“Exactly.” He shook his head and his perfectly cut hair fell back into precise order. “I am not a violent man, but we’re going to lose our house. I’ve spent years at the hotel, working my way up. I could be a hotel manager one day. But not if I go bankrupt.” He stopped to drag in air, he sounded breathless, as though he’d been sprinting. “I can’t lose it all. You should see our garage, it’s so full of makeup and creams and promo items you can’t even move. Haven’t parked a car in there in two years. Nicole talked her into buying thousands of sampler packs last year and then they changed the colors. Boxes of those things.” He was getting seriously worked up. Beads of sweat dotted his hairline and his voice was rising. She could feel the tremble go all the way through the knife.
“You planted one of those old sampler packs on Amy Neuman’s body.” Nicole hadn’t lied after all. She’d never given the woman a sampler pack. If only she’d made a bigger deal about that sampler pack at the time. If only.
“I thought she was Nicole Freedman. I wanted Nicole to choke on those sample packs; tossing one at her while she was dying was the closest I could get.”
“Oh, my God. You mean, Amy died because of mistaken identity?”
“A terrible mistake. I found a time when no one was at the front desk, checked the computers and found Nicole’s room number. I was watching the door when that woman came out of Nicole’s room.”
“You didn’t check for ID before stabbing her?”
He ignored her. She felt a wetness at her side. No pain, though. Probably she was in shock. “Nicole and I had never been introduced, but she’d been telling Melody for some time that she wanted to meet me and explain how important it was that I support Melody’s success.” He laughed in a creepy, humorless way. “This woman who’d been encouraging my wife to go behind my back, to divorce me.
“She didn’t pay any attention to the emails warning her away. So, I decided, we’d meet. And I brought along one of those old sampler packs to tell her what I thought of her and her sales techniques.”
She thought back to the morning that Amy Neuman had been discovered stabbed to death. “But you weren’t even here that night.”
Again with the creepy smile. “I was. It’s a four-hour drive to our house from here. I drove in, planned to meet with Nicole, convince her to stop ruining our lives, and drive home again. Then, things went wrong –”
“But you must have realized that wasn’t Nicole.”
He shook his head. “I thought she was just blowing me off. She kept saying, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ but she was shaky and angry, so I figured she was lying.”
“Except that she really didn’t know what you were talking about. All she had was a makeover.”
Thomas Feckler sighed. “I regret her death. Very much. But, since you’ve admitted to the murder and will be punished, I’m sure I’ll one day get over the pain.”
He pulled her into an unobtrusive door that led to the service area and the big cage-like elevator.
“Where are we going?” she asked as he pushed the button to call the elevator.
“The basement.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
A man’s face is his autobiography. A woman’s face is her work of fiction.
-- Oscar Wilde
Luke walked into the ballroom and stalled. He’d seen a lot of unusual sights in his time. Murder victims in pieces, the remains of gang turf wars and suicides where the guy’s brains were spattered from here to kingdom come. He’d assumed he was immune from shock. Turned out he wasn’t.
The ballroom was packed with women and all of them wore Miss America type sashes and pins, jewels and fancy dresses. And the tiaras. There were thousands of tiaras winking in the light from the dripping chandeliers. If this was a country, they’d be all royalty with no subjects.
Even in Bling Kingdom it wasn’t difficult to spot Linda Plotnik and her grandaughter. Linda wore a white gown covered in sequins and sparkling beads, draping the floor. When she raised her arms it was like iridescent wings. Long chandelier earrings dangled from her ears and her hair was piled high. Naturally, a tiara nestled in the white-blond curls.
Tiffany was yin to her yang, black to her white, negative to her positive. She’d taken a black gown and managed to turn it into an ironic statement. Interesting girl, that Tiffany. Among all the updos and tiaras, her hair was hanging, too black and too long. Her face was white with black outlined eyes. If anything, all that heavy black crap had the opposite effect of the one she intended. The heaviness only emphasized the delicacy of her features and her youth. In a few years, she’d be as gorgeous as her mother.
Speaking of which, he glanced around. “Where’s Toni?”
Linda pointed to the program. “Right here. She should be out to get her award in about half an hour. Isn’t it exciting? Wait till you see her dress.” He’d be excited when the conference was over and everybody went home safe and sound. The fact that tonight was the killer’s last chance, and that he or she had it in for Toni, was not making him happy. Of course, there’d been no incidents since the doll, and she’d promised him to leave the sleuthing to the police, so he concentrated on keeping his eyes and ears open, and the police presence obvious.
“I’m going to take a walk. I’ll be back before she comes out.”
The service elevator caged Toni in with a nightmare. A murderous psycho with a knife who’d told her flat out he planned to kill her.
Think, she ordered herself, but with a madman waving a deadly knife at her – a madman who’d already killed two women – it was impossible to think.
At some point her mom and Tiffany would notice that she wasn’t there. All they had to do was alert Luke – or any other cop – and the police would start combing the hotel for her. Of course, it would be a while before anybody got around to the basement. A fact she was certain Thomas Feckler had taken into consideration.
The elevator settled to the ground with a bump that made her gasp and he pushed the button that lifted the door. He hauled her out of the elevator at knifepoint and they scuttled out like waltzing crabs.
