Jazzy kept her jaws locked while the sheriff walked around the room, his hands clasped behind his back. He inspected the disarray on the desk without touching anything, noted the chaos in Liz’s suitcase and the contents of her purse sprawled across the love-seat cushion then peeked through the open back door.
“We got the place cordoned off?”
The deputy nodded. “Matt and Bob are taping the back of this wing off right now. The investigators from Frankfort are still processing the room upstairs, but they called for reinforcements.”
Sheriff Maguire threw a long-suffering glance toward the ceiling. “Just what we need. State boys swarming all over the place on festival weekend.” He glared at the deputy. “Get Frank and Kenneth in here, too. I want every man we’ve got working this case.”
The deputy nodded and headed toward the door. Jazzy ground her teeth as the sheriff continued to ignore her. He turned his attention to the female EMT who had been examining Liz.
“She gonna be all right?”
The woman glanced at Liz and nodded. “She’ll have a couple of bruises on her neck, but the intruder ran off without inflicting any real injury.” She gathered up her instruments, shoved them in a bag and rose from the bed. “If you start feeling anything unusual, you call us back,” she told Liz.
When the EMTs were gone, Sheriff Maguire folded an arm across his stomach, propped his other elbow on it and tapped his lips with a forefinger. He studied Liz through narrowed eyelids. “Now why do you suppose the killer ran off without finishing the job this time?”
Jazzy couldn’t stop a shudder at the thought of Liz in the same shape as that man in the upstairs bathtub.
Liz lifted her shoulders. “I started kicking like crazy, and I think I landed a couple of good ones because his grip on my throat let up. That’s when I screamed. Maybe I scared him away.”
“So you woke up with his hands around your neck?”
Confusion creased Liz’s forehead. “I—I think so.” She shook her head. “No, wait a minute. Something else woke me up. A sound or something. I think now it must have been my car keys when he dumped my purse, but at the time I thought it was on television. I didn’t open my eyes, just reached for the remote control where I’d left it on the coffee table. The next thing I knew …” She swallowed with an effort.
“I heard something, too.” Jazzy held her gaze steady as the sheriff turned his attention to her. “Not keys jingling, more like a crack.”
“The lock being popped?” Maguire asked.
Jazzy closed her eyes, trying to remember the sound. “That might have been it. I thought it was the television, too.”
She turned an apologetic smile on her friend. Liz looked so vulnerable, Jazzy fought against a sudden rush of tears. She dropped onto the mattress and threw her arms around her friend’s shoulders.
“I’m so sorry, Liz,” she sobbed. “If I hadn’t forced you to judge that contest none of this would have happened.”
“It’s not your fault,” Liz said, returning her embrace. “You didn’t force me into anything. I could have said no.”
Caitlin slid onto the fold-out couch beside them. “Thank the Lord you’re okay.”
“Yes.” Jazzy rested her forehead on Liz’s shoulder and whispered, “Thank You, Lord, for keeping our friend safe.” Then she raised her head and sniffed. “One thing’s for sure. You’re not going anywhere near that barbecue contest. They can find themselves another judge.”
Sheriff Maguire’s voice reminded them of his presence. “I’m not sure the barbecue contest is the cause here.”
Jazzy threw him a startled look. “Of course it is. Why else would he have left that?” She grimaced toward the bottle on the desk.
“To throw us off. I’m beginning to think this killer is using the barbecue contest as a red herring. Especially now.”
Caitlin straightened. “Why especially now?”
“Because he went through your belongings.”
Jazzy looked at the mess of clothes in Liz’s suitcase, the litter of music on the desk. Her music portfolio, a black leather bag with a zipper, lay discarded and empty alongside Liz’s and Caitlin’s. “And he dumped all our music out, too. Why would he do that?”
“He was looking for something?” Caitlin suggested.
Liz shook her head. “What could he be looking for in my suitcase or our music?”
“That’s what we need to find out.” Sheriff Maguire pulled a chair from beneath the table and turned it around. He perched on it backward, his arms folded across the low back. “What do you girls have that a killer would want bad enough to risk coming back to the scene of his crime for?”
