Same Time, Same Murder: A Gil and Claire Hunt Mystery

by Robert J. Randisi

  When she looked toward Gil again, she saw the person he was talking to was Wendell Payne.

  Her body started to move forward without any help from her brain. And she was around the table before she realized she couldn’t leave Gil’s stock unattended, not to mention the items at the adjoining table.

  “Guess I’ll keep looking,” the man said when he realized Claire wasn’t paying any attention to him.

  “Guess so. Sorry.”

  Claire waved in Gil’s direction, hoping to catch his eye, but he was standing at such an angle that he couldn’t see her.

  Wendell looked frightened. To see the large man that way made her feel sad for him, even from that distance, despite the fact she didn’t know him. The more they talked, the more animated Gil became. After a few moments, he pointed in her direction, shaking his head the whole time. His whole demeanor gave her the impression that he was talking about his table, the convention, that nothing they were saying involved her.

  And then abruptly, the two men walked out of the room.

  Claire went after them. Before she could give herself more reasons to stay, she ran.

  They were walking at a clipped pace. It didn’t seem that Gil had been coerced into going with Wendell. Their voices were low and the distance she was from them kept her from hearing a single word.

  They were headed for the lobby. She stayed behind, waiting for a sign—something, anything, that would cue her to run to help Gil.

  When they walked out the front entrance and into the brilliant sunlight, she stayed with them. Wendell unlocked the passenger side of a van and Gil got in willingly. Wendell walked around to the driver’s side and Claire waited for them to drive away, trying all the while to figure out if she was angry for being left out or just angry with herself for standing there in the parking lot like a fool.

  “So, Wendell, why here? What’s so important that you had to drag me outside?”

  Wendell Payne ran his large hand over the top of his bald head. Perspiration glistened on his brow. “Sorry, Mr. Hunt. . . .”

  “Relax. Call me Gil.”

  “Thank you, sir, but no. I need advice right now—not a friend. I need to feel we’re doing official, uh, police business here. . . .”

  “But Wendell, I’m not with the police.”

  “As close as you can get without being one of them, I suppose.”

  Gil was surprised to realize Wendell thought of him that way. “I just happened to be the guy who found a dead body. The first person—”

  “I know Detective Donovan told you I live with Graciella Sanchez. And I also know he told you that she was the maid in the room with Mr. Westerly. It was Graciella you saw there that night.”

  Gil held up his hand. “Hold on. Donovan told me his men were going to your place to question Graciella today. By now, they’ve probably left, and when you get home, she’ll fill you in. So there’s really no reason for us—”

  “The police aren’t going to find Gracie there when they come round. She left.”

  “Left you? Or the city?” Gil asked.

  “Neither.”

  “I don’t get it. Where is she, then?”

  “Oh, she wanted to take off, leave the country all together. But I stopped her. I told her it would look bad. And Mr. Hunt,” Wendell said in his sincerest voice, “that girl just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrongest time. She didn’t do nuthin’, Mr. Hunt. She’s a decent girl.”

  “So she’ll tell the police her story, they’ll take her statement, and she’ll have nothing to worry about.”

  Wendell held back a laugh. “If you think that’s the way it works, you have a hell of a lot to learn. People like us, especially like Gracie, someone from another country all together, don’t get treated the same way as people like you. No disrespect intended, Mr. Hunt.”

  “Wendell, just because I’ve never been arrested doesn’t mean I don’t know there are problems with the legal system, but—”

  “We can talk about problems another time, sir. Right now, I need for you to come with me and talk to Gracie.”

  Gil sat there stunned. “Why would you want me to do that?”

  “Because you’re a decent man. You’ll listen to Gracie and go to the police on her behalf. And mostly because you saw her. She didn’t have no blood on her, did she?”

  “No.”

  “And killin’ someone is messy business. Am I right?”

  “Yes. From everything I know about forensics, there would have to be some trace of blood on her.” But, Gil thought, it could be microscopic.

