Crypt Suzette

by Maya Corrigan

  “Maybe he was afraid she’d kept incriminating information about him on her computer.”

  “Then he’s ditched the computer by now. Would Suzette have blackmailed him if she found out about his burglaries?”

  “She wasn’t stupid. She’d have gone to the police about a crime like that. In the past she handled bad behavior, like bullying or leash-law violations, by confronting the wrongdoer directly. My guess is she discovered some kind of misconduct by Nick and approached him to stop it.” Val rested her left hand on her head to elevate her wrist. “The night before the hit-and-run, Suzette met Nick at the Bugeye Tavern and had a far from friendly discussion with him.”

  After a moment of silence, the chief said, “You’ve been snooping.”

  “I won’t deny it. Suzette thought someone was following her in a black car. You might want to check the color of Nick’s car.”

  “The paint bits collected at the scene and on the victim’s clothing weren’t a dark color.”

  Whoever had been following Suzette in a black car either hadn’t run her down or had used a different car, but that car might be traceable. “Isn’t there a way to analyze a paint chip and match it to a car model?”

  “Yes, but we don’t have a chip. We’ve got microscopic paint fragments from the thin color coat used on newer cars. The analysis isn’t as accurate. The accident reconstruction experts didn’t rule out an intentional hit-and-run, but they also didn’t find definitive evidence of it. Hard to believe hitting her was deliberate. If you want to kill folks on an empty road, a drive-by shooting works better than bumping them with a car.”

  “Maybe bumping her was supposed to be a warning or a threat.” Val wondered if the driver in the parking lot had intended to warn or threaten her. “Don’t mention this to Granddad, Chief, but someone nearly ran me over this morning.”

  “What?” The chief’s voice was so loud that Val held the phone away from her ear. “Tell me what happened,” he said more quietly.

  She described the incident, and he peppered her with questions. Had she observed anything out of the ordinary in the parking lot when she drove in? Only the darkness because of the storm. Did she generally arrive at work around the same time? Yes. Did she notice the color, type, size, or anything at all about the car?

  “Based on the height of the fender, I think it was small to medium size, not an SUV. The headlights weren’t on.” Tired of elevating her wrist, Val rested her hand on her lap. “I keep asking myself why anyone would want to go after me. Maybe I’ve dug up incriminating information, but I have no idea what it is.”

  “You can quit digging right now, and leave this to us. The Treadwell police will haul in Nick Hyde for questioning.”

  “I hope they question him about where he was on Sunday morning when Suzette was run over. In case Nick has a solid alibi, there’s another person whose whereabouts that morning you should check—Lloyd Leerman, Suzette’s mother’s ex-boyfriend. Suzette wrote what sounded like a memoir about her experience with Lloyd, who demanded sexual favors when her mother wasn’t around.”

  “Your granddaddy told me about it. He brought me the USB drive with Suzette’s files on it. We made copies of those. I sent an officer to search her room, hoping to find a key to a storage unit or a safety deposit box. No luck.”

  At last! The chief was at least rethinking his assumption that the hit-and-run was an accident. “She might have left things with her cousin, who’s coming this afternoon to pick up personal items from Suzette’s room. Do you want to talk to her while she’s in Bayport?”

  “Yes. Ask her to call me.”

  When he hung up, Val pulled back onto the road, convinced for the first time that the truth about Suzette’s death would come out before long. Amazing that Granddad’s ghost hunting had led to progress on the case.

  Granddad was napping in his lounge chair when Val got home. She unwrapped her wrist and put an icepack on it for ten minutes. Then she wrapped it again, woke him up to tell him that Suzette’s cousin would be there around three thirty, and drove to the Harbor Inn. Usually, she would have walked to the inn, but she was pressed for time. She didn’t want to miss Maria leaving work.

  Chapter 22

  Val lingered outside the four-foot-high brick wall surrounding the Harbor Inn parking lot. To make herself less recognizable, she’d tucked her distinctive curly hair under a baseball cap and turned her back to the inn. She held her phone against her ear to suggest she’d stopped to take a call.

