Double Trouble (Dev Haskell - Private Investigator Book 10) (21 page)

“Hello, Dev? It’s Gemma, can you talk?”

I was parked in my driveway. “Yeah, Gemma, go ahead.”

“Royal has another board meeting tonight. It’s at the Venture Inn out on 694.”

“He told you where it’s at? Doesn’t that suggest it might be legit?”

“Actually, he didn’t tell me. I’ve gotten in the habit of checking the calendar on his home computer, it’s linked to the business. He’s nothing if not thorough, he even had the confirmation number and the name of the hotel listed for tonight.”

“Did you get his ‘I’m going to be late’ call yet?”

“No, those usually don’t come through for another couple of hours. But I thought I’d give you a call, maybe give you a little more time.”

I was writing down the hotel name, I knew approximately where it was, but I’d never been in the place. “Can you print off that calendar without his knowledge?”

“I can do just about anything I want without Royal’s knowledge,” she said and let that statement just sort of hang out there for a moment. “Besides, I was a pretty good programmer at one time in my life.”

“One more unfortunate piece of the puzzle, if you could go back and print off his calendar for say the past six months to a year, it wouldn’t necessarily be
the
smoking gun, but it would help to build your case.”

“Actually, I’ve already done that, and for exactly that reason. I went through the last year and I have to say I’ve been pretty stupid, real stupid as a matter of fact. God, I could just scream.”

Gemma was beginning to make me think she wasn’t quite the helpless soul I’d first thought.

Chapter Fifty

The Venture Inn looks
just like what it is, an eight-story brick hotel set on the edge of a busy freeway with fairly convenient access to the airport and both downtowns. A half dozen chain restaurants and three gas stations were within sight of the entrance to the place.

I was in the parking lot, two rows back from the front door when Royal finally showed up. I’d been sitting in my car for almost an hour. I took a couple of pictures of him getting out of his car and walking inside. His luggage consisted of what looked like two bottles of Champagne.

Ashley and dunderhead Tony arrived almost an hour after Royal. She was dressed in an appropriately hot looking skirt with a different sequined belt, a top that appeared to be open almost down to her navel and the same knee-high black boots with stiletto heels. Tony was in jeans and a T-shirt that looked like they should have been thrown in the wash early last week.

I waited about five minutes, then entered the hotel. The bar was just across the lobby from the front desk. I could see Tony in there nursing a beer and already filling a plastic basket with losing pull tabs, fortunately his back was to me.

I approached the front desk with a smiling guy standing behind it. He looked to be about mid forties with slightly graying temples and brown frame glasses. He wore a starched blue shirt with a navy blue blazer and a conservative tie, apparently the uniform for front desk staff.

“Hi, welcome to the Venture Inn, how can I help you?”

“I’m supposed to meet up with a business associate, here. Can you direct me to his room? Royal Baker is his name.”

“Let me get that information for you,” he said and clicked half-a-dozen keys on the laptop in front of him. I figured I’d knock on the door then maybe grab a photo of Royal and Ashley, hopefully while she was just wearing a smile.

“Sure, here it is, you can reach him on this extension,” he said then wrote the extension number down on a hotel business card. It was the same drill I’d received the last time I was tracking Royal on one of his trysts and I guessed it was a standard hotel routine. I smiled and took the card.

“There’s a house phone right over there,” he nodded to a counter attached to the wall on the far side of the lobby. The phone was next to a little stand filled with a variety of tourist brochures. I was about to say thanks when a voice behind me yelled out. “Haskell?”

I turned to see Tony coming out of the bar. He had a wide-eyed look on his face as he stopped and just stood there staring at me.

I wasn’t sure which of us was more surprised and decided to play the part. “Tony? What are you doing here?”

I thought I might have caught him off guard because he sort of stuttered. “Oh, yeah, I got a call and I was just driving past and thought this looked like a nice joint so I decided to go in and grab a beer.”

God, he wasn’t even a good liar. I noticed the fingertips on both his hands were still red, just like Tommy Flaherty’s face and hands had been. Unfortunately, he’d apparently recovered enough not to have his arm still in the sling.