  “She stood there in her white uniform. She didn’t touch nuthin’. Not the gun, not the body. The cops will see that her fingerprints ain’t on nuthin’ when they do all their tests.”

  “They don’t have the murder weapon, Wendell.” As soon as Gil mentioned that detail, he regretted it. Donovan hadn’t sworn him to secrecy, but he assumed it was a fact the detective didn’t want leaked.

  “How far away from here is she?” Gil asked.

  “’Bout ten minutes. Not far. I’ll have you back in an hour, tops.”

  “Look, Wendell, let me call Detective Donovan. He seems like a fair, honest man.”

  “No, Mr. Hunt. Please. First you talk to Gracie. She’s real scared. I figured that maybe if you just listen to what she has to say—let her get everything off her chest—she’ll feel better and we can convince her to talk to the police.”

  Gil looked through the side window, scanning the area while trying to figure out what he should do. Maybe he was being stupid, but he trusted Wendell and believed every word he had said. But if he went with the man, he should tell someone, just to be safe. Taking a business card out of his pocket, he jotted down a message for Claire. “Give me a minute,” he told Wendell. “I’ll be right back.”

  “I’ll be here waitin’. And Mr. Hunt? Thanks.”

  Gil got out of the van and ran inside to leave the card at the front desk. “Could you please page Claire Duncan and give her this message?” he asked.

  Chapter 36

  Graciella paced. This was a bad idea. She should have never let Wendell talk her into staying. The loading dock was so quiet on the weekend. She walked to a pallet piled with soft bundles of clean towels wrapped in brown paper and sat down. The Sparkling Clean Laundry serviced all major hotels in the area. While she had spent almost a year putting their clean sheets on hundreds of beds and folding and unfolding the towels they recycled, she had never been to this part of their operation before. At least the place smelled clean, not like some of the warehouses she’d worked in.

  When the van pulled up, she was trying to decide how much more of her day to waste. She watched through dirty windows as Wendell parked between two delivery trucks. When he got out, her first impulse was to run into his arms. She always felt safe there. But then she saw the other man and stayed where she was.

  She watched as they walked into the side door leading to the office, then sat very quietly while Wendell called her name. There’s still time to run, she told herself. Just hide until they’re gone.

  “Graciella! Come on, baby, I know you’re here!”

  But where would she go?

  “Are you out there?” Wendell yelled, and then spotted her.

  She nodded.

  The other man walked behind Wendell. When they were in front of her, she couldn’t meet their eyes with hers.

  “Hi, Graciella, I’m Gil Hunt.”

  “I know who you are.”

  “Don’t be like that, Gracie. Mr. Hunt’s come out here to help us.”

  “You mean me, don’t you? The way I see it, you’re fine.”

  Wendell looked at Gil, embarrassed.

  Gil looked at his watch.

  The tension finally broke her and she stood up, glaring at Wendell, then glancing over shyly at Gil.

  Being so close to her brought back that night, and he instantly recognized her as the woman at the murder scene.

  Wendell put his arm
s around her. “Come on, we can use the office. Jimmy said it would be okay.”

  “And Jimmy is?” Gil asked.

  “Jimmy Lewison, my cousin’s best friend. I’ve known him since high school. He’s cool with us usin’ his place.”

  Claire read Gil’s note, turned the card over, then back again, rereading the words. “This is it?” she asked the man at the front desk.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Mr. Hunt gave this to you himself?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Was there anyone with him?”

  “No.”

  “And when was that?”

  “All I know is, he walked in here about fifteen minutes ago, handed me the card, and asked that I page you and give it to you.”

  “I’m sorry but it’s just . . .” The man rolled his eyes when he thought she wasn’t looking at him. She wanted to scream her frustration in his direction, but instead she just put the card in her pocket and said, “Thank you.”

  Claire mumbled to herself, a habit she hated, as she walked back once again to the dealers’ room. The day was turning out to be such a strange one. But then, what had she expected? Someone had been murdered in the hotel and that horrible crime had set the tone for the convention.

