Mortal Crimes 2

by Various Authors

  “Where’s the wedding?”

  “Better talk to her about that. She just has to name the place and I’ll be there. Nothing fancy, though. You know Peggy.”

  Peggy hated frills and fuss.

  “Ma, I’ll see what I can do about getting us a new roomer.”

  “Make sure it’s someone who’ll fit in,” her mother said.

  Kasey nodded, drained her coffee, blew her mother a kiss, turned to Sherry, and said, “Clementine’s. Nine.”

  *

  Kasey was surprised to find Jay waiting for her at the main entrance to the club, his expression grim. When he saw her approaching, the tension in his face seemed to ease and a certain look came into his eyes, a look every woman recognizes. A look of appreciation, which told her she looked nice. Suddenly, she no longer felt like a zombie.

  They walked the casino, talking.

  “Have you seen the papers?” he asked.

  “Yes. And the news reports this morning.”

  “Then you know the police have a suspect in custody. The guy’s a dishwasher here at the hotel.”

  Kasey nodded. She walked alongside Jay in silence and thought how much easier it would be for Jay, Dianne, and the club, if this murder could be solved so easily. Internal rift. One employee kills another out of passion, greed, hatred, whatever. Only one other thing could make it ideal. If the police could tie the suspect to the other incidents, to the death of the elderly guest, the room burglaries, the mail threats to Jay. Wrap it all up in one nice, neat package for the courts to deal with.

  When she didn’t respond. Jay said, “Talk to me, Kasey. Tell me what’s on your mind.”

  “I was thinking how great it would be if this dishwasher was behind everything that’s been happening here. Wishful thinking, I’m afraid.”

  “Why?”

  “Again, too pat.” She stopped, turned to Jay. “Do you know who he is? Have you seen him in the club?”

  “His name is Juan Ruiz. He’s been with the hotel a couple of months. He’s young. Twenty-nine, thirty. That’s all I know. I saw him before Loweman’s men took him away last night. He didn’t look familiar.” Jay’s pager beeped. He excused himself, walked several yards to the Blue Keno Lounge, and picked up a white courtesy phone.

  While Kasey waited for Jay, she watched the activity in the casino. Business was always slow at this time of the morning. Several young unattended children ran up and down the wide, red-carpeted stairway that led to the convention floor. With broom and dustpan, a porter cleaned up empty coin wrappers between the slot machines and on the floor. Cocktail waitresses in sequined vests and black shorts carried loaded trays of coffee, juice, and Bloody Marys to gaming patrons.

  Kasey watched a tiny, gray-haired woman wearing a pair of new white tennis shoes, brown housedress, and a long, pea-green sweater. A large, canvas handbag hung from a drooped shoulder as she meandered through a bank of quarter slot machines. She appeared to be looking for a machine to play, but it took Kasey only a second to mark her for a silver-miner. She stopped at a machine, placed a cupped hand in the change tray, and hit the cash out button. Overlooked credits—quarters accumulated in play from the previous player—dropped into her palm. She shoved them into her bag and moved on.

  Not many people knew it was illegal to silver-mine. It was one thing to simply play off forgotten money, but to pocket it was something else. The silver-miner made it a practice to cruise casino slot machines looking for credits and coins left behind. If caught by the establishment, repeated offenders could be arrested. Most casinos merely issued a warning. Some did not. At King’s Club, a second-time offender was usually ushered out by security. If asked to leave more than once, a silver-miner had a polaroid picture taken and put in a special book. Security was trained to watch for and tag repeat offenders.

  Kasey had never agreed with the casino’s reasoning that money left in the machine belonged to the establishment. Finders keepers was her motto. She looked on it as a windfall. Times were tough.

  She dismissed the old woman and turned back to watch the three young children playing on the staircase. Unattended kids in a casino were another matter. Parents, intending to play for only a few minutes, often lost track of time. She had observed young ones on their own for hours on end—tired, hungry and thirsty, cold or hot if left outside. A busy establishment, particularly a gambling establishment, was not a safe environment for unchaperoned children.

  Jay, no longer on the phone, was now talking to the casino manager, Robert Yanick. If she hurried, she could round up the children, find out who they were, and have their parents paged before Jay and the casino boss were finished.