Jazzy exchanged a blank look with her friends.
“Money?” Caitlin suggested. “I have a couple hundred dollars in my purse.”
“Nobody could possibly know that. Hey!” Liz scrambled onto her knees and crawled toward the love seat. “I haven’t checked to see if anything’s missing.”
Sheriff Maguire raised a hand in caution. “Look, but don’t touch. We need to get some pictures and check for prints.”
While Liz hovered over her suitcase and purse, Jazzy inspected the papers spread across the desk. Everything was there. All her sheet music, the brochures, a couple of pencils she kept in the portfolio for notations during rehearsal.
“I can’t really tell without going through it,” Liz said, “but I don’t think anything’s gone.”
“Here, either,” Jazzy agreed. “I don’t get it.”
“Think,” the sheriff urged. “There’s got to be something.”
Jazzy crossed to the love seat and stood beside Liz. “What did you pack in your suitcase?”
“Clothes. Shoes. Toiletries. Nothing worth stealing.”
“What about your purse?” Caitlin asked.
Liz shrugged. “The usual. A comb, a compact, lipstick. My wallet has a little cash and a few credit cards and some family pictures and—”
“Pictures!” Jazzy jerked backward and slapped a hand on the top of her head. She whirled to Caitlin. “You were taking pictures in the lobby yesterday.”
“Yeah, so?”
Sheriff Maguire straightened in the chair. “A camera. Of course.”
Caitlin’s eyes went round as she stared at the officer. “Do you think I got a picture of the killer?”
“You might have.”
Blood roared in Jazzy’s ears at the idea of the killer leaving the scene of his violent crime and calmly walking past them in the check-in line. Had he watched them, stared at them? She scrunched up her face, trying to remember. She’d told the police about the repairman and the room-service waiter. Neither of them had seemed to pay any attention to the trio of musicians at all. The only other people she could remember were the guests checking in, and the kids. Tons of kids.
Sheriff Maguire stood and pushed the chair back into position at the table. “I’ll need that camera.”
As Caitlin went into the bedroom to retrieve the camera, a cold night breeze blew through the open patio door. Jazzy rubbed her hands on her bare arms. Her shudder was not entirely from the chilly wind.
EIGHT
While Sheriff Maguire and his men snapped pictures and dusted for fingerprints, the girls took refuge on the other side of the bedroom door. They huddled together on Caitlin’s bed, propped up on pillows with Liz in the middle. Jazzy was unwilling to separate herself from the comforting presence of her friends, even as far as her own bed. The other two apparently didn’t mind. Nobody suggested she move.
“We should probably try to get some sleep,” Caitlin said.
A low drone of voices filtered through the wall as the investigators talked with one another. Sheriff Maguire’s baritone punctuated the buzz, his tone authoritative but the words indistinguishable.
“I don’t think I can sleep with that going on.” Jazzy nodded toward the door. “I wonder how long they’ll be here.”
“I don’t know, but I feel better having them out there,
don’t you?” Liz shuddered.
Jazzy glanced at the clock. Glowing red numbers told her the time was after three. “I think I saw a sign that said the restaurant opens at six. We’ll be able to get some coffee then.” She’d noticed a coffeepot in the kitchen of their suite, but no coffee in the cabinets.
“I hope it’s strong.” Caitlin yawned, and both Jazzy and Liz echoed the gesture.
“We might as well try to rest.” Liz scooted down in the bed and pulled her pillow into place beneath her head. “We’re going to have a long day before that wedding.”
“If you all don’t want to stay, we could cancel the wedding gig.” Caitlin glanced from Liz to Jazzy. “Pack up and go home as soon as the cops are finished with Liz’s suitcase.”
Jazzy tensed. Where would Chelsea find substitute musicians a few hours before her wedding? And what would Derrick think of them if they bailed out now, leaving him without an ensemble and with a possibly weepy sister on her wedding day?
