In Between (9 page)

He felt equally dismayed, equally frustrated. “Don't know,” he said. “Let's hang out with them for a while, see if anyone lets out anything helpful. I'll stick with Alex through his interrogation, and you snoop among the rest of them. One of them just might let something helpful slip out if they don't think a cop is within hearing distance. Hell, maybe a couple of them will talk about a conspiracy to do old Vicente in. Maybe the widow is in on it. She seems to relish freedom from a performance-only marriage.”

“Yeah. Push her button and watch her pour tea. Okay. Good enough,” Lori said and flitted back to the restaurant.

Sam reentered the suite where Captain Conkling was speaking to Louise. “Mrs. Stossel, this has been helpful. Of course, when your mother's attorney arrives he'll be admitted. It's perfectly understandable that your family will want him to handle various legal details. I'd appreciate it if you'll let us know when Mrs. Vicente feels up to a few questions.”

Louise was holding a tissue to her eyes and when she spoke her voice was trembling, as if she had been weeping. She kept her head lowered as she rose. “Thank you, Captain Conkling. I'll sit with Mother for a few hours. I'll send word when she's composed enough to answer anything you want to ask.” She walked past the captain, and as soon as her back was turned, her face hardened and a steely glint shone in her eyes. She entered the bedroom.

Sam didn't bother to follow her. He kept his gaze on the captain, who was regarding the walkway with a thoughtful look. After a moment, he straightened his shoulders, walked out, and continued down to the end where Alex was still on the phone.

“Mr. Vicente, I'd like a few words with you,” he said briskly as he approached Alex. “Maybe it would be better if we go to your room.” It was not an invitation.

“Sure,” Alex said, rising. He spoke into the phone then, “Gotta go. I'll call you later.”

Neither said a word as Alex led the way up the stairs to the upper level, and on to his room, an upscale motel room with a king-size bed, a real table and chairs, desk with computer access, a refrigerator and coffee maker. A dress shirt was draped over one of the chairs, and a backpack on the bed was open with various items exposed, a necktie, socks, briefs. It looked as if things had been tossed in randomly, nothing folded. A laptop and windbreaker were next to the backpack.

“Planning on an early departure this morning?” Conkling asked. He picked up the shirt and looked it over, put it down again, and sat at the table. He motioned to Alex to sit across from him.

“That was my plan,” Alex said.

“Tell me about last night.”

Sam heard nothing new until Alex said, “He would have taken his morning run, and I planned to wait until he was past the parking lot and then take off.”

“He ran every morning?”

“Yes. At daybreak. It's two miles total, but you can leave the track at various places and head back to the hotel. Half a mile, a mile, like that. He usually did the full two miles.”

“You wanted to avoid him? Is that what you're saying?”

“Not especially. But he wanted to avoid me and I planned to make it easy for him.”

Conkling regarded him for a time, then said, “So you knew he'd go out running, around the stables and the parking lot, then up in the trees for a spell. Did it occur to you to wonder why the killer chose a rifle for a murder weapon? Strange choice when handguns were also available and easier to hide.”

Alex shook his head. “I didn't give it a thought.”

“Strange,” Conkling said. “But if the killer knew he'd be out there running and that no one would be around that early, a rifle begins to make sense. What did you take to your car last night, Mr. Vicente?”

“I changed out of the suit I was wearing, and the dress shoes. I lay down and watched television, I surfed the Internet for a time and dozed off. When I woke up, I took the suit and shoes to the car. I didn't want to wear any of them today.” He was wearing a t-shirt and jeans, sneakers. “I drove all day yesterday, up from Denver, and I planned to drive all day today, back home. And, Captain, my father wasn't shot on the running trail.”

“No, he wasn't. But maybe the killer didn't know that he was going to be up all hours working. Maybe he figured that after such long hours, he'd skip his usual dawn run. Let's go have a look at your car, Mr. Vicente.” He picked up the shirt and walked to the glass door. On the way he drew out his phone and spoke briefly into it, then motioned Alex to come along.

