“Did he say why he was here?” Rita asked. Maybe the reluctant Eugenia would be a fount of information after all.
“Said he was working on a story for a newspaper. He seemed to want to talk and all. I checked to see if he had on a wedding ring. He didn’t so I figured it was ok.” Eugenia halted. “Some jealous husband didn’t do him in, did they?”
“I don’t think so.” Rita decided her clerk was warming to the role of star witness. “So you checked him in?”
“I did—came in around five that Friday. I liked talking to him. He was friendly without being pushy the way some men are. Asked where was a good place to eat. Asked how far to the races.”
“He asked about the races?” Rita asked.
“Charlestown. Flat track about ten miles from here. They put in slots and now it’s a big casino with a hotel and all.”
“I’m familiar with it.” Rita responded.
New guests tapped the hand bell on the front desk and Gary excused himself to check them in.
“Is this going to be on 60 Minutes or 20/20 ?” Eugenia asked.
“Maybe,” Rita answered. Great, this woman wants to be a TV star. “Did he mention any specifics about the newspaper story, what it was about, who?”
Eugenia rolled her eyes upward into her thoughts and squeezed her eyebrows together in contemplation. “No, nothing.”
“Ok,” Rita went on, “so you checked him in. What happened after that?”
“Uh, oh yeah.” Eugenia resumed her narrative. “He got his key and went to his room. But he did say somebody might be looking for him and it was all right to just send him on to his room. We don’t usually do that, you know. We call the room and get permission.”
Rita pursued this. “Robert Ellis said he was expecting someone? Did he actually say that, Eugenia?”
“I said that, didn’t I.”
Can’t afford to piss this woman off now, Rita thought, but she turned the question around from several angles for the clerk before she let it go. Eugenia Watkins was certain that Robert Ellis said he was expecting to meet someone at the Overlook Inn.
“Did he say who he was meeting?” Rita asked.
“No?”
“A friend, a relative, anything like that?”
“I said no.” Eugenia slumped in her chair to pout.
“I’m sorry this is such a pain,” Rita said, “but I need to get the facts straight in my head. And there could very well be a killer out there who made Bobby Ellis’ death look like a suicide.”
This perked Eugenia up. “Hey, like Claus Von Bulow.” She leaned toward Rita. “48 Hours . Do you think we could end up on 48 Hours ?’”
Play it as it lays, Rita said to herself. “Well, now, there’s a possibility, Eugenia.”
The woman’s face lit up. “What else do you need to know?” She gripped her chair arms in excitement.
“Did you see Robert Ellis any more after he finished registering and went to his room? Did he phone the desk for anything?”
“Nope, but I did see him leave for dinner.”
“You didn’t see him return?”
“My shift’s over at eleven and if he went to the races and stayed, he wouldn’t be back ‘til after then,” Eugenia offered.
“Who comes in at eleven?” Rita slipped Bobby Ellis’ picture off the desk and into her portfolio.
“Night guy, Sam Baker. Hey, is this it? We’re done?” Eugenia frowned.
“For now. But I’d like to see the call detail report from Bobby’s room that night.” Rita stood.
“I’ll run it.” Eugenia headed out front with Rita trailing behind.
“You’ve been a big help.” Rita took the call printout. “If you think of anything else, please let me know.” She handed her business card to the clerk. “I believe the police report stated that a housekeeper found the body. Is that right?”
“Evie Pepper.”
“Is she around?” Rita asked.
“Probably having a smoke out by the supply room on the other side.” Eugenia smirked. “It’s over by your room, lower floor, all the way to the end, nearest the drop-off.”
“I’ll check.” Rita started for the front door.
“Around back.”
“Thanks.”
“Don’t forget,” Eugenia called, “let me know if we’re going to be on 48 Hours. ”
“Will do.” Rita waved the room key.
