by B. J Daniels
It was obvious that this was the first Oliver had heard about the Valentine.
‘‘Peggy had a valentine in her hand for you,’’ Tempest said.
‘‘Peggy knew I loved her. We were going to get married.’’ He sounded shaken and not at all sure.
‘‘What will you do now?’’ Tempest asked.
Oliver looked confused again.
‘‘About leaving Mitzy?’’ she asked.
‘‘I don’t know.’’ He seemed to give it some thought. ‘‘I guess I won’t have to do anything if she’s arrested for murder.’’ The thought didn’t sound like a new one.
‘‘How would that make you feel, knowing that Mitzy killed the woman you loved?’’ Jack asked.
Oliver seemed at a loss for words.
‘‘You never planned to marry Peggy, did you?’’ Jack snapped. ‘‘You planned to just take off once you got your money. You weren’t just running out on Mitzy. You were going to run out on Peggy, too.’’
‘‘No.’’ The word had no conviction in it.
‘‘You needed a clean break and you didn’t want to have to pay anymore,’’ Jack continued. ‘‘So you killed Peggy and now you’re hoping to frame Mitzy for the murder.’’
‘‘You’re wrong,’’ Oliver pleaded. ‘‘You just want to see me fry for this. That would make you both happy, wouldn’t it?’’ He was looking at Tempest, looking afraid of her. And she was looking at him as if seeing him fry would definitely make her day.
Jack stared at the two of them for a moment, feeling incredibly tired. ‘‘Don’t leave town,’’ he said with a sigh as he snapped off the recorder and opened the interrogation room door to leave.
‘‘I’m not going anywhere,’’ Oliver said and was still looking at Tempest, implying maybe that she was going somewhere when Jack looked back at them.
He could hear Tempest coming behind him as he left the room. Once in his office, he turned to face her. ‘‘What’s with you and Oliver?’’ he demanded.
She raised a brow, either at his tone or his question.
‘‘He thinks we’re both out to get him. I have my own reasons for disliking the ass, but what are yours?’’
‘‘My own and nothing to do with this case.’’ She started to turn to leave, but he grabbed her arm. She froze and he quickly let go.
‘‘You’re not making this any easier,’’ he said with a sigh.
‘‘Oh, is that my job, to make things easier for you?’’ she asked.
They stood looking at each other.
‘‘What do you want from me?’’ he demanded. ‘‘I’m sorry about the way I treated you in high school, I’m sorry I resented it when you tried to butt into my life with Frannie, all right?’’ Just saying her name made it feel as if she’d materialized and now stood with them, a small, dark, troubled apparition, the kind of woman in life who just naturally made a man like him protective of her.
‘‘I was trying to help Frannie.’’
‘‘Come on, you thought she made a mistake marrying me,’’ he said.
‘‘Marriage wasn’t the answer to the problem,’’ she snapped. ‘‘You just had to play the big man taking care of the little woman. You were so damned sure that by whisking her away from here, that you could save her. You were so sure that your love was enough that she couldn’t possibly need for anything else.’’
Her words hit like stones, too many of them striking their mark.
Tempest turned and started to leave his office, but stopped and swung back around to face him. ‘‘I loved Frannie, too,’’ she said, tears in her eyes. ‘‘You weren’t the only one who tried to save her. We just didn’t know what the hell we were trying to save her from.’’
‘‘The rape,’’ Jack said, his voice barely a whisper. ‘‘I took her away from here so she wouldn’t have to remember.’’
‘‘But she couldn’t forget, Jack.’’
Neither could he. He’d always remember the night he’d found Frannie, crumpled like a doll in the corner of their bedroom, her clothes torn, her body bruised and bloody, her eyes blank as darkness. Frannie had never been able to tell him what had happened. Never been able to tell anyone. The shock of the rape had left her with no memory of her attacker, the doctors said.
The sheriff at the time speculated Frannie had been raped by someone just passing through. A stranger. A lot of people hitchhiked through the state and Jack and Frannie had moved in together in a place only a block from the main highway.