“How’s Ashley doing? Is she
working
tonight?” I asked, and raised my eyebrows.

“Ash? Oh, no, not here tonight. But, she’s doing pretty well, you know with work and everything. Course all those online problems she was having, I think I got that nailed down.”

“You ever find out who that was?”

“Hey, Haskell, if you’re lookin’ to scam more business you can just forget it. Like I said, I already did my own investigation and I got a pretty good idea. Went back and reviewed some things, checked out those images that had been posted, the dates they were posted. Once I did that, the pattern became pretty obvious, and it didn’t cost an arm and a leg, either. ”

“Oh good, so you know who did it?”

“Like I said, I got a pretty good idea.”

In other words he didn’t have a clue.

“That’s good, Tony, real good. How about you let me buy you a beer? You can tell me all about your investigative technique, how you did it and we can celebrate the fact that you don’t need your arm in a sling anymore. You know, from when that little guy kicked your ass the other day.”

“Actually, much as I’d like to have you buy, I gotta meet someone in the lobby here in a while.”

“Ashley?”

“No, she ain’t here, it’s someone else, they’re delivering a package.”

“Delivering a package? To you? I thought you said you just ducked in for a beer?”

“Yeah, I did, but then Royal sent me a text message, said to run interference and get this package. You know, since I’m already here they can run it over to me.”

“Then you’ll run it up to Royal’s room?”

“Yeah, he wants to get it right…no not up to Royal’s room. I told you, he ain’t even here. I don’t know where the hell he is, home or somewhere. I’m gonna deliver it to him later tonight, probably at his house, that is once I get the thing.”

“Too bad he’s not here it would save you some time.”

“I don’t mind. I better get going, that delivery probably will be here any minute, then I’ll be taking off,” he said and sort of took a few steps in the direction of the men’s room.

“Always a pleasure, Tony.”

He nodded, suggesting the opportunity to talk with him was just that, a pleasure.

Chapter Fifty-One

Tony’s bullshit about having
a package delivered to him was laughable and suggested a host of other issues. If I had to guess, I’d say he was a lot more uncomfortable with Ashley’s line of work than he was letting on, especially if one of her top customers was the same guy who was making it all possible. I retreated back to the sanity of the front seat of my car, turned on the radio and waited for Royal and Ashley to reappear in the hope I might get to photograph a good-bye kiss or some other, equally stupid move.

It was maybe an hour later when I saw an older woman entering the hotel lobby carrying what looked like a white bakery box. Her hair was a non-descript brown and cut in a short sort of bob, she wore expensive casual clothes. Maybe twenty minutes after that I was in the midst of switching radio stations again when it happened; there was a sort of rumble, but too loud to be a car and it seemed to come from above. As I looked up I saw the windows of a room blowing off the side of the building four or five floors up and disintegrating in mid-air.

Almost immediately there was the sound of a bell ringing, like an alarm bell although not too loud. As I climbed out of my car bits and pieces of debris and dust were drifting down to the ground. I just stood there staring up at the hole in the side of the building. The parking lot began filling up with crazed guests and hotel staff rushing out of the front door.

Some guy in jeans and a T-shirt was directing people further and further away from the building and no one seemed to be in the frame of mind to give him an argument. As people hurried across the parking lot, what was left of the drapes fluttered out the charred remains of the window and a set of Venetian blinds hung by a long cord and dangled down to the floor below.

More and more people exited the building, some came to stand below the hole in the side of the building and just stare upwards, but the majority of people moved away from the building and stood behind me on the far side of the parking lot. Guys in business suits, what looked like kitchen staff in white coats and checkered pants, a couple of waitresses wearing aprons, the guy from behind the front desk and some kids in swim suits all lined up on the edge of the parking lot.

After a few minutes you could hear the sound of sirens growing closer and just moments later, first one and then two fire trucks raced in and parked in front of the main entry with their lights flashing. Two more rigs arrived after that, firemen in helmets and heavy equipment climbed off the vehicles and moved inside the building, not wasting any time.

