Good Dog, Bad Cop, page 9
When the desk clerk sees Simon, he gives us a dog water bowl and packet of biscuits along with our room key. And in a particularly nice touch, he asks Simon’s name and puts it on the room reservation as well.
We are on the fourth floor, which takes us longer to get to than it should on the slow elevator. It’s the first demerit for the hotel, but I am willing to overlook it because the elevator has a velvet bench to sit on.
I’m surprised Dani is even willing to take the elevator; she views them as pure evil. To her, stairs are the perfect way to ascend to heights, while at the same time ensuring fitness.
But she gives in this time, maybe because we have a suitcase. I notice that the elevator only goes as high as the sixth floor, though I had counted eight when we pulled up. Maybe particularly high-class suites are up there with their own elevator. I’d try to get one, but I have a feeling Pete is going to be pissed off enough at the $600 room.
We have a couple of hours before dinner, so Dani goes to check out the gym and spa. I could use a nap, but instead I take a look around the hotel.
The grounds are what one would expect: a beautiful pool area and three clay tennis courts, all of which are unused because summer is long over.
Not many guests are here; as nice as it is, probably only a limited number of people will pay this kind of money to hang out in the middle of nowhere at this time of year. For me, money is no object, as long as it’s Pete’s money.
Unfortunately, I don’t see any neon signs explaining why Jimmy Dietrich was here. Since I’m a detective, I decide to do some detecting and I head back inside.
I go over to the bar, unoccupied except for the bartender, washing glasses. I have no idea who dirtied the glasses in the first place, but someone must have.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Douglas.”
“How did you know my name?”
He shrugs. “Part of the job. What will it be?”
This doesn’t seem like a beer kind of place, but I order a Bud Light, and one appears with an iced glass.
“Welcome. We don’t get many first timers; most of our guests are repeaters.”
I don’t ask him how he knows I’m here for the first time; I assume that’s another “part of the job.” But I can’t pass up this opportunity, and I take out a photo of Jimmy Dietrich and show it to him.
“Was he one of the repeaters?”
“Mr. Seifert? Sure, I remember him. Straight Scotch. Haven’t seen him in quite a while.”
This response jars me. For one thing, Jimmy’s drink of choice was straight Scotch, so it makes it likely that the bartender does remember Jimmy.
But more significant is that Jimmy used the name Seifert. Captain Ron Seifert was Jimmy’s boss in the department, and the fact that Jimmy was using a fake name shows he was concealing his real identity. That could be consistent with his having an affair, but I don’t think there’s a chance that’s why he did it.
“Was he with anyone when he was here?”
“I don’t really like talking about the guests, you understand, but I’ll make this one exception. I never saw him with anyone. He seemed to just sit over in that corner, drink his Scotch, and people watch. Seemed like a nice enough guy.”
“By the way, the hotel has eight floors, but the elevator only goes up to six. Why is that?”
“There’s another elevator on the other side of the lobby.” The bartender points. “Over there.”
“What’s up there? Special fancy suites?”
He shakes his head. “No. There are some apartments that people own, but as a vacation place; they’re not here all year. And on the seventh floor there’s a medical office, accounting, that kind of stuff.”
“Is there a doctor on full-time?”
“No, a nurse. You ask a lot of questions.” He doesn’t say it in a negative way, but with a smile. If he’s being guarded, he’s hiding it well.
Out in the main area of the lobby, some arriving guests are being greeted by a tall guy, maybe forty years old. Handshakes all around.
“One more question. Who is that?”
“That’s Mr. Barkley.”
“Oops … one more. Is he the manager or something?”
The bartender smiles. “Or something. He owns the place.”
I thank him, finish my beer, and go back to the room. We have an early dinner reservation, and Dani is already showered and getting dressed when I get back. I do the same, and we head for the restaurant.
When we arrive, three parties are on line ahead of us waiting to be seated. I’m struck that the maître d’ calls everyone by name. There’s “Good evening, Mr. Simons,” “Nice seeing you again, Dr. Powers,” and “Welcome back, Mr. Daniels.”
When it’s our turn, he calls me by name and we’re led to our table. The prices on the menu will be enough to make Pete gag, but the food is terrific. I don’t quite finish my steak, so I can bring a piece back to the room for Simon. I do finish the chocolate soufflé dessert; it’s so good I’m tempted to order a second one, but I exercise restraint.
We leave early in the morning. It’s been an extremely pleasant trip; I need to work on more investigations like this.
Unfortunately, I only learned a few things. Jimmy did stay at the hotel, probably alone. He used a fake name, and the chocolate soufflés are outstanding.
“The police do not have anything to go on in the Petri murder,” Laurie says.
She’s been checking in with them for updates. She doesn’t relish the job because she knows they have a great deal to do on their own cases without being bothered with ours. But she is so much better at getting cooperation than I am that the job has necessarily fallen to her.
She continues, “They still think it’s a professional hit, and I don’t think anyone is staying up late worrying about it. Based on the life Petri led, the prevailing view is that he got what he deserved.”
