Open Season for Murder (A Mac Faraday Mystery Book 10) (18 page)

“I recall you mentioning that last night,” Mac said. “You were her escort at the Diablo Ball five years ago. The year that she and Lindsey York got into that fight. A table was overturned. Both Lindsey and Jasmine were banned.”

“Obviously not since Jasmine was invited back this year,” Samuel said while checking a text on his cell phone.

Noting that Samuel was holding the phone in his right hand while texting with his left, Mac nudged David quickly with his injured arm. When the pain shot from his wrist up to his elbow, he flinched.

“Speaking of that night,” Mac said, “How well did you know Ashton Piedmont?”

“What does she have to do with this?” Samuel asked.

“Isn’t that what this film project is about?” David asked. “Finding Ashton’s killer?”

“Maybe Ashton’s murderer killed Jasmine because she was getting too close to finding out the truth,” Mac said. “Last night, I heard you arguing with her because she was planning a huge twist at the end of the film that viewers would never expect. I can’t think of a bigger twist than to point the finger at the very director of the investigate report searching of her killer.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Samuel said.

“You didn’t answer my question,” Mac said. “How well did you know Ashton?”

“We were acquaintances,” the director said. “The same for Jasmine, who was in her dorm at college. Not much more. She saw Ashton here on the lake during the summer and they all socialized, but that was about it. When Ashton disappeared and her body wasn’t found, I thought it would make a good film project.”

“An idea that Jasmine stole,” Mac said.

“True,” the director answered. “We were both in communications in college. We were going to be a team. She would be the on air personality and I was going to be the producer and director.” He gestured at his computer tablet. “This whole show, the in-depth investigative report into Ashton Piedmont’s disappearance, was my idea and she stole it. That’s the way Jasmine was.”

“Must have made you pretty mad when she sold it to Rock Sinclair as her own,” Mac said.

“That’s why I’m the director,” Samuel said. “Jasmine wasn’t a complete idiot. She knew after she sold the show to him that she couldn’t pull it off without me.”

“And now that she’s dead,” Mac noted, “it’s completely yours.”

To Mac’s surprise, the corner of Samuel’s mouth curled upwards. “Yes, it is.”

“What time was it when you saw Jasmine last?” Mac asked him.

“We rode up together in the elevator,” Samuel said. “Me and her and Rock. We came upstairs after that fiasco downstairs with Riva. We were having a production meeting when the police came up with the news about Lindsey York.”

Before Mac could respond with his next question, he saw David cock his head at the director. David’s eye’s narrowed to blue slits before he asked, “Where were you five years ago when Ashton Piedmont was killed?”

Samuel chuckled. “Seriously?” When he saw by their expressions that the police chief was indeed serious, his smile fell. “I don’t know exactly where I was, but I do know that neither Jasmine nor I were in Deep Creek Lake. We left Spencer the day after the ball. If I remember correctly, we were staying with friends in the Hamptons.”

“Chief,” Doc Washington called to them from the bathroom. “You may want to see this before we move her.”

As soon as they had stepped away, Mac whispered to David, “What was with the look? Did you catch him in a lie?”

“How often do you hear people use the word ‘fiasco’?” David asked.

“Not often,” Mac replied.

“I’ve heard that word used twice today already,” David said. “Samuel used exactly the same words Rock did to recount what they did last night.”

“They compared notes before we got up here,” Mac chuckled. “Makes me wonder what they’re hiding.”

In the bathroom, Doc Washington led Mac and David over to the tub where Bogie stood over Jasmine’s lifeless body, which they had extracted from the tub and laid out in a body bag on a gurney to be taken down to the morgue.

“I can only give you a preliminary report right now,” the medical examiner said, “but I think it is entirely possible that this young lady did not drown.”

Mac nodded his head. “We saw the bruises on her shoulders and neck. Like someone fought her to force her down under the water to drown her.”

“I’ll need to check her lungs back at the lab for that,” she said. “What I’m talking about is what I found when we took her out of the tub.”

Bogie rolled Jasmine over onto her side and moved Jasmine’s hair to the side to expose the back of her neck. Moving in closer, they could see that the entire back of her neck was covered with a nasty bluish black bruise from the base of her skull to the top of her shoulders.

“She was most likely dead before she was forced under the water,” the medical examiner said.

“She put up such a fight that they slammed her back against the rim of the tub and broke her neck,” Bogie said.

“Even if she didn’t drown,” David said while extracting his vibrating phone from its case, “it’s still murder.”

“I think we need to have another talk with Sinclair,” Mac said.

“What about the wife he cheated on?” Bogie asked. “She’s got motive coming out of her ears.”

