Reservation with Death

by Diane Capri

  Mayor Daniel Evans had changed suits, and I’d seen him leaving the area during the TOD window. He was looking like the most viable suspect, but what would he be doing with a low-level petty criminal? Just didn’t seem like there was a connection. Or maybe I didn’t want to see one since Daniel was handsome and pleasant. But so had been Ted Bundy, and look how that all turned out.

  I also thought about the victim’s missing cell phone. Would the killer have taken it? Possibly. Especially if there was something incriminating on it. Or had the victim dropped it somewhere in the pool area? The sheriff and his men had eventually searched the area, and obviously hadn’t found it, or the sheriff wouldn’t have mentioned it in the search at the spa. So where was it?

  When six o’clock rolled around, I put up the closed sign on the desk and made a beeline toward the pool. The spa was closed, the doors locked shut, and it seemed the sheriff and his men were gone, so that left me all alone in the corridor. I waited for a few moments just to be sure, then used my key card to access the pool and went inside. Thankfully there was no crime scene tape for me to cut through.

  I walked the pool deck, looking in every corner, under every chaise, and inside every potted plant. There was nothing to be found. I glanced into the open maintenance room, but my stomach churned. I wasn’t sure I could go into the restricted area. It wasn’t a large room, so I was certain it had been thoroughly searched. I decided not to go inside.

  I turned to head back. I didn’t see the evidence marker on the ground, which should’ve been picked up and taken away by the deputies, and I stumbled over it, losing my balance. I ended up on my hands and knees on the hard tile, my face just missing the chrome handrail that descended into the pool. What was it with me and shoes lately?

  I grabbed the railing to pull myself up, and that’s when I saw something glinting at the bottom of the pool. From this angle, I couldn’t quite make it out clearly, but it appeared to be rectangular in shape.

  I leaned forward and peered into the water. I moved my head back and forth, and saw that the glint came from the reflection of the light above. It was flashing from a reflective service. Like the screen of a cell phone.

  Could it be?

  If so, how had they missed it? These guys acted like the Keystone Cops sometimes. Good grief.

  I quickly shucked my shoes, my pants, and my shirt. Biting down on my lip and peering into the water, I considered the situation and how crazy I was being right now. What if it was nothing but someone’s watch, fallen off some guest while he swam….but what if it wasn’t? I had to find out. Taking a deep breath, I dove into the pool.

  I kicked hard to the bottom toward one of the drains. I could see something stuck inside the grate. The closer I got the harder my heart thumped. It was a cell phone; a piece of its broken plastic case was stuck in the drain. I grabbed it, worked it free, and swam up to the surface.

  I broke the water’s surface with phone in hand and a smile on my face. It quickly faded when three sets of eyes peered down at me.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Lois demanded.

  “Um, swimming?”

  Mayor Lindsey gaped at me as I started to walk the steps out of the pool realizing too late that I wore both a white bra and a white pair of panties. White fabric that became see-through when wet. “In your underwear?” she sputtered.

  My face went red, and I quickly sunk back into the water. But not before Mayor Daniel got his eyes full of a nearly naked hotel concierge.

  And there was no mistaking the slight twitch of his lips as he pretended to cough into his hand.

  Chapter 16

  I would’ve laughed at the situation, as it was quite comical, but no one looked pleased. Well, except for maybe Daniel.

  “I, ah, dropped my phone in the pool.” I quickly showed them the phone, then smiled.

  “So you just jumped into the water?” Lois asked incredulously.

  “It’s an expensive phone, and I couldn’t get it with the net.” I shrugged. “I didn’t think anyone would be in here, so I didn’t think it would be that big a deal.”

  The way she looked at me, I wasn’t sure she believed the load of crap I was trying to feed her.

  “Could I get a towel, please?” I pointed to the stack of towels behind Daniel.