  Halfway to the children, she saw a security guard approaching them from the opposite direction. At that moment, Jay gestured to her.

  Kasey hesitated uncertainly. Security would handle it. But the sight of the hotel blue-on-blue uniform suddenly generated a piercing apprehension. Not all men in blue were good guys. In fact, on two separate occasions in the past, she had been hired by casinos to observe not only employees and players, but the uniformed officers as well.

  The man turned toward her and Kasey was relieved to see it was the elderly guard Harry. He gathered the children, sat them on the staircase, and spoke into his radio.

  When she returned to Jay, he informed her that Det. Loweman was in the hotel. They were to meet him in the main kitchen.

  *

  The good smells in the huge kitchen reminded Kasey she had forgotten to eat that morning. As they passed a steaming mound of blueberry muffins on the countertop, she eyed them but refrained from taking one. She and Jay joined Det. Loweman and another detective at the back of the crowded room, near the dishwashing machines.

  “This is Detective Williams. He’s one of the investigators on the case. He found this on the floor last night,” Loweman said, holding up a clear, plastic ziplock bag. Inside, coiled like a sleeping snake, was a gold cross on a chain. He pointed to the base of one machine. “Right there. Couldn’t have been there long, the floors are cleaned each shift. Looks like it might have been dropped accidentally. The victim’s sister told us she wore a gold cross or crucifix around her neck, which was nowhere at the crime scene. There were marks, abrasions actually, on her throat where it appears a chain had been ripped away. This chain’s broken.”

  “Has Ruiz confessed?” Jay asked.

  “Hasn’t said a word. We’re working on him, though. We have a search warrant for his locker and his vehicle.”

  “The locker would be in wardrobe. If he has a car, it would be in the employee lot across the street.”

  “Let’s go to wardrobe first,” Loweman said, smoothing flat his necktie and buttoning his jacket.

  They took the service elevator to the lower level. Wardrobe occupied a large portion of the northeast wing. Jay, Kasey, and the two detectives stood facing locker number 322. With bolt cutters, Williams broke through the arm of the combination lock.

  Wearing gloves, Williams carefully removed a copy of Penthouse to reveal Ruiz’s street clothes. The pants and a plaid button-down shirt were crudely folded. While Loweman held open the evidence bag, Williams carefully lifted out the shirt. Two things fell from the folds. One hit the floor and rolled several yards; the flat, round, white object twirled like a top before slowly toppling over on its side. Even from a distance it was clear it was a King’s Club one-hundred-dollar gaming chip.

  Loweman sauntered over to it. He squatted. “Well, lookit here. Now I wonder where he got this? Minimum-wage kitchen workers don’t, as a rule, get tokes.” He lifted the chip by the edge and dropped it into another evidence bag.

  “Over here.” Williams said. “Looks like our fella was in a hurry and overlooked a couple important items.” He was bent down, prodding at a gold object with the end of his pen. It caught the light, sparkled. A two-carat solitaire diamond ring.

  Chapter Twenty

  They peered through the tinted glass of the two-way mirror into an interrogation room o
f the Sparks Police Department. Alone in the room, facing them, was the dishwasher, Juan Ruiz. The short, muscular man slouched in a molded plastic chair behind the table. The bright orange of the county jumpsuit he wore gave his olive complexion a sickly cast. He looked bored.

  Because he so obviously avoided looking into the mirror, Kasey suspected he was aware that eyes watched from beyond it. And she suspected this wasn’t the first time he’d been in an interrogation room. He picked at a faded tattoo on the fleshy part of his hand between thumb and forefinger.

  “He’s got a sheet,” Loweman said to Jay and Kasey. “Misdemeanors mostly. DUI, assault and battery, petty theft, a couple minor drug offenses. No lockup time. Probation, some community service. Small-time punk.”

  “Could he have killed that woman?” Jay asked.

  “Oh, hell yes, in a New York minute. In fact, he’s our boy. I guarantee it.”

  “How can you be so sure?” Kasey asked.

  “For starters, he was with her yesterday. He had the opportunity and the motive. And now we have reason to believe he was involved in the death of the woman in Room 814.”

