“You’re right. That’s it up ahead. The yellow building on the right.”
A large, faded sign hanging over the entrance read HOTEL GARCIA. The colonial era structure, painted a cheerful sunshine yellow, possessed a welcoming façade. A couple of young boys, probably no older than twelve, rushed toward the Jeep the moment Maleah parked in front of the hotel. Both began jabbering quickly, too quickly for Maleah to understand much of what they said. Her Spanish was so-so at best, and local dialects left her baffled.
Derek got out of the Jeep, pulled two five-dollar bills from his pocket, and handed one to each of the boys. Maleah understood that he had paid them to keep an eye on the Jeep and figured that had been his way of getting the pesky kids to leave them alone.
The interior of Hotel Garcia surprised her. The lobby floors were a colorful terra-cotta tile and the wooden staircase boasted an elaborately carved balustrade. The very pregnant clerk behind the check-in desk rose from the chair where she was sitting and flipping through a magazine. She looked up and offered them a wide, welcoming smile.
“Welcome to Hotel Garcia,” the woman said in heavily accented English.
“We’re looking for a man who works here,” Maleah said. “Kyle Richey.”
“Is he here now?” Derek asked.
“Sí, sí. Kyle is here.” She turned and looked at the closed door directly behind her. “In his office.”
Maleah and Derek exchanged glances. “Please tell Mr. Richey that we would like to speak to him.”
She nodded. “Sí.” She knocked on the door, called out “Kyle,” and opened the door.
A tall, slender man with shoulder-length brown hair secured in a ponytail rose from behind an old wooden desk and spoke to the woman in Spanish. They conversed briefly and the man, whom Maleah recognized from old photos, came out into the lobby.
“I’m Kyle Richey,” he said. “I’m the manager here at Hotel Garcia. How may I help you?”
“Mr. Richey, I’m Maleah Perdue and this”—she nodded to Derek—“is my associate, Derek Lawrence. We work for the Powell Private Security and Investigation Agency based in Knoxville, Tennessee.”
Richey grunted. “Did one of my ex-wives hire you to track me down?”
“No, sir,” Maleah replied. “We’re here concerning the recent murders of three actors you worked with when you were a cameraman for Starlight Productions.”
Richey frowned. “Who was murdered? Dare I hope it was that bastard Sonny Deguzman?”
“Mr. Deguzman was not one of the victims,” Derek said, “but considering your past history, I can see why you might want the man dead.”
“Yeah, I wouldn’t shed a tear if someone had bumped him off.”
“The victims were Dean Wilson, Hilary Finch, and Charles Wong.” Maleah studied him closely, examining his response.
“Damn! Wilson was okay, I guess, even if he was every bit as much a prima donna as Hilary. Those two were a match made in hell.” He chuckled. “And everybody liked Charlie. What the hell happened to them?”
“I believe I told you that they were murdered,” Maleah said.
“Who killed them?”
“We don’t know. We were hoping you might be able to help us with our investigation.”
“Hey now, you don’t suspect me, do you? The only body I had anything against was Sonny. And he isn’t dead, is he?”
“What about your ex-wife, Charlene Strickland? Considering the fact that you nearly killed her when you discovered she was having an affair with Sonny and wound up spending several years in prison for assault, I would imagine you still harbor some ill will toward her.”
Richey’s face flushed. He glanced at the hotel clerk. She came to him and slipped her arm around his waist.
“Luisa knows about my past.” Richey placed his hand over the woman’s protruding belly. “I’ve made a new life for myself since my release from prison four years ago. Luisa and I got married and we’re expecting our first child in about three weeks. I’ve put the past in the past. I have no reason to want to harm anybody connected to my days as a cameraman with Starlight Productions.”
“I’d like to believe you,” Maleah said. “Can you account for your whereabouts since the first of the year? Have you made any trips across the border, say to Tennessee or Arizona?”
Luisa began speaking rapidly in Spanish. Richey hugged her to him and whispered softly. She stopped talking immediately and smiled at him.
