Murder At The Podium

by Alec Peche

  “Did you find Mrs. Johnson’s killer?”

  “Not yet, but I wanted to speak with you about the role of this hotel in Stacy’s murder.”

  “Excuse me! What are you talking about?” exclaimed Amelia.

  “Has Rob Gallagher of security spoken with you today?” Jill asked.

  “He left a message but we haven’t had time to talk yet.”

  “One or two people, we don’t know the answer yet, masqueraded as hotel employees. One of the fake employees was disguised as a maintenance guy and he used technology to create a master key to get into the room that would be assigned to Stacy Johnson. The other fake employee dressed as a room service guy and we believe he delivered a poisoned blueberry muffin to the room before Stacy checked in.”

  “Oh my god,” Amelia said and then when she heard background noise she asked, “Where are you calling from? I thought you were staying at my hotel.”

  “Part of the reason I’m calling you is you may have some staff problems in the hotel. I’m standing outside on the street for this call as I’m not sure if my room has had any listening devices installed in it. It’s rather late at night, so I doubt you’re still at the hotel. Can we meet somewhere to chat? I can take a taxi to a location you name.”

  “Ok, there’s a restaurant called the Italian Room located about nine blocks from where you are. We can grab dessert and a drink. Have the doorman get you a cab and I’ll return you to the hotel. Let’s meet in thirty minutes.”

  Jill affirmed her agreement with the plan and ended the call. She went back inside to collect some materials to take to her meeting with Amelia. She took her laptop including the film clips of Stacy’s room and of her attack that day. Since she had time she also changed from yoga pants and a sweatshirt to jeans, boots and a sweater. Yoga pants were fine when your evening plan was to stay inside your hotel room, but Jill was not one to wear them to do anything other than relax or exercise in. She was down with the doorman awaiting a taxi ten minutes later; laptop bag in one hand and purse containing a can of bug spray in the other.

  As they were waiting the few seconds for the taxi to pull up, the doorman asked, “Got your can of bug spray with you, miss?”

  “I learned my lesson today, so now I’ll never leave the hotel without it,” Jill replied with a smile.

  Minutes later her taxi deposited her at the restaurant and she entered to find a woman standing in the entrance.

  “Are you Amelia Clark?” Jill asked.

  “Yes, you must be Jill,” Amelia replied hand extended for a shake.

  They soon sat in a booth, dessert menus in hand. When the waiter appeared, they both ordered a glass of wine and Jill’s favorite dessert - crème brûlée.

  “I like to check out the competition hotel-wise on occasion, and this restaurant is located in one of my many competitors,” Amelia said.

  “I couldn’t appreciate the building’s full beauty at night, but what I could see, I loved. Any building that has gargoyles on the exterior is a building that screams for further exploration. On the other hand, this is my second stay at your hotel, and I’m very satisfied as a guest.”

  “I appreciate your feedback. Has there been any difference in your two stays? Has one stay been a better experience than the other?”

  “The first stay was mostly for pleasure and I had friends staying here as well. They were pleased with the hotel. We liked all of the places we could walk to from there. We chose your hotel because I had a convention to attend and yours was the convention hotel. We looked at what we wanted to see as tourists and the location was good. So once the trip became pleasure, we stayed put. The service and the restaurant have been consistent and great for both stays.”

  “Thanks I’m glad we met your personal and business needs. So despite the good service I have some problem employees.”

  “You may have problem employees. I’m not sure they’re your employees. I brought three video footage clips, two from your hotel security system and the other from the convention center. This first clip is a man dressed as a maintenance man, but according to Rob Gallagher, he and the room service man, which is the second clip, are not currently employees of the hotel. The third clip is from this afternoon in the parking lot near the convention center. I cancelled my shuttle ride to walk from police headquarters to the hotel and about eight minutes later these men pulled into the parking lot and tried to make my acquaintance,” Jill said then she sat quiet while Amelia watched the three clips on her tablet.

  She had Jill play them three more times, before leaning back in her chair just as their dessert arrived. They both took a few savory tastes of the dessert then Amelia spoke.

  “I don’t know all of my employees by face so if Rob says they’re not ours then I am sure he’s correct. What did each of the men do after the clip? I mean the one guy did something with the room key system but what was the outcome of each of their actions?”

  “My guess is the maintenance guy created a master room card based on the technology he used on the room door,” Jill explained. “He then passed the room key to the room service person who perhaps delivered a poisoned blueberry muffin to an incoming guest, Stacy Johnson. Of course we can’t see what’s under the room service dome, but we know that Stacy ate a blueberry muffin in the two to three hours before her presentation. The convention center offered blueberry muffins as well for attendees, but no one else was sick, so we have to think the muffin came from a different source.”

  “How did these men know which room would be assigned to Stacy?” Amelia said and then followed with, “Oh right they must have hacked into our room reservation system. But then how did they know the room would be empty?”

