Deadly Valentine (Special Releases) (9 page)

‘‘They fight,’’ Jack said. ‘‘Married couples do that. I need you to be honest with me. This is a murder investigation so we can’t have any...confidences.’’

The bellhop nodded. ‘‘Oh, do they
fight.
They try to hide it, but I’ve noticed the way Mrs. Sanders gives him the evil eye and I’ve taken up breakfast before and caught her yelling at him when the elevator opens, before they know I’m there.’’

It didn’t sound like the lovebirds had been doing a very good job of pretending. ‘‘So first you saw the secretary go up in the elevator?’’

The bellhop nodded.

‘‘Then someone went up the fire escape stairs. That requires a key, right?’’

The young man nodded again.

Jack looked at Tempest. ‘‘Who has keys?’’

‘‘The same people who have keys to the penthouse elevator.’’ That meant Oliver, Mitzy and Tempest, the house detective.

‘‘Could it have been Mr. Sanders on the stairs?’’

The bellhop shook his head. ‘‘I just saw movement, heard footfalls. But it couldn’t have been Mr. Sanders. Because he was the one who went up the elevator.’’

‘‘You saw him go up
before
Mrs. Sanders?’’ Jack asked in surprise. Finally, a witness who could put Oliver in the penthouse at the time of the murder.

‘‘I just caught a glimpse of him, but there is no mistaking that cologne he wears, whew!’’

Jack looked over at Tempest. She looked nervous. ‘‘So first the secretary goes up the elevator,’’ he clarified. ‘‘Then how long after that does Mr. Sanders go up?’’

‘‘A few minutes. Five, maybe a little more,’’ the bellhop said. ‘‘At the same time someone went up the stairs.’’

‘‘And Mrs. Sanders?’’ Jack asked.

‘‘It had to be about ten minutes after the others,’’ the young man said. ‘‘Maybe more. I was busy with a busload of skiers who came in.’’

‘‘Would you do me a favor?’’ he asked the bellhop.

‘‘Sure.’’

Jack motioned to the elevator. ‘‘I want to do a little experiment.’’ He pulled the penthouse key from his pocket, the one he’d taken from Tempest the day before. Tempest and the bellhop followed him into the elevator. He inserted the key and they rose quickly to the penthouse where the door opened.

‘‘Hello?’’ he called out. Mitzy was still at work as was Oliver, it appeared.

‘‘Okay,’’ Jack said. ‘‘Tempest, may I borrow your phone?’’ She handed him the department cell and he handed it to the bellhop. ‘‘Stand right here with the elevator door open and when I call you on the phone, hang up then scream as loud and high-pitched as you can,’’ he said to the young man. ‘‘May I borrow your pass key?’’

The bellhop handed Jack his key.

Jack turned to Tempest. ‘‘Shall we?’’

They took the fire escape exit down from the penthouse to the floor below. ‘‘Where exactly were you when you heard Mitzy scream?’’ he asked Tempest.

‘‘Is this necessary?’’ she asked.

‘‘I’m afraid so. Which room?’’

She pointed down the hall to a room directly beneath the penthouse and adjacent to the elevator. Jack used the passkey to get into the room, then he called the bellhop on his cell phone, asked him to scream and keep screaming until Jack called him back, then hung up.

He and Tempest stood in the middle of the room looking at each other for a long moment. Then Jack opened the door to the hallway and listened. He called the bellhop and told him he could stop screaming now and thanked him. Then Jack turned to Tempest.

‘‘You didn’t go up to the penthouse because you heard Mitzy scream,’’ he said. ‘‘Why did you lie?’’

She met his gaze. ‘‘I wasn’t on the floor below the penthouse.’’

No kidding.

‘‘I was on the fire escape stairs outside the penthouse.’’

He stared at her, waiting. Through the window he could see the February sky, cold and gray as if all the color had been washed from it.

‘‘I thought I saw Oliver take the elevator up to the penthouse and I followed him since I knew Peggy had just gone up and Mitzy wasn’t home,’’ she said.

‘‘You knew he was having an affair with Peggy?’’ Jack said.

She shook her head. ‘‘Ellie suspected her son was skimming money off the top of the hotel’s proceeds.’’

‘‘Was he?’’ Jack asked.

She nodded. ‘‘I figured he was gambling or just greedy. I thought he might be in on it with his secretary’s help.’’

‘‘When were you planning to tell me?’’ he asked. ‘‘Don’t make me remind you that this is a murder investigation,’’ he warned her, angry that she’d been holding out on him. Worse that she might somehow be involved more than he’d thought.