Thomas Feckler listened but there was no sound. The basement smelled musty. There were no windows down there, and the industrial lighting was dimmed, probably because it was night time and no one was working down here.
Toni knew that if she screamed he’d kill her immediately and if there was no one in the vicinity screaming was clearly pointless. He seemed to have a destination in mind as they walked along a corridor. “Where are we going?”
“I’ve got a spot all picked out where it’s easy for you to fall on your knife. I think everyone at Lady Bianca will be proud of you for ending your tortured life with dignity.”
“Why on earth would I make it easy for you?”
The glance he sent Toni was impatient. “If you cooperate, your death will be swift. Like Nicole’s. If you don’t, I’ll carve you into ribbons and leave you to die slowly. Very unpleasant. I started my hotel career working in the kitchens, you know. I’m pretty good with a knife.”
Luke strolled out of the massive ballroom and headed for the front lobby. There were security guys from a private firm hired by the hotel and a couple of undercover officers, one dressed as a cleaner the other as a parking attendant.
Everything was quiet. Routine.
He walked back across the marble lobby. Made his way to the backstage area but it was so crammed full of women that he couldn’t squeeze his way through. Toni was in there somewhere, no doubt in a gown that would make his eyes pop out, and a tiara.
He had no idea how he’d fallen for a big haired, high maintenance, nosy cosmetics sales woman, but he had. Crazy. But sometimes crazy was good.
Next, he checked the elevators, the restaurant, even glanced in the lobby gift shop. Everything as it should be. Still, he couldn’t shake the itch, deep in his gut, that trouble lurked.
The kitchen was staffed to the max, full speed, full efficiency, as they got ready to serve t
wenty-five hundred dinners.
The grumpy female chef glanced up and nodded when she saw him.
“How are things back here? Any knives missing?”
“Crazy busy. My blades are all here, apart from the one you have in custody,” the female chef said. “Oh, and the chef’s knife I sent out for sharpening.”
The head chef turned to her. “The Misono? 14 inch?”
She nodded.
“It came back this morning, before you came on shift. I signed for it.” He strode forward to her station. “I put it right there so you wouldn’t miss it.”
They all looked at the spot he indicated. There was no knife there.
“What time was that?” Luke snapped.
“Around noon, I think.”
“What time did you come on shift?”
“Two.”
He raised his voice to a bellow. “Okay, listen up everyone. Who came through here between noon and two today?” There were mutters and shrugs and blank looks. He made his voice deliberately rough. “Come on people. We’ve got a killer out there armed with one of your knives.”
“People come through here all the time,” the female chef wailed. “Wait staff, kitchen help, the extra security guys, even a doorman came through here, so great, now we’ve got murderers in the kitchen.”
But Luke was already running back the way he’d come. He hauled out his radio. “Henderson, there’s a knife missing from the kitchen.” He heard the curse and echoed it in his head. “Check out Toni’s room. Killer could be wearing a uniform.”
Next, he contacted the undercover cop in the parking garage. Told him to check Toni’s vehicle.
Then he pounded to the back stage area of the ballroom. This time he didn’t worry about squeezing in. He shoved women out of the way and forced his way into the mob.
Way up front he could see the lit stage, so covered with balloons it was like being underwater in a particularly garish fish tank. Streamers instead of seaweed and row upon row of ball-gowned women.
“Toni Diamond,” he shouted. “I’m looking for Toni Diamond.”
One smart ass tried to shush him and he yelled over her. “Police. Where’s Toni Diamond?”
“She’s supposed to be beside me, but she’s not here yet,” a voice finally yelled back.
The itch in his gut turned into a full scale jackhammer.
His radio crackled to life. “Yeah?”
“I’m in Toni’s room. There’s a suicide note.”
Shit. “What does it say?”
The emotionless voice read: “To whom it may concern: I can no longer live with two murders on my conscience so I am taking my own life. Please forgive me. Toni Diamond.”
“The killer’s got Toni.”
He ran back to the ballroom. The awards ceremony continued. They hadn’t heard him. He decided it was good that things should continue as normal. If the killer felt undetected they had more time.
He waded through the tables to Linda and Tiffany. “How’s it going?” he asked them.
“Fine. I’m glad you made it back. She should be out in ten minutes or so.”
“When did you last see her?”
“About twenty minutes ago.” Linda’s forehead creased. “Is everything all right?”
“Yes. I wanted to wish her luck, is all. Have you seen Melody Feckler?”
“Two tables over and three forward. She goes in the second award group.”
“Thanks.”
“Is Mom okay?” He couldn’t look at that girl with her mother’s eyes and her intelligent, serious face and lie.
He walked up to her. “I think she might be in trouble. But I’m going to find her.” He grabbed her shoulder and squeezed. “I promise. But you have to keep calm and let me do my job.”
She looked at him and nodded.
“Good girl.”
He jogged forward to where Melody Feckler had squeezed herself into a pale orange silk number that made her look like an uncooked sausage.
Not a care in the world. And no sign of Toni. He scanned the table. They were all there, except Stacy who’d gone home early.
And the husband.
