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“What did you bring me?” Wallace asked when they walked into the I.T. room. It had computers running the casino and pieces of slot machines strewn about work benches.
“This is Tristan Pomroy’s computer.”
“I heard what happened. Sorry to hear about it.” Wallace wasn’t your typical computer geek. He also didn’t look like someone who would have deep emotions. The large Umatilla man had a round face that rarely had a smile. Talking to him, he seemed to have a motherboard in his head. He could answer any question that had to do with computers or anything electronic.
“Yeah. Not a good thing for the casino.” Dela nodded to the computer, Quinn placed on the desk in front of Wallace. “Luis said Tristan had been looking something up online one day this week and hid it when Luis questioned him. Think you can get in and see what his browsing history has to tell us?” Dela took a seat, giving her stub a break by propping her foot on a box.
“I can try. It depends on how hard he wanted to keep people out of his computer as to how soon I can get in.” He glanced up at Quinn and back at her. “You should probably follow another lead while I do this.”
Her phone buzzed. Marty’s name flashed on the screen.
“What have you found?” she answered.
“I’ve pulled video together from views of the guest and service elevators starting at midnight. I think you’ll want to come take a look.”
“We’ll be right there.” She smiled at Wallace and stood, wishing she could have remained in that position for a while longer. “Marty is providing us with entertainment. Give me a call when you get it open.”
“Will do.”
When they stepped out into the casino to walk over to surveillance, Quinn asked, “What has Marty found?”
“He’s pulled up the footage on the guest and service elevators.”
“I’m impressed.” Quinn waited as Dela tapped her ID card on the lock box and the door to surveillance opened.
They crossed through the large room filled with walls of monitors and into Marty’s office.
“I have the feeds for both elevators synchronized,” Marty said when the entered.
Dela pulled out a chair and propped her foot on a box, Marty kept under his table just for this purpose.
“Good thinking about the service elevator,” Quinn said, pulling a chair up on the other side of Marty.
On two monitors the service and guest elevators appeared.
Dela noticed that Marty also had the live feed from outside the supply room on floor ten rolling on another monitor. The only problem with each one watching a monitor, they didn’t have control over fast forwarding the video.
Dela kept her gaze on the guest elevator. Couples, groups, and singles entered the elevator. At a quarter to one the victim punched the elevator button, getting on with a middle-aged couple. “There. Can you see if he goes to the tenth floor?”
Marty directed his attention to the keyboard. “All I can do is pull up all the cameras at elevators on every floor at this time.” Six small frames appeared on two monitors above Dela.
She studied the small frames and pointed. “There that one. What floor is it?”
“Ten.” Marty made the image enlarge. The victim disappeared from that camera. “He walked down the hall where the camera was disabled from midnight to two.”
“At least the time frame is definitely between one and two,” Quinn said. “I saw several employees get on the service elevator between midnight and one. Can you see where they all got off?”
Marty began his magic on the keyboard and up popped all the service elevators on each floor in small frames on two monitors.
Dela studied the frames. Two busboys took food up to rooms. A concierge delivered towels on another floor. A maintenance man got off on the eighth floor. “Why was he on the eighth floor? I didn’t hear of any mechanical problems.”
Marty made the frame larger. “That’s Van Branson .”
Dela shoved to her feet, even though she was enjoying the break of sitting down. “I’ll go check the logs for last night and see what he went up there to repair.”
“What would someone from accounting have to do with someone from maintenance?” Marty asked.
“Probably nothing. But I didn’t hear of any trouble on that floor last night.” Dela walked to the door. Quinn appeared in front of her to open the door.
She scowled at him and walked through slowly to hide any limp.
On the way through the main room, she asked, “Everything look normal?”
“Except the activity on the tenth floor,” Kay said. “Kenny has been going door to door.”
“That’s what I asked him to do.” She didn’t understand why that would raise a flag.
“He’s being tailed by Detective Jones. Who seems to get people upset from their expressions.”
“Double frickin’ shit,” she muttered and picked up her pace. Her anger overrode her desire to not let Quinn see her disability.
He stayed with her step for step. “You want me to go get rid of Detective Jones while you check on the maintenance records?”
She stopped, glared at him, and opened her mouth.
He raised a hand. “Don’t swear at me. I’m only expediting things by us splitting up. It has nothing to do with Detective Jones not listening to you or the fact you’ve been up all night.”
“Like hell it doesn’t. You wouldn’t have brought it up if it didn’t matter.” She swore under her breath and continued to the elevator. She punched the up button so hard her finger hurt, but she didn’t say a word. In her head she was reaming out both the detective and the special agent.