Sam wished there was some way he could signal to Alex that he wasn't alone, that someone believed him, that his long-gone buddy was at his side. Alex looked stiff and miserable. He looked like a man who understood that ahead a deep pit awaited him, that just one step might plunge him down into it, and he had no way of knowing which step that would be. And, Sam also thought, the damn fool didn't have the good sense to follow Emma's advice and keep his mouth shut.

“See, how it might have been,” Conkling said as they walked, “the killer thought Mr. Vicente would start out at the front of the hotel and go around, and he, the killer, would go straight to the parking lot and wait for him, and after that keep him in sight until he was near the trees. A good clear shot, no one around to see or hear anything, no one expecting Mr. Vicente to return very soon, and the killer could get in a car and take off, dump the rifle along the way. He could have been a hundred miles away before the body was found. Not saying anyone thought along those lines, but we try out different scenarios, just to see if one fits the facts.”

“Your scenario doesn't fit the facts,” Alex said.

“No, it doesn't. But it's a neat scenario, now isn't it? And if your father changed his anticipated actions, the killer was obliged to change his. Maybe he had to go retrieve a rifle he had stashed somewhere, and then he saw another opportunity on the walkway. Just the way we think, Mr. Vicente. Try to make sense out of things.”

Neither spoke again as they went down stairs to the ground level, and through the back grounds of the hotel to the parking lot where Alex pointed out his car. Two men were waiting and they immediately went to the car. Conkling asked for the keys.

Forensics, Sam thought, watching. They were going to search for gun oil or something, confiscate the suit and shoes, keep the shirt, look for incriminating evidence. Alex was thinking along the same lines, he suspected, watching a tic jerk in Alex's jaw, watching his hands clench and relax.

“Are you done with me?” Alex asked in a strained voice.

“For now, Mr. Vicente. For now.” Conkling waved him away and moved closer to his team.

Alex turned and walked back toward the hotel. Sam flitted to the restaurant, where he saw the four company men huddled over papers in a booth. Lori was sitting at a table where a detective was talking to one of the women he had seen earlier.

“Anything?” Lori asked, rising.

“They want to pin it on Alex. The captain's okay with that. How about you?”

“She,” Lori said jerking her thumb toward the woman still talking to the detective, “thinks Alex is an unnatural son. He didn't show enough emotion when he saw his father lying there, shot dead. Just went all white and froze. Like his mother. Royce was ready to jump him, beat him to death or something, and Colonel and Pinky held him back. So far, each and every one of them I've sat in on is convinced that Alex killed his father. And each and every one of them has said so in different words to the cops.”

She stopped talking. Then, pointing, she groaned. “Look at the spread they're laying out. Brunch.” Two young men in white coats and black slacks were arranging dishes on a long table. Scrambled eggs, poached salmon, sweet rolls, fruit salad…

“Come on,” Sam said. He took her by the arm and when that didn't budge her, he started to walk. She sighed and fell into step with him.

Side by side they walked from the restaurant, then hesitated in the lobby, undecided where to go next. “So much for the killer saying something indiscreet away from the cops,” Sam muttered. “They're sticking to their stories, I guess, even with each other.”

“How do they ever solve crimes when all the people involved lie about everything?” Lori said. “I guess circumstantial evidence is enough. Oh, they found the rifle. Apparently it was tossed over the rail into bushes. Wiped clean, of course. About twenty-five feet from where Vicente was standing.”

“Let's sit here and compare notes,” Sam said gloomily. “You might have heard something I don't know anything about, or I might have.”

She looked as gloomy as he felt as they sat close to each other in the lobby.

“We know various people saw Vicente at twelve thirty. Working, still wearing his coat, maybe marking up Alex's manuscript, or just going over it again. Maybe working on his speech, or the schedule for the coming week.”

“Hold it,” Lori said, closing her eyes, thinking. “What papers did that captain hand over to Colonel? I saw a schedule, maybe a speech, a menu. No book manuscript.”

