by John Holt
The barman smiled. He placed three glasses on to the counter. He then took the bottle of whiskey from the back shelf, and started to pour. “There we are,” he said. “Three doubles.” He looked up at the two men. “Water or ice?” he asked.
“Water,” the two men answered together. “Just a splash,” added Kendall.
Tony finished preparing the drinks and the two men moved over to a table in the far corner. Tony returned to cleaning the counter.
“Now Alan tell me, what on earth are you doing here?” Kendall asked, as he sat down.
Mills shook his head and smiled. “I could ask you the same question,” he replied. “But you asked first.” He sat down and took a drink. “I’m the house detective, don’t laugh,” he said. “Have been for almost four years now, I came here straight from the force.” He paused for a moment. “I retired after thirty-eight years,” he continued. “Just imagine. That’s a very long time don’t you think?”
It certainly was a long time. “A lot of criminals get a much shorter time,” said Kendall. “You must have done something very bad to get such a sentence.” Mills started to laugh. Kendall took a drink, and glanced around the lounge. It was to here that a few of his colleagues had retired after that formal dinner, he remembered. It had changed quite a bit since then. He turned back to face Mills. “I don’t suppose that there is anyone left now that I would remember,” he said.
Mills shook his head. “There’s one or two, I think.” He sighed as he thought for a moment or two. “There’s Bryant, he’s still there. Sergeant Michael Bryant. We met up a month or so ago,” he said. “And Cole, he’s still around. Roger Lane, he’s still there, and, what was his name?” He started to rub his hands together, and then started tapping his fingers on the table. “What was his name, the ex- marine? He was in Iraq, the first time round. You remember him. A tall, stocky character, built like a tank, and twice as ugly.”
Kendall nodded as he remembered. “I remember him very well.” He paused thinking back. “Vickers. That was his name, John Vickers.”
“That’s right, Vickers,” Mills replied. “He was always talking about his time out in the desert. He should have stayed there.” He shrugged his shoulders. “So tell me Tom what’s been happening with you?”
Kendall smiled, and took a drink. “Well after leaving the department I started up as a private detective.”
Mills smiled. “Oh a kind of Sam Spade, yes,” he said. “Humphrey Bogart was always one of your favorites.”
* * *
Twenty minutes later Kendall had told the whole story. “My last case involved Senator Mackenzie,” he said. “You know who I mean don’t you?”
Mills knew who Kendall was talking about. “I remember,” he replied. “He was a presidential candidate right?” Kendall nodded. “There was some kind of fraud going on, and he eventually withdrew from the race. And there was a State Governor who was murdered. I remember reading about it. What was his name?”
“Reynolds,” Kendall replied. “Governor Frank Reynolds.”
Mills nodded once again, as he recalled the story. “That’s right,” he said. “Frank Reynolds.” He took a drink. He then noticed that Kendall’s glass was empty. “Care for another?” he asked. Then without waiting for a reply, he signaled across the room to Tony, and indicated that another round was required. A few minutes later Tony arrived with the drinks. He placed the drinks on the table, and then went back to the bar. Mills took a drink, and looked at Kendall. “Governor Frank Reynolds,” he repeated. “That was quite a high profile case.” He took another drink. “So when was that?” he asked. “Six months ago?”
“A little over four,” Kendall replied. “After that I moved down to Florida, and set up an office on Sunny Isles.”
Mills let out a low whistle. “Sunny Isles,” he repeated. “Nice, very nice, you must have been well paid.”
Kendall said nothing. He had indeed been well paid, very well paid you might say.
“Sounds like the good life,” he said, sounding envious. “Sun, sand, and the beach, sure sounds good, real good.” He shook his head, and took another drink. “So what are you doing back here in New York?” he asked.
Kendall reached into his inside pocket, and took out an envelope. He opened the contents on to the table. There was a photograph, and a blood stained slip of paper. “I’m looking for this man,” he said as he moved the photograph towards Mills. “You haven’t seen him have you?”
