Grave Endings (28 page)

I dialed the number.

“Suncrest Hotel,” a man said. “How can I help you?”

“I just spoke to one of your guests, and she didn't sound well. Can you please check to see if she's all right?”

“The guest's name?”

“Trina Creeley.”

“I'm sorry,” he told me a moment later. “We have no one by that name registered here.”

“I just spoke to her.” My heart was pounding. “Could you please check again?”

“No Trina Creeley. No Creeley at all, for that matter. Sorry.”

I thanked him and hung up. I had no idea what other hotel she might have chosen.

I was about to call Connors when I realized she had probably used an alias. Something she'd told me the first day we'd met . . . Her screen name. What was it?

I thought for a moment, then phoned the hotel and spoke to the same clerk. “Can you try Ava Gardner?”

“Excuse me?”

“Do you have an Ava Gardner registered?”

“Let me check.”

I tapped my fingers on the counter.

“That line is busy. Do you want to leave a message?”

forty-three

THE PARAMEDICS ARRIVED BEFORE I DID. SO DID CONNORS. I recognized his gray Cutlass as I raced past it into the lobby.

The clerk behind the desk was reluctant to give me Trina's room number even after I told him I was the one who had contacted the police. I don't think he believed me when I told him I was her sister, but he probably decided that arguing with me wasn't worth the effort.

The rickety elevator seemed to take forever, and Trina's room was all the way at the end of a long hall. The door was open, and the room was crowded.

“You can't go in,” a uniformed policeman told me.

I bit my lip. “Is she okay?”

“Don't know yet.”

“Can you tell Detective Connors that I'd like to see him? My name is Molly Blume.”

A minute or so later Connors stepped into the hall.

“She's lucky you called her,” he said. “But she's not out of the woods.”

“Can I see her?”

He shook his head. “You don't want to. Her blood pressure is dangerously low. They're working on getting her breathing going and starting an IV. They may have to do a trache.”

I shuddered. He was right. I didn't want to see that. “Do they know what happened?”

“We found an empty vial of sleeping pills on her nightstand and some booze. You can connect the dots.”

“She wasn't depressed, Andy.”

“I'm not saying she was depressed. She was anxious, she had a lot on her mind. Her name's on the vial, by the way. Did she have pills when she came to your place?”

I nodded. “She said she was having trouble sleeping.”

“How many pills were in the vial, do you know?”

“No, I don't. Jason did this, Andy.”

“We don't know that.”

“This morning, at Horton's? I was in the hall outside his office and heard him talking to his son. He said he was tired of cleaning up the son's mistakes. He said something like, it was too late, and she'd figure out what's going on, and he had to get rid of her. I thought he was referring to me—that he wanted to get me off his back and do some damage control. Now I think he told Jason to get rid of Trina.”

I should have warned Trina about him, I thought. I shouldn't have been vague.

The paramedics were wheeling out the stretcher. Connors and I stepped out of the way. I caught a glimpse of Trina as they rolled her through the doorway. She looked gray, and I could see the blue veins beneath the skin on her eyelids. An oxygen mask covered most of her face.

“Here's the thing,” Connors said when the paramedics had left. “The room was locked, from the inside.”

“There are usually connecting doors.”

“Really? Hotels have those?”

“I'm sorry. I'm a little tense.”

“The rooms on either side of this one were occupied from eight o'clock on, Molly. If she took booze and pills before eight, she would have been dead by now.”

“Can I go inside now?”

He nodded. “Don't touch anything.”

I entered the room and looked around. The natty maroon-and-beige spread for the king-sized bed had fallen to the carpet. On the nightstand were a vial, a glass, and a bottle of scotch.

On the desk were newspapers and several white Styrofoam boxes that had probably contained meals. The suitcase Trina had packed Saturday night was on the floor at the side of the bed. Her black vinyl tote was next to it.

“She had her brother's journal,” I told Connors. “In that tote.” I pointed to it.

Connors slipped on latex gloves and crouched next to the tote. He unzipped it and looked inside. “No journal.”

“They took it.”

“Who?”

“Whoever drugged Trina, and killed Randy. Come on, Andy. This is too pat. Randy dies of an overdose. His sister takes too many sleeping pills.”

“Genetic stupidity,” he said. “It
is
too pat. But we have a locked door. We're on the fourth floor, no fire escape. Windows are locked from the inside. When you figure it out, tell me.”