  When she spotted Maria coming out of the parking area alone, Val was elated. She stepped away from the wall. “Hello, Maria.”

  The maid looked startled and then smiled. “My prayers were answered. I hoped to see you.”

  Really? She hadn’t skittered away this time, so maybe it was true. “Let’s walk along River Road. It’s quiet there.” And no one from the hotel would see them together.

  Maria fell into step next to Val. “The police came and took Nick Hyde away. Do you know why?”

  Val studied her. Maria didn’t look worried about Nick, just curious. “They think he committed crimes.”

  Maria’s brown eyes grew wide. “Because Suzette told them?”

  That convinced Val that Suzette—and probably Maria—knew exactly what Nick had been up to, and maybe it wasn’t just burgling houses. “Suzette didn’t have a chance to speak to the police before she died. But she and Nick talked on Saturday night, not in a friendly way.”

  “Madre de Dios! Maybe he killed her so she cannot talk to the police.” Maria hugged herself, as if shivering under her gray sweat jacket. “I wish I said nothing to her about it.”

  About what? Val took a stab at the subject Maria and Suzette had discussed. “You wish you didn’t talk to her about the maids?”

  Maria nodded. “She told you too? She was angry and wanted to help them. She said she would keep records, dates, and times.”

  Dates and times. Val thought about the spreadsheet Suzette had saved on her thumb drive. Each row had a date, a time, a three-digit number, and a letter. Maybe those three digits—all starting with a two, three, or four—were room numbers in the four-story inn. The remaining column in the spreadsheet must relate to the maids. “Who were the maids Suzette was concerned about?”

  Maria stopped walking. “No names.”

  Val didn’t need names. She just wanted to know if the last column in the spreadsheet could possibly refer to the maids. She tried to remember which letters appeared in that column. Two vowels, an E and an A, as well as a J and another consonant. The J rang a bell. The first maid she’d questioned on Sunday had worn a name tag. Juana. What about the other letters? “I know you don’t want to give me anyone’s name, Maria. But could you tell me if one of the maids Suzette tried to help has a name starting with A?”

  Maria nodded.

  “Does the name of another one start with E?”

  Maria’s jaw dropped. “How do you know this?”

  “I’ve found the records Suzette was keeping. She didn’t have any names in them, but she used the first letter of each maid’s name. Please help me understand why Suzette was keeping records. I can tell the police what Nick was doing without giving them any names.”

  Maria looked out at the river behind the houses on the street. “Is Nick coming back to work?”

  “I don’t know. He’s in serious hot water.” Noting Maria’s puzzled look, Val rephrased her statement. “He is in a lot of trouble that has nothing to do with his job at the inn. Once the police find out he also did something wrong at the inn, he will never, ever work there again.”

  “Okay. I’ll tell you. He follows the young girls into the rooms when they are doing housekeeping. He kisses them and touches them where he shouldn’t. He says they will lose their job if they tell anyone.” Maria turned from the water and made eye contact with Val. “They need to make money. They have papers. They are legal, but some have family who are not legal, and they don’t want problems. I told them they could trust her.�
�

  Suzette’s reaction to a playground bully suggested she would stand up to Nick. “Did Suzette ask the girls to tell her where and when he bothered them?”

  Maria nodded. “She said that when she had enough records, she would speak with Nick, and he would have to stop. The girls were very worried about her when she didn’t come to work. And now she is dead. It’s terrible.” Maria glanced nervously up the street. “You must be careful, and I must go. My children will be home from school soon.”

  “Thank you, Maria, for helping me understand.” And maybe helping to get justice for Suzette.

  “Remember. No names.” Maria crossed the street and went around the next corner.

  Val walked to her car. The spreadsheet now made sense to her. But what good would that data do? If Suzette told Nick she knew what he’d done, he could simply deny he’d molested the maids and fire her and the maids. Suzette must have had a way to prove he’d been in the rooms when the maids said he was.