Mills picked up the photograph and examined it carefully. “I’m sorry Tom, but I don’t think I can help you,” he said. He looked at the photograph once more. “No, as far as I can recall I’ve never seen that man before.” He passed the photograph back to Kendall. “What makes you think he might have been here?”
Kendall moved the small piece of blood stained paper across the table. “I found this,” he replied. “It’s part of a receipt, a receipt from the Lexington Hotel.”
Mills picked it up and looked at it. “It’s a receipt all right,” he said. “And it is one of ours.” He looked up at Kendall. “Where did you get it?”
“I’ll explain in a bit more detail later if that has any relevance,” Kendall replied pointing to the scrap or paper.
“Okay,” Mills replied. “So let’s see what we have.” He looked at the paper once again. “All of this mud, and the blood staining doesn’t help.” He looked at Kendall. Kendall said nothing. Mills held the paper up into the light. “Well, the number is all there,” he said. “That should tell us something. Reception should be able to help us. Let’s have a word with Maurice shall we? He’s in charge, or perhaps Brenda his deputy.”
* * *
“Maurice is off today,” Brenda replied in answer to Mills’ question. “Perhaps I can help.”
“Brenda this is an old friend of mine, Tom Kendall,” Mills started to explain. “We were in the police department together. Tom has asked for my help in connection some enquiries that he is making.”
Brenda looked at Kendall and smiled. “Well I’ll do what I can,” she said. “What’s the problem?”
Kendall moved close to the counter. He took the envelope from his inside pocket, and opened it. He took out the piece of paper and handed it to her. “Can you tell me what that is?” he asked.
Brenda took hold of the document and examined it. “Well it’s quite damaged,” she said. “But it appears to be one of our receipts. The kind we issue when somebody checks out.” She looked at Kendall. Had she seen him before, she wondered? She didn’t think so. “Is this yours?” she asked looking back at the receipt. “Is there a problem, a complaint perhaps or something?”
“Oh no, nothing like that,” Kendall replied. “I’m just trying to locate the person that receipt was issued to.”
“Mr. Kendall is a private detective,” Mills explained helpfully, as he leant forward. “He’s working on an important case right now.” He looked at Kendall and smiled. “A very important case and identifying that receipt could be a real big help.”
Whether or not this was meant to impress Brenda is not certain. Her face gave nothing away, and she made no comment. She looked at Mills, and then she looked at Kendall. After a few moments she turned her attention to the document she held in her hand. “Well, as I said it is certainly one of ours. The hotel name, and logo, is clearly legible. So is the address, email, and the telephone number. Everything is there.” She looked up. “Everything is there, with the exception of the date unfortunately.”
She looked closely at the document. “It should be here, at the bottom right hand corner.” She pointed at the document. “You can see that it has been torn off as it came out of the printer. That happens sometimes, especially if you are a bit too quick. The paper gets stuck, and as you pull, it rips. “The receipt number is, however, still visible. It is a bit obscured by all of this blood staining, but it’s still intact and legible.” She looked at Kendall. “Where did all this blood come from anyway?” she asked.
Kendall smiled and shook his head.
“I don’t really know,” he said. “A paper cut I imagine.”
She shook her head, and glared at him, and then looked at Mills. Mills smiled back. She shrugged her shoulders, and looked back at the paper. “We can look that number up in our records, and see what other information there is. I hope it wasn’t too long ago, and that it is still on the system.” Kendall looked puzzled. “Anything more than twelve months old is put on disc and archived. Anything more than six years old is shredded. That’s company policy,” she explained. “You have to keep information for a minimum of six years. That’s the law.”
Kendall really wasn’t that interested about the company policy. All he really wanted was some information about that scrap of paper she was holding. Besides he was convinced that the scrap of paper was no older than two or three days, four at the most. “Very interesting,” he murmured, sounding anything but interested.
Brenda started to press some keys on the keyboard, as she entered the number into the computer. The screen flashed two or three times. “Here we are,” she suddenly announced. “It was issued two days ago, would you like a print out?”