Laurie and I have gotten together at her house this morning to compare notes. “The question is whether our conversation with him the other night somehow triggered things,” I say.
“Marcus has talked to two of the guys who were with him that night. One of them was a guy who had run away from you two when the action began, and the other apparently wasn’t bright enough to do so and wound up unconscious.”
“I remember it well. What did he learn?”
“They claimed to have no idea who killed Petri, or whether it had anything to do with the other night. They didn’t want to say any more, but Marcus can be fairly persuasive.”
“I’m aware of that.”
“They said that Petri had an employer that they couldn’t identify, but that paid really well. Petri would never talk about it, but they believe that this employer had to be the source of his money.”
“Did he kill Danny Avery?”
“They swore they didn’t know, but they’ve always thought it was possible. That was back around the time that Petri started flaunting his money.”
“So with us reopening the case, maybe Petri’s employers wanted to make sure that he wouldn’t talk, either intentionally or by mistake. So they made sure that couldn’t happen.”
“If that is true, then you and Marcus could be targets as well.”
“I have already been so advised.”
“Dani is a smart woman,” Laurie points out accurately.
She asks me about our trip to the Demarest Hotel, and I tell her about everything except the chocolate soufflé. When I’m finished, I say, “Whatever Jimmy was working on, it brought him to that hotel. He wasn’t vacationing there, and he wasn’t having an affair.”
“You’re probably right, but we don’t know that for sure.”
“I do. The bartender said he was always alone. But the fake name locks it in for me. Let’s say he was having an affair, with Susan Avery or anyone else. Why use a different name? Was some suspicious husband going to check the records of the Demarest Hotel, four hours from civilization?”
“True. And we know from Susan Avery’s credit card records that she was home during at least two of Jimmy’s trips.”
“We need to pay more attention to Susan. I don’t know about you, but I’ve been focused on Danny and Jimmy. I’ve just semi-assumed that Susan was collateral damage. Maybe she was a real target, maybe not.”
“I think probably not,” Laurie says. “But you’re right, we shouldn’t eliminate the possibility.”
“I’ve got the name of her closest friend. I’m going to have a talk with her.”
“Today?”
I shake my head. “Tomorrow.”
“Good, because we have a full day ahead of us. Sam delivered all the phone and credit card records for Danny and Susan Avery, and Jimmy Dietrich. I only glanced at them so far, but there’s some potentially interesting stuff in there.”
We start going through it, and Laurie is right, not so much about Danny Avery, but more about Jimmy Dietrich. In addition to the trips to the Demarest Hotel, he placed phone calls to three cities that I did not know he had a connection to. They were Chicago, Philadelphia, and Detroit.
Notably, he also flew to Chicago, coming home the next day. He might have flown to see whoever it was he had called the day earlier, and I will look into that.
Much of this needs further follow-up by Sam; certain calls and credit card usages could be either meaningful or benign. We’ll tell Sam which things to look more deeply into, and that will tell us what might be worth our time, or not.
One other thing jumps out at me. The plastic surgeon that Susan Avery consulted and paid money to was named Dr. Jonathon Powers.
When we were on line waiting to go into dinner at the Demarest Hotel, the maître d’ greeted one of the guests as Dr. Powers. I have no idea if that is the same guy; Powers is not a terribly unusual name, but it’s not Smith either.
If the Dr. Powers at dinner is the Dr. Powers that Susan Avery paid, that would qualify in my mind as an interesting development in our investigation.
Even though I don’t have any idea what it would mean.
Riley Devaney says that she and Susan Avery were best friends.
“I certainly think she felt the same way. We were literally friends since day one: our mothers gave birth in the same hospital just twelve hours apart.” Riley smiles. “I was born first. I used to tell her she needed to respect her elders.”
I’m at Riley’s house in Saddle Brook. For years a Marcal Paper plant nearby dominated this working-class neighborhood, but it burned down. Now the landscape consists of a few tall hotels off I-80, just a twenty-minute drive from the George Washington Bridge.
She seemed anxious to talk to me when I called her. I don’t think it’s because she feels she has anything significant to say; I think it’s more that she just wants to renew some kind of connection to her old friend.
“I’m sure she took that advice to heart,” I say.
Riley laughs. “Not quite.” Then, “I miss her every day. We finished each other’s sentences.”
“Did you finish each other’s sentences much in the month or so before she died?”
“We talked some, though not as much as usual. She had just lost Danny a few months before, so I was giving her some space. She knew I was here for whatever she might have needed.”
“Did you know anything about her relationship with Jimmy Dietrich?”
“Not really. One day I went over to her house, and he was just leaving. There was an awkwardness to it; almost as if there was some secret that I walked in on.”
“Could they have been having an affair?”
Her response is instantaneous and firm: “Absolutely not.”
“Why are you so adamant about that?”
“Look, I’m not saying that Susan would never have dated again. And certainly with her husband gone she would not have been doing anything wrong by doing so.