“But Sinclair and Nash were on the scene,” Mac argued. “Langford will get us a report on the security lock for the suite. If anyone else used their keycard to come into the suite, we’ll know. Between that and the hotel security cameras, we’ll know if someone besides Sinclair and Nash had access to the victim at the time of the murder.”

“Unless the killer knocked on the door and someone who was already here let him or her in,” Bogie said.

“Why does every case have to be so difficult?” Mac asked the deputy chief.

“It’s not me,” he answered, “it’s you.”

David turned around from where he had finished talking on his cell phone. “Airport security at Dulles has Rachel Breckenridge in custody. Maryland State police are bringing her back to Spencer.”

Mac’s cell phone buzzed to indicate a text from Hector.

Found Riva Sinclair in room. Ready for questioning. Bring coffee & speak softly.

Chapter Seventeen

“She killed the mini-bar,” Hector whispered to Mac and David when they arrived two floors below Rock Sinclair’s suite. After meeting them at the door, the security chief led them down the short entrance hallway to where Riva lay motionless on her back across the king-sized bed. The lights were dim and the heavy curtains drawn.

Thinking Riva had passed out, David crossed over to the window to yank open the curtains.

As soon as he touched the shade, she snapped, “Don’t!” Grabbing her head in both hands, she uttered a loud groan. Unable to sit upright, she flopped back onto the bed.

Hector opened the door for the mini bar to show them that every shelf was empty. “She’s been busy since getting out of the slammer.”

Mac knelt down to pick up one of the many empty single serve bottles of liquor that littered the floor. Taking note of the empty bottles thrown across the desk and bedside table, David asked, “How much does it cost to drink a whole mini bar?”

“Doesn’t really matter,” Hector answered. “It’s automatically added to the room bill. The mini bar is computerized so that every time a bottle is taken out—” He uttered a ka-ching noise to mimic a cash register— “the drink is charged to the room.”

“Do you have to be so loud?” Riva asked in a pitifully raspy choice.

Struck with a thought, Mac said, “Doesn‘t the charge appear on the bill with both what she took out and the time she bought it?”

A grin on his lips, Hector nodded his bald head. “I love it when a guest argues the mini bar charge and we show him the time stamp. Between that and the time recorded by the use of the key card to enter the room, then they have no ammunition. I mean, we can prove they were in the room when the bottle was taken out. So who else was doing the drinking?”

Mac and David exchanged knowing glances.

“Not only do the time stamps establish what and how much she drank, but when,” Mac said, “which also establishes her movements after she returned to the Inn. Once we establish the time of death, all we have to do is compare that to Riva’s emptying of the mini bar.”

Raising his voice, Hector tapped Riva’s leg. “Congratulations, Ms. Sinclair. Your binge may clear you of murder.”

“Murder?” With great effort, she pulled herself up into a sitting up position.

“Murder,” David repeated.

“Who was murdered?” A smile came to her face. “Is Rock dead? Did that little witch kill him? He deserved whatever he got.”

“Sorry to disappoint you,” Mac said, “but it was Jasmine. Someone killed her.”

“How?” She looked from Mac to David to Hector and then back to Mac again. Clasping both hands to her chest, she gasped. “You don’t think I did it, do you? I was in jail.”

“You aren’t now,” David pointed out.

“Because the hotel manager called the police station and said Rock didn’t want to press charges.”

“That call wasn’t made by the hotel,” Mac said.

“I know,” she sobbed.

“You know?” David asked.

“I thought that Rock had a change of heart since the police officer at the station said he had said he wasn’t pressing charges.” Her hair spilled down into her face while she hung her head. “That witch Jasmine made a fool of me. She had left a note for me in Rock’s name to meet him in the lounge to talk and not to call the room because he didn’t want Jasmine to know we were talking. So I sat waiting for him like a fool. Then he sent a note saying that Jasmine was asleep and to come on up to their suite.”

“What time was that?” Mac asked.

“I don’t know,” Riva said with a shrug. “Close to midnight. The note said not to knock—that he was leaving the door open for me.”

“What happened up in the room?” David asked.

Riva sniffed. “The door was open. The lock was swung around to keep the door from latching. I went in and found all these clothes on the floor and heard them.”

“Heard who?” Mac asked.

“Them,” she bit out. “Jasmine and Rock … in the whirlpool tub—making love like a couple of horny rabbits.” She let out a shuddering breath. “I know she did it on purpose. She wanted me to watch them—to see what that impotent bastard could do for her that he never gave a damn to do for me—because he didn’t want me, but because he wanted to please her…”

“Wait a minute.” David held up his hands to signal a time out. “Are you telling us that Rock is impotent?”

“He was while I was married to him,” Riva said. “He’s already begging for a secrecy agreement on the divorce.”

