that were going, filming the entire wedding to be released to the media afterward. She walked over to them, cautious enough not to be noticed. Pulling the tape from each, she slipped them onto a plate and covered them with a silver cloche. She’d take it back to her room when she could and look it over. The killer had to be on one of the videos and she’d help the police find the killer. The video would prove to be helpful.

  As she tried to slip into the kitchen with the tapes, she felt a firm hand shove her through the wooden door.

  “Is there something mentally wrong with you?” the voice shouted at her.

  Expecting to turn and see her father, the voice belonged to Antonio Puccio, the Entertainment Director of the entire Grand Palatial chain and Anna’s boss. The Italian accent was thick and she could see his face etched in pure anger.

  “I don’t understand what you mean.” Anna smiled. “I had nothing to do with this.’

  “The Grand Palatial needs someone to blame. Get this resolved now. I don’t care if you have to fire someone and make a big production out of it, but if there is even a smudge on our name because of a staff member, you will never work in the industry ever again. Do I make myself clear, little woman?”

  “Perfectly.” Anna replied coldly. “I’ll take care of this, Antonio.”

  “It’s Mr. Puccio!” The man turned and threw open the door, causing it to crack. “Son of a –” Catching himself, he took a deep breath. “You have 48 hours, Anna. Make this all go away or you’re done. The police already have us on lockdown.”

  Anna looked around and felt hopeless. The police had people in lines and were talking to them For a moment, she felt hopeless and uncertain but she knew she had to do something, otherwise, no one would ever trust her with an event again.

  Chapter 2