by Anne R. Tan
“I’m not worried about being a murder suspect,” she lied. “I’m worried about the cost of the lodging if we can’t leave town. It must cost Matthew a fortune for the two suites.”
“Let him worry about that. It’s his fault we are here without a groom. But in the meantime, we have something to occupy our time. This is better than sitting around and picking our bellybutton lint.”
Raina smiled at the comment. Trust her grandma to think a murder investigation would fight off boredom.
“Did you get what you needed from my laptop?” Po Po asked.
Raina shook her head. “The maid found a USB drive by the entertainment unit where Claire Boucher was snooping around. But there’s a password lock on it, and I don’t know the password.”
“Do you want me to overnight it to one of my Science Ninjas kids? They can make a copy and get the original back to us in a couple of days. They’ll crack the password for pizza and Red Bull. I might have to throw in a gift card to GameStop to turn up the heat on the competition among the kids.
Raina bit her lower lip. The USB memory stick could be evidence, or it might be nothing. And given what she knew of city government’s limited resources, they probably wouldn’t have anyone on staff who could hack the password protection software within a reasonable time frame, if at all.
Besides, if one of the high school kids could open the files and get the evidence out, then they would be helping the police. And since there were already several sets of handprints on the USB drive, it probably didn’t matter if they got a couple more on it.
“Let’s do it,” Raina said.
Po Po gave her a thumbs up. “You got it, boss.”
By this time, they were outside the Sunset Room. Raina handed Po Po the guitar. “Remember, you’re only here to observe. Do not engage the mark. Have fun, and I will see you later.”
6
A Bearded Man
Raina returned to the casino floor and asked the nearest server in the skimpy outfit where she could find the security office. She was directed to a room next to the elevator on the second floor. As she made her way to Hendricks’s office, she considered her options.
She could beg him not to turn over the video clips to the police. Even though her action was suspicious, chasing Claire to the casino floor wasn’t incriminating, especially when Claire snuck into Raina’s suite in the first place. But it probably wasn’t a good idea to get on the police’s radar with Matthew working on a secret assignment.
Besides, even if she groveled, Hendricks would still release the videos. Raina had a feeling she had offended Hendricks by asking about Matthew’s contract work with the hotel-casino. At the time she had believed her fiancé’s cover story, but Hendricks might take her questioning as encroaching on his territory. It would be much cheaper to hire goons for monitoring the video feeds than to bring in a contractor for upgrades. Management might figure out there was no need for a head of security.
Raina knocked on the door with a metal plaque that said “Security” on it. She glanced up to see a camera pointing at her. With all these cameras and their blinking red lights in the hotel-casino, one of them should have recorded who entered the laundry room with a bloodstained bag.
Or maybe some cameras with the blinking red lights were fakes. Many homeowners used fake cameras outside their homes to fool would-be burglars, and they had been shown to prevent break-ins. It was much cheaper than continuous monitoring for the rare times when there was a crime.
The casino floor, the shopping area, and exits had cameras behind smoke half domes on the ceilings. Those were probably continuously monitored. However, the cameras with the blinking red lights seemed to be in the hallways of the guest rooms. She couldn’t remember if they were by the elevators.
A pregnant woman opened the door and gestured for Raina to come in. The room was dimly lit, and there were banks of monitors along one wall. In front of the monitors, a man ate his breakfast burrito at the long counter with a central console that had enough buttons, dials, and switches to satisfy a child on the playground. The pregnant woman closed the door and returned to her seat at the counter and the movie playing on her smartphone.
Raina blinked. The hotel-casino was a block behind the Strip, but she still expected security to be more professional. At the corner office—it was more like a broom closet—Hendricks waited with crossed arms. Once Raina stepped into his domain, he closed the door. In contrast to the dimly lit room outside, the fluorescent lights overhead were unnaturally bright and reminded her of an interrogation room.
After they sat down, Hendricks leaned back on his thinly padded office chair and steepled his hands on his chest. There was just enough room for Raina to squeeze into the metal folding chair in front of the battered oak desk. A taller person would bang her knees on the desk each time she shifted. He studied Raina for a long moment.
Raina raised an eyebrow. Was she supposed to be intimidated, especially after the amateur act in the command center? She sat back and crossed her arms, waiting for him to speak first.
Hendricks must have realized that she wasn’t admitting to anything. He swiveled his computer monitor until Raina could see the screen. He tapped on his keyboard. “Can you explain this?”
The display showed two views, one for each of the cameras in the service hall. In one view, a tall, muscular Asian man stepped through the double swinging doors from the casino floor. The man wore a baseball cap and had a full beard.
Raina bit the inside of her cheek to stop from gasping out loud. It was Matthew. Even the grainy black-and-white picture quality couldn’t hide the way her fiancé moved and held himself as if ready for trouble.
In the other view, the service elevator opened, and Claire Boucher stepped out and waited for him outside the laundry room door. Her face looked pinched, and her hands were tucked underneath her armpits like they were cold. She still wore her orange lanyard name tag, but she seemed to have lost her half-moon reading glasses. She shifted from foot to foot while waiting for Matthew and kept glancing at the side door as if expecting someone.
