A Dead Sister (Jessica Huntington Desert Cities Mystery) (30 page)

CHAPTER 23

Uncle Don
was a despondent tour guide. By the time they met up with him in the lobby, he already had an earful about the fiasco with Brien. The updates from Jessica made him more grim, but still committed to doing the walk through. Their surly security guard quickly escorted them to the parking lot where Kelly’s body had been found. The space was now cordoned off and restricted to hotel vehicles and valet parking only. Self-parking was on the street or in a lot that took up an entire square block across from the casino. No one could lie in wait for an unsuspecting 19-year-old, running for her life.

Uncle Don took them first to the spot where Kelly
’s body was found along with the few personal items logged into evidence, and the loaded hypodermic. Then he walked them to the point of impact where they had collected bits of debris from the vehicle that hit her. Looking around at the largely empty lot, he described what it had been like back then.  There was only one point of entry and exit for the vehicle that hit Kelly. Lampposts and security lighting on the hotel building were still much as they had been then, and would have provided adequate visibility to the driver that night.

A single dumpster, shielded from view by fencing, was all that remained of what had been a row of dumpsters, according to Chet. Uncle Don confirmed that there had been several dumpsters that night, with no fence in front of them. Given their location, it seemed entirely possible that Chet could have seen what happened to Kelly that night while remaining concealed from view.

The still irritable security man accompanied them into the building, and out again, through the only door that led from that wing of the hotel to the parking lot. That door now served principally as an emergency exit. Hotel employees sometimes used it to haul materials and supplies in and out of the building. He acknowledged that the current system of alarms and surveillance cameras around that exit were probably installed ten years ago. Uncle Don assured him that they were not there at the time of Kelly’s death. In fact, hotel guests were allowed to use that exit, but only with a key card after ten o’clock.

Because Kelly was dressed for work when she was found, investigators had initially assumed she was working somewhere in the hotel or casino, exiting by that door. Since no one reported seeing her anywhere at the resort that night, the police also considered another possibility. Kelly could have been dropped off or walked from some other location to the parking lot.

Entering through the side door into the stairwell, Jessica pointed out to Uncle Don that Kelly could have fled from a room in the hotel, down those stairs without anyone seeing or hearing her. The security guard confirmed that exit doors to the stairs weren’t armed and the stairways weren’t under video surveillance at the time.

Stepping from the stairwell into the hotel corridor, Jerry
noted how secluded from view that area was too. The corridor led to the lobby, but only after intersecting with a second hallway, and making a right turn. There would have been no clear view of the corridor from the front desk or the lobby. The guard with them pointed to surveillance cameras at strategic locations along the hotel corridor. Some would have been in place at the time. Newer, smaller cameras in the corridor and in the stairwell had been added more recently.

Uncle Don recalled that the video cameras in the corridor near where they now stood were installed but not operational that night. A contractor involved in the renovations underway at the time, had damaged a switch or something like that. They were still in the process of making repairs, and were missing footage from cameras on several floors in that wing. Their escort, who had continued to be snippy, was chagrined by what he heard. “Hey it happens,” was all he said.

When Uncle Don took his leave, Jessica had another moment of regret about stirring the pot, and dredging up such sad old memories for the man. He tried to be stoic, but he and Tommy both wiped their eyes after a goodbye hug. According to Tommy, Uncle Don was sad, but grateful, for the effort they were making to get to the truth about Kelly’s death.

Jessica and her lit
tle band of friends bemoaned those missing video tapes when they held their final debriefing at the hotel over drinks. If only the cameras had been operational, they might have caught images of Kelly, running for her life, and the two men chasing her. Small compensation since that wouldn’t have saved Kelly’s life. The investigation would have gone in a completely different direction, even without Chester Davis coming forward. Of course, how far that evidence took them would have rested on being able to identify the two men pursuing Kelly.

Their
spa attendants had provided little new information about Mr. P, the doc, or Kelly. No one recognized the auburn-haired beauty, or had a clue about who she was. Nor had anyone ever seen a man fitting the description of the doc.

They did know
Mr. P, and confirmed that he liked to spread around hundred dollar bills. Tommy cajoled his masseuse into revealing that Mr. P could also be a pain in the ass. He could fly off the handle if some aspect of his spa visit was not to his liking, especially if he was loaded when he showed up. He acted out his disapproval, sometimes making a mess of the treatment room before storming out. On one occasion he stomped his way to the lobby, buck naked, a spa attendant running behind him with his robe. He never balked when they added the costs of cleaning up his mess to the tab for his spa visit.

Peter’s discus
sion with the folks who monitored the comp program revealed that Mr. P had started dividing his time between casinos. Peter was not allowed to actually view Mr. P’s player’s club account. They disclosed that the number of days he played at the casino downtown had declined once the new resort opened in Rancho Mirage. They also assured Peter that Mr. P had earned the “whale” label over the years, dropping a ton of money at both casinos.

