“Positive.”
“The cleaner bag, huh? He tears it off, uses it to suffocate her—no visible marks on her neck or throat—then disposes of it somewhere else. He knows by the heart medication that she’s got a bum ticker, so after he kills her he plants the pill bottle in her hand. Looks about as close to a natural as you can get. Slick. And it might’ve worked if he hadn’t broken a couple bones in the process.”
Knowing how it was done didn’t seem to make the detective any happier. It was murder now. Kasey knew he was upset because the case was no longer fresh. The woman had died sometime late Friday night. The body went undiscovered until late Saturday afternoon. Today was Tuesday. In a homicide case, four days was an eternity, leaving the trail nearly cold. It was doubtful they’d find many guests still registered in the hotel who had been there that night. And of those, how many would have remembered seeing anything?
“He wasn’t greedy and he didn’t panic,” Loweman said almost to himself “He takes the time to get the plastic bag, kill her and forcibly take the ring.”
“That’s all he took?”
“Maybe not. We found an empty prescription bottle. Antibiotics. The friend of the deceased said Mrs. Steiner had had an abscessed tooth and had just gotten the medication the day before. Which might explain why she skipped the sightseeing tour. Anyway, there was no way she could have taken all of them in just one day.”
“He thought it was dope?” Jay said.
“If he did, he’s not very drug-wise. I don’t take the man for an idiot. She had Valium, Demerol, Percodan. He didn’t bother with them. Who knows, maybe he has a dose and he doesn’t like doctors.”
“He left everything neat and tidy,” one of the investigators said, passing by. “I doubt if we’ll get much of anything.”
Loweman looked grim. “Those are the killers I dread, the calm, collected ones. You can bet your boots they’ve done it before. And they’ll do it again. Give me the character, who out of fear, hate or passion, does the deed, panics, and runs. The crime scenes are a helluva lot messier, but that kind of killer usually gets caught. Leaves stuff all over for us. Trips himself up somehow. Brags to someone or confesses as soon as the pressure is on.”
Mark Epson arrived with Harry, the security guard. The guard carried a laptop computer.
They all stood in the hallway and watched Harry take out a special tool and go to work on the metal plate below the lock. Once the plate was off, Harry plugged the computer cable into an outlet in the lock.
“How does that work?” Loweman asked Harry.
Without looking up, Harry said, “Well, can’t tell you much about computers, but this is a pretty simple operation. The lock has a memory. Lock Interrogation. All the keys are coded and every time one is used to open a door, information is logged into the lock’s own mini-computer. From the key’s code, the person assigned to it, along with date and time, is automatically entered. It can go back months. If someone used an unauthorized card to open the door, it’ll show up. It’ll also tell us who signed out that card.”
A long list of dates and numbers scrolled by on the monitor. Harry stopped it on the last dozen entries. The readout showed that on the day the victim had last been seen alive the door had been opened with the occupant’s key at four P.M. and again at ten—the time her friends said she’d turned in for the night. The next entry read eleven-forty-two. The code matched a key issued to the occupant. The following two entries were after her body was discovered and therefore accounted for.
“Hell, somehow he managed to get a key to her room,” Jay said. He turned to his hotel manager. “Mark, check downstairs and see if there’s a record of the guest requesting a second key. Maybe the first one was lost or stolen.”
Epson jotted in a notebook.
Det. Loweman stepped forward. “Mr. Epson, when you and Mrs. Curtis found the body, was either the deadbolt or the security chain engaged?”
“No. I got in with a master. If the deadbolt had been engaged, I would have had to use a special tool.”
“Who has access to keys in the hotel?”
“Lots of people. We have what we call one-shot keys. Those are signed out by bell captains and room service. Then there’re the mini-masters or floor keys; they can be used on a certain floor only—by maids, engineers, phone repair, and so on. All keys are signed in and out. Stolen keys or an extra key made up at the front desk will code to the guest. If the computer says the door was opened at two P.M. by the guest, but he denies it, then an illegal key is suspected.”