  “Everything okay?” the dealer next to her asked.

  “Fine.”

  Claire passed the time reading a magazine in between sales. Her stomach grumbled, but she was too upset to eat.

  “Mrs. Duncan?” Claire looked up and saw Detective Donovan standing in front of her.

  “Hi, Detective.”

  “You’re helping out Mr. Hunt, then?”

  “That’s right, and it seems to be turning into an all-day job,” she said.

  “Where is he?” Donovan asked, looking down the aisle.

  “I don’t know, and to tell you the truth, I’m worried about him.”

  “We finished our interviews a little while ago. He’s probably on his way down right now.”

  She debated with herself how much to tell him, then decided that of all the people she should be honest with, it should be a police detective.

  “Well, I saw him a few minutes ago, standing across the room there. I thought he was coming back here, but he stopped to talk to a man.”

  “What man?”

  “His name is Wendell,” she replied. “He works here in the hotel.”

  “Wendell Payne,” Donovan said, cutting her off. “I know who he is.”

  “I was worried for a while that he was stalking Gil, and now they’ve gone off together—left the hotel.”

  “Left? I think you’d better tell me everything, Mrs. Duncan.”

  “Well,” she said, “they went down the hall and I followed . . .”

  “And he got into the van willingly?” Donovan asked when she was finished.

  “That’s the way it looked to me.”

  “The other man didn’t push him, force him in any way? Did it seem as if Gil might have had a gun held on him?”

  “No,” Claire said. “He got into the van on his own.”

  Donovan looked down at the card in his hand and read the message aloud. “‘Back soon. Don’t be mad. Now I owe you much more chocolate and junk jewelry.’” It was signed “Gil.” “Doesn’t sound like a very big spender to me,” Donovan said.

  “Oh, that’s just a private joke,” she said, rushing to Gil’s defense, and then suddenly she felt her cheeks burning. “Could he be in danger?” she asked.

  “He might be. This Wendell lives with the maid you and Gil found with Westerly’s body; I sent some men to her place to question her, but she’s gone missing.”

  “And now Wendell has Gil? I don’t understand.”

  “Neither do I,” he said, “but I intend to.”

  He stood there, seemingly lost in thought for a moment, tapping the card against a fingernail. Oddly, it very quickly became unbearable to Claire, sounding like an anvil being hammered in her head. “Can I have that back before you spring into action?” she asked.

  “Huh? Oh, of course.” He returned the card to her. “Don’t worry, Mrs. Hunt, I’ll find him.”

  As Donovan strode away, she realized that he’d accidentally called her Mrs. Hunt, and her cheeks burned again.

  Chapter 37

  The moment was an awkward one. Both Gil and Graciella looked at Wendell, waiting for him to take the lead. After all, it was because of him the three now found themselves at the warehouse.

  “Look, Mr. Hunt, Gracie didn’t kill that writer back at the hotel.”

  “Then why doesn’t she go and tell the police that?”

  “The police?” she said with contempt. “The police don’t care who killed Mr. Westerly. I’m just an easy mark for them to arrest, because you saw me there.”

  “Gracie-—”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know,” she said, waving a hand at the big man. “It ain’t his fault; it ain’t my fault. It’s nobody’s fault.”

  Obviously, the woman was bitter about something. But it seemed to Gil her bitterness predated the murder.

  “Grace—can I call you Gracie?”

  “Whatever.”

  “Why don’t you calmly tell me what happened, in your own words”—he gave a cautionary look toward Wendell—“and I’ll pass it on to the police.”

  “Mr. Hunt, I don’t see what you can—”

  “Gracie, honey,” Wendell pleaded. “Please, just talk to the man.” She turned her head for a moment, seemed to be staring at the nudie calendar on the wall, although Gil doubted she was even seeing it.

