by P. Creeden
The sheriff cleared his throat. “Is the deceased Ms. West, as we suspected?”
Mr. Warwick blinked, breaking his stare at the body. He wiped the sweat from his forehead and finally removed his heavy winter coat, folding it over one arm. He nodded. “Yes, it’s her.”
Sheriff Wright nodded. “Please take a look around and note anything that might be missing.
“When I left the room earlier, it was in perfect working order. This is deplorable.” His attention became focused on the jewelry box and his designer watch collection. He nodded toward them. “Is it okay for me to touch this case to see if our things are still inside?”
The sheriff nodded. “We’ve dusted for prints. Yours and the deceased’s are all over the items in the room, but not much else. We’re still checking some unknowns with the staff here at the hotel.”
Mr. Warwick bent down and pulled open the case. His face fell into a mask of disappointment when he showed the empty box to the sheriff, Emma, and Colby. “Everything in here is gone. My watches… Ms. West’s jewelry. All gone.”
He stood up quickly and put a hand to his head, dropping his overcoat to the floor. “I’m not feeling well. Do you mind if I step back outside?”
The sheriff shook his head. “Just a few questions first, Mr. Warwick. Have you been drinking at all tonight?”
The taller man’s spine stiffened, and he stood taller, peering down his nose at the sheriff. “I had a glass of wine at dinner, but that was several hours ago. May I ask why?”
“Ordinary questions for this sort of situation,” the sheriff said with a wave of his hand. “Were you and the deceased close at all? Had you had an argument of any kind?”
“Am I a suspect now? I thought this was an obvious robbery.” Mr. Warwick sighed. “I have only known Ms. West for a short amount of time. We met on the cruise and she was to be my new agent, as my old agent has retired. We got along very well, which is why we were sharing this room together, obviously.”
“You had a sexual relationship with the deceased?” The sheriff pulled out a notebook from his pocket and began taking notes.
“Yes, we did. My wife passed away a year and a half ago. This was the first relationship I’ve attempted since. To have it end this way is quite distressing.” Mr. Warwick began rubbing the finger on his left hand again, spinning a phantom ring. “I’m really not feeling well. May I step outside?”
The sheriff jotted the last bit down in his notebook and then nodded to Mr. Warwick. “Don’t go too far, understand?”
Mr. Warwick blinked in a brusque manner, almost akin to an eye roll, and then stepped under the police tape to the parking lot outside the motor lodge. Colby stepped forward and began speaking in hushed tones with Emma’s father.
Growing up with just the local sheriff as her sole parental figure, Emma had found herself at numerous crime scenes. From where she stood, she surveyed the damage. Her father continuously tried to convince her to join the force, so she enjoyed moments like these when she was able to get a feel for what it would be like.
“So, the ongoing theory is that Ms. West answered the door in her bathrobe, was shot by the culprit, who then grabbed the jewelry and left?” Colby’s brow knitted together.
Emma cleared her throat. “If the manager of the lodge really saw the man flee immediately after the gunshot, would he really have had time to do all this damage? It seems he didn’t know exactly where the jewelry was, and yet he got it right away and fled?”
The sheriff nodded his daughter’s direction. “It does seem like a little bit of overkill.”
Colby shrugged. “It’s possible that the culprit forced his way in, attacked the room and then shot the victim on his way out.”
“But the body is virtually in the doorway. She wouldn’t have been following him out the door as he was leaving,” Emma said, stepping a bit further into the room.
The curious Saint Bernard got too close to the victim and Emma had to intervene. She pulled the leash on Molly’s collar, just as Molly had reached her nose toward Ms. West’s hand. Emma blinked. The woman held a toothbrush in her fist. She shook her head and inspected Ms. West’s pale face. She nodded. “Dad, would you open the door to a stranger if you were in the middle of brushing your teeth?”
Both Colby and the sheriff turned around. Her father frowned. “What? Of course not.”
“I don’t think Ms. West looks like the type who would either, but look. There’s evidence that she was doing exactly that.”
