No One Else to Kill (Jim West Series) (16 page)

“An absence of it in her system may imply she wanted to
stay awake.
Maybe to meet someone?”

“Or to hang herself,” Detective Bruno added.

“But we don’t believe that do we?”

“Between you and me?”

“Yeah.”

“No we don’t.”

“Good.”

“What did you hear from or learn from the others
yesterday?”

“Nothing much.
The team was
starting to fall apart.
 
Now, I imagine
there will be too much suspicion and distrust for them to ever work together
again.”

He pressed me further.
 
I didn’t have anything to give him, but I couldn’t blame him for
pushing. They needed a break, and it wouldn’t have been the first time a
witness knew more than he thought he did.
 
It would’ve made me happy to suddenly remember that golden nugget of
information, but it simply wasn’t there.

“How long are you going to be able to keep people here?” I
asked.

“Not much longer, I’m afraid. Another day, possibly two,
but if we don’t come up with a strong reason to keep them here, I’m afraid
everyone will be gone by tomorrow night, Monday morning at the latest.”

“I plan on leaving tomorrow,” I said matter-of-factly.

He didn’t object, nor did he seem pleased by my remark.
 
We talked a little longer about nothing before
we departed company.

I went out front onto the porch.
 
The sunshine beat through the thin high
atmosphere and felt warm against the cool air.
 
It should be a beautiful day. I contemplated taking that hike I came up
here to do.
 
A faint smell of smoke was
in the air.

I returned to my room and put on my walking shoes and a
sweatshirt.
 
The sun might be warm, but
in the shade of the forest I knew it would still be cool.
 
I opened the bedroom window.
 
I think I did it out of curiosity to see if
the smoke smell was still there. The window screen prevented me from leaning
out and looking around.
 
I closed the
window and in doing so, I realized something that I should’ve have noticed
before.

The thought of a distant forest fire left my mind, and I
immediately headed down to find Detective Bruno.
 
He stood, leaning against the front
registration desk, and talking to another detective.

“You got a second?” I asked.

“Sure.
 
What’s up?”

“I have an idea.
 
Bear with me for a second.”

He followed me while I led him to the room in which Benson
was shot.
 
The other deputy came with us.

“Good,” I said to myself after walking into the room. I
turned to the two detectives.
 
“This may
just be one of those anomalies that may or may not be significant, but it is
something that is not what it is supposed to be.”

“You’re not making sense, West. What are you talking
about?”

“What do you see?”
 
I pointed to the lone window in the room.

“A window,” the other deputy answered somewhat sarcastically.

“Anything else?”

Both walked up to the window and studied it more closely.

“You win,” Detective Bruno said to me.

“Where’s the screen?”

He looked back at the window.
 
I could also see a light turning on in his
mind.

“What makes you think there ever was a screen here?” the
other deputy asked.

“There may not have been,” I said, “but I know most of the
windows here at the lodge have screens.”

“Which means someone could have opened the window to allow
Benson to be shot from the outside.
 
They
would then only have to close the window before anyone noticed it had been
opened.
 
Anyone could have closed that
window during all the early panic and commotion and not have been noticed.”

I nodded at him.

“Then where’s the screen?” asked the skeptic.

Detective Bruno turned on him.
 
“Why don’t you go find out, Jack?”

He left without saying anything else.

“I’m surprised no one noticed it missing before.”

“An easy thing to overlook,” I said.
 
“Missing things frequently are, and none of
us had been in here before yesterday.”

“True.”
 
He opened
the window and looked around outside.
 
“We’ve already canvassed the area out there.
 
He must have hid it.”

Bruno brought his head back in, and I stuck mine out.
 
Jack was just rounding the corner.
 
He saw me.

“Is Detective Bruno still there?”

“Yes,” I backed away from the window and let the detective
assume the position.

“The clerk at the front desk said he thought there was a
screen on this window.
 
He’s double
checking with maintenance,” Deputy Jack sounded like he was finally getting
excited about my theory.

Bruno grabbed his phone.
 
“Steve, get a couple more deputies out here ASAP.”
 
He listened for a second before speaking
again.
 
“I know we’re not the only thing
going on, but everyone here is tied up right now with the second incident, and
I need something followed up on pertaining to the first incident.”

He grunted into the phone a few more times before hanging
up.

“Jack, we already scoured this area.
 
Look out around the perimeter, especially
behind the lodge.”

“You know, it may not mean anything,” I said.

“I know, but it’s the first lead we’ve had since the
interviews yesterday morning.”

I knew that wouldn’t be true. They had to have a million
background leads being conducted down in El Paso and perhaps elsewhere. Here at
the lodge, however, it did give them something to pursue.

“She could’ve shot him, opened the window, and tossed the
gun to an accomplice,” he suggested.

“But she didn’t have any gunpowder residue on her.
 