Like the bartenders and pool guys, the folks in housekeeping knew Mr. P, too. He left large tips. A g
ood thing, since he left the rooms he occupied in shambles. Housekeeping confirmed that Mr. P frequently traveled with an entourage. He sometimes booked a whole floor of the hotel to accommodate all the members of his party. And party they did. Parties ran for days at a time, with beautiful, young, very drunk or stoned people roaming the halls. Word about a party spread like wild fire, so that the rooms were often packed with many more party-goers than those traveling with Mr. P. If no one complained about the noise, and there was no unpleasantness with hotel staff or guests, management did not interfere.

Half-clad
, nearly comatose party-goers sometimes had to be rousted from the room after Mr. P had checked out. Left behind, in addition to remnants of food and booze, were even more offensive items like drug paraphernalia, discarded clothing, used condoms, and bodily fluids of all kinds. The folks who cleaned up after them griped about it to their supervisors. Unfortunately, rooms left looking like pigsties were all too common at resort hotels. On occasion, some damage would have been done that required repairing or replacing mechanicals, electronics or furnishings. Like the extra charges for cleanup at the spa, those costs were passed along to Mr. P, without objection on his part.

Housekeeping came
much closer than anyone else to putting Mr. P and the doc together. They knew right away who Bernadette meant when she asked about “el doctor.” Several of the women she spoke to crossed themselves as they uttered their name for him, el doctor “maligno.” He was not a nice man. No one had ever seen the two of them in the same room together, nor had the doc ever appeared with the gaggle of people checking in as Mr. P’s guests. Nevertheless, he was seen entering or exiting one or another of the rooms occupied by Mr. P and his courtiers. No one knew him by any other name than the doc.

When Bernadette showed Kelly’s picture around, one of the long-time maids was sure she had seen her. She had noticed because Kelly was so striking, even dressed as she was in her server outfit. She was chatting and laughing with Mr. P. and they went into his suite together. Employees were not supposed to carouse with guests, especially not in uniform, but it did happen. You never knew, though, when a staff member like Kelly was on some errand for the guest or the hotel, so it was good to mind your own business. She wasn’t sure
when
she had seen Kelly with Mr. P.  But she recognized the beautiful young woman right away when the story hit the news, so it must have been around the same time.

Bernadette’s discussion with the housekeeping staff uncovered one other thing. The weirdest thing, they all agreed. After one party, when most of the ro
oms Mr. P had booked were trashed, one was clean. It had been stripped down to the mattresses. All the garbage was gone, as were the sheets, towels, pillows and comforters, even the mattress covers. Room service had left a tray. That was gone too, along with all the drinking glasses, ordinary items like toilet paper and tissues, toiletries, hotel stationery, guidebooks and the portfolio filled with information for hotel guests. Everything was gone. Everything left behind was wiped down, sparkling clean.

Housekeeping staff got the chicken skin
recounting the story, according to Bernadette. Management sent someone to inventory the missing items, putting the cost to replace them on Mr. P’s tab. Jessica reminded them about Chester Davis’ assertion that Mr. P had ordered his minions to go back and clean up the place after hauling the injured doc to the car. That gave them all a round of the shivers, too.

CHAPTER 24

As Jessica turned her car onto El Paseo
Monday morning, she experienced a rush of exhilaration at the prospect of working as a lawyer again. It felt good to focus, for a while, on something besides the dismal circumstances surrounding Kelly’s death. True to her nature, the excitement was paired with a lot of anxiety. Jessica walked quickly in her caramel pumps with the black heels and the color-blocked short-sleeved dress. She could have dressed more casually for the brief visit to the office. Wearing grown-up clothes, including panty hose in 110-degree weather, signaled that she was a professional woman. Meeting with the sharply-dressed office manager, Jessica was glad she had donned full-on professional garb.

With Amy Klein’s help, Jessica pulled together the materials for her
Tuesday meeting with the Van der Woerts in less than an hour. Amy also spent nearly that much time on a sort of “who’s who”, from the point of view of a firm insider, and an insider she was. Amy Klein was a Klein, as in Canady, Holmes, Winston and
Klein
. She did not go into the details about how she ended up working for her uncle, Albert Klein, one of the founders of the firm. Her perspective was very illuminating. It gave Jessica a much better lay of the land, and greater clarity about the cast of characters inhabiting it. Amy also confirmed Jessica’s notion that they were holding down the fort at a wilderness outpost. Despite the long list of designer names that emblazoned the path to their door, Palm Desert was the hinterlands to those at the main office in LA. She and Amy agreed that was just fine.

