“Danvers could do it,” I said confidently, though I wasn’t sure. While Land had technically worked for Danvers in the military, my husband had his ear now. In most cases, Land had only to speak, and Danvers responded.
“So I take it that wasn’t your idea?” Land said. He looked a little puzzled.
“Not at all. I was wondering what had become of the couple in the same hallway as Gardner. They seem to have disappeared entirely. Don’t you think that’s strange? No one has seen them, and they won’t answer the door.”
Land thought for a moment before answering. “They didn’t answer when the police knocked, so that’s something, and they don’t appear to have eaten in the common room. So you could make a case about them. What do you think happened to them? Escaped, killed, kidnapped?”
I shrugged. “I’m not sure. I think we need to get into that room and look around.”
Land laughed. “I doubt that Danvers is going to be able to get a warrant here. There are definitely limits on how much he’s able to do until the local police get here.”
I smiled and held up the maid’s key. “Who needs a warrant? We can look around.”
Land’s eyes narrowed into slits. “Do you know what you’re doing here?” he asked.
I nodded. “We’ll knock first. If no one answers, we’ll try the key we found.”
“I don’t suppose you want to go outside and see if we can look inside the windows, first?” he suggested. “It does the same thing without getting you in so much trouble.”
“Sure, why not?” I said.
We headed back to our room to get into our ski clothes. Land tried to take my mind off the case, and we spent a little time together before investigating. My clothes were getting tight around the middle, but I tried to ignore that fact as we bundled up.
We left the room and headed to the exits from the common area. There was no reason to try to hide our intentions. We trudged to the front doors in thick leather boots and walked out into a true winter wonderland.
The snow had drifted since the morning. The valleys were only a few inches deep, but the drifts had grown to nearly my height. I followed along behind Land as he pushed his way through the piled white stuff. We made it to the part of the building that was outside of the hallway that held Danny Gardner’s room.
Land started pushing his way through the snow to find the correct windows.
Each building held five windows. Three looked into the main room of the cabin, and the other two were located in the master bedroom. Land started with the bedroom windows, since they were closer. The shades were drawn, and the gaps were not large enough for us to see anything.
The living room area windows were another matter. The blinds were up, and we had a clear view into the main room. Part of me wished that I hadn’t suggested going into the cabin. The room was covered in blood with smears on the furniture. Blood spatter had hit the lower pane of the windows, making tiny spots of red that sparkled in the bright afternoon sun.
From our angle, we couldn’t see if there were any bodies in the room, but the blood certainly told a story by itself. Land turned so that he blocked the view. “There’s a few things that we’re going to do right now. First, you’re going to wipe that key clean and throw it on the floor in the hallway where we talked to the maid. The last thing Danvers needs to know is that you were talking about breaking into a crime scene.”
I nodded and stuffed my hand deep into my pocket, where I could feel the hard metal against my glove. “What else?”
“Then I need you to go find Danvers and get him to come out here.”
“Why? What are you doing?” I asked. I could hear the resentment in my voice. I’d been the one to suggest the room and its possible contents. I didn’t want to lose the credit to my husband.
“Two things. One, I’m going to stand guard and make sure that no one else comes out here to stick their nose into what we’re doing. People might get curious about why we decided to come outside and want to know more. Even though you don’t have the reputation here for sleuthing that you do in Capital City, I’m betting that one or two people might recognize your name from your previous cases.”
I had to agree that a certain level of notoriety had come with the cases I’d solved, and for the most part, the attention did not bother me. However, Land had a point. If I was seen sneaking off to the great outdoors in the middle of a snow storm, others might start to guess at why.
“What’s the other thing that you’re going to do out here?” I asked.
“I’m going to try to inspect the snow to see if I can find any traces of disturbances or footprints.”
I looked around me. The snow was as high as my head in some places. I wasn’t sure that I’d be able to see dead bodies out here, much less signs of disturbance.
He seemed to read my mind, because he said, “I had some training in the Pyrenees.” This was an oblique reference to his police and military trainings in the Basque. It was typical of Land to have some hidden skill I’d never heard of prior to this moment. He didn’t talk much about his time in the military, other than to let me know that it had been painful on many levels.
I trudged off alone to the front door of the resort. No one stopped me or seemed to be watching my movements as I entered the warmth again. I was glad for the heat. The weather outside was not unbearably cold, just the mid-20s, but I appreciated my creature comforts these days.
I slipped out of my boots and left them by the door. With multiple murders in the building, I wasn’t concerned that someone would take my shoes. It seemed to be the least of my worries.
I didn’t have to walk far to find Detective Danvers. He and Sabine were the only two hotel customers at the café. A few of the people I recognized as staff were eating as well, likely trying to manage a meal between catastrophes.