‘‘Ever heard of client confidentiality?’’ she asked.

‘‘But now you’re the undersheriff.’’

‘‘Yeah,’’ she said, sounding like him. ‘‘So I just told you. I had to okay it with my client, which I did just this morning. I was going to tell you.’’

He let out a sigh. He would have preferred that she’d told him before he figured it out himself. And why did he feel like she was still holding out on him?

‘‘Why does Oliver act so odd around you?’’ he asked.

‘‘I would assume he’s worried that I’ve found out about the hotel books and plan to tell his mother,’’ she said with a shrug. ‘‘Ellie already knows, she just hasn’t done anything about it yet.’’

Maybe that was all there was to it.

‘‘You didn’t discover the affair between him and Peggy when you were investigating Oliver?’’ he asked again.

She shook her head. ‘‘Sure he had a lot of meetings out of town, but I had a job here at the hotel and couldn’t follow him everywhere. But I would never have guessed he was seeing Peggy. She seemed too...needy.’’

Jack nodded. ‘‘All we have is Oliver’s word that they were in love.’’

‘‘Why would he lie about it?’’ Tempest asked in surprise.

He shook his head. ‘‘I don’t know. Something just feels...wrong about all of this.’’

Tempest said nothing as they left the hotel room. He returned the key to the bellhop and retrieved her cell phone.

They were walking back to the office when Jack saw Ramsey pull up out front.

‘‘I’m starved,’’ the coroner said. ‘‘Can we discuss this over a late lunch?’’

Nothing like talking about an autopsy over lunch, but Jack realized he hadn’t eaten all day. ‘‘Sure. Tempest?’’

They walked down to Dill’s, a small sandwich shop, and sat at the back, although the place was empty that time of the day.

‘‘Well?’’ Jack asked after watching Ramsey devour half of the sandwich special.

‘‘Strychnine definitely is what killed her,’’ he said between bites. ‘‘Found it in the stomach contents. Sent it to the lab and, bingo, there it was right in the chocolate she’d eaten and also in the creams spilled on the floor. But we knew that as soon as we found the strychnine in the chocolate creams.’’

Tempest looked up from her salad. ‘‘Only in the chocolate creams?’’

Ramsey nodded. ‘‘Probably because they were the easiest ones to inject. Simple to do. Mix a little strychnine with water, use a hypodermic needle.’’

‘‘Or maybe the killer knew who was partial to creams,’’ Jack said, following up on Tempest’s question. ‘‘How long before the poison killed her?’’ he asked, trying to calculate whether Oliver reached the penthouse before or after Peggy had died.

The coroner shrugged. ‘‘With strychnine poisoning the victim can’t breathe so the cause can appear to be a stroke or choking. She would have gone rigid with convulsions, gasping for breath, maybe for as long as ten minutes, head thrown back, limbs stiff and extended. That would explain the strewn chocolates and the bites on her tongue. Within a minute, she would have turned blue.’’

Oliver would have seen it then, if not caused it. The man had to be cold-blooded to watch his lover die like that.

Jack looked over at Tempest. She didn’t seem bothered by this talk. She continued to eat her salad as if lost in thoughts of her own.

So there had been time for Oliver to go up to the penthouse before Peggy ate one of the chocolates. Maybe he’d even tempted her with the chocolates, watched her die, then hid until Mitzy came up. Tempest might have just missed him on the stairs.

‘‘Strychnine, that’s the stuff that’s commonly used to poison gophers,’’ Tempest said.

Ramsey nodded. ‘‘Historically. Still used in grain or pellets. Your killer would have needed the powder. Can’t buy it except through a pharmacist and would have to have gotten it illegally. But I’ll bet there’s still some bags of the powdered strychnine around.’’

Killing gophers was almost a Montana sport. Either popping them with a .22 or poisoning them. Gophers dug holes that a horse could break a leg in so ranchers had always hated them. So did a lot of other land owners.

Tempest pushed her salad away. ‘‘Wouldn’t a developer who owned land around here probably have strychnine?’’

Ramsey nodded.

Jack knew what she was getting at. Oliver probably had some at his new condo development project. Jack dialed his office and sent Dobson to get a warrant to check.

Oliver now had not only opportunity and motive, but means if they could find strychnine on his property.

Jack thought he’d feel more satisfaction solving the murder and nailing Oliver. Instead, he felt as if it had been just a little too easy.

CHAPTER NINE

T
EMPEST GOT
a call just as they were leaving Dill’s.