Two squad cars arrived at about the same time. The officers began to move everyone out of the parking lot, myself included. I ended up standing next to three little boys in swimsuits with their mom holding an empty wine glass. I scanned the crowd back and forth looking for Tony, Ashley and Royal, but couldn’t see them.

Another fire truck arrived along with the paramedics. A couple of people were in the crowd with their luggage. First one and then two more news vehicles arrived, but the police wouldn’t let them into the parking lot. None of us were allowed to go to our cars so all we could do was just stand there and watch, not that there was anything left to see.

A couple of firemen appeared briefly in the room where the explosion had occurred and sort of gazed out of the charred hole in the wall. I don’t know if they were looking to see if someone was hanging onto the side of the building or if they just wanted to see how high up they were. Behind them you could see what looked like the remains of a table lamp and a framed painting or print hanging sideways on the wall.

It was much later that night before they began letting people back into the building, and then only registered guests to get their luggage. People were streaming out of the building rolling suitcases behind them and heading for their cars. The police were checking everyone off a list before they were allowed to drive away, presumably to look for another place to stay. I had to wait another hour and a half before I was able to get in my car and drive home.

I drove back past the place the following morning, there were still maybe a dozen cars in the hotel lot. Four or five of the cars were parked just below the site of the explosion and appeared to be too damaged from falling debris to be driven. There were a couple of squad cars and two fire department vehicles near the front door and then off to the side and well away from the blast area. Royal’s car was parked exactly where I’d seen him pull in last night. About thirty yards from Royal’s car, Tony’s car sat looking abandoned in the all but empty parking lot. I slowed, but didn’t stop and headed to my office.

Vague information was on the radio news, but nothing that I didn’t already know. There had been a “fire” at the Venture Inn and the place had been evacuated, the cause was unknown at this time. Nothing much after that, I got into the office a little after nine, Louie was nowhere to be seen. I phoned Gemma and ended up leaving a message asking her to call me when she had a moment.

She phoned me maybe a half hour later.

“Dev, this is Gemma.” She sounded, I don’t know, distracted maybe.

“Gemma, thanks for returning my call. I was at the Venture Inn last night, I don’t know if you saw it on the news, but there was….”

“The police left maybe an hour ago. I wasn’t feeling well and took a sleeping pill last night, didn’t wake up until they were pounding on the door this morning. I figured Royal had already left for work.”

I waited for her to say something else, but she didn’t.

“Is he at the office?” I finally asked.

“No, apparently there was some sort of explosion or fire or something and, well, he won’t be coming home.”

“Is he okay?”

“No, they think he might be dead. He had a room there, at the Venture Inn, it’s where the explosion happened.”

“Are you okay, Gemma?”

“What? I don’t know, I’m just trying to get my head around this whole thing. I really don’t know what to think.”

I didn’t think she sounded that upset considering the police had just told her that Royal was most likely blown to bits just last night in a hotel explosion. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

“No, no I think I just need some time. My mother’s on her way over, now. I’ll be okay, I think.”

Chapter Fifty-Two

I thought about my
brief phone conversation with Gemma for the rest of the morning. I called Aaron LaZelle just after my late lunch and left a message, he phoned me back toward the end of the day. I was in The Spot, sitting at the bar talking to Louie.

“Yeah, Dev, you called.” He said it in that clipped sort of way he has when he’s juggling a half dozen different things, suggesting I had better make it fast.

“Thanks for returning my call, Aaron. That Venture Inn explosion….”

“I really don’t know much more than what you hear on the news right now. Not that I’d tell you, anyway. You need anything else?”

“Actually, the reason I’m calling is I was there.”

“What do you mean, you were there?”

“I was there, in the parking lot, working. I saw the explosion, and saw all the folks running out the door. I drove past this morning and it turns out the guy I was investigating, doing surveillance on, his car was still in the lot along with another guy whose wife or girlfriend was meeting with the first guy and….”

“Just what in the hell are you talking about?”

