Rushin' Death, page 23
Most of the calls in the log were either for Dr. Wiltshire or public inquiries that Julie had answered already. There were only three messages for Kenzie, and they were automated messages and things that could be handled later.
“Kenzie, you’re back.” Dr. Wiltshire was on his way to the kitchen and stopped to greet her, smiling. “How are you?”
“Exhausted. Sheesh, you think this job is tiring, you should try answering detectives’ questions all day!”
He nodded. “I imagine the emotional toll is what is making you the most tired.”
“Yeah. I thought it would be a relief to hand it over to someone else… that it’s not my responsibility to make inquiries and track him down now, but it wasn’t what I expected.”
“Were they helpful? I assume there was no problem convincing them that he was missing?”
“No, they were really good about it. Everyone agreed that he’d been out of contact for way too long to think he might just be on vacation or off with a woman for a few days. I mean, the man has never taken a vacation in his life, so the chances that he went on a holiday without his phone for over a week are practically zero.”
“Now I know where you get your work ethic.”
Kenzie smiled. “He really loves his job. Taking time away from it just for Christmas or another holiday is practically torture. He’s one of those guys who just thrives on being around other people, persuading them to follow him on something, and stirring the—stirring up drama wherever he goes. He’s always at the center of things, and he loves it.”
“I don’t really follow politics; I have less than zero interest in most of the bills heard at the Capitol, but even I have heard about the colorful Walter Kirsch from time to time. He’s an icon in this state.”
Kenzie swallowed a lump, nodding. “He’s a character,” she agreed with a cheerful smile that she didn’t feel.
Why hadn’t she spent more time with him when he had sought her out? Why had she always turned down his invitations and told him she didn’t have time for him? Just because she didn’t agree with his ethics or politics, that didn’t mean that she had to cut herself off from him. Surely they could have a personal relationship that didn’t hinge on those things.
Had she left it too late and it was a regret she would carry with her for the rest of her life?
“Let me know if you need anything,” Dr. Wiltshire said, as if he were her assistant instead of the opposite, “and if you need to go home early, go ahead. It’s been a long day for you already, and I understand if you need to crash or have some time alone. Just give me a heads-up that you’re going out. We can shut down the desk early for once.”
“I don’t think I’ll need to, but thanks. Right now, I just want to be doing routine stuff, so I don’t have to think about everything else. If I went home, I would just be sitting or lying around with my own thoughts, and that’s not a place I want to be right now.”
She thought about Zachary briefly, knowing how he battled his ever-busy brain. Kenzie’s concern over her father’s whereabouts and what was happening in the Russian community was not even close to the hyperactivity and hypervigilance that he dealt with. What was amazing was that he operated on such little sleep. With so much on her mind, she would have wanted to sleep to escape it.
Dr. Wiltshire got himself a cup of coffee from the kitchen and put one on Kenzie’s desk where she wouldn’t knock it over, then went back to his office. Kenzie continued to process the emails and filing, giving herself an hour to get through as much as she could. Then she would take a break to walk around and make sure that everything in the cold room had been properly checked in and cataloged. Samples should be back from the lab as well, and she would need to let Dr. Wiltshire know if there was anything significant in the results if he hadn’t looked at them already.
49
Kenzie had left her phone on “do not disturb” for the afternoon, so it wasn’t until the end of the day that she picked up her personal messages, including a message left by someone on staff at the High Street Hotel.
“If you would please call us back,” the woman’s thin voice requested, “we have items belonging to your father here and would like to arrange for you to pick them up.”
Kenzie’s stomach clenched and her heart raced. Items belonging to her father? What did they have? And how had they known to call Kenzie? Especially since she was still using the burner phone and waiting for the police department to return her regular phone to her. Her father would not have her number unless he had picked up the voicemail where she had left it for him. Other than that, only those she was the closest to her had that number.
She dialed the number left by the woman at the hotel. “I’m looking for Marja?” she asked when she reached someone.
“One minute, I’ll see if she’s still here,” a brusque man’s voice told her.
Kenzie waited a minute or two on musical hold before there was a click and she heard the woman’s plaintive-sounding tones again. “Hello, how may I help you?”
“My name is Kenzie Kirsch. You left a message for me this afternoon.”
“Yes.” There was recognition in her voice. “About your father’s things.”
“That’s what you said. But… how do you have my father’s things and how did you know how to contact me?”
“They are his personal items that were still in his hotel room. The police gave us your number.”
“So the police know about this already.”
“Yes. They were here this afternoon to look through what he had left and to see if there was any evidence in his hotel. Evidence of what, I’m sure I don’t know. It is our policy to cooperate with the police—” she started in a somewhat stern tone, as if Kenzie had protested the invasion of her father’s privacy.
“That’s fine. Really. I was talking to them all morning. They’re helping me.”
“Oh, okay.” The woman let out a breath. “Sometimes people do not appreciate police involvement in their affairs.”
