An Unconventional Murder (13 page)

"Oh, well," he muttered, "it was worth a try." He quickly scanned the rest of the
basement. Some of the dark corners could possibly be used as hiding places. He inspected them
all. Nothing. He checked out the other two parking levels. Fifteen minutes later, he concluded
that nothing significant was hidden in the garage.

Back on the street level, he decided to take a look at the area surrounding the hotel. That
idea quickly led nowhere. There were no trash receptacles nor any other probable hiding places.
There was only a thick blanket of snow, nearly up to his knees. The flakes were still falling
furiously. Even if he had the inclination to search all along the perimeter of the hotel, he was
more likely to freeze to death than find anything useful. Besides, there were no footprints
anywhere.

No one had passed through this area for several hours.

Despite being chilled, he spent several minutes watching the snow fall. There was an
eerie silence that seemed oddly peaceful. He let his gaze wander upward. He could see the bridal
suite, twelve floors above, the only room in the entire hotel with a balcony. He wondered
whether anyone was up there and if so, who.

To his surprise, he found himself thinking about Rena Oberhaus.

Abruptly, he realized he was cold. He returned inside and headed for the elevators.
While he waited, he flexed his fingers and stamped his feet, trying to warm himself. When an
elevator arrived, he resolutely pressed the button for the twelfth floor.

He would begin at the top and work his way down.

There were no public restrooms on the twelfth floor. Upton found an alcove that
contained an ice machine. The small round wastebasket next to it was empty. Nothing else on
that floor offered any possibilities, either.

He found the EXIT door and descended to the eleventh floor. If nothing else, this would
be good exercise. In addition to an ice machine, the alcove on the eleventh floor had a candy
dispenser and a Coke machine. He bought himself a Snickers bar. When he left, the only item in
the wastebasket was his discarded candy wrapper.

"This is going to be a waste of time," he told himself. But since he had nothing better to
do at the moment anyway, he headed for the stairway. If this didn't work, he would hunt up the
head of housekeeping and find out what the maids did with all the trash they picked up from the
guests' rooms.

And make sure nothing got disposed of before the techs could come out when the
weather finally broke.

By the time he reached the fourth floor, he knew his search was fruitless. Still, he
refused to give up. Somewhere around the hotel, just waiting to be found, were a black
Halloween wig and a fake moustache--almost certainly containing some trace of evidence that
would doom the criminal who murdered Robert Johnson.

If only he could find them.

Zachary Tuck hurried along the corridor near the swimming pool, searching desperately
for the men's room he remembered was somewhere down this hallway. No matter how acute the
need, he refused to use the same restroom the writers used. He shuddered at the mere thought.
But he definitely couldn't hold out long enough to take the elevator up to the fifth floor. Those
morons at the hotel had stuck him in a room all the way at the end of the hall.

And this was an emergency.

Damn that Madeline Brogner!
If she hadn't backed out at the last minute, he
would be comfortably secure in his little loft on the upper west side, in the heart of New York
City--instead of being trapped in some three star hotel with a bunch of Colorado hicks in the
middle of a fucking blizzard.

The whole thing had completely upset his digestion.

The buffet lunch had consisted of nothing but grease, fat and starch. And iceberg lettuce.
An absolute affront to his palate. No wonder he felt so terrible. His stomach felt like it was going
to explode any second.

At last, he reached the men's room He shoved the door open and rushed inside, relieved
to find the room empty.

Tuck liked his privacy.

He dashed toward the middle of the three vacant stalls. Even in his desperate condition,
he paused to spread a layer of toilet paper across the seat before he sat down. Normally, of
course, he didn't use public facilities. They were unbelievably unsanitary. But one had to adapt in
a crisis. While he was attending to his problems someone entered the room. No matter how he
tried, he couldn't see the intruder through the crack between the door and the stall wall. Whoever
had entered didn't stay very long. The intruder left without even bothering to wash his hands.

Don't these yahoos in Colorado know anything about hygiene?

