Open Season for Murder (A Mac Faraday Mystery Book 10) (25 page)

Chapter Twenty-Four

At the Inn’s security office, David and Mac found Hector standing watch behind a server who was going through identification photos from the Inn’s employee database.

Upon seeing the database, Brian Gallagher stepped up to the monitor to study each photograph along with the server.

“Meet Gary,” Hector introduced the young man who, when he saw Mac, practically knocked over his chair jumping up to shake his hand. “He was assigned to take the champagne up to the Sinclair suite the night Jasmine ordered it.” He ordered Gary back to the computer monitor. “He says he was intercepted at the elevator by one of the suits from the business wing who said he’d take the champagne up to the Sinclairs because he was on his way up for a meeting.”

“At midnight?” Mac asked.

“They were from Hollywood,” Gary said with a broad shrug of his shoulders. “A suit tells me that he’s got a meeting and offers to take up the champagne, who am I to question?”

“Suit?” Mac replied.

“I’ve seen him around the business offices in a suit and wearing an employee badge,” Gary said.

“Then our killer is an Inn employee,” David said.

“Or maybe he just makes people think he’s an employee because he wears a suit similar to the Inn’s blazers and hangs around the business offices,” Mac suggested with hope in his tone.

“We are so screwed if he is.” Nodding his head, Hector turned back to join Gary and Brian at the computer monitor.

“Remember the listening device found in the Sinclair suite?” Mac asked David.

Keeping his attention focused on the employee pictures flashing across the computer screen, David answered, “The serial number was traced to a local store. It was purchased a couple of weeks ago and the customer paid cash. So we can’t trace it.”

“That’s how he knew Jasmine had ordered champagne and intercepted it,” Mac said. “He heard her order it through the bug and the timing coincided with the note that he sent to Riva in the lounge to go up to the Sinclair suite. He wanted her to go up so that she could be placed at the scene at the time of the murder.”

“That’s all well and good, Mac,” David said. “But we still don’t know who he is or why he killed Jasmine. Nor do we know if her murder is connected to Lindsey’s murder or if Lindsey was the target or someone else whose drink she stole.” He tore his focus from the computer monitor. “In other words, we’ve got squat right now.”

“We’re getting close,” Mac said. “Forensics didn’t find the flute used to send the drink to Carlisle. That tells me the poison was meant for her. The connection between Carlisle and Jasmine is Ashton Piedmont.”

“But we know Parker Lander killed Ashton and we can’t place him here at the Inn,” David said. “Why would he kill Jasmine? He wasn’t even on her radar as far as the show.”

Across from the computer where the two Inn employees were going through the photo ID, Mac saw a young security officer with a camera bag slung from his shoulder arrive at his desk.

“Is that your new camera?” another officer asked him. “Let me see.”

Proud of his recent purchase, the young man unzipped the case, and carefully extracted the camera from it to hand his friend. In doing so, the case slipped off the desk and fell to the floor. Enthralled with the new camera, they ignored the fallen case.

“The case,” Mac murmured.

Hearing him, David asked, “Which case is that?”

“The camera case.” Mac was still piecing together his memory of the scene in the ballroom. “He was holding the camera. So the case should have been empty. But he was clutching it like—” Turning to the computer monitor, Mac ordered Hector, “Show them Rudy Crowe’s picture.” While the security chief went to work in bringing up the requested picture, Mac asked David, “Did you look at the pictures Rudy took of the ballroom when we caught him there?”

With a nod of his head, David said he had. “The flash card was empty. I assumed we caught him before he had a chance to take any pictures.”

“That’s him,” Brian and the server said almost in unison upon seeing the picture of the terminated public relations employee.

Hector rubbed his chin. “Why would Rudy—”

“Bring up his resume,” Mac ordered. “I’m willing to bet he went to the University of Maryland and graduated in communications with Jasmine Simpson.”

While Hector went through the employee record, Mac said, “When we walked in on Rudy in the ballroom, we jumped to the conclusion that he was there to take pictures of the crime scene to leak to the media. He went along with us because he couldn’t let us know the real reason he was there.”

“To retrieve the glass that he had used to poison Carlisle,” David said. “But why try to kill her?”

“You’re right on the money, Mac,” Hector said. “University of Maryland. Graduated with a degree in communications.”

“Print up Crowe’s picture and let’s take it to Samuel Nash,” Mac said. “He went to school with Jasmine, too.”

While Hector rushed to the printer, Mac told David, “Jeff said that as soon as Sinclair’s group arrived here to do this investigative report on Ashton Piedmont that Rudy started hanging around them. Jeff assumed he was angling for a job. Suppose he wasn’t. Suppose he was really stalking them.”

“But Parker Lander killed Ashton,” David objected.

