Mr. Kiss and Tell (7 page)

Grace stared at her for a long moment. “It’s not going to trial, Veronica. You know as well as I do that they’re going to settle. Look, they hired an undocumented immigrant who turned out to be a
rapist
. They’re in the wrong—and they’re not going to take their chances in court.”

“Are you still seeing him? Your boyfriend, I mean.”

Grace hesitated. “Our relationship was more or less physical. I mean, I really liked him. And he liked me. But it wasn’t like he could take me out on dates or anything. After what happened, I was…not so interested in sex. So we broke it off.”

Not exactly a fairy-tale romance,
Veronica thought
.

“It was mutual,” Grace added a little defensively, seemingly reading Veronica’s mind. “It wasn’t like he decided I was damaged goods and threw me off. I just knew I needed a chance to get my shit together, and that wasn’t the kind of relationship we had. But that doesn’t mean I’m ready to throw him to the jackals. He’s got kids, for Christ’s sake. I don’t want them hearing about any of this.”

Grace looked down at her lap again. The scar across her cheek was barely visible. On stage, under makeup, no one would notice. But this close, it looked like a thin, pale question mark.

“I just want it to be over. Medical bills, therapy bills—they’re all stacking up, and the work-study gig barely scratches the surface of what I owe. I have no idea how I’m going to pay for tuition next semester.” She bit her lip. “Hearst is the first place I’ve ever felt like I belonged. I don’t know what I’ll do if I have to leave. If I can win this suit, I’ll be able to…to really move on. The Neptune Grand took something from me. I just want it back.”

Veronica faced the stage for a minute, leaning back in the red velvet seat. From this angle, she could see the little Xs of glow-in-the-dark tape the actors used for blocking and the plain wooden blocks that stood in for furniture while the set was being constructed.

“I remember you, you know.”

Her head snapped back to Grace. Her hands were clasped tightly on her lap.

Veronica nodded slowly. “I wasn’t sure if you would.”

“Yeah. You, and Duncan Kane.” The girl’s expression was unreadable. Her lips curved up slightly, but her eyes were flat and hidden. “The big, bad baby snatchers.”

“I didn’t have anything to with that,” Veronica said, lying reflexively.

Grace’s odd little smile didn’t waver. “You know, for a while I used to think you were going to come back for me. I used to imagine it while I was falling asleep in the crawl space. I could see it so clearly. You’d open the closet, just like before; at first I wouldn’t be able to make out your features because I’d been in the dark so long. You’d just be a dark silhouette. But then I’d see your hand, stretched out for mine. If I could just reach it—if I could just grab it—I’d be free. I’d be whisked off to wherever Faith and Duncan were shacked up.” She shrugged. “I thought you were a big hero.”

The words hit, a sucker punch that first inspired pain, then a powerful impulse to strike back. She’d never put much stock in heroes; it wasn’t her job to save the day. And legally speaking, she’d done her due diligence for Grace: She’d told Dan Lamb what she’d seen in that house, assuming he’d turn the information over to Child Protective Services. Hoping someone would do something. She’d only helped Duncan take the baby because it was his, and because Meg had begged her from her deathbed to make sure her parents didn’t get custody. But what more could she have done for Grace?

Really, Veronica? You couldn’t think of a single thing to do for her? Not with all your supposed ingenuity, your willingness to see the rules as profoundly optional?

For a moment, she didn’t trust herself to speak.

“I know you have no reason to trust me, Grace,” she said finally. “I know I’m working for the other team. But I want to get the guy who did this to you.”

“Bullshit. You want to prove I’m a liar and make this all go away for the Neptune Grand.”

“Grace, I wish there was some way to say this where I don’t look like an asshole…but I get paid either way,” Veronica said, shrugging. “So can we please just let my mercenary motives go for a moment? Look, I’ve seen the photos of you after the attack. You should believe that I want to see the guy who did that to you suffer.” She pulled a business card from her wallet and handed it to Grace. “Call me anytime, day or night, if there’s anything else you want to tell me.”

Grace looked down at the card, clearly skeptical, but she nodded and slid it into a pocket. Her voice was full and ringing when she spoke.

“‘Oft have I heard that grief softens the mind, and makes it fearful and degenerate; think therefore on revenge and cease to weep.’”

