by John J. Lamb
Sitting down opposite Sherri, I set my cane on the table and said, “Ms. Driggs, I’m sorry for your loss. I know this is difficult, but I have to ask a few questions and I hope you’ll be patient if you’ve answered some of them previously.”
“I’ve already told him that I don’t know what happened.” Sherri nodded in Linny’s direction. “I was in the bathtub when Jesse fell.”
“I understand that, but maybe you can provide me with some background information. For starters, were you two alone this evening? Did you have any guests?”
“While I was taking a bath? I think not.”
“Maybe Mr. Hauck invited someone in and you didn’t hear?”
“I suppose that’s remotely possible, but I can’t think of who it would be. Jesse didn’t know anyone around here.”
I turned to Linny. “Mr. Owen, could you tell me something? A lot of luxury hotels maintain a computerized database on when guest room doors are opened and shut. Do you do that?”
Linny looked flustered, like an actor who’d forgotten his line. Finally, he said, “Why . . . yes, we do.”
“Is it possible for you to find out when the last time the door to this suite was opened, prior to your arrival?”
“I’ll get on that right away,” said the security director.
Linny pulled his portable radio from his coat pocket and requested the information. A moment later, he received his answer. The last instance anyone went in or out of the suite was at 5:52 P.M. The time coincided with a room-service delivery of two dinners and a fifth of gin. I kept a poker face but was jubilant. It meant that Sherri couldn’t use the ever-popular SODDI defense: Some Other Dude Done It. She and Jesse had been the only ones in the suite.
“Thanks, Mr. Owen.” Turning back to Sherri, I said, “Sorry for the interruption. Now, can you tell me why Mr. Hauck was out there drinking alone?”
“Because I can’t stand the smell of cigars.”
“Me either. How much did Mr. Hauck have to drink today?”
Sherri looked pensive. “I wasn’t keeping tabs on him, but it seemed to me that it was quite a bit.”
“Did he normally drink a lot?”
“No, but . . . Wait, are you suggesting that he might have been drunk and fallen from the balcony?”
“It’s too early to tell, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I don’t want to put words in your mouth,” I said, hoping to do precisely that, “but were you about to tell me that Jesse had been drinking more than usual?”
“That’s true.” She grimaced, seemingly troubled over revealing something negative about her deceased lover.
“Well, that wouldn’t surprise me.”
“Why?
“Because he was in a world of trouble—trouble of his own making.” I gave her a sad smile. “It’s my guess he was trying to drag you down, too.”
There was a long pause and she finally said, “I don’t know what you’re expecting me to say.”
“Then I’ll say it: Mr. Hauck was on the verge of ruining everything you’d been working for. You see, Ms. Driggs, we’ve been very busy since I was here yesterday, and I know all about the Blue Ridge Mountain Bear Fair. Why didn’t you tell me that you were in negotiations to purchase Everett Rawlins’s land?”
She looked down. “Because I knew there wasn’t any connection between the transaction and him getting killed.”
“Knew or hoped? Anyway, I also imagine you weren’t eager to have Amerriment sucked into a public relations crap storm. Murder and amusement parks are a bad mix.”
“Family entertainment complexes,” she corrected. “And yes, the bad publicity was a major consideration.”
“Especially since it looks as if your assistant made Mr. Rawlins a deal he couldn’t refuse.”
She sat up straight in the chair. “Wait a minute. Are you accusing Jesse of having something to do with Mr. Rawlins’s murder?”
“C’mon, Ms. Driggs, let’s cut the crap,” I rebuked her. “You drove Mr. Hauck out there. You saw what happened. Look, we know that Mr. Rawlins was threatening to scuttle the deal unless you came up with a lot more money. Was Mr. Hauck just supposed to scare the old guy?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. And I told you that—”
“Do yourself a favor and stop lying,” I said, hoping she’d ignore the advice and tell me even bigger and more damning falsehoods. “Your Saab was recovered last night and we can prove it wasn’t stolen. That means you were there on Thursday night.”
