by Liz Turner
“Ah,” Jager said politely. “You must have been upset when he died.”
“I couldn’t believe it,” Jim said, looking downcast. “I guess I’m still not… I don’t know. I still don’t feel like he’s gone. I can’t process it.”
“You were more concerned about Deedee being alright than your pain,” Victoria said with a smile.
“Deedee’s a great girl,” Jim said. “I was worried about her. She was the closest to Leo. Also, she’s a sensitive soul; this must be intolerable for her.”
“Well, could you just give us a brief account of your activities today?” Jager asked.
“Sure. I woke up at about 7:30 a.m, went to the gym at about 8 a.m. and came back about an hour later. I saw the commotion and realized that… well, poor Leo was dead. After that, I was with the group all along. I was with Victoria and the others in the conference room. Clay got into a fight with Matt, and then we all returned to our rooms.”
“Alright,” Jager said. “Did you see or hear anything unusual last night? Or even in the morning today?”
“Me? No.” Jim shook his head. “I know Tess said there’s been a fight, but I saw nothing.”
“Jim, do you think that there was anyone who might have wanted to harm Leo?”
“I honestly don’t,” Jim said. “I know Tess loved him very much, and maybe he treated her a little… coldly at times.”
“She was in a relationship with him, wasn’t she?”
Jim laughed. “I mean… she seems to think so. Tess can be a little delusional.”
“Delusional? Are you saying she had mental health issues?”
“I mean, Tess likes to say she was his secretary back in Boston, but the truth is, she was a patient,” Jim said.
Victoria looked at him, shocked. “What for?”
Jim shrugged. “I don’t know. By the time I met Leo, he’d given up his practice, and he and Tess were living in a van. Then… well, then between me and Matt and Gray, and Leo’s book taking off, things got more comfortable.”
“Clay said Leo took your money and used it to make himself rich and famous,” Jager said.
Jim looked annoyed. “Leo was like family to me. His money was my money and vice versa. Money wasn’t a big part of our values in any case. We valued family. We valued happiness. We were a tribe!”
“Were you?” Victoria asked. “What kind of a tribe disintegrates so fast?”
“We didn’t disintegrate,” Jim said. “Matt and Gray moved away to start their own business. Tess did too. That’s all. They visited us as often as possible. Tess used to stay with us two months a year. We all came here for a getaway too.”
Jager nodded. “Why here?” He asked. “Why not at the ranch house?”
“There were some renovations back home.” Jim said, “Besides, I guess Leo’s been here a few times, and he loved this hotel. He said there was no place on earth quite as pretty as the mountains in the Banff area.”
“He was right about that,” Simon smiled.
“Alright, Jim.” Jager stood up, shook hands with him. “We’ll speak to you later.”
“Sure,” Jim said. “I’ll always be ready to answer any questions.”
They moved out of the room; Victoria lost in her thoughts while Simon and Randolf spoke about the weather. A few steps away, they knocked on Matt’s room. Jim came out too.
There was no answer.
Randolf sighed and knocked again.
When no one answered, Randolf looked quizzically at Simon.
“No one’s left this floor,” Simon said. “My men were watching.”
“So Matt should be in there,” Randolf said. “Right?”
“He should.” Simon stepped in front and banged on the door, hard. “Open up!” He yelled. “This is the owner of Larch Luminary!”
Eerie silence met his command.
“Open, I say!”
Silence again.
Corporal Jager pushed Simon aside. “I think we need to break the door down.” He said.
“Wait, I have a key,” Simon said.
Jager raised an eyebrow.
“It’s a master key for the hotel,” Simon explained. “I keep it with me, always, and there’s only one copy. The maids have a copy to open the locks on whichever floor they're assigned, but this key here can open anything.”
“How about using it, then?” Jager asked.
Simon turned the key and pushed the door open slowly.
Even before she entered, Victoria could feel that something was badly wrong. Maybe it was in the way Simon took a sudden, deep breath. Maybe it was the tightness that formed around Randolf’s mouth. Or maybe it was the weird smell that permeated the room.
