Check in to Danger (2 page)

“I’m sorry, Brian, but that idea won’t work, either,” Jennifer told him. “Meat thefts have been done that way so often, it’s the first thing Mr. Otis looked for.”

Sean grinned smugly as Brian stopped looking so important. “Any more questions?” Sean asked.

Brian scowled at him, then turned back to Jennifer. “Do you know what time of day or night the thefts take place?”

“No,” she said, “but when one of the cooks notices that something is missing, it’s always been during the daytime, never at night.”

Brian made another note. “How many people are employed at the Piney Point?” he asked.

“Almost two hundred,” Jennifer answered.

“Two hundred!” Sean groaned. “Brian, if we investigate all of them, we’ll never have time to go swimming!”

Brian shook his head. “We only need to investigate the people who have access to the kitchen,” he said. “Jennifer, besides the hotel employees, who else can get into the kitchen?”

“The people who deliver the food each morning,” she answered, “but the sheriff told Dad he didn’t see how they could be involved. The meat deliveries are checked to make sure everything in the order is there. The delivery men leave, and the order is double-checked as it’s put into the refrigerated meat lockers.”

“What about the hotel staff the sheriff questioned?” Brian asked. “Is there any way we can find out their names and why he questioned them?”

Jennifer nodded. “Dad was with the sheriff, and he talked about the interviews with Mom at dinnertime, so I heard it all, too. There’s Caesar, the head chef. He had an argument with immigration authorities about his official papers. Immigration suspects that some of Caesar’s papers are forged, but it takes a long time to trace records.”

“That’s very interesting,” Brian said. “But that information alone doesn’t explain why he would steal meat. We’ll have to keep looking.” He continued making notes. “Okay,” he said finally. “Who’s next?”

“Edna Marker,” Jennifer said. “She’s the daytime hostess for the coffee shop. A few years ago she served a prison sentence for burglary.”

Brian looked up, excited. “You’re kidding!” he said.

“No, I’m not,” Jennifer insisted.

“If she’s a burglar,” Sean asked, “why would your dad have hired her?”

“It’s a second chance kind of thing,” Jennifer explained. “Hotels that hire people who have served their sentences or have been paroled get a federal tax break. A few of our other employees are in that program, too.”

“Like who?” Brian asked.

“One of the bellmen, a gardener, and a housekeeper, but they wouldn’t have an excuse to be in the kitchen area.”

“No waiters or cooks or busboys?” asked Brian.

“Yes,” Jennifer said. “There was a cook, too, but he quit at least three months ago.”

Brian frowned. “Dad always starts his investigations with a computer search. The personnel files are probably on computer. Is there any way we could see them?”

“That’s private information,” Jennifer said, shaking her head. “We’d never be able to get to them.”

“Could you at least make a list of the people the sheriff interrogated?” Brian asked.

“Sure,” Jennifer answered. “When the sheriff asked for one, Dad printed out a list of employees who work in the kitchen and restaurants. He has a copy in one of his desk drawers.”

“That makes it easy,” Sean said.

Jennifer got to her feet and brushed some grass off her shorts. She looked worried. “It’s only going to be easy,” Jennifer said, “if Dad isn’t in his office.”

A
S BRIAN, SEAN, AND
Jennifer walked through the main lobby, they had to weave their way through a crowd of guests waiting to take the hotel van to the airport.

A couple suddenly cut in front of Sean, who was trailing behind Brian and Jennifer. Sean sidestepped to avoid them, lost his balance, and fell over a suitcase. “Oompf!” he grunted.

“Careful!” a voice said.

Sean looked up at a tall young man with dark hair and blue eyes. He was dressed in a hotel uniform.

“I’m sorry,” blurted Sean, jumping to his feet. He was afraid the man would blame him for knocking down the suitcase. He took a quick look at the large dark brown leather suitcase. It looked like a million other pieces of luggage, Sean thought, except for a deep scratch across a top corner.

“Oh no,” Sean groaned. “I didn’t make that scratch,” he protested. “It was already there.”

The man smiled and put a friendly hand on Sean’s shoulder. “It’s okay,” the man said as he picked up the suitcase. “Help me get all this luggage into the van,” he told a bellman. “I’ll be leaving for the airport in a few minutes.”

Sean sighed with relief as Jennifer led Brian and Sean down the corridor toward the elevators. “That suitcase was already scratched,” Sean said. “Honest. There was a deep scratch across one of the top corners. It wasn’t my fault.”

“Nobody blames you,” Jennifer said. “Jed didn’t.” Sean looked puzzled, and she explained. “That was Jed Anderson. He drives the hotel van.”

Jennifer turned down one hallway, then another, and finally reached the door that led to the hotel’s business offices. Inside, a middle-aged woman was seated at a desk. She smiled when she saw Jennifer.

“Hi, Martha.” Jennifer introduced Brian and Sean. “Martha Wood is Dad’s secretary,” Jennifer said. She turned to Martha. “Is Dad in his office?”

Martha shook her head. “No, dear. He was called to the dining room. Is there something I can do for you?”

“It’s okay,” Jennifer said. “There’s something I need in Dad’s office, but I know where it is. I can get it myself.”

With Brian and Sean right behind her, Jennifer opened a door and walked across the large room to her father’s desk.

“Shut the door,” she whispered to Sean.

Jennifer quickly found what she wanted. “Here,” she said as she held out some sheets of paper to Brian. “This is the short list of employees with their names and addresses.”

Brian looked through the sheets. “There are some check marks by a few of the names. Do you know what they mean?”

