by Diane Capri
Nancy gave me a huge grin, revealing several stained teeth. But it was warm and inviting, regardless. “Hell, yeah,” she said.
Chapter 13
I opened the door to the break room and went in. Lizzie looked up from her cell phone and frowned.
“Nancy said I’d find you in here.”
“Yeah, I’m on my break.”
“I’m sorry to disturb you. I just had a couple of questions about your husband Lonnie.”
She made a face. “What about him?”
“He knew Thomas Banks?”
Her brow furrowed deeper. “You’re not a cop.”
“I’m not, but I’m just trying to find out what happened to Mr. Banks. I thought maybe you could help me with that.”
“Lonnie didn’t kill him.”
“I believe you.” And I really did believe her, even though my legal background told me to suspect everything until she produced proof. She just had a way about her, a certainty in her statement. I continued. “But maybe the information you give me will help us find who did kill Thomas Banks. Maybe he had other shady activity at the hotel that had nothing to do with Lonnie.”
“It wouldn’t surprise me if he did. He was not a good guy.”
“I’ve heard that.” I pulled out a chair from the table and sat. “What kind of dealings did Lonnie have with Banks?”
“Lonnie borrowed money from him. We were in some trouble with our bank and the mortgage on the house. He got us some money so we wouldn’t have to sell the house or anything.”
I nodded. “That can happen.”
“Well, Lonnie didn’t know that Tommy Banks was going to charge us like forty-percent interest. I mean that’s not right, is it?”
“No, it isn’t.”
“So, Lonnie couldn’t get the money back to him right away. And that jerk showed up at the ferry and threatened to bash Lonnie’s knees if he didn’t pay up.”
“What happened?” My fingers were itching for a notebook and pen. I needed to keep both in my purse in the future for situations like this when I didn’t want to whip out my phone and record interviews or make notes.
“I got the money for him to pay Tommy back.”
“When was this?”
“Six months ago,” she said.
“And Lonnie didn’t have any dealings with him since?”
She shook her head, but she didn’t meet my gaze this time. “Nope.”
“Have you seen Thomas Banks since then?”
She fiddled with her phone.
“Lizzie, you can tell me.”
“I didn’t see Banks. But Lonnie came to the hotel yesterday.”
“Did he meet with Thomas?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know, but he was really mad when he left.”
“What time was this?”
“Around three, I think. I was on my break.”
That could have fit the timeline. I really didn’t want it to be Lonnie. I didn’t know him, but I was starting to get to know Lizzie, and she seemed all right. Just a woman trying to live a decent life in whatever way she could.
I could check the security cameras in the lobby. They might have caught exactly when Lonnie arrived at the hotel and when he left.
“Lonnie didn’t kill Banks. I know he didn’t. There woulda been blood or something on him, right? I mean, from what I heard, the guy’s head was bashed in. And Lonnie’s clothes woulda been wet, right? Wasn’t Banks found in the pool?” She reached across the table and grabbed my hand. “You believe me, don’t you?”
“Yeah, I do.” But believing her wasn’t proof that her husband was innocent.
“Don’t tell the sheriff. He doesn’t like Lonnie much.”
“Why’s that?”
“Luke and I went to school together; we were sweet on each other for a bit. Then Lonnie rolled into town, and that was that for me. I fell for him hard. I think I mighta broke Luke’s heart.” She shrugged.
“I’m sure he doesn’t hold grudges.”
She laughed. “Yeah, you definitely don’t know the sheriff.”
After I left the laundry, I returned to the concierge desk. Nicole was covering for me, and she was just itching for a reason to complain about me to Lois and Eric. However much I tried to be nice to her, she was never friendly. I wasn’t sure what she thought—that I was going to steal Eric from her? Which was laughable. But she wouldn’t believe me if I told her that. She’d already made up her mind that I was a homewrecker.
When I arrived, her frown was etched so deep she looked like a ventriloquist’s dummy. “You were gone longer than you said you’d be.”
“I’m sorry about that.”