They entered, and Matt lay face down on the bed. The back of his head had a large bloody gash. A vase lay cracked on the floor.
Jim gave out a high, feminine scream, and stumbled to the bathroom. Simon went after him, as did Victoria. Jim leaned over to throw up. Springing to him; Victoria shoved him aside.
“Stop!” she said. “Use the basin.”
Completely surprised by her actions, he stared at her.
In the toilet, were two small, torn, squares of paper, with writing on them.
Chapter 16
To preserve the crime scene, Jager insisted on locking the door and then escorting all the guests on the fourth floor up to the conference room.
“I’m afraid that I’ll have to ask you to stay here until the blizzard subsides.” He said. “In a few hours, my men will be able to make their way here. Until then, you must stay put.”
“This is intolerable!” Tess cried. “I can’t stay in the same room as a murderer, and there’s no doubt now that someone here is a murderer.” She glared at Clay, who glared right back.
“That someone could be you, couldn’t it, Tess,” Clay said.
“How dare you accuse me of...”
“Tess, could you just keep quiet?” Cara said. The supermodel looked worn out. “We’ve all had a long day, and all we need to do is get through the next hours. I suggest we all just sit quietly.”
“I can’t sit here like nothing’s happened!” Tess shrieked.
“Madam, you can sit quietly here, or I can give you a room of your own with a guard posted outside it,” Jager said. “Personally, I believe there’s safety in numbers.”
“I’ll stay,” Tess said sulkily.
“Good. Victoria, can I see you outside?” Jager asked.
Victoria nodded.
Outside, Randolf showed her a ziplock bag with two soggy pieces of paper inside it. “The writing isn’t too damaged.” He said. “It’s fragments of a will. That much seems pretty clear to me. The other scrap says, “...want her to receive everything.”
Victoria sucked in a breath.
Simon said. “Do you think there’s a chance Deedee is in danger?”
Randolf looked at him.
“Well, it’s pretty clear who the "her" is,” Simon said. “Someone who didn’t want her to have everything destroyed that will.”
“We can play it to our advantage,” Randolf said. “Remember, those people inside know nothing about what’s written here. We’ll tell them that we found part of the will but not what it says. For all the murderer knows, we could have a crucial piece of evidence.”
“Clay attacked Matt,” Victoria said quietly. “I was witness to that. He put his hands around Matt’s throat, and would likely have hurt him badly if Jim and Gray hadn’t intervened.”
Randolf nodded. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
They went back inside, where everyone sat silently.
“Gray,” Corporal Jager said loudly. “Could we ask you to step outside with us for a while?”
“Sure.” Gray leaped up. “I’m happy to help.”
They took him to a small office next to the conference room. Gray wiped his brow. “This has been a horrible day.” He said. “First Leo…”
Jager nodded. “Could you tell us what you did today, Gray?”
“Today? I was fast asleep until I heard a commotion outside. I got up, and Leo was dead. I was so shocked; I didn’t know what to do. I acted like an idiot making jokes, playing the fool. Poor Jim got the worst of it. After that, I went to tell Matt, Tess, and Cara.
“Why not Clay?” Jager asked.
“Sorry?”
“Why didn’t you think to inform Clay? You invited your brother here, didn’t you?”
“I did, but I had no idea he would come,” Gray said. “I didn’t see him until today.”
“Don’t you think that’s a bit odd?” Jager said. “After all, you’re the one who told Clay to come here. He booked a room, never told you that he was coming and didn’t meet you until a day later? Why wouldn’t he contact you yesterday?”
Gray shrugged. “I don’t know. Clay’s funny that way.”
“You’re step-brothers. How long have you known each other?”
