She entered the lobby mid-afternoon. It wasn’t a busy time, but enough people were milling around that she didn’t think she would be remembered. Two uniformed employees managed reservations and checkouts at the front desk, but Georgia didn’t approach them.
She knew enough to start with the bellhops. They knew more than folks at the front desk and were more likely to talk. But no one was manning the bellhop station, so she strolled around the lobby floor, imagining the hotel in its finer days.
A grand staircase with brass banisters took up most of the lobby, and other rooms combined traditional with modern furniture that gave off an eclectic but sophisticated aura.
But the room that took her breath away was a giant ballroom with an enormous seafoam-and-ocean-colored carpet. Hundreds of sconces, recessed sky-blue lighting, and sculpted white moldings surrounded the room. A second-floor mezzanine wrapped around the space, with vertical windows, graceful draperies, and intricate moldings. Six huge crystal chandeliers that dominated the ceiling made her feel like Cinderella at the ball.
When she returned to the lobby, a uniformed bellhop stood behind a lectern at the station. She approached him with a smile. “Hi. I wonder if you can help me out.”
The balding middle-aged man, with a belly that stuck out under his jacket, looked her up and down. Georgia could see in his expression that he knew she wasn’t a guest.
“What do you need, lady?”
Georgia pulled out her picture of Ruth along with a twenty and gave both to him. “You see her in here, maybe a month, six weeks ago?”
He scrunched up his forehead, concentrating on the photo, or delivering a good performance if he wasn’t. “Sorry. Can’t place her.”
“Is it worth asking any of your buddies?”
He rubbed the space between his nose and upper lip, as though smoothing a nonexistent mustache. “I can show it around if you want.”
She pulled out another twenty and a ten and her card. “Ten more to you, and twenty to anyone who recognizes her. Here’s my card.”
“What did she do, this woman?”
“She got herself shot in the ass when that terrorist took out the Resistance woman on the roof of your hotel.”
He nodded sagely. “A big day here, that was.” He spoke with a lilt, close to an Irish brogue. Her father did too. But unlike the Irish, who were supposed to be expansive and eloquent wordsmiths, this guy was stingy with his. She knew why. At the rate he was going, she’d end up paying him five bucks a word.
“There’s something else,” she said.
“What’s that?”
“I know you have a video surveillance system. I saw four cameras alone in the lobby, and more in the ballroom. I’m sure the FBI has the surveillance video from the day of the shooting. Who should I talk to about a backup?”
His eyebrows arched and he took a closer look at her card. “Georgia Davis, private detective.” She nodded. “Well . . .” He paused dramatically. “Our head of security is Lee Oswald. That’s who you need to see.”
“Really?”
He smiled ruefully. “Yeah. You can ask him . . .” His voice trailed off.
She knew what he was saying and dug out another twenty.
“The guy you want to talk to is our maintenance engineer. Roy Sandhurst. Take the elevator to the second basement and follow the hall to his office.”
She thanked him and headed to the elevator bank. No wonder they called it the “Hotel of Presidents.”
• • •
The door to Sandhurst’s office was open, and he was behind a desk poring over papers. Georgia knocked on the open door. “Excuse me.”
He looked up.
“May I have a few words, please?” She introduced herself, told him what she wanted, and gave him a card.
He didn’t get up but studied her card. She noted the obligatory shirt with his name emblazoned above the pocket. “You need to go to security. I can’t help you.”
“If I did that, I’d have to wait for a court order before I got them, and I don’t have time. I think more lives are in danger.”
“Who are you working for?”
She told him.
“What are you looking for?”
She hedged. “I’ll know when I find it.”
Sandhurst was asking all the right questions. She wondered if he’d been in law enforcement at some point. Or on the other side of the law. He tapped the edge of her card on his desk. “So you want tapes from the day of the incident, right?”
“Not quite. I need video from a week prior to the event through the day after.”
“From what I understand—of course, I can’t be sure—the FBI took a month’s worth. From December fifteenth through January sixteenth.”