  Wendell had invited Gil to seat himself behind Jimmy’s desk and had then directed Gracie to sit across from him. He remained standing. Wendell was so big, he made the small room seem even smaller.

  “Grace?”

  She jerked her head back and her long dark hair fell away from her eyes. “All right! I heard a sound,” she said. “I was cleaning the room next door, and I heard a . . . commotion.”

  “What kind of commotion?” Gil asked.

  “At first it sounded like an argument,” she said. “You know, two people yelling at each other.”

  “Could you make out what they were saying?”

  “No,” she said, “I just knew there were voices.”

  “Okay, did you hear, two men? A man and a woman?”

  She thought a moment, then said, “Two men. I’m sure they were both men’s voices.”

  “And then what?”

  “I heard a sound. Like a shot.”

  “Have you ever heard a gunshot before?” Gil asked.

  She gave him a look and said, “Mister, you have got to be kidding. Where I come from, lots of people been shot at—including me. Yeah, I know the kinda sound a gun makes. All right?”

  Gil, who had never been shot at in his life, bowed to her superior knowledge. “Go on.”

  “After that, I didn’t hear nuthin’, so I decided to go next door and have a look.”

  “That was brave of you.”

  “Curious, not brave. Stupid, not brave. And dumb, ’cause I still had to clean that damn room.”

  “You clean in the evening?” Gil asked. “I thought all that was done by late afternoon.”

  “The heavy stuff. But at that time, we’re turning down beds, making sure there’s enough towels, cleaning up accidents. You know.”

  Gil nodded. “So then you went next door and you let yourself in?”

  “I didn’t have to,” she said. “It was open—but not all the way.”

  “Ajar?”

  “Yeah, ajar.” She shook her head, agitated at Gil’s preciseness. “So . . . I knocked, and when there was no answer, I went in.”

  “Did you pull the door closed behind you?”

  “You don’t have to,” she said. “Those doors slam shut all by themselves.”

  “She’s right about that, Mr. Hunt,” Wendell said.

  “Okay, so what did you do next?” Gil asked.

  “Well . . . he was there on th
e floor,” she said, waving and looking down at the floor of the office, as if the dead man were sprawled out there at that very moment.

  “Dead?”

  “I . . . didn’t know. I never saw so much blood before. I didn’t touch him . . . I couldn’t. And then you came in with the lady . . . and the others behind you.”

  “Then you ran when I asked you what had happened.”

  She took her eyes from the floor and looked at him. “I panicked,” she said. “I didn’t even know I was running until I was halfway down the hall.” A tear fell from one eye and she brushed it away harshly with her palm.

  “Had you cleaned that room before?”

  “Of course. That’s my section of the floor. I clean that room all the time.”

  “No, I meant after Mr. and Mrs. Westerly checked in.”

  “Oh, well, yes, once. In fact, I knocked on the door the morning before, and the woman yelled at me.”

  “Yelled?”

  “She shouted through the door for me to go away.”

  “Did you hear any other yelling from inside?”

  Gracie hesitated. Gil looked at Wendell, who shrugged his big round shoulders.

  “Gracie,” Gil said, “I don’t care if you listened at the door. You’re not going to get in trouble for that.”

  “Yeah,” she said reluctantly, “I guess bein’ suspected of murder is worse than losin’ my job.”

  “Grace—” Wendell began.

  “I’m talkin’ to him, Wendell, ain’t I?” she snapped.

  The big man got a hurt look on his face and fell silent. It occurred to Gil that Wendell was completely under the woman’s thumb. She was pretty, sexy even, with her dark hair and eyes, something he certainly had not noticed the only other time he’d seen her. It was surprising to him then that Wendell had even been able to convince her to do anything—let alone talk to him.

  “Gracie?” he prompted, and waited for her reply.

  Chapter 38

  “Okay,” she said to Gil, “so I listened at the door. They weren’t shoutin’, but they were definitely arguin’.”

  “And did you go back later to clean the room?”