“Well, my father married his mother when he was about seven,” Gray said. “Clay’s mom died when he was ten. My father, honestly, was not a very nice man. He treated me badly, but Clay got the worst of it. When my father died, I was a wreck. I was too young, and too addicted to alcohol, to take care of Clay. Clay went off to a foster home while I tried to drink my life away. Eventually, I met Leo, and slowly weaned myself off alcohol. I’m sober now and intend to remain that way. I had always been fond of Clay, and I tried my hardest to track him down once we were living in the Ranch house. Clay was about seventeen when he came to live with us.”
“What then?”
“He became my partner in sobriety,” Gray said. “Clay was never a drunkard as I was, but he was a sensible lad, and didn’t want to go down my path. He stayed clean, studied, worked around the garage. His real interest was in computers, though he wanted to build a startup of his own. As a matter of fact, he’s the one who helped Tess design her website. All the business ideas are her own, of course, but Clay helped set up the online aspect of it.”
“I’m surprised,” Victoria said. “They don’t much seem to like each other.”
“They used to be good friends,” Gray said. “Tess loved to cook for Clay, and she loved giving him fashion advice. Clay appreciated both.”
“So what happened?”
“Well, Deedee was madly in love with Clay, that’s what happened.” Gray shook his head.
“Eventually… that lead to disaster. I suppose it couldn’t last.”
“How about Matt?”
“Matt...” Gray looked sorrowful. “He was a good man. He had his demons with a child who died too young, followed by a divorce. I think the important thing was, he healed himself as best he could, and began a new law practice.” Gray’s face crumpled a little. “I wish… oh, this is horrible. It’s horrible to think that the man who killed Matt is sitting right here in the middle of us all!” He looked up at Jager. “There’s no way it could… there’s no way it could be an outsider, is there? Someone else? Someone with a motive that we can’t understand right now? Or perhaps a madman?”
“There’s always that possibility,” Jager said. “I’m not ruling anything out at the moment. It’s also not necessarily a man. There are a lot of women in your group.”
Gray nodded, looking crestfallen. “These people, for better or worse, they were my family. Like any family, I didn’t want to live in the same house as them all my life, but they were what I came home to, you know?” He had tears in his eyes. “Now Leo’s gone, and I could tolerate that, I could joke my way out of it. But Matt too? Over what? Who cares if there was money involved in all this and who could have been so desperate?”
“Clay’s startup just went bust, didn’t it?” Jager asked.
Gray gave him a malevolent glare. “My brother doesn’t kill people,” Gray said.
“Jim told us he got into a fight with Matt just hours ago,” Jager said. “Victoria was there too.”
Gray grunted, waved his hands. “Clay’s a boy. He’s silly about things. He gets provoked easily. He might try and pretend that he’s oh so cool and a man of the world, but really, he’s just a silly little boy. So what if his startup failed? He could always try starting another one.”
“It’s not as simple as that, is it?” Victoria asked. “When a startup fails, investors lose confidence. It’s much harder to gain funds for the next one. Not to mention, Clay’s confidence might have taken a hit. He clearly needed emotional support too or else why would he make the effort to come all the way here?”
“If you mean Deedee…” Gray sighed. “Well I suppose Clay never really got over her, did he? He can’t help that, though. He’s the kind of man who loves very intensely. He still loves her.”
Victoria was confused. “I thought Clay was the one who did the leaving.”
Gray shrugged. “You can leave at twenty and regret it at twenty-seven.”
Jager, a little impatient, moved the topic back. “Matt was Leo’s lawyer, wasn’t he?”
Gray nodded. “He was.”
“He gave hints that you were all invited to this getaway retreat to find out about Leo’s will.”
“Was he?” Gray’s face was impassive.
“Did he talk to you about it?”
Gray shifted. Once more, Victoria got the eerie impression of a fox in a suit. He shrugged. “I guess he asked me if Leo had written me a letter too.”
“Do you have any idea what Matt did all last evening?” Jager said.
“Sure,” Gray smiled. “He sat in his room and refused to come out. I knocked to ask him if he’d like to have dinner with me, but he said he was working and would just order room service.”
“Thanks,” Jager said. “That’s all for now, I think. We’ll call you if we have more questions as the investigation proceeds.”