Veronica wasn’t sure which play the quote was from, but she knew exactly what it meant: You get tough. You get even.

You get tough. Had Mars Investigations been the sort of outfit that bothered to draft a list of its “Core Values,” that would’ve been a top fiver.

“Ms. Landros will see you now.”

Veronica stood up from the plush gray sofa and smiled at the woman behind the desk. It was about forty minutes after her meeting with Grace Manning.
And now for something completely different.

“Fantastic,” she said, attempting to bury the irony.

Her feet made no sound on the thick carpet. The reception area had the kind of muted quiet that only hovered around executive offices and university libraries, the air rarified and free of the clatter and clang of day-to-day life. She pushed one side of the heavy oak double doors open and entered the office of one of Neptune’s most powerful people.

Veronica hadn’t taken for granted that Petra Landros would agree to see her. The last time they’d worked together, Petra had made sure Veronica had everything she needed to get that case solved. But this time, it was Petra’s business that stood accused of wrongdoing. And even though it was Petra’s own insurance agents who had hired Veronica, she wasn’t counting on the same red-carpet treatment.

It felt almost ridiculous to call the room she stepped into an “office.”
Veronica
had an office; she had a desk, a chair, and a plant. This? This was a
study
. A
library
. A
throne room
, even. The floor was a gleaming mosaic of inlaid mahogany. Dark green drapes hung in the floor-to-ceiling windows, and Veronica had no way to be certain, but she would have bet money that the large painting of a lounging woman was, in fact, an original Matisse. A French cut-crystal chandelier hung from the molded ceiling, sending delicate rainbows across the floor.

Petra Landros sat behind an enormous wooden desk. Her dark hair was pinned up in a simple twist, and reading glasses perched on the end of her nose. Studious as she looked, there was no hiding the fact that Petra Landros was a bombshell. In her youth, she’d been a supermodel. Veronica distinctly remembered the
Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue
gatefold that occupied a place of honor in Logan’s locker back in high school. Ten short years after wearing a silver mesh bikini on the shores of St. Lucia, Petra now owned the Neptune Grand, along with an ever-growing swath of restaurants and nightclubs. She was a dominant force on the Chamber of Commerce—and it was partly her influence that kept Dan Lamb in power, not because she liked or respected him, but because he was a useful tool. Skeptics dismissed her at their own peril.

She looked up as Veronica closed the door softly behind her.

“Ms. Mars. We meet again.”

“Thanks for finding time for me, Ms. Landros.”

“Of course. I’d like to get this cleared up as much as anybody.” Petra gestured to a small bar against the wall. “Can I get you anything to drink?”

“Thanks, but no. I’m all right.” Veronica sat, flipping open her notepad. “I just came from a meeting with Grace Manning.”

Petra nodded slowly, taking off her glasses. “And did you learn anything that’ll help with the case?”

“I don’t know yet.” She met the woman’s eyes, frowning. “You seem awfully calm for a woman getting sued for three million dollars.”

Petra waved her hand dismissively. “That’s why I have insurance.” She smiled wider at Veronica’s expression. “Do you realize how many lawsuits come our way every year, Veronica? Every time someone slips on a rug or loses an earring. Every time someone sleeps through their wake-up call and misses a meeting or a flight. I have had more than one person threaten to sue us for destroying his or her marriage, after finding out the adultery took place here.” She shook her head. “This is just another day at work for me.”

Veronica’s blood pressure blipped, but she maintained outward composure. “This was a rape. There’s kind of a difference,” she said, her voice level.

Petra’s smile disappeared. For a moment, she looked somber. “It is terrible, what happened to that girl. I’m not denying that. As to the Grand’s liability, that’s for the lawyers and the insurance people to decide.”

Veronica shook her head. “You don’t think you’ll take a PR hit if the media finds out someone was raped by one of your employees on hotel grounds?”

“If we settle, there’ll be a no-publicity clause in the settlement. If we go to court, it’ll be because we’re sure we can win.” Petra tapped a pen on her desk. “It’s not that I’m cavalier about a crime happening in my hotel. But I trust that you understand: The business side of this will be handled as dispassionately as possible.”