♏
The front of the inn’s annex was a small loose gravel parking lot that could accommodate only five cars. It was full. At the far end of the building, on the lower level was a tiny gift shop with windows all around that framed a breathless view of the valley and surrounding mountains. A narrow gravel footpath circled the building.
Rita thought of picking up her luggage, but decided to try and find the housekeeper first. Once she passed the parking area, the gravel path grew weedy. On her left was the inn, on the right, scrub trees; poplars and catalpa crowded an overgrown strip of lawn.
The trees were so close that branches extended across the path toward the building, almost touching the cement balcony on the second floor. It would be very dark back here at night, Rita thought to herself and she scanned the building for floodlights. One was mounted at each end. The only other light would come from individual fixtures over the door of each room.
Cigarette smoke wafted from behind an open door at the end. Unlike the others, it was a dull grey color and bore no identifying number.
“Evie Pepper?” Rita peered into the supply room.
A skinny little woman with an incredible map of wrinkles across her face, jumped and spun around. “Lord, you have about scared me to death.” An unfiltered cigarette with a precariously dangling ash survived the fright.
“I’m sorry. I should have said something sooner.” Rita extended her hand into which Evie let fall a leathered, but limp collection of fingers. “My name is Rita Mars. I’m investigating the death of Robert Ellis which occurred here.”
“Hell, yes, I remember that.” Evie snorted down a powerful dose of postnasal drip and exhaled a blue stream of smoke from the same passage. “You police?” Evie squinted.
“Uh, no, I’m a private investigator,” Rita said.
“Like that Murder She Wrote woman?” The ash dropped from Evie’s cigarette.
“Well, not exactly.” Nobody’s real anymore. We’re all copies of TV characters Rita thought. “I was a friend of Bobby’s.”
“It was a terrible thing. I can tell you that.” Evie took a last drag and flicked the depleted butt toward the woods.
“I would like you to tell me about it.”
“I knocked on the door Sunday morning about eleven. Didn’t hear no answer so I went in with my key. Air conditioning was going full blast in that room. Couldn’t figure that since it being September and all up here, temperature at night drops real good.” Evie leaned on the big stainless steel cleaning cart loaded with soaps and shampoos, toilet paper and cleaning supplies.
“Did you see the body right away?”
“Nope, couldn’t see into the bathroom from the door.”
“Did you notice anything unusual?” Rita asked.
“Well, I turned off that danged air conditioner,” Evie said, “and went for my vacuum. There was these little tiny pieces of paper near the door. I picked up a bunch. Looked like money all tore up fine.”
“Money?” Rita made a mental note to review the police report. She hadn’t remembered that part.
“Yeah, so I got the vacuum and went over ’pert’ near the whole floor ‘til I got to the bathroom and then I seen him. He was hanging like a hog for slaughter.” Evie lowered her head. “God rest his soul. He was a pretty man too.”
“What did you do then?”
“Screamed.” Evie reached into a dirty half apron pocket and pulled out a pack of Lucky Strikes. She lit up with a purple plastic lighter.
“I see, and then what?”
“Got on the phone there and called the desk, tol
d them to get the police down here quick on account of somebody’s hung hisself.”
“Then the manager came over?”
“No, Gary, he was off that Sunday, took his family to Charleston to visit his in-laws. But the police come quick. Lamar was the one here first. They called the chief too.”
“They called for the coroner?” Rita watched the ash on Evie’s new cigarette bobbing as it elongated.
“Hmp, such as he is. Eustace McClung.” Evie finally flicked the ash. “Wasn’t staggering too bad either.”
“And when he got here?”
“Didn’t do much—walked in, went to the bathroom. Nodded his head. Said ‘take him down, boys.’ Friendly’ll be here in a minute.”
“Friendly?” Rita asked.
“Local undertakers, whole family of ‘em. Do all the burying around here.”
“He never mentioned an autopsy?”
“Nope.”
“They let you stay in the room the whole time?”
“Yep.”