He and Sabine were having a meal, either a late lunch or early dinner. Though Danvers frequently partook of the free—for him—fare at the food truck, he was eating a healthy meal now. A salad, salmon, and vegetables. The smell of fish nearly made me gag. It was one of the downsides to being pregnant. My nose had become overactive, and I had trouble with certain odors at this point. I considered myself fortunate that it wasn’t anything served at Dogs on the Roll, though Land showered when he returned home now, to wash off the scent of his fish soups.
I gave them both a small smile and said, “Land wants to see you outside.”
Danvers looked outside and then at me. “This better be important. What does he want?”
“I really don’t think he wants me to announce what we found to the staff here.”
Danvers didn’t budge, and I looked around. Three members of the staff had stopped talking, which was a clear indication that they were eavesdropping on our conversation. I turned my body so my back was to the others, and gave Danvers a sign. Using my index finger, I pretended to slit my own throat. Sabine wasn’t able to see, which made her hiss at us, trying to get our attention.
Danvers didn’t speak, but he immediately put his napkin on the table and walked away. “Tell them to box up my lunch,” were his parting words to his fiancée.
Sabine called for a waiter and had him box both meals. The server looked unenthused by the request, but he walked off with the plates.
“What exactly is going on?” she whispered to me.
“We found something bad,” I shared. I figured that she would know soon enough. Everyone in the resort would know within the hour. I had to assume that both members of the couple were dead on the floor.
“Outside? What possessed you to go out there?”
“I was suspicious of the couple in the room next to the dead man. Land was unsure if Danvers could get a warrant based on the lack of solid evidence. So we walked outside and happened to look in the windows of the room next door.”
The server came back with the boxes stacked in a cute little Christmas bag. Sabine took the bag and flashed a smile at him. We stood and walked away from the café.
We had left the common area and were heading to the rooms when she stopped. “What exactly did you two see?” she said, now in her normal voice.
“Bloodstains on the window. Land blocked my view, but I am sure they’re dead.” I shuddered as I remembered the blood spatter on the glass.
Sabine turned. “Let’s go find Land and Jax then.” She looked down at the food bags, and turned again. “I’m going to put these in the room and then we’ll go looking for them. It doesn’t take long to look at a dead body through the window.”
She was right. Given my estimates of how long Danvers had taken to dress warmly and go outside, he should have seen the bodies by now and be on his way back inside to handle things. Sabine had me wait while she practically sprinted to her room. She was back in under a minute, carrying boots and a coat.
“Let’s go,” she said.
It only took me a second to pull on my boots. Since I was still dressed in heavy gear, I leaned against the wall while she hurried with her attire. She pulled on the second boot, and we once again headed for the common room.
Danvers and Land were standing at the front desk in an earnest conversation. We walked up to them and listened in.
The manager was hastily arguing that no one could go into the other guest rooms without their permission, an obviously specious argument in this particular situation. Danvers lifted his phone to call the local police before the manager capitulated. “Fine, fine. I’ll get you a key to the room, but I’m going with you.”
“That’s fine,” Land added, “but there’s a lot of blood. You’ve been warned.”
The manager turned as white as the falling snow, but he grabbed the key and came with the four of us. Danvers, as the nominal head of the group, led the way. We turned at the corner to the hallway and stopped. Danvers made a motion for the manager to open the door.
He did, and then took several steps back. The scene was every bit as bad as I’d expected. The walls had bloody handprints on them. The floor had thick pools of the copper-colored liquid. Fortunately, from the angle of the door, I could only see the feet of one of the bodies. The rest was hidden on the far side of the bed.
The manager stammered for a second and then said, “Do what you need to do here. I won’t get in the way.” He scurried down the hallway without looking for an answer.
Danvers pulled the door nearly shut and retrieved his phone. “I’m going to call the local police and inform them.”
He dialed and the rest of us waited in silence—in part because we wanted to hear the conversation. Danvers was short and to the point. He’d discovered two more bodies, likely dead by the same hand as the first corpse. The crime scene needed to be processed, and he would be sending the photos to the local police when he was finished. He was concerned about how the lack of a timely processing of the scene would allow the evidence to decay, making a conviction that much harder.
As the number of bodies started to stack up, I was reminded of And Then There Were None. Maybe one of the guests was out to kill everyone trapped here at the resort. I shook it off as an over-active imagination and focused on the conversation again.
Danvers was telling the police the steps he would take and the things that he would not be able to do at the resort. Bloodstains and spatter would be photographed. The victims would be photographed and their fingerprints would be recorded as well. Any visible fingerprints would also be recorded as well.
He hung up after a few more answers and looked at us. “Land, I want you to get the photos of the bodies and their prints. I know it’s a long shot that they can use images of the prints, but we’ll try. Maeve, you’re going to take photos of the blood spatter and the pooling.”
“What about their lividity?” I asked. The focus on technical terms and techniques allowed my brain to stop focusing on the immense amount of blood in the room.
“Yes. You can move the clothes, but you aren’t to turn the bodies or move them at all. Got it?”