Veronica sat motionless, staring across the desk at the woman. This woman was best known for walking down a runway in a twelve-million-dollar sapphire-studded bra, and here she was giving Veronica a lesson in Machiavellian politics.

Petra seemed to guess what she was thinking. She put down her pen and laced her fingers together in front of her. “So how can I help you, Ms. Mars?”

“I’d like to get a list of everyone who was staying here that night, for starters.”

Petra exhaled impatiently. “We had almost six hundred guests that night. I doubt you’ll be able to narrow it down from that.”

“No—but if we get a lead, I want access to that information so I can verify it myself.”

Petra’s eyes narrowed. “You’re not going to harass my guests, are you?”

“I’m not about to cold-call six hundred people, if that’s what you’re asking.” Veronica leaned back in her chair and folded her hands. “Look, I don’t plan to talk to anyone if I can help it. I just want to be able to verify who was there that night.”

“I suppose that’s reasonable,” Petra said. “All right. Talk to Gladys on your way out; she’ll get you that list. Is there anything else?”

“What can you tell me about Miguel Ramirez?” Veronica asked.

Petra shrugged. “I never met the man. He was one of six people caught in the ICE bust—the others were all in housekeeping. I fired two people in HR for that mess. The Grand has always had a policy against hiring undocumented immigrants.”

I’m sure you had a firm policy against getting caught, at very least,
thought Veronica.

“Have any other complaints against him surfaced?”

“None that I’ve heard. Then again, the entire service staff has clammed up since the raid. No one’s talking—the Sheriff’s Department has already been sniffing around trying to get information from them.”

“Nothing puts a disenfranchised group at ease quite like armed men in uniforms,” Veronica said. “Mind if I try my luck?”

“Sure. Gladys can give you a pass card to get you down to the service corridor.”

With that, their interview wound down to a close. Veronica shut her notebook and slid it into her purse. Then she paused, looking back at the woman on the other side of the oversized desk. A folded newspaper sat in front of her, Dan Lamb’s picture leering up from the photo. Veronica’s jaw tightened.

“Still voting for Sheriff Lamb in the election?”

Petra looked amused. “Who else is there?”

Outside the office, Veronica paused at the reception desk. The nameplate perched on the corner read Gladys Corrigan. The woman behind it was short and matronly, her red hair set in a stiff bob. She smiled up at Veronica over her monitor.

“Ms. Landros told me you’d like the guest roster from March sixth. Do you have a flash drive?”

Veronica didn’t have time to wonder what arcane bureaucratic magic had delivered the message so fast. She rummaged in her purse, found the stray flash drive she always kept handy, and handed it across. Veronica watched the woman’s fingers fly over the keyboard, entering her personal login information to access the database. A moment later the flash drive was back in Veronica’s hand.

“Thanks.” She slid the drive in her purse. “I was also wondering if you could look up who was working at the Eagle’s Nest that same night?”

“Sure.” Another flourish across the keyboard. She paused. “Looks like it was Alyssa Winchell that night.”

So that part of Grace’s story checks out, at least.
“She doesn’t happen to be working right now, does she?”

“No, ma’am, but I can give you her number.”

Veronica wrote the digits down in her notebook, just in case. It would be better to come back and talk to her here, though, in the place where it happened. Memories were sometimes a little stronger at the scene of the crime.

“And you wanted to talk to the laundry employees as well?” Gladys cocked her head. “Is this about Miguel Ramirez?”

Veronica blinked. “Did you know him?”

Gladys gave a sad nod. “We both went to St. Mary’s. Sweet, sweet young man. I just don’t believe he could have done what…what they say he did.”

“Did you ever see him at work?”

She looked mildly scandalized. “Of course not. The laundry workers are in the basement. I don’t go down there.” She handed Veronica a white plastic pass card. “This will get you onto the service elevator. The laundry is straight down the hall from where you get off.”

If Miguel Ramirez were a rapist, he wouldn’t be the first one called a “sweet, sweet young man” by an acquaintance who refused to believe it. Still, Veronica made a mental note while she waited for the elevator. If nothing else, now she knew something else about him: Monster or not, he charmed the church ladies.