Jack blamed himself. For them living so close to the highway because he didn’t want them using Frannie’s money. For him not being home that night because he’d been working for Otto Sanders and had been called out to fix some broken pipes at one of the condos. And Jack knew Tempest, Frannie’s best friend, blamed him as well because she’d never thought he and Frannie belonged together in the first place.
Of course he’d taken Frannie as far away from River’s Edge as possible after that. The doctor said she might never remember her attacker. Jack had always hoped she never would.
He looked at Tempest, wanting desperately to tell her how wrong she was about him and Frannie, to explain how hard he’d tried to help her. But the truth was, he hadn’t saved Frannie and for some reason he’d never understood, she seemed as if she’d needed protecting long before the rape.
His cell phone rang. He cursed as he answered it.
‘‘Sheriff?’’ Dobson said.
‘‘Yeah.’’
‘‘The bellhop at The Riverside says he has something important he needs to tell you. He gets off work in about fifteen minutes. He says he’ll only talk to you. He seems a little...scared.’’
Jack looked up at Tempest. ‘‘Tell him we’ll be right over.’’
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE BELLHOP was a young man with short spiky bleached blond hair, several small silver hoop earrings and a skier tan that gave him racoon eyes—his face deeply tanned except around his eyes from his ski goggles.
‘‘I remembered something about Valentine’s Day that I thought you might want to know,’’ the bellhop said. ‘‘But first I have to know that I won’t lose my job if I tell you.’’
That was a promise Jack wasn’t sure he could keep. ‘‘Why don’t you tell me what it is first. Anything you tell us will be strictly confidential.’’ Jack figured he could get the kid a job somewhere in town if he got fired.
‘‘I didn’t think anything about it at the time, but someone went up the fire escape stairs to the penthouse,’’ the bellhop said. ‘‘I noticed the door closing and since only the Sanderses have a key.... What was weird about that was at the same time someone was going up the elevator to the penthouse—and I’d just seen Mr. Sanders’s secretary go up with a whole bunch of packages. I just figured Mrs. Sanders had taken the stairs and that they were at it again. But then Mrs. Sanders walked in not long after that.’’
‘‘At it again?’’ Jack asked.
The young man blushed to the roots of his blond do. Obviously he’d been warned about discussing the Sanderses’ personal problems. ‘‘Oh...ah...I mean—’’
‘‘They fight,’’ Jack said. ‘‘Married couples do that. I need you to be honest with me. This is a murder investigation so we can’t have any...confidences.’’
The bellhop nodded. ‘‘Oh, do they fight. They try to hide it, but I’ve noticed the way Mrs. Sanders gives him the evil eye and I’ve taken up breakfast before and caught her yelling at him when the elevator opens, before they know I’m there.’’
It didn’t sound like the lovebirds had been doing a very good job of pretending. ‘‘So first you saw the secretary go up in the elevator?’’
The bellhop nodded.
‘‘Then someone went up the fire escape stairs. That requires a key, right?’’
The young man nodded again.
Jack looked at Tempest. ‘‘Who has keys?’’
‘‘The same people who have keys to the penthouse elevator.’’ That meant Oliver,
Mitzy and Tempest, the house detective.
‘‘Could it have been Mr. Sanders on the stairs?’’
The bellhop shook his head. ‘‘I just saw movement, heard footfalls. But it couldn’t have been Mr. Sanders. Because he was the one who went up the elevator.’’
‘‘You saw him go up before Mrs. Sanders?’’ Jack asked in surprise. Finally, a witness who could put Oliver in the penthouse at the time of the murder.
‘‘I just caught a glimpse of him, but there is no mistaking that cologne he wears, whew!’’
Jack looked over at Tempest. She looked nervous. ‘‘So first the secretary goes up the elevator,’’ he clarified. ‘‘Then how long after that does Mr. Sanders go up?’’
‘‘A few minutes. Five, maybe a little more,’’ the bellhop said. ‘‘At the same time someone went up the stairs.’’
‘‘And Mrs. Sanders?’’ Jack asked.
‘‘It had to be about ten minutes after the others,’’ the young man said. ‘‘Maybe more. I was busy with a busload of skiers who came in.’’