“If they can find him, I’m all for it.”
“They took his laptop with them, but that was the only thing. I got a receipt for that. You should know what they have and how to get in contact with them. That’s what I figured, anyway.”
“So the rest of what he left behind is there? Clothing, suitcases, that kind of thing?”
“Yes. His toiletries and things for a few days. We have carefully packed everything away. You’re welcome to take a last look at his hotel room to make sure that we didn’t miss anything before we rent it out again.”
“That would be great. I’ll head over there now. Do I just ask for you at the front desk?”
“I’m on my way home. Just tell them who you are. They’ll have your father’s things for you and someone can take you up to his room.”
“Okay. Thanks very much.”
Kenzie hung up the phone and sat there for a minute, her body shaking. Hillary had been right about Walter being in Roxboro, not Burlington or Montpelier. Had he been there to see Kenzie or someone else? More than likely, he was there because of someone else, though he would have stopped in to see her as well, when time allowed. He’d been at her house once before. Or they could meet over a meal at a restaurant. He liked to treat her to good food. He would want a short Christmas visit, like they’d had before, though some years Kenzie denied him even that.
Was it too late now? Had her most recent visit with Walter been the last they would ever have?
She had collected herself once more by the time she got to the hotel’s front desk. She smiled and introduced herself to the young woman who greeted her.
“I’m Kenzie Kirsch. I’m here to collect my father’s things?”
“Yes, of course. Marja said that you wanted to go up to the room as well to make sure that there wasn’t anything left behind? We should do that first, rather than you having to carry the luggage up and down again.”
“Makes sense,” Kenzie agreed. “Let’s do that, then.”
There was some back-and-forth with a male desk clerk to explain why the young woman was leaving and where she was going. Then the woman let herself out through a swinging door under a counter that folded up on a hinge to allow her egress, and she led Kenzie to the elevator.
“Is your father okay?” she asked. “We were concerned when we heard from the police that a missing person report had been filed.”
Kenzie thought it a very stupid question to ask about a missing man. But she supposed that showing concern was just a reflex reaction.
“I don’t know. He hasn’t been located. This is the closest that I have gotten to him yet. When did he book the room?”
“The twenty-fourth, I believe. Christmas Eve. He put it on his credit card, and he hadn’t checked out, so we just keep charging…”
And that was undoubtedly how the police had found them once Kenzie filed her report and they pulled up the records for his credit card charges.
“When was the last time anyone saw him? Do you know?”
“We haven’t kept track. It’s not unusual for people to only be here to sleep and be gone the rest of the day. We don’t necessarily see guests every day. They have other things to do and come and go on their own schedules.”
“What about maid service? Can you find out from them whether he was here at all since he checked in?”
“The police asked that too. The custodial staff was not sure, but it doesn’t look like he stayed at all. His toiletries were unpacked and the towels were on the towel bars, but it didn’t look like the bed had been slept in and his clothes were in the suitcase, not hung up.”
Walter would never show up at a Christmas party looking rumpled. He would have been sure to hang his clothes at least a day before he needed them, and to iron them too.
“So he’s been missing since Christmas Eve.”
The woman looked sympathetic. “I couldn’t say for sure. But maybe?”
“Was there anything in the garbage cans? Did the maids know?”
“They couldn’t remember. Sorry. They clean a dozen rooms each day, and it’s been more than a week. They wouldn’t remember unless it was something really unusual or disgusting. Something would have to make it stand out.”
50
She used her key card to open the door of Walter’s former room for her. Kenzie stepped in and looked around slowly.
She really could have used Zachary’s eye. Zachary would know what to look for, and Kenzie was at a complete loss. Had Walter just set down his luggage, brushed his teeth, and gone out somewhere? Had someone been following him? And if they had, did he know they were? Did he know who it was? Surely if Walter had thought that he was in any danger, he would have called the police. He knew people. He could call in a favor. He could have started with the governor or the police chief. Someone who he knew would listen to him and help ensure his safety.
He couldn’t have known that he was going to disappear that night.
Kenzie looked at the small kitchenette. She didn’t know why he’d bothered to get a room with a kitchenette. As far as she knew, Walter didn’t cook. But it had been a long time since she had lived with him. Maybe he had picked it up. Maybe he’d decided he liked to cook or to have control over his own meals. Maybe it was relaxing for him. She opened the fridge but, of course it was empty other than a lone box of baking soda. Not even a drink. She opened a couple of drawers and cupboards, but knew there was no point. The hotel staff had already cleared out the room. Walter had probably never even stepped into the kitchenette. She walked through the small sitting room area, checking under the couch and under the cushions for anything that Walter might have dropped or wedged in there. She turned on the TV to see what channel it was tuned to. It was an all-news channel, currently streaming some court case. That figured.