Raina folded her shaking hands on her lap, hiding them from Hendricks’s view. So she had been right—Matthew was on a secret assignment. But she would have never guessed that he would have a rendezvous with the convention organizer. She silently prayed that Claire was killed when Matthew was miles away.
On the screen, Matthew approached Claire, and they disappeared inside the laundry room and closed the door. Ten minutes later, Matthew came out. The full beard hid the expression on his face, but the furrow between his brows told Raina that he wasn’t happy with the meeting. He exited through the side door.
Hendricks paused the video clip. “Do you know this man?”
Raina dragged her attention from the screen and focused on the head of security. Even though a voice was screaming inside her head, she was outwardly calm. Anything less could ruin Matthew’s assignment. Whatever trouble he was in, he only needed time to clear up the misunderstanding. And she was more than willing to help buy him time.
“No,” Raina said through numb lips. “I don’t recognize him.”
Hendricks made a sound that could have been a growl. His fingers stabbed at the keyboard, and the service hall disappeared from the monitor. A new video clip replaced it. On the screen, Raina stood next to Matthew, checking in at the lobby of the hotel-casino a few days ago. The grandmas stood behind them and guarded their luggage.
“Do you know this man?” Hendricks asked. There was steel in his voice.
Raina studied the man with the square head and square body. His beefy form spilled out from the cheap office chair. Even though the command center and the security guards outside were a joke, Hendricks looked like a man who knew how to dig a hole in the desert sand. Okay, she might be slightly intimidated now.
“That’s my fiancé. We were checking in,” she said, hoping she sounded confused. Sometimes the bimbolina act worked with intimidating men. If Hendricks underestimated he
r intelligence, she might leave with nothing worse than a warning.
“Aha! So you do know the laundry room killer.” There was a hint of satisfaction in his too bright eyes.
She blinked. Did he dub the murderer with a nickname? The hooded expression he had shown at the time of the body’s discovery might have been an act to hide his lack of competence. “Who’s the killer? The maid?”
Hendricks placed both hands on the metal desk and leaned forward. “Your fiancé.”
Raina’s heart sped up. She didn’t know if Hendricks was guessing or if he had concrete evidence pointing to Matthew. “The man with the beard? But he’s not my fiancé.”
“It’s the same person,” Hendricks said through gritted teeth. “The beard is a fake.” He tapped on his keyboard again and returned to the service hall and zoomed in on Matthew’s face.
Raina studied the image. It was the first glimpse she had seen of him in over three days. Her fingers twitched as if wanting to touch the screen. “How do you know the facial hair is fake? I can’t tell from the picture quality.”
“Because your fiancé couldn’t have grown a full beard in a few days.”
“The same could be said for any man. I know you think all Asians look alike, but that man is not my fiancé.” Raina grimaced inwardly. Throwing down the race card was a low blow, but it might get Hendricks to back off.
Hendricks raised an eyebrow. “Where is your fiancé now, Miss Sun?”
“He’s working.”
“Where is he working?”
“As I told you before, he’s doing a security upgrade. I thought it was for this hotel because we’re staying here, but he might be working for one of the bigger hotels on the Strip.” There. Maybe Hendricks could relax now that his job wasn’t at stake. She didn’t think Matthew was working for a hotel at all.
“I plan to turn over these videos to the police.”
Raina ignored the bait. She wasn’t groveling over something that was the normal protocol for a murder investigation. “Probably a good idea. Maybe they’ll have someone on the force who can tell Asians apart.”
“You could get thrown in jail as an accessory,” he said in a patronizing tone. “You wouldn’t want to be in there with the drunks and the prostitutes. Vegas isn’t a nice town for a nice girl like you.”
“Are you threatening me?” Raina asked, leaning forward in her seat. “My uncle is one of the highest-paid criminal defense lawyers in San Francisco. And his son clerks for the Supreme Court. Do I need to make a phone call?”
Her extended family was filled with professionals with multiple letters after their names and prosperous entrepreneurs. The Sun branch of the family wasn’t as prestigious, but being Chinese, the family would be more than willing to step in and help the “poor relation.” And she would have to be behind bars with no release in sight before she would call for their help, but Hendricks didn’t know this.
Hendricks swallowed. “That’s for the police to decide. My job is to report criminal activity.”
Raina smiled inwardly. She had made her point, and there was no need to gloat. Time to see if she could squeeze information from the security team. “Can we watch this video clip again? I want to see what happens after the maid put in the laundry. At this point, she didn’t seem to discover the body yet.”
He complied and played the video.
A few minutes later, Raina said, “The killer is one of the maids.”
Hendricks shook his head. “We run background checks on all our employees. None of the women has a history of violence.”
Raina didn’t want to argue. In situations like murder, the killer was a regular person who snapped when pushed to her limit. “Replay the video, and I’ll show you what I see.”
Hendricks replayed the video.
A maid came out of the service elevator and went inside the laundry room. It might have been the woman who cleaned Raina’s room earlier, but she couldn’t tell from the picture quality. Through the open doorway, Raina could see the maid tossing laundry into the industrial washing machines. She glanced at the time stamp at the corner of the screen. 8:25 AM. The first load of laundry.