“Well,” Loweman said, hitching himself up, “it’s about time I earned my pay.” He flipped a page on his notepad.
“Before you start knocking on doors, Frank,” Jay said to the detective, “let me find out who was here and who wasn’t. If they weren’t here then, they don’t know anything.”
“Jay, this is a homicide investigation. I can’t be tiptoeing around to suit you or your guests.”
“I know. I don’t intend to get in your way.”
“Good.” Loweman paused a beat, then relented. “Okay, look, get me a complete list of the people that were registered on this floor that night. And everyone on the bus the deceased came up on. If they are no longer at the hotel, I want names, addresses, whatever you have. And I want it like yesterday.”
Jay looked to Epson.
“Got it,” Epson said.
As Epson headed toward the elevator, Kasey met Jay’s troubled gaze. The only thing more disconcerting than having it publicly known that a murder had taken place in his hotel was the probability that the killer might still be here, employed at the hotel. Out of nearly 19,000 employees, at least a fourth of them had access to room keys.
*
Minutes later, back in the executive office, Kasey leaned on the credenza and watched Jay pace. He had removed his jacket.
She stared at his back when it was turned to her. Jay, she noticed, had the broad shoulders of a swimmer, which he was. She had learned from Brad that Jay swam an impressive number of daily laps in either the pool at his home or the indoor one on the fourth floor of the hotel. His body looked hard, solid. At forty-two, his abdomen was flat, his waist narrow, his rear—
She quickly looked away, focused on a Renaissance painting of a parasoled couple in a small boat on a beautiful lake and said, “I’m afraid you’re not going to like what I have to say.”
He turned. “Say it.”
“I went over the security logs last night. There’s definitely a pattern. Someone is getting into rooms and helping themselves to whatever they want. Det. Loweman was right. Whoever it is, they’re not being greedy—not yet, anyway. But they will. As I said, a pattern is developing and it’s slowly accelerating. Only now there’s been a murder, and a rather cold-blooded one at that. The killer broke the woman’s finger to get at her ring when less than five feet away—relatively untouched—was a purse with cash, credit cards, and jewelry. He knows there’ll be other opportunities, and he’s in no hurry.”
Jay had stopped pacing and was somberly staring at her. “You think he works in the hotel, don’t you?”
She met his gaze. “Yes.”
He nodded, then resumed pacing.
The unasked question, the one she knew was heavy on his mind, was whether there was a link to the previous thefts—and to the threats against himself and Dianne.
*
On the sixth floor, two floors below where the police were busy processing the crime scene, the Monk casually walked down the empty hotel corridor. He passed an unattended housekeeping cart which blocked an open doorway. Although he couldn’t see anyone inside, the sound of a vacuum told him the maid was making up the room. He stopped at the next room, inserted the keycard in the lock, opened the door, and slipped inside.
Chapter Twelve
Paula Volger closed the door of Room 601 and wheeled the housekeeping cart to the adjacent door. Her head was pounding; her stomach churned; her tongue felt like a wool sock stuffed with sawdust. She
had a hangover—a four-star, grand-slam, twenty-one-gun-salute hangover. And to top it all off, her arms hurt where that security asshole in the parking garage yesterday had squeezed them until they were black and blue. Nazi prick.
She glanced at her watch: 3:00. One more long, torturous hour to go before she could change into her street clothes, claim her stool in the Esmeralda Lounge, and partake of the hair-of-the-dog, which—if not a sure cure—would at least give her a reason to live. Inez Ramos, a fellow maid and Paula’s best friend, had promised to meet her.
Paula took a moment from her own self-absorption to think about her friend. Inez, usually so serious, so grounded, had been acting weird the past couple of days. Spacey was the only word for it. She was a straight shooter, didn’t gamble or do drugs, so it had to be a man. Paula hoped she was wrong.