“I haven’t left Mexico in well over a year. Hell, I haven’t left San Pedro since before Christmas when I took Luisa to Mexico City to visit her folks.”
“Let’s say that we believe you.” Derek looked directly at Richey. “We can eliminate you as a suspect, but not necessarily as a potential victim. Have you received any threatening letters recently?”
“Threatening letters?” Richey looked genuinely puzzled by the question.
“Our three victims all received letters telling them that they were going to die,” Maleah said. “As have other actors who were in Midnight Masquerade.”
“Well, I’ll be damned. No, I haven’t gotten any threatening letters. Maybe whoever is doing the killing is just after the actors.”
“Possibly,” Derek said. “Any chance you’d know someone from your past who would have a reason to want to kill the actors from that particular movie?”
Richey shook his head. “Not really. Unless, of course, Travis Dillard actually followed through with some threats that I heard he made.”
“Explain,” Maleah said.
Richey shrugged. “It was years ago. But word was that when Hilary quit the business, Dillard threatened her. She was his biggest star and everybody knew he was hung up on her. He would have married her in a heartbeat, if she’d have had him. Could be he finally made good with his threat and he killed the other two to make it look like Hilary was just one of several victims.”
“Interesting theory,” Derek said. “You know Dillard’s dying, don’t you? Stage four pancreatic cancer.”
“Wish I could say I was sorry, but what goes around comes around. Dillard treated me okay, I guess, but the man was a real SOB.”
Maleah couldn’t agree with Richey more. Dillard was a real SOB. But he had no history of violence, where on the other hand, Kyle Richey did. He had almost killed his ex-wife, Charlene Strickland, another Midnight Masquerade alumna. Was it possible that his theory of killing several people to cover up the motive for a single murder was his idea and that Charlene was his real target?
Mike could have sent one of his deputies to inform Lorie that Hicks Wainwright had recommended to his superiors that an FBI task force be formed ASAP. And it was possible that the Powell Agency already knew and had informed Shelley Gilbert.
As he stood on the sidewalk outside of Treasures of the Past, he tried to rationalize his reasons for being here. He was just doing his duty as the county sheriff. Jack and Cathy would appreciate him taking a personal interest in Lorie’s case.
Yeah, sure, whatever you have to tell yourself.
Just as he reached to open the door, a customer came out of the shop, someone he recognized, but he couldn’t recall her name. The woman paused, smiled at him, and said, “Afternoon, Sheriff.”
“Afternoon,” he replied, still unable to remember exactly who the middle-aged woman was.
Glancing inside, he noticed Shelley busily running a feather duster over a section of china and glassware that occupied several antique cabinets arranged in the left back corner on a raised platform. From that vantage point, she could see just about every square foot of the shop, including the checkout counter. He suspected that whoever had leaked the info about Lorie being under twenty-four/seven protection hadn’t realized the trouble they had caused. He figured that at least half of the small crowd milling around inside the shop were curiosity seekers and not customers. Gossip traveled fast in these parts. It was only a matter of time before the entire town knew. And if—make that when—Ryan Bonner convinced his boss at th
e Huntsville Times to run the exposé on Lorie that he had planned, everyone in north Alabama would follow the story of the former Playboy centerfold whose life was being threatened by someone from her sordid past.
Mike walked over to the checkout counter where Lorie was busy wrapping a silver tea service in bubble wrap.
“Busy afternoon,” he said.
“You should have been here earlier,” she told him. “When Shelley and I arrived at eleven, we had a block-long line waiting to get in.”
“Selling much?”
“More than I thought I would. Mostly small stuff, knickknacks and such. Of course, my feeling like a bug under a microscope has been an added bonus. Apparently a lot of the folks I know and some that I don’t are curious to see what a real bodyguard looks like. I think Shelley has been a disappointment to most of them. They were probably expecting some big, broad-shouldered guy wearing sunglasses and an earpiece and brandishing a semiautomatic.”