Sam thought a moment, then nodded. “No manuscript. Alex said it was there when he went looking for his father. It was heavily marked up, lines crossed out, whole pages crossed out. That's what he wanted to talk to him about, to reason with him, warn him of trouble ahead.” He nodded again. “If the murderer took it, that's our chance. Find the manuscript, find the killer. Let's go search.”

Lori jumped up. “No one's had much of a chance to get rid of anything. Maybe not the killer, but someone was there after Alex was. And his mother was there at some point when Vicente was gone. How many people were in and out of that office after twelve thirty? It sounds like Grand Central Station.”

A waiter was crossing the lobby with a food cart loaded with covered dishes. He went down the hall toward Marilyn Vicente's room. Sam and Lori passed him and started their search at the far end of the suites and minisuites.

An hour later, they entered Royce and Louise's suite. “It could be a pharmaceutical convention,” Lori said. “Meds for high blood pressure, heart, constipation. Antacids. Enough tranquilizers to settle down a post-combat battalion. It's like they invented sleeping pills and handed out samples. Enough Viagra for a reunion of World War One veterans.”

“And no manuscript,” Sam grumbled, glancing around the room.

No one was in the suite. “You start. I'll see where he is,” Lori said. With a wave she passed through the wall to Marilyn's suite.

“He's in the restaurant with his team,” Lori said when she rejoined Sam. “Cruella's still with her mother next door. They had sausage and bacon. And grilled portobello mushrooms wrapped in prosciutto. They're drinking coffee and not looking at each other or talking. And the housekeepers have been turned loose to start on the rooms. Now that they've found the rifle they must figure there's nothing else to search for.”

“So let's get to it before they reach this room,” Sam said.

They went to the bedroom, where Lori nodded toward the two king size beds. “Interesting,” she said. Both beds had been slept in.

He went to the bathroom and she started opening drawers. It didn't take long in the bedroom. They moved on to the other room where she went to a closet and pulled out suitcases while he examined the desk drawers.

“Sam!” Lori said after a minute. “Look what I found!”

Sam was at her side in an instant. “Jesus!” he said in a whisper. “He shot his father-in-law! Why?”

The bulky manuscript was in a folder too small for it, apparently a makeshift cover, simply to keep the pages together. The top sheet was crumpled and torn at one corner, dirty. They flipped pages and saw the heavily crossed-out sections Alex had mentioned. Entire pages with black-marker exes through them, underlining here and there. Sam was turning pages rapidly when Lori caught his arm.

“Someone's coming,” she said, nodding toward the hall door.

Sam shuffled the papers together and stuffed the manuscript into the too-small folder. He put it back in the suitcase and was pushing the case into the closet when the door opened and two housekeepers entered.

“Let's beat it,” Sam said. “Someplace where we can think. I want to throw stones or something.”

Lori nodded, and they left the suite, then paused at the stairs to the ground. “Over there,” Lori said, pointing to the start of the forest that edged the front lawn of the resort. “We can keep an eye on things and have a little privacy.”

Minutes later, sitting in shade, with a clear view of the resort and the helicopter parked on the lawn, Lori said, “It doesn't mean he killed Vicente, you know. He could have picked up the manuscript early this morning, or even during the night. It's not the smoking gun they keep talking about.”

Sam agreed. “I just can't figure out a motive. Vicente practically adopted him when Alex refused to join the company. He was Vicente's right hand, his go-to guy, his heir apparent, climbing the corporate ladder in the approved manner, married his boss's daughter. All those good things. Why? Vicente was his ticket to top management.”

“Let's go at it from a different angle,” Lori said. “We know Vicente was working at twelve thirty. Later, Marilyn Vicente went looking for him and she saw Cruella and Cal together. Royce said he was with Stuart, somewhere else. Alex was still in his room presumably. But he said when he began to walk around, doors were opening and closing, people coming, going, keeping out of sight. He assumed that his father had gone to bed and left the manuscript on the desk. Everyone else claims they were in their rooms, in bed, windows and doors closed. No one heard a shot, but he was up and about, why didn't he hear the shot?”

“He could have been taking stuff to his car,” Sam said. “He saw the manuscript, realized it was pointless to try to talk to his father, and prepared for an early exit this morning.”