Men were bad news. Wanted just one thing. Like Mr. Rent-a-Cop yesterday afternoon. Using muscle, trying to take advantage of a lady who’d had one too many, then lying through his fucking teeth. Better her than Inez. Inez woulda caved in, given him what he was after. She was too damned meek and shy, afraid to raise her voice or call attention to herself. Paula was gonna have to drag her to one of those women’s self-defense classes they always had on tap at the Y.
Paula rapped on the door of 603, rolled her stiff shoulders, and called out, “Housekeeping!”
The unlatched door moved inward an inch.
Paula hesitated, her hand in the air. Open doors of occupied rooms made her wary. “Hello. Maid. Hello?”
With her foot she pushed the door open far enough to see inside. Clothes in the closet, an open bag on the bed, an overflowing ashtray on the round table by the window.
She took several steps forward, pausing just beyond the threshold. Inside the dark bathroom, scattered over the sink top were cosmetics, toiletries, a travel case.
Definitely an occupied room. An unsecured occupied room. Something Paula didn’t come across often. Thank God. Because if anything were missing, you could bet your sweet ass she, Paula Volger, minimum-wage housekeeping engineer, would be the first to be fingered.
The pounding in her head intensified. Forget this room, she told herself. Turn around, go out, close the door, report it and hope to Christ there’s nothing missing.
From the corner of her eye she saw movement through the crack of the open bathroom door, then a swatch of blue fabric. She froze.
Paula struggled to remain calm. Rape. Maids ambushed in hotel rooms. It was high on her list of things to avoid. It had happened to a good friend of hers four years ago—a pillowcase forced over her head from behind and she never caught so much as a glimpse of the rotten sonofabitch.
The blue fabric shifted.
Paula grabbed the doorknob to Room 603, backed out into the hallway, quickly pulled the door shut, and—positioning the linen cart across the doorway—turned and ran. She heard a noise behind her. She rushed down the corridor, her heart pounding in sync with her head, the sound of heavy footsteps keeping close pace at her back. When she reached the bank of elevators, she turned to scream, to fight if she had to.
No one was there.
*
Kasey was with the hotel manager in his office going over the guest ledger when they heard a commotion beyond the closed door. She followed Mark Epson out to the receptionist’s desk where a woman in a maid uniform stood arguing with the receptionist. Kasey instantly recognized the inebriated woman from the parking garage, the one who had struggled with the security guard the day before.
“What’s going on?” Epson asked.
“Mr. Epson,” the receptionist said, “she insists—”
“Someone’s in Room 603,” the blonde maid said, words coming out in a rush. “The door was unlocked—y’know, ajar like, when I went to make up the room. I stepped in to see if it was occupied and someone was hiding in the bathroom, behind the bathroom door.”
“And?” Epson said.
“And I got the hell outta there. The hotel don’t pay me enough to double as security.”
“Start again. You went in, saw someone in the bathroom—”
“Not just in the bathroom, hiding in the bathroom.” She told them what had happened. “Look, if there’s anything missing from the room, it wasn’t me that took it.”
Kasey knew the housekeeper was first to be suspect, and with good reason. Maids had access and opportunity. In gaming operations, however, where employees were state bonded and required to carry an ID police card, and with polygraph tests, lock interrogation, and sophisticated surveillance, in-house pilfering had been reduced significantly.
Epson called the front desk and learned the guest registered in 603 was a female doctor in town for a medical convention in the hotel. He dialed the room. When he got no answer, he had her paged.
Several minutes later, the call came through. The doctor had been in a seminar on the second floor. After identifying himself, Epson explained the situation and asked her to meet him and a female associate at the door to her room. He asked that she not enter her room until they had arrived.
Within minutes, five of them—Kasey, Epson, Paula Volger, the doctor, and a security guard, one Kasey had never seen before—gathered around the housekeeping cart in front of 603.
The officer opened the door and went in first. He searched the room and found no one inside.
Epson then asked the doctor to go through her possessions and look for anything missing or disturbed. While she looked, the security officer ran a computer readout on the memory lock. The computer indicated the last keycard used had been assigned to the guest, but was used at a time when she was downstairs in a conference session. The maid had told the truth.