  He reached behind him, grabbed one, and handed it to me. I took it, wrapped it around me in the water, and then came out of the pool. Some would say it totally defeated the purpose, but I really didn’t want to flash my wares to everyone again. That kind of stuff should only happen in private with an attentive audience.

  “Well, you are definitely a determined woman, albeit unorthodox,” Mayor Hamilton said, “I will give you that.”

  Her statement made me beam. It wasn’t exactly a glowing compliment, but I was taking it as one. Although we’d gotten off to a rough start, I respected Lindsey Hamilton. She was a woman in power, which was not common. I’d done a lot of research on the topic for a client a while back, but then I’d done more for my own knowledge vault. At some point in my life, I thought I’d want to get into politics. Mayor Hamilton was leading the way for the rest of us.

  “I’m sorry about this whole weekend,” Lois said. “It’s turning into one disaster after another. First the pool closure and now the spa.” She flicked a deadly look at me, like it was all my fault someone had been murdered in her hotel.

  Lindsey patted Lois’s shoulder. “It’s not your fault, Lois.”

  “You’re doing an admirable job keeping everything together, considering the circumstances,” Daniel said. “Despite the obvious hiccups, I’m enjoying my stay. My room is great, the food is top-notch, and the surroundings are quite…” his gaze met mine, “attractive.”

  Hmm, very brash, Mayor Evans.

  “And the spa, Mayor Evans?” I asked. “How was the service there?” I knew it was bold, but I couldn’t help myself. If he was playing a game, I wanted him to know that I knew how to play. Although considering the stakes, that might not have been my best or safest move. He knew where I lived.

  He raised an eyebrow like I’d caught him off guard.

  “When did you find the time to go to the spa?” Lois asked him with a chuckle. “We’ve been in meetings the past two days.”

  He cleared his throat. “I popped in for a quick…pedicure.”

  All three of us looked at him. He pulled at his blue tie, dropping his gaze to inspect some tiny lint on his pressed trousers.

  “I like to take care of my feet,” he explained. “There are a lot of health benefits to it.”

  “Well, you are a runner, so you need good feet,” I said.

  “That’s true.”

  “And you run at night.”

  “I do.” There was an amused twitch to his lips.

  “And running along the cliffs can afford you some interesting views.”

  His eyes narrowed. “I suppose so, if one did run along the cliffs. Which I didn’t.”

  I laughed because I couldn’t keep it in. I’d been feeling uneasy about seeing him on video near the crime scene just before I’d found the body. And I’d thought he was the one watching me the other night. But he was innocent, it appeared. A pedicure. A jog that had not included the cliff area. In this case, I wanted to believe him, so I did. Sometimes it was good to be wrong.

  “Andi? What has gotten into you?” Lois asked, none too pleased with me.

  I shook my head, trying to rein in my mirth. “I apologize. It’s been a long day, and I think I just need some sleep.” I gestured to the pool and to my state of undress. “Obviously.”

  “Well, good for you, Daniel,” Lindsey said, breaking the tension that seemed to be filling the room. “I wish Justin would do something about his feet. They’re disgusting.”

  I fell into another fit of laughter. Lois and Lindsey joined in, and I considered the situation thoroughly defused. It was time for me to make my exit and investigate the mysterious cell phone.

  I picked up my clothes and slo
shed my way across the pool deck and out the door. Daniel’s gaze was on me the entire time. I looked back to make sure my butt wasn’t exposed. It wasn’t. But he’d been staring at me for some reason, and I tried not to be uneasy about that.

  Back in my room, I dunked the waterlogged phone into a cup of rice, hoping for the best. I had no way of knowing how long the phone had been submerged. It could be a total loss, even with high-tech equipment or a contact at the phone company to bring the data back to life, which I didn’t have access to here in my room. But I hoped the phone wasn’t damaged beyond the point of no return.