“Uh-huh. Lois wants to help you, and you’re Ginny’s friend and all. But it’s really not fair that I have to take time out of my day to cover for you. Don’t expect me to do it again.” Then she walked away.
For the next couple of hours, I fielded calls and helped a few guests with travel arrangements. When the desk wasn’t busy, I scrolled through the hotel’s Facebook page trying to find a picture of Lonnie Morehead.
I lucked upon one post about last year’s Flower Festival. It had pictures of all the hotel staff and their families. I spotted Lizzie with her arm around a lanky man with a beard and mustache. He looked like the classic fisherman.
During all of this, I was thinking about how I was going to get into the security control room to find footage of Lonnie coming and going from the hotel. I wasn’t confident that Joe, the head of security, was just going to let me have a look. I needed a way in. I could’ve asked Ginny, but she’d already given me the lecture about not getting involved in the investigation. I didn’t really want to hear it again.
Which was when I spotted Eric crossing the lobby floor toward his office.
I stepped out from behind the concierge desk. “Hey, Eric. How are you today?”
“Fine?” He frowned.
“I need a favor.”
“What kind of favor?”
“Don’t look at me like I’m going to ask you for one of your kidneys.”
He laughed. “The last time you asked me for a favor, Ginny got pissed at me for helping you plastic wrap her bed in the dorm that one night.”
“Oh God.” I burst out laughing. “I forgot about that.”
It was the one and only time I had pulled a prank like that. My behavior had definitely been fueled by alcohol. Another something that I didn’t normally do back then was drink. If I remembered correctly, my night of mischief had been prompted by a C+ I’d received on a term paper. Like all teenagers everywhere with big ambition, I was sure my life was over. So I threw caution to the wind and got drunk.
“She didn’t talk to me for a week,” Eric said.
“Really? I didn’t know that. It was so funny, though.”
He shook his head. “Ginny didn’t think so.”
“Well, I’m not going to ask you to plastic wrap anything. I just need access to the security office so I can help a guest who lost his wallet. He thinks it was stolen, but I’m betting he misplaced it.” This wasn’t exactly a lie. I had helped a guest with his wallet situation. And it was the best excuse I could come up with for looking at the security videos right now.
“Another lost wallet?” Eric said.
I nodded to avoid telling a flat out lie. He looked at me for a long moment, and I thought he might decline my request.
“Well, let’s hope we don’t find another body. One murder a week is about all Lois can handle,” he joked. Then he said, “Yeah, okay.”
I told Lane at the reception desk that I was going with Eric for just a moment, and then I followed him to the control room. No one was inside when he opened the door. I didn’t need to be all clandestine about the situation. I could’ve just walked in. But I didn’t know how the system worked, so having Eric with me, even under false pretenses, saved me from fiddling around and possibly breaking something. Then I’d have a lot of explaining to do.
Eric sat at the desk in
front of the four monitors. He typed some command onto the keyboard.
“Are there cameras in the spa?”
He shook his head. “We just have cameras in the lobby, at the other entrances, and at the back for deliveries. We had someone try to break in one night back there. The cameras saved our butts.”
Dammit. That was too bad. Cameras in the spa would have helped a lot.
“So, when and where?”
“The lobby, yesterday between two and seven.”
He paused and gave me a look, and I wondered if he had recognized that as the time-of-death window for Thomas Banks. If he did, he didn’t say anything and pressed some buttons on the keyboard, pulling up the footage I needed.
Peering over his shoulder, I watched on all four monitors the comings and goings of everyone through the lobby. I saw myself at the concierge desk on one of the monitors. I didn’t look half bad on camera. My hair could’ve used some highlights, though. It was looking a bit mousy. “Can you speed it up a bit?”
He did as asked. My gaze flicked from monitor to monitor looking for Lonnie. At timestamp 2:35 p.m., I spotted him entering the hotel. “Stop.”
Eric stopped the footage. “Did you see something?”
I looked over the image, making sure it was indeed Lonnie. Convinced it was, I asked Eric to keep forwarding. Then at 3:10 p.m., I saw Lonnie leaving the hotel.
