by J. D. Robb
He used the AutoChef in the kitchenette for a meal—steak, rare, white potato, baked, sour dough roll, coffee, and cheesecake—rather than contact room service.
The service bar in the parlor had been lightly used, some macadamias and a soft drink.
No liquor, Eve noted. Clear head.
The next disc showed Darlene French wheeling her maid’s cart to the door of 4602.
A pretty girl in a spiffy uniform and sensible shoes who had a dreamy look in big brown eyes. Delicate build. Small hands that played with the little gold heart on a thin gold chain she tugged from under her blouse.
She buzzed, idly rubbed the small of her back, then buzzed again. Slipped the heart and chain neatly under her blouse. Only then did she slide the passcode from her apron pocket into the slot, press her right thumb to the Identi-pad. She opened the door, called out cheerfully, then gathered fresh towels from her cart.
She closed the door behind her at 8:26 P.M.
At 8:58, Priory, suitcase and towels in hand, stepped out of the room. He closed the door behind him, neatly dropped the towels inside the cart before he skirted around it. Then strolled—like a man without a care in the world—to the door leading to the stairs.
It had taken him only thirty-two minutes to beat, rape, and murder Darlene French.
“A clear head,” Eve said aloud. “A cold, clear head.”
“Lieutenant?”
Eve shook her head, held up a hand to hold her aide off a moment longer.
Peabody zipped her lip, waited. She’d been working homicides with Eve for a year, and believed she had her lieutenant’s rhythm.
Her eyes, nearly as dark as her straight chin-length hair, shifted to the screen where Eve continued to study the frozen image of a killer.
Looks mean, Peabody thought, but said nothing.
“What have you got for me?” Eve said at length.
“Priory, James, exec in sales at Alliance Insurance Company, based in Milwaukee. Deceased, January five of this year. Vehicular accident.”
“Well, this guy’s alive and kicking. Anything wonky about Milwaukee Priory’s vehicular?”
“It doesn’t appear so, sir. The report states a driver of a jet-truck nodded off at the wheel, took out Priory and another driver. We have a number of other Priorys in Milwaukee, but this is the only James that popped.”
“Hold off running them. This guy’s got a sheet somewhere. I know it. Tag Feeney at home. Shoot him this disc image and ask him to run it through IRCCA—the International Resource Center on Criminal Activity. That’s an E-Division job, and IRCCA’s his personal darling. He’ll pop this guy out quicker than anyone else.” She checked her wrist unit. “I want to talk to Hilo. She should be coherent by now. Where’s Roarke?” she demanded, glancing around the parlor.
Peabody straightened her shoulders, looked directly at the opposite wall. “I couldn’t say.”
“Damn it.” Eve strode out, pinned the guard at the door. “Hilo.”
“She’s in 4020, Lieutenant.”
“Nobody goes in this room without a badge. Nobody.” She walked to the elevator, jabbed the button. The fact that Roarke had left the crime scene meant only one thing. He was up to something.
The good news was Hilo was indeed coherent. She was pale, red-eyed, but sat quietly in the parlor area of one of the hotel’s smaller suites. There was a teapot on the table in front of her, and a cup in her hand, which she set down when Eve walked in.
“Ms. Hilo, I’m Lieutenant Dallas with the NYPSD.”
“Yes, yes, I know. Roarke explained that you wanted me to wait for you here with Mr. Brigham.”
Eve shot a look toward Brigham, who stood staring, with apparent fascination, at the painting on the far wall. “Roarke explained?” Eve repeated.
“Yes, he came down to sit with me awhile. Ordered this tea for me himself. It’s just like him. He’s a lovely man.”
“Oh yeah, he’s just peachy. Ms. Hilo, have you spoken with anyone but Mr. Brigham and Roarke since you’ve been waiting for me?”
“Oh no. I was told not to.” She looked trustingly at Eve with swollen eyes the color of walnuts. “Mrs. Roarke—”
“Dallas.” Eve didn’t grit her teeth, but it was close. “Lieutenant Dallas.”