“They
didn’t know that.” Mac grabbed the picture from Hector. “They were working on the same assumption that everyone else had—that Carlisle Green killed Ashton. We need to find Samuel Nash. I’m willing to bet he can fill in the blanks.”

David took his radio out of his security belt. “I’ll put out a BOLO on Rudy Crowe to have him brought in.”

They intercepted Samuel Nash, dressed for the fitness center, coming out of his room. Upon seeing Mac, the police chief, and security manager, he froze. “What is this?”

Mac handed the picture to the director. “Do you recognize this man?”

Samuel Nash studied Rudy Crowe’s image. “Oh, yeah. That’s the hotel public relations guy I was telling you about.”

“Is this the same public relations guy in the bad tux that you saw arguing with Lindsey York?” David asked.

“Yep,” Samuel said, “he tried to take her champagne and she went ape on him. Strange dude.”

“That’s two witnesses who saw him try to retrieve that drink,” Mac said. “The poison had to have been in that flute.”

“He’s the one who got Jasmine and Rock the invites we needed to the Diablo Ball,” Samuel said.

“That’s right,” Mac said. “Since Rudy worked in public relations, he worked closely with the event coordinator, who had the guest list and arranged the printing of the invitations. It would have been a cinch for him to get copies of the invitations.”

“I thought he helped us because he wanted to come work for us,” Samuel said. “That’s why we let him hang around. He told us that he was writing a blog about our investigative report. Was that a lie? Did he really do all that so that he could get close enough to kill Lindsey and Jasmine? Why? Why would he want to kill either of them?”

“Since you guys let him hang around, then Jasmine would have no problem letting him in the suite that night when he brought up the champagne that she’d ordered,” Mac said.

Samuel let out a gasp. “She did say that he had stopped by that night. I forgot all about it.”

“What did he want?” David asked.

“I wasn’t there,” Samuel said, “and I wasn’t in the mood to discuss some loser looking for a job.” He nodded his head quickly. “That’s what I thought he wanted. A job with the production company. He wanted us to take him with us. Jasmine was put out about him stopping by because it was late.”

He paused to look at each of them. His eyes fell on Mac. “Do you think he killed her because she turned him down for a job?”

“No, I think the request for a job was just an excuse for her to let him into the room, and then he pretended to leave,” Mac said. “What he really wanted was to kill her. You said you went to school with Jasmine.”

“I did.”

“Take another look at this guy,” Mac said. “Think back over five years. Picture him with different colored hair … more casual…”

“Goth,” Samuel said. “Yeah, that’s right! Back then he had black, greasy hair and always wore black and—”

“Greaser,” Mac said.

“Who?” Samuel said.

“Ashton Piedmont and Carlisle Green’s codename for him. Greaser.”

“I didn’t know that,” Samuel said. “If he’s the guy I’m thinking of, this guy hung out on the fringes of our group. He changed so much—I didn’t recognize him.”

“Did you see him have any conversations with Jasmine?” David asked.

“He interviewed her,” the director said.

“The twist that she was going to have at the end of the investigative report,” Mac asked, “did that include someone so obsessed with Ashton that he killed her because he couldn’t have her?”

Samuel’s mouth dropped open. “Maybe. She refused to tell me what it was, but she was practically giddy about it.”

“I saw you two arguing about that twist at the gala,” Mac reminded him of walking in on them in the closet. “I heard you say you were afraid of getting sued.”

“She refused to tell me anything specific. I’m the director. I need to be kept in the loop.”

Mac pressed him. “Did she come up with this twist after her interview with Rudy Crowe?”

Looking at the photograph, Samuel tapped the image of Rudy Crowe’s face. “He had interviewed Jasmine at lunch that day. It was after lunch that she started talking about this new angle in the investigation. I remember her using the word ‘stalker’ at one point.”

“That’s our guy,” Mac muttered. “It was Greaser all along.”

“You mean this nut killed Jasmine over our investigative report?” Samuel Nash asked.

“How would you like to be publicly accused of a murder you didn’t commit all in the name of ratings?” David asked him.

“The way I remember this guy, he wasn’t wrapped too tight to begin with,” the director replied. “Can I go workout now?” Without waiting to be dismissed, he hurried down the hallway to catch the elevator.

“Jasmine must have noticed Crowe’s obsession with Ashton,” Mac told David. “He had planted a bug in the suite to keep tabs on their investigation. Like everyone else, they assumed Carlisle had killed Ashton, so he targeted her for revenge at the gala. But Lindsey took the poison meant for Carlisle. Then, Crowe overheard Jasmine discussing with Rock Sinclair her plan for the twist. He must have realized she was going to implicate him as Ashton’s killer. When he overheard her order the champagne, he sent a note to Riva to lure her up to the room to frame her because she was the logical suspect after that fight they had only hours before. Then, he intercepted the champagne and delivered it himself. Since Jasmine knew him, she let him in the room and he used the excuse of looking for a job for being there.”