“But the pain of losing Danny was way too fresh; there is no chance she would have been open to any kind of relationship at that point. And with an older man like that? Not Susan. It is just not possible.”
“Did you know she called a surgeon a few weeks before she died?”
Riley seems surprised. “Really? Why did she do that?”
I avoid the question. “So you’re not aware of any health issues she might have had?”
“No. She would have told me; we told each other everything.”
“Would she ever have considered plastic surgery?”
“No. She hated the idea. She mocked the celebrities who had way too much work done.”
“So when you first heard the news, that she had been found dead of gunshot wounds on that boat, what was your first reaction?”
“You mean beyond horrified and upset?”
“Yes. What did you think might have happened? Your gut reaction.”
“I thought it had something to do with Danny. I still do.”
“What do you mean?”
“She was devastated by Danny’s death, but the circumstances made it even worse. She became obsessed and haunted by the fact that his killer was out there, living a life of freedom. The way he snuck up on Danny, like a coward, and shot him … she couldn’t stand that.”
“So you think she did something to provoke the killer?”
“I can’t say that I think that because I don’t know what it could have been. But you asked for my first reaction, and that was it.”
“But she never talked specifics of what she might have been doing to help find Danny’s killer?”
“No, not to me. I know that she kept calling the detectives on the case, asking for updates and information. But she would often complain that they weren’t doing enough, that they weren’t getting anywhere.
“I wanted to say something to ease her pain, but there was nothing I could say. That pain was legitimate; she lost her husband.”
“Was she distraught enough to possibly have committed suicide?”
I expect an immediate no, but that’s not what I get.
“I don’t think so. It doesn’t fit at all with the Susan I knew. But I’ve never gone through what she went through. I’ve never been in the pain she was in. So could someone snap? Could Susan have snapped? I couldn’t rule it out, but I’d be shocked if it were the case.”
For a moment I think she is going to cry, but instead she just adds in a soft voice, “That would be so sad. This whole thing is so sad.”
When I called Kathy Linder in Chicago, I wasn’t sure what to tell her.
I knew that Jimmy had called her three weeks before he died, and I knew he flew out to Chicago the day after he called her. But I couldn’t be 100 percent certain that he had gone to see her.
So I played it straight. I told her that I knew she had been in contact with Jimmy Dietrich eighteen months ago, and that I wanted to talk to her about that contact.
She seemed anxious to talk, but she had some questions, including “Do you have any information about Roger?” Since I had not the vaguest notion who Roger was, I avoided that and other questions by saying that it would be best if we talked in person.
She was fine with that, which is why I took a 6:00 A.M. flight and landed at O’Hare a half hour ago. My hope is to get a five o’clock flight back this afternoon, but that will depend on my conversation with Kathy Linder.
I grab an Uber at the airport and head out to Highland Park, the Chicago suburb where she lives. It’s supposed to be a twenty-five-minute drive, but the traffic turns it into forty-five.
Kathy Linder’s house is not spectacular, but close. It’s in an obviously exclusive neighborhood of beautiful homes, and hers is above average even for this area. It’s set way in from the street, with a large, perfectly manicured lawn, and professionally maintained landscaping nearer to the house.
She comes out to greet me when the car pulls up and, after confirming that I am Detective Douglas, invites me in. She seems so anxious to talk that I think if I move too slowly, she will grab me by the neck and drag me.
We sit in the den, where she has coffee and some kind of cookies already on the table in front of the couch. “I’m very anxious to hear what you have to say,” she begins.
“I think I should start off by managing expectations. I am here to gather information, not to dispense it. If I have anything helpful to you, I’ll certainly share it. But for now, I’m conducting an investigation that on some level you may be involved in. If that leads to something helpful for you, that would be excellent for both of us.”
She looks disappointed. “I understand. Ask your questions.”
“What did Jimmy Dietrich come to speak with you about?”
“Roger.”
“Who is Roger?”
She seem momentarily taken aback. “I see you really aren’t going to be very informative.”
I feel the need to change the momentum here, so I say, “Well, here’s something you might not know. Jimmy Dietrich, the man who came to see you, was murdered three weeks after he was here.”
She gasps and her hand goes to her face. “Oh, no … how awful. But what could that have to do with Roger?”
“And Roger is…”
“My husband. Or he was my husband; I divorced him in absentia.”
“I would appreciate your telling me the story; I’m most interested in what you discussed with Mr. Dietrich.”
“Well, he was asking questions about Roger, so I’ll start at the beginning, or actually at the end. Amazingly, considering how it upended my life, there isn’t that much to tell.”
She pauses and seems to take a deep breath to steel herself. I don’t say anything; I find it best not to interrupt someone offering information, unless the spigot seems about to turn off.
“Roger and I were married for four and a half years. He worked for an investment bank; he was a senior vice president. If he was unhappy, beyond the normal aggravations of business and life, he effectively concealed it. Or maybe I was just oblivious.