“No, it doesn’t. I loaned my car to Jesse. He said he was thinking about getting a Saab and wanted to test-drive mine on some mountain roads. I didn’t know where he was going that night.”
“Right.”
“I’m telling the truth. I wasn’t there and I’d like to know how you’re so certain that Jesse killed that poor man.”
“Because a bow and arrow were used to murder Mr. Rawlins, and all our evidence points to the killer being an expert archer,” I said, not ready to reveal the secret that Mr. Rawlins had actually been stabbed with the arrow.
“So?”
“He may not have mentioned it to you, but we did some digging and found out that Mr. Hauck was a member of the archery team when he was in college.” I gave her a complacent smile. “I know we’re just a bunch of rubes out here in the country, but we can connect the dots.”
Sherri did a splendid job of looking awestruck. “I had no idea he was into archery.”
“Just like you didn’t know he killed Mr. Rawlins?”
“I didn’t!”
“Prove it. Tell me a story I’ll believe.”
“I have no control over what you’ll believe or won’t believe,” she said primly. “All I can tell you is the truth.”
“I’m all ears.”
“For starters, Jesse may have been an expert archer, but I never saw him with a bow and arrows.”
“Today?”
“Ever. But you were right about Mr. Rawlins playing hardball with us. We’d already come to an agreement in principle on the sale of his land. Then, on Thursday, he said he’d changed his mind and didn’t want to sell.”
Sherri crossed her legs, and her robe slipped open to reveal an almost indecent amount of tanned thigh. I knew it wasn’t an accident. She was preparing to blame everything on Jesse and wanted to distract my attention from the interview. I glanced at Linny, who was staring slack-jawed at Sherri’s legs as if he were a Knight of the Round Table having a vision of the Holy Grail.
“Did that make you angry?” I asked.
“Of course not. It was just a tactic to get more money. I’m used to that sort of thing, but it infuriated Jesse.”
“Why?”
“Because he felt the old guy was playing us for a couple of chumps. Those were Jesse’s exact words.”
“Go on.”
“Sometimes Jesse could be so juvenile.”
“That could be said about most twenty-something men.”
“I know. Anyway, he was sulking and then, out of the blue, he asked to test-drive my car. If it improved his mood, I couldn’t see any harm in that, so I let him. But you’ve got to understand: I didn’t know where he was going that night.”
“And what time was this?”
“He left around six P.M.”
“While you stayed here?”
“I had absolutely no desire to go out driving in the rain at night,” Sherri replied.
I noted that she hadn’t actually answered my question, but decided to let her think she’d fooled me. I asked, “Was he gone for very long?”
“Yes. As a matter of fact, it got to be so late that I was getting ready to call the state police to see if Jesse had been involved in a traffic accident.”
“And then?”
Her jaw tightened. “Sometime around ten he showed up here, soaking wet, scared, and telling me that he had to ditch my car.”
“And naturally you wanted to know why.”
“He said he’d stopped for a c
ouple of drinks and then, on the way back to the lodge, had sideswiped a police car. It was an accident, but he knew he’d be arrested for DUI if he stopped.” She locked eyes with me. “He didn’t say a word about this happening at or near Mr. Rawlins’s place.”
“Even if that’s true, you helped him conceal his involvement in the hit-and-run by falsely reporting your car stolen.”
“I made a bad decision and I’ll admit it. It’s going to sound selfish, but I did it to protect my reputation,” she said with a heartfelt sigh. “If Jesse had been arrested for DUI while driving my car, it would have reflected very unfavorably on me with Amerriment’s board of directors. I’ve worked too hard to get where I am to lose it all over a fender-bender.”
I was impressed. Sherri had done a pretty amazing job reinterpreting the facts of the case in a way that pointed to her being guilty of nothing more than bad judgment.
I said, “Okay, that was Thursday night. But during our talk on Friday morning, you learned that your car had been seen at the Rawlins farm. Why didn’t you say something to me then?”