  “Rob said that another guest had prepaid for that specific room for the night before Stacy’s arrival, but then never checked-in. So housekeeping knew that and saw no reason to enter the room prior to Stacy’s arrival the next day where the blueberry muffin perhaps sat with a note from the convention organizers ‘to enjoy the muffin prior to her talk’. I think most people would have thought that it was a nice gesture and done exactly what Stacy had - ate the muffin the next morning prior to her speech.”

  “So whoever hacked into the reservation system kept the room empty for a night and then assigned Stacy to it,” Amelia noted. “That’s considerable talent and planning that went into a single murder. Who do the police suspect? And this is why you must fear that your room is vulnerable or bugged and I bet you haven’t ordered room service.”

  Jill liked the way the woman talked pulling multiple conclusions and questions into the conversation quickly. She’d bet she was a good leader of the management team in her hotel.

  “Typically in a murder like Stacy’s, the spouse is the usual suspect. Stacy’s husband has a rock solid alibi for the morning of her death as the police checked that at the outset of the case when they thought she was poisoned by the water. They’ll circle back to the husband once we have a clear picture of his role, if any, to your fake hotel employees and my attackers. And you’re right, I haven’t ordered room service since I arrived, I’ve been getting take-out from one of your three hotel restaurants. I have become paranoid about the security of my Wi-Fi and conversations inside the hotel room. I’ll have that fixed tomorrow by getting my own wireless hotspot and having any conversation related to the case outside of the hotel.

  “In regards to my attack this afternoon, I wanted to talk with you about the shuttle driver. The police looked at video inside their building and in the surrounding area and noted no one lurking or surveilling the building. This leads us to conclude that the tip-off to the three men came through your shuttle bus system after I made the call to cancel the ride this afternoon.”

  “Why did you decide to walk this afternoon?” Amelia asked.

  “When I originally came on the case, Stacy’s husband stated that Stacy was a long lost relative of the Sinaloa cartel,” Jill replied. “I was fearful of walking the mile between the hotel and police headquarters
if the cartel was involved as I believe they have infinite resources to kill anyone involved with this investigation. This morning we got DNA evidence back on Stacy that showed she had no ancestral link to the peoples of Mexico or indeed any country of Central or South America. I thought I was then safe to walk. Seems that I was very wrong.”

  “What did you fight those three men off with? Was it pepper spray?”

  Jill laughed and replied, “No it was a can of ordinary bug spray that I purchased at a convenience store on the way here from the airport. Bug spray hurts the eyes and has a longer range than most pepper spray canisters. So that means I can attack from a little farther away and I don’t blind myself. I know you all own guns here, but I felt pretty powerful with my can of bug spray so much that I actually debated for a few seconds chasing down the men and going after the third guy so that the police would have time to apprehend them, but I decided I had been lucky and I should run for the hotel so that’s what I did.”

  Amelia laughed with her and then quieted with, “So you think someone in my shuttle service offered you up to these men. I believe that I’ve contracted for that service with a transport driver service that services many hotels and car rental companies in this city. I’ll have Rob follow-up with them as he manages the contract.”

  “In the past when I needed your shuttle, I called from my room or from police headquarters to your front desk. They in turn arranged for the shuttle, and would give me an estimated time of arrival. So the leak as to my whereabouts could also be coming from your front desk.”

  “Yeah it could, but did you wonder why there were three men in a car so close that they could be in position to harm you so quickly. If you hadn’t cancelled the shuttle, was my driver going to drive you somewhere to make the acquaintance of the three men?”

  Jill shuttered at that thought, and kudos to Amelia for thinking a step beyond where Jill had stopped.

  “Amelia that is a very good observation. Were you a private detective in another life?”

  She laughed and responded, “No I just like the world to make sense and the response time on the three men is a gap in my reasoning.”

  Jill then thought of another alternative and said, “I suppose they could have planned to run the shuttle off the road and harm both the driver and me if I had taken a ride this afternoon. By the way, I hope it doesn’t harm your business, but a cop is going to serve as my driver to and from police headquarters. If it looks bad for your hotel clients, we could arrange a pickup in the loading dock area or I could walk through the convention center and out one of their doors.”

  “Don’t worry about it, I think the average hotel client will see you voluntarily get into the car and not wearing handcuffs and wonder what kind of a VIP you are. You’ll help my image and if anyone looks distressed, my doormen will have a few suggestions about who you really are.”

  “Sounds like a plan. Thanks for meeting with me on such short notice.”

  “No problem; I want to help. The Convention and Visitor’s Bureau and by extension my hotel have already had one client cancel their convention and two others are waiting in the wings for cancellation if this case is not solved within the month. In my case that means I’m losing nine hundred hotel day stays if all three cancel. That’s a lot of revenue so I want to help as much as possible.”