“If he’s impotent—” David started to say.

“There are pills,” Riva said, “but Rock didn’t like how they made his heart race. He was afraid of having a heart attack … or so he said.” She broke down. “He obviously wasn’t afraid of having a heart attack with her.”

“Did you say anything to Jasmine about seeing the two of them?” Mac asked her.

“No, I didn’t want to give her the satisfaction.”

“Did you go into the bathroom at all?”

She shook her head. “I turned around and ran back down here and spent the rest of the night drowning my sorrows.” With a gasp, she said, “Maybe it was Rock who sent me that note to go up to the suite so that he could set me up to kill Jasmine.”

“Why would Rock want to kill Jasmine?” Mac asked.

“She was a manipulative conniving little witch,” she said.

“But did Rock know that?” Mac asked.

“No!” She broke down into uncontrollable weeping.

Careful not to jostle her, Mac sat on the edge of the bed. “Riva?” he said in a soft voice. “He’s not worth this.”

Letting out a loud guttural sob, Riva covered her face with her hands. “Oh, Rock! How could you leave me like this?” A waterfall of tears flowed freely from her eyes.

His eyes widening in dismay, Hector hurried for the door. “I better get to checking out the hotel security videos for clues to solving these murders, Mac.” The door slammed in his rush to leave.

Her sobs turned into wailing. Rolling over onto her side, Riva threw her arms around Mac’s midsection and buried her tear soaked faced into his chest.

Staring at him, David cleared his throat. “Uh, Mac, do you …”

Seeing that David was begging to be dismissed, Mac sighed. “I’ve got this covered.”

Not giving him a chance to change his mind, David ran for the door.

Once they were alone, Mac patted Riva on the back while saying in a soothing voice, “Riva, you need to get ahold of yourself.”

With her face buried in his chest, he was uncertain of her reply. It sounded like, “I can’t.”

“Yes, you can.” He continued patting her on the back. “I know it’s hard, but if you set your mind to it …”

“I have nothing more to live for!”

As best he could with his one good arm, he pried her away from him to loosen her grip. “Riva, listen to me.” Lifting her head by the chin, he forced her red and swollen eyes to meet his. “Do you really want to give Rock that much power?”

She sniffed. “I don’t understand.”

Grossed out by the discharge flowing from her nose, Mac went into the bathroom to get a tissue. “Think of what a bolster it must be to Rock’s already huge ego seeing you like this—completely broken—all because he took away his love.” Returning into the room, he held out the tissue to her. “No one person should have that much power over another person.”

Taking the offered tissue, she blew her nose noisily. After wiping off the excess snot, she offered the soiled tissue back to Mac, who declined it with a shake of his head. “Keep it.”

“You don’t understand,” she mumbled, “I love Rock.”

“I do understand.” Mac’s tone was hard. “I was in your shoes not too long ago.” He sat down next to her. “I loved my first wife and gave her twenty years of my life.”

She hiccupped. “Twenty years?” She gazed at him with her eyes wide. “That’s a lo-ong time.”

“Yes, it is,” Mac said in a soft voice. “After two decades, working long hours and double shifts to get enough money together to build a house in a nice neighborhood, having two children together, she decided to trade up for a district attorney.”

“She left
you?
But you’re a multi-millionaire.”

“I wasn’t then,” Mac said. “I didn’t inherit my money until after our divorce was final.” He steered her back onto his point. “I was just as much in love with her as you are with Rock,” he said. “I did everything for her but nothing I had done, none of the sacrifices I made, were good enough for her. While the wounds were fresh, I felt like curling up and dying. But then one night, after getting good and drunk, I woke up completely hung over, like you are now, and went into the bathroom and looked into the mirror and it hit me.”

She was breathless. “What?”

Mac wiped the tears from her face with the corner of the white sheet. “I was a mess. My face was pale. I had huge bags under my eyes. I had a headache and my stomach hurt from all the booze I had drunk on an empty stomach. When I looked in the mirror, it hit me. Christine did this to me—me. After all I did—for her—she had vowed to love, honor, and cherish me—until death do us part. I was the father of her children and she could just trade me in like an old car for a faster model.”

With his hand under her chin, his eyes met hers. “The thing that really sucked was that I gave her the power to do that to me.”

“So what did you do?”

“I took it back,” he said. “No one has the power to destroy you unless you give it to them. She didn’t deserve my love … She wasn’t worthy of my destroying myself over her. Once I made that decision, she lost all her power and then I was able to survive.”

She gathered up the sheet into both of her hands. “How do I do that?”

“You start by telling Rock to hit the road,” Mac said, “to get up and get out of your life.” He pointed toward the bathroom. “But first, go take a shower, get dressed, and move on.”