“I wanted to talk to Jesse first . . . and find out whether we needed to get him a lawyer.”
“So you developed a sudden headache to break off the interview.”
She nodded.
“Once I was gone, what did he tell you?” I asked.
“He admitted that he’d been at the farm, but swore that he hadn’t seen Mr. Rawlins or killed him.”
“Why did he go there?”
“Jesse said that he was just going to talk to the old man, but that he changed his mind once he arrived.”
“You believed him?” I made no effort to disguise my amusement.
She locked eyes with me again. “I didn’t know anything about how Mr. Rawlins died or that Jesse knew how to use a bow and arrows, so I had no reason not to believe him.”
“Even it that’s true, you had a duty as a good citizen”—I paused to give her an ironic smile—“to come forward and tell us that Mr. Hauck was there.”
She raised a warning finger. “Don’t be a wiseass. I’m trying to cooperate, and this is hard enough as it is.”
There was a tap on the door. Linny opened it just a crack, saw it was Ash, and swung the door open. She had a brown paper evidence sack in her hand, and she looked pleased. Assuming that she’d found Jesse’s missing shoe, I gave her a wave, signaling her to come into the suite. It had been a very long day and I thought she might enjoy what was going to happen next. Sherri feigned disinterest as Ash handed me the bag.
Looking inside the sack, I said, “You found it. Excellent work, honey.”
“And it’s exactly the way you thought it would look,” Ash replied, obliquely telling me that a tassel was missing from the shoe.
Continuing to peer into the bag, I hooked a thumb at the amusement park executive and said, “Honey, I want you to meet Ms. Sherri Driggs. She was driving the Saab that hit you on Thursday night.”
“Hi! Nice to finally meet you,” Ash said in a mock cheerful tone.
Sherri’s face grew hard. “Wait just a damn minute! I told you that Jesse had my car.”
I looked up from the paper sack. “Yeah, I know. You told me lots of things, but most of them were lies. Which is only fair, I suppose. I was lying to you, too. But now it’s time for some hard truths. I think I know why Jesse Hauck died and how it happened.”
“Oh, really? Enlighten me,” Sherri said in a mocking tone.
“Actually, I’m hoping you can enlighten me. Was he blackmailing you? Is that why you killed him?”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“That’s also a nonanswer. You see, we know that you were at Everett Rawlins’s farm on Thursday evening.”
“Jesse had my car. He—”
“Mr. Hauck couldn’t have been driving your Saab, because we have security video of you leaving the lodge at around six-thirty. He didn’t leave until an hour later, and we have a witness who saw him in his VW.”
“As if somebody around here would recognize him.”
“To a certain extent that’s true. But your boy toy had a one-track mind. The clerk at the hardware store remembers him because he flirted with her when he paid for the screwdriver.”
“That you needed to make it look as if your car had been stolen,” Ash added.
I said, “And then, here’s what I think happened: You told Mr. Hauck that you were just trying to cover up a hit-and-run. You didn’t tell him that you’d killed Mr. Rawlins—”
Sherri slapped the table. “Because I didn’t!”
“But when I showed up yesterday and mentioned Mr. Rawlins’s death, Mr. Hauck put two and two together. Being a good young businessman, he decided to turn the tragedy into a profit . . . at your expense. What did he want, your money or your job?”
“Both.” She was trembling with anger. “All right, I was there on Thursday night, but I didn’t kill Rawlins. I’ll take a polygraph test to prove it. The old man had an arrow sticking out of his chest when I got to the farm. I was terrified and I panicked.”
“Why?”
“Why? For all I knew, the person who’d shot that arrow was still out there. I didn’t want to be the next target.”
“Did you think about calling the sheriff?”
Sherri squinted at me as if I’d lost my mind. “And end up in the middle of a murder investigation that would delay or even derail my project? Thanks, but I can think of easier ways to waste millions of dollars.”
“But if you didn’t kill him, why would you be worried about that?” I asked.