  Shortly they were waiting for Amelia’s car from the valet and ten minutes later Jill was dropped off at the hotel. Upon entering her room, she wondered if anyone had been there in her absence. She looked around the room and saw nothing out of place. She’d taken her laptop with her to meet with Amelia so she was not worried that someone had accessed it. If there were cameras or listening devices planted in the room, so be it. She would have her phone conversations outside this room. She would admit she was creeped out by someone watching her undress so she decided to either turn the lights out before changing clothes or the closet was big enough to go inside. Perhaps she would alternate her methods between those two choices or she could check to see if there was a shower in the spa she could use as a guest. Showering in the dark sounded like a prescription for falling, but it was kind of fun thinking of ways to outsmart any listening or viewing bugs placed in her room.

  Chapter Eighteen

  After an uneventful night, Jill arranged for her police escort and arrived safe and sound to police headquarters. She was thinking about the sophistication of this case. There were different skill sets by the various players in this case so far. There was more than one person involved; it seemed likely there were at least five men and perhaps a sixth one behind the scenes directing the actions of the men. She didn’t have a motive for Stacy’s murder yet. Although she’d caught Adam in some whole-scale lies about Stacy, as Castillo would say, that wasn’t enough to convict him. Then there was the situation with the three men attacking her yesterday. Besides the police and hotel, who knew that she was on the case?

  She’d wanted to speak with the officers conducting surveillance on Adam. She was curious as to what his movements were. Maybe she would even begin surveillance herself on Adam if the Odessa police were unable to keep a constant watch on his movements. It seemed as though there was nothing more to investigate in Dallas. She could just wait for another attack to come her way, but the first one hadn’t yielded any answers, and the next time the outcome of the encounter could be death. She decided to talk about relocating to Odessa with Castillo.

  “Castillo.”

  “Hi it’s Jill. I wanted to talk the case over with you. Do you have a few minutes?”

  “Yes, go ahead.”

  “To be frank, I’ve run out of clues to unearth in Dallas. I think I should get a hotel in Odessa or Midland to get closer to Adam. I haven’t been able to explain a few things in this case like an undocumented individual as part of your crime scene team, but even if I figure it out, it won’t solve the crime. So if I get closer to Adam, I might end up with more clues to follow. ”

  “So he’s your suspect?” asked Castillo.

  “It’s my gut feeling. He told outrageous lies when he hired me and someone doesn’t do that unless they have a lot to hide. Besides I’m bothered by the semi-truck driver’s license. It’s my experience in the past that an inconsistent fact like that is the tip of the iceberg that I need to find under the surface. I think I can do that better if I relocate there. Perhaps I could make the acquaintance of the officers that are tailing him for my own protection and to have a deep conversation about what they have seen so far.”

  After a moment’s pause Castillo said, “Frankly, I agree with you, but let me check with my lieutenant. I’ll give you a call later this morning.

  Jill sat back in her chair and prepared to go through her email. Then she felt a surge of excitement when she saw an email from Jo. She opened and read it, and her surge became a shiver as she grasped the importance of Jo’s comments. Jo’s email read,

  I reviewed the financials of the company that Adam Johnson works for and something strange is going on. I’ve never read the Security and Exchange Commission filings for an oil or gas company, so perhaps I’ve got this wrong. According to reports in Adam’s company’s filings, their operating costs are stable, their oil reserves are dropping (which I would suspect if you’re continuously drawing oil or gas from the earth) and their revenues are climbing. It’s like a cash infusion was pouring into the company because the oil price per barrel had dropped over the past two years. I looked at the management report and there is no explanation of a new technology that would have cut the cost of production by that percentage. I then pulled a few other SEC filings for oil companies and didn’t see the same trend. Maybe an owner or board member is infusing cash from a personal account.

  That’s all I can gather for you on the company. Glad to hear you’re no longer being pursued by the cartel. That, my friend, was making me nervous.

  So what could Adam’s company be doing to infuse cash like Jo mentioned? If she went to Odessa and watched the company perform, it’s
not like she had the expertise to see a brilliant stroke of management decision making. She knew next to nothing about it as an industry. Maybe she should look at the officers of the company and the management team to see what their backgrounds were.

  Castillo got back to her and indicated she had the department’s support to travel to Odessa as long as she made no attempt to contact Adam. He also provided her with the name of his contact in Odessa. He ended with a request for at least twice daily emails of any discoveries she made. She looked up at the clock and decided she wouldn’t wait till tomorrow to travel she’d get a rental car and check out of the hotel and hit the road with the plan to arrive in Odessa by early evening. Midland and Odessa were similar sized cities of around 125,000 people about twenty miles apart. She wanted to reduce her chance of being accidentally seen by Adam, so she would get a motel in Midland and drive a white Ford F-150 truck that would look like a hundred other vehicles on the road. They said everything was bigger in Texas and this included cars. She liked the fact she had this big truck frame around her - it felt like she was in a tank rolling down the highway. She’d hit a department store on her way out of Dallas to purchase a disguise that she planned to put on once she reached her destination. Fortunately, Halloween was coming up and she had a wide choice of items to cover up her appearance.