Quinn stepped in as she pressed the door close button and then 10.
“Dela, I’m not here to undermine you. I’m here to help you catch a killer. I have more resources at my disposal than you or the tribal police.”
“Then go to your office and dig up all the background you can on our victim, not follow me around like you think I can’t do my job. During my time in the army, I worked several homicides. I know what I’m doing.”
“I didn’t say you didn’t.” Air whooshed out of him and he rubbed a hand over his handsome face. “Can you just work this case with me without busting my balls for something I did seven years ago?”
The elevator dinged and the doors opened. She stepped out. “Are you going to override my decisions?”
“Only if you make a bad one.” He stared her in the eyes as they stood in the hallway.
“I won’t, so there shouldn’t be a problem.” She headed down the hall and found the unlikely duo of Kenny and Detective Dick walking toward them.
She stopped in front of the detective. “We are capable of gathering information and not worrying the guests, Detective Jones.”
“I have a job to do,” he said, glaring back at her.
“No,” she waved between her and Quinn, “we have a job to do. I need to keep this as low key as possible to avoid guests leaving, and Special Agent Quinn has the resources to help us discover who did this faster than the tribal police. I will need your help though in piecing together where the victim went when he left here after work and came back at one P.M.”
Detective Dick studied her. “You think you can handle a homicide?”
“I helped find Sherry Dale and Meela Skylark as well as discovered my boss was helping a human trafficking ring that was going on under the nose of the tribal police, so yes, I think I can handle this investigation.”
The detective’s face grew red and he huffed.
“We can deal with this, Detective,” Quinn said. He nodded toward the elevators and followed the tribal detective onto the conveyance.
Dela faced Kenny. “Did you learn anything?”
“The couple staying at the end of the hall thought they heard the door to the fire stairs open and close around one-fifteen.” Kenny said.
“The stairs! We looked at the elevators. I need to go down to maintenance and ask about a problem on floor eight.”
“I’ve finished questioning the people who were here last night. Want me to come with you?” Kenny asked.
She shrugged. “You’re better company than Special Agent Pierce.” But not nearly as good to look at. She shocked herself with the thought. There had been a time, before Quinn had taken away her prisoner, when she’d thought the two of them could be friends, possibly with benefits, but not anymore. He just made her mad when she talked to him.
Entering the service elevator with Kenny, she asked, “What do you know about Van Branson , one of the maintenance people?”
“He started here about nine months ago. Does a good job according to Clarence. Why?”
“He’s the maintenance person who made a call on the eighth floor about the time Tristan was killed on the tenth.” She stepped out when the elevator doors opened. Her leg throbbed, but she chose to ignore it and placed her foot as easily as she could, putting more weight on the good leg.
“You need to sit down for a while,” Kenny said.
“After I talk to Van. I can sit while I drive to talk to Tristan’s wife.”
Kenny shook his head. “You can’t keep working and not resting. You’ll be no good to anyone and make mistakes which will leave us without you as the boss.”
She stopped and stared at him. “All of you would like me to be the boss?”
He grinned. “You are so wrapped up in helping everyone, you don’t see how much they all think of you. Yes, we all want you for our head of security.”
The thought her peers wanted her to take over this job permanently boosted her spirits. “Thank you. That means a lot.”
They walked into the large room that smelled of grease, paint thinner, and strong coffee. There were various gadgets and pieces of décor being worked on around the area. She walked by the half a dozen men and two women working on the items on her way to the room where the head of maintenance kept the building maintained and scheduled the workers.
“Dela and Kenny, what are you two doing back here?” Albert Simple, an Umatilla man in his fifties, asked. Like Brenda in accounting, the man had started as a maintenance man when the casino first opened and was now in charge of that area of the casino.
“We were wondering why Van Branson went up to the eighth-floor last night around one?” Dela asked.
Albert flipped back a page on a logbook on his desk. “Says room eight-thirty-four had a plugged toilet.” He studied them both. “You’ve never come in and asked about a maintenance call before.”
“We had a man killed on the tenth floor around the same time. We were checking the elevator footage and saw the two events happened close together.” Dela glanced over her shoulder. “When will Van be coming in to work today? I’d like to ask him if he saw or heard anything.”
“He works the night shift. He won’t be in until eleven.” The man smiled. “Glad to hear you are just asking him questions and not suspecting him. Van’s a good worker. Keeps to himself, but he is knowledgeable in everything.”
“Thanks Albert.” Dela smiled at the man and headed back through the workroom. When they were out in the hallway she said, “You go up and see about the plugged toilet in eight-thirty-four. I’ll round up the special agent and go talk to Mrs. Pomroy.”