  I quickly showered off the chlorine, changed into comfy lounge pants and a t-shirt, then sat on the sofa. Scout joined me, but Jem was sleeping on the floor in the last pool of sunlight, effectively ignoring me. He’d been grumpy lately. Probably because I’d been so busy and didn’t afford him with enough scratches on his little belly for his liking. He could be a real diva when he wanted to be.

  As Jem curled up in my lap, I pulled the phone out of the rice. It was a disposable—something a person could buy on the go—so maybe the rice trick was doomed. I turned the phone on. For a few moments, it seemed like a lost cause, but then I was rewarded with a lit-up screen and a couple of icons. Using the arrows on the keypad, I scrolled to text messages and pressed OK. The screen filled with what had to be Thomas’s last three texts, all to the same phone number. I quickly jotted the number and the messages down on a piece of a paper in case the phone died later.

  I’m here. You better bring me my money!

  I’m not playin, meet me or else!

  Meet me at the pool at 6 or everyone will know the truth.

  I knew I should march down to the sheriff’s station and hand over the phone immediately, without doing anything else. I knew I was courting trouble by searching through the phone myself. Sheriff Jackson could charge me with obstruction of justice or something, and he was the type of man who would do just that. Criminal charges wouldn’t help me one bit with my license suspension board hearings, either.

  Before I lost my nerve, I quickly punched in the phone number Banks had texted and waited. It rang twice then went to an automated voice mail. I disconnected.

  I shouldn’t have expected anything different. Maybe the owner of the phone was the killer. It wasn’t like the killer was going to answer the call from a dead man’s phone. The number probably went to another burner anyway. And he’d probably had already tossed it since it was tied to a murder victim.

  Thomas Banks had been blackmailing someone, probably the killer—that much was clear. But about what? It was difficult to decipher just by the text messages. It could’ve been anything. An affair, embezzlement, a dark secret from the past. Any one of those would be good blackmail material.

  Scout meowed at me when I moved, and I scratched her little black chin where she liked it the most. I picked her up and took her with me to the bedroom to change. “I know, I know. I should take the phone to the sheriff. You’re right. As always.”

  Chapter 17

  I walked down to the village since it was a nice evening. Along the way, I considered calling my parents. I really should let them know I’d moved across the country. But that would mean telling them why I’d moved. Which would lead to a discussion of Jeremy’s embezzlement and how I could possibly have been so blindly stupid. I could feel the disapproval washing over me just thinking about talking to them. So I didn’t. I’d put it off this long. The call could wait.

  I passed the horse-drawn carriage parked to one side and recognized the mother of the bride stepping out with her gorgeous daughter in her very puffy wedding dress. The mother wore a simple but elegant teal gown that looked stunning on her. I was pleased to provide that small service to her.

  That was one thing about the law that I loved: service to people. For people. I was all about the solutions I could provide, even if they seemed small and insignificant on the outside. I knew what it meant to the person who needed the help.

  The sheriff’s station was housed in an old brick building next door to the town hall. Both buildings looked like they’d been some of the first to be constructed on the island. Historic and just a little bit rundown, like many other buildings I’d seen.

  I walked up the three steps to the front door and went in. It was bare but clean inside. One of the deputies, Shawn I think it was, got up from his desk and wandered up to the small front reception counter.

  “What can I help you with?”

  “I need to see Sheriff Jackson.”

  He narrowed his eyes at me. “You’re from the Park Hotel.”

  “I am, and I need to talk to him. It’s important.”

  “He’s not here. You can come back tomorrow.”

  “Really? I can see him sitting right there inside his office.” I gestured to the window behind the deputy that showed Sheriff Jackson behind his desk, eating what looked to be a hamburger and french fries.

  Shawn didn’t even have the courtesy to blush when he’d told me such a bold-faced lie. “What I meant is that he’s busy and not seeing anyone right now.”

  I waved my arms in the air, making sure the sheriff could see me. He did. Despite the glass barrier between us, I could hear him groan in exasperation. Shaking his head, he set down the burger and waved at me to come in. I gave a sweet toothy smile to the deputy as he opened the half door so I could come through to the sheriff’s office.

