by Paul Carr
“Do you know the name of the firm that developed the contamination report?”
“Sorry, but I don’t want to get involved any further.” He hung up.
Dalton drove to his office and checked email. The ME had sent a message. He estimated the time of death between 4 and 5 a.m., which was soon after the time Gunn’s security cameras had shut down. As expected, Dr. Bragg said Gunn had died from the gunshot to the head. From the blood spatter on the wall, it appeared he had been standing when shot. The angle of the wound indicated that the shooter had probably been a few inches taller than Gunn’s six feet.
CSI Tarver had already confirmed the caliber of the slug they’d dug from the wall as 9mm. It would make a lot of noise. Deputy Daniels had said none of the neighbors heard a gunshot, but they had heard the music. That probably meant the shooter had used a noise suppressor, which hinted at a professional hit.
Remembering the conversation with Daniels, Dalton picked up the phone and called the deputy.
“You mentioned yesterday the possibility of some video from a neighbor’s security camera.”
“Yeah, it just came in a couple of hours ago. I have to warn you, though, the camera is aimed at the neighbor’s driveway. Gunn’s is a long way off, across the street. It shows some vehicles entering and leaving Gunn’s place, but the images are pretty poor. I’ll put it on the network and send you a link.” They hung up.
A few minutes later Dalton saw the email pop up. He opened it, followed the link to the video, and fast forwarded to 3:50 a.m., the time when Gunn’s camera had shut down. About ten minutes later a white vehicle entered Gunn’s driveway. Even though the image was grainy, the car looked like the white corvette belonging to Wilbur Hess. Ten seconds later, an SUV entered. The plate numbers were not visible on either.
The visitors remained there for about twenty minutes before the car came out and the SUV followed. Nothing else happened until a few minutes before 8:00 when a different car entered. He assumed it was the housekeeper.
The two vehicles arriving about the same time meant the drivers probably knew each other, and both knew Gunn’s cameras would be offline. Dalton wondered if lawyer Vici, or someone from Eon Harbor, knew Hess. He also wondered how much of the Key West Star the Chinese company owned.
Crook came by and took a seat. “Tell me what happened.”
“Hilda said Douglas Vici, a lawyer, is the guy who threatened Gunn, so I went to see him. The limo drove into his driveway right before I did and tried to hide in back. When I went inside and confronted Vici about the threat, he denied it. I sensed that somebody was watching from an adjacent room, and as soon as I left, the limo pulled out and ran me off the road. When you told me who owned it, I wondered if they had a stake in Raven Gardner’s resort, so I decided to go see her. She wasn’t very cooperative, but she did confirm that Eon Harbor is part owner. You know how to find out the amount they invested?”
“I’ll give it a try. If I can’t, I have a friend who probably can.” He got up and started toward his workstation.
“Oh, Buddy?”
Crook turned around. “Yeah?”
“How do you like briefing the LT?”
His partner gave him a cagey smile. “Not on my list of fun things. Why?”
“He wants daily updates.”
The smile leaked away and he sighed. “Okay, I’ll do it, but it’ll cost you.”
“Yeah, what’s the price?”
“Fresh doughnuts every morning.” He stepped away.
A few minutes later, Crook called. “Eon owns eighty percent of the Star Resort.”
“Huh, how’d you find that out?”
“I know somebody in the state office in Tallahassee.”
“You have an address?”
“Yeah.”
Dalton wrote it down. It was the same as the Key West Star Resort. “Okay, thanks. I’m headed out. Don’t forget to brief Springer.” Crook hung up on him.
****
A map inside the resort lobby didn’t indicate any offices on the premises. Dalton asked a young man at the counter about Eon Harbor.
“That doesn’t ring a bell. Let me look it up.” He tapped some keys on his computer, and a few seconds later said, “I’m not showing anything for that name. Are you sure you have the correct address?”
“Pretty sure.”
The man shrugged. “I can check with our executive office. They should know.” He punched a button on the phone and talked with someone. When he hung up he said, “They didn’t seem to know anything about that company.”