“Stop!”
I peered at the monitor, scrutinizing Lonnie’s body language. There was no way he had time to meet with Thomas, kill him, drag his body into the closet, go see his wife, and then leave. I sighed and straightened, no longer leaning over Eric. Although I wanted to find the killer, I was relieved Lonnie didn’t have the opportunity, even if he did have a solid motive.
Eric frowned at me. “Are we good? Did you get what you needed?”
I nodded. “Yeah. I think so. Just keep going a bit more, though. Please.” He continued to fast-forward through the footage. Then something caught my eye on the upper right monitor, the one that was nearest the pool and spa. “Stop.”
Frontenac City Mayor Daniel Evans was coming out from that corridor at 6:15 p.m. wearing one of the spa robes and slippers. An hour before I’d found Thomas Banks dead.
Chapter 14
A bit rattled, I returned to the concierge desk to find pandemonium erupting in the lobby. The women who worked in the spa were freaking out and talking to the front reception about a pipe bursting or something, as there was a flood in the men’s changing room. Lois wasn’t on the premises, so Ginny and Eric came running.
“Did someone call housekeeping?” Eric asked.
One of the spa ladies, Carmen, nodded. “I also called maintenance but couldn’t get through.”
“Damn it,” Eric cursed. “I’m pretty sure Mick is off the island for the day.”
“There’s no one else we can call?” I asked.
“I called Oleg from Gromeko Plumbing,” Lane offered. “He said he’d be here in less than an hour.”
“In an hour, this lobby could be flooded,” Eric said.
“You got tools?” I asked.
The three of us, plus Nancy and Tina from housekeeping, went into the spa to see if we could at least plug the leak and clean up the mess. Water pooled on the tiled floor of the men’s changing room when we entered. My new shoes were definitely going to be ruined.
Nancy and Tina started mopping up the water as Ginny, Eric, and I searched for the source of the leak. There were ten shower stalls, a big private hot tub, a dry sauna, and a steam room in the area. The water had to be coming from one of those sources. Eric grabbed a wrench and headed toward the hot tub. Ginny marched toward the steam room, and I was stuck with going through the shower stalls.
I sloshed through the water and stepped into the first stall. There was no obvious bubbling-up of water near the drain, so I went to the next one. Then the next and the next. In the last stall near the inner wall, something on the floor caught my eye. One of the tiles seemed to be loose near the drain. Crouching, I tested it, and it wobbled a bit. Using the wrench I had brought, although I didn’t know why I had—it wasn’t like I knew how to use the darn thing—I pried it under the tile. The tile popped loose pretty easily.
Expecting to just see a concrete floor, I was surprised to find a bit of an open space underneath. Cringing at the thought of what might be in there, I reached in and felt around. Maybe something had clogged up the drain. I expected to find a massive clump of hair and soap flakes. What I didn’t expect to find was a rolled-up towel jammed inside.
I tugged the towel out; it was larger than I’d first thought. There was something inside of it. I took it to the counter by the hand dryers and unrolled the white terry cloth to discover a man’s suit jacket and pants—dark blue—and a white dress shirt. There was a dark stain on the right sleeve cuff.
Wishing I had brought gloves, I stuck my hand into the pant pockets. Both were empty. Then I checked the jacket pockets. They were empty, but something poked my palm. I flipped the jacket around and heard the soft tink of something metallic falling onto the tile. I looked down, searching the floor. At first, I didn’t see anything, and then something shiny caught my eye. I crouched and picked up a gold bar stud earring. It was heavy, and I imagined, as a pair, they’d cost close to five hundred bucks. Here was one, so where was the other? And what was it doing in the suit wrapped in the towel? A leftover from a wife or girlfriend maybe?
Ginny had come up behind me. “What’s that?” Her eyes bugged out when she saw what I had discovered. “What the hell?”
“We need to call the sheriff.”
Chapter 15
Sheriff Jackson arrived twenty minutes later with his two deputies in tow. Frowning, he peered at the suit and shirt I had splayed out on the counter.