Both men peered over while Emma pointed out her findings. Her father pulled out his notebook and took notes once more. Then he stepped out and called to one of the CSI guys and discussed the findings with them. Colby deflected. “Maybe your theory is wrong. Maybe she is the kind of person who would answer the door while brushing her teeth. Maybe she thought it was Mr. Warwick returning from the illumination ceremony.”
“Maybe.” Emma frowned. Things didn’t quite add up cleanly on this. It was too much of a coincidence that the victim was brushing her teeth and accepting a visitor, unless she knew him intimately. And the room couldn’t possibly have been trashed in the short bit of time between the firing of the shot and the manager seeing the culprit flee.
The sheriff stepped back into the room with the coroner, who had come to remove the body. “This is a sad situation for everyone involved. We’ll need to notify the victim’s family as soon as possible, and let them know where we are in the case, but for now, we’ll have to look at it as a robbery gone bad.”
Emma remained reserved about her findings, not quite agreeing with the sheriff's interpretation of the events. She kept her theories to herself, internalizing and processing the evidence in front of her. Molly was on par with Emma’s behavior and remained relatively calm during the discussion.
As for Emma, she believed the victim was murdered. She's seen robberies in the past, but this robbery seemed too dramatic, too staged. The way the debris was strewn about did not fit well with a robbery motive. Most robberies took place in such a short window of time, and the intense process of flipping cushions and opening drawers was a lot of work. It didn’t make sense.
She thought back to her interactions with Mr. Warwick and, despite his agreeable story, he seemed too smooth. She considered whether he may have rehearsed his lines. After all, Mr. Warwick was a writer. Emma wouldn't have put it past a writer to be able to converse fluently and smoothly. Though, she reasoned, in times of great pain, it should have been more difficult for him to explain himself. Emma thought about his personality and how confident in his responses he was. She’d almost call him smug.
For a brief moment she put herself in his shoes and realized that his alibi was rational and made sense. The explanation made sense. The evidence was in his favor, and maybe that is why he was so confident. He knew he wouldn’t be considered a suspect, but he also didn’t seem to care if the culprit was found.
After lingering a bit longer, one of the sheriff's aides arrived on the scene with the developed photos. Colby, Emma, and her father gathered around the table in the room to inspect the photos together. After sifting through the cruise ship photos, they came to the group of photos taken at the festival. Most of them were of Mr. Warwick standing around in the crowd or in front of each word illuminated in the Happy New Year sign.
Colby pointed to two of the photos. “These are the ones that I took.”
Mike, the CSI aide cleared his throat. “The camera was delivered directly to the teacher at the school and never left my hands. I supervised their development. Both the teacher and I inspected the camera before opening it and could find no signs of tampering.”
The sheriff nodded. “Good work, Mike.”
Sheriff Wright shuffled through the photos a few more times before tapping his middle finger on the table. “It seems these photos are legitimate, and Mr. Warwick's story is confidently supported with facts. But, I’m going to check with the one witness we have before we call it a night and reconvene in the morning.�
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Emma followed her father under the police tape and out into the parking area. The night cold was settling in and dew had fallen on the cars in the lot. Mr. Warwick stood a good ways off, no jacket, standing under a Sugar Maple while smoking. The red glow of the tip of the cigarette cast a menacing shadow across the man’s face. Emma frowned. Molly pulled at the leash, wanting to go with Colby who was leading Gabby back toward his K9 unit vehicle. But Emma reined the Saint Bernard puppy back in. She wanted to follow her father and to hear from the witness herself.
The bell rang overhead as they stepped into the small office of the motor lodge and greeted the clerk.
“Horace, you mind telling me what you saw again?” the sheriff asked, stepping up to the counter and setting his elbow upon it. Emma examined her father. His tired eyes were bloodshot, and the laugh lines in the corners had deepened. She checked her phone’s time and saw it was nearly 1:30 a.m.
As soon as they stopped in the lobby, Molly found a soft part of the floor rug and laid down. Horace had a shock of red hair, hiding the gray, and always looked taller than he was because he was so thin. Beside him was his teenage son, chewing gum and playing a game on his cellphone. Their family had been running the lodge for as long as Emma could remember. She’d come a few times with her dad for parties disturbing the peace or for a rowdy customer who had destroyed the furniture in the rooms. But murder was a new one.