“Okay, maybe I did get the wrong address. Thanks.”
He went to his car and drove around the building to a location for employee parking. A gate with a card reader prevented him from entering, but he had a view of the entire lot, and didn’t see a limousine. When he returned to the customer lot, he found a space that enabled him to watch for vehicles entering and leaving the employee area.
Fifteen minutes later a limo eased down the driveway toward the gate. It had the same license plate as the one that had run him to the curb. Dalton got out of the car and hurried to the lobby. Within a couple of minutes, an Asian man wearing a suit and tie entered from a door marked Employees Only and headed to the elevators. He got on, the door closed, and the lighted indicator at the top stopped on 4. Dalton got into a second car, ascended to the same floor, and exited as the limo driver used a card key on a lock down the hall. After he entered, Dalton approached and knocked. The driver opened the door and gave him a blank look. Up close he looked fit, small in stature, and no more than mid-twenties.
Dalton flashed his badge. “I need to see whoever is in charge here.”
Without saying anything, the man closed the door. After a few seconds he came back, let him in, and motioned for him to follow. He led him down a hallway to a large corner office with a panoramic view of Key West Bight. Another Asian man stepped out from behind a mahogany desk. He also wore a suit and tie. It looked expensive, like the office.
“I am William Chan. And you are?” He spoke with no accent, his diction perfect.
Dalton introduced himself and held up his badge.
Chan scrutinized the credential, then nodded and gestured toward a chair. “Please sit.” After taking a seat behind the desk, he said, “What is it that you want, Detective Dalton?”
“Your driver ran me off the road earlier today.”
“I think you must be mistaken. My driver has been here all day.”
“It was the same limo that just returned to the hotel lot.”
Chan smiled, caught in a lie. “Then it must have been an accident.”
“I don’t think so. He deliberately edged me over.”
Nodding, Chan said, “Then I ask you again, what do you want?”
“I’m investigating the murder of Riley Gunn, the musician. I know you’re affiliated with Douglas Vici’s law firm because I saw your limo at his place of business right before it attempted to run me over.”
Chan didn’t say anything, so Dalton continued. “Gunn told his attorney that Vici threatened him if he didn’t drop his lawsuit against Raven Gardner.”
Shrugging, Chan said, “If that is true, what would it have to do with me?”
“You own this property, and Ms. Gardner is only a figurehead. I think Vici was working on your behalf in threatening Gunn.”
“That is absurd.” Chan scowled. “We do not threaten anyone.”
“What kind of dirt did you have on Gunn?”
“The more you talk, the less sense you make.” He stood and said to the driver, who had remained in the corner of the room, “Please show the detective out.”
On his way to the door, Dalton turned and said, “Some deputies will come around to talk about the incident with the limo. They’ll probably impound it and arrest your driver.”
Chan just stared, the scowl still in place.
In the car, Dalton started the engine, adjusted the air conditioner as cold as it would go, and sat th
ere for a few minutes. Although not his intention, he thought if anybody from Eon was watching, maybe it would make them nervous. He wondered if the threat to Gunn was related to the Thailand story Buddy had mentioned, and decided to call Jimmy Earl.
“You check my alibi?” Earl asked.
“Yeah. Your ex said she went to bed at midnight, and you were gone when she got up at nine the next morning. It didn’t instill confidence in your story. But that’s not the reason I’m calling. Do you know what happened on your Asian tour with Redgunn that landed Riley in a Thailand hospital?”
Earl hesitated before answering. “He said he thought it was food poisoning.”
“I read an article from around that time that said he probably overdosed.”
Another hesitation. “Well, I guess it doesn’t matter now. When I went to get him at the hospital he told me he remembered going to his room with a woman. They shared some drugs and he passed out. When he woke up, he was on the floor. Some men were there, slapping his face, asking what he did with the woman. There was blood all over his clothes and on the bed. He didn’t remember what’d happened before losing consciousness, but assumed it was bad and thought they were going to kill him for it. Then one of them grabbed him and he felt a prick to his neck. The next thing he knew, he woke up in the hospital. It scared him so bad he canceled the rest of the tour and we headed home.”