More likely, she simply closed the window for
the shooter before she started screaming for help.”

“Either way, it’s too bad we won’t be able to ask her.”

I nodded.

“If we find the screen we can look for prints, but that’s
a long, long shot.”

“Finding the screen?” I asked.

“Partly, but mostly finding any useful prints.”

“Do you know if anyone else had access to this room
earlier in the day?”

“The lodge staff uses this room for some of their own
business, but also allows guests to use it.
 
There’s not a separate business office or computer room set aside for
the guests, so this is it.
 
They don’t
keep a record of which guests use it.”

“Can you get that from the computer?”
 
I noticed the computer had been removed.

“We’re looking into that now, but that would only identify
anyone who used the computer and signed into some site that would help us with
identification.
 
Anyone could have come
in here just to scope out the room.”

“And open the window,” I added.

“Yep,” he said.
 
“We
already know a couple of the guests had been down here.”

“From the computer?”

“No.
From the interviews.”

Rick, the hotel manager, stuck his head in the door.
 
“Detective, I understand you had a question
about this room?”

“Do you know where the screen is for this window?”

Rick walked over and studied the window.
 
I don’t know if he thought he would be able
to see the screen while we couldn’t or what.
 
He looked pale.

“The screen?”
Detective Bruno
asked again.

“It should be there.
 
We checked with maintenance.
 
All
the window screens should be in place and in good shape.”

“Do you know when the one for this window was last seen?”
Bruno asked.

“Not for sure, but after the second floor was finished
last weekend, I asked maintenance to do a thorough inspection of the first
floor to see if anything needed touching up before we moved the contractors to
the third floor.
 
We had the first floor
touched up last year, and I wanted to know if there were any odd jobs on this
floor that might be too much for our lodge maintenance staff.”

“And someone saw the screen then?” I asked.

“I can’t guarantee it, but windows were specifically on
the checklist used during that inspection.
 
Nothing about that window was noted, so maintenance believes it must
have been there then.
 
I think it would
have been noticed if it was missing.”

“Thanks,” Bruno said.

Rick looked at both of us and realizing that he had been
dismissed, left the room.

“I hope I don’t look that stressed out,” he said after
Rick was out of sight.

“I understand that all this may cost him his job.”

“I thought his family owned the place.”

“True, but apparently he has other siblings who think they
can run it better,” I said.

“I wouldn’t want to run a hotel.
 
You could never keep everyone happy, and
there is always someone who wants to complain.”

“Well, at least we know that the screen should have been
there.”

The detective looked out the window for a moment and then
turned to look at the desk where Benson had been sitting. He squatted down to
get a line of sight for someone shooting into the room.

“He would have to take the shot from somewhere in the tree
line.”

“Actually nearer to the dirt road that leads to the firing
range,” I said.

He looked at me.
 
I
would’ve liked to have said he was impressed, but I figured it was actually
suspicion.

“I was bored yesterday, so I went out there to see where
someone would have to be situated in order to get a good shot at Benson.
 
You would have done the same thing if you
weren’t so busy with everything.”

“Why didn’t you say anything earlier?”

“At that point, it was an unlikely theory and Randi was
still alive.
 
Additionally, the missing
screen had not entered my mind.”

“Well if you come up with any other stupid theories, share
them.”
 
His phone rang again and he
talked to someone for a few seconds.
 
“I
have to go meet the new arrivals.
 
Don’t
go anywhere today.”
 
He left me alone in
the crime scene.

I walked around the room.
 
I studied it and imagined Benson sitting at the desk. I thought about
Randi coming in, seeing Benson slumped over, and calmly going to the window and
closing it.
 
Could she have done it?
 
Was she that cold?
 
Why would she have helped someone else kill
her boss?

“What are you doing here?”

I turned and saw a young deputy I had seen once or twice
before in the lodge.

“This is a restricted crime scene,” he said with
authority.

“Detective Bruno was here with me a few minutes ago.
 
He gave me access.”

The deputy eyed me suspiciously.
 
“Well, you better leave now.”

I ducked under the police tape and went back to my room.

 
didn’t
stay in my
room for long.
 
I had too much on my
mind.
 
Not too sure what I wanted to do,
I grabbed my jacket and went out to my car. I got in and considered driving
over to
Glorietta
.
 
I knew it wasn’t too far away, and I thought the trip might clear my
mind.

One of the better memories of my high school years took
place there.
 
I went to
Glorietta
with the church youth group.
 
One of the other group members was also a
high school junior who I thought was one of the foxiest brunettes I’d ever
known.
 
Reflecting back, even with the
many more years behind me, and after meeting many more brunettes, I still think
she may have been.

Up to that point, we had just been acquaintances.
 
By the time we left, we were an item.
 
It lasted about a semester, ending when her
family moved to Artesia with the oil business. I hadn’t seen her since.