“No problem, Sheriff. I told you all I remember. I heard a gunshot, dashed out there to see what was going on and saw a masked guy running off toward the center of town. The lady’s door was left wide open and when I saw her on the floor, I called 9-1-1.”
The sheriff flashed a photo of Mr. Warwick, taken from the freshly developed photo stack, at him. “What can you tell me about Mr. Warwick?”
“The guy running away looked a lot like him. I’d swear it was him, but I recall Mr. Warwick leaving to go to the illumination ceremony and stopping in to ask for directions. Before he left, he asked me what time it was, so I remember the time, too. It was ten-thirty.” Horace tapped on his wristwatch for emphasis.
The sheriff jotted it down in his notebook.
Just outside of the lodge, the crowd had gathered soon after the end of the illumination ceremony. Onlookers and rubberneckers were not an unusual sight near a crime scene. But the fact that everyone was up so late and looking for a new adventure on the new year made things more crowded than usual. The sheriff nodded in thanks toward Horace and then headed out to meet Colby near his truck. They spoke in hushed tones about their theories. To give them space, Emma and Molly remained near the crowd.
A sobbing woman approached Emma and asked if she knew what was going on. Knowing that she could not reveal the theory that a murder took place, Emma answered in a guarded way, “The sheriff is investigating a potential robbery that took place tonight here at the lodge.”
The woman’s red rimmed eyes drank in what Emma had said before asking, “Do you know if Ms. West is involved? That’s her room, isn’t it.”
Emma tilted her head and lifted a brow. “Did you know Ms. West?”
Mr. Warwick came up behind the woman and shook his head. “It’s an awful thing that happened tonight with Ms. West. I never should have left her alone. I should have demanded that she come with me to the ceremony, or at least stayed with her. This is all my fault.”
Again, the emotion Mr. Warwick feigned seemed overdone. Emma cleared her throat. “Do you two know each other?”
Mr. Warwick blinked innocently, setting a hand on each of the stranger woman’s shoulders. “The deceased Ms. West wasn’t only my new lover, but she was also my new agent. This young lady here is Miss Emberley. She is also a fellow writer and potential client of Ms. West.”
Miss Emberley’s face had paled and her eyes seemed out of focus. “So… Ms. West… she’s dead?”
Mr. Warwick nodded solemnly. “I’m afraid so.”
“We were supposed to meet in the morning. She said something about a contract for the murder mystery box… She’s really gone?”
The frown on Mr. Warwick’s face deepened and the corner of his eye twitched. “It’s true.”
Miss Emberley met eyes with Mr. Warwick for the first time. “Did she tell you? Did she tell you I was supposed to take your place in the subscription box? She said she was going to—”
The older gentleman’s jaw twitched. “She said no such thing. We were lovers and planned a long and happy relationship together in a personal and professional capacity. Surely, you are mistaken, Miss.”
His sudden flight into range surprised Emma and the young woman with red-rimmed eyes. Even Molly had stood up and cowered slightly behind Emma’s leg. What if Miss Emberley told the truth. What if Mr. Warwick was about to be fired from his job with the murder-mystery subscription box and replaced with this other woman? It would be a motive for murder when there seemed to be none before. She needed to tell her dad.
The woman’s tears returned, and she shook her head, dashing away, back toward another part of the lodge. Emma started after her, but Mr. Warwick grabbed her by the arm. His tight grip made it clear he didn’t want Emma to follow the woman. “It’s best to leave that delusional woman alone. To think she thought she was good enough to replace me. Maybe one of the other authors in the set, but certainly not the man who had become Ms. West’s lover. The Clancy Warwick name is a top seller.”
Emma blinked at him, as he let her arm go. Mr. Warwick’s brow furrowed as he came back to himself, his gaze darting in the direction Miss Emberley had gone, and he began rubbing his ringless finger again. His words had run the gambit between sadness, remorse, anger, and self-aggrandizement. But his face had only been shown its true colors in the last five minutes. This man was guilty, but without proof, and with his solid alibi, how would they catch him?