Instead of going straight down to laundry, she rode the elevator from the third floor administrative offices all the way up to the Eagle’s Nest. She paused to glance around the quiet bar—it was late afternoon, still too early for the happy hour customers—then went into the stairwell. She wanted to take the stairs from the roof to the basement, to retrace Grace’s steps as closely as possible. She descended the concrete stairs slowly, examining the walls and floors as she did. She didn’t expect to see any sign of a struggle—Bundrick and Foss had swept the stairs for blood evidence months ago to no avail—but it was worth keeping her eyes peeled, just in case.

The stairwell somehow felt both utilitarian and surreal—murky light, all the normal sounds of the hotel muted and far away while her own footsteps echoed up and down the deep vertical corridor. It was easy to imagine Grace Manning there with her, just a flight or two ahead, walking into unsuspected disaster. Veronica picked up her pace, anxious to reach the bottom.

She didn’t meet a soul until the fourth floor, when she caught a whiff of tobacco smoke. She looked over the edge of the railing to see two women in maid’s uniforms sharing a cigarette and speaking in Spanish a few flights below. Though they were talking in low voices, their speech reverberated strangely against the walls, creating an illusion that they were much closer. When they caught sight of her, they quickly stubbed out the smoke and went silent, though they didn’t leave their perch. She had to squeeze between them to get past.

No cameras in the stairwell
.
And the employees seem to know it.

Finally, she got to the bottom of the stairs. She swiped the card Gladys had given her and went through the door marked
EMPLOYEES ONLY
.

The service corridor was long and windowless. Fluorescent track lighting ran along the ceiling. There was a large employee lounge through one door, with vending machines and threadbare furniture. When Veronica poked her head in, the only occupant was a woman in a maid’s uniform, stretched out on a sofa with a newspaper over her face. A handful of workers, most of them Hispanic, passed her in the hallway, but none spared her more than a passing glance.

The laundry stood behind a pair of swinging double doors. As Veronica entered, a blast of hot air pushed against her. The machines’ roaring and whooshing sounds filled the cavernous space. There were five employees, all in red polo shirts with the Neptune Grand crest on the breast pocket. One broad-chested woman shoved an armful of sheets into a washing machine. At a large table, a man and a woman worked together to fold clean linens. Two more women stood at a station surrounded by garment bags, ironing clothes. Shelves full of clean sheets and towels covered most of one wall.

As she moved deeper into the room, she spotted a row of wheeled, fabric-sided linen bins. She paused to look them over.
Definitely room for a body—especially one as small as Grace’s. But I still can’t see how he’d get her out of the building without the cameras picking it up.

The woman who’d been loading the machine was the first to notice Veronica. She was no taller than Veronica, but she was stocky, her body compact and muscular. She approached with a wary expression, wiping beads of sweat from her forehead.

“
Hola
,” Veronica said. “
Mi nombre es
Veronica Mars.
¿Hablas inglés?
”

“A little,” said the woman. Her accent was heavy, but her words were carefully enunciated. She waited, her expression unreadable.

Quickly, Veronica considered her options. There weren’t many. Anyone who actually knew Miguel Ramirez wouldn’t want to discuss him with some perky blonde
gringa
they’d never seen before, particularly after an ICE raid. Deportations tended to get people scared, and scared people didn’t talk. But she had to try.

“I’m working for the Grand’s insurance company,” she said, consciously avoiding the word “investigator.” “I’m trying to find any information I can on a man named Miguel Ramirez. He worked here until a few months ago. Do you remember him?”

Something in the room changed at the mention of the name. The employees stopped what they were doing and looked up at her.

The woman shifted her weight. “I don’t remember.”

Veronica nodded. “Please, Señora, may I ask you how long you’ve worked for the Neptune Grand?”

“Six years,” she said. “All legal.”

“So you were here when Mr. Ramirez worked here?”

“I don’t remember,” she said again, her expression unchanging.

Veronica looked around the room helplessly. “I’m not trying to get anyone in trouble. I just need to know more about him. Can anyone here help me?”

For a moment, the woman stared at her, unblinking.

“No one remembers him. He was not one of us.”

Veronica nodded slowly. It was obvious that the interview was over. “I see. Thanks so much for your time.” She turned and left, feeling their eyes on her. There was no point in continuing this line of questioning. If Ramirez’s coworkers knew anything about the attack, they weren’t about to share it with
her
. She’d have to find another way.