Eon could have set up the scene to scare him, but why would they do that? At that point, the grandfather was probably still alive, and Riley wouldn’t have had anything to do with the suit. Dalton thanked him and they hung up. He wondered when the old man had died and searched obits using his phone. Upon finding the one he wanted, he called Crook.
“Hey, Buddy, what was the timeframe of Riley Gunn’s hospitalization in Thailand?”
“Hold on.” A minute later he said, “The story was published on the tenth of November, year before last, and it mentioned that Gunn had just left the hospital.”
“Jimmy Earl told me what happened. It looks like somebody, maybe Eon, set Gunn up to think he had hurt or killed a woman he was with. Then they drugged him and dropped him off at the hospital.
“Nasty business,” Crook said. “Maybe they did it for leverage in the lawsuit his grandfather had against the resort.”
“It’s curious that the grandfather died about that time.”
“You think they killed him?”
“It crossed my mind. We need to find out if an autopsy was done.”
“Okay, I’ll check on it. By the way, I got the call history from Riley Gunn’s phone. The carrier sent it this morning. He called the same number a bunch of times that evening, up to 3 a.m. I checked, and it was Wilbur Hess’s phone. Then Hess called back at 3:45, and stayed on the line about three minutes.”
“That’s right before Gunn shut off the cameras. Any other calls?”
“Not after that. There were several other numbers Gunn interacted with, but I couldn’t find owners. Must’ve been burners.” Dalton asked him for the numbers, along with Gunn’s, and wrote them down.
“Huh, that’s interesting. Wonder what he was up to.”
“Sounds like he was doing something somebody wanted to hide. Maybe groupies that wanted to remain anonymous.”
“Okay, thanks, Buddy.” They hung up.
The calls supported the theory that Gunn and Hess had connected and Hess visited him right after the call. But who drove the second vehicle in the neighbor’s security video? Maybe someone from Eon?
Vici could have threatened the old man with the Thailand incident involving his grandson. A threat like that could have caused his heart to fail. Or he might have told them where to go, and they killed him in a way that resembled heart failure. They could have tried the same threat with Riley after he picked up the lawsuit. Maybe it didn’t work then, either, so they killed him for it. A lot of ifs, but Dalton didn’t consider it a big stretch. A lawsuit worth $75 million in a fraudulent land deal was a powerful motive, and the people of Eon Harbor had the means to carry out such an elaborate scheme.
Crook called back a few minutes later as Dalton headed to the office. “No autopsy on Barry Gunn. The coroner’s report said his death was due to natural causes. He was 81 years old and in poor health.”
“Too bad they didn’t autopsy,” Dalton said.
“Uh-oh, Springer just passed by my cubicle and looked in. Wonder what he wants.”
“Probably ready for his afternoon update.”
Crook hung up on him.
Dalton pulled into a parking spot at the office a few minutes later and got out. Jack Ringo stood there next to a car, as if waiting, and headed over to him. “You have a minute?” Ringo asked.
“Sure, what’s up?”
“The mayor got a call from a guy named William Chan. He said you’ve been harassing him.” Ringo stared, as if measuring Dalton’s response.
“I questioned him about a threat made to Riley Gunn not long before his murder.”
“You think Chan threatened him?”
“Actually, his lawyer Douglas Vici did. Right after I questioned him, Chan’s limo driver ran me off the road.”
“Sounds like you had a good reason to lean on him. I don’t like getting pressure from politicians concerning their cronies. Chan probably contributed to the mayor’s campaign. If anybody asks, tell them I chastised you about it.” The detective grinned.
“How’s the Hess investigation going?”
The grin faded away. “You might be right about the two murders being connected. We need to get together and compare notes.”
“Anytime, the sooner the better.”
“I left my notes at the station. Can you drop by there later?”