  Val conjured an image of the hallways she’d walked through on Sunday at the inn. Of course. The halls had surveillance cameras. They would record Nick entering a room with a cleaning cart parked outside. Suzette could tell the security team and Nick’s boss the exact dates and times when he’d gone into rooms to take advantage of the maids, and the footage would prove it. A manager might have a reason to go into a guest room now and then, but the pattern of Nick’s room visits would make it clear they were not work-related. Probably no one even looked at the footage unless a crime had taken place.

  Val wasn’t sure how long surveillance footage would be kept. Maybe Suzette knew or feared that the older footage would be erased soon. So she’d confronted Nick before that could happen.

  Val climbed into her car for the short trip home. Suzette knew of a crime, but wouldn’t report it. The maids might not back her up for fear of losing their jobs, and she didn’t want to put the maids or their families under police scrutiny. With her habit of attacking problems head-on, she would have dealt with Nick directly. Val imagined what Suzette might have said to him: I can prove you’ve been messing with the maids. Try it again, and I’ll turn over my records of your assaults to the police. I’ll do the same if you fire me or any of the maids.

  Hard to believe Nick would kill her so he could continue groping women, but maybe he didn’t believe she’d stay quiet about what she knew. If he’d killed her, he’d acted quickly, staking out the place where she lived, tailing her the next morning when she went jogging, and waiting until no other cars were in sight before he struck. Knowing that Suzette had specifics about his assaults gave him a reason to break in and try to steal any evidence she might have.

  He had a motive for getting rid of the woman who threatened him. He didn’t have a reason to run down Val in the parking lot. He’d pumped her to find out if Suzette had confided in her, but that was three days ago. Val hadn’t spoken with him since then. What could have led him, or anyone else, to go after her this morning?

  Val pulled into the driveway at home, itching to tell the chief what she’d learned about Nick. She might have even more to tell him once she talked to Suzette’s cousin. The unfamiliar car parked behind Granddad’s on the street suggested that Sandy Sechrest had arrived.

  Val went in the side door and sniffed the delicious aroma of butter, sugar, and vanilla. She followed her nose to the kitchen. “What are you baking, Granddad?”

  “Some more of those Chessie monster cookies. I ate a few, so you needed another batch for the sale. I didn’t think you’d want to roll dough with your sore wrist.”

  Val hadn’t given a thought to her wrist for the last half hour, but now that Granddad had brought it up, she became aware of the discomfort. “Thank you. Where’s Sandy?”

  Granddad pointed at the ceiling. “In Suzette’s room.”

  “Did you give her the will and other papers we put aside?”

  “Not yet. The police made copies. The originals are on the desk in the study.”

  Val took the papers upstairs and paused in the doorway of the small bedroom.

  A woman sat at the table by the window, staring at the yard, her back to the door. Her long, thick hair was the same color as Suzette’s, and when she turned, Val saw a family resemblance, though Sandy’s features were smaller and her eyes lighter. They were also red-rimmed from crying.

  Val introduced herself, gave Sandy the folder with Suzette’s papers, and expressed her condolences.

  “Thank you,” Sandy said. “I’m five years older than Suzette and thought of her as a little sister, though we didn’t live near each other when we were growing up.” She sighed. “I should get to work, looking through her things, but it’s hard.”

  “Take your time. Would you like anything to eat or drink?”

  She shook her head. “Your grandfather gave me some cookies and milk. I want to thank you for giving Suzette a place to stay. She told me you both were so welcoming and good to her. That meant a lot to her. She didn’t have a great home life.”

  Val sat on the edge of the bed. “She didn’t tell us much about her life before she came here. I know she was sexually harassed by her mother’s ex-boyfriend Lloyd, and her mother didn’t believe it. Mrs. Cripps told us that Suzette had crashed his car.”

  “The accident wasn’t her fault.”

  “She didn’t give me the details. What happened?”

