No One Else to Kill (Jim West Series) (18 page)

For some reason, she looked a little out of place in the
dining room, although her short blond hair, blue eyes, and natural smile seemed
pleasant enough.

“Haven’t seen you here the last couple
of days.”

“My dad asked me to come in and help today.
 
Two of the employees called in sick.”

“After all that has happened here, I’m surprised more
haven’t,” I said.

“More have.
 
The two
I mean worked the dining room.
 
That’s
why he needed me here.”

“Your dad, Rick, the manager?”

“Yeah, you know him?”

“No, not really.
 
He must be stressed out over all this.”

“Things got a lot better this morning,” she said.

“Oh?”

“Uh oh, here he comes.
 
What can I get you, mister?”

“How about the soup, a grilled cheese and some iced tea.”

“Okay,” she said and spun on her heals and headed to the
kitchen.

“Good morning,” Rick said. “I hope our staff is performing
satisfactorily today.”

“She’s doing great,” I said.
 
Like most parents, I had no doubt that Rick
supervised his children’s work performance more than he did the rest of the
staff.
 
“How about you,
Rick?
 
How are you doing today?”

He looked at me silently for a second.
 
He probably wondered why I knew his name.

“Okay,” he said with the hint of a smile.

“My name’s Jim, Jim West. Join me for a bite?” I asked.

“Maybe for a cup of coffee,” he said and sat down.

“All this crazy stuff must be awful hard on everyone
here.”

“It is.
 
I just hope
the Sheriff gets it all resolved soon.”

“Me, too.”

“Did you know the woman who hung herself?” he asked.

“Only met her here.”
 
I figured that was what most people thought,
that she had committed suicide.
 
I
couldn’t help but wonder if her ghost stood there somewhere close to us
screaming that she hadn’t hung herself.

“She seemed a little strange,” he said.

I didn’t respond, so after a few seconds I guess he felt
the need to explain.

“I guess I shouldn’t speak like that of the dead.
 
It’s only the way she dressed and acted.
 
Most adult women whom I’ve known don’t do
that.”

“She did wear some strange outfits,” I said.
 
“How did she act strange to you?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” At first I didn’t think he was going
to explain, but he did. “When they first got here, I saw one of the men grab
her ass.
 
He really latched on, and she
smiled and snuggled up to him.
 
It only
lasted a second and no one else was around.”

“Who was it?”

“I don’t know.
 
To
be honest, I never did pay any attention to him.
 
I assumed at the time they were a couple.
Later, I found out she was the single one and all the men in the group were
married.”

“That’s right.”

“And that wasn’t all. On that first night at the bar, she
was dressed in all brown. I happened to be at the other end of the bar, just
about ready to go home. I guess I must have been staring at her. She noticed me
and blew me a kiss. That startled me and she started laughing.”

“What happened then?”

“Nothing.
 
I went home. I’m a married man, Jim.
 
I don’t fool around with strange women, and I
do mean strange.”

I guess he didn’t consider Bev strange. He finished his
coffee and went back to work.
 
I ordered
a slice of pie.

“Yep, that’s my dad,” the young server admitted when she
brought my pie.

“Seems like a nice enough guy.”

I noticed the hunting group get up from their table and
leave in mass.

“Looks like I’m your only customer.
 
Have a seat.”

“Oh, I can’t do that.”

“Can I ask you a question that you might think is none of
my business?”

“Of course, but you may not get an answer,” she said it in
a way that made me think that strange men had asked her unwanted questions more
than once before

“How are these killings going to affect the lodge?”
 
I didn’t expect her to know the answer, but I
was fishing for something else.

“Oh, I thought you were going to ask me something
personal. I know my dad had been really worried, but I think he feels better
about everything today.”

“Do the police have a suspect?”

“I wouldn’t know that, but my Aunt had to go into the
hospital last night.
 
She had a gall
bladder attack.
 
She’s been a pest.”

That would’ve postponed any family decision to remove
Rick, I thought.

“How about with the employees?
 
You mentioned some of them have stopped
coming in.”

“I think they’re nervous, and I know in Jeff’s case, his
parents told him he couldn’t work here anymore.”

“That’s too bad.”

“I think parents are always overly protective.”

“Will so many leave that the lodge will be shorthanded?”

“It already is.
 
That’s why I came in today.”

“Do you think any of the employees may have been involved
in the killings?”

“Wouldn’t that be something!” she said wide-eyed.

“So there are no rumors that one of the staff here was a
jilted former lover or a serial killer?” I said in jest.

“No, and I would’ve heard.
 
Jeff and
Melodie
would have told me.”

“So I’m safe staying here?”

“Oh!
 
I didn’t think
about that, but I think you’re as safe here as anywhere else.
 
You know people die out on the highway every
day.”

After passing on that bit of wisdom, she sauntered back to
the kitchen, and I finished my pie. I hadn’t thought that one of the employees
was involved in either death, and while my opinion along with the gossip at the
lodge might not be considered proof, I still had my money on one of the ever
diminishing group of hunters.

My phone buzzed in my pocket.

“West?
 
This is Detective Bruno.”

“Are you calling me from upstairs?”
 
I wondered why he just hadn’t sent someone
around to gather me.

“No, I’m at my office.
 
I’d like you to come down here for a minute.”

“Can’t…” I started to ask him why he couldn’t discuss
whatever it was over the phone, but changed my mind. “Sure.
 