“Tell me, Evie, since you were there the whole time, did you notice anything else, besides the paper, that seemed unusual to you?” Rita asked.
“Well, it was kinda unusual to find a man hanged hisself from the bathroom bar on a Sunday morning, I can tell you that.”
“Anything around the room?”
“Found some race tickets in the trash can when I emptied it.” The cigarette burned down to a point where the smoke rose directly into Evie’s eyes. She squinted again.
“Save them?”
“Threw ‘em out with the rest of the trash.”
“Hmm. Do you think they were Bobby’s?”
“They were from that night,” Evie confessed. “I looked at the date and then checked the sports page to make sure he hadn’t throwed away no winners.”
“Evie, you have been a terrific help. Thank you so much.” Rita extended her hand.
Evie shook it with her work worn leathery fingers. “Glad it helped. Gotta keep movin’ to finish up here though. “
“Of course.” Rita handed Evie a card. “If you think of anything else, give me a call.”
“Will do, honey.” Evie and her rickety housekeeping cart rolled to the next room.
Chapter 7
It wasn’t as creepy as she thought it was going to be. Nothing in this impersonal little cell connected her to Bobby Ellis. Rita set her overnight bag on the bed. It was dim in here the way hotel rooms are, and the air was stale with the scent of machine pumped ventilation.
Her first impulse was to flick on the television. She hated that grey eye staring blankly at her, but she resisted. Instead she went into the bathroom. Being so short, she had to stand on the ledge of the tub in order to grasp the shower rod.
Rita grabbed tight with both hands and let her feet fall away. The rod gave a little; she heard the anchor screws tear at wood and drywall. A few grains of plaster trickled down the ceramic tile wall. The rod held however.
So this is what it would have been like. Only she knew from her buddy in Baltimore’s medical examiner’s office that it wasn’t exactly. He had explained to her that the ligature would tighten and strangle the carotid. In seconds the brain would choke and black out. Death followed immediately.
Her arms ached from holding herself suspended. She pulled her feet back onto the tub ledge to support her weight and bounced to the floor. She gripped the wall as her head spun.
Her friend at the ME’s office also told her that you didn’t have to fully suspend yourself in order to achieve the deadly effect. The majority of suicides who hanged themselves did so from doorknobs. It was a common fallacy that a body had to drop completely. Death came from lack of oxygen to the brain, not from a broken neck due to the force of the fall.
Rita inspected the bathroom then went out to the table to review what she had so far. Out of her portfolio she pulled the copied police report. She read it again, line by line, to see if anything jumped out.
Then came the crime scene photo she had stolen. She hated staring at Bobby’s limp body, but she made herself look. He had on a polo shirt and a pair of slacks, no shoes.
On the sink was his watch. Beside the watch was one of the plastic glasses supplied by the inn. It was half full of water. Then there was his toothbrush, bristles foamy with used paste. He hadn’t put the cap back on the toothpaste tube. A man decides halfway through brushing his teeth that he doesn’t want to live anymore?
Rita placed this picture on a pile separate from the police report and reached into the portfolio for the inn’s telephone report. Bobby Ellis made two phone calls the night of his death. He called his voice mail and a number in DC. Rita made a note on the report to check with her contact at the phone factory and find out who in DC Bobby was calling.
Rita leaned back in her chair and propped her feet on the table. Evening swept an early hand across the mountains and here at the rear of a building crowded by trees, the tiny room faded to black like the end of a movie scene. Rita felt the familiar emptiness that opened within her as darkness fell.
She sat with that feeling for a moment, but when she could no longer endure, she reached for her smartphone on the night stand. On the other end, ringing. But like those exploratory radio signals to the universe, she got no answer. She listened again until voice mail kicked in. Finally she hung up. She’d try Mary Margaret again later.
Swinging her feet off the table, she pulled the chain on the hanging lamp. A glaring beam of yellow light splayed on her materials. But she didn’t want to look at them anymore for now.