“I was there trying to watch a guy named Royal Baker. He was supposedly having an affair with a woman named Ashley. She’s some sort of professional escort. I believe they were in the room together, her and Royal Baker. I met this jackass guy who drives this Ashley chick around, guy’s name is Tony, don’t know his last name. I ran into him in the hotel lobby and he said he was waiting for a package to be delivered. Then he was going to take it to Baker. I don’t know, maybe an hour later that explosion happened. I didn’t put it together until this morning when I drove past and the parking lot is basically empty except for their two cars.”

“Any chance he might be somewhere else?”

“Who, Royal Baker? If he is then you guys got a lot of explaining to do, because his wife told me two officers had been there this morning giving her the bad news.”

“I’m thinking you should probably come in so we can get a statement.”

“When do you want me?”

“The sooner, the better.”

“I’ll be down there within the hour.”

“I’m going to be meeting with the fire inspectors on their preliminary findings, when you get here ask for Manning.”

“Manning? Oh come on, isn’t there someone else that could do this?”

“Let me explain something, Dev, I just might have a few more irons in the fire than your inability to get on with Manning. No one else seems to have a problem, except for the bad guys. Get over it and then get your ass down here, pronto.”

“What about tomorrow, would you have time then?”

“Dev. Hello? Are you listening? Did you hear anything I just said? I’ll tell Manning you’ll be down here within the hour and I’ll ask him to be gentle.”

“I don’t think he has it in him.”

“One hour,” Aaron said and hung up.

Chapter Fifty-Three

I didn’t know if
Aaron’s “hour” included the fifty-five minutes I had to wait locked in an interview room while Detective Norris Manning finished up whatever phone call he pretended to be on when I arrived. It was approaching the two-hour mark since I’d spoken with Aaron before Manning decided to make his appearance in the interview room.

He opened the door carrying a couple of files and a coffee mug. He marched over to the metal topped table where I was sitting, cracking his ever-present wad of gum in time to his footsteps.

“So, Mr. Haskell, we meet once again. How are you? Well, I hope.”

“Hey, look, Manning, I don’t want to talk to you anymore than you want to talk to me. So, let’s just get this statement over with and then I can go home and you can hassle some other innocent citizen.”

“Amazingly, there seems to be a multiple homicide in our saintly city and you just happen to be in the area. Imagine my surprise.” He smiled, but his cold blue eyes bored in on me like lasers. The pink dome of his bald head flushed ever so slightly as he opened the file in front of him. “Why don’t you start at the beginning and enlighten me.”

“Okay, I was hired by a Mrs. Gemma Baker to investigate her suspicions concerning her husband, Royal Baker, and his possibly being involved in an extramarital affair.”

“How did she hear about you?” he asked and turned a page in the file.

“I was working for her husband, well at least until we parted ways.”

Manning looked up. “He fired you?”

“It was more of a mutual decision. He had me looking into some online harassment of one of his clients and I didn’t get along with the client or her companion, for that matter.”

“There’s a surprise. So Baker terminated the contract?”

“Yes.”

“And his wife hired you?”

“Yes”

“Was she involved in any way with the earlier arrangement between you and Mr. Baker?”

“No, not to my knowledge. As far as I know she’s not involved in his business.”

“And what did she want you to do?”

“She told me she was going to initiate divorce proceedings against her husband, Royal Baker. She suspected him of having an ongoing, sexual relationship with one of his clients, a woman named Ashley. I was to obtain proof of that relationship.”

“And how did you intend to do that, obtain proof?”

“About all I had were some photographs, the usual things, their cars in hotel parking lots, the two of them entering and leaving the hotel.”

“Did they actually do this, arrive or leave in one another’s company? Walk arm in arm, or something?”

“No, that was part of the problem. Baker would arrive maybe close to an hour before her. She’d leave before he did. She was always with some guy named Tony, no last name. A real jerk, anyway, this Tony would drive her to the hotel then wait in the bar while she was riding Baker for a couple of hours up in some room and then they’d leave together.”