And their manners. That last wannabe he had met with, the kid in the Metallica
sweatshirt, was a complete disaster. Sure, the kid actually had a modicum of talent, but it would
be years before he could develop into even a third-rate writer. How could he possibly think that
someone like Zachary Tuck would be interested in working with him?

Okay, Tuck conceded to himself with a vicious little smile, maybe I was a bit rough on
the kid.

Tuck was still sitting there when he noticed the smoke. Evidently, the man with the bad
hygiene had lingered long enough to light a cigarette. What a revolting habit.

But this is Colorado,
Tuck thought.
Yippy ky yo ky yay!

As he began fastening his belt, it occurred to him that he'd heard the door open and close
a few minutes earlier. The man, whoever he was, had come and gone.

So where was the smoke coming from?

Had someone else entered? No, Tuck would have heard that.

The smoke was growing dense. Something was seriously wrong. He grabbed his jacket
and pulled the stall door open, wincing with pain as it smacked him on the forehead. Flames
were shooting out of the built-in metal trash receptacle. The smoke was so thick he could barely
see the exit sign.

He ran out of the men's room and dashed frantically down the hall. "Fire! Fire!"

He passed a glass wall panel marked FIRE EXTINGUISHER
.
There was no
way he was going to try putting out the fire himself. Instead, he approached the people who were
gathered in the main conference area.

"Fire! There's a fire!"

A man in a plaid shirt was just stepping out of the elevator. He grabbed Tuck by the arm.
"I'm a police officer. Where's the fire?"

"Fire!"

"I know," the policeman said. "Where is it?"

Tuck pointed. "Down the hall. The men's room!"

"Come with me!" The cop took off at a lope down the corridor. Tuck followed, but at a
slower pace. He hated running. There was something undignified about it.

By now, an alarm bell was shrilling. Arthur Upton emerged from one of the stairwells,
shouting something Tuck couldn't hear over the din.

Upton passed him, catching up with the cop. As they passed the fire extinguisher, the
cop smashed the glass with his forearm and elbow and grabbed the device. The shattering glass
drew a gash along his arm.

Tuck winced at the sight of blood.

Smoke was billowing under the bottom of the men's room door. Tuck caught up with the
other men just as the policeman cautiously pressed a hand against the wood panel. Apparently, it
wasn't hot because he pushed it open.

Water rained down from the ceiling. A rush of foul-smelling, humid air blasted Tuck's
face, and he backed away from the door.

But he felt satisfied. He had done his civic duty.

The fire was out.

* * * *

Cameron stood in the doorway, surveying the scene before him. He stepped inside, to
make sure that nothing was still burning. Instantly, he was drenched from head to toe. His first
instinct was to get out of the room, but he forced himself to stay. Amid the shower of cold water,
he could make out scorch marks on the wall across from him, above the built-in trash receptacle.
The metal lid was twisted and blackened.

He turned to find Upton standing in the doorway.

Neither of them spoke. The man who had reported the fire stood off in the distance, as
though making sure he was out of harm's way.

Cameron brushed past Upton and headed straight for the other man. "What the hell
happened in there?"

"How would I know?"

"Don't go anywhere," Cameron said.

John Forrest and Jimmy came hurrying down the hall. "What's going on?" Forrest
yelled.

"A fire," Cameron told him. "Everything's under control. Is there any way to turn off the
sprinklers? And that siren?"

Jimmy answered. "Only the fire department is supposed to turn them off. But I know
how to do it."

"Then do it. "

"Will do." Jimmy took off at full speed down the corridor.

Three minutes later, the alarm bells stopped wailing. The ringing in Cameron's ears
continued as he pulled out his cell phone and punched in a phone number. "This is Mitch
Cameron, Lakewood P.D.," he said when the fire department dispatcher answered. "I'm at the
Marquis Hotel. You've probably just received a fire alarm."

He could hear her typing on the keys of a computer. "Yep," she said. "It just came in.
We're trying to dispatch the trucks. But with all this snow..."

"You can cancel it," Cameron advised her. "It was a trash receptacle in a men's room.
The automatic system put it out."