  “Suzette went out for a drink with Lloyd to avoid being home alone with him. He drove her to a bar outside Cumberland, probably so she couldn’t make her own way home. He drank so much that he could barely see straight. People in the bar helped her get Lloyd into the passenger seat of his car. On the way back to town, he got a second wind and began groping her. She was distracted, went through a stop sign, and plowed into a car.”

  Val hadn’t realized another vehicle was involved. “I hope no one was seriously injured.”

  “A family who’d come to Maryland for a funeral went to the hospital, all of them with contusions, and one had broken bones. Suzette was bruised, but had no major injuries. Lloyd hit the windshield because he’d taken off his seat belt to paw at her. He was pretty banged up and hospitalized.”

  “Mrs. Cripps blamed her daughter for the accident.”

  “The police didn’t, once they checked Lloyd’s alcohol level and heard Suzette’s story. They charged Lloyd, but Aunt Wanda made Suzette’s life miserable.” Sandy stood up, went over to the dresser, and opened the top drawer. “I was worried Lloyd would come back. Six months after the accident, I graduated from college, got a job in Frederick, Maryland, and asked Suzette to move in with me. That put her ninety minutes from her mother. Suzette finished high school in Frederick and worked to save money for college. A couple of years later, she took a job as a live-in nanny.”

  “With the Patels?” When Sandy nodded, Val said, “Did Lloyd ever try to contact her while she was living with you?”

  “Possibly. To intimidate her.” Sandy slammed the drawer shut and turned to face Val. “Before she moved out of my place, she got malicious mail, not e-mail but typed letters that came through the post office. They said things like I’m watching you and You owe me. Lloyd was mean enough to do that.”

  Val jumped up as if a spring had propelled her off the mattress. Suzette had been harassed even before she moved to the Eastern Shore, before she met Nick, Gillian, or any of the Fictionistas. “How did Suzette react to those letters?”

  “Mildly upset at first. Then other nasty things happened. We found a dead bird on the doorstep, and my tires were slashed. That’s when Suzette decided she had to leave. I was sorry about why she left, but by then I had a boyfriend and having her in the apartment wasn’t ideal. She was careful not to leave a forwarding address with anyone but me.”

  “Whoever was pulling those tricks eventually tracked her to the Patels’ house and started up again,” Val said. “When the threats against her became a problem for the family, she moved out and came here. We don’t know of anyone harassing her her
e, but she was concerned that someone might be following her. And the police are considering the possibility that someone ran her down on purpose.”

  Looking dazed, Sandy stumbled back to the chair by the window. “Do they know about Lloyd?”

  “I passed on his name and what little I knew about him. Your information about how long Suzette was harassed will focus attention on him. The Bayport police chief is anxious to talk to you. I’ll try to set up an appointment for you today if you can speak with him before you leave.”

  “I’ll definitely do that.” Sandy glanced at the dresser and the closet. “I don’t want to spend any more time than necessary in this room. I just want to pick out a few things to remind me of Suzette. I’ll pack up the rest for donation.”

  Val remembered how hard it had been for her mother to go through Grandma’s things after the funeral. “Leave whatever you don’t want, and I’ll donate it.”

  “Thank you. That would take a burden off me.”

  Before calling the chief, Val had a few more questions for Sandy. “I’d like to tell you the names of people Suzette had come to know here and find out if you’ve ever heard of them.” And especially if Suzette had mentioned them years ago when the harassment began. “Did she ever talk about Nick Hyde?”

  Sandy shook her head. “Who is he?”

  “Her boss at the inn. I’m surprised she never brought him up.”

  “She and I spoke on the phone a few times since she moved to Bayport. I’d go on and on about my job, but she never got into specifics about hers. She only talked about her college classes and what she was reading,”

  “Did Suzette ever mention Gillian Holroyd?”

  “The writer. Suzette was excited about taking a class with her and talked about her a couple of times.”

  “When did she first talk about Gillian?”

  Sandy frowned in concentration. “Late winter. And last month she told me Gillian was meeting her and a few others to give them feedback on their writing.”