Page 55 of Sunset Beach
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Lutrisha Smallwood’s name was a cruel joke. She was tall and bean-pole thin, with light blue eyes that narrowed as she blew a plume of vapor from her e-cigarette. She’d been leaning up against the outside of the coffee shop, vaping, when Drue pedaled up on the beach bike she’d bought on Craigslist.
The girl smiled crookedly as Drue approached. “Did you get your license yanked for too many DUIs?”
“No. My car’s out of commission.” Drue gestured toward the coffee shop. “Do you want to go in and talk?”
“Waiting on you,” Lutrisha said, following her inside.
“You know,” Lutrisha said, staring down at her mug of coffee. “Right after that thing with Jazmin, the hotel manager called all of us in housekeeping into a meeting. He said Jazmin’s mom hired some hotshot lawyer who was gonna sue the hotel for, like, ten million dollars. And if she won the case, the hotel would have to close up and all of us would lose our jobs.”
“That’s not true. It never got as far as a lawsuit. And besides, even if she’d filed suit and won, the hotel’s insurance company would pay the claim—not the hotel.”
“So you say.” Lutrisha looked around the coffee shop, which was mostly empty. The only employee was busy wiping down the marble counter. “I can’t afford to lose this job. I tried working at Publix, but they wouldn’t give me full-time hours. I got a kid of my own. That’s why I came back to work at the hotel. Plus, most of the folks there, they’re not so bad.”
“What about the ones who are bad?” Drue asked.
“Most of ’em left.”
“Like H. K. Byars and Mr. Shelnutt?”
“Shelnutt still works there.”
Drue stared at the girl, trying to figure out how much she knew and what she was willing to share. She had a poker face.
“You told our investigator you didn’t know Jazmin all that well. Was that true?”
Lutrisha nibbled at her cuticle. “I don’t need to get dragged back into this mess. I knew her from work, okay? We both had little kids, so it wasn’t like we were going to go out clubbing together every night.”
“Got it,” Drue said. “Did Jazmin ever mention to you that somebody at the hotel was bothering her? Maybe sexually harassing her?”
“Where’d you hear that?”
“She told her mother that a white, older man, who was married, was coming on to her. The hotel says they never received any complaints of harassment from Jazmin.”
“Huh. Her too?”
“Was somebody bothering you?” Drue asked.
“He tried.” Lutrisha smiled grimly. “Started brushing up against me in the hallways, trying to corner me in the service elevator, putting his hands where they don’t belong. The second time he did it, I sprayed him in the face with Windex. After that, the son of a bitch steered way clear of me.”
“Just curious. Didn’t you tell our firm’s investigator, right afterwards, that you didn’t know anything about sexual harassment at the hotel?”
“Yeah. But that’s ’cuz the dude made me nervous. And I didn’t want to get in trouble.”
“Can you tell me who bothered you?”
“Larry Boone. He used to be head of engineering at Gulf Vista.”
“Used to be? Did he get demoted?”
“He left. Maybe two, three weeks after Jazmin was killed.”
“Do you know where he went?”
She shook her head. “No idea. People were still in shock about Jazmin, so I don’t think anybody was too upset that Scary Larry was gone.”
Lutrisha pulled her phone from her purse. “I gotta go pretty soon. My sister is watching my little boy and she gets real pissy if I’m late.”