There was an untouched pad of paper and a couple of stick pens in the drawer under the TV. No clothes. Nothing that any of the previous residents of the room had left behind. She walked through the doorway into the bedroom. The lighting was a little darker, the furniture darker and more stately. But she could see nothing of her father there. She couldn’t even picture him sitting on the end of the bed chatting on the phone with one of his contacts.
She felt guilty doing so, but stripped back the blankets and top sheet on the bed, looking for any sign that Walter had been there. That he’d had a woman there with him who might know something about what had happened. That he’d eaten his favorite flavor of Doritos chips in the bed. Anything that could tie him directly to the room other than the fact that he had left his luggage there and charged it on his card.
“Did anyone see him? Do you remember checking him in?”
The woman, following her silently and staying out of her way, looked surprised by this. “I don’t think I did it personally, no. I’d have to look back at the records to see who set it up. Usually, reservations are called in ahead of time, especially around Christmas. People don’t want to take the chance that the hotel will be full, and sometimes it is.”
“He would still have had to check in, though. To get a room key.” Without the room key, he could not have left his luggage there. He had been in the room. Unless someone else had left them there. What if someone had used his credit card and left his luggage there, knowing that it would create a false trail? That it would keep the police looking in the wrong direction for a day or two longer. Long enough for them to torture him or dispose of his body. Kenzie swallowed, trying to keep the emotions and what-ifs at bay.
“Yes, of course,” the woman said. “I’ll look at the computer when we go back down. Look up who checked him in. I wish I could do more to help…”
“Do you have surveillance cameras? At your registration desk, elevators, hallways…?”
“Yes… but the footage is recycled every four days. If you want something, you have to get it out of the system before it is overwritten with the next cycle.”
In the age of digital recording, Kenzie had no idea why anyone would still be using magnetic tape or overwriting previous recordings. They could have afforded to keep much more than four days’ worth.
“I need to know that it was really him. That he was really staying here,” Kenzie insisted. “If anyone can remember seeing him, talking to him. Anything that happened while he was here.”
“Of course. We’ll do whatever we can to help. Can I ask… does he have dementia? Maybe he wandered off and forgot where he had checked in?”
“No. He was in perfectly good physical and mental health. He wouldn’t have just wandered away.”
Of course, she hadn’t seen him lately, other than in October when he had stopped by the house and Kenzie had seen him at the Halloween Gala. He’d seemed to be perfectly in control of his faculties then. Hale and hearty. The same man she had known her whole life. She hadn’t seen any sign that he was declining.
There was a Gideon Bible on the shelf next to the bed, along with a red LED clock showing the wrong time. Kenzie checked the closet, boosting herself up so that she could see the very back of the closet shelf to confirm to herself that he hadn’t left anything behind in the closet. It was bare. She went into the bathroom. It was larger than the bathroom he would have gotten at the typical family hotel. A jetted tub that would comfortably hold two average-sized people, and a separate shower cubicle. An upgrade. A small luxury, to soak in the big tub at the end of a long day of work.
The towels and washcloths had been removed from the room and it had not yet been resupplied. Kenzie assumed that the police had probably taken the towels. Test them for DNA, see whether they could confirm that Walter had been in the room. Maybe find out if there had been someone else there with him. A woman or a guest. Hotels tried to keep people from leaving things behind by not having a lot of places to hide them. No cupboard under the vanity sink. No medicine cabinet. No storage shelves. Just the bare countertop that was barely big enough to hold a comb and a razor at the same time.
Kenzie looked around the base of the toilet anyway, eyes sharp for anything that he might have dropped. Some tiny scrap of paper that would give her some clue as to where he had gone. What he had been thinking when he had checked in. On TV, there would always be something that the maid service and police had missed.
But the place was clean. There wasn’t some obscure clue for her to find. He hadn’t left her a message. He probably hadn’t had any idea what was going to happen to him in order to leave one.
51
I’m sorry there wasn’t anything helpful in the room,” the woman said to Kenzie, giving her a shrug and another one of her sympathetic smiles. “I’m sure if there was anything to see, the police would have found it. From what I can gather, he didn’t spend much time in the room.”
“Didn’t look like it,” Kenzie agreed, trying to keep her tone as flat and unemotional as possible. She didn’t want to engage at an emotional level. She just wanted to get out of there. There was nothing to find, so it was time to move on to other things.
The clerk retrieved Walter’s suitcase and soft-sided carry-on bag and handed them to Kenzie, shaking her head at how sad it was or that she could do so little to help Kenzie. The desk phone rang, and the clerk answered it brightly, cutting her eyes toward Kenzie. Kenzie raised her hand in a goodbye and twitched her shoulder toward the door. The desk clerk nodded, satisfied that she had done everything she could, and focused on the new caller.
Kenzie was about to go out the front doors, the same way she had come in, when she suddenly thought about Walter’s car. Where was it? No one had said anything about it. Had the police found it in the hotel parking lot and impounded it? Or was it still waiting there for him? Or had it been towed away when the hotel staff had thought that it was abandoned?