After the laundry maid started the load, four maids got off the service elevator and went inside the laundry room with full linen bags hanging off their carts. A few minutes later, all five of them came out, two of them pushing the carts, and crossed the service hall.
“Pause here,” Raina said.
Hendricks tapped on the keyboard.
Raina pointed at the screen. “Four maids dropped off dirty linen bags in the laundry room. Two for each cart. Are the maids usually paired up?”
Hendricks shrugged. “I’ll have to ask the head housekeeper. I don’t know their routine.”
“Here we have five maids. The one inside the laundry room joined her co-workers. Notice how all of them are chatting and smiling. They appear to be friends.”
“Yes, I can see this,” Hendricks said with a hint of sarcasm. “What is your point?”
Raina ignored his tone. She couldn’t understand why he didn’t see what she saw. “Just watch. Please hit play again.”
He sighed and tapped on the keyboard.
The maids went inside the storage room. They were inside for a good fifteen minutes. Then four maids went into the service elevator with their carts.
“That’s four of them leaving the scene,” Raina said.
Hendricks grunted in acknowledgment.
On the screen, the last maid returned to the laundry room. A few minutes later, she stumbled into the service hall with wide eyes and fear written across her face. She ran down to the double swinging doors toward the casino floor.
“That’s maid number five,” Raina said.
Hendricks reached for the keyboard.
“Wait,” Raina said. “Let’s see what happens next.”
The video showed an empty hall. The seconds dragged by.
“What are we waiting for?” Hendricks finally asked.
At this moment, a shadow moved in the laundry room.
Raina pointed at it. “There!”
A sixth maid came out of the laundry room. She kept her head tucked close to her neck. The oversized glasses and big hair hid her face. She strolled purposefully toward the double swinging doors.
Before she could go through, a man came in. He said something to her, and she pointed toward the laundry room. As he ran down the service hall, she disappeared through the double doors.
“Where did she come from?” Hendricks asked. The astonishment on his face could have been comedic.
“I think she had been hiding inside the laundry room all this time. Who was the man that spoke to her?”
“He’s one of the pit bosses.”
“Maybe he could identify her,” Raina said.
Hendricks tapped on his keyboard and replayed the entire scene again. When he got to the part where the sixth maid came out of the laundry room, he paused and zoomed in on the woman’s face.
“She could be anybody. The picture quality is too grainy. And I don’t think the pit boss paid enough attention to pick out the killer maid from a lineup.”
“What about the cameras on the casino floor?” Raina asked.
Hendricks cycled through multiple camera feeds, looking for the killer maid. “One camera caught her stepping onto the casino floor, but then she disappeared into the crowd.” He paused the video feed to show the wraparound line waiting for the buffet in front of the service hall entrance.
Raina shook her head. “She didn’t disappear, but she probably transformed her appearance so we can’t find her. She could have taken off her glasses, tucked her hair into a ponytail or a bun. The uniform is a black T-shirt and black pants. Underneath it, she could have on a different color shirt. As she walked through the crowd, she could’ve taken off her shirt. No one would have looked twice or remarked on her actions.”
Hendricks gave Raina a sharp look. “You’re watching too many spy movies. This kind of stu
ff doesn’t happen in real life.”
Raina ignored his comment. “But when did the killer maid go into the laundry room? Can we look at an earlier time? Maybe we can catch her sneaking in.”
Hendricks tapped on his keyboard, bringing up the video feed in the service hall at 7 AM. The video showed several women pushing carts out of the storage room and onto the service elevator. After the women headed upstairs, there was no activity.
With over two thousand rooms, there must be over one hundred maids on the housekeeping staff. Raina counted the fifteen carts. This meant thirty maids regularly used the service elevator in this wing of the building.
Hendricks sped the video feed forward until the side door opened. On the monitor, a maid came into the service hall and disappeared into the laundry room.
Raina glanced at the time stamp. 7:35 AM. “The killer maid timed it perfectly. How did she know when the real maids would clear the area? Is there a posted schedule?”
Hendricks shrugged. “I’m assuming they do their morning tailgate meeting like we do. So they share info for the first fifteen minutes of their shift. And the service elevator can only fit four carts at a time, so it takes a few minutes to get everyone upstairs.”
Raina considered his words. Several rooms in this wing of the building looked out to the loading dock area. An observant person could figure out when the maids came in for their shift based on the activity in the parking lot.
A conversation with one of the maids could probably give the killer maid enough information to figure out there would be a thirty- to forty-minute gap where the service hall would be empty in the morning.
And there was an exit for a quick getaway. It might be why Matthew and Claire decided to meet here. But how did the killer maid know the rendezvous would take place in the laundry room?
“What’s next? Will you talk to housekeeping?” Raina asked.
“I plan to talk to the police about my discovery. You should get back to enjoying your vacation,” Hendricks said.
Raina bristled inwardly at the dismissal in his voice. If this was how he wanted to play the game, she was happy to comply. “So if I find out anything else, I guess you wouldn’t want to know.”