She thought about it. The Bureau was exceptionally thorough. If they wanted a month’s worth of surveillance video, shouldn’t she get the same? The drawback was that a month of video footage would take forever to screen. She didn’t have time.
On the other hand, if Sandhurst had gone from an outright refusal to a veiled hint of the footage she should request, maybe she should request the entire thirty days’ worth. Even if he was simply fishing for money, it wouldn’t hurt. She wouldn’t need to screen it all.
“Okay. I’d like the same.”
“It’ll take me time to get you a backup.”
“How much?”
“It’s complicated. We got twenty-one floors, cameras in every hall, eight per floor, plus all the meeting rooms, entrances, stairwells, and common rooms. And you want video for thirty days. That’s a lot of video. Plus I have to—um—split the money with the security guy who’s gonna do the work. And he won’t be able to put in for overtime. Plus I got my own job to do.”
“How much to get it by tomorrow morning?”
“I’d say . . .” He paused, then looked directly at her. “Five thousand.”
He was in it for the money, she determined. And the fact that he didn’t appear to like the hotel security chief. Had he been considered for head of security and lost out to Oswald? Even so, five thousand dollars was out of hand.
“To save a life you’d charge me five grand? Come on.”
“Okay. Three. Because I like you.”
Georgia shook her head.
“Twenty-five hundred,” Sandhurst said.
“Two and that’s my final offer.”
They shook on it.
Chapter Seventy
The next morning Georgia went to the bank for the cash and arrived at the White Star just after rush hour. She took the elevator down to Sandhurst’s office. The door was open, but he wasn’t there. She waited patiently for ten minutes, her foot tapping the floor in a four-four beat. Then she uncrossed her legs and tapped the other foot with the same rhythm. She had to make it all come out even.
When he hadn’t arrived after half an hour, she wandered into the hall. She turned down a corridor and saw the employee entrance. She opened the door, thinking he might be outside smoking a cigarette. He wasn’t. She retraced her steps and kept going past his office and came to a marked door that said “Security.” Maybe that’s where he was. She twisted the knob. Locked, of course. She knocked. No one came. She knocked again.
She heard shuffling on the other side. “I’m comin’, I’m comin’.” The door opened. A young man in his twenties, with bloodshot glassy eyes, a full twenty-four hours’ growth of beard, and a uniform he clearly had been wearing for days. She took a chance. “You’re the one who’s been making the video surveillance copy for me.”
He cocked his head. “You’re the PI. Yeah. Sandhurst told me about you. I’m Ritter. What time is it?”
“He said he’d have it for me first thing. But he’s not in his office and I don’t know where he is.”
Ritter snickered. “Roy pops in and out.” He pantomimed drinking from a bottle. “You know.”
“Crap. I need that footage now.”
“No problem. I got it ready for you.” He went back into the cont
rol room. Georgia followed him in. Dozens of monitors showed every nook and cranny of the hotel. People coming, people going, kitchen staff washing dishes, maids putting on uniforms and gathering their carts, guests checking out.
“You’re really not supposed to be in this room. In fact, neither am I. I’m not on till four. Gotta go get some shut-eye.”
“The footage?”
“Oh, here.” He handed her a flash drive. “Since you’re here, why don’t you give me my cut now. I’ll tell Sandhurst.”
“I don’t know. I told him—”
“It’s only five hundred. And I told you I’d let him—”
“Five hundred? He was going to pay you five hundred for the job?”
“Something wrong with that?”
Now she knew the game Sandhurst was playing. She dug into her blazer pocket, pulled out ten hundred-dollar bills, and handed them over. “You’ve been selling yourself short, Ritter. Sandhurst was going to pocket fifteen hundred.”
“What? And give me only five? Are you shitting me?”
“Nope. Tell him we met and I paid you fifty percent. You deserve it.”
“Damn right I will.”