Satisfied that she had accomplished what she intended, Jessica left her office, ready for that drive to LA. She had parked her car on a side-street off El Paseo, near her office. The spot had been open, and since she only planned to be in the office for a couple hours, street parking seemed fine. Besides, she wasn’t quite ready to park in the structure nearby, where she had tussled with one of the goons involved in Roger Stone’s murder. As she stepped off the curb across the street from her parked car, she could see the taillight was broken on the passenger side of her car. As she got c
loser, she could also see a scratch along the full length of her car.

How could this have happened? Were the shopping gods trying to tell her something? First, Rodeo Drive and now trouble on El Paseo
,
again
. Jessica scanned the area. Was anyone around who might have witnessed what happened? Not a soul that she could see. No shop window that looked directly out onto the street. She bent to inspect her car wondering if she could have been sideswiped. No dents or dings, just that long, jagged scratch, like it had been keyed. Jessica froze. A little shiver zipped down her spine. Who would do that to her car?

A piece of paper tucked under the windshield wiper on the driver’s side caught Jessica’s eye. “Ah, someone
did
hit me,” she thought, feeling a little foolish about getting the willies. The note must have contact information or insurance information so they could settle this. Jessica froze again as she walked around her car and reached for the note.

“Shit, shit, shit!” The driver side was scratched too.” The heebie-jeebies were back as she
read the note.

“
Back off bitch
,
” was scrawled on the slip of paper.

“Shit, shit, shit!” Jessica stomped her foot, shuddering again when she saw that the tire she was about to kick was flat; the back one was flat as a pancake, too.

Now what? Clearly, the car wasn’t drivable. As much as she dreaded it, she needed to call the police and file a report. It wasn’t likely that the police could do anything. At least it would be on record for the insurance company and for the accountant when she took a loss at the end of the year. The car would have to be towed to the BMW dealer or wherever her insurance company wanted it taken for repairs, and she was going to need a rental car. No way was she going to get on the road before noon as planned.

Jessica had promised
Father Martin that she would try not to react to every bad thing that happened by putting up her dukes or seeking oblivion in a shopping binge. Squaring off for a fight felt like the right thing to do at the moment, but it wouldn’t help. She tried, instead, to find something closer to acceptance. The deed was already done, and there was no one around to fight. Nor could she run away and shop ‘til she dropped, since a week’s worth of obligations stretched out before her.

“This is what I am being asked to deal with in this moment and
in this place,” Jessica whispered, struggling to remember the remaining words Father Martin had used. All that came to mind was, “I’ll do my best and forget the rest.” Somehow, that didn’t seem too poetic or spiritual, but it would have to do for now. The tightness in her chest and the lightheadedness that had begun to creep up on her as she fumed started to retreat.

It was
close to lunch time. Her morning workout and a light breakfast were catching up to her as she stood in the summer heat. It was already a scorcher. Getting help was going to take a while. Where could she make a round of calls and wait more comfortably? A nearby Starbucks would do: AC plus coffee and food, too.

Jessica sat down with a venti nonfat latte and a sandwich. She stuffed an apple and a bottle of water in
to her purse for later. First, she called the police and reported the vandalism to her car.

“
No, it’s not an emergency,” she assured the woman who took the call. She
was
going to have to get her car towed, so the sooner they could get an officer to the scene, the better. The dispatcher was polite, but did not seem moved by Jessica’s plight. She put Jessica on hold for less than a minute, though. When she came back she said a squad car was on its way. Jessica thanked her and hung up.

Scooting
her chair around, she finally found a spot that made it possible to view her car. She could catch the police officers the moment they arrived. Next she called her insurance agent, who advised her to have the car towed to the dealer for repairs. The dealer arranged for a tow and a loaner but it would that would take a half hour, or so, to reach her.

“No problem. The police aren’t here yet. Once they do get here they’ll have to make out a report.”

Jessica wolfed down the sandwich between calls and drained the latte. The infusion of caffeine was a real boost. She dug out the bottle of water and was about to drink that too, when her phone rang.

“Hello.”

“Jessica this is Frank, how’s it going?”

“Not great, F
rank.” Jessica told him about her car.

“That’s
more than a little scary. Maybe you
should
back off, Jessica. My news isn’t any better.” She was getting that prickly feeling again.

“What does that mean, Frank?”

“Chester Davis is dead.”

“Dead, in his jail cell? What are you saying?”

“No, he was released sometime over the holiday weekend. Apparently, he went back to the flophouse where he was living before he got busted. This morning 911 got an anonymous tip about a dead body at that location. The officers responding to the call didn’t find any obvious evidence of foul play at the scene, but
lots
of drugs. The working assumption is that he overdosed, like a lot of addicts do when they get back out on the street. They pick up where they left off, using the same amount of drugs they were using before they were busted, and it’s just more than they can handle.”