Dalton agreed and went inside where he caught a glimpse of Crook sitting in Springer’s office. He went to his desk and printed off the crime scene and autopsy emails. Thirty minutes later he sat in a conference room at the Key West Police Department.
Ringo asked him to go first. He went over the potential suspects that had provided alibis, the fact that Gunn’s security cameras went off a few minutes before his murder, the neighbor’s video showing two vehicles coming and going, and the interviews with Hilda Wright, Douglas Vici, and William Chan about the threat against Gunn. He also told him about Earl’s stolen car with blood on the wheel.”
“Sounds like he’s your guy. You said his alibi didn’t hold up.”
Shaking his head, Dalton said, “I think the blood in the car was an attempted frame. The neighbor’s video was pretty grainy, but I’m pretty sure whoever killed Gunn drove in behind Hess. If Earl had done it, he would’ve either walked in, or drove his Camaro in. I didn’t see either on the video.”
“What if he went in the back door, or through the garage?”
Dalton shrugged. “I suppose he could have, if he had a key, but finding the car with blood on the wheel was a little too perfect. And somebody had disabled the battery cable.”
Ringo stared, as if thinking, and then shook his head. “Okay, then, why do you think this threat by the lawyer is so important?”
“It goes back to something that happened to Riley Gunn in Thailand while his band was on tour.” He repeated what Jimmy Earl had told him about the hospital conversation, and his theory that Eon Harbor might have threatened to use the incident against the elder Gunn and then the rock star.”
“That sounds a little farfetched. Why would they go to such lengths about a lawsuit?”
“The value of the resort is almost $150 million. They stood to lose half of it. An environmental engineer told Gunn’s grandfather that someone had approached him about providing a report without ever looking at the land where the resort is now built, showing that it was contaminated.”
Ringo gave him a stare and a raised eyebrow. “Who’s this environmental engineer?”
“A guy named Blake Owen.”
Scratching his head, Ringo said, “Yeah, well, I guess $75 million is a pretty good motive, but how does that link up
with my murder case.”
“Whoever killed Riley knew the cameras would be turned off and followed Hess in. Hess might’ve been in on the murder, but probably not. He was killed so he couldn’t talk about it.”
Ringo just nodded, opened his folder, and picked up the first sheet. “Okay, here’s the report from the CSIs on the Hess crime scene. I’ll give you the gist. No prints were found there except the victim’s. The bullet was a 9mm. They think all the blood probably belonged to the victim, but they sent samples to the lab for analysis. A large quantity of drugs was found in the closet, and he had plenty of cash in his wallet, so we know it wasn’t a robbery.” He picked up another sheet. “The ME says Hess died around 5 a.m., which would be in the same time frame as Gunn’s murder.”
“Did he look at the trajectory of the round?”
“Yes. Based on the angle of the wound and where the slug went into the wall, he said the shooter was probably taller than Hess’s five-ten.”
That reminded Dalton that the ME had said the same thing about Gunn’s shooter. In both cases the killer would be taller than six feet.
Chapter 6
“Where’ve you been?” Crook asked as Dalton returned to the office.
“I met with Jack Ringo. Didn’t help much, though. You have a few minutes?”
“Sure.” They found an empty conference room and closed the door.
Dalton opened his notepad. “The killer of Gunn and Hess is over six feet tall. Vici and the men I’ve seen at Eon Harbor don’t fit that description.”
Crook shrugged. “They could’ve hired somebody to do it.”
Nodding, Dalton said, “Yeah, they could. Both kill shots resembled professional hits and were probably accomplished with the same 9mm weapon. But something about that bothers me. I wonder how Hess would’ve known a hit man, and was chummy enough to let him follow him home after killing Gunn.”
“Did they find Hess’s phone?”
“No, the phone was missing, just like Gunn’s. Too bad. It might’ve shown contact with the killer. We found Hess only because Colin Casey told us about him. Otherwise, he might’ve lain in that house until the snake ate him up.”