‘‘I’m going to go help Dobson look for the strychnine,’’ she said when she hung up.

‘‘Call me when you find it.’’

She’d only nodded and taken off, appearing anxious to have this case over with. No more than he was.

He drove back to his office, going over the case in his head. What was he missing? Something. He kicked up the heater in his office, watched the first few flakes of snow begin to fall outside, then picked up the bank statements and canceled checks and went through them again, not sure what he was looking for.

It was almost dark when he found it. Mitzy had written a check to a George Callendar. Since she’d written a lot of checks for a lot of things, he hadn’t caught it at first. It wasn’t until he turned over the check, that he realized who George Callendar was. Callendar Investigations of Butte, Montana.

Mitzy had hired a private investigator.

Jack could only guess why. He hurriedly dialed the Butte number. George Callendar had gone home for the day. He tried his home number.

‘‘Mitzy Sanders?’’ the older P.I. asked.

‘‘From River’s Edge,’’ Jack repeated. ‘‘I’m the sheriff up here and it’s part of a murder investigation.’’ Jack gave him a number to verify that fact.

George called him back a few minutes later. ‘‘Sure, I remember the case.’’

‘‘I need to know why she hired you,’’ Jack said.

‘‘To confirm her suspicions that her husband was having an affair,’’ George said as if that kind of case was all too common.

And Oliver thought he was being so sneaky.

‘‘And?’’ Jack asked.

‘‘He was. With his secretary, a woman named Peggy Kane.’’

Bingo. ‘‘And you reported this to Mrs. Sanders?’’ Jack asked, holding his breath. If Mitzy had known about Oliver’s affair with Peggy—assuming Peggy had been the intended victim—well, that would definitely add a new dimension to the case. Mitzy would just as easily have access to any strychnine Oliver used to kill gophers on their properties.

George Callendar confirmed it. ‘‘I gave her proof of the fact,’’ George said like a man who knew his business.

‘‘There was no doubt the two were having an affair and Mrs. Sanders was made aware of it?’’

‘‘That’s right,’’ the P.I. said.

Jack picked up the canceled check. So Mitzy had known—and for some time now. Plenty of time to plan a murder.

‘‘There was another woman, too,’’ the P.I. said. Jack could hear him digging in his files.

‘‘Another woman?’’ Jack heard himself echo. ‘‘Oliver was having an affair with two women?’’

‘‘No, not an affair. This relationship was more...confrontational. Possibly an old girlfriend? Just thought I’d mention it in case it’s important to your investigation. I told Mrs. Sanders, but she didn’t seem interested. Just a minute, let me find her name. It was an unusual name...here it is...’’ But Jack knew before George said, ‘‘...Tempest Bailey. She was employed as the house detective at The Riverside and I believe she worked for Mr. Sanders. But their meetings were clandestine and didn’t appear to be employer-employee related and quite tumultuous from what I saw.’’

‘‘But Mrs. Sanders wasn’t interested in that part?’’ Jack asked.

‘‘No. I think her mind was more on the affair and possibly the meetings between Bailey and Mr. Sanders were hotel business related. Hard to say. But I was curious.’’

Yes, Jack thought. So was he. He thanked the P.I. and hung up, then started to call Tempest, but changed his mind. He should be able to find her easy enough. He pulled on his coat. The phone rang. He picked it up.

‘‘I found the gopher poison, straight strychnine,’’ Dobson said. ‘‘A bag of it was at the back of a top shelf of an old shed owned by the Sanderses. The shed lock was broken, but it appeared to have been broken for some time.’’

‘‘So anyone could have gotten into the shed,’’ Jack said.

‘‘Looks that way.’’

‘‘Bring it in as evidence. Have Tempest document where it was found.’’

‘‘Ms. Bailey?’’ Dobson asked.

‘‘Yes, she left to meet you right after you called her,’’ Jack said.

‘‘I didn’t call her. I haven’t seen her since this morning.’’

‘‘I must have misunderstood,’’ he said and hung up.

It had started to snow hard again. A wind drove the flakes into him at a slant, the ice crystals as biting as the cold. He remembered another night like this. The night he’d stood Tempest up for the prom and hooked up instead with Mitzy for the first time. The memory didn’t bode well, he thought, as he drove through town toward the condo where Tempest lived. He could see the lights shining from the windows as he neared. Her four-wheel drive was parked out front, enough snow on the hood to make it appear it hadn’t been driven for a while.

But as he slid into a parking spot a few vehicles down, the lights in her condo went out. He cut the engine, shut off his headlights and slid down in his seat.