Mike grinned. “Glad to see you haven’t lost your sense of humor.”
Returning his smile, she gently placed the wrapped tea set items into a heavy cardboard box and set the box under the counter. “I have a customer who wants this shipped to her daughter in Birmingham as a birthday present.”
Mike nodded. “I’ve got some good news and some bad news.”
“Good news first, please.”
Mike leaned across the counter and lowered his voice. “Special Agent Wainwright is contacting his superiors and requesting a task force be formed. Now we’ll have not only the Powell Agency hunting down the killer, but the FBI, too.”
“The more manpower, the better. Right?”
“Right.”
“Do I want to hear the bad news?” she asked.
“This morning, Ryan Bonner’s boss at the Huntsville Times sent one of the newspaper’s legal eagles to represent our overeager reporter. We had to release Bonner.”
“Then he’s free to write his exposé.”
“I’m afraid so, if his boss gives him the green light.”
“As if knowing someone plans to kill me isn’t bad enough, now I’m faced with the possibility that my daily life will become a living hell again,” Lorie whispered as she glanced around to make sure no one overheard her.
Mike knew she was as aware as he was that all of her customers were watching the two of them. To a person, everyone in the store pretended to be shopping while they strained to overhear their conversation.
Suddenly Lorie clapped her hands together, the action momentarily startling Mike and gaining everyone’s attention. “Ladies”—glancing around, she spotted four men scattered about in the shop—“and gentlemen, I have an announcement. As most of you know, I’m Lorie Hammonds, one of the owners of Treasures of the Past. I’m sure all of you know our sheriff, Mike Birkett.”
Mike threw up his hand as he looked around the shop at all the inquisitive faces. He had no idea exactly what Lorie was up to, but whatever it was, apparently he was right smack-dab in the middle of it.
“But there’s someone here y’all don’t know,” Lorie told them. “Shelley, wave at the folks, will you?” Taken by surprise, a what-the-hell-are-you-doing? expression on her face, Shelley waved the feather duster. “Shelley is my bodyguard. You’ll be seeing her here at the shop every day. She’ll be with me wherever I go. She carries a big gun and knows how to use it. She’s been hired to protect me. It seems that my wicked past has finally caught up with me and somebody wants to see me dead.”
The crowd buzzed with excitement, everyone talking at once, the din growing louder by the second.
“Why the hell did you do that?” Mike demanded.
“I honestly don’t know,” Lorie admitted. “It just felt right.”
As Shelley made her way through the crowd of at least twenty-five customers, everyone she passed took several steps back, as if they weren’t a hundred percent sure she wouldn’t use her big gun on them.
Mike cleared his throat. “Show’s over for today, folks. If you’re buying something, line up and check out. If you’re not buying anything, please exit through the front door. Ms. Hammonds is closing up shop”—he glanced at his wristwatch—“in ten minutes.”
“Shutting me down, Sheriff?” she asked, a deceptively perky smile curving her lips. “Afraid I’ll cause a riot?”
He ignored her and turned to Shelley as she approached. “I think you should take Lorie home and let her calm down. She’s not thinking straight at the moment. Otherwise she wouldn’t have made a public spectacle of herself.”
“I’m thinking perfectly straight, thank you very much,” she told him. “And if you think that little confession was making a public spectacle of myself, then just stick around until I do show-and-tell.”
“Sheriff Birkett is right,” Shelley said. “I don’t know what set you off, but you are acting irrationally.”
Lorie huffed. “Two against one. It’s not fair.” She giggled.
“Damn,” Mike cursed under his breath. “Escort her out the back way and take her home,” he told Shelley. “I’ll get rid of all these people and close up the shop.”
“Isn’t he forceful and commanding,” Lorie said to Shelley. “My big, strong hero.”
“Get your purse, Lorie,” Shelley said. “We’re doing as the sheriff suggests and going home now.”