On the other hand, if Liz didn’t want to stay after the trauma she’d experienced, Jazzy couldn’t fault her. But she couldn’t ditch a bride at the last minute. She’d play solo if she had to, and rent a car to drive back home tomorrow night after the ceremony.
“You guys do whatever you think is best,” she said carefully, “but I don’t feel right about canceling.”
“Yeah, I’m with Jazzy.” Liz pulled the blanket up to her chin. “We agreed to do this gig, and we’re going to do it. You know what the Bible says. God didn’t give us a spirit of fear.”
Jazzy was glad to hear a touch of the familiar, brash attitude in Liz’s voice. She’d had a shock, but she was bouncing back.
Caitlin shrugged, then slid beneath the blanket, too. Jazzy twisted the light switch off and settled along the edge of the mattress. Slivers of light from the spotlights the police had set up outside glowed around the edges of the curtains that covered the window. She closed her eyes. Maybe her body would benefit from a few hours of quiet rest, but no way would her busy mind let her sleep. Dozens of thoughts skittered through her brain like fireflies soaring skyward from the ground at twilight.
“I can’t sleep,” came Caitlin’s voice from the other side of the bed. “If we’re going to stay for the wedding, I feel guilty about backing out of that burgoo contest.”
“Guilty?” Liz assumed a professional tone. “Remember what else that verse says. We don’t have a spirit of fear, but we are supposed to have a spirit of sound mind. So don’t talk crazy.”
But Jazzy knew what Caitlin meant. She’d been thinking the same thing, and picturing Kate’s panic when she found out she was short one judge the day of the pageant. “Who else are they going to find this late? They called off their search last night when we agreed to step in. And besides, Sheriff Maguire doesn’t think the murder or the attack are really related to the contest anyway.”
“Are you two saying you want to stay in this hotel another night?” Liz said with disbelief.
Jazzy voiced the worry that had been nagging at the back of her mind. “What if we go home and the guy follows us?”
Silence stole over the room as Liz and Caitlin considered Jazzy’s words. If the murderer was intent on getting the camera he thought they had, Jazzy would rather not lead him back to their apartments, where they would encounter him alone. Better to wait until it became public knowledge that the camera had been turned over to the police. Then they’d be safe.
“If we’re going to stay another night, I’d feel safer with someone watching the doors,” Caitlin said. “The sheriff might be more inclined to give us a guard now.”
“We would make him,” Jazzy insisted. “And if he doesn’t,” she added in a voice as matter-of-fact as she could make it, “I’ll bet Derrick would stay with us.”
The bed gave a violent heave. Jazzy turned her head to find both of her friends sitting up. In the dim light shining around the edges of the curtain she could just make out knowing grins on both of their faces.
“He could sleep out there on the sofa.” She turned her back on them and closed her eyes.
“He is pretty cute, isn’t he? No wedding ring. And he didn’t mention a girlfriend, either.”
Jazzy heard the smile in Liz’s voice. Apparently she was ready to move beyond the chilling thoughts of the danger that surrounded them in order to prod information out of Jazzy about the handsome brother of the bride. Liz was forever trying to fix Jazzy up with some guy or other, usually friends of her own boyfriend. Jazzy detested blind dates and had consistently refused. She ignored her friend and kept her eyes shut.
“And it’s obvious he likes you, Jazzy.” Laughter bubbled in Caitlin’s words.
A smile tried to twitch one edge of Jazzy’s mouth, but she wrestled it down. “He is totally not my type. Did you see the mud on his truck? And the litter inside? Plus, he has a dog.”
“Come on, Jazzy. Don’t be difficult. His truck was cleaner than my car. And what’s wrong with dogs?”
Jazzy refused to rise to dog-lover Caitlin’s bait. “Besides, he hunts and fishes.” She shuddered at the thought of Derrick handling a cold, slimy fish with his bare hands, then wanting to touch her with those same hands. It was positively nauseating.
“Glenn fishes.” Caitlin’s voice went soft at the mention of her boyfriend. “He might smell a little fishy when he first gets out of the boat, but it washes off.”