She glanced at her watch. Post time for the Charlestown races was seven o’clock; it was now six. She knew she could escape the emptiness with activity. She didn’t have her running gear, but she could get in her car, go to the track and start grilling people.
♏
A stream of cars and pickups bumped over the long dirt drives that radiated into the parking lots. Stadium lights blazed down on the grandstands and a billboard dazzled with floodlights proclaimed that this arena was the great and wonderful “Charlestown Races.” It was carnival time.
Rita eased her Jeep next to a pickup from which four people emerged. They were young and laughing; two blue jeaned men with cowboy boots and hats, two women with heavy eye makeup and tight stretch pants. Rita followed the couples to the entrance.
Inside the grandstand area, the concrete floor was gritty with sand. Smells of grilling hot dogs mingled with beer and cigarettes and horse manure. Overhead electronic boards flashed odds and time and pools of money wagered. People milled about, some eating their concession food dinners, others studying racing forms and programs. The warehouse-like space buzzed with voices and the occasional announcement from the PA system.
Rita went to the management office and tapped on the door.
“Help you?” A man with a belly flopped over a huge silver belt buckle answered the door. He had on rumpled suit pants, short dress boots and a string tie.
Rita flipped her ID badge. “I’m Rita Mars, private detective. I’d like to ask you a few questions about . . .”
“Now, I’m tellin’ you right here and now,” the man said. “I ain’t talking to nobody about who’s runnin’ with who. I’ve told you people before, and I mean it. I got a job to do here.” He started to close the door on her.
“Wait, what are you talking about?” Rita put her hand to the door to keep it from closing.
“Divorce. That’s what I’m talkin’ about. I don’t want no parts of gettin’ involved. Last time I did, fella wanted a piece of my butt.” The man pushed at the door again.
“It isn’t that. I promise.”
The man eyed her from her soft Italian loafers to the top of her silk turtleneck. “This better be quick.”
Rita stepped inside. “I appreciate your help.”
The man was already back at his desk, counting a wad of bills he had left there. “Keep talkin’.”
Rita explained her investigation of Bobby Ellis’ death. The man n
ever looked up.
“What’d you want from me?” He licked his thumb as he went on counting.
“I want you to look at this photo and tell me if you remember seeing this man the night of his murder, and I’d like a list of people to see here about the same thing.”
“You with the FBI?”
Rita shook her head.
“IRS?”
“Hardly.”
“All right,” the man said, “but I find out you’re with the IRS, we’re gonna have some words.” He stood up and waggled a finger at her. “You understand me?”
Rita met with the teller supervisors who gathered their crews for a quick look at her picture. No one remembered Bobby Ellis. She went to each concession stand. Nothing. She checked the program and tout sheet sellers. She drew a blank.
At last she went into the clubhouse dining room. It was a big, high room with an expanse of plate window that swept a wide-open view of the track and centered on the finish line. It was quieter in here; the white clothed tables were full of Saturday night couples and foursomes.
“Table for one?” A woman in a black dress with a white apron approached Rita.
“Actually I need to ask a few questions.”
The woman sighed as she slipped the menus back under the maitre’d station and leaned heavily on it toward Rita. “Shoot,” she said.
“Do you remember seeing this man here about two weeks ago on a Saturday night?”
“You the police?” The woman’s eyes narrowed under a florescent blue shadow.
“Private investigator. This is not a divorce case. I’m working on a possible murder.”
The woman kept an eye on Rita for a long time before she finally glanced down at the photograph.
“Yep. He was here.” The woman smiled. “Nice guy. Another guy came in while he was eatin’ dinner and sat down with him. Real jerk. Like I said, your friend was nice, kinda flirtin’ with me, jokin’. Kind of guy leaves a good tip, kind I like waitin’ on. Anyways, this other dude comes in, real expensive clothes. Starts bein’ a pain, tells me to get him a cup of coffee and buzz off.”
DRIVEN: A Rita Mars Thriller Page 5