“As far as I can tell, there’s nothing missing,” Dr. Cooke said. “Everything looks the same as when I left.”
“You’re a medical doctor?” Kasey asked.
“Yes,” she said. “I know what you’re thinking, but as a rule I don’t take drugs with me to conventions. If that’s what they were looking for, they found aspirin, antacids, and birth control pills, nothing more.” The doctor tossed a suitcase on the bed, opened it and began to pack.
“You’re not leaving?” Epson asked.
“Yes, I am. The last session of the conference was the one you interrupted. I intended to stay another night, but I don’t think I can after this. I’ll be looking over my shoulder and jumping at the slightest noise.”
Kasey stepped up to her. “Dr. Cooke, I understand how you feel. Please allow us to move you to another room on another floor. Naturally, for the inconvenience, the hotel will be happy to comp your stay in that room.”
“Well…”
“Along with front-row seats in the main showroom? We want your stay at King’s Club to be a memorable one.”
The doctor considered a moment, then nodded.
“Good, you won’t be sorry.”
Epson went to the phone on the credenza, spoke to the front desk, and made arrangements to have a bellman take the doctor and her luggage to a new room.
Kasey and Epson joined the others in the hallway.
When the hotel manager began to chastise the maid for overreacting, Kasey put her hand on his arm. “Mark, she was only doing her job.”
Kasey met Paula Volger’s keen blue eyes. Behind the defiance there, she saw something else. Gratitude? Respect? Kasey was sure Paula remembered her from the day before. Twice in two days, Kasey had come to her defense; and although the woman probably felt a certain amount of gratitude, it was obvious she didn’t trust Kasey.
Epson turned on Kasey. His eyes, behind round metal frames, narrowed. “If I were you. Miss Atwood, I’d be less inclined to worry about someone else’s job and I’d worry about my own duties. What the hell did you think you were doing in there? Giving the damn hotel away? You don’t make decisions like that on your own, at least not the first day on the job.”
“I was only—”
“Check with me first. You hear?”
“Yes.”
This time when Kasey met Paula’s gaze, her eyes expressed, if not trust, at least a measure of camaraderie.
On the way down in the elevator, Kasey’s mind raced. It seemed Paula Volger had inadvertently come upon the person who had been breaking into the rooms the past couple of weeks. Paula had taken the appropriate measure. She had gotten the hell out of there to report an intruder. Kasey made a mental note to have Epson circulate a memo to each hotel department asking all personnel to be on the alert, to report anything out of the ordinary. The typical hotel burglar was anything but aggressive, preferring to use stealth and cunning. But surprised in the act, he could be unpredictable, even violent. If there were a connection between the dead woman in Room 814 and the rash of room thefts, and Kasey hoped there wasn’t, this intruder was cunning and indeed violent.
When she returned to her office behind the concierge desk, she learned Brad, in a chauffeur-driven limo, had gone to the airport to greet a high roller and that he would be tied up with the man and his entourage for the rest of the evening. She typed up a memo for Epson and returned several calls. Two messages, taken by the office staff from tour operators, regarded prospective conventions, and those she passed along to the sales department. At 5:00, an hour into the swing shift for standard workers but still hours away from quitting time for most top-level management, she looked around the neat office and realized that, without Brad, there was little for her to do in her pseudo-position as host.
She rose, picked up her purse, and started out. She planned to drop by Jay’s office, fill him in on the open door incident in 603 before driving across town to meet with another client.
On the far side of the hotel lobby, Kasey saw Dianne coming through the main glass doors. Dianne was dressed casually— leather boots, split skirt, and vest—as casual as one can get in a designer outfit of denim, leather, and silver studs.
Kasey raised her hand to wave, but Dianne, eyes straight ahead, strode across the lobby to the bank of elevators. They were both going to the same place, to Jay’s office. If Kasey hurried, they could ride up together.
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