“That’s definitely odd,” he finally said after I had explained where I found it and what had prompted the discovery.
“It’s obviously evidence,” I said. “The killer must’ve broken into the spa after he killed Thomas Banks, took off his clothing—as it was most likely soaked from pool water—showered, and then hid the evidence.” I pointed to the stain on the shirt. “That’s obviously blood.”
“A lot of assumptions, Ms. Steele.” He took off his hat and ran a hand through his dark hair. “What did he leave in? I think someone would’ve noticed a naked man walking through the hotel.”
“One of the robes. Plenty of guests come from the pool and spa in robes and go back to their rooms.”
He secured his hat back on his head and nodded toward Eric. “Are there security cameras outside this spa?”
Eric shook his head. “No, unfortunately. We only have cameras in the lobby and in the back near the delivery areas.”
“There’s an emergency exit door to the stairwell in the corridor. It goes to all the floors of the rooms,” I said. “The killer could’ve walked up those stairs and gone back to his room without much fuss.”
The sheriff looked at me, eyebrow raised.
“I checked the other night.”
“Of course you did.”
“At least I’m doing—”
Ginny slung her arm through mine. “Let’s let the sheriff do his job, okay?”
I didn’t say anything, allowing her to steer me away. I glanced over my shoulder and saw the sheriff putting the suit into a plastic bag. At least he was treating it like evidence. Jesus, what was it going to take? Me handing him a card that read, Professor Plum, in the library with the candlestick?
“You’re welcome,” I called over my shoulder.
He gave me a look but didn’t respond. I imagined if we were alone, he’d respond all over me.
Before Ginny dragged me out of the spa, I heard the sheriff tell his deputies to search the place thoroughly for other items…and in particular, for a cell phone. That made my ears perk up. There must not have been a phone found on the body. They were looking for the victim’s phone.
When we returned to the lobby, Lois showed
up, none too pleased.
“What the hell is going on?” She glared at Ginny. “I can’t even leave this place for more than a few hours, and it’s falling apart?”
“Lois, if I may, this isn’t Ginny’s fault. The spa flooded because of something out of anyone’s control,” I said.
“I’m not even sure why you two are involved in this. You,” she pointed at Ginny, “should be seeing to our business guests. And you,” she pointed at me, “should be seeing to our regular guests, not off playing Nancy Drew.”
“Mom,” Ginny started but was cut off with a scathing scowl.
“Do your jobs, and I’ll see to everything else,” she snapped. And off she marched to the spa…to yell at the sheriff, I could only imagine.
I rubbed Ginny’s back. “Don’t worry about it. She’s just angry at the whole thing. She’s not mad at you.”
“She’s always mad at me. I can’t seem to do anything right in her eyes.”
“Well, at least she’s here when you need her. I haven’t talked to my mother in almost a year.”
She gave me a small smile. “I better go check in on the meetings. I’ll see you later.”
I returned to the concierge desk just in time to help a panicked mother of the bride find a new dress, as the one she was wearing had a wine stain so large it would’ve taken a whole team of cleaners to erase. I called a boutique store that was thankfully still open and had them pick out several dresses in her size so she could go there, try them on, and buy one before the big event. The wedding was in a mere three hours outside in the garden. I loved night weddings, and I wished her well, after procuring her a ride to the store and back. She thanked me profusely, even coming around the desk and hugging me, then went on her way. The hug was nice. I didn’t realize how much I needed one right about now. But she likely would’ve objected if I’d clung to her for too long.
While I counted down the minutes until I was done for the day, one hundred minutes and counting, I thought about the suit I’d found. It was a 44 regular and blue—cobalt blue, if I wanted to be completely accurate. So, whoever had worn it was definitely of average size. Not too tall and not too short. Not fat and not really thin, either. Basically, it did narrow down the suspects a little, but not by much. I was looking for a man between five-eight and five-eleven, 175 to 200 pounds, who would totally rock a cobalt-blue suit. I’d seen a lot of men wearing a similar getup coming into the hotel for the chamber of commerce meeting. But only one of them looked great in that blue suit.