  “What can I do for you, Ms. Steele?” Sheriff Jackson sighed as he leaned forward, putting his elbows on his desk.

  I dropped the plastic bag containing the cell phone in front of him. “I found this in the pool when I was, ah, swimming. I’m pretty sure it belonged to Thomas Banks.”

  “You assume, or you know for sure because you went through it?”

  I scrunched up my face. “The second thing?”

  “So, your prints are going to be all over it.”

  “Yes.” I sat in the visitor’s chair which was just a hard wooden thing not made for comfort. Not surprising considering the man whose office it was in.

  He ran a hand through his hair, which I was coming to identify as a sign of irritation. Especially with me. “Well, now we’re going to need to take your fingerprints.”

  “That’s fine,” I said. I didn’t remind him that I was a lawyer and my prints were already in the system in California. I didn’t need him poking around in my business out there.

  He leaned back in his chair and regarded me with narrowed eyes and furrowed brow. “You are quickly becoming the biggest pain in my ass I have ever personally dealt with.”

  “This pain in the ass just happened to find two crucial pieces of evidence for you, Sheriff, so, personally, I think some gratitude would be in order.”

  “If you want gratitude, go help your hotel guests find a good restaurant and leave the crime investigation to the professionals.”

  “There was blood on that shirt, wasn’t there? The victim’s, I’ll bet.”

  “I really don’t need someone who’s watched too much CSI on TV thinking they know what they are doing.”

  “I never watch CSI. Too farfetched. Besides Grissom was way too charming to be in law enforcement.” I sniffed.

  He pointed to the door. “Tell the deputy to take your prints, and then get out of my station.”

  I stood. “Your position is an elected one, right?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Good. Now I know who not to vote for in the next election.” I marched out of his office, slammed his door shut, and scowled at the deputy. “Take my prints, and make it quick.”

  Modern police stations have computerized equipment for fingerprinting. No messy ink and finger rolling and whatnot. But not here on Frontenac Island, where even the forensic techniques were historic.

  While the deputy rolled the pads of my fingers along the ink pad, my gaze landed on a thick manila folder nearby. It was the case file. It had Thomas Banks’s name printed in marker along the tab. The deputy proceeded to take
each of my fingers and roll them onto the fingerprint card. As he did that, I thought about how I could get a peek into that file.

  After he was finished, he handed me some paper towels to wipe off the ink from my hands. I smiled at him, then swung around suddenly and ‘accidentally’ knocked over the open ink pad. It landed on his pants. Black ink quickly stained his uniform.

  “Damn it!”

  “Oh my God, I’m so sorry. I’m such a klutz.”

  He grabbed paper towels and wiped at the ink, which just made it worse.

  “You need to get rubbing alcohol on it. It will soak up the ink.”

  “Where do I get that?”

  “There’s probably some in your bathroom. I’d go and check. The longer it stays there, the harder it will be to get out. Wait too long and you won’t be able to get it out at all. I don’t think the sheriff will like that much.”

  Deputy Shawn rushed toward the back where I assumed the staff bathroom was. Now was my chance. I quickly opened the file and started thumbing through it, careful not to get my inky fingerprints on the papers, although the ink was practically dry already. The first form was the preliminary autopsy report. The final report would take a while, I guessed.

  The preliminary report was a very clean-looking form, simply laid out with a diagram of the body, a description of the corpse, and spaces to explain external injuries, internal injuries, cause of death, and general notes. I appreciated that. Some forms were far more complicated than they needed to be. I breezed through the pages.

  Thomas Banks, Caucasian, 29 years old, 5’10, 180 pounds, deep tissue wound on his left temple, skull fracture, water in his lungs. Cause of death, blunt force trauma probably caused by a blow to his temple with a heavy metal object with a pointed edge.