Georgia exited the security office. She still didn’t see Sandhurst, but it didn’t matter. She’d saved a grand and had copies of the surveillance video. Maybe she’d do a background check on him when she had time and see what other scams he was running.
• • •
Georgia raced back to Evanston. She had a lot of video to screen, but the gnawing feeling that time was growing short stuck with her. Vanna was napping; her sister had obviously perfected the art of sleeping when the baby did, something Georgia didn’t think she could do. She quietly made coffee and set her laptop up in the kitchen. She inserted the flash drive and copied everything onto her hard drive. Just in case.
Then she started screening footage. The frame rate of video surveillance footage was much improved from years ago, reflecting the need for and attention to sophisticated security systems. From the smooth images of the video she was screening, if it wasn’t thirty frames per second, it was damn close, which made her job both easier and harder. Easier to detect an individual’s face and behavior; harder because thirty FPS was video’s normal speed, which meant there would be more footage to view. The White Star had a decent system; even the time code was stamped on the footage.
Still, it was a challenge just to get through one day’s video. With eight cameras per floor, plus all the other camera locations, multiplied by twenty-one, it would take weeks to sift through. The FBI had scores of agents and assistants to assign to the task. She didn’t.
She thought about asking Zach and his geek team to help but decided to make that her last resort. They hardly knew who Jarvis was and probably wouldn’t recognize Ruth at all. And, just to make it more complicated, Georgia assumed Ruth and Jarvis would be wearing disguises when they were preparing for the event.
And that led her to the most important question. When would Ruth and Jarvis set the scene? Ruth wouldn’t know who accessed the roof or how often. A maintenance man might sweep snow off the roof after a storm. Heating or other inspectors might check the systems and roof vents. Perhaps a few lovers might venture out for a romantic view of Grant Park. Ruth would wait as long as possible before bringing their gear up to the hotel roof. Perhaps until the day or the night before.
Georgia chose the day before the murder to begin screening tapes. They could have entered through the lobby, so she started there, searching for anyone resembling Ruth or Jarvis. She found nothing. But they may have been disguised or at least in different clothing. Jarvis could be wearing chinos and a jacket, or even a suit. Ruth might have been in a dress and heels. Georgia slowed the tape. She saw several appropriately dressed couples that seemed close in age, but when she zoomed in, they weren’t Ruth or Jarvis.
Then again, they wouldn’t necessarily have come in the front. Maybe they’d figured out a way to use the employee entrance. That would have been smart. In that case, they might be dressed as workers: Jarvis perhaps a kitchen employee, Ruth a maid. She screened the employee entrance, but no one matched their appearance.
What if they’d spent the night in the hotel and were already there? Of course, they would have used aliases, but they would have needed picture IDs to check in. While it was possible that Ruth managed to get fake ones, Georgia didn’t think so. She started with the video from the twenty-first floor.
Vanna and Charlie woke up hungry. Vanna was weaning him onto solid food, and both women giggled when he tasted applesauce for the first time. His eyes grew as wide, and he waved his fists enthusiastically for more. Once Charlie was fed, Vanna scrambled eggs, toasted bread, and brought Georgia a plate.
“I know you’re busy with your case. I’ll take Charlie for a walk.”
“Thanks, Vanna.” Was this the new Vanna? Considerate and thoughtful? Whatever it was, Georgia was grateful; she wolfed down the food.
The sun was sinking behind the house across the street when she found it. She was surprised how brief the scene was. Had she not been carefully screening the video, she would have missed it.
The video was from a twentieth-floor hallway. A maid in a black uniform and white apron rolled a cart down the hall. The time-code stamp said about fifteen thirty, three-thirty PM the day before the shooting. The maid’s back was to the camera. As she reached an exit door, she stopped and surreptitiously glanced around. The camera didn’t have a great shot of her face, but the maid did look like Ruth. Still, Georgia couldn’t be sure, and there was only one camera positioned down the length of this hall. Then the maid opened the exit door and rolled the cart through it, presumably to the stairwell.