“Hang on a second, Frank, can you? I have another call coming in.” Without waiting for a reply, she put him on hold and took the incoming call.

“Jessica Huntington speaking,” she said quickly.

“Jessica, this is Dick Tatum. I wanted to give you an update about Chester Davis.” He sounded despondent. “He’s dead, Jessica.”

“I know. I have Frank Fontana on hold. He just told me Chet was released over the weekend. How did that happen? I thought he needed to put up a couple grand to get out on bail. Where would he get that kind of money?”

“I’m not sure, Jessica. One of the guys in the holding tank with Chet put up the money for him on Saturday night. His name is Arnold Dunne. He has a rap sheet as long as Chet’s and that includes a bunch of low level drug-related charges. He did a couple years in the state prison
after trying to bring drugs back from Mexico through LAX. He was picked up for a parole violation. That’s about all I know at the moment.”

“Listen, Dick, I’ve got a situation of my own I need to deal with.
I’ll see if Frank can get a run down on Dunne, even though nobody’s calling this a homicide. If they can locate him they can ask him how it is he happened to have that kind of money to bail Chet out. Will you keep digging to see what else you can find out?”

“Sure, I’d also like to know
what Dunne can tell us about what happened to Chet after he was released. Unfortunately, none of that will help us with our cold case. Our star witness, if you want to call him that, our
only
witness to the murder of your friend is dead.” Before she could respond she caught sight of a police car pulling up alongside her car.

“Dick
I’m on my way to LA and will be tied up all day tomorrow on business. I should bring you up to speed about our investigation into the circumstances surrounding Kelly’s death. I’m not sure what any of it means either, now that Chester Davis is dead. Can you meet up for lunch Wednesday and discuss it?”

“That’s fine, Jessica
. Call me, and we’ll set up a time and a place to meet. I feel awful about this.”

“I know you do, Dick. You were really pulling for Chet. And I know you wanted to get to the bottom of things for my friend, Kelly, too. Thanks for that. I’ll call you tonight.” Jessica took a look out the window of Starbucks as the police officers were getting out of their car. “Dick, it might be late, is that okay?”

“No problem, Jessica.”

She stood up and moved toward the door. As she left
the Starbucks, she picked up that call to Frank, who was still on hold. She waved at the police officers, trying to get their attention.

“Hey, Frank, I’m back. Do you have another minute?”

“Sure, Jessica.”

“That was Dick Tatum. He said some guy in lockup with Chester Davis put up his bail, two thousand dollars. His name is Arnold Dunne, in jail on a parole violation. That’s a
lot of money for somebody to come up with just back out on the street himself.”

“I suppose Chester Davis could have been holding out on you. Maybe he had cash stashed somewhere. The drugs he used to kill himself so soon after getting back out on the street had to come from somewhere.
Assuming that a drug overdose
is
what killed him. The preliminary autopsy should be able to rule out other obvious factors that might account for Chester Davis’ death. In the meantime, I’ll see if we can find Arnold Dunne and bring him in for questioning.” Frank suddenly sounded very tired.

“Hang on a second, will you Frank. I’m back at my car. The police are here to take a report.”

“Hello, officers. I’m glad you’re here.”

One of the officers
, a young woman, was walking around the car, already snapping photos. The other, a black man of medium height and build, looked up.

“So, Ms. Huntington-Harper, we meet again.” He smiled ruefully as he spoke, entering information int
o a handheld device.

“Officer Parker, that’s
just
Jessica Huntington now, if you please. How are you?”

“Obviously, a whole lot better than you are, Ms. Huntington. I thought they got the bad guy responsible for attacking you in the parking garage here last month.”

“They did.” Jessica was a little uncomfortable by the directness of his gaze. She remembered his kindness to her that day when she had been attacked by a would-be purse snatcher in an Armani suit and Bruno Maglis. His kindness had been meted out with plenty of skepticism. The skepticism was back.

“So, I take it the trashing of your car is unrelated?”

“Yes, Officer Parker, it is, since the guy who attacked me here last month is dead. I’ve got to wrap up a call and then we can take care of this, okay?” He nodded, as he continued to enter information for the report he was putting together.

“Frank, I need to talk to the police officers about the damage to my car. Then I have to drive to my dad’s house in Brentwood. Can I call you tonight?”

“Sure, Jessica, but none of this sounds good. You’re going to be careful, right? You do have good security at the Brentwood house in LA, I presume?”

“Of course, Frank. The service taking care of my dad’s house is top notch. They know I’m coming, and will have someone at the house to meet me.”

“Someone you already know, I hope.” Jessica turned away from the police officers and lowered her voice a bit. She didn’t want to give Officer Parker more reason to be suspicious. She was definitely as concerned as Frank about the events of the day. A dead Chester Davis and a trashed car bearing a threatening note were too coincidental to be taken blithely.