‘‘Would you do me a favor?’’ he asked the bellhop.
‘‘Sure.’’
Jack motioned to the elevator. ‘‘I want to do a little experiment.’’ He pulled the penthouse key from his pocket, the one he’d taken from Tempest the day before. Tempest and the bellhop followed him into the elevator. He inserted the key and they rose quickly to the penthouse where the door opened.
‘‘Hello?’’ he called out. Mitzy was still at work as was Oliver, it appeared.
‘‘Okay,’’ Jack said. ‘‘Tempest, may I borrow your phone?’’ She handed him the department cell and he handed it to the bellhop. ‘‘Stand right here with the elevator door open and when I call you on the phone, hang up then scream as loud and high-pitched as you can,’’ he said to the young man. ‘‘May I borrow your pass key?’’
The bellhop handed Jack his key.
Jack turned to Tempest. ‘‘Shall we?’’
They took the fire escape exit down from the penthouse to the floor below. ‘‘Where exactly were you when you heard Mitzy scream?’’ he asked Tempest.
‘‘Is this necessary?’’ she asked.
‘‘I’m afraid so. Which room?’’
She pointed down the hall to a room directly beneath the penthouse and adjacent to the elevator. Jack used the passkey to get into the room, then he called the bellhop on his cell phone, asked him to scream and keep screaming until Jack called him back, then hung up.
He and Tempest stood in the middle of the room looking at each other for a long moment. Then Jack opened the door to the hallway and listened. He called the bellhop and told him he could stop screaming now and thanked him. Then Jack turned to Tempest.
‘‘You didn’t go up to the penthouse because you heard Mitzy scream,’’ he said. ‘‘Why did you lie?’’
She met his gaze. ‘‘I wasn’t on the floor below the penthouse.’’
No kidding.
‘‘I was on the fire escape stairs outside the penthouse.’’
He stared at her, waiting. Through the window he could see the February sky, cold and gray as if all the color had been washed from it.
‘‘I thought I saw Oliver take the elevator up to the penthouse and I followed him since I knew Peggy had just gone up and Mitzy wasn’t home,’’ she said.
‘‘You knew he was having an affair with Peggy?’’ Jack said.
She shook her head. ‘‘Ellie suspected her son was skimming money off the top of the hotel’s proceeds.’’
‘‘Was he?’’ Jack asked.
She nodded. ‘‘I figured he was gambling or just greedy. I thought he might be in on it with his secretary’s help.’’
‘‘When were you planning to tell me?’’ he asked. ‘‘Don’t make me remind you that this is a murder investigation,’’ he warned her, angry that she’d been holding out on him. Worse that she might somehow be involved more than he’d thought.
‘‘Ever heard of client confidentiality?’’ she asked.
‘‘But now you’re the undersheriff.’’
‘‘Yeah,’’ she said, sounding like him. ‘‘So I just told you. I had to okay it with my client, which I did just this morning. I was going to tell you.’’
He let out a sigh. He would have preferred that she’d told him before he figured it out himself. And why did he feel like she was still holding out on him?
‘‘Why does Oliver act so odd around you?’’ he asked.
‘‘I would assume he’s worried that I’ve found out about the hotel books and plan to tell his mother,’’ she said with a shrug. ‘‘Ellie already knows, she just hasn’t done anything about it yet.’’
Maybe that was all there was to it.
‘‘You didn’t discover the affair between him and Peggy when you were investigating Oliver?’’ he asked again.
She shook her head. ‘‘Sure he had a lot of meetings out of town, but I had a job here at the hotel and couldn’t follow him everywhere. But I would never have guessed he was seeing Peggy. She seemed too...needy.’’
Jack nodded. ‘‘All we have is Oliver’s word that they were in love.’’
‘‘Why would he lie about it?’’ Tempest asked in surprise.
He shook his head. ‘‘I don’t know. Something just feels...wrong about all of this.’’
Tempest said nothing as they left the hotel room. He returned the key to the bellhop and retrieved her cell phone.
They were walking back to the office when Jack saw Ramsey pull up out front.
‘‘I’m starved,’’ the coroner said. ‘‘Can we discuss this over a late lunch?’’