A print out sounded good, Kendall thought. “Yes sure that’ll be fine,” he said. “Thanks for your help.”
She pressed another button, and then the whirring noise started to indicate that the printer was working. A few moments later she bent forward, and picked out the finished document. “There you are,” she said, handing the document to Kendall. “The receipt went to Mr. Keith Gardner. He checked out the day before yesterday.”
Kendall looked up, a frown quickly spreading across his forehead. Who was Keith Gardner he wondered. “Mr. Keith Gardner?” he repeated.
“Yes that’s right,” she replied “Look here in the register.” She turned the page around to face Kendall. “He was here for a little over a week,” she continued. “He arrived on the fifth.”
“The day that Simmonds had left for New York,” Kendall murmured.
“Did you say something sir?” Brenda asked.
Kendall shook his head. “Oh no, just thinking aloud. Sorry to interrupt you, carry on.”
Brenda looked back at the screen. “He was here with Mr. Cartwright,” she continued.
Kendall reached into his pocket and took out an envelope. He opened the envelope and took out a photograph. He placed the photograph on the desk in front of Brenda. “Is that Mr. Gardner, or Mr. Cartwright?” he asked as he tapped the photograph.
Brenda picked up the photograph and carefully examined it. After a few moments she handed the photograph back to Kendall. She was shaking her head. “That’s not Mr. Gardner,” she said. “Or Mr. Cartwright, I’m sorry but I have never seen that man before.”
Kendall sighed, and looked at the receptionist. “Thanks anyway,” he said. Then he carefully put the photograph of Carl Simmonds back into the envelope, and returned it to his inside pocket. “Do you know what Mr. Gardner looked like? Or Mr. Cartwright?” he asked. “I mean could you describe them for me?”
The receptionist shook her head. She wasn’t very good at that kind of thing, she explained. “I find it hard to judge people’s heights,” she explained. “But I can actually do better. We have a photograph.” Kendall looked puzzled. “We take photographs of all of our guests,” she explained. “At the end of the stay they can be purchased. We keep them for a week or so after the guest has checked out, then we destroy them.”
She went over to a filing cabinet behind her, and opened the top drawer. “Just a moment,” she said. “I’ll see if I can find it.” After a few minutes she found the relevant file. “Here it is, she announced. She returned to the counter holding the file. She laid it on the counter, and opened it. Slowly she looked through the folder. “There you are,” she said when she had found what she was looking for. “Mr. Gardner is on the left, and that is Mr. Cartwright next to him.”
Kendall took hold of the photograph and looked at it. It was the two men he had seen that evening, whilst waiting for Russell, the two bogus police officers who had paid him a visit. Mr. Gardner was none other than his friend, the wrestler. Mr. Cartwright was the man with the newspaper.
No wonder Russell had been nervous. He had seen those two men at the airport. They must have known that he suspected them. But it made no sense. The two men saw Simmonds at the airport that night, and now one of them at the very least is involved in his kidnap. How did they know he would be going to New York anyway? They couldn’t have known. It was almost as though it had been planned that way all along, and they had already been told that he was going to New York.
Simmonds had intended going to New York from the very first. He never had any intention of going to Chicago. That was just a smokescreen, or something, but why? All right so he had always intended going to New York. Clearly he didn’t go to the Lexington Hotel, so where did he go?
Kendall shook his head. This was getting ridiculous. If it had all been planned, and they had known that he would be in New York, then Simmonds must have been aware of the plan. He must have been party to it.
“Party to his own kidnapping. Now that is novel.” He shrugged his shoulders, and looked up. “There was no kidnapping was there?” he announced to no one in particular. “There never was.”
“Did you say something, Mr. Kendall?” Brenda asked.
Kendall said nothing, but continued staring and murmuring to himself. Mills shook his arm. “Tom,” he cried. “Tom.”