“Oh, yes. Of course. Pardon me, Lieutenant Dallas, I want to apologize for causing such a scene before when . . . before,” she finished, and drew in a shaky breath. “I couldn’t seem to stop. When I found poor little Darlene . . . I couldn’t seem to stop.”
“It’s all right.”
“No, no.” Hilo lifted her hands. She was a small woman, but solidly built. The kind of build, Eve always thought, that kept right on steadily marching after wimpy long-distance runners passed out on the field. “I just ran out and left her there, left her like that. I’m in charge, you see. From six to one, I’m in charge, and I just ran away from her. I didn’t even touch her, or cover her up.”
“Mrs. Hilo.”
“Just Hilo.” She managed a small smile that only made her weary face look sadder. “It’s Natalie Hilo, but everyone just calls me Hilo.”
“All right. Hilo.” Eve sat, put off turning on the recorder. “You did exactly what was best. If you had touched her, if you had covered her up, you would have contaminated the crime scene. That would have made it more difficult for me to find the person who hurt her. To find him and make sure he pays.”
“That’s what Roarke said.” Her eyes filled again, but she got a handkerchief from her pocket and briskly wiped the tears away. “He said just that, and that you would find the horrible person who did this to her. He said you wouldn’t stop looking until you’d found him.”
“That’s right. You can help me, and Darlene. Brigham, could Hilo and I have some privacy?”
“Sure. You can reach me at ninety on the house ’link.”
“I’m going to record what we talk about,” Eve said when they were alone. “All right?”
“Yes.” She sniffed, straightened. “I’m ready.”
Eve set a recorder on the table. She recited the particulars. “Let’s start with you telling me what happened. Why did you go to Suite 4602?”
“Darlene was behind schedule. When the evening routine’s finished in each room or suite, the housekeeper presses Code Five on her beeper. This helps us keep track of the staff and the units completed. While it goes toward efficiency, it’s also a security measure to protect the guests and the staff.”
She sighed a little, and picked up her cup of tea. “Turndowns generally take between ten and twenty minutes, depending on the size of the unit and the pace of the particular housekeeper. We allow some leeway, of course. Quite often the state of a unit is such that it takes considerably longer. You’d be amazed, Lieutenant, really amazed, at how some people treat a hotel room. It makes you wonder how they live at home.”
She shook her head. “Well, be that as it may. We’re near full capacity right now, so we were hopping. I didn’t notice that Darlene hadn’t beeped in from Suite 4602. Forty minutes, give or take. That’s long, but it’s a large suite and Darlene was slow. Not that she wasn’t a good worker, she was, but she tended to take her time.”
Hilo began to wring her hands. “I shouldn’t have said she was slow. I shouldn’t have said that. I meant to say thorough. She was such a good girl. Such a sweet little thing. We all loved her. It’s just that she took a bit more time than most to finish her units. She liked being in the bigger rooms, she liked tending to beautiful things.”
“It’s all right, Hilo. I understand. She was proud of her work, and she made sure she did it well.”
“Yes.” Hilo pressed a hand to her lips, nodded. “Yes, that’s exactly so.”
“What did you do when you noticed she hadn’t checked in?”
“Oh.” Hilo shook herself back. “I beeped her. The procedure is for the housekeeper to signal back or to contact base over a house ’link. Occasionally one of the other guests will detain or delay a housekeep
er, asking for more towels or whatever. It’s Palace policy to serve the guests, even if they just want to chat for a moment because they’re away from home and lonely. This throws off the pace, but we’re a service-first facility.”
She set her cup down again. “I gave Darlene another five minutes, beeped her a second time. When she didn’t respond to that, I was irritated. Lieutenant, I was annoyed with her, and now—”
“Hilo.” Eve couldn’t have counted the times she’d seen and heard this guilty misery in a survivor. “It was a natural reaction. Darlene would never have blamed you for it. You couldn’t help her then, but you can help her now. Tell me what you can.”
“Yes, all right. Yes.” Hilo drew in a breath, let it out slowly. “Yes. As I said, we were very busy. I went to the suite myself to move her along. I’d hoped her beeper was acting up. They don’t very often, but it’s been known to happen. Then I saw her cart outside the door, and was very annoyed.”