I turned and glanced at the door. “I know how he did it, Andy.”

“Faster than Houdini,” he said. “He used a string, right? I was just thinking about that.”

“Last year, when I was on a book tour in Indianapolis? I locked myself out of my room. That security latch at the top? The one that you flip over when you're in the room? I didn't open it all the way and lay it flat against the wall, the way you're supposed to. When I left the room and pulled the door shut, the movement jostled the latch and made it fall across the door. They had to call maintenance to get someone to remove the hinges.”

Connors looked at the door.

“Maybe he left fingerprints,” I said.

I had to wait until Connors lifted several sets of prints with the kit he kept in his car before he allowed me to demonstrate. Five times. Three out of five, when I positioned the latch so that it was just shy of touching the edge of the door, it flipped over the door when I pulled the door shut behind me.

Connors tried it a few more times himself.

“We know how,” he said. “We still don't know who.” I didn't agree, but I liked the
we.

forty-four

Friday, February 27. 9:45 A.M. 1100 block of North
Vermont Avenue. During the night, a burglar used a
passkey to enter the victim's hotel room and took
$27,300 in money and jewelry. The room was still
locked in the morning.
(Hollywood)

TRINA WASN'T WILLING TO PRESS CHARGES AGAINST Jason.

“She can't remember much after dinner in the hotel restaurant,” Connors told me when I was at the station. “She barely remembers getting to her room. She says she must have locked the door.”

“I'll bet Jason put Rohypnol in her drink. People usually revert to habit. Didn't he think it would show up in an autopsy?”

Connors leaned back in his chair. “A, we don't know that the lab tests will show Rohypnol. B, if she
had
died, and we found Rohypnol in her system, we couldn't have proved that Jason put it in her drink.”

“Why would she put it in her own drink?”

“Welcome to the real world, Molly. People use roofies all the time for a high. Jason will say Trina knew what she was doing. Like brother, like sister.”

“But the Rohypnol shows a
pattern,
Andy.”

“What pattern? We have no proof that Horton ever used Rohypnol on anyone. We have a twenty-three-year-old woman who took sleeping pills after she mixed beer with a drug.”

I rolled my eyes. “She was tired, so she took something to sleep?”

“I agree with you, Molly, but Horton's lawyer will argue that Trina was disoriented, so she took sleeping pills, which she usually does. This time she took too many.”

“You know he tried to kill her, Andy. You know he had Iris killed. What kind of drugs did they find in Randy?”

Connors hesitated. “Cocaine, and roofies.”

I stared at him. “And there's no
pattern
? What if he tries to kill Trina in the hospital?”

Connors shook his head. “He knows I'm watching him. I spoke to him. He has an alibi for the night Randy died. I told him we were looking into the disappearance six years ago of a client from Rachel's Tent. He said that on the dates in question—meaning July thirteen, six years ago, when they found the torso of that unidentified woman—he was with his family in Europe. The father corroborated, said he could provide hotel information, et cetera.”

“Nice for them.” I sniffed. “I never said Jason killed Iris. I said he paid Randy to do it for him.”

“I suggested that. Horton told me that after yesterday's
Times
linked Randy with Aggie's death, he began to wonder about Randy. Apparently, Jason had confided in Randy about his sexual relations with clients from Rachel's Tent and told him that one of them stole a videotape. Horton now believes that Randy may have been overzealous in his attempt to help Jason out of an uncomfortable situation and took it upon himself to kill Iris.”

“Uncomfortable situation? Overzealous?”

“That's what he said. And, of course, Jason is in no way responsible for what Randy did.”

“Of course not.” Talk about spin. I was infuriated. “But if you can prove that Jason or Horton paid Randy money to ‘help'?”

“We can't prove it without having access to Horton's books. We can't get access without a subpoena, which a judge won't give us, because there's no probable cause. And if Jason paid cash, we'd have a harder time tracing the money. And Randy's not alive to tell us what happened.”

“So we need the tape.”

“Even if we had it, we couldn't use it without Iris.”

I frowned. “You said it was admissible.”

“It's admissible. But Jason's lawyer will argue that the sex was consensual, and Iris isn't around to say otherwise.”

“So we need a resurrection,” I said.

“It wouldn't hurt. Two would be better.”