  “The ring?” Jay asked.

  “Yep. There’s no doubt that the ring belonged to the deceased. It was inscribed and both daughters have confirmed.”

  The three turned to stare at the man behind the two-way mirror.

  Loweman squeezed Jay’s shoulder. “Stick around. You and Ms. Atwood might find this interesting.”

  A moment later, through the tinted glass, they watched Loweman and Williams enter the room. Ruiz remained slumped in the chair. He clasped his fingers together on the tabletop, looked at both men defiantly before lowering his eyes.

  Williams took the initiative. After determining if the suspect could read and write English and again advising him of his rights, Williams asked, “So, Juan, you have anything to say?”

  “ ‘Bout what?”

  “About Ms. Ramos.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Inez Ramos. The late Inez Ramos.”

  “I had nothing to do with that. Nothing.”

  “Then you won’t mind helping us clear up a few things.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like how long have you known her? How close were the two of you?”

  “I don’t know her. Not good, anyway. Like we talked a couple times in the lounge. I talk to a lot of chicks.”

  “You didn’t meet her in the basement yesterday? You didn’t maybe fool around a little?”

  Ruiz shook his head.

  “She was a nice-looking woman.”

  “Yeah? So?”

  “You saying you didn’t try to hit on her?”

  “Maybe.”

  “So what is it? Maybe you hit on her or maybe you didn’t try?”

  “I hit on her. Yeah, sure, I hit on her. Is that a crime?”

  “Let’s cut the crap,” Loweman interjected coldly. “You met her in the basement. You had sexual relations with her. Are you going to deny that? We got semen, Ruiz. The woman had semen in her vaginal cavity. Someone put it there. Was that you?”

  Ruiz sat up, turned around in the chair until he was facing away from his two interrogators.

  “Before you answer, Ruiz, let me mention DNA. You’ve heard of DNA typing, right? That alone could be enough to hang you. But in addition to traces of semen, we found traces of fiberglass on your jock shorts. Fiberglass that was also on the victim and her clothes. Fiberglass from insulation covering the duct in the area where the body was found. Mister, there’s no fiberglass insulation in the hotel kitchen. So how the heck would it get on your jocks, Ruiz, unless you were down there in the basement with your pants down around your ankles?”

  “Shiiit, man, look—hey, I’m gonna tell you the honest-to-God truth, man, I met her down there in the morning, before work. We like did it, man. She was willing. Willing. Afterward, I watched her walk away.”

  “Okay, that fits. She was seen on the sixth floor, performing her housekeeping duties till about midmorning. Then she disappeared,”

  Ruiz shrugged his shoulders, shook his head. “I don’t know nothing about her disappearing.”

  “The body was discovered at 6:20 that afternoon. Medical examiner estimates the time of death somewhere between noon and four. She’d been dead at least two, three hours when the coroner examined the body at the scene.”

  “That means I didn’t fucking do it.”

  “It doesn’t mean anything of the kind. It was you the maintenance man saw running from the scene. Want to explain what you were doing down there then?”

  “Okay.” He slapped his palms on the table. “Okay, she called me.”

  “What time?”

  “Eleven. Eleven-thirty. I ain’t supposed to take calls on shift, but she told my supervisor it was, y’know, like urgent. She wanted me to meet her in the basement after work.”

  “What did you tell her?”

  “I said sure. Like you said, Mr. Cop, she was a nice-looking woman. Kinda shy, though.”

  “How did she sound on the phone?”

  “Wha’ d’ya mean?”

  “Did she seem nervous or upset?”

  “She sounded a little nervous, yeah; her voice was, y’know, shaky like. Like I said, she was kinda shy. Not the sorta chick who feels comfortable comin’ on to a guy.”

  “But with you she made an exception, huh, Ruiz?”

  He shrugged again, looked smug.

  “What happened when you got down there?”

  “I found her. It’s dark down in that back part. I almost fell over her. Right away, I knew she was dead.” He clapped a hand over his eyes. “Shit, man, I got scared and I ran. I didn’t do her. I didn’t! Like why would I kill her when she was willing?”