She had to stop a moment, remembering how she’d planned to give Darlene a good piece of her mind. “I buzzed, used my passcode. I could see the parlor was fine. I marched straight to the bedroom, opened the door.”
“The door was closed?”
“Yes, yes, I’m sure because I remember calling out as I pushed it open. And I saw her, poor little thing, I saw her on the bed. Her face was all swollen and battered, and there was blood around her neck and on the collar of her uniform, and drops of it on the spread she’d turned down. She’d been doing her job, you see.”
“She’d turn down the bed,” Eve interrupted. “Would that have been the first chore she’d have dealt with on entering the suite?”
“It depends. Everyone has their own routine, more or less. I believe Darlene liked to check the bath first, remove the used towels, and replace them. Then she’d check the bed. Some guests will demand a complete linen change at turndown if they’d had a nap or . . . made use of the bed in any way. If that was the case, she’d strip off the linens and take them and the towels to her cart, retrieve fresh linens, and so on. She would make a note of the use of inventory on her cart log. Efficiency, again. And it discourages staff pilfering. You see?”
“Yeah. From what you observed, she’d just gotten around to turning down the bed. There was music on. Would she have turned on the entertainment system?”
“Yes, perhaps. But never at that volume. If the guest isn’t in the unit during evening turndown, the housekeeper programs the entertainment unit to the guest’s requirements, or to a classical station if no requirements have been set. But always at a discreet volume.”
“Maybe she intended to turn it down before she left.”
“Darlene liked modern music.” Hilo managed a smile. “Most of the young staff members do. She’d never have turned on—it was opera, wasn’t it—that program for her own entertainment.”
“Okay.” So he’d killed to opera, Eve thought. For his own entertainment. “What then?”
“Then I froze, just froze. And I remember running out again, slamming that door behind me. I heard the crack of it through the screaming. I ran out the front, slammed that door, too. And I couldn’t get my legs to move anymore, so I stood there, my back against the door, still screaming when I called Security.”
She broke a bit, pressed her hands to her face. “People came out of rooms, ran down the hall. Everything was so confused. Mr. Brigham came, and he went inside. Everything got all muddled in my head, and he brought me down here and told me to lie down. But I couldn’t. So I just sat right here and cried until Roarke came and got me tea. Who could have hurt that sweet little girl? Why?”
Eve waited, saying nothing to a question that could never be fully answered, while Hilo rocked herself steady again. “Did Darlene always do turndown on that particular suite?”
“No, but most usually. And traditionally each housekeeper is assigned two floors that remain theirs unless we have an unusual turnover. Darlene’s had forty-five and forty-six since she finished her training.”
“Do you know if she was involved with anyone? A boyfriend?”
“Yes, I think . . . Oh, there are so many young people on staff and they’re forever having romances. I’m not sure I remember . . . Barry!” Blowing out a breath of relief, Hilo nearly smiled. “Yes, I’m sure she had a young man named Barry. He’s on the bellstaff here. I remember because she was over the moon when he was able to switch to night shift. That way they had more time to spend with each other.”
“Do you know his last name?”
“No, I’m sorry. She always lit up when she chattered about him.”
“Any spats recently?”
“No, and believe me, I’d have heard about it. When one of them has a fight with a boyfriend or a girlfriend, we all hear about it. I’m sure . . . Oh. Oh!” The color that had crept into her face drained again. “You don’t think he . . . Lieutenant, the way Darlene spoke of him, he seemed like such a nice young man.”
“It’s just a routine question, Hilo. I’ll want to talk to him, you see. To find out if he has any idea who might have hurt her.”
“I see. Of course.”
Both women looked over when the door opened and Roarke stepped in. “I’m sorry. Am I interrupting?”
“No. We’re finished for now. I may have to talk to you again,” Eve told Hilo as she got to her feet. “But you’re free to go now. I can arrange to have you taken home.”
