A Wedding to Die For, page 15
He thought about it and realized reluctantly that he enjoyed going back to recall helpful ideas from his police training and experience. “No, not really,” he said finally. “They don’t fit the profile. And, if their alibis hold...”
Without willing it, his mind returned to the woman at the museum in Kansas City. She’d seemed so unlikely a killer, and her harmless appearance was probably what had cost the caretaker his life. She certainly didn’t fit any pre-determined profile, especially a visual one.
He shifted uneasily under his comforter, still bothered by the museum murder.
“Well, then,” Carrie said, “that’s something we can do. We are coming at the investigation with fresh minds that don’t believe it’s possible the Mukherjees could have done this killing. We start by knowing they don’t fit the profile you’re talking about. On the other hand, Trent can’t help suspecting them, at least until witnesses prove where they were when she was killed. Right?”
“Yes-s-s.”
“Okay. First question. What about that knife by the body? I suppose they’re going to test it for fingerprints? Can we find out the results?”
“Not quickly enough to do any good in the near future. All that has to go to Little Rock. Besides, the knife had a fancy handle. It was decorated with a rose that had wings and the initials IBE. Might not show clean fingerprints.”
“I’m not talking about matching prints with just anyone. Can’t they compare local prints right here?”
“Possible. But even if they find prints, they aren’t likely to share that information with us.”
She blew a raspberry of frustration. “What can we do? There has to be something. I guess I could ask Chandra about the knife.”
“I wouldn’t. Remember, we aren’t to talk about that. Trent rightly believes someone might mention details only the few of us, plus the killer, would be aware of.”
“Hmmmm. Then we need to learn who might have had access to a knife like that. Maybe we can think of some way to find out if there were knife cuts or stabs on the body. Or—was it put there only to throw suspicion on the Mukherjees?”
Henry had already thought of that possibility. He considered it again while Carrie reached for the phone book in the bedside table and opened it to “Florists.” She skimmed down the page. “Artistic Floral Designs seems to be the only firm here with the IBE logo by its name. Otherwise, no flying roses. Not everyone may brag about their affiliations in ads, but several shops do list other national delivery services.”
Carrie’s voice faded into the background as Henry sat in his bed, thinking now about his wedding, and his wedding night...
If only we could have been just us for this short while, just a simple bride and groom, only for a few weeks, no crimes hitting us in the face, no people in need, no...
“Henry?”
If only... “Um, yes, little love?”
“There’s probably something we can do to help.”
“You’re right, of course. There are things we might do to help find the truth. But, for now, I’m beat. I guess that baby wore me out.” He reached for the light switch. “I’d just as soon get a fresh start on all this in the morning. How about you?”
“Probably right. We’ll get a better start in the morning.” She turned out her light, too.
“Henry?”
“Umhm.”
“This is what we’re meant to do. Help out, I mean.”
“Probably right, little love,” he said, “probably right.”
Chapter 20
Tat-tat.
Henry turned on his side and tucked the comforter over his exposed ear, pushing the sound away.
Minimum consciousness assured him that he and Carrie were safely asleep in a quiet hotel room. There was no need to awaken, no pending crisis to face. The night was peaceful. He prepared to drop back into sleep.
Swish-shh, swish-shh.
Huh? Carrie must be moving between her sheets, turning over. Was she awake? His mind pictured her moving next to him in the same bed. A few more weeks and...
Thinking about Carrie in the second bed brought back images of their recent vacation trip to Hot Springs, where he’d asked her to marry him, getting on his knees while she sat on one of the beds in their hotel room. He’d wondered then if men still knelt to propose, but though Carrie smiled at him, she didn’t laugh, so it had been okay. She said it was romantic. And...she said yes.
Carrie had explained rooming together in Hot Springs was cheaper and more convenient than phoning back and forth between rooms. (“It’s only fair. If women can room together as friends, why can’t we?”)
Henry thought the experience was kind of like a try-out for being married.