I knew that I would receive special instructions, because I was the most likely to go above and beyond looking for evidence.
He continued, “Sabine, take photos of the windows, focusing on any prints you can see on the panes.”
Sabine looked a little miffed at the simpler job, but Danvers was always trying to protect her, even when she didn’t need someone to watch out for her. I know Land was on Danvers’ side in regard to that.
I got to work, photographing the various spatter designs and the pools of blood on the floor. I looked for any types of footprints or boot prints on the floor as well, but I saw nothing. I wondered how the killer had escaped without any of the blood on his body. The amount on the floor practically begged to be stepped in. I was glad that I was wearing my boots and not my everyday shoes. I would have been concerned about the blood seeping through the leather to my socks.
The man appeared to be about 40, an estimate based on his facial construction, his wrinkles, and the loss of body tone that comes with age. The woman was much younger. I would have put her age at about 25, judging from the clothes she wore and the type of make-up she used.
With the age gap, I had to wonder if the man was rich, or if this was just a fling. Of course, the killings could have no bearing on the current case. If the two had been married to other people, perhaps the motive was just plain jealousy.
Once I was done with the first round of photos, I carefully lifted the man’s shirt and the woman’s blouse. Both had lividity on their backs, meaning that they’d likely fallen in this position or been moved quickly to another position. It seemed like an awkward way to land, face up and stretched out of their backs.
I was under the impression that most people crumpled up, rather than falling like bodies prepped for burial. I wondered if the bodies had been purposefully posed. The lividity also indicated that the couple had most likely been killed here in the room. Since we hadn’t seen any scratch marks on the door, either the man or the woman had probably allowed the killer in.
I waited for someone to comment on the bodies, but each person was so focused on their own work that no one said a thing. I kept up my work until I was finished. Then I walked over to Danvers and asked, “Where do I send this?”
He gave me a name and number, and I started texting the photos to the local police, trying to keep the images to smaller sizes. When I was done, the police sent a quick text back, confirming that they had received all of them.
I looked around. Land was already texting his own work to the police, while Sabine was still taking photos of various parts of the room where visible prints could be seen. Given that it was a ski resort in the middle of winter, I suspected that most of the work Sabine did would be for naught. Hundreds of people came through here every season and, depending on how good the cleaning staff was, prints of every one of those guests could be represented here.
She finally finished and sent her photos to the police as well. “What now?” she asked. “Are we going to questions the guests?”
Danvers shook his head. “The local police were pretty clear about it. We aren’t to upset the guests too much. Skiing is a big tourist draw here, so they want to keep the resorts happy with the law enforcement in the area. We can talk to the staff and the management, but we have to follow the resort’s lead on what to tell the guests. My guess is that we’re going to be hampered from doing much here.”
“So that’s it?” Sabine said. “We’re done?”
Danvers took her by the hand. “I was actually going to call a council of war. I thought maybe we could meet in our room and talk.”
***
We trudged to Danvers’ room in silence. I wasn’t looking forward to being told what we could and couldn’t do by one of Capital City’s finest. He would play the game carefully and politically, but he’d want to add the case to his record of solved crimes.
We entered and all found places to sit down. The chair by the window wasn’t taken, and Land moved it so that I could see everyone. We had a simi
lar chair in our room. I snuggled down into it and pulled a warm cover over me. I wanted to be nice and toasty after my foray into the snowdrifts.
Land grabbed a few ingredients from one of the complimentary resort gift bags and started whipping up hot chocolate using the microwave and sink. I smiled, knowing what treat was coming.
“So what exactly are we supposed to in this situation?” Land asked while he mixed.
“The police want us to process the crime scenes but do little else. They don’t want the guests or the owners to be disturbed in any way. That means we’ll have to be discreet if we’re going to ask questions or talk to people. We’ll have to confine our efforts to the staff and touch base with the manager from time to time.”
Land nodded. “So we are going to try to solve this? I just want to be clear on how much I’ll need to watch my wife,” he said as he turned and winked at me.
“Yes. We’re going to try to solve this. Someone here has killed three people. The first crime didn’t have much blood because the victim was wearing layers of clothing, but these last two deaths had a significant amount of blood. Someone here has to have clothing of some sort that is covered in blood.”
“Are we going to search rooms?” I asked, thinking of the master key that was still in my pocket. I didn’t want to let Danvers know that I’d borrowed the key unless we needed to have it.
Danvers turned to look at me. “No, that’s too intrusive. I was thinking that maybe you could take a shift from the housekeeper and search though?”
My eyes widened. Had he really just suggested that I do manual labor to help him? “What?”
“It would just be one shift, and then you’d be done. I thought you liked to nose around into other people’s lives.” His voice sounded sincere, though I had to wonder if he was enjoying the thought of me cleaning up after so many people.
FOOD TRUCK MYSTERIES: The Complete Series (14 Books) Page 151