Mr. Warwick excused himself and started toward the motel office mumbling something about needing to get another room so he could get some sleep
The New Year's morning was nearing 3 a.m. The CSI team had already finished collecting their evidence when Emma finally had an opportunity to catch up with Colby and her father who were discussing the case in the motel room. She stepped under the police tape, but remained in the doorway of the room so as not to disturb the crime scene too much. “Dad? Do you mind if I look at those photos from Mr. Warwick’s camera again?”
Her father yawned, putting the back of his hand against his mouth. “You’re still here? Why don’t you go home and get some sleep?”
She shook her head. “This whole thing bothers me ever since I saw the toothpaste on Ms. West’s face. It doesn’t make sense that this was just a simple robbery. If I went to sleep right now, all this stuff would just be a jumble in my head. Maybe if I look at those photos again, my mind could be at ease?”
Colby shook his head. “Shouldn’t you leave this to the police, Emma? You don’t want to get your hands dirty with this kind of stuff, do you?
The sheriff laughed. “She’s quite used to this kind of stuff, and I’d like to hear her opinion anyway.”
He stepped toward the table where the photos had been bagged. Molly was tired, but once the sheriff retrieved them from his evidence bag and started handing them to Emma, the pup became excited and bumped his arm with her nose.
“Molly!” Emma cried, trying to catch the photos as the fell, but failing.
Molly was rejuvenated when the stack of photos became a flurried mess on the floor. She sniffed at them intensely, wildly flailing her tail and shuffling her body back and forth as she expressed her enthusiasm.
“Oh no!” Emma bent down to get the dog under control while the sheriff and Colby knelt to collect the photos. One photo caught Emma's attention. Molly’s wet nose left a droplet of water on the image. Her father was about to scoop it up with the others. “Wait!”
Her father’s hand froze over the photograph. Emma scooped it up to get a closer look. After drying the spot, Emma focused her attention on the image. Mr. Warwick
was standing on a balcony of the cruise ship. His complexion was light and soft. He did not have a tan. Emma considered that maybe the photo was taken within the first day of the cruise. He still had on his wedding band.
Emma retrieved the other photos from her father and Colby and began sifting through. Colby took Molly’s leash from her hand, so she could use them both. She nodded her thanks and scanned the photos. She came across one of Mr. Warwick and a crew member aboard the ship. The photo showed a smiling Mr. Warwick with his arm wrapped around the shoulder of the crew member. It was a selfie, which Emma imagined would have been quite difficult to capture on a disposable camera. Many photos of the Caribbean were also in the collection.
Emma sifted through the photos many times over. She tried to put them in order, finding only a handful of photos from the festival. After Molly knocked them all over the floor, Emma worried that a potential piece of evidence could be lost. She wasn't able to order all of the photos taken on the cruise, but she was able to categorize them based on their contents. The ultimate chronology could be found on the film itself, the original exposures taken with the disposable camera, but Emma didn’t have access to them in the hotel room.
Instead, she sat upon the clear area of the floor and placed the pictures down in front of her in order. Colby squatted beside Emma, examining the photos in silence while Molly laid at his feet, eyes closed. The tensions and stress of the day were wearing on everyone.
Colby yawned beside her. “It’s getting late.”
Emma agreed and let out a sigh. When fabricating an alibi, a person either needed to find someone to lie for him, or change the situation to make it appear impossible that he committed the crime. Mr. Warwick had done the second. She was sure of it. The evidence she needed was right here in these photos if she could just find it.
Chapter Five
In the hotel room, with ideas slowly bubbling to the surface, Emma started to piece together the situation. Mr. Warwick had lost his wife and took a cruise to clear his mind soon after. She validated this fact through the conversations they shared prior. Mr. Warwick was a writer, and the deceased Ms. West was his new agent and lover. But if what Miss Emberley had said was true, the new couple’s relationship couldn’t have been on solid ground.