Jennifer leaned over Brian’s shoulder. “Blanca?” she wondered, reading the first name on the list. “I know Blanca. She was one of the cooks, but she quit and moved to California. I remember that the sheriff questioned her. Maybe Dad put the checks by the names of people the sheriff questioned.”

Brian quickly thumbed through the pages, writing down seven names, then handed the pages back to Jennifer.

She was in the process of putting the report away when the door opened. Startled, Jennifer looked up and said, “Oh! Hi, Martha.”

“What are you doing, Jennifer?” Martha asked.

“Uh,” muttered Jennifer, “you don’t happen to have a rubber band, do you?”

“Of course I do,” Martha said. She glanced at the desk drawer and frowned. Then she looked back at Jennifer. “If a rubber band is all that you wanted, you should have asked me.”

Martha waited while Brian, Sean, and Jennifer filed out of Mr. Hicks’s office. Then she firmly shut the door and handed Jennifer a rubber band from her own desk.

Jennifer smiled as she pulled back her hair and caught it into the rubber band.

“Wow,” said Sean once they were out in the hall. “That was close.”

“I wonder how much Martha overheard,” Brian whispered.

“I don’t think we have to worry about Martha,” Jennifer said. “She’s worked for Dad for years. I don’t think she could have had anything to do with the thefts.”

Brian, Sean, and Jennifer settled into rockers on a far end of the long porch that stretched across the back of the hotel. “Maybe Martha does have something to do with the thefts,” Brian said. “There was a check next to her name.”

“Martha?” Jennifer’s eyes widened in surprise. “The sheriff talked to Martha, but I thought it was because she’s Dad’s secretary and knows most of what’s going on in the hotel.”

“She wouldn’t have any reason to be in the kitchen, would she?” asked Sean.

“She thought she did while her nephew worked here,” Jennifer explained. “His name is Robert Hopkins.”

Brian flipped through his notebook until he found the page on which he’d copied the names. “There was a check by his name, too.”

“Robert used to be a cook here at Piney Point, but he quit a week before the thefts began to take place and took a job as a cook in the Empire Hotel in town. Martha was always dropping by the kitchen to see how Robert was doing. I think it bugged him that she was always checking up on him.”

“No wonder he went to work someplace else,” Sean said.

“I wonder why his name’s on the list,” Brian said.

“There’s something you need to know about Robert,” Jennifer said. “He’s the cook I told you about who was hired under that federal program for parolees. That’s one reason why Martha worried about him a lot. Another reason is that he’s got a short temper. He got into a couple of loud arguments with one of the other cooks and almost got himself arrested when he got into a fistfight one night in town. I think she’s scared he’ll get into trouble again and go back to prison.”

“You’re sure he wasn’t here when the thefts took place?” Brian asked.

“I’m sure,” Jennifer answered.

“How many other names do we have?” Sean asked Brian. “Not many, I hope.”

“Right. Not many,” Brian told him. “Besides Caesar, Edna Marker, Martha, and Robert Hopkins, there were check marks next to Palmer Jones, Alice Dunn, and Albert Marts.”

“Albert was a gardener at the Piney Point, but he moved to Washington,” Jennifer said. “And last month Alice took maternity leave.”

“Who’s Palmer Jones?” Brian asked.

“Palmer’s a waiter, and he’s a lot of fun,” Jennifer answered. “He always signs up for the employee talent shows and puts on an act with his dog.”

“Is he part of that federal program?”

“I don’t think so. When Dad told Mom about the others, he didn’t mention Palmer.”

“Why don’t we just ask the sheriff what the check marks mean?” Sean suggested.

“We can’t,” Brian said. “If the sheriff hasn’t been able to solve the crimes, he’d never believe that a bunch of kids could. He’ll tell us to keep our noses out of it, and that will mean the end of our investigation. We’ll have to figure out those check marks without any help from the sheriff.”

They thought a moment before Jennifer said, “I don’t know why the sheriff would suspect Palmer. He’s a real friendly guy who’s nice to everybody. Not many people made friends with Robert while he was here because he’s a tough guy with a mean temper. But Palmer did.”

“Just because somebody’s nice doesn’t mean he isn’t a thief,” Sean said.

Brian agreed. “We’ve got a lot of stuff to work out. We know what is being stolen and where. What we have to find out is when and why and how. When we learn the answers to those questions, we’ll be able to figure out who. That’s how private investigators work,” he said, smiling at Jennifer. “And at the moment, it seems to me that the big question is how the thief is getting the stolen items out of the hotel.”

Jennifer beamed. “You sound like you really know what you’re doing as an investigator, Brian.”

“It’s all part of the job,” Brian said.

Sean thought he was going to be sick from all their smiling at each other.

“We’ll start with Plan A,” Brian said. “We need to find out as much as we can about the employees with the check marks next to their names.”

“Then what?” Sean asked.

“We’ll go to Plan B. We’ll check out the kitchen layout and find out exactly who goes in and out of there.”

“When should we start?” Jennifer asked.

“Not now, I hope,” Sean said. “It’s almost time for dinner.”

Brian grinned. “Haven’t you ever heard of combining business with pleasure? We’ll be eating in the restaurant, and I can’t think of a better place to begin asking questions.”

A
SHORT TIME LATER,
as the Quinns got ready for dinner, Sean said, “Mom, we wouldn’t have to dress up and could just wear our bathing suits if we ate dinner in the Hamburger Hut next to the pool.”

Mrs. Quinn put on a pair of pearl earrings and smiled at Sean. “The Hamburger Hut for lunch, the restaurant for dinner, and no arguments. I made reservations, and we’ve only got five minutes to get downstairs. Let’s go. Now.”