I just had lunch, I can come right over.
 
How do I get there?”
 
A trip away from this lodge would do me good.

Bruno gave me directions, and ten minutes later I steered
my Mustang away from the Royal Lodge.

Driving through a lot of New Mexico can be boring: flat
and few trees. However, the rest of the state explains why they call New Mexico
the Land of Enchantment.
 
Winding down
this portion of the state highway, I wished someone else was driving, so I
could better enjoy the scenery.
 
For a
while I forgot about the dead and dying in the world and wondered how the early
settlers must have felt traveling through this part of the country.

Sections of the highway still held on to some of the rain
that had fallen earlier, which required my paying attention to my driving.
 
The first large puddle I hit nearly sent me
hydroplaning off into the trees. Fortunately, the puddles were few, and now
that I watched for them, they were easily seen early enough to take defensive
action.

A bobcat scurried off the road ahead of me as I approached
the town. I slowed and tried to see where it went as I passed by, but it had
blended too well into the underbrush.
As my five year old
neighbor would say, “Awesome!”

I found the sheriff’s office on my first try.
 
An older building that
lacked appeal.
Despite the invite I had to wait in the outer lobby area
for nearly twenty minutes. During that time no one else came in or left. Slow
business for law enforcement is good business. What was the old saying?
 
Hours of boredom interrupted by moments of
sheer terror.
 
Something like that, and
just as applicable to firemen, I thought.

The deputy who came to get me reminded me of a newly
minted lieutenant in the military. His uniform looked crisp, clean, and pressed
to perfection.
 
I doubted if he took a
step out of this building during his work day.

“Mr. West?”

“That’s me.”

“Please follow me.
 
Detective Bruno is waiting for you.”

I felt like correcting him and telling him that I had been
the one waiting.
 
He may have been an
inch or two over my six feet, but I had him by a few, well maybe more than a
few pounds.
 
I knew I would never see
that weight again, unless someone dropped me off on a desert island and left me
there for a few months.

After following him around three or four corners and up a
flight of steps, I started to wonder how long it took employees to find their
way around.
 
The building seemed larger
than it had looked from the outside.

“Here he is, Detective,” the young deputy announced
suddenly when we came to an open door.

“Come on in, Jim.”
 
He stayed seated behind his desk and motioned me with his hand to have a
seat across from him.
 
“Thanks,
Brent.
 
I’ll call you when Mr. West here
needs to be escorted out.”

I looked back at the door, but young Brent had already
disappeared.

“
You getting
them right out of
junior high now?” I asked.

“Seems like it, doesn’t it?
 
They look younger and younger every year.”

“Yeah, and someone needs to feed that guy.”

“Ha! Were you ever that thin?”

“Maybe back in high school and college.”

“I don’t think I ever was,” said the detective with a big
grin. “Some of these young guys and girls order salads at McDonalds.” He shook
his head, “What’s the world coming to?”

“Who knows?
 
Before long the government will likely ban red meat and grease.”

“Don’t say that.
 
I’d have to hang up my badge at that point. But Jim, more to the point,
we found the screen.”

“Oh, you did.
 
Good.”

“We found it tossed in some bushes in the woods not too
far behind the lodge.”

“Any prints?”

“No, and that’s the important piece.
 
There should have been some, even if they
were smudges, but the screen frame had been wiped clean before being tossed.”

“How about that.”
 
I said as a statement rather than a question.
“That does imply that the window might have been open when the shot was fired
and then closed before anyone noticed.”

“May also explain why the killer took out Randi.”

“If she was the accomplice who had
closed the window after Benson had been shot and before screaming for help.”

“We had already found partials of her fingerprints on the
window,” he said.

“Oh, way ahead of me,” I said.

“Well, you started us down this path.”

“Anything new on Randi’s death?”

“Only confirmation that she was
murdered.”

I raised my eyebrows.

“Someone strangled her first with the same rope that was
then used to hang her.
 
Probably thought
he was being pretty smart, but two sets of ligature marks will give it away
every time.
 
And both are
distinctive.
 
We have no doubt.
 
The murderer almost messed up though.”

“What do you mean?”

“She wasn’t yet dead when he strung her up, just
unconscious.
 
Wouldn’t
have been a problem if you hadn’t come along.
 
She would’ve slowly suffocated.”

“Yet she did die.”

“Yes.
 
She was too
far gone when you got to her.
 
But, a
couple of minutes earlier might have been enough.”

I didn’t know if I wanted to respond.
 
I didn’t think he intended to blame me with
getting there too slowly, yet it almost sounded like it.

“All I’m saying is that the killer should have made sure
she was dead before he hung her.”

“It has to be the same person that shot Benson.
 
We can’t have two murderers plus an
accomplice out there, can we?” I asked.

“Hell, they could all be in it together. Maybe they got
rid of Randi ‘
cause
she was falling apart.”

I let this sink in for a minute, and he let me. “Possible,
and might make an intriguing theory, but I don’t believe they’re all in it
together.”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Can’t see why it has to be just
one of them.”

“But you think like I do, that the murderer, or murderers,
is someone within the hunting group?”

“I can’t see any other solution.
 
I could’ve been persuaded before the second
murder, but not now.
 
I still don’t see
the two
Bettes
being involved.
 
There’s no evidence that either of them have
ever had any contact with the group before, and their alibi for the Benson’s
murder is solid.”