Ash cleared her throat. “Because she was hoping to secretly buy the land and get the board of supervisors to rezone the property before anyone knew there was a theme park coming. Right?”
Sherri gave her a sour look.
Ash continued, “She realized that once the local folks knew the truth, there’d be an uproar and the politicians probably wouldn’t have stayed bought.”
“We didn’t bribe anyone, but yes, we wanted to keep the project confidential,” Sherri replied. “Look, I conduct tough business negotiations for a living, and I win them. There was no reason for me to kill Everett Rawlins.”
I said, “In light of the fact that you’ve repeatedly lied in two separate interviews, we’re going to need more than just your word before we believe that.”
“Then I’d suggest you talk to Kurt Rawlins, Everett Rawlins’s son.”
I kept a poker face. “How do you know him?”
“I’ve dealt with him for a few years. We have Chunky Chuck’s Burgers restaurants in our theme parks.”
I wanted to say, Don’t you mean family entertainment complexes? Instead, I asked, “And how is Kurt involved in all of this?”
“He knew that we were interested in putting a park in the mid-Atlantic region and suggested we look at the Shenandoah Valley,” she replied. “We did some checking and the idea appeared promising. A few weeks later Kurt called and told me that his father would consider selling his farm to Amerriment.”
I said, “I hate to sound cynical, but we do live in a quid pro quo world. What was Kurt going to get out of the deal?”
“An executive VP position at Amerriment in charge of all food and beverage concessions.”
“What kind of salary would that entail?”
“We were still negotiating that.”
“But it’s safe to say it would be a lot more money than what he was making with Chunky Chuck’s.”
“That’s a fair statement. So, you see?” Sherri gave us a confident smile. “Why would I ruin everything by murdering his father? Furthermore, if you had any proof that I killed him, you’d have arrested me already.”
I nodded. “That’s true. Unfortunately for you, we do have strong evidence that you murdered Jesse.”
“While I was in the Jacuzzi?” Her tone was scornful. “I’d like to see you prove that.”
“Well, sure. I can do that.”
“Beware of the things you ask for,�
� Ash muttered.
I carefully slid the brown slip-on shoe from the paper sack and onto the tabletop. “You probably recognize this, don’t you?”
Sherri glanced at the loafer for a nanosecond and then looked up at me. “It’s Jesse’s shoe.”
“Yup. My wife found it on the ground in the vicinity of Mr. Hauck’s corpse. Notice anything peculiar about the shoe?”
“No.”
“You didn’t really look, but that’s okay. I’ll cut to the chase. One of the tassels has been torn from the shoe.” I pointed to the damaged leatherwork. “And I found that tassel on the balcony floor. It was ripped off when you shoved Mr. Hauck over the wall.”
“Aren’t you jumping to conclusions?” She smirked at me. “As I told you, Jesse had been drinking a lot. He was probably tipsy, lost his balance, and this damage you’re talking about with the tassel happened when he accidentally fell.”
“That would be a plausible theory, except for one thing. The tassel was nowhere near the base of the wall. It was several feet away, beneath the rim of the propane heater.”
“So what?”
“The only way it could have gotten so far from the wall was if someone kicked it. Mr. Hauck couldn’t, because he was plummeting to his death. That leaves you.” I gave her a gentle smile. “It was dark, and you never saw the tassel. Who could? It was a tiny bit of leather and you were probably stressed to the max after pushing your backstabbing boy toy to his death. But in your hurry to get to the bathroom and establish your bubble bath alibi, you unwittingly kicked it under the heater.”
“What makes you think that I was even out there?” Sherri engaged me in a stare-down contest. She tried to look confident, but I detected a dim flicker of fear in her eyes.
“For heaven’s sake, that’s the easiest part to establish. You heard the security director.” I inclined my head toward Linny. “The computer records show that nobody entered or left the suite after five fifty-two this afternoon. You were the only other person here.”
Sherri’s face became an expressionless mask. “I’m not saying another thing. I want my lawyer.”
