The Extinguished Guest (A Lexie Starr Mystery, Book 2) (11 page)

"Are you sure you won't get side-tracked and forget?"

"I'll remember. I promise. I do have a pornographic memory, you know."

Chapter 8

Detective Wyatt Johnston was sitting at the kitchen table when we arrived at the inn.
He'd helped himself to a cup of coffee while chatting with Crystal as she cleaned
up the lunchtime dishes. She'd just finished serving a simple mid-day meal of sandwiches
and fruit salad. The leftovers from the meal were spread out on the table in front
of the officer. Detective Johnston was eyeing the food in anticipation, like a buzzard
bearing down on road kill.

He gave me a questioning look as he motioned toward the platter of leftover sandwiches.
"May I?" he asked, as I unloaded the groceries from the paper sacks and placed them
on the marble counter for Crystal to stash away in the pantry.

"Sure, help yourself, Detective. Whatever you or the other officers don't eat will
go to waste. Stone and I stopped for lunch on the way home, and everyone else has
already eaten, as well. Help yourself to some fruit salad, too."

I wasn't surprised when he ignored the last offer. Detective Johnston didn't strike
me as a fruit salad type of guy. I was amazed seconds later, when the detective selected
a turkey and tomato sandwich and then devoured nearly half of it in one bite.

After the officer had polished off the rest of the sandwich with two more bites, he
sorted through the remaining leftovers for another. This time he chose a ham and cheese.
While he ate the second sandwich, Stone pitched the bag of trash down the basement
stairs. He didn't mention to the detective how he'd obtained the bag or where it had
come from. I'm sure if Wyatt Johnston was aware of anything other than the sandwich
he was inhaling, he only assumed it was trash originating at the inn. After Johnston
finished eating a third and last sandwich and had wiped his hands on the legs of his
slacks, Stone asked, "What's up, Wyatt?"

"Right now, Ron and Orion have the black light set up upstairs, testing your guests'
hands for gunshot residue. I just came from up there, and they were down to the last
couple of guests. No sign of the residue has been found yet, by the way. Assuming
none is found on the last two guests, the Poffenbargers, we'll probably release all
of them to return to their homes tomorrow morning. Not that we're formally holding
them here to begin with. I'm sure you'll both be glad to see them all leave, though."

"Is there any particular reason for the gunshot residue testing?" Stone asked. "Are
there new developments indicating one of our guests is responsible for the shooting?"

"Not really," Wyatt said. "The residue test is just a formality, and probably all
for naught, anyway." Wyatt continued talking, although neither Stone nor I had reacted
or responded to his remark about being glad to see the guests leave. "The sergeant
is across town right now, arresting a man named Randall on first-degree murder charges."

"Randall?" I asked. The name was not familiar to me.

"Yeah, Peter Randall. They've got him on probable cause, I guess. According to Sergeant
O'Brien, there's a history of bad blood between Prescott and Randall. Randall used
to be Prescott's personal stockbroker and financial advisor. Some investments Randall
recommended a few months ago went south and caused a big fracas between the two men.
Prescott lost a ton of money and filed a lawsuit against Randall on fraudulent practices."

"Didn't Randall have an alibi for his whereabouts Sunday night and early Monday morning?"
Stone asked.

"No. At least not one that could be corroborated by anyone. He said he went to the
old movie theatre downtown, the one that plays old classics at midnight every night
for two bucks a ticket. It's right across the street from Randall's house, as a matter
of fact. His photo was shown to all the employees at the theatre, and not one of them
recognized Randall or remembered him being there Sunday night. They showed the movie,
Oh, God!,
that night, and when asked who played the part of God, Randall stated he couldn't
recall."

"He sat through the whole movie and couldn't remember that George Burns played God?"
Stone asked.

"That's just it. He said he stayed until the movie theatre closed just after two
A.M.,
and yet he couldn't come up with John Denver's name, either. He told the detectives
he slept through most of the movie. Yeah, right. Sure he did!"

"Hmm, sounds suspicious, doesn't it?" Stone said, with a shake of his head. "But,
it's doesn't exactly make him a murderer. Is that all the investigators have to go
on? It seems a little weak to me. I've fallen asleep in movie theatres on numerous
occasions, myself. Haven't you?"

"Yeah, once or twice, I guess," the detective said. "For now, that's all they have
on the guy, but they feel like they've got the right man pinned as Prescott's killer.
Now they'll work to build a case around Peter Randall."

I had doubts that Peter Randall was the killer, and obviously Stone did as well. I
knew the Rockdale Police Department had limited resources and was not often called
upon to investigate a homicide, but the idea of throwing a dart at a wall full of
balloons, blindfolded, and building a case around whatever random name was behind
a broken balloon, did not sit well with me. It seemed like incredibly lazy detective
work. There had to be a lot of innocent people rotting away in prison cells for that
very reason. In this instance, there were too many people with motives to kill Horatio
Prescott—motives just as strong and compelling as Peter Randall's—and the police should
be expanding the circle of suspects and running down all sorts of clues and leads.
Each guest at the inn should be closely evaluated, for it seemed to me each had a
reason to dislike the victim as much as Peter Randall disliked him.

I knew I'd sat through many movies that, later on, I couldn't have made one intelligent
comment about. And I had slept through Tom Hanks's movie
Castaway
not once, but twice, in the same week. Some people, like me, were just not movie
aficionados and didn't know one actor from another. It would never have occurred to
me that something so insignificant could cause a person to find himself in front of
a jury, possibly facing the death penalty for a murder he hadn't committed.