Roland and Alice Creeley were outside Trina's fifth-floor hospital room when I arrived. Creeley looked as though he'd aged ten years in two weeks. Alice, uncharacteristically silent, gripped her husband's arm and avoided my eyes. She'd probably heard from her neighbors that I'd been asking questions, and was anxious about what I'd learned, what I planned to do with the information.

“Trina's doing better,” Creeley told me. “She was up, talking to the detective. She ate something, too. I think she's sleeping, but you can go in. He said you saved her life. He said if you hadn't . . .” Creeley tightened his lips, and his shoulders heaved.

I gave him a hug and went inside the room. A nurse was adjusting the IV flow. On the window ledge facing the courtyard was a huge floral arrangement. I looked at the card.
So glad you're going to be okay. Jason.

“Can I stay a few minutes?” I asked the nurse.

She nodded. “She's been in and out of sleep. If she wakes, you can talk to her, but don't tire her out.”

I sat at Trina's bedside and watched the rhythmic movement of her chest, heard the
whoosh
of oxygen running through the tubes. She looked fragile, but her skin had lost that frightening gray pallor.

I stroked her hand and was about to leave when her eyes fluttered open.

“How are you, Ava Gardner?”

She smiled weakly. “My throat hurts. They pumped my stomach.” Her eyes filled with tears. “You saved my life, Molly.”

My eyes teared, too. “Anytime. I'm just glad you're okay.” I squeezed her hand.

“I guess I took too many pills.” She sounded sheepish.

“You don't remember taking more than one?”

“No. But I must have. I've been so stressed.”

“Did something upset you last night, Trina?”

She hesitated. “I had a fight with a friend. He's been trying to help me, and I thought he was getting too nosy. I hurt his feelings.”

That explained why Horton had told Jason that “she” had figured it out. “The other day you said someone was helping you. Was that Jason Horton?”

Her hesitation was longer this time. “Yes. We're okay now. He said he was sorry.” She licked her lips. “Can I have some water?” She propped herself up on her elbows.

I filled a plastic cup from the yellow carafe on her nightstand and handed her the cup. “Didn't you get my messages, Trina? I must have phoned ten times.”

She shifted her eyes and sipped the water. “I didn't get around to calling you back. I'm sorry.”

I didn't believe her. “What happened last night?”

“I don't know. I was nauseous and cold. I thought I was coming down with the flu. I was very tired.” She yawned, as if to prove her point.

“Where was Jason?”

She set the empty cup on the nightstand and lay down. “I guess he was home.”

“Did you have anything to drink?”

“One beer with dinner. Another one later. But that was before the sleeping pill. I
know
you're not supposed to mix pills with liquor.”

I could tell my questions were annoying her. I took her hand. “Trina, I know this isn't the best time, but I have to tell you something. Jason isn't your friend.”

She yanked her hand away. “Jason
is
my friend. He was Randy's friend, too. So was Mr. Horton.”

“That's why Randy helped Jason, Trina. He felt grateful.”

Trina looked puzzled. “Helped Jason with what?”

“Getting information about people.” Now was not the time to tell her about Iris. “Trina, Jason raped some of the women from Rachel's Tent.”

Color blotched her cheeks. “You're lying!”

“I talked to one of the women he raped. He drugged her, and raped her. I think he drugged you, too.”

She clamped her lips into an angry line. “Jason wouldn't hurt me. He's trying to find the package. He's trying to find out who Jim is. He said you would make up lies about him, just like you're making up lies about Randy.”

“Trina—”

“You hate my brother!” She glared at me. “You think he killed your best friend, but he didn't. Jason believes me. He's the only one.” She turned her head to the side. “I don't want to talk anymore. I want you to leave.”

“He took your journal,” I said. “From your black tote? It's not in your hotel room.”

Her hands pleated the white sheet. “Maybe he borrowed it so he could read it, to see if I missed something. That's why I was upset with him, because he took it out of my tote once. But he's only trying to help.”

She was determined to hold on to her perception of Jason. I suppose she'd substituted Jason for the brother she had lost. Even if I'd been more specific in my warning the other night, she wouldn't have listened.

“Trina, you didn't tell me at first you had Randy's journal. Is there anything else you haven't told me?”

Something flickered in her eyes. “No.”

“I think there
is,
” I said.

She frowned. “You're going to think worse of Randy. That's why I didn't show it to you.”

“Show me what?”

The nurse came in. “How're you doing, Trina?”

“I want to rest now,” she said.