Nothing like talking about an autopsy over lunch, but Jack realized he hadn’t eaten all day. ‘‘Sure. Tempest?’’
They walked down to Dill’s, a small sandwich shop, and sat at the back, although the place was empty that time of the day.
‘‘Well?’’ Jack asked after watching Ramsey devour half of the sandwich special.
‘‘Strychnine definitely is what killed her,’’ he said between bites. ‘‘Found it in the stomach contents. Sent it to the lab and, bingo, there it was right in the chocolate she’d eaten and also in the creams spilled on the floor. But we knew that as soon as we found the strychnine in the chocolate creams.’’
Tempest looked up from her salad. ‘‘Only in the chocolate creams?’’
Ramsey nodded. ‘‘Probably because they were the easiest ones to inject. Simple to do. Mix a little strychnine with water, use a hypodermic needle.’’
‘‘Or maybe the killer knew who was partial to creams,’’ Jack said, following up on Tempest’s question. ‘‘How long before the poison killed her?’’ he asked, trying to calculate whether Oliver reached the penthouse before or after Peggy had died.
The coroner shrugged. ‘‘With strychnine poisoning the victim can’t breathe so the cause can appear to be a stroke or choking. She would have gone rigid with convulsions, gasping for breath, maybe for as long as ten minutes, head thrown back, limbs stiff and extended. That would explain the strewn chocolates and the bites on her tongue. Within a minute, she would have turned blue.’’
Oliver would have seen it then, if not caused it. The man had to be cold-blooded to watch his lover die like that.
Jack looked over at Tempest. She didn’t seem bothered by this talk. She continued to eat her salad as if lost in thoughts of her own.
So there had been time for Oliver to go up to the penthouse before Peggy ate one of the chocolates. Maybe he’d even tempted her with the chocolates, watched her die, then hid until Mitzy came up. Tempest might have just missed him on the stairs.
‘‘Strychnine, that’s the stuff that’s commonly used to poison gophers,’’ Tempest said.
Ramsey nodded. ‘‘Historically. Still used in grain or pellets. Your killer would have needed the powder. Can’t buy it except through a pharmacist and would have to have gotten it illegally. But I’ll bet there’s still some bags of t
he powdered strychnine around.’’
Killing gophers was almost a Montana sport. Either popping them with a .22 or poisoning them. Gophers dug holes that a horse could break a leg in so ranchers had always hated them. So did a lot of other land owners.
Tempest pushed her salad away. ‘‘Wouldn’t a developer who owned land around here probably have strychnine?’’
Ramsey nodded.
Jack knew what she was getting at. Oliver probably had some at his new condo development project. Jack dialed his office and sent Dobson to get a warrant to check.
Oliver now had not only opportunity and motive, but means if they could find strychnine on his property.
Jack thought he’d feel more satisfaction solving the murder and nailing Oliver. Instead, he felt as if it had been just a little too easy.
CHAPTER NINE
TEMPEST GOT a call just as they were leaving Dill’s.
‘‘I’m going to go help Dobson look for the strychnine,’’ she said when she hung up.
‘‘Call me when you find it.’’
She’d only nodded and taken off, appearing anxious to have this case over with. No more than he was.
He drove back to his office, going over the case in his head. What was he missing? Something. He kicked up the heater in his office, watched the first few flakes of snow begin to fall outside, then picked up the bank statements and canceled checks and went through them again, not sure what he was looking for.
It was almost dark when he found it. Mitzy had written a check to a George Callendar. Since she’d written a lot of checks for a lot of things, he hadn’t caught it at first. It wasn’t until he turned over the check, that he realized who George Callendar was. Callendar Investigations of Butte, Montana.
Mitzy had hired a private investigator.
Jack could only guess why. He hurriedly dialed the Butte number. George Callendar had gone home for the day. He tried his home number.
‘‘Mitzy Sanders?’’ the older P.I. asked.
‘‘From River’s Edge,’’ Jack repeated. ‘‘I’m the sheriff up here and it’s part of a murder investigation.’’ Jack gave him a number to verify that fact.