"What about the footprints in the snow? The prints they found seem to come from someone
inside the inn, and there was no sign of intruders or a forced entry. Has the investigating
team cleared all the guests here at the inn?" I asked Wyatt Johnston.

"I don't think they ever really did much scrutinizing of the Historical Society members,
other than the customary fingerprinting, gunshot residue checking, and routine questioning.
I do know they considered the footprints as
non sequitur
material, of no particular significance to the investigation," Wyatt said.

"I'm not sure I agree, but they're the experts. I'm just a library assistant. Anything
else new?"

"Umm, well, let's see. I did hear Veronica was notified about the death of her father.
She's flying into town this afternoon. It's rumored she's considering the idea of
hiring a P.I. on her own. Some hotshot private eye she knows from Camdenton, down
around the Lake of the Ozarks. Veronica doesn't put much faith in my department's
ability to solve the murder case, I guess."

I wasn't sure I did either, and I couldn't blame Veronica for bringing in her own
private investigator. In her shoes, I would have done the same thing. There didn't
seem to be an overabundance of effort on the part of the Rockdale Police Department.
They were efficient and knowledgeable, but seemed a bit lackluster in their objective
of making sure that justice was served—almost as if any suspect would suffice, regardless
of his guilt or innocence.

"One thing's clear," the detective said. "There's no evidence the victim put up any
kind of resistance. So chances are he either knew his assailant or he was taken completely
by surprise." Or possibly both, I thought.

* * *

While I was cutting up the whole fryers we'd purchased, Stone came into the kitchen
to check on me. He didn't want me overdoing it, as he'd repeated on several occasions.
I finished whacking the chicken up into pieces and reached into the fridge for the
zucchini to clean and slice. Stone took the bag from me and handed it over to Crystal,
who'd just entered the room and indicated she wanted to prepare the produce. "I can
handle it, Lexie. You rest," she said, taking the knife and bag of zucchini squash
from Stone.

Stone held my hand and led me from the kitchen down to the basement to show me a few
of the things he'd discovered in the trash bag he'd confiscated from D&P's dumpster.
Most of the bag's contents had been through a shredder, but a few pieces of paper
had been wadded up and thrown away intact, as if someone was in a hurry to dispose
of them. Stone was just beginning to sort through those papers. "Check this one out,"
he said, handing me a sheet of paper after he smoothed it out with his hand.

I glanced at the official-looking document, scanning it hurriedly. It was a consent
form, written on D&P Enterprise's letterhead. It allowed only representatives of the
Arnold Accounting Firm to have access to D&P Enterprise's account information. At
the bottom of the form there was the phone number of the accounting firm, and the
signatures of both Horatio Prescott and Boris Dack.

"Hmm, I wonder."

"You wonder what?" Stone asked.

"Don't know if anything will come of it, but I have an idea."

"I was afraid you might," Stone said after a long drawn-out sigh.

"Relax. Nothing dangerous is involved."

I unclipped my cell phone from my waistband and called the phone number on the paper
while Stone watched me with a curious expression. I had no idea what I was going to
say, so decided to play it by ear.

"Arnold Accounting." I heard the female voice of a young woman, sounding quite bored.

"Hello. This is Wilma from Rockdale Bank and Trust. I need to speak to the accountant
in charge of the D&P Enterprise account," I said.

"I don't know who'd that be," the young woman replied. I could almost see her filing
her nails as she spoke into the phone. "Let me forward you to the owner, Mary. Please
hold."

I listened to elevator music for several minutes before Mary came on the line. "This
is Mary Arnold, may I help you?"

"Um, yes, Ms. Arnold. This is Wilma from Rockdale Bank and Trust. I need to speak
to the person in charge of the D&P Enterprise account."

"Actually, D&P's a large contract and there are several accountants assigned to their
account. We've just heard from one of our other clients that Mr. Prescott has died.
Do you know if that's true?"

"Yes, ma'am, I'm afraid it is. Mr. Prescott suffered an unfortunate and untimely death
early yesterday morning. All of us here at the bank are very saddened by the news.
That's what has precipitated this call, as a matter of fact. Because of Mr. Prescott's
sudden death, we've been notified there will be a thorough investigation into his
finances, and the finances of his business. Have you personally been involved in the
D&P Enterprises account at all, Mary? Have you, by any chance, dealt with anyone here
at Rockdale Bank and Trust on D&P's account?"

"No, not personally. I'm ashamed to admit I've never even been inside your bank. But,
although I've never met him in person, there have been a couple of instances where
I've spoken on the phone with Mr. Myers, the president of your bank, on behalf of
D&P Enterprises. Mr. Myers's son, Chad, just happens to be one of my son's best friends,"
Ms. Arnold said.

"Chad's a good kid, isn't he?" I asked, as if I'd known Mr. Myers's son since the
day he was born.

"Uh, yeah, he's a good kid," she answered, with a touch of amusement in her voice.
"Anyway, I assign accounts to my employees and am seldom personally involved beyond
that. Could I forward you to one of the accountants who handles the contract?" Mary
Arnold asked.

I'd found out what I needed to know. "No, that's okay. Mainly we just wanted to inform
you one of the partners of the company had passed."

"Thank you," Mary said, with a touch of sadness in her voice.