Lorie retrieved her purse from beneath the counter, pulled a key chain from inside, and tossed it to Mike. “Lock up for me, honey.” Then she turned around and went through the shop and out the back way, with Shelley at her side.
“Sorry, folks, I’ll have to ask everyone to leave the shop now. Please do so quickly and orderly,” Mike said.
When the customers began leaving, following his instructions, Mike heaved a deep sigh of relief. He hadn’t seen Lorie act this way since they were teenagers and she’d gotten royally ticked off. The young Lorie had been a firecracker, her actions emotional and often illogical. She reacted first and thought things through later. That specific personality flaw had been what had prompted her to go to LA seventeen years ago, believing that fame and fortune awaited her. Not until it was too late had she realized that she’d chosen to walk a tightrope without a safety net under her.
The woman needed a keeper. Always had and always would.
There had been a time when he would have gladly taken that job, taken it for a lifetime. But that was then and this was now.
Chapter 15
On Saturday morning, Special Agent Hicks Wainwright held a press conference in Birmingham announcing the formation of a task force that would investigate three recent murders believed to be the work of a serial killer. He kept the facts to a minimum, stating that the two of three murders occurred in Tennessee and the third in Arizona. When asked, he gave the names of the three victims, but did not elaborate on anything about them or their deaths.
Mike Birkett sat in his den, his television tuned in to Birmingham’s ABC 34/40 station, and watched the interview as he drank his fourth cup of coffee. Wainwright had phoned him late last night to tell him about the scheduled interview.
At 7:00 A.M., Hannah and M.J. were both still in bed. Saturday was the one day of the week during the school year they could sleep late. In his effort to be a good parent, Mike censored what his kids watched on TV, but with him being the sheriff, he had found it impossible to shield them from the local news reports. If they didn’t see it on TV and he didn’t explain what was going on, one of their classmates was bound to fill them in. And more often than not, they were misinformed and he’d have to go into more detail than he liked in order to correct the erroneous facts.
“Is there a specific reason you were chosen to head the task force?” a female reporter asked Wainwright. “You work out of the field office here in Birmingham and none of these murders occurred in Alabama.”
“I can’t be specific concerning the reasons I was chosen,” Wainwright told her. “But I want to reassure the citizens of our state that we believe the general population
is in no danger from this killer. We have reason to believe he—or she—has targeted someone in Alabama, as well as several other states. And before anyone asks, no, we will not release the identities of the potential victims to the media.”
“Even if you can’t give us their names, can you tell us anything else about these potential victims?” a bespectacled, white-haired reporter asked.
“No, I’m afraid not.”
“Then what can you tell us about why the FBI believes the killer is targeting these particular people?” a familiar voice called out from the crowd of TV, newspaper, and magazine reporters.
The camera panned across the media swarm and stopped on the speaker.
“Son of a bitch!” Mike cursed under his breath.
There stood Ryan Bonner, all five feet ten inches of brash and inquisitive trouble. Big trouble.
“In order to protect those involved, I’m afraid that information must remain classified.” Wainwright pointed to another reporter, who had held up his hand and waved frantically.
Before his colleague got out a single word, Ryan Bonner called in a loud, demanding tone, “Isn’t it a fact that the three victims were former adult film stars and that the potential victim in Alabama is also a former porno actor?”
“No comment,” Wainwright said and pointed again to the other eager reporter.
“Any comment on the fact that the one film the three victims and our Alabama connection have in common is titled Midnight Masquerade?” Bonner shouted.
“Again, no comment.” Wainwright visibly tensed as the camera zeroed in on two agents who approached Ryan Bonner and escorted him out of the press conference.
Mike cursed again, mumbling the obscenities to himself. Everybody in town knew the title of Lorie’s one and only movie. And now it was simply a matter of time before that damn eager beaver reporter, Bonner, put the information in the newspaper for everyone to read about, think about, snicker about. Lorie would have to relive the shame of her past all over again, just as she had when she had first returned to Dunmore.
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