“Then,” David picked up the story, “he pretended to leave. When Jasmine turned her back, he hid in the room and waited for the opportunity to kill her when she was alone.”

“Chief,” Officer Fletcher’s voice came through David’s radio.

David pressed the button. “Yes, Fletcher.”

“I’ve got good news and bad news for you.”

David let out a groan. “What is it, Fletcher?”

“Bad news,” Officer Fletcher said, “Crowe ditched our tail on him a little over an hour ago.”

With a heavy sigh, David pressed the button on his radio to ask, “What’s the good news?”

“We found his car,” the officer reported before adding, “Only now we’ve got some more bad news.”

“Is the bad news that you found his car at the airport?”

“No, he’s not at the airport.”

“Then where is he?”

“His car is in the Spencer Inn parking lot,” Officer Fletcher said. “He’s at the Spencer Inn.”

“Why would he come back here?” Hector asked after dispatching his whole security staff out in search of Rudy Crowe. “Returning to the scene of the crime?”

In the Spencer Inn lobby, Mac turned around in circles while searching the faces of everyone coming and going in the busy summer resort. It was the first official week of the summer season and the resort was packed with guests.

Spotting Jeff Ingles manning the busy reception desk, Mac asked, “Jeff, have you seen Rudy Crowe?”

In the midst of programming key cards for a family checking in, Jeff shook his head. “Not since we fired his butt.”

“Where’s Betty?”

“Randolph York,” Jeff said with a growl while handing the key cards to the guests. “To tell you the truth, I’m starting to doubt this father in mourning act of his. He’s been taking Betty on two hour lunches every day to talk about how lost he’s been feeling since Lindsey’s death. Then, she’s been coming in late in the morning because he’s been taking her out dancing every night.”

The capture of Rudy Crowe foremost on his mind, Mac hurried away. Behind him, Jeff was still venting. “Who goes dancing with leggy brunettes when they’re in mourning?”

Hector was worried. “Mac, this is a huge resort. He could be anywhere.”

“We need to think about this.”

“We need to find him before he kills someone else,” Hector said. “He’s killed two people.”

“Rudy, why did you come back here?” In deep thought, Mac murmured. “We can assume you got the glass that you had put the poison in to kill Carlisle.” He turned to Hector. “Carlisle! She was the target when Lindsey was poisoned. He must blame her for Ashton’s murder because she was there but too stoned to save Ashton! Is Carlisle still here at the Inn?”

“I saw Carlisle Green and Kassandra Van Dyke go out running on the mountain trail,” Hector said.

“He must be following her to finish what he started.” Mac headed across the lobby to tell David.

“I’ll go get Gnarly.” Hector went in the opposite direction to his office.

Mac stopped and asked Hector from over his shoulder, “Gnarly’s here?”

“Archie put him in my office while she was getting her stone massage,” Hector explained. “Remember he’s been banned from the spa ever since he decided to take a mud bath without an appointment, and they had to close the place down for a week to get all the dog hair out of the mud.”

With no regard for decorum, Mac yelled across the lobby to where David was briefing a team of his officers. “He’s going after Carlisle on the running path.”

Gnarly had caught up with Mac by the time he reached the beginning of the running path. Hard core runners who enjoyed challenging trails with a nature view made good use of the path which snaked through the woods and across the ski runs down to the bottom of the mountain.

Sensing an adventure, Gnarly jumped on Mac and then Hector before attempting to take off down the path. “First, we have to let him know what he’s chasing.” Mac held him back by his collar.

Officer Fletcher took a towel out of a plastic bag. “I took this out of Crowe’s car. Hopefully, it has his scent on it.” He rubbed Gnarly’s nose with the towel. “Go find him, big guy.”

The German shepherd sneezed. With his nose twitching, he stuck his snout up in the air. Then, catching the scent, he took off down the running path.

“Follow that dog!” Hector yelled.

With Gnarly leading the way, David, Hector, and more than a half dozen police and security officers raced down the running path in pursuit of a killer.

Strictly on a hunch, Mac commandeered a dirt bike from the vendor working the recreational vehicle booth and zig-zagged down the ski slope until he caught up to where David was running ahead of the mob.

“Want a ride?” Mac offered. “I’ve got an idea of where we’ll find Crowe.” He patted the seat behind him. “Hop on. If I’m right, we don’t have much time.”

David climbed onto the back of the bike and wrapped his arms around Mac’s middle. “You better be right.”

Mac spun out while making his way down the mountain.