  “How do we know you’re telling it straight? About her being so willing and all?” Williams asked. “Maybe she changed her mind and that pissed you off. Her calling you, getting you down there, and then teasing and all.” Williams opened a file folder and carefully laid out five color photographs on the table in front of Ruiz.

  Ruiz glanced at them, quickly looked away.

  “Take a good look, Ruiz. She isn’t so pretty there, is she? Just about every bone in her face was fractured. Couple teeth knocked out in front. Her cricoid was crushed and her neck broken. Now this one…” Williams tapped a photograph. “See those bruises on the inside of the thigh? I’d say a knee was used to force her legs apart.”

  Ruiz glared at Williams. “I never had to force no chick.”

  Williams grabbed Ruiz’s hands and slapped them down flat on the table. He took a moment to examine them. Even through the dark glass Kasey could see cuts, bums, and scratches in various stages of healing. The hands of a blue-collar worker. The hands of a killer?

  Williams touched a relatively fresh abrasion. “Sarge, did the M.E. find anything under the victim’s fingernails?”

  “Don’t know; the report’s not done yet.”

  “Whad’ya hit her with, lover boy? Whad’ya use to crush her face in? These hands? With maybe something wrapped around the knuckles to keep from injuring them?”

  “Go to hell. I don’t want to talk to you guys no more.”

  Loweman walked around behind Ruiz, leaned against the wall, and folded his arms across his chest. “Y’know something, Juan?”

  Ruiz had to turn completely around to see him.

  “I believe you,” Loweman went on. “Yeah, I believe you when you say you didn’t force yourself on that woman. You’re a lot of things, Juan, but a rapist isn’t one of them. You know what I think happened? I think the two of you were working the hotel together. I think she cased the rooms when she cleaned them. Later she’d get you inside to rip off these folks. Up ‘til yesterday, the pickings had been pretty much penny-ante. Then you hit room six-thirty-four, and eureka! Suddenly you score big, really big. So you decide to cut her out of the deal. Or maybe you were afraid she’d crack, turn you in. You meet in the basement, argue; you get hot, spooked, wha
tever. Maybe you didn’t mean to hurt her, maybe you just wanted to shut her up, like you had to shut up the old lady in room eight-fourteen; but, well, things got out of hand. Is that how it went, Juan?”

  “What the fuck you talkin’ about? What pickings? What old lady?” He looked from one man to another.

  Both detectives were silent.

  “You bastards are trying to set me up. I fess up to a quickie with this chick, and next thing I know you got me raping and stealing and…killing. You know what you can do? You can take your goddamned DNA and your shitty fiberglass evidence and shove it up your asses. I had sex with her this morning; I ain’t denying that. You got nothin’ else on me. Nothing.”

  Loweman and Williams looked at each other and offered nothing.

  “Shiiit, if I was supposed to have killed her around noon, why would I go back down there after work?” Near hysteria made his voice high-pitched, shrill. “Huh, why would I do that? To like pay my final respects?”

  Loweman pushed away from the wall, slipped his hands in his pants pockets, and jingled the change there. “Maybe you went back to look for something. Something that could incriminate you. Something, Juan, that we’ve got.”

  “Why don’t you save us all a lot of time and tell us what happened?” Williams said. “Where’d you stash the rest of the money from Room six-forty-three?”

  Ruiz leaped to his feet. “Fuckers! I wanna lawyer! Get me a fuckin’ lawyer, now!”

  *

  In the dark shadows of the grape arbor, the Monk listened to the soft sounds of water from the manmade waterfall cascading over moss-covered rocks into the pond below. He shifted the small flat box from one gloved hand to another and, through the sheet of vines, watched Dianne King as she lay on her stomach on an inflated raft that lazily drifted in the deep end of the swimming pool. He’d lied when he wrote on the newspaper photo he had sent to her husband that she wasn’t his type. She was his type. There were two kinds of women. The kind you married and the kind you didn’t. He wasn’t looking to get married.

  The woman, a fine oily patina covering her bikini-clad body, lifted her head and tossed the shiny blonde hair from her eyes. In a maneuver that appeared almost liquid, she rolled off the lounge and disappeared beneath the sparkling water. She dove deep and began to swim the length of the pool underwater.