Remembering Hot Springs, his lips curved in a smile until, unbidden, another image from that trip flashed into his head. He saw death approaching at the hands of a homicidal lunatic. He’d probably been in more danger then than at any time during his long police career, and Carrie was the one who saved his life. She’d come just in time, swinging an iron pipe, putting her own life in terrible peril. So they’d survived, and partly because of what the experience taught them about their feelings for each other, they were getting ready to be married.
A shiver chilled his spine and he forced the near-death memory away, directing his body to take deep, even breaths. His thoughts moved on, but they still weren’t quiet.
Why? Because now Carrie had promised to help the Mukherjees. That meant the two of them were involved in detective work again. But that was his Carrie.
In Hot Springs it had been her curiosity about a hidden treasure that drew them into mystery and murder. More often, though, people seemed to sense that Carrie could somehow help them in times of deep trouble. Then, without willing it, the two of them would be at work together, using her warm heart and quick mind, his reasoning, law-enforcement knowledge, and detective skills. Ah, well. Maybe he should accept this as destiny, his and hers. He was certainly aware she thought of it that way.
And now it was Chandra and Ashur. Well, they’d do what they could, but their wedding must remain the most important thing on the agenda. He was sure Carrie felt that as strongly as he did.
He turned back to his other side, pulled the comforter up, and, once more, imagined Carrie snuggled warmly against him. Mmm, soon. He was a lucky man, lucky—coming late to love.
Coming late to love. Sounded like a song title.
Maybe he’d just write a song for Carrie. He’d played the guitar when he was in college and even wrote a few songs back then. People said, even now, that his voice wasn’t half bad. Since he was no longer Police Major Henry King, he had more time for music. But he’d have to buy a new guitar, do a lot of practicing, maybe even take lessons. It had been a long time...
He moved his legs, felt the smoothness of the sheets and, imagining music, began the pleasant drop into slumber.
Tat-tat. Tat-tat. Swish-shh.
This time the sounds jerked him into full awareness and he pushed the covers back, listening. A knock?
Tat-tat.
More like something rattling. He sat up, scooted to the edge of the bed, eyes searching the darkness for movement. Carrie? Had she gotten up to go to the bathroom?
No, not Carrie. He could hear the soft wiffle of her even breathing coming from the next bed.
Tat-tat. Swish-shh, swish-shh.
He pushed his feet into flip-flops, stood, and slid quietly toward the hall door. Ear against wood, he waited.
Once more the silence teased him into confused annoyance, and he stepped back from the door, wondering if he should open it and check the hall outside. He hesitated, not wanting to disturb Carrie.
The next sound made the decision for him. The “Tat-tat” was so loud that she mumbled, “Henry?” and he heard her sit up. The bedside lamp went on, and she asked, “What was that noise?”
He didn’t look back, simply shook his head as he opened the door, very slowly.
Their room was in the north wing of the hotel, at the intersection of two corridors. It faced an elaborately outfitted stairway coming down from the floors above them and stopping, for no reason he could understand, on their floor. Getting down one more floor to the lobby level meant a walk to the main stairs and elevator at the opposite end of the north-south corridor, or using the much smaller back staircase around the corner from their room. He’d investigated all of that before they settled in for the night. Richly carpeted and neweled stairs that ended suddenly outside their hotel room on the second floor seemed odd, if not unnerving. He’d wanted to figure out why they stopped instead of continuing to the lobby level. The “why” hadn’t been answered...some historical oddity of construction, he supposed, but at least he’d learned there was an easy way to get to the ground floor from this end of the building.
Now Henry pushed the door wider so he could survey the entire area and jerked to attention as a bit of floating red fabric disappeared through the back stairway door. He started to run in that direction, looked down at his plaid night shirt, and froze where he was. His gaze went past the nightshirt, past bare toes in travel flip-flops, and found two red roses lying at his feet. Their blossoms looked perfect, but the stems were twisted, as if someone had attempted to break them and hadn’t succeeded. He stared down and his brain tried to process what the roses meant.