“Mrs. Feckler?” He knelt by her side and spoke loudly enough to be heard over the award announcements.
“Yes?”
“Where’s your husband?”
She smiled the smile of the innocent. “He’s not feeling too well. I think it was the burritos at lunch. He’s lying down.” She giggled. “Guess you were looking for some male company?”
He nodded and moved away.
Out in the hall, he radio’d Henderson. “It’s Thomas Feckler. And the bastard’s got Toni.”
“Any idea where he’s got her?”
“No.”
“We’ll start with his room.”
“I want every inch of this hotel searched.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
An open enemy is better than a false friend.
-- Greek proverb
They walked down the dim hallway together, Toni slightly ahead, her high heels tip-tapping on the cement floor like a society woman. Thomas Feckler, in his neat hotel uniform, could be her doorman or chauffeur.
“Won’t Melody wonder where you are?”
“I’m in our room, lying down.” He checked his watch. “I’ll be back before she knows I’ve left.”
“What about the…mess?” she asked, then wished she hadn’t.
“This isn’t my uniform. It belongs to the hotel. Underneath it, I’ve got street clothes. I doubt there will be any mess with you, but I don’t want any inconvenient DNA evidence linking us. I’ll put the uniform in a laundry bag, slip out the service entrance, throw the bag in a dumpster a few blocks away and return. No one will ever know I was here.”
“You’ve thought of everything,” she said, trying to sound admiring while searching crazily for some kind of weapon or help. If she could get him off guard enough to get him to lower the knife, Toni thought she might have a chance. Slim to none, but what choices did she have?
The hallway was lined with laundry carts. They passed a cavernous room filled with industrial washing and drying machines big enough to shampoo and blow dry a horse. All ominously silent, watching with their huge black eyes. Liquid laundry soap in twenty gallon drums sat beside them. They passed a rack of fluffy white robes with the hotel crest on the pockets hanging there like a dance line of ghosts.
Toni’s eyes darted around frantically looking for escape, help, a weapon. Something. The hallway continued, cinderblock walls, cement floor. The ceiling was open and tracks of electric wiring snaked between sprinkler heads and fluorescent lighting fixtures.
Thomas Feckler walked casually at Toni’s side, but she wasn’t fooled. The knife was razor sharp and never not pressing into her.
“I didn’t think of everything,” he snapped. “I didn’t think about how thousands of women together would gossip constantly, or that you would turn out to be so interfering and nosy.”
“Speaking of nosy, thanks a lot for sticking an extra big nose on my voodoo doll. That was really cruel.”
“Oh, come on. You’re a beautiful woman. It was Nicole who always used to call you Pinocchio – that’s how she referred to you in her emails to Melody. That’s where I got the idea.”
Toni’s jaw dropped. “She called me Pinocchio?”
“Well,” he giggled. “She won’t be doing that anymore.”
Right. And Toni wouldn’t be around to care, not without some kind of fight. She’d once taken self-defense for women. It was a long time ago and she couldn’t remember much, but there was one weapon she had on her that she recalled from that long-ago class.
Her heels.
Visualizing success with more concentration than she’d ever done in her life, she took a deep breath.
She pretended to stumble onto her left shoe. The heels were so high she almost made the stumble real. It threw them both a little off balance which caused Thomas to tighten his grip on her. Tucked up t
ight against him, she lifted her right foot and stamped down her spiked Plexiglass heel with all her strength and drove the spike into the top of his foot.
Fear, adrenalin and fury led her strength, she grunted with the impact, felt it shudder up her shin bone, then heard the man behind her scream with pain and Yes! She heard the knife clatter to the floor.
She turned and kicked the knife down the corridor in the direction they’d come. It slid a nice long way. Probably she should have scrambled for it but she dimly remembered that defense class where the instructors warned that the attacker could too easily turn a woman’s weapon against her.
Toni figured her best hope for escape was to find the exit and get the hell out of here.
Thomas Feckler made animal grunts as he stumbled to his feet and hobbled painfully after the knife. Toni ran forward. She’d have liked to stop and slip off her shoes, but she couldn’t take the time. Besides, years of practice in heels make her pretty fast. Especially with the fight or flight response blasting through her like jet fuel.
She sprinted forward, passing another big drum of laundry soap. She could hear Thomas Feckler breathing heavily and grunting with each step. He seemed to be going in the other direction, no doubt to retrieve the knife. She hoped she’d broken every bone in his foot.
Of course, when he got that knife he’d come back for her.
He also knew where the exits were and she didn’t. She had to slow him down.
Her breath was coming in panting gasps, which echoed so the walls seemed to be in distress.
She turned, wasting precious seconds and ran back to the huge tub of liquid laundry soap, pulled the plug out of the plastic lid and, with a huff of effort, heaved it onto its side, watching the thick liquid glug out onto the cement floor.
She took off again. Rounded another corner. A storage area. More laundry soap and huge buckets of some white powder as well as a wall of cleaning supplies.
She pulled the plug on a second drum of soap and left it overturned and oozing slime onto the floor behind her.
Frosted Shadow, a Toni Diamond Mystery: Toni Diamond Mysteries Page 20