Jazzy remained silent. Her friends settled back down into the bed.
“No matter what you say,” Liz said, “I think you like him.”
“You’re wrong.” Jazzy closed her eyes. “He’s probably a nice guy—all those country-boy habits aside—but he’s not my type at all.”
Her friends fell silent. Eventually Caitlin’s breath slowed, and Liz started to snore softly. Jazzy forced herself to release the tension that knotted her muscles, but sleep lay just beyond her grasp.
She occupied her mind by listing all the reasons a relationship with Derrick Rogers was not a good idea.
NINE
Jazzy watched the digital numbers on the clock change from five forty-three to five forty-four. She held her body still so as not to disturb her friends. Why hadn’t she moved to the other bed so she could toss and turn at will? At least Caitlin and Liz were getting some sleep. Though how they could sleep through the voices of the police officers just outside the door, she couldn’t imagine.
At five forty-five, she slipped out of bed as gently as she could. Liz’s snore quieted for the span of three breaths, but then started up again. Without a sound, Jazzy grabbed some clothes from her suitcase and crept into the bathroom.
A few minutes later, dressed in jeans, a T-shirt and tennis shoes with no socks, Jazzy wedged herself through a crack in the bedroom door.
Most of the officers who had crowded the room a few hours ago were gone. A lone deputy dozed in a chair at the dinette table. Jazzy recognized him as one of the two who had questioned her yesterday, the nicer one who seemed to know Derrick. What was his name? Matt something-or-other. A rush of gratitude toward Sheriff Maguire flooded her. He’d left someone to guard them.
At the almost soundless click of the door Jazzy pulled closed behind her, Matt jerked upright and leaped to his feet. “Oh, it’s you.” He dug at his eyes with a thumb and forefinger. “Sorry. I must have dozed off for a minute.” His shoulders straightened, eyes going wide. “But you were safe, ma’am. I promise. Nothing could have gotten by me.”
The speed of his awakening at the slight sound she’d made with the door bore testimony to his words.
Jazzy kept her voice low so she wouldn’t disturb her friends in the other room. “I was going to head down to the restaurant for some coffee. Would you like me to bring you some?”
“That’d be great.” He started to pull his wallet out of his back pocket, but she whipped out the card Bradley had given her. “Don’t worry about it. This one’s on the house.”
She turned toward the front door, then paused as an ugly thought
occurred to her. She turned back to Matt.
“Do you think it’s safe?”
A grin stole over his mouth. “Don’t worry about that, ma’am.”
He walked by her to the front door, threw open the dead bolt and opened it. He stuck his head into the hallway and said in a loud stage whisper, “Hey, Frank. C’mere a minute.”
Jazzy followed him to the door just as another deputy arrived. Frank, the persistent one from yesterday.
Matt grinned down at her. “The sheriff’s taking no chances this time. Frank here’s been stationed at the end of the hall by that exit door, and we got another guy out on the back porch.”
Relief settled deep in Jazzy’s tense shoulders. Maybe the fit she threw at Sheriff Maguire had done some good after all.
On the other hand, if he thought they needed so many guards …
She gulped.
“She’s going to the restaurant for coffee. You want to walk her there? I can handle things here for a few minutes.”
Frank’s jaw tightened as he bit back a yawn. He nodded. “I could use some coffee myself.”
Jazzy headed for the lobby, her bodyguard in tow. She felt a little strange to have the man who questioned her so closely yesterday tagging along behind her today. But at least his presence gave her a sense of security. Nobody would bother her with an armed guard close on her heels.
The lobby wasn’t nearly as active as the day before, but a small amount of comforting activity was in evidence in several places. The quiet hum of a vacuum cleaner operated by a hotel housekeeper drifted across the expanse of the lobby toward Jazzy. Another maid rubbed a polishing rag around the edges of the elevators. Behind the front desk, the head of a young man was just visible as he sat in the chair of the girl who had checked Jazzy and her friends in yesterday.
Murder in D Minor Boxed Set Page 6