Suddenly feeling vulnerable, he pulled back into the room. If anyone came into the hall, they might think seeing a man dressed in a nightshirt was startling, even funny. Well, maybe they wouldn’t. Nightshirts suited the atmosphere of this place.
Carrie, in her blue pajamas and white socks, joined him near the open door. “What is it? Oh, look there, how pretty! But, poor things, their stems are broken.” She bent and picked the roses up, then jerked one hand away. “Ouch! I thought they took the thorns off gift roses.”
Henry stuck his head out the door again. The hall was empty. No flowers at room doors, no nothing. He decided not to say anything about seeing—or thinking he had seen—something red.
He slid backwards into the room, shut the door, and turned to see that Carrie had the thumb of her right hand in her mouth. She held the roses, stems flopping, in the other hand.
Without a second thought he yanked her thumb out of her mouth and knocked the roses to the floor. “Go spit out the blood, rinse your mouth, and wash your hands,” he commanded, then softened his tone as she looked up at him, eyes wide with surprise. “Uh...you don’t know if they have pesticide on them, or...well, you can’t be too careful.”
Without a word, she did as he’d said, returning to stand with him and stare at the flowers lying on the floor.
“Henry, what’s happening?” she asked. “You didn’t order roses, did you.” It was a statement, not a question. “Then why are they here?” She gave a little laugh. “A mistake? The wrong room? Left by one of the resident ghosts?”
He shrugged and, making sure the door was locked and bolted, returned to bed, leaving the flowers on the carpet inside the door. In a minute she, too, climbed into bed, but instead of turning out the light, she picked up the phone.
“Hello. Front desk? I’m calling from room number...oh, you know where we are? Good. We were awakened a couple of minutes ago when someone knocked on our door. We opened it to find no one there, just two red roses lying on the carpet. Did anyone carrying roses come in the hotel just now?
“No one? Outside doors are locked?
“Oh. Someone could probably get up here from inside the hotel without your noticing them? Roses from the dining room? Uh-huh, I see.
“No, no harm done, we were just a little surprised to have roses delivered at two a.m., that’s all. It’s odd...
“Well, yes. The same to you.”
She hung up and looked over at Henry. “I guess you got the gist of that? Supposedly no one can get in from outside at night unless the desk clerk admits them, but a person already inside can use either stairway without being seen or heard, assuming they’re quiet. And, guess what—the hotel has red roses on tables in the dining room this week. He thinks our roses must have come from there.”
She sighed, then changed that to a grin as she reached for the lamp switch. “He told me to have a nice night.”
Henry was rarely aware of dreaming, but when he next looked at the clock, it was 4:30 and his mind hummed with “The Case of the Roses in the Night.” In his dream he’d been a Sherlock Holmes-type character, with Carrie as his Watson. Their concern? Solving the presence of a long trail of blood-red roses left outside their bedroom door.
He stretched and turned over, thinking about the two roses. Why were the stems broken? Why had he thought of poison on the thorns? And what were the sounds he’d heard before he opened the hall door? True, this was a very old building, odd noises were to be expected. But the sounds had been organized; periodic tat-tats, and then the soft swishing that made him think of long skirts, or maybe Chandra’s sari.
No, not Chandra. She moved in almost total silence.
Had he really seen that flash of red?
The next thing Henry knew it was seven o’clock. Carrie was sitting upright in her bed, reading by a small book light. The smell of coffee told him she’d already brewed their morning cup.
“Well, hello there,” she said. “I didn’t know how much you were awake during the night so I tried to be quiet. Did the smell of coffee wake you?”
“Nope, hunger did. If it’s okay with you, I’m going to shave and dress right away, then, as soon as you’re presentable, let’s go to the dining room for breakfast.”