"I'm afraid I can't," she told him. "Once we get a call at a public facility, the fire
department has to go out and check it out, just in case. Something could still be smoldering.
That's a strict policy."

"Fine," Cameron replied. "And just how soon do you think they'll get here?"

She laughed, without humor. "
Touchè.
Hours. Maybe not till
tomorrow."

"Well, for whatever it's worth, the situation here at the hotel is under control at the
moment. At least, as much as can be expected."

Shoving the phone back into his pocket, Cameron approached the man who had reported
the fire. "I'm Detective Cameron, Lakewood Police Department. What's your name?"

"I am Zachary Tuck. I am a literary agent from New York."

"Oh. I've heard a lot about you."

Tuck looked pleased. "That doesn't surprise me."

"What happened, Mr. Tuck?"

"Like I told you, I don't know. I was just minding my own business when suddenly I
smelled smoke."

"Where
exactly were you minding your own business?"

Tuck colored. "In one of the stalls. The middle one, if you really need to know."

This pompous little man, whose skin was stretched too tightly across his face, struck
Cameron as someone clueless enough to toss a lighted cigarette into a loaded trash bin. "What
were you doing in there?"

"Are you an idiot? What do you think I was doing?"

"I'm asking you, Mr. Tuck."

"I was taking a dump, okay? The crap food at this hotel upset my stomach. Do you want
me to go into the scatological details?"

Cameron refused to get sidetracked. "Were you smoking?"

"Smoking is a vile and filthy habit." Tuck screwed up his face. "Maybe the local yokels
smoke in the boy's room, but we don't do that where I come from."

"What about anything else? Were you burning anything?"

"Of course not! That would be stupid."

"Then what started the fire?"

"I have no idea. Someone came and then left while I was in there, I didn't pay any
attention to him. I had my own problems. I just may sue the hotel for trying to asphyxiate me.
You'd think they could find a way to--"

"What happened next, Mr. Tuck?" Cameron prompted.

Tuck glowered long enough to make clear that he resented being interrupted. "I smelled
smoke. I decided that the prudent thing to do was to report the fire to the proper authorities."

"No, you ran like a scared rabbit," Upton muttered. Cameron hadn't noticed him joining
them.

Tuck glared, but said nothing.

Cameron said, "What did this other man do while he was in the restroom, Mr.
Tuck?"

"I told you, I wasn't paying him any attention. Does it really matter?"

"Of course it does," Upton said. "Especially since he's apparently the one who started the
fire. Did he light up a cigarette? Did he use a urinal? Did he--"

Tuck sniffed. "Well, he certainly didn't wash his hands. That's for sure. And, come to
think of it, I didn't hear anything flush. He just came inside, did whatever he did and then left.
Although, I do remember hearing him ratcheting the handle on the paper towel dispenser. He
seemed to be taking a lot of towels."

"Maybe he didn't take them," Cameron suggested. It was one thing if the man--assuming
it was
a man--entered the restroom for one of the usual reasons, happened to be
smoking, and carelessly tossed a match or cigarette into the receptacle.

It was quite another thing if the fire was set intentionally.

Stuffing a load of paper towels into the trash bin as kindling certainly sounded like
arson.

Jimmy had rejoined the group.

"I'm going to need some plastic," Cameron told him. "Like painters use."

"Right. I think I know where to find some."

"Also, I need some sort of tongs I can use to remove the contents of that trash
receptacle."

"Will do." He headed down the hall.

"Shouldn't we leave that for the fire department investigators?" Forrest said.

"Normally, yes. For today, I'm all you've got. This may have something to do with the
dead man in the Aspen Room."

Tuck craned his neck forward. "What dead man?"

"There's been a murder, Tuck," Upton said, sounding disgusted. "While you were doing
your best to disillusion all of the aspiring writers in the Aspen Room this morning, there was a
corpse sitting in the back of the room. Of course, you wouldn't have noticed him. He was
probably the only person who wasn't offended by your asinine presentation."

"Fuck you," Tuck said.

"The same to you," Upton retorted.