Kendall’s eyes opened wide, and he shook his head, turning to face Mills. Then he looked towards Brenda. ‘”Sorry, I was just thinking aloud,” he said. “I have one more question, did either Mr. Gardner, or Mr. Cartwright, leave a forwarding address?”
Brenda looked down at the computer screen, and nodded her head. “Well, they did,” she replied. “But I don’t think it will be much help to you. It’s the Grant Hotel, in Chicago.”
“The Grant Hotel,” Kendall repeated. That was the hotel where Simmonds had been due to stay, until he switched planes that is.
* * *
It was late evening when Kendall finally arrived back at his office. Mollie was still there waiting. “I expected you a couple of hours ago,” she said. “I was getting worried.”
Kendall put his arm around her. It was obvious that she had been crying. “There’s nothing to be worried about,” he said. “There was just a bit of a delay at the airport, that’s all, a security scare of some kind. They were checking everyone. Then they couldn’t get the luggage off of the plane. It all had to be searched. Every single item was opened up. And you know what? They found nothing, absolutely nothing. It was all a big hoax. Anyway, I’m here now, no harm done.” He sat down. “Anything been happening here?”
“Oh no, nothing much,” Mollie replied. “Only that.” She slid a newspaper across the desk towards him.
Chapter Thirteen
Eve Simmonds
Kendall reached across the desk, and pulled the newspaper closer. There, emblazoned across the front page of the Miami Herald, was the thick black banner headline, “Heiress Found Murdered.” Underneath, the sub heading simply read “Eve Simmonds Shot Dead.”
Kendall could not believe it. His client was dead. He quickly scanned the opening sentences. “Eve Simmonds the heiress to the vast Bradley fortune was found dead in her luxury apartment on Miami North Beach. She had been shot twice.”
“Shot,” Kendall murmured. “Murdered, but why? When? How?” It was only three days ago that he had seen her alive and well, three days since they had spoken. Only three days since she had made that pay off. He looked up at the date on the newspaper. It was two days ago, the day he had left for New York, the day after the pay off.
She had actually been murdered on the same day as the pay off. It didn’t make sense, they had got their money. He had actually seen the cash sitting in the attaché case, he had actually touched it. He had seen someone in the clearing, he had seen them pick the case up, and then drive away. So why would anyone kill her?
He
started to rub the side of his face. Perhaps all was not as it had seemed. Maybe she had decided not to make the payment after all. Maybe she had just taken the money out of the case, before she left it at that tree in the clearing. Perhaps she had simply decided to keep the money, and she had just left an empty case behind. Maybe she decided not to save him after all.
Kendall shook his head. He didn’t believe a word of it. It was just too ridiculous. Nobody would be that stupid, it was just too big a risk. No, she had paid the money over that much was certain. She had followed the instructions to the letter. So why would anyone kill her?
Kendall continued reading. “She had been shot twice. Mrs. Simmonds was in the news four years ago when her family home, Rutland Hall, had been broken into and the famous Marinski Ruby had been stolen. The gem collection had once belonged to an Empress of Russia, and had been brought to America by James Meredith Bradley, Mrs. Simmonds’ grandfather. Mr. Bradley had gone to Russia shortly after the Revolution, and had discovered the jewels hidden in a disused church.”
“The robbery was thought to be an inside job, and suspicion fell upon Charles Wheeler, the family butler. Stress and pressure proved to be too much, and he committed suicide shortly after. Apart from a suicide note he left a full confession. Apart from Mr. Wheeler there were no other suspects. With the death of Charles Wheeler the case was closed.”
Kendall laid the newspaper down on to the desk. “She never said anything to me about a robbery. She kept that to herself didn’t she? Why didn’t she say something?”
Mollie shrugged her shoulders. “Well perhaps she just didn’t think it was relevant,” she said. “After all it was four years ago. Maybe she didn’t consider it important. Besides, as it states, the case was closed. Makes sense to me.”
Kendall shook his head. “Mollie, in this game everything is relevant, and everything is important, until proven otherwise,” he replied. “I just can’t believe it, deliberately withholding information like that. She should have told me.”