She smiled, nodded, and went back to her reading while he headed for the bathroom. On the way he picked up the wilted flowers and, lifting them close to his nose, sniffed, detecting nothing but a faint rose scent. In the light of day it seemed ridiculous to assume two roses could be harmful. The flowers were undoubtedly intended for someone else and the room numbers simply got mixed. In hindsight, he and Carrie should have left them on the carpet outside their door.
Well, too late now.
He dropped the roses into the bathroom trash basket.
As they left the dining room, Carrie said, “Before we check out I’d like to go downstairs, look at the spa, and see if we can’t find the basement exit Chandra said Ashur used. I’m curious to know if events could have happened as she described. It isn’t that I don’t believe her, it’s...well, I want to see for myself. What do you think?”
He nodded agreement and they headed toward the south stairway.
The spa was open, but there were no employees at the front desk. Puzzled about which door to go through, Carrie looked around the foyer, seeing a display case featuring a wedding gown and accessories, and information about the services offered to bridal parties in the hotel’s beauty salon and spa.
Henry had just asked, “What now?” when several women dressed in housekeeper’s uniforms came through a door marked Private and Carrie caught a glimpse down a long hall luxuriously outfitted with subdued lighting and soft colors. As soon as the women were out of sight, she went to the door and tugged on the handle, but it wouldn’t open.
Henry said, “Guess it’s an automatic lock, the kind that has to be set to allow access. Maybe we can find a way in from the parking lot and follow Ashur’s path in reverse.” They turned to go back up the stairs, but just then two more uniformed women absorbed in a conversation in Spanish came from the hallway. Carrie quickly slid around the wall and leaned against the door to keep it from closing. The women paid no attention to her. As soon as they disappeared from sight, Carrie pushed the door open and she and Henry slipped through.
He took a minute to look at the lock mechanism on the back side of the door before they started down the hallway. Neither of them said anything as they moved past doors opening into empty rooms containing whirlpool tubs and massage tables. It was exactly like Chandra’s description.
They came to the end without incident, and, hesitating only briefly, Henry pulled on a door like the one that had brought them into the hall. It wasn’t locked. They stepped out of luxury into a concrete and corrugated metal room full of tools, an odd assortment of broken furniture, and parts for various pieces of machinery.
Just then another uniformed housekeeper carrying a stack of towels came through from their left. “¿Qué...what you want?”
“Making a building inspection,” Henry said quickly. “This is the maintenance shop? For repairs?”
“Si. Repair things. Used to be dead place long ago. Muertos, still many ghosts.” Her tone was matter-of-fact, as if she’d seen those many ghosts and they didn’t impress her at all. Then she turned and pointed to a door on the wall next to them. “Cold place, keep bodies. Locked. No use now.”
“I see,” Henry said. “Thank you...gracias.”
The woman nodded vigorously, signifying, Carrie imagined, that she’d done her duty for the inspectors.
As she turned to leave, Carrie asked, “Pardon, can you tell us more about the ghosts?”
“Uhnn, si,” the woman said, nodding again as she shifted the towels to one hip and raised fingers to count. “Uno. Tall man in high hat, black suit. Medico, long time ago. Dos. Child. Girl.” She shook her head from side to side as if unwilling to say anything about the child, and went on. “Tres. Carpintero. Man here to build. Fall from...” She pointed up.
“Is there a bride?” Carrie asked.
Once more the woman nodded and held up a fourth finger. “Bride. She kill...she kill propia marido...man she marry...she love other man...not love man she kill.”
Theghost bride! And a story like Lucia di Lammermoor.
“Does the bride wear a red dress?”
“Si, rojo,” the woman said, still nodding as she slipped through the door to the spa hallway, ending the conversation.
“Whew,” Carrie said. “All kinds of ghosts. I remember reading that the Crescent Hotel building was used as a hospital in the late ‘30’s. If she meant this room was once a mortuary, that would fit with a hospital. And the door over there, which is not locked, by the way—the padlock is just hanging there—once led to a refrigerator for bodies?”