“I’ve already taken care of that.” Roarke crossed the room, took Hilo’s hand. “There’s a driver just outside. He’ll take you home. Your husband’s waiting for you. I want you to go straight there, Hilo, take a soother and go to bed. Take all the time you need. I don’t want you worrying about work until you feel up to it.”
“Thank you. Thank you so much. But I think work might help.”
“Do what’s best for you,” Roarke said as he took her to the door.
Hilo nodded, then looked back at Eve. “Lieutenant, she was a harmless little thing. Harmless. Whoever did this needs to be punished. It won’t bring her back, but he needs to be punished. It’s all we can do.”
It was all, Eve thought, and never quite enough.
She waited until Rourke had finished a murmured conversation with what she assumed was the driver, then shut the door.
“Where’d you disappear to?”
“I had a number of things to see to, arrangements to make.” He angled his head. “You don’t care for civilians on your crime scenes in any case. There was little I could do there.”
“And a lot to do elsewhere?”
“Do you want an accounting of my activities and whereabouts, Lieutenant?” Letting the question hang, he walked to the friggie bar and, opening it, selected a small bottle of white wine.
As he poured out a glassful, it occurred to her that the way she’d asked didn’t sound very chummy. “I just wondered where you were, that’s all.”
“And what I was up to,” he finished. “It’s my hotel, Lieutenant.”
“Okay, okay, let’s step back.” She raked a hand through her hair while he coolly sipped his wine. “It’s the second time in a few weeks you’ve had an employee hit at one of your properties. That’s hard. Of course, if you factor in that you own half of the city—”
“Only half?” he interrupted with a glimmer of a smile. “I’ll have to speak to my accountant.”
“Anyway, I could stand here and tell you it’s not personal and you shouldn’t take it personally, but that’s pretty much bullshit because it is personal to you. I get that, and I’m sorry.”
“So am I. For what happened here and for almost looking forward to taking it out on you. Now that that diversion’s been avoided, I’ll tell you again, I had a number of things to see to. The event downstairs being one.”
He held out his glass of wine, but, as he’d expected, she shook her head. “The Palace and the upcoming auction are about to experience a media crisis,” he continued. “Reporters salivate when a murder takes place in a well-known hotel
, and you add all the star power downstairs and you have one hell of a story. It needs to be spun as quickly as we can manage. I also wanted to see that Hilo was taken care of.”
“It made a difference,” Eve said quietly. “It’ll go easier for her because you took the time.”
“She’s worked for me for ten years.” And for him, nothing else had to be said. “Word’s already spread through the staff, and some panic needed to be avoided before it could set in. There’s a young man on the bellstaff. Barry Collins.”
“The boyfriend.”
“Yes. He’s taking it hard. I had him taken home. And before you slap at me for it,” he said even as she wound up, “he was with two other of the bellstaff, dealing with luggage from an incoming medical convention during the time of the murder.”
“And how do you know the time of the murder?”
“Brigham saw to it I was informed of the contents of the security discs. Did you think he wouldn’t?”
“No, I didn’t, but I still have to talk to the boyfriend.”
“You wouldn’t have gotten anything out of him tonight.” His voice softened, the way it could that made it something like music. “He’s twenty-two, Eve, and he was in love with her. He’s broken to pieces. Christ,” he murmured as pity stirred. “He wanted his mother. So that’s where I sent him.”
“Okay.” She couldn’t fight it. “I’d probably have done the same. I can talk to him later.”
“I assume you’ve run James Priory.”
“Yeah, and I assume you already know the results, so I’ll just say I’m having him run through IRCCA. He’ll be in the system. This isn’t his first.”
“I can get the data for you quicker.”
He could, she thought, at home in the locked room that held his unregistered equipment. “Let’s do it this way for now. He strolled out of here like a man who knew he had some place cozy to go. I’ll find out where soon enough. The real question is why. He came here with a purpose. The fake ID, room booked well in advance, two nights. A time pad in case something didn’t work out the first night. He settled down in his room and he waited for her. Darlene specifically? If so, that’s another why. Any housekeeper? Why again. I might get some of that from his history.”