“Was this an interrogation, then?” Gray asked.
“No. We were just having a chat.” Jager said with a smile. “This is just for me to develop a primary feel of the case. I’m pretty helpless to proceed officially until my other colleagues get here.”
“How soon do you think that will be?” Gray asked.
“A few hours at the most,” Jager said. But Victoria could tell by the slight frown on his face, that he didn’t quite believe it.
Outside, Jager spoke to the room service operators to confirm that Matt had indeed ordered dinner in his room at about 10 p.m.
“Gray’s story checks out.” He said. “Matt ordered a chicken club sandwich and a bottle of root beer last night.”
“Oh, what’s the use of all this!” Simon cried. “Randolf, what you should be doing is collecting fingerprints and tracking DNA. This business of endless talking is useless; it’s getting us nowhere closer to solving the murders.”
Jager looked surprised. “Is that really what you think?” He asked.
“Of course. That’s how it is in all the shows. One fingerprint, the murderer, is identified, and the case is solved.”
“Evidence gathering in real life is never that simple,” Jager said. “My team will be up here as soon as possible, and they’ll comb over the place, of course. More often than not, we find nothing. Or we find something that may lead to a clue, or that might indicate a probability that someone did something. I’ve found that pre-meditated murders and these seem to be premeditated, are better solved by talking to those involved. Sooner or later, the murderer will make a mistake. Don’t forget he or she is under tremendous stress right now. They have a pack of lies that they need to tell us convincingly, and also a fear of what we may already know.”
“What worries me is the things that we don’t know,” Simon said. “What also worries me is the things that we know for sure. Someone who has committed three murders is running around free in this hotel and for all I know, the next person he kills could be me!”
Chapter 17
Randolf and Victoria did their best to calm Simon down.
“I’ll only feel safe when this lot in the conference room is out of my hotel,” Simon said. “Oh, I shoul
d never have booked Leo and his group. I just shouldn’t have. He’s an eccentric man, and his group is equally eccentric. I should have seen something like this coming.”
“You couldn’t possibly,” Randolf said. “You’re not to blame here, Simon.”
“I know I’m not,” Simon said. “Yet it’s so hard just to sit here and… wait.”
“So why don’t we talk?” Victoria smiled. “Tell Randolf about your meeting with Leo last night.”
“You met with Leo?” Randolf raised an eyebrow.
Simon looked embarrassed. “Yes. Well… we had a few drinks together.”
Jager’s eyebrow rose a little higher.
Briefly, Simon told him about being in Leo’s room and hearing shouts from outside the door.
Jager noted it down, nodding.
“How about after?” Victoria asked. “You and Leo were drinking together after that. What did he say to you then?”
Simon scrunched his face up, concentrating. “We were, just talking about stuff.” He said. “The whiskey was good, and the conversation meandered on, you know? Initially, Leo was a bit quiet. He looked like he was still fuming about the fight. He was probably playing it over again in his mind. I was talking about the Larch Luminary, how there were a lot of renovations I wanted to do this year. I was telling him how I think that a hotel like mine is so much better than the sterile chain hotels, and it’s too bad that I can never compete with them because I don’t have the funds to keep updating the Luminary. Then… he began talking.”
“What did he say?”
“He told me, “You know, Simon, what hurts most is when the people closest to you betray you. Try to sabotage you. I thought that I was good to my people. I loved them all alike. But now, well, now they’ve left me. Gone away. Slowly, the love that held us together will evaporate. I tell you I’m not an easy man to love. But I’m a good guy. I gave my very best to the people I loved. What do I get back in return? Hatred.” He shook his head, and drank another glass.”
“Sabotage,” Victoria said. “Interesting that he mentioned the word, sabotage.”
“Leo didn’t talk much more,” Simon said. “He just kept silently drinking. As for me, well, I wasn’t prepared for that level of emotional drama. I drank, spoke about more entertaining topics like this year’s election, and hockey, the Calgary Flames.”