Georgia paused the tape, rewound, and replayed it. There had to be a corresponding tape recorded in the stairwell. But finding it presented a challenge. The ID system for each camera in the hotel consisted of letters and numbers that, on their face, were meaningless. The numbers didn’t correspond to the floors on which the cameras were mounted, nor did the letters match the various wings and halls. While that wasn’t surprising in a huge hotel like the White Star, she needed to access the master log to determine where each camera was positioned. She’d have to call the guy in security—what was his name? Ritter. But he wasn’t on the clock until four. It was ten to.
Georgia got up and paced. If the maid was, in fact, Ruth, what was she doing? Was she taking something up to the roof? The White Star’s roof was only two stories above the twentieth floor. If Jarvis was waiting for her in the stairwell, he could carry whatever was on her cart. But what did it contain? The Bushmaster? Magazines and ammo? The IED? Everything?
The time on her cell dragged toward four o’clock. Georgia continued to pace. Finally, it was ten past. She called the White Star Hotel and asked for Security.
When she was transferred, she said, “Is Ritter there?”
“Who wants him?” a gruff voice replied. It had to be Oswald.
“Georgia Davis. He and I talked this morning.”
“Ritter? There’s some dame on the phone for you. You know a Georgia?”
Through the phone she heard, “I dunno. Wait. Yeah. Lemme take it.”
He picked up. “You can hang up now, Chief Oswald,” Ritter said.
There was an audible click. Such privacy, Georgia thought. Ten to one Oswald was still on the line, claiming it was necessary for security. She didn’t care.
“What can I do for you?”
“You know who this is.”
He chuckled. “I talked to our friend yesterday. Boy, was he pissed. It was pretty funny. I owe you.”
“Well, consider this your repayment. I need some guidance on your ID system, you know, the numbers and letters you use for camera positions. You have cameras in the stairwells, right?”
“Sure.”
“I need to know how to find the twentieth-floor stairwell at the end of a hall.”
“That would be eight different cameras.”
&nbs
p; “I’ll need all eight since I have no idea which hall it was.”
“Hang on.” He came back a moment later. “Ready? Here they are.” He reeled off eight different ID labels. Georgia wrote them down.
“I also need the roof IDs.”
“There are four cameras up there.” He read them off.
“Thanks, Ritter. We’re even.”
With the proper identification Georgia easily found the camera recordings and fast-forwarded to the same time code on the maid’s video. The fifth camera she screened showed an exit door opening and a maid rolling a cart into the stairwell. A man in a custodian’s uniform was waiting. There was no sound, but the maid lifted the skirting on her cart, and the man carefully retrieved a long gun. The Bushmaster. He turned around to say something to the woman, but she shook her head and gestured for him to keep going.
Georgia had them. Except that she still couldn’t be sure the maid was Ruth. Her hair was swept back and a maid’s cap covered her widow’s peak. She was wearing glasses, too, which hid her eyes, and her nose didn’t look the same. If it was Ruth, and it had to be, she’d disguised herself well.
There was one more tape to screen. She advanced to the roof cams and added thirty seconds to the time code. Sure enough, on the second video, Jarvis and the maid appeared at the door to the roof. Jarvis looked around, headed to the east side of the roof, and pointed to Grant Park. The maid walked over and nodded. She swept her arm in a wide arc. He walked the length of the roof with the Bushmaster, lifted it to his shoulder, and sighted. When he found a location he liked, he lowered the assault rifle and placed it on the roof’s surface. The maid smiled.
He returned it. She waved a hand to indicate he should leave. He looked back and beckoned to her. She raised her index finger, then shooed him away. She extracted the pipe bomb, battery, and alarm clock from under her coat, and placed them a few feet away from the rifle in an inconspicuous spot beside an HVAC unit. Again, Georgia couldn’t see her in close-up but Ruth was clearly fiddling with the wires that led from the battery and timer to the detonator inside the pipe. Then she straightened up, planted her hands on her hips, and turned around.
High Crimes Page 24